SPIRITUALISM USED AS A MEANS TO DEFRAUD.
I A case of spiritualistic nonsense, credulity, and fraud is now engag- ! ing the attention of the Paris 1 police. Madame Pettier, a wellj to-do widow, is, or was, addicted ! to table-turning, with all its portentious mysteries, and took pleasure in initiating others. She i formed a school for young men and women neophytes, one of whom, named Touis Barnis, displayed such singular aptitude that Madame Pettier declared him her spiritual master. Barnis established an ascendency over the old woman, and then proceeded to get her to take out a policy in an imaginary insurance company, paying “fees and premiums” through him. Then he got her to make him custodian of some valuable jewels. His last stroke was to counsel the exchange of over worth of sound stock held by her against the same face value of worthless shares held by himself. It required the aid of the spirits of Turgot and Tafitte to draw the widow into this folly, and having effectually pillaged her, Barnis decamped into an obscurity whence the sharpest wits of the detective force have not yet been able to dislodge him.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3720, 13 October 1906, Page 4
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193SPIRITUALISM USED AS A MEANS TO DEFRAUD. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3720, 13 October 1906, Page 4
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