Spiritist Frauds.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 11, 13 March 1902, Page 1

Spiritist Frauds.

A cable message that appeared a few days ago in the daily papers ran as follows: —'Detectives in Berlin arrested Frau Rothe and other spiritists for mechanically producing deception known as flowers from the spirit world. 1 * In all the cities of New Zealand little knots of eccentric or credulous people meet from time to time in dingy halls to witness the ' manifestations 'of some cunning medium. We do not know if mediumistic frauds have formed the subjects of prosecution in New Zealand. But across the Tasman sea mediums have been ' presented at court' in charge of the police for various forms of heartless imposition on credulous 'believers.' Some time ago, for instance, a medium named Charles Baily was fined £5, with £4. 4s costs, in the Fitzroy court, Melbourne, for a piece of flagrant imposition practised by him in pretending to call up the spirit of Dr. Whitcombe and inducing him (of course for a consideration) to prescribe for supposed lameness in Detective McManamny, who probably had never limped in his life. A short time ago another medium appeared before the same court charged with having induced a widow, by means of ' spirit-voice ' from beyond the grave to hand her jewellery, money, and goods valued at £100, to make over to her, by deed of gift, property worth about £1000, and to give her a free trip to England. A lengthened study of the methods of the spiritists enabled us to be the first (or at least among the very first) to expose the modus operandi of Mrs. Mellon, whose ' manifestations' set all Sydney by the ears some years ago. Mrs. Mellon was at last caught in fiagranti at a seance in the act of producing her ' spooks ' by means of gauze and masks. Shortly afterwards another noted medium was one evening calling up ghosts and making them talk the usual ungrammatical twaddle in a squalid parlor in Gore street, Fitzroy. While supposed to be seated in a trance in her cabinet, a ' spirit, 1 purporting to be that of a male American Indian, stalked about among the audience in the semi-darkness. A young lady in the audience rushed at the ' spook,' tore off some light gauze, a black feather boa, and a black veil, and discovered —the medium. About the same time there was a similar, but more sensational

exposure of a medium of first-class reputation in Paris. Two others followed in quick succession in England, and the Society for Psychical Research, after a lengthy course of investigations, reported against the reality of any spiritistic phenomena which had come under their notice. We may here state that the story of the seance told by « Quip ' in our last issue represents an actual occurrence. The worst features of spiritualistic frauds is the heartless manner in which, for filthy lucre, they play upon the affections of many over-credulous believers desirous of communicating with parent, child, or friend, and the shameless indecency with which such discreditable proceedings are carried on.