Mediums Rare by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online Page B

sandy-haired doctor.
    “You will leave your home soon and settle in the city in a corner house,” Dr. Phiniut tells a Mrs. M.E.C.
    This presently comes true.
    Phiniut addresses one of the sitters with a nickname unknown to anyone present.
    Later, the widow of the deceased man (who supposedly spoke through Phiniut) reveals that the nickname was used by her husband’s mother and sisters.
    Phiniut tells a Mr. Perkins that his father believes he has heart trouble though he really hasn’t.
    Later, the father admits this, telling his son that he had not revealed this fear, even to his doctor.
    The Thaws (in whose house the sitting is taking place) are told that W. was coming to them soon and that his kidneys are out of order.
    This condition is not suspected at the time but is discovered two months later after W. shows up at their house.
    “Your mother tells you again to put the thing you have on your lap around your neck,” Dr. Phiniut instructs Miss Heffern.
    Miss Heffern has always supposed the object—which is wrapped in paper—to be a lock of her mother’s hair.
    It turns out to be a religious necklace.

    Mrs. Leonard’s most dramatic sitting came on December 3, 1915, in the house of Sir Oliver Lodge.
    Approximately a week earlier Sir Oliver had received a letter from a B. P. Cheves mentioning a photograph taken of his son and a group of officers.
    Lodge’s son had been killed in France on September 14 th .
    At the séance, Lodge asked his son (through Mrs. Leonard’s spirit contact Feda) if he recollected the photograph.
    “Yes, there are several others taken with me,” Raymond (through Feda) replied.
    “Friends of yours?” asked Lodge.
    “Some of them,” Raymond answered. “They were not all friends.”
    “Are you standing in the photograph?” asks Lodge.
    “No, sitting down. Some are standing and some are sitting.”
    “Were they soldiers?” asked Lodge.
    “Yes, a mixed lot.”
    “Is it outdoors?”
    “Yes, practically,” Raymond answers.
    Lodge is perplexed. “It must have been out of doors or not of doors. Do you mean
yes?
”
    Mrs. Leonard (via Raymond and Feda) says it looks like a black background with lines going down.
    She keeps drawing vertical lines in the air.

    The photograph had been taken twenty-one days before Raymond’s death.
    He never mentioned it in his letters.
    Raymond, in the sitting, is explicit about the following points:
    1. His walking stick is visible.
    2. There are considerable number of men in the photograph, the front row sitting.
    3. A
B
. is prominent in the photograph. Also a
C
.
    4. He is sitting down, the man behind him with his arm on Raymond’s shoulder.
    5. The background is dark with vertical lines.
    When the photograph arrived, the following items were on it:
    1. Raymond’s walking stick is visible.
    2. There are twenty-one men, the front row sitting on the ground. They are a “mixed lot” in that they are members of different companies.
    3. Captain S. T. Boast is prominent. Also several officers whose last names begin with
C
.
    4. Raymond is sitting, the officer behind him resting his hand on Raymond’s shoulder.
    5. The background is dark—with six, conspicuous vertical lines on the roof of the shed in front of which the officers are gathered. Sir Oliver Lodge summed up the incident as follows:
    The amount of coincidence between the description and the actual photograph surely is quite beyond chance or guesswork. Not only are many things right but practically nothing is wrong
.
AFTERWARD
    Of the two mediums, Mrs. Piper was probably the more outstanding.
    Surely, she suffered more with her mediumship.
    To begin with, her childhood was a dreadful one what with hearing voices, seeing faces and suffering with her bed rocking back and forth.
    Although Mrs. Leonard was quoted as saying, “My childhood to me was a time of pain and torture,” it seems evident that Mrs. Piper’s childhood—and life—were more traumatic.
    Certainly no medium in the