CASE HISTORY, #1

MARCUS BACH AND THEY HAVE FOUND A FAITH

Bach was born in 1906 and raised in a mildly divided, but religious, Wisconsin family. His father was a member of the Presbyterian church; his mother of the Reformed faith, (now United Church of Christ). Bach's father had an interest in fundamental religionists and their soul-filled worship practices. He would take young Bach with him to holy-roller tent revivals and camp meetings in the years following World War I. With the strong interest of his parents in religious life Bach was initially persuaded to attend Mission House College and Seminary near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. At the end of his third year he devised means to leave and moved on to the secular environment of a state university. He obtained a graduate fellowship which took him to various parts of the country and encounters with a wide spectrum of religious faiths. Bach received a PhD degree and went on to make a study, not, as he said, "in the theological or doctrinal sense, but what religion is and what it does in the lives of people." He later wrote a number of books on the religious practices of people, including They Have Found A Faith, Bobbs-Merrill Company, New York, 1946, Major Religions of the World, 1959, Strange Sects and Cults, 1961, and Spiritual Breakthroughs For Our Time, 1965.
 

I use Bach as a source because of his clear objectivity, his fine sense of balance in treating religious issues, and his plain honesty. Furthermore, he is an excellent writer; it is a pleasure to read his materials. By the time of World War II he had experience with many different religions and contacts with widely assorted cults and sects. Those contacts led him to Ralph G. Pressing, then editor of the Psychic Observer. After attending a séance and mind-reading session in Hollywood, which was obviously fraudulent, he expressed a strong desire to learn more about true spiritualist performances. Pressing suggested they travel to Chesterfield, Indiana and the spiritualist center located in that town. The center is still operating today. Bach found a bucolic vacation land, with two large hotels and cottages looking out on a grass-carpeted amphitheater and a grotto in a "garden of prayer."
 

After registering at the Sunflower Hotel Bach found himself surrounded by an astonishing assortment of about two hundred students of spiritualist science. They were a mixture of young and old, with qualities distinctively different from the shifty, evasive types he had found behind curtained rooms in office buildings and in metropolitan areas. They did not have the gleam of the cults in their eyes which he had experienced in so many different religious settings. "The hefty double-cheeked medium with bulging bosom and a dab of rouge on her cheeks was conspicuously absent. The students at Camp Chesterfield could have passed as delegates of any professional convention."  

In conversation with one woman, a school superintendent from suburban Milwaukee, he found the religious justifications which spiritualists placed on their practices. She was a medium who received messages through spirit voices, but her chief interest was in the theology of spiritualism. She felt that people were losing the deeper meaning and truths of the science because of the spectacular aspects of the phenomena. It was the relation of spiritualism to Christianity which seemed so wonderful to her.
 

She went on to a long list of quotations from Genesis to Revelation which she felt proved her views. The voice from heaven in Matt 3:16-17 was a "spirit" voice. Daniel was a medium. Of course, Jesus was the greatest medium of all. He was clairvoyant and clairaudient. From John 4:17-19 she demonstrated that Jesus was telepathic. From Luke 9:28-30 she was convinced that Jesus "materialized" Moses and Elijah.

In the following days Bach attended three different performances at the Chesterfield center. The first was a private session which only he and Pressing had with a trumpet medium, a slightly built young man about thirty years of age. The second was a meeting with a male mind-reader attended by a large audience. The third was with a materializing medium, a diminutive, refined and genteel woman, and a circle of seven observers. I quote in full from Bach for the first and last performances.
 

The first was in a bare room in a small cottage, containing only a desk and chair for the medium, two chairs for Bach and Pressing, and two aluminum tubes, one about four feet in length made up of sections, and the other about two feet in length made up of a single piece. The tubes were flared slightly at one end to form the trumpet shape. Both were standing upright on the flared end and placed between the medium and the observers. A door leading elsewhere to the cottage was locked. Two windows in the room were shaded with blinds.
 

The third was in a basement room surrounded by cement block walls. Again, a door led to another part of the basement but Bach requested that it be locked during the performance. Other than the circle of chairs for the observers, there was a spotlight and a small curtained section against one wall, about three by four feet, containing only a chair for the medium. Overhead lights were turned off during the performance, while a red spotlight was turned on. It was dim but bright enough to see the room, objects and people. The medium sat behind the curtain.

"The reason for concealing the medium," I was informed, "is because a red light is used during a materialization séance. Even a dim light interferes with the generation of the ectoplasm necessary in building spirit forms. The cabinet shields the medium during the time this force is being assembled and then, when complete, the form can stand the light rays long enough to be seen outside the cabinet by the sitters--from thirty seconds to three or four minutes. The medium entranced is also sometimes disturbing to the spectators. It is not a pleasingly aesthetic sight--especially during the materialization, for ectoplasm exudes from her mouth and body in the nature of a gauzy, foggy, smokelike substance from which figures are formed by the spirit chemists."

Since there was no way for anyone to enter or leave the cabinet without coming through the room, I accepted it as part of the required setting.

"But what about the light?" I inquired.

"The bright lights will be turned off," we were told. "Ectoplasm, with its quality of luminosity, shows up best in dark or semidarkness. The séance will take place in a red light, which will not detract from the materialized forms. It will be bright enough for you to discern one another all the while and to see me standing near the cabinet."

About this time Mrs. Harwood rapped at the inside door and was admitted. The door was relocked. Mrs. Harwood was diminutive, gentle, and refined. She greeted us in a cordial, forthright manner. But as she stepped inside the cabinet, I reminded myself that "true art is the ability to conceal art."

The assistant took her place beside the cabinet.

"Let us enter the séance reverently," she instructed, and there followed a brief word of prayer. Then she continued: "I have these requests to make. Be sincere. You can assist very much in the success of the séance. Please do not speak among yourselves. If however, a spirit appears and indicates he wants to speak to you, if he calls you by name or motions to you to come, get up and speak to him. I only ask that you will please not touch the spirits. Are there any questions.

"Why shouldn't we touch the spirits?" I asked.

"There is a connection between the spirits and the medium," the assistant explained. "When you touch the spirit you are really touching the medium and disturbing the conditions of the trance. Do you remember the words of Jesus when He said to Mary in the garden after His resurrection, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father?"

I had further questions but, convinced that the success of the séance depended as much on us who sat in the circle as upon the medium, I put myself in a receptive though not credulous state of mind. I was determined today to fight against hallucinations or hypnotism or whatever might intrude under the guise of psychical demonstration.

When the assistance turned out the bright lights, the room was illuminated with a deep red glow which came from a spot light directly over my shoulder. I turned to examine it. It was a theatrical spotlight covered by a thickness of gelatin. In its light I could easily see Pressing at my left and the doctor from Texas at my right. The others in the group, sitting in a half circle on folding chairs, were also always discernible.

After perhaps five minutes of silent waiting, the assistant suggested we sing a song. Someone started, "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say." We sang one verse and were about to begin another when a voice spoke.

How are you, everyone?" It sounded like Sylvia. But I knew that Clifford Bias was at this same hour giving his demonstration of trumpet mediumship.

"I am Twilight," said the voice.

At this everyone responded, "Hello, Twilight. How are you?"

"I'm just fine," said Twilight, "and how are you Dr. Bach?"

"I'm fine, too," I replied, piqued at having been singled out just because I hadn't chimed in with the others. It struck me that a spirit should think of something more profound in the way of getting attention than the old earth-worn phrases.

Twilight was chatty. "Everybody happy? You happy, Mr. Pressing? You happy, Mrs. Daiches? I think this will be a good séance. Oh, a very good séance, I think for sure. It is a good circle. Oh, it's a good day for a séance. Nice and sunny. Atmospheric conditions have a lot to do with séances. When the atmosphere is heavy, it is hard for the spirits to manifest. Materialization is hard then. Oh, yes it is. And we must have materializations! We just must have!" This last was said with an ironic twist.

"All religions must have phenomen--how do you say it--phenomena--or phenomenon--or phenomenons! I never can pronounce it." Twilight laughed.

A good séance? I wondered.

A light flickered near the floor, close to where the assistant stood. It was a luminous glow, like the quick beam of a flashlight shining up through a cloth. It came suddenly, tarried a moment, and faded reluctantly. Twilight's disconnected talk persisted as the mirage of light loomed again. This time it mounted higher like silver smoke curling around a light bulb. Then the light went out, but the silver smoke continued to hover. I can describe it best as a bright, shimmering vapor, struggling for expression. Slowly it began to take form. Something like shoulders--then a face appeared. It developed into a bodily form and spoke. It called for Mrs. Daiches. She got up, took a few steps, and said, "Yes, Mother?"

"How are you?" the figure asked in a low, hushed whisper.

"I'm fine, Mother. Why didn't you bring Father with you?"

Immediately a man's voice spoke. "She did." And hovering beside the figure of a little woman was a somewhat larger figure of a man. They had form and masklike features. For a moment I thought they might be two actors dressed in luminescent costumes and wearing paper-mâché masks. Where had they come from? How had they entered the room? I felt sure I would know before the séance was over. Houdini once said that he could duplicate any such manifestation.

Then a third figure appeared. Let us say, "materialized," for it is the best description. It seemed to come out of the floor--an inchoate mass of ectoplasmic stuff--growing, taking form, speaking. I made out the semblance of a young boy.

"Mother," he said, "do you remember the walks we used to take?"

"I sure do," said the mother.

He took his mother's arm and they moved back and forth across the room, coming so close to where I sat that I pulled back my feet.

Throughout these doings the whisperings continued--sometimes simultaneously. Twilight was still chatting. And there was spirit laughter, low and pleased. I was seeing the raison d'être of spiritualism: demonstration and proof of the continuity of life, coupled with the comforting assurance that that life is good.

Here was the reunion of a family--a son telling his mother that life "over there" was just a continuation of life on earth. There were not two worlds at all; there was but one interblended world closely interwoven by memory and the love of life. Consciousness could not die. Personality could not be destroyed. The spirit of man was, indeed, eternal.
 

I drew my attention from the Daiches' reunion and touched Pressing's arm.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I have been to many séances," he replied. "This promises to be one of the very best.

I analyzed the possibilities of fraud and deception. The room was sufficiently illuminated that I would have seen holes in the floor, or shifting walls. And if it were "done with mirrors" how would one explain three figures speaking at once, gliding across the room, touching "arms," brushing past my feet?

This was the séance. The implausibility injected into the first ten minutes carried through the entire demonstration. For an hour new figures materialized and disappeared. Once Twilight cautioned, "It is getting very bright. Too bright to see. Fix the read light."

"I will, Twilight," said the assistant, coming over to put another thin sheet of gelatin over the spotlight.

I was making minute mental notations of all that was happening -- the hovering, swaying motion of the "spirits," the rhythm of life, like the rise and fall of a tide, as many as four speaking simultaneously in whispered voices, excited, hurried, persuasive. Suddenly the galaxy of spirits melted away. For a long still moment nothing happened. Then the swirling ectoplasmic effluvia glowed from the floor and quickly took on the form of a girl. Before the figure was complete, it spoke.

"Marc, dear -- Marc, dear -- Marc, dear."

Those who know me well call me Marc; those who know me better call me Marc, dear. so I knew this must be a "familiar spirit." I got up and walked over until there was a space of less than four feet between us. "Yes?" I said, "Who are you"

The answer was fraught with disappointment. "Don't you know me?"

I did not. I had no idea who this might be. I had really been too absorbed to think very much about personal contact with the spirits. . . . Nor did I propose to offer any hint of whom I thought she might represent. No leads, I determined.

"I do not know you. Who are you?"

"Paula," came the answer.

The name and soft manner in which it was uttered brought the sudden unfolding of a forgotten drama. Twenty years ago my sister Paula had died at the age of twenty-three. Her child Janette had died shortly before. These deaths had been among the deep sorrows of our family, but time and travel reduce the past into forgetfulness. No medium or spirit had plucked this name out of my mind because I wasn't thinking of Paula. I had not thought of her even once during the séance.

I looked at the presence before me closely.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"You look fine," I replied.

"The right height?" she whispered. "Do you think I should be taller?"

"No. You are about the height I remember."

"I wanted to do a good job," she told me earnestly. "Do I look all right?"

"Yes," I assured her, recalling that one theory of materialization is that the spirit "takes" the ectoplasm and fashions according to its memory the human form which clothed it on earth. . . . Did this form and these features resemble Paula? I must admit they did. Very much. The outline of the figure was recognizable and convincing. It was like a "false front," a flat, two-dimensional body with the semblance of arms clothed in a shadowy gray-white film. The face, though typically masklike, was strikingly reminiscent. There was an illusion of long blond hair. I cannot say whether the voice was Paula's or not. After twenty years I would not remember. Just now, however, it was Paula returned.

But why shouldn't it be? I asked myself as I stood there. The spiritualists at Chesterfield knew I was coming. If, as some people say, they have a well-laid system of espionage they could easily have traced my family and got Paula's description. If this was someone "dressed up," play-acting, if this was a marionette using the voice of ventriloquist, naturally it would be constructed as to represent Paula. This thought haunted me more than the presence. I wished I could convince myself some way. The impulse to reach out and touch the figure became stronger. I moved closer, I moved slightly to one side so that the red light would strike the spirit's face more directly. We were about three feet apart now. Paula was talking about life in the spirit world. I was asking hasty questions: Have you seen Jesus? What is heaven like? What about the element of time? Can you be everywhere at once? Are terms like Methodist, Reformed, Presbyterian, Catholic ever used where you are?

Her voice seemed to laugh. She answered, "No, no," to all questions save the one about heaven. It was like speaking to a living person secretly, clandestinely, knowing that time was running out. Her features seemed to become clearer. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks.

And then the thought came to me. "Paula," I said, "do you remember the catechism we learned at home?"

"Of course."

"Paula, do you remember the first question in that catechism?"

"I remember."

"What was it," I asked almost fearfully.

The answer came at once. "'What is your chief comfort in life and in death?'"

"Go on," I urged.

"'That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death am not my own--'"

She interrupted herself. "Here where we are the words have a greater meaning!"

Then quickly, breathlessly, she told me that serving God meant personal development. Life on the spirit plane is an evolvement. Like the breaking of a chrysalis. Like the ascent in a spiral. Like the growth of moral affection to higher and higher "heavens." Several times she interrupted herself with "Do you understand? Is that clear?" as if she felt her message was vital, all-absorbing. Death, she insisted, was not a violent result of sin. It has no sting. It was neither friend nor enemy. It was part of the divine purpose, a purpose without beginning or end.

The whisper grew fainter. "I can stay no longer, I must go now."

"Paula, one more thing. Can you put your arms around me?"

"I'll give you a kiss," she said. "Come closer."

"You come closer to me." I wanted her to come nearer the red light. She did. There was now scarcely a foot between us. The face was luminous, seemingly transparent, and without depth.

I leaned forward and lowered my head. The weblike texture of ectoplasmic arms encircled my neck. Something soft and flaxen brushed my forehead. Then Paula vanished -- into the floor, it seemed.

I walked back to my chair and sat down.

"Was that all right," Twilight was asking. "What do you think."

I did not reply.

What did I think?

A few minutes later the lights were turned on. The cabinet assistant called to Mrs. Harwood, "Are you alright?" From within the curtain the medium announced that she was.

The séance was ended.

This séance offers greater insights into the performances of the "spirit," and the limitations he certainly must feel.

• The gauze-like, foggy substance called ectoplasm has no specific definition. No human mortal knows exactly what composes ectoplasm.


 

• It has similarity to the substance which formed the head of Bob Whitehand. However, the full deployment demonstrated in this séance indicates attachment to the medium as a necessary condition for formulation. The "creation" of Bob Whitehand without connection to a medium was momentary.


 

• A phenomenon of "light" is associated with the formation of the ectoplasm.


 

• The formation of ectoplasm from the body of the medium is repulsive to most people. It is truly sordid.


 

• Again we find the playfulness demonstrated at the first seance. Here "Twilight" will not let Bach remain silent; "she" pulls him into the activity. The "spirit" knows Bach's skeptical reluctance to greet a "spirit entity," or a possible "stage" personality.


 

• The "spirit" turns a point of sarcasm, in derision of human kind who must have "materializations." It fully recognizes that many human minds do not have true spiritual sensitivity; they must have phenomena which convince them of the validity of their faith.


 

• The "spirit" could produce sound vibrations which imitated multiple voices, as many as four speaking simultaneously--whispering, excited, hurried, persuasive.


 

• The "spirit" was able to form multiple figures. Mrs. Daiches "saw" both her father and mother, and a dead son. She had no trouble believing they were those specific dead relatives.


 

• The "spirit" was able to produce multiple human personalities simultaneously. This ability demonstrates a broad spectrum of "memory," and provides clues to the vast gamut of his abilities.

•  

•  For those who believe, the performances are convincing evidence that the dead are not dead, that they can return to demonstrate their life "on the other side." But since the images, the voices, and the behavior are nothing more than reproductions from this "spirit's" memory the deception is exceedingly cruel. It shows a complete disregard for human values. It also shows the extreme depth to which the "spirit" is reduced to gain attention. The "spirit" will resort to any device. How very debased, indeed!

 

• In conversing with human beings he must resort to familiar human personality traits to communicate his own feelings or emotions. He is reduced to the human level to carry on this cross-personality interchange. His response is "fraught with disappointment," or he "wanted to do a good job." He was concerned that he make a favorable impression.


 

• The "spirit" is truly debased to resort to imitation of human images, feelings, thoughts, and expressions. How degrading it must truly be to such "spirit," to be conditioned by the limitations of human perception, or belief, in order to carry on such intercourse. This is vividly illustrated when "Paula" quickly and breathlessly goes into a discourse of the "other side," and the purpose of life. Not only does the spirit introduce an urgency in the message; he is also frustrated by these techniques.


 

• The "spirit" knew the importance of making an impression upon Bach; he singles him out in both sessions. Bach would record the sessions and publish them to the world.


 

• Note how the "spirit" is concerned that its reproduction of Paula be faithful to the original. It expressed a strong desire, not only to win acceptance from Bach, but that its performance be "authentic."

• The technical human explanation of such close resemblance to the long-dead sister is given as the ectoplasmic memory from the dead sister. Apparently no one, in all the millennia of apparitions, recognized that the visible faithfulness to reproduction of the dead person came out of the memory banks of that despicable "spirit."


 

• Could Bach have been more convinced when he was able to devise a memory incident in the catechism that only he and his dead sister knew?

An essential argument is the ability of the "spirit" to remember all persons who ever lived on this planet in intimate detail. Would the Prince of this World have such powers? Not only form and appearance at different, and arbitrary, stages of life, but also in personality, experience, and expression.
 

Even more, if there are many séance sessions going on all around our planet simultaneously, at any odd hour of the day and night, how could he create such performances simultaneously? It boggles the mind.
 

It also offers some estimate of what is meant in the Bible about the power of God. We have used the phrases in mystical attitude without delineating what that power might mean.
 

We are about to find out. God certainly has tremendous power; that loathsome Prince does also.