Lehal Library

(7) Indeterminate, preobservation could have been applied here in relation to the Bahnson family, as writer had taken breakfast there several times. 10/12/60 Night The results are so contradictory to what 1 believed that it must be reported in detail. In our attempts to find some answers, anywhere, we had come in contact with Mrs. M., who purportedly had mediumistic powers. I have and still have the highest regard for her as a person of great kindness and integrity. However, in two "sittings" in which we participated, I came away with the definite impression that Mrs. M.t although deeply sincere, was acting out some form of split personality when she went into a trance. The "guides" who took over her body(?) and spoke through her vocal cords were to me nothing more or less than manifestations of this. This implied not that I thought Mrs. M. deliberately created this illusion, but that it happened as a result of a self-induced hypnotic state, and she truly had no knowledge of what took place, I was sure that in no way was Mrs. M. attempting to "fake." She wasn't and isn't that type of person. What left me unconvinced was that when I had asked her guides—her dead husband and an American Indian—certain questions as they spoke through her, I received evasive replies. The best I could get was, "You will discover this through your own sources." This at the time seemed to me to be a simple way to avoid an answer that could be verified in other ways. It is important that 1 point out my complete skepticism of Mrs. M. and her guides. Yet what happened last night and the report today utterly confuses me. R.G., a friend of Mrs. M., had suggested that I attempt to "visit" a seance to be held by Mrs. M. in a New York apartment Friday night (last night). I half agreed, stating that I certainly wasn't sure that it was possible. Frankly, when Friday night came, the meeting had slipped my mind (consciously at least). Here is what took place. After a normal evening at home, my wife and I went up to bed around eleven-thirty. My wife fell asleep almost immediately, as I could tell from her steady, deep breathing. As I lay there, evidently deeply relaxed and possibly half-asleep, I suddenly felt that "walking over your grave" coldness and the hairs on the back of my neck started to rise. I looked across the half-darkened roomt fearful yet utterly fascinated. I do not know what I expected, but standing in the doorway leading from the hall was a white ghostlike figure. It actually looked like the traditional figure of a ghost— some six feet tall as it stood there, with a flowing sheetlike material draping it from its head to the fioor. One hand was reaching out and holding onto the door jamb.