It is not surprising to learn that when a sitter at one of Madame d'Esperance's seances seized the materialized figure, he declared it to be the medium herself. In this connexion Aksakof's views* on the general question are of interest:
* "A Case of Partial Dematerialization," p. 181.
One may seize the materialized form, and hold it, and assure himself that he holds nothing except the medium herself, in flesh and bone; and it is not yet a proof of fraud on the medium's part. In fact, according to our hypothesis, what could happen if we detain the medium's double by force, when it is materialized to such a degree that nothing but an invisible simulacre of the medium remains in the seat behind the curtain? It is obvious that the simulacre-that small portion, fluid and ethereal-will be immediately absorbed into the already compactly materialized form, which lacks nothing (of being the medium) but that invisible remainder.
M. Aksakof, in the Introduction he has written for Madame d'Esperance's book, "Shadow Land," pays a high tribute to her as a woman and as a medium. He says she was as interested as himself in trying to find the truth. She submitted willingly to all the tests he imposed.
One interesting incident in the career of Madame d'Esperance was that she succeeded in reconciling Professor Friese, of Breslau, to Professor Zollner, of Leipzig. The alienation of these two friends had occurred on account of Zollner's profession of Spiritualism, but the English medium was able to give such proofs to Friese that he no longer contested his friend's conclusions.
It should be remarked that in the course of Mr. Oxley's experiments with Madame d'Esperance moulds were taken of the hands and feet of the materialized figures, with wrist and ankle apertures which were too narrow to allow the withdrawal of the limb in any way, save by dematerialization. In view of the great interest excited by the paraffin moulds taken in 1922 in Paris from the medium Kluski, it is curious to reflect that the same experiment had been successfully carried out, unnoticed save by the psychic Press, by this Manchester student so far back as 1876.
The latter part of Madame d'Esperance's life, which was spent largely in Scandinavia, was marred by ill health, which was originally induced by the shock that she sustained at the so-called "exposure" when Yolande was seized by some injudicious researcher at Helsingfors in 1893. No one has expressed more clearly than she how much sensitives suffer from the ignorance of the world around them. In the last chapter of her remarkable book she deals with the subject. She concludes: "They who come after me may perchance suffer as I have done through ignorance of God's laws. Yet the world is wiser than it was, and it may be that they who take up the work in the next generation will not have to fight, as I did, the narrow bigotry and harsh judgments of the 'unco' guid'."
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Each of the mediums treated in this chapter has had one or more books devoted to his or her career. In the case of William Eglinton there is a remarkable volume, "'Twixt Two Worlds," by J. S. Farmer, which covers most of his activities.
Eglinton was born at Islington on July 10, 1857, and, after a brief period at school, entered the printing and publishing business of a relative. As a boy he was extremely imaginative, as well as dreamy and sensitive, but, unlike so many other great mediums, he showed in his boyhood no sign of possessing any psychic powers. In 1874, when he was seventeen years of age, Eglinton entered the family circle by means of which his father was investigating the alleged phenomena of Spiritualists. Up to that time the circle had obtained no results, but when the boy joined it the table rose steadily from the floor until the sitters had to stand to keep their hands on it. Questions were answered to the satisfaction of those present. At the next sitting on the following evening, the boy passed into a trance, and evidential communications from his dead mother were received.