MATERIALIZATIONS OF GHOSTS WITNESSED BY FRANZ HARTMANN

The materialization of so-called “spirits,” or, to speak more correctly, of actual forms or ghosts has, within the last twenty years, become so well known as a fact, that it seems to me unnecessary to bring forth further testimony; but it may interest the reader to know something regarding my own experience about it.

Mrs. N.D. Miller, of Denver, used to visit me occasionally in 1879 at Georgetown, for the purpose of spending a few days of the hot summer months in some cool place in the Rocky Mountains. On such occasions I held sittings with her for spiritistic phenomena in my parlor. Sometimes we were alone; at other times some of my friends joined us upon invitation.

At various times the most remarkable manifestations took place.  Besides other phenomena, such as the bringing of fresh seaweed, dripping with seawater, although we were 2,000 miles away from the ocean, of flowers and other objects, there used to appear many fully materialized forms of human beings, men and women and children, tall ones, little ones, whites, negroes, Indians, etc.

They were visible and tangible to every one present, the same as if they were people of this our physical world; nevertheless, walls, ceilings and floors seemed to be no obstacles to them, for they passed through such solid things as if they were thin air.

I remember especially one big Hindu with a turban, who passed in and out through the open door of the adjoining room. He was much taller than the door, but he did not bend down. His body went through the opening and his head with the same ease through the solid wall above it.  Nevertheless, he, like the other apparitions, appeared perfectly solid to the touch; he could speak and answer questions, shook hands, etc., the same as any living person.

Some of those apparently material forms would sink through the floor until only the head was visible, and the head would speak until it too disappeared, only to let the whole figure appear again from behind the curtain, where Mrs. Miller sat in a deep trance. While these phenomena took place, the body of Mrs. Miller seemed to be lifeless; no pulse or heart-beat could be felt therein. The room was not entirely dark, but light enough to enable one to distinguish all the furniture therein.

Among the forms which appeared, there was one of a lady dressed in white, who had a great resemblance to a friend of mine, Mrs. Katie Wentworth, whose funeral took place at Galveston on November 13, 1877.

I offered my arm to that "spirit” and led her into the next room. Closing the door behind us, we sat on the couch and talked about olden times. Katie spoke in a whisper and answered my questions, but she could not tell me anything that I did not already know.

I felt her pulse and the beating of her heart. Both were like those of a living person. I put my arm around her waist and asked her to kiss me. This she did, and it then seemed to me that I held the astral form of Mrs. Miller in my arm. I led her back into the parlor and behind the curtain.

There I could see the apparently lifeless form of Mrs. Miller sitting in her chair, and beside her stood the materialized form, which began to dissolve like a mist and entered the body of the medium. There upon Mrs. Miller awoke from her trance.

Of the many materializations of astral forms which I have seen in the course of my experience, this was the most interesting.  There is no doubt that it was made of the astral body or “double” of Mrs. Miller, or perhaps of "astral matter" taken from her and formed in the shape of Katie Wentworth, whom Mrs. Miller had never known, but whose image existed in my mind.

Now, who was the intelligence or what the power which caused that image to form and to become lifelike and material, if it was not an inhabitant of the astral plane, able to think and to act, and of which as yet very little is known?

(Observation: that is true, however the fact that this manifestation could not tell Dr. Franz Hartmann anything that he did not know about Katie, that indicates to me that very likely that this inhabitant of the astral plane was not the soul of the real Katie, but an elementary that could only read the mind of Franz Hartmann without being able to contribute anything new information.

And Dr. Franz Hartmann concluded his article by saying,)

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In 1885, while at Adyar, I told Mr. Richard Hodgson (the man who accused Madame Blavatsky of being a fraudulent) of my experiences in this line, but as he was not a believer in spiritistic phenomena at that time, he found the easiest explanation by judging all such accounts to be fables and lies. Afterwards he had occasion to change his mind and became one of the leaders of the spiritualists in America.

(Occult Review, Mayo, 1907, p.283-284)