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Post by humgoo on Mar 25, 2022 15:33:09 GMT
Margery Lawrence - The Man Who Came Back (1935; Mystery for Christmas, 1990; Sunless Solstice, 2021): It's well known that one who's got a dark secret should take no part in any Christmas games, let alone a Christmas seance.
"Always a confirmed psychic, Margery Lawrence's deep interest in spiritualism - and communication with the spirit world - began in 1924 when she had several sittings with the medium Eileen Garrett. She then met Estelle Roberts, one of Britain's most successful mediums, and was a regular member of her Group, two evenings a week for over ten years. After the Second World War she worked steadily with two more leading mediums, Grace Cooke and Ronald Strong, and later conducted her own Group in London. She was also a leading member of the Ghost Club, in the days of Harry Price, and more recently Peter Underwood. These select groups, especially those of the 1920s, usually comprising a dozen members, probably inspired her 'Round Table' framework of tales, gathered into two collections Nights of the Round Table (1926) and The Terraces of Night (1932)."
—Richard Dalby, "Margery Lawrence" (Writers in the James Tradition Number 8), in Ghosts & Scholars#11, 1989
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Post by humgoo on May 19, 2022 9:39:05 GMT
Steve Duffy - Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage (Supernatural Tales #30, Autumn 2015, [ed.] David Longhorn): Rae has been given a gift after her daughter died of meningitis. Dead people come to talk to her when she's in a dream-like state: how they died, who killed them etc. The latest apparition who comes to her is a little girl who jumped to her death off a cliff with her bestie, after being scolded by her mom for breaking some precious china. The girl wants her mother to know that she doesn't blame her. Herself a grieving mother, Rae knows she has to help the girl no matter how insane that sounds.
After a google search confirms that a suicide pact did occur (headline: FRIENDS FOREVER IN TRAGIC CLIFF PLUNGE), Rae finds the address and drives all the way to the house. The single and bereaved mother lets her in reluctantly, and after a great deal of explaining and grief sharing, a séance (or something like that) is held. The road to hell is paved and all that.
An interesting take on the grieving mother-meeting-medium theme. The ending is pure class.
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Post by PeterC on May 19, 2022 14:33:56 GMT
Time-Fuse by John Metcalfe (Best Tales of Terror (2), Faber, 1962 + London Tales of Terror, Fontana, 1972) is a cracking seance tale.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 12, 2024 17:21:05 GMT
Daily Mirror, 26 April 1907 £1000 Claim ed for Producing a Ghost for an Archdeacon Mr. J. N. Maskelyne is being sued for libel by Archdeacon Colley, and is counter- claiming for £1,000 for producing a ghost. (1) Archdeacon Colley (in gaiters) and his solicitor, Mr. E. R. S. Skeels. (2) Group outside the court. (1) Mr. Maskelyne, jun. (2) Mrs. Neville Maskelyne. (3) Mr. J. N. Maskelyne. — (Daily Mirror photographs.) Daily Mirror, 27 April 1907 £1,000 WORTH OF GHOSTS. Archdeacon Colley's Claim Against Mr. Maskelyne In the Courts. ( Daily Mirror, 25 April 1907) FRIENDLY GHOSTS. Archdeacon's Has Confidence in a Convicted Medium. ATTRACTIVE SPOOKS. ( Daily Mirror, 26 April 1907) HOW AN ARCHDEACON WAS "LEVITATED." Exciting Experiences with "Spooks" Described in "£1,000 Ghost" Case. WHAT A SCIENTIST SAW. ( Daily Mirror, 27 April 1907) ARCHDEACON WINS. Judge, However, Thinks His Pamphlet a Collection of Rubbish. "HUMBUG OF MEDIUMS" ( Daily Mirror, 1 May 1907)
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Post by helrunar on Jan 12, 2024 21:11:56 GMT
Oh, that really is priceless. The photo looks as if it may have been slightly adapted from one perhaps originally captioned "Miss Ellen Terry in the role of 'The Spectre of Black Battlement.'"
Love all the hats, The Maskelynes' valet had a busy early morning polishing up that headgear, clearly.
cheers, Hel.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 13, 2024 17:31:10 GMT
Oh, that really is priceless. The photo looks as if it may have been slightly adapted from one perhaps originally captioned "Miss Ellen Terry in the role of 'The Spectre of Black Battlement.'" Love all the hats, The Maskelynes' valet had a busy early morning polishing up that headgear, clearly. cheers, Hel. The Mirror's press coverage is class; " .... The materialised form of the Egyptian spirit Mahedi showed great partiality for baked apples. In the words of the Archdeacon, as quoted by Mr. Gill from a pamphlet :- 'Mahedi seemed to be interested in everything around him, walking up and down the room and taking up various articles to examine them as would be natural to one of ancient race now in the midst of modern environment. Presently he espied and brought from the sideboard a dish of baked apples, and I got him to eat some. Wondering how this could be, I with my right hand gave our abnormal friend another baked apple to eat, when from his lips fell the chewed skin and core of the apple.' After this had been read the Archdeacon earnestly asked leave to produce the core that the medium spat out. WHAT THE ARCHDEACON KEPT He had preserved it carefully, he said. He had also in his possession a piece of grape-skin and a biscuit, that had been chewed by the spirit. Mr. Gill gracefully admitted that he did not doubt the Archdeacon's possession of a chewed baked apple, a chewed grape-skin, and a chewed biscuit." — Daily Mirror, April 27, 1907.
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Post by helrunar on Jan 14, 2024 2:50:52 GMT
Oh, that's really sublime. The baked apple delight reminds me of a "mummy food" recipe channeled by Edgar Cayce, I guess sometime in the 1930s. I had an eccentric friend years ago who made it a couple of times at gatherings, and it was surprisingly tasty. He'd serve it with warm milk or whipped cream. www.familycookbookproject.com/recipe/2441759/edgar-cayces-mummy-food.htmlThe recipe was channeled by Cayce when the spirit of an ancient Egyptian mummy said s/he was hungry and this was what was requested. Hel.
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 14, 2024 12:41:19 GMT
How very interesting, Hel! I've been a long-time fan of the book about Cayce called "Many Mansions". Kudos to your "eccentric friend" for making & serving this!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 29, 2024 7:11:52 GMT
AFTER DEATH, OR THE SUMMER LAND.
LECTURE BY MISS FLORENCE MARRYAT. On Thursday evening the Town Hall, Stratford, was nearly filled by an attentive audience who had come to hear Miss Florence Marryat (daughter of the late Captain Marryat) lecture on "The Summer Land" under the auspices of the Stratford Society of Spiritualists. After a cornet solo, and some clever but eerie performances on the borough organ, the lecturer appeared, dressed in a square- necked black velvet dress trimmed with broad vertical rows of passementerie. Miss Marryat is buxom, fair-haired, and a skilled elocutionist, and her address was fluently given with hardly a look through the gold pincenez at the notes. She spoke for an hour and three quarters, receiving at intervals respectful tributes of applause. The future life she compared to a condition of being rather than to residence in a locality. The old orthodox notions of heaven and hell were untrue, and the church was to blame for still retaining the old version of the Bible with such words as "hell" and "damnation" instead of "Hades" and "condemnation," as in the revised version. Those whom we called dead really lived, either in a state not so very different in kind from our life here only far more exalted, or else in conditions of penance that were the natural outcome and continuance of their transgressions. They also revisited the earth and their friends. AN EMINENT PUBLIC MAN who died this year and was just to his workpeople had communicated with the lecturer since his death, stating that he was happy and resting on green banks 'mid flowers in the spirit-world, his faults having been forgiven by reason of his kindness to his fellow-men. The relations of this eminent man desired his name kept secret. Many instances of her communication with spirits were given by the lecturer. Recently she visited a country house which was haunted. The address could not be stated as the family might wish to let the house. The hostess invited the lecturer and others to A GHOST HUNT and in a room in which were Louis Quinze bedsteads and furniture they saw a white-satin-clad figure with a star in her hair, whom they were given to understand was the Princess de Lamballe. Incidentally they came across lots of other ghosts, some dreadfully ugly. At the conclusion of the address Miss Marryat urged upon spiritualists the importance of seeking for spirit manifestations in their own homes rather than elsewhere, and providing properly furnished seance rooms, with flowers and music, which the spirits loved. She then recited a poem on Love and Death by Sir Edward Arnold, displaying considerable elocutionary power. The audience throughout were appreciative, but no questions were allowed, it being announced that enquiries might be made afterwards of the Spirtualist Society in West Ham Lane. — West Ham & South Essex Mail, 5 December 1896
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