That Other World

In this advanced, enlightened twentieth century it does indeed seem wonderful that the old-time spiritism, with its unsound pretensions and palpable little tricks, all of which the hard-headed had come to accept as things of the past, should flourish so strongly in our midst.

But the hankering after the occult, the desire to lift the veil and peep into the future, has ever been with us and never really dies.

With some it is an honest, deep belief, amounting almost to a religion ; with others, just a pose or a mere money-making game. It is this deep conviction of the true believer which has given tone to the movement and, at the same time, made possible much of the chicanery attached to it.

“There is not space for me here in which to relate my impressions and experiences of spirits I have known, together with other phases of the so-called occult. It forms too long a story. I would, however, like to say that I am desirous of extending my knowledge of spiritism and occultism so as to include the latest exponents of the mystic art. I am quite open to conviction, and should rejoice to find something which, under proper test conditions and with due investigation, proved itself beyond question the outcome of spirit power. A manifestation which is capable of being demonstrated can alone be beyond question when done under conditions from which all chances of trickery are eliminated. There are apparently other forms of ‘spirit power’ which, while not depending upon outward and visible demonstrations for their proof, claim to give the inquirer glimpses into the past, present, and future. They, too, clipped of their patter and ungraspable ambiguousness, are interesting in their way as showing on what lines certain spirits alone can or will work.” — Extracted from Author’s Introduction

Stuart Cumberland (1857–1922) was an English mentalist known for his demonstrations of “thought reading”. Cumberland was famous for performing blindfolded feats such as identifying a hidden object in a room that a person had picked out or asking someone to imagine a murder scene and then attempt to read the subject’s thoughts and identify the victim and re-enact the crime. Cumberland claimed to possess no genuine psychic ability and his thought reading performances could only be demonstrated by holding the hand of his subject to read their muscular movements.