Arthur & George

strange power over him that he has almost forgotten about Sir Arthur.
    Mr Craze is back at the microphone. ‘This evening,’ he announces as the many thousand take their seats again, ‘we are going to make a very daring experiment with the courage implanted in us by our late leader. We have with us a spirit sensitive who is going to try to give impressions from this platform. One reason why we hesitate to do it in such a colossal meeting is that it places a terrific strain on the sensitive. In an assembly of ten thousand people a tremendous force is centred upon the medium. Tonight, Mrs Roberts will try to describe some particular friends, but it will be the first time this has been attempted in such a tremendous gathering. You can help with your vibrations as you sing the next hymn, “Open My Eyes That I May See Glimpses of Truth”.’
    George has never been to a seance. He has never, for that matter, crossed a gypsy’s palm with silver, or paid twopence to sit before a crystal ball at a funfair. He believes it is all hocus-pocus. Only a fool or a backward tribesman would believe that the lines on a hand or the tea leaves in a cup reveal anything. He is willing to respect Sir Arthur’s certainty that the spirit survives death; perhaps, too, that under certain circumstances such a spirit might be able to communicate with the living. He is also prepared to admit that there might be something in the telepathic experiments Sir Arthur described in his autobiography. But there comes a point where George draws the line. He draws it, for instance, when people make the furniture jump around, when bells are mysteriously rung and fluorescent faces of the dead appear out of the darkness, when spirit hands leave their supposed imprint on soft wax. George finds this all too obviously a conjuring trick. How can it not be suspicious that the best conditions for spirit communication – drawn curtains, extinguished lights, people joining hands so that they cannot get up and verify what is happening – are precisely the best conditions in which charlatanry can flourish? Regretfully, he judges Sir Arthur credulous. He has read that the American illusionist Mr Harry Houdini, whose acquaintance Sir Arthur made in the United States, offered to reproduce every single effect known to professional mediums. On numerous occasions he had been tied up securely by honest men, but once the lights were out always managed to free himself sufficiently to ring bells, set off noises, shift the furniture around and even engender ectoplasm. Sir Arthur declined Mr Houdini’s challenge. He did not deny that the illusionist might be able to produce such effects, but preferred his own interpretation of that ability: Mr Houdini was in fact the possessor of spiritual powers, whose existence he perversely chose to deny.
    As the singing of ‘Open My Eyes’ comes to an end, a slim woman with short dark hair, dressed in flowing black satin, comes forward to the microphone. This is Mrs Estelle Roberts, Sir Arthur’s favourite medium. The atmosphere in the hall is now even more intense than during the two-minute silence. Mrs Roberts stands there, slightly swaying, hands clasped together, head cast down. Every eye is upon her. Slowly, very slowly, she begins to lift her head; then her hands are unclasped and her arms begin to spread, while the slow sway continues. Finally, she speaks.
    ‘There are vast numbers of spirits here with us,’ she begins. ‘They are pushing behind me like anything.’
    It does indeed seem like this: as if she is holding herself upright despite great pressure from several directions.
    Nothing happens for a while, except more swaying, more unseen buffeting. The woman on George’s right whispers, ‘She is waiting for Red Cloud to appear.’
    George nods.
    ‘That’s her spirit guide,’ the neighbour adds.
    George does not know what to say. This is not his world at all.
    ‘Many of the guides are Indians.’ The woman pauses, then smiles and adds, without the slightest embarrassment, ‘Red Indians, I mean.’
    The waiting is as active as the silence was; as if those in the hall are pressing upon the slim figure of Mrs Roberts much as any invisible spirits are. The waiting builds and the swaying figure plants her feet wider as if to hold her balance.
    ‘They are pushing, they are pushing, many of them are unhappy, the hall, the lights, the world they prefer – a young man, dark hair brushed back, in uniform, a Sam Browne