Biography of Mrs. J.H. Conant, the world's medium of the nineteenth century : being a history of her mediumship from childhood to the present time, together with extracts from the diary of her physician, selections from letters received verifying spirit communications given through her organism at the Banner of light free circles : specimen messages, essays, and invocations from various intelligences in the other life, etc., etc., etc

Front matter

J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.*

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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. |

PART I. Introduction. —Early Life and Manifestations

Section I. — Birth and education. II. — "Who are the angels, mother ? " III. — "You have lost your way, little one." First knowledge of spirit guardianship, and the nearness of those called "dead." Epimenides. IV.— Her severe illness. She prescribes for herself while entranced. Her case is examined by many physicians, and declared to he " a new disease of the brain, with Which the Faculty are unacquainted." V. — " The angels will be father and mother to you." Clairvoyant view of death. VI. — Priestly intolerance vs. the Christ spirit — her mother's minister refuses to attend the funeral, because of Mrs. Crowell's " dealings with the devil" while alive. Fannie is led by spirit direction to a liberal clergyman. VII. — Leaves home, and resides in Lowell, Mass. ; marries John II. Conant. Is informed by spirits concerning her line of descent 13

PART II. She becomes a Public Medium

Section I. — Kemoves from Lowell to Boston. Dr. Kittredge vs. Dr. Tobey. A vision of heaven. II. — Her long illness and threatened dissolution. "Why do n't you try a medium ? " Her first attendance at a seance. Dr. John Dix Fisher. III. — She is sent by Dr. Fisher to reside with Mrs. M. E. Cates. IV. — Singular manifestations. She gives her first " sitting" —

6 INDEX.

her first patron. V. — The spirit physician and his power over contagious diseases. The " dead" doctor vs. the living. "Nature will settle the case in two hours." Mrs. Conant treats, while herself entranced, many small pox patients, neither contracting the disease, nor transmitting it to others. VI. — Physical manifestations. Clearly defined spirit hands and forms are seen at her circle room. She is lifted up and carried across the apartment by spirits. "VTI. — Mischievous spirits. VIII. — The seven mysterious investigators ; they come in disguise, but by the requirement of Dr. Fisher are obliged to remove it, after which a highly successful seance ensues. They ask for a "sitting" in some room and house other than the one she inhabits, and she acceeds. Astounding manifestations. "Big Dick." She is lifted with a heavy table till she writes her name on the ceiling overhead. Parley with undeveloped spirits 35

PAET III.

Remarkable Mental and Physical Manifestations. Section I. — The writing phase of her mediumship. The intelligences treat of different subjects at the same time ; the one through her right, the other the left hand. She discovers hidden things and recovers stolen property. "Where am I going?" The tempted Soubrette reclaimed. "What we tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light." II. — Aunt Betsey White and the spirits. "You have bewitched me, child." III. — A work basket thrown upon the floor, and its contents scattered by the spirits, is replaced on the table, and the articles gathered one by one, at the request of Mrs. Conant, in sight of herself and a visitor. An undeveloped spirit and his works. Mrs. Conant is attended by spirits while sick, who minister to her wants as desired. IV. — She removes her residence to Mrs. M. A. Pope's on Tileston Street. Colonel Pope is cured by the agency of Dr. Fisher. V. — The missing skein. VI. — The combat in the dark. VTI. — The abstracted pistareens. A disturbed toilette. VTH. — She becomes acquainted with Luther Colby, future t editor of the Banner of Light, and William Berry, its business manager. IX. — She commences giving seances at the residence of Mr. Berry, North Cambridge, Mass. The "Battle of Monterey" 57

INDEX. i

PABT TV.

She is employed by the Banner ot Light as Business and Circle Medium.

Section I. — The Banner of Light appears for the first time. Her predictions concerning it. It is primarily managed by spirit foresight and direction, as communicated through her organism. II. — Captain (Pirate) Gibbs. Her mysterious visit to New York. "You'll anchor before 10 o'clock." The averted conflagration. HI. — The magnetic vampyre. She removes from Boston to North Cambridge. Engages an office in the city, on Central Court. Invisible teeth. The " double." "N. P. Banks elected Speaker." TV. — She removes to the National House, Boston. Dr. Fisher and the law-maker. V. — The Banner of Light preliminary circles are organized. What constitutes a ' ' battery " as used in a Spiritualistic sense 79

PAET V.

The Banner of Light Tree Circles. —Her Labors as a Public Speaker.

Section I. — The early messages. Earnest manifestations. Her visits while absent from her body. II. — Opposition to the publication of messages, by the friends of the communicators. III. — Prof. C C Felton and the Boston Courier vs. the spirits. TV. — Dr. Kittredge and Dr. Pike. "V. — She appears to Henry Wright. An unlooked-for exhibition of spirit power. Spirit solicitude as to her diet. VI. — " The Little White Lamb." VII.— -"Abbie is this you ? " Her severe sickness. She predicts President Lincoln's re-election and tragic demise. Vlil. — Her first appearance in public as a trance speaker, at the Meionaon, Boston. She lectures with success in Salem, Portsmouth, and elsewhere. IX. — Dangerous illness at 69 Dover Street. An almost fatal experiment 103

PAET VI.

Further Incidents. — Teachings of the Spirit World.

Section I. — "Andy Johnson." Her mysterious lady visitor. Gen. McCook's message. She writes mechanically in the German tongue. Removal to 76

5 INDEX.

"Waltham Street II. — "What the invisibles teach. Animals see spirits. HI. — Animals impressed by spirits, "Wapanaw and the horse. "Carlo" as a healing medium. IV. — Animals in the spirit world. The white horse of the minister. The lady and her pet parrot. V. — The Red Man and his language. " Metoka " 131

PART -vn.

Peculiar Manife stations of Spibit Power. — Intricacies or Control.

Section I. — The vantage ground of Spiritualism. Celestial consolation. A mother to her boys. IE. — Death in the hospital. A bewildered spirit. An example of strong vitativeness. III. — Conditions surrounding a spirit at its first control. Hydrophobia. Involuntary manifestations by spirits. The suicide's state in the land of souls. TV. — Varied character of manifestations at the circles held at the residence of Mrs. Conant, as portrayed in the diary of Dr. Pike. The Witness of the so-called dead. V. — " Spring- Flower ; " " Ne-os-co-le-ta ;" " Vashti ; " " Metoka." 161

PART "VIII.

Miscellaneous Manifestations of Spirit Intelligence. — The Hermit of the powow.

Section I. — The telegraph operator and his friend. " Turn on the light." Spirits seen in vision by Mrs. Conant, tested through their pictures being reproduced by a medium artist in a distant part of the country. H. — Poems by "Birdie" Wilson, given through the organism of Mrs. Conant. Josephine Carlton. HE. — The Hermit of the Powow 199

PART IX.

Characteristic Messages. — Verification of Spirit Messages.

Section I. — "William Berry. II. — Dr. John Gardiner. HI. — " Light. " TV. — Logan and "Waunondaga. V. — " How many messages are verified ?" Hudson Tuttle regarding the Message Department. VI. — Harriet Sheldon ; Eliza Mucbmore. VH. — Stephen Hanscom; Hiram Blanchard. VEH.

INDEX. 9

— " Is there any good in Spiritualism ? " Mehitable Lothrop. IX.— Oliver Bacon; "Eulalia;" Edward Cobb; Sarah J. Sargent; James D. Farnsworth. X. — James M. Peebles on the truth of spirit communications, through Mrs. Conant. Brig. Gen. Geo. B. Boomer. XI. — Heber C. Kimball; Charles Goodyear. XII. — Records at the Adjt. General's office of ( Massachusetts. Joseph Yeaton; Joel Nason. XIII. — J. Walter "Walsh; Capt. Wilmot Seiders 225

PAET X. I

Specimen Essays and Invocations.

Section I. — Prayer and its uses. The mission of Spiritualism. II. — Introductory essays. III. — Invocations by Rev. Jesse B. Ferguson, Pope Gregory the Eighth, Father Fitz James, Cardinal Cheverus, Archbishop Hughes, Father Shaw, Father Hawley, John Wesley, Mather Byles, John Pierpont, W. E. Channing, T. Starr King, Rev. Charles Burroughs, Ann Lee, Archbishop Whately, Elias Smith, Emanuel Swedenborg, Rabbi Lowenthal, Rabbi Sheider, Rahmohun Roy, Abd-el-Hadda, Ishmud Kedda, Sa-goye-wa-tha (Red Jacket,) Baron Von Humboldt, Lady Hester Stanhope, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Lorenzo Dow, Henry C. Wright, Charlotte Corday, Frederick T. Gray, Thomas Paine, Theodore Parker. Conclusion. . 283

PART I

INTRODUCTION — EAELY LIFE AND MANIFESTATIONS.

Introduction

There are two questions which have followed like phantoms the footsteps of each generation along the years : "Is this state of material being all that is in store for us?" and "If we indeed survive the shock of death, shall we. remember those we loved on earth, and be able to make our presence known to them? "

The great mass of humanity — in whatever age or country — has instinctively repelled the thought of annihilation, although, as a minority idea, it has frequently found existence in peculiarly organized minds. After-life, in some form, however crude in its conditions, has been the incentive of all the moral ethics and religious formulas to which time has given birth.

It would seem that to him who sincerely questions of his interior consciousness the verity of immortality in hours of twilight or midnight silence, when the toils of the day are done — or in the brooding presence of some chilling sorrow, when the loved of earth have passed the bounds of mortal ken — there can be but one answer which comes therefrom, and that is, that the ego (my inner being) is deathless and indestructible. From the earliest dawn of reason as evidenced in the acts of the primitive races, and foreshortened upon the canvas of time by archaeology, man has been convinced in some way — though the process may be inexplicable at times — that he is really twofold in nature ; that as the seed in the material world contains the germ of life and the nutritive principle which is to sustain that life till it gains power to draw from the surrounding soil its daily supply, so his body is

14 INTRODUCTION.

but the nucleus of higher possibilities, containing in itself a power that is to live after it has exhausted all the vital food which the physical form can offer, by drawing from the soil and atmosphere of a contiguous and higher — though unseen and mystical — country the nutriment which shall expand it to full development.

This wide-spread and intuitive looking for immortality has affirmatively decided the first question ; but the correct answer to the companion query concerning the after communication of the so-called dead, while it has been also shadowed upon the traditions and beliefs of all races, and partially embodied in certain religious systems, has not met with the universal acknowledgment among mankind which it merits — in too many cases being arbitrarily placed in abeyance by those who, having charge of the rising generations of the people, educate them to treat the subject from standpoints antagonistic to the use of God's choicest gift — the human reason !

Nevertheless, in obedience to the ever-increasing enlightenment of the world, we find in the nineteenth century the cropping out of a wondrous demonstration of the truth of man's aforetime dim and clouded conceptions or inexplicable convictions. To the hearts of millions in America, England, France, Germany, Russia, and other civilized countries the fact has become patent, through conclusive evidence — both mental and physical — that there is "a continued, conscious existence beyond the change called death;" and that those in that state of being, but little advanced by the process — ascending only in the scale by subsequent development, from that position to which their conduct while in earth life logically assigned them — can identify themselves to those whom they once cherished. This new principle of belief has been designated "Spiritualism," whose meaning Hayward's Book of All Religions informs us may be stated in a single proposition :

"That disembodied human spirits sometimes manifest themselves, or make known their presence and power, to persons in the earthly body, and hold realized communication with them."

INTRODUCTION. 15

This is the great truth which the present age has given to cheer the whilom dark pathway to the tomb with the glory of a coming world of eternal progression, and to drown the dismal dirge which the sombre, cave-arched waves of death's Jordan have chanted for ages gone, with the thrilling music of angelic welcome to life's ''evergreen hills ! " Right has found its willing martyrs in every age. Men and women, filled with an irresistible impulse whose source is from above, have in its cause fearlessly dared whatever of physical anguish or mental disquietude the bigots of their day could heap upon them ; and in this nineteenth century many who recognize within them the voice of consecration are, like their prototypes of old, devoting their self-sacrificing labors upon the public rostrum, in the seance, through the columns of the spiritual press, and every avenue in social life, for the advancement of a knowledge of this new revelation among men, without fear and without adequate reward — hoping only for the harvest which their children's eyes shall see. Happy in feeling that "He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined into their hearts" — knowing that they ' ' have this treasure in earthen vessels' ' that the glory may be ascribed to the true source of inspiration, they continue — as does the subject of this sketch — while "troubled on every side, yet not distressed," "perplexed, but not in despair," to proclaim to a world lost in the glaring wastes of material gain, and misled by erroneous educational guides.

" God is not dumb, that he should speak no more ;

If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor;

There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less, Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends Intent on manna still, and mortal ends,

Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore !"

BIOGRAPHY.

I

The following record has been prepared, that the reader may know somewhat of the strange experiences, deep sufferings, sharp trials, and noble fruits which have attended the life line of only a single individual among the many apostles of the new dispensation, and learn to value the gift of spirit communion in proportion to its cost.

Frances Ann Crowell was born in Portsmouth, N. H., April 28th, 1831. Her parents, named Peter and Hannah, respectively, were in moderate circumstances, and at the time of her birth resided on Parker Street, in the western portion of the (then) .town.

When about the age of six years, she commenced attending a private school near her home, kept by Mrs. Leach, a widow lady ; this she continued to be connected with for about eighteen months, when she entered one of the public schools of the town on Cabot Street — Mr. Blaisdell, preceptor. After the lapse of some months her father removed to another district — the southern part of the town — and she was enrolled among the scholars of Mrs. Marshall, wlio prepared girls to enter the high school. Owing to sickness she was not able to attend regularly, being kept from her studies nearly half the time. On her attaining the age of eleven she left this school, and never attended any other. The foregoing institutions in Portsmouth, and the limited time spent therein, have been her only opportunities for education, as that word is commonly used.

II

Her mediumistic faculties existed from her earliest years, although for a long time she did not understand what was meant by them. When about seven years of age she was prostrated by a fever, and one evening she heard her mother, while watching by her bedside, conversing with some person apparently in the room, who in her bewildered condition she supposed to be one of the neighbors. Finally, rousing herself to partial consciousness, she gazed around the apartment, but failed to see the individual addressed. Her mother not detecting the movement, and supposing she still slept, continued the conversation. At last childish curiosity gained the ascendancy over weakness, and the little one asked : " Who are you talking with, mother? " "Why, my child," replied her parent, " I thought you were asleep," and she endeavored to turn the attention of the patient to some other subject. But the anxiety of the daughter could not be appeased, and finally her mother said :

"Well, my dear, I was talking to the angels." " The angels, mother ! I thought they lived in fieaven."

" Yes, but they sometimes come to talk with us in this world."

The future medium having never been brought face to face with the matter before, was strangely moved, and feared that her mother must have become suddenly deranged. " Who are the angels, mother? " she asked.

" The angels, my daughter, are those who once lived on this earth, but who are now called dead. Your little sister is an angel."

"So you were talking to them? "

"Yes."

" What did they say ? "

" Your little sister tells me that you are to recover."

III

From that day, like one of old, she " kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart," wondering if those scenes and persons she sometimes beheld, though others could not, were really of angelic origin, as the philosophy of her mother would seem to indicate. She heard raps, and saw articles of furniture' moved in her room when she knew no mortal hand was there to perform the acts ; and she gravely considered these — the first, premonitory drops of the great shower yet to come — with a depth of interest beyond her years. Her mother, yielding to her importunities, talked frequently with her, explaining the matter as fully as she herself understood it at that early period (ten years before the accepted date of the advent of Modern Spiritualism) and prophesied that her daughter would one day know more concerning it.

At that time — and to the hour of her decease — her mother was a member, in regular standing, of the Chestnut Street Baptist Church, and her friends were sorely troubled at the thought of the " wild delusion " which had taken possession of " Sister Crowell." When her daughter was about nine years old, Mrs. C, was seized with a severe illness which threatened her life. She grew rapidly worse, and one black midnight the little Fannie was called up by a member of the affrighted household, and told to dress herself with all speed and summon the physician who lived two miles away, as her mother was dying. She arose hastily and in youthful trepidation rushed out into the darkness with her bonnet under her arm, a shoe upon one of her feet, and its companion in her hand — she intending to put it on as she journeyed. In her trouble she lost her shoe and her way also, and found herself alone in the broad unsettled suburb outlying the " South Road" as it is called. She was extremely frightened, and ran rapidly, with a hope of finding some familiar object. Suddenly she fell, and, as she supposed, fainted away — but after-experience has shown her that she passed into the state of trance. When she returned to consciousness — or came out of the trance — she saw a tall gentleman standing by her side. She looked at him at first with joy at the hope of finding her way and gaining the physician's house in time to be of assistance to her mother, but there was something in his appearance which filled her. with indefinable awe.

" You have lost your way, little one," he said, kindly.

" Yes, sir," she replied.

" Come with me," he continued, " and I will show you where you wish to go."

Fear again struggled for the mastery : " He is a stranger to me — how does he know where I wish to go ? " queried the child, as she looked earnestly at the luminous form before her. u Is he an angel?" She again supposed she fainted from fright, but was really entranced, and did not recover control of her senses till she found herself at the doctor's door with her guide, where the spirit — for such it really was

— informed her that he was Epimenides, an ancient Greek, and that he had come in answer to her prayer. This to her seemed strange, but was true, as she had kept up a mental cry — though she had not spoken it aloud — to the angels, in the midst of her fears, that they would come and help her, and retain her mother in life till she could return to the house. Her efforts were successful ; the doctor and a friend her mother desired to see were both summoned, and the failing patient recovered. Fannie often after this occurrence felt the influence of her mysterious friend

— she did not always see him, but knew that he was near.

IV

Sometime after this event,, and when she was about ten years of age, while playing, at the hour of twilight, she suddenly fell in what was pronounced a fit by her medical attendants, and remained in an unconscious condition till three o'clock on the following morning. On her returning to a cognizance of surrounding things her glance fell first upon two well known professional gentleman, Dr. Cheever (a cele-

•

brated physician of Portsmouth, and well known while in life throughout New England,) and Dr. Dwight ; the one held a spoon, the other was endeavoring to force her teeth apart sufficiently for the administration of the prepared prescription. She then passed into the trance, and while so conditioned, some spirit, evidently well versed in the intricacies of pharmacopaeial lore, gave directions through her lips to the two wonder-struck M. D.'s, as to what should be done for the betterment of her case. Although the physicians considered this as merely the result of an abnormal state of the brain, yet they acknowledged the advice given, to be astonishingly scientific, and such as it would be well for them to follow — which they did, thus presenting an exhibition of remarkable professional liberality, though it was perfectly in keeping with the general dealings of the fearless gentlemen in question. Her sickness at this time proved a serious matter, extending over a period of six months, during most of which these physicians attended her ; they then gave up the case into the hands of Dr. Goddard, also of Portsmouth. Through all this season of trial, as soon as either physician entered the room the young patient would be entranced, and if he was about to administer anything which her " guides " (as she afterward learned by increased knowledge of the facts of spirit communion) thought she ought not to have, they, through her organism, would refuse, and make a prescription themselves. All the physicians employed considered her case a most remarkable one ; she was visited by Drs. Lynton, Kelley, and many others from different parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, all of whom were desirous of tracing the workings of the peculiar " disease " for themselves. These investigators finally came to the conclusion that she was troubled with some new derangement of the brain with which the medical faculty were not yet acquainted.

V

Soon after Fannie's recovery, her mother was again prostrated by sickness — which proved to be her last — and with this event commenced the occurrence of many singular spirit manifestations, both mental and physical in character. So startling were these displays of invisible force, that neither money or friendship would induce persons to stay in the house with the . patient. As soon as the disturbances began, away ran every one in mortal fright, leaving upon the daughter the entire burden of household duties and the care of her afflicted parent.

When she was about eleven years of age this period of anxious and self-devoting labor drew to a close, and her parent, slowly sinking, passed the reaches of mortality. A few days previous to her decease she called the little one to her bedside, and said:

" Fannie, I am going to leave you," upon which the sad-faced child cried out, " Oh take me with you."

" No, my dear," replied the mother, " God has a wondrous work for you to do in after years, and you must stay here and perform it."

Fannie had been before impressed to feel a vague outlining of some remarkable course in life reserved for her, but nothing definitive had been portrayed, and she again said :

" Oh, how can I do anything without a mother?"

"My dear," answered the parent, "the angels will be your father and mother. When you come to meet me in heaven, bring me a clear record that you have always obeyed them. You will know more concerning this by and by."

In after-time when the child had grown to womanhood, and was present at her first understood spiritual seance, the remembrance of that mother's prophecy, coming to her like the echo of a refrain across the years, was the great cause of her assenting to the demands of the spirit world as expressed by Dr. Fisher.

At the time of her mother's decease, raps were heard and electric lights seen in the chamber, and the child medium was frequently entranced ; indeed, so much of her vitality was consumed previous to this event in supplying the needs of the sinking Que, that when those attending took her away from the cold form of her arisen parent, she herself was, as she expresses it, "nearer dead than alive." During her mother's departure from the form the little one beheld a strange vision — unseen to others in the room — akin to that which has so often been portrayed since by clairvoyants, but which at that time she failed to understand. Andrew Jackson Davis, the wonderful seer, has beautifully described the process in his recent work, " The Temple," as seen by himself on other occasions in after years :

* * * " 'Death' is the word used to signify 'the end of life,' spoken by persons who see not that seeming death is really

MRS. J. IT. CONANT. 25

'the beginning of life,' and the opening of the sacred volume of eternity. But let us peer "through the seeming, into that which is within the veil.

' ' The person is now dying ; and it is to be a rapid death. Observe something about temperature. The feet are cold ; the hands hot and white ; a coldness pervades the entire cuticle. See ? What is that accumulating in the atmosphere just over the pillowed head? It is an ethereal emanation — a golden magnetic halo — a throbbing, almost self-conscious atmosphere.

' ' The bodily temperature is now lowering rapidly. The ,coldness has extended upward from the toes to the knees, and from the finger tips to the elbows ; while, in exactly the same ratio, the emanation has ascended higher over the head. The arms are now cold to the shoulders, and legs to the hips ; and the emanation, although not higher in the air, is more expanded, with a compact white centre, resembling the bright nucleus of a miniature sun. This brilliant central spot is, in very truth, the brain of the new spiritual organism now forthcoming.

' ' The death-cold steals over the heaving breast, and around on either side the temperature is greatly diminished. Look now ! The psychic emanation contains some proportion of every principle composing the soul — motion, life, sensation, ethers, essences, vital magnetism, vital electricity, instincts — and, much enlarged by accessions, it has floated up in a compact mass, and now occupies a higher altitude near the ceiling.

" Now the lungs have ceased to breathe, the pulse is still, the physical heart is motionless ; while the brain cells, the corpus callosum, the medulla, and the spinal cord and ganglia, are ablaze with contractive and expansive energies, which gently pulsate and seem to direct and govern themselves by a kind of automatic self-consciousness. See ! The negative (gray) substance of the brain is interiorly throbbing — a slow, measured, profoundly deep throb — not painful, but massive and harmonious like the deep heart-beat of the sea.

' ' Look up ! The exalted emanation, obedient to its own changeless laws, is now elongated, and has attained a position at right angles with the horizontal body below. Behold ! See how the outline of a beautiful human form is being fashioned within that emanation. Beneath it is still tied by a white life-cord to the medulla and the corpus callosum within the brain. * * *

' ' You observe that a very fine vitalic thread still connects the vortices and central fibres of the dying brain with the lower extremities of the exalted outlined human being in the atmosphere.

Notwithstanding the existence of this life-thread, which acts like a telegraphic conductor — conveying messages in opposite directions at the same moment — you observe that the shadowy image, enveloped in a golden emanation, continues almost imperceptibly to ascend skyward.

' ' There ! What do I now see ? A symmetrically shaped human head rising above the mass — slowly, beautifully rising out of the golden cloud of substantial principles. And now appear the outlines of a spiritual countenance — - a quiet face and full of beauty, surpassing the power of words to delineate. Look again ! behold emerging the fair neck and beautiful shoulders ; and see ! as we gaze, out come, one after the other, in rapid sue- ■ cession, as if influenced and directed by the wand of a magician, all the parts of a new body — a bright, natural looking, yet spiritual image — only a little less than the deserted physical body, a perfect re-appearance of the person in the immediate heavens, prepared to accompany the celestial group of superintending intelligences to the Summerland.