Charles Bailey, Australia
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Charles Bailey
Mr.
Charles Bailey, of Melbourne, appears to be a very remarkable Apport Medium,
[Physical Medium] and the
author has no confidence in his alleged exposure at Grenoble. Bailey's own
account is that he was the victim of a religious conspiracy, and in view of his
long record of success it is more probable than that he should, in some
mysterious way, have smuggled a live bird into a seance room in which he knew
that he would be stripped and examined. The explanation of the Psychic
Researchers, that the bird was concealed in his intestines, is a supreme example
of the absurdities which incredulity can produce. The author had one experience
of an apport with Bailey which it is surely impossible to explain away. It was
thus described.
We then placed Mr. Bailey in the corner of the room, lowered the lights without
turning them out, and waited. Almost at once he breathed very heavily, as one in
a trance, and soon said something in a foreign tongue which was unintelligible
to me. One of our friends, Mr. Cochrane, recognized it as Indian, and at once
answered, a few sentences being interchanged. In English the voice then said
that he was a Hindoo control who was used to bring apports for the Medium, and
that he would, he hoped, be able to bring one for us. "Here it is," he said, a
moment later, and the Medium's hand was extended with something in it. The light
was turned full on and we found it was a very perfect bird's nest, beautifully
constructed of some very fine fibre mixed with moss. It stood about two inches
high and had no sign of any flattening which would have come with concealment.
The size would be nearly three inches across. In it lay a small egg, white, with
tiny brown speckles. The Medium, or rather the Hindoo control acting through the
Medium, placed the egg on his palm and broke it, some fine albumen squirting
out. There was no trace of yolk. "We are not allowed to interfere with life,"
said he. "If it had been fertilized we could not have taken it." These words
were said before he broke it, so that he was aware of the condition of the egg,
which certainly seems remarkable.
"Where did it come from?" I asked. "From India."
"What bird is it?"
"They call it the Jungle Sparrow."
The nest remained in my possession and I spent a morning with Mr. Chubb, of the
local museum, to ascertain if it was really the nest of such a bird. It seemed
too small for an Indian Sparrow, and yet we could not match either nest or egg
among the Australian types. Some of Mr. Bailey's other nests and eggs have been
actually identified.
Surely it is a fair argument that while it is conceivable that such birds might
be imported and purchased here, it is really an insult to one's reason to
suppose that nests with fresh eggs in them could also be in the market.
Therefore, I can only support the far more extended experience and elaborate
tests of Dr. MacCarthy of Sydney, and affirm that I believe Mr. Charles Bailey
to be upon occasion a true medium, with a very remarkable gift for apports.
It is only right to state that when I returned to London I took one of Bailey's
Assyrian tablets to the British Museum, and that it was pronounced to be a
forgery. Upon further inquiry it proved that these forgeries are made by certain
Jews in a suburb of Bagdad-and, so far as is known, only there. Therefore the
matter is not much farther advanced. To the transporting agency it is at least
possible that the forgery, steeped in recent human magnetism, is more capable of
being handled than the original taken from a mound. Bailey has produced at least
a hundred of these things, and no Custom House officer has deposed how they
could have entered the country. On the other hand, Bailey told me clearly that
the tablets had been passed by the British Museum, so that I fear I cannot
acquit him of tampering with truth-and just there lies the great difficulty of
deciding upon his case. But one has always to remember that physical mediumship
has no connexion one way or the other with personal character, any more than the
gift of poetry.*
* "The Wanderings of a Spiritualist," pp. 103-5.
"Annals of Psychical Science,' Vol. IX.
It is forgotten by those critics who are continually quoting Bailey's exposure,
that immediately before the Grenoble experience he had undergone a long series
of tests at Milan, in the course of which the investigators took the extreme and
unjustifiable course of watching the Medium secretly when in his own bedroom.
The committee, which consisted of nine business men and doctors, could find no
flaw in seventeen sittings, even when the Medium was put in a sack. These
sittings lasted from February to April in 1904, and have been fully reported by
Professor Marzorati. In view of their success, far too much has been made of the
subsequent accusation in France. If the same analysis and scepticism were shown
towards "exposures" as towards phenomena, public opinion would be more justly
directed.
The phenomenon of apports seems so incomprehensible to our minds, that the
author on one occasion asked a Spirit Control whether he could say anything
which would throw a light upon it. The answer was:
"It involves some factors which are beyond your human science and which could
not be made clear to you. At the same time you may take as a rough analogy the
case of water which is turned into steam. Then this steam, which is invisible,
may be conducted elsewhere to be reassembled as visible water." This is, as
stated, an analogy rather than an explanation, but it seems very apt none the
less. It should be added, as mentioned in the quotation, that not only Mr.
Stanford, of Melbourne, but also Dr. MacCarthy, one of the leading medical men
of Sydney, carried out a long series of experiments with Bailey, and were
convinced of his genuine powers.