Medium Mrs Blake USA
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Mrs Blake Medium
Mrs. Elizabeth Blake, of Ohio, who died in 1920, was one of the most wonderful
Voice Mediums of whom we have any record, and perhaps the most evidential,
because in her presence the voices were regularly produced in broad daylight.
She was a poor, illiterate woman living in the tiny village of Bradrick on the
shore of the Ohio River, on the opposite bank of which was the town of
Huntingdon, in West Virginia. She had been a Medium since childhood. She was
strongly religious and belonged to the Methodist Church, from which, however,
like some others, she was expelled on account of her mediumship.
Little has been written about her, the only detailed account being a valuable
monograph by Professor Hyslop.* She is said to have been repeatedly tested by
"scientists, physicians and others," and to have submitted willingly to all
their tests. As, however, these men were unable to detect any fraud, they did
not trouble to give their results to the world. Hyslop had his attention drawn
to her by hearing that a well-known American conjurer, of many years'
experience, had become convinced of her genuineness, and in 1906 he travelled to
Ohio to investigate her mediumship.
* PROCEEDINGS of the American S.P.R., Vol. VII (1913), pp. 570-788.
Hyslop's voluminous report describes evidential communications that occurred.
He makes this not unusual confession of ignorance of ectoplasmic processes in
the production of voice phenomena. He says:
The loudness of the sounds in some cases excludes the supposition that the
voices are conveyed from the vocal cords to the trumpet. I have heard the sounds
twenty feet away, and could have heard them forty or fifty feet away, and Mrs.
Blake's lips did not move.
It still remains to get any clear hypothesis to explain this aspect of the
phenomena. Even to say "Spirits" would not satisfy the ordinary scientific man.
He wants to know the mechanical processes involved, as we explain ordinary
speech.
It may be true that Spirits are the first cause in the case, but there are steps
in the process which intervene between their initiative and the ultimate result.
It is that which creates the perplexity more than the supposition that spirits
are in some way back of it all the scientific man cannot see how Spirits can
institute a mechanical event without the use of a mechanical instrument.
Nor can anyone else, for that matter, but the explanation has been given again
and again from the Other Side. Professor Hyslop's want of knowledge of the link
existing between the sounds and their source would be less surprising were it
not for the fact that the Spirits themselves have repeatedly supplied the answer
to the questions he raises. Through many Mediums they have given almost
identical explanations.
Dr. L. V. Guthrie, superintendent of the West Virginia Asylum at Huntingdon,
Mrs. Blake's medical adviser, was convinced of her powers. He wrote:*
* OP. CIT., p. 581.
I have had sittings with her in my own office, also on the front porch in the
open air, and on one occasion in a carriage as we were driving along the road.
She has repeatedly offered to let me have a sitting and use a lamp chimney
instead of a tin horn, and I have frequently seen her produce the voices with
her hand resting on one end of the horn.
Dr. Guthrie gives the following two cases with Mrs. Blake where the information
supplied was not known to the sitters, and could not have been known to the
Medium.
One of my employees, a young lady, whose brother had joined the army and gone to
the Philippines; was anxious to receive some word from him, and had written
letters to him repeatedly and addressed them in care of his Company in the
Philippines, but could receive no answer. She called on Mrs. Blake and was told
by the "Spirit" of her mother, who had passed away some several years, that if
she would address a letter to this brother at C-- she would get an answer. She
did so and received a reply from him in two or three days, as he had returned
from the Philippines, unknown to any of his family.
The next case is even more striking.
An acquaintance of mine, of prominent family in this end of the State, whose
grandfather had been found at the foot of a high bridge with his skull smashed
and life extinct, called on Mrs. Blake a few years ago and was not thinking of
her grandfather at the time. She was very much surprised to have the "Spirit" of
her grandfather tell her that he had not fallen off the bridge while
intoxicated, as had been presumed at the time, but that he had been murdered by
two men who met him in a buggy and had proceeded to sandbag him, relieve him of
his valuables, and throw him over the bridge. The "Spirit" then proceeded to
describe minutely the appearance of the two men who had murdered him, and gave
such other information that led to the arrest and conviction of one or both of
these individuals.
Numerous sitters with Mrs. Blake noted that while the Medium was speaking,
Spirit Voices were heard at the same time, and further, that the same Spirits
preserved the same personality and the same intonation of voice through a
course of years. Hyslop gives details of a case with this Medium where the voice
communication gave the correct solution for opening a combination lock to a
safe, when it was unknown to the sitter.