About the mystery of Katie King

Testimony about Katie King on p. 231-139 in Edmund E. Fournier D'Albe's book "The life of Sir William Crookes" (1923):

 

 

 

"The year 1873 did not see the end of Crookes’s psychical
researches. In October 1871 he had been introduced to
Miss Florence Cook, of Hackney, who had developed
mediumship for “ materialisations ” earlier in the same
year. He had over forty seances with her, many of them
in his own house, and became absolutely convinced of the
genuineness of her phenomena. According to Florence
Cook’s own version, her first acquaintance with the physical
phenomena of spiritualism was made during some table-
tilting experiments with a schoolfellow at Hackney, in
which the table rose a clear four feet from the ground.
At another sitting she was carried about on her chair by
some abnormal means. Continuing the seances at home,
she was instructed by raps to proceed to the house of
Thomas Blyton, at Dalston, the secretary of a small group
of spiritualists, through whom she was introduced to a
number of people interested in the phenomena. Acting
on their advice, she had regular sittings in her own family,
the kitchen being curtained off to form a dark “ cabinet ”
for her, while the family sat outside on the stairs. In
these circumstances she was “ controlled ” by an entity who
called herself “ Katie King,” or “ Annie Owen Morgan,”
and who endeavoured to peep out through the curtain
while Florence was lying in a trance inside. The seances
went on for some time, gradually developing, until the
form of Katie King acquired sufficient “ power ” to emerge
completely from the cabinet.

Several attempts were made by spiritualists to photo¬
graph “ Katie King,” and this was eventually accomplished
on May 7, 1873, 1 by the light of burning magnesium
powder.

Crookes does not seem to have taken up Miss Cook
seriously until after she had been “ exposed by a Mr.
Volckmann, who seized “ Katie King ” and found himself
holding the medium dressed up. This happened on
December 9, 1873, after Crookes had completed his
Quarterly Journal of Science article. At Miss Cook’s
earnest request, he devoted five months to an elaborate
investigation of her “ materialisation.” At some of these
sittings, Mr. C. F. Varley, the cable electrician, and an
earnest spiritualist, assisted. The latter contributed to
The Spiritualist of March 20, 1874, an account of a seance
at the house of Mr. J. C. Luxmore, J.P., 16, Gloucester
Square, W., which was attended by Mr. Luxmore, Mr.
and Mrs. Crookes, Mrs. Cook, Mr. Tapp, Mr. W. H.
Harrison, and himself. The medium was inserted in an
electric circuit, in which was also a galvanometer which
could be watched outside the cabinet, so as to make sure
that during the “ materialisation ” the medium did not
leave the cabinet. The electrical arrangements were such
that the medium could not have broken the circuit without
the fact being indicated by the galvanometer moving
over 200 divisions down the scale. The only other possi¬
bilities to be guarded against were (1) that the medium
should simply join the two sovereigns serving as electrodes
on freeing herself. This would have produced an upward
deflection of eighty divisions, whereas the greatest fluctua¬
tion observed was thirty-six divisions downward ; (2) that
the medium should substitute another semi-conductor for

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1 A full account of this episode is given in my book New Light on Immortality .—
E. E. F.
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her own body and free herself without detection. The
galvanometer readings were taken every minute by Mr.
Varley and recorded and timed by Mr. Harrison.

Beginning at 7.10 p.m., the galvanometer reading fell
gradually and steadily by thirty divisions until 7.25. This
fall was due to the drying of the blotting-paper which
made contact with the medium’s skin. At 7.25 a fall
of thirty-six divisions occurred. At 7.27 “ Katie ” ap¬
peared, lifting the curtain to show herself. At 7.36
“ Katie ” showed her hand and arm, and the galvanometer
fell another seventeen divisions. Half a minute after¬
wards the galvanometer rose twenty-one divisions. After
that the galvanometer fell off quite gradually and steadily
until 7.48 while “ Katie ” came and put her hand
on Crookes’s head and wrote with a pencil on paper.
On testing the circuit with electrodes in contact at 7.36,
it was found that the electromotive force of the battery
(two Daniell cells) had not fallen off as much as 1 per cent.

In discussing this seance, Mr. Varley attaches great
importance to the fact that the galvanometer did not vary
while “ Katie ” was moving her arms and writing, which,
had Miss Cook emerged to personate the “ spirit ” must
have been the case. It is not stated whether “ Katie’s ”
wrists were carefully examined to see if “ Katie ” was the
medium in disguise, with the electrodes still on her wrists.
The main object of the experiment, however, seems to
have been to eliminate the possibility of the medium
freeing herself without detection. This would have been
comparatively easy had she known what “ resistance ” to
substitute for that of her own body, as the sovereigns
which served as electrodes were only attached to her
wrists with elastic rings. The value of the experiment,
therefore, hinges altogether on whether Florence Cook
had the presence of mind (and sufficient cleverness) to
substitute, say, a moist handkerchief, for her own person
in the circuit. The observations would in that case be
fully accounted for.

Crookes’s own account of his experiments with Florence
Cook are embodied in three letters published in Mr. W. H.
Harrison’s journal, The Spiritualist , of February, March,
and April 1874. He describes a seance on March 12th
in which Katie King walked about the room (it was
Crookes’s own house) and then retired into the library
used as a “ cabinet ” where the medium was lying. He
proceeds :

In a minute she came to the curtain and called me to her, saying :

“ Come into the room and lift my medium’s head up, she has slipped
down.” Katie was then standing before me clothed in her usual
white robes and turban head-dress. I immediately walked into the
library up to Miss Cook, Katie stepping aside to allow me to pass.

I found that Miss Cook had slipped partially off the sofa, and her
head was hanging in a very awkward position. I lifted her on to
the sofa, and in so doing had satisfactory evidence, in spite of the
darkness, that Miss Cook was not attired in the “ Katie ” costume,
but had on her ordinary black velvet dress, and was in a deep trance.
Not more than three seconds elapsed between my seeing the white-
robed Katie standing before me and my raising Miss Cook on to
the sofa from the position into which she had fallen. . . .

I pass on to a seance held last night 1 at Hackney. Katie never
appeared to greater perfection, and for nearly two hours she walked
about the room, conversing familiarly with those present. On
several occasions she took my arm when walking, and the impression
conveyed to my mind that it was a living woman by my side, instead
of a visitor from the other world, was so strong that the temptation
to repeat a recent celebrated experiment became almost irresistible.
Feeling, however, that if I had not a spirit, I had at all events a
lady close to me, I asked her permission to clasp her in my arms,
so as to be able to verify the interesting observations which a bold
experimentalist has recently somewhat verbosely recorded. Per¬
mission was graciously given, and I accordingly did—well, as any

 

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1 March 29, 1874.—E. E. F.
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gentleman would do under the circumstances. Mr. Volckmann
will be pleased to know that I can corroborate his statement that the
“ ghost ” (not “ struggling,” however) was as material a being as
Miss Cook herself. ... I went continuously into the cabinet,
it being dark, and felt about for Miss Cook. I found her crouching
on the floor. Kneeling down, I let air enter the [phosphorus] lamp,
and by its light I saw the young lady dressed in black velvet, as she
had been in the early part of the evening, and to all appearance perfectly
senseless ; she did not move when I took her hand and held the light
quite close to her face, but continued quietly breathing. Raising
the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie standing close behind
Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery as we had
seen her previously during the seance. Holding one of Miss Cook’s
hands in mine, and still kneeling, I passed the lamp up and down,
so as to illuminate Katie’s whole figure and satisfy myself thoroughly
that I was looking at the veritable Katie whom I had clasped in my
arms a few minutes before, and not at the phantasm of a disordered
brain. She did not speak, but moved her head and smiled in recogni¬
tion. Three separate times did I carefully examine Miss Cook
crouching before me, to be sure that the hand I held was that of a
living woman, and three separate times did I turn the lamp to Katie
and examine her with steadfast scrutiny until I had no doubt what¬
ever of her objective reality. At last Miss Cook moved slightly,
and Katie instantly motioned me to go away. I went to another
part of the cabinet and then ceased to see Katie, but did not leave
the room until Miss Cook woke up, and two of the visitors came
in with a light.

In criticism of these remarkable observations it has
been urged that in the former seance, at Crookes’s own
house, the medium was either a dummy or “ Katie ”
herself, who had quickly “ dematerialised ” in the dark
“ cabinet” Also that in the latter seance, where there
v/ere undoubtedly two persons, one of them was a con¬
federate of the Cook family, in whose house the
“ materialisation 99 took place. Crookes, however, speaks
with unshakable conviction. He took forty-four negatives
of “ Katie.” “ But photography,” he says, “ is as in-
adequate to depict the perfect beauty of Katie’s face as
words are powerless to describe her charms of manner.”
He indignantly rejects the hypothesis of fraud. “ To
imagine,” he says, “ that an innocent schoolgirl of fifteen
should be able to conceive and then to carry out for three
years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time
should submit to any test which might be imposed upon
her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing
to be searched at any time, either before or after a seance,
and should meet with even better success in my own
house than at that of her parents, knowing that she visited
me with the express object of submitting to strict scientific
tests—to imagine, I say, the Katie King of the last three
years to be the result of imposture does more violence
to one’s reason and common sense than to believe her to
be what she herself affirms.”

Florence Cook was, at this time, secretly married to a
Mr. Corner. She announced her marriage shortly after
the seance above described, at which “ Katie King ”
bade farewell to her earthly friends. She gave a number
of stances in after years, but not very successfully, and
it is alleged that she was eventually “ exposed.” But
the fact is that Crookes befriended her until her death
in 1902. Indeed, Crookes kept up almost all his spiritualist
friendships until they were severed by death. His “ crucial
experiments ” were publicly derided as “ Crookesial experi¬
ments in sly-kick force.” An American journal published
one of the Katie King photographs under the title “ Sir
William Crookes arm-in-arm with an Angel,” and the
successful “ duping ” of a great English scientist by a
girl of fifteen became a cause of merriment to the cynic
and of sorrow to Crookes’s well-wishers.

But Crookes never recanted, never wavered, never
withdrew. He recognised in time the hopelessness of
his attempt to carry the scientific world with him. Science
is the knowledge of things which always happen under
certain conditions. No “ certain conditions ” can be
arranged if they depend upon the whim of an entity which
does not even inhabit this world ! You cannot bring
it to book, nor make it sign a document, nor sue it for
damages or neglect. Even a scientific fact is not generally
accepted until it becomes a habit. Crookes says of this :

The following remarks are so appropriate that I cannot forbear
quoting them. They occur in a private letter from an old friend,
to whom I had sent an account of some of these occurrences. The
high position which he holds in the scientific world renders doubly
valuable any opinion he expresses on the mental tendencies of scientific
men. “An y intellectual reply to your facts I cannot see. Yet it
is a curious fact that even I, with all my tendency and desire to believe
spiritualistically, and with all my faith in your power of observing
and your thorough truthfulness, feel as if I wanted to see for myself;
and it is quite painful to me to think how much more proof I want.
Painful, I say, because I see that it is not reason which convinces a
man, unless a fact is repeated so frequently that the impression becomes
like a habit of mind, an old acquaintance, a thing known so long
that it cannot be doubted. This is a curious phase of man’s mind,
and it is remarkably strong in scientific men—stronger than in others,
I think. For this reason we must not always call a man dishonest
because he does not yield to evidence for a long time. The old
wall of belief must be broken down by much battering.”

But it is time we left this chapter of Crookes’s life
behind. Volumes could—and may yet—be written about
it. Nor has the time come to pronounce a final verdict
upon it. The jury would inevitably disagree. It may
be that future ages will regard Crookes’s incursion into
spiritualism as a temporary aberration, illustrative of nothing
but the fallibility of human judgment. It may be, on
the other hand, that history will look upon Crookes’s
statement of his “ supernormal ” observations as one of
the major steps in human evolution. Half a century has
elapsed. A religion counting its adherents by the million
has been founded upon Crookes’s “ researches in spirit¬
ualism.” That circumstance may, to many, be Crookes’s
greatest condemnation, since it may be plausibly argued
that the majority of religions are' built upon fallacies.
But the fact remains that the “ physical phenomena ” of
spiritualism are ultimately based upon Crookes. Later
eminent workers in the same field sought to reproduce his
phenomena and to corroborate them. There have been
slight variations, but nothing essentially new. “ For
authentic materialisations,” a writer recently remarked in
Light , “ we have to go back to ‘ Katie King.’ ” Crookes
covered the whole ground. He marked out the boundaries
of the physical basis of spiritualism, and no subsequent
investigator has been able to extend them. Indeed, no
subsequent investigator has been able quite to cover the
same ground. Twenty-five years later, when President of
the British Association, Crookes said : “ I have nothing to
retract. I adhere to my already published statements. I only
regret a certain crudity in those early expositions which,
no doubt justly, militated against their acceptance by the
scientific world.” That world has since become more
tolerant and more elastic. Its outlook is wider, its inquiry
more profound. It admits much in psychology and
psycho-physiology that used to be doubtful and obscure,
but it does not admit spiritualism : it does not even admit
its “ physical phenomena.” Spiritualism as a religion may
legitimately be studied in a section of anthropology, but
spiritualism as a science does not exist. To be a spiritualist,
the scientist must surrender his wishes, his methods, his
views into the hands of his “ spirit friends ” on the “ other
side.” If he does that he may achieve a certain peace of
mind, but his scientific work will be at an end. His
surrender may soothe him on his death-bed, but so may
almost any religion when embraced with a fervent faith.
And we may expect that the world's work will best be
done by those who follow the light of reason to the utmost
visible horizon, content in the belief that the divine spark
within us is but the promise of a greater glory as yet
unrevealed.