Painter medium.

Since not all individuals can be convinced by the same kind of Spiritist manifestations, there was a need to develop mediums of various types. In the United States there are those who make portraits of persons long dead, whom they never knew. Because the resemblance is soon ascertained, the sensible persons who witness it do not fail to be convinced. The most notable of these mediums is, perhaps, Mr. Rogers, already cited by us in Vol. I, on page 239, and who at that time resided in Columbus, where he exercised the profession of tailor; we could add that he received no other education than that customary to his condition.

Above all to instructed men, who have said and repeated with respect to the spiritualist theory, that “the recourse to Spirits is merely a hypothesis, and that an attentive examination can prove it to be neither more rational nor more plausible,” we offer the following translation, which we summarize from an article by Mr. Lafayette R. Gridley, of Attica, Indiana, written this past July 27 for the editors of the Spiritual Age and published in full by them in their sheet of August 14.

This past May, Mr. E. Rogers, of Cardington, Ohio, who, as you know, is a painter medium and makes portraits of persons who are no longer found in this world, has just spent a few days at my house. During his short stay he underwent the influence n of an invisible artist, who passed himself off as Benjamin West, painting some beautiful pictures, in natural size, as well as some others, of less satisfactory quality.

Here are some particulars relating to two of those portraits. They were painted by the said Mr. E. Rogers, in a dark room, at my house, in the short interval of one hour and thirty minutes, of which time about half an hour elapsed without the medium having been influenced and which I took advantage of to examine his work, not yet finished. Rogers fell again into a trance and concluded those portraits. Then, and without any indication having been given as to the persons represented, one of the portraits was immediately recognized as being of my grandfather, Elisha Gridley; my wife, my sister, Mrs. Chaney and my parents, all were unanimous in recognizing the great resemblance: it is a facsimile of the old man, with all the particulars of his hair, of his shirt collar, etc. As for the other portrait, since no one recognized it, I hung it in my store, in view of the passers-by, and there it remained for a week without being recognized. We waited for someone to be able to tell us whether it represented a former inhabitant of Attica. I was already losing hope of knowing whom the artist might have wished to paint, when one evening, at a Spiritist session held at my house, a Spirit manifested itself, giving me the communication that follows: “My name is Horace Gridley. I left my remains more than five years ago. I lived for many years in Natchez, Mississippi, where I was sheriff. My only son still lives there. I am a cousin of your father. You will be able to obtain further information about me through your uncle, Mr. Gridley, of Brownsville, Tennessee. The portrait that you keep in your store is mine, from the time when I lived on Earth, shortly before passing to this other existence, more elevated, better and happier. It resembles me, at least as much as it was possible for me to recover the physiognomy of that time, for that is indispensable when we are painted; and we do it as best we can in order to recall it, as the conditions of the moment permit. The portrait in question was not finished as I would have liked; there are some slight imperfections, which Mr. West says proceed from the conditions in which the medium found himself. Even so, send the portrait to Natchez, that it may be examined. I believe they will recognize it.” The facts mentioned in this communication were completely unknown to me, as well as to all the inhabitants of our region. Once, many years ago, I had heard it said that my father had a relative in those parts of the Mississippi valley, although none of us knew his name and the address at which he lived and, not even, whether he had already died. Only several days later did I learn, through my father, who lived in Delphi, forty miles from here, what had been the place of residence of his cousin, of whom he had heard nothing more for nearly sixty years. We had not thought at all of asking for family portraits; I simply placed, before the medium, a written note that contained a score of names of former inhabitants of Attica, no longer belonging to this world, in the expectation of obtaining the portrait of some one of them. I judge, then, that all sensible persons will admit that neither the portrait, nor the communication of Horace Gridley resulted from a transmission of our thought to the medium; moreover, Mr. Rogers certainly never knew either of the two men, whose portraits he painted and, probably, had never heard either of them spoken of, since he is English by birth, came to America ten years ago and never went South, beyond Cincinnati, while Horace Gridley, as far as I know, never traveled North beyond Memphis, in Tennessee, in the last thirty or thirty-five years of his existence. I do not know whether he ever visited England; but this could only have occurred before the birth of Rogers, considering that the latter is no more than twenty-eight to thirty years old. As for my grandfather, deceased about nineteen years ago, he never left the United States and, in any case, had never had his portrait made. Since I received the communication transcribed above, I wrote to Mr. Gridley, of Brownsville, whose reply came to corroborate what we had learned through the Spirit's communication. In addition, I obtained the name of the only daughter of Horace Gridley, who is Mrs. L. M. Patterson, still residing in Natchez, where her father lived for many years. According to my uncle, Mr. Horace would have died about six years ago, in Houston, in Texas.

Then I wrote to Mrs. Patterson, my newly discovered cousin, sending her a daguerreotyped n copy of the portrait that they told us was of her father. In the letter to my uncle, of Brownsville, I had said nothing regarding the principal object of my inquiries, as I had said nothing to Mrs. Patterson: neither why I sent her the portrait, nor how I had obtained it, nor what person it represented. I simply asked my cousin whether she recognized anyone in it. She replied to me that she certainly could not say whose the portrait was, although she assured me that it resembled her father, at the time of his death. I wrote to her soon after to say that we too had taken it for the portrait of her father, but without telling her how we had obtained it. My cousin's reply said, in sum, that in the copy I had sent her everyone had recognized her father, before I told her that it was indeed he who was portrayed there. My cousin showed much surprise that I should have a portrait of her father, when she herself had none, and that he had never said that he had had his own portrait made, no matter by whom. She believed that none existed and showed herself quite satisfied with my consignment, mainly on account of the children, who had great veneration for the memory of their grandfather. I then sent her the original portrait, authorizing her to keep it, if it pleased her, but I still did not tell her how I had obtained it. The principal passages of her reply are the following:

“I received your letter, as well as the portrait of my father, which you permit me to keep should it resemble him closely enough. It is certainly very like him and, as I never had another portrait of him, I am going to keep it with me, since you consent to it. I accept it most gratefully, although it seems to me that my father was better than this, when he enjoyed good health.”

Before the receipt of the last two letters from Mrs. Patterson, chance willed it that Mr. Hedges, formerly residing in Natchez and today living in Delphi, as well as Mr. Ewing, recently arrived from Vicksburg, in Mississippi, saw the portrait in question and recognized it as being that of Horace Gridley, with whom both had had dealings.

Believing that these facts are too significant to remain in silence, I felt myself under the obligation to communicate them, with a view to their publicity. In writing this article, I guarantee having taken every precaution as to its perfect correctness.

Remark. – We already know the draughtsman mediums. Besides the notable drawings, of which we gave a specimen [drawing of Mozart's house], but which depict things whose exactness we cannot verify, we have seen mediums absolutely strangers to that art execute very recognizable sketches of dead persons whom they had never known. But from that to a portrait painted according to the rules is a great distance. This faculty connects with a quite curious phenomenon, of which we are witnesses at this moment and with which we shall soon occupy ourselves.

[1] Tr. note: Our emphasis. Entransé, in the French original. Literally, to enter into a trance. We translated it as influence.