John Delaware Lewis

Name: Once a Week
Author: John Delaware Lewis

Once a Week (1860)

Summary

“Once a Week”, published in 1860, is a work by John Delaware Lewis. It explores elements such as Marshall, medium and raps.

Quotes from Once a Week (John Delaware Lewis)

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ Spirits were ordered to rap on the walls, and inside the piano, which they entirely failed to do, rapping all the time unmistakeably under the table, with slight variations of sound. And every time that one of these raps was produced, it was impossible for the younger medium to repress a slight, almost imperceptible, movement of the body, showing plainly that they were caused by her: even if this could for a moment be doubted, after a second request from us that she would leave the table, and suffer us to hear so much as a single rap when she was not there, which she again refused to do. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ At its close she fairly broke out:
“Yes, I did have a relative of that name, and the family have always suspected that he was murdered in Spain.”
A dead silence fell upon the company; and, as a matter of course, every lady present was transformed into an ardent believer. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ The presence of this assistant, or confederate, struck several among us as being, to say the least, suspicious (for why should a spirit require two mediums?) ; but on this, and every other point, we agreed for the present to suspend our judgment. After a little preliminary conversation, some eight or ten of us seated ourselves round a circular drawing-room table, Mrs. Marshall being some places to my left, with her niece next but one to her, and exactly opposite to me. The “spirits” having been invited to manifest themselves, three distinct raps were heard under the table. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ However this might be, I now requested the niece to favour me by leaving her seat for a short time, in order that we might feel the “spirit hands” without any suspicion of collusion on her part. This, I added, would no doubt be more satisfactory to her as well as to ourselves. She declined to do this. After which, the reader will not be surprised to learn that several persons felt something tugging at their legs and feet, every one of these being in the immediate vicinity of the younger medium, and no effect of the kind being once produced upon those seated at a little distance. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ As thus: “a, b, c, d . . . . g (a pause) . Spirit raps. So with e, with o, r, g, e, and every letter comprising the various answers. And taking note of this from the beginning, I was able to compose those answers in my mind, and would have undertaken to rap them out with my knuckles, in my present earthly and corporeal state, to the full as accurately as I (and the reader, for the matter of that) may be expected to sound our replies, when summoned into some Chicago or Melbourne drawing-room by a Mrs. Marshall of the twentieth century. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ I mention these facts merely by way of assuring the reader that Mrs. Marshall is a person of high standing in her profession, with a considerable body of followers—not a mere unrecognised poacher on the domain of magic: a person, in short, through whose agency manifestations of a remarkable kind (whether produced by supernatural means or by clever legerdemain was of course another question) ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ Or, in other words, is it possible for a gentleman to ride up to the ceiling on a rosewood chair, just for all the world as in olden times, not so very far bygone, certain old ladies were believed to perform their journeys with the aid of a broom-handle? ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Delaware Lewis, Once a Week (1860)

“ Home be—as I have no reason for denying—in contact with the spiritual world, he will thank me for exposing one at least of the pretenders, who, independently of the harm which they do to mankind at large, are throwing very serious discredit, and a degree of suspicion which he himself will admit to be unavoidable, on the art or mystery of which he is so distinguished a professor. ”

John Delaware Lewis

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Quotes from Once a Week (John Delaware Lewis)

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