Observations placeholder

Robert Gambier Bolton – Ghosts in Solid Form

Q. Can you explain to us how the materialised bodies which are used during our experiments are formed

A. The elements which go to make up the human, animal, and floral envelopes or bodies for the life-spirit contained in each of them are held in solution in the atmosphere, and can — through a knowledge of the laws governing it — be used to construct instantaneously any of the multitudinous forms that exist in nature ; and it would be as easy for us to produce a materialisation of an elephant in your midst, as a human being, provided that the conditions were favourable.

It was the knowledge of these laws which made many so-called "miracles " possible in the past— such as those recorded in your sacred writings— and make many so-called ' miracles " possible today.

This knowledge is possessed by those in our sphere who are adepts in chemistry, and who act as leaders during all experiments for the spiritualisation of matter — not, as you term it, the materialisation of Spirits, for it is far other than this.

The Sensitive is but another source from whom the elements for the materialised bodies can be drawn, for the atmosphere is not always chemically favourable.

At times, owing to unsuitable conditions, it is absolutely impossible to get together, even from both these sources — the atmosphere and the Sensitive — sufficient material with which to build up a body ; and then, if forms still appear in your midst, the manifestation ceases to be a materialisation and becomes a transfiguration. By this we mean that the Sensitive is transfigured, as a sculptor might modify an old statue with his chisel instead of forming a new figure from fresh materials. In transfigurations the face of the Sensitive is completely changed by the controlling entity, so as to represent his (the entity's) face temporarily. The unconscious Sensitive is then brought from his chair and walks amongst the Sitters, stopping before each of them, and showing his altered, transfigured features to them, as you know, by means of large pieces of cardboard, termed "the slates," which have previously been coated with luminous paint, as transfigurations when substituted for materialisations usually occur in perfect darkness only.

In transfigurations, then, the Sensitive's face, changed in form and feature as if it had been melted and run into a new mould, is used to personate something quite as honest as the materialisation for which it is so often mistaken ; and all who attend your experimental meetings should be fully instructed beforehand as to the difference between these phenomena, and why it is that the leaders of the experiments in our sphere are sometimes compelled to produce transfigurations instead of the materialisations which you expect to see.

Spiritualisation of matter is governed by certain natural laws, and, like all such laws, they are immutable, i.e. absolutely unchangeable.

The work of the true investigator should be to discover the operation of these laws, and to regulate his investigations accordingly.

When you speak of anything whatever as a "miracle," you imply that you actually know  all natural laws ; and when something occurs which you cannot by any possibility explain, instead of endeavouring to discover under what — to you — new natural law the apparently impossible has become possible, you foolishly say, " This is something quite beyond any natural laws, and is therefore a 'miracle.' "

Note: Fully realising the danger of this, it was agreed by the leaders and by the officials of my societies that in no case should transfigurations be produced; but that when the conditions made materialisations impossible, the experiment should at once come to an end; and three important meetings were actually closed within half an hour of the start of each, without results of any kind being obtained, as the leaders admitted that the atmospheric and other conditions made it altogether impossible for them to produce materialisations