{"product_id":"2940013693210","title":"Playing with Fire","description":"I cannot pretend to say what occurred on the 14th of April last at No.\u003cbr\u003e17, Badderly Gardens. Put down in black and white, my surmise might\u003cbr\u003eseem too crude, too grotesque, for serious consideration. And yet that\u003cbr\u003esomething did occur, and that it was of a nature which will leave its\u003cbr\u003emark upon every one of us for the rest of our lives, is as certain as\u003cbr\u003ethe unanimous testimony of five witnesses can make it. I will not\u003cbr\u003eenter into any argument or speculation. I will only give a plain\u003cbr\u003estatement, which will be submitted to John Moir, Harvey Deacon, and\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Delamere, and withheld from publication unless they are prepared\u003cbr\u003eto corroborate every detail. I cannot obtain the sanction of Paul Le\u003cbr\u003eDuc, for he appears to have left the country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was John Moir (the well-known senior partner of Moir, Moir, and\u003cbr\u003eSanderson) who had originally turned our attention to occult subjects.\u003cbr\u003eHe had, like many very hard and practical men of business, a mystic\u003cbr\u003eside to his nature, which had led him to the examination, and\u003cbr\u003eeventually to the acceptance, of those elusive phenomena which are\u003cbr\u003egrouped together with much that is foolish, and much that is\u003cbr\u003efraudulent, under the common heading of spiritualism. His researches,\u003cbr\u003ewhich had begun with an open mind, ended unhappily in dogma, and he\u003cbr\u003ebecame as positive and fanatical as any other bigot. He represented in\u003cbr\u003eour little group the body of men who have turned these singular\u003cbr\u003ephenomena into a new religion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Delamere, our medium, was his sister, the wife of Delamere, the\u003cbr\u003erising sculptor. Our experience had shown us that to work on these\u003cbr\u003esubjects without a medium was as futile as for an astronomer to make\u003cbr\u003eobservations without a telescope. On the other hand, the introduction\u003cbr\u003eof a paid medium was hateful to all of us. Was it not obvious that he\u003cbr\u003eor she would feel bound to return some result for money received, and\u003cbr\u003ethat the temptation to fraud would be an overpowering one? No\u003cbr\u003ephenomena could be relied upon which were produced at a guinea an\u003cbr\u003ehour. But, fortunately, Moir had discovered that his sister was\u003cbr\u003emediumistic-in other words, that she was a battery of that animal\u003cbr\u003emagnetic force which is the only form of energy which is subtle enough\u003cbr\u003eto be acted upon from the spiritual plane as well as from our own\u003cbr\u003ematerial one. Of course, when I say this, I do not mean to beg the\u003cbr\u003equestion; but I am simply indicating the theories upon which we were\u003cbr\u003eourselves, rightly or wrongly, explaining what we saw. The lady came,\u003cbr\u003enot altogether with the approval of her husband, and though she never\u003cbr\u003egave indications of any very great psychic force, we were able, at\u003cbr\u003eleast, to obtain those usual phenomena of message-tilting which are at\u003cbr\u003ethe same time so puerile and so inexplicable. Every Sunday evening met\u003cbr\u003ein Harvey Deacon's studio at Badderly Gardens, the next house to the\u003cbr\u003ecorner of Merton Park Road.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083156963568,"sku":"2940013693210","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013693210_p0.jpg?v=1763584456","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013693210","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}