AIR Update #4: The Séance
This one is a total doozy so get ready for some wildness. Long story short, Niklaus decides to write down his séance experience in a letter to Cyrus after seemingly failing to get Cyrus to visit him sooner. As always, the full transcript and scans can be found here.
Image: Cincinnati Enquirer
Niklaus mentions Laura Carter, who later went by the surname Pruden. Pruden was a practicing psychic in the Price Hill neighborhood who became famous enough to entertain a visit by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of classic Sherlock tales. Not only does this confirm that Niklaus experienced these phenomena in the Cincinnati area, but also gives us a stronger sense of what he went through. She used slates as a form of divination – in my research I found some collections have slates with automatic writing still on them. There’s some insightful writing out there on the various ways charlatans would trick their audiences using such methods. I’ve been reading a really interesting book originally published in 1918 called “How to Speak to the Dead: A Practical Guide”. This letter, along with that book, are making me want to hold a séance of my own. Perhaps being in Cincinnati and near Price Hill, I can summon something similar? Or perhaps nothing at all will happen.
Niklaus describes how what started as cold reading became something supernatural. All of these things he experienced happened in the middle of the day.
From here the room began to vibrate in excitement. With it came the sound of clicking porcelain and silverware, yet nothing in the room seemed to actually move. A rumbling vibration of sorts was surrounding us without shifting a single object or piece of furniture. I could hear this shaking but failed to feel it.
As it gained strength, it became a rumble, immediately freezing me in my seat. It was familiar. I had felt its roar before. I have no doubt in my mind that I once again heard that sound. The sound from months ago, the one you insist was merely the drowned out shouting and rioting of a public house in the distance. The sound I had felt with the pink glow in the streets. It was here, in Miss Carters’ house, during the midday sun.
He continues on to describe seeing Pruden’s manic scribblings tracing the word “rose” over and over again, implying she somehow knew of his earlier experience in the alleyway. The ending of the letter references Occam’s Razor, something Cyrus mentioned in his reply, and has Niklaus questioning his sanity.
You recently evoked William of Ockam, implying I should find a conclusion with the fewest assumptions. Which possibility requires less tests of faith; that a strange assortment of coincidences have lined up in such wonderful and terrifying manners, or that I witnessed something beyond the mortal coil that continues to haunt me? Or am I going mad?
I am anxiously awaiting your visit, counting the seconds until I may see you and be with you again, so you may once again hold me down and anchor me.
Yours,
Niklaus
Something I’ve briefly mentioned in the past is the possible harm assuming queerness onto historical characters can cause. While Kaz Rowe did an excellent job describing the issue in a segment of her video on historical misinformation, I wanted to expand upon those thoughts briefly. While the Luscinia Historical Society is interested in spiritualist history as it pertains to progressive movements, which includes gender and sexual liberation, to claim or to assert that these men were queer and lovers without more solid evidence may lead to more harm than good. While their language is intimate in nature, it can easily be explained as a result of a different form of homosocial relationships between men 150 years ago – men were more vocal about their affection for one another, especially those in the academy. To assume queerness at this stage sets me up for potentially being proven wrong in the near future, thus giving more credence to the historically inaccurate concept that queerness is a relatively new human phenomenon.
I am eagerly awaiting my next visit to the archives so I can continue to unfold this mystery! While I don’t have much new information surrounding the sound or its visuals, I’m hoping more will come in due time. Until then, it’s summer break for me, so I’m taking a nap.
Neil Daigle Orians • Archivist-in-Residence
somebody, please find me. the professor needs me.
