Posted on 27 January 2025, 8:00

When Hamlin Garland, a renowned American author and reputable psychical researcher (lower left photo) searched for a medium to help him locate and uncover some buried artifacts in California, he was referred to Sophia Williams, a direct-voice medium who had recently moved to Los Angeles from Chicago (upper right photo).  In checking out Williams, Garland communicated with a dentist and a psychologist in Chicago, both of whom had treated or examined Williams.  The dentist, Dr. Leon Poundstone, informed Garland that while he was holding a celluloid matrix in Williams’s mouth for a three-minute duration, his deceased wife’s voice came in very distinctly and spoke with him.  The psychologist, Professor Arturo Fallico, wrote that he had examined, observed, and tested Williams’s psychic powers and had concluded that some principle was operating in her “which is not included in the orthodox categories of natural facts.”  He added that he was especially impressed by her “psychic visions in which temporal and spatial limitations are or seem to be no barrier whatsoever.”

The story of the The Mystery of the Buried Crosses was told by Garland in his 1939 book of that name.  It has been republished by White Crow Books, and it was summarized in my blog of August 27, 2013.  However, there are still many readers unfamiliar with the story, so I’ve attempted to summarize it again, with the focus on Sophia Williams rather than on the search for the buried crosses.  I consider the story one of the two or three most intriguing stories in the annals of psychical research. 

Garland (1860-1940), was the author of 52 books and a Pulitzer Prize winner who was intimately involved with major literary, social, and artistic movements in American culture. A 1936 book, Forty Years of Psychic Research, relates mind-boggling phenomena long before he was told of the buried crosses. The University of Southern California now houses the Hamlin Garland collection in its Doheny Memorial Library and The Hamlin Garland Society exists today to disseminate information on Garland’s literary works.  His early home in West Salem, Wisconsin is a national historic landmark and museum.

Garland met Williams, an amateur medium, during July 1937, after he had come upon evidence that another medium, Violet Parent, had been directed to various buried crosses and artifacts by spirits of the dead.  There were indications that there were more buried artifacts to be found and Garland thought Williams might help him in that pursuit.  She had been recommended to Garland by Dr. Nora Rager of Chicago.

Williams was a somewhat unusual direct-voice medium in that she required neither darkness nor the trance state.  Moreover, she required no prayers, no hymns, no rituals of any kind, and the voices came in daylight.  They could be heard coming from somewhere around her, but they were only whispers.  To amplify them, Garland would place the larger end of a megaphone against her chest while he would listen for voices at the smaller end and relay them to a stenographer.  Garland first thought that Williams might be a master ventriloquist, but quickly ruled out that possibility, requiring her to hold a large lollipop in her mouth, the stick of which was held between her teeth, all the while closely observing her lips and throat as the voices came through.  Williams told Garland that she was as mystified by the voices as he was and that she had no physical sensation of producing them.

Hearing from an old friend

In his very first test of Williams, Garland was greeted by one of his oldest friends, Henry B. Fuller, who had helped him research cases of mediumship when Fuller was alive.  Always on the lookout for fraud, Garland wondered if Williams had read of Fuller in his book, Forty Years.  A few minutes later, another voice was heard.  The spirit identified himself as Lorado, his wife’s brother, who had died the prior year.

Garland noted that Fuller called him by his last name, while Lorado addressed him by his first name, exactly as they had done when they were alive.  He further noted that the voices, which were high in vibration, sometimes seemed to be coming from the megaphone and at other times from the air above the medium’s head.  Moreover, Fuller referred to an old mutual friend as “Ake,” the name given to Carl Akeley, another very evidential point. Garland further noted that Augustus Thomas called him by his first name and Edward Wheeler by his last name, just as they had when alive in the flesh.
 
The most convincing evidence came when a voice addressed the stenographer, Gaylord Beaman.  “Gay, this is Harry,” the voice was heard.  When asked for a last name, “Friedlander” was given.  The astonished Beaman explained to Garland that Harry Friedlander was a friend who had died in a plane crash in San Francisco Bay.  “Harry” then gave some details concerning the crash.  Garland was certain that Williams knew nothing of Beaman and could not have researched this information beforehand.  Garland then asked Fuller if he could contact Violet Parent, the deceased medium with whom the buried crosses mystery began in 1914.  Fuller replied that he would try, but it would have to be at another sitting. 

Two days later, the second sitting took place.  Garland first heard a voice say, “This is Turck, Dr. Turck.”  Turck went on to tell Garland that he (Turck) was an “old fool” for having called Garland’s psychical research so much “humbuggery” when he was alive.  Here again, Garland concluded that the medium could have known nothing about Turck’s attitude, which had been expressed to him at a luncheon.

Beaman then heard from his old friend Harry Carr, who made reference to his travels in the Orient for the Times, and asked Beaman if he could get his manuscript to a mutual friend named Chandler.  It was all meaningful to Beaman.  Garland’s old friend, Burton Babcock, also communicated, Garland describing Babcock’s speech as “hesitating and incoherent,” which was characteristic of him when he was alive.

Other spirits totally unrelated to Garland’s search continued to speak at times.  One identified herself as Leila McKee, an old Wisconsin neighbor.  Another Wisconsin acquaintance, Wendell McIldowney, also came through.  While Garland had by this time concluded that Williams was not a charlatan, he knew he had to be ready for claims by skeptics that Williams had done some research before meeting him.  It would have been virtually impossible, he concluded, for any researcher to turn up either of those names from his past. 

Ruling out telepathy

Still, Garland, a very skeptical researcher who leaned toward a telepathic explanation of mediumistic activity rather than a spiritistic one, wondered if Williams was somehow unknowingly tapping into his subconscious.  But Garland reasoned that digging up a name from one’s subconscious doesn’t explain how that name takes on a personality and dialogues with the conscious self, especially on matters that neither he nor Beaman had given any recent thought to. 

Garland was relentless in testing Williams.  After the first few sittings with her, he devised a transmitting box with 60 feet of wire connecting with another box containing a receiver and amplifier.  The purpose was to isolate the medium from his questions to the spirit communicators.  With the medium two rooms away and behind two closed doors in Garland’s home, she could neither hear Garland’s questions nor see what he was pointing to or looking at, and since the spirits answered him with detailed information, Garland concluded that this was further evidence that Williams was not providing the answers.

Irish novelist Donn Byrne communicated at one such sitting as famed author Stewart Edward White and his wife sat in with Garland.  At first, they could not understand his whispers, but Byrne eventually succeeded in making himself known.  Garland and Byrne exchanged compliments on their writing endeavors, after which White, apparently as a test, asked him to speak a sentence in Gaelic, which Byrne did before resuming in English “with a delightful Irish brogue which was assumed for our pleasure.”  Garland noted that Williams, two rooms away behind closed doors, could not have heard White’s request and was fairly certain she knew no Gaelic or could have produced Byrne’s humorous Irish accent.

The mechanism significantly amplified the voices, which had been just whispers through the megaphone.  After he completed it, Garland was greeted by Edward MacDowell, an old friend and noted composer who had been dead for more than 30 years.  Garland recorded that MacDowell “spoke to me as clearly, as informally, as if we had been parted only thirty days.” 

When Garland’s Uncle David communicated, Garland asked him if he could play “Maggie” for him.  Garland first heard a whistling tune that turned to a violin playing “When you and I were young, Maggie.” Garland’s wife was present and also heard it. Garland was certain that Williams could not have smuggled a violin into his house.

In one sitting, Garland’s daughter Constance sat in and heard from Candace Howard, an old childhood playmate, who talked happily and fluently about their old Catskill home. She also gave an intimate account of dying while giving birth. 

All that was enough to convince Garland that Williams was a genuine medium.  He then set out with her to find more buried artifacts. At the direction of “invisibles” who spoke through the medium’s megaphone, Garland and Williams traveled hundreds of miles through southern and central California and Mexico, discovering 16 artifacts, similar in substance and design to those collected by Violet Parent, in 10 widely separated locations throughout California.  Some were in deep gullies, others high on cactus-covered hills far from the highway.  One was hidden in a ledge of sandstone behind a wall of cactus plants which Garland had to chop away before finding it. 

Eight of the crosses are now on display at the West Salem Museum, although it is not entirely clear whether they were found by Garland or came from the original batch found by Mrs. Parent and her husband. 

Can mediumship be any more evidential?

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

Posted on 13 January 2025, 8:01

This is the final part of the deposition of Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore, as explained in my blog of December 16 and continued on December 30.  While Moore sat with dozens of gifted mediums in England and the United States, Etta Wriedt of Detroit, Michigan (below) may have been the most gifted.  Moore’s third book, The Voices, published in 1913, dealt solely with her mediumship.  He visited her in the United States during 1909 and 1911,  and then further observed her during 1912 and 1913 when she visited England.

Admiral Moore, I know that Etta Wriedt really impressed you.  Please tell a little of your experiences with her.

“My experiences with this wonderful medium in 1909 were insignificant compared with my third visit to America.  All my relatives that I wished to hear from spoke to me at some time or the other, touching upon all sorts of subjects of family interest.  Iola talked daily at considerable length, often standing before me, a radiant figure in white garments but features invisible, clearly enunciating her sentences in pure English.  …Mrs. Wriedt speaks Yankee; English was not spoken by any spirit friends of American sitters.  Most of my sitting were with the psychic alone, when Iola would manifest and explain matters which happened as much as fifty years ago….During my investigations into the phenomena of spiritism, I have never met with anyone whose mediumship has brought me so close to the next state of consciousness as Mrs. Wriedt.”

What type of phenomena did you witness with Mrs. Wriedt?”

“…The phenomena that occur are etherealizations and the direct voice through the trumpet; the former are more rare than the latter.  It is possible to hear the voices through the trumpet in broad daylight or gaslight; but the operation is slow and unsatisfactory, and the investigator will find it best to sit in total darkness…She does not fall into a trance, and often joins in the conversation going on between the sitter and the spirit visitor; she speaks sometimes at the same instant as her control or the other spirits…I have heard three [spirit] voices talking at once, one in each ear and one through the trumpet, sometimes two in the trumpet…I cannot recall one single circumstance which led me to form any suspicion as to her integrity, though I was on the alert throughout.  In that quiet room at Detroit, I have heard, through the trumpet, the sounds of expression of nearly every human emotion except anger.  Laughter, sighs, and utterances of disappointment were common.  Taking it altogether, I have never been present at such realistic séances; in fact, I often forgot that I was conversing with those whom we ignorantly speak of as ‘the dead.’”

Will you explain Mrs. Wriedt’s spirit control? 

“Mrs. Wriedt is [usually] controlled by Dr. John Sharp, who was born in Glasgow in the eighteenth century, lived all his life in the United States as an apothecary farmer, and died in Evansville, Indiana. He states that he was taken over to America by his parents when he was two months old. I have never known him say an unkind word, nor express any feeling but benevolences and desire to assist all who seek the help of his medium. He frequently straightens out obscure messages, and invariably endeavours to manage the sittings to the best advantage of those present. Very often he talks what, in a mortal, I should call nonsense; but I think he is limited in expression –in some curious way – by the absence of any sort of culture in his medium.” He explained that Grayfeather and John King also controlled at times.

You recorded that many languages came through Mrs. Wriedt.  Please tell us about this.

“[Yes,] many languages were spoken by discarnate spirits; Mrs. Wriedt is unacquainted with any language except Yankee.  A good instance of this [involved] the daughter in spirit life [speaking] English to her brother in earth life; both son and daughter were educated to speak Dutch, English, and French with equal facility. One day an aunt and friend from Holland accompany [a sitter] to Cambridge House [for a sitting with Mrs. Wriedt]. The same spirit speaks to those ladies in Dutch, and the husbands, in spirit life of the aunt friend converse with their wives in their own language.  As regards [other foreign languages] we have the evidence of M. Chedo Miyatovich, formerly Servian Minister at the Courts of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, that German, Servian, and Croatian were spoken during the sittings with Mrs. Wriedt.”

You reported that William T. Stead, the famous British journalist who was on his way to give a lecture at Carnegie Hall when he went down with the Titanic on April 14, 1912, communicated.  As I understand it, Mrs. Wriedt was to accompany Mr. Stead on his return trip to England.  She made the trip alone and stayed at Mr. Stead’s home with Stead’s daughter, Estelle.  Please tell a little of this experience.

“The first appearance of W. T. Stead at Cambridge House, Wimbledon, his country residence when in life, was at 11:30 a.m., May 6 [1912], when I was sitting in the dark alone with Mrs. Wriedt…On the same evening a meeting of Julia’s Circle (the name given by Stead to his mediumship circle) was organized to welcome Mrs. Wriedt; it was attended by Miss Stead.  The first spirit that manifested was Cardinal Newman, who recited a Latin benediction; Dr. Sharp made himself known in a loud, clear voice. Grayfeather followed; then Mr. Stead; he was followed by the son of two of the sitters and by Iola.  Finally, Mr. Stead came again.  The séance lasted one hour and a quarter, and was replete with incident.  The voice of the Cardinal was heard the instant the lights were put out.  At least forty minutes were taken up by Stead talking to his daughter.  I could not help hearing every word.  It was the most painful and, at the same time, the most realistic convincing conversation I have ever heard during my investigations.  The first time he came it was chiefly to give directions to his daughter as to the disposal of his private papers.  Miss Estelle was, naturally, much agitated, and her grief at last reacted upon her father, who uttered a lout shout, ‘Oh my God!’ and dropped the trumpet, which fell to the floor with a crash.  The second visit, which was at the end of the séance, was a calmer manifestation; this time the speaker was much assisted by Dr. Sharp, who sometimes interpreted what he wanted to say…I may mention that Stead’s talk on every occasion that he came was characteristic of him.  Nobody who heard it and who had enjoyed the privilege of knowing him in life could doubt that he was before us.” 

Please give us some information that came through involving yourself.

“[Certainly.]  When I was a boy, a family tangle took place which puzzled me very much.  Up to this time [(1911] I had not even suspected the real truth.  My guide (Iola), in the course of four or five interviews, solved the enigma, and brought three witnesses from spirit life who spoke at some length to prove that she was right.  Dates were given and motives explained.  I possessed just sufficient knowledge of what had taken place at that time to be able to assure myself – now that the light was thrown upon certain incidents – that all they said was true.  No one living knows anything about it except myself; but I am certain that the explanation, given with great earnestness and wealth of detail, by these visitants from the next state of consciousness is the correct one.”   

I take it that you see all of Mrs. Wriedt’s mediumship as beyond trickery?

“Mrs. Wriedt’s seances are self-convincing.  There is no necessity to tie her up, or gag her, or torture her in the various silly ways adopted by pseudo-scientists. She can only speak one language – Yankee. She is physically incapable of enunciating pure English or the jargon of the Red Man. No sane person could suspect her for one moment to be personating Iola, Grayfeather, or any of my English spirit visitors.” 

Many have asked what the good of it all is.  How do you reply to them?

“Is there any word in church teaching which leads one to believe or to suppose that our departed friends are in our proximity, and able to communicate with us? The Apostles Creed has, ‘I believe in the Communion of Saints – the Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.’ The Nicene Creed, whose antecedents are far more satisfactory, says nothing of the Communion of Saints, and winds up with: ‘And I look for the Resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”  But where do we find any kind of communion of sinners, or of a spirit life around us; a state of consciousness as real as that in which we live; a region inhabited by those we knew and, in some cases, loved, when they functioned on the earth plane? It is reserved for spiritism to teach of communion with those who precede us into the next life, and the good that can be achieved, not only by the spirits of the dead communing with us, but by out communing with them. It is not in the Anglican or Roman Church that any consolation will be found for those who are bereaved.”

But then the question becomes why God or whoever or whatever is behind all this does not provide much more clear-cut evidence – evidence without all the mystery and controversy?

“It is not in the public interest that such revolutionary facts should be easily believed.  Imagine what would happen if all the inhabitants of the British Isles were suddenly to come to the knowledge of what is in store for them, and how near to them are the relations they have loved and lost.  Hosts of men and women would be running to mediums, and leaving their legitimate occupations for the excitement of the séance-room.  Misery and hopeless destitution is the unhappy lot of hundreds of thousands in this country. They cannot – in their opinion – be worse off than they are; why not cut the slender cord which binds them to their present life, and risk the evils of the next, with hope of reaching a state of happiness hereafter? No! Nature abhors these sudden earthquakes in the continuity of evolutionary changes.”

Thank you, Admiral Moore. Do you have parting thoughts to share with us?

“[Let me end with this.] Another good in spiritism is that it induces a calm and equable frame of mind, devoid of dogma, devoid of excessive ambition, or worry of any sort.  A man acquires an inward conviction that nothing matters very much; this life is only a short disciplinary journey, which will assuredly lead to a better one if he does his best where he finds himself placed, and exercises sympathy and charity…To the spiritist death is no evil and is not feared, for he knows if he keeps himself in order he will be much better off on the other side.  It is astonishing what unanimity there is among the spirits who are interrogated on this point. None wish to return; all I have seen or heard declare that their only cause for sorrow is the grief of those they have left behind.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.