E-text prepared by Bethanne M. Simms, Martin Pettit,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
THE
SHADOW WORLD
BY
HAMLIN GARLAND
AUTHOR OF
"THE CAPTAIN OF THE GRAY-HORSE TROOP"
"MONEY MAGIC" ETC.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MCMVIII
Copyright, 1908, by Hamlin Garland.
Copyright, 1908, by The Ridgway Company.
All rights reserved.
Published September, 1908.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
This book is a faithful record, so far as I can make it, of the mostmarvellous phenomena which have come under my observation during thelast sixteen or seventeen years. I have used my notes (made immediatelyafter the sittings) and also my reports to the American PsychicalSociety (of which I was at one time a director) as the basis of mystory. For literary purposes I have substituted fictitious names forreal names, and imaginary characters for the actual individualsconcerned; but I have not allowed these necessary expedients tointerfere with the precise truth of the account.
For example, Miller, an imaginary chemist, has been put in the placeof a scientist much older than thirty-five, in whose library theinexplicable "third sitting" took place. Fowler, also, is not intendedto depict an individual. The man in whose shoes he stands is one of themost widely read and deeply experienced spiritists I have ever known,and I have sincerely tried to present through Fowler the argumentwhich his prototype might have used. [Pg iv]Mrs. Quigg, Miss Brush,Howard, the Camerons, and most of the others, are purely imaginary.The places in which the sittings took place are not indicated, for thereason that I do not wish to involve any unwilling witnesses.
In the case of the psychics, they are, of course, delineated exactly asthey appeared to me, although I have concealed their real names andplaces of residence. Mrs. Smiley, whose admirable patience underinvestigation makes her an almost ideal subject, is the chief figureamong my "mediums," and I have tried to give her attitude toward us andtoward her faith as she expressed it in our sittings, although theconversation is necessarily a mixture of imagination and memory. Mrs.Hartley is a very real and vigorous character—a professional psychic,it is true, but a woman of intelligence and power. Those in private lifeI have guarded with scrupulous care, and I am sure that none of them,either private or professional, will f