Considering the Riddles of 'Unexplained Phenomena'

 The materialized 'Katie King' is shown with the entranced medium Florence Cook and Dr. J. M. Gully.

 

 

In this article, I am considering reports about interaction with the communicators from the ascended realm who are known as 'John King' and 'Katie King' in the annals of Spiritualism.  To develop a perspective of these entities, one consideration is some of the occurrences reported in A Biography of the Brothers Davenport (1864) by T. L. Nichols, M.D.

Ira Erastus Davenport and William Henry Davenport were born in 1839 and 1841.  A sister, Elizabeth Louisa, was born in 1844.  The family resided in Buffalo, New York.  In 1846 the family heard raps and various other strange noises.  Four years later, there was news of "the Rochester Knockings" in relation to the Fox family.  When the Davenport family seated themselves around a table to see what would develop, a complex sequence of strange and bizarre events began to unfold.

One incident involved the younger brother, William, glimpsing a stranger "so tall that he can scarcely stand up in this room . . . a real giant" although other family members saw nothing.  "The boy said, 'He says he is not of this earth; his name is William E. Richards . . .'"  Soon thereafter "the home of the Davenports was filled, day and night, with eager enquirers" as seances began to be held regularly.

At the morning and evening parties of curious investigators into these strange phenomena, there were now not only heard the ringing of bells, thrumming of musical instruments, movements of various objects without apparent cause, including the three Davenport children, but hands, seemingly human, were both felt and seen.  A hand and part of an arm would rise above the table, plainly visible, and allow itself to be felt for a moment, when it would dissolve, melt into air in the very grasp and under the eyes of the spectator.  Then a voice, coming out of space, at first inarticulate, but later condensed as it would seem in a large horn or trumpet provided for the purpose, spoke distinctly to them, conversed with them, answered their questions, and advised or directed their proceedings.

The voice was asked, among other things, what was its name. It replied that names were of no consequence — one would do as well as another, and they might call it ' John King,' which they do to this day, or familiarly ' John.'  This ' John,' the name of a voice, said to the father of the Davenports that he must take his two sons away from Buffalo, that it was dangerous for them to stay, and that they were needed elsewhere.

The biographer of the brothers in his book commented:
  

It will be observed that I have ventured no opinion, and offered no theory, respecting the nature of this intelligent force.  It called itself, in the first instance, 'Richards'; then it adopted the name of 'John,' or 'John King.'  It, or something, professed to be ' George Brown, of Waterloo,' who had been murdered for his money; and it, or something else, declared itself to be ' John Hicks,' poisoned by his wife, like ' Hamlet's father.

Then —

It was not long after the Davenport Brothers commenced to visit places where they were unknown, and where the wonders exhibited in their presence, and to which their presence seems to be in some way a necessary condition, created an intense and wild excitement, breaking out at times into blind and violent opposition and persecution, before tests began to be required to satisfy people more or less that they were not imposed upon by artful jugglers.

News of the Davenport family engendered among people a response of antagonism.  While holding an exhibition seance in Maine, a rabble of drunken sailors had been paid to drive the Davenport brothers out of town.  The assailants were overcome.  The author wrote:

"Well," I said to Mr. Ira Davenport, when he had got so far in the narrative of this affair, as I have substantially given it, "what happened then?  Did you go away and try some less belligerent neighbourhood !"

"No; we stayed there.  ‘Morgan’ told us to go on."

"But a while ago it was ‘John,’ or ‘John King,’ who seemed to have the direction of your affairs."

"Yes, but at this time it was Henry Morgan, the buccaneer.  We had some more seances and from that time everything was perfectly quiet and satisfactory."

I am not sufficiently familiar with the life and character of Captain Henry Morgan to be able to say whether he was a likely person to manage such manifestations as were given in presence of the Brothers Davenport, but a bold buccaneer ought to be ‘some’ in a fight.

Consistent blog readers may recall the statement from a 'controlling spirit' speaking through trance medium Mrs. J. H. Conant in 1869: ". . . In the first place, it should be understood that these séances are not controlled at all times by the same spirit, but for each occasion an intelligence is selected best adapted to that occasion."

Eventually chroniclers of Spiritualism would share their own experiences in relation to the entities known as 'John King' as associated with Henry Morgan, his wife 'Katie Lambert' and their daughter 'Katie King.'  Nandor Fodor wrote in Encyclpaedia of Psychic Science (1966) about John King: "In the early years of English spiritualism it was the aspiration of many mediums to secure his influence.  Mrs. Marshall was the first, Mrs. Guppy, Miss Georgina Houghton, Mrs. Firman, Williams, Eglinton and Husk followed, whilst in America he was claimed by the Holmeses and Mme. Blavatsky in her early career . . . In comparatively recent times John King took charge of the physical phenomena of Mrs. Wriedt in London.  He greeted the sitters of Williams' and Cecil Husk's circle by their names . . . He said in many messages that Eusapia Paladino was his reincarnated daughter but he seldom spoke, if so only in Italian and through the entranced medium."

Many photographs of the materialized 'Katie King' were taken by William Crookes and the photos that have been preserved may be viewed via a Google Images search.  It has been reported that the original photos taken by Crookes were destroyed after his passing.  The fact that the materialized Katie King resembled medium Florence Cook has been hastily assumed by some people as evidence of fraud when the conditions for such a predicament have been articulated in Spiritualist accounts.

William Crookes (1832-1919) was a prominent physicist and chemist honored with many prestigious awards.  He had presided for intervals over such organizations as the Royal Society, the Chemical Society, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and the British Association.  Readers knowledgeable about materialization phenomena who have read his testimonials will wonder what it is that may make the human mentality susceptible to any manner of rationale to deny or reject eyewitness testimonials such as those of Crookes about the mediumship of Florence Cook (1856-1904) and the materializations of 'Katie King.'  Letters of Crookes on these topics were published in Spiritualistic journals and are included in his book Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism (1874). 

During seances, Crookes discovered that when Katie appeared she "was as material a being as Miss Cook herself" when manifesting.  Medium Florence Cook was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl at the time.  A curtain separated the library ("used as a dark cabinet") with the medium from where the seance participants were sitting in the adjoining laboratory for the seances in the home of Crookes.

 

The following excerpts are from his book’s final section "The Last of Katie King" subtitled "The photographing of Katie King by the aid of the electric light."  Five sets of photographic apparatus were utilized with Crookes being aided by an assistant.  Altogether Crookes obtained "forty-four negatives, some inferior, some indifferent, and some excellent."
 

One of the most interesting of the pictures is one in which I am standing by the side of Katie; she has her bare foot upon a particular part of the floor.  Afterwards I dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed her and myself in exactly the same position, and we were photographed by the same cameras, placed exactly as in the other experiment, and illuminated by the same light.  When these two pictures are placed over each other, the two photographs of myself coincide exactly as regards stature, &c., but Katie is half a head taller than Miss Cook, and looks a big woman in comparison with her.  In the breadth of her face, in many of the pictures, she differs essentially in size from her medium, and the photographs show several other points of difference.

 But photography is as inadequate to depict the perfect beauty of Katie's face, as words are powerless to describe her charms of manner.  Photography may, indeed, give a map of her countenance; but how can it reproduce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or the ever-varying expression of her most mobile features, now overshadowed with sadness when relating some of the bitter experiences of her past life, now smiling with all the innocence of happy girlhood when she had collected many children around her, and was amusing them by recounting anecdotes of her adventures in India? 

 
One evening I timed Katie’s pulse.  It beat steadily at 75, whilst Miss Cook’s pulse a little time after, was going at its usual rate of 90.  On applying my ear to Katie’s chest I could hear a heart beating rhythmically inside, and pulsating even more steadily than did Miss Cook’s heart when she allowed me to try a similar experiment after the séance.  Tested in the same way Katie’s lungs were found to be sounder than her medium’s, for at the time I tried my experiment Miss Cook was under medical treatment for a severe cough.

Your readers may be interested in having Mrs. Ross Church's, and your own accounts of the last appearance of Katie, supplemented by my own narrative, as far as I can publish it.  When the time came for Katie to take her farewell I asked that she would let me see the last of her.  Accordingly when she had called each of the company up to her and had spoken to them a few words in private, she gave some general directions for the future guidance and protection of Miss Cook.  From these, which were taken down in shorthand, I quote the following: "Mr. Crookes has done very well throughout, and I leave Florrie with the greatest confidence in his hands, feeling perfectly sure he will not abuse the trust I place in him.  He can act in any emergency better than I can myself, for he has more strength."  Having concluded her directions, Katie invited me into the cabinet with her, and allowed me to remain there to the end.

After closing the curtain she conversed with me for some time, and then walked across the room to where Miss Cook was lying senseless on the floor.  Stooping over her, Katie touched her, and said, "Wake up, Florrie, wake up!  I must leave you now."  Miss Cook then woke and tearfully entreated Katie to stay a little time longer.  "My dear, I can't; my work is done.  God bless you," Katie replied, and then continued speaking to Miss Cook.  For several minutes the two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her speaking.  Following Katie's instructions I then came forward to support Miss Cook, who was falling on to the floor, sobbing hysterically.  I looked round, but the white-robed Katie had gone.  As soon as Miss Cook was sufficiently calmed, a light was procured and I led her out of the cabinet.

"Was It Katie King?" is the title of an article that appeared in the December 1874 edition of The Galaxy magazine.  F.J. Lippitt wrote about attending a series of seances in Philadelphia, where the 'Katie King' that manifested showed a somewhat different appearance and mannerisms from those reported of the London counterpart.  The Philadelphia exhibition seances had been arranged by Dr. Henry Child, who Lippitt wrote had informed him that Katie "was the daughter of a famous pirate known as John King . . . and that this was the third sitting of the circle at which she had appeared."

In answer to questions, she said she used to go to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes's sittings in Quebec Street, London; that she had been in the spirit world over one hundred years; that she was eighteen years old when she went there; that her father was a pirate captain, known as "the pirate Morgan," but whose real name was King, and that this was her name.

Lippitt also questioned the materialized 'John King.'

. . . he said he was the same John King that produced the physical manifestations at Koontz's house in Ohio some years ago, and who accompanied the Davenports; that he died some two hundred years ago; that he was called "Commodore Morgan"; that he was not happy yet, "it requiring a very long time to atone for such deeds as his."


. . . he said he was born in 1636, and was knighted by Charles II.

 
At another sitting Katie returned a blank page of note paper with a handwritten letter stating —

Flowers are not trifles, as we might know from the care God has taken of them everywhere.  Not one unfinished; not one bearing the mark of a brush or pencil.

Fringing the eternal borders of mountain ranges; growing on the pulseless head of the gray old granite; everywhere they are harmonizing.

Murderers do not ordinarily wear roses in their button-holes.  Villains seldom train vines over their cottage doors.

Katie King

Lippitt mentioned the handwriting was unlike that of Mr. Holmes except for the formation of the two capital Ks.

But those who have investigated this strange subject tell us there is strong testimony tending to show the existence of a certain psychical relation between the alleged spirit and the medium, causing sometimes a resemblance between them in their modes of action, and even in their personal appearance.

Lippitt described the variety of characteristics he had seen among the many different faces that appeared during the seances.

The complexion of most of the faces was anything but natural.  Some of them, of a dead white, looked like plaster busts, and others more like wax figures than real flesh and blood.  Again, in all of them (except Katie King) there was, more or less, a fixedness of look and immobility of features.  This was even the case, in some degree, with John King while he was talking with us.

Now I closely watched Katie King's countenance through an opera glass every time she appeared, and I invariably saw that, on her face being first visible, the eyes, as well as her other features, were perfectly natural in their appearance, the eyelids having all the mobility of those of a living person; but several times, after her face had been a little longer visible than usual, the eyelids lost their mobility, the whites of the eyes became glassy, and began to prolong themselves downward, looking like viscid masses about to roll down her cheeks!  Of this change she always seemed to become suddenly conscious, hastily withdrawing her face from the window [curtained circular aperture in the materialization 'cabinet']; at which, after a few moments, it would appear again, with the eyes as natural as at first.

5.  Supposing Katie King to be a spirit, is she the identical Katie King that has been showing herself in London for the last three years to Professor Crookes and others?

The picture taken of her [Katie King] in London by magnesium light, in which Dr. Gully is seen holding her hand, represents a totally different person.  There is not the slightest trace of a likeness between them.

. . . our Katie seems to have been somewhat confused about her name.  At first she told us her father's real name was King, though he was known as "the pirate Morgan."  Afterward, she told us the reverse of this: that his real name was Morgan, and that her own name was "Annie Morgan."  At the London Katie's farewell appearance she gave her name as "Annie Owen de Morgan"; and though this was on the 21st of May last, nine days after our Katie King began her appearances in Philadelphia, she made no allusion to her exhibitions in America.

But whether she be "Miss de Morgan" or not, our American Katie would really seem to be the spirit of some English country girl who may have died two hundred years ago.  "Her speech bewrayeth her."  "Of course," she pronounces "of coorse"; "nice" she calls "noice"; "I'll thump you" she pronounced "I'll thoimp you."  Her favorite epithet "stupid" she pronounced like the English, and  not like most Americans, "stewpid."

Also in 1874, the book by Henry T. Child, M.D. was published Narratives of the Spirits of Sir Henry Morgan and His Daughter Annie, Usually Known as John and Katie King.  The book was subtitled: "Giving an Account of Their Earth Lives, and Their Experiences in Spirit Life for Nearly Two Hundred Years."  The narratives are comprised of descriptions of their separate experiences on Earth, the perspectives of each concerning their experiences in 'spirit life,' and 'joint experiences.' 

The narrative of John King includes a statement that Henry Morgan was "the name I had assumed, and by which I was always known during my earth-life."  One of the metaphysical perspectives stated in this narrative concerns the concept of a Judgment Day.

Much has been said of a day of judgment, and a great Judge.  I soon found that that day was all the time, and that Judge was the conscience in the interior depths of our own souls.

 
In the Introduction to the chapters about "Annie Morgan, usually known as Katie King," her narrative begins:

My dear friend and brother:—

I should be very sorry if you inferred from the manner in which I appear and speak to you and other friends when I am materialized, that that is a criterion of my present condition, and that the rude and trifling manner in which I sometimes express myself, on these occasions, is a real reflection of my interior state. 

 

. . . whenever a spirit approaches a medium, it must be more or less materialized, first to come into the atmosphere of the earth and then into that of the medium.  If it present itself in a materialized form it is obliged under a law to appear, as nearly as may be, as it was when it passed from the earth.  Thus a child of earth though grown to maturity in spirit-life, returns as a child.  Deformed persons present their deformities with precision.  This refers to their first appearances.  After much experience we are able to modify our forms, so as to approach nearer to our interior conditions.  Sometimes children after they have become accustomed to materialization, are able to present themselves in the adult form, to which they have attained in spirit-life.

Spirits retain not only the recollection of their earthly conditions and appearance, but also the power of assuming them in spirit-life whenever it is desirable.  You will see the importance of this power of maintaining or recurring to the primitive conditions of spirit-life at least for a time, and until all those to whom a recognition is necessary shall have passed into that state, and this power is retained, so as to be easily excercised until after all who are living on the earth at the time a spirit enters this world have also passed on, so that the new-born spirit can not fail to recognize its friends and relatives.

I am requested to say to you that all spirits when they return to earth, whether they communicate or not, are absolutely subject to this law. 

 

 

We intend to visit and aid mediums in this country and in Europe, wherever the conditions are at all favorable.

In the "Joint Experiences" narrative, a cited book is Modern American Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits (1870) by Emma Hardinge.  In the same chapter of Child's book, the manifestations experienced by the Davenport family are addressed and the statement is quoted by Child: "We desire you to give some of the statements that were recorded at that time, as made by us."

"I am to be known as 'John King.'  My mission is not to the select few, but to the millions; for I intend to demonstrate human immortality and spirit-power to the masses, till my name shall be a household word from one end of this continent to the other; aye, and even across the roaring seas shall it go . . ."

The narrative received by Child includes the declaration that ". . . the statements made by spirits under these conditions must be received by great caution, the conditions often interfering with the expression of the real sentiments . . . Mankind will learn this great truth, that communications from spirits are reliable in proportion to the perfection of the conditions, both of the spirit and the medium, at the time they are given."

This blog has profiled many extensively documented cases of transcendental communication.  Consistent readers may recall some advice similar to the preceding statement about "communications from spirits" as shared in one of the Direct Voice recordings documenting the mediumship of Leslie Flint when the speaker is identified as Dr. Cosmo Lang (1864-1945) as recorded on July 13, 1988 during a Leslie Flint Direct Voice seance:

"You see, you have to remember above all else probably that the Voice of the Spirit—although it is in a sense not limited—to some extent can only be utilized and given out according to the situation and the moment and the time when it takes place.  The Voice of the Spirit, as I put it in this fashion, is innumerable souls.  You may have a communication from one person and yet the majority of that which is being said by that person is due to the influence of innumerable other peoples who are also on the same, as it were, length — a wavelength as you term it and transmitting down through different vehicles of expression."

Milestone: This is blog post #250 when it doesn't seem all that long ago when I first started publishing articles under the title "Interesting Articles, Links and Other Media."  In the 2014 article "'Gef': A Modern Sphinx as an Esoteric Lesson about Oneness", I reported how the ultimate solution to many metaphysical riddles was presented to me.  It has been my inclination ever since to learn about other 'paranormal' cases and, as I wrote in the first blog post, "help readers find noteworthy sources of information concerning metaphysical and spiritual topics."