Free Mrs. Wakeman vs. the Antichrist by Robert Damon Schneck Page B

answering their questions and making predictions. It haunted the Bell family and, since witchcraft was believed to be responsible for poltergeists, was known as the “Bell Witch.” Spiritualists accepted the reality of such phenomena but not the traditional explanations.
    Since Spiritualism “investigates, analyzes, and classifies facts and manifestations demonstrated from the Spirit side of Life,” it was scientific, a constituted sort of Industrial Revolution of the spirit comparable to the other developments transforming nineteenth-century life. 10 For believers, 1848 marked the beginning of a new era in which the veil that separated the living and dead was lifted and one could converse “with angels and spirits as man with man.” 11 The possibilities seemed limitless, and Article 2 of the 1876
Platform and Constitution of the New Hampshire State Convention of Spiritualists
stresses the application of Spiritualism to “practical life,” which would certainly include finding your own gold mine. 12
Seance in the Pines
    The prospectors were Fred Beck; his father-in-law, Marion Lefever Smith (called “Hank” in
I Fought the Apemen
); Smith’s nineteen-year-old son, LeRoy; Gabe Lefever (probably Smith’s cousin or nephew); John Peterson; and an unnamed man not present when the apes attacked.
    Beck does not describe how they actually looked for gold beyond calling it “psychic,” though a contemporary newspaper states, “It is said all five men are Spiritualists and hold frequent séances in the woods.” 13 Each member of the party was “psychically sensitive,” but as someone with experience in Spiritualist meetings, it is reasonable to assume that Beck played a leading role as medium.
    Mediumship is the psychic ability to communicate with discarnate intelligences, including gods, angels, and spirits of the dead, through various mental and physical means. Mental mediums use automatic writing, automatic speech, clairaudience (psychically “hearing” voices, music, etc.), and inner visions, while physical mediums produce the more spectacular external phenomena: object movement, audible sounds and voices, levitation, ectoplasm (a polymorphic substance from the medium’s body), production of apports (solid objects like fruit, flowers, or live animals), and the materialization of spirits. Beck and his party experienced a variety of physical manifestations during their years at Mt. St. Helens.
One Comforting and One Great Spirit
    The men began prospecting in 1916 reportedly by holding séances and contacting spirits. They included “Vander White,” who was a “comforting friend” but not much help in findinggold mines, and a second being that did not manifest until August 1922, but showed them where to dig. According to
I Fought the Apemen
, a large Indian dressed in buckskin appeared to us and talked to us. He was the picture of stateliness itself. He never told us his name, but we always called him the Great Spirit. He replied once, “The Great Spirit is above me. We are all of the Great Spirit, if we listen when the Great Spirit talks.”
    More to the point:
    The big Indian being told us there would be a white arrow [going] before us. Another man, who was not present during the attack in 1924, could see the arrow easily and clearly at all times. And I could see it nearly as well.
    So we started by the Lewis River, south of Mt. St. Helens, and went up the Muddy River, and in all we followed the white arrow four days. The going was slow, for in those days it was very rugged territory. Hank’s temper was growing short as he climbed the hills. He had always been a believer of spiritual things, and afterwards he was a believer. But he lost his temper and cussed. He swore at the spirit leading us. His face was red and we could not stop him: “Just a wild goose chase,” he exclaimed, “they lied to us, and got us