The mediumship of Elizabeth Hope (Her year of birth seems uncertain,
some say 1849 whilst others say 1855 - Her year of passing however
seems to be in agreement -1919), she lived most of her life abroad worked under the pseudonym of
Mme. d'Esperance. She is not only an example of the quality evidence
available through physical mediumship, but also, the problems that
occurred in respect of female mediums in Victorian England.
She won an honoured place both in the annals of psychical
research and in the esteem and friendship of many great
scientists of her age.
She was "queer" from childhood. Saw "shadow
people" where there was but a blank space. Later, in the
dark, she could see a luminous cloud assuming human shapes. She
took a pencil and sketched a form which nobody else had seen.
There came a strange discovery.
The sketches were recognised as portraits of the dead.
A period of great excitement followed. Madame d'Esperance studied
for a few months to improve her natural sketching talent. But as
she progressed her power to see waned. Every attempt was followed
by a violent headache.
T. P. Barkas, an alderman of Newcastle, initiated a scientific
investigation of her strange powers. As a lecturer on
popular science he became deeply interested in this girl of
limited education who, through automatic writing, set out to prove that
all his science was wrong.
A definite personality appeared to be behind these scripts. It claimed to be one Humnur Stafford, a long-dead philosopher.
For one who was long dead he was very up to date. Very minutely
he described an instrument which, according to Alderman Barkas, later
proved to be the telephone, and also another by which messages would be
forwarded to a great distance in the original handwriting.
The remarkable re-education of Alderman Barkas paled into insignificance by subsequent happenings.
Sitting in a dark cabinet, Madame d'Esperance became conscious of
a curious disturbance. The air seemed to be agitated as though a
bird were fluttering about, and she felt as if fine threads were
being drawn out of the pores of her skin.
The sitters in front of the cabinet grew excited. High
above the curtain they saw a face with merry, laughing eyes, but -
without a body.
Materialization. That mystery of mysteries.... The apparent
birth and flowering into full growth of human shapes from that
peculiar bodily substance called ectoplasm.
Witness Professor Charles Richet, the world famous physiologist
of the Sorbonne, by no means a spiritualist, writing in his
Thirty Years of Psychical Research:
"I shall not waste time in stating the absurdities, almost the
impossibilities from the psycho-physiological point of view
of this phenomenon. A living being, or living matter,
formed under our eyes, which has its proper warmth, apparently a
circulation of blood, and a physiological respiration, which has
also a kind of psychic personality, having a will distinct from the
will of the medium, in a word, a new human being. This is
surely the climax of marvels. Nevertheless, it is a fact."
This is what happened, in Madame d'Esperance's own words, when Yolande,
photographed above, a young Arab phantom companion, was suddenly
seized:
"All I knew was a horrible, excruciating sensation of being
doubled up and squeezed together, as I can imagine a hollow
gutta-percha doll would feel, if it had sensation, when violently
embraced by its baby owner.
"A sense of terror and agonizing pain came over me, as though I
were losing hold of life and were falling into some fearful
abyss, yet knowing nothing, hearing nothing, except the echo of a
scream I heard as at a distance.
"I felt I was sinking down, I knew not where.
"I tried to save myself, to grasp at something, but missed it;
then came a blank from which I awakened with a shuddering horror - and
sense of being bruised to death."
For Madame d'Esperance vowed never to sit within the cabinet again, but
to exhibit herself and the phantoms at the same time.
She kept faith . "Ghosts" trooped in and out. They worried sceptical scientists to
death.
Requests to attend her seances continued to be made by various
persons. One was William Oxley, and in the seance that he attended on
the 4th of August 1880, a magnificent plant of nearly two feet in height
was brought to him; it was later found to be an Ixora Crocata, native
to India. The production of magnificent flowers into the seance room
was a common occurrence. The greatest accomplishment in this respect
was on the 28th June 1890, when Yolande apported a seven-foot high
Golden Lily. She explained that she had only borrowed it, and it had
to be returned; not having the power to dematerialize the plant, it
was kept in the property in the meantime, but 'then vanished in an
instant, filling the room with an overpowering perfume'.
Madame d'Esperance grew old. But Yolande remained young and
beautiful. Three times was she grabbed, and three times was the
medium brought to the verge of death.
The last was the most harrowing ordeal. In Helsingfors in 1893 a
sitter lost his reason. He assaulted the phantom girl.
There were frightful consequences. The medium's hair turned
white. For two years she was confined to bed.
