St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 42

SUNDAY MORNING ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH JUNE 2, 1901 ST. LOUIS WOMAN DRAWS UNDER SPIRIT INFLUENCE Impelled by a Power Outside Herself and Without Art, Education or Previous Experience She Has Made Pictures Which She Believes Represent the Flora of the Planet Mars. 1 9 4 1 "Td f' if rrr" Id 0 Ste'S' The Tlotos, Like latige white pohd xilv. lnjJiPl.T: AMD PJT3K. FLOWERS OH OBXEN PlAliT.

hairy gkawulmlj OH FLOWERS Oil PL ATI T. THE PL ATiT 15 X1KE A CACTU6 JW3D CRJCL6 OVER AJIYI.0W JTiD 6REEH. WW I W' These pictures have been made for the Sunday by photographing upon 2inc directly from Mrs. Wiess original colored drawings. The colors could not be reproduced, but are indicated in the captions.

1 1 4- 7 1 yfe WMM. A I VvXX m- i mWm fS- asm A if fj rinM re. tw, rltr. Tfie leader of this band of people in the spirit world is De Lester, who died in Alsace, France, 200 years ago. Why he chose me to become the medium of their intelligence I could never understand, for I was neither artist nor author and was, in addition, really too weak to work.

I did just a little each day, and It was not until alter two years that I completed the work. "When the spirit band told me to do it 1 protested, saying I could not write and could not draw anything. But my arm passed beyond my control and I would clutch my pencil and write or draw faster than the eye could follow the hand. I never knew what I was to write or what I was to draw. I was forbidden privilege of looking over what I had done until tne whole work was complete.

This band of people in the spirit world visited Mars. They wanted me to write what they told me and make such Illustrations as Aaron Foole, one of their number, would control. I protested continuously that it was ridiculous for me to attempt these things, but they did not heed my protests, and the work went on. My subject was really the flora of Mars. They told me a great deal of the planet itself, of the people and places, but I was for the most part informed as to the plants and flowers, and all the illustrations of which I was made the medium were confined to this feature of the planet.

I had always been a lover of flowers, but had little technical knowledge of them. I had always been interested in astronomy without knowing much about it. I sometimes think it was because of my natural interests in these subjects that I was g.l"-en the assignment that fell to me. When I was told to make my flower picture in colors I protested that I had no colors. I was then commanded to get colored pencils at a certain store on Olive street, here in Louis.

I was with a friend when this command came. She went to the store and returned with the pen This band of people say that in Mars the name of the planet is known as En to. It is so familiar to our own Earth in contour that one would scarce realize it if carried away in sleep and left on the planet Mars. The people there are milch larger than we, averaging more than a foot taller. They are a handsome race, and have a complexion unlike any on our earth.

It is almost golden. The people are all under one supreme ruler, and are, intensely religious. They believe the sun the abiding place of God. They have a horror of darkness, and the land is continually illumined, being lighted at night by means of great towers covering the whole face of the planet. The people of Ento call themselves the Entoans.

They are much like our own people In many things. They are physically the same, and have many similar custom. They have progressed beyond us in some things, notably In engineering, and in other things they are much behind us. They know very little of the science of geology. We eclipse the Entoans in the science of astronomy.

They have fine instruments, but their planet is perfectly level, and they are without natural heights from which to make their observations. Their planet Is divided into provinces, and these are ruled by governors. These governors wear robes of state much resembling the gowns of our higher courts. The people of Ento have no beasts of burden. They have an animal much resembling the horse, but not exactly the same.

They have animals with one eye in the back of the head and one in front instead of the arrangement Upon our earth. I questioned De Lester closely when he told me this, protesting that It must be a mistake. He assured me it was not, and told roe we had once such beasts ourselves. 1 have since then seen references to such animals in some of our works on natural history of former periods. The work was slow and exhausting.

It left me almost without strength after glv- AW. RED ATiL GRXEU lng an hour to it. Almost every part of it was done with some difficulty. For instance, when we undertook the picture of the plant designated as the hairy crawler, Aaron Poole told me this plant grew on a rockery before a temple. I tried and tried to make such a rockery, but he was unable to control me for it, and we were compelled to abandon the attempt and put the plant on a trellis.

My drawing must have been a great effort for the artist controlling me. He always stood Just behind me and guided my hand. I had no skill at drawing and did my work clumsily and stiffly despite the guiding hand. My Instructor talked to me a great deal and laughed many times at little things. He is very witty.

Since my work has been complete I have done nothing with it. Artist friends who have seen my pictures say they are very good, especially, for one who could never before and cannot now draw anything. The band of people who controlled me for the work have left It wholly with me, and 1 never receive from them any command as to the disposition to be made of tt. They told me I was to follow their directions for the Information of people on our earth. 'THIS OWWOHDER.

PJLATiXT UZ1 TH FIVE YELX. 0 BUD3. IT OROWS TlOCK'T 61E PLACES OK PICTURES in colors of the flowers ot Mars, made by a woman who cannot draw, and written stories of the Martian people are the remarkable product of spiritualism in the St. Louis homo ot Air. and Mrs.

Adolpb M. Wiess, 4326 Cook avenue. Both Mr. and Mrs. "Wies-s are spiritual-lets.

But it is Mrs. Wiess who has written the stories and drawn the pictures. They talked to the Sunday Tost-Dispatch. at their home. They are cultured people in the afternoon of life.

They live in comfort. They believe Mrs. Wiess has been made the medium through whom persons who have passed to the spirit world wish to communicate with people of our earth. They know who these people are. They know who is the artist.

They know everything except this: Why was Mrs. Wiess, neither author nor artist, made the medium vt this elaborate intelligence an illustrated work on the flora of Mars? It is not their expression to say of Mr. and Mrs. Wiess that they believe the wife has beer spiritually controlled for this work. In their own words, they know it.

They ask no one to believe. Here are the pictures and the stories. They are not offered as proof of anything. They and Mrs. Wiess simply offer them as information for those who believe.

They keep them in their own home, unpublished, now a family treasure for seven years. Mrs. Wiess is a handsome lady of something upward of 50 years. She is not a clairvoyant in the popular understanding of the term. She is not one of "these people to whom one may run to catch a glimpse of the future.

She is what many aother good housewife of St. Louis Is a plrltuallst in the privacy of her own home. She has exceptional intellectuality. This Is the story of her experience as she re-luted it to the Sunday Foot-Dispatch, telling it as delightfully and giving as little provocation to doubt as though she were telling of a journey of yesterday to places whither any who will may go and see for themselves. By MRS.

A. M. WIESS. I AM willing to tell my story as a simple relation of my experiences, without desiring to engage in any controversy as to Its truth, and without asking any to believe. I would not think of expecting that it will bo credited by persons who to not believe in spiritualism.

But I am none the less willing to relate it to them, only asking that, if it is true that they have never investigated spiritualism and know nothing about it, they withhold any criticism upon my story until such time as they shall have carefully investigated the faith and shall then be qualified to pass Judgment upon things pertaining to it. I became a spiritualist years ago through a remarkable manifestation. My husband and myself had a dear friend in Will Cox, a young man ho had been very near to us. He had consumption, and died in Texas. Prior to his death 1 had entered into this compact with him.

If there is another Hfd than this the first of us to pass into it was to notify the other. Three years alter his death 1 was seized with a violent shaking of the right arm while sitting at a table in my home. raised my arm from the table and the shaking stopped. It resumed whenever the arm touched the table. I was seized with an Impulse to write, and took a pencil and paper.

My hand raced wildly, making unintelligible markings for a time and finally causing the pencil to write "Will 1 was not then a spiritualist. But when my friend thereupon reminded mo of the compact and told me there was auother life 1 was convinced and have never since doubted. Seven years ago I was an invalid. During my convalescence a band of peoplo in Hie iliit world mude me the medium through which they wrote and illustrated a work on the planet Mars and Us flowers. hav alwaya kpt th manuscript and the pictures, but have never attempted to publish them.

FRENCH ARTISTS DRAW UPSIDE DOWN, WITH CLENCHED FIST AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Strange, Weird and Wonderful Products of Parisian Pencils on Exhibition Ascribed to Supernatural Influences Acting as Controlling Forces on Ramous Men. HENRI DUMAY, Former By lshed. Some are head. but, fuH-lPTiftll figures or groups, cithers decorative pn' or landscapes.

Again, there are crazy mixtures of several pictures In one. or scratching mysterious sentences that no one can read. Curious manifestations of this kind are not of recent occurrence exclusively. As a matter of fact, they have been observed and reported in America as well as in Europe since a good many years. The records of the several hundred other Journalists reporting the Dreyfus trial.

One evening on the humming terrace of the cafe, which the English and American correspondents had made their principal headquarters, Stevens of the London Daily Mail, who since died at the siege of Iady-smith, suddenly dropped out of the general Professor of French at Washington University, Now Paris Corespondent of the Sunday Post-Dispatch. PARIS, May 27. By FERNAND DESMOULIN. OT only do I fall to explain what various societies for pychlcal research are all forgot about the "trance" of our friend. But in view of similar cases now taking place In Paris, It seems to gain a deal of significance.

Not that those pencil sketches of Stevens Were works of art far from that. But they were executed under our eyes with lightning speed; tho models were not present; yet each was a surprisingly resemblant of somewhat caricatural portrait. And the man who did them could not draw. Rut her puzzling, isn't It? This Isolated Instance, however.ls as nothing to the 322 large drawings which M. N' power I obey In tracing thrsa lines, but I disllka their artistic forms.

It full of mysterious happenings told by wit- conversation and In no time had drffwn on HE French capital is discussing a se ries of disquieting phenomena which, though they are authenticated be nesses who, whether deluded or not, can scarcely be suspected of bad faith. It was at least fifteen years ago when Mark Twain wrote a long magazine article telling his belief In telepathic correspond- I am anything In art, I am a sober-minded, healthy realist. Now, these tatidscanea verge on Impressionism, and soma of the figures resemble those of Itodin. On tht other hand, there are some composition that with their lack of precision evok r-m- yond reasonable doubt by the high standing of the persons concerned with them, can- cils. When I worked with them Aaron Foole always told me which color to use.

When I made thd rodel, the national flower of Mars, 1 was at a loss to know how to make a white flower. Aaron Foole showed me how It could be done with a black pencil on white paper. This rodel is much like a great pond lily. Its flower la almost as large as a saucer. I became very familiar with members of the band which worked with me, coming to know Aaron Foole so well I always addressed him as Aaron.

We learned to understand each other better as we worked, but it was always more or less difficult to get things straight. It was all plain, and yet there was something about it that made it exceedingly laborious. I sometimes could not catch his meaning well when De Lester told me of the people of Mars and their journeys to the planet. De Lester is a magnificent character. He was a Frenchman.

Humboldt, the naturalist. Is one of the members of this spirit band. Aaron Foole, the artist, frequently told me things of himself. He died at Philadelphia 40 years ago, and had been by profession an artist. He made all the pictures of flowers through me.

Of myself 1 could draw nothing. My experiences in the beginning were quite painful. I would resist the attempt to make me draw, and my arm would be taken from my own control. 1 would grasp the pencil and raco my hand wildly with It, sometimes until I begged my controllers to stop. I made the flower pictures with swift strokes, never knowing what I was making and always watching with great interest to see what the drawing would develop.

I would begin a picture of a flower at some remote leaf of the plant, and frequently failed to see anything tangible in it until the drawing was almost done. The Ulrlts gave me the Martian name for all the flowers pictured, and gave me also a translation in our language. They told me whero some of the flowers grow. Of one they failed to give the name, merely telling me that In our language we might call it "Niob In Tears" because of the BUgges-tivo ehauo ot the flower. not be explained satisfactorily by scientists ence and the materialization of spirits.

And Fernand Desmoulin produced under tho In- nlMreiifs of I-anoret and atteau. All of fluence of some will power which was not wncn Is entirely foreign to all my Instincts. his. a sheet of paper half a dozen pencil portraits of some of the celebrities of the affairDreyfus, Clemenceau, Zola, Mercler and one or two others. After awhile he stopped as abruptly as he had begun, leaving his last sketch unfinished and looking at what he had done with unmistakable amazement.

"Stevens, I did not know you could draw," said one of us. "I can't; I swear I can't! My, but this Is strange. I never was conscious of doing these; I was listening to the talk. Boys, 1 couldn't do these over to save my life." In fact, he tried to finish the drawing tho "spirit" had abandoned, but he was unequal to the task. He laughed, discarding tho story carelessly as a pleasantry without importance.

But Stevens (he did not try to convinco us) left almost Immediately with a disturbed countenance, holding his paper as though he were afraid of it. A few days afterward those sketches sp I could not produce drawings Ilka these lf I tried. As a matter of fact, were this my own work I should be very much ashamed of Ua many weaknesses. I regard all these picture with disinter ested feeling. I Judge them with absolute independence, for they are not mine.

Being a strong man, full of animal spirits, I had always laughed at spiritualistic man IfexUtlons, which I considered the silly delusions of weak-minded, nervous people. On the Kth of June last year I was at the house of a friend with two or three acquainted families. While the grown folks M. Desmoulin Is not a humbug, but a man whose talent as an engraver and painter has won for him a great situation In Paris. He Is, moreover, a man of character and serious csst of mind, an Intimate friend of Emllo Zola, a chevalier de la Legion d'Hon-neur, etc.

This being known, it will be readily understood thfit he Is bound to be distressed rather than pleased by the special notoriety of being a medium." The word and the position Invite sneer and ridicule, and Fernand Desmoulin wants neither. On the other hand, he deemed It cow- or philosophers. For instance, people who never knew the faintest thing about drawing feel suddenly Impelled by a mysterious force to seize a pencil and then draw striking likeness of men or women they never meet. Again, artists while quietly engaged In painting a canvas cannot restrain their handy, which are suddenly seized with uncontrollable frenzy, from destroying in rapid strokes of the brush the work In course of execution, and then replacing it by some weird head or landscape. To cite specific cases: A celebrated engraver, Fernand Desmoulin, says- with clenched fist draws uncanny or beautiful things, sometimes with the paper upside down, often in the middle of the night and in absolute darkness.

Victorien Sardou as eoon as ho learned fhln rforlares that he himself, while engaged later (In 1S94, if memory Is precise) Hamlin Garland, the American novelist and historian, told the present writer about facts of the same order which had happened to him (Garland) or in his presence, and had puzzled him ever since. In France Camilla Flammarlon, the astronomer; Clovis Hughes, the poet and statesman; James Tissot, the painter; Victorien Sard6u, the playwright, and De Bo-das, the merchant prince, are but few ot the great names which could bo cited among the believers of spiritualism who have proclaimed their faith long ago, basing their belief not on Idle report, but on personal experiences. Likewise in Germany, England and elsewhere believers in the mysterious realm" can boast of very serious champions for their creed. Th Paris correspondent of the Sunday Post-Dispatch Is very skeptical lu these peared In a Paris paper with a short un- ardly to keep from the public facts which were conversing among Ihemselve. Ave lit tie boys and girls were playing at "turning tables" In a corner of the largfc parlor where we were.

Now, that table suddenly did tjrn turn signed article describing the circumstances nilght furnish valuable data for lnvesttga- of their execution, but leading the "me- tlon. And so he bravely consented to tell dium" unnamed. Evidently Stevens had full his weird experience and to exhibit In the belief in what he had told us. or would not Vetlt Art Gallery a selection of KM of these have allowed that to be done. To us he drawing.

He calls them 'medlitnlmlques" never mentioned It Wain, and as there was ---that Is. executed through a medium, lots to keep ever body busy those days, we Some are mere sketches, others Unci fia- in writlne. has freauenllv been amazed to matters. But acting simply as a truthful Continued on the Next Fags let Tola see his hand become as possessed and per- let him tell of a strango case fectly independent of his will, sketching which came under his observation less than arc.titcctural subjects. Intricate ornaments, two years ago while he waa at Kcnncs with jUgaxia..