MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

At the turn of the century, New York was the destination of a large number of European immigrants. On February 12, 1897, a steamship of the company White-Star landed among its passengers a native of Transylvania. William Barret, who was among the crowd of onlookers who crowded on the dock, immediately identified this exotic origin because the man wore the typical costume of the region and Barret collected paper figures to cut out with regional costumes from around the world. In fact, since he was a child, he had been interested in that region of Eastern Europe in which so many horror stories were set. His father was very fond of this literary genre and used to read passages to his son before going to bed. No wonder then that little Barret fell asleep in Maths class. Unlike his own bedroom, where he couldn’t sleep a wink, Maths were safe, Maths weren’t scary. From that time, he suffered from a nervous tic consisting in looking continuously at all sides in view of a possible danger. Para...

Don’t get the wrong idea that communication with the dead is an easy thing. Communication with the living ones is already quite complicated, so imagine with the dead! Because we don’t talk about the dead who have followed the advise of any self-respecting death manual (the Tibetan Book of the Dead, for example), which warn you about the necessity of heading for the Light-at-the-End-of-the-Tunnel. No. The dead we are talking about are like the one who is invited to a party and, instead of knocking on his host's door, remains wandering the stairs without knowing whether to go up or down. To put it bluntly: they are a little weird. The minutes of the séances that we find in the archives of the Society for Psychical Research, either in London or in New York, prove it. The following example corresponds to a séance that took place on the night of November 24 in a luxurious apartment on New York's Fifth Avenue. Eight months earlier, a wealthy stockbroker whom we will call Mister Smith...

The baptism by fire for the American Society for Pchychical Research was a most talked-about event. At that time (the year was 1884), the ASPR had only five members, and all were eager to start investigating. So when the first case turned up, it was the five of them en bloc who got ready to look into it. At that time, the Society already had a small network of spies or informants. You know?, the investigation of paranormal phenomena presents similarities with criminal investigations. One needs informants in the streets, people with eyes and ears wide open to find out anything unusual that is happening. In those early times, however, the network of informants of the ASPR was very small. In fact it consisted of only one man, Jerry Bonanno, although this man was located in the right place. Bonanno was a waiter in McDermont’s Old Ale House, a Lower East Side saloon which was a kind of magnet for paranormal guys. Mediums, clairvoyants, telepaths ... all came together in that place at the e...

Sir William Barret stayed a few more months in New York overseeing the details of the founding of the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research. Among other things, he had the mission to recruit talented scientists willing to devote their research to paranormal phenomena. People with a rationalist mentality capable of "separating the wheat from the chaff" as he used to say. Naturally, when it came to renowned scientists, he visited them personally to invite them to join the project. But also many unknown scientists who aspired to be part of the ASPR passed through his office. He had placed an ad in the New York Times requesting "brilliant minds accustomed to separating the wheat from the chaff", which motivated many peasants to pass through his office. It was necessary to withdraw the announcement and write another one without metaphors that could give rise to misunderstandings. However, at the beginning many screwballs also passed through his office. ...

The first meeting of Sir William Barret with Madame Blavatsky, founder and undisputed head of the Theosophical Society, was most curious. Almost a paranormal phenomenon in its own right. It turns out that at that time William James had joined the Theosophical Society and was impatient for his friend to meet this extraordinary woman. The headquarters of the aforesaid Society were located in New York, where Barret was staying, so he had no problem being introduced to such a famous woman. On the contrary, he had heard wonders about her paranormal abilities, so he felt a natural curiosity. James had not warned of their visit, so when both Williams showed up at Madame Blavatsky's residence, no one was waiting for them. They found the door open and James invited his friend to go inside with the familiarity of someone who knows that he is welcome in other people's home. They walked down a long corridor without seeing a living creature. Puzzled, James began to shout (Barret had the im...