On page 497 of the October 20, 1906 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, we read an account of a seance with the medium C. V. Miller. The account is a summary of a German account by Joseph Peter given on page 586 of the periodical here. In the German account we have a diagram showing the viewing conditions, a typical affair in which a small portion of a room sealed off by curtains is designated as a "cabinet," and witnesses view various spooky phenomena arising from such a "cabinet." In the top left of the diagram we see an area marked "K" which is the "cabinet" referred to in the narrative below. The "t" in the diagram designates windows. In seances such as these the area designated as a "cabinet" would always be searched to make sure it was empty at the beginning of the seance, or that it contained only the medium.
We read the following in the account in the periodical Light:
"While Miller still sat outside the cabinet, the voice of ‘Betsy,’ his control, was heard from within the curtains, and there were some luminous appearances. After the medium had entered the cabinet various forms were seen, which did not come out of the cabinet, but appeared in front of the curtains, usually quite suddenly and unexpectedly, but in one case a luminous ball 'gradually assumed a human shape in full view of the company. The forms were not well seen on account of the dim light, and the features could not be recognised ; the outlines often appeared ill-defined. The first to appear claimed to be Frederika Hauffe, the ‘ Seeress of Prevorst,' who came again later, and spoke both times in German. Colonel Peter says expressly : ' I have repeatedly spoken with Mr. Miller ; he cannot speak the pure, fluent German used by the phantom.’
Soon afterwards, three forms were seen together in front of the cabinet, and one appeared to wear a shining diadem. They disappeared simultaneously, and soon a man’s form introduced himself by name to Mme. Nœggerath, and asked that his wife be told that he had shown himself. He passed in front of the semi-circle of sitters, and dematerialised at about a yard from Colonel Peter, taking leave of the company as he sank down to the ground. 'Mother Shipton,’ the English prophetess of three hundred years ago, also purported to appear, and then a little Indian girl, 'Susie,' came suddenly into the circle, no one could tell how. She said she had materialised behind Mme. Nœggerath's chair. A child's figure sang an American nursery rhyme, and then came the development of ' Dr. Benton ’ from a luminous ball. Immediately after this form had disappeared, ' Betsy ’ herself materialised (she had from time to time given explanations, apparently by the direct voice).... Some of the sitters saw her dark face and arms. She disappeared suddenly, with a hasty farewell, as almost all the apparitions seen at this séance did—as suddenly as a light when it is extinguished. Miller came out of the cabinet almost at the same moment.
After remarking that the séance was not hold for the purpose of convincing sceptics, and that it was given disinterestedly to a few personal friends of the hostess, Colonel Peter gives his opinion as follows :— ' To the initiated, the phenomena at this sitting are convincing as regards their genuineness. The forms, though not plainly seen in detail, wore all so full of life, so genuinely human in their movements and general appearance, that none of the sitters had the slightest doubt of their reality. The voices were entirely different, not only in timber, but also in compass and articulation, and always characteristic....Then, again, the phantoms, without exception, both appeared and disappeared in front of the curtain ; moreover, one form materialised before our eyes, and another gradually dematerialised in full view. I consider it simply impossible to produce such a spectacle as this dematerialisation, under the same circumstances and in the same surroundings, by any trick or artifice whatever.' "
Although the events described may seem too astonishing to be credible, very many witnesses over many years in quite a few countries claimed to have seen very similar marvels at seances, particularly seances called materialization seances. Witnesses at such seances would often report human forms or speaking human figures mysteriously appearing and mysteriously disappearing, in a way they were utterly unable to account for. Such seances would almost always occur in private homes that offered no opportunity for stagecraft such as you might do in a theater equipped with trap doors and platforms that can rise and fall with the help of unseen stage workers. You can read about such accounts in my eleven posts with a tag of "materialization," all of which can be read here by a reader continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right.
The account given above is similar to one given on page 219 of the periodical here, where we read Walter Appleyard tell of a seance in which "a luminous ball forming in the centre over the cabinet" appeared to transform into sights described as "two human forms."
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