Doctor Wood. Modern Wizard of the Laboratory: The Story of an American Small Boy Who Became the Most Daring and Original Experimental Physicist of Our Day-but Never Grew Up

He has, on the contrary, an impatient, biting scorn for all “psychic” and spiritualist mediums, whether amateur or professional, who claim communion with the dead — and has taken a fiendish delight in skinning a lot of them. He got out of patience some years ago with a doctor acquaintance who had suddenly discovered wonderful psychic gifts in his wife while fiddling with the ouija board. This doctor usually had a finger or two of his own on the board while it was scrambling to and fro along the alphabet, and later when they graduated to the planchette, he still kept his own fingers on the little table. Presently a furor was created by the announcement that the doctor’s wife had pulled a poem out of the infinite — in an ancient, unknown language. Taken to an authority on obscure ancient dialects, it proved to be in Old Icelandic. It was the copy of an actual poem which had been written centuries ago, the original being in the British Museum. Later Wood learned, however, that reproductions had appeared in a printed journal as late as the eighteenth century — and he smelt a very smelly rat. There was no way, however, to smoke the rat out of its hole. You couldn’t prove that sort of thing. You couldn’t prove that the doting doctor husband had copied the poem and simply reproduced it via his wife and her planchette. But later they made the mistake of inviting Wood to one of their spirit hunts, and offered to raise a spook for him. The host said:

“Is there anyone whom you knew well and who has died quite recently — preferably one who has ‘gone over’ no longer than a year or two ago?”

“Yes”, said Wood, “I’d very much like something from Lord Rayleigh”. Lord Rayleigh, the great British physicist, had died just a little while before. Wood wanted no wishy- washy wraiths. He asked for a tough one.

They put their hands on the board, and the host said repeatedly, “Lord Rayleigh, are you with us?” Presently the planchette wrote “Yes”, and the host said to Wood, “Have you any question to ask by which he can establish his identity?”

“Yes, I should like any remembrance he has of Terling”. Terling was the name of Lord Rayleigh’s country place. Presently the planchette began to tremble, and soon neatly wrote, “The ring of the stones on the swept ice”.

The rat was in the bag! The literarily gifted spook-summoner had tangled the word with “curling”, the Scotch game in which heavy flat stones are skidded over ice which has been swept clean with a broom. Wood was a guest, so he contained his contempt, and bade the doctor and his wife good night.

Sometimes these sources of seemingly spirit-inspired knowledge are not easy to trace. After Wood had begun to learn most of the tricks and their answers, he couldn’t refrain, of course, from occasionally using them, and hoisting his credulous friends by their own petards. The victims of his most celebrated hoax were Professor Hyslop of Columbia and Sir Oliver Lodge. Pure chance, in that case, had supplied him with the mysterious necessary knowledge. While crossing to England he’d been introduced on the boat to an attractive young widow who wanted his advice. Her husband had gone down on the Titanic. Subsequently she had met Professor Hyslop, who took her to a medium. She had an elaborately bound, typewritten report of all the sittings, and no human being save herself, the medium, and Hyslop had ever laid eyes on it. Now she wanted Wood to read it, and he did. Most of the messages were the usual clichés such as “waiting for you”, “happy in this new life”, etc., etc. But there was one phrase which had an element of novelty, on the page which recorded the dead husband’s thoughts immediately before the boat went down:

“I am standing on the bridge near the captain… we are going down… the water is rising… it’s up to my knees… to my waist… to my shoulders… this is the end. The engines are coming up!”

Now what could that have been intended to mean? Wood wondered. The widow too had puzzled over it. Perhaps a rush of steam as the water reached the furnaces? Not likely. It stuck in Wood’s memory like a cocklebur, because it was peculiar. The lady was on her way to London, where she was to meet Professor Hyslop again. He was going to take her to a celebrated English medium from whom they hoped to get what the psychical researchers call “cross references”. Wood, arriving in England, was the house guest for a few days of Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge.

After dinner on the second day (Wood tells me) Sir Oliver said, “Oh, by the way, we have another guest arriving tomorrow who is your countryman”. “Who is it?” I asked. “Professor Hyslop of Columbia”, replied Sir Oliver.