My name is Wesley Herod. In the year 1884, when I was 40 years of age, I took office

in the United States Congress, representing the State of Virginia. I found myself dealing

with all manner of political issues that year, large and small. One of the most minor

required me to sit on an unpublished committee whose charge it was to deal with a growing

problem in some large Eastern cities, namely the fleecing of the public by spiritualists

and fortune-tellers. There was no regulation on such activities then, and complaints about

shysters passing themselves off as mediums and psychics, poured into politicians' files

at a shocking rate. The problem became so great that Congress itself appointed five men

to hold informal hearings on the subject. I became involved with the committee as a favor

to a colleague. On one of my first vacation days from Congress, I volunteered to attend

a seance with another congressman, Mr. Thomas Branch of Georgia, to see for ourselves what

sort of hoxedrism was being passed off in Washington. The seance was held in a brownstone

at 11th Street and C by a Mrs. Evelyn Crowdy, who charged a handful of spectators $4 each

to witness her attempt to contact the deceased wife of a man named Grantham. He and I sat

in a dark living room with three other men and watched, as Mrs. Crowdy blew out every

candle in the room, then took Mr. Grantham's hand to begin the ceremony. Mr. Grantham had

been visibly aggrieved from the moment he entered the house, and the atmosphere was spectacularly

unsettling. I was already quite angered at Mrs. Crowdy's indifference toward her guest's

plight. What a cruel sham she had staged, I thought, what cheek to do this to a suffering

man. After a couple of minutes of silence, Mrs. Crowdy addressed the spirit world at length,

and eventually spoke directly to Grantham's wife. Crowdy invited her to make her presence

known through sound. It was raining that night, and soon after Crowdy stopped speaking, all

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