In June 1873, Florence Marryat and a number of friends formed “a home circle” and began “to sit together” every evening, sometimes until three o’clock in the morning. The results were startling. In There Is No Death (1891), she states that memoranda of these sittings extend over a period of years and that she only relates a few “verified” incidents. 

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The means by which the Marryat home circle communicated with the “influences”, was the usual one. They sat round the table, laid their hands upon it, and someone spelled over the alphabet. Raps or tilts occurred when the desired letter was pronounced, and once used to it, they got through vast amounts of conversations in just a few hours. Moreover, a good medium was soon able to guess the word that was intended to be spelt.

I have sinned much… But I am not a devil!

A certain spirit who listened to the name of “Valerie” came to their table on several occasions. Valerie only mentioned her name and refused to say anything more, so they all thought she was an idle and somehow “frivolous” spirit. But one evening, when Mr. Henry Stacke joined the circle, the name “Valerie” immediately came through.

“Who is this?” Mr. Stacke asked.

“O! She’s a little devil!” Florence replied carelessly.  “She never has anything to say!”

The table rocked violently and the taps answered in French: “Je ne suis pas un diable.” – What means: “I am not a devil!”

“So you can talk now, Valerie? Please tell us… who are you coming for?”

“Monsieur Stacke.”

Florence asked Valerie where she met him and the spirit answered: “On the Continent. In France. Between Dijon and Macon. In a railway carriage.”

“What where you doing there?” Florence asked, but now Valerie relapsed into French again, and she said that it was impossible for her to answer this question.

At this point Mr. Stacke observed that he had been only once in his life in a train between Dijon and Macon. If Valerie had been with him then, she sure would remember what was the matter with their fellow-passenger.

“O yes I do!” Valerie replied promptly. “He was crazy!”

“That’s correct,” Mr. Stacke said. He  also remembered that two ladies in the same carriage had been very frightened for some unknown reason. He had assisted them to get into another.

“Priez pour moi,” Valerie continued.

When Florence asked her, in French, why they had to pray for her, Valerie answered: “Because I have sinned much…”

And that was the last thing she said.

A tune of the time of Elizabeth I

There was a spirit who called himself Charlie. He said his full name was Stephen Charles Bernard Abbot. He had been a monk of great literary achievements, who had embraced monastic life in the reign of Queen Mary. He was killed for political reasons during the reign of Elizabeth and had been “earth bound” ever since.

One night, Charlie asked them to sing – but he objected greatly to the somewhat vulgar refrain of the song “Champagne Charlie”,  and asked for something more serious.

Florence started singing: “Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon.”

“This is as bad as the other!” Charlie said. “Drunken roisterers used to sing this song in the streets in Elizabeth’s time…”

“You must be mistaken, Charlie!” Florence answered. “It’s a well-known Scotch air.”

“It’s no more Scotch than I am,” Charlie said. “It’s a tune of Elizabeth’s time. Ask Brinley Richards.”

Mr. Richards was the great authority on the origin of National Ballads, and Florence knew him well. She applied to him for the information, and he said that Charlie was right – but Mr. Richards himself had not been aware of the fact until he had searched in the British Museum an old manuscript for it…

I cannot speak Welsh!

A young artist of the name of Courtney visited the home circle. One evening, when Florence sat alone with him at the table, a number of consonants was rapped out. Florence thought it to be nonsense, but Mr. Courtney appeared much interested and begged her to proceed. 

When the communication was finished, he said this was the most wonderful thing he had ever heard. His father had been at the table, talking to him in Welsh. “He talked to me about my birth-place and our relatives in Wales.”

“I didn’t know you were a Welshman,” Florence said.

He replied that his real name was Powell; he had only adopted the name of Courtney for professional purposes.

“This was all news to me,” Florence concluded. “And had it not been so… I cannot speak Welsh.”

Cover of There Is No Death

Related Articles:

There Is No Death, by Florence Marryat

At My First Seance, I Saw the Faces of the Dead

There Is No Death in Bruges-la-Morte

There Is No Death is being published fully online here: GhostWritings.