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Darkness of the Sages

(See Philosopher's Stone.) D'Ars, Cure : ( See France.) Davenport Brothers (Ian and William) : Two American mediums who gave séances for physical phenomena in

America and Britain during the decade 1860-70. They seem to have attained to a considerable measure of fame, and to have won a great many people to the belief that their performances were genuine spirit manifestations. On their coming to England in 1864 they were accompanied by a chaplain, the Rev. J. B. Ferguson, who helped to inspire confidence in their good faith. The usual plan of their séances was as follows: The Brothers Davenport took their seats vis-à-vis in a small walnut cabinet "made very like a wardrobe or clothes-press." Any two gentlemen from among the audience were requested to bind them firmly to their benches, so as to preclude any possibility of their freeing their hands. Musical instruments were then placed in the cabinet, apparently out of reach of the medium, and the lights were lowered. Soon the musical instruments began to play within the cabinet, dim "spirit hands" were seen in front of it. At the conclusion of the séance, however, the mediums were found tied as securely as ever. They met with a check, however, on their provincial tour, for at Liverpool there were two men among the audience who possessed the secret of a special knot. The "Tom Fool's knot," as it was called, baffled the spirits, and the mediums were mobbed. Later in a séance given before a committee of the Anthropological Society, they shirked nearly all the conditions, and succeeded in accomplishing nothing which could not be done by a skilful conjurer. Tolmagne, Anderson, and other conjurers emulated their feats, and Maskelyne and Cooke so successfully that mediums had no resource butto class themas "fellow-adepts." Davey, S. T.: A member of the Society for Psychical Research who in 1886 gave imitations of the slate-writing performances of Eglinton and Slade, with a view to exposing their fraudulent methods. By simple conjuring he succeeded in emulating all their feats. (See Slate-writing, Spiritualism.) Davies, Lady: Eleanor Tuchet, daughter of George, Lord

Audley, married Sir John Davies, an eminent lawyer in the time of James the First, and author of a poem of considerable merit on the Immortality of the Soul. This lady was a person of many talents; but what she seems most to have valued herself upon, was her gift of prophecy; and she accordingly printed a book of Strange and Wonderful Predictions. She professed to receive her prophecies from a spirit, who communicated to her audibly things about to come to pass, though the voice could be heard by no other person. Sir John Davies was nominated lord chief justice of the king's bench in 1626. Before he was inducted into the office, lady Eleanor, sitting with him on Sunday at dinner, suddenly burst into a passion of tears. Sir John asked her what made her weep. To which she replied "These are your funeral tears." Sir John turned off the prediction with a merry answer. But in a very few days he was seized with an apoplexy, of which he presently died. She also predicted the death of the duke of Buckingham in the same year. For this assumption of the gift of prophecy, she was cited before the high-commission-court and examined in 1634. Dee, John Davis, Andrew Jackson: Known as the "Poughkeepsie Seer" from his residence in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., was a prophet, clairvoyant, and mystic philosopher, who commenced his mission to the world about 1844, some time before the Rochester Rappings had inaugurated the movement known as "modern spiritualism." In 1847 he published a volume of trance discourses, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and A Voice to Mankind. In the same year he issued the first number of the Univercœlum, a periodical devoted to clairvoyance and trance phenomena generally, which continued till 1849. Not until 1850, however, did Davis and his followers identify themselves with the spiritualists. In his Revelations the Poughkeepsie Seer propounds his Harmonial Philosophy, afterwards to be elaborated in many volumes. His mission, revealed to him by Galen and Swedenborg, was the prophesying of a new dispensation, preceded by a social revolution. He was associated, throughout his career, with many prominent spiritualists.