Observations placeholder
Foster, Charles H - Dr. John Ashburner when called to Foster's bedside
Identifier
020437
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
from the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology | 2001
Some of Foster's strangest phenomena, like skin writing, appear to have been involuntary. During Foster's tour of England in 1861 Dr. John Ashburner was called to Foster's bedside by one of his companions, who stated that Foster was near death. Ashburner found him in a drunken stupor, following a night of unrestrained drinking with friends. After Ashburner examined the medium, then in a drunken torpor, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred, as Ashburner narrates in his book Philosophy of Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism (1867):
"Suddenly the bedclothes were tightly rolled downwards as far as his groin. The shirt was then rolled tightly, like a cord, exposing to our view the skin of the chest and abdomen. Soon there appeared in large red letters raised on the surface the word 'DEVELOPMENT,' which extended from the right groin to the left shoulder, dividing the surface into two triangular compartments. These were filled up with sprigs of flowers, resembling fleur-de-lys. The phenomenon lasted nearly ten minutes, when the shirt and bedclothes were unrolled gently and replaced as they were at first."