100 years ago in Spokane: Researcher tells Gonzaga crowd to avoid the ‘spirit world,’ warns of Ouija board

Dr. Godfrey Raupert, a member of the Psychical Research Society, told a rapt crowd in Gonzaga University’s gym that science has proven that a mysterious “spirit world does exist and is in touch with our world.” He cited the Ouija board as an example of a phenomenon controlled by “outside forces, applied to the intellect.”

However, Raupert issued a significant caveat. He said these outside “intelligences” have no connection with departed spirits.

“As far as science is concerned, they have never successfully identified themselves as a spirit of the dead,” the story said.

He spoke of one instance where a spirit claimed to be some dead person and told things that he knew could not have happened.

“The intelligence finally admitted it was not the spirit of this man and when asked where the information came from, said, ‘I got it from you own damn thought boxes.’ ”

Raupert, for all of his belief in outside intelligences, considered the renewed interest in spiritualism to be a dangerous return to paganism.

Mediums, he said, have become insane through their work. In one case, a man became entirely controlled by an intelligence “and his only escape was by committing suicide.”

He classed even the Ouija board as dangerous.

From the justice beat: Vivian Tozier, aka Alaska Vivian, was pardoned by Gov. Ernest Lister on the grounds that she was the sole support of her aged mother.

Tozier’s boyfriend, Robert Hood, was convicted of murdering Margaret Braun. However, Tozier was convicted only of vagrancy. She was sentenced to six months in the county jail and had served about half of her sentence. She planned to resume her profession of barber.