The Call, Part Three: Richard Morrison Predicts...

In 1861, Richard Morrison, known in astrological circles as Zadkiel, published a prediction in Zadkiel's Almanac, suggesting that "[t]he stationary position of Saturn will be very evil for persons born on or near the 26th August."

The aforementioned persons included the much-beloved Prince Consort, Albert, who obligingly died on 23 December 1861.

The Daily Telegraph for 21 January, 1862 made much of the connection between Morrison's pronouncement and the Albert's death, concluding by asking a question designed to produce response from its readers: who is this Zadkiel?

Rear Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (who, one imagines, was a bit tired of all this occult nonsense, as he had been responsible, in 1852-1854, for the search for the remains of the Sir John Franklin Arctic expedition, that touchstone of spirit mediumship), responded, writing (in part):

Is it your impression of this day that you say Who is this Zadkiel, and are there no means of ferreting him out and handing him up to Bow street (Magistrates Court) as a rogue and a vagabond? I will aid you on the scent by informing you that he stands as a Lieutenant on the Navy list; next that he has admirers at Greenwich Hospital (for wounded and disabled seamen and their families) who fancy him a prophet A1, and that his mischievous propensities are not solely involved with that foolish publication, Zadkiel's Almanac....His name is C. J. Morrison (sic)...he is the crystal globe seer who gulled many of our nobility about the year 1852....Making use of a boy under fourteen, or a girl under twelve, he pretended, by their looking into the crystal, to hold converse with the spirits of the Apostles, and to tell what was going on in any part of the world...

(We have already seen that Morrison used adolescent skryers for other purposes.)

Morrison sued for defamation, not surprisingly, and he won his case: he was awarded 20 shillings, indicating that while the court found him within his rights, all justice's sympathies were with Belcher and the Telegraph.

During the trial (the transcript of which I am in the process of obtaining), much evidence was adduced by the plaintiff, but the case revolved around: Zadkiel's skrying crystal. The New York Times coverage of the trial reports, as follows:

(Morrison) stated that the had heard of the wonderful (crystal) ball as in the possession of Lady Blessington and sold among her effects (when she died, bankrupt, in Paris in 1849). He himself bought it in 1849 from a London dealer in curiosities. Here the ball itself was produced and put in evidence. It was a rock crystal, three or four inches in diameter, with several flaws, handled by means of a ribbon, and carefully kept in a cushioned box....The plaintiff then went on to say that his son, a lad of thirteen years of age, was the first who professed to see visions in it; the scenes described to him were laid chiefly in the Arctic seas and appeared to relate to the fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew. He had sent an account of these visions to the Athenaeum which had published it...(Plaintiff testified that) several persons of distinction had at different times desired to see the crystal, and it seems from the evidence to have been quite the rage at one time to engage Zadkiel and his crystal as an additional entertainment, at evening parties. The plaintiff ran over a long list of persons to whom, at their own request, he had exhibited the crystal. Among these figured Baron (Christian) Bunsen, (father of Ernest and Henry George de Bunsen), several countesses, a bishop, an archedeacon and a member of Parliament....

Morrison's attorney called the Earl of Wilton to the stand, who testified that he had consulted the crystal on several matters, and also called his friend Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton to the stand, where EBL copped his standard line about his occult investigations: that he was investigating these practices "to find the natural causes bu which strange and wondrous effects might be produced." Just the science, ma'am.

Zadkiel's crystal, Stanhope's crystal -- apparently not the same, and only one of them (but which one?) the possession originally of Lady Blessington, made for her by "her magician"...