Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Rev. Cora Kincannon Smith, Spokane’s leading spiritualist, claimed to be performing remarkable feats of psychic power.

“Not long ago, spirits tied the hands of one of my pupils with a copper wire which was impossible to undo with mortal hands,” claimed Smith. “After effort after effort had been made to untie the wire, the curtain was lowered and the wire was untied in less time than it takes to tell it. Spirits did it. The girl was in a dead trance all the time.”

The “reverend” said that copper wire was a key to her spiritual success. While most seances are performed with people holding hands, she discovered that copper transmits messages from spirits as efficiently as electricity. So she had them hold on to a wire. And that copper wire got up to all kinds of shenanigans.

“At one of my recent seances, there were two men skeptics present,” she said. “Before we were through, one of them was tied to the legs of the table by a spirit. He went away convinced.”

Smith also believed she could “cure” Catherine Madden, a young, attractive Spokane woman who had been arrested multiple times as a habitual drunkard. Smith said that Madden was clearly possessed “by the spirit of an old toper (boozer).” Smith believed that she could conjure up the spirit of the old toper and sober him up. Catherine would then be freed from his destructive power.