Elias Dodo and the Chasuble at the Bottom of the Read Sea

There Is No Death is being fully published on the GhostWritings Blog now, and here you'll find The Biography of Florence Marryat. One of the true stories told in this book, is that of Elias Dodo and the Chasuble of the Catholic Abbé...

One evening, a Catholic Abbé joined the Spiritualist Circle of Florence Marryat. He had never seen any manifestations before, and he did not believe in them, but he was curious on the subject. Florence knew nothing of him further than that he was a priest, and a Jesuit, and a great friend of her sister’s, at whose house she was staying. The Abbé spoke English, and the conversation was carried on in that language.

The priest had told Florence  beforehand that if he could receive a perfectly private test, he should never doubt the truth of the manifestations again. She left him, therefore, to conduct the investigation entirely by himself. Florence was only acting as the medium between him and "the influence".

As soon as the table moved he put his question direct, without asking who was there to answer it: “Where is my chasuble?”

Now a priest's chasuble must be either hanging in the sacristy or packed away at home, or been sent away to be altered or mended. But the answer was very peculiar: “At the bottom of the Red Sea.”

The priest started, but continued: “Who put it there?”

“Elias Dodo.”

“What was his object in doing so?”

“He found the parcel a burthen, and did not expect any reward for delivering it.”

The Abbé really looked as if he had encountered the devil. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and put one more question. “Of what was my chasuble made?”

“Your sister’s wedding dress.”

The priest then explained to Florence that his sister had made him a chasuble out of her wedding dress – one of the forms of returning thanks in the Church. After a while it became old fashioned, and the Bishop, going his rounds, ordered him to get another. He did not like to throw away his sister’s gift, so he decided to send the old chasuble to a priest in India, where they are very poor, and not so particular as to fashion. He confided the packet to a man called Elias Dodo, a sufficiently singular name, but neither he nor the priest he sent it to had ever heard anything more of the chasuble, or the man who promised to deliver it...