The Widow's Mite: Nothing Better in the British Museum

"I confess that some of these experiences are so startling that if they had not come within my own vision and hearing, being myself fully acquainted with the details of the test conditions imposed, I should be strongly attempted to doubt them"

So wrote Dr. Isaac K. Funk in the preface of his 1904 book, The Widow's Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena, published by his own company, Funk & Wagnalls, also known for producing The Standard Dictionary.  Although only a chapter of the 560-page book is devoted to "The Widow's Mite," it stands out as one of the most evidential cases in the annals of psychical research.

Sometime during 1894, Funk borrowed a valuable ancient Roman coin known as the "Widow's Mite" from Professor Charles E. West, the principal of a lady's school in Brooklyn Heights, to illustrate it in The Standard Dictionary.  Henry Ward Beecher, a mutual friend, had told Funk about the coin and introduced him to West some years earlier.  

As Funk was to later recall, he gave the coin to his brother, Benjamin, the company's  business manager, and asked him to return it to Professor West after the photographic plate was made.  Benjamin then gave the coin, along with another coin, both in a sealed envelope to H. L. Raymond, head cashier of the company.  Raymond placed the envelope in the drawer of a large combination safe, where it would remain forgotten for some nine years.  

It was in February of 1903 that Funk, a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), was told about an apparently gifted medium in Brooklyn.  She, her son, her brother, and a few close friends were holding a kind of "prayer meeting" or "family reunion" every Wednesday night.   Funk arranged to sit with the group.  As the medium was strictly an amateur and wanted no publicity, Funk did not give her name in the book.  He described her, however, as a 68-year-old widow "of little school education, refined in manners."  She had three spirit controls - a deceased son named Amos, a daughter of her brother named Mamie, who died at age 7, and George Carroll, the deceased friend of a member of the circle.

As a guest of the private circle, Funk did not feel he could impose test conditions upon the medium.  "It was all ‘upon honor," he wrote.  "After considerable investigation, however, and fuller acquaintance with the family, I am morally certain that this confidence in the integrity of the medium and family at the time of this mite incident was not misplaced."

The medium was of the trance, direct-voice type, i.e., the voices did not come from her vocal cords but from somewhere near her through a floating trumpet.    "The voices are of a great variety," Funk observed.  "I counted in a single evening as many as twenty - some apparently the voices of children, and others of middle-aged persons and old men and women; a few of these are the voices of Indians, and one of a jolly, typical, Virginian Negro. Each voice maintains its individuality during the evening and from one evening to another."  Most of the communications came from deceased members of the family, especially from the brother's deceased wife and the daughter, Mamie.

On Funk's third visit to the medium, George Carroll spoke up in "his usual strong masculine voice" and said:  "Has any one here got anything that belonged to Mr. Beecher?"   There was no reply, but Funk, having known Beecher, who had died several years earlier, asked for clarification.  George Carroll bellowed: "...I am told by John Rakestraw, that Mr. Beecher, who is not present, is concerned about an ancient coin, the ‘Widow's Mite.'  This coin is out of its place and should be returned.  It has long been away, and Mr. Beecher wishes it returned, and he looks to you, doctor, to return it."

Funk recalled borrowing the coin, but told George that it had been promptly returned.   "This one has not been returned," George replied.  Funk pressed for more information.  "I don't know where it is," George replied.  "I am simply impressed that it is in a large iron safe in a drawer under a lot of papers and has been lost sight of for years, and that you can find it, and Mr. Beecher wishes you to find it."

At his office the next day, Funk questioned his brother about the coin.  Benjamin said that he was sure he had returned it to the owner.  Funk then questioned, Raymond, the head cashier, who also said it had been returned to the owner.  Funk then directed Raymond to go to both of the company's iron safes and search for it.  About 20 minutes later, Raymond returned with an envelope holding two widow's mites - one very dark and one light.  He explained that it was found in a little drawer in the safe under a lot of papers.

Upon examining the two coins, Funk concluded that the lighter one was the genuine widow's mite.  It was the one displayed in the dictionary.  On the following Wednesday, Funk attended the Brooklyn circle.  Toward the end of the session, George Carroll began talking and Funk informed him that he had found the widow's mite, in fact, had found two of them.  He asked George if he knew which was the genuine coin.  "The black one," George replied without hesitation.  Funk checked with the Philadelphia mint and found that George was right and he was wrong.  In fact, they had used the wrong coin in the dictionary illustration. The light one was simply a replica. 

As a test of George or the medium, Funk then asked George if he knew from whom he had borrowed the coin.  George responded that it was Mr. Beecher's friend, but he could not give a name. George reported, however, that he was being shown a picture of a college, which he identified as a lady's college in Brooklyn Heights.  Funk also asked George to whom the coin should be returned. "I can not tell you; I do not know; for some reason Mr. Beecher does not tell," George said.

At a circle with another medium the following week, Funk heard from Beecher through the medium's spirit control.  "I was told by the control that Mr. Beecher said that he was not concerned about the return of the coin," Funk continued. "What he was concerned about was to give me a test that would prove the certainty of communication between the two worlds, and since that has been accomplished in my finding the coin, he cared nothing further about it."   

As West had died, the coin was returned to his son.

Funk ruled out fraud, coincidence, and telepathy and concluded that spirit communication was the most likely explanation.

"This case, certainly, represents one that has very possible claims to supernormal knowledge, to the say the least of it," Dr. James H. Hyslop, the Columbia University professor of logic and ethics turned psychical researcher, wrote when he read Funk's full report of the case.  "I see no way to impeach it positively.  I could imagine a theory to explain it without supposing the supernormal, but I would have no possible evidence in favor of what I can imagine."     In fact, Hyslop, an SPR associate, had accompanied Funk to one sitting with the Brooklyn medium and agreed with him that she was genuine.

Funk died on April 4, 1912.  On October 2 of the same year, he began communicating with Hyslop through the mediumship of "Mrs. Chenoweth" (a pseudonym for a medium later identified as Minnie Meserve Soule).   Funk provided Hyslop with much evidential information relative to his identity and informed him that communication was not as easy as he had expected when alive.    "Thought produces images and unless the thought is concentrated on some particular thing, the image quickly melts into other images, a kaleidoscope movement," Funk communicated through Mrs. Chenoweth's hand while she was in trance.  

Funk communicated several more times over the next few months, but did not communicate again until nearly four years later, on June 14, 1916, at which time he referred to the time Hyslop had accompanied him to a sitting with the Brooklyn medium.   This was especially evidential to Hyslop as he was certain that Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing of the visit.

On June 27, Henry Ward Beecher communicated and also referred to the "money" message.  But neither Beecher nor Funk could get the words "widow's mite" through the mediums mind or hand.  The words came out either "money" and "bronze medal."  Then, on February 14, 1917, Funk's mother communicated and said:  "I know that the idea of medals and medallions and all articles which suggest such form is a left over impression of his most striking evidence, and he is the receiver of so many suggestions of that nature from the living and dead, because of his known interest in the ancient coin, and it always comes with force as he attempts to write."

In his June 28, 1916 communication, Funk said, referring to the coin, that "the British Museum held nothing better."