Defense attorney: What sort of frame of mind were you in when you first attended?

Joseph Smith: Well, I was rather curious. I had not experienced any sittings before, and I went with my wife, who was previously interested and had been interested prior to that, out of curiosity and in order to be satisfied as to the genuine- ness of psychic phenomena.

Defense attorney: With quite an open mind?

Joseph Smith: A perfectly open mind, a sympathetic mind.

Defense attorney: At the first sitting did you have a materialization personal to yourself?

Joseph Smith: Yes.

Defense attorney: Could you put a date to that? When do you say it was? About six years ago?

Joseph Smith: Yes.

Judge: That is near enough.

Joseph Smith: Somewhere about six years ago.

Defense attorney: What relative came to you?

Joseph Smith: My mother came.

Defense attorney: Can you say what sort of lighting there was and how far away you were?

Joseph Smith: That was the first sitting I had been to and the first materialization I had seen. I had rather a difficulty in distinguishing the features at that particular time. The light was not too good, according to my view, and I could not see my mother’s features very clearly; but I was able to identify her by her voice.

Defense attorney: By the voice did you recognize her?

Joseph Smith: By her voice, and the words she used. I may say that of course my fiancée, as she then was, definitely identified her features. She seemed to have the faculty of being able to identify features better than I could.

Defense attorney: Then you lost your wife?

Joseph Smith: That is so.

Defense attorney: Afterwards, in 1940, you attended a sitting?

Joseph Smith: I have attended three since then.

Defense attorney: What happened at those sittings?

Joseph Smith: At the first sitting she came through.

Defense attorney: Your wife?

Joseph Smith: My wife came through. She materialized. She spoke to me. She called my name, and by her calling my name I could have identified her without reference to anything else. Without reference to having seen her.

Judge: How long after her death was this?

Joseph Smith: Probably about a year after her death six months or a year after her death. She died in 1940.

Defense attorney: You recognized the features?

Joseph Smith: I recognized the features.

Defense attorney: Was there anything particular about them?

Joseph Smith: Her form of speech. It was the way she pronounced my name Joe. She had a peculiarity of pronouncing my name, in this sense, one would almost think she put a “d” before the “J”.

Judge: What does the Psychic College consist of?

Joseph Smith: It is a whole house and everything is devoted to the pursuit of psychic phenomena.

Defense attorney: Is it run by a local Edinburgh Society?

Joseph Smith: Yes, it is.

Defense attorney: A society of Spiritualists or people interested in it?

Joseph Smith: Yes, they hold lectures, demonstrations and seances of all different kinds.

Defense attorney: Your wife has appeared to you on more than one occasion?

Joseph Smith: Yes, I remember another occasion when I was at the same college, Mrs. Duncan being the medium. Two friends of mine, husband and wife, wished to go and I took them there. My wife was known to my male friend on this side, but she was quite unknown to his wife.

Defense attorney: Where were you sitting on that occasion?

Joseph Smith: On that occasion I was sitting right at the side of the cabinet. As if the curtain were here, I was sitting here.

Defense attorney: The first seat on the left facing the cabinet? A, Yes.

Defense attorney: How near would that be to where your wife appeared?

Joseph Smith: A foot.

Defense attorney: How far did she come out when she came out?

Joseph Smith: She came out two feet.

Defense attorney: How near to her were you when she came?

Joseph Smith: A foot from me.

Defense attorney: Did you see your wife’s features then?

Joseph Smith: Yes, perfectly clearly.

Defense attorney: And the voice?

Joseph Smith: The voice was hers all right. I remember distinctly. It emphasised to me the genuineness of matters. She said, “You are here all together?” I said, “Yes”, referring to my male friend as well and his wife as Ruby. She said, “So I see”. She nodded to them, and immediately said to Ruby, “I like your costume”. Now it so happened, unknown to me, that Ruby, my friend’s wife, had a new costume made for her, and she had had it for the first time that day.

Defense attorney: When she went back to the curtain, did she turn round or walk backwards?

Joseph Smith: No, I could better describe it by saying that she went backwards towards the curtain and disappeared, as she went, into the floor.

Defense attorney: Have you any other interesting identifications?

Joseph Smith: Yes, I also saw at a sitting an artist friend of mine who had died. I have some of his pictures in my office. He also materialized in the presence of his superior, the Director of Education for the county. Both the Director and I were at that sitting. We both identified him.

Defense attorney: How near were you when you identified?

Joseph Smith: I should say three feet. In this case he spoke. I recognized his voice definitely and his appearance.

Defense attorney: Did you touch anything that materialized to you?

Joseph Smith: No, I have never on any occasion touched them.

Defense attorney: Have you heard any dialects or languages?

Joseph Smith: Dialects, yes. I have heard several forms who have come from my part of the country, Aberdeen, talking in Doric.

Defense attorney: Aberdeen?

Joseph Smith: Yes.

Defense attorney: Any other besides Aberdeen?

Joseph Smith: No.