Katelyn McIntyre
On July 24th 1904, Sir Hugh John Macdonald experienced a supernatural encounter.
Article from the Winnipeg Telegram detailing Sir Hugh John Macdonald’s encounter with the White Mahatma, June 24th 1904.
Recorded in a Winnipeg Telegram article uncovered in the archives of Dalnavert Museum, this remarkable and weird experience during a magic show put on by ‘the White Mahatma’ is covered in brief. During the climax of the performance, Macdonald received a message from the late Sedley Blanchard, a prominent Winnipeg lawyer and friend of Macdonald. The message was as follows:
‘My dear old Friend. – This is indeed a privilege I had not looked for or expected. I am near you, and it is my hand that guides the medium. – I am yours, Sedley Blanchard.’
What struck Macdonald was the signature. It was eerily similar to what he could remember of his dear friend’s. How did the White Mahatma know this Winnipeg lawyer who had passed nearly two decades prior? Macdonald even stated that he thought few in the hall would even remember him.
But first, who was this man channeling the spirits of the deceased and bringing their messages to the land of the living? Who exactly was the White Mahatma?
Poster for The White Mahatma: The World’s Greatest Fun Maker, unknown date. Source.
‘Mahatma’ comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “great-souled,” and is used in India as a title of love and respect, as well as in English to refer to a person of great prestige. The White Mahatma, however, had nothing to do with India. His real name was Samuel S. Baldwin, and he was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1848. Throughout his career as a magician from the 1870s until his death in 1924, Baldwin, also known as “Samri,” held private séances and performed worldwide for crowds of civilians.
A poster for Samri S. Baldwin, “the world’s greatest psychic sensation,” 1895. Source.
Baldwin has been credited as the one to bring the format of question-and-answer mentalism to the stage, a favourite of those who are adamant about their psychic abilities. This format is now commonly used both live and on television, where viewers may be picked out of a crowd to ask a medium about a departed loved one.
Though he gained his fame partly through his work with the supernatural, Baldwin considered himself an entertainer, and did not claim himself to be a real spiritual medium. Baldwin in his 1895 book quotes:
‘I have attended at least two thousand spiritual séances, and I am more convinced now even than I was in my earlier days, that under no circumstances do disembodied spirits return to this world to produce manifestations of any character’.
So with that position on spiritualism and séances, how did this world-renowned magician know who Sedley Blanchard was, and why did he channel him during a séance for Sir Hugh John Macdonald? With only a newspaper clipping chronicling the event, we may never know. What we do know, however, is that it surprised Sir Hugh John Macdonald enough for him to suspend his belief for a moment and believe in the impossible.