"It was done. I had in mind the test which Alfred Russel Wallace had
used in a similar case. He dictated several words to be written while
holding the slates securely in his own hands. In this instance I asked
for the word 'Constantinople' to be written. The psychic smiled,
shrugged her shoulders, and replied: 'I'll try, but I don't believe
they can spell it.' 'Draw a straight line, then,' said I. 'I'll be
content with a single line an inch long.' She laughingly retorted: 'It's
hard to draw a straight line.' 'Very well, draw a crooked line. Draw a
zigzag--like a stroke of lightning. Draw it in yellow. Draw a circle.'
She said no more, but became silent, and we waited without change of
position. Remember that I was holding the slate during all this talk. It
did not leave my hands."
"What were the conditions? Was it light?" asked Miller.
"It was about two o'clock of an afternoon, and we sat in the bay-window
of the parlor. It was perfectly light. No one moved. The psychic sat
opposite us, leaning back in a thoughtful pose. Her hands lay in her
lap, and she seemed to be merely waiting. At last a tapping came upon
the slate, and she brightened up. 'It is done!' she called, exultingly.
I opened the slates myself, and _there, drawn in yellow crayon, was a
small circle with a zigzag yellow line crossing it exactly as I had
dictated_, and under Mrs. Rose's hands in the corner of the slate was a
gayly colored bunch of pansies. There were messages also, but I paid
very little attention to them. The production of that circle under those
conditions overshadowed everything else. It was a definite and complete
answer to my doubt. It was, in fact, a 'miracle.' I recall going
directly to a meeting of the society and reporting upon this sitting.
You will find the bald statement of my experiment in the minutes of the
secretary."
Miller was silent for a moment, then asked: "You're sure it was done
after you took the slates in hand?"
"I am as certain of it as I am of anything."
"How do you account for it? Of course it was a trick."
"Trickery can't account for that yellow line. The messages could have
been written beforehand, but no trick of prepared slates can account for
my dictated design. I have had other cases of slate-writing which were
almost as inexplicable, and Crookes and Wallace and Zoellner, as you
remember, were quite convinced by evidence thus secured. Crookes _saw_
the pencil at work. I have never witnessed the writing, but I have heard
it at work under my hands and I have felt it under my feet. I have had
writing on ten separate pages in a closed Manila-pad held between my
hands."
Miller seemed to be impressed by these statements. "I have always
considered slate-writing a cheap trick, but I don't quite see how that
was done--always providing your memory is not at fault."
"I would not place much dependence on my present recollection," I
frankly responded, "but I reported on the case at once while my mind
was most accurate as to details. Speaking further of these tricks, if
you choose to call them such, I have had several failures, where the
failure meant as much as a success. I have held two slates with a
psychic (while we were both standing) when the creaking and scratching
and grinding went on between my hands. I give you my word I was
convinced at the moment of holding between my palms a sentient force. I
felt as Franklin must have felt when he played with the lightning in the
bottle at the tail of his kite. Once I heard the writing going on in a
half-opened slate, but I did not see the pencil in motion. Some of these
cases of 'direct-writing' are the most convincing of all my experiences.
People ask me why I didn't talk with the spirits about heaven and
angels. I was not interested in their religious notions. I kept to this
one line--I wanted to see a particle of matter move from A to B without
a known push or pull. I paid very little attention to 'trance-mediums'
like Mrs. Piper; and although I saw a great deal of what is called
'mind-reading' and 'thought-transference,' I did not permit the cart to
get before the horse. 'Independent slate-writing' interested me, for the
reason that I could put the clamps on it. Materialization, on the
contrary, is so staged and arranged for that to prove its genuineness
seems impossible at present; but slate-writing under your hand is a
different matter."
"I'd like to have it under _my_ hand," said Miller, grimly.
"You can have it if you'll go after it," I retorted, "and you can have
it hard."
Mrs. Miller was deeply interested. "Tell us more. Have you had other
messages written in that wonderful way?"
"Yes, many of them. One of the most curious examples of this kind I have
ever seen came to me in Chicago. It was a 'new one,' as Howard would
say. Old Mr. MacVicker told me one day that there was a woman on the
West Side who had a trick of producing independent slate-writing beneath
the stem of a goblet of water--"
"Why under a goblet of water?" interrupted Miller.
"As a test. You see, nearly every one who goes to a psychic wants first
of all to witness a miracle. Each seeker demands that his particular
message shall come hard--that is to say, under conditions impossible to
the living. His reasoning is like this: 'The dead are free from the
limitations of our life, therefore they should manifest themselves to us
as befits their wider knowledge of the laws of the universe, and
especially is it their business to outdo the most skilful conjurer!
Hence each man insists on locked slates and sealed letters. These the
poor psychics are forced to grant. To be just to them, I must say that I
have found most mediums fairly willing to meet any reasonable test; in
fact, many of them seem perfectly confident of the inscrutable, and
venture upon what seems to be the impossible with amazing
imperturbability. All they ask is to be treated like human beings. They
are seldom afraid of results. Sometimes they bully the forces sadly, and
make them work when they don't want to.
"Well, this particular psychic ushered me into her back parlor (which
was flooded with sunlight), and asked me to be seated at a small table
covered with a strip of cloth. She was a comfortable, plump person,
evidently from Kansas, in manner somewhat like the humorous wife of a
prosperous village carpenter. I remember that we were rather sympathetic
on various political questions. After some remarks on populism and other
weighty matters, she filled a goblet with water, and, placing it upon a
slate, passed it under the table with her right hand, asking me to put
my hand beneath hers."
"There it is!" said Miller, with infinite scorn. "Always in the dark or
under the table. No wonder Emerson called it 'a rat-hole philosophy.'"
"Suppose it's all the work of an 'astral' who can't abide the light?" I
suggested.
"I know the theory, but I can't allow it."
"Why not? You permit the photographer his dark-room."
Then, with malicious delight in his petulance, I calmly continued: "I
put my left hand beneath hers and my right upon the table. I could see
her left hand lying in her lap, and as she turned sidewise to the table
I was able to keep in view both of her feet. We held the slate so that
the top of the goblet lightly touched the under side of the stand. The
psychic was all accounted for, except the hand which was resting
outspread on the under side of the slate. We sat for several minutes in
this way, while she explained that 'they' would probably take words out
of our conversation as a test, if I desired it. 'I am here to be shown,'
I replied. She laughed at me, and on two different occasions brought the
slate from beneath the table with writing under the stem of the goblet.
This was all very well, but I said: 'A better test would be to have them
write words that I dictate.'
"'I will ask them,' she said. She seemed to listen as if to voices
inaudible to me, and at last said: 'They will try it.'
"Again we placed the goblet of water on the clean slate under the table,
and while holding it as before, I said: 'Now ask them to write the name
"William Dean Howells."'
"Almost immediately there was a decided movement of the slate--or so it
seemed to me. A power seemed to wake on the slate, not through the
psychic's hand, but independent of it. I heard plainly the scratching of
a pencil, at the same time that the psychic's left hand and both of her
feet were in full view, and at the same time that her hand was
outspread, apparently motionless, upon the under side of the slate. In a
few moments the scratching paused, and the psychic, with an embarrassed
smile, said: 'They don't know how to spell the middle name.'"
"That is to say, _she_ was the one who could not spell the name," said
Miller.
"That's what I thought at the time, but I helped her out, and a moment
later a decided tapping on the top of the table announced the completion
of the task.
"As she slowly drew the slate out from under the table I was alert to
see what had happened. The glass remained in the middle of the slate as
before, with the water undiminished, and under the glass and confining
itself to the circle of the stem were the words:
WILLIAM
DEAN
HOWELLS
written as though acknowledging the barrier of the glass where its edge
rested upon the slate."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Mrs. Miller.
"Are you sure the writing was there as she drew the slate out?" queried
Miller.
"Yes, I saw the writing as she was removing the goblet; and while with
her left hand she drew a little circle around the outer edge of the stem
I read the words. Now to say that the psychic wrote this with her
finger-nail on the bottom of the slate and then turned the slate over is
to me absurd. The glass of water prevented that. And yet she did it in
some occult way. The transaction remains unexplained to me. I am
perfectly sure she willed it, but _how_ she caused the writing--the
physical change--is quite another problem. Zoellner (I believe it was)
secured the print of feet on the inside of a closed slate, and reasoned
that only on the theory of a fourth dimension could such phenomena be
explained. That reminds me of a sitting I once had with a young man
wherein, to utterly confound us, the invisible hands removed his
undershirt while his coat-sleeves were nailed to the chair."
"Oh, come now, you don't expect us to believe a miracle like that, even
on your serious statement?" remarked Miller.
"I certainly do not," I responded, readily. "I wouldn't believe it on
any one's statement. That is the discouraging thing about this whole
business; you can't convince any one by any amount of evidence. A man
will stand out against Zoellner, Crookes, Lodge, and Myers, discounting
all the rest of the great investigators, and then crumple up like a
caterpillar at the first touch of The Invisible Hand when it comes to
him directly. This same young man gave me the most convincing
demonstrations of materialized forms I have ever seen. In his own little
home, under the simplest conditions, he commanded forth from a little
bedroom a figure which was unmistakably not a mechanism. A lamp was
burning in the room, and the young fellow was perfectly visible at the
same moment as the phantom which stood and bowed three times."
"What did it look like?"
"It looked like a man's figure swathed in some white drapery. I could
not see the face, but it was certainly not a 'dummy.' But come, let us
see what the forces can do for us here to-night. I think we will need
'Annie Laurie' to clear the air of debate."
Mrs. Miller began the song, and we all joined in softly.
"Our newspaper is a trusty watch-dog," remarked Miller, significantly.
As he spoke the psychic began to toss and writhe and moan pitifully. Her
suffering mounted to a paroxysm at last; then silence fell for a minute
or two--absolute stillness; and in this hush the table took life, rose,
and slid away toward us as if shoved by a powerful hand.
"So far as my hearing goes, the psychic does not move," I said. "Barring
the light, this is a very good demonstration of movement without
control. Every movement of the table our way removes it farther from the
reach of the psychic."
"I hear nothing from the paper," confessed Miller, "and yet the table is
certainly moving."
"I can believe this, because I have proved these movements without
contact. In this case Mrs. Smiley cannot reach the table with her knees
and her feet secured by tape nailed to the bookcase. You cannot believe
she has gotten out of her skin. The newspaper is still on guard, and has
uttered no alarm."
"It is very perplexing," Miller admitted; "but anything can happen in
the dark."
"I admit it is very easy to deceive our senses, but the silk thread is
not to be fooled."
Three times the table was urged in the same direction, each paroxysm of
suffering, of moaning, of struggle, on the part of the psychic, being
followed a few seconds later by absolute silence. It was in these
moments of profound sepulchral hush that the heavy table lurched along
the floor. It was a strange and startling fact.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked of the forces. "As a test?"
"_Yes_," the raps replied.
"How do you account for it, Miller?" I asked, with challenge in my
voice. "My conviction is that we are confronting a case of
telekinesis--not as convincing as Flammarion's, but still inexplicable.
If that table has moved an inch, it is the same as if it had moved a
foot. You should feel rewarded."
Miller did not reply; and even as he pondered the megaphone, which had
been standing on the top of the table, began to rock on its base, and a
pencil which lay beside it was fumbled as if by a rat or a kitten. In
our state of strained expectancy this sound was very startling indeed.
"What about that, Miller?" I asked, in a tone of exultation. "Who's
doing that? Last time you suspected Howard, now here you must suspect
the psychic. The movement of that pencil is of enormous significance.
How can she possibly reach and handle that cone?"
"She can't, unless she has freed her hands," he admitted. "Let us touch
hands." I gave him my left hand, and sitting thus, with all hands
accounted for, we entered into communication with the "spirit" that was
busy in the centre of the table.
"Are you present, 'Wilbur'?"
_Tap, tap, tap._
"Are you moving the table?"
_Tap, tap, tap._
"To get it out of reach of the psychic?"
_Tap, tap, tap._
Suddenly, with a loud bang, something heavy fell upon the table.
Releasing the hands of my fellow-investigators, I felt about for this
object and found that a book had been brought and thrown upon the table.
A shower of others followed, till twenty-four were piled about the cone.
They came whizzing with power, yet with such precision that no head was
touched and the cone remained undisturbed. It was as if some roguish
poltergeist had suddenly developed in the room.
"Miller, I find this exciting!" said I, after silver fell upon the
table. "Suppose we ask 'Wilbur' to fetch some small object whose
position you know."
Mrs. Miller then said: "There is a box of candy on a shelf back of Mrs.
Smiley. It is quite out of her reach. Can you bring that to me,
'Wilbur'?"
_Tap, tap, tap!_ was the decided answer, and almost immediately the box
was placed on the top of the table and shoved along toward Mrs. Miller.
"That's a good demonstration," I remarked, and 'Wilbur' drummed a sharp
tattoo of satisfaction.
At my request he then wrote his name on a pad while Miller waited and
listened, his mind too busy with surmise to permit of speech. (He told
me afterward that he was perfectly sure the psychic had wrenched free of
her tacks and he was wondering how she would contrive to put herself
back again.)