DR. SLADE AND HIS SPIRIT SLATES
Slate writing was an especially fortunate “find” for mediums. Its
results were obtained in full light and the whole thing seemed so
simple and direct that apparently there was nothing to investigate and
comparatively speaking there were no blank seances. Such success led to
carelessness and exposures followed, so numerous and complete that it
is quite unnecessary to list them all here.[68] Every once in a while
though some medium still takes a chance when opportunity offers and
gives a test to especially gullible sitters, but to-day no medium with
any pretentions to “class” would think of anything so “common” as slate
writing in its old form. Spirit slates are now listed in the catalogues
of houses dealing in conjuring apparatus and the fraud mediums who
formerly made use of them are employing the safer and easier swindles
of automatic writing, trance or trumpet messages, and the “ouija board.”
The infinite grafting possibilities of the Spirit slates seem to have
been overlooked until adopted and put into usable form by Dr. Henry
Slade,[69] a man who had acquired an unenviable reputation in New
York City, but it is extremely doubtful if the present generation
would have known anything about Dr. Slade had the perpetuation of his
name been left to the quality of his mediumship, for he was only one
of a large number of conjuring fakirs who bamboozled the credulous of
his day. However, he was brought into the limelight on two notable
occasions: first by being exposed and criminally prosecuted in London;
and second when poor old Professor Zollner, a noted German astronomer
and physicist, “fell” for his simple conjuring and fell so hard that he
made Slade the hero of his great (?) work, “Transcendental Physics.”
Like D. D. Home, and many others, after making a reputation in America,
Slade jumped over to London, for England’s arms seem ever open for the
reception of mediums who have made good here and if a medium escapes
the toils of American investigators he has little to fear from willing
believers on the other side of the Atlantic, though as a matter of fact
several were sent to jail there. Slade reached England in July, 1876,
and began to hold sittings at once, and was soon “cleaning up” in fine
shape. The late John Nevil Maskelyne, the great English magician, told
me that:
“Crowds of people rushed to witness the phenomena (?) paying one guinea
each for a sitting lasting but a few minutes. You would think they were
giving gold guineas away. The ‘Doctor’ must have netted some hundreds
of pounds weekly which in those days was rated a high sum of money for
an individual ‘performer.’”
Then, just as things were going so nicely for Slade there came a sudden
crash, for which two men were responsible; Professor Ray Lankester (now
Sir Ray Lankester) and Dr. Horatio Donkin (now Sir Horatio Donkin).
These men applied certain effective methods of scrutiny to Slade’s
exhibitions which resulted in his arrest. The trial created a big
sensation, not only in Spiritual circles, but throughout the civilized
world, and the Bow Street Court was the most popular show in London for
several days; the “top-liner” being J. N. Maskelyne, the magician, who
performed all of Slade’s tricks in the witness box.
Slade was convicted and sentenced to three months at hard labor. An
appeal was taken and the decision quashed on account of a flaw in the
indictment. While Sir Lankester was procuring new summonses for Slade
and his manager, Simmons, they both skipped across the channel into
France, thus closing the doors of England against Slade for all time
as he never dared to set foot on her unfriendly shores again. He made
ready for a Paris performance but a friend of Sir Lankester’s sent
an account of the court proceedings to the Paris press so the French
people had the whole story before Slade was able to begin.
While touring Europe in 1920 I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Ray
Lankester and hearing from him an account of Dr. Slade’s undoing. Both
he and Donkin were physicians. They had been laying their plans to
expose two other mediums, Herne and Williams, but Slade’s unexpected
arrival in London changed these plans and instead they plotted the
seance which proved to be Slade’s downfall. Donkin was away from London
at the time but Sir Lankester wired him and while waiting for his
return attended one of Slade’s seances. He pretended to Slade that he
came to see if the Spirits would write a message on the slates if he
held them himself. Slade assured him that they would and arrangements
were made for a second sitting. Before Sir Lankester left Slade asked
him if he had been in communication with any departed relatives.
“No, but I have an Uncle John,” Sir Lankester replied.
Consequently at the second sitting the following message was received:
“I am glad to see you here again.--John.”
“But have you an Uncle John?” I asked.
“No, Houdini,” he replied smiling, “that is why everyone laughed in the
courtroom at the time of the trial. You see, Slade thought I was a firm
believer, and I allowed him to distract my attention. He said to me
‘You have a great deal of mediumistic power about you. I see them over
you behind your head.’”
As he said this Sir Lankester raised his head with seeming credulity
acting the part splendidly.
“What made you suspect Slade?” I asked him.
“At the first seance I noticed the tendons move on Slade’s wrist as he
held his hand outstretched under the table,” Sir Lankester replied,
“and while making a number of suspicious moves he scratched the slates
a number of times with his finger nail to simulate the noise made by a
slate pencil when writing on a slate.”
On the return of Sir Donkin it was arranged that he and Sir Lankester
should attend a seance together and that Sir Donkin was to watch
for the “suspicious move” and when he saw it signal Sir Lankester.
Everything worked as planned. On receiving the agreed signal from
Donkin, Lankester seized the slate containing the finished message
proving that a skillful exchange of slates had been made by Slade and
this was the _real evidence which caused the downfall of Henry Slade_
in England.
Blocked in Paris from working his tricks because of the publication
of an account of his exposure in England Slade seems to have gone to
Germany for it was during the next year, 1877, that he so successfully
deluded Professor Zollner. “Zollner” is one of the names on which
Spiritualistic enthusiasts bank most heavily for proof of their
claims. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to this day quotes Zollner as
indisputable authority. Nevertheless Zollner is discredited by Mr.
George S. Fullerton, Secretary of the Seybert Commission. While in
Germany Mr. Fullerton made a special business of investigating the
value of this Zollner endorsement, and at the time all of the men who
participated in the Slade investigation were alive with the exception
of Zollner himself. Mr. Fullerton in the summary of his report to the
Commission said:
“Thus it would appear that of the four eminent men whose names have
made famous the investigation, there is reason to believe one,
Zollner, was of unsound mind at the time, and anxious for experimental
verification of an already accepted hypothesis; another, Fechner, was
partially blind and _believed_ because of Zollner’s observation; a
third, Scheibner, was also afflicted with defective vision and not
entirely satisfied in his own mind with the phenomena; and a fourth,
Weber, was advanced in age, and did not even recognize the disabilities
of his associates. None of the men named had any previous experience or
knowledge of the possibilities of deception.”
The Seybert Commission, in 1884, seems to have made the first
systematic, organized effort to fathom the so-called phenomena of
Spiritualism, and this Commission sent for Slade, who was then
operating in New York, and had him give a number of seances under their
observation, but in spite of the fact that Slade gave the Commission a
personal letter thanking them for their courtesies and expressing his
willingness to sit with them again, the Commission considered his work
fraudulent throughout.
At a very early stage of the sittings, the Commission noticed two kinds
of communications. Those in answer to questions were slovenly written,
often illegible, while those which came as voluntary contributions from
the Spirits, were more carefully written, even to punctuation. It was
very evident that this writing on the slates had been prepared previous
to the sitting, while that written under the restraint of observation
was the crude scrawl, abrupt in composition, and often almost or quite
illegible. It was evident that where the nicely written communications
were used an exchange of slates had been effected, whereas the other
writing was the result of such skill as could be brought to bear
without detection under the unfavorable conditions. It was also
noticed that all of the long messages most suspiciously resembled the
handwriting of the medium. Every test to which Slade submitted proved
to be transparent to the Commission and some of his efforts to mystify
it were referred to as:
“Several little tricks which he imputed to Spiritual agency, but which
were almost puerile in the simplicity of their legerdemain, and which
have been repeated with perfect success by one of our number.”
After all the slate-writing mediums who came in answer to an
advertisement broadcasted by the Seybert Commission had been examined
by it, the acting Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Horace Howard
Furness, invited the late Harry Kellar to exhibit his slate-writing
skill before it, not with any claim to supernatural phenomena but as
a magician openly admitting his purpose to baffle by purely natural
means. Mr. Kellar submitted to a series of tests far more complicated
and difficult of execution than any produced by Slade or any other
medium; nevertheless the Commission was unable to detect his methods
and admitted itself completely baffled.
Mr. Kellar told me that when Mr. Furness, and Coleman Sellers, another
member of the Commission who was himself an amateur entertainer,
applied to him for an exhibition of his skill as a slate-writer they
expected him to do the stock tricks of Slade. But someone tipped
Kellar off that Sellers had told the members of the Commission what
Kellar was to do and his probable method of doing it and for them to
watch out for his _modus operandi_. So, not to be “caught napping,”
Kellar, like the skillful mystifier that he was, determined to out-do
Slade and beat Sellers. As he told me about it he laughed heartily,
saying:
“If you could have seen Mr. Sellers’ face at the time of the unfolding
of the mystery, it would have done your heart good.”
When Kellar arrived for the demonstration he insisted that the
Commission furnish its own slates, so a boy was sent out who brought
back about a dozen of various kinds. Then all sat down around the table
with hands resting, palm down, on its top. The Commission opened the
sitting by writing questions on the slates. Kellar held them under the
table with the thumb on top and when he withdrew them in a few moments
they had answers to the questions written in a clear round hand. The
questions gradually became longer and longer, but the replies kept pace
with them, sometimes covering a whole side of the slate. Although the
slates were all different and could not possibly be mistaken for one
another, the Commission began to put identifying marks on them. Once
no pencil was put on the top of the slate but the reply came just the
same. This fact was commented upon and Kellar replied:
“Oh, my Spirits can write _without_ pencils,” a statement which puzzled
the members of the Commission all the more.
Finally the magician asked them to write a question on a slate and
cover it with another, placing the pencil between the two. Even this
did not bother the “Spirits,” for when the slates were returned, both
sides were found covered with writing.
The following extract from the Preliminary Report of the Seybert
Commission, originally published in 1887, describes this performance of
Harry Kellar before members of the Commission and shows the impression
which it made on them.
“An eminent professional juggler performed, in the presence of three of
our Commission, some independent slate-writing far more remarkable than
any of which we have witnessed with mediums. In broad daylight, a slate
perfectly clean on both sides, was, with a small fragment of slate
pencil, held under a leaf of a small, ordinary table, around which
we were seated; the fingers of the juggler’s hand pressed the slate
tight against the underside of the leaf, while the thumb completed the
pressure and remained in full view clasping the leaf of the table.
Our eyes never for the fraction of a second lost sight of that thumb;
it never moved; and yet in a few minutes the slate was produced,
covered with writing. Messages were there, and still are there, for
we preserved the slate, written in French, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese,
Japanese, Gujorati, and ending with ‘_ich bin ein Geist, und lieb, mein
Lagerbier_.’ For one of our number the juggler subsequently repeated
the trick and revealed its every detail.”
The method which Kellar used, and which he described to me, was this.
With the consent of the owner of the hotel, whom he agreed to pay for
any damage, he had a small trap made in the floor of the room, about
as large as a hot air register, with the necessary means of opening
and closing it. A plush rug with rectangular designs was placed over
this trap, and one of the designs, which was just the size of the trap,
was cut out with a razor, these cuts being imperceptible. The piece
of rug was glued firmly to the top of the trap. In addition to these
preparations, Kellar bought a specimen of every variety of slate to be
found in the downtown section of Philadelphia.
When the time for the “seance” arrived, Barney, Kellar’s clever young
assistant, was seated on a platform in the room underneath the trap
with the assortment of slates by his side. As soon as the Commission
was seated around the table he opened the trap and could then hear
all that was said in the room above. When the exhibition commenced
he simply took the slate Kellar put under the table leaf, selected
one from his assortment to match it, wrote on it the answer, and then
slipped it under Kellar’s fingers. In the case of a marked slate he
used that instead of a duplicate. Of course it was perfectly easy for
Kellar to do his part without removing his thumb from the top of the
table.
“A fake, pure and simple, you will say,” Kellar remarked to me, and
then added, “but that’s what all Spiritualistic manifestations are.”
In point of time John W. Truesdell was probably the first exposer of
Slade as he investigated him as early as 1872, but the results of his
investigation were not made public until he published his book, “Bottom
Facts,” in 1883. In this book he tells of setting a trap for Slade and
proving that he substituted slates.
As Sam Johnson of Rome, N. Y., Truesdell arranged for a seance with
Slade. Knowing that his overcoat would be searched, he left it hanging
on the hall rack with an unsealed letter in the pocket and while
waiting in the Spirit room he made the most of his opportunity to look
around. Under the sideboard he found a slate with a message written on
the lower side which read:
“We are happy to meet you in this atmosphere of Spirit
research. You are now summoned by many anxious friends in the
Spirit life, who desire to communicate with you, but who cannot
until they learn more of the laws which govern their actions.
If you will come here often, your Spirit friends will soon be
able to identify themselves and to communicate with you as on
earth life.
“Allie.”
In a bold hand Truesdell added:
“Henry, look out for this fellow. He is up to snuff.
“Alcinda.”
This was the name of Slade’s deceased wife, a fact which Truesdell
happened to know. He replaced the slate as he had found it. Slade
presently appeared and the seance began with the general phenomena
of moving chairs, etc., preceding the slate-writing. When the name
“Mary Johnson” appeared plainly written on the slate Slade said it was
Truesdell’s sister. Upon being told that this was incorrect, Slade,
pretending to change the light, drew the table over by the sideboard.
As usual he _lost control_ of the slate, letting it fall to the floor,
and as he stooped over to pick it up took the prepared one instead.
When he read the two messages he became livid with rage and turning to
Truesdell demanded to know what it meant and who had been meddling with
the slate.
“Spirits,” was Truesdell’s reply.
There were a few tense seconds and then the seance continued serenely.
I was too young in Slade’s time to seek an audience with him but I have
the good fortune to know Mr. Frederick E. Powell, a prominent magician
and a member of the Society of American Magicians. He is one of the
very few persons now living who had seances with Slade and with his
permission I quote the following description of his experiences with
Slade.
[Illustration: HENRY SLADE]
“In the Autumn of 1881 or 82, Henry Slade, the famous Spirit medium,
came to Philadelphia and took quarters at the Colonade Hotel, where he
opened a room, in which to hold seances. At that time I was instructor
of Mathematics in the Pennsylvania Military College at Chester, Pa.
Reading the announcement of Slade’s seances in a Philadelphia paper,
I wrote to him, and made an appointment for myself and Capt. R. K.
Carter, to be present at one of them. Capt. Carter was at that time our
instructor in Civil Engineering. Reaching the Colonade at the appointed
time, we were ushered into Slade’s presence, in a room, bare of
furniture, save a rather long table and several chairs, placed in the
center of the room, while at the side and just back of where Slade was
to sit, was a smaller table on which were piled a number of ordinary
looking school slates, of various sizes. The center table had no cloth
on it. Several small articles were on the mantelpiece, such as a smoker
might use, viz.: a match box, etc.
“According to my recollection, Slade was rather tall and slim, and of
an ingratiating presence. He was expecting us and at once placed me at
a long table.
“The seance began, with Slade holding two slates of rather large size,
and showing all their surfaces devoid of writing, placed them on the
top of the table, and while rubbing their surfaces kept up a running
fire of conversation. He then told us to place our hands on the table
as near the center as possible with our little fingers touching. Slade
placed the slates together, and after a moment or two separated them,
saying he had forgotten to put a piece of pencil between. This he did,
and holding them together placed them under the table with one hand,
while he placed the other on the table so that his fingers touched our
hands. This position was held for several minutes, when he said he
would see if he had gotten any results. Bringing the slates from under
the table he laid them on top and after a moment told Capt. Carter to
look at them. Following this direction, Capt. Carter separated them,
when one was found to have its entire surface covered with writing.
This message, according to Slade, came from a man who had just died.
(Notice of the man’s death had been published in the morning paper.)
The message was signed with the full name, but as neither Capt. Carter
nor I knew the man, we could not affirm or deny the correctness of the
handwriting, nor the truth of the signature.
“Capt. Carter asked Slade if he might copy the message, but Slade
demurred, saying he did not know if the Spirits would like the message
copied. I found it difficult to account for the reticence of the Spirit
or Spirits since the message had been written for our information. Its
purport was, as far as I can recall, that everything was very glorious
in the Spirit World, and that he, the writer, was very happy. There
was nothing in the message that was above the mentality of Slade or
that was, in any sense, descriptive of Spirit Life. All was vague and
unsatisfactory, where real information was desired.
“During this demonstration and indeed throughout the entire seance,
Slade sat sidewise to the table, his left hand resting generally on its
top and his right hand free. Several short messages were next produced
on a small slate held by Slade, under the table, and out of sight, a
short piece of slate pencil always being placed on the upper surface
of the slate. Two points were made very emphatic by Slade. First, that
the piece of pencil was always found just at the end of the last word
of the message, and second, that the messages were found on the upper
side of the slate, which according to Slade was held close against the
under surface of the table top. However, as we could not see the slate
when placed under the table, since we were reaching as far as we could
to get our hands on the center of its top, and the slate was only shown
to us when being brought from under its surface, it would have been
an easy thing to lower the slate after placing it under the table and
writing with a single finger of Slade’s right hand, then bringing the
slate to the under surface of the table, bring it slowly into sight.
“Once when the small slate was laid on top of the table the sound of
writing was distinctly heard. During this time Slade had both hands
on the upper surface of the table and in full sight. This was quite
startling at the time, but later I discovered how to produce this sound
of writing myself and without the aid of Spirits.
“Once, while we were having our attention directed to a slate held by
Slade, the unoccupied chair on the side opposite to Slade and almost
at the side of Capt. Carter, suddenly rose so that its seat struck the
under side of the table, and then fell back with quite a thud.
“Another telling effect was carried out, when Slade gave me one of the
small slates telling me to hold it under the table. I did so and felt
it suddenly snatched from my hand (I was holding it with one hand, my
other hand was on the top of the table) and carried with a scraping
noise to the very end of the table and there it rose above the surface
enough to disclose about a third or possibly a half its length. Then it
was carried swiftly back and put in my hand.
“This concluded the first seance; when Slade, after a moment, said he
thought that was all he could get at the time.
“On our second visit I need recount but three effects: First,
difference in the method of obtaining writing on the large slates
which began the seance, as in the first visit. Slade showed one slate
and cleaned it thoroughly, then while keeping up a running fire of
conversation, he casually reached to the small table, spoken of as
having several piles of slates on it, and taking one as though at
hazard, placed it flat on the big table. Rubbed its upper surface
with his fingers, and placed a piece of pencil on it, held it under
the table. After a pause he brought it out and taking the upper slate
off the under, showed both surfaces without writing. He remarked that
perhaps a different piece of pencil would be better and he placed
another pencil on the upper surface of the top slate and then placed
the lower slate over it, without at any time having shown its under
surface. This surface was found covered with writing, the purport of
which I do not now recall.
“The second variation of the first seance was when Slade asked me if
I had ever seen the ‘dematerialization of a solid object?’ I said I
had not, whereupon Slade took a small slate and, looking around as
though to find a proper object for his test, picked up a match box
from the mantelpiece, and put it on the upper surface of the slate
rather close to where he would hold it. He then placed the slate and
its superimposed object carefully under the table and after a moment
brought out the slate, without the match box. I looked under the table
but found nothing suspicious there.
“In a moment Slade replaced the slate under the table and on bringing
it out, we saw the match box in its former place. This disappearance
did not impress me greatly as I concluded the whole secret of
dematerialization consisted in turning the slate over and holding the
box in place by a finger, then after showing the surface empty, the
slate was again turned over on being replaced under the table, and so
the materialization of the box was realized.
“The last test was quite startling. Slade drew his chair close to mine,
placed one of his hands on the chair back and the other on the table.
My hands were resting on the table top. Suddenly I felt the chair rise,
and I was tipped forward, but kept my balance by pushing back with my
hands, which, as I have said, were resting on the table top. Then the
force was quickly withdrawn and my chair and I came back to the floor
with a grand thud. This concluded the second seance. I never saw Slade
again.”
Powell explains the levitation thus:
“When Slade drew his chair close to mine he crossed his legs and was
thus enabled to bring his foot under the rung of my chair. The leg
resting over the knee gave considerable leverage to the limb having a
foot under the rung of my chair. Now he exerted the necessary strength
by pressing upward with his foot, and holding the chair back with
his hand while the other hand steadied the whole, by bearing against
the table. Slade took his hand away from the back of my chair for
the fraction of a second _before he released his foot_. I was thus
naturally tilted forward and had to exert some force to keep myself
from sliding off the chair. This effort kept me from seeing Slade free
himself and get his limbs back to their normal position, viz., one hand
on the table, and his feet and legs fairly under it. Slade was rather
tall and, though somewhat slim, was very muscular. Of course I did not
actually _see_ Slade use his foot to do the lifting, but his position
and all the circumstances surrounding the effect tend to prove my
claim as to what I believe he did. Further, while I was far from being
as strong as Slade, I succeeded in duplicating this ‘Levitation’ by the
means I have described.”
While searching for material about Slade I heard of an old medium
living in Philadelphia by the name of Remigius Weiss, known as Remigius
Albus, who had testified before the Seybert Commission regarding
Slade’s manipulation of the slates. I went over to Philadelphia to
his home and there met the only man who had tangible evidence of Dr.
Slade. This he thoroughly explained to me. I asked him why he had never
exposed it to the world and he told me that he held back at first
because of pity for Slade’s condition and afterwards figured that if
the fraud mediums and other potential criminals knew Slade’s methods
they might make use of the methods to gain control of poor human beings
who wished to get in touch with loved ones who had passed away. He
did not hesitate to give me full details and at my request wrote me
a letter describing his experience with Slade. I quote it because I
believe it to be the best exposé ever written of Slade’s slate writings.
“August 18, 1923.
“My dear Houdini:--
“Please accept, from me, this Lock-book, and the locked
double-slate--as a small token of comradeship--in combating
Spiritualistic deception, popular superstition and Delusion.
“The book and the slate were my own. I put the lock and hinges
on the slate, and prepared the book, and a number of other,
different objects--(such as Professor Zollner had, when he,
in his foolishness, was pleased to be deceived by Dr. Slade’s
Humbug).
“In order to gain the perfect, full confidence of Dr. Slade,
and to have him give a seance in my home, and in order to
counteract and overcome his explicit aversion as to do writing
on or between a sealed slate or a locked book--I showed him
letters from (two eminent and confiding Spiritist Authors)--Dr.
Heinrich Tiedemann and Tiedemann’s intimate friend Hudson
Tuttle, promising to me that they would be present at that
seance (at 148 Fairmount Avenue).
“Dr. Slade had handled and inspected that Book and Slate,
during a Seance, at my residence (at 148 Fairmount Avenue,
Phila., Pa.), where I, together with Mr. Wertheimer (then a
student of Jurisprudence)--and in presence of other witnesses
(who were concealed and not seen, nor suspected by Dr. Slade,
nor his ‘Spirits’) detected the manipulations, pedalations
(foot, leg and other bodily movements)--and the general _modus
operandi_ of his simple Legerdemain at the seance. I had ready,
for that seance, three different suites of Furniture, and thus,
I found out that he would, or could, perform only at, or on a
certain kind of plain, square or drop-leaf table and ordinary
wooden chairs or cane seat chairs.
“Each person present at the Seance, wrote, _independent_ of
and _before_ communicating with, the others, a personal,
individual report of the Seance and signed it within the next
few days. A day or two after, I put these papers in my pocket
and also another paper I had prepared, to serve or use as Dr.
Slade’s confession to be signed by him. I went to the Girard
Hotel, Room 24 (N. W. corner of 9th and Chestnut Streets,
Philadelphia, Pa.), to have Dr. Slade arrested for obtaining
money under false pretense,--or to get him to sign his own
confession. There, in his room, No. 24, in the Girard Hotel,
I had another, a different Seance, with Dr. Slade. He again
carefully scrutinized the book and the slate, and then,
holding the book under the table, secretly and carefully,
attempted to open the lock, with a small key, hidden in his
handkerchief.
“Dr. Slade and his pretended ‘_Spirits_’ could not write in
the book. While holding it under the table, he attempted to
pull out of the book that thin, wooden, square frame, I had
put there at the edges of the leaves so that the small piece
of lead pencil could move about.--Then, in a similar attempt,
he worked and perspired, on, and over the double slate. His
‘Spirits’ could not write in the locked slate and he could not
open it.
“He said, ‘The Spirits seem to be angry at your skepticism,
it’s no use to lose more time by trying. My guide don’t want to
have anything more to do with you.’
“Then upon Dr. Slade’s request I unlocked the slate, and he
wrote in the ordinary way, as writing generally is done in
schools, two short sentences in the slate. Then he worked
the sponge,[70] and turning the written on side downward,
sleight-of-hand trick, tried to palm this off, claiming that
this is ‘Genuine, independent, Spirit slate writing.’
“Up to this time, November the 4th, 1882, I had shown to Dr.
Slade friendly, joyful attentiveness. We talked about some of
my newspaper articles I had published some weeks before he
consented to give me a seance.
“In these newspapers I had described him (Dr. Slade) as ‘The
Modern Cagliostro, a celebrated necromancer, martyr or a
charlatan, of radical free-religious proclivities, fine manners
and a humistic, witty and forceful public lecturer and most
powerful Spiritistic Medium, who again and again has been
and is challenging exposures, and calling special attention to
the fact that Dr. Slade has, in his lectures, and otherwise,
again and again publicly announced that he is prepared to
pay a thousand dollars ($1000.00) to any person that can
prove that he (Dr. Slade) is a humbug, or that Dr. Slade’s
“manifestations” are trickery, legerdemain, humbug or in any
way fraudulent.’
[Illustration: “LOCKED SLATE” USED BY DR. HENRY SLADE IN HIS
WRITING TESTS AT PHILADELPHIA]
“Dr. Slade seemed to be pleased by my description. After some
pleasant talk as to his appearance with Scientists, Kings and
other royal persons and Rulers in Europe and his success as a
lecturer and his way of living, he gave me his address, No. 221
West 22nd Street, _New York_.
“Then I asked Dr. Slade that we change ‘rôles,’ he to take my
place and be the Investigator,--and I to play the ‘medium,’
there, in his room, as an ‘experiment.’
“Dr. Slade also said that if I could overcome my skepticism I
would be a good ‘psychic,’ having ‘mediumistic’ gifts.
“I suggested that he should watch me carefully and then
honestly tell me, as to the effect and ‘impression’ my
‘manifestations’ could (or would) be producing on his mind,
and eventually on the outcome of the ‘Spiritualistic, the
Harmonial, Philosophy, or so-called, Scientific Religion of the
Spiritists.’
“Then, to his consternation, I, earnestly, by actual
demonstration, reproduced every one of his manifestations,
_exactly_ (and by the same _modus operandi_, as I, and my
witnesses had seen and detected) as _Dr. Slade had performed
them_. He asked me, how, and by what means we detected his
‘occult’ or secret mode, or ‘process of wonder working’ or
miracle?--I mentioned that he had positively refused to try
any ‘experiment’ on the first and second sets of tables and
chairs, and had requested me to substitute them by a plain
kitchen table and chairs of a certain construction.
“I told him that I had bored observation-holes in the _corners_
of the panels (particularly so through the _lower_ corners)
in the parlor doors, the floor, ceiling and other places from
where my concealed witnesses observed, and have seen exactly
all the movements of his feet, hands, etc., _below_ and above
the table,--saw how he raised (‘floated’) Mr. Wertheimer
sitting in the chair, saw how he (Dr. Slade) with his foot
upset chairs, kicked a book (extending over the edge of the
table), tossed a slate pencil from the edge of the table from a
slate held under and at the edge of the table, etc., etc.
[Illustration: SKETCH SHOWING SLADE’S SEAT AT THE TABLE, DIFFERENT
POSITIONS OF SLATES, LOCATION OF SPONGE, AND METHOD OF MOVING BOOK.]
“Dr. Slade, now turned very pale and wiping off the thick
perspiration from his forehead and face, said:--‘Well, what of
it?’ and rashly asked:--‘Where were Hudson Tuttle and Dr. H.
Tiedemann?’ I reminded him of the fact that they had sent an
excuse, being unable (by reason of unforeseen circumstances) to
attend that seance in my house.
“Then I sternly gave him the alternative:--That either he _sign
his own confession_ (as to the fact)--that he has (during the
many years in his career as a professional Spirit medium and
in everything he had professed or pretended to be ‘genuine’
Spiritistic or Spiritualistic) deceived and defrauded the
public.--I read the confession to him and sternly demanded,
‘Either you sign this or you will be put behind the bars.’--
_CONFESSION_
“The undersigned, Henry Slade, known professionally as Dr.
Henry Slade,--the powerful Spiritistic medium--by reason of
the force of unfavorable circumstances, years ago became
a Spiritualistic slate writing (etc., etc.) medium, and
Spiritistic lecturer and he herewith confesses that all
his pretended Spiritualistic manifestations were and are
deceptions, performed through tricks.
(Signed) H. Slade.”
“I (R. Weiss) had also stipulated that he (Dr. Slade) promises to
discontinue his present dishonest, criminal method of gaining a
livelihood by preying on the superstition of Spiritualists and through
the gullibility of the public,--Dr. Slade then remonstrated and
said:--that I could not affect his standing in the eyes of those who
had seen and believed his manifestations, mentioning the Czar of Russia
and others of world prominence.
“I then walked to the door, signifying that _my part_ of the interview
and argument was ended--and also conveying the ‘impression’ as to my
intention to have him arrested.
“He then changed his attitude and in a cringing manner he pleaded with
me to have mercy on him, as he had only this one method of earning a
livelihood. All of this, and his pleading, was so strenuous that he
fell in a ‘dead’ faint.--
“Then, after I ‘revived’ him out of a ‘_genuine_’ fainting spell, he
begged me to desist from having him arrested and then _he signed the
confession_.
(Signed) “Remigius Weiss.”