November 15, 1937.
_1. "Why Must the Burden of Proof Rest with the Spirits?"_
"You don't believe in psychic phenomena," said Doctor Otto Zoberg yet
again, "because you _won't_."
This with studied kindness, sitting in the most comfortable chair of my
hotel room. I, at thirty-four, silently hoped I would have his health
and charm at fifty-four--he was so rugged for all his lean length,
so well groomed for all his tweeds and beard and joined eyebrows, so
articulate for all his accent. Doctor Zoberg quite apparently liked and
admired me, and I felt guilty once more that I did not entirely return
the compliment.
"I know that you are a stage magician----" he began afresh.
"I was once," I amended, a little sulkily. My early career had
brought me considerable money and notice, but after the novelty of
show business was worn off I had never rejoiced in it. Talboto the
Mysterious--it had been impressive, but tawdry. Better to be Talbot
Wills, lecturer and investigator in the field of exposing fraudulent
mediums.
For six years I had known Doctor Otto Zoberg, the champion of spiritism
and mediumism, as rival and companion. We had first met in debate
under auspices of the Society for Psychical Research in London. I,
young enough for enthusiasm but also for carelessness, had been badly
out-thought and out-talked. But afterward, Doctor Zoberg had praised
my arguments and my delivery, and had graciously taken me out to a
late supper. The following day, there arrived from him a present of
helpful books and magazines. Our next platform duel found me in a
position to get a little of my own back; and he, afterward, laughingly
congratulated me on turning to account the material he had sent me.
After that, we were public foemen and personal inseparables. Just
now we were touring the United States, debating, giving exhibitions,
visiting mediums. The night's program, before a Washington audience
liberally laced with high officials, had ended in what we agreed was a
draw; and here we were, squabbling good-naturedly afterward.
"Please, Doctor," I begged, offering him a cigarette, "save your
charges of stubbornness for the theater."
He waved my case aside and bit the end from a villainous black cheroot.
"I wouldn't say it, here or in public, if it weren't true, Talbot.
Yet you sneer even at telepathy, and only half believe in mental
suggestion. _Ach_, you are worse than Houdini."
"Houdini was absolutely sincere," I almost blazed, for I had known
and worshipped that brilliant and kindly prince of conjurers and
fraud-finders.
"_Ach_, to be sure, to be sure," nodded Zoberg over his blazing match.
"I did not say he was not. Yet, he refused proof--the proof that he
himself embodied. Houdini was a great mystic, a medium. His power for
miracles he did not know himself."
I had heard that before, from Conan Doyle as well as Zoberg, but I made
no comment. Zoberg continued:
"Perhaps Houdini was afraid--if anything could frighten so brave and
wise a man it would assuredly come from within. And so he would not
even listen to argument." He turned suddenly somber. "Perhaps he knew
best, _ja_. But he was stubborn, and so are you."
"I don't think you can say that of me," I objected once more. The
cheroot was alight now, and I kindled a cigarette to combat in some
degree the gunpowdery fumes.
Teeth gleamed amiably through the beard, and Zoberg nodded again, in
frank delight this time. "Oh, we have hopes of you, Wills, where we
gave up Houdini."
He had never said that before, not so plainly at any rate. I smiled
back. "I've always been willing to be shown. Give me a fool-proof,
fake-proof, supernormal phenomenon, Doctor; let me convince myself;
then I'll come gladly into the spiritist camp."
"_Ach_, so you always say!" he exploded, but without genuine wrath.
"Why must the burden of proof rest with the spirits? How can you prove
that they do not live and move and act? Study what Eddington has to say
about that."
"For five years," I reminded him, "I have offered a prize of five
thousand dollars to any medium whose spirit miracles I could not
duplicate by honest sleight-of-hand."
He gestured with slim fingers, as though to push the words back into
me. "That proves absolutely nothing, Wills. For all your skill, do you
think that sleight-of-hand can be the only way? Is it even the best
way?"
"I've unmasked famous mediums for years, at the rate of one a month," I
flung back. "Unmasked them as the clumsiest of fakes."
"Because some are dishonest, are all dishonest?" he appealed. "What
specific thing would convince you, my friend?"
I thought for a moment, gazing at him through the billows of smoke. Not
a gray hair to him--and I, twenty years his junior, had six or eight at
either temple. I went on to admire and even to envy that pointed trowel
of beard, the sort of thing that I, a magician, might have cultivated
once. Then I made my answer.
"I'd ask for a materialization, Doctor. An ectoplasmic apparition,
visible and solid to touch--in an empty room with no curtains or
closets, all entrances sealed by myself, the medium and witnesses
shackled." He started to open his mouth, but I hurried to prevent
him. "I know what you'll say--that I've seen a number of impressive
ectoplasms. So I have, perhaps, but not one was scientifically and
dispassionately controlled. No, Doctor, if I'm to be convinced, I must
make the conditions and set the stage myself."
"And if the materialization was a complete success?"
"Then it would prove the claim to me--to the world. Materializations
are the most important question in the whole field."
He looked long at me, narrowing his shrewd eyes beneath the dark single
bar of his brows. "Wills," he said at length, "I hoped you would ask
something like this."
"You did?"
"_Ja._ Because--first, can you spare a day or so?"
I replied guardedly, "I can, I believe. We have two weeks or more
before the New Orleans date." I computed rapidly. "Yes, that's December
8. What have you got up your sleeve, Doctor?"
He grinned once more, with a great display of gleaming white teeth, and
flung out his long arms. "My sleeves, you will observe, are empty!"
he cried. "No trickery. But within five hours of where we sit--five
hours by fast automobile--is a little town. And in that town there
is a little medium. No, Wills, you have never seen or heard of her.
It is only myself who found her by chance, who studied her long and
prayerfully. Come with me, Wills--she will teach you how little you
know and how much you can learn!"
_2. "You Can Almost Hear the Ghosts."_
I have sat down with the purpose of writing out, plainly and even
flatly, all that happened to me and to Doctor Otto Zoberg in our
impromptu adventure at psychic investigation; yet, almost at the
start, I find it necessary to be vague about the tiny town where that
adventure ran its course. Zoberg began by refusing to tell me its name,
and now my friends of various psychical research committees have asked
me to hold my peace until they have finished certain examinations
without benefit of yellow journals or prying politicians.
It is located, as Zoberg told me, within five hours by fast automobile
of Washington. On the following morning, after a quick and early
breakfast, we departed at seven o'clock in my sturdy coupé. I drove and
Zoberg guided. In the turtle-back we had stowed bags, for the November
sky had begun to boil up with dark, heavy clouds, and a storm might
delay us.
On the way Zoberg talked a great deal, with his usual charm and
animation. He scoffed at my skepticism and prophesied my conversion
before another midnight.
"A hundred years ago, realists like yourself were ridiculing
hypnotism," he chuckled. "They thought that it was a fantastic fake,
like one of Edgar Poe's amusing tales, _ja_? And now it is a great
science, for healing and comforting the world. A few years ago, the
world scorned mental telepathy----"
"Hold on," I interrupted. "I'm none too convinced of it now."
"I said just that, last night. However, you think that there is
some grain of truth to it. You would be a fool to laugh at the many
experiments in clairvoyance carried on at Duke University."
"Yes, they are impressive," I admitted.
"They are tremendous, and by no means unique," he insisted. "Think of a
number between one and ten," he said suddenly.
I gazed at my hands on the wheel, thought of a joking reply, then fell
in with his mood.
"All right," I replied. "I'm thinking of a number. What is it?"
"It is seven," he cried out at once, then laughed heartily at the blank
look on my face.
"Look here, that's a logical number for an average man to think of," I
protested. "You relied on human nature, not telepathy."
He grinned and tweaked the end of his beard between manicured fingers.
"Very good, Wills, try again. A color this time."