SPIRITUALISTS AND CONJURERS.
"How it's done" is the question which, in the words of Dr. Lynn, we want
to settle with reference to his own or kindred performances, and, still
more, in the production of the phenomena known as spiritual. I have
spent some years of my existence in a hitherto vain endeavour to solve
the latter problem; and the farther I go, the more the mystery seems to
deepen. Of late, the two opposed parties, the Spiritualists and the
Conjurers, have definitely entered the arena, and declared war to the
knife. Each claims to be Moses, and denounces the others as mere
magicians. Mr. Maskelyne holds a dark séance, professing to expose the
spiritualistic ones; Dr. Lynn brandishes against them his strong right
arm upon which is written in letters all of blood the name of one's
deceased grandmother, while, in return, Dr. Sexton exposes the
conjurers, and spoils one's enjoyment of a hitherto enjoyable evening,
by showing "how it's done"--how the name of one's departed relative is
forged and painted early in the afternoon, instead of "coming out" on
the spot--and in spots--like measles or nettle-rash (as we feel defunct
relations ought to come) or walking in and out of the corded box at
pleasure, and even going so far as to give the address of the clever
mechanist down a by-street near Notting-hill Gate, who will make the
mysterious packing case to order in return for a somewhat heavy
"consideration."
I accepted Dr. Lynn's invitation to be present on his "opening night;"
and wondered, in passing, why everybody should not make their cards of
invitation such thorough works of art as his. Now I am going to do
even-handed justice all the way round; and I must say that Dr. Lynn's
experiment of fastening his attendant to a sort of penitential stool
with copper wire, surrounded by scrutineers from the audience, and then
making the man's coat come off, and a ring pass over his arm, behind a
simple rug held in front of him, is quite as wonderful as anything I
have ever witnessed at a séance. It has the great advantage of being
done in the light, instead of, as in Mr. Fay's case, in darkness, and
without a cabinet. In fact, I have no idea how it's done; though I have
no doubt the first time I see Dr. Sexton he will point to something
unsatisfactory in the bolts to which that doorkeeper is fastened, and
give me the addresses of the ironmonger who will sell me some like them,
or the tailor who will manufacture me a swallow tail coat with an
imperceptible slit down the back. Then again, I have, as I said, seen
young Mr. Sexton go in and out of the corded box, and I know how that's
done; but Dr. Lynn's man goes into three, one inside the other. Well, I
can understand that if Dr. Sexton's theory be correct, it may perhaps be
as easy to get into a "nest" of three as into one box; but how, in the
name of nature--or art--does the nautical gentleman get out of the
double sack in which he is tied? I cannot bring myself to print what Dr.
Sexton's theory of the box is, because it appears to be such a wanton
cruelty to "expose" things when people go to the Egyptian Hall on
purpose to be mystified. I remember how the fact of having seen Dr.
Sexton do the trick of reading the names in the hat spoilt my enjoyment
of Dr. Lynn's experiment. He really appeared quite bungling when I knew
all he was about. He did not, on this occasion, produce the letters on
his arm; but I saw he could quite easily have done so, though the doing
it would have been no sort of reproduction of Mr. Forster's
manifestation, who showed you the name of some relative when you had
looked in on him quite unexpectedly. I can quite understand how it is
that the spiritualists, who hold these matters to be sacred as
revelation itself--in fact, to be revelation itself, are shocked at
seeing their convictions denounced as trickery and "exposed" on a public
platform; but I confess I do not quite see how they can adopt the tu
quoque principle, and "expose" Dr. Lynn and Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke
as tricksters, because they do not pretend to be anything else. It
would have been fatal if the magicians had "found out" Moses, and they
wisely refrained from trying; but it would have served no purpose for
Moses to "find out" the magicians: and it strikes me Moses would have
deemed it very infra dig. to make the attempt. The two things stand on
quite different grounds; and I cannot help thinking that the
spiritualists unwisely concede a point when they accept the challenge of
the conjurers. I am quite aware that the theory of the spiritualists
makes of many a conjurer a medium malgré lui, and says he ought to come
out in his true colours. It was so Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke were
originally introduced to a London public at the Crystal Palace under the
auspices of an eminent spiritualist; but it really appears to me that
such an assertion amounts to begging the question; for I doubt whether
it would not "pay" quite as well to come out boldly in Mr. Williams's or
Mr. Morse's line as in that of Dr. Lynn or Mr. Maskelyne.
In a lengthened confab which I once had with Mr. Maskelyne himself after
one of his performances, he told me that by constant attendance at the
séances of the Davenports he found out how that was all done; and, being
a working watchmaker, was able soon to get the necessary apparatus
constructed. I must again be just, and state that while the cabinet
séance of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke seems to me the exact counterpart
of the Davenports', their dark séance fails to reproduce that of the
spiritualists as the performances of Professor Pepper himself. True,
this latter gentleman does all his exposés on a platform which is sacred
against all intrusion, and Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke assume to allow
as much examination as the spiritualists. But I myself, who have seen
Mr. Home float around Mr. S. C. Hall's drawing-room, and handled him
above and below in transitu, quite fail to discern any reproduction of
that phenomenon in the heavy, lumbering levitation of the lady by means
of the scissors-like apparatus behind her, which we are only privileged
to behold from the stalls. The dancing walking-stick is as palpably made
terpsichorean by a string as the chairs I have seen cross Mr. Hall's
drawing-room in full light were not drawn by strings, for I was able to
look closely at them; and I do not know how that was done.
Fresh from Dr. Lynn's really marvellous performances of recent times,
and with Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke's equally clever tricks in my
mind's eye, though not quite so recently, I still am bold to say I
believe there are still six of one to half-a-dozen of the other. If the
conjurers reproduce the spiritual phenomena in some instances, the
spiritualists distance the conjurers in others. I speak of phenomena
only. The magicians produced many of the same phenomena as Moses; but,
even so, if we are orthodox we must believe the source of such
manifestations to have been utterly different.
But I am, as I said, wise in my generation, and stick to phenomena. I
venture to think the conjurers unwise in irritating the spiritualists,
who are a growing body, by placarding their entertainment as exposés,
even though such announcements may "draw" the non-spiritual public. I
suppose, however, they understand the science of advertising better than
I do; but I feel sure the spiritualists are unwise to follow their
example, because they have got nothing to expose. Dr. Lynn or Messrs.
Maskelyne and Cooke are as much pleased as conscientious mediums would
be shocked at being proved clever tricksters. The only folks who are
injured by being told "how it's done," are the British Public, who pay
their five shillings to be mystified at the Egyptian Hall, just as the
spiritualists do in Lamb's Conduit Street.
If it is to come to a race for the championship--and seriously it would
seem that, having begun, the two parties are bound to continue the
strife--one can scarcely imagine anything more attractive than such a
combined display of talent. Dr. Lynn gets lots of people to come and see
"How it's done"--the gentleman with the mandolin is well worth a visit,
and I cannot guess how he does it--while Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke
must really be making a good thing of it. Mr. Williams's séances are
decidedly attractive (and how he does it has puzzled me for years, as I
said), nor does the Progressive Institute seem to decrease in interest;
but let us only picture the fascination of a long evening where Pepper's
Ghost should be pitted against John King, Mrs. Guppy and Messrs.
Maskelyne and Cooke's lady float in competition round the room or even
in from the suburbs, while the Davenports and Dr. Lynn's man should
wriggle out of or into iron rings and their own dress coats! Until some
such contest takes place, the public mind will probably gravitate
towards the conjurers rather than the spiritualists, and that through
the actually suicidal policy of the latter; because while the
spiritualists of necessity can show no visible source of their
manifestations, one of their own rank devotes himself to aiding the
conjurers by showing in reference to their tricks, "How it's done." It
would have been wiser, surely, to stand upon dignity, and in a truly
conservative spirit (is it too late even now to reassume it?), say,
"These men are mediums, but it does not suit their pockets to confess
it."
Well, they are signs of the times. London loves to be mystified, and
would only have one instead of manifold methods to be so if the
spiritualists and conjurers were to strike hands, and reduce us all to
the dead level of pure faith or relentless reason and cold common
sense!