cabinet with a black curtain drawn across it occupied a position in a deep
alcove. Suspended from the roof of the cabinet was a large guitar. I took
a chair and waited patiently for the appearance of the anti-Spiritualist,
after having first examined everything in the room--table, cabinet, and
musical instruments--but I discovered no evidence of trickery anywhere. I
waited and waited, but no C--. "Can he have forgotten me?" I said to
myself. Suddenly a loud rap resounded on the table top, followed by a
succession of raps from the cabinet; and the guitar began to play. I was
quite startled. When the music ceased the door opened, and C-- entered.
"The spirits are in force to-night," he remarked with a meaning smile, as
he slightly diminished the light in the apartment.
"Yes," I replied. "How did you do it?"
"All in good time, my dear ghost-seer," was the answer. "Let us try first
a few of Dr. Slade's best slate tests."
So saying he handed me a slate and directed me to wash it carefully on
both sides with a damp cloth. I did so and passed it back to him.
Scattering some tiny fragments of pencil upon it, he held the slate
pressed against the under surface of the table leaf, the fingers of his
right hand holding the slate, his thumb grasping the leaf. C-- then
requested me to hold the other end of the slate in a similar fashion, and
took my right hand in his left. Heavy raps were heard on the table-top,
and I felt the fingers of a spirit hand plucking at my garments from
beneath the table. C--'s body seemed possessed with some strange
convulsion, his hands quivered, and his eyes had a glassy look. Listening
attentively, I heard the sound of a pencil writing on the slate.
"Take care!" gasped the conjurer, breathlessly.
The slate was jerked violently out of our hands by some powerful agency,
but the medium regained it, and again pressed it against the table as
before. In a little while he brought the slate up and there upon its upper
surface was a spirit message, addressed to me--"Are you convinced now?--D.
D. Home."
At this juncture there came a knock at the door, and C--, with the slate
in his hand, went to see who it was. It proved to be the pale-faced
assistant. A few words in a low-tone of voice were exchanged between them,
and the conjurer returned to the table, excusing the interruption by
remarking, "Some one to see me, that is all, but don't hurry, for I have
another test to show you." After thoroughly washing both sides of the
slate he placed it, with a slate pencil, under a chafing-dish cover in the
center of the table. We joined hands and awaited developments.
Being tolerably well acquainted with conjuring devices, I manifested but
little surprise in the first test when the spirit message was written,
because the magician _had his fingers on the slate_. But in this test the
slate was not in his possession; how then could the writing be
accomplished?
[Illustration: FIG. 3. THE HOLDING OF THE SLATE.]
"Hush!" said C--, "is there a spirit present?" A responsive rap resounded
on the table, and after a few minutes' silence, the mysterious scratching
of the slate-pencil began. I was nonplussed.
"Turn over the slate," said the juggler.
I complied with his request and found a long message to me, covering the
entire side of the slate. It was signed "Cagliostro."
"What do you think of Dr. Slade's slate tests?" inquired C--.
"Splendid!" I replied, "but how are they done?"
His explanations made the seeming marvel perfectly plain. While the slate
is being examined in the first test, the medium slips on a thimble with a
piece of slate pencil attached or else has a tiny bit of pencil under his
finger nail. In the act of holding the slate under the table, he writes
the short message backwards on its under side. It becomes necessary,
however, to turn the slate over before exhibiting it to the sitter, so
that the writing may appear to have been written on its upper
surface--the side that has been pressed to the table. To accomplish this
the medium pretends to go into a sort of neurotic convulsion, during which
state the slate is jerked away from the sitter, presumably by spirit
power, and is turned over in the required position. It is not immediately
brought up for examination but is held for a few seconds underneath the
table top, and then produced with a certain amount of deliberation.
The special difficulty of this trick consists in the medium's ability to
write in reverse upon the under surface of the slate. If he wrote from
left to right, in the ordinary method, it would, of course, reverse the
message when the slate is examined, and give a decided clue to the
mystery. This inscribing in reverse, or mirror writing, as it is often
called, is exceedingly difficult to do, but nothing is impossible to a
Slade.
But how is the writing done on the slate in the second test? asks the
curious reader. Nothing easier! The servant who raps at the door brings
with him, concealed under his coat, a second slate, upon which the long
message is written. Over the writing is a pad cut from a book-slate,
exactly fitting the frame of the prepared slate. It is impossible to
detect the fraud when the light in the room is a trifle obscure. The
medium makes an exchange of slates, returns to the table, washes both
sides of the trick slate, and carelessly exhibits it to the sitter, the
writing being protected of course by the pad. Before placing the slate
under the chafing-dish cover, he lets the pad drop into his lap. Now comes
a crucial point in the imposture: the writing heard beneath the slate,
supposed to be the work of a disembodied spirit. The medium under cover of
his handkerchief removes from his pocket an instrument known as a
"pencil-clamp." This clamp consists of a small block of wood with two
sharp steel points protruding from the upper edge and a piece of slate
pencil fixed in the lower. The medium presses the steel points into the
under surface of the table with sufficient force to attach the block
securely to the table, and then rubs a pencil, previously attached to his
right knee by silk sutures, against the side of the pencil fastened to the
apparatus. The noise produced thereby exactly simulates that of writing
upon a slate. In my case the illusion was perfect. During the examination
of the message, the medium has ample opportunity to secrete the false pad
and the clamp in his pocket. Instead of having a servant bring the slate
to him and making the exchange described above, he may have the trick
slate concealed about him before the séance begins, with the message
written on it, and adroitly make the substitution while the sitter is
engaged in lowering the light. Dr. Slade almost invariably adopted the
first-mentioned exchange, because it enabled his confederate to write a
lucid message to the sitter.
An examination of the sitter's overcoat in the hall frequently yielded
valuable information in the way of names and initials extracted from
letters, sealed or unsealed. Sealed letters? Yes; it is an easy matter to
steam a gummed envelope, open it, and seal it again. Another method is to
wet the sealed envelope with a sponge dipped in alcohol. The writing will
show up tolerably well if written upon a card. In a very short time the
envelope will dry and exhibit no evidence of having been tampered with.
And now as to the rest of the phenomena witnessed that evening in C--'s
room. The raps on the table top were the result of an ingenious, hidden
mechanism, worked by electricity; the mysterious hand that operated under
the table was the juggler's right foot. He wore slippers and had the toe
part of one stocking cut away. By dropping the slipper from his foot he
was enabled to pull the edge of my coat, lift and shove a chair away, and
perform sundry other ghostly evolutions, thanks to a well trained big
toe. Dr. Slade who was long and lithe of limb, worked this dodge to
perfection, prior to the paralytic attack which partly disabled his lower
limbs.
The stringed instrument which played in the cabinet was arranged as
follows: Inside of the guitar was a small musical box, so arranged that
the steel vibrating tongues of the box came in contact with a small piece
of writing paper. When the box was set to going by means of an electric
current, it closely imitated the twanging of a guitar, just as a sheet of
music when laid on the strings of a piano simulates a banjo. This spirit
guitar is a very useful instrument in the hands of a medium. It may be
made to play when it is attached to a telescopic rod, and waved in
phosphorescent curves over the heads of a circle of believers in the dark
séance.
I shall now sum up the subject of Dr. Slade's spirit-slate writing, (Fig.
3) and endeavor to show how grossly exaggerated the reports of the
medium's performances have been, and the reasons for such misstatements.
No one who is not a professional or amateur prestidigitateur can correctly
report what he sees at a spiritualistic séance.
It is not so much the swiftness of the hand that counts in conjuring but
the ability to force the attention of the spectators in different
directions away from the crucial point of the trick. The really important
part of the test, then, is hidden from the audience, who imagine they have
seen all when they have not. Says Dr. Max Dessoir: "It must therefore be
regarded as a piece of rare naiveté if a reporter asserts that in the
description of his subjective conclusions he is giving the exact objective
processes."
This will be seen in Mr. Davey's experiments. Mr. Davey, a member of the
London Society for Psychical Research, and an amateur magician who
possessed great dexterity in the slate-writing business, gave a series of
exhibitions before a number of persons, but did not inform them that the
results were due to prestidigitation. No entrance fee was charged for the
séances, but the sitters, who were fully impressed with the genuineness of
the affair, were requested to submit written reports of what they had
seen. These letters, published in vol. iv of the Proceedings of the
Society, are admirable examples of mal-observation, for no one detected
Mr. Davey exchanging slates and doing the writing.
"The sources of error," says Dr. Max Dessoir, in an article reproduced in
the "Open Court," "through which such strange reports arise, may be
arranged in four groups. First, the observer interpolates a fact which
did not happen, but which he is led to believe has happened; thus, he
imagines he has examined the slate when as a fact he never has. Second, he
confuses two similar ideas; he thinks he has carefully examined the slate,
when in reality he has only done so hastily, or in ignorance of the point
at issue. Third, the witness changes the order of events a little in
consequence of a very natural deception of memory; he believes he tested
the slate later than he actually did. Fourth and last, he passes over
certain details which were purposely described to him as insignificant; he
does not notice that the 'medium' asks him to close a window, and that the
trick is thus rendered possible."
Similar experiments in slate-writing were conducted by the Seybert
Commission with Mr. Harry Kellar, the conjurer, after sittings were had
with Dr. Slade, and the magician outdid the medium. The Seybert Commission
found none of Slade's tests genuine, and officially denied "the
extraordinary stories of his performances with locked slates which
constitute a large part of his fame."
Dr. Slade began his Spiritualistic operations in London in the year 1876,
and charged a fee of a guinea a head for séances lasting a few minutes.
Crowds went to see him and he reaped a golden harvest from the credulous,
until the grand fiasco came. Slade was caught in one of his juggling
séances and exposed by Prof. Lancaster and Dr. Donkin. The result was a
criminal prosecution and a sensational trial lasting three days at the Bow
Street Police Court. Mr. Maskelyne, the conjurer, was summoned as an
expert witness and performed a number of the medium's tricks in the
witness box. The court sentenced Slade to three months' hard labor, but he
took an appeal from the magistrate's decision. The appeal was sustained on
the ground of a technical flaw in the indictment, and the medium fled to
the Continent before new summons could be served. He visited Paris,
Leipsic, Berlin, St. Petersburg and other cities, giving séances before
Royalty and before distinguished members of scientific societies; and
afterwards went to Australia. He made money fast and spent it fast, but it
took all of his ingenuity to elude the clutches of the police. In 1892, we
find him the inmate of a workhouse in one of our Western towns, penniless,
friendless and a lunatic.
Slade's séances with Prof. Zoellner, of Berlin, in 1878, attracted wide
attention, and did more to advertise his fame as a medium than anything
else in his career.
Zoellner's belief in the genuineness of Slade's mediumistic marvels led
him to write a curious work, entitled, "Transcendental Physics," being an
inquiry into the "fourth dimension of space." Poor old Zoellner, he was
half insane when these séances were held! We have the undisputed authority
of the Seybert Commission for the correctness of this statement.
In Hamburg, Dr. Borchert wrote to Slade offering him one thousand marks if
he would produce writing between locked slates, similar to the writing
alleged to have been executed at the Zoellner séances, but the medium took
no notice of the professor's letter. The conjurer, Carl Wilmann, with two
friends, had a sitting with Slade, but without satisfactory results for
the medium. "Slade," says Wilmann, "was unable to distract my attention
from the crucial point of the trick, and threw down the slates on the
table in disgust, remarking: 'I can not obtain any results to-day, the
power that controls me is exhausted. Come tomorrow!'" That tomorrow never
arrived for Wilmann and his friends; Slade did not keep his appointment,
nor could Wilmann succeed in obtaining another sitting with him. The
medium had been warned by friends that Wilmann was an expert professor of
legerdemain.
It was in 1886 that Slade created such a furore in Hamburg in
Spiritualistic circles. A talented conjurer of that city, named
Schradieck, after a few weeks' practice succeeded in eclipsing Slade. He
learned to write in reverse on slates, and produced writing in various
colored chalks. Another one of his experiments was making the slate
disappear from one side of the table where it was held _a la_ Slade and
appear at the opposite end of the table suddenly, as if held up to view by
a spirit hand. Wilmann describes the effect as startling in the extreme
and says Schradieck produced it by means of his left foot. After Slade's
departure from Hamburg, spirit mediums sprang up like toadstools in a
single night. Wilmann in his crusade against these worthies had many
interesting experiences. He gives in his work "Moderne Wunder" several
exposes of mediumistic tricks, two of which, in the sealed slate line, are
very ingenious. The medium takes a slate (one furnished by the sitter if
preferred), wipes it on both sides with a wet sponge, and then wraps it up
carefully in a piece of ordinary white wrapping paper, allowing the
package to be sealed and corded _ad libitum_. Notwithstanding all the
precautions used, a message appears on the slate. It is accomplished in
this way. A message in reverse is written on the wrapping paper with a
camel's hair brush or pointed stick, dipped in some sticky substance, and
finely powdered slate pencil dust is scattered over the writing. At a
little distance, especially in a dim light, it is impossible to discover
the writing as it blends very well with the white paper. In wrapping up
the slate the medium presses the writing on the paper against the surface
of the slate and the chirography adheres thereto, very much as the greasy
drawing on a lithographer's stone prints on paper.
In the other experiment the medium uses a _papier mache_ slate, set in the
usual wooden frame. A _papier mache_ pad is prepared with a spirit message
on one surface; on the other is pasted a piece of newspaper. This pad is
laid, written side down, on a sheet of newspaper. After the genuine slate
has been washed, the medium proceeds to wrap it up in the newspaper, and
presses the trick pad, writing up, into the frame of the slate where it
exactly fits into a groove prepared for the purpose.
Since Dr. Slade's retirement from the mediumistic field, Pierre L. O. A.
Keeler's fame as a slate-writing medium has been spread broadcast. He
oscillates between Boston, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore
and Washington, and has a very large and fashionable _clientele_. He
gives evening materializing séances of the cabinet type three times a week
at his rooms. During the day he gives private slate tests which are very
popular.
I had a sitting with him on the afternoon of April 24th, 1895. In order to
gain his confidence, I went as one witnessing a slate séance for the first
time, that is, I accepted _his_ slates, and had no prepared questions.
I was ushered into a small, back parlor by the medium who closed the
folding doors. We were alone. I made a mental photograph of the
surroundings. There was no furniture except a table and two chairs placed
near the window. Over the table was a faded cloth, hanging some eight or
ten inches below the table. Upon it were several pads of paper and a
heterogeneous assortment of lead pencils. Leaning against the mantelpiece,
within a foot or so of the medium's chair, were some thirty or forty
slates.
"Take a seat", said Mr. Keeler pointing to a chair. I sat down, whereupon
he seated himself opposite me, remarking as he did so, "Have you brought
slates with you?"
"I have not," was my reply.
"Then, if you have no objection," he said, "we will use two of mine.
Please examine these two slates, wash them clean with this damp cloth, and
dry them." With that he passed me two ordinary school-slates, which I
inspected closely, and carefully cleaned.
"Be kind enough to place the slates to one side," said Keeler. I complied.
"Have you prepared any slips with the names of friends, relatives, or
others, who have passed into spirit life, with questions for them to
answer?"
"I have not," I replied.
"Kindly do so then," he answered, "and take your time about it. There is a
pad on the table. Please write but a single question on each slip. Then
fold the slips and place them on the table." I did so.
"I will also make one," he continued, "it is to my spirit control, George
Christy." He wrote a name on a slip of paper, folded it, and tossed it
among those I had prepared, passing his hand over them and fingering them,
saying, "It is necessary to get a psychic impression from them." We sat in
silence several minutes.
After a little while Mr. Keeler said: "I do not know whether or not we
shall get any responses this afternoon, but have patience." Again we
waited. "Suppose you write a few more slips," he remarked, "perhaps
we'll have better luck. Be sure and address them to people who were old
enough to write before they passed into spirit life." This surprised me,
but I complied with his wishes. While writing I glanced furtively at him
from time to time; his hands were in his lap, concealed by the table
cloth. He looked at me occasionally, then at his lap, fixedly. _I am
satisfied that he opened some of my slips, having adroitly abstracted them
from the table in the act of fingering them._
[Illustration: FIG. 4--SLATE WRITING.]
He directed me to take my handkerchief and tie the two slates on the table
tightly together, holding the slates in his hands as I did so. I laid the
slates on the table before me, and we waited. "I think we will succeed
this time in getting responses to some of the questions. Let us hold the
slates." He grasped them with fingers and thumbs at one end, and I at the
other in like manner, holding the slates about two inches above the table.
We listened attentively, and soon was heard the scratching noise of a
slate pencil moving upon a slate. The sound seemed directly under the
slate, and was sufficiently impressive to startle any person making a
slate test for the first time, and unacquainted with the multifarious
devices of the sleight-of-hand artist.
"Hold the slates tightly, please!" said Mr. Keeler, as a convulsive
tremor shook his hands. I grasped firmly my end of the slates, and waited
further developments. The faint tap of a slate pencil upon a slate was
heard, and the medium announced that the communications were finished. I
untied the handkerchief, and turned up the inner surfaces of the slates.
Upon one of them several messages were written, and signed. Other
communications were received during the sitting. After the first messages
were received, and while I was engaged in reading them, Keeler quickly
picked up a slate from the floor, clapped it upon the clean slate
remaining on the table, and requested me to tie the two rapidly together
with my handkerchief before the influence was lost. At a signal from him I
unfastened the slates and found another set of answers. The same
proceeding was gone through for the third set. The imitation of a pencil
writing upon a slate was either made by the apparatus, described in the
séance with C-- in the first part of this chapter, or by some other
contrivance; more than likely by simply scratching with his finger on the
under surface of the slate. While my attention was absorbed in the act of
writing my second set of questions, he prepared answers to two of my first
set and substituted a prepared slate for the cleaned slate on the table.
_I was sure he was writing under the table; I heard the faint rubbing of a
soft bit of pencil upon the surface of a slate. His hands were in his lap
and his eyes were fixed downwards._ Several times I saw him put his
fingers into his vest pockets, and he appeared to bring up small particles
of something, which I believe were bits of the white and colored crayons
used in writing the messages. His quiet audacity was surprising. I give
below the questions and answers with my comments thereon:
First Slate. Fig. 4.
QUESTION.
To Mamie:--
Tell me the name of your dead brother?
(Signed) Harry R. Evans.
ANSWER.
You must not think of me as one gone forever from you. You have made
conditions by and through which I can return to you, and so long as I can
do this I can not feel unhappy. So dear one, rest in the assurance that
you are helping me, and that I am doing all I can to help you. Let us make
the best of it all and help each other as best we can, then all will be
well. My home in spirit life is beautiful and awaiting you. I will be the
first to greet you. _I have no dead brother. All of us are living._ I am
Mamie --. (The medium here cleverly evades giving a name by an equivoque.)
QUESTION.
To Len--
Tell me the cause of your death, and the circumstances surrounding it?
(Signed) Harry R. Evans.
ANSWER.
Harry! I am very glad to see you. I am happy. You must be reconciled, and
not mourn me as dead! I will try to come again soon, when I am stronger
and tell of my decease.--Len. (He again evades an answer.)
Second Slate. Fig. 5.
QUESTION.
To A. D. B.--
When and where did you die?
(Signed) Harry R. Evans.
ANSWER.
This all seems so strange coming back and writing just as one would if
they were in the earth life and communicating with a friend. What a
blessed privilege it is. I am so happy. Oh, I would not come back. It is
so restful here. No pain or sorrow. Dear, do not think I have forgotten
you, I constantly think of you and wish that you, too, might view these
lovely scenes of glorious beauty. You must rest with the thought that when
your life is ended upon the earth, _I will be the first to meet you_. Now
be patient and hopeful until we meet where there is no more parting. I am
sincerely, A. D. B. (No answer at all.) Observe error in first sentence:
"as _one_ would if _they_ were--." A. D. B. was an educated gentleman, and
not given to such ungrammatical expressions.
[Illustration: FIG. 5--SLATE WRITING.]
Third Slate. Fig. 6.
QUESTION.
To B. G.--
Can you recall any of the conversations we had together on the B. and P.
R. R. cars?
(Signed) H. R. Evans.
ANSWER.
O my dear one, I can only write a few lines that you may know that I see
and hear you as you call upon me. I do not forget you. When I am stronger
will come again. I do not know what conversation you refer to in the cars.
B. G.