talked continuously about the stage.)
QUESTION.
To C. J.--
Where did you die, and from what disease?
(Signed) H. R. Evans.
ANSWER.
I know the days and weeks seem long and lonely to you without me. I do not
forget you; am doing the best I can to help you.
C. J.--.
(Still another evasion of a straightforward question. The lady in spirit
life to whom the question was addressed died of consumption in a Roman
Catholic Convent. She was only a society acquaintance of the writer, and
not on such terms of intimacy as to warrant Mr. Keeler's reply.)
In one corner of Slate No. 2 was the following, written with a yellow
crayon: "This is remarkable. How did you know we could come?--H. K.
Evans." Scrawled across the face of Slate No. 3, in red pencil, was a
communication from George Christy, Mr. Keeler's spirit control, reading as
follows: "Many are here who----G. C. (George Christy)" (The remainder is
so badly written, as to be indecipherable.)
On carefully analyzing the various communications it will be observed that
the handwriting of the messages from Mamie--and B G.--are similar,
possessing the same characteristics as regards letter formation, etc. It
does not require a professional expert in chirography to detect this fact.
One and the same person wrote the messages purporting to come from Mamie
R--, Len--, B. G.--, C. J.--, and A. D. B. _In fact, the writing on all
the slates is, in my opinion, the work of Mr. Pierre Keeler._
The longer communications were doubtless prepared beforehand, being
general in nature and conveying about the same information that any
departed spirit might give to any inquiring mortal, but, as will be
observed, _giving no adequate answers to the queries_, with the exception
of the last two sentences, _which were written by the medium, after he
became acquainted with the tenor of the questions upon the folded slips_.
The very short communications are written in a careless hand, such as a
man would dash off hastily. There is an attempt at disguise, but a clumsy
one, the letters still retaining the characteristics of the more
deliberate chirography of the long communications. A close inspection of
the slates reveals the exact similarity of the y's, u's, I's, g's, h's,
m's and n's.
The handwriting of messages on slates should be, and is claimed to be,
adequate evidence of the genuineness of the communication, for are we not
supposed to know the handwriting of our friends?
Possibly Mr. Keeler would claim that the handwriting was the work of his
control "Geo. Christy", who acted as a sort of amanuensis for the spirits.
If this be so, why the attempts at _disguise_, and bungling attempts at
that?
In the séance with Mr. Keeler, I subjected him to no tests. He had
everything his own way. _I should have brought my own marked slates with
me and never let them out of my sight for an instant. I should have
subjected the table to a close examination, and requested the medium to
move or rather myself removed the collection of slates against the mantel,
placed so conveniently within his reach._ I did not do this, because of
his well known irascibility. He would probably have shown me the door and
refused a sitting on any terms, as he has done to many skeptics. I was
anxious to meet Keeler, and preferred playing the novice rather than not
get a slate test from one of the best-known and most famous of modern
slate-writing mediums.
[Illustration: FIG. 6--SLATE WRITING.]
After what has been stated, I think there can be no shadow of doubt that
the medium abstracted by sleight-of-hand some of the paper slips
containing my written questions, read them under cover of the table, and
did the slate-writing himself. All of these slate-tests, where pellets or
slips of paper are used, are performed in a similar manner, as will be
seen from the exposé published by the Society for Psychical Research. In
vol. viii of the proceedings of that association will be found a number of
revelations, one of which throws considerable light on the Keeler tests.
The sitter was Dr. Richard Hodgson, and the medium was a Mrs. Gillett.
Says Dr. Hodgson:
"Under pretence of 'magnetising' the pellets prepared by the sitter, or
folding them more tightly, she substitutes a pellet of her own for one of
the sitter's. Reading the sitter's pellet below the table, she writes the
answer on one of her own slates, a pile of which, out of the sitter's
view, she keeps on a chair by her side. She then takes a second slate,
places it on the table, and sponges and dries both sides, after which she
takes the first slate, and turning the side upon which she has written
towards herself, rubs it in several places with a dry cloth or the ends of
her fingers as though cleaning it. She then places it, writing downward,
on the other slate on the table, and sponges and dries the upper surface
of it. She then pretends to take one of the pellets on the table and put
it between the two slates. What she does, however, is to bring the pellet
up from below the table, take another of the sitter's pellets on the table
into her hand, and place the pellet which she has brought up from below
the table between the slates, keeping in her hand the pellet just taken
from the top of the table. The final step is to place a rubber band round
both slates, in doing which she turns both slates over together. She
professes to get the writing without the use of any chalk or pencil. Some
of her slates are prepared beforehand with messages or drawings. More
interesting, perhaps, because of its boldness, is her method of producing
writing on the sitter's own slates. Under the pretence of 'magnetising'
these she cleans them several times, rubs them with her hands, stands them
up on end together, and while they are in this position between herself
and the sitter she writes with one hand on the slate-side nearest to
herself, holding the slates erect with the other hand. Later on, she lays
both slates together flat on the table again, the writing being on the
undermost surface. She then sponges the upper surface of the top slate,
turns it over, and sponges its other surface. She next withdraws the
bottom slate, places it on top and sponges its top surface, keeping its
under surface carefully concealed. The final step, the reversal, is made,
as in the other case, with the help of the rubber band. Mrs. Gillett has
probably other methods, also. Those which I have described were all that I
witnessed at my single sitting with her."
My friend, Dr. L. M. Taylor, of Washington, D. C., an investigator of
Spiritualistic phenomena, and skeptical like myself of the objective
phases of the subject, has had many sittings with Keeler for independent
slate-writing. One séance in particular he is fond of relating:
"On one occasion, after I had written my slips, folded them up, and tossed
them on the table, I said to Keeler who was obtaining his 'psychic'
impression of them, 'I wish, if possible, to have a spirit tell me the
numbers and the maker's name engraved in my watch. I have never taken the
trouble to look at the numbers, consequently I do not know them.' 'Your
request is an unusual one,' replied the medium, 'but I will endeavor to
gratify it.' We had some conversations on the subject that lasted several
minutes. Suddenly he picked up a slate pencil, and scrawled the name, _J.
S. Granger_ on the upper surface of one of my slates; the two slates had
been previously tied together with my handkerchief and laid on the table
in front of me. 'You recognize that name, do you not?' asked Keeler.
'Yes,' I replied, 'that is one of the names I wrote on the slips. J. S.
Granger was an old friend of mine who died some years ago. He was a
brother-in-law of Stephen A. Douglass.' 'If you wish to facilitate
matters,' said Keeler, 'place your watch on top of the slates, concealed
beneath the handkerchief, otherwise we may have to wait an hour or more
without obtaining results, and there are a number of persons waiting for
me in the ante-room. My time you see is limited.'
"I detached my watch from its chain, and placed it in the required
position. Keeler then took a piece of black cloth, used to clean slates,
and laid it over my slates. Finally he requested me to take the covered
slates and hold them in my lap. I took care to feel through the cloth that
the watch was still beneath the handkerchief. In a short time I was
directed to uncover the slates, and untie them, which I did. Upon the
inner surface of one of the slates the following message was written:
'Dear Friend, Stephen is with me. I have been through that beautiful watch
of yours, and, if I see correctly, the number is 163131. On the inside I
see this--E. Howard & Co., Boston, 211327. And then your name as follows:
Dr. L. M. Taylor, 1221 Mass. Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. Signed J. M.
Granger.'
"I then compared the name and numbers in my watch with those on the slate,
and found the latter correct, with the exception of one number. A relative
of mine was present in the room during this séance, and I showed her the
communication on the slate. Afterwards we passed the slate to Keeler who
examined it closely. When he handed it back to me, I was surprised to see
that the incorrect number was mysteriously changed to the proper one."
This is a very interesting test, indeed, because of its apparently
impromptu character. I have seen similar feats performed by professional
conjurers as well as mediums. A dummy watch is substituted for the
sitter's watch, and after the medium has ascertained the name and numbers
on the sitter's timepiece, he succeeds in adroitly exchanging it again for
the dummy, thanks to the black cloth. The writing on the slate in the
above séance was evidently produced in the same way as that described in
my sitting with Keeler, after he had ascertained the name on the slip. The
name of Stephen, of course, was directly obtained from Dr. Taylor. Not
having been an eye witness of Keeler's movements in the watch test, I am
unable to say how closely Dr. Taylor's description coincides with the
medium's actual operations.
In May, 1897, Mr. Pierre Keeler was in Washington, D. C., as usual. My
friend, Dr. Taylor, who was desirous of putting the medium to another
crucial test, wrote down a list of names on a sheet of paper--cognomens of
ancient Egyptian, Chaldean, and Grecian priests and philosophers--folded
the paper, and carefully sealed it in an envelope. He took ten slates with
him, all of them marked with a private mark of his own. Mr. Keeler eyed
the envelope dubiously, but passed no criticisms on the doctor's
precautions to prevent trickery. The two men sat down at a table and
waited for the spirits to manifest. Dr. Taylor, on this occasion, was
absolutely certain that his slates had not been tampered with, and that
the medium had not succeeded in opening the envelope. In a little while
the comedy of the pencil-scratching between the tied slates began.
"Ah", exclaimed the physician, "a message at last!" Then he thought to
himself, "can the medium possibly have deluded my senses by some hypnotic
power, and adroitly opened that envelope without my being aware of the
fact? But no, that is impossible!"
Mr. Keeler took the slates away from Dr. Taylor, and quickly opened them,
_accidentally_ dropping one of them behind the table. In a second,
however, he brought up the slate, and remarked: "How awkward of me. I beg
your pardon," etc. On the surface of this slate was written the following
sentence: "See some other medium; d--n it!--George Christy." Dr. Taylor is
positive, as he has repeatedly told me, that this message was not
inscribed on his own marked slate, but was written by the medium on one of
his own. The exchange, of course, must have been effected in the pretended
accidental dropping of the doctor's slate by the medium. This is a very
old expedient among pretenders to spirit power. All conjurers are familiar
with the device. Imro Fox, the American magician, uses it constantly in
his entertainments, with capital effect.
Dr. Taylor, unfortunately, did not succeed in getting possession of the
medium's prepared slate. Another exchange was undoubtedly made by Mr.
Keeler, and the physician had returned to him his own marked slate. When
he got home that afternoon, and had time to carefully scrutinize his
slates, he found that they bore no evidence of having been written upon
at all. Having also examined these slates, I am prepared to add my
testimony to that of Dr. Taylor.
The reader will see from the above-described séance that unless the medium
(or a confederate) is enabled to read the names and questions, prepared by
the sitter, his hands are practically tied in all experiments in
psychology.
When investigators bring their own marked slates with them, screwed
tightly together, and sealed, the medium has to adopt different tactics
from those employed in the tests before mentioned. He has to call in the
aid of a confederate. The audacity of the sealed-slate test is without
parallel in the annals of pretended mediumship. For an insight into the
secrets of this phase of psychography, the reading public is indebted to a
medium, the anonymous author of a remarkably interesting work,
"Revelations of a Spirit Medium." Many skeptical investigators have been
converted to Spiritualism by these tests. They invariably say to you when
approached on the subject: "I took my own marked slates, carefully screwed
together, to the medium, and had lengthy messages written upon them by
spirit power. _These slates never left my hands for a second._" I will
quote what the writer of "Revelations of a Spirit Medium" says on the
subject:
"No man ever received independent slate-writing between slates fastened
together that he did not allow out of his hands a few seconds. Scores of
persons will tell you that they _have_ received writing under those
conditions through the mediumship of the writer; but the writer will tell
you how he fooled them and how you can do so if you see fit.
"In the first place you will rent a house with a cellar in connection. Cut
a trap-door one foot square through the floor between the sills on which
the floor is laid. Procure a fur floor mat with long hair. Cut a square
out of the mat and tack it to the top of the trap door. Tack the mat fast
to the floor, for some one may visit you who will want to raise it up.
"Explain the presence of the fur by saying it is an absorbent of magnetic
forces, through which you produce the writing. Over the rug place a heavy
pine table about four feet square; and over the table a heavy cover that
reaches the floor on all sides. Put your assistant in the cellar with a
coal-oil stove, a tea-kettle of hot water, different colored letter wax
and lead pencils, a screw driver, a pair of nippers, a pair of pliers, a
pair of scissors and an assortment of wire brads. You are ready for
business.
"When your sitter comes in you will notice his slates, if he brings a
pair, and see if they are secured in any way that your man in the cellar
can not duplicate. If they are, you can touch his slates with your finger
and say to him that you can not use his slates on account of the
'magnetism' with which they are saturated. He will know nothing of
'magnetic conditions' and will ask you what he is to do about it.
"You will furnish him a pair of new slates with water and cloths to clean
them. You also furnish him paper to write his questions on and the screws,
wax, paper and mucilage to secure them with. He will write his questions
and fasten the slates securely together.
"You now conduct him to your séance-room and invite inspection of your
table and surroundings. After the examination has been made you will seat
the sitter at one side of the table with his side and arm next it. If he
desires to keep hold of the slates a signal agreed upon between yourself
and your assistant will cause the spirit in the cellar to open the trap
door, which opens downwards, and to push through the floor and into
position where the sitter can grasp one end of it, a pair of dummy
slates. This dummy your assistant will continue to hold until the sitter
has taken hold of it after the following performance:
"Your assistant lets you know everything is ready by touching your foot.
You now reach and take the sitter's slates and put them below the table,
and under it, telling the sitter to put his hand under from his side and
hold them with you. He puts his hand under and gets hold of the dummy
slates held by your assistant.
"Your assistant holds on until you have stood the slates on end, leaning
against the table leg, and have got hold of the dummy. He then takes the
sitter's slates below and closes the trap. He proceeds to open them, read
the questions, answer them and refasten the slates.
"You will be entertaining your sitter by twitching and jerking and making
clairvoyant and clairaudient guesses for him.
"When your assistant touches your foot you will know that he is ready to
make the exchange again, by which the sitter will get hold of the slates
he fastened. When you get the signal you give a snort and jump that jerks
the end of the slates from the sitter's hand. He is now given the end of
the slates held by your assistant, and you will allow the assistant to
take the dummy. After sitting a moment or two longer, you will tell the
sitter to take out his slates and examine them if he chooses. Many times
they do not open the slates until they reach their homes.
"This, reader, is the man who will declare that he furnished the slates
and did not allow them out of his hands a minute.
"The usual method of obtaining the writing is for the medium to hold the
slates alone. When this is the case the medium passes the slates below,
and receives in return a dummy which he is continually thumping on the
under side of the table for the purpose of showing the sitter that the
slates are there all the time.
"It is not necessary that you should use a cellar to get this phase of
'independent slate-writing.' You could place your table against a
partition door and by fitting one of the small panels with hinges and
bolts, would have a very convenient way of obtaining the assistance of the
spirit in the next room. It is also possible to make a trap in a room that
has a wooden wainscoting."
Before closing this brief survey of slate-writing experiments, I must
describe an exceedingly ingenious trick, indeed, bordering on the
marvelous. It is the recent invention of a Western conjurer, and solves
the problem of actually writing between locked slates by physical means.
The effect is as follows: You request the sitter to take two slates, wash
them carefully, and tie them together, after first having placed a bit of
chalk between their surfaces. Hold them under the table for a minute, and
then hand them to the sitter for examination. A name, or a short sentence,
in answer to some question, will be found scrawled across the upper
surface of the bottom slate. It is accomplished in this way. You take a
small pellet of iron or steel, coat it with mucilage, and dip it into
chalk or slate-pencil dust. This dust will adhere and harden into a
consistent mass, after a little while, completely concealing the metal,
and causing the whole to resemble a bit of chalk. Take this supposed
pellet of chalk from your vest pocket and place it between the slates;
hold the latter level beneath a table, and by moving the poles of a strong
magnet against the surface of the under slate, you can cause the iron or
steel to write a name or sentence, thanks to its coating of chalk dust. It
is better to use slates with rather deep frames, in order that the chalked
metal may write with facility. It requires considerable practice to write
with ease in the manner described above. The first thing of course is to
locate the position of the chalk between the locked slates. To enable you
to do this, place the supposed chalk in one corner of slate No. 1 before
covering with slate No. 2, or else exactly in the center of slate No. 2.
In this way you will have no difficulty in affecting the metal with the
magnet, when the slates are held under the table. There are various ways
of holding the slates; one, is to ask the sitter to hold one end, while
you hold the other, five or six inches above the table. The light is put
out, and you take the magnet from your pocket and execute the writing. The
noise of the magnet passing over the surface of the under slate serves to
represent a disembodied spirit as doing the writing.
2. The Master of the Mediums.
One of the most remarkable personalities serving as an exponent of
Spiritualism was Daniel Dunglas Home, the Napoleon of necromancy, and the
Past Grand Master of Mediums. His career reads like a romance. He lived in
a sort of twilight land, and hob-nobbed with kings, queens and other
people of noble blood.
"Something unsubstantial, ghostly,
Seems this Theurgist,
In deep meditation mostly
Wrapped, as in a mist.
Vague, phantasmal and unreal,
To our thoughts he seems,
Walking in a world ideal,
In a land of dreams."
He wound his serpentine way into the best society of London, Paris,
Berlin, Rome, and St. Petersburg--"always despising filthy lucre," as
Maskelyn remarks, "but never refusing a diamond worth ten times the amount
he would have received in cash, or some present, which the host of the
house at which he happened to be manifesting always felt constrained to
offer."
This thaumaturgist of the Nineteenth Century was born near Edinburg,
Scotland, on March 20, 1833, and came of a family reported to be gifted
with "second sight." His father, William Home, was a natural son of
Alexander, tenth Earl of Home. Strange phenomena occurred during the
medium's childhood. At the age of nine he was adopted by his aunt, Mrs.
McNeill Cook, who brought him to America. He began giving séances about
the year 1852. Among the notable men who attended these early "sittings"
were William Cullen Bryant, Professors Wells and Hare, and Judge Edmonds.
Home had a tall, slight figure, a fair and freckled face--before disease
made it the color of yellow wax--keen, slaty-blue eyes, thin bloodless
lips, a rather snub nose, and curly auburn hair. His manners, though
forward, were agreeable, and he recited such poetry as Poe's "Raven" and
"Ulalume" with powerful effect. He was altogether a weird sort of
personage. His principal mediumistic manifestations were rappings,
table-tipping, ghostly materializations, playing on sealed musical
instruments, levitation, and handling fire with impunity.
In 1855 he launched his necromantic bark on European waters. No man since
Cagliostro ever created so profound a sensation in the Old World. He wrote
his reminiscences in two large volumes, but little credence can be given
them, as they are full of extravagant statements and wild fantasies.
The London _Punch_ (May 9th, 1868), printed the following effusion on the
medium, a sort of parody on "Home, Sweet Home:"
Through realms Thaumaturgic the student may roam,
And not light on a worker of wonders like _Home_.
Cagliostro himself might descend from his chair,
And set up our _Daniel_ as Grand-Cophta there--
_Home, Home, Dan. Home_,
No medium like _Home_.
Spirit legs, spirit hands, he gives table and chair;
Gravitation defying, he flies in the air;
But the fact to which henceforth his fame should be pinned,
Is his power to raise, not himself but the wind!--
_Home, Home, Dan. Home_,
No medium like _Home_.
Robert Browning made him the subject of his celebrated satirical poem,
"Mr. Sludge, the Medium."
Some of the most celebrated scientific and literary personages of England
became interested in his mysterious abilities, and among his intimate
friends were the Earl of Dunraven, Mary Howitt, Mrs. S. C. Hall, Prof.
Wallace, and Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. There is good authority for
believing that Home was the mysterious Margrave of Bulwer's weird novel,
"A Strange Story." Bulwer was an ardent believer in the supernatural and
Home spent many days at Knebworth amid a select coterie of ghost-seers.
The famous novelist relates that as Home sat with him in the library of
Knebworth, conversing upon politics, social matters, books or other chance
topics, the chairs rocked and the tables were suspended in mid-air.