Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft

The subjective phenomena of Spiritualism-trance speaking, automatic writing, etc.,-have engaged the attention of some of the best scientific minds of Europe and America, as studies of abnormal or supernormal psychological conditions.

If there are any facts to sustain the spiritual hypothesis, these facts exist in subjective manifestations. The following statement will be conceded by any impartial investigator: A medium, or psychic, in a state of partial or complete hypnosis frequently gives information transcending his conscious knowledge of a subject. There can be but two hypotheses for the phenomena-(1) The intelligence exhibited by the medium is "ultra-mundane," in other words, is the effect of spirit control, or, (2) it is the result of the conscious or unconscious exercise of psychic powers on the part of the medium.

It is well known that persons under hypnotic influence exhibit remarkable intelligence, notwithstanding the fact that the ordinary consciousness is held in abeyance. The extraordinary results obtained by hypnotizers point to another phase of consciousness, which is none other than the subjective or "subliminal" self. Mediums sometimes induce hypnosis by self-suggestion, and while in that state, the subconscious mind is in a highly receptive and exalted condition. Mental suggestions or concepts pass from the mind of the sitter consciously or unconsciously to the mind of the medium, and are given back in the form of communications from the invisible world, ostensibly through spirit control. It is not absolutely necessary that the medium be in the hypnotic condition to obtain information, but the hypnotic state seems to be productive of the best results. The medium is usually honest in his belief in the reality of such ultra-mundane control, but he is ignorant of the true psychology of the case-thought transference.

The English Society for Psychical Research and its American branch have of late years popularized "telepathy", or thought transference. A series of elaborate investigations were made by Messrs. Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, accounts of which are contained in the proceedings of the Society. Among the European investigators may be mentioned Messrs. Janet and Gibert, Richet, Gibotteau, and Schrenck-Notzing. Podmore has lately summarized the results of these studies in an interesting volume, "Apparitions and Thought-transference, an Examination of the Evidence for Telepathy." Thought Transference or Telepathy (from tele-at a distance, and pathos-feeling) he describes as "a communication between mind and mind other than through the known channels of the senses." A mass of evidence is adduced to prove the possibility of this communication. In summing up his book he says: "The experimental evidence has shown that a simple sensation or idea may be transferred from one mind to another, and that this transference may take place alike in the normal state and in the hypnotic trance.

* * The personal influence of the operator in hypnotism may perhaps be regarded as a proof presumptive of telepathy." The experiments show that mental concepts or ideas may be transferred to a distance.

Podmore advances the following theory in explanation of the phenomena of telepathy:

"If we leave fluids and radiant nerve-energy on one side, we find practically only one mode suggested for the telepathic transference-viz., that the physical changes which are the accompaniments of thought or sensation in the agent are transmitted from the brain as undulations in the intervening medium, and thus excite corresponding changes in some other brain, without any other portion of the organism being necessarily implicated in the transmission. This hypothesis has found its most philosophical champion in Dr. Ochorowicz, who has devoted several chapters of his book "De la Suggestion mentale," to the discussion of the various theories on the subject. He begins by recalling the reciprocal convertibility of all physical forces with which we are acquainted, and especially draws attention to what he calls the law of reversibility, a law which he illustrates by a description of the photophone. The photophone is an instrument in which a mirror is made to vibrate to the human voice. The mirror reflects a ray of light, which, vibrating in its turn, falls upon a plate of selenium, modifying its electric conductivity. The intermittent current so produced is transmitted through a telephone, and the original articulate sound is reproduced. Now in hypnotized subjects-and M. Ochorowicz does not in this connection treat of thought-transference between persons in the normal state-the equilibrium of the nervous system, he sees reason to believe, is profoundly affected. The nerve-energy liberated in this state, he points out, 'cannot pass beyond' the subject's brain 'without being transformed. Nevertheless, like any other force, it cannot remain isolated; like any other force it escapes, but in disguise. Orthodox science allows it only one way out, the motor nerves. These are the holes in the dark lantern through which the rays of light escape. * * * Thought remains in the brain, just as the chemical energy of the galvanic battery remains in the cells, but each is represented outside by its correlative energy, which in the case of the battery is called the electric current, but for which in the other we have as yet no name. In any case there is some correlative energy-for the currents of the motor nerves do not and cannot constitute the only dynamic equivalent of cerebral energy-to represent all the complex movements of the cerebral mechanism.'"

The above hypothesis may, or may not, afford a clue to the mysterious phenomena of telepathy, but it will doubtless satisfy to some extent those thinkers who demand physical explanations of the known and unknown laws of the universe. The president of the Society for Psychical Research (1894,) A. J. Balfour, in an address on the relation of the work of the Society to the general course of modern scientific investigation, is more cautious than the writers already quoted. He says:

"Is this telepathic action an ordinary case of action from a center of disturbance? Is it equally diffused in all directions? Is it like the light of a candle or the light of the sun which radiates equally into space in every direction at the same time? If it is, it must obey the law-at least, we should expect it to obey the law-of all other forces which so act through a non-absorbing medium, and its effects must diminish inversely as the square of the distance. It must, so to speak, get beaten out thinner and thinner the further it gets removed from its original source. But is this so? Is it even credible that the mere thoughts, or, if you please, the neural changes corresponding to these thoughts, of any individual could have in them the energy to produce sensible effects equally in all directions, for distances which do not, as far as our investigations go, appear to have any necessary limit? It is, I think, incredible; and in any case there is no evidence whatever that this equal diffusion actually takes place. The will power, whenever will is used, or the thoughts, in cases where will is not used, have an effect, as a rule, only upon one or two individuals at most. There is no appearance of general diffusion. There is no indication of any disturbance equal at equal distances from its origin and radiating from it alike in every direction.

"But if we are to reject this idea, which is the first which ordinary analogies would suggest, what are we to put in its place? Are we to suppose that there is some means by which telepathic energy can be directed through space from the agent to the patient, from the man who influences to the man who is influenced? If we are to believe this, as apparently we must, we are face to face not only with a fact extraordinary in itself, but with a kind of fact which does not fit in with anything we know at present in the region either of physics or of physiology. It is true, no doubt, that we do know plenty of cases where energy is directed along a given line, like water in a pipe, or like electrical energy along the course of a wire. But then in such cases there is always some material guide existing between the two termini, between the place from which the energy comes and the place to which the energy goes. Is there any such material guide in the case of telepathy? It seems absolutely impossible. There is no sign of it. We can not even form to ourselves any notion of its character, and yet, if we are to take what appears to be the obvious lesson of the observed facts, we are forced to the conclusion that in some shape or other it exists."

Telepathy once conceded, we have a satisfactory explanation of that class of cases in modern Spiritualism on the subjective side of the question. There is no need of the hypothesis of "disembodied spirits".

Some years ago, I instituted a series of experiments with a number of celebrated spirit mediums in the line of thought transference, and was eminently successful in obtaining satisfactory results, especially with Miss Maggie Gaule, of Baltimore, one of the most famous of the latter day psychics.

Case A.

About three years prior to my sitting with Miss Gaule, a relative by marriage died of cancer of the throat at the Garfield Hospital, Washington, D. C. He was a retired army officer, with the brevet of General, and lived part of the time at Chambersburg, Penn., and the rest of the time at the National Capital. He led a very quiet and unassuming life, and outside of army circles knew but few people. He was a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, six feet tall, with splendid chest and arms. His hair and beard were of a reddish color. His usual street dress was a sort of compromise with an army undress uniform, military cut frock-coat, frogged and braided top-coat, and a Sherman hat. Without these accessories, anyone would have recognized the military man in his walk and bearing. He and his wife thought a great deal of my mother, and frequently stopped me on the street to inquire, "How is Mary?" I went to Miss Gaule's house with the thought of General M- fixed in my mind and the circumstances surrounding his decease. The medium greeted me in a cordial manner. I sat at one end of the room in the shadow, and she near the window in a large armchair. "You wish for messages from the dead," she remarked abruptly. "One moment, let me think." She sank back in the chair, closed her eyes, and remained in deep thought for a minute or so, occasionally passing her hand across her forehead. "I see," she said, "standing behind you, a tall, large man with reddish hair and beard. He is garbed in the uniform of an officer-I do not know whether of the army or navy. He points to his throat. Says he died of a throat trouble. He looks at you and calls "Mary,-how is Mary?" "What is his name?" I inquired, fixing my mind on the words David M-. "I will ask", replied the medium. There was a long pause. "He speaks so faintly I can scarcely hear him. The first letter begins with D, and then comes a-I can't get it. I can't hear it." With that she opened her eyes.

The surprising feature about the above case was the alleged spirit communication, "Mary-how is Mary?" I did not have this in my mind at the time; in fact I had completely forgotten this form of salutation on the part of Gen. M-, when we had met in the old days. It is just this sort of thing that makes spirit-converts.

However, the cases of unconscious telepathy cited in the "Reports of the Society for Psychical Research," are sufficient, I think, to prove the existence of this phase of the phenomena.

T. J. Hudson, in his work entitled "A scientific demonstration of the future life", says: * * "When a psychic transmits a message to his client containing information which is in his (the psychic's) possession, it can not reasonably be attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits. * * When the message contains facts known to some one in his immediate presence and with whom he is en rapport, the agency of spirits of the dead cannot be presumed. Every investigator will doubtless admit that sub-conscious memory may enter as a factor in the case, and that the sub-conscious intelligence-or, to use the favorite terminology employed by Mr. Myers to designate the subjective mind, the 'sublimal consciousness'-of the psychic or that of his client may retain and use facts which the conscious, or objective mind may have entirely forgotten."

But suppose the medium relates facts that were never in the possession of the sitter, what are we to say then? Considerable controversy has been waged over this question, and the hypothesis of telepathy is scouted. Minot J. Savage has come to the conclusion that such cases stretch the telepathic theory too far; there can be but one plausible explanation-a communication from a disembodied spirit, operating through the mind of the medium. For the sake of lucidity, let us take an example: A has a relative B who dies in a foreign land under peculiar circumstances, unknown to A. A attends a séance of a psychic, C, and the latter relates the circumstances of B's death. A afterwards investigates the statements of the medium, and finds them correct. Can telepathy account for C's knowledge? I think it can. The telepathic communication was recorded in A's sub-conscious mind, he being en rapport with B. A unconsciously yields the points recorded in his sub-conscious mind to the psychic, C, who by reason of his peculiar powers raises them to the level of conscious thought, and gives them back in the form of a message from the dead.

Case B.

On another occasion, I went with my friend Mr. S. C., of Virginia, to visit Miss Gaule. Mr. S. C. had a young son who had recently passed the examination for admission to the U. S. Naval Academy, and the boy had accompanied his father to Baltimore to interview the military tailors on the subject of uniforms, etc. Miss Gaule in her semi-trance state made the following statement: "I see a young man busy with books and papers. He has successfully passed an examination, and says something about a uniform. Perhaps he is going to a military college."

Here again we have excellent evidence of the proof of telepathy.

The spelling of names is one of the surprising things in these experiments. On one occasion my wife had a sitting with Miss Gaule, and the psychic correctly spelled out the names of Mrs. Evans' brothers-John, Robert, and Dudley, the latter a family name and rather unusual, and described the family as living in the West.

The following example of Telepathy occurred between the writer and a younger brother.

Case C.

In the fall of 1890, I was travelling from Washington to Baltimore, by the B. & P. R. R. As the train approached Jackson Grove, a campmeeting ground, deserted at that time of the year, the engine whistle blew vigorously and the bell was rung continuously, which was something unusual, as the cars ordinarily did not stop at this isolated station, but whirled past. Then the engine slowed down and the train came to a standstill.

"What is the matter?" exclaimed the passengers.

"My God, look there!" shouted an excited passenger, leaning out of the coach window, and pointing to the dilapidated platform of the station. I looked out and beheld a decapitated human head, standing almost upright in a pool of blood. With the other male passengers I rushed out of the car. The head was that of an old man with very white hair and beard. We found the body down an embankment at some little distance from the place of the accident. The deceased was recognized as the owner of the Grove, a farmer living in the vicinity. According to the statement of the engineer, the old man was walking on the track; the warning signals were given, but proved of no avail. Being somewhat deaf, he did not realize his danger. He attempted to step off the track, but the brass railing that runs along the side of the locomotive decapitated him like the knife of a guillotine.

When I reached Baltimore about 7 o'clock, P. M., I hurried down to the office of the "Baltimore News" and wrote out an account of the tragic affair. My work at the office kept me until a late hour of the night, and I went home to bed at about 1 o'clock, A. M. My brother, who slept in an adjoining room, had retired to bed and the door between our apartments was closed. The next morning, Sunday, I rose at 9 o'clock, and went down to breakfast. The family had assembled, and I was just in time to hear my brother relate the following: "I had a most peculiar dream last night. I thought I was on my way to Mt. Washington (he was in the habit of making frequent visits to this suburb of Baltimore on the Northern Central R. R.) We ran down an old man and decapitated him. I was looking out of the window and saw the head standing in a pool of blood. The hair and beard were snow white. We found the body not far off, and it proved to be a farmer residing in the neighborhood of Mt. Washington."

"You will find the counterpart of that dream in the morning paper", I remarked seriously. "I reported the accident." My father called for the paper, and proceeded to hunt its columns for the item, saying, "You undoubtedly transferred the impression to your brother."

Case D.

This is another striking evidence of telepathic communication, in which I was one of the agents. L- was a reporter on a Baltimore paper, and his apartments were the rendezvous of a coterie of Bohemian actors, journalists, and litterati, among whom was X-, a student at the Johns-Hopkins University, and a poet of rare excellence. Poets have a proverbial reputation for being eccentric in personal appearance; in X this eccentricity took the form of an unclipped beard that stood out in all directions, giving him a savage, anarchistic look. He vowed never under any circumstances to shave or cut this hirsute appendage.

L- came to me one day, and laughingly remarked: "I am being tortured by a mental obsession. X's beard annoys me; haunts my waking and sleeping hours. I must do something about it. Listen! He is coming down to my rooms, Saturday evening, to do some literary work, and spend the night with me. We shall have supper together, and I want you to be present. Now I propose that we drug his coffee with some harmless soporific, and when he is sound asleep, tie him, and shave off his beard. Will you help me? I can provide you with a lounge to sleep on, but you must promise not to go to sleep until after the tragedy."

I agreed to assist him in his practical joke, and we parted, solemnly vowing that our project should be kept secret.

This was on Tuesday, and no communication was had with X, until Saturday morning, when L- and I met him on Charles street.

"Don't forget to-night," exclaimed L- "I have invited E to join us in our Epicurean feast."

"I will be there," said X. "By the way, let me relate a curious dream I had last night. I dreamt I came down to your rooms, and had supper. E- was present. You fellows gave me something to drink which contained a drug, and I fell asleep on the bed. After that you tied my hands, and shaved off my beard. When I awoke I was terribly mad. I burst the cords that fastened my wrists together, and springing to my feet, cut L- severely with the razor."

"That settles the matter", said L-, "his beard is safe from me". When we told X of our conspiracy to relieve him of his poetic hirsute appendage, he evinced the greatest astonishment. As will be seen, every particular of the practical joke had been transferred to his mind, the drugging of the coffee, the tying, and the shaving.

Telepathy is a logical explanation of many of the ghostly visitations of which the Society for Psychical Research has collected such a mass of data. For example: A dies, let us say in India and B, a near relative or friend, residing in England, sees a vision of A in a dream or in the waking state. A clasps his hands, and seems to utter the words, "I am dying". When the news comes of A's death, the time of the occurrence coincides with the seeing of the vision. The spiritualist's theory is that the ghost of A was an actual entity. One of the difficulties in the way of such an hypothesis is the clothing of the deceased-can that, too, be disembodied? Thought transference (conscious or unconscious), I think, is the only rational explanation of such phantasms. The vision seen by the percipient is not an objective but a subjective thing-a hallucination produced by the unknown force called telepathy. The vision need not coincide exactly with the date of the death of the transmitter but may make its appearance years afterwards, remaining latent in the subjective mind of the percipient. It may, as is frequently the case, be revealed by a medium in a séance. Many thoughtful writers combat the telepathic explanation of phantasms of the dead, claiming that when such are seen long after the death of persons, they afford indubitable evidence of the reality of spirit visitation. The reader is referred to the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research for a detailed discussion of the pros and cons of this most interesting subject.

Many of the so-called materializations of the séance-room may be accounted for by hallucinations superinduced by telepathic suggestions from the mind of the medium or sitters. But, in my opinion, the greater number of these manifestations of spirit power are the result of trickery pure and simple-theatrical beards and wigs, muslin and gossamer robes, etc., being the paraphernalia used to impersonate the shades of the departed, the imaginations of the sitters doing the rest.

One of the most interesting phases of modern mediumship, on the physical side, is psychography, or slate-writing. After an investigation extending over ten years, I am of the opinion that the majority of slate-writing feats are the results of conjuring. The process generally used is the following.

The medium takes two slates, binds them together, after first having deposited a small bit of chalk or slate pencil between their surfaces, and either holds them in his hands, or lays them on the table. Soon the scratching of the pencil is heard, and when the cords are removed a spirit message is found upon the surface of one of the slates. I will endeavor to explain the "modus operandi" of these startling experiments.

Some years ago, the most famous of the slate-writing mediums was Dr. Henry Slade, of New York, with whom I had several sittings. I was unable to penetrate the mystery of his performance, until the summer of 1889, when light was thrown upon the subject by the conjurer C- whom I met in Baltimore.

FIG. 2. DR. HENRY SLADE.

"Do you know the medium Slade?" I asked him.

"Yes," said he, "and he is a conjurer like myself. I've had sittings with him. Come to my rooms to-night, and I will explain the secret workings of the medium's slate-writing. But first I will treat you to a regular séance."

On my way to C's home I tried to put myself in the frame of mind of a genuine seeker after transcendental knowledge. I recalled all the stories of mysterious rappings and ghostly visitations I had read or heard of. It was just the night for such eerie musings. Black clouds were scurrying across the face of the moon like so many mediaeval witches mounted on the proverbial broomsticks en route for a mad sabbat in some lonely churchyard. The prestidigitateur's pension was a great, lumbering, gloomy old house, in an old quarter of Baltimore. The windows were tightly closed and only the feeble glimmer of gaslight was emitted through the cracks of the shutters. I rang the bell and Mr. C's stage-assistant, a pale-faced young man, came to the door, relieved me of my light overcoat and hat, and ushered me upstairs into the conjurer's sitting-room.

A large, baize-covered table stood in the centre of the apartment, and a 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?

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.

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.

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.

(Again evades answering. B. G. was very much interested in the drama, and 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.

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.

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.

When the medium was requested to exert his power and found himself in condition, it is alleged, he would rise and float about the room. This in Spiritualistic parlance is termed "levitation". At Knebworth and other places, some of the most prominent people of the day claim to have seen Home lift himself up and sail tranquilly out of a window, around the house, and come in by another window.

The Earl of Dunraven told many stories equally strange of performances that were given in his presence. The Earl declared that he had many times seen Home elongate and shorten his body, and cause the closed piano to play by putting his fingers on the lid.

FIG. 7-HOME AT THE TUILERIES.

In the autumn of 1855 the famous medium went to Florence; there, also, the spirit manifestations secured him the entree into the best society of the old Italian city. In his memoirs he speaks of an incident occurring through his mediumship, at a séance given in Florence: "Upon one occasion, while the Countess C- was seated at one of Erard's grand-action pianos, it rose and balanced itself in the air, during the whole time she was playing." An English lady, resident at Florence, in a supposed haunted house, procured the services of Home to exorcise the ghost. They sat at a table in the sitting-room, and raps were heard proceeding from that piece of furniture, and rustling sounds in the room as of a person moving about in a heavy garment. The spirit being adjured in the name of the "Holy Trinity" to leave the premises, the demonstrations ceased.

In February, 1856, the medium joined the retinue of Count B-, a Polish nobleman, and went to Naples with his patron. From Naples to Rome was the next step, and, in the Eternal City, the medium joined the Romish Church, and was adjured by the Pope to abandon spirit séances forever. In 1858 we find Home in St. Petersburg, where he married the youngest daughter of General Count de Kroll, of Russia, and a goddaughter of the Emperor Nicholas, the marriage taking place on Sunday, August 1, 1858, in the private chapel attached to the house of the lady's brother-in-law, the Count Gregoire Koucheleff-Besborodko. It was a very notable affair, and Alexander Dumas came from Paris to attend the ceremony. Home's spirit power which had left him since his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith now returned in full force, it is said, and he saw standing near him at the wedding the spirit form of his mother. In 1862 his wife died at the Chateau Laroche, near Perigneux, France, and the medium repaired to Rome for the purpose of studying sculpture. The reports of the spirit phenomena constantly attending Home's presence reached the ears of the Papal authorities and he was compelled to leave the city, notwithstanding the fact that he gave positive assurance that he would give no séance. He was actually charged with being a sorcerer, like Cagliostro, an accusation that reads very strange in the Nineteenth Century. This affair embittered Home against the Church, and he abandoned Roman Catholicism for the Greek Church.

After the Roman fiasco, the famous medium returned to England to give Spiritualistic lectures and séances. A writer in "All the Year Round", gives the following pen picture of the medium, as he appeared in 1866: "He is a tall, thin man, with broad square shoulders, suggestive of a suit of clothes hung upon an iron cross. His hair is long and yellow; his teeth are large, glittering and sharp; his eyes are a pale grey, with a redness about the eye-lids, which comes and goes in a ghastly manner, as he talks. When he shows his glittering sharp teeth, and that red line comes round his slowly rolling eyes, he is not a pleasant sight to look upon. His hands are long, white and bony, and on taking them you discover that they are icy cold." A suit of clothes hung upon an iron cross is a weird touch in this pen picture.

Home about this time intended going upon the stage, but abandoned the idea to become the secretary of the "Spiritual Atheneum", a society formed for the investigation of psychic phenomena.

One of the most notable passages in the life of the great medium was the famous law suit in which he was concerned in England. In 1866 he became acquainted with a wealthy lady, Mrs. Jane Lyons. In his role of medium she consulted him constantly about the welfare of her husband in the spirit world, and her business affairs. She gave him ￡33,000 for his services. Relatives and friends of Mrs. Lyons, however, saw in Home a cunning adventurer who was preying upon a weak-minded woman. A suit was instituted against the medium to recover the money, and the case became a cause celebre in the annals of the English courts.

In the autumn of 1871, Home, who before that time, had been quite a "lion" at the court of Napoleon III and Eugene, followed the German army from Sedan to Versailles, and was hand-in-glove with the King of Prussia. His second marriage took place in October, 1871, at Paris, and after a brief honeymoon in England he visited St. Petersburg with his wife, who was a member of the noble Russian family of Alsakoff.

On the 21st of June, 1886, the great American ghost-seer died of consumption, at Auteuil, near Paris, France. For years he was out of health, and he ascribed his weakness to the expenditure of vital force in working wonders during the earlier part of his career.

He was buried at St. Germain-en-Laye, with the rites of the Russian Church. The funeral was a very simple one, not more than twenty persons being present, all of whom were in full evening dress. The idea was to emphasize the Spiritualists' belief that death is not a subject for mourning, but is liberation, an occasion for rejoicing.

The curious reader will find many accounts of Home's invulnerability to fire while in the trance state, notably those of Prof. Crookes, contained in the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. In the March, 1868, number of "Human Nature," Mr. H. D. Jencken writes as follows concerning a séance given by the medium:

"Mr. Home, (after various manifestations) said, 'we have gladly shown you our power over fluids, we will now show you our power over solids.' He then knelt down before the hearth, and deliberately breaking up a glowing piece of coal in the fire place, took up a largish lump of incandescent coal and placing the same in his left hand, proceeded to explain that caloric had been extracted by a process known to them (the spirits), and that the heat could in part be returned. This he proved by alternately cooling and heating the coal; and to convince us of the fact, allowed us to handle the coal which had become cool, then suddenly resumed its heat sufficient to burn one, as I again touched it. I examined Mr. Home's hand, and quite satisfied myself that no artificial means had been employed to protect the skin, which did not even retain the smell of smoke. Mr. Home then re-seated himself, and shortly awoke from his trance quite pale and exhausted."

Other witnesses of the above experiment were Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, Miss Douglas, Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. W. H. Harrison and Prof. Wallace. Mr. H. Nisbet, of Glasgow, relates (Human Nature, Feb. 1870) that in his own home in January, 1870, Mr. Home took a red hot coal from the grate and put it in the hands of a lady and gentleman to whom it felt only warm. Subsequently he placed the same on a folded newspaper, the result being a hole burnt through eight layers of paper. Taking another blazing coal he laid it on the same journal, and carried it around the apartment for upwards of three minutes, without scorching the paper.

Among the crowned heads and famous people before whom Mr. Home appeared were Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie, Queen Victoria, King Louis I and King Maximilian of Bavaria, the Emperor of Russia, the King and Queen of Wurtemberg, the Duchess of Hamilton, the Crown Prince of Prussia and old Gen. Von Moltke. Alexander Dumas the elder, was a constant companion of the medium for a long time, and wrote columns about him.

Napoleon III had two sittings with Home-and it is said Home materialized the spirit of the first Napoleon, who appeared in his familiar cocked hat, gray overcoat and dark green uniform with white facings. "My fate?" asked Louis, trembling with awe. "Like mine-discrowned, and death in exile," replied the ghost; then it vanished. The Empress swooned and Napoleon III fell back in his chair as if about to faint. The medium in his first séance with the French Emperor succeeded only in materializing some flowers and a spirit hand, which the Emperor was permitted to grasp.

Celia Logan, the journalist, in writing of one of Home's séances at a nobleman's house in London, says:

"On this occasion the medium announced that he would produce balls of fire and illuminated hands. Failing in the former, he declared that the spirits were not strong enough for that to-night, and so he would have to confine himself to showing the luminous hands.

"The house was darkened and Home groped his way alone to the head of the broad staircase, where every few minutes a pair of luminous hands were thrown up. The audience was satisfied generally. One lady, however, was not, and whispered to me-she was a half-hearted Spiritualist-that it looked to her as if he had rubbed his own hands over with lucifer matches.

"The host stood near the mantel piece and had seen Home abstractedly place a small bottle upon it when he left the room for the staircase. That bottle the host quietly slipped into his pocket. Upon examination the next day it was found to contain phosphorated olive oil or some similar preparation.

"The host had declared himself to have seen Home float through the air from one side of the room to the other, lift a piano several feet in the air by simply placing a finger upon it, and had seen him materialize disembodied spirits; but after the discovery of the phosphorus trick he dropped Home at once."

It is a significant fact that the medium while giving séances in Paris in 1857 refused to meet Houdin, the renowned prestidigitateur.

I shall now attempt an exposé of Home's physical phenomena. Home's extraordinary feat of alternately cooling and heating a lump of coal taken from a blazing fire, as related by Mr. H. D. Jencken and others, is easily explained. It is a juggling trick. The "coal" is a piece of spongy platinum which bears a close resemblance to a lump of half burnt coal, and is palmed in the hand, as a prestidigitateur conceals a coin, a pack of cards, an egg, or a small lemon. The medium or magician advances to the grate and pretends to take a genuine lump of coal from the fire but brings up instead, at the tips of his fingers, the piece of platinum. In a secret breast pocket of his coat he has a small reservoir of hydrogen, with a tube coming down the sleeve and terminating an inch or so above the cuff. By means of certain mechanical arrangements, to enable him to let on and off the gas at the proper moment, he is able to accomplish the trick; for when a current of hydrogen is allowed to impinge upon a piece of spongy platinum, the metal becomes incandescent, and as soon as the current is arrested the platinum is restored to its normal condition.

The hand may be protected from burning in various ways, one method being the repeated application of sulphuric acid to the skin, whereby it is rendered impervious to the action of fire for a short period of time; another, by wearing gloves of amianthus or asbestos cloth. With the latter, worn in a badly lighted room, the medium, without much risk of discovery, can handle red hot coals or iron with impunity. The gloves may at the proper moment be slipped off and concealed about the person. A small slip of amianthus cloth placed on a newspaper would protect it from a hot coal and the same means could be used when a coal is placed in another's hand or upon his head.

As to the marvelous "levitation", either the witnesses of the alleged feat were under some hypnotic spell, or else they allowed their imaginations to run riot when describing the event. In the case of Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare, D. Carpenter in his valuable paper "On Fallacies Respecting the Supernatural" (Contemporary Review, Jan., 1876) says: "A whole party of believers affirm that they saw Mr. Home float out of one window and in at another, while a single honest skeptic declares that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair all the time." It seems that there were three gentlemen present besides the medium when the alleged phenomenon took place, the two noblemen and a "cousin". It is this unnamed hard-headed cousin to whom Dr. Carpenter refers as the "honest skeptic."

Many of Home's admirers have declared that he possessed the power of mesmerizing certain of his friends. These gentlemen were no doubt hypnotized and related honestly what they believed they had seen. Again, the expectancy of attention and the nervous tension of the average sitter in spirit-circles tend to produce a morbidly impressible condition of mind. Many mediums since Home's day have performed the act of levitation, but always in a dark room. Mr. Angelo Lewis, the writer on magic, reveals an ingenious method by which levitation is effected. When the lights are extinguished the medium-who, by the way, must be a clever ventriloquist-removes his boots and places them on his hands.

"I am rising, I am rising, but pay no attention", he remarks, as he goes about the apartment, where the sitters are grouped in a circle about him, and he lightly touches the heads of various persons. A shadowy form is dimly seen and a smell of boot leather becomes apparent to the olfactory senses of many present. People jump quickly to conclusions in such matters and argue that where the feet of the medium are, his body must surely be-namely, floating in the air. The illusion is further enhanced by the performer's ventriloquial powers. "I am rising! I am touching the ceiling!" he exclaims, imitating the sound of a voice high up. When the lights are turned up, the medium is seen (this time with his boots on his feet) standing on tip-toe, as if just descended from the ceiling.

Sometimes before performing the levitation act, he will say, "In order to convince any skeptic present, that I really float upwards, I will write the initials of my name, or the name of some one present, on the ceiling." When the lights are raised, the letters are seen written on the ceiling in a bold scrawling hand. How is it done? The medium has concealed about him a telescopic steel rod, something like those Chinese fishing rods at one time in vogue among modern disciples of Izaak Walton. This convenient rod when not in use folds up in a very small compass, but when it is shoved out to its full length, some three or four feet, with a bit of black chalk attached, the writing on the ceiling is easily produced. The magicians of ancient Egypt displayed their mystic rods as a part of their paraphernalia, while the modern magi bear theirs in secret. A tambourine, a guitar, a bell, or a spirit hand, rubbed with phosphorus, may also be fixed to this ingenious appliance, and floated over the heads of the spectators, and even a horn may be blown, through the hollow rod.

The materialization of a spirit hand which crept from beneath a table-cover, and showed itself to the "believers," was one of the most startling things in the repertoire of D. D. Home, as it was in that of Dr. Monck's, an English medium. An explanation of Monck's method of producing the hand may, perhaps, throw some light on Home's "materialization." A small dummy hand, artistically executed in wax, with the fingers slightly bent, is fastened to a broad elastic band about three feet in length. This band is attached to a belt about the performer's waist and passes down his left trouser leg, allowing the hand to dangle within the trouser a few inches above the ankle. I must not forget to explain that to the wrist of the hand is appended an elastic sleeve about five inches long. The medium and two sitters take their seats at a square table, with an over-hanging table-cloth. No one is allowed to be seated at the same side of the table with the medium. This is an imperative condition.

"Diminish the light, please," says the medium. Some one rises to lower the gas to the required dim religious light necessary to all spirit séances. "A little lower, please! Lower, lower still!" remarks the medium. Out the light goes. "Dear, me, but this is vexatious! Somebody light it again and be more careful!" he ejaculates. Under cover of the darkness the agile operator crosses his left foot over his right knee, pulls down the wax hand and fixes it to the toe of his boot by means of the elastic sleeve, the apparatus being masked from the sitters by the table cloth until the time comes for the spirit materialization. The three men place their hands on the table and wait patiently for developments. Presently a rap is heard under the table-disjointed knee of the medium,-and then mirabile dictu! the table-cloth shakes and a delicate female hand emerges and shows itself above the edge of the table. A guitar being placed close to the fingers, they soon strum the strings, or rather appear to do so, the medium being the deus ex machina. The cleverest part of the whole performance is the fact that the medium never takes his hands from the table. He quietly puts his left foot down on the floor and places his right foot heavily on the false hand-off it comes from the left foot and shoots up the trouser leg like lightning. The sitters may look under the table but they see nothing.

An ingenious improvement has been made to this hand-test by an American conjurer, one that enables the medium to produce the hand although his feet are secured by the sitter. "Be kind enough, sir," says the performer to the investigator, "to place your feet on mine. If I should move my feet ever so little, you would know it, would you not?" The sitter replies in the affirmative. The medium, as soon as he feels the pressure of the sitter's feet, withdraws his right foot from a steel shape made in imitation of the toe of his boot, and operates the spirit hand at his leisure. After the sitting, he of course, inserts his right foot into the shape and carries it off with him.

The production of spirit music was one of Home's favorite experiments. There are all sorts of ways of producing this music, the most ingenious of which I give:

The apparatus consists of a small circular musical box, wound up by clock work, and made to play whenever pressure is put upon a stud projecting a quarter of an inch from its surface. This box is strapped around the right leg of the medium just above his knee, and hidden beneath the trouser leg. When not in use it is on the under side of the leg. On the table a musical box is placed and covered with a soup tureen, or the top of a chafing dish. When the spectators are seated, the medium works the concealed musical box around to the upper part of his leg near the knee cap, and by pressing the stud against the under surface of the table, starts the music playing. In this way the second musical box seems to play and the acoustic effect is perfect. Perhaps Home used a similar contrivance; Dr. Monck did, and was caught in the act by the chief of the Detective Police.

Home during his séances on the Continent of Europe was accused of all sorts of trickery. Some asserted that he had concealed about him a small but powerful electric battery for producing certain illusions, mechanical contrivances attached to his legs for making spirit raps, and last but not least, as the medium states in his "Memoirs:" "they even accused me of carrying a small monkey about with me, concealed, trained to perform all sorts of ghostly tricks."

People also accused him of obtaining a great deal of his information about the spirits of the departed from tombstones like an Old Mortality, and bribing family servants. A more probable explanation may be found perhaps in telepathy.

There is one more phase of Home's mediumship, the moving of heavy pieces of furniture without physical contact, that must be spoken of. In mentioning it, Dr. Max Dessoir, author of the "Psychology of Conjuring,"[1] says: "We must admit that a few feats, such as those of Prof. Crookes with Home, concerning the possibility of setting inanimate objects in motion without touching them, appear to lie entirely outside the sphere of jugglery." In the year 1871, Prof. William Crookes, (now Sir William Crookes) Fellow of the Royal Society, a very eminent scientist, subjected Home to some elaborate tests in order to prove or disprove by means of scientific apparatus the reality of phenomena connected with variations in the weight of bodies, with or without contact. He declared the tests to be entirely satisfactory, but ascribed the phenomena not to spiritual agency, but to a new force, "in some unknown manner connected with the human organization," which for convenience he called the "Psychic Force." He said in his "Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism:" "Of all the persons endowed with a powerful development of this Psychic Force, and who have been termed 'mediums' upon quite another theory of its origin, Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home is the most remarkable, and it is mainly owing to the many opportunities I have had of carrying on my investigations in his presence that I am enabled to affirm so conclusively the existence of this force." Prof. Crookes' experiments were conducted, as he says, in the full light, and in the presence of witnesses, among them being the famous English barrister, Sergeant Cox, and the astronomer, Dr. Huggins. Heavy articles became light and light articles heavy when the medium came near them. In some cases he lightly touched them, in others refrained from contact.

FIG. 8. CROOKES' APPARATUS.

The first piece of the apparatus constructed by Crookes to test this psychic force consisted of a mahogany board 36 inches long by 9? inches wide and 1 inch thick. A strip of mahogany was screwed on at one end, to form a foot, the length being equal to the width of the board. This end of the board was placed on a table, while the other end was upheld by a spring balance, fastened to a strong tripod stand, as will be seen in Fig. 8.

"Mr. Home," writes Prof. Crookes, "placed the tips of his fingers lightly on the extreme end of the mahogany board which was resting on the support, whilst Dr. A. B. [Dr. Huggins] and myself sat, one on each side of it, watching for any effect which might be produced. Almost immediately the pointer of the balance was seen to descend. After a few seconds it rose again. This movement was repeated several times, as if by successive waves of the psychic force. The end of the board was observed to oscillate slowly up and down during the experiment.

"Mr. Home now, of his own accord, took a small hand-bell and a little card match-box, which happened to be near, and placed one under each hand, to satisfy us, as he said, that he was not producing the downward pressure. The very slow oscillation of the spring balance became more marked, and Dr. A. B., watching the index, said that he saw it descend to 6? lbs. The normal weight of the board as so suspended being 3 lbs., the additional downward pull was therefore 3? lbs. On looking immediately afterwards at the automatic register, we saw that the index had at one time descended as low as 9 lbs., showing a maximum pull of 6 lbs. upon a board whose normal weight was 3 lbs.

"In order to see whether it was possible to produce much effect on the spring balance by pressure at the place where Mr. Home's fingers had been, I stepped upon the table and stood on one foot at the end of the board. Dr. A. B., who was observing the index of the balance, said that the whole weight of my body (140 lbs.) so applied only sunk the index 1? lbs., or 2 lbs. when I jerked up and down. Mr. Home had been sitting in a low easy-chair, and could not, therefore, had he tried his utmost, have exerted any material influence on these results. I need scarcely add that his feet as well as his hands were closely guarded by all in the room."

The next series of experiments is thus described:

"On trying these experiments for the first time, I thought that actual contact between Mr. Home's hands and the suspended body whose weight was to be altered was essential to the exhibition of the force; but I found afterwards that this was not a necessary condition, and I therefore arranged my apparatus in the following manner:-

"The accompanying cuts (Figs. 9, 10 and 11) explain the arrangement. Fig. 9 is a general view, and Figs. 10 and 11 show the essential parts more in detail. The reference letters are the same in each illustration. A B is a mahogany board, 36 inches long by 9? inches wide, and 1 inch thick. It is suspended at the end, B, by a spring balance, C, furnished with an automatic register, D. The balance is suspended from a very firm tripod support, E.

FIG. 9. CROOKES' APPARATUS.

FIG. 10. CROOKES' APPARATUS.

"The following piece of apparatus is not shown in the figures. To the moving index, O, of the spring balance, a fine steel point is soldered, projecting horizontally outwards. In front of the balance, and firmly fastened to it, is a grooved frame, carrying a flat box similar to the dark box of a photographic camera. This box is made to travel by clock-work horizontally in front of the moving index, and it contains a sheet of plate-glass which has been smoked over a flame. The projecting steel point impresses a mark on this smoked surface. If the balance is at rest, and the clock set going, the result is a perfectly straight horizontal line. If the clock is stopped and weights are placed on the end, B, of the board, the result is a vertical line, whose length depends on the weight applied. If, whilst the clock draws the plate along, the weight of the board (or the tension on the balance) varies, the result is a curved line, from which the tension in grains at any moment during the continuance of the experiments can be calculated.

"The instrument was capable of registering a diminution of the force of gravitation as well as an increase; registrations of such a diminution were frequently obtained. To avoid complication, however, I will here refer only to results in which an increase of gravitation was experienced.

FIG. 11. CROOKES' APPARATUS.

"The end, B, of the board being supported by the spring balance, the end, A, is supported on a wooden strip, F, screwed across its lower side and cut to a knife edge (see Fig. 11). This fulcrum rests on a firm and heavy wooden stand, G H. On the board, exactly over the fulcrum, is placed a large glass vessel filled with water. I L is a massive iron stand, furnished with an arm and a ring, M N, in which rests a hemispherical copper vessel perforated with several holes at the bottom.

"The iron stand is 2 inches from the board, A B, and the arm and copper vessel, M N, are so adjusted that the latter dips into the water 1? inches, being 5? inches from the bottom of I, and 2 inches from its circumference. Shaking or striking the arm, M, or the vessel, N, produces no appreciable mechanical effect on the board, A B, capable of affecting the balance. Dipping the hand to the fullest extent into the water in N does not produce the least appreciable action on the balance.

"As the mechanical transmission of power is by this means entirely cut off between the copper vessel and the board, A B, the power of muscular control is thereby completely eliminated.

"For convenience I will divide the experiments into groups, 1, 2, 3, etc., and I have selected one special instance in each to describe in detail. Nothing, however, is mentioned which has not been repeated more than once, and in some cases verified, in Mr. Home's absence, with another person, possessing similar powers.

"There was always ample light in the room where the experiments were conducted (my own dining-room) to see all that took place.

"Experiment I.-The apparatus having been properly adjusted before Mr. Home entered the room, he was brought in, and asked to place his fingers in the water in the copper vessel, N. He stood up and dipped the tips of the fingers of his right hand in the water, his other hand and his feet being held. When he said he felt a power, force, or influence, proceeding from his hand, I set the clock going, and almost immediately the end, B, of the board was seen to descend slowly and remain down for about 10 seconds; it then descended a little further, and afterwards rose to its normal height. It then descended again, rose suddenly, gradually sunk for 17 seconds, and finally rose to its normal height, where it remained till the experiment was concluded. The lowest point marked on the glass was equivalent to a direct pull of about 5,000 grains. The accompanying Figure 12 is a copy of the curve traced on the glass.

SCALE OF SECONDS.

FIG. 12. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HOME.

"Experiment II.-Contact through water having proved to be as effectual as actual mechanical contact, I wished to see if the power or force could affect the weight, either through other portions of the apparatus or through the air. The glass vessel and iron stand, etc., were therefore removed, as an unnecessary complication, and Mr. Home's hands were placed on the stand of the apparatus at P (Fig. 9). A gentleman present put his hand on Mr. Home's hands, and his foot on both Mr. Home's feet, and I also watched him closely all the time. At the proper moment the clock was again set going; the board descended and rose in an irregular manner, the result being a curved tracing on the glass, of which Fig. 13 is a copy.

SCALE THE SAME AS IN FIG. 12.

FIG. 13. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HOME.

"Experiment III.-Mr. Home was now placed one foot from the board, A B, on one side of it. His hands and feet were firmly grasped by a by-stander, and another tracing, of which Fig. 14 is a copy, was taken on the moving glass plate.

SCALE THE SAME AS IN FIG. 12.

FIG. 14. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS UNDER HOME'S INFLUENCE.

"Experiment IV.-(Tried on an occasion when the power was stronger than on the previous occasions), Mr. Home was now placed 3 feet from the apparatus, his hands and feet being tightly held. The clock was set going when he gave the word, and the end, B, of the board soon descended, and again rose in an irregular manner, as shown in Fig. 15.

SCALE THE SAME AS IN FIG. 12.

FIG. 15. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS UNDER HOME'S INFLUENCE.

"The following series of experiments were tried with more delicate apparatus, and with another person, a lady, Mr. Home being absent. As the lady is non-professional, I do not mention her name. She has, however, consented to meet any scientific men whom I may introduce for purposes of investigation.

FIG. 16. SECOND CROOKES' APPARATUS.

"A piece of thin parchment, A, (Figs. 16 and 17), is stretched tightly across a circular hoop of wood. B C is a light lever turning on D. At the end B is a vertical needle point touching the membrane A, and at C is another needle point, projecting horizontally and touching a smoked glass plate, E F. This glass plate is drawn along in the direction H G by clockwork, K. The end, B, of the lever is weighted so that it shall quickly follow the movements of the centre of the disc, A. These movements are transmitted and recorded on the glass plate, E F, by means of the lever and needle point, C. Holes are cut in the side of the hoop to allow a free passage of air to the under side of the membrane. The apparatus was well tested beforehand by myself and others, to see that no shaking or jar on the table or support would interfere with the results: the line traced by the point, C, on the smoked glass was perfectly straight in spite of all our attempts to influence the lever by shaking the stand or stamping on the floor.

FIG. 17. SECTION OF APPARATUS IN FIG. 16.

"Experiment V.-Without having the object of the instrument explained to her, the lady was brought into the room and asked to place her fingers on the wooden stand at the points, L M, Fig. 16. I then placed my hands over hers to enable me to detect any conscious or unconscious movement on her part. Presently percussive noises were heard on the parchment, resembling the dropping of grains of sand on its surface. At each percussion a fragment of graphite which I had placed on the membrane was seen to be projected upwards about 1-50th of an inch, and the end, C, of the lever moved slightly up and down. Sometimes the sounds were as rapid as those from an induction-coil, whilst at others they were more than a second apart. Five or six tracings were taken, and in all cases a movement of the end, C, of the lever was seen to have occurred with each vibration of the membrane.

"In some cases the lady's hands were not so near the membrane as L M, but were at N O, Fig 17.

SCALE OF SECONDS.

FIG. 18. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS (FIG. 15 AND 16) OUTSIDE HOME'S INFLUENCE.

"The accompanying Fig. 18 gives tracings taken from the plates used on these occasions.

"Experiment VI.-Having met with these results in Mr. Home's absence, I was anxious to see what action would be produced on the instrument in his presence.

"Accordingly I asked him to try, but without explaining the instrument to him.

"I grasped Mr. Home's right arm above the wrist and held his hand over the membrane, about 10 inches from its surface, in the position shown at P, Fig. 17. His other hand was held by a friend. After remaining in this position for about half a minute, Mr. Home said he felt some influence passing. I then set the clock going, and we all saw the index, C, moving up and down. The movements were much slower than in the former case, and were almost entirely unaccompanied by the percussive vibrations then noticed.

"Figs. 19 and 20 show the curves produced on the glass on two of these occasions.

"Figs. 18, 19 and 20 are magnified.

"These experiments confirm beyond doubt the conclusions at which I arrived in my former paper, namely, the existence of a force associated, in some manner not yet explained, with the human organization, by which force increased weight is capable of being imparted to solid bodies without physical contact. In the case of Mr. Home, the development of this force varies enormously, not only from week to week, but from hour to hour; on some occasions the force is inappreciable by my tests for an hour or more, and then suddenly reappears in great strength.

SCALE THE SAME AS IN FIG. 18.

FIG. 19. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS (FIG. 16 AND 17) UNDER HOME'S INFLUENCE.

"It is capable of acting at a distance from Mr. Home (not unfrequently as far as two or three feet), but is always strongest close to him.

SCALE THE SAME AS ON FIG. 18.

FIG. 20. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS (FIG. 16 AND 17) UNDER HOME'S INFLUENCE.

"Being firmly convinced that there could be no manifestation of one form of force without the corresponding expenditure of some other form of force, I for a long time searched in vain for evidence of any force or power being used up in the production of these results.

"Now, however, having seen more of Mr. Home, I think I perceive what it is that this psychic force uses up for its development. In employing the terms vital force or nervous energy, I am aware that I am employing words which convey very different significations to many investigators; but after witnessing the painful state of nervous and bodily prostration in which some of these experiments have left Mr. Home-after seeing him lying in an almost fainting condition on the floor, pale and speechless-I could scarcely doubt that the evolution of psychic force is accompanied by a corresponding drain on vital force."

Sergeant Cox in speaking of the tests says, "The results appear to me conclusively to establish the important fact, that there is a force proceeding from the nerve-system capable of imparting motion and weight to solid bodies within the sphere of its influence."

One of the medium's defenders has written:

"Home's mysterious power, whatever it may have been, was very uncertain. Sometimes he could exercise it, and at others not, and these fluctuations were not seldom the source of embarrassment to him. He would often arrive at a place in obedience to an engagement, and, as he imagined, ready to perform, when he would discover himself absolutely helpless. After a séance his exhaustion appeared to be complete.

"There is no more striking proof of the fact that Home really possessed occult gifts of some sort-psychic force or whatever else the power may be termed-than he gave such amazing exhibitions in the early part of his history and was able to do so little toward the end. If it had been juggling he would, like other conjurors, have improved on his tricks by experience, or at all events, while his memory held out he would not have deteriorated."

Dr. Hammond's Experiments.

Dr. William A. Hammond, the eminent neurologist, of Washington, D. C., took up the cudgels against Prof. Crookes' "Psychic Force" theory, and assigned the experiments to the domain of animal electricity. He wrote as follows:[2] "Place an egg in an egg-cup and balance a long lath upon the egg. Though the lath be almost a plank it will obediently follow a rod of glass, gutta percha or sealing-wax, which has been previously well dried and rubbed, the former with a piece of silk, and the two latter with woolen cloth. Now, in dry weather, many persons within my knowledge, have only to walk with a shuffling gait over the carpet, and then approaching the lath hold out the finger instead of the glass, sealing wax or gutta percha, and instantly the end of the lath at L rises to meet it, and the end at L is depressed. Applying these principles, I arranged an apparatus exactly like that of Prof. Crookes, except that the spring balance was such as is used for weighing letters and was therefore very delicate, indicating quarter ounces with exactness, and that the board was thin and narrow.

FIG. 21. DR. HAMMOND'S APPARATUS.

"Applying the glass rod or stick of sealing-wax to the end resting by its foot on the table, the index of the balance at once descended, showing an increased weight of a little over three quarters of an ounce, and this without the board being raised from the table.

"I then walked over a thick Turkey rug for a few moments, and holding my finger under the board near the end attached to the balance, caused a fall of the index of almost half an ounce. I then rested my finger lightly on the end of the board immediately over the foot, and again the index descended and oscillated several times, just as in Mr. Home's experiments. The lowest point reached was six and a quarter ounces, and as the board weighed, as attached to the balance, five ounces, there was an increased weight of one and a quarter ounces. At no time was the end of the board raised from the table.

"I then arranged the apparatus so as to place a thin glass tumbler nearly full of water immediately over the fulcrum, as in Mr. Crookes' experiment, and again the index fell and oscillated on my fingers being put into the water.

"Now if one person can thus, with a delicate apparatus like mine, cause the index, through electricity, to descend and ascend, it is not improbable that others, like Mr. Home, could show greater, or even different electrical power, as in Prof. Crookes' experiments. It is well known that all persons are not alike in their ability to be electrically excited. Many persons, myself among them, can light the gas with the end of the finger. Others cannot do it with any amount of shuffling over the carpet.

"At any rate is it not much more sensible to believe that Mr. Home's experiments are to be thus explained than to attribute the results of his semi-mysterious attempts to spiritualism or psychic force?"