Chapter III: Physical Phenomena

1. Psychography, or Slate-Writing.

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.

"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?

"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._

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.

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.