Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Some mediums have a regular detective force who make it a business to get acquainted with all susceptible persons, or prospective customers, and after getting a history of these persons, they convey it to the medium, who only has to await the coming of the victims to be able to make startling revelations.

The mind readers also operate largely by means of confederates, and most of the theatrical performers have clever trappings. One of these was exposed recently in a Long Island village, when it was discovered that the operator had several telephone wires running under the floor of the theatre, from the rear of the stage. In another instance, it was found that the sheets of cardboard, which were passed around for the audience to rest their papers upon, were sensitized so that when they were collected and subjected to chemical treatment they would make visible the writing that had been done over them. The questions asked were communicated to the operator by an accomplice in the wings. Another method, adopted by those who claim to read the numbers in watch cases, and to tell the numbers on banknotes, is that of a code of signals sent to the operator by a confederate in the audience. These codes are sometimes composed of words, and sometimes of gestures and signals.

One noted spiritualist claimed to be able to put the subject under a spirit influence and give him superhuman strength. For instance, the subject would support his feet on two little stools, and his hands upon two others, each pair of stools being about five feet apart, and he would then arch his body upward, in the form of a bridge. A heavy anvil was then placed upon his abdomen, and the operator would take a huge sledge hammer and beat a piece of red hot iron into a horseshoe. This was only an experiment in inertia, and the heavy blows were hardly felt by the man below, the effect of them being almost absorbed by the large mass of iron. It was also noticed that when heavy weights were lifted at arm's length, they were so arranged as to lie along the forearm, this position being more graceful and about fifty per cent. easier. Leather straps were broken around the chest, and this was done by means of a sharp tongue to the buckle, filed to an edge, which cut the strap with slight pressure. (The audience eagerly examined the strap in advance, but never thought of examining the buckle.) Heavy Jack-chains were also broken by the subject, but these chains all contained one weak link, of unwelded soft iron, which would stretch out when pulled in a certain direction. Pennies were broken with ease, but these were, of course, prepared in advance, by placing them in a vice and working them back and forth many times until they became soft in the middle.

Innumerable tricks are done by means of cans and other vessels containing false bottoms, or several compartments, and every stage where magicians perform contains various trap doors in the floor, mirrors, and other illusions. A modern scheme is to have two rows of blinding lights, before a black background, so that the audience cannot see the machinery. By this contrivance, figures on the stage are made to float in the air, and to do all kinds of apparently impossible things. One familiar performance has a man at a piano rise in air and revolve rapidly, all in full view--apparently--of the audience, and another makes a lady dance in midair, and take gigantic strides at enormous speed. These tricks are done by means of machinery, concealed from view by optical illusions, the lady having an iron belt about her waist which connects with the hidden machinery in the rear.

Another familiar trick is the appearance and disappearance of a person into or from a box, basket, coffin, and so on, also in full view of the audience. It will usually be observed that these are placed near to the back curtain, where it is easy for a person to enter or exit through a secret opening, but sometimes it is done through a trapdoor in the floor. Once I had the pleasure of assisting Hermann the Great at "Hermann's Theatre" on Broadway, since burned down. I went to his dressing room before the performance, and he gave me a tiny rabbit which I concealed in my ulster pocket, and at the same time several other confederates were given "props," such as silk hats, in which omelets were afterwards made, and handkerchiefs with red moons in the center, and red handkerchiefs with white moons, which were afterwards used in the performance by Hermann who cut a circle out of the middle of a white handkerchief and one from a red handkerchief, and afterwards produced out of the audience the handkerchiefs aforesaid, much to the wonderment of the audience. The rabbit I held was the counterpart of another which Hermann shot from a pistol on the stage, and which was afterwards found in my pocket, much to my apparent chagrin.

The art of magic, while by no means a lost art, is not so popular now as formerly, yet it still has a firm hold on human credulity. As Barnum used to say, "The people love to be humbugged." Inborn in us is that love of the marvelous which caused our ancestors to believe in astrology, sorcery and witchcraft. The stage magician is well aware of this, and as the old tricks become familiar to their audiences, they soon discover new methods to satisfy this natural propensity to crave mystery. Some good folks say that all magic is bad, in that it is deceit and treachery; but this seems rather a lame argument when it is remembered that the magician practically tells his audience that he is going to fool them, and that he is merely matching his dexterity against their quickness of perception. The real harm and danger comes of the modern tricks of magic, in which the magician pretends that he is possessed of some supernatural powers, such as spiritualistic manifestations, clairvoyance, mind reading, slate-writing, etc. If the real truth were known, these charlatans probably reason thus: "We are magicians, the people love to be mystified, we can no longer entertain them with the old tricks, they are ever ready to believe that which they cannot understand, the supernatural is always entertaining; and since we must make a living some how, we will perform our tricks and claim that they are of supernatural origin." There is some logic in this view, from their viewpoint, but from the standpoint of us who see the danger in, and who are trying to destroy, superstition, it is a practice that should be suppressed.

In the introduction to Barnum's "Humbugs of the World," the great showman says, "I once travelled through the Southern States in company with a magician. The first day in each town he astonished his auditors with his deceptions. He then announced that on the following day he would show how each trick was performed, and how every man might thus become a magician. That expose spoiled the legerdemain market on that particular route, for several years. So, if we could have a full exposure of the tricks of trade of all sorts, of humbugs and deceivers of past times--religious, political, financial, scientific, quackish and so forth--we might perhaps look for a somewhat wiser generation to follow us."

Thus, we could go on at great length to show how easy it is to deceive people. It is one of the easiest things in the world to make up tricks to fool the best of us, and all operators in occult or physic phenomena know it. "Am I not to believe what I see with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears?" they all say,--at least ALL who _want_ to be convinced. The answer is, "No, you are not."

_Ghosts_

One by one the great superstitions of the world are slowly but surely disappearing. It was not long ago when we, in this new country of enlightenment, believed in _witchcraft_, and were burning witches at the stake; but now it would take a long hunt to find a man, woman or child who believed in that horrible and disastrous superstition. The same is almost true of "_Ghosts_," for that word is now used more in jest than in earnest; but to believe in "_apparitions_" is not altogether of past centuries, for there are still many who cling to the delusion of supernatural appearances. The modern way of putting it is "_Spirits_."

Authors, poets and dramatists of all ages, sacred and profane, have made endless allusions to supernatural appearances, not only because _ghosts_ are convenient and entertaining characters to introduce, not only because writers naturally tried to reflect the beliefs of the periods of which they wrote, but because they could make a deeper impression on the minds of a superstitious world. Shakespeare makes fine use of the Ghost in Hamlet and in Macbeth, just as Goethe does of Mephistopheles in Faust. Not only is fiction and the drama full of Ghosts, but there are hundreds of volumes in the libraries giving serious, and apparently "well-authenticated" cases of supernatural appearances. Mrs. Crowe's "Nightside of Nature" is probably the classic of this line of literature--at least, it appears to be quoted more than any other. The author of Robinson Crusoe wrote "An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions; being an account of what they are and what they are not, when they come and when they come not; as also how we may distinguish between apparitions of Good and Evil Spirits, and how we ought to behave to them; with a variety of surprising and diverting examples never published before."

I have frequently been asked by believing friends, "How do you account for this?"--following with, perchance, an elaborate account of what the aunt's mother's sister's nephew once saw. My answer has always been, and still is, to those friends, to Mrs. Crowe, Daniel DeFoe and all others, "I cannot account for what somebody else saw, says he saw, or thinks he saw; but let me see it and I will guarantee to give you a reasonable explanation." John Ruskin says somewhere that the greatest thing in this world is to see something and to be able to tell simply and accurately just what you saw, _and nothing else_. There is the secret! I remember the first time I saw Hermann the Great, and how I went home and told everybody about the wonderful trick he had performed. Of course, nobody could tell me how it was done, for, from the way I described it, it was an impossibility. Sometime later I had occasion to meet Mr. Hermann in his dressing room, and I then learned how the trick was done. How simple! I had been duped and deceived. My eyes had not seen aright. How different was the story I had told, from the story Hermann told!

I have often thought, if Hermann had been in the _Ghost_ business, what harm could he not have done!

We all know what becomes of the bodies and clothing of the dead. Of this there can be no doubt. What becomes of the soul, the spirit, nobody knows. Assuming that this does not die, which seems probable, we know that it cannot again live within the same body and apparel, for that is destroyed. To assume that the spirit procures a new and similar body and clothing, is to assume the existence of material, physical matter in the spiritual world. Does it not require quite a stretch of a sacrilegious imagination to picture a clothing factory in the spiritual world? And yet, we are told that ghosts appear "in the very clothes they used to wear." Mrs. Bargrave "took hold of Mrs. Veal's gown several times" and recognized the velvet. (Drelincourt on Death, 1700). We are also told of "rustling of silk," "creaking of shoes" and "sounds of footsteps" (Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, Owen).

Even the voice is recognized, although the various organs that produced the original voice on earth have long since perished. We all seem to have a notion that ghosts should be light, thin and airy, but, it seems, there must be fat _ghosts_, too. I remember at least one fat ghost, for I yanked it into my lap in the middle of a highly interesting seance at Mrs. Calder's, a famous _Ghost_ producer who once thrived in New York. The ghost was alleged to be a famous Plymouth church preacher whose name is too revered to be mentioned in this connection.

Some Ghosts have even appeared in iron armour, and some with walking sticks, swords or shovels. People have heard, seen and felt all these--the word _felt_ might be used in a double sense here, because one vicious _ghost_ is said to have delighted in thumping his hosts with a cane--so it can be assumed that such material things as clothing, armour and canes are to be had in the other world. And yet, _ghosts_ are transparent! You can see right through them. They disappear through a stone wall, through a carpeted, oaken floor, and through a locked and bolted door. You can shoot at them, run them through with a sword, and you touch nothing.

Again, the same _Ghost_ frequently appears in many places at one and the same time. DeFoe tells of the burglars who found the same _ghost_ in a chair in every room in the house at the same moment. Still again, we have "well-authenticated" cases of beggar Ghosts in rags, of one-armed Ghosts, beheaded Ghosts, blind Ghosts, hungry Ghosts, thirsty Ghosts, worried, tormented and unhappy Ghosts, and wicked, revengeful Ghosts. Is, then, the spirit world (heaven), no improvement on our own world? Mr. Kardec once asserted that we are surrounded by "myriads of spirits--good, bad and indifferent," which quite alarmed the author of "Mary Jane," who feared accidents might happen among such a crowd of _spirits_. Mr. Baker, it was, who set the author at ease, by explaining that "the _spirits_ can walk through one another and not feel it."

It is a wonder that, in a world so full of humbuggers, get-rich-quicksters, fakirs and delusionists, greater effort has been made to profit by the greatest of all passions. For every human weakness we have a gold seeker, be it a Barnum, Munyon, a Lydia Pinkham, a 520% Miller, a Dowie, a Dis de Bar, or a Sister Fox. Some want to be tall, some short, some fat, some thin, some rich, some healthy, some beautiful, etc., etc., and there is always an army of fakirs, honest, semi-honest and otherwise, ready to make them so for a monetary consideration payable in advance. But, the greatest distress, the greatest passion, the greatest longing and yearning, is for the dead. What a tremendous army is the army of the mourners! What a gold mine to the man who can bring the mourner and the departed together! _Ghost_ makers do not necessarily mean to defraud, nor do they always perform for money. There are good and bad, as in all else, and they sometimes fool themselves in their efforts to fool others. The _Imagination_ is a wonderful organism. It is the greatest machine on earth, because it can do the greatest things. But, beware of it--it is not to be trusted; it will expand your credulity, undermine your reason, and give you a taste of the delirium tremens--which makes you see things!

_Strikes, Profiteering and the High Cost of Living_

_Being an Argument in Favor of Industrialized Government_