FOOTNOTES
[1] “Oh, no, Houdini, I never was more serious in my life.”
[2] Sir John Franklin was a celebrated Arctic explorer. In 1845 he was appointed to the command of an expedition sent out by the British Admiralty in search of the northwest passage. The expedition sailed from Greenhithe, May 18, 1845, and was last spoken off the entrance of Lancaster Sound, July 26, 1845. Thirty-nine relief expeditions, public and private, were sent out from England and America in search of the missing explorer between 1847 and 1857. McClintock found traces of the missing expedition in 1859, which confirmed previous rumors of its total destruction.
[3] New York World, October 21, 1888.
[4] See [Appendix A].
[5] Could this possibly have been “in answer to prayer” as now claimed?
[6] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his book, “Our American Adventures,” states:
“The original house was removed by pious hands and reconstructed, as I understand it, at Lily Dale. It is not generally known that when it was pulled down or it may have been before, the bones of the murdered peddler and his tin box were discovered buried in the cellar, as was stated in the original rappings. The rappings were in 1848, the discovery in 1903. What have our opponents to say to this?”
According to Margaret Fox’s confession, Doyle’s statements are misleading and contrary to the facts.
[7] There were three investigations by competent investigators. One in Buffalo by medical doctors, one in Philadelphia by the Seybert Commission of the University of Pennsylvania, and one in Boston by a committee of professors from Harvard University. Any one of the three would have resulted disastrously for the medium had the conditions and requirements demanded by the investigators been complied with. A suspicion was well founded in the minds of the investigators as to the actual solution of the problem, but they were not permitted to proceed to a finish, the mediums hedging each time when a crucial test was proposed.
[8] I have been warned while writing this book to be careful regarding my statement of the confession of Margaret Fox. I am also fully aware of the fact that Dr. Funk writes in his book, “The Widow’s Mite”:
“Margaret Fox, not long before her death, confessed that she and her sister had duped the public. This unfortunate woman had sunk so low that for five dollars she would have denied her own mother and sworn to anything. At that time her affidavit for or against anything should not be given the slightest weight.”
Mr. W. S. Davis, himself a practicing medium, who knew Margaret Fox Kane personally, wrote me:
“One would think that Margaret Fox got drunk, and in that condition, was induced to confess that she was a fraud, but when she became sober she renounced her confession. That is what we would think to hear some Spiritualists talk. She was sober when the made her confession; she was sober when she appeared in the theatre and gave her exposé. In fact she was usually sober. She drank considerably during the later years of her life, and often drank too much, but usually she was sober. One of her reasons for drinking was that her hypocrisy had become more and more distasteful to her. Living a constant lie got on her nerves, and, when the later years came, she didn’t have the same degree of vital force that she had in her younger days to battle off the dictates of her conscience.”
[9] New York World, October 22, 1888.
[10] From Ruben Briggs Davenport’s “The Death Blow to Spiritualism.”
[11] Ibid.
[12] These statements are fully corroborated by letters on file in my library and I consider it not only a privilege, but a duty as well to truthfully present them here.
[13] Ira, the surviving brother, was so touched by this little act that he taught me the famous Davenport rope-tie, the secret of which had been so well kept that not even his sons knew it.
[14] It was in Paris too that the other brother, William Henry Harrison Davenport, met the great Adah Isaacs Menken, called the “Bengal Tiger,” and though not generally known she later became his wife. She was considered one of the “Ten Super-Women of the World.” She was born within a few miles of New Orleans, La., in 1835. Upon the death of her father she embarked on her stage career and instantaneously won success.... She made her first appearance in New York City at the National Theatre in 1860. She was married a number of times. Her first marriage was to John C. Heenan, the prize fighter, better known as “Benicia Boy.” She was the first woman to do the Mazeppa in tights, playing the rôle both in America and Europe. While in London she became the literary and professional star of the hour and her hotel was the meeting place for such men as Charles Dickens, Swinburne, Alexander Dumas, Charles Reade, Watts Phillips, John Oxenford, The Duke of Hamilton and many others. She wrote a book of poems named “Infelicity,” which she dedicated to Charles Dickens. She had a penchant for being photographed with many of her admirers and there is a rare photograph of her and Swinburne which he tried hard to suppress. Another famous one is of Dumas and the fair lady.
[15] They were married in London during March, 1866.
[16] Long after Ira died his only daughter, Zellie, a well known actress, told me that while her father and I were so absorbed in discussing and experimenting with the rope trick she and her mother cautiously slipped behind the curtains and watched us through the bedroom window.
[17] Ira told me that at first they used to work unbound in a corner of the room with a curtain to conceal their methods. At one of their seances they were asked if the Spirits would work if the Brothers allowed themselves to be tied. This led them to try out different rope methods, gradually developing the one used all over the world which Ira taught me, saying smilingly after he had done so: “Houdini, we started it, you finish it.”
[18] I had the honor of being instrumental in launching and directing Dean Kellar’s farewell at the Hippodrome in New York City and he selected me to be his last assistant. As a part of the performance he presented with some table tipping what he called the “Davenport Cabinet and Rope Mystery.” After the performance he walked to the footlights and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am finished giving performances to-night. As I will have no further use for the cabinet and table I publicly present them to my dear friend Houdini.”
In this cabinet, made in imitation of the one used by the Davenport Brothers, the benches are fitted into a groove making it possible for them to be slipped out in case of an extra severe tie-up, giving enough freedom to ring bells and do a number of other things without releasing the hands in the usual way. This is something of an improvement in mystery cabinets.
[19] They rubbed vaseline into their hands and wrists to facilitate their movements. The rope generally used was similar to the Silver Lake sash cord.
[20] It was sometimes claimed that after their demonstrations were over the Davenports turned the papers and remarked them. This Ira said was a deliberate lie as they never left their places throughout the entire performance.
[21] At one of their seances a man tied the brothers so tightly that it was necessary for them to make a desperate struggle to effect a release. The next night the man tried a more difficult test, simply laying the ropes all over their bodies, but the Davenports worked so slowly, deftly, and with such inexhaustible patience that they saved their reputation.
[22] Nor did he hesitate to tell me that he sometimes used as many as ten confederates at a seance for protection.
[23] William Fay, in order to be prepared for an emergency, always carried a piece of rope in his mandolin, and boasted to his partners:
“I’ll not chaw the ropes like you fellows, I’ll cut.”
[24] The original cabinet of the Davenports, made of bird’s-eye maple, was pawned for thirty pounds in Cuba many years ago and is still there.
[25] In order to prove to the public that they did not make use of their hands test conditions were imposed by filling both the brothers’ hands with flour and then tying them behind their backs. Almost every publication that has written an exposé of the Davenport Brothers claims with glee that the trick was performed by putting flour into their pockets from which they took a fresh handful after the manifestations were finished and pretending that their hands were clenched all the time. It is claimed that once a committeeman instead of placing flour in their hands filled them with snuff and after the manifestations had been performed they had their hands fulls of flour. Ira told me that this was a deliberate lie as they did not need to get rid of the flour in their hands as they could do all the tricks with their hands clenched using the free thumb.
[26] The levitation act which has helped to swell the ranks of the Spiritualists and which mystified scientist and laymen alike, was one of the simplest deceptions ever practiced on the guileless masses by cunning mediums. A reformed medium in Bristol, England, told me that he would endeavor to free himself from his restraints, and by deft manipulations managed to pick up a person who sat in a chair nearby. Although the sitter had only been lifted a few inches from the floor he believed in all good faith that his head had actually brushed the ceiling, this impression being created by the medium gently passing his hand over the top of the sitter’s head.
[27] As to the delusion of sound. Sound waves are deflected just as light waves are reflected by the intervention of a proper medium and under certain conditions it is a difficult thing to locate their source. Stuart Cumberland told me an interesting test to prove the inability of a blindfolded person to trace sound to its source. It is exceedingly simple; merely clicking two coins over the head of the blindfolded person.
[28] This refers to our contemplated tour of the world. When I first became acquainted with Ira Davenport in 1909 I found that he was very anxious to re-enter the entertainment field and we set about planning a tour of the world together. By combining his reputation and my knowledge and experience we would have been able to set the world agog. Under no circumstances, however, would we have claimed our performance Spiritualistic, but just a mystery entertainment.
[29] The start of the Liverpool riot can be laid indirectly to Ferguson. He protested the way the boys had been secured and without waiting for instructions or a word from the Brothers, whipped out a knife and cut the ropes. Ira told me that it was too bad that Ferguson did that for they never could have secured them so they could not have produced some manifestations.
[30] Ira told me that during the disturbance in Liverpool, John Hughes, Fenian head, offered him five hundred Irishmen to clean up any mob of Englishmen.
[31] Ira told me that he believed that their success so diminished the popularity of the theatre where Irving was playing that the stars were forced to resort to various schemes to counteract the dwindling receipts at the box office.
See [Appendix B] for Irving’s speech.
[32] The reader should not confuse this man Jacobs with Jacoby, the German escape-artist, a rope specialist who invented a number of rope tricks that are still well worth presenting.
[33] He wrote me a letter on July 5th, 1911, and was waiting to see me at the time of his death on the 8th. I was to leave New York on receipt of his letter but his daughter Zelie wired me of his passing away.
[34] When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was appearing in Australia in 1920 he met Bendigo Rymer, the grandson of J. S. Rymer, who had entertained Home lavishly. Bendigo showed Sir Arthur a number of letters from his grandfather which proved conclusively that Home had been guilty of taking advantage of the man’s friendship. Rymer had entertained Home in England and sent him to Rome with his son to study art. From Rome young Rymer wrote his father that as soon as Home had been able to elbow his way into society he totally ignored him though as host he was paying Home’s expenses. Finally Home ran away and lived with a titled English woman, shunning Rymer altogether.
Sir Arthur in his book, “The Wanderings of a Spiritualist,” says in reference to Home: “For weeks he lived at her villa, although the state of his health would suggest that it was rather as a patient than a lover.” In his introduction to Madame Home’s book Sir Arthur entirely forgives this rude action of Home and strongly defends his base ingratitude.
[35] Home, the Spiritualist, is giving readings in Boston. Has he given up his Spiritualism in disgust at finding that people who strained at his manifestations have swallowed the Davenports? We are glad to think he has adopted an honest profession at last, and we hope before long to see his rivals rising to sweeping a crossing or something as respectable.—London Fun, 1864.
[36] “Incidents in My Life,” London, 1863—“Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism,” 1877.
[37] It is quite unnecessary for me to repeat the many proofs of fraud perpetrated by Home, but if the reader is interested he will find many such cases reported by Mr. Frank Podmore in “Modern Spiritualism,” London, 1902, and “Newer Spiritualism,” London, 1910. Mr. Podmore was a Spiritualist himself and a member of the Society of Psychical Research and would naturally make out as good a case for Home as he could honestly.
[38] See [Appendix F].
[39] She only lived about four years.
[40] In his introduction to the 1921 edition of “D. D. Home’s Life and Work,” by Madame Home, Doyle declares that he commends the book to the student, saying:
“Very especially the second series is commended to the student of Home, because in it will be found all the papers dealing with the Home-Lyon lawsuit showing conclusively how honorable was the action of Home.”
Does he wish us to infer that it was Home who brought the suit against Mrs. Lyon, rather than the opposite?
Does he wish it understood that he is sincere in his commendation of a charlatan?
Throughout the introduction he defends Home and seems to deliberately twist the history of the man.
[41] It is interesting to note that Sir William Crookes, the eminent scientist, who must have known of the history and character of Home as unveiled at the Lyon trial, should have permitted himself to fall within the mesh of D. D. Home.
[42] Taking for granted that the committee in the room was not able to see or permitted to leave the table the method Home could have used with the greatest ease was: first actually get out of the window, or pretend to; then, go back and noiselessly crawl on all fours through the door into the next room and shake the window; and lastly, boldly return to the first room, closing the door with a bang.
There is a possibility that a man of Home’s audacity with levitation feats might have resorted to swinging from one window to another, which means nothing to any acrobat with a wire properly placed in readiness.
The idea of Home losing his physical weight and floating out of the window head first is merely a suggestion of his, a ruse which is still being used by mediums.
[43] See [Appendix C] for Lord Adare’s story.
[44] There are numerous versions of the cause of his death. Mme. Blavatsky, who made a special investigation of the deaths of prominent mediums, wrote: “This Calvin of Spiritualism suffered for years from a terrible spinal disease, brought on through his intercourse with the ‘Spirits,’ and died a perfect wreck.”—“Key to Theosophy,” 1890.
[45] Table lifting was a strong card with her.
[46] “She was taken in a menial position into a family given to Spiritualistic practices. Being called one day to make up the circle at a seance, certain new and surprising manifestations took place, and she was pronounced to be a medium. So it appears that the Spiritualists actually pushed her into the matter, and she immediately took advantage of the opportunity.”—Proceedings, Society for Psychical Research, November, 1909, pp. 311, 312.
[47] Robert Owen, Prof. Hare, Prof. Challis, Prof. Zollner, Prof. Weber, and Lombroso were all near the end of their lives when they embraced Spiritualism.—See “Spiritualism,” by Joseph McCabe, page 207.
[48] Another adroit method of freeing one hand when the sitter thinks he has evidence that the two hands of the medium are being kept busy, is for the medium to keep up a continuous clapping of the hands, working the hands near the face or some other exposed part of the body and simply change the clapping of one hand against another to the clapping of one hand against the body. In the dark the effect is the same and the sitter believes that both the medium’s hands are busily engaged in clapping.
[49] Not difficult to accomplish in the dark.
[50] Mr. Baggally had a reputation as a conjuror and I think he has done much in the way of exposing mediums. He is also a believer in telepathy and has recently published a book on that subject, “Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent,” Chicago, 1918.
[51] The “human-clamp” is one of the simplest and yet one of the most effective and mystifying means of table levitation. The medium and her subjects place the tips of their fingers on the top of the table lightly. The medium gently rocks the table back and forth until she gets it in a correct position to place her foot, or the hem of her dress, under one of the legs. When she perfects her position she presses down with the hand above the table leg that is resting on her foot. From then on it is only a matter of raising the foot to whatever height she wishes the table to rise. If she wants it levitated to a great height, she gives it an upward kick and then withdraws her foot, and the table rises and falls true to the laws of gravitation.
[52] At one time during the series of tests in New York City, a man from Philadelphia, Mr. Edgar Scott, who was standing in the background, took advantage of the darkness and crawled along the floor to the cabinet and attempted to grab Eusapia’s foot while she was using it for trick purposes but just as his hand touched her foot Eusapia had a spasm of screeching. Professors Jastrow and Miller were witnesses of this fact.
[53] Palladino wanted her own interpreter, also a personal friend, but that obstacle was avoided. Neither was her business manager, Mr. Hereward Carrington, present on this particular occasion.
[54] The full details of this seance were published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Section “B,” August, 1910.
[55] In an interview with Walter Littlefield, a noted journalist, Palladino revealed three methods by which she was able to employ substitution in regard to hands at the table, four in regard to foot substitution, half a dozen methods of table levitation, several ways of producing knocks, two ways in which she produced the illusion of a current of air coming from her forehead. She told him that she was not annoyed when caught practicing tricks, nor did she deny their use when caught. She said to him, “All mediums indulge in tricks—all.” She also told him that she was a good Catholic, went to Mass, made her confession, and said she hated to hear people talk about “super-normal,” or “supernatural” phenomena.
The famous “current of air from the forehead” which Mr. Littlefield mentions was simply her breath blown with force and diverted by her under lip.
[56] I am informed on good authority that Eusapia threw her legs into the laps of her male sitters! That she placed her head upon their shoulders, and did various other things calculated to confuse and muddle men, all of which was explained on the theory of “hysteria.” In her younger days Eusapia was a buxom woman and it is not strange that a lot of old scientists were badly flabbergasted by such conduct.
[57] See [Appendix D].
[58] I have a full record of the proceedings in my reference file.
[59] In order to prove that fraud and trickery were the tools which had been used in fleecing the unwary, magicians were induced to appear in evidence, and on May 27, 1888, Alexander Hermann gave a public Demonstration at the Academy of Music in New York City for the purpose of duplicating the phenomena produced by Diss Debar and as an aid to the New York Press Club Fund.
The audience included many prominent people and notables including Col. Cockerell; Edward S. Stokes, of the Hoffman House; Joseph Howard; District Attorney Fellows; Ex-Judge Donohue; Lawyer Newcombe; Judge Hilton; Luther R. Marsh; and “Dr.” Lawrence, one of the attaches of the Diss Debar Temple.
Professor Hermann read spirit messages, did table tipping, cabinet, light seance, and produced spook pictures, finishing with a dark seance of ghostly music and materializations.
[60] New York Times, April 21, 1888.
[61] New York World, June 18, 1888.
[62] When the London press was full of sensational stories following the arrest of Laura and Theodore Jackson, Carl Hertz, on picking up his paper one morning, was astonished to recognize the woman who had lured young girls into joining her immoral cult as Ann O’Delia Diss Debar, with whom he had measured swords at the Marsh trial. He got in touch with Scotland Yard immediately and gave it all the information he had regarding Diss Debar’s connection with fraud activities.
[63] “Miss Croisdale, who was one of the victims, testified that she had been initiated into the ‘Theocratic Unity,’ the sect which the Jacksons claimed to head, with a rope fastened about her; passes were made over her, she said, with a lamp, water and a saw: Jackson told her that he was Christ re-incarnated. Miss Croisdale then described the oath in which she swore she would allow no one else to hypnotize her and she would keep all the secrets under the penalty of ‘submitting myself to a deadly and hostile current of will set in motion by the Chief of the order, with which I would be slain or paralyzed without visible weapons, as if blasted by lightning.’ Mrs. Jackson (or Diss Debar) looked as if she wished to carry out the threat on the spot. Miss Croisdale further testified that Theodore had outraged her in his wife’s presence. Jackson declared he was physically incapable and demanded a doctor’s examination to prove his statement.”—Dispatch from the London Times in the New York Sun, October 11, 1901.
[64] Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1906.
[65] New York Sun, October 11, 1901.
[66] If alive she is now (1924) seventy-five years old.
[67] See [Appendix E] for Police Record.
[68] If the reader cares to look the matter up I would refer him to Podmore’s “Modern Spiritualism,” Vol. II, pages 204 and 221; also to the story of Dr. Slade in the same volume; to the proceedings of the American S. P. R., Vol. II, part I, pages 17, 36–59; to Abbot’s, “Behind the Scenes with Mediums,” pages 114 to 192; to “Revelations of a Spirit Medium,” page 121–157; to “Bottom Facts,” pages 143–159; to the Report of the Seybert Commission; “Spirit Slate Writing,” by Wm. E. Robinson, and newspaper exposures without number.
[69] According to “The Medium and Daybreak,” October 6, 1876, Slade “discovered” the phenomena of slate-writing while experimenting at the private house of Mr. Gardiner Knapp, New Albany, Indiana, where Slade was visiting.
[70] As he reached for the sponge, which had been placed purposely on centre of table, he held slate just below range of vision and with the reaching for sponge, twisted slate around, blank side on top and pretended to wipe off the sentence he had “read”—when in fact he had written something entirely different.
[71] In regard to involuntary and subconscious table rapping and tapping: Some people rap and tip table in all seances of table tipping and rapping. I have attended seances where I have caught some one obligingly cheating to relieve the monotony, and the imposition once started is forced to be kept up.
[72] Coined by Andrew Jackson Davis, in 1845, and meaning the hereafter. Now used frequently by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
[73] See [Appendix F].
[74] In those days there were no dry plates and with the old “wet” plates it was quite possible to expose a plate, develop it, and then prepare it again and expose it the second time. When this was done both pictures appeared in the print. Such a plate could be used under the strictest test conditions without detection.
[75] In speaking of Spirit photography, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle usually brings up as proof positive, that his fairy photographs are genuine. According to the London Star, December 20, 1921, there were many interesting developments regarding these:
“Messrs. Price and Sons, the well known firm of candle makers, inform us that the fairies in this photograph are an exact reproduction of a famous poster they have used for years, to advertise their night lights.
“‘I admit on these fairies there are wings, whereas our fairies have no wings,’ said a representative of the firm to a Star reporter, ‘but, with this exception, the figures correspond line for line with our own drawing.’”
[76] I would like to say for the benefit of the reader that DeVega is a skilled magical entertainer; has invented a number of legerdemain feats; contributed a number of interesting articles to magical publications; is a skilled artist and a clever photographer. I was very fortunate in being able to secure a man of his ability for the investigation.
[77] On March 5, 1923, Harry F. Young, known as “The Human Fly,” fell ten stories from a window ledge of the Hotel Martinqiue, New York City. He succumbed before he reached the hospital.
For the benefit of those who do not know, “A Human Fly” is an acrobat who makes a specialty of scaling tall buildings, simply clinging to the apertures or crevices of the outward architecture of such building for the edification of an assembled throng, for which he receives a plate collection, a salary or is engaged especially for publicity purposes. It is not a very lucrative profession and its dangers are many.
[78] On April 14, 1922, in New York City, Sir Arthur, according to his book, “Our American Adventure,” attended a seance given by a young Italian by the name of Pecoraro. During the seance the name Palladino was given and he was told that the famous medium was present. A voice from the cabinet, supposedly Palladino’s, said, “I, who used to call back the Spirits, now come back as a Spirit myself,” to which Sir Arthur answered, “Palladino, we send you our love and our best encouragement.” However, the force was broken by “the absurd and vile dancing of the table,” and there was no physical manifestation. This shows Sir Arthur’s will to excuse even Palladino, who was on numerous occasions exposed as a fraudulent medium.
[79] ALL Spiritualists say that.
[80] Dr. A. T. Schofield wrote in the Daily Sketch, February 9, 1920, that thousands of persons were estimated by a famous mental specialist to have been driven to the asylum through Spiritualism. A truly pitiful record.
[81] Letter from Sir Arthur to H. H. (dated April 2, 1920): “I have had very conclusive evidence since my two books were written. Six times I have spoken face to face with my son, twice with my brother and once with my nephew, all beyond doubt in their own voices and on private matters, so for me there is not, nor has been for a long time, any doubt. I know it is true, but we can’t communicate that certainty to others. It will come—or not, according to how far we work for it. It is the old axiom, ‘Seek and ye shall find.’”
[82] Report of trial before Mr. Justice Darling—Morning Post, July 16, 1920.
[83] I have it on the positive word of Stuart Cumberland, who was at one of the seances of the “Masked Medium” and he gave me definite specifications and positive facts of the reading of the initials in the ring submitted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the “Masked Medium” whom he said possessed remarkable powers. Stuart Cumberland told me a number of ways this feat could be done. Among them, the black boxes were exchanged surreptitiously in the dark, and then brought back. It is an easy thing to present a box for inspection and yet have false compartments in it so that the contents will fall out. It was only after the methods were told innumerable times to Sir Arthur that he condemned it as a fraud.
[84] According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 9, 1923, Clarence Thomson, self-styled missionary, President and member of the Board of Directors of the International Psychical Association, was fined $25 and sentenced to serve 30 days in jail. He admitted he had been arrested in Chicago and Kansas City for conducting seances, but said he had been honorably discharged.
[85] Other performers are doing this feat. I have performed it regularly for thirty years without any supernatural power whatever.
[86] See [Davenport] chapter.
[87] These articles were syndicated, New York American, Sept. 3rd, 1922.
[88] Morning Post, July 16, 1920.
[89] See [Appendix G].
[90] This was not known to Lady Doyle. If it had been my Dear Mother’s Spirit communicating a message, she, knowing her birthday was my most holy holiday, surely would have commented on it.
[91] So far, all of the several seances of investigation held under the auspices of the Scientific American, have failed in proving the existence of supernatural power or force, such as might with logical consistency be conceded as psychic.
Valentine, the Wilkesbarre medium, proved to be a failure. Rev. (?) Jessie K. Stewart the same. Mrs. Elizabeth Allen Tomson of Chicago, a complete fiasco, not possessing sufficient courage to attempt a sitting other than under conditions and in a place prescribed by herself. And lastly the Italian lad, Nino Pecoraro, has accomplished nothing beyond the possibility of human exertion, and failed utterly in so doing when securely fettered, as proved to be the case, when I personally did the tying. See also [Appendix H].
And from the results gotten thus far from the series of sittings with this “medium” it is safe to predict that the final analysis will place him in the same category as all others to date.
[92] According to Spiritualistic publications The Dialectical Society never made a full report. The “Reports” of sub-committees only were published by Spiritualist papers used by writers in books but such reports were based on “hear-say” evidence taken from Spiritists. They told their ghost stories to Committees and they were believed. There never was a unanimous report or conclusion. The non-Spiritual (?) members of the Dialectical Society refused to have anything to do with the investigation. The great majority of the Committee were full-fledged Spiritualists, and the few whom they claimed to have convinced were simply credulous.
[93] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle seems to imagine that all the newspapers in the world are against him. After his Australian tour he accused the Australian papers of refusing to publish the truth about his seances. Writing about American newspapers in his book, “An American Adventure,” he says: “The editors seem to place the intelligence of the public very low, and to imagine that they cannot be attracted save by vulgar, screaming headlines.
“The American papers have a strange way also of endeavoring to compress the whole meaning of some item into a few words of headline, which, as often as not, are slang.”
Even in Canada Sir Arthur claims to have badly used by the newspapers. In “Our American Adventure” he writes: “There were some rather bitter attacks in the Toronto papers, including the one leader in the Evening Telegram, which was so narrow and illiberal that I do not think the most provincial paper in Britain could have been guilty of it.
“It was to the effect that British lecturers took money out of the town, that they did not give the money’s worth, and that they should be discouraged.
“‘Poking Them in the Eye’ was the dignified title.
“It did not seem to occur to the writer that a comic opera or a bedroom comedy was equally taking the money out of the town, but that the main purpose served by lectures, whether one agreed with the subject or not, was that they kept the public in first hand touch with the great current questions of mankind. I am bound to say that no other Toronto paper sank to the depth of the Evening Telegram but the general atmosphere was the least pleasant that I had met with in my American travels.”
[94] In an article in Truth, April, 1923, entitled “The New Revelation,” by Rev. P. J. Cormican, S. J., he asks:
“Does the knighted prophet of the New Revelation (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) tell the whole truth about Spiritism? We think not. He says nothing about the evil consequences, physical, intellectual and moral, to those who dabble in Spiritism. He gives a one-sided account of the matter. He says nothing about what Spiritism has done, and is still doing, to fill our lunatic asylums all over the world. There are over thirty thousand lunatics in England alone who lost their mind through this modern necromancy. Doyle does not even hint at the countless cases of insanity and suicide, of blasphemy and obscenity, of lying and deception, of broken homes and violated troth, all caused by Spiritism. To suppose that a God of truth and sanctity is giving a new message through such sources and with such consequences, is blasphemy pure and simple. Furthermore, to assert that this New Revelation is to supersede a worn-out creed is both gratuitous and absurd. Christianity will last till the crack of doom, when titled prophets shall have ceased to cross the Atlantic in quest of American shekels.”
[95] Mrs. Feilding is Mme. Tomchik, the Polish medium examined by Professor Ochorowiz, and is the best known medium who “levitates” things without physical contact.
[96] At no time, to my knowledge, did the search include the orifices of her body.
[97] In this trick I swallow (if one’s eyes are to be trusted) anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty needles and from ten to thirty yards of thread; then after a few seconds I bring up the needles all threaded. The length of thread is governed by the size of my audience. For instance, at the Hippodrome, in New York, I used one hundred and ten feet of thread and two hundred needles; at the Berlin Winter Garden one hundred feet of thread and one hundred needles. In the regular large size theatres I use about eighty feet of thread and a hundred needles but for ordinary purposes thirty-five feet of thread and seventy-five needles are sufficient.
So far this trick has never been properly explained but that does not prove that I have abnormal powers. This needle mystery has been examined by a great many physicians and surgeons and in Boston at Keith’s Theatre it was presented at a special performance to over a thousand physicians and they were unable to explain it. However, there is nothing abnormal in it. It is nothing more than a clever and natural mystification.
[98] That is, has a secret accomplice. One who does things to help along “unknown.” One who is in the “click.”
[99] After my last seance with Mlle. Eva Mr. Feilding discovered by accident that I was writing a book on the subject. He begged me not to say a word or publish anything about the seances until after the Society for Psychical Research had published a full report. Now that it has done so there is nothing to keep me from writing my experiences.
[100] The result of his investigations are published in three books: “Reality of Psychic Phenomena,” “Psychic Structures at Goligher Circle,” and “Experiments in Psychical Science.”
[101] It would be difficult to convince me that the many things photographed and described by Baron Schrenck-Notzing could be presented under rigid test conditions.
[102] Dr. Troup, Professor of Psychology; Dr. Stormer, Professor of Mathematics; Dr. Scheldrup, Professor of Physics; Dr. Monrad Krhn, Professor of Neurology; Dr. (med.) Leegaard, and Mr. John Dammann, a prominent expert of conjuring tricks.
[103] Guzek was exposed in Paris as I predicted, the exposure occurring sooner than expected.
[104] One of the greatest women born in America.—H. H.
[105] This Spirit Message is taken from Doyle’s book, “The Case for Spirit Photography,” English Edition.
[106] This and letters of Tyndall and Lewes, from “Report on Spiritualism,” by J. Burns, pp. 229, 230, 265.
[107] “Spiritism, a Popular History,” by Joseph McCabe.
[108] “Master Workers,” McCabe.
[109] Florence Cook was repeatedly exposed.
[110] The “galvanometer” is an instrument used to control the medium. It is an electric device provided with a dial and two handles, so constructed that if the medium were to let go of either handle the contact would be broken and the dial fail to register. The medium in fooling the sitter simply placed one of the handles on the bare flesh under her knee and gripping it there with her leg kept the circuit intact and left one hand free to produce “spirits.”
[111] An honest scientist does not dream that his confidence is being betrayed and that the bland innocence, the “stalling” for breath, or the almost fainting scenes are only camouflages to help mal-observation so that the medium can successfully ply her trade.
[112] The italics are mine.
[113] The reader will do well to read Tuke’s “Influence of the Mind upon the Body” (or similar work) and he will find an explanation of what grief will do to a sensitive mind.
[114] Perhaps so, but would not be accepted as evidence before any court of equity.
[115] He has personally repeated the same thing to me.
[116] Drink is no excuse for crime.
[117] The great majority of Continental safes are opened by keys and not by combination locks as in America.
[118] I firmly believe in the workings of the subconscious mind.
[119] The Spirit Messenger and the Star of Truth were published in 1852 by R. P. Ambler of Springfield, Mass. They were “edited and composed by spirits.” The Spirit of the Sixth Circle took entire charge of the Spirit Messenger, and not even the publisher was permitted to dictate in the least. There were elucidations by the Spirits on “Hope, Life, Truth, Initiation, Marriage Relations, Evils of Society, and Destiny of the Race.” The Northwestern Orient, published in 1852 by C. H. White, contained communications from John Adams, Edgar Allan Poe, John Wesley, John Whitefield, Thomas Paine, et al. It also contained several poems by the Spirits. Copies are on file in my library.
[120] “When William was in a trance his father tried to bring him out by slapping, pinching and other cruelty, and finally tried to pour boiling water down his back. This failing, he took a blazing ember from the hearth and placed it on the young man’s head, but William slept on, with only the scars as reminders of his parent’s deep concern for his well being and safety.”—“Eddy Brothers,” by Henry S. Olcott.
[121] I gave a pseudo seance for Sophie Irene Loeb and had two slates which were examined by the Circle and marked. I asked if the Spirits would manifest and when the slates were opened there was a message containing a code word. Miss Loeb was astounded, for the message signed by Jack London contained a word which she claimed no one in the whole world knew about. I did it by trickery but she declared that if she had not known I was a magician she would have believed readily that I had psychic powers.
[122] A man by the name of Rider, professionally known as “Kodarz,” exposed Bailey in New Zealand in 1916.
[123] Without any reservation she says she has investigated the majority of mediums and given them a hundred per cent clean bill. She writes that Eglinton actually materialized the spirit of Grimwaldi, the great clown. Eglinton was detected on four different occasions and so far as I have been able to learn, almost every medium she mentions in her books has, at some time or other, been detected and exposed.
[124] See [Appendix F].
[125] Maskelyne, Kellar, and Hoffmann were all three magicians who changed their minds.
[126] Any prepared gambling device or game, like electrically controlled steel dice; roulette; pointer and arrow revolving artifice; prepared cards, either marked, concave or convex cut, which gives the dealer the advantage at all times. Brace games include everything from a put and take to the changing of a black bag on the top of an innocent looking chiffonier. The games, while appearing to be governed by the law of chance, are secretly controlled by the gambler, or his confederate, in so subtle a manner that it is impossible for the poor dupe, who wagers on the result, to detect it.
[127] Known as fishing.
[128] Society for Psychical Research Proceedings, Vol. XIV, pp. 380, 381.
[129] “Second sight” was presented by Pinetti, the celebrated Italian magician, at the Haymarket Theatre, London, England, Dec. 1, 1784.
[130] A girl named Shireen is holding a similar seance to-day and is able to hit a bulls-eye with a rifle.
[131] A full detailed account of the clever work done by Professor Lewis will be found in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol IV, pp. 338–352.