CHAPTER LVIII.—SPIRITUALISM AT HOME.
By Dr. Stradling.
Spiritualism does not in reality mean conjuring; of course you all know that. But the term has now come to be familiarly applied to a certain class of performances, without any pretence of supernatural aid or deceit, and arose in this way. Some twenty-five years ago several people—the celebrated Davenport Brothers among them—appeared in this country and America, and gave entertainments at which they exhibited some very extraordinary and, at that time, novel effects of a magical character, the leading features being their release from cords which had been bound, knotted, and sealed upon them by members of the audience, leaving the knots and seals unbroken; causing inanimate objects to fly about and musical instruments to sound when it appeared impossible for any one to have touched them; and divining numbers and sentences which had been written down privately, unseen by them.
These things they professed to do, not by their own skill and dexterity, but by the aid of ‘spirits’ over whom they declared themselves to have control; and the whole was accompanied with a lot of nonsense in the shape of luminous ‘manifestations’ in the air when the gas was turned out (for darkness was indispensable), and ‘spirit-writings’ on slates and sheets of cardboard—messages, supposed to come from the unseen world, scrawled in a shocking bad hand that any boy would be ashamed of! Nevertheless, a great deal that was done was new and very clever, and had it only been honestly acknowledged to be the result of sleight-of-hand, the performers would certainly have earned and well deserved the reward of success.
But though people go to see conjuring perfectly prepared and willing to be deceived—if that can be called deception which is openly avowed to be misleading—they do not like to have their common sense insulted by irreverence, such as these spiritualists were guilty of in pretending to call up the dead; and a strong feeling of indignation soon set in against the imposture and all who practised it.
Clever as the exhibitions were, also, one or two slips were made which were fatal to them, though it does not ruin a straightforward conjurer to have a trick accidentally discovered now and then. For instance, on one occasion, a dreadful fiery hand, pale and deathly, though glowing with light, was seen sweeping through the air, high overhead, rushing from end to end of the room with a swiftness that no being could have possessed unless provided with wings, and at times descending to give somebody a cold, clammy touch on the cheek. One, bolder than the rest, had the courage to seize this hand, and, in spite of all opposition, insisted on retaining it until the gas was turned up, when the spirit-hand was found to consist of an old white kid glove, stuffed with damp tow and rubbed with phosphorus, suspended at the end of a cord, and waved overhead by means of a long fishing-rod, which folded up in short joints adapted for the ‘medium’s’ pocket!
Furthermore, professional conjurers were put on their mettle, and very quickly showed that they could do, not only the same things, but much more wonderful ones of a similar character in the full glare of the gaslight, without any aid from spirits. The mysterious cabinet, which took such a prominent part in the Davenports’ programme, was soon robbed of its mystery; and in 1865 Professor Pepper—whose name you will remember in connection with ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ at the Polytechnic—invented and patented a piece of apparatus, such as the spiritualists had never dreamed of, called the ‘Cabinet of Proteus.’
The ‘mediums’ have long since retired into comparative obscurity, and now limit their manifestations to displays in private; but they still have a number of followers who are ready to believe that what occurs at these gatherings is really the work of invisible spirits, because they do not see how else it can be done. I heard a famous conjurer say the other day, at the close of his entertainment, ‘If I have been able to deceive and perplex you; if I, telling you beforehand that the effects I was about to produce are the result of mere trickery and quickness of hand, challenging your detection in the full light of the room, have succeeded in making you, watchful and alert to find me out, imagine that black was white, and have convinced you that seeing is not always believing, how much more might a skilful impostor mystify a lot of superstitious people, already frightened out of their wits by fear, in a dark chamber with accomplices!’
When, therefore, we read now of a spiritualistic séance given in public, or of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke’s spirit manifestations, we understand the term to have reference to feats of that description, which originated in the above manner; and in telling you how you may exhibit a little ‘Spiritualism at Home’ to your friends, you will now see that I do not intend that you should even pretend to have anything to do with supernatural causes, but only to perform some very astonishing tricks on the same principle as you have been taught to make a halfpenny vanish and reappear.