Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena

by Chung Ling Soo

34. Write with a solution of paraffin in benzol. When the solvent has evaporated, the paraffin is invisible, but becomes visible on being dusted with lampblack or powdered graphite, or smoking over a candle flame.

35. To Write Black Characters with Water.—Mix 10 parts nutgalls, 2½ parts calcined iron sulphate. Dry thoroughly, and reduce to fine powder. Rub this powder over the surface of the paper, and force into the pores by powerful pressure, brush off the loose powder. A pen dipped in water will write black on paper thus treated.

36. To Write Blue Characters with Water.—Mix iron sesquisulphate and potassium ferrocyanide. Prepare the paper in the same manner as for writing black characters with water. Write with water, and the characters will appear blue.

37. To Produce Brown Writing with Water.—Mix copper sulphate and potassium ferrocyanide. Prepare the paper in the same manner as before. The characters written with water will be reddish brown.

Here is another trick calling for the use of sympathetic ink. A medium suggests a number of questions to write on a paper, one of which you select and write on a slip of paper furnished by the medium. Writing is done with pen and ink. You are requested to dry it with a blotter, and not to remove the blotter for a time, the medium says, so as to keep the paper in the dark, thus giving the “spirits” better conditions under which to work. After a while the blotter is removed, and an answer to the question is found on the same paper. The questions suggested were all of such a character that one answer would nearly do for any one. The paper the question was written on had this answer written with invisible ink brought out by a reagent on the blotter, with which it was saturated, and thus another mystery is easily dispelled.

We will now take up a few slate tests, in which the slates are brought or furnished by the spectator or investigator. The tests in which the slates are brought by skeptics and tied and sealed by them, and still writing is obtained upon them, are the ones that are the most convincing and most talked about, and they are offered to the unbeliever as proof absolute of spirit power.

Fig. 6.—Writing on the Slate with the Pencil Thimble.

First we will begin with the single slate which has just been handed to the medium, after being thoroughly cleaned by the person bringing it. The skeptic holds one end of the slate in one hand and the medium the opposite end in one of his hands, and both persons clasp their disengaged hands. In a short time the slate is turned over and a few words written in a scrawling style are found. I must acknowledge that when I first witnessed this test it somewhat staggered me, but afterward, on seeing it the second time, I was enabled to fathom its mystery. It is patterned somewhat after the style claimed to have been used by Slade, wherein he used a piece of slate pencil fastened to a thimble, and with apparatus attached to his forefinger of the same hand holding the slate he did the writing. The thimble (Fig. 6) was fastened to an elastic which pulled the thimble out of sight up the sleeve or under the coat when it was done with. But it always required a little scheming and maneuvering both to use and conceal the device and get rid of it, and there was always the fear of being detected with this bit of machinery about the person; so someone of an ingenious turn of mind hit upon another method. There are some slate pencils made the same as lead pencils, that is, a very small piece of slate pencil, about the size of a match, is enclosed in the wood after the manner of lead pencils. A tiny piece of this pencil is placed at the tip of the forefinger and over it is placed a piece of flesh-colored court plaster well fastened to the finger (Fig. 7) and well blended in with aniline dye with the finger, so both are exactly the same color. After everything becomes dry and hard a little hole is made in the court plaster, so as to allow the point of the piece of pencil to come through enough to mark on the slate. The finger thus prepared is what does the writing. The message or name must be written backward, so that when the slate is reversed it will appear in its correct position. To learn to do this quickly, stand in front of a looking-glass with the slate in your hand and watch your writing in the glass as you go along. You do not need to hold the slate underneath the table in this test; hold it in the air with a handkerchief over it, so as to disguise the movement of the finger. The message must necessarily be short, on account of the radius through which the medium’s finger can travel.