Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena

by Chung Ling Soo

Fig. 21.—The Board Facing the Audience.

The following is somewhat in the same line, and is called the “Educated Fly.” When the curtain rises a large mirror, in a gilt frame, is seen resting against an easel. (Fig. 21.) The magician takes the mirror in its frame from the easel and rests it on the floor, showing both sides to the audience. He also removes the glass from the frame, and rests the glass against the easel while he exhibits the frame to the audience. The frame has a solid wooden back. The mirror is about four and a half feet wide and three feet high, and after it has been inspected, the magician replaces it in the frame. He now takes a piece of soap and marks the glass off into twenty-eight even squares, which he numbers from one to twenty-six, and letters from A to Z; one of the remaining squares is zero, and the other is left, as the prestidigitateur says, for a starting point. He now takes a large fly from the table and places it on a little shelf which projects from the empty square. He then asks that a letter or number be called. As soon as this is done, the fly is seen to travel across the mirror and stop at the desired square. This is repeated time and time again, the fly every time returning to the starting point.

Fig. 22.—The Mystery Explained.

The reason for having the mirror separate from its frame, and exhibiting it separately, is this: It will be remembered that the mirror is rested against the easel as the frame is shown, and that this frame has a wooden back. In addition to the wooden back, it has a cloth back, which is firmly fastened to the frame, and then comes the wooden back. This back is hinged to the frame at the bottom. Now, when the frame is placed on the easel and the mirror rested on the floor, the space behind the easel from the floor up is concealed by the mirror, and this gives an opportunity for a boy to get through a trap in the floor and pull down the back of the frame, to make a shelf on which he sits. (Fig. 22.) Of course, the cloth back is still in the frame; so the boy cannot be seen. The mirror is taken up and replaced in the frame; then it is marked off into squares, as already mentioned. The black cloth is previously marked off into squares which exactly duplicate those which have been made on the face of the mirror. The fly is made of cork, with an iron core which is set flat against the glass. The boy behind the mirror is provided with a strong electro-magnet attached to a wire running down the leg of the easel and under the stage, where it is connected to a powerful battery. He brings up the magnet and several feet of wire with him while the mirror is resting on the stage. When the boy hears the numbers called, he applies his magnet to the corner where the fly is resting on the little shelf, and the magnetic attraction, working through the glass, draws it successively over the squares until it comes to the desired spot, which the boy can see on his chart; and, of course, the proper letter or figure is indicated where the fly stops.

The most sphinx-like problem ever presented to the public for solution was the second-sight mystery. There have been many exposés of “mental magic,” and some of the best of them are described in “Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography.”

We have now to concern ourselves with “mental magic” where the results are obtained by clever tricks. There have appeared, from time to time, before the public, individuals who generally work in couples, termed “operators” and “subjects,” who have given performances which were termed mental wonders, silent second-sight, etc. The operator invariably tries to impose on the public with the idea that he possesses some mysterious power over the “subject” by which he is enabled to communicate information to her by his will power over her mind, without a word being spoken. There are, of course, various methods of performing this trick, as by a code of predetermined signals in which sentences like the following are used: “Say the number. Well? Speak out. Say what it is.” But these methods are not comparable with the mechanical means which we are about to describe.

The “operator,” after informing the audience of the wonderful powers of divination which the subject possesses, introduces the “subject,” who is invariably a lady. She is seated on a chair near the front of the stage, in plain view of the audience. Her eyes are heavily bandaged, so she cannot see. A committee is invited to go upon the stage to see that the lady has had her eyes properly blindfolded, and also, ostensibly, to help the operator. A large blackboard is placed at one side of the stage, behind the lady. One of the committee is requested to step to this blackboard and write on it, with chalk, some figures, usually up to four or more decimal places; and after he has done so he resumes his seat. The lady immediately appears to add up the number mentally, calling out the numbers and giving the results of the addition. Each member of the committee is invited to step to the blackboard and touch a figure. No sooner has he done so than the lady calls out the number. Other tests of a similar nature are given, such as the extraction of square and cube root, etc. They all prove that the lady has a thorough knowledge of the numbers on the blackboard and the relative position which they occupy. It is, of course, proved beyond a doubt that the lady cannot see the blackboard. The question then arises, How does she obtain the information? There are two methods of performing this trick. In either case her information is obtained from a confederate, who is generally concealed under the stage, who has the blackboard in sight, and who transmits to the lady the desired information.

Fig. 23.—The Foot Telegraph.