The facts are that Kellar had a sitting with Eglinton in Calcutta to see if he could reproduce his effects by natural means. His mind was unbiased, and failing to detect Eglinton’s method he remarked, “If my senses are to be relied on the writing is in no way the result of trickery or sleight-of-hand.” But note the qualification in his remark: “If my senses are to be relied upon.” Evidently he had his misgivings then and he must have worked out the problem soon after for two years later, as Professor Lewis told, he was producing the effect in America, and not long after performed both the Slade and Eglinton slate tricks before the Seybert Commission in Philadelphia to its complete amazement.
It was not strange that Kellar did not detect Eglinton’s method instantly nor is it strange that he acknowledged that he was baffled. No magician is immune from being deceived and it is no way beneath a magician’s dignity or demeaning to professional reputation to openly admit that he cannot always account for what he thinks he sees.
Ernst Basch, of the famous Basch family, who made the major apparatus for the magicians of the world, told me that he made hundreds of wireless tables before wireless was so well known under the name of “The Bewitched Table.” He was a great illusion inventor and builder with a wonderful knowledge but in all his experience and contact with mediums he had never seen anything which would make him believe in Spiritualism. Neither has Francis J. Martinka, who traveled around the world with Haselmeyer, the magician, and who has sold magical apparatus in New York City for over forty years. I have the following letter from him in regard to Spirit-communication.
“146 East 54th Street,
New York City,
March 23rd, 1921.
“Dear Mr. Houdini:
“In answer to your question if I believe in Spiritualism, or the possibility of the return to this earth after death, how can I believe in such a thing as Spiritualism, when for more than two score years as the prominent magical dealer and manufacturer of mysterious effects I have supplied almost every known and thousands of unknown tricks or apparatus to the great majority of magicians, and indirectly to well-known mediums (one instance you may remember owing to the hullabaloo it raised at the time, when I sold luminous paint to Hereward Carrington, at the exact time when he was manager of the celebrated medium, E. Palladino, who had baffled the scientists of the world), also to all the managers of magician supply houses in existence.
“No, I must say positively I do not believe in Spiritualism and it has always amused me to see how easy it is to deceive the human beings who seek solace for their grief or those who delve into the mysteries of which they know nothing.
“In the forty years experience I have never seen anything that could convince me that such a thing as Spiritualism existed.
“And to show you that I wish my letter to be positively authentic, have two friends sign as witnesses.
“Regards.
“Sincerely yours,
(Signed) “Francis J. Martinka.