“It seems to me she is in a foreign land, and I seem to see the flag of Germany.
“Your sister is well, Miss Laurie. She has written you a letter and it is now on its way, and you will receive it next Tuesday.”
“Wonderful!” exclaim the audience, and Miss Laurie goes home a firm believer in the supernatural, wondering, possibly, if there will be money in “Mary’s” letter.
The majority of questions written pertain to lost or stolen articles and questions regarding the future. This is natural, for most people are not interested in the past or present. It, of course, makes the answering of the questions very much easier for the medium, for where the questioner is in ignorance about the answer she can tell him anything, and the success of her answers is limited only by her skill and dramatic ability.
There are, however, always a number of skeptics at the performances, who try and test the value of the medium’s answers by asking questions, the answers of which they know, such as:—“What is the number of my watch?” “What was the score of such and such a game?” “What is the date of the coin in my hand?” etc. The answers to these have to be worked out with more care, and is usually performed in this way. The medium has gained knowledge of the question in some of the preceding methods I have described, and when she answers this question she calls out the questioner’s name, and states that he or she is thinking about a watch, about a game, or coin, or whatever the question may be about. She states she cannot seem to see more, asking the person to think intently about it and she may get it.
She now proceeds to answer some other questioner, but she has given the performer a cue that she desires more information about the question she left unanswered.
The performer now goes to the person, asks for his question (we will in this case consider the questioner a man) and reads it. He also asks for the answer, which is usually told him. (If it is not the question will not be answered.) He now tells the person to think about it intently and he may be answered.
The performer now leaves the person and walks down to the stage. On his way, secretly or openly, the latter is usually the better method of disarming the suspicious, he writes down the answer to the question, such as the number of the watch, score of the game or date of the coin, on a slip of paper. He now passes this through trap to assistant, who reads it off to medium, and she returns to the questioner, stating that she can now see his question, reads it and answers it. Questions of this kind always make a decided hit.
Some performers, when they wish to convey a number to their assistant, do so by sign language, the assistant keeping his eye on the performer through a peep-hole from his place of concealment.
By the aid of a verbal code the number may be conveyed directly to medium by a question or sentence spoken by performer. I will explain an example of this code. For instance, we will say