After you have mastered the last mentioned exercise, have the Transmitter select a small object, such as a watch-key, match-safe, etc., and secrete it in some part of the room, you remaining out of the room until the article is selected and hidden. Proceed as before, until you find the secreted object. Your Transmitter should endeavor to give you a great variety in this exercise, in order to properly train you for the public demonstrations before companies, etc. Have him place a key in a book, under a rug, back of a picture, and in similar difficult places. Let him exercise his ingenuity in finding strange places in which to hide the object. In the experiments in finding the hidden objects he must train himself to give you the mental messages "up"; "down"; "to the right"; "to the left," etc., just as he did his old message or impulse "this way." And you must train yourself to receive them. This training will be of the greatest possible benefit to you when you are called upon later to find objects hidden in people's pockets, etc.
GENERAL REMARKS ON PRACTICE.
The above exercises will train the student to receive and act upon the mental commands or messages of the Transmitter, under a great variety of circumstances and conditions. Many of the most successful public "Mind Readers" started out in public work with far less careful and thorough training. But there are now still greater degrees of proficiency possible. The student will find in succeeding chapters a number of interesting and startling feats and experiments which are intended for parlor audiences, etc., but which may be most profitably practiced previously with the aid of a good friendly Transmitter, in order that the Performer may familiarize himself with the details of the experiment, and thus be more at his ease when he demonstrates it in public. Then other new experiments and feats will suggest themselves from time to time, to the intelligent student which, likewise, should be practiced previous to a public demonstration.
In finding a hidden object, the first thing to do is to get an idea of the direction. Then the general location of the hiding place; and so on, from general impressions to detailed ones, until at last the fingers close upon the object itself. The Transmitter will be greatly relieved when the object is finally found, and the relaxing of his mental tension may be distinctly felt, and then you will know that your search is at an end.
PREPARING FOR PUBLIC WORK.
Before taking you on with the work before an audience, we must urge upon you to prepare yourself thoroughly by means of the above mentioned exercises. The great tendency among students is to hurry through to the public work, and skipping the exercises as much as possible. This is all wrong. You will never be a thoroughly good demonstrator of anything in life, until you master the rudiments, and by practice familiarize yourself thoroughly with the details of the work. And Mind Reading is no exception. It is true that after a few exercises you may be able to give a fair demonstration before an audience, but you will never get further than "fair" without careful practice. And therefore we urge you to have patience and perseverance, and to stick to the exercise until you become a Master of Mind Reading, when you need fear no audience whatsoever, and will be able to give a demonstration that will be a great credit to both yourself and to us, your instructors.
And, now for your work before an audience, remembering, always that the feats and experiments that we shall mention, should be practiced by you privately, with the aid of a friendly Transmitter, before you reproduce them in public. In the case of feats, in which the audience is a party to the experiment, such as the finding of a scarf-pin on a member of the audience, you may practice with a dummy audience, that is with an imaginary audience consisting of chairs, etc., until you familiarize yourself with the details of the feat.
LESSON V.
SIMPLE DEMONSTRATIONS.