THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 



725 



about his person so as to reflect whatever was going on beneath 

 the table. " In the mirror I beheld a hand . . . stealthily insert 

 its fingers between the leaves of the slate, take out the little slip 

 (containing the question), unfold and again fold it, grasp the little 

 pencil . . . and with rapid but noiseless motion . . . write across 

 the slate from left to right a few lines ; then the leaves of the slate 

 were closed, the little pencil laid on the top," and the spirits in- 

 voked to please send a message. 



Is it necessary to continue the catalogue of vulgar deceit : to 

 tell how Dr. Furness sends out sealed letters the contents of which 

 the spirits are to read and answer without opening, and finds the 

 seals tampered with and mucilage and skill used to conceal the 

 crime ; how he asks the same question of various mediums and 

 receives hopelessly contradictory answers; how he detects the 

 form of the medium in her assumed materializations and finds the 

 spirit ready to answer to any and every name in fiction or reality, 

 from " Olivia " of " The Talking Oak " to Shakespeare ; how a me- 

 dium who materializes a right hand while apparently holding his 

 neighbor's hand with both his own, is shown to imitate this double 

 grip with one hand and do the hocus-pocus with the other — in 

 short, how universal, how coarse, how degrading this fraud is ; 

 how readily it leaves its hiding-place to snatch at a cunningly 

 ofi'ered bait, until it becomes ridiculous ? * 



Let us rather turn to another independent investigation pub- 

 lished by the English Society for Psychical Research (October, 

 1886, to May, 1887). The great English medium, whose perform- 

 ances as described are really miraculous, is Englinton, and his spe- 

 cialty is slate-writing. The late Prof. H. Carvill Lewis (of Phila- 

 delphia) had sittings with Englinton, and reported as follows : 

 He sat intently watching Englinton for an hour, and nothing hap- 

 pened ; fearing a blank seance, he purposely diverted his attention. 

 The moment he looked away, the manifestations began, and he 

 could see " the medium look down intently toward his knees and 



man in his ability to deceive, and at the recklessness of the risks which he assumes in the 

 most barefaced manner. The only reason of our having any so-called ' manifestations,' 

 under the circumstances, was because of the fact that the committee had agreed in advance 

 to be entirely passive, and to acquiesce in every condition imposed." 



Mrs. Sidgwick, an able English observer, detected the fraudulent character of Slade's 

 performances from the beginning. She points out five important grounds of suspicion : 

 " His conjurer-like way of trying to distract one's attention, his always sitting so as to have 

 the right hand to manipulate the slate, the vague and general character of the communica- 

 tions, his compelling one to sit with one's hands in a position that makes it difiBcult to look 

 under the table, and his only allowing two sitters at a time." 



* The barefacedness of the medium's business reaches its climax in the fact (communi- 

 cated to me by Dr. Furness) that a noted medium had visited a professional juggler, and, 

 " making no secret to him of his trickery as medium for independent slaie-writing, had pur- 

 chased from the juggler several other tricks with which to carry on his spiritualistic trade.^^ 



