726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the direction of the slate. I now quickly turned back my head, 

 when the slate was brought up against the table with a sharp 

 rap." He repeated the manoeuvre, with the same result, and while 

 the writing was going on he distinctly saw " the movement of the 

 central tendon in his wrist corresponding to that made by his 

 middle finger in the act of writing. Each movement of the ten- 

 don was simultaneously accompanied by the sound of a scratch 

 on the slate." Again, for the answer to another question, Englin- 

 ton requires the use of a dictionary, and leaves the room for a min- 

 ute ; the answer is then written just as it is given in Webster's 

 dictionary; but, unfortunately, a^6i*mi?ia was read for alumina. 

 When the slate, which closes with a spring, is to be closed, Englin- 

 ton suddenly sneezes ; when the writing is small and faint, he 

 struggles until he gets within a few inches of it ; a postage-stamp 

 secretly glued across the two leaves of the double slate prevents all 

 manifestations ; a double fee immediately causes further manifes- 

 tations, while a minute before such were declared impossible, 

 owing to the exhaustion of power ; and the writing on the slates 

 is identified by an expert as that of Englinton.* 



Mrs. Henry Sidgwick records her experience with many medi- 

 ums, and supports the same verdict. She was often unable to de- 

 tect the exact modus operandi of the medium, but has never seen 

 anything which was not well within the range and strongly sug- 

 gestive of conjuring, and mostly of no high order of conjuring. 



But all this accounts for only part of the problem. To con- 

 vict every medium of fraud is not a complete explanation of the 

 appearance which this belief now presents. It remains to account 

 for the great success of the movement ; for the fact that so many 

 have been deceived and so few have really understood ; to show 

 why we are to believe the Seybert commission, and not credit 

 the countless miracle-mongers. This is psychologically the most 

 interesting portion of the problem, and has recently been very 

 successfully treated by Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. Hodgson, and Mr. 

 Davey, of the English Society for Psychic Research. 



There is a very broad-spread notion that anybody can go to a 

 spiritualistic seance and give a reliable opinion as to whether 

 what he or she has seen is explicable as conjuring or not. Espe- 

 cially in this country, where the right to one's opinion is regarded 

 as a corollary to the right of liberty, does this notion prevail. The 



* If further proof be required of the degrading contriTanees to which this medium will 

 resort, we have it in his conviction of connivance with Mme. Blavatsky in the production of 

 a spurious theosophic marvel, as well as in the following evidence supplied by 3Ir. Padshah 

 and indorsed by Mr. Hodgson (the exposer of Mme. Blavatsky) : Mr. Padshah and a friend 

 had asked for Gujerati writing at a seance, but did not get it ; the former then anonymously 

 sent a poem in Gujerati to Englinton, and his friend (who was not initiated in the trick) 

 brought the same copied in every detail on a slate as the direct revelation of the spirits in 

 a sitting with the medium ! 



