The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-08-16
ClairvOyance.

Clairvoyance, or 'ssecond sight," as prac
ticed i'll places of public amusement is of sc
puzzling a character that there are no
wanting those eager to ascribe it's wonders tt
the supernatural. The method adopted tt
bring about the apparently inexplicablt
reading of another's thoughts is, however
extremely simple, and may be readily made
clear to ALL The first exhibition of the kind
was introduced into England in the veal
1884 by Pinetti, an italian conjurer, who
taking advantage of Mesmer's theories
elected replies from his "subject" in the
supposed trance. Many professors of the
magic art have followed in the Italians
footsteps. John Henry Anderson 1.-THE Wiz
ard of the North,) performed it with the as
sistance of his daughter, and the clever
Frenchman, Houdin, trained his little boy
Emile, to become marvellously quick in de-
scribing, sometimes infinitely, articles taken
Unfortunately into the audience.
The conjurer's art of clairvoyance rests
entirely with two persons, one who looks al
objects to be named and puts questions tC
the ''clairyoyant," the other who replies and
all that is required for this striking piece Of
humbug is a capital memory on both sides
and careful arrangement of signals, con.
veyed by words, between the two. Thus
the clairvoyant may be, and usually is
blindfolded without rendering the task any
more difficult. But you will observe that he
or she cannot describe any article unknown
to themselves unless the person acting in
collision with them has seen the same,
and been able to explain its nature in the
question put to the performer.
In public exhibitions of this character the
mystery is frequently heightened by having
confederates among the audience with
strange documents hidden away in pocket
books, which can, of course, be readily de-
ciphered by the clairvoyant, and the interest
is increased by carefully elaborated, but
seemingly impromptu sallies of wit
AS we have observed, the signals are con-
veyed by words or combinations of words,
and it may appear startling how any memo
ny, however retentive, could be able to as
sociate those with the multitude of articles
likely to be presented in the course of a per-
Torrance. This is the more remarkable, too,
when it is noticed that the questions put to
the clairvoyant do not vary to any great eX-
tent. The first difficulty is, however, re-
moved when we reflect that the audience is
not either anxious or prepared to put any
very severe test to the performer, and that
only such articles as are usually carried
about the person need be arranged for. Two
or three hundred, or fewer, signals would
quite exhaust all the purses, coins, cigar
cases, knives, pencils, handkerchiefs, gloves
and other miscellaneous contents of our
pockets, while the umbrellas, sticks, reti-
cules, ETC., would form quite an inconsidera-
BILE addition to the list. Besides, the person
who puts the MISUNDERSTANDING the pre-
arranged code-can reject or ignore any ar
ticle for which no signal has been provided.
A greater stumbling-block to the
uninitiated than this is that mentioned
above, viz, the questions do not seem to pre-
sent sufficient variety to enable a person
blindfolded, and mentally in the dark to get
at the nature of the multifarious objects pre-
sented to the interlocutor. In reality this is
easily got over by the arrangement of money,
precious stones, colors etc., in groups, and
as the questions put in each of these are
nearly alike, they need present few peculiar
tiles to the audience. We shall see how the
grouping system stands the performer in
such good stead in the examples hereafter
given.
Sometimes the cue is given to the clair
voyant by the person who interrogates, in an
absurdly simple manner, without exciting
suspicion; as ''Is it shut or open?" sit is
shut" SIS it open or shut?' ''It is open.'
SIS it perfumed"' Yes.'' SIS there stone
in it?" Eyes" SIS it perfumed?" eyes"
Etc, etc.
For ordinary articles well understood
code must be arranged between the perform
have their own system, altogether orin part,
which have grown out of the shifts they
have had to make, and the corners into
which they have been driven during past
performances. We may here indicate suffi-
Gent to enable our friends to get some
grasp of the subject and give a groundwork
upon which to proceed if DESTROYS of intro
ducing this pleasing and astonishing art to
the family circle. Of course to attain to the
perfection of some of the modern professors
of this very puzzling trickery is out of the
question with those whom we now address;
such experts have spent, possibly, years in
perfecting their systems, they are constant
ly in the practice of clairvoyance, and are
adding to thier word code daily; besides
which, as we have said, their confederates
lend an added mystery to performance
which in its simplest form eludes the detec-
tion of ordinary observers.
We will now give some questions with the
ideas they convey to the clairvoyant, after
wards proceeding to give one or two groups
of subjects, colors, ETC., and then apply the
whole to show how the system is worked.