The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-08-21
A STARTLING TEST.
Trial Of the Ability of Prof Leonard y
CiairvoyanG

1
CiairvcyanG
In all ages much has been said and
| written upon the subject of supernatural
| manifestations. and while these instances
| in which the laws of nature have been APP
| parentiy suspended or set at defiance
| have at different periods of the world :
history been ascribed TO divine agency,
| witchcraft and trickery, there will occa.
sionally crop up instances in which the
| world is very much ut loss to find it pos
sible to trace the effect to the cause, and
one is disposed to fall back upon the alter
natives of the supernatural on the one
hand. or literal agnosticism on the other.
Just now there is gentleman in this
city who threatens to drive speculative
| philosophers to one or the other of these
| alternatives. His name is Prof j. G.
Leonard, and he occupies i've elegant
rooms on the parlor floor of the Hotel
| Northern.
Prof. Leonard simply claims to be a
| ciairvoyant. but he is as unlike the aver
age ciairvoyant as a millionaire man of
the world is to crossing sweeper. His
methods are wholly different from the
conventional clairvoyant, seer or fortune
teller. He does not go into frances or re-
tice OF having fits. but for all that he per-
forms marvels that are very much more
impressive than the feats of such people,
because while they are still more startling
In effect they are performed in a simple
and unpretending manner, as If they were
every day occurrences. Prof Leonard has
nothing OF the old-time necromancer in
his personal appearance He is hand
r. Fl xx~I
muscularly built. well dressed and other
wise has the appearance of a prosperous
looking gentleman. we'll satisfied with the
world in general and himself in particular
His apartments are elegantly furnished,
and there is nowhere apparent anything
that could possibly aid him in his wonder
working. His manners are those of a GER
tleman in the best sense of the term. He
has keen eye ana quick. nervous man.
ner, but there is nothing about him that
could possibly indicate the clairvoyant, or
indeed anything beyond the well-behaved
gentleman whom one may meet any day.
1t would take great deal of space to
enumerate one-half of the marvellous feats
which Prot. Leonard will perform off-hand
and without the possibility of any ex-
traneous aid. Ii may be sufficient to
furnish the reading public with test to
which he was submitted by a PosT-
IsTELLIGENcER representative who visited
him yesterday. The reporter told him
that he would briefly write in his memo
randum book question which the pro-
fessor might answer. The question was:
what happened to me i'm IsS0?" The
professor while the question swas being
written went out of he'room. The re-
porter. after the question had been written
in his memorandum book, put the book
in his pocket and then called the professor
to come into the room again. The pro-
lessor was then asked to give an answer to
the question that had been written in the
reporters memorandum book. Without
hesitation he told the story as follows.
although he had not seen nor had any in
timation OF the question: In the sum-
mer of 1880 you met friend in Baltimore
whom you supposed to have been dead for
seven years" The professor also informed
the reporter that the result was that
the friendship had been renewed and that
thereafter correspondence was estab-
lished which has not since been broken
of. 1t is impossible that Prot. Leonard
had chance of reading the contents of
the memorandum book. He interpreted
the meaning of the question in the memo
randum book with absolute accuracy, and
it is not putting it too strongly to say that
the reporter. who entered the professors
apartments fully expecting to catch the
clairvoyant mapping. lett them soreIy pug
zled, TO say the least OF IL. He was not
quite prepared to renounce his disbelief in
the supernatural. but he was wholly at
loss to account for the wonderful feat of
clairvoyancs performed by the professor
by the aid OF any natural causes known to
him. As he was skeptieal when he entered
the room. and as he was comparatively
familiar with the tricks OF so-cailed mind
readers, he watched every move made by
the clairvoyant with the greatest care, not
letting him make the slightest motion
without being absolutely sure of just what
was done. While he was writing the ques-
ton he kept close watch upon the pro-
fessor. who was in the nall outside It may
be added that though the handwriting was
perfectly legible. il was more than ordi-
nar.iy small, and could not have been read
at greater distance than could ordinarily
fine newspaper print. Briefly, Ii may be
said that il is absolutely impossible that
Prof. Leonard could have gained a knowl-
edge of the question by reading it,
fEOi. LeOnaru EsstUIS - remAfkaDlo
one. He never attended school more than
three months, when he was obliged TO
quit school through illness He has been
self-supporting since he was years old,
and since growing 70 manhood be has be-
come wealthy. His pride in his ability 10
enable his aged parents to pass their de-
Ginning years in fliuence and luxury 10
certainly q laudable one. He says that
his peculiar gift came to him when mere
child after a long and dangerous illness,
during which he bad lain for months
wholly unconscious, and when his rela-
tives had given up all hope of his ever re-
covering either health or reason. When
he had become partly convalcscent. aud
his friends had begun 90 hope that bis life
would be spared. he began 10 assouish
those around him by calling by name peo-
pie whom he had never before seen and
whose names he could not possibly have
learned through the ordinary channels Of
information. Prof. Leonard is undoubtedly
an interesting psychological study.