The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-27
THE LAST LECTURE.
Or. Hall Explains Many Tricks of slelght
Of Hand and Exposes the 6aldwins'
Tricks.

DR.. Hall spoke last evening on
"sleight- Of hand and kindred diver
sions." He said in part: Ny topic is
broader than the subject states.
should rather call it Modern mysti-
cism"
1t is singular that today when science
is making such strides that mysticism
is making such strides also. The Am
erican occultism is quite different ar
ticle from the occultism of India. Mr.
Ellis book, 1.-The Story of Atalantis, :"
is a striking example of this idea. The
method by which he found out all this
which is told in the story was through
trance.
We have vagaries of all sorts, even in
diet. The Ralstor es believe in pure
water and pure food, and they believe
in red pepper as containing the vital
principles of life. But the vagaries
which surround the diet is about as
rabid as any other example of mysti-
cisms in this country at the present
time. I might mention the numerous
mind and faith cures as examples, too.
Another outcome of this is the mys-
ticism Of patent medicines, where i'm
aginations play a large part. 1 am
told that sarsaparilla. which Is used so
extensively, has not particle of med
ical value.
But we have had no such outcome OF
mysticism among the cultured people
as the telepathic outbreak, as repre-
sented by the Society for Physical Re-
search. Hypnotism has its mystic
wings. I have been asked to teach psy-
chology to numerous people who wish
to learn hypnotism, and / think that is
all Of psychology.
We have a great deal of vagaries in
science, and the elimination of these
we have in the numerous French
schools. Novels often have their plots
depending on some sort of mysticisms
on hypnotisms. We have all kinds of
mysticism shading down to the insane
man l knew, who put his thumb
through his fingers and tried to catch
1t. When he succeeded in catching his
thumb, he said, the world would come
to an end
Very curious was the literature on
Casper Hauser. Casper Hauser was
an idiot, hidden for a time, and then APP
pearing in Germany. A German pro-
house for q number of years, thinking
that his idiotic drivelings were the deep
est thoughts Of science. We have the
people who attempt to take the king
dom of God by storm. who wish to
touch God with their minds. / should.
perhaps, differ from others in thinking
there was something of this in the
Walt Whitman clubs, the Emerson
CLUBS, where they are attempting to
explain things.
We have occultism from the very
dawn Of history. Magic was part Of
the temple service of Egypt Many
of the sleight-of-hand tricks go hack
to religion. In Hopkins Magic" Won
flnd an excellent history of this. The
sacred character OF all this is unoues
toned.
We had remarkable outcrop in
Worcester number Of years ago in
the VISIT of the Baldwins' Their t,,ol
consisted of passing tablets OF wood
around the audience and allowing fire
people to write questions on pieces m
paper placed on the tablets. The am
dience kent the paper, and after a
wait, the yelled woman was led on tba
stage and she gave the answers to The
question:, designating the questioner
each time.
think II was weeks that the tou,
was stirred up over this. The exnI Luwn
ton Is simple. The wooden tahlats
were sensitive paper which retained
the impression Of the pencil Wrhe,.
they were taken behind the soanas
they We're. developed and the rest was
guess work was
HE mediums are very peculiar neo.
pie. Mechanism is a talent and ta.ss |
very unstable nervous temnera,nant
or they are very good tricksters
retired medium gives the follou,ng
directions for those who wish W taree
UP the work: "4S" " TAKE
whenever the seance begins. scowI
ana change your voice, ana ii win have
an enect al once. As to disease. with
men tney are usually afraid ,of their
hit Il right with either OF these. WHY
women Y Is always safe TO Tell her ~ ~.
has troubles at home "'' nne
y you nave an opportunity at hand,