The mirror., 1914-07-16
ANOTHER EXPOSE.
OF THE MEDIUMS
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These envelopes are then carried to the
stage and thrown down where they remain
in plain sight,, as Mr.. Dickinson said the
mans book was in his case. But the man
has meantime exchanged the envelopes for a
lot of dummy ones, and it is these
dummy ones which the audience has sin
plain sight" while the real ones are passed
by trap or otherwise to the assistant
behind the scenes, read, copied, resealed
and later returned to the writer's 'unopen-
ed"
The False Bottom
Sometimes the notes are gathered in a
bag, box or basket having false bottom,
and the exchange is made instantaneously
by the man as he goes up to the stage, with
his back turned to the audience Some
''minc readers give very wonderful per-
formance, walking slowly back and forth
across the stage reading verses out of the
Bible and answering the questions between
the verses.
In this case usually they have miniature
| telephone receiver concealed behind their
ears, and this receiver is connected by wires
with copper disks on their shoes. On the
| stage number of other copper disks are
placed, and these are in turn connected up
with telephone behind the scenes. An as
sistant who has the prepared questions then
telephones the questions and the question
ers' names to the "medium,' who is very
careful to step so that his feet will be in
contact with two of the copper disks. As
soon as the medium" has caught the ques-
tion he gives the asker's name, repeats the
| question, and then gives an answer accord
| ing to his judgment--and they have such
| deep knowledge of human nature and are so
| familiar with the answers that are expected
that they can usually hit the case pretty
WE'LL
Abbott in his book says: Sometimes
visitors prepare their questions at home on
their own paper, which they never allow to
leave their possession These offer the
greatest difficulty to the performers, who
resort to extraordinary efforts to turn them
! to their own profit. Ushers, theater mana
| gers, hotel porters, chambermaids and other
| friends of the house keep a sharp lookout
for such persons, and when they spot one
| resort to every means of getting information
about them.
"All the house staff who could possibly
recognize them look them over, and ask
questions about them in advance.
"Once a name or an occupation of per-
son can be. discovered, the city directory,
telephone-books and any other accessible
sources of information are called into ser
vice. Even the author is sitting in compla-
cent ignorance that he is the object of so
much attention the city is being secured for
information about him. And after while
he is amazed when the mind reader an
nounces his name and gives him some start
ling proof of an intimate knowledge of
his private affairs"
Mr.. Dickinson himself says that in his
case he had replaced his note is his pocket
and turned his attention to the show, so
that his mind twas without the concentra-
tion said to be required That too was
proof that there was no mind reading about
it, for if it were true that the writer must
concentrate his mind on the note, as the
man claimed, then the condition was not
fulfilled and there could be no mnd-read-
ing. The fact that the medium answered
his note just the same, when his mind was
not on the subject, goes to show that other
means than mind-reading were resorted to
to find out about him.
How simple the explanation would be if
someone at the hotel had happened to see
and read his fathers letter and had told the
medium about it. 1t cannot be said that
this was actually the case-but that would
be possible explanation. If we were prov
ing the matter in court we may be sure the
lawyers would rake up some such expIana-
tion and thus explain away the whole mys-
tifying performance. Every case of this
sort that has ever been run down has had
some such deception behind it, and people
are justified in refusing to accept an occult
explanation of thing when there are other
explanations which are in keeping with
common experience.
But the performance described by Mr..
Dickinson was much more than case of
Thought transference;' if anything more
than trickery it was prophecy, for the me-
dunn, he says, foretold how his fathers
sickness was to turn out, and she could not
have read this in Mr.. Dickinson's mind or
in his note. 4 Are we to assume from this
that an ordinary moving -picture-theater
smind-reader, exhibiting for nickels, ac-
tually has the power to foresee future events
power which even the Almighty himself
uses sparingiy!1 The Pathfinder.