“SPIRITUALISM” EXPOSED.

Evening Star, Issue 4306, 14 December 1876, Page 4

“SPIRITUALISM” EXPOSED.

Dr Slade, “ the celebrated American spirit-medium,” and until now the lion of London society, has had his day, and a very profitable day too ; but it is jome to an abrupt termination. He has been cleverly exposed, and the spirit-writing of which so much was made at the British Association %tely is clearly proved to have been done by Dr Slade himself. Professor Lankester, having been urged by Mr Serjeant Cox, who is an ardent believer in spiritism, to have an interview with Dr Slade, paid a visit to that gentleman on Friday, and he gives his experience in a letter to the ‘Times.’ Ihe Dr s chief manifestation was spiritwriting. The medium and visitor sat opposite each other at a square table. Dr Slade produced a slate and a minute piece of pencil, showed the witness there-was no writing, pressed ‘ closely against the under side of the table) his thumb being on the top ledge of the table, and his four fingers below the slate. Some scratching was heard, and the message was found written—nothing worth seeing or read-

ing, but still some writing. Professor Lankester, keeping his eyes open and his wits about him, noticed that when messages were being written on the under side of the slate the doctor’s thumb and wrist always gave sigi v of effort and motion, and that befoi e messages were found written on the top side of the slate the doctor always allowed a longish interval to elapse between the showing of the clean slate and the placing of it under the table, and that during that interval the doctor apparently wrote, for his arm gave slight signs of motion, and there was a scratching sound as of writing, which the doctor tried to drown by continued coughing. Professor Lankestar made up his mind to detect the fraud, and accordingly, after one of the delays, he snatched the “ clean ” slate from Dr. Slade’s hands just as he was placing it under the table, and there was the reply to a question which the doctor said he would ask the spirit! The writing on the under side of the slate the Professor found was done while the slate was under the table, though not by the spirit, but by Slade, who held the pencil beneath the long nail of one of his fingers ! The exposure is complete, and the only matter for surprise is that so many able and learned and scientific men have been imposed upon in the way they have, even such a clever person as Dr Carpenter confessing himself “ very much shaken ” in his disbelief in spiritualism.