THREE SEANCES AND THEIR RESULTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4351, 1 March 1875, Page 3

THREE SEANCES AND THEIR RESULTS.

A correspondent of the New York Herald has been inquiring into the truth of spiritualistic science, and, in the prosecution of his researches, he attended stances conducted by three of the most renowned “ mediums” in that capital city of quackery and imposition. Here is the result A SEANCE WITH MANSFIELD.

I i went to Dr. Mansfield’s residence, on Sixth Avenue, and was ushered into the room where , the sittings are held. I wanted to write my questions bn paper of my own, but this; it seems,. was against the rules. _ I. must write on his paper, which, to my surprise, and I need not add,- disappointment, was so very thin that I could see through it after it had been folded three times. It seemed to me that the spirits were taking an unfair advantage of me, and saving themselves the trouble of reading an honest sentence on honest paper, by compelling me to write on a sort of tissue, which gave the operator ample opportunity of discovering every word. However, X saw at once that, if I seriously objected, the sbanee would end, and so let the doctor have his own way. The trick is too transparent to need exposure. You are not allowed to ask a single question onpaperotherthan that which he has on the table, and through that paper —-for I brought some of it home with me—-I can readily read what is written after it has been several times folded over. I asked Jmyself, Why such very thin paper if I am dealing with angels and not with a humbug ? - • I felt that it was unfair to give him so great an advantage over me, and so fixed upon the course I would pursue. .1 took the paper from his hands, and with a very sharp-pointed pencil wrote a question ; but instead of. pressing the pencil on the paper, as is usual, I held it so lightly, so very lightly, that though the sentence was perfectly legible—that is, could be read if it was directly before you—it could not be traced on the other side, or read at all after the paper was folded over. This I gave to him. He requested me to take a seat on the other side of the room, giving as a reason that the magnetic current would be disturbed by a closer proximity. I think I succeeded in completely throwing him off his guard by talking about indifferent topics, and pretending to examine the curiosities. . At any rate, deception is easy on his part, since he invariably covers the paper with his arm and hands, and without your knowing it can unroll the slip provided that he cannot get at the question in any other way. This I afterwards saw him do more than once, and in my heart pronounced him a charlatan and a cheat.

THE TRICK AT A GLANCE. He laid my paper down on the table and began to iron it out flat with his fingers, pressing them down, which at once renders the writing legible, but even , then it was impossible to see through. My pencil marks were too light. After several minutes of manipulation, during which he partly unrolled the paper, the better to get at my question, he, .said !

“I get no influence whatever, sir. There seems to be no spirit here. It is strange,'"but it is impossible to get an answer.” He then said, “Is your mother living?” “ No, sir," I replied. “ Then I will tell you her name, or, rather, she will tell it through me.”

With that he made several dots on the paper, while I had gone off in a reverie of disappointment. and chagrin at what I believed to be a piece of base trickery) by means of which he peddles out false communications from heaven at sdol. per hour. He said, as though musing, ,“ Seven, seven. I wonder what that means? Were there seven letters in your mother’s name?” I looked at him blankly, and must have nodded, though my mind and heart were far away with the last scenes in that mother’s life, which were very impressive. He caught at that slight and accidental clue at once. How many proper names are there, do you suppose —feminine .names—with just seven letters? Then |he mentioned, “T, T.. Why, that must be the last letter, is it?” • . “Well,” I said, “go bn,” Then .he deliberately wrote backward the word Harriet, . and triumphantly pronounced it the name of my mother. Her real name was Mary. At that moment I woke from the reverie into which I had fallen, and was keenly alive to tho vile system of ; organised fraud; to which I was subject, and determined; to give him his fill. I wrote in a full round hand, on the paper which he had handed me, this question:--Dear Mother,—Shall I buy those stocks you wanted me to purchase a year, ago ? VV illiam.

After pressing the paper with his fingers, and reading the question—l had already read it through the folds before I handed it to him —he said, innocently enough;— “In order to make sure that I do not unfold the paper, sir, I will use some gum arabic and tick it together.” With that he daubed the paper with mucilage. Soon after he wrote in a hurried manner, this answer;— Having talked it over with your father, our conjoint conclusion is, that you, will do well to do so. Your mother,. ' H-

I need only reiterate that my mother’s name was Mary ; that she could not have wanted me' to buy stocks a year ago, because she has been dead now some ten years, and I never bought or thought of buying any stocks in my life.- That answer was a 1 thoroughgoing fraud from beginning to end. If it is said I had no business to ask sucli a question, the answer is plain. My only motive was to get at the truth. If my mother had been really there, she could have given me the strongest possible test by simply saying, through the medium, “William, I have been dead ten years, and you know it.” That would;have satisfied me; that was what I actually longed to gel while this clever sleight-of-hand was going on, - ‘ 1 ASTONISHING REVELATIONS. , I next asked this question , , l DearTathe?,—Can you tell me what is the matter' with my dear son George. 1 William. This time I walked round the room looking at the pictures, and, turning suddenly, actually saw with ijay own eyes the paper unrolled before him, while he read the sentence, and then folded it, up:again. With perfect nonchalance, however, I continued my walk, and at last, as he was writing the answer, sat down in the chair close to him. He said nothing about the magnetic current this time,' and I suspect this current didn’t trouble him after he had read the question. The answer was as follows ;

As to that, my son, 1 am at a loss to say what I think the cause of his ailment fs. I have watched tho lad, and your anxiety as well, but wo aro not able to detect any local disease about the boy. It would seem his vital forces need bracing, and wo should advise magnetism—that is, animal magnetism—rather than drugs. Xdo not think you need have any fears for the dear boy. Your Father. When I say that I have hever had son or daughter I have said enough to expose the trickery of a man who, for dollars, pretends to sell knowledge of higher spheres. My last question was as follows, and as a denouement of this comedy was very rich ; "Dear Mother,—Have you seen ray wife, Maggie, in your sphere 1 Is she happy ? And our little Willie ? William.

Tho answer came at once : Darling, Darling.—Mother Harriet says; Maggie answer for yourself. Yes, X will with pleasure. Yes, darling, lam inexpressibly so. Oh, could you see my house I Do not be alarmed about dear Willie. Ho will recuperate after awhile, we think. If his physique Is not- overtaxed. Darling, X have much to say to you, but not able to say IV now. I consider the advice given you by your parents—about buying those stocks— of heeding. Your own Maggie:

You; should have seen the look of blank amazement when I took this precious document down and showed it to my wife, who, so far from being in heaven, is vigorous and healthy, and will, I hope, recover from the shock caused by tho announcement of her demise. She threatens direful vengeance on that spirit which dares to assume her name and pass herself off in tho higher sphere as my wife,- and I suspect that, when the two

meet in the upper, land,;some .pretty stormy expletives will Jbe used, for Maggie vows that, no. matter where she finds her, she'will give the imposter a bit of her mind: As to our “"dear Willie,” of course that boy is a myth. Hy logic is simple—since I have never had a child, that child, could not be named Willie.

A SEANCE WITH FOSTEB. With this I rang Foster’s door bell. A servant came and ushered me into the back parlor. I must have been particularly unfortunate in my choice of an hour,: for- the surroundings, although decidedly spirituous, were certainly not .spiritual. On the centre table stood a bottle of brandy, surrounded by half-a-dozen small glasses, which had just been emptied, if X could judge by the general bar-room smell of the place. After a while Mr. Foster appeared and beckoned to me and my friend to come into the front room. Mr. Foster is a man about forty or forty-live years old ; not' muscular, but fat, and he wears a huge moustache. He began by a short discourse’on religion, shying that his object in this work-was simply to do good to the world. In the loftiest strains he talked of the pure in heart,' of the delights of giving comfort to heavily laden and severely 'stricken souls. He then tore off from some long slips of paper small pieces on which we were to write our questions. Let me here say that, instead of detailing the interviews which we had with him, I will speak of what happened at' both, although the interview was simply a prolonged one. At the interview which I am specially describing we determined that one of us should call for those who are still living, while the other called only for fictitious characters. Ouri argument and excuse was this Foster said; “ I see a spirit here who is ready to communicate ; a beautiful spirit, ,and from the celestial rather than the spiritual world.” Now, then, that being the case, all that spirit had to say was, “ Gentlemen, you can’t deceive us ; we see through you. Your motive is excusable, but your questions are all false and we should have paid our two dollars and received the best test that could be given. As with Mansfield, I wanted to be scolded ; I wanted to be upbraided ; X wanted my father, who said he was present, to say, through Foster, “My boy, your questions, are unworthy,” and if my father had really come through Foster that is certainly what he would have said.

One of the questions asked was Dear Wilkinson, where , did you die, and of what disease? , ; , SIB. FOSTER HAD A FIT. He put his hands Convulsively on his chest,, and declared that he' felt had. He said the spirit was a very powerful one. At , last he wrote:— I died in Boston, of lung disease. Then he was asked, How long ago did you die t By this time the spirit was in a quandary. A quantity of figures were written down, and, after having missed it four or five times, my friend said, “ That will do,” as Foster’s pencil came down on five years ago. So far from having died five years ago of lung disease, Mr. Wilkinson is as thoroughly alive as most men to-day, and stands ready to give ocular and muscular evidence of his continuance on this mundane sphere to any man who doubts it. The next question was:— Will James Watkins tell me something about himself? The contortions came again,' and the reply was in sepulchral tones, “He will write his name in blood on the back of the Tnediura’s hand.” And sure enough, after considerable rubbing of the part named, the initials J.W. came out. This did not startle either of us, because we had done that thing ourselves. A sharp thumb nail is the only tool necessary. Any one can do it. Hun your nail over your hand, and then rub it smoothly, and you will do the trick as well as Foster. I need not say here that the aforementioned J. W. is still alive, and can make his own initials come out on the back of Ins own hand. , ; , A SEANCE WITH SLADE.' , I have held two interviews .with Slade, one at Ins house in Fourth Avenue, and one at his .residenpe In /Twenty-fourth-street. I was ushered into a parlor, where. X.was met and greeted by a gentleman who seemed to have charge of the operator. After a while Slade himself appeared. Again I was impressed, as I have always been by public mediums, by the keen and suspicious way in which all thenpeople look at a new-comer. I have never yet been received in an' open, fairy and'honest fashion. They invariably look at you as though you were setting' a trap for them, and as though their special and daily business was to keep clear of traps. It ,seems to be important for them to know whether you are acquainted with manifestations,, or whether you are a novice, as though that fact would decide the kind of article they were to bring forward to startle you withal. I told Slade I would like to sit, and after a few minutes conversation he retired to his private room, I could not help feeling, for the purpose of getting things in order, and then returned to announce that he was ready. The moment I sat down at the table loud raps came, and Slade said; — . “ Isn’t that wonderful? That always scares me. lam afraid of the spirits, though I have seen so much of them.”

Thin, of course, I did not believe a word of. When a man' has heard raps twenty times a day for twenty years they are not apt to frighten him. Now let me describe what followed a little carefully. Behind me (this was in Fourth Avenue) was a, secretary. Slade put my hands on the table, so far forward that I was compelled to lean partly on it, and pressed ray hands'down with one of his, while with the other he held the mysterious slate. , In a few momenta the slate was knocked put of his hands and on to the floor, in the direction of the secretary, r - “Dear mo! I can’t hold it. The spirits are very strong this morning.” He picked the .slate up, but It was again tossed ;on the floor, tins time a little nearer to the bobkcaae. Withsbme deprecating remark he got possession of it, when with unusual violence it was tossed on the - flooifto the very edge of the bookcase; when, suddenly turning ray head by partially releasing my hands, I saw him push the slate* under the bookcase and pull another juSt like it out. ' . i NOW HE WAS READY FOB BUSINESS. X had apparently examined the slatehe had in his;hand, which rendered further inspection unnecessary, whereas, in fact,;!'had not seen it until he pulled it out from beneath the bookcase. He put it in the middle of the table, when I heard a noise as of.' some one writing. Soon the knocks announced that the communication was complete, and the slate on being taken up contained a sentence written in a plain hand on some' glittering generalities. I looked at the piece of slate pencil which had been used, and it was perfectly evident that it was impossible to write those words with that pencil. . “Sold again,” I said to myself,“and this time at a very cheap ■ rate.” I looked at the man who was juggling me, and a more wary, watchful look I never saw on a human face. I then asked for some materialisations. ’ He’ hung up a few curtains, and was ready. The room was darkened, and I waited for results. “ See ; don’t you see,” ho said .excitedly, and, pointing to the curtain, “Dont you see that star. It is floating all round* You must see it.” .....

I looked, but no floating star waaviaible to my eye. , “ How it frightens me,” he resumed. “ Oh, dear, there comes a face,” and, sure enough, something that might have been mistaken for a face came up. There was nothing distinct, neither an outline nor a feature, and it did not stay long enough to allow me a good look. Again it came, and this time I saw plainly that it had no perspective—it; was perfectly flat, and altogether too much like that which a camera throws to persuade me that ; it was from the spirit land. Then came a hand on the edge of the table ; but it came and wont so quickly that, though I tried to grasp it, it was gone. Had it been the hand of the Angel Gabriel I would have held on with all the muscle which two hundred pounds avoirdupois affords. It was not llke a hand, however, but was a feeble semblance which had the appearance of a flash. This is all I got; b f ; i '