Almost immediately a childish voice came from the direction of the psychic, apparently issuing from her lips. "_Mr. Mitch.e.l.l would like to have you tie the threads to the legs of the table._"
"Are you "Maud?"" I asked.
"_Yes, I am Maudie_," she answered. "_Mr. Mitch.e.l.l wants to try some experiment. He wishes you to tie the threads to the legs of the table._"
I confess I didn"t like the looks of this, but as a compromise measure I was willing to grant it. "If you don"t object, Miller, we will do as the guides desire."
He hesitated. "It weakens our test. I don"t understand the reason for the demand."
"I suggest we yield the point for the present. Perhaps "they" will permit us to resume the thread a little later. I have found that by apparently meeting the forces half-way at the beginning we often get concessions later which will be of greater value than the tests we have ourselves devised."
Accordingly, I tied my end of the silk twist to the table leg at a distance of about twenty-six inches from the utmost reach of the psychic"s hands. Miller did the same with his end. We then resumed our seats, and waited for over an hour.
During this time the psychic was absolutely silent and apparently in deep trance, and I was beginning to feel both disappointed and chagrined. Miller"s tone was a bit irritating. I knew exactly what was in his mind. "I"ve fixed her now," he was exultantly saying to himself.
"She can"t do a thing; even her request to have the threads tied to the table does not avail her. Accustomed to have everything her own way, she fails the first time any real restraint is applied to her."
I was quite at the end of my confident expectancy, when the psychic began to stir uneasily and "Maudie" spoke complaining of the thread on her mother"s right wrist. "_It"s so tight it stops the blood_," she said. "_Please loosen the thread a little. You may turn up the light_,"
added the little voice.
While Miller gave me a light, I loosened the thread on her right wrist, which was very tight; but I tied a second thread about her arm in such wise that I would surely know at the end of the sitting if it had been disturbed. The table, I observed at the time, was more than two feet from her finger-tips. I called Miller"s attention to this, and said: "She can"t possibly untie these threads, and if she breaks them the sitting is invalidated."
Soon after the light was turned out "Maudie" requested that we all move away from Mrs. Smiley, down to the lower end of the table; and although Miller thought this permitted too much liberty of action on the part of the medium, I urged consent. "There are other sittings coming," I repeated once more.
Mrs. Smiley fell again into deep sleep, but nothing took place for a long time. During this period of waiting I told stories of my experience and the curious folk I had met in search for the true explanation of these singular phenomena.
"Have you ever witnessed any materializations?" asked Mrs. Miller.
"Yes; but none of it was of the sort that I could swear to. I mean that it seemed to me to be either downright trickery or subconscious actions on the part of the psychic, and yet I"ve seen some very puzzling phantoms. I am persuaded that a great deal of what is called "fraud"
arises from the suggestibility of the psychics. Lombroso speaks of this "fixed idea" of the mediums, and their persistent, almost insane, attempt to produce the phenomena desired by the circle. You can understand how this would be if there is anything at all in hypnotism.
Sometimes it all seems to belong to the realm of hypnotic visions. One medium helps another to build up this unreal world. Early in my career as an investigator I went to Onset Bay, where in July of each year all the spiritualists and "mejums" of New England used to gather (do yet, I believe), and I shall never forget the singular a.s.semblage of "slate-writers," "spirit artists," "spirit photographers," "palmists,"
and "psychometrists" whose signs lined the street and pointed along the paths of the camp.
"In its way it was as dramatic a contrast of light and shade, of the real and the unreal, as this otherwise prosaic republic can show. There under the vivid summer sun, beside the glittering sea, men and women met to commune on the incommunicable, to question the voiceless, and to embrace the intangible. It was, indeed, such a revelation of human credulity as might well have overpowered a young novelist. From the warm, pine-scented afternoon air I crept into one of these tiny cabins, and sat with my hands upon a closed slate in order to receive a message from Lincoln or Caesar; I slipped beneath the shelter of a tent to have a sealed letter read by a commonplace person with an Indian accent; and I sat at night in dark little parlors to watch weak men and weeping women embrace very badly designed effigies of their lost darlings."
"Isn"t it incredible? Can you imagine any reasonable person believing such things?" asked Miller.
"Millions do," I replied.
"Please go on," entreated Mrs. Miller. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing really worth reporting upon. In that day of utter credulity no tests were possible, but immediately after my return to Boston I had my first entirely satisfactory test of the occult. I went with Mrs. Rose, one of our members, to sit for "independent slate-writing"--that is to say, writing on the inner surfaces of closed slates. Up to this moment I was profoundly sceptical, but I could not doubt the reality of what happened. I took my own slates--the ordinary hinged school slates; but whether they were my own or not made no difference really, for the final test which I demanded was such that any prepared slates were useless.
I"m not going into tiresome detail. I only say that while sitting at the table with both Mrs. Rose"s hands and my own resting upon the slates _I dictated_ certain lines to be drawn upon the inside of the slates."
Miller"s voice expressed growing interest. "And this was done?"
"It was done. I had in mind the test which Alfred Russel Wallace had used in a similar case. He dictated several words to be written while holding the slates securely in his own hands. In this instance I asked for the word "Constantinople" to be written. The psychic smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and replied: "I"ll try, but I don"t believe they can spell it." "Draw a straight line, then," said I. "I"ll be content with a single line an inch long." She laughingly retorted: "It"s hard to draw a straight line." "Very well, draw a crooked line. Draw a zigzag--like a stroke of lightning. Draw it in yellow. Draw a circle."
She said no more, but became silent, and we waited without change of position. Remember that I was holding the slate during all this talk. It did not leave my hands."
"What were the conditions? Was it light?" asked Miller.
"It was about two o"clock of an afternoon, and we sat in the bay-window of the parlor. It was perfectly light. No one moved. The psychic sat opposite us, leaning back in a thoughtful pose. Her hands lay in her lap, and she seemed to be merely waiting. At last a tapping came upon the slate, and she brightened up. "It is done!" she called, exultingly.
I opened the slates myself, and _there, drawn in yellow crayon, was a small circle with a zigzag yellow line crossing it exactly as I had dictated_, and under Mrs. Rose"s hands in the corner of the slate was a gayly colored bunch of pansies. There were messages also, but I paid very little attention to them. The production of that circle under those conditions overshadowed everything else. It was a definite and complete answer to my doubt. It was, in fact, a "miracle." I recall going directly to a meeting of the society and reporting upon this sitting.
You will find the bald statement of my experiment in the minutes of the secretary."
Miller was silent for a moment, then asked: "You"re sure it was done after you took the slates in hand?"
"I am as certain of it as I am of anything."
"How do you account for it? Of course it was a trick."
"Trickery can"t account for that yellow line. The messages could have been written beforehand, but no trick of prepared slates can account for my dictated design. I have had other cases of slate-writing which were almost as inexplicable, and Crookes and Wallace and Zollner, as you remember, were quite convinced by evidence thus secured. Crookes _saw_ the pencil at work. I have never witnessed the writing, but I have heard it at work under my hands and I have felt it under my feet. I have had writing on ten separate pages in a closed Manila-pad held between my hands."
Miller seemed to be impressed by these statements. "I have always considered slate-writing a cheap trick, but I don"t quite see how that was done--always providing your memory is not at fault."
"I would not place much dependence on my present recollection," I frankly responded, "but I reported on the case at once while my mind was most accurate as to details. Speaking further of these tricks, if you choose to call them such, I have had several failures, where the failure meant as much as a success. I have held two slates with a psychic (while we were both standing) when the creaking and scratching and grinding went on between my hands. I give you my word I was convinced at the moment of holding between my palms a sentient force. I felt as Franklin must have felt when he played with the lightning in the bottle at the tail of his kite. Once I heard the writing going on in a half-opened slate, but I did not see the pencil in motion. Some of these cases of "direct-writing" are the most convincing of all my experiences.
People ask me why I didn"t talk with the spirits about heaven and angels. I was not interested in their religious notions. I kept to this one line--I wanted to see a particle of matter move from A to B without a known push or pull. I paid very little attention to "trance-mediums"
like Mrs. Piper; and although I saw a great deal of what is called "mind-reading" and "thought-transference," I did not permit the cart to get before the horse. "Independent slate-writing" interested me, for the reason that I could put the clamps on it. Materialization, on the contrary, is so staged and arranged for that to prove its genuineness seems impossible at present; but slate-writing under your hand is a different matter."
"I"d like to have it under _my_ hand," said Miller, grimly.
"You can have it if you"ll go after it," I retorted, "and you can have it hard."
Mrs. Miller was deeply interested. "Tell us more. Have you had other messages written in that wonderful way?"
"Yes, many of them. One of the most curious examples of this kind I have ever seen came to me in Chicago. It was a "new one," as Howard would say. Old Mr. MacVicker told me one day that there was a woman on the West Side who had a trick of producing independent slate-writing beneath the stem of a goblet of water--"
"Why under a goblet of water?" interrupted Miller.
"As a test. You see, nearly every one who goes to a psychic wants first of all to witness a miracle. Each seeker demands that his particular message shall come hard--that is to say, under conditions impossible to the living. His reasoning is like this: "The dead are free from the limitations of our life, therefore they should manifest themselves to us as befits their wider knowledge of the laws of the universe, and especially is it their business to outdo the most skilful conjurer!
Hence each man insists on locked slates and sealed letters. These the poor psychics are forced to grant. To be just to them, I must say that I have found most mediums fairly willing to meet any reasonable test; in fact, many of them seem perfectly confident of the inscrutable, and venture upon what seems to be the impossible with amazing imperturbability. All they ask is to be treated like human beings. They are seldom afraid of results. Sometimes they bully the forces sadly, and make them work when they don"t want to.
"Well, this particular psychic ushered me into her back parlor (which was flooded with sunlight), and asked me to be seated at a small table covered with a strip of cloth. She was a comfortable, plump person, evidently from Kansas, in manner somewhat like the humorous wife of a prosperous village carpenter. I remember that we were rather sympathetic on various political questions. After some remarks on populism and other weighty matters, she filled a goblet with water, and, placing it upon a slate, pa.s.sed it under the table with her right hand, asking me to put my hand beneath hers."
"There it is!" said Miller, with infinite scorn. "Always in the dark or under the table. No wonder Emerson called it "a rat-hole philosophy.""
"Suppose it"s all the work of an "astral" who can"t abide the light?" I suggested.
"I know the theory, but I can"t allow it."
"Why not? You permit the photographer his dark-room."
Then, with malicious delight in his petulance, I calmly continued: "I put my left hand beneath hers and my right upon the table. I could see her left hand lying in her lap, and as she turned sidewise to the table I was able to keep in view both of her feet. We held the slate so that the top of the goblet lightly touched the under side of the stand. The psychic was all accounted for, except the hand which was resting outspread on the under side of the slate. We sat for several minutes in this way, while she explained that "they" would probably take words out of our conversation as a test, if I desired it. "I am here to be shown,"
I replied. She laughed at me, and on two different occasions brought the slate from beneath the table with writing under the stem of the goblet.
This was all very well, but I said: "A better test would be to have them write words that I dictate."
""I will ask them," she said. She seemed to listen as if to voices inaudible to me, and at last said: "They will try it."
"Again we placed the goblet of water on the clean slate under the table, and while holding it as before, I said: "Now ask them to write the name "William Dean Howells.""