Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and TheosophyEvans, Henry Ridgely
Religion
Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy
Evans, Henry Ridgely
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891; Spiritualism; Theosophy
The evidence of Dr. G. H. La Fetra, of Washington, D. C., is sufficiently
convincing on this point. Said Dr. La Fetra to me: "Some years ago I went
with a friend, Col. Edward Hayes, to one of Mr. Keeler's light séances.
It was rather early in the evening, and but few persons had assembled.
Upon the mantel piece of the séance-room were several tablets of paper.
Unobserved, I took up these tablets, one at a time, and drew the blade of
my pen-knife across one end of each of them, so that I might identify the
slips of paper torn therefrom by the nicks in them. In a little while, the
room was filled with people, and the séance began; the gas being lowered
to a dim religious light. When the time came for the writing, Mr. Keeler
requested that some of the tablets of paper on the mantel be passed into
the cabinet. This was done. Various persons present received 'spirit'
communications, the slips of paper being thrown over the curtain of the
cabinet by a 'materialized' hand. Some gentleman picked up the papers and
read them, for the benefit of the spectators; afterwards he laid aside
those not claimed by anybody. Some of these 'spirit' communications
covered almost an entire slip. These were carefully written, some of them
in a fine hand. The short messages were roughly scrawled. After the
séance, Col. Hayes and myself quietly pocketed a dozen or more of the
slips. The next morning at my office we carefully examined them. In every
instance, we found that the well-written, lengthy messages were inscribed
on _unnicked_ slips, the short ones being written on _nicked_ slips."
To me, this evidence of Dr. La Fetra seems most conclusive, proving beyond
the shadow of a doubt that Keeler prepared his long communications before
the séance and had them concealed upon his person, throwing them out of
the cabinet at the proper moment. He used the _nicked_ tablets for his
short messages, written on the spot, thereby completely revealing his
method of operating to the ingenious investigator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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