The Lock and Key Library: The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: Real Life
Science
The Lock and Key Library: The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: Real Life
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Parapsychology
He now took a sheet of paper from a tablet, and drew five straight
lines across it, spacing the sheet into six spaces about equal.
Next taking my hand, and looking earnestly into my face, he said:
"Promise me that if I succeed, you will not make light of this.
Promise me, for this is very sacred to me." I did so. He now
directed me to write names in the spaces on the sheet, any names I
pleased, writing but one name in each space. All the names were to
be of living or fictitious persons except one, this one to be the
name of some one I had known who was then dead. He said, "Be fair
with me, and I will scratch out the dead person's name." These
were his exact words, therefore I in no way tried to hide my
writing from him, although he stood at a distance and did not
appear to watch me. I took a pencil and began writing the names;
being unprepared I had to think of the names I wished to write. I
desired to select names of persons living at a distance, so that he
could in no possible manner know them. While I was writing he
talked incessantly, which in spite of myself divided my attention.
At the same time he kept urging me to write, and immediately after
urging me, would begin talking rapidly on some spiritualistic
subject. I remember saying, "You must give me time to think." I
thought I used great care, so as to write each name with the same
precision, and tried to betray no emotion when writing the dead
person's name. I selected the name "Cora Holt" for the dead
person's name. This was the name of an aunt who had died in
another State.
As soon as I had written the names he asked me to cut them apart
into slips, having one name on each slip. Now here I do not
remember whether he folded them himself, or had me help, as I was
not expecting them to be folded. However, we folded each one into
a billet with the writing inside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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