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
In order to accomplish what he witnessed, the same spook who had
before been recognized by a gentleman as "his queen," prepared
herself in the following way: Divesting herself of all clothing she
donned simply a long chemise that reached her shoe tops. She drew
on a pair of white stockings, and over them a pair of white
slippers. Into her hair and ears she put rhinestone diamonds, and
around her neck a necklace of the same beautiful but valueless
stones. On each ear lobe and around her neck were put small spots
of the luminous powder to represent the diamonds while it was dark.
Her face was powdered and her eyebrows and eyelashes darkened,
while a dark line was drawn under each eye. She now took a black
mask that covered her head, and her "robe" in her hands, and went
down to the cabinet. Arriving there, she put the black mask over
her head, to prevent the luminous diamonds being seen until the
proper time. She carried her robe in a black bag. Crawling from
between the curtains and under the table, she exposed on the floor
a small part of her robe. This she shook and moved about, allowing
it to escape from the bag until it was all out. She was now from
under the table and on her knees, and it was time the head show on
the form, so, getting close to the robe, she threw off and under
the table the black mask. The shape was now the size of an adult;
she adjusted the robe to her person, and rapped for light. As a
matter of course, when any light was made the luminousness of the
robe was drowned, and she appeared in simply a white costume. The
necklace and eardrops could now be seen, but when the light was
such as to reveal them, the luminous spots had disappeared, leaving
the spectator to think the ones he now saw were the ones he had
seen in the dark. The process of dematerialization will now be
apparent, and a description will only tire the reader. One small
spook was all that was required, as he could be made to represent
boy or girl as was desired, by clothing him in the garments of
either sex.
At the close of the seance, the full force of "spooks" came into
the room. After disappearing, they shinned up the ladder, drew it
after them, closed the panel and the trap in the floor above it,
replaced the carpet and pushed over the place a heavy bedstead from
which they took the castors. They now carried the ladder
downstairs and concealed it in the coal house as they went through
it on their way home. They will get their pay next day.
Should ever so close an examination of the cabinet be made, you
would not find anything wrong. This particular medium has taken
investigators into the cellar beneath the cabinet, and the room
above it, scores of times, yet nothing was discovered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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