TELEPATHY GENUINE AND FRAUDULENT/PART 2
FRAUDULENT TELEPATHY
I now come to another
class of so-called thought transference—that exhibited at public entertainments
in which genuine telepathy plays no part.
On the 25th November 1912
Miss Isabel Newton, the Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research, and I
attended the demonstration given by Yoga [sic] Rama of his alleged
occult powers at the "Little Theatre," Adelphi.
Accounts had appeared in
the public press of a previous private performance given by this so-called
Abyssinian Mystic, at which Sir John Simon, the Solicitor-General, Mr. Bernard
Shaw, and Mr. Anthony Hope had assisted, and it was stated that Yoga Rama had
been able to read the thoughts of the Solicitor-General by supernormal means.
In order to demonstrate,
in a public manner, the alleged occult power of this "psychic," a
stage performance was given at the "Little Theatre" on the afternoon
of the above-mentioned date. A large audience was present, and their
expectations of witnessing manifestations of an occult nature were raised by
the contents of the programme, wherein it appeared that Yoga Rama was to give a
demonstration of "The power of mind over mind" by means of—
"1. Clairaudience.
"2. The possibility of the interpretation of vibrations
without the aid of sound.
"3. Psychometry by sense of touch.
"4. Telepathy. The disclosure of names thought of by persons
in the audience.
"5. Disclosure of personalities by subconscious means.
"6. Revelations by a circumstantial chain of mind pictures.
"7. Various demonstrations of ideas silently conveyed to the
spectator by suggestion.
"8. Descriptions of cities and places by mind pictures.
"9. Messages."
Before Yoga Rama made his
appearance a gentleman (a Mr. Fletcher) delivered a short speech from the
stage. He stated that the "Yoga" had acquired his occult powers by
contemplation after many years' study. He went on to say that in the Eastern
World the occult powers of the mind had been more studied than in the Western
World, but at the present day the Western World looked upon these powers with
much less prejudice than formerly.
After Mr. Fletcher had
retired, Yoga Rama made his appearance from between the centre of two curtains
which hung at the back of the stage. He was attired in a long loose black gown
and wore a large crimson turban. He advanced to the front of the stage and made
a speech which had a smattering of a theosophical discourse. He described four
kinds of Yogi. The first kind, he said, was frequently met in India. These Yogi
worked on the physical plane and produced effects resembling the feats of a
conjurer. The second kind worked in the mental plane (to this class he
implied that he belonged). The third dealt with the spiritual problems of life.
The fourth was absorbed in meditation.
He continued his speech by
saying that he required the sympathy of the persons with whom he would experiment.
If they mentally opposed him he could do nothing, but if their minds were
sympathetic and not antagonistic he would succeed.
The speeches of Mr.
Fletcher and of Yoga Rama still further raised the expectations of the audience
that they were about to witness that afternoon a demonstration of the power of
mind over mind by supernormal means.
Yoga Rama, after the
conclusion of his speech, called for thirty persons (ladies and gentlemen) to
come upon the stage and form a Committee. A gentleman and I first answered the
call. We were soon followed by a rush of ladies and gentlemen who rather
inconveniently filled the stage, but this did not interfere with the
performance, as the majority of the ladies and gentlemen kept at the back of
the stage while Yoga Rama carried out his experiments with a limited
number of the members of the Committee. In order to be more at his ease,
Yoga Rama removed his turban. I placed it under a table which stood on the
stage. I then had a good look at him. I found he was a black man with short
crisp curly hair. From his appearance and the fluency with which he speaks
English, I came to the conclusion that he is not an Abyssinian, but an American
or West Indian negro.
Amongst the members of the
Committee were Mr. Zancig and Mr. William Marriott. Both of these gentlemen I
have had the pleasure of knowing for some years. They, together with Mr.
Charles Guttwoch (a friend of Mr. Marriott), three or four other gentlemen, and
myself, were the only members of the Committee who actively endeavoured to
ascertain whether Yoga Rama's experiments depended for their success on
trickery or on other causes. The other members of the Committee remained
passive spectators. As regards the lady members with whom Yoga Rama tried a few
experiments, they declared themselves, at the conclusion of the performance, to
be believers in his alleged supernormal claims.
Before the experiments
commenced, Yoga Rama asked that some one should blindfold him with some
articles which lay on a small table in the centre of the stage. These consisted
of two pieces of folded paper just large enough to cover the eyebrows and eyes,
a piece of porous plaster perforated with holes, a thin white cotton
handkerchief, two gloves, and a long red silk scarf. Mr. Marriott offered to blindfold
him. I stood close to him while this was being done. Mr. Marriott placed the
pieces of paper first on Yoga Rama's eyes, then the porous plaster, then the
cotton handkerchief, after this the two gloves, and finally the red scarf which
he wound several times round his head. The tip of Yoga Rama's nose could be
seen under the plaster, the white cotton handkerchief, and the scarf. Yoga
Rama, who remained standing, then requested some one to sit on a chair in front
of him, to think of a name, then to hold his left hand (i.e. the
sitter's left hand) in front of the sitter's face, and to trace on the palm of
the left hand with the forefinger of the right the first letter of the name
thought of. The sitter was then asked to give taps on his left hand or
make movements in the air with his right hand corresponding to the number of
letters of which the name thought of consisted. When Yoga Rama suggested (as he
subsequently did) that the name of a flower or of a city should be thought of,
he requested that the same procedure of tracing the first letter of the name
and giving a number of taps or making movements with the right hand
corresponding to the number of letters should be followed, but when he
suggested that a play of Shakespeare should be thought of he only asked that
the first one or two letters of the title should be traced on the palm of the
left hand of the sitter with the forefinger of the other hand. He did not then
ask that taps or movements of the right hand should be given or made. About an
hour and a half of the first part of the performance was taken up by
experiments of the above nature. These were varied only by one experiment of
telling the title of a hymn which a lady thought of, one of reading the
thoughts of a young lady, and one experiment with playing cards.
Yoga Rama then made a long
speech about happiness depending on our own selves and our being what we
willed ourselves to be. He asserted that he had overcome in himself the passion
of anger. He laboured these points so much and repeated himself so often that
it became manifest he was making the speech solely with the object of filling
up the time.
The patience of the Acting
Committee became exhausted, and one of the members advanced to the front of the
stage, interrupted Yoga Rama, and, appealing to the audience, said he had no
doubt but that he had their support when he asserted that they had come to the
theatre not to hear speeches but to witness experiments. Yoga Rama brought his
speech abruptly to a close after saying he would now demonstrate the power he
had acquired of controlling the functions of his body and of rendering it
insensible to pain. To show the control over his body he asked two members of
the Committee to stand by his side and to look at their watches and note the
length of time he was able to cease from breathing. To show his insensibility
to pain he said he would stand barefooted on a board studded with long
nails, and also stand on broken glass.
I have given an account of
the nature of the performance with which Yoga Rama favoured us. I will now
proceed to describe the experiments more in detail and to comment upon them.
Mr. Marriott was the first
person to sit on the chair in front of Yoga Rama. He was told to hold his left
hand in front of his face, to trace the first letter of the name thought of on
the palm of his left hand with the forefinger of the right, and give the taps
or make the movements in the air with his right hand in the manner already
described. Mr. Marriott, instead of holding his left hand up, held his right
hand. Yoga Rama immediately said, "Not your right hand but your
left." This was a suspicious circumstance, as it indicated that Yoga Rama
could see notwithstanding he was blindfolded. Now conjurers know that
blindfolding in the manner above described is not a precaution against seeing,
as at the time of blindfolding what the conjurer does is to shut his eyes
tightly and bring his eyebrows well down. When the blindfolding is
finished, the conjurer opens his eyes and draws his eyebrows up; the bandages
will then be displaced and drawn up from their original position and he will be
able to see under the bandages through the spaces between the bridge of his
nose and his cheeks. This, in the joint opinion of Mr. Zancig, Mr. Marriott,
and myself, is what Yoga Rama did, and our opinion was confirmed when we
examined the bandages at the time they were removed from the performer's eyes,
as will be described later.
Yoga Rama's method of
telling the name thought of is to watch the movement of the finger of the sitter's
right hand while he traces the first letter of the name on the palm of the
left. This indicates to him the first letter of the name, then he counts the
number of taps or movements given by the sitter's right hand. Thus, if the
first letter were W and the number of taps or movements seven, the name in all
likelihood would be William, or, if the first letter were W and the number of
taps or movements six, the name would probably be Walter. Ordinary Christian
names are limited in number, and Yoga Rama took care to know beforehand
whether the sitter were thinking of a female name or of a male name. It
was therefore not a difficult matter for him to hit upon the name. Moreover,
when he was in doubt, as was often the case, he not only asked that the first letter
should be traced, but the second and the third and the fourth, etc. Before
hazarding a guess Yoga Rama often asked whether the second or third or fourth,
etc., letter of the name were a letter that he mentioned. Thus, if he were not
quite sure that W had been traced, but he had noticed that seven taps or
movements had been given, he would say is not the fourth letter of the name L.
If the sitter answered in the affirmative, he would be pretty sure that William
was the name, but if the sitter's answer were a negative one, Yoga Rama asked
that the letters should be traced again and the taps, etc., repeated. Yoga Rama
resorted to the above-described method when he asked the sitter to think of the
name of a flower or of a city, but he only tried one or two experiments with
the names of flowers or cities, the reason being, obviously, that as the names
of flowers or cities are not so limited in number as Christian names, he
fought shy of them. The reason he gave for not being able to guess readily the name
of a flower was, he said, that he was not a botanist.
As regards the titles of
Shakespeare's plays he only asked that one or two of the first letters of the
title should be traced on the left hand, and did not require any taps or
movements of the right hand. Any person acquainted with Shakespeare's plays and
knowing the first one or two letters of the title could have guessed with equal
facility which play was in the mind of the sitter. After getting the name of
the play, Yoga Rama asked the sitter to think of a personage in that play. He
only requested that this should be done once or twice, and was not successful
in getting the name of the personage at the first guess, but only after making
two or three guesses.
In the experiment of
telling the title of a hymn which a lady had in her mind, Yoga Rama resorted to
the same method of asking her to trace the first letter of the title of the
hymn on the palm of her left hand. She traced the letter L, and he hazarded the
guess that it was "Lead, kindly light," which proved to be
correct. Apparently the most successful experiments were one carried out with a
young lady and one with myself. Yoga Rama asked the young lady to think of
something. He then, without asking her to trace any letter or make movements
with her right hand, told her that she wished to get married. She acknowledged
that that was the thought in her mind. This caused a good deal of amusement
amongst the audience. The young lady left the stage immediately after the
experiment. This step on her part gave rise in the minds of some of the members
of the Committee that she was an accomplice, and that, as the experiment had
been carried out, she was no longer required by Yoga Rama. These members of the
Committee may be doing an injustice to the young lady, but it was unfortunate
she should have left the stage at that moment.
As regards the experiment
with myself, I stood in front of Yoga Rama and did not sit down, neither did I
place my left hand in front of my face as other experimenters had done, but
close against my body when tracing the letters of my second name, which
was the one I had in my mind.
My object in standing up
was to have my hands out of the line of his vision. I took care that the
movement of the forefinger of my right hand when tracing the letters should not
be seen by him.
Yoga Rama repeatedly asked
me to trace and retrace all the letters of the name. He then gave the name
correctly. Although this experiment appeared to indicate that the performer
possessed telepathic powers, it must be borne in mind that he might have known
who I was, as he had been practising his so-called occult powers for some time
in London under the name of Professor Pickens before he assumed that of Yoga
Rama. It was not necessary that he should see my face in order to know with
whom he was experimenting. It was observed that he took a very careful stock of
the dresses of the Acting Committee before he was blindfolded. It was only
necessary, therefore, that he should see the lower part of the dress for him to
know which member of the Committee stood in front of him. As one member
after the other experimented with him he described their dress. He
asserted that he was able to do this by a sort of telepathic vision.
The experiment with the
playing cards was a simple conjuring trick. Yoga Rama produced a pack of cards
and asked the Committee to see that it was unopened. I opened the pack,
shuffled the cards, and handed them to Mr. Marriott, who had been asked by the
Professor to retire to a corner of the stage and choose a card which he was to
show to two members of the Committee. Mr. Guttwoch and I accompanied Mr.
Marriott to the corner of the stage and saw which card Mr. Marriott had chosen.
Mr. Marriott then shuffled the pack again and handed it to Yoga Rama, who put
it in his pocket. Yoga Rama then asked Mr. Marriott what card he had chosen.
Mr. Marriott informed him. He then wrote something on a piece of paper which he
folded and handed to one of the members of the Committee to hold. He then drew
from his pocket another pack of cards similar in appearance to the original
pack (that it was not the original pack was evidenced by the fact that the
bottom card of the pack which Yoga Rama drew from his pocket was not the
same as the bottom card of the original pack), but which had the cards arranged
in an order known to Yoga Rama. He proceeded to pass the cards one after the
other before Mr. Marriott's eyes, asking him to tell him when he came to the
card he had chosen. When Yoga Rama came to the card, Mr. Marriott told him.
Yoga Rama then said, "What is the card in front of the one you chose and
the one behind it?" He was informed which they were. He then asked that
the piece of paper should be opened, and it was found that the names of the
cards had been written by him on the piece of paper. What occult power Yoga
Rama intended to demonstrate by this simple conjuring trick I fail to see. It
could not have been telepathy, as the two cards (the names of which Yoga Rama
had written) had not been chosen nor thought of by Mr. Marriott.
A few words will suffice
to describe the experiments which Yoga Rama carried out to show (1) the control
he had acquired over the functions of his body, and (2) his insensibility to
pain. As has already been stated, he asked two members of the Committee to
stand by him and note by their watches the length of time that he was able to
cease breathing. He retained his breath for fifty seconds. A member of the
Committee at the back of the stage called out, when the length of time was
announced, "That is nothing. I can stop breathing for a full minute."
This exclamation appeared to disconcert Yoga Rama a good deal. The standing
barefooted on a board studded with nails and on broken glass are common tricks
which can be seen performed by negroes at country fairs. I felt the points of
the nails and found they had been filed down and were blunt. Mr. Marriott sat
on the nails to the amusement of the audience while Yoga Rama had gone off the
stage to remove his boots. When Yoga Rama returned he stood barefooted on these
nails only for about half a minute. He then proceeded to break some bottles on
a piece of felt. He pounded away on the glass with a hammer till he had reduced
the greater part to nearly a powder. He carefully pushed the larger pieces of
glass on one side and stood on the powdered portion.
I will now proceed to
state the reasons which lead me to the conclusion that Yoga Rama was able to
see, although apparently blindfolded.
1. The bandages were
removed from his eyes by Mr. Marriott, who had blindfolded him at the
commencement of the performance. While this was being done I had my face about
two feet away from Yoga Rama's face and I carefully noted the position of each
article as it was being removed. The lower edge of the porous plaster was above
the tip of the performer's nose, and the edge of the white handkerchief above
the edge of the plaster, and above the edge of the handkerchief was the edge of
the crimson scarf. The edges of the handkerchief and scarf were sufficiently
high up, so that, had the blindfolding depended only on these, he could have
seen under them. The gloves which had been placed on the handkerchief need not
be taken into account, as the folded pieces of paper on his eyes prevented them
from pressing into the sockets of Yoga Rama's eyes, and he, by merely closing
the eyes and bringing the eyebrows well down when he was being blindfolded
and then opening his eyes and lifting the eyebrows well up, could displace the
gloves from their original position and cause them to rise, as a conjurer well
knows; therefore the blindfolding really depended on the position of the porous
plaster. Now when Mr. Marriott placed the plaster over the pieces of paper he
took care that the lower edges of both pieces should be on one of the lines of
holes which existed in the plaster as shown in the accompanying engraving
(which is taken from a photograph).
He also took care that the
lower edge of the plaster should stick against Yoga Rama's cheeks. On examining
the plaster just before it was removed we found that the lower edge no longer
stuck against the performer's cheeks. There were hollow spaces between the
bridge of his nose and his cheeks through which he could have seen with a
downward glance. The point now arises whether he used both his eyes or only
one. I noticed that Yoga Rama always kept the right side of his face towards
the sitters when trying the experiments. If the reader will look at the
engraving, which shows the exact position of the folded pieces of paper at
the time of the removal of the plaster from Yoga Rama's face, he will see that
the piece of paper which covered his right eye is no longer on the same line of
holes as the left piece, but is higher up, and, what is most suspicious, he
will note some pieces of tissue paper which were stuck on the plaster by Yoga
Rama and were under the pieces of folded paper, which prevented these from
adhering to the plaster; thus by an upper movement of the eyebrows Yoga Rama
succeeded in raising the folded piece of paper which covered his right eye, and
with this eye he glanced under the plaster and watched the movements of the
sitter's hands, etc.
2. As I have stated above,
Yoga Rama always kept the right side of his head towards the person with whom
he was experimenting. He tried one experiment with a gentleman who sat in the
second row of the stalls. He then turned his body round so that the right side
of his face was in the same position relatively to this gentleman as it had
been to the sitters on the stage. Moreover, the lights in the body of the
theatre were not alight when Yoga Rama was trying his alleged
thought-readings with the members of the Committee on the stage, but when he
experimented with the gentleman in the stalls, one of the electric chandeliers in
the body of the theatre, not far from the gentleman, was immediately lit, thus
enabling Yoga Rama to watch the movements of the gentleman's right hand when
tracing the letters of the name he had chosen on the palm of his left hand, and
giving the taps corresponding to the number of the letters.
3. At the conclusion of
the performance, after the bulk of the audience had left, some persons remained
in the foyer of the theatre, and a discussion arose, during which some of the
persons present asserted that Yoga Rama had brought about his results by
supernormal means. Mr. Marriott, Mr. Guttwoch, and I denied this. At that
moment Yoga Rama came into the foyer, and he was accused by us of having been
able to see. He asserted that he had not seen, and to prove it offered to try
some experiments while a handkerchief was held tightly against his eyes. Mr.
Guttwoch held a handkerchief against his eyes. As Yoga Rama was not now
able to see, he resorted to a different method from the one he used on the
stage. He held the wrist of the left hand of a lady with the thumb and three
fingers of his right hand, while his forefinger rested against the back of the
lady's hand. He then asked her to trace the letters of the name thought of with
the forefinger of her right hand on the palm of her left hand, which was being
held by him. He was able to tell the name, but only after repeated tracing of
the letters by the lady. Yoga Rama not being able to be guided by sight as in
his stage performances, now guided himself by the sense of touch. Although I
have never before carried out an experiment of this nature myself, when Miss
Newton and I returned to the rooms of the Society for Psychical Research I
tried the experiment with her. I closed my eyes and held her wrist, and was
able to feel the letter which she traced on the palm of her hand. Manifestly
this is a difficult trick to perform, and requires great practice. I noticed
that Yoga Rama chose the hand of a lady in preference to that of a gentleman,
obviously because a lady's hand is thinner than that of a man, and the
motion of her finger would be more easily felt.
What convinced me more
than any of the above reasons that Yoga Rama was able to see during his
performance is the following fact. I placed the sticking plaster over my eyes
after it had been taken from Yoga Rama's eyes and, to my surprise, I found I
could perfectly well see through it. The numerous small holes with which it was
perforated allowed me to do this.
The audience at the
"Little Theatre" had had their expectations raised that they were to
witness manifestations of the occult powers of the mind through the mediumship
of an Abyssinian Yogi, instead of which they witnessed an ordinary conjuring
entertainment by a man who previously to assuming the name of "Yoga [sic]
Rama" was known as Professor A. D. Pickens of Conduit Street, London.
Besides the method used by
Yoga Rama for producing his so-called thought transference, there are others
resorted to by public entertainers. The one most in use is by means of a verbal
code. The letters of the alphabet are substituted and a word can be
conveyed by the agent asking a series of questions, each question beginning
with a substituted letter. The percipient has to remember what letters the
substituted ones represent; he takes note of the first letter only of each
question, puts them together in his mind, and thus gets the word that it is the
intention of the agent to convey.
I have made a table (shown
opposite) which shows one of these systems.
If the name
"Alfred" is to be conveyed, it can be done by the following
questions:—
|
Here
is a name |
=
A |
|
Can
you see it? |
=
L |
|
Endeavour
to do so |
=
F |
|
Mind
what you are doing |
=
R |
|
Go
on |
=
D |
|
The letter E is
understood. |
|
TABLE
|
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The transmission of the
nature of an article is by dividing articles that would be likely to be brought
to a public entertainment into sets of ten, each set being indicated by a
different question. These sets have to be learned by heart by the agent and the
percipient. I give in the table four sets to illustrate my meaning. After
asking the question which conveys the set to which the article belongs, a
second question is asked, beginning with the word corresponding to the number
on the number table. This will indicate what number in the set the article
corresponds to. As an example: when the question "What is this?" is asked,
it means that the article corresponds to Set A. If the second question
begins with "Do," such as "Do you know?", this question on
referring to the number table would mean No. 4; therefore the article would be
a chain. Now, if the question "What is it made of?" is asked, it
would refer to Set
C, and if this question is followed by "Can you tell
me?", on referring to the number table it will be found to correspond to
No. 3; therefore the article would be a chain made of copper. When an article
is not in any one of the sets the substituted letter code is used. Of course
public entertainers learn by heart a number of sets, not only four.
For silent thought
transference occasionally electrical contrivances are resorted to. These
are placed in different parts of the hall, and when being pressed by the foot
or hand of the agent will convey a message to a certain part of the stage upon
which the percipient (who may be blindfolded) rests his foot.
There is another silent
method which can be worked by a confederate who is placed behind a curtain
close to the chair on the stage upon which the blindfolded percipient sits. The
confederate watches the performer who stands amongst the audience and reads
through a spyglass what he is writing on his tablet when putting down what
members of the audience wish to be done. The confederate then communicates the
contents of the writing to the percipient on the stage by whispering or by an
electrical apparatus. The position of the performer or agent while he is
writing in a clear hand on his tablets with his back to the stage easily
enables a confederate to read the writing.
Then there is the silent
method of a French conjurer, some of whose performances I have witnessed, which
consists of suggesting or "forcing" the spectators to do certain
things, each action having a corresponding number which he conveys to his
lady assistant, who is blindfolded, by touching her foot with his after she has
come down from the stage and stands by his side amongst the audience.
The
"time-coding" method consists of silently counting by the agent and
percipient at the same rate, starting from a preconcerted signal and ending at
another preconcerted signal. The performer amongst the audience has in his hand
a piece of paper on which is written the number that he wishes to silently
convey to the other blindfolded performer on the stage. At the moment that he
bends his head to look at the number he begins silently counting at a certain
rate; a confederate behind the scenes begins counting at the same rate from the
moment that the performer bends his head. When the performer lifts his head he
ceases counting, so does the confederate. Each number written on the paper is
thus conveyed, and the confederate communicates the total to the blindfolded
performer by means of an electrical apparatus or otherwise.
I have attended several
performances in public halls in London at which thought
transference—so-called—was carried out by the above trick methods.
Sir Oliver Lodge was
present with me at one of the performances at which the time-coding method was
used. He has sent me the following note:—
"I was with Mr.
Baggally on one of these occasions, and took note of the fact that he could
often guess what was being transmitted by the performers quite as well as they
could themselves. We sat in a box looking at them, and he often told me before
they had spoken what they were going to say (or words to that effect).
"I perceived even
without his assistance that the performance, which was stimulated by the
success of the Zancigs, was an exceedingly inferior imitation of what they had
achieved, and was manifestly done by a code of some kind.
"O. J. L."
Some of the methods
resorted to by public entertainers are so ingenious that the spectator is led
to believe that genuine thought transference has taken place. The
following correspondence, which appeared in the spiritualistic weekly paper
called Light,
illustrates a case in point. In the number of Light of the 25th
October 1902 there appeared this letter headed "Thought Transference":—
"Sir,—A few years ago Mr. and Mrs.
Baldwin gave the following entertainment in almost every large town in the
three kingdoms. The public were invited to write any question or questions they
desired to have answered on a piece of paper, to place it in their pockets, and
keep it there without communicating its contents to anyone, and then when they
went to the hall their names were called out and their question answered
without the papers leaving their possession. About fifty such inquiries were
answered each evening without a single failure by Mrs. Baldwin, who sat
blindfolded with her back to the audience. From my experience and that of my
friends, collusion was impossible, and the only way of accounting for the
performance was by thought transference or telepathy between Mrs. Baldwin and
those of the audience with whom she was in mental sympathy.
(Signed) "C.
A. M."
Commenting on this letter,
I wrote to Light,
and my communication appeared the following week. It was to this effect:—
"Under the heading of
'Thought Transference,' your correspondent, C. A. M., gives an account of some
entertainments by Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin, at which he says" (I here quoted
from C. A. M.'s letter, and then continued as follows):—"I never was
present at entertainments given by Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin, and therefore cannot
express an opinion as to the modus operandi in their
particular case, but I would point out that their entertainments bear a close
resemblance to those given by conjurers. The explanation of the mystery in a
conjurer's case is as follows:—The conjurer asks members of the audience to
write their questions secretly, to sign their names at the bottom of the
question, and then to fold the pieces of paper on which the questions are
written and place them in their pockets. To facilitate the writing he hands
pencils round and tablets upon which to rest the pieces of paper during the
writing of the questions, or the members of the audience, if they so wish, can
retire into an adjoining room and write their questions on a table. The
tablets and pencils are then collected by an assistant who is a confederate,
who then retires from the hall to the room where the table is. The tablets and
table have false surfaces of leather or other material, which, on being removed
by the confederate, disclose a layer of carbon paper resting on another of
white paper upon which the questions have been recorded unknown to the
inquirers. The confederate then proceeds to read the questions with their
respective attached signatures, and to communicate them to the blindfolded
medium by an electrical apparatus upon which the medium's foot rests, or by
other mechanical means."
I signed my letter W. W.
B. A fortnight after, the following letter appeared in Light:—
"Sir,—With reference to the communication
by W. W. B. referring to the supposed thought transference, and mentioned by
another correspondent, C. A. M., in connection with the entertainments of
Professor Baldwin (an American conjurer and brother mason), whom I met in Cape
Town on two separate occasions, permit me to state that (1) if it is the same
Baldwin, he is one of the cleverest illusionists in his special line of
trick thought transference, and W. W. B. is quite right. (2) I know that Mr.
and Mrs. Baldwin did most of their experiments by trick, because, being one of
the chosen committee to test the so-called thought reading, I fixed it
absolutely as trickery on the lines indicated by W. W. B.
(Signed) "Berks Hutchinson"
I was gratified to read
this letter and to find that my conjecture was correct that the Baldwin
performance was a mere exhibition of conjuring.
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