on that very day. What money he had borrowed he had spent on the trumpery decorations of the proposed treasure chamber, not on himself. Unless he had believed in the ghostly promises, he would have made a bolt, as he could easily have done, like the rogue Joseph, into Bohemia. His conduct in requiring Fritzsche to abandon his trade was not that of one who desired to spunge upon his host's earnings. Hänel's conduct had been consistent throughout from early childhood; and it is not possible to dispute that he really did believe in his spiritual intercourse. But that he may have lent himself to some exaggeration, and some equivocal assertions, is probable enough.
In most of the cases of our modern mediums and spiritual manifestations, I cannot doubt that the professors of belief in the spiritual dialogues, communications and miraculous manifestations deceive themselves, and in order to force conviction on others, have recourse to equivocal measures. They are, as was Hänel, unconsciously dishonest. How facile it is to deceive oneself, the following incident will show.
When I was a youth of about eighteen, I read in a book on Natural Magic, that if one were to suspend a sovereign by a silk thread, passed over the ball of the thumb, and held in place by the first finger, and the piece of gold be swung in a claret glass, it would be found that presently the sovereign swayed from right to left exactly the number of times sounded by the clock the previous hour and itself ring the hour on the glass; then it would cease in its vibrations and after rotating once or twice recommence its swing at right angles to its previous course and strike the glass the number of times that the minutes had elapsed since the hour had struck.[1]
I tried the experiment a dozen times, and always with success. This puzzled me, as no connexion in Nature could occur between
- ↑ This is a modern adaptation of an ancient formula. Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that in A.D. 371, when the Emperor Valens was in Antioch, a magician, Hilarius, was arrested. He set a vessel on a tripod, and about the bowl were inscribed at intervals the letters of the alphabet. Then a ring was suspended over it, a deity or spirit was invoked, and the ring set in vibration, whereupon it tapped the several letters, forming thereby an answer to the question asked. Hilarius was executed. We do not now string up the fools who seek to know the future through rapping tables, planchette, and mediums, which is a pity. The world would be healthier without them.
