SPIRIT-RAPPING MADE EASY; OR,
HOW TO COME OUT AS A MEDIUM.
BY ONE WHO IS IN THE SECRET.
The writer of the present paper is induced to proffer his explanation of the phenomena produced by the so-called Spirit Mediums, from two or three circumstances peculiar to his own experience. He is disposed to look at the performances of the Spirit Mediums from a point of view somewhat different from that of their ordinary audience. In fact, he considers them as professional imitators, and would even regard them as professional associates, if they had but the honesty to acknowledge their craft. It is his inclination, under any circumstances, to watch them very closely; and, though he cannot allow their title to the rank of honest conjurors, he is interested in observing the means by which they produce their little results. So satisfied is he that his inferences are, in the main, correct, that after he has stated them, he is disposed to withhold his name, for the simple reason that, if it were known, he believes there would be no more spirit manifestations in his presence ever after. It would be just as impossible for him, as it proved for Robert-Houdin, on a certain well-known occasion, to communicate with the capricious spirits through the ordinarily successful medium Mr. Home. To make a free observation of the spirit world it will be found that we require an incognito; for the spirits are shy, the spirits are fastidious, the spirits are averse to every overture, if it comes from a suspected, because suspicious, inquirer. The spirits would not shake hands with me, for the spirits have no professional esprit de corps; and therefore it is that professional vigilance is not only alive to the mode of their manifestations, but takes an interest in drawing out these retiring shadows, and exhibiting their real pretensions to the public.
Another circumstance which induces me to take them by the hand was an incident in which I myself participated; I might say with whom, and when, and where; but that I have no inclination, as I said before, to exclude myself for ever from the spirit circle. It happened that I was present at a certain exhibition of two of the most popular Mediums of the day, and, after watching intently their whole performance, I ascertained the agencies by which it was accomplished. At all events, I was enabled at a subsequent performance to detect the spirits in a very palpable trick, resulting in their exposure and discomfiture (see fig. 10), and having since experimented, I can now perform all that they then exhibited to sight, hearing, or touch. I am confident I could tell, with a little further trouble, the means by which Mr. Home astonished the writer of a recent article in the “Cornhill Magazine;” and, possibly, I may do this hereafter, if it should appear to be wished for. For the present, however, I confine myself to the practice of the other Mediums on whose intercourse with the “sperrits” I have already experimented.
As a preliminary I have to make this general remark, that the means by which the “sperrits” usually manifest themselves, are far more simple than readers anticipate. When a witness experiences anything he cannot account for, it is natural that he should refer this to some elaborate machinery adequate to what he considers the startling result. Let the reader, however, discard this impression at once, for it has a certain tendency to mislead his judgment. It is really the object of Mediums to depend on machinery as little as possible, for machinery is not only unintelligent, it may not only fumble and make mistakes, but it precludes that triumph of a medium’s art, the submitting to the preliminary or subsequent test of an examination. The “lazy tongs,” as they are termed, are far less serviceable and less frequently used, than the natural aptitudes of the human body, when these are above the natural average, or are carefully developed by discipline and education.
The first requisite, no doubt, is an impassive countenance, exhibiting no sense of shame, or fear of detection,—a natural, or acquired brass, the perfection of which will depend, of course, upon the morale of the performer.
After this, the secret of the Medium’s power is the flexibility of her lower limbs. Her legs must do the work of arms, and her feet must be educated to act like hands. Any one who doubts this potentiality of the human frame knows nothing of its relation to the Quadrumana, or of the feats of the Indian jugglers. The Indian jugglers, as is known to the initiated, produce their most extraordinary effects by this very capacity. And therefore, we say, it is no use to contemplate coming out as a Medium unless you are provided with flexible legs and manipulative feet and toes.
The Medium so qualified must go through a course of gymnastics to enable her to move her lower limbs with pliancy, and especially to enable her so to move them without corresponding movements of the head and shoulders. She should even be able to perform the opera-dancer’s feat of holding her hand above her head, and kicking the palm with her toe, as exhibited in the vignette to the popular “Memoirs of Mademoiselle Rigolboche;” which practice will enable her when standing on one foot to raise her knee nearly as high as her shoulder, as thus:—
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Fig. 1.
