_-_Henry_Novra.png)
Fig. 8.
To get up an effective séance, the Medium should procure an assistant to engage the attention of the sitters while she manipulates.
Great care must be taken to preserve a natural manner, yet the Medium must never be off her guard, and never make a slip. She must never admit that any of the phenomena emanate from herself, but continually protest that she has no hand in the matter.
Whenever she is asked if she can do anything, she must carefully and invariably reply in the negative.
She must never give a promise that anything will positively take place, but say the phenomena are influenced by the weather, or a thousand other causes. This will assist her, should she be enabled to detect the presence of any whose penetration she fears may be too much for her. Thus, as I stated, when Robert-Houdin was summoned before the Emperor of the French to see Mr. Home, no manifestation took place.
After these preliminary remarks, let me instruct the Medium
HOW TO CONDUCT HERSELF PROPERLY IN A SÉANCE.
Get your company into conversation, endeavouring to glean from their remarks whether they are penetrative or quite the reverse; treasure up any stray piece of information that may reach you, and use it up in the course of the evening; but your principal work must be that of drawing the long bow.
You and your assistant must relate the most extraordinary narratives conceivable. Small fibs are useless. A lie obtains credence in proportion to its enormity; for, though the statements you make are difficult to believe, it is still more difficult to conceive a woman audacious enough to invent them. Accept it as an axiom, that “society,” as it is called, is highly credulous, and, as Locke says, “He who is disposed to believe is already half convinced.”
You will find plenty of weak-minded people who will help you out by relating anecdotes of their own self-deceptions which will carry additional weight from the position they hold in society, whilst nothing will be deducted for their want of penetration; a faculty which everybody believes he possesses, but to which none can attain in perfection, without a considerable amount of patience and study.
When you judge that you have worked the majority of your company into a proper state of mental perplexity, seat yourselves at a large round table (pretty nearly 4 feet diameter, with a centre column and three feet), the specific gravity of which is small in proportion to its immense leverage. Whip off the cloth; ask if there are any spirits present, and reply in the affirmative by surface rubs.
Having stated yourself to be en rapport, to all questions asked by the sitters you reply also by surface-rubs—three indicating an affirmative, one negative, and two, when your information is imperfect, or your nail or corned finger fails to bring out the sound.
Now state that the spirits will dictate the particular place each person is to occupy. Rap accordingly, placing the suspicious ones at a distance, and the sympathetic close to you, and tell them all to place their hands on the table; for this you have a double reason, first to give a mysterious aspect to the séance, and last, though not least, to keep their hands out of mischief.
During the séance you need not confine yourself to the particular knocks already described, you may give others with the sharp edge of the sole of your boot against the foot, or kicks straight up against the bottom of the table. Any mysterious noise that you can succeed in making—by creaking the leather of your boot against the wood—will pass for a rap. When your audience is pretty far gone, you may trust to chance inspirations.
By making the raps louder or fainter, they will appear to come from different parts of the room, provided you have first indicated the quarter from whence they are to be expected.
This is difficult to believe, but you or the pensive reader may be easily convinced by the following experiment: Place a glass tumbler and a shilling on the table, having another tumbler and a shilling concealed in your lap; hold the shilling between the thumb and finger, make three feints at the one in view, and three corresponding bonâ fide blows on the concealed tumbler; then ask the spectator how many times you struck the tumbler on the table; he will unhesitatingly reply three, and will refuse to believe you when you state that you did not strike it even once. This is simply a type of an infinite series of similar deceptions.
_-_Henry_Novra.png)
Fig. 9.
When you wish to answer questions with any degree of certainty, if you have not obtained private information, place an alphabet before the dupe, and tell him to point to the letters or repeat them aloud; you will easily, by acute observation, be enabled to detect a slight anxiety in tone or manner when the right letter is reached, and then rap accordingly.
Let us suppose that an individual requires the presence of his brother Charles’ spirit, the inquiry will proceed as follows: