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Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena

9781465643407
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
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Overview
There has probably been nothing that has made more converts to spiritualism than the much talked of “Slate Writing Test,” and if we are to believe some of the stories told of the writings mysteriously obtained on slates, under what is known as “severe test conditions,” that preclude, beyond any possible doubt, any form of deception or trickery, one would think that the day of miracles had certainly returned; but we must not believe half we hear nor all that we see, for the chances are that just as you are about to attribute some unaccountable spirit phenomena to an unseen power, something turns up to show that you have been tricked by a clever device which is absurd in its simplicity. There are a large number of methods of producing slate writing, but the writer will describe a few which will be sufficient to give an idea of the working of slate tests in general. First we have the ordinary one in which the writing is placed on the slate beforehand, and then hidden from view by a flap or loose piece of slate. (Fig. 1.) After both sides of the slate have been cleaned, the false flap is dropped on the table, the side which is then uppermost being covered with cloth similar to the table top, where it will remain unnoticed, or the flap is allowed to fall into a second slate with which the first is covered. In the latter case no cloth is pasted on the flap. Sometimes the flap is covered with a piece of newspaper and is allowed to drop into a newspaper lying on the table, then the newspaper containing the flap is carelessly removed, thus doing away with any trace of trickery.

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