Chief there cant come any answer the magnetic current is broken for want of power we go now but will come in your own wigwam

HOWONDO

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At the following seances I received slate writings repeatedly.  Sometimes the slate would scarcely be in the Medium’s hands before a message appeared, each time with the little pencil on top.  I was told that I was an excellent Medium, that, if I cultivated the faculty, would soon myself be able to obtain these slate writings.  I was also asked to prepare a slate secured in any way I wished, and had the promise that a message would be written within it.  I acceded to the request and took a slate of my own, tied it up in every direction with twine, and put my private seal upon it in several places where I had knotted the string.  This slate the Spirits could not overcome.  I never received the promised message.  I never even had the slate returned to me.  After remaining in the Medium’s possession for several months, she having changed her residence in the meantime, she told me the slate had disappeared and somehow must have gotten lost in moving.  At any rate the slate had been spirited away somehow.  I will here mention that at about the third or fourth sitting I asked permission to watch the slate while it was under the table, which was freely granted, but on this occasion, and whenever I did so, there were no results.

On one occasion we took the trouble to bring Mrs. Patterson to a room in the house of our departed friend.  She was here among a small circle of intimate friends and members of the family, some inclined to belief and others skeptics.  She failed utterly to obtain as much as even a scratch inside of the slates, although communications on paper came thick and fast.  I may mention that on this occasion several persons sat with the slate continually in full view.

I had almost decided to drop Mrs. Patterson and her slate writing, although reluctant to do so, because I had no certain and positive evidence of fraud with which to confront my friend, who was getting impatient at my slowness in accepting all I had seen, when I resolved to push my investigations to a point of certainty, one way or another, and hit upon the little scheme of going prepared, at my next visit to Mrs. Patterson, with a mirror in my pocket which I could hold under the table at an angle that would reflect whatever occurred on the other side of the table, in the Medium’s lap, the accustomed position of the mysterious slate.  The sitting was held in broad daylight, and the table was so placed that the Medium was seated with her back to a window, affording sufficient light for the experiment.  I purposely avoided removing my overcoat on this day, because I wished to hide my movements as much as possible, and sat down at my side of the table with considerable misgiving as to the result of taking liberties with