I next up-edge the small slates and place a rubber band around them placing them in the sitter’s lap.  I, of course, place what was the top of the stack downward when I do so.  As the stack is on the side edges of the slates when I first up-edge them, I next bring them upon the end edges, while I put the band in place.  It is now easy to place the stack of slates upon the sitter’s lap with the top slate down and to attract no notice to this fact.  This is because the position has been changed a time or so in placing the band on; and I then take the stack in my hands by the edges of the slates, and simply place what was the top side of the stack in the beginning, at the bottom.

In due time I tell the subject to make an examination for a message, and of course four or five slates down he finds a message on the upper surface of one of the slates.

This seems very miraculous, as the slates have been so repeatedly examined and nothing found.  Finding the message on the upper surface of a middle slate, where but a moment before there was nothing, seems to be truly a marvel.  The subject having cleaned and stacked these slates himself, and having seen them examined so many times, naturally feels impressed that the message comes by some superhuman power.

THE NAME OF THE DEAD

In the book entitled Psychics:  Facts and Theories, by Rev. Minot J. Savage, at page 15, the following account will be found: 

“Soon I began to hear raps, apparently on the floor, and then in different parts of the room.  On this, the lady remarked, simply:  ’Evidently there is some one here who wishes to communicate with you.  Let us go into the front parlor, where it will be quieter.’  This we did, the raps following us, or rather beginning again as soon as we were seated.  At her suggestion I then took pencil and paper (which I happened to have in my bag), and sat at one side of a marble-top table, while she sat at the other side in a rocker and some distance away.  Then she said:  ’As one way of getting at the matter, suppose you do this:  You know what friends you have in the spirit world.  Write now a list of names—­any names you please, real or fictitious, only among them somewhere include the names of some friends in the spirit world who, you think, might like to communicate with you, if such a thing were possible.’  I then began.  I held a paper so that she could not possibly have seen what I wrote, even though she had not been so far away.  I took special pains that no movement or facial expression should betray me.  Meantime she sat quietly rocking and talking.  As I wrote, perhaps at the eighth or tenth name, I began to write the name of a lady friend who had not been long dead.  I had hardly written the first letter before there came three loud distinct raps.  Then my hostess said, ’This friend of yours, of course, knows where she died.  Write now a list of places, including in it the place of her death, and see if she will recognize it.’  This I did, beginning with Vienna, and so on with any that occurred to me.  Again I had hardly begun to write the real name, when once more came three raps.  And so on, concerning other matters.  I speak of these only as specimens.