Published in 1908 | 450 pages | PDF reader required
PREFACE
One or two words of a prefatory nature are necessitated by the publication of a book such as this. Many persons will doubtless consider it an unnecessary attack upon spiritualism and the spiritistic creed, but I beg to assure my readers that such is by no means the case. It is because I believe that such phenomena do occasionally occur, that I am anxious to expose the fraud connected with the subject,—since it is only by so doing that we can ever hope to reach the genuine phenomena which are to be studied. "Caution" is the most important factor in the investigation of all psychic and spiritualistic phenomena, and a knowledge of the fraudulent methods employed by mediums is of prime importance to the investigator of these problems.
The investigations of the Society for Psychical Research (hereinafter referred to, in this book, as the S. P. R.) have demonstrated the fact that supernormal phenomena do occur; but whether the "physical phenomena" are to be considered as such is a question that remains still undecided. Certain it is that much fraud exists in the production of spurious "marvels" of the kind, and the chief object of this book is to expose in full the methods that are employed in fraudulently reproducing the genuine phenomena—if genuine phenomena there be.
I have quoted extensively throughout from books on sleight-of-hand,- since works of this character are not read as a rule by the public—even the interested public; and especially from a work entitled The Revelations of a Spirit Medium, which contains much valuable information, but which is now practically unobtainable, owing to the fact that a certain number of spiritualists (with a genuine love for truth!) bought up and destroyed all the copies of this book—together with the plates—so that, unless one should be fortunate enough to possess a copy, it is unlikely that the book will ever make its way into the investigator's hands, and hence the contents be lost to the reading public forever. I make this my excuse for quoting from the book at greater length than is customary in such cases.
One word as to the arrangement of this book. Because it is divided so sharply into two sections—"The Fraudulent" and "The Genuine"—I do not thereby intend to assert dogmatically that all the phenomena mentioned in the first part are fraudulent, nor that all the cases quoted in the second part are genuine. My reason for dividing the book in this manner is to make (so far as the evidence seems to warrant) a tentative division of the phenomena into two classes—without thereby committing myself to belief, for or against, in either case—which question must be settled by the actual facts, in any event. The division is merely tentative, and made with the object of simplifying and clarifying the problem, which is, at best, highly complex.
I wish to hereby acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor James H. Hyslop, to Miss Louise W. Kops, and to my publisher, Mr. Herbert B. Turner, for much valuable assistance in the preparation of this work.
H. C.
