omposite Photography'
it is worse than childish to claim a Spiritual source for results which
can be obtained at any time by any tyro in the art. Mr. Keeler's letter
will be found in the Appendix.
We were more successful in procuring a seance with Mr. Keeler's brother,
whose Mediumship manifests itself by the materialization of a right hand
behind a low screen, in front of which the Medium sits, with his face
alone visible, his entire person being concealed by black muslin. The
screen is stretched across a corner of a room to about the height of the
back of the Medium's head, as he sits in front of it. The lights are
lowered, and in a few minutes various instruments, musical and
otherwise, which had been previously placed on a small table in the
corner enclosed by the screen, are heard to sound, a drum is beaten, a
guitar is played, etc. The music is interspersed with flashes of hand
darting and waving above the screen to the right of the Medium. The
hand, when shaken, was found to be a right one. As a proof that the hand
is Spiritual and not that of the Medium, the latter requests one of the
visitors at the seance to sit beside him on his right, and also to be
covered to the chin with the same black muslin under which all the
Medium, except his head, is concealed. This visitor's bare left forearm
is grasped by the Medium, as he says, with both his hands, and this
pressure of the Medium's two hands on the visitor's arm is never
relaxed, as the visitor readily testifies. The proof seems, therefore,
conclusive that the hand which plays the instruments behind the screen
is not the Medium's, and hence must be a materialized Spirit. The trick
is simple and highly deceptive, as any one can prove for himself by
requesting a blindfolded friend to bare the left arm to the elbow, then
let the experimenter grasp this bared arm, near the wrist, with the
third and fourth fingers of his left hand, closing them around it
tightly, and as he does so, asking the owner of the arm to note that
this is his left hand, then let the experimenter, without relaxing this
hold, stretch the remaining fingers and thumb up the arm as far as he
can, and while clasping it with his thumb and forefinger, remark that
this second pressure comes from his other hand. The conviction is
complete in the mind of the blindfolded friend that he feels the grasp
of two hands, whereas only the left hand of the experimenter has grasped
his arm, and the right hand is
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