I’ve used a pendulum for many years and I have used a ouija board. Alone, I trust these tools, but if you add another person to that mix and all trust flies out the window.
Here is the account of two professors who were totally fooled by one psychic’s show in 1913.
Things Not Of This Earth!
A few years ago Prof. Dalbeare, professor of psychics at Tufts College, and myself, had a most marvelous “sitting” with the woman psychic who I had seen perform such wonders in Los Angeles. This seance was held in Prof. Dalbeare’s own library. No one but ourselves, Mrs. Dalbeare and the psychic were present. Conditions were absolutely of our own making except that the room was dark.
The psychic, confined in her chair by the silk threads, the ends of which were held by Dalbeare and myself — fell into a death-like trance and while in this condition and while absolutely motionless and silent, a large tin cone, which stood upon the table, was knocked about! Books were thrown from the shelves behind the psychic!
Large hands appeared between me and the light! And then, at last, a voice came from a trumpet which floated around the table!
For TWO SOLID HOURS this voice, which claimed that it had belonged to a confederate soldier, a native of Missouri, kept us laughing by the quaint and ready humor of his replies.
Prof. Dalbeare was profoundly puzzled as well as amused by the events. Pillows were patted and tossed around; books hurled through the air; my chair was tapped at a distance of six feet from the psychic and the cone moved with unerring precision to whatever point in the room we indicated!
The table was shaken as if by a strong man — and yet the silk threads remained undisturbed and no slightest sound indicated a movement on the part of the psychic!
Other “spirits” whispered through the cone and some gave names which the Balbeares recognized; one came to me, but I paid little attention to that part of the performance.
When the lights were turned on the psychic was disclosed lying as if dead. Her arms were badly swollen and the threads were deeply sunk into her wrists. Her pulse was very irregular and SO FAINT we could scarcely detect its beat, but a half hour’s brisk rubbing and a cup of coffee brought her back to normal activity.
She said she knew mother of what had happened.
After Mrs. Dalbeare and the psychic had left the room I said, “Well, professor, what do you make of that?”
He gazed at me with remote and puzzled glance.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” he answered in a hesitating voice.
Many years afterward I asked him the same question and he gave the same answer.
Source: The Day Book. Newspaper. September 27, 1913.
