His explanations made the seeming marvel perfectly plain
- Date of account
- Published 1897
- Source
- Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy
- Reference
- Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy · selected passage 35
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
His explanations made the seeming marvel perfectly plain
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyHis explanations made the seeming marvel perfectly plain. While the slate is being examined in the first test, the medium slips on a thimble with a piece of slate pencil attached or else has a tiny bit of pencil under his finger nail. In the act of holding the slate under the table, he writes the short message backwards on its under side. It becomes necessary, however, to turn the slate over before exhibiting it to the sitter, so that the writing may appear to have been written on its upper surface--the side that has been pressed to the table. To accomplish this the medium pretends to go into a sort of neurotic convulsion, during which state the slate is jerked away from the sitter, presumably by spirit power, and is turned over in the required position.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice uses this as an alternative-explanation source, not as an automatic dismissal of testimony. Claims still need to be compared with the actual evidence and current knowledge.
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