Research source

Hands are placed on the table, and developments awaited

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 116
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

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 only

Hands are placed on the table, and developments awaited. "Do you feel the table raising?" asks the medium, after a short pause. "We do!" comes the response of the sitters. Slade then rises; all stand up, and the table is seen suspended in the air, about a foot from the floor of the stage. In a little while an uncontrollable desire seems to take possession of the table to rush about the stage. Frequently the medium requests several persons to get on the table, but that has no effect whatever. The same levitation takes place. The secret of this surprising mediumistic test is very simple. In the first place, the man who sits at the foot of the table is a confederate. Both medium and confederate wear about their waists wide leather belts, ribbed and strengthened with steel bands, and supported from the shoulders by bands of leather and steel. In the front of each belt is a steel hinge concealed by the vest of the wearer.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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