Research source

I quote by permission from a letter written me by Mr. Davis under date of June 22, 1923

Date of account: Published 1924
Source: A Magician Among the Spirits
Reference: A Magician Among the Spirits · selected passage 84
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

When the time for the “seance” arrived, Barney, Kellar’s clever young assistant, was seated on a platform in the room underneath the trap with the assortment of slates by his side

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

When the time for the “seance” arrived, Barney, Kellar’s clever young assistant, was seated on a platform in the room underneath the trap with the assortment of slates by his side. As soon as the Commission was seated around the table he opened the trap and could then hear all that was said in the room above. When the exhibition commenced he simply took the slate Kellar put under the table leaf, selected one from his assortment to match it, wrote on it the answer, and then slipped it under Kellar’s fingers. In the case of a marked slate he used that instead of a duplicate. Of course it was perfectly easy for Kellar to do his part without removing his thumb from the top of the table.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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