by Joe Nickell
Billet Reading
I witnessed three versions of the old billet scam: one done across the table from me during a private reading, and two performed for church audiences. One of the latter was accomplished with the medium blindfolded.
The first situation, in which the medium works one-on-one with the client, involves getting a peek at the folded slip while the person is distracted. (Magicians call this misdirection.) For instance, while the medium directs the sitter’s attention—in my case, by pointing to some numerological scribblings—she can surreptitiously open the billet in her lap with a flick of the thumb of her other hand and quickly glimpse the contents. As expected, the alleged clairvoyant knew exactly what was penned on my slip: the names of four persons who had “passed into spirit” and two questions. She did not know that the people were fictitious.
Her “cold-reading” technique, although rapid-fire, was unimpressive. She did tell me of her feeling that my previous life may have been as a rabbi who perished in the Holocaust, but that could merely have been a clever invention stemming from the date of my birth—during World War II—which she asked for numerological purposes.
One aspect of the reading, which was held in the seance room of the medium’s cottage, was particularly amusing. At times she would turn to her right, as if acknowledging the presence of an invisible entity, and say “Yes, I will.” This was a seeming acknowledgment of some message she had supposedly received from a spirit, which she was to impart to me. I paid the medium $30 cash and considered it a bargain—though not in the way the spiritualist would no doubt have hoped!
At both of the billet readings I attended that were conducted for audiences (one in a chapel, the other in the cathedral), a volunteer stood inside the doorway and handed each attendee a slip of paper. Printed instructions at the top directed us to “Please address your billet to one or more loved ones in spirit, giving first and last names. Ask one or more questions and sign your full name.”
On the first occasion, I made a point of seeming uncertain about how to fold the paper. I was instructed that it was to be simply doubled over and creased; if it were done otherwise, I was told sternly, the medium would not read it. I did not ask why, as I was trying to appear as credulous as possible, but in fact I knew that there were two reasons. First, of course, the billets needed to be easy to open with a flick of the thumb; second, it was essential that they all look alike. The reason for the latter condition lay in the method employed: After the slips were gathered in a collection plate and dumped atop the lectern (where they could not be seen from our vantage point), the medium would pick one up and hold it to his or her forehead while divining its contents. The trick involves secretly glancing down at an open billet. A sitter who had closed his slip in a distinctive way (such as by pleating it or folding it into a triangle) might notice that the billet being shown was not the one apparently being viewed clairvoyantly.
The insistence on a particular method of paper folding is a red-flag indication of trickery. That was confirmed for me at one session at which I wrote the names of nonexistent loved ones and signed with my pseudonym. From near the back of the chapel, I acknowledged the medium’s announcement that he was “getting the Collins family.” After revealing the bogus names I had written, he gave me an endearing message, from my supposedly departed mother, that answered a question 1 had addressed to her on the billet. However, my mother was actually among the living and, of course, is not named Collins.
The other public billet reading I attended was part of a gala service held in the cathedral. The medium placed adhesive strips over her eyes and followed that with a scarf tied in blindfold fashion. This is obviously supposed to prove that the previously described method of billet reading was not being employed, but according to Keene (1976, 45), who had performed the same feat, “The secret here was the old mentalist standby: the peek down the side of the nose.” He adds: “No matter how securely the eyes are blindfolded, it’s always possible to get enough of a gap to read material held close to the body.” Unfortunately, at this reading my billet was not among those chosen, so I received no special communications from the nonexistent persons whose names I had penned.
Even more impressive billet-reading tricks are described by Keene (1976, 97-98), including the feat of reading billets sealed in envelopes, or reading one or two dramatically as the tray or basket is being carried to the medium. However, I saw none of these more sensational (but less convenient to perform) methods.
Spirit Writing
Another feat practiced by at least three mediums at Chesterfield is called spirit card writing. This trick is a descendant of the old slate effects that were common during the heyday of spiritualism, whereby (in a typical effect) alleged otherworldly writing mysteriously appeared on the inner surfaces of a pair of slates that were bound together (Nickell 2000). In the modern form (which boasts several variants), blank cards are placed in a basket along with an assortment of pens, colored pencils, and other marking implements. After a suitable invocation, each of the cards is seen typically to bear a sitter’s name, surrounded by the names of his “spirit guides” or other entities and possibly a drawing or other artwork. The sitter keeps the card as a tangible “proof of spirit power.
At Chesterfield, I attempted to sign up for a private card-writing seance one evening at the home of a prominent medium (who also advertises other feats, including “pictures on silk” ). When that session proved to be filled, I decided to try to “crash” the event and soon hit on a subterfuge. I placed the autograph of “Jim Collins” on the sign-in sheet for the following week, then showed up at the appointed time for the current seance a few hours later. I milled about with the prospective sitters, and then we were all ushered into the seance room in the medium’s bungalow.
So far so good. Unfortunately, when the medium read off the signees’ names and found that I was unaccounted for, I had some explaining to do. I insisted that I had signed the sheet and let him discover the “error” I had made. Then, suitably repentant and deeply disappointed, I implored him to allow me to stay, noting that there was more than one extra seat. Of course, if the affair were bogus, and the cards prepared in advance, I could not be permitted to participate. Not surprisingly, I was not, though I was given the lame excuse (by another medium, a young woman, who was sitting in on the session) that the medium needed to prepare for the seance by “meditating” on each sitter’s name. (I wondered which of the two types of mediums she was: one of the “shut-eyes,” simple believers who fancy that they receive psychic impressions, or one of the “open mediums,” who acknowledge their deceptions within the secret fraternity [Keene 1976, 23].) Even without my admission fee, I estimate the medium grossed approximately $450.
The next day I sought out one of the sitters, who consoled me over my not having been accepted for the seance. She showed me her card, which bore a scattering of names like “Gray Wolf in various colors of felt-pen handprinting—all appearing to me, on brief inspection, to have been done by one person. The other side of the card bore a picture (somewhat resembling a Japanese art print) that she thought had also been produced by spirits, although I do not know exactly what was claimed by the medium. I did examine the picture with the small lens on my Swiss Army knife, which revealed the telltale pattern of dots from the halftone printing process. The woman seemed momentarily discomfited when I showed her this, and indeed acknowledged that the whole thing seemed hard to believe, but she stated that she simply chose to believe. I nodded understandingly; I was not there to argue with her.
Given the evidence, I have no doubt that blank cards were switched for prepared ones, a deception that could be easily accomplished. In fact, Keene (1976,109-10) describes several variations of the trick, which he himself performed at Camp Chesterfield.
“Direct Voice”
My most memorable—and unbelievable—experience at Camp Chesterfield involved a spirit materialization seance I attended at a medium’s cottage on a Sunday morning. Such offe
rings are not scheduled in the camp’s guidebook, but rather are advertised via a sign-in book, and perhaps an accompanying poster, on the medium’s porch. As my previous experience showed, it behooved one to keep abreast of the various offerings around the village. Thus I was out early in the morning, hobbling with my cane up and down the narrow lanes. Soon a small poster caught my eye: “Healing Seance with Apports.” It being just after 6:00 A.M., and the streets silent, I quietly stepped onto the porch and signed up for the 10:00 A.M. session.
At the appointed time, seven of us had gathered, and the silver-haired medium ushered us into the seance room. She promptly secured the room against light leakage, placing a rolled-up throw rug at the bottom of the outer door and another rolled cloth to seal the top, and closing a curtain across an interior door. She collected $25 from each attendee and then, after a brief prayer, launched into the healing service. This consisted of a “pep talk” (as she termed it) followed by a brief session with each participant in which she clasped the person’s hands and supposedly imparted healing energies.
It eventually came time for the seance. A pair of tin spirit trumpets standing on the floor by the medium’s desk indicated that we might experience “direct voice,” by which spirits supposedly speak, often using such trumpets to amplify their vocalizations. The medium began by turning off the lamps and informing us that “dark is light.” Soon, in the utter blackness, the voices came, seeming to be speaking in turn through one of the trumpets. Keene (1976, 104-8) details various means of producing “levitating” trumpets, complete with luminescent bands around them “so that the sitters could see them whirling around the room, hovering in space, or sometimes swinging back and forth in rhythm with a hymn.” This time, however, we were left to our imaginations. Mine suggested to me that the medium was not even bothering to use the large trumpet, which might prove tiresome, but may have been utilizing a small tin megaphone—another trick described by Keene.
Some mediums were better at pretending direct voice than others. Sometimes, according to one critic, “[a]ll the spirit voices sounded exactly like the medium” (Keene 1976, 122). Such was the case at my seance. The first voice sounded just like the medium using exaggerated enunciation to simulate an “Ascended Master” (who urged the rejection of negativity); another sounded just like the medium adopting the craggy voice of “Black Elk” (with a message about having respect for the Earth); still another sounded just like the medium using a perky little-girl voice to conjure up “Miss Poppy” (supposedly one of the medium’s “joy guides” ).
At the end of the seance, after the lights were turned back on, one of the trumpets was lying on its side on the floor, as if dropped there by the spirits—or, as I thought, simply tipped over by the medium. Finally, we were invited up to get our “apports.”
Apports
Supposedly materialized or teleported gifts from the spirits, apports appear at some seances under varying conditions—sometimes tumbling out of a spirit trumpet, for example. Keene (1976, 108) says those at Camp Chesterfield were typically “worthless trinkets” such as brooches or rings often “bought cheap in bulk.” One medium specialized in “spirit jewels” (colored glass), whereas another apported arrowheads; special customers might receive something “more impressive.” Camp Chesterfield instructed its apport mediums to “please ask your guides to bring articles of equal worth to each sitter and not to bring only one of such articles as are usually in pairs (earrings or cufflinks, for instance)” (“The Medium’s Handbook,” quoted in Keene 1976, 63).
At our seance, the apports were specimens of hematite, which (like many other stones) has a long tradition of being considered to have healing and other powers (Kunz 1913, 6, 80-81). The shiny, steel-gray mineral had obviously been tumbled (mechanically polished), as indicated by surface characteristics shown by stereomicroscopic examination, and was indistinguishable from specimens purchased in shops that sell such New Age talismans.1
The medium handed each of us one of the seven stones, after picking it up with a tissue and noting with delight our reactions at discovering that they were icy cold! This was a nice touch, I thought, imparting an element of unusualness as if somehow consistent with the stones’ having been materialized from the Great Beyond—although they were probably only kept by the medium in her freezer until just before the seance, when they were likely transferred to a thermos jar. We were told that each apport was attuned to that sitter’s own energy “vibrations” and that no one else should ever be permitted to touch it. If someone did, we were warned, it would become “only a stone.”
I left Camp Chesterfield on the morning of my fifth day there, after first taking photographs around the village. As I reflected on my experiences, things seemed to have changed little from the time Keene wrote about in The Psychic Mafia. Indeed, the deceptions practiced during my stay there harkened back to the days of Houdini and beyond—actually, all the way back to 1848, when the Fox sisters launched the spiritualist craze with their schoolgirl tricks.
NOTE
1. I identified the “apport” as hematite (Fe2O3) by its steel-gray luster, Mohs’-scale hardness, dark-red streak-plate color, and other properties, including demonstrated iron composition. (This was shown by acid digestion of the streak trace followed by application of potassium ferrocyanide reagent, which yielded the prussian-blue color reaction that indicates the presence of iron.) Stereomicroscopic observation showed surface characteristics comparable to known specimens of tumbled hematite, including pitting and fine striations.
REFERENCES
Chesterfield Lives. 1986.Chesterfield, Indiana: Camp Chesterfield.
Christopher, Milbourne. 1970. ESP, Seers & Psychics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
Hyde, Julia. 1896. Letter to a Mrs. Peck, written at Lily Dale, 25 April. [Typescript text in file on the Hyde house, Genesee Country Village, Mumford, N.Y.]
Keene, M. Lamar. [1976] 1997. The Psychic Mafia. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Kunz, George Frederick. [1913] 1971. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones. New York: Dover.
Lajudice, Joyce, and Paula M. Vogt. 1984. N.p. [Lily Dale, N.Y.]: n.p. [Lily Dale Assembly].
Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1988. Secrets of the Supernatural. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
———— . 1995. Entities. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
———— . 2000. Spirit painting, part II. Skeptical Briefs 10, no. 2 (June): 9-11.
———— . 2001. Adventures of a paranormal investigator. In Skeptical Odysseys, edited by Paul Kurtz,219-232. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
6
Alien Hybrid?
In a cabinet in a small natural-history museum in Waldenburg, Saxony, is a strange curio (FIGURE 6-1) that one writer has termed “Germany’s greatest mystery” (Hausdorf 2000). It is the fetus of—well, that is the question: What is it? Could it be, as some ufologists insist, an alien hybrid?
Known locally from its strange appearance as the “chicken man,” the fetus can be traced to the year 1735, when it was stillborn in the Saxonian village of Taucha. It was to have been the fourth child of Johanna Sophia Schmiedt, who was in the eighth month of her pregnancy. She was 28, and her husband Andreas, “a hunchback,” was 10 years her senior. Two years later, in 1737, Leipzig physician Gottlieb Friderici autopsied the preserved fetus and published a report, illustrated with two copperplate engravings and titled “Monstrum Humanum Rarissimum” (“Most Rare Human Monster”) (Muller 1999; Mon-strum 1994; Ausserirdisches 2002).
FIGURE 6-1. Alleged “alien hybrid” in Saxony.
Dr. Friderici concluded that the term “monster” was appropriate because of the fetus’s divergence from normal human anatomy. According to one treatise on monsters, “From the earliest period of the world’s history abnormal creatures or monstrosities, both human and animal, have existed from time to time and excited the wonder of mankind.” The births of monsters were explained in superstitious, often supernatural, terms. They have been though
t to presage calamities and disasters, or to be evidence of divine wrath. Some believed them to be the result of mating with animals (Thompson 1968, 17-24).
A widespread popular notion was that (like birthmarks and other defects) monsters were caused by something the mother saw or touched during her pregnancy (DeLys 1989, 219-20). In fact, in the case at hand, Mrs. Schmiedt’s patient history recorded her own apparent explanation: she previously had had a very frightening encounter with a marten (an animal related to the weasel).
In mentioning this, one writer suggests that the recollected marten was only a “cover memory” for an extraterrestrial encounter, and claims that the deformed fetus was an alien/human hybrid. Supposedly it resembles the small “grays” (Ausserirdisches 2002), but the comparison is poor. For example, although the allegedly humanoid gray is portrayed with a large head, it lacks the bizarre bulbous growth of this fetus. Also, whereas the grays supposedly have a “distinguishing characteristic [of] black, wraparound eyes” (Huyghe 1996, 13-16), the Waldenburg fetus instead possesses “very round eye sockets” (Ausserirdisches 2002 [emphasis added]).