Long John Nebel

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by Way Out World


  As a matter of fact, I have had a number of seances on radio, and on one of them Jack London, famous stage pickpocket and magician, demonstrated several of the simpler psychic tricks. During this program he exposed one of the most common gaffs used by phony spiritualists. It’s called the “one ahead.” In this operation, the good and psychic reverend gets up on the platform and, after giving his opening pitch, he calls for written questions from the marks. These are scribbled on cards or small sheets of paper, put into envelopes, given to the reader’s assistant, and brought up to the platform. Any of several devices are used to reveal to the “psychic” one of the questions. Sometimes the assistant has gotten one open and left it face up in the basket for the operator to see. On other occasions the “reverend” holds the first message up to his forehead and meditates deeply. Finally, after much concentration, he announces that “the contents of this message are of a personal—I might even say sexual—nature, and therefore cannot be answered tastefully in the presence of a mixed audience.”

  He then begins to toss the message into the discard pile, when he stops for a moment, saying: “I will check the contents, just to make certain the messages are coming through clearly today.” He opens the envelope and reads the question. “Just as I saw it, friends, this could not possibly have been answered with these dear ladies present.”

  Now, for the next one. Here, the spiritual pitchman picks up the next envelope and holds it to his head. Concentrating, he begins to get the word. “This poor soul asks for her long-lost brother, who left home twenty-three years ago…” And so he goes on, answering one after another of the gullibles questions. Of course, neighbors, the real truth about the whole pitch is that there never was any first indelicate message. The opening bit was a complete fake. What the con man was actually doing was setting himself for all the questions to follow. When he concentrated on, and answered the message in the “second” sealed envelope, he was really answering the contents of the first one. The one he had opened to check that it was not fit for a mixed group. But, since it never occurred to the suckers that the good reverend was a fraud, they never noticed how simple a deception it would be.

  Another example of a skilful debunker at work was the television show I did with the greatest living escapologist, successor to Houdini, and master magician as my guest: an amazing gentleman named “The Amazing Randi.” On this occasion, Randi really had my other guests and the studio audience flipping. After explaining some of the less complicated techniques of the fast buck spirit contacting promoters, he actually performed several of the mystical bits. Except they weren’t so mysterious when he got through.

  Selecting a bright young lady from the audience, “The Amazing Randi” requested that she sit opposite him at a bridge table in the center of the stage. He then handed her two children’s slates, asking her to give them a careful examination. This she did, holding up both sides of both slates so that the television audience could see that all four faces were completely clean. Randi then had the subject place one of the slates on the table and he handed her a small piece of white chalk.

  “If you would just place this little piece of chalk on the slate you have there on the table. Thank you. Now, would you please place the other blank slate exactly over the first one, so that the chalk is firmly caught between the two slates.”

  Listening carefully, the young lady did as Randi requested.

  “I will ask you to hold the slates together firmly,” he continued, “and take this roll of masking tape. Wrap a full strip of the tape around from one side to another until it meets itself. Now turn the slates in the other direction and do the same thing. Would you show the television audience.”

  The slates were held up by the girl so that the “plus” strips of tape were seen on both sides of the slates, which were now sealed face to face at four separate points. Randi then explained that he wished her to hold the slates on her lap and concentrate on them as hard as she could. Then, when he said the one word “Now,” she would pass them under the table to him, and he would immediately pass them on across the table to her.

  All of this happened according to schedule, and a couple of moments later she was holding the slates again.

  “Open them, please,” he requested, “and tell us if there have been any changes.”

  The guest pulled off the tape in one direction, and then she removed the tape that ran in the other direction, and she pulled the slates apart. With a surprised gasp of breath and a laugh, she held the inside surfaces of the slates up to the cameras.

  “NDH 25d,” read one, and “VITAMINS,” read the other.

  I immediately asked the young lady if the “messages” had any personal meaning to her, and she admitted that they did. She then gave the following explanation.

  “N D H are the initials of a psychic I go to, and the 25d must stand for the fact that she charges twenty-five dollars for a ‘life reading.’ The word VITAMINS must refer to the fact that my husband opened up a vitamin department in his store this morning.”

  Well, let’s face it, friends, you have to admit that that is a pretty good psychic phenomenon. The gal volunteered, along with several others, from the audience, and Randi comes up with writing on absolutely blank slates and a completely personal message. Naturally, when I explain the gimmick to you it will just be “a pretty obvious trick,” but people pay millions of dollars a year because no one ever explained that pretty obvious trick to them and they weren’t shrewd enough to figure it out for themselves.

  The actual bit went something like this. The card table was in the center of the stage from left to right, but it was very near the rear curtain. When the girl handed the slates, taped together, under the table to Randi, an assistant instantly substituted an entirely different set of taped slates, which were identical in appearance. The first set was taken from the girl by the assistant and the second set was handed to Randi at the very same moment—all under the table. Neither the young lady, nor the TV audience, nor the studio crew saw-anything. Of course, the substituted set had the message all prepared on them, and were ready to be read when opened up.

  As for the accuracy of the personal message, the assistant had been planted out in the audience before the program and had overheard the information as the guest conversed with a friend. You’re right—just another “pretty obvious trick.” But they’re all that kind when some one writes them out.

  Seances, where mediums do most of their work, vary enormously from place to place, medium to medium, and time to time. However, the same large catalogue of effects is employed by the vast majority of wonder workers. The floating trumpet, the moving luminescent cross, the voice, or the two voices overlapping; or objects suddenly appearing on a table, or things flying through the air, or ectoplasmic manifestations of unknown personalities, or direct contact with relatives and friends who have “passed on.” All of these are in a catalogue of gaffs available to the professional medium. Of course, some spiritualism workers specialize in particular powers.

  Another extremely popular form of spirit phenomenon is the “rap.” The rap is heard at almost all seances. Supposedly indicating replies from those who have “passed over,” they come once for “yes,” twice for “no,” and three times for “maybe.” Now, since the medium’s hands are secured by persons on either side of her or him, in a properly-produced séance, the raps obviously have to come from spirit sources. That is, unless the Electric Spirit Rapper device has been purchased from the previously-mentioned supply house for twenty-five dollars. A non-mechanical version, which is really only for amateurs, is available for three or four dollars.

  As the years have gone by, the mediums’ clients have become more sophisticated, and therefore more demanding. By sophisticated I don’t mean less gullible, but merely that they’re no longer satisfied with the simpler effects such as “rappings.” Today taps in the darkness are only good as introductory bits. Wilder and more powerful gaffs are the order of the modern séance. The slate effect desc
ribed earlier is often employed in the second stage of a session, but to keep the customer really going you have to come up with a strong “levitation.” If you’re making an all-the-way hard sell, then you’ll have to produce “spirit voices,” which drift in through the floating trumpet, or, always the absolute topper, you do an ectoplasmic manifestation—you give the mark a “genuine physical spirit.”

  The trumpet from which come most of the “voices” heard in the séance room is usually a silver metal cone ranging from twelve to thirty-six inches in length. This gimmick, which rises and floats about the room, is available for a reasonable price; but if you want to create a really good effect the trumpet must “speak,” must “talk,” and this is somewhat more expensive. The most powerful of all, of course, is ectoplasm. This is where the “spirit” actually comes to life before the very eyes of the amazed marks. Such effects vary enormously. For less than twenty skins you can get a fairly good ghost. Naturally, if you want to spring for the deluxe, skeleton-type ghost, this may run you up to two yards a clatter. But take my word for it, the effect is the wildest.

  If you’re beginning to wonder just where you have to go to find these strange people and their offbeat operations, I can tell you that you won’t have to go far. There are more cons of this type than you can count, and most of them are getting plenty of action. The smallest town has at least one such pitch, the large city has thousands. Often, the front for the setup is a straight religious, philosophic or mystical bit. For instance, many of the leading major cities’ newspapers carry notices of such services on Sundays, and often on weekday evenings. It might be the Exhultant Temple of the Seventh Spirit, or the Divine Church for Universal Enlightenment through Spiritualistic Insight; but whatever they call themselves, they’re there.

  For many years, there have been about a hundred so-called camps where mediums congregate in what might be roughly compared to summer resorts or schools, or a combination of both, with a little of the carnival thrown in. Here, sometimes housed in one large structure, or often operating from independent cottages, you’ll find the specialists who offer all forms of psychic phenomena. If your desire is a specialist in voice contact, you’ll find him. If you dig the spirit writing bit, you’ll find that. If you want prophecy, you just consult the camp directory. If you simply want to know that all’s well in the other world, well, they’ll all tell you that. Three of the largest such camps, although there are many others, are Camp Chesterfield, the spiritualist camp in Chesterfield, Indiana; Lilydale, and Silverbell.

  Camp Chesterfield has long been one of the most popular operations, calling itself the hub of the spirit world. It’s featured many leading mediums, and people from all over the country have come to consult them. Then, suddenly, the explosion came—one of the most interesting and spirit-world shaking things to happen in the medium camps for many, many years. This was the great exposé by Tom O’Neil, editor of the Psychic Observer. Tom O’Neil for years has been a major figure in the mediumistic field, an investigator of considerable reputation and a publisher of one of the leading papers on the subject. On this particular occasion, he had gone to visit Chesterfield with the intention of doing a story on the remarkable powers of some of their very well-known mediums. However, it was going to be more than merely a written report, for he had received permission from the Chesterfieldian authorities to take motion pictures, filmed with infra-red lighting, during a séance.

  Apparently the powers that be at this particular spiritualist camp knew very little about photography, because when the films were developed and run off, to Mr. O’Neil’s amazement, where he thought he’d seen authentic spiritualistic manifestations of contact with life beyond, what he actually saw were figures—all too human—fluttering in and out from behind drifting curtains, and much hanky-panky going on by associates of the medium, while the medium, sitting in the blackened room, was supposedly helplessly inactive—except, of course, for his great spiritual powers.

  To say that Mr. O’Neil was shocked at his unintentional revelation would be an understatement. He had spent much of his adult life conducting serious investigations, presenting to the public his conviction that there was no doubt as to the authenticity of some of the phenomena he witnessed. And now one of the major camps in the entire country proved to be harboring mediums, so-called, who were nothing more than out-and-out frauds, charlatans deceiving the hopeless, the unhappy-hearted, the poor in spirit, the pathetic.

  Had he been the sole exposer, it’s possible that the more fervent believers might have had some doubt as to the genuineness of the incident. However, apart from his personal integrity, he was accompanied in his investigations by the noted psychic researcher, Dr. Andrija Puharich. This well-known gentleman in the field of parapsychological investigation supported Tom O’Neil’s position to the letter, and wrote lengthily on the “frauds, fakes and phantasies of the Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp”!

  It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has examined the “stills” clipped from the movie film taken at the Chesterfield séance that there’s a striking, even an identifiable, resemblance between the “spirits” and several of the resident mediums at the camp. Only a fool or a blind man in a dark room could fail to recognize the fact that the entire session was totally gaffed.

  After the news and photos of the expose were published far and wide, particularly in the “exclusive” carried by the mediums’ monthly mag, O’Neil’s own Psychic Observer, the great controversy got under way. On one side were the supporters of Tom O’Neil and Dr. Puharich; on the other the exposed mediums and their die-hardest friends who even accused the exposers of faking the exposé. (Remember the same charges were made against Houdini.) It was often obvious that the decision as to which side to go on depended on who the medium or psychic thought would come out on top. All in all, however, there isn’t much doubt that for the moment the high cards were being held by the two investigators. Yet, in spite of the dark cloud that hung over the now unhappy mediums, regardless of the obvious fakery, the suspicion and the doubt cast over the entire spiritual field, the expose actually did very little to discourage the tens of thousands of wonder-wishers who flock into the perfumed parlors to get messages from Aunt Minnie, or Uncle George, or Abraham Lincoln, or just to hear the pinched-faced pseudo-parson speak his chair and call it “contact with the great beyond.”

  Of course, regardless of the fact that I just don’t buy any of the kooky offbeat bits, particularly mediumship, occasionally something happens and I have no explanation for it. An example of such an extraordinary instance featured an interview I had with a singularly curious man named William Daut. This particularly “doubtful psychic experience” happened in the following way.

  William Daut, medium and spiritualist, was invited to appear on my radio program one evening. He arrived punctually just prior to midnight, and we began the show. For several hours, the panelists and I questioned him about spiritualism, spirit reading, spirit writing, and allied subjects. His answers were direct and prompt to every question—which, I must admit, immediately moved him up in my book. I’ve had many, many people request an appearance on the show, only to find them extremely evasive after they arrived.

  It had been an unusually interesting program, and around four o’clock in the morning one of my boys asked if he had ever turned his mediumship to extra-sensory perception. Daut answered “Yes.” I interrupted to ask, without much feeling of confidence, “Would you like to demonstrate your ability?” To my surprise, Daut said, “Why, yes. Why not?”

  Now, the reason I was surprised was that on past occasions, mediums and so-called mediums (and I’m not certain there’s any difference) had always come up with one excuse or another to show why it was impossible for them to demonstrate their great powers. Powers which, of course, they demonstrated at the drop of a dollar bill anywhere else.

  The color of the studio was not right for the proper mood.

  “There are too many sceptics present.”

  “I just had
my dinner before coming here, and it’s difficult to practice on a full stomach.”

  “E.S.P. is not something you can use any old time.”

  But William Daut unhesitatingly accepted the idea that an experiment was perfectly in order.

  “I usually need a period in which to concentrate my thoughts, entirely without sound and without interruption. If I might have thirty seconds or so to achieve this, I should be glad to try to produce some results,” Daut said.

  I got a wave from my engineer, who called me on our intercom.

  “Ask him to read off the number on my Social Security card.”

  I thought this was a very good test, although a rather tough one.

 

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