Behind the Scenes with the Mediums

Abbott exposes the séance tricks of fraudulent mediums: slate writing, billet reading and spirit messages. A goldmine for mentalists.

What’s inside

1. Half hours with mediums — sealed letter reading, billet and slate tests, dark séances, materialization
2. Mediumistic reading of sealed writings — preparing and reading the writings, a spirit message
3. Spirit slate-writing and billet tests — messages on stacked, cleaned and sitters’ own slates; tests by Chicago mediums
4. Some modern sorcery — a full programme of tests, adapted for a double parlour
5. Some unusual mediumistic phenomena — strange and unusual tests
6. Materialization: additional information
7. Relation of mediumship to palmistry, astrology and fortune-telling
8. Performances of the Annie Eva Fay type — questions answered by a blindfolded lady on the stage
9. Vest-turning
10. An improved billet test — reading billets for an assembled company
11. Correspondence with inquirers through “The Open Court” — mediumistic séances, a puzzling case, spirit portraiture
12. Addenda — another billet test; the swinging pendulums again

David P. Abbott, 1907 · The Open Court Publishing Company. Complete 356-page PDF. Free to download: check out at $0 and the file arrives by email and on your order page.

This classic is in the public domain. Scans come from library copies, so expect the odd stain or stamp of an old book.