tion of my almost unrivaled Mediumistic
powers, and in his confidence that indications of Spiritual growth would
be manifest in three or four weeks, and at the end of six weeks or of
two months I might celebrate my Spiritual majority by slatefuls of
messages; and, secondly, Mr. Hazard assured me again and again that
Caffray was the 'greatest Medium in the country;' and did not Mr.
Hazard, by way of proof, show me a stoppered vial containing a card, on
which, through Caffray's Mediumship, a message had been written while
the closed vial was fast held in his closed hand?

The first step was the purchase of two slates from Caffray, for which I
gave him several dollars. They were common enough to look at, but ah!
they had been for months in his Materializing Cabinet and had absorbed
Spiritual power to the point of saturation, and fairly exuded it. I
brought them carefully from New York, and folded them in black muslin,
and laid them away in a dark drawer.

Caffray told me that with a beginner the Spirits found it somewhat
easier to write with French chalk than with slate pencil. So I bought a
box of a dozen pieces, such as tailors use.

The instructions which I received from Caffray were to keep these slates
carefully in the dark, and every evening at about the same hour to sit
in total darkness, with my hands resting on them for about a half or
three-quarters of an hour; to maintain a calm, equable, passive state of
mind, even to think of any indifferent subject rather than to
concentrate my thoughts too intently on the slate-writing. There could
be no question of the result. A Medium of my unusual and excessive power
would find, at the end of three weeks, faint zig-zag scratches within
the closed slates, and these scratches would gradually assume shape,
until at last messages would be legible, probably at the end of six
weeks, or of three months at the very farthest.

In addition to this, I must wear, night and day, a piece of magnetized
paper, about six inches square, a fresh piece every night and morning;
its magnetism was exhausted in about twelve hours. When I mentioned to
Mr. Hazard the proposed use of this magnetized paper, he assured me that
it was a capital idea--that he had himself used it for a headache, and
when he put it on the top of his head 'it turned all his hair backward.'
I confess to dismay when I heard this; Caffray had told me that I must
wear this paper on the top of my head under my hat! But did