gainst his palate, and
the Mayor promptly stood on his head in the middle of the floor.

A somewhat similar experiment was concerned with a magazine editor and a
life-size mannikin made up to resemble a muckraker. The editor and the
lay figure sat facing in opposite directions at a distance of about ten
feet. The editor, who acted as medium, was holding the telephone
receiver with one hand and signing checks with the other, so that there
could be no question of manual manipulation on his part. Neither could
his feet come into play, because they were in full view on his desk. The
telepathy hypothesis was eliminated because, in the first place, the
mannikin had no mind, of course, and in the second place, the editor
changed his own mind so fast that no external mind could possibly keep
up with it. The results were gratifying. The editor took a slip of paper
and wrote a few words upon it. Immediately the stuffed figure began to
shout, "Murder! Fire! Thieves! Help! Murder! Fire! Thieves! Help!
Murder!" at intervals of two seconds. The editor wrote something on
another slip of paper, and the mechanical figure went through a most
complex series of movements. First it seized a pair of paint brushes and
began to paint all the white objects in the room black and all the black
objects white. Then it went through the motions of playing, for a few
minutes, upon a typewriter. Then it seized a pair of shears and set to
work clipping solid pages from books and magazines. Then it copied a
long column of figures from an almanac and added them up wrong. Then it
drew a memory sketch of an English statesman, and put the wrong name
under it. The editor assured the Committee that he could continue the
process for hours at will.

An excellent seance was one in which the medium was a man very near the
top in American finance. The rest of the group forming the circle around
the table were plain American citizens of the type described in the
first experiment. The medium was securely roped in his chair with
anti-Trust laws, anti-rebating laws, insurance laws, banking laws,
franchise laws, etc. Yet no sooner were the lights turned down than the
phenomena began. John Smith, on the right of the medium, suddenly felt a
sharp blow on the neck. As he turned around instinctively a ghostly
hand snatched away his pocket-book and the sound of mocking laughter
could be plainly heard from the dark cabinet. Another weird hand pulled
Thomas Jones's insurance