There are sword swallowers and fire eaters, fire breathers, fire walkers; basket tricksters, table tilters, handcuff escapers. There is no knowing what development could do with these wild talents: but Help Wanted if for—
Reasonable and confidential accntnts; comptometer oprs., fire re-ins., exp., Christian; sec'ys, credit exp., advance, Chris.; P & S expr.; fast sandwich men; reception men, 35-45, good educ., ap. tall, Chris.—
But I do think that one hundred years ago an advertisement for a fast sandwich man would have looked as strange as today would look an advertisement for "polt. grls."
Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement— that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic.
When the magician and I were first acquainted, he gave no sign of occult abilities. He was one of the friendliest of fellows, but that was not likely to endear him to anybody, because he was about equally effusive to everybody. He had frenzies. Once he tore down the landlord's curtains. He bit holes into a book of mine, and chewed the landlord's slippers.
The landlord got rid of him. This was in London. The landlord took him about ten miles away, and left him, probably leaping upon somebody, writhing joy for anybody who would notice him. He was young.
It was about two weeks later. Looking out a front window, I saw the magician coming along, on the other side of the street. He was sniffing his way along, but went right on past our house, without recognizing it. He came to a point where he stopped and smelled. He smelled and he smelled. He crossed the street, and came back, and lay down in front of the house. The landlord took him in, and gave him a bone.
But I cannot accept that the magician smelled his way home, or picked up a trail, taking about two weeks on his way. The smelling played a part, and was useful in a final recognition: but smelling indiscriminately, he could have nosed his way, for years, through the streets of London, before coming to the right scent.
New York Sun, April 24, 1931— an account, by Adolph Pizaldt, of Allentown, Pa., of a large, mongrel magician, who had been taken in a baggage car, a distance of 340 miles, and had found his way back home, in a week or so. New York Herald Tribune, July 4, 1931— a curly magician, who, in Canada, had found his way back home, over a distance of 400 miles.
New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 13, 1931— The Man They Could Not Drown—
"Hartford, Conn., Aug. 12— Angelo Faticoni, known as 'The Human Cork,' because he could stay afloat in water for fifteen hours with twenty pounds of lead tied to his ankles, died on August 2 in Jacksonville, Fla., it became known here today. He was seventy-two years old.
"Faticoni could sleep in water, roll up into a ball, lie on his side, or assume any position asked of him. Once he was sewn into a bag and then thrown head-foremost into the water, with a twenty-pound cannonball lashed to his legs. His head reappeared on the surface soon afterward, and he remained motionless in that position for eight hours. Another time he swam across the Hudson tied to a chair weighted with lead.
"Some years ago he went to Harvard to perform for the students and faculty. He had been examined by medical authorities who failed to find support for their theory that he was able to float at such great lengths by the nature of his internal organs, which they believed were different from those of most men.
"Faticoni had often promised to reveal the secret of how he became 'The Human Cork,' but he never did."
There are many accounts of poltergeist-phenomena that are so obscured by the preconceptions of witnesses that one can't tell whether they are stories of girls who had occult powers, or of invisible beings, who, in the presence of girl-mediums, manifested. But the story of Angelique Cottin is an account of a girl, who, by an unknown influence of her own, acted upon objects in ways like those that have been attributed to spirits. The phenomena of Angelique Cottin, of the town of La Perriere, France, began upon Jan. 15, 1846, and lasted ten weeks. Anybody who would like to read an account of this wild, or undeveloped, talent, that is free from interpretations by spiritualists and anti-spiritualists, should go to the contemporaneous story, published in the Journal des Debats (Paris) February, 1846. Here are accounts by M. Arago and other scientists. When Angelique Cottin went near objects, they bounded away. She could have made a perpetual motion machine whiz. She was known as the Electric Girl, so called, because nobody knew what to call her. When she tried to sit in a chair, there was low comedy. The chair was pulled away, or, rather, was invisibly pushed away. There was such force here that a strong man could not hold the chair. A table, weighing 60 pounds, rose from the floor, when she touched it. When she went to bed, the bed rocked
And I suppose that, in early times of magnetic investigations, people who heard of objects that moved in the presence of a magnet, said— "But what of it?"
Faraday showed them.
A table, weighing 60 pounds, rises a few feet from the floor— well, then, it's some time, far ahead, in the Witchcraft Era— and a multi-cellular formation of poltergeist-girls is assembled in the presence of building materials. Stone blocks and steel girders rise a mile or so into their assigned positions in the latest sky-prodder. Maybe. Tall buildings will have their day, but first there will have to be a show-off of what could be done.
I now have a theory that the Pyramids were built by poltergeist-girls. The Chinese Wall is no longer mysterious. Every now and then I reconstruct a science. I may take up neo-archaeology sometime. Old archaeology, with its fakes and guesses, and conflicting pedantries, holds out an invitation for a ferocious and joyous holiday.
Human hopes, wishes, ambitions, prayers and hates— and the futility of them— the waste of millions of trickles of vibrations, today— unorganized forces that are doing nothing. But put them to work together, or concentrate mental ripples into torrents, and gather these torrents into Niagara Falls of emotions— and, if there isn't any happiness, except in being of use, I am conceiving of cataractuous happiness—
Or sometime in the Witchcraft Era— and every morning, promptly at nine o'clock, crowds of human wishers, dignified under the name of transmediumizers, arrive at their wishing stations, or mental power-houses, and in an organization of what are now only scattered and wasted hopes and hates concentrate upon the running of all motors of all cities. Just as they're all nicely organized and pretty nearly satisfied, it will be learned that motors aren't necessary.
In one way, witchcraft has been put to work: that is that wild talents have been exhibited, and so have been sources of incomes. But here is only the incipiency of the stunt. In August, 1883, in the home of Lulu Hurst, aged 15, at Cedarville, Georgia, there were poltergeist disturbances. Pebbles moved in the presence of the girl, things vanished, crockery was smashed, and, if the girl thought of a tune, it would be heard, rapping at the head of her bed. In February, 1884, Lulu was giving public performances. In New York City, she appeared in Wallack's Theatre. It could be that a girl, aged 15, if competently managed, was able to deceive everybody who went up on the stage. She at least made all witnesses think that, when a man, weighing 200 pounds, sat in a chair, she, by touching the chair, made it rise and throw him to the floor—
And I am very much like an Indian, of long ago; an Indian, thinking of the force of a waterfall; unable to conceive of a waterwheel; simply thinking of all this force that was making only a little spectacle—
Or the state of melancholy into which I am perhaps cast, thinking that a little poltergeist girl, if properly trained, could make all witnesses believe that she raised building materials forty or eighty stories, by simply touching them— thinking that nobody is doing anything about this—
Except that I am not clear that anything would be gained by it— or by anything else.
Lulu Hurst either had powers that far transcended muscular powers, or she had talents of deception far superior to the abilities of ordinary deceivers. Sometimes she tossed about zoo-pound men, or made it look as if she did; and sometimes she placed her hands on a chair, and five men either could not move that chair, or were good actors, and earned whatever the confederates of stage magicians were paid, at that time.
In November, 1891, Mrs. Annie Abbott, called the Little Georgia Magnet, put on a show, in the Alhambra Music Hall, London. She weighed about 98 pounds, and, if she so willed it, a man could easily lift her. The next moment, six men, three on each side of her, grasping her by her elbows, could not lift her. When she stood on a chair, the six men could not, when the chair was removed, prevent her from descending to the floor. If anybody suggests that, when volunteers were called for from the audience, it was the same six who responded, at every performance, I think that that is a pretty good suggestion. Because of many other data, it hasn't much force with me; but, in these early times of us primitives, almost any suggestion has value. I take these accounts from Holms' Facts of Psychic Science. I have theme from other sources, also.
In September, 1921, Mary Richardson gave performances, at the Olympic Music Hall, Liverpool. Easily lifted one moment— the next moment, six men— same six, maybe— could not move her. By touching a man, she knocked him flat. It is either that she traveled with a staff of thirteen comedians, whose stunt it was to form in a line, pretending their utmost to push her, but seeming to fail comically, considering the size of her, or that she was a magician.
It is impossible to get anywhere by reasoning. This is because— as can be shown, monistically— there isn't anywhere. Or it is impossible to get anywhere, because one can get everywhere. I can find equally good reasons for laughing, or for being serious, about all this. Holms tells that he was one of those in the audience, who, though not taking part, went up on the stage; and that he put his hand between Mrs. Richardson and the leader of the string of thirteen men, who were almost dislocating one another's shoulder blades, pushing their hardest against her, and that he felt no pressure. So he was convinced not that she resisted pressure, but that pressure could not touch her.
Suppose it was that pressure could not touch her. Could blows harm her? Could bullets touch her? Did Robert Houdin have this power, when he faced an Arab firing squad, and is the story of the substituted blanks for bullets only just some more of what Taboo is telling everywhere? One untouchable man could own the world— except that he'd have a weakness somewhere, or, in general, could be no more than the untouchable-touchable. But he could add to our bewilderments by making much history before being touched. Well, then, if there are magicians, why haven't magicians seized upon political powers? I don't know that they haven't.
It may be the secret of fire-walking— or that wizards walk over red-hot stones, unharmed, because they do not touch the stones. However, for some readers, it is more comfortable to disbelieve that anybody ever has been a fire-walker. For an uncomfortable moment, read an account, in Current Literature, 32-98— exhibition by a Hawaiian fire-walker, at Honolulu, Jan. 19, 1901. The story is that this wizard walked on stones of "a fierce, red glow," with flames spouting from burning wood, underneath; walking back and forth four times.
There is a muscular strength of men, and it may be that sometimes appears a strength to which would apply the description "occult," or "psychic." In the New York Herald Tribune, Jan. 24, 1932, was reported the death of Mrs. Betsy Anna Talks, of 149 Fourteenth Road, Whitestone, Queens, N. Y.— who had often performed such feats as carrying a barrel of sugar, weighing 400 pounds— had carried, under each arm, a sack of potatoes, whereas, in fields, usually two men lug one sack— had impatiently watched two men, clumsily moving a 550-pound barrel of salt, in a cart, and had taken it down for them.
There are "gospel truths," and "irrefutable principles," and "whatever goes up must come down," and "men are strong and women are weak"— but somewhere there's a woman who takes a barrel of salt away from two men. But we think in generalizations, and enact laws in generalizations, and "women are weak," and, if I should look it up, I'd be not at all surprised to learn that Mrs. Talks was receiving alimony.
I now recall another series of my own experiences with what may be my own very wild talents. I took no notes upon the occurrences, because I had decided that note-taking would make me self-conscious. I do not now take this view. I was walking along West Forty-second Street, N. Y. C., when the notion came to me that I could "see" what was in a show window, which, some distance ahead, was invisible to me. I said to myself: "Turkey tracks in red snow." It should be noted that "red snow" was one of the phenomena of my interests, at this time. I came to the window, and saw track-like lines of black fountain pens, grouped in fours, one behind, and the three others trifurcating from it, on a background of pink cardboard.
At last I was a wizard!
Another time, picking out a distant window, invisible to me— or ocularly invisible to me— I said "Ripple marks on a sandy beach." It was a show window. Several men were removing exhibits from it, and there was virtually nothing left except a yellow-plush floor covering. Decoratively, this covering had been ruffled, or given a wavy appearance.
Another time— "Robinson Crusoe and Friday's footprints." When I came to the place, I saw that it was a cobbler's shop, and that, hanging in the window, was a string of shoe soles.
I'm sorry.
I should like to hear of somebody, who would manfully declare himself a wizard, and say— "Take it or leave it!" I can't do this, because I too well remember other circumstances. Maybe it's my timidity, but I now save myself from the resentment, or the mean envy, of readers, who say, of a distant store window, "popular novels," and it's pumpkins. My experiments kept up about a month. Say that I experimented about a thousand times. Out of a thousand attempts, I can record only three seemingly striking successes, though I recall some minor ones. Throughout this book, I have taken the stand that nobody can be always wrong, but it does seem to me that I approximated so highly that I am nothing short of a negative genius. Nevertheless, the first of these experiences impresses me. It came to me when, so far as I know, I was not thinking of anything of the kind, though sub-consciously I was carrying much lore upon various psychic subjects.
