David Abbott - Behind the Scenes with the Mediums, Ultimate Magic eBooks Collection
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
//-->First Frame PageHomeBehind theScenes withthe MediumsDavid P. AbbottForewordI. Half Hours withMediumsII. MediumisticReading of SealedMessagesIII. Spirit Slate-Writingand Billet TestsIV. Some ModernSorceryV. Some UnusualMediumisticPhenomenaVI. MaterializationVII. Relation ofMediumship toPalmistry, Astrology,and Fortune TellingVIII. Performances ofthe Annie Eva FayTypeIX. Vest-TurningX. An Improved BilletTestXI. Appendix:Correspondence withInquirers Through "TheOpen Court"X. AddendaBEHIND THE SCENES WITH THEMEDIUMSbyDAVID P. ABBOTTHTML version byJose Antonio GonzalezDavid Phelps AbbottThe author ofBehind the Scenes with the Mediumswas born on September 22,1863 in Falls City, Nebraska. He became interested in magic and mystery whilein school and became an amateur magician. He grew up to become a successfuland wealthy businessman, an euphemism I wish to use here because Mr. Abbottbusiness was that of a loan shark. He was famous in his hometown of Omaha forthe magic performances he gave in his lavish home, photographs of which can beseen in his bookDavid P. Abbott's Book of Mysteries,published posthumously in1977. These performances were attended by the top magical stars of the day andgave inspiration for some famous tricks, notably The Okito Floating Ball.David P. Abbott developed some very strong magical and mental effects whichhe performed for his guests. Among these we find The Talking Teakettle andSpirit Paintings. This latter trick was reproduced without his permission inEngland and reportedly produced lots of money in the music halls and vaudevillehouses of the day.BesidesBehind the Scenes with the Mediums,the book which eEdition you arenow reading, David P. Abbott also wrote:The Marvelous Creations of Joseffy(1908),The Story of a Strange Case(1908), andThe Spirit Portrait Mystery(1913). He was planning a big book with most detailed explanations of many ofhis tricks. In 1977, many years after Mr. Abbott's death (June 12, 1934) themanuscript and photographs of him in action showing these tricks werepublished in book form by Modern Litho, Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska under thetitleDavid P. Abbott's Book of Mystery.It's a fine book.EnterBehind the Scenes with Mediums-ForewordFOREWORDThere is a distinct fascination about conjuring not easy to understand. In the many years that we, thewriters of these papers, have practised the art, we have known many men, and some women, who took itup for pleasure or money, or both, and we have never known one to lose interest in it. Shakespeare, thatmaster "mindreader," must have understood this ceaseless hankering, for he makes Rosalind say: "I have,since I was three years old, conversed with a magician most profound in his art," which undoubtedlymeans that she had taken lessons in conjuring all those years. We preface our instructions "with thesefew remarks" as a warning, so that we may not be blamed should our readers find themselves possessedof this undying love for "conjuration and mighty magic."That "the hand is quicker than the eye," is one of those accepted sayings invented by someone who knewnothing of conjuring--or, as is more likely, by some cunning conjurer who aimed still further tohoodwink a gullible public. The fact is, that the best conjurer seldom makes a rapid motion, for thatattracts attention, even though it be not understood. The true artist in this line is deliberate in everymovement, and it is mainly by his actions that he leads his audience to look not where they ought, but inan entirely different direction. Mr. David Devant, who for a number of consecutive years has entertainedLondon with his ingenious tricks, has said: "The conjurer must be an actor. By the expression of his face,by his gestures, by the tone of his voice, in short, by his acting, he must produce his effects." He iscertainly right, but as it is not our purpose to furnish an essay on conjuring as a fine art, let us turn on thelights, ring up the curtain, and let the magician make his bow.|||Next|Previous|||Behind the Scenes with Mediums-Chapter 1 Part 1I. HALF HOURS WITH MEDIUMSPART 1It is probably due to the scientific training of the present age that there are those amongst us who can notaccept the promise of immortality on faith alone. Such as these require something in the nature of apositive proof for any belief which they may entertain. They seem unconsciously to realize that thechances of any unproven proposition or statement being untrue are vastly in the majority.Such persons seem to feel that if a race of thinking beings were slowly evolved upon a flying world, themajority of ideas which such beings would evolve in their minds, if unproven, would not correspond withobjective facts; that only those which could be proven in some manner would possess a value; that thechances are greatly against the probability of the truth of unproven ideas of things and existence ingeneral; also that minds which could in a superstitious age evolve and believe in such superstitions aswitchcraft, sorcery, etc., might in the same age evolve and believe in other superstitions that areunwarranted by the facts, although pleasing to the individual.Such persons as these would solve the mystery of mysteries by the power of their intellect alone. Such asthese would unlock the lips of nature and rob her of her secret, but to such as these no answer framed inwords of hope has ever come."We ask, yet nothing seems to know;We cry in vain--There is no master of the show,Who will explain,Or from the future tear the mask,And yet we dream and yet we ask."Is there beyond the silent nightAn endless day,Is death a door that leads to light?We cannot say.The tongueless secret locked in fateWe do not know, we hope and wait.""If a man die shall he live again?" This question of questions still appeals to the human heart with thesame strength that it did in the days of old. Many solutions to this problem of problems have beenoffered, many times has man answered this question; yet it ever and ever repeats itself in the humanheart.If the structures which are our bodies must dissolve at death, does the innerness of these structures whichis spirit vanish utterly? Does death hold for us but the promise of the same unfathomable gulf ofblackness out of which we came at birth? Is the eternal future to be to us the same as was the eternalpast? Is life but a temporary abode on a peak that is touched by the fingers of light for a day, while allaround yawns an infinite, shoreless gulf of impenetrable darkness, from one side of which we appearedand to whose other side we hurry to meet our destiny?Behind the Scenes with Mediums-Chapter 1 Part 1We feel certain that both our material and spiritual parts are actualized by elements eternal andindestructible. But does that something, other than these elements--that which they actualize, thatcreation which appears as a result of their combination in a special form, that something else which isourselves-vanish utterly with the dissolution of the elements which temporarily actualize both our bodiesand our spirits?Not long ago I saw an aged father lying in a coffin, --a pale, waxen figure, silent and cold. Around hisbier stood the weeping relatives while the minister recited these lines:"Some time at eve when the tide is low,I shall slip my moorings and sail away,With no response to the friendly hailOf kindred craft in the busy bay.In the silent hush of the twilight pale,When the night stoops down to embrace the day,And the voices call in the water's flow-Some time at eve when the tide is lowI shall slip my moorings and sail away."Through purple shadows that darkly trailO'er the ebbing tide of the unknown sea,I shall fare me away with a dip of sailAnd a ripple of waters to tell the taleOf a lonely voyager, sailing awayTo mystic isles, where at anchor layThe craft of those who have sailed beforeO'er the unknown sea to the unseen shore."A few who have watched me sail awayWill miss my craft from the busy bay:Some friendly barks that were anchored near,Some loving souls that my heart held dearIn silent sorrow will drop a tear.But I shall have peacefully furled my sailIn moorings sheltered from storm or gale,And greeted the friends who have sailed beforeO'er the unknown sea to the unseen shore."I thought, as I listened, "Is this true, shall we greet again the friends that have gone before?" The coldfacts of science and philosophy are poor consolation in a time like this. Then it is that but one promisecan satisfy the longing of the human heart.When one lays a life-long companion in the tomb; when one looks for the last time on the pitiful, pinchedlittle face, and realizes that never, never again will the loved one answer to one's voice; then it is that thedarkness of despair settles down on the night of the soul. The desire to again meet the loved one may bebut a sentiment to which nature's answer will finally be, if not its gratification, the extinction of thesentiment in annihilation; yet the heart craves but one answer to its longings.Is it strange that the tired and weary soul, worn with its despair, should at times turn its breaking heart toBehind the Scenes with Mediums-Chapter 1 Part 1these mystic priests of occultism for consolation-to these mysterious beings that claim the power tosummon from the silent abysses of emptiness, the shades of our beloved ones who have vanished and arebut a memory ? It is the consolation of feeling beyond a doubt that one's dear one still exists, togetherwith the love of the miraculous which lies in every nature, that makes it possible for these persons toperpetuate their religion. This religion requires a seeming miracle for the proof of its truth, but it is notthe first religion in which miracles have played a part.One gray winter afternoon as the north wind was howling down the streets and swirling clouds of snowagainst my windows, I thought of some place to spend the evening that would break the loneliness. Inoticed in a daily paper an advertisement of one of the highpriests of this strange religion, and Idetermined with a friend to visit the realm of the supernatural that evening.|||Next|Previous||| [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |