pretending through various twitches and convulsions to be in a trance. Then a hand suddenly appeared in the cabinet and played each of the instruments in turn. ‘We had no difficulty in believing,’ Fullerton wrote in the report, ‘that the hands which were dexterous enough to play the zither with very remarkable skill, under such conditions, behind the curtain, were deft enough to sever the cords.’
The next chapter of the report is devoted to a Mr W. M. Keeler, famous for his mastery of what at the time were called ‘SpiritualPhotographs’, in which mysterious figures of angelic or diabolical aspect would appear next to the subject of the photograph. Receiving a letter inviting him to appear before the commission, Keeler responded, agreeing to perform three séances for the sum of $300, payable in advance, the fee to be non-returnable whether or not his efforts proved satisfactory. He also clearly stated that there might be no results because of ‘the antagonistic element which might be produced by those persons not in perfect sympathy with the cause’. In addition he wanted guarantees that he would be alone when developing the images in the dark room since the spirits were particularly vulnerable at such moments.
Víctor is growing impatient. He doesn’t believe in spirits, nor did he expect that he would stumble on some astonishing revelation in the report, but he did expect a modicum of professional dignity. He goes back to the first page and checks the date again: 1887. It seems impossible that the commission could not find anyone capable of doing a decent job. It is as if a literary commission could not find a single decent poem in the whole of the seventeenth century. He begins to skim through the report, lingers only over the beginning of a paragraph or the capital letters indicating someone’s name, until he gets to page 77, where he stumbles on Harry Kellar. Knowing that he performed an independent writing illusion in his stage show with sealed slates similar to those used by Slade, the commission asked him to appear. Kellar, it goes without saying, did not pass up the invitation. On the contrary, he was more than happy to impress the commission, and he did not do so with some illegible scrawl, but with seven sealed slates on which appeared sentences in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Chinese, Japanese, classical Arabic and Gujarati. The report even includes good old Fullerton’s regret that the last three cannot be reproduced since his machine does not have the requisite characters.
Víctor stops reading and thinks about Galván. The maestro always insisted that Kellar was little more than an imitator and a braggart, but he must be given credit for his ambition: when he set himself to a task, he pulled out all the stops. Víctor goes back to his reading. It seems that one of the investigators dared to voice an objection: clearly the texts were quite long and exquisitelycalligraphed, had been written beforehand, and Kellar had made them appear by some simple sleight of hand. Unruffled, the magician took out a double-sided slate, showed both sides to those present to prove that it was indeed blank and handed it to the investigator, asking him to write down a question, which he did, handing it back face down so that Kellar could not see it. The investigator wrote: ‘How tall is the Washington Monument?’ Kellar took the slate and a piece of chalk, and held it beneath the table for only a few seconds, during which time the investigators noticed no suspicious movements on his part. When he showed it to them again, on the other side of the slate were the words ‘We have never visited the Washington Monument, therefore can not give its height.’ Brilliant. In spite of his insolence, it has to be said that of all those summoned to appear before the commission, he was the one who did a good job. Although the report never deviates from its neutral, pseudo-scientific tone, it is possible to detect
The next chapter of the report is devoted to a Mr W. M. Keeler, famous for his mastery of what at the time were called ‘SpiritualPhotographs’, in which mysterious figures of angelic or diabolical aspect would appear next to the subject of the photograph. Receiving a letter inviting him to appear before the commission, Keeler responded, agreeing to perform three séances for the sum of $300, payable in advance, the fee to be non-returnable whether or not his efforts proved satisfactory. He also clearly stated that there might be no results because of ‘the antagonistic element which might be produced by those persons not in perfect sympathy with the cause’. In addition he wanted guarantees that he would be alone when developing the images in the dark room since the spirits were particularly vulnerable at such moments.
Víctor is growing impatient. He doesn’t believe in spirits, nor did he expect that he would stumble on some astonishing revelation in the report, but he did expect a modicum of professional dignity. He goes back to the first page and checks the date again: 1887. It seems impossible that the commission could not find anyone capable of doing a decent job. It is as if a literary commission could not find a single decent poem in the whole of the seventeenth century. He begins to skim through the report, lingers only over the beginning of a paragraph or the capital letters indicating someone’s name, until he gets to page 77, where he stumbles on Harry Kellar. Knowing that he performed an independent writing illusion in his stage show with sealed slates similar to those used by Slade, the commission asked him to appear. Kellar, it goes without saying, did not pass up the invitation. On the contrary, he was more than happy to impress the commission, and he did not do so with some illegible scrawl, but with seven sealed slates on which appeared sentences in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Chinese, Japanese, classical Arabic and Gujarati. The report even includes good old Fullerton’s regret that the last three cannot be reproduced since his machine does not have the requisite characters.
Víctor stops reading and thinks about Galván. The maestro always insisted that Kellar was little more than an imitator and a braggart, but he must be given credit for his ambition: when he set himself to a task, he pulled out all the stops. Víctor goes back to his reading. It seems that one of the investigators dared to voice an objection: clearly the texts were quite long and exquisitelycalligraphed, had been written beforehand, and Kellar had made them appear by some simple sleight of hand. Unruffled, the magician took out a double-sided slate, showed both sides to those present to prove that it was indeed blank and handed it to the investigator, asking him to write down a question, which he did, handing it back face down so that Kellar could not see it. The investigator wrote: ‘How tall is the Washington Monument?’ Kellar took the slate and a piece of chalk, and held it beneath the table for only a few seconds, during which time the investigators noticed no suspicious movements on his part. When he showed it to them again, on the other side of the slate were the words ‘We have never visited the Washington Monument, therefore can not give its height.’ Brilliant. In spite of his insolence, it has to be said that of all those summoned to appear before the commission, he was the one who did a good job. Although the report never deviates from its neutral, pseudo-scientific tone, it is possible to detect
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