The Psychic Riddle - Isaac Kaufman Funk

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... or twenty inches, the air will feel cold. After I had resumed my seat in the circle there came a strange, laughing voice, very loud, which seemed to come from the neighborhood of the door that led into the hall, or from out in the hall, some six or eight feet distant from the medium. This loud laughing voice was a curious phenomenon, and seemed to startle greatly the medium. The voice came at our request repeatedly, some ten times in all, each laugh averaging possibly a dozen ha-ha's, and varying from a deep basso to almost a treble. We were told by Red Jacket that this phenomenon was permitted to show the impossibility "of the medium producing these voices through ventriloquism, as it must be manifest to all 120 TEST OF VOCAL POWERS here that it is wholly beyond any conceivable compass of a female voice, and especially of so weak a voice as that of Mrs. French." The location of the voice seemed to change from place to place at our request, sometimes it sounded as if near the floor and then up high near the ceiling, and then about six feet to the left of the medium and then to her right, and then back of her, and then again immediately in front of her. This suggested the art of ventriloquism together with the turning of the head from side to side; but the utter physical weakness of the medium, and her exceptionally feeble voice added to the other tests that we had previously made, seemed almost conclusive--if not altogether so--against this theory. At times when the laughing took place, Mrs. Z., at our request, took hold of both hands of the medium, and Mr. Z. and I held both hands of Mrs. Blank, so that the use of a megaphone was again wholly impossible. It is well again to remember that for Mrs. F. to have produced the laugh...