HOW MEDIUMS OBTAIN INFORMATION
WE read in the newspapers of some payroll bandit who holds up the paymaster of a big concern and steals thousands of dollars, or of burglars entering homes and stores and breaking open safes and taking valuable loot, but these cases which we read of are nothing in comparison to some of the news which never reaches our ears, news of mediums who, because resourceful in obtaining information have made millions of dollars; blood money made at the cost of torture to the souls of their victims.
Suppose a medium comes to your town. He advertises a private seance. Like the average person you are curious and wish to be told things about yourself which you honestly believe no one in the world knows not even your most intimate friend. Perhaps you would like to learn some facts about a business deal, or know what is to be the outcome of a love affair, or it may be that you seek the comfort and solace that one is hungry for after the death of a near one. You go to this medium and are astounded by the things which are told you about yourself.
I do not claim that I can explain all the methods used by mediums to obtain this knowledge. A reader might attend a seance where the medium would use altogether different means to get the facts, but I am familiar with a great many of the methods of these human vultures. I think though that it is an insult to that scavenger of scavengers to compare such human beings to him but there is, to my mind, no other fit comparison.
The stock-in-trade of these frauds is the amount of knowledge they can obtain. It is invaluable and they will stop at nothing to gain it. They will tabulate the death notices in the newspapers; index the births and follow up the engagement and marriage notices; employ young men to attend social affairs and mix intimately with the guests, particularly the women.
It is seldom that one of these mediums will see a person the day he calls but will postpone the seance from a day or two to a week or more. As the person leaves the building he is followed by one of the medium’s confederates who gathers enough information about him to make the medium’s powers convincing when the seance is held.
It is a common occurrence for mediums of this stamp to hunt through the court records of property and mortgages. Cases have been known where they have employed men to read proof sheets in the press rooms of newspapers to find material with which to “foretell” events at seances. They frequently tap telephone wires. It is customary for these mediums to search letter boxes, steam open the letters, and make copies for future use. They have been known to buy the old letters sold to paper mills by big concerns, one useful letter, out of a ton of rubbish, being enough to pay them a great profit. It is also a common thing for mediums to “plant” assistants as waiters in restaurants for the purpose of overhearing conversation, especially in restaurants of the better class, business clubs, and luncheon clubs, where men of note freely discuss their plans and secrets, and in the “gilded lobster palaces” of Broadway and many hotel cabarets in other towns there are men who check and tabulate the good spenders and who in one way or another, usually when the victims are under the influence of drink, get into their confidence and secure information which is sold for money.
My attention was called to a case where it was said that a medium “planted” clerks in a Metropolitan hotel who would open, read, and re-seal the letters of guests. The medium was also able to get girls at the switchboard who intercepted messages and made a typewritten record of telephone conversations for him.
In many apartment houses the elevator boys, superintendents and servants are bribed to make a daily report of the inside happenings of the house. Most of the mediums work in the dark and many of them have employed expert pickpockets who cleverly take from the sitters’ pockets letters, names, memorandums, etc., while they are being interviewed. These are passed to the medium who tells the sitter more or less of their contents. Having served their purpose they are returned to the pockets of the sitter who, none the wiser, goes out to help spread reports of the medium’s wonderful ability. Mediums’ campaigns are planned a long time ahead. They make trips on steamers gathering, tabulating and indexing for future reference the information to be overheard in the intimate stories and morsels of scandals exchanged in the smoking rooms, card rooms, and ladies’ salons.
A man in a confidential moment told some very intimate secrets of his business to a chance traveling acquaintance while they sat in the smoking compartment of a Pullman car. Unfortunately for him this acquaintance belonged to an unscrupulous gang of mediums who used the information to blackmail him. These gangs of clairvoyant blackmailers will stop at nothing. They will move into the apartment house in which their victim lives and watch his habits. When sure of ample time they will break into his rooms, not to steal valuables, but information which nets them far more than the small amount of diamonds and cash which they might snatch. If it is possible to steal the records of great political parties how much easier to steal the secret papers of a family. If you doubt that information leaks out look up some of the cases that have been brought to the attention of the courts; cases where papers from secret organizations were missing; where the most intimate documents have been given publicity. Such information is far more difficult to obtain than the records of the dead. The Bar Association protects its reputation by weeding out lawyers who prey on clients but it cannot so easily discover a dishonest employee in a lawyer’s office who takes advantage of information which he knows to be sacred and secret.
Mediums are especially desirous of keeping in touch with disgruntled employees. There is no limit to what they will do. They have been known to arrange for the employment of accomplices as domestics and chauffeurs in families where they were particularly anxious to get information and have frequently had dictagraphs placed in homes by fake or disloyal servants and after a month or so of tabulating secrets and information were prepared for a seance at which the sitters could only account for the amazing things told them by believing the medium had occult aid. The result was an unqualified confidence in the mediumistic powers which in the end cost the sitters an exorbitant sum.
I heard of a medium who employed a quiet couple for the express purpose of attending funerals, mixing with the mourners, and gathering information which was eventually turned into gold, and what is known as a “sure-fire” method is to dress some little woman demurely and place her in the reception room where she greets the visitors, telling them her troubles and naturally receiving their confidences in return.
I have even known of two cases in which these human wolves, apparently out of the kindness of their hearts, sent girls to a young ladies’ seminary where they were able to wheedle from their roommates secrets which caused the loss of several fortunes.
One of the biggest scoops and one that is talked of in hushed tones even among the fraud fraternity is that of an old-time circus grafter who, having been cleaned out in Wall Street, was at his wits’ ends to make a living. One evening, tired and weary from a day’s unsuccessful efforts to find honest employment, he overheard his two daughters discussing a bit of scandal they had listened to in the hairdressing parlor where they were employed and which compromised a prominent society woman’s name. The old man pricked up his ears, recognized the possibilities, and a very short time after invested what little capital he had and all he could borrow in a beauty parlor and with the information it furnished him through the aid of his wife and daughters he was able to set himself up as a medium, the venture yielding handsomely the first year.
A most novel method of obtaining information was devised by a man who decided after listening to the conversation in a Turkish bath to open one himself. Most of his attendants were accomplices and while the patrons were enjoying the bath their clothes were searched, letters opened and signatures traced. The end of the first year found him enjoying a country home in an aristocratic neighborhood.
During one of my engagements in Berlin, Germany, I made the acquaintance of the foreman of a safe factory who told me that he made a duplicate key117 for every safe which passed through his hands and that he sold these keys to mediums but with the express understanding that there should be nothing stolen. The mediums assured him that all they wanted was an opportunity to read the mail and private papers which the safes contained.
I have known of a number of cases in which the medium used a drug addict to secure information giving the poor tortured creature his necessary drug only in return for facts he wanted, knowing that when the addict was suffering for the drug’s stimulus he would stop at nothing to secure it.
In small towns “Bible sellers” have sometimes been employed who were able to get exact dates, names, and birth places which were eventually used in some form. Men employed by mediums to gather information are often disguised as agents. One in particular I know of who goes from house to house trying to sell typewriters and washing machines on the installment plan. Even if he does not make a sale he can at least engage the lady of the house in conversation, drawing on her sympathy by telling of the trials and tribulations of a canvasser and a pitiful tale of how he was driven to such work and in return usually receiving the particulars of some similar case among her friends or relatives. Information which is carefully saved for use in the future.
It has been necessary for the United States Government to assign special men to break up a band of fake census enumerators, which, going from neighborhood to neighborhood, secures complete family histories which are later sold to mediums for large sums of money.
One of the most interesting cases I have heard of lately is that of a young man who was greatly in debt and sought the advice of a medium. The medium offered to pay his debts if he in return would take a position which the medium would secure for him in the Bureau of Records and in addition to his work furnish the medium with copies of certain documents. Fear of his debts becoming known to his parents forced him to accept the offer and the medium got the desired data but before an improper use could be made of it the young man’s conscience led him to make a clean breast of the whole affair to the police and a gigantic fraud was “nipped in the bud.”
The most dastardly and unscrupulous methods that I ever heard of, methods almost beyond belief, were those used by a medium who made arrangements with a ring of “white slavers” by which he paid them a certain specified sum for any information which the “girls” in their “houses” were able to secure. In addition he also established a number of places where, under the direction of a woman, the girls drew out many secrets which would never have been told under any other circumstances.
One thing which makes the work of these mediums easier is the fact that many people tell things about themselves without realizing it. I have known people to deny emphatically that they had made certain statements or mentioned certain things in a seance although I had personally heard them say those very things not more than twenty minutes before. Under the excitement of the moment their subconscious mind118 speaks while their conscious mind forgets. This does not escape the medium who takes advantage of everything which it is possible to.
An incident related to me by the late Harry Kellar shows in a striking way what can be done with information the possession of which is not suspected nor its source accounted for by the victim. He had met in Hong Kong a troupe of travelling players, known as the “Loftus Troupe” which was featuring Jefferson De Angelus. Among these players was one, Jim Mass, who, during a discussion of Spiritualism scoffed at anyone’s belief in it. Kellar told him to visit his hotel the following night and he would be given a seance. Mass did and Kellar pretended to go into a deep trance rolling his eyes and imitating all the other effects. While in the trance he told Mass his history from the time he ran away from Newark, N. J., relating his trials and tribulations and his efforts to make a success on the stage up to the time when a young lady committed suicide in San Francisco because of his jealousy. Then Kellar turned to him and said:
“What is your name?”
“Jim Mass,” was the answer.
“That is not your right name,” Kellar retorted, “your right name is James Cropsey!”
“It is a lie,” said Mass.
“No, it is not a lie, for I see before me your name. I see that your father has just died of a broken heart because of your behaviour. I see your mother writing you a letter to that effect, begging you to come home and be her son again. I see the grave of your father and on the tombstone is inscribed, ‘James Cropsey.’”
Kellar came out of the trance and Mass sprang up exclaiming:
“My God, you have told me things that only the Almighty and I know!”
Kellar claimed to Mass that he did not know anything which had transpired in the trance. The following day a letter came from Mass’ mother telling him of the death of his father. This fully convinced him that Kellar had strong mediumistic powers, and to such an extent that when they met a few days later and Kellar told him that it was all a fake, Mass refused to believe it.
Kellar explained to me that while in Manila a few weeks previous he had met an American traveller who, while they were discussing the different theatrical companies in the Orient, had told him all the incidents he had repeated to Mass in the supposed trance. This traveller had written home to Mass’ mother telling her of her son’s whereabouts and therefore Kellar felt fairly safe in saying that a letter would arrive in a few days, but in spite of Kellar’s confession Mass continued to believe firmly that he was a genuine psychic.
Mediums have been known after gaining the sitter’s confidence sufficiently, to advise, through a Spirit, the purchase of certain stocks, bonds, or “swamp lands,” and a certain group which I know has made over a million dollars by this system. One of the keenest and most unscrupulous of this class, a man who at present is abroad waiting for things to blow over, had a method which gained him a huge fortune. He would acquire the confidence of a widow whose husband had not been dead long and for months he would search into her private affairs without her knowledge. Then he would arrange for a meeting with her at which he would mention casually that he was a Spiritualist and that she could find solace and comfort in Spiritualism. At an impromptu seance he would tell her so many things of a most intimate character that she would be convinced. After a series of seances he would materialize and manifest what was supposedly the Spirit of her husband who would tell her to turn over certain property and deeds to this medium who would take care of them in a business-like manner. Invariably the poor deluded widow would surrender to his machinations and that would be the last she would ever hear of medium or money.
At a time when it was a British society fad to delve into the affairs of the beyond a house of clairvoyance was opened in London’s most exclusive section, the fashionable West End. It was exquisitely furnished and the interior decorating was the show work of a well-known firm. Though known as “Madame ——” the proprietor was in reality the daughter of an English aristocrat. She had formed a partnership with a man known to society as “Sir ——” and thought of as being simply a “man about town,” but was in reality the head of a desperate band of the underworld.
A rich clientele soon became accustomed to a rule which required sittings to be arranged for at least a week in advance which gave Madame —— plenty of time for her confederates to investigate the client’s affairs. After several sittings the Madame would tell her client that she was exhausted but could reveal more if allowed to enter the atmosphere of the home and come in personal contact with some of the intimate belongings of the client. This hint invariably secured the desired invitation. Once a guest in the client’s home, she went from room to room selecting various things and finally suggesting, at the psychological moment, that she be shown all of the client’s jewelry. While this was being brought out Madame —— supposedly went into a trance but was in reality watching closely to see where the jewelry was kept. Back in her own home again she at once got in touch with Sir —— giving him such detailed information about the client’s house that it was easy for him to plan its successful robbery by his men, while the victims never suspected how their secret hiding places had been discovered. It only took the pair five years to acquire a fortune of three million dollars by these methods. Then Scotland Yard became suspicious of their actions and in a search for a more congenial climate they came to America and began working their system in New York.
Sir —— learned through underworld channels of a rich eccentric who would have nothing to do with banks and safe deposit vaults but kept all his money and valuables in his home where he boasted so many burglar alarms and other protective devices as to practically dare thieves to rob him. After making sure that this man had very strong Spiritualistic tendencies Madame —— wrote him a letter in which she told him that she had been requested by the spirit of his dead brother to get into communication with him. An interview followed and then a seance at which the brother’s spirit was claimed to have been materialized. The man was so convinced that he had received a message from his brother that the instructions to safeguard his money and valuables by placing them in a certain bank were followed implicitly even to the extent of taking them to the president (?) of the bank at his home instead of going to the bank with them. It is needless to say that the “bank president” was none other than Sir ——. This exploit netted them about four hundred thousand dollars. Not long after they appeared in Paris. Madame —— proceeded to dupe a jeweler out of a quantity of valuable jewels and with Sir —— succeeded in escaping to Germany where they tried to repeat the performance but were arrested.
The majority of the people who are fleeced do not blame the medium but really believe that the Spirit of their departed one prescribed the loss and that the medium simply acted as an agent. It is only when the mediums fall out; when there ceases to be “honor among thieves” that the cases are brought to the attention of the police. Although I realize that it would be difficult to enforce, there should be a law to prevent these frauds, for as the result of investigation I know that this particular line has netted many millions of dollars from unwary, trusting, and believing people. An end ought to be put to it.
