A Sitting with Slate-Writing Medium Mr. P. O. Keeler 1911

 

Glimpses of the Next State (1911) is W. Usborne Moore's autobiographical account of his investigation into 'spiritistic phenomena.'  He dedicated the book to his "spirit companion and guide" Iola.   At the conclusion of Moore's third trip to America, a sitting with slate-writing medium Mr. P. O. Keeler resulted with Moore considering the nature of the transcendental communication finding diverse modes of manifestation in the presence of different mediums.  The following passage is the concluding portion of the ninth chapter of Glimpses of the Next State.

 

Pierre Louie Ormond Augustus Keeler (1855-1948)

 

The last experience I had before leaving America was with Mr. P. O. Keeler, the well-known medium for slate-writing, who lives in 1362 Parkwood Street, Washington, D.C.  He was, at that time, paying a visit to Brooklyn.  The interview was on Friday, February 24, 1911, 3 to 4 p.m.  The window near which the table was placed has a western aspect; the sun streamed in and flooded the table and room with light.

We sat opposite to one another at a small table two feet broad.  After cleaning the slates together, Keeler asked me to take a pad off the table, tear off slips, and write the names of spirits on five or six of the papers; each little slip was to be folded up in any way I thought best, and the names were to be written as I would address a person in earth life.  I rose from the table, turned my back to the medium, and wrote seven names—five of women, two of men; two of the pellets contained the name of one spirit, my guide, one giving her earth name and the other her spirit name, "Iola"; only six individuals, therefore, were indicated.  These pellets I laid in a heap on the centre of the table.  Keeler said: "Nothing will happen for a quarter of an hour or so, as the spirits have to be summoned."  After an interval of ten minutes he touched the outside of each pellet with the tip of his finger, but did not handle them nor draw them closer to his side of the table.  Five minutes or more passed, and he seemed worried that nothing happened, and became restless and jerky.  It must have been twenty-five minutes from the time I had put the pellets on the table when he was impressed to say: "Add the names of one or two gentlemen; they say that, among these names, there is more than the right proportion of ladies."

Following my invariable custom of not purposely deceiving a medium, I had already told Keeler that two of the pellets contained names of the same individual, my guide; I added that, as I had talked with her in the morning, I had reason to believe that she was present (which I have since heard she was).

In my lap, as I sat facing the medium, out of his view, I wrote the names of two men, and added these pellets to the others on the table; before doing this I had drawn the heap of pellets closer to me than they were to the medium.  Keeler did not have his hands on the table while I wrote the two extra names.

Soon after this the medium warned me that, when the slate writing began, it would go on continuously and rapidly.  He touched the new pellets with the tip of his finger, and after a few minutes was impressed to write a name on a spare slate.  He said, "What is this?"  I looked, and saw the name of my brother, Alldin; then, one after another, he wrote six names on this slate.  Each name he wrote I had to search for among the pellets, which I did in my lap, where it was impossible for him to see the writing.  When made up again, each pellet that had been opened and re-closed was put upon a pair of slates, kept ready for the purpose between us (with a bit of slate pencil inside), and these were not fingered in any way by the medium.

In time six pellets, containing the names of six individuals, were collected on top of the pair of slates.  We had sat for about forty minutes, when Keeler suddenly lifted the pair of slates with one hand at each of the two corners nearest to him, thumbs on top and fingers below, and gave me the other end to hold, which I did in like manner, pinching the two slates together.  The writing began immediately, and could be heard plainly; there was no downward pressure while it was going on.

As soon as he was impressed that one slate was full, the medium put it down on his right without looking at it, picked up another, placed on it a bit of slate pencil, covered it with the original top slate upon which the pellets were lying, and gave me the other end to hold; the writing again was heard proceeding very rapidly.  Precisely the same happened to this slate; a third was taken up, and so on, until five slates were covered with writing by eight individuals.  The medium was then impressed to write the word "All" on a spare slate.  He told me this meant that the séance was over.

The following points must be noted:—

One spirit manifested who was not named at all.  It was the son of the gentleman who had made the appointment for me the previous afternoon.

One spirit manifested whose name was in a pellet on the table, but not on the slates.

One slate, full of close script, had two letters on it at right angles to one another in different handwritings.  When one of these was finished, Keeler was impressed to move the slate to a rectangular position; we seized the slates at opposite corners, my left hand being where his right had been, and so on.  The letters on the slates are very close together.

One slate had a letter from my sister Catherine; in the upper left-hand corner there was a carefully-finished picture of a man's head and shoulders, and underneath it the drawing of a forget-me-not.  I do not recognize the man's face.

One letter had two signatures—viz., the earth name and spirit name of my guide.  In a postscript was an allusion to our meeting in the morning.

The names given in the signatures were all correct, except one.  This I had written as Miss Bowman; the signature was Mary Bowman.  The Christian name of the lady was not Mary.  This note was on the same slate as that which contained a letter from my brother-in-law, who lived in the same house with her for some years.

All the letters were very commonplace.  I attach them below.  There are no proofs of identity in any of them.  I am certain that my guide did not write the letter over her signature.  The work was unquestionably that of invisible and intelligent beings who heard the conversation, read the names and short sentences inside the pellets, and wrote the replies.

We held the slates about nine inches above the table; Keeler's hands never moved when holding them.  Throughout the whole hour the psychic only rose from his chair once—to pull the blind down a foot, to shade our eyes from the glare of the western sun.

In all, the slate writing contained 474 words written, and two pictures drawn, in a period not exceeding ten minutes, including the four delays necessary for taking up a new slate.

I have seen evidence of identity obtained by others in slate-writing through the mediumship of Mr. P. O. Keeler; but the only signs I got were the letters of Henry Usborne and Miss Bowman on the same slate.  That is not enough to establish the point, for the lady's Christian name is incorrect, and the association of the names of the two individuals may have been accidental.

 

THE CONTENTS OF THE SLATES.

(1)

Good afternoon, dear Admiral, I am so very

pleased that papa has come to know you so well.  I hope you will be of mutual aid and companionship.  I am heartily glad to greet you.  I am quite familiar with this coming.

Truly,

Bailey Slayden.

(2)

Good afternoon.  Is it not delightful to meet in this way?  So many persons think me dead and I presume they are forgetting me.  I shall meet them when they come over and surprise them.  I am glad I can do so well with this little piece of pencil.  I feel about as I felt during my life in the physical body.  Let me come again sometime when I may write better.  You have a great usefulness of life before you in this field of work.

Henry Usborne.

I will always help you.

Mary Bowman.

(3)

This is about the most remarkable experience one can have. I feel as much myself as formerly I felt.  I am not changed to another person by this wonderful translation from the earth to the spirit state.  Your visit here to-day will make me happier than I have ever been.  I shall come again.  Your book will be a great success in all ways.

Affectionately,

Septimus P. Moore

Note.—The medium was aware (and, consequently, his familiar spirits were aware) that I was collection material for a book.  At right-angles to the above, and in a very different handwriting, was the following letter:—

My Charge

   Oh do not be lonely, for time cannot sever

   The charm that unites us in memory's chain,

   E'en though death the sweet voice seems to

         silence for ever

   In spirit its accents will waken again.

I am pleased that you do not relegate me to the oblivion of the tomb, I have life, the immortal spark, the spirit cannot perish.  I am living and happy and contented.  I wish you could be here with me.  Do not ever mourn me as dead.

(Signed)       [The earth name of Iola.]

Iola.

Did not we have a delightful talk this forenoon?

(Considering the close communication that I had enjoyed with my guide throughout the previous two months, this letter is nothing short of idiotic.  It afford no evidence of identity whatever; but it is a clear proof of the presence of invisible beings, or being, in the room who had heard our conversation, seen the name, and written the script.)

(4)

I feel grateful to the powers that be for the beautiful privilege of meeting you and communicating in even this brief way. I cannot soon [sic] write a great deal but even a few words will express my existence.  Endeavour to in some way establish means of communication when you get back.  I should prize such a privilege there.  I am at rest and I do not suffer the pains and vexations and troubles so common to mortal life.  I am so glad that you came on here.

Devotedly,

Catherine Moore.

(It was in the upper left-hand corner if this slate that the drawing if a head appeared, with a stalk of forget-me-nots underneath.  On the left side of the head there is a shadow of the same face, which is very remarkable.)

(5)

Dear Brother

Now, is not this great that I can write on this slate with this bit of pencil?  I am not in the slate, I am on the outside of it.  I write this through the law of the fourth dimension in space.  Sit with the slates in your own room.  I might write then for you.  I am at rest and contented here.  I am often near you.  Brother     .

Alldin Moore.

Underneath, in red pencil, and a different handwriting:—

I salute you.

Uncle Major.

I have no doubt that Mr. Keeler genuinely believed that evidence would be forthcoming of the identity of the spirits summoned; but it did not happen that I obtained it as others have done.  This sitting was a most striking exhibition of spirit power; and that, in my opinion, is all that can be reasonably expected of this particular phase.  The atmospheric conditions were perfect.

My readers must bear steadily in mind (1) that there was full light, (2) that the slates were held above the table, with no cloth or covering of any sort over them.  I have read the reports of past slate-writings through Eglinton, Davey, and others.  No explanation I have read will meet the case of possessing a faculty which enables those who work through him to demonstrate in a convincing manner the presence and activity of the invisible intelligences which surround us.

I left for England the following morning.

 
Moore noted about his sitting with P. O. Keeler:

At the end of May, 1911, I asked my guide if she was present on this occasion.  She said she was, but the alleged letter over her name was not hers at all.  All the letters were written by Keeler's control, as I had thought.  "But," Iola added, "Mr. Keeler is a wonderful psychic."  I cordially agree.  The absence of identity in the letters does not take away from their value as proofs of spirit action.  It was certain (a) that the slates were clean; (b) that he had nothing to do with the writing; (c) that a quantity of writing was accomplished in a short time, all audibly to me, without any pressure being brought upon the slates in my hands.

 

The puzzling message and Moore's imprecise description of Iola's commentary about the letters present an instance of transcendental communication that was beyond his understanding.  Unlike Moore, people with little knowledge about Keeler's circumstances sometimes labeled him as fraudulent or regarded him with suspicion.  One example of a critical perspective of Keeler that may be read online is the 1885 Seybert Commission Report that shows denialist assumptions and aspersions.  An affirmative frame of reference concerning Keeler's sittings was offered by Alfred Russel Wallace in the "Spiritualistic Experiences" chapter of the second volume of My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions (1905).  Here is the passage.

In Washington, where I resided several months, I made the acquaintance of Professor Elliott Coues, General Lippitt, Mr. D. Lyman, Senator and Mrs. Stanfield, Mr. T. A. Bland the Indians' friend, and Mrs. Beecher Hooker, all thorough spiritualists, as well as many others unknown to fame.  With the three former gentlemen I attended the séances of a very remarkable public medium, Mr. P. L. O. A. Keeler, and both witnessed phenomena and obtained tests of a very interesting kind.  The medium was a young man of the clerk or tradesman class, with only the common school education, and with no appearance of American smartness.  The arrangement of his séances was peculiar.  The corner of a good-sized room had a black curtain across it on a stretched cord about five feet from the ground.  Inside was a small table on which was a tambourine and hand-bell.  Any one, before the séances began or afterwards, could examine this enclosed space, the curtain, the floor, and the walls, as I did myself, the room being fully lighted, and was quite satisfied that there was absolutely nothing but what appeared at first sight, and no arrangements whatever for ingress or egress but under the curtain into the room. The curtain, too, was entire from end to end, a matter of importance in regard to certain phenomena that occurred. Three chairs were placed close in front of this curtain on which sat the medium and two persons from the audience. Another black curtain was passed in front of them across their chests so as to enclose their bodies in a dark chamber, while their heads and the arms of the outer sitter were free. The medium's two hands were placed on the hands and wrist of the sitter next him.

The séance began with purely physical phenomena.  The tambourine was rattled and played on, then a hand appeared above the curtain, and a stick was given to it which it seized.  Then the tambourine was lifted high on this stick and whirled round with great rapidity, the bell being rung at the same time.  All the time the medium sat quiet and impassive, and the person next him certified to his two hands being on his or hers.  On one occasion a lady. a friend of Professor Elliott Coues and a woman of unusual ability and character, was the sitter, and certified at all critical times during the whole séance that the medium's hands were felt by her.  After these and many other things were performed, the hand would appear above the curtain, the fingers moving excitedly.  This was the signal for a pencil and a pad of note-paper (as commonly used in America); then rapid writing was heard, a slip of paper torn off and thrown over the curtain, sometimes two or three in rapid succession, and in the direction of certain sitters.  The director of the séance picked them up, read the name signed, and asked if any one knew it, and when claimed it was handed to him.  In this way a dozen or more of the chance visitors received messages which were always intelligible to them and often strikingly appropriate.  I will give some of the messages I thus received myself.

On my second visit a very sceptical friend went with us, and seeing the writing-pad on the piano marked several of the sheets with his initials.  The medium was very angry and said it would spoil the séance.  However, he was calmed by his friends.  When it came to the writing the pad was given to me over the top of the curtain to hold. I held it just above the medium's shoulder, when a hand and pencil came through the curtain, and wrote on the pad as I held it. It is a bold scrawl and hard to read, but the first words seem to be, "Friends were here to write, but only this one could. . . . A. W."  Another evening, with the same medium, I received a paper with this message, "I am William Martin, and I come for Mr. William Wallace, who could not write this time after all.  He wishes to say to you that you shall be sustained by coming results in the position you have taken in the Ross case.  It was a most foul misrepresentation."

This, and other writing I had afterwards, are to me striking tests in the name William Martin.  I never knew him, but he was an early friend of my brother who was for some time with Martin's father to learn practical building, the latter being then engaged in erecting King's College.  When I was with my brother learning surveying, etc., he used often to speak of his friend Martin, but for the last forty-five years I had never thought of the name and was greatly surprised when it appeared.  About a month later I had the following message from the elder Martin, written in a different hand:—

"Mr. Wallace,

"Your father was an esteemed friend, and I like to come to you for his sake.  We are often together.  How strange it seems to us here that the masses can so long exist in ignorance.  Console yourself with the thought that though ignorance, superstition and bigotry have withheld from you the just rewards to which your keen enlightenment and noble sacrifices so fully entitle you, the end is not yet, and a mighty change is about to take place to put you where you belong.

"William Martin."

I have no evidence that this Mr. Martin was a friend of my father, but the fact that my brother William was with him as stated (which must have been a favour), renders it probable.  On the same evening there were a number of messages to about a dozen people all in different handwritings, several of which were recognized.  My friend General Lippitt had a most beautiful message which he allowed me to copy, as it was a wonderful test and greatly surprised and delighted him.  His first wife had died twenty-seven years before in California. She was an English lady and he was greatly attached to her.  This is the message:—

"Darling Francis,

"I come now to greet you from the high spheres to which I have ascended.  Do you recall the past? Do you remember this day?  This day I used to look forward to and mention with such pride?  This, my darling, is my birthday anniversary.  Do you not remember?  Oh how happy shall we be when reunited in a world where we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known.

"Elizabeth Lippitt."

General Lippitt told me it was his first wife's birthday, that he had not recollected it that day, and that no one in Washington knew the fact but himself.

A German gentleman who was present had a message given him, which was not only written, as he declared, in excellent German, but was very characteristic of the friend from whom it purported to come.

On this evening most wonderful physical manifestations occurred.  A stick was pushed out through the curtain.  Two watches were handed to me through the curtain, and were claimed by the two persons who sat by the medium.  The small tambourines about ten inches diameter, was pushed through the curtain and fell on the floor.  These objects came through different parts of the curtain, but left no holes as could be seen at the time, and was proved by a close examination afterwards.  More marvellous still (if that be possible), a waistcoat was handed to me over the curtain, which proved to be the medium's, though his coat was left on and his hands had been held by his companion all the time; also about a score of people were looking on all the time in a well-lighted room. These things seem impossible, but they are, nevertheless, facts.

Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1937) also wrote about anomalous phenomena in Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (1896). 

W. Usborne Moore identified Glimpses of the Next State (which he subtitled "The education of an agnostic") as "a duty discharged"; however, he acknowledged that the majority of people in the world were unprepared and ignorant for what is related in his book.  He wrote that those who read his book can expect that "it will prepare them for what they may experience themselves if they go forth on the quest; if they do not, it only indicates they are not yet in that condition which enables them to assimilate a new idea . . . The fact that the world is round was known to the few a thousand years before the Christian era, but many centuries had to pass before the truth was accepted by the inhabitants of the West as a whole. . . ."

The photo at the beginning of this article shows a Keeler slate presenting a script signed "Abraham Lincoln" (exhibited at the Lily Dale Museum).  The chalk message states:

We come to you Sir because

we see you are spreading the truth

in the right way.  I understood this

phenomenon while in earth life, and had

I lived, should of proclaimed it

to the world.  Press forward

My Brother.  Never let thy step

stray from the path of progress

and truth.  Your Friend

                              Abraham Lincoln