Ghostbusting

The art of most ghostbusters is to expose the tricks performed by fake spirit mediums. Last week Ghostbuster Joseph Dunninger went a step farther. At a seance in the Manhattan offices of Science and Invention, in broad daylight, before 20 perplexed witnesses, he showed a number of "mystical" phenomena which fakers have not yet discovered.

A wax hand was placed on a table and a spectator was asked to choose a number and slowly count to it. When the number was reached the wax hand emphatically stopped the counting by a sharp rap.

A skull in a glass case was next set on the table. Whenever desired by anyone present, the skull would open and close its mouth.

Two poles were erected in sockets on the table and a bell suspended from them by silken cords. At a word of admonition the bell rang.

In similar circumstances, sticks beat on a drum and a trumpet sounded.

Finally a piece of chalk was placed be tween two slates. When the slates were parted, one of the slates bore the legend "Science vs. Spiritualism."

The same phenomena were produced after Mr. Dunninger went behind a partition. . . .

The whole was a series of experiments in wireless telegraphy. On Mr. Dunninger's back, under his coat, were a transmitting set and four flashlight batteries so carefully concealed that they did not distort his figure. Inside his trouser legs dangled antennae. In his pocket was a telegraph key.

The receiving set was hidden in the shallow top of the table, one leg of which was equipped as an aerial, another as a ground. The phenomena were produced by the activation of an electromagnet which attracted pieces of metal cleverly hidden in the performing objects. There was even a small piece of metal concealed in the bit of chalk which did the writing, directed by a telautograph.

Ghostbuster Dunninger predicted that his apparatus would produce a great advance in Spiritualism.