Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/533

Rh and "No" took to printing in large capitals, and finally fell into an easy script almost identical with B's normal hand. The communications always professed to emanate from spirits, and, on the

whole, fulfilled in phraseology, style of script, etc., B's notions as to what the alleged spirit ought to say and write. One "spirit," for example, was R, to whom writing had been ascribed by another automatist whom B had seen, and his writing, as executed by B's hand (Fig. 1), was clearly a rough imitation of the original (Fig. 2). Fig. 3 represents the script of another mythical spirit. Yet another alleged communicator was the late Stainton Moses; Fig. 4 is his signature as written by B's hand; Fig. 5 is a facsimile of his actual signature, which B had seen. I think there is here also an attempt at imitation, although a very bad one. Another "communicator" began as shown in Fig. 6; he then announced that he was born in 1629, and died in 1685. Now, B knows a little about seventeenth century script, and he instantly saw that this did not resemble it. Scarcely had he noticed the discrepancy when his hand began writing

the script figured as No. 7, which is not unlike that then in use. B thought at the time that he could not write this hand voluntarily without taking pains, but upon attempting it he