The claim of Slate
writing was no more than a hoax that was used by supposed mediums that involved
slates that were written on by students and used in school…the claim was that
spirits were writing messages on them in an effort to contact those still in this
world…usually, a pair of slates would be used and they would be shown to the
viewer clean, then they would be hidden, and then shown to the viewer again but
astoundingly they would now have a written message on them…done supposedly by
spirits...the trick became popular and was used by many fraudulent mediums…the
trick could be done many ways, but usually involved the replacement of a blank
slate with one that had already been written on (probably by the medium or
their assistant)…when done properly, the trick was quite convincing to a naïve
and unsuspecting group…the results seem preposterous but so many were desperate
to contact or be contacted by the spirit world, they would take leave of their
senses and fall for this hoax.
