Having taken a drink of water - which the student will find he will do without any previous instruction! - I address the committee and the audience:

"Ladies and gentlemen, in this next test, I will have one of the gentlemen of the committee go down among the audience, have someone address a card, or a piece of paper. When this has been done, he will read the address, give the card back and then follow out a certain circuit down the aisles, keeping track of where he goes and finally reaching the one the letter is to be delivered to. He will remember just the movements he made and then he will come back here and I will take his hand, take him to the person holding the addressed card and will follow out his route, handing the card to the person to whom it is addressed in the same manner he was handed the imaginary card.

"I wish to caution the gentleman who does this to take me over the route as he went over and not backwards, as some have done".

After a wait of a few minutes he is back and I take his hand and am once more going down among the audience. There is no hitch in particular and I deliver the card as he has done, going over the same route.

A variation of mind-reading feats always looks to the audience as the exhibition of some new power. For example, we will say that an entertainer has just performed that test of finding the ring. His next test will be finding the hats. The movements are varied, the articles sought are changed, but the test does not vary. There are divisions, however, that I wish to take up later. They are much more difficult than those that have been given and must be worked up to through a series of tests, as I have been giving them. Start in with the simple ones and you will bring yourself up to that point at which you can do things quite out of your reach in the beginning.

I return to the stage and again address the audience:

"We will now have an intermission of a few minutes. It is necessary for me to remove this blindfold from my eyes for a few minutes and take a general rest. After that I will continue my tests, giving some much more difficult than any I have so far given".

I then turn to the committee and request them to take me to some dark corner where I can remove the bandage without danger of the light affecting my eyes too strongly. It does not take a great deal of imagination to see that the pupil of the eye will be greatly dilated. Were the light to strike it strongly, the contraction would be so rapid that pain and possible injury would result.

I am taken to some dark corner, or rather, I "take" the one whose hand I have. Then I carefully remove the bandage from my eyes. There is always a feeling of great exhaustion as soon as my eyes are again free. The entertainment that varies this and gives only about half an hour of mind-reading is by far the most sensible. I am telling my pupils how to carry out the psychic entertainment. I want to cover the ground for all. Some very good men in these lines have given entertainments for a long time without giving 'way. Some have never been seriously injured through the effects of mind-reading. That it is tiring, cannot be denied by anyone. It is exhausting in the extreme. But the people who witness it know that it is entertaining and they are willing to pay to witness its performance.

When I have outlined the remainder of this entertainment, I will take up the street drive, showing how to conduct it. I was to have taken it up in this town, but I have combined the entertainment to be given by the amateur and that to be given by the professional after it has been clearly shown just what preliminary steps are to be taken in either case. So it will be with the mind-reading. The operator who is well up in mind-reading may not be able to give the street test. That is what I will show. Where it can be taken up, it will act as an advertising means for any psychic entertainment. After we have discussed all this, I will show the student how to give the psychic show in general, combining mind-reading, hypnotism, clairvoyance, etc.

Student, do not be too enthusiastic. You will find that you will only wear yourself out if you try to pile more on your shoulders than you can stand. If experience has taught you that you cannot stand an hour without rest in this class of work, see that you remove your bandage and give yourself a rest after the performance of either one or two tests.

There was once a mind-reader by the name of Washington Irving Bishop. His name and fame have spread all over the civilized world. His feats were among the first of this nature seen. Mr. Bishop, like many who have followed him, realized that he was open to that peculiar malady known as "suspended animation." Like others, he carried a card in his pocket instructing any one who should find him in a comatose condition to see that he was left under certain conditions. Just what his instructions were I do not know. But others usually instruct the public to see that they are placed in a room where no one will interfere with them, to see that they have plenty of fresh air in the room and not to call an undertaker as long as there are signs of life. Stimulants can be used to advantage. This lethargy, or trance state, is caused by the severe nervous strain combined with the nature of the mind-reader himself. One constitution might withstand this kind of work for years; another might succumb in three weeks.

In the case of Mr. Bishop, he was hurried to a medical college or an infirmary of some kind and, before any of his relatives could get word of his plight or interfere, he was put on a dissecting table and his head was cut into. There is much question as to the outcome of that act. It is probable - yet the charge cannot be made - that Mr. Bishop was still alive, that he was killed then and there by medical students or surgeons desirous of getting someone to cut up.

There are others who have had a much worse fate than Washington Irving Bishop. Many have been buried and have regained consciousness in the tomb, only to meet death a thousand times worse than having the skull laid open and the brain examined.