Practical Mind-Reading: Original Text

Many of our readers have witnessed the public performances of the several well-known "Contact Mind Readers who have visited the leading cities of this country and other lands. Of course, the average public performer soon discovers that the average patron of his performance attends principally to be amused, and entertained, rather than to be instructed. And he is apt to gradually add sensational features to the performance, for the purpose of thrilling and mystifying the audience, knowing that by so doing he will better please his patrons than if he were to give them a strictly scientific demonstration of the science of Contact Mind Reading as produced in the psychological laboratories of the great investigators of the subject. Some of these public performers have even gone so far as to add "fake" features to their performance, employing confederates, and in other ways introducing unscientific methods in order to intensify the interest and satisfaction of their audiences.