Fake Spirit Rapping Hand

There’s a video on YouTube from the MagicTricks.com channel about a trick hand used to rap out messages during seances and performances of state magic. The hand demonstrated is available from them. So it’s as much an advert for the product as a demonstration of it as an artefact of interest. The hand is simply a life-size model of a human hand that was placed on a board. It was used by mediums, mind-readers and magicians specialising in card tricks. The medium, or operator, would ask it questions, and the hand would mysteriously move, tapping out the answer in the form of the ‘once for yes’ code. Of course, it’s a trick, and the company is obviously selling them as a bit of fun. But I’ve read elsewhere that in Spiritualism’s heyday in the 19th and early 20th centuries, these fake hands were used by fake mediums to trick people into believing that they were receiving messages from beyond the veil. In fact, I believe there was a whole catalogue of equipment for fake mediums wanting to deceive people. I’ve decided to put it up because I do find it interesting as a contemporary relic from the age of stage magic and fraudulent mediums. I can’t put the video up here, but if you want to see it, it’s title is Spirit Rapping Hand – Spooky! – MagicTricks.com.