Spiritualistic showman ties to dupe Warwick audience

Aram Washington Colvin operated a dentist’s office in Warwick. On Jan. 11, 1882, however, the number of people crammed into the office were not waiting to get cavities or loose teeth attended to. They were there to communicate with ghosts.

Fifty-one-year-old Colvin had heard about a highly successful medium known as “Pierre Louis Ormond Alphabet Keeler.” The 27-year-old spiritualist was known all over the country for his ability to make the deceased materialize and write out messages on a slate board.

 Colvin suspected that, like many mediums, Keeler was a fake. With the assistance of 58-year-old clothing store owner Joseph Lawton, Colvin convinced Keeler to come to RI. He promised him a payment of ten dollars, as well as his traveling fees, if he proved to be what he claimed and what he was heralded for.

Locals paraded into the dental office that day, some not sure what they believed and others having no question about the ability of mediums to reach the spirit world. A curtain was put into place by Keeler, very near him, and it was later determined by many that he placed it there so that one arm was close enough to stick behind it to write upon the veiled slate. Colvin wasted no time in making forgery difficult, as the séance was about to begin. He chose a man and woman from the audience to be Keeler’s assistants. He selected another woman, who possessed no faith in such things, to sit beside Keeler with his hands on her arm during the “spirit writing” taking place behind the curtain.

 Keeler felt it was because the lady beside him had no belief in spirits that none made their presence known. Colvin agreed to replace her with another woman from the audience. Still, no spirits manifested.

Colvin then agreed to allow Keeler to choose a person from the audience to come up. He chose a man and woman who both professed to believe in mediumship. In no time at all, a tambourine began to shake behind the curtain and the table it was upon flipped over. The tambourine then flew into the crowd from behind the curtain and was picked up and given to Keeler so that he could put it back behind the veil.

The spirits put on quite a show, sticking a cane out from behind the curtain, upon which the tambourine twirled. The man Keeler had chosen to sit beside him suddenly felt himself touched on the shoulder nearest Keeler just before the fingers of a “spirit hand” reached above the curtain so that everyone could see it. On a piece of paper attached to the curtain, the hand began to write. By this time, even those who had arrived at the spectacle as believers, were aware they were being duped.

Many clearly recognized the hand as Keeler’s. Several people in the audience began to loudly call him out as a fraud. Keeler remained calm and gave no reply. Colvin refused to pay the ten dollars, as per their deal. Lawton, however, took out that amount of money and gave it to the showman who departed on the train the next morning. Three years later, Keeler was investigated by authorities who called him a “clever trickster” and arrested him. The spiritual scam Keeler had been banking on for so long had been exposed by Harry Houdini after he set his sister up to approach Keeler with the names of made-up loved ones who had gone beyond, asking him to contact them for her. None of the bad publicity personally affected Keeler. In 1900, he published a book which gave instructions on how to become a medium. He continued plying his trade, long after people stopped believing in it.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.