Maccabe's Art of Ventriloquism and Vocal Illusions

MP3 Audio CD. Maccabe's Art of Ventriloquism and Vocal Illusions

WHAT VENTRILOQUISM IS.

"Where should this be ? I' the air or the earth ? This is no mortal business, nor no sound that the earth owes— I hear it now above me ! What is it ? A spirit ! Lord, how it looks about ! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form—but 'tis a spirit. No ! it eats and sleeps, And hath such senses as we have—such." The Tempest. THE word Ventriloquism is derived from the Latin venter, the belly, and loquor, I speak. Hence its significance, bellyspeaking—speaking in the belly as distinct from speaking in the ordinary way with the mouth. It accordingly conveyed the idea of the ability of expressing language otherwise than by word of mouth, and was esteemed in ancient times as being a special gift, whereby the possessor had a power something more than natural. For it was conceived that he was possessed of a "familiar spirit," which had taken up its abode in the person, and manifested itself in such an astonishing and extraordinary way that it was in constant attendance, dispensing with the ordinary physical agencies of speech ; sometimes heard inwardly, at others leaving the corporeal frame and making itself heard in space, in trees and forests, in the vaults or domes of temples, above and below, and round about ; so that the Yentriloquial Yoice par- took as much of a supposed spiritual nature as of the physical, in its strange, and, to the ancients, inexplicable phenomena. Those who could make these strange effects kept a profound secrecy; for little has been handed down to the present day in the way of information. There can be no doubt that in ancient times the ventriloquist played no unimportant part in history, in influenc- ing the minds and policies of rulers, and, consequently, in shaping out the destinies of peoples, and the rise and fall of kingdoms. It is philosophically ma