Recently, an original long lost manuscript resurfaced having been discovered in an ancient bookshop in the back waters of the southern states.
Ventriloquism Used To Create the Voice of Memnon Greeting His Mother Eos
Although the particular cause and char¬acter of the sounds have never been satisfactorily explained, the state of expectancy with which the silent and probably awe-struck worshipers awaited the sunrise, and their sublime faith in the reality of the phenomenon, were distinctly favor¬able to the production of a ventriloquial illusion by an attendant priest.
Mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles (16 : 16), of a young1 woman with a familiar spirit meeting the Apostles in the city of Philippi in Macedonia. Such divination is also referred to by St. Chrysostom and other early Christian fathers; and in the East, where it has been practiced for upward of three thousand years, it is still not uncommon.
If there is any doubt as to the part ventrilo¬quism played in this divination by a familiar spirit, there can be none in the method employed by the Greeks, which was termed gastromancy. In this the voice of the “spirit ” made its oracular replies apparently from the priest’s belly, the diviner himself standing in the meanwhile with impassive countenance and immovable lips.
Coming down to modern times, we find that Louis Brabant, valet de chambre of Francis I, won for himself a rich and beautiful heiress by aid of his wonderful talent as a ventriloquist; and the works of M. L’Abbe La Chappelle, published in 1772, contain references to the astonishing ventriloquist achievements of Baron Menge at Vienna, and those of M. St. Gille, a grocer living near Paris.
Another famous ventriloquist performer, M. Alexandre, was also so great an adept at changing his coun¬tenance, that at one time he completely deceived a sculptor, before whom he sat five times in the borrowed character of a famous clergyman of Abbotsford, with whom the sculptor war well acquainted.