He then took one of the libation vessels from the temple, slid the egg that he had prepared carefully underneath it, and covered the whole thing with mud. When the crowd was pressing around him sufficiently closely, he produced the little snake. The great majority of those present regarded it as a miracle and shouted accordingly. The symbol of Aesculapius, god of healing, was the well-known serpent coiled around a staff, a symbol that was also associated with Apollo. The appearance of their own symbolic snake in the temple that was being built to the gods was enough to convince the crowd watching Alexander that Apollo and Aesculapius were indeed present.
If preparation was part of Alexander’s secret, timing was another. He knew when to act and when to wait quietly and unobtrusively, allowing things to happen. He disappeared for several days, mainly to allow the report of the snake miracle to grow and spread on its own. He then reappeared, lying artistically on a settee with a large snake coiled at his feet, its head tucked underneath one of his arms. He had, needless to say, recently bought a harmless tame serpent from a snake charmer who lived at a safe distance from Abonoteichous so that he could use it as an essential part of his show. He then created his artistic puppet masterpiece. This was a large snake’s head made of painted linen and adorned with a human face. He kept the head of the real snake hidden and made the model look as though it were the genuine article. With a little well-placed horsehair, Alexander managed to open and close the linen snake’s mouth to make it look as if it was speaking — and he also added an impressive forked black tongue.
As the cynical Lucian described the scene, Alexander performed in a small, dimly lit room in front of a very excited mixed crowd who had convinced themselves in advance that they were going to see gods and miracles. From what they had heard of the amazing appearance of the tiny snake in the temple, they were doubly amazed to find it had grown so fast and had been transformed into this vast serpent with a human face — totally under the control of the miraculous prophet Alexander.
Many centuries after Alexander’s time, the famous Barnum and Bailey freak shows used to have a sign that said, “This way to the Egress.” It was Barnum’s way of moving the crowd along before they had time to look at anything in too much detail and begin asking awkward and embarrassing questions. Alexander used a similar technique: in his case, a number of accomplices moved people towards the exit before they could spend too much time looking at the linen snake’s head with its horsehair control mechanism.
This great snake that Alexander had made answered to the name of “Glycon.” It began the performance by crying out, “I am Glycon, bright light to mortal man and Grandson of Zeus himself.” The prophecies cost two copper coins for each prediction — which was roughly equivalent to a day’s wages.
Alexander had devised an interesting technique whereby those who wanted questions answered or specific prophecies spoken on their behalf would write their questions or particular areas of concern on a scroll, which would then be sealed and passed to Alexander. He would promptly disappear into his inner room and return in due time with the seals on the scrolls still — apparently — intact.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet used a similar technique when disposing of the treacherous Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were trying to assist his wicked uncle in disposing of him. He found the letter that his usurping uncle, King Claudius, had written to the King of England requesting the recently defeated monarch kill Hamlet, well away from Denmark.
The worthy prince, who was sufficient of a scholar to be adept at such matters, unsealed the murderous letter, erased his own name, and inserted the names of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. A little careful resealing with a hot knife or needle, and the fates of his two so-called friends were sealed as effectively as the letter.
Many of Alexander’s answers were as ambiguous as those of Nostradamus or the Delphic Oracle. One popular format consisted of: “It shall come to pass when I will it — and when Alexander, my great prophet, has been given a generous gift so that he will ask it from me in his prayers.”
Again like the Delphic Oracle’s priests, Alexander knew a considerable amount about the political and social currents of his place and time. Like a skilled political commentator on radio, television, or in the press today, Alexander could often make a shrewd guess as to which way events were likely to develop.
The cruellest of the old rogue’s deceptions concerned the health of the wealthy and credulous patrons who flocked to him. He had invented an ointment referred to as “cymides,” which, according to Alexander, was capable of curing every complaint from housemaid’s knee to myxomatosis. There was actually very little in it apart from bear’s grease and a few spices.
Alexander invariably made the most of his mechanical skills. He was, in his way, quite an artificer. Perhaps the most mysterious object in all of his weird collection was a long speaking tube, which he had made by the simple method of neatly sewing together a number of windpipes from slaughtered cranes and herons. This artfully designed tube led into another room, where one of his accomplices spoke into it like the captain of an old-fashioned ship booming orders down to the engine room. The voice of the “god” that the clients heard — and only the very richest clients could afford it — came down this tube.
One of Alexanders greatest successes came when he moved to Rome and lured the wealthy and influential Rutilinus into his power. Surprisingly, the mysterious oracle told Rutilinus that he ought to marry Alexander’s daughter, which he promptly did. In consequence of their union, vast amounts of Rutilinus’s wealth made their way into Alexander’s purse.
The problem with this investigation, as with all others of so-called seers and prophets, is that honest men like Lucian, acting from the highest of motives and doing everything within their power to expose the deceptions of cheats and charlatans, may, in their absolute certainty that it is trickery, all trickery, and nothing but trickery, miss the odd occasion — however rare — on which even characters as unscrupulous and amoral as Alexander sometimes stumble unwittingly upon a genuine, deep, mystical truth.
There is a strange parallel between Alexander of Abonoteichous and Harry Price of Borley Rectory. It might be suggested that at the very start of his career Alexander at least half-believed in the mysterious potions that he was distributing and prescribing. When Price first investigated Borley, there were a number of extraordinary phenomena that were very difficult to explain by rational means. When accompanied by journalists — but unaccompanied by the phenomena he desperately wanted to show them — Price seems to have yielded to the temptation to manufacture what would not demonstrate itself spontaneously when he most wanted it.
It has to be asked in all fairness whether Alexander of Abonoteichous had begun by experiencing some genuine paranormal or anomalous phenomena, and whether it was only when these failed to turn up on cue that he resorted to speaking tubes for gods made from the necks of luckless cranes and herons.
Harry Price was caught surreptitiously flicking a stone from his greatcoat pocket over a wall at Borley to produce what would seem like a poltergeist phenomenon. When Aesculapius and Apollo failed to come in person at their prophet’s summons, perhaps Alexander decided to summon their facsimiles via his “autophone” engineered from cranes’ windpipes. Our common sense and rational thought chuckle with Lucian at the exposure of a fraud, yet Lucian himself portrays a rigidity of mind that is not totally admirable. He strongly advises all his readers and investigators of the paranormal to begin with the inflexible premise that the paranormal does not exist and that anomalous phenomena never occur and cannot occur.
“Even if you cannot detect the mechanism by which the trick is perpetrated,” says Lucian, “you must never waver from your absolute certainty that it is merely a trick.” This attitude of Lucian’s reveals a grim determination on his part to disprove the paranormal, whether it exists or not — just as grave an error in its way as Alexander’s determination to bend the facts in order to prove it. Between two such diametrically opposed intellectual grindstones, the corn of truth is certain to be ground, not into fine flour, but out of any semblance of existence