Inspired by this (copy) in ru_antireligion.
I remember how, as children, we used to summon the spirits of writers. This is how it worked. You make a large paper circle with numbers and letters, and the words "YES" and "NO" around its perimeter. Then you place a tea saucer upside down in the center. You turn off the lights (a séance has to take place in the dark). Only candles are burning. Everyone places 2 fingers on the saucer. Preferably 3 people, otherwise the saucer hardly moves. Then we ask:
"Esteemed spirit of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, can you hear us?. If he can hear us, the saucer will move toward the word "YES".
Then you can ask questions, which the spirit answers letter by letter, or with the words "YES" and "NO" (the saucer moves in the corresponding direction).
Even now, it is difficult to understand what the trick was. Of course, the only reasonable hypothesis is that the other participants were moving the saucer with their fingers. However, people are sitting on different sides, and moving the saucer so that it travels back and forth all over the circle while giving perfectly sensible answers to questions is very difficult. Besides, I was not moving it, which meant my companions’ fingers were positioned on only two sides. Later, when I got older, we tried to repeat the séance with some other, older friends, but nothing came of it. Everyone immediately noticed the fake movement, and it was only in 1 direction — the one in which the fraud was pushing it.
It has just occurred to me that one of the participants might have coated their fingers with some kind of special glue. But where would anyone in the Soviet Union get glue that sticks to a saucer and is not very noticeable on their fingers? It may also be that these memories are simply a trick of memory or vision. After all, it is not difficult to fool a child, especially a naïve one like me. But the spirit’s answers to the questions were quite plausible.