Magic Lantern

In the basement today with J and D taking decisions about what goes in the next round of declutter due this week. Came across this! It is a magic lantern slide projector - a later version, of course, because the technology has been around since the 17th century. There are also piles of glass slides to go with it. Now we need to decide what to do with it.

Johann Georg Schröpfer (who died in 1774) used the magic lantern to conjure up images of dead people on smoke. He staged routines doing this at his coffee shop in Leipzig. He did this to scare people and make them think he was a good actor. Schröpfer ended up going crazy and thinking he himself was pursued by real devils, and shot himself after promising an audience he would later resurrect himself. Unfortunately, it was a promise he couldn't keep!