,,is ,,spiritualism ,,based ,,on ,,fraud8 ,,the ,,evidence ,,given ,,by ,,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,,doyle ,,and ,,others ,,drastically ,,examined ,,by ,,joseph ,mc,c,a,b,e ,,london3 ,,watts ,,co41 #ag ,,johnson',s ,,court1 ,,fleet ,,street1 ,e4,c4#d ,,preface ,on ,march #aa of this year ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle did me the honour of debating the claims of ,spiritualism with me before a vast and distinguished audience at the ,queen's ,hall1 ,london4 ,my opponent had insisted that ,i should open the debate2 and1 when it was pointed out that the critic usually follows the exponent1 he had indicated that ,i had ample material to criticize in the statement of the case for ,spiritualism in his two published works4 ,how conscientiously ,i addressed myself to that task1 and with what result1 must be left to the reader of the published debate4 ,suffice it to say that my distinguished opponent showed a remarkable disinclination to linger over his own books1 and wished to broaden the issue4 ,since the bulk of the time allotted to me in the debate was then already spent1 it was not possible to discuss satisfactorily the new evidences adduced by ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle1 and not recorded in his books4 ,i hasten to repair the defect in this critical examination of every variety of ,spiritualistic phenomena4 ,my book has a serious aim4 ,the pen of even the dullest author--and ,i trust ,i do not fall into that low category of delinquents--must grow lively or sarcastic at times in the course of such a study as this4 ,when one finds ,spiritualists gravely believing that a corpulent lady is transferred by spirit hands1 at the rate of sixty miles an hour1 over the chimney-pots of ,london1 and through several solid walls1 one cannot be expected to refrain from smiling4 ,when one contemplates a group of scientific or professional men plumbing the secrets of the universe through the mediumship of an astute peasant or a carpenter1 or a lady of less than doubtful virtue1 one may be excused a little irony4 ,when our creators of super-detectives enthusiastically applaud things which were fully exposed a generation ago1 and affirm that1 because they could not1 in pitch darkness1 see any fraud1 there was no fraud1 we cannot maintain the gravity of philosophers4 ,when we find this new revelation heralded by a prodigious outbreak of fraud1 and claiming as its most solid foundations to-day a mass of demonstrable trickery and deceit1 our sense of humour is pardonably irritated4 ,nor are these a few exceptional weeds in an otherwise fair garden4 ,in its living literature to-day1 in its actual hold upon a large number of people in ,europe and ,america1 ,spiritualism rests to a very great extent on fraudulent representations4 ,here is my serious purpose4 ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle made two points against me which pleased his anxious followers4 ,one--which evoked a thunder of applause--was that ,i was insensible of the consolation which this new religion has brought to thousands of bereaved humans4 ,i am as conscious of that as he or any other ,spiritualist is4 ,it has1 however1 nothing to do with the question whether ,spiritualism is true or no1 which we were debating2 or with the question to what extent ,spiritualism is based on fraud1 which ,i now discuss4 ,far be it from me to slight the finer or more tender emotions of the human heart4 ,on the contrary1 it is in large part to the more general cultivation of this refinement and delicacy of feeling that ,i look for the uplifting of our race4 ,but let us take things in order4 ,does any man think it is a matter of indifference whether this ministry of consolation is based on fraud and inspired by greed8 ,it is inconceivable4 ,and1 indeed1 the second point made by my opponent shows that ,i do not misconceive him and his followers4 ,it is that ,i exaggerate the quantity of fraud in the movement4 ,if they are right--if they have purified the movement of the grosser frauds which so long disfigured it--they have some ground to ask the critic to address himself to the substantial truth rather than the occasional imposture4 ,but this is a question of fact2 and to that question of fact the following pages are devoted4 ,i survey the various classes of ,spiritualistic phenomena4 ,i tell the reader how materializations1 levitations1 raps1 direct voices1 apports1 spirit-photographs1 lights and music in the dark1 messages from the dead1 and so on1 have actually and historically been engineered during the last fifty years4 ,this is1 surely1 useful4 ,spiritualism is in one of its periodical phases of advance4 ,our generation knows nothing of the experience of these things of an earlier generation4 ,to teach one's fellows the weird ingenuity1 the sordid impostures1 the grasping trickery1 which have accompanied ,spiritualism since its birth in ,america in #ahdh can hurt only one class of men--impostors4 ,j4 ,m4 ,easter1 #aibj4 ,,contents ,,chap4 ,,page ,i4 ,,mediums3 ,,black1 ,,white1 ,,and ,,grey #a ,,ii4 ,,how ,,ghosts ,,are ,,made #ag ,,iii4 ,,the ,,mystery ,,of ,,raps ,,and ,,levitations #db ,,iv4 ,,spirit ,,photographs ,,and ,,spirit ,,pictures #fc ,v4 ,a ,,chapter ,,of ,,ghostly ,,accomplishments #gg ,,vi4 ,,the ,,subtle ,,art ,,of ,,clairvoyance #ic ,,vii4 ,,messages ,,from ,,the ,,spirit-,,world #aji ,,viii4 ,,automatic ,,writing #abi ,,ix4 ,,ghost-,,land ,,and ,,its ,,citizens #adg ,,chapter ,i ,,mediums3 ,,black1 ,,white1 ,,and ,,grey ,mediums are the priests of the ,spiritualist religion4 ,they are the indispensable channels of communication with the other world4 ,they have1 not by anointing1 but by birthright1 the magical character which fits them alone to perform the miracles of the new revelation4 ,from them alone1 and through them alone1 can one learn the conditions under which manifestations may be expected4 ,were they to form a union or go on strike1 the life of the new religion would be more completely suspended than the life of any other religion4 ,they control the entire output of evidence4 ,they guard the gates of the beyond4 ,they are the priests of the new religion4 ,now it will not be seriously disputed that during the last three quarters of the century these mediums or priests have perpetrated more fraud than was ever attributed to any priesthood before4 ,a few weeks ago ,spiritualists held a meeting in commemoration of the seventy-second anniversary of the birth of their religion4 ,that takes us back to #ahdh1 the year in which ,mrs4 ,fish1 as ,i will tell later1 astutely turned into a profitable concern the power of her younger sisters to rap out spirit communications with the joints of their toes4 ,there have been some quaint beginnings of religions1 but the formation of that fraudulent little ,american family-syndicate in #ahdh is surely the strangest that ever got commemoration in the annals of religion4 ,and from that day until ours there is hardly a single prominent medium who has not been convicted of fraud4 ,any person who cares to run over ,mr4 ,podmore's history of the movement will see this4 ,there is hardly a medium named in the nineteenth century who does not eventually disappear in an odour of sulphur4 ,podmore was one of the best-informed and most conscientious non-,spiritualists who ever wrote on ,spiritualism4 ,if one prefers the verdict of the ,french astronomer ,flammarion1 who believes that mediums do possess abnormal powers and has studied them for nearly sixty years1 this is what he says3-- ,it is the same with all mediums1 male and female4 ,i believe ,i have had nearly all of them1 from various parts of the world1 at my house during the last forty years4 ,one may lay it down as a principle that all professional mediums cheat1 but they do not cheat always4#a ,if you are inclined to think that this applies only to professional mediums1 whose need of money drives them into trickery1 listen to this further verdict1 which ,m4 ,flammarion says he could support by hundreds of instances3-- ,i have seen unpaid mediums1 men and women of the world1 cheat without the least scruple1 out of sheer vanity1 or from a still less creditable motive--the love of deceiving4 ,spiritualist sances have led to very useful and pleasant acquaintanceships1 and to more than one marriage4 ,you must distrust both classes paid and unpaid4#b ,listen to the verdict of another man who believes in the powers of mediums1 and who has studied them enthusiastically for thirty years1 a medical man with means and leisure--,baron von ,schrenck-,notzing#c3-- ,it is indisputable that nearly every professional medium 7and many private mediums7 does part of his performances by fraud4444 ,conscious and unconscious fraud plays an immense part in this field4444 ,the entire method of the ,spiritualist education of mediums1 with its ballast of unnecessary ideas1 leads directly to the facilitation of fraud4 ,if this is not enough1 take another gentleman1 ,mr4 ,hereward ,carrington1 who has studied mediums for two decades in various parts of the world1 and who also believes that they have genuine abnormal powers3-- ,ninety-eight per cent4 of the physical phenomena are fraudulent4#d ,these are not men who have dismissed the phenomena as all rot4 ,they believe in the reality of materializations or levitations4 ,they are not men who have been recently converted1 in an emotional mood4 ,they have spent whole decades in the patient study of mediums4 ,i could quote a dozen more witnesses of that type2 but the reader will be able to judge for himself presently4 ,some ,spiritualists try to tone down this very grave blot on their religion by distinguishing between the professional medium and the unpaid4 ,the men ,i have quoted warn us against this distinction4 ,it is quite absurd to think that money is the only incentive to cheat4 ,the history of the movement swarms with exposures of unpaid as well as paid mediums4 ,an unpaid medium who can display wonderful powers becomes at once a centre of most flattering interest2 and we shall see dozens of cases of this vanity leading men and women of every social position into fraud and misrepresentation1 even in quite recent times4 ,all that one can say is that there is far less fraud among unpaid mediums4 ,but there are far less striking phenomena among unpaid mediums1 as a rule1 and so this helps us very little4 ,the evidence afforded by mediums like ,mr4 ,vale ,owen1 and the myriads of quite recent automatic writers and artists1 is absolutely worthless4 ,what they do is too obviously human4 ,we must remember1 also1 that the distinction between paid and unpaid is not quite so plain as some think4 ,daniel ,dunglas ,home is always described by ,spiritualists as an unpaid medium1 but ,i will show presently that he lived in great comfort all his life on the strength of his ,spiritualist powers4 ,florence ,cook1 ,sir ,william ,crookes's famous medium1 is described as unpaid1 because she did not 7at that time7 charge sitters2 but she had a large annual allowance from a wealthy ,spiritualist precisely in order that she should not charge at the door4 ,to take a living medium1 and one very strongly recommended to us by ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle under the name of ,eva ,c4 7though it has been openly acknowledged by her patrons on the continent for six years that her name is ,marthe ,beraud73 she has lived a luxurious life with people far above her own station in life for fifteen years1 in virtue of her supposed abnormal powers4 ,the distinction is1 in any case1 useless4 ,when ,spiritualists try to conciliate us to their wonderful stories by telling us that the medium was unpaid1 they do not know the history of their own movement4 ,the most extraordinary frauds have been perpetrated1 even in recent years1 by unpaid mediums1 or ladies of good social position4 ,flammarion1 ,maxwell1 ,ochorowicz1 ,carrington1 and all other experienced investigators give hundreds of cases4 ,not many years ago ,professor ,reichel1 tired of examining and exposing professional mediums1 heard that the daughter of a high official in ,costa ,rica was producing wonderful materializations4 ,he actually went to ,costa ,rica to study her1 and he found that she was tricking 7dressing a servant girl as a ghost7 in the crudest fashion1 as ,i will tell later4 ,the daughter of an ,italian chemist1 ,linda ,gazerra cheated scientific and professional men for three years 7#aijh-aa71 but was at last found to conceal her ghosts and apports in her false hair and her underclothing4 ,there is no such thing as a guarantee against fraud in the character of the medium4 ,every case has to be examined with unsparing rigour4 ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle meets the difficulty by cheerfully distinguishing between white1 black1 and grey mediums3 the entirely honest1 the entirely fraudulent1 and those who have genuine powers1 but cheat at times when their powers flag and the sitters are impatient for manifestations4 ,it is a familiar distinction4 ,to some extent it is a sound distinction4 ,we all admit black mediums4 ,the chronicle of ,spiritualism1 short as it is1 contains as sorry a collection of rogues1 male and female1 as any human movement could show in seventy years4 ,politics is spotless by comparison4 ,even business can hold up its head4 ,for a religion the situation is remarkable4 ,next1 we all admit white mediums4 ,we all know those myriads of innocent folk1 tender maidens and nervous spinsters1 neuropathic clergymen and even quite sober-looking professional men1 who bring us reams and rivers of inspiration through the planchette and the ouija board and the crystal and automatic writing4 ,bless them1 they are as guileless1 generally1 as ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle himself4 ,i have seen them--seen men and women of such social standing that one dare not breathe a suspicion--stoop to trickery more than once in order to get communications of evidential value4 ,but there are tens of thousands of amateur mediums of this kind who are as honest as any of us4 ,we all admit it4 ,it is sheer ,spiritualistic nonsense to say that we dismiss the whole movement as fraud4 ,we do not question for a moment the honesty of these myriads of amateur mediums4 ,what we say is that the evidential value of their work would not convert a ,kaffir to ,spiritualism4 ,dr4 ,j4 ,maxwell1 a distinguished ,french lawyer and doctor1 who has been a close investigator of these things for decades and believes in mediumistic powers1 says3-- ,i share ,m4 ,janet's opinion concerning the majority of ,spiritualist mediums4 ,i have only found two interesting ones among them2 the hundred others whom ,i have observed have only given me automatic phenomena1 more or less conscious2 nearly all were the puppets of their imagination4#e ,no1 ,spiritualism does not rely at all on these innocent and useless productions4 ,invariably1 your ,spiritualist opponent turns sooner or later to the big1 striking things1 the physical phenomena1 the work of the powerful mediums4 ,now1 which of these were ever white8 ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle1 when he came to this important point1 named four snow-white mediums4 ,he could1 he added1 name ten or twelve living mediums2 but since he did not1 we still hunger for the names4 ,the four spotless ones were ,home1 ,stainton ,moses1 ,mrs4 ,piper1 and ,mrs4 ,everett--not a great record for seventy years 7since ,home began in #aheb74 ,mrs4 ,piper we will discuss later1 but ,i may say at once that a man for whom ,sir ,arthur has a great respect as a psychic expert1 ,dr4 ,maxwell1 speaks of ,mrs4 ,piper's inaccuracies and falsehoods with great disdain4 ,who ,mrs4 ,everett may be ,i do not know4 ,if ,sir ,arthur means the ,mrs4 ,everitt of forty years ago1 ,i insist on transferring her to the flock of the black sheep4 ,in later chapters we will examine the performances of ,stainton ,moses and ,home1 and probably the reader will agree with me that these snow-white lambs were two of the arch-impostors of the ,spiritualist movement4 ,but a word of general interest may be inserted here4 ,the snow-white ,daniel1 whom ,sir ,w4 ,barrett and ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle and all other ,spiritualists quote as one of the pillars of the movement1 as a spotless worker of the most prodigious miracles1 was quite the most successful and cynical adventurer in the history of ,spiritualism4 ,he was no paid adventurer1 says ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle in his ,new ,revelation 7p4 #bh71 but the nephew of the ,earl of ,home4 ,to the general public that statement suggests a cultivated and refined member of the ,british aristocracy1 above all suspicion of fraud4 ,it is the precise opposite of the truth4 ,even ,daniel himself never pretended that he was more than a son of a bastard son of the ,earl of ,home4 ,he appears first as a penniless adventurer in ,america at the age of fifteen1 and he lived on his ,spiritualistic wits until he died4 ,he married a wealthy ,russian lady in virtue of his pretensions1 and his second marriage was based on the same pretensions4 ,it is true that he did not charge so much a sitter4 ,he had a more profitable way4 ,he lived--apart from his wives and a few lectures 7supported by his followers7--on the generosity of his dupes all his life4 ,in the ,debate ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle tried to defend him against one grave charge ,i brought against the white lamb4 ,in #ahff a wealthy ,london widow1 ,mrs4 ,lyon1 asked ,daniel to get her into touch with her dead husband4 ,the gifted medium did so at once1 of course4 ,for this he received a fee of thirty pounds1 nominally as a subscription to the ,spiritual ,athenum1 of which he was paid secretary4 ,daniel stuck to the lady1 and got immense sums of money from her2 and a ,london court of justice compelled him to return the lot4 ,now1 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 who said several times in the ,debate that ,i did not know what ,i was talking about1 while he had read the literature of my opponents as well as my own1 asserts3 ,i have read the case very carefully1 and ,i believe that ,home behaved in a perfectly natural and honourable manner4 ,he quotes ,mr4 ,clodd 7who has1 apparently1 been misled by ,podmore's too lenient account of the case71 but ,i prefer to deal with ,sir ,arthur's own assurance that he has read the case very carefully4 ,it was on in ,london1 under ,vice-,chancellor ,gifford1 from ,april #ba to ,may #a1 #ahfh4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle seems to regard ,mrs4 ,lyon's affidavit as waste-paper4 ,she swears that ,home brought a fictitious message from her dead husband1 ordering her to adopt ,daniel and endow him1 and she gave him at once #bf1jjj4 ,she swears that1 when ,home's birthday came round1 another fictitious message ordered her to give ,daniel a further fat cheque1 and she gave him #f1gih4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle may set aside all this as lies1 because he is determined to have at least one snow-white medium in the nineteenth century1 and his cause cannot afford to lose ,home's miracles4 ,but when he and other writers say that ,home was acquitted of dishonourable conduct1 they are1 if they have read ,gifford's decree1 saying the exact opposite of the truth4 ,it is enough to mention that ,vice-,chancellor ,gifford decided that the gifts and deeds are fraudulent and void1 and he added3-- ,the system ,spiritualism1 as presented by the evidence1 is mischievous nonsense--well calculated on the one hand to delude the vain1 the weak1 the foolish1 and the superstitious2 and on the other to assist the projects of the needy and the adventurer4 ,beyond all doubt there is plain law enough and plain sense enough to forbid and prevent the retention of acquisitions such as these by any medium1 whether with or without a strange gift4 ,that is the official judgment which ,spiritualists constantly represent as acquitting ,home of fraud6 ,this man1 scornfully lashed as a greedy impostor from the ,british ,bench1 is the snow-white medium recommended to the public by ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 ,sir ,w4 ,barrett1 ,sir ,w4 ,crookes1 and ,sir ,o4 ,lodge4 ,sir ,arthur adds in his ,vital ,message 7p4 #ee7 that the genuineness of his psychic powers has never been seriously questioned4 ,that statement is hardly less astounding4 ,home's performances1 which we will examine in the third chapter1 were regarded by the overwhelming majority of the cultivated people of his time as trickery of the most sordid description from beginning to end4 ,has ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle never heard of ,browning's ,sludge8 ,it expressed the opinion of nearly all ,london4 ,as to ,stainton ,moses1 the other lamb1 an ex-minister who ran ,home close in sleight-of-hand and foot 7in the dark71 it is enough to say1 with ,carrington1 that no test conditions were ever allowed to be imposed upon this medium4 ,spiritualists ought to quote that whenever they quote the miracles of ,stainton ,moses4 ,his tricks were always performed--in very bad light 7if any7--before a few chosen friends1 who had not the least inclination to look for fraud4 ,home was never exposed1 though he was once caught1 because he chose his sitters4 ,but ,stainton ,moses chose a far more exclusive circle of sitters1 and never once had a critical eye on him4 ,we shall see that the tricks themselves brand him as a fraud4 ,he was not exposed2 but it was the sitters who were lambs1 not ,stainton ,moses4 ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle1 in effect1 recommends two further mediums as snow-white4 ,one is ,kathleen ,goligher1 of ,belfast1 whose performances shall speak for her in our third chapter4 ,the other is ,eva ,c41 whose miracles will be examined in the second chapter4 ,we shall see that she was detected cheating over and over again4 ,at the present juncture1 however1 ,i would make only a few general remarks about this living lamb4 ,in a work which was published in #aiad--;in ,german by ,baron von ,schrenck-,notzing1 and in ,french by ,mme4 ,bisson 7they are not two distinct books1 as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle says7--there are #aej photographs of materializations with this medium4 ,we shall see that they tell their own story of crude imposture4 ,in the introductory part of his book ,baron ,schrenck describes the character of the lady 7pp4 #ea-d74 ,he says1 politely1 that she has moral sentiments only in the ego-centric sense 7that is to say1 none72 that she behaves improperly to herself2 that she lost her virginity before she was twenty2 and that she has a lively1 erotic imagination and an exaggerated idea of her charms and her influence on the male sex4 ,that is bad enough for a snow-white ,vestal ,virgin1 a sacred portal of the new revelation4 ,but worse was to follow2 and it was evident to me during the ,debate that1 while ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle twitted me with knowing nothing about these matters1 he was himself quite ignorant of the developments of this case six years before4 ,the young woman's real name1 ,marthe ,beraud1 had been concealed by ,baron ,schrenck1 and her age mis-stated by six years1 for a very good reason--she is the ,marthe ,b4 who was recommended to us in #aije as a wonderful medium by ,sir ,oliver ,lodge1 and who was detected and exposed 7in ,algiers7 in #aijg6 ,baron ,schrenck was forced to acknowledge her real age and name in #aiad4 ,where1 then1 are the snow-whites8 ,does ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle want us to go back to the pure early days of the movement8 ,take the ,foxes1 who began the movement4 ,in #ahhh ,margaretta ,fox1 who had married ,captain ,kane1 the ,arctic explorer1 and had been brought to some sense of her misconduct by him1 confessed 7in the ,new ,york ,herald1 ,september #bd7 that the movement was from the start a gross fraud1 engineered for profit by her elder sister1 and that the whole ,spiritualist movement of ,america was steeped in fraud and immorality4 ,perhaps ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle would plead that this appalling outburst of fraud1 which poured over ,america from #ahdh to #ahhh1 was only the occasion of the appearance of genuine mediums4 ,well1 who are they8 ,take the mediums who founded ,spiritualism in ,england from #aheb onward4 ,was ,foster white8 ,as early as #ahfc the ,spiritualist ,judge1 ,edmonds1 learned sickening details of his criminality4 ,was ,colchester1 who was detected and exposed1 white8 ,what was the colour of the ,holmes family1 whose darling spirit-control1 ,katie ,king1 got so much jewellery from poor old ,r4 ,d4 ,owen before she was found out8 ,are we to see no spots on the egregious ,dr4 ,monck1 who pretended that he was taken from his bed in ,bristol and put to bed in ,swindon by spirit hands8 ,or in corpulent ,mrs4 ,guppy 7an amateur who duped ,a4 ,russel ,wallace for years71 who swore that she had been snatched from her table in her home at ,ball's ,pond1 taken across ,london 7and through several solid walls7 for three miles at sixty miles an hour1 and deposited on the table in a locked room8 ,was ,charles ,williams white8 ,he was1 with ,rita1 detected by ,spiritualists at ,amsterdam in #ahgh with a whole ghost-making apparatus in his possession4 ,were ,bastian and ,taylor white8 ,they were similarly exposed at ,arnheim in #ahgd4 ,was ,florence ,cook1 the pupil of ,herne 7the transporter of ,mrs4 ,guppy at sixty miles an hour7 and bewitcher of ,sir ,w4 ,crookes1 white8 ,we shall soon see4 ,was her friend and contemporary ghost-producer1 ,miss ,showers1 never exposed8 ,or does ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle want us to believe in ,morse1 or ,eglinton1 or ,slade1 or the ,davenport brothers1 or ,mrs4 ,fay1 or ,miss ,davenport1 or ,duguid1 or ,fowler1 or ,hudson1 or ,miss ,wood1 or ,mme4 ,blavatsky8 ,these are not a few black sheep picked out of a troop of snowy fleeces4 ,they are the great mediums of the first forty years of the movement4 ,they are the men and women who converted ,russel ,wallace1 and ,crookes1 and ,robert ,owen1 and ,judge ,edmunds1 and ,vice-,admiral ,moore1 and all the other celebrities4 ,they are the mediums whose exploits filled the columns of the ,spiritualist1 the ,medium and ,daybreak1 and the ,banner of ,light4 ,cut these and ,home and ,moses out of the chronicle1 and you have precious little left on which to found a religion4 ,spiritualists think that they lessen the reproach to some extent by the grey theory4 ,some mediums have genuine powers1 but a time comes when the powers fail and1 as the audience presses for a return on its money1 they resort to trickery4 ,that is only another way of saying that a medium is white until he is found out1 which usually takes some years1 as the conditions 7dictated by the mediums7 are the best possible for fraud and the worse possible for exposure4 ,but ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle is not fortunate in his example4 ,indeed1 nearly every statement he made in his debate with me was inaccurate4 ,eusapia ,palladino was a typical grey1 he says4 ,one cannot read her record1 he assures us1 without feeling that for the first fifteen years of her mediumship she was quite honest4 ,an amazing statement6 ,her whole career as a public medium lasted little more than fifteen years1 and she tricked from the very beginning of it4 ,in his ,new ,revelation ,sir ,arthur assures the public that she was at least twice convicted of very clumsy and foolish fraud 7p4 #df74 ,such statements are quite reckless4 ,eusapia ,palladino tricked habitually1 on the confession of ,morselli and ,flammarion and her greatest admirers1 from the beginning of her public career4 ,eusapia began her public career in #ahhh1 but was little known until #ahib4 ,she was exposed at ,cambridge by the leading ,english ,spiritualists in #ahie1 only three years after she had begun her performances on the great ,european stage4 ,myers and ,lodge reported that not one of her performances 7in #ahie7 was clearly genuine1 and that her fraud was so clever 7,myers said7 that it must have needed long practice to bring it to its present level of skill4 ,mr4 ,myers was quite right4 ,she had cheated from the start4 ,schiaparelli1 the great ,italian astronomer1 investigated her in #ahib1 and said that1 as she refused all tests1 he remained agnostic4 ,antoniadi1 the ,french astronomer1 studied her at ,flammarion's house in #ahih1 and he found her performance fraud from beginning to end4 ,flammarion himself reports that she tried constantly to get her hands free from control1 and that she was caught lowering a letter-scale by means of a hair4 ,thus her common tricks had begun as early as #ahih1 #ahie1 and even #ahib4 ,our hands are clean1 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle retorted to my charge of fraud4 ,that is precisely what they are not4 ,spiritualists have from the beginning covered up fraud with the mantle of ingenious theories1 like this grey theory4 ,fifty years ago 7#ahgc7 a ,mr4 ,volckmann1 a ,spiritualist1 grasped ,katie ,king1 the pretty ghost who had duped ,professor ,crookes for months4 ,he at once found that he had hold of the medium1 ,florence ,cook2 but the other ,spiritualists present tore him off1 and put out the feeble light2 so ,florence ,cook continued for seven years longer to dupe ,spiritualists1 until she was caught again in just the same way in #ahhj4 ,from the earliest days of materializations there were such exposures1 and the ,spiritualists condoned everything4 ,the medium1 they said1 when the identity of ghost and medium was too solidly proved1 had acted the part of ghost unconsciously1 in a state of trance4 ,the ghosts had economized1 using the medium's body instead of making one4 ,some even said that the ghost and medium coalesced again 7to save the medium's life67 when a wicked sceptic seized the phantom4 ,some said1 when gauzy stuff1 such as any draper sells1 or a curl of false hair1 was found in the cabinet1 that the spirits had forgotten to dematerialize it4 ,some laid the blame on wicked spirits who got snow-white mediums into trouble4 ,some learnedly proved that thoughts of fraud in the mind of sceptics present had telepathically influenced the entranced medium6 ,these things are past1 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle may say4 ,not in the least4 ,in the decade before the ,war exposures were as frequent as in the palmy days of the middle of the nineteenth century1 and ,spiritualist excuses were just as bad4 ,craddock1 the most famous materializing medium in ,england1 who had duped the most cultivated ,spiritualists of ,london for years1 was caught and fined #aj and costs at ,london in #aijf4 ,marthe ,beraud1 the next sensation of the ,spiritualist world1 was caught in #aijg1 and had to be transformed into ,eva ,c4 ,miller1 the wonderful ,san ,francisco maker of ghosts1 was exposed in ,france in #aijh4 ,frau ,abend1 the marvel of ,berlin and the pet of the ,german ,spiritualist aristocracy1 was exposed and arrested in #aiji4 ,bailey1 the pride of the ,australian ,spiritualists1 was unmasked in ,france in #aiaj4 ,ofelia ,corrals1 the next nine days' wonder1 passed among the black sheep in #aiaa2 and ,lucia ,sordi1 the chief medium of ,italy1 was exposed in the same year4 ,in #aiab ,linda ,gazerra1 the refined ,italian lady who had duped scientific men and the ,spiritualist world for three years1 came to the same inevitable end2 and ,mrs4 ,ebba ,wriedt1 the famous ,american direct-voice medium1 met her disaster in ,norway4 ,in #aiac it was the turn of ,carancini2 in #aiad of ,marthe ,beraud in her new incarnation1 ,eva ,c4 ,we will consider the trickery of these people in detail later4 ,this mere list of names1 of more than national repute1 gathered from one single periodical 7the ,german ,psychische ,studien71 shows how the mischievous readiness of ,spiritualists to find excuses1 and their equally mischievous readiness to admit phenomena where real control is impossible1 make the movement as rich in impostors to-day as it was half a century ago4 ,it must be understood that behind each of these leading mediums--men and women of international interest--are thousands of obscurer men and women who cheat less cultivated and less critical folk1 and are never detected4 ,it is therefore useless to divide mediums into professional and amateur1 or into black1 white1 and grey4 ,you take a very grave risk with every one of them4 ,you need a close familiarity with all the varieties of fraud1 and these we will now carefully examine4 ,we will then consider more patiently and courteously what phenomena remain in the ,spiritualist world which are reasonably free from the suspicion of fraud4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,les forces naturelles inconnues 7#aijg71 p4 #ah4 #b ,same work1 p4 #bac4 #c ,materialisations-phnomene 7#aiad71 pp4 #bb1 #bh1 and #bi4 #d ,personal ,experiences in ,spiritualism 7#aiac71 p4 ix4 #e ,metapsychical ,phenomena 7#aije71 p4 #df4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,how ,,ghosts ,,are ,,made ,the most thrilling expectation of every ,spiritualist is to witness a materialization4 ,the wild ghost1 the ghost in a state of nature1 the ghost which beckoned our grandmothers from their beds and waylaid our grandfathers when they passed the graveyard on dark nights1 has become a mere legend4 ,hardly fifty years ago authentic ghost stories were as common as blackberries4 ,but the growth of education and the establishment of exact inquiry into such matters have relegated all these stories to the realm of imagination4 ,according to the ,spiritualist1 however1 we have merely replaced the wild ghost by the tame ghost1 the domesticated ghost of the sance room4 ,the clever spirits of the other world1 who could not when they were alive on earth detach a single particle from a living body 7except with a knife71 are now able to take a vast amount of material out of the medium's body and build it up in the space of quarter or half an hour into a hand1 a face1 or even a complete human body4 ,this is the great feat of materialization4 ,let me truthfully record that many of the better educated ,spiritualists fight shy of belief in this class of phenomena4 ,they know that in the history of the movement every single materializing medium has sooner or later been convicted of fraud4 ,they have1 on reflection1 seen that the formation1 in the course of half an hour1 of even a human hand--which is a marvellously compacted structure of millions of cells--would be a feat of stupendous power and intelligence4 ,they feel that1 if all the scientific men in the world cannot make a single living cell1 it is rather absurd to think that these spirit workers1 whose messages do not reflect a very high degree of intelligence1 can make a human face out of the slime or raw material of the medium's body in half an hour1 and put all the atoms back in their places in the medium's body in another half hour4 ,the faith of the great majority of ,spiritualists is1 of course1 heroic enough to overlook all these difficulties4 ,indeed1 it is amazing to find even students of science among them indifferent to the enormous intrinsic improbability of a materialization4 ,during the debate at the ,queen's ,hall ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle had on the table before him a work which contained a hundred and fifty photographs of materializations4 ,several of these represented full-sized human busts 7sometimes with the superfluous decoration of beards1 spectacles1 starched collars1 ties1 and tie-pins74 ,one of them represented a full-sized human form1 dressed in a bath robe4 ,and ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle1 a trained medical man1 assured the audience that he believed that these were real forms1 moulded out of the ectoplasm of the medium's body1 in the space of less than half an hour1 by spiritual powers6 ,sir ,william ,crookes believed in materializations of a still more wonderful nature1 as we shall see4 ,dr4 ,russel ,wallace believed implicitly in materializations4 ,sir ,w4 ,barrett and ,sir ,o4 ,lodge believe in materializations1 since they believe in the honesty of ,d4 ,d4 ,home1 who professed to materialize hands4 ,so we must not blame the ordinary ,spiritualist if he knows nothing about the tremendous internal difficulties of this class of phenomena1 and the consistent and appalling career of fraud of mediums in this respect4 ,materialization is the crowning triumph of the medium1 the most convincing evidence of the new religion4 ,it goes on to-day in darkened rooms in ,london--done by men who have already been convicted in ,london police-courts--and all parts of the world4 ,fraud follows fraud1 yet the believer hopes 7and pays7 on4 ,some of the phenomena are genuine1 he says2 that is to say1 some of the tricks were not proved to be fraudulent4 ,let us see how these things are done4 ,the incomparable ,daniel was the first1 apparently1 to open up this great field of ,spiritualist evidence4 ,in the early fifties he began to exhibit hands which the ,spiritualists present were sure were not his hands4 ,but we shall see how1 even in our own day1 ,spiritualists easily take a stuffed glove1 a foot1 or even a bit of muslin to be a hand1 in the weird light of the dark room2 and we will not linger over this4 ,the real creator of this important department of the movement was ,mrs4 ,underhill1 the eldest of the three ,fox sisters who founded ,spiritualism4 ,i will tell the marvellous story of the three ,foxes later1 and will anticipate here only to the extent of saying that ,leah1 the eldest sister 7,mrs4 ,fish1 later ,mrs4 ,underhill71 was the organizing genius of the movement4 ,she was an expert in fraud and a woman of business4 ,until her own sisters gave her away1 forty years after the beginning of the movement1 she was never exposed2 and even an exposure by her sister in the public ,press and on the public stage in ,new ,york made no difference to her career4 ,she was the ,mme4 ,blavatsky1 the ,mrs4 ,eddy1 of ,spiritualism4 ,leah began in #ahfi1 every other branch of ,spiritualist conjuring having now been fully explored1 to produce a ghost at her sittings4 ,in the dark a veiled and luminous female figure walked solemnly about the room1 and profoundly impressed the sitters4 ,the mere fact of walking--ghosts have to glide nowadays--would tell a modern audience that the ghost was the very solid medium2 and the luminosity would have an aroma of phosphorus to a modern nostril4 ,but the ,americans of #ahfi were not very critical4 ,a few months later a wealthy ,new ,york banker1 ,livermore1 lost his wife1 and the hyenas--as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle calls mediums who prey on the affections of the bereaved--hastened to relieve his grief and his purse4 ,for four hundred sittings1 spread over a space of six years1 ,katie ,fox impersonated his dead wife4 ,as ,katie ,fox confessed in #ahhh that ,spiritualism was all humbuggery--every bit of it1 we need not enter into a learned analysis of these sittings4 ,english mediums were put on their mettle1 and after a little practice in private they announced that they had the same powers of materialization1 and it was unnecessary to bring over the ,americans4 ,mrs4 ,guppy1 the pride of ,london ,spiritualism1 opened this new and rich vein4 ,the story of ,mrs4 ,guppy need not be told here4 ,it is enough that1 while she was still ,miss ,nichol1 she was the chief medium to convert ,dr4 ,russel ,wallace to ,spiritualism2 and that1 on the other hand1 she was the lady who professed that she was aerially transported by spirits from ,highbury to ,lamb's ,conduit ,street1 and through several solid walls1 in the space of three minutes4 ,mrs4 ,guppy was above suspicion3 first because she was unpaid1 and secondly because she exposed several fraudulent mediums4 ,so ,mrs4 ,guppy set up her little peep-show in the first month of #ahgb1 and drew fashionable ,london4 ,but the performance was rather tame4 ,while ,mrs4 ,guppy sat in the cabinet1 a little white face appeared1 in the dim moonlight1 at an opening near the top of the cabinet4 ,it did not speak1 as the ,new ,york ghosts did4 ,dolls do not speak4 ,a few months later ,herne and ,williams1 the professional friends of ,mrs4 ,guppy whose spirit-controls had wafted that very voluminous lady as rapidly as a zeppelin across ,london1 set up a more robust performance4 ,as they sat in the cabinet 7unseen71 spirit-forms emerged--dim1 luminous1 but unmistakably alive--and moved about the room4 ,it was the first appearance in ,england of those famous spirits1 ,john ,king1 the converted pirate1 and ,katie ,king1 his daughter1 who had been a great attraction in ,america for several years4 ,john's beard looked rather theatrical1 and his lamp smelt of phosphorus4 ,but what would you8 ,spirits have to use earthly chemicals2 and they would find plenty of phosphorus in the brain of ,charlie ,williams1 not to speak of his pockets1 which were never searched4 ,again we may save ourselves the trouble of a learned analysis of the phenomena by recalling that ,williams presently dissolved partnership with ,herne1 and entered into an alliance with ,rita2 and that in #ahgh the precious pair were seized during a performance1 and searched1 at ,amsterdam4 ,rita had a false beard1 six handkerchiefs1 and a bottle of phosphorized oil4 ,williams had the familiar false black beard and dirty drapery of ,john ,king1 and bottles of phosphorized oil and scent4 ,the ,spiritualist reader here impatiently observes that ,i am merely picking out a few little irregularities in the early days of the movement4 ,far from it4 ,i am scientifically studying the preparatory stages of one of the classic manifestations of the movement3 the materializations of ,florence ,cook1 which are vouched for by ,sir ,w4 ,crookes1 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 and1 apparently1 all the leaders of the movement4 ,if the ,spiritualist wishes1 like other people1 honestly to understand ,katie ,king1 he or she must read this part of the story which ,i am giving1 and which is generally omitted 7though it may be read in any history of the movement74 ,florence ,cook was a pretty little ,hackney girl of sixteen when ,herne and ,williams began4 ,she attended sances at their house in ,lamb's ,conduit ,street1 and she was so impressed that she became a pupil of ,herne4 ,she and her father seem to have understood each other very well1 and she very shortly began to give1 to paying guests1 materialization-sances in their house at ,hackney4 ,florence went one better than ,mrs4 ,guppy and ,herne4 ,there was a lamp in the room--at the far side of the room--and you saw faces plainly at the opening in the cabinet4 ,as her power developed1 the ghost began to leave the cabinet and walk about the room and talk to the sitters4 ,florence remained bound with rope in the cabinet while ,katie ,king stalked abroad4 ,you did not see her1 it is true1 but you had her word for it4 ,she was not bound by the spectators--nor by herself1 of course4 ,she was bound by the spirits4 ,a rope was put on her lap1 the curtains were drawn1 and presently you discovered ,florrie1 securely bound and in a trance1 in the cabinet4 ,the curtains were drawn again when the ghost1 in flowing white drapery1 walked the room4 ,meantime1 and at a very early date1 a ,manchester ,spiritualist named ,blackburn privately engaged to give ,florrie an annual fee if she would not take money at the door2 so she became an unpaid and highly respectable medium4 ,jewellery is1 of course1 not money1 and ,florrie exacted jewellery 7as the ,spiritualist ,volckmann found and said in the ,london ,press at the time1 when he wanted to attend7 from would-be sitters through her father4 ,it is said that she looked1 in features1 remarkably like a ,jewess4 ,her fame reached the ears of a brilliant young scientist1 ,professor ,w4 ,crookes1 and he invited her to materialize at his house4 ,she soon laid aside all dread of the scientific man4 ,in three niggardly little letters1 which he never republished1 ,crookes described in #ahgd the wonderful things done at his house4 ,while ,florrie lay in an improvised cabinet1 or behind a curtain1 the beautiful and romantic and quite different maiden1 ,katie ,king1 walked about his room4 ,she played with ,crookes's children1 and told them stories about her earthly life in ,india long ago4 ,she talked affably to his guests1 and took his arm as she walked4 ,there was not the least doubt about her solidity4 ,the wicked sceptic who suggests that ,katie ,king was a muslin doll or a streak of light has certainly not read ,crookes's letters4 ,he felt her pulse1 he sounded her heart and lungs1 he cut off a tress of her lovely auburn hair1 he took her in his arms1 and he--well1 he breaks off here and simply asks us what any man would do in the circumstances8 ,we assume that he found that she had lips and warm breath like any other maiden4 ,florence ,cook's opinion of scientific men would to-day be priceless4 ,i will say1 on behalf of ,sir ,w4 ,crookes1 that he never obtruded this sacred experience on the public4 ,he accidentally destroyed all the negatives and photographs he had taken of ,katie ,king4 ,he forbade friends1 to whom he had given copies1 ever to publish them4 ,the three short letters he wrote to the ,spiritualist 7,february #f1 ,april #c1 and ,june #e1 #ahgd--;,i have1 of course1 read them7 are now rare4 ,he wrote them out of chivalry1 because a rival ,spiritualist1 ,volckmann 7who married ,mrs4 ,guppy71 got admission to the ,hackney sanctuary 7by a present of jewellery7 and exposed ,florence 7,december #i1 #ahgc74 ,he saw at once that she was impersonating the spirit1 and he seized it4 ,other ,spiritualists present1 supporters of ,florrie1 tore him off1 and turned out the lamp2 and five minutes later ,florence was found1 bound and peacefully entranced1 in her cabinet4 ,in the hubbub that followed ,professor ,crookes gave his modest testimonial to ,florrie's virtue4 ,spiritualists generally accepted her version1 and she continued to make ghosts until #ahhj1 when ,sir ,george ,sitwell and ,baron von ,buch exposed her in precisely the same way4 ,no ,spiritualist can quarrel with me for dwelling on this famous materialization4 ,it is supposed to be the mostly firmly authenticated in the whole movement4 ,sir ,w4 ,crookes said1 quite late in life1 that he had nothing to retract2 and every ,spiritualist who quotes his high authority endorses the materialization of ,katie ,king4 ,the majority of the public to-day will merely conclude that some scientific men are worse witnesses on such matters than dockers1 and that the disgust of scientific men like ,sir ,e4 ,ray ,lankester and ,sir ,bryan ,donkin has a very solid foundation4 ,even at the time there were leading ,spiritualists like ,sergeant ,cox who regarded the affair with bewilderment and suspected that all materializations were fraud4 ,what can be said for ,sir ,w4 ,crookes8 ,he alleges that the medium and the ghost were unmistakably different persons4 ,katie ,king was taller than ,florrie4 ,but ,florence ,cook1 like her contemporary1 ,miss ,showers1 was seen to walk on tip-toe1 and alter her stature1 when she was the ghost4 ,sir ,w4 ,crookes nowhere says that he took the elementary precaution of measuring ghost and medium with their dresses drawn up to their knees4 ,he says that the lock of hair which ,katie gave him as a memento was auburn1 and ,florrie's hair was very dark brown4 ,but we do not doubt that on the last occasion the ghost was not ,florence ,cook4 ,other differences he finds1 in a dim light1 are negligible4 ,if the modern ,spiritualist really believes ,sir ,w4 ,crookes1 as he professes to do1 he must come to this ultra-miraculous conclusion3 ,the spiritual powers in this case did not merely take some matter out of ,florence ,cook's body1 but they took more than the whole substance of it1 because ,crookes says that ,katie was taller and broader than ,florrie6 ,and1 to cap this supreme miracle1 he on one occasion saw ghost and medium together1 and apparently ,florrie was as solid as ever6 ,the spirits had in this case multiplied nine stone into eighteen or nineteen4 ,after twenty years of religious controversy ,i am a patient man1 but ,i decline to argue with any one who doubts that ,florrie ,cook 7four times caught in fraud1 and a pupil of ,herne7 impersonated the ghost4 ,mr4 ,f4 ,podmore saw the photographs which ,professor ,crookes took4 ,he says that ghost and medium are the same person4 ,crookes himself was nervous1 in spite of ,florrie's charms1 and he begged to be allowed to see ghost and medium plainly together4 ,the artful ,florence could not manage that in his house4 ,once she let him look at her1 lying on the ground1 but he saw no face or hands2 and a bundle of clothes and a pair of boots are not quite clearly a living person4 ,he pressed again4 ,florence--he tells us this very naively--borrowed his lamp 7a bottle of phosphorized oil7 and tested its penetrating power1 and then told him he should see both ghost and medium in her house4 ,he went1 and we are not surprised that he saw them4 ,if any ,spiritualist of our time really doubts that on this occasion there were two girls1 ,i invite him to read carefully ,sir ,w4 ,crookes's account of the famous farewell scene4 ,katie proclaimed that her mission was over 7she had converted a scientific man71 and this was to be her last appearance4 ,florrie 7who was in a trance1 of course7 wept1 vainly implored her to visit this earth again1 and sank1 broken-hearted1 to the floor4 ,katie directed ,crookes--who stood1 mute1 with his phosphorus lamp in the middle of this pretty comedy--to see to ,florrie1 and1 when he turned round again1 ,katie ,king had vanished for ever4 ,that is to say1 she had not been re-absorbed in the medium's body1 as ,spiritualist theory demands1 but had gone in the opposite direction while his back was turned6 ,now there you have the most wonderful1 classic1 historic materialization in the whole ,spiritualist history4 ,it is attested by a distinguished man of science4 ,it is endorsed by all the ,spiritualist leaders of our time4 ,and it is piffle from beginning to end4 ,the evidence would not justify a man in drowning a mouse4 ,the control was ridiculously inadequate4 ,the imposture was palpable4 ,if ,sir ,w4 ,crookes had taken the scientific precaution of spreading a few tacks on the carpet1 or waxing a bent pin in the ghost's chair1 he would have heard the ,hackney dialect at its richest4 ,it was reserved for two ,oxford undergraduates to show ,sir ,w4 ,crookes how to investigate ghosts4 ,they seized ,marie1 ,florrie's next spirit1 in #ahhj2 and they found they had in their arms the charming ,florence1 in her lingerie4 ,crookes had never searched the ample black velvet dress she used to wear4 ,it is hardly worth while running over all the ghostly frauds since then1 but a word about ,florrie's friend and contemporary1 ,miss ,showers1 will be found instructive4 ,miss ,showers was a really unpaid medium2 though she received a good deal in the way of jewellery and other presents from admirers of her fair and aristocratic ghost1 ,lenore ,fitzwarren4 ,she was a general's daughter1 and above suspicion4 ,no one dreamed of searching her4 ,on one occasion she allowed ,florence ,cook to peep into her cabinet2 and ,florence--hawks do not pick out hawks' eyes--assured the public that she plainly saw ,miss ,showers and ,lenore1 and even a second ghost1 simultaneously4 ,but1 alas for the fair ,lenore6 ,sergeant ,cox1 who was very sceptical1 had ,miss ,showers at his country-house in #ahgd2 and ,miss ,cox1 a born daughter of ,eve1 tried to draw the curtain and peep into the cabinet4 ,miss ,showers fought for her curtain1 and the ghostly headdress fell off1 and the game was up4 ,this was only four months after the exposure of ,florence ,cook4 ,the two most certainly genuine and respectable mediums in ,england were unmasked within four months4 ,r4 ,d4 ,owen's ,katie ,king had been exposed in ,america in the previous year1 the last sad year of the old man's life4 ,one by one the others followed4 ,in spite of darkness1 in spite of solemn promises extracted from sitters not to break the circle or seize the ghost1 the materializers were all exposed4 ,one man shot a ghost with ink1 and the ink was found on the medium4 ,stuart ,cumberland squirted cochineal on a ghost1 and the medium could not wash it away4 ,one ,american with a gun had a shot at a ghost4 ,at another place tin-tacks were strewn on the floor1 and the spirit's language was painful to hear4 ,in #ahgf ,eglinton was exposed by ,mr4 ,colley2 he had in his trunk the beard and draperies of his ghost ,abdullah4 ,in #ahgg ,miss ,wood was caught at ,blackburn1 and ,dr4 ,monck was caught and sent to jail4 ,in #ahgh ,rita and ,williams were caught1 with all their tawdry ghost-properties1 at ,amsterdam4 ,spiritualists were getting a little nervous1 though as a rule they accepted every excuse4 ,the medium had acted unconsciously1 or under the influence of evil spirits4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle boasts that it is ,spiritualists who weed out frauds4 ,on the contrary1 they have shown a very grave willingness to accept the flimsiest excuses and reinstate the medium4 ,miss ,wood was exposed1 for instance1 in #ahgg4 ,they at once admitted her defence1 that she had been quite unconscious in impersonating the ghost1 and she went on4 ,in #ahhb a sceptical sitter seized the pretty little ,indian girl who came out of the cabinet while ,miss ,wood was entranced in it2 and the ,indian girl-ghost was ,miss ,wood walking on her knees1 swathed in muslin4 ,ah1 but this is ancient history1 your ,spiritualist friend says4 ,listen6 ,about fifteen years ago1 when ,i was already making that inquiry into ,spiritualism which ,spiritualists say ,i have never made1 ,i was told by a group of ,london ,spiritualists1 all cultivated men and women1 that it was useless to go the round of the mediums who advertised in ,light1 since they were all frauds4 ,i was told that the one genuine medium in ,london was a certain ,f4 ,g4 ,f4 ,craddock1 who performed in a studio at the back of ,mr4 ,gambier ,bolton's house4 ,the minor phenomena ,i saw did not impress me1 and ,i asked to be allowed to see these wonderful materializations of ,mr4 ,craddock4 ,three ghosts--a nun1 a clown1 and a ,pathan--walked the room 7successively7 while ,craddock sat 7unseen7 in a trance4 ,i saw pictures of these materialized forms1 and was told that they were accurate4 ,but before ,i could get admission ,craddock left1 and he began to hold sittings for his own profit at ,pinner4 ,and on ,march #ah1 #aijf1 the ghost was seized1 in the usual way1 and found to be ,craddock4 ,on ,june #bj 7see the ,times of ,june #ba7 ,craddock was fined ten pounds1 and five guineas cost1 at ,edgware ,police ,court1 on the charge that he1 being a rogue and a vagabond1 did unlawfully use certain subtle craft1 means1 or device1 by palmistry or otherwise1 to deceive the said ,mark ,mayhew and others4 ,he had been controlled as carelessly as ,f4 ,cook was in #ahgd4 ,he had smuggled in masks and drapery1 and impersonated his ghosts4 ,after all1 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle may say1 in his blunt way1 this was #aijf4 ,i do not know if he knows it--he seems to have an exceedingly limited knowledge of his own movement--but ,craddock is giving materialization-sances in or near ,london to-day2 and prominent ,spiritualists know it1 and condone it1 on the ground that some of his phenomena are genuine4 ,the imposture has continued to flourish in all parts of the ,spiritualist world since #aijf4 ,in #aijg it was the turn of ,marthe ,beraud1 of whom ,i will say more presently4 ,in #aijh exposure fell upon ,miller1 the most famous of the ,american materializing mediums4 ,such was his repute that the ,french ,spiritualists invited him to ,paris1 and were delighted with him4 ,the figures which appeared while he sat before the cabinet were suspiciously like dolls1 but there was no mistake about the beautiful girl 7in dull1 red light7 who came out1 and offered her hand1 when ,miller was 7presumably7 inside the cabinet4 ,but when the spirits announced that it was improper to strip and search him1 and when they said that1 though he was an unpaid medium1 they must make him a nice little present before he went back to ,san ,francisco1 there was a chill in the ,spiritualist world4 ,and when he produced the ghosts of ,luther's wife and ,melanchthon1 when they found bits of tulle and a perfumed cloth in the cabinet after a sance1 they sent ,miller back to ,america without his present4 ,this fiasco1 which agitated the ,spiritualist world in the beginning of #aiji1 had not yet been forgotten when1 in ,october of the same year1 ,frau ,anna ,abend and her husband were arrested by the police at ,berlin4 ,frau ,abend was the leading ,german medium4 ,strings of motor-cars stretched before her door of an afternoon4 ,for several years she and her husband had duped and fascinated ,berlin by their accurate knowledge of the dead you wished to see4 ,you heard on every side1 what you hear on every side in ,london to-day3 ,i was quite unknown to the medium1 and ,she could not possibly know by natural means what the spirits told me4 ,the police thought otherwise4 ,they found in her cabinet tulle enough to drape six ghosts2 and they found in her house quite a detective-bureau of information about dead folk and possible sitters1 and a secret address to which she had the flowers sent which her spirits would produce as apports4 ,the whole machinery of her information and trickery was laid bare4 ,was she ruined8 ,not a bit of it4 ,she and her husband got off on technical grounds1 and the ,spiritualists showered congratulations on them and set them up again4#f ,in #aiaj our ,spiritualist journal1 ,light1 which is so zealous to root out fraud1 announced that a really genuine materializing medium had appeared in ,costa ,rica4 ,it seemed a safe distance away1 but ,professor ,reichel1 of ,france1 had actually been to ,costa ,rica and found it a flagrant imposture at the very time when ,light was confirming the faith of ,english ,spiritualists with the glorious news4 ,ofelia ,corrals1 the medium in question1 was the daughter of a high civic functionary of ,san ,jos2 an unpaid medium1 you notice4 ,as soon as ,reichel arrived he found that the wonderful manifestation which the ,spiritualist journals of the world had announced was well known locally to be a hoax4 ,the ghost was a servant-girl1 who was recognized by everybody1 smuggled in at the back door4 ,ofelia1 under pressure1 admitted this4 ,her spirit-control1 she explained1 could not materialize1 so directed her to bring in this girl1 who resembled her in the last incarnation but one4 ,sometimes her mother took the part1 and she was one night embraced by an ardent ,costa ,rican sitter4 ,reichel assisted at some of her performances1 but the girl declined to materialize a ghost4 ,what she did get was a chorus of ghostly voices in the dark4 ,it says something for the robustness of ,professor ,reichel's psychic faith that1 though the music was rotten1 though the whole family was suspect and all the members of it were present1 though he caught the girl cheating and her ghost was an acknowledged imposture1 he believed that this music was a genuine phenomenon6 ,he was not going to make a journey to ,costa ,rica for nothing4 ,to ,english ,spiritualists this case ought to be particularly interesting1 because among the gentle ,ofelia's admirers in ,san ,jos was an ,englishman1 ,mr4 ,lindo1 and it was he who sent the outrageous account to ,light4 ,according to him--and he was present--they all saw ,ofelia floating in the air4 ,now1 ,reichel had taken with him some phosphorized paper1 and by the light of this he saw that ,ofelia was standing on a stool4 ,in fact1 she fell off the stool1 and was ignominiously exposed4 ,what is worse1 ,reichel says 7,psychische ,studien1 ,april1 #aiaa1 p4 #bbd7 that he had expressly warned ,lindo1 who used his name1 that he would not be mixed up with such a burlesque1 and that the minutes of the sittings were grossly exaggerated by ,ofelia's father4 ,so much for first-hand ,spiritualist testimony in ,light4 ,the ,french ,annales des ,sciences ,psychiques gave an equally false account4 ,the ,german ,psychische ,studien alone called it a conglomerate of stupidity and lies4 ,it certainly was2 but when the whole truth was known ,light mildly described it as a girlish prank4 ,it was calculated and shameless fraud4 ,a few months later it was the turn of ,lucia ,sordi1 a famous ,italian medium1 a young married woman of the peasant class1 assisted by her two girls4 ,her marvels put ,eusapia ,palladino in the shade4 ,the guests were not merely touched1 but bitten6 ,a man's hat was brought from the hall and put on his head4 ,the cat was brought in through the solid walls4 ,the table was not merely lifted up1 but carried into the hall4 ,professor ,tanfani and other scientific men were taken in4 ,four materialized spirits seemed to be in the room at once1 while ,lucia was bound to her chair4 ,they fastened her in a crate1 and it made little difference4 ,in #aiaa ,baron von ,schrenck-,notzing went to ,rome and exposed her4 ,she could get out of any bandages4 ,but when the ,war broke out she was still occupying the leisure hours of certain ,italian professors4 ,meantime1 ,dr4 ,imoda1 of ,turin1 university teacher of science1 was investigating the marvels of ,linda ,gazerra4 ,linda was not exactly an unpaid medium1 but she was the cultivated daughter of a professional man4 ,being a lady and a good ,catholic1 she could not1 of course1 be stripped and searched4 ,so she did wonderful things1 which ,imoda gravely watched and described and photographed for three years4 ,her control was ,vincenzo1 a young officer who had been killed in a duel2 and a terrible chap he was to choose so respectable and pious a medium4 ,things simply flew about when he was at work4 ,at other times she apported birds and flowers1 and the ghosts that materialized beside her--you could plainly see both her and the ghost--were very pretty1 though remarkably flat-faced1 and fond of muslin4 ,as ,linda's hands were controlled by the sitters1 it did not matter that she insisted on absolute darkness until she pleased to say ,foco 7,light7 and let you take a photograph4 ,she had a three years' run4 ,then ,schrenck-,notzing studied her at ,paris in the spring of #aiaa4 ,she treated him to a witches' ,sabbath1 he says4 ,but he soon found that her feet were not where a lady ought to keep her feet4 ,he felt a spirit-touch1 grasped the touching limb1 and found that he had the virtuous ,linda's foot4 ,then he sewed her in a sack1 and the spirits were powerless4 ,her materializations and tricks were simple4 ,she brought her birds and flowers and muslin and masks 7or pictures7 in her hair 7which was largely false1 and never examined7 and her underclothing1 and she1 by a common trick1 released her hands and feet from control to manipulate them4 ,this ,baron ,schrenck1 you think1 was a terrible fellow at exposures4 ,unhappily1 our last instance must be the exposure of his own medium1 ,eva ,c4 ,this will fitly crown the chapter for two reasons4 ,first1 because ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle recommends her to us as a genuine materializing medium of our own times4 ,he says in the ,debate that1 while ,spiritualists have been much derided for claiming that spirits build up temporary forms out of the medium's body1 recent scientific investigation shows that their assertion was absolutely true4 7,cheers47 ,i quote the printed ,debate 7p4 #cb71 and it will be recognized that here at least ,i am not shirking my opponent's strongest evidence1 for ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle at once explains that he means the case of ,eva ,c4 ,he gave his own 7quite inaccurate7 version of the facts1 and1 to the delight of his supporters1 he went on3-- ,don't you think it is simply the insanity of incredulity to waive that aside8 ,imagine discussing what happened in #ahff 444 when you have scientific facts of this sort remaining unanswered4 ,so1 you see1 ,i was very heavily punished in that contest1 and ,i have to try to redeem my insanity2 but perhaps the reader will remember what ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle forgot1 that he had stipulated that ,i should open the debate and deal with his books4 ,no doubt ,i was quite free to take other evidence also1 but ,i had an idea that1 since this evidence was published in #aiad and ,sir ,arthur's books were published in #aiah and #aiai1 he had not mentioned it because he disdained it4 ,the other reason why the case of ,eva ,c4 is important is because it shows us modern scientific men at work4 ,in the earlier days of the movement faking was easy4 ,no one searched a medium1 especially a lady medium4 ,she could have yards of butter-cloth or muslin and even dolls or masks under her skirts4 ,even now the ordinary medium is not searched1 as a rule4 ,a friend of mine went recently to a materializing medium near ,london--it is all going on still--and was allowed to feel the medium over his clothes4 ,he could easily tell that the man had yards of muslin wrapped round his body1 but he said nothing1 and he got his money's worth2 a man dressed in muslin1 in a bad light1 being recognized by ,spiritualists as a deceased relative4 ,most materializations are still the medium in a mask or beard and muslin4 ,in some cases1 in very poor light1 the ghost is merely a white rag1 a picture1 or even a faint patch of light from a lantern1 or a phosphorized streak4 ,now we come to the scientific facts4 ,half the professors and other scientific men quoted as adherents by modern ,spiritualist writers and speakers are not ,spiritualists at all4 ,flammarion1 ,ochorowicz1 ,foa1 ,bottazzi1 ,richet1 de ,vesme1 ,schrenck-,notzing1 ,morselli1 ,flournoy1 ,maxwell1 ,ostwald1 etc41 are not1 and never were1 ,spiritualists4 ,most of them regard ,spiritualism as childish and mischievous4 ,but they believe that mediums have remarkable psychic powers1 and they admit levitations and 7in many cases7 materializations4 ,they think that a mysterious force of the living medium1 not spirits1 does these things1 and they talk of a new science4 ,i agree with them that the idea of spirits strolling along from the ,elysian fields to play banjoes and lift tables and make ghosts for us is rather peculiar1 but ,i am not sure that their idea is much less peculiar4 ,however1 they promise us research under scientific conditions1 and they say that they have got materializations under such conditions4 ,eva ,c4 is the grand example4 ,who is this mysterious lady8 ,i have already let the reader into the secret4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle may justly plead that he does not read ,german2 and the ,french version of her exploits is1 he may be surprised to hear1 very different from ,baron ,schrenck's fuller version in ,german1 and very wrong and misleading4 ,but does ,sir ,arthur never read the ,proceedings of the ,society for ,psychical ,research8 ,as long ago as ,july1 #aiad1 it contained a very good article on ,marthe ,beraud1 which tells most of the facts 7except about her morals71 and quite openly disdains these wonderful photographs which have made such an impression on ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle4 ,from that article1 which betrays1 in the official organ of the ,society1 almost the same insanity of incredulity as ,i did1 he would have learned things that might have saved him from the worst howler of the ,debate4 ,it tells that ,eva ,c41 as was well known all over the continent in #aiad1 was ,marthe ,beraud1 the medium of the ,villa ,carmen materializations in ,algiers in #aije4 ,it gives a lengthy report on the case by an ,algiers lawyer1 ,m4 ,marsault1 who knew the family at the ,villa ,carmen intimately1 and often saw the performances2 and this report contains an explicit confession by ,marthe that she had no abnormal powers whatever4 ,to excuse herself she said that there was a trap-door in the room1 and ghosts were introduced by others4 ,that was a lie1 for there was no trap-door2 and those who obstinately wished to believe in the ghosts rejected the whole of ,marsault's weighty evidence on the ground that he said there was a trap-door6 ,i have before me photographs of the ,algiers ghost and of ,eva ,c4's ghost4 ,they plainly show ,marthe dressed up as a ghost1 in the familiar old way1 while ,professor ,richet gravely photographs her1 and ,sir ,oliver ,lodge recommends these things to our serious notice4 ,however1 ,marthe found ,algiers unhealthy after this1 and she returned to ,france and set up in the materializing trade4 ,mme4 ,bisson found her and adopted her1 and changed her name2 and ,baron von ,schrenck-,notzing settled down to a three years' study of her marvellous performances4 ,it was on the strength of his book and photographs that ,miss ,verrall in #aiad 7in the ,proceedings ,s4 ,p4 ,r47 gave a verdict not much different from my own4 ,she found some evidence of abnormal power1 and a great deal of fraud4 ,i see no evidence whatever of abnormal psychic power if--it is not clear--this is what ,miss ,verrall means4 ,yet ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 who seems to know nothing about the matter beyond ,mme4 ,bisson's worthless work1 puts the facts before a ,london audience in the year #aibj in the language ,i have quoted4 ,in the beginning ,marthe plainly impersonated the ghost1 as ,baron ,schrenck admits4 ,he believes that she did it unconsciously4 ,the sooner that excuse for fraudulent mediums is abandoned the better4 ,she was quite obviously not in a trance1 though she pretended to be1 throughout the whole three years4 ,for smaller ghosts 7white patches1 streaks1 arms1 etc47 she used muslin1 gloves1 rubber--all sorts of things4 ,as a rule1 she knew when they were going to let off the magnesium-flare and photograph her4 ,she had had ample time behind the curtain to arrange her effects4 ,in one photograph1 taken too suddenly1 she has a white rag on her knee1 which would look like a hand in the red light1 and her real hand is holding the ghost over her head6 ,after that ,baron ,schrenck sadly admitted that she used her hands4 ,mme4 ,bisson does not2 so ,sir ,arthur does not know this4 ,in another photograph she is supposed to accept a cigarette in a materialized third hand4 ,it is obviously her bare foot1 and1 if you look closely1 you see that her face is a piece of white stuff pinned to the curtain4 ,she is really leaning back and stretching up her foot4 ,the book reeks with cheating4 ,after a time she began to stick or paste on the cabinet or the curtain pictures cut out of the current illustrated papers1 and daubed with paint1 provided with false noses1 or adorned with beards and moustaches4 ,president ,wilson has a heavy cavalry moustache and a black eye2 but the glasses1 collar1 tie1 and tie-pin1 and even the marks of the scissors1 are unmistakable4 ,baron ,schrenck was forced to admit that dozens of pinholes were found 7not by him7 on the cabinet-wall1 and that the pins must have been smuggled in1 deceptively1 in spite of a control which he claimed to be perfect4 ,in fact1 poor ,baron ,schrenck was driven from concession to concession until his case was very limp4 ,of all these things ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle knew nothing2 and1 although he had the portrait of ,president ,wilson in his hands at the ,queen's ,hall1 only disguised by a moustache and a few daubs of paint1 he assured the audience he believed that it was the ectoplasm of the medium's body moulded by spirit forces into a human form6 ,the point of interest to us is to find how the medium concealed her trappings4 ,no medium was ever more rigorously controlled1 yet the fraud is obvious4 ,the answer shows that you can almost never be sure of your medium4 ,she was stripped naked before every sitting and sewn into black tights4 ,her mouth and hair were always examined4 ,occasionally her sex-cavity was examined4 ,south ,african detectives have told me how this receptacle is used for smuggling diamonds1 and1 as ,marthe was rarely examined there by a competent and reliable witness1 she probably often used it4 ,dr4 ,schrenck admits that the outlet of her intestinal tube was scarcely ever examined until very late in the inquiry1 and an independent doctor gave positive reason to suspect that she used this4 ,there is only one photograph in the book that shows a ghost which1 tightly wrapped up 7and nearly all show plain marks of folding1 as ,baron ,schrenck admits71 might be too large for such concealment2 and the careful reader will find that on these occasions there was no control at all6 ,they were impromptu sittings1 suddenly decided upon by ,marthe herself4 ,there is strong reason to believe that usually she swallowed her material and brought it up at will from her gullet or stomach4 ,more than a hundred cases of this power are known1 and there is much positive evidence that ,marthe was a ruminant4 ,she sometimes bled copiously from the mouth and gullet1 and she used the mouth much to manipulate the gauzy stuff4 ,when ,i mentioned this well-known theory of ,marthe ,beraud ,sir ,arthur laughed4 ,he said that he doubted if ,i had read the book ,i professed to have read1 because ,marthe had a net sewn round her head1 which disproved my theory4 ,he summoned me to retract4 ,he said ,i had slipped up pretty badly4 ,well1 the theory was not mine1 but that of a doctor who had studied ,marthe1 and who has little difficulty in dealing with the net4 ,had it not been the end of the debate1 however1 our audience would have heard a surprising reply4 ,they would have learned that the net was used only in seven sittings out of hundreds1 and that the medium then compelled them to abandon it4 ,they would have learned that the net1 instead of not making the slightest difference to the experiments1 as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle says1 made four out of these seven sittings completely barren of results6 ,and they would have further learned that when the net was on1 and ,marthe could not use her mouth1 she stipulated that the back of her clothing should be left open4 ,just one further detail of this sordid imposture4 ,i said that on one occasion ,marthe allowed the very title of the paper out of which she cut her portraits1 ,le ,miroir1 to appear in the photograph1 and gave it a spiritual meaning4 ,now1 that is ,mme4 ,bisson's version4 ,but ,baron ,schrenck's version is in flagrant contradiction1 and an examination of the photographs proves that he is right4 ,the words were caught1 accidentally1 by a camera placed in the cabinet1 and the excuse was concocted the next day6 ,enough of these miserable materializations4 ,they are always dishonest4 ,every materializing medium has been found out4 ,almost since the birth of the movement there have been1 and are to-day1 hundreds of these men and women1 paid and unpaid1 who have masqueraded as ghosts1 or duped their sitters in a dull red light with muslin and butter-cloth and phosphorized paper1 with dolls and masks and stuffed gloves and stockings and rubber arms4 ,if ,spiritualists would persuade us that they are scrupulously honest1 they must drive the last of these people out of their fold1 and they must expunge every reference to these materializations from their literature4 ,when we get such phenomena with a medium who has been searched by competent and independent witnesses1 whose body-openings have been sealed and clothing changed1 in a cabinet set up by independent inquirers1 with each hand and foot controlled by a separate man1 or in a good light1 we may begin to talk4 ,never yet has the faintest suggestion of a phenomenon been secured under such circumstances4 ,,footnote3 #f ,i take this from the ,german psychic journal1 ,psychische ,studien ,nov41 #aiji4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,mystery ,,of ,,raps ,,and ,,levitations ,i now pass at once to a class of ,spiritualistic manifestations which would be put forward by any well-educated occultist as the most authentic of all4 ,reference was made a few pages back to a large group of scientific and professional men who believe in what they call mediumistic phenomena4 ,they are not ,spiritualists1 and it is one of the questionable features of recent ,spiritualist literature that they are often described as such4 ,thus the astronomers ,flammarion and ,schiaparelli are quoted4 ,but ,flammarion says repeatedly in his latest and most important book 7,les forces naturelles inconnues1 #aijg7 that he is not and never was a ,spiritualist 7see p4 #eha71 and he includes a long letter from ,schiaparelli1 who disavows all belief even in the phenomena 7p4 #ic74 ,professor ,richet1 who believes in materializations1 is not a ,spiritualist4 ,professor ,morselli1 who also accepts the facts1 speaks of the ,spiritualist interpretation of them as childish1 absurd1 and immoral4 ,the long lists of scientific supporters which the ,spiritualists publish are in part careless or even dishonest4 ,but such professors as ,richet1 ,ochorowicz1 de ,vesme1 ,flournoy1 etc41 and men like ,flammarion1 ,carrington1 ,maxwell1 etc41 do believe that raps and other physical phenomena are produced by abnormal powers of the medium4 ,they believe that when the medium sits in or before the cabinet1 in proper conditions1 the floor and table are rapped1 the furniture is lifted or moved about1 musical instruments are played1 and impressions are made in plaster1 although the medium has not done it with his or her hands or feet4 ,as ,i said1 these scientific men scorn the idea that spirits from another world play these pranks4 ,they look for unknown natural forces in the medium4 ,they think that they have excluded fraud4 ,we shall see4 ,meantime1 the assent of so many scientific men to the phenomena themselves gives this class of experiences more plausibility than others4 ,most of these men base their opinion upon the remarkable doings of the ,italian medium1 ,eusapia ,palladino1 and we shall therefore pay particular attention to her4 ,but ,spiritualists rely for these things on a very large number of mediums4 ,in fact1 some of our leading ,english ,spiritualists do not believe in ,palladino at all1 having detected her in fraud4 ,we must therefore first examine the evidence put before us by ,spiritualists4 ,we begin with the story of the ,fox family in ,america in #ahdh1 which admittedly inaugurated modern ,spiritualism4 ,since ,spiritualists commemorate1 in #aibj1 the seventy-second anniversary of the foundation of their religion1 ,i will surely not be accused of wasting time over trivial or irrelevant matters in going back to #ahdh4 ,as1 however1 this is not a history1 ,i must deal with this matter very briefly4 ,in ,march1 #ahdh1 a ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,fox1 of ,hydesville1 a very small town of the ,state of ,new ,york1 had their domestic peace disturbed by mysterious and repeated rappings1 apparently on their walls and floors4 ,swedenborgians and ,shakers had by that time familiarized people with the idea of spirit1 and the neighbours were presently informed that the raps took an intelligent form1 and replied ,yes or ,no 7by a given number of raps7 to questions4 ,the ,foxes stated that the raps came from the spirit of a murdered man1 and later they said that they had dug and found human bones4 ,these raps were clearly associated with the two girls1 ,margaretta 7aged fifteen7 and ,katie or ,cathie 7aged twelve74 ,a third1 a married elder sister1 named ,leah--at that time ,mrs4 ,fish1 and later ,mrs4 ,underhill--came to ,hydesville1 and1 at her return to ,rochester1 took ,margaretta with her4 ,leah herself was presently a medium4 ,the excitement in rural ,america was intense4 ,mediums sprang up on every side1 and the ,foxes were in such demand that they could soon charge a dollar a sitter4 ,the spirits1 having at last discovered a way of communicating with the living1 rapped out all sorts of messages to the sitters4 ,in a few years table-turning1 table-tilting1 levitation1 etc41 were developed1 but the foundation of the religion was as ,i have described in #ahdh4 ,towards the close of #ahej three professors of ,buffalo ,university formed the theory that the ,fox girls were simple frauds1 causing the supposed raps by cracking their knee joints4 ,at a trial sitting they so placed the legs and feet of the girls that no raps could be produced4 ,a few months later a relative1 ,mrs4 ,culver1 made a public statement1 which was published in the ,new ,york ,herald 7,april #ag1 #ahea71 that ,margaretta ,fox had admitted the fraud to her1 and had shown her how it was done4 ,neither of these checks had any appreciable effect upon the movement4 ,from year to year it found new developments1 and it is said within three years of its origin to have won more than a million adherents in the ,united ,states1 or more than five times as many as it has to-day4 ,our ,spiritualists may find it possible1 in their solemn commemoration of #ahdh1 to smile at the ,buffalo professors and ,mrs4 ,culver1 but ,i have yet to meet a representative of theirs who can plausibly explain away what happened in #ahhh4 ,margaretta ,fox married ,captain ,kane1 the ,arctic explorer1 who often urged her to expose the fraud1 as he believed it to be4 ,in #ahhh she found courage to do so 7,new ,york ,herald1 ,september #bd1 #ahhh74 ,she and ,katie1 she said1 had discovered a power of making raps with their toe-joints 7not knee-joints71 and had hoaxed ,hydesville4 ,their enterprising elder sister had learned their secret1 and had organized the very profitable business of spirit-rapping4 ,the raps and all other phenomena of the ,spiritualist movement were1 ,mrs4 ,kane said1 fraud from beginning to end4 ,she gave public demonstrations in ,new ,york of the way it was done2 and in ,october of the same year her younger sister ,cathie confirmed the statement1 and said that ,spiritualism was all humbuggery1 every bit of it 7,herald1 ,october #aj and #aa1 #ahhh74 ,they agreed that their sister ,leah 7,mrs4 ,underhill71 the founder of the ,spiritualist movement and the most prosperous medium of its palmiest days1 was a monumental liar and a shameless organizer of every variety of fraud4 ,that a wealthy ,spiritualist afterwards induced ,cathie to go back on this confession need not surprise us4 ,so much for ,st4 ,leah--if she is yet canonized--and the foundation of the ,spiritualist religion in #ahdh4 ,we need say little further about raps4 ,dr4 ,maxwell1 the ,french lawyer and medical student who belongs to the scientific psychic school which ,i have noticed1 gives six different fraudulent ways of producing spirit-raps4 ,he has studied every variety of medium1 including girls about the age of the ,fox girls1 and found fraud everywhere4 ,in one case he discovered that the raps were fraudulently produced by two young men among the sitters2 and the normal character of these men was so high that their conduct is beyond his power of explanation4 ,he has verified by many experiments that loud raps may be produced by the knee- and toe-joints1 and that even slowly gliding the finger or boot along the leg of the table 7or the cuff1 etc47 will1 in a strained and darkened room1 produce the noises4 ,in the dark1 of course--,dr4 ,maxwell roundly says that any sitting in total darkness is waste of time--cheating is easy4 ,the released foot or hand1 or a concealed stick1 will give striking manifestations4 ,some mediums have electrical apparatus for the purpose4 ,if any ,spiritualist is still disposed to attach importance to raps1 we may at least ask for these manifestations under proper conditions4 ,since spirits can rap on floors1 or on the medium's chair1 let the table be abolished4 ,it usually affords a very suspicious shade1 especially in red light1 in the region of the medium4 ,let the medium be plainly isolated1 and bound in limb and joint1 and let us then have these mysterious raps4 ,it has not yet been done4 ,the same general objection may be premised when we approach the subject of levitation and the moving of furniture generally4 ,levitation is a more impressive word than lifting1 but the inexpert reader may take it that the meaning is the same4 ,the spirits manifest their presence to the faithful1 not by making the table or the medium light1 but by lifting up it or him4 ,it is unfortunate that here again the spirits seem compelled by their very limited intelligence to choose a phenomenon which not only looks rather like the pastime of a slightly deranged ,hottentot1 but happens to coincide with just the kind of thing a fraudulent medium would be disposed to do in a dim light4 ,however1 since quite a number of learned men believe in these things1 let us consider them seriously4 ,and1 with the courage of honest inquirers1 let us attack the strongest manifestations of this power first4 ,such are the instances in which the medium himself--spirits respect the proprieties and do not treat lady-mediums in this way--is lifted from the ground and raised even as high as the ceiling4 ,when ,i say that ladies are not treated in this frivolous way1 the informed reader will gather at once that ,i decline to take serious notice of the once famous levitation of ,mrs4 ,guppy4 ,dr4 ,russel ,wallace was quite convinced that this lady was levitated on to the table1 in the dark1 and she was no light weight4 ,but we shall be excused from examining his statement if we recall what the lady claimed in #ahga4 ,herne and ,williams1 both impostors1 were giving a sance in ,lamb's ,conduit ,street1 and their spirit-controls said they would apport the weighty ,mrs4 ,guppy4 ,three minutes later1 although the doors were locked1 and her home was three miles away1 she was standing on the table4 ,she had a wet pen in her hand1 and she explained tearfully to the innocent sitters that she had been snatched by invisible powers from her books and taken through the solid walls4 ,people like ,russel ,wallace still believed in ,mrs4 ,guppy1 but ,i assume that there is no one to-day who does not see in this case a blatant collusion of three rogues to cheat the public4 ,i assume that the same contempt will be meted out to the claim of the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,monck1 who1 not to be outdone1 stated shortly afterwards that he had been similarly transported from ,bristol to ,swindon4 ,probably the modern reader will be disposed to dismiss with equal contempt the claim that ,daniel ,dunglas ,home was1 in the year #ahfi1 wafted by spirit-hands from one window to another1 seventy feet above the ground1 at a house in ,victoria ,street4 ,but here ,i must ask him to pause4 ,this is one of the classical manifestations1 one of the foundations of ,spiritualism4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle says that the evidence here is excellent4 ,sir ,william ,barrett maintains that the story is indisputably true4 ,sir ,william ,crookes says that to reject the recorded evidence on this subject is to reject all human testimony whatever4 ,it is a ,spiritualist dogma4 ,i have shown in the debate with ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle that this dogma is based on evidence that will not stand five minutes' examination4 ,not one of these leading ,spiritualists can possibly have examined the evidence4 ,no witness even claims to have seen ,home wafted from window to window4 ,lord ,adare is the only survivor of the three supposed witnesses1 and1 when he saw some ,press report of my destructive criticism in the ,debate1 he sent to the ,weekly ,dispatch a letter that he had written at the time4 ,he seemed to think that this letter afforded new evidence4 ,the interested reader will be amused to find that this letter is precisely the evidence ,i had quoted in the ,debate1 for it was published forty years ago4 ,no one professes to have seen ,home carried from window to window4 ,home told the three men who were present that he was going to be wafted1 and he thus set up a state of very nervous expectation4 ,sir ,w4 ,barrett1 who tells us that nothing was said beforehand of what they might expect to see1 says precisely the opposite of the truth4 ,both ,lord ,crawford and ,lord ,adare say that they were warned4 ,then ,lord ,crawford says that he saw the shadow on the wall of ,home entering the room horizontally2 and as the moon1 by whose light he professes to have seen the shadow1 was at the most only three days old1 his testimony is absolutely worthless4 ,lord ,adare claims only that he saw ,home1 in the dark1 standing upright outside our window4#g ,in the dark--it was an almost moonless ,december night--one could not1 as a matter of fact1 say very positively whether ,home was outside or inside2 but1 in any case1 he acknowledges that there was a nineteen-inch window-sill outside the window1 and ,home could stand on that4 ,so there is not only not a shred of evidence that ,home went from one window to another1 but the whole story suggests trickery4 ,home told them what to expect1 and he pretended1 in the dark1 that he was a spirit whispering this to them4 ,he noisily opened the window in the next room4 ,he came into their room1 from the window-sill1 laughing and saying 7in spite of the historic solemnity of the occasion67 that it would be funny if a policeman had seen him in the air4 ,when ,lord ,adare went into the next room1 and politely doubted if ,home could have gone out by so small an aperture1 ,home told him to stand some distance back1 and then swung himself out in a jaunty fashion1 as a gymnast would4 ,in fine1 it is well to remember that this was the same ,d4 ,d4 ,home who had defrauded a widow of #cc1jjj1 and had been1 in the previous year 7#ahfh71 branded in a ,london court as a fraud and an adventurer4 ,after this we need not linger long over the other levitations of ,home1 or allow ourselves to be intimidated by the bluster of ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle and ,sir ,w4 ,barrett4 ,sir ,arthur tells us that there are altogether on record some fifty or sixty cases of levitation on the part of ,home2 that ,professor ,crookes saw ,home levitated twice2 and that as he floated round the room he wrote his name above the pictures4 ,it is a pity that ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle does not tell people that ,home did all these wonderful things in the dark1 and that in most cases the people present merely had ,home's word for it that he was floating round the room4 ,the whole evidence for these things has been demolished so effectually by ,mr4 ,podmore in his ,newer ,spiritualism 7chs4 i and ii7 that ,i need say little here4 ,no reliable witness1 giving us a precise account of the circumstances1 has ever claimed that he saw ,home off the ground and clear of all furniture4 ,sir ,w4 ,crookes says that he saw ,home1 in poor light1 rise six inches for a space of ten seconds4 ,it is a poor instalment of miracle2 but ,i am obliged to add that ,crookes was at the other side of the room1 and he confesses that he did not see ,home's feet leave the ground6 ,crookes says that on one occasion he was allowed to pass his hands under ,home's feet2 but he tells this wonderful exploit twenty-three years after the event 7in #ahid71 and he does not give precise indications where the hands were when he examined the feet4 ,mr4 ,john ,jones saw ,home rise in #ahfa2 but he does not say that he saw ,home's hands1 and he admits that his muscles were so taut that he calls them cataleptic4 ,it is equally true that ,home wrote his name above the pictures2 but no one had examined the spots before the sance1 and no one could see if he stood on anything to reach them during the sance1 as it was pitch dark4 ,the only apparently good case is an occasion when a sitter says that1 in the dark1 he saw ,home's figure completely cross the rather lighter space of the window1 feet first1 and then cross it again head first4 ,but it happens that on this occasion there are two witnesses1 and the less rhetorical of the two expressly says that the shadow on the blind was at first only the feet and part of the legs1 and then 7after ,home had announced that the spirits were turning him round7 only the head and face4 ,any gymnast could do that4 ,the whole of these recorded miracles reek with evidence of charlatanry4 ,the lights were always put out1 and ,home in nearly all cases said that he was rising1 and then told them that he was floating about various parts of the room4 ,still worse is the evidence for ,home's occasional elongation4 ,the picture of ,sir ,w4 ,crookes gravely measuring the height of this brazen impostor1 as he alternately draws himself in and stretches out1 is as pathetic as the picture of him standing with a bottle of phosphorus in a bedroom at ,hackney while two girls make a fool of him4 ,it is just as pathetic that men like ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle and ,sir ,w4 ,barrett assure the public that they believe these things1 when they have1 apparently1 not examined the evidence4 ,to believe that in the course of a few seconds certain spiritual powers1 who cannot unravel for us the smallest scientific problem1 can so alter that marvellous world of cells and tissues which make up a man's body as to make him even six inches taller1 is to believe in a miracle beside which the dividing of the waters of the ,red ,sea is child's play4 ,yet distinguished men of science and medical men assure the public that they believe this1 and believe it on evidence that has been riddled over and over again4 ,it was a still earlier fraud1 ,gordon1 who began this trick of mounting furniture in the dark and saying that the spirits bore him up2 but the evidence is not worth glancing at4 ,one might as well ask us to examine seriously the evidence for the elongation of ,herne1 ,peters1 ,morse1 and all the other impostors of the time1 or for the spiritual transit of ,mrs4 ,guppy and ,dr4 ,monck4 ,let us rather see what sort of evidence is furnished in recent times4 ,it appears that the spirits no longer levitate the mediums themselves4 ,although the power is said to be developing as time goes on1 the age of these impressive floatings round pitch-dark rooms is over4 ,the only instance ,i have read in the last twenty years is that of ,ofelia ,corrals1 of ,costa ,rica1 who unfortunately fell off the stool she was standing on4 ,we have now to be content with the levitation of tables and the dragging of furniture towards the medium4 ,again let us1 in order not to waste time1 address ourselves at once to the classical case of ,eusapia ,palladino4 ,your common or garden medium1 with his uncritical audience1 has a dozen ways of tilting and lifting tables and pulling furniture about the room4 ,to press on with the hands or thumbs 7with four fingers above the table to edify the audience7 and lift with the knees is easy4 ,the same thing can be done by pressure against the inside of the legs of the table4 ,the foot is still more useful1 for the table is generally light4 ,a confederate is even more useful4 ,the more artistic medium wears a ring with a slot in it1 and has a strong pin in the table4 ,while his hands seem to be spread out above the table1 he catches the head of the pin in the slot of his ring1 and--the miracle occurs4 ,other mediums have leather cuffs inside their sleeves1 with a dark piece of iron or a hook projecting to catch the edge of the table4 ,but we will take ,palladino1 who was examined by scores of scientific men1 many of whom to this day believe that at least a large part of her phenomena were genuine4 ,the average man hesitates immediately when he hears that everybody admits that part of her performances were fraudulent4 ,she was a grey medium1 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle says4 ,but he1 and so many others1 assure you at once that this is quite natural4 ,she had real mediumistic powers2 but these decay after a time1 while the public still clamours for miracles1 and the poor medium is strongly tempted to cheat4 ,i have already said that ,sir ,arthur is here even more inaccurate than he usually is4 ,he says that she was quite honest for the first fifteen years1 as any person who studies her record will admit4 ,let us briefly study it4 ,eusapia ,palladino was an ,italian working girl1 an orphan1 who married a small shopkeeper of ,naples4 ,she remained throughout life almost entirely illiterate1 but she came in time to earn exorbitant fees 7,lombroso's daughter says7 by her sances4 ,she had begun to dabble in ,spiritualism1 and lift tables1 at the age of thirteen1 but she did little and was quite obscure until #ahhh1 when ,professor ,chiaia1 of ,naples1 took her up4 ,he challenged ,lombroso to study her1 and in #ahib a group of ,italian professors investigated her powers at ,naples4 ,that is the beginning of her public career1 and her performances varied little4 ,she sat with her back to the cabinet--unlike other mediums1 she sat outside it--and her chief trick was to lift off the ground the light table in front of her while the professors controlled her hands and feet4 ,it was the ghost of ,john ,king who did these things1 she said2 and we remember ,john ,king as a classic ghost of the early fraudulent mediums4 ,he rapped on the table and raised it off the floor2 he dragged furniture towards the medium1 especially out of the cabinet behind her2 he flung musical instruments on the table1 and prodded and pulled the hair of the sitters2 he made impressions of hands and faces in plaster2 and he even brought very faint ghosts into the room at times4 ,lombroso and other professors regarded these things as genuine or due to an abnormal power of the medium 7not to ghosts74 ,in the end of his life1 in fact1 ,lombroso announced that he had come to believe in the immortality of the mind1 though he still regarded this as material4 ,his daughter1 ,gina ,ferrero1 tells us that at this time he was a physical wreck1 and his mental vitality was very low4#h ,however1 the professors of #ahib said that they did not detect fraud4 ,the reader of their report may think otherwise4 ,they put ,eusapia1 for instance1 on a scale1 and ,john ,king took seventeen pounds off her weight4 ,any person can perform that miracle by getting his toe to the floor while he is on the weighing machine2 and the professors gravely note that1 whenever they prevented ,eusapia's dress from touching the floor1 she could not reduce her weight6 ,they note also that she cannot raise the table unless her dress is allowed to touch it4 ,in the same year1 #ahib1 ,flammarion invited her to ,paris4 ,he says frankly that he caught her cheating more than once4 ,one of her miracles was to depress the scale of a letter-balance by placing her hands on either side of it1 at some distance from it4 ,flammarion found that she used a hair1 stretched from hand to hand4 ,his colleague1 the astronomer ,antoniadi1 who was called in1 said that it was fraud from beginning to end4 ,in #ahid ,professor ,richet1 assisted by ,mr4 ,myers and ,sir ,o4 ,lodge1 examined her at ,richet's house1 and found no fraud4 ,but ,dr4 ,hodgson insisted that she released her hands and feet from control and used them1 and ,myers invited her to ,cambridge in #ahie4 ,the result is well known4 ,in great disgust they reported that she cheated throughout1 and that not a single phenomenon could be regarded as genuine4 ,this was1 on the most generous estimate1 seven years after the beginning of her public career2 and ,myers1 the most conscientious and respected of ,english ,spiritualists1 reported that she must have had long practice in fraud4 ,yet ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle tells the public that she was quite honest for the first fifteen years4 ,her admirers were angry1 and they continued to guarantee her genuineness4 ,she became the most famous and most prosperous medium in the world4 ,in #ahig and #ahih she was again in ,france1 and ,flammarion detected her in fraud after fraud4 ,she released her hands and feet constantly from control4 ,from #aije to #aijg she was rigorously examined by the ,general ,psychological ,institute of ,paris4 ,they reported constant trickery and evasion of tests4 ,sitters were not allowed to put a foot on her right foot because she had a painful corn on it4 ,one of her hands must not be clasped by the control because she was acutely sensitive to pain in that hand4 ,she will not allow a man to stand near and do nothing but watch her4 ,she wriggles and squirms all the time1 and releases her hands and feet4 ,she learns that1 in a photograph they have taken of one high levitation of a stool1 it is plainly seen to be resting on her head1 so she allows no more photographs of this4 ,and so on4 ,professor ,g4 le ,bon got her at his house for a private sitting in #aijf4 ,he was able to instal an illumination behind her of which she knew nothing1 and he plainly caught her releasing and using her hand4 ,in #aiaj the ,americans tried her4 ,at one sitting ,professor ,mnsterberg was carefully controlling her left foot1 as he thought1 when the table in the cabinet behind her began to move4 ,but one man had stealthily crept into the cabinet under cover of the dark1 and he seized something4 ,eusapia shrieked--it was her left foot6#i ,then the professors of ,columbia ,university took ,eusapia in hand1 and finished her4 ,they had special apparatus ready for use1 but they never used it4 ,in a few sittings they discovered that she was an habitual cheat1 and they abandoned the inquiry in disgust4 ,these are the main points in ,eusapia's official record4 ,they suffice to damn her4 ,she cheated from the start to the finish4 ,her moans and groans and wriggles habitually enabled her to release her hands and feet from the men who were supposed to control them4 ,nothing is more notorious in her career than that4 ,she pretended that ,john ,king did everything1 yet she used constantly to announce that some very fine phenomena would be seen to-night4 ,she pretended to be in a trance1 yet she habitually called out ,e fatto 7,it's done7 when something had been accomplished1 in the dark1 two feet away from her4 ,she was alive to every suspicious movement of the sitters1 and controlled the light and the photographers4 ,the impressions of faces which she got in wax or putty were always her face4 ,i have seen many of them4 ,the strong bones of her face impress deep4 ,her nose is relatively flattened by the pressure4 ,the hair on the temples is plain4 ,it is outrageous for scientific men to think that either ,john ,king or an abnormal power of the medium made a human face 7in a few minutes7 with bones and muscles and hair1 and precisely the same bones and muscles and hair as those of ,eusapia4 ,i have seen dozens of photographs of her levitating a table4 ,on not a single one are her person and dress entirely clear of the table4 ,in fine1 at every single sitting1 from beginning to end1 the observers were distracted by the ghost4 ,they were prodded and pinched and pushed1 and their hair and whiskers were pulled4 ,it seems a pity that they did not refuse to continue unless ,john ,king desisted from this frivolity4 ,it was ,eusapia spoiling their vigilance4 ,believers in ,eusapia would point to some dozens of things in her record that these professors1 and even conjurers like ,carrington1 could not explain4 ,i am quite content to leave them unexplained4 ,we are under no obligation to explain them or else accept ,spiritualism4 ,there is1 as ,schiaparelli said1 a third alternative3 agnosticism4 ,if the majority of ,eusapia's tricks were at one time or other seen to be done by fraud1 the presumption is that the rest were fraud4 ,there are scientific men who seem to lose their common sense in these inquiries4 ,you might put a conjurer before them in broad daylight1 and they will not see how he does a single one of his tricks4 ,but when1 in a bad light1 a lady conjurer or medium does something which they cannot explain they appeal to abnormal powers or ghosts4 ,it is neither science nor common sense4 ,towards the close of ,eusapia's career another powerful ,italian peasant-woman1 ,lucia ,sordi1 began to interest the professors4 ,she outdid ,eusapia in some matters4 ,while she sat bound with cords in the cabinet1 a decanter of wine was lifted from the table1 and a glass put to the lips of each sitter4 ,she was eventually exposed1 and ,i will not linger on her4 ,she could get out of any bonds2 and she had two confederates always1 in the shape of her young daughters4 ,most recent of all are the phenomena of the ,goligher circle of ,belfast4 ,a teacher of mechanics1 ,mr4 ,crawford1 has greatly strengthened the faith by recording their wonderful exploits in his ,reality of ,psychic ,phenomena 7#aiaf7 and ,experiments in ,psychical ,science 7#aiai74 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle is enthusiastic about them1 as is his wont4 ,even ,sir ,w4 ,barrett tells us that it is difficult to believe how the cleverest conjurer1 with elaborate apparatus1 could have performed what he witnessed4 ,decidedly1 here is something serious4 ,yet ,i intend to dismiss it very briefly4 ,the circle consists of seven members of the ,goligher family1 and they are all mediums4 ,in other words1 there were fourteen hands and fourteen feet to be watched1 in a red light 7the worst in the world for the eye71 and this young teacher of science flatters himself that he controlled them all1 and meantime attended to a lot of scales and other apparatus4 ,we are asked to believe this after four or five professors repeatedly failed to control the hands and feet of one woman 7,eusapia74 ,moreover1 they were permitted to hold ,eusapia's hands and feet1 but ,crawford was not permitted to touch the feet of his medium4 ,he gives no photographs1 except of his superfluous scales and tables4 ,the ,goligher family1 he says1 were most anxious to have photographs taken1 but the spirits said it would injure the medium4 ,when ,sir ,w4 ,barrett tells the public that the cleverest conjurer1 with elaborate apparatus1 could not do these things1 he talks nonsense of which he ought to be ashamed4 ,there is nothing in the two books that requires any apparatus at all1 or anything more than practice4 ,raps were common4 ,they have been since #ahdh4 ,mr4 ,crawford talks of sledgehammer blows and thunderous noises4 ,as the mediums were never searched1 the raps may have been exceptionally loud1 but ,mr4 ,crawford navely gives one detail which puts us on our guard4 ,he one night brought a particularly sensitive phonograph4 ,the noises that night were terrific1 he says4 ,he took the record to the offices of ,light1 and the editor of that journal can do no more than say that the noises were clearly audible 7p4 #cb74 ,so1 when ,mr4 ,crawford tells us of strong men being unable to press down the levitated table1 we will take a pinch of salt4 ,the table 7really a light stool7 usually lifted weighed two pounds4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle assured his audience that this was lifted as high as the ceiling4 ,on the contrary1 ,mr4 ,crawford expressly says that it never rose more than four feet2 which is1 ,i find by scientific experiment1 the height to which a young lady1 sitting on a chair1 could raise such a stool on her foot4 ,a most remarkable coincidence4 ,it is a further remarkable coincidence that the young lady's weight increased1 when an object was levitated1 by just the weight of that object1 less about two ounces which some other person took over 7a steadying finger1 for instance74 ,it is an even more remarkable coincidence that1 when ,mr4 ,crawford asked for an impression of the ghostly machinery which made the raps1 the mark he got on paper was something of an oval shape1 about two square inches in area 7p4 #aib72 which is singularly like a young lady's heel4 ,similarly1 when he asked for an impression in a saucer of putty1 the mark he describes--and carefully omits to photograph for us--is precisely the mark of a young lady's big toe with a threaded material on it4 ,it is further curious that this remarkable psychic power1 which can lift a ten-pound table1 could not lift a white handkerchief a fraction of an inch2 which prompts the painful reflection that a dark foot might be visible if it touched a white handkerchief4 ,mr4 ,crawford's books are really too naive4 ,he asked ,kathleen1 by way of control experiment1 to show him if she could raise the stool on her foot2 and he asks us to believe that her very obvious wriggles and straining prove that this was not the usual lifting force4 ,he puts her on a scale1 and asks the ghosts to take a large amount of matter out of her body4 ,he is profoundly impressed when her weight decreases by #ed pounds2 and he asks us to believe that ghosts have taken #ed pounds of flesh and fat out of the fair ,kathleen and laid it on the floor4 ,a simpler hypothesis is that she got her toe to the floor1 as ,eusapia did4 ,mr4 ,crawford ought to leave ghosts for a while1 and take a course of human anatomy and physiology4 ,his mechanical knowledge enables him to sketch a diagram of a cantilever1 constructed out of the medium's body1 and reaching from it to the centre of the table1 a distance of eighteen inches1 or the length of ,kathleen's leg from knee to foot4 ,but how in the name of all that is reasonable this cantilever is worked from the body end1 without wrenching the young lady's innards out of joint1 passes the subtlest imagination4 ,the spirits were consulted as to the way they did it4 ,by a final peculiar coincidence it transpired that they knew just as much about science as ,kathleen ,goligher2 and that was nothing4 ,this is a very long chapter1 but the phenomena it had to discuss are the most serious in ,spiritualist literature1 and ,i was eager to omit nothing which is deemed important4 ,let me close it with a short account of an historical occurrence1 which is at the same time a parable4 ,we are often told that the medium was physically incapable of doing this or the other4 ,here is an interesting illustration of human possibilities4 ,in #ahdf all ,paris was busy discussing the electric girl4 ,little ,anglique ,cottin1 a village child of thirteen summers1 a very quiet and guileless-looking maid1 exuded the electric fluid 7ghosts were not yet in fashion7 in such abundance that the furniture almost danced about the room4 ,when she rose from her chair it flew back1 even if a man held it1 and was often smashed4 ,a heavy dining-table went over at a touch from her dress4 ,a chair held by several strong men was pushed back when she sat on it4 ,the ,paris ,academy of ,sciences examined her1 and could make nothing of her4 ,the chairs she rose from were sent crashing against the wall1 and broken4 ,but one night1 when the crowd gathered about her to see the marvels1 a wicked old sceptic watched her closely from a distance4 ,only that afternoon a heavy dining-table1 with its load of dishes1 had gone over4 ,the child saw the sceptic's eye1 yet wanted to entertain the crowd4 ,there was a struggle of patience between sceptic and child for two hours1 and at last age won4 ,he saw her move1 and demanded an examination2 and they found the bruise on her leg caused by knocking over the heavy table4 ,it was all over4 ,she had developed a marvellous way of using the muscles of her legs and buttocks instantaneously and imperceptibly4 ,this was1 says ,flammarion1 the end of this sad story in which so many people had been duped by a poor idiot4 ,he is wrong on two points4 ,the child was by no means an idiot2 and this was only the beginning1 not the end4 ,we do well to remember what this child of thirteen could do4#aj ,,footnotes3 #g ,the account which he gives in the ,dispatch 7,march #ba1 #aibj7 is precisely the same as his account 7which ,i quoted verbatim in the ,debate7 in his ,experience of ,spiritualism with ,d4 ,d4 ,home1 pp4 #hb-c4 #h ,cesare ,lombroso 7#aiae71 p4 #daf4 ,much is suppressed in the ,english translation of his book4 #i ,mr4 ,hereward ,carrington1 who believes in the genuineness of ,eusapia's powers1 makes light of this4 ,he misses the main point4 ,in the minutes of the sitting1 which he gives1 it is expressly stated by the controllers at this point that they have both ,eusapia's hands and feet secure4 ,so we cannot trust such minutes when they say that the control was perfect4 #aj ,flammarion1 ,les forces naturelles inconnues1 pp4 #bii-caj4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,spirit ,,photographs ,,and ,,spirit ,,pictures ,before me1 as ,i write1 are two spirit photographs which have gone at least part of the round of the ,press1 and confirmed the consoling belief in thousands of hearts4 ,one is a photograph of ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle1 and behind him1 peeping over his shoulder1 is a strange form which has1 he says1 a general but not very exact resemblance to my son4 ,the other photograph is supplied by the ,rev4 ,w4 ,wynne4 ,it bears the ghostly faces of ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,gladstone1 with whom ,mr4 ,wynne had been acquainted2 and the text says that the plate was exposed for ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,wynne and received these ghostly imprints4 ,both these photographs came from the ,crewe ,spiritual ,circle1 which has done so much in recent years to strengthen the faith4 ,let me first make a few general remarks on spirit photography4 ,everybody to-day has an elementary idea what taking a photograph means4 ,a chemical mixture1 rich in certain compounds of silver1 is spread as a film over the glass plate which you buy at the stores4 ,the rays of light--chiefly the ultra-violet or actinic rays--which come from the sun 7or the electric lamp7 are reflected by a body upon this plate1 through the lenses of the camera1 and form a picture of that body by fixing the chemicals on the plate4 ,the lens is essential in order to concentrate the rays and give an image1 instead of a mere flood of light4 ,the object which reflects the light--whether it be the ordinary light or the actinic rays--must be material4 ,ether does not reflect light1 for light is a movement of ether4 ,spiritualists have such vague ideas as to what can and cannot happen that they overlook these elementary details altogether4 ,sometimes they ask us to believe that a medium can get the head of a ghost on a plate1 without a camera1 by merely placing his or her hand on the packet containing the plate4 ,even if there were a materialized spirit present1 it could make no image on the plate unless the rays were properly concentrated through lenses4 ,but the whole idea of spirits hovering about and making images on photographic plates because a man called a medium puts his hand on the camera is preposterous4 ,that would be magic with a vengeance6 ,even if we suppose that the spirits have material bodies--ether bodies would not do--which reflect only the actinic rays1 and so are not visible to the eye1 the idea remains as absurd as ever4 ,to say that the invisible material body of ,mr4 ,gladstone 7if anybody is inclined to believe in such a thing7 only reflects the rays into the camera at ,crewe when ,mr4 ,hope and ,mrs4 ,buxton1 the mediums1 put their hands on the camera1 and do not reflect light at all unless these mediums touch the camera1 is to utter an obvious absurdity4 ,the ghosts are either material or they are not4 ,we must look for a simpler explanation4 ,now1 when we examine ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle's spirit photograph1 we find at once that the candour of that earnest and conscientious ,spiritualist gives us a clue4 ,he tells us how he bought the plate1 examined the camera1 and exposed and developed the plate with his own hands4 ,no hands but mine ever touched the plate1 he says impressively4 ,we shall see presently that that need not impress us in the least4 ,what is important is that ,sir ,arthur adds3 ,on examining with a powerful lens the face of the 'extra' ,i have found such a marking as is produced in newspaper process work4 ,very few of the general public would understand the significance of this1 but ,i advise the reader to take an illustrated book or journal and examine a photograph in it with a lens 7which need not be powerful74 ,he will see at once that the figure consists of a multitude of dots1 and wherever you find an illustration showing these dots it has been at some time printed in a book or paper4 ,during a lantern lecture1 for instance1 you can tell1 by the presence or absence of these dots1 whether a slide has been reproduced from an illustration or made direct from the photographic negative4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle is candid1 but his ,spiritualist zeal outruns his reason4 ,he goes on to say3-- ,it is very possible that the picture 444 was conveyed on to the plate from some existing picture4 ,however that may be1 it was most certainly supernormal1 and not due to any manipulation or fraud4 ,this is an amazing conclusion4 ,it is not merely possible1 but certain1 that the photo1 which he says resembles his son1 had been printed somewhere before it got on to his plate4 ,the marks are infallible4 ,it is further practically certain that1 when the son of so distinguished a novelist died on active service1 his photograph would appear in the ,press4 ,it is equally certain that mediums1 knowing well that ,sir ,arthur and ,lady ,doyle would presently seek to get into touch with their dead son1 would treasure that photograph4 ,when ,i add that1 as ,i will explain presently1 there is no need at all for the spirit photographer to touch the plate1 the reader may judge for himself how much supernormal there is about the matter4 ,let us glance next at the ,gladstone ghost4 ,we are not told if it showed process marks1 but1 of course1 they need not always be looked for4 ,it might be taken direct from a photograph in the case of so well known a couple as the ,gladstones4 ,but here again there is a significant weakness4 ,when you turn the photograph upside down1 you discover that the photographs of ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,wynne are on the lower half of the plate1 and inverted6 ,you have to come to this remarkable conclusion1 if you follow the ,spiritualist theory1 that either the highly respectable ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,wynne or the perfectly puritanical ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,gladstone were standing on their heads6 ,for my part1 ,i decline to believe that ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,gladstone have taken to such frivolity in the spirit land4 ,i prefer to think that the spirit photographer has bungled4 ,but how could it be done if the plate was never in the hands of the photographer8 ,in the early days of ,spiritualism faking was easy4 ,you put on an air of piety1 and your sitter implicitly trusted you4 ,it was then quite easy to make a ghost1 as every photographer knows4 ,expose a plate for half the required time to a young lady dressed as a ghost1 then put the plate away in the dark until a sitter comes and give it a full exposure with him4 ,he is delighted1 when the plate is developed1 to find a charming lady spirit1 of ghostly consistency1 beaming upon him4 ,double development1 or skilful manipulation of the plate in the dark room1 will give the same result4 ,this is how the trick was done in the sixties and seventies4 ,a ,london photographer1 ,hudson1 made large sums by this kind of trickery4 ,it was easily exposed--any person who has dabbled in photography knows it--and often the furniture or carpet behind the ghost could be seen through it4 ,at last there was a very bad exposure which for a time almost suspended the trade4 ,at ,paris there was a particularly gifted photographer medium named ,buguet4 ,not only were his ghosts very artistic1 but ,spiritualists were able to identify their dead relatives on the photographs4 ,buguet came to ,london and did a roaring trade4 ,but early in #ahge the police of ,paris carried ,buguet off to prison and searched his premises4 ,they found a headless doll or lay figure1 and a large variety of heads to fit it4 ,at first ,buguet had had confederates who used to creep quietly behind the sitter and impersonate the ghost4 ,then he used to take a half-exposure photograph of his doll1 and so dispense with confederates4 ,he had a very smart clerk at the door who used1 in collecting your twenty francs1 to get from you a little information about the dead relative you wanted to see4 ,then ,buguet rigged up and dressed a more or less appropriate doll1 gave it a half-exposure1 and brought the same plate to use for his sitter4 ,one feature of the trial of ,buguet should be carefully borne in mind4 ,spiritualists are very fond of assuring us that the spirit voice or message or photograph they obtained from a medium was perfectly recognizable4 ,they scout any suggestion that they could be mistaken4 ,do they not know the features of their dead son or daughter or wife8 ,during the trial of ,buguet scores of these ,spiritualists entered the witness-box and swore that they had received exact likenesses of their dead relatives4 ,but ,buguet1 hoping to get a lighter sentence1 confessed that the same group of heads had served every purpose1 and the witnesses in his favour were all wrong6#aa ,buguet got a year in prison1 and for a time trade was poor4 ,but new methods were invented1 and spirit photographers are again at work all over the world1 and have been for decades4 ,in country places the old method may still be followed4 ,generally1 however1 the sitter brings his or her own plate1 and is then supposed to be secured against fraud4 ,the next development was easy enough4 ,a prepared plate was substituted for the plate you brought4 ,this trick in turn was discovered1 and sitters began to make secret marks on the plates they brought1 in order to identify them afterwards4 ,then the machinery of the ghost was rigged up in the camera itself1 and you might bring your own plate and mark it unmistakably with a diamond1 if you liked4 ,the ghost appeared on it when it was developed4 ,there were several ways of doing this4 ,the first was to cut out the figure of the ghost in celluloid or some other almost transparent material and attach it to the lens4 ,when this trick leaked out1 a very tiny figure of the ghost1 hidden in the camera1 was projected through a magnifying glass 7a kind of small magic-lantern7 on to the plate when it was exposed in the camera4 ,as time went on1 sitters began to insist on examining the camera1 and these tricks were apt to be discovered4 ,i remember an honest and critical ,spiritualist telling me1 about ten years ago1 that he offered a certain spirit-photographer 7who is still at work7 five pounds for a spirit-photograph1 if the sitter were permitted to see every step of the process4 ,the photographer agreed2 but when my friend wanted to examine the camera he at first bluffed1 and then returned the money1 saying that that was carrying scepticism too far6 ,he had the ghost in his camera4 ,your modern ,spiritualist friend smiles when you tell him of these tricks4 ,they are prehistoric4 ,to-day you are allowed to examine the camera1 bring your own plate1 expose it and develop it yourself4 ,the logic of the ,spiritualist is here just as defective as ever4 ,because he has not on this occasion discovered certain forms of trickery which are now well known1 he concludes that there was no trickery4 ,as if trickery did not evolve like anything else6 ,spiritualists were just as certain twenty years ago that there was no possibility of fraud because they brought their own marked plates2 but they were cheated every time4 ,there are still several ways of making the ghost4 ,where the sitter is careless1 or an enthusiastic ,spiritualist1 the old tricks 7substitution of plates1 etc47 are used2 but there are new tricks to meet the critical4 ,the ghost may be painted in sulphate of quinine or other chemicals on the ground-glass screen4 ,such a figure is invisible when it is dry4 ,there may be a trick dark-slide1 with a plate which will appear in front of yours4 ,if the photographer develops it for you1 he can skilfully get a ghost on it by holding another plate against yours 7pretending to see how it is developing7 in the yellow light4 ,if you develop it yourself1 you use his dish1 which is often an ingenious mechanism4 ,it has glass sides or a glass bottom1 and1 while the whole thing is covered up during development1 secret lights impress the ghost on it4 ,an actual case of this sort was exposed in ,pearson's ,weekly on ,january #ca1 #aibj4 ,when the ,spiritualist airily assures us that he has guarded against all these things 7some of which could not be seen at all7 we have to remember that ,spiritualist literature teems with cases in which1 we are told1 all precautions against fraud were taken1 yet sooner or later the fraud is discovered4 ,but the possibilities are not yet exhausted4 ,i once saw a remarkable photograph which ,sir ,robert ,ball had taken of the famous old ship1 the ,great ,eastern4 ,along the side of it1 in enormous letters1 was the name ,lewis2 yet this name was totally invisible to the naked eye when one looked at the ship4 ,a coat of paint had been put over the name--the ship had been used by ,lewis's as an advertisement--and concealed it from the eye1 yet the sensitive plate registered it4 ,no scrutiny of the camera or the studio or the dark room would reveal conjuring of that sort4 ,in fine1 there is the possibility of some compound of radium1 or radio-paint1 being used at one or other stage in the process4 ,no sensible man will pay serious attention to spirit photographs until one is taken in these conditions2 neither plates nor any single part of the apparatus shall belong to or be touched by the medium4 ,the spirit photographer shall be brought to an unknown studio1 and shall not be allowed to do more than1 under the eye of an expert observer1 lay his hand1 at a sufficient distance from the lens1 on the outside of a camera which does not belong to him4 ,that has not been done yet4 ,until it is done fraud is certainly not excluded2 and any man who uses the medium's own premises and apparatus is courting deception4 ,that the ghost on a photograph often resembles a dead relative of the sitter will surprise no sensible person4 ,it is well known that mediums collect such photographs1 as well as information about the dead4 ,mr4 ,carrington describes in his ,physical ,phenomena of ,spiritualism the elaborate system they have4 ,they have considerable knowledge of likely sitters in their own town4 ,in fact1 ,i have clearly enough traced in some cases that they first gathered information about a man1 and then got an intermediary to persuade him to visit them4 ,he1 of course1 tells everybody afterwards that the medium could not possibly know anything about him4 ,sometimes a ,spiritualist takes the precaution of going to a spirit photographer in a distant town4 ,if he is quite able to conceal his identity1 he will get nothing1 or only a common or garden ghost4 ,but he makes an appointment for a sitting in a few days to try again1 and gives his name and address2 and the next mail takes a letter to a medium in his town asking for information and photographs4 ,as ,i have previously said1 when the ,berlin police arrested ,frau ,abend and her husband they found an encyclopdic mass of information about possible sitters4 ,a case1 with which ,i may conclude this section1 is given by ,dr4 ,tuckett in his ,evidence for the ,supernatural 7pp4 #eb-c74 ,mr4 ,stead was once delighted to find the ghost of a brother ,boer on a photograph1 and the clairvoyant photographer mystically informed him that he got the name ,piet ,botha1 and gathered that he had been shot in the ,boer ,war4 ,mr4 ,stead was jubilant1 and the ,materialist was nowhere1 when he learned that ,piet ,botha had been shot in the war4 ,who in ,england knew anything about ,piet ,botha and his death8 ,but the wicked sceptic got to work1 and he presently discovered that on ,november #i1 #ahii1 the ,graphic had reproduced a photograph of ,piet ,botha1 who had been shot in the war6 ,a magnificent case fell completely to pieces4 ,spirit-drawings and paintings have drawn out just the same ingenuity on the part of the mediums4 ,a favourite and impressive form is to let the sitter choose a blank card and see that it is blank4 ,then the medium tears off the corner and hands it to the sitter1 so that he will recognize his own card at the close4 ,the lights are completely extinguished1 the card is laid on the table1 and when the gas is re-lit a very fair picture 7still wet7 in oil is found to have been painted on the card4 ,david ,duguid persuaded thousands of people of this marvel in the later decades of the nineteenth century4 ,it was represented that he was merely a cabinet-maker who1 in #ahff1 came under the control of the spirits of certain ,dutch painters1 and was used by them4 ,i learned long ago in ,scotland that the statement that he had never practised drawing or painting was untrue4 ,it is1 in any case1 probable that he had torn the corners off the little paintings he had prepared in advance1 and that it was these corners which he palmed off on the sitter4 ,in the dark he substituted his painting for the blank card1 and the corner naturally fitted4 ,the fact that the paint was still wet need impress nobody4 ,a touch of varnish easily gives that impression4 ,innumerable tricks have been invented by ,american mediums for fooling the ,spiritualist public in this respect1 and in many cases it taxes the ingenuity of an expert conjurer to find out where the fraud lay4 ,mr4 ,carrington gives a long series of frauds which he has at one time or other studied4 ,one medium offers you an apparently blank sheet of paper1 and1 although nothing more suspicious than laying it under an innocent-looking blotting-pad can be seen1 and there is certainly no substitution1 a photograph appears on it while you wait4 ,if you happen to be one of those people whom the medium had had in mind as a possible sitter1 or whom he 7through an intermediary7 induced to come to him1 it may be a photograph of your dead son4 ,the photograph was there1 invisible1 all the time4 ,it had been taken on a special paper 7solio paper71 and bleached out with bi-chloride of mercury4 ,the blotting-pad was wet with a solution of hypo1 and this suffices to restore the photograph4 ,in other cases the medium1 with solemn air1 enters his cabinet and draws the curtain4 ,there is a fantastic theory in the ,spiritualist world that this cabinet1 or cloth-covered frame 7like a ,punch and ,judy show71 prevents the fluid or force which the medium generates from spreading about the room and being wasted4 ,nearly all these convenient theories and regulations come from the spirits through the mediums2 that is to say1 are imposed by the mediums themselves4 ,the closed cabinet1 like charity1 covers a multitude of sins4 ,in the case of the spirit-painting it may have a trap-door or other outlet1 through which the medium hands the blank canvas to a confederate and receives the previously painted picture4 ,another medium shows you a blank canvas1 and1 almost without taking it out of your sight1 produces an elegant1 and still wet1 oil painting on it4 ,the painting was there from the start1 of course1 but a blank canvas was lightly gummed over it1 and all the conjuring the medium had to do was to strip off this blank canvas while your attention was diverted4 ,mediums know that their sitters are profoundly impressed if the paint is still wet4 ,i have heard ,spiritualists stubbornly maintain that this proves that the painting had only just been done1 and done by spirit-power1 since no man could do it in so short a time4 ,it is a good illustration of the ease with which they are duped4 ,the picture may have been painted a week or a month before4 ,rub it with a little poppy oil and you have wet paint4 ,mr4 ,carrington's ,physical ,phenomena of ,spiritualism1 one of the richest manuals of mediumistic trickery1 has a number of these picture-frauds4 ,a painting is1 when thoroughly dry1 covered with a solution of water and zinc-white4 ,it is then invisible1 and you have a blank canvas4 ,the picture comes out again by merely washing it with a sponge4 ,in other cases a painting is done in certain chemicals which will remain invisible until a weak solution of tincture of iron is applied2 and it may be applied to the back of the canvas4 ,the medium1 ,carrington suggests1 begs the sitters to sing ,nearer1 my ,god1 to ,thee1 to drown the noise1 while his confederate creeps behind the canvas and sprays it with the solution4 ,the picture dawns before their astonished eyes4 ,perhaps the best illustration is one that ,carrington gives in his ,personal ,experiences1 to which ,i must send the reader for the full story4 ,two spinster-mediums of ,chicago had a great and profitable reputation for spirit-painted photographs4 ,i take it that their general air of ancient virtue and piety disarmed sitters1 who are apt to think that a fraudulent medium will betray himself or herself by criminal features4 ,you took a photograph of your dead friend1 and asked that the spirits might reproduce it in oils4 ,the medium studied it1 and made an appointment with you at a later date4 ,perhaps the medium then studied it again1 and made a further appointment4 ,on the solemn day the medium held a blank canvas up to the window before your eyes1 and gradually1 first as a dim dawn of colours1 then as a precise figure1 the picture appeared on the canvas4 ,carrington suggests that she held up to the window two canvases--a thin blank canvas a few inches in front of the prepared picture4 ,by deftly and slowly bringing these together with her fingers she brought about the illusion2 and only a little ordinary sleight of hand was required to get rid of the blank canvas4 ,these illustrations will suffice to show the reader what subtle and artful trickery is used in this department of ,spiritualism4 ,he will know what to think when a ,spiritualist friend1 who could not detect the simplest conjuring trick1 shows him a spirit-photograph and says that he took care there was no fraud4 ,the ordinary members of the ,spiritualist movement are as honest as any1 but their eagerness--natural as it is--puts them in a frame of mind which is quite unreasonable4 ,the trickery of this class of mediums has been developing for nearly sixty years1 and it has to find new forms every few years as the older forms are exposed4 ,the mediums have become expert conjurers and even1 in some cases1 expert chemists--or they have expert chemists in collusion with them--and it is simply foolish for an ordinary person to think that he can judge if there has been fraud4 ,we must have at least one elementary safeguard4 ,no part of the apparatus employed must belong to the medium or be manipulated by him2 and the photograph must not be taken on his premises4 ,every ,spiritualist who approves a photograph taken under other conditions is courting deception and encouraging fraud4 ,and instead of finding even the leading ,spiritualists setting an example of caution in face of the recognized mass of fraud in their movement1 we find them exhibiting a bewildering hastiness and lack of critical faculty4 ,most readers will remember how ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle sent to the ,daily ,mail on ,december #af1 #aiai1 a photograph of a picture of ,christ which had1 he said1 been done in a few hours by a lady who has no power of artistic expression when in her normal condition4 ,the picture was1 he said1 a masterpiece2 so wonderful1 in fact1 that a great painter in ,paris 7not named1 of course7 fell instantly upon his knees before such a painting4 ,it was a supreme example of a ,spiritualist miracle4 ,the sequel is pretty well known4 ,on ,december #ca the artist's husband wrote a letter to the ,daily ,mail1 of which ,i need quote only one sentence3-- ,mrs4 ,spencer wishes definitely to state once and for all that her pictures are painted in a perfectly normal manner1 that she is disgusted at having psychic power attributed to her1 and that she does not cherish any ludicrous and mawkish sentiments about helping humanity by her paintings4 ,,footnote3 #aa ,i might add that ,mrs4 ,gladstone is not at all recognized by her own son in ,mr4 ,wynne's photograph4 ,the other figure seems to me certainly a reproduction of a photograph or bad picture of ,gladstone4 ,,chapter ,v ,a ,,chapter ,,of ,,ghostly ,,accomplishments ,spiritualism began in #ahdh with the humble and entirely fraudulent phenomena of raps4 ,within three years there were hundreds of mediums in the ,united ,states1 and a dollar per sitter was the customary fee for assisting at one of the services of the new religion4 ,it soon became widely known that raps could be produced by very earthly means1 and in any case the rivalry of mediums was bound to develop new phenomena4 ,as in all other professions1 originality paid2 and as the wonderful discovery was quickly made that darkness favoured the intensity and variety of the phenomena1 the spirit power began to break upon humanity in a bewildering variety of forms4 ,in this chapter we will examine a number of these accomplishments which our departed fellows have learned on the ,elysian fields4 ,d4 ,d4 ,home is still the classical exponent of some of these accomplishments4 ,indeed1 there is one of his phenomena which no medium of our time has the courage to reproduce1 and1 since this phenomenon is expressly endorsed by ,sir ,william ,barrett in his recent work1 ,on the ,threshold of the ,unseen 7#aiag71 we shall be accused of timidity and unfairness if we omit to consider it4 ,it is said that on several well-authenticated occasions--so ,sir ,w4 ,barrett assures the public--,home took burning coals in his hands1 thrust his hands into the blazing fire1 or even put his face among the live coals4 ,what is the evidence which ,sir ,w4 ,barrett1 knowing that the general public has no leisure to investigate these things1 endorses as satisfactory8 ,the reader who has patience enough to consider these extraordinary claims in detail will find the evidence collected and examined in ,mr4 ,podmore's ,newer ,spiritualism 7chapters i and ii74 ,it is just as weak and unsatisfactory as the evidence for ,home's levitations1 which we have already examined4 ,the first witness is a lady1 ,mrs4 ,hall1 who had the advantage of a profound belief that ,home could do anything whatever1 and that the idea of fraud was worse than preposterous in connection with so holy a man4 ,home's demure expression and constant utterances of piety and virtue1 which seem to ,mr4 ,podmore inconceivably nauseous1 made a deep impression on ,mrs4 ,hall and the other ladies whom ,home used generally to have next to him when he was performing his wonders4 ,now1 this lady tells us that on ,july #e1 #ahfi1 he took a large live coal from the fire1 put it on her husband's head1 and drew his white hair over it4 ,he left it there for four or five minutes1 and then gave it to ,mrs4 ,hall to hold4 ,she says that it was still red in parts1 but she was not burned4 ,it would follow that ,home was so charged with supernatural power that he could communicate a large measure of it to ,mr4 ,hall's head or ,mrs4 ,hall's hands--a feat unique in the history of ,spiritualism4 ,we need not go so far4 ,there is nothing in ,mrs4 ,hall's narrative to prevent us from supposing that ,home put some non-conducting substance on her husband's head before he put the coal on it4 ,any person can pick a live coal out of the fire if a part of it 7as is common7 is not alive4 ,some can go further4 ,i can stick my finger-tips in my live pipe without being burned4 ,some smokers can pick up a small live coal and light their pipes with it4 ,probably all the coals which ,daniel picked from the fire were dead in parts4 ,it is clear that this particular coal was not glowing1 as ,mrs4 ,hall states that her husband's white hair showed silvery against it4 ,if the coal had glowed1 the hair would show black against it4 ,probably ,home lifted up the hair round1 and not on1 it2 and after five minutes part of it would be cool enough to lay on ,mrs4 ,hall's hand4 ,sir ,william ,crookes is the next witness3 a great scientist1 but--we cannot forget it--the man who was easily duped by a girl of seventeen4 ,he says that he accompanied ,home to the fire1 and saw him put his hands in it4 ,that is anything but the scientific way to give evidence4 ,we want an exact description of the state of the fire1 the light1 etc4 ,but notice this next sentence3 ,he very deliberately pulled the lumps of hot coal off1 one at a time1 with his right hand1 and touched one which was bright red4 ,so the lumps among which he had put his hands were not bright red2 and we are left free to suppose that the one which he touched was not bright red all over4 ,home then took out a handkerchief1 waved it about in the air1 and folded it on his hand4 ,he next took out a coal which was red in one part and laid it on the handkerchief without burning it4 ,the story smacks of charlatanry from beginning to end4 ,crookes ought at least to have known better than to suppose that a handkerchief gathered power by being waved about4 ,it more probably gathered a piece of asbestos from ,home's pocket4 ,the other pretty stories of ,home's fire-tricks may be read in ,podmore4 ,juggling with fire is an ancient practice4 ,it is very common among savages4 ,daniel ,home1 with his select and private audience1 had excellent conditions for doing it4 ,in bad light he did even more wonderful things than those ,i have quoted2 that is to say1 if we take the record literally1 which we may decline to do4 ,crookes1 like some other investigating professors1 was short-sighted4 ,no wonder that ,daniel loved him4 ,let us pass on to the musical accomplishments of the spirits2 and here again the gifted ,daniel was one of the pioneer mediums4 ,he induced the spirits to play an accordion while he held it with one hand2 and his hand held it by the end farthest removed from the keys4 ,unfortunately1 the spirits laid down the condition that he must hold it out of sight1 underneath the table1 and our interest is damped4 ,we know something from other mediums of the ways of doing this4 ,while you are putting the accordion under the table you change your hand from the back end to the key end of the accordion4 ,then you can get the bellows to play by pushing it against something or using a hook at the end of a strong thread or catgut4 ,it is well to remember that ,home was a good musician4 ,possibly he played a mouth-organ while the professor was looking intently at the accordion4 ,but ,home was put to a severe test1 we are told4 ,sir ,w4 ,crookes made a cage 7like a waste-paper basket7 to go under the table1 and ,home was told to let the accordion hang in this4 ,he could certainly not now use his second hand or his feet1 yet it played4 ,but1 as ,mr4 ,podmore1 most ingenious of critics1 points out1 no one saw the keys move4 ,the music may have come from a musical box in ,home's pocket1 or placed by him on the floor4 ,the degree of light or darkness is not stated4 ,the opening and shutting of the accordion could be done by hooks1 or loops of black silk4 ,so with the crowning miracle1 when ,home withdrew his hand1 and the accordion was seen suspended in the air1 moving about in the cage 7under the dark table74 ,it was probably hooked on to the table4 ,before we pass on to other ghostly musicians1 let us notice another feat of ,home's which ,sir ,william ,crookes records here4 ,he placed a board with one end on the table and the other on a spring balance4 ,it was so shaped 7with feet at each end7 that an enormous pressure would have to be exerted on it at the table-end if the balance were to be appreciably altered4 ,yet a light touch of ,home's fingers caused the scale to register six pounds4 ,podmore points out that this experiment had been gradually reached4 ,home knew the conditions1 and had made his preparations4 ,the light was poor1 and a loop of strong silk thread at the far end of the board1 pulled from some part of his person1 would not be noticed4 ,we shall see far more remarkable feats than this4 ,a pretty variation of musical mediumship was next introduced by ,mrs4 ,annie ,eva ,fay1 another ,american fraud with whom ,sir ,w4 ,crookes made solemn scientific experiments4 ,florrie ,cook was a chicken in comparison with ,annie ,fay1 and she triumphantly passed all the professor's tests4 ,she came to ,london in #ahgd1 and everybody soon went to see and hear the fascinating ,american blonde at the ,hanover ,square ,rooms4 ,mrs4 ,fay's most characteristic sance was when she sat in the middle of a circle of sitters1 a bell and a guitar beside her4 ,her husband1 ,colonel ,fay1 was in the circle1 but1 as they held each other's hands1 it was presumed that he could do nothing to help her if he wished4 ,mrs4 ,fay then began to clap her hands4 ,the lights were extinguished1 and1 although ,mrs4 ,fay continued to clap her hands loudly1 so that you could be sure she was not using them1 the bell was rung1 the tambourine played1 the sitters' beards were pulled1 and so on4 ,this was easy4 ,when the gas was put out1 ,mrs4 ,fay no longer slapped her left hand against her right1 but against her forehead or cheek--perhaps slapped the ,colonel's face for a variation--and had the right hand free for business4 ,no doubt the ,colonel also released a hand1 as we have seen ,eusapia ,palladino do1 and joined the band4 ,when this trick was realized1 ,mrs4 ,fay used to allow herself to be bound with tapes to a stake erected on the stage4 ,a few minutes after the lights were put out the band began its ghostly1 but not very impressive1 music4 ,sometimes a pail was put beside her1 and it was raised by invisible hands 7in the dark7 on to her head4 ,when the light was restored ,mrs4 ,fay was discovered still bound to the stake1 the knots and seals intact4 ,by an accident at one of her performances ,mr4 ,podmore was enabled to see how she did it1 and the secret has long been known4 ,the tapes supplied had to be fastened in such a way that she could with great speed slip them up her slender arms and get into a working position4 ,maskelyne also exposed her1 and trade fell off so badly that she made him an offer1 by letter1 to go on his stage and1 for payment1 show how all the tricks were done4 ,she had by that time converted hundreds to ,spiritualism4 ,there were various other forms of the musical performance4 ,one medium used to sit in sight of the audience with a sitter holding his hands4 ,a cloth was then put over them both1 from the neck downward1 the lights extinguished1 and the usual band began4 ,he had released one hand1 by the familiar trick1 and reached behind him for the instruments4 ,the medium1 ,bastian1 also played instruments in the dark4 ,at ,arnheim1 where he was edifying the ,dutch ,spiritualists1 he was suspected1 and it was arranged to ignite some inflammable cotton by an electric current from the next room4 ,the next time a ghostly hand played the guitar above the heads of the sitters1 the signal was given1 and the flash lit the room4 ,the guitar fell hastily to the table1 and ,bastian's hand retreated rapidly to its right place4 ,his ,english ,spiritualist admirers accepted his explanation that it was a materialized hand that was seen shrinking back into his body4 ,one medium strummed his guitar with a long pencil which he took with his teeth out of his inner coat-pocket and held with his teeth4 ,others had telescopic rods or lazy tongs hidden about them1 and used these in the dark4 ,the binding of mediums with cords or tapes is a precaution against fraud which was thoroughly exposed fifty years ago4 ,many of ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle's own admirers were pained when he announced to the world his belief in the genuineness of the performance of two ,welsh colliers1 the ,thomas brothers4 ,their manifestations were prehistoric4 ,more than fifty years ago spectators were invited to tie up the mediums1 and as long ago as #ahhc ,mr4 ,maskelyne was exhibiting the trick4 ,the ,davenport brothers1 the latest ,american marvels1 had toured ,england4 ,most people will remember how they were held up at ,liverpool by some one tying the rope in knots with which they were not familiar4 ,the spirits failed entirely to play the tambourine when the tying-up was properly done1 and the instrument was put out of reach of the medium's mouth4 ,as usual1 it had been said for months that fraud was absolutely excluded4 ,later mediums found the solution of this difficulty4 ,the medium kept a sharp knife-blade within reach of his teeth1 and1 when knots proved too stubborn1 he cut the rope and freed himself4 ,he had a spare rope in his clothes and fastened himself--or was bound by a confederate--before the lights went up4 ,people thought that they could prevent this by sealing the knots4 ,it was useless4 ,the medium had chewing gum of the same colour as sealing-wax1 and the seals were imitated with this4 ,these desperate shifts are1 however1 rarely necessary4 ,while he is being tied the medium catches a loop of the rope with his thumb1 and this gives him plenty of slack to use4 ,i have seen a medium laced tight into a leather arm-case1 and get out behind the curtain in three minutes4 ,he had caught a loop of the lace with his thumb1 and the rest was tooth work4 ,it was therefore little wonder that when the ,thomas brothers were brought from the valleys of ,south ,wales to ,london their ancient miracles would not work4 ,a recent convert to ,spiritualism1 ,mr4 ,s4 ,a4 ,moseley1 describes their work on their native heath 7or hearth7 with the same awe and simplicity as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle had done4 ,many of us knew the history of ,spiritualism1 and smiled4 ,they were brought to ,london by the ,daily ,express in #aiai1 and here1 where sceptics abounded and the need of convincing evidence was at its most acute1 ,white ,eagle 7the ,red ,indian spirit who controls ,will ,thomas7 and all his band of merry men were powerless4 ,will ,thomas was properly bound1 the tambourine and castanets were put out of reach1 and his brother was isolated4 ,all that happened--the throwing of a badge-button and a pair of braces to the audience--is within the range of possibilities of the human mouth4 ,let us now turn to another bright and classical page in the history of ,spiritualism3 the experiments of ,professor ,zllner with the medium ,slade4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle granted in the ,debate1 with an air of generosity1 that ,slade cheated occasionally1 but he insisted that ,slade's phenomena in the house of ,professor ,zllner were genuine4 ,now1 as long as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle does this kind of thing1 as long as he assures his readers that he will not build on any medium who has been convicted of fraud and then builds on such a medium1 as long as he tells his readers 7who will not check the facts7 that a medium who was exposed over and over again merely cheated occasionally1 it is no use for him to assert that he is trying to purge ,spiritualism of fraud4 ,slade was a cynical impostor from beginning to end of his career4 ,i will show in the next chapter but one how ,slade confessed his habitual fraud as early as #ahgb1 how he was exposed and arrested in ,london in #ahgf1 and how he was exposed again in ,canada in #ahhb and in the ,united ,states in #ahhd4 ,a word about the last occasion will suffice for my purpose here4 ,henry ,seybert1 a ,spiritualist1 left a large sum of money to the ,university of ,pennsylvania on the condition that the ,university authorities would appoint a commission to examine into 7among other things7 the claims of ,spiritualism4 ,they did2 and it was the most unlucky inspiration the ghosts of the dead ever conveyed4 ,very few mediums would face the professors1 and those who did were shown to be all frauds4 ,slade was one of these1 and the ,pennsylvania professors1 wondering how any trained man could be taken in by so palpable a fraud1 sent a representative to ,leipsic to investigate the experiences of ,professor ,zllner and the three other ,german professors who had endorsed ,slade4 ,the gist of his report was that of the four professors one 7,zllner7 was in an early stage of insanity 7he died shortly afterwards71 one 7,fechner7 was nearly blind1 the third 7,weber7 was seventy-four years old1 and the fourth 7,scheibner7 was very short-sighted1 yet did not 7as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle says7 entirely endorse the phenomena6 ,i have not been able to discover evidence that ,zllner's mind was really deranged1 but he certainly approached the inquiry with a theory of a fourth dimension of space1 and was most eager to get his theory confirmed by the experiments4 ,the key to the whole situation is1 therefore1 lack of sharp control4 ,slade had been conjuring for years1 and was an expert in substitution4 ,he had a purblind audience1 and he astutely guided the professor until the conditions of the experiment suited him4 ,he knew beforehand1 as a rule1 what apparatus ,zllner would use1 and he duplicated his wooden rings1 thongs1 etc4 ,an excellent study of his tricks in detail will be found in ,carrington's ,physical ,phenomena of ,spiritualism4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle speaks of the shattering of a screen in ,slade's presence as an indisputably superhuman feat4 ,but before the sance no one had thought of looking to see if the screen had been taken to pieces and lightly tied together by a black thread which ,slade could pull asunder at will6 ,slade was a very bad selection by ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle4 ,no prominent medium was ever so frequently exposed as he4 ,in addition to the exposures ,i have mentioned1 ,dr4 ,hyslop1 ,mrs4 ,sidgwick1 and other leading ,spiritualists riddled his pretensions to supernormal power4 ,in the end he took to drink and died in an asylum4 ,yet ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle assures his followers1 in his ,vital ,message1 that he never builds on a discredited medium4 ,let us turn now to ,stainton ,moses1 the snow-white medium4 ,moses was a neuropathic clergyman who in #ahgb left the ,church and became a teacher4 ,about the same time he discovered mediumistic powers4 ,he died ultimately of ,bright's disease1 brought on by drink4 ,his audience1 as ,i said before1 consisted only of a few intimate friends who never doubted his saintliness or thought for a moment of fraud4 ,he worked always in the dark1 or in a very bad light2 and his doings are mainly described by his trustful friend and host1 ,mrs4 ,speer4 ,this would dispense any serious student from troubling about his phenomena2 but let us see if they throw any light on his character4 ,mr4 ,carrington says that the things reported are unbelievable1 yet that we cannot think of fraud in connection with ,moses4 ,podmore also tries hard not to accuse him of conscious fraud1 and hints that he was irresponsible4 ,the reader may choose to think otherwise4 ,the spirits performed every variety of phenomena through ,stainton ,moses4 ,like ,home1 and only a few of the quite holiest mediums1 he was occasionally lifted off the ground2 or1 which is1 of course1 the same thing1 he said that he was4 ,raps were common when he was about4 ,automatic writing of the most elevating 7and most inaccurate7 description flowed from his pencil4 ,lights floated about the room2 and once or twice he dropped and broke a bottle of phosphorus in the dark4 ,musical sounds were repeatedly heard1 as in the case of the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,monck1 who had a little musical box in his trousers4 ,the sitters were sprayed with scent4 ,the objects on the dressing-table in his room were arranged by invisible hands in the form of a cross4 ,wonderful messages about recently deceased persons were sent through him2 and the details could later be found in the papers4 ,in fine1 he was a remarkably good medium for apports--that is to say1 the bringing into the circle by the spirits of flowers and other objects4 ,statuettes1 jewels1 books1 and all kinds of things 7provided they were in the house and could be secreted about the person7 were apported4 ,the evidence for these things is particularly poor1 but ,i am a liberal man4 ,i do not doubt them4 ,each one of them1 separately1 was done by other mediums4 ,it is the rich variety that characterizes ,moses4 ,let him sleep in peace4 ,the credulity and admiration of his friends seem to have made him lose the last particle of sense of honour in these matters4 ,these things are common elementary conjuring from beginning to end4 ,apports are a familiar ghostly accomplishment1 and the way they are done is familiar4 ,mme4 ,blavatsky was wonderful at apports4 ,who would ever dream of proposing to search ,mme4 ,blavatsky8 ,and who would now be so simple as to think of spirits when the medium was not searched8 ,the person of ,mme4 ,blavatsky was as sacred from such search as the person of the ,rev4 ,stainton ,moses or of the charming and guileless ,florrie ,cook4 ,indeed1 it is only in recent times that a real search of the medium has been demanded1 and the accounts of weird and wonderful objects apported under other conditions merit only a smile4 ,mrs4 ,guppy1 secured from search by her virtue and the esteem of ,dr4 ,russel ,wallace1 went so far as to apport live eels4 ,eusapia ,palladino one day apported a branch of azaleas in ,flammarion's house2 and he afterwards found an azalea plant1 which it exactly fitted1 in her bedroom4 ,another day her spirits showered marguerites on the table2 and the marguerites were missed from a pot in the corridor4 ,anna ,rothe1 the ,princess ,karadja's pet medium1 was secretly watched1 and was caught bringing bouquets from her petticoats and oranges out of her ample bosom2 and the spirits did not save her from a year in gaol4 ,she had a whole flower-shop under her skirts when she was seized4 ,but we will not run over the whole silly chronicle of apports4 ,two recent instances will suffice4 ,one is the ,turin lady1 ,linda ,gazerra1 of whom ,i have spoken on an earlier page4 ,she was too virtuous to strip1 and let down her hair1 even in the presence of a lady4 ,so ,dr4 ,imoda1 a scientific man who consented to accept her on these terms1 was fooled for three years 7#aijh-aa74 ,she had live birds caged in the large mass of her hair 7natural and artificial71 and all sorts of things in her lingerie4 ,about the same time1 an ,australian medium1 ,bailey1 made a sensational name throughout the ,spiritualist world by his apports4 ,the spirits brought silks from the ,indies 7until the brutal customs official claimed the tariff71 live birds1 and all sorts of things4 ,he was taken so seriously in the ,spiritualist world that ,professor ,reichel1 a rich ,french inquirer1 brought him to ,france for investigation4 ,sure enough1 although he was searched1 the spirits brought into the room two little birds from ,india4 ,but his long hesitations and evasions had aroused suspicion1 and on inquiry it was proved that he had bought the birds1 which were quite ,french1 at a local shop in ,grenoble4 ,how had he smuggled them into the room8 ,i give the answer 7as it is given by ,count ,rochas1 his host7 with reluctance1 but it is absolutely necessary to know these things if you want to understand some of the more difficult mediumistic performances4 ,the birds were concealed in the unpleasant end of his alimentary canal4 ,professor ,reichel gave him his return fare and urged him to go quickly2 and the ,australian ,spiritualists received him with open arms1 and listened sympathetically to his stories of ,french brutality4 ,of apports1 therefore1 we say the same as of materializations4 ,the medium shall be stripped naked1 have all his or her body-openings muzzled1 be sewn in prepared garments1 and placed in a prepared and carefully searched room4 ,when ,spiritualists announce the appearance of an eel or a pigeon or a bouquet1 or even a copy of ,light1 under those conditions1 we will begin to consider the question of apports4 ,luminous phenomena are easily simulated1 says ,dr4 ,maxwell4 ,most people will agree to this candid verdict of so experienced and so sympathetic an investigator4 ,tons of phosphorus have been used in the service of religion since #ahdh4 ,it has taken the place of incense4 ,the saintly ,moses twice had a nasty mess with his bottle of phosphorus4 ,herne was one night tracing a pious message in luminous characters 7with a damp match7 when there was a crackle and flash2 the match had struck4 ,the movement abounds in incidents which are1 in a double sense1 luminous4 ,certain sulphides may be used instead of phosphorus1 and in modern times electricity is an excellent means of producing lights at a distance4 ,chemicals of the pyrotechnic sort are also useful4 ,one must remember that behind the thousands of mediums1 whose fertile brains are constantly elaborating new methods of evading control1 are manufacturers and scientific experts who supply them with chemicals and apparatus4 ,one often hears ,spiritualists laugh at this suggestion as a wild theory of their opponents4 ,any impartial person will acknowledge that it is more probable than improbable4 ,but positive proof has been given over and over again4 ,quite recently ,mr4 ,sidney ,hamilton described in ,pearson's ,weekly 7,february #bh1 #aibj7 an illustrated printed catalogue of forty pages which he had with great difficulty secured4 ,it was the secret catalogue of a firm which supplies apparatus to mediums4 ,the outfit includes a self-playing guitar1 a telescopic aluminium trumpet 7for direct voice71 magic tables1 luminous objects1 and even a fully materialized female form 7with face that convinces7 444 floats about the room and disappears 444 ,price #aj4 ,for eight shillings this firm supplies the secret how to turn one's vest inside out1 without changing coat1 while one is bound1 and the knots sealed1 in the cabinet4 ,for two pounds ten you get an apparatus which will levitate a table so effectively that two or three persons cannot hold the table down4 ,in short1 there is1 and has been for decades1 a trade supply of apparatus and instructions for producing the whole range of physical phenomena1 and any person who pays serious attention to such things is not very particular whether he is deceived or not4 ,i may close the chapter with a case of spirit sculpture1 which is recorded by ,truesdell in his ,bottom ,facts of ,spiritualism4 ,by this trick1 he says1 ,mrs4 ,mary ,hardy converted one of those professors whose names adorn the ,spiritualist list4 ,a pail of warm water1 with several inches of paraffin floating on its surface1 was weighed and put under the table4 ,after a time a hand moulded most accurately in wax was found on the floor beside the pail1 and it was found that the weight of the contents of the pail had decreased by precisely the weight of the hand4 ,a convincing test1 surely6 ,but the professor had forgotten to allow for the evaporation of the warm water4 ,the hand had been made in advance1 by moulding the soft paraffin on the medium's hand1 and hidden under ,mrs4 ,hardy's skirt4 ,it was transferred by her toes to the floor under the table4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,subtle ,,art ,,of ,,clairvoyance ,spiritualists distinguish between physical phenomena and psychic phenomena4 ,the use of this distinction is obvious4 ,when a man reads some such history of the movement as ,podmore's1 and then the works of ,truesdell1 ,robinson1 ,maskelyne1 ,carrington1 and others who have time after time exposed the ways of mediums1 he is very ill-disposed to listen to stories of materialization1 levitation1 spirit photographs1 spirit messages1 spirit music1 spirit voices1 or anything of the kind4 ,he knows that each single trick has been exposed over and over again4 ,so the liberal ,spiritualist urges him to leave out physical phenomena and concentrate on the psychic4 ,it is a word with an aroma of refinement1 spirituality1 even intellect4 ,it indicates the sort of thing that respectable spirits ought to do4 ,so we will turn to the psychic phenomenon of clairvoyance4 ,here at once the reader's resolution to approach the subject gravely is disturbed by the recollection of a recent event4 ,many a reader would1 quite apart from the question of consolation1 like to find something true in ,spiritualism4 ,he may feel1 as ,professor ,william ,james did1 that the mass of fraud is so appalling that1 for the credit of humanity1 we should like to think that it is the citizens of another world1 not of ours1 who are responsible4 ,he may feel that1 if it is all fraud1 a number of quite distinguished people occupy a very painful position in modern times4 ,he would like to find at least something serious2 something that is reasonably capable of a ,spiritualist interpretation4 ,but as soon as he approaches any class of phenomena some startling instance of fraud rises in his memory and tries to prejudice him4 ,in this case it is the ,masked ,medium4 ,a recent case in the law courts has brought this to mind4 ,in #aiai1 when the ,sunday ,express was making its grave search for ghosts1 in order to rebuke the materialism of our age1 it offered #ejj for a materialization4 ,a gentleman1 who 7with an eye on the police7 genially waived the money offer aside1 offered to bring an unknown lady and present a materialization1 and some startling feats of clairvoyance in addition4 ,a sitting was arranged1 and the lady1 who wore a mask1 gave a clairvoyant demonstration that could not be surpassed in all the annals of ,spiritualism4 ,her ghost was rather a failure2 though ,lady ,glenconnor1 who has the true ,spiritualist temperament1 recognized in it an initial stage of materialization4 ,but the clairvoyance was great4 ,the sitters1 while the lady was still out of the room1 put various objects connected with the dead 7a ring1 a stud1 a sealed letter1 etc47 in a bag4 ,the bag was closed1 and was put inside a box2 and the lady1 who was then introduced1 described every object with marvellous accuracy4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle said that the medium gave a clear proof of clairvoyance4 ,mr4 ,gow said that he saw no normal explanation4 ,and it was fraud from beginning to end1 as everybody now knows4 ,clairvoyance must be distinguished from prophecy1 which ,spiritualists sometimes claim4 ,prediction means the art of seeing things which do not exist1 and it is therefore not even mentioned in this book4 ,clairvoyance means the art of seeing things through a brick wall 7or any other opaque covering74 ,now this was an admirable piece of clairvoyance4 ,even ,spiritualists present were suspicious1 because the lady was quite unknown4 ,yet they could not see any suggestion of fraud or any normal explanation4 ,did they turn back upon their earlier experiences of clairvoyance1 when the fraud was confessed1 and ask if those also may not have been due to trickery8 ,not in the least4 ,everything is genuine until it is found out--and1 sometimes1 even afterwards4 ,mr4 ,selbit1 the conjurer who really conducted the performance1 is naturally unwilling to give away his secret4 ,he acknowledged immediately after the performance1 as ,mr4 ,moseley describes in his ,amazing ,sance1 that he had fooled the audience4 ,the masked lady was an actress with no more abnormal power than ,sir ,oliver ,lodge has4 ,mr4 ,stuart ,cumberland suggested at the time that1 when the assistant went to the door to call the medium1 he handed the box to a confederate and received a dummy box4 ,he thought that the medium would then have time to study and memorize the contents of the real box 7including a sealed letter in dog-,german7 before she entered the room4 ,from the account1 which is not precise enough1 ,i can hardly see how she would have time for this4 ,but ,mr4 ,selbit acknowledged that a dummy box was substituted4 ,he says that a person entered the room in the dark1 took the box from the table and substituted a dummy1 and afterwards impersonated the ghost4 ,this is most important for us4 ,the room had been searched1 and such acute observers as ,mr4 ,stuart ,cumberland and ,superintendent ,thomas1 of ,scotland ,yard1 were on the watch2 yet a confederate got into the room4 ,after this an ordinary ,spiritualist sance is child's play4 ,a long and minute description of the objects in the bag1 which must have been spelled letter by letter in parts1 on account of the difficult wording of the sealed letter1 was in some way telegraphed or communicated to the girl under the eyes of this watchful group4 ,it would be scarcely more marvellous to suppose that ,mr4 ,selbit1 after studying the contents of the box1 took her place before their faces and they never knew it6 ,the reader will not fail to see why ,i have minutely pointed out the features of this recent case4 ,it is1 in the first place1 an example of psychic1 not physical1 phenomena2 and it was conjuring pure and simple4 ,it was1 further1 most successful and convincing1 as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle pronounced2 yet there was not a particle of abnormal power about it4 ,finally1 it was done in the presence of three keen critics1 as well as of leading ,spiritualists2 yet the fraud was not discovered4 ,to invoke the supernormal1 after this1 the moment some ordinary individual fails to detect fraud1 is surely ludicrous4 ,now let me put another warning before the reader4 ,it is notorious that ,spiritualists are particularly1 even if innocently1 apt to mislead in their accounts of their experiences4 ,unless the experience is recorded on paper at once1 it is almost worthless2 and even then it is often quite wrong4 ,there is such a thing as selection in the human mind4 ,when two people1 a ,spiritualist and a sceptic1 see or read the same thing1 their minds may get quite a different impression of it4 ,the mind of the ,spiritualist leaps to the features of it which seem to be supernormal1 and slurs or ignores or soon forgets the others4 ,the mind of the sceptic does the opposite4 ,you thus get quite inaccurate accounts from ,spiritualists1 though they are often quite innocent4 ,one once asked me to explain how a medium1 two hundred miles from his home1 in a place where no one knew him1 could tell his name and a good deal about him4 ,by two minutes' cross-examination ,i got him to admit that he had been working for some weeks in this district and was known to a few fellow-workers4 ,no doubt one of these had given a medium information about him1 and then induced him to visit her4 ,these indirect methods are very effective4 ,a very good example is ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle himself4 ,in the debate with me he made statement after statement of the most inaccurate description4 ,he said that ,eusapia ,palladino was quite honest in the first fifteen years of her mediumship2 that he had given me the names of forty ,spiritualist professors2 that the ,fox sisters were at first honest2 that ,i did not give the evidence from his books correctly2 that ,mr4 ,lethem got certain detailed information the first time he consulted a medium2 that in ,mme4 ,bisson's book you can see ectoplasm pouring from the medium's nose1 eyes1 ears1 and skin2 that ,florrie ,cook never took one penny of money2 that in the ,belfast experiment the table rose to the ceiling2 and so on4 ,his frame of mind was extraordinary4 ,but ,i will give a far more extraordinary case which will make the reader very cautious about ,spiritualist testimony4 ,about forty years ago1 when the old type of ghost story was not yet quite dead1 ,myers and ,gurney1 who were collecting anecdotes of this sort1 received a particularly authentic specimen4 ,it was a personal experience of ,sir ,edmund ,hornby1 a retired ,judge from ,shanghai4 ,a few years earlier1 he said1 he had one night written out his judgment for the following day1 but the reporter failed to call for a copy4 ,he went to bed1 and some time after one o'clock he was awakened by the reporter1 who very solemnly asked him for the copy4 ,with much grumbling ,sir ,edmund got up and gave him the copy4 ,he remembered that in returning to bed he had awakened ,lady ,hornby4 ,and the next morning1 on going to court1 he learned that the reporter had died just at that hour1 of heart disease 7as the inquest afterwards found71 and had never left the house4 ,he had been visited by the reporter's spirit4 ,here was an experience of most exceptional weight4 ,who could doubt either the word or the competence of the ,chief ,judge of the ,supreme ,consular ,court of ,china and ,japan8 ,the story was promptly written up in the ,nineteenth ,century 7,visible ,apparitions1 ,july1 #ahhd71 and sceptics were confounded4 ,but a copy of the ,nineteenth ,century reached ,shanghai1 where the incident was said to have taken place1 and in the same monthly for ,november there appeared a letter from ,mr4 ,balfour1 editor of the ,north ,china ,herald and the ,supreme ,court and ,consular ,gazette4 ,it proved1 and ,sir ,e4 ,hornby was compelled to admit1 that the story was entirely untrue4 ,it was a jumble of inaccuracies4 ,the reporter had died between eight and nine in the morning1 not at one1 and had slept peacefully all night4 ,there had been no inquest4 ,there was no judgment whatever delivered by ,sir ,e4 ,hornby that morning4 ,there was not even a ,lady ,hornby in existence at the time6 ,sir ,edmund ,hornby sullenly acknowledged the truth of all this1 and could mutter only that he could not understand his own mistake4 ,after this awful example we think twice before we take the testimony of ,spiritualists at its face value4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 in particular1 is especially guilty of such confusions1 to the great advantage of his stories4 ,during the ,debate1 as ,i said1 he told of a wonderful ,glasgow clairvoyante1 who was consulted by a ,mr4 ,lethem 7a ,glasgow ,j4,p471 who had lost a son in the ,war4 ,she at once told ,mr4 ,lethem1 ,sir ,arthur says1 his son's name1 the name of the ,london station at which he had said farewell1 and the name of the ,london hotel at which they had stayed4 ,this sounded very impressive indeed4 ,but ,i happened to have read ,mr4 ,lethem's articles 7,weekly ,record1 ,february #ba and #bh1 #aibj71 and ,i have them before me4 ,mr4 ,lethem was a well-known man in ,glasgow1 and was known to be inquiring4 ,now it was eight months after his son's death that he met this clairvoyante1 yet all she could tell him was his son's name and appearance4 ,it was1 he confesses1 not much and not strictly evidential4 ,it was at a later sitting that she gave the other details4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle has fused the two sittings together and made the experience more impressive4 ,the medium had time to make inquiries4 ,there is a further detail which ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle does not tell4 ,the brother of the dead officer asked1 as a test question1 the name of the town where they had last dined together4 ,it took more than a year to get an answer to this6 ,thus a quite commonplace and easily explained feat of a medium is dressed up by ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle as supernormal4 ,he does this repeatedly in his books4 ,in the ,new ,revelation he says1 quoting ,sir ,oliver ,lodge's ,raymond1 that a medium described to ,sir ,oliver a photograph of his son1 no copy of which had reached ,england1 and which proved to be exactly as he described it4 ,here he has done the same as in the case of ,mr4 ,lethem--fused together several successive sittings4 ,the first medium consulted by ,sir ,oliver ,lodge made only a very brief statement4 ,it was wrong in three out of four particulars2 and the fourth was a very safe guess 7that ,raymond had once been photographed in a group74 ,the particulars which so much impressed ,sir ,o4 ,lodge were given much later1 and by a lady medium2 and by that time there were plenty of copies of the photograph in ,england6 ,sir ,o4 ,lodge gives the various dates4 ,sir ,william ,barrett and ,sir ,o4 ,lodge are just as slipshod4 ,i have amply shown this in the case of ,lodge in my ,religion of ,sir ,o4 ,lodge 7and ,raymond is even worse than the books ,i analysed71 and ,sir ,w4 ,f4 ,barrett's ,on the ,threshold of the ,unseen is just as bad4 ,i have previously said how he tells his readers that it would take the cleverest conjurer with elaborate apparatus to do what the ,golighers do at ,belfast2 and ,i showed that one limb of one member of the circle of seven mediums would1 with the help of a finger or two perhaps1 explain everything4 ,sir ,william also says 7p4 #ec7 that the ,london ,dialectical ,society published the report of a special committee strongly in favour of ,spiritualism4 ,on the contrary1 the ,london ,dialectical ,society expressly refused to publish that egregious document4 ,he says 7p4 #gb71 in describing the ,home levitation case1 that nothing was said beforehand of what they might expect to see1 and the accounts given by each witness are alike4 ,these statements are the reverse of the truth4 ,the book contains many such instances4 ,here is another1 which is expressly concerned with the greatest of all clairvoyantes1 ,mrs4 ,piper1 and the most critical ,spiritualist of modern times1 ,dr4 ,hodgson4 ,in the ,debate ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle introduces him 7p4 #ba7 as ,professor ,hodgson1 the greatest detective who ever put his mind to this subject4 ,he is fond of turning the people he quotes into professors4 ,it makes them more weighty4 ,hodgson was never a professor1 but he was an able man1 and he exposed more than one fraud like ,eusapia ,palladino4 ,but ,i have been permitted to see a letter which puts ,dr4 ,hodgson himself in the category of over-zealous and unreliable witnesses2 and as this letter is to be published in the form of a preface to the second edition of ,dr4 ,c4 ,mercier's book on ,spiritualism1 ,i am not quoting an anonymous document4 ,mrs4 ,piper1 the great ,american clairvoyante1 the medium whose performances are endorsed as genuine even by men who regard ,spiritualism as ninety-eight per cent4 fraud1 began her career as a psychic in #ahgd4 ,at first she was controlled1 in the common ,spiritualist way1 by an ,indian girl4 ,then the great spirits of ,bach and ,longfellow and other illustrious dead began to control her4 ,next a deceased ,french doctor1 ,phinuit1 took her in hand1 and she did wonderful things4 ,but when people who were really critical began to test ,phinuit's knowledge of medicine1 and inquire 7for the purpose of verification7 about ,phinuit's former address on earth1 he hedged and shuffled1 and then retired into obscurity1 like the ,indian girl and ,longfellow4 ,her next spirit was ,pelham1 a young man who modestly desired to remain anonymous4 ,for four years ,george ,pelham1 a highly cultivated spirit1 gave marvellously accurate messages through ,mrs4 ,piper1 and the world was assured that there was not the slightest doubt about his identity4 ,he was a very cultivated young ,american who had passed over in #ahib4 ,mr4 ,podmore1 who1 in spite of his high critical faculty1 was taken in by this episode1 thinks that telepathy alone can explain the wonderful things done4 ,he does not believe in ghosts4 ,mrs4 ,piper's subconscious self1 he thinks1 creates and impersonates these spirit beings1 and draws the information telepathically from the sitters4 ,but he says that the impersonation was so dramatically true to life1 so consistently and dramatically sustained1 that some of ,g4 ,p4's most intimate friends were convinced that they were actually in communication with the deceased ,g4 ,p4#ab ,it is true that when the dead ,g4 ,p4 was asked about a society he had helped to form in his youth he could give neither its aim nor its name1 and ,podmore admits that ,mrs4 ,piper hedged very badly in trying to cover up her failure4 ,but on other occasions the hits were so good that we have1 if we do not admit the ghost theory1 to take refuge in telepathy and the subconscious self4 ,there is no need even for this thin shade of mysticism4 ,podmore was misled by ,hodgson's account4 ,g4 ,p4 meant1 as everybody knew1 ,george ,pellew4 ,now a cousin of ,pellew's wrote to ,mr4 ,clodd to tell him that1 if he cared to ask the family1 he would learn that all the relatives of the dead man regarded ,mrs4 ,piper's impersonation of him as beneath contempt4 ,mr4 ,clodd wrote to ,professor ,pellew1 ,george's brother1 and found that this was the case4 ,the family had been pestered for fifteen years with reports of the proceedings and requests to authenticate them and join the ,s4 ,p4 ,r4 ,they said that they knew ,george1 and they could not believe that1 when freed from the burden of the flesh1 he would talk such utter drivel and inanity4 ,as to intimate friends1 one of these was ,professor ,fiske1 who had been described by ,dr4 ,hodgson as absolutely convinced of the identity of ,g4 ,p4 ,when ,professor ,pellew told ,professor ,fiske of this1 he replied1 roundly1 that it was a lie4 ,mrs4 ,piper had1 he said1 been silent or entirely wrong on all his test questions4#ac ,i am1 you see1 not choosing weak spots1 as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle said1 and am not quite so ignorant of psychic matters1 in comparison with himself1 as he represented 7,debate1 p4 #ea74 ,i am taking the greatest clairvoyante in the history of the movement1 and in precisely those respects in which she was endorsed by ,dr4 ,hodgson and the ,american ,s4 ,p4 ,r4 and ,sir ,o4 ,lodge and all the leading ,english ,spiritualists4 ,she failed at every crucial test4 ,phinuit1 who knew so much1 could not give a plausible account of his own life on earth1 or how he came to forget medicine4 ,when ,sir ,o4 ,lodge presented to ,mrs4 ,piper a sealed envelope containing a number of letters of the alphabet1 she could not read one of them1 and declined to try again4 ,she could not answer simple tests about ,pellew4 ,she gave ,professor ,james messages from ,gurney after his death 7#ahhh71 and ,james pronounced them tiresome twaddle4 ,when ,myers died in #aija and left a sealed envelope containing a message1 she could not get a word of it4 ,when ,hodgson died in #aije and left a large amount of manuscript in cipher1 she could not get the least clue to it4 ,when friends put test questions to the spirit of ,hodgson about his early life in ,australia1 the answers were all wrong4 ,mrs4 ,piper fished habitually and obviously for information from her sitters4 ,she got at names by childishly repeating them with different letters 7a very common trick of mediums71 and often changed them4 ,she made the ghost of ,sir ,walter ,scott talk the most arrant nonsense about the sun and planets4 ,she was completely baffled when a message was given to her in ,latin1 though she was supposed to be speaking in the name of the spirit of the learned ,myers1 and it took her three months to get the meaning 7out of a dictionary87 of one or two easy words of it4 ,she gave a man a long account of an uncle whom he had never had2 and it turned out that this information was in the ,encyclopdia1 and related to another man of the same name4 ,in no instance did she ever give details that it was impossible for her to learn in a normal way1 and it is for her admirers to prove that she did not learn them in a normal way1 and1 on the other hand1 to give a more plausible explanation of what ,dr4 ,maxwell1 their great authority1 calls her inaccuracies and falsehoods4 ,the truth is that the phenomenon known as clairvoyance rests just as plainly on trickery as the physical phenomena we have studied4 ,margaretta ,fox explained decades ago how they used to watch minutely the faces of sitters and find their way by changes of expression4 ,i see a young man1 says the medium dreamily1 with half-closed but very watchful eyes4 ,there is no response on the face of the sitter4 ,i see the form of a young woman--a child1 the medium goes on4 ,at the right shot the sitter's face lights up with joy and eagerness1 and the fishing goes on4 ,probably in the end1 or after a time1 the sitter will tell people how the clairvoyant saw the form of her darling child at once4 ,in some cases the medium is prepared in advance4 ,carrington tells us that he was one day strongly urged to give a man1 who thought that he had abnormal powers1 a sitting4 ,he decided at least to give him a lesson1 and made an appointment4 ,the man came with friends at the appointed hour1 and they were astonished and awed when ,carrington1 as a clairvoyant1 told them their names and other details4 ,he had simply sent a man to track his visitor to his hotel and learn all about him and his friends4 ,other cases are just as easy4 ,when ,sir ,o4 ,lodge and ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle lost their sons1 the whole mediumistic world knew it and was ready4 ,but mediums gather information about far less important sitters1 because it is precisely these cases that are most impressive4 ,it is quite easy to get information quietly about a certain man's dead relatives1 and then find an intermediary who will casually recommend him to see ,mrs4 ----4 ,i do not suggest that the intermediary knows the plot1 though that may often be the case4 ,in other cases the medium tells very little at the first visit4 ,the spirit is dazed in its new surroundings4 ,it takes time to get adjusted and learn how to talk through a medium4 ,and so on4 ,you go again1 and the details increase4 ,you have1 of course1 left your name and address in making a fresh appointment4 ,some clever people go anonymously4 ,lady ,lodge went thus and heard remarkable things2 but ,sir ,o4 ,lodge admits that her companion greatly helped the medium by forgetting herself and addressing her as ,lady ,lodge4 ,you may leave your coat in the hall1 and it is searched4 ,when ,truesdell consulted ,slade in ,new ,york1 he wickedly left in his overcoat pocket a letter which gave the impression that his name was ,samuel ,johnson4 ,the first ghost that turned up was1 of course1 ,mary ,johnson4 ,still more ingenious was the clairvoyance of the famous ,american medium ,foster1 one of the impostors who duped ,robert ,dale ,owen and for years held a high position in the movement4 ,while he was out of the room you wrote on bits of paper the names of your dead relatives or friends1 and you then screwed up the bits of paper into pellets4 ,foster then came in1 and sat near you4 ,he dreamily took the pellets in his hand1 pressed them against his forehead1 and then let them fall again upon the table4 ,slowly and gradually1 as he puffed at his everlasting cigar1 the spirits communicated all the names to him4 ,such tricks can be fathomed only by an expert1 and they ought to warn ,spiritualists of the folly of thinking that fraud was excluded4 ,truesdell1 the great medium hunter1 the terror of the ,american ,spiritualist world in the seventies1 had a sitting with ,foster and paid the usual five dollars4 ,he was puzzled1 and consented to come again4 ,on the second occasion ,foster could tell him1 clairvoyantly1 the name of his hotel and other details4 ,he had had ,truesdell watched in the usual way4 ,at last the detective got his clue4 ,foster's cigar was continually going out1 and in constantly re-lighting it he sheltered the match in the hollow of his hands4 ,truesdell concluded that he was then reading the slips of paper1 and the rest was easy4 ,in pressing the pellets to his forehead ,foster substituted blank pellets for them and kept the written papers in his hand4 ,so the next time ,truesdell went1 and ,foster had touched one of the six pellets and read it1 ,truesdell snatched up the other five pellets and found them blank4 ,foster genially acknowledged that it was conjuring1 but he continued as a priest of the ,spiritualist movement for a long time afterwards4 ,another clairvoyant feat is to read the contents of a sealed envelope1 provided the contents are not a folded letter4 ,we shall see in the next chapter how the contents of a folded and sealed letter are learned4 ,i speak here of the simple clairvoyant practice of taking a sealed envelope which contains only a strip of written paper1 pressing it to the forehead and reading the contents4 ,you need not pay half-a-guinea to a ,bond ,street clairvoyante for this4 ,sponge your envelope with alcohol 7which will soon evaporate and leave no trace7 and you can see through it4 ,some readers may expect me to say a word here about clairaudience4 ,the only word ,i feel disposed to say is that it is one of the worst pieces of nonsense in the movement4 ,clairvoyance means to read the contents of a sealed letter1 or to see spirits which ordinary mortals cannot see4 ,it is half the stock-in-trade of the ordinary medium4 ,you pay your guinea or half-guinea1 and the gifted lady sees your invisible dead friends and describes them4 ,sometimes she is quite accurate1 on information received4 ,generally the performance is a tedious medley of guesses and grotesque inaccuracies4 ,as is known1 ,mr4 ,labouchere quite safely promised a thousand-pound note to any clairvoyante who would see the number of it through a sealed envelope4 ,the ,french ,academy of ,science had invited clairvoyants1 and thoroughly discredited the claim1 years before4 ,yet the imposture goes on daily1 all over ,england and ,america1 and some now offer the novelty of clairaudience1 or hearing spirit voices which we ordinary mortals cannot hear4 ,it is the same fraud under another name4 ,when some clairaudient comes along who can hear the spirits of ,myers1 and so many other deceased ,spiritualists answer the crucial questions they have never yet answered1 we may become interested4 ,until then a new addition to this world of cranks1 frauds1 decadents1 and nervous invalids is not a matter of much importance4 ,,footnotes3 #ab ,the ,newer ,spiritualism1 p4 #ahj4 #ac ,mr4 ,clodd1 as will be read in the preface to the second edition of ,dr4 ,mercier's book1 sent a copy of this letter to ,light4 ,the editor declined to publish it4 ,so ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle may justly plead that he knew nothing about it4 ,will he ask why8 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,messages ,,from ,,the ,,spirit-,,world ,clairvoyance1 strictly speaking1 is supposed to be an abnormal power of the medium3 a range of vision1 a fineness of sense1 that we less gifted beings do not possess4 ,but the performance is very apt to resolve itself into a claim that the medium sees invisible spirits and is communicating with them4 ,of real clairvoyance--of a power to read a closed book or a folded paper or see a distant spot--no instance has ever yet been recorded that will pass scrutiny4 ,many scientific men1 as ,i said1 who do not believe in spirits do believe in the abnormal powers of mediums4 ,they would like to get a proof of clairvoyance1 but they are unable to offer us one4 ,the wonderful stories told of the gift in ,spiritualist circles vanish1 like the stories about ,home and ,moses1 the moment the critical lamp is turned upon them4 ,we are therefore reduced to the ,spiritualist claim that a medium really receives information from spirits1 and we have to see on what sort of evidence this is based4 ,now there is an aspect of this question which even the leading ,spiritualists do not face very candidly4 ,more than twenty years ago it was felt1 and rightly felt1 by ,spiritualists that at least a long step forward would be made if they left sealed or cipher-messages at death1 and communicated the contents or the key of these from beyond4 ,it is well known how ,myers left with ,sir ,oliver ,lodge a sealed message of this description4 ,a month after his death he got into touch with ,lodge through the medium ,mrs4 ,thompson4 ,unhappily he had forgotten all about the message1 and even about the ,society for ,psychical ,research6 ,next the supremely gifted ,mrs4 ,verrall got into touch with ,myers4 ,by this time--it was the end of #aijd--,myers had had time to get adjusted1 and was talking more or less rationally through ,mrs4 ,verrall4 ,if there had not been a very material test in reserve1 ,sir ,o4 ,lodge and his friends would have sworn that the messages were from the spirit of ,myers4 ,as it was1 they were so confident that on ,december #ac1 #aijd1 they solemnly opened the precious envelope4 ,they were struck dumb when there was not the least correspondence between ,mrs4 ,verrall's message from ,myers and the message he had left in the envelope4 ,miss ,dallas tries1 in her ,mors ,janua ,vit1 to soften the blow1 but her pleas are useless4 ,the final failure utterly stultifies all the days and months of supposed messages4 ,and this is not the only case4 ,hodgson had adopted a similar test1 and it was a ghastly failure4 ,other ,spiritualists left sealed messages when they died1 and not a syllable of one of them has been read4 ,our ,spiritualists do not get into communication with the dead4 ,this is negative evidence1 but it is far more impressive than any of the rhetorical and inaccurate accounts of experiences which they give us4 ,it is precise and unmistakable4 ,every ,spiritualist who dies now knows that this is the supremely desired test1 yet we have twenty years of complete1 unmitigated failure4 ,men like ,sir ,o4 ,lodge tell us that they recognize the personality of ,hodgson beyond mistake in the messages they get through mediums2 but the one sure test1 the getting of the key to the cipher-messages which ,hodgson left behind1 is an absolute failure4 ,it would become our ,spiritualists to strike a more modest note1 and not assure the ignorant public1 as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle does1 that the time for proof has gone by and it is for their opponents now to justify themselves4 ,the experience of the last twenty years has been deadly to ,spiritualist pretensions4 ,the truth is that here again ,spiritualists had been led into their belief1 that messages from the spirit-world were easy and common1 by a vast amount of mediumistic trickery4 ,the earliest method was by raps1 and we have seen that since #ahdh this performance has been a matter of trickery4 ,the next way was to rap out messages with a leg of the table1 which was merely a variation of the table-lifting we have studied4 ,these forms are so often used by amateur mediums that it is necessary to recall our warning that the distinction between paid and unpaid mediums is not of the least use4 ,carrington1 ,maxwell1 ,podmore1 and ,flammarion give numbers of instances of cheating by men and women of good social position4 ,carrington tells of an ,american lawyer who deliberately--not as a joke--made his friends believe that he could make a poker stand upright and do similar abnormal phenomena4 ,he did his tricks by means of black threads4 ,podmore gives a similar case in ,england4 ,flammarion tells us of a ,parisian doctor's wife who cheated flagrantly in order to get credit for abnormal powers4 ,this sort of prestige has as much fascination for some people as money has for others4 ,the professional mediums1 however1 early developed in ,america the trick of receiving messages from spirits on slates1 and this is fraud from beginning to end4 ,the supreme artist in this field was ,henry ,slade1 whom ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle regards as a genuine intermediary between the lofty spirits of the other world and ourselves4 ,as ,truesdell's account of the way in which he unmasked ,slade as early as #ahgb contains one of the richest stories in the whole collection of ,spiritualist anecdotes1 one would have thought that a story-teller like ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle could not possibly have forgotten it4 ,from it we learn that ,slade was from the outset of his career an adroit and brazen and confessed impostor4 ,truesdell paid the customary five dollars1 and received pretty and edifying1 but inconclusive1 messages from the spirits4 ,incidentally he detected that the spirit-touches on his arms were done by ,slade's foot1 to distract his attention2 but he could not see the method of the slate-trick4 ,however1 as the main theme of the messages was an exhortation to persevere in his inquiries 7at five dollars a sitting to the medium71 he made another appointment4 ,it was on this occasion that he left a misleading letter in his overcoat in ,slade's hall1 and found the spirits assuming that he was ,samuel ,johnson1 ,rome1 ,n4,y4 ,but before ,slade entered the room1 or while ,slade was going through his overcoat-pockets1 he rapidly overhauled ,slade's room4 ,he found a slate with a pious message from the spirits already written on it1 signed 7as was usual7 by the spirit of ,slade's dead wife1 ,alcinda4 ,beneath the message ,truesdell wrote ,henry1 look out for this fellow--he is up to snuff6 ,alcinda1 and replaced the slate4 ,slade came in1 and gave a most dramatic performance4 ,in his contortions1 under the spirit-influence1 he drew the table near to the hidden slate1 and accidentally knocked the clean slate off the table4 ,of course1 he picked up the prepared slate4 ,his emotions can be imagined when he read the words which ,truesdell had written on it4 ,after a little bluster1 however1 he laughingly acknowledged that he was a mere conjurer1 and he told ,truesdell many tricks of his profession4#ad ,this was in #ahgb4 ,four years later ,slade came to ,london1 where ,sir ,e4 ,ray ,lankester and ,sir ,bryan ,donkin again exposed him4 ,sir ,e4 ,ray ,lankester snatched the slate before the message was supposed to be written on it1 and the message was already there4 ,he prosecuted ,slade1 who was sentenced to three months' hard labour4 ,he had charged a guinea a sitter4 ,but a few words had been omitted from the antiquated form of the charge 7which ,i have previously given in the case of ,craddock71 and before ,slade could be again prosecuted he fled to the continent4 ,there1 we saw1 he duped a group of purblind professors1 and he returned to ,america in higher repute than ever4 ,in #ahhb an inspector of police at ,belleville1 in ,canada1 snatched the slate just as ,sir ,e4 ,ray ,lankester had done1 and exposed him again4 ,he escaped arrest only by a maudlin appeal for mercy2 and on his return to the ,states he succeeded in persuading the ,spiritualists--who solemnly stated this in their organ1 the ,banner of ,light--that the man exposed at ,belleville was an impostor making use of his name6 ,in #ahhd he faced the ,seybert ,committee1 and its sharp-eyed members saw and exposed every step in his trickery4 ,eventually1 as ,i have said1 he lived in drink and misery1 developed ,bright's disease1 and died in the common asylum4 ,such was the man whom ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle seriously regards as the chosen instrument of his spiritual powers4 ,the ,seybert ,committee found two different kinds of writing on ,slade's slates4 ,some messages were short and badly written1 and they concluded that these were written by him with one finger while he held the slate under the table 7as the custom was7 to receive a spirit-message4 ,other messages were relatively long1 well written1 and dignified2 and they regarded these as prepared in advance4 ,both points were fully verified4 ,at one sitting they noticed two slates resting suspiciously against the leg of the table4 ,these doubtless had messages written on them1 and were to be substituted for the blank slate when this was supposed to be put under the table4 ,slade would then produce the sound of the spirits writing by scraping with his nail on the edge of the slate4 ,on this occasion1 however1 ,slade saw that they had their eyes on the slates and he dare not use them4 ,but one of the members of the committee1 determined to do his work thoroughly1 carelessly knocked the two slates over with his foot1 and the messages were exposed4 ,the reception of messages from the spirits on slates may linger in rural or suburban districts1 but it has lent itself to such trickery1 and been exposed so thoroughly1 that mediums have generally abandoned it4 ,for whole decades it was the chief way of communicating with the spirits1 and weird and wonderful were the artifices by which the medium defeated the growing sense of caution of the sitters4 ,in spite of the exposures of ,slade1 the ,english medium ,eglinton adopted and improved his methods1 and he was one of the bright stars of the ,spiritualist world for twenty years4 ,he was detected in fraud as early as #ahgf4 ,at that time he gave materialization-sances1 at which the ghostly form of ,abdullah appeared4 ,archdeacon ,colley found the beard and draperies of ,abdullah in his trunk4 ,but exposure never ruins a medium in the ,spiritualist world1 and ten years later ,eglinton was the most successful and respected medium in ,england1 especially for slate-messages4 ,hodgson more than suspected him1 and he at last found a man1 ,mr4 ,s4 ,j4 ,davey1 who was able to reproduce all his tricks4 ,he wrote messages while he held the slates under the table1 and he substituted prepared slates for clean slates under the noses of his sitters4 ,perhaps the most valuable part of his experience was this substitution1 which is one of the fundamental elements of mediumistic trickery4 ,spiritualists--indeed1 inquirers generally--honestly flatter themselves that they have taken care that there was no deception of this kind4 ,such confidence is foolish1 as the professional conjurer does this kind of substitution under our eyes habitually1 and we never see him do it4 ,in order to make people more cautious ,davey1 with ,dr4 ,hodgson's connivance1 set up as a medium and gave sittings to ,spiritualists4 ,they afterwards sent accounts of their experiences to the ,society for ,psychical ,research4 ,they were1 as usual1 certain that there was no trickery1 and that the messages were genuine4 ,davey then wrote correct accounts of what he had done1 and it was seen that the accounts of the sitters were inaccurate and their observation faulty4 ,some of them indignantly retorted that ,davey was a genuine medium1 but found it more profitable to pose as a conjurer and exposer of mediums6 ,in a work specially devoted to this subject 7,spirit ,slate ,writing and ,kindred ,phenomena1 #ahii7 ,mr4 ,w4 ,e4 ,robinson gives about thirty different fraudulent ways of getting spirit-messages4 ,indeed1 many of these may be sub-divided1 and you get scores of methods4 ,one method1 for instance1 is to write a message with invisible fluid on paper1 seal the apparently blank paper in an envelope1 and then let the message appear and pretend that the spirits wrote it4 ,mr4 ,robinson gives thirty-seven different recipes for the invisible ink1 and sixteen of these require only heat1 which is easily applied1 to develop them4 ,in other cases the inside of the envelope has been moistened with a chemical solution which develops the hidden writing4 ,one medium used to put an apparently blank sheet of paper in a clear bottle and seal it4 ,here trickery seemed impossible1 and the sitter was greatly impressed at receiving a pious message on the paper4 ,but the message had been written in advance with a weak solution of copper sulphate1 and the bottle had been washed out with ammonia1 which develops it4 ,in slate-messages much use is made of a false flap1 or a loose sheet of slate which fits imperceptibly on one side of the framed slate4 ,it conceals the message written on the slate1 and is removed under the table or under cover of a newspaper4 ,a sheet of slate-coloured silk or cloth is sometimes fitted on the slate1 and it is drawn up the medium's sleeve or rolled into the frame of the slate4 ,invisible messages may be written on the slate with onion or lemon juice1 and developed by lightly passing over them a cloth containing powdered chalk4 ,double-frame slates lend themselves to infinite trickery4 ,slates are provided by the trade with false hinges and all kinds of mechanism4 ,but even when the sitter brings his own slates1 as ,zllner did1 and ties them up and seals them1 the medium is not baffled4 ,they are laid aside1 for the spirits to write on at their leisure4 ,at the first convenient opportunity the medium removes the wax1 without spoiling the seal1 by passing a heated knife-blade or fine wire beneath it1 and1 after untying the strings1 heats the under-surface of the wax and sticks it on again4 ,mediums found that sitters were greatly impressed if they heard the sound of the spirits writing on the slate4 ,this was easily done by scraping with the finger nail1 and cautious people wanted to have a security against fraud4 ,one medium gave them adequate security4 ,he held both hands above the table1 yet writing was distinctly heard underneath it4 ,the man had attached to the table a clamp holding a bit of slate-pencil1 and against this he rubbed a pencil which was fastened to his trousers by loops of black silk4 ,others can use a pencil with their toes--,i have seen an armless ,bulgar girl use a pen with her toes as neatly as a good writer uses his fingers--and hold both hands above the table4 ,this trick is often used when a message is wanted in answer to a question and cannot be written in advance4 ,the usual method is1 however1 to hold the slate under the table-top and write on it while it is held there4 ,at first this was done by means of a tiny bit of slate-pencil slipped under the nail of the big finger4 ,slade soon found that this was suspected1 and he made a point of keeping his nails short4 ,the trade which is at the back of mediums then supplied thimbles with bits of pencil attached1 which the medium could slip on to his finger as he put the slate under the table4 ,even thimbles with three differently coloured chalks were made1 and the innocent sitter would be invited to select his own colour for the spirits to write in4 ,the most amazing tricks were developed4 ,robinson tells of a man who would let you bring your own slate and hold it against your own breast1 and the message then appeared on it4 ,he tried your slate when you brought it by writing on it with his pencil4 ,but1 of course1 he sponged out all his writing before he handed the slate back to you1 as you could see4 ,he had a double pencil--slate at one end and silver nitrate at the other--and what he wrote with the latter was invisible until it was damped with salt-water4 ,well1 the sponging 7or damping7 had been done with salt-water1 and so the message 7in silver nitrate7 appeared as the slate dried against your breast4 ,when you thus allow the medium to use his own apparatus in his own room you need not be surprised at any result whatever4 ,the sensible man will remember that behind the mediums is the same ingenious industry which supplies conjuring outfits4 ,mr4 ,selbit showed ,mr4 ,moseley a typewriter1 on an ordinary-looking table1 which spelt out1 by invisible fingers1 a message in reply to your question4 ,there was an electrical mechanism in the table1 and an electrician in the next room controlling it by a wire through the hollow table-leg4 ,but even without such elaborate mechanism mediums can baffle quite vigilant sitters4 ,there was one who would allow you to examine his nails1 yet he got slate-messages without putting the slate under the table4 ,he had ground slate-pencil to dust1 mixed it with gum1 and then cut the mixture into little cubes or pellets4 ,he simply stuck these on his trousers1 and1 after you had examined his nails1 helped himself to one4 ,when the answers are given on paper a hundred other tricks are employed4 ,first the medium must learn the question you are putting to the spirits4 ,if you put it mentally1 you will never get more than a lucky or unlucky guess1 unless you happen to be one of those sitters for whom the medium was prepared4 ,you need not fear telepathy4 ,it must be admitted to-day that the evidence for telepathy or thought-transference is in as parlous a condition as the evidence for ,spiritualism4 ,after all the challenges and discussions not a single serious claim lies before us4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 it is true1 tells 7,debate1 p4 #bh7 quite confidently of ,mr4 ,lethem getting an answer to his unspoken questions4 ,but ,sir ,arthur1 as usual1 does not tell all the facts4 ,the unspoken questions to which ,mrs4 ,lethem1 as a medium1 gave correct answers were precisely the two test questions which ,mr4 ,lethem had put to a medium some time before6 ,we may surely presume that he had confided that wonderful experience to the wife of his bosom4 ,no1 there is no clear case of telepathy1 or answers to unspoken questions1 on record4 ,the medium gets you to write your questions4 ,spirits are supposed to be more at home in reading such spiritual things as thoughts than in reading material scribbles2 but your medium is not a spirit1 and you will get no answer unless he knows the question4 ,if you write your question on the pad which he kindly offers1 it is easy4 ,there is a carbon paper underneath1 which gives him a duplicate4 ,in one very elaborate case the carbon and duplicate were under the cloth1 and were drawn off1 when you had finished writing1 through a hollow leg of the table into the next room4 ,one medium developed the art of reading what you wrote from the movements of the top of your pencil4 ,others1 like ,foster1 artfully stole your bit of paper and substituted dummies4 ,but ,i will quote from ,mr4 ,carrington a last trick which will give the reader a sufficiently large idea of the wonderful ingenuity which mediums use in these spirit messages4 ,he tells in his ,personal ,experiences of ,spiritualism of a pair of ,chicago mediums--the same ,misses ,bangs who painted spirit pictures before your eyes1 as ,i have previously described--whose method was extraordinarily difficult to detect4 ,you wrote a letter to a deceased person4 ,you folded a blank sheet with this letter1 and sealed them yourself in an envelope4 ,this letter you handed to ,miss ,bangs as she sat at the table opposite you4 ,after a long delay1 but without her leaving the room1 she restored the envelope 7which had lain on the table under a blotter7 to you intact1 and you found a letter to you from your spirit friend written on the blank sheet you had enclosed4 ,mr4 ,carrington admits that he can only guess the way in which this striking performance was done1 but the reader who cares to read his full and interesting account will feel that his conjecture is right4 ,the letter did not remain on the table4 ,under cover of the blotting pad and various nervous movements it was conveyed to the medium's lap1 and from there to a shallow tray on the floor under the table4 ,the medium1 he noticed1 sat close to a door which led into an adjoining room1 and he believes that the tray was pulled by a string from under the table into the next room4 ,an expert whom he afterwards sent to examine the house1 under cover of a sitting1 verified his conjecture that there was space enough at the bottom of the door to pull a shallow tray through4 ,in the next room it was easy for ,miss ,bangs ,no4 #b to open the letter1 write the reply1 and seal the envelope again4 ,even wax seals offer no difficulty to mediums4 ,the letter was re-conducted to the table in the same furtive way4 ,a desperate ,spiritualist may say that his hypothesis is simpler than this4 ,but there is one little difficulty4 ,no such person had ever existed as the supposed dead relative to whom ,mr4 ,carrington addressed his letter6 ,he had hoaxed the hoaxer4 ,here were two quiet and inoffensive-looking spinsters earning a good living by deceptive practices 7this and the spirit-painting trick7 which they had themselves1 apparently1 originated1 and which taxed the ingenuity of an expert conjurer to discover4 ,what chance has the ordinary inquirer1 much less the eager ,spiritualist1 against guile of this description8 ,a boy of sixteen can buy a box of conjuring apparatus for a guinea4 ,it contains only tricks which have been scattered over the country for years4 ,yet in your own drawing-room he can1 after a little practice1 cheat your eyes every time1 although you know that there is trickery1 and are keenly on the look-out for it4 ,what chance have you1 then1 against a man or woman who has been conjuring for twenty years8 ,what chance have you in a poor light8 ,what earthly chance have you in the dark8 ,it is amazing how inquirers and ,spiritualists forget this elementary truism4 ,they tell you repeatedly1 with the air of supreme experts in conjuring1 that there was no possibility of fraud4 ,that is sheer self-deception4 ,even expert conjurers have been completely deceived by mediums1 as ,bellachini was with ,slade 7a confessed impostor7 and ,carrington was with ,eusapia ,palladino4 ,the man who tells you that there was no fraud because he saw none is as foolish as the man who expects you either to explain where the fraud was or else embrace ,spiritualism4 ,there is one other method of receiving messages which we must briefly notice4 ,it is1 to ,spiritualists1 the most impressive of all4 ,the ghost of the dead talks directly to you4 ,a direct voice medium is1 of course1 required1 and some kind of trumpet is provided by the medium through which the spirit speaks to you4 ,if you are known to the medium1 or if you have a good imagination and are very eager1 you can recognize the very accents of your dead wife or mother-in-law4 ,but there is one disadvantage of this impressive phenomenon4 ,it must take place in complete darkness2 and we remember the warning of that high and experienced psychic authority1 ,dr4 ,maxwell1 that the man who seeks any kind of phenomena in complete darkness is wasting his time4 ,spiritualist writers are amusing when they try to reconcile us to the conditions which their mediums have imposed on them4 ,are there not certain conditions for the appearance of all scientific phenomena1 they ask us8 ,most assuredly4 ,you cannot grow carrots without soil1 and so on4 ,is not darkness a condition of certain scientific processes8 ,again1 most certainly4 ,the photographic plate must be prepared in the dark1 or in a dull red light4 ,therefore4444 ,that is just where the ,spiritualist fails4 ,if the darkness under cover of which the photographic chemist prepares his plates lent itself equally to cover fraud or to protect his operations1 there would be a parallel4 ,as it is1 there is no parallel4 ,the red light of the photographer can serve only one purpose4 ,when the medium uses it1 there are two purposes conceivable4 ,one is1 on the ,spiritualist theory1 that white light may interfere with the magnetism1 or the psychic force1 or whatever the latest jargon is4 ,the other conceivable purpose is that it may cover fraud4 ,everybody admits that the darkening of the planet since #ahdh has covered a vast amount of fraud1 to use the words of ,baron ,schrenck4 ,few people admit that it has favoured real phenomena4 ,it is therefore quite absurd to attempt to reconcile us to the darkness by the analogy of photographic operations4 ,there is no analogy at all4 ,in the one case the poor light certainly favours fraud1 and does not certainly do anything else4 ,in the other case the red light never covers fraud1 but has a single clear purpose4 ,red light1 as ,i have said1 is the most tiring for the eye of all kinds of light4 ,the man who thinks that he can control the hands and feet of seven mediums in such a light cannot expect to be taken seriously4 ,he can expect only to be taken in4 ,but the man who pays any attention to phenomena for which the medium requires pitch darkness is even worse4 ,why not simply imagine that the dead still live1 and save the guinea8 ,you have not the slightest guarantee of the genuineness of the phenomena4 ,imagining that you can recognize the voice or the features is one of the oldest of illusions4 ,in the summer of #aiab our ,spiritualists were elated by the discovery of a new medium of the most powerful type4 ,mrs4 ,ebba ,wriedt came from that perennial breeding-ground of great mediums1 the ,united ,states1 where she had long been known4 ,in #aiab she illumined ,london4 ,through her ,w4 ,t4 ,stead was able once more to address ,spiritualists viva voce4 ,one recognized the familiar voice unmistakably4 ,scepticism was ludicrous4 ,did not a ,serbian diplomatist talk to the spirit in ,serb1 which ,mrs4 ,wriedt did not know1 and answer for the genuineness of the phenomena8 ,light had wonderful columns on ,mrs4 ,wriedt's marvels4 ,she was1 the editor of a psychic journal said1 the pride and the most convincing argument of the whole ,spiritualist and ,theosophical world4 ,in admiring her powers1 even the mutual hostility of ,spiritualist and ,theosophist was laid aside1 it seems4 ,norwegian ,spiritualists were eager to avail themselves of this rare gift1 and they asked if ,norwegian spirits could speak through the great medium4 ,after consulting the spirits--a cynic would say1 after practising a word or two of ,norwegian--,mrs4 ,wriedt replied in the affirmative1 and boldly crossed the sea4 ,there is1 of course1 no intrinsic reason1 on the ,spiritualist theory1 why spirits should be confined to the language of the medium4 ,in direct voice they do not even have to use her vocal organs4 ,a trumpet lies on the ground or the table1 and the spirits lift it up and megaphone 7very softly7 through it4 ,it is quite inexplicable to those of us who are mere inquirers why the spirits must always talk ,english in ,england1 ,american in ,america1 and so on4 ,even when they try1 as in the case of the ,thomas brothers1 to talk their native ,american to us in ,england1 the result is half bad ,american and half ,welsh-,english4 ,it would be much more impressive to our hesitating generation if a half-dozen foreigners were brought to the sitting1 and each had a real conversation--not a word or two--with a ghost of his own nationality4 ,somehow the spirits insist on speaking the language1 and even the dialect1 of the medium4 ,we shall consider in the next chapter a few supposed variations from this unfortunate rule of spirit-intercourse4 ,well1 ,mrs4 ,wriedt went to ,norway1 and confronted her new inquirers with all the solidity and confidence of the well-built ,american matron4 ,somehow1 the vocabulary of the ,norwegian dead1 who came along1 was very limited4 ,they could say only ,yes or ,no in ,norwegian4 ,otherwise the first sance was very good4 ,to make up for their culpable ignorance of their native tongue the ,norwegian ghosts scattered flowers about the dark room1 gave ghostly music1 and did other marvellous things4 ,but there were two ladies and a professor--,frau ,nielsen and ,frau ,anker and ,professor ,birkeland--who did not like this ,yes and ,no business4 ,it was scriptural1 but not ladylike4 ,so the professor held ,mrs4 ,wriedt's hands very firmly at the second sance1 and for twenty minutes the spirits were dumb4 ,they always resent such things1 as every ,spiritualist knows4 ,the trumpets lay on the floor1 neglected and silent4 ,at length ,professor ,birkeland heard some very faint explosive sounds which his ears located in the trumpets or horns 7in shape something like the old coach-horn74 ,he looked steadily and saw them move slightly1 a phosphorescent light in them making the movements clear4 ,a good ,spiritualist would have seen that this was the beginning of manifestations1 and he would have paid close attention to the trumpets and relaxed his hard control of ,mrs4 ,wriedt4 ,the professor was1 however1 of the type which mediums call brutal4 ,he jumped up1 switched on the electric light1 and1 before the ,spiritualists could interfere1 had snatched the two trumpets from the floor and bolted to the nearest analytic chemist4 ,so the curtain fell on one more glorious act in the ,spiritualist drama4 ,mrs4 ,wriedt had put in the trumpet particles of metallic potassium which1 meeting the moisture she had also thoughtfully provided1 explained the psychic movements4 ,close examination disclosed that on other occasions she had used ,lycopodium seeds to produce the same effect4 ,professor ,birkeland did not discover how the voices were produced1 but they offer no difficulty4 ,the trumpets were1 he found1 telescopic4 ,each consisted of three parts1 and could stretch to nearly three feet4 ,when some guileless lady1 who is controlling the medium1 allows a hand to stray in the usual way1 the trumpet is seized1 and it will give a direct voice over the heads of the sitters or close to any one of them4 ,when the trumpet remains on the ground during the ghostly message1 the medium has a rubber speaking-tube fitted to it4 ,when no trumpet is provided at all1 it makes no difference4 ,the medium has thoughtfully brought one of these telescopic aluminium tubes in his trousers4 ,it folds up to less than a foot4 ,in some of the earlier cases1 possibly still in some cases1 the medium's little daughter1 who sits demure and mildly interested on the couch before the light is switched off1 mounts the furniture in the dark1 and obligingly impersonates the ghost4 ,no one would accuse ,mr4 ,crawford1 of ,belfast1 of being ultra-critical1 yet his experience confirms my conclusions4 ,his marvellous experiences with the pious ,kathleen drew the attention of the ,spiritualist world1 and all sorts of mediums came to help4 ,first he tried the clairvoyants4 ,but they saw such weird and contradictory things that he was worried4 ,none of them saw the wonderful psychic cantilever which he thought the spirits made to lift the table1 but they all saw ghostly hands where he did not want them2 and the worst of it was that the same spirits which had confirmed his theory of a cantilever1 and even allowed him to take a photograph 7which he has meanly refused to publish7 of it1 now joyously confirmed the quite different theory of the ,spiritualist clairvoyants4 ,so he gave it up1 and next tried a direct voice medium4 ,he is fairly polite about the result4 ,he got plenty of voices from all quarters--in total darkness4 ,not only did a voice come from the ceiling1 but a mark was made on it4 ,the medium's silk coat was frivolously taken off her by the ghosts1 and flung on the lap of one of the sitters4 ,strangely1 these things do not impress him as much as the raising of a two-pound stool to a height of four feet does4 ,he drops dark hints that things were said about this direct voice medium4 ,she was a big woman1 and she was not searched2 and telescopic aluminium tubes take up little room4 ,mr4 ,crawford put his little electrical register near her feet1 and she was annoyed and nervous4 ,in short1 ,mr4 ,crawford seems to have formed the same opinion as any sensible person would in the circumstances4#ae ,we have still to examine the claims of the automatic writers2 but1 after all this1 the reader will not expect much4 ,never yet was a message received which could not have been learned by the medium in a normal way4 ,the overwhelming mass of the messages which are delivered daily in every country are fraudulent4 ,in an amusing recent work 7,the ,road to ,en-,dor7 two officers have shown us how easy it was to dupe even educated men by these professions of marvellous powers4 ,the advantage is on the side of the conjurer every time1 and the sitter has little chance4 ,let the mediums come before a competent tribunal4 ,all sorts of inducements have been offered to them to do so1 but they are very shy of competent investigators4 ,in #aiaa an advertisement in the ,times offered #a1jjj to any medium who would merely give proof of possessing telepathic power1 and there was not a single offer4 ,this year ,mr4 ,joseph ,rinn1 a former member of the ,american ,society for ,psychical ,research and a life-long inquirer1 has deposited with that ,society a sum of #a1jjj for any evidence of communication with the dead under proper conditions4 ,there will again be no application4 ,mediums prefer a simpler and more reverent audience1 even if the fees be smaller4 ,but those who consult them under their own conditions1 knowing that fraud has been practised under those conditions from ,san ,francisco to ,petrograd ever since #ahdh1 must not talk to us about evidence4 ,,footnotes3 #ad ,the chapter should be read in ,truesdell's racy book1 which is now unfortunately rare1 ,bottom ,facts ,concerning the ,science of ,spiritualism 7#ahhc71 pp4 #bgf-cjg4 #ae ,these experiments are recorded in his ,experiments in ,psychical ,science 7#aiai71 pp4 #acd-ce and #agj-hi4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,automatic ,,writing ,the ,spiritualist--if any ,spiritualist reader has persevered thus far--will be surprised to hear that many ,rationalists censure me because ,i decline to admit that his movement is all fraud4 ,for heaven's sake1 he will exclaim1 let us hear something about our honesty for a change6 ,even the impartial outsider will possibly welcome such a change4 ,how is it possible1 he will ask1 that so many distinguished men have given their names to the movement if it is all fraudulent8 ,now let us have a word first on these supposed distinguished ,spiritualists4 ,during the debate with me ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle produced a tiny red book and told the audience that it contained the names of #afj people of high distinction1 many of them of great eminence1 including over forty professors 7p4 #ai74 ,he said expressly that these #afj people 444 have announced themselves as ,spiritualists 7p4 #bj74 ,the book was handed to me1 and it will be understood that ,i could not very well read it and attend to my opponent's speech1 to which ,i had to reply4 ,but ,i saw at a glance several utterly destructive weaknesses4 ,several men were described as professor who had no right to the title4 ,several men were included who were certainly not ,spiritualists 7,richet1 ,ochorowicz1 ,schiaparelli1 ,flammarion1 ,maxwell1 etc474 ,and in not one single case is a precise reference given for the words which are attributed to these men4 ,my opponent regretted that chapter and verse were not always 7this word is omitted from the printed ,debate7 quoted in his little book4 ,as a matter of fact1 chapter and verse 7book and page7 are never given1 in any instance2 and in the vast majority of the #afj cases not even words are quoted to justify the inclusion4 ,he further said that he quite admitted that some of the forty professors in the book did not go so far as ,spiritualists4 ,but ,i have already quoted his words to the effect that they had announced themselves as ,spiritualists1 and the same impression is undoubtedly conveyed by the book itself1 the title of which is ,who ,are ,these ,spiritualists8 ,i have the book before me1 and any reader who cares to glance at the printed ,debate and see what ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle said about it will be astonished when ,i describe it4 ,the printed text gives #abf names1 and #cb further names 7many illegible7 are written on the margins in ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle's hand4 ,only in #ec cases out of the #aeh is any quotation given from the person named1 and in not one of these cases are we told where the quotation may be verified4 ,there are #bg 7not #di1 as ,sir ,arthur said7 men described as professors2 and of these several never were professors1 and very few ever were ,spiritualists4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle has himself included ,professor ,morselli1 who calls ,spiritualism childish and immoral4 ,there are men included who died before ,spiritualism was born1 and there are twenty or thirty ,agnostics included4 ,men like ,lord ,dunraven1 ,lord ,adare1 and ,alexander ,wilder are described1 with the most amazing effrontery1 as some of the world's greatest authors4 ,padre ,secchi1 the pious ,roman ,catholic1 is included4 ,thackeray1 ,sir ,e4 ,arnold1 ,professor de ,morgan1 ,thiers1 ,lord ,brougham1 ,forbes ,winslow1 ,longfellow1 ,ruskin1 ,abraham ,lincoln1 and other distinguished sceptics are dragged in4 ,for sloppy1 slovenly1 loose1 and worthless work--and ,i have in twenty years of controversy had to handle a good deal--this little book would be hard to beat4 ,a list of distinguished ,spiritualists could be accommodated on a single page of this book4 ,a list of distinguished ,rationalists in the same period 7#ahdh-aibj7 would take twenty pages4 ,the truth is that in the earlier days of ,spiritualism1 when less was known than we now know about mediumistic fraud1 a number of distinguished men were converted4 ,they were in every case converted by the impostors ,i have exposed in the course of this work--by ,home1 ,florrie ,cook1 ,mrs4 ,guppy1 ,eglinton1 ,slade1 ,morse1 ,holmes1 etc4 ,what is the value of such conversions8 ,who are the distinguished ,spiritualists to-day8 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle1 ,sir ,o4 ,lodge1 ,sir ,w4 ,barrett1 ,mr4 ,gerald ,balfour4444 ,the reader will be astonished to know that those are the only names of living men of any distinction that ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle dares to give1 either in the text or on the margins of his book4 ,what their opinion is worth the reader may judge for himself4 ,let us pass on4 ,i wrote recently in the ,literary ,guide that there are hundreds of honest mediums4 ,some of my readers resented this as over-generous4 ,possibly they have only a vague idea of ,spiritualism1 and it is advisable for us to reflect clearly on the point4 ,in the eyes of ,spiritualists every man or woman1 paid or unpaid1 who is supposed to be in any way in communication with spirits is a medium4 ,the word does not simply apply to men and women who1 for payment1 sit in cabinets or in a circle1 and lift tables1 play guitars1 write on slates1 produce ghosts1 pull furniture about1 tug the beards of sitters1 and so on4 ,i should agree with the reader that these people1 paid or unpaid1 and all mediums who operate in the dark or in red light1 are probably frauds4 ,that is a fair conclusion from the preceding chapters1 in which ,i have exposed every variety of their manifestations1 and from the history of ,spiritualism4 ,this rules out all professional mediums and a large proportion of the amateurs4 ,perhaps the reader does not know1 and would like to know1 what a sance is like4 ,as far as the more powerful 7and more certainly fraudulent7 mediums are concerned1 ,i have already given a sufficient description4 ,a cloth-covered frame or cabinet is raised at one end of the room1 or a curtain is drawn across an alcove or corner4 ,in this the medium generally 7not always7 sits1 and the curtains are closed until the medium thinks fit to have them opened4 ,the medium is sometimes hypnotized1 and sometimes falls into a natural trance2 it matters little1 for the trance is invariably a sham1 and the medium is wide awake all the time1 though he simulates the appearance of a trance4 ,the lights are lowered or extinguished4 ,generally a red-glass lantern or bulb 7sometimes several7 is lit4 ,then1 after a time1 which is occupied by singing or music 7to drown the noise of the medium's movements71 the ghost appears1 or the tambourine is played1 or the table is lifted1 and so on4 ,these are the heavier and more expensive performances1 and are constantly being exposed4 ,the medium has apparatus in the false seat of his chair or concealed about his person4 ,but the common1 daily sance is quite different4 ,you sit round a table or in a circle1 or 7if you will rise to the price7 sit alone with the lady4 ,the light may be good4 ,the medium sees and describes spirit forms hovering about you4 ,if you are one of the people whom the medium has1 through an intermediary1 attracted to the circle1 you get some accurate details4 ,if not1 the medium begins with generalities and1 studying your expression1 feels her way to details4 ,it is generally a waste of time4 ,friends of mine have gone from one to another medium in ,london1 and they tell me that it is simply a tedious and most irritating way of convincing oneself that these people are all frauds4 ,but beyond these are hundreds1 or thousands1 of private individuals who discover that they are mediums4 ,they take a pencil in their hands1 fall into a passive1 dreamy state1 and presently the pencil automatically writes messages from the spirit world4 ,others use the planchette 7a pencil fixed in a heart-shaped board which1 when the medium's fingers are on it1 writes on a sheet of paper7 or the ouija board 7in which the apex of the heart spells out messages by pointing rapidly to the letters of the alphabet painted on a larger board over which it travels74 ,i have studied all three forms1 and may take them together as automatic writing4 ,the first question is whether this can be done unconsciously4 ,if such messages are consciously spelt or written by the medium1 it is1 of course1 fraud1 because the messages purport to come from the dead4 ,my own experience convinces me that even here there is a vast amount of fraud4 ,the social status and general character of the medium do not seem to matter at all1 as we have repeatedly seen4 ,people get into the attitude of the child4 ,i can do what you can't do1 you constantly hear the child say to its fellows4 ,there is a good deal of the child in all of us4 ,prestige1 distinction1 credit for a rare or original power1 is as much sought as money2 and this motive grows stronger when the medium already has money4 ,everybody knows1 or ought to know1 the perfectly authentic story of ,mozart's ,requiem4 ,a wealthy amateur1 ,count ,walsegg1 secretly paid ,mozart to compose that famous ,mass1 and it was to be passed off by ,walsegg as his own4 ,but while there is much fraud even in automatic writing1 there are certainly hundreds of mediums of this description who quite honestly believe that they are spirit-controlled4 ,mr4 ,g4 ,b4 ,shaw's mother was an automatic artist of that class4 ,i have seen some of her spirit drawings4 ,a high-minded medical man of my acquaintance was a medium of the same type4 ,the class is very numerous4 ,psychologically1 it is not very difficult to understand4 ,a pianist can play quite complicated pieces unconsciously or subconsciously4 ,a writer1 who cannot normally write decent fiction1 may have wonderful flights of imagination in a dream4 ,an expert worker can do quite complicated things without attention4 ,something of the same faculty seems to come in time to the automatic writer or artist4 ,consciousness is more or less--never entirely1 perhaps--switched off from its usual connection with the hand1 and the part of the brain-machine which is not lit by consciousness takes over the connection4 ,that this can be done in perfect honesty will be clear to every reader of ,flammarion's book1 ,les forces naturelles inconnues4 ,flammarion never became a ,spiritualist1 but he was quite a fluent automatic writer in his youth4 ,victorien ,sardou1 the great dramatist1 belonged to the same circle1 and was an automatic draughtsman4 ,flammarion gives specimens of the work of both4 ,quite without a deliberate intention1 he signed his automatic writing 7on science7 ,galileo4 ,i have no doubt that at the time both these distinguished men were strongly tempted to embrace the ,spiritualist theory4 ,these experiences1 and the experiences of the sance1 can be exceedingly impressive and dramatic4 ,the man who has never been there is too apt to think that all ,spiritualists are fools4 ,i have been to sances1 and ,i do not admit that4 ,i am quarrelling with ,spiritualists because they will not realize the possibilities and the actual abundance of fraud4 ,but the sance is undoubtedly very impressive at times4 ,i have held a serious conversation1 in ,german and ,latin1 through an amateur medium of my own acquaintance1 with the supposed spirit of a certain ,german theologian of the last century whose name 7as given7 was well known to me4 ,i do not at all wonder that many succumb in sittings of this sort4 ,but ,i found invariably that1 if one resolutely kept one's head and devised crucial tests1 the claim broke down4 ,so it is with ,flammarion and ,sardou4 ,what ,galileo wrote in #ahgj was just the astronomy of that time2 and much of it is totally wrong to-day4 ,sardou1 on the other hand1 drew remarkable sketches of life on ,jupiter2 and we know to-day that ,jupiter is red-hot6 ,this is a broad characteristic of automatic writing since it began in the fifties of the nineteenth century4 ,at its best it merely reflected the culture of the time1 which was often wrong4 ,stainton ,moses1 for instance1 wrote reams of edifying revelation4 ,but ,i find among his wonderful utterances about ancient history certain statements concerning the early ,hindus and ,persians which recent discoveries have completely falsified4 ,he had been reading certain books which were just passable 7though already a little out of date7 fifty years ago4 ,among other things the spirits told him that ,manu lived #c1jjj ,b4,c41 and that there was a high ,brahminical lore long before that date6 ,so with ,andrew ,jackson ,davis1 the first of these marvellous bringers of wisdom from the spirit world4 ,he had probably read ,r4 ,chambers's ,vestiges of ,creation1 and he gave out weird and wonderful revelations about evolution4 ,in the beginning was a clam1 which begot a tadpole1 which begot a quadruped1 and so on4 ,davis certainly lied hard when he used to deny that he had read the books to which his revelations were traced1 but no one can deny his originality4 ,then there was ,fowler1 an ,american medical student and pious amateur medium1 who was regarded with reverence by the ,american ,spiritualists4 ,i invite the reader's particular attention to this man1 as he is one of those unpaid individuals who are supposed 7by ,spiritualists7 to have no conceivable motive for cheating4 ,yet he lied and cheated in the most original fashion4 ,he told his friends that ghostly men entered his bedroom at nights1 produced ghostly pens and ink1 and left messages in ,hebrew on his table4 ,an expert in ,hebrew found that the message was a very bad copy of a passage from the ,hebrew text of ,daniel4 ,this did not affect the faith of ,spiritualists1 who put a piece of parchment in ,fowler's room for a further message4 ,they had a rich reward4 ,they found next day a spiritual manifesto signed by no less than fifty-six spirits1 including some of the statesmen who had signed the ,declaration of ,independence4 ,the frauds were very gross in those early decades4 ,franklin1 ,washington1 even ,thomas ,paine1 sent hundreds of messages from the ,summerland4 ,as time went on1 ,socrates1 ,plato1 ,sir ,i4 ,newton1 ,milton1 ,galileo1 ,aristotle1 and nearly everybody whose name was in an encyclopdia1 guided the automatic writers4 ,when one reads the inane twaddle signed with their names1 one wonders that even simple people could be deceived4 ,dante dictated a poem of three thousand lines in the richest provincial ,american4 ,one automatic writer wrote1 under inspiration1 a book of a hundred thousand words4 ,it is estimated that there were two thousand writing mediums in the ,united ,states alone four years after the foundation of the movement4 ,mrs4 ,piper was chiefly an automatic writer in the latter part of her famous career as a medium1 but we need scarcely discuss further her accomplishments4 ,in her later years she said that she did not claim to be controlled by spirits1 and this is sometimes wrongly described as a confession of fraud4 ,what she directly meant was that she did not profess any opinion as to the source of the knowledge she gave to sitters4 ,she seemed to favour the theory of telepathy4 ,when1 however1 we remember that she spoke constantly in the name of spirits 7,longfellow1 ,phinuit1 ,pelham1 ,myers1 etc471 the plea seems curious4 ,those who believe that she was really in a sort of trance-state1 and knew not what she was doing1 may be disposed to accept ,podmore's theory1 that her subconscious personality dramatized these various spirits or supposed spirits4 ,some of us do not like this idea of trance4 ,in the hundreds of exact records of proceedings with mediums that ,i have read1 ,i have not seen a page that suggested a genuine trance1 but ,i have noted scores and scores of passages which showed that the medium feigned to be in a trance1 but was very wide awake4 ,mrs4 ,thompson is another clairvoyant and automatic writer who has been much appreciated by modern ,spiritualists4 ,it is well to recall that before #ahih she was a medium for physical phenomena4 ,she even brought about materializations4 ,then she met ,mr4 ,myers1 and her powers assumed a more refined form4 ,dr4 ,hodgson1 that quaint mixture of blunt criticism and occasional credulity1 had six sittings with her1 and roundly stated that she was a fraud4 ,the correct information which she gave him was1 he said1 taken from letters to which she had access1 or from works of reference like ,who's ,who4 ,in one case1 which made a great impression1 she gave some remarkably abstruse and correct information4 ,it was afterwards found that the facts were stated in an old diary which had belonged to her husband4 ,she herself produced the diary1 and said that she had never read it2 so1 of course1 everybody believed her4 ,when ,professor ,sidgwick died1 in #aijj1 his spirit used to communicate through her4 ,she reproduced his manner1 and even his writing 7which she said she had never seen71 very fairly2 but she could give no communication from him of evidential value4 ,the impersonation of dead people by the entranced medium makes a great impression on ,spiritualists4 ,it is difficult to understand why4 ,one medium quite convinced a friend of mine by such a performance4 ,she sat1 in the circle1 in a trance one day1 when she suddenly rose from her chair1 stroked an imaginary moustache1 and began to speak in a gruff voice4 ,he--the young lady had become a cavalry man--explained in a dazed way that he had died at ,knightsbridge ,barracks on the previous day1 and gave his name4 ,great was the joy of the elect on finding afterwards that a soldier of the name had died at ,knightsbridge on the previous day4 ,it was quite childish4 ,it is just by learning such out-of-the-way facts1 as they easily can1 and making use of them1 that the mediums keep up their reputations4 ,there was no reason whatever why the medium should not have learned of the death and made so profitable a use of it4 ,stainton ,moses often did such things4 ,one day he was possessed by the spirit of a cabman who said that he had been killed on the streets of ,london that very afternoon4 ,by an unusual oversight the spirit did not give his name4 ,it was afterwards found that the accident was reported in an evening paper which ,stainton ,moses might have seen just before the sance2 and1 by a curious coincidence1 the reporter had not given the cabman's name4 ,in other cases1 where mediums had been invited to districts with which they were not familiar1 yet they gave quite accurate details about local dead1 it was found on inquiry that the information might have been gathered from the stones in the local cemetery4 ,a common retort of the ,spiritualist1 when you point out the possibility of the medium impersonating the dead1 is that1 if she did so1 she must be one of the cleverest actresses in ,england4 ,you are asked1 triumphantly1 why the lady should be content with a few pounds a week as a despised medium1 when she might be making five thousand a year on a stage4 ,any person who has seen these trances will know the value of their dramatic art4 ,almost anybody could do it4 ,the medium makes from three to five pounds a week by such things1 but if she tried the stage she would have1 at the most1 a minor part with fifty or sixty pounds a year4 ,spiritualists get their judgments weirdly distorted by their bias4 ,i need only quote the extravagant language in which ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle refers to ,mr4 ,vale ,owen's trash or ,mrs4 ,spencer's picture of ,christ4 ,he makes the miracle in which he wishes to believe4 ,two particular cases of spirit messages by automatic writing have lately been pressed upon us1 and we must briefly examine them4 ,one is given in a book by ,mr4 ,f4 ,bligh ,bond1 called ,the ,gate of ,remembrance1 which is recommended to us by ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle as one of the five particularly convincing works which he would have us read4 ,he again fails to tell his readers that ,mr4 ,bligh ,bond draws a very different conclusion than his own from the facts4 ,he has a mystical theory of a universal memory or consciousness1 a sort of ocean into which the memories of the dead have flowed4 ,he does not believe that the individual spirits of the dead monks of pre-,reformation days came along and dictated their views through his automatic-writing friend4 ,any person1 however1 who reads the book impartially will see no need for either the ,spiritualist view or ,mr4 ,bond's4 ,the main point is that1 through ,mr4 ,bond's friend1 ,mr4 ,john ,alleyne1 what purported to be the ghosts of the old monks of ,glastonbury ,abbey wrote quite vivid sketches of their medieval life in the ,abbey and1 particularly1 suggested the position and general features of a chapel that was at the time unknown4 ,as to the character or impersonation of the monks1 which seems to ,spiritualists so impressive1 we are told by experts on medieval language that it will not sustain criticism4 ,the language is quaint and pleasant to read1 but it is not consistent either in old ,english or ,latin4 ,it is the language of a man who is familiar with medieval ,english and ,latin1 but does not speak it as his own language1 and so often trips4 ,it is1 in other words1 ,mr4 ,john ,alleyne writing old ,english and medieval ,latin1 and stumbling occasionally4 ,as to the indication of a buried chapel1 both this and the general impersonation of the old monks are intelligible to any man who has read the book itself1 not ,spiritualist accounts of it4 ,mr4 ,bond1 an architect and archologist1 expected to be appointed to the charge of the ruins1 and he and his friend ,mr4 ,alleyne steeped themselves1 all through the year #aijg1 in the literature of the subject4 ,they read all that was known about ,glastonbury1 and lived for months in the medieval atmosphere4 ,then ,mr4 ,alleyne took his pencil and began to write automatically4 ,the general result is not strange2 nor is it at all supernatural that he should have formed a theory about the lost chapel and conveyed this to paper in the guise of a message from one of the old monks4 ,the next work recommended to us is a short paper by ,mr4 ,gerald ,balfour called ,the ,ear of ,dionysius 7published in the ,proceedings of the ,society for ,psychical ,research1 vol4 xxix1 ,march1 #aiag74 ,the writing medium1 ,mrs4 ,verrall1 a ,cambridge lady of a highly cultivated and refined type and an excellent classical scholar1 found in her automatic script on ,august #bf1 #aiaj1 a reference to the ,ear of ,dionysius4 ,three years and a-half later another writing medium1 ,mrs4 ,willett1 got one of those rambling and incoherent messages1 which are customary1 in reference to the ,ear of ,dionysius4 ,this seemed to be more than a coincidence1 as ,mrs4 ,willett is no classical scholar4 ,but ,mr4 ,balfour candidly warns us that ,mrs4 ,willett said that she had heard nothing about the earlier reference to the ,ear of ,dionysius in ,mrs4 ,verrall's case4 ,it would be remarkable if the fact had been kept entirely secret for three and a-half years1 as some importance was attached to it in psychic circles1 and we may prefer to trust ,mr4 ,balfour's memory rather than ,mrs4 ,willett's4 ,he says that he feels sure that one day1 in the long interval1 ,mrs4 ,willett asked him what the ,ear of ,dionysius was4 ,mr4 ,balfour1 however1 believes that in the sequel we have fair evidence of spirit communication4 ,the reader who is not familiar with these matters should know that a new test had been devised for controlling the origin of these messages4 ,it was felt that if the spirit of one of the dead psychical researchers 7who could no longer read or remember the sealed messages they had left7 were to give an unintelligible message to one medium1 a second unintelligible message to a second medium1 and then the key to both to either or to a third medium1 and if the contents of these messages were strictly withheld from the mediums 7each knowing only her own part71 a very definite proof of spirit origin would be afforded4 ,thus the ghost of ,mr4 ,verrall or ,mr4 ,myers might take a line of an obscure ,greek poet1 give one word of it to ,mrs4 ,thompson1 another to ,mrs4 ,willett1 and then point out the connection through ,mrs4 ,verrall4 ,mr4 ,balfour claims that this was done in connection with the ,ear of ,dionysius4 ,mrs4 ,willett1 who does not know ,latin or ,greek1 got messages containing a number of classical allusions4 ,among them was one which no one could understand1 and the key to this was some time afterwards given in the automatic writing of ,mrs4 ,verrall4 ,the reader will now begin to understand the serious and respectable part of modern ,spiritualism4 ,i presume that these cultivated ,spiritualists regard the physical phenomena of the movement and the ordinary mediums with the same contempt that ,i do4 ,they know that fraud is being perpetrated daily1 and that the history of the movement1 since its beginning in #ahdh1 has reeked with fraud4 ,it is on these refined messages and cross-references that they would stake their faith4 ,but1 while we readily grant that these things offer an arguable case and must not be dismissed with the disdain which we have shown in the previous chapters1 we feel that the new basis is altogether insecure and inadequate4 ,two mediums get a reference to so remote and unlikely a thing as the ,ear of ,dionysius4 ,when you put it in this simple form it sounds impressive2 but we saw that there was an interval of three and a-half years1 and we do not feel at all sure that people so profoundly interested1 so religiously eager1 in these matters would succeed in keeping the first communication entirely from the ears of medium ,no4 #b4 ,in point of fact1 ,mr4 ,balfour tells us that he has a distinct recollection of being asked by ,mrs4 ,willett1 during the interval1 what the ,ear of ,dionysius was4 ,mrs4 ,willett denies it4 ,we shall probably prefer the disinterested memory of ,mr4 ,balfour4 ,now1 the very same weakness is found even in the second part of the story4 ,for any evidential value it rests on two very large suppositions3-- #a4 ,that one medium knew absolutely nothing about the most interesting and promising development which was for months agitating the minds of her own friends4 #b4 ,that another medium heroically refrained from reading up any classical dictionaries or works on the subject1 and reserved her mind strictly for whatever information the spirits might give her4 ,one can scarcely be called hypercritical if one has doubts about these suppositions4 ,there does not seem to be any room for the theory either of telepathy or of spirit communication4 ,the two experiences ,i have just analysed are selected by ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle as the most convincing in the whole of the work of the more modern and more refined ,spiritualists4 ,i need not linger over other experiences of these automatic writers4 ,for the most part1 automatic writing provides only vapid or inaccurate stuff which is its own refutation4 ,in the early years1 when ,franklin1 ,shakespeare1 ,plato1 and all the most illustrious dead wrote nonsense of the most vapoury description1 the situation was quite grotesque4 ,nor is this kind of thing yet extinct4 ,there are mediums practising in ,london to-day who put the sitter in communication with the sages and poets of ancient times4 ,in the very best of these cases there is a certain silliness about the communications which makes them difficult to read4 ,even the spirits of ,myers and ,verrall seem to be in a perpetual ,bank-,holiday mood1 making naive little puns and jokes1 and talking in the rambling1 incoherent way that scholars do only in hours of domestic dissipation4 ,there is a world thirsting 7it is said7 for proof that the dead still live4 ,here are 7it is said7 men like ,w4 ,t4 ,stead1 ,myers1 ,hodgson1 ,verrall1 ,sidgwick1 ,vice-,admiral ,moore1 ,robert ,owen1 etc41 at the other end of the wire1 as ,william ,james used to say4 ,yet1 apparently1 nothing can be said or done that quite clearly goes beyond the power of the mediums4 ,the arrogance of the ,spiritualists in the circumstances is amazing4 ,there are a dozen ways in which the theory could be rigorously tested4 ,one has been tried and completely failed3 the communication of messages which were left in proper custody before death4 ,we shall1 of course1 presently have an announcement that such a message has been read4 ,some zealous ,spiritualist will leave a sealed message1 and will take care that some medium or other is able to read it4 ,we may be prepared for such things4 ,the fact is that half-a-dozen serious and reliable ,spiritualists have tried this test1 and it has hopelessly miscarried4 ,another test was that devised by ,dr4 ,hodgson--to leave messages in cipher1 though not sealed4 ,this also has completely failed4 ,a third test would be for one of these ghosts of learned ,cambridge men1 who are so fluent on things that do not matter1 to dictate a passage from an obscure ,greek poet through a medium who does not know ,greek at the request of a sitter4 ,it is a familiar and ancient trick for a medium to recite or write a passage in a foreign language4 ,it has been learned beforehand4 ,but let a scholar ask the spirit of a dead scholar to spell out through the ignorant medium there and then a specified line or passage within his knowledge4 ,i have tried the experiment4 ,it never succeeds4 ,another test would be for one of these ghostly scholars to dictate a word of a line of some obscure ,greek poet 7chosen by the sitter7 to one medium 7ignorant of ,greek71 and another word of the same line to another medium immediately afterwards1 before there was the remotest possibility of communication4 ,a score of such tests could be devised4 ,three of the best writing mediums the ,society for ,psychical ,research cares to indicate could be accommodated1 under proper observation1 in different rooms of the same building1 and these tests carried out4 ,we could invite the spirit to pass from medium to medium and repeat the message to all three1 or give a part to each4 ,until some such rigorous inquiry is carried out1 we may decline to be interested4 ,i have before me several volumes of the ,proceedings of the ,society for ,psychical ,research4 ,candidly1 they are full of trash and padding4 ,there is very little that merits serious consideration1 and nothing that is not weakened by uncertainties1 suppressions1 and over-zealous eagerness4 ,in fine1 what impresses any man who reads much of all the volumes of revelation which have been vouchsafed to us is the entirely earthly character of it all4 ,the ,spiritualist theory is that men grow rapidly wiser after death4 ,plato is two thousand years wiser than he was when he lived4 ,ptah-hotep is six thousand years older and wiser4 ,neither these1 nor ,buddha nor ,christ nor any other moralist1 has a word of wisdom for us4 ,in fact1 a theory has had to be invented which supposes that they move away from the earth to distant regions of the spirit-world as they grow older1 and so cannot communicate4 ,it is a pity they are not permitted to do so for propaganda purposes4 ,but even those who remain in communication have learned nothing since they left the earth4 ,no discovery has ever yet been communicated to us4 ,in ,spiritualist literature1 it is true1 there is a claim that certain unknown facts about the satellites of ,uranus were revealed2 but ,flammarion makes short work of the claim4 ,the communications never rise above the level of the thought and knowledge of living humanity3 never even above the level of the knowledge available to the mediums4 ,it is scarcely an insanity of incredulity to suppose that they originated there4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,ghost-,,land ,,and ,,its ,,citizens ,about twenty years ago a writing medium1 a sober professional man whose character would not be questioned1 showed me a pile of his automatic script4 ,he sincerely believed that he had for several years been in communication with the dead4 ,i glanced over many sheets of platitude and familiar moralizing1 and then asked him to tell me how they described the new world in which the dead lived4 ,he hesitated1 and tried to convince me that this point1 which seemed to me the most interesting of all1 was unimportant4 ,when ,i pressed1 he said that it was a world so different from ours that the spirits could hardly convey a coherent description of it in our language4 ,they had to be content with such vague phrases as that they lived in houses of flowers4 ,that was the state of the new revelation twenty years ago4 ,long before that whole volumes of quite precise description of ghost-land had been written1 but it was discredited4 ,andrew ,jackson ,davis had invented the name ,summerland1 which ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle adopts to-day2 but ,davis's wonderful gospel had turned out to be a farrago of wild speculation1 founded on an imperfect grasp of a crude1 early stage of science4 ,then ,stainton ,moses and hundreds of other automatic writers had given us knowledge about the next world4 ,a common feature of these early descriptions was that the dead lived in a quasi-material universe round about the earth and could visit the various planets and the sun at any time4 ,in that case1 of course1 they could give most valuable assistance to our astronomers1 and they were quite willing4 ,some said that there were living beings on the sun4 ,as a matter of fact1 one of our early astronomers had conjectured that there might be a cool1 dark surface below the shining clouds which give out the light of the sun1 and this spirit was following his lead4 ,we know to-day that no part of the sun falls below a temperature of #g1jjj ,c4 ,others described life on ,jupiter and ,saturn1 and we now know that they are red-hot4 ,another medium1 ,helen ,smith1 attracted to herself a most romantic interest for years because she was controlled by the spirit of a late inhabitant of the planet ,mars1 and we learned a marvellous amount of weird detail about life on ,mars4 ,the thing was so obviously overdone1 and ,spiritualism was so generally discredited in the eighties on account of the very numerous exposures of mediums1 that for a time revelations were less frequent4 ,people fell back very largely on the older belief1 that the dead are pure spirits1 living in an environment that cannot be described in our language1 which is material4 ,this1 in point of fact1 is a hollow and insincere pretext4 ,philosophers have been accustomed for two thousand years to describe the life of the spirit1 and have provided a vocabulary for any who are interested in it4 ,the truth is that ideas were changing1 and mediums were not at all sure what it was safe to say4 ,towards the close of the century there was some revival of ,spiritualism1 and there were fresh attempts to describe the beautiful world beyond the grave4 ,mediums were then in the houses of flowers stage4 ,it sounded very pretty1 but you must not take it literally4 ,with the advance of the new century1 mediums recovered all their confidence4 ,it was at the beginning of the present century that physicists began to discover that matter was composed of electrons1 and ether was the most discussed subject in the whole scientific press4 ,here was a grand opportunity4 ,a world of ether would not be so crudely ,materialistic as the earlier post-mortem world of the mediums4 ,yet it might be moulded by the imagination into a more or less material shape4 ,it must be frankly admitted that the pure spirit idea is not attractive4 ,those who yearn to meet again the people they had known and loved are a little chilled at the prospect of finding only what seems to be an abstraction1 a mere mathematical point1 a thing paler and less tangible than a streak of mist4 ,ether was therefore gladly seized as a good compromise4 ,ghost-land was in the ether of space4 ,there had been1 it is true1 earlier references in ,spiritualist revelations to ether bodies1 but it is chiefly since the series of discoveries in science to which radium led that the modern ,spiritualist idea has been evolved4 ,as usual1 the spiritual revelations follow in the rear of advancing science4 ,but in this case the automatic writers had a great advantage4 ,they need only follow the lead of ,sir ,oliver ,lodge1 who1 however curious his ideas of physiology may be1 is certainly an authority on ether4 ,he began by hinting mysteriously that he saw a spiritual significance in ether4 ,following up that clue1 the automatic writers have worked so industriously that we now know the ,summerland more thoroughly than we know ,central ,africa or ,thibet4 ,buoyed up by the growing sentiment of agreement1 as proved by the very profitable sales of his works1 ,sir ,oliver ,lodge1 in ,raymond1 gave the world a vast amount of detail about the land beyond the grave4 ,he did not guarantee it1 it is true4 ,that is not his way4 ,but he assured the public that his mediums were undoubtedly in touch with his dead son1 and the ,spiritualist public must be pardoned if they understood that all the marvellous matter put out in the name of ,raymond was to be taken seriously4 ,the message was really ingenious4 ,raymond was1 unhappily1 not merely unable to give direct voice communications1 as ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle's son is believed to have done1 but he could not even directly communicate through ,mrs4 ,leonard1 the medium4 ,he used as an intermediary the spirit of a child named ,feda2 and1 of course1 when one has to use a child--and such an irresponsible1 lisping1 foolish little child as ,feda--as intermediary1 you must not press the message literally in every part4 ,the method had the advantage of pleasing ,spiritualists1 who found a complete confirmation of all their speculations about ghost-land1 and at the same time disarming critics1 because ,raymond was not really responsible4 ,many people did not fully realize this when they bore down heavily and contemptuously on the description of the next world which is given in ,raymond4 ,the deceased young officer had a nice doggie1 which he brought along with him when he strolled to the medium's shop to send a message to his distinguished father4 ,presently the medium added a cat1 though she said nothing about a cats'-meat man4 ,raymond had also what ,i believe young officers call a bird--a young lady acquaintance on spiritual terms4 ,there were cows in the spirit meadows and flowers in the gardens4 ,our damaged flowers1 we are told1 pass over to the other side and raise their heads once more gloriously4 ,why they flower if there are no bees1 whether they have chlorophyll circulating in their leaves1 whether the soil is sandy or clayey1 etc41 we are not told4 ,the information comes in chance clots1 as if ,raymond were too busy with ethereal billiards to study the natural history of ghostland very closely4 ,we are told to picture ,raymond in a real suit of clothes4 ,he was offered the orthodox white sheet1 which every right-minded spirit wears2 but he had a ,british young man's repugnance to that sort of thing4 ,so in the laboratories on the other side they made ,raymond an ordinary suit1 out of damaged worsted which we earthly wastrels had no use for4 ,for other young officers1 with less refined tastes1 they manufactured whisky-and-soda and cigars4 ,don't think ,i'm stretching it1 ,raymond observed to his father1 through ,feda and ,mrs4 ,leonard4 ,the father does not say what he thought4 ,now1 it is1 as ,i said1 quite wrong for ,spiritualists to plant all this upon the authority of ,sir ,oliver ,lodge4 ,does he not warn us in a footnote that he has not yet traced the source of all this supposed information8 ,it would not take most of us long to do so1 but the remark at least leaves open a way of retreat for ,sir ,oliver ,lodge4 ,on the other hand1 we must not blame ,spiritualists too severely4 ,he assures them that this lady1 ,mrs4 ,leonard1 is in undoubted communication with his dead son1 and one may question whether he is entitled to take one part of the lady's message as genuine and leave other parts open4 ,at all events1 this puerile and bewildering nonsense was put before the world in an expensive book by ,sir ,oliver ,lodge1 with his personal assurance that ,mrs4 ,leonard was a genuine medium4 ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle next gathered details from scores of revelations of this kind--they fell upon us like leaves in ,vallombrosa after ,sir ,oliver ,lodge's bold lead--and built them into a consistent picture of ,summerland4 ,it is an ether world4 ,each of us has a duplicate of his body in ether4 ,this is quite in harmony with science1 he says1 because some one has discovered that bound ether--that is to say1 ether enclosed in a material body--is different from the free ether of space4 ,from this slight difference ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle concludes that there is a portion of ether shaped exactly like my body2 then1 by a still more heroic leap of the imagination1 he gathers that this special ether has not merely the contour of my body1 but duplicates all its internal organs and minute parts2 and lastly--this is a really prodigious leap--he supposes that this ether duplicate will remain when the body dissolves4 ,on that theory1 naturally1 every flower and tree and rock that ever existed1 every house or ship that was ever built1 every oyster or chicken that was ever swallowed1 has left an ether duplicate somewhere4 ,well1 when you die1 your ethereal body remains1 and is animated by your soul just as the body of flesh was4 ,a death-bed is1 on the new view1 a most remarkable scene4 ,men and women weep round the ghastly expiring frame1 but all round them are invisible 7ether7 beings smiling and joyful4 ,when the last breath leaves the prostrate body1 you stand erect in your ethereal frame1 and your ethereal friends gather round and wring your ethereal hand4 ,congratulations over1 one radiant spirit takes you by the hand and leads you through the solid wall and out into the beyond4 ,presumably he is in a hurry to fit you with one of the damaged worsted suits4 ,sir ,arthur stresses the fact that they have the same sense of modesty as we4 ,the next step is rather vague4 ,one gathers that the reborn man is dazed1 and he goes to sleep for weeks or months4 ,sleep is generally understood to be a natural process by which nerve and muscle1 which have become loaded with chemical refuse1 are relieved of this by the blood4 ,what it means in ghostland we have not the least idea4 ,but why puzzle over details where all is a challenge to common human reason8 ,you awaken presently in ,summerland and get your bearings4 ,this is so much like the paradise described by ,mr4 ,vale ,owen that we will put ourselves under the guidance of that gentleman4 ,i would merely note here a little inconsistency in the gospel according to ,st4 ,conan4 ,one of the now discovered charms of ,summerland is that the young rapidly reach maturity1 and the old go back to maturity4 ,the ether-duplicate of the stillborn child continues to grow--we would give much for a treatise from ,professor ,huxley 7in his new incarnation7 on this process of growth without mitosis and metabolism--and the ether-duplicate of the shrunken old lady of eighty smoothes out its wrinkles1 straightens its back1 and recovers its fine contour of adipose tissue4 ,but here a difficulty occurred to ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle4 ,in his lectures all over the kingdom he has had to outbid the preacher4 ,i promise you1 he told bereaved mothers1 that you shall see again just the blue-eyed1 golden-haired child that you lost4 ,he even says this in his book4 ,with all goodwill1 we cannot let him have it both ways4 ,if children rapidly mature1 mothers will not see the golden-haired child again4 ,at the risk of seeming meticulous1 ,i would point out another aspect of the revelation on which more information is desirable4 ,golden hair implies a certain chemical combination which is well known to the physiologist4 ,blue eyes mean a certain degree of thinness of pigment on the front curtains of the eye4 ,now1 ether has no chemical elements4 ,it is precisely the subtle substance of the universe which is not yet moulded into chemical elements4 ,are we to take it that ,summerland is really a material universe1 not an ether world8 ,as ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle has glowingly praised the revelations which have come through the ,rev4 ,mr4 ,vale ,owen1 ,i turn to these for closer guidance1 and ,i find that my suspicion is correct4 ,the next world is a material world4 ,whether it has a different sun from ours is not stated1 but it is a world of wonderful colour4 ,flowers of the most gorgeous description live in it perpetually4 ,whether they ever grew up or will ever decay1 whether they have roots in soil and need water1 the prophet has not yet told us4 ,but the world is lovely with masses of flowers4 ,people also dress like the flowers4 ,they have beautifully coloured robes and gems 7none of your damaged worsted for ,mr4 ,vale ,owen74 ,in other words1 light1 never-fading light1 is the grand feature of the next world4 ,since ether does not reflect light1 it is obviously a material universe4 ,music is the second grand element4 ,perhaps ,mr4 ,owen would dispute this1 and say that preaching is the outstanding feature4 ,certainly1 everybody he describes preaches so constantly and so dully that many people will not like the prospect4 ,let us take it1 rather1 that music is the second great feature4 ,they have great factories for musical instruments which make a mockery of ,brinsmeads4 ,the bands go up high towers and produce effects which no earthly musician ever dreamed of producing4 ,it follows1 of course1 that the ghosts not only tread a solid soil1 in which flowers grow1 on which they build towers and mansions1 but a very considerable atmosphere floats above the soil4 ,mr4 ,vale ,owen1 in fact1 introduces streams and sheets of water2 lovely lakes and rivers for the good ghosts and stagnant pools in the slums of ghostland4 ,we will not press this4 ,mr4 ,owen forgot for a moment that it never rains in ,summerland4 ,but the atmosphere is an essential part of the revelation1 as without it there will certainly be no music or flying birds4 ,and an atmosphere means a very solid material world4 ,our moon1 which weighs millions of billions of tons1 is too light to possess an atmosphere and water4 ,consequently1 there must be thousands of miles of solid rock and metal underfoot in ghostland4 ,it follows further that1 since ghostland is very spacious1 and since at least a billion humans 7to say nothing of animals7 have quitted this earth since the ape men first wandered over it1 this other material universe must be very extensive4 ,if all the inhabited planets in the universe have their ,summerlands1 or all pour their dead into one vast ,summerland1 one begins to see that modern science is a ridiculous illusion4 ,we should not see the sun1 to say nothing of stars a thousand billion miles away1 or even remoter nebul4 ,as to astronomical calculations of mass and gravitation4444 ,i can sustain the comedy no longer4 ,these revelations are the most childish twaddle that has been put before our race since the ,middle ,ages4 ,they are the meanderings of imaginations on a level with that of a fifteen-year-old school-girl4 ,one really begins to wonder if our generation is not in a state of senile decay1 when tens of thousands of us acclaim this sort of thing as an outcome of superhuman intelligence4 ,it is on a level with the happy hunting grounds of the ,amerind4 ,it is a dreamy parson's idea of the kind of world he would like to retire to1 and continue to do good without getting tired4 ,it is a flimsy1 irresponsible1 juvenile thing of paint and tinsel and gold-foil3 the kind of transformation-scene in which we revelled1 at the ,christmas pantomime1 when we were young4 ,our generation needs guidance if ever any generation of men did4 ,another great war would wreck the planet4 ,the social soil heaves with underground movements4 ,the stars are hidden from view4 ,and people come before us with this kind of insipid puerility1 and tell us it is the greatest message ever offered to man4 ,seriously1 what it is can be told in few words4 ,it is partly a fresh attempt to bring our generation back to religion4 ,it is partly an attempt to divert working people from the politics and economics of this world4 ,and it is partly a fresh outbreak of the unlimited credulity which every epidemic of ,spiritualism has developed since #ahdh4 ,there was such a phase in the fifties of the nineteenth century1 when ,spiritualism swept over the world4 ,there was a second such phase in the seventies1 when materializations began4 ,this was checked by exposures everywhere in the early eighties1 and not until our time has ,spiritualism partly recovered4 ,now the vast and lamentable emotional disturbance of the ,war has given it a fresh opportunity1 and for a time the flame of credulity has soared up again4 ,to come back to the question which forms the title of this book1 the reader may supply the answer1 but ,i will venture to offer him a few summary reflections4 ,we do well to distinguish two classes of phenomena4 ,broadly1 but by no means exactly1 this is the distinction between psychical and physical phenomena4 ,messages on slates or paper from the spirit-world ,i would class with the physical phenomena4 ,we have seen that they reek with fraud1 and there is no serious claim that any of them are genuine4 ,the nearest we can get to a useful division is to set on one side a small class of mediums of high character who claim that1 in trance and script1 they are spirit-controlled4 ,spiritualism is not based on these things4 ,the thousands of enthusiastic ,spiritualists of ,great ,britain and ,america know nothing about the ,ear of ,dionysius and the cross-correspondences of the ,psychical ,researchers4 ,their faith is solidly based on physical phenomena4 ,they are taught by their leaders to base it on physical phenomena4 ,sir ,a4 ,c4 ,doyle and ,sir ,w4 ,barrett urge the levitations and other miracles of ,d4 ,d4 ,home and ,stainton ,moses and ,kathleen ,goligher4 ,sir ,oliver ,lodge--who seems also to admit the preceding--asks us to consider seriously the performances of ,marthe ,beraud4 ,sir ,w4 ,crookes lets it be understood that to the day of his death he believed in ,katie ,king and the spirit-played accordion4 ,professor ,richet1 and all those other professors and scholars whose names are fondly quoted by ,spiritualists1 rely entirely on physical phenomena4 ,if you cut out all the physical-phenomena mediums of the nineteenth century1 and all the ghost-photographs and direct voices of to-day1 you have very little left4 ,that is to say that ,spiritualism is generally based on fraud4 ,does it matter8 ,yes1 it matters exceedingly4 ,it matters more than it ever did before4 ,the world is at a pass where it needs the clearest-headed attention and warmest interest of every man and woman in every civilization4 ,fine sentiments1 too1 we want2 but not a sentimentality that palsies the judgment4 ,men never faced graver problems or had a greater opportunity4 ,instead of distraction we want concentration on earth4 ,instead of dreaminess we want a close appreciation of realities4 ,there lies before our generation a period either of greater general prosperity than was ever known before1 or a period of prolonged and devastating struggle4 ,which it shall be depends on our wisdom4 ,is there any need to settle whether we shall live after death8 ,the ,spiritualist says that if we could convince men that their lot in that other world will be decided by their characters they will be more eager for justice1 honour1 and sobriety4 ,but a man's position in this world is settled by his character4 ,justice1 honour1 and sobriety are laws of this world4 ,men would have perceived it long ago1 and acted accordingly1 but for the unfortunate belief that these qualities were arbitrarily commanded by supernatural powers4 ,we need no other-worldly motives whatever for the cultivation of character4 ,indeed1 so far as ,i can see1 the man who gambles and drinks is more likely to say to the ,spiritualist3 ,you tell me there is no vindictive hell for what ,i do here4 ,you tell me there are no horses or fiery drinks in that other world4 ,then ,i will drink and bet while the opportunity remains1 and be sober and prudent afterwards4 ,but the dead1 the loved ones we have lost6 ,must we forfeit this new hope that we may see them again8 ,let us make no mistake4 ,half the civilized world has already forfeited it4 ,six million people in ,london never approach a church1 and the vast majority of these believe no longer in heaven4 ,so it is in the large towns of nearly every civilization4 ,yet the number of ,spiritualists in the entire world is not one-tenth the number of pagans in ,london alone4 ,and there is no weeping and gnashing of teeth4 ,at the time of the wrench one suffers4 ,slowly nature embalms the wound1 as she already draws her green mantle over the hideous wounds of ,france and ,belgium4 ,we learn serenity4 ,life is a gift4 ,every friend and dear one is a gift4 ,it is not wise to complain that gifts do not last for ever4 ,the finest sentiment you can bestow on the memory of the dead is to make the world better for the living4 ,has your child been torn from you8 ,in its memory try to make the world safer and happier for the myriads of children who remain4 ,this earth is but a poor drab thing compared with what it could be made in a single generation4 ,hotbeds of disease abound in our cities1 and children fall in scandalous numbers in the heat of summer or perish in the blasts of winter4 ,let the pain of loss drive us survivors into securing that losses shall be less frequent and less painful4 ,do not listen to those who say that critics crush the voice of the heart in the name of reason4 ,we want all the heart we can get in life1 all the strength of emotion and devotion we can engender4 ,but let it be expended on the plain1 and plainly profitable1 task of making this earth a ,summerland4 ,do that1 as your leisure and your powers permit1 and1 when the day is over1 you will lie down with a smile1 whether you are ever to awaken or are to sleep for ever4 ,,printed ,,by ,,watts ,,and ,,co41 ,,johnson',s ,,court1 ,,fleet ,,st41 ,,london1 ,e4,c4#d4