"We observed no such synchronism," repeated Fowler. "We not only controlled Mrs. Smiley's hands, but nailed her to her chair. In a way, our test was more rigid than those you are describing. Our results were not so dramatic, but they were produced under test conditions, and their significance is as great as that of Bottazzi's lamp-lighting."

"But we did not have as much light on the medium, and, by-the-way, Miller, the spectral hands that I saw in your study, each larger than Mrs. Smiley's hands, were as real to me as those Scarpa studied, and the books deposited on your table form as good a record, in their way, as the marks on his smoked-glass cylinder."

"Furthermore, we had writing," added Fowler. "All of which Bottazzi would explain by his theory of an 'astral arm.'"

"Yes, but he secured something still more marvellous. He obtained the print of human hands in clay and also on smoked glass. He demonstrated that the invisible limbs of the psychic cannot only move objects at a distance, but that they can feel at a distance. 'Eusapia's attitude was that of a blindfolded person exploring space with her hands to find a lost object!' he exclaims, at one point. 'Eusapia opened my right hand, stretched out my three middle fingers, and, bending them on the table, tips downward, said, in a whisper: "How hard it is! What is it?" I did not understand,' says Bottazzi. 'She continued: "There, on the chair." "It is the clay," I said, quickly; "will you make the impression of a face?" "No," she replied, "it is too hard; take it away.'" Some one broke the chain to carry out her desire. He looked at the desk and saw the imprint of three fingers."

"What I would like to know at this point," Harris quickly interposed, "is this: were the fingermarks lined like Bottazzi's or like the medium's?"

"He does not say in this case, but, as I recall it, they found in other instances that the lines on the impressions made by Eusapia's invisible fingers were precisely like those of her material fingers, and yet no mark of flour or lamp-black remained attaching to her hands. In one case a perfumed clay was used, and, although the impressions secured 'resembled Eusapia's face grown old,' no scent of the wax could be detected on her cheeks. Bottazzi gives much space to these 'mediumistic explorations of the cabinet.' He could follow these blind, mysterious gropings of the invisible Eusapia by closely controlling the real Eusapia. 'Presently she asked: "What is that round object? I feel something round."' This was, in fact, the rubber ball which connected with a tube—the tube, in its turn, passing through the wall into another room where it operated a manometer. She pressed this ball with her invisible limbs, and the column rose and registered the pressure. This was entirely satisfactory to Bottazzi, who then says: 'I desire again to affirm that with her invisible limbs Eusapia feels the forms of objects and their consistency, feels heat and cold, hardness and softness, dampness and dryness neither more nor less than if she were touching and feeling with the hands imprisoned in ours. She feels with other hands, but perceives with the same brain with which she uses to talk with us.'

"The most astonishing physical phenomena came when the contact-breaker was thrown on the table, and Eusapia called out: 'See how it moves!' 'We all directed our gaze toward the small object,' says Bottazzi, 'and we saw that it oscillated and vibrated at an elevation of an inch or two above the surface of the table, as if seized with internal shivering—Eusapia's hands, held by M. Galeotti and myself, being more than a foot from the contact-breaker.'"

My auditors were now in the thrall of Bottazzi's story, and the silence was eloquent. At last Cameron said: "It certainly seems like a clear case of 'astral.' I begin to believe in our first sitting with Mrs. Smiley. What do you want us to do—announce ourselves converted?"

"Certainly not," I replied. "We must not relax our vigilance, even though Bottazzi, Morselli, and their fellows seem to have proved the genuineness of the phenomena. At the same time, I admit it is a source of satisfaction to me to know that these Italian scientists, with conditions all their own, are willing to affirm that Eusapia 'feels with her invisible limbs,' and explores a cabinet while sitting under rigid control more than a yard away from the objects moved. My experiences point to this. How else could the cone be handled with such precision as was shown at your house, Miller? Lombroso observed that chairs and vases moved as if guided by hands and eyes, and that the psychic could see as well behind her as in front. Mrs. Smiley has always been able to direct me exactly to the point where the cone or pencil had been flung. How can letters within closed slates be formed so beautifully and so precisely without some form of seeing?"

Fowler was ready with an answer: "At the final analysis all perception is due to some form of vibration. To be clairaudient is simply to be able to lay hold upon a different set of pulsations in the ether, and to be clairvoyant is to perceive directly without the aid of the eye, which is only a little camera, after all."

"All this is merely a kind of prelude," I resumed, "for Bottazzi apparently proved that the invisible hand of Eusapia's invisible arm could not penetrate a cage of wire mesh that covered the telegraphic key in the cabinet. 'How, then, can we consider it to be a spirit hand—an immaterial hand—when a wire-netting can stop it?' he very pertinently inquires."

"That's what troubles me," said Miller. "If a phantom hand can bring a real book and thumb its leaves, or drum with a real pencil or write, why isn't it, for all practicable purposes, a real hand?"

"What is a real hand?" retorted Fowler. "Isn't the latest word of science to the effect that matter like the human body is only a temporary condition of force?"

"Precisely so; and every advance along the line of these experiments goes to prove the power of mind to transform matter. It almost seems to me at times as though these psychic minds were able to reduce matter to its primal atom and reshape it. In Bottazzi's seventh sitting, under the same rigorous restraint of Eusapia, a vase of flowers was transported, a rose was set in a lady's hair, a small drum was seized and beaten rhythmically, an enormous black fist came out from behind the curtain, and an open hand seized Bottazzi gently by the neck. Now listen to his own words: 'Letting go my hold of Professor Poso's hand,' he says, 'I felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. It was a left hand, neither hot nor cold, with rough, bony fingers which dissolved under pressure. It did not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal—it dissolved, "dematerialized," melted.'"

I paused to say: "Remember, this is not the tale of a perfervid spiritist. On the contrary, it is the scientific account of a laboratory experiment by a physiologist of high rank. The incident is not a part of a seance in the home of a medium in a dark parlor full of side-doors and trick windows. It is a registered phenomenon in the physiological department of a great university, occurring under scientific test conditions. I confess it gives verity to many a doubtful thing I have myself seen."

"It certainly staggers me," said Cameron. "How does the scientific gentleman explain it?"

"He goes on to say: 'Another time, later on, the same hand was placed on my right forearm—I saw a human hand, of natural color, and I felt with mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and nervous. The hand dissolved (I saw it with my own eyes) and retreated as if into Madame Paladino's body, describing a curve. If all the observed phenomena of these seven seances were to disappear from my memory, this one I could never forget.'"

Fowler was smiling with calm disdain. "Let him go on with his psycho-dynamic theories. He will be confounded yet. These are only the first stages of the game."

"But all this happened while the hands of the psychic were merely held," protested Miller. "He says he controlled her hands rigorously. Why didn't he handcuff her, or nail her down? The facts he claims to have established are too subversive to accept on his word alone."

This amused me. "There you go again! Not satisfied with wonders, you want miracles. Happily, you may be satisfied. In the eighth sitting, which took place in the same room of the physiological laboratory, with Bottazzi, Madame Bottazzi, Professor Galeotti, Doctors Jappelli and d'Errico present, Eusapia submitted to the most rigorous restraint of her life. Two iron rings were fastened to the floor, and by means of strong cords, which were sealed with lead seals like those used in fastening a railway car, her wrists were rigidly confined. She was, in fact, bound like a criminal; and yet the spectral hands and fists came and went, jugs of water floated about, and as a final stupendous climax, while Galeotti was controlling Eusapia's right arm, which was also manacled, he saw the duplications of her left arm. 'LOOK!' he exclaimed, 'I SEE TWO LEFT ARMS IDENTICAL IN APPEARANCE. ONE IS ON THE LITTLE TABLE. THE OTHER SEEMS TO COME OUT OF THE MEDIUM'S SHOULDER, TOUCH MADAME BOTTAZZI, AND THEN RETURN TO EUSAPIA'S BODY AGAIN. THIS IS NOT AN HALLUCINATION. I AM CONSCIOUS OF TWO SIMULTANEOUS VISUAL SENSATIONS WHEN MADAME BOTTAZZI SAYS SHE HAS BEEN TOUCHED.'"

For a moment the entire company sat in silence, as though stunned by the force of my blow. Then all turned to Miller as though to ask: "What do you think of that?"

He slowly replied: "To grant the possible putting forth of a supernumerary arm and hand would make physiological science foolish. It is easier to imagine these gentlemen suffering a collective hallucination."

"Ah! Bottazzi provided against all that. He called in the aid of self-registering contrivances. It won't do, Miller—he proved the objective reality of 'spirit phenomena.' He lifted the whole performance to the plane of the test-tube, the electric light, and the barometer. His experiments, his deductions, came as a splendid sequence to an almost equally searching series by Crookes, Zoellner, Wallace, Thury, Flammarion, Maxwell, Lombroso, Richet, Foa, and Morselli. His laboratory was the crucible wherein came the final touch of heat which fuses all the discordant facts into a solid ingot of truth."

"But, to me, he is misreading the facts," objected Fowler. "I maintain that he is as prejudiced in his way as the spiritist. He says: 'The mediumistic limbs explored the cabinet.' A spiritist would say: 'John King explored the cabinet.' The synchronism he speaks of might exist, and only be a proof of what the spiritist admits—that the presence and activity of the materializing spirit are closely circumscribed by the medium."

"Bottazzi proved the relationship to be something more intimate than that. He demonstrated that the movement of the hands in the cabinet and of those outside had a common origin—namely, the will and brain of Eusapia. He proved that these invisible hands were, after all, material, and limited in their powers. He proved that the 'spirits' shared all Eusapia's likes and dislikes, and knew no more of chloride of iron or ferro-cyanide of potassium than she herself possessed—in short, while admitting the mystery of the process, he reduces all these phenomena to human, terrestrial level, and relates them wholly and simply to the brain and will of the psychic. Perhaps his state of mind is best expressed at the close of his statement concerning the registration of the movements of 'the spirit hand.' He says, in effect: 'These tracings demonstrate irrefutably that the keys were repeatedly pressed with perfect synchronism, the outside key with Eusapia's left hand, the one inside the cabinet by another, which a convinced spiritist would call that of a "materialized spirit," and which I believe to be neither the one nor the other, although I am not able to explain what it was.'"

"Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!" exclaimed Brierly. "After that superb test, why didn't he frankly say the discarnate had been proved?"

"Because his proof, his knowledge, was not yet sufficient. Besides, it requires heroic courage to admit our ignorance. 'I don't know,' he says, and that is the attitude of Morselli. Dr. Foa believes the phenomena to come within the domain of natural law, and to result from a transmutation of energy accumulated in the medium. He calls this 'vital energy' or 'psychic energy,' and adds: 'If these phenomena appear strange by virtue of their comparative rarity, they are not really more marvellous than the biological phenomena which we witness every day.'"

"According to this theory, then," said Miller, "Mrs. Smiley has remained, as you believe, motionless in her chair, but has been able to 'energize' at a distance."

"More than that. She has been able to emit supernumerary etheric limbs, perhaps a complete material double of herself, which is able to move with lightning speed and perfect precision. It is this actual externalization of both matter and sense that makes darkness so essential to the medium. Vivid light forces this effluvia, this mysterious double, back into its originating body with disrupting haste. Witness the several times when Mrs. Smiley was convulsed merely by being touched at the wrong moment."

"There is a different interpretation to be put upon the psychic's hatred of light," remarked Howard.

"By-the-way, yet bearing on this very subject, I read in the Annals of Psychic Science the account of a singular experiment in the matter of independent writing. A certain Dr. Encausse, in giving a lecture before the Society for Psychical Research at Nancy, said that in 1889, having heard that a professional magnetizer named Robert was able to put a subject into such a state of hypnosis that he could project lines of writing on paper without use of pen or pencil, he was curious to see the performance. Together with a colleague, Dr. Gibier, Encausse hastened to witness this marvel. One of the subjects was a girl of seventeen. The magnetizer put her to sleep, 'and during this seance,' says Dr. Encausse, 'we were able to obtain in full light on a sheet of paper signed by twenty witnesses, the precipitation of a whole page of written verses signed "Corneille." I examined under the microscope the substance that formed the writing, and I was led to the conclusion that it consisted of globules of human blood, some scattered as if calcined, others quite distinct. I thus verified the theory of the occultists of 1850 that the nervous energy as well as the physical force of a medium, the material of which he is constituted, such as his blood, could exteriorize itself and reconstruct itself at a distance.'"

"What a stunning experiment!" exclaimed Cameron.

"Important, if true," sneered Harris.

"What do you know about this learned doctor?" asked Miller.

"Nothing; but you will see that these later experiments of the Italian scientists are sustaining De Rochas and Aksakof in their claim that the medium is in a sense dematerialized to build up the phantasms. Dr. Encausse goes on to say: 'Moreover, the medium who had produced this phenomenon was preparing for the stage and had been studying Corneille during the whole of the preceding day. I was thus able to discover the origin of the substance of the materialization of the writing, and also its psychic origin.' In other words, he claims that the message was not from the shade of the great dramatist, but was a precipitation of the blood of the psychic and an exercise of her subconscious mind, all of which accords with Bottazzi's theory.

"Now, then," said I, in the tone of one about to conclude, "in the light of these experiments, my own sitting at Miller's, and especially those that I held at Fowler's house, take on the greatest significance. Miller, Mrs. Smiley's visible limbs did not handle the books—of that I am positive—and yet I am equally certain that she governed every movement."

"But what about the voices?" asked Fowler. "Does this theory cover the whispering personalities we heard? What about 'Wilbur' and 'Maudie'?"

"That's easy," retorted Howard. "Once you explain the manipulation of the cone, the rest is merely clever ventriloquism."

"There is nothing 'easy' about any of these phenomena," I answered. "As Richet says, they are absurd, but they are observed facts. It would not be fair to the spiritists to end the account of these sittings without frankly stating that there were many other phenomena very difficult to explain by Bottazzi's theory. There came a time, as he admits, when 'a mysterious entity behind the curtain, among us, almost in contact with us, was felt all the time.' This entity was supposed to be 'John King,' the psychic's control. This being, invisible for the most part, gave roses to those he liked, conversed freely, and in one case threw a bunch of flowers in the face of one of the sitters to whom Eusapia had taken a dislike. A little later 'John' presented a small drum from behind the curtain, and, when Galeotti tried to take it, 'John' pulled it out of his hands. Again he offered it, and Galeotti seized it, and the two fought for its possession with such violence that the drum was nearly torn to pieces."

"Where was Paladino meanwhile?" asked Miller.

"Seated quietly in the grasp of Bottazzi and Madame Bottazzi. Galeotti then raised the drum in his hand, high above his head and against the curtain, and requested 'John' to beat it. 'John' pushed a hand against the drum and beat a muffled tattoo. All this was utterly out of the psychic's reach. The strife over the drum would seem to argue a complete and powerful figure behind the curtain."

"In other words, a spirit," said Brierly.

"Not so fast," put in Miller. "I am content to plod with these Italian scientists. Let us establish one supernormal fact and then reach for another. You fellows with your 'reincarnations,' and the spiritist with his foolish messages from Cleopatra, Raphael, and Shakespeare, have confused the situation. We must begin all over again. If all that Garland is detailing is true—I have not read these reports he speaks of—then it is our duty to take up the scrutiny of these facts as a part of biologic science."

Fowler clapped his hands. "Bravo! that is all we ask of you. To study frogs and mosquitoes, to peer close into the constitution of the blood or the brain of man, is useful; but, to my mind, the questions raised by these Continental experimentalists are the most vital now clamoring for answer."

"Bottazzi says, with regard to his eighth and final sitting: 'The results of this seance were very favorable, because they eliminated the slightest trace of suspicion or uncertainty relative to the genuineness of the phenomena. We obtained the same kind of assurance as that which we have concerning physical, chemical, or physiological phenomena. Henceforth sceptics can only deny the facts by accusing us of fraud and charlatanism. I should be very much surprised if any one were bold enough to bring the charge against us, but it would not disturb our minds in the least. From this time forward the medium who wishes to prove the truth of her phenomena will be obliged to permit the same kind of experimentation which Eusapia so adequately sustained.'"

"Well, now," said Cameron, "the practical question is this: are we to go on with our investigation?"

"I am ready," said Miller, promptly. "Garland, will you purvey another psychic and conduct the pursuit?"

"Yes, provided you all come in with spirits attuned, ready to wait patiently and observe silently. The law of these materializations seems to be this: the forces of the psychic are proportional to the harmoniousness of the circle and in inverse proportion to the light. Accepting this law as proved by our illustrious fellow-experimenters abroad, are you ready to try again along the lines they have marked out?"

As with one voice, all agreed.

"Very well," said I; "I will see what I can do for you in the way of a new psychic and new phenomena. We will now experiment with design to prove the identity of the reappearing dead. Of this I am fully persuaded. Men will be discovering new laws of nature ten thousand years from now, just as they are to-day. It is inconceivable that the secrets of the universe should ever be entirely made plain. The world of mystery retires before the dawn. Nothing is really explained—what we call familiar facts are at bottom inexplicable mysteries, and must ever remain so."

"Then why go on? Why not stop now and save ourselves the trouble of investigation?"

"Because there is joy in the pursuit—because it is in the nature of man to pursue this quest. Who knows but the conclusions of Venzano and Morselli, of Bottazzi and Foa, have opened new vistas in human nature? These 'supernormal powers' may chance to be of immense value to the race, quite aside from their bearing upon the problem of death. Furthermore, these reports come at a time when a hard-and-fast literalism of interpretation is the fashion among scientists like Miller. Perhaps they and the art of the day will alike be offered new inspiration by these mystifying enlargements of human faculty. I for one feel profoundly indebted to these brave and clear-brained Italian scientists. I should like to see the physicists of our own universities busying themselves with this most absorbing and vital problem."

"But they don't," retorted Fowler. "They will not even read Bottazzi's reports."

And I fear he is justified in his belief.

[As I am reading proof on this page a fat letter from a friend in Naples comes to my desk, filled with the several corroborative accounts of a special sitting with Paladino which Professor Bottazzi kindly arranged for them. My correspondent is a New York editor, and in his party of six was the associate professor of chemistry in a big Eastern college. After detailing the many marvellous phenomena which took place in his presence, Professor M—— says: "In view of the phenomena with which I am habitually concerned, I did not want to believe in Paladino's supernormal powers, but I had to accept what I saw." These reports bring Bottazzi's experiments closer to the dead. I hope they will bring them a little nearer to my readers. "Bottazzi has no slightest doubt of the phenomena," is the concluding line of my friend's letter.]



VIII

Cameron's society never came together again in formal session, and I was not able to carry out my plan for developing a psychic along the line of proving the identity of the spirits manifesting. However, between the final sitting of the club and my next meeting with Fowler and Miller, I passed through a series of very interesting experiences more or less corroborative of the phenomena which the members had witnessed either individually or as a body. These additional experiments I proceeded at once to lay before my friends as we met at the club one quiet afternoon a couple of weeks later.

"We haven't heard of any new psychic," Miller began at once, as we settled into easy-chairs in a retired corner.

"No," I replied. "I've been unable to get the consent of any other psychic to undergo just the inquisition I know you'd like to give, but I've had some extremely suggestive sittings recently with a young professional man who does a little mediumistic 'work' on the side."

"A male psychic? That's amusing. I thought they were all female."

"No. There are men psychics," replied Fowler, "but they're scarce. One of the most wonderful I have ever known is a big, burly fellow of most aggressive manner. The reason why there are so few men in the business I take to be this: men are less subjective, less passive, than women, and the psychic's role seems to be a negative one. Men are aggressive and impatient, engaged in some kind of struggle with material things, or they are intolerant of the process of developing their psychic gifts. If Garland has found a male psychic, he is in luck."

"So I thought. The young fellow, whom we will call Peters, is only about twenty-four, a boyish professional man of refined habits. He comes of good family, and, being ambitious in his profession, is careful not to permit a knowledge of his psychical powers to reach the ears of his employers. I heard of him through a friend who is deeply interested in these matters, and who procured for me an invitation to be present at a sitting in the home of a certain Dr. Towne, on the East Side.

"We met at dinner, and during the meal Dr. Towne told us all he knew of Mr. Peters, which was little, and, turning to me, said: 'We expect you to take charge of the circle, Mr. Garland; it's all new to us.'

"'The first thing to do,' I answered, 'is to put the young fellow at his ease. It is a mighty good sign when a medium is willing to come into a strange house to perform for a circle as critical and as unfriendly as this.' 'Oh, not unfriendly,' said Dr. Towne. 'Well,' I said, 'I wouldn't call three practising physicians, who have never seen a psychic at close range, a friendly group.'"

"Were there three doctors present?" asked Fowler.

"Yes, and my friend was a notably keen-eyed man himself. I really had no faith that the young fellow could do anything remarkable for us, but I didn't say so.

"We were still at the table when our young psychic was announced, and, with a knowledge of how necessary it was that he should be in a comfortable frame of mind, I went out to the library to meet him and make his acquaintance. I wished to put him at his ease—so far as I was concerned, at least.

"I found him to be but a pale stripling, with slender limbs and brilliant eyes. He was plainly nervous and a little dogmatic in manner. He told me that he was twenty-four years of age, but he did not look to be nineteen. He said he had been aware of his power about four years, and that his grandfather and a man named 'Evans' were those who most frequently spoke. 'I have no "guides,"' he said, rather contemptuously.

"The place for the sitting was not especially favorable. It was a reception-room midway between the doctor's office and the dining-room, and was rather large and difficult to close off from the rest of the house. After the windows had been darkened in the usual manner, Peters arranged the chairs so that his seat came between Dr. Towne and Mrs. Towne. Dr. Merriam came next to Towne. This brought me two places away from Peters and next to a stout German woman whose name, as I understood it, was Mrs. Steinert. On Mrs. Towne's right sat Dr. Paul and Professor Franks, my friend. Within the circle Towne had set a small table, on which were placed pencils and paper. The chain was formed by locking our little fingers tightly. If we may depend on the word of those present, this chain of hands remained unbroken for two hours. The room at first was perfectly dark.

"For half an hour we sat at ease, talking a little now and then, but leaving the direction of the whole affair to Peters. He hinted to us—and this I wish to particularly emphasize—that he went out of his body. He said: 'When I think toward any one or toward a thing, I am there. I am all around it. If I think toward a person, I am there—all around him—inside of him.' In pursuit of this idea, I then asked: 'Are you conscious of your body which you have left behind? Are you conscious of being in the upper part of the room, for instance, and do you see your body below you?'

"'No,' said he; 'I am conscious of being in a certain place, but I am not conscious of being in two places at the same time.' He told us of his development, which came about through attendance on a circle with another psychic. He said he had been experimenting for about four years. I asked him if it had affected his health in any way, and he replied: 'No, it does not weary me any more than prolonged study might do. I am very fond of playing chess, and I find that I do not play so well after a sitting—that's all.' He said the only sign of the special condition which produced these phenomena was a nervous tremor in his limbs.

"The first evidence of 'the force' came in steady tappings upon Mrs. Towne's chair. The young man said: 'This is my friend "Evans,"' and thereupon I began to direct the sitting through 'Evans.' In answer to my questions, he said that he would do what he could do for us. I asked him if he would write, and he answered by tapping that he would try.

"Shortly after this promise, sounds as of hands were heard about the table. Sheets of paper were plainly being written upon and torn off the pad. One of these was flourished in my face, while the linked fingers of the psychic were firmly held by Dr. Towne and his wife. All of those in the circle excepting Mrs. Steinert and myself were new to this business, and much impressed.

"At the precise moment when these hands were at work writing, and a little later while they patted Mrs. Towne's cheek and tapped on the doctor's shirt-front, I asked: 'Are you controlling his hands?'

"'Yes,' responded the doctor, who, by-the-way, is a vigorous young scientist and had never before experimented with these forces. His reply was echoed by Mrs. Towne, who remained perfectly calm and clear-headed throughout the entire sitting.

"Thus far the phenomena were precisely similar to those we have had with Mrs. Smiley, but we were soon to have proofs of greater power. While the chain of hands continued unbroken, mysterious fingers clutched Dr. Towne's arm and drummed upon his shirt-front. At length the same mystic fingers began to take off his tie, and, while I warningly called out, 'Be sure of your psychic's hands,' the doctor's collar was taken away and put around his wife's neck. His tie was then added to the collar. Mrs. Towne announced that, while holding firmly to the psychic, she felt the touch of two hands about her face, and a few moments thereafter Dr. Merriam, seated next to Dr. Towne, said he felt a strong pressure upon his arm, as if some one were leaning upon it.

"A little later these hands began to unbutton Dr. Towne's shirt-front, and several pencils were stuffed inside. Hands patted and touched those who sat within a radius of about a yard of the psychic; apparently the forces could not reach to where I sat. I complained of this, and almost immediately the psychic said there was some one for me, and in answer to my question, 'Is there some one present for me?' the pencil rapped three times upon the table in the affirmative. At my request this 'spirit' wrote his name upon a piece of paper, tore it off, and threw it in my lap. A moment later something hard and crackling came over the table. 'My cuffs have been removed,' the psychic called out.

"Having in mind one of the extraordinary experiments of Zoellner, I then asked 'Evans' to remove Dr. Towne's vest. I said: 'If we can get that, it will be in effect a confirmation of Zoellner's theory of the fourth dimension.'

"For a few moments hands touched and patted Dr. Towne as if with intent to make this experiment but gave it up, and Peters announced that they were at work around him. It could not have been more than a minute later when I felt something soft thrown in my lap. I did not know what this was, and did not care to break the circle at the moment to find out, and the information was volunteered by the psychic that the 'spirits' had removed his vest, and this we afterward found to be the case, for at the close of the sitting his vest was lying at my feet."

"Oh, come now," said Miller, "you don't intend to convey—"

"I am telling exactly what took place," I replied.

"Peters then said to Dr. Towne: 'Think of some signature, not your own, that you know very well, and I will reproduce it.' After a little silence the sound of writing could be heard, and the tap of a pencil announced that its task was done. The sheet of paper was then ripped from the pad, a very definite action, as you may believe, and the sound of the sheet being folded was plainly heard."

"That would require a thumb and finger and afterward two hands," remarked Miller.

"Precisely; and they were there, notwithstanding the hands of the psychic could be felt (so Dr. Towne and Mrs. Towne both said) with no movement but a convulsive quivering.

"I then asked 'Evans' if he could not lift the table for us, and he replied by tapping that he would try; and a few moments later the psychic, whose hands and feet began to pass through a period of tremor, warningly called out: 'Now please be very quiet, and don't break the circle.' I could hear him take a deep breath, and a moment later the table rose and passed over Mrs. Towne's head so closely that she was obliged to lean to the right to avoid it, and we all heard it gently deposited not far from the psychic's right hand. While this was done, both Dr. Towne and Mrs. Towne affirmed that their fingers were locked with those of the psychic.

"Here, again, was a phenomenon, inconclusive in itself, from the fact that we could not see the table move, and yet which coheres with an immense body of inexplicable similar movements in the reports of Flammarion and Lombroso. It was impossible for the medium to lift this weight over Mrs. Towne's head, even if his right arm had been completely free, for the stand, though small, was heavy. I regarded this, at the moment, as an authentic case of telekinesis, and my further experience with this psychic has not weakened that conviction.

"Shortly after this the psychic broke up the circle, saying that, as conditions were favorable, he would try to produce materialized forms.

"Taking the chair which was occupied by Mrs. Steinert, he withdrew into the passage-way leading to the dining-room, requesting that the circle resolve itself into a half-circle facing the cabinet. You will remember that we were in a private house, and that all question of collusion is barred out. Shortly after he took his seat in this little recess, two or three brilliant lights, like the twisting flame of a small candle—a curious, glowing, yet not radiant violet flame—developed, high up on the outside of the portieres which formed the cabinet, and drifted across and up toward the ceiling, where they silently vanished. I think there must have been three of these, which were followed by a broad, glowing mass of what looked like white-hot metal—a singular light, unlike anything I had ever seen. It made me think of the substance described by Sir William Crookes and other experimenters abroad. At the moment this appeared—or possibly a little before it—a wild whoop was heard—very startling indeed, as if a door had suddenly been opened by a roguish boy and closed again. This practically ended the seance.

"As we lighted up I had first interest for the object which had been thrown across to me. It proved to be a vest, which the psychic said was his. It was a soft gray vest, and matched his suit, and was without any trick seams—so far as I could see—being whole and uninjured. In the inside pocket a folded leaf of the paper from the pad was stuffed, and on this was the signature 'Alfred Towne,' which Dr. Towne said was an exact reproduction of his brother's autograph. On the sheet of paper which had been thrown to me was the simple word 'Taft.' This was taken by the circle to be a prophecy on the election, but, as my wife's family name is Taft, I put a different interpretation upon it. On the whole, the sitting made a profound impression upon me. It was not so much one thing as many things, all cohering with what I already knew of telekinetic phenomena. It was not a test sitting, as Peters acknowledged, but it was by no means easy to deceive under the control we exercised.

"There were many things of interest aside from the physical happenings. The young man did not go into a trance, but remained perfectly normal. He took part in the conversation, answered all questions, and lent himself perfectly to the experiment. He said that if we would sit with him again he was sure we could have more light. 'I don't care to be known as a medium,' he declared. 'I like the study of law, and I want to be a lawyer—not a sensitive. In the first place, the law pays better, and, in the second place, it isn't considered a nice thing to be a medium. However, I will sit again for you, if you want me to, and I am sure you will get many other things in the light.' And he added to me later: 'We can get all these phenomena with no one present but ourselves. Come down to my home some evening and we will try again.'"

"Did you accept his invitation?" asked Miller.

"Yes; but before I did so we had another sitting at Dr. Towne's house, which gave me a closer view of all that went on, for I was permitted to sit at his left and grip his little finger. The circle was slightly changed the next time, and on his right sat a young lady whom we will call Miss Brown. She was a wide-awake and very unexcitable person, and I believe kept close hold on the psychic's right hand. In addition to our linked fingers, the psychic's hands were tied to ours with dental floss.

"There was considerable light in the room this time, and as the nervous tremor developed in the psychic's hands and legs I imagined I could see a grayish vapor form just between and a little above our clasped hands. Suddenly I saw a shadowy arm dart forth from the cloud, and I felt the clasp of a firm hand on my wrist. It was a right hand. 'Are you controlling the psychic's hand?' I demanded of Miss Brown. 'Yes,' she replied, alertly. Even as I spoke I saw the mysterious limb dart out and seize upon a pencil which lay upon the table. Again and again I saw this 'apparition' emerge from that vaporous cloud and handle the pad in the middle of the table. I could see three fingers on the under-side of the pad as it was held before the psychic's face, and these facts I announced to the other members of the circle, who could not see as plainly as I could. Sometimes the arm seemed white, sometimes black, and always it appeared to be a right hand."

"That is to say, your control was more vigorous than that of Miss Brown," remarked Miller.

"A doubter might say so, and yet the thread which bound us had some value. One of the most extraordinary performances was the lifting of a glass of water which set in the centre of the table. I could see the glass plainly as it rose to the psychic's lips. It seemed to be sustained by a broad beam of vapor, or it may have been a slim arm clothed in white."

"Probably the psychic's."

"Possibly; but I don't see how it could have been. However, I do not place very much value upon it as standing alone, but considered in connection with the performances of Eusapia, it becomes a little more nearly credible."

"But all this is very far from being an evidence of anything like intelligence," protested Fowler. "It seems very trivial to me."

"It does not seem trivial to me," I answered; "but I will admit that is has nothing like the value of a series of sittings I held last spring with a psychic in a mid-Western city."



IX

The reader will have observed that up to the present moment I have not emphasized in any way the question of the identity of the "intelligences" that have manifested themselves. The reason for this lies in the fact that I was still seeking evidence concerning the processes of mediumship. However, being convinced (by reason of my own experiments, supported by those of Lombroso, Morselli, and Bottazzi) that the facts of mediumship exist, it is my purpose to take up definitely the question of identity, which is the final and most elusive part of the problem—it may turn out to be the insoluble part of the problem.

If you ask why it should be insoluble, I reply, because it concerns the mystery of death, and it may be that it is not well for us to penetrate the ultimate shadow. Among all the men of the highest rank who admit the reality of apparitions and voices, there are but few as yet who are willing to assert that the dead manifest themselves. By this I mean that though some of them, like Crookes, for example, believe in "the intervention of discarnate intelligences," they are not ready to grant that these intelligences are their grandfathers returning to the scene of their earthly labors.

I said something like this to Miller and Fowler, when we met at the club one afternoon not long after the final meeting of Cameron's Amateur Psychical Society, and I added: "I must confess that most of the spirits I have met seem to me merely parasitic or secondary personalities (to use Maxwell's term), drawn from the psychic or from myself. Nearly every one of the mediums I have studied has had at least one guide, whose voice and habit of thought were perilously similar to her own. This, in some cases, has been laughable, as when 'Rolling Thunder,' a Sioux chief (Indians are all chiefs in the spirit world), appears and says: 'Goot efening, friends; id iss a nice night alretty.' And yet I have seen a whole roomful of people receive communications from a spirit of this kind with solemn awe. I burn with shame for the sitters and psychic when this kind of thing is going on."

"You visit the wrong mediums," said Fowler. "Such psychics are on a low plane. I never go to those who associate with Indians."

"But mediums are all alike in this respect. I don't suppose Mrs. Smiley realizes that 'Maudie' would be called by a doubter a falsetto disguise of her own voice, and 'Wilbur' a shrewd and humorous personification of her subconscious self; or, if she does, she probably ascribes it to the process of materialization which 'takes from' the medium. Never but once have I had the sensation of being in the presence of a real spirit personality, and that happened to me only a few days ago."

"It must have been an extraordinary experience to have made so deep an impression upon you," said Fowler.

"Yes, it was extraordinary. It had the personal element in it to a much greater degree than any case I had hitherto studied, and seemed a direct attempt at identification on the part of a powerful and original individuality but recently 'passed out.' It came about in this way:

"I met, not long ago, at the home of a friend in a Western city, a woman who was said to be able to produce whispers independent of her own organs of speech. I was assured by those in whom I had confidence that these voices could be heard in the broad light of day, in the open air, anywhere the psychic happened to be, and that her 'work' was of an exceptionally high character. I was keenly interested, as you may imagine, and asked for a sitting. Mrs. Hartley, as we will call her, fixed a day and hour in her own house for the trial, and I went to the sitting a few days later with high expectations of her 'phase.' I found her living in a small frame house on a pleasant street, with nothing to indicate that it was a meeting-place of mortals and their 'spirit guides.'

"Mrs. Hartley was quite evidently a woman of power and native intelligence. After a few minutes of general conversation she took me up to her study on the second floor, a sunny little den on the east side of the house, which was not in the least suggestive of hocus-pocus. A broad mission table, two bookcases, a few flowers, and a curious battered old black walnut table completed the furnishing of the room, which indicated something rather studious and thoughtful in the owner.

"Mrs. Hartley asked me to be seated, and added, 'Please write on a sheet of paper the names of such friends as you would like to communicate with.' She then left the room on some household errand, and while she was gone I wrote the name of her guide, 'Dr. Cooke' (out of compliment), and added that of a musical friend whom I will call 'Ernest Alexander.' I also wrote the names 'Jessie' and 'David,' folded the sheet once, and retained it under my hand. Upon her return the psychic seated herself at the battered oval table, and, taking up a pair of hinged school slates, began to clean them with a cloth. I am not going to detail my precautions. You must take my detective work for granted. Moreover, in this case I was awaiting the voices; the slate-writing was gratuitous. She took the slates (between which I had dropped my slip of paper), and, putting them beneath the table, asked me to hold one corner."

"I wish they wouldn't do that," protested Fowler. "It isn't necessary. I've had messages on slates held in my own hands six feet from the psychic."

"As we sat thus she told me that she had never been in a trance, and that she never permitted the dark. 'I force my guides to work in the light,' she said. She declared that the whispers which I was presently to hear came to her under all conditions, and that her spirit friends talked to her familiarly as she went about her household duties. She assured me that 'they' were a great help and comfort to her. 'Dr. Cooke' was her ever-present guide and counsellor, and her father and brother were always near.

"It was plain that she did not stand in awe of them, for after half an hour's wait she grew impatient and called out in an imperious tone: 'Come, dear, I want you. Come, anybody.' Two or three times she spoke loudly, clearly, as if calling to some one through a thick wall. This interested me exceedingly. Generally psychics are very humble and patient with their 'guides.' A few moments later the slates began to slam about so violently beneath the table that her arm was bruised, and she protested sharply: 'Don't do that. You will break the slates and the table both!' Thereupon the 'forces' quieted down till only a peculiar quiver remained in them. I could hear writing going on steadily.

"At last a tap came to announce that the messages were written. The psychic withdrew the slates and handed them across the table to me. I opened them and took out my paper. On one slate was a message from 'Dr. Cooke,' the guide; on the other were these words, written in slate-pencil: 'I would that you could see me as I am now, still occupied, and happy to be busy.' This was followed by four lines and three little marks, evidently intended to symbolize a bar of music, and the whole was signed, 'E. Alexander.' The writing was firm and manly, but I did not recognize it as that of my friend.

"The second trial resulted in this vague communication: 'My dear friend, don't overdo. Earth is but one life. Many I recall. I tried to give expression to my one talent.' This was signed 'Ernest Alexander.' Both these replies, as you see, were very general in phraseology, but the third message came closer to the individual: 'I was so tired and not myself. I am well and in the world of progress. Ernest Alexander.' The bar of music again appeared, this time much more 'developed.'"

Miller stopped me here. "All this is quite simple. Mrs. Hartley opened and read your note and, following up the clew, simply did some neat trick-writing beneath the table."

"It is not so simple as all that," I answered. "She was interrupted about this time by the doorbell, and while she was gone I wrote on another piece of paper: 'Ernest, give me a test of your identity. Write a bar from the "—— Sonata."' This note I folded close and put in an inside pocket.

"In answer to this request, when the medium returned I got these pertinent words: 'I was not a disappointment to myself, but I was at a point where nerve force failed me.' This was signed 'Ernest,' and was accompanied by another sketchy bar of music. It all looked like a real attempt to give me what I had asked for, and yet it was the kind of reply that might have been made by the medium had she known the history of my musical friend, or had she been able to take it out of my mind."

"Even that is a violent assumption to me," remarked Miller.

"So it is to me," I answered. "I can't really believe in thought transmission, and yet— I then asked for the signature of the staff, and a small 'c' was written in the bar above, and another bar was added. Now on the slates there came (with every evidence of eager haste) intimate questions concerning Alexander's family: 'Is my wife cared for?' and the like. To these I replied orally. I must tell you that all along the whisper spoke of Alexander's wife as 'Mary,' which was wrong, although it was close to the actual name. Also, after I began to speak of him as 'E. A.' the messages were all signed in that manner, all of which would seem to argue a little confusion in the psychic's mind.

"A little later, while I held the slate myself, the mysterious 'force' wrote, 'I thank you for what you have done. I have been told my mind is clear,' which was particularly full of meaning to me, for the reason that my friend's mind was clouded toward the close of his life."

"All of which proves nothing," insisted Miller. "Your friend, if I conjecture rightly, was a well-known man, and the psychic could have read, and probably did read, all about his illness in the public press."

"It may be so. About this time I began to hear a faint whisper, which seemed to come from a point a little to the right of and a foot or two above the psychic's lips. This, she informed me, was the voice of 'Dr. Cooke,' her guide. I could catch only a few of the whispered words, and Mrs. Hartley was forced to repeat them. 'Dr. Cooke,' thus interpreted, said: 'Your friend Alexander is present, and overjoyed to talk with you.' The conversation went on with both 'Dr. Cooke' and the psychic standing between the alleged spirit and myself; but even then I must admit that 'Alexander's' queries and answers were to the point.

"Under what seemed like test conditions I got two more bars of music, both much more definitive in form than the others; and these, the whisper declared, were from the third movement of the '—— Sonata.' This message was accompanied by a curious little device like the letter C with a line drawn through it, and I said to myself: 'If this should prove to be a mark which "Ernest" used in signing his manuscript, something like Whistler's butterfly, I shall have a fine test of thought transmission.'

"I now secured under excellent tests the writing of a singular word, which was plainly spelled but meant nothing to me. It looked like 'Isinghere.' In answer to oral questioning, the whisper said that these bars of music were part of an unpublished manuscript, a fragment, which the composer had meant to call 'Isinghere.'"

"What about the process?" asked Miller. "Did the writing appear to be supernormal?"

"Yes, and so did the whispering. I could detect no connection between the lips of the psychic and the voice. In one way or another I varied the conditions, so that I was at last quite convinced of the psychic's supernormal power; but that was not my quest. I was seeking proof of the identity of my friend 'E. A.'

"Seeing that the chief means of identification might be in the music, I persuaded my friend Blake, who is a fairly competent musician, to sit with me and decipher the score which 'E. A.' persisted in setting down. I was now eager to secure a complete phrase of the music. I saw myself establishing, at the least, the most beautiful case of mind-tapping on record. 'If we can secure the score of an unpublished manuscript of Alexander's composition we shall have worked a miracle,' I said to Blake.

"Our first sitting, which took place in the home of a common friend, was mixed as to results; but the second, which we held in Mrs. Hartley's study one bright morning, was very fruitful. The 'powers' started in at once as if to confound us both. Blake received a message written on a slate under his foot, and I got the name 'Jessie,' with the word 'sister' written beneath it; and then suddenly the whispers changed in character. The words became swift, impetuous, imperious. 'Line off all the leaves of a slate,' the voice commanded. I understood at once, for in the previous sitting 'E. A.' had seemingly found it difficult to draw a long line.

"We had brought some silicon slates of the book variety, and Blake now proceeded to rule one of them with the lines of a musical staff, and on these slates, held as before beneath the table, we began to get bars of music of a character quite outside the knowledge of the psychic and myself; and, more remarkable still, the whispers, so the psychic informed us, were no longer from 'Dr. Cooke'; 'E. A.,' she declared, was there in person and directing the work.

"Furthermore, the requests that we now received were entirely different in character from 'Cooke's' impersonal remarks. The whispers were quick and masterful, wonderfully like 'Alexander' in content. 'He' was humorous; 'he' acknowledged mistakes in the score, calling them 'slips of the pen.' 'He' became highly technical in his conversation with Blake, talking of musical matters that were Greek to me and, I venture to say, Coptic to the psychic. 'He' corrected the notations himself, sometimes when Blake held the slate, sometimes when I held it. Part of the time 'he' indicated the corrections orally. 'He' asked Blake to try the air.

"At last 'he' broke off, and imperiously said: 'Take the table to the piano.' This seemed to surprise the psychic, but she acquiesced, and we moved the small stand and our slates down to the little parlor; and there, with Blake now holding the slate beneath the table and now playing the notes upon the piano, the score grew into a weird little melody with bass accompaniment, which seemed to me at the moment exactly like a message from my friend Alexander. The first bar went through me like the sound of his voice."

"Now you are getting into the upper air of spiritualism," exulted Fowler. "You are now receiving a message that has dignity and meaning."

"So it seemed at the moment, both to Blake and to myself. The music was manifestly not the kind of thing that Mrs. Hartley could conceive. It was absolutely not commonplace. It was elliptical, touched with technical subtlety, although simple in appearance. At last a complete phrase was written out and partly harmonized. This, 'E. A.' said, was the beginning of a little piece that he had intended to call 'Unghere' or 'Hungarie.' Nothing in all my long experience with psychics ever moved me like the first phrase of that sweet, sad melody. It seemed like the touch of identification I had been seeking."

"But your friend Blake was a musician," interrupted Miller. "And how about your own subconscious self? You are musical, and your mind is filled with your friend Alexander's music."

"That is true, and I had that reservation all along. 'E. A.' may have been made up of our combined subconscious selves; I admit all that. But no matter; it was still very marvellous, even on its material side, for some of this music was written in while the slates were in Blake's entire control. At times he not merely inserted them himself but withdrew them—the psychic merely clutched one corner of them. Furthermore, throughout all this composition 'Ernest' was master of the situation. 'Dr. Cooke' was superseded. There was neither feebleness nor hesitation in the voice. I could now distinguish most of the words, and the dialogue went forward exactly as if a master musician were dictating to an intelligent amanuensis a new and subtle sketch."

"Did the medium look at the music?" asked Miller.

"Yes, now and then. However, most of the corrections were put in upside down, as regards her position, and during the last sitting she appeared to be no more than a mere on-looker. Once as we sat holding the slate 'Ernest' whispered to me: 'Blake is a fine fellow. I met him twice.'"

"'Can you tell me where?' asked Blake.

"'It was in New York City,' was the reply; then, after a moment's hesitation: 'It was at dinner—both times!' 'You are right,' said Blake, much impressed. 'Can you tell me the places?' 'Once was on Fifth Avenue. The other was—I can't tell the location exactly; but it was where we went down a short flight of steps.' 'That is correct also,' said Blake. 'How many persons were there?' 'Five.' 'Quite right. Can you tell me who they were?' 'Well, Mary was there, and you, of course; but I can't be sure of the others.'

"Blake looked at me in astonishment, and our minds flashed along the same line. Suppose the whisper were only a bit of clever ventriloquism, how did the psychic secure the information conveyed in this dialogue? It was given as I write it, with only a bit of hesitation once or twice; and yet, it may have been merely thought transference."

"Merely thought transference!" exclaimed Miller. "I consider thought transference quite as absurd as slate-writing."

Fowler interposed. "I consider this a simple case of spirit communication. You should be grateful for such a beautiful response."

"This significant fact is not to be overlooked," I resumed: "the psychic secured almost nothing else that concerned either Blake's affairs or my own. Mainly the whispers had to do with 'E. A.,' which, of course, bears out Miller's notion that the psychic could deal only with what was public property, and yet this little colloquy about the dinners in New York is very convincing so far as mind-reading goes.

"During the third sitting, Blake again being present, 'E. A.' took control, as before, from the start, and carried forward the recording of the musical fragment. 'I want you to fill in the treble, Blake,' he said. 'It's nothing but the bare melody now.' Blake protested: 'I'm not up to this.' And the whisper came swiftly, 'You're too modest, Blake'; and a moment later it said: 'I hope you're not bored, Garland.' If all this was a little play of the psychic's devising it was very clever, for after a few minutes of close attention to Blake, 'E. A.' turned toward me and asked, with anxious haste: 'Where's Garland?' 'I am here,' I answered. 'Don't go away,' he entreated. It was as if for the moment he had lost sight of me by reason of fixing his attention upon Blake."

"That is singular!" exclaimed Fowler. "Their field of vision is evidently much more restricted than we thought."

"It must be very small indeed, for Blake and I sat touching elbows. Two or three times the whispering voice called, 'Is Garland here?' and once it asked: 'What is Garland doing? I see his hand moving.' I explained that I was making notes. 'Don't do it!' was the agitated request."

"A very neat little touch," remarked Miller.

"We worked for a long time over this music, directed by the voice, both in the notation and in the execution of it. The lines were drawn for both bass and treble lengthwise of the slate, and Blake found the little piece difficult to play, partly because the staves were on different leaves of the slate and partly because the notes, especially some of those put in at the beginning by the composer, were becoming blurred. It was marvellous to see how exactly these dim notes were touched up by the mysterious pencil beneath the table. But our progress was slow. 'E. A.' was very patient, though now and then he plumply opposed his will to Blake's. Once, especially, Blake exclaimed: 'That can't be right!'

"'Yes, it is right!' insisted 'E. A.'

"'But it is very unusual to construct a measure in that way.' For there was a seeming confusion of three-four time with six-eight time.

"'It is a liberty I permit myself,' was the swift reply.

"In the last bar, which did not appear to be filled satisfactorily, the composer directed the insertion of a figure 2. This meant, as became clear through a subsequent reference to his printed scores, the playing of two quarter-notes in the time of three eighth notes, but was not understood at the moment by Blake.

"'Never mind,' said 'E. A.,' pleasantly, 'I will write it differently.' The figure '2' was cancelled, and the measure was completed by a rest. This is only one of many astonishing passages in this dialogue.

"In all this work 'E. A.' carried himself like the creative master. He held to a plane apparently far above the psychic's musical knowledge, and often above that of his amanuensis. He was highly technical throughout in both the composition and the playing, and Blake followed his will, for the most part, as if the whispers came from Alexander himself. And yet I repeat the music and all may have come from a union of Blake's mind with that of the psychic, with now and then a mixture of my own subconscious self."

"What was the psychic doing all this time?" asked Miller.

"She was listening to the voice and repeating the words which Blake could not hear. She seemed merely the somewhat bored interpreter of words which she did not fully understand. It was precisely as if she were catching by wireless telephone the whispered instructions of my friend 'E. A.' I can't believe she consciously deceived us, but it is possible that these ventriloquistic voices have become a subconscious habit.

"One other very curious event I must note. Once, when Blake was asking for a correction, the whisper exclaimed: 'I can't see it, Blake!'

"'Cover it with your hand,' interjected the 'control.' Blake did so, and 'E. A.' spoke, gratefully: 'I see it now."

"Seeing cannot mean the same with them that it does with us," exclaimed Fowler. "You remember Crookes put his finger on the print of a newspaper behind his back, and the 'spirit' spoke the word that was under his finger-tip. They apprehend by means of some form of etheric vibration not known to us."

I resumed: "Let me stop here for a moment to emphasize a very curious contradiction. Between my first seance with Mrs. Hartley and this, our third attempt to secure the music, I had held two sittings in the home of a friend. Mrs. Hartley had come to the house about ten o'clock in the morning, bringing nothing with her except a few tips of soft slate-pencil. During the sitting I had secured in the middle of a manila pad (a pad which the psychic had never seen and which I had taken from my friend's desk) these words: 'Have Schumann.—E. A.' This writing I had taken to mean that 'Ernest' wanted to hear some of Schumann's music, and in that understanding I had called Blake in to play. This had seemed at the moment perfectly conclusive and entirely satisfactory; yet now, in this final sitting, 'E. A.' suddenly reverted to this message, and whispered: 'Garland, there is a certain etude which I took to Schumann. I want you to regain it and take it to Smart. Mary will know about it. I meant to take it away, but did I? I was so badly off mentally that I don't know whether I did or not.' Whereupon Blake said: 'Do you mean Schumann the publisher?' 'Yes,' 'E. A.' replied; and I said: 'And you want the manuscript recalled from Schumann and given to Smart?' 'Yes,' was his very definite answer.

"'Very well, I will attend to it,' I replied. 'What do you want done with this fragment, "Isinghere"?' I pursued. 'Shall I publish it?' 'That is what it is for,' he answered, curtly.

"'How many bars are in it?' asked Blake. 'Forty?' 'More,' returned the whisper.

"Blake made the mistake of again suggesting an answer. 'As many as sixty?'

"'Yes, sixty or seventy,' was the answer, like an echo. Here Blake's thought governed, but it was evident that the psychic had no clear conception of what this reference to Schumann meant in the first instance, for 'E. A.' was unable to complete his sentence, which should have read: 'Have Schumann return a certain etude which I took.—E. A.' Furthermore, the psychic evidently believed in the truth of the message or she would not have gone into it with such particularity; she would have been lacking in caution to have given me such definite and detailed information, knowing that it was all false.

"So far as my own mind is concerned, I had no knowledge of such a music publisher as Schumann. Smart I had met. Blake, however, knew of both firms. The entire message and the method of its communication were deeply exciting at the time, and completed what seemed like a highly intellectual test of identity, and we both left the house of the psychic with a feeling of having been very near to our dead friend.

"'To identify one of these bars of music would be a good test,' said Blake, 'but to find that etude at Schumann's would be a triumph.'

"'To find the manuscript fragment would be still more convincing,' was my answer.

"Imagine my disappointment when, in answer to my inquiry, Schumann replied that no such etude had ever been in his hands, and Alexander's family reported that no fragment called 'Unghere' could be found among the composer's manuscripts."

Fowler shared my regret. "What about the other messages? Were they all disappointing?"

"No; some of them were not. The most intimate were true; and a signature which came on the slate under test conditions, and which I valued very little at the moment, turned out to be almost the exact duplicate of Alexander's signature as he used to write it when a youth twenty years ago. As a matter of fact, it closely resembled the signature appended to a framed letter which used to hang upon the wall of his study. But, even so, its reproduction under these conditions is sufficiently puzzling."

"What was Blake's conclusion? Did he put the same value upon it all that you did?"

"Yes, I think he was quite as deeply impressed as I. He said the music seemed like Alexander's music, somehow distorted by the medium through which it came. 'It was like seeing Alexander through a pane of crinkly glass,' he put it. And he added: 'I had the sense of being in long-distance contact with the composer himself.' He had no doubt of the supernormal means through which our writing came, but he remains doubtful of the value of the music as evidence of 'Ernest's' return from the world of shadows."

"Have you tried to secure more of the music?" Fowler asked.

"No, not specifically; but I've had one further inconclusive sitting since then with Mrs. Hartley. Almost immediately 'Ernest' whispered a greeting and said: 'I want to go on with that music, Garland. I want to put B and D and A into the first bar—it's only a bare sketch as it stands.'

"To this I replied: 'I can't do it, 'Ernest.' It's beyond me. Wait till I can get Blake again.'

"This ended his attempt, although he was 'terribly anxious,' so the psychic said. I am going to try for the completion of this score through another psychic. If I can get that eighth bar taken up and carried on by 'Ernest' through another psychic the case will become complicated.

"I have gone into detail in my account of this experiment, for the reason that it illustrates very aptly the inextricable tangle of truth and error which most 'spirit communications' present. It typifies in little the elusive problem of spirit identification which many a veteran investigator is still at work upon, after years of study. Maxwell gives a case of long-continued unintentional and unconscious deception of the general kind which went far to prevent his acceptance of the spirit hypothesis."

"I don't think the failure to find the musical fragment invalidates this beautiful communication," declared Fowler. "You admit that many of the messages were to the point, and that some of them were very intimate and personal."

"Yes, speaking generally, I would say that 'E. A.' might have uttered all the words and dictated all the messages except those that related to the publishing matter; but there is the final test. Schumann declares that no such manuscript has ever been in his hands."

"He may be mistaken, or 'E. A.' may have misspoken himself—for, as William James infers, the spirits find themselves tremendously hampered in their attempts to manifest themselves. Furthermore, you say you could not hear all that 'E. A.' spoke—you or the psychic may have misunderstood him. In any case, it all seems to me a fine attempt at identification."

"I wish I could put the same value on it now that I did when Blake played the first bar of that thrilling little melody; but I can't. As it recedes it loses its power over me."

"What did Alexander's family think of the music?"

"They thought it more like a Cheyenne or Omaha love-song than like a melody of 'Ernest's' own composition."

"But that only adds to the mystery of the mental process," objected Miller. "That supposes it to have come out of your mind."

"I can't believe that I had any hand in the musical part of it, and I can't persuade myself that my dead friend was present."

"Suppose you had been able to find that musical fragment, would it have converted you?" This was Miller's challenge.

"No, for even then some living person might have known of it—must have known of it; and if a knowledge of it lay in some other mind, no matter where and no matter how deeply buried in the subconscious, that knowledge, according to Myers and Hudson, would have been accessible to the supernormal perception of the psychic."

Fowler interrogated me: "But suppose a phantom form resembling 'E. A.' had spoken these things to you face to face—what then?"

"I would not have believed, even then."

"Why?"

"Well, for one reason, belief is not a matter of the will; it is not even dependent upon evidence."

Miller interrupted me. "I am interested in the writing. How do you account for the writing? As I understand it, the psychic did not, in some instances, touch the slate while the writing was going on. Are you sure of Blake?"

"Blake is as much to be trusted as I am. No, I am forced to a practical acceptance of the theory of the fluidic arm, and yet this is a most astounding admission. We must suppose that the psychic was able to read our minds and write down our mingled and confused musical conceptions by means of a supernumerary hand. It happens that I have since seen these etheric hands in action, which makes it easier for me to conceive of such a process. I have seen them dart forth from another medium precisely as described by Scarpa. I have seen them lift a glass of water, and I have had them touch my knees beneath a table while slate-writing was going on—so that, given the power to read my mind, there is nothing impossible (having regard to Bottazzi's definite experiments) in the idea of the etheric hand's setting down the music and reproducing the signature of 'E. A.' In fact, at a recent sitting in a private house with a young male psychic, we had this precise feat performed. Said the psychic to our host, Dr. Towne, 'Think hard of a signature that is very familiar to you,' and Dr. Towne fixed his mind upon the signature of his brother, and immediately, while the young man's material hands were controlled, his etheric hand seized a pencil in the middle of the table and reproduced the signature."

"Could you see this hand?" Miller asked.

"Not in this case; but at a sitting which followed this, during such time as I sat beside the psychic and controlled one hand, I plainly saw the supernumerary arm and hand dart forth and seize a pencil. I saw a hand very plainly cross my knee and grasp me by the forearm. All of this has its bearing upon this very curious phenomenon of the reproduction of 'E. A's.' youthful signature, which remained very puzzling to us all."

"But did you not say that 'E. A.' at times represented an opposing will?" questioned Fowler—"that he disputed certain passages with Blake, and that he finally carried his point in opposition to every mind in the circle?"

"Yes, that happened several times, and was all very convincing at the time. And yet this opposition may have been more apparent than real. It may have concerned our conscious wills only; our subconscious selves may have been in accord, working together as one."

Fowler was a bit irritated. "If you are disposed to make the subconscious will all-powerful and omniscient, nothing can be proved. It seems to me an evasion. However, let me ask how you would explain away a spirit form carrying the voice, the features, and the musical genius of 'E. A.'?"

"Well, there is the teleplastic theory of Albert de Rochas. He claims to have been able not merely to cause a hypnotized subject to exteriorize her astral self, but to mould this vapory substance as a sculptor models wax. So I can imagine that a momentary radiant apparition might have been created in the image of my sister or 'David' or 'E. A.'"

"To my thinking, that is more complicated and incredible than the spirit hypothesis," objected Fowler.

"Nothing can be more incredible to me than the spirit hypothesis," I replied. "But, then, everything is incredible in the last analysis. I am the more disposed to believe in the teleplastic theory, for the reason that I have recently had an opportunity to witness a particularly incredible thing: the materialization of a complete human form outside the cabinet and beside the psychic—a phenomenon which has a special bearing upon the matter of identity which we are discussing. The sitting took place in a small private house here in the city. The psychic in the case was a young business man who is careful not to advertise his power. For four years he has been holding secret developing circles whereto a few of his friends only are invited. I was present last Sunday, and shared in the marvels. The place of the seance was the parlor of his apartment, his young wife and little daughter being present. There was, in addition, an elderly lady, mother-in-law of the psychic, and a Polish student whom I will call Jacob. I am quite sure that no one else entered or left the room during the evening. Mrs. Pratt, the mother-in-law, occupied a seat between me and Jacob. The little girl sat at the window, and was under my eye all the time. The wife spent most of the evening at the piano on my right. The room was fairly dark, though the light of a far-away street lamp shone in at the window.

"The psychic retired into a little alcove bedroom, which served as cabinet, and the curtain had hardly fallen between him and our group when the spirit voices began. The first one to speak was 'Evan,' the 'guide,' and I remarked that his voice was precisely like a falsetto disguise of the psychic's own.

"Soon 'Evan' and other spirits appeared at the opening of the curtain. The wife called them each by name, but I could see only certain curious fluctuating, cloud-like forms, like puffs of fire-lit steam. The effect was not that of illuminated gauze, but more like illuminated vapor. At length came one that spoke in a deep voice, using a foreign language. Jacob, the young Pole, sprang up in joyous excitement, saying that he had sat many times in this little circle, but that this was the first time a spirit had spoken to him in his own tongue. As they conversed together, I detected a close similarity of accent and of tone in their speech. It certainly sounded like the Polish language, but I could not rid myself of the impression that the Pole was talking to himself."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that the accent, inflection, and quality of the ghost's voice were identical with that of the living man, and this became still more striking when, a little later, Jacob returned to his seat, and the 'Count,' his visitor, called for the Polish national hymn. Jacob then sang, and the phantom sang with him. Now this seemed like a clear case of identification, and was perfectly satisfactory to Jacob, but I had observed this fact: the Pole was an indifferent singer—having hard work to keep the key—and the 'Count' was troubled in the same way. His deep, almost toneless, singing struck me as a dead, flat, wooden echo of Jacob's voice. In short, it was as if the psychic had built up a personality partly out of himself, but mainly out of his Polish sitter, and as if this etheric duplication were singing in unison with its progenitor."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Fowler.

"Did he manufacture a double out of you?" queried Miller.

"No one spoke to me from the shadow, except the 'guide,' although I was hoping for some new word from 'Ernest,' and kept him uppermost in my mind. A form came out into the centre of the room, which the wife said was 'Evan,' and requested me to shake his hand. This I did. The hand felt as if it were covered with some gauzy veiling. My belief is that it was the psychic himself who stood before me, probably in trance. I could see nothing, however. I do not remember that I could detect any shadow even; but the hand was real, and the voice and manner of speech were precisely those of the psychic himself."

"I repeat that this does not necessarily imply fraud, for the mind and vocal organs of the psychic are often used in that way," Fowler argued.

"I grant that. Up to this point I had been able to see nothing but dim outlines. But toward the end of the evening the psychic advanced from the cabinet and in a dazed way ordered the lamp to be lit. This was done. He then asked that it be turned low. This was also done. Thereupon, directing his gaze toward the curtain, he called twice in a tone of command, 'Come out!'

"I could place every one in the room at the moment. I could see the psychic distinctly. I could discern the color of his coat and the expression of his face. He stood at least six feet from the opening in the curtain. At his second cry, in which I detected a note of entreaty, I saw a luminous form, taller than himself, suddenly appear before the curtain and stand bowing in silence. I could perceive neither face, eyes, nor feet, but I could make out the arms under the shining robe, the shape of the head and the shoulders, and as he bowed I could see the bending of his neck. It certainly was not a clothes-horse. The covering was not so much a robe as a swathing, and we had time to discuss it briefly.

"However, my eyes were mainly busy with the psychic, whose actions impressed me deeply. He had the air of an anxious man undergoing a dangerous ordeal. His right hand was stretched stiffly toward the phantom, his left was held near his heart; his knees seemed to tremble, and his body appeared to be irresistibly drawn toward the cabinet. Slowly, watchfully, fearfully, he approached the phantom. The figure turned toward him, and a moment later they met—they clung together, they appeared to coalesce, and the psychic fell through the curtain to the floor of the cabinet, like a man smitten with death."

"What do you wish to imply?" asked Miller. "Do you mean that the man and the ghost were united in some way?"

"Precisely so. The 'spirit' seemed drawn by some magnetic force toward the psychic, and the psychic seemed under an immense strain to keep the apparition exterior to himself. When they met the spectre vanished, and the psychic's fall seemed inevitable—a collapse from utter exhaustion. I was at the moment convinced that I had seen a vaporous entity born of the medium. It seemed a clear case of projection of the astral body. In the pause which followed the psychic's fall the young wife turned to me and said: 'Sometimes, if my husband does not reach the spirit form in time, he falls outside the curtain.' She did not seem especially alarmed.

"The young psychic himself, however, told me afterward that he was undergoing a tremendous strain as he stood there commanding the spirit to appear. 'I had a fierce pain in the centre of my forehead,' he said. 'I couldn't get my breath. I felt as if all my substance, my strength, was being drawn out of me. My legs seemed about to give way. It is always hard to produce a form so far away from me when I am on the outside of the cabinet in the light. The greater the distance, the greater the strain.' I asked him what happened when he and the form rushed together, and he answered: 'As soon as I touched it, it re-entered my body.'"[2]

"I wonder why the spirits are always clothed in that luminous gauze?" queried Miller.

"They are not," replied Fowler. "More often they come in the clothing which was their habitual wear."

"I asked this young psychic if drapery were used out of respect to us mortals, and he replied: 'No; the forms are swathed not from sense of propriety so much as to protect the body, which is often incomplete at the extremities.' The wife and Jacob told me that at one of their meetings a naked Hercules suddenly appeared before the curtain. The Pole declared: 'He was of giant size and strength. I felt of his muscles (he was clothed only in a loincloth), and I closely studied his tremendous arms and shoulders. The medium, as you know, is a small, thin man. We called this figure "the man from Mars." He was at least six feet high, and strong as a lion. He rushed back into the cabinet, and came out holding the medium above his head on his upraised palms. It was very wonderful.'"

"You didn't see anything like that, did you?" asked Miller.

"No," I replied; "but I did see the development of a figure apparently from the floor between me and the curtain of the cabinet. My attention was called to something wavering, shimmering, and fluctuating about a foot above the carpet. It was neither steam nor flame. It seemed compounded of both luminous vapor and puffing clouds of drapery. It rose and fell in quivering impulses, expanding and contracting, but continuing to grow until at last it towered to the height of a tall man, and I could dimly discern, through dark draperies edged with light, a man's figure.

"'This,' the young wife said, 'is Judge White, the grandfather of the psychic,' and she conversed with him, but only for a few moments. He soon dwindled and faded and melted away in the same fashion as he had come, recalling to my mind Richet's description of the birth and disappearance of 'B. B.,' in Algiers. I know this sounds like the veriest dreaming, but you must remember that materializations much more wonderful have been seen and analyzed in the clinical laboratories of Turin and Naples. Morselli, Bottazzi, Lombroso, Porro, and Foa have been confronted by similar apparitions. They saw 'sinister' faces, and were repelled by 'Satanic hands agile and prompt' in cabinets of their own construction, surrounded by their own registering machinery, and Richet photographed just such figures as this I have described.

"The question with me is not, Do these forms exist? but, What produces them? I am describing this sitting to explain what I mean by the ideoplastic or teleplastic theory. If, for example, this psychic had known me well enough to have had a very definite picture of 'E. A.,' he might have been able to model from the mind-stuff that he or the circle had thrown off, a luminous image of my friend, and, aided by my subconscious self, might have united the presence and the musical thought of Ernest Alexander."

"It won't do!" exclaimed Miller. "It's all too destructive, too preposterous!"

"I insist that the spirit hypothesis is simpler," repeated Fowler.

"It isn't a question of simplicity," I retorted. "It's a question of fact. If the observations of scientific experimentalists are of any value, the teleplastic theory is on the point of winning acceptance."

"I will not admit that," rejoined Fowler. "For, even if you throw out all the enormous mass of evidence accumulated by spiritistic investigators, you still have the conversion of Wallace, Lodge, and Lombroso, not to speak of De Vesme, Venzano, and other well-known men of science, to account for. Even Crookes himself admits that nothing but some form of spirit hypothesis is capable of explaining all the phenomena; and in a recent issue of the Annals of Psychic Science Lombroso writes a paper making several very strong points against the biologic theory. One of these is the simultaneous occurrence of phenomena. 'Can the subconscious self act in several places at once?' he asks. A second objection lies in the fact that movements occur in opposition to the will of the psychic—as, for example, when Eusapia was transported in her chair. 'Can a man lift himself by his boot-straps?' is the question. 'The centre of gravity of a body cannot be altered in space unless acted upon by an external force. Therefore, the phenomena of levitation cannot be considered to be produced by energy emanating from the medium.'"

"I don't think that follows," I argued. "Force may be exerted unconsciously and invisibly. Because the psychic does not consciously will to do a certain thing is no proof that the action does not originate in the deeps of her personality. We know very little of this obscure region of our minds."

Fowler was ready with his answer: "But let us take the case that Lombroso cites of the beautiful woman spirit whose hand twice dashed the photographic plates from the grasp of those who wished to secure her picture. Here was plainly an opposing will, for the psychic was lending herself to the experiment, and the spectators were eager for its success. Notwithstanding which co-operation this phantom bitterly opposed the wishes of every one present, and it was afterward learned that there was a special reason why she did not wish to leave positive proofs of her identity. 'It is evident, therefore,' concludes Lombroso, 'that a third will can intervene in spiritistic phenomena.'

"Furthermore, Dr. Venzano, as well as De Vesme, have taken up the same body of facts upon which Foa and Morselli base their theory, and arrive at a totally different conclusion. They call attention to a dozen events that can be explained only on the theory of discarnate intelligences. Venzano observed that the forms occurred in several places at once, that they appeared in many shapes and many guises. Some were like children, some had curly hair, some had beards. In one case identification was made by introducing the finger of one of the sitters within the phantom mouth to prove the loss of a molar tooth. Sometimes the hair of these heads was plaited like that of a girl. Some of the hands were large and black, others fair and pink—like a child's. In short, he argues that the medium could not have determined the size, shape, or color of the phantoms."

"All that does not really militate against the ideoplastic theory," I retorted. "It is as easy to produce a phantom with hair plaited as it is to produce one with hair in curls. If it is a case of the modelling of the etheric vapor by the mind of the psychic, these differences would be produced naturally enough. The forcible handling of the medium by the invisible ones is a much more difficult thing for me to explain, for to imagine the psychic emitting a form of force which afterward proceeds to raise the psychic herself against her will—as Mrs. Smiley testifies happened again and again in her youth—is to do violence to all that we know of natural law. And yet it may be that the etheric double is able to take on part of the forces resident in the circle of sitters, and so become immensely more potent than the psychic himself, as in the case of the 'Man from Mars'—the Hercules I have just been telling you about. Then, as to the content of these messages, they may be impulses, hints, fragments of sentences caught from the air as one wireless operator intercepts communications meant for other stations than his own. So that my interview with 'E. A.' may have been a compounding of the psychic, Blake, and myself, and fugitive natures afloat in the ether. In fact, I am not as near a belief in the return of the dead as I was when I began this last series of experiments. These Italian scientific observers, I confess, have profoundly affected my thought."

"Your idea is, then," said Miller, "that these apparitions are emanations of the medium's physical substance, moulded by his will and colored by the minds of his sitters?"

"That is the up-to-date theory, and everything that I have experienced seems capable of a biologic interpretation against it."

Fowler hastened to weaken the force of this statement. "Spiritists all admit that the forms of spirits are made up—partly, at least—of the psychic's material self, but that does not prove that the mind of the ghost is not a separate entity from that of the psychic. I grant that the only difference between the psycho-dynamic theory and the spiritualistic theory lies in the question of the origin of the intelligences that direct the manifestation. Foa would say they spring from the subconscious self of the psychic. We say they come from the spirit world, and there we stand."

Miller's words were keen and without emotion. "Until all phenomena are explained there will be obscure happenings and things to be explained by some one who can, but it is no final explanation to say 'a man did it' or 'an intelligence did it.' I have often been told that things cannot move in certain ways or certain things cannot be done except by intelligent action or guidance, but it may be remembered that Kepler thought guiding spirits were needful for making the planets move in their elliptical orbits."

"Your scientists are feeding millions of people stones," exclaimed Fowler. "They ask for bread, and you give them slices of granite."

"Better granite than slime," said Miller. "I am with the biologists in this campaign. Let us have the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may be. If these phenomena exist, they are in the domain of natural law and can be weighed and measured. If they are imaginary, they should be swept away, like other dreams of superstition and ignorance."

Fowler was not to be silenced. "I predict that you and your like will yet be forced, like Lombroso, to take your place with Aksakof, Lodge, Wallace, Du Prel, and Crookes, who have come to admit the intervention of discarnate intelligences. Lombroso says, 'We find, as I already foresaw some years ago, that these materialized bodies belong to the radiant state of matter, which has now a sure foothold in science. This is the only hypothesis that can reconcile the ancient and universal belief in the persistence of some manifestation of life after death with the results of science.' He adds: 'These beings, or remnants of beings, would not be able to obtain complete consistency to incarnate themselves, if they did not temporarily borrow a part of the medium. But to borrow force from the medium is not the same thing as to be identical with the medium.'"

"Well," said I, "of this I am certain: we cannot afford to ignore such experiments as those of Morselli and Bottazzi. I am aware that many investigators discountenance such experiments, but I believe with Venzano that the physical phenomena of mediumship cannot be, and ought not to be, considered trivial. It was the spasmodic movement of a decapitated frog that resulted in the discovery of the Voltaic Pile. Furthermore, I intend to try every other conceivable hypothesis before accepting that of the spiritists."

"What is your reason for that?" asked Fowler.

"Because I am a scientist in my sympathies. I believe in the methods of the chemist and the electrician. I prefer the experimenter to the theorist. I like the calm, clear, concise statements of these European savans, who approach the subject, not as bereaved persons, but as biologists. I am ready to go wherever science leads, and I should be very glad to know that our life here is but a link in the chain of existence. Others may have more convincing knowledge than I, but at this present moment the weight of evidence seems to me to be on the side of the theory that mediumship is, after all, a question of unexplored human biology."

"I don't see it that way," rejoined Fowler, calmly. "Suppose your biologists prove that the psychic can put forth a supernumerary arm, or maintain, for a short time, a complete double of herself. Would that necessarily make the spiritist theory untenable? Is it not fair to conclude that if the soul or 'astral' or 'etheric double' can act outside the living body, it can live and think and manifest after the dissolution of its material shell? Does not the experimental work of Bottazzi, Morselli, and De Rochas all make for a spiritual interpretation of life rather than for the position of the materialist? I consider that they have strengthened rather than weakened the mystic side of the universe. They are bringing the wonder of the world back to the positivist. Let them go on. They will yet demonstrate, in spite of themselves, the immortality of the soul."

"I hope they will," I replied. "It would be glorious at this time, when tradition begins to fail of power, to have a demonstration of immortality come through the methods of experimental science. Certainly I would welcome a physical proof that my mother still thinks and lives, and that Ernest and other of my dearest friends are at work on other planes and surrounded by other conditions, no matter how different from the conventional idea of paradise these environments might be; but the proof must be ample and very definite."

Miller put in a last word of warning: "Because a phenomenon has not been explained, and no one knows how to explain it, is no reason for supposing there is anything extraphysical about it. No one has explained the first cause of the development of an embryo. No one knows what goes on in an active nerve, or why atoms are selective in their associates. Ignorance is not a proper basis for speculation, and if one must have a theory, let it be one having some obvious continuity with our best physical knowledge."

And at that point our argument rested. We separated, and each went his way, to be met by questions of business and politics, and to be once more blended to the all-enveloping mystery of life.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Since this conversation I have had a letter from another well-authenticated psychic, a man making his living by honest labor as a carpenter, who gives very definitely his experience on emitting an etheric double. He says: "One evening, while sitting at the table, I began to feel as if I were swelling up. My thumb felt as big as my arm, and my arm as big as my leg. While I was perfectly aware that I was at the dinner-table, I also felt myself in the hall trying to enter the dining-room. I found the knob, I opened the door. The others saw me traverse the room toward myself. My dual body came close beside me and vanished with a snap."



ADDENDUM

A CORROBORATIVE AND TECHNICAL ACCOUNT OF PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA, INVOLVING THE PRODUCTION OF A MUSICAL SCORE ON A SLATE, SECURED BY "BLAKE."[3]

This record was secured during three sittings, which took place on the forenoon and afternoon of Friday, March 13th, and on the forenoon of Saturday, March 14, 1908. These sittings were held in a dwelling-house on a quiet street of ordinary character. They began in a second-story front room, and were transferred to a parlor just below, where there was a piano. The room, in either case, was fairly light; now and then the window-shades were lowered, but reading and writing were easy at all times. Three persons were present: the psychic, a robust, alert, intelligent woman of thirty-five; Hamlin Garland; and the writer, who combined the functions of amanuensis and editor.