of my observation: therefore I forbear to speak about it.

I shall never forget the delight with which I received a letter from a
gentleman connected with the literature of spiritualism, informing me
that materialized Spirit Faces had at last been produced in full light,
and inviting me to come and see. I was wearied of dark seances, of fruit
and flowers brought to order. John King's talk wearied me; and Katie's
whispers had become fatally familiar: so I went in eagerly for the new
sensation, and communicated my results to the world in the two papers
called _Spirit Faces_ and _Spirit Forms_, the former published in
_Unorthodox London_, the latter in Chapter 43 of the present volume.
This class of manifestation has since become very common. I cannot say I
ever considered it very satisfactory. I have never discovered any
trickery--and I assure my readers I have kept my eyes and ears very wide
open--but there are in such manifestations facilities for charlatanism
which it is not pleasant to contemplate. This, let me continually
repeat, is a purely personal narrative, and I have never seen any Spirit
Face or Form that I could in the faintest way recognise. Others, I know,
claim to have done so; but I speak strictly of what has occurred to
myself. The same has been the case with Spirit Photographs. I have sat,
after selecting my own plate and watching every stage in the process;
and certainly over my form there has been a shadowy female figure
apparently in the act of benediction;[2] but I cannot trace resemblance
to any one I ever saw in the flesh. Perhaps I have been unfortunate in
this respect.

Very similar to Miss Cook's mediumship was that of Miss Showers; a young
lady whom I have met frequently at the house of a lady at the West-end
of London, both the medium and her hostess being quite above suspicion.
In this case, besides the face and full form we have singing in a clear
baritone voice presumably by a spirit called Peter--who gives himself
out as having been in earth-life, I believe, a not very estimable
specimen of a market-gardener. I am exceedingly puzzled how to account
for these things. I dare not suspect the medium; but even granting the
truth of the manifestations, they seem to me to be of a low class which
one would only come into contact with under protest and for the sake of
evidence.

Mr. Crookes used to explain, and Serjeant Cox still explains these
manifestations as being the products of a so-called