officer sent a
message leaving a pearl tie-pin to a friend. No one knew that such a
pin existed, but it was found among his things. The death of Sir Hugh
Lane was given at a private seance in Dublin before the details of the
Lusitania disaster had been published.[4] On that morning we
ourselves, in a small seance, got the message "It is terrible,
terrible, and will greatly affect the war," at a time when we were
convinced that no great loss of life could have occurred. Such
examples are very numerous, and are only quoted here to show how
impossible it is to invoke telepathy as the origin of such messages.
There is only one explanation which covers the facts. They are what
they say they are, messages from those who have passed on, from the
spiritual body which was seen to rise from the deathbed, which has been
so often photographed, which pervades all religion in every age, and
which has been able, under proper circumstances, to materialise back
into a temporary solidity so that it could walk and talk like a mortal,
whether in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, or in the laboratory of
Mr. Crookes, in Mornington Road, London.

Let us for a moment examine the facts in this Crookes' episode. A
small book exists which describes them, though it is not as accessible
as it should be. In these wonderful experiments, which extended over
several years, Miss Florrie Cook, who was a young lady of from 16 to 18
years of age, was repeatedly confined in Prof. Crookes' study, the door
being locked on the inside. Here she lay unconscious upon a couch.
The spectators assembled in the laboratory, which was separated by a
curtained opening from the study. After a short interval, through this
opening there emerged a lady who was in all ways different from Miss
Cook. She gave her earth name as Katie King, and she proclaimed
herself to be a materialised spirit, whose mission it was to carry the
knowledge of immortality to mortals.

She was of great beauty of face, figure, and manner. She was four and
a half inches taller than Miss Cook, fair, whereas the latter was dark,
and as different from her as one woman could be from another. Her
pulse rate was markedly slower. She became for the time entirely one
of the company, walking about, addressing each person present, and
taking delight in the children. She made no objection to photography
or any other test. Forty-eight photographs of different degrees of
excellence were made of h