ad allowed ties of affection or real friendship to be
established between them.

Two years before George Pelham's death, he and Dr Hodgson had a long
discussion regarding a future life. George Pelham maintained that it was
not only improbable, but also inconceivable. Dr Hodgson maintained that
it was at least conceivable. After much exchange of argument, George
Pelham ended by allowing so much, and finished the conversation by
saying that, if he should die before Dr Hodgson, and should find himself
"still existing," he would "make things lively" in the effort to reveal
the fact.

George Pelham, more fortunate than many others who, before or after him,
have made the same promise, seems to have kept his word. That many
others have been unable to do so proves nothing. The means of
communication are still definitely rare; Mrs Piper is an almost unique
medium of her kind up to the present day. It may be that the great
majority of the inhabitants of the other world are in the same position
as the great majority in this, and are ignorant of the possibility of
communication. Even if those who promise to return know of this
possibility, the difficulty of recognising their friends must be great,
since they do not seem to perceive matter. Their friends who are still
in the body should, it appears, call them by thinking intently of them,
by presenting to good mediums articles which belonged to the dead, and
to which a strong emotional memory is attached, and by asking the
controls of these mediums to look for them.

When these precautions are not taken, the survivors are wrong to blame
their friends' failure to keep their word, or to conclude that all is
ended with the death of the body.

George Pelham may have been enabled to manifest himself by particularly
favourable circumstances. He knew of Mrs Piper's existence, although,
most probably, Mrs Piper did not know him. In 1888 the American Society
for Psychical Research had nominated a commission for the investigation
of mediumistic phenomena; this commission asked Mrs Piper for a series
of sittings. I do not know whether George Pelham was a member of the
commission, but he was present at one of the sittings. The names of all
the sitters were carefully kept private, and nothing happened of a
nature to draw the attention of the medium to George Pelham, who in all
probability passed unnoticed.

Dr Hodgson thinks he can affirm that Mrs Piper only quite recently
learned that Geo