,
journalists find themselves sometimes obliged to invent. So the
reporters put into Professor Hyslop's mouth the following sensational
words, "In a year I shall be able to demonstrate the immortality of the
soul scientifically." These words were reproduced by the greater number
of the American papers and by a large number of English ones. Specialist
publications in France in their turn commented on them. It will be
understood with what eagerness the report was expected after this by
all men interested in psychical studies. They have not been
disappointed. Professor Hyslop is too modest for such unbounded
pretension; he knows that the great problem will not be solved at one
stroke, nor by one man. "I do not claim," he says, "to demonstrate
anything scientifically, not even the facts I offer." This phrase does
not at all resemble the declaration put into his mouth. But if he has
not definitively and scientifically proved the immortality of the soul,
he has approached the problem very nearly and thrown a vivid light on
more than one point. In any case the journalists have advertised him
thoroughly, perhaps without intending it.

Speaking of journalists, I must relate another quite recent incident,
which is interesting to us, as it concerns Mrs Piper personally. One of
the editors of the _New York Herald_ interviewed Mrs Piper and on
October 20, 1901, published an article somewhat speciously entitled,
"The Confessions of Mrs Leonora Piper." In this article it was stated
that Mrs Piper intended to give up the work she had been doing for the
S.P.R. in order to devote herself to other and more congenial pursuits,
that it was on account of her own desire to understand the phenomena
that she first allowed her trances to be investigated and placed herself
in the hands of scientific men, with the understanding that she should
submit to any tests they chose to apply, and that now, after fourteen
years' work, the subject not being yet cleared up, she felt disinclined
for further investigation. Her own view of the phenomena was expressed
in this article as follows:--"The theory of telepathy strongly appeals
to me as the most plausible and genuinely scientific solution of the
problem.... I do not believe that spirits of the dead have spoken
through me when I have been in the trance state.... It may be that they
have, but I do not affirm it.... I never heard of anything being said by
myself during a trance which might not have been la