On other
occasions certain persons are asked to go out temporarily, because, say
the controls, "You have relations and friends who want very much to
communicate with you, and they prevent all communication by their
insistence and their efforts."

On a certain occasion Professor Hyslop rises and goes to the other end
of the room, passing Mrs Piper, upon which George Pelham, apparently
offended, writes, "He has passed in front of Imperator! Why does he do
that?"

It would need a volume to recount all the little analogous incidents
which telepathy does not explain. These will do as examples. Will it be
said that these small dramas resemble the creations of the same kind
which occur in delirium or dreams? But in the first place, in delirium
and dreams, the spectator does not realise, as he does here, the
presence of persons who have given many details tending to prove their
identity. Again, the real cause of these creations of dream and delirium
is unknown to us. We might assert, without being fanciful, that sickness
is only their opportunity and not their cause. Lastly, a third group of
facts, which strongly militates in favour of the spiritualist
hypothesis, consists of the mistakes and confusions. This would probably
not be the opinion of a superficial observer; many take these errors and
confusions as a reason for entirely rejecting the spiritualist
hypothesis; generally because they have a strange notion of a "spirit,"
without any analogy in nature. Deceived by absurd and antiquated
theological teaching, they imagine that the most pitiable drunkard, for
example, becomes a being of ideal beauty and omniscience from the day he
is disincarnated. It cannot be so. Our spirits, if we have them, must
progress slowly. When they leap into the great unknown they do not at
the same time leap into perfection; they were finite and limited, and do
not become immediately infinite. Disincarnated man, like incarnated man,
has lapses of intelligence, memory and morality. The existence of these
lapses very well explains the greater part of the mistakes in the
communications. I have no room to develop this idea, but the reader can
do it easily. I will only quote one example of lapse of memory. Mr
Robert Hyslop said he had a penknife with a brown handle, which he
carried first in his waistcoat pocket and afterwards in his coat. On
inquiry, it was discovered that he was mistaken, and that he really
carried it in his trousers pocket. What