rson was inspired
by an intelligence not his own, that is, by a spirit. Now it is the firm
conviction of several men of science that a certain Mrs. Piper, an
American, does display, in her possessed condition, knowledge which
she could not normally acquire. The case of this lady is precisely on a
level with that of certain savage or barbaric seers. Thus: 'The Fijian
priest sits looking steadily at a whale's tooth ornament, amid dead
silence. In a few minutes he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs
come on, which increase to strong convulsions.... Now the god has
entered.'[15]

In China, 'the professional woman sits at a table in contemplation, till
the soul of a deceased person from whom communication is desired enters
her body and talks through her to the living....'[16]

The latter account exactly describes Mrs. Piper. When consulted she passes
through convulsions into a trance, after which she talks in a new voice,
assumes a fresh personality, and affects to be possessed by the spirit of
a French doctor (who does not know French)--Dr. Phinuit. She then displays
a varying amount of knowledge of dead and living people connected with her
clients, who are usually strangers, often introduced under feigned names.
Mrs. Piper and her husband have been watched by detectives, and have not
been discovered in any attempts to procure information. She was for some
months in England under the charge of the S.P.R. Other ghosts, besides
Dr. Phinuit, ghosts more civilised than he, now influence her, and her
latest performances are said to exceed her former efforts.[17]

Volumes of evidence about Mrs. Piper have been published by Dr. Hodgson,
who unmasked Madame Blavatsky and Eusapia Paladino.[18] He was at first
convinced that Mrs. Piper, in her condition of trance, obtains knowledge
not otherwise and normally accessible to her. It was admitted that her
familiar spirit guesses, attempts to extract information from the people
who sit with her, and tries sophistically to conceal his failures. Here
follow the statements of Professor James of Harvard.

'The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were
either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things
cannot well be published. Of the trivial things I have forgotten the
greater number, but the following, _rarae nantes_, may serve as samples
of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a
waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a