in my scientific career
is more widely known than the part I took in certain psychic researches.
Thirty years have passed since I published an account of experiments
tending to show that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a
force exercised by intelligences differing from the ordinary
intelligence common to mortals. This fact in my life is well understood
by those who honored me with the invitation to become your president.
Perhaps among my audience some may feel curious as to whether I shall
speak out or be silent. I elect to speak, although briefly. I have
nothing to retract. I adhere to my published statements. Indeed, I might
add much thereto.' And when you realize that this includes his
astounding experience with 'Katie King,' his words become tremendous in
their significance."

"What was the 'Katie King' experience?" asked Mrs. Cameron. "I never
heard of it."

"It is a long and very interesting story, but in substance it is this:
While in a condition of contemptuous disbelief as to the alleged
phenomena of spiritualism, Sir William chanced to witness a seance
wherein a young girl named Florence Cook was the medium. Her doings so
puzzled and interested him that he went again and again to see her.
Dissatisfied with the conditions under which the wonders took place, he
asked Miss Cook to come to his house and sit for him and his friends.
This she did. She was a mere girl at the time, about seventeen years of
age, and yet she baffled this great chemist and all his assistants. You
sometimes hear people say, 'Yes, but he was in his dotage.' He was not.
He was in his early prime. He brought to bear all his thirty years'
training in exact observation, and all the mechanical and electrical
appliances he could devise, without once detecting anything deceitful."

"Even in the 'Katie King' episode?" asked Harris.

"Even Katie stood the test. But before going into that, let me tell you
some of his other experiments. He says (among other amazing things) that
he has seen a chair move on its own account, without contact with a
medium. He saw Daniel Home--another medium with whom he had
sittings--raised by invisible power completely from the floor of the
room. 'Under rigid test condition,' he writes, 'I have seen a solid,
self-luminous body the size of an egg float noiselessly about the room!'
But wait! I will quote from my notes his exact words." Here I produced
my note-book, and read as follows: "'I have seen a lu