cannot see but that it must have been an unconscious expression
of my subliminal self, writing such stuff as dreams are made of."

In another place Mrs. Piper makes the following direct statement: "I
never heard of anything being said by myself while in a trance state
which might not have been latent in:

"1. My own mind.

"2. In the mind of the person in charge of the sitting.

"3. In the mind of the person who was trying to get communication with
some one in another state of existence, or some companion present with
such person, or,

"4. In the mind of some absent person alive somewhere else in the
world."

Writing in the Psychological Review in 1898, Professor James says:

"Mrs. Piper's trance memory is no ordinary human memory, and we have to
explain its singular perfection either as the natural endowment of her
solitary subliminal self, or as a collection of distinct memory systems,
each with a communicating spirit as its vehicle.

"The spirit hypothesis exhibits a vacancy, triviality, and incoherence
of mind painful to think of as the state of the departed, and coupled
with a pretension to impress one, a disposition to 'fish' and face
around and disguise the essential hollowness which is, if anything, more
painful still. Mr. Hodgson has to resort to the theory that, although
the communicants probably are spirits, they are in a semi-comatose or
sleeping state while communicating, and only half aware of what is going
on, while the habits of Mrs. Piper's neural organism largely supply the
definite form of words, etc., in which the phenomenon is clothed."

After considering other theories Professor James concludes:

"The world is evidently more complex than we are accustomed to think it,
the absolute 'world ground' in particular being farther off than we are
wont to think it."

Mrs. Piper is reported to have said:

"Of what occurs after I enter the trance period I remember
nothing--nothing of what I said or what was said to me. I am but a
passive agent in the hands of powers that control me. I can give no
account of what becomes of me during a trance. The wisdom and inspired
eloquence which of late has been conveyed to Dr. Hodgson through my
mediumship is entirely beyond my understanding. I do not pretend to
understand it, and can give no explanation--I simply know that I have the
power of going into a trance when I wish."

Professor James says: "The Piper phenomena are the most absolutely
baffling thi