their minds, and which they believe to come from external
sources, i.e., "spirits," but which, as a matter of fact, issue from
their own subconsciousness. These scraps of information resemble
"bubbles" breaking upon the surface of water--the finished product of
latent incubation, and doubtless have every appearance and every feeling
of external origin. Even if genuine spirit-messages are at times
received, it is highly probable that the bulk of the messages are the
product of the medium's subliminal, which catches up and amplifies the
original external impetus received from without. Professor William James
believed, e.g., the following: that "genuine messages have been given
through Mrs. Piper's organism, but he also contended that every time an
intelligence appeared, calling itself Hodgson, and beginning: 'Hello!
Here I am again in the witness-box! How are you, old chap?' etc., this
was not Hodgson at all, but Mrs. Piper's subliminal, and that genuine
supernormal information only came in 'touches' or 'impulses,' as it
were, as though the spirit could touch or come into contact with the
medium's mind at a number of points, making a number of 'dips down,' ...
as it were, imparting information at each dip which the medium's mind
thereupon seized upon, elaborated, and gave out in its own dramatic form
and setting." If this be true of Mrs. Piper (whose messages are shot at
you from a cannon's mouth, as it were), how much truer must it be of
other types of mediums, in which the communications are certainly far
less direct and impressive? Mrs. Piper might be styled the "possession"
type of medium--as opposed to the "subliminal" type--commonly seen; and,
as before said, if the messages be so indirect in the case of Mrs.
Piper, how much more fragmentary and indirect must they be in the case
of all other mediums--less developed and less direct than she? It is
hardly to be wondered at that the information given is of the vaguest,
the most hazy and indistinct character, and that recognition and proof
of identity is almost an impossibility.

7. As to the theory that comparatively few (of those who die) make good
communicators, I may be permitted to suggest, perhaps, a tentative
explanation of the rarity of good communicators (and communications),
based upon this principle. Certain it is that special adaptability and
idiosyncrasy are necessary to the one on this side--this constituting,
in fact, a "medium," as we understand it. It s