erances or
writings. No matter how conclusive any individual "test" might be, it
would prove nothing by itself. No matter how well attested an apparition
at the moment of death, singly it would indicate no telepathic
communication nor other supernormal factor at work. But together these
cases form a strand[30] which becomes too strong to be broken, and
which, taken together, practically prove telepathic communication at the
moment of death--at least so thought Professor Sidgwick's Committee, of
which Miss Johnson was one member. (See _Proceedings, S.P.R._, vol. x.
p. 394.)

In Home's case, then, the evidence for his levitation phenomena rests,
not on any one case taken by itself, but on the mass of cumulative
testimony offered by scores of witnesses. However completely one case
might be explained away, the other cases still remain to us--each case
standing on its own merits, and many of them excellently observed, if
not so well recorded. For example, the cases mentioned by Sir. William
Crookes (_Journal, S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 342) are certainly far superior,
in point of observation, to the famous case so severely criticized by
Miss Johnson. And I think that if one is going to offer any hypothesis
at all, it must be one that covers _all_ the facts, and not merely one
which explains only some of them. The hallucinatory nature of Home's
phenomena is certainly not inclusive--it does not include many of the
more striking incidents to say nothing of the lesser phenomena. For this
reason, it does not appear to me to be conclusive either.

After a brief discussion of Home's fire-tests, which Miss Johnson
practically admits are inexplicable by any process either of fraud or of
hallucination known to her (p. 498), she passes on to what are called
"quasi-hypnotic" effects. To many of the incidents classed by Miss
Johnson as due to suggestion, I should be inclined to give an entirely
different interpretation. Some of them doubtless resemble hallucinations
in a striking degree, but what evidence is there that, e.g., passes made
over the heads of the sitters can induce identical hallucinations in all
of them; or that, because one of the circle becomes hysterical, the
others are thereby rendered susceptible to suggestion? However, I shall
defer this question until we come to discuss hallucination in general.

After some wholesome criticisms devoted to the "recognition" of
materialized forms, and the very true statement (p. 509) that