only just
met, for the first time, in London."

Now M. Deslys could not possibly have known, excepting through psychical
agency, where I had been staying a week before that time, or what I had
been doing at three o'clock on that identical afternoon.

_Automatic Writing_

I have frequently experimented in automatic writing. Who that is
interested in the occult has not! But I cannot say I have ever had any
astonishing results. However, though my own experiences are not worth
recording, I have heard of many extraordinary results obtained by
others--results from automatic messages that one can not help believing
could only be due to superphysical agency.

_Table-turning_

I do not think there is anything superphysical in merely turning the
table, or making it move across the room, or causing it to fall over on
to the ground, and to get up again. I am of the opinion that all this is
due to animal magnetism, and to the unconscious efforts of the audience,
who are ever anxious for the ghost to come and something startling to
happen. The ladies, in particular, I would point out, press a little
hard with their dainty but determined hands, or with their self-willed
knees resort to a few sly pushes. When this does not happen, I think it
is quite possible that an elemental or some other equally undesirable
type of phantasm does actually attend the seance, and, emphasising its
arrival by sundry noises, is responsible for many, if not all the
phenomena. On the other hand, I certainly think that ninety per cent. of
the rappings and the manifestations of musical enthusiasts is due to
trickery on the part of the medium, or, if there be no professional
medium present, to an over-zealous sitter.

But since ghosts can and do show themselves spontaneously in haunted
houses, why the necessity of musical instruments, professional medium,
and sitting round a table with fingers linked? Surely, when one comes to
think of it, the _modus operandi_ of the seance, besides being extremely
undignified, is somewhat superfluous. Tin trumpets, twopenny
tambourines, and concertinas are all very well in their way, but, try
how I will, I cannot associate them with ghosts. What phantasm of any
standing at all would be attracted by such baubles? Surely only the
phantasms of the very silliest of servant girls, of incurable idiots,
and of advanced imbeciles. But even they, I think, might be "above it,"
in which case the musical instruments, tin trum