d had supernatural gifts of telepathy and
clairvoyance would wish to bring their questions to me so that I might
make Beulah Miller trace their lost bracelets or predict their fortune
in the Stock Exchange. But I was at a loss to understand why so many
persons from Maine to California felt tempted to write long letters to
me in which they told me what kind of questions I ought to ask the
child, as if I could not formulate a question for myself. Every one
expected a special report for himself with exact statements of her
answers. The whole performance showed a lack of judgment which is
typical of that lower intellectual layer; and yet the letters were
often written on beautifully monogrammed letter paper. More often,
however, my own writings or doings have nothing to do with the case. I
am the perfectly innocent receiver of written messages about anything
between heaven and earth, while the messages which my correspondents
receive from me are not always authentic. One of my psychically
talented writers reports: "On May 31st at eight forty-nine A. M. in
the midst of a thunderstorm I came into communication with Doctor
Muensterberg and asked him to send me a message. He said, 'The name of
my son is Wilhelm Muensterberg.'" It is improbable that I lied so
boldly about my family, even in a telepathic message.

I may select a few typical theories, which all come from evidently
otherwise normal and harmless people. I have before me a whole series
of manuscripts from a druggist who is sure that his ego theory is
"very near the truth." It is in itself very simple and convincing.
"The right and the left cerebral egos united with one sublime ego are
in the body in a loose union in possession of an amoeboid cell. During
sleep they may separate. The sublime ego wanders through nerve paths
to the bowels, and the bowel experiences are the dreams." An
experiment brought a definite proof of this. The druggist dyed some
crackers deep blue with methylene blue, and later dreamed that a large
train of blue food was passing by. As each carriage of the train
corresponded to a granule of starch in the crackers, he was able to
figure that the ego which saw those parts of the crackers was about
one thousandth of an inch large. "The fact of seeing in dreams is due
to vital force, the peculiar low speed to the high vibration force of
living albuminoids emitted from every tendril of bioplasm and
perceived by the eye of the ego-bion during its visit.