ns that he is affected by some unconscious mental action. We shall
certainly not accept his declaration that spirits of the dead are
talking through him unless he gives information that could not possibly
have been in his own mind, and could not have been received by
thought-transference from the mind of any other person present
or in _rapport_ with him at a distance. The discoveries in
thought-transference open possibilities of mental influence between
living persons which aid to explain many hitherto incomprehensible
phenomena.

Clairvoyant and clairaudiant mediums fall into the same category. They
profess to see forms which no one else can see, and to hear voices which
no one else can hear, and describe these forms, or repeat the words of
these voices, often with the effect of recalling the appearance or
character of deceased persons whom they could not possibly have known.
Yet the fact remains that the persons who recognize these descriptions
as accurate must have known the parties described, and it becomes
possible that the mental impression of the medium may have been received
by thought-transference from them. We do not assert that it has been so
received. We assert nothing. In fact, phenomena are claimed to occur
which it is difficult or impossible to explain on any such theory, or on
any other theory yet promulgated. Among these is the conveyance of
matter through matter, as of an object from the interior to the exterior
of a corked and sealed bottle, of other objects from a distance into
locked rooms, of writing by a sliver of pencil in the interior of a
double slate firmly screwed together, of the placing of close-fitting
steel rings in one solid piece around human necks, and their subsequent
removal, of writing and speaking in languages unknown to some or all of
the persons present, and a considerable variety of similar performances,
declared to have occurred under strict test-conditions. Yet if we cannot
explain we retain the right to doubt, and such statements cannot be
received as facts except on the strongest substantiation.

The phenomena whose main forms we have here given, but whose actual
variety we cannot attempt to give, are offered on the testimony of a
great variety of persons, many of whom are plainly too credulous for
their evidence to be of any value whatever, while others, who seem to
have exercised great caution and cool judgment, are unknown to the
general public, and therefore not likely