suitable "medium" already in consultation, looking for a test case upon which to postulate a theory of immortality. And it was forthcoming. According to Messrs. Savage and Myers, it was the crucial test, demonstrative of spirit intercourse.

If my hypothesis "stretches the theory of telepathy" too far, and if evidence of immortal life consists in the adoption of their theory of explanation, well may we exclaim, —

"On what a slender thread

Hang everlasting things!"

I ask the intelligent, unprejudiced reader to judge for himself which of the two explanations is more likely to be correct. To this end he must ask himself whether it is more rational to suppose that the lady obtained a telepathic message from home and transmitted the same to the psychic, than it is to suppose that it required the intervention of a supermundane agency to convey the information.

In answering this question the logical and scientific axiom must not be lost sight of, that we have neither occasion nor logical right to seek a supermundane explanation of a phenomenon, when it is explicable by reference to natural laws with which the world is acquainted.

On this point the truly scientific reader will doubtless prefer to stand with Mr. Podmore, one of the Secretaries of the Society for Psychical Research, who says: "When the choice of explanation seems to lie between telepathy and some faculty even more dubious and more remote from ordinary analogies, it is right that the hypothesis of telepathy should be strained- if necessary, to the breaking point before we invoke a stage-deity to cut the knot.”1

1 Apparitions and Thought-Transference, pp. 369, 370.

CHAPTER V.

SPIRITISTIC PHENOMENA (continued).

Experimental Telepathy. — Deferred Percipience.-Cases in Point.

I

- Planchette. — Latency of Telepathic Impressions. — Nebuchadnezzar's Dream. - Daniel's Telepathic Power. - Final Explanation of Mr. Savage's Test Case. - The Mother's Message to her Son. - The Son's Message to the Psychic. The Last Resource of Spiritism. — Mr. Savage's Crucial Question. — The Unscien、 tific Attitude of Spiritists.—Thunder considered as the Voice of an Angry God. — The Simplicity of Nature's Laws. - The Alleged "Simplicity" of the Spiritistic Hypothesis. It saves Thinking. - Reasoning in a Circle. Why cannot Spirits communicate with the Living? Not a Pertinent Question. The Real Question is, Do they so Communicate? - The Evidence is against the Spiritistic Hypothesis.—“Spirits of Health and Goblins Damned."

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HAVE thus far examined Mr. Savage's test case from a theoretical standpoint. My theories, however, have all been based upon the well-known facts of experimental psychology, except where I have argued from a provisional assumption of the reality of the power of independent clairvoyance. I now approach the domain of ascertained facts. My text is still his declaration that "telepathy deals only with occurrences taking place at the time." 1 If it had been stated that "telepathy deals only with occurrences taking place at the time of the delivery of a message concerning them to the subjective mind of the party for whom it is intended," it would have been much nearer the truth, but would still have been far from accurate, as will be seen hereafter. Thus limited, however, it could not have been

1 M. J. Savage in "Psychics: Facts and Theories."

pressed into the service of spiritism; and we must, therefore, presume that the words were intended and used in their full significance. In other words, the fate of the argument must depend upon the correctness of the premises as they are formulated.

In making this statement some very important facts set forth in "Phantasms of the Living," must have been forgotten for the moment, or else the article from which quotation was made was written before the publication of that voluminous record of telepathic experiences.

Be that as it may, one very important feature of the phenomena of telepathy has certainly been ignored. It is a feature, too, of the first importance, for, without including it as a factor in any given case, one is more than likely to be led into the most grievous errors. I refer to the phenomenon of "deferred percipience." The meaning of the term is thus explained by Mr. Myers in his learned and able introduction to "Phantasms of the Living": "We find in the case of phantasms corresponding to some accident or crisis which befalls a living friend, that there seems often to be a latent period before the phantasm becomes definite or externalized to the percipient's eye or ear. Sometimes a vague malaise seems first to be generated, and then when other stimuli are deadened, as at night or in some period of repose, the indefinite grief or uneasiness takes shape in the voice or figure of the friend who in fact passed through his moment of peril some hours before." He then goes on to say that "it is quite possible that a deferment of this kind may sometimes intervene between the moment of death and the phantasmal announcement thereof to a distant friend."

This is a very general, though a very accurate, statement of a principle which will presently be seen to be a corollary of the doctrine of duality of mind and of sub-conscious intelligence.

A person in imminent and deadly peril telepathically conveys a message to his nearest friend or relative, informing him of the occurrence. This may be done by means

of a vision or by clairaudience, or otherwise; but it must necessarily be done by some means that addresses itself to the sensory experience of the percipient. It is a message from the subjective mind of the "agent" to that of the "percipient." If the percipient is a psychic, he will probably perceive the import of the message at once. If he is not a psychic, or is not easily thrown into the psychical or subjective condition, he may not be able for hours to elevate the message above the threshold of his own consciousness. If he is incapable (as most people are) of becoming objectively conscious of what is going on in his subjective mind, he may never be able to become normally conscious of the message that is lying "latent" in his "subliminal consciousness." Nevertheless the information is there, although he may not, as before remarked, be conscious of it at the time of its reception. It may remain latent for a week or a month; or he may never be able to take objective cognizance of it unaided by some one more sensitive to subjective impressions.

It must be remembered that telepathy is one of those psychic powers that is seldom, if ever, acquired by persons who are in a normal state of physical health. Let me not be misunderstood on this point. When we speak of one possessing telepathic power, we usually mean, simply, that he is one who is capable of taking objective cognizance, or becoming objectively conscious, of the messages received by his subjective mind. In other words, he is one who is capable of elevating the impressions of his sub-conscious intelligence above the threshold of his normal or objective consciousness. The fact that he is unable to do this is no evidence that he is incapable of receiving subjective impressions, or that he does not receive telepathic messages.

Indeed, the facts show that there is practically little difference, other things being equal, in the capacity of persons of average intelligence for receiving telepathic communications. The difference consists, not in the ability to receive, but in the ability to perceive, or to become objectively conscious, of what has been received. And the latter power usually finds its origin in an abnormal physical condition, ranging in intensity from that of an incipient neurosis to the terrible affliction endured by the Seeress of Prevorst,the power and the physical abnormality nearly always sustaining perfectly harmonious proportional relations.

It follows that a perfectly normal, healthy man is seldom able to assimilate the full content of a telepathic message. It reaches his consciousness, if at all, only in the form of a vague impression, creating a transient feeling of unrest or foreboding, but which is soon submerged or thrown off by his superabundant vitality. Few are entirely exempt from such impressions, and they vary in intensity in proportion to their importance to the individual. But the fact that one is not able to take objective cognizance of their full import does not prove that the information, in all its details, is not indelibly stamped upon the tablets of the soul. From this postulate it follows that the work of a trained psychic, capable of reading the minds of his sitters, is all that is necessary to reveal the full content of a telepathic message latent in the subjective mind of his client.

The foregoing propositions seem almost self-evident to the merest tyro in psychic science; but as Mr. Myers and his colleagues, Messrs. Gurney and Podmore, have taken pains not only clearly to define "deferred percipience and note it as an important factor in telepathy, but to demonstrate it experimentally and print accounts of its illustrative cases occurring spontaneously, it becomes our duty to present a few of the most prominent of those facts