strengthened, but the toleration of the idea of spirits, whether lazy and
trifling, pernicious or beneficial, is of course wrong. However, as they
were considered the servants of sorcerers, the idea was in some respects
sufficiently accurate.

The Lutheran Church in Denmark, in the last century, had many famous
exercisers who banned ghosts into Schleswig-Holstein.

One hypnotiser against another, the battle-field a stupid peasant. M.
Flammarion's book, just published (July 1900), contains an instance or
two of French peasants bewitching one another. The cure for this
witchcraft is found in science, the criminal law, and the mutual kindness
that, derived from Christianity, though often promoted by men whom we can
only call God-fearing unbelievers, has grown so much in this century, and
more elsewhere even than in Britain. Thousands of poor people perished in
the days of old, guiltless victims, whilst some scoundrelly hypnotists
went free. In modern times some poor people, bothered by hypnotists, have
been sent to lunatic asylums and have fallen victims of the greed,
cruelty, and neglect that so often prevail there. One must give Dr.
Savage his due, that he describes a case in his book on insanity where a
lady hearing voices (cheating hypnotic voices, perhaps), and believing
herself insulted, left one lodging after another perfectly quietly, and
he admits that this case was not suitable for a lunatic asylum.

The "spirits" of spiritists are, of course, not impressive, if their
somewhat startling amount of information be excepted. The language used
by George Pelham is pure twaddle. One member of the society seems to have
been hypnotised, and the rest studied by the Piper gang through him.

If all a man feels, sees, and hears be noted, the information gathered,