not mix with them, any more than you do in this world.
One chooses one's companions. But suppose a man in
this world, who had lived in his house alone and never
mixed with his fellows, was at last to put his head out
of the window to see what sort of place it was, what
would happen? Some naughty boy would probably say
something rude. Anyhow, he would see nothing of the
wisdom or greatness of the world. He would draw his
head in thinking it was a very poor place. That is
just what you have done. In a mixed seance, with no
definite aim, you have thrust your head into the next
world and you have met some naughty boys. Go forward
and try to reach something better." That was General
Drayson's explanation, and though it did not satisfy me
at the time, I think now that it was a rough
approximation to the truth. These were my first steps
in Spiritualism. I was still a sceptic, but at least I
was an inquirer, and when I heard some old-fashioned
critic saying that there was nothing to explain, and
that it was all fraud, or that a conjuror was
needed to show it up, I knew at least that that was all
nonsense. It is true that my own evidence up to then
was not enough to convince me, but my reading, which
was continuous, showed me how deeply other men had gone
into it, and I recognised that the testimony was so
strong that no other religious movement in the world
could put forward anything to compare with it. That
did not prove it to be true, but at least it proved
that it must be treated with respect and could not be
brushed aside. Take a single incident of what Wallace