mischievous fashion. Later I had another singular
personal experience of this sort which I may describe
at the end of this argument.[1]

[1] Vide Appendix III.


From this period until the time of the War I
continued in the leisure hours of a very busy life to
devote attention to this subject. I had experience of
one series of seances with very amazing results,
including several materializations seen in dim light.
As the medium was detected in trickery shortly
afterwards I wiped these off entirely as evidence. At
the same time I think that the presumption is very
clear, that in the case of some mediums like Eusapia
Palladino they may be guilty of trickery when their
powers fail them, and yet at other times have very
genuine gifts. Mediumship in its lowest forms is a
purely physical gift with no relation to morality and
in many cases it is intermittent and cannot be
controlled at will. Eusapia was at least twice
convicted of very clumsy and foolish fraud, whereas she
several times sustained long examinations under every
possible test condition at the hands of scientific
committees which contained some of the best names of
France, Italy, and England. However, I personally
prefer to cut my experience with a discredited medium
out of my record, and I think that all physical
phenomena produced in the dark must necessarily lose