much of their value, unless they are accompanied by
evidential messages as well. It is the custom of our
critics to assume that if you cut out the mediums who
got into trouble you would have to cut out nearly all
your evidence. That is not so at all. Up to the time
of this incident I had never sat with a professional
medium at all, and yet I had certainly accumulated some
evidence. The greatest medium of all, Mr. D. D. Home,
showed his phenomena in broad daylight, and was ready
to submit to every test and no charge of trickery was
ever substantiated against him. So it was with many
others. It is only fair to state in addition that when
a public medium is a fair mark for notoriety hunters,
for amateur detectives and for sensational reporters,
and when he is dealing with obscure elusive phenomena
and has to defend himself before juries and judges who,
as a rule, know nothing about the conditions which
influence the phenomena, it would be wonderful if a man
could get through without an occasional scandal. At
the same time the whole system of paying by results,
which is practically the present system, since if a
medium never gets results he would soon get no
payments, is a vicious one. It is only when the
professional medium can be guaranteed an annuity which
will be independent of results, that we can eliminate
the strong temptation, to substitute pretended
phenomena when the real ones are wanting.

I have now traced my own evolution of thought up to
the time of the War. I can claim, I hope, that it was