entical with relations or friends." Such an admission would
alone banish thought-reading as an explanation, for there is no
evidence in existence to show that this power ever reaches such
perfection that one who possesses it could draw the image of a dead man
from your brain, fit a correct name to him, and then associate him with
all sorts of definite and detailed actions in which he was engaged.
Such an explanation is not an explanation but a pretence. But even if
one were to allow such a theory to pass, there are numerous incidents
in these accounts which could not be explained in such a fashion, where
unknown details have been given which were afterwards verified, and
even where mistakes in thought upon the part of the sitter were
corrected by the medium under spirit guidance. Personally I believe
that the medium's own account of how she gets her remarkable results is
the absolute truth, and I can imagine no other fashion in which they
can be explained. She has, of course, her bad days, and the conditions
are always worst when there is an inquisitorial rather than a religious
atmosphere in the interview. This intermittent character of the
results is, according to my experience, characteristic of spirit
clairvoyance as compared with thought-reading, which can, in its more
perfect form, become almost automatic within certain marked limits. I
may add that the constant practice of some psychical researchers to
take no notice at all of the medium's own account of how he or she
attains results, but to substitute some complicated and unproved
explanation of their own, is as insulting as it is unreasonable. It
has been alleged as a slur upon Mrs. B's results and character that she
has been twice prosecuted by the police. This is, in fact, not a slur
upon the medium but rather upon the law, which is in so barbarous a
condition that the true seer fares no better than the impostor, and
that no definite psychic principles are recognised. A medium may under
such circumstances be a martyr rather than a criminal, and a conviction
ceases to be a stain upon the character.

[1] "The Reality of Psychic Phenomena." "Experiences in Psychical
Science." (Watkins.)

[2] See Appendix.

[3] See Appendix D.

[4] The details of both these latter cases are to be found in "Voices
from the Void" by Mrs. Travers Smith, a book containing some well
weighed evidence.

[5] For Geley's Experiments, Appendix A.

[6] Published