aw, an army
doctor, in the war, and I had given him a spade guinea for his first
fee, which he always wore on his chain. There were not more than two
or three close relatives who knew about this incident, so that the test
was a particularly good one. She made no incorrect statements, though
some were vague. After I had revealed the identity of this medium
several pressmen attempted to have test seances with her--a test seance
being, in most cases, a seance which begins by breaking every psychic
condition and making success most improbable. One of these gentlemen,
Mr. Ulyss Rogers, had very fair results. Another sent from "Truth" had
complete failure. It must be understood that these powers do not work
from the medium, but through the medium, and that the forces in the
beyond have not the least sympathy with a smart young pressman in
search of clever copy, while they have a very different feeling to a
bereaved mother who prays with all her broken heart that some assurance
may be given her that the child of her love is not gone from her for
ever. When this fact is mastered, and it is understood that "Stand and
deliver" methods only excite gentle derision on the other side, we
shall find some more intelligent manner of putting things of the spirit
to the proof.[3]

I have dwelt upon these results, which could be matched by other
mediums, to show that we have solid and certain reasons to say that the
verbal reports are not from the mediums themselves. Readers of Arthur
Hill's "Psychical Investigations" will find many even more convincing
cases. So in the written communications, I have in a previous paper
pointed to the "Gate of Remembrance" case, but there is a great mass of
material which proves that, in spite of mistakes and failures, there
really is a channel of communication, fitful and evasive sometimes, but
entirely beyond coincidence or fraud. These, then, are the usual means
by which we receive psychic messages, though table tilting, ouija
boards, glasses upon a smooth surface, or anything which can be moved
by the vital animal-magnetic force already discussed will equally serve
the purpose. Often information is conveyed orally or by writing which
could not have been known to anyone concerned. Mr. Wilkinson has given
details of the case where his dead son drew attention to the fact that
a curio (a coin bent by a bullet) had been overlooked among his
effects. Sir William Barrett has narrated how a young