hich Browning might be excused for writing
in some crisis of domestic disagreement, but which it was inexcusable
to republish since it is admitted to be a concoction, and the exposure
described to have been imaginary. The critic often uses the term
medium as if it necessarily meant a professional, whereas every
investigator has found some of his best results among amateurs. In the
two finest seances I ever attended, the psychic, in each case a man of
moderate means, was resolutely determined never directly or indirectly
to profit by his gift, though it entailed very exhausting physical
conditions. I have not heard of a clergyman of any denomination who
has attained such a pitch of altruism--nor is it reasonable to expect
it. As to professional mediums, Mr. Vout Peters, one of the most
famous, is a diligent collector of old books and an authority upon the
Elizabethan drama; while Mr. Dickinson, another very remarkable
discerner of spirits, who named twenty-four correctly during two
meetings held on the same day, is employed in loading canal barges.
This man is one gifted clairvoyants in England, though Tom Tyrrell the
weaver, Aaron Wilkinson, and others are very marvellous. Tyrrell, who
is a man of the Anthony of Padua type, a walking saint, beloved of
animals and children, is a figure who might have stepped out of some
legend of the church. Thomas, the powerful physical medium, is a
working coal miner. Most mediums take their responsibilities very
seriously and view their work in a religious light. There is no
denying that they are exposed to very particular temptations, for the
gift is, as I have explained elsewhere, an intermittent one, and to
admit its temporary absence, and so discourage one's clients, needs
greater moral principle than all men possess. Another temptation to
which several great mediums have succumbed is that of drink. This
comes about in a very natural way, for overworking the power leaves
them in a state of physical prostration, and the stimulus of alcohol
affords a welcome relief, and may tend at last to become a custom and
finally a curse. Alcoholism always weakens the moral sense, so that
these degenerate mediums yield themselves more readily to fraud, with
the result that several who had deservedly won honoured names and met
all hostile criticism have, in their later years, been detected in the
most contemptible tricks. It is a thousand pities that it should be
so, but if the Court