Some of the acutest minds of our time have
learned to recognise in them scientific demonstration of the existence
of the fact that personal individuality survives death.

If it can be proved that it is occasionally possible for persons at the
uttermost ends of the world to communicate instantaneously with each
other, and even in some cases to make a vivid picture of themselves
stand before the eyes of those to whom they speak, no prejudice as to
the unhealthy nature of the inquiry should be allowed to stand in the
way of the examination of such a fact with a view to ascertaining
whether or not this latent capacity of the human mind can be utilised
for the benefit of mankind. Wild as this suggestion may seem to-day, it
is less fantastic than our grandfathers a hundred years ago would have
deemed a statement that at the end of the nineteenth century portraits
would be taken by the sun, that audible conversation would be carried on
instantaneously across a distance of a thousand miles, that a ray of
light could be made the agent for transmitting the human voice across an
abyss which no wire had ever spanned, and that by a simple mechanical
arrangement, which a man can carry in his hand, it would be possible to
reproduce the words, voice, and accent of the dead. The photograph, the
telegraph, the telephone, and the phonograph were all more or less
latent in what seemed to our ancestors the kite-flying folly of Benjamin
Franklin. Who knows but that in Telepathy we may have the faint
foreshadowing of another latent force, which may yet be destined to cast
into the shade even the marvels of electrical science!

There is a growing interest in all the occult phenomena to which this
work is devoted. It is in evidence on every hand. The topic is in the
air, and will be discussed and is being discussed, whether we take
notice of it or not. That it has its dangers those who have studied it
most closely are most aware, but these dangers will exist in any case,
and if those who ought to guide are silent, these perils will be
encountered without the safeguards which experience would dictate and
prudence suggest. It seems to me that it would be difficult to do better
service in this direction than to strengthen the hands of those who have
for many years past been trying to rationalise the consideration of the
Science of Ghosts.

It is idle to say that this should be left for experts. We live in a
democratic age and we democratise eve