ly opposite
faces of the same medal, we should be tempted to think mankind even more
pitiable than we have hitherto believed.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _Des Indes a la Planete Mars; etude sur un cas de somnambulisme_, by
Th. Flournoy. Pub. Alcan, Paris.

CHAPTER II

Dr Richard Hodgson--Description of the trance--Mrs Piper not a good
hypnotic subject.

Before proceeding further, I must ask my readers' permission to
introduce Dr Hodgson, the man who has studied Mrs Piper's case with the
greatest care and with the most perseverance. Dr Richard Hodgson went to
America expressly to observe this medium, and during some fifteen years
he has, so to say, hardly lost sight of her for a moment. All the
persons who have had sittings for a long time past have passed through
his hands; he introduces them by assumed names, and takes all possible
precautions that Mrs Piper, in her normal state, shall not obtain any
information about them. These precautions are now superfluous. Mrs Piper
has never had recourse to fraud, and everyone is thoroughly convinced of
the fact. But the slightest relaxation of supervision would lay the most
decisive experiments open to suspicion.

Dr Hodgson is one of the earliest workers for the Society for Psychical
Research. He has been a terrible enemy to fraud all his life. At the
time of the formation of the Society, Mme. Blavatsky, foundress of the
Theosophical Society, was making herself much talked about. The most
extraordinary phenomena were supposed to have occurred at the
Theosophical Society's headquarters in India. Dr Hodgson was sent there
to study them impartially. He quickly made the discovery that the whole
affair was charlatanry and sleight-of-hand. On his return to England he
wrote a report--which has not killed Theosophy, because even new-born
religions have strong vitality--but which has discredited this doctrine
for ever in the eyes of thoughtful people.

After this master stroke, Dr Hodgson continued to hunt down fraudulent
mediums. He learned all their tricks, and acquired a conjurer's skill.
It was he again who discovered the unconscious[4] frauds of Eusapia
Paladino during the sittings which this Italian medium gave at
Cambridge. When such a man, after long study of Mrs Piper's phenomena,
affirms their validity, we may believe him. He is not credulous, nor an
enthusiast, nor a mystic. I have written of him somewhat at length,
because, by force of circumstances, his name will oft