y of the Queen's residence in Scotland.
After the communication had been made, the owner of the _chateau_
explained that she was already acquainted with the circumstances
described, as she had recently read them in documents in her charter
chest, where they remain.

Of course, the belief we extend to such narratives is entirely conditioned
by our knowledge of the personal character of the performers. The point
here is merely the civilised and savage practice of _automatism_, the
apparent eliciting of knowledge not otherwise accessible, by the
movements of a stick, or a bit of wood. These movements, made without
conscious exertion or direction, seem, to savage philosophy, to be caused
by in-dwelling spirits, the sources of Fetishism.

These examples, then, demonstrating unconscious movement of objects by the
operators, make it clear that movements even of touched objects, may be
attributed, by some civilised and by savage amateurs, to 'spirits.' The
objects so moved may, by savages, be regarded in some cases as fetishes,
and their movements may have helped to originate the belief that spirits
can inhabit inanimate objects. When objects apparently quite untouched
become volatile, the mystery is deeper. This apparent animation and
frolicsome behaviour of inanimate objects is reported all through history,
and attested by immense quantities of evidence of every degree. It would
be tedious to give a full account of the antiquity and diffusion of reports
about such occurrences. We find them among Neo-Platonists, in the English
and Continental Middle Ages, among Eskimo, Hurons, Algonkins, Tartars,
Zulus, Malays, Nasquapees, Maoris, in witch trials, in ancient Peru
(immediately after the Spanish Conquest), in China, in modern Russia, in
New England (1680), all through the career of modern spiritualism, in
Hayti (where they are attributed to 'Obeah'), and, sporadically,
everywhere.[12]

Among all these cases, we must dismiss whatever the modern paid medium
does in the dark. The only thing to be done with the ethnographic and
modern accounts of such marvels is to 'file them for reference.' If a
spontaneous example occurs, under proper inspection, we can then compare
our old tales. Professor James says: 'Their mutual resemblances suggest a
natural type, and I confess that till these records, or others like them,
are positively explained away, I cannot feel (in spite of such vast
amounts of detected frauds) as if the case of physi