more set our feet to earth and
determine to live a good and a useful life in the material world of
which we undoubtedly form a part. We are _in_ a material world, and I
believe we should be _of_ it. I, for one, raise my voice in protest
against the tide of intellectual asceticism which is inclined to accept
without question the modern doctrine and methods of "psychotherapy" and
mind-cure in place of the more rational and certain measures of hygiene
and medicine. The further a pendulum swings in one direction, the
further will it swing in the other, when released. And I believe that
the modern extreme acceptance of faith and mind-cure in all its forms
is but the moral and intellectual and spiritual reaction against the
materialism of the past generation. Hail the day when it again swings
back to its mid-position; and when mental methods of cure and bodily
hygiene shall together march hand in hand to the joint attack against
disease! They each have their mission to fulfil, their cases to cure.
Tolerance, tolerance! Let them each recognize the rights of the other!

CHAPTER X

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE OUIJA BOARD[45]

Before we proceed to discuss the intelligence lying behind the Ouija
Board, I must offer a few remarks upon the subject of automatic writing
in general, passing in very brief review the various theories that have
been advanced from time to time by way of explanation of the action of
this extraordinary little device.

One of the sanest and most rational popular accounts of this instrument
and its workings that I have so far come across (all things considered)
is a little pamphlet entitled _The Planchette Mystery_, very little
known, from which I shall quote in writing this review. Epes Sargent's
book, _Planchette: the Despair of Science_, contains in reality very
little on the planchette board, and the title is somewhat deceptive. Mr.
Myers's articles on the subject (particularly in _Proceedings of
S.P.R._, vol. ii. pp. 217-37; vol. iii. pp. 1-63; and vol. ix. pp.
26-128) are, of course, classical, but are involved and inaccessible for
the general reader, even had he the time to read them carefully; so that
perhaps the following resume may not be unnecessary or out of place.

It is to be presumed that every reader of this book knows what a Ouija
Board is, and, roughly, what it does. _How_ it does it is a more
difficult question to answer; in fact, it may be said that no definite
answer has even yet be