the most hopeful results hitherto
obtained have not been in any way comparable as regards
accuracy and precision with those produced by Mr. and Madame
Zancig. Further, there is, so far as we are aware, no case
of any public performers (including certain recent examples)
where the use of a code or apparatus has not been more or
less readily discoverable or clearly to be inferred. In
considering, therefore, the claim of Mr. and Madame Zancig
to the possession of a genuine telepathic faculty, one is
faced by the initial difficulty that such a faculty must be
regarded as unique in quality, and Mr. and Madame Zancig
themselves as unique in kind, a difficulty on the force of
which it is not necessary to insist. On the other hand, the
difficulty of suggesting by what method, if not by
telepathy, they communicate is considerable. Those who have
only witnessed the public theatre performances, clever and
perplexing as these are, will not appreciate how hard it is
to offer any plausible explanation of their _modus
operandi_."

In conclusion, I would wish to point out that the establishment of the
fact that telepathy is a scientific truth would have bearings of the
greatest importance.

It would show that the transmission of thought could occasionally be
effected otherwise than by the ordinary sense channels.

It would change the materialistic conception that thought only acts
within the limits of the brain.

It would modify the materialistic scientific view of the relation of
mind to matter.

I trust that what I have written will act as an incentive to some of my
readers to try experiments in this branch of psychical research.[2] It
is not enough that a few individuals by patient inquiry and experiment
should have been convinced of the reality of telepathy. What is wanted
is that scientific men generally, by the record of an overwhelming
number of experiments under the strictest test conditions, should be
convinced of its truth. Once let them be so, then public conviction will
in due time follow.

Meanwhile I feel bound to state that, in spite of initial
improbability, the experiences which I myself have had, as partly
narrated in this book, especially those briefly summarized in Part I,
have convinced me that the telepathic faculty does exist, and that its
detection is a genuine extension of scientific knowledge; though much
more w