culars. The late Mr. Davey, who started as a
Spiritualist catechumen, managed, by conjuring, to produce answers
to questions on a locked slate, which is as near a miracle as
anything. But Mr. Davey is dead, though we know his secret, while
it is improbable that Mr. Maskelyne will enrich his repertoire by
travelling among Zulus, Hindus, and Pawnees. As savages cease to be
savages, our opportunities of learning their mystic lore must
decrease.

To one point in this research the notice of students in folklore may
be specially directed. In the attempt to account for the diffusion
of popular tales, such as Cinderella, we are told to observe that
the countries most closely adjacent to each other have the most
closely similar variants of the story. This is true, as a rule, but
it is also true that, while Scandinavian regions have a form of
Cinderella with certain peculiarities not shared by Southern Europe,
those crop up sporadically, far away, among Kaffirs and the Indian
'aboriginal' tribe of Santhals. The same phenomenon of diffusion
occurs when we find savage mediums tied up in their trances, all
over the North, among Canadian Hareskins, among Samoyed and Eskimo,
while the practice ceases at a given point in Labrador, and gives
place to Medicine Lodges. The binding then reappears if not in
Australia, certainly in the ancient Greek ceremonial. The writer is
not acquainted with 'the bound and bounding young man' in the
intervening regions and it would be very interesting to find
connecting cases, stepping-stones, as it were, by which the rite
passed from the Levant to the frozen North.

ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM.

M. Littre on 'demoniac affections,' a subject, in his opinion,
worthy of closer study. Outbreak of Modern Spiritualism. Its
relations to Greek and Egyptian Spiritualism recognised. Popular
and literary sources of Modern Spiritualism. Neoplatonic
thaumaturgy not among these. Porphyry and Iamblichus. The
discerning of Spirits. The ancient attempts to prove 'spirit
identity'. The test of 'spirit lights' in the ancient world.
Perplexities of Porphyry. Dreams. The Assynt Murder. Eusebius on
Ancient Spiritualism. The evidence of Texts from the Papyri.
Evocations. Lights, levitation, airy music, anaesthesia of Mediums,
ancient and modern. Alternative hypotheses: conjuring,
'suggestion' and collective hallucination, actual fact. Strange
case of the Rev. Stainton Moses. Tabular statement sho