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yielded. The New York lady who came with the minister's family and
others to the house was overwhelmed when Beulah spelled her name,
which, as the affidavit said, was not known to any one else present.
This affidavit was as a matter of course given according to the best
knowledge of all concerned. Yet when later I came to Warren, one of
the participants who told me the incident strengthened it by adding
that he was the more surprised when the child spelled the name
correctly with a K at the end, as he had understood that it was
spelled with a T. In other words, some of those present did know the
name, and the lady had evidently either been introduced or addressed
by some one, and this had slipped from their minds because Beulah was
not in the room. But she was probably in the other room and caught it
in her subconscious mind. At her first debut before the minister, too,
by her same abnormal sensitiveness she probably heard when he told the
mother that he had a glass of honey in his pocket. In short, the two
actions of her subconscious mind, or of her brain, always go together,
her noticing of family signs from her mother and sister and her
catching of spoken words from strangers, both under conditions under
which ordinary persons would neither see nor hear them. We have
therefore nothing mysterious, nothing supernatural before us, but an
extremely interesting case of an abnormal mental development, and this
unusual power working in a mind which is entirely naive and sincere.
How long will this naivete and sincerity last? This is no
psychological, but a social problem. Since the newspapers have taken
hold of the case, every mail brings heaps of letters from all corners
of the country. Some of them bring invitations to give performances,
but they are not the most dangerous ones. Most of the letters urge the
child to use her mysterious, supernatural powers for trivial or
pathetic ends in the interest of the writers. Sometimes she is to
locate a lost trunk, or a mislaid pocketbook; sometimes she is to
prophesy whether a voyage will go smoothly or whether a business
venture will succeed; sometimes she is to read in her mind where a
runaway child may be found; and almost always money promises are
connected with such requests. The mother, who has not much education
but who is a splendid, right-minded country woman with the very best
intentions for the true good of her children, has ignored all this
silly invasion. She s
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