NOTE

The writer desires to express his sincere thanks to the Council of the Society for Psychical Research for the permission given to make extracts from the Proceedings of the Society, from the privately printed Journal, and from "Phantasms of the Living"; and for allowing the reproduction of a series of Thought-Transference Drawings. Also best thanks are due to Mrs. Myers, and to Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co., for permission to make quotations from Mr. F. W. H. Myers' great work, "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death." Also to Mr. J. Burns and his brother, for freely granting permission for any use to be made of the James Burns 1873 Edition of the "Report of the Committee of the Dialectical Society."

E. T. B.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

By Sir OLIVER LODGE

Consulted by the publishers as to the production of a small popular text-book, which should constitute a summary indication of the nature of the evidence for ultra-normal physical or meta-psychical phenomena, I suggested Mr. E. T. Bennett as the right man for the task. I have now seen the proof sheets, and—without making myself in any way responsible for details—perceive that he has done the work well, and has presented a satisfactory outline of the testimony for whatever it may be worth. Concerning its value I will only say that to my mind there comes a stage at which belief in gratuitous invention and false statement becomes forced and irrational. With most of the evidence here adduced I have of course been familiar for years, in its original sources, and am well aware of the extreme difficulty or impossibility of understanding some of the alleged facts in any physical or physiological sense; nevertheless if I am asked whether such impressions can be actually received and honestly recorded by sane people, and whether I recommend experiment by careful and competent and unsuperstitious observers as if a primâ facie case had been made out—that is to say, as if some of these unusual and hitherto quite unexplained occurrences might possibly turn out to be true—having laws of their own and constituting an unopened chapter of science, or rather a new science, uniting characteristics from physical, chemical, physiological, and psychological sciences, and throwing new light on the connection between mind and matter—then, though doubtless the answer will be received with scorn, I answer unhesitatingly yes.

SPIRITUALISM

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

A short title to a book has its advantages. It has also its disadvantages. It is almost inevitable that it should, on the one hand, seem to include much more than is intended, and, on the other hand, fail to convey the purpose of the author. "Geology" would be a tolerably large subject. "Astronomy" would be vastly larger. But "Spiritualism" is an infinite subject compared with either, and to suggest that its claims to scientific study be considered within the compass of a small volume of not much over a hundred pages seems the height of presumption!

It will therefore be well at the outset to indicate exactly what it is proposed to include in the present investigation into "Spiritualism." The alleged phenomena of Spiritualism may be