It seems certain that in cases like those I cite, we have the proof of a thought, an intelligence at work in ourselves, and distinct from our own personalities.

Sir John Herschell.

After having established the materialism of these facts, let us now examine the intelligence which they manifest and the sense in which they can be interpreted.

Heavy bodies moved by exterior substance can obey the most diverse agents. It is generally admitted that these movements can be directed by the subconscious element or by surrounding ideas: but there is a fact which has been proved by observation, and which is no longer to be denied - that the motive agent can be a living person, present or not at the time of the experience, and even, sometimes, very far from the medium.

These cases are valuable for study, since they are the only ones that show with certainty the agent who calls forth the phenomenon. In the discovery of this source we have been able to distinguish telepathy from organic disorders. Thus, we may affirm that not only organs, but also inert bodies, when they are enveloped by the animic influx, can be moved telepathically, although the person who thinks is wholly unconscious of the effect produced. And it is well to guard against attributing this phenomenon to an unconscious agent, since consciousness is present: it is found in the active agent who is conscious of these ideas.

When one has a true medium and when a table becomes animated after a suitable preparation, take a pack of cards, place one that no one has seen in the center of the table and ask who can guess the placed card: most often you will have no response, or will obtain only deplorable gropings. But stay on the outside of the circle, begin the trial again with a card that you alone have seen, and the table will divine accurately.

Here is a proof of transmission of thought. Here you will be the active agent, the exterior substance will be at the same time sensitive and active: it will divine in you the thought formed and will find, in itself, the force which permits it to rise spontaneously at the opportune moment.

Such an organism, exteriorized, that is to say, acting outside of the physiological center which is its normal habitat, is open to all influences, exposed to all caprices, and it often becomes a mirror of errors and incoherences. Thus is shown a manifestation of an inferior order.

Nevertheless we see that, in the same field of mysterious force, an intelligence is manifested which shows itself independent: some special circumstance permits the discovery of the agent which has brought this reaction, and it happens that this was a living person, unknown to the audience - one who sent true messages. There is a manifestation which becomes instructive, as it is of a much higher degree.

Finally, the influence changes again, a mysterious entity seems to take possession of this force, and, through it, gives responses which it is impossible to attribute to a living person, and makes revelations which seem to establish the identity of one deceased. Therein is the transcendent manifestation.

Numerous examples of these three degrees of manifestations are found in special works. Whatever we say of table-tipping, we could also say of automatic writing, and one sees by this, what close relations unite all these phenomena. Telepathy acts as well, directly upon the interior sensorium, as indirectly upon the secondary organs and the motor centers, and even, as is the case around a table, upon the animic substance which seems to overflow corporeal form as the field of magnetic force spreads around the braces of a magnet.

Thus, pure thought tends to produce upon all sensitive organs, visual and auditory images, etc., and even motive images which produce the so-called unconscious movements. A phenomenon is capricious, it responds to our demands, it defers to our desires, but it does not obey our will. Good communications, however, are rare, because the nebulous psychic constitutes, in a manner, an amorphous being as long as a directing entity has not taken possession of it. A true communication can only be obtained in as far as an intelligence intervenes strong enough to set aside the unformed thoughts which create confusion.

It may be, however, that we hold the fact as a revelation. Each time that we have been able to trace back to the source of an automatic message, we have found it in a living person. We are very certain then that the telepathic action we have seen affect sensitive centers can exert a similar influence upon the excitomotor centers, and thus create an altogether automatic mode of correspondence. A person physiologically endowed to produce automatic writing is alone in her home: a force incites her to take a pencil; and she writes:

"Your friend wishes to see you, he is at present on a certain street, such and such a number."

You hurry there and find the message to be true.

Another writes: "Your friend X------- is coming to see you, he has taken the 'bus at such a station, in half an hour he will be with you."

It is not the consciousness of the subject that writes these things: nor is it the consciousness of the friend: the psychic force draws from somewhere the clairvoyance of which it gives proof. The rest is formed according to the ordinary processes of thought: that which we do ourselves in writing is well known: we think the written form: and the rest is mechanical - the thought is equivalent to the action. Starting from there, one can and one should admit the presence of a third conscious entity, witness of the actions of the friend X-------, and informing the medium by thinking through her organism. It is not necessary, even, that this third person be conscious of the effect which she produces: with the medium thus endowed many things may be perceived as though by chance.

I see no reason, however, for not admitting a voluntary and conscious intervention in the presence of clearly formulated expression.