"The materialized spirit was a little larger than I, and of more vivid complexion, her hair was longer, her features heavier and her eyes larger. Yet on looking at this face I thought I saw myself in a mirror, the resemblance was so great.

"The spirit laid her hands upon my shoulders and gazing at me attentively murmured, 'Mignonne, ma petite.' (My dear little one)."

This spirit, which appeared often, was called the French lady and was one of the rare apparitions capable of speaking. The author said concerning her: "She was my particular friend, as we all knew, and came on my account, although she gave much less attention to me than to the other members of the society. The special role I had to play in the seances prevented her, perhaps, from showing me her affection for she had noticed that whatever especially occupied my mind or aroused my interest caused a weakening, a notable decrease in her power among us. She always showed far more regard to the others, particularly to Mr. F., the only one who could speak her native language."

It is certain that the entity manifesting herself in the very substance of the medium, would avoid releasing this matter which did not belong to her. At the slightest excitement, the subconscious action of the medium tended to recovery of her own cells: it was necessary, therefore, to leave the medium in her state of coma and to spare her all emotion. In some cases the assistants were able to furnish part of the elements, and thus relieve the medium.

So extraordinary a phenomenon is always difficult to explain. We are forced to take account of the psychological analysis which Madame d'Esperance has given of herself. This analysis sets forth the consecutive sensations of the seizure of her bodily substance, and on the psychological side, the telepathic sensations which prove her participation in the life of the phantom. But we must not conclude that entities of the other worlds are not also present. Indeed, we notice that even though the sensation belongs to the medium, her passivity is required. The medium does not act within the phantom, and the latter has a tendency to dissolve as the will of the medium seeks to regain her organism. This means that the phantom can do nothing except by means of the organs it borrows and without which it would have no existence upon the material plane: but this does not mean that it is not master of its acts upon the mental plane.

In fact, the medium, physiologically impoverished, finds herself in a strange situation. She shares the sensations of the phantom, since it is her own substance which constitutes the materiality of the apparition. Whatever touches the phantom affects her, but it is wrong to see in this a proof of the identity of the medium and her phantom. The identity is wholly material, while the mentality of the phantom remains independent.

This mutual sharing of matter by two possessors renders absolutely criminal the attacks made by new comers before they have gained any rational idea of the phenomenon. The race of unbelievers knows no golden mean between an outright deception and an apparition embodying their mystical idea of a heavenly creature, with them a pre-conceived notion. Like Miss Florence Cook, our medium was the victim of one of these brutal seizures.

Madame d'Esperance thus describes the attack:

"I do not know how the seance began. I had seen Yolande take her pitcher upon her shoulder and leave the cabinet. I learned later what took place. What I felt was the anguishing, horrible sensation of being crushed or smothered, the sensation I imagine, of a rubber doll being violently embraced by its small owner. Then terror overwhelmed me and I was in an agony of distress: I seemed to lose the use of my senses and imagined myself falling into a fearful abyss, knowing, seeing and hearing nothing save the echo of a piercing cry, which seemed to come from afar. As I felt myself falling I tried to grasp a support and found none: I fainted and came to, trembling with horror as from a death blow.

"My senses seemed scattered to all the winds and it was only little by little, that I could come to myself enough to understand what had happened. Yolande had been seized, having been mistaken for me!" 1

1 Au pays de I'ombre, p. 244.

Unfortunately there are still fools who declare that chicanery has been unmasked by similar actions. But it was just such an act which consequently placed Miss Florence Cook under the scientific control of Messrs. Crookes and Varley, and such acts have left nothing in the arms of those who committed them. Did they seize some wretched mannikin? No - but the medium came out physically broken, with a serious hemorrhage of the lungs.

This outrage was later followed by fortunate consequences. The medium declared with sincerity, "If I have some part in the creation of these forms, I wish to know it." And taking up her experiments once more, with her usual spirit of investigation, decided not to enter the cabinet again, but to remain among the audience.

In this second series of experiments, we should note two instructive seances. We might wonder if it is not a question of a mere redoubling of the medium, without intervention by an occult entity. Mme. d'Esperance answers the question. It was in Christiania during the course of a seance in which different apparitions had already appeared, Mme. d'Esperance thus completes her story:

"Now they saw another figure advance, smaller, slenderer, and holding out her arms. Someone rose from the circle, hurried toward her and fell into her arms. I heard inarticulate cries, 'Anna, Oh, Anna! My child, my love.'

"Another person also approached and took the spirit in her arms: tears, sobs and thanksgivings were mingled. I felt my body drawn to the right and left and everything grew dark before my eyes.

I felt the arms of someone about me, and yet I was alone, seated upon my chair. I felt the heart of someone beat against my breast. I felt all this was happening to me, and yet there was no person near me except the two children. No one remembered my presence: all thoughts and all eyes seemed concentrated upon the white and delicate figure surrounded by the arms of the two women in mourning.