"It was indeed my own heart that I felt beating so distinctly - but those arms around me? I had never experienced a contact as real and began to wonder who I was. Was I the white silhouette or the person seated in the chair? Were those my hands round the neck of the elderly lady, or were they mine which lay upon my knees? I mean upon the knees of the person seated upon the chair, in case that was not myself.

"Certainly they were my lips that received the kisses; it was my face that I felt wet with the tears shed so abundantly by the two ladies - yet how could that be? It was a terrible feeling thus to lose consciousness of one's identity. I strove to raise one of those useless hands and to touch someone, in order to know if I really existed, or was merely the victim of a dream: if Anna were myself or if I had confused my personality with hers.

I felt the trembling arms of the old lady, I felt the kisses, tears and caresses of her sister: I heard their blessings, and, seized with a veritable agony of doubt, I wondered how long it would last. How long shall we be two? And how will it end? Will I be Anna or will Anna be me?

"Suddenly I felt two little hands slip into mine, which lay inert. They put me once more into possession of myself. With a feeling of great joy I felt that I was indeed myself. Little Jonte, weary of being eclipsed by the three materialized forms, suddenly felt lonely and took my hands to comfort himself with my company.

"How profoundly happy I was made by the simple touch of a child's hand! My doubts as to my individuality and location had vanished and as these thoughts came to me, the white silhouette of Anna disappeared into the cabinet and the two ladies returned to their places, overcome, weeping, but transported with joy."

It requires an effort of the imagination to put ourselves in the medium's situation, and to realize its dramatic character. After years of study, Mme. d'Esperance still wondered if she had been a victim of auto-suggestion. Sure of her sincerity, she was not sure of the reality of the apparitions. Recalling the resemblance of Yolande to herself, the brutal seizure from which she had formerly suffered raised a new problem. She no longer felt her body, was unconscious of her location, on the contrary she felt intensely whatever she saw come into contact with the phantom. The spectators, solely occupied with the apparition, seemed to ignore her presence, and her mind became deranged: finally, a child's caress released her from this anguish. Therefore, she was not absent, she was indeed there upon her chair, visible to all. She was not the other in whom all her sensations seemed confused.

This phrase, "Am I Anna or is Anna myself?" is in its simplicity, absolutely expressive. It bespeaks the trouble of a sincere medium and explains the hasty judgments of unfair experimenters. In short the confusion of sensations might cause the medium to lose the distinction between the organ and its double. When she wishes to make an effort, as was the case with Eusapia, upon whom were imposed experiments of a physical nature, she cannot always discern whether it be the invisible fluidic member or the hand of flesh that obeys the suggestion, and at the least suspicious movement of the latter, most unjust judgments are formed.

In the case of Madame d'Esperance, it was her entire body which felt this uncertainty of itself, but her reasoning powers remained intact. This has been excellently said by M. Gabriel Delanne.

"Thus it seems incontestable that insofar as matter is concerned, medium and phantom are strictly interdependent and intimately united: but from the psychological point of view, the separation is complete. They are two distinct beings existent at the same moment, but as different one from the other as if the same substance did not serve them at the same moment. A materialized spirit and a medium are somewhat like the Siamese twins, who had a part of the body in common, but whose heads thought separately, each on its own side." 1

Thus the phenomenon borrows the substance of the medium, dissociating the organs without dissolving the thinking individuality.

It is almost contrary with the outgoing of a soul; the soul remains and the body partly withdraws, at the suggestion of a foreign influence.

We might quote still other famous materializations. In 1886 in London, Aksakof succeeded in taking photographs in which the medium and the apparition were visible simultaneously.1 The medium was Eglinton, the same who gave the magnificent apparition witnessed by the painter James Tissot, who preserved its memory for us in his splendid engraving.

1 G. Delanne, Lea Apparitions Materialisees. Vol. l1, p. 687.

Dr. Gibier, founder of the Pasteur Institute in New York, gave an account of his experiences with Mrs. Salmon, in a memoir addressed to the Psychological Congress in Paris on the materialization of phantoms. Charles Richet observed in Algiers in 1905 at the home of General Noel a materialized form, and in a minutely detailed report, demonstrated that this personage was neither a reflected image, a mirror, a doll nor a mannikin. This, however, did not prevent certain petty individuals, seeking notoriety, from launching an infamous attack by setting forth hypotheses incompatible with the facts and mutually sustaining one another by each bringing forward a different version. Nevertheless, Richet's report still exists unimpaired and among other conclusive statements he wrote:

"In any case this remains, which is of considerable value - that a living body took form before my eyes in front of the curtain, rising from the floor and returning into the floor.

"I was so fully persuaded that this living body could not proceed from the curtain, that I suspected at first a trap, which was absurd.

"The day following this experiment, I examined minutely the tile and the coach house directly under this part of the pavilion. The very high ceiling of this stable was plastered with lime, hung with spider webs and inhabited by spiders which had not been disturbed for a long time, when by means of a ladder, I explored the ceiling." 1

1 See G. Delanne, Les Apparitions Materialisees. Vol. II, pp. 294-399.

Those who know this scholarly physiologist, are aware that he makes no affirmation lightly.

1 Annates des Sciences Psychiques. Nov., 1905, p. 658.