Fortunately, conditions are better in England. To her is the honor and the glory of having instituted a receiving station, where it was possible to obtain the first authentic message from the Beyond.

It is great good fortune for us that the Society of Physical Research not only claimed such men as F. H. Myers, Hodgson and Oliver Lodge, who stand for absolute scientific guarantee, but that it found in the person of Mrs. Piper an exceptional medium whose enthusiasm and devotion is above all praise. . The case of Mrs. Piper - studied with perseverance by these men who accept, provisionally and as hypothetical, the personalities of those who presented themselves as the spirits of deceased relatives - has given such results that all the consultants had the sensation of the real presence of the relatives and their friends. All the scholars who have followed these experiments closely had ended by accepting this interpretation. In trying to explain the facts of clairvoyancy by the reading of thought and by subconsciousness, one attempts the impossible. If the sub-consciousness of Miss Smith has created seven or eight personalities of distinct characters, each one having its own language, its particular handwriting, and its characteristic orthography, Mrs. Piper could have produced several hundreds of personalities equally intelligent: that is to say, hundreds of memories which would make no confusion among themselves. I cannot, for want of space, dwell longer upon the obscurities of her early attempts.1 They were gropings and do not affirm in the least the value of the results since obtained.

1 See the book by Mr. Sage, Mrs. Piper.

The trances of Mrs. Piper written by Mr. F. M. Myers,1 may be divided into three phases:

1. When the principal directing being was Dr. Phinuit and when he made almost exclusive use of the vocal organs.

2. When the communications were obtained in a state of trance, principally through automatic writing and under the special surveillance of the being known as George Pelham. Nevertheless, Dr. Phinuit often communicated during this period, 1892-1894.

3. When the direction belonged to Imperator, Doctor Rector, and some others, and when the communications took place generally in writing, and sometimes by word.

This last phase commenced in 1897, it continues to the present, and promises to continue hereafter. After the obscurities and confusions of the beginning the intervention of other spirits was a detriment to the phenomena. It seemed that it would be necessary to guard against these importunities, by a telephonic cabinet directed from the outside. Many mysterious entities concentrated to overcome these disturbing influences. Conditions were thus better established, the mysterious correspondents could express themselves more securely in influencing the motive centers of the medium.

This agrees with many other experiments. It often happens that persons absolutely ignorant of spiritualism making a test merely for amusement see a being who puts the question to them, "Why are you here?" and the answer, "I do not know, I have seen a light, I was urged and I am here."

1 Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, 1908, VoL VII, p. 257.

Thus spirits think in words, think in writing: and if no disturbing influence comes to destroy the effect, the physiological mechanism of a medium would be apt to reveal itself automatically, under this simple excitation. In the case where two hands write at once, it is because there is harmony between the two spirits, though each one thinks in a different organ. Sometimes there is a struggle, a pause, or incoherence when a medium resists. This struggle, however, only seems real, we find it at the beginning of all mediumship; but in the case of Mrs. Piper the order was not re-established until after the intervention of George Pelham.

George Pelham, pseudonym, is one of the most interesting personalities of all those who tried to manifest themselves through the intermediary of Mrs. Piper. He was a young man, well brought up, who had casually studied the case of Mrs. Piper in company with Dr. Hodgson, secretary of the American Branch of the Society. He died, the victim of an accident, and several weeks after his death communications obtained through the mediation of Mrs. Piper seemed to come from him.

It was in 1892 that Dr. Phinuit, an enigmatic entity, who up to that time had commanded as a master, was chased from his domain, or at least forced to share it with a newcomer, who established his identity beyond a doubt.

George Pelham, who had but recently died, seeme I to have kept intact his recollections, although in the course of the experiments, he declared - "I am withdrawing from you more each day." For seven years these experiments have lasted, for it was four weeks after George Pelham died, from an accident while riding, that his intervention revealed the value of the communication.

George Pelham was confronted with an audience of thirty or more old friends, his father, and his mother. He recognized each one and called them all by name, maintaining the same attitude that in life he was accustomed to observe towards them. Every time a newcomer was presented to the medium he was introduced under a false name. It was necessary therefore, to possess great credulity in order to attribute this limitless power of divination to Mrs. Piper.

Each consultant always asked very intimate questions, even very futile details. G. Pelham was always able to give exact details, as for example, to indicate the special features of a porch, a swing, or a chicken coop of a country house. And these descriptions all conform to reality.

Mr. Pelham, the father, received from the mouth of the spirit all he could have expected to hear from his living son.

The sixteenth volume of the Annals of the Society is especially dedicated to the seances of James Hyslop, a person of considerable importance in the State of New York.