PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 7^5 



located on a shelf in another room. In this particular case 

 the experimenter at once went to the other room to investigate. 

 His two boys were working there. He asked where the bell 

 was. One of the boys looked up at the shelf, and said, aston- 

 ished, that it was there a few minutes ago. The experimenter 

 was Sir William Crookes, now President of the Royal Society, 

 who also testifies to raps, movement of objects without contact, 

 and materialisation. The medium who gave him the greatest 

 range of results was D. D. Home, who, contrary to Browning's 

 assertion, now disproved, was never caught in trickery, or 

 anything like it. Sir William's materialisations, however, were 

 mostly produced by the medium Florence Cook. All the ex- 

 periments were carried out in Sir William Crookes's own house 

 or that of a friend, and all the sitters were his close relatives 

 or friends. Usually he did not decide which room to use for 

 the seance until the last minute, so that preparation by a 

 hypothetical trickster was rendered impossible. It is useless 

 to discuss this evidence in detail, but any one who will read it 

 with a really open mind will probably find it rather impressive. 



The performances of the Rev. Stainton Moses seem to have 

 equalled those of Home. Unfortunately, Mr. Moses gave sittings 

 to his own friends only, and the evidence is therefore less good. 

 But he was certainly a very highly respected man — a teacher of 

 English for eighteen years at University College School, after 

 throat trouble compelled relinquishment of his curacy — and no 

 evidence of fraud or anything incompatible with complete 

 integrity has ever been brought against him. 



The most famous physical medium of modern times, however, 

 is Eusapia Palladino, who is still living. For thirty years this 

 Neapolitan peasant woman has provided material for the psycho- 

 logical savants of Western Europe to puzzle over. She was 

 certainly caught tricking in the Cambridge sittings of 1895, held 

 by Dr. Hodgson, Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr. Myers, and Prof. Sidg- 

 wick ; also, perhaps, in some recent sittings in America. It is 

 admitted, even by those who believe in her genuine powers, that 

 she cheats sometimes, perhaps in a trance-state, which absolves 

 her of moral responsibility. But it is a fact, on the other hand, 

 that she had in 1894 convinced Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr. Myers, 

 and Prof. Richet (the recent recipient of the 191 3 Nobel prize 

 for physiology) of her supernormal faculty. After the Cambridge 

 sittings, Mr. Myers further confirmed his good opinion by some 



