THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 729 



attitude in his sitters that entertains (however remotely) the pos- 

 sibility of witnessing something supernatural, and this is sufficient 

 to create an adjustment of the powers of observation less fitted to 

 detect trickery than if the performer did not announce himself 

 as the go-between of the supernatural. This is well illustrated in 

 the reports of Mr. Davey's sitters, for a few friends who were told 

 beforehand that they were to witness a sleight-of-hand perform- 

 ance, or were strongly led to believe it such, made much less of 

 a marvel of the performance than those who had not been thus 

 enlightened. It remains to add that not one of the sitters (and 

 they were persons of decidedly more than average intelligence 

 and ability) detected his modus operandi, and a large number 

 concluded that trickery was utterly insufficient to account for the 

 manifestations. 



Mr. Davey's performances, as described by many of his sitters, 

 like the descriptions of the performances of many a medium, are 

 marvelous enough to demand the hypothesis of occult agency: 

 " Writing upon slates locked and carefully guarded by witnesses 

 — writing upon slates held by the witnesses firmly against the 

 under surface of the table — writing upon slates held by the wit- 

 nesses above the table — answers to questions written secretly in 

 locked slates — correct quotations appearing on guarded slates 

 from books chosen by the witnesses at random, and sometimes 

 mentally, the books not touched by the ' medium '',... messages 

 in languages unknown to the ' medium,' including a message in 

 German, for which only a mental request had been made, and a 

 letter in Japanese in a double slate locked and sealed by the wit- 

 ness, etc. And yet, though ' autographic ' fragments of pencil were 

 ' heard ' weaving mysterious messages between and under and 

 over slates, and fragments of chalk were seen moving about 

 under a tumbler placed above the table in full view, none of the 

 sitters witnessed that best phenomenon, Mr. Davey ivriting." 



It must not be supposed that the errors of mal-description and 

 lapse of memory thus committed are at all serious in themselves ; 

 on the contrary, they are mostly such as would be entirely par- 

 donable in ordinary matters. Mr. Hodgson places them in four 

 classes. In the first, the observer interpolates a fact which really 

 did no,t happen, but which he was led to believe had occurred. 

 He records that he examined the slate, when he really did not. 

 Or, for similar causes, he substitutes one statement for another 

 closely like it ; he says he examined the slate minutely, when he 

 really only did so hastily. Thirdly, he may transpose the order in 

 which the events happened, making the examination of the slate 

 occur at a later period than when it really took place. Lastly, he 

 may omit certain details which he was carefully led to consider 

 trivial, but which really were most important. Such slight lapses 



