THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 731 



tant detail, Dr. Furness will supply one. Certain highly intelli- 

 gent observers describe to him the doings of a Boston medium : 

 " There are two tables in the room of seance, at one of which sits 

 the medium, at the other the visitor. The visitor at his table 

 writes his question in pencil at the top of a long slip of paper, 

 and, after folding over several times the portion of the slip on 

 which his question is written, gums it down with mucilage and 

 hands it to the medium, who thereupon places on the folded and 

 gummed portion his left hand, and in a few minutes with his 

 right hand writes down answers to the concealed questions ; these 

 answers are marvels of pertinency, and prove beyond a cavil the 

 clairvoyant or spiritual powers of the medium." Dr. Furness 

 went to the medium, prepared his slip of paper about as described, 

 and thus continues : " As soon as he took his seat, and laid the 

 strip on his table before him, I rose and approached the table so 

 as to keep my paper still in sight ; the roiu of books entirely inter- 

 cepted my view of it. The medium instantly motioned tome to 

 return to my seat, and, I think, told me to do so. I obeyed, and 

 as I did so could not repress a profound sigh. "Why had no one 

 ever told me of that row of books ? " 



Before passing sentence one must hear what the defendant has 

 to say. The usual defense consists in claiming that the conviction 

 of fraud in some mediums does not jjrove the absence of genuine 

 phenomena in others. Some even claim, as we saw, that fraud 

 and spirit manifestations can go hand in hand. Furthermore, 

 they hold that the conditions for success demanded by the me- 

 diums, though they make the phenomena resemble a juggler's 

 performance, are perfectly explicable on spiritualistic grounds. 

 Writing is best produced in the dark because dark is " negative," 

 light " positive," and negative conditions are most favorable to 

 communication ; if the spirit that appears resembles the medium, 

 that is an effect of the materializing process ; if writing does not 

 occur when the slate is looked at, it is because the magnetism 

 of the eye is unfavorable ; and has not Dr. Slade received an 

 express command from the spirits forbidding him, on penalty 

 of cutting off all communication, to attempt to write on sealed 

 slates ? 



In the first place, while it is not thus proved that every action 

 of every medium is fraudulent, it makes it more and more proba- 

 ble, especially as the very conditions necessary for a serious inves- 

 tigation are denied on fanciful grounds. The fact that scientific 

 examination everywhere reveals deception makes it extremely 

 probable that, when exposure has not taken place, it is because 

 there was no scientific examination. At any rate, the burden of 

 proof is with the claimants for supernatural manifestations, and 

 their case has now been so much weakened that it can no longer 



