J. MALCOLM BIRD 271 



eliminate emotion, maintain proper procedure, and 

 preserve the attitude of serious inquiry. The only 

 specific move in this direction which I need mention 

 here Is the presence of a stenographer, assuring an 

 accurate and permanent record of all that is said and 

 done. 



There will of course be more or less of darkness, 

 of soft music, of the atmosphere of relaxation and 

 ease. These conditions are not necessarily in conflict 

 with the purpose of serious inquiry, and they are those 

 best calculated to produce the fixation of sensory at- 

 tention and the passivity of conscious cerebration on 

 which hypnosis depends. The sitters ignore these con- 

 ditions and are practised in ignoring them; the medium 

 submits to them and is practised in this submission. 

 Under their Influence, he goes through a process known 

 to him as that of entering trance. Whatever Its ulti- 

 mate facts, this process necessarily has its physiological 

 and psychological sides, and on both these grounds we 

 readily recognize it as a mere matter of auto-hypnosis. 

 With the entranced medium this reaches a degree 

 where the subject's normal consciousness quite evapo- 

 rates, and he undergoes a definite alteration or disso- 

 ciation of personality. 



Thus, when the medium is "fully in trance" — when 

 the alteration of personality is complete — there begin 

 to function. In one way or another, personalities of 

 quite definite character, and other than his normal 

 self. These claim to be deceased friends of the sitters, 

 who purport to be able thus to enter, for a time, Into 

 the medium's physical and mental organism and to 

 use it for their own purposes. One after another 

 these come into full apparent possession of the me- 



