276 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



not to the fact of delivery or communication: rather 

 merely to the presence, in the medium's mouth, of 

 knowledge not normally his. 



Before we indulge in any speculation as to how it 

 got there, let us have a further showing of data. The 

 seance which we have described was one of trance 

 message, and it represents a distinct type. Another 

 category is the clairvoyant reading. The setting is 

 about as for the full trance performance; if there is 

 any difference. It will lie in a less rigid enforcement 

 of the visibly auto-hypnoldal conditions. The clair- 

 voyant passes Into auto-hypnosis, but usually not of 

 such depth or obviousness as to constitute "trance." 

 His normal personality does not vacate; there Is 

 merely a subsidence of his conscious attention to the 

 real physical world and to the waking mental life. 

 This permits a hallucinatory condition In which the 

 subject has sense impressions that are real to him but 

 that do not correspond to any external physical stimu- 

 lus. They are hallucinatory by definition, and by the 

 same definition the condition permitting them Is auto- 

 hypnotic. 



The content of these extraneous sense-impressions Is 

 exactly as though the subject were in sensory exposure 

 to a spirit world. His state of approximation to nor- 

 mal consciousness enables him to report In full on 

 what he "sees" and "hears" and "feels" and "smells" 

 — usually while the hallucination Is current, though 

 sometimes only after it Is passed. When he renders 

 this report, the evidence that he has been In touch 

 with your deceased friends Is of precisely the same 

 sort and power as that obtained through the trance 



