J. MALCOLM BIRD 277 



medium. Which is to say, his descriptions of them are 

 correct and his accounts of what they said are factual 

 and in character. Through him, in another way and 

 by another operating technique than with the trance 

 medium but none the less adequately, there has been 

 delivered knowledge not normally his. 



Now I have purposely selected extreme types of 

 pure trance and pure clairvoyance for the preceding 

 descriptions. Absolute purity of type however seldom 

 occurs. Thus, in trance, there often functions a single 

 dominating "spirit" personality who runs the seance, 

 permitting individual communicators to speak now and 

 again when he vacates in their behalf his position of 

 control of the medium's organism. Often, when this 

 Is the picture, this control personality works with some 

 of the communicators just as does the clairvoyant — 

 describing and quoting Instead of giving them access 

 to the Instrument. Equally, the clairvoyant will suffer 

 lapses Into a deeper trance. In which some "communi- 

 cator" speaks directly; or he may habitually employ 

 such full trance, reporting his visions and auditions In 

 his own person (to report through another person- 

 ality would make him a trance medium, under control) 

 while they occur or after he awakes. Again, the trance 

 medium will have lapses into a condition approximat- 

 ing consciousness and in these intervals may operate 

 after the clairvoyant model. 



It Is necessary to recognize the two types, of trance 

 message and clairvoyance. It is not necessary to re- 

 gard the difference as more than a minor one of oper- 

 ating detail; in view of the shading between the types 

 and the impossibility of drawing a hard-and-fast line, 

 it is hardly even possible to do so. Both operators 



