I
“Mediumship” is a word with ugly associations, as every honest-minded Spiritualist will admit. It used to be said that the Psychical Society found its chief occupation in exposing fraud and trickery. The great Russian authority, Aksakof, complained bitterly of the frequent transmission of obviously false messages. He wrote of “the deception which appeared along with the dark séance and materialisations, and which was confirmed in my experience, not only from literature, but also through my personal relations with the most celebrated professional mediums.” He would have agreed with Mrs. Sidgwick’s words: “The chief scandal of Spiritualism is the encouragement it gives to the immoral trade of fraudulent mediumship.”
On that point, inquirers should note, there is no dispute at all among responsible investigators. In the earlier stages of the movement exposures were so numerous that a theory was evolved to account for them. It was admitted that in many cases the medium cheated, but it was alleged that this was done unconsciously, and that the fraud was really perpetrated from the other side. The late Professor De Morgan wrote of certain phenomena: “If these things be spirits, they show that pretenders, coxcombs and liars are to be found on the other side of the grave as well as on this.” The idea was also elaborated that an uncongenial “circle” might induce bad spirits to play tricks with the medium.
“The cheating medium,” as Mr. Waite puts it, “was sure of his defence. He was caught red-handed, but it was the ill-conditioned circle that attracted the ‘unprogressed spirits’ to tempt him. He carried the baggage of a conjuror on his tours, but the real infamy rested with the persons who had dared to trespass on the liberty of the subject by ransacking his private effects.” Kind-hearted men and women would make any excuse rather than admit that a favourite “psychic” had been guilty of conscious deception.
Since the bad side of mediumship is admitted, it is needless to re-array the historic evidence. Let us turn from the past to the present, and ask what has been the cumulative effect of so many disastrous exposures on the leaders of the Spiritualist movement in our own day.