EINSTEIN: In general, they will be in the right, for investigators cannot be expected to occupy themselves with things bolstered up by advertisement, and which are supposed to be connected with some fabulous, occult regions.
M.: Nevertheless, in my opinion even among such displays there sometimes occur phenomena which scientists should not pass over with contempt. I, myself, have experienced such cases, and have said to myself: There are stranger happenings here——
EINSTEIN:—than are dreamt of in your philosophy, you were about to say?
M.: Exactly. These are things that in the guise of sensationalism often hide a physical truth well worthy of study.
EINSTEIN: But you must not overlook the fact that in such cases you have mostly played the part of an onlooker, and hence were exposed to all possible manner of deception. You are baffled on all sides by undiscoverable tricks and by other persons, whose collusion you do not suspect. This renders an objective criticism impossible.
M.: This presumes that the performing artist is not entirely isolated. It is possible to bring about conditions that positively eliminate all tricks from the very outset.
EINSTEIN: If you have experienced any such cases, relate them by all means.
M.: I shall be brief, and shall state only facts....
EINSTEIN: Or, expressed more accurately, only things which seem to have been facts as far as you can trust to memory. Well then, you think that you have grounds for saying that you caught a glimpse of a mysterious world at that time.
M.: It is certainly long ago, more than thirty years. Hansen, the freak, one of the most eminent of his profession, was showing hypnotic and telepathic experiments that were partly identical with experiments that the celebrated scientist Charcot at Paris was performing for purposes of pathology.