It has been said that Hope is suspiciously restless and fussy in the dark room. This, so far as my own observation goes, is correct. It may be that he is nervously anxious for success, or it may be that he is not in a normal condition—for he usually holds a service and occasionally goes into apparent trance immediately before the experiment. Whatever the cause, I am not prepared to deny the fact, or that not unreasonable suspicions might be awakened by his attitude in the minds of those who are brought for the first time in contact with his personality. I can only point to the cases already given, and say once more that no action upon his part could have produced them.
Again, it is said of Hope that he is impatient of tests and restrictions. Some of his best friends have been alienated by this fact. Mediums are touchy people—more delicately organised in many cases than any other human type. They may occasionally show an irrational annoyance and resentment against any action which implies personal suspicion. And yet, though he certainly prefers to be left to his own methods unrestrained save by ordinary observation, it is a fact that he has in the past consented to a great number of tests and has come out of them remarkably well. I have heard him say, “What have I to gain from tests? I am put to a deal of trouble, I do what I am asked to do, I get result, and then I hear no more about it except that perhaps I have convinced the person. Or perhaps, even if I have done all he asks in his own way, he still says he is unconvinced.” I can bear him out in this latter statement, for I have knowledge of three separate sittings which he had with a well-known London editor, where, under the latter’s ever more stringent conditions, Hope got results certainly twice, and, I think, thrice, and yet when I asked this editor to vouch for these results that I might quote them in this pamphlet, in the interests of truth and justice, I could get no reply to my letter. This seems to indicate either that he was not yet satisfied, though his own conditions had been carried out, or else that he had not the moral courage to help the medium at the time when he needed testimony.
The incident shows that there is some truth in Hope’s contention that tests are often a waste of energy. At the same time, it should be known that when the S.P.R. made their recent attack, founded upon a single case, Hope at once offered to give fresh sittings and to submit to the most drastic tests so long as those who were in sympathy were also associated in the experiment. For some reason the S.P.R. refused this, and it is a serious flaw in their position. None the less, we must make the admission that, in general, Hope is not fond of tests.
But there is another and more serious admission which I would make, although in doing so I may possibly be doing Hope an injustice. He is, in my opinion, not only a spiritualist, but a fanatic, which is a dangerous thing in any line of thought. We are aware that one must “test the spirits,” but I believe that Hope has such childlike and blind faith in his guides that he would obey their directions whatever they might be. I recollect one case where a distinguished man of science sent Hope a sealed packet, upon which the latter placed it in a bucket of water, under the alleged prompting of some spirit message. The natural result was to alienate the scientific man from psychic photography for many years. It is easy to say that this was simply a case of vulgar fraud, but fraud would be done in some manner which could be concealed and not in so drastic a manner as that, and, as I have shown, fraud does not at all fit in with Hope’s usual results. I make the critic a present of the case, merely adding that I believe Hope’s account of his motives to be absolutely true, however incomprehensible it might seem.
I have now, I hope, convinced any reasonable reader of the genuine nature of Hope’s powers, which, after all, wonderful as they may seem, are by no means unique, but are to be matched by those of several contemporaries both in England and in America—not all of them professionals.
We will next turn to the particular case treated in the report of the S.P.R. drawn up by Mr. Price, and afterwards published in a sixpenny form and widely distributed gratis with the evident intention of ruining Hope. Apart from its truth or falseness, the pamphlet is in deplorable taste, with puns upon Hope’s name, and tags of Johnson and Dryden dotted over it. So grave a subject should be treated with dignity even when severity is necessary. I will now state the case as clearly as I can, together with some remarkable side-lights which have appeared since the publication.
Having determined to catch Hope out, Mr. Price, who has considerable knowledge both of conjuring and of photography, procured from the Imperial Dry Plate Company eight plates, all of which had been cut from the same sheet of glass. Six of these plates were made up into a single packet, and all were treated by X-rays, so that while there was no outward sign that they had been marked there would, according to the testimony of the Company, appear upon them when they were developed a design of the Company’s trademark.
Carrying with him this doctored packet, and accompanied by a friend, Mr. Seymour, also a conjurer, Mr. Price kept an appointment which Mr. Hope had given him at the British College of Psychic Science, London, on February 24th, 1922. The mediums were quite unsuspicious of any trap, nor did they hear anything of the matter till four months later.
Mr. Price says: “I made myself very pleasant, said how sorry I was that they had been ill with influenza, and asked after the Crewe Circle, saying that my people were natives of Shropshire.” A private detective must, of course, use deception, but when Mr. Price at a later stage proceeded to ask that “Onward, Christian soldiers!” be the hymn sung, and suggesting that the extra finally shown was that of his own mother, he really does seem to be wallowing in it to an unnecessary degree. After all, the matter was one of business; he had paid for his sitting, he would surely get it, and no elaborate deception was needed.