You ask me, my dear sir, the following questions:

1. Whether I have reached absolute conviction as to the existence of one or of several spirits?

I am a person of absolute good faith. I examined myself as a surgeon would examine an invalid. I am a person of such good faith that I have long been seeking (without finding him) a skilful practitioner who would consent to study in my own person the phenomenon while it was taking place; to ascertain the state of my pulse, the warmth of the skin, etc.,—in a word, the apparent physical side. Furthermore, in my opinion there is no auto-suggestion in this thing; and the proof is that I was absolutely ignorant of the things that I was writing mechanically,—so mechanically that, when, by chance, my attention was called away, whether by reading or by conversation, and I forgot to look where my hand was going, when it approached the edge of the paper the writing would continue backward across the sheet in reversed letters and just as fast, so that I was obliged to turn the paper over in order by holding it to the light to read what was written on it.

So then, if there is neither auto-suggestion in it, nor a somnambulistic condition (I was completely awake and not at all hypnotized), then there must be external "forces" acting upon my senses, "intelligent forces." This is my fixed and unalterable opinion.

Now are these forces spirits? Do they belong to beings like ourselves? It is evident that this hypothesis would explain many things, but leave quite a number obscure. Since I several times discovered a mental state of the lowest kind among these "beings," I have reached a conclusion that it is not absolutely necessary to think that they are "men."

We are told that there are stars which photography alone can reveal, and which, possessing a color imperceptible to our eye, are invisible to us. Then there are the gases through which a human body passes without experiencing resistence. Who will say then, that there are not around us invisible beings?

And look at the instinct of the child, of the woman, of feeble beings in general. They fear darkness; isolation makes them afraid. This sentiment is instinctive, irrational. Is it not due to an intuitive perception of the presence of these invisible personages, or forces, against which they are helpless? That is pure hypothesis on my part, but after all it seems to me defensible. As to the number of the invisible beings, I believe they are legion.

2. You ask me whether I have been able to establish their identity.

I answer that they sign some name or other, choosing in preference names of illustrious persons, in whose mouths they sometimes put the most stupid sort of expressions.

Furthermore the writing frequently ceases abruptly, as if an electric current has just been interrupted, and that without any appreciable reason. Then the writing changes, and sometimes sensible things end in absurdities, etc.