Dr Hodgson.—"Well, do you see that there is a conflict, because the brain substance is, so to speak, saturated with her tendencies of thought?"
George Pelham.—"No, not that, but the solid substance called brain—it is difficult to control it simply because it is material; her mind leaves the brain empty as it were, and I myself, or other spiritual mind or thought, take the empty brain, and there is where and when the conflict arises."
All this is very unintelligible in the present condition of our knowledge. But here is another passage even less intelligible and one which in its naïveté almost suggests that the speaker is playing with us. George Pelham says to his friend James Howard at the first sitting at which James Howard was present:[73] "Your voice, Jim, I can distinguish with your accent and articulation, but it sounds like a big brass drum. Mine would sound to you like the faintest whisper."
J. Howard.—"Our conversation, then, is something like telephoning?"
George Pelham.—"Yes."
J. Howard.—"By long-distance telephone."
George Pelham laughs.
Understand who may! Are these only analogies? One does not know what to think. Another difficult thing to understand is the "weakness" which the spirits complain that they feel, especially towards the end of the sittings. George Pelham actually says that we must not demand from spirits just what they have not got, namely, strength. If the spirits mean that the medium's "light" grows weak and no longer provides them with the unknown something that they require in order to communicate, why do they not express themselves more clearly?
It will perhaps be thought that I have dwelt a little too long on what I have called the philosophy of George Pelham. I have thought it best to do so, and there is no harm done so long as I leave it to my readers to believe as much as they like.
[63] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 301.