“But, my dear, she may be ever so honest and be self-deceived. Those things do not prove the agency of any disembodied spirit. We all have more or less of the psychometric power, no doubt, which, although we cannot account for it, is no more wonderful than the electric current and many other forces of Nature. There certainly seems to be a force which connects individuals and forms a medium for thought transference. The Hindoos understand this much better than we do, hence the mysteries of their conjuring tricks. They must make use of this psychic force of which we are but dimly conscious. Possibly we may, in the future, learn to control it as we do now the lightning. But there is no spirit agency in it.�
“The most mysterious to me is the slate-writing,� said Mrs. Wylie. “My friend does that also. I have seen instances where there seemed to be absolutely no opportunities for fraud.�
“We may have belief in the power of mind over matter. I have thought much over this and am willing to admit that the spirit of man may even act upon matter to produce this slate-writing, but I believe it is the medium’s spirit rather than any other. If the disembodied spirit is supposed to do this, why not the spirit or intelligence of the medium also? All things considered, I prefer to believe the medium responsible. Of course, in many cases it is probably only a trick or sleight of hand, in substituting one slate for another; but I think I have seen cases myself where such explanation could not be given.
“But this hypnotic force which can make a subject do, believe, assume personalities and see whatever is suggested to him is a wonderful force and I know not what its limits are. It may account for the supposed slate-writing. The Oriental can produce phenomena beyond anything known here, and yet, as I understand, he does not pretend that his power comes from the spirits of departed friends. As for mind over matter, the planchette is certainly governed by the intelligence of the operator or manipulator.�
“If,� said Mrs. Wylie, “one mind may influence another, now annihilating time and space, why may not the mind or spirit of the dead so act after it is separated from the body?�
“I do not deny that such a thing is possible. I am not prepared to state absolutely that such things are impossible, but I have never had any proof sufficient to convince me that they were at all probable, and I don’t believe that spirits have anything to do with all this table rapping, etc., which really amounts to nothing. You will find that all written answers to questions, even in slate-writing, tell only that which is known to some one in the room. If a question is asked which demands an unknown answer the so-called spirit either refuses to speak or the answer is so ambiguous as to admit of several interpretations. Really I have never seen one such communication that even stated a fact clearly. They usually deal in generalities.�
“That is true. I’ve often told Horace that they could get along all right until some question was asked which the mind-reader could not find out about, and then they fail. I have heard that only inferior spirits are capable of producing psychical phenomena.�
“So we have the Indian children and big medicine-men to instruct us so much. Strange that people should pin their faith to the utterances of spirits of those with whom they would not associate were they living upon earth.�
“After all, it’s the making a religion of it that I object to,� said Mrs. Wylie, “and letting these communications, wherever evolved, control one’s morals and living.�
“Did you ever know a person made better by giving up his religion and substituting spiritism?�