“Yes, if it can be done. I am told that it has been done, and may serve with a certain class of subjects; but it will not reset a broken arm nor remove a cancer. I have not much use for it.�
“Beware, Doctor, we have not learned all its possibilities yet. By the way, that Major Walden and his wife are a fine couple.�
“Yes; did you ever hear that they had been twice married?�
“Twice married? No; how was that?�
“Why, it seems that a rascally spirit-medium separated them ten or fifteen years ago, and the Major married again. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, number two was smashed up in a railway wreck and the story turned out in the orthodox fashion. She herself used to be a clairvoyant or something of the kind.�
“What, not that pretty woman he has with him now?�
“The same. I heard her myself once, out in Denver.�
“Ugh! That is incredible. She is the last one I should think of connecting with the idea of spirit-mediumship. She looks as innocent as an angel.�
“Ah, my friend, see what prejudice will do. She is as innocent as one, in my opinion. She was merely self-deceived as to the source of her power, and not understanding it, supposed it supernatural. It is a wonder it had not either killed her or made her insane, for even self-imposed hypnotism, as I said before, seems to weaken and wear both the mental and physical beings, and where one escapes injury, many suffer from it. But we all hug our delusions. The more monstrous, the dearer they are to us.�
“And yet, as you have already stated, what may appear false to us in one generation may prove to be truth in the next.�