Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research

umship-Is medium

anism to beings imperceptible to our senses, in order to enable them to manifest themselves to us. I say that it appears to be thus, not that it is so. It is difficult

ied the phenomena presented by Mrs Piper during fifteen consecutive years. They have taken all the precautions necessitated by the strangeness of the case, the circumstances, and the surrounding scepticism; they have faced and minutely weighed all hypotheses.

rcising a new kind of priesthood; she has understood that she was an interesting anomaly for science, and she has allowed science to study her. A vulgar soul would not have done this. Her example, and also that of Mlle. Smith, of whom Professor Flournoy has lately written,[3] deserve to be followed. If the strange phenomena of mediumship have no

Piper has travelled; she has several times consented to leave her ordinary surroundings in order to prevent all sus

d, and probably very superficially. Her language is commonplace, sometimes even trivial, but the records do not give me the impressi

ecutive months; this gentleman was also present at a sitting she gave on the 4th December of this same year, 1890. It is evident that he was in a position to study Mrs Piper closely. Dr Hodgson asked him for a report, which would have been appended to the other documents. But this doctor had the wisdom of the serpent. He promised, but changed his m

r inquiry than that of her ancestors, since most doctors persist in se

t, on the other hand, Mlle. Smith of Geneva, who has been studied by Professor Flournoy, seems to enjoy health as good as anybody's-even flourishing health. Perh

s illness brought about the discovery of her mediumship. Up to this time absolutely nothing abnormal had occurred to her. Her husband's parents had had, in 1884, a sitting with a medium which had much impressed them. They frequently advised

rather precarious for a long time. She only decided in 1893 to undergo a surgical operation-laparotomy. No complications resulted from it, and her convalescence was rapid. However,

o indicate that they would be mistaken. When Mrs Piper is ill, her mediumship decreases or becomes less lucid; she only furnishes incoherent, fragmentary, or quite false communications. The syncope or "trance," which is easy when she is well, become

appears to be a contradiction here. I am not competent regarding the question, but, on examining the facts, I can hardly believe that mediumship is a mere neurosis. After al

pposite faces of the same medal, we should be tempted to thi

tude sur un cas de somnambulisme,