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So much has been said here about mediumship that perhaps it
would be well to consider this curious condition a little more
closely. The question of mediumship, what it is and how it acts,
is one of the most mysterious in the whole range of science. It
is a common objection to say if our dead are there why should we
only hear of them through people by no means remarkable for
moral or mental gifts, who are often paid for their
ministration. It is a plausible argument, and yet when we
receive a telegram from a brother in Australia we do not say:
"It is strange that Tom should not communicate with me direct,
but that the presence of that half-educated fellow in the
telegraph office should be necessary." The medium is in truth a
mere passive machine, clerk and telegraph in one. Nothing comes
FROM him. Every message is THROUGH him. Why he or she
should have the power more than anyone else is a very interesting
problem. This power may best be defined as the capacity for
allowing the bodily powers, physical or mental, to be used by an
outside influence. In its higher forms there is temporary
extinction of personality and the substitution of some other
controlling spirit. At such times the medium may entirely lose
consciousness, or he may retain it and be aware of some external
experience which has been enjoyed by his own entity while his
bodily house has been filled by the temporary tenant. Or the
medium may retain consciousness, and with eyes and ears attuned
to a higher key than the normal man can attain, he may see
and hear what is beyond our senses. Or in writing mediumship, a
motor centre of the brain regulating the nerves and muscles of
the arm may be controlled while all else seems to be normal. Or
it may take the more material form of the exudation of a strange
white evanescent dough-like substance called the ectoplasm, which
has been frequently photographed by scientific enquirers in
different stages of its evolution, and which seems to possess an
inherent quality of shaping itself into parts or the whole of a
body, beginning in a putty-like mould and ending in a resemblance
to perfect human members. Or the ectoplasm, which seems to be an
emanation of the medium to the extent that whatever it may weigh
is so much subtracted from his substance, may be used as
projections or rods which can convey objects or lift weights. A
friend, in whose judgment and veracity I have absolute
confidence, was present at one of Dr. Crawford's experiments with
Kathleen Goligher, who is, it may be remarked, an unpaid medium.
My friend touched the column of force, and found it could be felt
by the hand though invisible to the eye. It is clear that we
are in touch with some entirely new form both of matter and of
energy. We know little of the properties of this extraordinary
substance save that in its materialising form it seems extremely
sensitive to the action of light. A figure built up in it and
detached from the medium dissolves in light quicker than a snow
image under a tropical sun, so that two successive flash-light
photographs would show the one a perfect figure, and the next an
amorphous mass. When still attached to the medium the ectoplasm
flies back with great force on exposure to light, and, in spite
of the laughter of the scoffers, there is none the less good
evidence that several mediums have been badly injured by the
recoil after a light has suddenly been struck by some amateur
detective. Professor Geley has, in his recent experiments,
described the ectoplasm as appearing outside the black dress of
his medium as if a hoar frost had descended upon her, then
coalescing into a continuous sheet of white substance, and oozing
down until it formed a sort of apron in front of her.[3]
This process he has illustrated by a very complete series of
photographs.
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