FRANK PODMOBE, Stiidies in Psychical Research. 103 substitutions in the ' test ' objects. Stainton Moses* phenomena derive their evidential value from the strong presumption of his honesty, but he may have been a conscious, unconscious or semi- conscious fraud. Under the circumstances this is perhaps unlikely, but we have to choose between a moral and a physical miracle (p. 133). Home's case, supported by much experimental testi- mony from Sir W. Crookes and the Earls of Crawford andDunraven, is treated with more respect. Still Mr. Podmore gets over this mauvais pas also, by supposing that the witnesses were to some extent hallucinated. Collective hallucinations are possible es- pecially if we admit telepathy and the conditions of a seance are calculated to produce them. And Home may have eked out deficiencies in the actual events by his suggestions. E.g., he really took live coals out of the fire, and his sitters believed that he handled them with impunity (and sprinkled them over their hair and handkerchiefs !), nay he " possibly on some occasions held them in his hands," protected by " some non-conducting substance " (what ?) ; " he really stretched himself to his full height " and his sitters recorded his elongation by ten inches ; " he thrust his head and shoulders out of the window " and seemed to them to have floated from one room into another seven feet distant seventy feet in the air! (p. 121-2). After this, "poltergeists" are easily ascribed to the trickery of naughty girls helped out by a little " sensory iUusion conditioned by the excited state of the per- cipients " (p. 158). An entertaining account is given of the ' theo- sophic ' career of Madame Blavatsky . The evidence for experimental thought-transference, on the other hand, Mr. Podmore considers sufficient to establish the fact, and with its aid he goes on to explain away ghosts, collective and death-apparitions, considered as proofs of post-mortem spiritual agency. From the same point of view, haunted houses are defective ; there is little evidence of identity and purposiveness, and much to show that the apparitions are subjective and stimulated by antecedent auditory disturbances. The evidence for premonitions is disappointing both in quantity and in quality and may be assumed to be greatly vitiated by illusions of memory. In chapter xii. the spontaneous phe- nomena of secondary consciousness are held not to warrant Mr. Myers' theory of a continuous and extensive ' subliminal self,* while the distinct personalities of the French experimental casea are considered to be largely artificial and built up by suggestion. On the whole, they are " not a prophecy but a survival," restoring " a more primitive stage of consciousness " (p. 413), which has ordinarily given way to the more effectual organisation of our work-a-day selves. Lastly, in his concluding chapter on obses- sion and clairvoyance, Mr. Podmore comes upon a second set of phenomena which gives pause to the elan of his scepticism, viz., Prof. James' "white crow," Mrs. Piper. The evidence produced in connexion with her trances proves at least thought-transference, but requires that theory to be strained to the uttermost. And,
