________________
CREATION.
in à spirit world, albeit his account of his spirit abode will be in exact agreement with his preconceived notions on the subject. In “The Psychic Phenomena "* Mr. Hudson gives a very graphic and interesting account of an interview between a slate-writing medium and a celebrated Union general at which he himself was present. The result of that interview was that in two instances the replies came from the spirits of persons whom the medium thought to be dead, but who were actually alive, and, in one instance, in which a letter had been written to a deceased person, asking a specific question, the correct answer to which neither the sitter nor the medium could possibly know, the reply received was, “A. B. is here, but cannot communicate to-day.” A. B. was the person addressed. The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the experiment is that there was no such thing as the agency of disembodied spirits at the back of the psychic phenomena which undoubtedly occurred during the interview.
In the East, and particularly in India, where spirits and ghosts are popularly believed to haunt the scenes of their former worldly activities, and where sianas, † magicians, and charmers abound and carry on a lucrative profession, the most superficial observer cannot fail to notice the fact that the so-called disembodied spirits have their origin in the hysterical hallucinations of a disorganized will. In most cases the patients are women and little children whose nervous systems are most highly strunga fact which renders them highly sensitive to all sorts
* Pages 275-283.
† Mediums.
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