ABSTRACT
The paradox of psychic-research work is that while belief in survival cannot help but seem credulous the researchers themselves are often highly sceptical, demanding high, nearly impossible standards of proof before they are willing to be persuaded as to the validity of particular phenomenon or testimony. As readers, then, they are typically incredulous, pouncing on any inconsistent detail or fantastic element in the spirit narrative which would seem to break the realist frame of the story. In Psychic Science, for example, the test of a true medium is robustness with which her spirit-narratives stand up to fact checking. The standard is set by those stories which contain a level of detail and historical accuracy that could only be achieved with the help of spirit-guide who lived at time in which the story is set. In an issue of Psychic Science from 1938, for example, readers are presented with the results of a close linguistic analysis of Pearl Curran's novel, Telka.
