ABSTRACT
The ‘mental’ phenomena were certainly very curious, and were confirmed by the testimony of independent witnesses. If mental mediums commonly produced physical phenomena, we should have the best of reasons for distrusting them and for looking askance at the putative evidence for survival. The fact, for instance, that physical phenomena were said to have occurred in the presence of W. Stainton Moses is in itself enough to make us justifiably suspicious of him. The two kinds of mediumship go together much more commonly than has been supposed. It is true that Mrs. Piper, the first outstanding mental medium with whom the Sidgwick group was able to conduct extensive experiments, never produced physical phenomena; nor, did any of the automatists who figured so prominently in Society for Psychical Research publications in and after the turn of the century.
