The available amount of evidence of this sort is almost unbelievable, but enough has been given to show the extent of the evil. The average medium works only for the money he or she can extract from the public; money obtained by moving the deepest sentiments in the human soul. Is it right to legally sanction the medium, to allow him to prey on the public--not only allowing him to take the earthly possessions of his victims, but their soul, and oftentimes their mind as well? Spiritualism is nothing more or less than mental intoxication, the intoxication of words, of feelings and suggested beliefs. Intoxication of any sort when it becomes a habit is injurious to the body but intoxication of the mind is always fatal to the mind. We have prohibition of alcohol, we have prohibition of drugs, but we have no law to prevent these human leeches from sucking every bit of reason and common sense from their victims. It ought to be stopped, it must be stopped, and it would seem that the multiplicity of exposures and the multitude of prosecutions that have followed rational investigation should be sufficient to justify, yes, demand legislation for the complete annihilation of a cult built on false pretence, flimsy hear-say evidence, and the absurdity of accepting an optical _illusion_ as a fact. CHAPTER XII INVESTIGATIONS--WISE AND OTHERWISE Spiritualism has been the cause of much discussion between men of science, men of magic, and believers in the “Spirit World.” Countless investigations, wise and otherwise, have been held in most of the countries of the globe. Many of them have been made by fair-minded, unbiased men; men who delved deep into the unknown with a clear conscience and whether successful or not were willing to give the world the result of their probings. Men who were not afraid to admit that their experience was not sufficient to cope with the medium’s skill and years of training and that they had been fooled. But there have been other so-called investigators who have attended seances wishing to be fooled and as “the wish is father of the thought” they have been misled. What these investigators _see_ done and what they _think_ they see done are in reality two entirely different things and by the time they start to write their experiences there are usually complications. I rarely believe a full hundred per cent the explanations I hear or read. It is to be said to the credit of the investigators that they do not deliberately make misstatements but the nature of the brain is such that it is almost impossible to avoid mal-observation and these mal-observations are the curse of investigation.