EINSTEIN: But you must not overlook the fact that in such cases you have mostly played the part of an onlooker, and hence were exposed to all possible manner of deception. You are baffled on all sides by undiscoverable tricks and by other persons, whose collusion you do not suspect. This renders an objective criticism impossible. M.: This presumes that the performing artist is not entirely isolated. It is possible to bring about conditions that positively eliminate all tricks from the very outset. EINSTEIN: If you have experienced any such cases, relate them by all means. M.: I shall be brief, and shall state only facts.... EINSTEIN: Or, expressed more accurately, only things which seem to have been facts as far as you can trust to memory. Well then, you think that you have grounds for saying that you caught a glimpse of a mysterious world at that time. M.: It is certainly long ago, more than thirty years. Hansen, the freak, one of the most eminent of his profession, was showing hypnotic and telepathic experiments that were partly identical with experiments that the celebrated scientist Charcot at Paris was performing for purposes of pathology. EINSTEIN: Well, then, why did you hesitate before? These experiments come under the head of science, and require no occult veil to appear in the open. M.: This touches the main issue. Hansen did not work in the interests of science, but wished, above all, to earn money. Nevertheless he had in his own way produced marvellous results that were used later for scientific work. Unfortunately in his case, owing to the fact that he cloaked it in occultism at the outset, he was brusquely repudiated by scientists. The result was that Hansen was condemned to a long period of imprisonment in Dresden, thanks to the recommendation of scientists who declared that the experiments were only possible if deception was practised, and hence that Hansen was an impostor who should be made harmless by being incarcerated. EINSTEIN: And how did you yourself seek to discover whether his experiments were genuine? M.: Very easily and with absolute certainty. One of my acquaintances, the wealthy race-horse owner, von Oelschläger, had induced him by means of a high fee to experiment at his country house, at some distance from Berlin, in the presence of persons, not one of whom Hansen knew, and in the case of whom there could be no question of secret collaboration. I can assure you that everything succeeded without exception. A single second was sufficient for him to communicate his will to each subject of experiment. He operated like a supernatural being on those present. EINSTEIN: I should like to hear examples.