It is quite conceivable, and probable enough, that some little time elapses between “death” and “reincarnation.” Hence it is to be expected that there is always a greater or less number of discarnate spirits dwelling temporarily, and a little disconsolately, perhaps, in the air-occupied space surrounding the earth; and this expectation is borne out by actual observation. It is to be surmised, furthermore, that spirits awaiting re-embodiment will feel themselves more at home, as it were, if they remain in the immediate proximity of the localities they inhabited and the persons they knew before “death.” Here, again, we find the surmise to accord with experience. Some places are undoubtedly “haunted”; and it is equally certain that some persons are haunted also; for it would otherwise be impossible to account reasonably for the well-known fact that sitters at _séances_ habitually open up communications with their deceased relatives and friends who have always been perfect strangers to the mediums with whom the sittings take place. The spirits are not brought by the mediums; they are introduced by the sitters themselves, who are quite unconscious of being thus accompanied or “haunted.” To deny this is equivalent to maintaining the absurdity that every real medium is _en rapport_ with all the deceased relatives and friends of every living human being. The soul of a medium is not endowed with powers vastly greater than those of ordinary souls; any more than a discarnate spirit is able to know and do very much beyond what he was aware of or could accomplish during life. If either mediums or spirits were capable of really marvellous achievements we may be sure that now and again some daring soul would contrive to startle mankind; and as no such feat has been recorded through the ages (“miracles,” religious and otherwise, are not here referred to), it is a fair inference that our deceased friends are not vastly different from, or, at any rate, are not vastly superior to, what they were when we knew them here.