There are some people who must have phenomena, just as there are other people who will have sermons. If they don’t get exactly what they want, they withdraw “their patronage”--the finances. So, if the patronage is to be retained, phenomena and sermons have to be supplied--if the first are fraudulent or the latter stolen. Seeing how fugitive real psychological phenomena are--natural or induced--one must necessarily hesitate to accept “trance addresses,” “inspirational orations,” “medical controls,” clairvoyant, and second-sight exhibitions, which are supplied to order, to gratify patrons, at so much per hour. It is human to err, but the manufacturer of spurious phenomena, the impostor who trades on the ties, and the dearest of human affections, is a devil. There is no iniquity too low--earthly or devilish--to which he will not as readily descend to gratify his vampirish nature. I am not disposed to accept the infallibility of spirits for that of Popes--large or small--or professional media, in place of professional priests and ministers, and there is by far too much of this in Spiritualism. In the foregoing connection, I must refer to another source of error--this time, however, more related to physical rather than psychic phenomena--viz., the credulity of those who are disposed to believe that certain conjurors are aided in their performances by spirit agency. Personally, I would sooner believe that mediums for “Physical Phenomena” resorted to conjuring to aid “spirits,” than believe that “spirits” resorted to “hanky-panky” to aid conjurors. No wonder “frauds” smile. Years ago I had to protest against this absurdity, when people--who ought to know better--talked this kind of nonsense about conjurors, as they do about certain fraudulent mediums now--viz., “they are aided by spirits.” Owing to this lack of discrimination and want of trained discernment in Spiritualists and the general public, mediumistic frauds have fooled, to their utmost bent, fresh groups of dupes at home and abroad. I am none the less disposed to accept the genuine, because we recognise sources of error connected therewith, and are determined to set our faces against palpable frauds. SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT SPIRITS.