The position of things, as the reader of the S.P.R. _Proceedings_ knows, has since that time undergone a complete change. The trance-phenomena of Mrs. Piper--so long and so carefully watched by Dr. Hodgson and others--formed, I think, by far the most remarkable mass of psychical evidence till then adduced in any quarter. And more recently other series of trance-phenomena with other "mediums"--though still incomplete--have added materially to the evidence obtained through Mrs. Piper. The result broadly is that these phenomena of possession are now the most amply attested, as well as intrinsically the most advanced, in our whole repertory. Nor, again, is the mere increment of direct evidence, important though that is, the sole factor in the changed situation. Not only has direct evidence grown, but indirect evidence, so to say, has moved to meet it. The notion of personality--of the control of organism by spirit--has gradually been so modified that Possession, which passed till the other day as a mere survival of savage thought, is now seen to be the consummation, the furthest development of many lines of experiment, observation, reflection, which the preceding chapters have opened to our view. Let us then at once consider what the notion of possession does actually claim. It will be better to face that claim in its full extent at once, as it will be seen that the evidence, while rising through various stages, does in the end insist on all that the ancient term implies. The leading modern cases, of which Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper may be taken as types, are closely analogous, presenting many undesigned coincidences, some of which come out only on close examination. The claim, then, is that the automatist, in the first place, falls into a trance, during which his spirit partially "quits his body:" enters at any rate into a state in which the spiritual world is more or less open to its perception; and in which also--and this is the novelty--it so far ceases to occupy the organism as to leave room for an invading spirit to use it in somewhat the same fashion as its owner is accustomed to use it. The brain being thus left temporarily and partially uncontrolled, a disembodied spirit sometimes, but not always, succeeds in occupying it; and occupies it with varying degrees of control. In some cases (Mrs. Piper) two or more spirits may simultaneously control different portions of the same organism. The controlling spirit proves his identity mainly by reproducing, in speech or writing, facts which belong to his memory and not to the automatist's memory. He may also give evidence of supernormal perception of other kinds.