Here is my serious purpose. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made two points against me which pleased his anxious followers. One--which evoked a thunder of applause--was that I was insensible of the consolation which this new religion has brought to thousands of bereaved humans. I am as conscious of that as he or any other Spiritualist is. It has, however, nothing to do with the question whether Spiritualism is true or no, which we were debating; or with the question to what extent Spiritualism is based on fraud, which I now discuss. Far be it from me to slight the finer or more tender emotions of the human heart. On the contrary, it is in large part to the more general cultivation of this refinement and delicacy of feeling that I look for the uplifting of our race. But let us take things in order. Does any man think it is a matter of indifference whether this ministry of consolation is based on fraud and inspired by greed? It is inconceivable. And, indeed, the second point made by my opponent shows that I do not misconceive him and his followers. It is that I exaggerate the quantity of fraud in the movement. If they are right--if they have purified the movement of the grosser frauds which so long disfigured it--they have some ground to ask the critic to address himself to the substantial truth rather than the occasional imposture. But this is a question of fact; and to that question of fact the following pages are devoted. I survey the various classes of Spiritualistic phenomena. I tell the reader how materializations, levitations, raps, direct voices, apports, spirit-photographs, lights and music in the dark, messages from the dead, and so on, have actually and historically been engineered during the last fifty years. This is, surely, useful. Spiritualism is in one of its periodical phases of advance. Our generation knows nothing of the experience of these things of an earlier generation. To teach one's fellows the weird ingenuity, the sordid impostures, the grasping trickery, which have accompanied Spiritualism since its birth in America in 1848 can hurt only one class of men--impostors. J. M. _Easter, 1920._ CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. MEDIUMS: BLACK, WHITE, AND GREY 1 II. HOW GHOSTS ARE MADE 17 III. THE MYSTERY OF RAPS AND LEVITATIONS 42 IV. SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS AND SPIRIT PICTURES 63 V. A CHAPTER OF GHOSTLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS 77 VI. THE SUBTLE ART OF CLAIRVOYANCE 93 VII. MESSAGES FROM THE SPIRIT-WORLD 109 VIII. AUTOMATIC WRITING 129 IX. GHOST-LAND AND ITS CITIZENS 147 CHAPTER I MEDIUMS: BLACK, WHITE, AND GREY