If, then, Mrs Piper's mediumship was the result of illness, it is strange that her recovery should have favoured the development and perfecting of this same mediumship. There appears to be a contradiction here. I am not competent regarding the question, but, on examining the facts, I can hardly believe that mediumship is a mere neurosis. After all, are there not famous men of science who declare that genius itself is only a neurosis? In their eyes the bandit is only a sick man; but the genius also is only a sick man. If it is true that the best and worst in humanity are only opposite faces of the same medal, we should be tempted to think mankind even more pitiable than we have hitherto believed. FOOTNOTES: [3] _Des Indes a la Planete Mars; etude sur un cas de somnambulisme_, by Th. Flournoy. Pub. Alcan, Paris. CHAPTER II Dr Richard Hodgson--Description of the trance--Mrs Piper not a good hypnotic subject. Before proceeding further, I must ask my readers' permission to introduce Dr Hodgson, the man who has studied Mrs Piper's case with the greatest care and with the most perseverance. Dr Richard Hodgson went to America expressly to observe this medium, and during some fifteen years he has, so to say, hardly lost sight of her for a moment. All the persons who have had sittings for a long time past have passed through his hands; he introduces them by assumed names, and takes all possible precautions that Mrs Piper, in her normal state, shall not obtain any information about them. These precautions are now superfluous. Mrs Piper has never had recourse to fraud, and everyone is thoroughly convinced of the fact. But the slightest relaxation of supervision would lay the most decisive experiments open to suspicion. Dr Hodgson is one of the earliest workers for the Society for Psychical Research. He has been a terrible enemy to fraud all his life. At the time of the formation of the Society, Mme. Blavatsky, foundress of the Theosophical Society, was making herself much talked about. The most extraordinary phenomena were supposed to have occurred at the Theosophical Society's headquarters in India. Dr Hodgson was sent there to study them impartially. He quickly made the discovery that the whole affair was charlatanry and sleight-of-hand. On his return to England he wrote a report--which has not killed Theosophy, because even new-born religions have strong vitality--but which has discredited this doctrine for ever in the eyes of thoughtful people.