Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE BY BECKLES WILLSON WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S. _Past President of the Society for Psychical Research_ LONDON T. WERNER LAURIE CLIFFORD'S INN E.C. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION VII I. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL" II. THE HYPNOTIC STATE III. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING IV. DREAMS V. HALLUCINATIONS VI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD VII. ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA VIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD IX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA X. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA XI. THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS" XII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY XIII. CLAIRVOYANCE XIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES AFTERWORD NOTE The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in the columns of _The Westminster Gazette_. INTRODUCTION _By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S._ _Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for Psychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from the testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and deception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto unrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be of supreme interest and importance._ _It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would be a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve continuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of which should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these obscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less obscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has achieved is in no small measure due to the wise counsel and ungrudging expenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the details of its work._