Many of the personalities or "controls" of Mrs Piper speak, write, and
act in a way extraordinarily in consonance with those characters as they
were on earth. In other words, her "controls" have well-differentiated
identities. Each has a different manner, a different voice, different
acts, different ways of looking at things; in fact, has a different
character. For example, there is the spirit of G. P., a young journalist
and author who died suddenly in February 1892. A few weeks later his
spirit possessed Mrs Piper's organism, and although he was unknown to
Mrs Piper in life, yet for years since then he has carried on numerous
prolonged conversations with his friends, including Dr Hodgson, and
supplied numerous proofs of his knowledge of the concerns of the
deceased G. P. G. P.'s personal effects, MSS., etc., are referred to, as
well as private conversations of the past, and, moreover, he suddenly
recognises amongst those attending Mrs Piper's _séances_ those whom he
knew during life. Dr Hodgson was unable to find any instance when such
recognition has been incorrectly given. But G. P. is only one of several
trance personations speaking through Mrs Piper's organism and recognised
by friends.
After a contemplation of Mrs Piper's trance utterances alone we are
inevitably faced by a choice of three conclusions: either (1) fraud (and
fraud I hold here to be absolutely inadmissible); or (2) the possession
of some supernormal power of apprehension; or (3) communication with
the spirits of deceased persons.
Dr Hodgson was driven by sheer force of logic to accept the third of
these hypotheses. Others who have studied the phenomena have followed.
Dr J. H. Hyslop has published a record of the sittings held with Mrs
Piper in 1898 and 1899. His report contains the verbatim record of
seventeen sittings, and no pains have been spared to make the record
complete. It has exhaustive commentaries and accounts of experiments
intended to elucidate the supposed difficulties of trance communication.
Professor Hyslop finally arrives at the conclusion, after an extensive
investigation, during which no item of the evidence has failed to be
weighed and no possible source of error would seem to have escaped
consideration, that spirit communication is the only explanation which
fits all the facts, and he altogether rejects telepathy as being
inadequate.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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