“It is prudent,” says Camille Flammarion, “not to give oneself exclusively to occult subjects, for one might soon lose the independence of mind necessary to form an impartial judgment.” III Impressive warnings as to possible dangers from the other side have come from leading spiritualists who have not separated themselves from the Christian faith. It will not be the fault of Sir William Barrett if foolish and credulous séance-haunters get into deep waters. In the latest edition of his standard book he reprints, with slight modification, an often cited passage which he wrote more than ten years ago. “Certainly,” he says, “the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, points to a race of spiritual creatures, not made of flesh and blood, inhabiting the air around us, and able injuriously to affect mankind. Good as well as mischievous agencies doubtless exist in the unseen; this, of course, is equally true if the phenomena are due to those who have once lived on the earth. ‘There are as great fools in the spirit world as there ever were in this,’ as Henry More said over 200 years ago. In any case, granting the existence of a spiritual world, it is necessary to be on our guard against the invasion of our will by a lower order of intelligence and morality.” It is the danger to the will, fully recognised and acknowledged, which leads Sir Oliver Lodge and others to press on students of Spiritualism the need for a primary absorption in worldly affairs. Camille Flammarion, the chief French authority, urges the same view. “There are foods and drinks,” he says, “which it is most wholesome to take only in small quantities.” After a lifetime devoted to the study of mediumship, this brilliant Frenchman thought that three principles only were established: (1) The soul exists as a real entity independent of the body. (2) It is endowed with faculties still unknown to science. (3) It is able to act at a distance without the intervention of the senses. IV Passing, then, from the first part of our subject, we may summarise as follows:-- (1) The past of Spiritualism is deeply tainted with fraud, and the present is “clouded with a doubt.” There may have been unconscious cheating, but there has been much deliberate roguery. (2) Even where fraud seems to be eliminated, it is probable that the unexplained phenomena of mediumship will become clear as a wider knowledge is gained of man’s physical and mental powers. “I hold,” says Dr. Barnes, “that all the well-attested evidence, on which the theory of spirit-communication is based, will ultimately be explained by a fuller knowledge of the interchange of consciousness between living persons.” (3) We reject the crude theory that mediumistic phenomena are caused by diabolic intervention.