On that point, inquirers should note, there is no dispute at all among responsible investigators. In the earlier stages of the movement exposures were so numerous that a theory was evolved to account for them. It was admitted that in many cases the medium cheated, but it was alleged that this was done unconsciously, and that the fraud was really perpetrated from the other side. The late Professor De Morgan wrote of certain phenomena: “If these things be spirits, they show that pretenders, coxcombs and liars are to be found on the other side of the grave as well as on this.” The idea was also elaborated that an uncongenial “circle” might induce bad spirits to play tricks with the medium. “The cheating medium,” as Mr. Waite puts it, “was sure of his defence. He was caught red-handed, but it was the ill-conditioned circle that attracted the ‘unprogressed spirits’ to tempt him. He carried the baggage of a conjuror on his tours, but the real infamy rested with the persons who had dared to trespass on the liberty of the subject by ransacking his private effects.” Kind-hearted men and women would make any excuse rather than admit that a favourite “psychic” had been guilty of conscious deception. Since the bad side of mediumship is admitted, it is needless to re-array the historic evidence. Let us turn from the past to the present, and ask what has been the cumulative effect of so many disastrous exposures on the leaders of the Spiritualist movement in our own day. II Four names stand out on that side as specially authoritative: Sir W. F. Barrett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. J. Arthur Hill, and Sir Oliver Lodge. Three of these men are eminent in the worlds of science and literature, while the Spiritualistic writings of Mr. Hill deserve attention for their knowledge, fairmindedness and sanity. (1) Sir William Barrett refrains from citing any evidence obtained through paid professional mediums, and has evidently a low esteem for this class. He welcomes the action of the Psychical Society in clearing off “a number of those detestable professional rogues who prey on the grief and credulity of mankind.”[3] The very word “medium,” he acknowledges, is usually associated in the public mind with various degrees of rascality, and he says emphatically that “so long as paid mediums and dark séances are encouraged, and rogues and fools abound, the evil odour which surrounds the name ‘medium’ is likely to remain.” He also recognises that many so-called communications from the unseen are merely the unconscious revelation of the medium’s own thoughts, or latent memory, or subliminal self.[4] Even with honest “psychics” there is a natural tendency not to disappoint the sitter when a fee is paid, “and the temptation arises to supplement genuine by spurious phenomena.”