It is difficult in the case, for instance, of “Katie King,” who, as already said, appeared hundreds of times during two or three years, or of Estella Martha, who appeared to her husband during five years and in 380 or more seances in connection with the medium Kate Fox,[118] not to believe that such figures are (as we should say) _really_ the individuals they profess to be, and not mere thought-forms or images projected from the medium’s under-mind. But whichever view we take, it is obvious that they are centres in some degree, of intelligent force or vitality, centres which, though in their essence rare and tenuous as thought or feeling, succeed in clothing themselves with a certain grade of corporeality by the use of the materials at hand, and in so coming into visible manifestation. And this general view is confirmed by the fact, so often observed, that when the same figure appears repeatedly, it does, as time goes on, acquire skill and adroitness in carrying out the process of condensation or whatever it is, which is concerned, and consequently comes into manifestation and activity more quickly and decisively. Also, it may be noted, and has often been observed (as in the case of the said Estella Martha and many others), that by practice the figure attains the power of enduring strong light—that is, its state of condensation reaches a point of solidity almost comparable with that of _our_ tissues, which are not as a rule disintegrated by light. The radio-activity of the ‘inner being’ also helps to explain the extraordinary manifestations of sheer physical force in these connections. Some of these manifestations have been so astonishing, that the fact alone has caused them to be disbelieved; but though, of course, fraud has played a part in such phenomena, and has to be guarded against, it is now quite evident that in a multitude of cases fraud does not enter at all.