The recent reports of Anglo-American Spiritualists are less crude, yet are similarly permeated by ghost-hypotheses. For example, a Mr. Rogers relates that he had put a crystal into the hands of a lady who knew nothing at all of its magical powers, yet who a short time afterwards very minutely described a scene in which a lecturer, evidently of English nationality, was addressing a foreign audience, while behind his chair the shade of a North-American Indian stood—the source of his inspiration. A few months later the lady was by chance introduced to the United States Consul at Trebizond whom she immediately recognised as the principal character of her vision, and who upon being questioned declared that at the time mentioned he had given an address at that place, and moreover, that according to the declaration of Spiritualist mediums he was controlled by the spirit of a North-American Indian. In Germany the best known work is probably the "Visionen im Wasserglass," by Frau Adelma Von Vay, née Countess Wurmbrand. She reports in her little book some ninety experiments that were made in the years from 1869 to 1875. Frau Von Vay sees her pictures without difficulty, at times in their natural colors, at times in shades between white and black; often they are of only momentary duration, then again they persist for some time or gradually melt into confused and nebulous spots. The lady dictates to her husband the description of what is presented to her gaze; the "Spirit" furnishes commentaries and supplementary interpretations, and the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the prophecies and divinations is carefully noted down. * * * * * Before passing on from the history of this subject to the presentation of a number of systematic experiments, and to the development of the theory underlying them, I shall briefly consider the part that the magic mirror has played in poetry and fiction. For we often find here, especially in popular poetry, fairy tales, and traditions, an artistic anticipation of ideas that only the advanced knowledge of later centuries is able scientifically to verify. The illumined eye of genius prematurely seizes upon what in the distant future becomes the conscious property of all humanity. And this is true of the half-unconscious art of the individual poet. The imagination of the poet, borne aloft by the immediate sense of truth and the self-consciousness of typical humanity, casts flashes of illumination very frequently into the dark regions of our inner world. In the facts inherent in popular instinct it discovers intuitively a multitude of combinations, long before they possess for the average perception creditable possibility, or even possible reality. The minute analysis, however, of symbolic art belongs to the most difficult problems of comparative psychology.