Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/167

Rh If, however, the spectator is once convinced that he has evidence of the supernatural, he soon sees it in every accident and incident of the performance. Not only that he overlooks natural physical explanations, but he is led to create marvels by the very ardor of his sincerity. At a materializing séance the believer recognizes a dear friend in a carelessly arranged drapery seen in a dim light. Conclusive evidence of the subjective character of such perceptions is furnished by the fact that the same appearance is frequently recognized by different sitters as the spiritual counterpart of entirely different and totally dissimilar persons. A "spirit-photograph" is declared to be the precise image of entirely unlike individuals. Each one sees what he expects to see, what appeals to his interests the most intensely. What the unprejudiced observer recognizes as the flimsy, disguised form of the medium, the believer transforms into the object of his thoughts and longings. Only let the form be vague enough, the light dim enough, the emotions upon a sufficient strain, and that part of perception in which the external image is deficient will be readily supplied by the subjective tendencies of each individual. In the presence of such a mental attitude the possibilities of deception are endless; the performer grows bolder as his victim dispenses with tests, and we get scientific proofs of the fourth dimension of space, the possibility of matter passing through matter, the laws of gravity entirely set aside. And the identically same performance that would convince Prof. Zoellner of the reality of the fourth dimension of space, would show the spiritualist the workings of his deceased friends, would convince the theosophist of the spiritual flight of the performer's astral body, and (it may not be irrelevant to add) it is the same type of performance that served and yet serves to terrify the minds of uncultivated and superstitious savages. All depend not upon what is done, but upon the mind of the spectator. Little by little, through neglect, through mal-observation and lapses of memory, through an unwillingness to mistrust the reports of an excited consciousness, caution is abandoned, credulity enters, until mediums are actually seen flying out of one window and into another, until the wildest and most far-fetched fantastic explanation is preferred above a simple one; until the bounds of the normal are passed, real hallucinations set in, conduct becomes irrational, and a state not distinguishable from insanity ensues. If this seems improbable, turn back to the records of witchcraft persecutions and read upon what trifling and wholly imaginary evidence thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed; and this not by ignorant, bloodthirsty men, but by earnest, by eminent, by religious leaders. A child is taken sick, is remembered to have been fondled by an old woman; therefore the woman has put the child under a spell and must be