Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/319

 CHAPTER XIII THE CASE OF MRS. PIPER

ROM the sporadic instances of automatic communications cited in the last chapter we will pass to consider the detailed records which have been preserved of the utterances of certain persons who have systematically practised automatism. Of these records the most valuable, from the information which it may be expected ultimately to furnish as to the nature and working of the automatic processes, is the account of her own script kept by Mrs. Verrall, Classical Lecturer at Newnham College, known also as the translator of Palisanias. I have used the words "may be expected to furnish" advisedly, for Mrs. Verrall’s experiments are still proceeding, and careful and exhaustive as is the record of the actual script and all the attendant circumstances, the problems presented seem to increase in complexity with the increase of material offered for solution. Mrs. Verrall, who has made successful experiments in thought transference, and also in crystal gazing and other forms of automatism, began in January, 1901, to endeavour to obtain automatic writing. At ﬁrst she met with little success, but on the 5th of March of the same year, 299