Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/326

306 those concerned with the utterances of Stainton Moses. and of Adèle Maginot, the clairvoyant subject of Alphonse Cahagnet, a French magnetist in the middle of the last century. In the case of Stainton Moses, however, it does not appear that any verifiable statements were given in his automatic writings as to facts outside the possible scope of the medium's knowledge. The dates, names, and other particulars could in every case have been procured from published biographies, the obituary notices in the newspapers, or equally accessible sources.

The revelations of Adèle Maginot are much more striking. Adele professed in the trance to see the figures of deceased friends of persons who came to consult her. She would describe with accuracy their personal appearance, character, and the diseases from which they had suffered, and could occasionally indicate something of their history and their opinions. But all the verifiable details given were known to the persons present; and there seems no reason, in the case of Cahagnet's subject, to go beyond the hypothesis of thought transference from the living.

The case of Mrs. Piper, the chief of the trance mediums whose utterances have been investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, presents a much more complicated problem. Mrs. Piper is an