Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

A Few Words Only
A FEW, only a very few, words on the subject of
this chapter are needed if we are to have a complete
picture of Modern Spiritism. It might, indeed, be
thought by some that all through we have incidentally
come across so many failures, and such
very doubtful successes, that further exposure is
unnecessary.
It may be so; yet remembering how very difficult
it is to deliver and undeceive the obsessed, I venture
to "pile it on" a little more; with the suggestion
that the reader who is already sufficiently convinced
might skip this short chapter. All others
should read it for their own good.
With regard to stances, few have any idea how
generally they fail to prove anything. Eusapia
Palladino, the unrivalled medium of Naples, had
in a short time twenty-seven seances where nothing
happened. And yet she never scrupled to descend
to fraud whenever it was necessary and possible.
That skilled and reliable medium, the Rev. W.
Stainton Moses, says that in ninety-nine out of one
hundred stances people do not get what they want
or expect. In short, seances are most unsatisfactory.