Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

32 MODERN SPIRITISM
French Spiritist writer, C. Flammarion, greatly
regrets "that we cannot trust the loyalty of
mediums. They nearly all cheat." While Mrs.
Sidgwick says: "The chief scandal of Spiritism is
the encouragement it gives to the immoral trade -of
mediumship."
The powers of a medium are occasionally lifelong,
but generally, curious to say, only for a term. The
Rev. Stainton Moses had marvellous power from
thirty-three to forty-four, when it suddenly departed,
though he lived for nine years afterwards.
Notable
Mediums
Eusapia Palladino, the Italian medium, gradually
lost her powers; while those of Mrs. Piper, the
American medium, were suddenly wrecked.
It may be said here that the belief that psychical
communications, other than those of telepathic origin,
already described are possible, mainly rests on
the work of one medium, Mrs. Piper, and that
belief in physical manifestations (levitation, sounds,
lights, etc.) being real, and not fraudulent, rests on
the work of Eusapia Palladino, of Naples. Both of
these, however, as pointed out by Mr. Frank Podmore
("The Newer Spiritism," p. 33), have been exposed
in fraudulent practices.*
Spiritist
Phenomena
We now turn to Spiritist phenomena; and here, it
is obvious, I must be very brief, and do little more
*
On the other hand, the bulk of their work under rigid test
conditions has been proved, on undoubted scientific authority,
to be genuine.