THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

394 The Harmony of Virtueand Mr. Stead have done with him. We should have thought thatin the bold and innovating mind of India's only Viceroy these coarseEuropean superstitions ought to have been destroyed long ago.It is not, however, Lord Curzon but Mr. Stead and the spiritswith whom we have to deal. We know Mr. Stead as a pushingand original journalist, not always over-refined or delicate eitherin his actions or expressions, skilful in the advertisementof his views, excitable, earnest, declamatory, loud and even hysterical,if you will, in some of his methods, but certainly neithera liar nor a swindler. He does and says what he believesand nothing else. It is impossible to dismiss his Bureau as animposture or mere journalistic reclame. It is impossible to dismissthe phenomena of spirit communications, even with allthe imposture that unscrupulous money-makers have importedinto them, as unreal or a deception. All that can reasonably besaid is that their true nature has not yet been established beyonddispute. There are two conceivable explanations, one thatof actual spirit communication, the other that of vigorouslydramatised imaginary conversations jointly composed withwonderful skill and consistency by the subconscious minds,whatever that may be, of the persons present, the medium beingthe chief dramaturge of this subconscious literary Committee.This theory is so wildly improbable and so obviously opposedto the nature of the phenomena themselves, that onlyan obstinate unwillingness to admit new facts and ideas canexplain its survival, although it was natural and justifiable inthe first stages of investigation. There remains the explanationof actual spirit communication. But even when we have decidedon this hypothesis as the base of our investigation, we haveto be on our guard against a multitude of errors; for the communicationsare vitiated first by the errors and self-deceptionsof the medium and the sitters, then by the errors and self-deceptionsof the communicant spirits, and, worst of all, by deliberatedeceit, lies and jugglery on the part of the visitants fromthe other world. The element of deceit and jugglery on the partof the medium and his helpers is not always small, but caneasily be got rid of. Cheap scepticism and cheaper ridicule insuch matters is only useful for comforting small brains and weak