CHAPTER XIV

MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES Almost alone amongst mediums of note, Mrs Piper of Boston has never resorted to physical phenomena, her powers being entirely confined to trance manifestations. No single medium, not even Helene Smith, has been subjected to such close and continuous observation by expert scientific observers. In 1885, this lady's case was first investigated by Professor William James, of Harvard (brother of the famous novelist). Two years later Dr Hodgson and other members of the Society for Psychical Research began their observation of her trance utterances. This course of observation has continued for twenty years, and nearly all Mrs Piper's utterances have been placed on record. The late Dr Hodgson was indefatigable in his labours to test the genuineness of the phenomena. He spared no pains, and died, I believe, convinced that all means of accounting for them had been exhausted. There is so much evidence concerning Mrs Piper, who, two years ago came to England at the invitation of the Society for Psychical Research, and was subjected to numerous tests, that I hesitate how best to typify its purport. Most striking is a letter to Professor James in the Society's "Proceedings" from a well-known professor, Shaler of Harvard, who attended a _seance_, with a very open mind indeed, on 25th May 1894, at Professor James's house in Cambridge (Boston). Professor Shaler was disposed to favour neither the medium nor even the telepathic theory. He writes: "MY DEAR JAMES,--At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I made the following notes:-- "As you remember, I came to the meeting with my wife; when Mrs Piper entered the trance state Mrs Shaler took her hand. After a few irrelevant words, my wife handed Mrs Piper an engraved seal, which she knew, though I did not, had belonged to her brother, a gentleman from Richmond, Virginia, who died about a year ago. At once Mrs Piper began to make statements clearly relating to the deceased, and in the course of the following hour she showed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with his affairs, those of his immediate family, and those of the family in Hartford, Conn., with which the Richmond family had had close social relations. "The statements made by Mrs Piper, in my opinion, entirely exclude the hypothesis that they were the results of conjectures, directed by the answers made by my wife. I took no