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.A moment later, another woman appeared upon the stage, and was introduced to us as Mrs Ellen Jackson from Connecticut.She took her place confidently behind a lectern that was quickly pulled forward in place of the easy chair.Dressed to the height of fashion in a tailor-made suit with a sailor collar which firmly structured her rather generous forms, she began to speak with an American accent, a loud voice, and a degree of enthusiasm typical of our visitors from the other side of the Atlantic but which is rarely or never visible here in England, where its original freshness has been blunted, perhaps, by the passage of too many centuries.Mrs Jackson assured us that Hélène Smith was the most astonishing medium she had ever encountered, and this in a long tradition of association with the most reputed mediums of America, including herself.‘When I found,’ she told us emphatically, ‘that poor Hélène was having to work in a department store for her living, standing behind the counter for up to eleven hours each day till her health was worn to a thread, I said to myself, “Something must be done about this!” I was travelling across Europe to hear all the most famous mediums from over here, and what I heard from Hélène left me just utterly spellbound, as you probably are right this minute.I simply couldn’t let such a treasure go to waste selling gloves and scarves, I thought, with all her knowledge of secrets withheld from the rest of us! We need to hear everything that Hélène has to tell us! And I want to tell you today that I have decided to free dear Hélène from the need to earn her living, thanks to my own good fortune which has enabled me to support people in need wherever and whenever I find them.I want to say that I’ve helped many a fascinating medium reach the apex of her talent, and none of them has ever seemed to me as worthy as Hélène Smith! People such as she are contributing to the advancement of knowledge beyond anything that science can achieve! Worthy as our astronomers are, they have not been able to reach as far as the planet Mars, and I never thought I would know what goes on in that mysterious place during my lifetime.I’m not going to talk about any kind of analysis of what Hélène says, because it doesn’t need any.I am certain that it is all quite literally true.I have had enough experience of spirit communication to know about the invisible reality it reveals, and that it can tell us about places beyond the reach of science.Hélène’s visions represent the only chance we have to learn about the planet Mars! And that’s why I have offered Hélène the means to pursue her mediumistic activities without constraint, for the rest of her life! Vive Mademoiselle Hélène Smith!’ And upon this, she burst into a spontaneous applause into which the audience joined with a general feeling of laughter and astonishment.As we clapped, Mr Myers returned to the stage from the side, accompanied by a short professorial gentleman with a pointy beard.This was Professor Flournoy, specialist in psychology and psychophysiology from the University of Geneva: the very man who had discovered the amazing talents of Hélène Smith, or at least, revealed them to the world.Having been close to her for six years now, and having thus had the opportunity to observe every detail of the development and evolution of her visions, he had recently completed a book upon the subject, containing a full analysis of her visions and of the Martian language that spoke through her mouth.This book was to appear very shortly in print, and as Mr Myers informed us with some pride, we were now to be the first to hear some of the most significant parts of its contents.Professor Flournoy greeted Mrs Jackson with a slight bow and, turning to the audience, pronounced a few words of grateful recognition for her grand and generous gesture.She thanked him, and proceeded to sail off the stage in a stately manner with Mr Myers, upon which the professor began his speech.‘The first task which investigators of obscure mental phenomena set themselves is, naturally, that of separating and sifting the real, actually existent facts from the mass of fraud and deception created by mercenary charlatans.These, aided by the easy credulity of the simple-minded, have contrived so completely to bury from sight the true phenomena, that for a long time now the intelligent public has utterly refused to believe in the existence of any real phenomena of the kind, but insisted that everything when fully probed would be found to be mere delusion, the result of trickery and fraud.‘Probably no scientific fact since the dawn of modern science has required so great a weight of cumulative evidence in its favour to establish the reality of its existence in the popular mind than have the phenomena in question.I am glad to be able to say, however, that this task has finally been accomplished!‘Mademoiselle Smith is a high-minded, honourable woman, regarded by all her neighbours and friends as wholly incapable of conscious fraud.Moreover, she has been subjected to the closest surveillance on the part of a number of eminent physicians and scientists of Geneva for more than five years past, while Mrs Jackson, the famous medium from Connecticut whom we have just had the honour to hear, has been subjected to an even closer scrutiny by the Society for Psychical Research for the past fifteen years.‘Yet in spite of the fact that this society has announced its willingness to become responsible for the entire absence of fraud in both cases, there still remain a considerable number of ultra-sceptical persons who persist in asserting that fraud and deceit are at the bottom of, and account for, all this species of phenomena [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]