Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MATERIALIZATION. Even among those accepting the tenets of Spiritism, materialization is doubted by many. This is because mediums as a rule do not submit to these tests which the fair-minded deem proper. The manifestations must be in semi- darkness and the materialized not touched—not tested by clear vision and feeling. The reasons given are: "Light impairs the gathering of strength sufficient to take on form, and touch destroys the accreted molecules, and the entity of the spirit's visibility is dissipated." This excuse may suffice for the credulous and unthinking; but to the serious, sincere and capable, it smacks too much of sophistry. Even the capable and sincere who vouch for the fact of materialization having been demonstrated under their scrutiny the explanation is offered by the doubter that the subject was self- hypnotized; that he imagined seeing and hearing the things suggested by the medium. The explanation at best is but a vague plausibility to those who have not witnessed the particular phenomenon detailed; but to the careful investigator, who has safeguarded against delusions, and who has seen and heard the various evidences of spirit manifestations, self-delusion or hypnotic suggestion cannot be acceded to as the solution of the enigma. Were mediums above suspicion—the general run of mediums willing to submit to reasonable tests—then these doubts as to materialization would vanish, and the question be solved, either as a fact or a fiction, and a fraud. If there has been one honest materialization then there can be others that will stand the closest scrutiny. That there have been honest materializations, my experience justifies me in believing, notwithstanding the assertion, entirely gratuitous, that I was hypnotized, or by auto-suggestion, ho...