(although the term is not a very happy one) "discarnate spirits,"
however, the matter, in view of the modern investigation of spiritistic
and other abnormal psychical phenomena, stands in a different position.
There can, indeed, be little doubt that very many of the phenomena observed
at spiritistic seances come under the category of deliberate fraud,
and an even larger number, perhaps, can be explained on the theory
of the subconscious self. I think, however, that the evidence goes
to show that there is a residuum of phenomena which can only be
explained by the operation, in some way, of discarnate intelligences.[1]
Psychical research may be said to have supplied the modern world
with the evidence of the existence of discarnate personalities,
and of their operation on the material plane, which the ancient
world lacked. But so far as our present subject is concerned,
all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena in question
only take place in the presence of what is called "a medium"--a person
of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation. That this is the case,
moreover, appears to be the general belief of spiritists on the subject.
In the sense, then, in which "a talisman" connotes a material object of
such a nature that by its aid the powers of discarnate intelligences
may become operative on material things, we might apply the term
"talisman" to the nervous system of a medium: but then that would be the
only talisman. Consequently, even if one is prepared to admit the whole
of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is thereby gained towards a belief
in talismans, and no light is shed upon the subject.


[1] The publications of The Society for Psychical Research,
and FREDERICK MYERS' monumental work on _Human Personality and
its Survival of Bodily Death_, should be specially consulted.
I have attempted a brief discussion of modern spiritualism