encounter some unpleasant people.

One thing I can truly say, and that is, that in
spite of false messages, I have never in all these
years known a blasphemous, an unkind, or an obscene
message. Such incidents must be of very exceptional
nature. I think also that, so far as allegations
concerning insanity, obsession, and so forth go, they
are entirely imaginary. Asylum statistics do not
bear out such assertions, and mediums live to as good
an average age as anyone else. I think, however, that
the cult of the seance may be very much overdone. When
once you have convinced yourself of the truth of the
phenomena the physical seance has done its work, and
the man or woman who spends his or her life in running
from seance to seance is in danger of becoming a mere
sensation hunter. Here, as in other cults, the form is
in danger of eclipsing the real thing, and in pursuit
of physical proofs one may forget that the real object
of all these things is, as I have tried to point out,
to give us assurance in the future and spiritual
strength in the present, to attain a due perception of
the passing nature of matter and the all-importance of
that which is immaterial.

The conclusion, then, of my long search after
truth, is that in spite of occasional fraud, which
Spiritualists deplore, and in spite of wild imaginings,
which they discourage, there remains a great solid core
in this movement which is infinitely nearer to positive