Nothing could be imagined more fantastic and grotesque thanthe results of the recent experiments of Professor Geley, inFrance. Before such results the brain, even of the trainedpsychical student, is dazed, while that of the orthodox man ofscience, who has given no heed to these developments, isabsolutely helpless. In the account of the proceedings which heread lately before the Institut General Psychologique in Paris,on January of last year, Dr. Geley says: "I do not merely saythat there has been no fraud; I say, `there has been nopossibility of fraud.' In nearly every case the materialisationswere done under my, eyes, and I have observed their whole genesisand development." He adds that, in the course of theexperiments, more than a hundred experts, mostly doctors, checkedthe results.These results may be briefly stated thus. A peculiar whitishmatter exuded from the subject, a girl named Eva, coming partlythrough her skin, partly from her hands, partly from the orificesof her face, especially her mouth. This was photographedrepeatedly at every stage of its production, these photographsbeing appended to the printed treatise. This stuff, solid enoughto enable one to touch and to photograph, has been called theectoplasm. It is a new order of matter, and it is clearlyderived from the subject herself, absorbing into her system oncemore at the end of the experiment. It exudes in such quantitiesas to entirely, cover her sometimes as with an apron. It is softand glutinous to the touch, but varies in form and even incolour. Its production causes pain and groans from the subject,and any violence towards it would appear also to affect her. Asudden flash of light, as in a flash-photograph, may or may notcause a retraction of the ectoplasm, but always causes a spasm ofthe subject. When re-absorbed, it leaves no trace upon thegarments through which it has passed.This is wonderful enough, but far more fantastic is what hasstill to be told. The most marked property of this ectoplasm,very fully illustrated in the photographs, is that it sets orcurdles into the shapes of human members--of fingers, of hands,of faces, which are at first quite sketchy and rudimentary, butrapidly coalesce and develop until they are undistinguishablefrom those of living beings. Is not this the very strangest andmost inexplicable thing that has ever yet been observed by humaneyes? These faces or limbs are usually the size of life, butthey frequently are quite miniatures. Occasionally they begin bybeing miniatures, and grow into full size. On their firstappearance in the ectoplasm the limb is only on one plane ofmatter, a mere flat appearance, which rapidly rounds itself off,until it has assumed all three planes and is complete. It may bea mere simulacrum, like a wax hand, or it may be endowed withfull power of grasping another hand, with every articulation inperfect working order.The faces which are produced in this amazing way are worthyof study. They do not appear to have represented anyone whohas ever been known in life by Doctor Geley.[8] My impressionafter examining them is that they are much more likely to bewithin the knowledge of the subject, being girls of the Frenchlower middle class type, such as Eva was, I should imagine, inthe habit of meeting. It should be added that Eva herselfappears in the photograph as well as the simulacra of humanity. The faces are, on the whole, both pretty and piquant, though of arather worldly and unrefined type. The latter adjective wouldnot apply to the larger and most elaborate photograph, whichrepresents a very beautiful young woman of a truly spiritual castof face. Some of the faces are but partially formed, which givesthem a grotesque or repellant appearance. What are we to make ofsuch phenomena? There is no use deluding ourselves by the ideathat there may be some mistake or some deception. There isneither one nor the other. Apart from the elaborate checks uponthese particular results, they correspond closely with thosegot by Lombroso in Italy, by Schrenk-Notzing in Germany, and byother careful observers. One thing we must bear in mindconstantly in considering them, and that is their abnormality. At a liberal estimate, it is not one person in a million whopossesses such powers--if a thing which is outside our volitioncan be described as a power. It is the mechanism of thematerialisation medium which has been explored by the acute brainand untiring industry of Doctor Geley, and even presuming, as onemay fairly presume, that every materialising medium goes throughthe same process in order to produce results, still such mediumsare exceedingly, rare. Dr. Geley mentions, as an analogousphenomenon on the material side, the presence of dermoid cysts,those mysterious formations, which rise as small tumors in anypart of the body, particularly above the eyebrow, and which whenopened by the surgeon are found to contain hair, teeth orembryonic bones. There is no doubt, as he claims, some roughanalogy, but the dermoid cyst is, at least, in the same flesh andblood plane of nature as the foetus inside it, while in theectoplasm we are dealing with an entirely new and strangedevelopment.

[8] Dr. Geley writes to me that they are unknown either to himor to the medium.

It is not possible to define exactly what occurs in the caseof the ectoplasm, nor, on account of its vital connection withthe medium and its evanescent nature, has it been separated andsubjected to even the roughest chemical analysis which might showwhether it is composed of those earthly elements with which weare familiar. Is it rather some coagulation of ether whichintroduces an absolutely new substance into our world? Such asupposition seems most probable, for a comparison with theanalogous substance examined at Dr. Crawford's seances atBelfast, which is at the same time hardly visible to the eye andyet capable of handling a weight of 150 pounds, suggestssomething entirely new in the way of matter.But setting aside, as beyond the present speculation, whatthe exact origin and nature of the ectoplasm may be, it seems tome that there is room for a very suggestive line of thought if wemake Geley's experiments the starting point, and lead it in thedirection of other manifestations of psychomaterial activity. First of all, let us take Crookes' classic experiments withKatie King, a result which for a long time stood alone andisolated but now can be approached by intermittent but definitestages. Thus we can well suppose that during those long periodswhen Florrie Cook lay in the laboratory in the dark, periodswhich lasted an hour or more upon some occasions, the ectoplasmwas flowing from her as from Eva. Then it was gathering itselfinto a viscous cloud or pillar close to her frame; then the formof Katie King was evolved from this cloud, in the manner alreadydescribed, and finally the nexus was broken and the completedbody advanced to present itself at the door of communication,showing a person different in every possible attribute save thatof sex from the medium, and yet composed wholly or in part fromelements extracted from her senseless body. So far, Geley'sexperiments throw a strong explanatory light upon those ofCrookes. And here the Spiritualist must, as it seems to me, beprepared to meet an objection more formidable than the absurdones of fraud or optical delusion. It is this. If the body ofKatie King the spirit is derived from the body of FlorrieCook the psychic, then what assurance have we that the lifetherein is not really one of the personalities out of which thecomplex being named Florrie Cook is constructed? It is a thesiswhich requires careful handling. It is not enough to say thatthe nature is manifestly superior, for supposing that FlorrieCook represented the average of a number of conflictingpersonalities, then a single one of these personalities might befar higher than the total effect. Without going deeply into thisproblem, one can but say that the spirit's own account of its ownpersonality must count for something, and also that an isolatedphenomenon must be taken in conjunction with all other psychicphenomena when we are seeking for a correct explanation.But now let us take this idea of a human being who has thepower of emitting a visible substance in which are formed faceswhich appear to represent distinct individualities, and inextreme cases develop into complete independent human forms. Take this extraordinary fact, and let us see whether, by anextension or modification of this demonstrated process, wemay not get some sort of clue as to the modus operandi inother psychic phenomena. It seems to me that we may, at least,obtain indications which amount to a probability, though not to acertainty, as to how some results, hitherto inexplicable, areattained. It is at any rate a provisional speculation, which maysuggest a hypothesis for future observers to destroy, modify, orconfirm.The argument which I would advance is this. If a strongmaterialisation medium can throw out a cloud of stuff which isactually visible, may not a medium of a less pronounced typethrow out a similar cloud with analogous properties which is notopaque enough to be seen by the average eye, but can make animpression both on the dry plate in the camera and on theclairvoyant faculty? If that be so--and it would not seem to bea very far-fetched proposition--we have at once an explanationboth of psychic photographs and of the visions of the clairvoyantseer. When I say an explanation, I mean of its superficialmethod of formation, and not of the forces at work behind, whichremain no less a mystery even when we accept Dr. Geley'sstatement that they are "ideoplastic."Here we have, I think, some attempt at a generalisation,which might, perhaps, be useful in evolving some first signs oforder out of this chaos. It is conceivable that the thinneremanation of the clairvoyant would extend far further than thethick material ectoplasm, but have the same property of mouldingitself into life, though the life forms would only be visible tothe clairvoyant eye. Thus, when Mr. Tom Tyrrell, or any othercompetent exponent, stands upon the platform his emanation fillsthe hall. Into this emanation, as into the visible ectoplasm inGeley's experiments, break the faces and forms of those from theother side who are attracted to the scene by their sympathy withvarious members of the audience. They are seen and described byMr. Tyrrell, who with his finely attuned senses, carefullyconserved (he hardly eats or drinks upon a day when hedemonstrates), can hear that thinner higher voice that callstheir names, their old addresses and their messages. So, too,when Mr. Hope and Mrs. Buxton stand with their hands joinedover the cap of the camera, they are really throwing out amisty ectoplasm from which the forms loom up which appear uponthe photographic plate. It may be that I mistake an analogy foran explanation, but I put the theory on record for what it isworth.