The Vital Message
By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

APPENDICES

[D] THE CLAIRVOYANCE OF MRS. B

  
At the time of this volume going to press the results
obtained by clients of this medium have been forty-two successes
out of fifty attempts, checked and docketted by the author.  This
series forms a most conclusive proof of spirit clairvoyance.  An
attempt has been made by Mr. E. F. Benson, who examined some of
the letters, to explain the results upon the grounds of
telepathy.  He admits that "The tastes, appearance and character
of the deceased are often given, and many names are introduced by
the medium, some not traceable, but most of them identical with
relations or friends."  Such an admission would alone banish
thought-reading as an explanation, for there is no evidence in
existence to show that this power ever reaches such perfection
that one who possesses it could draw the image of a dead
man from your brain, fit a correct name to him, and then
associate him with all sorts of definite and detailed actions in
which he was engaged.  Such an explanation is not an explanation
but a pretence.  But even if one were to allow such a theory to
pass, there are numerous incidents in these accounts which could
not be explained in such a fashion, where unknown details have
been given which were afterwards verified, and even where
mistakes in thought upon the part of the sitter were corrected by
the medium under spirit guidance.  Personally I believe that the
medium's own account of how she gets her remarkable results is
the absolute truth, and I can imagine no other fashion in which
they can be explained.  She has, of course, her bad days, and the
conditions are always worst when there is an inquisitorial rather
than a religious atmosphere in the interview.  This intermittent
character of the results is, according to my experience,
characteristic of spirit clairvoyance as compared with thought-
reading, which can, in its more perfect form, become almost
automatic within certain marked limits.  I may add that the
constant practice of some psychical researchers to take no
notice at all of the medium's own account of how he or she
attains results, but to substitute some complicated and unproved
explanation of their own, is as insulting as it is unreasonable.
It has been alleged as a slur upon Mrs. B's results and character
that she has been twice prosecuted by the police.  This is, in
fact, not a slur upon the medium but rather upon the law, which
is in so barbarous a condition that the true seer fares no better
than the impostor, and that no definite psychic principles are
recognised.  A medium may under such circumstances be a martyr
rather than a criminal, and a conviction ceases to be a stain
upon the character.

 

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