WCP4071

[1]

Copy

Broadstone, Wimborne

Ap 27. 1907

Dear Mr. Skeels¹

Thanks for your cheque for ten guineas for my expenses (with my sons²) of two journeys to London in order to give evidence in the case of Colley³ v. Maskelyne.⁴

As the judge asked me for a definition of a medium & as I could not, on the spur of the moment give him a satisfactory one perhaps if the case is not concluded before this reaches you, Mr Bankes⁵ might read the following during his final address.

"A medium is a person whose mere presence, without any acts ^{or volition} of his own, is one of the conditions — & often the most important condition — for the occurrence of what are termed psychical, occult or spiritualistic phenomenon".

This is ^{all we} really know of the matter. Through messages (from alleged spirits) we are told that it is something in the psychical or psycho-material organisations of these mediums that enables spiritual beings to [2] act, both upon their organisations, & on surrounding objects; & this seems probable & is perhaps as near to the matter we can get. As to the exact causes and modes of operation, the spirits seem to have very little more knowledge than we have. There is there as here, an illimitable universe to be studied before it can be understood. There, as here, it is only the few that study such things, or even begin, dimly to understand them.

Another point, I think, Mr Bankes might mention with advantage. "My Life"⁶ was not published till a week or two after Archdn Colley gave his "Lecture". My account of Monck's⁷ phenomena, & his account, were therefore ^written independently, each supposing himself to be the only living witness (I supposed so). The very close (almost exact) correspondence in our descriptions of the phenomena is a very strong proof of the fact that it really occurred as we described it.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace.