Lehal Library

fraud is impossible, since the scientist can devise on the instant his own test; telepathy is excluded, since the test can include events which have not yet occurred, and the etheric traveller will be reporting these as they happen, which no mortal could have foreseen. He can describe a street accident as it crashes beside him, or — for let us face all the implications — reveal the conclusions of a Cabinet meeting. Alex Erskine who, as a professional hypnotist, was as famous as he was beloved, tells us how, in order to discover the channel by which, despite the vigilance of a renowned London doctor, a lady patient of his was obtaining drugs which were compassing her ruin, he despatched the subconscious of one of his subjects to the lady's bedroom. If that sort of thing can be done, as done it was on this occasion, with convincing results, there seems no reason why the P.M.'s sanctum in 10 Downing Street should offer more impediment to etheric intrusion than a boudoir in Mayfair. Anyone acquainted with Jewish history will recall an occasion when the council chamber of Ben-hadad, King of Syria, was similarly invaded by the spirit, or subconscious, as Erskine has it, of a Jewish prophet. Every time the king had attempted a raid on Israel he found that his plans had been betrayed to his intended victim, and in despair he cried: "Will ye not shew me which of us is for the King of Israel?" "None, my Lord, O King," was the reply; "but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the King of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber." The prophet's etheric double may have journeyed to Damascus just as the double of Mrs. Eileen Garrett journeyed from New York to Newfoundland, as will be told later. Or, like Erskine, he may have used as a subject the "young man" to whom, in beleaguered Dothan, he imparted the gift of second sight.