Note 4 — LIFE AFTER DEATH[1]

In order to exhaust this question of survival and of communications with the dead, I ought to speak of Dr. Hyslop’s recent investigations, made with the assistance of the mediums Smead and Chenoweth (communications with William James). I ought also to mention Julia’s famous “bureau” and, above all, the extraordinary séances of Mrs. Wriedt, the trumpet medium, who not only obtains communications in which the dead speak languages of which she herself is completely ignorant, but raises apparitions said to be extremely disturbing. I ought lastly, to examine the facts set forth by Professor Porro, Dr. Venzano, and M. Rozanne, and many other things besides, for spiritualistic investigation and literature are already piling volume upon volume. But it was not my intention or my pretension to make a complete study of scientific spiritualism. I wished merely to omit no essential point and to give a general but accurate idea of this posthumous atmosphere which no really new and decisive fact has come to unsettle since the manifestations of which we have spoken.