957 A. From the report by Professor Lodge, Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 448-53.

The personality active and speaking in the trance is apparently so distinct from the personality of Mrs. Piper that it is permissible and convenient to call it by another name. It does not differ from her as Hyde did from Jekyll, by being a personification of the vicious portion of the same individual. There is no special contrast, any more than there is any special similarity. It strikes one as a different personality altogether, and the name by which it introduces itself when asked, viz., "Dr. Phinuit," is as convenient as any other, and can be used wholly irrespective of hypothesis.

I would not in using this name be understood as thereby committing myself to any hypothesis regarding the nature of this apparently distinct and individual mind. At the same time the name is useful as expressing compactly what is naturally prominent to the feeling of any sitter, that he is not talking to Mrs. Piper at all. The manner, mode of thought, tone, trains of idea, are all different. You are speaking no longer to a lady, but to a man, an old man, a medical man. All this cannot but be vividly felt even by one who considered the impersonation a consummate piece of acting.

Whether such a man as Dr. Phinuit ever existed I do not know, nor from the evidential point of view do I greatly care. It will be interesting to have the fact ascertained if possible; but I cannot see that it will much affect the question of genuineness. For that he did not ever exist is a thing practically impossible to prove. While, if he did exist, it can be easily supposed that Mrs. Piper took care enough that her impersonation should have so much rational basis.

It can be objected, why, if he was a French doctor, has he so entirely forgotten his French? For though he speaks in a Frenchified manner, I am told that he cannot sustain a conversation in that language. I am unable to meet this objection by anything beyond the obvious suggestion that Mrs. Piper's brain is the medium utilised, and that she is likewise ignorant. But one would think that it would be a sufficiently patent objection to deter an impersonator from assuming a role of purely unnecessary difficulty, and one which it was impossible satisfactorily to maintain.

Admitting, however, that "Dr. Phinuit" is probably a mere name for Mrs. Piper's secondary consciousness, one cannot help being struck by the singular correctness of his medical diagnoses. In fact, the medical statements, coinciding as they do with truth just as well as those of a regular physician, but given without any 'ordinary examination and sometimes without even seeing the patient, must be held as part of the evidence establishing a strong prima facie case for the existence of some abnormal means of acquiring information. Not that it is to be supposed that he is more infallible than another. I have one definite case of distinct error in a diagnosis (Report, p. 547).

Proceeding now on the assumption that I may speak henceforth of Dr. Phinuit as of a genuine individual intelligence, whether it be a usually latent portion of Mrs. Piper's intelligence, or whether it be something distinct from her mind and the education to which it has been subjected, I go on to consider the hypotheses which still remain unexamined.

And first we have the hypothesis of fishery on the part of Dr. Phinuit, as distinguished from trickery on the part of Mrs. Piper. I mean a system of ingenious fishing: the utilisation of trivial indications, of every intimation, audible, tactile, muscular, and of little shades of manner too indefinable to name; all these excited in the sitter by skilful guesses and well-directed shots, and their nutriment extracted with superhuman cunning.

Now this hypothesis is not one to be lightly regarded, or ever wholly set aside. I regard it as, to a certain extent, a vera causa. At times Dr. Phinuit does fish. Occasionally he guesses; and sometimes he ekes out the scantiness of his information from the resources of a lively imagination.

Whenever his supply of information is abundant there is no sign of the fishing process.

At other times it is as if he were in a difficult position - only able to gain information from very indistinct or inaudible sources, and yet wishful to convey as much information as possible. The attitude is then as of one straining after every clue, and making use of the slightest indication, whether received in normal or abnormal ways: not indeed obviously distinguishing between information received from the sitter and information received from other sources.

The fishing process is most marked when Mrs. Piper herself either is not feeling well or is tired. Dr. Phinuit seems to experience more difficulty then in obtaining information; and when he does not fish he simply draws upon his memory and retails old facts which he has told before, occasionally with additions of his own which do not improve them. His memory seems to be one of extraordinary tenacity and exactness, but not of infallibility; and its lapses do introduce error, both of defect and excess.

He seems to be under some compulsion not to be silent. Possibly the trance would cease if he did not exert himself. At any rate he chatters on, and one has to discount a good deal of conversation which is obviously, and sometimes confessedly, introduced as a stop-gap.

He is rather proud of his skill, and does not like to be told he is wrong; but when he waxes confidential he admits that he is not infallible: "he does the best he can," he says, but sometimes "everything seems dark to him," and then he flounders and gropes, and makes mistakes.

It is not to be supposed that this floundering is always most conspicuous in presence of a stranger. On the contrary, if he is in good form he will rattle off a stranger's connections pretty glibly, being indeed sometimes oppressed with the rush and volume of the information available; while, if he is in bad trim, he will fish and retail stale news (especially the latter) to quite an old hand, and one who does not scruple to accuse him of his delinquencies when they become conspicuous.

This fallibility is unfortunate, but I don't know that we should expect anything else; anyhow it is not a question of what we expect, but of what we get.

If it were a question of what I for one had expected, the statement of it would not be worth the writing.

Personally I feel sure that Phinuit can hardly help this fishing process at times. He does the best he can, but it would be a great improvement if, when he realises that conditions are unfavourable, he would say so and hold his peace. I have tried to impress this upon him, with the effect that he is sometimes confidential, and says that he is having a bad time; but after all he probably knows his own business best, because it has several times happened that after half-an-hour of more or less worthless padding, a few minutes of valuable lucidity have been attained.