What is the final test of the genuineness of so-called trance addresses ?

by A W Austen
Is it the fact that apparently the medium goes to sleep and then speaks in a voice which
often is a mixture of his own and someone elses, one sounding as though one entity is
using the vocal organs of another?
No, that is not the test. It proves nothing.
Scientists have sometimes noticed that during so-called control a mediums pulse eats
differently or his temperature perhaps changes. !here are often, indeed, physiological
changes which can e measured. "ven that, though, is merely a proof of changes in
odily condition which might e explained away.
Now the most elaorate tests have een invented y doctors for the testing of trance.
Some have accepted it. Some, to their own satisfaction at least, have explained it away.
In my own circle, Silver #irch has told us on more than one occasion to stick a pin in his
medium or to pinch the mediums flesh tightly. $hile he knew that we needed no further
proof, he understood its value for sceptics outside.
%n no occasion, on recovering consciousness, has the medium rememered eing pricked
with the pin. Nor has he felt any pain still remaining. &inching has left no ruise' the pin
pricks have left no marks.
(et, if you were to gag the medium, tie him up, sit him on the fire, put him in a cage or
oil him - there seems to e no limit as to what )psychical researchers* desire - none of it
would prove that the words he spoke in trance were anything ut something coming from
the suconscious mind. !he real test is the gradual uilding up of a personality other than
the mediums.
Now Silver #irch, who regularly controls his medium at my circle, is as real a person as
any one of the sitters.
+is noility of character far transcends any previous conception I had. !he remarkale
comination of the deep philosophy of his mind and the simple utterance of his speech
exceeds any human eings powers of invention.
)I have a few simple truths to teach,* he said, )simple ut important.* !hat is all. !he
way in which, week after week, he says the same thing in a different way ama,es me
who, as an old reporter, has had to listen all his life to parsons seeking every Sunday a
new way of saying the same old thing.
!hey ore you.
Silver #irch illumines and inspires.