SIR OLIVER LODGE granted that his own book Raymond often fails to meet the standard for evidence required by the Society for Psychical Research. Raymond contains incidents, he says, which "though quite unknown to the medium, are well within the knowledge of the sitter. On the whole, I am sure that the hypothesis of telepathy from the sitter is not one that can be stretched so as to cover all the facts. Things are often not got which are in the sitter's mind, and things are got which either he has forgotten or has never known. But still, so long as the series is conducted mainly by members of one family, it is difficult to be always quite certain as to what is known and what is not known, or has never been known, or could not be guessed. "

It was important to try to eliminate telepathy from the sitter as a major consideration in judging the source of the information received. "Proxy sittings" was the answer hit upon. In these a third party goes to the sitting in place of the person who desires evidence. This proxy sitter knows nothing about the person he represents nor about the deceased who will be requested to communicate. Thus, although clairvoyance or other extrasensory powers may be in operation, telepathy from the sitter is ruled out as the explanation of any supernormal information the medium may give.

One who helped to evolve the art of proxy sitting and who compiled two books about her experiences was Nea Walker, for many years Sir Oliver Lodge's secretary. She was the daughter of Professor Hugh Walker of Lampeter. She received her B.A. degree from Birmingham University. Her younger sister, Damaris, had some psychic faculty of her own. Through Damaris, Mrs. Osborne Leonard, and other mediums, a certain group of communicators began to appear, purporting to be deceased friends of the Walker girls. Known as "the Group"-Bunny, Ted, Geoff Mustard, and Wooley-they helped in proxy sittings by finding the deceased person sought by the sitter, teaching him the procedures of communicating, and acting more or less as masters of ceremony.

A proxy sitting held with the assistance of the Group is described in "The Sharp Case. Sir Oliver Lodge had received a letter stating, "I am a young man in the early thirties, and my wife died a month ago. The thought of many empty years before I join her appalls me." He asked if Sir Oliver could put him in touch with his wife through a medium. Nea Walker held a series of proxy sittings for him with Mrs. Leonard. From the transcript of the first of these sittings, November 3, 1930, the following passages are selected:
 

FEDA	Annotations made later by Mr. Sharp
They all here. They brought a new lady ... This isn't an old lady. I feel one full of life. And a very nice lady, too. Awfully nice. I feel that when she was on the earth plane she was what you call "particularly" liked.	Correct
[Feda stated that the lady had been ill for a long time before her passing.]	Correct
There are one, two, three people on earth near to her. Very closely connected with her. Three. One is a man. . . I feel the man would come like foremost.	Correct, three and only three, her husband and two sisters.
When she was on earth she used to sometimes put her hands round his head. She'd got a peculiar way of coming to him, and putting her hands round his head, as if making a band round his head. And she been trying to do that lately.	She sometimes used to do this when I was sitting writ-  ing or reading. Her hands would be placed on both sides of my head. She would then slightly draw back my head and kiss the top of it.
I get a feeling of him being rather a kind of authority on something ... I see books round him, too ... As if he got a lot of books on some special sort of subject that people think he is clever at, and like, come and ask him.	I used to be considered an authority on wild birds, and have several books on this subject which are occasionally referred to. In this way I have often identified unknown birds for friends.
Why do I see an F so clearly? In connection with him?	The initial of my Christian name.
He thinks of her in connection with books, too. I feel as if he and she used to look at books together....... Were they in a place where they used to notice birds? A Iot. I am getting a feeling of birds. And as if they used often to speak about the birds in the place ....	My wife, too, was interested in bird life, and we used to look at the books together.

On occasion Feda produced veridical information by what is called psychometry-receiving supernormal knowledge about a person from an article belonging to him. Mrs. Lydia W. Allison3 reports one such incident when she held a proxy sitting for Mr. Francis W. Blair (pseudonym) of Boston. She gave the entranced Mrs. Leonard a vanity case to hold which had belonged to the deceased Mrs. Blair. The sitting was held on July 20, 1937:
 

FEDA	Comment
The lady was a very strong character-the lady that passed over. She wasn't always shouting about it, not making fusses about it, but underneath she was very strong.......	Mrs. Blair was a woman of strong but restrained character.
I do not think it was an accident that took her over. I feel rather a quick exhausted feeling ....	Correct as to Mrs. Blair's death. Her last illness was short and exhausting. She had no accident, but Mrs. Allison had been under the mistaken belief that there had been an accident.
The daughter has been wearing something here, round her neck lately, belonging to this lady, and the lady likes it and she wants her daughter to wear them ...	This paragraph is entirely correct and very good indeed. Mr. Blair says, "Our youngest daughter has lately been wearing some pearls I had given her mother as a wedding present."
Do you know someone called Charles-Charlie -connected with this lady?	Mrs. Blair had a brother named Charles, sometimes called Charlie. She and her husband were both very fond of him.

One outstanding instance in which Drayton Thomas acted as proxy sitter is known as the "Bobbie Newlove Case. " In this, information was received which has caused considerable discussion. Thomas introduces us to the material in the following manner:

In September 1932 I received a letter from a stranger, a Mr. Hatch. He wrote from Nelson, a town 200 miles distant, of which I had no knowledge other than the fragmentary memories of having once lectured there ten years before.

Here are relevant portions of the letter.

For ten years my stepdaughter has lived with me and my wife, and her little boy has been the life and center of our lives. He was particularly intelligent and extraordinarily loving and lovable. A few weeks ago he died suddenly of diphtheria, aged ten. The loss is so dreadful that we feel we must ask if you can in any way obtain comfort similar to that recounted in your book, Life Beyond Death.

I discouraged expectation of receiving messages; it seemed to me that this boy would be too young to make a successful communicator. Meanwhile the family remained unaware, until receiving extracts from the first sitting, that I was attempting (by methods previously successful in similar cases) to make contact with the child. It was in these circumstances that I took the letter to my sitting of November 4, 1932.

At an appropriate moment during the sitting I said to Feda, "I have a very earnest request for news of a little boy, Bobbie Truelove." (By a slip of memory I gave the surname wrongly, it should have been Newlove. I corrected this at the beginning of the third sitting.) I then suggested that Feda should hold the letter. She accepted the idea. Needless to say I had folded it in such a way that no information could be ascertained by glancing at it. Added to this I watched carefully during the few minutes it was in the medium's hands, and observed that her eyes did not open. Selected material from the eleven sittings held for Bobbie Newlove follows. It will be noted that Drayton Thomas' father, called by Feda "Mr. John, " and his sister Etta are credited with assisting the little boy in communicating.

FEDA. Will you find out whether this boy had had a pain in his hand. I felt such a funny pain in the hand while touching this letter. [Bobbie, who had always been a delicate child, occasionally lost the use of the right hand after a bout of excessive laughter; at such times he did not complain of pain, but he was unable to use the hand for writing while the condition lasted.]

FEDA. The little boy has been trying to get in touch with them before. [His people wrote: "We have had very vague messages from local mediums."] (Short Comments interspersed between quotations from the record of the sittings are in square brackets. These Comments, unless therc is some statement to the contrary, are based upon information rcceived from Mr. Hatch or Mrs. Newlove, either in letters or verbally when I made their acquaintance during my visits to Nelson in June and July 1933.-(Rev. Thomas))

FEDA. You said a few weeks since he passed over, Feda feels it would be several months now. [I was informed that the child had died some three months before this sitting, on August 12, 1932.]

FEDA. Glands; ask if he had anything the matter with his glands. When I get anything like that it helps to find out if I am getting the right one.

[Mr. Hatch replied: "I do not know whether the glands are affected in diphtheria, but it is probable."

I was equally ignorant, but on referring to books, discovered, as did Mr. Hatch, that the glands are affected by diphtheria. So this point, which had been neither in my mind nor in Mr. Hatch's, was correct.]

FEDA. All boys are fond of cakes and things, but a little while before he passed over I get such a feeling of a lot of cakes and cooking going on as if for some special occasion.

[This is vague. The only fact at all relevant is that, at some time within six months of passing, Bobbie and a friend, after having studied a cookery book, had a grand toffee-making.]

FEDA. These people are not very poor and not very rich, sort of between people; I think they have a comfortable home and nice surroundings-the family of the boy.

[This remark was accepted by Mr. Hatch as a correct description.]

FEDA. Ask them if the boy's neck or throat was affected. I keep on getting something about that.

[The diphtheria affected the boy's neck and throat, but he had previously been troubled with enlargcd tonsils which would have been operated upon had Bobbie been less delicate.]

FEDA. He was very pleased at winning something not very long before he passed over.

[Not long before he died Bobbie was pleased at being top of his form for the half-year's examination, as well as for the term's marks. Nine weeks before his death Bobbie won, in a competition, a salt-sifter shaped like a dog. This article gave him much pleasure. He called it his "bow-wow."]

FEDA. Etta says he has very fond of something which he did not do by himself; and it seemed to do with numbers, as if he played with something with numbers on, and he used to take turns with it. Whatever this was with numbers he used to like to do something with curved lines, grooves and curved lines and numbers: he used to do this after tea, it occupied some time after tea.

[At a recent Fair he was particularly successful with one of the automatic machines from which he won pennies by shooting into numbered circles. "Not by himself:" he was always accompanied there by others and of course would take his turn at the machine and not monopolize it. "After tea:" he did this several times during evenings after tea.]

FEDA. He played indoors with colored marbles, it was something they did on a table.

[Yes, he played a game with colored marbles and a card pattern on the table.]

FEDA. What is that you are showing me? Will you ask is there a photograph of Bobbie in a rather peculiar position? I see him full faced, or very nearly full faced, but with something in front of him, as if there is a board in front of him. It is as if he had been photographed sitting at the back of something, like at the back of a board or a tray or something. In the position he seemed to be leaning a bit forward towards the tray or board or whatever it is, I get a feeling of a crouching position.

[Mr. Hatch writes: "This is certainly remarkable. The last photograph we have of Bobbie is in fancy dress. He is the Jack of Hearts with boards back and front like a sandwich-man. On his head is a crown as in a pack of cards. It is wrong that he was sitting or crouching, he was standing erect.]

FEDA. Will you ask also if he had been given-I think it must have been a joke-sornething new that he was fond of using or wearing on his head, something round; if it was a cap it had no peak to it. He used to put it on his head and I think he liked it. Mr. John is trying to draw just like a ring, like something he had put on. It has no peak to it at all. You had better say something round that was new, to wear on his head, that he was pleased at having. It was as if he thought it was rather important putting this round thing on his head.

[This apparently refers to the crown. He was so fond of putting it on that his mother had to check him lest it should be worn out.]

FEDA. What does Bobbie want to say about his nose, his nose hurt? (hand rubs nose). He is making me feel as if something had hurt his nose on the side towards the end of his earthly life. Oh, he doesn't think it caused his passing or anything of that kind.

[Mr. Hatch writes: "Bobbie was learning to box, and on the last lesson his instructor, usually very gentle with him, gave him a blow on the nose which brought tears to his eyes. He complained afterwards that it hurt when washed." When, on visiting the house, I was shown Bobbie's little diary, I noticed that he humorously referred to this under its date thus- "June 14. The instructor came. Burst my nose." This happened shortly before Bobbie's death.]

FEDA. Bobbie was funny about his food, some foods that boys like he was rather strange about, as if he did not like a certain food, he was very difficult about it, and there was something that he was being given only a little while before he passed over that he did not like at all. It was one of his pet aversions. It was a food, quite an ordinary food that many boys would like but he happened not to. He was given it towards the end of his earth life.

[Quite correct. He was funny about food; for instance, he would never touch jam, not even a cake that had a little jam in it. He disliked milk too. Bobbie's mother wrote: "The food which Bobbie was being given towards the end of his earth life, his pet aversion, was the white of egg. He hated it and always left it, but I was beginning to insist that he should try to eat it."]

FEDA. Did Mr. John tell you that for a boy he would think Bobbie was rather affectionate, sensitive to people's words and actions and even thoughts, a particularly understanding kind of boy. Thinks there would be a very strong link between himself and his family. He was not quite the casual off-hand boy. He was a boy with a good deal of deep feeling and understanding.

[This was true.]

FEDA. Bobbie wants to say something about handwriting. He was told to do something which would help, and he had been trying to do it. He wanted to improve it, and he tried to before he passed over. It has been spoken of lately.

[Mr. Hatch: "We begged him to try with his writing as it was keeping him back at school. We had mentioned his bad writing when trying to read his diary-after his passing.]

FEDA. He keeps on saying "mice." He was interested in something to do with mice and I think someone else is mixed up with this, because I get a feeling of another child, or young person, who was interested in and had as much to do with the mice as Bobbie had.

[Bobbie's mother wrote: "I have at last been able to make inquiries with regard to the mice. Bobbie, it appears, was interested in some mice which a friend of his had. Apparently he brought some to show us, but was shooed off again because I am frightened of them. I have only a very vague remembrance of this, but the boy friend is quite certain."]

FEDA. What are you showing me? Did you pull a string out of the wall? Bobbie did some funny things for a boy, now look, he is going to the wall and he seems as if he is untwisting something and he is pulling something from the wall, either thick string or rope, and on the end he seems to be fixing something carefully. That is important, what he is doing with it. It is the pulling it out that seems to be the important thing. It is something about drawing it out as far as is possible and then letting it go back to the wall again. It is something that he seemed to do rather regularly.

[Mr. Hatch: "This is good; in the attic he had, among other things, an arrangement for strengthening the muscles. Drawing it out was the important thing, and he did it rather regularly. This is evidently the answer to a former question, which was "What did he do in the attic besides boxing?"]

FEDA. He says, did I tell you that ours was a hilly district? Did I tell you we lived close to hills, you seemed always to be walking up or down hills?

C.D.T. I happen to know that it is hilly.

[This is more correct than I realized at the time; the hills are much steeper than I then supposed.]

FEDA. There is a place 'C'-close by, a long name sounding like Catelnow, Castlenow. There seemed to be two or three syllables, like a Ca sound, cattle or castle something.

[Mr. Hatch: "The name given is like Carlow, a hamlet near here. Bobbie and I went there the day he was taken ill, the last occasion that he left the house."

One of the last entries in Bobbie's diary, August 7, reads"Went to Carlow Bottoms. Sore throat. Went to bed."]

In a recent letter Mr. Hatch had written: "Bobbie used often to cycle in a garden; will you ask him where?" I therefore now put that question.]

C. D. T. You often cycled in a garden. Why you did it in the garden I can't think; it wasn't your own garden, was it?

FEDA. Wait a minute, I wonder who it belonged to. Bicycle through a gate, when you got to the gate you could turn to the left down a side path and you could bicycle there if you wanted to. I think there is another boy with him, and I see a tall lady. Is there a clergyman, minister, connected with this place? I don't think he lives there, and yet I get a feeling of clergy and ministers. I see a tall lady and another boy.

[Mr. Hatch: "This is remarkable, as the garden referred to belongs to the family of a minister who died about three years ago. The description is exact, except that there was no other boy."]

When discussing this with the family I learnt that "a tall lady" lives there; so that item is also correct. How shall we account for the reference to another boy which does not apply to that garden? Since writing the foregoing I have received the following note in answer to my inquiry.

"'Another boy with him, and I see a tall lady'. We have discovered since you asked us about this that on one occasion only Bobbie wished to take another boy with him into this garden. The owner, however, did not allow him to do so, as she felt, quite naturally, that if she allowed one she might be expected to allow more, and the garden would be overrun. This other boy did not go into the garden, but only to the gate, while Bobbie tried to obtain permission to have him in. On no other occasion did Bobbie bring a boy with him while in that garden, nor did any other boy friend of the family go there. The owner of the garden herself told me this."

The following information was to Drayton Thomas highly evidential. At an early sitting certain "pipes" were mentioned as a source of infection and a theory seems to have originated entirely in the minds of the communicators that this infection could have weakened Bobbie's condition so that he died of the diphtheria. Thomas, when he realized that this concept was being brought out in the trance material, felt it to be a definite challenge to find out exactly what was meant. He resolved to follow every lead until he discovered exactly what Bobbie was trying to tell him about the pipes.

He writes:

The most puzzling question connected with the problem of the pipes relates to the difficulty experienced by the communicators in telling what they knew. It is evident that they knew the facts during the six months which elapsed between their first hint and our final discovery. And there is no reason to doubt their wish to make it plain.

Why, then, could not the facts have been stated in one short sentence, such as, "Bobbie played by the pipes where springs issue on the Heights"? That is the question which I asked my father after the mystery had been solved. His reply, which opens up the whole subject of modus operandi, was, in substance, this-The difficulty lay in the necessity of fitting in the information, of being able at the opportune moment to fit it upon the medium's brain, either personally or through Fcda. The several parts of any message which we desire to give may be likened to the separate pieces of a puzzle. "I should wish," said he, "to start with that piece which will enable me to proceed methodically, but I may find that I cannot convey it to Feda, or that she cannot convey it to the medium. So I have to give just whatever happens to fit at the moment....

"That which I hope to give must harmonize, or associate with, what is uppermost in the medium's brain, or I shall fail to attach it and to fit it in so that it will be taken. All happens in accordance with the laws of association. The brain does not take that which is at the moment unsuited to it. I frequently wish to speak on a particular subject, but cannot."% %%%%Since only bits and pieces of information about the pipes came through at each sitting, Thomas thought of them as clues, and he worked on them as one might try to solve a detective mystery.

Thomas has separated all these clues from the main body of the transcript of the Bobbie Newlove sittings. They appear, with deletions, as follows:

Second Sitting, November 18, 1932.

FEDA. Did you tell Bobbie's people anything I felt about him here? (Hand touches medium's throat.)

C. D. T. Yes, that was right, throat trouble, he died from diphtheria....

FEDA. Etta says, I don't think it was quite that. I wonder if he had had something apart from the diphtheria, perhaps before the diphtheria, that had been rather a strain on his heart, weakened his heart in some way, so that the diphtheria was too much for it. Perhaps you can find that out. If it had not been for this condition of heart the diphtheria would not have been too much for him. There was something that weakened his system before; she got a very strong feeling about that.

[Mr. Hatch writes: "Yes, the illness started with tonsilitis, turned to quinsy, and no doubt these weakened the heart." Apparently Etta meant more than this.]

FEDA. Will you ask if there is anything they can trace to nine weeks before, something that at the time might not have seemed important? Now, must be careful about this, nine weeks before Bobbie passed over there was something that ought to have been very significant that had a link with his passing. C. D. T.I suppose you could not put in one word what this is?

FEDA. I will see if I can put in a nutshell what I feel about it. Wait a bit, "pipes, pipes"; well, he says just this- "pipes." That word should be sufficient. Leave it like that.

[Mr. Hatch writes: We cannot trace this at all.]

In subsequent sittings this subject is repeatedly touched upon, and the word "pipes" became our term for it. Not until my visit to Nelson, in June 1933, did we find any justification for the word. It was then, on learning that Bobbie had kept a diary, that I asked to see it, and at once turned to the date nine weeks before his death in order to discover whether there might be anything relevant to the above. My search was successful. At June 15 were the words, "joined gang.........I inquired what was meant by the "gang," and learnt that it was a secret society formed by Bobbie and one or two of his boy friends; they used to play at having adventures, and chose for the place a spot in the locality called "the Heights."

FEDA. Bobbie thinks all the time that there was something that would be wrong with him first, that caused him to take it. I don't know what you mean, Bobbie, you say you got yours from the pipes.

C. D. T. That is curious, because my father said that previously and Bobbie's people can't find any connection with pipes.

FEDA. I think Bobbie is a very clear-minded boy, he seems very intelligent.

[Mr. Hatch replied to this: "We don't know. I think it is very unlikely that Bobbie had heard of anyone catching the disease from pipes."]

C. D. T. Etta, about the "pipes." Bobbie's people still can't trace them. If Bobbie could tell them anything about the pipes it would be very interesting.

FEDA. It was not in his home. It was not in a place where he was regularly. There was a place that he went to where he introduced into his system this poisonous condition-where he infected his system.

I get a feeling wherever this place was, of there being animals you call cattle. Mr. John says, make a point of this. I am quite sure of this; yet his people may say when they first read it that he never went to a place where there were such things. But he did. We know we are right in this matter, and that if inquiries are quietly persisted in, it may eventually come to light.

Either before or after Bobbie caught it there-we think after-there was something done to apparently improve matters with regard to those " pipes." There was something altered that probably now has improved the condition, made it safer; it was certainly unsafe before.

Note how the above remarks fall into line with the following facts. On July 1, 1933, I visited "the Heights" in company with the family. First we inspected the lower portions of the ground, and then explored the disused and overgrown quarry, locally termed the Delf. On leaving this I noticed a shed somewhat higher up the hill and near the road which bounds the area on its topmost side. On nearing this shed the ground showed marks of animals, and hay was visible in the shed. We therefore examined this shed and found that one end of it was used as a stable, and the other end had stores of hay and straw for bedding. One end was open, and this fact excited interest, since one of the clues was "an open end." Indeed, this shed answered in several particulars to descriptions given in the sittings, as also did the surroundings. While we stood there a woman approached. I made some remark about the fine view; she responded suitably, and we entered into conversation. With the puzzle of the "pipes" still revolving in my mind I inquired whether she knew if children came to play in the quarry. She replied that they did, and that they sometimes made mischief, that among other misdeeds they had "broken the pipe." The mention of a pipe in connection with this spot to which Bobbie's descriptions had led us, and which we already knew answered in several ways to those descriptions, inspired hope that we were on the right track. Further inquiries elicited the information that there was a spring part-way down the hill, where water issued from a pipe. She added that they now had the town water laid on, and so were not dependent upon the pipe. I gathered that this alteration had been made some years before.

We then walked down the slope to see the spring. Water issued from the hillside by the side of the displaced pipe, an iron pipe several feet in length. Past this pipe the water trickled down the slope in a small channel of its own making.

We had discovered one pipe, and it was in the place to which the clues given in the sittings had led us. We saw no second pipe, and why the word was used in the plural we failed to guess. Our discovery of this pipe was entirely due to the meeting with our informant. It is unlikely that we should have seen the spring and its pipe but for her remark; for we had visited the same locality a few days before and had not suspected its existence. The pipe is inconspicuously placed, and not visible until one goes quite near, being hidden by the formation of the ground.

A letter from Mr. Hatch dated September 27, 1933, says: "Since your visit last June I have been to the Heights several times, and on one occasion I came across water running from another pipe in quite another direction from the first one, but nearly as close to the Delf-it was about three minutes' walk from it. This pipe protrudes over a kind of trough filled with water, and is tucked away at the end of a footpath. Mr. Burrows and I made the discovery."

Thus was the term "the pipes," used by the communicators ever since December 2, 1932, found, in the following September, to be justified by the discovery of two pipes situated in the immediate vicinity of the place frequented by Bobbie and his friend.

Having thus glanced at the end of the story, let us continue the January 1933 sitting.

FEDA. The animals will be the best clue. He understands from Bobbie-he says Bobbie seems to suggest to him that his parents were not so familiar with this place, or did not go to it to the same extent that he did.

["Animals the best clue." Yes, it was the sight of animal tracks which led us to examine the shed. "Parents not familiar with this place;" they had not seen it. Bobbie once brought his mother to view the Heights from the lower road, but, finding it would be some distance, and the weather being inclement, they returned home.]

FEDA. There was another boy mixed up in this, who went to this place and seemed to be the reason for Bobbie's going.

["Another boy." Yes, "the gang" included Bobbie and his friend Jack, and they had decided upon this place as their field of operations.

A letter dated November 8, 1933, from Mr. Hatch says: "Did I tell you that I questioned Jack about the pipe that we first found on the Heights and he admitted that he and Bobbie played with the water?"]

FEDA. I am getting a funny name, it sounds to Feda like Bentley. This is what he calls a clue to it.

Bentley and Stoo, something, Stock, Stop, begins Stoo.

FEDA. He is trying to show me-make me feel-a town, not a pretty town, it is full of streets, you know, streets full of ugly people that does not know anything about Feda.

C. D. T. You mean ugly streets and houses, not people.

FEDA. No, ugly people, not the streets; you see they doesn't know anything about Feda, or about this subject. And they are going down hill where shops is and houses and they goes down this hill and they come to a cross road; and I think there is a big station there; because there is a bridge just down that turning.

One of the cross roads leads to a dark bridge where trains goes what you say "expectorating" like that, ch-ch-ch- and blowing out sparks and stuff. That is what a lady told me is right "spectorating." And then if you does not turn down to where the trams is you go straight up a hill opposite you, and I see Bobbie going up that hill, and I am following him up it, and he is getting a little bit away from the town part, he is getting more towards houses and less shops and cleaner and less of the poor miserable people. It feels a bit brighter, you see, there. Oh, now I am getting the name again that sounds like Ben or Bentley.

[Mr. Hatch replied that the description of the town was good. Bentley Street adjoined Bobbie's school. The Stocks, used long ago for ill-doers, were farther up the hill toward the Heights.]

C. D. T. Bobbie, I am going there in about a month's time; if I wanted to go to the place where the pipes are, and wished to start from the railway station-do you know what I should do? I should walk up the hill past your house; and when past your house and a little uphill, what ought I to do then? Is that the right direction?

FEDA. Yes, and there is another way to it, past the school. He says, I should think past the house and keep straight on.

C. D. T. Yes, and what am I to look out for? Would the place be on the main road or should I have to turn somewhere?

FEDA. It seems to be on the right. I don't think it is very far from the main road, I think it is on it.

[My question was based upon the sketch map sent by Mr. Hatch to illustrate a previous sitting. I aimed to provide Bobbie with a starting point from which he might describe the route to the pipes. It so happened that my suggested route was quite in order, for that is one way to Marsden Heights.

"Another way past the school;" this is correct.

"Turn right;" correct. One goes past the Church some distance and then turns up a short blind road on the right. A gate at its end opens on to the Heights.]

We have seen that the information given about the existence and whereabouts of these pipes was correct. Let us now consider whether there was justification for the opinion, so confidently expressed, that Bobbie's death might be attributed to the pipes.

The water issuing from the hillside is pure, but it falls into pools, one of which is on the open hillside where it would be visited by wild birds, poultry, and animals.

At my request the Brierfield Medical Officer of Health, Dr. J. Strachan Wilson, M.B., C.M., visited the place. He afterwards sent me the following report:

TOWN HALL, BRIERFIELD,

LANCASHIRE, February 21, 1934

DEAR SIR,

Your letter of the 10th instant, re springs on Marsden Heights, to hand.

Mr. Haigh, the Sanitary Inspector, and myself visited the two springs you mention. The water in both pools is obviously liable to contamination from surface water and is not fit for drinking purposes. Any person, child or adult, might develop a low or even an acute infection from the drinking of such water.

We have had samples of the water issuing from the hillside, in both cases, analyzed, and the analysis shows that the water from both sources is suitable for drinking.

Yours faithfully,

J. S. WILSON

Medical Officer of Health

That verdict about the pools into which the pipe water falls is decisive. We are certain that Bobbie frequently played by this water during several weeks; then came an illness which, beginning with tonsilitis, turned to quinsy and then to the diphtheria which overcame him. Bobbie's friend, Jack, says that they "played with the water." A boy who was playing with water as it issued from the pipe could scarcely avoid wetting his hands in the contaminated pool below. Those wet hands might easily convey infection to the mouth, either by wiping on handkerchief or by cupping them for a mouthful of water from the pipe. Bobbie lived in a healthy part of Nelson and there were, as I am informed by the local Medical Officers of Health, only two other cases of diphtheria in Nelson at that time, and four in the Brierfield area.

The communicators may or may not have been correct in concluding that Bobbie's death was caused directly or indirectly by his playing with this water.

What makes the incident really remarkable from the evidential point of view is that the members of Bobbie's family were entirely ignorant of the facts, and that the only person acquainted with them, besides Bobbie himself, was his companion Jack-certainly a most unpromising and unlikely source of telepathic information on the subject. Yet the existence of this water was asserted and reasserted during a period of six months, and the pipes were finally discovered by our following up the clues given.

There were no people on earth who knew the two facts which are so emphatically and continuously interwoven in the sittings, viz.

(1) that Bobbie played with the water on the Heights, and (2) that I was trying to get from him messages for his people. These two facts were, however, known to some very acute intelligence somewhere, who made use of them during a period of six months in face of incredulity by Bobbie's people and our failure to understand.

This knowledge about the pipes-which proved to be accuratecould not have come by telepathy from Bobbie's home circle, because no one there was aware of the existence of the pipes. Members of the "gang," on the other hand, would have no idea that Bobbie hurt himself by playing with the water, nor of the fact that I was seeking to obtain messages from him.

Whence, then, came the knowledge so clearly displayed? Was it from minds on earth? Doubtless many persons were aware of those pipes on the Heights; yet it is certain that not one among them ever suspected that I was taking sittings on behalf of Bobbie's family. That fact was private to the few persons in Bobbie's group. The only others who knew, namely, my stenographer, my wife, and I, were unaware of the existence of the Heights. No one person knew both facts, viz. that the pipes existed, and that I was inquiring about Bobbie. Whence, then, came the information? It is a problem which I commend to the attention of those who may hesitate to share my conviction that Bobbie Newlove and his friends in the Beyond gave the messages.

Drayton Thomas' conclusions were challenged in several letters appearing in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Baron Alfred de Winterstein was certain that the author undervalued "the possibilities of mind reading, especially the faculty of certain mediums to avail themselves of the unconscious of the sitter as a bridge to the thoughts of distant and unknown persons. I miss, therefore, the due consideration of Bobbie's friend Jack's person as source of telepathic information on the subject. . . . It may . . . be imagined, perhaps even ascertained, that the boy spoke with other persons about the death of his friend Bobbie and mentioned on this occasion that he and Bobbie had played with the water on the Heights. Is it really out of the question that someone (for instance a medical man) surmised thereupon, perhaps in the presence of the boy, a connection between the two facts, although the author asserts so apodictically that no one on earth had the least suspicion that the throat affection was traceable to the contaminated water? Likewise, I should not be so rash in affirming that members of 'the gang' would have no idea that Bobbie hurt himself by playing with the water...."

Eric J. Dingwall wrote that, having made a very careful study of the Newlove Case, "I find little evidence of anything 'supernormal' whatever. Verification varies with the ingenuity of the annotator; and it is of great interest to note with what efforts and with what success the control makes use of the little information given by the sitters. In this respect the transformation of the drains to the pipes through the kind assistance of Mr. Thomas will, I think, remain a classic instance of a principle which, I suspect, runs all through the mental phenomena, namely that it is the sitter who produces the results, not the medium."

E.B. Gibbes replied, "In view of the many records extantin which evidence has been given by a medium of knowledge unknown to anyone present at the sitting, I think Dr. Dingwall's remark the most preposterous I have ever read."

But S. G. Soal found himself in substantial agreement with Dr. Dingwall. "In the first place, there is no satisfactory demonstration that the pipes in question had anything whatever to do with the boy's death. Moreover, such pipes as Mr. Thomas describes are exceedingly common in hilly districts and I feel confident that, had Mr. Thomas applied Feda's vague descriptions to the case of another boy who had died from diphtheria in another district, his enthusiasm would have led him inevitably to the discovery of suspect pipes and possibly contaminated surface water into which such pipes usually drip. . . .

"Indeed," Soal went on, "almost the only question which I find intriguing in a study of these vague records is the problem of how Mrs. Leonard obtained the names 'Bentley' and the fair approximation to the name 'Catlow.' It would be premature, however, to jump to the conclusion that these names indicate supernormal knowledge on the part of the medium. For all we know to the contrary, 'Bentley' streets may be fairly common in northern or midland towns; it is at any rate up to Mr. Thomas to demonstrate that they are not. But another possibility suggests itself. I understand that Mr. Thomas had visited Nelson in some year previous to the sittings. May not the names Bentley Street and Carlow have been mentioned casually in his presence-for instance, by two persons in conversation together within his hearing? Now if Mrs. Leonard uttered names which sounded in some respects like Bentley and Catelnow it seems not impossible that the dormant subconscious associations in Mr. Thomas's mind might provoke an auditory illusion which would lead him to imagine that the words he heard were 'Bentley' and 'Catelnow.' Such illusions are very common among people with normal hearing...."

Drayton Thomas replied to the suggestion of auditory illusion in the names "Bentley" and "Catelnow" by showing that all his records in this case were taken down by an expert stenographer, who had written them as she heard them pronounced.

Another proxy series which is highly regarded by Psychical researchers for the evidence it produced was conducted by Drayton Thomas for Professor E. R. Dodds, who had asked Thomas to be a proxy sitter for a friend. When Thomas went to the first sitting with Mrs. Leonard, he knew only that the person from whom the communication was desired was Frederic William Macaulay of Birmingham, who had died May 20, 1933, and that his daughter Emma (Mrs. Wilfred Stanley Lewis) requested the information. The sittings at which the alleged Macaulay communicated took place during the summer of 1936 and the winter of 1937. The transcript of material was published in 1939., The information received caused Macaulay's daughter to be satisfied that it was her father who was being described. References to his work, the tools he used, his drafting table and office indicated that the communicator had been a hydraulic engineer, which Macauley was. Descriptions and initials or first names of several of Macauley's best friends and co-workers were given. The condition of his health during his past few years and the state of his affairs were reported correctly.

A few responses follow which seemed to Macauley's daughter to be particularly applicable to her father.

Date of sitting.- August 21, 1936

FEDA. There is also a John and a Harry, both with him. And Race ... Rice ... Riss ... it might be Reece but sounds like Riss, and Francis. These are all names of people who were connected with him or linked up with him in the past, connected with happy times. I get a feeling of an active and busy home in which he was rather happy.

[Mrs. Lewis' comment: This is a very curious passage, taken in conjunction with "they are connected with rather happy times. I get a feeling of an active and busy home in which he was rather happy." Probably the happiest time of my father's life was in the four or five years before the war, when we, his five children, were all at school, and the home was packed with our friends during the holidays. John, Harry, and Francis could be three of these. Francis is certainly dead. I do not know about John and Harry. But the most interesting passage is "It might be Reece but it sounds like Riss." This carries me back to a family joke of these pre-war days. My elder brother was at school at Shrewsbury and there conceived a kind of hero worship for one of the "Tweaks" (sixth form boys) whose name was Rees. He wrote home about him several times and always drew attention to the fact that the name was spelt "Rees" and not "Reece." In the holidays my sister and I used to tease him by singing "Not Reece but Riss" until my father stopped us, explaining how sensitive a matter a young boy's hero worship was. I think Rees was killed in the Great War. He was never at our house, but we had him carefully pointed out to us whenever we were at Shrewsbury. This Reece-Riss reference is quite characteristic of other sittings I have had in which have been made quaint little references to small matters that yet are important with reference to my father.]

FEDA. This gentleman would have had pains in his limbs? I get rather a stiff feeling and aches in the limbs. Something he suffered from in later years.

[These were symptoms of his last illness.]

FEDA. Also a peculiar feeling in one hand too. Will you ask his daughter if there was something about one hand that made it uneasy sometimes? Something not quite right with one hand. I feel he had done something to one hand that would make it a little different from an ordinary person's hand.

[About a year before his death he had severe blood poisoning in one hand. I believe it was always tender afterwards.]

FEDA. I get a funny word now . . . would he be interested in . . . baths of some kind? Ah, he says I have got the right word, baths. He spells it B A T H S. His daughter will understand, he says. It is not something quite ordinary, but feels something special.

[This is, to me, the most interesting thing that has yet emerged. Baths were always a matter of joke in our family-my father being very emphatic that water must not be wasted by our having too big baths or by leaving the taps dripping. It is difficult to explain how intimate a detail this seems. A year or two before his death my father broadcast in the Midland Childrcn's Hour on "Water Supply" and his five children were delighted to hear on the air the familiar admonitions about big, wasteful baths and dripping taps. The mention of baths here also seems to me an indication of my father's quaint humor, a characteristic which has hitherto been missing.]

FEDA. What is that? . . . Peggy . . . Peggy . . . Puggy . . . he is giving me a little name like Puggy or Peggy. Sounds like a special name, a little special nickname, and I think it is something his daughter would know. Poggy, Puggy or Peggy. I think there is a "y" on it.

[My father sometimes called me "pug-nose" or "Puggy."]

Out of the 94 items given during four sittings this communicator was successful 70 times. Such a proportion of accuracy-74.4 per cent-places the result beyond anything attributable to chance coincidence.

The Gibbie Case, which follows, was thought by Drayton Thomas an indication of precognition:

FEDA. I get a feeling of another lady, not his daughter, closely related to him, I feel it is rather like a sister, and she is on the earth. He is helping - not her exactly - but he is helping about her, something he wants to do in connection with her, influence her and help her, and he will do it. He would like you to tell his daughter; he seems to think she will know what he means.

[Mrs. Lewis wrote to Professor Dodds, "This strongly suggests reference to a particular situation that is causing me great anxiety at the moment."]

I have the following message as suggested by Professor Dodds:

C. D. T. Your daughter thinks that the lady of whom you spoke is Gibbie. She is very much worried about the Gibbie situation and can you advise her about this?

FEDA. Yes, yes, it is Gibbie. Gibbie is not making it very easy for anyone to help. It is not just the situation around Gibbie that is difficult, but Gibbie is not making it easy, is not helping others to help. He doesn't want his daughter to try and do anything just at the moment. He has a very strong impression-and here he would like to be careful and say he has the impression that in about a fortnight from now there will be an easing of the situation, an opportunity for his daughter to see if something can be done, but not to move till then. There are some difficult conditions round Gibbie, not her own entirely, but somebody's difficult condition, something that has to be fought down.

[In a later letter of October 6, 1936, Mrs. Lewis added, "You may remember that I asked whether I could do anything about the Gibbie situation and was told to leave things alone as there were signs that it was going to improve by itself within the next few weeks. Frankly I did not think this possible, but actually the miracle has come to pass."]

We thus have the significant fact that, at the third sitting, the communicator expressed the opinion that a certain situation would shortly change for the better. This was regarded as impossible by Mrs. Lewis, but seven weeks after the forecast was made she wrote of it that "the miracle has come to pass." We may therefore conclude that the communicator knew something which his daughter did not know; his forecast being based on information to which Mrs. Lewis had no access at the time it was given.

In the letter from Professor Dodds, dated December 2, 1936, it was asked if I would try to obtain messages from the first wife of Professor Lewis.

In the course of the fifth sitting on January 22, 1937, Feda had said, "He is very anxious for me to describe someone he has with him. " She then gave ten details of face, form, and dress. Commenting on this, Professor Lewis later wrote, "This is a very fair description of my first wife as regards stature, shape of face, coloring and style of hairdressing." Having at that time no suspicion that this referred to the first Mrs. Lewis, and with the above request in mind, I presently took opportunity to ask if Mr. Macaulay would bring the first Mrs. Lewis. He agreed to do so.

Other interests occupied me during the next four sittings and it was not until just before my sitting of March 5, 1937, that I mentally asked the first Mrs. Lewis to be present and give messages for her husband. Three months had elapsed since she had been mentioned in Mrs. Leonard's presence.

From the items given by this communicator the following were the best. (The annotations are given by Professor Lewis.)

Date of sitting: March 5, 1937
 

FEDA. Something important happened about twenty years ago, a link with them both, it caused them to be together. [We were married in 1918.]

FEDA. The name Platt is a link with the old days, not important but connected with a time when she was on earth.

[A Mr. Platt, known to her, was in College with me in 1910-13.]

FEDA. She mentions this because her husband has quite recently been reading something in which the name Platt figures very prominently, but no connection with the Platt of long ago.

[Another Platt, not known to her, but known to me and a later student at the same college, which she knew well, has written a book on geological maps. I have been recently preparing lectures involving reference to that book.]

FEDA. She has very happy memories in connection with him (Professor Lewis) and a place "S," quite away from his present locality. A place sounding like Soam . . . Sum . . . I get an "M" sound in it. I had better not try to get more than the "S."

[We became engaged at a small village called Swindon outside Cheltenham.] Date of sitting: June 18, 1937

FEDA. I am going back to a bridge, a good many years ago, in the evening, in April; the name William comes much in memory, a special time and circumstances that were important.

[I proposed to my first wife on a bridge, on an April evening, twenty-five years ago. There were certain difficulties connected with her father which delayed her acceptance, and the father's name was William.]

It will be noted that the above refers to five facts all of which were closely connected with a single occasion, and all are recognized as correct.

Notwithstanding the successes quoted above, the whole result was poor.

As his concluding remark about the whole series of sittings Drayton Thomas says:

The final refuge of the skeptic is the hypothesis that no statement need be attributed to discarnate intelligence if it refers to anything known at the time by anyone anywhere on earth.

As to this, let those believe it who can!

It appears to me that the hypotheses of fraud, rational inference from disclosed facts, telepathy from the actual sitter, and coincidence cannot either singly or in combination account for the results obtained. Only the barest information was supplied to sitter and medium, and that through an indirect channel. Until after the first sitting (at which a substantial amount of veridical matter cmcrged) the medium had no opportunity of initiating inquiries; and although she might then conceivably have had recourse to obituary notices and to a private inquiry agency, I cannot imagine how she could have obtained such items as "Reece-Riss," "Puggy," or the reference to Professor Lewis's private conversation on a bridge twenty-five years earlier. It is equally incredible to me that such items were all of them mere lucky shots.

If these hypotheses are ruled out, the experiment sccms to present us (and this is its importance) with a clear cut "either-or": Mrs. Leonard had supernormal access on this occasion eitber (a) to some of the thoughts of a living person or persons who had nevcr held any communication with her or witb the sitter; or else (b) to some of the thoughts of a mind or minds other than that of a living person. (I put the second alternative in this negative way because I have no means of defining the character or status of such minds, if they exist, or of determining how many such minds might, singly or between them, possess the veridical information which was givcn. Even the use of the word "mind" perhaps assumes more than is strictly justified.)

I see at present no plausible means of escape from this staggering dilemma. Nor do I see any valid ground for embracing one horn of it and spurning the other, as Mr. Thomas does. In the present state of our knowledge-or rathcr, ignorance-about the mechanism of telepathy, it seems to me impossible to specify the limits of its operation, though no doubt such limits exist and will one day be determined. In the meantime I can only state my conclusion in the form of a disjunctive proposition.

At the sitting, in November, 1929, Feda described Mrs. Thomas (the communicator) dressed in rather primitive, unconventional costume, walking about with a stick and making a noise with it, "Pump! Pump!" She used a short stick and a much longer stick. Mrs. Thomas said, via Feda, "I used to have to be very careful about the oil." There were eleven points mentioned at this sitting, and Dr. Thomas annotated all as correct. The house which was obviously here referred to had an oil heating system. Mrs. Thomas after retiring sometimes rose and, wearing her nightgown, went into the basement with a long stick and a short stick to measure the amount of oil in the tanks. The "Pump! Pump!" sound was made by the stick striking the bottom of the tank.

Another type of proxy sitting which Gardner Murphy considers even more cogent is the instance in which the very existence of a distant sitter is completely unknown at the time of the sitting both to the medium and to the sitter. The communicator takes the initiative, as it were, and gives hints as to the identity of the person for whom the messages are intended. Such a case was reported by Drayton Thomas.

At a Leonard sitting on October 28, 1938 John and Etta, as communicators, said Thomas was to expect a letter from a father about his son. The father was middle-aged and once lived in a place where Thomas had lived-Morton or a name sounding like that. His son had been killed outright in an accident involving a motor car.

Less than two weeks after the sitting Drayton Thomas received a letter from a Mr. A. who said he had heard him lecture a month before and had been planning to write ever since. His son had been killed in an accident (but aeroplane, not automobile) and he and his family had lived in the village of Norton, which was only a mile and a half from a town where Thomas had once lived. The young communicator appeared at two subsequent sittings and gave considerable additional strikingly veridical material.