Quick Links
-Search Website
-Have A Question?
-Wallace News
-About This Site

General
Misinformation Alert!
Wallace Bio & Accomplishments
Wallace Chronology
Frequently Asked Questions
Wallace Quotes
Wallace Archives
Miscellaneous Facts
Links

Bibliography / Texts
Wallace Writings Bibliography
Texts of Wallace Writings
Texts of Wallace Interviews
Wallace Writings: Names Index
Wallace Writings: Subject Index
Writings on Wallace
Wallace Obituaries
Wallace's Most Cited Works

Features
Taxonomic / Systematic Works
Wallace on Conservation
Smith on Wallace
Research Threads
Wallace Images
Just for Fun
Frequently Cited Colleagues
Wallace-Related Maps & Figures

Alfred Russel Wallace : Alfred Wallace : A. R. Wallace :
Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)

 
 
Eusapia Palladino (S520a: 1896)

 
Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: A letter to the Editor of the Daily Chronicle printed on page three of its 24 January 1896 issue. To link directly to this page connect with: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S520A.htm


     Sir,--As your reviewer, in noticing the new and enlarged edition of my book on "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," has confined his remarks to my record of Prof. Oliver Lodge's experiences with Eusapia Palladino, perhaps you will permit me to state that the whole body of the work was printed before that medium came to Cambridge; and, further, that I consider the Cambridge experiments, so far as they are recorded, only prove that Eusapia might have deceived, not that she actually and consciously did so. And even if she did cheat at Cambridge, that fact in no way gets rid of the genuine phenomena previously witnessed and tested by a large number of eminent men of science. In a letter dated Nov. 2, 1895, and printed in Light last Saturday, Prof. Lodge says:--"Eusapia has shown that she employs artifice and deceives; so much is certain. She has just as certainly shown that she can cause genuine phenomena. That is my opinion." Professor Richet, who has had a far more extended experience with the medium than any of the Cambridge observers, in a long letter to Mr. Myers, published in the "Journal of the Society for Physical Research" of December last, declares that nothing new was proved at Cambridge, that all the signs of fraud were known to himself and all the other Continental observers, and that this knowledge was communicated to Messrs. Lodge and Myers. Yet, in spite of this knowledge, both these gentlemen were convinced that the phenomena witnessed by them in France were genuine, as also are Professor Richet and Professor Chiaia, of Naples, who has investigated the phenomena occurring with Eusapia for ten years. Thirty years' experience of analogous phenomena, with many mediums and under the most varied conditions, leads me to accept confidently the conclusions of those inquirers who have devoted the most time and thought to the investigation.

Jan. 22.
Alfred R. Wallace.


*                 *                 *                 *                 *

Return to Home