COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LX, Issue LX, 1 November 1910, Page 2

COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD.

If any Spiritualistic medium be in w.mt of a real test of his powers he has the chance now (says the Melbourne A^e). The late Professor William James, of Harvard, the well-known psychologist and philosopher, devised a fcheme "before his death," as the New York correspondent of one of our Sunday papers says quaintly enough, to test 1 the pretensions of those individuals who claim to be able to communicate with the dead. Shortly before his death, Professor James wrote a number of letters, the contents of which he made known to no one. They are understood to deal with incidents of his career unknown to the greater number of his friends. Theso letters were sealed and locked in a bank vault, whence they are to be taken in a year's time. The task of the spiritists is to discover within a tweVemonth the contents of these letters. Professor Hyslop, president of the America Society of Psychical Research, and one of the most intimate friends of Professor James, purposes coming to > London in November] when he will, with the aid of the famous Mrs Leonora Piper, the American medium, endeavor to get into communication with the spirit of the deceased and ascertain what has been written in the buried letters. Other attempts are also to be made, and the whole of the results will be judged in the light of the letters themselves at the end of the twelve months during which they are to be hidden from view. It is said that the greatest care has been taken to eliminate all possibility of fraud.