PROVING THE PUDDING

The $5,000 prize offered by the "Scientific American" for proof of definite spirit manifestations still remains with that magazine. A year ago, a woman medium almost won, but when the investigators found that the cards on which the spirits wrote were not those provided by the committee, she was declared a fraud. More recently, the wife of a Boston physician failed to satisfy the investigating committee that she possessed psychic powers.

It is curious that scientists are taking the initiative in an attempt to prove the reality of spirits. A natural skepticism of the limits of their own ability should be a part of their intellectual make-up, but to strike boldly into a field at which they have previously scoffed bespeaks courses. Ever, stranger is the failure of the mediums to bring with positive, phenomena. They are contending with in audience which is willing to give the medium the benefit of the doubt as far as that is consistent: with scientific accuracy, and yet nothing has been established.

That actual spirit manifestations occur, scientists regard as probable, but not yet definitely proved. Until some medium succeeds in producing more than futile remarks from spirits that they are happy in Heaven, and an overturned table, hard-headed investigators will remain unconvinced.