These movements are not harmful, though at the time they may be unpleasant. They may arise from an attempt to bring the subject into harmony by a spirit wishing to control, or it may come from an effort to restore depleted vital force and eradicate disease. The disturbance comes from resistance to the control. If perfect passivity was given it would soon accomplish its object, whatever it was, and the subject could go on to other uses. The spasmodic action of the hands and arms usually indicates that the subject may become able to write automatically, and when the influence becomes able to thus use the hand the spasms cease. But if there is no advance after several trials, it is a damage to the others for such a member to sit, and his place should be supplied by another.

LIGHT.

A subdued light is recommended, but not so low that all objects may not be plainly visible. The meaning has been asked of an explanation of a spirit, why he could not walk out of the cabinet; because moving the cabinet from one side of the room to the other had "destroyed the battery." This talk of "batteries" is sheer nonsense, to give it the mildest name, and is as senseless as the hocus-pocus of the sleight-of-hand performer, the only object of which is to give an excuse and distract attention.

The moving of the cabinet could not vitiate any spiritual condition, but it might materially affect the transformation acts of the "medium."

There is one safeguard, and that is light—light sufficient to make all objects plainly visible. The senses are unreliable in darkness, yet I would not be understood as implying that all manifestations in darkness are deceptions, for the genuine may occur in the dark as well as in the light; but in the dark seance the known honesty and integrity of the medium and the internal evidence of the manifestations is all there is to rely on.