The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-14
THE BIRMINGHAM AGEHERALD SUNDAY DECEMBER 14 1919


 arm in arm with Edgar Allan Poe.
 hover in midair. while Cleopatra turks in the background with Shakespeare,
 hoping to get a word in edgeways.
 Professor Hyslop of Columbia, who has been insisting for years that we can communicate with the dead has at
 last come to his own. Conan Doyle
 has said it Sir Oliver Lodge s.com-
 ing in January to keep the boom in spirits going. Basil King has shown now the thing is done automatically. Booth Tarkington. admits that there may be something in it and all the mediums and clairvoyants are begin ming to look askance at w. G. McAdoo
 and hoping he will not get them mixed
 with the coal operators and ask for
 the publication of their excess profits. Now the Ouija board is nothing but heart-shaped, flat piece of wood which moves by some ocult impulse when you lay your hands on 1t. People you have never met before commune with you in the most unblushing manner, and enough predictions of what is going to happen to you are made so that you can make decent and honorable se- lection of them. A spirit who has been lolling about the house, free of charge, comes up and seizes your arm and you are off. Think of all the gosts who have been occupying your premises all these years. paying no board and not even offering to help you out with the rent and you haven't known about iti But this matter will soon be remedied and everybody who can afford 1t will employ an automatic writer who will keep him in touch with the spirit world and all the latest doings on the ce- lestial rialto.
 The scientist who, in spite of the fact that he has conducted experiments in psychology al Harvard and has kept his name out of the papers appears to be gifted with ordinary intelligence and common sense. assures us that there is really omething in 1t.
 We may dismiss he said, many of the obviously fraudulent mediums and we may condone such extremists as my good friends Lodge and Doyle and still believe that there is a definite psychic force capable of development along cer- tain lines Materialism is not impcssi- ble. There is a well authenticated case of psychic bar, that can be seen and felt which projects itself from the body of a medium and is able to curl up iG end and grasp objects at distance"
 And so we are coming to this: in the absence of alcohol we have psychic bars.
 This unknown force you speak of, said. "can reach out and seize a passive individual and force him to write auto maticallv, then?'
 Certainly. although it has not. to my lmind, yet been demonstrated that this force comes from a definite ego that has passed over That is the conclusion of conversative science up to the present moment"
 In the meantime New York, already so badly congested and realizing the inn mense possibilities. is going ahead on it's own hook trying ot get some practical reSultS-for Americans (assuming that there be some of these nearly extinct creatures still in New York are nothing if not practical
 T can already project my astral body across the street." said an ethereal young woman and in the course of time I ex- pect to cover the shopping district
 The advantages of this phase are read fly apparent. Sitting peacefully at home you can send your astral body on trips and make it report to you instantly. As soon as the shopkeepers have been trained to know an astral body when they see one the high cost of living will immedi- ately recede. The body being on the in- side, so to speak, will know the exact cost of everything and profiteering will be impossible. Also there is the saving in carfare. Automatic writing should there fore not be lightly dismissed It comes within the reach of all. It is the first step in psychic development which has hitherto been in the hands of few ex- perts who have displayed their bag of tricks with string tied to it; a sort of close corporation in psychic phenomena.
 Now that, owing, doubtless, to the war. the business of communicating with the other world has been placed within the reach of the upper middle classes we may expect to see society revoutionized It is only one step from automatic writ ing to the recogition and training of the astral body which, being unhampered by molecules, can travel through space with the speed of the wireless. No ore is going to mind the entertaining of astral bodies of country relatives during the holiday season. Indeed, it will be ant, abounding pleasure to entertain people