The popular mind has been more or less strongly exercised of late by the exposure of a supposed fraudulent séance given by the well-known materializing Sensitive of Sydney. This "exposure" has been all the more astonishing because of the long record of successes by this Sensitive in the old world, and also in our Southern Hemisphere; striking and undoubted successes dating back from mere girlhood, and based upon evidence profuse and apparently reliable, both personally obtainable, from witnesses, and scattered over various journalistic records.
It appears to be the fate of most "mediums" to undergo, during some part of their existence, certain humiliating experiences; in some instances, no doubt, deserved; in other, and perhaps the greater number of instances, not so. Up to the time of leaving England, some three years ago, for Australia this medium's reputation was absolutely unscathed. She was pronounced by many, including the well-known journalist, Mr. Stead, to be one of the most reliable materializing Sensitives of the present day. This character for honesty has been rudely shaken by the conduct of an invited guest, at a private séance, by whom the medium states she was thrown violently off her seat in the cabinet, her assailant claiming that he had found her on her knees simulating the figure of "Cissy," one of her usual materialized forms. This gentleman's evidence is backed by that of certain persons present, some of whom were there by preconcerted arrangement, and in direct sympathy with the act; others, still, were weak-minded, follow-my-neighbour creatures, in whose minds a breath of suspicion would fan the flame of doubt until it burst out into a conviction of fraud. Others, again, were totally unconversant with the laws that govern the subtle and, as yet, little-understood process of materialization.
