The medium leaned back, drawing a long breath.
"There," he said; and smiled at the bewildered young man.
"But--but--" began the other.
"Yes, I know," said the man. "It's startling, isn't it? and indeed
it's not as easy as it looks. I wasn't at all sure--"
"But, good Lord, I saw--"
"Of course you did; but how do you know you weren't hypnotized?"
Laurie sat down suddenly, unconscious that he had done so. The medium
put out his hand for his pipe once more.
"Now, I'm going to be quite honest," he said. "I have quite a quantity
of comments to make on that. First, it doesn't prove anything
whatever, even if it really happened--"
"Even if it--!"
"Certainly.... Oh, yes; I saw it too; and there's the pencil on the
floor"--he stooped and picked it up.
"But what if we were both hypnotized--both acted upon by
self-suggestion? We can't prove we weren't."
Laurie was dumb.
"Secondly, it doesn't prove anything, in any case, as regards the
other matters we were speaking of. It only shows--if it really
happened, as I say--that the mind has extraordinary control over
matter. It hasn't anything to do with immortality, or--or
spiritualism."
"Then why did you do it?" gasped the boy.
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