a case of clairaudience on the part of St. Paul. It is a psychic phenomenon determining the nature and meaning of Christ and Christianity. It has all the features of mediumistic phenomena both experimental and spontaneous. Our records are full of illustrations of the phenomena.

Again take a mediumistic phenomenon, that of Christ with the strange woman at the well. Though knowing nothing about her he told her that she had had five husbands and that the man she was living with at the time was not her husband. Seeing his supernormal information, she at once remarked that he must be a prophet, the fact implying just what conception the people had of a prophet, a spiritual medium and teacher. The account appears in John 4:7-29. The phenomenon is a common occurrence with mediums of the genuine type, so common that there is no mistaking the meaning of the New Testament story. Apart from our own verification of such phenomena we would not believe this one, but psychic research has proved their occurrence and with the proof has thrown light upon what was going on in the work of Christ.

The apparitions at the time of the resurrection are further illustrations of psychic phenomena with which we are familiar, though we do not give them the physical interpretation which men did for many centuries. We have ascertained their really spiritual nature, if they are to be accepted at all as significant incidents.

There is no mistaking the nature of all of these events. They implicate the origin of Christianity in psychic phenomena, of the types which we are able to observe or reproduce by experiment to-day and so take Christianity out of the category of unexplainable facts, putting it along with the ordinary laws of

nature.

The most conspicuous phenomena, however, in the

New Testament are the "miracles" of healing. It is remarkable that the Christian Evidences of the previous century laid less stress upon this type of "miracle" than on the physical violations of the law of nature. They were the practical side of Christianity and yet the defenses of "miracles" centered around the possibility of intervening in the physical laws of the world. The facts most difficult to believe were chosen for defense instead of those which were more or less easily reproduced in the present. But, as Christianity had developed into a philosophic machine or system for defending a creed rather than pragmatic service to men, it seems not to have seen the real significance of healing in the work of Christ, or not to have tried to investigate and apply that part of his work. However this may be, the practical aspect of Christianity in its founder was concentrated in ethical teaching and spiritual healing.

The comparative importance of healing in the stories about Christ's work and the other types of psychic phenomena can be shown by the statistics on the subject.

The Gospel of Matthew mentions 18 cases of healing, Christ walking on the water, assumed to be a spirit at first, the Transfiguration, and the Resurrection. Mark mentions 13 instances of healing, Christ walking on the water, supposed to be a spirit, the Transfiguration, and the Resurrection. Luke mentions 20 instances of healing, the appearance of Christ to his disciples when they were on the way to Emmaus, the raising of Lazarus, which might be regarded as the 21st instance of healing, and the Transfiguration, with apparitional incidents connected with the Resurrection. John has 4 cases of healing, the raising of Lazarus, and Christ walking on the water with no mention of his being taken for a spirit. The Acts of the Apostles mentions 2 instances of healing, the vision and rescue

of Peter from prison, and the vision of St. Paul on the way to Damascus. After these the whole subject of healing and "miracles" is dropped. The Epistle to the Romans mentions none of them and the later parts of the New Testament are as free from narratives of the kind as later literature when "miracles" were supposed to have disappeared. They are practically confined to the four Gospels. If mythology was the chief agent in creating the stories they should have been as frequent in the later as the earlier period.

I must repeat that it is not necessary to believe the narratives just as they are recorded. At their best they would be abbreviated, distorted by misinterpretation, or magnified in that age of poor scientific observation. But it is not their accurate truth and reality that is the important thing for the psychic researcher, but the circumstance that we are able today to perform similar healing and so to make the stories in the New Testament credible, in so far as they can be reproduced in the present. It is natural enough for the physicist not to believe in such things unless they can be reproduced to-day and skepticism was entirely within its rights when rejecting the accounts. But since we have applied "suggestive" therapeutics on so large a scale in modern times, instituted mental healing, used mediums for the same results, and in a thousand ways repeated and corroborated the facts of earlier times, it is no longer impossible to believe what was said about Christ in this respect. It emphasizes the pragmatic side of his work, while the ethical and spiritual was all that had survived among philosophic thinkers.

Certain specific instances have an interest for the record of facts which can be corroborated to-day. The first is an illustration of mind-reading or telepathy: Mark 2:3-12. Christ had said to one "sick of the palsy," when he came to be healed, "Thy sins be for

given thee." The scribes took offense and "reasoned in their hearts" about it. Christ "perceiving in spirit that they so reasoned within themselves" asked them why they did so, as they had thought that "none could forgive sins but God only," and then changed his form of suggestion or command to suit them. Divining their minds as he did he was only exercising telepathy, which we have adequately proved to-day. We must remember that the Greek word for "sin" also means a "mistake.”

The second incident is an important one. A nobleman came to Christ to have his son healed. The patient was at home dying and the nobleman wished Christ to come with him to heal the son before he died. The remainder of the narrative I quote, John 4:50-54.

"Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and went his way.

"And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.

"Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to mend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.

"So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth."

Here is an instance of absent treatment and the recording of the coincidence in time between the act of the healer and the improvement of the patient. I have myself records of similar coincidences and healing effects. There are two other cases of absent treatment by Christ, though the time coincidence was not marked or recorded, if any. Mark 7:24-30, and Luke 7:1-10. They need not be quoted.

Another instance of healing, not one of absent treatment, is especially good because it happens to record facts indicating the modus operandi of Christ, connecting it with modern suggestive therapeutics. I take the account of Mark (5:22-43) because it gives fuller

details than those of Matthew (9:18-26) and Luke (8:49-56), though they all agree as far as they go. A ruler of the synagogue by the name of Jairus came to Christ to have him cure his daughter who lay at the point of death. Christ went with him and found the friends ridiculing him for his expectation of curing the child. They remarked that she was already dead and "laughed him to scorn." But he put everybody out of the room, saying that she was not dead but asleep, in a trance or comatose condition, and took the father and mother with Peter, James and John into the room, and taking the child by the hand said in her language: "Talitha cumi," which was "Damsel arise." She arose and walked and he ordered that she

be given something to eat.

Now here is a case where Christ's knowledge of the conditions was such that he could distinguish the trance from death. Others could not. Just as every mental healer or psychic researcher who knows his business to-day would do, Christ ordered the guests out of the room and took three of his disciples, the most psychic of them all, into the room and applied suggestion resulting in the immediate recovery of consciousness. I have myself witnessed such sudden recoveries from the trance, once when the psychic showed the signs of death. The heart had apparently stopped action and breathing had ceased. Recovery did not take place instantly, but did in half a minute. But the sudden removal of trances by suggestion is a well-known phenomenon to-day, and this New Testament incident only records facts which scientific knowledge confirms today.

I may take another fact of some interest. It is the meaning of the word "Angel." That word in the original meant "Messenger" and that means an intermediary between two parties. Its original import was a messenger between the dead and the living. But the