Hodgson’s letter continues: 

“I never knew of any B. connected with Yale.  When B. was first mentioned at the sitting, I had a vague notion that some B. or other had gone to England or France as United States consul.  I also knew the name of ——­ ——­ B. [a celebrated author.  Ed.], and met her after she became Mrs. C. two or three years ago.

“On questioning Mrs. Piper, which I did by referring to books first, I found that she remembered the name of ——­ ——­ B. when I mentioned it, and connected it in some way with [a certain book.  Ed.], which was widely circulated some years ago.  This was the only B. that she seemed to know anything about....

    “Yours sincerely,

    “R.  HODGSON.”

Now does not all this give a strong impression of an interflow among minds all over—­in New York (the place of the sitting), Granada (Mrs. A.’s place of sojourn), Boston (A.’s home), New Haven (B.’s home), and the universe in general (G.P.’s apparent home)—­of an interflow free from the limitations of time and space, and independent of all means of communication known to us?

This impression tends to grow deeper with farther study.  We have had a cross-correspondence between two incarnate intelligences and one apparently postcarnate.  Mr. Piddington has unearthed a cross-correspondence between one apparently postcarnate intelligence and seven “living” ones.

Perhaps the significance of cross-correspondences justifies a little more specific treatment, and even the repetition of a paragraph from the first number of this REVIEW.  The topic has lately attracted more attention from the S.P.R. than any other.

If Mrs. Verrall in London and Mrs. Holland in India both, at about the same time, write heteromatically about a subject that they both understand, that is probably coincidence; but if both write about it when but one of them understands it, that is probably teloteropathy; and if both write about it when neither understands it, and each of their respective writings is apparently nonsense, but both make sense when put together, the only obvious hypothesis is that both were inspired by a third mind.

There are many instances of strict cross-correspondence of this type.  The one we have given was perhaps more impressive than a stricter one would be apt to be.

* * * * *

Accounts of sittings generally suggest apparent intercommunication independent of time and space between postcarnate intelligences:  often the controls say that they will go and find other controls, and, generally, after a short interval, the new control manifests.  It is impossible to read many of the accounts, whether one regards them as fictitious or not, without getting an impression—­like that given by a good story-teller, if you please, of a life outside this one, among a host of personalities who communicate freely with each other and, through difficulties, with us.  The nature of the communication we have already tried to express by “interflow.”  But all metaphors are weak beside the impression of the Cosmic Soul that has been brought to most of those who have persistently studied the phenomena, as to nearly all those who have speculated a priori on the nature of mind.