As far back as history goes, at all times, in all lands, and among all peoples materializations of spirits have occurred. The spirit manifestations to-day are but a repetition of those, which took place in pre-Christian times. The war and the publications of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Oliver Lodge, W. J. Crawford, and Emile Boirac have given to Spiritism a popular vogue and impetus. By a singular coincidence books on Spiritism, published in Germany, France, and Italy have appeared almost simultaneously with English and American publications on this weird subject. Many of these have given a quasi-scientific endorsation to Spiritism, and have contributed official support to the current belief in the reality of Spiritistic phenomena. Catholic students of these phenomena have never doubted their reality. While admitting and conceding the impositions, frauds, trickery and deceptions of many professional mediums. Catholic psychologists and theologians, who for nearly two thousand years have investigated the subject, hold that materializations have always taken place and are occurring to-day, and that no theory of fraud or delusion can account for them.
