“All that hooey! The trance and the white cocks and the brazier and the pentagrams and the voodoo and the reversed crucifix – all that was for the crudely superstitious. And the famous “box” was a bit of hooey for the contemporary-minded. We don’t believe in spirits and witches and spells nowadays, but we’re a gullible lot when it comes to “rays” and “waves” and psychological phenomena. That box, I bet, is nothing but a nice little assembly of electrical show-off, coloured bulbs and humming valves. Because we live in daily fear of radio fall out and strontium 90 and all the rest of it, we’re amenable to suggestion along the line of scientific talk. The whole set-up at the Pale Horse was bogus!”

-Christie, The Pale Horse, 210-211.