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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+Title: Occultism and Common-Sense
+
+Author: Beckles Willson
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2011 [EBook #36730]
+
+Language: English
+
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE ***
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+
+                        OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE
+
+                            BY BECKLES WILLSON
+
+
+    WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+    PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.
+
+    _Past President of the Society for Psychical Research_
+
+    LONDON
+    T. WERNER LAURIE
+    CLIFFORD'S INN
+    E.C.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION VII
+
+I. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"
+
+II. THE HYPNOTIC STATE
+
+III. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING
+
+IV. DREAMS
+
+V. HALLUCINATIONS
+
+VI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD
+
+VII. ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA
+
+VIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD
+
+IX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA
+
+X. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
+
+XI. THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"
+
+XII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+XIII. CLAIRVOYANCE
+
+XIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment
+thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in
+the columns of _The Westminster Gazette_.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+_By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S._
+
+
+_Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for
+Psychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from
+the testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and
+deception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto
+unrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be
+of supreme interest and importance._
+
+_It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic
+investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from
+the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would
+be a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve
+continuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of
+which should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these
+obscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry
+which has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less
+obscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has
+achieved is in no small measure due to the wise counsel and ungrudging
+expenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry
+Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the
+details of its work._
+
+_Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must
+recognise the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has
+endeavoured to maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the
+evidential value varies enormously. The testimony of honest and even
+careful witnesses requires to be received with caution, owing to the
+intrusion of two sources of error to which untrained observers are very
+liable. These are unconscious_ mal-observation _and unintentional_
+mis-description. _I cannot here enter into the proof of this statement,
+but it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a credulous observer
+but a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to these errors
+when, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical
+phenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has
+hitherto scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within
+my own knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had
+frequently scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in
+the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," one day
+seriously informed me he had been converted to a belief in
+thought-transference by some conclusive experiments he had witnessed.
+Upon inquiring where these experiments took place I found it was at a
+public performance of a very inferior Zancig who was then touring
+through the provinces!_
+
+_Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that "the light heart and open
+mind" with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew
+his labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he
+found himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the
+numerous and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society
+have had to face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the
+available evidence, and this study has convinced him--as it has
+convinced, so far as I know, every other painstaking and honest
+inquirer--that no theories based on fraud, illusion, nor even on
+telepathy, are adequate to account for the whole of the phenomena he has
+reviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr Willson tells us that he
+has been led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory explanation of
+these phenomena is the action of discarnate human beings--that is to
+say, the Spiritualistic hypothesis._
+
+_I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the
+small residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other
+hypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question
+arises, Is the evidence on which it is based sufficiently_ abundant,
+trustworthy, _and_ conclusive, _to warrant such a far-reaching
+statement? Here we must turn from the author to ascertain what has been
+the conclusion arrived at by those who have given long years to a
+searching experimental investigation of these phenomena, and who have
+approached the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit. The most
+noteworthy instance is the testimony of that shrewd and able
+investigator, the late Dr Hodgson. His patient and laborious inquiry
+into the trance phenomena of Mrs Piper ultimately led him to the
+conclusion arrived at by Mr Willson. Dr Hodgson's well-known exposure of
+Madame Blavatsky and other fraudulent mediums and his sane and cautious
+judgment render his opinion of great weight. Then, again, we find that
+this also was the conclusion to which Frederic Myers was gradually
+driven. And long prior to this it was the conclusion arrived at by that
+acute thinker, the late Professor de Morgan, and it is the conclusion
+strongly held by the great naturalist, Dr A. R. Wallace, and held also
+by several other eminent investigators I might name._
+
+_So momentous a conclusion, if capable of such complete verification as
+to be universally accepted by science, would obviously throw all other
+discoveries into the background. I say if capable of being verified by
+scientific methods, but, although the weight of opinion will, in my
+opinion, ultimately lead to a very wide acceptance of this conclusion,
+yet it seems to me highly probable that the experimental discovery of
+the survival of human personality after death will always elude
+conclusive scientific demonstration. This particular field of psychical
+investigation belongs to an order other than that with which science
+deals; and, this being so, it can never be adequately investigated with
+the limited faculties we now possess._
+
+_In any case, as I said in a letter published in_ The Times, _so long
+ago as September 1876, before science is in a position to frame any
+satisfactory hypothesis of the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena, a
+number of antecedent questions will have to be investigated and decided.
+Prominent among these, I urged more than thirty years ago, was the
+question whether ideas or information can be voluntarily or
+involuntarily transferred from one mind to another independently of the
+recognised organs of perception. Experiments I had then recently made
+led me to the conclusion that something new to science, which might
+provisionally be called thought-transference, now known in its wider
+aspect as telepathy, did really exist. This, if established, would, as I
+pointed out, unquestionably solve some of the so-called spirit
+communications which had so puzzled investigators. But the idea of
+thought-transference was at that time just as obnoxious to official
+science as Spiritualism. Mr Willson quotes the implacable disbelief,
+even in the possibility of telepathy, which that great man Helmholtz
+expressed to me. And it is amusing now to recall the fierce outcry
+aroused by the paper I read at the British Association meeting in 1876,
+when, after narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had
+witnessed, I asked that a committee of scientific men should be
+appointed to investigate preliminary question of the possibility of
+thought-transference.[1] It is true the evidence on behalf of telepathy
+has since become so abundant that now few deny its probability, but even
+telepathy has not yet taken its place among the recognised scientific
+verities. I hope this recognition will not be long delayed, but until it
+occurs it is almost as illegitimate to use telepathy, as some do so
+freely, for the foundation of their theories of transcendental phenomena
+as to use the spiritualistic hypothesis itself._
+
+[Footnote 1: The Spectator, _I believe, alone, generously supported me,
+and in an editorial article on 30th September 1876 expressed the hope
+that "the British Association would really lake some action on the
+subject of the paper, in spite of the protests of the party, which we
+may call the party of superstitious incredulity_."]
+
+_To those who have carefully studied the evidence there is, however,
+little doubt that telepathy does afford an adequate explanation of
+certain well-attested phenomena, such as phantasms of the living or
+dying person. And telepathy, which may now be considered as highly
+probable, leads on to the evidence for man's survival after death--to
+this I will return later on._
+
+_Then, again, recent investigations have established the fact that the
+range of human personality must be extended to include something more
+than our normal self-consciousness. Our Ego is not the simple unitary
+thing older psychologists taught, but a composite structure embracing a
+self that extends far beyond the limit of our conscious waking life.
+Just as experimental physics has shown that each pencil of sunlight
+embraces an almost endless succession of invisible rays as well as the
+visible radiation we perceive, so experimental psychology has shown
+that each human personality embraces an unconscious as well as a
+conscious self. Mr Myers, using Du Perl's conception of a threshold, has
+termed the former our_ subliminal self. _And just as the invisible
+radiation of the sun can only be rendered perceptible by some agency
+outside our vision, so this subliminal self reveals itself only by some
+agency outside our own volition. The subliminal self not only contains
+the record of unheeded past impressions--a latent memory--but also has
+activities and faculties far transcending the range of our conscious
+self. In this it also resembles the invisible radiation of the sun,
+which is the main source of life and energy in this world._
+
+_Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and
+repair of our body and brain, which go on automatically and
+unconsciously within us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious
+personality. All life shares with us this miraculous automatism. No
+chemist, with all his appliances, can turn breadstuff into brainstuff or
+hay into milk. Further, the subliminal self seems to have faculties
+which can be emancipated from the limitations of our ordinary life.
+Glimpses of this we get when the conscious self is in abeyance, as in
+sleep, hypnosis, and trance. Here and there we find certain individuals
+through whom this sub- or supra-liminal self manifests itself more
+freely than through others; they have been termed "mediums," a word, it
+is true, that suggests Browning's "Sludge." But, as scientific
+investigation has shown all mesmerists and dowsers are not charlatans,
+so it has shown all mediums are not rogues._
+
+_This extension of human faculty, revealing, as it does, more profoundly
+the mysterious depths of our being, enables us to explain many phenomena
+that have been attributed to discarnate human beings. The question
+arises, Does it explain all so-called Spiritualistic phenomena? In my
+opinion, and in that of others who have given more time to their
+critical investigation than I have, it does not. At present we have to
+grope our way, but the ground is being cleared, and the direction which
+the future explorer of these unknown regions has to take is becoming
+more evident._
+
+
+
+
+Occultism and Common-Sense
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"
+
+
+When I first ventured into the wide and misty domain of Occultism, with
+a light heart I set forth and an open mind. My sole aim was to
+ascertain, as far as the means at the disposal of an ordinary man with
+little of the mystic in his composition would allow, what degree of
+probability attached to published phenomena, which the ordinary laws of
+Nature, as most of us understand them, could not satisfactorily explain.
+
+At the threshold of my inquiry, one prominent and, as it seemed to me,
+disconcerting fact confronted me--namely, that although for a couple of
+generations "supernatural" manifestations had been promiscuously
+exhibited before the public, challenging full investigation and inviting
+belief; although almost every day the newspapers report some striking
+case of spirit apparition or materialisation, coincident dreams,
+clairvoyance, trance utterances, or possession, often seemingly well
+attested; yet in spite of all this testimony academic science continued
+to dispute the very basis of such phenomena. Any investigator must needs
+recognise here a very anomalous situation. On the one hand are, let us
+say, half-a-million people, often highly intelligent, cultured, sane
+people, firmly protesting that they have witnessed certain astonishing
+occult manifestations, and on the other hand the Royal Society and the
+British Association, and other organised scientific bodies established
+for the investigation of truth, absolutely refusing to admit such
+evidence or to regard it seriously. Forty years ago Faraday, besought to
+give his opinion, in this wise wrote: "They who say they see these
+things are not competent witnesses of facts. It would be condescension
+on my part to pay any more attention to them." Faraday's attitude was
+that of Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Agassiz. The first-named, however,
+rather gave away his prejudice by saying: "Supposing the phenomena to be
+genuine, they do not interest me." Tyndall's utterance also deserves to
+be recalled: "There are people amongst us who, it is alleged, can
+produce effects before which the discoveries of Newton pale. There are
+men of science who would sell all that they have, and give the proceeds
+to the poor, for a glimpse of phenomena which are mere trifles to the
+spiritualist." He added: "The world will have religion of some kind,
+even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of
+spiritualism." Spencer's words were: "I have settled the question in my
+own mind on à priori grounds." Professor Carpenter called spiritualism
+"a most mischievous epidemic delusion, comparable to the witchcraft
+delusion of the seventeenth century."
+
+What, then, has happened to strengthen the case of the believers in
+ghosts, clairvoyance, thought-transference, sensory automatism, in,
+say, the last quarter of a century? What new evidence exists which would
+make the mid-Victorian scientific men reconsider their position? Suppose
+Faraday and Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall, were alive to-day, would they
+see reason to alter their opinions?
+
+I remember once--and I now give it as typical--overhearing a psychical
+experience. It was in a first-class compartment on a train coming from
+Wimbledon. One of my fellow-passengers, an intelligent, well-spoken man
+of about thirty-five, was relating to three friends the following
+extraordinary story. As nearly as I can recollect, I give the narrator's
+own words:--
+
+     "One week ago last Tuesday, at eleven o'clock at night, my
+     wife, who had just retired to bed upstairs, called out to me:
+     'Arthur! Arthur!' in a tone of alarm. I sprang up and ran
+     upstairs to see what was the matter. The servants had all gone
+     to bed. 'Arthur,' said my wife, 'I've just seen mother,' and
+     she began to cry. 'Why,' I said, 'your mother's at
+     Scarborough.' 'I know,' she said; 'but she appeared before me
+     just there' (pointing to the foot of the bed) 'two minutes ago
+     as plainly as you do.' Well, the next morning there was a
+     telegram on the breakfast-table: 'Mother, died at eleven last
+     night.' Now, how do you account for it?"
+
+There was silence for a full minute.
+
+"A wonderful coincidence. Your wife's hallucination coincided with her
+mother's death!"
+
+Another occupant of the carriage caught up the word:
+
+"Yes, coincidence. A thing which mightn't happen once in a million
+years."
+
+Nobody else ventured a remark. Yet they seemed unconvinced. There was no
+one to tell them--even I did not know then--that these "coincidences"
+were constantly happening, every year, perhaps every month; that an
+intelligent body of men--the Society for Psychical Research--has made a
+census of such hallucinations, all apparently well attested; that
+newspapers devoted to occult matters constantly record these things;
+that volumes--monthly, weekly, almost--fairly pour from the press
+detailing, expounding, dissecting, elaborating such evidence; that the
+theory of coincidence has already been rejected by many men of the first
+rank of science; and that official science itself is reluctantly
+reconsidering its position in more than one direction.
+
+Yet so slowly do the masses move in intellectual life, so tardily do
+truths, concerning not merely occult but physical and material
+investigation, percolate through to the workaday world, that the
+researches, the activities, the ascertained truths of students of
+psychical phenomena are as a closed book. Perhaps the attitude of apathy
+with which occult phenomena and occult science are regarded by the
+average man is not unnatural. To him all miracles that are not
+Scriptural and ancient and, as it were, institutional are highly
+improbable, if not impossible. All super-naturalism, he will tell you,
+is morbid. "There may be something in these things," he says, "but it is
+not proved. As for spiritualism, my belief is that mediums are
+impostors. Most of the spiritualists I have seen are 'cranks'--they are
+certainly dupes--and I have no doubt that if I interested myself in
+these matters I should end by becoming also a 'crank.'"
+
+This I maintain is the position of the ordinarily educated normal man.
+
+"The moment," wrote Lord Lytton, "one deals with things beyond our
+comprehension, and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled,
+we revolt from the probable, as it appears to the senses of those who
+have not experienced what we have." Now, that is just what the candid
+inquirer must avoid throughout his inquiry. It is often difficult to
+resist employing supernormal hypotheses; but, until normal hypotheses
+are exhausted, the resistance must be made. On the other hand, it is
+well to bear in mind Mr Andrew Lang's timely remark, "there is a point
+at which the explanations of common-sense arouse scepticism."
+
+At all events, not even the most materialistic man-in-the-music-hall,
+with two eyes in his head, can deny that the great wave of occultism,
+which twenty years ago seemed to be receding, is again returning with
+greater force and volume, submerging many of the old sceptical theories
+and wetting even the utterly callous and ignorant with its spray. It is
+not so long ago that the very fact of hypnotism was doubted--Mesmer was
+long regarded as a mere quack--but to-day the induced trance is
+universally credited. To hypnotism must the miracle of telepathy now be
+added? Has it really been ascertained, after a thousand experiments and
+beyond the possibility of error, that a mode of apprehension exists
+which has no connection with the five senses? For twenty-five years the
+members of the Society of Psychical Research have carried on their
+investigations of both sleeping and waking subjects, under every
+conceivable condition, and are at last fain to announce that such a
+mystic faculty does exist by which brain can communicate with brain
+without any known sensory agency.
+
+As to the kind of "ghost" story recorded above, what an exact analogy
+it bears to the following, to be found in a recent volume of the
+"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research!" The statement was
+received from a Madame Broussiloff, of St Petersburg:--
+
+     "On the 16th (28th) of February of this year, between nine and
+     ten o'clock in the evening, I, the undersigned, was sitting in
+     our drawing-room--the small one--facing the large drawing-room,
+     which I could see in its entire length. My husband, his
+     brother, with his wife, and my mother, were also sitting in the
+     same room with me round a large round table. I was writing down
+     my household accounts for the day, while the others were
+     carrying on some gay conversation. Having accidentally raised
+     my head and looked into the large drawing-room, I noticed, with
+     astonishment, that a large grey shadow had passed from the door
+     of the dining-room to that of the antechamber; and it came into
+     my head that the figure I had seen bore a striking resemblance
+     in stature to Colonel Ave-Meinander, an acquaintance of ours,
+     who had lived in this very lodging for a long time. At the
+     first moment, I wished to say at once that a ghost had just
+     flashed before me, but stopped, as I was afraid of being
+     laughed at by my husband's brother and his wife, and also of
+     being scolded by my husband, who, in view of the excitement
+     which I showed when such phenomena were taking place, tried to
+     convince me that they were the fruits of my fancy. As I knew
+     that Meinander was alive and well, and was commander of the
+     Malorossüsky 40th Regiment of Dragoons, I did not say anything
+     then; but when I was going to bed I related to my mother what I
+     had seen, and the next morning could not refrain from
+     mentioning it to my husband.
+
+     "Our astonishment was extreme when, on the 18th of February
+     (2nd of March), we learned Nicholas Ottovitch Ave-Meinander had
+     actually died after a short illness on the 16th (28th) of
+     February at nine o'clock in the evening, in the town of
+     Strashovo, where his regiment is stationed.
+
+     "The above account is confirmed by the percipient's mother,
+     Marie von Hagemeister, and by the husband, Colonel Alexis
+     Alexeievitch Broussiloff. Both state solemnly that Colonel
+     Meinander died at nine P.M. on the evening of 16th February
+     (28th) at Stashovo, 1200 versts from St Petersburg."
+
+To explain this phenomenon in the terms of telepathy, the grey shadow
+seen by Madame Broussiloff was not a ghost, not the "bodiless spirit in
+the likeness of a man," but "a waking dream projected from the brain of
+the seer under the impulse of the dying man's thought."
+
+But telepathy itself requires consideration and explanation. Sir William
+Crookes has repeatedly given publicity to his theory of brain-waves and
+to a kindred conception of ether substance, along which intelligence can
+be transmitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to virtually
+interminable distances.
+
+That mind should effect mind in a new mode may mean no more than that
+brain can act upon brain by means of ethereal vibrations hitherto
+unsuspected. The power itself may be but a lingering vestige of our
+inheritance from primeval times, a long-disused faculty "dragged from
+the dim lumber-room of a primitive consciousness, and galvanised into a
+belated and halting activity."
+
+Or, on the other hand, may not such faculty be regarded not as
+vestigial, but as rudimentary? Telepathy, if we follow the gifted author
+of "Human Personality," is a promise for the future, not an idle
+inheritance from the past.
+
+Our business now is, all mystic speculations apart, to consider the
+phenomena in the order in which, if not yet actually accepted, they
+would seem to evoke least opposition from the academic science of the
+day. What is the net result of the evidence for all classes of
+supernormal phenomena? That I shall endeavour to point out, as concisely
+and lucidly as I can, in the following chapters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE HYPNOTIC STATE
+
+
+Not least of the wonders of modern psychical research is the discovery
+that nothing in all the phenomena is new--that under other names and by
+other races every sort of manifestation was familiar to the most remote
+peoples. This would certainly seem to meet the argument of the
+physicist--it is not necessary to refer again to Professor Tyndall's
+uncomplimentary phraseology--who declares that all this popular
+occultism is a product of the last generation or two. Take hypnotism.
+Hypnotism (or mesmerism) was formerly alleged to be an emanation from
+the body--an effluence of intense will-power. The belief in such an
+emanation is centuries old. "By the magic power of the will," wrote
+Paracelsus, "a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the
+other side hear what is said on that side ... the ethereal body of a
+man may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles or
+more." Twenty years ago this creed was laughed out of court by Huxley,
+Tyndall, and other leading men of science. To-day we are told by those
+who have witnessed the experiments of Charcot, Janet, and others that
+"the existence of an aura of spirit-force surrounding the body like an
+atmosphere, in some cases at all events, can be proved as a physical
+fact."
+
+Whatever the explanation, whatever the definition of this miraculous
+agency, hypnotism is now universally accepted. The manifestations of its
+power must convince the most sceptical. A spell-bound subject is
+frequently made to share the sensations of the hypnotist, his ocular
+perceptions and his sense of touch. In the hypnotic sleep the subject
+easily becomes insensible to pain. A member of the Society reports that
+he has seen a youth in this condition who suffered gladly the most
+injurious attacks upon his own person--who would allow his hair to be
+pulled, his ears pinched, his fingers even to be scorched by lighted
+matches. But the same youth would next moment indignantly resent the
+slightest injury upon his hypnotiser, who would at the time be standing
+at the other end of the room.
+
+One thing in common all the hypnotic methods appear to possess, the
+diversion of attention from external surroundings and the working of a
+sub-consciousness in a manner not characteristic of the ordinary life of
+the subject. In cases described by Mr Greenwood no difficulty was
+encountered in impersonations suggested to the subject unless they
+savoured too much of the ridiculous. "Thus," he writes, "a suggestion
+that M., the subject, was myself and that I was he succeeded; and in his
+reverse capacity he continued the course of experiments upon himself,
+devising several original and ingenious varieties to which I, for the
+sake of the experiment, acquiesced in subjecting myself. He also behaved
+with considerable dignity and verve as King Edward VII., until I threw a
+match at his head, a proceeding which appeared to conflict so strongly
+with dramatic verisimilitude that he lapsed back into his ordinary
+hypnotic condition, nor could I reinduce the impersonation. On the other
+hand, statements that he was the Emperor of China, and that he was a
+nurse and I a baby, failed to carry any conviction, being either
+received with passive consent or rejected with scorn." It is interesting
+to note that in the waking state of the subject he explained that he was
+only conscious that he was not the characters he was bidden to assume,
+and if asked would have said as much, but that he was irresistibly
+impelled to act as though he were.
+
+The production of sleep in the subject at a distance is one of the
+latest attested marvels of hypnotism. The long series of experiments
+made in France by Professor Richet and Professor Janet would appear to
+attest this power. In some trials made at Havre, in which the
+experimenters were Professor Janet and Dr Gibert, the subject of the
+experiment was a certain Madame B. or "Léonie," then a patient of Dr
+Gibert. The facts were recorded by the late F. W. Myers and his
+brother, Dr A. T. Myers, who were present:
+
+     "We selected (he states) by lot an hour (eleven A.M.) at which
+     M. Gibert should will, from his dispensary (which is close to
+     his house), that Madame B. should go to sleep in the Pavilion.
+     It was agreed that a rather longer time should be allowed for
+     the process to take effect, as it had been observed that she
+     sometimes struggled against the influence and averted the
+     effect for a time by putting her hands in cold water, etc. At
+     11.25 we entered the Pavilion quietly, and almost at once she
+     descended from her room to the _salon_, profoundly asleep. We
+     did not, of course, mention M. Gibert's attempt of the previous
+     night. But she told us in her sleep that she had been very ill
+     in the night, and repeatedly exclaimed: 'Pourquoi M. Gibert
+     m'a-t-il fait souffrir? Mais j'ai lavé les mains
+     continuellement.' This is what she does when she wishes to
+     avoid being influenced.
+
+     "In the evening (22nd) we all dined at M. Gibert's, and in the
+     evening M. Gibert made another attempt to put her to sleep at
+     a distance from his house in the Rue Sery--she being at the
+     Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme--and to bring her to his house by an
+     effort of will. At 8.55 he retired to his study; and MM.
+     Ochorowicz, Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers went to the
+     Pavilion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the
+     house. At 9.22 Dr Myers observed Madame B. coming half way out
+     of the garden gate, and again retreating. Those who saw her
+     more closely observed that she was plainly in the
+     somnambulistic state and was wandering about and muttering. At
+     9.25 she came out with eyes persistently closed, so far as
+     could be seen, walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier
+     without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, though
+     not by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared afterwards
+     that the bonne had seen her go into the _salon_ at 8.45 and
+     issue thence asleep at 9.15; had not looked in between those
+     times.) She avoided lamp-posts, vehicles, etc., but crossed and
+     recrossed the street repeatedly. No one went in front of her or
+     spoke to her. After eight or ten minutes she grew more
+     uncertain in gait, and paused as though she would fall. Dr
+     Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure; it was 9.35. At about
+     9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 reached the street in front
+     of M. Gibert's house. There she met him, but did not notice
+     him, and walked into his house, where she rushed hurriedly from
+     room to room on the ground floor. M. Gibert had to take her
+     hand before she recognised him. She then grew calm.
+
+     "On the 23rd M. Janet lunched in our company and retired to his
+     own house at 4.30 (a time chosen by lot), to try to put her to
+     sleep from thence. At 5.5 we all entered the _salon_ of the
+     Pavilion, and found her asleep with shut eyes, but sewing
+     vigorously (being in that stage in which movements once
+     suggested are automatically continued). Passing into the
+     talkative stage, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez
+     fait dormir à quatre heures et demi.' The impression as to the
+     hour may have been a suggestion received from M. Janet's mind.
+     We tried to make her believe that it was M. Gibert who had
+     sent her to sleep, but she maintained that she had felt that it
+     was M. Janet.
+
+     "On 24th April the whole party chanced to meet at M. Janet's
+     house at three P.M., and he then, at my suggestion, entered his
+     study to will that Madame B. should sleep. We waited in his
+     garden, and at 3.20 proceeded together to the Pavilion, which I
+     entered first at 3.30, and found Madame B. profoundly sleeping
+     over her sewing, having ceased to sew. Becoming talkative, she
+     said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez commandé.' She said
+     that she fell asleep at 3.5 P.M."
+
+Of the twenty-five trials made in the course of two months, eighteen
+were wholly and four partially successful.
+
+This somnolent state might, it is thought, have been induced by
+telepathy; in fact, as we shall see, telepathy will in some quarters
+have to bear the burden of most, if not all, of the phenomena under
+investigation.
+
+Not only is the hypnotic subject frequently induced to do the will of
+the operator, but he may actually have presented to his intelligence
+certain ideas or images, material or imaginary, known only to the
+hypnotiser. After following carefully all the experiments conducted by
+the late Professor Sidgwick and others, in the presence of witnesses of
+repute, I do not see how it is possible to deny the fact of telepathy.
+In these experiments the subject or percipient was always hypnotised,
+remaining so to a varying degree throughout the experiment.
+
+Albeit, even as regards this thought-transference, we must be on our
+guard against a too rash acceptance of unknown or supernormal agencies
+in every bona-fide experiment. Certainly all experiments of the
+hypnotiser do not _ipso facto_ prove that any new method of apprehension
+has been employed. The hypnotised subject is extremely susceptible to
+suggestions, and might even glean an indication of what is proceeding
+through the look, the gestures, the very breathing, of those present.
+The utmost precautions, therefore, were taken by the Society for
+Psychical Research when it began its experimental inquiries.
+
+The subject of the picture was always carefully chosen by one of the
+experimenters--Mrs Sidgwick or Miss Alice Johnson. Any possibility of
+the percipient being able to guess at the subject through chance,
+association, or ideas was rigorously excluded. To prevent any hint being
+unconsciously imparted by the third experimenter, Mr G. A. Smith,
+silence was enjoined upon him, and he was placed behind the percipient
+or in another room; yet the percipient actually saw and described the
+projecting impression as if it were a real picture before his eyes. When
+Mr Smith went downstairs with Miss Johnson he was asked by her to think
+of an eagle pursuing a sparrow. Mrs Sidgwick, who remained upstairs with
+P., the percipient, in a few minutes induced him to see a round disc of
+light on the imaginary lantern-sheet, and then he saw in it "something
+like a bird," which disappeared immediately. He went on looking (with
+closed eyes, of course), and presently he thought he saw "something
+like a bird--something like an eagle." After a pause he said: "I thought
+I saw a figure there--I saw 5. The bird's gone. I see 5 again; now it's
+gone. The bird came twice." Mr Smith then came upstairs, and P. had
+another impression of an eagle. He was told that the eagle was right,
+and there was something else besides, no hint being given of what the
+other thing was. He then said that the first thing he saw "was a little
+bird--a sparrow, perhaps--he could not say--about the size of a sparrow;
+then that disappeared, and he saw the eagle. He had told Mrs Sidgwick so
+at the time."
+
+We see the mental machinery at work in another case, where the subject
+agreed upon was "The Babes in the Wood." To begin with, P. sat with
+closed eyes, but, when no impression came, Mr Smith opened his eyes,
+without speaking, and made him look for the picture on a card. After we
+had waited a little while in vain, Mr Smith said to him: "Do you see
+something like a straw hat?" P. assented to this, and then began to
+puzzle out something more: "A white apron, something dark--a child. It
+can't be another child, unless it's a boy--a boy and a girl--the boy to
+the right and the girl to the left. Little girl with white socks on and
+shoes with straps." Mr Smith asked: "What are they doing? Is it two
+children on a raft at sea?" P.: "No; it's like trees in the
+background--a copse or something. Like a fairy-story--like babes in a
+wood or something."
+
+We see it in an even more pronounced degree where the subject sat on a
+sailing boat. Miss Johnson, who did not know what the subject of the
+picture was, asked Miss B. whether it was anything like an animal. Miss
+B. said: "No; got some prong sort of things--something at the bottom
+like a little boat. What can that be up in the air? Cliffs, I
+suppose--cliffs in the air high up--it's joining the boat. Oh, sails!--a
+sailing-boat--not cliffs--sails." This was not all uttered
+consecutively, but partly in answer to questions put by Miss Johnson;
+but, as Miss Johnson was ignorant of the supposed picture, her questions
+could, of course, give no guidance.
+
+Many experiments have been made in the transference of imaginary scenes,
+where both operator and subject have attempted to attain a conscious
+unity of ideas by means of rough drawings. A slight sketch was made,
+which was then projected to the brain of the percipient, who proceeded
+to reproduce the unseen, often with amazing fidelity.
+
+In these experiments actual contact was forbidden, to avoid the risk of
+unconscious indications by pressure. In many cases, however, the agent
+and percipient have been in the same room, and there has therefore still
+been some possible risk of unconscious whispering; but this risk has
+been successfully avoided. It yet remains doubtful how far close
+proximity really operates in aid of telepathy, or how far its advantage
+is a mere effect of self-suggestion--on the part either of agent or
+percipient. Some experimenters--notably the late Mr Kirk and Mr
+Glardon--have obtained results of just the same type at distances of
+half-a-mile or more. In the case of induction of hypnotic trance, Dr
+Gibert, as we have seen, attained at the distance of nearly a mile
+results which are commonly believed to exact close and actual presence.
+
+Hypnotic agencies, according to Myers, may be simplified into suggestion
+and self-suggestion. The same author defines suggestion as "successful
+appeal to the subliminal self." Many striking cases of moral reforms
+produced by this means have been recorded by Dr Auguste Voisin. For
+instance:
+
+     "In the summer of 1884 there was at the Salpêtrière a young
+     woman of a deplorable type. Jeanne Sch---- was a criminal
+     lunatic, filthy in habits, violent in demeanour, and with a
+     lifelong history of impurity and theft. M. Voisin, who was one
+     of the physicians on the staff, undertook to hypnotise her on
+     31st May, at a time when she could only be kept quiet by the
+     strait jacket and _bonnet d'irrigation_, or perpetual cold
+     douche to the head. She would not--indeed, she could not--look
+     steadily at her operator, but raved and spat at him. M. Voisin
+     kept his face close to hers and followed her eyes wherever she
+     moved them. In about ten minutes a stertorous sleep ensued, and
+     in five minutes more she passed into a sleep-waking state, and
+     began to talk incoherently. The process was repeated on many
+     days, and gradually she became sane when in the trance, though
+     she still raved when awake. Gradually, too, she became able to
+     obey in waking hours commands impressed on her in the
+     trance--first trivial orders (to sweep the room and so forth),
+     then orders involving a marked change of behaviour. Nay, more;
+     in the hypnotic state she voluntarily expressed repentance for
+     her past life, made a confession which involved more evil than
+     the police were cognisant of (though it agreed with facts
+     otherwise known), and finally of her own impulse made good
+     resolves for the future. Two years later (31st July 1886) M.
+     Voisin wrote that she was then a nurse in a Paris hospital, and
+     that her conduct was irreproachable. It appeared then that this
+     poor woman, whose history since the age of thirteen had been
+     one of reckless folly and vice, had become capable of the
+     steady, self-controlled work of a nurse at a hospital, the
+     reformed character having first manifested itself in the
+     hypnotic state, partly in obedience to suggestion, and partly
+     as the natural result of the tranquilisation of morbid
+     passions."
+
+There is a mass of evidence to testify to the marvellous cures that have
+been effected in this way. Kleptomania, dipsomania, nicotinism,
+morphinomania, and several varieties of phobies have all been known to
+yield to hypnotic suggestion. Nor is it always necessary that the mind
+of the patient should be influenced by another person; self-suggestion
+is at times equally efficacious. Here is a case in point, taken from
+"Proceedings," vol. xi. p. 427. The narrator is Dr D. J. Parsons.
+
+     "Sixteen years ago I was a little sick; took half-a-grain of
+     opium, and lay down upon the bed. Soon, as I began to feel the
+     tranquillising effect of the opium, I saw three men approaching
+     me; the one in front said: 'You smoke too much tobacco.' I
+     replied: 'I know I do.' He then said: 'Why don't you quit it?'
+     I answered by saying: 'I have been thinking about it, but I am
+     afraid I can't.' He extended his right arm, and placing his
+     forefinger very near my face gave it a few very significant
+     shakes, said, in a very impressive manner: 'You will never want
+     to use tobacco any more as long as you live.' He continued by
+     saying: 'You swear sometimes.' I answered: 'Yes.' He said:
+     'Will you promise to quit?' I intended to say 'Yes,' but just
+     as I was about to utter the word yes, instantly a change came
+     over me, and I felt like I had been held under some unknown
+     influence, which was suddenly withdrawn or exhausted. I had
+     been a constant smoker for more than twenty years.
+
+     "Since the occurrence of the above incident I have not touched
+     tobacco; have felt ever since like it would poison me, and I
+     now feel like one draw at the pipe would kill me instantly. My
+     desire for tobacco was suddenly and effectually torn out by the
+     roots, but perhaps I shall never know just how it was done.
+
+     "D. J. PARSONS, M.D.
+
+     "_Sweet Springs, Missouri._"
+
+It would seem in the above case that the suggestibility was heightened
+by the use of opium, which at the same time developed a monitory
+hallucination.
+
+Leading men of science now hold that the popular belief in the dangers
+of hypnotism is grossly exaggerated, it being far less open to abuse
+than chloroform. Nevertheless some danger is only too manifest, and
+Parliament may yet be asked to do what Continental governments have
+done--viz. to make the practice of hypnotism, save under proper medical
+supervision, a punishable offence. As an illustration of these dangers I
+may mention the testimony of an operator given before the Psychical
+Research Society. Owing to the ready susceptibility of one subject he
+began to fear that he might acquire an influence which might be
+inconvenient to both, and so enjoined that he should be unable to
+hypnotise him unless he previously recited a formula asking the operator
+to do so. After several failures he states: "I eventually succeeded in
+impressing this so strongly upon him that it became absolutely
+effective, and the formula became requisite, for I could not, even with
+the utmost co-operation on his part, influence him in the least. One
+night, however, after retiring to bed I was surprised by his entering
+the room with the request that I should waken him. I expressed
+astonishment and asked whether he was really asleep. He assured me that
+he was, and explained that while he had been conversing in the
+drawing-room after dinner, other persons being present, he had
+experimentally recited the formula _sotto voce_ and had immediately,
+unperceived by myself or others in the room, gone off in the hypnotic
+state and could not get out of it again. I protested that this was an
+extremely unfair trick both on himself and on me, and to guard against
+its recurrence I enjoined that in future a mere repetition of the
+formula should not suffice, but that it should be written down, signed
+and handed to me. This has hitherto proved completely successful, and in
+the absence of the document no efforts on the part of either of us has
+had any effect whatever."
+
+It would seem, however, that the hypnotic subject is by no means
+entirely at the mercy of the operator. Thus Dr Milne Bramwell, in
+"Proceedings," vol. xii. pp. 176-203, cites a number of cases in which
+suggestions had been refused by hypnotic subjects. He also mentions two
+subjects who had rejected certain suggestions and accepted others. A
+Miss F., for example, recited a poem, but would not help herself to a
+glass of water from the sideboard; while a Mr G. would play one part,
+but not others, and committed an imaginary crime. Dr Bramwell comes to
+the following conclusion:--
+
+     "The difference between the hypnotised and the normal subject,
+     as it appears to me from a long series of observed facts, is
+     not so much in conduct as in increased mental and physical
+     powers. Any changes in the moral sense, I have noticed, have
+     invariably been for the better, the hypnotised subject evincing
+     superior refinement. As regards obedience to suggestion, there
+     is apparently little to choose between the two. A hypnotised
+     subject, who has acquired the power of manifesting various
+     physical and mental phenomena, will do so, in response to
+     suggestion, for much the same reasons as one in the normal
+     condition.... When the act demanded is contrary to the moral
+     sense, it is usually refused by the normal subject, and
+     invariably by the hypnotised one."
+
+The hypnotic state evinces an extraordinary extension of faculty. Dr
+Bramwell's remarkable series of experiments on "time appreciation" shows
+that orders were carried out by the subject at expiration of such
+periods as 20,290 minutes from the beginning of the order. In her normal
+state the female subject of this experiment was incapable of correctly
+calculating how many days and hours 20,290 minutes would make, and even
+in her hypnotised condition could reckon only with errors; yet, what is
+singular to relate, even when a blunder was made in the former
+calculation the order of the hypnotist was none the less fulfilled when
+the correct period expired. The conclusion is not easy to avoid: that
+beneath the stratum of human consciousness brought to the surface by
+hypnotism there is one--perhaps two--"subliminal" strata more alert and
+more capable than our ordinary workaday ego.
+
+What light this theory of a "subliminal" self will shed on our subject
+we will see when we come to discuss clairvoyance and the trance
+utterances of the spiritualistic "medium."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING
+
+
+We have seen that the hypnotic agent is able to project from his own
+brain certain thoughts and images into the mind of the percipient.
+"When," writes Professor Barrett, "the subject was in the state of
+trance or profound hypnotism, I noticed that not only sensations, but
+also ideas or emotions, occurring in the operator appeared to be
+reproduced in the subject without the intervention of any sign, or
+visible or audible communication.... In many other ways I convinced
+myself that the existence of a distinct idea in my own mind gave rise to
+some image of the idea in the subject's mind, not always a clear image,
+but one that could not fail to be recognised as a more or less distorted
+reflection of my own thought. The important point is that every care was
+taken to prevent any unconscious muscular action of the face, or
+otherwise giving any indication to the subject."
+
+This presumed mode of communication between one individual and another,
+without the intervention of any known sense, Professor Barrett, arguing
+on electrical analogies, is inclined to suggest might be due to some
+form of nervous induction. But is this faculty restricted in its
+operation to a hypnotised subject? If it were, the significance of the
+phenomena would be very much lessened. We should leave telepathy out of
+our account. But it is not so restricted. The ideas and images are
+capable of being projected not only to a hypnotised person, but to one
+who is apparently not under any hypnotic influence whatever. Yet we
+still must be careful of how we call in the aid of any "supernatural"
+agency to account for the influences I am about to relate--the
+translation of ideas and motor impulses from one person to another
+without the aid of any known sense. The transference of pictures which
+we described in the last article has been achieved in hundreds of cases
+by an agent upon a hypnotised percipient. Here we have telepathy
+apparently at work, but not, however, at any great distance, nor
+successful in conjuring up really vivid or ominous hallucinations. The
+scientific term for these is "sensory automatisms," and many instances
+of these are given by Edmund Gurney, author of "Phantasms of the
+Living."
+
+At an early period the Society for Psychical Research began a "Census of
+Hallucinations," which, with Gurney's book, now renders it possible for
+us to consider these phenomena with some certainty. The net result of
+all this investigation would seem to demonstrate that a large number of
+sensory automatisms occur amongst sane and healthy persons. We will
+later consider what difficulty lies in the way of attributing to
+telepathy the bulk of these phenomena. There is a widely accepted theory
+that telepathy is propagated by brain-waves, or, in Sir W. Crooke's
+phraseology, by ether-waves, of even smaller amplitude and greater
+frequency than those which carry X-rays. Such waves are supposed to pass
+from one brain to another, arousing in the second brain an excitation
+of image similar to the excitation or image from which they start in the
+first place. It has been pointed out that on this view there is no
+theoretical reason for limiting telepathy to human beings. Why may not
+the impulse pass between men and the lower animals, or between the lower
+animals themselves?
+
+I myself have exhumed from the records a case in point. General J. C.
+Thompson describes a remarkable apparition of a dog, with every mark of
+reality, at the time when the dog was killed in a city more than a
+hundred miles distant. General Thompson says:
+
+     "Jim, the dog whose ghost I refer to, was a beautiful collie,
+     the pet of my family, residing at Cheyenne, Wyoming. His
+     affectionate nature surpassed even that of his kind. He had a
+     wide celebrity in the city as 'the laughing dog,' due to the
+     fact that he manifested his recognition of acquaintances and
+     love for his friends by a joyful laugh, as distinctively such
+     as that of any human being.
+
+     "One evening in the fall of 1905, about 7.30 P.M., I was
+     walking with a friend on Seventeenth Street in Denver,
+     Colorado. As we approached the entrance to the First National
+     Bank, we observed a dog lying in the middle of the pavement,
+     and on coming up to him I was amazed at his perfect likeness to
+     Jim in Cheyenne. The identity was greatly fortified by his
+     loving recognition of me, and the peculiar laugh of Jim's
+     accompanying it. I said to my friend that nothing but the 105
+     miles between Denver and Cheyenne would keep me from making
+     oath to the dog being Jim, whose peculiarities I explained to
+     him.
+
+     "The dog astral or ghost was apparently badly hurt--he could
+     not rise. After petting him and giving him a kind adieu, we
+     crossed over Stout Street and stopped to look at him again. He
+     had vanished. The next morning's mail brought a letter from my
+     wife saying that Jim had been accidentally killed the evening
+     before at 7.30 P.M. I shall always believe it was Jim's ghost I
+     saw."
+
+This story, circumstantially narrated by an American general, recalls Mr
+Rider Haggard's celebrated dream that he saw his dog, Bob, in a dying
+condition, probably about three hours after the dog's death.
+
+But we need not pause on such bypaths as these.
+
+Perhaps the simplest form of thought-transference at a distance is that
+in which we find a vague mental unrest, unaccompanied by any visual or
+auditory hallucination. Cases are not infrequently met with where the
+patient suffers from acute depression and anxiety which are not
+connected at the time with any definite event. _The Journal of the
+Society for Psychical Research_, July, 1895, yields the following.
+
+Miss W. writes:
+
+     "On January 17th of this year (1895) I was haunted all day with
+     an indefinable dread, amounting to positive terror if I yielded
+     in the least to its influence. A little before six o'clock I
+     went to my maid's room and casually inquired of her whether
+     she believed in presentiments. She answered: 'Don't let them
+     get hold of you; it is a bad habit.' I replied: 'This is no
+     ordinary presentiment. All day long I have felt that something
+     terrible is impending; of what nature I do not know. I have
+     fought against it, but to no purpose. It is a terror I am
+     positively _possessed_ with.' I was proceeding to describe it
+     in fuller detail, when my mother entered the room with a
+     telegram in her hand. One glance at her face told me that my
+     foreboding had not been a groundless depression. The telegram
+     was to the effect that my brother had been taken very ill at
+     Cambridge and needed my mother at once to nurse him.
+
+     "I presume that the intensity of my foreboding was due to the
+     very serious nature of his illness.
+
+     "I experienced at different times what are in common parlance
+     termed 'presentiments'; but only on one other occasion has the
+     same peculiar _terror_ (a chilling conviction of impending
+     trouble) beset me."
+
+This is corroborated both by the maid and Miss W.'s brother, an
+undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, who had met with a serious
+accident the same afternoon. The affection between brother and sister
+was, it is related, very close.
+
+Of a well-known type of case the following is a good example. The Hon.
+Mrs Fox Powys is the narrator:--
+
+     "July 1882.
+
+     "I was expecting my husband home, and shortly after the time he
+     ought to have arrived (about ten P.M.) I heard a cab drive up
+     to the door, the bell ring, my husband's voice talking with the
+     cabman, the front door open and his step come up the stairs. I
+     went to the drawing-room, opened it, and to my astonishment saw
+     no one. I could hardly believe he was not there, the whole
+     thing was so vivid, and the street was particularly quiet at
+     the time. About twenty minutes or so after this my husband
+     _really_ arrived, though nothing sounded to me more real than
+     it did the first time. The train was late, and he had been
+     thinking I might be anxious."
+
+In response to further inquiries, Mrs Powys added:
+
+     "To me the whole thing was very noisy and real, but no one else
+     can have heard anything, for the bell I heard ring was not
+     answered. It was a quiet street in town, and there was no
+     vehicle of any kind passing at the time; and on finding no one
+     on the landing as I expected, I went at once to the window, and
+     there was nothing to be seen, and no sound to be heard, which
+     would have been the case had the cab been driven off."
+
+Here the expectation of Mr Fox Powys' arrival seems to have caused an
+auditory hallucination. In other cases of a similar nature the
+hallucination is visual, the percipient actually seeing the figure of
+the expected person.
+
+The authors of "Phantasms of the Living" give the following case as an
+"interesting puzzle" and invite the reader to decide whether or not it
+affords evidence for telepathy. The narrator, Mr W. A. S., is described
+as an unexceptionable witness who has never had any other visual
+hallucination.
+
+     "January 14th, 1883.
+
+     "In the month of April 1871, about two o'clock in the
+     afternoon, I was sitting in the drawing-room of my father's
+     house in Pall Mall. The window of the room fronted south; and
+     the sun was shining brightly in at the window. I was sitting
+     between the fireplace and the window, with my back to the
+     light; my niece was sitting on the opposite side of the
+     fireplace; and opposite me at the farther corner of the room
+     was a door partly open, leading directly to the staircase. I
+     saw what I supposed at the first moment to be dirty soapy water
+     running in at the door; and I was in the act of jumping up to
+     scold the housemaid for upsetting the water, when I saw that
+     the supposed water was the tail or train of a lady's dress. The
+     lady glided in backwards, as if she had been slid in on a
+     slide, each part of her dress keeping its place without
+     disturbance. She glided in till I could see the whole of her,
+     _except the tip of her nose, her lips and the tip of her chin,
+     which were hidden by the edge of the door_. Her head was
+     slightly turned over her shoulder, and her eye also turned, so
+     that it appeared fixed upon me. She held her arm, which was a
+     very fine one, in a peculiar way, as if she were proud of it.
+     She was dressed in a pale blue evening dress, worked with white
+     lace. I instantly recognised the figure as that of a lady whom
+     I had known some twenty-five years or more before; and with
+     whom I had frequently danced. She was a bright, dashing girl, a
+     good dancer, and we were good friends, but nothing more. She
+     had afterwards married and I had occasionally heard of her, but
+     do not think I had seen her for certainly more than twenty or
+     twenty-five years. She looked much as I used to see her--with
+     long curls and bright eyes, but perhaps something stouter and
+     more matronly.
+
+     "I said to myself: 'This is one of those strange apparitions I
+     have often heard of. I will watch it as carefully as I can.' My
+     niece, who did not see the figure, in the course of a minute or
+     two exclaimed: 'Uncle A., what is the matter with you? You
+     look as if you saw a ghost!' I motioned her to be quiet, as I
+     wished to observe the thing carefully; and an impression came
+     upon me that if I moved, the thing would disappear. I tried to
+     find out whether there was anything in the ornaments on the
+     walls, or anything else which could suggest the figure; but I
+     found that all the lines close to her cut the outline of her
+     figure at all sorts of angles, and none of these coincided with
+     the outline of her figure, and the colour of everything around
+     her strongly contrasted with her colour. In the course of a few
+     minutes, I heard the door bell ring, and I heard my brother's
+     voice in the hall. He came upstairs and walked right through
+     the figure into the room. The figure then began to fade away
+     rather quickly; and though I tried I could in no way recall it.
+
+     "I frequently told the story in society, treating it always as
+     something internal rather than external and supposing that the
+     lady was still alive; and rather making a joke of it than
+     otherwise. Some years afterwards I was staying with some
+     friends in Suffolk and told the story at the dinner-table,
+     saying that it was no ghost as the lady was still alive. The
+     lady of the house said: 'She is not alive, as you suppose, but
+     she has been dead some years.' We looked at the peerage and
+     found she had died in 1871. (I afterwards found out that she
+     had died in November, whereas the apparition was in April.) The
+     conversation continued about her, and I said: 'Poor thing, I am
+     sorry she is dead. I have had many a merry dance with her. What
+     did she die of?' The lady of the house said: 'Poor thing
+     indeed, she died a wretched death; she died of cancer in the
+     face.' She never showed me the front of her face; it was always
+     concealed by the edge of the door."
+
+I will now concern myself with the power of an agent to project himself
+phantasmally--that is, to make his form and features manifest to some
+percipient at a distance as though he were actually present. In Gurney's
+"Phantasms of the Living" is given at length a case of a simple nature.
+Here there was not one but two percipients.
+
+     On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been
+     reading of the great power which the human will is capable of
+     exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that
+     I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom on the second
+     floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in
+     which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance--viz. Miss L. S.
+     V., and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven
+     years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a
+     distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not
+     mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to
+     either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was
+     only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up
+     my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be
+     there was one o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong
+     intention of making my presence perceptible.
+
+     "On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in
+     question, and in the course of conversation (without any
+     allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me that
+     on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by
+     perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed
+     when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little
+     sister, who saw me also.
+
+     "I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most
+     decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of
+     the occurrence she replied about one o'clock in the morning.
+
+     "This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event
+     and signed it.
+
+     "This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment
+     of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.
+
+     "Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put
+     forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was
+     conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in
+     my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising
+     some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but
+     which I can now at certain times set in motion at will.
+
+     "S. H. B."
+
+The account given by Miss Verity is as follows:--
+
+     "January 18th, 1883.
+
+     "On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our
+     house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr B. in my
+     room, about one o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much
+     terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the
+     apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr B., I told
+     him what had happened; but it was some time before I could
+     recover from the shock I had received, and the remembrance is
+     too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.
+
+     "L. S. Verity."
+
+Miss E. C. Verity says:
+
+     "I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister
+     in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct.
+     I saw the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under
+     the same circumstances.
+
+     "E. C. Verity."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The witnesses (comments Gurney) have been very carefully
+     cross-examined by the present writer. There is not the
+     slightest doubt that their mention of the occurrence to S. H.
+     B. was spontaneous. They had not at first intended to mention
+     it; but when they saw him their sense of its oddness overcame
+     their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly sober-minded and
+     sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a
+     considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of
+     marvel."
+
+On another occasion the agent announced privately to the investigator
+that he would project himself at a stated time. He did so; and the lady
+wrote as follows:--
+
+     "44 Norland Square, W.
+
+     "On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had
+     a distinct impression that Mr S. H. B. was present in my room,
+     and I distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He
+     came towards me, and stroked my hair. I _voluntarily_ gave him
+     this information when he called to see me on Wednesday, April
+     2nd, telling him the time and the circumstances of the
+     apparition, without any suggestion on his part. The appearance
+     in my room was most vivid and quite unmistakable.
+
+     "L. S. Verity."
+
+Mr B.'s own account runs thus:
+
+     "On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence
+     perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at
+     twelve midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr
+     Gurney that I should post him a letter on the evening on which
+     I tried my next experiment (stating the time and other
+     particulars), I sent a note to acquaint him with the above
+     facts.
+
+     "About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she
+     voluntarily told me that on March 22nd, at twelve o'clock
+     midnight, she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst
+     widely awake) that her nerves had been much shaken, and she had
+     been obliged to send for a doctor in the morning.
+
+     "S. H. B."
+
+Another case of a similar nature is reported by the American branch of
+the Society for Psychical Research:
+
+     "On July 5th, 1887, I left my house in Lakewood to go to New
+     York to spend a few days. My wife was not feeling well when I
+     left, and after I had started I looked back and saw her
+     standing in the door looking disconsolate and sad at my
+     leaving. The picture haunted me all day, and at night, before I
+     went to bed, I thought I would try to find out, if possible,
+     her condition. I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of
+     the bed, when I covered my face with my hands and willed myself
+     in Lakewood at home to see if I could see her. After a little
+     while I seemed to be standing in her room before the bed, and
+     saw her lying there looking much better. I felt satisfied she
+     was better, and so spent the week more comfortably regarding
+     her condition. On Saturday I went home. When she saw me she
+     remarked: 'I don't know whether I am glad to see you or not,
+     for I thought something had happened to you. I saw you standing
+     in front of the bed the night (about 8.30 or before 9) you
+     left, and as plain as could be, and I have been worrying myself
+     about you ever since. I sent to the office and to the depôt
+     daily to get some message from you.' After explaining my effort
+     to find out her condition, everything became plain to her. She
+     had seen me when I was trying to see her and find out her
+     condition. I thought at the time I was going to see her and
+     make her see me.
+
+     "B. F. Sinclair."
+
+The foregoing is corroborated by Mrs Sinclair. She states that she saw
+her husband, not as he was dressed at the moment of the experiment, but
+"in a suit that hung in a closet at home." The apparition caused her
+great anxiety, so that her husband's view of her improved appearance was
+not really true. The son, Mr George Sinclair, avers that in his
+mother's vision his father's face was "drawn and set, as if he was
+either dead or trying to accomplish something which was beyond him."
+
+Another case investigated by the Society is also striking. The date is
+1896.
+
+     "'One night, two or three years ago, I came back from the
+     theatre to my mother's flat at 6 S---- Street; and after I had
+     been into her bedroom and told her all about it, I went to bed
+     about one A.M. I had not been asleep long when I started up
+     frightened, fancying that I had heard someone walk down the
+     passage towards my mother's room; but, hearing nothing more,
+     went to sleep again. I started up alarmed in the same way three
+     or four times before dawn.
+
+     "'In the morning, upon inquiry, my mother (who was ill at the
+     time) only told me that she had had a very disturbed night.
+
+     "'Then I asked my brother, who told me that he had suffered in
+     the same way as I had, starting up several times in a
+     frightened manner. On hearing this my mother then told me that
+     she had seen an apparition of Mr Pelham. Later in the day Mr
+     Pelham came in, and my mother asked him casually if he had been
+     doing anything last night; upon which he told us that he had
+     come to bed willing that he should visit and appear to us. We
+     made him promise not to repeat the experiment.'
+
+     "Mrs E., the mother, states that she was recovering from
+     influenza at the time. At half-past ten, as she lay reading:
+
+     "'A strange, creepy sensation came over me, and I felt my eyes
+     were drawn towards the left-hand side of the room. I felt I
+     must look, and there, distinct against the curtain, was a blue
+     luminous mist.
+
+     "'This time I was impelled to cast my eyes downward to the side
+     of my bed, and there, creeping upwards towards me, was the same
+     blue luminous mist. I was too terrified to move, and remember
+     keeping the book straight up before my face, as though to ward
+     off a blow, at the same time exerting all my strength of will
+     and determination not to be afraid--when, suddenly, as if with
+     a jerk, above the top of my book came the brow and eyes of Mr
+     Pelham.'
+
+     "Instantly her fears ceased. She 'remembered that Mr Pelham had
+     experimented on her before at night'; and 'in one moment mist
+     and face were gone.'
+
+     "For his part, Mr Pelham explains that he 'carefully imagined'
+     himself going down the steps of his house, and so along the
+     streets, to Mrs E.'s flat, and to her drawing-room and bedroom;
+     he then went to bed with his mind fixed on the visit and soon
+     fell asleep. He has made other trials, but without any positive
+     success, though during one of them Mrs E. was wakened suddenly
+     by the feeling that someone was in the room, and it occurred to
+     her that Mr Pelham was again experimenting."
+
+The occurrences above related are most significant, if true, and I am
+bound to say the _bona fides_ of the narrators seems to me indisputable.
+Is it a spirit showing itself partially dissociated from the living
+organism; evincing independence, a certain intelligence and a certain
+permanence? Or is this a mere image of the agent, conceived in his own
+brain and projected telepathically to the brain of the percipient? So
+far, we are merely groping our way. Yet, is it not possible that we have
+laid hands upon a credible explanation of the eternal mystery of
+"ghosts"? We shall see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DREAMS
+
+
+Having partially discussed the subject of phantasms projected from the
+brain of the agent to that of the percipient, I must now briefly
+describe another group for which the evidence is very abundant--that of
+"veridical" dreams. This is a term used to describe apparitions
+coinciding with other events in such a manner as to suggest a
+connection. Your dream or hallucination is said to be veridical when it
+conveys an idea which is both true and previously unknown to you.
+
+Making every allowance for the element of chance, there is a mass of
+evidence which mere coincidence cannot explain away. Yet we must not
+overlook the frequency of dreams, even of a striking character, which
+may once or twice in a million times actually hit on the coincident
+event. But besides coincidence, there is at times another normal
+explanation. Mr Podmore relates how a neighbour of his on the night of
+24th June 1894 dreamed President Carnot had been assassinated. He told
+his family before the morning paper announcing the news had been opened.
+As has been pointed out, in a case of that kind it seems possible that
+the information may have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the
+shouts of a newsboy, or even from the conversation of passers-by in the
+street.
+
+Before any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal
+communication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances
+about to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the
+dreamer or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was
+suspected.
+
+One of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:
+
+     "Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a
+     day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister,
+     living at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his
+     chambers I found a note on the table apologising for his
+     absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance somewhere in
+     the West End, and intended to be home soon after one o'clock.
+     Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair, but started up
+     wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's down!'
+     and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly
+     illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top
+     stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows
+     and hands. (The house was one which I have never seen, nor did
+     I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter, I
+     fell a-doze again for half-an-hour and was awakened by my
+     brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh, there you are! I
+     have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever
+     had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot,
+     and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'
+
+     "That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always
+     thought it must have been something more."
+
+A member of the Society for Psychical Research narrates that on 7th
+October 1900 he woke abruptly in the small hours of the morning with a
+painful conviction upon him that his wife, who was that night sleeping
+in another part of the house, had burst a varicose vein in the calf of
+her leg, and that he could feel the swelled place three inches long:
+
+     "I wondered whether I ought to get up and go down to her room
+     on the first floor, and considered whether she would be able to
+     come up to me; but I was only partly awake, though in acute
+     distress. My mind had been suddenly roused, but my body was
+     still under the lethargy of sleep. I argued with myself that
+     there was sure to be nothing in it, that I should only disturb
+     her, and so shortly went off to sleep again.
+
+     "On going to her room this morning I said I had had a horrid
+     dream, which had woke me up, to the effect that she had burst a
+     varicose vein, of which just now care has to be taken. 'Why,'
+     she replied, 'I had just the same experience. I woke up at
+     2.15, feeling sure the calf of my leg was bleeding, and my
+     hand seemed to feel it when I put it there. I turned on the
+     light in alarm, noticing the time, and wondered if I should be
+     able to get up to thee, or whether I should have to wake the
+     housekeeper. Thou wast in the dream out of which I woke,
+     examining the place.'
+
+     "Though I did not note the hour, two o'clock is about the time
+     I should have guessed it to be; and the impression on my mind
+     was vivid and terrible, knowing how dangerous such an accident
+     would be."
+
+The foregoing is thus corroborated by the lady:
+
+     "I felt twinges of pain in my leg off and on in my sleep
+     without being entirely roused till about 2.15 A.M. Then, or
+     just before, I dreamt or had a vivid impression that a vein had
+     burst, and that my husband, who was sleeping in another room up
+     another flight of stairs, was there and called my attention to
+     it. I thought it felt wet, and trickling down the leg as if
+     bleeding, passed my hand down, and at first thought it seemed
+     wet; but on gaining fuller consciousness found it all right,
+     and that it was not more painful than often when I got out and
+     stood on it. Thought over the contingency of its actually
+     bursting, and whether I could so bandage it in that case as to
+     make it safe to go up to my husband's room, and thought I could
+     do so.
+
+     "Looking at my watch, found it about 2.20."
+
+As to dreams in which a death occurs there is a vast mass of testimony.
+The late Dr Hodgson, on 19th July 1897, received the following letter:--
+
+     "DEAR HODGSON,--Five minutes ago Mr J. F. Morse, who has all
+     his life had dreams which were more or less verified later,
+     came to my room and said: 'I believe my wife died last night,
+     for I had a dream of a most remarkable nature which indicates
+     it. I shall be able to let you know soon, for I shall get word
+     at my office when I reach there. I will then send you word.'
+     His wife is in a country place in Delaware Co. Pa. She is ill,
+     but he had no idea she would not live for months, as the
+     enclosed letter of July 15th will show; but she was ill, and
+     would be likely to decline slowly and gradually. I will get
+     this off or in the mail before I hear any more.
+
+     "Mr Morse in his appearance looks like one who had just lost a
+     dear friend, and is in a state of great mental depression, with
+     tears in his eyes....
+
+     "M. L. HOLBROOK."
+
+On the evening of the same day a telegram was received announcing the
+unexpected death of Mrs Morse at 9.15 on the evening of Friday, 16th
+July.
+
+A prominent Chicago journalist, Mr F. B. Wilkie, reported that his wife
+asked him one morning in October 1885, while still engaged in dressing,
+and before either of them had left their sleeping-room, if he knew
+anyone named Edsale or Esdale. A negative reply was given and then a
+"Why do you ask?" She replied: "During the night I dreamt that I was on
+the lake-shore and found a coffin there, with the name of Edsale or
+Esdale on it, and I am confident that someone of that name has recently
+been drowned there." On opening the morning paper the first item that
+attracted his attention was the report of the mysterious disappearance
+from his home in Hyde Park of a young man named Esdale. A few days
+afterwards the body of a young man was found on the lake-shore.
+
+This case was carefully investigated and authenticated by Dr Hodgson,
+and bears some unusual features.
+
+Of dreams that may be reasonably regarded as telepathic the following is
+a striking example. It is contributed to "Phantasms of the Living" by a
+Mrs Hilton--a lady engaged in active work, and not in any respect a
+"visionary."
+
+     "234 Burdett Road, E.
+
+     "April 10th, 1883.
+
+     "The dream which I am about to relate occurred about two years
+     ago. I seemed to be walking in a country road, with high grassy
+     banks on either side. Suddenly I heard the tramp of many feet.
+     Feeling a strange sense of fear I called out: 'Who are these
+     people coming?' A voice above me replied: 'A procession of the
+     dead.' I then found myself on the bank, looking into the road
+     where the people were walking five or six abreast. Hundreds of
+     them passed by me--neither looking aside nor looking at each
+     other. They were people of all conditions and in all ranks of
+     life. I saw no children amongst them. I watched the long line
+     of people go away into the far distance, but I felt no special
+     interest in any of them, until I saw a middle-aged Friend,
+     dressed as a gentleman farmer. I pointed to him and called out:
+     'Who is that, please?' He turned round and called out in a loud
+     voice: 'I am John M., of Chelmsford.' Then my dream ended. Next
+     day when my husband returned from the office he told me that
+     John M., of Chelmsford, had died the previous day.
+
+     "I may add that I only knew the Friend in question by sight and
+     cannot recollect ever speaking to him.
+
+     "MARIE HILTON."
+
+About a year later Mrs Hilton experienced a dream of a similar kind,
+again coincident with the death of an acquaintance seen in the phantom
+procession. It is worth noting "remarks Mr Gurney," that these
+dreams--for all their _bizarrerie_--seem to belong to a known type.
+
+In another category of phenomena belong precognitive dreams in which
+certain events, especially deaths, are foretold. Mr Alfred Cooper, of 9
+Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W., states, and his statement is
+attested by the Duchess of Hamilton, that:
+
+     "A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L----, in
+     1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton in Hill Street to see
+     him professionally. After I had finished seeing him we went
+     into the drawing-room where the Duchess was, and the Duke said
+     to me: 'Oh, Cooper, how is the Earl?'
+
+     "The Duchess said: 'What Earl?' and on my answering: 'Lord
+     L----,' she replied, 'That is very odd. I have had a most
+     extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a
+     short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene
+     as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L----,
+     in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a
+     red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a red
+     lamp was distinctly shown.'
+
+     "I then said: 'I am attending Lord L---- at present; there is
+     very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he
+     will be all right very soon.'
+
+     "Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the
+     end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him
+     suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.
+
+     "I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead
+     man. There were two male nurses attending him; one had been
+     taken ill. But when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess
+     was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the
+     Earl, and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the
+     bath with the red lamp over it, it is rather rare to find a
+     bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my
+     mind.
+
+     "The vision seen by the Duchess was told two weeks before the
+     death of Lord L----. It is a most remarkable thing. This
+     account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of
+     Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the
+     vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.
+
+     "MARY HAMILTON.
+
+     "ALFRED COOPER."
+
+Mr Myers adds:
+
+     "The Duchess only knew Lord L---- by sight, and had not heard
+     that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened
+     her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the
+     same thing again.
+
+     "An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F.
+     W. H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the Duchess related the
+     dream on the morning after its occurrence."
+
+One of the most interesting and well-authenticated cases of dreams
+foretelling a death is that of Mr Fred Lane, understudy to that popular
+actor the late William Terriss. His statement is as follows:--
+
+     "Adelphi Theatre,
+
+     "December 20th, 1897.
+
+     "In the early morning of December 16th, 1897, I dreamt that I
+     saw the late Mr Terriss lying in a state of delirium or
+     unconsciousness on the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in
+     the Adelphi Theatre. He was surrounded by people engaged at the
+     theatre, amongst whom were Miss Millward and one of the footmen
+     who attend the curtain, both of whom I actually saw a few hours
+     later at the death scene. His chest was bare and clothes torn
+     aside. Everybody who was around him was trying to do something
+     for his good. This dream was in the shape of a picture. I saw
+     it like a tableau on which the curtain would rise and fall. I
+     immediately after dreamt that we did not open at the Adelphi
+     Theatre that evening. I was in my dressing-room in the dream,
+     but this latter part was somewhat incoherent. The next morning,
+     on going down to the theatre for rehearsal, the first member of
+     the company I met was Miss H----, to whom I mentioned this
+     dream. On arriving at the theatre I also mentioned it to
+     several other members of the company including Messrs Creagh
+     Henry, Buxton, Carter Bligh, etc. This dream, though it made
+     such an impression upon me as to cause me to relate it to my
+     fellow-artists, did not give me the idea of any coming
+     disaster. I may state that I have dreamt formerly of deaths of
+     relatives and other matters which have impressed me, but the
+     dreams have never impressed me sufficiently to make me repeat
+     them the following morning, and have never been verified. My
+     dream of the present occasion was the most vivid I have ever
+     experienced; in fact, lifelike, and exactly represented the
+     scene as I saw it at night."
+
+Three members of the company--Mr Carter Bligh, Mr Creagh Henry, and Miss
+H---- --made statements that Mr Lane related his dream in their presence
+on the morning of 16th December. Mr Lane was in the vicinity of the
+Adelphi Theatre when the murderer, named Prince or Archer, who had been
+employed as a super at the theatre, stabbed Terriss at the stage
+entrance to the theatre. The actor was taken to the Charing Cross
+Hospital, where he died almost immediately. It is interesting to note
+that it was Lane himself who ran to the hospital for the doctor, and on
+his return looked in at the stage entrance and saw Terriss lying on the
+stairs just as he had seen him in the dream.
+
+While I am fully alive to the possibilities of coincidence, there
+certainly does not seem to be much besides levity in the theory that "it
+happened to be Jones's hour to see a hallucination of Thompson when it
+happened to be Thompson's hour to die," especially when, as frequently
+happens, the hallucination occurs more than once to the same percipient.
+
+A Parisian journalist, M. Henri Buisson, sends to "The Annals of
+Psychical Science" an account of three premonitory dreams all of which
+were told to others before they were fulfilled. In the first, which
+occurred on June 8th, 1887, M. Buisson saw his grandmother "stretched
+dead on her bed, with a smile on her face as if she slept." Above the
+bed, in a brilliant sun, he read the date, "June 8th, 1888," just a
+year later; and on that day his grandmother died quite suddenly, with
+her face as calm as he had seen it in his dream.
+
+On another occasion M. Buisson saw his mother, not dead, but very ill,
+and attended by a doctor, who had died more than a year before, after
+having been the family physician for thirty years. The next day M.
+Buisson received a telegram saying that his mother was ill, and, in
+fact, she died during the day.
+
+In April 1907, M. Buisson dreamt that he received notice to quit his
+house on pretence of a message from the Prefect of Police, and that on
+looking out of the window he saw the Prefect in the street, dressed in a
+leather jacket, with a soft hat, and a slipper on one foot. He also
+dreamt that a fire had broken out. On the evening of the next day he
+heard the fire-engines, and on following them he found the Prefect on
+the spot, dressed just as in the dream, having hurt one foot, he had to
+go about in a slipper.
+
+Of still another type is the clairvoyant dream. The following is
+related by Mr Herbert J. Lewis, of Cardiff:--
+
+     "In September 1880 I lost the landing-order of a large steamer
+     containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port
+     of Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the
+     next morning. I received the landing-order at four o'clock in
+     the afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found
+     that I had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my
+     utmost to find the officials of the Customs House to get a
+     permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance, preventing
+     the ship from discharging. I came home in a great degree of
+     trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my
+     situation in consequence.
+
+     "That night I dreamt that I saw the lost landing-order lying in
+     a crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the
+     Customs House.
+
+     "At five the next morning I went down to the Customs House and
+     got the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of
+     which I had dreamt, and found the paper in the very place. The
+     ship was not ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went
+     on board at seven and delivered the landing-order, saving her
+     from all delay.
+
+     "I can certify to the truth of the above statement,
+
+     "HERBERT J. LEWIS,
+
+     "THOMAS LEWIS
+
+     "(Herbert Lewis's father).
+
+     "H. WALLIS."
+
+(Mr E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the
+following corroborative note.)
+
+     "August 14th, 1884.
+
+     "I made some inquiries about Mr Herbert Lewis's dream before I
+     left Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in
+     which the order was found. His theory as to how the order got
+     in the place in which it was found is that it was probably put
+     there by someone (perhaps with malicious intent), as he does
+     not see how it could have fallen so.
+
+     "The fact that Mr H. Lewis is exceedingly short-sighted adds
+     to the probability of the thing which you suggest, that the
+     dream was simply an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the
+     other hand, he does not believe it was there when he searched.
+
+     "E. J. NEWELL."
+
+Now, it seems to me in the above case that the dreamer's subliminal self
+may have taken note of the lost landing-order without his
+super-consciousness being aware of it, and that the fact returned to him
+in his dream.
+
+In R. L. Stevenson's "Across the Plains" may be found a striking chapter
+on dreams. It contains an account of some of the most successful dream
+experiments ever recorded. Stevenson's dreams were of no ordinary
+character; they were always of great vividness, and often of a markedly
+recurrent type. This faculty he developed to an unusual degree--to such
+an extent, indeed, that it became of great assistance to him in his
+work. By self-suggestion before sleep, we are told, the great novelist
+would secure "a visual and dramatic intensity of dream-representation
+which furnished him with the motives of some of his most striking
+romances." But "R. L. S." is not the only one who has secured assistance
+of dreams. Here is an account given by a German, Professor Hilprecht, of
+an experience of a similar nature ("Human Personality," i. 376):
+
+     "One Saturday evening, about the middle of March 1893, I had
+     been wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks
+     preceding, in the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments
+     of agate, which were supposed to belong to the finger-rings of
+     some Babylonian. The labour was much increased by the fact that
+     the fragments presented remnants only of characters and lines,
+     that dozens of similar small fragments had been found in the
+     ruins of the temple of Bel at Nippur with which nothing could
+     be done, that in this case furthermore I never had the
+     originals before me, but only a hasty sketch made by one of the
+     members of the expedition sent by the University of
+     Pennsylvania to Babylonia. I could not say more than that the
+     fragments, taking into consideration the place in which they
+     were found and the peculiar characteristics of the cuneiform
+     characters preserved upon them, sprang from the Cassite period
+     of Babylonian history (_circa_ 1700-1140 B.C.); moreover, as
+     the first character of the third line of the first fragment
+     seemed to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an
+     interrogation point, to King Kurigalzu, while I placed the
+     other fragment as unclassifiable with other Cassite fragments
+     upon a page of my book where I published the unclassifiable
+     fragments. The proofs already lay before me, but I was far from
+     satisfied. The whole problem passed yet again through my mind
+     that March evening before I placed my mark of approval under
+     the last correction in the book. Even then I had come to no
+     conclusion. About midnight, weary and exhausted, I went to bed
+     and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed the following
+     remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian
+     Nippur, about forty years of age and clad in a simple abba, led
+     me to the treasure chamber of the temple, on its south-east
+     side. He went with me into a small low-ceiled room, without
+     windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps
+     of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he
+     addressed me as follows:--'The two fragments which you have
+     published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together, are
+     not finger-rings, and their history is as follows. King
+     Kurigalzu (_circa_ 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel,
+     among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli, an inscribed
+     votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the
+     command to make for the statue of the god Ninib a pair of
+     earrings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no
+     agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command
+     there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into
+     three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a
+     portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served
+     as earrings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which
+     have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you
+     will put the two together you will have confirmation of my
+     words. But the third ring you have not yet found in the course
+     of your excavations and you never will find it.' With this the
+     priest disappeared. I awoke at once and immediately told my
+     wife the dream, that I might not forget it. Next
+     morning--Sunday--I examined the fragments once more in the
+     light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all
+     the details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the
+     means of verification were in my hands. The original
+     inscription on the votive cylinder read: 'To the god Ninib, son
+     of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented
+     this.' The problem was at last solved."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HALLUCINATIONS
+
+
+From the occurrence in a dream of the ideas of events which happen to
+coincide with actual events, let us turn to apparitions occurring during
+the waking hours of the percipient.
+
+The late Professor Sidgwick, at the head of a committee, sent out the
+following question to 17,000 educated persons not known to have had
+hallucinations:--"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be
+completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a
+living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice, which
+impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external
+physical cause?"
+
+The replies demonstrate how frequent are hallucinations amongst healthy,
+normal-minded persons. No fewer than 1684, or one in ten, of the
+persons interrogated, had had visual and auditory and even tactile
+hallucinations, realistic human phantoms, and other apparitions. We find
+that, according to the age classification, of 1295 visual hallucinations
+72 occurred while the percipients were under ten years of age, 217
+between the ages of ten and nineteen, 300 between twenty and
+twenty-nine, 143 between thirty and thirty-nine, 81 between forty and
+forty-nine, 40 between fifty and fifty-nine, 22 between sixty and
+sixty-nine, 5 later than seventy, and 415 at unstated ages. Some of the
+hallucinations occurred immediately after waking, others while the
+percipients were awake in bed; but the great bulk occurred in a fully
+awakened state, and a large number appeared out of doors.
+
+Of hallucinations of which we may say that they are due to a projection
+from the agent's mind, commonly to a dying man or woman, to that of the
+percipient, perhaps one of the most famous is that of Lord Charles
+Beresford, as described by him to the Society for Psychical Research:
+
+     "It was in the spring of 1864, whilst on board H.M.S. _Racoon_,
+     between Gibraltar and Marseilles, that I went into my office on
+     the main deck to get a pipe; and as I opened the door I saw my
+     father lying in his coffin as plainly as I could. It gave me an
+     awful jerk and I immediately told some of the fellows who were
+     smoking just outside the usual place between the guns, and I
+     also told dear old Onslow, our chaplain. A few days after we
+     arrived at Marseilles, and I heard of my father's death, and he
+     had been buried that very day and at the time, half-past twelve
+     in the day. I may add that at the time it was a bright, sunny
+     day, and I had not been fretting about my father, as the latest
+     news I had of him was that although very ill he was better. My
+     dear old father and I were great chums, more so than is usual
+     between a man of seventy-two and a boy of twenty, our
+     respective ages then."
+
+The evidence is so bulky that we may quote only a case here and there at
+random:
+
+     "On December 9th 1882 Mr T. G. Keulemans was living with his
+     family in Paris. The outbreak of an epidemic of smallpox caused
+     him to remove three of his children, including a favourite
+     little boy of five, to London, whence he received in the course
+     of the ensuing month several letters giving an excellent
+     account of their health.
+
+     "On the 24th of January 1881, at half-past seven in the
+     morning, I was suddenly awoke by hearing his voice, as I
+     fancied, very near me. I saw a bright opaque white mass before
+     my eyes, and in the centre of this light I saw the face of my
+     little darling, his eyes bright, his mouth smiling. The
+     apparition, accompanied by the sound of his voice, was too
+     short and too sudden to be called a dream; it was too clear,
+     too decided, to be called an effect of the imagination. So
+     distinctly did I hear his voice that I looked round the room to
+     see whether he was actually there. The sound I heard was that
+     of extreme delight, such as only a happy child can utter. I
+     thought it was the moment he woke up in London, happy and
+     thinking of me. I said to myself: 'Thank God, little Isidore
+     is happy as always.' Mr Keulemans describes the ensuing day as
+     one of peculiar brightness and cheerfulness. He took a long
+     walk with a friend, with whom he dined; and was afterwards
+     playing a game at billiards when he again saw the apparition of
+     his child. This made him seriously uneasy, and in spite of
+     having received within three days the assurance of his child's
+     perfect health he expressed to his wife a conviction that he
+     was dead. Next day a letter arrived saying that the child was
+     ill; but the father was convinced that this was only an attempt
+     to break the news; and, in fact, the child had died, after a
+     few hours' illness, at the exact time of the first apparition."
+
+Another case as recited by Madame D----, of St Gaudens, is to be found
+in "Posthumous Humanity." She says:
+
+     "I was still a young girl, and slept with my elder sister. One
+     evening we had just retired to bed and blown out the light. The
+     smouldering fire on the hearth still feebly lighted the room.
+     Upon turning my eyes towards the fireplace I perceived, to my
+     amazement, a priest seated before the fire and warming himself.
+     He had the corpulence, the features, and the general appearance
+     of one of our uncles who lived in the neighbourhood, where he
+     was an archbishop. I at once called my sister's attention. She
+     looked in the same direction, and saw the same apparition. She
+     also recognised our uncle. An indescribable terror seized us
+     both, and we cried 'Help!' with all our might. My father, who
+     slept in an adjoining room, awakened by these desperate cries,
+     jumped out of bed and ran in with a candle in his hand. The
+     phantom had disappeared, and we saw no one in the room. The
+     next morning a letter was received informing us that our uncle
+     had died the previous evening.
+
+     "At Wiesbaden, Professor Ebenan, whose old sister kept his
+     house, stated that he had a friend residing forty or fifty
+     miles off--likewise a professor--who was very poor and had a
+     large family. On hearing that his wife was dying, Mr E---- went
+     to see them, and brought back their eldest boy, for whom a
+     little bed was put up in Mr E----'s room.
+
+     "One morning, about ten days after, Mr E---- called and asked
+     me: 'Do you believe that at the moment of death you may appear
+     to one whom you love?' I replied: 'Yes, I do.' 'Well,' he said,
+     'we shall see. I have noted the day and the hour, for last
+     night after I went to bed the child said sweetly (in German):
+     "Yes, dear mamma, I see you." To which I replied: "No, dear
+     boy, it is I; I am come to bed." "No," he said, "it is dear
+     mamma, she is standing there smiling at me," pointing to the
+     side of the bed.' On his next visit Mr Ebenan told us that he
+     had received a letter informing him that at that time, and on
+     that evening, the wife had breathed her last."
+
+In some cases a vague shadowy form is seen which gradually acquires
+definiteness. Here is an interesting example contributed to
+"Proceedings," vol. x., by a Mr T. A.:--
+
+     "9th May 1892.
+
+     "I saw a darkish vapour leave my father's head when he died,
+     about twelve years ago, and it formed into a figure full-sized,
+     and for seven consecutive nights (I) saw it in my room, and saw
+     it go each night into the next room, in which he died. It
+     became more distinct each night and brighter each night, till
+     it was quite brilliant, even dazzling, by the seventh night. It
+     lasted, say, one and a half minutes. It was quite dark when the
+     phantom used to appear. I was quite awake, going to bed; [age]
+     thirty two."
+
+In other cases what is first seen is a glow of light--the apparition
+subsequently appearing in it.
+
+Mr R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, made the following statement
+to the Society for Psychical Research:--
+
+     "'Just before Christmas 1894 I went over to Liverpool with one
+     of my brothers and my sister. It was a very fine clear day and
+     there was a great crowd of people shopping in the streets. We
+     were walking down Lord-street, one of the principal streets,
+     when, passing me, I saw an old uncle of mine whom I knew very
+     little, and had not seen for a very long time, though he lived
+     near me. I saw three distinct shapes hobbling past (he was
+     lame), one after another, in a line. It didn't seem to strike
+     me at the moment as being in the least curious, not even there
+     being three shapes in a line. I said to my sister: "I have just
+     seen Uncle E----, and I am sure he is dead." I said this, as it
+     were, mechanically, and not feeling at all impressed. Of course
+     my brother and sister laughed. We thought nothing more about it
+     while in Liverpool. The first thing my mother said to us when
+     getting home was: "I have some news"; and then she told us that
+     this uncle had died early that morning. I don't know the
+     particular hour. I saw the three shapes at about twelve in the
+     morning. I felt perfectly fit and well, and was not thinking of
+     my uncle in the least, nor did I know he was ill. Both my
+     brother and my sister heard me say that I had seen him and
+     believed he was dead, and they were equally astonished at
+     hearing of his death on our return home. My uncle and I knew
+     each other very little. In fact, he hardly knew me by sight,
+     although he knew me well when I was a small child.'
+
+     "The corroboration from the percipient's mother and sister is
+     quite ample; the day of the agent's death coincided with the
+     apparition, but the hour is not certainly known."
+
+Another well-known case is that of Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who
+writes:
+
+     "On Saturday, October 21st, 1893, I was in Berlin with Lord
+     Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together and returned before
+     midnight. I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright
+     light in the room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found
+     myself looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall opposite
+     my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my father, the Maharajah
+     Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it were, out of this picture;
+     not like a portrait of him, but his real head. The head about
+     filled the picture frame. I continued looking, and still saw my
+     father looking at me with an intent expression. Though not in
+     the least alarmed, I was so puzzled that I got out of bed to
+     see what the picture really was. It was an oleograph
+     commonplace picture of a girl holding a rose and leaning out of
+     a balcony, an arch forming the background. The girl's face was
+     quite small, whereas my father's head was the size of life and
+     filled the frame."
+
+The Prince's father had been in ill-health for some time, but nothing
+alarming was to be expected. On the day following the dream he mentioned
+it to Lord Carnarvon, and on the evening of that day Lord Carnarvon
+handed him a telegram announcing the elder Prince's death. He had had an
+apoplectic seizure on the previous evening and never recovered. It is
+interesting to note that he had often said that he would try to appear
+to his son at death if they happened to be apart. The account is
+confirmed by Lord Carnarvon.
+
+It sometimes happens that the point of hallucination is not quite
+reached. The following instance, communicated to the Society for
+Psychical Research, is straightforward enough:
+
+     "'20 Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh,
+
+     "'December 27th, 1883.
+
+     "'In January 1871 I was living in the West Indies. On the 7th
+     of that month I got up with a strong feeling that there was
+     something happening at my old home in Scotland. At seven A.M. I
+     mentioned to my sister-in-law my strange dread, and said even
+     at that hour what I dreaded was taking place.
+
+     "'By the next mail I got word that at eleven A.M. on the 7th of
+     January my sister died. The island I lived in was at St Kitts,
+     and the death took place in Edinburgh. Please note the hours
+     and allow for the difference in time, and you will notice at
+     least a remarkable coincidence. I may add I never knew of her
+     illness.
+
+     "'A. C----N.'
+
+     "In answer to inquiries, Mr C----n adds: 'I never at any other
+     time had a feeling in any way resembling the particular time I
+     wrote about. At the time I wrote about I was in perfect
+     health, and in every way in comfortable circumstances.'"
+
+There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the
+agency primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been
+received, a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A
+truly hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations
+with no external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce
+these hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for
+Psychical Research that the case of one of his patients proved that
+hallucinations could be produced by self-suggestion. "He could, by a
+simple effort of the mind, himself believe almost any delusion--_e.g._
+that he was riding on horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or
+that he saw snakes--if left to himself the delusion vanished slowly.
+Anyone else could remove it at once by a counter-suggestion. He made,"
+he adds, "these experiments without my consent, as I consider them
+unsafe."
+
+Hallucination is at times accompanied by curious organic effects. One of
+the commonest of these is a feeling of cold--generally described as a
+"chill" or "cold shudder." The following example is taken from the
+Census of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:--
+
+     FROM MISS K. M.
+
+     (_The account was written in 1889._)
+
+     "[About twenty years ago] I was about ten years old, and was
+     staying with friends in Kensington. Between the hours of eight
+     and nine P.M., we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the
+     door open, [it] being a very warm evening. Suddenly I
+     experienced a cold shudder, and on looking through the door
+     opposite which I was sitting, I saw the figure of a little old
+     lady dressed in a long brown cloak with a large brown hat,
+     carrying a basket, glide down the stairs and disappear in the
+     room next the drawing-room. The impression was that of someone
+     I had never seen. I was talking on ordinary subjects, neither
+     ill, in grief, or anxiety. There were several other people in
+     the room, but no one noticed anything but myself. I have never
+     had any experience of this kind before or since."
+
+Occasionally, but very rarely, pain is described as resulting from a
+hallucination. Other effects include fainting fits and tactile
+impressions. Noise would appear in some cases to produce visual
+hallucinations, by creating in the hearer a strong expectation of seeing
+something corresponding to it, or that may account for it. From
+"Phantasms of the Living" we glean the following:--
+
+     "Between sleeping and waking this morning, I perceived a dog
+     running about in a field (an ideal white and tan sporting dog),
+     and the next moment I heard a dog barking outside my window.
+     Keeping my closed eyes on the vision, I found that _it came and
+     went with the_ barking of the dog outside; getting fainter,
+     however, each time."
+
+A weak state of health on the part of the percipient would seem to be
+conducive to hallucinatory visions. Here is a case in point contributed
+to the "Society for Psychical Research Proceedings," vol. x., by a
+Professor G----:
+
+     "Saw an old woman with red cloak, nursing a child in her arms.
+     She sat on a boulder. Place: a grassy moor or upland, near
+     Shotts, in Lanarkshire. Date: over twenty years ago. Early
+     autumn, in bright sunny weather. Made several attempts to reach
+     her, but she always vanished before I could get up to the
+     stone. Place far from any dwelling, and no spot where anyone
+     could be concealed.
+
+     "[I was] walking; had been slightly troubled with insomnia
+     which afterwards became worse. Age about thirty.
+
+     "No one [was with me]. I heard a vague report that a woman with
+     red cloak was sometimes seen on the moor. Can't now remember
+     whether I had heard of that report before I saw the figure--but
+     think I had not.
+
+     "Saw many years ago (age about twenty-one), a dog sitting
+     beside me in my room: saw this only once: was troubled slightly
+     with insomnia at the time which afterwards became worse."
+
+The percipient's own view, the collector tells us, is that the
+experience on the moor was entirely due to "nerves," as both then and
+previously when he saw the dog he had been much overworked, and in each
+case a severe illness followed.
+
+Not always does a visual hallucination take the form of a living human
+form. Occasionally the object seen or the sound heard is non-human in
+character. In insanity and in diseases such cases are frequently met
+with, the hallucination being often of a grotesque or horrible sort.
+Thus we have a case in which a young child beheld a vision of dwarfish
+gnomes dancing on the wall. Among the phantasms of inanimate objects in
+the collection of the late E. Gurney were a star, a firework bursting
+into stars, a firefly, a crown, landscape vignettes, a statue, the end
+of a draped coffin coming in through the door, and a bright oval
+surrounding the words "Wednesday, October 15, Death." Geometrical
+patterns, sometimes taking very complicated forms, comprise another
+known type of hallucination.
+
+As to a theory for hallucinations, the most acceptable one is that they
+have their origin in the brain, and that the senses are made to share in
+the deception. There is little doubt that William Blake's hallucinations
+were voluntary. Gurney refers to a friend, a painter, who was able to
+project a vision of his sitter out into space and paint from it. We have
+already seen that a hypnotic agent can cause his subject not merely to
+see things but to feel them, even to the extent of crying out with pain
+when an imaginary lighted match is applied to his finger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD
+
+
+Thus far I have devoted myself to an investigation of phenomena for
+which the theory of telepathy is not inapplicable. It is, however, when
+we come to discuss hallucinations from which the idea of a living agent
+is apparently excluded that I feel myself entering on even more delicate
+and mysterious territory. Having dealt with phantasms of persons at the
+point of death, I now propose to deal with phantasms of persons already
+dead. Where, indeed, the death has been very recent, the telepathic
+theory still serves, for the reception conveyed by the dying agent might
+conceivably remain dormant in the sub-consciousness of the percipient,
+and only be aroused in a dream or during a propitious waking moment.
+
+This would apply to the case of a lady who saw the body of a well-known
+London physician, about ten hours after death, lying in a bare
+unfurnished room, which turned out to be a cottage hospital abroad. Mr
+Myers, in his "Human Personality," has collected a large number of
+examples of apparitions of departed spirits, upon which he lays the
+utmost stress, because they, more than any other kind of evidence, tend
+to support his great theory of the survival of personality. If, he
+reasons, we can gain a number of well-authenticated cases of
+hallucinations projected telepathically from an agent before death, an
+equal amount of evidence of hallucinations projected by an agent after
+death would prove the continuance of life beyond the grave! And some of
+the cases which the Society of Psychical Research, both in this country
+and America, have collected are certainly of an impressive character.
+
+Unhappily, most of the best and most convincing cases are too long to be
+given here; they cannot even profitably be summarised.
+
+In one instance Mr F. G. of Boston, whose high character and good
+position are vouched for by Professor Royce and Dr Hodgson, states that
+nine years after the death of a favourite sister an apparition appeared
+before him:
+
+     "The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully
+     into my room. While busily smoking my cigar and writing out my
+     orders, I suddenly became conscious that someone was sitting on
+     my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I
+     turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for
+     a brief second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so
+     sure was I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight,
+     calling her by name, and as I did so the apparition instantly
+     vanished."
+
+But that is not the most extraordinary part of the story. The visitation
+so impressed the percipient that he took the next train home and related
+to his parents what had occurred. He particularly mentioned a bright red
+line or scratch on the right-hand side of his sister's face, which he
+had distinctly seen:
+
+     "... When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her
+     feet, and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently
+     recovered her self-possession, with tears streaming down her
+     face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no
+     living mortal but herself was aware of the scratch, which she
+     had accidentally made while doing some little act of kindness
+     after my sister's death.... In proof, neither my father nor any
+     of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of
+     the incident, yet _I saw the scratch as bright as if just
+     made_. So strangely impressed was my mother, that even after
+     she had retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to me, and
+     told me _she knew_ that I had seen my sister. A few weeks later
+     my mother died."
+
+Now, is it not a little singular that, although both Dr Hodgson and Mr
+Myers record this incident, the theory of telepathy between a living
+agent and a living percipient does not occur to them? Is it not
+conceivable that the mother, on whose mind the incident of the scratch
+on the features of the corpse had admittedly preyed, should have
+unwittingly communicated her secret to her son? In other words, the
+mother projected a phantasm of her dead daughter to the mind of her son.
+
+In the "Proceedings of the Society" there is a case which, according to
+Mr Stead, "appears to suggest that the deceased are continuing to take
+an interest in mundane affairs." The story is communicated by Miss
+Dodson. On Sunday, 5th June 1887, close upon midnight, Miss Dodson was
+roused by hearing her name called three times. She answered twice,
+thinking it was her uncle. The third time she recognised the voice of
+her mother, who had been dead sixteen years. "I said," continued Miss
+Dodson, "'Mamma!'"
+
+     "She then came round a screen near my bedside with two children
+     in her arms and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes
+     over them, and said: 'Lucy, promise me to take care of them,
+     for their mother is just dead.' I said: 'Yes, mamma.' She
+     repeated: '_Promise_ me to take care of them.' I replied: 'Yes,
+     I promise you,' and added, 'Oh, mamma, stay and speak to me, I
+     am so wretched.' She replied: 'Not yet, my child,' then she
+     seemed to go round the screen again and I remained, feeling the
+     children to be still in my arms and fell asleep. When I awoke
+     there was nothing. Tuesday morning, 7th June, I received the
+     news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given birth to a
+     child three weeks before, which I did not know till after her
+     death."
+
+Professor Sidgwick says, as the result of an interesting conversation
+with Miss Dodson, that the children were of the ages corresponding with
+the ages of the children of her sister-in-law; they seemed to be a
+little girl and a baby newly born. The only way an ingenious sceptic can
+get round this case is by supposing that a telepathic impulse from the
+living brother might conceivably embody itself in the form of his
+mother. But the idea of a brother in Belgium being able to transmit a
+telepathic message in the assumed shape and with the voice of his
+mother, who had been dead for sixteen years, and also to telepath into
+existence in London the two little children who were living in his house
+at Bruges, is rather a clumsy hypothesis. But what other have we?
+
+     "Mr Theobald, an Australian, forwards to the Society a paper
+     discovered amongst the effects of his uncle, now dead. The
+     apparition, as will be seen, occurred on October 24th, 1860,
+     and the account is endorsed on 9th November by the percipient's
+     father. Further particulars sent to Mr B---- by the percipient
+     (who is here called Mr D----) are dated November 13th, 1860.
+     The first account seems to have been sent by the percipient to
+     his father, and by the father to Mr B----"
+
+The percipient had been identified, and confirms, as will be seen, this
+early narrative, which is as follows:--
+
+     "On the evening of Wednesday, October 24th, 1860, having
+     retired to bed about nine o'clock, I had slept, I conclude,
+     about two hours, making it then about eleven o'clock P.M. I was
+     awoke from my sleep by a hand touching my forehead, and the
+     well-known voice of Mrs B---- pronouncing my name, E----. I
+     started up and sat in bed, rubbed my eyes, and then saw Mrs
+     B----. From the head to the waist the figure was distinct,
+     clear, and well defined; but from the waist downwards it was
+     all misty, and the lower part transparent. She appeared to be
+     dressed in black silk. Her countenance was grave and rather
+     sad, but not unhappy.
+
+     "The words she first uttered were: 'I have left dear John.'
+     What followed related entirely to myself, and she was permitted
+     by a most kind Providence to speak words of mercy, promise, and
+     comfort, and assurance that what I most wished would come to
+     pass. She came to me in an hour of bitter mental agony, and was
+     sent as a messenger of mercy...."
+
+Occasionally there is a curious variant, when the phantasm is auditory
+and not visible. In the case published in "Proceedings of the Society
+for Psychical Research," vol. iii. p. 90, Mr Wambey heard a phantasmal
+voice as though in colloquy with his own thought. He was planning a
+congratulatory letter to a friend, when the words "What, write to a dead
+man? write to a dead man?" sounded clearly in his ears. The friend had
+been dead for some days.
+
+Gurney was much impressed by the unexpectedly large proportion of cases
+where the percipient informed us that there had been a _compact_ between
+himself and the deceased person that whichever passed away first should
+try to appear to the other. "Considering," he adds, "what an extremely
+small number of persons make such a compact, compared with those who do
+not, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its existence has a
+certain efficacy."
+
+A characteristic case is thus reported by a Mr Bellamy:
+
+     "When a girl at school my wife made an agreement with a
+     fellow-pupil, Miss W., that the one of them who died first
+     should, if divinely permitted, appear after her decease to the
+     survivor. In 1874 my wife, who had not seen or heard anything
+     of her former school friend for some years, casually heard of
+     her death. The news reminded her of her former agreement, and
+     then, becoming nervous, she told me of it. I knew of my wife's
+     compact, but I had never seen a photograph of her friend, or
+     heard any description of her." (Mr Bellamy told Gurney in
+     conversation that his mind had not been in the least dwelling
+     on the compact.)
+
+     "A night or two afterwards, as I was sleeping with my wife, a
+     fire brightly burning in my room and a candle alight, I
+     suddenly awoke and saw a lady sitting by the side of the bed
+     where my wife was sleeping soundly. At once I sat up in the bed
+     and gazed so intently that even now I can recall her form and
+     features. Had I the pencil or the brush of a Millais I could
+     transfer to canvas an exact likeness of the ghostly visitant. I
+     remember that I was much struck, as I looked intently at her,
+     with the careful arrangement of her coiffure, every single hair
+     being most carefully brushed down. How long I sat and gazed I
+     cannot say, but directly the apparition ceased to be, I got
+     out of bed to see if any of my wife's garments had by any means
+     optically deluded me. I found nothing in the line of vision but
+     a bare wall. Hallucination on my part I rejected as out of the
+     question, and I doubted not that I had really seen an
+     apparition. Returning to bed, I lay till my wife some hours
+     after awoke, and then I gave her an account of her friend's
+     appearance. I described her colour, form, etc., all of which
+     exactly tallied with my wife's recollection of Miss W. Finally
+     I asked, 'But was there any special point to strike one in her
+     appearance?' 'Yes,' my wife promptly replied, 'we girls used to
+     tease her at school for devoting so much time to the
+     arrangement of her hair.' This was the very thing which I have
+     said so much struck me. Such are the simple facts.
+
+     "I will only add that till 1874 I had never seen an apparition,
+     and that I have not seen one since.
+
+     "ARTHUR BELLAMY."
+
+The following case, from "Proceedings," vol. viii. p. 178, bears a
+distinct resemblance to the old-fashioned ghost stories. Mrs M., the
+informant, writes under date 15th December 1891:
+
+     "Before relating my experience of having seen a ghost, I should
+     like my readers thoroughly to understand that I had not the
+     slightest idea that the house in which my husband and I were
+     living was haunted, or that the family residing there for many
+     years before us had had any family troubles. The house was
+     delightfully situated [etc.]. The house being partly new and
+     partly old we occupied the old part for our sleeping
+     apartments. There were two staircases leading to them, with a
+     landing and window, adjoining a morning sitting-room. One night
+     on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a
+     peculiar moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great
+     distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it
+     continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to
+     the landing window of which I have spoken, drew the blind
+     aside; and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl
+     in kneeling posture before a soldier, in a general's uniform,
+     sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for pardon;
+     but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I feel
+     for the girl, that without a moment's hesitation I ran down the
+     staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to
+     come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared!
+     Not in the least nervous did I feel then;--went again to my
+     bedroom, took a sheet of writing paper and wrote down what I
+     had seen. [Mrs M. has found and sent us this paper. The
+     following words are written in pencil on a half sheet of
+     notepaper:--"March 13th, 1886. Have just seen visions on
+     lawn:--a soldier in general's uniform,--a young lady kneeling
+     to him. 11.40 P.M."] My husband was away from home when this
+     event occurred, but a lady friend was staying with me, so I
+     went to her bedroom and told her that I had been rather
+     frightened by some noises;--could I stay with her a little
+     while? A few days afterwards I found myself in a very nervous
+     state; but it seemed so strange that I was not frightened at
+     the time.
+
+     "It appears the story is only too true. The youngest daughter
+     of this very old proud family had had an illegitimate child;
+     and her parents and relatives would not recognise her again,
+     and she died broken-hearted. The soldier was a near relative
+     (also a connection of my husband's); and it was in vain she
+     tried to gain his--the soldier's--forgiveness. [In a subsequent
+     letter Sir X. Y.'s career is described. He was a distinguished
+     officer.]
+
+     "So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier
+     that some months after the occurrence, when I happened to be
+     calling with my husband at a house where there was a portrait
+     of him, I stepped before it and said: 'Why, look! There is the
+     General!' And sure enough it _was_."
+
+In a subsequent letter Mrs M. writes:
+
+     "I did see the figures on the lawn after opening the door
+     leading on to the lawn; and they by no means disappeared
+     instantly, but more like a dissolving view--viz. gradually; and
+     I did not leave the door until they had passed away. It was
+     impossible for any real persons to act such a scene.... The
+     General was born and died (in the house where I saw him).... I
+     was not aware that the portrait of the General was in that room
+     (where I saw it); it was the first time I had been in that
+     room. The misfortune to the poor girl happened in 1847 or
+     1848."
+
+Mrs M. then mentions that a respectable local tradesman hearing of the
+incident remarked: "That is not an uncommon thing to see _her_ about the
+place, poor soul! She was a badly used girl."
+
+Mr M. writes as follows under date 23rd December 1891:--
+
+     "I have seen my wife's letter in regard to the recognition of
+     Sir X. Y.'s picture at ----. Nothing was said by me to her on
+     the subject; but knowing the portrait to be a remarkably good
+     likeness I proposed calling at the house (which was that of a
+     nephew of Sir X. Y.'s), being anxious to see what effect it
+     would have upon my wife. Immediately on entering the room she
+     almost staggered back, and turned pale, saying--looking hard
+     at the picture--'Why, there's the General!' ... Being a
+     connection of the family I knew all about the people, but my
+     wife was then a stranger, and I had never mentioned such things
+     to her; in fact they had been almost forgotten."
+
+Here is a case where the phantasm was visible to several persons at the
+same time. It is given by Mr Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and
+Royal Naval Club, Albemarle Street, W.
+
+     "December 3rd, 1885.
+
+     "On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at
+     his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, N. S. Wales.
+     About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion one
+     evening about nine o'clock to go to one of the bedrooms in the
+     house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and
+     as they entered the room--the gas burning all the time--they
+     were amazed to see, reflected as it were on the polished
+     surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was
+     barely half figure, the head, shoulders, and part of the arms
+     only showing--in fact, it was like an ordinary medallion
+     portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it
+     did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel
+     jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and
+     half-alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a
+     portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was
+     its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.
+
+     "Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss
+     Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had
+     time to speak, she exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Do you see papa?'
+     One of the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the
+     moment, and she was called in and asked if she saw anything,
+     and her reply was, 'Oh, miss! the master.' Graham--Captain
+     Towns' old body-servant--was then sent for, and he also
+     immediately exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord save us! Mrs Lett, it's the
+     captain!' The butler was called, and then Mrs Crane, my wife's
+     nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally, Mrs Towns
+     was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards
+     it with her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she passed
+     her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually
+     faded away, and never again appeared, though the room was
+     regularly occupied for a long time after.
+
+     "These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no
+     doubt; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses;
+     the same question was put to each one as they came into the
+     room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each. It
+     was by the merest accident that I did not see the apparition. I
+     was in the house at the time, but did not hear when I was
+     called."
+
+     "C. A. W. LETT."
+
+     "We the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify
+     that it is strictly accurate, as we were both witnesses of the
+     apparition.
+
+     "SARA LETT,
+
+     "SIBBIE SMYTH
+
+     "(_née_ TOWNS.)"
+
+"Mrs Lett assures me," wrote Gurney, "that neither she nor her sister
+ever experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.
+She is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of
+each of the later witnesses was _independent_, and not due to any
+suggestion from the persons already in the room."
+
+The following, taken from the "Report on the Census of Hallucinations,"
+may belong to either the ante-mortem or post-mortem category:--
+
+     "At Redhill on Thanksgiving Day, between eight and nine in the
+     evening, when I was taking charge of the little daughter of a
+     friend, during my friend's absence on that evening, I left the
+     child sleeping in the bedroom, and went to drop the blinds in
+     two neighbouring rooms, being absent about three minutes. On
+     returning to the child's room in the full light of the
+     gas-burner from above I distinctly saw, coming from the child's
+     cot, a white figure, which figure turned, looked me full in the
+     face, and passed down the staircase. I instantly followed,
+     leaned over the banisters in astonishment, and saw the
+     glistening of the white drapery as the figure passed down the
+     staircase, through the lighted hall, and silently through the
+     hall door itself, which was barred, chained, and locked. I felt
+     for the moment perfectly staggered, went back to the bedroom,
+     and found the child peacefully sleeping. I related the
+     circumstance to the mother immediately on her return late that
+     night. She was incredulous, but said that my description of the
+     figure answered to that of an invalid aunt of the child's. The
+     next morning came a telegram to say that this relation who had
+     greatly wished to see her niece had died between eight and nine
+     the previous evening.
+
+     "I had just put down the 'Pickwick Papers,' with which I had
+     been whiling away the time, was free from trouble and in good
+     health."
+
+Sister Bertha, Superior of the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracey, Newton
+Abbot, states:
+
+     "On the night of November 10th, 1861, I was up in my bed
+     watching, because there was a person not quite well in the next
+     room. I heard a voice which I recognised at once as familiar to
+     me, and at first thought of my sister. It said in the brightest
+     and most cheerful tone, 'I am here with you.' I answered,
+     looking and seeing nothing, 'Who are you?' The voice said, 'You
+     mustn't know yet.' I heard nothing more and saw nothing, and am
+     certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was not in the
+     least frightened, and felt convinced it was Lucy's [Miss Lucy
+     Gambier Parry's] voice.
+
+     "I have never doubted it from that moment. I had not heard of
+     her being worse. The last account had been good, and I was
+     expecting to hear that she was at Torquay. In the course of the
+     next day (the 11th), mother told me that she had died on the
+     morning of the 10th, rather more than twelve hours before I
+     heard her voice."
+
+A case reported by Mr John E. Husbands, of Melbourne House, Town Hall
+Square, Grimsby, is interesting:
+
+     "I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a
+     bright moonlight night. The windows were open, and the blinds
+     up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a
+     young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing
+     at the side of my bed, and pointing with the first finger of
+     his right hand to the place where I was lying. I lay for some
+     seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I
+     then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly
+     that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some
+     days afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not speak,
+     but his eyes and hands seemed to tell me that I was in his
+     place. As he did not answer, I struck at him with my fist as I
+     sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out
+     of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut,
+     keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon inquiry I found
+     that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was
+     occupying."
+
+There is, too, the famous case of Mrs de Fréville and the gardener Bard.
+The percipient, who had formerly been in the employ of this somewhat
+eccentric lady, who was especially morbid on the subject of tombs and so
+forth, was in the churchyard of Hinxton, Saffron Walden, on Friday, 8th
+May 1885. He happened to look at the square De Fréville stone vault,
+when, to his amazement, he distinctly saw the old lady, with a white
+face, leaning on the rails. When he looked again she was gone, although
+it puzzled him to know how she could have got out of the churchyard, as,
+in order to reach any of the gates, she must have passed him. Next day
+he was told that Mrs de Fréville was dead. As the apparition was seen
+about seven and a half hours after death, it could, as I have suggested,
+be considered a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment of death
+and remaining latent in the brain of the percipient; otherwise, the
+case belongs to the category of Haunting, which we will glance at in the
+next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA
+
+
+"Do I believe in ghosts?" asks Mr Andrew Lang. "One can only answer:
+'How do you define a ghost?' I do believe, with all students of human
+nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the
+senses. But as to whether such hallucinations among the sane are ever
+caused by physical influence from the minds of others, alive or dead,
+not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a
+balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence."
+
+If the evidence of "hauntings" were measurable by bulk alone, no phase
+of occultism would be more completely demonstrated. It is only when we
+come to examine the quality of the available data that we realise how
+formidable a task it is we have undertaken. In nothing, perhaps, have
+credulity and superstition been allowed so wide a scope; nowhere is it
+more difficult to winnow the grain of reliable testimony from the chaff
+of mythology and invention. For we must remember that the belief in
+ghosts is as old as the hills themselves. It is common to all countries
+and to all nations, and in the literature of every language are to be
+found tales of the supernatural scarcely less plausible than many which
+assail our ears to-day.
+
+What I now set myself to investigate is that class of phenomena
+seemingly attached to various localities and comprising, besides
+apparitions, sights and sounds of various kinds and degrees. According
+to Mr E. T. Bennett, for twenty years assistant secretary of the
+Psychical Research Society, the records of the Society contain
+descriptions of "a large number of cases in which the evidence of the
+reality of phenomena incapable of ordinary explanation is absolutely
+conclusive."
+
+When the sounds are intelligible, or a sentence is spelt out in response
+to the inquiry of the auditor, the _raison d'être_ of the manifestation
+is more or less obvious. But there is evidence of a large number of
+so-called "hauntings" where steps are heard, or noises which convey no
+intelligible information. Sometimes, also, we are told that
+simultaneously with the death of a friend bangs have been heard, which,
+but for the coincidence of their occurrence in association with a death,
+are without meaning. M. Flammarion cites several cases of this sort. The
+following will serve as an illustration:--[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: It will be found on page 178 of "L'Inconnu et les Problemes
+Psychiques."]
+
+     M. E. Deschaux relates that his grandfather "was awakened one
+     evening at eleven P.M. by three very distinct raps on the door
+     of his room. Astonished, he rose, lit the lamp, opened the
+     door, but saw no one. Supposing that some trickster had been
+     the cause of his disturbance, he returned to bed grumbling, but
+     again three knocks were heard on the door. He got up quickly,
+     intending that the culprit should pay dearly for his untimely
+     joke, but in spite of careful search, both in the passage and
+     on the staircase, he could not discover where this mysterious
+     culprit had disappeared to. A third time, when he was again in
+     bed, three raps were audible on the door. This time the
+     grandfather had a presentiment that the sound was caused by the
+     spirit of his mother, although nothing in the tidings he had
+     previously received from his family incited him to this
+     supposition. Five or six days after this manifestation a letter
+     arrived from his own country announcing the death of his mother
+     which had occurred precisely at the hour at which he had heard
+     the knocks. At the moment of her death, his mother, who had a
+     particular affection for him, had insisted that a dress which
+     her 'boy in Paris' had some time before sent her as a present
+     should be brought and placed on her bed."
+
+Here we seem to have a distinct motive for the visitation; but on the
+other hand observe how many cases we come across where the phenomena
+appears to be due solely to the wanton and mischievous impulses of the
+invisible agents.
+
+There is for example the case of a house in which spiritual
+manifestations, often of a disturbing character, were continually being
+produced, related by Mr Inkster Gilbertson in _The Occult Review_ on the
+authority of a West End physician who is called Dr Macdonald. The swish
+of a silk dress and the slamming of doors were among the least important
+of the phenomena from a psychical point of view, though the sound of
+someone coming through a skylight and dropping on to the landing was
+certainly calculated to terrify the ladies, who "came up from the
+drawing-room screaming and shouting, expecting to find some dreadful
+tragedy being enacted." These manifestations consisted entirely of
+sounds, but at the regular sittings which were held in the house a
+drawer was taken from its place in the bedroom and left on the hall
+stand, the loose wooden leaves which converted a billiard-table into a
+dining-table were slid off the end and deposited on the floor, and a
+screen was several times seen to fold itself up without being touched.
+
+The most peculiar occurrences, however, were the antics of certain keys
+belonging to doors in the house. "The door of the front bedroom was
+often found locked, and the key would disappear." The doctor kept his
+eye on the key and presently saw it move round, locking the door, and
+then "he saw the last of the key disappearing through the hole." At
+another time the lady of the house, her children, and the maid were
+locked in for some hours. "The key would be kept away for days; then it
+would suddenly appear. One day it was found in Mrs Macdonald's lap; once
+it was quietly laid on the doctor's head," and so forth. On one occasion
+when the key was not given up the doctor called out: "Won't you send us
+down the key before we go?" They were passing down the stairs and,
+before they reached the bottom, the key was gently dropped on the
+doctor's head. The most careful observations failed to discover the
+known means by which the feats could be accomplished. The evidence of
+the intelligence and of the mischievous disposition of these uncanny
+tricksters was borne out by sounds of dancing being heard outside the
+door just afterwards.
+
+"The possible non-ghostly explanations," says Mrs Sidgwick, "of what
+pass as ghostly phenomena may be conveniently classed with reference to
+the various sorts of error by which the evidence to such phenomena is
+liable to be affected. I should state these as (1) hoaxing, (2)
+exaggeration or inadequate description, (3) illusion, (4) mistaken
+identity, (5) hallucination.... I think, however, that anyone who has
+read the evidence will at once discard the first of these alternatives
+so far as the great mass of the first-hand narratives is concerned."
+
+There are not a few cases, however, where the ghostly manifestations
+have been found to be due to human agency. The following instance was
+brought to my notice by a well-known firm of estate agents at Tunbridge
+Wells:--
+
+     "There is an old Manor House in this district which is locally
+     known as the 'Haunted House.' The original mansion was,
+     according to Hasted, one of the homes of the Colepepers. In
+     the reign of Charles II. the mansion was rebuilt in the style
+     of the period. It has, however, outlived its purpose, is out of
+     repair and was for many years let in tenements to labourers. It
+     is now untenanted. Some few months ago the lurid tales of
+     ghostly visitors induced a local spiritualist, encouraged by
+     some mischievous friends, to hold a _séance_ in the house at
+     midnight, and to perambulate the rambling building from time to
+     time during the night. The spirits lived up to their reputation
+     and gave all kinds of manifestations which included streams of
+     water from invisible buckets that met the investigator as he
+     groped up the staircase and along the passages. In the end the
+     whole thing was found to be a hoax and to have been organised
+     by the spiritualist's friends. He is not communicative on the
+     subject. The old house still stands empty and deserves a better
+     fate."
+
+The classic case of haunting in England is, perhaps, that of Willingdon
+Mill. Other spectre-ridden edifices in the kingdom there may well be,
+but their stories, however grim and ghastly, are apt to relapse into
+insignificance beside those narrated of this famous Tyneside building.
+
+Willingdon Mill, which is situated in Northumberland nearly half-way
+between Newcastle and North Shields, was built about the year 1800.
+When, thirty-four years later, certain unaccountable noises and other
+phenomena began to attract attention the occupants consisted of a worthy
+Quaker, Joseph Proctor by name, his wife, servants and family. Joseph
+Proctor used to keep a diary wherein he chronicled the strange
+happenings in his house. The greater portion of this was published in
+_The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. v., but full
+accounts of the affair have appeared in many publications, among which
+may be mentioned Howitt's "Visits to Remarkable Places," Crowe's "Night
+Side of Nature," "The Local Historian's Table Book," and Stead's "Real
+Ghost Stories."
+
+It was a servant girl that first called attention to the mysterious
+noises. She positively affirmed that she had heard "a dull heavy tread
+on the boarded floor of the room unoccupied above, commonly pacing
+backwards and forwards and, on coming over to the window, giving the
+floor such a shake as to cause the windows of the nursery to rattle
+violently in their frames." This disturbance usually lasted about ten
+minutes at a time. At first the girl's tale was discredited, but before
+many days had elapsed every member of the family had heard precisely
+what the girl described. The room was vigorously searched but no clue to
+the phantom footsteps was forthcoming. Even the expedient of covering
+the floor with flour was without result; the "dull, heavy tread" left no
+traces upon the whitened boards.
+
+It was not long before other unaccountable noises were heard all over
+the house and ghostly figures were seen by several persons. To
+illustrate the kind of occurrence that was constantly going on in the
+house, and which, indeed, became so frequent that they were thought very
+little of, I quote the following extracts from Joseph Proctor's
+diary:--
+
+     "7 mo., 14th, 1841:--J. and E. P. heard the spirit in their own
+     room, and in the room overhead, making a noise as of something
+     heavy being hoisted or rolled, or like a barrel set down on its
+     end; also noises in the Camproom of various and unaccountable
+     character.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "8 mo., 3rd.--Since the last night there have been few nights
+     during which some branch of the family has not heard our
+     visitor. One night, J. P. was awoke and heard something hastily
+     walk, with a step like that of a child of 8 or 10 years, from
+     the foot of the bed towards the side of the room, and come back
+     seemingly towards the door, in a run; then it gave two stamps
+     with one foot; there was a loud rustling as if of a frock or
+     night-dress. I need scarcely say the door was locked, and I am
+     quite certain there was no other human being in the room save
+     E. P., who was asleep. The two stamps aroused E. P. out of her
+     sleep. About this time Joseph, on two or three occasions, said
+     he had heard voices from underneath his bed and from other
+     parts of the room, and described seeing on one occasion a boy
+     in a drab hat much like his own, the boy much like himself too,
+     walking backwards and forwards between the windows and the
+     wardrobe. He was afraid, but did not speak.
+
+     "Noises as of a band-box falling close at hand, as of someone
+     running upstairs when no one was there, and like the raking of
+     a coal rake, were heard about this time by different members of
+     the family."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "8 mo., 6th.--On the night of the third, just after the
+     previous memorandum was written, about 10.30 P.M., the servants
+     having all retired to bed, J. and E. P. heard a noise like a
+     clothes horse being thrown down in the kitchen. Soon the noises
+     became louder and appeared as though some persons had burst
+     into the house on the ground floor and were clashing the doors
+     and throwing things down. Eventually J. P. got one of the
+     servants to go downstairs with him, when all was found right,
+     no one there, and apparently nothing moved. The noises now
+     began on the third storey, and the servants were so much
+     alarmed that it was difficult to get them to go to bed at all
+     that night.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "8 mo., 6th to 12th.--My brother-in-law, George Carr, was with
+     us. He heard steppings and loud rumblings in the middle of the
+     night, and other noises."
+
+A curious feature in this case was the number of apparitions seen. Thus
+we have clear testimony of the presence of a lady in a lavender silk
+dress, of an old bald-headed man in a flowing robe like a surplice, of a
+lady in grey, and of a horrid eyeless spectre who glared fixedly at the
+world through empty eyeholes. Added to these there were animals of all
+sorts and descriptions, cats, monkeys, rabbits and sheep.
+
+     "On one occasion, during the period that Thomas was courting
+     Mary, he was standing at the window outside (no followers being
+     allowed inside, lest fabulous reports were sent abroad). He had
+     given the usual signal. The night was clear, and the stars
+     beamed forth their light from a cloudless sky. Suddenly
+     something appeared which arrested my father's attention.
+     Looking towards the mill, which was divided from the house by
+     an open space, he beheld what he supposed was a whitish cat. It
+     came walking along in close proximity to his feet. Thinking
+     Miss Puss very cheeky he gave her a kick; but his foot felt
+     nothing and the cat quietly continued its march, followed by my
+     father, until it suddenly disappeared from his gaze. Still the
+     ghost was not thought of by him. Returning to the window and
+     looking in the same direction, he again beheld it suddenly come
+     into existence. This time it came hopping like a rabbit, coming
+     quite as close to his feet as before. He determined to have a
+     good rap at it, and took deliberate aim; but, as before, his
+     foot went through it and felt nothing. Again he followed it,
+     and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The
+     third time he went to the window, and in a few moments it made
+     its third appearance, not like unto a cat or a rabbit, but
+     fully as large as a sheep, and quite luminous. On it came and
+     my father was fixed to the spot. All muscular power seemed for
+     the moment paralysed. It moved on, disappearing at the same
+     spot as the preceding apparitions. My father declared that if
+     it was possible for 'hair to stand on end' his did just then.
+     Thinking that for once he had seen sufficient, he went home,
+     keeping the knowledge of this scene to himself."
+
+It is not to be wondered at if the queer doings at Willingdon Mill began
+to be rumoured abroad. They reached the ears of a certain Dr Edward
+Drury of Sunderland, who was, not unnaturally, rather sceptical. He
+asked and obtained permission to sit up alone in the house one night
+accompanied only by his faithful dog and with a pair of pistols in his
+pocket. His opportunity came in July, 1840, when all the family, with
+the exception of Joseph Proctor himself, was away from the mill. The
+night was fruitful with horror, and the following letter addressed to
+the miller nearly a week after the event tells its own tale:--
+
+     "Monday Morning,
+
+     "6th July, 1840.
+
+     "_To_ MR PROCTOR.
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--I am sorry I was not at home to receive you
+     yesterday, when you kindly called to inquire for me. I am happy
+     to state that I am really surprised that I have been so little
+     affected as I am after that horrid and most awful affair. The
+     only bad effect I feel is a heavy dulness in one of my
+     ears--the right one. I call it a heavy dullness, because I not
+     only do not hear distinctly but feel in it a constant noise.
+     This I never was affected with before; but I doubt not it will
+     go off. I am persuaded that no one went to your house at any
+     time _more disbelieving in respect to seeing anything
+     peculiar_; now no one can be more satisfied than myself. I
+     will, in the course of a few days, send you a full detail of
+     all I saw and heard. Mr Spence and two other gentlemen came
+     down to my house in the afternoon to hear my detail; but, sir,
+     could I account for these noises from natural causes, yet, so
+     firmly am I persuaded of the horrid apparition, that I would
+     affirm that what I saw with my eyes was a punishment to me for
+     my scoffing and unbelief; that I am assured that, as far as the
+     horror is concerned, they are happy that believe and have not
+     seen ... it will be a great source of joy to me if you never
+     allow your young family to be in that horrid house again.
+     Hoping you will write a few lines at your leisure, I remain,
+     dear sir, yours very truly,
+
+     "EDWARD DRURY."
+
+To this letter the sturdy Quaker sent a characteristic reply.
+
+     "Willingdon,
+
+     "7th mo., 9, 1840.
+
+     "Respected Friend, E. DRURY,--Have been at Sunderland, I did
+     not receive thine of the 6th till yesterday morning. I am glad
+     to hear thou art getting well over the effects of thy
+     unlooked-for visitation. I hold in respect thy bold and manly
+     assertion of the truth in the face of that ridicule and
+     ignorant conceit with which that which is called the
+     supernatural, in the present day, is usually assailed.
+
+     "I shall be glad to receive thy detail, in which it will be
+     needful to be very particular in showing that thou couldst not
+     be asleep, or attacked by nightmare, or mistake a reflection of
+     the candle, as some sagaciously suppose. I remain,
+     respectfully, thy friend,
+
+     "JOSH. PROCTOR.
+
+     "_P.S._--I have about thirty witnesses to various things which
+     cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on any other principle
+     than that of spiritual agency."
+
+
+Four days later Dr Drury wrote out a full account of his experience.
+
+     "Sunderland,
+
+     "13th July 1840.
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--I hereby, according to promise in my last letter,
+     forward you a true account of what I saw and heard at your
+     house, in which I was led to pass the night from various
+     rumours circulated by most respectable parties, particularly
+     from an account by my esteemed friend, Mr Davison, whose name I
+     mentioned to you in a former letter. Having received your
+     sanction to visit your mysterious dwelling, I went, on the 3rd
+     of July, accompanied by a friend of mine, T. Hudson. This was
+     not according to promise, nor in accordance with my first
+     intent, as I wrote you I would come alone; but I felt gratified
+     at your kindness in not alluding to the liberty I had taken, as
+     it ultimately proved for the best. I must here mention that,
+     not expecting you at home, I had in my pocket a brace of
+     pistols, determining in my mind to let one of them drop before
+     the miller, as if by accident, for fear he should presume to
+     play tricks upon me; but after my interview with you, I felt
+     there was no occasion for weapons, and did not load them, after
+     you had allowed us to inspect as minutely as we pleased every
+     portion of the house. I sat down on the third storey landing,
+     fully expecting to account for any noises that I might hear, in
+     a philosophical manner. This was about eleven o'clock P.M.
+     About ten minutes to twelve we both heard a noise, as if a
+     number of people were pattering with their bare feet upon the
+     floor; and yet, so singular was the noise, that I could not
+     minutely determine from whence it proceeded. A few minutes
+     afterwards we heard a noise, as if someone was knocking with
+     his knuckles among our feet; this was followed by a hollow
+     cough from the very room from which the apparition proceeded.
+     The only noise after this, was as if a person was rustling
+     against the wall in coming upstairs. At a quarter to one I told
+     my friend that, feeling a little cold, I would like to go to
+     bed, as we might hear the noise equally well there; he replied
+     he would not go to bed till daylight. I took up a note which I
+     had accidentally dropped and began to read it, after which I
+     took out my watch to ascertain the time, and found that it
+     wanted ten minutes to one. In taking my eyes from the watch
+     they became riveted upon a closet door, which I distinctly saw
+     open, and saw also the figure of a female attired in greyish
+     garments, with the head inclining downwards, and one hand
+     pressed upon the chest as if in pain, and the other--viz. the
+     right hand--extended towards the floor, with the index finger
+     pointing downward. It advanced with an apparently cautious
+     step across the floor towards me; immediately as it approached
+     my friend, who was slumbering, its right hand was extended
+     towards him; I then rushed at it, giving, as Mr Proctor states,
+     a most awful yell; but instead of grasping it I fell upon my
+     friend, and I recollected nothing distinctly for nearly three
+     hours afterwards. I have since learned that I was carried
+     downstairs in an agony of fear and terror.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I hereby certify that the above account is strictly true and
+     correct in every respect.
+
+     "EDWARD DRURY."
+
+So intolerable became life in this uncanny house that, in 1847, Joseph
+Proctor and his family moved to South Shields. For the last night of
+their residence was reserved a more than usually turbulent
+demonstration. "There were," says Mr Edmund Proctor, "continuous noises
+during the night, boxes being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down
+the now carpetless stairs, non-human footsteps stumped on the floors,
+doors were, or seemed to be, clashed, and impossible furniture corded
+at random or dragged hither and thither by inscrutable agency; in short,
+a pantomimic or spiritualistic repetition of all the noises incident to
+a household flitting. A miserable night my father and mother had of it,
+as I have often heard from their own lips; not so much from terror at
+the unearthly noises, for to these they were habituated, as dread lest
+this wretched fanfaronade might portend the contemporary flight of the
+unwelcome visitors to the new abode. Fortunately for the family this
+dread was not realised."
+
+After undergoing various vicissitudes, the house was finally divided
+into small tenements, in which condition it still remains. But of late
+years nothing has been seen or heard of the ghostly visitors. Perhaps,
+smitten with dismay by the deterioration of their former dwelling-place,
+they have taken up their abode elsewhere. For Willingdon Mill, formerly
+gay with flowers and creepers, is now a wreck of its former self. The
+mill is used as a warehouse; the stables and outhouses have been pulled
+down; while the house stands out gaunt and forbidding, a picture of
+desolation and decay.
+
+Mr W. T. Stead, in his "Real Ghost Stories," has given us many thrilling
+examples of nocturnal apparitions, and of these the uncanny experience
+of the Rev. H. Elwyn Thomas, of 35 Park Village East, N. W., is well
+worth repeating.
+
+Mr Thomas, after having conducted a service at the church at Llangynidr,
+accompanied three young friends of his for about half-a-mile on their
+homeward way.
+
+     "When I wished good-night to my friends, it was about twenty
+     minutes to nine, but still light enough to see a good distance.
+     The subject of our conversation all the way from the chapel
+     until we parted was a certain eccentric old character who then
+     belonged to the Crickhowell church. Many laughable incidents in
+     his life had been related by my friends for my amusement, at
+     which I laughed heartily again and again. I walked a little
+     farther down the road than I intended, in order to hear the end
+     of a very amusing story about him and the vicar of a
+     neighbouring parish. Our conversation had no reference whatever
+     to ghosts or ghostly things. Neither were we in the mood
+     befitting a ghostly visitation. Personally I was a strong
+     disbeliever in ghosts, and invariably ridiculed those who I
+     then thought superstitious enough to believe in them.
+
+     "When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends I
+     saw on the bank of the canal (which runs parallel with the road
+     for six or seven miles) what I thought at the moment was an old
+     beggar. The spot was a very lonely one. The nearest house was a
+     good quarter of a mile away. The night was as silent as death.
+     Not a single sound broke upon the silence from any quarter. I
+     could not help asking myself where this old man had come from
+     to such a place. I had not seen him in going down the road.
+
+     "I then turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look
+     at him, and had no sooner done so than I saw within half-a-yard
+     of me one of the most remarkable and startling sights I hope
+     it will ever be my lot to see. Almost on a level with my own
+     face I saw that of an old man, over every feature of which the
+     putty-coloured skin was drawn tightly, except the forehead
+     which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were extremely
+     thin, and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth
+     stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those
+     of a corpse, and the eyes, which seemed far back in the middle
+     of the head, were unnaturally luminous and piercing. This
+     terrible object was wrapped in two bands of old yellow calico,
+     one of which was drawn under the chin and over the cheeks and
+     tied at the top of the head, the other was drawn round the top
+     of the wrinkled forehead and fastened at the back of the head.
+     So deep and indelible an impression it made on my mind, that
+     were I an artist I could paint that face to-day, and reproduce
+     the original (excepting, perhaps, the luminous eyes) as
+     accurately as if it were photographed.
+
+     "What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a
+     glance. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face
+     again towards the village, and ran away from the horrible
+     vision with all my might for about sixty yards. I then stopped
+     and turned round to see how far I had outdistanced it, and, to
+     my unspeakable horror, there it was still face to face with me,
+     as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my umbrella and raised
+     it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings when I could
+     see nothing between the face and the ground except an irregular
+     column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella went as a
+     stick goes through water!
+
+     "I am sorry to confess that I again took to my heels with
+     increasing speed. A little farther than the place of this
+     second encounter, the road which led towards my host's house
+     branched off the main road, the main road itself running right
+     through the centre of the village, in the lower end of which it
+     ran parallel with the churchyard wall. Having gone a few yards
+     down the branch road, I reached a crisis in my fear and
+     confusion when I felt I could act rationally: I determined to
+     speak to the strange pursuer whatever he was, and I boldly
+     turned round to face him for the third time, intending to ask
+     him what he wanted, etc.,
+
+     "He had not followed me after I left the main road, but I could
+     see the horribly fascinating face quite as plainly as when it
+     was close by. It stood for two or three minutes looking
+     intently at me from the centre of the main road. I then
+     realised fully it was not a human being in flesh and blood; and
+     with every vestige of fear gone I quickly walked towards it to
+     put my questions. But I was disappointed, for no sooner had I
+     made towards it than it moved quickly in the direction of the
+     village. I saw it moving along, keeping the same distance from
+     the ground, until it reached the churchyard wall; it then
+     crossed the wall, and disappeared near where the yew-tree stood
+     inside. The moment it disappeared I became unconscious. When I
+     came to myself, two hours later, I was lying in the middle of
+     the road, cold and ill. It took me quite an hour to reach my
+     host's house, which was less than half-a-mile away, and when I
+     reached it I looked so white and strange that my host's
+     daughter, who had sat down with her father to wait my return,
+     uttered a loud scream. I could not say a word to explain what
+     had happened, though I tried hard several times. It was five
+     o'clock in the morning when I regained my power of speech; even
+     then I could only speak in broken sentences. The whole of the
+     following week I was laid up with great nervous prostration.
+
+     "The strangest part of my story remains yet to be told. My
+     host, after questioning me closely in regard to the features of
+     the face, the place I had first seen it and the spot where it
+     disappeared, told me that fifteen years before that time an old
+     recluse, answering in every detail to my description (calicoes,
+     bands and all), lived in a house whose ruins still stand close
+     by where I first saw it, that he was buried in the exact spot
+     in the churchyard where I saw the face disappearing, and that
+     he was a very strange character altogether.
+
+      "I should like to add that I had not heard a syllable about
+     this old man before the night in question, and that all the
+     persons referred to in the above story are still alive."
+
+Here is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in
+_Light_. The narrator is a Colonel X.
+
+     "When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night
+     the sentry came to tell me that there was something very
+     extraordinary going on in the White Chapel, which, in those
+     days, was used as a storeroom.
+
+     "I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed
+     up and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly
+     lit up, and presently priests in vestments and boys swinging
+     silver censers came in and arranged themselves before an altar.
+     Then the large entrance doors opened and a procession of
+     persons in old quaint costumes filed in. Walking alone was a
+     lady in black, and behind her was a masked man, also in black,
+     who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded away, and
+     there was utter darkness.
+
+     "Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so
+     laughed at that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a
+     gentleman introduced himself as the keeper of the records of
+     the Tower, and said that he had heard my story, but wished to
+     hear it again from my own lips; and when I had told it he
+     remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision has been seen
+     by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's death.'"
+
+It not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in
+a court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in "Sights and Shadows,"
+gives an account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year
+1890.
+
+     "A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner,
+     Miss Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of £23.
+
+     "The last-named persons took possession of it in due course;
+     but two days subsequently they became aware of the presence of
+     a spirit or ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs
+     Kinney asserted, 'threw heavy things at her,' and so alarmed
+     and inconvenienced her, that in a very short period both
+     husband and wife were forced to quit their abode.
+
+     "This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it;
+     and, because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised
+     to decline to pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to
+     release them from their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's
+     rent; and when this remained for sometime unpaid, sued them for
+     it before Judge Kisby.
+
+     "A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants,
+     who, having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in
+     question, asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that
+     of several other people. This, however, was disallowed by the
+     judge.
+
+     "It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side
+     or the other had been said regarding the haunting when the
+     house was let; yet that the rent was due and must be paid.
+
+     "A judgment was consequently entered for the landlady although
+     it had been shown indirectly that unquestionably the house had
+     the reputation of being haunted, and that previous tenants had
+     been much inconvenienced and affrighted."
+
+Another case is chronicled which took place in Dublin in 1885. Dr Lee's
+account is confirmed by _The Evening Standard_ of February 23rd of that
+year.
+
+     "Mr Waldron, a solicitor, sued his next-door neighbour, one
+     Kiernan, a mate in the merchant service, to recover £500 for
+     damages done to his house. Kiernan altogether denied the
+     charges, but asserted that Waldron's residence was notoriously
+     haunted. Witnesses proved that every night from August 1884, to
+     January 1885, stones were thrown at the windows and doors and
+     other serious damage done--in fact that numerous extraordinary
+     and inexplicable occurrences constantly took place.
+
+     "Mrs Waldron, wife of the plaintiff, swore that one night she
+     saw one of the panes of glass of a certain window cut through
+     with a diamond, and a white hand inserted through the hole. She
+     at once caught up a bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand,
+     cutting off one of the fingers. Neither this finger, however,
+     could be found nor were any traces of blood seen.
+
+     "A servant of hers was sorely persecuted by noises and the
+     sound of footsteps. Mr Waldron, with the aid of detectives and
+     policemen, endeavoured to find the cause, but with no avail.
+     The witnesses in this case were closely cross-examined, but
+     without shaking their testimony. The facts appeared to be
+     proved, so the jury found for Kiernan, the defendant. At least
+     twenty persons had testified on oath to the fact that the house
+     had been known to have been haunted."
+
+The possible agency of small boys in the matter of stone-throwing is
+apparently overlooked, while it can be easily imagined that a servant
+girl, well aware of the uncanny reputation of the house she lived in,
+would very soon develop a capacity for hearing mysterious sounds and
+footsteps on the smallest provocation. Then again the testimony of the
+plaintiff's wife was surely very damaging to her own case since she was,
+presumably, endeavouring to prove that the whole of the "extraordinary
+and inexplicable occurrences" were due to some mad freak on the part of
+her neighbour.
+
+On the whole I can find no class of occult phenomena of greater
+antiquity and persistence than that of haunting. Even though the ghost
+may not be as visible as that of Hamlet's father, yet the idea of a
+perturbed spirit revisiting its former haunts or the scene of its bodily
+murder finds credence amongst all peoples and epochs in the world's
+history. Fable is usually the dulled image of the truth: just as what we
+call presentiment or rumour is a kind of aura or van-wind of truth. On
+these grounds alone I should be inclined to take the legendary evidence
+for haunting seriously, just as every man who investigates its
+astonishing history now perceives that witchcraft is not to be dismissed
+as a mere groundless superstition. Indeed, I lay it down as a
+proposition that any belief which spontaneously and universally arises
+and persistently survives must have truth in the web of it. But the
+modern authentic testimony for haunting is so clear and strong and the
+attestors so clear-headed and indeed inexpugnable that we must really
+believe the physical sounds, with their revealed significance, actually
+occurred and do occur. Hallucination I put here out of the question.
+Neither will the theory of telepathy between the living serve to account
+for anything here.
+
+There is some other solution of the mystery. Has it been propounded? We
+shall see. Cock Lane is not now to be dismissed derisively. Nor are
+these manifestations to be treated in the spirit of one of the
+characters in Mr Wells' "Love and Mr Lewisham"--"Even if it be true--it
+is all wrong."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD
+
+
+No serious inquirer into the mysteries of occultism should neglect to
+study the peculiar human faculty locally known as Dowsing. Science has
+hitherto turned a cold shoulder to the skilled wielders of the divining
+rod, and at first sight perhaps few subjects appear to be so little
+worthy of investigation. To begin with it is a matter of common
+geological knowledge that the mode of distribution of underground water
+is very different from that imagined by the professional dowser. The
+latter will locate a spring in a certain spot and give you scrupulous
+details as to its depth and the amount of water it will yield. He may go
+on to tell you that a few feet distant is another spring, of a totally
+different depth, and that between the two no water will be found. The
+assertions are ridiculed by the practical geologist, whose point of
+view is admirably expressed in the following letter. The writer is the
+Rev. Osmond Fisher, M.A. (author of "Physics of the Earth's Crust").
+
+     "Harlton Rectory, Cambridge,
+
+     "February 4th, 1896.
+
+     "It appears to me that the assumption which underlies the
+     belief in the divining rod is erroneous. It is only under
+     exceptional circumstances, as among crystalline rocks, or where
+     the strata are much disturbed, that underground water runs in
+     channels like water in a pipe, so that a person can say, 'I am
+     now standing over a spring,' whereas a few paces off he was not
+     over one. What is called a spring, such as is reached in a
+     well, is _usually_ a widely extended water-saturated stratum.
+     Ordinarily where water can be reached by a well, there are few
+     spots [in the neighbourhood] where a well would not find it.
+
+     "The question which is really worthy of investigation in this
+     and similar cases seems to be how such an idea ever originated
+     and to what it owes its vitality."
+
+From the geologist's point of view, then, the so-called "diviner" is the
+merest charlatan, who, so far as the finding of water or mineral veins
+is concerned, would be equally successful were he to substitute the
+dice-box or the coin for his more usual implement the hazel wand. It is,
+he argues, a matter of guessing--and nothing more. The question becomes
+complicated when we remember that among the ardent devotees of the "rod"
+are to be numbered country squires, M.P.'s, doctors, clergymen, and
+farmers, who would have nothing to gain by pretending to a power which
+they did not possess.
+
+The Society for Psychical Research has devoted a considerable amount of
+attention to the subject. So far back as 1884 a paper on "The Divining
+Rod," prepared by Mr E. R. Pease, was read at a general meeting of the
+Society. The following is an abstract:--
+
+     "The Divining Rod is a V-shaped twig, commonly of hazelwood,
+     but sometimes of steel watchspring, whalebone and other
+     substances. It first came into use about three centuries ago,
+     and during the seventeenth century it was the subject of much
+     controversy and of numerous experiments by the learned men of
+     the time. Many theories were proposed to explain its action,
+     but none of them would now be regarded as plausible, and
+     various test experiments which were made uniformly failed. In
+     1701, the Inquisition condemned the use of the rod, and after
+     this date the popularity of divining greatly diminished. In the
+     seventeenth century it was used to discover murderers and
+     thieves, buried treasures, lost boundaries, and other hidden
+     objects, as well as metals and water springs. At present it
+     appears to be chiefly used in the West of England for the
+     discovery of water springs, and in America for oil wells and
+     mines. Mr E. Vaughan Jenkins, of Cheltenham, has made and
+     presented to the Society for Psychical Research a very valuable
+     collection of evidence of its use in England for locating
+     wells. He has communicated with various well-known 'diviners,'
+     and has received direct from landowners, architects, builders,
+     commercial firms and others, careful records of the successful
+     choosing of well sites by diviners in places where professional
+     geologists or local experts were hopeless of success. It seems
+     also that diviners travel about the country and 'dowse' in
+     localities new and strange to them.... The divining rod is
+     always held in a position of extreme tension, and at the same
+     time of unstable equilibrium. Slight muscular contractions
+     produce violent and startling effects. It would seem therefore
+     that the action of the rod may be caused by unconscious
+     movements of the diviner's hands, due possibly to a sensation
+     of chill on reaching water-bearing spots, or perhaps merely to
+     an unwritten practical science of the surface signs of hidden
+     water."
+
+Mr Pease eventually came to the conclusion that "the evidence for the
+success of dowsing as a practical art is very strong--and there seems to
+be an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made."
+Fifty years ago Dr Mayo, F.R.S., came to a similar conclusion after
+exhaustive experiments with the divining rod, both in England and
+abroad, and in 1883, Dr R. Raymond, the distinguished secretary of the
+American Institute of Mining Engineers, summed up the result of his
+investigations in the following opinion:--"That there is a residuum of
+scientific value, after making all necessary deductions for
+exaggeration, self-deception and fraud" in the use of the divining rod
+for finding springs and deposits of ore.
+
+In 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the
+Council of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of
+the matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett
+undertook the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against
+the subject was not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a
+few weeks' work would enable him to relegate it
+
+    "Into a limbo large and broad, since called
+    The Paradise of fools."
+
+Six years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous
+report, which occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the
+"Proceedings." Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece
+of patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast
+that it is only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.
+
+The following case was sent by Miss Grantham:--
+
+     "100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,
+
+     "February 1st, 1893.
+
+     "My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of
+     his farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish,
+     and as he had previously told us he was able to discover the
+     presence of water underground by means of a twig, we asked him
+     to go with us one day to see if he could find water. Mr B.
+     began by cutting a twig out of the hedge, of hazel or
+     blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches long, then
+     taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and first
+     finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about
+     the field in which my father proposed digging a well, and at
+     two spots the point of the twig turned right up, exactly
+     reversing its previous position; in fact so strong was its
+     impulse to point upwards, that we found that unless Mr B.
+     relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his fingers. We put
+     small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about twelve
+     years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since
+     quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same
+     ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found
+     water, neither did we point them out to him, but at these
+     places his twig behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father,
+     mother, and four or five others, then cut similar twigs out of
+     the hedge, but with none of us would they divine water. My
+     father then took Mr B. over some ground where he knew of the
+     existence of an underground stream; he did not tell Mr B. this,
+     but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again turned
+     upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one
+     of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water,
+     and it was found at the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the
+     boy both said that they did not feel any abnormal influence
+     whatever when the twig divined water.
+
+     "EMMA L. GRANTHAM."
+
+Another case (from Somersetshire) is quoted from in _The Western
+Gazette_ of 10th February 1893. Evercreech is at the foot of the
+Mendips.
+
+     "A well has recently been sunk on the premises of Messrs W.
+     Roles & Son, of Evercreech Junction, on the site of the
+     proposed milk factory. Mr Henry Smart, head gardener at Pennard
+     House, was successful with the divining twig (or rod), and a
+     well was sunk to a depth of 60 feet, when a spring was found
+     which yielded no less than 15,000 gallons of water in ten
+     hours. Water came at such a rate that a powerful pump had to be
+     erected temporarily by Messrs Hill & Son, of Bruton, and was
+     kept working day and night in order to keep the water down for
+     the purpose of walling (the well). At the present time there is
+     50 feet of water in the well, the supply increasing daily."
+
+Professor Barrett wrote to Messrs Roles to know if a well had been sunk
+previously, and if the above statement was correct. They reply that the
+account is quite correct, and add: "We had previously sunk a well
+without the use of the rod, to nearly the same depth, but it was
+_unsuccessful_. Six yards from this useless well the diviner found the
+spring which now yields enough to supply a small village if required."
+
+The Rev. Martin R. Knapp, M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, writes
+to Professor Barrett as follows:--
+
+     "72 Forest Road, Dalston, N.E.,
+
+     "November 14th, 1896.
+
+     "In the summer of 1892, I entered on the vicarage of North
+     Wootton in North Somerset, and had reason at once to look for
+     water. I was advised to try a 'water-finder,' and did so. The
+     dowser was a retired miller, and came provided with a number of
+     forked twigs. Holding one he traversed the place, and at
+     certain points the twig oscillated violently in his hands, and
+     there, he professed, he should find water.
+
+     "There was an interesting sidelight in the matter that I will
+     tell you of. My builder, who came from Bath, was very sceptical
+     about the whole thing. Three or four of us who were on the spot
+     tried to see if the twigs would 'play up' with us.
+
+     "We were unsuccessful till this man tried his hand, scoffing
+     the while. But directly that he came to the spots the dowser
+     had found the twig showed vigorous signs of animation. When his
+     hand was being twisted in his efforts to keep the twig steady,
+     I cried to him to hold fast, with the result that the twig
+     twisted itself into two pieces.
+
+     "At Wells, close by, lived a coachman, who was reported to have
+     the power to find, not only water but minerals. He carries
+     neither rod nor twig, and told me when I inquired, that his
+     sensations are undoubted and extraordinary whenever he is
+     directly above either water or minerals.
+
+     "MARTIN R. KNAPP."
+
+In answer to inquiries Mr Knapp informed Professor Barrett the builder
+was a stranger to the locality, and the spots where the rod moved were
+unlikely to suggest water below. The twig in the builder's hand, Mr
+Knapp says, in every case corroborated the dowser's indications, and
+hence he (the builder) was unmercifully chaffed, as he had treated the
+whole thing with such contempt. Mr Knapp says it is possible that the
+places indicated by the dowser might have been perceived by the builder,
+but it was the spontaneous and vigorous movement of the twig, evidently
+contrary to the holder's intention and against his will, that excited
+their astonishment.
+
+Dr Hutton, F.R.S., the distinguished mathematician--to whom the Royal
+Society entrusted the gigantic labour of making an abridgment of the
+whole of the Transactions of the Royal Society from its foundation in
+1666 to the beginning of this century--gives the following account of
+his experiments with the divining rod as used by Lady Milbanke:--
+
+     "At the time appointed (eleven A.M., 30th May 1806) the lady,
+     with all her family, arrived at my house on Woolwich Common,
+     where, after preparing the rods, etc., they walked to the
+     grounds, accompanied by the individuals of my own family and
+     some friends, when Lady Milbanke showed the experiment several
+     times in different places, holding the rod in the manner
+     described elsewhere. In the places where I had good reason to
+     know that no water was to be found the rod was always
+     quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water
+     below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly in the
+     manner above described, till the twigs twisted themselves off
+     below the fingers, which are considerably indented by so
+     forcibly holding the rod between them.[3]
+
+     "All the company stood close to Lady M. with all eyes intensely
+     fixed on her hands and the rods to watch if any particular
+     motion might be made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of
+     the kind was perceived, and all the company could observe no
+     cause or reason why the rods should move in the manner they
+     were seen to do.
+
+     "After the experiments were ended, everyone of the company
+     tried the rods in the same manner as they saw Lady M. had done,
+     but without the least motion from any of them. And in my
+     family, among ourselves, we have since then, several times,
+     tried if we could possibly cause the rod to turn by means of
+     any trick or twisting of the fingers, held in the manner Lady
+     Milbanke did, but in vain; we had no power to accomplish it."
+
+[Footnote 3: Dr Hutton does not say _how_ he knew that water was, or was
+not, below the surface. He was not, however, one likely to make loose
+and random statements. According to a footnote in _The Quarterly
+Review_, vol. xxii. p. 374, it appears that the ground chosen for the
+experiment was a field Dr Hutton had bought, adjoining the new College
+at Woolwich, then building.]
+
+The following is a remarkable case, and an important one from an
+evidential point of view. It is not known whether the "diviner" in this
+case was an amateur or not; he is now dead.
+
+_The Bristol Times and Mirror_ of 16th June 1891 states:
+
+     "The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery at Shepton Mallet needed a large
+     water supply; accordingly excavations had been made to find
+     water, but without success. About two years since, during an
+     exceptionally dry season, it became absolutely necessary to
+     obtain a further supply of brewing water; hence several boring
+     experiments were made on the property. At the suggestion of a
+     gentleman in the locality, the services of a 'diviner' were
+     obtained, and although the principal members of the firm
+     professed to have no faith in his 'art,' yet he was allowed to
+     try the fields on the company's property, and those on the
+     neighbouring estate, and discovered the well now used by the
+     brewery.... The soothsayer who carried the divining rod, a
+     hazel branch, was Mr Charles Sims, a local farmer, and a
+     notable discoverer of wells in the district. Operations were
+     immediately commenced, and, after excavating and dynamiting
+     through the rock, to the depth of fifty feet, a magnificent
+     spring was discovered in a fault of the rock, which proved to
+     be of exceptionally fine water, and of even a finer quality
+     than the town's supply."
+
+Professor Barrett wrote to the Secretary of the brewery to make
+inquiries and he replied as follows:--
+
+     "Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,
+
+     "September 12th, 1896.
+
+     "Replying to your letter in regard to a local diviner, we had
+     one of the name of Sims, from Pilton, who successfully denoted
+     a spot on our ground where we have had an abundant supply of
+     water since. This was some eight years ago.
+
+     "The writer of this letter also has had some considerable
+     experience with Mr Lawrence of Bristol, who was one of the most
+     noted divining rod men in the West of England. He also was
+     successful in denoting a supply for a Bristol brewery with
+     which the writer was connected; and in numerous other instances
+     in the neighbourhood. Mr Lawrence bore a very high reputation.
+     We believe he died a few months ago at a ripe old age.
+
+     "The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
+
+     "J. CLIFFORD,
+
+     "_Manager_."
+
+Having written to ask if a previous boring had been made, and if so,
+what depth, and with what result, the following reply was received:--
+
+     "Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,
+
+     "September 18th, 1896.
+
+     "Replying to yours of the 14th, a boring was carried out to the
+     extent of some 140 feet _without success_ on another portion of
+     our premises, before it was successfully done at the spot
+     indicated by the water finder; here, a well was sunk and
+     abundant water obtained at a depth of 40 feet.
+
+     "The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
+
+     "J. CLIFFORD,
+
+     "_Manager_."
+
+In the following case, the best advice was obtained and some £1000 spent
+fruitlessly searching for an underground spring prior to the dowser's
+visit. The first notice of it appeared in a local newspaper, _The West
+Sussex Times and Sussex Standard_, from which the following letter is
+reprinted:--
+
+     "Warnham Lodge, Horsham,
+
+     "January 3rd, 1893.
+
+     "Having had very great difficulty in the supply of water to
+     this house, I sent for John Mullins, of Colerne, near
+     Chippenham, who, by the aid of a twig of hazel, pointed out
+     several places where water could be found. I have sunk wells in
+     four of the places and it each case have been most successful.
+
+     "It may be said that water can be found anywhere--this is not
+     my experience. I have had the best engineering advice and have
+     spent many hundreds of pounds, and hitherto have not obtained
+     sufficient water for my requirements, but now I have an
+     abundant supply.
+
+     "I certainly should not think of sinking another well without
+     previously consulting John Mullins.
+
+     "HENRY HARDEN."
+
+It is sometimes urged that only springs yielding a limited supply of
+water are found by dowsers, who fix on spots where more or less surface
+water can be got from shallow wells rather than run the risk of sinking
+a deep well. Many of the cases already cited refute this notion, and the
+following bears on the same point. It is from Messrs Beamish & Crawford,
+the well-known brewers, of Cork.
+
+     "Cork Porter Brewery, Cork,
+
+     "December 30th, 1896.
+
+     "In reply to your letter of 26th inst., we beg to state:
+
+     "1. We had an old well yielding a small supply of water. It was
+     about 30 feet deep.
+
+     "2. No new well was fixed on by Mullins. He bored down to a
+     depth of about 60 feet below the bottom of the old well, and
+     therefore about 90 feet below the surface of the ground.
+
+     "3. The supply of water now obtained from the new pipes sunk by
+     Mullins is, as nearly as we can estimate, about 10,000 gallons
+     per hour.
+
+     "BEAMISH & CRAWFORD LTD."
+
+It goes without saying that professional dowsers are not always
+successful in their quests. "I am inclined," states Professor Barrett,
+"to think we may take from ten to fifteen per cent. as the average
+percentage of failures which occur with most English dowsers of to-day,
+allowing a larger percentage for partial failures, meaning by this that
+the quantity of water estimated and the depth at which it is found have
+not realised the estimate formed by the dowser."
+
+What then is the secret of the dowser's often remarkable success? The
+question is whether, after making every allowance for shrewdness of eye,
+chance, coincidence, and local geological knowledge, the dowser has any
+instinctive or supernormal power of discovering the presence of
+underground water. Professor Barrett, who has perhaps devoted more time
+to the subject than any other man living, is inclined to answer in the
+affirmative.
+
+"There appears to be evidence," he writes, "that a more profound stratum
+of our personality, glimpses of which we get elsewhere in our
+'Proceedings,' is associated with the dowser's art; and the latter seems
+to afford a further striking instance of information obtained through
+automatic means being more remarkable than, and beyond the reach of,
+that derived from conscious observation and inference."
+
+In another passage he adds:
+
+    "For my own part, I have been driven to believe that some dowsers--
+
+    "Whose exterior semblance doth belie
+    The soul's immensity"
+
+    nevertheless give us a glimpse of
+
+    "The eternal deep
+    Haunted for ever by the eternal mind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA
+
+
+In my inquiry so far the reader will note that I have taken one thing
+for granted--the fact of telepathy. In order to convince him to the
+extent to which this great scientific truth has convinced me, it would
+be necessary for me to lead him through a thousand pages of evidence for
+telepathic phenomena, attested by some of the leading physicists of the
+day. I am aware that there are still sceptics on the subject of
+telepathy, but the testimony is overwhelming, and every year sees the
+ranks of scepticism growing thinner.
+
+Not many years ago a very learned man, the late Professor von Helmholtz,
+although confronted with _prima-facie_ evidence of thought transference
+or telepathy, declared: "I cannot believe it. Neither the testimony of
+all the Fellows of the Royal Society, nor even the evidence of my own
+senses, would lead me to believe in the transmission of them from one
+person to another. It is clearly impossible." An opinion in these terms
+is very rare to-day. We are apt to express our incredulity in language
+far more guarded and less emphatic.
+
+About hallucinations, however, there is no scepticism. We have remarked
+sensory hallucinations of an occasional nature; we now come to regard
+them as a cult, for I suppose there is no manifestation in the world, no
+gift, no prodigy even, that is not prone to the fate of being exploited
+for particular ends.
+
+A poet, we will say, by some rare "subliminal uprush," produces a
+beautiful poem. He is at once chained to his desk by publishers and
+compelled to go on producing poetry for the rest of his life. It is
+inevitable that many of his manifestations will be false; and for that
+reason, in spite of an occasional jewel of truth, he runs serious risks
+of being denounced in the end as no poet.
+
+I have no doubt it is the same with the producers or the agents of
+occult phenomena. Sensory hallucinations may be stimulated. They may be
+stimulated by intoxication and disease, or they may be stimulated by the
+morbid conditions of a spiritualistic _séance_. Everything in these
+conditions--the prolonged darkness, the emotional expectancy--promotes
+the peculiar frame of mind apparently requisite. Constant
+exercise--perpetual aspiration develops the power of seeing visions.
+After a time, in well-known cases, they appear to need no inducement to
+come spontaneously.
+
+One well-known medium, Mr Hill Tout, confesses that building and
+peopling _chateaux en Espagne_ was a favourite occupation of his in his
+earlier days. This long-practised faculty is doubtless a potent factor
+in all his characterisations, and probably also in those of many another
+full-fledged medium.
+
+Hallucinations need not be visual only; they are frequently auditory.
+Miss Freer gives an account of one induced by merely holding a shell to
+the ear. There is another case of a young woman in whom auditory
+hallucinations would be excited on hearing the sound of water running
+through a tap. Given the basis of actual sound, the hallucinable person
+quickly causes it to become articulate and intelligible. Thus, is it
+unreasonable to suppose that the vague, nebulous lights seen at dark
+_séances_ would furnish the raw material, so to speak, for sense
+deception?
+
+Thus, we have the basis and beginning, from one point of view, of modern
+spiritualism. But before we examine the question of clairvoyance or
+trance utterances of spiritualistic mediums we must first of all go into
+the subject of physical phenomena.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So-called physical phenomena are a comparatively modern excrescence on
+the main growth. It is only within the last half-century that they have
+attained any considerable development. The faith in the communion and
+intervention of spirits originated before their appearance and will
+probably outlast their final discredit. At the best, whatever effect
+they may have had in advertising the movement with the vulgar, they
+seem to have exerted only a subsidiary influence in inducing belief with
+more thoughtful men and women.
+
+These physical phenomena consist chiefly of table rapping, table moving,
+ringing of bells, and various other manifestations for which a normal
+cause is not apparent. For a long time, in the early days of modern
+spiritualism, the cult was chiefly confined to "miracles" of this sort.
+One of its most notable props was the manifestations, long continued and
+observed by many thousands, of the famous Daniel Dunglas Home. It is
+fifty years ago now since Home came to England and began his _séances_,
+which were attended by Lord Dunraven, Lord Brougham, Sir D. Brewster,
+Robert Owen, Bulwer Lytton, T. A. Trollope, Garth Wilkinson, and others.
+For thirty years Home was brought before the public as a medium, dying
+in 1886. He seems to have been an amiable, highly emotional man, full of
+generous impulses, and of considerable personal charm. His frankness and
+sincerity impressed all those who came in touch with the man. Mr Andrew
+Lang has called him "a Harold Skimpole, with the gift of divination."
+
+Home dealt with both clairvoyance and physical manifestations.
+Ostensibly through him came an enormous number of messages purporting to
+proceed from the dead friends of certain of those attending the
+_séances_. In the records of these _séances_ will be found the signed
+statements of Dr Garth Wilkinson, Dr Gully, Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall, the
+present Earl of Dunraven, Earl of Crawford, Dr Hawksley, Mrs Nassau
+Senior, Mr P. P. Alexander, Mr Perdicaris, and others, that they had
+received messages giving details of a private nature that it seemed in
+the last degree probable could be known to the medium. Home's
+manifestations were for the most part those which any attendant at a
+spiritualistic _séance_ can witness for himself to-day. The room he used
+was, compared with those used by other mediums who insisted on complete
+darkness, well lighted, as he had a shaded lamp, a gas-burner, or one or
+two candles lighted. The manifestations generally began with raps; then
+followed a quivering movement of the table, which one present described
+as like "the vibration on a small steamer when the engines begin to
+work"; by another as "a ship in distress, with its timbers straining in
+a heavy sea." Then, suspended in the air, the table would float, and in
+its shelter musical instruments performing could be heard; the sitters
+could feel their knees being clasped and their dresses pulled; many
+things would be handed about the circle, such as handkerchiefs, flowers,
+and even heavy bells. During the performance messages were rapped out by
+the spirits, or delivered through the mouth of the medium. In this
+respect, where intelligence is shown, they would partake of the nature
+of trance utterance, a thing to be analysed later.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robert Bell, a dramatist and critic, having been present at one of these
+_séances_, acknowledged that he had seen things which he was satisfied
+were "beyond the pale of material experiences." After describing various
+manifestations, hands felt under the table, touching the knees, and
+pulling the clothes, bells rung by invisible agency, and various
+articles thrown about the room, he proceeds to describe "levitation":
+
+     "Mr Home was seated next the window. Through the semi-darkness
+     his head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands
+     might be seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he
+     said, in a quiet voice, 'My chair is moving--I am off the
+     ground--don't notice me--talk of something else,' or words to
+     that effect. It was very difficult to restrain the curiosity,
+     not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few words
+     awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon some
+     different topic. I was sitting nearly opposite Mr Home, and I
+     saw his hands disappear from the table, and his head vanish
+     into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke
+     again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He
+     had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from
+     the ground. As he ascended higher he described his position,
+     which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became
+     horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the
+     gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse.
+     In a moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass
+     across the window, against the grey, silvery light of which he
+     would be visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his
+     figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet
+     foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he
+     passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way and
+     recross the window, which he did. His own tranquil confidence
+     in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most
+     novel peril gave confidence to everybody else; but with the
+     strongest nerves it was impossible not to be conscious of a
+     certain sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle
+     for several minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly,
+     over our heads. I heard his voice behind me in the air, and
+     felt something lightly brush my chair. It was his foot, which
+     he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the spot where it was on
+     the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon it, when he
+     uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with
+     a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair,
+     but floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He
+     now passed over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we
+     could judge by his voice of the altitude and distance he had
+     attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which he made a
+     slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed his
+     place at the table. An incident which occurred during this
+     aerial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity to it, was
+     that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground under
+     the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the
+     air from the distant corner of the room."
+
+A well-known physician, Dr Gully, who was present at this _séance_,
+wrote confirming the account in _The Cornhill Magazine_ given by the
+above writer.
+
+During the ensuing forty years mediumistic performances became of common
+and almost daily occurrence in this country. Two or three forms of
+so-called spirit manifestation--such as materialisation, spirit
+photography, and slate-writing--afterwards became connected with many of
+the _séances_. But first the manifestations in daylight consisted of
+raps and tiltings of a table; afterwards, when the lights were turned
+out or turned very low, spirit voices, touches of spirit hands, spirit
+lights, spirit-born flowers, floating musical instruments, and moving
+about or levitation of the furniture.
+
+Until Sir William Crookes began to investigate the alleged
+spiritualistic phenomena, all investigation had been undertaken by
+persons without scientific training. After a year of experiments he
+issued a detailed description of those conducted in his own laboratory
+in the presence of four other persons, two of whom, Sir William Huggins
+and Sergeant Fox, confirmed the accuracy of his report. The result was
+that he was able to demonstrate, he said, the existence of a hitherto
+unknown force, and had measured the effect produced. At all events,
+these inquirers were convinced of the genuineness of Home's powers.
+
+Suppose we glance at the possible alternative--viz. that Home was a
+conjurer of consummate skill and ingenuity. For one of the physical
+phenomena, that of tilting a table at a precarious angle without
+displacing various small objects resting on its polished surface, Mr
+Podmore suggests an explanation. He thinks that the articles were
+probably held in position on the table when it was tilted by means of
+hairs and fine threads attached to Home's dress. He has various
+explanations for other of the phenomena, but he confesses that there
+remain a few manifestations which the hypothesis of simple trickery does
+not seem to fit. In going over a mass of evidence relating to Home, the
+hypothesis of conjuring seems to be rather incredible; when one bears in
+mind Home's long career as a medium, how his private life was watched by
+the lynx-eyed sceptics, eager to pounce upon the evidence of trickery,
+and that he was never detected, it certainly seems to me, at all events,
+that Home's immunity from exposure is strong evidence against the
+assumption of fraud. Home was merely the type of a large class of
+mediums purporting to be controlled by spirit power, whose _séances_ are
+a feature of modern life.
+
+Certain experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home came very near to
+satisfying the most stringent scientific conditions, especially those in
+the alteration in the weight of a board. In these experiments one end of
+the board was on a spring balance and the other rested on a table. The
+board became heavier or lighter as Home placed his fingers on the end
+resting on the table and "willed" it, and the different weights were
+recorded by an automatic register. This effect might have been produced,
+says Mr Podmore, by using a dark thread with a loop attached to some
+part of the apparatus--possibly the hook of the spring balance--and the
+ends fastened to Home's trousers. But this particular trick does not
+seem to have occurred to those experimenting, and the description of the
+_séances_ does not exclude it.
+
+Suggesting an explanation of an event does not prove that it so
+occurred, and Mr Podmore adds: "It is not easy to see how the
+investigators ... could have been deceived, and repeatedly deceived, by
+any device of the kind suggested."
+
+One of the most remarkable of Daniel Dunglas Home's manifestations
+occurred on 16th December 1868, at 5 Buckingham Gate, London. There were
+present the Master of Lindsay (now the Earl of Crawford), Viscount Adare
+(the present Earl of Dunraven), and Captain Wynne. The Master of Lindsay
+has recorded the circumstances, as follows:--
+
+     "I was sitting with Mr Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his.
+     During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that
+     state was carried out of the window in the room next to where
+     we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between
+     the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not
+     the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a
+     twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge
+     to put flowers on. We heard the window in the next room lifted
+     up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in air
+     outside our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my
+     back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the
+     window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it. He
+     remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the
+     window and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down."
+
+Here is Lord Adare's account of the central incident:
+
+     "We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown
+     up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our
+     window; he opened the window and walked in quite coolly."
+
+Captain Wynne, writing to Home in 1877, refers to this occasion in the
+following words:
+
+     "The fact of your having gone out of the one window and in at
+     the other I can swear to."
+
+It is surely not a little remarkable that an occurrence of so
+extraordinary a nature should be testified to by three such clear-headed
+men as Captain Wynne and Lords Lindsay and Adare. To cross from one
+window to another by ordinary means was clearly impossible, and it would
+be a brave conjurer indeed who would essay such a feat at a distance of
+eighty-five feet from the ground. What then is the explanation? Mr
+Podmore suggests that the three witnesses were the victims of a
+collective hallucination; but this theory is not easy to accept, and Mr
+Andrew Lang has heaped it with ridicule. "There are," he writes, "two
+other points to be urged against Mr Podmore's theory that observers of
+Home were hallucinated. The Society's records contain plenty of
+'collective, so-called telepathic hallucinations.' But surely these
+hallucinations offered visionary figures of persons and things not
+present in fact. Has Mr Podmore one case, except Home's, of a
+collective hallucination in which a person actually present is the
+hallucination; floats in the air, holds red-hot coals and so
+forth--appears outside of the window, for instance, when he is inside
+the room? Of course, where conjuring is barred. Again, Home's marvels
+are attested by witnesses violently prejudiced against him, and (far
+from being attentively expectant) most anxious to detect and expose
+him."
+
+If the case of Home presents difficulties to the rational sceptic, that
+of William Stainton Moses, who died in 1892, presents an even harder
+problem. I will refer to Moses later when we come to discuss
+clairvoyance, but at first his mediumistic powers were manifested in
+physical phenomena. He was a clergyman and a scholar, an M.A. of Oxford,
+and for nearly eighteen years English master in University College
+School. He was held in esteem and even affection by all who were most
+intimately associated with him. Yet Moses was responsible for table
+rapping, levitation of furniture, playing of musical instruments and
+"apports"--the latter term expressing the movement or introduction of
+various articles either by the request of the sitters or spontaneously,
+such as books, stones, shells, opera-glasses, candle-sticks, and so
+forth. All this began in 1872, and the phenomena observed at the various
+_séances_ were carefully recorded by the medium's friends, Dr and Mrs
+Speer, C. T. Speer, and F. W. Percival. It must be borne in mind that
+Moses was in his thirty-third year before he suspected mediumistic
+powers. There have been any number of hypotheses to account for the
+physical phenomena furnished at these _séances_. Jewels, cameos, seed
+pearls, and other precious things were brought and given to the sitters.
+Scent was introduced; familiar perfumes--such as sandalwood, jasmine,
+heliotrope, not always recognised--were a frequent occurrence at these
+_séances_. Occasionally it would be sprayed in the air, sometimes poured
+into the hands of the sitters, and often it was found oozing from the
+medium's head and even running down.
+
+In Mrs Speer's diary for 30th August there is the following record:--
+
+     "Many things were brought from different parts of the house
+     through the locked door this evening. Mr S. M. was levitated,
+     and when he felt for his feet they were hanging in mid-air,
+     while his head must have almost touched the ceiling."
+
+Dr Speer also records a "levitation" on 3rd December:
+
+     "Mr M. was floated about, and a large dining-room chair was
+     placed on the table."
+
+Mrs Speer tells us that they sat in the fire-light, and that the
+_séances_ were held in more or less complete darkness. Moses' own
+account of the levitation is much fuller. He says that he was fully
+conscious that he was floating about the room, and that he marked a
+place on the wall with a pencil, which was afterwards found to be more
+than six feet from the floor. Subsequently musical sounds became a
+feature of the manifestations. In September 1874 Mrs Speer gives a list
+of them, mentioning ten or more different kinds, including the
+tambourine, harp, fairy-bells, and many stringed instruments, and
+ascribes their production to eight different spirits.
+
+In the early materialisations of Stainton Moses we find that hands, and
+occasionally the fore arm, were seen holding lights. These spirit lights
+are described as hard, round, and cold to the touch. In his description
+of one incident at a _séance_ Moses himself pens a significant passage,
+which seems to confirm the suspicion that the spirit lights were really
+bottles of phosphorised oil:
+
+     "Suddenly there arose from below me, apparently under the
+     table, or near the floor, right under my nose, a cloud of
+     luminous smoke, just like phosphorus. It fumed up in great
+     clouds, until I seemed to be on fire, and rushed from the room
+     in a panic. I was fairly frightened, and could not tell what
+     was happening. I rushed to the door and opened it, and so to
+     the front door. My hands seemed to be ablaze, and left their
+     impress on the door and handles. It blazed for a while after I
+     had touched it, but soon went out, and no smell or trace
+     remained.... There seemed to be no end of smoke. It smelt
+     distinctly phosphoric, but the smell evaporated as soon as I
+     got out of the room into the air."
+
+Such candour disarms us: can there be any ground for the theory that
+here was a case of self-deception on a large scale? Or is there yet an
+alternative explanation? Perhaps we shall discover one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
+
+
+What we have to remember is that by far the greater part of the physical
+phenomena which is said to occur at a _séance_ is really nothing
+extraordinary. All physical occurrences are normal that are capable of
+being produced by a clever conjurer; and there is no doubt that with due
+preparation such a one could achieve table rapping, introduce flowers
+and move furniture. But the problem is, how, under the stringent
+conditions imposed, and in the face of the close scrutiny, to which
+these manifestations are subjected, they can be done. As Sir Oliver
+Lodge says: "I am disposed to maintain that I have myself witnessed, in
+a dim light, occasional abnormal instances of movement of untouched
+objects." He goes on to say that "suppose an untouched object comes
+sailing or hurtling through the air, or suppose an object is raised or
+floated from the ground, how are we to regard it? This is just what a
+live animal could do, and so the first natural hypothesis is that some
+living thing is doing it: (_a_) the medium himself, acting by tricks or
+concealed mechanism; (_b_) a confederate--an unconscious confederate
+perhaps, among the sitters; (_c_) an unknown and invisible live entity,
+other than the people present. If in any such action the extraordinary
+laws of nature were superseded, if the weight of a piece of matter could
+be shown to have _disappeared_, or if fresh energy were introduced
+beyond the recognised categories of energy, then there would be no
+additional difficulties; but hitherto there has been no attempt to
+establish either of these things. Indeed, it must be admitted that
+insufficient attention is usually paid to this aspect of ordinary,
+commonplace, abnormal physical phenomena. If a heavy body is raised
+under good conditions, we should always try to ascertain" (he does not
+say that it is easy to ascertain) "where its weight has gone to--that is
+to say, what supports it--what ultimately supports it. For instance, if
+experiments were conducted in a suspended room, would the whole weight
+of that room, as ascertained by outside balance, remain unaltered when a
+table or person was levitated inside it? Or, could the agencies
+operating inside affect the bodies outside?--questions, these, which
+appear capable of answer, with sufficient trouble, in an organised
+physical laboratory; such a laboratory as does not, he supposes, yet
+exist, but which might exist and which will exist in the future, if the
+physical aspect of experimental psychology is ever to become recognised
+as a branch of orthodox physics."
+
+Recently, Dr Maxwell, of Paris, published his researches and
+observations on physical phenomena, and he states that under "material
+and physical phenomena" are comprised (1) raps; (2) movements of objects
+(_a_) without contact, or (_b_) only with such contact as is
+insufficient to effect the particular movement in question; (3)
+"apports"--_i.e._ the production of objects by some supernormal agency;
+(4) visual phenomena--_i.e._ the appearance of lights and of forms,
+luminous or otherwise, including among the latter the class of alleged
+phenomena known as materialisations, and (5) phenomena leaving some
+permanent trace, such as imprints or "direct" writings or drawings, etc.
+Under the class of "intellectual phenomena" may be included such
+occurrences as automatic writing, table tilting, etc.
+
+As regards raps Dr Maxwell hazards certain conclusions, of which he says
+the most certain is the close connection of the raps with the muscular
+movements on the part of the sitters. Every muscular movement, even a
+slight one, appears to be followed by a rap. Thus if, without anyone
+necessarily touching the table, one of the sitters frees his hand from
+the chain made round the table by others, moves it about in a circle
+over the surface of the table, then raises it in the centre and brings
+it down towards the table, stopping suddenly within a few inches of it,
+a rap will be produced on the table corresponding with the sudden
+stoppage of the hand. Similarly, a rap will be produced by a pressure of
+the foot on the floor, by speaking, by blowing slightly, or by touching
+the medium or one of the sitters. Raps produced in this way by the
+sitters are often stronger than those produced by the medium himself. Dr
+Maxwell suggests as a working hypothesis that there is a certain
+accumulated force, and that if its equilibrium be suddenly disturbed by
+the addition of the excess of energy required for the movement, a
+discharge takes place producing the effect.
+
+Dr Maxwell has made a series of experiments with Eusapia Paladino.
+
+     "It was about five o'clock in the evening," he writes, "and
+     there was broad daylight in the drawing-room at l'Aguélas. We
+     were standing around the table. Eusapia took the hand of one of
+     our number and rested it on the right-hand corner of the table.
+     The table was raised to the level of our foreheads--that is,
+     the top reached a height of at least four and three-quarter
+     feet from the floor.... It was impossible for Eusapia to have
+     lifted the table by normal means. One has but to consider that
+     she touched but the corner of the table to realise what the
+     weight must have been had she accomplished the feat by
+     muscular effort. Further, she never had sufficient hold of it.
+     It was clearly impossible for her, under the conditions of the
+     experiment, to have used any of the means suggested by her
+     critics--straps, or hooks of some kind."
+
+Most of the phenomena discussed by Dr Maxwell were obtained through the
+mediumship of Eusapia Paladino. He was a member of the committee which
+met in 1896 to investigate this medium, who had just concluded the
+series of performances held under the auspices of the society at
+Cambridge, which were entirely unfavourable to her claims. The French
+committee was made aware of the fraudulent devices which the Cambridge
+investigators claimed to have discovered. He recommends all who believe
+that Dr Hodgson and his Cambridge colleagues have had the last word in
+the controversy to read the report which will be found in the _Annales
+des Psychiques_, for 1896. The English sitters arrive at conclusions in
+direct conflict with those of the French, who claim that they had long
+known of the tricks "discovered" at Cambridge, and in consequence took
+means to guard against them. Dr Maxwell indicts the Cambridge way of
+controlling the medium, which he says consisted, for a time at least, in
+affording the medium opportunities to cheat to see if she would avail
+herself of them. Opportunities of which she took the fullest advantage.
+
+Nevertheless, Dr Maxwell offers but little encouragement for the theory
+of spiritualistic agency. "I believe," he says, "in the reality of
+certain phenomena, of which I have repeatedly been a witness. I do not
+consider it necessary to attribute them to a supernatural intervention
+of any kind, but am disposed to think that they are produced by some
+force existing within ourselves."
+
+In the same way as certain psychical phenomena, such as automatic
+writing, trance, "controls," crystal vision, and so forth, in which an
+intelligence seems to be present independent of the intelligence of the
+medium, can be shown beyond dispute to be merely manifestations of his
+subliminal intelligence, frequently taking the form of a dramatic
+personification; so may the agency, revealing itself in raps, movements
+of objects, and other phenomena of a physical character, perhaps be
+traceable, not to any power external to the medium and the sitters, but
+merely to a force latent within themselves, and may be an
+exteriorisation in a dynamic form, in a way not yet ascertained, of
+their collective subliminal capacities.
+
+However strange new and unknown facts may be, we need not fear they are
+going to destroy the truth of the old ones. Would the science of physics
+be overthrown if, for example, we admit the phenomenon of "raps"--_i.e._
+audible vibrations in wood and other substances--is a real phenomenon,
+and that in certain cases there may be blows which cannot be explained
+by any mechanical force known to us? It would be a new force exercised
+on matter, but none the less would the old forces preserve their
+activity. Pressure, temperature, and the density of air or of wood might
+still exercise their usual influence, and it is even likely that the
+transmission of vibrations by this new force would follow the same laws
+as other vibrations.
+
+In the opinion of the leading members of this society, some of the
+physical phenomena which have been adduced as among those proclaimed to
+have occurred, such as "apports," scent, movement of objects, passage of
+matter through matter, bear a perilous resemblance to conjuring tricks,
+of a kind fairly well known; which tricks if well done can be very
+deceptive. Hence extreme caution is necessary, and full control must be
+allowed to the observers--a thing which conjurers never really allow.
+Sir Oliver Lodge says that he has never seen a silent and genuinely
+controlled conjurer; and in so far as mediums find it necessary to
+insist on their own conditions, so far they must be content to be
+treated as conjurers. For instance, no self-registering thermometer has
+ever recorded the "intense cold" felt at a _séance_. Flowers and fruit
+have made their appearance in closed rooms, but no arsenic has
+penetrated the walls of the hermetically sealed tube. Various
+investigators have smelt, seen, and handled curious objects, but no
+trace has been preserved. We have to depend on the recollection of the
+observer's passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the
+rustle of spirit garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies.
+Exquisite scents, strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly
+out of nothing, and have returned whence they came unrecorded by
+photography, unweighed, unanalysed.
+
+Briefly, then, the result of my carefully formed judgment is that a
+large part of the physical phenomena heard, seen, felt at the average
+spiritualistic _séance_ must be placed on a level with ordinary
+conjuring. To return to the recent case of Eusapia Paladino. A number of
+English scientists, interested in the reports of her _séances_, induced
+her to come to England and repeat them at Cambridge. Every effort was
+made to make the experiments as satisfactory as possible. They used
+netting for confining the medium or separating her from objects which
+they hoped would move without contact; different ways of tying her were
+tried; also sufficient light was used in the _séance_ room. She refused
+to submit to any of these conditions. The investigators pressed her at
+each sitting to allow some light in the room, and they long persevered
+in making the control in every case as complete as she would allow it to
+be. She permitted a very faint light usually at the beginning, but
+before long she insisted on complete darkness, and until the lights were
+extinguished the touches were never felt. The sitters then held the
+medium, the only method of control allowed, as firmly and continuously
+as possible. This she resisted, and then every form of persuasion was
+used, short of physical force, to induce her to submit. But she was
+allowed to take her own way without remonstrance when the sitters were
+convinced of the constant fraud practised.
+
+It is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have
+convinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia
+Paladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge
+investigators are condemned as hasty and premature.
+
+But, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the
+conditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the
+medium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the
+result of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading
+spiritualists themselves.
+
+For, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for
+supernormal physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least
+an unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis
+is no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the
+Hertzian waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years
+ago.
+
+This is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena
+which cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown
+extensions of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the
+most inexplicable and best attested of the manifestations presented by
+Daniel Dunglas Home. The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the
+witnesses of undoubted integrity, and, from the nature of the
+experiment, the illuminations of the room were generally more adequate
+than in the case of the levitations and elongations. On one occasion,
+Home thrust his hand into the fire, and bringing out a red-hot cinder
+laid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at the end of half-a-minute it
+was removed, the handkerchief was quite free from any traces of burning.
+
+Not content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them
+on to others present at the _séance_, who were generally able to receive
+them with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated
+by an ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands
+with some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home
+possessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable
+difficulty in transferring it to the hands of his spectators.
+
+Here is an account of a _séance_ which took place on the 9th May 1871.
+After various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room
+were extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot
+charcoal, and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he
+borrowed for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal
+to white heat with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in
+one small hole. Mr Crookes, who was present at the _séance_, tested the
+handkerchief afterwards in his laboratory and found that it had not been
+chemically prepared to resist the action of fire.
+
+After this exhibition--
+
+     "Mr Home again went to the fire, and, after stirring the hot
+     coal about with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as
+     big as an orange, and putting it on his right hand, so as
+     almost completely to enclose it, and then blew into the small
+     furnace thus extemporised until the lump of charcoal was nearly
+     white hot, and then drew my attention to the lambent flame
+     which was flickering over the coal and licking round his
+     fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner,
+     held up the coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not
+     his laws wonderful?'"
+
+Among those who have left on record their testimony to this
+manifestation are Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, H. D. Jencken, W. M.
+Wilkinson, S. C. Hall, etc. etc.
+
+As the great mathematician Professor de Morgan once wittily and wisely
+wrote:
+
+     "If I were bound to choose among things which I can conceive, I
+     should say that there is some sort of action of some
+     combination of will, intellect, and physical power, which is
+     not that of any of the human beings present. But, thinking it
+     very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies--say,
+     half-a-million--about which no man knows anything, I cannot but
+     suspect that a small proportion of these agencies--say, five
+     thousand--may be severally competent to the production of all
+     the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The
+     physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but
+     miserably insufficient; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient,
+     but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the
+     second asking the first for more results of trial."
+
+It is inconceivable that such a man as Stainton Moses--a hard-working
+parish priest and a respected schoolmaster--should deliberately have
+entered upon a course of trickery for the mere pleasure of mystifying a
+small circle of acquaintances. The whole course of his previous life,
+his apparently sincere religious feeling, all combine to contradict such
+a supposition. Neither is it credible that such a petty swindler would
+have carried out his deceptions to the end, and have left behind fresh
+problems, the elucidation of which his eyes could never behold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"
+
+
+If much of the physical phenomena just described be well within the
+scope of natural possibility, it is somewhat otherwise with the class of
+manifestations I shall now touch upon. It is one thing to exert
+consciously or unconsciously, as Home, Cook, Paladino, Moses and other
+mediums have done, in the presence of scientifically trained witnesses,
+unknown and supernormal muscular power. Table rapping, levitation,
+"apports," may all be genuine enough and accounted for in a manner
+which, if not wholly satisfying, is at least not unreasonable. But when
+those assisting at a _séance_ actually behold with their eyes and touch
+with their hands, and even photograph with a camera, the materialised
+objects of the spirits with whom the medium is in communion, the pulse
+of the inquirer quickens. He is now indeed approaching the crucial
+problem, the crowning achievement of spiritualism. For although in a
+former chapter we have the testimony of people who saw "ghosts," these
+ghosts might, to my mind, clearly be the result of telepathy. They
+appear on special occasions at important and significant crises, but the
+claim of the spiritualistic medium is that he can casually, and on the
+demand of one of the circle, produce a visible, tangible figure of a
+deceased husband, wife, parent, or friend.
+
+This materialisation is wholly a recent species of manifestation. One of
+the first to testify to having seen a materialised figure at a _séance_
+was the well-known S. C. Hall, who recognised during one of Home's
+_séances_ the figure of his deceased sister. Other mediums repeated the
+feat, and shadowy forms and faces began to appear and move about during
+their dark _séances_. It is a suspicious fact that in some cases these
+forms, made visible by a faintly luminous vapour, were accompanied by an
+odour of phosphorus. Sceptics naturally took great advantage of the
+alleged circumstance. Soon, however, a new medium, Florence Cook, was
+rumoured to have produced materialised forms in a good light which
+baffled all the sceptics. Miss Cook claimed to be "controlled" by a
+spirit known under the name of "Katie."
+
+We have this account from a writer who early attended to examine the
+mystery fairly:
+
+     "In a short time, however, Katie--as the familiar of Miss B.
+     was termed--thought she would be able to 'materialise' herself
+     so far as to present the whole form, if we arranged the corner
+     cupboard so as to admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened
+     the door, and from it suspended a rug or two opening in the
+     centre, after the fashion of a Bedouin Arab's tent; formed a
+     semicircle; sat and sang Longfellow's 'Footsteps of Angels.'
+     Therein occurs the passage, 'Then the forms of the departed
+     enter at the open door.' And, lo and behold! though we had left
+     Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair and clad in an ordinary
+     black dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall,
+     female figure, draped classically in white, with bare arms and
+     feet, did enter at the open door, or rather down the centre
+     from between the two rugs, and stood statuelike before us,
+     spoke a few words, and retired; after which we entered the
+     Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as before,
+     knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1,
+     the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and
+     on a subsequent occasion--for I have seen it several times--we
+     took four very good photographic portraits of it by magnesium
+     light. The difficulty I still felt, with the form as with the
+     faces, was that it seemed so thoroughly material and
+     flesh-and-blood-like."
+
+It is not my intention to speak of the multitude of early
+materialisations. As Mr Podmore points out, at these manifestations
+practically no precautions were taken against trickery. There was
+nothing, so far as can be discovered, to throw any hindrance in the way
+of the medium, if she chose, impersonating the spirit by exhibiting a
+mask through the opening of the curtain or by dressing herself up and
+walking about the room. Nor were there any collateral circumstances to
+justify belief in the genuineness of the manifestations.
+
+Nevertheless, Miss Cook's claims attracted the attention of Sir William
+Crookes. He attended several _séances_--one, once, at the house of Mr
+Luxmoor, when "Katie" was standing before him in the room. He had
+distinctly heard from behind the curtain the sobbing and moaning
+habitually made by Miss Cook during such _séances_. At another _séance_,
+held at his own house, 12th March 1874, "Katie," robed in white, came to
+the opening of the curtain and summoned him to the assistance of her
+medium. The man of science instantly obeyed the call, and found Miss
+Cook, attired in her ordinary black velvet dress, prone on the sofa. On
+another occasion he declares he saw two forms together in a good light;
+more than this, he actually procured a photograph of "Katie." But of
+this I will speak later, when I come to discuss spirit photography.
+
+One of the most noted materialising mediums of to-day is Charles Miller,
+of San Francisco, of whom a certain Professor Reichel has recently
+written a lengthy account.
+
+Miller's _séances_ are described as very conclusive. At the first one,
+after Miller had retired into the cabinet, "the curtain was pulled
+aside, showing the medium asleep, and six fully developed phantoms
+standing beside him. Two spoke German to friends from their native
+land," and one discussed matters of a private nature with Professor
+Reichel. Similar occurrences were many times repeated, and
+dematerialisations were often "made before the curtain, in full view of
+the sitters" and "in ample light to observe everything." Professor
+Reichel says:
+
+     "In the _séances_ with Mr Miller I heard the spirits speak in
+     English, French, and German, but I have been assured repeatedly
+     that in a _séance_ of seventy-five persons, representing many
+     of the various nationalities in San Francisco, twenty-seven
+     languages were spoken by materialised spirits, addressing
+     different sitters."
+
+Equally good results were obtained in a room taken at the Palace Hotel,
+for a special testsetting, the results of which were communicated to
+Colonel de Rochas, and again when Mr Miller visited the Professor at Los
+Angeles. The following incidents are of special interest, as throwing
+light on the forces made use of in the production of the phenomena, and
+in reference to allegations of fraud or personation:--
+
+     "A sitting took place at noon. Before it began, and while
+     Miller was standing in front of the cabinet, I heard 'Betsy's'
+     voice whisper: 'Go out for a moment into the sun with the
+     professor.' Accordingly I took Mr Miller by the arm, and
+     together we went out into the sunshine. After a few moments we
+     returned, and at the moment we entered the dark room the
+     writer, as well as everyone else present, saw Mr Miller
+     completely strewn with a shining, white, glittering, snowlike
+     mass, that entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. This
+     singular occurrence had been witnessed repeatedly--even when
+     the medium had not previously been in the sun. At such times it
+     appeared gradually after the room had been darkened."
+
+This snowlike mass the author regards as "the white element of
+magnetism, which the phantoms use in their development." He also says:
+
+     "In another _séance_ held by Miller, 'Betsy' told me that she
+     would show me something that often happened in _séances_ with
+     other materialisation mediums--namely, that the medium himself
+     frequently appeared disguised as a spirit. She asked me to come
+     to the curtain, where she told me that the medium himself would
+     come out draped in white muslin, and the muslin would then
+     suddenly disappear. This was verified. When the medium came out
+     in his disguise, I grasped him by the hand, and like a flash of
+     lightning the white veiling vanished."
+
+Reichel quotes Kiesewetter to the effect that in these cases "there is a
+kind of pseudo-materialisation, in which the medium, in hypnosis, walks
+in a somnambulistic condition, playing the part of the spirit, in which
+case the mysterious vanishing of the spiritual veilings points to an
+incipient magical activity on the part of the _psyche_."
+
+Large numbers of Miller's materialisations were photographed, showing,
+besides the fully materialised forms, "several spirits who could not be
+seen with the physical eyes, one of whom was immediately recognised."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The experiments of Sir William Crookes and others by Mr Cromwell Varley,
+with various mediums, supply us with the best proof we have that medium
+and spirit possess separate identities. Of course there were, and are
+still, numerous so-called exposures of mediums in the act of
+materialisation. On other occasions the materialised form has been
+seized and found to be the medium himself.
+
+A typical incident of this kind was the exposure of the mediums William
+and Rita, which took place in Amsterdam, under circumstances which made
+it difficult for the most hardened believer to lay all the blame upon
+the spirits. The incident took place in the rooms of a spiritualist; the
+members of the circle were spiritualists; and it was aggrieved and
+indignant spiritualists who made the facts public. Suspicion had been
+aroused; one of the sitters clutched at the spirit form of "Charlie,"
+and grasped Rita by the coat collar. Up to this point, no doubt, the
+spiritualist theories already referred to were elastic enough to cover
+the facts. But when the mediums were searched there were found in their
+pockets or hidden in various parts of their clothing--on Rita a nearly
+new beard, six handkerchiefs, assorted, and a small, round scent bottle,
+containing phosphorised oil, bearing a resemblance all too convincing to
+"Charlie's" spirit lamp; on Williams a dirty black beard, with brown
+silk ribbon, and several yards of very dirty muslin--the simple
+ingredients which represented the spiritual make-up of the repentant
+pirate, John King--together with another bottle of phosphorised oil, a
+bottle of scent, and other "properties."
+
+But we have not to deal here with the obviously fraudulent features of
+modern spiritualism. Years ago Mr H. W. Harrison summed up the position.
+He pointed out that there were two classes of so-called
+materialisations: (1) forms with flexible features, commonly bearing a
+strong resemblance to the medium, which move and speak. These are the
+forms which come out when the medium is in the cabinet; (2) Forms with
+features which are inflexible and masklike (the epithet is not Mr
+Harrison's) and which do not move about or speak. Such inflexible faces
+are seen chiefly when the medium is held by the sitters, or is in full
+view of the circle. Mr Harrison then continues: "We have patiently
+watched for years for a living, flexible face, in a good light, which
+face bore no resemblance to that of the medium, and was not produced on
+his or her own premises. Hitherto this search has been prosecuted
+without success. Mr A. R. Wallace and Mr Crookes have witnessed a great
+number of form manifestations, without once recording that off the
+premises of the medium they have seen a living, flexible, materialised
+spirit-form bearing no resemblance to the sensitive. Neither has Mr
+Varley made any such record."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The presumption must be one of fraud, especially when conditions are
+laid down which serve to prevent full investigation. I have before me
+the printed conditions of a North London Spiritualistic society:
+
+     "As a member of the society you must bear in mind that you will
+     be bound _in honour_ to accept all the rules laid down by our
+     Spirit controls, and by the leader of the meeting, as to the
+     conditions under which the meetings are held, such as the
+     darkened room, the holding of hands so as to form a strongly
+     magnetic ring in front of the medium, etc.--and it is
+     interesting to note that the great Mesmer, when he was
+     conducting his experiments in magnetism more than one hundred
+     years ago, had discovered the advantage of 'a circle' formed in
+     this way, for he writes: 'The power of magnetism is augmented
+     by establishing a direct communication between several persons.
+     This can be done in two ways: the more simple is to form a
+     chain, with a certain number of persons made to hold each
+     other's hands; it can also be done by means of the 'baquet' (a
+     mechanical contrivance invented by himself)."
+
+     "No one should ever attempt to touch a spirit unless invited to
+     do so by the spirits themselves, and the circle, once formed,
+     must never be broken by unloosing of hands. If this becomes
+     _really_ necessary at any time, permission should first be
+     asked, when the controlling spirit will give instructions as to
+     how it is to be carried out."
+
+I cannot forbear from quoting further the following passage addressed to
+members of the society:--
+
+     "You will greatly assist us in obtaining good results if you
+     will kindly use a little discretion in the matter of your food,
+     especially on the day of the meeting, when fish, vegetables,
+     fruit (especially bananas), and light food of that description
+     are most helpful, but meat, wine, beer, or spirits (wine and
+     spirits especially) should be carefully avoided; and we find
+     that it is better to make a good meal in the middle of the day,
+     a substantial tea at 5.30, and supper after the meeting, as by
+     following this plan the members of the circle are able to give
+     off more of the spiritual _aura_ which is used by the controls
+     in building up the forms which appear to us, each member of the
+     circle contributing his or her share unconsciously.
+
+     "The use of non-actinic light, such as that obtained from a
+     small dark lantern, is defended on the grounds that the actinic
+     rays coming from the violet end of the spectrum are so rapid in
+     their movements that they immediately break up any combination
+     of matter produced under such circumstances. Any form of light,
+     except the red, or perhaps the yellow, rays would have this
+     effect. That is one reason why the cabinet is employed,
+     because that would shut off any form of light from the medium
+     whilst the forms are building up; although on several
+     occasions, from time to time, when the form has thus been built
+     up fully, we have been able to use a red light strong enough to
+     illuminate the whole of the room."
+
+So long as spiritualists, as I have before remarked, maintain this
+attitude, so long must they meet with incredulity on the part of
+official science. In nearly all these private circles the precautions
+taken against trickery are absurdly lacking, and, as we have just seen,
+frequently purposely omitted. Thus we have to fall back in considering
+the genuine character of the phenomena on the good faith of the medium.
+When the medium is known to be a man of blameless life, and has long
+been before the public undetected in any deception, the presumption
+would certainly appear to be in favour of his bona-fides. But of what
+value is this presumption should the medium not be conscious of his
+actions when his impersonation of this or that character is wholly
+undertaken by his secondary or subliminal self? Here we begin to have
+glimmerings of the great truth which may conceivably underlie the
+parable of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and investigations into the marvels of
+multiple personalities lead us further towards the light.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the whole, the conclusion I have arrived at is that, where the
+element of fraud is eliminated, we might rationally seek for an
+explanation in hallucination. Take the famous case of Archdeacon Colley
+and Mr Monck. The Archdeacon actually declared that he saw the psychic
+or spirit form grow out of his left side:
+
+     "First, several faces, one after another, of great beauty
+     appeared, and in amazement we saw--and as I was standing close
+     up to the medium, even touching him--I saw most plainly,
+     several times, a perfect face and form of exquisite womanhood
+     partially issue from Dr Monck, about the region of the heart.
+     Then, after several attempts, the full-formed figure, in a
+     nebulous condition at first, but growing solider as it issued
+     from the medium, left Dr Monck and stood, a separate
+     individuality, two or three feet off, bound to him by a slender
+     attachment, as of gossamer, which, at my request, 'Samuel,' the
+     control, severed with the medium's left hand, and there stood
+     embodied a spirit form of unutterable loveliness, robed in
+     attire spirit-spun--a meshy webwork from no mortal loom, of a
+     fleeciness inimitable, and of transfiguration whiteness truly
+     glistening."
+
+Now, as Mr Podmore somewhat satirically points out:
+
+     "It is difficult to believe that the exquisite spirit form
+     which presented itself to Mr Colley's glowing imagination was
+     merely a confection of masks, stuffed gloves, and muslin,
+     actuated by a jointed rod, but we cannot help remembering, if
+     Mr Colley did not, that articles of this kind had, a
+     twelve-month previously, been found, under compromising
+     circumstances, in the possession of Dr Monck."
+
+The recognitions which take place at _séances_ are undoubtedly to a
+large extent sense deceptions. There is now a professional medium at
+whose _séances_ spirit faces are constantly being recognised. Of course
+the performance takes place in the dark. A faintly illuminated slate
+shows the profiles against the background, and one or other of the
+members generally recognises it. The mouth and chin of the female faces
+shown at these _séances_ are generally veiled, but this does not appear
+to affect the recognition.
+
+On the whole, the testimony for and against the reality of spirits at
+the better class of _séance_ is pretty evenly balanced. I hesitate to
+disturb it, although remarking, parenthetically, that the believers have
+the most, if not the best, of the literature on the subject.
+
+And for those who are deeply perplexed there is always the theory of
+hallucination to fall back upon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+
+If the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation
+of the spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular,
+oral, and tactile evidence of the dark _séance_, the theory of
+hallucination would account for much that is perplexing. But the problem
+becomes complicated when the spiritualists come forward with proof that
+their senses have not misled them. It is only a few months since that a
+young man in the north of England, on photographing his mother and
+sisters, was greatly startled to find his late father's face also on the
+plate. He had not made use of the camera, we are told, for eighteen
+months. Recently, too, a professional photographer in London was
+commissioned to photograph a grave which was surmounted by a beautiful
+basket of flowers. To his consternation, within the handle appeared the
+facial lineaments of the deceased.
+
+The earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from
+1862, when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a
+photograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been
+dead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr Mumler
+of Boston, who considered that many of the "spirit photographs"
+afterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our
+modern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire
+to cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters.
+
+Mumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says:
+
+     "I have been investigated by the best photographers in America,
+     and have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have
+     been tried in a court of justice, and been honourably
+     acquitted; and, lastly, I have the evidence of thousands of
+     people who have had pictures taken, and recognised the
+     likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never had a
+     picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in
+     the hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain
+     of evidence that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds,
+     and animals have frequently appeared upon the plates and one
+     lady was delighted to recognise by her side her faithful old
+     black retriever."
+
+Not till ten years later did a photographer named Hudson succeed, with
+the aid of a medium, in producing spirit pictures. The _modus operandi_
+appeared simple. The sitter was posed before the camera, and the picture
+was subsequently developed, when besides the sitter's own image there
+appeared another figure or figures usually draped, with the features
+blurred or only partly distinguishable. Usually these figures were
+recognised unhesitatingly by the sitters as portraits of deceased
+relatives or friends. Afterwards the practice of spirit photography
+received a rude shock. They were examined carefully by professional
+photographers, and some of them were found to bear clear marks of double
+exposure, the background in each case being visible through the dress of
+the sitter--a fatal defect in spirit photography. Moreover it was found
+that in some cases the medium had dressed up to play the rôle of spirit.
+Whereupon several of those who had professed to recognise the "ghosts"
+now hastened to repudiate their recognition. But spirit photography was
+not to be quashed so easily. The experiments went on, and faces and
+figures appeared on the developed plate which seem to have considerably
+baffled the experts. Sir William Crookes now resolved to put the matter
+to a test by attempting to obtain a photograph of "Katie," the famous
+"control" of Miss Cook, the medium. The young lady gave a series of
+sittings in May 1874 at Sir William's house for the purpose. These
+sittings took place by electric light, no fewer than five cameras being
+simultaneously at work. The medium lay down on the floor behind a
+curtain, her face muffled in a shawl. When the materialisation was
+complete "Katie" would appear in the full light in front of the
+curtain:
+
+     "I frequently," writes Sir William Crookes, "drew the curtain
+     on one side when Katie was standing near; and it was a common
+     thing for the seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see
+     Miss Cook and Katie at the same time, under the full blaze of
+     the electric light. We did not on these occasions actually see
+     the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we saw her
+     hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under the influence of
+     the intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally. I have
+     one photograph of the two together, but Katie is seated in
+     front of Miss Cook's head."
+
+I have not seen these photographs of "Katie," but Mr Podmore has, and
+when comparing them with contemporary portraits of Miss Cook herself he
+is inclined to consider the likeness between the two sets unmistakable.
+"The apparently greater breadth of 'spirit' face," he writes, "may well
+be due to the fact that, whereas Miss Cook wore hanging ringlets,
+'Katie's' hair is effectually concealed by the drapery, which in most
+cases comes down over the forehead, and falls in two thick folds on
+either side of the head, something like the headgear of a sphinx. Again,
+as Miss Cook, when photographed, wore her ordinary dress, which
+concealed her feet, the apparent difference in height on some occasions
+between herself and the spirit figure cannot be relied upon. One piece
+of evidence would, indeed, have been conclusive--that the ears of the
+spirit form should have appeared intact, for Miss Cook's ears were
+pierced for earrings. But the encircling drapery effectually concealed
+both the ears and the hair of the spirit 'Katie.'"
+
+The evidence for photographs of invisible people which we sometimes hear
+abduced as adequate is surprisingly feeble. For instance, in a recent
+anonymous and weak book, said to be written by a member of the Society
+for Psychical Research, two photographs are reproduced which are said to
+have been obtained under what are considered crucial conditions; but the
+narrative itself at once suggests a simple trick on the part of the
+photographer--viz. the provision of backgrounds for sitters with vague
+human forms all ready depicted on them in sulphate of quinine.
+
+Sir Oliver Lodge is of opinion that it is by no means physically
+impossible that some of these temporary semi-material accretions might
+be inadequate to appeal to our eyes, and yet be of a kind able to
+impress a photographic plate; but here he confesses that the evidence,
+to his mind, wholly breaks down, and he admits that he has never yet
+seen a satisfying instance of what is termed a spirit photograph; nor is
+it easy to imagine the kind of record apart from testimony which in such
+a case would be convincing, unless such photographs could be produced at
+will.
+
+A conviction of fraud having entered the minds of the sceptically
+inclined, the exposure of a certain Parisian photographer, Buguet, shook
+the faith of the credulous. Buguet enjoyed in London an extraordinary
+success. Many leading people sat to him and obtained "spirit
+photographs," by them clearly recognisable, of their deceased
+relations. No less than forty out of one hundred and twenty photographs
+examined by Stainton Moses were pronounced by the sitters to be genuine
+likenesses of spirits, and baffled the scrutiny of the sceptics.
+Nevertheless Buguet was arrested and charged by the French Government
+for fraudulent production of spirit photographs. At his trial Buguet
+disconcerted the whole spiritualistic world by confessing, he said that
+the whole of his spirit photographs were obtained by means of double
+exposure. To begin with, he employed three or four assistants to play
+the part of ghost. Nevertheless, in spite of his confession, in spite of
+the trick apparatus confiscated by the police, at Buguet's trial witness
+after witness, people high in the social and professional world, came
+forward to testify that they had not been deceived, that the spirit
+photographs were genuine. They refused to doubt the evidence of their
+own eyesight. One M. Dessenon, a picture dealer, had obtained a spirit
+portrait of his wife; he had been instantly struck with the likeness,
+and had shown it to the lady's relatives, who exclaimed at once on its
+exactness. The judge asked Buguet for an explanation. The prisoner
+replied that it was pure chance. "I had," he said, "no photograph of
+Madame Dessenon." "But," cried the witness, "my children, like myself,
+thought the likeness perfect. When I showed them the picture, they
+cried, 'It is mamma!' I have seen all M. Buguet's properties and
+pictures, and there is nothing in the least like the picture I have
+obtained. I am convinced it is my wife." As a result, many
+spiritualists, including Stainton Moses and William Howitt, refused to
+consider the case one of fraud. They regarded Buguet as a genuine medium
+who had been bound to confess to imaginary trickery. Yet after this
+spirit photography as a profession has not flourished in this country.
+There is one professional who is responsible for many ghost pictures.
+But in his productions appear unmistakable signs of double exposures.
+You see the pattern of the carpet and the curtain of the study visible
+through the sitter's body and clothes. In one instance at all events,
+where the ghost represents a well-known statesman, the head has
+obviously been cut from the photograph and the contour draped to hide
+the cut edges. But the phenomena of spirit photography are abundant
+enough in private circles.
+
+I have before me as I write a number of reputed spirit photographs
+obtained by private persons both with and without the aid of a
+professional medium. In one sent me by a gentleman resident at Finsbury
+Park, which is a very impressive specimen of its kind, the fact of a
+double exposure is obvious to the least experienced in dark-room
+matters. Notwithstanding, the photographer has apparently made a
+speciality of this kind of work.
+
+     "In my collection [he writes] of over two thousand specimens
+     are portraits of Atlantean priests, who flourished about 12,000
+     years ago, Biblical patriarchs, poets, Royalties, clerics,
+     scientists, literary men, etc., pioneer spiritualists, like
+     Emma H. Britten, Luther Marsh, Wallace, and John Lamont. The
+     latest additions are, I am happy to say, my kind old friend
+     Mrs Glendinning, and a worthy quartette of earnest workers in
+     Dr Younger, Mr Thomas Everitt, Mr C. Lacey, and David Duguid."
+
+One of the most curious instances of a ghost photograph occurred in the
+summer of 1892. Six months previously a lady had taken a photograph of
+the library at D---- Hall. She kept the plate a long time before
+developing it, and when developed it showed the faint but clearly
+recognisable figure of a man sitting in a large arm-chair. A print from
+the photograph was obtained and shown, when the image was immediately
+recognised as the likeness of the late Lord D----, the owner of
+D---- Hall. What was more, it was ascertained that Lord D---- had
+actually been buried on the day the photograph was taken. A copy of the
+photograph was sent to Professor Barrett, who examined it and reported
+(1) that the image is too faint and blurred for any likeness to be
+substantiated; (2) that the plate had been exposed in the camera for an
+hour and the room left unguarded; (3) that actual experiments show that
+an appearance such as that on the plate could have been produced if a
+man--there were four men in the house--had sat in the chair for a few
+seconds during the exposure, moving his head and limbs the while.
+
+Another ghost picture described by Mr Podmore was probably caused in a
+similar way. A chapel was photographed, and when the plate was developed
+a face was faintly seen in a panel of the woodwork, which the
+photographer recognised as a young acquaintance who had not long since
+met with a tragic death. "In fact," writes Mr Podmore, "when he told me
+the story and showed me the picture, I could easily see the faint but
+well-marked features of a handsome melancholy lad of eighteen. A
+colleague, however, to whom I showed the photograph without relating the
+story, at once identified the face as that of a woman of thirty. The
+outlines are in reality so indistinct as to leave ample room for the
+imagination to work on; and there is no reason to doubt that, as in the
+ghost of the library, the camera had merely preserved faint traces of
+some intruder who, during prolonged exposure, stood for a few seconds in
+front of it."
+
+In spite of all the damaging _exposés_ and these discouraging
+explanations many intelligent persons the world over will still go on
+believing in the genuineness of spirit photography. Let me give a few
+examples of their testimony. M. Reichel, to whom allusion has already
+been made, states that at one of Miller's _séances_ in America, held on
+29th October 1905, those present suddenly heard a great number of voices
+behind the curtain:
+
+     "Betsy told us that sometimes there are Egyptian women and
+     sometimes Indians who come in a crowd to produce their
+     phenomena. On October 29th and again on November 2nd I sent for
+     a San Francisco photographer, Mr Edward Wyllie, to see what
+     impression would be made on a photographic plate by the beings
+     who appeared. Some remarkable pictures were taken by
+     flashlight. Besides the fully materialised forms, there were
+     shown on the photographs several spirits who could not be seen
+     by the physical eyes.
+
+     "In one of the latter figures I instantly recognised an uncle
+     of mine, whom I had made acquainted with spiritualism about
+     twelve years previously, through the assistance of another
+     medium."
+
+A correspondent sends me an interesting account of investigating
+materialised spirits in daylight:
+
+     "Miss Fairlamb (afterwards Mrs Mellon) was the medium, and the
+     photographs of 'Geordie' and others taken in the garden in
+     broad daylight were quite successful. The conditions must have
+     been most harmonious, as 'Geordie' afterwards, when twilight
+     came on, walked about the lawn, and even ventured into the
+     house, returning to the tent, which served as a cabinet, with
+     an umbrella and hassock in his hands."
+
+Dr Theodore Hausmann, one of the oldest physicians in Washington,
+U.S.A., has devoted many years to this particular phase of mediumship.
+He places himself before his camera in the study and photographs his
+spirit visitors, who have included his father, son, and President
+Lincoln. The opening paragraph in an article he wrote is as follows:--
+
+     "Grieving parents, the bereaved widow and mother, will only be
+     too happy if they can see the pictures of those again who were
+     so dear to their hearts, and whose image gradually will vanish
+     if nothing is left to renew their memories."
+
+There have been many touching letters from relatives of grateful thanks,
+who imagine themselves in this way to have received portraits of their
+dear ones who have passed away.
+
+In a work which I have come across in which spiritualism is by no means
+supported Mr J. G. Raupert acknowledges:
+
+     "That as regards spirit photographs, he 'obtained many striking
+     pictures of this character, under good test conditions, and
+     attended by circumstances yielding unique and exceptionally
+     valuable evidence.... The evidence in favour of some of these
+     psychic pictures is as good as it is ever likely to be, and,
+     respecting some of these obtained by the present writer, expert
+     photographic authorities have expressed their verdict. Sir
+     William Crookes has obtained them in his own house under
+     personally imposed conditions, and many private experimenters
+     in different parts of the world have been equally successful."
+
+This from an avowed opponent is striking testimony to some kind of
+manifestation which is not, in intent, at least, fraudulent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CLAIRVOYANCE
+
+
+It was natural that out of all these mystic practices--those I have
+already indicated and the others I am about to indicate--a cult or
+religion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name
+of spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to
+call it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of
+course, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied
+spirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain
+physical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the rôle
+of the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of
+those manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation--_i.e._
+the actual incarnation of spiritual forms--physical manifestations such
+as table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc., trance utterances
+and spirit photography.
+
+From the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of
+clairvoyance.
+
+Clairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a
+technical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the
+terminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as "that
+psychic power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the
+spiritualism sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of
+vision, spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this
+power; in some it is developed, and in others it has but a casual
+quickening. Its extent is governed by the rate of vibration under which
+it operates; thus, one clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to
+another may be invisible because of the degree of difference in the
+intensity of the powers."
+
+Further, "subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person
+which enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the
+brain of that person, at will, pictures and images which are seen as
+visions by that person, without the aid of the physical eye. These
+pictures and images may be of things spiritual or material, past or
+present, remote or near, hidden or uncovered, or they may have their
+existence simply in the conception or imagination of the spirit
+communicating them."
+
+Putting aside, however, all "supernatural" explanation, let us consider
+how we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance.
+What we see is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or
+woman by no means above, and often below, the intellectual average
+utters, and the hand writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal
+ken of the minds of such a man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is,
+to put it bluntly, staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife
+or sister accidentally dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and
+whilst she was still continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom
+you were present at a clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance
+informed you of the circumstances, you would no doubt be astounded.
+Well, the manifestations of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No
+matter how our reason is baffled at first, it behoves us not only to
+seek a natural explanation of the fact but also to ascertain and
+authenticate the fact itself. But a man may not implicitly trust his
+senses.
+
+I soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious
+phenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even
+furnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver
+my opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it
+can explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped
+with unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the
+cloud of witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and
+experienced investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William
+Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic
+Myers, Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet,
+Professor William James, Professor Janet, Mr Frank Podmore and
+Professor Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent
+the white light of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a
+special study of the matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the
+case of trance lucidity and clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer
+or speaker is not at work. Yet there certainly would seem to be an
+operating intelligence, having a special character and a special
+knowledge.
+
+What, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain
+its special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the
+second question.
+
+1. By telepathy from living people.
+
+2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious,
+individual agency of deceased persons.
+
+These he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there
+is a wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives.
+We can here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.
+
+The mystery of mediumship has probably received more attention from M.
+Flournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from
+anyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English
+investigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close
+quarters subjects of a more normal type than the Salpetrière patients
+are unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of Hélène
+Smith.
+
+     "Hélène [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had
+     occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially
+     remarkable. She is, to all outward appearances at the present
+     time, healthy even to robustness. From the age of fifteen she
+     has been employed in a large commercial establishment in
+     Geneva, and holds a position of some responsibility. But it is
+     in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year she was
+     persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It
+     soon appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first
+     her mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and
+     assisting in tilting the table, whilst still retaining more or
+     less consciousness and subsequent memory of her experiences.
+     Shortly after M. Flournoy's admission to the circle, in the
+     winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's mediumship advanced a stage,
+     and she habitually passed at the _séance_ into a trance state,
+     retaining subsequently no memory of her visions and doings in
+     that state. Her development followed at first the normal
+     course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her
+     sitters, purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the
+     like. She offered numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from
+     time to time controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of
+     her earliest trances were under the guidance and inspiration of
+     Victor Hugo. Within a few months the spirit of the poet--too
+     late, indeed, for his own post-mortem reputation, for he had
+     already perpetrated some verses--was expelled with ignominy by
+     a more masterful demon who called himself Leopold. The newcomer
+     was at first somewhat reticent on his own past, and when
+     urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in moral platitudes.
+     Later, however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe Balsamo, Count
+     Cagliostro. It then appeared that in Hélène herself was
+     reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that
+     others of the mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans,
+     etc....
+
+     "It is Hélène's extra-planetary experiences, however, which
+     have excited most attention, and which furnished to the
+     attendants at her circle the most convincing proofs of her
+     dealings with the spiritual world. In November 1894, the spirit
+     of the entranced medium was wafted--not without threatenings of
+     sea-sickness--through the cosmic void, to arrive eventually on
+     the planet Mars. Thereafter night after night she described to
+     the listening circle the people of our neighbouring planet,
+     their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she drew pictures
+     of the inhabitants, human and animal--of their houses, bridges,
+     and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she
+     both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the
+     writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the
+     characters of the Martian script are unlike any in use on
+     earth, and that the words (of which a translation is furnished)
+     bear no resemblance, superficially at least, to any known
+     tongue. The spirits--for several dwellers upon Mars used
+     Hélène's organism to speak and write through--delivered
+     themselves with freedom and fluency, and were consistent in
+     their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In fact,
+     Martian, as used by the entranced Hélène, has many of the
+     characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising
+     that some of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the
+     authenticity of the other revelations, were apparently
+     convinced that these Martian utterances were beyond the common
+     order of nature."
+
+All his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his
+mind that Hélène must somewhere have come across one of the works
+containing Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes
+were suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the
+language, it is just such a work of art as one might form by
+substituting for each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary
+collocation of letters, and for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol.
+The vowel and consonant signs are the same as in French; so are the
+inflections, the grammar, the construction. (Take, for example, the
+negative ke ani=ne pas, the employment of the same word zi to express
+both la "the" and là "there.") If it is childish as a work of art, it is
+miraculous enough as a feat of memory. But the reader has not forgotten
+what the subliminal self is capable of achieving as regards time
+appreciation mentioned in an early chapter. When, however, it comes to
+Hélène's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M. Flournoy, in spite of his
+long investigation, can find no explanation of the supernormal to fit
+the case. Her mediumship since 1892 included manifestations of all
+kinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they soon ceased. Her
+clairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a remarkable
+character. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which she was
+apparently unacquainted, has been carefully investigated and
+authenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of
+spiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from
+trained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants
+as the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been
+subjected to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this
+type of evidence that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of
+spiritualism really rests. It is at once the most impressive, the most
+interesting, and the most voluminous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have
+seen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the
+University College School for eighteen years, a man who was never
+detected in the slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a
+host of intimate friends. Stainton Moses left a mass of published
+testimony to his pretended communications from the spirits of deceased
+persons. He attached great importance to the evidence for
+spiritualistic doctrines. Altogether the "controls" or communicators
+numbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses or other members of the
+circles had known in life; others--such as Swedenborg, Bishop
+Wilberforce, and President Garfield--were historical personages. Besides
+these there was a class of individuals of no particular importance, and
+apparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it is worthy of
+remark that the spirits by whom Moses was "controlled" never withheld
+any data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one
+_séance_ a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name
+"Rosmira." She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on
+10th January 1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that
+his surname was Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the
+whole particulars were to be found in the "Death" notices in _The Daily
+Telegraph_. "Mr Moses' spirits," comments Mr Podmore in his "History of
+Spiritualism," habitually furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such
+other particulars of their lives as could be gathered from the daily
+papers, from published biographies, or from the _Annual Register_ and
+other works of reference. All the spirits, indeed, gave their names,
+with one exception--an exception so significant that the case is worth
+recording. _The Pall Mall Gazette_ for 21st February 1874 contains the
+following item of intelligence:--
+
+     "A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under
+     a steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in
+     York-place, Marylebone, and was killed immediately."
+
+     "Mr Moses was present at a _séance_ that evening, and his hand
+     was controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy
+     suicide, to write an account of the incident, and to draw a
+     rough picture of a horse attached to a vehicle. The name of the
+     dead man, it will be seen, does not appear in the newspaper
+     account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who gave proofs of
+     their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this
+     particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous."
+
+But a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance
+utterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings,
+couched in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily "without any
+conscious intervention on the part of the mortal penman." In fact, so
+far was this so that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his
+mind, during their production.
+
+The claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully
+investigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an
+eminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic
+attainments.
+
+I will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:--
+
+     Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the
+     correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the
+     four following heads:--
+
+     (_a_) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his
+     consciousness.
+
+     (_b_) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in
+     his consciousness.
+
+     (_c_) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at
+     the moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the
+     statements of the medium.
+
+     (_d_) Things unknown to the sitter.
+
+With regard to things under head (_a_) Mrs Verrall says:
+
+     "Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own
+     observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response
+     from the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by
+     me has been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the
+     evidence of the other sitter, I should have been disposed to
+     believe that I had unconsciously uttered the thought aloud.
+
+     "Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was
+     in my house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain
+     friend of my daughter's, who is often at the house, would be
+     there, when 'Nelly' added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name
+     my daughter's friend, exactly as though I had uttered the
+     passing thought. Again, when 'Nelly' was describing a certain
+     bag given to me for my birthday, something she said made me for
+     a moment think of a small leather handbag left in my house by a
+     cousin and occasionally used by me, and she said: 'You had an
+     uncle that died; it was not long after that.' The father of the
+     cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I have
+     known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag
+     as a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly
+     described till my momentary thought apparently distracted her
+     attention to the other bag. I have had in all some five or six
+     instances of such apparently direct responses as the above to a
+     thought in the sitter's mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion
+     I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of
+     helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything
+     but what she calls 'muggling her.'"
+
+Another difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls
+not infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are
+liable to be misinterpreted. Mrs Verrall writes in her report of her
+sitting with Mrs Thompson:
+
+     "Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The
+     name was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman,
+     Merrythought, Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of
+     these who,' etc. Later, 'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's
+     not quite right; it's like the name of a garden'; and after in
+     vain trying to give her the name exactly, she said: 'I will
+     tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see
+     school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman
+     because that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on
+     spoke of my mother as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with
+     indifference" ("Proceedings," part xliv. p. 208).
+
+It is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit
+communications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with
+the use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on "Human
+Personality," should be studied in this connection. He points out that
+there is "no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the
+power to express all the thoughts and emotions of man." And if this is
+true of man in his present state, how much more does it apply to man in
+another and more advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he
+says: "There is a certain quality which reminds one of _translation_, or
+of the composition of a person writing in a language in which he is not
+accustomed to talk."
+
+As a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:
+
+     "That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally
+     obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the
+     hypothesis of fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part
+     fails to explain the phenomena seems to be equally certain;
+     that to more causes than one is to be attributed the success
+     which I have recorded seems to me likely. There is, I believe,
+     some evidence to indicate that telepathy between the sitter and
+     the trance personality is one of these contributory causes.
+     But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense
+     of the term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the
+     occurrences observed by me, is my present belief."
+
+Instances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few
+weeks ago the Rome correspondent of _The Tribune_ reported that a boy of
+twelve, at Capua, "was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart
+would break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said
+that he had just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the
+point of death, assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter
+came from America announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's
+vision, his mother tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be
+regarded as 'possessed,' but her efforts were vain, several persons
+having been present when he explained the cause of his grief."
+
+The explanation of telepathy would hardly seem to fit the case, since
+the father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days
+previous to the vision.
+
+I shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic
+illustration of the marvels of clairvoyance--that of Mrs Piper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES
+
+
+Almost alone amongst mediums of note, Mrs Piper of Boston has never
+resorted to physical phenomena, her powers being entirely confined to
+trance manifestations. No single medium, not even Hélène Smith, has been
+subjected to such close and continuous observation by expert scientific
+observers. In 1885, this lady's case was first investigated by Professor
+William James, of Harvard (brother of the famous novelist). Two years
+later Dr Hodgson and other members of the Society for Psychical Research
+began their observation of her trance utterances. This course of
+observation has continued for twenty years, and nearly all Mrs Piper's
+utterances have been placed on record. The late Dr Hodgson was
+indefatigable in his labours to test the genuineness of the phenomena.
+He spared no pains, and died, I believe, convinced that all means of
+accounting for them had been exhausted.
+
+There is so much evidence concerning Mrs Piper, who, two years ago came
+to England at the invitation of the Society for Psychical Research, and
+was subjected to numerous tests, that I hesitate how best to typify its
+purport. Most striking is a letter to Professor James in the Society's
+"Proceedings" from a well-known professor, Shaler of Harvard, who
+attended a _séance_, with a very open mind indeed, on 25th May 1894, at
+Professor James's house in Cambridge (Boston).
+
+Professor Shaler was disposed to favour neither the medium nor even the
+telepathic theory. He writes:
+
+     "MY DEAR JAMES,--At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I
+     made the following notes:--
+
+     "As you remember, I came to the meeting with my wife; when Mrs
+     Piper entered the trance state Mrs Shaler took her hand. After
+     a few irrelevant words, my wife handed Mrs Piper an engraved
+     seal, which she knew, though I did not, had belonged to her
+     brother, a gentleman from Richmond, Virginia, who died about a
+     year ago. At once Mrs Piper began to make statements clearly
+     relating to the deceased, and in the course of the following
+     hour she showed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with his
+     affairs, those of his immediate family, and those of the family
+     in Hartford, Conn., with which the Richmond family had had
+     close social relations.
+
+     "The statements made by Mrs Piper, in my opinion, entirely
+     exclude the hypothesis that they were the results of
+     conjectures, directed by the answers made by my wife. I took no
+     part in the questioning, but observed very closely all that was
+     done.
+
+     "On the supposition that the medium had made very careful
+     preparation for her sittings in Cambridge, it would have been
+     possible for her to have gathered all the information which she
+     rendered by means of agents in the two cities, though I must
+     confess that it would have been rather difficult to have done
+     the work.
+
+     "The only distinctly suspicious features were that certain
+     familiar baptismal names were properly given, while those of an
+     unusual sort could not be extracted, and also that one or two
+     names were given correctly as regards the ceremony of baptism
+     or the directory, but utterly wrong from the point of view of
+     family usage. Thus the name of a sister-in-law of mine, a
+     sister of my wife's, was given as Jane, which is true by the
+     record, but in forty years' experience of an intimate sort I
+     never knew her to be called Jane--in fact, I did not at first
+     recognise who was meant.
+
+     "While I am disposed to hold to the hypothesis that the
+     performance is one that is founded on some kind of deceit, I
+     must confess that close observation of the medium made on me
+     the impression that she was honest. Seeing her under any other
+     conditions, I should not hesitate to trust my instinctive sense
+     as to the truthfulness of the woman.
+
+     "I venture also to note, though with some hesitancy, the fact
+     that the ghost of the ancient Frenchman who never existed, but
+     who purports to control Mrs Piper, though he speaks with a
+     first-rate stage French accent, does not, so far as I can find,
+     make the characteristic blunders in the order of his English
+     words which we find in actual life. Whatever the medium is, I
+     am convinced that this 'influence' is a preposterous scoundrel.
+
+     "I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of
+     knowledge that the medium seems to have concerning my wife's
+     brother's affairs. Certain of the facts, as, for instance,
+     those relating to the failure to find his will after his sudden
+     death, were very neatly and dramatically rendered. They had the
+     real-life quality. So, too, the name of a man who was to have
+     married my wife's brother's daughter, but who died a month
+     before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given,
+     both as regards surname and Christian name, though the
+     Christian name was not remembered by my wife or me.
+
+     "I cannot determine how probable it is that the medium, knowing
+     she was to have a sitting with you in Cambridge, or rather a
+     number of them, took pains to prepare for the tests by
+     carefully working up the family history of your friends. If she
+     had done this for thirty or so persons, I think she could,
+     though with some difficulty, have gained just the kind of
+     knowledge which she rendered. She would probably have forgotten
+     that my wife's brother's given name was Legh, and that of his
+     mother Gabriella, while she remembered that of Mary and
+     Charles, and also that of a son in Cambridge, who is called
+     Waller. So, too, the fact that all trouble on account of the
+     missing will was within a fortnight after the death of Mr Page
+     cleared away by the action of the children was unknown. The
+     deceased is represented as still troubled, though he purported
+     to see just what was going on in his family.
+
+     "I have given you a mixture of observations and criticisms; let
+     me say that I have no firm mind about the matter. I am
+     curiously and yet absolutely uninterested in it, for the reason
+     that I don't see how I can exclude the hypothesis of fraud,
+     and until that can be excluded no advance can be made.
+
+     "When I took the medium's hand, I had my usual experience with
+     them--a few preposterous compliments concerning the clearness
+     of my understanding, and nothing more."
+
+Among those who have made a careful study at first hand of Mrs Piper's
+clairvoyance besides Dr Hodgson and Professor James are Sir Oliver
+Lodge, the late Frederic Myers, Mrs Sidgwick, Walter Leaf, Professor
+Romaine Newbold, and Professor J. H. Hyslop, and all of these have
+recorded their conviction that the results are not explicable by fraud
+or misrepresentation.
+
+Another account which sheds light on what occurs at Mrs Piper's séances
+is furnished by Professor Estlin Carpenter, Oxford. It is dated 14th
+December 1894:
+
+     "DEAR PROFESSOR JAMES,--I had a sitting yesterday with Mrs
+     Piper at your house, and was greatly interested with the
+     results obtained, as they were entirely unexpected by me.
+     Various persons were named and described whom we could not
+     identify (my wife was present); but the names of my father and
+     mother were correctly given, with several details which were in
+     no way present to my mind at the time. The illness from which
+     my father was suffering at the time of his death was
+     identified, but not the accident which took him from us. A
+     penknife which I happened to have with me was rightly referred
+     to its place on the desk in his study, and after considerable
+     hesitation Mrs Piper wrote out the word _organ_ when I asked
+     concerning other objects in the room. She added spontaneously a
+     very remarkable item about which I was in no way thinking--viz.
+     that on Sunday afternoons or evenings (her phrase was
+     'twilight') we were accustomed to sing there together. She
+     stated correctly that my mother was older than my father, but
+     died after him; and she connected her death with my return from
+     Switzerland in a manner that wholly surprised me, the fact
+     being that her last illness began two or three days after my
+     arrival home from Lucerne. She gave the initials of my wife's
+     name rightly, and addressed words to her from her father,
+     whose first name, George, was correct. She also desired me, in
+     my father's name, not to be anxious about some family matters
+     (which have only recently come to my knowledge), though their
+     nature was not specified. Finally, though I should have
+     mentioned this first, as it was at the outset of the interview,
+     she told me that I was about to start on a voyage, and
+     described the vessel in general terms, though she could not
+     give its name or tell me the place where it was going. I saw
+     enough to convince me that Mrs Piper possesses some very
+     extraordinary powers, but I have no theory at all as to their
+     nature or mode of exercise."
+
+Another who visited Mrs Piper was the famous French author, M. Paul
+Bourget, who was astonished at what he heard. He happened to have on his
+watch-chain a small seal which had been given him by a painter, long
+since dead, under the saddest circumstances, of whom it was impossible
+the medium could ever have heard; yet no sooner had she touched the
+object than she related to him the circumstance. One could quote case
+after case in the Society's reports, but in all the time Mrs Piper has
+been under such rigid scrutiny not one suspicious instance or one
+pointing to normal acquisition of facts has been discovered.
+
+Some have boldly hazarded the conjecture that Mrs Piper worked up the
+_dossiers_ of her sitters beforehand; inasmuch as she could easily
+obtain her facts in many ways; by reading private letters, for instance,
+or information derived from other mediums, or by employing private
+inquiry agents. These things are said to be habitually done by
+professional clairvoyants, by either going themselves or sending an
+agent in the capacity of, say, a book canvasser, to some town or
+district, and get all the information they can, to return some months
+later and give clairvoyant sittings. There is a belief, and it is
+possibly correct, that there is an organisation which gives and
+exchanges information thus obtained by the members of the Society.
+Perhaps this may account for the extraordinary good fortune of some
+spiritualists in obtaining "tests." Some sitters who went to Mrs Piper
+had visited other mediums previously. But one may be sure that all
+precautions were taken to ensure against her knowing the names of the
+sitters, so that she could not use any information, even if she had
+obtained any, in this way. Those best qualified to judge are convinced
+that her knowledge was not gained in this way, partly because of the
+precautions used and partly by reason of the information itself.
+
+As has been said, Mrs Piper was under the close scrutiny of Dr Hodgson
+for many years, and nothing of the kind has ever come to light. Also Dr
+Hodgson arranged beforehand her sittings for more than ten years, never
+telling her the names of the sitters, who in almost every instance were
+unknown to her by sight, and were without distinction introduced under
+the name of "Smith." She made so many correct statements at many
+individual sittings, and the proportion of successful sittings is so
+high, that it is very difficult to attribute fraud to her. About dates
+she appears to be very vague. She prefers to give Christian names to
+surnames, and of the former those in common use rather than those out of
+the way. As her descriptions of houses or places are generally failures,
+she seldom attempts them. Mrs Piper seems to be weakest, indeed, just
+where the so-called medium is most successful. Her strongest points are
+describing diseases, the character of the sitter, his idiosyncrasies,
+and the character of his friends, their sympathies, loves, hates, and
+relationships in general, unimportant incidents in their past histories,
+and so on. To retain such information in the memory is very difficult,
+and to obtain it by general means well-nigh impossible.
+
+Many of the personalities or "controls" of Mrs Piper speak, write, and
+act in a way extraordinarily in consonance with those characters as they
+were on earth. In other words, her "controls" have well-differentiated
+identities. Each has a different manner, a different voice, different
+acts, different ways of looking at things; in fact, has a different
+character. For example, there is the spirit of G. P., a young journalist
+and author who died suddenly in February 1892. A few weeks later his
+spirit possessed Mrs Piper's organism, and although he was unknown to
+Mrs Piper in life, yet for years since then he has carried on numerous
+prolonged conversations with his friends, including Dr Hodgson, and
+supplied numerous proofs of his knowledge of the concerns of the
+deceased G. P. G. P.'s personal effects, MSS., etc., are referred to, as
+well as private conversations of the past, and, moreover, he suddenly
+recognises amongst those attending Mrs Piper's _séances_ those whom he
+knew during life. Dr Hodgson was unable to find any instance when such
+recognition has been incorrectly given. But G. P. is only one of several
+trance personations speaking through Mrs Piper's organism and recognised
+by friends.
+
+After a contemplation of Mrs Piper's trance utterances alone we are
+inevitably faced by a choice of three conclusions: either (1) fraud (and
+fraud I hold here to be absolutely inadmissible); or (2) the possession
+of some supernormal power of apprehension; or (3) communication with
+the spirits of deceased persons.
+
+Dr Hodgson was driven by sheer force of logic to accept the third of
+these hypotheses. Others who have studied the phenomena have followed.
+Dr J. H. Hyslop has published a record of the sittings held with Mrs
+Piper in 1898 and 1899. His report contains the verbatim record of
+seventeen sittings, and no pains have been spared to make the record
+complete. It has exhaustive commentaries and accounts of experiments
+intended to elucidate the supposed difficulties of trance communication.
+Professor Hyslop finally arrives at the conclusion, after an extensive
+investigation, during which no item of the evidence has failed to be
+weighed and no possible source of error would seem to have escaped
+consideration, that spirit communication is the only explanation which
+fits all the facts, and he altogether rejects telepathy as being
+inadequate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hope that those who have so far followed me in this brief inquiry into
+the mysteries of occult phenomena will recognise the impartiality with
+which I have endeavoured to conduct it. I said in the beginning that I
+set out with a light heart as well as an open mind. I had no idea of the
+extent of the territory, I knew little of its voluminous literature, of
+the extraordinary ramifications of occultism, of the labours of the many
+learned men who have spent their whole lives in seeking to separate fact
+from superstition. My mind was light because, frankly, I believed--with
+a sort of inherent, temperamental belief--that, however much the
+testimony concerning coincident dreams, hallucinations, mediumistic
+manifestations, materialisation, and clairvoyance might mystify, it was
+all capable of normal explanation--there was nothing supernatural about
+it. And so throughout the inquiry I sought to show how, chiefly,
+telepathy was a working hypothesis in most of the manifestations, while
+for the physical ones, such as table rapping, levitations, and the rest,
+an unknown extension of human muscular power might possibly exist to
+solve the mystery. So far I strode forward with some confidence. But
+now the time has come when my confidence deserts me. Telepathy breaks
+down. It is a key which by no amount of wriggling will turn the lock.
+"It is not," as one leading inquirer has said, "that telepathy is
+insufficient: it is superfluous." If the existence of disembodied
+spirits is proved, then all the other phenomena are also proved.
+
+If the case of Mrs Piper--under rigid surveillance for years--has
+convinced some of the profoundest intellects of the day--men who began
+by being sceptical--that disembodied spirits are responsible for her
+utterances, it would certainly tend to convince me. But I carefully
+guarded myself from conviction until I had read the evidence--even to a
+_résumé_ of this medium's utterances last year in London under the
+auspices of the Society for Psychical Research--and I assert with
+confidence that no metaphysical theory has ever been formulated that
+will account for these manifestations save one--the survival of the
+human personality after death. Once Mrs Piper is admitted as genuine,
+then it follows that the spiritistic manifestations which have puzzled
+mankind, not merely for generations or during the modern cult of
+spiritism, but ever since primitive times, become, as it were,
+emancipated.
+
+"It does seem to me," said Mr Balfour, in his famous Society for
+Psychical Research address, "that there is at least strong ground for
+supposing that outside the world, as we have, from the point of science,
+been in the habit of conceiving it, there does lie a region, not open
+indeed to experimental observation in the same way as the more familiar
+regions of the material world are open to it, but still with regard to
+which some experimental information may be laboriously gleaned; and even
+if we cannot entertain any confident hope of discovering what laws these
+half-seen phenomena obey, at all events it will be some gain to have
+shown, not as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but as a matter of
+ascertained fact, that there are things in heaven and earth not hitherto
+dreamed of in our scientific philosophy."
+
+
+
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+
+_And so our little tour into the occult is ended and we return into the
+glare of common things--things which we know and can touch and find a
+practical use for. If only a little of this light we hold so cheap were
+to illumine the tenebrous fastnesses we have just left, then, perhaps
+we, in our dull worldly way, might be able to assimilate the mystic to
+the common, the unseen to the seen, the unknown to the known. But we are
+not vouchsafed this white light; yet, even in the shadows to which our
+eyes have grown accustomed, we have heard enough to make us wonder and
+maybe make us doubtful when some voice, even such a voice as Matthew
+Arnold's, cries out to us: "Miracles are touched by Ithuriel's
+spear"--"Miracles do not happen."_
+
+_True, miracles do not happen: but there are events of frequent
+occurrence in this age, as in all ages of which we have a record, which
+are miraculous in the sense of their being supernormal--for which
+science offers no consistent explanation. Is not hypnotism a miracle? Is
+not telepathy a miracle? Is not the divining rod a miracle? Would Sir
+William Ramsay or Sir James Crichton-Browne throw these manifestations
+into the limbo of humbug and charlatanism? And supposing they, and such
+as they, continue incredulous--is not incredulity a fixed quantity in
+any society? Were men ever unanimous in their impressions--in their
+prepossessions, in the chromatic quality with which they steep every
+surrounding fact before they allow their critical faculties to be
+focussed upon it?_
+
+_It may be objected by the reader that I who have led him on this little
+tour into the wilderness of the occult have myself seen no ghosts. Where
+are my own experiences? Where the relation of my own personal contact
+with hypnotists, telepathists, mediums, mysteries? Would not that have
+been of interest? It may be so: if the phenomena appertaining to those
+in their best and most convincing quality were always to appear on a
+casual summons and if I were confided in by the public at large as a
+sane, unprejudiced witness._
+
+_Granted that I have seen no ghosts, I have at least done this: I have
+met the men--better men--who have. That at the beginning was the real
+purpose of my brief itinerary. I designed less a tour into the occult
+itself than an examination of witnesses for the occult whom I met on
+the literary bypaths of occultism. This I hope I have done, not
+satisfactorily--very hurriedly--yet honestly, and wanting like a
+returned traveller to tell folks more ignorant than myself of what I had
+heard of wonders which each man must, in the last resort, see for
+himself and meditate upon for himself._
+
+_The blind leading the blind--yea--but--he who hath ears let him hear!_
+
+_One word more. I should like to see a census of all the minds which
+embrace a belief in the truth of supernormal phenomena. It would
+astonish the sceptic. It would reveal to him that the attitude of
+society at large towards spiritualism and the other world is not the
+attitude of any but a fraction of the component parts of society--not
+even the evenly balanced attitude of Huxley towards God Almighty. We
+should see something quite different; something even distinct and apart
+from religion. We should see men, often without any religion at all
+properly speaking, breaking out into the ejaculation of Hamlet to
+Horatio and refusing to believe that certain occurrences in their
+experience are to be explained away by chance or delusion. And even in
+religious men the conviction seems to me secular rather than arising
+from orthodox faith._
+
+_"Far be it from me," wrote Emerson, "the impatience which cannot brook
+the supernatural, the vast: far be it from me the lust of explaining
+away all which appeals to the imagination and the great presentiments
+which haunt us. Willingly I, too, say Hail! to the unknown artful powers
+which transcend the ken of the understanding." Amen!_
+
+_Only yesterday I picked up a book, a sort of literary autobiography, by
+the author of "Sherlock Holmes," to find the following passage:--_
+
+_"I do not think the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It
+is one of several incidents in my life which have convinced me of
+spiritual interposition--of the promptings of some beneficent force
+outside ourselves which tries to help us where it can."_
+
+
+
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+       *       *       *       *       *
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+    THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM: Fraudulent and Genuine. By
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+    6d. net.
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+recorded the famous experiments of Sir William Crookes, Professor
+Richet, Doctor Lombroso, etc.
+
+As will appear from the description of the book's contents Mr
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+psychic phenomena is spurious or fraudulent, there yet remains a
+substantial residuum of cases apparently genuine which can only as yet
+be classed as supernormal.
+
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+    PROOFS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH. By R. J. THOMPSON. A Collation
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+
+A Collation of Opinions as to a Future Life by such Eminent Scientific
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+contains many arguments from a scientific standpoint that will interest
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+
+
+    DO THE DEAD DEPART? and Other Questions. By E. KATHARINE BATES,
+    author of "SEEN AND UNSEEN." Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
+
+This somewhat original way of putting a well-worn query, prepares the
+reader for another book from the pen of Miss E. Katharine Bates.
+
+In the present volume psychic matters are treated from a more
+philosophical standpoint than in "Seen and Unseen," which made
+no claim to be other than a truthful record of personal
+experiences. CONTENTS--SOME OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT RETURN--SOME
+INSTANCES OF SPIRIT RETURN--A MOTHER'S GUARDIANSHIP IN AMERICA--A
+CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF SPIRIT METHODS--BIBLICAL
+INCIDENTS--CLAIRVOYANCE--CLAIRAUDIENCE--RE-INCARNATION--AUTOMATIC
+WRITING--MATERIALISATION--HOW THE DEAD DEPART--GUARDIAN
+CHILDREN--APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Occultism And Common-sense, by Beckles Willson.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Occultism and Common-Sense
+
+Author: Beckles Willson
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2011 [EBook #36730]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
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+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/tp.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE</h1>
+
+<h2>BY BECKLES WILLSON</h2>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">With an Introduction by</span><br />
+PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Past President of the Society for Psychical Research</i></h3>
+
+<h3>LONDON<br />
+T. WERNER LAURIE<br />
+CLIFFORD'S INN<br />
+E.C.</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table>
+<tr><td><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span> </a></td><td align="right">vii</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I. <span class="smcap">Science's Attitude towards the "Supernatural"</span> </a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II. <span class="smcap">The Hypnotic State</span> </a></td><td align="right">13</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III. <span class="smcap">Phantasms of the Living</span> </a></td><td align="right">35</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV. <span class="smcap">Dreams</span> </a></td><td align="right">59</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V. <span class="smcap">Hallucinations</span> </a></td><td align="right">82</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI. <span class="smcap">Phantasms of the Dead</span> </a></td><td align="right">100</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII. <span class="smcap">On "Hauntings" and Kindred Phenomena</span> </a></td><td align="right">124</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII. <span class="smcap">The Dowsing or Divining Rod</span> </a></td><td align="right">159</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX. <span class="smcap">Mediumistic Phenomena</span> </a></td><td align="right">180</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X. <span class="smcap">More Physical Phenomena</span> </a></td><td align="right">201</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI. <span class="smcap">The Materialisation of "Ghosts"</span> </a></td><td align="right">217</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII. <span class="smcap">Spirit-Photography</span> </a></td><td align="right">235</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII. <span class="smcap">Clairvoyance</span> </a></td><td align="right">251</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV. <span class="smcap">Mrs Piper's Trance Utterances</span> </a></td><td align="right">271</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#AFTERWORD"><span class="smcap">Afterword</span> </a></td><td align="right">288</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#A_Catalogue_of_the_Publications_of_T_Werner_Laurie">Publications of T. Werner Laurie.</a></td><td align="right"></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>NOTE</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment
+thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in
+the columns of <i>The Westminster Gazette</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<h3><i>By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p><i>Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for
+Psychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from
+the testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and
+deception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto
+unrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be
+of supreme interest and importance.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic
+investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from
+the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would
+be a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve
+continuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of
+which should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these
+obscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry
+which has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less
+obscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has
+achieved is in no small measure</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><i> due to the wise counsel and ungrudging
+expenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry
+Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the
+details of its work.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must
+recognise the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has
+endeavoured to maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the
+evidential value varies enormously. The testimony of honest and even
+careful witnesses requires to be received with caution, owing to the
+intrusion of two sources of error to which untrained observers are very
+liable. These are unconscious</i> mal-observation <i>and unintentional</i>
+mis-description. <i>I cannot here enter into the proof of this statement,
+but it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a credulous observer
+but a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to these errors
+when, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical
+phenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has
+hitherto scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within
+my own knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had
+frequently scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in
+the "Proceedings of the Society for </i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span><i> Psychical Research," one day
+seriously informed me he had been converted to a belief in
+thought-transference by some conclusive experiments he had witnessed.
+Upon inquiring where these experiments took place I found it was at a
+public performance of a very inferior Zancig who was then touring
+through the provinces!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that "the light heart and open
+mind" with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew
+his labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he
+found himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the
+numerous and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society
+have had to face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the
+available evidence, and this study has convinced him&mdash;as it has
+convinced, so far as I know, every other painstaking and honest
+inquirer&mdash;that no theories based on fraud, illusion, nor even on
+telepathy, are adequate to account for the whole of the phenomena he has
+reviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr Willson tells us that he
+has been led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory explanation of
+these phenomena is the action of discarnate human beings&mdash;that is to
+say, the Spiritualistic hypothesis.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the
+small residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other
+hypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question
+arises, Is the evidence on which it is based sufficiently</i> abundant,
+trustworthy, <i>and</i> conclusive, <i>to warrant such a far-reaching
+statement? Here we must turn from the author to ascertain what has been
+the conclusion arrived at by those who have given long years to a
+searching experimental investigation of these phenomena, and who have
+approached the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit. The most
+noteworthy instance is the testimony of that shrewd and able
+investigator, the late Dr Hodgson. His patient and laborious inquiry
+into the trance phenomena of Mrs Piper ultimately led him to the
+conclusion arrived at by Mr Willson. Dr Hodgson's well-known exposure of
+Madame Blavatsky and other fraudulent mediums and his sane and cautious
+judgment render his opinion of great weight. Then, again, we find that
+this also was the conclusion to which Frederic Myers was gradually
+driven. And long prior to this it was the conclusion arrived at by that
+acute thinker, the late Professor de Morgan, and it is the conclusion
+strongly held</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> <i>by the great naturalist, Dr A. R. Wallace, and held also
+by several other eminent investigators I might name.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>So momentous a conclusion, if capable of such complete verification as
+to be universally accepted by science, would obviously throw all other
+discoveries into the background. I say if capable of being verified by
+scientific methods, but, although the weight of opinion will, in my
+opinion, ultimately lead to a very wide acceptance of this conclusion,
+yet it seems to me highly probable that the experimental discovery of
+the survival of human personality after death will always elude
+conclusive scientific demonstration. This particular field of psychical
+investigation belongs to an order other than that with which science
+deals; and, this being so, it can never be adequately investigated with
+the limited faculties we now possess.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In any case, as I said in a letter published in</i> The Times, <i>so long
+ago as September 1876, before science is in a position to frame any
+satisfactory hypothesis of the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena, a
+number of antecedent questions will have to be investigated and decided.
+Prominent among these, I urged more than thirty years ago, was the
+question whether ideas or information can be voluntarily or
+involuntarily</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span><i> transferred from one mind to another independently of the
+recognised organs of perception. Experiments I had then recently made
+led me to the conclusion that something new to science, which might
+provisionally be called thought-transference, now known in its wider
+aspect as telepathy, did really exist. This, if established, would, as I
+pointed out, unquestionably solve some of the so-called spirit
+communications which had so puzzled investigators. But the idea of
+thought-transference was at that time just as obnoxious to official
+science as Spiritualism. Mr Willson quotes the implacable disbelief,
+even in the possibility of telepathy, which that great man Helmholtz
+expressed to me. And it is amusing now to recall the fierce outcry
+aroused by the paper I read at the British Association meeting in 1876,
+when, after narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had
+witnessed, I asked that a committee of scientific men should be
+appointed to investigate preliminary question of the possibility of
+thought-transference.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> It is true the evidence on behalf</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span><i> of telepathy
+has since become so abundant that now few deny its probability, but even
+telepathy has not yet taken its place among the recognised scientific
+verities. I hope this recognition will not be long delayed, but until it
+occurs it is almost as illegitimate to use telepathy, as some do so
+freely, for the foundation of their theories of transcendental phenomena
+as to use the spiritualistic hypothesis itself.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>To those who have carefully studied the evidence there is, however,
+little doubt that telepathy does afford an adequate explanation of
+certain well-attested phenomena, such as phantasms of the living or
+dying person. And telepathy, which may now be considered as highly
+probable, leads on to the evidence for man's survival after death&mdash;to
+this I will return later on.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Then, again, recent investigations have established the fact that the
+range of human personality must be extended to include something more
+than our normal self-consciousness. Our Ego is not the simple unitary
+thing older psychologists taught, but a composite structure embracing a
+self that extends far beyond the limit of our conscious waking life.
+Just as experimental physics has shown that each pencil of sunlight
+embraces an almost endless succession of invisible rays as well as the
+visible radiation</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span><i> we perceive, so experimental psychology has shown
+that each human personality embraces an unconscious as well as a
+conscious self. Mr Myers, using Du Perl's conception of a threshold, has
+termed the former our</i> subliminal self. <i>And just as the invisible
+radiation of the sun can only be rendered perceptible by some agency
+outside our vision, so this subliminal self reveals itself only by some
+agency outside our own volition. The subliminal self not only contains
+the record of unheeded past impressions&mdash;a latent memory&mdash;but also has
+activities and faculties far transcending the range of our conscious
+self. In this it also resembles the invisible radiation of the sun,
+which is the main source of life and energy in this world.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and
+repair of our body and brain, which go on automatically and
+unconsciously within us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious
+personality. All life shares with us this miraculous automatism. No
+chemist, with all his appliances, can turn breadstuff into brainstuff or
+hay into milk. Further, the subliminal self seems to have faculties
+which can be emancipated from the limitations of our ordinary life.
+Glimpses of</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span><i> this we get when the conscious self is in abeyance, as in
+sleep, hypnosis, and trance. Here and there we find certain individuals
+through whom this sub- or supra-liminal self manifests itself more
+freely than through others; they have been termed "mediums," a word, it
+is true, that suggests Browning's "Sludge." But, as scientific
+investigation has shown all mesmerists and dowsers are not charlatans,
+so it has shown all mediums are not rogues.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>This extension of human faculty, revealing, as it does, more profoundly
+the mysterious depths of our being, enables us to explain many phenomena
+that have been attributed to discarnate human beings. The question
+arises, Does it explain all so-called Spiritualistic phenomena? In my
+opinion, and in that of others who have given more time to their
+critical investigation than I have, it does not. At present we have to
+grope our way, but the ground is being cleared, and the direction which
+the future explorer of these unknown regions has to take is becoming
+more evident.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Occultism and Common-Sense</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"</h3>
+
+
+<p>When I first ventured into the wide and misty domain of Occultism, with
+a light heart I set forth and an open mind. My sole aim was to
+ascertain, as far as the means at the disposal of an ordinary man with
+little of the mystic in his composition would allow, what degree of
+probability attached to published phenomena, which the ordinary laws of
+Nature, as most of us understand them, could not satisfactorily explain.</p>
+
+<p>At the threshold of my inquiry, one prominent and, as it seemed to me,
+disconcerting fact confronted me&mdash;namely, that although for a couple of
+generations "supernatural"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> manifestations had been promiscuously
+exhibited before the public, challenging full investigation and inviting
+belief; although almost every day the newspapers report some striking
+case of spirit apparition or materialisation, coincident dreams,
+clairvoyance, trance utterances, or possession, often seemingly well
+attested; yet in spite of all this testimony academic science continued
+to dispute the very basis of such phenomena. Any investigator must needs
+recognise here a very anomalous situation. On the one hand are, let us
+say, half-a-million people, often highly intelligent, cultured, sane
+people, firmly protesting that they have witnessed certain astonishing
+occult manifestations, and on the other hand the Royal Society and the
+British Association, and other organised scientific bodies established
+for the investigation of truth, absolutely refusing to admit such
+evidence or to regard it seriously. Forty years ago Faraday, besought to
+give his opinion, in this wise wrote: "They who say they see these
+things are not competent witnesses of facts. It would be condescension
+on my part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> to pay any more attention to them." Faraday's attitude was
+that of Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Agassiz. The first-named, however,
+rather gave away his prejudice by saying: "Supposing the phenomena to be
+genuine, they do not interest me." Tyndall's utterance also deserves to
+be recalled: "There are people amongst us who, it is alleged, can
+produce effects before which the discoveries of Newton pale. There are
+men of science who would sell all that they have, and give the proceeds
+to the poor, for a glimpse of phenomena which are mere trifles to the
+spiritualist." He added: "The world will have religion of some kind,
+even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of
+spiritualism." Spencer's words were: "I have settled the question in my
+own mind on à priori grounds." Professor Carpenter called spiritualism
+"a most mischievous epidemic delusion, comparable to the witchcraft
+delusion of the seventeenth century."</p>
+
+<p>What, then, has happened to strengthen the case of the believers in
+ghosts, clairvoyance, thought-transference, sensory automatism,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> in,
+say, the last quarter of a century? What new evidence exists which would
+make the mid-Victorian scientific men reconsider their position? Suppose
+Faraday and Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall, were alive to-day, would they
+see reason to alter their opinions?</p>
+
+<p>I remember once&mdash;and I now give it as typical&mdash;overhearing a psychical
+experience. It was in a first-class compartment on a train coming from
+Wimbledon. One of my fellow-passengers, an intelligent, well-spoken man
+of about thirty-five, was relating to three friends the following
+extraordinary story. As nearly as I can recollect, I give the narrator's
+own words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"One week ago last Tuesday, at eleven o'clock at night, my
+wife, who had just retired to bed upstairs, called out to me:
+'Arthur! Arthur!' in a tone of alarm. I sprang up and ran
+upstairs to see what was the matter. The servants had all gone
+to bed. 'Arthur,' said my wife, 'I've just seen mother,' and
+she began to cry. 'Why,' I said, 'your mother's at
+Scarborough.' 'I know,' she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> said; 'but she appeared before me
+just there' (pointing to the foot of the bed) 'two minutes ago
+as plainly as you do.' Well, the next morning there was a
+telegram on the breakfast-table: 'Mother, died at eleven last
+night.' Now, how do you account for it?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There was silence for a full minute.</p>
+
+<p>"A wonderful coincidence. Your wife's hallucination coincided with her
+mother's death!"</p>
+
+<p>Another occupant of the carriage caught up the word:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, coincidence. A thing which mightn't happen once in a million
+years."</p>
+
+<p>Nobody else ventured a remark. Yet they seemed unconvinced. There was no
+one to tell them&mdash;even I did not know then&mdash;that these "coincidences"
+were constantly happening, every year, perhaps every month; that an
+intelligent body of men&mdash;the Society for Psychical Research&mdash;has made a
+census of such hallucinations, all apparently well attested; that
+newspapers devoted to occult<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> matters constantly record these things;
+that volumes&mdash;monthly, weekly, almost&mdash;fairly pour from the press
+detailing, expounding, dissecting, elaborating such evidence; that the
+theory of coincidence has already been rejected by many men of the first
+rank of science; and that official science itself is reluctantly
+reconsidering its position in more than one direction.</p>
+
+<p>Yet so slowly do the masses move in intellectual life, so tardily do
+truths, concerning not merely occult but physical and material
+investigation, percolate through to the workaday world, that the
+researches, the activities, the ascertained truths of students of
+psychical phenomena are as a closed book. Perhaps the attitude of apathy
+with which occult phenomena and occult science are regarded by the
+average man is not unnatural. To him all miracles that are not
+Scriptural and ancient and, as it were, institutional are highly
+improbable, if not impossible. All super-naturalism, he will tell you,
+is morbid. "There may be something in these things," he says, "but it is
+not proved. As for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> spiritualism, my belief is that mediums are
+impostors. Most of the spiritualists I have seen are 'cranks'&mdash;they are
+certainly dupes&mdash;and I have no doubt that if I interested myself in
+these matters I should end by becoming also a 'crank.'"</p>
+
+<p>This I maintain is the position of the ordinarily educated normal man.</p>
+
+<p>"The moment," wrote Lord Lytton, "one deals with things beyond our
+comprehension, and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled,
+we revolt from the probable, as it appears to the senses of those who
+have not experienced what we have." Now, that is just what the candid
+inquirer must avoid throughout his inquiry. It is often difficult to
+resist employing supernormal hypotheses; but, until normal hypotheses
+are exhausted, the resistance must be made. On the other hand, it is
+well to bear in mind Mr Andrew Lang's timely remark, "there is a point
+at which the explanations of common-sense arouse scepticism."</p>
+
+<p>At all events, not even the most materialistic man-in-the-music-hall,
+with two eyes in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> his head, can deny that the great wave of occultism,
+which twenty years ago seemed to be receding, is again returning with
+greater force and volume, submerging many of the old sceptical theories
+and wetting even the utterly callous and ignorant with its spray. It is
+not so long ago that the very fact of hypnotism was doubted&mdash;Mesmer was
+long regarded as a mere quack&mdash;but to-day the induced trance is
+universally credited. To hypnotism must the miracle of telepathy now be
+added? Has it really been ascertained, after a thousand experiments and
+beyond the possibility of error, that a mode of apprehension exists
+which has no connection with the five senses? For twenty-five years the
+members of the Society of Psychical Research have carried on their
+investigations of both sleeping and waking subjects, under every
+conceivable condition, and are at last fain to announce that such a
+mystic faculty does exist by which brain can communicate with brain
+without any known sensory agency.</p>
+
+<p>As to the kind of "ghost" story recorded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> above, what an exact analogy
+it bears to the following, to be found in a recent volume of the
+"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research!" The statement was
+received from a Madame Broussiloff, of St Petersburg:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On the 16th (28th) of February of this year, between nine and
+ten o'clock in the evening, I, the undersigned, was sitting in
+our drawing-room&mdash;the small one&mdash;facing the large drawing-room,
+which I could see in its entire length. My husband, his
+brother, with his wife, and my mother, were also sitting in the
+same room with me round a large round table. I was writing down
+my household accounts for the day, while the others were
+carrying on some gay conversation. Having accidentally raised
+my head and looked into the large drawing-room, I noticed, with
+astonishment, that a large grey shadow had passed from the door
+of the dining-room to that of the antechamber; and it came into
+my head that the figure I had seen bore a striking resemblance
+in stature to Colonel Ave-Meinander, an acquaintance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> of ours,
+who had lived in this very lodging for a long time. At the
+first moment, I wished to say at once that a ghost had just
+flashed before me, but stopped, as I was afraid of being
+laughed at by my husband's brother and his wife, and also of
+being scolded by my husband, who, in view of the excitement
+which I showed when such phenomena were taking place, tried to
+convince me that they were the fruits of my fancy. As I knew
+that Meinander was alive and well, and was commander of the
+Malorossüsky 40th Regiment of Dragoons, I did not say anything
+then; but when I was going to bed I related to my mother what I
+had seen, and the next morning could not refrain from
+mentioning it to my husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Our astonishment was extreme when, on the 18th of February
+(2nd of March), we learned Nicholas Ottovitch Ave-Meinander had
+actually died after a short illness on the 16th (28th) of
+February at nine o'clock in the evening, in the town of
+Strashovo, where his regiment is stationed.</p>
+
+<p>"The above account is confirmed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> percipient's mother,
+Marie von Hagemeister, and by the husband, Colonel Alexis
+Alexeievitch Broussiloff. Both state solemnly that Colonel
+Meinander died at nine P.M. on the evening of 16th February
+(28th) at Stashovo, 1200 versts from St Petersburg."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To explain this phenomenon in the terms of telepathy, the grey shadow
+seen by Madame Broussiloff was not a ghost, not the "bodiless spirit in
+the likeness of a man," but "a waking dream projected from the brain of
+the seer under the impulse of the dying man's thought."</p>
+
+<p>But telepathy itself requires consideration and explanation. Sir William
+Crookes has repeatedly given publicity to his theory of brain-waves and
+to a kindred conception of ether substance, along which intelligence can
+be transmitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to virtually
+interminable distances.</p>
+
+<p>That mind should effect mind in a new mode may mean no more than that
+brain can act upon brain by means of ethereal vibrations hitherto
+unsuspected. The power itself may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> be but a lingering vestige of our
+inheritance from primeval times, a long-disused faculty "dragged from
+the dim lumber-room of a primitive consciousness, and galvanised into a
+belated and halting activity."</p>
+
+<p>Or, on the other hand, may not such faculty be regarded not as
+vestigial, but as rudimentary? Telepathy, if we follow the gifted author
+of "Human Personality," is a promise for the future, not an idle
+inheritance from the past.</p>
+
+<p>Our business now is, all mystic speculations apart, to consider the
+phenomena in the order in which, if not yet actually accepted, they
+would seem to evoke least opposition from the academic science of the
+day. What is the net result of the evidence for all classes of
+supernormal phenomena? That I shall endeavour to point out, as concisely
+and lucidly as I can, in the following chapters.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HYPNOTIC STATE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Not least of the wonders of modern psychical research is the discovery
+that nothing in all the phenomena is new&mdash;that under other names and by
+other races every sort of manifestation was familiar to the most remote
+peoples. This would certainly seem to meet the argument of the
+physicist&mdash;it is not necessary to refer again to Professor Tyndall's
+uncomplimentary phraseology&mdash;who declares that all this popular
+occultism is a product of the last generation or two. Take hypnotism.
+Hypnotism (or mesmerism) was formerly alleged to be an emanation from
+the body&mdash;an effluence of intense will-power. The belief in such an
+emanation is centuries old. "By the magic power of the will," wrote
+Paracelsus, "a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the
+other side hear what is said on that side ... the ethereal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> body of a
+man may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles or
+more." Twenty years ago this creed was laughed out of court by Huxley,
+Tyndall, and other leading men of science. To-day we are told by those
+who have witnessed the experiments of Charcot, Janet, and others that
+"the existence of an aura of spirit-force surrounding the body like an
+atmosphere, in some cases at all events, can be proved as a physical
+fact."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the explanation, whatever the definition of this miraculous
+agency, hypnotism is now universally accepted. The manifestations of its
+power must convince the most sceptical. A spell-bound subject is
+frequently made to share the sensations of the hypnotist, his ocular
+perceptions and his sense of touch. In the hypnotic sleep the subject
+easily becomes insensible to pain. A member of the Society reports that
+he has seen a youth in this condition who suffered gladly the most
+injurious attacks upon his own person&mdash;who would allow his hair to be
+pulled, his ears pinched, his fingers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> even to be scorched by lighted
+matches. But the same youth would next moment indignantly resent the
+slightest injury upon his hypnotiser, who would at the time be standing
+at the other end of the room.</p>
+
+<p>One thing in common all the hypnotic methods appear to possess, the
+diversion of attention from external surroundings and the working of a
+sub-consciousness in a manner not characteristic of the ordinary life of
+the subject. In cases described by Mr Greenwood no difficulty was
+encountered in impersonations suggested to the subject unless they
+savoured too much of the ridiculous. "Thus," he writes, "a suggestion
+that M., the subject, was myself and that I was he succeeded; and in his
+reverse capacity he continued the course of experiments upon himself,
+devising several original and ingenious varieties to which I, for the
+sake of the experiment, acquiesced in subjecting myself. He also behaved
+with considerable dignity and verve as King Edward VII., until I threw a
+match at his head, a proceeding which appeared to conflict so strongly
+with dramatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> verisimilitude that he lapsed back into his ordinary
+hypnotic condition, nor could I reinduce the impersonation. On the other
+hand, statements that he was the Emperor of China, and that he was a
+nurse and I a baby, failed to carry any conviction, being either
+received with passive consent or rejected with scorn." It is interesting
+to note that in the waking state of the subject he explained that he was
+only conscious that he was not the characters he was bidden to assume,
+and if asked would have said as much, but that he was irresistibly
+impelled to act as though he were.</p>
+
+<p>The production of sleep in the subject at a distance is one of the
+latest attested marvels of hypnotism. The long series of experiments
+made in France by Professor Richet and Professor Janet would appear to
+attest this power. In some trials made at Havre, in which the
+experimenters were Professor Janet and Dr Gibert, the subject of the
+experiment was a certain Madame B. or "Léonie," then a patient of Dr
+Gibert. The facts were recorded by the late F. W.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Myers and his
+brother, Dr A. T. Myers, who were present:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"We selected (he states) by lot an hour (eleven A.M.) at which
+M. Gibert should will, from his dispensary (which is close to
+his house), that Madame B. should go to sleep in the Pavilion.
+It was agreed that a rather longer time should be allowed for
+the process to take effect, as it had been observed that she
+sometimes struggled against the influence and averted the
+effect for a time by putting her hands in cold water, etc. At
+11.25 we entered the Pavilion quietly, and almost at once she
+descended from her room to the <i>salon</i>, profoundly asleep. We
+did not, of course, mention M. Gibert's attempt of the previous
+night. But she told us in her sleep that she had been very ill
+in the night, and repeatedly exclaimed: 'Pourquoi M. Gibert
+m'a-t-il fait souffrir? Mais j'ai lavé les mains
+continuellement.' This is what she does when she wishes to
+avoid being influenced.</p>
+
+<p>"In the evening (22nd) we all dined at M. Gibert's, and in the
+evening M. Gibert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> made another attempt to put her to sleep at
+a distance from his house in the Rue Sery&mdash;she being at the
+Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme&mdash;and to bring her to his house by an
+effort of will. At 8.55 he retired to his study; and MM.
+Ochorowicz, Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers went to the
+Pavilion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the
+house. At 9.22 Dr Myers observed Madame B. coming half way out
+of the garden gate, and again retreating. Those who saw her
+more closely observed that she was plainly in the
+somnambulistic state and was wandering about and muttering. At
+9.25 she came out with eyes persistently closed, so far as
+could be seen, walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier
+without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, though
+not by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared afterwards
+that the bonne had seen her go into the <i>salon</i> at 8.45 and
+issue thence asleep at 9.15; had not looked in between those
+times.) She avoided lamp-posts, vehicles, etc., but crossed and
+recrossed the street repeatedly. No one went in front of her or
+spoke to her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> After eight or ten minutes she grew more
+uncertain in gait, and paused as though she would fall. Dr
+Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure; it was 9.35. At about
+9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 reached the street in front
+of M. Gibert's house. There she met him, but did not notice
+him, and walked into his house, where she rushed hurriedly from
+room to room on the ground floor. M. Gibert had to take her
+hand before she recognised him. She then grew calm.</p>
+
+<p>"On the 23rd M. Janet lunched in our company and retired to his
+own house at 4.30 (a time chosen by lot), to try to put her to
+sleep from thence. At 5.5 we all entered the <i>salon</i> of the
+Pavilion, and found her asleep with shut eyes, but sewing
+vigorously (being in that stage in which movements once
+suggested are automatically continued). Passing into the
+talkative stage, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez
+fait dormir à quatre heures et demi.' The impression as to the
+hour may have been a suggestion received from M. Janet's mind.
+We tried to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> make her believe that it was M. Gibert who had
+sent her to sleep, but she maintained that she had felt that it
+was M. Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"On 24th April the whole party chanced to meet at M. Janet's
+house at three P.M., and he then, at my suggestion, entered his
+study to will that Madame B. should sleep. We waited in his
+garden, and at 3.20 proceeded together to the Pavilion, which I
+entered first at 3.30, and found Madame B. profoundly sleeping
+over her sewing, having ceased to sew. Becoming talkative, she
+said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez commandé.' She said
+that she fell asleep at 3.5 P.M."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Of the twenty-five trials made in the course of two months, eighteen
+were wholly and four partially successful.</p>
+
+<p>This somnolent state might, it is thought, have been induced by
+telepathy; in fact, as we shall see, telepathy will in some quarters
+have to bear the burden of most, if not all, of the phenomena under
+investigation.</p>
+
+<p>Not only is the hypnotic subject frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> induced to do the will of
+the operator, but he may actually have presented to his intelligence
+certain ideas or images, material or imaginary, known only to the
+hypnotiser. After following carefully all the experiments conducted by
+the late Professor Sidgwick and others, in the presence of witnesses of
+repute, I do not see how it is possible to deny the fact of telepathy.
+In these experiments the subject or percipient was always hypnotised,
+remaining so to a varying degree throughout the experiment.</p>
+
+<p>Albeit, even as regards this thought-transference, we must be on our
+guard against a too rash acceptance of unknown or supernormal agencies
+in every bona-fide experiment. Certainly all experiments of the
+hypnotiser do not <i>ipso facto</i> prove that any new method of apprehension
+has been employed. The hypnotised subject is extremely susceptible to
+suggestions, and might even glean an indication of what is proceeding
+through the look, the gestures, the very breathing, of those present.
+The utmost precautions, therefore, were taken by the Society<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> for
+Psychical Research when it began its experimental inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of the picture was always carefully chosen by one of the
+experimenters&mdash;Mrs Sidgwick or Miss Alice Johnson. Any possibility of
+the percipient being able to guess at the subject through chance,
+association, or ideas was rigorously excluded. To prevent any hint being
+unconsciously imparted by the third experimenter, Mr G. A. Smith,
+silence was enjoined upon him, and he was placed behind the percipient
+or in another room; yet the percipient actually saw and described the
+projecting impression as if it were a real picture before his eyes. When
+Mr Smith went downstairs with Miss Johnson he was asked by her to think
+of an eagle pursuing a sparrow. Mrs Sidgwick, who remained upstairs with
+P., the percipient, in a few minutes induced him to see a round disc of
+light on the imaginary lantern-sheet, and then he saw in it "something
+like a bird," which disappeared immediately. He went on looking (with
+closed eyes, of course), and presently he thought he saw "something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+like a bird&mdash;something like an eagle." After a pause he said: "I thought
+I saw a figure there&mdash;I saw 5. The bird's gone. I see 5 again; now it's
+gone. The bird came twice." Mr Smith then came upstairs, and P. had
+another impression of an eagle. He was told that the eagle was right,
+and there was something else besides, no hint being given of what the
+other thing was. He then said that the first thing he saw "was a little
+bird&mdash;a sparrow, perhaps&mdash;he could not say&mdash;about the size of a sparrow;
+then that disappeared, and he saw the eagle. He had told Mrs Sidgwick so
+at the time."</p>
+
+<p>We see the mental machinery at work in another case, where the subject
+agreed upon was "The Babes in the Wood." To begin with, P. sat with
+closed eyes, but, when no impression came, Mr Smith opened his eyes,
+without speaking, and made him look for the picture on a card. After we
+had waited a little while in vain, Mr Smith said to him: "Do you see
+something like a straw hat?" P. assented to this, and then began to
+puzzle out something more: "A white apron, something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> dark&mdash;a child. It
+can't be another child, unless it's a boy&mdash;a boy and a girl&mdash;the boy to
+the right and the girl to the left. Little girl with white socks on and
+shoes with straps." Mr Smith asked: "What are they doing? Is it two
+children on a raft at sea?" P.: "No; it's like trees in the
+background&mdash;a copse or something. Like a fairy-story&mdash;like babes in a
+wood or something."</p>
+
+<p>We see it in an even more pronounced degree where the subject sat on a
+sailing boat. Miss Johnson, who did not know what the subject of the
+picture was, asked Miss B. whether it was anything like an animal. Miss
+B. said: "No; got some prong sort of things&mdash;something at the bottom
+like a little boat. What can that be up in the air? Cliffs, I
+suppose&mdash;cliffs in the air high up&mdash;it's joining the boat. Oh, sails!&mdash;a
+sailing-boat&mdash;not cliffs&mdash;sails." This was not all uttered
+consecutively, but partly in answer to questions put by Miss Johnson;
+but, as Miss Johnson was ignorant of the supposed picture, her questions
+could, of course, give no guidance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Many experiments have been made in the transference of imaginary scenes,
+where both operator and subject have attempted to attain a conscious
+unity of ideas by means of rough drawings. A slight sketch was made,
+which was then projected to the brain of the percipient, who proceeded
+to reproduce the unseen, often with amazing fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>In these experiments actual contact was forbidden, to avoid the risk of
+unconscious indications by pressure. In many cases, however, the agent
+and percipient have been in the same room, and there has therefore still
+been some possible risk of unconscious whispering; but this risk has
+been successfully avoided. It yet remains doubtful how far close
+proximity really operates in aid of telepathy, or how far its advantage
+is a mere effect of self-suggestion&mdash;on the part either of agent or
+percipient. Some experimenters&mdash;notably the late Mr Kirk and Mr
+Glardon&mdash;have obtained results of just the same type at distances of
+half-a-mile or more. In the case of induction of hypnotic trance, Dr
+Gibert, as we have seen, attained at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> distance of nearly a mile
+results which are commonly believed to exact close and actual presence.</p>
+
+<p>Hypnotic agencies, according to Myers, may be simplified into suggestion
+and self-suggestion. The same author defines suggestion as "successful
+appeal to the subliminal self." Many striking cases of moral reforms
+produced by this means have been recorded by Dr Auguste Voisin. For
+instance:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In the summer of 1884 there was at the Salpêtrière a young
+woman of a deplorable type. Jeanne Sch&mdash;&mdash; was a criminal
+lunatic, filthy in habits, violent in demeanour, and with a
+lifelong history of impurity and theft. M. Voisin, who was one
+of the physicians on the staff, undertook to hypnotise her on
+31st May, at a time when she could only be kept quiet by the
+strait jacket and <i>bonnet d'irrigation</i>, or perpetual cold
+douche to the head. She would not&mdash;indeed, she could not&mdash;look
+steadily at her operator, but raved and spat at him. M. Voisin
+kept his face close to hers and followed her eyes wherever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> she
+moved them. In about ten minutes a stertorous sleep ensued, and
+in five minutes more she passed into a sleep-waking state, and
+began to talk incoherently. The process was repeated on many
+days, and gradually she became sane when in the trance, though
+she still raved when awake. Gradually, too, she became able to
+obey in waking hours commands impressed on her in the
+trance&mdash;first trivial orders (to sweep the room and so forth),
+then orders involving a marked change of behaviour. Nay, more;
+in the hypnotic state she voluntarily expressed repentance for
+her past life, made a confession which involved more evil than
+the police were cognisant of (though it agreed with facts
+otherwise known), and finally of her own impulse made good
+resolves for the future. Two years later (31st July 1886) M.
+Voisin wrote that she was then a nurse in a Paris hospital, and
+that her conduct was irreproachable. It appeared then that this
+poor woman, whose history since the age of thirteen had been
+one of reckless folly and vice, had become capable of the
+steady,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> self-controlled work of a nurse at a hospital, the
+reformed character having first manifested itself in the
+hypnotic state, partly in obedience to suggestion, and partly
+as the natural result of the tranquilisation of morbid
+passions."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is a mass of evidence to testify to the marvellous cures that have
+been effected in this way. Kleptomania, dipsomania, nicotinism,
+morphinomania, and several varieties of phobies have all been known to
+yield to hypnotic suggestion. Nor is it always necessary that the mind
+of the patient should be influenced by another person; self-suggestion
+is at times equally efficacious. Here is a case in point, taken from
+"Proceedings," vol. xi. p. 427. The narrator is Dr D. J. Parsons.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Sixteen years ago I was a little sick; took half-a-grain of
+opium, and lay down upon the bed. Soon, as I began to feel the
+tranquillising effect of the opium, I saw three men approaching
+me; the one in front said: 'You smoke too much tobacco.' I
+replied: 'I know I do.' He then said: 'Why don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> you quit it?'
+I answered by saying: 'I have been thinking about it, but I am
+afraid I can't.' He extended his right arm, and placing his
+forefinger very near my face gave it a few very significant
+shakes, said, in a very impressive manner: 'You will never want
+to use tobacco any more as long as you live.' He continued by
+saying: 'You swear sometimes.' I answered: 'Yes.' He said:
+'Will you promise to quit?' I intended to say 'Yes,' but just
+as I was about to utter the word yes, instantly a change came
+over me, and I felt like I had been held under some unknown
+influence, which was suddenly withdrawn or exhausted. I had
+been a constant smoker for more than twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>"Since the occurrence of the above incident I have not touched
+tobacco; have felt ever since like it would poison me, and I
+now feel like one draw at the pipe would kill me instantly. My
+desire for tobacco was suddenly and effectually torn out by the
+roots, but perhaps I shall never know just how it was done.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">D. J. Parsons</span>, M.D.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sweet Springs, Missouri.</i>"</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It would seem in the above case that the suggestibility was heightened
+by the use of opium, which at the same time developed a monitory
+hallucination.</p>
+
+<p>Leading men of science now hold that the popular belief in the dangers
+of hypnotism is grossly exaggerated, it being far less open to abuse
+than chloroform. Nevertheless some danger is only too manifest, and
+Parliament may yet be asked to do what Continental governments have
+done&mdash;viz. to make the practice of hypnotism, save under proper medical
+supervision, a punishable offence. As an illustration of these dangers I
+may mention the testimony of an operator given before the Psychical
+Research Society. Owing to the ready susceptibility of one subject he
+began to fear that he might acquire an influence which might be
+inconvenient to both, and so enjoined that he should be unable to
+hypnotise him unless he previously recited a formula asking the operator
+to do so. After several failures he states: "I eventually succeeded in
+impressing this so strongly upon him that it became<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> absolutely
+effective, and the formula became requisite, for I could not, even with
+the utmost co-operation on his part, influence him in the least. One
+night, however, after retiring to bed I was surprised by his entering
+the room with the request that I should waken him. I expressed
+astonishment and asked whether he was really asleep. He assured me that
+he was, and explained that while he had been conversing in the
+drawing-room after dinner, other persons being present, he had
+experimentally recited the formula <i>sotto voce</i> and had immediately,
+unperceived by myself or others in the room, gone off in the hypnotic
+state and could not get out of it again. I protested that this was an
+extremely unfair trick both on himself and on me, and to guard against
+its recurrence I enjoined that in future a mere repetition of the
+formula should not suffice, but that it should be written down, signed
+and handed to me. This has hitherto proved completely successful, and in
+the absence of the document no efforts on the part of either of us has
+had any effect whatever."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It would seem, however, that the hypnotic subject is by no means
+entirely at the mercy of the operator. Thus Dr Milne Bramwell, in
+"Proceedings," vol. xii. pp. 176-203, cites a number of cases in which
+suggestions had been refused by hypnotic subjects. He also mentions two
+subjects who had rejected certain suggestions and accepted others. A
+Miss F., for example, recited a poem, but would not help herself to a
+glass of water from the sideboard; while a Mr G. would play one part,
+but not others, and committed an imaginary crime. Dr Bramwell comes to
+the following conclusion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The difference between the hypnotised and the normal subject,
+as it appears to me from a long series of observed facts, is
+not so much in conduct as in increased mental and physical
+powers. Any changes in the moral sense, I have noticed, have
+invariably been for the better, the hypnotised subject evincing
+superior refinement. As regards obedience to suggestion, there
+is apparently little to choose between the two. A hypnotised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+subject, who has acquired the power of manifesting various
+physical and mental phenomena, will do so, in response to
+suggestion, for much the same reasons as one in the normal
+condition.... When the act demanded is contrary to the moral
+sense, it is usually refused by the normal subject, and
+invariably by the hypnotised one."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The hypnotic state evinces an extraordinary extension of faculty. Dr
+Bramwell's remarkable series of experiments on "time appreciation" shows
+that orders were carried out by the subject at expiration of such
+periods as 20,290 minutes from the beginning of the order. In her normal
+state the female subject of this experiment was incapable of correctly
+calculating how many days and hours 20,290 minutes would make, and even
+in her hypnotised condition could reckon only with errors; yet, what is
+singular to relate, even when a blunder was made in the former
+calculation the order of the hypnotist was none the less fulfilled when
+the correct period expired. The conclusion is not easy to avoid:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> that
+beneath the stratum of human consciousness brought to the surface by
+hypnotism there is one&mdash;perhaps two&mdash;"subliminal" strata more alert and
+more capable than our ordinary workaday ego.</p>
+
+<p>What light this theory of a "subliminal" self will shed on our subject
+we will see when we come to discuss clairvoyance and the trance
+utterances of the spiritualistic "medium."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING</h3>
+
+
+<p>We have seen that the hypnotic agent is able to project from his own
+brain certain thoughts and images into the mind of the percipient.
+"When," writes Professor Barrett, "the subject was in the state of
+trance or profound hypnotism, I noticed that not only sensations, but
+also ideas or emotions, occurring in the operator appeared to be
+reproduced in the subject without the intervention of any sign, or
+visible or audible communication.... In many other ways I convinced
+myself that the existence of a distinct idea in my own mind gave rise to
+some image of the idea in the subject's mind, not always a clear image,
+but one that could not fail to be recognised as a more or less distorted
+reflection of my own thought. The important point is that every care was
+taken to prevent any unconscious muscular action of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the face, or
+otherwise giving any indication to the subject."</p>
+
+<p>This presumed mode of communication between one individual and another,
+without the intervention of any known sense, Professor Barrett, arguing
+on electrical analogies, is inclined to suggest might be due to some
+form of nervous induction. But is this faculty restricted in its
+operation to a hypnotised subject? If it were, the significance of the
+phenomena would be very much lessened. We should leave telepathy out of
+our account. But it is not so restricted. The ideas and images are
+capable of being projected not only to a hypnotised person, but to one
+who is apparently not under any hypnotic influence whatever. Yet we
+still must be careful of how we call in the aid of any "supernatural"
+agency to account for the influences I am about to relate&mdash;the
+translation of ideas and motor impulses from one person to another
+without the aid of any known sense. The transference of pictures which
+we described in the last article has been achieved in hundreds of cases
+by an agent upon a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> hypnotised percipient. Here we have telepathy
+apparently at work, but not, however, at any great distance, nor
+successful in conjuring up really vivid or ominous hallucinations. The
+scientific term for these is "sensory automatisms," and many instances
+of these are given by Edmund Gurney, author of "Phantasms of the
+Living."</p>
+
+<p>At an early period the Society for Psychical Research began a "Census of
+Hallucinations," which, with Gurney's book, now renders it possible for
+us to consider these phenomena with some certainty. The net result of
+all this investigation would seem to demonstrate that a large number of
+sensory automatisms occur amongst sane and healthy persons. We will
+later consider what difficulty lies in the way of attributing to
+telepathy the bulk of these phenomena. There is a widely accepted theory
+that telepathy is propagated by brain-waves, or, in Sir W. Crooke's
+phraseology, by ether-waves, of even smaller amplitude and greater
+frequency than those which carry X-rays. Such waves are supposed to pass
+from one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> brain to another, arousing in the second brain an excitation
+of image similar to the excitation or image from which they start in the
+first place. It has been pointed out that on this view there is no
+theoretical reason for limiting telepathy to human beings. Why may not
+the impulse pass between men and the lower animals, or between the lower
+animals themselves?</p>
+
+<p>I myself have exhumed from the records a case in point. General J. C.
+Thompson describes a remarkable apparition of a dog, with every mark of
+reality, at the time when the dog was killed in a city more than a
+hundred miles distant. General Thompson says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Jim, the dog whose ghost I refer to, was a beautiful collie,
+the pet of my family, residing at Cheyenne, Wyoming. His
+affectionate nature surpassed even that of his kind. He had a
+wide celebrity in the city as 'the laughing dog,' due to the
+fact that he manifested his recognition of acquaintances and
+love for his friends by a joyful laugh, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> distinctively such
+as that of any human being.</p>
+
+<p>"One evening in the fall of 1905, about 7.30 P.M., I was
+walking with a friend on Seventeenth Street in Denver,
+Colorado. As we approached the entrance to the First National
+Bank, we observed a dog lying in the middle of the pavement,
+and on coming up to him I was amazed at his perfect likeness to
+Jim in Cheyenne. The identity was greatly fortified by his
+loving recognition of me, and the peculiar laugh of Jim's
+accompanying it. I said to my friend that nothing but the 105
+miles between Denver and Cheyenne would keep me from making
+oath to the dog being Jim, whose peculiarities I explained to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"The dog astral or ghost was apparently badly hurt&mdash;he could
+not rise. After petting him and giving him a kind adieu, we
+crossed over Stout Street and stopped to look at him again. He
+had vanished. The next morning's mail brought a letter from my
+wife saying that Jim had been accidentally killed the evening
+before at 7.30 P.M. I shall always believe it was Jim's ghost I
+saw."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This story, circumstantially narrated by an American general, recalls Mr
+Rider Haggard's celebrated dream that he saw his dog, Bob, in a dying
+condition, probably about three hours after the dog's death.</p>
+
+<p>But we need not pause on such bypaths as these.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the simplest form of thought-transference at a distance is that
+in which we find a vague mental unrest, unaccompanied by any visual or
+auditory hallucination. Cases are not infrequently met with where the
+patient suffers from acute depression and anxiety which are not
+connected at the time with any definite event. <i>The Journal of the
+Society for Psychical Research</i>, July, 1895, yields the following.</p>
+
+<p>Miss W. writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On January 17th of this year (1895) I was haunted all day with
+an indefinable dread, amounting to positive terror if I yielded
+in the least to its influence. A little before six o'clock I
+went to my maid's room and casually inquired of her whether
+she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> believed in presentiments. She answered: 'Don't let them
+get hold of you; it is a bad habit.' I replied: 'This is no
+ordinary presentiment. All day long I have felt that something
+terrible is impending; of what nature I do not know. I have
+fought against it, but to no purpose. It is a terror I am
+positively <i>possessed</i> with.' I was proceeding to describe it
+in fuller detail, when my mother entered the room with a
+telegram in her hand. One glance at her face told me that my
+foreboding had not been a groundless depression. The telegram
+was to the effect that my brother had been taken very ill at
+Cambridge and needed my mother at once to nurse him.</p>
+
+<p>"I presume that the intensity of my foreboding was due to the
+very serious nature of his illness.</p>
+
+<p>"I experienced at different times what are in common parlance
+termed 'presentiments'; but only on one other occasion has the
+same peculiar <i>terror</i> (a chilling conviction of impending
+trouble) beset me."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is corroborated both by the maid and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Miss W.'s brother, an
+undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, who had met with a serious
+accident the same afternoon. The affection between brother and sister
+was, it is related, very close.</p>
+
+<p>Of a well-known type of case the following is a good example. The Hon.
+Mrs Fox Powys is the narrator:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"July 1882.</p>
+
+<p>"I was expecting my husband home, and shortly after the time he
+ought to have arrived (about ten P.M.) I heard a cab drive up
+to the door, the bell ring, my husband's voice talking with the
+cabman, the front door open and his step come up the stairs. I
+went to the drawing-room, opened it, and to my astonishment saw
+no one. I could hardly believe he was not there, the whole
+thing was so vivid, and the street was particularly quiet at
+the time. About twenty minutes or so after this my husband
+<i>really</i> arrived, though nothing sounded to me more real than
+it did the first time. The train was late, and he had been
+thinking I might be anxious."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In response to further inquiries, Mrs Powys added:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"To me the whole thing was very noisy and real, but no one else
+can have heard anything, for the bell I heard ring was not
+answered. It was a quiet street in town, and there was no
+vehicle of any kind passing at the time; and on finding no one
+on the landing as I expected, I went at once to the window, and
+there was nothing to be seen, and no sound to be heard, which
+would have been the case had the cab been driven off."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Here the expectation of Mr Fox Powys' arrival seems to have caused an
+auditory hallucination. In other cases of a similar nature the
+hallucination is visual, the percipient actually seeing the figure of
+the expected person.</p>
+
+<p>The authors of "Phantasms of the Living" give the following case as an
+"interesting puzzle" and invite the reader to decide whether or not it
+affords evidence for telepathy. The narrator, Mr W. A. S., is described
+as an unexceptionable witness who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> has never had any other visual
+hallucination.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"January 14th, 1883.</p>
+
+<p>"In the month of April 1871, about two o'clock in the
+afternoon, I was sitting in the drawing-room of my father's
+house in Pall Mall. The window of the room fronted south; and
+the sun was shining brightly in at the window. I was sitting
+between the fireplace and the window, with my back to the
+light; my niece was sitting on the opposite side of the
+fireplace; and opposite me at the farther corner of the room
+was a door partly open, leading directly to the staircase. I
+saw what I supposed at the first moment to be dirty soapy water
+running in at the door; and I was in the act of jumping up to
+scold the housemaid for upsetting the water, when I saw that
+the supposed water was the tail or train of a lady's dress. The
+lady glided in backwards, as if she had been slid in on a
+slide, each part of her dress keeping its place without
+disturbance. She glided in till I could see the whole of her,
+<i>except the tip of her nose, her lips and the tip of her chin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+which were hidden by the edge of the door</i>. Her head was
+slightly turned over her shoulder, and her eye also turned, so
+that it appeared fixed upon me. She held her arm, which was a
+very fine one, in a peculiar way, as if she were proud of it.
+She was dressed in a pale blue evening dress, worked with white
+lace. I instantly recognised the figure as that of a lady whom
+I had known some twenty-five years or more before; and with
+whom I had frequently danced. She was a bright, dashing girl, a
+good dancer, and we were good friends, but nothing more. She
+had afterwards married and I had occasionally heard of her, but
+do not think I had seen her for certainly more than twenty or
+twenty-five years. She looked much as I used to see her&mdash;with
+long curls and bright eyes, but perhaps something stouter and
+more matronly.</p>
+
+<p>"I said to myself: 'This is one of those strange apparitions I
+have often heard of. I will watch it as carefully as I can.' My
+niece, who did not see the figure, in the course of a minute or
+two exclaimed: 'Uncle A., what is the matter with you? You
+look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> as if you saw a ghost!' I motioned her to be quiet, as I
+wished to observe the thing carefully; and an impression came
+upon me that if I moved, the thing would disappear. I tried to
+find out whether there was anything in the ornaments on the
+walls, or anything else which could suggest the figure; but I
+found that all the lines close to her cut the outline of her
+figure at all sorts of angles, and none of these coincided with
+the outline of her figure, and the colour of everything around
+her strongly contrasted with her colour. In the course of a few
+minutes, I heard the door bell ring, and I heard my brother's
+voice in the hall. He came upstairs and walked right through
+the figure into the room. The figure then began to fade away
+rather quickly; and though I tried I could in no way recall it.</p>
+
+<p>"I frequently told the story in society, treating it always as
+something internal rather than external and supposing that the
+lady was still alive; and rather making a joke of it than
+otherwise. Some years afterwards I was staying with some
+friends in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Suffolk and told the story at the dinner-table,
+saying that it was no ghost as the lady was still alive. The
+lady of the house said: 'She is not alive, as you suppose, but
+she has been dead some years.' We looked at the peerage and
+found she had died in 1871. (I afterwards found out that she
+had died in November, whereas the apparition was in April.) The
+conversation continued about her, and I said: 'Poor thing, I am
+sorry she is dead. I have had many a merry dance with her. What
+did she die of?' The lady of the house said: 'Poor thing
+indeed, she died a wretched death; she died of cancer in the
+face.' She never showed me the front of her face; it was always
+concealed by the edge of the door."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>I will now concern myself with the power of an agent to project himself
+phantasmally&mdash;that is, to make his form and features manifest to some
+percipient at a distance as though he were actually present. In Gurney's
+"Phantasms of the Living" is given at length a case of a simple nature.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+Here there was not one but two percipients.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been
+reading of the great power which the human will is capable of
+exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that
+I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom on the second
+floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in
+which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance&mdash;viz. Miss L. S.
+V., and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven
+years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a
+distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not
+mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to
+either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was
+only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up
+my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be
+there was one o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong
+intention of making my presence perceptible.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in
+question, and in the course of conversation (without any
+allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me that
+on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by
+perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed
+when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little
+sister, who saw me also.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most
+decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of
+the occurrence she replied about one o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event
+and signed it.</p>
+
+<p>"This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment
+of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put
+forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was
+conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in
+my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising
+some force<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but
+which I can now at certain times set in motion at will.</p>
+
+<p>"S. H. B."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The account given by Miss Verity is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"January 18th, 1883.</p>
+
+<p>"On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our
+house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr B. in my
+room, about one o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much
+terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the
+apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr B., I told
+him what had happened; but it was some time before I could
+recover from the shock I had received, and the remembrance is
+too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.</p>
+
+<p>"L. S. Verity."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Miss E. C. Verity says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister
+in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct.
+I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> saw the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under
+the same circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"E. C. Verity."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<blockquote><p>"The witnesses (comments Gurney) have been very carefully
+cross-examined by the present writer. There is not the
+slightest doubt that their mention of the occurrence to S. H.
+B. was spontaneous. They had not at first intended to mention
+it; but when they saw him their sense of its oddness overcame
+their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly sober-minded and
+sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a
+considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of
+marvel."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On another occasion the agent announced privately to the investigator
+that he would project himself at a stated time. He did so; and the lady
+wrote as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"44 Norland Square, W.</p>
+
+<p>"On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had
+a distinct impression that Mr S. H. B. was present in my room,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+and I distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He
+came towards me, and stroked my hair. I <i>voluntarily</i> gave him
+this information when he called to see me on Wednesday, April
+2nd, telling him the time and the circumstances of the
+apparition, without any suggestion on his part. The appearance
+in my room was most vivid and quite unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>"L. S. Verity."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr B.'s own account runs thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence
+perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at
+twelve midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr
+Gurney that I should post him a letter on the evening on which
+I tried my next experiment (stating the time and other
+particulars), I sent a note to acquaint him with the above
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>"About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she
+voluntarily told me that on March 22nd, at twelve o'clock
+midnight, she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+widely awake) that her nerves had been much shaken, and she had
+been obliged to send for a doctor in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"S. H. B."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another case of a similar nature is reported by the American branch of
+the Society for Psychical Research:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On July 5th, 1887, I left my house in Lakewood to go to New
+York to spend a few days. My wife was not feeling well when I
+left, and after I had started I looked back and saw her
+standing in the door looking disconsolate and sad at my
+leaving. The picture haunted me all day, and at night, before I
+went to bed, I thought I would try to find out, if possible,
+her condition. I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of
+the bed, when I covered my face with my hands and willed myself
+in Lakewood at home to see if I could see her. After a little
+while I seemed to be standing in her room before the bed, and
+saw her lying there looking much better. I felt satisfied she
+was better, and so spent the week more comfortably regarding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+her condition. On Saturday I went home. When she saw me she
+remarked: 'I don't know whether I am glad to see you or not,
+for I thought something had happened to you. I saw you standing
+in front of the bed the night (about 8.30 or before 9) you
+left, and as plain as could be, and I have been worrying myself
+about you ever since. I sent to the office and to the depôt
+daily to get some message from you.' After explaining my effort
+to find out her condition, everything became plain to her. She
+had seen me when I was trying to see her and find out her
+condition. I thought at the time I was going to see her and
+make her see me.</p>
+
+<p>"B. F. Sinclair."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The foregoing is corroborated by Mrs Sinclair. She states that she saw
+her husband, not as he was dressed at the moment of the experiment, but
+"in a suit that hung in a closet at home." The apparition caused her
+great anxiety, so that her husband's view of her improved appearance was
+not really true. The son, Mr George Sinclair, avers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> that in his
+mother's vision his father's face was "drawn and set, as if he was
+either dead or trying to accomplish something which was beyond him."</p>
+
+<p>Another case investigated by the Society is also striking. The date is
+1896.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'One night, two or three years ago, I came back from the
+theatre to my mother's flat at 6 S&mdash;&mdash; Street; and after I had
+been into her bedroom and told her all about it, I went to bed
+about one A.M. I had not been asleep long when I started up
+frightened, fancying that I had heard someone walk down the
+passage towards my mother's room; but, hearing nothing more,
+went to sleep again. I started up alarmed in the same way three
+or four times before dawn.</p>
+
+<p>"'In the morning, upon inquiry, my mother (who was ill at the
+time) only told me that she had had a very disturbed night.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then I asked my brother, who told me that he had suffered in
+the same way as I had, starting up several times in a
+frightened manner. On hearing this my mother then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> told me that
+she had seen an apparition of Mr Pelham. Later in the day Mr
+Pelham came in, and my mother asked him casually if he had been
+doing anything last night; upon which he told us that he had
+come to bed willing that he should visit and appear to us. We
+made him promise not to repeat the experiment.'</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs E., the mother, states that she was recovering from
+influenza at the time. At half-past ten, as she lay reading:</p>
+
+<p>"'A strange, creepy sensation came over me, and I felt my eyes
+were drawn towards the left-hand side of the room. I felt I
+must look, and there, distinct against the curtain, was a blue
+luminous mist.</p>
+
+<p>"'This time I was impelled to cast my eyes downward to the side
+of my bed, and there, creeping upwards towards me, was the same
+blue luminous mist. I was too terrified to move, and remember
+keeping the book straight up before my face, as though to ward
+off a blow, at the same time exerting all my strength of will
+and determination not to be afraid&mdash;when, suddenly, as if with
+a jerk,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> above the top of my book came the brow and eyes of Mr
+Pelham.'</p>
+
+<p>"Instantly her fears ceased. She 'remembered that Mr Pelham had
+experimented on her before at night'; and 'in one moment mist
+and face were gone.'</p>
+
+<p>"For his part, Mr Pelham explains that he 'carefully imagined'
+himself going down the steps of his house, and so along the
+streets, to Mrs E.'s flat, and to her drawing-room and bedroom;
+he then went to bed with his mind fixed on the visit and soon
+fell asleep. He has made other trials, but without any positive
+success, though during one of them Mrs E. was wakened suddenly
+by the feeling that someone was in the room, and it occurred to
+her that Mr Pelham was again experimenting."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The occurrences above related are most significant, if true, and I am
+bound to say the <i>bona fides</i> of the narrators seems to me indisputable.
+Is it a spirit showing itself partially dissociated from the living
+organism; evincing independence, a certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> intelligence and a certain
+permanence? Or is this a mere image of the agent, conceived in his own
+brain and projected telepathically to the brain of the percipient? So
+far, we are merely groping our way. Yet, is it not possible that we have
+laid hands upon a credible explanation of the eternal mystery of
+"ghosts"? We shall see.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>DREAMS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Having partially discussed the subject of phantasms projected from the
+brain of the agent to that of the percipient, I must now briefly
+describe another group for which the evidence is very abundant&mdash;that of
+"veridical" dreams. This is a term used to describe apparitions
+coinciding with other events in such a manner as to suggest a
+connection. Your dream or hallucination is said to be veridical when it
+conveys an idea which is both true and previously unknown to you.</p>
+
+<p>Making every allowance for the element of chance, there is a mass of
+evidence which mere coincidence cannot explain away. Yet we must not
+overlook the frequency of dreams, even of a striking character, which
+may once or twice in a million times actually hit on the coincident
+event. But besides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> coincidence, there is at times another normal
+explanation. Mr Podmore relates how a neighbour of his on the night of
+24th June 1894 dreamed President Carnot had been assassinated. He told
+his family before the morning paper announcing the news had been opened.
+As has been pointed out, in a case of that kind it seems possible that
+the information may have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the
+shouts of a newsboy, or even from the conversation of passers-by in the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>Before any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal
+communication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances
+about to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the
+dreamer or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was
+suspected.</p>
+
+<p>One of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a
+day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+living at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his
+chambers I found a note on the table apologising for his
+absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance somewhere in
+the West End, and intended to be home soon after one o'clock.
+Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair, but started up
+wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's down!'
+and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly
+illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top
+stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows
+and hands. (The house was one which I have never seen, nor did
+I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter, I
+fell a-doze again for half-an-hour and was awakened by my
+brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh, there you are! I
+have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever
+had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot,
+and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'</p>
+
+<p>"That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always
+thought it must have been something more."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A member of the Society for Psychical Research narrates that on 7th
+October 1900 he woke abruptly in the small hours of the morning with a
+painful conviction upon him that his wife, who was that night sleeping
+in another part of the house, had burst a varicose vein in the calf of
+her leg, and that he could feel the swelled place three inches long:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I wondered whether I ought to get up and go down to her room
+on the first floor, and considered whether she would be able to
+come up to me; but I was only partly awake, though in acute
+distress. My mind had been suddenly roused, but my body was
+still under the lethargy of sleep. I argued with myself that
+there was sure to be nothing in it, that I should only disturb
+her, and so shortly went off to sleep again.</p>
+
+<p>"On going to her room this morning I said I had had a horrid
+dream, which had woke me up, to the effect that she had burst a
+varicose vein, of which just now care has to be taken. 'Why,'
+she replied, 'I had just the same experience. I woke up at
+2.15, feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> sure the calf of my leg was bleeding, and my
+hand seemed to feel it when I put it there. I turned on the
+light in alarm, noticing the time, and wondered if I should be
+able to get up to thee, or whether I should have to wake the
+housekeeper. Thou wast in the dream out of which I woke,
+examining the place.'</p>
+
+<p>"Though I did not note the hour, two o'clock is about the time
+I should have guessed it to be; and the impression on my mind
+was vivid and terrible, knowing how dangerous such an accident
+would be."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The foregoing is thus corroborated by the lady:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I felt twinges of pain in my leg off and on in my sleep
+without being entirely roused till about 2.15 A.M. Then, or
+just before, I dreamt or had a vivid impression that a vein had
+burst, and that my husband, who was sleeping in another room up
+another flight of stairs, was there and called my attention to
+it. I thought it felt wet, and trickling down the leg as if
+bleeding, passed my hand down, and at first thought it seemed
+wet; but on gaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> fuller consciousness found it all right,
+and that it was not more painful than often when I got out and
+stood on it. Thought over the contingency of its actually
+bursting, and whether I could so bandage it in that case as to
+make it safe to go up to my husband's room, and thought I could
+do so.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking at my watch, found it about 2.20."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As to dreams in which a death occurs there is a vast mass of testimony.
+The late Dr Hodgson, on 19th July 1897, received the following letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Hodgson</span>,&mdash;Five minutes ago Mr J. F. Morse, who has all
+his life had dreams which were more or less verified later,
+came to my room and said: 'I believe my wife died last night,
+for I had a dream of a most remarkable nature which indicates
+it. I shall be able to let you know soon, for I shall get word
+at my office when I reach there. I will then send you word.'
+His wife is in a country place in Delaware Co. Pa. She is ill,
+but he had no idea she would not live for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> months, as the
+enclosed letter of July 15th will show; but she was ill, and
+would be likely to decline slowly and gradually. I will get
+this off or in the mail before I hear any more.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Morse in his appearance looks like one who had just lost a
+dear friend, and is in a state of great mental depression, with
+tears in his eyes....</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">M. L. Holbrook.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On the evening of the same day a telegram was received announcing the
+unexpected death of Mrs Morse at 9.15 on the evening of Friday, 16th
+July.</p>
+
+<p>A prominent Chicago journalist, Mr F. B. Wilkie, reported that his wife
+asked him one morning in October 1885, while still engaged in dressing,
+and before either of them had left their sleeping-room, if he knew
+anyone named Edsale or Esdale. A negative reply was given and then a
+"Why do you ask?" She replied: "During the night I dreamt that I was on
+the lake-shore and found a coffin there, with the name of Edsale or
+Esdale on it, and I am confident that someone of that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> name has recently
+been drowned there." On opening the morning paper the first item that
+attracted his attention was the report of the mysterious disappearance
+from his home in Hyde Park of a young man named Esdale. A few days
+afterwards the body of a young man was found on the lake-shore.</p>
+
+<p>This case was carefully investigated and authenticated by Dr Hodgson,
+and bears some unusual features.</p>
+
+<p>Of dreams that may be reasonably regarded as telepathic the following is
+a striking example. It is contributed to "Phantasms of the Living" by a
+Mrs Hilton&mdash;a lady engaged in active work, and not in any respect a
+"visionary."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"234 Burdett Road, E.</p>
+
+<p>"April 10th, 1883.</p>
+
+<p>"The dream which I am about to relate occurred about two years
+ago. I seemed to be walking in a country road, with high grassy
+banks on either side. Suddenly I heard the tramp of many feet.
+Feeling a strange sense of fear I called out: 'Who are these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+people coming?' A voice above me replied: 'A procession of the
+dead.' I then found myself on the bank, looking into the road
+where the people were walking five or six abreast. Hundreds of
+them passed by me&mdash;neither looking aside nor looking at each
+other. They were people of all conditions and in all ranks of
+life. I saw no children amongst them. I watched the long line
+of people go away into the far distance, but I felt no special
+interest in any of them, until I saw a middle-aged Friend,
+dressed as a gentleman farmer. I pointed to him and called out:
+'Who is that, please?' He turned round and called out in a loud
+voice: 'I am John M., of Chelmsford.' Then my dream ended. Next
+day when my husband returned from the office he told me that
+John M., of Chelmsford, had died the previous day.</p>
+
+<p>"I may add that I only knew the Friend in question by sight and
+cannot recollect ever speaking to him.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Marie Hilton</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>About a year later Mrs Hilton experienced a dream of a similar kind,
+again coincident<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> with the death of an acquaintance seen in the phantom
+procession. It is worth noting "remarks Mr Gurney," that these
+dreams&mdash;for all their <i>bizarrerie</i>&mdash;seem to belong to a known type.</p>
+
+<p>In another category of phenomena belong precognitive dreams in which
+certain events, especially deaths, are foretold. Mr Alfred Cooper, of 9
+Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W., states, and his statement is
+attested by the Duchess of Hamilton, that:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L&mdash;&mdash;, in
+1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton in Hill Street to see
+him professionally. After I had finished seeing him we went
+into the drawing-room where the Duchess was, and the Duke said
+to me: 'Oh, Cooper, how is the Earl?'</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess said: 'What Earl?' and on my answering: 'Lord
+L&mdash;&mdash;,' she replied, 'That is very odd. I have had a most
+extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a
+short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene
+as if from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L&mdash;&mdash;,
+in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a
+red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a red
+lamp was distinctly shown.'</p>
+
+<p>"I then said: 'I am attending Lord L&mdash;&mdash; at present; there is
+very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he
+will be all right very soon.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the
+end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him
+suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.</p>
+
+<p>"I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead
+man. There were two male nurses attending him; one had been
+taken ill. But when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess
+was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the
+Earl, and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the
+bath with the red lamp over it, it is rather rare to find a
+bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"The vision seen by the Duchess was told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> two weeks before the
+death of Lord L&mdash;&mdash;. It is a most remarkable thing. This
+account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of
+Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the
+vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Mary Hamilton</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Alfred Cooper</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr Myers adds:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Duchess only knew Lord L&mdash;&mdash; by sight, and had not heard
+that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened
+her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the
+same thing again.</p>
+
+<p>"An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F.
+W. H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the Duchess related the
+dream on the morning after its occurrence."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>One of the most interesting and well-authenticated cases of dreams
+foretelling a death is that of Mr Fred Lane, understudy to that popular
+actor the late William Terriss. His statement is as follows:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Adelphi Theatre,</p>
+
+<p>"December 20th, 1897.</p>
+
+<p>"In the early morning of December 16th, 1897, I dreamt that I
+saw the late Mr Terriss lying in a state of delirium or
+unconsciousness on the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in
+the Adelphi Theatre. He was surrounded by people engaged at the
+theatre, amongst whom were Miss Millward and one of the footmen
+who attend the curtain, both of whom I actually saw a few hours
+later at the death scene. His chest was bare and clothes torn
+aside. Everybody who was around him was trying to do something
+for his good. This dream was in the shape of a picture. I saw
+it like a tableau on which the curtain would rise and fall. I
+immediately after dreamt that we did not open at the Adelphi
+Theatre that evening. I was in my dressing-room in the dream,
+but this latter part was somewhat incoherent. The next morning,
+on going down to the theatre for rehearsal, the first member of
+the company I met was Miss H&mdash;&mdash;, to whom I mentioned this
+dream. On arriving at the theatre I also mentioned it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> to
+several other members of the company including Messrs Creagh
+Henry, Buxton, Carter Bligh, etc. This dream, though it made
+such an impression upon me as to cause me to relate it to my
+fellow-artists, did not give me the idea of any coming
+disaster. I may state that I have dreamt formerly of deaths of
+relatives and other matters which have impressed me, but the
+dreams have never impressed me sufficiently to make me repeat
+them the following morning, and have never been verified. My
+dream of the present occasion was the most vivid I have ever
+experienced; in fact, lifelike, and exactly represented the
+scene as I saw it at night."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Three members of the company&mdash;Mr Carter Bligh, Mr Creagh Henry, and Miss
+H&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;made statements that Mr Lane related his dream in their presence
+on the morning of 16th December. Mr Lane was in the vicinity of the
+Adelphi Theatre when the murderer, named Prince or Archer, who had been
+employed as a super at the theatre, stabbed Terriss at the stage
+entrance to the theatre.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> The actor was taken to the Charing Cross
+Hospital, where he died almost immediately. It is interesting to note
+that it was Lane himself who ran to the hospital for the doctor, and on
+his return looked in at the stage entrance and saw Terriss lying on the
+stairs just as he had seen him in the dream.</p>
+
+<p>While I am fully alive to the possibilities of coincidence, there
+certainly does not seem to be much besides levity in the theory that "it
+happened to be Jones's hour to see a hallucination of Thompson when it
+happened to be Thompson's hour to die," especially when, as frequently
+happens, the hallucination occurs more than once to the same percipient.</p>
+
+<p>A Parisian journalist, M. Henri Buisson, sends to "The Annals of
+Psychical Science" an account of three premonitory dreams all of which
+were told to others before they were fulfilled. In the first, which
+occurred on June 8th, 1887, M. Buisson saw his grandmother "stretched
+dead on her bed, with a smile on her face as if she slept." Above the
+bed, in a brilliant sun, he read the date, "June 8th,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> 1888," just a
+year later; and on that day his grandmother died quite suddenly, with
+her face as calm as he had seen it in his dream.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion M. Buisson saw his mother, not dead, but very ill,
+and attended by a doctor, who had died more than a year before, after
+having been the family physician for thirty years. The next day M.
+Buisson received a telegram saying that his mother was ill, and, in
+fact, she died during the day.</p>
+
+<p>In April 1907, M. Buisson dreamt that he received notice to quit his
+house on pretence of a message from the Prefect of Police, and that on
+looking out of the window he saw the Prefect in the street, dressed in a
+leather jacket, with a soft hat, and a slipper on one foot. He also
+dreamt that a fire had broken out. On the evening of the next day he
+heard the fire-engines, and on following them he found the Prefect on
+the spot, dressed just as in the dream, having hurt one foot, he had to
+go about in a slipper.</p>
+
+<p>Of still another type is the clairvoyant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> dream. The following is
+related by Mr Herbert J. Lewis, of Cardiff:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In September 1880 I lost the landing-order of a large steamer
+containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port
+of Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the
+next morning. I received the landing-order at four o'clock in
+the afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found
+that I had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my
+utmost to find the officials of the Customs House to get a
+permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance, preventing
+the ship from discharging. I came home in a great degree of
+trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my
+situation in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>"That night I dreamt that I saw the lost landing-order lying in
+a crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the
+Customs House.</p>
+
+<p>"At five the next morning I went down to the Customs House and
+got the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+which I had dreamt, and found the paper in the very place. The
+ship was not ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went
+on board at seven and delivered the landing-order, saving her
+from all delay.</p>
+
+<p>"I can certify to the truth of the above statement,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Herbert J. Lewis</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Thomas Lewis</span></p>
+
+<p>"(Herbert Lewis's father).</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">H. Wallis</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>(Mr E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the
+following corroborative note.)</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"August 14th, 1884.</p>
+
+<p>"I made some inquiries about Mr Herbert Lewis's dream before I
+left Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in
+which the order was found. His theory as to how the order got
+in the place in which it was found is that it was probably put
+there by someone (perhaps with malicious intent), as he does
+not see how it could have fallen so.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact that Mr H. Lewis is exceedingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> short-sighted adds
+to the probability of the thing which you suggest, that the
+dream was simply an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the
+other hand, he does not believe it was there when he searched.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">E. J. Newell</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, it seems to me in the above case that the dreamer's subliminal self
+may have taken note of the lost landing-order without his
+super-consciousness being aware of it, and that the fact returned to him
+in his dream.</p>
+
+<p>In R. L. Stevenson's "Across the Plains" may be found a striking chapter
+on dreams. It contains an account of some of the most successful dream
+experiments ever recorded. Stevenson's dreams were of no ordinary
+character; they were always of great vividness, and often of a markedly
+recurrent type. This faculty he developed to an unusual degree&mdash;to such
+an extent, indeed, that it became of great assistance to him in his
+work. By self-suggestion before sleep, we are told, the great novelist
+would secure "a visual and dramatic intensity of dream-representation
+which furnished him with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> motives of some of his most striking
+romances." But "R. L. S." is not the only one who has secured assistance
+of dreams. Here is an account given by a German, Professor Hilprecht, of
+an experience of a similar nature ("Human Personality," i. 376):</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"One Saturday evening, about the middle of March 1893, I had
+been wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks
+preceding, in the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments
+of agate, which were supposed to belong to the finger-rings of
+some Babylonian. The labour was much increased by the fact that
+the fragments presented remnants only of characters and lines,
+that dozens of similar small fragments had been found in the
+ruins of the temple of Bel at Nippur with which nothing could
+be done, that in this case furthermore I never had the
+originals before me, but only a hasty sketch made by one of the
+members of the expedition sent by the University of
+Pennsylvania to Babylonia. I could not say more than that the
+fragments, taking into consideration the place in which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> they
+were found and the peculiar characteristics of the cuneiform
+characters preserved upon them, sprang from the Cassite period
+of Babylonian history (<i>circa</i> 1700-1140 B.C.); moreover, as
+the first character of the third line of the first fragment
+seemed to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an
+interrogation point, to King Kurigalzu, while I placed the
+other fragment as unclassifiable with other Cassite fragments
+upon a page of my book where I published the unclassifiable
+fragments. The proofs already lay before me, but I was far from
+satisfied. The whole problem passed yet again through my mind
+that March evening before I placed my mark of approval under
+the last correction in the book. Even then I had come to no
+conclusion. About midnight, weary and exhausted, I went to bed
+and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed the following
+remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian
+Nippur, about forty years of age and clad in a simple abba, led
+me to the treasure chamber of the temple, on its south-east
+side. He went with me into a small low-ceiled room, without
+windows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps
+of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he
+addressed me as follows:&mdash;'The two fragments which you have
+published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together, are
+not finger-rings, and their history is as follows. King
+Kurigalzu (<i>circa</i> 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel,
+among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli, an inscribed
+votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the
+command to make for the statue of the god Ninib a pair of
+earrings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no
+agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command
+there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into
+three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a
+portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served
+as earrings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which
+have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you
+will put the two together you will have confirmation of my
+words. But the third ring you have not yet found in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> course
+of your excavations and you never will find it.' With this the
+priest disappeared. I awoke at once and immediately told my
+wife the dream, that I might not forget it. Next
+morning&mdash;Sunday&mdash;I examined the fragments once more in the
+light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all
+the details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the
+means of verification were in my hands. The original
+inscription on the votive cylinder read: 'To the god Ninib, son
+of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented
+this.' The problem was at last solved."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>HALLUCINATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>From the occurrence in a dream of the ideas of events which happen to
+coincide with actual events, let us turn to apparitions occurring during
+the waking hours of the percipient.</p>
+
+<p>The late Professor Sidgwick, at the head of a committee, sent out the
+following question to 17,000 educated persons not known to have had
+hallucinations:&mdash;"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be
+completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a
+living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice, which
+impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external
+physical cause?"</p>
+
+<p>The replies demonstrate how frequent are hallucinations amongst healthy,
+normal-minded persons. No fewer than 1684, or one in ten,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> of the
+persons interrogated, had had visual and auditory and even tactile
+hallucinations, realistic human phantoms, and other apparitions. We find
+that, according to the age classification, of 1295 visual hallucinations
+72 occurred while the percipients were under ten years of age, 217
+between the ages of ten and nineteen, 300 between twenty and
+twenty-nine, 143 between thirty and thirty-nine, 81 between forty and
+forty-nine, 40 between fifty and fifty-nine, 22 between sixty and
+sixty-nine, 5 later than seventy, and 415 at unstated ages. Some of the
+hallucinations occurred immediately after waking, others while the
+percipients were awake in bed; but the great bulk occurred in a fully
+awakened state, and a large number appeared out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>Of hallucinations of which we may say that they are due to a projection
+from the agent's mind, commonly to a dying man or woman, to that of the
+percipient, perhaps one of the most famous is that of Lord Charles
+Beresford, as described by him to the Society for Psychical Research:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It was in the spring of 1864, whilst on board H.M.S. <i>Racoon</i>,
+between Gibraltar and Marseilles, that I went into my office on
+the main deck to get a pipe; and as I opened the door I saw my
+father lying in his coffin as plainly as I could. It gave me an
+awful jerk and I immediately told some of the fellows who were
+smoking just outside the usual place between the guns, and I
+also told dear old Onslow, our chaplain. A few days after we
+arrived at Marseilles, and I heard of my father's death, and he
+had been buried that very day and at the time, half-past twelve
+in the day. I may add that at the time it was a bright, sunny
+day, and I had not been fretting about my father, as the latest
+news I had of him was that although very ill he was better. My
+dear old father and I were great chums, more so than is usual
+between a man of seventy-two and a boy of twenty, our
+respective ages then."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The evidence is so bulky that we may quote only a case here and there at
+random:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"On December 9th 1882 Mr T. G. Keulemans was living with his
+family in Paris. The outbreak of an epidemic of smallpox caused
+him to remove three of his children, including a favourite
+little boy of five, to London, whence he received in the course
+of the ensuing month several letters giving an excellent
+account of their health.</p>
+
+<p>"On the 24th of January 1881, at half-past seven in the
+morning, I was suddenly awoke by hearing his voice, as I
+fancied, very near me. I saw a bright opaque white mass before
+my eyes, and in the centre of this light I saw the face of my
+little darling, his eyes bright, his mouth smiling. The
+apparition, accompanied by the sound of his voice, was too
+short and too sudden to be called a dream; it was too clear,
+too decided, to be called an effect of the imagination. So
+distinctly did I hear his voice that I looked round the room to
+see whether he was actually there. The sound I heard was that
+of extreme delight, such as only a happy child can utter. I
+thought it was the moment he woke up in London, happy and
+thinking of me. I said to myself: 'Thank God, little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Isidore
+is happy as always.' Mr Keulemans describes the ensuing day as
+one of peculiar brightness and cheerfulness. He took a long
+walk with a friend, with whom he dined; and was afterwards
+playing a game at billiards when he again saw the apparition of
+his child. This made him seriously uneasy, and in spite of
+having received within three days the assurance of his child's
+perfect health he expressed to his wife a conviction that he
+was dead. Next day a letter arrived saying that the child was
+ill; but the father was convinced that this was only an attempt
+to break the news; and, in fact, the child had died, after a
+few hours' illness, at the exact time of the first apparition."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another case as recited by Madame D&mdash;&mdash;, of St Gaudens, is to be found
+in "Posthumous Humanity." She says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I was still a young girl, and slept with my elder sister. One
+evening we had just retired to bed and blown out the light. The
+smouldering fire on the hearth still feebly lighted the room.
+Upon turning my eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> towards the fireplace I perceived, to my
+amazement, a priest seated before the fire and warming himself.
+He had the corpulence, the features, and the general appearance
+of one of our uncles who lived in the neighbourhood, where he
+was an archbishop. I at once called my sister's attention. She
+looked in the same direction, and saw the same apparition. She
+also recognised our uncle. An indescribable terror seized us
+both, and we cried 'Help!' with all our might. My father, who
+slept in an adjoining room, awakened by these desperate cries,
+jumped out of bed and ran in with a candle in his hand. The
+phantom had disappeared, and we saw no one in the room. The
+next morning a letter was received informing us that our uncle
+had died the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>"At Wiesbaden, Professor Ebenan, whose old sister kept his
+house, stated that he had a friend residing forty or fifty
+miles off&mdash;likewise a professor&mdash;who was very poor and had a
+large family. On hearing that his wife was dying, Mr E&mdash;&mdash; went
+to see them, and brought back their eldest boy, for whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> a
+little bed was put up in Mr E&mdash;&mdash;'s room.</p>
+
+<p>"One morning, about ten days after, Mr E&mdash;&mdash; called and asked
+me: 'Do you believe that at the moment of death you may appear
+to one whom you love?' I replied: 'Yes, I do.' 'Well,' he said,
+'we shall see. I have noted the day and the hour, for last
+night after I went to bed the child said sweetly (in German):
+"Yes, dear mamma, I see you." To which I replied: "No, dear
+boy, it is I; I am come to bed." "No," he said, "it is dear
+mamma, she is standing there smiling at me," pointing to the
+side of the bed.' On his next visit Mr Ebenan told us that he
+had received a letter informing him that at that time, and on
+that evening, the wife had breathed her last."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In some cases a vague shadowy form is seen which gradually acquires
+definiteness. Here is an interesting example contributed to
+"Proceedings," vol. x., by a Mr T. A.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"9th May 1892.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw a darkish vapour leave my father's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> head when he died,
+about twelve years ago, and it formed into a figure full-sized,
+and for seven consecutive nights (I) saw it in my room, and saw
+it go each night into the next room, in which he died. It
+became more distinct each night and brighter each night, till
+it was quite brilliant, even dazzling, by the seventh night. It
+lasted, say, one and a half minutes. It was quite dark when the
+phantom used to appear. I was quite awake, going to bed; [age]
+thirty two."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In other cases what is first seen is a glow of light&mdash;the apparition
+subsequently appearing in it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, made the following statement
+to the Society for Psychical Research:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'Just before Christmas 1894 I went over to Liverpool with one
+of my brothers and my sister. It was a very fine clear day and
+there was a great crowd of people shopping in the streets. We
+were walking down Lord-street,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> one of the principal streets,
+when, passing me, I saw an old uncle of mine whom I knew very
+little, and had not seen for a very long time, though he lived
+near me. I saw three distinct shapes hobbling past (he was
+lame), one after another, in a line. It didn't seem to strike
+me at the moment as being in the least curious, not even there
+being three shapes in a line. I said to my sister: "I have just
+seen Uncle E&mdash;&mdash;, and I am sure he is dead." I said this, as it
+were, mechanically, and not feeling at all impressed. Of course
+my brother and sister laughed. We thought nothing more about it
+while in Liverpool. The first thing my mother said to us when
+getting home was: "I have some news"; and then she told us that
+this uncle had died early that morning. I don't know the
+particular hour. I saw the three shapes at about twelve in the
+morning. I felt perfectly fit and well, and was not thinking of
+my uncle in the least, nor did I know he was ill. Both my
+brother and my sister heard me say that I had seen him and
+believed he was dead, and they were equally astonished at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+hearing of his death on our return home. My uncle and I knew
+each other very little. In fact, he hardly knew me by sight,
+although he knew me well when I was a small child.'</p>
+
+<p>"The corroboration from the percipient's mother and sister is
+quite ample; the day of the agent's death coincided with the
+apparition, but the hour is not certainly known."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another well-known case is that of Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who
+writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On Saturday, October 21st, 1893, I was in Berlin with Lord
+Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together and returned before
+midnight. I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright
+light in the room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found
+myself looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall opposite
+my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my father, the Maharajah
+Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it were, out of this picture;
+not like a portrait of him, but his real head. The head about
+filled the picture frame. I continued looking, and still saw my
+father looking at me with an intent expression.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> Though not in
+the least alarmed, I was so puzzled that I got out of bed to
+see what the picture really was. It was an oleograph
+commonplace picture of a girl holding a rose and leaning out of
+a balcony, an arch forming the background. The girl's face was
+quite small, whereas my father's head was the size of life and
+filled the frame."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Prince's father had been in ill-health for some time, but nothing
+alarming was to be expected. On the day following the dream he mentioned
+it to Lord Carnarvon, and on the evening of that day Lord Carnarvon
+handed him a telegram announcing the elder Prince's death. He had had an
+apoplectic seizure on the previous evening and never recovered. It is
+interesting to note that he had often said that he would try to appear
+to his son at death if they happened to be apart. The account is
+confirmed by Lord Carnarvon.</p>
+
+<p>It sometimes happens that the point of hallucination is not quite
+reached. The following instance, communicated to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> Society for
+Psychical Research, is straightforward enough:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'20 Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh,</p>
+
+<p>"'December 27th, 1883.</p>
+
+<p>"'In January 1871 I was living in the West Indies. On the 7th
+of that month I got up with a strong feeling that there was
+something happening at my old home in Scotland. At seven A.M. I
+mentioned to my sister-in-law my strange dread, and said even
+at that hour what I dreaded was taking place.</p>
+
+<p>"'By the next mail I got word that at eleven A.M. on the 7th of
+January my sister died. The island I lived in was at St Kitts,
+and the death took place in Edinburgh. Please note the hours
+and allow for the difference in time, and you will notice at
+least a remarkable coincidence. I may add I never knew of her
+illness.</p>
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">A. C&mdash;&mdash;n.</span>'</p>
+
+<p>"In answer to inquiries, Mr C&mdash;&mdash;n adds: 'I never at any other
+time had a feeling in any way resembling the particular time I
+wrote about. At the time I wrote about I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> was in perfect
+health, and in every way in comfortable circumstances.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the
+agency primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been
+received, a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A
+truly hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations
+with no external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce
+these hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for
+Psychical Research that the case of one of his patients proved that
+hallucinations could be produced by self-suggestion. "He could, by a
+simple effort of the mind, himself believe almost any delusion&mdash;<i>e.g.</i>
+that he was riding on horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or
+that he saw snakes&mdash;if left to himself the delusion vanished slowly.
+Anyone else could remove it at once by a counter-suggestion. He made,"
+he adds, "these experiments without my consent, as I consider them
+unsafe."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hallucination is at times accompanied by curious organic effects. One of
+the commonest of these is a feeling of cold&mdash;generally described as a
+"chill" or "cold shudder." The following example is taken from the
+Census of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">From Miss K. M.</span></p>
+
+<p>(<i>The account was written in 1889.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>"[About twenty years ago] I was about ten years old, and was
+staying with friends in Kensington. Between the hours of eight
+and nine P.M., we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the
+door open, [it] being a very warm evening. Suddenly I
+experienced a cold shudder, and on looking through the door
+opposite which I was sitting, I saw the figure of a little old
+lady dressed in a long brown cloak with a large brown hat,
+carrying a basket, glide down the stairs and disappear in the
+room next the drawing-room. The impression was that of someone
+I had never seen. I was talking on ordinary subjects,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> neither
+ill, in grief, or anxiety. There were several other people in
+the room, but no one noticed anything but myself. I have never
+had any experience of this kind before or since."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Occasionally, but very rarely, pain is described as resulting from a
+hallucination. Other effects include fainting fits and tactile
+impressions. Noise would appear in some cases to produce visual
+hallucinations, by creating in the hearer a strong expectation of seeing
+something corresponding to it, or that may account for it. From
+"Phantasms of the Living" we glean the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Between sleeping and waking this morning, I perceived a dog
+running about in a field (an ideal white and tan sporting dog),
+and the next moment I heard a dog barking outside my window.
+Keeping my closed eyes on the vision, I found that <i>it came and
+went with the</i> barking of the dog outside; getting fainter,
+however, each time."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A weak state of health on the part of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> percipient would seem to be
+conducive to hallucinatory visions. Here is a case in point contributed
+to the "Society for Psychical Research Proceedings," vol. x., by a
+Professor G&mdash;&mdash;:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Saw an old woman with red cloak, nursing a child in her arms.
+She sat on a boulder. Place: a grassy moor or upland, near
+Shotts, in Lanarkshire. Date: over twenty years ago. Early
+autumn, in bright sunny weather. Made several attempts to reach
+her, but she always vanished before I could get up to the
+stone. Place far from any dwelling, and no spot where anyone
+could be concealed.</p>
+
+<p>"[I was] walking; had been slightly troubled with insomnia
+which afterwards became worse. Age about thirty.</p>
+
+<p>"No one [was with me]. I heard a vague report that a woman with
+red cloak was sometimes seen on the moor. Can't now remember
+whether I had heard of that report before I saw the figure&mdash;but
+think I had not.</p>
+
+<p>"Saw many years ago (age about twenty-one),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> a dog sitting
+beside me in my room: saw this only once: was troubled slightly
+with insomnia at the time which afterwards became worse."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The percipient's own view, the collector tells us, is that the
+experience on the moor was entirely due to "nerves," as both then and
+previously when he saw the dog he had been much overworked, and in each
+case a severe illness followed.</p>
+
+<p>Not always does a visual hallucination take the form of a living human
+form. Occasionally the object seen or the sound heard is non-human in
+character. In insanity and in diseases such cases are frequently met
+with, the hallucination being often of a grotesque or horrible sort.
+Thus we have a case in which a young child beheld a vision of dwarfish
+gnomes dancing on the wall. Among the phantasms of inanimate objects in
+the collection of the late E. Gurney were a star, a firework bursting
+into stars, a firefly, a crown, landscape vignettes, a statue, the end
+of a draped coffin coming in through the door,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and a bright oval
+surrounding the words "Wednesday, October 15, Death." Geometrical
+patterns, sometimes taking very complicated forms, comprise another
+known type of hallucination.</p>
+
+<p>As to a theory for hallucinations, the most acceptable one is that they
+have their origin in the brain, and that the senses are made to share in
+the deception. There is little doubt that William Blake's hallucinations
+were voluntary. Gurney refers to a friend, a painter, who was able to
+project a vision of his sitter out into space and paint from it. We have
+already seen that a hypnotic agent can cause his subject not merely to
+see things but to feel them, even to the extent of crying out with pain
+when an imaginary lighted match is applied to his finger.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD</h3>
+
+
+<p>Thus far I have devoted myself to an investigation of phenomena for
+which the theory of telepathy is not inapplicable. It is, however, when
+we come to discuss hallucinations from which the idea of a living agent
+is apparently excluded that I feel myself entering on even more delicate
+and mysterious territory. Having dealt with phantasms of persons at the
+point of death, I now propose to deal with phantasms of persons already
+dead. Where, indeed, the death has been very recent, the telepathic
+theory still serves, for the reception conveyed by the dying agent might
+conceivably remain dormant in the sub-consciousness of the percipient,
+and only be aroused in a dream or during a propitious waking moment.</p>
+
+<p>This would apply to the case of a lady who saw the body of a well-known
+London<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> physician, about ten hours after death, lying in a bare
+unfurnished room, which turned out to be a cottage hospital abroad. Mr
+Myers, in his "Human Personality," has collected a large number of
+examples of apparitions of departed spirits, upon which he lays the
+utmost stress, because they, more than any other kind of evidence, tend
+to support his great theory of the survival of personality. If, he
+reasons, we can gain a number of well-authenticated cases of
+hallucinations projected telepathically from an agent before death, an
+equal amount of evidence of hallucinations projected by an agent after
+death would prove the continuance of life beyond the grave! And some of
+the cases which the Society of Psychical Research, both in this country
+and America, have collected are certainly of an impressive character.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, most of the best and most convincing cases are too long to be
+given here; they cannot even profitably be summarised.</p>
+
+<p>In one instance Mr F. G. of Boston, whose high character and good
+position are vouched for by Professor Royce and Dr Hodgson,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> states that
+nine years after the death of a favourite sister an apparition appeared
+before him:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully
+into my room. While busily smoking my cigar and writing out my
+orders, I suddenly became conscious that someone was sitting on
+my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I
+turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for
+a brief second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so
+sure was I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight,
+calling her by name, and as I did so the apparition instantly
+vanished."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But that is not the most extraordinary part of the story. The visitation
+so impressed the percipient that he took the next train home and related
+to his parents what had occurred. He particularly mentioned a bright red
+line or scratch on the right-hand side of his sister's face, which he
+had distinctly seen:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"... When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her
+feet, and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently
+recovered her self-possession, with tears streaming down her
+face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no
+living mortal but herself was aware of the scratch, which she
+had accidentally made while doing some little act of kindness
+after my sister's death.... In proof, neither my father nor any
+of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of
+the incident, yet <i>I saw the scratch as bright as if just
+made</i>. So strangely impressed was my mother, that even after
+she had retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to me, and
+told me <i>she knew</i> that I had seen my sister. A few weeks later
+my mother died."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, is it not a little singular that, although both Dr Hodgson and Mr
+Myers record this incident, the theory of telepathy between a living
+agent and a living percipient does not occur to them? Is it not
+conceivable that the mother, on whose mind the incident of the scratch
+on the features of the corpse had admittedly preyed, should have
+unwittingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> communicated her secret to her son? In other words, the
+mother projected a phantasm of her dead daughter to the mind of her son.</p>
+
+<p>In the "Proceedings of the Society" there is a case which, according to
+Mr Stead, "appears to suggest that the deceased are continuing to take
+an interest in mundane affairs." The story is communicated by Miss
+Dodson. On Sunday, 5th June 1887, close upon midnight, Miss Dodson was
+roused by hearing her name called three times. She answered twice,
+thinking it was her uncle. The third time she recognised the voice of
+her mother, who had been dead sixteen years. "I said," continued Miss
+Dodson, "'Mamma!'"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"She then came round a screen near my bedside with two children
+in her arms and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes
+over them, and said: 'Lucy, promise me to take care of them,
+for their mother is just dead.' I said: 'Yes, mamma.' She
+repeated: '<i>Promise</i> me to take care of them.' I replied: 'Yes,
+I promise you,' and added,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> 'Oh, mamma, stay and speak to me, I
+am so wretched.' She replied: 'Not yet, my child,' then she
+seemed to go round the screen again and I remained, feeling the
+children to be still in my arms and fell asleep. When I awoke
+there was nothing. Tuesday morning, 7th June, I received the
+news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given birth to a
+child three weeks before, which I did not know till after her
+death."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Professor Sidgwick says, as the result of an interesting conversation
+with Miss Dodson, that the children were of the ages corresponding with
+the ages of the children of her sister-in-law; they seemed to be a
+little girl and a baby newly born. The only way an ingenious sceptic can
+get round this case is by supposing that a telepathic impulse from the
+living brother might conceivably embody itself in the form of his
+mother. But the idea of a brother in Belgium being able to transmit a
+telepathic message in the assumed shape and with the voice of his
+mother, who had been dead for sixteen years, and also to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> telepath into
+existence in London the two little children who were living in his house
+at Bruges, is rather a clumsy hypothesis. But what other have we?</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr Theobald, an Australian, forwards to the Society a paper
+discovered amongst the effects of his uncle, now dead. The
+apparition, as will be seen, occurred on October 24th, 1860,
+and the account is endorsed on 9th November by the percipient's
+father. Further particulars sent to Mr B&mdash;&mdash; by the percipient
+(who is here called Mr D&mdash;&mdash;) are dated November 13th, 1860.
+The first account seems to have been sent by the percipient to
+his father, and by the father to Mr B&mdash;&mdash;"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The percipient had been identified, and confirms, as will be seen, this
+early narrative, which is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On the evening of Wednesday, October 24th, 1860, having
+retired to bed about nine o'clock, I had slept, I conclude,
+about two hours, making it then about eleven o'clock P.M. I was
+awoke from my sleep by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> a hand touching my forehead, and the
+well-known voice of Mrs B&mdash;&mdash; pronouncing my name, E&mdash;&mdash;. I
+started up and sat in bed, rubbed my eyes, and then saw Mrs
+B&mdash;&mdash;. From the head to the waist the figure was distinct,
+clear, and well defined; but from the waist downwards it was
+all misty, and the lower part transparent. She appeared to be
+dressed in black silk. Her countenance was grave and rather
+sad, but not unhappy.</p>
+
+<p>"The words she first uttered were: 'I have left dear John.'
+What followed related entirely to myself, and she was permitted
+by a most kind Providence to speak words of mercy, promise, and
+comfort, and assurance that what I most wished would come to
+pass. She came to me in an hour of bitter mental agony, and was
+sent as a messenger of mercy...."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Occasionally there is a curious variant, when the phantasm is auditory
+and not visible. In the case published in "Proceedings of the Society
+for Psychical Research," vol. iii. p. 90, Mr Wambey heard a phantasmal
+voice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> as though in colloquy with his own thought. He was planning a
+congratulatory letter to a friend, when the words "What, write to a dead
+man? write to a dead man?" sounded clearly in his ears. The friend had
+been dead for some days.</p>
+
+<p>Gurney was much impressed by the unexpectedly large proportion of cases
+where the percipient informed us that there had been a <i>compact</i> between
+himself and the deceased person that whichever passed away first should
+try to appear to the other. "Considering," he adds, "what an extremely
+small number of persons make such a compact, compared with those who do
+not, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its existence has a
+certain efficacy."</p>
+
+<p>A characteristic case is thus reported by a Mr Bellamy:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"When a girl at school my wife made an agreement with a
+fellow-pupil, Miss W., that the one of them who died first
+should, if divinely permitted, appear after her decease to the
+survivor. In 1874 my wife, who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> not seen or heard anything
+of her former school friend for some years, casually heard of
+her death. The news reminded her of her former agreement, and
+then, becoming nervous, she told me of it. I knew of my wife's
+compact, but I had never seen a photograph of her friend, or
+heard any description of her." (Mr Bellamy told Gurney in
+conversation that his mind had not been in the least dwelling
+on the compact.)</p>
+
+<p>"A night or two afterwards, as I was sleeping with my wife, a
+fire brightly burning in my room and a candle alight, I
+suddenly awoke and saw a lady sitting by the side of the bed
+where my wife was sleeping soundly. At once I sat up in the bed
+and gazed so intently that even now I can recall her form and
+features. Had I the pencil or the brush of a Millais I could
+transfer to canvas an exact likeness of the ghostly visitant. I
+remember that I was much struck, as I looked intently at her,
+with the careful arrangement of her coiffure, every single hair
+being most carefully brushed down. How long I sat and gazed I
+cannot say, but directly the apparition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> ceased to be, I got
+out of bed to see if any of my wife's garments had by any means
+optically deluded me. I found nothing in the line of vision but
+a bare wall. Hallucination on my part I rejected as out of the
+question, and I doubted not that I had really seen an
+apparition. Returning to bed, I lay till my wife some hours
+after awoke, and then I gave her an account of her friend's
+appearance. I described her colour, form, etc., all of which
+exactly tallied with my wife's recollection of Miss W. Finally
+I asked, 'But was there any special point to strike one in her
+appearance?' 'Yes,' my wife promptly replied, 'we girls used to
+tease her at school for devoting so much time to the
+arrangement of her hair.' This was the very thing which I have
+said so much struck me. Such are the simple facts.</p>
+
+<p>"I will only add that till 1874 I had never seen an apparition,
+and that I have not seen one since.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Arthur Bellamy.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The following case, from "Proceedings," vol. viii. p. 178, bears a
+distinct resemblance to the old-fashioned ghost stories. Mrs M., the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+informant, writes under date 15th December 1891:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Before relating my experience of having seen a ghost, I should
+like my readers thoroughly to understand that I had not the
+slightest idea that the house in which my husband and I were
+living was haunted, or that the family residing there for many
+years before us had had any family troubles. The house was
+delightfully situated [etc.]. The house being partly new and
+partly old we occupied the old part for our sleeping
+apartments. There were two staircases leading to them, with a
+landing and window, adjoining a morning sitting-room. One night
+on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a
+peculiar moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great
+distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it
+continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to
+the landing window of which I have spoken, drew the blind
+aside; and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl
+in kneeling posture before a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> soldier, in a general's uniform,
+sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for pardon;
+but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I feel
+for the girl, that without a moment's hesitation I ran down the
+staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to
+come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared!
+Not in the least nervous did I feel then;&mdash;went again to my
+bedroom, took a sheet of writing paper and wrote down what I
+had seen. [Mrs M. has found and sent us this paper. The
+following words are written in pencil on a half sheet of
+notepaper:&mdash;"March 13th, 1886. Have just seen visions on
+lawn:&mdash;a soldier in general's uniform,&mdash;a young lady kneeling
+to him. 11.40 P.M."] My husband was away from home when this
+event occurred, but a lady friend was staying with me, so I
+went to her bedroom and told her that I had been rather
+frightened by some noises;&mdash;could I stay with her a little
+while? A few days afterwards I found myself in a very nervous
+state; but it seemed so strange that I was not frightened at
+the time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It appears the story is only too true. The youngest daughter
+of this very old proud family had had an illegitimate child;
+and her parents and relatives would not recognise her again,
+and she died broken-hearted. The soldier was a near relative
+(also a connection of my husband's); and it was in vain she
+tried to gain his&mdash;the soldier's&mdash;forgiveness. [In a subsequent
+letter Sir X. Y.'s career is described. He was a distinguished
+officer.]</p>
+
+<p>"So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier
+that some months after the occurrence, when I happened to be
+calling with my husband at a house where there was a portrait
+of him, I stepped before it and said: 'Why, look! There is the
+General!' And sure enough it <i>was</i>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In a subsequent letter Mrs M. writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I did see the figures on the lawn after opening the door
+leading on to the lawn; and they by no means disappeared
+instantly, but more like a dissolving view&mdash;viz. gradually; and
+I did not leave the door until they had passed away. It was
+impossible for any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> real persons to act such a scene.... The
+General was born and died (in the house where I saw him).... I
+was not aware that the portrait of the General was in that room
+(where I saw it); it was the first time I had been in that
+room. The misfortune to the poor girl happened in 1847 or
+1848."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs M. then mentions that a respectable local tradesman hearing of the
+incident remarked: "That is not an uncommon thing to see <i>her</i> about the
+place, poor soul! She was a badly used girl."</p>
+
+<p>Mr M. writes as follows under date 23rd December 1891:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have seen my wife's letter in regard to the recognition of
+Sir X. Y.'s picture at &mdash;&mdash;. Nothing was said by me to her on
+the subject; but knowing the portrait to be a remarkably good
+likeness I proposed calling at the house (which was that of a
+nephew of Sir X. Y.'s), being anxious to see what effect it
+would have upon my wife. Immediately on entering the room she
+almost staggered back,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> and turned pale, saying&mdash;looking hard
+at the picture&mdash;'Why, there's the General!' ... Being a
+connection of the family I knew all about the people, but my
+wife was then a stranger, and I had never mentioned such things
+to her; in fact they had been almost forgotten."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Here is a case where the phantasm was visible to several persons at the
+same time. It is given by Mr Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and
+Royal Naval Club, Albemarle Street, W.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"December 3rd, 1885.</p>
+
+<p>"On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at
+his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, N. S. Wales.
+About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion one
+evening about nine o'clock to go to one of the bedrooms in the
+house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and
+as they entered the room&mdash;the gas burning all the time&mdash;they
+were amazed to see, reflected as it were on the polished
+surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was
+barely half figure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> the head, shoulders, and part of the arms
+only showing&mdash;in fact, it was like an ordinary medallion
+portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it
+did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel
+jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and
+half-alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a
+portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was
+its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss
+Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had
+time to speak, she exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Do you see papa?'
+One of the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the
+moment, and she was called in and asked if she saw anything,
+and her reply was, 'Oh, miss! the master.' Graham&mdash;Captain
+Towns' old body-servant&mdash;was then sent for, and he also
+immediately exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord save us! Mrs Lett, it's the
+captain!' The butler was called, and then Mrs Crane, my wife's
+nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> Mrs Towns
+was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards
+it with her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she passed
+her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually
+faded away, and never again appeared, though the room was
+regularly occupied for a long time after.</p>
+
+<p>"These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no
+doubt; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses;
+the same question was put to each one as they came into the
+room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each. It
+was by the merest accident that I did not see the apparition. I
+was in the house at the time, but did not hear when I was
+called."</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">C. A. W. Lett.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"We the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify
+that it is strictly accurate, as we were both witnesses of the
+apparition.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sara Lett,</span></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sibbie Smyth</span></p>
+
+<p>"(<i>née</i> <span class="smcap">Towns.</span>)"</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mrs Lett assures me," wrote Gurney, "that neither she nor her sister
+ever experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.
+She is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of
+each of the later witnesses was <i>independent</i>, and not due to any
+suggestion from the persons already in the room."</p>
+
+<p>The following, taken from the "Report on the Census of Hallucinations,"
+may belong to either the ante-mortem or post-mortem category:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"At Redhill on Thanksgiving Day, between eight and nine in the
+evening, when I was taking charge of the little daughter of a
+friend, during my friend's absence on that evening, I left the
+child sleeping in the bedroom, and went to drop the blinds in
+two neighbouring rooms, being absent about three minutes. On
+returning to the child's room in the full light of the
+gas-burner from above I distinctly saw, coming from the child's
+cot, a white figure, which figure turned, looked me full in the
+face, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> passed down the staircase. I instantly followed,
+leaned over the banisters in astonishment, and saw the
+glistening of the white drapery as the figure passed down the
+staircase, through the lighted hall, and silently through the
+hall door itself, which was barred, chained, and locked. I felt
+for the moment perfectly staggered, went back to the bedroom,
+and found the child peacefully sleeping. I related the
+circumstance to the mother immediately on her return late that
+night. She was incredulous, but said that my description of the
+figure answered to that of an invalid aunt of the child's. The
+next morning came a telegram to say that this relation who had
+greatly wished to see her niece had died between eight and nine
+the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>"I had just put down the 'Pickwick Papers,' with which I had
+been whiling away the time, was free from trouble and in good
+health."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sister Bertha, Superior of the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracey, Newton
+Abbot, states:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On the night of November 10th, 1861, I was up in my bed
+watching, because there was a person not quite well in the next
+room. I heard a voice which I recognised at once as familiar to
+me, and at first thought of my sister. It said in the brightest
+and most cheerful tone, 'I am here with you.' I answered,
+looking and seeing nothing, 'Who are you?' The voice said, 'You
+mustn't know yet.' I heard nothing more and saw nothing, and am
+certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was not in the
+least frightened, and felt convinced it was Lucy's [Miss Lucy
+Gambier Parry's] voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never doubted it from that moment. I had not heard of
+her being worse. The last account had been good, and I was
+expecting to hear that she was at Torquay. In the course of the
+next day (the 11th), mother told me that she had died on the
+morning of the 10th, rather more than twelve hours before I
+heard her voice."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A case reported by Mr John E. Husbands,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> of Melbourne House, Town Hall
+Square, Grimsby, is interesting:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a
+bright moonlight night. The windows were open, and the blinds
+up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a
+young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing
+at the side of my bed, and pointing with the first finger of
+his right hand to the place where I was lying. I lay for some
+seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I
+then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly
+that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some
+days afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not speak,
+but his eyes and hands seemed to tell me that I was in his
+place. As he did not answer, I struck at him with my fist as I
+sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out
+of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut,
+keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> inquiry I found
+that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was
+occupying."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is, too, the famous case of Mrs de Fréville and the gardener Bard.
+The percipient, who had formerly been in the employ of this somewhat
+eccentric lady, who was especially morbid on the subject of tombs and so
+forth, was in the churchyard of Hinxton, Saffron Walden, on Friday, 8th
+May 1885. He happened to look at the square De Fréville stone vault,
+when, to his amazement, he distinctly saw the old lady, with a white
+face, leaning on the rails. When he looked again she was gone, although
+it puzzled him to know how she could have got out of the churchyard, as,
+in order to reach any of the gates, she must have passed him. Next day
+he was told that Mrs de Fréville was dead. As the apparition was seen
+about seven and a half hours after death, it could, as I have suggested,
+be considered a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment of death
+and remaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> latent in the brain of the percipient; otherwise, the
+case belongs to the category of Haunting, which we will glance at in the
+next chapter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Do I believe in ghosts?" asks Mr Andrew Lang. "One can only answer:
+'How do you define a ghost?' I do believe, with all students of human
+nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the
+senses. But as to whether such hallucinations among the sane are ever
+caused by physical influence from the minds of others, alive or dead,
+not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a
+balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence."</p>
+
+<p>If the evidence of "hauntings" were measurable by bulk alone, no phase
+of occultism would be more completely demonstrated. It is only when we
+come to examine the quality of the available data that we realise how
+formidable a task it is we have undertaken. In nothing, perhaps, have
+credulity and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> superstition been allowed so wide a scope; nowhere is it
+more difficult to winnow the grain of reliable testimony from the chaff
+of mythology and invention. For we must remember that the belief in
+ghosts is as old as the hills themselves. It is common to all countries
+and to all nations, and in the literature of every language are to be
+found tales of the supernatural scarcely less plausible than many which
+assail our ears to-day.</p>
+
+<p>What I now set myself to investigate is that class of phenomena
+seemingly attached to various localities and comprising, besides
+apparitions, sights and sounds of various kinds and degrees. According
+to Mr E. T. Bennett, for twenty years assistant secretary of the
+Psychical Research Society, the records of the Society contain
+descriptions of "a large number of cases in which the evidence of the
+reality of phenomena incapable of ordinary explanation is absolutely
+conclusive."</p>
+
+<p>When the sounds are intelligible, or a sentence is spelt out in response
+to the inquiry of the auditor, the <i>raison d'être</i> of the manifestation
+is more or less obvious. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> there is evidence of a large number of
+so-called "hauntings" where steps are heard, or noises which convey no
+intelligible information. Sometimes, also, we are told that
+simultaneously with the death of a friend bangs have been heard, which,
+but for the coincidence of their occurrence in association with a death,
+are without meaning. M. Flammarion cites several cases of this sort. The
+following will serve as an illustration:&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>M. E. Deschaux relates that his grandfather "was awakened one
+evening at eleven P.M. by three very distinct raps on the door
+of his room. Astonished, he rose, lit the lamp, opened the
+door, but saw no one. Supposing that some trickster had been
+the cause of his disturbance, he returned to bed grumbling, but
+again three knocks were heard on the door. He got up quickly,
+intending that the culprit should pay dearly for his untimely
+joke, but in spite of careful search, both in the passage and
+on the staircase, he could not discover<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> where this mysterious
+culprit had disappeared to. A third time, when he was again in
+bed, three raps were audible on the door. This time the
+grandfather had a presentiment that the sound was caused by the
+spirit of his mother, although nothing in the tidings he had
+previously received from his family incited him to this
+supposition. Five or six days after this manifestation a letter
+arrived from his own country announcing the death of his mother
+which had occurred precisely at the hour at which he had heard
+the knocks. At the moment of her death, his mother, who had a
+particular affection for him, had insisted that a dress which
+her 'boy in Paris' had some time before sent her as a present
+should be brought and placed on her bed."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Here we seem to have a distinct motive for the visitation; but on the
+other hand observe how many cases we come across where the phenomena
+appears to be due solely to the wanton and mischievous impulses of the
+invisible agents.</p>
+
+<p>There is for example the case of a house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> in which spiritual
+manifestations, often of a disturbing character, were continually being
+produced, related by Mr Inkster Gilbertson in <i>The Occult Review</i> on the
+authority of a West End physician who is called Dr Macdonald. The swish
+of a silk dress and the slamming of doors were among the least important
+of the phenomena from a psychical point of view, though the sound of
+someone coming through a skylight and dropping on to the landing was
+certainly calculated to terrify the ladies, who "came up from the
+drawing-room screaming and shouting, expecting to find some dreadful
+tragedy being enacted." These manifestations consisted entirely of
+sounds, but at the regular sittings which were held in the house a
+drawer was taken from its place in the bedroom and left on the hall
+stand, the loose wooden leaves which converted a billiard-table into a
+dining-table were slid off the end and deposited on the floor, and a
+screen was several times seen to fold itself up without being touched.</p>
+
+<p>The most peculiar occurrences, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> were the antics of certain keys
+belonging to doors in the house. "The door of the front bedroom was
+often found locked, and the key would disappear." The doctor kept his
+eye on the key and presently saw it move round, locking the door, and
+then "he saw the last of the key disappearing through the hole." At
+another time the lady of the house, her children, and the maid were
+locked in for some hours. "The key would be kept away for days; then it
+would suddenly appear. One day it was found in Mrs Macdonald's lap; once
+it was quietly laid on the doctor's head," and so forth. On one occasion
+when the key was not given up the doctor called out: "Won't you send us
+down the key before we go?" They were passing down the stairs and,
+before they reached the bottom, the key was gently dropped on the
+doctor's head. The most careful observations failed to discover the
+known means by which the feats could be accomplished. The evidence of
+the intelligence and of the mischievous disposition of these uncanny
+tricksters was borne out by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> sounds of dancing being heard outside the
+door just afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"The possible non-ghostly explanations," says Mrs Sidgwick, "of what
+pass as ghostly phenomena may be conveniently classed with reference to
+the various sorts of error by which the evidence to such phenomena is
+liable to be affected. I should state these as (1) hoaxing, (2)
+exaggeration or inadequate description, (3) illusion, (4) mistaken
+identity, (5) hallucination.... I think, however, that anyone who has
+read the evidence will at once discard the first of these alternatives
+so far as the great mass of the first-hand narratives is concerned."</p>
+
+<p>There are not a few cases, however, where the ghostly manifestations
+have been found to be due to human agency. The following instance was
+brought to my notice by a well-known firm of estate agents at Tunbridge
+Wells:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"There is an old Manor House in this district which is locally
+known as the 'Haunted House.' The original mansion was,
+according<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> to Hasted, one of the homes of the Colepepers. In
+the reign of Charles II. the mansion was rebuilt in the style
+of the period. It has, however, outlived its purpose, is out of
+repair and was for many years let in tenements to labourers. It
+is now untenanted. Some few months ago the lurid tales of
+ghostly visitors induced a local spiritualist, encouraged by
+some mischievous friends, to hold a <i>séance</i> in the house at
+midnight, and to perambulate the rambling building from time to
+time during the night. The spirits lived up to their reputation
+and gave all kinds of manifestations which included streams of
+water from invisible buckets that met the investigator as he
+groped up the staircase and along the passages. In the end the
+whole thing was found to be a hoax and to have been organised
+by the spiritualist's friends. He is not communicative on the
+subject. The old house still stands empty and deserves a better
+fate."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The classic case of haunting in England is, perhaps, that of Willingdon
+Mill. Other spectre-ridden edifices in the kingdom there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> may well be,
+but their stories, however grim and ghastly, are apt to relapse into
+insignificance beside those narrated of this famous Tyneside building.</p>
+
+<p>Willingdon Mill, which is situated in Northumberland nearly half-way
+between Newcastle and North Shields, was built about the year 1800.
+When, thirty-four years later, certain unaccountable noises and other
+phenomena began to attract attention the occupants consisted of a worthy
+Quaker, Joseph Proctor by name, his wife, servants and family. Joseph
+Proctor used to keep a diary wherein he chronicled the strange
+happenings in his house. The greater portion of this was published in
+<i>The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, vol. v., but full
+accounts of the affair have appeared in many publications, among which
+may be mentioned Howitt's "Visits to Remarkable Places," Crowe's "Night
+Side of Nature," "The Local Historian's Table Book," and Stead's "Real
+Ghost Stories."</p>
+
+<p>It was a servant girl that first called attention to the mysterious
+noises. She positively<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> affirmed that she had heard "a dull heavy tread
+on the boarded floor of the room unoccupied above, commonly pacing
+backwards and forwards and, on coming over to the window, giving the
+floor such a shake as to cause the windows of the nursery to rattle
+violently in their frames." This disturbance usually lasted about ten
+minutes at a time. At first the girl's tale was discredited, but before
+many days had elapsed every member of the family had heard precisely
+what the girl described. The room was vigorously searched but no clue to
+the phantom footsteps was forthcoming. Even the expedient of covering
+the floor with flour was without result; the "dull, heavy tread" left no
+traces upon the whitened boards.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before other unaccountable noises were heard all over
+the house and ghostly figures were seen by several persons. To
+illustrate the kind of occurrence that was constantly going on in the
+house, and which, indeed, became so frequent that they were thought very
+little of, I quote the following extracts from Joseph Proctor's
+diary:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"7 mo., 14th, 1841:&mdash;J. and E. P. heard the spirit in their own
+room, and in the room overhead, making a noise as of something
+heavy being hoisted or rolled, or like a barrel set down on its
+end; also noises in the Camproom of various and unaccountable
+character.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"8 mo., 3rd.&mdash;Since the last night there have been few nights
+during which some branch of the family has not heard our
+visitor. One night, J. P. was awoke and heard something hastily
+walk, with a step like that of a child of 8 or 10 years, from
+the foot of the bed towards the side of the room, and come back
+seemingly towards the door, in a run; then it gave two stamps
+with one foot; there was a loud rustling as if of a frock or
+night-dress. I need scarcely say the door was locked, and I am
+quite certain there was no other human being in the room save
+E. P., who was asleep. The two stamps aroused E. P. out of her
+sleep. About this time Joseph, on two or three occasions, said
+he had heard voices from underneath his bed and from other
+parts of the room, and described seeing on one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> occasion a boy
+in a drab hat much like his own, the boy much like himself too,
+walking backwards and forwards between the windows and the
+wardrobe. He was afraid, but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Noises as of a band-box falling close at hand, as of someone
+running upstairs when no one was there, and like the raking of
+a coal rake, were heard about this time by different members of
+the family."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"8 mo., 6th.&mdash;On the night of the third, just after the
+previous memorandum was written, about 10.30 P.M., the servants
+having all retired to bed, J. and E. P. heard a noise like a
+clothes horse being thrown down in the kitchen. Soon the noises
+became louder and appeared as though some persons had burst
+into the house on the ground floor and were clashing the doors
+and throwing things down. Eventually J. P. got one of the
+servants to go downstairs with him, when all was found right,
+no one there, and apparently nothing moved. The noises now
+began on the third storey, and the servants were so much
+alarmed that it was difficult<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> to get them to go to bed at all
+that night.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"8 mo., 6th to 12th.&mdash;My brother-in-law, George Carr, was with
+us. He heard steppings and loud rumblings in the middle of the
+night, and other noises."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A curious feature in this case was the number of apparitions seen. Thus
+we have clear testimony of the presence of a lady in a lavender silk
+dress, of an old bald-headed man in a flowing robe like a surplice, of a
+lady in grey, and of a horrid eyeless spectre who glared fixedly at the
+world through empty eyeholes. Added to these there were animals of all
+sorts and descriptions, cats, monkeys, rabbits and sheep.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On one occasion, during the period that Thomas was courting
+Mary, he was standing at the window outside (no followers being
+allowed inside, lest fabulous reports were sent abroad). He had
+given the usual signal. The night was clear, and the stars
+beamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> forth their light from a cloudless sky. Suddenly
+something appeared which arrested my father's attention.
+Looking towards the mill, which was divided from the house by
+an open space, he beheld what he supposed was a whitish cat. It
+came walking along in close proximity to his feet. Thinking
+Miss Puss very cheeky he gave her a kick; but his foot felt
+nothing and the cat quietly continued its march, followed by my
+father, until it suddenly disappeared from his gaze. Still the
+ghost was not thought of by him. Returning to the window and
+looking in the same direction, he again beheld it suddenly come
+into existence. This time it came hopping like a rabbit, coming
+quite as close to his feet as before. He determined to have a
+good rap at it, and took deliberate aim; but, as before, his
+foot went through it and felt nothing. Again he followed it,
+and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The
+third time he went to the window, and in a few moments it made
+its third appearance, not like unto a cat or a rabbit, but
+fully as large as a sheep, and quite luminous. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> it came and
+my father was fixed to the spot. All muscular power seemed for
+the moment paralysed. It moved on, disappearing at the same
+spot as the preceding apparitions. My father declared that if
+it was possible for 'hair to stand on end' his did just then.
+Thinking that for once he had seen sufficient, he went home,
+keeping the knowledge of this scene to himself."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is not to be wondered at if the queer doings at Willingdon Mill began
+to be rumoured abroad. They reached the ears of a certain Dr Edward
+Drury of Sunderland, who was, not unnaturally, rather sceptical. He
+asked and obtained permission to sit up alone in the house one night
+accompanied only by his faithful dog and with a pair of pistols in his
+pocket. His opportunity came in July, 1840, when all the family, with
+the exception of Joseph Proctor himself, was away from the mill. The
+night was fruitful with horror, and the following letter addressed to
+the miller nearly a week after the event tells its own tale:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Monday Morning,</p>
+
+<p>"6th July, 1840.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Mr Proctor</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;I am sorry I was not at home to receive you
+yesterday, when you kindly called to inquire for me. I am happy
+to state that I am really surprised that I have been so little
+affected as I am after that horrid and most awful affair. The
+only bad effect I feel is a heavy dulness in one of my
+ears&mdash;the right one. I call it a heavy dullness, because I not
+only do not hear distinctly but feel in it a constant noise.
+This I never was affected with before; but I doubt not it will
+go off. I am persuaded that no one went to your house at any
+time <i>more disbelieving in respect to seeing anything
+peculiar</i>; now no one can be more satisfied than myself. I
+will, in the course of a few days, send you a full detail of
+all I saw and heard. Mr Spence and two other gentlemen came
+down to my house in the afternoon to hear my detail; but, sir,
+could I account for these noises from natural causes, yet, so
+firmly am I persuaded of the horrid apparition, that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> would
+affirm that what I saw with my eyes was a punishment to me for
+my scoffing and unbelief; that I am assured that, as far as the
+horror is concerned, they are happy that believe and have not
+seen ... it will be a great source of joy to me if you never
+allow your young family to be in that horrid house again.
+Hoping you will write a few lines at your leisure, I remain,
+dear sir, yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Edward Drury.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this letter the sturdy Quaker sent a characteristic reply.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Willingdon,</p>
+
+<p>"7th mo., 9, 1840.</p>
+
+<p>"Respected Friend, <span class="smcap">E. Drury</span>,&mdash;Have been at Sunderland, I did
+not receive thine of the 6th till yesterday morning. I am glad
+to hear thou art getting well over the effects of thy
+unlooked-for visitation. I hold in respect thy bold and manly
+assertion of the truth in the face of that ridicule and
+ignorant conceit with which that which is called the
+supernatural, in the present day, is usually assailed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I shall be glad to receive thy detail, in which it will be
+needful to be very particular in showing that thou couldst not
+be asleep, or attacked by nightmare, or mistake a reflection of
+the candle, as some sagaciously suppose. I remain,
+respectfully, thy friend,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Josh. Proctor.</span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>P.S.</i>&mdash;I have about thirty witnesses to various things which
+cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on any other principle
+than that of spiritual agency."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Four days later Dr Drury wrote out a full account of his experience.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Sunderland,</p>
+
+<p>"13th July 1840.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;I hereby, according to promise in my last letter,
+forward you a true account of what I saw and heard at your
+house, in which I was led to pass the night from various
+rumours circulated by most respectable parties, particularly
+from an account by my esteemed friend, Mr Davison, whose name I
+mentioned to you in a former letter. Having received your
+sanction to visit your mysterious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> dwelling, I went, on the 3rd
+of July, accompanied by a friend of mine, T. Hudson. This was
+not according to promise, nor in accordance with my first
+intent, as I wrote you I would come alone; but I felt gratified
+at your kindness in not alluding to the liberty I had taken, as
+it ultimately proved for the best. I must here mention that,
+not expecting you at home, I had in my pocket a brace of
+pistols, determining in my mind to let one of them drop before
+the miller, as if by accident, for fear he should presume to
+play tricks upon me; but after my interview with you, I felt
+there was no occasion for weapons, and did not load them, after
+you had allowed us to inspect as minutely as we pleased every
+portion of the house. I sat down on the third storey landing,
+fully expecting to account for any noises that I might hear, in
+a philosophical manner. This was about eleven o'clock P.M.
+About ten minutes to twelve we both heard a noise, as if a
+number of people were pattering with their bare feet upon the
+floor; and yet, so singular was the noise, that I could not
+minutely determine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> from whence it proceeded. A few minutes
+afterwards we heard a noise, as if someone was knocking with
+his knuckles among our feet; this was followed by a hollow
+cough from the very room from which the apparition proceeded.
+The only noise after this, was as if a person was rustling
+against the wall in coming upstairs. At a quarter to one I told
+my friend that, feeling a little cold, I would like to go to
+bed, as we might hear the noise equally well there; he replied
+he would not go to bed till daylight. I took up a note which I
+had accidentally dropped and began to read it, after which I
+took out my watch to ascertain the time, and found that it
+wanted ten minutes to one. In taking my eyes from the watch
+they became riveted upon a closet door, which I distinctly saw
+open, and saw also the figure of a female attired in greyish
+garments, with the head inclining downwards, and one hand
+pressed upon the chest as if in pain, and the other&mdash;viz. the
+right hand&mdash;extended towards the floor, with the index finger
+pointing downward. It advanced with an apparently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> cautious
+step across the floor towards me; immediately as it approached
+my friend, who was slumbering, its right hand was extended
+towards him; I then rushed at it, giving, as Mr Proctor states,
+a most awful yell; but instead of grasping it I fell upon my
+friend, and I recollected nothing distinctly for nearly three
+hours afterwards. I have since learned that I was carried
+downstairs in an agony of fear and terror.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"I hereby certify that the above account is strictly true and
+correct in every respect.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Edward Drury.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So intolerable became life in this uncanny house that, in 1847, Joseph
+Proctor and his family moved to South Shields. For the last night of
+their residence was reserved a more than usually turbulent
+demonstration. "There were," says Mr Edmund Proctor, "continuous noises
+during the night, boxes being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down
+the now carpetless stairs, non-human footsteps stumped on the floors,
+doors were, or seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> to be, clashed, and impossible furniture corded
+at random or dragged hither and thither by inscrutable agency; in short,
+a pantomimic or spiritualistic repetition of all the noises incident to
+a household flitting. A miserable night my father and mother had of it,
+as I have often heard from their own lips; not so much from terror at
+the unearthly noises, for to these they were habituated, as dread lest
+this wretched fanfaronade might portend the contemporary flight of the
+unwelcome visitors to the new abode. Fortunately for the family this
+dread was not realised."</p>
+
+<p>After undergoing various vicissitudes, the house was finally divided
+into small tenements, in which condition it still remains. But of late
+years nothing has been seen or heard of the ghostly visitors. Perhaps,
+smitten with dismay by the deterioration of their former dwelling-place,
+they have taken up their abode elsewhere. For Willingdon Mill, formerly
+gay with flowers and creepers, is now a wreck of its former self. The
+mill is used as a warehouse; the stables and outhouses have been pulled
+down; while the house stands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> out gaunt and forbidding, a picture of
+desolation and decay.</p>
+
+<p>Mr W. T. Stead, in his "Real Ghost Stories," has given us many thrilling
+examples of nocturnal apparitions, and of these the uncanny experience
+of the Rev. H. Elwyn Thomas, of 35 Park Village East, N. W., is well
+worth repeating.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Thomas, after having conducted a service at the church at Llangynidr,
+accompanied three young friends of his for about half-a-mile on their
+homeward way.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"When I wished good-night to my friends, it was about twenty
+minutes to nine, but still light enough to see a good distance.
+The subject of our conversation all the way from the chapel
+until we parted was a certain eccentric old character who then
+belonged to the Crickhowell church. Many laughable incidents in
+his life had been related by my friends for my amusement, at
+which I laughed heartily again and again. I walked a little
+farther down the road than I intended, in order to hear the end
+of a very amusing story<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> about him and the vicar of a
+neighbouring parish. Our conversation had no reference whatever
+to ghosts or ghostly things. Neither were we in the mood
+befitting a ghostly visitation. Personally I was a strong
+disbeliever in ghosts, and invariably ridiculed those who I
+then thought superstitious enough to believe in them.</p>
+
+<p>"When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends I
+saw on the bank of the canal (which runs parallel with the road
+for six or seven miles) what I thought at the moment was an old
+beggar. The spot was a very lonely one. The nearest house was a
+good quarter of a mile away. The night was as silent as death.
+Not a single sound broke upon the silence from any quarter. I
+could not help asking myself where this old man had come from
+to such a place. I had not seen him in going down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"I then turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look
+at him, and had no sooner done so than I saw within half-a-yard
+of me one of the most remarkable and startling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> sights I hope
+it will ever be my lot to see. Almost on a level with my own
+face I saw that of an old man, over every feature of which the
+putty-coloured skin was drawn tightly, except the forehead
+which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were extremely
+thin, and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth
+stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those
+of a corpse, and the eyes, which seemed far back in the middle
+of the head, were unnaturally luminous and piercing. This
+terrible object was wrapped in two bands of old yellow calico,
+one of which was drawn under the chin and over the cheeks and
+tied at the top of the head, the other was drawn round the top
+of the wrinkled forehead and fastened at the back of the head.
+So deep and indelible an impression it made on my mind, that
+were I an artist I could paint that face to-day, and reproduce
+the original (excepting, perhaps, the luminous eyes) as
+accurately as if it were photographed.</p>
+
+<p>"What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a
+glance. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+again towards the village, and ran away from the horrible
+vision with all my might for about sixty yards. I then stopped
+and turned round to see how far I had outdistanced it, and, to
+my unspeakable horror, there it was still face to face with me,
+as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my umbrella and raised
+it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings when I could
+see nothing between the face and the ground except an irregular
+column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella went as a
+stick goes through water!</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to confess that I again took to my heels with
+increasing speed. A little farther than the place of this
+second encounter, the road which led towards my host's house
+branched off the main road, the main road itself running right
+through the centre of the village, in the lower end of which it
+ran parallel with the churchyard wall. Having gone a few yards
+down the branch road, I reached a crisis in my fear and
+confusion when I felt I could act rationally: I determined to
+speak to the strange pursuer whatever he was, and I boldly
+turned round to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> face him for the third time, intending to ask
+him what he wanted, etc.,</p>
+
+<p>"He had not followed me after I left the main road, but I could
+see the horribly fascinating face quite as plainly as when it
+was close by. It stood for two or three minutes looking
+intently at me from the centre of the main road. I then
+realised fully it was not a human being in flesh and blood; and
+with every vestige of fear gone I quickly walked towards it to
+put my questions. But I was disappointed, for no sooner had I
+made towards it than it moved quickly in the direction of the
+village. I saw it moving along, keeping the same distance from
+the ground, until it reached the churchyard wall; it then
+crossed the wall, and disappeared near where the yew-tree stood
+inside. The moment it disappeared I became unconscious. When I
+came to myself, two hours later, I was lying in the middle of
+the road, cold and ill. It took me quite an hour to reach my
+host's house, which was less than half-a-mile away, and when I
+reached it I looked so white and strange that my host's
+daughter, who had sat down with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> her father to wait my return,
+uttered a loud scream. I could not say a word to explain what
+had happened, though I tried hard several times. It was five
+o'clock in the morning when I regained my power of speech; even
+then I could only speak in broken sentences. The whole of the
+following week I was laid up with great nervous prostration.</p>
+
+<p>"The strangest part of my story remains yet to be told. My
+host, after questioning me closely in regard to the features of
+the face, the place I had first seen it and the spot where it
+disappeared, told me that fifteen years before that time an old
+recluse, answering in every detail to my description (calicoes,
+bands and all), lived in a house whose ruins still stand close
+by where I first saw it, that he was buried in the exact spot
+in the churchyard where I saw the face disappearing, and that
+he was a very strange character altogether.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p><p>"I should like to add that I had not heard a syllable about
+this old man before the night in question, and that all the
+persons referred to in the above story are still alive."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Here is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in
+<i>Light</i>. The narrator is a Colonel X.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night
+the sentry came to tell me that there was something very
+extraordinary going on in the White Chapel, which, in those
+days, was used as a storeroom.</p>
+
+<p>"I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed
+up and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly
+lit up, and presently priests in vestments and boys swinging
+silver censers came in and arranged themselves before an altar.
+Then the large entrance doors opened and a procession of
+persons in old quaint costumes filed in. Walking alone was a
+lady in black, and behind her was a masked man, also in black,
+who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded away, and
+there was utter darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so
+laughed at that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+gentleman introduced himself as the keeper of the records of
+the Tower, and said that he had heard my story, but wished to
+hear it again from my own lips; and when I had told it he
+remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision has been seen
+by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's death.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in
+a court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in "Sights and Shadows,"
+gives an account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year
+1890.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner,
+Miss Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of £23.</p>
+
+<p>"The last-named persons took possession of it in due course;
+but two days subsequently they became aware of the presence of
+a spirit or ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs
+Kinney asserted, 'threw heavy things at her,' and so alarmed
+and inconvenienced her, that in a very short period both
+husband and wife were forced to quit their abode.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it;
+and, because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised
+to decline to pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to
+release them from their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's
+rent; and when this remained for sometime unpaid, sued them for
+it before Judge Kisby.</p>
+
+<p>"A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants,
+who, having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in
+question, asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that
+of several other people. This, however, was disallowed by the
+judge.</p>
+
+<p>"It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side
+or the other had been said regarding the haunting when the
+house was let; yet that the rent was due and must be paid.</p>
+
+<p>"A judgment was consequently entered for the landlady although
+it had been shown indirectly that unquestionably the house had
+the reputation of being haunted, and that previous tenants had
+been much inconvenienced and affrighted."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another case is chronicled which took place in Dublin in 1885. Dr Lee's
+account is confirmed by <i>The Evening Standard</i> of February 23rd of that
+year.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr Waldron, a solicitor, sued his next-door neighbour, one
+Kiernan, a mate in the merchant service, to recover £500 for
+damages done to his house. Kiernan altogether denied the
+charges, but asserted that Waldron's residence was notoriously
+haunted. Witnesses proved that every night from August 1884, to
+January 1885, stones were thrown at the windows and doors and
+other serious damage done&mdash;in fact that numerous extraordinary
+and inexplicable occurrences constantly took place.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs Waldron, wife of the plaintiff, swore that one night she
+saw one of the panes of glass of a certain window cut through
+with a diamond, and a white hand inserted through the hole. She
+at once caught up a bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand,
+cutting off one of the fingers. Neither this finger, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+could be found nor were any traces of blood seen.</p>
+
+<p>"A servant of hers was sorely persecuted by noises and the
+sound of footsteps. Mr Waldron, with the aid of detectives and
+policemen, endeavoured to find the cause, but with no avail.
+The witnesses in this case were closely cross-examined, but
+without shaking their testimony. The facts appeared to be
+proved, so the jury found for Kiernan, the defendant. At least
+twenty persons had testified on oath to the fact that the house
+had been known to have been haunted."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The possible agency of small boys in the matter of stone-throwing is
+apparently overlooked, while it can be easily imagined that a servant
+girl, well aware of the uncanny reputation of the house she lived in,
+would very soon develop a capacity for hearing mysterious sounds and
+footsteps on the smallest provocation. Then again the testimony of the
+plaintiff's wife was surely very damaging to her own case since she was,
+presumably, endeavouring to prove that the whole of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> "extraordinary
+and inexplicable occurrences" were due to some mad freak on the part of
+her neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole I can find no class of occult phenomena of greater
+antiquity and persistence than that of haunting. Even though the ghost
+may not be as visible as that of Hamlet's father, yet the idea of a
+perturbed spirit revisiting its former haunts or the scene of its bodily
+murder finds credence amongst all peoples and epochs in the world's
+history. Fable is usually the dulled image of the truth: just as what we
+call presentiment or rumour is a kind of aura or van-wind of truth. On
+these grounds alone I should be inclined to take the legendary evidence
+for haunting seriously, just as every man who investigates its
+astonishing history now perceives that witchcraft is not to be dismissed
+as a mere groundless superstition. Indeed, I lay it down as a
+proposition that any belief which spontaneously and universally arises
+and persistently survives must have truth in the web of it. But the
+modern authentic testimony for haunting is so clear and strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> and the
+attestors so clear-headed and indeed inexpugnable that we must really
+believe the physical sounds, with their revealed significance, actually
+occurred and do occur. Hallucination I put here out of the question.
+Neither will the theory of telepathy between the living serve to account
+for anything here.</p>
+
+<p>There is some other solution of the mystery. Has it been propounded? We
+shall see. Cock Lane is not now to be dismissed derisively. Nor are
+these manifestations to be treated in the spirit of one of the
+characters in Mr Wells' "Love and Mr Lewisham"&mdash;"Even if it be true&mdash;it
+is all wrong."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD</h3>
+
+
+<p>No serious inquirer into the mysteries of occultism should neglect to
+study the peculiar human faculty locally known as Dowsing. Science has
+hitherto turned a cold shoulder to the skilled wielders of the divining
+rod, and at first sight perhaps few subjects appear to be so little
+worthy of investigation. To begin with it is a matter of common
+geological knowledge that the mode of distribution of underground water
+is very different from that imagined by the professional dowser. The
+latter will locate a spring in a certain spot and give you scrupulous
+details as to its depth and the amount of water it will yield. He may go
+on to tell you that a few feet distant is another spring, of a totally
+different depth, and that between the two no water will be found. The
+assertions are ridiculed by the practical geologist,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> whose point of
+view is admirably expressed in the following letter. The writer is the
+Rev. Osmond Fisher, M.A. (author of "Physics of the Earth's Crust").</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Harlton Rectory, Cambridge,</p>
+
+<p>"February 4th, 1896.</p>
+
+<p>"It appears to me that the assumption which underlies the
+belief in the divining rod is erroneous. It is only under
+exceptional circumstances, as among crystalline rocks, or where
+the strata are much disturbed, that underground water runs in
+channels like water in a pipe, so that a person can say, 'I am
+now standing over a spring,' whereas a few paces off he was not
+over one. What is called a spring, such as is reached in a
+well, is <i>usually</i> a widely extended water-saturated stratum.
+Ordinarily where water can be reached by a well, there are few
+spots [in the neighbourhood] where a well would not find it.</p>
+
+<p>"The question which is really worthy of investigation in this
+and similar cases seems to be how such an idea ever originated
+and to what it owes its vitality."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the geologist's point of view, then, the so-called "diviner" is the
+merest charlatan, who, so far as the finding of water or mineral veins
+is concerned, would be equally successful were he to substitute the
+dice-box or the coin for his more usual implement the hazel wand. It is,
+he argues, a matter of guessing&mdash;and nothing more. The question becomes
+complicated when we remember that among the ardent devotees of the "rod"
+are to be numbered country squires, M.P.'s, doctors, clergymen, and
+farmers, who would have nothing to gain by pretending to a power which
+they did not possess.</p>
+
+<p>The Society for Psychical Research has devoted a considerable amount of
+attention to the subject. So far back as 1884 a paper on "The Divining
+Rod," prepared by Mr E. R. Pease, was read at a general meeting of the
+Society. The following is an abstract:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Divining Rod is a V-shaped twig, commonly of hazelwood,
+but sometimes of steel watchspring, whalebone and other
+substances. It first came into use about three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> centuries ago,
+and during the seventeenth century it was the subject of much
+controversy and of numerous experiments by the learned men of
+the time. Many theories were proposed to explain its action,
+but none of them would now be regarded as plausible, and
+various test experiments which were made uniformly failed. In
+1701, the Inquisition condemned the use of the rod, and after
+this date the popularity of divining greatly diminished. In the
+seventeenth century it was used to discover murderers and
+thieves, buried treasures, lost boundaries, and other hidden
+objects, as well as metals and water springs. At present it
+appears to be chiefly used in the West of England for the
+discovery of water springs, and in America for oil wells and
+mines. Mr E. Vaughan Jenkins, of Cheltenham, has made and
+presented to the Society for Psychical Research a very valuable
+collection of evidence of its use in England for locating
+wells. He has communicated with various well-known 'diviners,'
+and has received direct from landowners, architects, builders,
+commercial firms and others, careful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> records of the successful
+choosing of well sites by diviners in places where professional
+geologists or local experts were hopeless of success. It seems
+also that diviners travel about the country and 'dowse' in
+localities new and strange to them.... The divining rod is
+always held in a position of extreme tension, and at the same
+time of unstable equilibrium. Slight muscular contractions
+produce violent and startling effects. It would seem therefore
+that the action of the rod may be caused by unconscious
+movements of the diviner's hands, due possibly to a sensation
+of chill on reaching water-bearing spots, or perhaps merely to
+an unwritten practical science of the surface signs of hidden
+water."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr Pease eventually came to the conclusion that "the evidence for the
+success of dowsing as a practical art is very strong&mdash;and there seems to
+be an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made."
+Fifty years ago Dr Mayo, F.R.S., came to a similar conclusion after
+exhaustive experiments with the divining rod, both in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> England and
+abroad, and in 1883, Dr R. Raymond, the distinguished secretary of the
+American Institute of Mining Engineers, summed up the result of his
+investigations in the following opinion:&mdash;"That there is a residuum of
+scientific value, after making all necessary deductions for
+exaggeration, self-deception and fraud" in the use of the divining rod
+for finding springs and deposits of ore.</p>
+
+<p>In 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the
+Council of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of
+the matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett
+undertook the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against
+the subject was not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a
+few weeks' work would enable him to relegate it</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Into a limbo large and broad, since called<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Paradise of fools."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Six years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous
+report, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the
+"Proceedings." Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece
+of patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast
+that it is only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.</p>
+
+<p>The following case was sent by Miss Grantham:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,</p>
+
+<p>"February 1st, 1893.</p>
+
+<p>"My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of
+his farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish,
+and as he had previously told us he was able to discover the
+presence of water underground by means of a twig, we asked him
+to go with us one day to see if he could find water. Mr B.
+began by cutting a twig out of the hedge, of hazel or
+blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches long, then
+taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and first
+finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about
+the field in which my father proposed digging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> a well, and at
+two spots the point of the twig turned right up, exactly
+reversing its previous position; in fact so strong was its
+impulse to point upwards, that we found that unless Mr B.
+relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his fingers. We put
+small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about twelve
+years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since
+quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same
+ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found
+water, neither did we point them out to him, but at these
+places his twig behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father,
+mother, and four or five others, then cut similar twigs out of
+the hedge, but with none of us would they divine water. My
+father then took Mr B. over some ground where he knew of the
+existence of an underground stream; he did not tell Mr B. this,
+but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again turned
+upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one
+of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water,
+and it was found at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the
+boy both said that they did not feel any abnormal influence
+whatever when the twig divined water.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Emma L. Grantham.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another case (from Somersetshire) is quoted from in <i>The Western
+Gazette</i> of 10th February 1893. Evercreech is at the foot of the
+Mendips.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A well has recently been sunk on the premises of Messrs W.
+Roles &amp; Son, of Evercreech Junction, on the site of the
+proposed milk factory. Mr Henry Smart, head gardener at Pennard
+House, was successful with the divining twig (or rod), and a
+well was sunk to a depth of 60 feet, when a spring was found
+which yielded no less than 15,000 gallons of water in ten
+hours. Water came at such a rate that a powerful pump had to be
+erected temporarily by Messrs Hill &amp; Son, of Bruton, and was
+kept working day and night in order to keep the water down for
+the purpose of walling (the well). At the present time there is
+50 feet of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> water in the well, the supply increasing daily."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Professor Barrett wrote to Messrs Roles to know if a well had been sunk
+previously, and if the above statement was correct. They reply that the
+account is quite correct, and add: "We had previously sunk a well
+without the use of the rod, to nearly the same depth, but it was
+<i>unsuccessful</i>. Six yards from this useless well the diviner found the
+spring which now yields enough to supply a small village if required."</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Martin R. Knapp, M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, writes
+to Professor Barrett as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"72 Forest Road, Dalston, N.E.,</p>
+
+<p>"November 14th, 1896.</p>
+
+<p>"In the summer of 1892, I entered on the vicarage of North
+Wootton in North Somerset, and had reason at once to look for
+water. I was advised to try a 'water-finder,' and did so. The
+dowser was a retired miller, and came provided with a number of
+forked twigs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> Holding one he traversed the place, and at
+certain points the twig oscillated violently in his hands, and
+there, he professed, he should find water.</p>
+
+<p>"There was an interesting sidelight in the matter that I will
+tell you of. My builder, who came from Bath, was very sceptical
+about the whole thing. Three or four of us who were on the spot
+tried to see if the twigs would 'play up' with us.</p>
+
+<p>"We were unsuccessful till this man tried his hand, scoffing
+the while. But directly that he came to the spots the dowser
+had found the twig showed vigorous signs of animation. When his
+hand was being twisted in his efforts to keep the twig steady,
+I cried to him to hold fast, with the result that the twig
+twisted itself into two pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"At Wells, close by, lived a coachman, who was reported to have
+the power to find, not only water but minerals. He carries
+neither rod nor twig, and told me when I inquired, that his
+sensations are undoubted and extraordinary whenever he is
+directly above either water or minerals.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Martin R. Knapp.</span>"</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In answer to inquiries Mr Knapp informed Professor Barrett the builder
+was a stranger to the locality, and the spots where the rod moved were
+unlikely to suggest water below. The twig in the builder's hand, Mr
+Knapp says, in every case corroborated the dowser's indications, and
+hence he (the builder) was unmercifully chaffed, as he had treated the
+whole thing with such contempt. Mr Knapp says it is possible that the
+places indicated by the dowser might have been perceived by the builder,
+but it was the spontaneous and vigorous movement of the twig, evidently
+contrary to the holder's intention and against his will, that excited
+their astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Hutton, F.R.S., the distinguished mathematician&mdash;to whom the Royal
+Society entrusted the gigantic labour of making an abridgment of the
+whole of the Transactions of the Royal Society from its foundation in
+1666 to the beginning of this century&mdash;gives the following account of
+his experiments with the divining rod as used by Lady Milbanke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"At the time appointed (eleven A.M., 30th May 1806) the lady,
+with all her family, arrived at my house on Woolwich Common,
+where, after preparing the rods, etc., they walked to the
+grounds, accompanied by the individuals of my own family and
+some friends, when Lady Milbanke showed the experiment several
+times in different places, holding the rod in the manner
+described elsewhere. In the places where I had good reason to
+know that no water was to be found the rod was always
+quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water
+below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly in the
+manner above described, till the twigs twisted themselves off
+below the fingers, which are considerably indented by so
+forcibly holding the rod between them.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>"All the company stood close to Lady M. with all eyes intensely
+fixed on her hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> and the rods to watch if any particular
+motion might be made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of
+the kind was perceived, and all the company could observe no
+cause or reason why the rods should move in the manner they
+were seen to do.</p>
+
+<p>"After the experiments were ended, everyone of the company
+tried the rods in the same manner as they saw Lady M. had done,
+but without the least motion from any of them. And in my
+family, among ourselves, we have since then, several times,
+tried if we could possibly cause the rod to turn by means of
+any trick or twisting of the fingers, held in the manner Lady
+Milbanke did, but in vain; we had no power to accomplish it."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The following is a remarkable case, and an important one from an
+evidential point of view. It is not known whether the "diviner" in this
+case was an amateur or not; he is now dead.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Bristol Times and Mirror</i> of 16th June 1891 states:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery at Shepton Mallet needed a large
+water supply; accordingly excavations had been made to find
+water, but without success. About two years since, during an
+exceptionally dry season, it became absolutely necessary to
+obtain a further supply of brewing water; hence several boring
+experiments were made on the property. At the suggestion of a
+gentleman in the locality, the services of a 'diviner' were
+obtained, and although the principal members of the firm
+professed to have no faith in his 'art,' yet he was allowed to
+try the fields on the company's property, and those on the
+neighbouring estate, and discovered the well now used by the
+brewery.... The soothsayer who carried the divining rod, a
+hazel branch, was Mr Charles Sims, a local farmer, and a
+notable discoverer of wells in the district. Operations were
+immediately commenced, and, after excavating and dynamiting
+through the rock, to the depth of fifty feet, a magnificent
+spring was discovered in a fault of the rock, which proved to
+be of exceptionally fine water, and of even a finer quality
+than the town's supply."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Professor Barrett wrote to the Secretary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> of the brewery to make
+inquiries and he replied as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,</p>
+
+<p>"September 12th, 1896.</p>
+
+<p>"Replying to your letter in regard to a local diviner, we had
+one of the name of Sims, from Pilton, who successfully denoted
+a spot on our ground where we have had an abundant supply of
+water since. This was some eight years ago.</p>
+
+<p>"The writer of this letter also has had some considerable
+experience with Mr Lawrence of Bristol, who was one of the most
+noted divining rod men in the West of England. He also was
+successful in denoting a supply for a Bristol brewery with
+which the writer was connected; and in numerous other instances
+in the neighbourhood. Mr Lawrence bore a very high reputation.
+We believe he died a few months ago at a ripe old age.</p>
+
+<p>"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">J. Clifford</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Manager</i>."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Having written to ask if a previous boring had been made, and if so,
+what depth, and with what result, the following reply was received:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,</p>
+
+<p>"September 18th, 1896.</p>
+
+<p>"Replying to yours of the 14th, a boring was carried out to the
+extent of some 140 feet <i>without success</i> on another portion of
+our premises, before it was successfully done at the spot
+indicated by the water finder; here, a well was sunk and
+abundant water obtained at a depth of 40 feet.</p>
+
+<p>"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">J. Clifford</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Manager</i>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the following case, the best advice was obtained and some £1000 spent
+fruitlessly searching for an underground spring prior to the dowser's
+visit. The first notice of it appeared in a local newspaper, <i>The West
+Sussex Times and Sussex Standard</i>, from which the following letter is
+reprinted:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Warnham Lodge, Horsham,</p>
+
+<p>"January 3rd, 1893.</p>
+
+<p>"Having had very great difficulty in the supply of water to
+this house, I sent for John Mullins, of Colerne, near
+Chippenham, who, by the aid of a twig of hazel, pointed out
+several places where water could be found. I have sunk wells in
+four of the places and it each case have been most successful.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be said that water can be found anywhere&mdash;this is not
+my experience. I have had the best engineering advice and have
+spent many hundreds of pounds, and hitherto have not obtained
+sufficient water for my requirements, but now I have an
+abundant supply.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly should not think of sinking another well without
+previously consulting John Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Henry Harden.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is sometimes urged that only springs yielding a limited supply of
+water are found by dowsers, who fix on spots where more or less surface
+water can be got from shallow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> wells rather than run the risk of sinking
+a deep well. Many of the cases already cited refute this notion, and the
+following bears on the same point. It is from Messrs Beamish &amp; Crawford,
+the well-known brewers, of Cork.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Cork Porter Brewery, Cork,</p>
+
+<p>"December 30th, 1896.</p>
+
+<p>"In reply to your letter of 26th inst., we beg to state:</p>
+
+<p>"1. We had an old well yielding a small supply of water. It was
+about 30 feet deep.</p>
+
+<p>"2. No new well was fixed on by Mullins. He bored down to a
+depth of about 60 feet below the bottom of the old well, and
+therefore about 90 feet below the surface of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"3. The supply of water now obtained from the new pipes sunk by
+Mullins is, as nearly as we can estimate, about 10,000 gallons
+per hour.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Beamish &amp; Crawford Ltd.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It goes without saying that professional dowsers are not always
+successful in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> quests. "I am inclined," states Professor Barrett,
+"to think we may take from ten to fifteen per cent. as the average
+percentage of failures which occur with most English dowsers of to-day,
+allowing a larger percentage for partial failures, meaning by this that
+the quantity of water estimated and the depth at which it is found have
+not realised the estimate formed by the dowser."</p>
+
+<p>What then is the secret of the dowser's often remarkable success? The
+question is whether, after making every allowance for shrewdness of eye,
+chance, coincidence, and local geological knowledge, the dowser has any
+instinctive or supernormal power of discovering the presence of
+underground water. Professor Barrett, who has perhaps devoted more time
+to the subject than any other man living, is inclined to answer in the
+affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"There appears to be evidence," he writes, "that a more profound stratum
+of our personality, glimpses of which we get elsewhere in our
+'Proceedings,' is associated with the dowser's art; and the latter seems
+to afford a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> further striking instance of information obtained through
+automatic means being more remarkable than, and beyond the reach of,
+that derived from conscious observation and inference."</p>
+
+<p>In another passage he adds:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"For my own part, I have been driven to believe that some dowsers&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Whose exterior semblance doth belie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul's immensity"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>nevertheless give us a glimpse of</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The eternal deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Haunted for ever by the eternal mind."<br /></span>
+</div></div></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA</h3>
+
+
+<p>In my inquiry so far the reader will note that I have taken one thing
+for granted&mdash;the fact of telepathy. In order to convince him to the
+extent to which this great scientific truth has convinced me, it would
+be necessary for me to lead him through a thousand pages of evidence for
+telepathic phenomena, attested by some of the leading physicists of the
+day. I am aware that there are still sceptics on the subject of
+telepathy, but the testimony is overwhelming, and every year sees the
+ranks of scepticism growing thinner.</p>
+
+<p>Not many years ago a very learned man, the late Professor von Helmholtz,
+although confronted with <i>prima-facie</i> evidence of thought transference
+or telepathy, declared: "I cannot believe it. Neither the testimony of
+all the Fellows of the Royal Society, nor even the evidence of my own
+senses, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> lead me to believe in the transmission of them from one
+person to another. It is clearly impossible." An opinion in these terms
+is very rare to-day. We are apt to express our incredulity in language
+far more guarded and less emphatic.</p>
+
+<p>About hallucinations, however, there is no scepticism. We have remarked
+sensory hallucinations of an occasional nature; we now come to regard
+them as a cult, for I suppose there is no manifestation in the world, no
+gift, no prodigy even, that is not prone to the fate of being exploited
+for particular ends.</p>
+
+<p>A poet, we will say, by some rare "subliminal uprush," produces a
+beautiful poem. He is at once chained to his desk by publishers and
+compelled to go on producing poetry for the rest of his life. It is
+inevitable that many of his manifestations will be false; and for that
+reason, in spite of an occasional jewel of truth, he runs serious risks
+of being denounced in the end as no poet.</p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt it is the same with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> producers or the agents of
+occult phenomena. Sensory hallucinations may be stimulated. They may be
+stimulated by intoxication and disease, or they may be stimulated by the
+morbid conditions of a spiritualistic <i>séance</i>. Everything in these
+conditions&mdash;the prolonged darkness, the emotional expectancy&mdash;promotes
+the peculiar frame of mind apparently requisite. Constant
+exercise&mdash;perpetual aspiration develops the power of seeing visions.
+After a time, in well-known cases, they appear to need no inducement to
+come spontaneously.</p>
+
+<p>One well-known medium, Mr Hill Tout, confesses that building and
+peopling <i>chateaux en Espagne</i> was a favourite occupation of his in his
+earlier days. This long-practised faculty is doubtless a potent factor
+in all his characterisations, and probably also in those of many another
+full-fledged medium.</p>
+
+<p>Hallucinations need not be visual only; they are frequently auditory.
+Miss Freer gives an account of one induced by merely holding a shell to
+the ear. There is another case of a young woman in whom auditory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+hallucinations would be excited on hearing the sound of water running
+through a tap. Given the basis of actual sound, the hallucinable person
+quickly causes it to become articulate and intelligible. Thus, is it
+unreasonable to suppose that the vague, nebulous lights seen at dark
+<i>séances</i> would furnish the raw material, so to speak, for sense
+deception?</p>
+
+<p>Thus, we have the basis and beginning, from one point of view, of modern
+spiritualism. But before we examine the question of clairvoyance or
+trance utterances of spiritualistic mediums we must first of all go into
+the subject of physical phenomena.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>So-called physical phenomena are a comparatively modern excrescence on
+the main growth. It is only within the last half-century that they have
+attained any considerable development. The faith in the communion and
+intervention of spirits originated before their appearance and will
+probably outlast their final discredit. At the best, whatever effect
+they may have had in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> advertising the movement with the vulgar, they
+seem to have exerted only a subsidiary influence in inducing belief with
+more thoughtful men and women.</p>
+
+<p>These physical phenomena consist chiefly of table rapping, table moving,
+ringing of bells, and various other manifestations for which a normal
+cause is not apparent. For a long time, in the early days of modern
+spiritualism, the cult was chiefly confined to "miracles" of this sort.
+One of its most notable props was the manifestations, long continued and
+observed by many thousands, of the famous Daniel Dunglas Home. It is
+fifty years ago now since Home came to England and began his <i>séances</i>,
+which were attended by Lord Dunraven, Lord Brougham, Sir D. Brewster,
+Robert Owen, Bulwer Lytton, T. A. Trollope, Garth Wilkinson, and others.
+For thirty years Home was brought before the public as a medium, dying
+in 1886. He seems to have been an amiable, highly emotional man, full of
+generous impulses, and of considerable personal charm. His frankness and
+sincerity impressed all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> those who came in touch with the man. Mr Andrew
+Lang has called him "a Harold Skimpole, with the gift of divination."</p>
+
+<p>Home dealt with both clairvoyance and physical manifestations.
+Ostensibly through him came an enormous number of messages purporting to
+proceed from the dead friends of certain of those attending the
+<i>séances</i>. In the records of these <i>séances</i> will be found the signed
+statements of Dr Garth Wilkinson, Dr Gully, Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall, the
+present Earl of Dunraven, Earl of Crawford, Dr Hawksley, Mrs Nassau
+Senior, Mr P. P. Alexander, Mr Perdicaris, and others, that they had
+received messages giving details of a private nature that it seemed in
+the last degree probable could be known to the medium. Home's
+manifestations were for the most part those which any attendant at a
+spiritualistic <i>séance</i> can witness for himself to-day. The room he used
+was, compared with those used by other mediums who insisted on complete
+darkness, well lighted, as he had a shaded lamp, a gas-burner, or one or
+two candles lighted. The manifestations generally began<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> with raps; then
+followed a quivering movement of the table, which one present described
+as like "the vibration on a small steamer when the engines begin to
+work"; by another as "a ship in distress, with its timbers straining in
+a heavy sea." Then, suspended in the air, the table would float, and in
+its shelter musical instruments performing could be heard; the sitters
+could feel their knees being clasped and their dresses pulled; many
+things would be handed about the circle, such as handkerchiefs, flowers,
+and even heavy bells. During the performance messages were rapped out by
+the spirits, or delivered through the mouth of the medium. In this
+respect, where intelligence is shown, they would partake of the nature
+of trance utterance, a thing to be analysed later.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Robert Bell, a dramatist and critic, having been present at one of these
+<i>séances</i>, acknowledged that he had seen things which he was satisfied
+were "beyond the pale of material experiences." After describing various
+manifestations, hands felt under the table, touching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the knees, and
+pulling the clothes, bells rung by invisible agency, and various
+articles thrown about the room, he proceeds to describe "levitation":</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr Home was seated next the window. Through the semi-darkness
+his head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands
+might be seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he
+said, in a quiet voice, 'My chair is moving&mdash;I am off the
+ground&mdash;don't notice me&mdash;talk of something else,' or words to
+that effect. It was very difficult to restrain the curiosity,
+not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few words
+awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon some
+different topic. I was sitting nearly opposite Mr Home, and I
+saw his hands disappear from the table, and his head vanish
+into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke
+again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He
+had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from
+the ground. As he ascended higher he described his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> position,
+which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became
+horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the
+gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse.
+In a moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass
+across the window, against the grey, silvery light of which he
+would be visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his
+figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet
+foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he
+passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way and
+recross the window, which he did. His own tranquil confidence
+in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most
+novel peril gave confidence to everybody else; but with the
+strongest nerves it was impossible not to be conscious of a
+certain sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle
+for several minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly,
+over our heads. I heard his voice behind me in the air, and
+felt something lightly brush my chair. It was his foot, which
+he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the spot where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> it was on
+the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon it, when he
+uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with
+a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair,
+but floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He
+now passed over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we
+could judge by his voice of the altitude and distance he had
+attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which he made a
+slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed his
+place at the table. An incident which occurred during this
+aerial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity to it, was
+that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground under
+the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the
+air from the distant corner of the room."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A well-known physician, Dr Gully, who was present at this <i>séance</i>,
+wrote confirming the account in <i>The Cornhill Magazine</i> given by the
+above writer.</p>
+
+<p>During the ensuing forty years mediumistic performances became of common
+and almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> daily occurrence in this country. Two or three forms of
+so-called spirit manifestation&mdash;such as materialisation, spirit
+photography, and slate-writing&mdash;afterwards became connected with many of
+the <i>séances</i>. But first the manifestations in daylight consisted of
+raps and tiltings of a table; afterwards, when the lights were turned
+out or turned very low, spirit voices, touches of spirit hands, spirit
+lights, spirit-born flowers, floating musical instruments, and moving
+about or levitation of the furniture.</p>
+
+<p>Until Sir William Crookes began to investigate the alleged
+spiritualistic phenomena, all investigation had been undertaken by
+persons without scientific training. After a year of experiments he
+issued a detailed description of those conducted in his own laboratory
+in the presence of four other persons, two of whom, Sir William Huggins
+and Sergeant Fox, confirmed the accuracy of his report. The result was
+that he was able to demonstrate, he said, the existence of a hitherto
+unknown force, and had measured the effect produced. At all events,
+these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> inquirers were convinced of the genuineness of Home's powers.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose we glance at the possible alternative&mdash;viz. that Home was a
+conjurer of consummate skill and ingenuity. For one of the physical
+phenomena, that of tilting a table at a precarious angle without
+displacing various small objects resting on its polished surface, Mr
+Podmore suggests an explanation. He thinks that the articles were
+probably held in position on the table when it was tilted by means of
+hairs and fine threads attached to Home's dress. He has various
+explanations for other of the phenomena, but he confesses that there
+remain a few manifestations which the hypothesis of simple trickery does
+not seem to fit. In going over a mass of evidence relating to Home, the
+hypothesis of conjuring seems to be rather incredible; when one bears in
+mind Home's long career as a medium, how his private life was watched by
+the lynx-eyed sceptics, eager to pounce upon the evidence of trickery,
+and that he was never detected, it certainly seems to me, at all events,
+that Home's immunity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> from exposure is strong evidence against the
+assumption of fraud. Home was merely the type of a large class of
+mediums purporting to be controlled by spirit power, whose <i>séances</i> are
+a feature of modern life.</p>
+
+<p>Certain experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home came very near to
+satisfying the most stringent scientific conditions, especially those in
+the alteration in the weight of a board. In these experiments one end of
+the board was on a spring balance and the other rested on a table. The
+board became heavier or lighter as Home placed his fingers on the end
+resting on the table and "willed" it, and the different weights were
+recorded by an automatic register. This effect might have been produced,
+says Mr Podmore, by using a dark thread with a loop attached to some
+part of the apparatus&mdash;possibly the hook of the spring balance&mdash;and the
+ends fastened to Home's trousers. But this particular trick does not
+seem to have occurred to those experimenting, and the description of the
+<i>séances</i> does not exclude it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Suggesting an explanation of an event does not prove that it so
+occurred, and Mr Podmore adds: "It is not easy to see how the
+investigators ... could have been deceived, and repeatedly deceived, by
+any device of the kind suggested."</p>
+
+<p>One of the most remarkable of Daniel Dunglas Home's manifestations
+occurred on 16th December 1868, at 5 Buckingham Gate, London. There were
+present the Master of Lindsay (now the Earl of Crawford), Viscount Adare
+(the present Earl of Dunraven), and Captain Wynne. The Master of Lindsay
+has recorded the circumstances, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I was sitting with Mr Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his.
+During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that
+state was carried out of the window in the room next to where
+we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between
+the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not
+the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> than a
+twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge
+to put flowers on. We heard the window in the next room lifted
+up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in air
+outside our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my
+back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the
+window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it. He
+remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the
+window and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Here is Lord Adare's account of the central incident:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown
+up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our
+window; he opened the window and walked in quite coolly."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Captain Wynne, writing to Home in 1877, refers to this occasion in the
+following words:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"The fact of your having gone out of the one window and in at
+the other I can swear to."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is surely not a little remarkable that an occurrence of so
+extraordinary a nature should be testified to by three such clear-headed
+men as Captain Wynne and Lords Lindsay and Adare. To cross from one
+window to another by ordinary means was clearly impossible, and it would
+be a brave conjurer indeed who would essay such a feat at a distance of
+eighty-five feet from the ground. What then is the explanation? Mr
+Podmore suggests that the three witnesses were the victims of a
+collective hallucination; but this theory is not easy to accept, and Mr
+Andrew Lang has heaped it with ridicule. "There are," he writes, "two
+other points to be urged against Mr Podmore's theory that observers of
+Home were hallucinated. The Society's records contain plenty of
+'collective, so-called telepathic hallucinations.' But surely these
+hallucinations offered visionary figures of persons and things not
+present in fact. Has Mr Podmore one case, except<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> Home's, of a
+collective hallucination in which a person actually present is the
+hallucination; floats in the air, holds red-hot coals and so
+forth&mdash;appears outside of the window, for instance, when he is inside
+the room? Of course, where conjuring is barred. Again, Home's marvels
+are attested by witnesses violently prejudiced against him, and (far
+from being attentively expectant) most anxious to detect and expose
+him."</p>
+
+<p>If the case of Home presents difficulties to the rational sceptic, that
+of William Stainton Moses, who died in 1892, presents an even harder
+problem. I will refer to Moses later when we come to discuss
+clairvoyance, but at first his mediumistic powers were manifested in
+physical phenomena. He was a clergyman and a scholar, an M.A. of Oxford,
+and for nearly eighteen years English master in University College
+School. He was held in esteem and even affection by all who were most
+intimately associated with him. Yet Moses was responsible for table
+rapping, levitation of furniture, playing of musical instruments and
+"apports"&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> latter term expressing the movement or introduction of
+various articles either by the request of the sitters or spontaneously,
+such as books, stones, shells, opera-glasses, candle-sticks, and so
+forth. All this began in 1872, and the phenomena observed at the various
+<i>séances</i> were carefully recorded by the medium's friends, Dr and Mrs
+Speer, C. T. Speer, and F. W. Percival. It must be borne in mind that
+Moses was in his thirty-third year before he suspected mediumistic
+powers. There have been any number of hypotheses to account for the
+physical phenomena furnished at these <i>séances</i>. Jewels, cameos, seed
+pearls, and other precious things were brought and given to the sitters.
+Scent was introduced; familiar perfumes&mdash;such as sandalwood, jasmine,
+heliotrope, not always recognised&mdash;were a frequent occurrence at these
+<i>séances</i>. Occasionally it would be sprayed in the air, sometimes poured
+into the hands of the sitters, and often it was found oozing from the
+medium's head and even running down.</p>
+
+<p>In Mrs Speer's diary for 30th August there is the following record:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Many things were brought from different parts of the house
+through the locked door this evening. Mr S. M. was levitated,
+and when he felt for his feet they were hanging in mid-air,
+while his head must have almost touched the ceiling."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dr Speer also records a "levitation" on 3rd December:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr M. was floated about, and a large dining-room chair was
+placed on the table."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs Speer tells us that they sat in the fire-light, and that the
+<i>séances</i> were held in more or less complete darkness. Moses' own
+account of the levitation is much fuller. He says that he was fully
+conscious that he was floating about the room, and that he marked a
+place on the wall with a pencil, which was afterwards found to be more
+than six feet from the floor. Subsequently musical sounds became a
+feature of the manifestations. In September 1874 Mrs Speer gives a list
+of them, mentioning ten or more different kinds, including the
+tambourine, harp, fairy-bells,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> and many stringed instruments, and
+ascribes their production to eight different spirits.</p>
+
+<p>In the early materialisations of Stainton Moses we find that hands, and
+occasionally the fore arm, were seen holding lights. These spirit lights
+are described as hard, round, and cold to the touch. In his description
+of one incident at a <i>séance</i> Moses himself pens a significant passage,
+which seems to confirm the suspicion that the spirit lights were really
+bottles of phosphorised oil:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Suddenly there arose from below me, apparently under the
+table, or near the floor, right under my nose, a cloud of
+luminous smoke, just like phosphorus. It fumed up in great
+clouds, until I seemed to be on fire, and rushed from the room
+in a panic. I was fairly frightened, and could not tell what
+was happening. I rushed to the door and opened it, and so to
+the front door. My hands seemed to be ablaze, and left their
+impress on the door and handles. It blazed for a while after I
+had touched it, but soon went out, and no smell or trace
+remained....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> There seemed to be no end of smoke. It smelt
+distinctly phosphoric, but the smell evaporated as soon as I
+got out of the room into the air."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Such candour disarms us: can there be any ground for the theory that
+here was a case of self-deception on a large scale? Or is there yet an
+alternative explanation? Perhaps we shall discover one.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA</h3>
+
+
+<p>What we have to remember is that by far the greater part of the physical
+phenomena which is said to occur at a <i>séance</i> is really nothing
+extraordinary. All physical occurrences are normal that are capable of
+being produced by a clever conjurer; and there is no doubt that with due
+preparation such a one could achieve table rapping, introduce flowers
+and move furniture. But the problem is, how, under the stringent
+conditions imposed, and in the face of the close scrutiny, to which
+these manifestations are subjected, they can be done. As Sir Oliver
+Lodge says: "I am disposed to maintain that I have myself witnessed, in
+a dim light, occasional abnormal instances of movement of untouched
+objects." He goes on to say that "suppose an untouched object comes
+sailing or hurtling through the air, or suppose an object is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> raised or
+floated from the ground, how are we to regard it? This is just what a
+live animal could do, and so the first natural hypothesis is that some
+living thing is doing it: (<i>a</i>) the medium himself, acting by tricks or
+concealed mechanism; (<i>b</i>) a confederate&mdash;an unconscious confederate
+perhaps, among the sitters; (<i>c</i>) an unknown and invisible live entity,
+other than the people present. If in any such action the extraordinary
+laws of nature were superseded, if the weight of a piece of matter could
+be shown to have <i>disappeared</i>, or if fresh energy were introduced
+beyond the recognised categories of energy, then there would be no
+additional difficulties; but hitherto there has been no attempt to
+establish either of these things. Indeed, it must be admitted that
+insufficient attention is usually paid to this aspect of ordinary,
+commonplace, abnormal physical phenomena. If a heavy body is raised
+under good conditions, we should always try to ascertain" (he does not
+say that it is easy to ascertain) "where its weight has gone to&mdash;that is
+to say, what supports it&mdash;what ultimately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> supports it. For instance, if
+experiments were conducted in a suspended room, would the whole weight
+of that room, as ascertained by outside balance, remain unaltered when a
+table or person was levitated inside it? Or, could the agencies
+operating inside affect the bodies outside?&mdash;questions, these, which
+appear capable of answer, with sufficient trouble, in an organised
+physical laboratory; such a laboratory as does not, he supposes, yet
+exist, but which might exist and which will exist in the future, if the
+physical aspect of experimental psychology is ever to become recognised
+as a branch of orthodox physics."</p>
+
+<p>Recently, Dr Maxwell, of Paris, published his researches and
+observations on physical phenomena, and he states that under "material
+and physical phenomena" are comprised (1) raps; (2) movements of objects
+(<i>a</i>) without contact, or (<i>b</i>) only with such contact as is
+insufficient to effect the particular movement in question; (3)
+"apports"&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> the production of objects by some supernormal agency;
+(4) visual phenomena&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> the appearance of lights and of forms,
+luminous or otherwise,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> including among the latter the class of alleged
+phenomena known as materialisations, and (5) phenomena leaving some
+permanent trace, such as imprints or "direct" writings or drawings, etc.
+Under the class of "intellectual phenomena" may be included such
+occurrences as automatic writing, table tilting, etc.</p>
+
+<p>As regards raps Dr Maxwell hazards certain conclusions, of which he says
+the most certain is the close connection of the raps with the muscular
+movements on the part of the sitters. Every muscular movement, even a
+slight one, appears to be followed by a rap. Thus if, without anyone
+necessarily touching the table, one of the sitters frees his hand from
+the chain made round the table by others, moves it about in a circle
+over the surface of the table, then raises it in the centre and brings
+it down towards the table, stopping suddenly within a few inches of it,
+a rap will be produced on the table corresponding with the sudden
+stoppage of the hand. Similarly, a rap will be produced by a pressure of
+the foot on the floor, by speaking, by blowing slightly, or by touching
+the medium or one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> of the sitters. Raps produced in this way by the
+sitters are often stronger than those produced by the medium himself. Dr
+Maxwell suggests as a working hypothesis that there is a certain
+accumulated force, and that if its equilibrium be suddenly disturbed by
+the addition of the excess of energy required for the movement, a
+discharge takes place producing the effect.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Maxwell has made a series of experiments with Eusapia Paladino.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It was about five o'clock in the evening," he writes, "and
+there was broad daylight in the drawing-room at l'Aguélas. We
+were standing around the table. Eusapia took the hand of one of
+our number and rested it on the right-hand corner of the table.
+The table was raised to the level of our foreheads&mdash;that is,
+the top reached a height of at least four and three-quarter
+feet from the floor.... It was impossible for Eusapia to have
+lifted the table by normal means. One has but to consider that
+she touched but the corner of the table to realise what the
+weight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> must have been had she accomplished the feat by
+muscular effort. Further, she never had sufficient hold of it.
+It was clearly impossible for her, under the conditions of the
+experiment, to have used any of the means suggested by her
+critics&mdash;straps, or hooks of some kind."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Most of the phenomena discussed by Dr Maxwell were obtained through the
+mediumship of Eusapia Paladino. He was a member of the committee which
+met in 1896 to investigate this medium, who had just concluded the
+series of performances held under the auspices of the society at
+Cambridge, which were entirely unfavourable to her claims. The French
+committee was made aware of the fraudulent devices which the Cambridge
+investigators claimed to have discovered. He recommends all who believe
+that Dr Hodgson and his Cambridge colleagues have had the last word in
+the controversy to read the report which will be found in the <i>Annales
+des Psychiques</i>, for 1896. The English sitters arrive at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> conclusions in
+direct conflict with those of the French, who claim that they had long
+known of the tricks "discovered" at Cambridge, and in consequence took
+means to guard against them. Dr Maxwell indicts the Cambridge way of
+controlling the medium, which he says consisted, for a time at least, in
+affording the medium opportunities to cheat to see if she would avail
+herself of them. Opportunities of which she took the fullest advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Dr Maxwell offers but little encouragement for the theory
+of spiritualistic agency. "I believe," he says, "in the reality of
+certain phenomena, of which I have repeatedly been a witness. I do not
+consider it necessary to attribute them to a supernatural intervention
+of any kind, but am disposed to think that they are produced by some
+force existing within ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>In the same way as certain psychical phenomena, such as automatic
+writing, trance, "controls," crystal vision, and so forth, in which an
+intelligence seems to be present independent of the intelligence of the
+medium, can be shown beyond dispute to be merely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> manifestations of his
+subliminal intelligence, frequently taking the form of a dramatic
+personification; so may the agency, revealing itself in raps, movements
+of objects, and other phenomena of a physical character, perhaps be
+traceable, not to any power external to the medium and the sitters, but
+merely to a force latent within themselves, and may be an
+exteriorisation in a dynamic form, in a way not yet ascertained, of
+their collective subliminal capacities.</p>
+
+<p>However strange new and unknown facts may be, we need not fear they are
+going to destroy the truth of the old ones. Would the science of physics
+be overthrown if, for example, we admit the phenomenon of "raps"&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+audible vibrations in wood and other substances&mdash;is a real phenomenon,
+and that in certain cases there may be blows which cannot be explained
+by any mechanical force known to us? It would be a new force exercised
+on matter, but none the less would the old forces preserve their
+activity. Pressure, temperature, and the density of air or of wood might
+still exercise their usual influence, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> it is even likely that the
+transmission of vibrations by this new force would follow the same laws
+as other vibrations.</p>
+
+<p>In the opinion of the leading members of this society, some of the
+physical phenomena which have been adduced as among those proclaimed to
+have occurred, such as "apports," scent, movement of objects, passage of
+matter through matter, bear a perilous resemblance to conjuring tricks,
+of a kind fairly well known; which tricks if well done can be very
+deceptive. Hence extreme caution is necessary, and full control must be
+allowed to the observers&mdash;a thing which conjurers never really allow.
+Sir Oliver Lodge says that he has never seen a silent and genuinely
+controlled conjurer; and in so far as mediums find it necessary to
+insist on their own conditions, so far they must be content to be
+treated as conjurers. For instance, no self-registering thermometer has
+ever recorded the "intense cold" felt at a <i>séance</i>. Flowers and fruit
+have made their appearance in closed rooms, but no arsenic has
+penetrated the walls of the hermetically sealed tube. Various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+investigators have smelt, seen, and handled curious objects, but no
+trace has been preserved. We have to depend on the recollection of the
+observer's passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the
+rustle of spirit garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies.
+Exquisite scents, strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly
+out of nothing, and have returned whence they came unrecorded by
+photography, unweighed, unanalysed.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, then, the result of my carefully formed judgment is that a
+large part of the physical phenomena heard, seen, felt at the average
+spiritualistic <i>séance</i> must be placed on a level with ordinary
+conjuring. To return to the recent case of Eusapia Paladino. A number of
+English scientists, interested in the reports of her <i>séances</i>, induced
+her to come to England and repeat them at Cambridge. Every effort was
+made to make the experiments as satisfactory as possible. They used
+netting for confining the medium or separating her from objects which
+they hoped would move without contact; different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> ways of tying her were
+tried; also sufficient light was used in the <i>séance</i> room. She refused
+to submit to any of these conditions. The investigators pressed her at
+each sitting to allow some light in the room, and they long persevered
+in making the control in every case as complete as she would allow it to
+be. She permitted a very faint light usually at the beginning, but
+before long she insisted on complete darkness, and until the lights were
+extinguished the touches were never felt. The sitters then held the
+medium, the only method of control allowed, as firmly and continuously
+as possible. This she resisted, and then every form of persuasion was
+used, short of physical force, to induce her to submit. But she was
+allowed to take her own way without remonstrance when the sitters were
+convinced of the constant fraud practised.</p>
+
+<p>It is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have
+convinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia
+Paladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+investigators are condemned as hasty and premature.</p>
+
+<p>But, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the
+conditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the
+medium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the
+result of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading
+spiritualists themselves.</p>
+
+<p>For, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for
+supernormal physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least
+an unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis
+is no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the
+Hertzian waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years
+ago.</p>
+
+<p>This is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena
+which cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown
+extensions of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the
+most inexplicable and best attested of the manifestations presented by
+Daniel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> Dunglas Home. The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the
+witnesses of undoubted integrity, and, from the nature of the
+experiment, the illuminations of the room were generally more adequate
+than in the case of the levitations and elongations. On one occasion,
+Home thrust his hand into the fire, and bringing out a red-hot cinder
+laid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at the end of half-a-minute it
+was removed, the handkerchief was quite free from any traces of burning.</p>
+
+<p>Not content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them
+on to others present at the <i>séance</i>, who were generally able to receive
+them with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated
+by an ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands
+with some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home
+possessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable
+difficulty in transferring it to the hands of his spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Here is an account of a <i>séance</i> which took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> place on the 9th May 1871.
+After various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room
+were extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot
+charcoal, and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he
+borrowed for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal
+to white heat with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in
+one small hole. Mr Crookes, who was present at the <i>séance</i>, tested the
+handkerchief afterwards in his laboratory and found that it had not been
+chemically prepared to resist the action of fire.</p>
+
+<p>After this exhibition&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr Home again went to the fire, and, after stirring the hot
+coal about with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as
+big as an orange, and putting it on his right hand, so as
+almost completely to enclose it, and then blew into the small
+furnace thus extemporised until the lump of charcoal was nearly
+white hot, and then drew my attention to the lambent flame
+which was flickering over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> the coal and licking round his
+fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner,
+held up the coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not
+his laws wonderful?'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Among those who have left on record their testimony to this
+manifestation are Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, H. D. Jencken, W. M.
+Wilkinson, S. C. Hall, etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>As the great mathematician Professor de Morgan once wittily and wisely
+wrote:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"If I were bound to choose among things which I can conceive, I
+should say that there is some sort of action of some
+combination of will, intellect, and physical power, which is
+not that of any of the human beings present. But, thinking it
+very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies&mdash;say,
+half-a-million&mdash;about which no man knows anything, I cannot but
+suspect that a small proportion of these agencies&mdash;say, five
+thousand&mdash;may be severally competent to the production of all
+the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The
+physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> explanations which I have seen are easy, but
+miserably insufficient; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient,
+but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the
+second asking the first for more results of trial."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is inconceivable that such a man as Stainton Moses&mdash;a hard-working
+parish priest and a respected schoolmaster&mdash;should deliberately have
+entered upon a course of trickery for the mere pleasure of mystifying a
+small circle of acquaintances. The whole course of his previous life,
+his apparently sincere religious feeling, all combine to contradict such
+a supposition. Neither is it credible that such a petty swindler would
+have carried out his deceptions to the end, and have left behind fresh
+problems, the elucidation of which his eyes could never behold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"</h3>
+
+
+<p>If much of the physical phenomena just described be well within the
+scope of natural possibility, it is somewhat otherwise with the class of
+manifestations I shall now touch upon. It is one thing to exert
+consciously or unconsciously, as Home, Cook, Paladino, Moses and other
+mediums have done, in the presence of scientifically trained witnesses,
+unknown and supernormal muscular power. Table rapping, levitation,
+"apports," may all be genuine enough and accounted for in a manner
+which, if not wholly satisfying, is at least not unreasonable. But when
+those assisting at a <i>séance</i> actually behold with their eyes and touch
+with their hands, and even photograph with a camera, the materialised
+objects of the spirits with whom the medium is in communion, the pulse
+of the inquirer quickens. He is now indeed approaching the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> crucial
+problem, the crowning achievement of spiritualism. For although in a
+former chapter we have the testimony of people who saw "ghosts," these
+ghosts might, to my mind, clearly be the result of telepathy. They
+appear on special occasions at important and significant crises, but the
+claim of the spiritualistic medium is that he can casually, and on the
+demand of one of the circle, produce a visible, tangible figure of a
+deceased husband, wife, parent, or friend.</p>
+
+<p>This materialisation is wholly a recent species of manifestation. One of
+the first to testify to having seen a materialised figure at a <i>séance</i>
+was the well-known S. C. Hall, who recognised during one of Home's
+<i>séances</i> the figure of his deceased sister. Other mediums repeated the
+feat, and shadowy forms and faces began to appear and move about during
+their dark <i>séances</i>. It is a suspicious fact that in some cases these
+forms, made visible by a faintly luminous vapour, were accompanied by an
+odour of phosphorus. Sceptics naturally took great advantage of the
+alleged circumstance. Soon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> however, a new medium, Florence Cook, was
+rumoured to have produced materialised forms in a good light which
+baffled all the sceptics. Miss Cook claimed to be "controlled" by a
+spirit known under the name of "Katie."</p>
+
+<p>We have this account from a writer who early attended to examine the
+mystery fairly:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In a short time, however, Katie&mdash;as the familiar of Miss B.
+was termed&mdash;thought she would be able to 'materialise' herself
+so far as to present the whole form, if we arranged the corner
+cupboard so as to admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened
+the door, and from it suspended a rug or two opening in the
+centre, after the fashion of a Bedouin Arab's tent; formed a
+semicircle; sat and sang Longfellow's 'Footsteps of Angels.'
+Therein occurs the passage, 'Then the forms of the departed
+enter at the open door.' And, lo and behold! though we had left
+Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair and clad in an ordinary
+black dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall,
+female figure, draped classically in white, with bare arms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> and
+feet, did enter at the open door, or rather down the centre
+from between the two rugs, and stood statuelike before us,
+spoke a few words, and retired; after which we entered the
+Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as before,
+knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1,
+the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and
+on a subsequent occasion&mdash;for I have seen it several times&mdash;we
+took four very good photographic portraits of it by magnesium
+light. The difficulty I still felt, with the form as with the
+faces, was that it seemed so thoroughly material and
+flesh-and-blood-like."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is not my intention to speak of the multitude of early
+materialisations. As Mr Podmore points out, at these manifestations
+practically no precautions were taken against trickery. There was
+nothing, so far as can be discovered, to throw any hindrance in the way
+of the medium, if she chose, impersonating the spirit by exhibiting a
+mask through the opening of the curtain or by dressing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> herself up and
+walking about the room. Nor were there any collateral circumstances to
+justify belief in the genuineness of the manifestations.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Miss Cook's claims attracted the attention of Sir William
+Crookes. He attended several <i>séances</i>&mdash;one, once, at the house of Mr
+Luxmoor, when "Katie" was standing before him in the room. He had
+distinctly heard from behind the curtain the sobbing and moaning
+habitually made by Miss Cook during such <i>séances</i>. At another <i>séance</i>,
+held at his own house, 12th March 1874, "Katie," robed in white, came to
+the opening of the curtain and summoned him to the assistance of her
+medium. The man of science instantly obeyed the call, and found Miss
+Cook, attired in her ordinary black velvet dress, prone on the sofa. On
+another occasion he declares he saw two forms together in a good light;
+more than this, he actually procured a photograph of "Katie." But of
+this I will speak later, when I come to discuss spirit photography.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One of the most noted materialising mediums of to-day is Charles Miller,
+of San Francisco, of whom a certain Professor Reichel has recently
+written a lengthy account.</p>
+
+<p>Miller's <i>séances</i> are described as very conclusive. At the first one,
+after Miller had retired into the cabinet, "the curtain was pulled
+aside, showing the medium asleep, and six fully developed phantoms
+standing beside him. Two spoke German to friends from their native
+land," and one discussed matters of a private nature with Professor
+Reichel. Similar occurrences were many times repeated, and
+dematerialisations were often "made before the curtain, in full view of
+the sitters" and "in ample light to observe everything." Professor
+Reichel says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In the <i>séances</i> with Mr Miller I heard the spirits speak in
+English, French, and German, but I have been assured repeatedly
+that in a <i>séance</i> of seventy-five persons, representing many
+of the various nationalities in San Francisco, twenty-seven
+languages were spoken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> by materialised spirits, addressing
+different sitters."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Equally good results were obtained in a room taken at the Palace Hotel,
+for a special testsetting, the results of which were communicated to
+Colonel de Rochas, and again when Mr Miller visited the Professor at Los
+Angeles. The following incidents are of special interest, as throwing
+light on the forces made use of in the production of the phenomena, and
+in reference to allegations of fraud or personation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A sitting took place at noon. Before it began, and while
+Miller was standing in front of the cabinet, I heard 'Betsy's'
+voice whisper: 'Go out for a moment into the sun with the
+professor.' Accordingly I took Mr Miller by the arm, and
+together we went out into the sunshine. After a few moments we
+returned, and at the moment we entered the dark room the
+writer, as well as everyone else present, saw Mr Miller
+completely strewn with a shining, white, glittering, snowlike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+mass, that entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. This
+singular occurrence had been witnessed repeatedly&mdash;even when
+the medium had not previously been in the sun. At such times it
+appeared gradually after the room had been darkened."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This snowlike mass the author regards as "the white element of
+magnetism, which the phantoms use in their development." He also says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In another <i>séance</i> held by Miller, 'Betsy' told me that she
+would show me something that often happened in <i>séances</i> with
+other materialisation mediums&mdash;namely, that the medium himself
+frequently appeared disguised as a spirit. She asked me to come
+to the curtain, where she told me that the medium himself would
+come out draped in white muslin, and the muslin would then
+suddenly disappear. This was verified. When the medium came out
+in his disguise, I grasped him by the hand, and like a flash of
+lightning the white veiling vanished."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Reichel quotes Kiesewetter to the effect that in these cases "there is a
+kind of pseudo-materialisation, in which the medium, in hypnosis, walks
+in a somnambulistic condition, playing the part of the spirit, in which
+case the mysterious vanishing of the spiritual veilings points to an
+incipient magical activity on the part of the <i>psyche</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Large numbers of Miller's materialisations were photographed, showing,
+besides the fully materialised forms, "several spirits who could not be
+seen with the physical eyes, one of whom was immediately recognised."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The experiments of Sir William Crookes and others by Mr Cromwell Varley,
+with various mediums, supply us with the best proof we have that medium
+and spirit possess separate identities. Of course there were, and are
+still, numerous so-called exposures of mediums in the act of
+materialisation. On other occasions the materialised form has been
+seized and found to be the medium himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A typical incident of this kind was the exposure of the mediums William
+and Rita, which took place in Amsterdam, under circumstances which made
+it difficult for the most hardened believer to lay all the blame upon
+the spirits. The incident took place in the rooms of a spiritualist; the
+members of the circle were spiritualists; and it was aggrieved and
+indignant spiritualists who made the facts public. Suspicion had been
+aroused; one of the sitters clutched at the spirit form of "Charlie,"
+and grasped Rita by the coat collar. Up to this point, no doubt, the
+spiritualist theories already referred to were elastic enough to cover
+the facts. But when the mediums were searched there were found in their
+pockets or hidden in various parts of their clothing&mdash;on Rita a nearly
+new beard, six handkerchiefs, assorted, and a small, round scent bottle,
+containing phosphorised oil, bearing a resemblance all too convincing to
+"Charlie's" spirit lamp; on Williams a dirty black beard, with brown
+silk ribbon, and several yards of very dirty muslin&mdash;the simple
+ingredients which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> represented the spiritual make-up of the repentant
+pirate, John King&mdash;together with another bottle of phosphorised oil, a
+bottle of scent, and other "properties."</p>
+
+<p>But we have not to deal here with the obviously fraudulent features of
+modern spiritualism. Years ago Mr H. W. Harrison summed up the position.
+He pointed out that there were two classes of so-called
+materialisations: (1) forms with flexible features, commonly bearing a
+strong resemblance to the medium, which move and speak. These are the
+forms which come out when the medium is in the cabinet; (2) Forms with
+features which are inflexible and masklike (the epithet is not Mr
+Harrison's) and which do not move about or speak. Such inflexible faces
+are seen chiefly when the medium is held by the sitters, or is in full
+view of the circle. Mr Harrison then continues: "We have patiently
+watched for years for a living, flexible face, in a good light, which
+face bore no resemblance to that of the medium, and was not produced on
+his or her own premises. Hitherto this search has been prosecuted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+without success. Mr A. R. Wallace and Mr Crookes have witnessed a great
+number of form manifestations, without once recording that off the
+premises of the medium they have seen a living, flexible, materialised
+spirit-form bearing no resemblance to the sensitive. Neither has Mr
+Varley made any such record."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The presumption must be one of fraud, especially when conditions are
+laid down which serve to prevent full investigation. I have before me
+the printed conditions of a North London Spiritualistic society:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"As a member of the society you must bear in mind that you will
+be bound <i>in honour</i> to accept all the rules laid down by our
+Spirit controls, and by the leader of the meeting, as to the
+conditions under which the meetings are held, such as the
+darkened room, the holding of hands so as to form a strongly
+magnetic ring in front of the medium, etc.&mdash;and it is
+interesting to note that the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Mesmer, when he was
+conducting his experiments in magnetism more than one hundred
+years ago, had discovered the advantage of 'a circle' formed in
+this way, for he writes: 'The power of magnetism is augmented
+by establishing a direct communication between several persons.
+This can be done in two ways: the more simple is to form a
+chain, with a certain number of persons made to hold each
+other's hands; it can also be done by means of the 'baquet' (a
+mechanical contrivance invented by himself)."</p>
+
+<p>"No one should ever attempt to touch a spirit unless invited to
+do so by the spirits themselves, and the circle, once formed,
+must never be broken by unloosing of hands. If this becomes
+<i>really</i> necessary at any time, permission should first be
+asked, when the controlling spirit will give instructions as to
+how it is to be carried out."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>I cannot forbear from quoting further the following passage addressed to
+members of the society:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"You will greatly assist us in obtaining good results if you
+will kindly use a little discretion in the matter of your food,
+especially on the day of the meeting, when fish, vegetables,
+fruit (especially bananas), and light food of that description
+are most helpful, but meat, wine, beer, or spirits (wine and
+spirits especially) should be carefully avoided; and we find
+that it is better to make a good meal in the middle of the day,
+a substantial tea at 5.30, and supper after the meeting, as by
+following this plan the members of the circle are able to give
+off more of the spiritual <i>aura</i> which is used by the controls
+in building up the forms which appear to us, each member of the
+circle contributing his or her share unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>"The use of non-actinic light, such as that obtained from a
+small dark lantern, is defended on the grounds that the actinic
+rays coming from the violet end of the spectrum are so rapid in
+their movements that they immediately break up any combination
+of matter produced under such circumstances. Any form of light,
+except the red, or perhaps the yellow, rays would have this
+effect. That is one reason<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> why the cabinet is employed,
+because that would shut off any form of light from the medium
+whilst the forms are building up; although on several
+occasions, from time to time, when the form has thus been built
+up fully, we have been able to use a red light strong enough to
+illuminate the whole of the room."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So long as spiritualists, as I have before remarked, maintain this
+attitude, so long must they meet with incredulity on the part of
+official science. In nearly all these private circles the precautions
+taken against trickery are absurdly lacking, and, as we have just seen,
+frequently purposely omitted. Thus we have to fall back in considering
+the genuine character of the phenomena on the good faith of the medium.
+When the medium is known to be a man of blameless life, and has long
+been before the public undetected in any deception, the presumption
+would certainly appear to be in favour of his bona-fides. But of what
+value is this presumption should the medium not be conscious of his
+actions when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> his impersonation of this or that character is wholly
+undertaken by his secondary or subliminal self? Here we begin to have
+glimmerings of the great truth which may conceivably underlie the
+parable of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and investigations into the marvels of
+multiple personalities lead us further towards the light.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>On the whole, the conclusion I have arrived at is that, where the
+element of fraud is eliminated, we might rationally seek for an
+explanation in hallucination. Take the famous case of Archdeacon Colley
+and Mr Monck. The Archdeacon actually declared that he saw the psychic
+or spirit form grow out of his left side:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"First, several faces, one after another, of great beauty
+appeared, and in amazement we saw&mdash;and as I was standing close
+up to the medium, even touching him&mdash;I saw most plainly,
+several times, a perfect face and form of exquisite womanhood
+partially issue from Dr Monck, about the region of the heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+Then, after several attempts, the full-formed figure, in a
+nebulous condition at first, but growing solider as it issued
+from the medium, left Dr Monck and stood, a separate
+individuality, two or three feet off, bound to him by a slender
+attachment, as of gossamer, which, at my request, 'Samuel,' the
+control, severed with the medium's left hand, and there stood
+embodied a spirit form of unutterable loveliness, robed in
+attire spirit-spun&mdash;a meshy webwork from no mortal loom, of a
+fleeciness inimitable, and of transfiguration whiteness truly
+glistening."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, as Mr Podmore somewhat satirically points out:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It is difficult to believe that the exquisite spirit form
+which presented itself to Mr Colley's glowing imagination was
+merely a confection of masks, stuffed gloves, and muslin,
+actuated by a jointed rod, but we cannot help remembering, if
+Mr Colley did not, that articles of this kind had, a
+twelve-month previously, been found, under compromising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+circumstances, in the possession of Dr Monck."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The recognitions which take place at <i>séances</i> are undoubtedly to a
+large extent sense deceptions. There is now a professional medium at
+whose <i>séances</i> spirit faces are constantly being recognised. Of course
+the performance takes place in the dark. A faintly illuminated slate
+shows the profiles against the background, and one or other of the
+members generally recognises it. The mouth and chin of the female faces
+shown at these <i>séances</i> are generally veiled, but this does not appear
+to affect the recognition.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the testimony for and against the reality of spirits at
+the better class of <i>séance</i> is pretty evenly balanced. I hesitate to
+disturb it, although remarking, parenthetically, that the believers have
+the most, if not the best, of the literature on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>And for those who are deeply perplexed there is always the theory of
+hallucination to fall back upon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY</h3>
+
+
+<p>If the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation
+of the spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular,
+oral, and tactile evidence of the dark <i>séance</i>, the theory of
+hallucination would account for much that is perplexing. But the problem
+becomes complicated when the spiritualists come forward with proof that
+their senses have not misled them. It is only a few months since that a
+young man in the north of England, on photographing his mother and
+sisters, was greatly startled to find his late father's face also on the
+plate. He had not made use of the camera, we are told, for eighteen
+months. Recently, too, a professional photographer in London was
+commissioned to photograph a grave which was surmounted by a beautiful
+basket of flowers. To his consternation, within the handle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> appeared the
+facial lineaments of the deceased.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from
+1862, when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a
+photograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been
+dead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr Mumler
+of Boston, who considered that many of the "spirit photographs"
+afterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our
+modern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire
+to cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters.</p>
+
+<p>Mumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have been investigated by the best photographers in America,
+and have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have
+been tried in a court of justice, and been honourably
+acquitted; and, lastly, I have the evidence of thousands of
+people who have had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> pictures taken, and recognised the
+likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never had a
+picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in
+the hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain
+of evidence that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds,
+and animals have frequently appeared upon the plates and one
+lady was delighted to recognise by her side her faithful old
+black retriever."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Not till ten years later did a photographer named Hudson succeed, with
+the aid of a medium, in producing spirit pictures. The <i>modus operandi</i>
+appeared simple. The sitter was posed before the camera, and the picture
+was subsequently developed, when besides the sitter's own image there
+appeared another figure or figures usually draped, with the features
+blurred or only partly distinguishable. Usually these figures were
+recognised unhesitatingly by the sitters as portraits of deceased
+relatives or friends. Afterwards the practice of spirit photography
+received a rude shock. They were examined carefully by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> professional
+photographers, and some of them were found to bear clear marks of double
+exposure, the background in each case being visible through the dress of
+the sitter&mdash;a fatal defect in spirit photography. Moreover it was found
+that in some cases the medium had dressed up to play the rôle of spirit.
+Whereupon several of those who had professed to recognise the "ghosts"
+now hastened to repudiate their recognition. But spirit photography was
+not to be quashed so easily. The experiments went on, and faces and
+figures appeared on the developed plate which seem to have considerably
+baffled the experts. Sir William Crookes now resolved to put the matter
+to a test by attempting to obtain a photograph of "Katie," the famous
+"control" of Miss Cook, the medium. The young lady gave a series of
+sittings in May 1874 at Sir William's house for the purpose. These
+sittings took place by electric light, no fewer than five cameras being
+simultaneously at work. The medium lay down on the floor behind a
+curtain, her face muffled in a shawl. When the materialisation was
+complete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> "Katie" would appear in the full light in front of the
+curtain:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I frequently," writes Sir William Crookes, "drew the curtain
+on one side when Katie was standing near; and it was a common
+thing for the seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see
+Miss Cook and Katie at the same time, under the full blaze of
+the electric light. We did not on these occasions actually see
+the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we saw her
+hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under the influence of
+the intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally. I have
+one photograph of the two together, but Katie is seated in
+front of Miss Cook's head."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>I have not seen these photographs of "Katie," but Mr Podmore has, and
+when comparing them with contemporary portraits of Miss Cook herself he
+is inclined to consider the likeness between the two sets unmistakable.
+"The apparently greater breadth of 'spirit' face," he writes, "may well
+be due to the fact that, whereas Miss Cook wore hanging ringlets,
+'Katie's' hair is effectually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> concealed by the drapery, which in most
+cases comes down over the forehead, and falls in two thick folds on
+either side of the head, something like the headgear of a sphinx. Again,
+as Miss Cook, when photographed, wore her ordinary dress, which
+concealed her feet, the apparent difference in height on some occasions
+between herself and the spirit figure cannot be relied upon. One piece
+of evidence would, indeed, have been conclusive&mdash;that the ears of the
+spirit form should have appeared intact, for Miss Cook's ears were
+pierced for earrings. But the encircling drapery effectually concealed
+both the ears and the hair of the spirit 'Katie.'"</p>
+
+<p>The evidence for photographs of invisible people which we sometimes hear
+abduced as adequate is surprisingly feeble. For instance, in a recent
+anonymous and weak book, said to be written by a member of the Society
+for Psychical Research, two photographs are reproduced which are said to
+have been obtained under what are considered crucial conditions; but the
+narrative itself at once suggests a simple trick on the part of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+photographer&mdash;viz. the provision of backgrounds for sitters with vague
+human forms all ready depicted on them in sulphate of quinine.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Oliver Lodge is of opinion that it is by no means physically
+impossible that some of these temporary semi-material accretions might
+be inadequate to appeal to our eyes, and yet be of a kind able to
+impress a photographic plate; but here he confesses that the evidence,
+to his mind, wholly breaks down, and he admits that he has never yet
+seen a satisfying instance of what is termed a spirit photograph; nor is
+it easy to imagine the kind of record apart from testimony which in such
+a case would be convincing, unless such photographs could be produced at
+will.</p>
+
+<p>A conviction of fraud having entered the minds of the sceptically
+inclined, the exposure of a certain Parisian photographer, Buguet, shook
+the faith of the credulous. Buguet enjoyed in London an extraordinary
+success. Many leading people sat to him and obtained "spirit
+photographs," by them clearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> recognisable, of their deceased
+relations. No less than forty out of one hundred and twenty photographs
+examined by Stainton Moses were pronounced by the sitters to be genuine
+likenesses of spirits, and baffled the scrutiny of the sceptics.
+Nevertheless Buguet was arrested and charged by the French Government
+for fraudulent production of spirit photographs. At his trial Buguet
+disconcerted the whole spiritualistic world by confessing, he said that
+the whole of his spirit photographs were obtained by means of double
+exposure. To begin with, he employed three or four assistants to play
+the part of ghost. Nevertheless, in spite of his confession, in spite of
+the trick apparatus confiscated by the police, at Buguet's trial witness
+after witness, people high in the social and professional world, came
+forward to testify that they had not been deceived, that the spirit
+photographs were genuine. They refused to doubt the evidence of their
+own eyesight. One M. Dessenon, a picture dealer, had obtained a spirit
+portrait of his wife; he had been instantly struck with the likeness,
+and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> shown it to the lady's relatives, who exclaimed at once on its
+exactness. The judge asked Buguet for an explanation. The prisoner
+replied that it was pure chance. "I had," he said, "no photograph of
+Madame Dessenon." "But," cried the witness, "my children, like myself,
+thought the likeness perfect. When I showed them the picture, they
+cried, 'It is mamma!' I have seen all M. Buguet's properties and
+pictures, and there is nothing in the least like the picture I have
+obtained. I am convinced it is my wife." As a result, many
+spiritualists, including Stainton Moses and William Howitt, refused to
+consider the case one of fraud. They regarded Buguet as a genuine medium
+who had been bound to confess to imaginary trickery. Yet after this
+spirit photography as a profession has not flourished in this country.
+There is one professional who is responsible for many ghost pictures.
+But in his productions appear unmistakable signs of double exposures.
+You see the pattern of the carpet and the curtain of the study visible
+through the sitter's body and clothes. In one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> instance at all events,
+where the ghost represents a well-known statesman, the head has
+obviously been cut from the photograph and the contour draped to hide
+the cut edges. But the phenomena of spirit photography are abundant
+enough in private circles.</p>
+
+<p>I have before me as I write a number of reputed spirit photographs
+obtained by private persons both with and without the aid of a
+professional medium. In one sent me by a gentleman resident at Finsbury
+Park, which is a very impressive specimen of its kind, the fact of a
+double exposure is obvious to the least experienced in dark-room
+matters. Notwithstanding, the photographer has apparently made a
+speciality of this kind of work.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In my collection [he writes] of over two thousand specimens
+are portraits of Atlantean priests, who flourished about 12,000
+years ago, Biblical patriarchs, poets, Royalties, clerics,
+scientists, literary men, etc., pioneer spiritualists, like
+Emma H. Britten, Luther Marsh, Wallace, and John Lamont. The
+latest additions are, I am happy to say, my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> kind old friend
+Mrs Glendinning, and a worthy quartette of earnest workers in
+Dr Younger, Mr Thomas Everitt, Mr C. Lacey, and David Duguid."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>One of the most curious instances of a ghost photograph occurred in the
+summer of 1892. Six months previously a lady had taken a photograph of
+the library at D&mdash;&mdash; Hall. She kept the plate a long time before
+developing it, and when developed it showed the faint but clearly
+recognisable figure of a man sitting in a large arm-chair. A print from
+the photograph was obtained and shown, when the image was immediately
+recognised as the likeness of the late Lord D&mdash;&mdash;, the owner of
+D&mdash;&mdash; Hall. What was more, it was ascertained that Lord D&mdash;&mdash; had
+actually been buried on the day the photograph was taken. A copy of the
+photograph was sent to Professor Barrett, who examined it and reported
+(1) that the image is too faint and blurred for any likeness to be
+substantiated; (2) that the plate had been exposed in the camera for an
+hour and the room left<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> unguarded; (3) that actual experiments show that
+an appearance such as that on the plate could have been produced if a
+man&mdash;there were four men in the house&mdash;had sat in the chair for a few
+seconds during the exposure, moving his head and limbs the while.</p>
+
+<p>Another ghost picture described by Mr Podmore was probably caused in a
+similar way. A chapel was photographed, and when the plate was developed
+a face was faintly seen in a panel of the woodwork, which the
+photographer recognised as a young acquaintance who had not long since
+met with a tragic death. "In fact," writes Mr Podmore, "when he told me
+the story and showed me the picture, I could easily see the faint but
+well-marked features of a handsome melancholy lad of eighteen. A
+colleague, however, to whom I showed the photograph without relating the
+story, at once identified the face as that of a woman of thirty. The
+outlines are in reality so indistinct as to leave ample room for the
+imagination to work on; and there is no reason to doubt that, as in the
+ghost of the library, the camera had merely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> preserved faint traces of
+some intruder who, during prolonged exposure, stood for a few seconds in
+front of it."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all the damaging <i>exposés</i> and these discouraging
+explanations many intelligent persons the world over will still go on
+believing in the genuineness of spirit photography. Let me give a few
+examples of their testimony. M. Reichel, to whom allusion has already
+been made, states that at one of Miller's <i>séances</i> in America, held on
+29th October 1905, those present suddenly heard a great number of voices
+behind the curtain:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Betsy told us that sometimes there are Egyptian women and
+sometimes Indians who come in a crowd to produce their
+phenomena. On October 29th and again on November 2nd I sent for
+a San Francisco photographer, Mr Edward Wyllie, to see what
+impression would be made on a photographic plate by the beings
+who appeared. Some remarkable pictures were taken by
+flashlight. Besides the fully materialised forms, there were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+shown on the photographs several spirits who could not be seen
+by the physical eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"In one of the latter figures I instantly recognised an uncle
+of mine, whom I had made acquainted with spiritualism about
+twelve years previously, through the assistance of another
+medium."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A correspondent sends me an interesting account of investigating
+materialised spirits in daylight:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Miss Fairlamb (afterwards Mrs Mellon) was the medium, and the
+photographs of 'Geordie' and others taken in the garden in
+broad daylight were quite successful. The conditions must have
+been most harmonious, as 'Geordie' afterwards, when twilight
+came on, walked about the lawn, and even ventured into the
+house, returning to the tent, which served as a cabinet, with
+an umbrella and hassock in his hands."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dr Theodore Hausmann, one of the oldest physicians in Washington,
+U.S.A., has devoted many years to this particular phase of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> mediumship.
+He places himself before his camera in the study and photographs his
+spirit visitors, who have included his father, son, and President
+Lincoln. The opening paragraph in an article he wrote is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Grieving parents, the bereaved widow and mother, will only be
+too happy if they can see the pictures of those again who were
+so dear to their hearts, and whose image gradually will vanish
+if nothing is left to renew their memories."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There have been many touching letters from relatives of grateful thanks,
+who imagine themselves in this way to have received portraits of their
+dear ones who have passed away.</p>
+
+<p>In a work which I have come across in which spiritualism is by no means
+supported Mr J. G. Raupert acknowledges:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"That as regards spirit photographs, he 'obtained many striking
+pictures of this character, under good test conditions, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+attended by circumstances yielding unique and exceptionally
+valuable evidence.... The evidence in favour of some of these
+psychic pictures is as good as it is ever likely to be, and,
+respecting some of these obtained by the present writer, expert
+photographic authorities have expressed their verdict. Sir
+William Crookes has obtained them in his own house under
+personally imposed conditions, and many private experimenters
+in different parts of the world have been equally successful."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This from an avowed opponent is striking testimony to some kind of
+manifestation which is not, in intent, at least, fraudulent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>CLAIRVOYANCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was natural that out of all these mystic practices&mdash;those I have
+already indicated and the others I am about to indicate&mdash;a cult or
+religion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name
+of spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to
+call it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of
+course, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied
+spirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain
+physical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the rôle
+of the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of
+those manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+the actual incarnation of spiritual forms&mdash;physical manifestations such
+as table rapping, levitation, slate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> writing, etc., trance utterances
+and spirit photography.</p>
+
+<p>From the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of
+clairvoyance.</p>
+
+<p>Clairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a
+technical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the
+terminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as "that
+psychic power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the
+spiritualism sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of
+vision, spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this
+power; in some it is developed, and in others it has but a casual
+quickening. Its extent is governed by the rate of vibration under which
+it operates; thus, one clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to
+another may be invisible because of the degree of difference in the
+intensity of the powers."</p>
+
+<p>Further, "subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person
+which enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the
+brain of that person, at will, pictures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> and images which are seen as
+visions by that person, without the aid of the physical eye. These
+pictures and images may be of things spiritual or material, past or
+present, remote or near, hidden or uncovered, or they may have their
+existence simply in the conception or imagination of the spirit
+communicating them."</p>
+
+<p>Putting aside, however, all "supernatural" explanation, let us consider
+how we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance.
+What we see is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or
+woman by no means above, and often below, the intellectual average
+utters, and the hand writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal
+ken of the minds of such a man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is,
+to put it bluntly, staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife
+or sister accidentally dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and
+whilst she was still continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom
+you were present at a clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance
+informed you of the circumstances,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> you would no doubt be astounded.
+Well, the manifestations of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No
+matter how our reason is baffled at first, it behoves us not only to
+seek a natural explanation of the fact but also to ascertain and
+authenticate the fact itself. But a man may not implicitly trust his
+senses.</p>
+
+<p>I soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious
+phenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even
+furnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver
+my opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it
+can explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped
+with unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the
+cloud of witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and
+experienced investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William
+Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic
+Myers, Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet,
+Professor William James, Professor Janet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> Mr Frank Podmore and
+Professor Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent
+the white light of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a
+special study of the matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the
+case of trance lucidity and clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer
+or speaker is not at work. Yet there certainly would seem to be an
+operating intelligence, having a special character and a special
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain
+its special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the
+second question.</p>
+
+<p>1. By telepathy from living people.</p>
+
+<p>2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious,
+individual agency of deceased persons.</p>
+
+<p>These he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there
+is a wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives.
+We can here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.</p>
+
+<p>The mystery of mediumship has probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> received more attention from M.
+Flournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from
+anyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English
+investigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close
+quarters subjects of a more normal type than the Salpetrière patients
+are unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of Hélène
+Smith.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Hélène [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had
+occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially
+remarkable. She is, to all outward appearances at the present
+time, healthy even to robustness. From the age of fifteen she
+has been employed in a large commercial establishment in
+Geneva, and holds a position of some responsibility. But it is
+in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year she was
+persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It
+soon appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first
+her mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and
+assisting in tilting the table, whilst still retaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> more or
+less consciousness and subsequent memory of her experiences.
+Shortly after M. Flournoy's admission to the circle, in the
+winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's mediumship advanced a stage,
+and she habitually passed at the <i>séance</i> into a trance state,
+retaining subsequently no memory of her visions and doings in
+that state. Her development followed at first the normal
+course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her
+sitters, purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the
+like. She offered numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from
+time to time controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of
+her earliest trances were under the guidance and inspiration of
+Victor Hugo. Within a few months the spirit of the poet&mdash;too
+late, indeed, for his own post-mortem reputation, for he had
+already perpetrated some verses&mdash;was expelled with ignominy by
+a more masterful demon who called himself Leopold. The newcomer
+was at first somewhat reticent on his own past, and when
+urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in moral platitudes.
+Later,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe Balsamo, Count
+Cagliostro. It then appeared that in Hélène herself was
+reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that
+others of the mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans,
+etc....</p>
+
+<p>"It is Hélène's extra-planetary experiences, however, which
+have excited most attention, and which furnished to the
+attendants at her circle the most convincing proofs of her
+dealings with the spiritual world. In November 1894, the spirit
+of the entranced medium was wafted&mdash;not without threatenings of
+sea-sickness&mdash;through the cosmic void, to arrive eventually on
+the planet Mars. Thereafter night after night she described to
+the listening circle the people of our neighbouring planet,
+their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she drew pictures
+of the inhabitants, human and animal&mdash;of their houses, bridges,
+and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she
+both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the
+writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the
+characters of the Martian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> script are unlike any in use on
+earth, and that the words (of which a translation is furnished)
+bear no resemblance, superficially at least, to any known
+tongue. The spirits&mdash;for several dwellers upon Mars used
+Hélène's organism to speak and write through&mdash;delivered
+themselves with freedom and fluency, and were consistent in
+their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In fact,
+Martian, as used by the entranced Hélène, has many of the
+characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising
+that some of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the
+authenticity of the other revelations, were apparently
+convinced that these Martian utterances were beyond the common
+order of nature."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>All his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his
+mind that Hélène must somewhere have come across one of the works
+containing Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes
+were suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the
+language, it is just such a work of art as one might form by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+substituting for each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary
+collocation of letters, and for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol.
+The vowel and consonant signs are the same as in French; so are the
+inflections, the grammar, the construction. (Take, for example, the
+negative ke ani=ne pas, the employment of the same word zi to express
+both la "the" and là "there.") If it is childish as a work of art, it is
+miraculous enough as a feat of memory. But the reader has not forgotten
+what the subliminal self is capable of achieving as regards time
+appreciation mentioned in an early chapter. When, however, it comes to
+Hélène's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M. Flournoy, in spite of his
+long investigation, can find no explanation of the supernormal to fit
+the case. Her mediumship since 1892 included manifestations of all
+kinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they soon ceased. Her
+clairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a remarkable
+character. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which she was
+apparently unacquainted, has been carefully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> investigated and
+authenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of
+spiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from
+trained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants
+as the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been
+subjected to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this
+type of evidence that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of
+spiritualism really rests. It is at once the most impressive, the most
+interesting, and the most voluminous.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Of Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have
+seen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the
+University College School for eighteen years, a man who was never
+detected in the slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a
+host of intimate friends. Stainton Moses left a mass of published
+testimony to his pretended communications from the spirits of deceased
+persons. He attached great importance to the evidence for
+spiritualistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> doctrines. Altogether the "controls" or communicators
+numbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses or other members of the
+circles had known in life; others&mdash;such as Swedenborg, Bishop
+Wilberforce, and President Garfield&mdash;were historical personages. Besides
+these there was a class of individuals of no particular importance, and
+apparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it is worthy of
+remark that the spirits by whom Moses was "controlled" never withheld
+any data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one
+<i>séance</i> a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name
+"Rosmira." She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on
+10th January 1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that
+his surname was Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the
+whole particulars were to be found in the "Death" notices in <i>The Daily
+Telegraph</i>. "Mr Moses' spirits," comments Mr Podmore in his "History of
+Spiritualism," habitually furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such
+other particulars of their lives as could be gathered from the daily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+papers, from published biographies, or from the <i>Annual Register</i> and
+other works of reference. All the spirits, indeed, gave their names,
+with one exception&mdash;an exception so significant that the case is worth
+recording. <i>The Pall Mall Gazette</i> for 21st February 1874 contains the
+following item of intelligence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under
+a steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in
+York-place, Marylebone, and was killed immediately."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Moses was present at a <i>séance</i> that evening, and his hand
+was controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy
+suicide, to write an account of the incident, and to draw a
+rough picture of a horse attached to a vehicle. The name of the
+dead man, it will be seen, does not appear in the newspaper
+account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who gave proofs of
+their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this
+particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance
+utterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings,
+couched in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily "without any
+conscious intervention on the part of the mortal penman." In fact, so
+far was this so that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his
+mind, during their production.</p>
+
+<p>The claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully
+investigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an
+eminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic
+attainments.</p>
+
+<p>I will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the
+correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the
+four following heads:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(<i>a</i>) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his
+consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>b</i>) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in
+his consciousness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(<i>c</i>) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at
+the moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the
+statements of the medium.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>d</i>) Things unknown to the sitter.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With regard to things under head (<i>a</i>) Mrs Verrall says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own
+observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response
+from the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by
+me has been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the
+evidence of the other sitter, I should have been disposed to
+believe that I had unconsciously uttered the thought aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was
+in my house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain
+friend of my daughter's, who is often at the house, would be
+there, when 'Nelly' added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name
+my daughter's friend, exactly as though I had uttered the
+passing thought. Again, when 'Nelly' was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> describing a certain
+bag given to me for my birthday, something she said made me for
+a moment think of a small leather handbag left in my house by a
+cousin and occasionally used by me, and she said: 'You had an
+uncle that died; it was not long after that.' The father of the
+cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I have
+known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag
+as a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly
+described till my momentary thought apparently distracted her
+attention to the other bag. I have had in all some five or six
+instances of such apparently direct responses as the above to a
+thought in the sitter's mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion
+I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of
+helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything
+but what she calls 'muggling her.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls
+not infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are
+liable to be misinterpreted. Mrs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> Verrall writes in her report of her
+sitting with Mrs Thompson:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The
+name was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman,
+Merrythought, Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of
+these who,' etc. Later, 'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's
+not quite right; it's like the name of a garden'; and after in
+vain trying to give her the name exactly, she said: 'I will
+tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see
+school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman
+because that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on
+spoke of my mother as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with
+indifference" ("Proceedings," part xliv. p. 208).</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit
+communications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with
+the use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on "Human
+Personality," should be studied in this connection.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> He points out that
+there is "no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the
+power to express all the thoughts and emotions of man." And if this is
+true of man in his present state, how much more does it apply to man in
+another and more advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he
+says: "There is a certain quality which reminds one of <i>translation</i>, or
+of the composition of a person writing in a language in which he is not
+accustomed to talk."</p>
+
+<p>As a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally
+obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the
+hypothesis of fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part
+fails to explain the phenomena seems to be equally certain;
+that to more causes than one is to be attributed the success
+which I have recorded seems to me likely. There is, I believe,
+some evidence to indicate that telepathy between the sitter and
+the trance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> personality is one of these contributory causes.
+But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense
+of the term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the
+occurrences observed by me, is my present belief."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Instances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few
+weeks ago the Rome correspondent of <i>The Tribune</i> reported that a boy of
+twelve, at Capua, "was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart
+would break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said
+that he had just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the
+point of death, assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter
+came from America announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's
+vision, his mother tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be
+regarded as 'possessed,' but her efforts were vain, several persons
+having been present when he explained the cause of his grief."</p>
+
+<p>The explanation of telepathy would hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> seem to fit the case, since
+the father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days
+previous to the vision.</p>
+
+<p>I shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic
+illustration of the marvels of clairvoyance&mdash;that of Mrs Piper.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Almost alone amongst mediums of note, Mrs Piper of Boston has never
+resorted to physical phenomena, her powers being entirely confined to
+trance manifestations. No single medium, not even Hélène Smith, has been
+subjected to such close and continuous observation by expert scientific
+observers. In 1885, this lady's case was first investigated by Professor
+William James, of Harvard (brother of the famous novelist). Two years
+later Dr Hodgson and other members of the Society for Psychical Research
+began their observation of her trance utterances. This course of
+observation has continued for twenty years, and nearly all Mrs Piper's
+utterances have been placed on record. The late Dr Hodgson was
+indefatigable in his labours to test the genuineness of the phenomena.
+He spared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> no pains, and died, I believe, convinced that all means of
+accounting for them had been exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>There is so much evidence concerning Mrs Piper, who, two years ago came
+to England at the invitation of the Society for Psychical Research, and
+was subjected to numerous tests, that I hesitate how best to typify its
+purport. Most striking is a letter to Professor James in the Society's
+"Proceedings" from a well-known professor, Shaler of Harvard, who
+attended a <i>séance</i>, with a very open mind indeed, on 25th May 1894, at
+Professor James's house in Cambridge (Boston).</p>
+
+<p>Professor Shaler was disposed to favour neither the medium nor even the
+telepathic theory. He writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear James</span>,&mdash;At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I
+made the following notes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"As you remember, I came to the meeting with my wife; when Mrs
+Piper entered the trance state Mrs Shaler took her hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> After
+a few irrelevant words, my wife handed Mrs Piper an engraved
+seal, which she knew, though I did not, had belonged to her
+brother, a gentleman from Richmond, Virginia, who died about a
+year ago. At once Mrs Piper began to make statements clearly
+relating to the deceased, and in the course of the following
+hour she showed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with his
+affairs, those of his immediate family, and those of the family
+in Hartford, Conn., with which the Richmond family had had
+close social relations.</p>
+
+<p>"The statements made by Mrs Piper, in my opinion, entirely
+exclude the hypothesis that they were the results of
+conjectures, directed by the answers made by my wife. I took no
+part in the questioning, but observed very closely all that was
+done.</p>
+
+<p>"On the supposition that the medium had made very careful
+preparation for her sittings in Cambridge, it would have been
+possible for her to have gathered all the information which she
+rendered by means of agents in the two cities, though I must
+confess that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> would have been rather difficult to have done
+the work.</p>
+
+<p>"The only distinctly suspicious features were that certain
+familiar baptismal names were properly given, while those of an
+unusual sort could not be extracted, and also that one or two
+names were given correctly as regards the ceremony of baptism
+or the directory, but utterly wrong from the point of view of
+family usage. Thus the name of a sister-in-law of mine, a
+sister of my wife's, was given as Jane, which is true by the
+record, but in forty years' experience of an intimate sort I
+never knew her to be called Jane&mdash;in fact, I did not at first
+recognise who was meant.</p>
+
+<p>"While I am disposed to hold to the hypothesis that the
+performance is one that is founded on some kind of deceit, I
+must confess that close observation of the medium made on me
+the impression that she was honest. Seeing her under any other
+conditions, I should not hesitate to trust my instinctive sense
+as to the truthfulness of the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"I venture also to note, though with some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> hesitancy, the fact
+that the ghost of the ancient Frenchman who never existed, but
+who purports to control Mrs Piper, though he speaks with a
+first-rate stage French accent, does not, so far as I can find,
+make the characteristic blunders in the order of his English
+words which we find in actual life. Whatever the medium is, I
+am convinced that this 'influence' is a preposterous scoundrel.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of
+knowledge that the medium seems to have concerning my wife's
+brother's affairs. Certain of the facts, as, for instance,
+those relating to the failure to find his will after his sudden
+death, were very neatly and dramatically rendered. They had the
+real-life quality. So, too, the name of a man who was to have
+married my wife's brother's daughter, but who died a month
+before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given,
+both as regards surname and Christian name, though the
+Christian name was not remembered by my wife or me.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot determine how probable it is that the medium, knowing
+she was to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> a sitting with you in Cambridge, or rather a
+number of them, took pains to prepare for the tests by
+carefully working up the family history of your friends. If she
+had done this for thirty or so persons, I think she could,
+though with some difficulty, have gained just the kind of
+knowledge which she rendered. She would probably have forgotten
+that my wife's brother's given name was Legh, and that of his
+mother Gabriella, while she remembered that of Mary and
+Charles, and also that of a son in Cambridge, who is called
+Waller. So, too, the fact that all trouble on account of the
+missing will was within a fortnight after the death of Mr Page
+cleared away by the action of the children was unknown. The
+deceased is represented as still troubled, though he purported
+to see just what was going on in his family.</p>
+
+<p>"I have given you a mixture of observations and criticisms; let
+me say that I have no firm mind about the matter. I am
+curiously and yet absolutely uninterested in it, for the reason
+that I don't see how I can exclude the hypothesis of fraud,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> until that can be excluded no advance can be made.</p>
+
+<p>"When I took the medium's hand, I had my usual experience with
+them&mdash;a few preposterous compliments concerning the clearness
+of my understanding, and nothing more."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Among those who have made a careful study at first hand of Mrs Piper's
+clairvoyance besides Dr Hodgson and Professor James are Sir Oliver
+Lodge, the late Frederic Myers, Mrs Sidgwick, Walter Leaf, Professor
+Romaine Newbold, and Professor J. H. Hyslop, and all of these have
+recorded their conviction that the results are not explicable by fraud
+or misrepresentation.</p>
+
+<p>Another account which sheds light on what occurs at Mrs Piper's séances
+is furnished by Professor Estlin Carpenter, Oxford. It is dated 14th
+December 1894:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Professor James</span>,&mdash;I had a sitting yesterday with Mrs
+Piper at your house, and was greatly interested with the
+results obtained, as they were entirely unexpected by me.
+Various persons were named and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> described whom we could not
+identify (my wife was present); but the names of my father and
+mother were correctly given, with several details which were in
+no way present to my mind at the time. The illness from which
+my father was suffering at the time of his death was
+identified, but not the accident which took him from us. A
+penknife which I happened to have with me was rightly referred
+to its place on the desk in his study, and after considerable
+hesitation Mrs Piper wrote out the word <i>organ</i> when I asked
+concerning other objects in the room. She added spontaneously a
+very remarkable item about which I was in no way thinking&mdash;viz.
+that on Sunday afternoons or evenings (her phrase was
+'twilight') we were accustomed to sing there together. She
+stated correctly that my mother was older than my father, but
+died after him; and she connected her death with my return from
+Switzerland in a manner that wholly surprised me, the fact
+being that her last illness began two or three days after my
+arrival home from Lucerne. She gave the initials of my wife's
+name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> rightly, and addressed words to her from her father,
+whose first name, George, was correct. She also desired me, in
+my father's name, not to be anxious about some family matters
+(which have only recently come to my knowledge), though their
+nature was not specified. Finally, though I should have
+mentioned this first, as it was at the outset of the interview,
+she told me that I was about to start on a voyage, and
+described the vessel in general terms, though she could not
+give its name or tell me the place where it was going. I saw
+enough to convince me that Mrs Piper possesses some very
+extraordinary powers, but I have no theory at all as to their
+nature or mode of exercise."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another who visited Mrs Piper was the famous French author, M. Paul
+Bourget, who was astonished at what he heard. He happened to have on his
+watch-chain a small seal which had been given him by a painter, long
+since dead, under the saddest circumstances, of whom it was impossible
+the medium could ever have heard; yet no sooner had she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> touched the
+object than she related to him the circumstance. One could quote case
+after case in the Society's reports, but in all the time Mrs Piper has
+been under such rigid scrutiny not one suspicious instance or one
+pointing to normal acquisition of facts has been discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Some have boldly hazarded the conjecture that Mrs Piper worked up the
+<i>dossiers</i> of her sitters beforehand; inasmuch as she could easily
+obtain her facts in many ways; by reading private letters, for instance,
+or information derived from other mediums, or by employing private
+inquiry agents. These things are said to be habitually done by
+professional clairvoyants, by either going themselves or sending an
+agent in the capacity of, say, a book canvasser, to some town or
+district, and get all the information they can, to return some months
+later and give clairvoyant sittings. There is a belief, and it is
+possibly correct, that there is an organisation which gives and
+exchanges information thus obtained by the members of the Society.
+Perhaps this may account for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> extraordinary good fortune of some
+spiritualists in obtaining "tests." Some sitters who went to Mrs Piper
+had visited other mediums previously. But one may be sure that all
+precautions were taken to ensure against her knowing the names of the
+sitters, so that she could not use any information, even if she had
+obtained any, in this way. Those best qualified to judge are convinced
+that her knowledge was not gained in this way, partly because of the
+precautions used and partly by reason of the information itself.</p>
+
+<p>As has been said, Mrs Piper was under the close scrutiny of Dr Hodgson
+for many years, and nothing of the kind has ever come to light. Also Dr
+Hodgson arranged beforehand her sittings for more than ten years, never
+telling her the names of the sitters, who in almost every instance were
+unknown to her by sight, and were without distinction introduced under
+the name of "Smith." She made so many correct statements at many
+individual sittings, and the proportion of successful sittings is so
+high, that it is very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> difficult to attribute fraud to her. About dates
+she appears to be very vague. She prefers to give Christian names to
+surnames, and of the former those in common use rather than those out of
+the way. As her descriptions of houses or places are generally failures,
+she seldom attempts them. Mrs Piper seems to be weakest, indeed, just
+where the so-called medium is most successful. Her strongest points are
+describing diseases, the character of the sitter, his idiosyncrasies,
+and the character of his friends, their sympathies, loves, hates, and
+relationships in general, unimportant incidents in their past histories,
+and so on. To retain such information in the memory is very difficult,
+and to obtain it by general means well-nigh impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the personalities or "controls" of Mrs Piper speak, write, and
+act in a way extraordinarily in consonance with those characters as they
+were on earth. In other words, her "controls" have well-differentiated
+identities. Each has a different manner, a different voice, different
+acts, different ways of looking at things; in fact, has a different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+character. For example, there is the spirit of G. P., a young journalist
+and author who died suddenly in February 1892. A few weeks later his
+spirit possessed Mrs Piper's organism, and although he was unknown to
+Mrs Piper in life, yet for years since then he has carried on numerous
+prolonged conversations with his friends, including Dr Hodgson, and
+supplied numerous proofs of his knowledge of the concerns of the
+deceased G. P. G. P.'s personal effects, MSS., etc., are referred to, as
+well as private conversations of the past, and, moreover, he suddenly
+recognises amongst those attending Mrs Piper's <i>séances</i> those whom he
+knew during life. Dr Hodgson was unable to find any instance when such
+recognition has been incorrectly given. But G. P. is only one of several
+trance personations speaking through Mrs Piper's organism and recognised
+by friends.</p>
+
+<p>After a contemplation of Mrs Piper's trance utterances alone we are
+inevitably faced by a choice of three conclusions: either (1) fraud (and
+fraud I hold here to be absolutely inadmissible); or (2) the possession
+of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> supernormal power of apprehension; or (3) communication with
+the spirits of deceased persons.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Hodgson was driven by sheer force of logic to accept the third of
+these hypotheses. Others who have studied the phenomena have followed.
+Dr J. H. Hyslop has published a record of the sittings held with Mrs
+Piper in 1898 and 1899. His report contains the verbatim record of
+seventeen sittings, and no pains have been spared to make the record
+complete. It has exhaustive commentaries and accounts of experiments
+intended to elucidate the supposed difficulties of trance communication.
+Professor Hyslop finally arrives at the conclusion, after an extensive
+investigation, during which no item of the evidence has failed to be
+weighed and no possible source of error would seem to have escaped
+consideration, that spirit communication is the only explanation which
+fits all the facts, and he altogether rejects telepathy as being
+inadequate.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>I hope that those who have so far followed me in this brief inquiry into
+the mysteries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> of occult phenomena will recognise the impartiality with
+which I have endeavoured to conduct it. I said in the beginning that I
+set out with a light heart as well as an open mind. I had no idea of the
+extent of the territory, I knew little of its voluminous literature, of
+the extraordinary ramifications of occultism, of the labours of the many
+learned men who have spent their whole lives in seeking to separate fact
+from superstition. My mind was light because, frankly, I believed&mdash;with
+a sort of inherent, temperamental belief&mdash;that, however much the
+testimony concerning coincident dreams, hallucinations, mediumistic
+manifestations, materialisation, and clairvoyance might mystify, it was
+all capable of normal explanation&mdash;there was nothing supernatural about
+it. And so throughout the inquiry I sought to show how, chiefly,
+telepathy was a working hypothesis in most of the manifestations, while
+for the physical ones, such as table rapping, levitations, and the rest,
+an unknown extension of human muscular power might possibly exist to
+solve the mystery. So far I strode<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> forward with some confidence. But
+now the time has come when my confidence deserts me. Telepathy breaks
+down. It is a key which by no amount of wriggling will turn the lock.
+"It is not," as one leading inquirer has said, "that telepathy is
+insufficient: it is superfluous." If the existence of disembodied
+spirits is proved, then all the other phenomena are also proved.</p>
+
+<p>If the case of Mrs Piper&mdash;under rigid surveillance for years&mdash;has
+convinced some of the profoundest intellects of the day&mdash;men who began
+by being sceptical&mdash;that disembodied spirits are responsible for her
+utterances, it would certainly tend to convince me. But I carefully
+guarded myself from conviction until I had read the evidence&mdash;even to a
+<i>résumé</i> of this medium's utterances last year in London under the
+auspices of the Society for Psychical Research&mdash;and I assert with
+confidence that no metaphysical theory has ever been formulated that
+will account for these manifestations save one&mdash;the survival of the
+human personality after death. Once Mrs Piper is admitted as genuine,
+then it follows that the spiritistic manifestations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> which have puzzled
+mankind, not merely for generations or during the modern cult of
+spiritism, but ever since primitive times, become, as it were,
+emancipated.</p>
+
+<p>"It does seem to me," said Mr Balfour, in his famous Society for
+Psychical Research address, "that there is at least strong ground for
+supposing that outside the world, as we have, from the point of science,
+been in the habit of conceiving it, there does lie a region, not open
+indeed to experimental observation in the same way as the more familiar
+regions of the material world are open to it, but still with regard to
+which some experimental information may be laboriously gleaned; and even
+if we cannot entertain any confident hope of discovering what laws these
+half-seen phenomena obey, at all events it will be some gain to have
+shown, not as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but as a matter of
+ascertained fact, that there are things in heaven and earth not hitherto
+dreamed of in our scientific philosophy."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="AFTERWORD" id="AFTERWORD"></a>AFTERWORD</h2>
+
+
+<p><i>And so our little tour into the occult is ended and we return into the
+glare of common things&mdash;things which we know and can touch and find a
+practical use for. If only a little of this light we hold so cheap were
+to illumine the tenebrous fastnesses we have just left, then, perhaps
+we, in our dull worldly way, might be able to assimilate the mystic to
+the common, the unseen to the seen, the unknown to the known. But we are
+not vouchsafed this white light; yet, even in the shadows to which our
+eyes have grown accustomed, we have heard enough to make us wonder and
+maybe make us doubtful when some voice, even such a voice as Matthew
+Arnold's, cries out to us: "Miracles are touched by Ithuriel's
+spear"&mdash;"Miracles do not happen."</i></p>
+
+<p><i>True, miracles do not happen: but there are events of frequent
+occurrence in this age, as in all ages of which we have a record, which
+are miraculous in the sense of their being supernormal&mdash;for which
+science offers no consistent explanation. Is not hypnotism a miracle? Is
+not telepathy a miracle? Is not the divining</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span><i> rod a miracle? Would Sir
+William Ramsay or Sir James Crichton-Browne throw these manifestations
+into the limbo of humbug and charlatanism? And supposing they, and such
+as they, continue incredulous&mdash;is not incredulity a fixed quantity in
+any society? Were men ever unanimous in their impressions&mdash;in their
+prepossessions, in the chromatic quality with which they steep every
+surrounding fact before they allow their critical faculties to be
+focussed upon it?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>It may be objected by the reader that I who have led him on this little
+tour into the wilderness of the occult have myself seen no ghosts. Where
+are my own experiences? Where the relation of my own personal contact
+with hypnotists, telepathists, mediums, mysteries? Would not that have
+been of interest? It may be so: if the phenomena appertaining to those
+in their best and most convincing quality were always to appear on a
+casual summons and if I were confided in by the public at large as a
+sane, unprejudiced witness.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Granted that I have seen no ghosts, I have at least done this: I have
+met the men&mdash;better men&mdash;who have. That at the beginning was the real
+purpose of my brief itinerary. I designed less a tour into the occult
+itself than an examination of witnesses for the occult whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> I met on
+the literary bypaths of occultism. This I hope I have done, not
+satisfactorily&mdash;very hurriedly&mdash;yet honestly, and wanting like a
+returned traveller to tell folks more ignorant than myself of what I had
+heard of wonders which each man must, in the last resort, see for
+himself and meditate upon for himself.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>The blind leading the blind&mdash;yea&mdash;but&mdash;he who hath ears let him hear!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>One word more. I should like to see a census of all the minds which
+embrace a belief in the truth of supernormal phenomena. It would
+astonish the sceptic. It would reveal to him that the attitude of
+society at large towards spiritualism and the other world is not the
+attitude of any but a fraction of the component parts of society&mdash;not
+even the evenly balanced attitude of Huxley towards God Almighty. We
+should see something quite different; something even distinct and apart
+from religion. We should see men, often without any religion at all
+properly speaking, breaking out into the ejaculation of Hamlet to
+Horatio and refusing to believe that certain occurrences in their
+experience are to be explained away by chance or delusion. And even in
+religious men the conviction seems to me secular rather than arising
+from orthodox faith.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>"Far be it from me," wrote Emerson, "the impatience which cannot brook
+the supernatural, the vast: far be it from me the lust of explaining
+away all which appeals to the imagination and the great presentiments
+which haunt us. Willingly I, too, say Hail! to the unknown artful powers
+which transcend the ken of the understanding." Amen!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Only yesterday I picked up a book, a sort of literary autobiography, by
+the author of "Sherlock Holmes," to find the following passage:&mdash;</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"I do not think the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It
+is one of several incidents in my life which have convinced me of
+spiritual interposition&mdash;of the promptings of some beneficent force
+outside ourselves which tries to help us where it can."</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The Spectator, <i>I believe, alone, generously supported me,
+and in an editorial article on 30th September 1876 expressed the hope
+that "the British Association would really lake some action on the
+subject of the paper, in spite of the protests of the party, which we
+may call the party of superstitious incredulity</i>."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> It will be found on page 178 of "L'Inconnu et les Problemes
+Psychiques."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Dr Hutton does not say <i>how</i> he knew that water was, or was
+not, below the surface. He was not, however, one likely to make loose
+and random statements. According to a footnote in <i>The Quarterly
+Review</i>, vol. xxii. p. 374, it appears that the ground chosen for the
+experiment was a field Dr Hutton had bought, adjoining the new College
+at Woolwich, then building.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_Catalogue_of_the_Publications_of_T_Werner_Laurie" id="A_Catalogue_of_the_Publications_of_T_Werner_Laurie"></a>A Catalogue of the Publications of T. Werner Laurie.</h2>
+
+
+<p>ABBEYS OF GREAT BRITAIN, The (H. Clairborne Dixon and E. Ramsden). 6s.
+net. (Cathedral Series.)</p>
+
+<p>ABBEYS OF ENGLAND, The (Elsie M. Lang). Leather, 2s. 6d. net. (Leather
+Booklets.)</p>
+
+<p>ADAM (H. L.), The Story of Crime. Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d.
+net.</p>
+
+<p>ADDISON (JULIA), Classic Myths in Art. Illustrated with 40 plate
+reproductions from famous painters. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>ADVENTURES OF AN EMPRESS (Helene Vacaresco). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>AFLALO (F. G.), Sunshine and Sport in Florida and the West Indies. 60
+Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>ALIEN, The (Helene Vacaresco). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>ANTHONY (E.) ("Cut Cavendish"), The Complete Bridge Player. With a
+Chapter on Misery Bridge. (Vol. I., Library of Sports.) 320 pages. Crown
+8vo, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>ARMOUR (J. OGDEN), The Packers and the People. Eight Illustrations. 380
+Pages. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>ARNCLIFFE PUZZLE, The (Gordon Holmes). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>ART IN THE DUMPS (Eugene Merrill). 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>ARTIST'S LIFE, The (John Oliver Hobbes). 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>BEAUTY SHOP, The (Daniel Woodroffe). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BECKE (L.), Notes from My South Sea Log. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>BECKE (L.), My Wanderings in the South Seas. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 6s.
+net.</p>
+
+<p>BECKE (L.), Sketches in Normandy. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BELL AND ARROW. The (Nora Hopper), 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BENNETT (A.). See Phillpotts.</p>
+
+<p>BIOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS, The (E. Clerihew). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>BLAND (Hubert) ("Hubert" of the <i>Sunday Chronicle</i>), Letters to a
+Daughter. Illustrated Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. net;
+paper, 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>BLAND (Hubert) ("Hubert" of the <i>Sunday Chronicle</i>), With the Eyes of a
+Man. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>BLIND REDEEMER, The (David Christie Murray), 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BLINDMAN'S MARRIAGE (Florence Warden). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BLYTH (J.), A New Atonement. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BRIDGE PLAYER, The Complete (Edwyn Anthony). 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>BRIDGES (J. A.), Reminiscences of a Country Politician. Demy 8vo, 8s.
+6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>BROWNE (J. Penman), Travel and Adventure in the Ituri Forests. Demy 8vo,
+16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>BUILDING OF A BOOK, The (F. H. Hitchcock). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>BULLOCK (Shan F.), The Cubs. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.; Prize Edition, 3s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p>BULLOCK (Shan F.), Robert Thorne: The Story of a London Clerk. A Novel.
+Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>BUMPUS (T. F.), The Cathedrals of England and Wales. (The Cathedral
+Series, Vols. III., IV., V.). With many plates and minor decorations,
+and specially designed heads and tailpieces to each chapter. Octavo,
+decorative cover, cloth gilt, 6s. net each; in leather, 10s. 6d. net per
+vol.</p>
+
+<p>BUMPUS (T. F.), The Cathedrals and Churches of Northern Italy. With 80
+plates, nine of them in colour, and a coloured frontispiece by F. L.
+Griggs, 9 × 6-1/2. 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>BUMPUS (T. F.), The Cathedrals of Northern Germany and the Rhine. (The
+Cathedral Series, Vol. VI.). With many plates and minor decorations.
+8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net; leather, 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>BUMPUS (T. F.), Old London Churches. In 2 vols. (Uniform with the
+Cathedral Series.) Many illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net
+each.</p>
+
+<p>BURLESQUE NAPOLEON, The (Philip W. Sergeant), 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>BURROWS (G. T.), Some Old Inns of England. (The Leather Booklets, Vol.
+II.) 24 illustrations. 5 × 3, stamped leather, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>BUTLER (W. M.), The Golfers' Guide. With an Introduction by Dr.
+Macnamara. (Vol. III., Library of Sports.) Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>CAMP FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES (W. T. Hornaday), 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS, The (Henry Haynie). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>CARREL (Frederic), The Adventures of John Johns. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 2s.
+6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>CASTLES OF ENGLAND, The (E. B. D'Auvergne). Leather, 2s. 6d. net.
+(Leather Booklets.)</p>
+
+<p>CATHEDRAL GUIDE, The Pocket (W. J. Roberts). Leather. 2s. 6d. net.
+(Leather Booklets.)</p>
+
+<p>CATHEDRAL SERIES, The. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net each.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Vol. I. The Cathedrals of Northern France. By Francis Miltoun.
+With 80 Illustrations from original drawings, and many minor
+decorations, by Blanche M'Manus. 1 vol., decorative cover.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. II. The Cathedrals of Southern France. By Francis Miltoun.</p>
+
+<p>Vols. III., IV., V. The Cathedrals of England and Wales. B. T.
+Francis Bumpus. With many plates and minor decorations, and
+specially designed heads and tailpieces to each chapter. 3
+vols, decorative cover; also in leather, 10s. 6d. net per vol.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. VI. The Cathedrals of Northern Germany and the Rhine. By
+T. Francis Bumpus. With many plates and minor decorations. Also
+in leather, 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. VII. The Cathedrals of Northern Spain. By Charles Rudy.
+Many Illustrations.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>CATHARINE: The Human Weed (L. Parry Truscott). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>CHAIN INVISIBLE, The (Ranger Gull). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>CLASSIC MYTHS IN ART (Julia Addison). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>CLASSICAL LIBRARY, The. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. net each.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Vol. I. The Works of Virgil. Translated into English by C.
+Davidson. With notes and a memoir. With photogravure
+frontispiece.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. II. The Works of Horace. Translated into English by C.
+Smart. With notes and a memoir. With photogravure frontispiece.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>CLERIHEW (E.), Biography for Beginners. A New Nonsense Book. With 40
+diagrams by G. K. Chesterton. Medium 4to, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>COBB (T.), A Sentimental Season. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>COENEN (Frans), Essays on Glass, China, Silver, etc. In connection with
+the Willet-Holthuysen Museum Collection, Amsterdam. With 32
+Illustrations. Crown 4to, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN (George Moore), 6s.</p>
+
+<p>COST, The (D. G. Phillips). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>COURTSHIPS OF CATHERINE THE GREAT, The (P. W. Sergeant), 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>CROSLAND (T. W. H.), The Wild Irishman. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>CROSS (Victoria), Six Women. A Novel. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>CROSS (Victoria), Life's Shop Window. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>CROWNED SKULL, The (Fergus Hume). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>CUBS, The (Shan F. Bullock). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>D'AUVERNGE (E. B.), The Castles of England. (The Leather Booklets
+Series, Vol. III.). With 30 illustrations. 5 × 3, stamped leather, 2s.
+6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>DAVIDSON (C.), The Works of Virgil. Translated into English. With notes
+and a memoir. With photogravure frontispiece (Classical Library, Vol.
+I.) Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2S. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>DAVIDSON (GLADYS), Stories from the Operas. In 2 Vols. (Music Lovers'
+Library, Vols. II. and III.). Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s.
+6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>DAYS STOLEN FROM SPORT (Philip Geen). 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>DICK DONOVAN (see Muddock).</p>
+
+<p>DIXON (H.C.) and E. Ramsden, Cathedrals of Great Britain. Illustrated.
+Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>DRAKE (M.), The Salving of the Derelict. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>DRAKE (M.), Lethbridge of the Moor. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>DYKE (J. C. Van), The Opal Sea. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>DYKE (J. C. Van), Studies in Pictures. An Introduction to the Famous
+Galleries. 42 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>ECLECTIC LIBRARY, The. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s. net each.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. I. The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. 320 pages.</p>
+
+<p>ENGLAND AND WALES, The Cathedrals of (T. Francis Bumpus). In three vols.
+6s. net each; leather, 10s. 6d. each.</p>
+
+<p>ENGLAND, The Cathedrals of (Mary Taber). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>EVIL EYE, The (Daniel Woodroffe). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>FAIR WOMEN, The Book of (Translated by Elsie M. Lang). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>FINANCIER'S WIFE, The (Florence Warden). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>FISHERMAN, The Complete (W. M. Gallichan). 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>FISHING FOR PLEASURE AND CATCHING IT (E. Marston). Cloth, 3s. 6d. net;
+leather, 5s. net.</p>
+
+<p>FRANCE, The Cathedrals of Northern (Francis Miltoun). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>FRANCE, The Cathedrals of Southern (Francis Miltoun). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>FRIENDS THE FRENCH, My (R. H. Sherard). 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>GALLICHAN (W. M.), The Complete Fisherman. Illustrated. (Library of
+Sports, Vol. II.) Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>GEEN (P.), Days Stolen for Sport. Illustrated. Demy 8vo, 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>GIBERNE (Agnes), Rowena. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>GIVEN PROOF, The (H. H. Penrose). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>GLASS, CHINA, AND SILVER, Essays on (Frans Coenen). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>GOLFER'S MANUAL, The (W. Meredith Butler). 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>GRIFFITH (G.), The Mummy and Miss Nitocris. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>GULL (Ranger), The Chain Invisible. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>GULL (Ranger), Retribution. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HARDY (Rev. E. J.), What Men Like in Women. Crown 8vo, paper, 1s. net;
+cloth, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>HAWTHORNE (N.), The Scarlet Letter. (Eclectic Library, Vol. I.) 320
+pages. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>HAYNIE (H.), The Captains and the Kings: Intimate Reminiscences of
+Notabilities. 348 pages. 8-1/4 × 5-1/2, cloth gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>HITCHCOCK (F. H.), The Building of a Book. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>HOBBES (J. O.), The Artist's Life, and Other Essays. With frontispiece
+and a cover design by Charles E. Dawson. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>HOLMES (Gordon), The Arncliffe Puzzle. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HOPPER (Nora) (Mrs. Hugh Chesson), The Bell and the Arrow. An English
+Love Story. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HORACE, The Works of (C. Smart). 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>HORNADAY (W. T.), Camp Fires in the Canadian Rockies. With 70
+illustrations from photographs taken by John M. Phillips and two maps.
+Demy 8vo, 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>HOSKEN (Heath). See Stanton.</p>
+
+<p>HUME (Fergus), Lady Jim of Curzon Street. A Novel. Cover design by
+Charles E. Dawson. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s; paper, 1s. net; cloth, 1s.
+6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>HUME (Fergus), The Crowned Skull. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HUME (Fergus), The Path of Pain. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HUNEKER (J.), Melomaniacs: Wagner, Ibsen, Chopin, Nietzsche, etc. Crown
+8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>HUNEKER (J.), Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists. Illuminating critical
+studies of modern revolutionary playwrights. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>HUNEKER (J.), Visionaries. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HUNT (Violet), The Workaday Woman. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>HUSBAND HUNTER, The (Olivia Roy). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>ICONOCLASTS (James Huneker). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>INDIA (Pierre Loti). 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>INGLEBY (L. C.), Oscar Wilde: A Literary Appreciation. Demy 8vo, 12s.
+6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>IRVINE (A. M.), Roger Dinwiddie, Soul Doctor. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>ITALY, The Cathedrals of Northern (T. Francis Bumpus). 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>JAPP (A. H.), R. L. Stevenson: A Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial.
+Illustrated with facsimile letters and photogravure frontispiece. Crown
+8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>JOHN BULL AND JONATHAN, With (John Morgan Richards). 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>JOHN JOHNS, The Adventures of (Frederic Carrel). 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>JOHNSON (Trench H.), Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings.
+Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>JUNGLE TRAILS AND JUNGLE PEOPLE (Caspar Whitney). 12s. net.</p>
+
+<p>KENNARD (H. P.), The Russian Peasant. 19 illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth
+gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>KING'S WIFE, The (Helene Vacaresco). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>KUROPATKIN, The Campaign with (Douglas Story). 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>LADY JIM OF CURZON STREET (Fergus Hume). Cloth, 6s.; paper, 1s. net.;
+cloth, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>LADY LEE (Florence Warden). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>LANG (E. M.), Literary London. 42 illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt,
+6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>LANG (E. M.), The Book of Fair Women. By Federigo Luigino of Udine.
+Translated from the Venetian edition of 1554. With 6 pictures. Foolscap
+8vo, hand-made paper, parchment binding. 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>LANG (E. M.), The Abbeys of England. (The Leather Booklets, Vol. V.)
+Illustrated. 5 × 3, stamped leather, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>LAST EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH, The (P. W. Sergeant). 12s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>LAST MIRACLE, The (M. P. Shiel). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>LATHROP (E.), Where Shakespeare Set His Stage. With numerous full-page
+illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>LEATHER BOOKLETS, The. 5 × 3, stamped leather, 2s. 6d. net each.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Vol. I. The Pocket Cathedral Guide. By W. J. Roberts. 30
+illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. II. Some Old Inns of England. By G. T. Burrows. 24
+illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. III. The Castles of England. By E. B. d'Auvergne. With 30
+Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. IV. Some Old London Memorials. By W. J. Roberts. With 25
+photographs by the author.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. V. The Abbeys of England. By Elsie M. Lang. 20
+illustrations.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>LETHBRIDGE OF THE MOOR (Maurice Drake). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>LETTERS TO A DAUGHTER (Hubert Bland). 3s. 6d. net; paper, 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>LIFE IN THE LAW (John George Witt). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW (Victoria Cross). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>LINDSAY'S LOVE, A (Charles Lowe). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>LITERARY LONDON (Elsie M. Lang). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>LOTI (Pierre), India. Demy 8vo, 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>LOTUS LAND (P. A. Thompson). 16s. net.</p>
+
+<p>LOVER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, The (Aubrey Richardson). 12s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>LOWE (C.), A Lindsay's Love. A Tale of the Tuileries and the Siege of
+Paris. A Novel. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>LUCY OF THE STARS (Frederick Palmer). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MACHRAY (R.), The Night Side of London. With 95 pictures by Tom Browne,
+R.I., R.B.A. Cloth, 2s. net; paper, 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>MACQUOID (K. S.), Pictures in Umbria. With 50 original illustrations by
+Thomas R. Macquoid, R.I. (Uniform with the Cathedral Series.) 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>MALVERY (O. C.), The Speculator. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MAN AND HIS FUTURE (Lt.-Col. W. Sedgwick). 7s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>MARRIAGE BROKER, The (Florence Warden). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MARSTON (E.), Fishing for Pleasure and Catching It. Illustrated. Crown
+8vo, leather, 5s. net; cloth, 3s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>2835 MAYFAIR (Frank Richardson). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MEADE (L.T.), The Red Ruth. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MELOMANICS (James Huneker). 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>MERRILL (E.), Art in the Dumps. A Satire on the commercialism of British
+literature, drama, painting, and music. Cloth, 2s. net.; paper, 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>MILTOUN (F.), The Cathedrals of Northern France. With 80 illustrations
+from original drawings, and many minor decorations, by Blanche McManus.
+(The Cathedral Series, Vol. I.) Decorative cover. 7-3/4 × 5-1/4 × 1-3/8,
+cloth gilt, 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>MILTOUN (F.), The Cathedrals of Southern France. With 90 illustrations
+by Blanche McManus. 1 vol. Decorative cover. 568 pages. 8vo, 7-3/4 ×
+5-1/4 × 1-1/2, cloth gilt, 6s. net. (Cathedral Series, Vol. II.)</p>
+
+<p>MODERN MEDICINE FOR THE HOME (E. R. Walker). Cloth, 1s. 6d.; paper, 1s.
+net.</p>
+
+<p>MOORE (George), Confessions of a Young Man. New Edition revised. Crown
+8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MOTOR LOG BOOK, My. A handy record for recording dates, runs, time,
+distances, weather, roads, cost of repairs, petrol, entertaining, etc.
+Crown 8vo, leather, full gilt, 4s. 6d. net.; cloth, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>MUDDOCK (J. E. Preston, "Dick Donovan"), Pages from an Adventurous Life.
+Very fully illustrated. Demy 8vo, 16s. net.; club edition, 21s. net.</p>
+
+<p>MUDDOCK (J. E. Preston), Tangled Destinies. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MUDDOCK (J. E. Preston), Thurtell's Crime. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>MUMMY AND MISS NITOCRIS, The (George Griffith). 6s.</p>
+
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+<p>MUSIC LOVERS' LIBRARY, The. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. net each.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Vol. I. Chats on Violins. By Olga Racster. Fully illustrated.</p>
+
+<p>Vols. II. and III. Stories from the Operas. By Gladys Davidson.
+Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. IV. Chats with Music Lovers. By Doctor Annie W. Patterson.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. V. Chats on the Violoncello. By Olga Racster. Fully
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+modern writers crystallised into a practical guide. Crown 8vo, paper,
+1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>PATH OF PAIN, The (Fergus Hume). 6s.</p>
+
+<p>PATTERSON (A. W.), Chats with Music Lovers. (Music Lovers' Library, Vol.
+IV.) Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. net.</p>
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+<p>PENROSE (H. H.), The Given Proof. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
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+
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+
+<p>RACSTER (Olga), Chats on Violins. (Music Lovers' Library, Vol. I.) Fully
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+
+<p>RACSTER (O.) Chats on the Violoncello. (Music Lovers' Library, Vol. V.)
+Fully Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net.</p>
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+Illustrated, and with photogravure frontispiece. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt,
+16s. net.</p>
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+I.) 30 Illustrations. 5 × 3, stamped leather, 2s. 6d. net.</p>
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+<p>ROBERTS (W. J.), Some Old London Memorials. (The Leather Booklets, Vol.
+IV.) With 25 photographs by the Author. 5 × 3, stamped leather, 2s. 6d.
+net.</p>
+
+<p>ROBERTS (W. J.), Literary Landmarks of Torquay. 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s.;
+paper wrappers, 3d. net.</p>
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+Illustrated.</p>
+
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+6s.</p>
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+8vo, 6s.</p>
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+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM:
+Fraudulent and Genuine. By
+<span class="smcap">Hereward Carrington</span>. Eleven Plates.
+435 pp. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>In its first part this book deals with the exposure of all kinds of
+trickery resorted to by fraudulent "mediums" in producing alleged
+spiritistic phenomena&mdash;slate-writing, sealed letters, materialisation
+etc.,&mdash;and explains clearly, by description and illustrative pictures,
+exactly how the tricks are effected. In the second part of the volume is
+given an account of the most important phenomena which are vouched for
+by eminent scientists, which, after the most careful analysis, cannot be
+explained by any of the means known to legerdemain. Among those are
+recorded the famous experiments of Sir William Crookes, Professor
+Richet, Doctor Lombroso, etc.</p>
+
+<p>As will appear from the description of the book's contents Mr
+Carrington's position is that, while a very great portion of alleged
+psychic phenomena is spurious or fraudulent, there yet remains a
+substantial residuum of cases apparently genuine which can only as yet
+be classed as supernormal.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>PROOFS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH. By <span class="smcap">R. J. Thompson</span>. A Collation of Opinions as to a
+Future Life by the Most Eminent Scientific Men and Thinkers of the Day. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>A Collation of Opinions as to a Future Life by such Eminent Scientific
+Men and Thinkers as Prof. N. S. Shaler, Prof. C. Richet, Camille
+Flammarion, Prof. Brunot, Sir William Crookes, Prof. Th. Flournoy, Prof.
+Elmer Gates, Prof. William James, Dr Paul Joire, Dr Lombroso, Prof. S.
+Newcomb, Prof. Hyslop, Dr M. J. Savage, Sir Oliver Lodge, Prof. Alfred
+Russel Wallace, Cardinal Gibbons, Andrew Lang, and many others. The book
+contains many arguments from a scientific standpoint that will interest
+all who wish evidence other than theological.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>DO THE DEAD DEPART? and Other Questions. By <span class="smcap">E. Katharine Bates</span>, author of
+"SEEN AND UNSEEN." Crown 8vo. 6s. net.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>This somewhat original way of putting a well-worn query, prepares the
+reader for another book from the pen of Miss E. Katharine Bates.</p>
+
+<p>In the present volume psychic matters are treated from a more
+philosophical standpoint than in "Seen and Unseen," which made
+no claim to be other than a truthful record of personal
+experiences. CONTENTS&mdash;<span class="smcap">Some Objections to Spirit Return&mdash;Some
+Instances of Spirit Return&mdash;A Mother's Guardianship in America&mdash;A
+Curious Illustration of Spirit Methods&mdash;Biblical
+Incidents&mdash;Clairvoyance&mdash;Clairaudience&mdash;Re-incarnation&mdash;Automatic
+Writing&mdash;Materialisation&mdash;How the Dead Depart&mdash;Guardian
+Children&mdash;Appendix</span></p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Occultism and Common-Sense
+
+Author: Beckles Willson
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2011 [EBook #36730]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE ***
+
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+
+                        OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE
+
+                            BY BECKLES WILLSON
+
+
+    WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+    PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.
+
+    _Past President of the Society for Psychical Research_
+
+    LONDON
+    T. WERNER LAURIE
+    CLIFFORD'S INN
+    E.C.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION VII
+
+I. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"
+
+II. THE HYPNOTIC STATE
+
+III. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING
+
+IV. DREAMS
+
+V. HALLUCINATIONS
+
+VI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD
+
+VII. ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA
+
+VIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD
+
+IX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA
+
+X. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
+
+XI. THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"
+
+XII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+XIII. CLAIRVOYANCE
+
+XIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment
+thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in
+the columns of _The Westminster Gazette_.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+_By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S._
+
+
+_Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for
+Psychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from
+the testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and
+deception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto
+unrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be
+of supreme interest and importance._
+
+_It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic
+investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from
+the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would
+be a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve
+continuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of
+which should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these
+obscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry
+which has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less
+obscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has
+achieved is in no small measure due to the wise counsel and ungrudging
+expenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry
+Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the
+details of its work._
+
+_Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must
+recognise the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has
+endeavoured to maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the
+evidential value varies enormously. The testimony of honest and even
+careful witnesses requires to be received with caution, owing to the
+intrusion of two sources of error to which untrained observers are very
+liable. These are unconscious_ mal-observation _and unintentional_
+mis-description. _I cannot here enter into the proof of this statement,
+but it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a credulous observer
+but a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to these errors
+when, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical
+phenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has
+hitherto scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within
+my own knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had
+frequently scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in
+the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," one day
+seriously informed me he had been converted to a belief in
+thought-transference by some conclusive experiments he had witnessed.
+Upon inquiring where these experiments took place I found it was at a
+public performance of a very inferior Zancig who was then touring
+through the provinces!_
+
+_Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that "the light heart and open
+mind" with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew
+his labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he
+found himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the
+numerous and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society
+have had to face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the
+available evidence, and this study has convinced him--as it has
+convinced, so far as I know, every other painstaking and honest
+inquirer--that no theories based on fraud, illusion, nor even on
+telepathy, are adequate to account for the whole of the phenomena he has
+reviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr Willson tells us that he
+has been led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory explanation of
+these phenomena is the action of discarnate human beings--that is to
+say, the Spiritualistic hypothesis._
+
+_I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the
+small residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other
+hypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question
+arises, Is the evidence on which it is based sufficiently_ abundant,
+trustworthy, _and_ conclusive, _to warrant such a far-reaching
+statement? Here we must turn from the author to ascertain what has been
+the conclusion arrived at by those who have given long years to a
+searching experimental investigation of these phenomena, and who have
+approached the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit. The most
+noteworthy instance is the testimony of that shrewd and able
+investigator, the late Dr Hodgson. His patient and laborious inquiry
+into the trance phenomena of Mrs Piper ultimately led him to the
+conclusion arrived at by Mr Willson. Dr Hodgson's well-known exposure of
+Madame Blavatsky and other fraudulent mediums and his sane and cautious
+judgment render his opinion of great weight. Then, again, we find that
+this also was the conclusion to which Frederic Myers was gradually
+driven. And long prior to this it was the conclusion arrived at by that
+acute thinker, the late Professor de Morgan, and it is the conclusion
+strongly held by the great naturalist, Dr A. R. Wallace, and held also
+by several other eminent investigators I might name._
+
+_So momentous a conclusion, if capable of such complete verification as
+to be universally accepted by science, would obviously throw all other
+discoveries into the background. I say if capable of being verified by
+scientific methods, but, although the weight of opinion will, in my
+opinion, ultimately lead to a very wide acceptance of this conclusion,
+yet it seems to me highly probable that the experimental discovery of
+the survival of human personality after death will always elude
+conclusive scientific demonstration. This particular field of psychical
+investigation belongs to an order other than that with which science
+deals; and, this being so, it can never be adequately investigated with
+the limited faculties we now possess._
+
+_In any case, as I said in a letter published in_ The Times, _so long
+ago as September 1876, before science is in a position to frame any
+satisfactory hypothesis of the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena, a
+number of antecedent questions will have to be investigated and decided.
+Prominent among these, I urged more than thirty years ago, was the
+question whether ideas or information can be voluntarily or
+involuntarily transferred from one mind to another independently of the
+recognised organs of perception. Experiments I had then recently made
+led me to the conclusion that something new to science, which might
+provisionally be called thought-transference, now known in its wider
+aspect as telepathy, did really exist. This, if established, would, as I
+pointed out, unquestionably solve some of the so-called spirit
+communications which had so puzzled investigators. But the idea of
+thought-transference was at that time just as obnoxious to official
+science as Spiritualism. Mr Willson quotes the implacable disbelief,
+even in the possibility of telepathy, which that great man Helmholtz
+expressed to me. And it is amusing now to recall the fierce outcry
+aroused by the paper I read at the British Association meeting in 1876,
+when, after narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had
+witnessed, I asked that a committee of scientific men should be
+appointed to investigate preliminary question of the possibility of
+thought-transference.[1] It is true the evidence on behalf of telepathy
+has since become so abundant that now few deny its probability, but even
+telepathy has not yet taken its place among the recognised scientific
+verities. I hope this recognition will not be long delayed, but until it
+occurs it is almost as illegitimate to use telepathy, as some do so
+freely, for the foundation of their theories of transcendental phenomena
+as to use the spiritualistic hypothesis itself._
+
+[Footnote 1: The Spectator, _I believe, alone, generously supported me,
+and in an editorial article on 30th September 1876 expressed the hope
+that "the British Association would really lake some action on the
+subject of the paper, in spite of the protests of the party, which we
+may call the party of superstitious incredulity_."]
+
+_To those who have carefully studied the evidence there is, however,
+little doubt that telepathy does afford an adequate explanation of
+certain well-attested phenomena, such as phantasms of the living or
+dying person. And telepathy, which may now be considered as highly
+probable, leads on to the evidence for man's survival after death--to
+this I will return later on._
+
+_Then, again, recent investigations have established the fact that the
+range of human personality must be extended to include something more
+than our normal self-consciousness. Our Ego is not the simple unitary
+thing older psychologists taught, but a composite structure embracing a
+self that extends far beyond the limit of our conscious waking life.
+Just as experimental physics has shown that each pencil of sunlight
+embraces an almost endless succession of invisible rays as well as the
+visible radiation we perceive, so experimental psychology has shown
+that each human personality embraces an unconscious as well as a
+conscious self. Mr Myers, using Du Perl's conception of a threshold, has
+termed the former our_ subliminal self. _And just as the invisible
+radiation of the sun can only be rendered perceptible by some agency
+outside our vision, so this subliminal self reveals itself only by some
+agency outside our own volition. The subliminal self not only contains
+the record of unheeded past impressions--a latent memory--but also has
+activities and faculties far transcending the range of our conscious
+self. In this it also resembles the invisible radiation of the sun,
+which is the main source of life and energy in this world._
+
+_Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and
+repair of our body and brain, which go on automatically and
+unconsciously within us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious
+personality. All life shares with us this miraculous automatism. No
+chemist, with all his appliances, can turn breadstuff into brainstuff or
+hay into milk. Further, the subliminal self seems to have faculties
+which can be emancipated from the limitations of our ordinary life.
+Glimpses of this we get when the conscious self is in abeyance, as in
+sleep, hypnosis, and trance. Here and there we find certain individuals
+through whom this sub- or supra-liminal self manifests itself more
+freely than through others; they have been termed "mediums," a word, it
+is true, that suggests Browning's "Sludge." But, as scientific
+investigation has shown all mesmerists and dowsers are not charlatans,
+so it has shown all mediums are not rogues._
+
+_This extension of human faculty, revealing, as it does, more profoundly
+the mysterious depths of our being, enables us to explain many phenomena
+that have been attributed to discarnate human beings. The question
+arises, Does it explain all so-called Spiritualistic phenomena? In my
+opinion, and in that of others who have given more time to their
+critical investigation than I have, it does not. At present we have to
+grope our way, but the ground is being cleared, and the direction which
+the future explorer of these unknown regions has to take is becoming
+more evident._
+
+
+
+
+Occultism and Common-Sense
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"
+
+
+When I first ventured into the wide and misty domain of Occultism, with
+a light heart I set forth and an open mind. My sole aim was to
+ascertain, as far as the means at the disposal of an ordinary man with
+little of the mystic in his composition would allow, what degree of
+probability attached to published phenomena, which the ordinary laws of
+Nature, as most of us understand them, could not satisfactorily explain.
+
+At the threshold of my inquiry, one prominent and, as it seemed to me,
+disconcerting fact confronted me--namely, that although for a couple of
+generations "supernatural" manifestations had been promiscuously
+exhibited before the public, challenging full investigation and inviting
+belief; although almost every day the newspapers report some striking
+case of spirit apparition or materialisation, coincident dreams,
+clairvoyance, trance utterances, or possession, often seemingly well
+attested; yet in spite of all this testimony academic science continued
+to dispute the very basis of such phenomena. Any investigator must needs
+recognise here a very anomalous situation. On the one hand are, let us
+say, half-a-million people, often highly intelligent, cultured, sane
+people, firmly protesting that they have witnessed certain astonishing
+occult manifestations, and on the other hand the Royal Society and the
+British Association, and other organised scientific bodies established
+for the investigation of truth, absolutely refusing to admit such
+evidence or to regard it seriously. Forty years ago Faraday, besought to
+give his opinion, in this wise wrote: "They who say they see these
+things are not competent witnesses of facts. It would be condescension
+on my part to pay any more attention to them." Faraday's attitude was
+that of Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Agassiz. The first-named, however,
+rather gave away his prejudice by saying: "Supposing the phenomena to be
+genuine, they do not interest me." Tyndall's utterance also deserves to
+be recalled: "There are people amongst us who, it is alleged, can
+produce effects before which the discoveries of Newton pale. There are
+men of science who would sell all that they have, and give the proceeds
+to the poor, for a glimpse of phenomena which are mere trifles to the
+spiritualist." He added: "The world will have religion of some kind,
+even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of
+spiritualism." Spencer's words were: "I have settled the question in my
+own mind on a priori grounds." Professor Carpenter called spiritualism
+"a most mischievous epidemic delusion, comparable to the witchcraft
+delusion of the seventeenth century."
+
+What, then, has happened to strengthen the case of the believers in
+ghosts, clairvoyance, thought-transference, sensory automatism, in,
+say, the last quarter of a century? What new evidence exists which would
+make the mid-Victorian scientific men reconsider their position? Suppose
+Faraday and Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall, were alive to-day, would they
+see reason to alter their opinions?
+
+I remember once--and I now give it as typical--overhearing a psychical
+experience. It was in a first-class compartment on a train coming from
+Wimbledon. One of my fellow-passengers, an intelligent, well-spoken man
+of about thirty-five, was relating to three friends the following
+extraordinary story. As nearly as I can recollect, I give the narrator's
+own words:--
+
+     "One week ago last Tuesday, at eleven o'clock at night, my
+     wife, who had just retired to bed upstairs, called out to me:
+     'Arthur! Arthur!' in a tone of alarm. I sprang up and ran
+     upstairs to see what was the matter. The servants had all gone
+     to bed. 'Arthur,' said my wife, 'I've just seen mother,' and
+     she began to cry. 'Why,' I said, 'your mother's at
+     Scarborough.' 'I know,' she said; 'but she appeared before me
+     just there' (pointing to the foot of the bed) 'two minutes ago
+     as plainly as you do.' Well, the next morning there was a
+     telegram on the breakfast-table: 'Mother, died at eleven last
+     night.' Now, how do you account for it?"
+
+There was silence for a full minute.
+
+"A wonderful coincidence. Your wife's hallucination coincided with her
+mother's death!"
+
+Another occupant of the carriage caught up the word:
+
+"Yes, coincidence. A thing which mightn't happen once in a million
+years."
+
+Nobody else ventured a remark. Yet they seemed unconvinced. There was no
+one to tell them--even I did not know then--that these "coincidences"
+were constantly happening, every year, perhaps every month; that an
+intelligent body of men--the Society for Psychical Research--has made a
+census of such hallucinations, all apparently well attested; that
+newspapers devoted to occult matters constantly record these things;
+that volumes--monthly, weekly, almost--fairly pour from the press
+detailing, expounding, dissecting, elaborating such evidence; that the
+theory of coincidence has already been rejected by many men of the first
+rank of science; and that official science itself is reluctantly
+reconsidering its position in more than one direction.
+
+Yet so slowly do the masses move in intellectual life, so tardily do
+truths, concerning not merely occult but physical and material
+investigation, percolate through to the workaday world, that the
+researches, the activities, the ascertained truths of students of
+psychical phenomena are as a closed book. Perhaps the attitude of apathy
+with which occult phenomena and occult science are regarded by the
+average man is not unnatural. To him all miracles that are not
+Scriptural and ancient and, as it were, institutional are highly
+improbable, if not impossible. All super-naturalism, he will tell you,
+is morbid. "There may be something in these things," he says, "but it is
+not proved. As for spiritualism, my belief is that mediums are
+impostors. Most of the spiritualists I have seen are 'cranks'--they are
+certainly dupes--and I have no doubt that if I interested myself in
+these matters I should end by becoming also a 'crank.'"
+
+This I maintain is the position of the ordinarily educated normal man.
+
+"The moment," wrote Lord Lytton, "one deals with things beyond our
+comprehension, and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled,
+we revolt from the probable, as it appears to the senses of those who
+have not experienced what we have." Now, that is just what the candid
+inquirer must avoid throughout his inquiry. It is often difficult to
+resist employing supernormal hypotheses; but, until normal hypotheses
+are exhausted, the resistance must be made. On the other hand, it is
+well to bear in mind Mr Andrew Lang's timely remark, "there is a point
+at which the explanations of common-sense arouse scepticism."
+
+At all events, not even the most materialistic man-in-the-music-hall,
+with two eyes in his head, can deny that the great wave of occultism,
+which twenty years ago seemed to be receding, is again returning with
+greater force and volume, submerging many of the old sceptical theories
+and wetting even the utterly callous and ignorant with its spray. It is
+not so long ago that the very fact of hypnotism was doubted--Mesmer was
+long regarded as a mere quack--but to-day the induced trance is
+universally credited. To hypnotism must the miracle of telepathy now be
+added? Has it really been ascertained, after a thousand experiments and
+beyond the possibility of error, that a mode of apprehension exists
+which has no connection with the five senses? For twenty-five years the
+members of the Society of Psychical Research have carried on their
+investigations of both sleeping and waking subjects, under every
+conceivable condition, and are at last fain to announce that such a
+mystic faculty does exist by which brain can communicate with brain
+without any known sensory agency.
+
+As to the kind of "ghost" story recorded above, what an exact analogy
+it bears to the following, to be found in a recent volume of the
+"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research!" The statement was
+received from a Madame Broussiloff, of St Petersburg:--
+
+     "On the 16th (28th) of February of this year, between nine and
+     ten o'clock in the evening, I, the undersigned, was sitting in
+     our drawing-room--the small one--facing the large drawing-room,
+     which I could see in its entire length. My husband, his
+     brother, with his wife, and my mother, were also sitting in the
+     same room with me round a large round table. I was writing down
+     my household accounts for the day, while the others were
+     carrying on some gay conversation. Having accidentally raised
+     my head and looked into the large drawing-room, I noticed, with
+     astonishment, that a large grey shadow had passed from the door
+     of the dining-room to that of the antechamber; and it came into
+     my head that the figure I had seen bore a striking resemblance
+     in stature to Colonel Ave-Meinander, an acquaintance of ours,
+     who had lived in this very lodging for a long time. At the
+     first moment, I wished to say at once that a ghost had just
+     flashed before me, but stopped, as I was afraid of being
+     laughed at by my husband's brother and his wife, and also of
+     being scolded by my husband, who, in view of the excitement
+     which I showed when such phenomena were taking place, tried to
+     convince me that they were the fruits of my fancy. As I knew
+     that Meinander was alive and well, and was commander of the
+     Malorossuesky 40th Regiment of Dragoons, I did not say anything
+     then; but when I was going to bed I related to my mother what I
+     had seen, and the next morning could not refrain from
+     mentioning it to my husband.
+
+     "Our astonishment was extreme when, on the 18th of February
+     (2nd of March), we learned Nicholas Ottovitch Ave-Meinander had
+     actually died after a short illness on the 16th (28th) of
+     February at nine o'clock in the evening, in the town of
+     Strashovo, where his regiment is stationed.
+
+     "The above account is confirmed by the percipient's mother,
+     Marie von Hagemeister, and by the husband, Colonel Alexis
+     Alexeievitch Broussiloff. Both state solemnly that Colonel
+     Meinander died at nine P.M. on the evening of 16th February
+     (28th) at Stashovo, 1200 versts from St Petersburg."
+
+To explain this phenomenon in the terms of telepathy, the grey shadow
+seen by Madame Broussiloff was not a ghost, not the "bodiless spirit in
+the likeness of a man," but "a waking dream projected from the brain of
+the seer under the impulse of the dying man's thought."
+
+But telepathy itself requires consideration and explanation. Sir William
+Crookes has repeatedly given publicity to his theory of brain-waves and
+to a kindred conception of ether substance, along which intelligence can
+be transmitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to virtually
+interminable distances.
+
+That mind should effect mind in a new mode may mean no more than that
+brain can act upon brain by means of ethereal vibrations hitherto
+unsuspected. The power itself may be but a lingering vestige of our
+inheritance from primeval times, a long-disused faculty "dragged from
+the dim lumber-room of a primitive consciousness, and galvanised into a
+belated and halting activity."
+
+Or, on the other hand, may not such faculty be regarded not as
+vestigial, but as rudimentary? Telepathy, if we follow the gifted author
+of "Human Personality," is a promise for the future, not an idle
+inheritance from the past.
+
+Our business now is, all mystic speculations apart, to consider the
+phenomena in the order in which, if not yet actually accepted, they
+would seem to evoke least opposition from the academic science of the
+day. What is the net result of the evidence for all classes of
+supernormal phenomena? That I shall endeavour to point out, as concisely
+and lucidly as I can, in the following chapters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE HYPNOTIC STATE
+
+
+Not least of the wonders of modern psychical research is the discovery
+that nothing in all the phenomena is new--that under other names and by
+other races every sort of manifestation was familiar to the most remote
+peoples. This would certainly seem to meet the argument of the
+physicist--it is not necessary to refer again to Professor Tyndall's
+uncomplimentary phraseology--who declares that all this popular
+occultism is a product of the last generation or two. Take hypnotism.
+Hypnotism (or mesmerism) was formerly alleged to be an emanation from
+the body--an effluence of intense will-power. The belief in such an
+emanation is centuries old. "By the magic power of the will," wrote
+Paracelsus, "a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the
+other side hear what is said on that side ... the ethereal body of a
+man may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles or
+more." Twenty years ago this creed was laughed out of court by Huxley,
+Tyndall, and other leading men of science. To-day we are told by those
+who have witnessed the experiments of Charcot, Janet, and others that
+"the existence of an aura of spirit-force surrounding the body like an
+atmosphere, in some cases at all events, can be proved as a physical
+fact."
+
+Whatever the explanation, whatever the definition of this miraculous
+agency, hypnotism is now universally accepted. The manifestations of its
+power must convince the most sceptical. A spell-bound subject is
+frequently made to share the sensations of the hypnotist, his ocular
+perceptions and his sense of touch. In the hypnotic sleep the subject
+easily becomes insensible to pain. A member of the Society reports that
+he has seen a youth in this condition who suffered gladly the most
+injurious attacks upon his own person--who would allow his hair to be
+pulled, his ears pinched, his fingers even to be scorched by lighted
+matches. But the same youth would next moment indignantly resent the
+slightest injury upon his hypnotiser, who would at the time be standing
+at the other end of the room.
+
+One thing in common all the hypnotic methods appear to possess, the
+diversion of attention from external surroundings and the working of a
+sub-consciousness in a manner not characteristic of the ordinary life of
+the subject. In cases described by Mr Greenwood no difficulty was
+encountered in impersonations suggested to the subject unless they
+savoured too much of the ridiculous. "Thus," he writes, "a suggestion
+that M., the subject, was myself and that I was he succeeded; and in his
+reverse capacity he continued the course of experiments upon himself,
+devising several original and ingenious varieties to which I, for the
+sake of the experiment, acquiesced in subjecting myself. He also behaved
+with considerable dignity and verve as King Edward VII., until I threw a
+match at his head, a proceeding which appeared to conflict so strongly
+with dramatic verisimilitude that he lapsed back into his ordinary
+hypnotic condition, nor could I reinduce the impersonation. On the other
+hand, statements that he was the Emperor of China, and that he was a
+nurse and I a baby, failed to carry any conviction, being either
+received with passive consent or rejected with scorn." It is interesting
+to note that in the waking state of the subject he explained that he was
+only conscious that he was not the characters he was bidden to assume,
+and if asked would have said as much, but that he was irresistibly
+impelled to act as though he were.
+
+The production of sleep in the subject at a distance is one of the
+latest attested marvels of hypnotism. The long series of experiments
+made in France by Professor Richet and Professor Janet would appear to
+attest this power. In some trials made at Havre, in which the
+experimenters were Professor Janet and Dr Gibert, the subject of the
+experiment was a certain Madame B. or "Leonie," then a patient of Dr
+Gibert. The facts were recorded by the late F. W. Myers and his
+brother, Dr A. T. Myers, who were present:
+
+     "We selected (he states) by lot an hour (eleven A.M.) at which
+     M. Gibert should will, from his dispensary (which is close to
+     his house), that Madame B. should go to sleep in the Pavilion.
+     It was agreed that a rather longer time should be allowed for
+     the process to take effect, as it had been observed that she
+     sometimes struggled against the influence and averted the
+     effect for a time by putting her hands in cold water, etc. At
+     11.25 we entered the Pavilion quietly, and almost at once she
+     descended from her room to the _salon_, profoundly asleep. We
+     did not, of course, mention M. Gibert's attempt of the previous
+     night. But she told us in her sleep that she had been very ill
+     in the night, and repeatedly exclaimed: 'Pourquoi M. Gibert
+     m'a-t-il fait souffrir? Mais j'ai lave les mains
+     continuellement.' This is what she does when she wishes to
+     avoid being influenced.
+
+     "In the evening (22nd) we all dined at M. Gibert's, and in the
+     evening M. Gibert made another attempt to put her to sleep at
+     a distance from his house in the Rue Sery--she being at the
+     Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme--and to bring her to his house by an
+     effort of will. At 8.55 he retired to his study; and MM.
+     Ochorowicz, Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers went to the
+     Pavilion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the
+     house. At 9.22 Dr Myers observed Madame B. coming half way out
+     of the garden gate, and again retreating. Those who saw her
+     more closely observed that she was plainly in the
+     somnambulistic state and was wandering about and muttering. At
+     9.25 she came out with eyes persistently closed, so far as
+     could be seen, walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier
+     without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, though
+     not by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared afterwards
+     that the bonne had seen her go into the _salon_ at 8.45 and
+     issue thence asleep at 9.15; had not looked in between those
+     times.) She avoided lamp-posts, vehicles, etc., but crossed and
+     recrossed the street repeatedly. No one went in front of her or
+     spoke to her. After eight or ten minutes she grew more
+     uncertain in gait, and paused as though she would fall. Dr
+     Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure; it was 9.35. At about
+     9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 reached the street in front
+     of M. Gibert's house. There she met him, but did not notice
+     him, and walked into his house, where she rushed hurriedly from
+     room to room on the ground floor. M. Gibert had to take her
+     hand before she recognised him. She then grew calm.
+
+     "On the 23rd M. Janet lunched in our company and retired to his
+     own house at 4.30 (a time chosen by lot), to try to put her to
+     sleep from thence. At 5.5 we all entered the _salon_ of the
+     Pavilion, and found her asleep with shut eyes, but sewing
+     vigorously (being in that stage in which movements once
+     suggested are automatically continued). Passing into the
+     talkative stage, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez
+     fait dormir a quatre heures et demi.' The impression as to the
+     hour may have been a suggestion received from M. Janet's mind.
+     We tried to make her believe that it was M. Gibert who had
+     sent her to sleep, but she maintained that she had felt that it
+     was M. Janet.
+
+     "On 24th April the whole party chanced to meet at M. Janet's
+     house at three P.M., and he then, at my suggestion, entered his
+     study to will that Madame B. should sleep. We waited in his
+     garden, and at 3.20 proceeded together to the Pavilion, which I
+     entered first at 3.30, and found Madame B. profoundly sleeping
+     over her sewing, having ceased to sew. Becoming talkative, she
+     said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez commande.' She said
+     that she fell asleep at 3.5 P.M."
+
+Of the twenty-five trials made in the course of two months, eighteen
+were wholly and four partially successful.
+
+This somnolent state might, it is thought, have been induced by
+telepathy; in fact, as we shall see, telepathy will in some quarters
+have to bear the burden of most, if not all, of the phenomena under
+investigation.
+
+Not only is the hypnotic subject frequently induced to do the will of
+the operator, but he may actually have presented to his intelligence
+certain ideas or images, material or imaginary, known only to the
+hypnotiser. After following carefully all the experiments conducted by
+the late Professor Sidgwick and others, in the presence of witnesses of
+repute, I do not see how it is possible to deny the fact of telepathy.
+In these experiments the subject or percipient was always hypnotised,
+remaining so to a varying degree throughout the experiment.
+
+Albeit, even as regards this thought-transference, we must be on our
+guard against a too rash acceptance of unknown or supernormal agencies
+in every bona-fide experiment. Certainly all experiments of the
+hypnotiser do not _ipso facto_ prove that any new method of apprehension
+has been employed. The hypnotised subject is extremely susceptible to
+suggestions, and might even glean an indication of what is proceeding
+through the look, the gestures, the very breathing, of those present.
+The utmost precautions, therefore, were taken by the Society for
+Psychical Research when it began its experimental inquiries.
+
+The subject of the picture was always carefully chosen by one of the
+experimenters--Mrs Sidgwick or Miss Alice Johnson. Any possibility of
+the percipient being able to guess at the subject through chance,
+association, or ideas was rigorously excluded. To prevent any hint being
+unconsciously imparted by the third experimenter, Mr G. A. Smith,
+silence was enjoined upon him, and he was placed behind the percipient
+or in another room; yet the percipient actually saw and described the
+projecting impression as if it were a real picture before his eyes. When
+Mr Smith went downstairs with Miss Johnson he was asked by her to think
+of an eagle pursuing a sparrow. Mrs Sidgwick, who remained upstairs with
+P., the percipient, in a few minutes induced him to see a round disc of
+light on the imaginary lantern-sheet, and then he saw in it "something
+like a bird," which disappeared immediately. He went on looking (with
+closed eyes, of course), and presently he thought he saw "something
+like a bird--something like an eagle." After a pause he said: "I thought
+I saw a figure there--I saw 5. The bird's gone. I see 5 again; now it's
+gone. The bird came twice." Mr Smith then came upstairs, and P. had
+another impression of an eagle. He was told that the eagle was right,
+and there was something else besides, no hint being given of what the
+other thing was. He then said that the first thing he saw "was a little
+bird--a sparrow, perhaps--he could not say--about the size of a sparrow;
+then that disappeared, and he saw the eagle. He had told Mrs Sidgwick so
+at the time."
+
+We see the mental machinery at work in another case, where the subject
+agreed upon was "The Babes in the Wood." To begin with, P. sat with
+closed eyes, but, when no impression came, Mr Smith opened his eyes,
+without speaking, and made him look for the picture on a card. After we
+had waited a little while in vain, Mr Smith said to him: "Do you see
+something like a straw hat?" P. assented to this, and then began to
+puzzle out something more: "A white apron, something dark--a child. It
+can't be another child, unless it's a boy--a boy and a girl--the boy to
+the right and the girl to the left. Little girl with white socks on and
+shoes with straps." Mr Smith asked: "What are they doing? Is it two
+children on a raft at sea?" P.: "No; it's like trees in the
+background--a copse or something. Like a fairy-story--like babes in a
+wood or something."
+
+We see it in an even more pronounced degree where the subject sat on a
+sailing boat. Miss Johnson, who did not know what the subject of the
+picture was, asked Miss B. whether it was anything like an animal. Miss
+B. said: "No; got some prong sort of things--something at the bottom
+like a little boat. What can that be up in the air? Cliffs, I
+suppose--cliffs in the air high up--it's joining the boat. Oh, sails!--a
+sailing-boat--not cliffs--sails." This was not all uttered
+consecutively, but partly in answer to questions put by Miss Johnson;
+but, as Miss Johnson was ignorant of the supposed picture, her questions
+could, of course, give no guidance.
+
+Many experiments have been made in the transference of imaginary scenes,
+where both operator and subject have attempted to attain a conscious
+unity of ideas by means of rough drawings. A slight sketch was made,
+which was then projected to the brain of the percipient, who proceeded
+to reproduce the unseen, often with amazing fidelity.
+
+In these experiments actual contact was forbidden, to avoid the risk of
+unconscious indications by pressure. In many cases, however, the agent
+and percipient have been in the same room, and there has therefore still
+been some possible risk of unconscious whispering; but this risk has
+been successfully avoided. It yet remains doubtful how far close
+proximity really operates in aid of telepathy, or how far its advantage
+is a mere effect of self-suggestion--on the part either of agent or
+percipient. Some experimenters--notably the late Mr Kirk and Mr
+Glardon--have obtained results of just the same type at distances of
+half-a-mile or more. In the case of induction of hypnotic trance, Dr
+Gibert, as we have seen, attained at the distance of nearly a mile
+results which are commonly believed to exact close and actual presence.
+
+Hypnotic agencies, according to Myers, may be simplified into suggestion
+and self-suggestion. The same author defines suggestion as "successful
+appeal to the subliminal self." Many striking cases of moral reforms
+produced by this means have been recorded by Dr Auguste Voisin. For
+instance:
+
+     "In the summer of 1884 there was at the Salpetriere a young
+     woman of a deplorable type. Jeanne Sch---- was a criminal
+     lunatic, filthy in habits, violent in demeanour, and with a
+     lifelong history of impurity and theft. M. Voisin, who was one
+     of the physicians on the staff, undertook to hypnotise her on
+     31st May, at a time when she could only be kept quiet by the
+     strait jacket and _bonnet d'irrigation_, or perpetual cold
+     douche to the head. She would not--indeed, she could not--look
+     steadily at her operator, but raved and spat at him. M. Voisin
+     kept his face close to hers and followed her eyes wherever she
+     moved them. In about ten minutes a stertorous sleep ensued, and
+     in five minutes more she passed into a sleep-waking state, and
+     began to talk incoherently. The process was repeated on many
+     days, and gradually she became sane when in the trance, though
+     she still raved when awake. Gradually, too, she became able to
+     obey in waking hours commands impressed on her in the
+     trance--first trivial orders (to sweep the room and so forth),
+     then orders involving a marked change of behaviour. Nay, more;
+     in the hypnotic state she voluntarily expressed repentance for
+     her past life, made a confession which involved more evil than
+     the police were cognisant of (though it agreed with facts
+     otherwise known), and finally of her own impulse made good
+     resolves for the future. Two years later (31st July 1886) M.
+     Voisin wrote that she was then a nurse in a Paris hospital, and
+     that her conduct was irreproachable. It appeared then that this
+     poor woman, whose history since the age of thirteen had been
+     one of reckless folly and vice, had become capable of the
+     steady, self-controlled work of a nurse at a hospital, the
+     reformed character having first manifested itself in the
+     hypnotic state, partly in obedience to suggestion, and partly
+     as the natural result of the tranquilisation of morbid
+     passions."
+
+There is a mass of evidence to testify to the marvellous cures that have
+been effected in this way. Kleptomania, dipsomania, nicotinism,
+morphinomania, and several varieties of phobies have all been known to
+yield to hypnotic suggestion. Nor is it always necessary that the mind
+of the patient should be influenced by another person; self-suggestion
+is at times equally efficacious. Here is a case in point, taken from
+"Proceedings," vol. xi. p. 427. The narrator is Dr D. J. Parsons.
+
+     "Sixteen years ago I was a little sick; took half-a-grain of
+     opium, and lay down upon the bed. Soon, as I began to feel the
+     tranquillising effect of the opium, I saw three men approaching
+     me; the one in front said: 'You smoke too much tobacco.' I
+     replied: 'I know I do.' He then said: 'Why don't you quit it?'
+     I answered by saying: 'I have been thinking about it, but I am
+     afraid I can't.' He extended his right arm, and placing his
+     forefinger very near my face gave it a few very significant
+     shakes, said, in a very impressive manner: 'You will never want
+     to use tobacco any more as long as you live.' He continued by
+     saying: 'You swear sometimes.' I answered: 'Yes.' He said:
+     'Will you promise to quit?' I intended to say 'Yes,' but just
+     as I was about to utter the word yes, instantly a change came
+     over me, and I felt like I had been held under some unknown
+     influence, which was suddenly withdrawn or exhausted. I had
+     been a constant smoker for more than twenty years.
+
+     "Since the occurrence of the above incident I have not touched
+     tobacco; have felt ever since like it would poison me, and I
+     now feel like one draw at the pipe would kill me instantly. My
+     desire for tobacco was suddenly and effectually torn out by the
+     roots, but perhaps I shall never know just how it was done.
+
+     "D. J. PARSONS, M.D.
+
+     "_Sweet Springs, Missouri._"
+
+It would seem in the above case that the suggestibility was heightened
+by the use of opium, which at the same time developed a monitory
+hallucination.
+
+Leading men of science now hold that the popular belief in the dangers
+of hypnotism is grossly exaggerated, it being far less open to abuse
+than chloroform. Nevertheless some danger is only too manifest, and
+Parliament may yet be asked to do what Continental governments have
+done--viz. to make the practice of hypnotism, save under proper medical
+supervision, a punishable offence. As an illustration of these dangers I
+may mention the testimony of an operator given before the Psychical
+Research Society. Owing to the ready susceptibility of one subject he
+began to fear that he might acquire an influence which might be
+inconvenient to both, and so enjoined that he should be unable to
+hypnotise him unless he previously recited a formula asking the operator
+to do so. After several failures he states: "I eventually succeeded in
+impressing this so strongly upon him that it became absolutely
+effective, and the formula became requisite, for I could not, even with
+the utmost co-operation on his part, influence him in the least. One
+night, however, after retiring to bed I was surprised by his entering
+the room with the request that I should waken him. I expressed
+astonishment and asked whether he was really asleep. He assured me that
+he was, and explained that while he had been conversing in the
+drawing-room after dinner, other persons being present, he had
+experimentally recited the formula _sotto voce_ and had immediately,
+unperceived by myself or others in the room, gone off in the hypnotic
+state and could not get out of it again. I protested that this was an
+extremely unfair trick both on himself and on me, and to guard against
+its recurrence I enjoined that in future a mere repetition of the
+formula should not suffice, but that it should be written down, signed
+and handed to me. This has hitherto proved completely successful, and in
+the absence of the document no efforts on the part of either of us has
+had any effect whatever."
+
+It would seem, however, that the hypnotic subject is by no means
+entirely at the mercy of the operator. Thus Dr Milne Bramwell, in
+"Proceedings," vol. xii. pp. 176-203, cites a number of cases in which
+suggestions had been refused by hypnotic subjects. He also mentions two
+subjects who had rejected certain suggestions and accepted others. A
+Miss F., for example, recited a poem, but would not help herself to a
+glass of water from the sideboard; while a Mr G. would play one part,
+but not others, and committed an imaginary crime. Dr Bramwell comes to
+the following conclusion:--
+
+     "The difference between the hypnotised and the normal subject,
+     as it appears to me from a long series of observed facts, is
+     not so much in conduct as in increased mental and physical
+     powers. Any changes in the moral sense, I have noticed, have
+     invariably been for the better, the hypnotised subject evincing
+     superior refinement. As regards obedience to suggestion, there
+     is apparently little to choose between the two. A hypnotised
+     subject, who has acquired the power of manifesting various
+     physical and mental phenomena, will do so, in response to
+     suggestion, for much the same reasons as one in the normal
+     condition.... When the act demanded is contrary to the moral
+     sense, it is usually refused by the normal subject, and
+     invariably by the hypnotised one."
+
+The hypnotic state evinces an extraordinary extension of faculty. Dr
+Bramwell's remarkable series of experiments on "time appreciation" shows
+that orders were carried out by the subject at expiration of such
+periods as 20,290 minutes from the beginning of the order. In her normal
+state the female subject of this experiment was incapable of correctly
+calculating how many days and hours 20,290 minutes would make, and even
+in her hypnotised condition could reckon only with errors; yet, what is
+singular to relate, even when a blunder was made in the former
+calculation the order of the hypnotist was none the less fulfilled when
+the correct period expired. The conclusion is not easy to avoid: that
+beneath the stratum of human consciousness brought to the surface by
+hypnotism there is one--perhaps two--"subliminal" strata more alert and
+more capable than our ordinary workaday ego.
+
+What light this theory of a "subliminal" self will shed on our subject
+we will see when we come to discuss clairvoyance and the trance
+utterances of the spiritualistic "medium."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING
+
+
+We have seen that the hypnotic agent is able to project from his own
+brain certain thoughts and images into the mind of the percipient.
+"When," writes Professor Barrett, "the subject was in the state of
+trance or profound hypnotism, I noticed that not only sensations, but
+also ideas or emotions, occurring in the operator appeared to be
+reproduced in the subject without the intervention of any sign, or
+visible or audible communication.... In many other ways I convinced
+myself that the existence of a distinct idea in my own mind gave rise to
+some image of the idea in the subject's mind, not always a clear image,
+but one that could not fail to be recognised as a more or less distorted
+reflection of my own thought. The important point is that every care was
+taken to prevent any unconscious muscular action of the face, or
+otherwise giving any indication to the subject."
+
+This presumed mode of communication between one individual and another,
+without the intervention of any known sense, Professor Barrett, arguing
+on electrical analogies, is inclined to suggest might be due to some
+form of nervous induction. But is this faculty restricted in its
+operation to a hypnotised subject? If it were, the significance of the
+phenomena would be very much lessened. We should leave telepathy out of
+our account. But it is not so restricted. The ideas and images are
+capable of being projected not only to a hypnotised person, but to one
+who is apparently not under any hypnotic influence whatever. Yet we
+still must be careful of how we call in the aid of any "supernatural"
+agency to account for the influences I am about to relate--the
+translation of ideas and motor impulses from one person to another
+without the aid of any known sense. The transference of pictures which
+we described in the last article has been achieved in hundreds of cases
+by an agent upon a hypnotised percipient. Here we have telepathy
+apparently at work, but not, however, at any great distance, nor
+successful in conjuring up really vivid or ominous hallucinations. The
+scientific term for these is "sensory automatisms," and many instances
+of these are given by Edmund Gurney, author of "Phantasms of the
+Living."
+
+At an early period the Society for Psychical Research began a "Census of
+Hallucinations," which, with Gurney's book, now renders it possible for
+us to consider these phenomena with some certainty. The net result of
+all this investigation would seem to demonstrate that a large number of
+sensory automatisms occur amongst sane and healthy persons. We will
+later consider what difficulty lies in the way of attributing to
+telepathy the bulk of these phenomena. There is a widely accepted theory
+that telepathy is propagated by brain-waves, or, in Sir W. Crooke's
+phraseology, by ether-waves, of even smaller amplitude and greater
+frequency than those which carry X-rays. Such waves are supposed to pass
+from one brain to another, arousing in the second brain an excitation
+of image similar to the excitation or image from which they start in the
+first place. It has been pointed out that on this view there is no
+theoretical reason for limiting telepathy to human beings. Why may not
+the impulse pass between men and the lower animals, or between the lower
+animals themselves?
+
+I myself have exhumed from the records a case in point. General J. C.
+Thompson describes a remarkable apparition of a dog, with every mark of
+reality, at the time when the dog was killed in a city more than a
+hundred miles distant. General Thompson says:
+
+     "Jim, the dog whose ghost I refer to, was a beautiful collie,
+     the pet of my family, residing at Cheyenne, Wyoming. His
+     affectionate nature surpassed even that of his kind. He had a
+     wide celebrity in the city as 'the laughing dog,' due to the
+     fact that he manifested his recognition of acquaintances and
+     love for his friends by a joyful laugh, as distinctively such
+     as that of any human being.
+
+     "One evening in the fall of 1905, about 7.30 P.M., I was
+     walking with a friend on Seventeenth Street in Denver,
+     Colorado. As we approached the entrance to the First National
+     Bank, we observed a dog lying in the middle of the pavement,
+     and on coming up to him I was amazed at his perfect likeness to
+     Jim in Cheyenne. The identity was greatly fortified by his
+     loving recognition of me, and the peculiar laugh of Jim's
+     accompanying it. I said to my friend that nothing but the 105
+     miles between Denver and Cheyenne would keep me from making
+     oath to the dog being Jim, whose peculiarities I explained to
+     him.
+
+     "The dog astral or ghost was apparently badly hurt--he could
+     not rise. After petting him and giving him a kind adieu, we
+     crossed over Stout Street and stopped to look at him again. He
+     had vanished. The next morning's mail brought a letter from my
+     wife saying that Jim had been accidentally killed the evening
+     before at 7.30 P.M. I shall always believe it was Jim's ghost I
+     saw."
+
+This story, circumstantially narrated by an American general, recalls Mr
+Rider Haggard's celebrated dream that he saw his dog, Bob, in a dying
+condition, probably about three hours after the dog's death.
+
+But we need not pause on such bypaths as these.
+
+Perhaps the simplest form of thought-transference at a distance is that
+in which we find a vague mental unrest, unaccompanied by any visual or
+auditory hallucination. Cases are not infrequently met with where the
+patient suffers from acute depression and anxiety which are not
+connected at the time with any definite event. _The Journal of the
+Society for Psychical Research_, July, 1895, yields the following.
+
+Miss W. writes:
+
+     "On January 17th of this year (1895) I was haunted all day with
+     an indefinable dread, amounting to positive terror if I yielded
+     in the least to its influence. A little before six o'clock I
+     went to my maid's room and casually inquired of her whether
+     she believed in presentiments. She answered: 'Don't let them
+     get hold of you; it is a bad habit.' I replied: 'This is no
+     ordinary presentiment. All day long I have felt that something
+     terrible is impending; of what nature I do not know. I have
+     fought against it, but to no purpose. It is a terror I am
+     positively _possessed_ with.' I was proceeding to describe it
+     in fuller detail, when my mother entered the room with a
+     telegram in her hand. One glance at her face told me that my
+     foreboding had not been a groundless depression. The telegram
+     was to the effect that my brother had been taken very ill at
+     Cambridge and needed my mother at once to nurse him.
+
+     "I presume that the intensity of my foreboding was due to the
+     very serious nature of his illness.
+
+     "I experienced at different times what are in common parlance
+     termed 'presentiments'; but only on one other occasion has the
+     same peculiar _terror_ (a chilling conviction of impending
+     trouble) beset me."
+
+This is corroborated both by the maid and Miss W.'s brother, an
+undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, who had met with a serious
+accident the same afternoon. The affection between brother and sister
+was, it is related, very close.
+
+Of a well-known type of case the following is a good example. The Hon.
+Mrs Fox Powys is the narrator:--
+
+     "July 1882.
+
+     "I was expecting my husband home, and shortly after the time he
+     ought to have arrived (about ten P.M.) I heard a cab drive up
+     to the door, the bell ring, my husband's voice talking with the
+     cabman, the front door open and his step come up the stairs. I
+     went to the drawing-room, opened it, and to my astonishment saw
+     no one. I could hardly believe he was not there, the whole
+     thing was so vivid, and the street was particularly quiet at
+     the time. About twenty minutes or so after this my husband
+     _really_ arrived, though nothing sounded to me more real than
+     it did the first time. The train was late, and he had been
+     thinking I might be anxious."
+
+In response to further inquiries, Mrs Powys added:
+
+     "To me the whole thing was very noisy and real, but no one else
+     can have heard anything, for the bell I heard ring was not
+     answered. It was a quiet street in town, and there was no
+     vehicle of any kind passing at the time; and on finding no one
+     on the landing as I expected, I went at once to the window, and
+     there was nothing to be seen, and no sound to be heard, which
+     would have been the case had the cab been driven off."
+
+Here the expectation of Mr Fox Powys' arrival seems to have caused an
+auditory hallucination. In other cases of a similar nature the
+hallucination is visual, the percipient actually seeing the figure of
+the expected person.
+
+The authors of "Phantasms of the Living" give the following case as an
+"interesting puzzle" and invite the reader to decide whether or not it
+affords evidence for telepathy. The narrator, Mr W. A. S., is described
+as an unexceptionable witness who has never had any other visual
+hallucination.
+
+     "January 14th, 1883.
+
+     "In the month of April 1871, about two o'clock in the
+     afternoon, I was sitting in the drawing-room of my father's
+     house in Pall Mall. The window of the room fronted south; and
+     the sun was shining brightly in at the window. I was sitting
+     between the fireplace and the window, with my back to the
+     light; my niece was sitting on the opposite side of the
+     fireplace; and opposite me at the farther corner of the room
+     was a door partly open, leading directly to the staircase. I
+     saw what I supposed at the first moment to be dirty soapy water
+     running in at the door; and I was in the act of jumping up to
+     scold the housemaid for upsetting the water, when I saw that
+     the supposed water was the tail or train of a lady's dress. The
+     lady glided in backwards, as if she had been slid in on a
+     slide, each part of her dress keeping its place without
+     disturbance. She glided in till I could see the whole of her,
+     _except the tip of her nose, her lips and the tip of her chin,
+     which were hidden by the edge of the door_. Her head was
+     slightly turned over her shoulder, and her eye also turned, so
+     that it appeared fixed upon me. She held her arm, which was a
+     very fine one, in a peculiar way, as if she were proud of it.
+     She was dressed in a pale blue evening dress, worked with white
+     lace. I instantly recognised the figure as that of a lady whom
+     I had known some twenty-five years or more before; and with
+     whom I had frequently danced. She was a bright, dashing girl, a
+     good dancer, and we were good friends, but nothing more. She
+     had afterwards married and I had occasionally heard of her, but
+     do not think I had seen her for certainly more than twenty or
+     twenty-five years. She looked much as I used to see her--with
+     long curls and bright eyes, but perhaps something stouter and
+     more matronly.
+
+     "I said to myself: 'This is one of those strange apparitions I
+     have often heard of. I will watch it as carefully as I can.' My
+     niece, who did not see the figure, in the course of a minute or
+     two exclaimed: 'Uncle A., what is the matter with you? You
+     look as if you saw a ghost!' I motioned her to be quiet, as I
+     wished to observe the thing carefully; and an impression came
+     upon me that if I moved, the thing would disappear. I tried to
+     find out whether there was anything in the ornaments on the
+     walls, or anything else which could suggest the figure; but I
+     found that all the lines close to her cut the outline of her
+     figure at all sorts of angles, and none of these coincided with
+     the outline of her figure, and the colour of everything around
+     her strongly contrasted with her colour. In the course of a few
+     minutes, I heard the door bell ring, and I heard my brother's
+     voice in the hall. He came upstairs and walked right through
+     the figure into the room. The figure then began to fade away
+     rather quickly; and though I tried I could in no way recall it.
+
+     "I frequently told the story in society, treating it always as
+     something internal rather than external and supposing that the
+     lady was still alive; and rather making a joke of it than
+     otherwise. Some years afterwards I was staying with some
+     friends in Suffolk and told the story at the dinner-table,
+     saying that it was no ghost as the lady was still alive. The
+     lady of the house said: 'She is not alive, as you suppose, but
+     she has been dead some years.' We looked at the peerage and
+     found she had died in 1871. (I afterwards found out that she
+     had died in November, whereas the apparition was in April.) The
+     conversation continued about her, and I said: 'Poor thing, I am
+     sorry she is dead. I have had many a merry dance with her. What
+     did she die of?' The lady of the house said: 'Poor thing
+     indeed, she died a wretched death; she died of cancer in the
+     face.' She never showed me the front of her face; it was always
+     concealed by the edge of the door."
+
+I will now concern myself with the power of an agent to project himself
+phantasmally--that is, to make his form and features manifest to some
+percipient at a distance as though he were actually present. In Gurney's
+"Phantasms of the Living" is given at length a case of a simple nature.
+Here there was not one but two percipients.
+
+     On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been
+     reading of the great power which the human will is capable of
+     exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that
+     I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom on the second
+     floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in
+     which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance--viz. Miss L. S.
+     V., and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven
+     years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a
+     distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not
+     mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to
+     either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was
+     only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up
+     my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be
+     there was one o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong
+     intention of making my presence perceptible.
+
+     "On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in
+     question, and in the course of conversation (without any
+     allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me that
+     on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by
+     perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed
+     when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little
+     sister, who saw me also.
+
+     "I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most
+     decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of
+     the occurrence she replied about one o'clock in the morning.
+
+     "This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event
+     and signed it.
+
+     "This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment
+     of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.
+
+     "Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put
+     forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was
+     conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in
+     my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising
+     some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but
+     which I can now at certain times set in motion at will.
+
+     "S. H. B."
+
+The account given by Miss Verity is as follows:--
+
+     "January 18th, 1883.
+
+     "On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our
+     house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr B. in my
+     room, about one o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much
+     terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the
+     apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr B., I told
+     him what had happened; but it was some time before I could
+     recover from the shock I had received, and the remembrance is
+     too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.
+
+     "L. S. Verity."
+
+Miss E. C. Verity says:
+
+     "I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister
+     in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct.
+     I saw the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under
+     the same circumstances.
+
+     "E. C. Verity."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The witnesses (comments Gurney) have been very carefully
+     cross-examined by the present writer. There is not the
+     slightest doubt that their mention of the occurrence to S. H.
+     B. was spontaneous. They had not at first intended to mention
+     it; but when they saw him their sense of its oddness overcame
+     their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly sober-minded and
+     sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a
+     considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of
+     marvel."
+
+On another occasion the agent announced privately to the investigator
+that he would project himself at a stated time. He did so; and the lady
+wrote as follows:--
+
+     "44 Norland Square, W.
+
+     "On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had
+     a distinct impression that Mr S. H. B. was present in my room,
+     and I distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He
+     came towards me, and stroked my hair. I _voluntarily_ gave him
+     this information when he called to see me on Wednesday, April
+     2nd, telling him the time and the circumstances of the
+     apparition, without any suggestion on his part. The appearance
+     in my room was most vivid and quite unmistakable.
+
+     "L. S. Verity."
+
+Mr B.'s own account runs thus:
+
+     "On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence
+     perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at
+     twelve midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr
+     Gurney that I should post him a letter on the evening on which
+     I tried my next experiment (stating the time and other
+     particulars), I sent a note to acquaint him with the above
+     facts.
+
+     "About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she
+     voluntarily told me that on March 22nd, at twelve o'clock
+     midnight, she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst
+     widely awake) that her nerves had been much shaken, and she had
+     been obliged to send for a doctor in the morning.
+
+     "S. H. B."
+
+Another case of a similar nature is reported by the American branch of
+the Society for Psychical Research:
+
+     "On July 5th, 1887, I left my house in Lakewood to go to New
+     York to spend a few days. My wife was not feeling well when I
+     left, and after I had started I looked back and saw her
+     standing in the door looking disconsolate and sad at my
+     leaving. The picture haunted me all day, and at night, before I
+     went to bed, I thought I would try to find out, if possible,
+     her condition. I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of
+     the bed, when I covered my face with my hands and willed myself
+     in Lakewood at home to see if I could see her. After a little
+     while I seemed to be standing in her room before the bed, and
+     saw her lying there looking much better. I felt satisfied she
+     was better, and so spent the week more comfortably regarding
+     her condition. On Saturday I went home. When she saw me she
+     remarked: 'I don't know whether I am glad to see you or not,
+     for I thought something had happened to you. I saw you standing
+     in front of the bed the night (about 8.30 or before 9) you
+     left, and as plain as could be, and I have been worrying myself
+     about you ever since. I sent to the office and to the depot
+     daily to get some message from you.' After explaining my effort
+     to find out her condition, everything became plain to her. She
+     had seen me when I was trying to see her and find out her
+     condition. I thought at the time I was going to see her and
+     make her see me.
+
+     "B. F. Sinclair."
+
+The foregoing is corroborated by Mrs Sinclair. She states that she saw
+her husband, not as he was dressed at the moment of the experiment, but
+"in a suit that hung in a closet at home." The apparition caused her
+great anxiety, so that her husband's view of her improved appearance was
+not really true. The son, Mr George Sinclair, avers that in his
+mother's vision his father's face was "drawn and set, as if he was
+either dead or trying to accomplish something which was beyond him."
+
+Another case investigated by the Society is also striking. The date is
+1896.
+
+     "'One night, two or three years ago, I came back from the
+     theatre to my mother's flat at 6 S---- Street; and after I had
+     been into her bedroom and told her all about it, I went to bed
+     about one A.M. I had not been asleep long when I started up
+     frightened, fancying that I had heard someone walk down the
+     passage towards my mother's room; but, hearing nothing more,
+     went to sleep again. I started up alarmed in the same way three
+     or four times before dawn.
+
+     "'In the morning, upon inquiry, my mother (who was ill at the
+     time) only told me that she had had a very disturbed night.
+
+     "'Then I asked my brother, who told me that he had suffered in
+     the same way as I had, starting up several times in a
+     frightened manner. On hearing this my mother then told me that
+     she had seen an apparition of Mr Pelham. Later in the day Mr
+     Pelham came in, and my mother asked him casually if he had been
+     doing anything last night; upon which he told us that he had
+     come to bed willing that he should visit and appear to us. We
+     made him promise not to repeat the experiment.'
+
+     "Mrs E., the mother, states that she was recovering from
+     influenza at the time. At half-past ten, as she lay reading:
+
+     "'A strange, creepy sensation came over me, and I felt my eyes
+     were drawn towards the left-hand side of the room. I felt I
+     must look, and there, distinct against the curtain, was a blue
+     luminous mist.
+
+     "'This time I was impelled to cast my eyes downward to the side
+     of my bed, and there, creeping upwards towards me, was the same
+     blue luminous mist. I was too terrified to move, and remember
+     keeping the book straight up before my face, as though to ward
+     off a blow, at the same time exerting all my strength of will
+     and determination not to be afraid--when, suddenly, as if with
+     a jerk, above the top of my book came the brow and eyes of Mr
+     Pelham.'
+
+     "Instantly her fears ceased. She 'remembered that Mr Pelham had
+     experimented on her before at night'; and 'in one moment mist
+     and face were gone.'
+
+     "For his part, Mr Pelham explains that he 'carefully imagined'
+     himself going down the steps of his house, and so along the
+     streets, to Mrs E.'s flat, and to her drawing-room and bedroom;
+     he then went to bed with his mind fixed on the visit and soon
+     fell asleep. He has made other trials, but without any positive
+     success, though during one of them Mrs E. was wakened suddenly
+     by the feeling that someone was in the room, and it occurred to
+     her that Mr Pelham was again experimenting."
+
+The occurrences above related are most significant, if true, and I am
+bound to say the _bona fides_ of the narrators seems to me indisputable.
+Is it a spirit showing itself partially dissociated from the living
+organism; evincing independence, a certain intelligence and a certain
+permanence? Or is this a mere image of the agent, conceived in his own
+brain and projected telepathically to the brain of the percipient? So
+far, we are merely groping our way. Yet, is it not possible that we have
+laid hands upon a credible explanation of the eternal mystery of
+"ghosts"? We shall see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DREAMS
+
+
+Having partially discussed the subject of phantasms projected from the
+brain of the agent to that of the percipient, I must now briefly
+describe another group for which the evidence is very abundant--that of
+"veridical" dreams. This is a term used to describe apparitions
+coinciding with other events in such a manner as to suggest a
+connection. Your dream or hallucination is said to be veridical when it
+conveys an idea which is both true and previously unknown to you.
+
+Making every allowance for the element of chance, there is a mass of
+evidence which mere coincidence cannot explain away. Yet we must not
+overlook the frequency of dreams, even of a striking character, which
+may once or twice in a million times actually hit on the coincident
+event. But besides coincidence, there is at times another normal
+explanation. Mr Podmore relates how a neighbour of his on the night of
+24th June 1894 dreamed President Carnot had been assassinated. He told
+his family before the morning paper announcing the news had been opened.
+As has been pointed out, in a case of that kind it seems possible that
+the information may have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the
+shouts of a newsboy, or even from the conversation of passers-by in the
+street.
+
+Before any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal
+communication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances
+about to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the
+dreamer or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was
+suspected.
+
+One of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:
+
+     "Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a
+     day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister,
+     living at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his
+     chambers I found a note on the table apologising for his
+     absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance somewhere in
+     the West End, and intended to be home soon after one o'clock.
+     Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair, but started up
+     wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's down!'
+     and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly
+     illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top
+     stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows
+     and hands. (The house was one which I have never seen, nor did
+     I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter, I
+     fell a-doze again for half-an-hour and was awakened by my
+     brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh, there you are! I
+     have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever
+     had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot,
+     and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'
+
+     "That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always
+     thought it must have been something more."
+
+A member of the Society for Psychical Research narrates that on 7th
+October 1900 he woke abruptly in the small hours of the morning with a
+painful conviction upon him that his wife, who was that night sleeping
+in another part of the house, had burst a varicose vein in the calf of
+her leg, and that he could feel the swelled place three inches long:
+
+     "I wondered whether I ought to get up and go down to her room
+     on the first floor, and considered whether she would be able to
+     come up to me; but I was only partly awake, though in acute
+     distress. My mind had been suddenly roused, but my body was
+     still under the lethargy of sleep. I argued with myself that
+     there was sure to be nothing in it, that I should only disturb
+     her, and so shortly went off to sleep again.
+
+     "On going to her room this morning I said I had had a horrid
+     dream, which had woke me up, to the effect that she had burst a
+     varicose vein, of which just now care has to be taken. 'Why,'
+     she replied, 'I had just the same experience. I woke up at
+     2.15, feeling sure the calf of my leg was bleeding, and my
+     hand seemed to feel it when I put it there. I turned on the
+     light in alarm, noticing the time, and wondered if I should be
+     able to get up to thee, or whether I should have to wake the
+     housekeeper. Thou wast in the dream out of which I woke,
+     examining the place.'
+
+     "Though I did not note the hour, two o'clock is about the time
+     I should have guessed it to be; and the impression on my mind
+     was vivid and terrible, knowing how dangerous such an accident
+     would be."
+
+The foregoing is thus corroborated by the lady:
+
+     "I felt twinges of pain in my leg off and on in my sleep
+     without being entirely roused till about 2.15 A.M. Then, or
+     just before, I dreamt or had a vivid impression that a vein had
+     burst, and that my husband, who was sleeping in another room up
+     another flight of stairs, was there and called my attention to
+     it. I thought it felt wet, and trickling down the leg as if
+     bleeding, passed my hand down, and at first thought it seemed
+     wet; but on gaining fuller consciousness found it all right,
+     and that it was not more painful than often when I got out and
+     stood on it. Thought over the contingency of its actually
+     bursting, and whether I could so bandage it in that case as to
+     make it safe to go up to my husband's room, and thought I could
+     do so.
+
+     "Looking at my watch, found it about 2.20."
+
+As to dreams in which a death occurs there is a vast mass of testimony.
+The late Dr Hodgson, on 19th July 1897, received the following letter:--
+
+     "DEAR HODGSON,--Five minutes ago Mr J. F. Morse, who has all
+     his life had dreams which were more or less verified later,
+     came to my room and said: 'I believe my wife died last night,
+     for I had a dream of a most remarkable nature which indicates
+     it. I shall be able to let you know soon, for I shall get word
+     at my office when I reach there. I will then send you word.'
+     His wife is in a country place in Delaware Co. Pa. She is ill,
+     but he had no idea she would not live for months, as the
+     enclosed letter of July 15th will show; but she was ill, and
+     would be likely to decline slowly and gradually. I will get
+     this off or in the mail before I hear any more.
+
+     "Mr Morse in his appearance looks like one who had just lost a
+     dear friend, and is in a state of great mental depression, with
+     tears in his eyes....
+
+     "M. L. HOLBROOK."
+
+On the evening of the same day a telegram was received announcing the
+unexpected death of Mrs Morse at 9.15 on the evening of Friday, 16th
+July.
+
+A prominent Chicago journalist, Mr F. B. Wilkie, reported that his wife
+asked him one morning in October 1885, while still engaged in dressing,
+and before either of them had left their sleeping-room, if he knew
+anyone named Edsale or Esdale. A negative reply was given and then a
+"Why do you ask?" She replied: "During the night I dreamt that I was on
+the lake-shore and found a coffin there, with the name of Edsale or
+Esdale on it, and I am confident that someone of that name has recently
+been drowned there." On opening the morning paper the first item that
+attracted his attention was the report of the mysterious disappearance
+from his home in Hyde Park of a young man named Esdale. A few days
+afterwards the body of a young man was found on the lake-shore.
+
+This case was carefully investigated and authenticated by Dr Hodgson,
+and bears some unusual features.
+
+Of dreams that may be reasonably regarded as telepathic the following is
+a striking example. It is contributed to "Phantasms of the Living" by a
+Mrs Hilton--a lady engaged in active work, and not in any respect a
+"visionary."
+
+     "234 Burdett Road, E.
+
+     "April 10th, 1883.
+
+     "The dream which I am about to relate occurred about two years
+     ago. I seemed to be walking in a country road, with high grassy
+     banks on either side. Suddenly I heard the tramp of many feet.
+     Feeling a strange sense of fear I called out: 'Who are these
+     people coming?' A voice above me replied: 'A procession of the
+     dead.' I then found myself on the bank, looking into the road
+     where the people were walking five or six abreast. Hundreds of
+     them passed by me--neither looking aside nor looking at each
+     other. They were people of all conditions and in all ranks of
+     life. I saw no children amongst them. I watched the long line
+     of people go away into the far distance, but I felt no special
+     interest in any of them, until I saw a middle-aged Friend,
+     dressed as a gentleman farmer. I pointed to him and called out:
+     'Who is that, please?' He turned round and called out in a loud
+     voice: 'I am John M., of Chelmsford.' Then my dream ended. Next
+     day when my husband returned from the office he told me that
+     John M., of Chelmsford, had died the previous day.
+
+     "I may add that I only knew the Friend in question by sight and
+     cannot recollect ever speaking to him.
+
+     "MARIE HILTON."
+
+About a year later Mrs Hilton experienced a dream of a similar kind,
+again coincident with the death of an acquaintance seen in the phantom
+procession. It is worth noting "remarks Mr Gurney," that these
+dreams--for all their _bizarrerie_--seem to belong to a known type.
+
+In another category of phenomena belong precognitive dreams in which
+certain events, especially deaths, are foretold. Mr Alfred Cooper, of 9
+Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W., states, and his statement is
+attested by the Duchess of Hamilton, that:
+
+     "A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L----, in
+     1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton in Hill Street to see
+     him professionally. After I had finished seeing him we went
+     into the drawing-room where the Duchess was, and the Duke said
+     to me: 'Oh, Cooper, how is the Earl?'
+
+     "The Duchess said: 'What Earl?' and on my answering: 'Lord
+     L----,' she replied, 'That is very odd. I have had a most
+     extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a
+     short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene
+     as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L----,
+     in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a
+     red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a red
+     lamp was distinctly shown.'
+
+     "I then said: 'I am attending Lord L---- at present; there is
+     very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he
+     will be all right very soon.'
+
+     "Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the
+     end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him
+     suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.
+
+     "I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead
+     man. There were two male nurses attending him; one had been
+     taken ill. But when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess
+     was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the
+     Earl, and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the
+     bath with the red lamp over it, it is rather rare to find a
+     bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my
+     mind.
+
+     "The vision seen by the Duchess was told two weeks before the
+     death of Lord L----. It is a most remarkable thing. This
+     account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of
+     Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the
+     vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.
+
+     "MARY HAMILTON.
+
+     "ALFRED COOPER."
+
+Mr Myers adds:
+
+     "The Duchess only knew Lord L---- by sight, and had not heard
+     that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened
+     her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the
+     same thing again.
+
+     "An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F.
+     W. H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the Duchess related the
+     dream on the morning after its occurrence."
+
+One of the most interesting and well-authenticated cases of dreams
+foretelling a death is that of Mr Fred Lane, understudy to that popular
+actor the late William Terriss. His statement is as follows:--
+
+     "Adelphi Theatre,
+
+     "December 20th, 1897.
+
+     "In the early morning of December 16th, 1897, I dreamt that I
+     saw the late Mr Terriss lying in a state of delirium or
+     unconsciousness on the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in
+     the Adelphi Theatre. He was surrounded by people engaged at the
+     theatre, amongst whom were Miss Millward and one of the footmen
+     who attend the curtain, both of whom I actually saw a few hours
+     later at the death scene. His chest was bare and clothes torn
+     aside. Everybody who was around him was trying to do something
+     for his good. This dream was in the shape of a picture. I saw
+     it like a tableau on which the curtain would rise and fall. I
+     immediately after dreamt that we did not open at the Adelphi
+     Theatre that evening. I was in my dressing-room in the dream,
+     but this latter part was somewhat incoherent. The next morning,
+     on going down to the theatre for rehearsal, the first member of
+     the company I met was Miss H----, to whom I mentioned this
+     dream. On arriving at the theatre I also mentioned it to
+     several other members of the company including Messrs Creagh
+     Henry, Buxton, Carter Bligh, etc. This dream, though it made
+     such an impression upon me as to cause me to relate it to my
+     fellow-artists, did not give me the idea of any coming
+     disaster. I may state that I have dreamt formerly of deaths of
+     relatives and other matters which have impressed me, but the
+     dreams have never impressed me sufficiently to make me repeat
+     them the following morning, and have never been verified. My
+     dream of the present occasion was the most vivid I have ever
+     experienced; in fact, lifelike, and exactly represented the
+     scene as I saw it at night."
+
+Three members of the company--Mr Carter Bligh, Mr Creagh Henry, and Miss
+H---- --made statements that Mr Lane related his dream in their presence
+on the morning of 16th December. Mr Lane was in the vicinity of the
+Adelphi Theatre when the murderer, named Prince or Archer, who had been
+employed as a super at the theatre, stabbed Terriss at the stage
+entrance to the theatre. The actor was taken to the Charing Cross
+Hospital, where he died almost immediately. It is interesting to note
+that it was Lane himself who ran to the hospital for the doctor, and on
+his return looked in at the stage entrance and saw Terriss lying on the
+stairs just as he had seen him in the dream.
+
+While I am fully alive to the possibilities of coincidence, there
+certainly does not seem to be much besides levity in the theory that "it
+happened to be Jones's hour to see a hallucination of Thompson when it
+happened to be Thompson's hour to die," especially when, as frequently
+happens, the hallucination occurs more than once to the same percipient.
+
+A Parisian journalist, M. Henri Buisson, sends to "The Annals of
+Psychical Science" an account of three premonitory dreams all of which
+were told to others before they were fulfilled. In the first, which
+occurred on June 8th, 1887, M. Buisson saw his grandmother "stretched
+dead on her bed, with a smile on her face as if she slept." Above the
+bed, in a brilliant sun, he read the date, "June 8th, 1888," just a
+year later; and on that day his grandmother died quite suddenly, with
+her face as calm as he had seen it in his dream.
+
+On another occasion M. Buisson saw his mother, not dead, but very ill,
+and attended by a doctor, who had died more than a year before, after
+having been the family physician for thirty years. The next day M.
+Buisson received a telegram saying that his mother was ill, and, in
+fact, she died during the day.
+
+In April 1907, M. Buisson dreamt that he received notice to quit his
+house on pretence of a message from the Prefect of Police, and that on
+looking out of the window he saw the Prefect in the street, dressed in a
+leather jacket, with a soft hat, and a slipper on one foot. He also
+dreamt that a fire had broken out. On the evening of the next day he
+heard the fire-engines, and on following them he found the Prefect on
+the spot, dressed just as in the dream, having hurt one foot, he had to
+go about in a slipper.
+
+Of still another type is the clairvoyant dream. The following is
+related by Mr Herbert J. Lewis, of Cardiff:--
+
+     "In September 1880 I lost the landing-order of a large steamer
+     containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port
+     of Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the
+     next morning. I received the landing-order at four o'clock in
+     the afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found
+     that I had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my
+     utmost to find the officials of the Customs House to get a
+     permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance, preventing
+     the ship from discharging. I came home in a great degree of
+     trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my
+     situation in consequence.
+
+     "That night I dreamt that I saw the lost landing-order lying in
+     a crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the
+     Customs House.
+
+     "At five the next morning I went down to the Customs House and
+     got the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of
+     which I had dreamt, and found the paper in the very place. The
+     ship was not ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went
+     on board at seven and delivered the landing-order, saving her
+     from all delay.
+
+     "I can certify to the truth of the above statement,
+
+     "HERBERT J. LEWIS,
+
+     "THOMAS LEWIS
+
+     "(Herbert Lewis's father).
+
+     "H. WALLIS."
+
+(Mr E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the
+following corroborative note.)
+
+     "August 14th, 1884.
+
+     "I made some inquiries about Mr Herbert Lewis's dream before I
+     left Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in
+     which the order was found. His theory as to how the order got
+     in the place in which it was found is that it was probably put
+     there by someone (perhaps with malicious intent), as he does
+     not see how it could have fallen so.
+
+     "The fact that Mr H. Lewis is exceedingly short-sighted adds
+     to the probability of the thing which you suggest, that the
+     dream was simply an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the
+     other hand, he does not believe it was there when he searched.
+
+     "E. J. NEWELL."
+
+Now, it seems to me in the above case that the dreamer's subliminal self
+may have taken note of the lost landing-order without his
+super-consciousness being aware of it, and that the fact returned to him
+in his dream.
+
+In R. L. Stevenson's "Across the Plains" may be found a striking chapter
+on dreams. It contains an account of some of the most successful dream
+experiments ever recorded. Stevenson's dreams were of no ordinary
+character; they were always of great vividness, and often of a markedly
+recurrent type. This faculty he developed to an unusual degree--to such
+an extent, indeed, that it became of great assistance to him in his
+work. By self-suggestion before sleep, we are told, the great novelist
+would secure "a visual and dramatic intensity of dream-representation
+which furnished him with the motives of some of his most striking
+romances." But "R. L. S." is not the only one who has secured assistance
+of dreams. Here is an account given by a German, Professor Hilprecht, of
+an experience of a similar nature ("Human Personality," i. 376):
+
+     "One Saturday evening, about the middle of March 1893, I had
+     been wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks
+     preceding, in the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments
+     of agate, which were supposed to belong to the finger-rings of
+     some Babylonian. The labour was much increased by the fact that
+     the fragments presented remnants only of characters and lines,
+     that dozens of similar small fragments had been found in the
+     ruins of the temple of Bel at Nippur with which nothing could
+     be done, that in this case furthermore I never had the
+     originals before me, but only a hasty sketch made by one of the
+     members of the expedition sent by the University of
+     Pennsylvania to Babylonia. I could not say more than that the
+     fragments, taking into consideration the place in which they
+     were found and the peculiar characteristics of the cuneiform
+     characters preserved upon them, sprang from the Cassite period
+     of Babylonian history (_circa_ 1700-1140 B.C.); moreover, as
+     the first character of the third line of the first fragment
+     seemed to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an
+     interrogation point, to King Kurigalzu, while I placed the
+     other fragment as unclassifiable with other Cassite fragments
+     upon a page of my book where I published the unclassifiable
+     fragments. The proofs already lay before me, but I was far from
+     satisfied. The whole problem passed yet again through my mind
+     that March evening before I placed my mark of approval under
+     the last correction in the book. Even then I had come to no
+     conclusion. About midnight, weary and exhausted, I went to bed
+     and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed the following
+     remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian
+     Nippur, about forty years of age and clad in a simple abba, led
+     me to the treasure chamber of the temple, on its south-east
+     side. He went with me into a small low-ceiled room, without
+     windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps
+     of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he
+     addressed me as follows:--'The two fragments which you have
+     published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together, are
+     not finger-rings, and their history is as follows. King
+     Kurigalzu (_circa_ 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel,
+     among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli, an inscribed
+     votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the
+     command to make for the statue of the god Ninib a pair of
+     earrings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no
+     agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command
+     there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into
+     three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a
+     portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served
+     as earrings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which
+     have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you
+     will put the two together you will have confirmation of my
+     words. But the third ring you have not yet found in the course
+     of your excavations and you never will find it.' With this the
+     priest disappeared. I awoke at once and immediately told my
+     wife the dream, that I might not forget it. Next
+     morning--Sunday--I examined the fragments once more in the
+     light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all
+     the details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the
+     means of verification were in my hands. The original
+     inscription on the votive cylinder read: 'To the god Ninib, son
+     of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented
+     this.' The problem was at last solved."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HALLUCINATIONS
+
+
+From the occurrence in a dream of the ideas of events which happen to
+coincide with actual events, let us turn to apparitions occurring during
+the waking hours of the percipient.
+
+The late Professor Sidgwick, at the head of a committee, sent out the
+following question to 17,000 educated persons not known to have had
+hallucinations:--"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be
+completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a
+living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice, which
+impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external
+physical cause?"
+
+The replies demonstrate how frequent are hallucinations amongst healthy,
+normal-minded persons. No fewer than 1684, or one in ten, of the
+persons interrogated, had had visual and auditory and even tactile
+hallucinations, realistic human phantoms, and other apparitions. We find
+that, according to the age classification, of 1295 visual hallucinations
+72 occurred while the percipients were under ten years of age, 217
+between the ages of ten and nineteen, 300 between twenty and
+twenty-nine, 143 between thirty and thirty-nine, 81 between forty and
+forty-nine, 40 between fifty and fifty-nine, 22 between sixty and
+sixty-nine, 5 later than seventy, and 415 at unstated ages. Some of the
+hallucinations occurred immediately after waking, others while the
+percipients were awake in bed; but the great bulk occurred in a fully
+awakened state, and a large number appeared out of doors.
+
+Of hallucinations of which we may say that they are due to a projection
+from the agent's mind, commonly to a dying man or woman, to that of the
+percipient, perhaps one of the most famous is that of Lord Charles
+Beresford, as described by him to the Society for Psychical Research:
+
+     "It was in the spring of 1864, whilst on board H.M.S. _Racoon_,
+     between Gibraltar and Marseilles, that I went into my office on
+     the main deck to get a pipe; and as I opened the door I saw my
+     father lying in his coffin as plainly as I could. It gave me an
+     awful jerk and I immediately told some of the fellows who were
+     smoking just outside the usual place between the guns, and I
+     also told dear old Onslow, our chaplain. A few days after we
+     arrived at Marseilles, and I heard of my father's death, and he
+     had been buried that very day and at the time, half-past twelve
+     in the day. I may add that at the time it was a bright, sunny
+     day, and I had not been fretting about my father, as the latest
+     news I had of him was that although very ill he was better. My
+     dear old father and I were great chums, more so than is usual
+     between a man of seventy-two and a boy of twenty, our
+     respective ages then."
+
+The evidence is so bulky that we may quote only a case here and there at
+random:
+
+     "On December 9th 1882 Mr T. G. Keulemans was living with his
+     family in Paris. The outbreak of an epidemic of smallpox caused
+     him to remove three of his children, including a favourite
+     little boy of five, to London, whence he received in the course
+     of the ensuing month several letters giving an excellent
+     account of their health.
+
+     "On the 24th of January 1881, at half-past seven in the
+     morning, I was suddenly awoke by hearing his voice, as I
+     fancied, very near me. I saw a bright opaque white mass before
+     my eyes, and in the centre of this light I saw the face of my
+     little darling, his eyes bright, his mouth smiling. The
+     apparition, accompanied by the sound of his voice, was too
+     short and too sudden to be called a dream; it was too clear,
+     too decided, to be called an effect of the imagination. So
+     distinctly did I hear his voice that I looked round the room to
+     see whether he was actually there. The sound I heard was that
+     of extreme delight, such as only a happy child can utter. I
+     thought it was the moment he woke up in London, happy and
+     thinking of me. I said to myself: 'Thank God, little Isidore
+     is happy as always.' Mr Keulemans describes the ensuing day as
+     one of peculiar brightness and cheerfulness. He took a long
+     walk with a friend, with whom he dined; and was afterwards
+     playing a game at billiards when he again saw the apparition of
+     his child. This made him seriously uneasy, and in spite of
+     having received within three days the assurance of his child's
+     perfect health he expressed to his wife a conviction that he
+     was dead. Next day a letter arrived saying that the child was
+     ill; but the father was convinced that this was only an attempt
+     to break the news; and, in fact, the child had died, after a
+     few hours' illness, at the exact time of the first apparition."
+
+Another case as recited by Madame D----, of St Gaudens, is to be found
+in "Posthumous Humanity." She says:
+
+     "I was still a young girl, and slept with my elder sister. One
+     evening we had just retired to bed and blown out the light. The
+     smouldering fire on the hearth still feebly lighted the room.
+     Upon turning my eyes towards the fireplace I perceived, to my
+     amazement, a priest seated before the fire and warming himself.
+     He had the corpulence, the features, and the general appearance
+     of one of our uncles who lived in the neighbourhood, where he
+     was an archbishop. I at once called my sister's attention. She
+     looked in the same direction, and saw the same apparition. She
+     also recognised our uncle. An indescribable terror seized us
+     both, and we cried 'Help!' with all our might. My father, who
+     slept in an adjoining room, awakened by these desperate cries,
+     jumped out of bed and ran in with a candle in his hand. The
+     phantom had disappeared, and we saw no one in the room. The
+     next morning a letter was received informing us that our uncle
+     had died the previous evening.
+
+     "At Wiesbaden, Professor Ebenan, whose old sister kept his
+     house, stated that he had a friend residing forty or fifty
+     miles off--likewise a professor--who was very poor and had a
+     large family. On hearing that his wife was dying, Mr E---- went
+     to see them, and brought back their eldest boy, for whom a
+     little bed was put up in Mr E----'s room.
+
+     "One morning, about ten days after, Mr E---- called and asked
+     me: 'Do you believe that at the moment of death you may appear
+     to one whom you love?' I replied: 'Yes, I do.' 'Well,' he said,
+     'we shall see. I have noted the day and the hour, for last
+     night after I went to bed the child said sweetly (in German):
+     "Yes, dear mamma, I see you." To which I replied: "No, dear
+     boy, it is I; I am come to bed." "No," he said, "it is dear
+     mamma, she is standing there smiling at me," pointing to the
+     side of the bed.' On his next visit Mr Ebenan told us that he
+     had received a letter informing him that at that time, and on
+     that evening, the wife had breathed her last."
+
+In some cases a vague shadowy form is seen which gradually acquires
+definiteness. Here is an interesting example contributed to
+"Proceedings," vol. x., by a Mr T. A.:--
+
+     "9th May 1892.
+
+     "I saw a darkish vapour leave my father's head when he died,
+     about twelve years ago, and it formed into a figure full-sized,
+     and for seven consecutive nights (I) saw it in my room, and saw
+     it go each night into the next room, in which he died. It
+     became more distinct each night and brighter each night, till
+     it was quite brilliant, even dazzling, by the seventh night. It
+     lasted, say, one and a half minutes. It was quite dark when the
+     phantom used to appear. I was quite awake, going to bed; [age]
+     thirty two."
+
+In other cases what is first seen is a glow of light--the apparition
+subsequently appearing in it.
+
+Mr R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, made the following statement
+to the Society for Psychical Research:--
+
+     "'Just before Christmas 1894 I went over to Liverpool with one
+     of my brothers and my sister. It was a very fine clear day and
+     there was a great crowd of people shopping in the streets. We
+     were walking down Lord-street, one of the principal streets,
+     when, passing me, I saw an old uncle of mine whom I knew very
+     little, and had not seen for a very long time, though he lived
+     near me. I saw three distinct shapes hobbling past (he was
+     lame), one after another, in a line. It didn't seem to strike
+     me at the moment as being in the least curious, not even there
+     being three shapes in a line. I said to my sister: "I have just
+     seen Uncle E----, and I am sure he is dead." I said this, as it
+     were, mechanically, and not feeling at all impressed. Of course
+     my brother and sister laughed. We thought nothing more about it
+     while in Liverpool. The first thing my mother said to us when
+     getting home was: "I have some news"; and then she told us that
+     this uncle had died early that morning. I don't know the
+     particular hour. I saw the three shapes at about twelve in the
+     morning. I felt perfectly fit and well, and was not thinking of
+     my uncle in the least, nor did I know he was ill. Both my
+     brother and my sister heard me say that I had seen him and
+     believed he was dead, and they were equally astonished at
+     hearing of his death on our return home. My uncle and I knew
+     each other very little. In fact, he hardly knew me by sight,
+     although he knew me well when I was a small child.'
+
+     "The corroboration from the percipient's mother and sister is
+     quite ample; the day of the agent's death coincided with the
+     apparition, but the hour is not certainly known."
+
+Another well-known case is that of Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who
+writes:
+
+     "On Saturday, October 21st, 1893, I was in Berlin with Lord
+     Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together and returned before
+     midnight. I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright
+     light in the room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found
+     myself looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall opposite
+     my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my father, the Maharajah
+     Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it were, out of this picture;
+     not like a portrait of him, but his real head. The head about
+     filled the picture frame. I continued looking, and still saw my
+     father looking at me with an intent expression. Though not in
+     the least alarmed, I was so puzzled that I got out of bed to
+     see what the picture really was. It was an oleograph
+     commonplace picture of a girl holding a rose and leaning out of
+     a balcony, an arch forming the background. The girl's face was
+     quite small, whereas my father's head was the size of life and
+     filled the frame."
+
+The Prince's father had been in ill-health for some time, but nothing
+alarming was to be expected. On the day following the dream he mentioned
+it to Lord Carnarvon, and on the evening of that day Lord Carnarvon
+handed him a telegram announcing the elder Prince's death. He had had an
+apoplectic seizure on the previous evening and never recovered. It is
+interesting to note that he had often said that he would try to appear
+to his son at death if they happened to be apart. The account is
+confirmed by Lord Carnarvon.
+
+It sometimes happens that the point of hallucination is not quite
+reached. The following instance, communicated to the Society for
+Psychical Research, is straightforward enough:
+
+     "'20 Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh,
+
+     "'December 27th, 1883.
+
+     "'In January 1871 I was living in the West Indies. On the 7th
+     of that month I got up with a strong feeling that there was
+     something happening at my old home in Scotland. At seven A.M. I
+     mentioned to my sister-in-law my strange dread, and said even
+     at that hour what I dreaded was taking place.
+
+     "'By the next mail I got word that at eleven A.M. on the 7th of
+     January my sister died. The island I lived in was at St Kitts,
+     and the death took place in Edinburgh. Please note the hours
+     and allow for the difference in time, and you will notice at
+     least a remarkable coincidence. I may add I never knew of her
+     illness.
+
+     "'A. C----N.'
+
+     "In answer to inquiries, Mr C----n adds: 'I never at any other
+     time had a feeling in any way resembling the particular time I
+     wrote about. At the time I wrote about I was in perfect
+     health, and in every way in comfortable circumstances.'"
+
+There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the
+agency primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been
+received, a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A
+truly hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations
+with no external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce
+these hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for
+Psychical Research that the case of one of his patients proved that
+hallucinations could be produced by self-suggestion. "He could, by a
+simple effort of the mind, himself believe almost any delusion--_e.g._
+that he was riding on horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or
+that he saw snakes--if left to himself the delusion vanished slowly.
+Anyone else could remove it at once by a counter-suggestion. He made,"
+he adds, "these experiments without my consent, as I consider them
+unsafe."
+
+Hallucination is at times accompanied by curious organic effects. One of
+the commonest of these is a feeling of cold--generally described as a
+"chill" or "cold shudder." The following example is taken from the
+Census of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:--
+
+     FROM MISS K. M.
+
+     (_The account was written in 1889._)
+
+     "[About twenty years ago] I was about ten years old, and was
+     staying with friends in Kensington. Between the hours of eight
+     and nine P.M., we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the
+     door open, [it] being a very warm evening. Suddenly I
+     experienced a cold shudder, and on looking through the door
+     opposite which I was sitting, I saw the figure of a little old
+     lady dressed in a long brown cloak with a large brown hat,
+     carrying a basket, glide down the stairs and disappear in the
+     room next the drawing-room. The impression was that of someone
+     I had never seen. I was talking on ordinary subjects, neither
+     ill, in grief, or anxiety. There were several other people in
+     the room, but no one noticed anything but myself. I have never
+     had any experience of this kind before or since."
+
+Occasionally, but very rarely, pain is described as resulting from a
+hallucination. Other effects include fainting fits and tactile
+impressions. Noise would appear in some cases to produce visual
+hallucinations, by creating in the hearer a strong expectation of seeing
+something corresponding to it, or that may account for it. From
+"Phantasms of the Living" we glean the following:--
+
+     "Between sleeping and waking this morning, I perceived a dog
+     running about in a field (an ideal white and tan sporting dog),
+     and the next moment I heard a dog barking outside my window.
+     Keeping my closed eyes on the vision, I found that _it came and
+     went with the_ barking of the dog outside; getting fainter,
+     however, each time."
+
+A weak state of health on the part of the percipient would seem to be
+conducive to hallucinatory visions. Here is a case in point contributed
+to the "Society for Psychical Research Proceedings," vol. x., by a
+Professor G----:
+
+     "Saw an old woman with red cloak, nursing a child in her arms.
+     She sat on a boulder. Place: a grassy moor or upland, near
+     Shotts, in Lanarkshire. Date: over twenty years ago. Early
+     autumn, in bright sunny weather. Made several attempts to reach
+     her, but she always vanished before I could get up to the
+     stone. Place far from any dwelling, and no spot where anyone
+     could be concealed.
+
+     "[I was] walking; had been slightly troubled with insomnia
+     which afterwards became worse. Age about thirty.
+
+     "No one [was with me]. I heard a vague report that a woman with
+     red cloak was sometimes seen on the moor. Can't now remember
+     whether I had heard of that report before I saw the figure--but
+     think I had not.
+
+     "Saw many years ago (age about twenty-one), a dog sitting
+     beside me in my room: saw this only once: was troubled slightly
+     with insomnia at the time which afterwards became worse."
+
+The percipient's own view, the collector tells us, is that the
+experience on the moor was entirely due to "nerves," as both then and
+previously when he saw the dog he had been much overworked, and in each
+case a severe illness followed.
+
+Not always does a visual hallucination take the form of a living human
+form. Occasionally the object seen or the sound heard is non-human in
+character. In insanity and in diseases such cases are frequently met
+with, the hallucination being often of a grotesque or horrible sort.
+Thus we have a case in which a young child beheld a vision of dwarfish
+gnomes dancing on the wall. Among the phantasms of inanimate objects in
+the collection of the late E. Gurney were a star, a firework bursting
+into stars, a firefly, a crown, landscape vignettes, a statue, the end
+of a draped coffin coming in through the door, and a bright oval
+surrounding the words "Wednesday, October 15, Death." Geometrical
+patterns, sometimes taking very complicated forms, comprise another
+known type of hallucination.
+
+As to a theory for hallucinations, the most acceptable one is that they
+have their origin in the brain, and that the senses are made to share in
+the deception. There is little doubt that William Blake's hallucinations
+were voluntary. Gurney refers to a friend, a painter, who was able to
+project a vision of his sitter out into space and paint from it. We have
+already seen that a hypnotic agent can cause his subject not merely to
+see things but to feel them, even to the extent of crying out with pain
+when an imaginary lighted match is applied to his finger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD
+
+
+Thus far I have devoted myself to an investigation of phenomena for
+which the theory of telepathy is not inapplicable. It is, however, when
+we come to discuss hallucinations from which the idea of a living agent
+is apparently excluded that I feel myself entering on even more delicate
+and mysterious territory. Having dealt with phantasms of persons at the
+point of death, I now propose to deal with phantasms of persons already
+dead. Where, indeed, the death has been very recent, the telepathic
+theory still serves, for the reception conveyed by the dying agent might
+conceivably remain dormant in the sub-consciousness of the percipient,
+and only be aroused in a dream or during a propitious waking moment.
+
+This would apply to the case of a lady who saw the body of a well-known
+London physician, about ten hours after death, lying in a bare
+unfurnished room, which turned out to be a cottage hospital abroad. Mr
+Myers, in his "Human Personality," has collected a large number of
+examples of apparitions of departed spirits, upon which he lays the
+utmost stress, because they, more than any other kind of evidence, tend
+to support his great theory of the survival of personality. If, he
+reasons, we can gain a number of well-authenticated cases of
+hallucinations projected telepathically from an agent before death, an
+equal amount of evidence of hallucinations projected by an agent after
+death would prove the continuance of life beyond the grave! And some of
+the cases which the Society of Psychical Research, both in this country
+and America, have collected are certainly of an impressive character.
+
+Unhappily, most of the best and most convincing cases are too long to be
+given here; they cannot even profitably be summarised.
+
+In one instance Mr F. G. of Boston, whose high character and good
+position are vouched for by Professor Royce and Dr Hodgson, states that
+nine years after the death of a favourite sister an apparition appeared
+before him:
+
+     "The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully
+     into my room. While busily smoking my cigar and writing out my
+     orders, I suddenly became conscious that someone was sitting on
+     my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I
+     turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for
+     a brief second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so
+     sure was I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight,
+     calling her by name, and as I did so the apparition instantly
+     vanished."
+
+But that is not the most extraordinary part of the story. The visitation
+so impressed the percipient that he took the next train home and related
+to his parents what had occurred. He particularly mentioned a bright red
+line or scratch on the right-hand side of his sister's face, which he
+had distinctly seen:
+
+     "... When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her
+     feet, and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently
+     recovered her self-possession, with tears streaming down her
+     face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no
+     living mortal but herself was aware of the scratch, which she
+     had accidentally made while doing some little act of kindness
+     after my sister's death.... In proof, neither my father nor any
+     of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of
+     the incident, yet _I saw the scratch as bright as if just
+     made_. So strangely impressed was my mother, that even after
+     she had retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to me, and
+     told me _she knew_ that I had seen my sister. A few weeks later
+     my mother died."
+
+Now, is it not a little singular that, although both Dr Hodgson and Mr
+Myers record this incident, the theory of telepathy between a living
+agent and a living percipient does not occur to them? Is it not
+conceivable that the mother, on whose mind the incident of the scratch
+on the features of the corpse had admittedly preyed, should have
+unwittingly communicated her secret to her son? In other words, the
+mother projected a phantasm of her dead daughter to the mind of her son.
+
+In the "Proceedings of the Society" there is a case which, according to
+Mr Stead, "appears to suggest that the deceased are continuing to take
+an interest in mundane affairs." The story is communicated by Miss
+Dodson. On Sunday, 5th June 1887, close upon midnight, Miss Dodson was
+roused by hearing her name called three times. She answered twice,
+thinking it was her uncle. The third time she recognised the voice of
+her mother, who had been dead sixteen years. "I said," continued Miss
+Dodson, "'Mamma!'"
+
+     "She then came round a screen near my bedside with two children
+     in her arms and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes
+     over them, and said: 'Lucy, promise me to take care of them,
+     for their mother is just dead.' I said: 'Yes, mamma.' She
+     repeated: '_Promise_ me to take care of them.' I replied: 'Yes,
+     I promise you,' and added, 'Oh, mamma, stay and speak to me, I
+     am so wretched.' She replied: 'Not yet, my child,' then she
+     seemed to go round the screen again and I remained, feeling the
+     children to be still in my arms and fell asleep. When I awoke
+     there was nothing. Tuesday morning, 7th June, I received the
+     news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given birth to a
+     child three weeks before, which I did not know till after her
+     death."
+
+Professor Sidgwick says, as the result of an interesting conversation
+with Miss Dodson, that the children were of the ages corresponding with
+the ages of the children of her sister-in-law; they seemed to be a
+little girl and a baby newly born. The only way an ingenious sceptic can
+get round this case is by supposing that a telepathic impulse from the
+living brother might conceivably embody itself in the form of his
+mother. But the idea of a brother in Belgium being able to transmit a
+telepathic message in the assumed shape and with the voice of his
+mother, who had been dead for sixteen years, and also to telepath into
+existence in London the two little children who were living in his house
+at Bruges, is rather a clumsy hypothesis. But what other have we?
+
+     "Mr Theobald, an Australian, forwards to the Society a paper
+     discovered amongst the effects of his uncle, now dead. The
+     apparition, as will be seen, occurred on October 24th, 1860,
+     and the account is endorsed on 9th November by the percipient's
+     father. Further particulars sent to Mr B---- by the percipient
+     (who is here called Mr D----) are dated November 13th, 1860.
+     The first account seems to have been sent by the percipient to
+     his father, and by the father to Mr B----"
+
+The percipient had been identified, and confirms, as will be seen, this
+early narrative, which is as follows:--
+
+     "On the evening of Wednesday, October 24th, 1860, having
+     retired to bed about nine o'clock, I had slept, I conclude,
+     about two hours, making it then about eleven o'clock P.M. I was
+     awoke from my sleep by a hand touching my forehead, and the
+     well-known voice of Mrs B---- pronouncing my name, E----. I
+     started up and sat in bed, rubbed my eyes, and then saw Mrs
+     B----. From the head to the waist the figure was distinct,
+     clear, and well defined; but from the waist downwards it was
+     all misty, and the lower part transparent. She appeared to be
+     dressed in black silk. Her countenance was grave and rather
+     sad, but not unhappy.
+
+     "The words she first uttered were: 'I have left dear John.'
+     What followed related entirely to myself, and she was permitted
+     by a most kind Providence to speak words of mercy, promise, and
+     comfort, and assurance that what I most wished would come to
+     pass. She came to me in an hour of bitter mental agony, and was
+     sent as a messenger of mercy...."
+
+Occasionally there is a curious variant, when the phantasm is auditory
+and not visible. In the case published in "Proceedings of the Society
+for Psychical Research," vol. iii. p. 90, Mr Wambey heard a phantasmal
+voice as though in colloquy with his own thought. He was planning a
+congratulatory letter to a friend, when the words "What, write to a dead
+man? write to a dead man?" sounded clearly in his ears. The friend had
+been dead for some days.
+
+Gurney was much impressed by the unexpectedly large proportion of cases
+where the percipient informed us that there had been a _compact_ between
+himself and the deceased person that whichever passed away first should
+try to appear to the other. "Considering," he adds, "what an extremely
+small number of persons make such a compact, compared with those who do
+not, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its existence has a
+certain efficacy."
+
+A characteristic case is thus reported by a Mr Bellamy:
+
+     "When a girl at school my wife made an agreement with a
+     fellow-pupil, Miss W., that the one of them who died first
+     should, if divinely permitted, appear after her decease to the
+     survivor. In 1874 my wife, who had not seen or heard anything
+     of her former school friend for some years, casually heard of
+     her death. The news reminded her of her former agreement, and
+     then, becoming nervous, she told me of it. I knew of my wife's
+     compact, but I had never seen a photograph of her friend, or
+     heard any description of her." (Mr Bellamy told Gurney in
+     conversation that his mind had not been in the least dwelling
+     on the compact.)
+
+     "A night or two afterwards, as I was sleeping with my wife, a
+     fire brightly burning in my room and a candle alight, I
+     suddenly awoke and saw a lady sitting by the side of the bed
+     where my wife was sleeping soundly. At once I sat up in the bed
+     and gazed so intently that even now I can recall her form and
+     features. Had I the pencil or the brush of a Millais I could
+     transfer to canvas an exact likeness of the ghostly visitant. I
+     remember that I was much struck, as I looked intently at her,
+     with the careful arrangement of her coiffure, every single hair
+     being most carefully brushed down. How long I sat and gazed I
+     cannot say, but directly the apparition ceased to be, I got
+     out of bed to see if any of my wife's garments had by any means
+     optically deluded me. I found nothing in the line of vision but
+     a bare wall. Hallucination on my part I rejected as out of the
+     question, and I doubted not that I had really seen an
+     apparition. Returning to bed, I lay till my wife some hours
+     after awoke, and then I gave her an account of her friend's
+     appearance. I described her colour, form, etc., all of which
+     exactly tallied with my wife's recollection of Miss W. Finally
+     I asked, 'But was there any special point to strike one in her
+     appearance?' 'Yes,' my wife promptly replied, 'we girls used to
+     tease her at school for devoting so much time to the
+     arrangement of her hair.' This was the very thing which I have
+     said so much struck me. Such are the simple facts.
+
+     "I will only add that till 1874 I had never seen an apparition,
+     and that I have not seen one since.
+
+     "ARTHUR BELLAMY."
+
+The following case, from "Proceedings," vol. viii. p. 178, bears a
+distinct resemblance to the old-fashioned ghost stories. Mrs M., the
+informant, writes under date 15th December 1891:
+
+     "Before relating my experience of having seen a ghost, I should
+     like my readers thoroughly to understand that I had not the
+     slightest idea that the house in which my husband and I were
+     living was haunted, or that the family residing there for many
+     years before us had had any family troubles. The house was
+     delightfully situated [etc.]. The house being partly new and
+     partly old we occupied the old part for our sleeping
+     apartments. There were two staircases leading to them, with a
+     landing and window, adjoining a morning sitting-room. One night
+     on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a
+     peculiar moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great
+     distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it
+     continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to
+     the landing window of which I have spoken, drew the blind
+     aside; and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl
+     in kneeling posture before a soldier, in a general's uniform,
+     sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for pardon;
+     but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I feel
+     for the girl, that without a moment's hesitation I ran down the
+     staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to
+     come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared!
+     Not in the least nervous did I feel then;--went again to my
+     bedroom, took a sheet of writing paper and wrote down what I
+     had seen. [Mrs M. has found and sent us this paper. The
+     following words are written in pencil on a half sheet of
+     notepaper:--"March 13th, 1886. Have just seen visions on
+     lawn:--a soldier in general's uniform,--a young lady kneeling
+     to him. 11.40 P.M."] My husband was away from home when this
+     event occurred, but a lady friend was staying with me, so I
+     went to her bedroom and told her that I had been rather
+     frightened by some noises;--could I stay with her a little
+     while? A few days afterwards I found myself in a very nervous
+     state; but it seemed so strange that I was not frightened at
+     the time.
+
+     "It appears the story is only too true. The youngest daughter
+     of this very old proud family had had an illegitimate child;
+     and her parents and relatives would not recognise her again,
+     and she died broken-hearted. The soldier was a near relative
+     (also a connection of my husband's); and it was in vain she
+     tried to gain his--the soldier's--forgiveness. [In a subsequent
+     letter Sir X. Y.'s career is described. He was a distinguished
+     officer.]
+
+     "So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier
+     that some months after the occurrence, when I happened to be
+     calling with my husband at a house where there was a portrait
+     of him, I stepped before it and said: 'Why, look! There is the
+     General!' And sure enough it _was_."
+
+In a subsequent letter Mrs M. writes:
+
+     "I did see the figures on the lawn after opening the door
+     leading on to the lawn; and they by no means disappeared
+     instantly, but more like a dissolving view--viz. gradually; and
+     I did not leave the door until they had passed away. It was
+     impossible for any real persons to act such a scene.... The
+     General was born and died (in the house where I saw him).... I
+     was not aware that the portrait of the General was in that room
+     (where I saw it); it was the first time I had been in that
+     room. The misfortune to the poor girl happened in 1847 or
+     1848."
+
+Mrs M. then mentions that a respectable local tradesman hearing of the
+incident remarked: "That is not an uncommon thing to see _her_ about the
+place, poor soul! She was a badly used girl."
+
+Mr M. writes as follows under date 23rd December 1891:--
+
+     "I have seen my wife's letter in regard to the recognition of
+     Sir X. Y.'s picture at ----. Nothing was said by me to her on
+     the subject; but knowing the portrait to be a remarkably good
+     likeness I proposed calling at the house (which was that of a
+     nephew of Sir X. Y.'s), being anxious to see what effect it
+     would have upon my wife. Immediately on entering the room she
+     almost staggered back, and turned pale, saying--looking hard
+     at the picture--'Why, there's the General!' ... Being a
+     connection of the family I knew all about the people, but my
+     wife was then a stranger, and I had never mentioned such things
+     to her; in fact they had been almost forgotten."
+
+Here is a case where the phantasm was visible to several persons at the
+same time. It is given by Mr Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and
+Royal Naval Club, Albemarle Street, W.
+
+     "December 3rd, 1885.
+
+     "On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at
+     his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, N. S. Wales.
+     About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion one
+     evening about nine o'clock to go to one of the bedrooms in the
+     house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and
+     as they entered the room--the gas burning all the time--they
+     were amazed to see, reflected as it were on the polished
+     surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was
+     barely half figure, the head, shoulders, and part of the arms
+     only showing--in fact, it was like an ordinary medallion
+     portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it
+     did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel
+     jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and
+     half-alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a
+     portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was
+     its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.
+
+     "Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss
+     Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had
+     time to speak, she exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Do you see papa?'
+     One of the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the
+     moment, and she was called in and asked if she saw anything,
+     and her reply was, 'Oh, miss! the master.' Graham--Captain
+     Towns' old body-servant--was then sent for, and he also
+     immediately exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord save us! Mrs Lett, it's the
+     captain!' The butler was called, and then Mrs Crane, my wife's
+     nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally, Mrs Towns
+     was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards
+     it with her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she passed
+     her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually
+     faded away, and never again appeared, though the room was
+     regularly occupied for a long time after.
+
+     "These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no
+     doubt; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses;
+     the same question was put to each one as they came into the
+     room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each. It
+     was by the merest accident that I did not see the apparition. I
+     was in the house at the time, but did not hear when I was
+     called."
+
+     "C. A. W. LETT."
+
+     "We the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify
+     that it is strictly accurate, as we were both witnesses of the
+     apparition.
+
+     "SARA LETT,
+
+     "SIBBIE SMYTH
+
+     "(_nee_ TOWNS.)"
+
+"Mrs Lett assures me," wrote Gurney, "that neither she nor her sister
+ever experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.
+She is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of
+each of the later witnesses was _independent_, and not due to any
+suggestion from the persons already in the room."
+
+The following, taken from the "Report on the Census of Hallucinations,"
+may belong to either the ante-mortem or post-mortem category:--
+
+     "At Redhill on Thanksgiving Day, between eight and nine in the
+     evening, when I was taking charge of the little daughter of a
+     friend, during my friend's absence on that evening, I left the
+     child sleeping in the bedroom, and went to drop the blinds in
+     two neighbouring rooms, being absent about three minutes. On
+     returning to the child's room in the full light of the
+     gas-burner from above I distinctly saw, coming from the child's
+     cot, a white figure, which figure turned, looked me full in the
+     face, and passed down the staircase. I instantly followed,
+     leaned over the banisters in astonishment, and saw the
+     glistening of the white drapery as the figure passed down the
+     staircase, through the lighted hall, and silently through the
+     hall door itself, which was barred, chained, and locked. I felt
+     for the moment perfectly staggered, went back to the bedroom,
+     and found the child peacefully sleeping. I related the
+     circumstance to the mother immediately on her return late that
+     night. She was incredulous, but said that my description of the
+     figure answered to that of an invalid aunt of the child's. The
+     next morning came a telegram to say that this relation who had
+     greatly wished to see her niece had died between eight and nine
+     the previous evening.
+
+     "I had just put down the 'Pickwick Papers,' with which I had
+     been whiling away the time, was free from trouble and in good
+     health."
+
+Sister Bertha, Superior of the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracey, Newton
+Abbot, states:
+
+     "On the night of November 10th, 1861, I was up in my bed
+     watching, because there was a person not quite well in the next
+     room. I heard a voice which I recognised at once as familiar to
+     me, and at first thought of my sister. It said in the brightest
+     and most cheerful tone, 'I am here with you.' I answered,
+     looking and seeing nothing, 'Who are you?' The voice said, 'You
+     mustn't know yet.' I heard nothing more and saw nothing, and am
+     certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was not in the
+     least frightened, and felt convinced it was Lucy's [Miss Lucy
+     Gambier Parry's] voice.
+
+     "I have never doubted it from that moment. I had not heard of
+     her being worse. The last account had been good, and I was
+     expecting to hear that she was at Torquay. In the course of the
+     next day (the 11th), mother told me that she had died on the
+     morning of the 10th, rather more than twelve hours before I
+     heard her voice."
+
+A case reported by Mr John E. Husbands, of Melbourne House, Town Hall
+Square, Grimsby, is interesting:
+
+     "I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a
+     bright moonlight night. The windows were open, and the blinds
+     up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a
+     young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing
+     at the side of my bed, and pointing with the first finger of
+     his right hand to the place where I was lying. I lay for some
+     seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I
+     then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly
+     that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some
+     days afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not speak,
+     but his eyes and hands seemed to tell me that I was in his
+     place. As he did not answer, I struck at him with my fist as I
+     sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out
+     of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut,
+     keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon inquiry I found
+     that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was
+     occupying."
+
+There is, too, the famous case of Mrs de Freville and the gardener Bard.
+The percipient, who had formerly been in the employ of this somewhat
+eccentric lady, who was especially morbid on the subject of tombs and so
+forth, was in the churchyard of Hinxton, Saffron Walden, on Friday, 8th
+May 1885. He happened to look at the square De Freville stone vault,
+when, to his amazement, he distinctly saw the old lady, with a white
+face, leaning on the rails. When he looked again she was gone, although
+it puzzled him to know how she could have got out of the churchyard, as,
+in order to reach any of the gates, she must have passed him. Next day
+he was told that Mrs de Freville was dead. As the apparition was seen
+about seven and a half hours after death, it could, as I have suggested,
+be considered a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment of death
+and remaining latent in the brain of the percipient; otherwise, the
+case belongs to the category of Haunting, which we will glance at in the
+next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA
+
+
+"Do I believe in ghosts?" asks Mr Andrew Lang. "One can only answer:
+'How do you define a ghost?' I do believe, with all students of human
+nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the
+senses. But as to whether such hallucinations among the sane are ever
+caused by physical influence from the minds of others, alive or dead,
+not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a
+balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence."
+
+If the evidence of "hauntings" were measurable by bulk alone, no phase
+of occultism would be more completely demonstrated. It is only when we
+come to examine the quality of the available data that we realise how
+formidable a task it is we have undertaken. In nothing, perhaps, have
+credulity and superstition been allowed so wide a scope; nowhere is it
+more difficult to winnow the grain of reliable testimony from the chaff
+of mythology and invention. For we must remember that the belief in
+ghosts is as old as the hills themselves. It is common to all countries
+and to all nations, and in the literature of every language are to be
+found tales of the supernatural scarcely less plausible than many which
+assail our ears to-day.
+
+What I now set myself to investigate is that class of phenomena
+seemingly attached to various localities and comprising, besides
+apparitions, sights and sounds of various kinds and degrees. According
+to Mr E. T. Bennett, for twenty years assistant secretary of the
+Psychical Research Society, the records of the Society contain
+descriptions of "a large number of cases in which the evidence of the
+reality of phenomena incapable of ordinary explanation is absolutely
+conclusive."
+
+When the sounds are intelligible, or a sentence is spelt out in response
+to the inquiry of the auditor, the _raison d'etre_ of the manifestation
+is more or less obvious. But there is evidence of a large number of
+so-called "hauntings" where steps are heard, or noises which convey no
+intelligible information. Sometimes, also, we are told that
+simultaneously with the death of a friend bangs have been heard, which,
+but for the coincidence of their occurrence in association with a death,
+are without meaning. M. Flammarion cites several cases of this sort. The
+following will serve as an illustration:--[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: It will be found on page 178 of "L'Inconnu et les Problemes
+Psychiques."]
+
+     M. E. Deschaux relates that his grandfather "was awakened one
+     evening at eleven P.M. by three very distinct raps on the door
+     of his room. Astonished, he rose, lit the lamp, opened the
+     door, but saw no one. Supposing that some trickster had been
+     the cause of his disturbance, he returned to bed grumbling, but
+     again three knocks were heard on the door. He got up quickly,
+     intending that the culprit should pay dearly for his untimely
+     joke, but in spite of careful search, both in the passage and
+     on the staircase, he could not discover where this mysterious
+     culprit had disappeared to. A third time, when he was again in
+     bed, three raps were audible on the door. This time the
+     grandfather had a presentiment that the sound was caused by the
+     spirit of his mother, although nothing in the tidings he had
+     previously received from his family incited him to this
+     supposition. Five or six days after this manifestation a letter
+     arrived from his own country announcing the death of his mother
+     which had occurred precisely at the hour at which he had heard
+     the knocks. At the moment of her death, his mother, who had a
+     particular affection for him, had insisted that a dress which
+     her 'boy in Paris' had some time before sent her as a present
+     should be brought and placed on her bed."
+
+Here we seem to have a distinct motive for the visitation; but on the
+other hand observe how many cases we come across where the phenomena
+appears to be due solely to the wanton and mischievous impulses of the
+invisible agents.
+
+There is for example the case of a house in which spiritual
+manifestations, often of a disturbing character, were continually being
+produced, related by Mr Inkster Gilbertson in _The Occult Review_ on the
+authority of a West End physician who is called Dr Macdonald. The swish
+of a silk dress and the slamming of doors were among the least important
+of the phenomena from a psychical point of view, though the sound of
+someone coming through a skylight and dropping on to the landing was
+certainly calculated to terrify the ladies, who "came up from the
+drawing-room screaming and shouting, expecting to find some dreadful
+tragedy being enacted." These manifestations consisted entirely of
+sounds, but at the regular sittings which were held in the house a
+drawer was taken from its place in the bedroom and left on the hall
+stand, the loose wooden leaves which converted a billiard-table into a
+dining-table were slid off the end and deposited on the floor, and a
+screen was several times seen to fold itself up without being touched.
+
+The most peculiar occurrences, however, were the antics of certain keys
+belonging to doors in the house. "The door of the front bedroom was
+often found locked, and the key would disappear." The doctor kept his
+eye on the key and presently saw it move round, locking the door, and
+then "he saw the last of the key disappearing through the hole." At
+another time the lady of the house, her children, and the maid were
+locked in for some hours. "The key would be kept away for days; then it
+would suddenly appear. One day it was found in Mrs Macdonald's lap; once
+it was quietly laid on the doctor's head," and so forth. On one occasion
+when the key was not given up the doctor called out: "Won't you send us
+down the key before we go?" They were passing down the stairs and,
+before they reached the bottom, the key was gently dropped on the
+doctor's head. The most careful observations failed to discover the
+known means by which the feats could be accomplished. The evidence of
+the intelligence and of the mischievous disposition of these uncanny
+tricksters was borne out by sounds of dancing being heard outside the
+door just afterwards.
+
+"The possible non-ghostly explanations," says Mrs Sidgwick, "of what
+pass as ghostly phenomena may be conveniently classed with reference to
+the various sorts of error by which the evidence to such phenomena is
+liable to be affected. I should state these as (1) hoaxing, (2)
+exaggeration or inadequate description, (3) illusion, (4) mistaken
+identity, (5) hallucination.... I think, however, that anyone who has
+read the evidence will at once discard the first of these alternatives
+so far as the great mass of the first-hand narratives is concerned."
+
+There are not a few cases, however, where the ghostly manifestations
+have been found to be due to human agency. The following instance was
+brought to my notice by a well-known firm of estate agents at Tunbridge
+Wells:--
+
+     "There is an old Manor House in this district which is locally
+     known as the 'Haunted House.' The original mansion was,
+     according to Hasted, one of the homes of the Colepepers. In
+     the reign of Charles II. the mansion was rebuilt in the style
+     of the period. It has, however, outlived its purpose, is out of
+     repair and was for many years let in tenements to labourers. It
+     is now untenanted. Some few months ago the lurid tales of
+     ghostly visitors induced a local spiritualist, encouraged by
+     some mischievous friends, to hold a _seance_ in the house at
+     midnight, and to perambulate the rambling building from time to
+     time during the night. The spirits lived up to their reputation
+     and gave all kinds of manifestations which included streams of
+     water from invisible buckets that met the investigator as he
+     groped up the staircase and along the passages. In the end the
+     whole thing was found to be a hoax and to have been organised
+     by the spiritualist's friends. He is not communicative on the
+     subject. The old house still stands empty and deserves a better
+     fate."
+
+The classic case of haunting in England is, perhaps, that of Willingdon
+Mill. Other spectre-ridden edifices in the kingdom there may well be,
+but their stories, however grim and ghastly, are apt to relapse into
+insignificance beside those narrated of this famous Tyneside building.
+
+Willingdon Mill, which is situated in Northumberland nearly half-way
+between Newcastle and North Shields, was built about the year 1800.
+When, thirty-four years later, certain unaccountable noises and other
+phenomena began to attract attention the occupants consisted of a worthy
+Quaker, Joseph Proctor by name, his wife, servants and family. Joseph
+Proctor used to keep a diary wherein he chronicled the strange
+happenings in his house. The greater portion of this was published in
+_The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. v., but full
+accounts of the affair have appeared in many publications, among which
+may be mentioned Howitt's "Visits to Remarkable Places," Crowe's "Night
+Side of Nature," "The Local Historian's Table Book," and Stead's "Real
+Ghost Stories."
+
+It was a servant girl that first called attention to the mysterious
+noises. She positively affirmed that she had heard "a dull heavy tread
+on the boarded floor of the room unoccupied above, commonly pacing
+backwards and forwards and, on coming over to the window, giving the
+floor such a shake as to cause the windows of the nursery to rattle
+violently in their frames." This disturbance usually lasted about ten
+minutes at a time. At first the girl's tale was discredited, but before
+many days had elapsed every member of the family had heard precisely
+what the girl described. The room was vigorously searched but no clue to
+the phantom footsteps was forthcoming. Even the expedient of covering
+the floor with flour was without result; the "dull, heavy tread" left no
+traces upon the whitened boards.
+
+It was not long before other unaccountable noises were heard all over
+the house and ghostly figures were seen by several persons. To
+illustrate the kind of occurrence that was constantly going on in the
+house, and which, indeed, became so frequent that they were thought very
+little of, I quote the following extracts from Joseph Proctor's
+diary:--
+
+     "7 mo., 14th, 1841:--J. and E. P. heard the spirit in their own
+     room, and in the room overhead, making a noise as of something
+     heavy being hoisted or rolled, or like a barrel set down on its
+     end; also noises in the Camproom of various and unaccountable
+     character.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "8 mo., 3rd.--Since the last night there have been few nights
+     during which some branch of the family has not heard our
+     visitor. One night, J. P. was awoke and heard something hastily
+     walk, with a step like that of a child of 8 or 10 years, from
+     the foot of the bed towards the side of the room, and come back
+     seemingly towards the door, in a run; then it gave two stamps
+     with one foot; there was a loud rustling as if of a frock or
+     night-dress. I need scarcely say the door was locked, and I am
+     quite certain there was no other human being in the room save
+     E. P., who was asleep. The two stamps aroused E. P. out of her
+     sleep. About this time Joseph, on two or three occasions, said
+     he had heard voices from underneath his bed and from other
+     parts of the room, and described seeing on one occasion a boy
+     in a drab hat much like his own, the boy much like himself too,
+     walking backwards and forwards between the windows and the
+     wardrobe. He was afraid, but did not speak.
+
+     "Noises as of a band-box falling close at hand, as of someone
+     running upstairs when no one was there, and like the raking of
+     a coal rake, were heard about this time by different members of
+     the family."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "8 mo., 6th.--On the night of the third, just after the
+     previous memorandum was written, about 10.30 P.M., the servants
+     having all retired to bed, J. and E. P. heard a noise like a
+     clothes horse being thrown down in the kitchen. Soon the noises
+     became louder and appeared as though some persons had burst
+     into the house on the ground floor and were clashing the doors
+     and throwing things down. Eventually J. P. got one of the
+     servants to go downstairs with him, when all was found right,
+     no one there, and apparently nothing moved. The noises now
+     began on the third storey, and the servants were so much
+     alarmed that it was difficult to get them to go to bed at all
+     that night.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "8 mo., 6th to 12th.--My brother-in-law, George Carr, was with
+     us. He heard steppings and loud rumblings in the middle of the
+     night, and other noises."
+
+A curious feature in this case was the number of apparitions seen. Thus
+we have clear testimony of the presence of a lady in a lavender silk
+dress, of an old bald-headed man in a flowing robe like a surplice, of a
+lady in grey, and of a horrid eyeless spectre who glared fixedly at the
+world through empty eyeholes. Added to these there were animals of all
+sorts and descriptions, cats, monkeys, rabbits and sheep.
+
+     "On one occasion, during the period that Thomas was courting
+     Mary, he was standing at the window outside (no followers being
+     allowed inside, lest fabulous reports were sent abroad). He had
+     given the usual signal. The night was clear, and the stars
+     beamed forth their light from a cloudless sky. Suddenly
+     something appeared which arrested my father's attention.
+     Looking towards the mill, which was divided from the house by
+     an open space, he beheld what he supposed was a whitish cat. It
+     came walking along in close proximity to his feet. Thinking
+     Miss Puss very cheeky he gave her a kick; but his foot felt
+     nothing and the cat quietly continued its march, followed by my
+     father, until it suddenly disappeared from his gaze. Still the
+     ghost was not thought of by him. Returning to the window and
+     looking in the same direction, he again beheld it suddenly come
+     into existence. This time it came hopping like a rabbit, coming
+     quite as close to his feet as before. He determined to have a
+     good rap at it, and took deliberate aim; but, as before, his
+     foot went through it and felt nothing. Again he followed it,
+     and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The
+     third time he went to the window, and in a few moments it made
+     its third appearance, not like unto a cat or a rabbit, but
+     fully as large as a sheep, and quite luminous. On it came and
+     my father was fixed to the spot. All muscular power seemed for
+     the moment paralysed. It moved on, disappearing at the same
+     spot as the preceding apparitions. My father declared that if
+     it was possible for 'hair to stand on end' his did just then.
+     Thinking that for once he had seen sufficient, he went home,
+     keeping the knowledge of this scene to himself."
+
+It is not to be wondered at if the queer doings at Willingdon Mill began
+to be rumoured abroad. They reached the ears of a certain Dr Edward
+Drury of Sunderland, who was, not unnaturally, rather sceptical. He
+asked and obtained permission to sit up alone in the house one night
+accompanied only by his faithful dog and with a pair of pistols in his
+pocket. His opportunity came in July, 1840, when all the family, with
+the exception of Joseph Proctor himself, was away from the mill. The
+night was fruitful with horror, and the following letter addressed to
+the miller nearly a week after the event tells its own tale:--
+
+     "Monday Morning,
+
+     "6th July, 1840.
+
+     "_To_ MR PROCTOR.
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--I am sorry I was not at home to receive you
+     yesterday, when you kindly called to inquire for me. I am happy
+     to state that I am really surprised that I have been so little
+     affected as I am after that horrid and most awful affair. The
+     only bad effect I feel is a heavy dulness in one of my
+     ears--the right one. I call it a heavy dullness, because I not
+     only do not hear distinctly but feel in it a constant noise.
+     This I never was affected with before; but I doubt not it will
+     go off. I am persuaded that no one went to your house at any
+     time _more disbelieving in respect to seeing anything
+     peculiar_; now no one can be more satisfied than myself. I
+     will, in the course of a few days, send you a full detail of
+     all I saw and heard. Mr Spence and two other gentlemen came
+     down to my house in the afternoon to hear my detail; but, sir,
+     could I account for these noises from natural causes, yet, so
+     firmly am I persuaded of the horrid apparition, that I would
+     affirm that what I saw with my eyes was a punishment to me for
+     my scoffing and unbelief; that I am assured that, as far as the
+     horror is concerned, they are happy that believe and have not
+     seen ... it will be a great source of joy to me if you never
+     allow your young family to be in that horrid house again.
+     Hoping you will write a few lines at your leisure, I remain,
+     dear sir, yours very truly,
+
+     "EDWARD DRURY."
+
+To this letter the sturdy Quaker sent a characteristic reply.
+
+     "Willingdon,
+
+     "7th mo., 9, 1840.
+
+     "Respected Friend, E. DRURY,--Have been at Sunderland, I did
+     not receive thine of the 6th till yesterday morning. I am glad
+     to hear thou art getting well over the effects of thy
+     unlooked-for visitation. I hold in respect thy bold and manly
+     assertion of the truth in the face of that ridicule and
+     ignorant conceit with which that which is called the
+     supernatural, in the present day, is usually assailed.
+
+     "I shall be glad to receive thy detail, in which it will be
+     needful to be very particular in showing that thou couldst not
+     be asleep, or attacked by nightmare, or mistake a reflection of
+     the candle, as some sagaciously suppose. I remain,
+     respectfully, thy friend,
+
+     "JOSH. PROCTOR.
+
+     "_P.S._--I have about thirty witnesses to various things which
+     cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on any other principle
+     than that of spiritual agency."
+
+
+Four days later Dr Drury wrote out a full account of his experience.
+
+     "Sunderland,
+
+     "13th July 1840.
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--I hereby, according to promise in my last letter,
+     forward you a true account of what I saw and heard at your
+     house, in which I was led to pass the night from various
+     rumours circulated by most respectable parties, particularly
+     from an account by my esteemed friend, Mr Davison, whose name I
+     mentioned to you in a former letter. Having received your
+     sanction to visit your mysterious dwelling, I went, on the 3rd
+     of July, accompanied by a friend of mine, T. Hudson. This was
+     not according to promise, nor in accordance with my first
+     intent, as I wrote you I would come alone; but I felt gratified
+     at your kindness in not alluding to the liberty I had taken, as
+     it ultimately proved for the best. I must here mention that,
+     not expecting you at home, I had in my pocket a brace of
+     pistols, determining in my mind to let one of them drop before
+     the miller, as if by accident, for fear he should presume to
+     play tricks upon me; but after my interview with you, I felt
+     there was no occasion for weapons, and did not load them, after
+     you had allowed us to inspect as minutely as we pleased every
+     portion of the house. I sat down on the third storey landing,
+     fully expecting to account for any noises that I might hear, in
+     a philosophical manner. This was about eleven o'clock P.M.
+     About ten minutes to twelve we both heard a noise, as if a
+     number of people were pattering with their bare feet upon the
+     floor; and yet, so singular was the noise, that I could not
+     minutely determine from whence it proceeded. A few minutes
+     afterwards we heard a noise, as if someone was knocking with
+     his knuckles among our feet; this was followed by a hollow
+     cough from the very room from which the apparition proceeded.
+     The only noise after this, was as if a person was rustling
+     against the wall in coming upstairs. At a quarter to one I told
+     my friend that, feeling a little cold, I would like to go to
+     bed, as we might hear the noise equally well there; he replied
+     he would not go to bed till daylight. I took up a note which I
+     had accidentally dropped and began to read it, after which I
+     took out my watch to ascertain the time, and found that it
+     wanted ten minutes to one. In taking my eyes from the watch
+     they became riveted upon a closet door, which I distinctly saw
+     open, and saw also the figure of a female attired in greyish
+     garments, with the head inclining downwards, and one hand
+     pressed upon the chest as if in pain, and the other--viz. the
+     right hand--extended towards the floor, with the index finger
+     pointing downward. It advanced with an apparently cautious
+     step across the floor towards me; immediately as it approached
+     my friend, who was slumbering, its right hand was extended
+     towards him; I then rushed at it, giving, as Mr Proctor states,
+     a most awful yell; but instead of grasping it I fell upon my
+     friend, and I recollected nothing distinctly for nearly three
+     hours afterwards. I have since learned that I was carried
+     downstairs in an agony of fear and terror.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I hereby certify that the above account is strictly true and
+     correct in every respect.
+
+     "EDWARD DRURY."
+
+So intolerable became life in this uncanny house that, in 1847, Joseph
+Proctor and his family moved to South Shields. For the last night of
+their residence was reserved a more than usually turbulent
+demonstration. "There were," says Mr Edmund Proctor, "continuous noises
+during the night, boxes being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down
+the now carpetless stairs, non-human footsteps stumped on the floors,
+doors were, or seemed to be, clashed, and impossible furniture corded
+at random or dragged hither and thither by inscrutable agency; in short,
+a pantomimic or spiritualistic repetition of all the noises incident to
+a household flitting. A miserable night my father and mother had of it,
+as I have often heard from their own lips; not so much from terror at
+the unearthly noises, for to these they were habituated, as dread lest
+this wretched fanfaronade might portend the contemporary flight of the
+unwelcome visitors to the new abode. Fortunately for the family this
+dread was not realised."
+
+After undergoing various vicissitudes, the house was finally divided
+into small tenements, in which condition it still remains. But of late
+years nothing has been seen or heard of the ghostly visitors. Perhaps,
+smitten with dismay by the deterioration of their former dwelling-place,
+they have taken up their abode elsewhere. For Willingdon Mill, formerly
+gay with flowers and creepers, is now a wreck of its former self. The
+mill is used as a warehouse; the stables and outhouses have been pulled
+down; while the house stands out gaunt and forbidding, a picture of
+desolation and decay.
+
+Mr W. T. Stead, in his "Real Ghost Stories," has given us many thrilling
+examples of nocturnal apparitions, and of these the uncanny experience
+of the Rev. H. Elwyn Thomas, of 35 Park Village East, N. W., is well
+worth repeating.
+
+Mr Thomas, after having conducted a service at the church at Llangynidr,
+accompanied three young friends of his for about half-a-mile on their
+homeward way.
+
+     "When I wished good-night to my friends, it was about twenty
+     minutes to nine, but still light enough to see a good distance.
+     The subject of our conversation all the way from the chapel
+     until we parted was a certain eccentric old character who then
+     belonged to the Crickhowell church. Many laughable incidents in
+     his life had been related by my friends for my amusement, at
+     which I laughed heartily again and again. I walked a little
+     farther down the road than I intended, in order to hear the end
+     of a very amusing story about him and the vicar of a
+     neighbouring parish. Our conversation had no reference whatever
+     to ghosts or ghostly things. Neither were we in the mood
+     befitting a ghostly visitation. Personally I was a strong
+     disbeliever in ghosts, and invariably ridiculed those who I
+     then thought superstitious enough to believe in them.
+
+     "When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends I
+     saw on the bank of the canal (which runs parallel with the road
+     for six or seven miles) what I thought at the moment was an old
+     beggar. The spot was a very lonely one. The nearest house was a
+     good quarter of a mile away. The night was as silent as death.
+     Not a single sound broke upon the silence from any quarter. I
+     could not help asking myself where this old man had come from
+     to such a place. I had not seen him in going down the road.
+
+     "I then turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look
+     at him, and had no sooner done so than I saw within half-a-yard
+     of me one of the most remarkable and startling sights I hope
+     it will ever be my lot to see. Almost on a level with my own
+     face I saw that of an old man, over every feature of which the
+     putty-coloured skin was drawn tightly, except the forehead
+     which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were extremely
+     thin, and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth
+     stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those
+     of a corpse, and the eyes, which seemed far back in the middle
+     of the head, were unnaturally luminous and piercing. This
+     terrible object was wrapped in two bands of old yellow calico,
+     one of which was drawn under the chin and over the cheeks and
+     tied at the top of the head, the other was drawn round the top
+     of the wrinkled forehead and fastened at the back of the head.
+     So deep and indelible an impression it made on my mind, that
+     were I an artist I could paint that face to-day, and reproduce
+     the original (excepting, perhaps, the luminous eyes) as
+     accurately as if it were photographed.
+
+     "What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a
+     glance. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face
+     again towards the village, and ran away from the horrible
+     vision with all my might for about sixty yards. I then stopped
+     and turned round to see how far I had outdistanced it, and, to
+     my unspeakable horror, there it was still face to face with me,
+     as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my umbrella and raised
+     it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings when I could
+     see nothing between the face and the ground except an irregular
+     column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella went as a
+     stick goes through water!
+
+     "I am sorry to confess that I again took to my heels with
+     increasing speed. A little farther than the place of this
+     second encounter, the road which led towards my host's house
+     branched off the main road, the main road itself running right
+     through the centre of the village, in the lower end of which it
+     ran parallel with the churchyard wall. Having gone a few yards
+     down the branch road, I reached a crisis in my fear and
+     confusion when I felt I could act rationally: I determined to
+     speak to the strange pursuer whatever he was, and I boldly
+     turned round to face him for the third time, intending to ask
+     him what he wanted, etc.,
+
+     "He had not followed me after I left the main road, but I could
+     see the horribly fascinating face quite as plainly as when it
+     was close by. It stood for two or three minutes looking
+     intently at me from the centre of the main road. I then
+     realised fully it was not a human being in flesh and blood; and
+     with every vestige of fear gone I quickly walked towards it to
+     put my questions. But I was disappointed, for no sooner had I
+     made towards it than it moved quickly in the direction of the
+     village. I saw it moving along, keeping the same distance from
+     the ground, until it reached the churchyard wall; it then
+     crossed the wall, and disappeared near where the yew-tree stood
+     inside. The moment it disappeared I became unconscious. When I
+     came to myself, two hours later, I was lying in the middle of
+     the road, cold and ill. It took me quite an hour to reach my
+     host's house, which was less than half-a-mile away, and when I
+     reached it I looked so white and strange that my host's
+     daughter, who had sat down with her father to wait my return,
+     uttered a loud scream. I could not say a word to explain what
+     had happened, though I tried hard several times. It was five
+     o'clock in the morning when I regained my power of speech; even
+     then I could only speak in broken sentences. The whole of the
+     following week I was laid up with great nervous prostration.
+
+     "The strangest part of my story remains yet to be told. My
+     host, after questioning me closely in regard to the features of
+     the face, the place I had first seen it and the spot where it
+     disappeared, told me that fifteen years before that time an old
+     recluse, answering in every detail to my description (calicoes,
+     bands and all), lived in a house whose ruins still stand close
+     by where I first saw it, that he was buried in the exact spot
+     in the churchyard where I saw the face disappearing, and that
+     he was a very strange character altogether.
+
+      "I should like to add that I had not heard a syllable about
+     this old man before the night in question, and that all the
+     persons referred to in the above story are still alive."
+
+Here is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in
+_Light_. The narrator is a Colonel X.
+
+     "When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night
+     the sentry came to tell me that there was something very
+     extraordinary going on in the White Chapel, which, in those
+     days, was used as a storeroom.
+
+     "I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed
+     up and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly
+     lit up, and presently priests in vestments and boys swinging
+     silver censers came in and arranged themselves before an altar.
+     Then the large entrance doors opened and a procession of
+     persons in old quaint costumes filed in. Walking alone was a
+     lady in black, and behind her was a masked man, also in black,
+     who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded away, and
+     there was utter darkness.
+
+     "Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so
+     laughed at that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a
+     gentleman introduced himself as the keeper of the records of
+     the Tower, and said that he had heard my story, but wished to
+     hear it again from my own lips; and when I had told it he
+     remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision has been seen
+     by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's death.'"
+
+It not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in
+a court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in "Sights and Shadows,"
+gives an account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year
+1890.
+
+     "A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner,
+     Miss Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of L23.
+
+     "The last-named persons took possession of it in due course;
+     but two days subsequently they became aware of the presence of
+     a spirit or ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs
+     Kinney asserted, 'threw heavy things at her,' and so alarmed
+     and inconvenienced her, that in a very short period both
+     husband and wife were forced to quit their abode.
+
+     "This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it;
+     and, because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised
+     to decline to pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to
+     release them from their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's
+     rent; and when this remained for sometime unpaid, sued them for
+     it before Judge Kisby.
+
+     "A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants,
+     who, having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in
+     question, asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that
+     of several other people. This, however, was disallowed by the
+     judge.
+
+     "It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side
+     or the other had been said regarding the haunting when the
+     house was let; yet that the rent was due and must be paid.
+
+     "A judgment was consequently entered for the landlady although
+     it had been shown indirectly that unquestionably the house had
+     the reputation of being haunted, and that previous tenants had
+     been much inconvenienced and affrighted."
+
+Another case is chronicled which took place in Dublin in 1885. Dr Lee's
+account is confirmed by _The Evening Standard_ of February 23rd of that
+year.
+
+     "Mr Waldron, a solicitor, sued his next-door neighbour, one
+     Kiernan, a mate in the merchant service, to recover L500 for
+     damages done to his house. Kiernan altogether denied the
+     charges, but asserted that Waldron's residence was notoriously
+     haunted. Witnesses proved that every night from August 1884, to
+     January 1885, stones were thrown at the windows and doors and
+     other serious damage done--in fact that numerous extraordinary
+     and inexplicable occurrences constantly took place.
+
+     "Mrs Waldron, wife of the plaintiff, swore that one night she
+     saw one of the panes of glass of a certain window cut through
+     with a diamond, and a white hand inserted through the hole. She
+     at once caught up a bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand,
+     cutting off one of the fingers. Neither this finger, however,
+     could be found nor were any traces of blood seen.
+
+     "A servant of hers was sorely persecuted by noises and the
+     sound of footsteps. Mr Waldron, with the aid of detectives and
+     policemen, endeavoured to find the cause, but with no avail.
+     The witnesses in this case were closely cross-examined, but
+     without shaking their testimony. The facts appeared to be
+     proved, so the jury found for Kiernan, the defendant. At least
+     twenty persons had testified on oath to the fact that the house
+     had been known to have been haunted."
+
+The possible agency of small boys in the matter of stone-throwing is
+apparently overlooked, while it can be easily imagined that a servant
+girl, well aware of the uncanny reputation of the house she lived in,
+would very soon develop a capacity for hearing mysterious sounds and
+footsteps on the smallest provocation. Then again the testimony of the
+plaintiff's wife was surely very damaging to her own case since she was,
+presumably, endeavouring to prove that the whole of the "extraordinary
+and inexplicable occurrences" were due to some mad freak on the part of
+her neighbour.
+
+On the whole I can find no class of occult phenomena of greater
+antiquity and persistence than that of haunting. Even though the ghost
+may not be as visible as that of Hamlet's father, yet the idea of a
+perturbed spirit revisiting its former haunts or the scene of its bodily
+murder finds credence amongst all peoples and epochs in the world's
+history. Fable is usually the dulled image of the truth: just as what we
+call presentiment or rumour is a kind of aura or van-wind of truth. On
+these grounds alone I should be inclined to take the legendary evidence
+for haunting seriously, just as every man who investigates its
+astonishing history now perceives that witchcraft is not to be dismissed
+as a mere groundless superstition. Indeed, I lay it down as a
+proposition that any belief which spontaneously and universally arises
+and persistently survives must have truth in the web of it. But the
+modern authentic testimony for haunting is so clear and strong and the
+attestors so clear-headed and indeed inexpugnable that we must really
+believe the physical sounds, with their revealed significance, actually
+occurred and do occur. Hallucination I put here out of the question.
+Neither will the theory of telepathy between the living serve to account
+for anything here.
+
+There is some other solution of the mystery. Has it been propounded? We
+shall see. Cock Lane is not now to be dismissed derisively. Nor are
+these manifestations to be treated in the spirit of one of the
+characters in Mr Wells' "Love and Mr Lewisham"--"Even if it be true--it
+is all wrong."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD
+
+
+No serious inquirer into the mysteries of occultism should neglect to
+study the peculiar human faculty locally known as Dowsing. Science has
+hitherto turned a cold shoulder to the skilled wielders of the divining
+rod, and at first sight perhaps few subjects appear to be so little
+worthy of investigation. To begin with it is a matter of common
+geological knowledge that the mode of distribution of underground water
+is very different from that imagined by the professional dowser. The
+latter will locate a spring in a certain spot and give you scrupulous
+details as to its depth and the amount of water it will yield. He may go
+on to tell you that a few feet distant is another spring, of a totally
+different depth, and that between the two no water will be found. The
+assertions are ridiculed by the practical geologist, whose point of
+view is admirably expressed in the following letter. The writer is the
+Rev. Osmond Fisher, M.A. (author of "Physics of the Earth's Crust").
+
+     "Harlton Rectory, Cambridge,
+
+     "February 4th, 1896.
+
+     "It appears to me that the assumption which underlies the
+     belief in the divining rod is erroneous. It is only under
+     exceptional circumstances, as among crystalline rocks, or where
+     the strata are much disturbed, that underground water runs in
+     channels like water in a pipe, so that a person can say, 'I am
+     now standing over a spring,' whereas a few paces off he was not
+     over one. What is called a spring, such as is reached in a
+     well, is _usually_ a widely extended water-saturated stratum.
+     Ordinarily where water can be reached by a well, there are few
+     spots [in the neighbourhood] where a well would not find it.
+
+     "The question which is really worthy of investigation in this
+     and similar cases seems to be how such an idea ever originated
+     and to what it owes its vitality."
+
+From the geologist's point of view, then, the so-called "diviner" is the
+merest charlatan, who, so far as the finding of water or mineral veins
+is concerned, would be equally successful were he to substitute the
+dice-box or the coin for his more usual implement the hazel wand. It is,
+he argues, a matter of guessing--and nothing more. The question becomes
+complicated when we remember that among the ardent devotees of the "rod"
+are to be numbered country squires, M.P.'s, doctors, clergymen, and
+farmers, who would have nothing to gain by pretending to a power which
+they did not possess.
+
+The Society for Psychical Research has devoted a considerable amount of
+attention to the subject. So far back as 1884 a paper on "The Divining
+Rod," prepared by Mr E. R. Pease, was read at a general meeting of the
+Society. The following is an abstract:--
+
+     "The Divining Rod is a V-shaped twig, commonly of hazelwood,
+     but sometimes of steel watchspring, whalebone and other
+     substances. It first came into use about three centuries ago,
+     and during the seventeenth century it was the subject of much
+     controversy and of numerous experiments by the learned men of
+     the time. Many theories were proposed to explain its action,
+     but none of them would now be regarded as plausible, and
+     various test experiments which were made uniformly failed. In
+     1701, the Inquisition condemned the use of the rod, and after
+     this date the popularity of divining greatly diminished. In the
+     seventeenth century it was used to discover murderers and
+     thieves, buried treasures, lost boundaries, and other hidden
+     objects, as well as metals and water springs. At present it
+     appears to be chiefly used in the West of England for the
+     discovery of water springs, and in America for oil wells and
+     mines. Mr E. Vaughan Jenkins, of Cheltenham, has made and
+     presented to the Society for Psychical Research a very valuable
+     collection of evidence of its use in England for locating
+     wells. He has communicated with various well-known 'diviners,'
+     and has received direct from landowners, architects, builders,
+     commercial firms and others, careful records of the successful
+     choosing of well sites by diviners in places where professional
+     geologists or local experts were hopeless of success. It seems
+     also that diviners travel about the country and 'dowse' in
+     localities new and strange to them.... The divining rod is
+     always held in a position of extreme tension, and at the same
+     time of unstable equilibrium. Slight muscular contractions
+     produce violent and startling effects. It would seem therefore
+     that the action of the rod may be caused by unconscious
+     movements of the diviner's hands, due possibly to a sensation
+     of chill on reaching water-bearing spots, or perhaps merely to
+     an unwritten practical science of the surface signs of hidden
+     water."
+
+Mr Pease eventually came to the conclusion that "the evidence for the
+success of dowsing as a practical art is very strong--and there seems to
+be an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made."
+Fifty years ago Dr Mayo, F.R.S., came to a similar conclusion after
+exhaustive experiments with the divining rod, both in England and
+abroad, and in 1883, Dr R. Raymond, the distinguished secretary of the
+American Institute of Mining Engineers, summed up the result of his
+investigations in the following opinion:--"That there is a residuum of
+scientific value, after making all necessary deductions for
+exaggeration, self-deception and fraud" in the use of the divining rod
+for finding springs and deposits of ore.
+
+In 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the
+Council of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of
+the matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett
+undertook the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against
+the subject was not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a
+few weeks' work would enable him to relegate it
+
+    "Into a limbo large and broad, since called
+    The Paradise of fools."
+
+Six years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous
+report, which occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the
+"Proceedings." Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece
+of patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast
+that it is only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.
+
+The following case was sent by Miss Grantham:--
+
+     "100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,
+
+     "February 1st, 1893.
+
+     "My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of
+     his farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish,
+     and as he had previously told us he was able to discover the
+     presence of water underground by means of a twig, we asked him
+     to go with us one day to see if he could find water. Mr B.
+     began by cutting a twig out of the hedge, of hazel or
+     blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches long, then
+     taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and first
+     finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about
+     the field in which my father proposed digging a well, and at
+     two spots the point of the twig turned right up, exactly
+     reversing its previous position; in fact so strong was its
+     impulse to point upwards, that we found that unless Mr B.
+     relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his fingers. We put
+     small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about twelve
+     years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since
+     quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same
+     ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found
+     water, neither did we point them out to him, but at these
+     places his twig behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father,
+     mother, and four or five others, then cut similar twigs out of
+     the hedge, but with none of us would they divine water. My
+     father then took Mr B. over some ground where he knew of the
+     existence of an underground stream; he did not tell Mr B. this,
+     but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again turned
+     upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one
+     of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water,
+     and it was found at the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the
+     boy both said that they did not feel any abnormal influence
+     whatever when the twig divined water.
+
+     "EMMA L. GRANTHAM."
+
+Another case (from Somersetshire) is quoted from in _The Western
+Gazette_ of 10th February 1893. Evercreech is at the foot of the
+Mendips.
+
+     "A well has recently been sunk on the premises of Messrs W.
+     Roles & Son, of Evercreech Junction, on the site of the
+     proposed milk factory. Mr Henry Smart, head gardener at Pennard
+     House, was successful with the divining twig (or rod), and a
+     well was sunk to a depth of 60 feet, when a spring was found
+     which yielded no less than 15,000 gallons of water in ten
+     hours. Water came at such a rate that a powerful pump had to be
+     erected temporarily by Messrs Hill & Son, of Bruton, and was
+     kept working day and night in order to keep the water down for
+     the purpose of walling (the well). At the present time there is
+     50 feet of water in the well, the supply increasing daily."
+
+Professor Barrett wrote to Messrs Roles to know if a well had been sunk
+previously, and if the above statement was correct. They reply that the
+account is quite correct, and add: "We had previously sunk a well
+without the use of the rod, to nearly the same depth, but it was
+_unsuccessful_. Six yards from this useless well the diviner found the
+spring which now yields enough to supply a small village if required."
+
+The Rev. Martin R. Knapp, M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, writes
+to Professor Barrett as follows:--
+
+     "72 Forest Road, Dalston, N.E.,
+
+     "November 14th, 1896.
+
+     "In the summer of 1892, I entered on the vicarage of North
+     Wootton in North Somerset, and had reason at once to look for
+     water. I was advised to try a 'water-finder,' and did so. The
+     dowser was a retired miller, and came provided with a number of
+     forked twigs. Holding one he traversed the place, and at
+     certain points the twig oscillated violently in his hands, and
+     there, he professed, he should find water.
+
+     "There was an interesting sidelight in the matter that I will
+     tell you of. My builder, who came from Bath, was very sceptical
+     about the whole thing. Three or four of us who were on the spot
+     tried to see if the twigs would 'play up' with us.
+
+     "We were unsuccessful till this man tried his hand, scoffing
+     the while. But directly that he came to the spots the dowser
+     had found the twig showed vigorous signs of animation. When his
+     hand was being twisted in his efforts to keep the twig steady,
+     I cried to him to hold fast, with the result that the twig
+     twisted itself into two pieces.
+
+     "At Wells, close by, lived a coachman, who was reported to have
+     the power to find, not only water but minerals. He carries
+     neither rod nor twig, and told me when I inquired, that his
+     sensations are undoubted and extraordinary whenever he is
+     directly above either water or minerals.
+
+     "MARTIN R. KNAPP."
+
+In answer to inquiries Mr Knapp informed Professor Barrett the builder
+was a stranger to the locality, and the spots where the rod moved were
+unlikely to suggest water below. The twig in the builder's hand, Mr
+Knapp says, in every case corroborated the dowser's indications, and
+hence he (the builder) was unmercifully chaffed, as he had treated the
+whole thing with such contempt. Mr Knapp says it is possible that the
+places indicated by the dowser might have been perceived by the builder,
+but it was the spontaneous and vigorous movement of the twig, evidently
+contrary to the holder's intention and against his will, that excited
+their astonishment.
+
+Dr Hutton, F.R.S., the distinguished mathematician--to whom the Royal
+Society entrusted the gigantic labour of making an abridgment of the
+whole of the Transactions of the Royal Society from its foundation in
+1666 to the beginning of this century--gives the following account of
+his experiments with the divining rod as used by Lady Milbanke:--
+
+     "At the time appointed (eleven A.M., 30th May 1806) the lady,
+     with all her family, arrived at my house on Woolwich Common,
+     where, after preparing the rods, etc., they walked to the
+     grounds, accompanied by the individuals of my own family and
+     some friends, when Lady Milbanke showed the experiment several
+     times in different places, holding the rod in the manner
+     described elsewhere. In the places where I had good reason to
+     know that no water was to be found the rod was always
+     quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water
+     below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly in the
+     manner above described, till the twigs twisted themselves off
+     below the fingers, which are considerably indented by so
+     forcibly holding the rod between them.[3]
+
+     "All the company stood close to Lady M. with all eyes intensely
+     fixed on her hands and the rods to watch if any particular
+     motion might be made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of
+     the kind was perceived, and all the company could observe no
+     cause or reason why the rods should move in the manner they
+     were seen to do.
+
+     "After the experiments were ended, everyone of the company
+     tried the rods in the same manner as they saw Lady M. had done,
+     but without the least motion from any of them. And in my
+     family, among ourselves, we have since then, several times,
+     tried if we could possibly cause the rod to turn by means of
+     any trick or twisting of the fingers, held in the manner Lady
+     Milbanke did, but in vain; we had no power to accomplish it."
+
+[Footnote 3: Dr Hutton does not say _how_ he knew that water was, or was
+not, below the surface. He was not, however, one likely to make loose
+and random statements. According to a footnote in _The Quarterly
+Review_, vol. xxii. p. 374, it appears that the ground chosen for the
+experiment was a field Dr Hutton had bought, adjoining the new College
+at Woolwich, then building.]
+
+The following is a remarkable case, and an important one from an
+evidential point of view. It is not known whether the "diviner" in this
+case was an amateur or not; he is now dead.
+
+_The Bristol Times and Mirror_ of 16th June 1891 states:
+
+     "The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery at Shepton Mallet needed a large
+     water supply; accordingly excavations had been made to find
+     water, but without success. About two years since, during an
+     exceptionally dry season, it became absolutely necessary to
+     obtain a further supply of brewing water; hence several boring
+     experiments were made on the property. At the suggestion of a
+     gentleman in the locality, the services of a 'diviner' were
+     obtained, and although the principal members of the firm
+     professed to have no faith in his 'art,' yet he was allowed to
+     try the fields on the company's property, and those on the
+     neighbouring estate, and discovered the well now used by the
+     brewery.... The soothsayer who carried the divining rod, a
+     hazel branch, was Mr Charles Sims, a local farmer, and a
+     notable discoverer of wells in the district. Operations were
+     immediately commenced, and, after excavating and dynamiting
+     through the rock, to the depth of fifty feet, a magnificent
+     spring was discovered in a fault of the rock, which proved to
+     be of exceptionally fine water, and of even a finer quality
+     than the town's supply."
+
+Professor Barrett wrote to the Secretary of the brewery to make
+inquiries and he replied as follows:--
+
+     "Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,
+
+     "September 12th, 1896.
+
+     "Replying to your letter in regard to a local diviner, we had
+     one of the name of Sims, from Pilton, who successfully denoted
+     a spot on our ground where we have had an abundant supply of
+     water since. This was some eight years ago.
+
+     "The writer of this letter also has had some considerable
+     experience with Mr Lawrence of Bristol, who was one of the most
+     noted divining rod men in the West of England. He also was
+     successful in denoting a supply for a Bristol brewery with
+     which the writer was connected; and in numerous other instances
+     in the neighbourhood. Mr Lawrence bore a very high reputation.
+     We believe he died a few months ago at a ripe old age.
+
+     "The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
+
+     "J. CLIFFORD,
+
+     "_Manager_."
+
+Having written to ask if a previous boring had been made, and if so,
+what depth, and with what result, the following reply was received:--
+
+     "Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,
+
+     "September 18th, 1896.
+
+     "Replying to yours of the 14th, a boring was carried out to the
+     extent of some 140 feet _without success_ on another portion of
+     our premises, before it was successfully done at the spot
+     indicated by the water finder; here, a well was sunk and
+     abundant water obtained at a depth of 40 feet.
+
+     "The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
+
+     "J. CLIFFORD,
+
+     "_Manager_."
+
+In the following case, the best advice was obtained and some L1000 spent
+fruitlessly searching for an underground spring prior to the dowser's
+visit. The first notice of it appeared in a local newspaper, _The West
+Sussex Times and Sussex Standard_, from which the following letter is
+reprinted:--
+
+     "Warnham Lodge, Horsham,
+
+     "January 3rd, 1893.
+
+     "Having had very great difficulty in the supply of water to
+     this house, I sent for John Mullins, of Colerne, near
+     Chippenham, who, by the aid of a twig of hazel, pointed out
+     several places where water could be found. I have sunk wells in
+     four of the places and it each case have been most successful.
+
+     "It may be said that water can be found anywhere--this is not
+     my experience. I have had the best engineering advice and have
+     spent many hundreds of pounds, and hitherto have not obtained
+     sufficient water for my requirements, but now I have an
+     abundant supply.
+
+     "I certainly should not think of sinking another well without
+     previously consulting John Mullins.
+
+     "HENRY HARDEN."
+
+It is sometimes urged that only springs yielding a limited supply of
+water are found by dowsers, who fix on spots where more or less surface
+water can be got from shallow wells rather than run the risk of sinking
+a deep well. Many of the cases already cited refute this notion, and the
+following bears on the same point. It is from Messrs Beamish & Crawford,
+the well-known brewers, of Cork.
+
+     "Cork Porter Brewery, Cork,
+
+     "December 30th, 1896.
+
+     "In reply to your letter of 26th inst., we beg to state:
+
+     "1. We had an old well yielding a small supply of water. It was
+     about 30 feet deep.
+
+     "2. No new well was fixed on by Mullins. He bored down to a
+     depth of about 60 feet below the bottom of the old well, and
+     therefore about 90 feet below the surface of the ground.
+
+     "3. The supply of water now obtained from the new pipes sunk by
+     Mullins is, as nearly as we can estimate, about 10,000 gallons
+     per hour.
+
+     "BEAMISH & CRAWFORD LTD."
+
+It goes without saying that professional dowsers are not always
+successful in their quests. "I am inclined," states Professor Barrett,
+"to think we may take from ten to fifteen per cent. as the average
+percentage of failures which occur with most English dowsers of to-day,
+allowing a larger percentage for partial failures, meaning by this that
+the quantity of water estimated and the depth at which it is found have
+not realised the estimate formed by the dowser."
+
+What then is the secret of the dowser's often remarkable success? The
+question is whether, after making every allowance for shrewdness of eye,
+chance, coincidence, and local geological knowledge, the dowser has any
+instinctive or supernormal power of discovering the presence of
+underground water. Professor Barrett, who has perhaps devoted more time
+to the subject than any other man living, is inclined to answer in the
+affirmative.
+
+"There appears to be evidence," he writes, "that a more profound stratum
+of our personality, glimpses of which we get elsewhere in our
+'Proceedings,' is associated with the dowser's art; and the latter seems
+to afford a further striking instance of information obtained through
+automatic means being more remarkable than, and beyond the reach of,
+that derived from conscious observation and inference."
+
+In another passage he adds:
+
+    "For my own part, I have been driven to believe that some dowsers--
+
+    "Whose exterior semblance doth belie
+    The soul's immensity"
+
+    nevertheless give us a glimpse of
+
+    "The eternal deep
+    Haunted for ever by the eternal mind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA
+
+
+In my inquiry so far the reader will note that I have taken one thing
+for granted--the fact of telepathy. In order to convince him to the
+extent to which this great scientific truth has convinced me, it would
+be necessary for me to lead him through a thousand pages of evidence for
+telepathic phenomena, attested by some of the leading physicists of the
+day. I am aware that there are still sceptics on the subject of
+telepathy, but the testimony is overwhelming, and every year sees the
+ranks of scepticism growing thinner.
+
+Not many years ago a very learned man, the late Professor von Helmholtz,
+although confronted with _prima-facie_ evidence of thought transference
+or telepathy, declared: "I cannot believe it. Neither the testimony of
+all the Fellows of the Royal Society, nor even the evidence of my own
+senses, would lead me to believe in the transmission of them from one
+person to another. It is clearly impossible." An opinion in these terms
+is very rare to-day. We are apt to express our incredulity in language
+far more guarded and less emphatic.
+
+About hallucinations, however, there is no scepticism. We have remarked
+sensory hallucinations of an occasional nature; we now come to regard
+them as a cult, for I suppose there is no manifestation in the world, no
+gift, no prodigy even, that is not prone to the fate of being exploited
+for particular ends.
+
+A poet, we will say, by some rare "subliminal uprush," produces a
+beautiful poem. He is at once chained to his desk by publishers and
+compelled to go on producing poetry for the rest of his life. It is
+inevitable that many of his manifestations will be false; and for that
+reason, in spite of an occasional jewel of truth, he runs serious risks
+of being denounced in the end as no poet.
+
+I have no doubt it is the same with the producers or the agents of
+occult phenomena. Sensory hallucinations may be stimulated. They may be
+stimulated by intoxication and disease, or they may be stimulated by the
+morbid conditions of a spiritualistic _seance_. Everything in these
+conditions--the prolonged darkness, the emotional expectancy--promotes
+the peculiar frame of mind apparently requisite. Constant
+exercise--perpetual aspiration develops the power of seeing visions.
+After a time, in well-known cases, they appear to need no inducement to
+come spontaneously.
+
+One well-known medium, Mr Hill Tout, confesses that building and
+peopling _chateaux en Espagne_ was a favourite occupation of his in his
+earlier days. This long-practised faculty is doubtless a potent factor
+in all his characterisations, and probably also in those of many another
+full-fledged medium.
+
+Hallucinations need not be visual only; they are frequently auditory.
+Miss Freer gives an account of one induced by merely holding a shell to
+the ear. There is another case of a young woman in whom auditory
+hallucinations would be excited on hearing the sound of water running
+through a tap. Given the basis of actual sound, the hallucinable person
+quickly causes it to become articulate and intelligible. Thus, is it
+unreasonable to suppose that the vague, nebulous lights seen at dark
+_seances_ would furnish the raw material, so to speak, for sense
+deception?
+
+Thus, we have the basis and beginning, from one point of view, of modern
+spiritualism. But before we examine the question of clairvoyance or
+trance utterances of spiritualistic mediums we must first of all go into
+the subject of physical phenomena.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So-called physical phenomena are a comparatively modern excrescence on
+the main growth. It is only within the last half-century that they have
+attained any considerable development. The faith in the communion and
+intervention of spirits originated before their appearance and will
+probably outlast their final discredit. At the best, whatever effect
+they may have had in advertising the movement with the vulgar, they
+seem to have exerted only a subsidiary influence in inducing belief with
+more thoughtful men and women.
+
+These physical phenomena consist chiefly of table rapping, table moving,
+ringing of bells, and various other manifestations for which a normal
+cause is not apparent. For a long time, in the early days of modern
+spiritualism, the cult was chiefly confined to "miracles" of this sort.
+One of its most notable props was the manifestations, long continued and
+observed by many thousands, of the famous Daniel Dunglas Home. It is
+fifty years ago now since Home came to England and began his _seances_,
+which were attended by Lord Dunraven, Lord Brougham, Sir D. Brewster,
+Robert Owen, Bulwer Lytton, T. A. Trollope, Garth Wilkinson, and others.
+For thirty years Home was brought before the public as a medium, dying
+in 1886. He seems to have been an amiable, highly emotional man, full of
+generous impulses, and of considerable personal charm. His frankness and
+sincerity impressed all those who came in touch with the man. Mr Andrew
+Lang has called him "a Harold Skimpole, with the gift of divination."
+
+Home dealt with both clairvoyance and physical manifestations.
+Ostensibly through him came an enormous number of messages purporting to
+proceed from the dead friends of certain of those attending the
+_seances_. In the records of these _seances_ will be found the signed
+statements of Dr Garth Wilkinson, Dr Gully, Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall, the
+present Earl of Dunraven, Earl of Crawford, Dr Hawksley, Mrs Nassau
+Senior, Mr P. P. Alexander, Mr Perdicaris, and others, that they had
+received messages giving details of a private nature that it seemed in
+the last degree probable could be known to the medium. Home's
+manifestations were for the most part those which any attendant at a
+spiritualistic _seance_ can witness for himself to-day. The room he used
+was, compared with those used by other mediums who insisted on complete
+darkness, well lighted, as he had a shaded lamp, a gas-burner, or one or
+two candles lighted. The manifestations generally began with raps; then
+followed a quivering movement of the table, which one present described
+as like "the vibration on a small steamer when the engines begin to
+work"; by another as "a ship in distress, with its timbers straining in
+a heavy sea." Then, suspended in the air, the table would float, and in
+its shelter musical instruments performing could be heard; the sitters
+could feel their knees being clasped and their dresses pulled; many
+things would be handed about the circle, such as handkerchiefs, flowers,
+and even heavy bells. During the performance messages were rapped out by
+the spirits, or delivered through the mouth of the medium. In this
+respect, where intelligence is shown, they would partake of the nature
+of trance utterance, a thing to be analysed later.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robert Bell, a dramatist and critic, having been present at one of these
+_seances_, acknowledged that he had seen things which he was satisfied
+were "beyond the pale of material experiences." After describing various
+manifestations, hands felt under the table, touching the knees, and
+pulling the clothes, bells rung by invisible agency, and various
+articles thrown about the room, he proceeds to describe "levitation":
+
+     "Mr Home was seated next the window. Through the semi-darkness
+     his head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands
+     might be seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he
+     said, in a quiet voice, 'My chair is moving--I am off the
+     ground--don't notice me--talk of something else,' or words to
+     that effect. It was very difficult to restrain the curiosity,
+     not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few words
+     awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon some
+     different topic. I was sitting nearly opposite Mr Home, and I
+     saw his hands disappear from the table, and his head vanish
+     into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke
+     again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He
+     had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from
+     the ground. As he ascended higher he described his position,
+     which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became
+     horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the
+     gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse.
+     In a moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass
+     across the window, against the grey, silvery light of which he
+     would be visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his
+     figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet
+     foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he
+     passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way and
+     recross the window, which he did. His own tranquil confidence
+     in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most
+     novel peril gave confidence to everybody else; but with the
+     strongest nerves it was impossible not to be conscious of a
+     certain sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle
+     for several minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly,
+     over our heads. I heard his voice behind me in the air, and
+     felt something lightly brush my chair. It was his foot, which
+     he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the spot where it was on
+     the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon it, when he
+     uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with
+     a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair,
+     but floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He
+     now passed over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we
+     could judge by his voice of the altitude and distance he had
+     attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which he made a
+     slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed his
+     place at the table. An incident which occurred during this
+     aerial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity to it, was
+     that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground under
+     the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the
+     air from the distant corner of the room."
+
+A well-known physician, Dr Gully, who was present at this _seance_,
+wrote confirming the account in _The Cornhill Magazine_ given by the
+above writer.
+
+During the ensuing forty years mediumistic performances became of common
+and almost daily occurrence in this country. Two or three forms of
+so-called spirit manifestation--such as materialisation, spirit
+photography, and slate-writing--afterwards became connected with many of
+the _seances_. But first the manifestations in daylight consisted of
+raps and tiltings of a table; afterwards, when the lights were turned
+out or turned very low, spirit voices, touches of spirit hands, spirit
+lights, spirit-born flowers, floating musical instruments, and moving
+about or levitation of the furniture.
+
+Until Sir William Crookes began to investigate the alleged
+spiritualistic phenomena, all investigation had been undertaken by
+persons without scientific training. After a year of experiments he
+issued a detailed description of those conducted in his own laboratory
+in the presence of four other persons, two of whom, Sir William Huggins
+and Sergeant Fox, confirmed the accuracy of his report. The result was
+that he was able to demonstrate, he said, the existence of a hitherto
+unknown force, and had measured the effect produced. At all events,
+these inquirers were convinced of the genuineness of Home's powers.
+
+Suppose we glance at the possible alternative--viz. that Home was a
+conjurer of consummate skill and ingenuity. For one of the physical
+phenomena, that of tilting a table at a precarious angle without
+displacing various small objects resting on its polished surface, Mr
+Podmore suggests an explanation. He thinks that the articles were
+probably held in position on the table when it was tilted by means of
+hairs and fine threads attached to Home's dress. He has various
+explanations for other of the phenomena, but he confesses that there
+remain a few manifestations which the hypothesis of simple trickery does
+not seem to fit. In going over a mass of evidence relating to Home, the
+hypothesis of conjuring seems to be rather incredible; when one bears in
+mind Home's long career as a medium, how his private life was watched by
+the lynx-eyed sceptics, eager to pounce upon the evidence of trickery,
+and that he was never detected, it certainly seems to me, at all events,
+that Home's immunity from exposure is strong evidence against the
+assumption of fraud. Home was merely the type of a large class of
+mediums purporting to be controlled by spirit power, whose _seances_ are
+a feature of modern life.
+
+Certain experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home came very near to
+satisfying the most stringent scientific conditions, especially those in
+the alteration in the weight of a board. In these experiments one end of
+the board was on a spring balance and the other rested on a table. The
+board became heavier or lighter as Home placed his fingers on the end
+resting on the table and "willed" it, and the different weights were
+recorded by an automatic register. This effect might have been produced,
+says Mr Podmore, by using a dark thread with a loop attached to some
+part of the apparatus--possibly the hook of the spring balance--and the
+ends fastened to Home's trousers. But this particular trick does not
+seem to have occurred to those experimenting, and the description of the
+_seances_ does not exclude it.
+
+Suggesting an explanation of an event does not prove that it so
+occurred, and Mr Podmore adds: "It is not easy to see how the
+investigators ... could have been deceived, and repeatedly deceived, by
+any device of the kind suggested."
+
+One of the most remarkable of Daniel Dunglas Home's manifestations
+occurred on 16th December 1868, at 5 Buckingham Gate, London. There were
+present the Master of Lindsay (now the Earl of Crawford), Viscount Adare
+(the present Earl of Dunraven), and Captain Wynne. The Master of Lindsay
+has recorded the circumstances, as follows:--
+
+     "I was sitting with Mr Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his.
+     During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that
+     state was carried out of the window in the room next to where
+     we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between
+     the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not
+     the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a
+     twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge
+     to put flowers on. We heard the window in the next room lifted
+     up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in air
+     outside our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my
+     back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the
+     window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it. He
+     remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the
+     window and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down."
+
+Here is Lord Adare's account of the central incident:
+
+     "We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown
+     up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our
+     window; he opened the window and walked in quite coolly."
+
+Captain Wynne, writing to Home in 1877, refers to this occasion in the
+following words:
+
+     "The fact of your having gone out of the one window and in at
+     the other I can swear to."
+
+It is surely not a little remarkable that an occurrence of so
+extraordinary a nature should be testified to by three such clear-headed
+men as Captain Wynne and Lords Lindsay and Adare. To cross from one
+window to another by ordinary means was clearly impossible, and it would
+be a brave conjurer indeed who would essay such a feat at a distance of
+eighty-five feet from the ground. What then is the explanation? Mr
+Podmore suggests that the three witnesses were the victims of a
+collective hallucination; but this theory is not easy to accept, and Mr
+Andrew Lang has heaped it with ridicule. "There are," he writes, "two
+other points to be urged against Mr Podmore's theory that observers of
+Home were hallucinated. The Society's records contain plenty of
+'collective, so-called telepathic hallucinations.' But surely these
+hallucinations offered visionary figures of persons and things not
+present in fact. Has Mr Podmore one case, except Home's, of a
+collective hallucination in which a person actually present is the
+hallucination; floats in the air, holds red-hot coals and so
+forth--appears outside of the window, for instance, when he is inside
+the room? Of course, where conjuring is barred. Again, Home's marvels
+are attested by witnesses violently prejudiced against him, and (far
+from being attentively expectant) most anxious to detect and expose
+him."
+
+If the case of Home presents difficulties to the rational sceptic, that
+of William Stainton Moses, who died in 1892, presents an even harder
+problem. I will refer to Moses later when we come to discuss
+clairvoyance, but at first his mediumistic powers were manifested in
+physical phenomena. He was a clergyman and a scholar, an M.A. of Oxford,
+and for nearly eighteen years English master in University College
+School. He was held in esteem and even affection by all who were most
+intimately associated with him. Yet Moses was responsible for table
+rapping, levitation of furniture, playing of musical instruments and
+"apports"--the latter term expressing the movement or introduction of
+various articles either by the request of the sitters or spontaneously,
+such as books, stones, shells, opera-glasses, candle-sticks, and so
+forth. All this began in 1872, and the phenomena observed at the various
+_seances_ were carefully recorded by the medium's friends, Dr and Mrs
+Speer, C. T. Speer, and F. W. Percival. It must be borne in mind that
+Moses was in his thirty-third year before he suspected mediumistic
+powers. There have been any number of hypotheses to account for the
+physical phenomena furnished at these _seances_. Jewels, cameos, seed
+pearls, and other precious things were brought and given to the sitters.
+Scent was introduced; familiar perfumes--such as sandalwood, jasmine,
+heliotrope, not always recognised--were a frequent occurrence at these
+_seances_. Occasionally it would be sprayed in the air, sometimes poured
+into the hands of the sitters, and often it was found oozing from the
+medium's head and even running down.
+
+In Mrs Speer's diary for 30th August there is the following record:--
+
+     "Many things were brought from different parts of the house
+     through the locked door this evening. Mr S. M. was levitated,
+     and when he felt for his feet they were hanging in mid-air,
+     while his head must have almost touched the ceiling."
+
+Dr Speer also records a "levitation" on 3rd December:
+
+     "Mr M. was floated about, and a large dining-room chair was
+     placed on the table."
+
+Mrs Speer tells us that they sat in the fire-light, and that the
+_seances_ were held in more or less complete darkness. Moses' own
+account of the levitation is much fuller. He says that he was fully
+conscious that he was floating about the room, and that he marked a
+place on the wall with a pencil, which was afterwards found to be more
+than six feet from the floor. Subsequently musical sounds became a
+feature of the manifestations. In September 1874 Mrs Speer gives a list
+of them, mentioning ten or more different kinds, including the
+tambourine, harp, fairy-bells, and many stringed instruments, and
+ascribes their production to eight different spirits.
+
+In the early materialisations of Stainton Moses we find that hands, and
+occasionally the fore arm, were seen holding lights. These spirit lights
+are described as hard, round, and cold to the touch. In his description
+of one incident at a _seance_ Moses himself pens a significant passage,
+which seems to confirm the suspicion that the spirit lights were really
+bottles of phosphorised oil:
+
+     "Suddenly there arose from below me, apparently under the
+     table, or near the floor, right under my nose, a cloud of
+     luminous smoke, just like phosphorus. It fumed up in great
+     clouds, until I seemed to be on fire, and rushed from the room
+     in a panic. I was fairly frightened, and could not tell what
+     was happening. I rushed to the door and opened it, and so to
+     the front door. My hands seemed to be ablaze, and left their
+     impress on the door and handles. It blazed for a while after I
+     had touched it, but soon went out, and no smell or trace
+     remained.... There seemed to be no end of smoke. It smelt
+     distinctly phosphoric, but the smell evaporated as soon as I
+     got out of the room into the air."
+
+Such candour disarms us: can there be any ground for the theory that
+here was a case of self-deception on a large scale? Or is there yet an
+alternative explanation? Perhaps we shall discover one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
+
+
+What we have to remember is that by far the greater part of the physical
+phenomena which is said to occur at a _seance_ is really nothing
+extraordinary. All physical occurrences are normal that are capable of
+being produced by a clever conjurer; and there is no doubt that with due
+preparation such a one could achieve table rapping, introduce flowers
+and move furniture. But the problem is, how, under the stringent
+conditions imposed, and in the face of the close scrutiny, to which
+these manifestations are subjected, they can be done. As Sir Oliver
+Lodge says: "I am disposed to maintain that I have myself witnessed, in
+a dim light, occasional abnormal instances of movement of untouched
+objects." He goes on to say that "suppose an untouched object comes
+sailing or hurtling through the air, or suppose an object is raised or
+floated from the ground, how are we to regard it? This is just what a
+live animal could do, and so the first natural hypothesis is that some
+living thing is doing it: (_a_) the medium himself, acting by tricks or
+concealed mechanism; (_b_) a confederate--an unconscious confederate
+perhaps, among the sitters; (_c_) an unknown and invisible live entity,
+other than the people present. If in any such action the extraordinary
+laws of nature were superseded, if the weight of a piece of matter could
+be shown to have _disappeared_, or if fresh energy were introduced
+beyond the recognised categories of energy, then there would be no
+additional difficulties; but hitherto there has been no attempt to
+establish either of these things. Indeed, it must be admitted that
+insufficient attention is usually paid to this aspect of ordinary,
+commonplace, abnormal physical phenomena. If a heavy body is raised
+under good conditions, we should always try to ascertain" (he does not
+say that it is easy to ascertain) "where its weight has gone to--that is
+to say, what supports it--what ultimately supports it. For instance, if
+experiments were conducted in a suspended room, would the whole weight
+of that room, as ascertained by outside balance, remain unaltered when a
+table or person was levitated inside it? Or, could the agencies
+operating inside affect the bodies outside?--questions, these, which
+appear capable of answer, with sufficient trouble, in an organised
+physical laboratory; such a laboratory as does not, he supposes, yet
+exist, but which might exist and which will exist in the future, if the
+physical aspect of experimental psychology is ever to become recognised
+as a branch of orthodox physics."
+
+Recently, Dr Maxwell, of Paris, published his researches and
+observations on physical phenomena, and he states that under "material
+and physical phenomena" are comprised (1) raps; (2) movements of objects
+(_a_) without contact, or (_b_) only with such contact as is
+insufficient to effect the particular movement in question; (3)
+"apports"--_i.e._ the production of objects by some supernormal agency;
+(4) visual phenomena--_i.e._ the appearance of lights and of forms,
+luminous or otherwise, including among the latter the class of alleged
+phenomena known as materialisations, and (5) phenomena leaving some
+permanent trace, such as imprints or "direct" writings or drawings, etc.
+Under the class of "intellectual phenomena" may be included such
+occurrences as automatic writing, table tilting, etc.
+
+As regards raps Dr Maxwell hazards certain conclusions, of which he says
+the most certain is the close connection of the raps with the muscular
+movements on the part of the sitters. Every muscular movement, even a
+slight one, appears to be followed by a rap. Thus if, without anyone
+necessarily touching the table, one of the sitters frees his hand from
+the chain made round the table by others, moves it about in a circle
+over the surface of the table, then raises it in the centre and brings
+it down towards the table, stopping suddenly within a few inches of it,
+a rap will be produced on the table corresponding with the sudden
+stoppage of the hand. Similarly, a rap will be produced by a pressure of
+the foot on the floor, by speaking, by blowing slightly, or by touching
+the medium or one of the sitters. Raps produced in this way by the
+sitters are often stronger than those produced by the medium himself. Dr
+Maxwell suggests as a working hypothesis that there is a certain
+accumulated force, and that if its equilibrium be suddenly disturbed by
+the addition of the excess of energy required for the movement, a
+discharge takes place producing the effect.
+
+Dr Maxwell has made a series of experiments with Eusapia Paladino.
+
+     "It was about five o'clock in the evening," he writes, "and
+     there was broad daylight in the drawing-room at l'Aguelas. We
+     were standing around the table. Eusapia took the hand of one of
+     our number and rested it on the right-hand corner of the table.
+     The table was raised to the level of our foreheads--that is,
+     the top reached a height of at least four and three-quarter
+     feet from the floor.... It was impossible for Eusapia to have
+     lifted the table by normal means. One has but to consider that
+     she touched but the corner of the table to realise what the
+     weight must have been had she accomplished the feat by
+     muscular effort. Further, she never had sufficient hold of it.
+     It was clearly impossible for her, under the conditions of the
+     experiment, to have used any of the means suggested by her
+     critics--straps, or hooks of some kind."
+
+Most of the phenomena discussed by Dr Maxwell were obtained through the
+mediumship of Eusapia Paladino. He was a member of the committee which
+met in 1896 to investigate this medium, who had just concluded the
+series of performances held under the auspices of the society at
+Cambridge, which were entirely unfavourable to her claims. The French
+committee was made aware of the fraudulent devices which the Cambridge
+investigators claimed to have discovered. He recommends all who believe
+that Dr Hodgson and his Cambridge colleagues have had the last word in
+the controversy to read the report which will be found in the _Annales
+des Psychiques_, for 1896. The English sitters arrive at conclusions in
+direct conflict with those of the French, who claim that they had long
+known of the tricks "discovered" at Cambridge, and in consequence took
+means to guard against them. Dr Maxwell indicts the Cambridge way of
+controlling the medium, which he says consisted, for a time at least, in
+affording the medium opportunities to cheat to see if she would avail
+herself of them. Opportunities of which she took the fullest advantage.
+
+Nevertheless, Dr Maxwell offers but little encouragement for the theory
+of spiritualistic agency. "I believe," he says, "in the reality of
+certain phenomena, of which I have repeatedly been a witness. I do not
+consider it necessary to attribute them to a supernatural intervention
+of any kind, but am disposed to think that they are produced by some
+force existing within ourselves."
+
+In the same way as certain psychical phenomena, such as automatic
+writing, trance, "controls," crystal vision, and so forth, in which an
+intelligence seems to be present independent of the intelligence of the
+medium, can be shown beyond dispute to be merely manifestations of his
+subliminal intelligence, frequently taking the form of a dramatic
+personification; so may the agency, revealing itself in raps, movements
+of objects, and other phenomena of a physical character, perhaps be
+traceable, not to any power external to the medium and the sitters, but
+merely to a force latent within themselves, and may be an
+exteriorisation in a dynamic form, in a way not yet ascertained, of
+their collective subliminal capacities.
+
+However strange new and unknown facts may be, we need not fear they are
+going to destroy the truth of the old ones. Would the science of physics
+be overthrown if, for example, we admit the phenomenon of "raps"--_i.e._
+audible vibrations in wood and other substances--is a real phenomenon,
+and that in certain cases there may be blows which cannot be explained
+by any mechanical force known to us? It would be a new force exercised
+on matter, but none the less would the old forces preserve their
+activity. Pressure, temperature, and the density of air or of wood might
+still exercise their usual influence, and it is even likely that the
+transmission of vibrations by this new force would follow the same laws
+as other vibrations.
+
+In the opinion of the leading members of this society, some of the
+physical phenomena which have been adduced as among those proclaimed to
+have occurred, such as "apports," scent, movement of objects, passage of
+matter through matter, bear a perilous resemblance to conjuring tricks,
+of a kind fairly well known; which tricks if well done can be very
+deceptive. Hence extreme caution is necessary, and full control must be
+allowed to the observers--a thing which conjurers never really allow.
+Sir Oliver Lodge says that he has never seen a silent and genuinely
+controlled conjurer; and in so far as mediums find it necessary to
+insist on their own conditions, so far they must be content to be
+treated as conjurers. For instance, no self-registering thermometer has
+ever recorded the "intense cold" felt at a _seance_. Flowers and fruit
+have made their appearance in closed rooms, but no arsenic has
+penetrated the walls of the hermetically sealed tube. Various
+investigators have smelt, seen, and handled curious objects, but no
+trace has been preserved. We have to depend on the recollection of the
+observer's passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the
+rustle of spirit garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies.
+Exquisite scents, strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly
+out of nothing, and have returned whence they came unrecorded by
+photography, unweighed, unanalysed.
+
+Briefly, then, the result of my carefully formed judgment is that a
+large part of the physical phenomena heard, seen, felt at the average
+spiritualistic _seance_ must be placed on a level with ordinary
+conjuring. To return to the recent case of Eusapia Paladino. A number of
+English scientists, interested in the reports of her _seances_, induced
+her to come to England and repeat them at Cambridge. Every effort was
+made to make the experiments as satisfactory as possible. They used
+netting for confining the medium or separating her from objects which
+they hoped would move without contact; different ways of tying her were
+tried; also sufficient light was used in the _seance_ room. She refused
+to submit to any of these conditions. The investigators pressed her at
+each sitting to allow some light in the room, and they long persevered
+in making the control in every case as complete as she would allow it to
+be. She permitted a very faint light usually at the beginning, but
+before long she insisted on complete darkness, and until the lights were
+extinguished the touches were never felt. The sitters then held the
+medium, the only method of control allowed, as firmly and continuously
+as possible. This she resisted, and then every form of persuasion was
+used, short of physical force, to induce her to submit. But she was
+allowed to take her own way without remonstrance when the sitters were
+convinced of the constant fraud practised.
+
+It is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have
+convinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia
+Paladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge
+investigators are condemned as hasty and premature.
+
+But, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the
+conditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the
+medium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the
+result of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading
+spiritualists themselves.
+
+For, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for
+supernormal physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least
+an unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis
+is no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the
+Hertzian waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years
+ago.
+
+This is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena
+which cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown
+extensions of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the
+most inexplicable and best attested of the manifestations presented by
+Daniel Dunglas Home. The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the
+witnesses of undoubted integrity, and, from the nature of the
+experiment, the illuminations of the room were generally more adequate
+than in the case of the levitations and elongations. On one occasion,
+Home thrust his hand into the fire, and bringing out a red-hot cinder
+laid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at the end of half-a-minute it
+was removed, the handkerchief was quite free from any traces of burning.
+
+Not content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them
+on to others present at the _seance_, who were generally able to receive
+them with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated
+by an ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands
+with some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home
+possessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable
+difficulty in transferring it to the hands of his spectators.
+
+Here is an account of a _seance_ which took place on the 9th May 1871.
+After various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room
+were extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot
+charcoal, and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he
+borrowed for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal
+to white heat with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in
+one small hole. Mr Crookes, who was present at the _seance_, tested the
+handkerchief afterwards in his laboratory and found that it had not been
+chemically prepared to resist the action of fire.
+
+After this exhibition--
+
+     "Mr Home again went to the fire, and, after stirring the hot
+     coal about with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as
+     big as an orange, and putting it on his right hand, so as
+     almost completely to enclose it, and then blew into the small
+     furnace thus extemporised until the lump of charcoal was nearly
+     white hot, and then drew my attention to the lambent flame
+     which was flickering over the coal and licking round his
+     fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner,
+     held up the coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not
+     his laws wonderful?'"
+
+Among those who have left on record their testimony to this
+manifestation are Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, H. D. Jencken, W. M.
+Wilkinson, S. C. Hall, etc. etc.
+
+As the great mathematician Professor de Morgan once wittily and wisely
+wrote:
+
+     "If I were bound to choose among things which I can conceive, I
+     should say that there is some sort of action of some
+     combination of will, intellect, and physical power, which is
+     not that of any of the human beings present. But, thinking it
+     very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies--say,
+     half-a-million--about which no man knows anything, I cannot but
+     suspect that a small proportion of these agencies--say, five
+     thousand--may be severally competent to the production of all
+     the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The
+     physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but
+     miserably insufficient; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient,
+     but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the
+     second asking the first for more results of trial."
+
+It is inconceivable that such a man as Stainton Moses--a hard-working
+parish priest and a respected schoolmaster--should deliberately have
+entered upon a course of trickery for the mere pleasure of mystifying a
+small circle of acquaintances. The whole course of his previous life,
+his apparently sincere religious feeling, all combine to contradict such
+a supposition. Neither is it credible that such a petty swindler would
+have carried out his deceptions to the end, and have left behind fresh
+problems, the elucidation of which his eyes could never behold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"
+
+
+If much of the physical phenomena just described be well within the
+scope of natural possibility, it is somewhat otherwise with the class of
+manifestations I shall now touch upon. It is one thing to exert
+consciously or unconsciously, as Home, Cook, Paladino, Moses and other
+mediums have done, in the presence of scientifically trained witnesses,
+unknown and supernormal muscular power. Table rapping, levitation,
+"apports," may all be genuine enough and accounted for in a manner
+which, if not wholly satisfying, is at least not unreasonable. But when
+those assisting at a _seance_ actually behold with their eyes and touch
+with their hands, and even photograph with a camera, the materialised
+objects of the spirits with whom the medium is in communion, the pulse
+of the inquirer quickens. He is now indeed approaching the crucial
+problem, the crowning achievement of spiritualism. For although in a
+former chapter we have the testimony of people who saw "ghosts," these
+ghosts might, to my mind, clearly be the result of telepathy. They
+appear on special occasions at important and significant crises, but the
+claim of the spiritualistic medium is that he can casually, and on the
+demand of one of the circle, produce a visible, tangible figure of a
+deceased husband, wife, parent, or friend.
+
+This materialisation is wholly a recent species of manifestation. One of
+the first to testify to having seen a materialised figure at a _seance_
+was the well-known S. C. Hall, who recognised during one of Home's
+_seances_ the figure of his deceased sister. Other mediums repeated the
+feat, and shadowy forms and faces began to appear and move about during
+their dark _seances_. It is a suspicious fact that in some cases these
+forms, made visible by a faintly luminous vapour, were accompanied by an
+odour of phosphorus. Sceptics naturally took great advantage of the
+alleged circumstance. Soon, however, a new medium, Florence Cook, was
+rumoured to have produced materialised forms in a good light which
+baffled all the sceptics. Miss Cook claimed to be "controlled" by a
+spirit known under the name of "Katie."
+
+We have this account from a writer who early attended to examine the
+mystery fairly:
+
+     "In a short time, however, Katie--as the familiar of Miss B.
+     was termed--thought she would be able to 'materialise' herself
+     so far as to present the whole form, if we arranged the corner
+     cupboard so as to admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened
+     the door, and from it suspended a rug or two opening in the
+     centre, after the fashion of a Bedouin Arab's tent; formed a
+     semicircle; sat and sang Longfellow's 'Footsteps of Angels.'
+     Therein occurs the passage, 'Then the forms of the departed
+     enter at the open door.' And, lo and behold! though we had left
+     Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair and clad in an ordinary
+     black dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall,
+     female figure, draped classically in white, with bare arms and
+     feet, did enter at the open door, or rather down the centre
+     from between the two rugs, and stood statuelike before us,
+     spoke a few words, and retired; after which we entered the
+     Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as before,
+     knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1,
+     the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and
+     on a subsequent occasion--for I have seen it several times--we
+     took four very good photographic portraits of it by magnesium
+     light. The difficulty I still felt, with the form as with the
+     faces, was that it seemed so thoroughly material and
+     flesh-and-blood-like."
+
+It is not my intention to speak of the multitude of early
+materialisations. As Mr Podmore points out, at these manifestations
+practically no precautions were taken against trickery. There was
+nothing, so far as can be discovered, to throw any hindrance in the way
+of the medium, if she chose, impersonating the spirit by exhibiting a
+mask through the opening of the curtain or by dressing herself up and
+walking about the room. Nor were there any collateral circumstances to
+justify belief in the genuineness of the manifestations.
+
+Nevertheless, Miss Cook's claims attracted the attention of Sir William
+Crookes. He attended several _seances_--one, once, at the house of Mr
+Luxmoor, when "Katie" was standing before him in the room. He had
+distinctly heard from behind the curtain the sobbing and moaning
+habitually made by Miss Cook during such _seances_. At another _seance_,
+held at his own house, 12th March 1874, "Katie," robed in white, came to
+the opening of the curtain and summoned him to the assistance of her
+medium. The man of science instantly obeyed the call, and found Miss
+Cook, attired in her ordinary black velvet dress, prone on the sofa. On
+another occasion he declares he saw two forms together in a good light;
+more than this, he actually procured a photograph of "Katie." But of
+this I will speak later, when I come to discuss spirit photography.
+
+One of the most noted materialising mediums of to-day is Charles Miller,
+of San Francisco, of whom a certain Professor Reichel has recently
+written a lengthy account.
+
+Miller's _seances_ are described as very conclusive. At the first one,
+after Miller had retired into the cabinet, "the curtain was pulled
+aside, showing the medium asleep, and six fully developed phantoms
+standing beside him. Two spoke German to friends from their native
+land," and one discussed matters of a private nature with Professor
+Reichel. Similar occurrences were many times repeated, and
+dematerialisations were often "made before the curtain, in full view of
+the sitters" and "in ample light to observe everything." Professor
+Reichel says:
+
+     "In the _seances_ with Mr Miller I heard the spirits speak in
+     English, French, and German, but I have been assured repeatedly
+     that in a _seance_ of seventy-five persons, representing many
+     of the various nationalities in San Francisco, twenty-seven
+     languages were spoken by materialised spirits, addressing
+     different sitters."
+
+Equally good results were obtained in a room taken at the Palace Hotel,
+for a special testsetting, the results of which were communicated to
+Colonel de Rochas, and again when Mr Miller visited the Professor at Los
+Angeles. The following incidents are of special interest, as throwing
+light on the forces made use of in the production of the phenomena, and
+in reference to allegations of fraud or personation:--
+
+     "A sitting took place at noon. Before it began, and while
+     Miller was standing in front of the cabinet, I heard 'Betsy's'
+     voice whisper: 'Go out for a moment into the sun with the
+     professor.' Accordingly I took Mr Miller by the arm, and
+     together we went out into the sunshine. After a few moments we
+     returned, and at the moment we entered the dark room the
+     writer, as well as everyone else present, saw Mr Miller
+     completely strewn with a shining, white, glittering, snowlike
+     mass, that entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. This
+     singular occurrence had been witnessed repeatedly--even when
+     the medium had not previously been in the sun. At such times it
+     appeared gradually after the room had been darkened."
+
+This snowlike mass the author regards as "the white element of
+magnetism, which the phantoms use in their development." He also says:
+
+     "In another _seance_ held by Miller, 'Betsy' told me that she
+     would show me something that often happened in _seances_ with
+     other materialisation mediums--namely, that the medium himself
+     frequently appeared disguised as a spirit. She asked me to come
+     to the curtain, where she told me that the medium himself would
+     come out draped in white muslin, and the muslin would then
+     suddenly disappear. This was verified. When the medium came out
+     in his disguise, I grasped him by the hand, and like a flash of
+     lightning the white veiling vanished."
+
+Reichel quotes Kiesewetter to the effect that in these cases "there is a
+kind of pseudo-materialisation, in which the medium, in hypnosis, walks
+in a somnambulistic condition, playing the part of the spirit, in which
+case the mysterious vanishing of the spiritual veilings points to an
+incipient magical activity on the part of the _psyche_."
+
+Large numbers of Miller's materialisations were photographed, showing,
+besides the fully materialised forms, "several spirits who could not be
+seen with the physical eyes, one of whom was immediately recognised."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The experiments of Sir William Crookes and others by Mr Cromwell Varley,
+with various mediums, supply us with the best proof we have that medium
+and spirit possess separate identities. Of course there were, and are
+still, numerous so-called exposures of mediums in the act of
+materialisation. On other occasions the materialised form has been
+seized and found to be the medium himself.
+
+A typical incident of this kind was the exposure of the mediums William
+and Rita, which took place in Amsterdam, under circumstances which made
+it difficult for the most hardened believer to lay all the blame upon
+the spirits. The incident took place in the rooms of a spiritualist; the
+members of the circle were spiritualists; and it was aggrieved and
+indignant spiritualists who made the facts public. Suspicion had been
+aroused; one of the sitters clutched at the spirit form of "Charlie,"
+and grasped Rita by the coat collar. Up to this point, no doubt, the
+spiritualist theories already referred to were elastic enough to cover
+the facts. But when the mediums were searched there were found in their
+pockets or hidden in various parts of their clothing--on Rita a nearly
+new beard, six handkerchiefs, assorted, and a small, round scent bottle,
+containing phosphorised oil, bearing a resemblance all too convincing to
+"Charlie's" spirit lamp; on Williams a dirty black beard, with brown
+silk ribbon, and several yards of very dirty muslin--the simple
+ingredients which represented the spiritual make-up of the repentant
+pirate, John King--together with another bottle of phosphorised oil, a
+bottle of scent, and other "properties."
+
+But we have not to deal here with the obviously fraudulent features of
+modern spiritualism. Years ago Mr H. W. Harrison summed up the position.
+He pointed out that there were two classes of so-called
+materialisations: (1) forms with flexible features, commonly bearing a
+strong resemblance to the medium, which move and speak. These are the
+forms which come out when the medium is in the cabinet; (2) Forms with
+features which are inflexible and masklike (the epithet is not Mr
+Harrison's) and which do not move about or speak. Such inflexible faces
+are seen chiefly when the medium is held by the sitters, or is in full
+view of the circle. Mr Harrison then continues: "We have patiently
+watched for years for a living, flexible face, in a good light, which
+face bore no resemblance to that of the medium, and was not produced on
+his or her own premises. Hitherto this search has been prosecuted
+without success. Mr A. R. Wallace and Mr Crookes have witnessed a great
+number of form manifestations, without once recording that off the
+premises of the medium they have seen a living, flexible, materialised
+spirit-form bearing no resemblance to the sensitive. Neither has Mr
+Varley made any such record."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The presumption must be one of fraud, especially when conditions are
+laid down which serve to prevent full investigation. I have before me
+the printed conditions of a North London Spiritualistic society:
+
+     "As a member of the society you must bear in mind that you will
+     be bound _in honour_ to accept all the rules laid down by our
+     Spirit controls, and by the leader of the meeting, as to the
+     conditions under which the meetings are held, such as the
+     darkened room, the holding of hands so as to form a strongly
+     magnetic ring in front of the medium, etc.--and it is
+     interesting to note that the great Mesmer, when he was
+     conducting his experiments in magnetism more than one hundred
+     years ago, had discovered the advantage of 'a circle' formed in
+     this way, for he writes: 'The power of magnetism is augmented
+     by establishing a direct communication between several persons.
+     This can be done in two ways: the more simple is to form a
+     chain, with a certain number of persons made to hold each
+     other's hands; it can also be done by means of the 'baquet' (a
+     mechanical contrivance invented by himself)."
+
+     "No one should ever attempt to touch a spirit unless invited to
+     do so by the spirits themselves, and the circle, once formed,
+     must never be broken by unloosing of hands. If this becomes
+     _really_ necessary at any time, permission should first be
+     asked, when the controlling spirit will give instructions as to
+     how it is to be carried out."
+
+I cannot forbear from quoting further the following passage addressed to
+members of the society:--
+
+     "You will greatly assist us in obtaining good results if you
+     will kindly use a little discretion in the matter of your food,
+     especially on the day of the meeting, when fish, vegetables,
+     fruit (especially bananas), and light food of that description
+     are most helpful, but meat, wine, beer, or spirits (wine and
+     spirits especially) should be carefully avoided; and we find
+     that it is better to make a good meal in the middle of the day,
+     a substantial tea at 5.30, and supper after the meeting, as by
+     following this plan the members of the circle are able to give
+     off more of the spiritual _aura_ which is used by the controls
+     in building up the forms which appear to us, each member of the
+     circle contributing his or her share unconsciously.
+
+     "The use of non-actinic light, such as that obtained from a
+     small dark lantern, is defended on the grounds that the actinic
+     rays coming from the violet end of the spectrum are so rapid in
+     their movements that they immediately break up any combination
+     of matter produced under such circumstances. Any form of light,
+     except the red, or perhaps the yellow, rays would have this
+     effect. That is one reason why the cabinet is employed,
+     because that would shut off any form of light from the medium
+     whilst the forms are building up; although on several
+     occasions, from time to time, when the form has thus been built
+     up fully, we have been able to use a red light strong enough to
+     illuminate the whole of the room."
+
+So long as spiritualists, as I have before remarked, maintain this
+attitude, so long must they meet with incredulity on the part of
+official science. In nearly all these private circles the precautions
+taken against trickery are absurdly lacking, and, as we have just seen,
+frequently purposely omitted. Thus we have to fall back in considering
+the genuine character of the phenomena on the good faith of the medium.
+When the medium is known to be a man of blameless life, and has long
+been before the public undetected in any deception, the presumption
+would certainly appear to be in favour of his bona-fides. But of what
+value is this presumption should the medium not be conscious of his
+actions when his impersonation of this or that character is wholly
+undertaken by his secondary or subliminal self? Here we begin to have
+glimmerings of the great truth which may conceivably underlie the
+parable of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and investigations into the marvels of
+multiple personalities lead us further towards the light.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the whole, the conclusion I have arrived at is that, where the
+element of fraud is eliminated, we might rationally seek for an
+explanation in hallucination. Take the famous case of Archdeacon Colley
+and Mr Monck. The Archdeacon actually declared that he saw the psychic
+or spirit form grow out of his left side:
+
+     "First, several faces, one after another, of great beauty
+     appeared, and in amazement we saw--and as I was standing close
+     up to the medium, even touching him--I saw most plainly,
+     several times, a perfect face and form of exquisite womanhood
+     partially issue from Dr Monck, about the region of the heart.
+     Then, after several attempts, the full-formed figure, in a
+     nebulous condition at first, but growing solider as it issued
+     from the medium, left Dr Monck and stood, a separate
+     individuality, two or three feet off, bound to him by a slender
+     attachment, as of gossamer, which, at my request, 'Samuel,' the
+     control, severed with the medium's left hand, and there stood
+     embodied a spirit form of unutterable loveliness, robed in
+     attire spirit-spun--a meshy webwork from no mortal loom, of a
+     fleeciness inimitable, and of transfiguration whiteness truly
+     glistening."
+
+Now, as Mr Podmore somewhat satirically points out:
+
+     "It is difficult to believe that the exquisite spirit form
+     which presented itself to Mr Colley's glowing imagination was
+     merely a confection of masks, stuffed gloves, and muslin,
+     actuated by a jointed rod, but we cannot help remembering, if
+     Mr Colley did not, that articles of this kind had, a
+     twelve-month previously, been found, under compromising
+     circumstances, in the possession of Dr Monck."
+
+The recognitions which take place at _seances_ are undoubtedly to a
+large extent sense deceptions. There is now a professional medium at
+whose _seances_ spirit faces are constantly being recognised. Of course
+the performance takes place in the dark. A faintly illuminated slate
+shows the profiles against the background, and one or other of the
+members generally recognises it. The mouth and chin of the female faces
+shown at these _seances_ are generally veiled, but this does not appear
+to affect the recognition.
+
+On the whole, the testimony for and against the reality of spirits at
+the better class of _seance_ is pretty evenly balanced. I hesitate to
+disturb it, although remarking, parenthetically, that the believers have
+the most, if not the best, of the literature on the subject.
+
+And for those who are deeply perplexed there is always the theory of
+hallucination to fall back upon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+
+If the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation
+of the spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular,
+oral, and tactile evidence of the dark _seance_, the theory of
+hallucination would account for much that is perplexing. But the problem
+becomes complicated when the spiritualists come forward with proof that
+their senses have not misled them. It is only a few months since that a
+young man in the north of England, on photographing his mother and
+sisters, was greatly startled to find his late father's face also on the
+plate. He had not made use of the camera, we are told, for eighteen
+months. Recently, too, a professional photographer in London was
+commissioned to photograph a grave which was surmounted by a beautiful
+basket of flowers. To his consternation, within the handle appeared the
+facial lineaments of the deceased.
+
+The earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from
+1862, when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a
+photograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been
+dead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr Mumler
+of Boston, who considered that many of the "spirit photographs"
+afterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our
+modern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire
+to cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters.
+
+Mumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says:
+
+     "I have been investigated by the best photographers in America,
+     and have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have
+     been tried in a court of justice, and been honourably
+     acquitted; and, lastly, I have the evidence of thousands of
+     people who have had pictures taken, and recognised the
+     likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never had a
+     picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in
+     the hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain
+     of evidence that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds,
+     and animals have frequently appeared upon the plates and one
+     lady was delighted to recognise by her side her faithful old
+     black retriever."
+
+Not till ten years later did a photographer named Hudson succeed, with
+the aid of a medium, in producing spirit pictures. The _modus operandi_
+appeared simple. The sitter was posed before the camera, and the picture
+was subsequently developed, when besides the sitter's own image there
+appeared another figure or figures usually draped, with the features
+blurred or only partly distinguishable. Usually these figures were
+recognised unhesitatingly by the sitters as portraits of deceased
+relatives or friends. Afterwards the practice of spirit photography
+received a rude shock. They were examined carefully by professional
+photographers, and some of them were found to bear clear marks of double
+exposure, the background in each case being visible through the dress of
+the sitter--a fatal defect in spirit photography. Moreover it was found
+that in some cases the medium had dressed up to play the role of spirit.
+Whereupon several of those who had professed to recognise the "ghosts"
+now hastened to repudiate their recognition. But spirit photography was
+not to be quashed so easily. The experiments went on, and faces and
+figures appeared on the developed plate which seem to have considerably
+baffled the experts. Sir William Crookes now resolved to put the matter
+to a test by attempting to obtain a photograph of "Katie," the famous
+"control" of Miss Cook, the medium. The young lady gave a series of
+sittings in May 1874 at Sir William's house for the purpose. These
+sittings took place by electric light, no fewer than five cameras being
+simultaneously at work. The medium lay down on the floor behind a
+curtain, her face muffled in a shawl. When the materialisation was
+complete "Katie" would appear in the full light in front of the
+curtain:
+
+     "I frequently," writes Sir William Crookes, "drew the curtain
+     on one side when Katie was standing near; and it was a common
+     thing for the seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see
+     Miss Cook and Katie at the same time, under the full blaze of
+     the electric light. We did not on these occasions actually see
+     the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we saw her
+     hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under the influence of
+     the intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally. I have
+     one photograph of the two together, but Katie is seated in
+     front of Miss Cook's head."
+
+I have not seen these photographs of "Katie," but Mr Podmore has, and
+when comparing them with contemporary portraits of Miss Cook herself he
+is inclined to consider the likeness between the two sets unmistakable.
+"The apparently greater breadth of 'spirit' face," he writes, "may well
+be due to the fact that, whereas Miss Cook wore hanging ringlets,
+'Katie's' hair is effectually concealed by the drapery, which in most
+cases comes down over the forehead, and falls in two thick folds on
+either side of the head, something like the headgear of a sphinx. Again,
+as Miss Cook, when photographed, wore her ordinary dress, which
+concealed her feet, the apparent difference in height on some occasions
+between herself and the spirit figure cannot be relied upon. One piece
+of evidence would, indeed, have been conclusive--that the ears of the
+spirit form should have appeared intact, for Miss Cook's ears were
+pierced for earrings. But the encircling drapery effectually concealed
+both the ears and the hair of the spirit 'Katie.'"
+
+The evidence for photographs of invisible people which we sometimes hear
+abduced as adequate is surprisingly feeble. For instance, in a recent
+anonymous and weak book, said to be written by a member of the Society
+for Psychical Research, two photographs are reproduced which are said to
+have been obtained under what are considered crucial conditions; but the
+narrative itself at once suggests a simple trick on the part of the
+photographer--viz. the provision of backgrounds for sitters with vague
+human forms all ready depicted on them in sulphate of quinine.
+
+Sir Oliver Lodge is of opinion that it is by no means physically
+impossible that some of these temporary semi-material accretions might
+be inadequate to appeal to our eyes, and yet be of a kind able to
+impress a photographic plate; but here he confesses that the evidence,
+to his mind, wholly breaks down, and he admits that he has never yet
+seen a satisfying instance of what is termed a spirit photograph; nor is
+it easy to imagine the kind of record apart from testimony which in such
+a case would be convincing, unless such photographs could be produced at
+will.
+
+A conviction of fraud having entered the minds of the sceptically
+inclined, the exposure of a certain Parisian photographer, Buguet, shook
+the faith of the credulous. Buguet enjoyed in London an extraordinary
+success. Many leading people sat to him and obtained "spirit
+photographs," by them clearly recognisable, of their deceased
+relations. No less than forty out of one hundred and twenty photographs
+examined by Stainton Moses were pronounced by the sitters to be genuine
+likenesses of spirits, and baffled the scrutiny of the sceptics.
+Nevertheless Buguet was arrested and charged by the French Government
+for fraudulent production of spirit photographs. At his trial Buguet
+disconcerted the whole spiritualistic world by confessing, he said that
+the whole of his spirit photographs were obtained by means of double
+exposure. To begin with, he employed three or four assistants to play
+the part of ghost. Nevertheless, in spite of his confession, in spite of
+the trick apparatus confiscated by the police, at Buguet's trial witness
+after witness, people high in the social and professional world, came
+forward to testify that they had not been deceived, that the spirit
+photographs were genuine. They refused to doubt the evidence of their
+own eyesight. One M. Dessenon, a picture dealer, had obtained a spirit
+portrait of his wife; he had been instantly struck with the likeness,
+and had shown it to the lady's relatives, who exclaimed at once on its
+exactness. The judge asked Buguet for an explanation. The prisoner
+replied that it was pure chance. "I had," he said, "no photograph of
+Madame Dessenon." "But," cried the witness, "my children, like myself,
+thought the likeness perfect. When I showed them the picture, they
+cried, 'It is mamma!' I have seen all M. Buguet's properties and
+pictures, and there is nothing in the least like the picture I have
+obtained. I am convinced it is my wife." As a result, many
+spiritualists, including Stainton Moses and William Howitt, refused to
+consider the case one of fraud. They regarded Buguet as a genuine medium
+who had been bound to confess to imaginary trickery. Yet after this
+spirit photography as a profession has not flourished in this country.
+There is one professional who is responsible for many ghost pictures.
+But in his productions appear unmistakable signs of double exposures.
+You see the pattern of the carpet and the curtain of the study visible
+through the sitter's body and clothes. In one instance at all events,
+where the ghost represents a well-known statesman, the head has
+obviously been cut from the photograph and the contour draped to hide
+the cut edges. But the phenomena of spirit photography are abundant
+enough in private circles.
+
+I have before me as I write a number of reputed spirit photographs
+obtained by private persons both with and without the aid of a
+professional medium. In one sent me by a gentleman resident at Finsbury
+Park, which is a very impressive specimen of its kind, the fact of a
+double exposure is obvious to the least experienced in dark-room
+matters. Notwithstanding, the photographer has apparently made a
+speciality of this kind of work.
+
+     "In my collection [he writes] of over two thousand specimens
+     are portraits of Atlantean priests, who flourished about 12,000
+     years ago, Biblical patriarchs, poets, Royalties, clerics,
+     scientists, literary men, etc., pioneer spiritualists, like
+     Emma H. Britten, Luther Marsh, Wallace, and John Lamont. The
+     latest additions are, I am happy to say, my kind old friend
+     Mrs Glendinning, and a worthy quartette of earnest workers in
+     Dr Younger, Mr Thomas Everitt, Mr C. Lacey, and David Duguid."
+
+One of the most curious instances of a ghost photograph occurred in the
+summer of 1892. Six months previously a lady had taken a photograph of
+the library at D---- Hall. She kept the plate a long time before
+developing it, and when developed it showed the faint but clearly
+recognisable figure of a man sitting in a large arm-chair. A print from
+the photograph was obtained and shown, when the image was immediately
+recognised as the likeness of the late Lord D----, the owner of
+D---- Hall. What was more, it was ascertained that Lord D---- had
+actually been buried on the day the photograph was taken. A copy of the
+photograph was sent to Professor Barrett, who examined it and reported
+(1) that the image is too faint and blurred for any likeness to be
+substantiated; (2) that the plate had been exposed in the camera for an
+hour and the room left unguarded; (3) that actual experiments show that
+an appearance such as that on the plate could have been produced if a
+man--there were four men in the house--had sat in the chair for a few
+seconds during the exposure, moving his head and limbs the while.
+
+Another ghost picture described by Mr Podmore was probably caused in a
+similar way. A chapel was photographed, and when the plate was developed
+a face was faintly seen in a panel of the woodwork, which the
+photographer recognised as a young acquaintance who had not long since
+met with a tragic death. "In fact," writes Mr Podmore, "when he told me
+the story and showed me the picture, I could easily see the faint but
+well-marked features of a handsome melancholy lad of eighteen. A
+colleague, however, to whom I showed the photograph without relating the
+story, at once identified the face as that of a woman of thirty. The
+outlines are in reality so indistinct as to leave ample room for the
+imagination to work on; and there is no reason to doubt that, as in the
+ghost of the library, the camera had merely preserved faint traces of
+some intruder who, during prolonged exposure, stood for a few seconds in
+front of it."
+
+In spite of all the damaging _exposes_ and these discouraging
+explanations many intelligent persons the world over will still go on
+believing in the genuineness of spirit photography. Let me give a few
+examples of their testimony. M. Reichel, to whom allusion has already
+been made, states that at one of Miller's _seances_ in America, held on
+29th October 1905, those present suddenly heard a great number of voices
+behind the curtain:
+
+     "Betsy told us that sometimes there are Egyptian women and
+     sometimes Indians who come in a crowd to produce their
+     phenomena. On October 29th and again on November 2nd I sent for
+     a San Francisco photographer, Mr Edward Wyllie, to see what
+     impression would be made on a photographic plate by the beings
+     who appeared. Some remarkable pictures were taken by
+     flashlight. Besides the fully materialised forms, there were
+     shown on the photographs several spirits who could not be seen
+     by the physical eyes.
+
+     "In one of the latter figures I instantly recognised an uncle
+     of mine, whom I had made acquainted with spiritualism about
+     twelve years previously, through the assistance of another
+     medium."
+
+A correspondent sends me an interesting account of investigating
+materialised spirits in daylight:
+
+     "Miss Fairlamb (afterwards Mrs Mellon) was the medium, and the
+     photographs of 'Geordie' and others taken in the garden in
+     broad daylight were quite successful. The conditions must have
+     been most harmonious, as 'Geordie' afterwards, when twilight
+     came on, walked about the lawn, and even ventured into the
+     house, returning to the tent, which served as a cabinet, with
+     an umbrella and hassock in his hands."
+
+Dr Theodore Hausmann, one of the oldest physicians in Washington,
+U.S.A., has devoted many years to this particular phase of mediumship.
+He places himself before his camera in the study and photographs his
+spirit visitors, who have included his father, son, and President
+Lincoln. The opening paragraph in an article he wrote is as follows:--
+
+     "Grieving parents, the bereaved widow and mother, will only be
+     too happy if they can see the pictures of those again who were
+     so dear to their hearts, and whose image gradually will vanish
+     if nothing is left to renew their memories."
+
+There have been many touching letters from relatives of grateful thanks,
+who imagine themselves in this way to have received portraits of their
+dear ones who have passed away.
+
+In a work which I have come across in which spiritualism is by no means
+supported Mr J. G. Raupert acknowledges:
+
+     "That as regards spirit photographs, he 'obtained many striking
+     pictures of this character, under good test conditions, and
+     attended by circumstances yielding unique and exceptionally
+     valuable evidence.... The evidence in favour of some of these
+     psychic pictures is as good as it is ever likely to be, and,
+     respecting some of these obtained by the present writer, expert
+     photographic authorities have expressed their verdict. Sir
+     William Crookes has obtained them in his own house under
+     personally imposed conditions, and many private experimenters
+     in different parts of the world have been equally successful."
+
+This from an avowed opponent is striking testimony to some kind of
+manifestation which is not, in intent, at least, fraudulent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CLAIRVOYANCE
+
+
+It was natural that out of all these mystic practices--those I have
+already indicated and the others I am about to indicate--a cult or
+religion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name
+of spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to
+call it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of
+course, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied
+spirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain
+physical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the role
+of the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of
+those manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation--_i.e._
+the actual incarnation of spiritual forms--physical manifestations such
+as table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc., trance utterances
+and spirit photography.
+
+From the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of
+clairvoyance.
+
+Clairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a
+technical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the
+terminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as "that
+psychic power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the
+spiritualism sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of
+vision, spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this
+power; in some it is developed, and in others it has but a casual
+quickening. Its extent is governed by the rate of vibration under which
+it operates; thus, one clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to
+another may be invisible because of the degree of difference in the
+intensity of the powers."
+
+Further, "subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person
+which enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the
+brain of that person, at will, pictures and images which are seen as
+visions by that person, without the aid of the physical eye. These
+pictures and images may be of things spiritual or material, past or
+present, remote or near, hidden or uncovered, or they may have their
+existence simply in the conception or imagination of the spirit
+communicating them."
+
+Putting aside, however, all "supernatural" explanation, let us consider
+how we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance.
+What we see is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or
+woman by no means above, and often below, the intellectual average
+utters, and the hand writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal
+ken of the minds of such a man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is,
+to put it bluntly, staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife
+or sister accidentally dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and
+whilst she was still continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom
+you were present at a clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance
+informed you of the circumstances, you would no doubt be astounded.
+Well, the manifestations of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No
+matter how our reason is baffled at first, it behoves us not only to
+seek a natural explanation of the fact but also to ascertain and
+authenticate the fact itself. But a man may not implicitly trust his
+senses.
+
+I soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious
+phenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even
+furnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver
+my opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it
+can explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped
+with unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the
+cloud of witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and
+experienced investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William
+Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic
+Myers, Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet,
+Professor William James, Professor Janet, Mr Frank Podmore and
+Professor Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent
+the white light of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a
+special study of the matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the
+case of trance lucidity and clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer
+or speaker is not at work. Yet there certainly would seem to be an
+operating intelligence, having a special character and a special
+knowledge.
+
+What, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain
+its special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the
+second question.
+
+1. By telepathy from living people.
+
+2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious,
+individual agency of deceased persons.
+
+These he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there
+is a wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives.
+We can here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.
+
+The mystery of mediumship has probably received more attention from M.
+Flournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from
+anyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English
+investigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close
+quarters subjects of a more normal type than the Salpetriere patients
+are unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of Helene
+Smith.
+
+     "Helene [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had
+     occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially
+     remarkable. She is, to all outward appearances at the present
+     time, healthy even to robustness. From the age of fifteen she
+     has been employed in a large commercial establishment in
+     Geneva, and holds a position of some responsibility. But it is
+     in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year she was
+     persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It
+     soon appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first
+     her mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and
+     assisting in tilting the table, whilst still retaining more or
+     less consciousness and subsequent memory of her experiences.
+     Shortly after M. Flournoy's admission to the circle, in the
+     winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's mediumship advanced a stage,
+     and she habitually passed at the _seance_ into a trance state,
+     retaining subsequently no memory of her visions and doings in
+     that state. Her development followed at first the normal
+     course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her
+     sitters, purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the
+     like. She offered numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from
+     time to time controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of
+     her earliest trances were under the guidance and inspiration of
+     Victor Hugo. Within a few months the spirit of the poet--too
+     late, indeed, for his own post-mortem reputation, for he had
+     already perpetrated some verses--was expelled with ignominy by
+     a more masterful demon who called himself Leopold. The newcomer
+     was at first somewhat reticent on his own past, and when
+     urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in moral platitudes.
+     Later, however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe Balsamo, Count
+     Cagliostro. It then appeared that in Helene herself was
+     reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that
+     others of the mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans,
+     etc....
+
+     "It is Helene's extra-planetary experiences, however, which
+     have excited most attention, and which furnished to the
+     attendants at her circle the most convincing proofs of her
+     dealings with the spiritual world. In November 1894, the spirit
+     of the entranced medium was wafted--not without threatenings of
+     sea-sickness--through the cosmic void, to arrive eventually on
+     the planet Mars. Thereafter night after night she described to
+     the listening circle the people of our neighbouring planet,
+     their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she drew pictures
+     of the inhabitants, human and animal--of their houses, bridges,
+     and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she
+     both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the
+     writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the
+     characters of the Martian script are unlike any in use on
+     earth, and that the words (of which a translation is furnished)
+     bear no resemblance, superficially at least, to any known
+     tongue. The spirits--for several dwellers upon Mars used
+     Helene's organism to speak and write through--delivered
+     themselves with freedom and fluency, and were consistent in
+     their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In fact,
+     Martian, as used by the entranced Helene, has many of the
+     characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising
+     that some of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the
+     authenticity of the other revelations, were apparently
+     convinced that these Martian utterances were beyond the common
+     order of nature."
+
+All his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his
+mind that Helene must somewhere have come across one of the works
+containing Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes
+were suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the
+language, it is just such a work of art as one might form by
+substituting for each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary
+collocation of letters, and for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol.
+The vowel and consonant signs are the same as in French; so are the
+inflections, the grammar, the construction. (Take, for example, the
+negative ke ani=ne pas, the employment of the same word zi to express
+both la "the" and la "there.") If it is childish as a work of art, it is
+miraculous enough as a feat of memory. But the reader has not forgotten
+what the subliminal self is capable of achieving as regards time
+appreciation mentioned in an early chapter. When, however, it comes to
+Helene's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M. Flournoy, in spite of his
+long investigation, can find no explanation of the supernormal to fit
+the case. Her mediumship since 1892 included manifestations of all
+kinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they soon ceased. Her
+clairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a remarkable
+character. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which she was
+apparently unacquainted, has been carefully investigated and
+authenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of
+spiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from
+trained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants
+as the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been
+subjected to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this
+type of evidence that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of
+spiritualism really rests. It is at once the most impressive, the most
+interesting, and the most voluminous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have
+seen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the
+University College School for eighteen years, a man who was never
+detected in the slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a
+host of intimate friends. Stainton Moses left a mass of published
+testimony to his pretended communications from the spirits of deceased
+persons. He attached great importance to the evidence for
+spiritualistic doctrines. Altogether the "controls" or communicators
+numbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses or other members of the
+circles had known in life; others--such as Swedenborg, Bishop
+Wilberforce, and President Garfield--were historical personages. Besides
+these there was a class of individuals of no particular importance, and
+apparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it is worthy of
+remark that the spirits by whom Moses was "controlled" never withheld
+any data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one
+_seance_ a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name
+"Rosmira." She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on
+10th January 1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that
+his surname was Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the
+whole particulars were to be found in the "Death" notices in _The Daily
+Telegraph_. "Mr Moses' spirits," comments Mr Podmore in his "History of
+Spiritualism," habitually furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such
+other particulars of their lives as could be gathered from the daily
+papers, from published biographies, or from the _Annual Register_ and
+other works of reference. All the spirits, indeed, gave their names,
+with one exception--an exception so significant that the case is worth
+recording. _The Pall Mall Gazette_ for 21st February 1874 contains the
+following item of intelligence:--
+
+     "A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under
+     a steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in
+     York-place, Marylebone, and was killed immediately."
+
+     "Mr Moses was present at a _seance_ that evening, and his hand
+     was controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy
+     suicide, to write an account of the incident, and to draw a
+     rough picture of a horse attached to a vehicle. The name of the
+     dead man, it will be seen, does not appear in the newspaper
+     account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who gave proofs of
+     their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this
+     particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous."
+
+But a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance
+utterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings,
+couched in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily "without any
+conscious intervention on the part of the mortal penman." In fact, so
+far was this so that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his
+mind, during their production.
+
+The claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully
+investigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an
+eminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic
+attainments.
+
+I will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:--
+
+     Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the
+     correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the
+     four following heads:--
+
+     (_a_) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his
+     consciousness.
+
+     (_b_) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in
+     his consciousness.
+
+     (_c_) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at
+     the moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the
+     statements of the medium.
+
+     (_d_) Things unknown to the sitter.
+
+With regard to things under head (_a_) Mrs Verrall says:
+
+     "Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own
+     observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response
+     from the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by
+     me has been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the
+     evidence of the other sitter, I should have been disposed to
+     believe that I had unconsciously uttered the thought aloud.
+
+     "Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was
+     in my house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain
+     friend of my daughter's, who is often at the house, would be
+     there, when 'Nelly' added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name
+     my daughter's friend, exactly as though I had uttered the
+     passing thought. Again, when 'Nelly' was describing a certain
+     bag given to me for my birthday, something she said made me for
+     a moment think of a small leather handbag left in my house by a
+     cousin and occasionally used by me, and she said: 'You had an
+     uncle that died; it was not long after that.' The father of the
+     cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I have
+     known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag
+     as a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly
+     described till my momentary thought apparently distracted her
+     attention to the other bag. I have had in all some five or six
+     instances of such apparently direct responses as the above to a
+     thought in the sitter's mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion
+     I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of
+     helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything
+     but what she calls 'muggling her.'"
+
+Another difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls
+not infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are
+liable to be misinterpreted. Mrs Verrall writes in her report of her
+sitting with Mrs Thompson:
+
+     "Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The
+     name was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman,
+     Merrythought, Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of
+     these who,' etc. Later, 'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's
+     not quite right; it's like the name of a garden'; and after in
+     vain trying to give her the name exactly, she said: 'I will
+     tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see
+     school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman
+     because that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on
+     spoke of my mother as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with
+     indifference" ("Proceedings," part xliv. p. 208).
+
+It is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit
+communications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with
+the use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on "Human
+Personality," should be studied in this connection. He points out that
+there is "no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the
+power to express all the thoughts and emotions of man." And if this is
+true of man in his present state, how much more does it apply to man in
+another and more advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he
+says: "There is a certain quality which reminds one of _translation_, or
+of the composition of a person writing in a language in which he is not
+accustomed to talk."
+
+As a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:
+
+     "That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally
+     obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the
+     hypothesis of fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part
+     fails to explain the phenomena seems to be equally certain;
+     that to more causes than one is to be attributed the success
+     which I have recorded seems to me likely. There is, I believe,
+     some evidence to indicate that telepathy between the sitter and
+     the trance personality is one of these contributory causes.
+     But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense
+     of the term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the
+     occurrences observed by me, is my present belief."
+
+Instances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few
+weeks ago the Rome correspondent of _The Tribune_ reported that a boy of
+twelve, at Capua, "was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart
+would break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said
+that he had just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the
+point of death, assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter
+came from America announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's
+vision, his mother tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be
+regarded as 'possessed,' but her efforts were vain, several persons
+having been present when he explained the cause of his grief."
+
+The explanation of telepathy would hardly seem to fit the case, since
+the father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days
+previous to the vision.
+
+I shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic
+illustration of the marvels of clairvoyance--that of Mrs Piper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES
+
+
+Almost alone amongst mediums of note, Mrs Piper of Boston has never
+resorted to physical phenomena, her powers being entirely confined to
+trance manifestations. No single medium, not even Helene Smith, has been
+subjected to such close and continuous observation by expert scientific
+observers. In 1885, this lady's case was first investigated by Professor
+William James, of Harvard (brother of the famous novelist). Two years
+later Dr Hodgson and other members of the Society for Psychical Research
+began their observation of her trance utterances. This course of
+observation has continued for twenty years, and nearly all Mrs Piper's
+utterances have been placed on record. The late Dr Hodgson was
+indefatigable in his labours to test the genuineness of the phenomena.
+He spared no pains, and died, I believe, convinced that all means of
+accounting for them had been exhausted.
+
+There is so much evidence concerning Mrs Piper, who, two years ago came
+to England at the invitation of the Society for Psychical Research, and
+was subjected to numerous tests, that I hesitate how best to typify its
+purport. Most striking is a letter to Professor James in the Society's
+"Proceedings" from a well-known professor, Shaler of Harvard, who
+attended a _seance_, with a very open mind indeed, on 25th May 1894, at
+Professor James's house in Cambridge (Boston).
+
+Professor Shaler was disposed to favour neither the medium nor even the
+telepathic theory. He writes:
+
+     "MY DEAR JAMES,--At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I
+     made the following notes:--
+
+     "As you remember, I came to the meeting with my wife; when Mrs
+     Piper entered the trance state Mrs Shaler took her hand. After
+     a few irrelevant words, my wife handed Mrs Piper an engraved
+     seal, which she knew, though I did not, had belonged to her
+     brother, a gentleman from Richmond, Virginia, who died about a
+     year ago. At once Mrs Piper began to make statements clearly
+     relating to the deceased, and in the course of the following
+     hour she showed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with his
+     affairs, those of his immediate family, and those of the family
+     in Hartford, Conn., with which the Richmond family had had
+     close social relations.
+
+     "The statements made by Mrs Piper, in my opinion, entirely
+     exclude the hypothesis that they were the results of
+     conjectures, directed by the answers made by my wife. I took no
+     part in the questioning, but observed very closely all that was
+     done.
+
+     "On the supposition that the medium had made very careful
+     preparation for her sittings in Cambridge, it would have been
+     possible for her to have gathered all the information which she
+     rendered by means of agents in the two cities, though I must
+     confess that it would have been rather difficult to have done
+     the work.
+
+     "The only distinctly suspicious features were that certain
+     familiar baptismal names were properly given, while those of an
+     unusual sort could not be extracted, and also that one or two
+     names were given correctly as regards the ceremony of baptism
+     or the directory, but utterly wrong from the point of view of
+     family usage. Thus the name of a sister-in-law of mine, a
+     sister of my wife's, was given as Jane, which is true by the
+     record, but in forty years' experience of an intimate sort I
+     never knew her to be called Jane--in fact, I did not at first
+     recognise who was meant.
+
+     "While I am disposed to hold to the hypothesis that the
+     performance is one that is founded on some kind of deceit, I
+     must confess that close observation of the medium made on me
+     the impression that she was honest. Seeing her under any other
+     conditions, I should not hesitate to trust my instinctive sense
+     as to the truthfulness of the woman.
+
+     "I venture also to note, though with some hesitancy, the fact
+     that the ghost of the ancient Frenchman who never existed, but
+     who purports to control Mrs Piper, though he speaks with a
+     first-rate stage French accent, does not, so far as I can find,
+     make the characteristic blunders in the order of his English
+     words which we find in actual life. Whatever the medium is, I
+     am convinced that this 'influence' is a preposterous scoundrel.
+
+     "I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of
+     knowledge that the medium seems to have concerning my wife's
+     brother's affairs. Certain of the facts, as, for instance,
+     those relating to the failure to find his will after his sudden
+     death, were very neatly and dramatically rendered. They had the
+     real-life quality. So, too, the name of a man who was to have
+     married my wife's brother's daughter, but who died a month
+     before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given,
+     both as regards surname and Christian name, though the
+     Christian name was not remembered by my wife or me.
+
+     "I cannot determine how probable it is that the medium, knowing
+     she was to have a sitting with you in Cambridge, or rather a
+     number of them, took pains to prepare for the tests by
+     carefully working up the family history of your friends. If she
+     had done this for thirty or so persons, I think she could,
+     though with some difficulty, have gained just the kind of
+     knowledge which she rendered. She would probably have forgotten
+     that my wife's brother's given name was Legh, and that of his
+     mother Gabriella, while she remembered that of Mary and
+     Charles, and also that of a son in Cambridge, who is called
+     Waller. So, too, the fact that all trouble on account of the
+     missing will was within a fortnight after the death of Mr Page
+     cleared away by the action of the children was unknown. The
+     deceased is represented as still troubled, though he purported
+     to see just what was going on in his family.
+
+     "I have given you a mixture of observations and criticisms; let
+     me say that I have no firm mind about the matter. I am
+     curiously and yet absolutely uninterested in it, for the reason
+     that I don't see how I can exclude the hypothesis of fraud,
+     and until that can be excluded no advance can be made.
+
+     "When I took the medium's hand, I had my usual experience with
+     them--a few preposterous compliments concerning the clearness
+     of my understanding, and nothing more."
+
+Among those who have made a careful study at first hand of Mrs Piper's
+clairvoyance besides Dr Hodgson and Professor James are Sir Oliver
+Lodge, the late Frederic Myers, Mrs Sidgwick, Walter Leaf, Professor
+Romaine Newbold, and Professor J. H. Hyslop, and all of these have
+recorded their conviction that the results are not explicable by fraud
+or misrepresentation.
+
+Another account which sheds light on what occurs at Mrs Piper's seances
+is furnished by Professor Estlin Carpenter, Oxford. It is dated 14th
+December 1894:
+
+     "DEAR PROFESSOR JAMES,--I had a sitting yesterday with Mrs
+     Piper at your house, and was greatly interested with the
+     results obtained, as they were entirely unexpected by me.
+     Various persons were named and described whom we could not
+     identify (my wife was present); but the names of my father and
+     mother were correctly given, with several details which were in
+     no way present to my mind at the time. The illness from which
+     my father was suffering at the time of his death was
+     identified, but not the accident which took him from us. A
+     penknife which I happened to have with me was rightly referred
+     to its place on the desk in his study, and after considerable
+     hesitation Mrs Piper wrote out the word _organ_ when I asked
+     concerning other objects in the room. She added spontaneously a
+     very remarkable item about which I was in no way thinking--viz.
+     that on Sunday afternoons or evenings (her phrase was
+     'twilight') we were accustomed to sing there together. She
+     stated correctly that my mother was older than my father, but
+     died after him; and she connected her death with my return from
+     Switzerland in a manner that wholly surprised me, the fact
+     being that her last illness began two or three days after my
+     arrival home from Lucerne. She gave the initials of my wife's
+     name rightly, and addressed words to her from her father,
+     whose first name, George, was correct. She also desired me, in
+     my father's name, not to be anxious about some family matters
+     (which have only recently come to my knowledge), though their
+     nature was not specified. Finally, though I should have
+     mentioned this first, as it was at the outset of the interview,
+     she told me that I was about to start on a voyage, and
+     described the vessel in general terms, though she could not
+     give its name or tell me the place where it was going. I saw
+     enough to convince me that Mrs Piper possesses some very
+     extraordinary powers, but I have no theory at all as to their
+     nature or mode of exercise."
+
+Another who visited Mrs Piper was the famous French author, M. Paul
+Bourget, who was astonished at what he heard. He happened to have on his
+watch-chain a small seal which had been given him by a painter, long
+since dead, under the saddest circumstances, of whom it was impossible
+the medium could ever have heard; yet no sooner had she touched the
+object than she related to him the circumstance. One could quote case
+after case in the Society's reports, but in all the time Mrs Piper has
+been under such rigid scrutiny not one suspicious instance or one
+pointing to normal acquisition of facts has been discovered.
+
+Some have boldly hazarded the conjecture that Mrs Piper worked up the
+_dossiers_ of her sitters beforehand; inasmuch as she could easily
+obtain her facts in many ways; by reading private letters, for instance,
+or information derived from other mediums, or by employing private
+inquiry agents. These things are said to be habitually done by
+professional clairvoyants, by either going themselves or sending an
+agent in the capacity of, say, a book canvasser, to some town or
+district, and get all the information they can, to return some months
+later and give clairvoyant sittings. There is a belief, and it is
+possibly correct, that there is an organisation which gives and
+exchanges information thus obtained by the members of the Society.
+Perhaps this may account for the extraordinary good fortune of some
+spiritualists in obtaining "tests." Some sitters who went to Mrs Piper
+had visited other mediums previously. But one may be sure that all
+precautions were taken to ensure against her knowing the names of the
+sitters, so that she could not use any information, even if she had
+obtained any, in this way. Those best qualified to judge are convinced
+that her knowledge was not gained in this way, partly because of the
+precautions used and partly by reason of the information itself.
+
+As has been said, Mrs Piper was under the close scrutiny of Dr Hodgson
+for many years, and nothing of the kind has ever come to light. Also Dr
+Hodgson arranged beforehand her sittings for more than ten years, never
+telling her the names of the sitters, who in almost every instance were
+unknown to her by sight, and were without distinction introduced under
+the name of "Smith." She made so many correct statements at many
+individual sittings, and the proportion of successful sittings is so
+high, that it is very difficult to attribute fraud to her. About dates
+she appears to be very vague. She prefers to give Christian names to
+surnames, and of the former those in common use rather than those out of
+the way. As her descriptions of houses or places are generally failures,
+she seldom attempts them. Mrs Piper seems to be weakest, indeed, just
+where the so-called medium is most successful. Her strongest points are
+describing diseases, the character of the sitter, his idiosyncrasies,
+and the character of his friends, their sympathies, loves, hates, and
+relationships in general, unimportant incidents in their past histories,
+and so on. To retain such information in the memory is very difficult,
+and to obtain it by general means well-nigh impossible.
+
+Many of the personalities or "controls" of Mrs Piper speak, write, and
+act in a way extraordinarily in consonance with those characters as they
+were on earth. In other words, her "controls" have well-differentiated
+identities. Each has a different manner, a different voice, different
+acts, different ways of looking at things; in fact, has a different
+character. For example, there is the spirit of G. P., a young journalist
+and author who died suddenly in February 1892. A few weeks later his
+spirit possessed Mrs Piper's organism, and although he was unknown to
+Mrs Piper in life, yet for years since then he has carried on numerous
+prolonged conversations with his friends, including Dr Hodgson, and
+supplied numerous proofs of his knowledge of the concerns of the
+deceased G. P. G. P.'s personal effects, MSS., etc., are referred to, as
+well as private conversations of the past, and, moreover, he suddenly
+recognises amongst those attending Mrs Piper's _seances_ those whom he
+knew during life. Dr Hodgson was unable to find any instance when such
+recognition has been incorrectly given. But G. P. is only one of several
+trance personations speaking through Mrs Piper's organism and recognised
+by friends.
+
+After a contemplation of Mrs Piper's trance utterances alone we are
+inevitably faced by a choice of three conclusions: either (1) fraud (and
+fraud I hold here to be absolutely inadmissible); or (2) the possession
+of some supernormal power of apprehension; or (3) communication with
+the spirits of deceased persons.
+
+Dr Hodgson was driven by sheer force of logic to accept the third of
+these hypotheses. Others who have studied the phenomena have followed.
+Dr J. H. Hyslop has published a record of the sittings held with Mrs
+Piper in 1898 and 1899. His report contains the verbatim record of
+seventeen sittings, and no pains have been spared to make the record
+complete. It has exhaustive commentaries and accounts of experiments
+intended to elucidate the supposed difficulties of trance communication.
+Professor Hyslop finally arrives at the conclusion, after an extensive
+investigation, during which no item of the evidence has failed to be
+weighed and no possible source of error would seem to have escaped
+consideration, that spirit communication is the only explanation which
+fits all the facts, and he altogether rejects telepathy as being
+inadequate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hope that those who have so far followed me in this brief inquiry into
+the mysteries of occult phenomena will recognise the impartiality with
+which I have endeavoured to conduct it. I said in the beginning that I
+set out with a light heart as well as an open mind. I had no idea of the
+extent of the territory, I knew little of its voluminous literature, of
+the extraordinary ramifications of occultism, of the labours of the many
+learned men who have spent their whole lives in seeking to separate fact
+from superstition. My mind was light because, frankly, I believed--with
+a sort of inherent, temperamental belief--that, however much the
+testimony concerning coincident dreams, hallucinations, mediumistic
+manifestations, materialisation, and clairvoyance might mystify, it was
+all capable of normal explanation--there was nothing supernatural about
+it. And so throughout the inquiry I sought to show how, chiefly,
+telepathy was a working hypothesis in most of the manifestations, while
+for the physical ones, such as table rapping, levitations, and the rest,
+an unknown extension of human muscular power might possibly exist to
+solve the mystery. So far I strode forward with some confidence. But
+now the time has come when my confidence deserts me. Telepathy breaks
+down. It is a key which by no amount of wriggling will turn the lock.
+"It is not," as one leading inquirer has said, "that telepathy is
+insufficient: it is superfluous." If the existence of disembodied
+spirits is proved, then all the other phenomena are also proved.
+
+If the case of Mrs Piper--under rigid surveillance for years--has
+convinced some of the profoundest intellects of the day--men who began
+by being sceptical--that disembodied spirits are responsible for her
+utterances, it would certainly tend to convince me. But I carefully
+guarded myself from conviction until I had read the evidence--even to a
+_resume_ of this medium's utterances last year in London under the
+auspices of the Society for Psychical Research--and I assert with
+confidence that no metaphysical theory has ever been formulated that
+will account for these manifestations save one--the survival of the
+human personality after death. Once Mrs Piper is admitted as genuine,
+then it follows that the spiritistic manifestations which have puzzled
+mankind, not merely for generations or during the modern cult of
+spiritism, but ever since primitive times, become, as it were,
+emancipated.
+
+"It does seem to me," said Mr Balfour, in his famous Society for
+Psychical Research address, "that there is at least strong ground for
+supposing that outside the world, as we have, from the point of science,
+been in the habit of conceiving it, there does lie a region, not open
+indeed to experimental observation in the same way as the more familiar
+regions of the material world are open to it, but still with regard to
+which some experimental information may be laboriously gleaned; and even
+if we cannot entertain any confident hope of discovering what laws these
+half-seen phenomena obey, at all events it will be some gain to have
+shown, not as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but as a matter of
+ascertained fact, that there are things in heaven and earth not hitherto
+dreamed of in our scientific philosophy."
+
+
+
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+
+_And so our little tour into the occult is ended and we return into the
+glare of common things--things which we know and can touch and find a
+practical use for. If only a little of this light we hold so cheap were
+to illumine the tenebrous fastnesses we have just left, then, perhaps
+we, in our dull worldly way, might be able to assimilate the mystic to
+the common, the unseen to the seen, the unknown to the known. But we are
+not vouchsafed this white light; yet, even in the shadows to which our
+eyes have grown accustomed, we have heard enough to make us wonder and
+maybe make us doubtful when some voice, even such a voice as Matthew
+Arnold's, cries out to us: "Miracles are touched by Ithuriel's
+spear"--"Miracles do not happen."_
+
+_True, miracles do not happen: but there are events of frequent
+occurrence in this age, as in all ages of which we have a record, which
+are miraculous in the sense of their being supernormal--for which
+science offers no consistent explanation. Is not hypnotism a miracle? Is
+not telepathy a miracle? Is not the divining rod a miracle? Would Sir
+William Ramsay or Sir James Crichton-Browne throw these manifestations
+into the limbo of humbug and charlatanism? And supposing they, and such
+as they, continue incredulous--is not incredulity a fixed quantity in
+any society? Were men ever unanimous in their impressions--in their
+prepossessions, in the chromatic quality with which they steep every
+surrounding fact before they allow their critical faculties to be
+focussed upon it?_
+
+_It may be objected by the reader that I who have led him on this little
+tour into the wilderness of the occult have myself seen no ghosts. Where
+are my own experiences? Where the relation of my own personal contact
+with hypnotists, telepathists, mediums, mysteries? Would not that have
+been of interest? It may be so: if the phenomena appertaining to those
+in their best and most convincing quality were always to appear on a
+casual summons and if I were confided in by the public at large as a
+sane, unprejudiced witness._
+
+_Granted that I have seen no ghosts, I have at least done this: I have
+met the men--better men--who have. That at the beginning was the real
+purpose of my brief itinerary. I designed less a tour into the occult
+itself than an examination of witnesses for the occult whom I met on
+the literary bypaths of occultism. This I hope I have done, not
+satisfactorily--very hurriedly--yet honestly, and wanting like a
+returned traveller to tell folks more ignorant than myself of what I had
+heard of wonders which each man must, in the last resort, see for
+himself and meditate upon for himself._
+
+_The blind leading the blind--yea--but--he who hath ears let him hear!_
+
+_One word more. I should like to see a census of all the minds which
+embrace a belief in the truth of supernormal phenomena. It would
+astonish the sceptic. It would reveal to him that the attitude of
+society at large towards spiritualism and the other world is not the
+attitude of any but a fraction of the component parts of society--not
+even the evenly balanced attitude of Huxley towards God Almighty. We
+should see something quite different; something even distinct and apart
+from religion. We should see men, often without any religion at all
+properly speaking, breaking out into the ejaculation of Hamlet to
+Horatio and refusing to believe that certain occurrences in their
+experience are to be explained away by chance or delusion. And even in
+religious men the conviction seems to me secular rather than arising
+from orthodox faith._
+
+_"Far be it from me," wrote Emerson, "the impatience which cannot brook
+the supernatural, the vast: far be it from me the lust of explaining
+away all which appeals to the imagination and the great presentiments
+which haunt us. Willingly I, too, say Hail! to the unknown artful powers
+which transcend the ken of the understanding." Amen!_
+
+_Only yesterday I picked up a book, a sort of literary autobiography, by
+the author of "Sherlock Holmes," to find the following passage:--_
+
+_"I do not think the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It
+is one of several incidents in my life which have convinced me of
+spiritual interposition--of the promptings of some beneficent force
+outside ourselves which tries to help us where it can."_
+
+
+
+
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+       *       *       *       *       *
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+trickery resorted to by fraudulent "mediums" in producing alleged
+spiritistic phenomena--slate-writing, sealed letters, materialisation
+etc.,--and explains clearly, by description and illustrative pictures,
+exactly how the tricks are effected. In the second part of the volume is
+given an account of the most important phenomena which are vouched for
+by eminent scientists, which, after the most careful analysis, cannot be
+explained by any of the means known to legerdemain. Among those are
+recorded the famous experiments of Sir William Crookes, Professor
+Richet, Doctor Lombroso, etc.
+
+As will appear from the description of the book's contents Mr
+Carrington's position is that, while a very great portion of alleged
+psychic phenomena is spurious or fraudulent, there yet remains a
+substantial residuum of cases apparently genuine which can only as yet
+be classed as supernormal.
+
+
+    PROOFS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH. By R. J. THOMPSON. A Collation
+    of Opinions as to a Future Life by the Most Eminent Scientific Men
+    and Thinkers of the Day. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
+
+A Collation of Opinions as to a Future Life by such Eminent Scientific
+Men and Thinkers as Prof. N. S. Shaler, Prof. C. Richet, Camille
+Flammarion, Prof. Brunot, Sir William Crookes, Prof. Th. Flournoy, Prof.
+Elmer Gates, Prof. William James, Dr Paul Joire, Dr Lombroso, Prof. S.
+Newcomb, Prof. Hyslop, Dr M. J. Savage, Sir Oliver Lodge, Prof. Alfred
+Russel Wallace, Cardinal Gibbons, Andrew Lang, and many others. The book
+contains many arguments from a scientific standpoint that will interest
+all who wish evidence other than theological.
+
+
+    DO THE DEAD DEPART? and Other Questions. By E. KATHARINE BATES,
+    author of "SEEN AND UNSEEN." Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
+
+This somewhat original way of putting a well-worn query, prepares the
+reader for another book from the pen of Miss E. Katharine Bates.
+
+In the present volume psychic matters are treated from a more
+philosophical standpoint than in "Seen and Unseen," which made
+no claim to be other than a truthful record of personal
+experiences. CONTENTS--SOME OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT RETURN--SOME
+INSTANCES OF SPIRIT RETURN--A MOTHER'S GUARDIANSHIP IN AMERICA--A
+CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF SPIRIT METHODS--BIBLICAL
+INCIDENTS--CLAIRVOYANCE--CLAIRAUDIENCE--RE-INCARNATION--AUTOMATIC
+WRITING--MATERIALISATION--HOW THE DEAD DEPART--GUARDIAN
+CHILDREN--APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson
+
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