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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.) + + + + + + +</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—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><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—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—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.</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—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—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:—</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—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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> 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.</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'—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.'"</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—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.</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:—</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—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<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—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<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—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—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 <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—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—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."</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—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."</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—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.<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—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<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—— 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—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<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—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—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:—</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—perhaps two—"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—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—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:—</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—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—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—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:—</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:—</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—— 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—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—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:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Hodgson</span>,—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—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—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—for all their <i>bizarrerie</i>—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——, 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——,' 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——, +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—— 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——. 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—— 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>—</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——, 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—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.<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:—</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—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:—'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—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."</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:—"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——, 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—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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> a +little bed was put up in Mr E——'s room.</p> + +<p>"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."</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.:—</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—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:—</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——, 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——n.</span>'</p> + +<p>"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<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—<i>e.g.</i> +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."<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—generally described as a +"chill" or "cold shudder." The following example is taken from the +Census of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:—</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:—</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——:</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—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—— 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——"</p></blockquote> + +<p>The percipient had been identified, and confirms, as will be seen, this +early narrative, which is as follows:—</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—— 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.</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;—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.<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—the soldier's—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—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:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> 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."</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—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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> 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.</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—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,<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:—</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:—<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:—</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>—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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<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.—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.—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>—</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>,—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 <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>,—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>—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>,—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—viz. the +right hand—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—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"—"Even if it be true—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—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:—</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—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:—"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:—</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 & 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<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:—</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—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:—</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:—</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:—</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>—</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—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 & 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 & 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—</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—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—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.</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—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<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—such as materialisation, spirit +photography, and slate-writing—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—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—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 +<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:—</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—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"—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—such as sandalwood, jasmine, +heliotrope, not always recognised—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>—</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—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—that is +to say, what supports it—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?—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"—<i>i.e.</i> the production of objects by some supernormal agency; +(4) visual phenomena—<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—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—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"—<i>i.e.</i> +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<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—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—</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—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<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—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.<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—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<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—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."</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>—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:—</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—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—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—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<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—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.—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:—</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—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.<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—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—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—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—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—— 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<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—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.</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:—</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—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>i.e.</i> +the actual incarnation of spiritual forms—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—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,<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—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<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—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."</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—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 +<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—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:—</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:—</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:—</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—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>,—At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I +made the following notes:—</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—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—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>,—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—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—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<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—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 +<i>résumé</i> 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<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—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."</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—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—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?</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—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<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—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.</i></p> + +<p><i>The blind leading the blind—yea—but—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—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:—</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—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. 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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—<span class="smcap">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</span></p></blockquote> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Occultism and Common-Sense, by Beckles Willson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE *** + +***** This file should be named 36730-h.htm or 36730-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/3/36730/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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