Has Swedenborg's "lost word" been found?"

IC-NRLF

SB 57 IfiH

HAS

SWEDENBORG'S
"LOST WORD"
BEEN FOUND?
EDMUNDS,

GIFT OF

VOL. VII.— No. 5.

JOURNAL

May, 1913.

OF THE

American Society for Psychical Research

CONTENTS

GENERAL ARTICLES: PAGE

Has Swedenborjf's "Lost Word" Been

Found ? - - 257

" Journeys to the Planet Mars " - - 272
Personal Experiences - 284

EDITORIAL :

Professor Muensterberg's Progress - 296

BOOK RB VIEWS -

303

HAS SWEDENBORG'S " LOST WORD " BEEN

FOUND?

By Albert J. Edmunds.

\i

When an astronomer makes an observation, his first step
is to calculate for refraction. He knows that the star he is
studying- does not send its rays directly into our atmosphere,
but obliquely: those rays are bent in their course by that
atmosphere, and this distortion must be allowed for before
any successful calculation can be made.

Must we not allow for a like refraction in spiritual things?
Is not Swedenborg's Doctrine of Adaptation an attempt to
account for this very phenomenon? Such being the case, it
will not be strange if the seer's own visions require a calcu-
lation for distortion. Of course, in this case, we shall be
" wise after the event." But only by being1 thus wise a great
many times can we make any progress at all in the most dif-
ficult and recondite of all the sciences.

When a ship is arriving in a fog, the first thing that we
know is merely that some large object is coming: only by de-
grees do we descry the outlines of a ship. So, in our psychical
Jabberwock, we can be sure that " somebody killed some-
thing " long before we know who and what. But science is
patient, and refuses to throw up the sponge — refuses to say:
" This uncertain nonsense is not worth while ! " I have ob-

264195

258 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

served myself that mental images go in pairs, and that the
wrong one is liable to be projected into the mind.

In my first copy of this article, intended for a Sweden-
borgian magazine, I refrained from giving a sample of the
experiences which led me to formulate this law, tho I dis-
tinctly said that it was based upon experience. A Sweden-
borgian minister, who read the manuscript, thereupon re-
marked :

" ' Pairs of images ' seems to me a pure fiction imported
for a special purpose."

This convinced me of the hopelessness of presenting sci-
entific criticism to the average theologian. I now give one
experience out of many which have led me to formulate a law
of pairs. In 1893 I dreamed that John Wana maker had
died. Shortly afterwards Anthony J. Drexel died. Now, of
the two, both of whom meant nothing to me but local
magnates, Wanamaker was the one whom I had seen, but
Drexel never. I therefore concluded that the basis of my
dream was the death of Drexel, whose image, being strange
to me, was supplanted by that of Wanamaker, already in my
mind. Many more experiences of this nature have led me
to formulate a law of pairs or groups in mental images,
whereby the one most familiar is projected into the mind in
place of an unknown one. Far from my tentative law being
" pure fiction, imported for a special purpose," it was the
result of experience, used to explain phenomena.

In my article in The Helper * for March 16, 1898, I sum-
marized the conclusions of Richard Hodgson with respect to
alleged post-mortem communications, and pointed out the
difficulties of obtaining correct answers from spirits.

Richard Hodgson died in 1905, regretted by all who knew
him. That vigorous, transparent, athletic personality was a
champion of whom any cause might be proud. Since his
death, his apostolic successor, Dr. James H. Hyslop, has been
experimenting with a series of trance-communications pur-
porting to come from Hodgson's continued personality. In

* Imperfectly and incorrectly reprinted in The New-Church Messenger
in recent years.

Has Swedcnborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 259

a Report of nearly a thousand pages, dated May, 1912,*
Dr. Hyslop gives the following as his predecessor's present
opinion :—

" Hodgson Personality ". Sometimes in the early work at
the Piper light I could not understand the movements and
changes and apparent desire for changes without power to
express what the changes ought to be, and I learned much as
one would learn the desires of a child before it can talk.

James H. Hyslop. Good.

R. H. Now for a long time I have wished to say that
many of the lessons I have learned there have been of great
use to me in communicating. I knew too much to be a good
communicator at first. That is literally true.

/. H. H. Good.

R. H. I knew the complications and conditions, and I
could not forget them when I made my first efforts ; and the
consciousness of them, together with the consciousness of
the desires of my friends, hampered and hindered me. You
know how that might occur.

/. H. H. Yes, perfectly.

R. H. Now much of that condition is worn away, and I
am doing better everywhere. William [James] was never as
intimately associated with all the forms and methods of ex-
pression as I, and he had not so many ideas and understand-
ings to overcome. His one desire is to be slow and sure and
let nothing come that is not of his own. No fugitive ideas
to float in unawares into the communications. This is not
a new phase of thought to you and me. The fugitive ex-
pressions you understand.

/. H. H. Yes, perfectly.

R. H. But we are seeking to eliminate all that, as far as
we can, at least; but it is almost impossible to completely
inhibit one's self and thought and let nothing but the pure
present expression come. Try it yourself in the ordinary
conversations of life, and see how the fugitive drops in and is
constantly bringing misunderstandings of the idea you are

* Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. VI,
New York, May, 1912, pp. 976, octavo, price $8.00.

260 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

trying to express to your most intimate friend. It is all the
same, Hyslop. It is expression of personality in either
sphere, but personality so distorted and tempered by other
personalities that no one is definitely apart and alone. Verily
no man liveth to himself. How true that is. We are a few
degrees more sensitive than you in the world of physical ex-
pression, that is all.

*I sometimes think that the spirits who have nothing
to lose or fear by the way of reputation or understanding-
give the clearest messages in an offhand manner about the
physical life they have lived and the people who still live in
physical surroundings.

This is just a word I have long wished to give you, and
so I rushed to the front with my message before the wires
were crossed.

/. H. H. Good.

R. H. You do not need to have me write R. H., but I
do so that there may be no question in the records.

/. H. H. Good.

R. H. Your word might not be sufficient."
In transcribing this from the scientific account, Dr. Hyslop
has omitted the questions and iterations with which these
painfully recorded experiments abound, while I have taken
the liberty to punctuate and introduce initials. The full
name of William James is also added by me.

From this important utterance and others like it Dr. Hys-
lop deduces the layv that the communicator can neither inhibit his
own marginal associations and their transmission, nor the intrusions
of other minds and their thoughts, when they are near, aiding.
In other words, the communicator projects not only the cen-
tral mental image which he wishes to transmit, but the fugi-
tive or marginal images that accompany it; while he is also
hampered by thoughts in the minds of other spirits around
both parties. The formulation of this law is the leading fea-
ture of Hyslop's masterly Report.

The followers of Swedenborg claim an exemption from
the law of Refraction for him, on the ground that he was in

* I have made a fresh paragraph here for the sake of clearness. — A. J. E.

Has Sivedeuborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 261

both worlds at once, and so received truth direct. But the
same claim is made for Buddha, and science, while not deny-
ing this claim a priori, seeks to investigate each case for itself.

We shall now apply this law to the alleged communica-
tions made to Emanuel Swedenborg by spirits from Central
Asia concerning a lost sacred literature which they affirmed
to exist in " Great Tartary " : i. e., in the language of eigh-
teenth-century geography, the Chinese Empire outside
China proper, but including Chinese Turkestan, as may be seen
from contemporary maps.* The first passage concerning
these things is found in The Apocalypse Revealed (Amsterdam,
1766), paragraph No. 11. For non-Swedenborgians I ex-
plain that, according to our Seer, the Old Testament was
preceded by an older revelation which he calls the Ancient
Word. Our first text now follows : —

" Concerning this Ancient Word, which was extant in
Asia before the Israelitish Word, it is worth while to men-
tion that it is still preserved among the people who inhabit
Great Tartary; I have conversed with spirits and angels in
the spiritual world who came from thence, who said that they
possess a Word, and have possessed it from ancient times;
and in conformity to this Word their Divine worship is es-
tablished; and that it consists of mere correspondences: they
said that it contains the book of Jasher, which is mentioned
in Joshua X. 12, 13, and 2 Sam.uel I, 17, 18; and also that
they possess the books mentioned by Moses, as The Wars of
Jehovah and The Propheticals (Numbers XXI, 14, 15; 27-30;)
and when I read to them the words quoted thence by Moses,
they examined whether they were extant there, and found
them : from which circumstance it is very clear to me that
the old Word is still preserved among them. In the course
of the conversation, they said that they worshipped Jehovah,
some as an invisible, and some as a visible God. Moreover
they related that they do not suffer foreigners to come among
them, except the Chinese, with whom they cultivate peace,
because the Emperor of China is from their country; and

* See, for example, Gordon's Geography, published during Swedenborg's
lifetime.

262 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

further, that they are so populous, that they do not believe
any country in the world to be more so; which is very cred-
ible from the wall so many miles long, which the Chinese
formerly built as a defence against any invasion from them.
[The corresponding passage in the T. C. R. given below, here
adds matter about the Creation, Deluge, etc.] Seek for it in
China, and per adventure you may find it there among the Tartars."

Now, applying our principle of Refraction, we may say
that, should we find in this region any sacred literature of
epoch-making import for the understanding of religion, our
Seer's vision would be abundantly justified. Note in the first
place that no Old Testament literature or its affinities is
forthcoming from this region, but has been found extensively
in Babylonia. The Chaldean Creation and Deluge legends
of that land, absolutely unexplored in Swedenborg's time,
would have been a partial fulfilment of his vision, but literal
as to place, had they been discovered in Turkestan. So here
we find a vision fulfilled in the wrong place. But I shall
presently show that, in Chinese Turkestan, so near the fron-
tier of China and so far within the province of Kansu as to
answer the description of " China among the Tartars ", there
has lately been found Buddhist literature of epoch-making
importance for the history of religion, by making more prob-
able than ever before an historical connection between the
two great world-religions of to-day, and thus furnishing the
objective basis for the coming world-cult or final federation
of all beliefs.

My thesis therefore is that Swedenborg had two visions
which he mistook for one : viz.,

1. A vision of a lost sacred literature which was the
lineal ancestor of the Old Testament, and which was destined
to be found in Babylonia; and*

2. A vision of a far more epoch-making discovery of a
lost sacred literature in Chinese Turkestan which was to
connect Christianity and Buddhism and lay the foundation
for the coming world-religion.

* It has been pointed out to me by Swedenborgians that Swedenborg was
aware of the Ancient Word in Babylonia (D. S. S. 102). But the subject of
this paper is the discoveries on the frontier of China.

Has Swedenborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 263

But, owing to the fact that Sivedenborg read more Hebrew
than Greek, and wrote more about the Old Testament than about
the Nciv, his prepossession transformed the New Testament vision
into one of Old Testament significance. It may be objected that
the two Apocalyptic works of Swedenborg are almost equal
in amount to the Arcana Coelestia, especially when consid-
ering that the Apocalypse is shorter than Genesis or Exodus,
the subjects of the Arcana; but, in the light of modern criti-
cism, the Apocalyse is more of an Old Testament book than
any other in the New, as may be seen at a glance from the
uncial quotations in Westcott and Hort. I repeat that Swe-
denborg was more at home in the Old Testament than in the
New, which latter he read in Latin more than in Greek as my
friend Wilfred Schoff has pointed out to me. This scholar
considers that Swedenborg's treatise on the Athanasian
Creed is sufficient proof of his weakness in Greek, tho
Schoff would not deny a knowledge of it as an academic ac-
complishment.

We now come to the new facts upon which this article is
based: viz., the discovery of Tokharish and Sogdian versions
of the Buddhist Scriptures in Chinese Turkestan. The sig-
nificance of this is that Sogdian was a vernacular of the
Parthian Empire, the buffer state between Palestine and
India, and therefore the Parthians who were present at the
founding of the Christian religion (Acts II, 9) could read
those scriptures in their own speech without knowing San-
skrit or Pali. Tokharish was spoken in Bactria and prob-
ably in the adjoining parts of Parthia too. Both tongues were
discovered some years ago and called " unknown languages,"
Tokharish being called Language No. 1, and Sogdian, No. 2.
But lately we have found bilingual texts, and therefore are
able to translate what were mysteries ten years ago.

In 1906 I pointed out, in an essay which has been criti-
cised by eminent scholars in Germany, Great Britian, France
and Holland, two quotations in the Gospel of John made
direct from Buddhist books (John VII, 38; XII. 34).*

* Buddhist Texts Quoted as Scripture by the Gospel of John : a discovery
in the Lower Criticism. Philadelphia, 1906. (London: Luzac & Co.)

£64 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

The great objection to my thesis was that John could
not read Sanskrit or Pali, and that the Pitakas had not been
translated into any language outside of India (except the
first beginnings of the Chinese versions, which date from
the age of Paul and Nero). But in 1907, Aurel Stein, of the
Anglo-Indian Turkestan expedition, discovered at Tun-huang
a Buddhist library which had been closed up during a period
of warfare about 1035, and kept dry by the rock-chamber
and the sandy soil where it had the fortune to be found.
In this library there was a Sogdian Jataka, i. e., a Buddhist Birth-
story in a language probably understood by some of the Parthians
who were present at Pentecost. The religious significance of
this we shall discuss presently. There was also a Chinese
printed book dated A. D. 864, as well as other matter equally
astonishing. (See M. Aurel Stein: Ruins of Desert Cathay.
London, 1912.)

Nothing in the history of modern research is more roman-
tic than this. Mr. Stein could not read Chinese, to say noth-
ing of Sogdian; but in 1908 the young French Sinologist Paul
Pelliot spent three weeks crouching in the niche (for the
rock-chamber was crammed with books and would barely
admit a man) " drunk with the enthusiasm of youth and dis-
covery," to paraphrase the racy French of Professor Sylvain
Levi, of the celebrated Sorbonne, and easily the leading Bud-
dhist scholar of the world. The documents thus found, as well
as others found by the Germans, are now in Paris, London,
Berlin and Pekin; and accounts thereof, as well as transla-
tions, are appearing in such learned organs as the Journal
Asiatique, to which we are indebted for the Sogdian Jataka
(January, 1912). This means that the legend of the prince
who gave all he had away, was being translated into a ver-
nacular of the Parthian Empire by enthusiastic Buddhist mis-
sionaries at the time of the Christian era. Tokharish texts,
both Discipline and ordinary Scripture, or Sutra, have also
been found.

In my Buddhist and Christian Gospels, Fourth Edition, Vol. I,
Philadelphia, 1908, p. 156, I quoted a passage from Strabo,
which says that nearly the same language pervaded Media
and parts of Persia, Bactria and Sogdiana; and I added that

Has Swedenborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 265

when Buddhist ideas went westward they would surely be
translated. In 1906, also, in my Buddhist Texis in John, I had
maintained that a " lost version of the Sutras " had travelled
westward. Now my predictions are fulfilled : we have found
traces of at least two versions in languages west of India.
To show how this discovery affects the Grseco-Roman
world, I will advert to one case. Alexander Polyhistor, a
writer of Asia Minor of the first century B. C., alludes to the
Samanseans (o-a/uavatoi) of Bactria. Now the Buddhist philoso-
phers were called Cramawas in Sanskrit and Sama;ias in Pali.
When the Greeks were quoting the Sanskrit form, they
wrote it o-c^uave?, and we therefore argued that Polyhistor was
quoting the Pali form, which must have been the one known
to him in Bactria. But now we find that Tokharish, the newly
found lost language of Bactria, had the same word in the
form Shamane. Polyhistor was therefore transcribing into
Greek, not Pali, but Tokharish, a foreign language in which
Buddhist books were being read at the time of Christ.

Before these recent discoveries by Germans, Frenchmen
and English in Chinese Turkestan, we already knew of an-
other important link between Buddhism and the Western
world: viz., the Indo-Greek coins of Kanishka and other
Indo-Scythian and Bactrian potentates who reigned in the
period preceding and succeeding the Christian era. One of
these kings called himself " upholder of the true religion/'
another (the Greek Menander) has the Buddhist symbols of
wheel and tree on a coin ; another has a Buddhist stupa, while
the great Scythian, Kanishka himself, has an image of
Buddha, with his name in Greek letters :

BOAAO.

The date of Kanishka is still being debated, but recent re-
search bids fair to place him in the first century B. C.

Now, if we can prove that Luke and John quote Buddhist
texts or legends, as I believe they do, a great religious bar-
rier will be broken down : we shall cease to call Buddhism
" heathen," and shall admit that it was one of the factors in
the composition of our own religion. This admission will
have the effect of removing the harshness that now separ-

266 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

ates the two faiths, and must inevitably lead at last to an
understanding between them, a mutual respect for each other,
and finally to a world-religion wherein the leading truths of
each will have a share. The difficulty so far has been our ig-
norance of the history of Buddhism and the vastness of its
early propaganda. We knew that it entered China and that
its missionaries spent centuries translating their Scriptures
into Chinese. We knew that later it entered Corea, Japan
and Tibet; that it spread into Farther India and some East
Indian islands; but we have not known until now that it was
being propagated, at the very time of Christ, in the tongues
of the Parthian and Bactrian dominions. Whether Greek
itself was ever one of its vehicles we do not yet know, but it
is quite possible, judging from the coins. When a story like
the Penitent Brigand, converted by Buddha, was being carved
on temple walls and translated into foreign tongues, through-
out a great portion of the continent of Asia, it is easy to see
why the Gentile Evangelist should be anxious to appropriate
it, and why he did violence to the text of Mark in order
to introduce it (for his authority, Mark, most clearly excludes
it by telling us that both the malefactors reviled the Lord).
This is only one instance of what will be ultimately estab-
lished by criticism when the means of communication be-
tween the great pre-Christian world-religion and its younger
brother are at length made known by just such discoveries
as this one of Tokharish and Sogdian.

For further information I must refer my readers to Buddhist
and Christian Gospels and to the articles in The Monist and
Open Court, of Chicago, in which I am keeping my researches
abreast of the times.

Besides minor references to the Lost Word, which may be
found in Potts's Concordance, under the head of Tartary, one
more important passage in Swedenborg remains to be no-
ticed: True Christian Religion, paragraph 279 (Amsterdam,

mi):-

" Concerning that Ancient Word which has been in Asia
before the Israelitish Word, it is permitted to relate this
news: that it is still reserved there, among the people who
live in Great Tartary. I have conversed with spirits and

Has Szvedenborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 267

angels who were thence in the spiritual world; wrho informed
me that they possess the Word, and that they have possessed
it from ancient times, and they perform their divine ivorship
according to this Word, and that it consists of mere correspond-
ence. They said that in it also is the book of Jasher, which
is mentioned in Joshua X, 12, 13, and in the second book of
Samuel I, 17, 18; and also with them are the books called
The Wars of Jehovah and The Enunciations, which are men-
tioned by Moses, Numbers XXI, 14, 15, and 27-30; and when
I read to them the words which Moses had taken thence,
they looked to see if they were there, and found them. Hence
it was manifest to me that the Ancient Word is still with
them.

" In conversing with them, they said that they worship
Jehovah, some as an invisible God and some as visible. They
further told me that they do not suffer foreigners to come
among them, except the Chinese, with whom they cultivate
peace, because the Chinese Emperor is from their country; and
also that they are so populous that they do not believe any
country in the whole world to be more so; which also is
credible from the wall of so many miles which the Chinese for-
merly built for their protection against invasion from them.
Moreover, I heard from the angels that the first chapters
of Genesis, which treat concerning the creation, concerning
Adam and Eve, concerning the Garden of Eden, and con-
cerning their sons and posterity till the flood, and likewise
concerning Noah and his sons, are also in that Word; and
thus that they were copied thence by Moses.

" The angels and spirits from Great Tartary appear in the
southern quarter, on the side of the east, and are separated
from, the rest by their dwellings in a higher expanse, and by
their not admitting any to them from the Christian world;
and that if they ascend, they guard them, that they may not
go away. The reason for this separation is because they pos-
sess another Word."

To show that my interpretation of this remarkable passage
is nothing sudden, let me repeat what I said about it in my
Buddhist Bibliography, based upon the libraries of Philadelphia
(Journal of the Pali Text Society, London, 1903, p. 35):

268 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

" Notices of Buddhism by early Travelers and Writers,
down to 1800.

" The True Christian Religion. By Emanuel Sweden-
borg. (Many editions; original in Latin: Amsterdam, 1771.
Paragraph No. 279 anticipates the discovery of a sacred lit-
erature in Central Asia. Though Swedenborg imagines that
it was a lost Semitic book, the precursor of the Old Testa-
ment, it is plain that the Buddhist, not the Babylonian, lore
is adumbrated. Thus, it is to be found in ' Great Tartary';
worship is still based upon it; it contains the cult both of a
visible and an invisible God. Its Genesis=Digha 27, with
parallel in Mahavastu; Enunciations=Udana; Book of the
Wars, i. e. Temptations, of the Lord=Mara-Sawyutta.) "

I had already given this explanation before the New-
Church Society of Philadelphia, as reported in the New-
Church Messenger, May 1, 1901. The interpretation is an-
other application of our principle of Refraction. Thus, when
the spirits turned to the Buddhist Genesis* (first translated
into English in the Chicago Monist for January, 1904, and
quoted in Hastings's Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, article
"Ages of the World") and when they found therein the
story of the forbidden foods eaten by the first men and result-
ing in the genesis of the sex-passion and the fall of man-
kind from a spiritual to a physical state, that would be
to Swedenborg sufficient evidence for the primeval Gen-
esis of his visions ; for of course he did not know that the
Digha Nikaya was an Aryan document not earlier than
B. C. 400. So too with the Wars of the Lord. The
Mara-Samyutta, with its stories of Buddha's many conflicts
with the Evil One, would answer to Swedenborg' s idea of
the Lord's Temptations as related in the Psalms and other
sacred sagas with a deep mystical meaning. Then there is
the Udana (literally " Out-breathings ") a book of legends
each founded upon a brief ejaculation or Enunciation of

* Sutra 27 in the Pali Long Collection ; No. 5 in the Chinese. We owe
this information to the magnificent study by Anesaki, in Transactions of the
Asiatic Society of Japan for 1908. When Nanjio made his famous catalog
of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka in 1883, he could not identify this Sutra in
the Chinese.

Has Swedenborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 269

Buddha's. When, in my Buddhist and Christian Gospels, I
render Udana by this term, and call it the Book of Enuncia-
tions, I am simply showing my Swedenborgian colors.

Of course if these books existed only in the Pali Canon
they would be merely sectarian and not Catholic Buddhism.
But the Genesis document exists also in Chinese, Tibetan
and corrupt Sanskrit, emanating from different sects from
that of the Elders who have transmitted the Pali. The same
may be said of the Book of Temptations and of the Enuncia-
tions, the latter at least so far as Tibetan is concerned. Re-
cent discoveries in Chinese Turkestan have brought to light
fragments of the Sanskrit Udana* and of the Classified Col-
lection in the same recension as the Chinese and therefore
containing, in its entirety, the Book of Temptations. The
cult of a visible God (=Buddha) and an invisible (=Dharma,
or Truth) is perfectly comprehensible to the student of
Buddhism.

" Noah and his sons " are more difficult to account for; but
the gradual deterioration of the race, as related in the Digha,
might suggest this.

The fact that " divine worship is still performed according
to this lost Word," necessitates the books of a living religion;
and the Buddhist is the only one available in that part of the
world, the few scattered Chinamen who represent the Con-
fucian Classics and the great literature of Taoism being in-
sufficient. Neither Confucius nor Lao-tse ever became the
teacher of the Tartars, but Buddha became so as early as
the time of Christ, and probably earlier. We now know
that not only the Scythians of Afghanistan and both Turke-
stans were Buddhists, but that even the Turks were so, long
before they became Mohammedans; and we have found in
Central Asia the traces of Buddhist books in early Turkish.

With regard to the Chinese Emperors " coming from their
country," I used to puzzle over this, because I thought it
could only refer to the Manchu dynasty, which was so recent
as the seventeenth century. But I am now informed that

* See, for example, the curious bilingual fragment (Sanskrit and Tok-
harish) from the Book of Enunciations in the Journal Asiatique for May, 1911.
The fragment is about the conquest of old age, disease and death.

270 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

"the Posterior Chow and the Tsin [dynasties], who did so
much for Buddhism, were really Huns, and ruled over a large
proportion of Hiungnu subjects."*

The present interpretation of these things is in line with
Swedenborg's other great vision : viz., the Last Judgment,
which stands in intimate relation with India. In this vision
our Seer proclaimed that the year 1757 was the beginning of
a new order of things. We now know that ifcwas. Every
schoolboy in the British dominions is taught that the battle
of Plassey, in June, 1757, laid the foundation of the Anglo-
Indian empire. No political calculation could have taught
this to Swedenborg, for the news of the battle did not reach
Europe until early in 1758, as I have verified from the con-
temporary newspapers at the Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania. Before this news (which of course could mean but
little at the time) the great vision of the passing away of
the old Christian Church in 1757 and the genesis of a new
Church had been granted to Swedenborg. Out of the Eng-
lish dominion of India has come the translation of the Sacred
Books of the East and the establishment of a cosmic inter-
course between Europe and Asia which was the dream of
Alexander and the despair of Caesar.

I therefore answer the question of our title in the affirm-
ative : That the Lost Word has been found. Confused with a
vision of the discovery of the Babylonian sacred legends,
which were the lineal ancestors of those of Genesis,
was the greater vision of a lost literature to be
found in Central Asia. This literature proves to be
the Buddhist, culminating in the recent discovery of the
wrecks of a propaganda of Buddhism as a world-re-
ligion at the time of Christ. By means of this propaganda
in the vernaculars of the Bactrian and Parthian empires, it is
now made possible for the first time to establish an historical
link between certain Buddhist doctrines and legends which
have puzzled scholars for two generations by reason of their
resemblance to things in Luke and John. When this link is
recognized, as it is now in the process of being/fthe two great

* Arthur Lloyd, The Creed of Half Japan, London and N. Y., 1912, p. 143.

Has Szvedenborg's "Lost Word" Been Found? 271

religions of the world, which have hitherto been hostile, will
approach each other with respect, and the last obstacle will
be removed to the founding of a modern world-religion based
upon the facts of science, physical, historical and psychical.

Evolution, which is the dominant idea of Buddhism, and
Personality, which is the dominant idea of Christianity, will
make peace with each other — a thing they have never yet
done, except in India, the home of truth and intellectual
peace. The besetting sin of Evolution is to regard every-
thing as arising from nothing and disappearing into nothing:
the besetting sin of Personality is to ignore sequence and
causes, and to derive all things from the fiat of a Will. In
my limited reading I know of no one who has harmonized
these two conflicting theories so profoundly as Emanuel
Swedenborg, whose writings will surely be one of the classics
of the coming religion of mankind.

/€J

ri-/See, for example, the frank and manly admission of Professor Garbe, of

Tubingen, in the Chicago Monist for July, 1912 : " I take pleasure in using this
opportunity to grant that by the lucid critique of Edmunds the probability of
the hypothesis of Buddhist loans in the New Testament has increased in my
opinion." (P. 478.)

272 Journal of the American Society for 'Psychical Research.

" JOURNEYS TO THE PLANET MARS."

By James H. Hyslop.

Those who have followed the subject of psychic research
will remember the remarkably interesting book of Professor
Flournoy entitled: "From India to the Planet Mars" a book
purporting to represent a case of the reincarnation of a de-
ceased human being on the planet Mars and communicating
therefrom regarding its inhabitants, life, institutions, lan-
guage and various things pertaining to that planet. Profes-
sor Flournoy showed very clearly how large a part in these
phenomena the subconscious of Mile. Helene Smith played,
though he admitted that there were some supernormal phe-
nomena in the case. But whatever the supernormal, which
was not as well proved as was desirable, there could be no
doubt about the remarkable power of subsconscious fabrica-
tion manifested in the case. I published in the Annals of
Psychical Science and in the Journal for Abnormal Psychology
articles on alleged Martian communications through Mrs.
Smead. The detailed record was not published and hence the
extent of its resemblance to Mile. Helene Smith's was not
evident. But careful experiment with the case of Mrs.
Smead, to say nothing of other records not published at any
length in connection with the Martian matter, showed that
she had supernormal phenomena and some of these have been
excellent. The fact shows what relation the subconscious
has to mediumistic powers or possibly that non-evidential
matter may have unexpected sources at times, even though
it may be so influenced by subconscious coloring as to totally
obscure the claims for any other source. There were some
alleged communications through Mrs. Piper regarding the
planet Mars, but I do not have access to them at present.
They were not systematic as with the case of Mile. Helene
Smith and Mrs. Smead. They were rather casual, though they
indicate an interest in that planet, possibly influenced by the
public curiosity regarding it from the discussion of astrono-
mers. There was no scientific evidence, however, that they

''Journeys to the Planet Mars." 273

were veridical. Besides the communications of Mile. Helene
Smith and Mrs. Smead were so different from, each other,
coinciding only in a few minor and unimportant points, that
they tend to discredit all claims to their alleged source. This
does not diminish their interest for the psychologist: for he
has to deal with a very large mental problem in this per-
petual simulation of spiritistic phenomena, especially in close
connection with supernormal facts that do much to sustain
that claim. Hence for a variety of reasons alleged communi-
cations from the planet Mars must have considerable inter-
est. I place no emphasis on the fact that the natural human
interest is in the question whether that planet is inhabited or
not. That has no part in our consideration of it, though it
may have an influence in the suggestion and creation of the
phenomena in the minds of those who give them as communi-
cations from the planet. It is the psychological problem
of subconsious action that gives the statements their primary
interest, together with the question of survival after death,
with which such communications are usually associated. We
have to ask and answer why they are thus associated with
the general processes that are the sources of the supernormal.
But we are not yet in a position to answer this question.
We have still to collect the facts that will enable us to answer
it intelligently.

I have ascertained that there is another alleged case of
communications with that planet, but I have never been able
to induce the party to let me see the record. However there
is still another instance of it that was published by the author
who was the subject herself of the alleged communications.
I have known of the existence of the volume for some years,
but only recently had an opportunity to examine it. It was
not published by any one whose imprimatur would protect
the book. Its sale was evidently a failure and it was in some
way turned over to the Austin Publishing Company and thus
associated with other spiritualistic literature. It is entitled
" Journeys to the Planet Mars or our Mission to Ento" The au-
thor was a Mrs. Sara Weiss. She was also the author of
another story of the kind: Story of Decimon Huydas: A Ro-
mance of the Planet Mars." Mrs. Weiss was a private person

274 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

who had developed mediumship of the kind at least that pro-
duced such works as these and saw that the work obtained
publication. The volume here under consideration was pub-
lished without any explanation of its source or any detailed
account of how it was produced. Readers would not know
that it had a mediumistic cast, unless they were familiar with
work of this kind in that connection. It might be taken for
an odd romance or piece of fiction. It is not explained as a
mediumistic production. Readers are left to make out of it
what they may, treating it as real, if they desire, or treating
it as fiction, if they desire. Nothing is said to distinguish
its nature, though psychic researchers would at once suspect
what claims it really had or made.

On this account I made inquiries regarding the book to
learn how it originated. I learned that Mrs. Weiss had died
a few years ago but that Mr. Weiss is still living. Com-
munication with him resulted in an explanation of the book
and I deem it important to put that explanation on record
here for all future students of the literature on the subject.
It adds much to the interest of the book. It takes it out of
the category of merely imaginary literature, imaginary, I
mean, in the normal sense, and places it among those works
which have to be studied in connection with subconscious
phenomena, whatever their source.

Mr. Weiss is connected with the United States Express
Company in St. Louis, Mo. His first reply to my inquiry was
as follows :

St. Louis, Mo., 12/12/'12.
Mr. Jas. H. Hyslop,

American Society for Psychical Research,

New York, N. Y.
My Dear Sir:

Yours of the 6th instant received. I beg to say that I am
gratified to find that Mrs. Sara Weiss' quite extraordinary work,
or mission, should have come to your attention.

Her book, " Journeys to the Planet Mars ", if it can be called
hers in the commonly accepted sense, -was, as she steadfastly
maintained during the years since it was begun, a matter of in-
spiration, or rather of dictation. She was merely the instrument
through which another individual spoke or wrote. I cannot en-

"Journeys to the Planet Mars." 275

tertain the slightest doubt as to the correctness of this statement,
in view of the intimate knowledge of my Dear Wife, extending
over a period of thirty-four years.

A more singularly high-minded woman I never knew ; nor one
more modest and unassuming. She lacked the literary training
which is the basis of most scientific books. She was, it is true,
a woman of quite uncommon order of intellect ; but to the end she
seemed surprised and delighted at the unseen influences which
guided her in her writing.

Her method was purely that of submission. She did her writ-
ing during days when she was quite alone. It was her habit to sit
in a room which she had carefully darkened, or from which she
had excluded most of the light, pencil in hand, with paper before
her. She did not know at what instant the actual tracing of let-
ters and words would begin. At one time, when the " influence "
moved her, she wrote for hours. On such occasions she worked
until a condition very like exhaustion overtook her. While she
was deeply interested in the various phenomena of the spirit
world, she was not a professional medium, and confessed her ex-
traordinary experience in full only to her intimate friends.

In all, save one matter in question, she was a pleasantly nor-
mal woman, fond of her home, and of quiet entertainments, and
of a group of friends who were by no means exclusively of the
spiritualistic faith.

She was in doubt as to the advisability of publishing her book,
which appeared only a comparatively short time before she passed
awav at the advanced age of seventy years.

To her, in every sense, her book was a thing given or inspired
or dictated. She never referred to it as her own, and knowing
her as I did, I fully concurred in her belief that she was really
recording a message from the spirit world, borne to her by a proc-
ess which was wholly outside the forces underlying normal au-
thorship.

I would be pleased to hear from you again.

Yours truly,

A. M. WEISS.

I made further inquiries regarding additional points of
interest and the following is the reply of Mr. Weiss.

St. Louis, Mo., 12/18/'12.
Mr. James H. Hyslop,

American Society for Psychical Research,

New York, N. Y.
My dear Sir:

Your letter of the 13th inst. received, and I hope to give you
fairly definite answers to your several questions.

276 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

It was often a spoken regret of Mrs. Weiss' that she had been
unable to receive an education in her younger years.

She was the daughter of an Ohio farmer, who, with his wife,
was narrowly religious. Her schooling was of the most rudi-
mentary character, and even reading, outside of church books,
was discouraged.

During our thirty-four years of married life I never knew of
her having read a book on astronomy, or of her being especially
interested in the subject. She had a longing to gaze at the stars,
and often wished to know something of the beautiful shining
planets.

She read very little : this was a constant source of surprise to
those who knew her and who were impressed with her intellectual
vigor and her lively interest in conversations.

I feel sure that " Mars ", as a physical fact, did not interest
her, save as it existed in " Journeys to the Planet Mars."

She read little or nothing after completing her books. She
lived but a short time afterward. The work had so greatly im-
paired her energy that she went into a decline which resulted in
her death.

I think I may say quite frankly and definitely that her rela-
tionship to the subject you mention was not that of the student
or scholar, but rather that of a " subject ", or an " instrument ",
as she certainly considered herself to be.

It may throw some light upon her personality if I say that a
favorite diversion of hers, when in the presence of intimate friends,
was to relate dreams which had come to her. These were em-
bellished with beautiful minuteness of detail ; they assumed the
aspects of unearthly experiences rather than dreams.

I have touched upon the matter of her dreams, not because I
see any relation between them and her writings, but with the
thought that possibly they may throw some light for you upon a
subject which I never fully comprehended.

Very sincerely,

A. M. WEISS.

The limited education and reading of Mrs. Weiss and the
absence of especial interest in astronomy make her book
more important. The interest in the stars shows a bent in
that direction^ though it does not reveal any data that might
explain the Martian messages. It is open to suggest sub-
liminal dreaming or poetising, but that is a thing for which
we have no evidence in the case. The dreams directly con-
nect the phenomena with other psychical processes so fre-
quently associated with supernormal data. This does not

"Journeys to the Planet Mars." 277

mean that the dreams either explain the phenomena or af-
ford a conjecturable source for them. They indicate a gen-
eral matrix for them whether we consider that supernormal
or subliminal. The explanation remains open.

I desired further information on certain matters regard-
ing the original manuscript and the influences which gave rise
to the phenomena and the following is quoted from another
letter of Mr. Weiss, dated January 6th, 1913 :

" I am, sorry to say that I cannot tell you what first
attracted Mrs. Weiss' attention to the subject of spiritual-
ism. She had long been interested in spiritualism when I
first met her. She was a seeker after truth and her ex-
periences in spiritualism were attended with a scepticism
so great that, not until her own powers were developed and
she was enabled to write automatically without knowing
what had been written, did she become convinced of the
truth of the phenomena of spirit control. After this she be-
gan the more earnest investigations which resulted in the
further unfoldment of her most remarkable psychic powers.
At seances she was most frequently visited by her father,
mother, sisters and brothers, who died many years ago.
Through the mediumship of others, she received messages
from members of her family and others. She was quite con-
vinced of the authenticity of the spirit who visited her.

" She never gave any messages to any living friends, save
in the sense that she considered her books such messages.
In the usual sense she never undertook mediumistic work.

" The original manuscripts were not preserved. The dic-
tation was taken pencil in hand, on common paper, after-
wards revised and rewritten with ink under the direction of
the spirit Carl De L'Ester; these manuscripts of the 'Jour-
neys ' are, I think, still in the possession of her daughter."

It was not perfectly clear in one of the letters from Mr.
Weiss what he meant by the destruction of the original
manuscript and I wrote to have it made clear. His reply
was: —

Feb. 5th, 1913.

Replying to your letter of the 25th ulto. I beg to say that in
using the word " Original Manuscript ", in a recent communica-

218 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

tion I referred to the first copy made by Mrs. Weiss from the
pencil dictation of (Spirit) Carl De L'Ester, which was, of course,
the original copy.

The first form, in pencil, was not considered by Mrs. [Weiss]
as being of any value, her idea being, naturally, that the
message itself counted, and not any peculiarities which might ap-
pear in the form in which it was set down. The original pencil
version was all but illegible to any one besides Mrs. Weiss, and
when she had completed the ink copy the original version was
destroyed. I referred to the ink written copy as the original
manuscript version and it was from this copy that she made a
typed copy for the printers.

Yours sincerely,

A. M. WEISS.

If there seem.s any confusion in the previous letters of
Mr. Weiss this one will make the matter clear. The great
value of the original pencil manuscript would have been for
its comparison with the handwriting of Mrs. Weiss normally
and for comparison with the printed book to ascertain where
she had used her judgment in correcting the original either
in spelling or grammatical structure. Original documents
in such work are priceless. It is not necessary to state all
the reasons for this. But they will occur to students of the
problem.

Mr. Weiss sent me some of the normal handwriting of
Mrs. Weiss and a poem written by her automatically, pur-
porting to come from her brother Robert. The automatic
script has the technical characteristics of her normal writing,
but the difference between them is such that you would have
to examine them carefully to notice that they were written
by the same person. A casual look at them would not reveal
the same origin, tho an expert in such things might see the
resemblance at a glance. But the difference is marked and
would be admitted by an expert tho he found that the im-
portant characteristics in the letters showed or confirmed
that they had the same origin. I give the poem in a foot-
note, as representing a product above the usual automatic
poetry which is so often so inferior as to invite ridicule, but
whose inferiority in many cases is evidence of the genuine-

"Journeys to the Planet Mars." 279

ness of it as a non-normal product.* The " Sorrowful Star "
is explained as referring to the Earth.

It is impossible to give any adequate account of the book's
contents. It must be carefully and critically read by the
student of psychology, and it does not require to be read with
any assumptions of its origin in spirit. The reader may not
go beyond reading it as a psychological production of the
subliminal. All that he requires to keep in mind is that it
is an automatic production, but he must be familiar with
psychic research and its vast data of similar phenomena.
Whether the book is really a communication about the planet
Mars no one can prove, no matter what he believes. But
he can study it as a work of psychological interest and it
will abundantly repay study from that point of view. The

* Oh listen, my soul ! A soft echo comes ringing

From the far away shores, from the homes of the blest,
And ever glad voices are singing, are singing.
" In the bright Spirit land there is rest ; There is rest"

Hark! Again and again. The soft echo comes ringing

Adown toward the Earth, from the far spirit spheres.
From the homes where our loved ones are singing, are singing.
"As we sowed, we have reaped, in sorrow and tears."

Still again and again the sweet echo comes ringing;

It falls toward the Earth like the soft dropping rain.
And! the far away voices are singing, are singing.
" We garnered our sheaves in sorrow and pain."

Ah listen, the echo is ringing, still ringing.

I catch the faint sound as it falls from afar,
And still the sweet voices are singing, are singing.
" We have sowed. We have reaped, on the Sorrowful Star."

Now rising, now falling; the echo comes ringing.
" We have sowed. We have reaped, and we sorrow no more.
And ever glad anthems of joy are we singing,
In our beautiful homes, on the far shining shore."

I listen in silence. No echo comes ringing.

The voices of loved ones, I hear them no more.
But I know their glad voices are singing, are singing,

As they wave their dear hands, from the far shining shore.

Oh listen, my soul! Is the echo still ringing?

Hear you not a faint note falling down from afar?
Ah no ! 'Tis the wind that is sighing and singing.

And I am alone on the Sorrowful Star.

280 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

spiritist who accepts its alleged source and contents will have
to do so without the proof that is required for these. It is,
of course, quite possible that it is spiritistic, but the con-
cession does not imply that the contents represent the reality
we are accustomed to assign to narratives of the kind. It
may be a romance in spite of its spiritistic source, if that be
tolerated. We do not know enough as yet of a spiritual ex-
istence to interpret messages about such a world as being
realistic in the sense we attach to such stories. If the spirit-
ual world be a mental one, as it is natural to suppose, ideal-
ism may be the point of view from which its messages have
to be judged, and that would make it a rationalized dream
life in which narratives would be true for the minds that
make them, but not representative of any objective reality, as
we have to represent sensory experience. Each individual
makes his own world, so to speak. The ideas communicated
may contain an element of objectivity, but the subjective may
predominate to such an extent as to conceal the objective and
give rise to interpretations in our experience that would be
wholly misleading.

This will appear a very extravagant view of the case, but
I am not contending that it is true. I am using its bare
possibility as a foil to the realistic interpretation which as-
sumes what we do not know about a transcendental exist-
ence, and if by chance such a world was a rationalized dream
life the whole meaning of such books as this would be al-
tered for the scientific man and he would find himself in the
face of something to be tolerantly studied instead of ridi-
culed. The evidence that the book requires this sort of
tolerance is not in itself, but in the multitudes of similar pro-
ductions, whether they concern planetary or other matters.
They show common characteristics tho having independent
origins, and they manifest marked coincidences in contents
with what comes through psychics that have been tested
for the supernormal. The fact alone requires that the stu-
dent at least should pause. He will be right in his scepticism
or at least in assuming a critical attitude regarding such
works. That attitude protects him against the interpre-
tation which the story superficially suggests. But if a man

"Journeys to the Planet Mars." 281

stops there he is likely to be as badly deceived, if he ridicules
it, as he would be if he accepted it unequivocally. There is
simply a problem here to understand such productions. It
is not enough to go vaporing about in talk about subcon-
scious fabrications and subliminal dreamery. All that is a
subterfuge for ignorance. We know very little about the
subconscious as yet. It may be a product of such action. I
do not know. But if I tolerate that hypothesis it is my duty
to show the evidence, and we would undoubtedly find evi-
dence of at least subconscious coloring, as we perhaps do in
all mediumistic productions. But the proof of that influence
is not proof that the whole thing in cast and conception is a
subconscious invention. It is quite conceivable that the
general stimulus should be foreign and the form and con-
tent a subconscious cast. That, too, remains to be proved.
But we have here a field which cannot be dismissed from
investigation with a sneer based upon physiological meta-
physics quite as. fanciful as any alleged communications from
Mars.

I can give only a brief account of what the book is. Mrs.
Weiss at no time seems to have been in a trance. The auto-
matic writing was done in her normal state, her normal
mind not knowing what the hand wrote until it had been
written. The chief communicating spirit, so-called, was one
who called himself Carl De L/Ester. In the course of the
work other personalities appeared as giving information,
some of them well known historical characters, such as Von
Humboldt, Agassiz and others. A whole vocabulary was
adopted to represent the names of the planet Mars, animals,
plants and human beings upon it. There does not seem to
have been a language invented or employed, as in the case
of Mile. Helene Smith studied by Professor Flournoy.
There were only individual terms used to express the names
of things, and then special terms for numbers and the per-
sonal pronouns. The last were the only indications of a Mar-
tian language. The terms are given in a Glossary at the
end of the book. Some of the letters did not have the same
pronunciation that they would have in the same situations
in our language. For instance E sometimes had the sound

282 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

of A in our language. But this alteration was confined to
only two letters, A and H.

Ento was the name of the planet Mars; Andumana is the
name of the Supreme One, the Creator of all things; As-
tranola, the name of the "Realm of the Deific ones;" An-
adillo Pylo, the name of a scaly armored amphibian; Cryfimo,
of the ocean; Elipso, of the year; Emano, of a friend, mascu-
line; and Emana, of a friend, feminine. These suffice for il-
lustration and perhaps suggestion as to possible origin. The
Glossary gives several hundreds of these words. But I give
those for numbers and the pronouns, as showing the most dis-
tinct evidence of system in their formation.

Numbers.

Fon — i. Muen — 6. Yodis — n. Voda — 50.

Itu — 2. Of en — 7. Fonitu — 12. Muena— 60.

Meos — 3. Zu — 8. Ita — 20. Ofena — 70.

Len — 4. Tevon — 9. Meosa — 30. Zua— 80.

Vodu — 5. Ruya — 10. Lena — 40. Tevona — 90.

Ryzo — 100.

Pronouns.

Efon— I. Nofan— Thou. Tofan— He. Tsya— They.

Onos— We. Noifan— Thee. Toifan— She. Esto— Ye.

Ufan— You. Neffan— Thy. Ista— It.

Those familiar with the fact that Flournoy's case formed
the Martian language after the fundamental grammatical
structure of the French which Mile. Helene Smith spoke
naturally will raise the question here whether the formation
of the above Martian terms may not have been influenced
by English habits of mind. But they will not find this dis-
tinctly proved. It is true that the general idea of numbers
and pronouns like our own, especially in the pronouns, will
be a dubious fact. It is not universal in the languages of
terrestrial people and that Martians should duplicate those
of the English language throughout is a fact that suggests the
influence of normal habits on the invention of them. It is
equally noticeable also that the notation is decimal which
corresponds with ours. Of course this is not a fatal objec-
tion, but it awakens inquiry, and from what we know of
subliminal action we should have to concede that influence

"Journeys to the Planet Mars." 283

in these terms, even tho we were convinced that the phe-
nomena had a spiritistic origin. The subconscious is the me-
dium of its expression and it can no more escape coloring
transcendental influences than red glass can avoid coloring
light. Compare " Elipso " for " year ".

The volume entitled " Decimon Huydas " is a romance of
the planet Mars. Mrs. Weiss did not place so much value
upon it as she did upon the Journeys. It purports to be ro-
mance while the Journeys claims to be science, so to speak.
The romance* is serious and poetic in character tho written
in prose. It has its psychological interest as a subconscious
production, but this is perhaps not so anomalous as the pur-
ported nature of the planet Mars and its inhabitants.

It is impossible at this time to pronounce any final judg-
ment on such works. The time has not yet come to esti-
mate their meaning. If we had any criterion for distinguish-
ing between foreign and subjective influences in the result
we might venture upon an estimate. But we have no such
standards as yet. We have only a clear idea in normal ex-
perience and memory of what comes from sensation and we
have a clear idea of the supernormal when (1) information
that has not been known normally by the subject comes
through the subliminal and (2) when it cannot be due to
guessing and chance coincidence. Beyond that there is the
wide territory which has either not been adequately explored
or offers such an admixture of foreign and domestic material
that we cannot as yet discriminate them. In that situation
we must leave such works at present.

284 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
By Major Cicero Newell.

Spiritualism, as generally understood by the public,
means : Fortune telling. How to make love matches. The
laws of affinity. Calling up ghosts and spooks "from the land
of the shades. Taking spirit pictures. Trumpet seances in
dark rooms. Materialization of dead people in dark places.
Producing raps and table tipping. Giving people tips where
they can make a fortune in a gold mine. And much more
information of like nature. So much fraud and humbug has
been practiced by people that have advertised themselves as
spiritual mediums and Reverends and D. D's. that honest
investigators are doing all they can to expose the frauds that
are preying on the good natures of the weak and unsophisti-
cated.

Behind all of this fraud and chicanery, there is a grand
underlying truth. Those of us that have dared to face the
storm of ridicule that the ignorant have heaped on our heads,
have, in the words of the celebrated ancient said, " Eureka,
I have found it."

In the year 1848 when the spiritualistic wave swept over
the land from the little home in Hydesville, New York
State, my father's family, like many other Christian families,
were swept away with it.

My Mother proved to be what they called a table-tipping
and rapping medium. Tables were lifted from the floor with-
out the aid of human hands, furniture moved, musical instru-
ments played on, and many other things of like nature. As
a boy of eight years, I heard the neighbors say it was ghosts
that did it. Six years later, my mother left us for the higher
life. Even after she left, they often came and communicated
with us by means of a set of A B C blocks that I had.

When President Lincoln called for Volunteers in April,
1861, I went with the boys of our town to answer the first

Personal Experiences. 285

call. When I left home, these manifestations followed me
into the army. When our army was retreating from the first
bloody battle of Bull Run, I heard the voice of my mother
saying to me, " Cicero, leave the road, and go into the field
to the left." My comrade and I had hardly got over the
fence and entered the field, before we heard the shriek of
bursting shells, and saw our comrades running in every
direction, many were killed, others left on the road mangled
beyond recognition, every one trying to get out of the way
of the shot and shell that was raining upon them. Had I not
heeded the warning, I too might have been among the dead
or wounded. In the fall of 1862 while on duty at the Head-
quarters of General Grant with my Company of Cavalry, I
was constantly cautioned and guided by my mother and a
man by the name of Pierre Thomas. This man, Pierre
Thomas, was my step-mother's father. During his life
on earth, he was in the French army and served under
Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt and on the continent. He
was a Captain of Cavalry. When captured by the English,
he escaped and made his way to America, where he ob-
tained a place as teacher at West Point Military Acad-
emy. There he taught fencing and dancing. All during
my military career in the Civil war, he was my right hand
man. He guided me in every move of importance that
I made. Being an expert swordsman, he insisted that I too
should become an expert. I was detailed to teach the of-
ficers' school in sword exercise.

At the time that I speak of, General Grant was at La-
Grange, Tenn., and General Sherman was at Memphis, Tenn.,
sixty miles to the west of us. General Grant was very much
disturbed that General Forest had got in between their ar-
mies and cut off all communications between them. He
tried for several days to get communications opened, finally
he sent out a large force of Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry,
to drive Forest out of the country, and I was given the des-
patches that were to be sent to General Sherman, and or-
dered to follow this command through to Memphis. I shall
never forget the expression that I noticed on General Grant's
face when he handed me the despatch. After handing it to

286 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

me, he took it back, tore the envelope open, asked me to read
it over carefully. After I read it once, he said, " Read it
again, as I want you to thoroughly understand every word
of it. If you are in danger of capture by the enemy, destroy
this letter, but if you get through later, tell General Sherman
what I have written there." He seemed to have a premoni-
tion that I would have trouble before I got through to Gen-
eral Sherman. Then he took the letter, sealed it, and said,
" Captain, try to get that through." How we got through,
is better described by the Official Report of the Adjt. General
of the State of Michigan in the report of Michigan in the
war.

On pages 631, 632 and 633, we find in the Official Report
of General John K. Mizner, Chief of Cavalry, the following:

In November, 1862, communications between General Grant,
at La Grange, and General W. T. Sherman, at Memphis, Tenn.,
were cut off by destroying telegraph lines and railroad track.
Battalions and regiments of cavalry try in vain to open them. A
brigade of infantry with a battery of light artillery and a regiment
of cavalry are sent out to open the way, and Captain Newell's
company, K, 3d Michigan Cavalry (the White Horse Squadron),
is selected to bear the despatches. The best men and horses are
selected. General Grant delivers Newell the papers for General
Sherman, saying, " Get them through." The company leaves
near dark, and about three miles out meet the entire command
sent out in the morning returning. It had been fighting a heavy
force of cavalry and artillery all day, and decided to retire within
the Union lines during the night. Newell keeps on in the dark-
ness of night to Moscow. He directs Lieutenant Mclntyre to
wear a Confederate uniform ; he enters the town ; the enemy has
fallen back across Wolf river. The company advances to the
bridge ; a reconnoissance is made across the river ; the rebels are
encamped at points along the road, through to Memphis ; a large
force near by ; a circuit of seventeen miles is made and the road is
again reached at daylight, near Sommerville ; Newell finds the
way to Memphis guarded at several points by large detachments
•of cavalry ; but General Grant said the despatches must . go
through, so the way must be cut by the sword or abandoned. On
they dash, attacking and capturing pickets and picket-posts, driv-
ing videttes in every direction. They come upon a whole rebel
regiment, take their guard, and dash on, passing, fighting, and
disarming pickets. Reach Wolf river ; find a rebel brigade burn-

Personal Experiences. 287

ing the bridge ; further progress cut off ; the rebel force within
pistol shot ; Newell's command plunge into the river ; they are
taken for Confederates and are not fired on ; they reach the oppo-
site bank and push on, and are at Sherman's picket line at the
firing of the evening gun. They are soon at headquarters, and
the despatches safely delivered, amid the hearty congratulations
of the general and the surprise of the whole army. After a rest
of two days the company returns to La Grange with General
Grierson's Illinois Cavalry Regiment as an escort.

Captain Newell receives a complimentary letter from General
Sherman, as follows :

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF MEMPHIS,
Memphis, Nov. 28, 1862.
Capt. Newell, $d Michigan Cavalry, Present:

SIR: — I acknowledge the receipt of the despatches of General Grant en-
trusted to your hands, dated La Grange, November 6th, and to compliment you
for the intelligence, energy, and skill displayed by you in coming so long a
distance through hostile bands.

I send you herewith my despatches in reply, which I wish you to carry to
General Grant at La Grange or wherever he may be.

Colonel Grierson, 6th Illinois Cavalry, will, at 3 P. M., be ready to accom-
pany you all or part of the way according to circumstances.

I am, with respect, your ob'dt serv't,

W. T. SHERMAN,
Major General Commanding.

From the time I left the Headquarters of General Grant
until I returned, my French Captain was constantly by my
side, guiding me in every movement that I made. Only by
his good counsel and guidance, I feel that I never should have
accomplished the mission that I was sent to carry through.
On my return, General Grant thanked me for the service
and seemed to feel quite relieved that communications had
been opened up between the two armies.

The only way I have to give positive assurance that the
so-called dead can talk with mortal man, is to give personal
experience. Our courts do not admit of hearsay evidence.

I wish to speak of one more incident in my life, where I
had positive knowledge that the so-called dead saved me from
having my leg amputated, and perhaps saved my life.

In the month of February, in the year 1863, our Cavalry
lay in camp at Jackson, in West Tennessee. I was ordered
by Col. John K. Mizner, who was Chief of Cavalry for the
army at that time, to take a Battalion of Cavalry and scout
the country as far as the Tennessee River, some sixty miles

288 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

to the east. As I expected to come in contact with the
trained cavalry of General Forest, I wished to proceed with
much caution. The Colonel cautioned me very carefully not
to get into a fight, only to find out what I could of the move-
ments of the enemy. He thought it not necessary even to
send a surgeon along.

I had no more than got started on my trip, before I felt
the presence of my French Captain. I knew he would not
accompany me, unless there was some sharp work to do.
As the sequel will show, it was well that he was there to
guide and give me assistance.

I will quote from the Report of the Adjutant General of
Michigan, as it gives a better idea of the expedition than I
can write.

regiment Was also engaged at Brownsville,
Miss., January 14th, 1863, and Clifton on the 20th. Captain
Newell, with Companies A, K and L, 3d Michigan Cavalry, and a
company of Tennessee scouts, while scouting along the Tennessee
river east of Lexington and near Clifton, discovered an old sunken
boat, and having knowledge that the noted Colonel Newsum,
with some ninety of his followers were at their old haunt (Clif-
ton) on the opposite bank, conceived the plan of crossing the river
under cover of the night and attempting their capture.

HEADQUARTERS CHIEF OF CAVALRY,
GENERAL ORDERS Jackson, Tenn., Feb. 22, 1863.

No. 8.

It is with a mingled feeling of pride and pleasure that the Colonel com-
manding announces to the cavalry of this district the splendid achievement of
the 3d Michigan Cavalry, under Captain Cicero Newell. On the morning of
the 2Oth, inst, while scouting in the country along the Tennessee river, east of
Lexington, and about twelve miles above Clifton he discovered an old sunken
flat boat, and having previous knowledge of the presence of the noted Colonel
Newsum and some ninety of his followers at their old haunt, Clifton, on the
opposite bank, he immediately conceived the plan of crossing the river under
cover of the night and attempting their capture. Foiling all suspicion of the
inhabitants by starting off with his entire command for Lexington, he then
turned into the woods and concealed his force until nightfall, when he has-
tened to a point on the river four miles above the fated town, where he found
the flat boat safely moored in charge of Sergeant Vowels, of Company K, and
six men, who had bailed out the boat, manned it with a pair of rude oars, and
in the darkness of the night had floated cautiously eight miles down the river
to this point. Finding the flat boat incapable of freighting the entire party and
there being no time for a second trip, sixty men were selected and embarked
on their hazardous voyage. Gaining the opposite bank two miles below, they
found, after a wearisome reconnoissance, that they were entirely cut off from
the main land by an extensive bayou ; yet, nothing daunted they re-embarked

Personal Experiences. 289

and landed again quite near the town, which they immediately surrounded, and
dashed in upon the astonished; half-awake, half-clad enemy, and secured the
entire party, consisting of one colonel, three captains, four lieutenants, and
sixty-one enlisted men, with their horses, arms and equipments complete, with-
out the loss of a single man. But we have to regret an accident to the brave
commander, Captain Newell, who received a serious but not dangerous wound.
Capt. F. C. Adamson, of the 3d Michigan Cavalry, then assumed command and
safely re-crossed the Tennessee river with all his prisoners and captured prop-
erty. He, with all the officers and men of this heroic band, deserve the highest
praise for their cheerful and hearty seconding of this happily conceived expedi-
tion. While we admire and applaud this noble achievement of Captian Newell
and his little party, let us learn to emulate them, and, inspired with the love
of the noble and brave, and this example before us, let us take courage and
press this civil strife with redoubled energy.

By order of J. K. MIZNER,

THOMAS B. WIER, Colonel and Chief of Cavalry.

Lieut, and Act'g Ass't Adj't Gcn'l.

While the report of the Chief of Cavalry gives me much
credit for the part I took in the engagement with the enemy,
I feel that it was all due to the guidance I had from the
French Captain, and the kindly advice of my angel mother.
As I was standing on the west bank of the Tennessee River,
waiting for the wind to go down, so I could venture out on
the river with the old scow that was to bear my men across
the river, I heard the voice of my mother saying, " Cicero,
you will be shot in your left knee to-morrow morning." It
was so plain, that I turned to see who spoke. It was moon-
light, but no one was near me. My men were quietly resting
on the bank, awaiting orders. I fully realized that my
mother was giving me a timely warning. I was satisfied that
she saw that I was getting into trouble that might cost me
much annoyance. So far in my life, my mother had never
deceived me. She had never told me a falsehood. Why
should she now? I knew that her word's would come
true. When I stopped to think over my orders, I was
to scout as far east as the Tennessee River. Here I
was planning to go beyond the river. I was going be-
yond where I had orders to go. Should I fail in my ex-
pedition, should I be repulsed, should I lose some of my
officers or men, the whole blame would come on me. I might
be dismissed from the service for disobedience of orders, I
had been told that day by a conscript that had escaped from
the enemy's camp the day before, that the enemy were ex-

290 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

pecting reinforcements, that a full regiment of cavalry were
expected there that day. Perhaps they were there now, and
my mother was giving me the warning to save me from
disaster. " What shall I do? " I could hear the promptings
of my French Captain, urging me to make the attack. My
own judgment and reason said go slow. While deliberating
as to the best course to pursue, the voice of my mother came
again. As I listened, I heard these words, — " Never mind
Cicero, the wound will not be serious, you will go home and
have a good time." Surely I was agoing to be victorious in
my fight with the enemy, because, if I were to lose the battle,
we should either be killed or taken prisoners, then I could
not go home. No, that last message meant for me to go
ahead. And go we did. I immediately ordered the men
into the boat, and started across the river. It took us until
nearly daylight before we got into position to make the at-
tack. My men, knowing that they had superior numbers
to meet, did their duty in a quick and very satisfactory man-
ner to me. But the predictions of my angel mother had come
true. I had been shot in my left knee as she said I would.

But how was the second part of her prediction to come
true? The wound would not be serious, and I was to go
home and have a nice time. To get a furlough to go home
at that time, was a very hard thing to accomplish. Fur-
loughs were a hard thing to get. Away from home as we
were, a boy could not but think how he would like to get
home where mother could care for him. As soon as the
prisoners were secured, and the horses and other captured
property listed, I took the wounded and crossed to the west
bank of the river, where the men were that I left behind.

I instructed Captain A dam son- of my command, to get
the prisoners and captured property to the west bank of the
river as soon as he could, as he was liable to be attacked at any
moment. Soon after I got across the river with the wounded
men, Sergeant Cutting, one of my most trusted sergeants,
came running into the house that we had secured for the care
of the wounded, informing me that his men had reported five
steamers coming up the river, that they were about one mile
away. As the enemy had boats on the river, he did not know

Personal Experiences. 291

whether they were friends or enemies. Soon he came back
saying- he could see the stars and stripes floating at the mast-
head. My mind was very much relieved, as my men on the
east bank of the river, that were guarding prisoners and
caring for captured property, would have little chance of get-
ting back to the west bank of the river if the enemy came up
with reinforcements. As soon as they steamed up opposite
our place, Sergeant Cutting signaled them to come ashore.
As soon as the fleet effected a landing, several officers came
ashore. Among them were the surgeons of the fleet. They
examined my wound carefully, and very politely informed me
that my leg would have to come off just above the knee, that
the wound was a very bad one. Then I remembered that
my mother had told me the night before that the wound
would not be serious, and that I would go home and have a
good time. " Surely, my mother has made a mistake. If
my leg must come off to save my life, I have a most danger-
ous wound." So far in my experience my angel guides had
made no mistakes. " Now, shall I trust my life in the hands
of five experienced surgeons, or shall I rely on the words of
my mother? " As I lay there on the bed, I thought it over.
" No, " I said to myself, " my angel guides have made no mis-
takes in the past, I will trust to their counsel and advice." I
then told the surgeons that I had decided to take my chances,
and let the leg remain on; that when that leg was buried, my
head would be buried with it. They then withdrew, and
cared for the wounded confederates that were in the room.
As they withdrew, another officer, that had been talking to
the confederates, came up and asked me where my camp was,
how far away it was, and how I expected to get back to it
in my wounded condition. He told me not to undertake the
trip in the condition I was, but to come on board of his boat,
and he would see that I had medical care and attendance. I
accepted the offer of this officer. Soon a detail of sailors
appeared and carried me on board the steamer Fair Play,
which proved to be the flag-ship of the squadron. The of-
ficer who had come to my assistance was Commodore Leroy
Fitch, the commander of the fleet. He kindly volunteered to
send one of his gunboats over and get the prisoners and

292 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

captured property. He likewise took the prisoners off of our
hands, saving my men the trouble of guarding them back to
our camp. The fleet then proceeded on up the river as far
as Mussel Shoals, then turned back to the Ohio River. As
soon as the surgeons said I could be removed, the Commo-
dore signaled the river Packet that ran from Cairo to Evans-
ville to come alongside and take me off. Soon I was landed
in Evansville, Ind. and on a train speeding for my home in
Michigan. Here I was m.et by the girl that had promised
to marry me as soon as the war was over. We decided that
we might as well get married then, as to wait until the war
was over. She wanted to show her love and respect for me,
by caring for me while I was suffering from my wound. We
were married. I remained at home until I was able to again
mount a horse and assume my duties. The full prediction of
my angel mother had come true. I was wounded as she said
I would be.. It was not serious, and I went home and had a
nice time. That incident in my life has helped to confirm
me in my belief that the so-called dead can communicate with
mankind. I could go on and relate more incidents of like
nature that I have experienced, not only in the army, but
many that have been just as convincing in my many years of
every day life.

[I made inquiries of Major Newell in regard to the voice.
The following letter explains — Editor.]

Seattle, July 8th, 1910.
Prof. James H. Hyslop,
My Dear Sir: —

Your letter of the 19th of May, was rec'd in time, but ow-
ing to my time being so much taken up, I could not find time
to answer it. But this morning,- 1 will take time to answer
the questions you ask as best I can.

You ask, how did I know, that my Mother and Pierre
Thomas were guiding me. The case I mentioned in my
communication, was when I heard a voice speaking to me, as
I was standing on the bank of the Tennessee River. How
did I know that it was the voice of my mother? I wonder
how Eli knew that it was God's voice that spoke to Samuel

Personal Experiences. 293

that night that Samuel reported that a voice was calling
him.

I am aware that these voices are not audible, that is,
they were not audible to any other person that might have
been standing near me, but to me they seemed to be audible.
There was a certain expression about the voice. If your
wife was in another room, and you heard her call to you,
you would reply, knowing that it was your wife, without
going to see who spoke. There is a certain expression to
every voice, that we know who speaks, especially if it is a
person as near to you as your mother. After she left her
body, there was never a week passed but what I heard her
speaking to me. Often, it was in the stillness of my room at
night, when it was so dark that I could not see anything in
the room. Again it was when a boy at play, I would hear
her words of caution, as she seemed to be near me, watching
over my every act of life. There is a tone of expression that
cannot be mistaken. In speaking to me, she always used my
first name, Cicero. That name was hardly known in the
army, outside of a few of the boys that went with me into the
army. I was only known as Captain or the rank by which
I was known.

Then you ask, Why did I know that it was Pierre Thomas
that was guiding me.

Here is a question that needs more explanation. I never
knew Pierre Thomas when he was in earth life.

But I knew this. After I was commisioned an officer of
Cavalry, there was an influence that often came to me, that
was so different from that of my mother. Whenever I felt
it, it made me feel like another person. I was in a high ner-
vous strain, every move I made was quick and very impulsive,
there was a short quick snap about it. Every order I gave
my men, was a quick, short and very impulsive order, not in
the least like myself. My nature was to move slow and care-
ful. I noticed that when I acted as I was impressed to do by
this strange mania, I often call it, everything went well with
me. I made no mistakes. Therefore I let it take possession
of me, and I followed in its lead. This strange mania would
impress me to do things that my better judgment said, " No,

294: Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

do not do so." My reason said' it was not the thing to do.
But this voice, said, " Do so and so." If I disobeyed, I suf-
fered for not doing or obeying its orders. When I started
with those despatches for General Sherman's Headquarters,
my best judgment said, " Go back to camp, and report that it
was impossible to get through the lines of the enemy. A full
Brigade has been driven back by the enemy, I could not get
through with one company." But this voice said, " No.
You can get through, follow my directions." That entire
night, I was under the control of that mania. When I got to
Moscow, my guide said, go to the north. But my reason
said NO. I must feel of the enemy and see if they were
there. I followed my own reason, and found them in force.
Then I listened to my guide. I went as he directed. At
times I could not give way ''entirely to his promptings.
Therefore, I let my own reason have sway. At that time, I
did not know that it was Pierre Thomas, my stepfather or
grandfather, as he called himself, that was guiding my move-
ments. But I knew it was not my mother. The influence
was so different.

This same impulse is felt with many people even at this
day. From my experience in life, I have reason to believe
that people are often taken possession of by some disem-
bodied spirit, the same as I was. Pierre Thomas as I stated
in my letter, was a Captain of Cavalry und'er Napoleon. His
love for the Cavalry service was the same after he left his
physical body behind, as it was when he was serving with
Napoleon. Nearly fifty years have passed since I com-
manded the White Horse Company of the Third Cavalry, but
the love of White Horses is so implanted in me, that when-
ever I ride, it must be a white horse. On last Memorial Day,
I was selected by the Grand Army of the Republic as Field
Officer of the Day, or Grand Marshall as we sometimes call
it. I felt that I must have my staff all mounted on white
horses. I found where I could get them. Therefore I had
my four Aides-de-Camp all mounted on white horses, it goes
to prove to me that the love of the service follows us through
many years. So it was with Captain Thomas. His love for
the cavalry service was the same as when he was in the flesh.

Personal Experiences. 295

He has not changed. He saw in me a tool that he could carry
out his love for the cavalry service. I cannot help but think
and believe that it was Captain Thomas that guided me.
Then again, Captain Thomas came to me at Cincinnati in,
I think it was 1869, and told me through Lizzie Kizer at a
public meeting, in a church one Sunday evening, that he was
often with me guiding my movements. While in Cincinnati,
I was in the State Military Service. The woman, Lizzie
Kizer, acted, while giving the test, the same as I felt when-
ever he was controlling me. How I can better explain this
condition, I do not know.

Dr. Hyslop, I am well satisfied in my mind that many of
the cases now before the courts, men that are charged with
high crimes, are in the same condition that I was : only they
are controlled by men or women that seek to do wrong, but
they are controlled in the same way. They act on the im-
pulse of the moment. They, of themselves, are not to blame.
I can recall incidents that have come into my life when I have
had to fight for my life, as it were, to overcome these strange
influences that would get possession of me.

Fraternally yours,

CICERO NEWELL.

296 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

EDITORIAL.
PROFESSOR MUENSTERBERG'S PROGRESS.

In his work on Psychotherapeutics Professor Muensterberg
flatly denied the existence of the subconscious, tho he said it
would take a good many words to explain what was meant
by saying of it: "There is none". However here in the
magazine article on Beulah Miller and her phenomena he
has come so thoroughly to believe in the subconscious that
he uses it to explain what he witnessed. This is certainly
great progress. But when and where did he get the evidence
for the existence of this subconscious? lias he ascertained
that he can no longer move in respectable society unless he
believes in it? Has it not revolutionized his psychology to
accept the existence of that which a little while ago had no
place whatever in it?

The papers heralded far and wide that he was investiga-
ting Beulah Miller, and something was expected of him in
this respect. He has at last appeared with an article in the
May Metropolitan Magazine. He seems to have made an
honest effort to ascertain whether there was any evidence for
telepathy in that case and the present writer must say that
he deserves much credit for his willingness to experiment
with the child, a thing which our other academic Philistines
are too dignified to do. There was an opportunity right in
the locality for a psychologist to study the case and he seems
not to have gone out of his comfortable nest even to see it.
Professor Muensterberg shows more than the usual academic
willingness to look into alleged marvels and this Journal
will not begrudge him any praise for doing so. On the other
hand, it is glad to see the academic man getting out of his
lair and meeting the facts.

This is not the place to state the facts on which Professor
Muensterberg rests his explanation of the case. Readers
must go to the magazine for them. But he frankly admits

Editorial. 297

that he witnessed interesting phenomena. However, he re-
jects the telepathic " hypothesis ' and adopts that of " unin-
tentional signals unconsciously interpreted " as the true expla-
nation. He evidently repudiates the conjurer's right to judge
the case, as he acquits the child and the family of all fraud
in the matter, and virtually implies that the problem is for
the psychologist, not the conjurer. With this view we fully
agree and are glad to see it practically recognized here.
But finding that the conjurer's simple hypothesis of a con-
sciously worked up signal code does not work, he resorts to
a modification of this and makes it an unconscious signal
made by the person transmitting the thought and an uncon-
scious reading of this signal by the child.

Now if Professor Muensterberg thinks he has gotten rid
of telepathy by any such theory he ought to know that he is
either mistaken in that assumption or he is mistaken in re-
gard to the scientific conception of telepathy. The mistake,
I think, which Professor Muensterberg makes in this matter
and also in nearly all that he says about psychic research is
found in the following facts. (1) He assumes that telepathy
is essentially connected with some sort of waves or vibra-
tions, brain or ethereal, that determine its nature. (2) He
assumes that telepathy and the supernormal are loaded with
implications of the supernatural, which is precisely the thing
to be proved. (3) He assumes that there is a distinction
between telepathy and unconscious signals unconsciously
interpreted.

Now it does not seem to the present writer than any one
of these assumptions is correct. They prevent him from
seeing the real interest of his facts. When you are able to
call a thing " natural " you do not get rid of its interest, if it in
any way differs from ordinary experience. The word " nat-
ural " is only a counter for fools. It covers everything from
the falling of a stone to the seeing of objects, hearing sounds,
color adaptation and all the marvels of physical science, to say
nothing of the wilderness of the subconscious. It is worth-
less for making anything whatsoever intelligible. It only
excuses men from investigating.

In regard to the conception of telepathy which he as-

298 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

sumes, it is only fair to say that he has a certain kind of justi-
fication for it in the views of crack-brained people who ex-
plain everything in the universe by vibrations and try to re-
duce telepathy to this. But Professor Muensterberg ought
to know that psychic researchers of any scientific standing do
not hold to any such views. It has been a term merely for
naming a class of irreducible facts, at least irreducible to or-
dinary experience. It is not an explanation,, tho the public
that Professor Muensterberg has in mind does often take
that conception of it. But he should not make the psychic
researchers responsible for that. They have regarded it
merely as a name for facts, not a name for any known process.
He should attack the theory of brain waves, not the de-
scriptive term telepathy. He confuses issues here. And he
confuses them all the more when you see that no one can
tell the difference between telepathy and unconscious signals
unconsciously read. They may be identical. They may be
different. No one knows, and Professor Muensterberg has
given us no evidence of what they are in this special case.
He rejects telepathy because he found no evidence, and he
might have seen that the same evidence or lack of evidence
required him to reject his unconscious signals unconsciously
read. What is evidence for the one may be evidence for the
other, and what is not evidence for one is not evidence for
the other. If we knew what telepathy is, this statement
could not be made, because we do not know what the un-
conscious signals unconsciously read are. We, in fact, know
very little, if any more, about subconscious processes than we
do about telepathy. Both are terms for our ignorance of all
but the facts. As processes they may be the same, or they
may be different. Wre do not yet know. Both are negative
conceptions defining our ignorance, and only academic prej-
udices, which may be good or bad, prevent us from seeing
this circumstance.

Professor Muensterberg says he did not find evidence for
telepathy in the facts described in his experiments, and taking
them as described, this verdict would not be disputed by the
scientific man. But I think the scientific man would also
say that he gives no evidence for his own theory. But there

Editorial. 299

is one good thing in his attempt to explain, which our be-
lievers in " X ray vision " and simpler theories would do well
to note. Professor Muensterberg proceeds along correct
lines in searching for his explanation. He does not use terms
that are new. He does not coin phrases that cannot pos-
sibly mean more than the facts themselves. He employs the
language of familiar experience. He associates his explana-
tion with the idea of signals which we understand in normal
life, and which in the subnormal life can be made a more or
less familiar fact within certain limits. He gets the advan-
tage of appealing to the known, or apparently known, and
thus satisfies scientific requirements. But he does not see,
apparently, that the scientific requirement also demands that
he prove the application of his hypothesis to the facts. He
only guesses at this and readers take his ipse dixit based on a
guess for the fact when he has no more evidence for the actual
signs used than he has for telepathy. The public that is as
much prejudiced against telepathy as its adherents are for it,
shouts with approval while the advocates, grind their teeth
with rage, and both are wrong!

The public, however, which favors telepathy has itself
largely to blame for the situation. It will not suspend its
judgment, but rushes into absurd explanations of telepathy
which come to be the meaning of the term tho it was intended
only to name facts not normally explained. Now there is
nothing clearer than that Professor Muensterberg has to ad-
mit that the facts are not normal. People going about are
not generally reading unconscious signals unconsciously
made by others in the coincidental way described with Beulah
Miller. The facts are exceptional. This Professor Muen-
sterberg admits, and what more beyond the normal could you
have than unconscious reading of unconscious signals? But
you say it is not supernormal. Well, you say it is not ab-
normal, as you do not apply hysteria to the case, or any
other condition justifying that description. Nor is the phe-
nomena in any rational sense subnormal. You cannot but
call it supernormal, tho that term may not take us be-
yond the fact that the case is exceptional and not
reducible to what we call the normal in its accepted

300 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

sense. This only means that both the normal and
the supernormal are relative terms. You can draw
the line where you please. It does not help to call
the subconscious normal. It was not long since that the
subconscious was not suspected and it was not long since
that Professor Muensterberg himself denied the existence of
the subconscious, as we have remarked above. Then the
subconscious was not normal, and we have only stretched the
meaning of the term normal when we resolve to include the
subconscious in it. Now when you go still farther and speak
of unconscious reading of unconscious signals you are again
stretching the term normal beyond all rational meaning when
you apply it to such phenomena. I have no objections to do-
ing so, but I would not be under any illusions that I had
eliminated the mystery of the case. We could just as well
call telepathy normal in order to answer prejudice, and Pro-
fessor Muensterberg' s procedure is only juggling with words
in fact, if he supposes that he has satisfied any scientific mind
by this sort of conjuring when we want to know what the
signals are and how little Beulah Miller interprets them only
on such emergencies. She ought to be the victim of untold
obsessions from such unconscious signals from her mother
and sister. All that Professor Muensterberg has really done
is to cover up unexplained facts by familiar words which do
not apply at all, at least so far as the evidence goes. He is
half conscious of this when he admits that it would take
months to experiment adequately with the child, and he
would have done better to have insisted on this and not
rushed to a magazine with a garbled account of such experi-
ments as he has described.

We hope ourselves to have something to say about the
case later. It will depend on whether we shall be allowed to
experiment even as much as was Professor Muensterberg.
In the meantime it may be well to recognize that popular
conceptions of telepathy are not the ones which should be
attacked unless you distinguish between them and the de-
scriptive meaning of the term as used by scientific men. In
this respect the article of Professor Muensterberg only
throws dust in the eyes of the public, though he may be well

Editorial. 301

meaning enough in this. I can quite understand his preju-
dices in favor of " normal " explanations where you can get
them. That is the business of all of us. But there is no
use to suppose that telepathy overthrows psycholog-
ical science any more than does the conscious or
the subconscious reading of unconscious signals. Psy-
chology cannot be overthrown by any facts, normal
or supernormal. Only our worthless metaphysics about
it is likely to be disturbed by telepathy and other facts. Half
the talk we hear about the brain and its processes is pure
metaphysics and imagination, and so are likely to be over-
thrown by every new fact we find, whether normal or other-
wise. But what we really know about psychology will never
be set aside by knowing more. Professor Muensterberg con-
fuses his metaphysics with science in this problem. Telep-
athy might well revolutionize his metaphysics and so ought
this talk about subconscious reading of subconscious signals,
but they would never revolutionize scientific facts that have
been established. He is unduly frightened about his meta-
physics in the name of science.

I think that the chief criticism that can be brought against
Professor Muensterberg's attitude of mind is the one that
can be brought against the academic mind always. In his
antagonism to the layman the academic votary gets into the
habit of confusing cautiousness with mere throwing of dust.
When he had to face Mesmerism he talked glibly of the im-
agination. When he was forced to abandon the imagination
as a miracle worker, tho he might have had more sense than
to adopt it, he took his stand on " suggestion ", and now he
has worn that threadbare, tho it never meant anything so in-
telligible as the imagination. Now he goes into the impen-
etrable wilderness of the subconscious with the same con-
fidence that he had displayed in his reference to imagination
and " suggestion ". He constantly changes his ground, tho
he insists that he has not done so. The more he changes the
more he remains the same. He never knows when he is
whipped. He changes his terms and supposes that the si-
lence of his antagonist is a sign of their vanquishment. The
recent performance of the academic gentleman under reviewr

302 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

illustrates it clearly and even the newspaper editors had the
sense of humor and insight to see through its dust throwing
nature by saying of it : "According to the experts Beulah
Miller is not at all a psychic mystery, but something still
harder to understand." Some day these academic priests,
like the Roman augurs, will smile when they meet.

Book Reviews. f - f : j J/;' \ : ;;39.3 : ,\

BOOK REVIEWS.

Spiritism and Psychology. By Th. Flournoy. Translated from
the French by Hereward Carrington. Harper and Brothers,
New York. 1911.

This is a translation of the work by Th. Flournoy entitled
" Esprits et Mediums ", with the explanatory title " Melanges de
Metapsychiqne et de Psychologic" The translator's title very much
abbreviates the author's. He has also abbreviated the matter
so that the translation contains less than one-third of the original.
It contains the more interesting discussions and facts of the au-
thor. There is also a considerable Introduction by Mr. Carring-
ton in which he explains the philosophical position of the author
and defends the Palladino case in this country, as this subject
comes up in the work of Professor Flournoy.

The book should obtain a reading in this country and perhaps
it is sure to do this from all who know his remarkably interesting
volume "From India to the Planet Mars ". It will receive more aca-
demic attention than most literature on psychic research, and yet
the academic man will be disappointed if he expects to find a re-
jection of all supernormal phenomena. Professor Flournoy ac-
cepts the genuineness of physical phenomena without offering an
explanation of them. He criticizes the spiritistic theory, tho be-
lieving in a future life. The unreformed sceptic will not like the
concessions that he makes to the supernormal, but they are here.
Yet he is conservative in the treatment of it. Psychic researchers
will be interested in it greatly and we are very glad that it has
been translated. When reviewing the original we expressed the
wish that it were done. Our wish has here been fulfilled.

We could go into a minute examination of the book, and
discuss the views expressed on their merits. But there is noth-
ing in the authors views that would justify controversy. Tho
differing with him more, perhaps, than Mr. Carrington, the book
is too sympathetic with the truth to entertain any hostility toward
his point of view or opinions.

There are perhaps some things introduced by the translator
that are hardly relevant to a book that did not contain them and
perhaps some unwary inconsistencies between statements in the
Introduction and discussions in it and in later notes. But I shall
not particularize.

of the American Society for Psychical Research.

The Coping Stone. By E. Katharine Bates. Greening and Co..
London, 1812.

Miss Bates is rather fertile in the use of her pen. It has no1
been long since we reviewed two other books of hers. The pres-
ent one gets its title from the last chapter. The next to last i<
called the Prelude and the fact that there is no Preface leaves uj
to our wits to know why the Prelude comes last. Apparently
there was a justifiable motive "in this. The book is not primaril;
for helping in scientific psychic research, tho incidents of im-
portance are scattered throughout the book. There is a variety
of subjects treated, but they all have a " spiritual " meaning, \\
we may appropriate its ethical and religious coloring to describ<
its departure from the strictly scientific role. The book will b<
helpful to those who want to see more than tests of the super-
normal and who wish to know the relations and bearings of th<
fundamental problem with which the scientific researcher into th<
facts is employed. Miss Bates always brings the subject out oi
the laboratory and spices it with general ethical values and isj
sues. As critical students of the problem we should have to
that she does not satisfy scepticism with her facts, but we musi
not put ourselves in the. position of the mathematician who inj
sisted that Paradise Lost proved nothing. There are other values
in life besides proof, and then experiences like these in abundanci
would go a long way toward proof, if they did not actually
achieve it.

A Mathematical Theory of Spirit. By H. Stanley Redgrove, Assist]
ant Lecturer in Mathematics at the Polytechnic, Lond<
William Rider and Son Ltd. London.

It would hardly be too much to say that the author starts ou
with the promise to apply mathematics to metaphysical problem)
and then forgets his promise and never attempts to fulfill i1
There does not seem to be the slightest trace of what mathe]
matics are, except that if you multiply 2 by 2 you get 4 as
product or A by B you get AB. The elementary processes
mathematics are mentioned but the book ends with that, t
there are some statements about Swedenborg who evidently
fluenced the author's thinking. But-- anything like applying
mathematics to metaphysics is wholly absent from the book.

An Italian Critique of an
American Book

46739

By Carlo Formichi, Professor of Sanskrit and English in the
University of Pisa.

Translate^— knm Coenobium, Lugano, March, 1913, pp 67 -69.

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