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THE  QUESTION: 

"If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  "J 

JOB  xiv.  14. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


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C643 

THE   QUESTION: 


'' 


If  a  man  die^  shall  he  live  again? 

JOB  xiv.  14. 

A  BRIEF  HISTORY  AND  EXAMINATION 
OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 


BY 

EDWARD    GLODD 

WITH   A    POSTSCRIPT    BY 

PROFESSOR  H.  E.  ARMSTRONG,  F.R.S. 


"  Ah,  what  a  dusty  answer  gets  the  soul 
When  hot  for  certainties  in  this  our  life." 
George  Meredith. 


LONDON 
GRANT   RICHARDS   LTD. 

ST  MARTIN'S  STREET 

MDCCCCXVII 


PRINTED    IN   GREAT    BRITAIN    BY   THE    KIVBRSIDE   PRESS    LIMITED 
EDINBURGH 


TO 
MY  VALUED  FRIEND 

PROFESSOR  HENRY  EDWARD  ARMSTRONG 
PH.D.,  LL.D.,  D.Sc.,  F.R.S. 


PREFACE 

THE  subject  of  this  book  is  not  a  history  of 
the  origin  of  the  belief  in  immortality,  but 
an  examination  of  the  evidence  on  which 
those  who  call  themselves  Spiritualists  base  that 
belief. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  general  term  should 
have  been  appropriated  by  them ;  Materialists,  they 
should  have  been  named,  because  they  assert  that 
souls  are  made  of  highly  tenuous  matter.  But  the 
mischief  is  done  and  the  self-applied  term  must 
remain  their  monopoly. 

Two  generations  have  passed  since  Spiritualism 
gained  a  footing  in  this  country,  wherefore  it  seems 
well  that  its  origin  and  early  history  should  have 
record.  Few  know  that  it  came  of  tainted  parent- 
age and  that  it  grew  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  fraud, 
which  still  clings  to  it. 

My  wife  has  helped  me  in  the  tedious  work  of 
collecting  materials  and  of  revising  proofs.  The 
thankless  task  of  proof-reading  has  also  been  under- 
taken by  my  friend  Professor  H.  E.  Armstrong, 
F.R.S.,  who  further  adds  to  my  obligations  in 
accepting  the  dedication  of  this  book,  and,  of  his 
own  accord,  contributing  a  Postscript. 

E.  C. 

STRAFFORD  HOUSE,  ALDEBURGH, 
SUFFOLK,  July,  1917. 


CONTENTS 
PART  I 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY       .  .  .  .  ,18 


PART   II 

PHYSICAL  PHENOMENA  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

I.    HISTORICAL  .  .  .  .  .33 

II.   EXPLANATORY       .  .  .  .  .77 

PART   III 

PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

III.  CLAIRVOYANCE      .  .  .  .  .139 

IV.  CRYSTAL-GAZING  .  .  .  .154 

V.  TELEPATHY   AND    HALLUCINATION  .  .167 

VI.  PSYCHICAL  MEDIUMS         .                  .  .  .181 
VH.    MRS    PIPER               .                  .                  .  .  .190 

VIII.    MRS   LEONARD   AND    OTHERS  .  .  .       215 

9 


10  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

EX.   CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE  .  .  .      242 

X.   THEOSOPHY — MADAME   BLAVATSKY  .  .250 

XI.   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE — MRS   EDDY  .  .      257 

PART   IV 

XH.    SCIENCE   AND  SPIRITUALISM  .  .  .       265 

POSTSCRIPT  BY  PROFESSOR  H.  E.  ARMSTRONG,  F.R.S.      302 
INDEX  308 


PART  I 
INTRODUCTORY 


INTRODUCTORY 

"  Yea,  they  have  all  one  breath." — Ecclesiastes  iii.  19. 

IN  astronomical  observations  absolute  accuracy 
is  impossible,  because  eyes  and  other  con- 
ditions vary  in  each  observer  :  hence  variation 
in  the  reports  which  each  brings.  To  arrive  at  a 
sure  result,  there  are  made  such  additions  to,  or 
subtractions  from,  a  number  of  observations  of  the 
same  celestial  object  as  will  compensate  for  known 
causes  of  error.  This  is  called  "  personal  equation," 
a  term  once  restricted  to  science,  but  now  applied 
generally  to  denote  allowances  to  be  made  in  respect 
of  opinions  due  to  bias  or  idiosyncrasy.  This 
equation,  arrived  at  by  the  astronomer,  eliminates 
error.  Mathematically  equipped,  he  issues  The 
Nautical  Almanack,  which,  for  the  guidance  of  sea- 
men on  long  voyages,  tabulates  the  exact  places 
of  the  leading  heavenly  bodies  on  each  day  for 
a  period  of  four  years.  The  astronomer  reckons 
backwards  as  easily  as  forwards :  he  calculates  the 
date  of  an  eclipse  that  happened  centuries  ago,  or 
the  year  when  a  comet  will  return.  For  the  material 
on  which  he  works  is  found  to  be  unvarying  in  its 
operation. 

Not  thus  is  it  with  the  psychologist.    He  has  to 
deal  with  a  complex  and  unstable  organ— the  most 
13 


14  THE  QUESTION 

marvellous  thing  in  the  world,  the  human  brain  : 
a  mass  of  matter  of  which  more  than  four-fifths  is 
water,  and  containing,  it  is  computed,  about  three 
thousand  million  cells  whose  motor,  sensory  and 
association  centres  are  located  in  its  cortex  or  outer 
grey  rind.  It  is  an  apparatus  so  delicately  poised 
that  the  wonder  is  not  that  it  sometimes  goes 
wrong,  but  that  it  ever  goes  right.  No  certitude 
can  attach  to  its  behaviour ;  there  is  always  risk  of 
the  abnormal  to  upset  calculations. 

Once  more  to  contrast  psychology  and  astronomy. 
The  irregularities  in  the  motion  of  Uranus  set  the 
mathematicians  in  quest  of  the  position  of  the  dis- 
turbing body  :  the  brilliant  result  was  the  discovery 
of  the  planet  Neptune.  But  what  formula  can  we 
apply  to  the  irregular  activities  of  the  mind  ?  The 
normal  mind  has  its  fallacies,  the  abnormal  mind 
has  its  delusions  and  illusions,  and  as  if  these  were 
not  enough  to  baffle  us,  there  is  the  strange  pheno- 
menon of  multiple,  dissociated  "  personality ?: 
which  the  late  Mr  Myers  termed  the  "  subliminal 
self,"  literally,  "  beneath  the  threshold  "  (limeri)  of 
actual  or  present  consciousness.  Some  have  mis- 
construed this  as  implying  an  alter  ego,  whereas  what 
is  meant  is  a  cerebral  region  wherein  are  stored-up 
myriads  of  impressions  which  have  passed  un- 
heeded by  us  into  our  potential  consciousness,  and 
which  become  active  under  various,  often  abnormal, 
mental  states.  The  most  notable  example  of  the 
"  subliminal  self v  or  "  selves,"  since  Mr  Myers 
admits  the  plural  form,  is  that  of  the  neurasthenic 
"Miss  Beauchamp  "  (an  assumed  name)  with  her 
fourfold  states  of  consciousness  :  now  serious,  now 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

impish ;  now  in  open  rupture,  one  against  three  ; 
one  "personality"  dressing  smartly;  one  donning 
Quaker-like  garb;  and  so  forth  in  extraordinary 
alternations  tragico-comic.1  A  further  example  is 
that  of  a  man  who  in  September,  1910,  was  brought 
on  a  charge  of  theft  before  a  London  magistrate, 
who  discharged  him  on  the  medical  evidence  that 
the  man  was  an  epileptic  and  had  committed  the 
theft  while  in  a  secondary  state  of  consciousness. 
Perhaps  these  abnormal  workings  throw  light  on 
the  old  belief  in  the  demon-possessed,  the  bewitched, 
the  lycanthropes  and  allied  superstitions. 

The  theories  broached  by  men  of  science  can  be 
proved  or  disproved  by  experiment  and  observa- 
tion, and  when,  after  repeated  tests,  the  results 
anticipated  by  the  theory  are  found  to  be  unvary- 
ing, the  theory  is  established.  Every  doubting 
person,  given  the  chance  and  capacity,  can  verify 
these  results  for  himself ;  as  a  rule  there  is  accept- 
ance, without  challenge,  of  what  collective  authority 
has  verified.  But  in  investigating  the  phenomena 
of  spiritualism  no  experimental  tests  are  forth- 
coming ;  only  the  experiential,  which  is  a  very 
different  thing.  In  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  no 
scientific  proof  is  possible.  We  have  to  accept  or 
reject  what  Spiritualists  tell  us,  and  supplement 
this,  so  far  as  we  can,  by  observations  made,  as  will 
be  shown  hereafter,  under  difficulties  not  attending 
other  branches  of  research. 

To  return  to  the  mechanism  of  the  brain.    We 

1  The  Dissociation  of  a  Personality  :  a  Biographical  Study  in 
Abnormal  Psychology.  By  Morton  Prince,  M.D.  (1906).  See  also 
for  a  case  of  double  personality  Professor  Pierre  Janet's  Major 
Symptoms  of  Hysteria  (1907). 


16  THE  QUESTION 

know  that  all  the  thoughts  that  we  think  and  all  the 
emotions  that  we  feel  are  accompanied  by  certain 
chemical  changes  or  molecular  vibrations  in  the 
nerve-tissues  ;  changes  in  the  nerve-centres  respond- 
ing to  external  stimuli.  We  know  that  the  healthy 
working  of  the  brain  depends  on  the  maintenance 
of  its  expended  energy  by  food  ;  that  if  a  man 
be  starved  or  stupefied,  paralysed  or  palsied,  the 
elaborate  machinery  is  thrown  out  of  gear.  Recent 
research  indicates  that  a  permanence  possibly 
attaches  to  the  nerve-cells  which  is  not  shared  by 
the  body-cells.  Unlike  these,  the  neurons  are 
adapted  to  last  the  entire  life  of  the  organism  of 
which  they  form  a  part ;  but,  once  destroyed,  they 
cannot  be  replaced.1  What  we  further  know  is  our 
ignorance.  Brain  and  mind  are  interdependent, 
but  we  cannot  apply  physico-chemical  processes  to 
mental  processes  ;  the  gulf  between  the  two  is,  and, 
seemingly,  will  remain,  impassable.  All  the  re- 
actions and  responses  of  our  brains  to  our  surround- 
ings are  accompanied  by  changes  in  consciousness, 
but  what  consciousness  is  passes  the  wit  of  man  to 
discover.  Huxley  puts  it  with  his  never-failing 
clearness  :  '  If  a  man  says  that  consciousness  can- 
not exist,  except  in  relation  of  cause  and  effect  with 
certain  molecules,  I  must  ask  how  he  knows  that ; 
and  if  he  says  that  it  can,  I  must  put  the  same 
question."  That  is  the  impregnable  position  of 
biological  science  as  defined  by  one  of  its  greatest 
expositors.  "  Soul  is  known  to  us  only  in  a  brain, 

1  "  Nature  and  Nurture  in  Mental  Development."-    By  F.  W.  Mott, 
F.R.S.     Science  Progress,  October,  1913,  p.  306. 

2  Collected  Essays.     Vol.  ix.,  p.  141. 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

but  the  special  note  of  soul  is  that  it  is  capable  of 
existing  without  a  brain,  or  after  death."1  That 
is  the  unverifiable  assumption  of  theology.  And 
when  a  reviewer  of  Raymond  in  Nature,  which  may, 
perhaps,  be  regarded  as  the  representative  scientific 
journal  in  this  country,  says  that  "  Life  is  not  a 
form  of  energy,"  that  "  it  guides  and  directs  energy, 
but  there  is  no  sound  reason  to  believe  that  it  goes 
out  of  existence  when  it  ceases  to  manifest  through 
a  particular  body,"2  he  expresses  only  a  personal 
46  pious  opinion." 

In  a  review  of  the  same  book,  Sir  Conan  Doyle, 
allowing  rhetorical  eulogy  to  take  the  place  of  sober 
assessment  of  a  momentous  theme,  affirms  that  the 
record  therein  is  a  "  new  revelation  of  God's  dealings 
with  man  which  must  modify  some  ill-defined  and 
melancholy  dogmas  as  to  the  events  which  follow 
the  death  of  the  body."3  In  what  degree  the 
contents  of  Raymond  justify  this  remarkable  claim 
on  its  behalf  to  be  an  inspired  supplement  to,  or 
supersession  of,  an  old  revelation  will  be  more  fully 
considered  later  on.  Does  the  "  new  revelation  " 
"  modify "  dogmas  about  the  soul's  destiny,  or, 
changing  the  terms,  only  reaffirm  them  ?  Will  it 
add  a  hitherto  undreamt-of  significance  to  the 
words  :  4t  Many  prophets  and  righteous  men  "have 
desired  to  see  those  things  which  ye  see,  and  have 
not  seen  them ;  and  to  hear  those  things  which  ye 
hear,  and  have  not  heard  them." 4  We  shall  see. 


1  Modern    Theories    in    Philosophy    and    Religion,   p.    328.      By 
Principal  Tulloch. 
*  Nature,  i4th  December  1916. 
3  Observer,  2$th  November  1916.  *  Matthew  xiii.  17. 


18  THE  QUESTION 

At  the  outset  of  the  inquiry,  a  hearing  must  be 
accorded  to  what  the  anthropologist  has  to  say  on 
the  pedigree  of  Spiritualism.  We  shall  learn  from 
him  that  this  pedigree  stretches  into  a  dim  and 
dateless  past,  reaching  to  the  animistic  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  religion  :  a  stage  when  men  conceived 
of  spirits  indwelling  in  everything,  and  when,  as 
world-wide  evidence  shows,  largely  through  the 
experience  of  dreams,  shadows  and  reflections  of 
himself  and  suchlike  bewildering  phenomena,  there 
dawned  upon  him  the  sense  of  personality — an  alter 
ego — something  apart  from  the  body.  On  such  a 
plane  are  the  natives  of  Australia,  who  stand  at  the 
bottom  level  of  culture.  One  of  the  Kurnai  tribe 
told  Mr  Howitt  that  his  yambo,  or  spirit,  could 
leave  the  body.  "  It  must  be  so,"  he  said,  "  for 
when  I  sleep  I  go  to  far-away  places  ;  I  see  distinct 
people,  I  even  see  and  speak  with  those  who  are 
dead."1  Hence,  in  the  lower  culture,  the  wide- 
spread avoidance  of  waking  a  sleeper,  because  his 
soul  may  be  absent ;  and  the  European  folk- 
custom  of  not  turning  a  sleeper  over  lest  the  absent 
soul  should  miss  the  way  back.  To  the  savage 
dreams  are  true,  not  only  "  while  they  last,"  but 
long  afterwards.  They  link  the  lowest  minds  with 
the  highest ;  the  Australian  with  the  great  Roman 
poet  Lucretius  when  he  speaks  of  that  which  "  scares 
us,  when  buried  in  sleep,  so  that  we  seem  to  see  and 
hear  face  to  face  those  who  are  dead  and  gone,  whose 
bones  the  earth  holds  in  its  embrace." 2 

Both  savage  and  spiritualist  are  one  in  belief  in 

1  Journal  Anthrop.  Institute.     Vol.  xiii.,  p.  189. 
*  De  Rerum  Natura.     Book  I.  133-135. 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

the  survival  and  return  of  the  soul,  and  in  their 
vague  conception  of  its  nature. 

In  wellnigh  every  language,  both  barbaric  and 
civilised,  the  word  for  "  spirit  "  and  "  breath  "  is 
the  same.  Yahweh  (Jehovah)  breathed  into 
Adam's  "  nostrils  the  breath  of  life,  and  man 
became  a  living  soul"1 ;  and  in  barbaric  belief  the 
soul  of  the  dying  man  departs  through  his  nostrils. 
It  is  by  his  breath  that  the  medicine-man  among  the 
tribes  of  the  north-west  Amazons  works  his  cures ; 
"  sometimes  he  will  breathe  on  his  own  hand  and 
then  massage  the  affected  part."  2  The  association 
between  breath  and  spiritual  transfer  has  examples 
in  Jesus  breathing  upon  the  disciples  when  impart- 
ing to  them  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  in  the  conferring 
of  supernatural  grace  in  the  rites  and  ceremonies 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  When  an  ancient 
Roman  lay  at  the  point  of  death,  his  nearest  relative 
inhaled  the  last  breath  to  ensure  the  continuance  of 
the  spirit,  while  the  same  reason  prompted  the  act 
of  a  dying  Lancashire  witch,  a  friend  receiving  her 
last  breath,  and  with  it,  as  was  verily  believed, 
her  familiar  spirit.  "  That  they  sucked-in  the  last 
breath  of  their  expiring  friends  was  surely  a  practice 
of  no  medical  institution,  but  a  loose  opinion  that 
the  soul  passed  out  that  way,  and  a  fondness  of 
affection,  from  some  Pythagorical  foundation,  that 
the  spirit  of  one  body  passed  into  another  which 
they  wished  might  be  their  own." 3 

Emanuel  Swedenborg,  to  whom,  as  will  be  shown, 

1  Genesis  ii.  7.  a  T.  Whiffen,  N.W.  Amazons,  p.  180. 

8  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  M  Hydriotaphia  u  (Works.    Vol.  iii.,p.  130. 
1907  edition). 


20  THE  QUESTION 

the  more  recent  developments  of  Spiritualism  are 
traceable,  elaborated  a  theory  of  breathing,  the 
different  modes  of  which  he  correlated  with  spirit- 
breathing.  "  Inward  thoughts  have  inward 
breaths,  and  purer  spiritual  thoughts  have  spiritual 
breaths  hardly  mixed  with  material "...  hence 
"  the  varying  species  of  respiration  produce  for 
their  subject  divers  introductions  to  the  spiritual 
and  angelic  powers  with  whom  the  lungs  conspire."1 
Long  before  his  time  the  early  Hindus  had  formu- 
lated a  theory  of  connection  between  the  physical 
and  the  psychical  in  breathing,  the  reduction  in  the 
frequency  of  which  induced  or  aided  meditative 
calm,  and  the  fakirs  and  yogi  ascetics  of  to-day 
regulate  their  breathing  even  to  cultivation  of  its 
suspension  so  that  the  spirit  may  obtain  mastery 
over  the  flesh.  In  line  with  this  is  a  statement  by 
Dr  Hare,  in  his  Experimental  Investigation  of  the 
Spirit  Manifestations,  demonstrating  the  Existence 
of  Spirits  and  their  Communion  with  Mortals, 
that  he  was  informed  by  the  spirits  that  "  they 
differ  from  one  another  in  density  and  that  they  have 
a  fluid  circulating  through  an  arterial  and  venous 
system  which  is  subject  to  a  respiratory  process."  2 
The  conception  of  the  soul  as  ethereal  is  universal  : 
herein  do  savages  and  spiritualists  think  as  one. 
The  only  differences  are  in  the  degrees  of  tenuity 
of  vaporousness.  In  Tongan  belief  the  soul  is  the 
aeriform  part  of  the  body,  related  to  it  as  the  per- 
fume to  the  flower ;  the  Greenlanders  describe  it  as 
pale  and  soft,  fleshless  and  boneless;  the  Congo 

1  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  p.  78.     By  Dr  J.  J.  Garth  Wilkinson. 

2  Quoted  in  Mr  F.  Podmore's  Studies  in  Psychical  Research,  p.  37. 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

negroes  leave  the  hut  of  the  dead  unswept  for  a 
year,  lest  the  dust  should  injure  the  delicate  sub- 
stance of  the  ghost ;  the  German  peasants  avoid 
slamming  a  door  lest  a  soul  gets  pinched  in  it ;  and 
both  French  and  English  rustics  open  a  door  or 
window  that  the  departing  soul  may  have  free 
egress.  The  natives  of  Melanesia  say  that  it  is  grey, 
like  dust,  vanishing  as  soon  as  looked  at ;  the 
Caribs  that  it  is  subtle  and  thin,  and  the  Nicar- 
aguans  that  it  is  like  the  air  passing  in  and  out 
through  the  mouth  and  nostrils.  Greeks,  Romans, 
Hebrews  and  the  early  Fathers  of  the  Church  alike 
conceived  of  it  as  of  thin,  impalpable  nature  ;  in  the 
Arabian  romance  of  Yokdhan  the  hero  discovers  in 
one  of  the  heart's  cavities  a  bluish  vapour,  which 
was  a  man's  soul.  In  The  Report  on  the  Census  on 
Hallucinations,  taken  by  the  authority  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  a  "  Mr  P."  affirms 
that  as  his  boy  lay  dying,  he  saw  a  blue  flame  in  the 
air.  "  It  hovered  above  me,"  he  says,  "  for  a  few 
seconds  ...  a  few  minutes  later  the  child  died." 1 

"And  the  souls  mounting  up  to  God 
Went  by  her  like  thin  flames," 

sings  Rossetti  in  The  Blessed  Damozel.  In  his  Third 
Book,  wherein  are  marshalled  more  than  twenty 
arguments  against  immortality,  Lucretius  says  : 
"  I  have  shown  the  soul  to  be  fine  and  to  be  formed 
of  minute  bodies  and  made  up  of  much  smaller  first 
beginnings  than  is  the  liquid  of  water  or  mist  or 
smoke." 2  Hampole,  in  his  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt 
(i.e.  the  again-biting  of  the  inner  wit,  or  the  Prick  of 

1  Proceedings,  August,  1894,  p.  126.  2  Book  III.  425-428. 


22  THE  QUESTION 

Conscience),  a  poem  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
speaks  of  the  more  intense  suffering  which  the  soul 
undergoes  by  reason  of  its  delicate  nature  : 

"  The  soul  is  more  tendre  and  nesche  (soft) 
Than  the  bodi  that  hath  bones  and  fleysche."  1 

Montaigne  cites  a  number  of  classic  authors  on 
the  "  soule  in  generalle,"  all  of  them  conceiving 
that  it  is,  as  to  the  Chaldeans,  "  a  vertue  without 
any  determinate  forme."2  Descartes  can  get  no 
further  :  "  What  the  soul  itself  was  I  either  did  not 
stay  to  consider,  or,  if  I  did,  I  imagined  that  it  was 
something  extremely  rare  and  subtle,  like  mind  or 
flame  or  ether,  spread  through  my  grosser  parts." 3 
("  Observing  that  the  pineal  gland  is  the  only  part 
of  the  brain  that  is  single,  Descartes  was  determined 
by  this  to  make  that  gland  the  soul's  habitation.")4 
"  Men,"  says  Hobbes,  "  could  not  fall  upon  any 
other  conceipt  but  that  the  soule  was  of  the  same 
substance  with  that  which  appeareth  in  a  Dream  to 
one  that  sleepeth  or  in  a  Looking-glasse  to  one  that 
is  awake."  5 

In  a  wellnigh  forgotten  book,  The  Unseen  Uni- 
verse or  Physical  Speculations  on  a  Future  State, 
published  anonymously  in  1875,  and  afterwards 
acknowledged  as  the  joint  work  of  two  eminent 
physicists,  the  late  Professors  Balfour  Stewart  and 
P.  G.  Tait,  it  was  argued  that  while  the  effect  of  a 
portion  of  our  mental  activity  is  to  leave  a  perma- 

1  Reprint  in  Early  English  Text  Society.     Ed.  Dr  R.  Morris. 

2  Essays.      Book  II.,  chapter  xii. 

•  Meditationes  de  prima  Philosophia.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  10. 
4  Reid,  Philos.  of  the  Intellectual  Powers.    Vol.  ii.,  chapter  iv., 
P-99- 

6  Leviathan.     Part  I.,  chapter  xii.,  "Of  Man." 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

nent  record  on  the  brain-cells,  thus  constituting  "a 
material  organ  of  memory,"  the  effect  of  the  remain- 
ing portion  is  to  set  up  thought-waves  across  the 
ether  and  to  construct  by  these  means,  in  some  part 
of  the  unseen  universe,  our  spiritual  body.1  How  the 
vibrations  transmitted  by  the  ethereal  medium  into 
that  universe  could  be  located  so  as  to  avoid  collision 
between  the  vibrations  emanating  from  each  indi- 
vidual brain  the  authors  did  not  make  clear.  Cast 
in  the  same  primitive  mould,  their  theory  antici- 
pated that  of  the  Rev.  Adin  Ballon's  subtle  ethero- 
spiritual  substance  which  he  calls  "  spiricity," 2 
and,  more  definitely,  Dr  Ashburnam's  theory  that 
a  train  of  thought  is  composed  of  globules  which 
can  be  seen  by  clairvoyants  streaming  visibly  from 
the  brain.3  Sergeant  Cox,  a  master  in  the  Spiritual- 
istic Israel,  was  convinced  that  the  substance  of  the 
soul  "  is  vastly  more  refined  than  the  thinnest  gas 
or  the  vapour  of  a  comet's  tail  "  4 ;  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
approvingly  quotes  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers' 
"  surmise  "  that  "  personality  has  a  kind  of  semi- 
bodily  existence  ;  a  sort  of  ethereal,  or,  as  some  would 
say,  spiritual  body  still  in  fact  subsisting."  5  Again,  in 
Raymond,  "  We  change  our  state  at  death  and  enter 
a  region  of— what  ?  Of  ether,  I  think."  6  With 
the  vagueness  which  infuses  all  deliverances  on  this 

1 "  The  motions  which  accompany  thought  must  also  affect  the  in- 
visible order  of  things,  while  the  forces  which  cause  these  motions 
are  likewise  derived  from  the  same  region,  and  thus  it  follows  that 
thought  conceived  to  affect  the  matter  of  another  universe  simul- 
taneously with  this  may  explain  a  future  state." — The  Unseen 
Universe,  p.  199.  (Fourth  edition.) 

2  Podmore,  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  302. 

s  Ibid.    Vol.  ii.,  p.  16.  *  Ibid.    Vol.  ii.,  p  174. 

6  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1903,  p.  226.  6  p.  298. 


24  THE  QUESTION 

subject,  Mr  J.  A.  Hill  says  :  "  As  to  the  nature  of 
the  after-life  .  .  .  some  great  differences  there  must 
be,  for  our  shedding  of  the  sensory  organs  must  pre- 
sumably bring  about  considerable  change  in  the 
mode  and  context  of  our  perceptions,  and  conse- 
quently no  very  clearly  comprehensible  descriptions 
can  come  through."  l  A  medium  whom  Mr  Hill 
consults  "  gets  at  the  length  of  time  that  has 
elapsed  since  death  partly  by  a  direct  impression  or 
intuition,  and  partly  by  the  solidity  or  thinness  of 
the  form."  2  Orthodoxy,  not  always  in  accord  with 
Spiritualism,  greets  it  in  the  person  of  the  Rev. 
Professor  Henslow,  who,  in  his  Present-day  Rational- 
ism Critically  Examined,  suggests  that  "  ether  is  the 
basis  of  the  soul,"  while  an  American  writer,  Mr 
Henry  Frank,  in  his  Modern  Light  on  Immortality, 
asserts  that  "  invisible  bioplasm  or  vital  substance 
exists  in  every  minute  portion  of  the  body,  and  that 
could  the  body-shell  be  removed  we  should  have 
a  phosphorescent  duplicate  of  ourselves."  In  all 
this  we  are  as  the  farmer  with  his  claret :  we  "  don't 
seem  to  get  no  forrader." 

The  discarnate  soul  is  not  envisaged  as  amorphous; 
it  is  a  replica  of  the  body,  appearing  to  believers  in 
the  "  new  revelation  "  in  no  "  questionable  shape." 
"  Man's  spirit,"  says  Swedenborg,  "  is  his  mind, 
which  lives  after  death  in  complete  human  form."  3 
Complete  or  mutilated,  in  barbaric  ideas,  according 
to  its  having  been  unharmed  or  injured  during  its 
earthly  career.  The  Australian  natives  cut  off  the 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  January,  1917,  p.  118. 

a  Psychical  Investigations,  p.  67. 

8  Quoted  in  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture.    Vol.  i.,  p.  450. 


INTRODUCTORY  25 

thumb  of  a  slain  foe  so  that  he  cannot  throw  the 
shadow  spear  in  the  land  of  shadows.  In  Nicar- 
aguan  belief,  when  a  man  dies  there  comes  out  of 
his  mouth  something  resembling  a  person.  On  Greek 
vases  the  soul  is  depicted  as  issuing  from  the  mouth 
in  the  form  of  a  homunculus,  and  that  Christian  art 
falls  into  line  with  this  conception  is  seen  in  the 
frescoes  on  the  walls  of  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa, 
where  the  soul  is  portrayed  as  a  sexless  child  emerg- 
ing from  the  mouth  of  a  corpse.  In  an  elaborately 
sculptured  monument  over  the  tomb  of  Bishop 
Giles  de  Bridport  in  the  east  transept  of  Salisbury 
Cathedral  the  soul  is  represented  as  a  naked  figure 
being  carried  by  an  angel  to  heaven. 

Among  the  Nias  Islanders  of  the  Indian  Archi- 
pelago souls  are  weighed  out  for  those  who  are  yet 
to  be  born  :  the  child  in  the  womb  is  asked  by  the 
god  Balin  if  he  will  choose  a  heavy  or  light  soul 
—that  is,  a  long  life  or  a  short  life,  and  a  natural  or 
a  violent  death.  The  maximum  weight  allotted  is 
about  ten  grammes.  Elsewhere,  the  soul  is  found 
to  weigh  a  little  more.1  One  Dr  Duncan  McDougall, 
of  Boston,  U.S.A.  (all  sensational  discoveries  honour 
America  as  their  birthplace),  reported,  as  the  result 
of  weighing  several  bodies  at  the  very  moment  of 
death,  having  found  that  in  each  case  there  was  a 
loss  of  weight  of  from  half -an -ounce  to  an  ounce. 
The  very  second  of  death  was  determined  by  the 
instant  dropping  of  the  opposite  scale.  This,  with 
an  ingenuity  creditable  to  his  imagination,  but  not 
to  any  sense  of  humour,  he  assumed  represented  the 
loss  through  the  departure  of  the  soul.  He  adds 

1  A.  E.  Crawley,  Idea  of  the  Sow/,  p.  122. 


26  THE  QUESTION 

that  there  was  always  a  loss  of  weight  in  human 
beings,  but  the  result  in  each  case  when  a  dog's 
corpse  was  placed  in  scales  balanced  to  a  fraction  of 
an  ounce  was  that  the  weight  remained  exactly  the 
same.1     This  seems  to  tell   against  the  belief  in  the 
immortality    of   animals    which    is    held    by    some 
spiritualists.     But  they  can  take    comfort  in  the 
evidence — quantum    valeat — adduced  by  Raymond 
Lodge's  little  Indian  girl  "  control,"  Feda.     Speak- 
ing through  the  medium,  Mrs  Leonard,  she  says  : 
"  He  has  brought  that   doggie   again,  nice  doggie. 
A   doggie   that   goes    like   this    and    twists   about 
(Feda  indicating  a  wriggle)."  2    Apparently  accepting 
Dr  Duncan  McDougall's    conclusions,  Mr    Edward 
Carpenter  remarks  that  "  it  would  be  satisfactory 
to  know  how  far  modern  observation  of  a  normal 
soul -weight  corresponds  with    ancient    speculation 
in  the  matter."  3    His  reference,  of  course,  is  to  the 
ancient  Egyptian  idea  of  the  weighing  of  the  heart 
or  soul  after  death  in  the  Hall  of  the  Two  Goddesses 
of  Truth  before  the  deceased  could  enter  the  kingdom 
of  Osiris.     A  reference  to  possible  experiments  on 
soul-weight  in  ancient  Rome   occurs  in  the  Third 
Book  of  Lucretius  :    "  So  soon  as  the  deep  rest  of 
death  hath  fallen  upon  a  man,  and  the  mind  and  life 
have  departed,  you  can  perceive  then  no  diminution 
of  the  whole  body  either  in  appearance  or  weight : 
death  makes   all    good    save  the  vital   sense   and 
heat." 4  Mutatis  mutandis ;  the  doctrine  of  continuity 

1  Daily  Telegraph,  I2th  March  1907.  The  full  report  appears  to  be 
given  in  the  Annals  of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
June,  1007. 

*  Raymond,  p.  203. 

8  Drama  of  Love  and  Death,  p.  185.  4  Book  III.,  211-215. 


INTRODUCTORY  27 

applied  to  theories  of  a  spirit -world  is  further 
"  justified  of  its  children."  The  unbroken  con- 
nection between  the  old  and  the  new  animism  has 
examples  in  fairydom  and  devildom.  Concerning 
the  former,  we  learn,  on  the  authority  of  the  Rev. 
Robert  Kirk's  Secret  Commonwealth  of  Elves,  Fauns 
and  Fairies,  published  in  1691,  that  the  fairies,  as 
the  philosophers  tell  us  of  matter,  exist  in  various 
66  states."  Some  are  of  the  nature  of  "condensed 
cloud  or  of  congealed  air  "  ;  others  have  "  bodies  or 
vehicles  spungious,  thin  and  defecat,"  while  the  rest 
are  of  grosser  texture.  They  "  speak  but  little  and 
that  by  way  of  whistling."  l  So  with  the  denizens 
of  ghostland  in  their  squealing  and  twittering,  both 
in  Homer's  underworld  and  the  Hebrew  sheol.  In 
the  Iliad  it  is  told  how  "  like  a  vapour  the  spirit 
was  gone  beneath  the  earth  with  a  faint  shriek."  2 
66  The  souls  of  Penelope's  Paramours  conducted  by 
Mercury  chirped  like  bats,  and  those  which  followed 
Hercules  made  a  noise,  but  like  a  flock  of  birds."3 
Isaiah  writes  of  the  "  familiar  spirit  out  of  the 
ground  whose  speech  shall  whisper  out  of  the  dust."  4 
When  Calpurnia,  Caesar's  wife,  urges  him  not  to 
leave  the  palace  because  of  "  horrid  sights  seen  by 
the  watch,"  she  says  : 

"  The  graves  have  yawn'd  and  yielded  up  their  dead. 
And  ghosts  did  shriek  and  squeal  about  the  streets,"  5 

and  in  Hamlet,  Horatio,  referring  to  the  murder  of 
Caesar,  says  : 

1  P.  6.     1893  (reprint  in  Bibliothtque  de  Carabas). 

2  Book  XXIII.,  ioo. 

3  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Works.    Vol.  in.,  p.  132  (1907  edition). 
*  Chapter  xxix.  4.  *  Julius  Ccesar,  Act  II.,  sc.  2. 


28  THE  QUESTION 

"  A  little  ere  the  mightiest  Julius  fell 
The  graves  stood  tenantless  and  the  sheeted  dead 
Did  squeak  and  gibber  in  the  Roman  street."1 

The  Solomon  Islanders  compare  the  voice  of  the 
soul  to  a  whisper  ;  in  the  weird  cries  of  the  loris  and 
the  lemur  the  Malagasy  natives  hear  the  wailing  of 
the  lemures,2  the  unquiet  spirits  of  their  ancestors, 
and  to  the  ears  of  the  Algonquin  Indians  the 
shadow-souls  of  the  dead  chirped  like  crickets.  In 
the  case  of  the  famous  Epworth  Rectory  ghost, 
when  the  Rev.  Samuel  Wesley  tried  to  get  into  con- 
versation with  it,  he  says  that  he  received  in  response 
"  only  once  or  twice  two  or  three  very  feeble  squeaks, 
a  little  louder  than  the  chirping  of  a  bird."  How- 
ever, when  the  family  prayers  were  offered  up  for 
the  House  of  Hanover,  the  Jacobite  poltergeist 
knocked  loudly  in  protest ! 

The  exponents  of  modern  Spiritualism  give  no 
clear  lead  in  the  matter  of  demonology  and  witch- 
craft. There  appears  to  be  only  occasional  place 
in  its  scheme  for  Satan  and  his  gang  of  demons  who 
are  alleged  to  possess  the  bodies  of  human  beings 
and  animals,  notably  among  these  latter,  according 
to  the  sacred  record,  swine.3  The  existence  of  evil 
spirits  is  conveniently  assumed  by  apologists  as 
abetting  mediums  in  frauds ;  "  and  no  marvel, 
for  Satan  himself  is  transformed  into  an  angel  of 
light."  4  (See  infra,  p.  182.)  Certainly  there  is  no 
place  therein  for  witches,  with  their  Sabbath  orgies, 

1  Actl.,sc.  i. 

2  Lat.,  lemur =a  ghost,  from  their  stealthy  movements  and  plaintive 
cries. 

8  Luke  viii.  32,  33.  4  2  Cor.  xi.  14. 


INTRODUCTORY  29 

black  masses,  nocturnal  rides  on  broomsticks,  and 
transformation  of  old  crones  into  cats  and  hares. 
Yielding  to  "  the  form  and  pressure  of  the  time," 
the  places  in  the  occult  that  knew  them  once  know 
them  no  more.  The  house,  empty,  swept  and 
garnished,  is  filled  with  seven  other  occupants, 
bearing  other  names. 

Timely  is  the  warning  given  by  Professor  Gilbert 
Murray  that  "  the  great  thing  to  remember  is  that 
the  mind  of  man  cannot  be  enlightened  permanently 
by  merely  teaching  him  to  reject  some  particular 
set  of  superstitions.  There  is  an  infinite  supply  of 
other  superstitions  always  at  hand,  and  the  mind 
that  desires  such  things— that  is,  the  mind  that  has 
not  trained  itself  to  the  hard  discipline  of  reason- 
ableness and  honesty— will,  as  soon  as  its  devils  are 
cast  out,  proceed  to  fill  itself  with  their  relations."1 

The  physical  phenomena  of  earlier  and,  presum- 
ably, more  ignorant  times  as  to  the  nature  and 
behaviour  of  the  occult  have  given  place  in  large 
degree  to  psychical  phenomena ;  to  the  clair- 
voyants and  toliie  trance-utterances  of  mediums. 
The  quasi-physical,  as  we  may  perhaps  define 
materialised  spirit-forms,  are  now  little,  if  at  all, 
in  evidence,  nor  does  belief  in  the  genuineness  of 
the  photographs  of  these  diaphanous  anaemics  now 
obtain  credence  save  from  the  very  few  who  follow 
Mr  Edward  Carpenter  in  regarding  that  genuineness 
as  "  beyond  question."  2  But,  physical  or  psychical, 
"  the  trail  of  the  serpent  "  is  over  it  all. 

1  Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion,  p.  1 1 1. 

2  The  Drama  of  Love  and  Death ,  p.  186. 


PART  II 

PHYSICAL  PHENOMENA  OF 
SPIRITUALISM 


HISTORICAL 

"  Write  me  down  in  a  book  and  send  me  the  life  and  adventures, 
the  tricks  and  frauds,  of  the  impostor  Alexander  Abonoteichos" — 
LUCIAN  :  "  Alexander  the  Oracle  Monger." 

"  Create  a  belief  in  the  theory,  and  the  facts  will  create  them- 
selves"— JOSEPH  JASTROW  :  "  Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology." 

THE  phenomena  of  Modern  Spiritualism  are 
twofold  :  physical  and  psychical.    They  are 
more  or  less  intermingled  in  the  poltergeist 1 
and  clairvoyant,  and   in   outlining  the   history  of 
the  movement  the  actions  of  the  one  cannot  be 
understood  without  those  of  the  other. 

The  following  is  a  convenient  classification. 

A.  PHYSICAL  B.  PSYCHICAL 

Raps,  Table-turning,  etc.  Trance  States. 

Examples,  Fox,  Phelps.  Example,  Swedenborg. 

Levitation,  etc.  Clairvoyancy. 

Example,  Home.  Crystal-gazing. 

Slate-writing,  etc.  Telepathy  and  Hallucinations. 

Example,  Slade.  Trance  Mediums. 

Miscellaneous.  Examples,   Mrs   Piper,   Mrs 

Examples,    Stainton    Moses,  Leonard  (in  Raymond). 

Eusapia  Palladino.  Cross  Correspondence. 

Materialisation  of  Spirits.  Example,  Mrs  V  err  all. 

Photographs  of  Spirits.  Theosophy. 

Ghosts  and  Haunted  Houses.  Example,  Madame  Blavatsky. 

Christian  Science. 

Example,  Mrs  Eddy. 

1  A  noisy  spirit.     German  f.,  potter,  noise,  uproar ;  and  geist,  ghost, 
c  33 


34  THE  QUESTION 

Modern  Spiritualism  had  its  origin  in  a  very 
humble  way  seventy  years  ago  in  America,  land  of 
"  many  inventions."  A  generation  earlier  the  seed 
whence  the  movement  sprang  had  been  sporadically 
planted  in  the  receptive  soil  from  which  Shakers 
and  Universalists  gathered  a  more  fruitful  crop 
than  could  be  reaped  in  England  :  a  soil  which 
nourished  Mormons,  Second  Adventists,  Perfection- 
ists of  Oneida  Creek,  Brotherhoods  of  the  New  Life, 
and  communities  of  the  type  of  Brook  Farm,  with 
their  dreams  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 
From  the  same  generous  soil  sprang,  in  these  later 
days,  the  Revivalists  Moody  and  Sankey,  the 
Prophet  Dowie,  and  the  Christian  Scientist,  Mrs 
Mary  Baker  Eddy.  The  Revivalists,  after  stirring 
up  the  emotions  of  their  fellow-countrymen  and 
leaving  them  to  simmer,  have  periodically  shown 
solicitude  for  the  unconverted  in  this  and  other 
lands,  striving  to  awaken  sinners  by  rousing  services 
blended  of  song  and  sensation,  only,  in  many  cases, 
to  have  begotten  hysterical  extravagances,  making 
the  last  state  of  the  "  converted  "  worse  than  their 
first.  It  is  also  to  America  that  spiritualists  here 
are  indebted  for  a  ceaseless  stream  of  mediums 
since  the  arrival  of  the  first,  a  Mrs  Hayden,  in  1852. 
Boston  remains  the  chief  market  of  world-supply. 

In  a  relatively  new  civilisation  there  is  freedom 
from  the  trammels  of  conventions  which  repress  the 
individual  and  which  bar  the  intrusion  of  disturbing 
elements  bringing  new  ideas  in  their  train.  And 
there  is  a  mentality  among  the  American  people 
which  makes  them  peculiarly  responsive  to  whatever 
is  novel  and  appeals  to  the  imagination.  This  may 


HISTORICAL  35 

be  less  marked  at  the  present  time  when  so  large  an 
alien  element  is  being  infused,  but  it  was  active  at 
the  time  when  Spiritualism  and  allied  movements 
"  caught  on." 

In  March,  1848,  the  household  of  a  farmer  named 
Fox,  who  with  his  wife  and  their  two  young 
daughters,  Margaret  and  Katie,  lived  in  a  one- 
storied  log-house  at  Hydeville,  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  was  disturbed  at  night  by  knockings  and  like 
uncanny  noises,  the  louder  of  which  came  from  the 
girls'  bed.  Soon  after,  these  were  repeated,  sound 
for  sound,  being  answered  by  raps  at  certain  letters 
in  response  to  Katie  Fox  snapping  her  fingers.  The 
letters,  when  taken  down  in  writing,  made  up  con- 
nected words  and  sentences.  The  father  and 
mother,  who  were  devout  Methodists,  believed  that 
these  messages  were  due  to  spirits.  Neighbours 
were  called  in,  one  of  whom,  apparently  an  expert 
in  the  rapping-alphabet,  learned  from  the  answers 
that  these  came  from  the  spirit  of  a  pedlar  who  had 
been  murdered  in  the  house  and  buried  in  the  cellar, 
which  was  then  under  water.  The  spirit  went  on  to 
describe  the  murder  in  detail.  The  news  spread  : 
crowds  of  people  were  drawn  to  the  spot,  and,  so 
goes  the  story  as  told  later  on,  when  the  cellar  was 
dry,  diggings  revealed,  some  feet  down,  a  few  teeth, 
bones  and  hair,  all  presumably  human.  Soon  after 
this  sensational  discovery  Margaret  Fox  went  to 
Rochester,  New  York,  to  stay  with  her  married 
sister,  and  Kate  went  on  a  visit  to  friends  in  Auburn, 
a  town  near  by.  In  both  places  the  raps  went  on 
more  vigorously  than  at  Hydeville ;  the  married 
sister  and  the  friends  at  Auburn  became  sharers  in 


36  THE  QUESTION 

spiritual  gifts  ;  rappings  were  the  order  of  the  day, 
or,  rather,  of  the  night,  since  all  the  spirits  "  love 
darkness  rather  than  light"1 — to  complete  the 
quotation  would  be  to  anticipate.  (Of  Katie  Fox 
Mr  A.  P.  Sinnett  says  :  "  She  was  so  remarkable  a 
medium  for  the  rapping  manifestation  that  often 
when  she  entered  the  house  where  I  was  staying 
raps  would  flutter  all  over  the  house  in  broad  day- 
light." 2)  A  year  later  a  correspondent  of  The 
Spiritual  World  estimated  "  that  there  were  a 
hundred  mediums  in  New  York  City,  and  fifty  or 
sixty  '  private  circles '  are  reported  in  Phila- 
delphia." 3  It  was  estimated  that  in  seven  years 
the  number  of  believers  in  spiritualism  in  America 
had  reached  two  millions,  a  number  now  largely 
exceeded. 

Copying  a  custom  of  the  Methodists,  American 
spiritualists  hold  annually  big  "  camp  meetings," 
whither  crowds  flock  from  all  parts.  The  chief  re- 
sort is  Lily  Dale,  where  a  large  hotel  is  crammed,  and 
the  cottages  are  rented  by  mediums  of  all  sorts  : 
slate-writers,  sealed-letter  readers,  spirit  photog- 
raphers, and  a  motley  lot  of  "  camp-followers  "  in 
the  shape  of  astrologers,  palmists  and  fortune- 
tellers. 

It  may  here  be  well  to  explain  what  is  meant  by 
a  spiritualist  "  circle." 

First,  "  Picture  to  yourself  a  little  chamber  into 
which  no  very  brilliant  light  was  admitted,  with  a 
crowd  of  people  from  all  quarters,  excited,  carefully 

1  John  iii.  19. 

2  "Dr  Crozier  and  Spiritualism.'1     Fortnightly  Review,  May,  1917, 
p.  865. 

3  Podmore's  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  183. 


HISTORICAL  37 

worked-up,  all  a-flutter  with  expectation."  These 
words  are  eighteen  hundred  years  old  ;  in  them 
Lucian,  immortal  satirist,  describes  how  the 
medium,  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos,  arranged  the 
properties  for  a  seance. 

Writing  under  the  disguise  of  "  M.A.Oxon,"  a 
prominent  medium,  the  late  Rev.  Stainton  Moses, 
issued  a  leaflet  of  Advice  to  Inquirers  on  the 
Conduct  of  Circles,  from  which  these  instructions 
are  quoted :  "  When  you  think  the  time  has  come, 
let  someone  take  command  of  the  circle  and  act 
as  spokesman.  Explain  to  the  unseen  Intelligence 
that  an  agreed  code  of  signals  is  desirable  and  ask 
that  a  tilt  may  be  given  [i.e.  to  the  table  round 
which  the  circle  sits  "  in  subdued  light  "]  as  the 
alphabet  is  slowly  repeated  at  the  several  letters 
which  form  the  word  that  the  Intelligence  wishes  to 
spell.  It  is  convenient  to  use  a  single  tilt  for  '  No,' 
three  for  '  Yes,'  and  two  tilts  to  express  doubt  or 
uncertainty.  [A  most  ancient  code :  see  infra, 
p.  83.] 

"After  this,  ask  who  the  Intelligence  purports  to 
be,  which  of  the  company  is  the  medium  and  such 
relevant  questions. 

"  The  signals  may  take  the  form  of  raps.  If  so, 
use  the  same  code  of  signals  and  ask,  as  the  raps 
become  clear,  that  they  may  be  made  on  the  table, 
or  in  a  part  of  the  room  where  they  are  demon- 
strably  not  produced  by  any  natural  means,  but 
avoid  any  vexatious  imposition  of  restrictions  on 
free  communication.  Let  the  Intelligence  use  its 
own  means.  It  rests  greatly  with  the  sitters  to 
make  the  manifestations  elevating  or  frivolous  and 


38  THE  QUESTION 

even  tricky."  "  M.A.Oxon "  concludes  with  this 
counsel :  "  Try  the  results  you  get  by  the  light  of 
Reason.  Do  not  enter  into  a  very  solemn  investi- 
gation in  a  spirit  of  idle  curiosity  or  frivolity.  You 
will  be  repaid  if  you  gain  only  a  well-grounded  con- 
viction that  there  is  a  life  after  death." 

Concerning  the  "  subdued  light,"  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  Reginald  Scot,  in  the  chapter  on 
"  Magical  Circles  "  in  his  Discover ie  of  Witchcraft, 
published  in  1584,  says  that  "  as  for  the  places  for 
these,  they  are  to  be  chosen  melancholy,  doleful, 
dark  and  lonely  ...  or  else  in  some  large  parlour 
hung  with  black."  1 

The  Hydeville  story  is  the  forerunner  of  a  succes- 
sion of  records  of  mysterious  phenomena  of  the 
poltergeist  type,  whose  variety  in  detail  warrants 
reference  to  some  happenings  in  the  household  of 
a  Presbyterian  minister,  Dr  Phelps,  of  Stratford, 
Connecticut.  In  March,  1850,  there  began  and  con- 
tinued for  a  year  and  a  half  a  series  of  disturbances 
which  showed  a  blend  of  sprite-like  and  transcen- 
dental elements  in  the  spirits  who  were  credited  as 
the  cause.  There  were  visions  of  figures  of  angelic 
beauty,  varied  by  high  kicks  of  the  furniture. 
According  to  the  narrative  supplied  later  on  by 
persons  who  were  not  eye-witnesses,  in  one  of  the 
rooms  eleven  lovely  wromen,  with  Bibles  in  front  of 
them,  were  kneeling  in  seraphic  joy,  their  fingers 
pointing  to  verses  apparently  relating  to  the  strange 
occurrences.  At  another  time  the  windows  were 
smashed  ;  objects  were  thrown  by  invisible  hands  ; 
brickbats  started  from  mirrors  and  fell  on  the  floor ; 

1  P.  472  (1886,  reprint). 


HISTORICAL  39 

turnips  covered  with  hieroglyphs  grew  out  of  the 
pattern  under  the  carpet ;  shovel  and  tongs  moved 
to  the  middle  of  the  parlour  and  waltzed  ;  the  big 
table  rose  two  feet  in  the  air ;  letters,  written  by 
no  human  hands,  were  wafted  down,  and  from  the 
viewless  air  a  large  potato  dropped  near  the  reverend 
master  as  he  sat  at  breakfast.  At  dinner  the  spoons 
and  forks  flew  up  out  of  the  dishes  ;  and  a  turnip 
followed  the  example  of  the  potato.  These  pranks 
recall  the  old  nursery  rhyme  : 

"  Hey  diddle-diddle,  the  cat  and  the  fiddle ; 
The  cow  jumped  over  the  moon ; 
The  little  dog  laughed  to  see  such  sport, 
And  the  dish  ran  after  the  spoon." 

Nor  were  the  children  exempted  from  this  horse- 
play. Invisible  powers  carried  the  elder  boy 
across  the  room  and  cut  his  trousers  into  strips  ; 
at  another  time  a  lamp  on  the  mantelpiece  in 
his  bedroom  moved  from  its  place  and  set  fire  to 
some  papers  on  his  bed ;  while  his  sleeping  sister 
was  nearly  smothered  by  a  pillow  drawn  over  her 
face,  and  nearly  strangled  by  a  tape  tied  round 
her  neck.  As  for  the  raps,  they  purported  to 
come  from  a  spirit  who  had  been  a  lawyer's  clerk, 
and  who  said  that  he  was  in  hell  because  he 
had  cheated  Dr  Phelps's  wife  in  drawing  up  her 
marriage  settlement ! 

The  excitement  created  by  the  Stratford  pheno- 
mena brought  thither  one  Andrew  Jackson  Davis 
by  name,  son  of  a  shoemaker,  for  not  "  many  wise 
men  after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many 
noble  are  called  "  to  such  great  services.  Three 
years  before  the  Fox  rappings  he  had  exhibited 


40  THE  QUESTION 

power  as  a  clairvoyant  and  faith-healer.  Fame 
came  to  him  early  because  he  had  been  singularly 
privileged  by  the  spirits  of  Galen  and  Swedenborg 
appearing  to  him  while  in  a  trance,  and  instructing 
him  concerning  his  beneficent  mission  to  mankind. 
Davis  gave  as  his  judgment  that  vital  electricity  in 
the  boy's  organism  accounted  for  the  raps,  and  that 
the  spirits  controlled  the  movements  causing  the 
general  disturbances .  The  hieroglyphs  on  the  turnips 
he  interpreted  as  this  message  from  the  spirit -world  : 
"  A  high  society  of  angels  desire  through  the  agency 
of  another  and  a  more  inferior  society  to  communi- 
cate in  various  ways  to  the  earth's  inhabitants."  l 

Returning  to  the  circles  :  music,  the  sensuous,  and 
low  comedy  contributed  to  their  "  variety  "  show. 
The  medium  whom  raps  from  the  Intelligence  had 
made  known  was  his  chosen  vehicle,  acting  under  the 
essential  condition  of  "  subdued  light,"  filled  the  air 
with  perfumes,  music  was  wafted  from  shut  pianos, 
from  concertinas  held  in  one  hand,  and  rung  from 
bells  unpulled.  Flowers  and  fruits  were  strewn 
among  the  circle ;  and,  less  agreeable,  if  more  satisfy- 
ing, live  eels  and  lobsters,  pots  of  jam  and  rolls  of 
lard,  supplied  a  special  menu.  For  further  enter- 
tainment tables  were  turned  or  tilted,  and  other 
articles  of  furniture  moved,  either  visibly  or,  more 
often,  in  the  dark,  or  in  such  a  way  that  only  results 
were  seen. 

Shortly  after  her  arrival  in  this  country  Mrs 
Hayden  was  followed  by  another  medium,  Mrs 
Roberts,  and  rappings  and  table-turnings  became 
epidemic.  For  a  minimum  fee  of  half -a -guinea  the 

1Podmore:  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  197. 


HISTORICAL  41 

raps  could  be  heard  and  the  turning  table  felt. 
There  was  no  lack  of  visitors  to  the  seances.  Later 
revelations  made  known  the  fate  of  the  departed. 
As  an  example  of  this  a  Rev.  Mr  Gillson,  of  Bath, 
in  a  work  entitled  Table-Talking :  Disclosures  of 
Satanic  Wonders  and  Prophetic  Signs,  reports  that 
after  ascertaining  that  his  interlocutor  was  a  de- 
parted spirit,  who  expected  in  the  course  of  ten 
years  to  be  bound  with  Satan  and  all  his  crew  and 
cast  into  the  abyss,  catechised  him  as  follows : — 

"  I  then  asked  :  '  Where  are  Satan's  headquarters  ? 
Are  they  in  England  ?  '  There  was  a  slight  move- 
ment. 

"  *  Are  they  in  France  ?  '     A  violent  movement. 

"  '  Are  they  in  Spain  ?  '     Similar  agitation. 

" '  Are  they  in  Rome  ? '  The  table  seemed 
literally  frantic."  x 

To  turn  to  another  and  more  important  chapter 
in  the  book  of  the  "  new  revelation  "  :  1855  brought 
to  these  shores  a  man  famous  in  the  annals  of 
Spiritualism.  "  In  David  Dunglas  Home,"  or 
Hume,  Mr  Podmore  says,  "  and  in  his  doings,  all 
the  problems  of  Spiritualism  are  posed  in  their 
acutest  form  :  with  the  marvels  wrought  by  him  or 
through  him,  the  main  defences  of  Spiritualism 
must  stand  or  fall."  a 

Home,  of  Scottish  birth  and  name,  was  taken,  in 
1842,  when  he  was  nine  years  old,  by  relatives  to 
America.  In  his  seventeenth  year — two  years  after 
the  Hydeville  knockings,  about  which  he  may  have 
heard— he  came  out  as  a  medium,  finding  support 

1  Podmore:  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  14. 
8  Ibid.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  222. 


42  THE  QUESTION 

in  that   profession  from  a   group    of  spiritualists. 
They  subscribed  money  to  send  him  to  England  to 
recruit  his  energies  and  also  to  advance  the  cause. 
His    credentials     secured    him    welcome    both     in 
spiritualist    circles    and    the   houses    of    prominent 
people.     From   England   he   went   abroad,    finally 
reaching   Russia,    where    he   exhibited    his   powers 
before  the  Tsar.     He  returned  in  the  autumn  of 
1859,  bringing  with  him  a  Russian  lady  of  noble 
birth  and  moderate  fortune,  whom  he  had  married. 
Three  years  afterwards  she  died  ;    Home  was  left 
"  hard  up  "  and  lived  by  his  wits  till  1866,  when  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Mrs  Lyon,  a  widow  lady, 
wealthy  and  childless.     There  was  a  singular  charm 
about  him,  felt  by  all  who  met  him,  and  it  was  this 
which  won  her  heart  and  opened  her  purse  strings. 
She  voluntarily — at    least  he  was   not  proved  to 
have  used  undue  influence  upon  her — gave  him  the 
handsome  sum  of  £24,000,  and  promised  more.     In 
recognition  of  her  generosity  he  double-barrelled 
his  name  as  Home-Lyon.     But  soon  afterwards  the 
lady  cooled  and  repented,  and   brought  an  action 
for  restitution  of  the  money,  which  she  won,  the 
court  at  the  same  time  acquitting  Home  of  what 
looked    like    unworthy    behaviour.      In    1871    he 
remarried,  and  again  a  Russian  lady  of  fortune. 
After  this  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  each  year  on 
the  Continent  till  his  death  in  1886.     He  is  described 
as  a  man  whose  nerves  were  highly  strung,  lavish  in 
love  of  his  friends  and  of  cheerful  disposition,  but 
vain  to  a  degree,  ever  striving  to  be  before  the  foot- 
lights.   His  skill  as  a  pianist  and  his  dramatic  power 
as  a  reciter  added  to  his  social  attractions.     Trust  in 


HISTORICAL  43 

him  was  deepened  by  the  impression  of  his  belief  in 
himself  as  possessed  of  supernormal  powers  which  he 
made  on  others,  as  well  as  by  his  orthodox  attitude. 
In  his  trances  he  "  habitually  delivered  discourses 
on  religious  themes  and  on  communion  with  God 
and  the  angels."  Mr  Podmore  says  that  Home  was 
never  publicly  exposed  as  an  impostor,  and  there  is 
no  evidence  of  any  weight  that  he  was  ever  privately 
detected  in  trickery.1  But,  as  will  be  seen  later  on, 
he  always  chose  his  own  company  or  imposed  his 
own  conditions.  Such,  in  brief  outline,  was  the 
man.  Now  for  his  performances. 

After  the  stock  phenomena  of  raps,  tilting  tables, 
music  from  apparently  untouched  accordions  and 
guitars,  spirit  voices  and  spirit  lights,  all  in  the  usual 
"  dim,"  if  not  "  religious,  light,"  Home  would  open 
the  second  act.  I  borrow  Mr  Podmore's  description  : 

"  If  the  conditions  were  judged  favourable  to  the 
higher  manifestations,  the  lights  would  be  turned 
out,  the  fire  screened  and  the  table  drawn  up  to  the 
window,  the  company  sitting  round  three  sides, 
leaving  the  side  next  the  window  vacant,  with 
Home  sitting  at  one  end  of  the  vacant  space. 
Hands  would  then  be  seen,  outlined  against  the 
faint  light  proceeding  from  the  window,  to  rise  over 
the  vacant  edge  of  the  table,  move  about  the  paper 
lying  on  its  surface  or  give  flowers  to  the  sitters. 
Afterwards  the  medium  would  be  levitated."  2 

To  Pope's  question,  "  Shall  gravitation  cease  if 
you  go  by  ?  "  3  America  had  given  an  affirmative 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  230. 

2  Ibid.     Vol.  i.,  p.  232. 

3  Essay  on  Man.     Ep.  IV.  i.  128. 


44  THE  QUESTION 

answer  before  Home  levitated.  In  1851  a  medium 
named  Gordon  was  carried  through  the  air  a  distance 
of  sixty  feet,  "entirely  by  spiritual  hands."  More 
famous  in  the  annals  of  this  phenomenon  is  the  case 
of  Mrs  Guppy,  a  very  heavy  weight.  At  a  seance 
at  which,  after  recitation  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  and 
sacred  tunes  from  a  musical  box,  the  materialised 
spirit  of  Katie  King  appeared,  one  of  the  sitters 
said  :  "  I  wish  she  would  bring  Mrs  Guppy  here  "  ; 
whereupon  a  heavy  bump  on  the  table  was  heard, 
and  on  a  match  being  lighted  Mrs  Guppy  was  seen 
standing  on  the  table,  holding  a  housekeeping  book, 
in  which  the  last  written  item  was  "  onions."  She 
had  been  transported  from  her  house  in  Highbury, 
three  miles  away.  Her  companion  at  home  had 
last  seen  her  making  up  her  accounts  ;  she  suddenly 
disappeared,  and  the  only  trace  she  left  was  that  of 
a  slight  haze  near  the  ceiling.  Her  husband,  with 
the  coolness  of  the  "  well-conducted "  Charlotte 
Werther,1  remarked  that  no  doubt  she  had  been 
wafted  away  by  the  spirits  and  went  to  his  supper. 
About  the  same  time  supernormal  agencies  carried 
"  Dr  "  Monck,  a  professional  medium,  through  the 
air  from  Bristol  to  Swindon.  Later  on,  terrestrial 
agencies  carried  him  to  prison  as  a  rogue  and  a 
vagabond. 

To  return  to  Home.  The  most  graphic  account 
of  one  of  his  earlier  levitations  was  from  the  pen  of 
Robert  Bell,  a  prominent  journalist  of  the  time,  and 

1  "  Charlotte,  having  seen  his  body 
Borne  before  her  on  a  shutter, 
Like  a  well-conducted  person, 
Went  on  cutting  bread  and  butter." 

THACKERAY:    Sorrows  of  Werther. 


HISTORICAL  45 

was  published  in  The  Cornhill  Magazine  of  August, 
1860.  The  article  was  entitled  "  Stranger  than 
Fiction."  To  quote  its  essential  parts  :  he  describes 
the  seance  as  taking  place  in  a  room  in  which  all  the 
lights  had  been  put  out,  darkness  being  further  en- 
sured by  the  pulling  down  of  the  window  blind  by  an 
invisible  hand.  The  sitters  felt  their  knees  touched 
and  their  clothes  pulled,  also  by  invisible  hands ;  soft 
music  was  heard  from  an  accordion,  and  presently 
Home,  who  "  was  seated  next  the  window,  his  head 
being  dimly  visible  against  the  curtain,  said  in  a  quiet 
voice,  '  My  chair  is  moving — I  am  off  the  ground  — 
don't  notice  me— talk  of  something  else,'  or  words 
to  that  effect.  ...  I  was  sitting,"  Mr  Bell  adds, 
"  nearly  opposite  to  him  and  I  saw  his  hands  dis- 
appear from  the  table,  and  his  head  vanish  into 
the  deep  shadow  beyond.  In  a  moment  or  two 
he  spoke  again.  This  time  his  voice  was  in  the  air 
above  our  heads.  He  had  risen  from  his  chair  to  a 
height  of  four  or  five  feet  from  the  ground.  As  he 
ascended  higher  he  described  his  position,  which  at 
first  was  perpendicular,  and  afterwards  became 
horizontal.  ...  In  a  moment  or  two  more  he  told 
us  that  he  was  going  to  pass  across  the  window, 
against  the  grey  silvery  light  of  which  he  would  be 
visible.  We  watched  in  profound  silence,  and  saw 
his  figure  pass  from  one  side  of  the  window  to  the 
other,  feet  foremost,  lying  horizontally  in  the  air. 
He  spoke  to  us  as  he  passed,  and  told  us  that  he 
would  return  the  reverse  way  and  recross  the 
window,  which  he  did.  .  .  .  He  hovered  round  the 
circle  for  several  minutes  and  passed,  this  time 
perpendicularly,  over  our  heads.  I  heard  his  voice 


46  THE  QUESTION 

behind  me  in  the  air  and  felt  something  lightly 
brush  my  chair.  It  was  his  foot,  which  he  gave  us 
leave  to  touch.  I  placed  my  hand  gently  upon  it, 
when  he  uttered  a  cry  of  pain,  and  the  foot  was  with- 
drawn quickly,  with  a  palpable  shudder.  He  now 
passed  over  to  the  farthest  extremity  of  the  room, 
and  we  could  judge  by  his  voice  of  the  altitude  and 
distance  he  had  attained.  He  had  reached  the 
ceiling,  upon  which  he  made  a  slight  mark  and  soon 
afterwards  descended  and  resumed  his  place  at  the 
table.  An  incident  which  occurred  during  this 
aerial  passage,  and  imparted  a  strange  solemnity, 
was  that  the  accordion,  which  we  supposed  to  be  on 
the  ground  under  the  window  close  to  us,  played  a 
strain  of  wild  pathos  in  the  air  from  the  most  distant 
corner  of  the  room." 

Attestation  as  to  levitations  of  Home  in  the  same 
year,  and  in  1868,  1871  and  on  other  occasions,  under 
conditions  of  wellnigh  total  darkness,  in  which  the 
details,  in  the  main,  correspond  with  the  above, 
were  made  by  well-known  men,  among  them  Lord 
Lindsay,  afterwards  Earl  of  Crawford,1  Viscount 
Adare,  afterwards  Earl  of  Dunraven,  and,  most 
notable  of  all,  by  the  distinguished  physicist,  Mr  (now 
Sir  William)  Crookes,  who  testified  to  two  cases  of 
levitation  at  which  he  was  present.  He  says  that 
at  the  second  seance  Home  was  seen  to  be  sitting 
in  the  air,  supported  by  nothing  visible.  Lord 
Lindsay — the  only  spectator  of  this  phenomenon  — 
testified  to  Home  floating  horizontally  out  of  the 

1  He  was  subject  to  hallucinations  of  black  dogs,  figures  of  women 
and  flames  of  fire  on  his  knees,  which,  although  the  phenpmena  are 
wholly  different,  suggest  caution  in  accepting  his  testimony  to 
suspension  of  the  law  of  gravitation. 


HISTORICAL  47 

room  through  a  slightly  opened  window  and  return- 
ing feet  foremost  through  another  window. 

The  question  asked  by  Jesus,  "  Which  of  you  by 
taking  thought  can  add  one  cubit  unto  his  stature  ?  " x 
may  have  provoked  Home  and  other  mediums  to 
attempt  to  achieve  that  elongation  by  other  means. 
There  is  a  group  of  witnesses  who  depone  to  having 
seen  this  accomplished,  and,  as  an  exception  to  the 
usual  conditions  imposed  by  mediums,  in  candle- 
light. Among  other  witnesses  to  this  is  Lord 
Lindsay,  who  in  his  evidence  before  the  Dialectical 
Society  averred  that  he  saw  Home,  when  in  the 
trance  state,  elongated  eleven  inches.  On  awak- 
ing he  resumed  his  natural  height.  The  degree  of 
elongation  varied  from  three  inches  to  one  reported 
case  of  eighteen  inches. 

Perhaps  the  most  impressive  of  the  feats  exhibited 
by  Home,  which  has  attestation  from  Sir  William 
Crookes  and  other  witnesses  of  integrity,  is  the  fire 
ordeal.  Sir  William  tells  how  Home  pulled  lumps 
of  red-hot  coal,  one  at  a  time,  out  of  the  fire  with  his 
right  hand,  then  folded  a  handkerchief,  and  putting 
his  left  hand  into  the  fire  took  out  a  red-hot  cinder 
and  put  it  on  the  handkerchief,  which  remained  un- 
burnt.  Sir  William  tells  us  that  on  another  occa- 
sion Home  "  took  a  good-sized  piece  of  red-hot  coal 
from  the  fire,  put  it  in  his  right  hand,  and  carried  it 
with  the  other  hand."  Then  "  he  blew  the  small 
furnace  thus  extemporised  till  the  lump  was  nearly 
at  white  heat,  and  drew  my  attention  to  the  lam- 
bent flame  which  was  flickering  over  the  coal  and 
licking  round  his  fingers.  He  fell  on  his  knees, 

1  Matthew  vi.  27. 


48  THE  QUESTION 

looked  up  in  a  reverent  manner,  held  up  the  coal 
and  said  :  '  Is  not  God  good  ?  Are  not  His  laws 
wonderful  ?  ' 

A  presumably  less  qualified  authority,  Mrs  S.  C. 
Hall,  tells  that  she  saw  Home  poke  a  large  drawing- 
room  fire,  then  draw  from  it  with  his  hand  a  big 
lump  of  red-hot  coal  and  after  half -a -minute's  pause 
put  it  on  her  husband's  head.  Asked,  "Is  it  not 
hot  ?  "  he  answered,  "  Warm,  but  not  hot."  Home 
drew  Mr  Hall's  white  hair  over  the  coal,  which 
glowed  red  beneath  it,  and  after  a  lapse  of  four  or 
five  minutes  removed  the  coal.  Two  or  three 
present  "  attempted  to  touch  it,  but  it  burnt  their 
fingers.  I  said,  '  Daniel,  bring  it  to  me,'  and  he 
placed  it  in  my  left  hand.  I  felt  it  warm,  yet  when 
I  stooped  down  to  examine  it,  my  face  felt  the  heat 
so  much  that  I  was  obliged  to  withdraw  it."  l 

The  same  Mr  Hall,  a  well-known  miscellaneous 
author,  who  died  in  1889,  relates  that  at  a  sitting 
with  Home  he  saw  the  spirit  of  his  dead  sister.  But 
the  phenomenon  of  materialisation  did  not,  appar- 
ently, play  a  large  part  in  Home's  seances.  "  It 
needs  heaven-sent  moments  for  this  skill,"  and  the 
spirits  are  coy.  As  laid  down  by  an  authority  on 
the  subject :  "  When  strict  conditions  are  imposed, 
even  when  united  with  harmony  and  good  feeling, 
it  is  only  in  very  rare  instances  that  full-form  mani- 
festations take  place."  2 

Next  in  prominence  to  Home  among  the  American 
mediums  who,  at  intervals,  came  to  England,  were 
the  Davenport  Brothers,  whose  credentials,  assur- 

1  Experiences  in  Spiritualism,  p.  178.     By  Lord  Adare. 
8  The  Spiritualist;  22nd  December  1876. 


HISTORICAL  49 

ing  them  welcome,  were  strengthened  by  their  being 
accompanied  by  a  sort  of  chaplain,  the  Rev.  J.  B. 
Ferguson,  a  "  somewhat  weak-headed  "  but  guile- 
less man  and  a  sincere  believer  in  the  supernormal 
character  of  the  performances  of  the  Brothers.  He 
had  been  converted  as  the  result  of  attending  a 
seance  where,  by  the  use  of  the  rapping-alphabet, 
he  had  been  put  into  communication  with  a  de- 
ceased brother  minister.  It  is  difficult  to  attach 
importance  to  the  phenomena  of  levitation,  elonga- 
tion and  fire  ordeal  as  manifestations  of  the  activity 
of  departed  spirits  :  the  ordinary  man  would,  prima 
facie,  expect  evidence  less  gross  in  character.  And 
the  remark  applies  to  the  phenomenon  exhibited  by 
the  Davenport  Brothers,  which  consisted  in  sitting 
in  dark  cabinets  and  extricating  themselves  from 
ropes,  which  in  their  apparently  effectual  securing 
were  adduced  as  the  work  of  invisible  hands,  and 
which  therefore  defied  unaided  human  skill  to  undo. 
However,  the  spirits,  as  Cowper  says  of  the  Deity, 

"  Move  in  a  mysterious  way  " 
Their  "wonders  to  perform," 

The  Brothers  arrived  in  1864  and  remained  here  for 
about  a  year,  when  they  went  to  the  Continent, 
staying  there  till  1868.  Of  this  more  hereafter. 

Among  other  well-accredited  American  mediums 
the  most  notable,  since  the  Davenport  Brothers,  was 
Henry  Slade.  "  Doctor,"  he  dubbed  himself,  as  an 
exception  in  the  country  whose  male  inhabitants, 
according  to  the  late  "Max  O'Rell,"  are  "mostly 
colonels."  He  came  here  in  the  summer  of  1876. 
He  is  described  as  being  of  tall,  lithe  figure,  dreamy- 


50  THE  QUESTION 

eyed,  having  a  rather  sad  smile  and  a  certain  melan- 
choly grace  of  manner,  and  as  of  highly  wrought 
nervous  temperament.1  His  special  line  as  a 
medium  was  in  the  receipt  of  communications  from 
spirits  written  on  double  slates  screwed  or  locked 
together.  His  sitters  put  questions  orally,  or  in 
writing  on  slates,  sometimes  concealing  the  questions 
on  folded  slips  of  paper.  Unlike  the  phenomena 
already  described,  these  were  produced  in  full  light. 
The  company  were  free  to  bring  their  own  slates, 
mark  them  for  identification,  fasten  them  up,  lay 
them  on  the  table,  each  one  keeping  his  or  her  eyes 
steadfastly  on  the  medium.  Mr  Podmore,  whose 
sceptical  attitude  towards  all  spiritualistic  pheno- 
mena never  wavered  during  many  years  of  investiga- 
tion of  them,  was,  he  tells  us,  "  profoundly  impressed 
by  the  performance."  2  He  was  not  alone.  Emi- 
nent men  of  science  witnessed  the  performances  and, 
save  in  two  notable  instances,  to  be  dealt  with  later 
on,  confessed  themselves  baffled.  So  were  pro- 
fessional conjurers,  one  of  them  confessing  that  he 
regarded  it  "as  impossible  to  explain  the  occurrences 
by  presdigitation  of  any  kind."  3 

Circumstances  to  be  narrated  in  the  next  chapter 
compelled  Slade  to  leave  England  hurriedly  in  the 
following  year.  He  left  an  expert  successor  in 
one  William  Eglinton,  a  fellow-countryman,  and 
co-worker  with  Madame  Blavatsky.  The  spirit- 
writing  on  slates  which  he  exhibited  brought  a 

1  Lucian  thus  describes  the  medium  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos : 
• '  His  eyes  were  piercing  and  suggested  inspiration,  his  voice  at  once 
sweet  and  sonorous."     (Fowler's  trans.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  213.) 

2  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  89. 

3  Ibid.y  p.  204. 


HISTORICAL  51 

crowd  of  witnesses  testifying  to  the  genuineness  of 
these  unique  holographs,  and  the  London  Spiritual- 
ist Alliance  set  its  hall-mark  on  them  by  inviting 
Eglinton  to  read  a  paper  on  the  marvels.  The 
following  narrative  is  quoted  as  a  typical  example 
of  his  skill. 

A  Mr  Smith,  to  whose  exceptionally  acute  powers 
of  observation  Mr  Podmore  testified,  and  Mr  J. 
Murray  Templeton,  had  a  sitting  with  Eglinton. 
Expressing  the  desire  of  the  two  to  get  something 
written  which  could  be  regarded  as  outside  the 
knowledge  of  the  three,  Mr  Smith  took  down  a  book 
haphazard  from  a  shelf,  put  it  on  a  chair  and  sat  on 
it,  while  he  and  Mr  Templeton  were  arranging  the 
page,  line  and  word  to  be  asked  for.  This  was 
decided  by  each  taking  some  crayons  and  pencils 
by  chance.  One  of  them  found  that  he  had  taken 
eighteen  crayons,  and  the  other  that  he  had  taken 
nine  pencils.  So  they  agreed  that  the  "  controls  " 
should  be  asked  to  write  the  last  word  of  line  18  on 
page  9  of  the  book.  The  book  was  produced  and  laid 
on  one  of  the  slates,  both  of  which  were  held  beneath 
the  underneath  of  the  table,  the  book  being  held 
firmly  closed  between  the  table  and  the  slate.  The 
three  men  talked,  and  in  the  midst  of  Mr  Eglinton's 
remarks  the  writing  was  heard  to  begin.  He  talked 
for  about  half-a-minute  ;  the  writing  continued  a 
few  more  seconds  before  the  usual  three  raps  came 
to  denote  its  conclusion.  The  message  on  the  slate 
was  as  follows  : — "  This  is  a  Hungarian  book  of 
poems.  The  last  word  of  page  18  (page  9,  line  18) 
is  bunhoseded."  After  the  trio  had  observed  that 
a  mistake  in  the  figures  had  been  corrected  in 


52  THE  QUESTION 

parenthesis,  Mr  Smith  opened  the  book  at  page  9  and 
found  that  the  last  word  on  line  18  of  that  page  was 
"  bunhoseded."  He  regarded  the  test  as  crucial ; 
"  for,"  as  he  says,  "  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
Mr  Eglinton  can  have  committed  to  memory  the 
exact  position  of  every  word  in  every  book  on  his 
shelves — containing  some  two  hundred  books — or 
more."  1  As  told  by  Mr  Templeton,  the  narrative 
differs.  Were  ever  any  two  witnesses  of  the  same 
occurrence  in  exact  agreement  ?  The  test,  he  says, 
was  proposed  by  Eglinton,  the  book  was  not  chosen 
haphazard,  and  the  page  and  line  were  fixed-on  by 
taking  the  actual  totals  of  the  crayons  and  pencils. 

This  by  no  means  exhausts  the  list  of  American 
mediums  whom  the  dwellers  in  Wonderland  re- 
ceived with  open  arms.  Ex  uno  disce  omnes,  and  to 
recite  their  names  and  achievements  would  be  only 
to  use  "vain  repetitions."  These  "can  give  place  to 
the  story  of  the  wonders  exhibited  by  a  renowned 
home-made  medium. 

I  refer  to  the  Rev.  Stainton  Moses,  from  whose 
directions  for  the  conduct  of  circles  quotations 
have  been  given.  To  him  the  late  Dr  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  paid  this  tribute  :  "  He  was  as  re- 
markable a  medium  as  D.  D.  Home,  and  during  the 
last  seventeen  years  of  his  life  he  kept  accurate 
and  systematic  records  of  all  the  phenomena  that 
occurred  through  his  own  psychic  powers.  He  sat 
almost  entirely  with  private  friends,  many  of  whom 
also  kept  notes  of  what  occurred,  and  after  a  full 
examination  of  these  independent  records,  Mr  Myers 
concludes  that  the  various  phenomena,  many  of 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  pp.  211,212. 


HISTORICAL  53 

which  were  of  the  most  remarkable  character,  are 
thoroughly  well  established." *  More  cautiously, 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  that  Stainton  Moses  "  wrote 
automatically,  i.e.  subconsciously,  and  felt  that  he 
was  in  touch  with  helpful  and  informing  intelli- 
gences." 2 

Son  of  the  headmaster  of  the  Grammar  School 
at  Donington,  in  Lincolnshire,  Stainton  Moses  was 
born  in  1839.  He  went  up  to  Oxford  in  1858  and 
took  Holy  Orders  in  1863,  but  indifferent  health 
and  a  "  parson's  throat  "  compelled  him  to  give  up 
clerical  work  in  1870,  when  he  came  to  London  as 
tutor  to  a  son  of  his  friends,  Dr  and  Mrs  Stanhope 
Speer.  They  were  Spiritualists,  converted  to  the 
faith  by  the  belief  that  they  had  seen  the  face  of  a 
dead  relative  at  a  seance  where  a  Mrs  Holmes  had 
acted  as  medium.  Stainton  Moses  was  a  neurotic, 
therefore  of  highly  susceptible  temperament ;  and 
to  this,  fostered  by  sympathetic  surroundings,  and 
especially  to  the  reading  of  books  on  spiritualism, 
notably  R.  Dale  Owen's  The  Debateable  Land*  may 
be  traced  the  development  of  his  powers  as  a 
medium,  manifest  in  both  physical  and  psychical 
phenomena.  His  reputed  high,  wellnigh  saintly, 

1  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  102. 

3  Raymond,  p.  350,  and  see  his  Survival  of  Man,  pp.  94,  104. 

3  This  title  is  applicable  to  Mr  Owen's  statement  that  when  he  was 
at  Naples,  where  he  was  American  Minister,  Home  gave  a  sitting  in 
his  (Mr  Owen's)  house,  when,  three  or  four  friends  being  present,  a 
table  and  lamp  weighing  ninety-six  pounds  rose  eight  or  ten  inches 
from  the  floor  and  remained  suspended  in  the  air  while  one  might 
count  six  or  seven,  the  hands  of  all  present  being  laid  upon  the  table. 
This  is  cited  by  Dr  A.  R.Wallace  as  one  of  "  a  few  instances  in  which 
the  evidence  of  preterhuman  or  spiritual  beings  is  as  good  and  definite 
as  it  is  possible  for  any  evidence  of  any  fact  to  be.'? — Miracles  and 
Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  71  (Revised  Edition,  1896). 


54  THE  QUESTION 

character,  and  his  unblemished  career  as  cleric  and 
schoolmaster,  begot  unwavering  trust.  Like  Home, 
he  was  never  detected  in  any  trickery.  His  medium- 
istic  powers  were  revealed  in  1872,  when  he  became 
English  master  in  University  College  School,  a  post 
which  he  held  till  1889.  He  died  in  1892  of  a  linger- 
ing disease,  perhaps  self-aggravated.  Mr  Podmore 
says  that  "  at  the  end  of  his  life,  during  a  period  of 
extreme  nervous  prostration,  he  became  a  victim, 
like  many  other  mediums,  to  the  drink  habit."  x 
He  was  no  professional,  he  asked  no  fee  nor  expected 
one  from  the  select  number,  often  only  two,  of  old 
friends  who  were  invited  to  his  seances.  In  a  room 
where  light  was  wholly  excluded  rapp  ing-alphabets 
were  in  full  swing — at  one  seance  they  indicated  the 
presence  of  forty-nine  spirits ;  the  miscellaneous 
objects  introduced  ranged  from  gloves  and  pin- 
cushions to  opera -glasses  and  Parian  statuettes. 
Sprayed  scents  diffused  fragrance  ;  sometimes  the 
liquid  perfume  was  poured  into  the  upturned  hands 
of  the  sitters,  "  frequently  it  would  be  found  oozing 
from  the  medium's  head  and  running  down,  like  the 
precious  ointment  of  Aaron,  to  his  beard."  2  Con- 
firming an  entry  in  Mrs  Speers'  diary,  Moses  says 
that  on  one  occasion  he  was  levitated  more  than  six 
feet.  Dr  and  Mrs  Speers  averred  that  one  evening 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  288. 

•'  There  is  certainly  some  evidence  indicating  that  continual 
sittings  for  physical  phenomena  cause  an  illegitimate  and  excessive 
drain  on  the  vitality  of  a  medium,  creating  a  nervous  exhaustion 
which  is  apt  to  lead,  in  extreme  cases,  to  mental  derangement,  or  to 
an  habitual  resort  to  stimulants  with  a  no  less  deplorable  end." — On 
the  Threshold  of  the  Unseen,  p.  261.  By  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett. 

2  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  278. 


HISTORICAL  55 

a  brilliant  cross,  its  colours  varying,  appeared 
behind  the  medium's  head,1  from  which  time  spirit 
lights  were  often  seen,  accompanied  by  spirit  music. 
To  Moses  himself  came  not,  as  to  his  namesake  on 
the  Mount,  "  the  glory  of  the  Lord  like  devouring 
fire,"  but  the  voices  of  Swedenborg,  Bishop  Wilber- 
force  and  others  departed,  while  nearly  forty  of 
the  less  famous  among  these  sent  messages  proving 
their  identity,  through  Imperator,  the  guiding 
"  control "  2  who  directed  the  medium's  hand  in  spirit 
writing.  These  communications  fill  twenty-four 
notebooks,  and  contain  not  only  autobiographical 
details,  but  homilies  of  the  ordinary  pulpit  type, 
which  can  hardly  be  construed  as  forming  part  of 
any  "  new  revelation."  A  quotation  from  one  of 
them  will  serve  as  sample  of  the  whole.  Pitched  in 
the  triumphant  note  of  "  Arise,  shine ;  for  thy  light 
is  come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon 
thee,"  3  it  seems  to  herald  the  passing  away  of  the 
old  order  and  the  advent  of  the  new  Spiritualism. 
'  We  tell  you,  friend,  that  the  end  draws  nigh.  It 
shall  not  be  always  so.  As  it  was  in  the  days  which 
preceded  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man ;  as  it  has 

1  In  Home's  case  a  crystal  ball  emitting  flashes  of  coloured  light 
appeared. 

8  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  explains  that  "  the  control  or  second  personality 
which  speaks  during  the  trance  appears  to  be  more  closely  in  touch 
with  what  is  popularly  spoken  of  as  '  the  next  world  '  than  with 
customary  human  existence,  and  accordingly  is  able  to  get  messages 
through  from  people  deceased,  transmitting  them  through  the  speech 
or  writing  of  the  medium,  usually  with  some  obscurity  and  mis- 
understanding, and  with  mannerisms  belonging  either  to  the  medium 
or  to  the  control." — Raymond,  p.  87. 

The  controls,  as  will  be  seen,  form  a  miscellaneous  company, 
ranging  from  philosophers  to  charwomen. 

3  Isaiah  Ix.  i . 


56  THE  QUESTION 

been  in  the  midnight  hours  which  precede  every 
day  dream  from  on  high,  so  it  is  now.  The  night 
of  ignorance  is  fast  passing  away.  The  shackles 
which  priestcraft  has  hung  around  struggling  souls 
shall  be  knocked  off,  and  in  place  of  fanatical  folly 
and  ignorant  Pharisaism  and  misty  speculation  you 
shall  have  a  reasonable  religion  and  a  divine  faith. 
You  shall  have  richer  views  of  God,  truer  notions  of 
your  duty  and  destiny ;  you  shall  know  that  they 
whom  you  call  dead  are  alive  amongst  you,  living, 
as  they  lived  on  earth,  only  more  really :  minister- 
ing to  you  with  undiminished  love ;  animated  in 
their  unwearying  intercourse  with  the  same  affec- 
tion which  they  bore  to  you  whilst  they  were  yet 
incarned."  To  this  follow  assurances  on  man's 
immortality.  "  Man  never  dies,  cannot  die,  how- 
ever he  may  wish  it — in  that  great  truth  rests  the 
key  to  the  future." 

In  the  year  that  Stainton  Moses  died  interest 
gathered  round  a  medium  of  different  type,  one 
Eusapia  Palladino,  an  uneducated  Neapolitan,  to 
whom  the  late  Dr  A.  R.  Wallace  bore  witness  as 
follows :- 

She  "  had  been  tested  by  numbers  of  men  of 
science— Italian,  German  and  French— all  of  whom 
became  satisfied  of  the  genuineness  of  the  manifesta- 
tions. The  sittings  took  place  in  private  houses 
belonging  to  Professor  Charles  Richet,  a  French 
physician,  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  mental 
diseases  and  of  hypnotism,  and  under  test  conditions 
usually  under  Professor  Lodge's  personal  supervision. 
The  phenomena  consisted  of  the  motion  of  various 
objects  at  considerable  distances  from  the  medium, 


HISTORICAL  57 

the  appearance  of  hands  and  faces  not  those  of  any 
person  present,  musical  sounds  produced  on  an 
accordion  and  piano  while  no  one  was  touching 
either  instrument,  a  heavy  table  turned  completely 
over  while  untouched  by  anyone,  various  parts  of 
the  Professor's  body  touched  or  grasped  as  by 
invisible  hands  while  the  medium's  hands  were 
securely  held,  and  lights  like  glow-worms  flitting 
about  the  room.  His  conclusion  was  that  these 
various  phenomena  were  not  produced  by  the 
medium  in  any  normal  way,  and  that  they  were 
not  explicable  as  the  result  of  any  known  physical 
causes."  x 

The  tests  to  which  Eusapia  was  required  to  sub- 
mit were  numerous ;  they  extend  over  nearly 
twenty  years.  They  began  in  1892  and  were 
repeated  in  1894,  on  the  He  Roubaud,  near  Hyeres, 
when  Professor  Lodge  vouched  that  the  phenomena 
"  were  amply  sufficient  in  themselves  to  establish 
a  scientifically  unrecognised  truth."  In  1895 
Eusapia  was  brought  to  Cambridge,  when,  as  will 
be  told  in  the  next  chapter,  doubts  as  to  the 
genuineness  of  her  manifestations  were  expressed, 
causing  Professor  Lodge  materially  to  modify 
his  previous  judgment.  In  a  letter  dated  2nd 
November  1895,  and  printed  in  Light,  he  said : 
"  Eusapia  has  shown  that  she  employs  artifice  and 
deceives :  so  much  is  certain.  She  has  just  as 
certainly  shown  that  she  can  cause  genuine  pheno- 
mena. That  is  my  opinion."  During  the  years 
1905, 1906  and  1907  investigations  into  her  medium- 
istic  powers  were  carried  on  at  forty-three  sittings, 

1  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  104. 


58  THE  QUESTION 

some  at  Naples,  some  at  Turin  and  the  larger 
number  at  Paris,  where  M.  and  Madame  Curie  were 
members  of  the  investigating  body  appointed  by 
the  Institute  General  Psychologique.  Following 
on  this,  a  committee  was  appointed  by  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  in  1908,  the  sittings  being 
held  at  Naples  in  the  winter  of  that  year.  Finally, 
Eusapia  went  to  America  in  November,  1909,  and 
stayed  there  till  June,  1910,  during  which  period 
she  gave  between  thirty  and  forty  seances.  These 
are  described  in  detail  by  Mr  Hereward  Carrington 
— who  attended  the  larger  number — in  his  Personal 
Experiences  in  Spiritualism 1  (he  had  been  present 
at  the  Naples  seances). 

It  was  remarked  at  the  outset  that  the  "  new 
revelation,"  following  the  processes  of  evolution 
(adapting  itself,  perchance,  like  an  older  revelation, 
to  "  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts  "),  was  gradual  in 
the  character  of  its  manifestations.  Some  twelve 
years  appear  to  have  passed  before  the  grosser 
physical  phenomena  at  Hydeville  and  other  places 
were  followed  by  more  ethereal  phenomena  in  the 
materialised  forms  of  the  departed.  This  privilege 
was  also  first  accorded  to  America. 

The  first  record  of  that  marvel  dates  from 
October,  1860.  At  a  seance  held  by  Robert  Dale 
Owen,  where  Mrs  Underhill  (a  married  daughter  of 
the  Foxs)  was  the  medium,  a  veiled  and  luminous 
female  figure  appeared  and  walked  about  the  room. 
Later  on  Kate  Fox  (heroine  of  the  Hydeville  story) 
gave  sittings  to  a  disconsolate  widower,  a  Mr  Liver- 
more,  of  New  York,  and  was  able  to  assuage  his 

1  Part  II.     (T.  Werner  Laurie.) 


HISTORICAL  59 

grief  by  invoking  a  figure  in  whom  he  recognised 
his  dead  wife.  But  he  was  not  permitted  to 
approach  her.  By  the  powers  of  the  same  medium, 
materialised  spirits  outside  family  groups  appeared. 
Among  these  was  Benjamin  Franklin.  But  it  was 
not  till  January,  1872,  that  the  proselytes  "  with- 
out the  gate  "  had  these  celestial  visions  vouchsafed 
to  them.  Mrs  Guppy,  famous  in  the  annals  of 
levitation,  was  the  first  to  achieve  distinction  among 
us  in  successfully  "  calling  spirits  from  the  vasty 
deep  "  —or  height.  At  a  seance  at  her  house,  where 
a  sister  medium  was  present,  a  face  ;c  white  as 
alabaster  "  appeared  at  an  upper  opening  in  the 
cabinet  :  at  a  seance  held  by  two  mediums,  Herne 
and  Williams,  three  weeks  later,  the  number  of 
spirit-shapes  grew  apace.  They  were  rendered 
visible  in  the  semi-darkness  by  luminous  smoke  or 
vapour,  accompanied  by  a  faint  smell  of  phosphorus 
—not  sulphur  !  A  similar  smell  was  emitted  at  a 
seance  given  by  the  first  Mrs  Guppy  some  years 
earlier,  and  notably,  on  another  occasion,  when 
spirit  lights  appeared  at  a  seance  given  by  Mr 
Stainton  Moses  to  his  friends  the  Speers.  Herne 
and  Williams  were  eclipsed  by  other  mediums, 
among  them  a  Miss  Showers,  of  Teignmouth,  a  girl 
of  sixteen.  At  her  seance  the  old  and  the  new 
phenomena  met  together.  Saucepans  jumped  off 
the  fire,  dish-covers  leapt  to  the  bell  wires,  otto- 
mans and  flower-pots  flew  about,  and  a  table 
started  running  across  the  room.  In  the  midst  of 
this  wantonness  one  of  the  company  recognised  the 
materialised  spirit  of  the  notorious  John  King  (he 
was,  when  in  the  flesh,  the  buccaneer  Morgan)  and 


60  THE  QUESTION 

of  one  Peter  sitting  on  the  sofa.  This  was  accom- 
plished through  the  mediumship  of  Ellen,  the 
servant,  to  whom  the  considerate  Peter  prescribed 
a  good  supper,  wine  included.  This  may  be 
paralleled  by  the  incident  at  a  Maori  seance,  when 
the  spirit  of  a  deceased  chief  spoke  through  the 
priest  medium,  who  was  sitting  in  the  darkest 
corner  of  the  house.  The  spirit  assured  his 
"  sister  "  that  all  was  well  with  him,  and  added  : 
"  Give  my  large  pig  to  the  priest."  l  Among  the 
Samoans  "  the  priest  generally  managed  to  make 
the  god  say  what  he  wished  him  to  say,  or  to  make 
demands  for  something  which  the  priest  himself 
wished  to  possess."  2 

An  important  witness  now  appears  on  the  scene 
to  dispel  any  doubts  which  had  been  felt  by  some 
as  to  whether  the  medium  and  the  spirit  are  not  one 
and  the  same  person.  At  seances  held  at  his  own 
house  in  May,  1874,  where  a  girl  named  Florence 
Cook,  then  in  her  sixteenth  year,  was  the  medium, 
Sir  William  (then  Mr)  Crookes,  averred  that  he  had 
seen  the  materialised  spirit  of  Katie  King,  daughter 
of  the  above-named  John  King,  of  whom—  i.e.  of 
Katie — it  was  arranged  that  photographs  should  be 
taken.  This  is  Sir  William's  testimony  : 

"  I  frequently  drew  the  curtain  on  one  side  when 
Katie  was  standing  near,  and  it  was  a  common  thing 
for  the  seven  or  eight  of  us  to  see  Miss  Cook  and 
Katie  at  the  same  time  under  the  full  blaze  of  the 
electric  light.  We  did  not  on  these  occasions 

1  Quoted  from  "  Old  New  Zealand  ''  in  Cock  Lane  and  Common 
Sense,  p.  42.     By  Andrew  Lang. 

2  Melanesians  and  Polynesians,  p.  224.     By  George  Brown,  D.D. 


HISTORICAL  61 

actually  see  the  face  of  the  medium,  because  of  the 
shawl,  but  we  saw  her  hands  and  feet.  [Miss  Cook 
was  lying  on  the  floor,  with  her  face  muffled  in  a 
shawl.]  We  saw  her  move  uneasily  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  intense  light  and  we  heard  her  moan 
occasionally.  I  have  one  photograph  of  the  two 
together,  but  Katie  is  seated  in  front  of  Miss  Cook's 
head.  At  a  later  seance,  held  in  Miss  Cook's  bed- 
room, which  had  been  transformed  into  a  dark 
cabinet,  Sir  William  was  privileged  to  be  present 
behind  the  curtain  at  the  farewell  meeting  between 
Miss  Cook  and  Katie,  and  saw  and  heard  the  two 
figures  conversing  together  for  several  minutes."  * 
Such  is  the  evidence  given  by  that  distinguished 
savant  as  to  the  temporary  return  of  the  departed 
from  the  realm  of  spirits. 

In  his  Researches  in  the  Phenomena  oj  Spiritualism 
Sir  William  refers  to  the  sensation  of  "  a  peculiar 
cold  air,  sometimes  amounting  to  a  decided 
wind  "...  a  cold  so  intense  that  he  could  com- 
pare it  only  "  to  that  felt  when  the  hand  has  been 
within  a  few  inches  of  frozen  mercury,"  2  which 
frequently  precedes  the  manifestation  of  the 
figures.  Mr  Edward  Carpenter  suggests  that  this 
may  be  due  "  in  part  at  any  rate  to  a  condensation 
of  water-vapour  on  the  accreting  particles  of  the 
spirit  body."  3  The  intimate  connection  in  barbaric 
thought  between  wind  and  spirit  was  referred  to  in 
the  introductory  chapter.  As  the  Maori  of  New 
Zealand  heard  in  the  wind  the  signs  of  the  presence 
of  their  god,  so  does  the  spiritualist  find  proof  of  the 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.>  p.  155.  a  P.  86. 

3  Drama  of  Love  and  Death,  p.  203. 


62  THE  QUESTION 

presence  of  the  departed  in  the  "  decided  wind  "  to 
which  Sir  William  testifies. 

Speaking  of  spirit  photographs,  Dr  Wallace  ex- 
presses his  satisfaction  "  that  whatever  marvels 
occur  in  America  can  be  reproduced  here,"  and  he 
cites  examples  of  "  clearly  recognisable  likeness  of 
deceased  friends  having  been  obtained."  l  Among 
those  possessing  exceptional  interest  is  that  of  the 
late  William  Howitt's  "  two  sons,  many  years  dead, 
the  likenesses  to  whom  were  instantly  recognised  by 
the  parents  as  '  perfect  and  unmistakable.' ;  The 
interest  for  spiritualists  lies  in  the  light  which  that 
photograph  throws  on  the  debatable  question  whether 
the  spirits  remain  at  the  stage  of  development  when 
they  depart,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  babies  dying  im- 
mediately after  their  birth,  of  non-development. 

As  bearing  on  this,  at  an  exhibition  of  spirit 
photographs  at  the  Spiritualists'  Hall,  Chiswick,  in 
the  spring  of  1904,  Mr  Blackall  "  stated  that  his 
subjects  are  able  to  give  sittings  for  any  period  of 
their  earthly  existence,  just  as  when  our  thoughts 
can  now  run  over  the  past  periods  of  our  lives." 
Among  the  spirits  photographed  as  peering  over 
Mr  Blackall's  shoulder  were  those  of  Browning, 
Tennyson,  Longfellow,  Charles  Dickens,  Huxley, 
Darwin  and  Napoleon.  It  was  regrettable  to  hear 
him  add  that  only  one  photographer  in  England 
was  able  to  take  the  portraits  and  that  "  he  has  now 
retired  from  business."  "  The  exhibition,"  says  the 
reporter  of  the  interview  with  Mr  Blackall,  "  is 
unique."  2  None  of  us  can  contradict  that. 

1  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  p.  196. 

2  Daily  Chronicle,  ipth  March  1904. 


HISTORICAL  63 

Speaking  of  the  "  photography  of  the  cloud 
figures  (some  of  them  very  definite  in  outline)  which 
are  found  to  emanate  on  occasions  from  mediums 
in  the  state  of  trance,"  Mr  Edward  Carpenter  says  : 
"  Notwithstanding  the  doubt  which  has  commonly 
been  cast  on  all  such  photographs,  and  notwith- 
standing the  very  obvious  ease  with  which  cameras 
can  be  manipulated  and  shadow  figures  of  some 
kind  fraudulently  produced,  the  evidence  for  the 
genuineness  of  some  such  'spirit '  photographs  is  — 
to  anyone  who  really  studies  it — beyond  question. 
.  .  .  The  evidence  is  so  abundant  and,  on  the  whole, 
so  well  confirmed  that  we  are  practically  now  com- 
pelled to  admit  (and  this  is  the  point  in  hand)  that 
cloud-like  forms  of  human  outline  emanating  from 
a  medium  or  other  person's  body  may  at  times  be 
caught  by  the  photographic  plate.  .  .  .  That  these 
forms,  occurring  and  occasionally  photographed  in 
connection  with  mediums,  are  '  independent  spirits ' 
or  souls,  is,  of  course,  in  no  way  assured.  They  may 
be  such  or  (what  seems  more  likely)  they  may  be 
simply  extensions  of  the  spiritual  or  inner  body  of 
the  medium."  l  In  his  little  book  on  Psychical 
Research  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  makes  no  reference  to 
the  matter.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  leaves  it  an  open 
question,  but  his  leanings  are  obvious.  "  The 
question  of  photography  applied  to  visible  phan- 
tasms, and  to  an  invisible  variety  [can  any  rational 
explanation  of  these  words  be  supplied  ?]  said  to  be 
perceived  by  clairvoyants,  is  still  an  open  one — at 
any  rate  no  photographic  evidence  has  yet  appeared 
conclusive  to  me.  If  successful,  photography  could 

1  Drama  of  Love  and  Death ,  pp.  186,  187. 


64  THE  QUESTION 

prove  that  the  impression  was  not  only  a  mental 
one,  but  that  the  ether  of  space  had  been  definitely 
affected  in  a  certain  way  also,  so  that  the  impression 
had  probably  become  received  by  the  optical 
apparatus  of  the  eye,  and  had  been  transmitted  in 
the  usual  way  to  the  brain."  l  On  a  later  page 
this  elusive  writer,  whose  confusion  of  thought  is 
manifest  in  the  obscureness  of  his  language,  says  : 
'  The  fact  that  a  photograph  can  be  clearly  recog- 
nised when  the  medium  has  only  seen  the  person 
clairvoyantly,  on  the  other  side  of  the  veil,  is 
suggestive,  since  it  seems  to  show  that  the  general 
appearance  is  preserved— or,  in  other  words,  that 
each  human  body  is  a  true  representation  of 
personality."  2 

At  this  time  of  day  it  may  seem  as  the  sending  of 
"  owls  to  Athens  "  to  discourse  to  intelligent  readers 
on  Apparitions  and  Haunted  Houses.  But  when, 
as  in  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett's  Psychical  Research,  cases 
of  apparition  are  discussed  as  having  "  high  evi- 
dential value  " 3 ;  when  they  are  referred  to  in  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge's  Survival  of  Man  as  possibly  not 
'c  purely  subjective,  belonging  to  what  are  some- 
times spoken  of  as  incipient  materialisation  " 4 ;  and 
when  Dr  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  devotes  a  long 
chapter  of  his  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism 
to  prove  their  objectivity;  discussion  of  the  subject 
here  has  warrant. 

Professor  Davenport  says  that  "  there  is  in  the 
average  man  a  great  slumbering  mass  of  fear  that  he 

1  Survival  of  Man,  p.  77  (1915  edition). 
*  Ibid.,  p.  220.  *  P.  120.    '      *  P.  83. 


HISTORICAL  65 

cannot  shake  off,  made  up  of  instincts  and  feelings 
inherited  from  a  long  human  and  animal  past."  1  . 
The  animal,  the  child  and  the  ignorant,  and  there- 
fore the  superstitious,  alike  tremble  before  the 
unknown  and  the  unusual ;  they  fear,  but  know 
not  what  they  fear.  Ignorance  is  the  mother  of 
mystery,  and  the  mysterious  remains  the  dreaded. 
'  Fear,  in  sooth,"  says  Lucretius,  "  takes  such  a 
hold  of  all  mortals,  because  they  see  so  many  opera- 
tions go  on  in  earth  and  heaven,  the  courses  of 
which  they  can  in  no  way  understand."  2  This  has 
supplement  in  Hobbes'  Leviathan  :  "  This  feare  of 
things  invisible  is  the  naturall  Seed  of  that  which 
every  one  in  himself  calleth  Religion ;  and  in  them 
that  worship,  or  feare  the  Power  otherwise  than  they 
do,  Superstition."  3 

Hence  the  mental  state  of  both  the  savage  and 
the  illiterate  is  one  of  nervous  instability.  "  A 
gust  of  contrarie  wind,  the  croaking  of  a  flight  of 
Ravens,  the  false  pace  of  a  Horse,  the  casual  flight 
of  an  Eagle,  a  dreame,  a  sodain  voice,  a  false  sign, 
are  enough  to  overthrow,  sufficient  to  overwhelme 
and  able  to  pull  him  to  the  ground."  4  The  flimsiest 
report  of  the  appearance  of  a  ghost  anywhere  will 
draw  thousands  to  the  spot ;  presumably  intelligent 
persons  will  write  to  the  newspapers  asserting  their 
belief  in  the  existence  of  these  troublers  of  house- 
holds. When  rumours  of  a  haunted  house  in 
Ballachin  were  spread  abroad  a  few  years  ago,  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  deemed  them  of 

1  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  p.  224. 

2  De  Rerum  Natura.     Book  I.  151-154. 

3  Part  I.,  chapter  xi.     "Of  Man." 

4  Essays.    By  Montaigne.    Book  II.,  chapter  xii.     (Florio's  trans.) 

E 


66  THE  QUESTION 

sufficient  importance  to  make  investigations  on  the 
spot,  and  a  correspondent  who  slept  in  the  house 
wrote  thus  to  The  Times  :  "  Of  one  thing  I  am 
certain — that  is,  that  there  is  something  super- 
natural in  the  noises  and  things  that  I  heard  and 
experienced  there."  x 

At  a  reputed  haunted  house  in  Oxfordshire, 
all  the  inmates  avoided  a  room  whence  issued 
at  night  "  weird  music,  now  sweet  and  soft  and 
lovely  as  a  dream,  then  swelling  into  weird  con- 
fusion, and  then  dying  away  in  long-drawn  moans 
of  infinite  distress."  When  a  carpenter  at  last  was 
sent  for  he  found  a  perfect  plexus  of  bell  wires 
underneath  the  floor  of  the  haunted  chamber. 
"  When  doors  and  windows  were  all  closed,  and 
everything  was  still  at  night,  the  wind,  finding  its 
way  in  by  what  channel  it  could,  turned  this  laby- 
rinth of  wires  into  an  aeolian  harp,  whence  issued 
the  mysterious  sounds  by  which  successive  families 
had  been  scared."  2 

Some  time  back  (I  omitted  to  note  the  date)  it 
was  stated  in  a  paper  called  Health  that  above  one 
thousand  houses  in  London  are  tenantless  because 
they  are  believed  to  be  haunted.  Imitating  the 
precision  of  the  Dublin  lawyer  who,  challenging 
his  opponent  to  a  duel,  and  fixing  the  meeting  in 
Phoenix  Park,  added,  "  in  the  Fifteen  Acres,  be  the 
same  more  or  less,"  I  may  say  that  the  exact 
number  of  houses  in  the  area  ruled  by  the  London 
County  Council  is  given  in  its  last  "  Statistical 
Report  (1911)"  as  606,271.  This  provides,  as 
nearly  as  can  be,  one  ghost  to  every  six  hundred 

1  Times,  8th  and  loth  June,  1897.  *  Ibid.,  25th  August  1897. 


HISTORICAL  67 

dwellings  ;  and,  as  that  supply  doubtless  exceeds 
the  demand,  it  is  not  well  to  hamper  the  result  by 
adding  the  number  of  skeletons  producible  from  the 
cupboards  of  the  606,271  houses. 

More  than  three  centuries  ago  Reginald  Scot, 
bravely  and  perilously  attacking  superstitions  in  his 
Discoverie  of  Witchcraft,  asked  in  triumphant  tones  : 
"  Where  are  the  soules  that  swarmed  in  times  past  ? 
Where  are  the  spirits  ?  Who  heareth  their  noises  ? 
Who  seeth  their  visions  ?  .  .  .  Where  be  the  spirits 
that  wandered  to  have  buriall  for  their  bodies  ?  "  * 

Where,  indeed  ?  Why,  everywhere,  in  the  belief 
of  psychists,  as  well  as  of  peasants,  some  of  the 
psychists  even  contending  when  a  medium  is 
exposed  that,  despite  the  detection  of  the  sorry 
trickery,  there  is  a  residuum  of  phenomena  which 
points  to  the  action  of  supernatural  agents.  Credat 
Judceus  Apella,  non  ego. 

The  list  is  a  long  one,  stretching  far  back. 
Numberless  bells  have  been  rung ;  mountains  of 
crockery  smashed ;  cartloads  of  missiles  hurled ; 
hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  people  frightened  out 
of  their  wits,  and  thousands  upon  thousands  cheated 
of  their  sleep,  through  the  assumed  activities  of 
the  crowd  of  semi-incarnates.  The  literature  of  the 
subject,  whether  treated  seriously  or  to  entertain,  is 
enormous.  Certain  stories  stand  out  from  the  rest, 
as,  for  example,  that  of  the  Drummer  of  Tedworth, 
who  came  with  a  "blooming  noisome  smell,"  used 
the  rapping-alphabet,  banged  on  his  big  drum  and 
terrorised  Mr  Mompesson  and  his  children  in  revenge 
of  his  arrest  and  sentence  to  transportation.  More 

1  P.  390,  in  1886  reprint  of  1584  edition. 


68  THE  QUESTION 

famous  than  he  is  the  ghost  of  "  Old  Jeffery,"  who 
harried  the  Wesley  household  at  Epworth  with 
"  groans,  squeaks,  tinglings  and  knockings,"  and 
who  was  not  to  be  scared  away  by  the  Reverend 
Samuel  Wesley's  purchase  of  a  mastiff.  Later  in 
arrival  was  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost,  whose  story,  as  a 
type  of  others  of  its  kind,  bears  telling  in  more  detail. 

The  materials  for  our  knowledge  of  this  legend 
are:  1.  A  pamphlet  entitled  The  Mystery  Revealed: 
Containing  a  Series  of  Transactions  and  Authentic 
Testimonials  respecting  the  supposed  Cock  Lane  Ghost, 
the  authorship  of  which  has  been  attributed  to 
Goldsmith.  As  to  this  the  British  Museum  Cata- 
logue is  silent.  2.  The  Annual  Register,  pp.  142-146. 
3.  The  Gentleman's  Magazine,  XXXII.,  pp.  44,  81, 
82.  Each  of  these  is  of  the  year  1762.  There  is 
also  in  the  British  Museum  Catalogue  an  entry: 
"  Cock  Lane  Humbug,  a  Song.  London,  1762. 
A  slip  fol." 

Briefly  told,  this  is  the  story.  In  1756  Mr  Kent, 
a  Norfolk  man,  lost  his  wife,  and  her  sister  Fanny 
came  to  him  as  housekeeper.  Like  Matthew 
Arnold's  typical  Nonconformist,  he  had  "  an  eye 
on  his  deceased  wife's  sister,"  and  she  returned  the 
glance.  Mrs  Kent  had  died  in  child-bed,  but  as  the 
baby  lived,  although  only  for  a  few  minutes  after  its 
birth,  the  canon  law,  according  to  the  author  of 
The  Mystery  Revealed,  forbade  the  marriage  of  the 
widower  with  his  sister-in-law.  From  her  he  fled  to 
London,  but  there  she  followed  him,  first  by  letters 
and  then  in  person,  the  result  being  that  "  they 
thought  it,  in  foro  conscientice,  no  crime  to  indulge 
their  mutual  passion."  After  one  or  two  shifts  they 


HISTORICAL  69 

settled  in  lodgings  in  Cock  Lane,  in  the  house  of  one 
Parsons,  clerk  of  St  Sepulchre's,  Holborn.  Kent, 
having  to  go  into  the  country,  left  Fanny  alone, 
whereupon  she  asked  Parsons's  daughter  Elizabeth 
to  sleep  with  her.  At  night  strange  scratchings 
and  rappings  broke  Fanny's  rest,  the  more  so  as 
she  interpreted  these  as  monitions  of  her  death.  Of 
these  we  hear  no  more  after  Kent's  return.  After 
a  time,  as  the  result  of  a  squabble  between  lodger 
and  landlord  over  money  lent  to  the  latter,  Kent 
removed  to  Bartlet's  Court,  Clerkenwell,  where,  in 
February,  1760,  Fanny,  being  then  with  child,  died 
of  small-pox  and  was  buried  in  the  vault  of  St  John's 
Church.  During  1761  and  the  earlier  part  of  1762 
the  noises  that  had  disturbed  poor  Fanny's  sleep 
were  renewed  in  Parsons's  house.  They  seemed  to 
come  from  Elizabeth  Parsons's  bed,  the  girl  herself 
being  "  always  affected  with  tremblings  and  shiver- 
ings  at  the  coming  and  going  of  the  ghost,"  and 
feeling  "  the  spirit  like  a  mouse  upon  her  back." 
The  ghost  itself  appeared  to  some  as  a  "  shrouded, 
headless  figure."  The  report  of  the  apparition 
spread  like  wildfire  through  the  town  and  brought 
crowds  to  Cock  Lane. 

Under  date  of  29th  January  1762  Horace  Wai- 
pole  writes  to  Sir  Horace  Mann  :  "  We  are  again 
dipped  into  an  egregious  scene  of  folly.  The  reign- 
ing fashion  is  a  ghost— a  ghost  that  would  not  pass 
muster  in  the  paltriest  convent  in  the  Apennines. 
It  only  knocks  and  scratches  ;  does  not  pretend  to 
appear  or  speak.  The  clergy  give  it  their  bene- 
diction, and  all  the  world,  whether  believers  or 
infidels,  go  to  hear  it.  I,  in  which  number  you  may 


70  THE  QUESTION 

guess,  go  to-morrow,  for  it  is  as  much  the  mode  to 
visit  the  ghost  as  the  Prince  of  Mecklenburg,  who  is 
just  arrived."  1 

The  result  of  Walpole's  visit  is  told  in  a  letter 
to  George  Montagu  within  four  days  after  that  to 
Mann  :  "I  could  send  you  volumes  on  the  ghost. 
...  A  drunken  parish  clerk  set  it  on  foot  out  of 
revenge ;  the  Methodists  have  adopted  it,  and  the 
whole  town  of  London  think  of  nothing  else.  .  .  . 
I  went  to  hear  it,  for  it  is  not  an  apparition,  but  an 
audition.  The  Duke  of  York,  Lady  Northumber- 
land, Lady  Mary  Coke,  Lord  Hertford  and  I,  all 
in  one  hackney  coach.  It  rained  torrents,  yet  the 
lane  was  full  of  mob,  and  the  house  so  full  we 
couldn't  get  in.  At  last  they  discovered  it  was  the 
Duke  of  York,  and  the  company  squeezed  them- 
selves into  one  another's  pockets  to  make  room  for 
us.  The  house,  which  is  borrowed,  and  to  which 
the  ghost  has  adjourned,  is  wretchedly  small  and 
miserable  ;  when  we  opened  the  chamber,  in  which 
were  fifty  people,  with  no  light  but  one  tallow  candle 
at  the  end,  we  tumbled  over  the  bed  of  the  child  to 
whom  the  ghost  comes,  and  whom  they  are  murder- 
ing by  inches  in  such  insufferable  heat  and  stench. 
At  the  top  of  the  room  are  ropes  to  dry  clothes. 
I  asked  if  we  were  to  have  rope-dancing  between 
the  acts.  We  had  nothing.  They  told  us,  as  they 
would  at  a  puppet  show,  that  it  would  not  come 
that  night  till  seven  in  the  morning — that  is,  when 
there  are  only  'prentices  and  old  women.  We 
stayed,  however,  till  half-an-hour  after  one.  The 
Methodists  have  promised  them  contributions  ; 

1  Letters.     Vol.  iii.,  p.  479  (Toynbee's  edition). 


HISTORICAL  71 

provisions  are  sent  in  like  forage,  and  all  the  taverns 
and  ale-houses  in  the  neighbourhood  make  fortunes. 
The  most  diverting  part  is  to  hear  people  wondering 
when  it  will  be  found  out— as  if  there  was  anything 
to  find  out ;  as  if  the  actors  would  make  their 
noises  when  they  can  be  discovered.  However,  as 
this  pantomime  cannot  last  much  longer,  I  hope 
Lady  Fanny  Shirley  will  set  up  a  ghost  of  her  own 
at  Twickenham,  and  then  you  shall  hear  one."  l 

A  Mr  Brown  and  Mary  Frazer,  the  girl's  nurse, 
asked  the  ghost  to  answer  questions  in  the  way 
approved  by  ghosts  generally — namely,  one  knock 
for  "  Yes  "  and  two  knocks  for  "  No  "  —the  result 
being  that  the  spirit,  who  was  none  other  than 
Fanny  herself,  declared  that  Kent  had  "  poisoned 
her  by  putting  arsenic  in  purl 2  and  administering 
it  to  her  when  ill  of  the  small-pox."  The  spirit 
properly  added  that  she  hoped  to  see  Kent  hanged. 
The  medium,  as  she  would  be  called  nowadays,  was 
taken  to  other  houses,  with  varying  result ;  and  at 
last  a  movement  towards  strict  investigation  of  the 
phenomena  was  set  on  foot,  Parsons  reluctantly 
consenting  to  the  girl's  removal  to  the  house  of 
the  Rev.  Mr  Aldrich,  a  clergyman  of  Clerkenwell, 
where  there  assembled  "  many  gentlemen  eminent 
for  their  rank  and  character,"  among  them  being 
Dr  Johnson. 

The  girl  was  put  to  bed  by  some  ladies  ;  all 
avenues  against  fraud  or  collusion  were  blocked  ; 
the  company  watched  her  for  above  an  hour  and 
nothing  happened.  Then  the  men  went  downstairs, 

1  Letters.     Vol.  iii.,  pp.  381,  382. 

3  Malt  liquor  medicated  with  wormwood  or  aromatic  herbs. 


72  THE  QUESTION 

but  soon  after  were  summoned  by  the  ladies,  who 
reported  that  the  scratchings  and  rappings  had 
begun.  The  girl  was  then  bidden  to  put  her  hands 
outside  the  bed,  when  the  noises  ceased.  The 
verdict  thus  far  arrived  at  is  set  down,  presumably 
by  Dr  Johnson,  in  The  Gentleman's  Magazine. 
After  reciting  the  occurrence,  he  says :  "It  is, 
therefore,  the  opinion  of  the  whole  assembly  that 
the  child  has  some  art  of  making  or  counterfeiting  a 
particular  noise,  and  that  there  is  no  agency  of  any 
higher  cause."  To  this  there  is  appended,  probably 
by  "  Sylvanus  Urban,"  the  following  note,  printed 
in  italics  : — 

"  This  account  was  drawn  up  by  a  gentleman  of  veracity  and 
learning,  and  therefore  we  have  thought  it  sufficient,  though  the 
imposture  has  been  since  more  clearly  detected  even  to  demon- 
stration "  (XXXII.,  p.  81). 

There  had  been  a  fruitless  visit  to  the  vault  of  St 
John's,  because  the  spirit  of  Fanny  had  promised  to 
rap  on  her  coffin,  and  the  next  day  the  girl  Parsons 
was  threatened  with  committal  to  Newgate  if, 
under  the  checks  imposed,  the  noises  were  not 
resumed.  Thereupon  she  hid  a  board  about  six 
inches  long  "  under  her  stays,"  and  so  produced  the 
noises ;  but  both  she  and  the  company  assembled 
agreed  that  "  these  had  not  the  least  likeness  to 
the  former  noises."  Denying  trickery,  she  was 
"  searched,  and  caught  in  the  lie."  But  there  was 
"  concurrent  opinion  that  the  child  had  been 
frightened  by  threats  into  this  attempt,"  so  that  the 
mystery  of  the  original  scratchings  and  rappings 
remained  unsolved.  In  the  sequel  Parsons  and 


HISTORICAL  73 

some  accomplices  were  tried  at  the  Guildhall  for,  as 
Horace  Walpole  hints  in  the  letter  already  quoted, 
"  conspiring  against  the  life  and  character  of  Mr 
Kent  in  making  the  girl  the  medium  of  the  slander 
that  he  had  poisoned  Fanny."  Parsons  was 
sentenced  to  stand  in  the  pillory  three  times  and 
then  to  two  years'  imprisonment ;  his  wife  to  one 
year's  imprisonment  ;  while  the  others  escaped  by 
paying  a  fine  of  between  £500  and  £600  to  Mr  Kent. 
Elizabeth  Parsons,  dupe  or  minx,  or  perhaps  a 
mixture  of  both,  vanishes  into  space. 

Sixteen  years  afterwards  a  profligate  parson, 
Cornelius  Ford,  a  cousin  of  Dr  Johnson's,  died  at 
the  Hummums  Hotel  (Arabic  hammam  =  hot  bath), 
Co  vent  Garden.  A  waiter  there,  who  was  absent 
at  the  time,  and  not  having  heard  of  Ford's  death, 
going  down  to  the  cellar  on  his  return,  met  him,  not 
once  only,  but  afterwards.  He  reported  this  to  his 
master,  and  asked  him  what  business  Ford  had 
there,  when  he  was  told  of  his  death.  The  shock 
brought  on  a  fever.  On  his  recovery  he  said  that  he 
had  a  message  from  Ford  to  deliver  to  some  women, 
but  he  was  not  to  tell  what  it  was  or  to  whom  it  was 
given.  He  walked  out  and  was  followed,  but  some- 
where about  St  Paul's  the  trackers  lost  him.  He 
came  back  and  said  that  he  had  delivered  the 
message.  The  effect  of  this  was  to  frighten  the 
hotel  servants.  When  Johnson  heard  the  story  he 
said  :  '  The  man  had  a  fever,  and  this  vision  may 
have  been  the  beginning  of  it."  1  This  was  a  shrewd 
comment  from  a  man  who  was  no  sceptic,  to  be 

1Boswell's   Life   of  Johnson.     Vol.   iii.,   p.    349   (Birkbeck  Hill's 
edition). 


74  THE  QUESTION 

paralleled  by  the  following  passage  from  Bishop 
Burnet's  "  Autobiography ':  (appended  to  Miss 
H.  C.  Foxcraft's  Supplement  to  Burnet's  History  of 
My  Own  Time) : 

"  The  Countess  of  Belcarras,  with  whom  I  had  lived  in  great 
friendship  for  many  years,  sent  for  me  to  come  to  her  in  all  hast. 
When  I  came  she  told  me  her  daughter  had  fitts  of  a  strange 
nature,  in  which  she  lay  waking,  but  knew  nobody ;  she  spoke  all 
the  while  like  one  in  heaven,  as  if  she  had  been  conversing  with 
God  and  the  holy  angels.  .  .  .  She  was  then  about  eighteen,  and 
was  an  extraordinary  person  in  all  respects.  I  apprehended 
there  was  something  belonging  to  her  sexe  in  the  case,  so  I  advised 
her  mother  to  send  for  a  physician.  He  set  nature  right,  and  she 
had  no  more  fitts.  I  had  heard  of  other  instances  of  this  sort, 
but  never  knew  any  besides  this ;  in  it  I  saw  how  nuns,  by  their 
state  of  life,  might  be  subject  to  such  fitts,  so  stories  of  that  sort 
among  them  are  not  all  to  be  rejected  as  fictions,  nor  to  be  enter- 
tained as  things  supernaturall "  (p.  474)- 

Given  a  healthy  condition  of  mind  and  body,  there 
is  no  room  for  phantasms  of  either  the  living  or  the 
dead,  The  causes  which  beget  them  are  explained 
and  their  doom  is  certain. 

Gradually  there  is  being  brought  about  the  in- 
clusion, within  the  realm  of  unbroken  order,  of  the 
great  mass  of  phenomena  once  regarded  as  due  to 
supernatural  causes,  both  good  and  baleful.  What 
yet  remains  without  is  there  because  of  the  strength 
of  prejudice  and  ignorance,  or  because  the  evidence 
for  its  incorporation  is  incomplete.  As  to  the 
ultimate  issue  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  dis- 
union which  human  misconception  has  assumed, 
giving  us  nature  and  supernature,  will  vanish  when 
the  full  light  of  knowledge  is  cast  upon  it.  For  the 
kingdom  of  superstition  is  the  kingdom  of  darkness. 


HISTORICAL  75 

As  Dowlas,  the  farrier  in  Silas  Marner,  says  :  "  If 
ghos'es  want  me  to  believe  in  'em,  let  'em  leave  off 
skulking  i'  the  dark  and  i'  lone  places  —let  'em  come 
where's  there's  company  and  candles." 

Thirty  years  ago,  upon  reviewing  Myers,  Gurney 
and  Podmore's  Phantasms  of  the  Living  in  The  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  Mr  G.  Bernard  Shaw  wrote  :  "  It  is 
useless  to  mince  matters  in  dealing  with  ghost 
stories — the  existence  of  a  liar  is  more  probable 
than  the  existence  of  a  ghost."  Upon  reading  this, 
my  wife  said  that  it  recalled  to  her  memory  a  case 
of  wilful  self-deception  which  came  within  her 
experience  when  she  was  a  student  at  a  horti- 
cultural college.  This  is  her  story :  "  The  rear  of 
the  building  had  originally  formed  part  of  a  Queen 
Anne  mansion,  and  the  additions  to  it  were  of  a 
character  irregular  enough  to  supply  shelter  to  any 
lurking  ghost ;  hence  there  was  the  usual  legend  of 
a  grey  lady  said  to  be  the  spirit  of  a  murdered  nun, 
which  haunted  the  house,  and  sometimes  swept 
along  the  corridors.  The  story  gathered  credence 
from  the  superstitious  because  the  college  house- 
keeper said  that  she  had  heard  taps  and  footsteps. 

"  The  need  to  be  up  betimes  to  work  in  the  garden 
led  to  a  rule  that  the  students  must  be  in  their 
rooms  not  later  than  10  P.M.  However,  one  night 
I  stayed  reading  in  a  fellow-student's  room  till 
twelve-thirty.  To  get  to  my  room  I  had  to  pass 
one  occupied  by  a  senior  member  of  the  staff.  I 
had  got  barely  three  yards  past  it  when  the  door 
was  opened  suddenly  and  the  occupant  looked 
out,  so  I  put  on  the  pace  to  reach  my  room.  I  ex- 
pected trouble  the  next  morning,  a  summons  and 


76  THE  QUESTION 

reprimand,  but  nothing  happened.  Then  I  heard 
that  the  lady  had  had  a  terrible  fright  in  the  night : 
she  had  seen  the  ghost !  So  I  went  to  her  at  once 
to  disabuse  her  mind,  telling  her  that  I  was  the 
ghost,  but  instead  of  censure  for  thus  frightening  her, 
my  explanation  was  received  with  scorn,  and  I  was 
dismissed  with  the  remark  :  '  Well,  if  it  was  you 
last  night,  you  can't  account  for  my  experience  on 
other  nights  when  you  did  not  pass  my  door.'  ' 


II 

EXPLANATORY 

1  'When  men  have  once  acquiesced  in  untrue  opinions  and 
registered  them  as  authentic  records  in  their  minds,  it  is  no  less 
impossible  to  speak  intelligently  to  such  men  as  to  write  legibly 
on  a  paper  already  scribbled  over." — HOBBES  :  Leviathan. 

IT  was  shown  at  the  outset  that  the  soul-idea  has 
remained    fundamentally    the     same    through 
every  stage  of  culture.     And  there  is  equally 
cogent  evidence  that  in  their  conceptions   of  the 
behaviour  of  discarnate  spirits  the  savage  and  the 
spiritualist  are  one.     It  cannot  be  otherwise. 

"  Vain  questions  !  from  the  first 
Put,  and  no  answer  found. 
He  binds  us  with  the  chain 
Wherewith  himself  is  bound. 
From  west  to  east  the  earth 
Unrolls  her  primal  curve  ; 
The  sun  himself  Were  vexed 
Did  she  one  furlong  swerve  ; 
The  myriad  years  have  whirled  her  hither, 
But  teU  not  of  the  whence  of  whither."  l 

The  spiritualist  affirms  that  the  quest  is  not  in 
vain ;  that  certain  groups  of  phenomena  give  us 
assurance  of  the  whither.  The  physical  and  the 
psychical  in  these  phenomena  remain  mixed:  some  of 
the  more  repellent  features  appear  only  sporadically, 

1  F.  T.  Palgrave  :    The  Reign  of  Law. 

77 


78  THE  QUESTION 

others,  such  as  raps  and  table-tilting,  are  still 
credentials  of  the  "  new  revelation."  One  has 
to  "  possess  the  soul  in  patience "  in  the  effort  to 
take  seriously  the  stories  of  the  Puck-like  antics 
and  dare-devilry  of  poltergeists  when  these  are 
claimed  to  be  part  of  the  evidence  of  a  spiritual 
world.  In  his  Discoverie  of  Witchcraft,  published  in 
1584,  Reginald  Scot  tells  in  his  day  of  the  "  jocund 
and  facetious  spirits  who  sport  themselves  in  the 
night  by  tumbling  and  fooling  with  Servants  and 
Shepherds  in  Country  Houses,  pinching  them  black 
and  blue."  x  Among  the  Chukchee  tribes  of  Siberia 
"  sometimes  the  spirits  are  very  mischievous.  In 
the  movable  tents  of  the  Reindeer  people  an  invisible 
hand  will  sometimes  turn  everything  upside  down 
and  throw  different  objects  about."  2 

The  table  played  an  important  part  in  the 
Raymond  communications.  It  tilted  as  the  letter 
of  the  alphabet  is  spoken  by  the  medium,  stopping 
when  a  right  letter  is  reached  and  tilting  three 
times  to  indicate  "  Yes  "  and  once  to  indicate  "  No." 
Its  wonderful  properties  are  thus  gravely  vouched 
for  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  "  For  the  time  it  is  ani- 
mated— somewhat  perhaps  as  a  violin  or  piano  is 
animated  by  a  skilled  musician  and  schooled  to  his 
will — and  the  dramatic  action  thus  attained  is 
very  remarkable.  [The  italics  are  mine.]  It  can 
exhibit  hesitation ;  it  can  exhibit  certainty ;  it 
can  seek  for  information  ;  it  can  convey  it ;  it  can 
apparently  ponder  before  giving  a  reply ;  it  can 
welcome  a  new-comer ;  it  can  indicate  joy  or  sorrow, 

XP.  510  (1886,  reprint). 

2  Aboriginal  Siberia,  p.  232.     By  M.  A.  Czaplicka. 


EXPLANATORY  79 

fun  or  gravity ;  and  most  notable  of  all,  it  can  ex- 
hibit affection  in  an  unmistakable  manner."  l  In 
evidence  of  this  it  is  reported  that  at  one  of  the 
sittings  "  the  table  seemed  to  wish  to  get  into  Lady 
Lodge's  lap  and  made  most  caressing  movements  to 
and  fro,  and  seemed  as  if  it  could  not  get  close  enough 
to  her."  2 

'Tis  an  old,  old  story.  In  1853  Pere  Arnaud 
describes  a  seance  with  the  Nasquape  Indians : 
"  The  conjurers  shut  themselves  up  in  a  little  lodge 
[i.e.  the  medium's  "  cabinet  "],  and  remain  for  a  few 
minutes  in  a  pensive  attitude,  cross-legged.  Soon 
the  lodge  begins  to  move  like  a  table  turning,  and 
replies  by  bounds  and  jumps  to  the  questions  put 
to  the  inquirer."  3 

In  the  Solomon  Islands,  when  the  question  arises 
whether  or  no  a  fleet  of  canoes  shall  put  to  sea,  a 
mane  kisu  or  wizard  is  consulted.  "He  declares 
that  he  has  felt  a  tindalo  [deceased  spirit]  come  on 
board  one  of  the  canoes,  because  '  one  side  of  it  has 
been  pressed  down.5  He  therefore  asks  the  ques- 
tion :  '  Shall  we  go  ?  Shall  we  go  there  ?  '  If  the 
canoe  rocks,  the  answer  is  in  the  affirmative,  if  it 
lies  steady,  in  the  negative."  4  Among  the  same 
people,  when  a  man  falls  sick,  he  sends  for  the 
medicine-man  to  find  out  "  what  tindalo  is  eating 
him."  The  medicine-man  brings  an  assistant,  and 
holding  a  bamboo  between  them,  the  wizard  slaps 
the  end  which  he  holds,  calls  one  after  another  the 

1  Raymond,  p.  363.  2  Ibid.,  p.  221. 

8  Hind's  Exploration  of  the  Labrador  Peninsula.     Vol.  ii.,  p.   162 
(1863). 
4  Codrington's  Melanesians,  p.  210. 


80  THE  QUESTION 

names  of  dead  men  :  when  he  names  the  one  who  is 
afflicting  the  sick  man  the  bamboo  becomes  violently 
agitated.  The  Manganja  believed  that  their 
medicine-men  could  impart  power  to  anything  and 
employed  one  of  them  to  detect  the  stealer  of  some 
corn.  So  in  the  presence  of  the  assembled  natives 
he  took  two  sticks,  which,  after  fantastic  gestures 
and  gibberish,  he  handed  to  four  young  men,  two 
holding  each  stick  ;  he  then  gave  a  zebra  tail  and  a 
calabash  rattle  to  a  young  man  and  a  boy.  Then 
he  rolled  on  the  ground,  muttering  incantations  : 
the  bearers  of  the  tail  and  the  rattle  danced  round 
the  stick-holders,  who  after  a  time  had  spasmodic 
twitchings  of  the  limbs,  foamed  at  the  mouth  and 
behaved  as  if  demon-possessed.  But  the  popular 
belief  was  that  the  sticks  were  possessed  and  through 
them  the  men,  whom  they  "  whirled  and  dragged 
through  bush  and  thorny  shrubs  till  they  were  torn 
and  bleeding.  At  last  they  came  back  to  the  assembly, 
whirled  round  again  and  rushed  down  the  path,  to 
fall  panting  and  exhausted  in  the  hut  of  one  of  the 
chief's  wives,  the  sticks  rolling  to  her  very  feet,  thus 
denouncing  her  as  the  thief.  She  denied  it,  but  the 
medicine-man  said  :  '  The  spirit  has  declared  her 
guilty ;  the  spirit  never  lies.'  '  A  story,  dating 
from  1719,  of  self-moving  objects  is  told  in  Tylor's 
Primitive  Culture.1  "  A  Russian  merchant  in 
Tibet,  who  had  lost  some  goods,  complained  to  the 
Kutuchtu  Lama,  who  thereupon  ordered  one  of 
the  Lamas  to  take  a  four-footed  bench  which,  after 
being  turned  by  him  in  several  directions,  pointed 
to  the  tent  where  the  goods  were  hidden.  He  then 

1  Vol.  ii.,  p.  156  (1891  edition). 


EXPLANATORY  81 

mounted  astride  the  bench  and  it  carried  him  to  the 
tent  where  the  stolen  things  were  discovered."  A 
similar  story,  also  from  Tibet,  is  told  of  a  Lama  find- 
ing stolen  objects  by  the  help  of  a  table  which  flew 
forty  feet,  spun  round,  and  fell  on  the  earth,  the 
direction  in  which  it  fell  indicating  where  the  things 
would  be  found. 

As  for  raps,  the  same  authority  cites  examples 
from  travel  books  showing  that  the  modern  Dyaks, 
Siamese,  Singalese  and  Esths  alike  believe  that 
rappings  are  caused  by  spirits."  1  "  Suppose,"  he 
adds,  "  a  wild  North  American  Indian  looking  on  at 
a  spirit  seance  in  London.  As  to  the  presence  of 
disembodied  spirits,  manifesting  themselves  by  raps, 
noises,  voices  and  other  physical  actions,  the  savage 
would  be  perfectly  at  home  in  the  proceedings,  for 
such  things  are  part  and  parcel  of  his  recognised 
system  of  nature.  The  part  of  the  affair  really 
strange  to  him  would  be  the  introduction  of  such 
acts  as  spelling  and  writing,  which  do  belong  to  a 
different  civilisation  from  his."  2 

The  Russian  peasant  sets  aside  a  portion  of  his 
supper  for  the  Domovoy,  or  house  spirit,  who  if 
neglected  waxes  wroth  and  knocks  the  table  and 
benches  about  at  night.3  Franconian  damsels  go 
to  a  tree  on  St  Thomas'  Day  and  knock  three  times 
on  it  to  find  out  by  the  answer  given  by  the  rappings 
of  the  tree  spirit  who  is  to  be  their  husband.  In 
Wales  there  is  a  species  called  knockers,  who  were 
said  to  point  out  the  rich  veins  of  silver  and  lead. 
Grose,  in  his  correspondence  with  Baxter,  describes 

1  Primitive  Culture.     Vol.  i.,  p.  145.  2  Ibid.     Vol.  i.,  p.  156. 

a  Ralston' s  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,  p.  123. 

F 


82  THE  QUESTION 

the  miners  of  the  Island  of  Lewis  as  little  statured 
and  about  half -a -yard  long,  and  adds  "  that  at  this 
very  instant  there  are  miners  on  a  discovery  of  a 
vein  of  metal  on  his  own  lands,  and  that  two  of  them 
are  ready  to  make  oath  they  have  heard  these 
knockers  in  the  daytime."1 

The  rapping-alphabet 2  is  no  modern  device  of  the 
spirits.  Anent  this,  Reginald  Scot  tells  a  story  in 
his  Discoverie  of  Witchcraft.  He  precedes  it  by 
"  citing  one  conjuration  (of  which  sort  I  might  cite 
a  hundred)  published  by  Jacobus  de  Chusa,  a  great 
doctor  of  the  Romish  Church,  which  serveth  to  find 
out  the  cause  of  noise  and  spiritual  rumbling  in 
houses,  churches,  or  chappels  and  to  conjure  walk- 
ing spirits  ...  if  the  spirit  make  anie  sound  of 
voice  or  knocking  ...  he  is  the  conjurer."  Then 
follows  a  series  of  questions  to  be  put  to  him.  "  This 
must  be  doone  in  the  night.  .  .  .  But  that  in  truth 
such  things  are  commonlie  put  in  practice  I  will  here 
set  down  an  instance  latelie  and  trulie,  but  lewdlie 
performed."  3 

On  the  death  of  the  wife  of  the  Mayor  of  Orleans, 
in  1534,  her  husband  ordered  that  she  should  be 
buried  without  "  anie  pompe  or  noise,"  whereby 
Franciscan  monks  were  deprived  of  their  customary 
extortions.  So  they  plotted  with  one  Coliman,  a 
conjurer,  as  to  means  of  revenge  by  which  they 
might  frighten  the  Mayor  into  the  belief  "  that  his 
wife  was  damned  for  ever."  They  brought  into  the 
plot  a  novice,  whom  they  hid  "  over  the  arches  of 

1  Brand's  Pop.  Antiquities.     Vol.  iii.,  p.  25.     (Ed.  Hazlitt.) 

2  In  his  Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist,  vol.  ii.,  p.  159,  Prince  Kropot- 
kin  describes  the  knocking  alphabet  by  which  the  prisoners  in  the 
fortress  of  St  Peter  and  St  Paul  communicated.  3  Pp.  366-368. 


EXPLANATORY  83 

the  church  to  make  a  great  rumbling  about  midnight 
when  they  came  to  mumble  their  praiers  as  they 
were  woont  to  do."  This  done,  they  asked  some  of 
the  citizens,  not  including  the  Mayor,  to  attend  "  at 
mattens,"  and  when  these  had  arrived  "  the  counter- 
feit spirit  began  to  make  a  marvellous  noise  in  the 
top  of  the  church."  Thereupon  the  monks  asked 
him  to  make  known  "  by  signes  to  certeine  things 
they  would  demand  of  him.  Now  there  was  a  hole 
in  the  vawt  through  the  which  he  might  hear  Coli- 
man's  voice,  and  then  had  he  in  his  hand  a  little 
boord  which,  at  everie  question,  he  strake."  They 
asked  him  several  questions  ;  "at  the  last  they 
name  the  Maior's  wife  and  there  by  and  by  the 
spirit  gave  a  signe  that  he  was  her  soul.  He  was 
further  asked  whether  he  were  damned  or  no,  and  if 
he  were,  for  what  cause."  Then  followed  a  string  of 
questions,  which  he  "  affirmed  or  denied  according 
as  he  strake  the  boord  twice  or  thrice  together." 
Twice  he  struck  the  board  to  the  leading  question, 
when  the  congregation  dispersed  after  a  request 
from  the  monks  "  that  they  would  beare  witnesse  of 
those  things  which  they  had  seene  with  their  eies." 
The  story  came  to  the  bishop's  ears  and  he  required 
the  monks  to  choose  some  of  their  number  "to  go 
up  into  the  top  of  the  vawt  and  there  to  see  whether 
any  ghost  appeered  or  not,"  but  their  leader  objected, 
"  affirming  that  the  spirit  in  no  wise  ought  to  be 
troubled."  Meanwhile  the  Mayor,  who  saw  through 
the  trick,  appealed  to  the  king,  who  had  the  rascals 
brought  to  Paris.  In  vain  they  "  vaunted  them- 
selves on  their  privileges  "  —benefit  of  clergy — they 
were  condemned  to  imprisonment  in  Orleans  "  to 


84  THE  QUESTION 

be  brought  foorth  into  the  cheefe  church  of  the  citie 
and  from  thence  to  the  place  of  execution." 

The  Fox  girls  —  appropriate  name  for  these 
cunning  hussies— were  detected  in  February,  1851, 
three  years  after  the  Hydeville  performances,  by 
three  professors  in  the  University  of  Buffalo,  all 
medical  men,  as  producing  the  raps  by  knocking 
their  knee-joints  together.  In  their  report  they 
add  :  "  We  have  heard  of  a  person  who  can  develop 
knockings  from  the  ankle,  of  several  who  can  pro- 
duce noises  with  the  joints  of  the  toes  and  fingers, 
of  one  who  can  render  loudly  audible  the  shoulder, 
and  another  the  hip  joint.  We  have  also  heard  of 
two  additional  cases  in  which  sounds  are  produced 
by  the  knee-joint."  Confessions  from  the  Fox  girls 
and  other  mediums  followed  in  April.  They  showed 
a  relative,  Mrs  Norman  Culver,  how  to  produce  the 
raps,  in  which  she  said  that  she  soon  found  herself 
an  expert.  All  the  toes  were  used.  When  a  com- 
mittee at  Rochester  tested  her  genuineness  by  hold- 
ing Katie  Fox's  ankles,  the  raps  still  went  on.  She 
was  in  collusion  with  the  servant,  who  rapped  with 
her  knuckles  under  the  floor  from  the  cellar.1 

As  for  the  Stratford  disturbances,  the  report  on 
them  is  practically  valueless,  because  it  was  not  set 
down  by  a  son  of  Dr  Phelps's  till  thirty  years  later, 
and  then  at  second  hand,  since  he  was  no  witness 
of  what  he  affirms  happened.  The  testimony  of 

1  In  his  reference  to  the  Fox  girls  (see  ante,  p.  36)  Mr  Sinnett 
disingenuously  makes  no  reference  to  this  admission,  perhaps  because 
they  appear  to  have  recanted.  He  and  those  who  share  his  amazing 
gullibility  must  reconcile  this,  as  best  they  can,  with  the  deposition 
which  was  made  by  Mrs  Norman  Culver  before  a  magistrate  in  April 
1851. 


EXPLANATORY  85 

Andrew  Jackson  Davis  to  their  genuineness  as  the 
eager  efforts  of  spirits  to  hold  communion  with  that 
particular  family  has  been  cited.  But  he  was 
careful  to  qualify  this  by  suggesting  as  a  possible 
explanation  that  "  the  spirits  had  employed  some 
impressible  person  in  the  family  to  write  some  of 
the  communications  and  also  to  arrange  the  ex- 
pressive tableaux."  For  "  impressible  "  the  term 
ic  irrepressible  "  may  more  truly  explain  the  cause  of 
the  phenomena,  since  Dr  Phelps's  son,  Harry,  was  so 
plagued  by  "  spirits  "  at  his  school  that  he  was  sent 
back  to  his  reverend  father,  when  there  were  no  more 
happenings  of  outgrowths  of  mystically-inscribed 
turnips  from  carpets,  or  waltzings  of  fire-irons. 
Candour  must  add  that  Davis  himself  had  a  some- 
what shady  record—"  the  badge  of  all  his  tribe  "  — 
despite  his  being  an  honoured  recipient  of  com- 
munications which  contain  such  revealed  nonsense 
as  descriptions  of  "  systems  moving  in  concentric 
circles  round  a  Great  Eternal  Centre  pregnated  with 
the  immutable  eternal  essence  of  Divine  Positive 
Power." 

A  thirst  for  sensational  notoriety  and  the  love  of 
being  talked  about  go  far  to  explain  the  "  super- 
fluity of  naughtiness  "  which  begot  the  senseless 
tomfooleries  upsetting  households  and  bewildering 
the  inmates.  For  the  most  part  they  are  the  pranks 
of  flighty  "  electric  " 1  girls,  often  highly  strung, 
bored,  it  may  well  be,  by  the  cramping  monotony  of 
their  homes,  especially  in  isolated  country  districts ; 
withal,  having  a  strong  vein  of  cunning  in  their 

1  America,   ever   resourceful,    supplies    examples    of   these.      See 
Podmore's  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  43. 


86  THE  QUESTION 

natures  and  made  by  repression  more  liable  to 
hysteria.  They  are  of  the  stuff  of  which  neurotic 
mediums  are  made;  therefore  among  the  cases  of 
mental  pathology  of  which  Spiritualism  supplies 
numerous  and  various  examples.  It  is  often  a  toss- 
up  whether  such  natures  add  to  the  list  of  anaemic 
mystics  or  of  fraudulent  mediums.  Further  com- 
ment is  needless  in  face  of  the  fact  that,  as  a  result 
of  an  investigation  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  into  these  poltergeist  cases,  the  evidence 
was  positive  that  tricky  little  boys  and  girls  were 
at  the  bottom  of  the  mischief,  "  the  onlookers 
accepting  the  portents  as  manifestations  of  super- 
normal powers."  The  disturbances  are  nearly 
always  traceable  to  a  child,  generally  to  a  girl 
in  whom  there  has  often  been  abnormality  or 
disease.1 

The  marvels  exhibited  by  that  "variety  artist," 
D.  D.  Home,  are  riot  so  easily  disposed  of.  The 
attestations  of  distinguished  men  of  science  and 
other  high-class  witnesses  to  their  genuineness  give 
pause  to  pronouncement  of  judgment ;  the  more  so, 

i-Proc.  S.P.R.  Vol.  xii.,  pp.  45-115  (1896).  In  his  article  on 
"  Spiritualism  "  in  Chambers' s  Encyclopedia  the  late  Dr  A.  R. 
Wallace  cites,  among  the  evidences  attesting  it,  the  "  Extraordinary 
occurrences"  in  the  house  of  a  Mr  Jobson  in  Sunderland  in  1839. 
The  daughter  Mary,  a  girl  of  thirteen,  was  attacked  by  a  mysterious 
illness,  accompanied  by  raps  and  knocks  and  other  seemingly 
mysterious  happenings  of  the  poltergeist  sort,  whose  supernormal 
character,  Dr  Wallace  says,  "  was  authenticated  by  sixteen  witnesses, 
including  five  physicians  and  surgeons."  Two  of  the  lay  witnesses 
told  how  she  discoursed  on  heavenly  things,  which  in  the  judgment  of 
Dr  Clanny,  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  proved  angelic  inspiration, 
while  others  testified  how  at  her  bidding  they  saw,  as  it  were,  heaven 
opened.  To-day  the  S.P.R.  would  include  Mary  Jobson  in  the  list 
of  neuropaths. 


EXPLANATORY  87 

as  already  stated,  because  he  was  never  detected  in 
fraud.  The  one  man  who  said  that  he  was  an  im- 
postor was  no  physicist,  but  the  poet  who  wrote 
Mr  Sludge,  "  the  Medium  "  —Robert  Browning. 

Through  the  agency  of  rising  and  tilting  tables,  of 
self-played  accordions  and  guitars,  of  rappings,  of 
spirit  hands  and  spirit  lights,  those  whom  Home 
gathered  round  him  believed  themselves  brought 
into  the  glorious  company  of  invisible  immortals  ; 
the  more  so  when,  in  addition,  spiritual  messages 
and  counsel  from  the  medium's  "  control "  further 
proved  the  communion  of  saints. 

"  As  for  religion — why,  I  served  it,  sir  ! 
I'll  stick  to  that  !     With  my  phenomem 
I  laid  the  atheist  sprawling  on  his  back 
And  propped  Saint  Paul  up,  or,  at  least,  Swedenborg ! 
In  fact,  il  ?s  just  the  proper  way  to  balk 
These  troublesome  fellows — liars,  one  and  all, 
Are  not  these  sceptics  ?    Well,  to  baffle  them, 
No  use  in  being  squeamish  :   lie  yourself  !  "  l 

Home's  sitters  were  not  "  paying  guests."  He 
was  host ;  he  chose  his  own  company.  He  assigned 
each  one  his  place  ;  those  who  had  the  greater  faith 
in  him  were  rewarded  by  being  put  nearest  to  him. 
He  was  absolute  master  of  the  position.  If  test 
experiments  were  suggested,  he  imposed  the  con- 
ditions. Dimmed,  sometimes  wholly  extinguished, 
lights  were  a  necessary  part  of  these  conditions. 
Even  when  the  lights  are  not  low,  marvels  may  be 
accepted  as  supernormal,  because  the  untrained, 
sympathetic  onlooker,  keen  as  he  may  think  him- 
self in  quickness  of  observation,  is  a  child  in  the 

1  Mr  Sludge,  "  The  Medium.'' 


88  THE  QUESTION 

hands  of  the  expert  conjurer.  Mr  Podmore,  who 
had  none  of  the  child's  simplicity  in  his  texture, 
tells  that  when  meeting  a  man  who  claimed  to 
possess  a  peculiar  magnetic  force  by  which  he  could 
attract  iron,  he  "  accepted  in  all  good  faith  the 
phenomenon."  The  man  placed  a  poker  upright 
on  its  knob  between  his  outstretched  knees,  then  it 
swayed  to  one  side  or  the  other,  following  only,  as  it 
seemed,  the  movements  of  his  finger.  Mr  Podmore 
afterwards  learned  that  the  trick  was  accomplished 
by  means  of  a  loop  of  human  hair  attached  to  the 
humbug's  trousers.  Trained  prestidigitateurs  can 
do  a  lot  with  human  hair  and  black  thread  1 

In  June,  1871,  Sir  William  Crookes,  experiment- 
ing on  the  alteration  in  the  weight  of  a  body  with  a 
delicately  constructed  apparatus,  and  putting  Home 
to  the  test,  he,  presumably,  not  being  in  contact 
with  the  table  on  which  the  machine  was  placed, 
found  that  the  balance,  which  had  a  self-registering 
index,  was  affected  three  pounds,  sometimes  more 
than  that.  Sir  William  concluded  that  this  demon- 
strated the  existence  of  a  "  hitherto  unknown  force  " 
for  the  ebb  and  flow  of  which  Home  was  assumed 
to  be  accountable  !  He  was  convinced  that  Home's 
feet  and  hands  were  too  well  guarded  to  manipulate 
the  machine.  But  as  Omar  Khayyam  says  : 

"  A  Hair,  perhaps,  divides  the  False  and  True  "  ; 

and  here  Home  again  prescribed  the  conditions 
of  the  experiment,  his  dexterity  devising  means 
of  attachment  to  the  apparatus.1  The  same  experi- 
ment, satisfying  him  as  to  the  "unknown  force," 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  237. 


EXPLANATORY  89 

was  tried  by  Sir  William  on  "  a  fascinating  blonde 
American  medium,"  Annie  Eva  Fay.  Perhaps,  in 
her  case,  it  may  suffice  to  say  that,  after  displaying 
her  powers,  in  which  she  had  the  help  of  her  husband, 
"  Colonel  "  Fay,  to  wondering  audiences,  she  was 
exposed  by  Mr  Maskelyne.  She  offered,  if  he  would 
pay  her  a  certain  sum,  to  appear  on  his  stage  at  the 
Egyptian  Hall,  to  show  how  all  her  tricks  were  done. 
The  offer  was  declined  as  superfluous.1 

1  The  Supernatural ?,  p.  194.  By  L.  A.  Weatherly,  M.D.,  and  J.  N. 
Maskelyne. 

Forty-two  years  have  passed  since  Sir  William  Crookes  announced 
that  he  had  proved  the  existence  of  a  -'hitherto  unknown  force.'2 
And  now,  while  the  proof  sheets  of  this  book  are  in  hand,  there 
comes  to  me  a  copy  of  Light,  of  2ist  July  1917,  and  of  The  World, 
of  2 /th  idem,  each  journal  giving  a  summary  of  experiments  by 
Mr  W.  J.  Crawford,  D-Sc.,  of  Belfast,  the  result  of  these  being  to 
satisfy  him  as  to  the  existence  of  "a  form  of  matter  unknown 
to  science."  It  issues,  we  are  told,  from  the  body  in  the  shape  of 
"psychic  rods,"  invisible  and  impalpable,  but  ponderable.  The 
apparatus  employed  in  the  experiment  are :  i .  A  weighing  machine. 
2.  A  board  placed  on  the  platform  of  the  machine.  3.  A  chair 
placed  on  the  board.  The  medium  sits  on  the  chair  and  rests  her 
feet  on  the  board.  The  "  intelligent  control  n  (i.e.  the  assumed 
spirit)  is  asked  to  take  out  matter  from  the  medium's  body  to  be  used 
in  making  a  cantilever  whereby  to  levitate  a  table  with  which  the 
medium  is,  apparently,  not  in  contact.  The  "  control  "  is  to  give 
three  raps  when  the  operation  is  complete.  The  weight  of  the 
medium  slowly  decreases  in  proportion  to  the  power  of  the  raps — 
sometimes  as  much  as  fifty-four  and  a  half  pounds — while  the  table  is 
raised  from  one  to  two  feet.  Ultimately,  the  abstracted  matter  flies 
back  into  the  body  of  the  medium.  The  lady  through  whom  these 
wonders  are  manifest  is  a  Miss  Kathleen  Goligher,  the  eldest  daughter 
of  a  family  whose  members  are  Spiritualists.  "  They  make,"  Sir 
W.  F.  Barrett  tells  us,  in  his  On  the  Threshold  of  the  Unseen  (p.  46),  "  a 
sort  of  religious  ceremony  of  their  sittings,  always  opening  with 
prayers  and  hymns. "  Although  these  pietistic  preliminaries  have 
naught  to  do  with  the  genuineness  or  spuriousness  of  phenomena  at 
"•  spirit  circles,"  they  have  often  been  coverings  of  fraud,  and  they 
lend  an  air  of  suspicion  to  the  seances  of  the  Goligher  household.  It 


90  THE  QUESTION 

The  conjurer  can  manipulate  freely,  especially 
when  with  one  foot  and  one  hand  he  can  do  the  work 
of  the  two  feet  and  hands.  Thus  does  an  atmos- 
phere of  scepticism  and  suspicion  invest  the  whole 
business. 

But  levitation,  elongation  and  the  fire  ordeal  are 
not  thus  explicable.  As  for  levitation,  we  fall  back, 
as  in  crystallomancy  and  other  "  spiritual  "  pheno- 
mena, on  precedents  and  parallels  from  the  history 
of  illusions.  The  late  Dr  Wallace's  capacious 
oesophagus  swallowed  all  the  stories  of  saints  and 
butlers  wafted  into  "  the  central  blue."  "  What 
for  instance,"  he  says,  "  can  be  a  more  striking 
miracle  than  the  levitation  or  raising  of  the  human 
body  into  the  air  without  visible  cause,  yet  this 
fact  has  been  testified  to  during  a  long  series  of 
centuries."  "  We  all  know,"  he  adds,  "  that  at 
least  fifty  persons  of  high  character  may  be  found 
in  London  who  will  testify  that  they  have  seen  the 
same  thing  happen  to  Mr  Home."  l  [This  was 
written  in  1871.]  The  "facts  come  from  all  ages 
and  sources  ;  they  fill  a  large  space  in  the  history 
of  hallucinations.  In  past  times  the  handling  of 
fire  and  walking  through  the  fire,  and  the  levitation 
of  the  body  have  been  recorded  of  many  persons  in 
many  parts  of  the  world."  What,  asks  Sir  W.  F. 

would  be  well  if  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  would  arrange  to  bring  the 
young  lady  and  the  apparatus  to  London  for  submission  to  a  series  of 
scientific  tests  at  the  hands  of  biologists  and  other  experts,  among 
whom  Mr  David  Maskelyne  might  be  included  with  advantage  on 
the  principle  of  setting  a  conjurer  to  catch  a  conjurer.  Science  knows 
no  finality,  but  it  must  have  conclusive  evidence  before  it  accepts 
the  existence  of  "  a  form  of  matter  hitherto  unknown  "  among  the 
properties  of  the  human  body. 

1  Miracles  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  pp.  7,  8. 


EXPLANATORY  91 

Barrett,  "  can  be  said  of  these  miracles  ?  They  are 
so  foreign  to  ordinary  experience  that  even  the 
testimony  of  numerous  and  distinguished  witnesses 
fails  to  carry  conviction  to  the  majority  of  readers. 
And  yet  it  is  impossible  to  reject  the  evidence,  and 
it  seems  inconceivable  that  so  many  critical  and 
sceptical  observers  were  all  mistaken  or  the  victims 
of  hallucination."  l  Then  follows  a  list  of  notable 
men,  including  "that  great  exposer  of  humbugs," 
the  late  Professor  De  Morgan. 

There  was  a  still  greater  "  exposer  of  humbugs," 
who  flourished  in  the  second  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  Lucian  of  Samosata.  In  his  dialogue,  The 
Liar,  wherein  the  superstitions  of  his  time  are 
lashed,  Tychiades  chaffs  Ion  over  some  wonder  tale, 
when  "  Cleodemus  put  in  :  '  Ah,  you  will  have  your 
joke  ;  I  was  an  unbeliever  myself  once— worse  than 
you.  I  held  out  for  a  long  time,  but  all  my  scruples 
were  overcome  the  first  time  I  saw  the  Flying 
Stranger  :  a  Hyperborean  he  was  ;  I  have  his  own 
word  for  it.  There  was  no  more  to  be  said  after 
that  :  there  he  was,  travelling  through  the  air  in 
broad  daylight,  walking  on  the  water,  or  strolling 
through  fire,  perfectly  at  his  ease.'  '  What,'  I 
exclaimed,  '  you  saw  this  Hyperborean  actually  fly- 
ing and  walking  on  water  ?  '  'I  did  :  he  wore 
brogues,  as  the  Hyperboreans  usually  do.  I  need 
not  detain,  you  with  the  everyday  manifestations  of 
his  power  :  how  he  would  make  people  fall  in  love,  call 
up  spirits,  resuscitate  corpses,  bring  down  the  moon, 
and  show  you  Hecate  herself,  as  large  as  life.'  "  2 

1  Psychical  Research,  p.  218. 

8  The  Works  of  Lucian.     Vol.  iii.,  p.  237.     (Fowler's  trans.) 


92  THE  QUESTION 

lamblichus,  a  Neoplatonist  of  the  fourth  century, 
was,  like  Virgil,  and  with  as  little  reason,  reputed 
to  be  a  magician.  Among  the  wonders  told  of  him 
is  his  being  levitated  ten  cubits  from  the  ground 
while  in  the  act  of  prayer.  His  disciples  asked  him 
why  he  who  could  do  such  things  himself  did  not 
let  them  do  likewise.  Then  laughingly  he  replied  : 
"  It  was  no  fool  who  tricked  you  thus,  but  the  thing 
is  not  true."  l 

Stories  of  levitation  specially  gather  round  St 
Philip  Neri,  St  Dunstan,  St  Ignatius  Loyola,  St 
Theresa,  and  many  others  whose  names  are  written 
in  the  Ada  Sanctorum.  Similar  legends  come  from 
the  East,  adding  to  the  list  Gautama  the  Buddha 
and  his  disciples,  and  also  Brahmins,  who  levitated 
so  as  to  perform  more  completely  the  solar  rites.2 
Famous,  and  nearer  our  own  time,  is  the  levitation 
of  the  Franciscan  monk,  St  Joseph  of  Copertino, 
who  lived  in  the  seventeenth  century.  He  was 
often  raised  in  the  air,  remaining  there  till  called 
back  by  the  General  of  his  order.  Despite  old  age, 
his  eagerness  to  soar  caused  him  to  take  a  short 
flight  on  the  day  before  he  died.8 

In  his  Sadducismus  Triumphatis,  a  storehouse  of 
levitation  and  other  legends  (1681),  Glanvil  tells  of 
a  bewitched  lad  living  at  Shepton  Mallet  who  was 
seen  to  rise  in  the  air  thirty  yards.  At  other  times 
he  was  seen,  fly-like,  with  the  palms  of  his  hands 

1  Primitive  Culture.     Vol.  i.,  p.  151. 

2  Among  the  Yakut  tribes  of  Siberia  it  was  an  old  belief  that  the 
shamans  really  did  ascend  into  the  sky  and  on  their  return  to  earth 
related  what  they  had  seen.     Aboriginal  Siberia,  p.  238.     By  M.  A. 
Czaplicka. 

3  Old  Calabria,  p.  76.     By  Norman  Douglas. 


EXPLANATORY  93 

flat  against  a  beam  in  the  ceiling  of  his  bedroom. 
Nine  people  testified  to  seeing  this,  and  on  their 
evidence  Jane  Brisks,  the  witch  who  played  these 
tricks,  was  condemned  and  executed  at  Chard 
Assizes  in  March,  1658. 1  Another  possessed  man, 
Richard,  a  Surrey  demoniac,  was  hoisted  into  the 
air  and  let  down  by  the  devil.  Glanvil  also  tells 
the  story  of  the  aerostatic  butler  who,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  Lord  Orrery  and  Mr  Greatrakes,  the 
"  Stroaker,"  at  Lord  Surrey's  house  at  Ragley,  in 
Ireland,  was  lifted  by  fairies  and  floated  above  their 
heads.  Skipping  the  centuries,  in  1864,  seven  years 
before  Mrs  Guppy's  redoubtable  flight,  a  demoniac 
was  suspended  for  some  minutes  in  the  air  above 
the  cemetery  at  Morzine,  in  Savoy,  by  a  mysterious 
force  ;  and  this  in  the  presence  of  the  Archbishop. 

The  one  recorded  levitation  of  the  Rev.  Stainton 
Moses  is  found  in  the  diary  of  his  very  credu- 
lous friend,  Dr  Speers,  and  has  confirmation  — 
quantum  valeat — from  Moses  himself.  Sir  William 
Crookes,  Lord  Lindsay,  Viscount  Adare  and  Captain 
Wynne  are  in  agreement  as  to  having  seen  Home 
"  in  the  air  supported  by  nothing  visible."  The  last 
three  are  in  accord  as  to  his  floating  through  an  open 
window  into  the  outside  air  and  coming  through 
another  open  window  into  the  room  adjoining,  the 
distance  between  the  two  windows  being  about 
seven  feet,  and  "  not  the  slightest  foothold  between 
them."  There  was  full  moonshine  in  the  room 

1  It  may  be  well  to  remind  the  reader  that  six  years  later  two  poor 
creatures,  Amy  Duny  and  Rose  Cullender,  were  hanged  at  Bury  St 
Edmunds,  mainly  on  the  judgment  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  "  I  have 
ever  believed,  and  do  now  know,  that  there  are  witches." — Religio 
Medici  (written  in  1635).  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  45  (1904  edition). 


94  THE  QUESTION 

where  the  three  were  sitting.  Home  glided  in  feet 
foremost  and  sat  down.  That  was  on  the  16th 
December  1868,  at  5  Buckingham  Gate,  London. 
Nine  years  afterwards,  a  lapse  of  time  that  may  im- 
pair even  a  good  memory,  Captain  Wynne  wrote  to 
Home  as  follows  : — "  The  fact  of  your  having  gone 
out  of  the  one  window  and  in  at  the  other  I  can 
swear  to." l  But  the  accounts  of  the  observers 
differ.  The  moon  was  only  two  days  old  ;  hence 
her  light  would  not  count :  Lord  Lindsay  says  that 
Home  floated  horizontally,  Lord  Adare  that  he 
floated  vertically,  and  there  are  other  discrepancies 
in  detail.  But  these  pale  before  the  larger  issues  of 
the  story.  The  naked  facts  are  that  what  is  said  to 
have  happened  took  place  in  the  dark,  that  Lord 
Lindsay,  sitting  with  his  back  to  the  window,  saw 
a  shadow  cast  by  a  wisp  of  moonlight  which  bias 
and  expectancy  united  to  envisage  as  Home.  Mr 
Podmore,  always  alert  in  his  analysis  of  evidence, 
suggests  that  Home,  "  having  noiselessly  opened 
the  window  in  the  next  room,  slipped  back  under 
cover  of  darkness  into  the  seance  room,  got  behind 
the  curtain,  opened  the  window  and  stepped  on  to 
the  window  ledge."  2  As  bearing  on  the  question 
of  ocular  illusion  which  plays  so  large  a  part  in  this 
and  kindred  matters,  the  late  Professor  Newcombe, 
who  was  President  of  the  American  branch  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  says  :  "  It  is  a 
familiar  fact  of  physiological  optics  that,  in  a  faint 
light,  if  the  eyes  are  fixed  on  an  object,  the  latter 
gradually  becomes  clouded  and  finally  disappears 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  256. 

2  Newer  Spiritualism,  p.  72. 


EXPLANATORY  95 

entirely.  Then  it  requires  only  a  little  heightening 
of  a  not  unusual  imagination  to  believe  that  if  the 
object  that  disappeared  was  a  man,  he  wafted  him- 
self through  the  air  and  went  out  of  the  window."  l 

It  is  not  given  to  man  to  share  in  the  full  advan- 
tages of  the  Felidae  in  dilation  of  his  pupils  in  the 
dark ;  hence  the  fundamental  drawback  to  the  value 
of  what  he  sees  or  thinks  and  affirms  that  he  then 
saw.  But  a  Mr  Enmore  Jones  appears  to  have  had 
the  exceptional  advantage  of  seeing,  in  a  well-lighted 
room,  Home  rise  one  foot  above  the  floor.  Mr 
Jones  also  saw  his  aged  mother,  surely  inconsider- 
ately, raised,  together  with  the  chair  on  which  she 
sat,  to  the  level  of  the  table  top.  That  is  what 
Mr  Enmore  Jones  said. 

The  list  of  levitations  would  seem  to  have  been 
complete  with  the  records  of  Mrs  Guppy  (who  fills 
spiritually,  as  well  as  physically,  a  large  space  in  the 
occult),  Mr  Moses  and  Mr  Home.  But  it  has,  or  may 
have,  additions.  A  certain  "  Judge  X,"  reporting 
on  some  poltergeist  frolics  in  Windsor,  Nova  Scotia, 
in  1907,  when  a  hogshead  turned  somersaults  and 
articles  flew  from  shops  into  the  streets,  says  :  "I 
think  that  the  c  invisibles  '  are  contemplating  levi- 
tating one  or  more  persons  ;  the  power  here  is  so 
great,  and  there  are  so  many  unconscious  physical 
mediums  here  that  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  one 
or  more  persons  should  be  levitated  on  to  one  of  the 
principal  buildings."  2 

These  defiances  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  bring  to 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  January,  1909,  p.  139. 

2  Personal    Experiences    in    Spiritualism,    p.    6.     By    Hereward 
Carrington. 


96  THE  QUESTION 

mind  the  story  that  when  Sydney  Smith  met  an  old 
college  chum  who  had  become  a  bishop  he  said  : 
"  Well,  my  lord,  your  career  and  mine  contradict 
a  universal  law  :  you  have  risen  by  your  gravity, 
and  I  have  fallen  by  my  levity." 

There  are  several  witnesses  to  Home's  elongation. 
The  extent  of  this  is  reported  to  have  varied  at 
different  times  from  four  to  eleven  inches.  In  this 
he  is  said  to  have  been  exceeded  by  another  medium 
named  Peters,  who,  by  the  aid  of  his  "  control,"  a 
Red  Indian,  was  elongated  eighteen  inches.  How 
far  that  constant  factor,  bad  observation  in  an 
obscure  light,  led  men  of  integrity —Lord  Lindsay 
and  Lord  Adare — to  be  convinced,  the  one  that  he 
saw  Home  elongated  when  in  the  trance  state,  and 
the  other  that  Home  seemed  to  grow  at  both  ends 
and  then  contract  to  his  normal  height,  the  reader 
must  judge  for  himself.  Assuming  that  the 
phenomenon  occurred,  one  can  only  ask,  as  did 
the  mathematician  after  reading  Paradise  Lost— 
"  what  does  it  prove  ?  "—about  a  spiritual  world  ? 

The  phenomenon  of  the  fire  ordeal  is  not  to  be 
thus  summarily  dismissed.  It  is  no  monopoly  of 
mediums ;  much  of  interest  about  it  is  to  be 
gathered  from  the  Shadrachs,  Meshachs  and  Abed- 
negos  among  savage  peoples,  and  from  European 
and  Oriental  jugglers.  Among  the  latter  it  has 
degenerated  into  clever  trickery  ;  but  among  the 
lower  races  a  significance,  obscure,  perchance  sacred, 
as  a  survival  of  ancient  rites,  attaches  to  it. 

Vedic  records,  dating  from  1200  B.C.,  tell  of  a 
holiness  competition  between  two  Brahmins,  the 
test  being  walking  through  fire.  The  one  who 


EXPLANATORY  97 

passed  through  unscorched  was  adjudged  the  holier. 
The  antiquity  of  the  fire  ordeal  has  example  in  the 
same  sacred  books.  A  suspected  witness  had  to 
clear  himself  by  holding  hot  iron  unscathed,  and  an 
accused  wife  to  prove  her  innocence  by  walking 
immune  through  fire.  lamblichus,  writing  in  the 
fourth  century,  tells  of  certain  priests  that  the  god 
within  them  does  not  let  fire  harm  them.  But  this 
explanation  does  not  carry  us  much  further.  The 
best  known  classical  example  of  the  rite  is  supplied 
by  the  Hirpi  Sorani  (perhaps  meaning  Solar  wolves) 
of  Mount  Soracte,1  performed  by  them  in  propitia- 
tion of  Feronia,  probably  a  goddess  of  fire  or  wild 
beasts,  by  leaping  over  burnt  piles.  Arruns,  speak- 
ing through  Virgil,  calls  on  the  "  Highest  of  gods, 
Apollo,  guardian  of  holy  Soracte,  whom  first  we 
honour,  for  whom  is  fed  the  blaze  of  pine  piled  up, 
whose  votaries  we,  passing  through  the  fire  in  the 
strength  of  our  piety,  press  the  soles  of  our  feet  on 
many  a  burning  coal."  2  In  Bulgaria  the  Nistin- 
ares  or  "  ministrants  "  hold  an  annual  festival,  when 
huge  fires  are  lighted  and  Nistinare  after  Nistinare, 
wound  up  to  frenzy  by  wild  dancing,  climbs  the 
pyre  on  his  naked  feet,  made  immune,  as  is  the 
common  belief,  by  the  gods.  Their  divine  gift  is 
hereditary ;  so  it  is  with  an  old  Spanish  family 
"  who  from  father  to  son  have  the  power  of  going 

1  The  reference  recalls  the  joy  with  which  Horace  bade  the  heaping 
of  the  logs  on  the  hearth  of  his  Sabine  villa  as  he  looked  on  snow-clad 
Soracte  (nive  candidum).  Carm.,  Book  I.  ix.: 

"...  draw  the  wine  we  ask, 
That  mellower  vintage,  four-year-old, 
From  out  the  cellar 'd  Sabine  cask.'1  ' 

8  JEneid.     Book  XI.,  pp.  780-784.     (Lonsdale's  and  Lee's  trans.) 

G 


98  THE  QUESTION 

into  the  flames  without  being  burned  and  who,  by 
dint  of  charms  permitted  by  the  Inquisition,  can 
extinguish  fires."  Of  the  several  accounts  furnished 
by  travellers,  that  by  Dr  Hocken  and  Dr  Colquhoun, 
of  Dunedin,  may  be  taken  as  applicable  to  the  many 
stories  of  savages  who  walk  unharmed  through  fire. 
The  feat  was  exhibited  on  an  island  of  the  Fijian 
group.  In  an  open  space  in  the  forest  a  saucer- 
shaped  oven,  about  twenty-five  feet  across,  had  been 
dug  out  and  filled  with  stones  made  white-hot  by 
burning  logs.  These  were  dragged  away  by  the 
natives  and  then,  amidst  yells  from  the  crowd  of 
spectators,  some  seven  or  eight  naked-footed  men 
walked  in  single  file  down  the  slope,  then  across 
the  stones,  returning  uninjured.1  Like  the  famous 
three,  bound  and  "  cast  into  the  burning  fiery 
furnace  "  by  Nebuchadrezzar,  upon  their  bodies  the 
fire  had  no  power,  ' '  nor  the  smell  of  fire  had  passed 
on  them."  2  Similar  stories  come  from  China,  Japan, 
the  Straits  Settlements,  India,  Trinidad,  New 
Zealand  and  elsewhere.3  Perhaps  the  case  in  which 
the  performer  went  "  one  better  "  than  Home  is  that 
of  a  Huron  medicine-man,  who  heated  a  stone  red- 
hot,  put  it  in  his  mouth  and  ran  round  the  cabin 
with  it.  His  lips  and  tongue  bore  no  trace  of  burn 
or  blister,  but  the  stone  gave  evidence  of  having 

1  Magic  and  Religion,  p.  285.     By  Andrew  Lang. 

(In  the    twelfth    chapter  of    his    Modern    Mythology,  Mr  Lang 
supplies  numerous  examples  of  fire  walking  and  fire  handling.) 

2  Daniel  iii.  27. 

3  "  It  would  be  difficult  to  describe  all  the  tricks  performed  by  the 
shamans  ;    some  of  the  commonest  are  the  swallowing  of  Burning 
coals,  setting  oneself  free  from  a  cord  by  which  one  is  bound,  etc.'J 
• — Aboriginal  Siberia,  p.  233.     By  M.  A.  Czaplicka. 


EXPLANATORY  99 

"  been  bitten  into,"  so  the  worthy  witness,  one 
Father  Lejeune,  reports.1 

As  a  man  may  fearlessly  plunge  his  hand  into 
molten  lead,  the  moisture  on  his  skin  protecting 
him  from  burning,  so  red-hot  coal  may  be  held  in 
the  bare  hand.  Uncle  Remus,  to  the  wonder  of  the 
little  boy,  "  picked  up  a  live  coal  of  fire  in  his  fingers, 
transferred  it  to  the  palm  of  his  hand  and  thence  to 
his  clay  pipe,  which  he  had  been  filling." a  But 
when  Sir  William  Crookes  applied  the  fire  test  to  the 
foot  of  a  thick-skinned  African,  his  house— the  late 
Andrew  Lang  is  my  authority  for  this — smelt  of 
roast  negro  !  How  the  fire-walkers  perform  their 
task  uninjured  nobody  knows.  My  friend,  the  late 
Sir  B.  W.  Richardson,  suggested  that  diluted 
sulphuric  acid  might  be  used  as  a  protective,  but 
as  Mr  Lang  pointed  out  when  I  named  this  to 
him,  that  article  is  not  in  use  among  barbaric 
peoples !  He  suggested  my  trying  the  experiment 
on  myself !  Possibly  the  stones  are  rapid  heat 
radiators — formed  of  a  substance  which  quickly 
parts  with  its  heat ;  and  it  is  also  suggested  that 
the  natives  possess  some  secret  of  a  substance  pro- 
ducing a  profound  sweat  which  renders  the  soles  of 
the  feet  immune.  Dr  Wallace  says  that  the 
phenomenon  "  is  inexplicable  by  the  known  laws 
of  physiology  and  heat,"  so  the  convenient  deus 
ex  machind  is  again  eagerly  invoked  and  brought 
into  play  by  spiritualists. 

To  sum  up  the  impressions  produced  by  the  records 
of  the  feats  ascribed  to  Home — with  the  genuine- 

1  Cock  Lane  and  Common  Sense ,  p.  49.     By  Andrew  Lang. 
aP.  12  (Routledge's  edition). 


100  THE  QUESTION 

ness  or  spuriousness  of  which,  as  already  stated, 
Mr  Podmore  contends  that  "  the  main  defences  of 
Spiritualism  must  stand  or  fall" — a  cogent  explana- 
tion of  his  success  lies  in  his  personal  magnetism. 
His  air  of  openness  and  sincerity  begot  implicit  trust. 
Whatever  seemed  to  throw  light  on  the  question  of 
possible  communication  with  a  spirit  world  was 
eagerly  clutched  at  by  all  his  disciples,  and  their 
faith  in  him  was  further  strengthened  by  his  religious 
attitude.  This  deepened  their  conviction  that  he 
was  no  impostor.  Even  the  employment,  at  the 
outset,  of  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  conjurer — spirit 
voices  blended  with  music  from  guitars,  spirit 
hands  clasping  knees  and  scattering  flowers— 
begot  no  suspicion  of  his  integrity  among  the 
credulous  whom  he  honoured  with  invitations  to 
his  seances. 

The  evidence  as  to  levitation — the  most  impres- 
sive of  all  the  reputed  physical  phenomena — has 
no  value  in  face  of  the  impossible  demands  which 
it  makes  on  our  intelligence.  It  is  suspect  as  the 
outcome  of  the  mental  attitude  of  the  sitters 
towards  the  wonderful,  and  as  fostered  by  expect- 
ancy, which  is  one  of  the  main  factors  of  hallucina- 
tions and  sense  deceptions.  In  the  case  of  Six 
William  Crookes,  defective  eyesight  may  explain 
his  belief,  since,  as  the  late  Sir  William  Ramsay 
said  to  me,  "He's  so  shortsighted  that,  despite  his 
unquestioned  honesty,  he  cannot  be  trusted  in 
what  he  tells  you  he  has  seen." 

In  the  hands  of  ecclesiastics,  deriving  their 
authority  from  a  passage  in  the  Gospels,  binding 


EXPLANATORY  101 

and  loosing  have  passed  from  the  symbolic  to  the 
real,  and  become  engines  of  power  over  the  fate  of 
men  in  the  world  visible  and  invisible.  And  the 
realism  has  extended  to  their  service  to  Spiritualism. 
Here  once  more  the  savage  and  the  spiritualist  are 
at  one  in  attributing  the  untying  trick  to  the  action 
of  supernormal  powers — that  is,  in  Dr  Wallace's 
words,  "  to  some  undiscovered  law  of  nature." 
The  seer  or  sorcerer  who  is  believed  to  be  inspired  is 
bound  or  swathed  mummy-like,  perhaps,  so  Andrew 
Lang  suggests,  as  symbolising  the  dead  with  whom  he 
is  to  have  communion.  The  Greenland  "  angekok," 
before  taking  a  journey  to  the  unseen  world,  is 
bound  with  his  head  between  his  legs  and  his 
hands  behind  his  back  by  one  of  his  pupils. 
His  house  is  darkened  so  that  his  movements  are 
unseen,  and  by-and-by  he  appears  unbound  :  the 
spirits  have  loosened  his  bonds.  The  Samoyed 
"  shaman  "  lets  himself  be  tightly  bound ;  he  shuts 
himself  in  his  hut,  when  voices  are  heard,  "bears 
growl,  snakes  hiss  and  squirrels  leap  about  the 
room."  After  a  while  the  shaman  walks  in  free 
and  unbound  from  the  outside  !  The  voices  and  the 
noises  are  believed  by  the  onlookers  to  be  those  of 
spirits  who  untied  the  shaman's  bonds.1  Similar 
tricks  are  played  by  Red  Indian  and  other  jugglers. 
The  Davenport  Brothers  were  released  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  music  from  stringed  instruments  and 
hand-bells,  sometimes  to  the  sound  of  a  speaking- 
trumpet.  The  discussion  which  their  performances 
evoked  caused  the  appointment  of  a  committee 

1  Primitive  Culture.    Vol.  i.,  p.  155.     The  examples  are  taken  by 
Tylor  from  the  works  of  the  travellers  Cranz  and  Castr6n. 


102  THE  QUESTION 

selected  from  an  audience  at  Liverpool.  Two  of 
the  chosen,  who  knew  the  secret  of  a  special  knot, 
called  Tom  Fool's  knot,  applied  it  to  the  wrists  of 
the  Brothers,  when  each  protested  that  the  knot 
was  unfairly  tied  and  injured  the  circulation.  A 
doctor,  summoned  to  give  his  opinion,  said  that  the 
knot  was  not  harmful.  But  the  Davenports  re- 
fused to  go  on  with  the  performance ;  their  chap- 
lain, Ferguson,  was  ordered  to  cut  the  knots,  and 
there  was  an  end  for  the  time  being  to  the 
Brothers'  exhibitions,  but  not  to  their  dupes.  The 
late  Mr  Maskelyne  admitted  that  the  instan- 
taneous tying  and  untying  was  simply  marvellous, 
and  it  utterly  baffled  everyone  to  discover,  until 
on  one  occasion  (he  does  not  give  the  place  and 
date)  the  accidental  slipping  down  of  a  curtain 
in  the  interior  of  the  cabinet  let  him  into  the 
secret.1 

When  the  wind  had  blown  over,  they  returned  to 
this  country  in  1868,  at  the  instance  of  a  believer, 
who  induced  the  Anthropological  Society  to  examine 
their  claim  to  supernormal  powers.  But  again 
the  Brothers  refused  to  comply  with  the  conditions 
on  which  a  committee  of  the  society  insisted  as  pre- 
liminary to  the  investigation.  It  was  only  proper, 
they  rightly  argued,  that  the  Davenports  should 
allow  their  hands  to  be  held,  to  have  colouring 
matter  daubed  on  them,  and  in  other  ways  justify 

1  The  Supernatural?  p.  190.  In  his  suggestive  Modern  Man  and 
his  Forerunners  Mr  Spurrell  tells  of  the  deftness  of  a  chimpanzee  in 
untying  difficult  knots.  He  says :  "In  spite  of  some  experience  of 
ropes  picked  up  whilst  I  was  attached  to  a  ship,  I  found  that  I  could 
not  secure  the  chimpanzee  to  the  veranda  post  by  any  knot  which 
she  could  not  quite  easily  unravel.'-1  P.  28. 


EXPLANATORY  103 

their  contentions  that  spirits  unloosed  their  bonds. 
To  all  this  they  said  "  Nay." 

Some  months  after,  to  quote  from  Mr  Podmore, 
"  when  Messrs  Maskelyne  and  Cook  gave  at  the 
Crystal  Palace  a  performance  in  imitation  of  that 
given  by  the  Davenports,  some  spiritualists,  amongst 
them  Benjamin  Coleman  [an  early  believer],  found 
the  imitation  so  complete  that  they  saw  no  escape 
from  the  conclusion  that  Maskelyne  and  Cook  were 
themselves  spirit  mediums." 1  Again  and  again 
converts  of  Coleman's  type  have  found  refuge  from 
the  irrefutable  in  that  explanation.  "  And  for  this 
cause  God  shall  send  them  strong  delusion,  that  they 
should  believe  a  lie."  2 

The  same  fatuous  argument  was  used  when  the 
late  S.  J.  Davey  showed  how  the  sorry  rascals, 
Slade  and  Eglinton,  worked  the  oracle  in  spirit 
writing — and  in  broad  daylight.  The  public  needs 
telling  what  few  may  be  old  enough  to  remember, 
that  in  1876  Slade's  imposture  was  detected  by 
Sir  E.  Ray  Lankester  and  Sir  H.  B.  Donkin,  with 
the  result  that  he  was  put  into  the  dock  and 
sentenced  to  three  months'  imprisonment  with  hard 
labour.  A  defect  in  the  indictment  enabled  him  to 
make  a  successful  appeal,  and  he  left  the  country 
before  a  fresh  summons,  remedying  the  omission, 
could  be  issued.  As  for  Eglinton,  he  was  also  de- 
tected in  fraud.  His  later  role  was  to  exhibit  the 
newer  phenomenon  of  materialised  spirits,  but  his 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  61. 

Before  the  death  of  one  of  the  brothers  in  1884,  both  had  con- 
fessed to  trickery  in  their  performances.  The  survivor  settled  in 
America  as  a  farmer. 

1  2  Thessalonians  ii.  u. 


104  THE  QUESTION 

career  was  cut  short  by  the  discovery  in  his  port- 
manteau of  some  muslin  and  a  false  beard  which 
matched  the  muslin  and  hair  cut  surreptitiously  a 
few  days  previously  from  the  materialised  spirit  of 
"  Abdullah."  The  tint  of  his  shady  record  was 
further  blackened  by  his  having  been  detected  in 
colluding  with  Madame  Blavatsky  in  sending  an 
"  astral  "  letter  from  a  ship  in  mid-ocean.  In  his 
Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  Mr  Hereward 
Carrington,  an  adept  at  disclosing  spiritualistic 
chicanery,  but,  strangely  enough,  believing  in  a 
residuum  of  genuine  phenomena,  describes  how  the 
spirit-writing  trick  is  worked. 

The  inquirer  goes  to  a  medium,  pays  his  fee,  is 
handed  a  blank  pad  and  writes  his  question  on  it. 
He  tears  off  the  top  sheet  and  puts  it  in  his  pocket. 
The  medium  takes  away  the  pad  and  in  a  few 
minutes  returns  with  a  written  answer  from  the 
spirit.  Underneath  the  top  sheet  was  a  layer  of 
carbon  paper,  on  which,  of  course,  the  reproduced 
question  could  be  read.  To  defeat  possible  trickery, 
the  inquirer  may  prefer  to  use  his  own  paper,  and 
the  medium  will  be  asked,  or  will  actually  volunteer, 
to  withdraw  while  the  question  is  being  written. 
But  that  wily  man  is  not  to  be  baffled.  The 
table  has  an  oil-cloth  cover,  under  which  is  carbon 
paper,  and  under  that  is  a  sheet  of  thin  white 
silk  which  the  medium  withdraws  with  the  carbon 
copy  through  the  hollow  leg  of  the  table  fixed  in 
a  hole  in  the  ceiling  of  the  room  below,  and  then 
reads  the  question. 

The  trick  is  at  least  eighteen  hundred  years  old. 
The  "arch  scoundrel,"  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos, 


EXPLANATORY  105 

as  Lucian  calls  that  famous  medium  of  the  second 
century,  "  proclaimed  that  on  a  stated  day  the  god 
would  give  answers  to  all  comers.  Each  person 
was  to  write  down  his  wish  and  the  object  of  his 
curiosity,  fasten  the  packet  with  thread  and  seal 
it  with  wrax,  clay  or  other  such  substance.  He 
[Alexander]  would  receive  these  and  enter  the  holy 
place,  whither  the  givers  would  be  summoned  in 
order  by  a  herald  and  an  acolyte.  He  would  learn 
the  god's  mind  upon  each,  and  return  the  packets 
with  their  seals  intact  and  the  answers  attached, 
the  god  being  ready  to  give  a  definite  answer  to  any 
question  that  might  be  put.  The  trick  here  was 
one  which  would  be  seen  through  easily  enough  by 
a  person  of  your  intelligence  (or,  if  I  may  say  so 
without  violating  modesty,  of  my  own),  but  which 
to  the  ordinary  imbecile  would  have  the  persuasive- 
ness of  what  is  marvellous  and  incredible.  He  con- 
trived various  methods  of  undoing  the  seals,  read 
the  questions,  answered  them  as  seemed  good,  and 
then  folded,  sealed  and  returned  them,  to  the  great 
astonishment  of  the  recipients.  And  then  it  was  : 
'  How  could  he  possibly  know  what  I  gave  him, 
carefully  secured  under  a  seal  that  defies  imitation, 
unless  he  was  a  true  god,  with  a  god's  omnis- 
cience ?  '  Lucian  goes  on  to  explain  the  methods 
of  this  "  triple  rogue,"  narration  of  whose  impudent 
frauds  fills  the  letter  to  his  witty  friend  Celsus, 
famous  author  of  a  powerful  polemic  against 
Christianity.  Lucian  adds  :  "  So  oracles  and 
divine  utterances  were  the  order  of  the  day,  and 
much  shrewdness  Alexander  displayed,  eking  out 
mechanical  ingenuity  with  obscurity,  his  answers  to 


106  THE  QUESTION 

some  being  crabbed  and  ambiguous,  and  to  others 
absolutely  unintelligible."  x 

To  return  to  the  enfant  terrible,  Mr  Davey.    He 
had   been  a  quasi-convert  to  the  extent  that  he 
expressed   a  "  belief  that  the  idea   of  trickery  or 
jugglery  in  slate-writing  communications  is  out  of 
the  question."     But  certain  happenings  at  Eglinton's 
sittings    awoke    suspicion,    and    being    an    adept 
amateur  conjurer  he  got  at  the  secret  of  the  dodges. 
He  then  arranged  with  the  late  Dr  Hodgson,  then 
Secretary  of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search, to  give,  under  an  assumed  name,  a  series  of 
sittings  free  to  all  comers,  some  of  whom  were  told 
that  they  would  see  certain  things  which  they  were 
free  to  consider  as  due,  or  not   due,  to  spiritual 
agencies.     Others  were  let  into  the  secret.    Here  is 
a  selection  from  the  phenomena  at  these  sittings. 
The    company   heard    the    scratchings    of    pencils 
between    slates    screwed    and    corded    or    sealed 
together ;    they  saw  small  pieces  of  chalk  moving 
under  a  tumbler  on  the  table,  but  they  never  caught 
Davey  in  the  act  of  writing.     They  saw  "  spirit " 
writing  on  slates  which  they  themselves  had  care- 
fully locked  and  guarded ;    on  slates  which  they 
held  firmly  against  the  under  surface  of  the  table , 
on  slates  wrapped  in  thick  paper  and  tied   with 
string ;     answers   to   questions    on    locked    slates ; 
quotations  from  books  taken  by  the  sitters  from 
the  shelves  on  guarded  slates  ;  messages  in  colours 
chosen  beforehand   by  the  sitters ;    a  message  in 
German  for  which  only  a  mental  request  had  been 

1  "  Alexander  the   Oracle-Monger."     Works  of  Lucian.     Vol.  ii., 
pp.  221,  222.     (Fowler's  translation.) 


EXPLANATORY  107 

made ;  numbers  written  down  in  response  to  the 
sitter's  mental  request,  and  details  of  private  family 
history  !  l  At  the  dark  seances  which  Davey  gave 
musical  boxes  floated  about  the  room ;  raps  were 
heard  ;  cold  hands  were  felt ;  the  figures  of  a 
woman  and  a  bearded  man  in  a  turban  reading  a 
book,  who  bowed  to  the  company,  were  seen,  and 
finally  observed  to  disappear  through  the  ceiling 
with  a  scraping  noise.  "  Of  none  of  these  marvels 
could  the  witnesses  find  any  plausible  explanation, 
so  much  so  that  more  than  one  found  himself  forced 
to  invoke  the  mysterious  agency  of  magnetism, 
electricity  or  pneumatics."  2  Little  wonder  that 
orthodox  Spiritualism  denounced  Davey  as  a  back- 
slider from  "  the  faith  as  it  is  in  Spiritualism,  which 
Ellen  Dawson  and  Alexis  Didier  showed  forth  in 
their  works."  An  item  of  personal  experience  on 
the  part  of  Mr  Austin  Podmore,  Mr  Frank  Pod- 
more's  brother,  with  Davey,  which  is  given  in 
Modern  Spiritualism,  may  here  be  quoted  : 

"July,  1886. 

"  A  few  weeks  ago  Mr  Davey  gave  me  a  seance, 
and  to  the  best  of  my  recollection  the  following  was 
the  result.  He  gave  me  an  ordinary  school  slate, 
which  I  held  at  one  hand,  he  at  the  other,  with  our 
left  hands  :  he  then  produced  a  double  slate,  hinged 
and  locked.  Without  removing  my  left  hand,  I 
unlocked  the  slate,  and  at  his  direction  placed  three 
small  pieces  of  chalk— red,  green  and  grey— inside. 
I  then  relocked  the  slate,  placed  the  key  in  my 

1  Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology,  p.  152.     By  Joseph  Jastrow. 

2  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  220. 


108  THE  QUESTION 

pocket,  and  the  slate  on  the  table  in  such  a  position 
that  I  could  easily  watch  both  the  slate  in  my  left 
hand  and  the  other  on  the  table.  After  some  few 
minutes,  during  which,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  I 
was  attentively  regarding  both  slates,  Mr  Davey 
whisked  the  first  away  and  showed  me  on  the 
reverse  a  message  written  to  myself.  Almost  im- 
mediately afterwards  he  asked  me  to  unlock  the 
second  slate,  and  on  doing  so  I  found  to  my  intense 
astonishment  another  message  written  on  both  the 
in  sides  of  the  slate— the  lines  in  alternate  colours 
and  the  chalks  apparently  much  worn  by  usage. 

"  My  brother  tells  me  that  there  was  an  interval 
of  some  two  or  three  minutes,  during  which  my 
attention  was  called  away,  but  I  can  only  believe  it 
on  his  word. 

"  AUSTIN  PODMORE." 

As  the  reader  will  wish  to  know  how  the  trick  was 
done,  here  is  Mr  Davey's  explanation,  as  reported 
by  Frank  Podmore.  "  The  '  almost  immediately  ' 
in  the  letter  covered  an  interval  of  several  minutes  ! 
During  this  interval  and,  indeed,  through  the 
seance,  Davey  kept  up  a  constant  stream  of  chatter, 
more  or  less  germane  to  the  business  in  hand.  Mr 
A.  Podmore,  absorbed  by  the  conjurer's  patter, 
fixed  his  eye  on  Davey's  face,  and  the  latter  took 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  remove  the  locked 
slate  under  cover  of  a  duster  from  under  my 
brother's  nose  to  the  far  end  of  the  room,  and  there 
exchange  it  for  a  similar  slate  with  a  previously  pre- 
pared message,  which  was  then  placed  by  means  of 
the  same  manoeuvre  with  the  duster  in  the  position 


EXPLANATORY  109 

originally  occupied  by  the  first  slate.  Then,  and 
only  then,  the  stream  of  talk  slackened  and  Mr  A. 
Podmore's  attention  became  concentrated  on  the 
slate,  from  which  the  sound  of  spirit  writing 
was  now  heard  to  proceed.  To  me  the  most 
surprising  thing  in  the  whole  episode  was  Mr  A. 
Podmore's  incredulity  when  told  that  his  attention 
had  been  diverted  from  the  slate  for  an  appreciable 
time."  ! 

Reference  should  be  made  to  the  Report  of  the 
Seybert  Commission  appointed  by  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  to  investigate  Modern  Spiritualism, 
which  was  issued  in  1887.  The  Commission  was 
named  after  Mr  Henry  Seybert,  who  was  a  Spirit- 
ualist, and  who,  in  founding  a  chair  of  philosophy 
in  that  university,  made  the  appointment  of  the 
Commission  a  condition  of  the  bequest.  The  Com- 
missioners stated  that  they  could  not  induce  any 
private  mediums  to  submit  their  phenomena,  and  the 
professional  mediums  sought  to  evade  a  like  duty  by 
asking  excessive  fees  or  exclusion  of  conditions  that 
would  prevent  fraud.  However,  Slade  and  some 
half-dozen  others  gave  them  sittings.  The  unanimous 
verdict  of  the  Commission,  some  of  whose  members 
had  a  bias  towards  spiritualism — the  chairman, 
Dr  Horace  Howard  Furness,  confessed  to  a  leaning 
in  favour  of  its  substantial  truth — was  that  all  the 
mediums  were  proven  to  be  frauds.  How  they 
failed  when  no  lead  was  given  to  put  them  on  the 
scent  has  an  example.  Dr  Furness  asked  three  of 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  217,218.  A  long  footnote  on 
p.  221  summarises  the  methods  adopted  by  Davey,  and  the  variety 
of  apparatus  used  by  professional  mediums  in  "  spirit  writing."- 


110  THE  QUESTION 

them  in  succession  to  whom  a  skull  which  he  had 
in  his  library  belonged  in  its  lifetime.  One  "  spirit  " 
replied,  to  a  black  woman  named  "  Dinah  Melish  "  ; 
the  second,  to  "Sister  Belle,"  and  the  third,  to 
a  Frenchwoman,  "  Marie  St  Clair."  What  they 
were  not  detected  in  was  supplemented  by  know- 
ledge possessed  by  some  of  the  Commission.  The 
Report  proceeded  to  outline  the  causes  of  credulity. 
These  operate  everywhere.  "  The  first  reason  is  to 
be  found  in  the  mental  condition  of  the  observer ; 
if  he  be  excited  or  deeply  moved,  his  account  cannot 
but  be  affected,  and  essential  details  will  be  dis- 
torted. For  a  second  reason,  note  how  hard  it  is  to 
give  a  truthful  account  of  any  common  everyday 
occurrence.  The  difficulty  is  increased  a  hundred- 
fold when  what  we  would  tell  partakes  of  the 
wonderful.  Who  can  truthfully  describe  a  juggler's 
trick  ?  Who  would  hesitate  to  affirm  that  a  watch 
which  never  left  the  eyesight  for  an  instant  was 
broken  by  the  juggler  on  an  anvil,  or  that  a  hand- 
kerchief was  burned  before  our  eyes  ?  We  all 
know  that  the  juggler  does  not  break  the  watch 
or  burn  the  handkerchief.  We  watched  most 
closely  his  right  hand,  while  the  trick  was  done 
with  his  left.  The  one  minute  circumstance  that 
has  been  omitted  would  have  converted  the  trick 
into  no  trick.  It  is  likely  to  be  the  same  in 
the  account  of  the  most  wonderful  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism."  l 

Professor  Jastrow  tells  an  amusing  story  of  the 
outwitting  of  a  medium.  Dr  Knerr,  a  member  of 
the  Seybert  Commission,  attended  a  seance  at  which 

1  Jastrow,  p.  158. 


EXPLANATORY  111 

the  spirit  of  a  discarnate  Indian  was  to  appear  and 
a  drum  to  be  played  mysteriously.  He  managed  to 
get  some  printer's  ink  on  the  drum-sticks  just  before 
the  lights  were  lowered,  and  revelled  in  the  bewilder- 
ment of  the  medium  when,  on  turning  up  the  lights, 
the  condition  of  his  hands  was  manifest.  "  How  in 
the  world  printer's  ink  could  have  gotten  smeared 
over  them  while  under  the  '  control '  of  the  material- 
ised Deerfoot,  no  one,  not  even  the  medium,  could 
fathom." ! 

Any  confidence  that  may  be  placed  in  Sir  W.  F. 
Barrett's  competence  to  pronounce  judgment  on  the 
spuriousness  or  genuineness  of  spiritual  phenomena 
will  be  further  shaken  when  we  find  him  asserting  his 
belief  that  "  there  is  evidence  in  Mr  Stainton  Moses' 
script  of  supernormal  knowledge.  In  three  cases  he 
had  distinct  prevision  of  a  death  before  the  news  was 
generally  known.  One  was  the  death  of  President 
Garfield,  twelve  hours  before  even  a  rumour  of  it 
had  reached  England.  Another  was  that  of  a  man 
who  threw  himself  under  a  steam-roller  in  Baker 
Street."  A  spiritualist  who  was  with  Moses  at  the 
time  told  Sir  William  that  "  Moses'  hand  suddenly 
drew  a  rough  sketch  of  some  horsed  vehicle  and  then 
wrote  :  '  I  am  killing  myself  to-day,  Baker  Street,' 
after  which,  passing  into  a  trance,  Moses,  greatly 
agitated,  said  :  6  Yes,  yes,  killed  myself  to-day  under 
a  steam-roller.2  Yes,  yes,  killed  myself.'  No  one 
present  knew  what  this  meant,  but  later  on  an 
evening  paper  related  that  a  cabman  had  that  day 
committed  suicide  in  Baker  Street  by  throwing  him- 
self under  a  steam-roller."  2  In  this  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

1  Jastrow,  p.  145.  2  Psychical  Research,  p.  224. 


112  THE  QUESTION 

would  see  evidence  that  Moses  "  felt  that  he  was 
in  touch  with  helpful  and  informing  intelligences." l 
The  value  of  the  information  as  "  helpful  "  to  know- 
ledge of  the  conditions  in  the  "  Beyond  "  which  the 
spirit  of  the  cabman  gave  to  Moses  must  impress 
every  thoughtful  mind. 

Among  the  mass  of  material  which  Moses  left 
behind  him  were  records  of  communications,  through 
his  "  controls "  —severally  known  as  Imperator, 
Rector  and  Doctor2— from  distinguished  discarnate 
spirits,  Beethoven,  Swedenborg,  Garfield  and  others 
—thirty-eight  in  all.  The  spirits  gave  no  details 
about  themselves  which  could  not  be  found  in  any 
biographical  dictionary  or  obituary  notices.  As  for 
the  cabman,  his  suicide  happened  early  enough  in 
the  day  to  be  paragraphed  in  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette, 
but  his  name  was  not  given.  Does  it  not  occur  to 
Sir  William  Barrett  that  Moses,  who  lived  in  the 
neighbourhood,  may  have  seen  that  paper  before  he 
came  to  the  seance  ?  Does  it  not  occur  to  him 
to  ask  why,  among  the  thirty-eight  communicat- 
ing intelligences,  this  one  alone  did  not  reveal  his 
name  to  Moses  ?  When  will  these  eminent  savant- 
spiritualists  obey  the  Law  of  Parsimony,  which 
forbids  the  postulation  of  unknown  powers  or  causes 
when  natural  explanations  suffice  to  account  for  the 
effect  ? 3 

1  Raymond,  p.  350. 

2  "  I  absolutely  agree  with  Mr  Podmore  about  Mr  Stain  ton  Moses 
and  his  controlling  <  spirits.'     They  were  all  humbugs.11 — Andrew 
Lang,  Letter  to  The  Pilot,  2nd  January  1904. 

3  "  Miracle  is  not  to  be  presumed  until  natural  causes  have  been 
excluded. "    This  sound  aphorism  is  attributed  to  William  of  Occam, 
a  famous  schoolman  of  the  fourteenth  century. 


EXPLANATORY  113 

As  a  whilom  clergyman,  and  as  a  man  held  in 
esteem  by  his  colleagues  at  the  University  school, 
Moses  inspired  implicit  confidence  in  his  integrity. 
Few  and  trustful  were  the  friends  whom  he  invited 
to  his  seances.  On  one  occasion  his  control 
"  Imperator "  was  indignant  because  a  stranger 
had  been  admitted.  His  guests  were  already  his 
converts,  and  would  have  resented  any  expression 
of  doubt  as  to  his  integrity.  As  has  been  seen,  he 
started  on  the  lower  plane  of  conjuring  :  he  always 
worked  in  complete  darkness,  and  when  he  advanced, 
so  to  speak,  from  the  grossly  physical  to  become 
the  passive  agent  of  communications,  which  were 
in  different  handwritings  and  purported  to  come 
from  different  spirits,  the  hand  was  the  hand  of  the 
automaton,  but  the  voice  was  the  voice  of  Moses. 
A  specimen  of  the  "  new  revelation "  has  been 
quoted  :  the  skill  of  a  practised  pulpiteer  is  manifest 
throughout. 

One  incident  among  others  justifies  suspicion  as  to 
his  flawlessness.  At  a  seance  where  Moses'  old  and 
trusty  friends,  the  Speers,  were  present,  he  asked 
them,  as  soon  as  the  spirit  lights  appeared,  to  rub 
their  hands  together,  probably  to  divert  their 
attention.  "  Suddenly,"  Mr  Moses  wrote,  "  there 
arose  below  me,  apparently  under  the  table  or  near 
the  floor  right  under  my  nose,  a  cloud  of  luminous 
smoke,  just  like  phosphorus.  I  was  fairly  frigh- 
tened and  could  not  tell  what  was  happening.  My 
hands  seemed  to  be  ablaze  and  left  their  impress  on 
the  door  and  handles.  It  blazed  for  a  while  after 
I  had  touched  it,  but  soon  went  out  and  no  smell  or 
trace  remained."  Mr  Podmore  suggests  that  there 


114  THE  QUESTION 

had  been  a  mishap  with  a  bottle  of  phosphorised 
oil  I1  At  a  seance  given  by  Mrs  Guppy,  when 
glowing  lights  issued  from  her  finger-tips,  a  similar 
smell  of  phosphorus  was  noticeable ;  and  at  other 
seances  the  spirits  would  appear  to  have  made  use 
of  matches;  not  of  the  "safety'  kind.  Their 
dependence  on  such  adjuncts  appears  to  believers 
to  be  a  necessary  condition  of  the  return  of  the 
discarnates.  The  decadence  of  a  mind  of  the  order 
with  which  we  are  bound  to  credit  the  Rev.  Stainton 
Moses  shows  that  his  moral  sense  had  atrophied  ; 
possibly  self-delusion  played  a  large  part ;  certainly 
private  gain  played  none.  He  went  from  bad  to 
worse.  For  there  are  mediums  and  mediums  :  the 
one  class,  born  charlatans  and  rascals  ;  the  other 
class,  degenerates,  who,  starting  on  a  course  of 
deception,  end  by  deceiving  themselves.  They  are 
examples  of  a  morbid  pathology  with  a  diseased 
egotism  often  aggravated,  as  in  the  case  of  Moses, 
by  indulgence  in  alcohol.  Given  a  temperament 
in  which  the  inhibitory  power  is  weak,  it  is  pos- 
sible so  to  induce  the  trance  state  that  the  clair- 
voyant does  transcend  the  normal  state,  and  from 
the  mysterious  realms  of  subconsciousness  bring 
strange  messages  of  things  heard  and  seen  from 
what  seems  another  world.  In  the  case  of  women, 
who  are  more  neurotic  than  men,  the  pathologic 
conditions  are  aggravated  ;  hence  the  larger  number 

1  "  I  cheated  when  I  could, 

Rapped  with  my  toe-joints,  set  sham  hands  at  work, 
Wrote  down  names  weak  in  sympathetic  ink, 
Rubbed  odic  lights  with  ends  of  phosphor  match, 
And  all  the  rest." 

Mr  Sludge,  "  The  Medium." 


EXPLANATORY  115 

of  female  mediums.     Taken  en  masse,  mediums  are 
an  unwholesome  lot. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  class  in  which 
Eusapia  Palladino  is  to  be  placed.  Never  was 
medium  put  to  so  prolonged  a  series  of  tests  ;  never 
did  the  witnesses  to  these  show  more  perplexity  in 
making -up  their  minds  as  to  her  genuineness.  At 
Milan  four  of  them  were  satisfied  as  to  this,  the 
fifth,  Professor  Richet,  reserved  judgment.  At  the 
He  Roubaud,  where  the  last-named,  Professor  Oliver 
Lodge  and  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers  were  present, 
the  verdict  was  that  at  least  some  of  the  phenomena 
were  due  to  supernormal  agency  ;  at  a  later  seance 
at  Carqueiranne,  when  Professor  and  Mrs  Sidgwick 
were  present,  they  were  impressed,  but  not  entirely 
convinced.  At  Cambridge  the  volte-face  was 
complete. 

Mr  Maskelyne  describes  her  as  short,  plain- 
featured,  sallow-complexioned  and  dark-eyed  ;  "  her 
general  appearance  was  that  of  the  usual  cunning, 
oily-countenanced  spirit  medium "  —which  tallies 
with  the  impression  conveyed  by  the  portraits  of  her 
in  Mr  Hereward  Carrington's  Personal  Experiences  in 
Spiritualism.  But  the  impression  is  not  so  repellent 
as  that  which  is  given  of  them  in  the  photographs  of 
Mrs  Wriedt  and  Mrs  Piper,  with  their  thin  lips,  hard 
expression  of  feature,  and  calculating  look  as  if  to 
take  the  measure  of  their  sitters'  credulity. 

At  the  seance  given  at  Cambridge  on  the  25th 
August  1895  by  Eusapia  there  were  present  Mr 
and  Mrs  Myers,  Professor  Lodge,  Mrs  Sidgwick, 
Mr  Maskelyne  and  his  son.  Eusapia  wore  a 
black  dress,  not  of  silk,  because  that  material 


116  THE  QUESTION 

"  acts  as  a  non-conductor  of  the  'fluence."  Mr 
Maskelyne  suggests  that  the  real  objection  to  silk 
is  that  it  makes  "  a  rustling  noise  at  inopportune 
moments."  She  complained  that  the  light  was 
too  strong,  so  that  was  toned  down,  and  then  began 
the  usual  phenomena  of  the  necromancer  all  the 
world  over  :  convulsions,  general  restlessness,  rolling 
of  the  eyes,  sighs  and  gurgles,  with  "  more  method 
of  lifting  a  table  than  any  furniture  remover  has 
ever  dreamt  of.  Her  fingers,  wrists,  toes,  knees, 
calves,  her  abdomen,  she  knows  how  to  use  them 
all  as  occasion  serves.  Dozens  of  scientific  men  have 
declared  that  they  have  seen  her  lift  a  table  with  only 
the  tips  of  her  fingers  touching  it.  All  I  can  say," 
adds  Mr  Maskelyne,  "  is  that  when  /  saw  her  lift  a 
table,  there  was  a  vast  deal  more  than  her  fingers  in 
contact  with  it."  Her  "  control  "  turned  out  to  be 
a  famous  middle-man  (or  spirit)  between  this  world 
and  the  beyond.  A  spiritualist,  after  witnessing 
some  of  her  manifestations,  said  "  Surely  John 
must  be  my  old  friend  John  King,"  and  from  that 
time  "  he  has  been  Eusapia's  spirit  guide."  The 
details  of  the  occurrences  at  the  Cambridge  seance 
are  wearying  to  follow ;  suffice  it  that  Mr  Maskelyne 
wrote  two  days  later  "  to  Professor  Lodge  and 
informed  him  that  after  careful  consideration  he 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Eusapia  was  a 
trickster,"  adding  that  tests  securative  against 
fraud  to  which  he  proposed  she  should  submit  were 
met  with  angry  remonstrances  and  blank  refusal."  l 

1  The  substance  of  the  above  account  of  the  Cambridge  seance  is 
taken  from  Mr  Maskelyne's  lengthy  report  in  The  Daily  Chronidey 
29th  October  1895. 


EXPLANATORY  117 

Myers  reported  thus  to  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  : 

"  I  cannot  doubt  that  we  observed  much  con- 
scious and  deliberate  fraud  which  must  have  needed 
long  practice  to  bring  it  to  its  present  level  of  skill. 
.  .  .  The  fraud  occurred  both  in  the  medium's 
waking  state  and  during  her  real  or  alleged  trance. 
I  do  not  think  there  is  adequate  reason  to  suppose 
that  any  of  the  phenomena  at  Cambridge  were 
genuine."  x 

In  a  letter  to  The  Daily  Chronicle  of  the  4th 
November  1895  he  refers  to  the  presence  of  Mr 
Maskelyne  at  Cambridge,  testifying  that  "he  had 
no  bias  and  would  have  been  as  much  interested 
as  any  of  us  had  he  found  that  the  phenomena  were 
genuine."  Both  Mr  Maskelyne  and  Dr  Hodgson, 
who  had  adversely  criticised  Professor  Lodge's  credu- 
lous report,  and  suggested  how  the  trick  was  done, 
agreed  in  their  verdict.  Confirming  what  Myers 
said,  Mr  Maskelyne  wrote  to  The  Daily  Chronicle 
as  follows  :—  "  I  can  conceive  the  possibility  of  some 
force  existing  which  may  enable  a  human  being 
by  expenditure  of  energy  to  produce  movements  of 
attraction  or  repulsion  in  objects  situated  at  greater 
or  less  distance.  I  only  require  to  be  shown  that 
such  a  force  exists.  I  cannot,  however,  conceive 
the  existence  of  a  force  which  will  enable  a  human 
being  to  raise  perpendicularly  an  object  situated 
at  some  distance,  and  I  should  require  very  serious 
proof  of  the  genuineness  of  any  manifestations 
partaking  of  that  nature. 

I  cannot  conceive  the  possibility  of  any  material 

1  Proc.     Vol.  vii.,  p.  133. 


118  THE  QUESTION 

6  prolongation  '  being  given  off,  and  reabsorbed  by 
the  body  of  a  human  being.  Phenomena  tending  to 
establish  this  possibility,  in  my  opinion,  demand  far 
greater  proof  than  can  be  derived  from  transient 
impressions  of  one's  senses.  I  do  not,  however,  hold 
that  what  I  cannot  conceive  cannot  possibly  exist." 

Myers  afterwards  recanted,  although  his  "  control " 
communicated  to  a  medium  known  as  "Mrs 
Holland,"  by  automatic  writing,  a  second  recanta- 
tion. Mentioning  Eusapia  Palladino  by  name,  his 
"spirit"  declares  her  to  be  a  fraud.  In  a  letter  to 
The  Daily  Chronicle  of  5th  November  1895  Professor 
Lodge  puts  on  the  white  sheet  of  repentance.  His 
belief  in  the  supernormal  in  Eusapia's  performance 
is  abandoned.  He  says  :  "  I  returned  to  Cambridge 
and  held  two  sittings,  at  the  second  of  which  I  con- 
vinced myself  that  not  a  single  genuine  phenomenon 
occurred.  .  .  .  My  only  regret  is  that  I  allowed 
myself  to  make  a  report,  although  only  a  private 
report,  to  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  on  the 
strength  of  a  few  exceptionally  good  sittings,  instead 
of  waiting  until  I  had  likewise  experienced  some  of 
the  bad  or  tricky  sittings  to  which  all  the  Continental 
observers  had  borne  frequent  witness."  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  little  profit  has  come  to 'Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  after  so  severe  a  lesson,  and  that  it  has  not 
imbued  him  with  a  spirit  of  caution  in  acceptance 
of  what,  on  the  more  serious  side  of  spiritualism, 
may  also  prove  "  bad  and  tricky." 

In  a  letter  of  the  12th  November  1895  Sir  Alfred 
Lyall  wrote  to  me  :  "  It  is  amusing  to  see  that  the 
foremost  supporters,  except  Myers,  are  all  beating 
retreats  under  cover  of  various  explanations  of  their 


EXPLANATORY  119 

attitude.  In  to-day's  Daily  Chronicle,  for  example, 
Andrew  Lang  withdraws  behind  a  demonstration  of 
humorous  incredulity."  In  the  letter  referred  to,  Lang 
writes  of  "  this  humorist  [Eusapia]  ...  I  frankly 
admit  that  on  the  strength  of  Mr  Lodge's  report,  I 
did  expect  the  S.P.R.  a  better  run  for  their  money." 

The  Report  of  the  Paris  Committee,  based  mainly 
on  Eusapia's  rejections  of  the  tests  which  they 
desired  to  apply,  was  adverse.  It  was  the  old 
story.  The  degree  of  light  at  the  seances  was 
determined  by  her,  cover  being  thereby  given  to 
her  twitchings  and  convulsive  movements.  It  was 
noticed  that  when  all  the  company  stood  up  there 
was  no  tilting  of  the  table  :  that  usually  happened 
when  Eusapia's  dress  bulged  out  and  hid  any  action 
of  her  foot,  restrictions  on  the  free  movement  of 
which  she  generally  resented.  Nearly  everything 
that  happened  was  within  reach  of  her  hands  or 
feet.  She  objected  to  the  sitters  touching  the  table 
with  their  feet,  or  knees,  or  any  part  of  their  clothes. 
"  It  impedes,"  Mr  Hereward  Carrington  naively 
explains,  "  the  movements  of  the  table,  and  Eusapia 
says  the  sitters  would  thereby  convert  themselves 
into  '  conductors,'  and  would  discharge  the  collec- 
tion of  fluid  in  the  table  by  conveying  it  to  the 
floor."  1  The  balance  test,  which  was  applied  to 
Home,  was  applied  to  her  :  she  was  detected  in 
depressing  the  spring  by  means  of  a  hair.  At  one 
seance,  when  the  "  spirit  "  light  failed,  there  was  a 
strong  smell  of  phosphorus  (see  ante,  p.  113). 

The  most  detailed  report  of  her  performances  is 
that  which  was  the  outcome  of  sittings  at  Naples 

1  Personal  Experiences  in  Spiritualism,  p.  242. 


120  THE  QUESTION 

held  at  the  instance  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  by  a  Committee  of  three  reputed  experts 
at  detecting  conjuring.  It  fills  two  long  chapters 
in  the  first  part  of  Mr  Frank  Podmore's  Newer 
Spiritualism,  published  in  1910,  the  year  of  his 
lamented  death .  At  these ,  the c '  higher  phenomena ' ' 
— spirit  lights,  visible  heads  and  hands,  and  appear- 
ings  from  behind  curtains,  were  in  full  play.  One  of 
the  three  members  of  the  Committee,  Mr  Hereward 
Carrington,  explains  that  Eusapia  is  extremely 
sensitive  to  light  during  the  trance  state,  and  even 
the  faintest  illumination  seems  to  hurt  her  intensely.1 
So,  apparently,  it  hurts  all  other  mediums. 

When  it  was  suggested  that  she  might  be  blind- 
folded, she  said  that  that  would  "  prevent  mental 
concentration.  As  this  is  essential,  I  have  to  keep 
my  eyes  open  during  the  greater  part  of  every 
sitting."  No  darkness,  no  seance,  is  the  absolute 
condition  under  which  the  whole  gang  works,  and 
yet  they  audaciously  reproach  the  unbelievers  as 
"  0  ye  of  little  faith." 

"  The  record,"  says  Mr  Podmore,  "  is  as  nearly 
as  possible  perfect."  The  three  witnesses  depone 
to  the  conviction  that  what  they  saw  did  really 
happen,  but,  as  he  adds,  "  the  record  at  critical 
moments  is  incomplete,  and  at  almost  every  point 
leaves  obvious  loopholes  for  trickery."  a 

Mr  Hereward  Carrington's  mixture  of  candour 
and  credulity  in  his  account  of  the  happenings  at 
the  seances  in  New  York  does  not  inspire  confidence 
in  his  competence.  He  admits  that  "  much  fraud 

1  Personal  Experiences  in  Spiritualism,  p.  240. 

2  The  Newer  Spiritualism,  p.  141. 


EXPLANATORY  121 

was  discovered  during  the  latter  part  of  her  trip," 
but  he  is  "  just  as  fully  convinced  as  ever  of  the 
supernormal  character  of  the  facts."  l  He  is  frank- 
ness itself.  "  Inasmuch  as  I  had  in  the  past  had  no 
difficulty  in  detecting  fraud  in  practically  every 
physical  medium  I  had  investigated  at  the  first 
sitting,  I  feel  that  I  could  not  possibly  have  been 
deceived  time  after  time  by  the  few  comparatively 
simple  phenomena  which  Eusapia  produces."  2  On 
the  voyage  to  America  she  gave  a  seance  at  which  a 
"  Dr  Oteri,  pale  and  unmistakably  moved  [i.e.  his 
emotions  wrought  to  fever  pitch  of  expectancy], 
asked  for  the  spirit  of  his  daughter.  At  once, 
according  to  his  statement,  he  was  seized  with  an 
affectionate  embrace.  To  his  query  as  to  whether 
she  was  satisfied  with  her  life  in  spirit -land,  there 
came  three  knocks  on  the  side  of  the  table."  The 
usual  cold  draught  was  felt.  Why  the  spirit  was  so 
voiceless  that  the  table  had  to  answer  for  her  is  not 
made  clear.  There  followed,  at  least  all  present 
testified  thereto,  a  hideous,  black,  mask-like  thing 
near  the  top  of  the  curtain.  Result— hysterics. 
"  All  rose  from  the  table  but  Madame  Palladino, 
who  sat  motionless,  emitting  little  moans.  Her  face 
was  somewhat  haggard."  3 

Further  materialisations  followed  on  her  landing. 
These  were  not  novelties  in  America.  At  a  seance 
given  by  a  medium  named  Nicols,  one  of  the  spirits 
caught  its  drapery  on  a  lady's  hat  and  had  to  wait 
its  return  to  the  spirit -land  while  the  drapery  was 
unhooked.  At  another  seance,  where  a  Mr  De  Witt 

1  Personal  Experiences  in  Spiritualism^  pp.  127,  129. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  130.  3  Ibid.,  p.  135. 


122  THE  QUESTION 

Haugh  was  performing,  at  which  Mr  Carrington  was 
present,  the  hymn  "  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee " 
was  sung,  and  when  the  room  was  plunged  into  total 
darkness  (not  to  the  hymn  "Lead,  kindly  Light") 
the  first  spirit,  who  had  demanded  that  the  company 
should  stand  when  she  appeared— a  short,  white, 
rather  dumpy  figure — was  announced  as  Queen 
Victoria.  "  How  are  you,  Queen  ?  5!  a  man 
stammered  out ;  but  no  reply  was  vouchsafed.  It 
would  have  added  to  the  interest  if  her  Majesty 
had  revealed  whether  she  had  seen  King  David, 
whom  it  was  always  understood  she  had  said  she 
would  refuse  to  meet.  A  glimmer  of  light  disclosed 
the  medium,  stocking-footed,  gathering-up  some 
white  muslin.  At  what  Mr  Carrington  calls  "  the 
most  famous  "  —perhaps  he  meant  to  write  "in- 
famous "  — "  seance  of  the  series,"  one  of  the  sitters, 
prompted  by  the  late  Professor  Hugo  Miinsterberg 
of  Harvard  University,  a  distinguished  psychologist, 
stole  into  the  cabinet  behind  Eusapia,  and  suddenly 
caught  tight  hold  of  an  unshod  foot,  causing  her  to 
cry  out.  At  the  time,  the  Professor  had,  as  he 
thought,  his  foot  on  the  one  which  was  seized, 
whereas  it  was  resting  on  her  empty  shoe.1  At 
Cambridge  Dr  Hodgson  showed  that  Eusapia  made 

1  There  will  have  been  joy  in  the  spirit  world  over  his  repentance 
on  his  arrival  there. 

Miss  Caroline  Pillsbury,  of  Brookline,  Mass.,  editor  of  Boston  Ideas, 
claims  to  have  received  a  "  spirit"  message  from  him  in  which  he 
says  :  "  Although  I  have  been  in  the  spirit  world  but  a  brief  time, 
I  have  received  absolute  proof  that  excarnate  beings  can  and 
do  communicate  with  their  earth  friends.  However  valuable  the 
messages  I  may  bring  in  future  time,  this  one  to-day  is  important. 
Spirit  return  is  a  truth.  I  am  Hugo  Munsterberg." — Central  News. 

Pall  Mall  Gazette,  i8th  January  1917. 


EXPLANATORY  123 

one  foot  do  duty  for  two  by  getting  the  sitters  on 
each  side  of  her  to  place  their  feet  so  that  with  the 
toe  and  heel  of  one  foot  she  could  make  them  believe 
that  they  each  held  a  distinct  foot.  She  was  asked  if 
she  would  allow  her  hands  to  be  held  in  position  with  a 
piece  of  string  instead  of  being  grasped  by  the  sitters. 
She  tefused  this  absolutely,  and  also  other  con- 
ditions whose  object  was  to  prevent  possible  fraud. 

After  attending  a  seance,  Darwin  suggested  that 
"  the  medium  managed  to  get  the  two  men  on  each 
side  of  him  to  hold  each  other's  hands,  so  that  he 
was  thus  free  to  perform  his  antics."  1 

At  a  sitting  given  at  Moncure  Conway's  house, 
when  Professor  Clifford  was  present,  Williams  was 
the  medium.  There  was  the  usual  hooking  of  finger 
in  finger  by  the  company,  then  the  medium's  dodge 
to  change  the  fingers,  thus  freeing  one  hand.  The 
delusion  on  the  part  of  the  holders  of  either  hand 
or  of  their  pressure  on  either  foot  is  complete. 
Huxley  gives  an  example  of  the  easy  deception  of 
the  senses.  When  a  marble  is  held  between  the 
finger  and  thumb  and  looked  at  with  both  eyes, 
sight  and  touch  agree  that  it  is  single.  Squint  at 
it,  and  it  appears  double  to  the  vision,  although 
remaining  single  to  the  touch.  Cross  the  fore  and 
middle  finger  and  put  the  marble  between  their  tips, 
and  it  will  feel  as  double  to  the  touch,  while  it  is 
single  to  the  sight. 

Obtruded  heads  and  hands  and  quasi-human 
shapes  were  manifest  features  of  Eusapia's  seances. 
At  one  of  these  she  appears  to  have  invoked  the  spirit 
of  the  historic  pirate  John  King,  "  beloved,"  to  quote 

1  Life  and  Letters.     Vol.  iii.,  p.  188. 


124  THE  QUESTION 

Mr  Podmore,  "  with  his  scarcely  less  famous  daughter 
Katie  [revealed  to  Sir  William  Crookes  and  Mrs 
Guppy],  of  two  generations  of  spiritualists  through- 
out the  breadth  of  two  continents."  John  King 
puzzles  Mr  Carrington  as  both  ubiquitous  and 
elusive :  he  suggests  that  King  is  an  emanation  from 
Eusapia's  body  rather  than  a  distinct  intelligence.1 

A  month  later  arrangements  were  made  for  six 
sittings  by  Eusapia,  in  the  Physical  Laboratory  of 
Columbia  University,  at  which  a  galaxy  of  men 
of  science  was  present.  There  were  three  physicists, 
two  biologists,  one  psychologist  and  two  neur- 
ologists. But  the  amount  of  fraud  detected  at  the 
earlier  seances  reduced  the  number  to  four.  Pro- 
fessor Wilson,  a  biologist,  said  that  they  left  on  his 
mind  "the  strongest  possible  impression  of  fraud."  a 

Honest  recorder  as  he  is,  Mr  Carrington  says  that 
"  the  whole  crux  of  the  matter  is  that  poor  stances 
prove  nothing ;  good  ones  prove  the  apparently 
supernormal  character  of  the  facts,  and  until  one 
has  seen  both  good  and  bad  seances,  one  is  not 
entitled  to  express  an  opinion  upon  the  whole  case."  3 
But  he  will  probably  find  himself  more  in  agreement 
with  non-spiritualists  in  his  suggestion  that  "  what 
appears  spiritistic  or  external  to  the  medium  may, 

1  Personal  Experiences  in  Spiritualism,  p.  255. 

2  "  When  Madame  Palladino  visited  us,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  holding 
her  right  hand  and  foot  during  the  two  seances  in  which  she  was  so 
thoroughly  exposed  in  Collier's.     [Article  in  Collier's  Weekly,  New 
York,  1 4th  May  1910.]     I  believe  the  date  was  April,  1910.     I  gave 
her  $6.00  for  the  table  she  had  had  made  for  the  purpose,  and  have 
since  taught  a  little  girl  of  twelve  to  do  all  the  tipping  in  the  exact 
manner  that  it  was  done  by  Palladino.'' — Extract  from  a  private 
letter  from  an  American  conjurer. 

3  Personal  Experiences  in  Spiritualism,  p.  221. 


EXPLANATORY  125 

after  all,  be  purely  subjective  in  character,"  *  and 
he  will  do  well  to  include  in  his  suggested  "  Partial 
List  of  Phenomena  which  could  be  studied  in  a 
Psychical  Laboratory  "  — in  the  absence  of  a  medium, 
"  study  of  the  psychology  of  deception  and  experi- 
ments in  the  induction  of  illusions  and  hallucina- 
tions." That  list,  it  may  be  added,  includes 
"  thought-photography ;  experiments  with  the  so- 
called  human  fluid,  in  magnetic  healing,  in  study 
of  the  '  cold  breeze  '  felt  at  seances,  in  dowsing," 
and  in  weighing  and  photographing  the  soul  at  the 
moment  of  death."  2  "  A  mad  world,  my  masters." 
In  Scandinavian  mythology  the  Trolls  burst  at 
sunrise ;  the  flitting  spirit  vanishes  in  the  light  and 
reappears  in  the  darkness.  The  spiritualists  ex- 
plain that  the  mediums  hold  their  seances  in  the 
dark  because  the  delicately  materialized  forms  of 
the  spirits  would  be  destroyed  by  the  action  of  light 
rays,  strong  sunlight  being  extremely  destructive 
to  both  animal  and  vegetable  protoplasm.3  The 
savage,  who  knows  nothing  about  protoplasm, 
believes  that  the  spirits  swarm  in  the  dark,  alert 
to  work  evil ;  hence  the  widespread  custom  of 
carrying  torches  or  lighting  fires  at  nightfall.  The 
same  reason  explains  the  ceremony  of  blessing 
candles  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  : 

"...  a  wondrous  force  and  might 
Doth  in  these  Candels  lie,  which  if  at  any  time  they  light, 
They  sure  believe  that  neyther  storme  nor  tempest  dare  abide, 
Nor  fearfull  sprites  that  walke  by  night,  nor  hurts  of  frost  or 
haile."* 

1  Personal  Experiences  in  Spiritualism,  p.  226. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  269.  3  Ibid.,  p.  236. 

4  Brand's  Popular  Antiquities.     Vol.  i.,  p.  26.     (Hazlitt's  Edition. ) 


126  THE  QUESTION 

The  savage  dreads  the  possible  return  of  the  dead  ; 
hence  the  various  customs  in  vogue  to  prevent  it. 
The  corpse  is  carried  out  feet  foremost,  so  that  it 
cannot  find  its  way  back,  stones  are  piled  on  the 
grave  to  prevent  the  ghost  rising,  ashes  or  sticks  are 
strewn  along  the  funeral  route  to  hinder  it  in  any 
attempt  to  return,  and  so  forth.  Here,  in  desire  to 
commune  with  the  departed  and  to  see  the  beloved 
one  in  recognisable  form,  the  spiritualist  and  the 
savage  part  company.  Trading  on  the  impassioned 
yearnings  to  behold  the  very  image  of  the  lost  ones, 
the  rascality  and  buffoonery  of  the  medium  come 
into  full  play,  deceiving  "  the  very  elect." 

The  materialisation  business  was  in  full  swing 
between  1872  and  1880,  since  when  there  has  been 
a  not  unaccountable  slump  in  it. 

The  evidence  given  by  Sir  William  Crookes  in 
support  of  the  genuineness  of  the  phenomenon  has 
been  cited.  Summarising  it,  he  averred  that  he 
saw  Katie  King's  spirit  at  a  seance  given  by  Miss 
Florence  Cook  (Mrs  Corner)  at  his  house  in  May,  1874. 
She  was  seated  in  front  of  the  medium,  muffled  in 
a  shawl,  her  face  not  visible,  only  her  hands  and 
feet.  This  is  not  a  very  definite  presentment. 
In  the  preceding  December,  at  a  seance  given  by  the 
same  medium,  Katie  appeared  white-robed,  when  a 
sceptical  guest,  Mr  Volckman,  after  careful  scrutiny 
of  the  form,  features  and  other  characteristics  of  the 
spirit,  was  convinced  that  she  and  the  medium  were 
one.  He  rushed  forward  and  seized  Katie  by  the 
hand  and  waist,  which  were  those  of  Florence  Cook. 
Two  of  her  friends  rescued  her  from  his  grasp. 


EXPLANATORY  127 

Katie  retreated  to  the  cabinet,  which,  after  a  delay 
of  five  minutes,  was  opened,  revealing  Miss  Cook, 
dressed  in  black,  and  seated.  This  woman  was  de- 
tected in  January,  1880,  in  personating  a  spirit. 
So  much,  then,  for  the  genuineness  of  her  perform- 
ances, to  which  Sir  William  Crookes  testified  five 
months  after  Mr  Volckman's  detection  of  her 
trickery. 

Some  years  ago  four  Motuan  girls  persuaded 
many  natives  of  Port  Moresby  that  they  could  evoke 
the  spirit  of  a  youth  named  Tamosi,  who  had  died 
three  years  before.  The  mother  and  other  sorrowing 
relatives  of  the  deceased  paid  a  high  price  to  the 
principal  medium,  a  young  woman  named  Mea,  for 
an  interview  with  the  ghost.  The  meeting  took 
place  in  a  house  by  night.  The  relatives  and  friends 
squatted  on  the  ground  in  expectation,  and  sure 
enough  the  ghost  presented  himself  in  the  darkness 
and  went  round  shaking  hands  most  affably  with 
the  company.  However,  a  sceptic  who  happened 
to  assist  at  this  spiritual  sitting  had  the  temerity 
to  hold  on  tight  to  the  proffered  hand  of  the  ghost, 
while  another  infidel  assisted  him  to  obtain  a  sight 
as  well  as  a  touch  of  the  vanished  hand  by  striking  a 
light.  It  then  turned  out  that  the  supposed  appari- 
tion was  no  spirit,  but  the  medium  Mea  herself. 
She  was  brought  before  a  magistrate,  who  sentenced 
her  to  a  short  term  of  imprisonment  and  relieved 
her  of  the  property  which  she  had  amassed  by  the 
exercise  of  her  spiritual  talents.1  "  It  is  hardly  for 

1 C.  G.  Seligman,  The  Melanesians  of  British  New  Guinea, 
pp.  190-192 ,  cited  in  Sir  J.  G.  Frazer's  The  Belief  in  Immortality,  vol.  i., 
p.  196.  At  a  seance  given  by  a  Miss  Wood,  of  Newcastle,  when  two 


128  THE  QUESTION 

us,"  adds  Sir  J.  G.  Frazer,  "  or  at  least  for  some  of 
us,  to  cast  stones  at  the  efforts  of  ignorant  savages 
to  communicate  by  means  of  such  intermediaries 
with  their  departed  friends.  Similar  attempts  have 
been  made  in  our  own  country  within  our  lifetime, 
and  I  believe  that  they  are  still  being  made  in 
perfect  good  faith  by  educated  ladies  and  gentle- 
men who,  like  their  black  brethren  and  sisters  in  the 
faith,  are  sometimes  made  the  dupes  of  designing 
knaves.  If  New  Guinea  has  its  Meas,  Europe  has 
its  Eusapias.  Human  credulity  and  vulgar  im- 
posture are  the  same  all  the  world  over." 

The  year  1878  supplies  two  cases  of  mediums 
as  rogues  and  vagabonds.  Two  of  them,  the  before- 
named  Williams  and  Rita,  gave  a  seance  at 
Amsterdam,  when  a  spirit  known  as  "  Charlie  "  was 
materialised.  One  of  the  company  clutched  at  it  and 
found  that  he  had  hold  of  Rita  by  the  coat  collar.  On 
the  rascals  being  searched  there  were  found  on  Rita 
a  beard,  six  handkerchiefs,  a  bottle  of  phosphorised 
oil ;  and  on  Williams  a  dirty  black  beard,  some 
yards  of  muslin  and  another  bottle  of  oil.  It  was 
suggested  by  the  editor  of  The  Spiritualist  that 
"  evil  spirits  sometimes  abetted  the  mediums  in 
imposture,  and  that  the  facts  pointed  to  Williams 
and  Rita  being  under  some  strong  control  on  the 
disastrous  occasion."  l  Similarly,  when  Mrs  Corner 
was  detected,  the  editor  argued  that  "  grasping 
one  of  the  forms  and  finding  it  to  be  the  medium 

materialised  spirit  forms  walked  about  the  room,  one  of  them — the 
child  form  of  an  Indian  girl  named  Pocha — touched  and  even  kissed 
some  of  the  sitters.  Studies  in  Psychical  Research,  p.  24.  By 
F.  Podmore. 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  in. 


EXPLANATORY  129 

proves  nothing."  Sympathetically,  the  Rev. 
Stainton  Moses  said  that  "  such  methods  of  inquiry 
would  often  land  a  man  in  a  fallacy,  and  that  there 
were  powers  and  phenomena  which  were  not  amenable 
to  such  rude  and  ready  methods  of  investigation."  l 
"  The  last,"  says  Moncure  Conway,  "  that  I  heard 
of  Williams  was  at  Rotterdam,  where  the  Customs 
officer  seized  his  paraphernalia  of  wigs,  masks,  rag 
hands  and  phosphorus."  2 

Commenting  on  the  detection  of  the  "  flower 
medium,"  Frau  Anna  Rothe,  who  was  sentenced  to 
eight  months'  imprisonment  in  Berlin  in  March, 
1903,  Mr  Wake  Cook  says  :  The  fact  that  Frau 
Rothe  brought  a  quantity  of  "  flowers  and  other 
things  is  all  in  her  favour,  as  the  flowers  were  real 
ones,  and  if  she  had  not  brought  them  the  spirits 
would  have  had  to  steal  them,  the  contention  being 
that  the  flowers  were  dematerialised  by  a  chemistry 
more  subtle  than  that  of  Crookes  or  Dewar,  and 
were  rematerialised  in  the  seance  room.  The  fact 
that  our  chemists  have  recently  succeeded  in  de- 
materialising  matter  shows  that  they  are  on  the 
track  of  these  secrets."  3  Credo  quia  absurdum  est 
should  be  adopted  as  a  spiritualist  motto. 

One  more  of  these  repellent  examples  will  suffice. 
A  clerical  spiritualist,  named  Colley,  was  present  at 
a  seance  given  by  the  medium,  Dr  Monck,  whom  he 
describes  as  "  under  control  of  '  Samuel.'  '  He  was 
seen  by  all  to  be  "  the  living  gate  for  the  extrusion 

1  Spiritual  Notes,  February,  1880. 
*  Autobiography.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  352. 

8  Spiritualism  :  Is  Communication  with  the  Spirit  World  an 
Established  Fact?  (Isbister.) 

i 


130  THE  QUESTION 

of  spirit  forms  from  the  realm  of  mind  into  this 
world  of  matter."  This  is  what  Colley  tells  us,  in 
the  best  pulpit  style,  that  he  saw  "  most  plainly  "  : 

"  Several  times  a  perfect  face  and  form  of  exqui- 
site womanhood  partially  issue  from  Dr  Monck 
about  the  region  of  the  heart.  Then  after  several 
attempts  a  full-formed  figure,  in  a  nebulous  con- 
dition at  first,  but  growing  solider  as  it  issued  from 
the  medium,  left  Dr  Monck,  and  stood  a  separate 
individuality,  two  or  three  feet  off,  bound  to  him  by 
a  slender  attachment  as  if  of  gossamer,  which,  at  my 
request,  '  Samuel,'  the  control,  severed  with  the 
medium's  left  hand,  and  there  stood  embodied  a 
spirit  form  of  unutterable  loveliness,  robed  in  attire 
spirit  spun — a  meshy  web  work  from  no  mortal 
loom,  of  a  fleeciness  unattainable  and  of  trans- 
figurative  whiteness  truly  glistening."  l  This  was 
on  the  25th  September  1877,  some  months  after 
Monck  had  "  done  time  "  (see  ante,  p.  44). 

Among  his  apparatus  were  masks,  stuffed  gloves, 
muslin  and  a  jointed  rod.  At  the  trial  of  Colley  v. 
Maskelyne,  the  late  Dr  A.  R.  Wallace,  subpoenaed 
as  a  witness  in  support  of  the  plaintiff,  deponed  that 
in  1878  he  had  seen  "  Dr  Monck  in  the  trance  state, 
when  there  appeared  a  faint  white  patch  on  the  left 
side  of  his  coat,  which  increased  in  density  and 
spread  till  it  reached  his  shoulder  ;  then  there  was  a 
space  gradually  widening  to  six  feet  between  it  and 
his  body  ;  it  became  very  distinct  and  had  the  out- 
line of  a  woman  in  flowing  white  drapery.  ...  I 

1  Spiritualist,  5th  Oct.  1877.  Other  spirits,  if  Raymond  Lodge, 
speaking  through  Feda,  is  to  be  trusted,  have  their  robes  "made  of 
light  built  by  the  thoughts  on  the  earth  plane." — Raymond,  p.  199. 


EXPLANATORY  131 

was  absolutely  certain  that  it  could  not  be  produced 
by  any  possible  trick."  l 

Those  to  whom,  despite  these  exposures  of  vulgar 
frauds,  the  validity  of  the  phenomenon  of  extrud- 
ing women  may  still  be  an  open  question,  will 
not  receive  illumination  from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's 
deliverances,  against  which  there  lies  no  charge  of 
lightness  of  touch  :  "A  materialising  power  may 
continue,  analogous  to  that  which  enabled  us,  when 
here  on  the  planet,  to  assimilate  all  sorts  of  material, 
to  digest  it  and  arrange  it  into  the  organism  that 
served  us  as  a  body.  It  is  extraordinarily  difficult 
to  conceive  of  such  a  power  [agreed],  and  impossible 
to  suppose  that  it  can  be  a  direct  power  of  a 
psychical  agency  unaided  by  the  reproductive 
activity  of  any  other  unit  already  incarnate."  2 

Speaking  of  the  "  direct  voice,"  "  direct  writing  " 
and  "  materialisation  "  in  Raymond,  he  says  :  "  In 
these  strange  and,  from  one  point  of  view,  more 
advanced  occurrences,  though  lower  in  another 
sense,  inert  matter  appears  to  be  operated  on 
without  the  direct  intervention  of  physiological 
mechanism."  3 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  non-committal  on  the  question 
of  the  genuineness  of  spirit  photographs  has  been 
quoted :  Dr  Wallace's  rejoicings  that  such  a 
marvellous  triumph  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh  is  no 
longer  an  American  monopoly,  can  only  provoke  a 
smile,  and  the  opinion  of  Mr  Edward  Carpenter  on 
those  "  marvels  "  has  no  value  whatever.  Hence, 

1  Daily  Chronicle,  2;th  April  1907.  2  Survival  of  Man,  p.  138. 

•P.  365- 


132  THE  QUESTION 

but  for  the  qualified  belief  in  their  occurrence  which 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  expresses  and  to  which  those 
who  follow  his  lead  may  attach  importance,  the 
"  marvel  "  might  be  named  only  to  be  dismissed. 
However,  brief  treatment  will  suffice. 

More  than  half-a-century  ago  excitement  was 
created  in  "  circles  "  in  Boston,  America,  by  the 
exhibition  of  a  photograph  of  a  Doctor  Gardner,  a 
spiritualist,  on  which  was  the  portrait  of  a  cousin 
who  had  been  dead  twelve  years.  It  was  taken  by 
a  Mr  Mumler,  to  whose  studio  numbers  flocked  to 
obtain  photographs  of  departed  relatives.  But 
examination  of  these  proved  that  in  taking  some  of 
them  another  person  had  to  sit  for  the  spirit. 
Mumler  transferred  his  camera  to  New  York,  and 
was  there  prosecuted  for  fraud,  but  got  off  owing 
to  a  technical  defect  in  the  indictment.  The  trick 
still  goes  on  merrily  in  America,  the  euphoniously- 
named  Bangs  Sisters  of  Chicago  being  foremost 
artists  in  the  line.  Forty  years  passed  before 
the  "  marvels  "  were  repeated  here.  Mr  and  Mrs 
Guppy,  with  the  help  of  a  photographer,  who 
followed  Mumler's  methods,  produced  spirit 
pictures.  The  sitter  was  posed  before  the  camera 
and  on  the  developed  photograph  would  be  seen 
another  figure,  often  splotchy  and  blurred.  The 
negative  had  been  twice  exposed,  and  the  dodge 
exposed  with  it.  Partial  exposure  of  a  sensitive 
plate  for  a  moment  to  a  draped  figure  will  secure  the 
appearance  of  a  ghostly,  transparent  shadow  on  the 
negative. 

The  Rev.  Stainton  Moses  testified  to  his  having 
been  photographed  by  M.  Buguet  at  Paris  when  he 


EXPLANATORY  133 

was  lying  in  a  trance  state  in  London.  Probably 
the  memory  of  that  reverend  witness  played  him 
false,  as  M.  Buguet,  in  the  summer  season  of  1874, 
had  plied  his  art  in  London.  In  June,  1875,  Buguet 
was  charged  by  the  French  Government  with  the 
fraudulent  manufacture  of  spirit  photographs,  when 
he  made  a  full  confession  of  his  methods.  Despite 
this,  a  crowd  of  witnesses  came  forward  to  testify 
that  they  were  convinced  that  he  had  obtained 
photographs  of  spirits  dear  to  them.  Recognition, 
they  all  said,  was  unmistakable.  Notwithstanding 
this,  Buguet  was  sentenced  to  a  year's  imprisonment, 
and  a  fine  of  five  hundred  francs  was  imposed  on 
him.  Four  hundred  years  ago  Cardinal  Caraffa, 
legate  of  Pope  Paul  IV.,  said  of  the  Parisians  : 
"  Populus  vult  decipi,  decipiatur."  The  scoff  has 
not  lost  its  force  to-day. 

How,  unwittingly,  a  ghost  photograph   may  be 
caused  is  illustrated  by  a  story  told  by  Mr  Podmore  : 

"  The  operator  had  been  photographing  a  chapel. 
On  developing  the  plate  he  observed  in  a  panel  of 
the  woodwork  a  faintly  discernible  face,  in  which 
he  recognised  the  features  of  a  young  acquaintance 
who  had  recently  met  with  a  tragic  death.  In  fact, 
when  he  told  me  the  story  and  showed  me  the 
picture,  I  could  easily  see  the  faint  but  well-marked 
features  of  a  handsome,  melancholy  lad  of  eighteen. 
A  colleague,  however,  to  whom  I  showed  the  photo- 
graph without  relating  the  story,  at  once  identified 
the  face  as  that  of  a  woman  of  thirty  !  The  out- 
lines are  in  reality  so  indistinct  as  to  leave  ample 
room  for  the  imagination  to  work  in ;  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  camera  had  merely 


134  THE  QUESTION 

preserved  faint  traces  of  some  intruder  who,  during 
its  prolonged  exposure,  stood  for  a  few  seconds  in 
front  of  it."  * 

In  1909  the  proprietors  of  The  Daily  Mail 
appointed  a  committee  to  investigate  the  whole 
business.  An  abstract  of  the  proceedings,  together 
with  an  explanation  of  the  method  of  "faking," 
appeared  in  The  Times,  22nd  June  of  that  year, 
from  which  the  following  is  quoted  : — 

"  Three  spiritualists  and  three  expert  photog- 
raphers formed  the  Committee.  The  three  spirit- 
ualists reported  that  the  photographers  were  not 
in  a  proper  frame  of  mind  to  succeed  in  obtaining 
spirit  photographs.  [The  spirits,  if  not  "tough," 
are  "  devilish  sly."]  The  photographers  announced 
that  no  scrap  of  testimony  was  put  before  them  to 
show  that  spirit  photography  was  possible.  They 
invited  the  submission  to  them  of  spirit  photo- 
graphs, and,  having  examined  these  critically,  they 
reported  that  not  only  did  they  not  testify  to  their 
supernatural  production,  but  that  they  bore  on  the 
face  of  them  circumstantial  evidence  of  the  way  in 
which  they  had  been  produced." 

Mr  Maskelyne  describes  the  two  methods  of  pro- 
duction. In  the  first  method — double  printing— 
"  the  scene  is  printed  from  one  negative  and  the 
spirit  printed  from  another."  In  the  second  method 
— double  exposure — "  the  group  is  arranged  with 
the  '  spirit '  in  its  proper  place,  the  lens  is  uncovered, 
and  half  the  necessary  exposure  is  given.  The  lens 
is  again,  capped,  everyone  remaining  still  except  the 
'  spirit,'  who  moves  out  of  sight,  and  then  the 

1  Modern  Spiritualism-    Vol.  ii.,  p.  125. 


EXPLANATORY  135 

exposure  is  completed.  The  result  of  this  is,  that 
whilst  all  else  is  sharp  and  well  denned,  the  '  spirit ' 
is  represented  by  a  hazy  outline,  through  which  all 
that  is  behind  it  shows."  l 

1  The  Supernatural  ?  p.  203. 


136  THE  QUESTION 


A  SELECTED  LIST  OF  MEDIUMS  DETECTED 
IN  FRAUD 

AMERICAN 

The  Fox  Sisters,  Ely,  Colchester,  Foster,  Daven- 
port Brothers,  Mrs  Fay,  "  Dr "  Slade,  Florence 
Cook  (Mrs  Corner),  Eglinton,  Mumler. 

ENGLISH 

Mary  Showers,  Hudson,  Herne,  Williams,  Rita, 
"  Dr  "  Monck,  Petty,  Farman. 

FRENCH 
Buguet,  Debord,1  Madame  Amouroux. 

GERMAN 
Frau  Rothe. 

ITALIAN 
Eusapia  Palladino. 

SUSPECTED,  BUT  NOT  ACTUALLY  DETECTED 
Home,  A.  J.  Davis,  Stainton  Moses. 

1  He  told  his  dupes  that  the  spirits  had  formed  a  Committee  of 
patronage,  of  which  they  had  nominated  King  David  as  patron,  and 
of  which  Lamartine,  Tolstoy,  Musset  and  Gambetta  were  members ! 
The  list  of  officials  of  the  London  Spiritualist  Alliance  Limited  is 
headed  thus  :  "  W.  Stainton  Moses  and  E.  Dawson  Rogers,  Presi- 
dents in  Spirit  Life/* 


PART  III 

PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  OF 
SPIRITUALISM 


Ill 

CLAIRVOYANCE 

E  MANUEL  SVEDBERG,  better  known  as 
Swedenborg,  is  the  unwitting  founder  of 
the  later  school  of  Modern  Spiritualism — 
i.e.  the  branch  of  it  which  is  concerned  with  the 
validity  of  psychical  phenomena.  In  his  Human 
Personality  Mr  Myers  says  :  "  For  my  own  part  I 
regard  Swedenborg— not,  assuredly,  as  an  inspired 
teacher,  nor  even  as  a  trustworthy  interpreter  of 
his  own  experiences,  but  yet  as  a  true  and  early 
precursor  of  that  great  inquiry  which  it  is  our 
present  object  to  advance." l  He  left  no  im- 
mediate successors,  but  his  revelations  are  anticipa- 
tory of  the  articles  in  the  creed  of  the  apostles  of 
Spiritualism.  "  I  have  conversed,"  he  says,  "  with 
all  my  relatives  and  friends,  likewise  with  kings  and 
princes  and  men  of  learning,  after  their  departure 
out  of  this  life,  and  this  now  for  twenty-seven 
years  without  interruption."  "  His  intercourse," 
an  authority  on  the  subject  reports,  "  extended  to 
souls  from  the  moon  and  the  planets."  2  And  fore- 
seeing that  many  who  read  his  Memorable  Relations 
will  believe  them  to  be  fictions  of  imagination,  he 
protests  in  truth  that  they  are  not  fictions,  but  were 

1  Vol.  i.,  p.  6.     "The  visions  of  Swedenborg,  divested  of  their 
exuberant  trappings,  are  not  wholly  unreal,  and  are  by  no  means 
wholly  untrue." — Sir  Oliver  Lodge:  Survival  of  Man,  p.  236. 

2  James  Spiers. — Art.  "  Swedenborg,"  Chambers's  Encyclopedia. 

139 


140  THE  QUESTION 

really  seen  and  heard ;  not  seen  and  heard  in  any 
state  of  mind  in  sleep,  but  in  a  state  of  complete 
wakefulness.1  His  visions  date  from  April,  1745,  when 
he  claimed  to  have  received  and  to  be  in  possession 
"  of  spiritual  sight,  spiritual  illumination  and  spiritual 
powers  of  reason."  a  He  was  then  fifty-seven. 

46 1  was  in  London,"  he  tells  one  M.  Robsahm, 
"  and  dined  late  at  my  usual  quarters,  where  I  had 
engaged  a  room  in  which  at  pleasure  to  prosecute 
my  studies  in  natural  philosophy.  I  was  hungry 
and  ate  with  great  appetite.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
meal  I  remarked  that  a  kind  of  mist  spread  before 
my  eyes  and  I  saw  the  floor  of  my  room  covered 
with  hideous  reptiles,  such  as  serpents,  toads  and 
the  like.3  I  was  astonished,  having  all  my  wits 
about  me  and  being  perfectly  conscious.  The  dark- 
ness attained  its  height  and  then  passed  away.  I 
now  saw  a  man  sitting  in  a  corner  of  the  chamber. 
As  I  had  thought  myself  entirely  alone,  I  was 
greatly  frightened,  when  he  said  to  me,  '  Eat  not  so 
much  ! '  My  sight  again  became  dim,  but  when  I 
recovered  it  I  found  myself  alone  in  the  room.  The 
unexpected  alarm  hastened  my  return  home.  I 
thought  it  over  attentively  and  I  was  not  able  to 
attribute  it  to  chance  or  any  physical  cause.  I 
went  home,  but  the  next  night  the  same  man 
appeared  to  me  again.  I  was  this  time  not  at  all 
alarmed.  The  man  said,  '  I  am  God,  the  Creator 
and  Redeemer  of  the  World.  I  have  chosen  thee 

1  The    True   Christian   Religion,   London,    1855.     Nos.    156,   etc. 
Quoted  in  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture.     Vol.  i.,  p.  144. 

2  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  p.  74.     By  J.  J.  Garth  Wilkinson.     (1886.) 
*  It  may  sound  ungenerous,  but  it  is  apposite  to  remark  that 

spectres  of  reptiles  often  follow  excessive  use  of  alcohol. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  141 

to  unfold  to  men  the  spiritual  sense  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture. I  will  myself  dictate  to  thee  what  thou  shalt 
write.'  The  same  night  the  world  of  spirits,  hell 
and  heaven,  were  convincingly  open  to  me,  where  I 
found  many  persons  of  my  acquaintance  of  all  con- 
ditions. From  that  day  forth  I  gave  up  all  worldly 
learning  and  laboured  only  in  spiritual  things,  accord- 
ing to  what  the  Lord  commanded  me  to  write."  l 

The  story  of  the  thirty  years  of  life  that  were  his 
after  the  divine  apparition  is  compact  of  ever- fresh 
wonders.  He  was  more  than  as  "one  caught  up  to 
the  third  heaven  "  ;  traversing  space,  he  was,  so 
he  believed,  carried  from  planet  to  planet,  whose 
inhabitants  he  describes.  Of  the  Martians,  to 
whose  existence  our  telescopes  bring  no  evidence, 
he  said  that  they  were  vegetarians  and  clothed  in 
the  fibrous  bark  of  trees,  and  in  Jupiter  he  saw 
herds  of  wild  horses.  Of  Uranus  and  Neptune  he 
had  not  heard  ;  they  had  not  been  charted. 

In  a  childhood  whose  thoughts  from  its  fourth  to 
its  tenth  year  were  constantly  engrossed  by  reflect- 
ing on  God,  on  salvation,  and  on  the  spiritual  affec- 
tions of  men,  often  revealing  things  in  his  talk  which 
filled  his  parents  (his  father  was  Bishop  of  Skara,  in 
Sweden)  with  astonishment,  and  made  them  declare 
at  times  that  "  certainly  angels  spoke  through  his 
mouth,"  2  we  see  the  germs  of  Swedenborg's  mystical 
attitude  in  adult  life  toward  spiritual  things. 

His  followers,  who  adopted  his  name,  believed 
that  he  was  the  precursor  of  a  new  dispensation. 
"The  New  Church  signified  by  the  New  Jerusalem 
in  the  Revelation  '"  was  started  in  1788,  sixteen 

1  Garth  Wilkinson,  pp.  76,  77.  *  Garth  Wilkinson,  p.  5. 


142  THE  QUESTION 

years  after  his  death.  If  the  Swedenborgians  can 
hardly  be  called  a  flourishing  body — Boston,  U.S.A., 
has  the  largest  congregation— they  have  numbered 
men  of  considerable  power ;  among  these,  one  of 
our  own  time,  an  American,  Henry  James,  father 
of  the  novelist  and  of  his  brother  William,  prag- 
matist  and  psychologist. 

Although  the  fundamental  tenets  of  the  newer 
spiritualism  draw  their  inspiration  from  Sweden- 
borg's  trance  utterances,  the  impulse  to  that  move- 
ment is  traceable  to  the  theories  of  a  Viennese 
doctor,  Friedrich  Anton  Mesmer.  He  was  born  in 
1733,  and  therefore  was  in  his  thirty-ninth  year 
when  Swedenborg  died.  There  is  no  record  that 
the  two  ever  met.  Believing,  as  an  astrologer,  that 
the  stars,  in  given  positions  and  at  given  times, 
determine  human  fate,  Mesmer  identified  this  stellar 
magnetism,  as  he  held  it  to  be,  with  "  un  fluide 
universellement  "  in  the  human  body,  which  could 
affect  all  other  bodies  as  "  animal  magnetism."  He 
may  have  derived  his  theory  from  a  study  of  the 
voluminous  writings  of  Von  Hohenheim,  better 
known  as  Paracelsus,  who,  two  centuries  before 
Mesmer,  gained  fame  by  preaching  and  practising 
a  doctrine  of  astro-magnetism  blended  with  cabal 
istic  rubbish ;  or  from  "  Master  Greatrakes,  the 
Irish  Stroaker,"  who  professed  to  cure  disease  by 
"a  sanative  contagion"1;  or  from  Robert  Fludd, 
who  explained  magnetism  as  due  to  the  irradiation 
of  angels  !  Other  possible  sources  might  be  named, 
but  these  would  only  add  to  the  list  of  "  faith- 
healers  "  who  preceded  Mesmer.  He  asserted  that 

1  Kirk's  Secret  Commonwealth,  p.  30.     (1893  reprint.) 


CLAIRVOYANCE  143 

cures,  especially  of  nervous  diseases,  could  be 
effected,  even  at  a  distance,  through  ;c  un  fluide 
universellement"  He  anticipated  Mrs  Mary  Eddy's 
"absent  treatment."  In  1778  he  went  to  Paris. 
This  was  two  years  before  the  arrival  there  of 
"  Count  "  Cagliostro  of  Diamond  Necklace  notoriety, 
the  arch-quack,  to  sell  his  "  elixir  of  immortal  life," 
by  which  he  assured  his  dupes  that  he  had  himself 
reached  his  one  hundred  and  fiftieth  year,  his  young 
and  charming  wife  adding  that  they  had  a  son  who 
was  a  captain  in  the  Dutch  navy  !  It  should  be 
noted  that,  when  he  came  to  England,  the  Sweden- 
borgians  are  said  to  have  given  him  hearty  welcome. 
His  Freemasonry  caused  him  to  be  driven  from  one 
country  to  another,  and  finally  led  to  his  condem- 
nation to  death  by  the  Holy  Inquisition.  But  this  was 
commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life  in  the  fortress  of 
San  Leon,  where  he  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-two. 

Shrewdly  playing  on  the  imagination  of  his 
patients,  Mesmer  invested  his  consulting-room  with 
an  atmosphere  of  the  mysterious  and  the  aesthetic. 
Dim  lights  were  reflected  from  mirrors  on  the  walls, 
scents  diffused  their  fragrance,  and  soft  music 
carried  the  patients  to  the  borders  of  dreamland. 
They  were  seated  together,  sometimes  with  their 
hands  clasped,  round  a  circular  trough  in  which 
was  a  row  of  bottles  containing  "  mesmeric  "  fluid. 
Wires  with  handles,  which  the  patients  grasped, 
were  fastened  to  the  mouths  of  the  bottles  to  ensure 
contact.  After  a  short  period  of  silence  to  deepen 
the  impressiveness,  Mesmer  would  appear  in  a  coat 
of  lilac  silk,  and  with  a  magic  wand  in  hand,  which 
he  at  once  gracefully  discarded,  thus  freeing  his 


144  THE  QUESTION 

hands  to  pass  strokes  over  the  bodies  of  the  patients 
and,  as  they  believed,  saturate  them  with  the  heal- 
ing "  fluid."  Then  he  made  them  stare  fixedly  at 
some  object  till  the  optic  nerves  were  wearied  and 
a  hypnotic  state  was  induced.  His  career  need  not 
here  be  pursued  further  than  to  add  that  the  popular 
excitement  which  he  raised,  and  his  appeals  to  the 
French  Academy  of  Science  and  the  Royal  Medical 
Society  to  confirm  the  truth  of  his  discovery,  led  to 
the  appointment  of  a  Royal  Commission  in  1784,  of 
which  Benjamin  Franklin  was  a  member,  to  investi- 
gate the  subject.  The  result  was  a  condemnatory 
report.  The  three  factors  to  which  the  Commission 
attributed  any  benefit  that  Mesmer's  patients  had 
received  were  "  (1)  actual  contact ;  (2)  the  excite- 
ment of  the  imagination,  and  (3)  the  mechanical 
imitation  which  impels  us  to  repeat  what  strikes 
our  senses."  Mesmer  stuck  to  his  theory,  but  the 
Report  damned  his  future  and  he  passed  into 
obscurity.  He  died  in  1815. 

Nevertheless  interest  in  "  animal  magnetism " 
was  unabated.  Theories  of  subtle  and  occult  cura- 
tive forces  were  in  the  air  ;  their  vagueness,  as  is 
ever  the  case,  only  added  to  their  attractiveness, 
and  magnetism  did  the  duty  which,  perchance,  ir 
more  satisfactorily  discharged  nowadays  by  the 
blessed  word  "  electricity."  There  was  a  propor- 
tion of  genuine  metal  mixed  with  a  heap  of  alloy, 
and  the  public  took  the  coin,  not  at  its  intrinsic,  but 
at  its  face,  value.  This  is  more  than  metaphor, 
since  virtues  were  attributed  to  the  more  precious 
metals  as  media  of  mesmeric  effluence.  The  theory 
of  magnetic  and  pathologic  connection  between 


CLAIRVOYANCE  145 

the  human  body  and  the  stars  continued  to  find 
adherents  among  Tellurists  and  Siderists,  as  they 
were  labelled.  There  was  justification  for  belief  in 
some  mysterious  force  in  the  soothing  effects  wrought 
upon  nervous  patients  when  lulled  into  the  hypnotic 
state.  The  matter  remained  at  the  empirical  stage, 
the  loadstone  still  led,  and  in  1845  Baron  von 
Reichenbach,  enthused  by  researches  into  animal 
magnetism,  discovered,  so  he  honestly  believed,  a 
new  intermediate  force  in  nature  ;  a  subtle  emana- 
tion given  off  by  the  nervous  system  and  differing 
in  each  person  ;  a  vapour  also  emanating  from  dis- 
carnate  spirits,  whereby  communication  with  them 
was  established.  This  force  he  named  "  Od."  1 
Into  this  chaos  of  theories  of  odylo  -  cerebral 

1  In  the  jargon  of  Esoteric  Buddhism,  Mr  Sinnett  talks  of  "  the 
spirit  of  the  sensitive  getting  odylised  by  the  aura  of  the  spirit  ol 
the  Devachan.'1  Devachan  is  "a  state  of  consciousness  apart  from 
the  physical  body.'5  See  Mrs  Besant's  article  "Theosophy"  in 
Chambers' s  Encyclopedia. 

In  a  book  entitled  Future  Life  in  the  Light  of  Ancient  Wisdom  and 
Modern  Science,  published  in  1907,  the  author,  Mr  Louis  Elbe,  says 
the  possibility  of  "  the  radiation  of  the  odic  fluid  can  no  longer  be 
denied  in  principle  now  that  we  know  of  the  general  radio-activity  of 
matter  "  (p.  291).  "  This  fluidic  radiation  reveals  the  action  of  the 
etheric  body  .  .  ,  it  takes  place  normally  outside  the  cutaneous 
envelope  of  the  body  and  is  concentrated  chiefly  at  the  sensory  organs 
and  extremities.  .  .  .  Unfortunately,  it  is  imperceptible  to  the 
majority  of  men.  Under  ordinary  conditions  it  can  be  seen  only  by 
a  few  persons  gifted  with  a  special  visual  sensibility  permitting  them 
to  discern  the  glow  by  which  it  is  accompanied.''  [The  Spiritualist 
says,  with  the  Apostle  Paul :  "  We  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight.] 
As  a  result,  its  existence  is  still  a  contested  matter  (p.  295).  All 
psychics  are  agreed  that  in  the  hypnotic  state  they  acquire  the  vision 
of  this  fluid  which  they  can  see  radiating  about  their  magnetism 
(p.  297).  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  phenomena  occur 
almost  invariably  in  darkness.  This  fact  may  doubtless  be  explained 
by  supposing  that  light  dissolves  the  odic  fluid  and  deprives  it  of  all 
consistence  (p.  325). 

K 


146  THE  QUESTION 

sympathies,  phreno  -  magnetism,  aura,  neuro-  vital 
fluids,  and  other  imponderables,  order  was  at  last  im- 
ported by  a  surgeon,  James  Braid,  of  Scotch  birth 
and  practising  in  Manchester.  At  sittings  given  by 
a  travelling  mesmerist,  a  Mr  Lafontaine,  in  1841, 
Braid  noticed  that  the  mesmerised  subjects  could 
not  open  their  eyes,  and  explained  this  to  himself 
as  being  due  to  paralysis  of  the  nerve  -  centres 
through  the  strain  imposed  upon  them.  He  made 
experiments  on  his  servants  and  friends,  and  found 
that  he  could  induce  sleep  in  them  by  making  them 
stare  fixedly  at  an  object  held  near,  and  a  little 
above,  the  eyes.  He  thus  proved  that  what  is 
called  mesmerism  is  due  to  upsetting  the  balance  of 
the  nervous  system.  The  fixed  stare,  the  repose  of 
the  body,  and  the  exhaustion  consequent  upon  sus- 
tained attention  with  attendant  accelerated  breath- 
ing, bring  about  profound  stupor.  He  found  that 
he  had  to  deal  with  a  hitherto  unsuspected  order 
of  cerebral  states,  to  which  he  gave  the  general 
term  hypnotic  (Greek  hypnos  =  "  sleep  ").  The 
result  was  refutation — not,  unhappily,  as  the  facts 
collected  in  this  book  show,  the  extinguishment  — 
of  the  fantastic  beliefs  which  had  their  origin  and 
support  in  mesmerism  and  kindred  theories,  and 
the  throwing  of  light  on  the  phenomena  of  trance, 
hallucinations,  religious  excitement,  mania  and 
spiritualism.  The  abnormal  in  psychical  states 
finds  explanation  in  the  physical,  and  the  discovery 
has  enabled  the  judicious  doctor  to  employ  hypnosis 
with  the  frequent  result  of  cure  of  nervous  and  other 
diseases,  and  even  of  reformation  of  bad  habits. 
Braid  was  following  ancient  methods.  The  Hindu 


CLAIRVOYANCE  147 

of  to-day  (as  did  his  remote  ancestors)  subdues  the 
power  of  the  senses  and  the  passions  by  staring 
fixedly  on  the  sign  of  the  sacred  word  Aum  —a  dot  in 
the  centre  of  a  semicircle.  The  Egyptian  conjurer 
induces  sleep  in  his  subject  by  making  him  look 
intently  at  cabalistic  signs  on  the  middle  of  a 
white  plate.  From  the  earliest  times  religion  and 
medicine  have  intermingled,  and  the  old  custom 
of  Incubation — the  sick  sleeping  in  the  shrine  or 
temple,  so  that  in  their  dreams  the  healing  god  may 
make  known  the  cure — prevails  in  Greece  and  some 
parts  of  Southern  Italy.  "  At  first  the  healing 
shrines  appear  to  have  had  close  association  with 
the  secular  medicine  of  the  day,  and  to  have  repre- 
sented depositaries  of  empirical  knowledge ;  but 
later  they  became  hotbeds  of  jugglery  and  decep- 
tion." l  Among  the  Dene  Hareskins  of  North 
America  the  medicine-man  repairs  to  the  magic 
lodge  to  fast  three  days,  bringing-on  the  "  Sleep  of 
the  Shadow,"  so  that  he  may  prepare  himself  to 
drive  out  the  disease  demon  from  his  patients.  He 
blows  on  them,  makes  passes  over  them  till  they 
sleep,  and,  by  a  loud  cry  as  they  awake,  it  is  proven 
that  the  demon  has  been  exorcised.  The  practice 
of  voluntary  fasting  to  produce,  among  other 
results,  an  ecstatic  condition,  is  world-wide,  and 
goes  far  to  explain  the  belief  in  visions  from  a 
spirit  world  which  are  common  phenomena  of 
the  abnormal.  Hence  the  purpose  of  the  Chinese 
custom  of  fasting  before  sacrificing  to  the  ancestral 
spirits  was  to  prepare  the  mind  for  communion  with 

1A   System  of  Medicine.     Edited  by   Sir  William   Osier,  M.D., 
F.R.S.     Vol.  i.,  p.  xvii. 


148  THE  QUESTION 

them,  as  the  Roman  Catholic  and  High  Church 
sacramentarians  abstain  from  food  before  swallow- 
ing the  consecrated  wafer.  "  It  was  in  honour  of 
Pan  or  Mercury,  of  Hecate  or  Isis,  that  Julian,  on 
particular  days,  denied  himself  the  use  of  some 
particular  food  which  might  have  been  offensive  to 
his  tutelar  deities.  By  these  voluntary  fasts  he 
prepared  his  senses  and  his  understanding  for  the 
frequent  and  familiar  visits  with  which  he  was 
honoured  by  the  celestial  powers." x  A  Taorist 
text  speaks  of  fasting,  so  that  the  mind  concentrates 
itself,  to  be  thereby  made  fit  for  the  reception  of 
the  god's  revelation.  The  following  Mohammedan 
recipe  for  summoning  spirits  is  given  in  Klunzinger's 
Upper  Egypt : — "  Fast  seven  days  in  a  lonely  place 
and  take  incense  with  you  .  .  .  and  read  the 
chapter  one  thousand  and  one  times  from  the  Koran 
in  the  seven  days,  a  certain  number  of  readings ; 
namely,  for  every  day  one  of  the  five  daily  prayers. 
That  is  the  secret,  and  you  will  see  indescribable 
wonders  :  drums  will  be  beaten  beside  you  and  flags 
hoisted  over  your  head,  and  you  will  see  spirits  full 
of  light  and  of  beautiful  and  benign  aspect."  2 

Moses  received  the  Law  from  Jehovah  on  Sinai 
after  he  had  fasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights.  For 
the  same  period  Ezekiel,  after  the  angel  had  fortified 
him  with  food  and  drink,  went  to  Horeb,  the  mount 
of  God,  and  awaited  the  divine  revelation.  Forty 
days  and  forty  nights  Jesus  fasted  in  the  desert, 
and  when  "  he  was  afterward  an  hungered  "  there 
came  the  apparition  of  Satan,  victory  over  whom 

1  Gibbon:  Decline  and  Fall,  chapter  xxiii.,  p.  465.     (Prof.  Bury's 
edition,  1909.)  2  P.  386- 


CLAIRVOYANCE  149 

brought  to  Jesus  visions  of  ministering  angels. 
In  the  remarkable  parallel  of  the  temptation  of 
Gautama,  the  Buddha,  worn  to  a  skeleton  by  self- 
privation,  was  approached  by  Mara,  the  Prince 
of  Evil,  with  the  promise  of  universal  dominion. 
But  the  arch -demon  had  to  retire  baffled.  Then 
guardian  angels  appeared  to  speak  words  of  com- 
fort to  the  Buddha,  and  scatter  flowers  and  pour 
sweet  perfumes  over  him.  The  saying  of  Chrysostom 
that  fasting  makes  the  soul  lighter  and  provides  it 
with  wings  to  mount  and  soar  has  example  in  the 
story  of  many  a  holy  man  of  old  whose  visions  of 
angels  and  devils,  of  paradise  and  hell,  are  explained 
by  the  exhaustion  of  the  nerve-centres  induced  by 
the  weakness  of  a  starved  body.  In  this  may  be 
found  the  cause  of  a  wonderful  vision  enjoyed  by  a 
doctor  named  Crewkhorne,  of  whom  Froude  relates 
that  "  he,  before  the  three  Bishops  of  Canterbury, 
Worcester  and  Salisbury,  confessed  that  he  was  rapt 
into  heaven,  where  he  saw  the  Trinity  sitting  on  a 
pall  or  mantle  of  blue  colour,  and  from  the  middle 
upward  they  were  three  bodies,  and  from  the  middle 
downward  were  they  closed  all  three  into  one 
body."  1  With  profound  truth  Sir  E.  B.  Tylor  says 
that  "  Bread  and  meat  would  have  robbed  the  saint 
of  many  an  angel's  visit ;  the  opening  of  the  larder 
must  many  a  time  have  closed  the  gates  of  heaven 
to  his  gaze."  2 

The  links  between  mesmerism,  somnambulism, 
clairvoyance,  trance  states  and  kindred  pheno- 
mena, are  continuous.  There  have  been  collected 

1  History  of  England.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  343. 
1  Primitive  Culture.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  415. 


150  THE  QUESTION 

during  the  past  seventy  years  or  more  many  stories 
of  knowledge  of  things  occurring  at  a  distance  not 
communicated  through  normal  channels  of  which 
the  clairvoyant  had  cognisance,  and,  still  more 
important,  of  communication  with  spirits  and  the 
spirit  world  by  trance  mediums.  As  with  all  the 
examples  of  the  various  phenomena  now  dealt  with, 
the  generic  types  are  few,  hence  there  can  be  only 
tedium  to  the  reader  in  multiplying  stories  whose 
central  incidents  are  alike.  They  are  what  the  folk- 
lorist  calls  "  variants." 

Dealing  with  the  clairvoyant  group,  there  is  the 
case,  quoted  by  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  in  his  Psychical 
Research,  of  a  girl  named  Ellen  Dawson,  who  had 
been  subject  to  epileptic  fits  as  a  child,  for  which 
she  had  been  successfully  treated  by  a  London 
doctor  named  Hands.  He  observed  that,  when  in 
the  trance  state,  she  could  apparently  see  objects 
without  using  her  eyes.  So  he  tried  to  cultivate  her 
clairvoyant  faculty,  and  it  is  asserted  that  she 
developed  a  power  of  accurately  describing  distant 
places  and  persons  she  had  never  seen  with  her 
normal  vision.  In  The  Zoist  for  1845  (a  periodical 
dealing  with  the  theory  of  animal  magnetism  as  a 
vital  nerve  fluid)  two  examples  of  the  girl  Dawson's 
powers  are  given.  Mr  Hands  filled  the  lids  of  two 
pill-boxes  with  cotton-wool  and  tied  one  over  each 
of  her  eyes  with  broad  ribbon,  taking  care  that  light 
was  excluded  by  pressing  the  edges  of  the  boxes  close 
to  the  skin.  He  says  :  "  Still  she  read  and  dis- 
tinguished as  before.  I  now  placed  her  in  a  room 
from  which  I  had  shut  out  every  ray  of  light  and 
then  presented  her  with  some  plates  in  Cuvier's 


CLAIRVOYANCE  151 

Animal  Kingdom ;  she  described  the  birds  and 
beasts  and  told  accurately  the  colours  of  each,  as  I 
proved  by  going  into  the  light  to  test  her  statements. 
She  also  distinguished  the  shades  and  hues  of  silks." 
On  another  occasion  she  correctly  described  Mr 
Hands 's  birthplace,  one  hundred  and  forty  miles 
from  London.  She  described  the  church  and  the 
various  monuments  therein ;  also  the  house  in 
which  Mrs  Hands  was  staying.  "  When  asked  what 
Mrs  Hands  was  doing,  Ellen  said  that  she  was  play- 
ing cards  and  described  the  other  persons  present. 
Then  she  exclaimed  :  '  Mrs  Hands  has  won  the 
game  and  is  getting  up  from  her  chair  ! '  All  these 
details  turned  out  to  be  perfectly  correct.  Another 
time  she  traced  the  whereabouts  of  some  plate  and 
jewels  which  had  been  stolen  by  a  servant  from  her 
mistress."  1  A  further  example  of  clairvoyance  is 
supplied  by  a  Frenchman,  Alexis  Didier,  brought 
to  England  by  a  M.  Marcillet,  whose  integrity  was 
vouched  for  by  Dr  Elliotson,  an  early  and  careful 
investigator  of  mesmeric  phenomena.  Didier, 
apparently,  in  the  first  instance,  was  thrown  into  a 
deep  trance  ;  his  eyes  were  then  bandaged,  gener- 
ally as  follows  : — A  pad  of  leather  was  placed  over 
each  eye,  then  a  handkerchief  was  tied  diagonally 
across  each  ;  then  a  third  handkerchief  tied  across 
them,  and  any  possible  spaces  admitting  light  filled 
up  with  cotton-wool.  Thus  blindfolded,  he  played 
ecarte  skilfully  and  quickly,  knew  not  only  his  own 
cards,  but  his  adversary's  as  well ;  played  correctly 
with  his  own  cards  face  downwards  on  the  table  and 
would  frequently,  by  request,  pick  out  any  named 

lPp.  156-158. 


152  THE  QUESTION 

card  when  the  whole  pack  was  face  downward. 
Further,  he  would— though  generally  with  his  eyes 
unbandaged  and  merely  closed —decipher  words 
written  in  sealed  envelopes,  describe  the  contents  of 
closed  packets,  and  read  words  and  sentences  several 
pages  deep  in  any  book  that  might  be  handed  to 
him.1  Robert  Houdin,  the  King  of  Conjurers  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  after  paying  two 
visits  to  Didier,  was  nonplussed.  He  testified 
"  qu'il  est  tout  a  fait  impossible  que  le  hasard  on 
1'adresse  puisse  jamais  produire  des  effets  aussi 
merveilleux."  This  verdict  was  endorsed  by  the 
Rev.  Chancery  Hare  Townshend,  a  poet  and  well- 
known  writer  on  Mesmerism,  who  paid  a  surprise 
visit  to  Didier.  Townshend's  house  at  Lausanne 
was  accurately  described,  and  in  equal  faithfulness 
of  detail  his  house  in  London,  even  the  servants 
there  and  the  horses  in  the  stables. 

Alexis  had  ma'ay  friends  to  tap  as  sources  of  in- 
formation ;  Marcillet  was  not  his  only  confederate, 
and  his  chief  successes  were  secured  in  card  tricks 
in  which  every  skilful  conjurer  scores.  The  late 
Dr  W.  B.  Carpenter  attended  some  stances  which 
he  gave,  and  noticed  his  adeptness  in  educing  such 
leading  questions  from  his  sitters  as  would  help  him 
to  the  information  which  he  was  assumed  to  reveal  to 
them.  Mr  Podmore's  comment  on  the  girl  Dawson, 
whose  clairvoyant  exhibitions  were  witnessed  by 
only  a  few  selected  observers,  is  that  "  something 
no  doubt  could  have  been  gleaned  by  a  cunning  and 
unscrupulous  person  from  the  gossip  of  servants, 
and  in  nearly  every  case  a  wide  margin  must  be 

1  Podmore  :  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  143. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  153 

allowed  for  misdescription  on  the  part  of  the 
narrator  of  the  marvels," l  She  may  well  have 
heard  her  mistress  talk  of  her  birthplace  ;  she  knew 
that  she  played  cards  ;  she  may  have  often  dipped 
into  Cuvier's  book,  with  its  attractive  pictures; 
moreover,  bandaging  the  eyes  so  as  to  exclude  all 
possibility  of  seeing,  as  Mr  Podmore  shows  by 
examples  which  he  cites,  is  not  easy.2  Dawson's 
success  in  tracing  the  stolen  property  may  be 
ascribed  to  her  knowledge  of  the  haunts  and  habits 
of  her  dishonest  fellow-servant.  When  the  clair- 
voyants score  a  few  successes  in  the  tracing  of  lost 
or  stolen  goods,  or  when  they  reveal  the  nature  and 
value  of  the  securities  in  a  locked  safe,  the  sceptic 
will  be  confounded— but  not  till  then.3 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  i.,  p.  148. 

*  In  the  letter  from  an  American  conjurer  (see  ante,  p.  1 24),  he  says  : 
"  If  I  recall  rightly,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  first  faith  in  '  Telepathy  *  was 
obtained  by  his  experience  with  the  late  Washington  Irving  Bishop. 
I  knew  Bishop  well.  Learned  all  his  tricks  and  have  at  the  present 
the  cap  ('  blindfold  ')  which  he  used  in  Los  Angeles,  Cal.  I  can 
teach  any  bright  boy  of  fourteen  to  do  every  one  of  his  so-called 
mind-reading  feats,  even  the  blindfold  street-driving  tests.*1 

'"Agaberta,  a  famous  witch  in  Lapland,  could  represent  to  others 
what  forms  they  most  desired  to  see,  show  them  friends  absent,  reveal 
secrets  maxima  omnium  admiratione  [to  the  greatest  wonder  of  every- 
body]. And  yet  for  all  this  subtilty  of  theirs,  as  Lipsius  well  observes, 
neither  these  Magicians  nor  Devils  themselves  can  take  away  gold  or 
letters  out  of  mine  or  Crassus'  chest  ...  for  they  are  base,  poor, 
contemptible  fellows  most  part." — Burton  :  Anatomy  of  Melancholy, 
Pt.  I.,  Sect.  3,  Mem.  i,  Subs.  3. 


IV 

CRYSTAL-GAZING 

CLAIRVOYANT     and     crystal  -  gazer     make 
common   contribution  to  the   occult.     The 
serious  recognition  of  scrying1  as  possibly 
related     to     psychical     phenomena     by     eminent 
physicists,  and  by  the   Society  for   Psychical  Re- 
search, warrants  reference  to  the  subject. 

From  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  we  learn 
that  glass  balls  for  crystal-gazing  can  be  purchased 
at  its  rooms  in  four  sizes  on  ebonised  stands,  at 
from  three  shillings  to  eight  shillings  each  ;  those 
three  inches  in  diameter  are  also  supplied  hollow,  to 
be  filled  with  water,  and  are  recommended  as  having 
been  found  at  least  equally  good  as  specula  with 
the  solid.  The  Society  expresses  itself  as  being 
"  grateful  for  accounts  of  any  experiments  which 
may  be  tried."  In  the  same  number  of  the  Pro- 
ceedings in  which  these  are  advertised  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  has  a  paper  explaining  the  conditions  under 
which  the  hypnotic  state  may  be  induced.  The  use 
of  crystal  balls  would  appear  to  be  helpful.  He 
says  : 

"  It  has  long  been  known  that  in  order  to  achieve 

1 "  The  practice  of  scrying,  peeping  or  crystal-gazing  has  been 
revived  in  recent  years." — Cock  Lane  and  Common  Sense,  p.  2 12.  By 
Andrew  Lang.  The  earliest  known  use  of  the  word  dates  from  1549. 
"  Thomas  Malfrey  and  a  woman  are  scryers  of  the  glasse.'1  See 
New  English  Dictionary ,  s.v. 

154 


CRYSTAL-GAZING  155 

remarkable  results  in  any  department  of  intellectual 
activity  the  mind  must  be  to  some  extent  unaware 
of  passing  occurrences.  To  be  keenly  awake  and 
4  on  the  spot  '  is  a  highly  valued  accomplishment, 
and  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  mundane  affairs  is 
a  far  more  useful  state  of  mind  than  the  rather  hazy 
and  absorbed  condition  which  is  associated  with  the 
quality  of  mind  called  genius,  but  it  is  not  as  effec- 
tive for  brilliant  achievement.  When  a  poet  or 
mathematician  feels  himself  inspired,  his  senses  are, 
I  suppose,  dulled  or  half  asleep.  ...  It  does  not 
seem  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  state  is 
somewhat  allied  to  the  initial  condition  of  anaes- 
thesia— the  somnambulic  condition  when,  though 
the  automatic  processes  of  the  body  go  on  with 
greater  perfection  than  usual,  the  conscious  or 
noticing  aspect  of  the  mind  is  latent,  so  that  the 
things  which  influence  the  person  are  apparently 
no  longer  the  ordinary  events  which  effect  his  peri- 
pheral organs,  but  either  something  internal  or  else 
something  not  belonging  to  the  ordinarily  known 
universe  at  all."  l 

In  his  booklet  on  Crystal-Gazing  Mr  N.  W. 
Thomas  asks  for  any  results  of  scrying ;  he  says 
that  "the  crystal  is  apt  to  anticipate  events,"  but 
he  cannot  be  wholly  acquitted  of  frivolity  when  he 
suggests  that  44  moderate  indulgence  in  the  sport  is 
no  more  harmful  than  an  after-dinner  snooze."  2 

Crystallomancy — one  of  the  many  modes  of 
divination  by  cups,  beryls  and  other  gems,  glass 
balls,  magic  mirrors,  water  in  ponds  or  vessels,  and 

1  Proceedings  of  Society  for  Psychical  Research.     Vol.  x.,  part  26, 
p.  14.  2  Crystal-Gazing,  p.  159. 


156  THE  QUESTION 

other  objects— is  "as  old  as  the  hills,"  and  has  its 
votaries  in  all  stages  of  culture. 

The  Australian  natives  use  a  polished  stone. 
Some  of  them  believe  that  crystals  are  falling  stars 
and  invest  them  with  magic  properties.  The 
Malagasy  believe  that  the  crystals  fall  from  heaven 
when  it  thunders,  and  with  them  they  scry  things 
otherwise  invisible.  When  Mr  Howitt  put  some 
teeth  extracted  from  youths  on  their  initiation  in  a 
bag  containing  a  crystal,  he  was  implored  to  remove 
them,  lest  magic  should  pass  from  the  crystal  to 
the  teeth  and  injure  the  boys. 

The  Queensland  aborigines  grind  crystals  to 
powder  and  use  them  as  rain  charms,  as  do  the 
natives  of  Equatorial  Africa,  pouring  water  over 
them.  The  Maori  use  a  drop  of  blood.  The 
Apache  Indian  looks  into  a  quartz  crystal  so  that  he 
can  see  what  he  wants  to  see.  The  Polynesians,  when 
robbed,  dig  a  hole  in  the  floor  of  the  hut,  and,  filling 
it  with  water,  call  in  the  medicine-man  to  see  the 
vision  of  the  thief,  the  idea  being  that  the  gods 
cause  the  spirit  of  the  thief  to  pass  over  the  water, 
which  then  reflects  it.  The  Dyak  medicine-man 
scrys  in  a  crystal  to  find  out  the  hiding-place  of  the 
soul,  or  the  disease  demon  who  has  seized  it.  Some 
Red  Indian  medicine-men  make  their  patients  look 
into  water  to  find  out  what  things  will  cure  them. 
The  Iroquois  put  a  crystal  in  a  gourd  of  water,  be- 
lieving that  they  will  see  the  image  of  the  man  who 
has  bewitched  another.  The  same  method  for  the 
same  purpose  is  found  among  the  Hebridean  islanders 
to-day.  The  Zulus  and  the  Shamans  of  Siberia  are 
one  with  the  ancient  Romans  in  gazing  into  glass 


CRYSTAL-GAZING  157 

vessels  filled  with  water.  In  Yucatan  the  diviner 
burns  gum-copal  before  a  crystal  and  recites  a  magic 
formula.  Peering  into  its  clear  depths,  he  learns 
the  places  of  stolen  articles,  what  is  happening  to  the 
absent,  and  by  what  sorcerer  sickness  and  trouble 
have  come  upon  those  who  seek  his  aid.  It  is  said 
that  nearly  every  village  in  Yucatan  has  one  of 
these  stones.1 

Allied  in  conception  is  an  example  of  water 
divination  in  Pausanias  :  "In  front  of  the  sanctuary 
of  Demeter  is  a  spring.  Between  the  spring  and 
the  temple  is  a  stone  wall,  but  on  the  outside  there 
is  a  way  down  to  the  spring.  Here  there  is  an  in- 
fallible mode  of  divination,  not,  however,  for  all 
matters,  but  only  in  cases  of  sickness.  They  tie  a 
mirror  to  a  fine  cord,  and  let  it  down  so  far  that  it 
shall  not  plunge  into  the  spring,  but  merely  graze 
the  surface  of  the  water  with  its  rim.  Then,  after 
praying  to  the  goddess  and  burning  incense,  they 
look  into  the  mirror,  and  it  shows  them  the  sick 
person  living  or  dead,  so  truthful  is  this  water."  2 
Scotch  and  Greek  maidens  to-day  alike  read  their 
fortunes  in  the  mirror,  or  in  the  water.  Mr  Abbott 
heard  a  Salonika  girl  sing  this  love  couplet : 

"  A  lump  of  gold  shall  I  drop  into  the  well, 
That  the  water  may  grow  clear  and  I  may  see  who  my  husband 
is  to  be."  » 

The  mirror  played  a  large  part  in  Moslem  divina- 

1  Crystal-Gazing,  p.  44.     By  N.  W.  Thomas. 

1  Book  VII.,  21,  12.     (Sir  J.  G.  Frazer's  translation.) 

8  Macedonian  Folk-lore ,  p.  52 .    And  see  Chapter  VIII .,  on  «  Lekano- 

mancy"  (divination  by  water  in  a  dish  or  basin)  inMrW.  R.Halliday's 

scholarly  work  on  Greek  Divination. 


158  THE  QUESTION 

tion.  This  falls  into  line  with  the  belief  of  modern 
scryers  that  the  images  do  not  appear  on  the  mirror 
itself,  but  on  a  kind  of  vapour  floating  between 
the  surface  and  the  gazer's  eye.  The  Egyptian 
magician  of  to-day  performs  with  mirrors,  but  more 
often  with  ink  placed  in  the  palm  of  the  hand.  A 
well-known  story  of  this  method  is  told  by  Lane  in 
his  Customs  of  the  Modern  Egyptians. 

The  English  Consul-General  sent  for  a  magician 
to  discover  who  among  his  servants  was  guilty  of 
a  theft.  A  boy  was  chosen  by  the  Consul  as  the 
scryer,  and  peering  into  the  ink  poured  into  his 
hand,  after  he  had  seen  various  images,  he  described 
that  of  a  man  who  was  recognised  as  the  culprit 
by  the  description  which  the  boy  gave.  The  thief 
confessed  his  crime. 

Kinglake  had  a  different  experience.  The 
wizard  traced  mysterious  figures  in  ink  on  a  boy's 
palm,  and  Kinglake  was  asked  to  name  the  absent 
person  whose  form  was  to  be  made  visible.  He 
named  his  old  headmaster,  "  flogging  "  John  Keat 
of  Eton.  "'Now  what  do  you  see?'  said  the 
Wizard  to  the  boy.  '  I  see,'  he  answered,  '  a  fair 
girl  with  golden  hair,  blue  eyes,  pallid  face  and  rosy 
lips.'  There  was  a  shot !  The  Wizard,  perceiving 
the  grossness  of  his  failure,  declared  that  the  boy 
must  have  known  sin  (for  none  but  the  innocent 
can  see  truth)  and  kicked  him  downstairs."  1 

In  Hindu  ceremony  the  king  was  directed  to 
cause  his  warriors  before  a  battle  to  look  two  by 
two  into  a  vessel  of  water  over  which  verses  from 
one  of  the  sacred  books,  the  Atharva  Veda,  had  been 

1  Edthen,  p.  301.     (1845  edition.) 


CRYSTAL-GAZING  159 

recited,  and  if  a  warrior  did  not  see  his  reflection 
he  must  not  go  to  battle.  The  Buddhist  monks  of 
Tibet  gaze  into  a  bowl  or  a  pool  of  water  for  divina- 
tion. The  cup  divination  found  among  the  South 
Sea  Islanders  may  be  related  in  conception  to  Kai 
Chosrus  scrying  in  his  magic  cup,  wherein  the  ruler 
of  the  world  saw  within  it  all  that  was  to  be ;  to 
the  bowls  in  ancient  Babylon  by  which,  when  filled 
with  water,  the  conjurer  divined  the  innocence  or 
guilt  of  the  accused  ;  and  to  the  divination  by  the 
cup  in  the  history  of  Joseph,  whereby  my  "  lord 
divineth."  1 

Among  the  formulae  for  divinations  in  the  Talmud 
one  gives  the  directions  to  find  out  whether  a  man 
will  survive  the  year.  "  Take  silent  water  from  a 
well  on  the  eve  of  Hosha'anah  Rabba,  fill  a  clear 
glass  vessel  with  it,  put  it  in  the  middle  of  a  room, 
then  look  into  it  :  if  he  sees  therein  a  face  with  the 
mouth  open,  he  will  live  ;  but  if  the  mouth  is  closed, 
he  will  die."  And  the  Talmud  has  also  a  distinct 
formula  for  crystal-gazing,  or,  as  it  is  phrased, 
"  seeing  the  princes  (demons)  of  the  crystal."  2 

Despite  the  condemnation  of  Specularii  as  of 
Satanic  origin  by  a  synod  of  the  fifth  century,  and 
by  Thomas  Aquinas  and  other  fathers  of  the 
Church,  and  by  the  Faculty  of  Theology  in  Paris 
(in  1398),  it  was  never  suppressed.  The  passion  to 
divine  the  future  defies  ecclesiasticism  and  science 
alike  to  do  their  best  to  quench  it ;  and  an  enormous 
mass  of  mediaeval  literature,  with  its  magic  formulae 

1  Genesis  xliv.  5-15. 

2  Hastings's  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics.     Art.  "  Divina- 
tion (Jewish)."     Vol.  iv.,  p.  807. 


160  THE  QUESTION 

and  directions  to   ensure  their  efficacy,  proves  its 
persistence. 

A  manuscript  of  the  late  fifteenth  century  runs 
thus  :  "  To  ye  fydyng  of  theft  or  of  the  statt  of 
f ryndes  or  of  tresure  hyddyn  or  not  hyddyn  or  of  other 
thyngs  whatsoever  they  be  in  y°  word  you  shallte 
fyrst  a  chylde  lawfullye  borne  w*  XII  years  of  age 
and  a  greatte  crystall  stone  or  byrrall  holl  and 
sound  and  lett  y*  be  anoynted  w*  oylle  olyve 
holowyd  and  then  the  chylde  shall  say  after  me." 
Then  follow  the  old  name-charms.1 

Wolsey  had  a  magic  crystal,  and  the  Abbot  of 
Abingdon  reported  to  Cromwell  that  his  officers  had 
taken  "a  suspect  parson  with  certeyne  bokes  of 
conjuraciers  .  .  .  consecrating  of  a  crystall  stone 
wherein  a  childe  shall  lokke  and  see  many  things." 
But  most  famous  of  all  is  the  flat,  oval,  highly 
polished  "  shew-stone "  of  Dr  Dee,  who  was 
astrologer  to  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  is  in  close  link 
with  the  crystal-gazer  of  to-day,  whose  visions  are 
accorded  recognition  in  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research*  Dee  had  well- 
earned  repute  as  a  scholar  and  mathematician  ;  he 
had  dabbled  in  alchemy,  whence  ultimately  came 
trouble.  In  1555  he  was  accused  of  practising  sorcery 
against  Queen  Mary's  life.  However,  the  Star 
Chamber  acquitted  him.  A  belief  in  crystallomancy 
as  revealing  the  world  of  spirits  led  to  his  employing 
one  Edward  Kelly  as  "  medium."  Although  he  had 
lost  both  ears  in  the  pillory,  he  enjoyed  Dee's  full 
confidence.  Beginning  the  sittings  with  prayer,  a 
custom  which  some  modern  mediums  have  followed, 

1  Thomas,  p.  83.  a  See  Proceedings,  March,  1895. 


CRYSTAL-GAZING  161 

adding  hymns  thereto,  Kelly  would  start  scrying 
and  repeating  to  Dee  all  the  wonderful  things  which 
he  said  that  he  saw.  The  hosts  of  heaven,  the 
prophets  with  them,  passed  in  glorious  procession 
in  that  marvellous  stone.  Ultimately  it  came  into 
the  possession  of  Horace  Walpole.  Writing  to  Sir 
Horace  Mann,  he  says  :  "In  assisting  Lord  Vere 
to  settle  Lady  Betty  Germaine's  auction,  I  found 
in  an  old  catalogue  of  her  collection  this  article, 
The  Black  Stone  into  which  Dr  Dee  used  to  call  his 
Spirits.  Lord  Vere  said  that  he  knew  of  no  such 
thing.  This  winter  I  was  again  employed  by  Lord 
Frederic  Campbell,  for  I  am  an  absolute  auctioneer, 
to  do  him  the  same  service  about  his  father's  collec- 
tion. Among  other  odd  things  he  produced  a 
round  piece  of  shining  black  marble  in  a  leathern 
case  as  big  as  the  crown  of  a  hat,  and  asked  me 
what  that  could  possibly  be.  I  screamed  out,  '  Oh, 
Lord,  I  am  the  only  man  in  England  that  can  tell 
you  !  It  is  Dr  Dee's  black  stone  ! '  It  certainly 
is.  Lady  Betty  had  formerly  given  away  or  sold, 
time  out  of  mind,  for  she  was  a  thousand  years 
old,  that  part  of  the  Peterborough  collection  that 
contained  Natural  Philosophy.  .  .  .  Lord  Frederic 
gave  it  to  me,  and  if  it  was  not  this  magical  stone, 
which  is  only  of  highly  polished  coal,  that  preserved 
my  chattels,  in  truth  I  cannot  guess  what  did." 
Walpole  humorously  attributes  to  the  magic  of  the 
stone  the  fact  that  when  his  house  in  Arlington 
Street  had  been  broken-into,  the  burglars  over- 
looked "  a  little  table  with  drawers  and  the  money 
and  a  writing-box  with  banknotes." 1  A  rock- 

1  24th  March  1771.     Vol.  viii.,  pp.  21,  23.     (Toynbee's  edition.) 


162  THE  QUESTION 

crystal  ball  said  to  be  Dr  Dee's  shew-stone  is  in  the 
British  Museum,  but  there  is  no  proof  that  it  is 
genuine.  He  may  have  had  more  than  one. 

It  needs  "  more  than  heaven-sent  moments  for 
this  skill  "  ;  hence  there  are  published,  from  time 
to  time,  hand-books  of  formulae  for  scrying.  Such 
a  one  is  Crystal-Gazing  and  Clairvoyance :  embrac- 
ing Practical  Instructions  in  the  Art,  History  and 
Philosophy  of  this  Ancient  Science.  With  Dia- 
grams. By  John  Melville.  1897.  Therein  we  learn 
that  beryl  (Rossetti  makes  skilful  use  of  this  belief 
in  his  poem,  Rose  Mary)  is  the  favourite  medium  of 
divination  by  means  of  transparent  bodies.  It  has, 
we  are  told,  special  magnetic  affinities,  and  is  under 
the  zodiacal  sign  Libra,  which  is  related  to  the 
human  kidneys,  whose  healthy  condition  is  essential 
to  sound  crystallomancy— we  might  add,  and  to 
much  else  besides  in  our  bodies.  To  ensure  perfect 
cleanliness  of  the  crystal  it  should  be  boiled  in 
brandy  and  water— such  use  of  a  diluted  terrestrial 
spirit  as  aid  to  seeing  the  celestial  spirit  is  interest- 
ing to  note.  The  scryer  must  preface  its  use  by 
prayer  and  fasting,  which  last-named  act  of  self- 
denial,  as  has  been  shown,  is  a  productive  cause  of 
hallucination.  It  is  also  well  that  he  take  a  few 
drops  of  the  herb  succory  when  the  moon  is  waxing, 
whereby  he  may  be  rewarded  by  seeing  images  or 
pictures  bringing  information  as  to  something  past, 
present  and  future,  which  the  gazer  has  no  other 
chance  of  knowing.  The  mystic  names  which  are 
engraved  on  the  pedestal  or  frame  supporting  the 
crystal  should  be  magnetised  by  passes  made  with 
the  right  hand  and  then  the  connection  between 


CRYSTAL-GAZING  163 

the  visible  and  invisible  worlds  is  complete.  The 
sensitiveness  of  the  crystal  is  increased  if  similar 
passes  are  made  with  the  left  hand.  "  The  Magnet- 
ism with  which  the  surface  of  the  mirror  or  crystal 
becomes  charged  collects  there  from  the  eyes  of  the 
gazer  [the  italics  are  the  author's]  and  from  the 
universal  ether,  the  Brain  being,  as  it  were,  switched 
on  to  the  Universe,  the  crystal  being  the  medium." 
There  we  have  the  whole  modus  operandi  of  crystal- 
gazing,  with  that  of  telepathy,  and  effect  is  given 
to  the  text  by  an  illustration  of  a  man  seated  at  a 
table,  his  eyes  and  kidneys  governed  by  Libra  ; 
his  neck  and  cerebellum  by  Taurus,  while  he  rains 
human  magnetism  into  space. 

One  of  the  late  Andrew  Lang's  many  hobbies  was 
crystallomancy.  He  has  a  chapter  on  "  Crystal 
Visions,  Savage  and  Civilised  "  in  his  Making  of 
Religion;  one  on  "Scrying  or  Crystal-Gazing"  in 
his  Cock  Lane  and  Common  Sense,  and  he  contri- 
buted a  lengthy  Introduction  to  Mr  Thomas's 
book  on  the  subject.  He  says  :  "I  have  stared 
vainly  at  a  glass  ball  for  long,  and  many  a  time,  but 
no  more  felt  sleepy  than  I  saw  pictures."  (I  may 
add  that  my  experience  with  a  ball  which  he  lent 
me  was  the  same.)  In  this  Introduction  he  quotes 
from  "  Miss  X's  "  (Miss  Goodrich-Freer's)  paper  on 
crystal-gazing  which  was  published  in  the  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  but 
his  best  cases  are  supplied  by  a  friend  known  as 
"  Miss  Angus."  Here  is  one  :  "  I  was  sitting  beside 
a  young  lady  whom  I  had  never  before  seen  or 
heard  of.  She  asked  if  she  might  look  into  my 
crystal,  and  while  she  did  so  I  happened  to  look  over 


164  THE  QUESTION 

her  shoulder  and  saw  a  ship  tossing  on  a  very  heavy, 
choppy  sea,  although  land  was  still  visible  in  the 
dim  distance.  That  vanished,  and  as  suddenly  a 
little  house  appeared  with  five  or  six  (I  forget  now 
the  exact  number  I  then  counted)  steps  leading  up 
to  the  door.  On  the  second  step  stood  an  old  man 
reading  a  newspaper.  In  the  front  of  the  house 
was  a  field  of  thick  stubbly  grass,  where  some 
lambs,  I  was  going  to  say,  but  they  were  more  like 
very  small  sheep,  were  grazing.  When  the  scene 
vanished  the  young  lady  told  me  I  had  vividly 
described  a  spot  in  Shetland  where  she  and  her 
mother  were  soon  going  to  spend  a  few  weeks."  l 

This  is  supplied  by  "  Miss  X  "  :  "  I  happened  to 
want  the  date  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  which  I 
could  not  recall,  though  feeling  sure  that  I  knew  it, 
and  that  I  associated  it  with  some  event  of  import- 
ance. When  looking  in  the  crystal  some  hours 
later  I  found  a  picture  of  an  old  man,  with  long 
white  hair  and  beard,  dressed  like  a  Lyceum  Shy- 
lock,  and  busy  writing  in  a  large  book  with  tarnished 
massive  clasps.  I  wondered  much  who  he  was  and 
what  he  could  possibly  be  doing  and  thought  it  a 
good  opportunity  of  carrying  out  a  suggestion  which 
had  been  made  to  me  of  examining  objects  in  the 
crystal  with  a  magnifying-glass.  The  glass  revealed 
to  me  that  my  old  gentleman  was  writing  in  Greek , 
though  the  lines  faded  away  as  I  looked,  all  but  the 
characters  he  had  last  traced,  the  Latin  numerals 
LXX.  Then  it  flashed  into  my  mind  that  he  was 
one  of  the  Jewish  elders  at  work  on  the  Septuagint, 
and  that  its  date,  277  B.C.,  would  serve  equally  well 

1  Making  of  Religion,  p.  97. 


CRYSTAL-GAZING  165 

for  Ptolemy  Philadelphia.  It  may  be  worth  while 
to  add,  though  the  fact  was  not  in  my  conscious 
memory  at  the  moment,  that  I  had  once  learned  a 
chronology  on  a  mnemonic  system  which  substi- 
tuted letters  for  figures  and  that  the  memoria 
technica  for  this  date  was  :  '  Now  Jewish  Elders 
indite  a  Greek  copy.'  ' 

Perhaps  the  results  of  modern  scrying  may  be 
represented  in  the  report  of  her  experience  by  the 
late  Mrs  Verrall,  who,  although  she  describes  herself 
as  a  good  visualiser  with  the  faculty  of  embodying 
her  ideas  in  pictorial  form,  admits  that  her  crystal 
visions  "  are  mostly  quite  trivial  and  purposeless." 

The  interest  of  crystallomancy  lies  in  its  associa- 
tion with  phenomena  associated  with  the  trance 
state,  in  which,  perhaps,  may  be  found  justification 
for  the  sale  of  glass  balls  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  and  for  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  warning  against 
being  "  keenly  awake." 

In  the  section  on  Crystallomancy  in  Psychical 
Research1  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  after  citing  historical 
references  to  its  practice  among  ancient  peoples, 
more  particularly  one  from  an  Arabian  writer  of 
the  thirteenth  century  who  argued  that  "  the 
diviner  sees  not  with  his  ordinary  eyesight,  but  with 
his  soul,"  comments  as  follows  : — "  One  can  hardly 
believe  this  was  written  seven  centuries  ago,  so 
admirably  does  it  describe  the  facts  and  probably 
the  true  explanation  of  crystal  vision,  a  transcen- 
dental, or  spiritual  perception  rather  than  the 
normal  sense  perception."  In  chorus  to  this  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  says  :  "  In  these  cases  of  crystal  vision, 

1  P.  143- 


166  THE  QUESTION 

trance  utterance,  clairvoyance  and  the  like  .  .  . 
it  is  possible  that  the  clairvoyant  is  responding  to 
some  unknown  world  mind  of  which  he  forms  a 
part :  that  the  real  agent  is  neither  himself  nor 
any  other  living  person."  l  Thus  can  the  scrying 
fortune-tellers,  when  haled  before  magistrates  and 
fined,  with  alternative  of  imprisonment,  plead  the 
authority  of  scientists  as  warrant  for  their  pre- 
tensions. 

1  Survival  of  Man,  p.  73. 


TELEPATHY  AND    HALLUCINATION 

THE  crystal-gazer  has  an  advantage  over  the 
telepathist  in  his  possession  of  a  material 
vehicle  whose  4t  revelations  "  are  brought 
before  him  in  visible  form.  But  this  in  no  wise 
affects  the  conviction  of  the  larger  number  of 
Spiritualists  that  telepathy  is  a  verified  phenomenon. 
The  attitude  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
on  the  whole,  has  been  one  of  commendable  caution 
as  to  acceptance  of  evidence  which  appears  to 
establish  proof  of  the  supernormal,  but  many  of  its 
prominent  members  have  committed  themselves  to 
belief  in  telepathy,  by  which  is  meant  communica- 
tion between  mind  and  mind  otherwise  than 
through  the  material  channel  of  the  senses.  One  of 
the  most  prominent  among  these,  the  late  F.  W.  H. 
Myers,  said  that  "  the  establishment  of  thought 
transference  —  already  rising  within  measurable 
distance  of  proof — was  its  primary  aim,  with 
hypnotism  as  its  second  study,  and  with  many 
another  problem  ranged  along  its  dimmer  horizon."  l 
In  his  Survival  of  Man  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  : 
4  We  call  the  process  telepathy — sympathy  at  a 
distance :  we  do  not  understand  it.  What  is  the 
medium  of  communication  ?  Is  it  through  the  air, 
like  the  tuning-forks,  or  through  the  ether,  like  the 

1  Fragments  of  Prose  and  Poetry.     Essay  on  "  Edmund  Gurney."- 

167 


168  THE  QUESTION 

magnets ;  or  is  it  something  non  -  physical  and 
exclusively  psychical  ?  No  one  as  yet  can  tell 
you.  .  .  .  Meanwhile,  we  must  plainly  say  tele- 
pathy strikes  us  as  a  spontaneous  occurrence  of 
that  intercommunication  between  mind  and  mind 
which  for  want  of  a  better  term  we  at  present  style 
thought  transference."  l 

In  his  Psychical  Research  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  says 
that  "  although  not  officially  recognised  by  science, 
no  doubt  of  the  reality  of  thought  transference  can 
be  left  on  the  mind  of  any  diligent  and  thoughtful 
student,  however  critical  he  may  be." 2  Then, 
striking  a  sort  of  pulpit  note,  the  professor  sinks 
himself  in  the  preacher,  and  adds  that  while  tele- 
pathy renders  "  a  purely  materialistic  philosophy 
untenable,  it  affords  a  rational  basis  for  prayer  and 
inspiration  and  gives  us  a  distant  glimpse  of  the 
possibility  of  communion  without  language,  not  only 
between  men  of  various  races  and  tongues,  but  be- 
tween every  sentient  creature  which,  if  not  attain- 
able here,  may  await  us  all  in  the  future  state  when 
we  shall  know  even  as  we  are  known."  3  Properly 
dismissing  as  valueless  the  oft -quoted  analogy 
sought  to  be  set  up  between  wireless  telegraphy  and 
telepathy,  he  adds  :  "  How  telepathy  is  propagated 
we  have  not  the  remotest  idea.  Certainly  it  is  not 
likely  to  be  through  any  material  medium  or  by  any 
physical  agency  known  to  us."  4  In  such  fashion 
do  these  two  eminent  physicists  invoke  the  un- 
known to  explain  the  non-existent  ! 

Professor  Barrett  will  surely  accord  to  Sir  Ray 
Lankester  the  reputation  of  being  "  a  diligent  and 

*P.  65.  2P.  68.  3P.  69.  «P.  107. 


TELEPATHY  AND  HALLUCINATION      169 

thoughtful  student,"  and,  more  than  that,  of  a  man 
of  science  who  can  speak  "  as  one  having  authority 
and  not  as  the  scribes."  And  this  is  his  deliberate 
judgment :  "  As  to  telepathy,  it  is  simply  a  boldly 
invented  word  for  a  supposed  phenomenon  which 
has  never  been  demonstrated— namely,  the  com- 
munication of  one  human  mind  with  another  by 
other  means  than  the  sense  organs.  It  is  an  unfair 
and  unwarranted  draft  on  the  credit  of  science  which 
its  signatories  have  not  met  by  the  assignment  of 
any  experimental  proofs.  There  is  not  one  man  of 
science,  however  mystic  and  credulous  his  trend 
among  those  who  pass  this  word  '  telepathy '  on  to 
the  great  unsuspecting,  newspaper-reading  public 
who  will  venture  to  assert  that  he  can  show  to  me 
or  to  any  committee  of  observers  experimental 
proof  of  the  existence  of  the  thing  to  which  this 
portentous  name  is  given."1  In  his  Kingdom  of 
Man  Sir  Ray  Lankester  further  comments  on  this 
mythical  phenomenon : 

"  The  power  which  we  have  gained  of  making  an 
instrument  oscillate  in  accordance  with  a  predeter- 
mined code  of  signalling,  although  detached  and  a 
thousand  miles  distant,  does  not  really  lend  any 
new  support  to  the  notion  that  the  old-time  beliefs 
of  thought  transference  and  second  sight  are  more 
than  illusions  based  on  incomplete  observation  and 
imperfect  reasoning.  For  the  important  factors 
in  such  human  intercourse —namely,  a  signalling 
instrument  and  a  code  of  signals — have  not  been 
discovered  as  yet  in  the  structure  of  the  human 
body,  and  have  to  be  consciously  devised  and 

1  Letter  to  The  Westminster  Gazette,  I5th  December  1903. 


170  THE  QUESTION 

manufactured  by  men  in  the  only  examples  of 
thought  transference  over  long  distances  at  present 
discovered,  or  laid  bare  to  experiment  and  observa- 
tion." 1 

In  his  lecture  on  "  Mental  Education  "  delivered 
by  Faraday  in  1854  at  the  Royal  Institution,  he 
asks :  "  What  have  the  snails  at  Paris  told  us  from 
the  snails  at  New  York  ?  "  To  an  acceptable  re- 
print of  the  volume  containing  that  and  other 
lectures  Sir  Ray  Lankester  adds  some  enlightening 
notes,  among  these  being  given  an  explanation  of 
Faraday's  cryptic  question :  "  According  to  an 
article  in  Chambers' s  Journal,  1851,  a  translation 
from  the  French  of  a  M.  Jules  Alix  two  French 
experimenters  had  discovered  that  individuals  of 
the  common  snail  have  a  mysterious  sympathy 
with  one  another,  and  actually  influence  at  a 
distance  and  determine  the  movements  of  other 
snails— even  at  a  great  distance.  These  experi- 
menters are  related  to  have  shown  that  snails 
kept  under  observation  in  New  York  cause  4  sym- 
pathetic '  movements  corresponding  to  their  own  in 
similar  snails  kept  in  Paris.  The  '  experimenters  ' 
state  that  they  suppose  that  threads  like  the 
gossamer  of  spiders  issue  from  snails  and  keep  them 
in  communication  with  one  another,  and  that  these 
threads  are  infinitely  fine  and  invisible  and  can  be 
extended  to  such  vast  length  as  to  connect  snails 
separated  from  one  another  by  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
Accordingly,  the  *  discoverers '  of  this  invisible 
communication  between  widely  separated  snails 
introduce  for  their  pretended  discovery  the  name 

1  P.  88. 


TELEPATHY  AND  HALLUCINATION     171 

Pasilalinic— which,  being  translated,  is,  'universal 
talking— sympathetic  compass.'  The  whole  story 
is  obviously  rubbish.  But  whether  it  was  a  hoax 
which  was  played  on  the  editor  of  Chambers' s  Journal, 
or  a  jocose  parody  of  the  effusions  of  the  mesmerists 
and  '  odylists  '  of  the  day,  does  not  appear.  Had  it 
first  appeared  in  recent  years  it  might  reasonably  be 
regarded  as  a  burlesque  of  the  assertions  of  the  be- 
lievers in  '  thought  transference  '  and  c  brain  waves,' 
which  is  fairly  matched  by  the  word  '  Pasilalinic.'  "  l 

In  a  letter  to  The  Westminster  Gazette  of  26th 
November  1907  Sir  H.  B.  Donkin  wrote  as  follows :- 
"  As  regards  telepathy,  I  assert  that  there  were  two 
occasions  (I  think  in  the  winter  of  1882-1883)  when 
outside  critics  were  invited  by  the  Psychical  Re- 
search Society  to  witness  and  apply  tests  to  certain 
'  telepathic  '  experiments  carried  on  at  the  Society's 
meetings  in  Westminster.  On  one  occasion  the 
tests,  applied  to  prevent  possible  auditory  communi- 
cations, put  a  stop  to  the  phenomena  ;  on  the  other, 
similar  prevention  of  visual  communications  had 
a  like  effect.  In  the  published  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  which  were  sent  to  me  for  review  some  years 
afterwards  by  the  editor  of  a  well-known  weekly,  no 
mention  was  made  in  the  reports  of  these  meetings 
of  the  presence  of  the  critics  or  of  the  consequent 
cessation  of  the  phenomena." 

In  a  more  recent  letter  2  Sir  H.  B.  Donkin  repeats 
his  charge  against  telepathists  that  when  they  are 
challenged  to  produce  proofs,  these  are  never  forth- 
coming. "  Scientific  men,"  he  adds  (other  than 

1  Scienc*  and  Education^.  71.  a  Times,  ist  December  1914. 


172  THE  QUESTION 

those  of  the  small  group  specified  by  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge l),  "  several  of  whom  are  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  Psychical  Research  Society's 
publications  from  the  beginning  and  have  had 
personal  experience  of  '  facts  '  of  the  kind  alleged, 
fail  to  recognise  any  facts  which  cannot  be  readily 
explained,  or  referred  to  well-known  causes,  with- 
out recourse  to  the  purely  fanciful  invention  of 
'  telepathy.'  They  hold  that  all  the  evidence  pro- 
duced in  support  of  telepathy  is  valueless  as  proof, 
not  only  to  hypercritical  (or  '  orthodox ')  scientists, 
but  also  to  men  of  ordinary  common  sense  who  ask 
for  a  proof  of  a  new  '  fact '  before  they  believe  in  it." 

In  his  Hypnotism  and  Treatment  by  Suggestion  Dr 
J.  Milne  Bramwell,  a  specialist  on  the  subject,  says  : 
"  During  the  last  twenty  years  I  have  searched  for 
evidence  of  telepathy  and  also  taken  part  in  the 
experiments  of  other  observers ;  the  results,  how- 
ever, have  been  invariably  negative."  2  The  late 
Sir  T.  S.  Clouston,  referring  to  the  studies  of  mani- 
festations of  mind  outside  of  material  agencies  and 
relationships  initiated  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  says :  "  That  kind  of  study  has  not  as  yet 
formulated  any  laws  which  are  invariable,  so  that 
it  cannot  be  regarded  as  within  scientific  ground. 
What  we  can  formulate  definitely  is  that  brain  is 
the  vehicle  of  mind  in  the  known  universe,  and  its 
only  proved  vehicle  so  far  as  the  proved  facts  go."  3 

It  is  in  the  occurrence  of  coincidences  that  tele- 

1  Balfour  Stewart,  P.  G.  Tait,  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace,  Lord  Rayleigh  and  Sir  William  Crookes.  (Letter  to  The 
Times,  25th  November  1914.) 

2P.  118. 

8  Quarterly  Review,  -Mind-Cures/'  January,  1913,  p.  121. 


TELEPATHY  AND  HALLUCINATION     173 

pathy  finds  specious  support.  Bacon's  shrewd 
comment  on  the  inferences  drawn  from  "  Dreames 
and  Predictions  of  Astrologie  "  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind  :  "  First  that  Men  marke  when  they  hit  and 
never  marke  when  they  misse." l  The  myriad 
number  of  dreams  unfulfilled  count  as  nothing 
against  one  dream  that  comes  true,  and  it  would  be 
little  short  of  miraculous  if,  in  the  crowded  incidents 
of  our  lives,  a  certain  proportion  of  them  were  not 
coincidental  with  some  happenings  elsewhere. 

Careful  sifting  of  the  stories  told  in  proof  of  tele- 
pathy establishes  the  fact  that  those  in  which  some 
flaw  fatal  to  the  proof  is  not  detected  are  few  in 
number,  if  any.  It  is  not  a  question  of  wilful  in- 
accuracy or  wilful  distortion,  but  of  defects  due  to 
the  treachery  of  memories,  especially  in  regard  to 
what  is  the  essential  thing,  correctness  of  dates  and 
details.  Anxiety  concerning  the  absent  relative  or 
friend  begets  premonitions  which,  if  they  happen  to 
be  fulfilled,  throw  aught  else  into  the  shade.  A  large 
majority  of  cases  of  assumed  telepathic  communi- 
cations, especially  where  accident  or  death  have  be- 
fallen the  absent,  have,  on  close  examination,  been 
found  not  to  synchronise.  A  whole  system  of  belief 
in  thought  transference  is  built  on  the  slender 
foundation  of  dreams  about  persons,  distance  from 
whom  emphasises  solicitude,  and  to  whom  some 
dreaded  disaster  has  come  at  or  about  the  time 
when  they  were  in  the  thoughts  or  dreams  of  the 
absent.  Until  the  experimental  proofs,  on  which 
Sir  Ray  Lankester  and  Sir  H.  B.  Donkin  logically 

1  Essayes,  XXXV.     "  Of  Prophecies.1-1 


174  THE  QUESTION 

insist  are  producible,  nothing  more  need  be  said  on 
the  subject.1 

A  Hallucination  is  a  false  perception  ;  seeing  or 
hearing  that  which  has  no  objective  reality.  It  is 
due  to  temporary  or  permanent  disorder  of  the 
brain;  to  the  disturbance  of  the  balance  of  that 
marvellously  intricate  organ,  whereby  illusions  and 
delusions  are  created. 

The  myriads  of  impressions  which  are  conducted 
by  the  nerves  to  the  millions  upon  millions  of  brain- 
cells — by  what  process  is  unknown — are  registered 
in  them,  and  are  recallable  at  will  by  memory. 
Thus  are  brought  back  past  trains  of  thought  and 
past  states  of  feeling  :  in  brief,  whatever  impressions 
have  been  conveyed  and  stored -up.  In  healthy 
brains  these  impressions,  when  recalled,  appear 
in  ordered  relation  ;  in  the  unhealthy  brain,  with 
its  element  of  the  morbid,  they  appear  in  confused 
unrelation.  To  know  the  working  of  the  normal 
brain  is  to  have  the  key  to  understanding  its 
abnormal  working.  There  is  no  warrant  for  seek- 
ing cause  of  hallucination  other  than  in  the  regis- 
tered images  in  the  brain,  together  with  altered 
states  of  consciousness.  Both  functional  and 
organic  trouble  may  involve  seeing  objects  where 
there  is  no  object,  and  of  hearing  voices  where  there 
are  no  voices.  When  we  know  that  what  is  seen  or 
heard  has  no  real  existence,  we  have  a  sane  hallu- 

1  Few  have  the  time  to  wade  through  the  records  of  the  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  and  other  extensive  litera- 
ture of  telepathy.  But  in  his  valuable  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural 
Dr  Tuckett  supplies  materials,  notably  in  Chapter  IV.  and  the  Appen- 
dices J  and  R,  which  will  suffice  for  the  general  inquirer. 


TELEPATHY  AND  HALLUCINATION      175 

cination  ;  but  when  we  think  that  what  we  see  or 
hear  is  real,  that  way  lies  madness,  or  what  is  near 
akin  to  it.  A  temporary  hallucination  can  be 
brought  about  by  hypnotism,  when  the  hypnotised 
subject  believes  what  he  is  told  and  acts  accord- 
ingly— e.g.  fondles  a  pillow  which  he  is  told  is  a  baby, 
or  smells  an  imaginary  bunch  of  flowers,  or  drinks 
neat  brandy  as  if  it  were  water.  Under  the  hypnotic 
state  the  power  of  suggestion,  which,  more  or  less, 
rules  all  our  lives  far  more  than  we  realise,  is  largely 
increased.  Expectancy  of  a  sensation  will  some- 
times cause  the  sensation  ;  this  has  been  my  experi- 
ence when  troubled  with  neuralgia.  In  an  article  on 
"  Hallucinations  of  the  Senses  "  l  Dr  Maudsley  quotes 
from  John  Hunter  as  saying  of  himself :  "I  am 
confident  that  I  can  fix  my  attention  to  any  part 
until  I  have  a  sensation  in  that  part."  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  said  that  he  could  at  any  time  call  up  a 
spectrum  of  the  sun  in  the  dark  by  intense 
direction  of  his  mind  to  the  idea,  and  Balzac  alleged 
that  when  he  wrote  the  story  of  the  poisoning  of 
one  of  his  characters  by  arsenic  he  had  so  distinct 
a  taste  of  the  poison  in  his  mouth  afterwards 
that  he  was  himself  poisoned  and  vomited  his 
dinner. 

In  the  article  quoted  above,  Sir  Thomas  Clouston 
tells  a  story  illustrating  uncontrollable  action, 
rendering  the  subject  incapable  of  resisting  sugges- 
tion. A  mysterious  hysterical  disorder  2  known  as 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  September,  1878,  p.  376. 

J  A  full  description  of  this  disease  is  given  in  Sir  Hugh  Clifford's 
Studies  in  Brown  Humanity,  p.  189,  and  for  similar  symptoms  see 
chapter  xv.,  on  "  Arctic  Hysteria,"  in  M.  A.  Czaplicka's  Aboriginal 
Siberia. 


176  THE  QUESTION 

latah  breaks  out  at  intervals  among  the  Malay 
people  of  Borneo.  Here  is  an  example  of  it :  "  The 
cook  of  a  coasting  steamer  had  his  baby  brought  to 
him  when  the  ship  was  in  port.  He  was  known  to 
be  intensely  devoted  to,  and  proud  of,  the  child. 
It  was  also  known  to  his  shipmates  that  he  had 
latah.  When  he  was  nursing  the  baby  in  his  arms 
on  the  deck  one  of  the  Malay  crew  came  along  with 
a  billet  of  wood  which  he  pretended  to  nurse  in  his 
arms  like  a  baby.  Next  he  began  to  toss  the  billet 
in  the  air,  catching  it  as  it  fell,  knowing  that  the  un- 
fortunate father,  unable  to  resist,  would  be  fascin- 
ated into  imitating  him.  This  the  poor  victim  did, 
tossing  his  precious  baby  up  towards  the  awning 
and  catching  it  again,  loathing  and  dreading  to  do 
so,  yet  compelled  by  his  latah  state  to  keep  time 
with  his  tormentor.  Suddenly  the  sailor  opened 
his  arms  and  let  the  billet  fall  on  the  deck.  Unable 
to  resist,  the  miserable  father  did  likewise  :  the 
baby  fell  heavily  on  the  deck  and  died." 

History  abounds  with  examples  of  the  power  of 
collective  hallucinations  ;  all  crowds  are  credulous  ; 
easy  victims  of  false  perceptions.  Professor  Jastrow 
tells  of  a  performer  who  made  the  gesture  of  throw- 
ing a  ball  into  the  air,  keeping  it  in  his  hands.  Of 
one  hundred  and  sixty-five  children  present  at  the 
show,  seventy-eight  declared  that  they  saw  the  ball 
go  up  and  disappear.1  As  for  the  equally  easy 
deception  of  adults,  the  reader  will  find,  in  addition 
to  the  cases  of  collective  deception  at  seances 
already  quoted,  many  cogent  examples  in  Gustave 
le  Bon's  The  Crowd,  to  which  should  be  added  that 

1  Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology,  p.  117. 


TELEPATHY  AND  HALLUCINATION      177 

of  the  report  of  the  appearance  of  angel  bowmen, 
led  by  St  George,  to  aid  the  retreat  of  our  troops 
from  Mons.  It  was  the  outcome  of  an  imaginary 
story 1  told  by  an  ingenious  writer,  Mr  Arthur 
Machen,  which  was  converted  by  the  popular  belief 
in  the  existence  of  these  mythological  creatures  into 
an  actual  phenomenon,  some  of  the  officers  and  soldiers 
declaring  that  they  saw  these  pseudo-celestials.2 

1  It  appeared  in  The  Evening  News  of  2pth  September  1914. 

1  Two  organs  of  Spiritualism,  The  Occult  Review  and  Light,  asked 
Mr  Machen  whether  the  story  had  any  foundation,  to  which  he 
replied  in  the  negative.  The  clerical  editors  of  several  parish  maga- 
zines plied  him  with  requests  for  the  exact  authorities,  and  on  his 
assurance  that  "the  tale  was  pure  invention'-  one  of  them  wrote  to 
suggest  that  it  must  be  true,  and  that  Mr  Machen's  "  share  in  the 
matter  must  surely  have  been  confined  to  the  elaboration  and  decora- 
tion of  a  veridical  history.-5  Credence  was  given  to  a  statement  that 
£-  dead  Prussians  had  been  found  on  the  battlefield  with  arrow  wounds 
in  their  bodies  I  n  The  story  became  a  text  for  sermons,  subject  of 
correspondence  and  numerous  articles  in  the  religious  papers.  '•  It 
is  all/-  says  Mr  Machen,  "  somewhat  wonderful :  one  can  say  that 
the  whole  affair  is  a  psychological  phenomenon  of  considerable 
interest,  fairly  comparable  with  the  great  Russian  delusion  of  last 
August  and  September.'*  (Introduction  to  The  Bowmen,  p.  22.  1915.) 
One  fatuous  and  benighted  example  of  the  letters  which  the  fiction 
elicited  appeared  in  The  Outlook  of  7th  August  1915.  Here  it  is,  both 
for  tears  and  laughter : 

THE  ANGELS  AT  MONS 
(To  the  Editor  of  The  Outlook) 

7th  August  1915. 

SIR, — I  have  read  with  interest  your  paragraph  on  the  "  Angels  at 
Mons.'1  I  firmly  believe  that  they  appeared  as  stated  by  our 
soldiers  ;  the  Bible  is  full  of  the  ministration  of  angels.  "  Are  they 
not  all  ministering  spirits  ?  "  "  He  shall  give  His  angels  charge  over 
thee."  Yet  when  He  does,  the  greatest  amazement  and  unbelief  is 
expressed.  Personally  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  angels 
fought  for  us  at  Mons  and  also  at  Ypres.  St  Peter  was  delivered 
from  prison  by  the  ministry  of  angels,  and  those  who  will  take  the 


178  THE  QUESTION 

If  they  were  real  factors  in  ensuring  victory, 
their  intermittent  intervention  might  well  become 
constant,  to  our  advantage.  But  "  the  prophets 
prophesy  falsely,  and  the  priests  bear  rule  by  their 
means ;  and  my  people  love  to  have  it  so."  l 

We  have  seen  that  Emanuel  Swedenborg  declared 
that  there  appeared  to  him  on  an  evening  when  he 
had  dined  "  not  wisely,  but  too  well,"  a  man,  who, 
returning  the  next  night,  declared  himself  to  be 
"  God  the  Creator  and  Redeemer  of  the  World." 
Clearly  Swedenborg,  who  seems  to  have  been  in  no 
wise  disconcerted  by  so  unusual  a  visitor,  was  the 
victim  of  a  waking  hallucination  induced  by 
dyspepsia  due  to  overeating  or  overdrinking.  Had 
he  been  more  moderate  in  this,  there  would  have 
been  no  revelation,  and  no  Swedenborgians.  Wher- 
ever there  is  hypersensitiveness,  or  any  morbid 
tendency,  there  are  the  elements  of  hallucination. 
Socrates  had  often  in  his  ears  the  divine  voice  tell- 
ing him  to  act  or  not  to  act ;  delusions,  both  of  eye 
and  ear,  troubled  Luther ;  numerous  are  the  legends 
of  beatific  visions,  as  of  the  Virgin  to  Loyola,  to 
Raphael,  and  to  the  little  peasant  maid  at  Lourdes  ; 
numerous,  also,  are  the  legends  of  voices,  as  from 
heaven,  which  inspired  St  Paul,  St  Teresa  and  Joan 
of  Arc  ;  even  virile  old  Hobbes  was  haunted  in  the 
dark  by  faces  of  the  dead,  and  my  own  experience, 

^rouble  to  look  through  the  Bible  will  find  constant  mention  of  the 
ministry  of  angels.  We  pray  daily — at  least  I  hope  so— for  help 
in  our  troubles ;  yet  when  it  arrives  we  doubt  and  refer  to 
-"psychologists."  Personally  I  am  a  "common  or  garden"  person, 
yet  twice  I  have  been  saved  from  certain  death  by  the  ministry  of 
angels. — I  am,  Sir,  yours,  etc.,  E.  R. 

1  Jeremiah  v.  31.- 


TELEPATHY  AND  HALLUCINATION      179 

sometimes,  before  getting  to  sleep,  is  to  see  a  row 
of  leering,  ugly  faces  which  quickly  vanish  if  my 
thoughts  are  turned  elsewhere.  Oddest  of  all 
hallucinations  was  that  of  the  woman  attacked  by 
peritonitis  who  declared  that  she  could  feel  that  a 
church  congress  was  being  held  inside  her.1  The 
hallucinations  induced  by  fasting,  crystal-gazing 
and  other  methods  have  been  dealt  with  in  a 
previous  section. 

In  1889  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
appointed  a  Committee  to  make  "  a  statistical  in- 
quiry into  the  spontaneous  hallucinations  of  the 
sane."  2  Seventeen  thousand  answers  to  the  follow- 
ing question  were  received  :— "  Have  you  ever,  when 
believing  yourself  to  be  completely  awake,  had  a 
vivid  impression  of  seeing  or  being  touched  by  a 
living  being  or  an  inanimate  object,  or  of  hearing 
a  voice ;  which  impression,  so  far  as  you  could  dis- 
cover, was  not  due  to  any  external  physical  cause  ?  ' ' 

Of  the  above  -  named  number,  15,316  answers 
were  in  the  negative,  and  1684  in  the  affirmative, 
the  percentage  of  the  affirmatives,  the  larger 
number  of  which  came  from  women,  was  9-9.  Of 
the  1684  who  reported  having  experienced  sensory 
hallucinations,  322  affirmed  that  they  had  seen 
apparitions  of  the  human  figure,  4  that  they  had 
seen  angels.  Of  these  326,  32  reported  death 
coincidences ;  in  11  cases  the  person  seen  proved 
to  be  on  his  death-bed,  though  he  did  not  die 
within  the  twelve  hours  taken  by  the  Committee 

1  Hallucinations,  p.  2.     By  Edward  Parish. 

J  Proceedings,  S.P.R.     il  Report  on  the  Census  of  Hallucinations,'1 
pp.  25-422.     August,  1894. 


180  THE  QUESTION 

as  the  limit  for  death  coincidences.  Presumably, 
they  had  to  allow  for  difference  of  clocks. 

Upon  these  thirty-two  cases  they  thus  comment 
in  the  concluding  paragraph  of  their  Report  : 
"  Between  deaths  and  apparitions  of  the  dying  person 
a  connection  exists  which  is  not  due  to  chance  alone. 
This  we  hold  as  a  proved  fact.  The  discussion  of  its 
full  implications  cannot  be  attempted  in  this  paper 
—nor,  perhaps,  exhausted  in  any  age."  * 

The  net  figures  afford  a  very  narrow  base  on 
which  to  erect  so  wide  and  momentous  a  conclusion, 
and  the  collection  of  data  must  be  extended  over  a 
much  larger  number  of  persons  before  so  definite 
a  pronouncement  can  have  serious  consideration. 

1  P-  394- 


VI 

PSYCHICAL   MEDIUMS 

AMONG  the  more  thoughtful  class  of  spiritual- 
ists interest  is  transferred  from  what  may 
be  called  the  more  inconclusive  and  chal- 
lenged phenomena  to  those  which  may  supply  an 
answer  to  the  questions  :  "  If  a  man  die,  shall  he 
live  again  ?  "  and  "  If  there  be  a  future  life,  under 
what  conditions  do  the  departed  exist  ?  "  Here 
are  implied  aspirations  which  lie  outside  all  dogmas, 
because  they  are  common  to  the  majority  of  man- 
kind. (Personal  immortality  has  no  place  in  the 
teachings  of  Buddha,  nor  in  Early  Judaism.)  It 
might  be  thought  that,  in  seeking  satisfaction  of 
these,  the  spiritualist  would  justify  the  name  which 
he  has  appropriated  by  finding  the  sources  of  the 
assurance  for  which  he  longs  within  himself.  He 
might  thus  reach  the  height  whereon  the  mystic 
rests,  and  realise  the  significance  of  what  the  man 
whom  he  reveres  as  the  chief  apostle  of  his  creed 
expresses  in  his  noble  poem,  Saint  Paul : 

"  Whoso  has  felt  the  Spirit  of  the  Highest, 
Cannot  confound,  nor  doubt  Him  nor  deny  ; 
Yea  with  one  voice,  O  world,  tho'  thou  deniest, 
Stand  thou  on  that  side,  for  on  this  am  I." 

Contrariwise,    he    must    needs    disguise    himself 
(since  the  experts  whom  he  consults  so  advise  him), 

181 


182  THE  QUESTION 

and  seeking  a  woman  who  "  hath  a  familiar  spirit," 
say  to  her  :  "I  pray  thee,  divine  unto  me  by  the 
familiar  spirit  and  bring  me  him  up  whom  I  shall 
name  unto  thee."  These  were  the  words  of  Saul  to 
the  Witch  of  Endor,  earliest  of  mediums,  concerning 
whom  Reginald  Scot,  in  shrewd  and  clenching  judg- 
ment, wrote  three  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago  : 
"He  that  looketh  into  it  advisedlie  shall  see  that 
Samuel  was  not  raised  from  the  dead,  but  that  it 
was  an  illusion  or  cousenage  practised  by  the 
witch."  1  Probably  she  would  nowadays  rank  as 
a  professional  medium,  but  nothing  is  said  about 
any  fee  paid  to  her  by  Saul.  The  private  medium 
of  our  time  makes  no  charge  for  her  services ;  the 

1  Discov erie  of  Witchcraft,  chapter  viii.,  p.    112.     (1886  reprint.) 

The  letter  from  which  I  cull  the  following  extract  might  have  been 
written  before  the  time  of  Reginald  Scot.  But  it  appeared  as 
recently  as  the  I4th  April  1917  in  The  Saturday  Review.  The  writer 
is  the  Rev.  William  Wilson,  Rusholme,  Manchester: 

"  The  case  of  Samuel  and  the  Witch  of  Endor,  and  the  deceased,  or 
the  supposed  deceased,  prophet,  who  appeared  to  St  John,  were,  no 
doubt,  exceptions  used  for  a  special  and  extraordinary  purpose  by 
God  Himself.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  those  who  follow  him  are  giving 
heed  to  the  evil,  seducing,  and  soul-ensnaring  and  soul-destroying 
spirits  who  personate  deceased  friends  and  relatives. 

"  Satan,  though  not  omniscient  nor  almighty,  has  great  power, 
authority,  and  knowledge  ;  he  and  his  agents  often  know  the  history 
of  deceased  lives,  and  so  are  often  well  able  to  personate  deceased 
people  and  to  reveal  family  and  other  secrets  through  various 
mediums,  and  possibly  also  by  table-turning,  etc.  -  By  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them  *  and  their  system.  A  system  which  denies  and 
falsifies  Christianity,  and  which,  at  least  in  America,  teaches,  if  not 
practises,  free  love,  is  not  and  cannot  be  beneficial,  good,  moral 
civilised,  or  divine,  either  in  origin,  outlook,  or  practice,  or  general 
principle  and  outworking  amongst  men  and  women  on  earth. 

(<  All  such  profane  research  into  hidden  and  veiled  mysteries  should 
be  most  carefully  shunned  and  avoided  by  all  good  citizens,  philan- 
thropists, and  true  scientists  and  Christian  people  generally.  Such 
wicked  research  is  forbidden  by  God.'' 


PSYCHICAL  MEDIUMS  183 

professional's  charges  vary,  from  half-a-guinea  to 
one  guinea  for  each  sitting.  Florence  Cook  had  the 
good  fortune  to  be  subsidised  by  a  wealthy  believer, 
so  that  she  might  be  free  to  give  her  services  wher- 
ever required.  Like  Home  and  Moses,  she  invited 
her  guests.  Doubtless  the  terms  are  regulated  by 
the  market  demand,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  founder 
of  Christian  Science,  Mrs  Eddy,  by  divine  direction. 

She  tells  us :  "  When  God  impelled  me  to  set 
a  price  on  my  instruction  in  Christian  Science  Mind- 
healing,  I  could  think  of  no  financial  equivalent  for 
an  impartation  of  a  knowledge  of  that  divine  power 
which  heals,  but  I  was  led  to  name  three  hundred 
dollars."  "Moved,"  she  says,  "by  a  strange  pro- 
vidence," she  raised  her  charges  in  a  little  while  to 
that  sum  to  include  only  twelve  lessons,  and  these 
were  reduced  in  later  years,  in  Boston,  to  seven.1 

Discreetly,  not  concerning  himself  with  exposed 
tricksters  of  the  Slade  and  Davenport  type,  Sir 
W.  F.  Barrett  says  that  he  has  "  not  the  remotest 
idea  what  peculiar  physiological  state  constitutes  a 
medium  :  sex,  age  and  education  are  alike  im- 
material." 2  No  very  profound  study  of  human 
psychology  is  needful  to  enlighten  him.  Charitably 
assuming  absence  of  deliberate  fraud,  given  an 
unstable  nervous  system,  with  resulting  weakness 
of  control  of  the  higher  brain-centres,  the  abnormal 
has  full  play  ;  the  man  or  woman  thus  afflicted  be- 
comes a  creature  of  impulses,  often  self-deceived, 
non-moral,  dreamy  and  victim  of  hallucinations. 
Age  would  appear  to  count  in  impairment  of  medium- 

1  The  Faith  and  Works  of  Christian  Science,  p.  7 1 .  By  Stephen  Paget. 
•  Psychical  Research,  p.  212. 


184  THE  QUESTION 

istic  power.  Home  is  said  to  have  had  warning 
from  his  controls  that  his  powers  of  receiving  com- 
munications from  them  were  waning,  and  concern- 
ing Mrs  Piper,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  :  "  Since  this 
book  [The  Survival  of  Man]  first  appeared  [1909] 
her  power  appears  to  have  vanished.  Her  controls 
have  said  a  carefully  considered  farewell  and  no 
trance  will  now  come  on.  Whether  the  suspension 
or  inhibition  is  permanent  or  temporary,  I  cannot 
say.  At  one  time  I  thought  it  likely  to  be  perma- 
nent, and  it  would  not  be  surprising  after  her  highly 
valuable  thirty  years  of  service."  l 

A  solution  of  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett's  puzzlement  is 
offered  by  one  Count  Solovovo,  who  suggests  that 
the  spiritual  phenomena  are  produced,  "  not  so 
much  by  psychic  force— whatever  that  may  mean 
—as  by  ephemeral,  enigmatic  protuberances,  pro- 
jected momentarily  from  the  medium's  body ; 
protuberances  of  various  degrees  of  density — from 
fluid  to  hard— which  spring  into  existence  and 
vanish  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  ...  If  so,  we 
can  easily  understand  that  light  may  have  a  de- 
teriorating influence  on  these  ephemeral  organisms." 
"  The  Count's  speculations,"  says  Mr  Carrington, 
who  prints  them  in  his  Personal  Experiences  in 
Spiritualism,  "  are  more  or  less  borne  out  by 
facts."  2 

Such  imbecile  stuff  is  quoted  only  to  be  dismissed. 
In  the  case  of  the  best  attested  mediums,  in  whom 
some  genuineness  of  self -conviction  may  be  present, 
we  hear  nothing  of  projections  of  the  pseudopod 
kind,  nor  of  aura,  odylic  force  or  "  emission  of 

1  P.  203.     (1915  edition.)  a  P.  238. 


PSYCHICAL  MEDIUMS  185 

force " l  from  their  bodies.  The  essential  thing, 
assuming  some  sort  of  belief  in,  or  some  desire  to 
test  for  oneself,  the  medium's  possession  of  super- 
normal power,  is  how  shall  he  be  approached  ?  In  an 
article  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  of  January,  1917, 
Mr  J.  Arthur  Hill  answers  that  question.  You  go 
[not  forgetting  to  take  the  fee]  to  "  a  normal  clair- 
voyant who,  by  becoming  mentally  passive,  can 
somehow  get  true  hallucinations,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  sitter's  deceased  friends  and  relations ;  or 
who,  by  going  into  trance,  can  establish  still  closer 
communication,  a  friend  or  relative  sometimes 
apparently  speaking  direct  through  the  medium, 
or  at  least  sending  messages  through  the  regular 
control.1  ...  A  sitting  often  contains  a  number  of 
apparently  unconnected  statements,  the  connection 
or  the  rationale  of  which  becomes  apparent  only  by 
having  a  series  of  sittings  and  carefully  collecting  the 
reports,  hence  the  importance  of  contemporaneous 
verbatim  notes  which  I  make  in  shorthand." 3  In 
plain  English,  the  medium  must  have  a  chance  of  fill- 
ing up  the  gaps  in  his  knowledge  about  the  inquirer 
between  his  succeeding  visits.  The  Artful  Dodger  is 
a  'prentice  hand  compared  with  the  skilful  medium. 
It  is  disconcerting  to  the  inquirer  to  learn,  on  the 
authority  of  a  veteran  spiritualist,  that  "  however 

1  Drama  of  Love  and  Death,  p.  160 .     By  Edward  Carpenter. 

In  an  article  in  The  Occult  Review  of  June,  1917,  on  "  The  Psychic 
Significance  of  the  Cat/*  that  animal  is  said  to  have  "  a  green  aura." 

2  Among   some   lower    races    the    spirits   act   more   directly.     In 
Labrador  they  enter  the  body  of  the  angekok  and  answer  questions 
concerning  their  welfare  and  doings  through  his  person.     Canadian 
Department  of  Mines.    Anthropological  Series.    Memoir  91,  p.  137.  By 
E.  W.  Hawkes.     (1916.)  3  Pp.  no,  in. 


186  THE  QUESTION 

innocent  the  medium  on  this  plane  may  be,  the 
inquirer  is  liable  to  be  addressed  by  some  mis- 
chievous entity  on  the  '  other  side '  who  falsely  pre- 
tends to  be  the  friend  sought.  This  possibility  is  a 
serious  embarrassment,  and  no  one  should  rush  to 
seances  with  the  expectation  of  getting  satisfactory 
results  at  once.  Counsel  with  experienced  friends 
should  come  first,  and  no  communication  can  be 
finally  reassuring  till  repeated  conversations  have 
convinced  the  inquirer  that  the  right  person  on  the 
other  side  is  in  touch  with  him  or  her."  x 

In  a  review  of  Mr  Hereward  Carrington's  Physical 
Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  Mr  Podmore,  who  was 
master  of  the  tricks  of  the  trade,  describes  how 
the  necessary  knowledge  is  acquired  before  anyone 
starts  as  a  clairvoyant  medium  : 

"  He  spends  some  weeks  in  going  as  a  book 
canvasser  round  the  neighbourhood  selected  for 
his  future  field  of  work.  He  gossips  with  servants, 
reads  tombstones  and  public  registers,  gets  a  glimpse 
when  he  can  of  the  family  Bible.  In  six  months  or 
a  year  he  reaps  his  harvest.  But  he  does  not  work 
single-handed.  All  the  information  thus  laboriously 
gathered  is  poured  into  the  common  stock  and 
published  for  the  use  of  the  Guild  in  the  Blue-book. 
When  Mr  Verisopht,  of  Weissmihtwo,  comes  to  con- 
sult the  clairvoyant,  the  latter  turns  up  the  Blue- 
book  as  we  might  turn  to  the  suburban  directory, 
opens  the  page  at  Weissmihtwo,  finds  under  V  that 
Mrs  Verisopht,  poor  lady,  lost  a  daughter  ten  years 
ago,  learns  her  name,  the  disease  from  which  she 
died,  her  favourite  occupation  in  life,  and  so  on. 

1  A.  P.  Sinnett,  Fortnightly  Review,  May,  1917,  p.  867. 


PSYCHICAL  MEDIUMS  187 

There  is  a  demand  for  these  messages  from 
*  beyond,'  and  the  commercial  genius  of  the  American 
nation  has  found  a  way  to  supply  it.  The  Boston 
section  of  the  Blue-book  alone  contains,  we  are  told, 
seven  thousand  names."  l 

Dramatis  personce  at  a  seance:  1.  The  sitter  or 
sitters— i.e.  the  inquirers.  2.  The  trance  or  clair- 
voyant medium.  3.  The  "  control"  — i.e.  the  spiritual 
agent  through  whom  the  departed  spirit  elects  to 
send  communications.  4.  The  departed  spirit—  i.e. 
the  communicator.  It  suggests  a  quartet,  as  at 
whist,  No.  2  holding  all  the  tricks.  If  the  sitter  be 
excluded,  there  remains  an  unholy  trinity  — medium, 
control,  and  spirit— for  "  these  three  are  one." 

As  for  the  "  control,"  the  creation  of  this  is  an 
ingenious  dodge,  whereby  the  nonplussed  medium 
can  account  to  the  sitter  for  any  failure  to  get  into, 
or  continue  in,  touch  with  the  "  communicator,"  or 
for  any  confusion  or  errors  in  messages  from  him. 
On  p.  55  a  quotation  from  Raymond  was  given, 
wherein  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  explains  what  the  control 
does,  and  in  chapter  thirteen  of  that  book  he  attempts 
to  explain  what  the  control  is.  He  says  that  it  "  is 
believed  by  some  to  be  merely  the  subliminal  self 
of  the  entranced  person,  brought  to  the  surface,  or 
liberated  and  dramatised  into  a  sort  of  dream  exist- 
ence, for  the  time.  By  others  it  is  supposed  to  be  a 
healthy  and  manageable  variety  of  the  more  or  less 
pathological  phenomenon  known  to  physicians  and 
psychiatrists  as  cases  of  dual  or  multiple  personality. 
By  others  again,  it  is  believed  to  be  in  reality  the 
separate  intelligence  which  it  claims  to  be."  2 

1  Daily  Chronicle,  7th  September  1908.  2  P.  357. 


188  THE  QUESTION 

Sir  Oliver  inclines  to  this  last-named  theory.  He 
thinks  that  "  the  more  responsible  kind  of  control 
is  a  real  person,"  because  "  sometimes,  after  gained 
experience,  the  communicator  himself  takes  control 
and  speaks  or  writes  in  the  first  person,  not  only  as 
a  matter  of  first-person  reporting,  which  frequently 
occurs,  but  really  in  his  own  proper  person,  and  with 
many  of  his  old  characteristics."  l  In  what  quag- 
mires of  word-mongering  the  Spiritualists  flounder 
has  further  proof  in  this  quotation  from  Sir  W.  F. 
Barrett's  On  the  Threshold  of  the  Unseen,  wherein 
he  flatly  contradicts  Sir  Oliver's  assumption  that 
the  communicator  talks.2 

"  The  difficulties  of  communicating  are  necessarily 
great,  as  we  cannot  suppose  that  a  physical  process 
or  physical  organs  of  speech  and  hearing  are  em- 
ployed by  the  communicators."  3  "  My  body's 
very  similar  to  the  one  I  had  before,"  says  Ray- 
mond, communicating  through  Feda.4 

The   proceedings  at  only  a  select  number   of- 
rubbers,    shall     we     call     them? — can     here     be 
described,   for  applicable  to    Spiritualism   are  the 
closing  words  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St  John, 

ip.  360. 

8  Spiritualists  may  be  credited  with  ingenuity  to  prove  that  there 
are  no  fundamental  differences  between  them.  They  remind  us  of 
the  candidate  for  holy  orders  who  was  asked  to  explain  the  difference 
between  the  genealogies  in  St  Matthew  and  St  Luke.  He  replied 
that  there  were  three  reasons  for  that  difference  :  i .  It  was  for  the 
confirmation  of  our  Christian  faith  where  the  genealogies  agreed. 
2 .  It  was  for  the  trial  of  our  faith  where  they  differed.  3 .  It  was  to  call 
into  play  our  exegetical  ingenuity  to  reconcile  them  with  each  other. 

8  P.  243- 

4  Raymond,  p.  195.  This  sitting  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  naively  says  has 
lf  some  unverifiable  matter  "  (p.  191). 


PSYCHICAL  MEDIUMS  189 

"  that  even  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the 
books  that  should  be  [or  have  been]  written  "  about  it. 
And  so  crammed  is  that  literature  with  monotonous, 
dreary  stuff  that  after  sampling  it  one  feels  that 
it  would  be  less  wearisome  to  read  the  whole  of 
Cruden's  Concordance,  whereby,  at  least,  some 
pleasure  would  come  in  charging  a  well-equipped 
memory  of  the  Scriptures  to  complete  what  is 
given  in  abstract  or  initial. 

Hence  limitation  of  choice  to  some  of  the  utter- 
ances of  two  of  the  most  prominent  mediums  — 
Mrs  Piper  and  Mrs  Leonard  and  their  several 
"  controls."  First,  in  order  of  time,  to  Mrs  Piper, 
whom,  in  playhouse  terms,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
"  presents  "  in  this  credential : 

"  Mrs  Piper  in  the  trance  state  is  undoubtedly  (I 
use  the  word  in  the  strongest  sense  ;  I  have  absol- 
utely no  more  doubt  on  the  subject  than  I  have  of 
my  friends'  ordinary  knowledge  of  me  and  other 
men)  —Mrs  Piper's  trance  personality  is  undoubtedly 
aware  of  much  to  which  she  has  no  kind  of  ordinarily 
recognised  clue,  and  of  which  in  her  ordinary  state 
she  knows  nothing.  But  how  does  she  get  this 
knowledge  ?  She  herself,  when  in  the  trance  state, 
asserts  that  she  gets  it  by  conversing  with  the  de- 
ceased friends  and  relatives  of  people  present.  And 
that  this  is  a  genuine  opinion  of  hers,  i.e.  that  the 
process  feels  like  that  to  her  unconscious  or  sub- 
conscious mind,  the  part  of  her  which  calls  itself 
Phinuit,  I  am  fully  prepared  to  believe.  But  that 
does  not  carry  us  very  far  towards  a  knowledge  of 
what  the  process  actually  is."  * 

1  Proceedings,  S.P.R.     Vol.  x.,  xxvi.,  p.  15. 


VII 

MRS    PIPER 

MRS  PIPER,  when  a  young  woman,  suffered 
from  some  ailment,  probably  of  nervous 
type,  and  was  advised  by  a  friend  to  consult 
a  professional  medium  named  Dr  Cocke.  This  was 
in  1884.  Coeke's  leading  "  control  "  was  a  French 
doctor  (who  does  not  know  French)  named  Finne 
or  Finnet,  afterwards  changed  into  Phinuit.  On 
a  second  visit  she  herself  became  entranced,  and 
thence  onwards  had  a  mixed  company  of  controls, 
among  them  an  Indian  girl  named  Chlorine 
(Sulphurine  or  Phosphorine  would  seem  more 
appropriate) ;  Mrs  Siddons,  who  recited  a  scene 
from  Macbeth ;  Bach ;  Longfellow,  who  recited 
some  of  his  own  poetry ;  Commodore  Vanderbilt, 
and,  later  on,  Phinuit,  who  became  her  regular  con- 
trol until  1892,  when  he  was  temporarily  ousted 
by  George  Pelham.  Mrs  Piper  was  at  her  zenith 
from  1892  till  1896,  when  she  underwent  an  opera- 
tion, with  consequent  decline  of  mediumistic  power. 
In  the  winter  of  that  year  some  of  the  controls  of 
the  late  Stainton  Moses  — Imperator,  Rector  and 
others — are  in  the  succession. 

From  1885,  the  year  of  her  initiation  into  the 
charmed  circle  of  mediums,  until  his  death  in  1905, 
Dr  Richard  Hodgson,  a  detector  of  Eusapia  Palla- 
dino's  and  of  Madame  Blavatsky's  trickeries,  acted 

190 


MRS  PIPER  191 

as  Mrs  Piper's  business  man.  She  paid  a  first  visit 
to  England  in  the  winter  of  1889-1890,  bringing  the 
experience  of  five  years'  mediumship  as  equipment. 
She  gave  numerous  sittings,  which  were  arranged 
by  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and 
Dr  Walter  Leaf.  In  1892  an  intimate  friend  of  Dr 
Hodgson,  whose  pseudonym  is  "  George  Pelham  " 
(his  real  name  was  Pennell),  died  suddenly  in  New 
York.  He  did  not  believe  in  a  future  life,  but  some 
time  before  his  death  he  promised  Hodgson  that,  if 
"  still  existing  "  after  that  event,  he  would  do  his 
utmost  to  get  into  communication  with  him.  More 
will  be  said  about  him  later  on.  By  the  time  that 
Pelham' s  death  occurred,  Mrs  Piper's  "  control " 
had  passed  from  oral  communications  of  the  sort 
associated  with  the  ordinary  medium  to  written  ones 
bearing  more  in  detail  upon  the  conditions  under 
which  the  departed  live  in  the  spirit  world.  These 
last-named  have  had  careful  record  in  the  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  and  else- 
where, notes  being  taken  of  the  happenings  at  each 
seance. 

In  October,  1901,  there  came  a  startling  report 
from  America  that  Mrs  Piper  had  made  a  full  con- 
fession, in  which  she  denied  that  she  had  had  com- 
munications from  the  departed  when  she  was  in  the 
trance  state.  "  I  never,"  so  the  report  in  The  New 
York  Herald  ran,  "  heard  of  anything  being  said  by 
myself  during  a  trance  which  might  not  have  been 
latent  in  my  own  mind,  or  in  the  mind  of  the  person 
in  charge  of  the  sitting,  or  in  the  mind  of  the  person 
trying  to  get  communication  with  someone  in 
another  state  of  existence,  or  of  some  companion 


192  THE  QUESTION 

present  with  such  a  person,  or  in  the  mind  of  some 
absent  person  alive  somewhere  else  in  the  world." 

But  the  white  sheet  of  penitence  was  no  sooner 
donned  than  doffed.  A  letter  from  Mr  J.  G. 
Piddington,  the  Secretary  of  the  American  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  stating  that  Mrs  Piper  with- 
drew her  confession,  was  published  in  The  Pilot  of 
23rd  November  1901.  Dr  Hodgson  explained  that 
"  Mrs  Piper  had  not  discontinued  her  sittings  and 
that  the  statement  made  by  her  represented  simply 
a  transient  mood."  "  She  has  not,"  he  told  an 
interviewer,  "  discontinued  her  sittings  for  the 
Society."  x  That  she  returned  to  the  status  quo 
ante  is  evidenced  by  seances  given  by  her  at  inter- 
vals reaching  from  her  recantation  to  recent  times. 

In  Appendix  Q  to  The  Evidence  for  the  Super- 
natural Dr  Tuckett  discusses  at  length  the  pheno- 
mena of  trance  utterances  and  writings  which  have 
their  fullest  manifestation  in  Mrs  Piper,  and  sug- 
gests the  explanation.  In  this  skilfully  performed 
task  he  has  supplied  labour-saving  apparatus  to 
others,  and  of  this,  as  also  of  the  facts  set  forth  in 
the  chapter  on  "Mrs  Piper's  Mediumship"  in  Mr 
Frank  Podmore's  Newer  Spiritualism,  grateful  use 
is  made  in  this  section. 

In  reading  accounts  of  her  stances,  Dr  Tuckett 
bids  the  reader  keep  clear  in  his  mind  the  several 
means  by  which  she  may  have  acquired  knowledge 
that  may  appear  to  be  derived  from  supernormal 
sources.  These  are  muscle-reading,  fishing,  guess- 
ing, hints  obtained  in  the  sitting,  knowledge  sur- 
reptitiously obtained,  knowledge  acquired  in  the 

1  Westminster  Gazette,  26th  October  1901. 


MRS  PIPER  193 

interval  between  sittings,  and  facts  already  within 
Mrs  Piper's  knowledge. 

In  the  trance  state,  as  described  by  a  sitter,  her  face 
alters  perceptibly,  her  eyes  become  fixed,  the  under  lip 
trembles,  markedly  stertorous  breathing  ensues,  then 
a  stage  of  unconsciousness  resembling  quiet  sleep. 

To  this  savage  culture  supplies  a  crowd  of  parallels, 
from  which  a  few  examples  may  be  given.  "  The 
Fijian  priest  sits  looking  steadfastly  at  a  whale's 
tooth  ornament,  amid  dead  silence.  In  a  few 
minutes  he  trembles,  slight  twitchings  of  face  and 
limbs  come  on,  which  increase  to  strong  convul- 
sions, with  swelling  of  the  veins,  murmurs  and  sobs. 
Now  the  god  has  entered  ...  he  gives  the  divine 
answer."  1  Any  morbid  symptoms  marked  those 
in  whom  they  were  manifest  as  seers  and  mediums. 
In  Uganda  the  medium,  often  a  woman,  smokes 
tobacco  until  the  god  comes  upon  her  ;  then  she  sits 
by  a  sacred  fire,  perspires  and  foams  at  the  mouth 
when  the  oracle  speaks,  and  the  god  leaves  her.2 
Among  the  Patagonians,  members  of  the  tribe  seized 
with  falling  sickness  or  St  Vitus's  dance  were  at  once 
chosen  as  possessed  by  spirits  who  were  believed  to 
speak  in  or  through  them.3  In  the  Karen  district 
of  Burmah  the  native  "  wee  "  or  prophet  works 
himself  into  the  state  in  which  he  can  see  departed 
spirits,  visit  their  distant  home,  and  also  recall 
them  to  the  body.4  These  "  wees  "  are  nervous, 

1  Primitive  Culture.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  133.     Brown's  Melanesians  and 
Polynesians,  p.  224. 

8  The  Baganda,  p.  298.     By  Rev.  John  Roscoe. 

3  Dorman's  Primitive  Superstitions,  p.  372. 

4  Mason:    "Religion,  etc.,  among  the  Karens,"  Jo.  Asiatic  Soc. 
Bengal.     Vol.  xxxiv.,  pt.  2. 

N 


194  THE  QUESTION 

excitable   men   of  the  type   corresponding  to  the 
mediums  among  ourselves. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  example  is  that  told 
me  by  Miss  Czaplicka,  who  during  her  intrepid  travels 
through  Siberia  cleverly  secured  admission  to  a 
shamanistic  seance.  The  shaman  sat  near  a  low 
fire  in  the  tent,  the  sitters  ranged  round  him.  None 
must  touch  him  nor  move,  lest  the  spirits  should  be 
disturbed.  He  beat  the  drum  gently  at  the  start, 
and  then  by  degrees  more  loudly— the  drumming  is 
called  "  the  language  of  the  spirits,"  whereby  they  are 
summoned.  He  accompanies  this  with  chants,  some- 
times with  imitations  of  voices  of  men  and  animals, 
of  winds  and  echoes  (for  the  shaman  is  a  skilful 
ventriloquist)  ;  he  sings  songs,  and  dances ;  then  the 
drum  is  no  longer  beaten  and  the  fire  is  put  out. 
Gentle  raps  or  taps  of  the  spirits  are  heard  ;  the 
shaman  makes  a  rushing  noise,  as  if  escaping  from 
the  tent.  After  an  interval  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
or  longer  he  bumps  on  the  ground  to  indicate  his 
return.  Sometimes  he  affects  exhaustion  and  waits 
a  while  before  telling  the  sitters  what  message  he 
has  brought  from  the  spirits.  In  an  article  on  the 
"  Ostyaks  of  Siberia,"  in  Hastings' s  Encyclopaedia 
of  Religion  and  Ethics,  Miss  Czaplicka  says  :  "  The 
actual  shamanistic  performances  are  very  similar 
in  type  among  all  the  natives  of  N.  Siberia  :  the 
wandering  of  the  shaman  to  the  upper  and  lower 
worlds  ;  his  struggle  or  merely  argument  with  the 
spirits  upon  whom  the  fate  of  the  man  for  whom 
the  ceremonies  are  being  performed  depends  ;  the 
return  of  the  shaman  and  the  communication  to  the 
man  of  the  result  of  his  interview  with  the  spirits ; 


MRS  PIPER  195 

sometimes  also  the  foretelling  of  the  future  of  various 
people  present  at  the  ceremony."  l 

All  over  Siberia,  where  there  is  a  shaman  there  is 
also  a  drum  ;  that  and  the  rattle  are  indispensable 
to  the  magician's  bag  o'  tricks  in  the  phenomena 
of  savage  spiritualism  everywhere.  "  The  clinging 
together,"  says  Sir  E.  B.  Tylor,  "  of  savage  sorcery 
with  these  childish  instruments  is  in  full  consistency 
with  the  theory  that  both  belong  to  the  infancy  of 
mankind.  With  less  truth  to  nature  and  history, 
the  modern  spirit-rapper,  though  his  bringing-up 
the  spirit  of  the  dead  by  doing  hocus-pocus  under  a 
table  or  in  a  dark  room  is  so  like  the  proceedings  of 
the  African  mganga  or  the  Red  Indian  medicine- 
man, has  cast  off  the  proper  accompaniments  of  his 
trade  and  juggles  with  fiddles  and  accordions."  2 

During  Mrs  Piper's  first  visit  to  this  country  she 
gave  eighty-three  sittings  between  November,  1889, 
and  February,  1890  ;  at  all  of  these  the  company 
held  one  another's  hands,  those  of  the  sitters  next 
to  Mrs  Piper  being  often  pressed  against  her  fore- 
head, by  which,  adopting  the  tactics  of  the  "thought- 
reader,"  she  would  know  whether  she  was  on  the 
right  scent.  From  these  eighty-three  the  following 
is  chosen  as  a  type  of  the  features  of  the  whole. 

Notes  by  T.  W.  M.  Lund,  M.A.,  Chaplain  of  the 
School  for  the  Blind,  Liverpool,  dated  26th  April 
1890  : 

4  With  regard  to  my  experiences  of  Mrs  Piper,  I 
do  not  feel  that  I  saw  enough  to  form  data  for  any 

1  Vol.  ix.,  p.  580-  a  Early  History  of  Mankind,  p.  141 . 


196  THE  QUESTION 

satisfactory  conclusion.  What  impressed  me  most 
was  the  way  in  which  she  seemed  to  feel  for  informa- 
tion, rarely  telling  me  anything  of  importance  right 
off  the  reel,  but  carefully  fishing,  and  then  following  - 
up  a  lead.  It  seemed  to  me  when  she  got  on  a  right 
tack  the  nervous  and  uncontrollable  movement  of 
one's  muscles  gave  her  the  signal  that  she  was  right 
and  might  steam  ahead. 

"  In  some  points  she  was  entirely  out  of  it — e.g. 
carriage  accident —the  dangerous  dark  man— -Joseph 
and  Harriet— and  especially  my  style  of  preaching. 
Nothing  could  be  a  more  ludicrous  caricature  than 
this  last. 

"  In  others  which  I  will  name  she  made  statements 
which  singularly  tallied  with  the  truth  — e.g.  my  son 
was  ill,  and  my  wife  was  going  to  see  him.  I  found 
that  at  the  very  time  given  she  left  the  house  with 
a  cloak  on  her  arm,  and  brushed  her  dress  in  the  way 
imitated  by  Mrs  Piper. 

"  Still  I  am  bound  to  say,  within  earshot  of  Mrs 
Piper— before  the  sitting— I  told  Mrs  Lodge  of  my 
son's  illness  in  Manchester,  and  my  wife's  proposed 
visit  to  him,  and  Mrs  Lodge  addressed  me  by  my 
name  of  Lund. 

"  It  is  quite  true  that  a  carpet  was  recently  burnt 
at  our  house  ;  that  my  wife  worries  over  her  duties 
too  much  for  comfort  and  health ;  and  that  I  live 
in  a  room  full  of  MSS. 

"  But,  without  doubt,  the  feature  of  this  sitting 
was  the  reference  to  my  youngest  sister,  who  died  of 
diphtheria  in  my  absence  quite  thirty  years  ago,  and 
whose  death  was  a  heartaching  sorrow  for  many 
years.  Not  only  did  she  hit  the  name  '  Maggie,' 


MRS  PIPER  197 

but  even  the  pet  name  *  Margie,'  which  I  had  quite 
forgotten.  However,  the  reason  afterwards  alleged 
for  my  absence  at  her  death  was  quite  wrong. 

"  I  accepted  the  trance  condition  on  Dr  Lodge's 
authority ;  otherwise  I  should  have  felt  bound  to 
test  it. 

66  Altogether,  there  was  such  a  mixture  of  the  true 
and  false,  the  absurd  and  rational,  the  vulgar 
commonplace  of  the  crafty  fortune-teller  with 
startling  reality,  that  I  have  no  theory  to  offer  — 
merely  the  above  facts.  I  should  require  much 
more  evidence  than  I  yet  have,  and  with  much  more 
careful  testing  of  it,  to  convince  me  :  (1)  that  Mrs 
Piper  was  unconscious  [italics  are  mine] ;  (2)  that 
there  was  any  thought-reading  beyond  the  clever 
guessing  of  a  person  trained  in  that  sort  of  work ; 
(3)  that  there  was  any  ethereal  communication  with 
a  spirit  world.  I  did  not  like  the  sudden  weakness 
experienced  when  I  pressed  my  supposed  sister  for 
the  reason  of  my  absence  at  her  death,  and  the  delay 
wanted  for  giving  a  reply. 

"  That  the  subject  is  full  of  interest,  I  admit,  and 
I  should  like  to  pursue  it ;  but  I  am  far  from  con- 
vinced at  present  that  we  have  evidence  on  which 
to  build  a  new  theory." 

The  foregoing  shows  that  Mrs  Piper  (or  Phinuit) 
made  several  erroneous  statements,  but  also  some 
which  tallied  with  facts.  Her  successes  will  serve 
to  throw  light  on  her  methods. 

Taking  these  in  order,  as  they  are  mentioned  in 
the  above  notes,  we  come,  first,  to  the  statement 
that  Mr  Lund's  son  was  ill  a*d  that  his  wife  had 


198  THE  QUESTION 

gone  to  see  him.  These  two  require  no  comment 
beyond  a  reminder  that  Mr  Lund  had  mentioned 
the  illness  and  Mrs  Lund's  prospective  visit  within 
Mrs  Piper's  hearing !  The  carrying  of  the  cloak 
and  the  brushing  of  the  dress  are  not  unusual  inci- 
dents when  a  lady  goes  on  a  journey. 

The  next  success,  the  reference  to  the  carpet 
burnt  in  Mr  Lund's  house,  dwindles  in  importance 
when  we  read  the  fuller  report  quoted  by  Dr  Tuckett 
(Proc.  S.P.R.  Vol.  vi.,  p.  533). 

PHINUIT.  You  had  a  fire  a  little  time  ago— no— 
a  long  time  ago.  Some  little  thing  got  burnt. 

It  was  said  to  be  drapery,  then  tapestry,  and  only 
ultimately  did  Phinuit  say  that  the  thing  burnt  was 
a  carpet.  No  very  difficult  feat !  This  leaves  us 
with  the  supernormal  communication  :  "  You  had 
a  fire  a  little  time  ago — no — a  long  time  ago." 
Even  here  Phinuit  was  feeling  his  way  to  successful 
guessing.  "  You  had  a  fire  ...  a  long  time  ago," 
whereas  the  carpet  was  recently  burnt.  Take  the 
general  statement :  Mr  Lund,  or  the  Lund  family, 
had  at  some  time  a  small  fire  when  "  some  little 
thing  got  burnt."  To  what  household  does  this  at 
some  time  or  another  not  apply  ?  I  had  a  little  fire 
a  little  time  ago,  when  a  portion  of  my  study  carpet 
was  burnt.  Or  take  the  statement  in  its  amended 
form  :  "  You  had  a  little  fire  a  long  time  ago.  Some 
little  thing  got  burnt."  A  dozen  years  ago  a  candle 
shade  in  my  dining-room  caught  fire,  scorching  a 
foot  or  so  of  the  tablecloth. 

The  third  success  was  Phinuit's  remark  that  Mrs 
Lund  worries  over  her  duties  too  much  for  comfort 
or  health.  Even  this  hit  was  not  delivered  direct. 


MRS  PIPER  199 

"  Your  lady  had  a  pain  in  her  back  ;  not  very  well  ; 
it  made  her  a  little  depressed  ;  tell  her  not  to  worry 
so,  and  don't  be  so  devilish  fussy." 

The  chief  feature  of  the  sitting,  Mr  Lund  says, 
was  the  reference  to  and  naming  of  his  youngest 
sister  and  to  his  absence  at  her  death.  Dr  Tuckett 
gives  an  illuminating  extract  from  the  verbatim 
report : 

"  She  (Mrs  Piper)  said  I  was  away  when  my 
youngest  sister  passed  out ;  not  with  her ;  a  long 
way  off.  No  chance  to  see  her.  She  had  blue  eyes 
and  brown  hair— a  very  pretty  girl.  Pretty  mouth 
and  teeth  ;  plenty  of  expression  in  them.  She  then 
tried  to  find  the  name  and  went  through  a  long  list l 
...  at  last  said  it  had  '  ag  '  in  the  middle,  and  that's 
all  she  could  find.  She  had  changed  a  great  deal. 
She  was  much  younger  and  had  been  in  the  spirit  a 
long  time. 

"  '  But  it's  your  sister — Maggie — that's  it — she  says 
you  are  brother  Tom — no,  her  name's  Margie.  Too 
bad  you  were  not  at  home  — it  was  one  of  the  sorrows 
that  followed  Tom  all  his  life.  (Correct.)  He'll 
never  forget  it.' 

"  I  said  :   '  Ask  how  it  was  I  wasn't  there.' 

"  She  said  :    '  I'm  getting  weak  now— au  revoir.'  " 

1 A  not  uncommon  dodge.  Andrew  Lang  says  that  "  when 
'possessed,'  Mrs  Piper  would  cheat  when  she  could — that  is  to  say, 
she  would  make  guesses,  try  to  worm  information  out  of  her  sitter, 
describe  a  friend  of  his,  alive  or  dead,  as  '  Ed.,'  who  may  be  Edgar, 
Edmund,  Edward,  Edith  or  anybody.  She  would  shuffle  and  repeat 
what  she  had  picked  up  in  a  former  sitting  with  the  same  person,  and 
the  vast  majority  of  her  answers  started  from  vague  references  to 
probable  facts  (as  that  an  elderly  man  is  an  orphan)  and  so  worked 
on  to  more  precise  statements." — Making  of  Religion,  p.  150. 


200  THE  QUESTION 

Dr  Tuckett  points  out  how  she  came  to  know  Mr 
Lund's  Christian  name. 

"Mrs  PIPER.  Who  is  it  you  call  Lira?  The 
lady's  sister  (unknown)  Lorina,  Eleanor,  Caterina, 
a  sister,  two  names— one's  Emma,  a  sister  connected 
with  you  through  marriage  ?  Do  you  know 
Thomas  ?  (c  I'm  Thomas,'  I  replied.)  He'll  know 
me— Thomas  Lon— Lund— Tom  Lund.  That's  your 
sister  that's  saying  it." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  within  Mrs  Piper's 
hearing  Mrs  Lodge  addressed  Mr  Lund  by  his  name.1 

With  his  never-failing  sprightliness  Andrew  Lang 
gave  a  bogus  example  of  the  angling  for  facts  by 
which  the  astute  mediums  land  their  fish.  He 
borrows  a  dialogue  from  Moliere's  Monsieur  de 
Pourceaugnac,  substituting  Mrs  Piper  and  Phinuit 
for  Eraste,  and  Mr  Nehemiah  K.  Chew  for  M.  de 
Pourceaugnac.  The  ingenious  Mr  Chew  thinks  that 
Phinuit  has  revealed  to  him  what  in  fact  he  has  told 
the  more  astute  Phinuit. 

"Mrs  PIPER— i.e.  PHINUIT.  What  do  you  call 
that  restaurant  at  Limoges  where  they  cook  so 
well? 

NEHEMIAH  K.  CHEW.    Petit  Jean's. 

P.  and  P.  Of  course,  that's  it.  We  often  used  to 
go  there.  And  the  place  where  we  used  to  walk  ? 

N.  K.  C.     The  cemetery  of  Les  Arenes. 

P.  and  P.  Of  course.  Now  tell  me  about  your 
people.  How  is  M  ...  how  is  your  .  .  .  oh,  the 
good  fellow,  don't  you  know  ? 

N.  K.  C.     My  brother  the  consul  ? 

1  Tuckett,  pp.  330,  333. 


MRS  PIPER  201 

P.  and  P.     Yes. 

N.  K.  C.    He  could  not  be  better. 

P.  and  P.  And  that  jolly  laughing  fellow, 
your  .  .  . 

N.  K.  C.     My  cousin,  the  police  magistrate  ? 

P.  and  P.    That's  the  man. 

N.  K.  C.     Gay  as  ever. 

P.  and  P.     And  your  uncle  ? 

N.  K.  C.     I  have  no  uncle. 

P.  and  P.     You  had  one  when  I  knew  you. 

N.  K.  C.     Only  an  aunt. 

P.  and  P.     Bless  me,  it  was  aunt  I  meant  to  say. 

N.  K.  C.  (aside).  He  knows  every  one  of  my 
relations."  * 

Three  brief  judgments  on  sittings  purporting  to 
convey  communications  from,  or  relating  to,  the 
dead  have  a  high  value  :  one  from  the  eminent 
psychologist,  the  late  William  James,  who  inclined 
to  accept  spiritual  explanations  of  the  phenomena ; 
the  second  from  Dr  Walter  Leaf,  whom  the  late 
Andrew  Lang  called  "our  effective  ally";  and  the 
third  from  Professor  MacAlister,  an  eminent 
anatomist. 

Professor  James  thus  comments  on  a  sitting  at 
which  a  message  purporting  to  come  from  Edward 
Gurney,  who  died  in  1888,  was  delivered  by  Mrs 
Piper. 

"  It  was  bad  enough,  and  I  confess  that  the 
human  being  in  me  was  stronger  than  the  man  of 
science,  that  I  was  too  disgusted  with  Phinuit's  tire- 
some twaddle  even  to  note  it  down.  When  later 

1  Longman's  Magazine,  December,  1895,  P-  2I1- 


202  THE  QUESTION 

the  phenomenon  developed  into  pretended  direct 
speech  from  Gurney  himself,  I  regretted  this,  for  a 
completer  record  would  have  been  useful.  I  can 
now  merely  say  that  neither  then  nor  at  any  other 
time  was  there,  to  my  mind,  the  slightest  inner 
verisimilitude  in  the  impersonation."  1 

"  Several  instructive  instances,"  remarks  Dr  Leaf, 
"  point  directly  against  any  knowledge  derived 
from  the  spirits  of  the  dead.  For  instance,  in  Mrs 
H.  Leaf's  first  sitting  a  question  was  put  about 
'Harry,'  whose  messages  Phinuit  purported  to  be 
giving.  '  Did  he  leave  a  wife  ?  '  No  answer  was 
given  to  this  at  the  time,  but  in  accordance  with 
Phinuit 's  frequent  practice  the  supposed  hint  was 
stored  up  for  future  use,  and  at  Mrs  H.  Leaf's  next 
sitting  she  was  told,  '  Harry  sends  his  love  to  his 
wife  '  :  now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Harry  never  was 
married."  2 

"  On  the  whole,  then,  the  effect  which  a  careful 
study  of  all  the  reports  of  the  English  sittings  has 
left  on  my  mind  is  this  :  that  Dr  Phinuit  is  only 
a  name  for  Mrs  Piper's  secondary  personality."  3 
Dr  Leaf  makes  frequent  references  to  "  equally  un- 
satisfactory sittings,  leading  to  equally  justifiable 
incredulity  on  the  part  of  the  sitter." 

"  Mrs  Piper,"  says  Professor  MacAlister,  "  is 
quite  wide  awake  enough  all  through  to  profit  by 
suggestions.  I  let  her  see  a  blotch  of  ink  on  my 
finger  and  she  said  that  I  was  a  writer.  Except  the 
guess  about  my  sister  Helen,  who  is  alive,  there  was 
not  a  single  guess  which  was  nearly  right.  Mrs 

1  Proceedings,  S.P.R.     Vol.  vi.,  p.  656. 

2  Tuckett,  p.  334.  »  Ibid.,  p.  328. 


MRS  PIPER  203 

Piper  is  not  anaesthetic  during  the  so-called  trance, 
and  if  you  ask  my  private  opinion,  it  is  that  the 
whole  thing  is  an  imposture,  and  a  poor  one."  l 

Neither  does  it  count  for  righteousness  to  Mrs 
Piper  that  Professor  Shaler,  of  Harvard,  as  the 
result  of  close  observations  at  a  sitting  given  to  his 
wife,  thus  concludes  a  letter  to  Professor  William 
James  :  "I  have  given  you  a  mixture  of  observa- 
tions and  criticisms  :  let  me  say  that  I  have  no  firm 
mind  in  the  matter.  I  am  curiously  and  yet 
absolutely  uninterested  in  it  for  the  reason  that  I 
don't  see  how  I  can  exclude  the  hypothesis  of  fraud, 
and  until  that  can  be  excluded  no  advance  can  be 
made."  a 

Mrs  Piper  gave  the  late  Sir  George  H.  Darwin 
two  sittings  on  the  27th  and  29th  November  1889 
respectively.  He  was  introduced  as  "  Mr  Smith  " 
—a  pseudonym  generally  given  to  her  sitters.  She 
talked  of  his  ailments.  "  A  keen  medical  diagnosis," 
he  says,  "  but  not  more  than  a  doctor  might  venture 
to  say  from  inspection  of  me.  ...  I  was  said  to 
study  or  think  much  ;  this  is  a  safe  conjecture  in 
a  university  town.  The  second  half  of  the  sitting 
was  devoted  to  my  friends.  Not  a  single  name  or 
person  was  given  correctly,  although  perhaps  nine 
or  ten  were  named."  Summarising  both  sittings, 
Sir  George  adds  :  "  Almost  every  statement  made 
could  have  been  given  if  the  medium  could  have  dis- 
covered my  name  and  a  few  fragments  of  Cambridge 
talk  between  the  first  sitting  and  the  second.  I  re- 
main wholly  unconvinced  either  of  any  remarkable 

1  Proceedings,  S.P.R.     Vol.  vi.,  p.  605. 

2  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  335. 


204  THE  QUESTION 

powers  or  of  thought  transference." l  Now  the 
joke,  subsequently  explained  by  Sir  George  in 
a  letter  to  Dr  Tuckett,  published  by  him  in  The 
Literary  Guide,  March,  1917,2  is  as  follows  :— 

"The  account  given  to  me  by  Sir  George  Darwin, 
after  describing  how  he  went  to  Myers'  house  and, 
under  the  pseudonym  of  '  Smith,'  had  his  first 
sitting  with  Mrs  Piper,  runs  thus  : 

"  '  Myers  sat  at  some  distance  from  us  at  a  window 
with  a  note-book.  At  the  end  of  the  stance,  as  I 
went  out  with  him,  I  noticed  his  note-book  open  on 
the  table,  with  DARWIN  written  large  at  the  head 
of  the  page.  Mrs  Piper  was  apparently  in  a  trance  at 
the  other  end  of  the  room,  and  no  one  was  in  the  room 
with  her  for  some  two  or  three  minutes,  while  Myers, 
Mrs  Myers  and  I  were  on  the  stairs.  I  drew  Myers' 
attention  to  the  want  of  care,  and  he  remarked  that 
Mrs  Piper  could  not  have  seen  the  book.  Mrs  Myers 
said  my  real  name  in  a  clear  voice  on  the  stairs,  with 
the  door  of  the  seance  room  wide  open.  At  the 
second  interview,  near  the  beginning,  Mrs  Piper 
said  :  "  D-A-R-W-I-N,  what  a  strange  name." ' 

It  is,  as  Dr  Tuckett  says,  a  good  example  of 
the  critical  care  with  which  the  late  Frederic  Myers, 
perhaps  the  most  noted  member  of  the  S.P.R.,  con- 
ducted psychical  research. 

At  a  sitting  with  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  on  the  2nd 
February  1890,  several  more  or  less  correct  state- 
ments were  made  about  a  George  Wilson  known 
to  Sir  Oliver.  It  was  said  that  at  one  time 
George  Wilson  had  intended  to  be  a  doctor.  This 

1  Tuckett,  p.  365.  aP.  43- 


MRS  PIPER  205 

coincided  with  an  idea  that  Sir  Oliver  had  got  hold 
of,  so  that  he  notes  that,  at  the  time,  he  thought  it 
correct.  Actually,  as  he  admits  afterwards,  it  had 
been  Wilson's  intention  to  be  a  farmer.  Thus,  he 
says,  "  a  great  deal  of  this  obviously  looks  like 
thought  transference."  At  the  same  sitting  state- 
ments were  made  about  Wilson's  father,  a  man 
wholly  unknown  to  Sir  Oliver.  Concerning  this 
sitting,  Mr  Wilson  wrote  to  him  :  "  The  statements 
made  by  the  medium  fall  into  two  classes  : 

"(i)  Those  which  relate  to  matters  known  to 
you. 

"  (ii)  Those  which  you  could  not  know— as,  for 
example,  either  my  present  circumstances  or  my 
past  life. 

"  What  is  said  under  (i)  is  as  you  would  see  more 
or  less  correct.  What  is  said  under  (ii)  is  entirely 
incorrect.  .  .  .  And,  in  general,  the  kind  of  man 
represented  is  the  antipodes  of  the  dignified,  precise 
character  of  my  father." 

The  death  of  "George  Pelham  "  in  1892— two 
years  after  Mrs  Piper's  return  to  America — opened 
a  new  chapter  in  her  history.  He  had  one  sitting 
with  her  some  four  years  before  his  death,  when  his 
name  was  withheld,  and  his  death  seems  to  have 
occurred  without  her  knowledge.  Soon  afterwards, 
when  she  gave  a  seance  to  one  of  his  friends  (John 
Hart,  an  assumed  name),  Phinuit  said  :  "  There  is 
another  George  who  wants  to  speak  to  you— how 
many  Georges  are  there  about  you,  anyway  ?  '" 
"  Pelham,"  assuming  it  was  he  who  was  communi- 
cating through  Phinuit,  gave  his  full  name  correctly, 
also  that  of  the  sitter  and  of  a  group  of  intimate 


206  THE  QUESTION 

friends.  He  recognised  as  his  own  a  stud  which  the 
sitter  was  wearing.  "  That's  mine  ;  father  gave 
you  that.  [No.]  Well,  then,  father  and  mother 
together.  Mother  took  them.  Gave  them  to 
father,  and  father  gave  them  to  you."  This  was 
correct  :  the  stepmother  had  taken  them  from  the 
dead  body.  "  I  saw  her  brush  my  clothes  and 
put  them  away."  This  was  incorrect ;  the  man 
who  valeted  George  did  that.  "  Pelham  "  sent  a 
message  to  two  friends,  James  and  Mary  Howard, 
and  to  their  daughter  Katharine.  At  a  subsequent 
seance  given  to  Mr  Howard  he  was  greeted  by 
"Pelham"  familiarly,  and  with  references  to  people 
and  incidents  for  the  correctness  of  which  Mr  Howard 
vouched.  Desiring  further  proof,  another  sitting 
was  given  him.  '  There,  as  Hodgson,  who  acted  as 
note-taker,  described  the  scene,  whilst  Mrs  Piper's 
body  lay  inert  and  apparently  lifeless,  her  right 
hand  impatiently  and  fiercely  wrote  in  answer  to 
Mr  Howard's  request.  Several  statements  were 
read  to  me  and  assented  to  by  Mr  Howard  ;  then 
was  written  '  private  '  and  the  hand  gently  pushed 
away.  I  retired  to  the  other  side  of  the  room,  and 
Mr  Howard  took  my  place  close  to  the  hand  where 
he  could  read  the  writing.  He  did  not,  of  course, 
read  it  aloud,  and  it  was  too  private  for  my  perusal. 
The  hand,  as  it  reached  the  end  of  each  sheet,  tore 
it  off  from  the  block  book,  thrust  it  wildly  at  Mr 
Howard  and  then  continued  writing.  The  circum- 
stances narrated,  Mr  Howard  informed  me,  con- 
tained precisely  the  kind  of  test  for  which  he 
asked,  and  he  said  that  he  was  'perfectly  satisfied, 
perfectly.'  After  this  incident  there  was  some 


MRS  PIPER  207 

further  conversation,  with  references  to  the  past 
that  seemed  specially  natural  as  coming  from 
G.  P."1 

Prima  facie,  this  looks  a  strong  case,  standing  out 
in  bold  relief  against  the  mass  of  irrelevant  stuff 
that  G.  P.  poured  forth,  which  Dr  Hodgson  gives  in 
tedious  unabridgment.  Both  Mrs  Piper  and  G.  P. 
lived  in  Boston,  and  in  the  intimacy  between  him 
and  Hodgson  there  would  be  subjects  of  talk,  the 
more  so  as  G.  P.  met  his  death  through  a  tragic 
accident.  Moreover,  there  was  the  Boston  section 
of  the  Blue-book  already  referred  to,2  which,  pre- 
sumably, was  not  unknown  to  so  acute  a  woman 
as  Mrs  Piper.  When  G.  P.  was  asked  to  give 
names  specially  asked  for,  details  of  the  Boston 
society  which  he  and  others  had  formed,  he 
("  resembling  all  the  other  Piper  personalities,"  as 
Mr  Podmore  says 3)  stumbled  or  blundered.  At 
later  sittings  he  had  more  to  tell,  and  tells  it 
correctly.  Bearing  on  this,  Dr  Tuckett  says  that 
in  the  sixth  volume  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  he  finds  "  that  on  at  least 
fourteen  occasions  Mrs  Piper  gave  information  at 
a  second  or  subsequent  sitting  which  she  had  not 
succeeded  in  giving  at  the  first  sitting."  4  Every 
year  "Mrs  Piper  has  been  getting  a  greater  grasp 
of  the  problem  how  to  supply  the  type  of  evidence 
which  her  sitters  want  her  to  furnish  in  support  of 
the  '  spiritualist  hypothesis,'  both  by  means  of  an 
increasing  acquaintance  with  psychic  literature  and 
with  those  engaged  in  psychic  research,  and  also  by 

1  The  Newer  Spiritualism,  v-  *74-  *  Ante,  p.  187. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  181.  *  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural,  p.  342. 


208  THE  QUESTION 

means  of  hints  and  suggestions  made  by  sitters 
to  her — that  is,  to  her  '  control '  in  the  trance 
state."  * 

Concerning  "  G.  P.,"  Andrew  Lang  was  sceptical. 
He  says  that  "  when  alive,  he  was  a  scholar  and 
metaphysician ;  when  dead  he  had  forgotten  his 
Greek  and  in  philosophy  would  have  been  plucked. 
He  did  not  find  any  difficulty  in  mere  ordinary 
conversation.  But  ask  him  for  any  proof  of  his 
identity  and  he  was,  usually,  incoherent  or 
wholly  mistaken.  His  prophecies  would  have 
ruined  any  sporting  prophet.  His  excuses  for 
his  blunders  bordered  on  the  mendacious,  though 
fluent  enough."  2 

In  a  volume  entitled  The  Quest  for  Dean  Bridgman 
Conner,  published  in  1916,3  a  story  of  putting  the 
spirit  "  on  inquiry  "  is  told.  In  February,  1895,  a 
young  electrician  bearing  that  name,  living  in 
Mexico,  died  of  typhoid  fever  and  was  buried  in  the 
American  cemetery.  The  death  was  notified  to  his 
parents  in  Burlington,  Vermont,  and,  following  on 
this,  his  father  had  a  dream  "  in  which  the  son 
appeared  and  said  he  was  not  dead,  but  was  alive 
and  held  captive  in  Mexico."  The  misrule  in  that 
country  warranted  a  suspicion  that  the  son  had 
been  kidnapped  and  was  in  the  hands  of  brigands. 
The  body  was  exhumed  and  there  was  some  doubt 
as  to  its  identity.  The  publicity  given  to  the  affair 
caused  Dr  Hodgson  to  consult  Mrs  Piper.  She  gave 
several  seances,  the  result  of  which  was  to  learn 

1  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural,  p.  323. 

2  The  Pilot,  2  3rd  November  1901. 

8  By  Anthony  T.  Philpott.     (Heinemann.) 


MRS  PIPER  209 

from  the  "  controls  "  that  Dean  Bridgman  Conner 
was  in  a  lunatic  asylum  kept  by  one  Dr  Cintz. 
They  minutely  described  the  place  and  its  situation 
near  the  city  of  Puebla. 

Mr  Philpott,  who  tells  the  story,  was  on  the  staff 
of  The  Boston  Globe.  He  had  once  tracked  a  miss- 
ing man  to  his  lair  ;  he  believed  in  Mrs  Piper,  hence 
he  was  sent  in  search  of  Conner.  But  he  could  find 
no  lunatic  asylum,  no  Dr  Cintz,  and  no  news  of 
Conner,  so  he  travelled  to  Mexico,  went  straightway 
to  the  hospital,  and  learned  that  both  the  doctor 
and  the  nurse  who  attended  Conner  had  left.  Her 
name  was  Smith,  which  did  not  make  search  easier, 
but  he  was  afterwards  told  that  she  had  married  a 
one-armed  man  who  owned  a  hacienda  at  Tuxpan. 
Thither  he  went,  and  interviewed  the  nurse,  who 
confirmed  the  fact  that  Conner  had  died  of  fever 
in  the  hospital. 

On  Mr  Philpott's  return  to  Boston,  Dr  Hodgson 
would  not  believe  him,  and  said  that  "  if  he  had  the 
means  he  would  go  to  Mexico  and  find  Conner — 
alive  — and  bring  him  back  to  his  father  and  mother." 
On  this  the  proprietor  of  The  Boston  Globe  offered  to 
pay  his  expenses  and  advertised  the  offer,  but  Dr 
Hodgson  did  not  go  to  Mexico. 

Mr  J.  A.  Hill's  naive  comment  is  that  "  the 
Conner  case,  therefore,  with  all  its  mistakes,  does 
not  invalidate  the  true  things  that  constitute  good 
evidence  for  survival  in  other  parts  of  Mrs  Piper's 
experience."  l 

It's  the  old,  old  story.  Directly  any  test  on 
which  a  practical  issue  hangs  is  applied,  the  bladder 

1  Psychical  Investigations,  p.  208. 
o 


210  THE  QUESTION 

collapses,  but  only,  as  the  whole  history  of  spiritual- 
ism shows,  to  be  blown  again.1 

Dr  Hodgson's  attitude  is  explicable.  In  his 
Report  on  Mrs  Piper,  published  in  1898,  he  said  : 
"  I  cannot  profess  to  have  any  doubt  but  that  the 
chief  '  communicators  '  to  whom  I  have  referred  are 
veritably  the  personalities  that  they  claim  to  be, 
that  they  have  survived  the  change  we  call  death, 
and  that  they  have  directly  communicated  with  us, 
whom  we  call  living,  through  Mrs  Piper's  entranced 
organism."  He  died  suddenly,  and  only  eight  days 
passed  before  his  "  control  "  came  into  touch  (that 
is,  if  it  had  ever  left  it)  with  Mrs  Piper.  Obviously 
her  many  years  of  close  intimacy  with  him  and 
resulting  knowledge  of  him  make  the  communica- 
tions and  information  acquired  from  him,  which  he 
purports  to  send,  of  little  or  no  evidential  value. 
There  is  no  need  to  give  examples.  In  his  Report 
on  the  Piper-Hodgson  control  in  the  twenty-third 
volume  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  S.P.R.,  June,  1909, 

1  A  legal  friend,  Mr  E.  S.  P.  Haynes,  recently  asked  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
(whom  he  knew  slightly)  to  introduce  him  to  a  high-class  medium 
through  whom  he  could  be  put  into  communication  with  his  deceased 
fatherland  another  solicitor,  who  also  had  "passed  over."  The 
reason  was  that  in  the  absence  of  documents  to  throw  light  on  trans- 
actions which  were  within  the  knowledge  of  the  two,  a  service  would 
be  rendered  by  getting  at  the  facts  through  them.  The  request, 
therefore,  was  made  in  all  seriousness,  and  by  a  man  who  keeps  an 
open  mind  on  the  genuineness  of  psychical  research.  Sir  Oliver 
referred  my  friend  to  the  editor  of  Light,  the  official  organ  of  Spiritual- 
ism, who  replied  in  dexterous  terms  that  "  it  is  unwise  to  depend  on 
the  judgment  of  the  inhabitants  of  another  sphere  of  existence  regard- 
ing matters  solely  relating  to  this  and  which  we  earth-dwellers  ought 
to  settle  for  ourselves."  Moreover,  that  "  the  power  of  communica- 
tion is  at  present  so  very  improperly  developed  that  it  would  be  most 
unsafe  to  frame  one's  course  of  action  on  the  counsel  we  might  mis- 
takenly suppose  they  wished  to  give  us.'1 


MRS  PIPER  211 

Professor  William  James  says  that  "  Hodgson  had 
often,  during  his  lifetime,  laughingly  said  that  if  he 
ever  passed  over  and  Mrs  Piper  was  still  officiating 
here  below,  he  would  control  her  better  than  she  had 
ever  yet  been  controlled  in  her  trances,  because  he 
was  so  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  difficulties  and 
conditions  on  this  side."  Here  is  Professor  James's 
verdict :  the  verdict  of  a  psychologist  who  had 
Mrs  Piper  under  close  observation  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  and  who  admitted  a  bias  towards  the 
spiritualistic  hypothesis  : 

'  The  contents  of  the  Hodgson  material  is  no 
more  veridical  than  is  a  lot  of  earlier  Piper  material, 
especially  in  the  days  of  the  old  Phinuit  control. 
And  it  is,  as  I  began  by  saying,  vastly  more  leaky 
and  susceptible  of  naturalistic  explanation  than  is 
any  body  of  Piper  material  recorded  before." 

To  sum  up  the  impressions  resulting  from  study 
of  the  records  of  Mrs  Piper's  deliverances  in  her 
"  trance  states,"  so  far  as  these  are  of  the  genuine 
clairvoyant  type,  charges  of  deliberate  fraud  may 
not  be  admissible.  Here  we  are  on  the  confines  of 
the  abnormal  :  much,  long  hidden  in  the  recesses 
of  subconsciousness,  may  then  reappear  in  fantastic 
shapes,  such  as  visit  us  in  dreams.  Psychology 
takes  count  of  this  and  other  abnormalities  and 
explains  them.  It  is  only  where  the  supernormal 
is  assumed  as  cause  that  the  debateable  comes  in. 
Are  Mrs  Piper's  deliverances  of  a  nature  which  can 
be  accounted  for  only  as  parts  of  what  Sir  Conan 
Doyle  calls  "  a  new  revelation  "  ?  Is  she  among 
the  privileged  few  to  whom  discarnate  spirits  tell 
the  secrets  of  the  Eternal  ?  If  so,  the  cryptic  is 


212  THE  QUESTION 

marvellously  covered  by  the  commonplace.  Cer- 
tainly, as  the  Conner  case  exemplifies,  she  failed 
to  discover  a  secret  of  the  temporal. 

Mr  Podmore,  whose  prolonged  study  and  analysis 
of  psychical  phenomena  constituted  him  the  chief 
authority  on  their  validity,  says  that  "  Mrs  Piper's 
trance  utterances  and  writings  are  admitted  both  by 
believers  in  spiritualism  and  by  telepathists  to  form 
almost  the  most  important  part  of  the  evidence 
on  which  they  rely  to  support  their  respective 
hypotheses."  His  conclusion  is  that  they  "  do  not 
obviously  call  for  any  supernormal  explanation." 
The  instances  which  seem  to  point  to  some  external 
source  of  inspiration  are  neither  sufficiently  numer- 
ous nor  sufficiently  free  from  ambiguity  to  warrant 
any  such  inference.  "  The  information  given  by 
her  trance  personality  is  very  generally  incomplete, 
or  of  uncertain  meaning,  and  needs  expert  interpre- 
tation. I  cannot  point  to  a  single  instance  in  which 
a  precise  and  unambiguous  piece  of  information  has 
been  furnished  of  a  kind  which  could  not  have  pro- 
ceeded from  the  medium's  own  mind  working  upon 
the  materials  provided  and  the  hints  let  drop  by  the 
sitters."  l  "  She  is  vague  about  dates  :  she  prefers 
to  give  Christian  names  rather  than  surnames  ;  and 
of  Christian  names  the  commoner  rather  than  the 
more  out-of-the-way  :  she  rarely  attempts  to  give 
descriptions  of  houses  or  places,  and  her  attempts 
in  this  direction  are  commonly  failures.  In  other 
words,  she  is  weakest  precisely  where  the  pseudo- 
medium  is  most  successful.  Her  real  strength  lies 
in  describing  the  diseases  [Phinuit  often  played  the 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  pp.  344,  345. 


MRS  PIPER  213 

role  of  a  medical  adviser],  personal  idiosyncrasies, 
thoughts,  feelings  and  character  of  the  sitter  and 
his  friends  :  their  loves,  hates,  quarrels,  sympathies, 
and  mutual  relationships  in  general  :  trivial  but 
significant  incidents  in  their  past  histories  and  the 
like."  l  As  my  wife  remarks,  while  men  have  more 
ability  and  persistence  in  hunting  out  information, 
women  are  quicker  to  interpret  significances  in  voice, 
manner  and  appearance  ;  they  read  character  more 
easily.  Emotions  betray  themselves  more  readily 
to  them  than  to  men. 

The  late  Andrew  Lang,  who  confessed  that  he  had 
"  the  will  to  believe  in  an  unusual  degree,"  2  said 
that,  for  him,  "  the  interest  of  Mrs  Piper  is  purely 
anthropological.  She  exhibits  a  survival  or  re- 
crudescence of  savage  phenomena,  real  or  feigned, 
of  convulsion  and  of  sensory  personality,  and  enter- 
tains a  survival  of  the  animistic  explanation."  He 
does  "  not  impeach  her  normal  character.  But 
'  secondary  personalities  '  have  often  more  of  Mr 
Hyde  than  of  Dr  Jekyll  in  their  composition."  3 

Psychical  Researchers  will  agree  that  the  reports 
of  spirits  and  their  doings  among  barbaric  races, 
made  by  travellers  and  missionaries,  have  evidential 
value,  although  perhaps  of  a  low  grade.  The 
"  controls,"  to  whose  communications  believers  in 
the  occult  give  ear  and  record,  have  no  limitations 
as  to  clime,  race,  sex  or  age ;  and  those  to  whom 
they  bring  reassuring  messages  that  the  discarnate 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  341. 

8  Discussing  the  matter  with  him  one  afternoon  at  the  Savile  Club, 
he  said,  somewhat  in  jest,  but  more  in  earnest :  "  I  don't  believe,  but 
I  tremble." 

8  The  Making  of  Religion,  p.  150. 


214  THE  QUESTION 

spirit  "  being  dead,  yet  speaketh,"  must  desire 
every  bereaved  fellow-creature  to  enjoy  the  like 
consolation.  They  must  also  desire  to  increase  the 
body  of  data  on  which  their  conclusions  rest ; 
hence,  they  should  establish  branches  of  their 
Society  wherever  the  materials  which  it  was 
founded  to  collect  and  compare  exist. 


VIII 

MRS    LEONARD    AND    OTHERS 

RAYMOND  LODGE,  youngest  son  of  Sir 
Oliver  and  Lady  Lodge,  was  killed  by 
shrapnel  in  the  attack  on  Hooge  Hill  in 
Flanders  on  the  14th  September  1915.  The  news 
of  his  death  reached  his  family  three  days  later. 
In  August,  1914,  a  Mrs  Kennedy  wrote  to  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  (who  was  then  in  Australia)  informing  him 
that  she  had  recently  lost  a  son  named  Paul,  from 
whom  she  had  daily  received  communications  through 
automatic  writing,  and,  because  of  Sir  Oliver's  "  in- 
vestigations into  spirit  life,"  asking  his  help  to  remove 
her  scepticism  about  the  genuineness  of  her  power  as 
an  automatist.  Sir  Oliver,  on  his  return,  took  Mrs 
Kennedy  "  anonymously  and  unexpectedly  "  to  an 
American  "  direct  voice "  medium,  Mrs  Wriedt, 
who  performed  the  easy  task  of  removing  her  doubts. 
Other  mediums  contributed  to  that  happy  issue  — 
among  these  Mr  Vout  Peters  and  Mrs  Osborne 
Leonard.  Mrs  Kennedy  was  on  intimate  terms 
with  both,  and  introduced  Sir  Oliver  and  Lady 
Lodge  to  them,  not  disclosing  their  names,  so  it  is 
said.  They  nursed  the  idea  that  they  were  un- 
known to  these  mediums  !  On  seeing  the  announce- 
ment of  the  death  of  Raymond  Lodge,  Mrs  Kennedy 
spoke  to  her  departed  son,  "  and  asked  him  to  help  ; 
215 


216  THE  QUESTION 

she  also  asked  for  a  special  sitting  with  Mrs  Leonard 
for  the  same  purpose,  though  without  saying  why."  1 
On  the  18th  September  her  own  hand  automatically 
wrote  as  from  Paul :  "I  am  here.  ...  I  have  seen 
that  boy,  Sir  Oliver's  son  ;  he's  better  and  has  had  a 
splendid  rest,  tell  his  people."  Four  days  later,  he 
sends  another  message  :  "I  shall  bring  Raymond 
to  his  father  when  he  comes  to  see  you."  At  her 
request  Mrs  Leonard  arranged  to  give  a  sitting  on 
the  25th  following  to  Lady  Lodge,  and  to  a  French 
lady  who  had  lost  both  her  sons.  The  names  of  the 
sitters  were  withheld.  The  three  ladies  sat  round 
a  table,  which  tilted  in  the  usual  responsive  way  as 
each  letter  of  the  alphabet  was  spoken  by  the 
medium,  stopping  at  the  moment  when  the  right 
letter  was  reached.  At  this  seance  the  most  inter- 
esting answer  that  purported  to  come  from  Ray- 
mond was  :  "  Tell  father  I  have  met  some  friend 
of  his."  "  Any  name  ?  "  "  Yes,  Myers."  The  rest 
of  the  talk  was  commonplace.  Two  days  after- 
wards Sir  Oliver  had  his  first  sitting  with  Mrs 
Leonard.  He  went,  he  tells  us,  "  as  a  complete 
stranger,"  only  saying  that  he  was  a  friend  of  Mrs 
Kennedy.  He  guilelessly  adds  :  "I  lay  no  stress 
on  my  anonymity,  however,"  and  he  writes  as  if  it 
were  possible  for  so  well  known  a  man,  whose  com- 
manding figure  and  benevolent  face  are  so  familiar, 
whose  photograph  is  in  the  shop  windows,  and 
whose  reputation  as  a  spiritualist  is  world-wide, 
to  preserve  that  anonymity.  Sancta  simplicitas  ! 
Why,  directly  the  news  of  Raymond  Lodge's  death 
was  spread  abroad,  every  medium  in  the  country 

1  Raymond,  p.  119. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    217 

was  on  the  alert,  hoping  to  be  the  favoured  chosen 
one  of  a  visit  from  his  parents.  And  at  the  seance 
given  by  Mrs  Leonard  to  Lady  Lodge  the  French- 
woman let  slip  her  ladyship's  name !  Sir  Oliver 
was  informed  by  Mrs  Leonard  that  her  "  guide  "  or 
"  control  "  was  a  young  Indian  girl  named  Feda,1 
who  calls  Raymond  "  Zaymond,"  he  in  return  call- 
ing her  "  Illustrious  One  "  :  Paul  Kennedy  calls  her 
"  Imp."  Mr  Vout  Peters  has  three  controls : 
"  Moonstone,"  who  in  this  life  was  a  "  Yogi  "  and 
who  was  a  hundred  years  old  when  he  crossed  to  the 
Beyond,  and  who  passes  on  a  message  from  W.  T. 
Stead  ;  "  Red-feather,"  who  talks  broken  English  ; 
and  "Biddy,"  an  old  Irish  washerwoman,  who  lived 
next  a  church.  Addressing  Mrs  Kennedy,  Biddy 
said  :  "  You  don't  realise  that  the  world  is  governed 
by  chains  and  that  you  are  one  of  the  links ;  one  of 
my  chains  is  to  help  mothers."  She  was  clearly  not 
in  sympathy  with  the  old  charwoman  whose  one 
desire  on  arriving  in  the  Beyond  was 

"  To  sit  on  the  banks  of  that  beautiful  river, 
And  never  do  nothing  for  ever  and  ever." 

We  have  the  testimony  of  the  American,  Madame 
Brockway— "  psychist,"  as  she  describes  herself  - 
who  was   recently  fined   fifty   pounds    and   thirty 
guineas  costs  and  recommended  for  expulsion,  that 
Peters  is  "  London's  Premier  Psychic." 

Prior  to  any  stances,  early  in  September,  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  received  from  Mrs  Piper  the  original 

*We  are  not  told  on  what  principle  the  spirits  choose  their 
f!  controls.'4  But  they  favour  little  Indian  girls.  Miss  Wood  had 
Pocha,  Mrs  Piper  has  Chlorine,  and  now  comes  Feda. 


218  THS  QUESTION 

script  of  a  message  received  on  the  8th  August  from 
Myers  to  her  via  Richard  Hodgson  as  control,  a 
Miss  Robbins  being  present.  It  ran  as  follows  :— 

"  RICHARD  HODGSON.  Now,  Lodge,  while  we 
are  not  here  as  of  old,  i.e.  not  quite,  we  are  here 
enough  to  take  and  give  messages.  Myers  says 
you  take  the  part  of  the  poet  and  he  will  act  as 
Faunus. 

Miss  ROBBINS.    Faunus  ? 

RICHARD  HODGSON.  Yes,  Myers.  Protect.  He 
will  understand.  What  have  you  to  say,  Lodge  ? 
Good  work.  Ask  Verrall,  she  will  also  understand. 
Arthur  says  so.  [This  means  Dr  Arthur  W. 
Verrall,  deceased.— O.  J.  L.] 

Miss  ROBBINS.  Do  you  mean  Arthur  Tenny- 
son ?  [She  confused  Alfred  Tennyson  with 
Verrall]. 

RICHARD  HODGSON.    No.    Myers  knows." 

This  implies  that  Myers  had  premonition  of 
Raymond's  death  six  weeks  before  it  happened. 

Thereupon  Sir  Oliver  wrote  to  Mrs  Verrall  (since 
deceased),  who  knew  her  Horace,  asking  :  "  Does 
the  Poet  and  Faunus  mean  anything  to  you  ?  Did 
one  protect  the  other  ?  "  Set  on  the  quest,  and, 
perhaps,  carrying  in  her  memory  certain  Horatian 
allusions  in  Mr  Myers's  poem  on  "  Immortality " 
printed  in  his  posthumous  Fragments  of  Prose  and 
Poetry,  she  replied  that  "  the  reference  is  to  Horace's 
account  of  his  narrow  escape  from  death,  from  a 
falling  tree,  which  he  ascribes  to  the  intervention  of 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    219 

Faunus " l  (a  vegetation  god  and  guardian  of 
poets).  Sir  Oliver's  comment  is  that  a  blow  upon 
him  was  impending,  from  which  Myers  would  pro- 
tect him,  and  that  he  himself  had  a  dim  recollection 
of  some  impending  catastrophe,  "  perhaps  of  a 
financial  rather  than  of  a  personal  kind."2  He 
makes  much  to  turn  on  that  construing  of  levasset 
as  meaning  that  Faunus  weakened  or  checked  the 
blow,  and  suggests  that  the  message  from  Myers 
meant  that  "  he  had  redeemed  his  '  Faunus ' 
promise  and  had  lightened  the  blow  by  looking 
after  and  helping  Raymond  on  the  other  side." 
Horace  says  that  Faunus  averted  the  death-stroke 
from  him,  but  Raymond  was  killed  !  Cadit 
qucestio.  However,  Sir  Oliver,  clutching  at  any 
explanation  of  the  Faunus  message  that  points  to 
Myers's  intervention  to  "protect,"  finds  verification 
when  "Feda  "  tells  him  that  she  sees  a  dark  cross 
falling  on  Sir  Oliver,  and  then  turning  its  bright  side 
on  him.3  Mrs  Piper  and  Sir  Oliver  are  close  friends, 
and  her  thoughts  may  well  have  wandered  towards 
him  and  the  son  to  whom  death  might  come  at  any 

1  Odes,  II.,  xvii.,  27-30. 

"Me  truncus  illapsus  cerebro 
Sustulerat,  nisi  Faunus  ictum 
Dextra  levasset,  Mercurialium 
Gustos  virorum." 

"Me  the  curst  trunk  that  smote  my  skull 
Had  slain,  but  Faunus,  strong  to  shield 
The  friend  of  Mercury  check'd  the  blow 
In  mid  descent." 

(Conington's  trans.) 

a  An  explanation  of  this  may  possibly  be  found  in  a  financial  article 
in  Truth  of  i;th  January  1917. 
8  Raymond,  p.  92. 


220  THE  QUESTION 

moment.  Mrs  Piper's  antecedents  were  humble ; 
presumably,  she  is  not  a  classical  scholar,  but  the 
utterance  of  scraps  of  knowledge  in  foreign  tongues 
which  have  passed  unheeded  into  subconsciousness 
is  not  unusual.  During  her  first  visit  to  England 
she  frequently  met  Myers,  and  the  lines  from 
Horace  may  have  been  quoted  by  him  in  con- 
versation. When  she  came  here  in  1906  to 
throw  light,  if  possible,  on  the  problem  of  cross- 
correspondence,  there  were  many  references  both 
to  Horace  and  to  Myers's  poems  in  her  presence.1 
She  is  one  of  several  automatists  who  profess  to 
have  received  communications  from  Myers.  He 
cannot  be  said  to  have  passed  to  his  rest :  dying  in 
January,  1901,  in  less  than  a  month  after  that  he 
was  sending  messages  through  the  control  Nelly, 
a  baby  daughter  of  a  trance  medium  named  Mrs 
Thompson.  In  the  following  May  he  complained  : 
"  They  keep  on  calling  me.  Do  appeal  to  them  not 
to  break  me  up  so.  When  Mr  Myers  wants  to  go  to 
sleep  and  be  quiet,  mother  will  not  let  him.  She 
will  call  him.  You  must  tell  her  so." 

Here  it  may  be  opportune  to  insert  copy  of  a 
letter  from  Mrs  Myers  which  appeared  in  The 
Morning  Post  of  the  24th  October  1908  : 

SPIRITUALISTIC  MESSAGES 
(To  the  Editor  of  The  Morning  Post) 

SIR,  —For  some  time  papers  and  periodicals  have 
been  drawing  the  attention  of  the  public  to  various 

1  The  Newer  Spiritualism,  p.  210,  and  cf.  ibid.,  p.  261. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    221 

spiritualistic  messages  purporting  to  come  from  my 
husband,  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers.  My  son  and  I 
wish  to  state,  in  reply  to  many  inquiries  we  have 
received,  that  after  a  very  careful  study  of  all  the 
messages  we  have  found  nothing  which  we  can  con- 
sider of  the  smallest  evidential  value.  Yours,  etc., 

EVELEEN  MYERS. 

2  RICHMOND  TERRACE,  WHITEHALL, 
23rd  October. 

Surely  wife  and  children  would  be  the  first  to 
have  messages  from  their  beloved  one.  Added  to 
this  there  is  the  well-known,  damning  fact  that  can- 
not be  too  widely  known,  how  Myers  left  behind 
him,  in  the  care  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search, a  sealed  letter  written  in  1891,  the  contents 
of  which  Mrs  Verrall  as  medium  believed  that  she 
could  reveal.  When  the  seal  was  broken  on  the 
13th  December  1904,  three  years  after  his  death, 
there  was  found  to  be  no  resemblance  between  the 
contents  of  the  letter  and  Mrs  Yen-all's  automatic 
script  which  purported  to  contain  a  communica- 
tion from  the  discarnate  Myers.  Sir  Oliver  sug- 
gested that  Myers  may  have  forgotten  what  he 
had  written  in  the  envelope  :  as  if  he  could  have 
forgotten  that  which,  at  his  own  initiative,  was  to  be 
the  crucial  test  of  the  survival  of  his  personality ! 
A  second  test  case  is  that  of  the  soi-disant 
Hannah  Wild,  who  on  several  occasions  dictated 
what  professed  to  be  the  contents  of  a  sealed 
letter  written  by  the  real  Hannah  Wild  before 
her  death,  for  the  express  purpose  of  the  test; 


222  THE  QUESTION 

and  all  these   versions  were   entirely  wide  of  the 
mark.1 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  27th  September 
1915,  Lady  Lodge,  nursing  the  delusion  that  she 
was  "  a  complete  stranger,"  had  her  first  sitting 
with  "  the  well-known  London  medium,"  Mr  Vout 
Peters,  at  Mrs  Kennedy's  house.  "  When  Mr 
Peters  goes  into  a  trance,  his  personality  is  supposed 
to  change  to  that  of  another  man,  who,  we  under- 
stand, is  '  Moonstone,'  much  as  Mrs  Piper  was  con- 
trolled by  apparent  personalities  calling  themselves 
'  Phinuit,'  '  Rector,'  and  others.  "When  Mr  Peters 
does  not  go  into  a  trance  he  has  some  clairvoyant 
faculty  of  his  own."  2  The  notes  of  this  "  important 
sitting,"  as  Sir  Oliver  calls  it,  are  given  in  full,  and 
except  in  one  matter,  which  he  regards  as  evidential, 
the  talk  is  dreary,  unilluminating  commonplace. 

'  You  have,'  says  '  Moonstone,'  '  several  por- 
traits of  this  boy.  Two  where  he  is  alone,  and  one 
where  he  is  in  a  group  of  other  men.  He  is  par- 
ticular that  I  should  tell  you  of  this.  In  one  you 
see  his  walking-stick.'  (c  Moonstone  '  here  put  an 
imaginary  stick  under  his  arm.)  "  3  The  family,  of 
course,  had  portraits  of  Raymond,  but  not  as  one 
of  a  group  :  here  Moonstone  blundered.  However, 
in  the  following  November,  a  Mrs  Cheves  wrote  to 
Lady  Lodge  offering  to  send  her  a  photograph  of 
a  group  of  officers  taken  abroad  in  the  previous 
August,  in  which  Raymond  Lodge  appears.  Before 

1  Modern    Spiritualism.     Vol.    ii.,    p.    306.      Quoted   from    Proo. 
S.P.R.     Vol.  viii.,  pp.  10-15. 

2  Raymond ,  p.  128.     The  italics,  emphasising  the  vagueness,  are 
mine. 

*Ibid.t  p.  133. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    223 

it  reached  him,  Sir  Oliver  had  a  sitting  with  Mrs 
Leonard  (on  the  3rd  December),  when  he  put  a 
number  of  "leading"  questions  about  the  photo- 
graph to  Feda,  one  of  these  being  :  "  Did  he  have  a 
stick  ?  " 

FEDA.  "He  doesn't  remember  that.  He  re- 
members that  somebody  wanted  to  lean  on  him, 
but  he  is  not  sure  if  he  was  taken  with  someone 
leaning  on  him.  But  someone  wanted  to  lean  on 
him  he  remembers." 

The  photograph  arrived  on  the  7th  December. 
In  front  of  a  wooden  shed  are  seen  twenty-four 
soldiers  in  three  rows  ;  Raymond  is  one  of  five  in 
the  front ;  his  stick  or  cane  lies  across  his  feet  — 
every  officer  carries  his  cane — one  of  the  group  in 
the  second  row  appears  to  have  his  hand  on  Ray- 
mond's shoulder.  Three  photographs  had  been 
taken  ;  each  is  reproduced  in  Raymond  :  in  all  of 
them,  as  might  be  expected  in  a  group  photograph, 
the  officers  are  more  or  less  leaning  on  one  another. 

In  the  other  answers  "  Feda "  fumbles  along, 
trusting  to  the  next  question  to  help  her  to  a  clue. 
She  talks  of  the  group  as  "  a  mixed  lot  "  ;  they 
could  not  well  be  otherwise  ;  she  blunders  over  the 
names  of  officers  who  are  not  in  it,  and  so  forth. 
But  no  discrepancies  can  disturb  Sir  Oliver's  con- 
victions ;  in  "  the  evidential  value  of  the  whole 
communication  "  he  sees  "  something  of  the  nature 
of  cross-correspondence  of  a  simple  kind  in  the  fact 
that  a  reference  to  the  photograph  was  made 
through  one  medium  and  a  description  given,  in 
answer  to  a  question  [the  italics  are  mine],  through 
an  independent  one."  The  plain  man  in  the  street 


224  THE  QUESTION 

sees  no  evidential  value— i.e.  proof  of  Raymond 
Lodge's  survival— in  a  medium  guessing  that  a 
group  of  officers  should  be  photographed  in  the 
open,  with  canes  in  their  hands. 

Among  the  communications  which  Sir  Oliver  dis- 
creetly classes  as  "  rather  evidential  "  is  that  from 
Feda  about  a  peacock  in  the  garden  at  Mariemont 
which  was  drolly  named  "  Mr  Jackson,"  and  which 
had  tumbled  down  and  broken  its  neck.  Sir 
Oliver  gives  Feda  a  lead  by  asking  (the  question 
is  addressed  through  her  to  Raymond) :  "  Do  you 
remember  a  bird  in  our  garden  ?>5  "Perhaps," 
he  naively  adds,  "  it  was  unfortunate  that  I  had 
mentioned  a  bird  first."  (It  certainly  was,  because 
it  "  gave  away  the  whole  show  "  to  the  medium.) 
Feda  makes  some  bad  shots ;  "  she  got  rather 
bewildered " ;  then  follows  a  further  question : 
66  Well,  we  will  go  on  to  something  else  now  :  I 
don't  want  to  bother  him  about  birds.  Ask  him 
does  he  remember  Mr  Jackson  ?  '  Feda  :  "  Yes, 
going  away,  going  away,  he  says  .  .  .  fine  bird, 
put  him  on  a  pedestal."  The  bird,  Sir  Oliver  says, 
was  stuffed  and  mounted  on  a  wooden  stand.  "  If 
this,"  he  adds,  "  was  not  telepathy  from  me,  it 
seems  to  show  a  curious  knowledge  of  what  is  going 
on  at  his  [Raymond's]  home."  It  does  :  but  family 
pets  are  often  stuffed — and  so,  it  would  seem,  are 
their  owners,  by  mediums !  What  hindered  the 
mediums  from  keeping  themselves  in  touch  with  all 
the  happenings  at  Mariemont  ?  They  were  all  on 
the  scent. 

So  much  for  the  inferences  from  the  Faunus 
"  message,"  the  group  photograph,  and  "  Mr  Jack- 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS         225 

son."  l  It  seems  scarcely  worth  while  to  summarise 
detailed  reports  of  communications  at  sittings  which 
Sir  Oliver  and  the  various  members  of  his  family 
held  with  Mr  Peters  and  Mrs  Leonard  :  the  more  so 
as  the  same  importance  is  not  attached  to  them  as 
to  the  three  "  evidential  "  cases  just  dealt  with.  In 
truth,  they  make  dreary  and  often  repellent  read- 
ing, and  warrant  the  apology  which  sometimes 
Sir  Oliver  offers  for  them  as  "  only  partially  satis- 
factory." The  happenings  at  the  later  seances  are 
deprived  of  any  value  by  the  fact  that  the  sitters 
were  known  to  the  mediums.  Sometimes  the 
mediums  as  vehicles  of  communication  are  dis- 
pensed with.  The  comment  why  there  is  ever  any 
occasion  to  employ  these  "  middlemen  "  suggests 
itself.  Sir  Oliver  tells  us  that  he  and  his  family 
had  private  seances  at  their  own  home,  when, 
occasionally,  "  the  table  got  rather  rampageous 
and  had  to  be  quieted  down  :  sometimes  it  and 
things  like  flower-pots  got  broken."  At  one  sitting, 
which  was  opened  with  silent  prayer,  the  table 
made  amorous  attempts  "  to  get  into  Lady  Lodge's 
lap  ;  made  most  caressing  movements  to  and  fro, 
and  seemed  as  if  it  could  not  get  close  enough  to 
her."  2 

Space  may  be  given  to  a  few  specimens  of  the 
communications  made  easier,  so  "Moonstone"  says, 
because  "  NOT  ONLY  IS  THE  PARTITION  SO 
THIN  THAT  YOU  CAN  HEAR  THE  OPERA- 
TIONS ON  THE  OTHER  SIDE,  BUT  A  BIG 

1  Mr  Walter  Cook's  Reflections  on  Raymond  supplies,  in  compendious 
form,  a  destructive  analysis  of  the  "  evidence  "  from  which  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  draws  momentous  conclusions.  2  Raymond,  p.  217. 

p 


226  THE  QUESTION 

HOLE  HAS  BEEN  MADE."  (Printed  in  capitals 
in  Raymond.1)  "  A  remarkably  evidential  and 
identifying  message,"  is  Sir  Oliver's  comment,  be- 
cause, as  he  points  out,  it  is  parallel  with  "  a  tunnel- 
boring  simile "  in  his  Survival  of  Man.2  This 
"  evidential "  message  came  through  Mr  Vout 
Peters,  who,  of  course,  had  not  read  that  book  ! 

Evidence  as  to  the  continued  interest  of  the  dis- 
carnate  in  mundane  affairs  is  supplied  by  Raymond 
through  "  Feda."  He  mourns  over  the  defection 
of  Greece,  prophesies  victory  for  Russia  and  realises 
"  the  seriousness  sometimes  of  this  war."  He 
promises  his  mother  that  he  will  be  with  them  at 
Christmas,  and  in  answer  to  her  wonderment  how 
he  gets  his  clothes  he  says : 

"  They  are  all  man-u-fac-tured.  (Feda  stumbling 
over  long  words.3)  Can  you  fancy  you  see  me  in 
white  robes  ?  Mind,  I  didn't  care  for  them  at  first, 
and  I  wouldn't  wear  them.  Just  like  a  fellow  gone 
to  a  country  where  there's  a  hot  climate— an  ignor- 
ant fellow  !  .  .  .  Apparently,  as  far  as  I  can  gather, 
the  rotting  wool  appears  to  be  used  for  making 
things  like  tweeds  on  our  side.  But  I  know  I  am 
jumping ;  I'm  guessing  at  it.  My  suit,  I  expect, 
was  made  from  decayed  worsted  on  your  side. 
[In  a  footnote  to  this  Sir  Oliver  naively  says  :  'I 
have  not  yet  traced  the  source  of  all  this  supposed 
information."  Doubtless,  if  he  will  call  again  at 
Maida  Vale,  Mrs  Leonard  can  supply  it.] 

1P.  TOO.  2  Page  234.     (1915  edition.) 

3  Raymond,  p.  189.  She  does  not  stumble  over  "acclimatised/1 
which  follows  immediately  after,  she  quickly  learns  to  pronounce 
"manufacture"  correctly  (p.  199)  and  talks  of  "long  orations"  (p.i6o). 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    227 

"  My  body's  very  similar  to  the  one  I  had  before. 
I  pinch  myself  sometimes  to  see  if  it's  real,  and  it  is, 
but  it  doesn't  seem  to  hurt  as  much  as  when  I 
pinched  the  flesh  body.  The  internal  organs  don't 
seem  constituted  on  the  same  lines  as  before.  .  .  . 
Oh,  there's  one  thing,"  he  says.  "  I  have  never 
seen  anybody  bleed." 

SIR  OLIVER.    Has  he  got  eyes  and  ears  ? 

FEDA.  Yes,  yes,  and  eyelashes  and  eyebrows, 
exactly  the  same,  and  a  tongue  and  teeth.  He  has 
got  a  new  tooth  now  in  place  of  another  one  he  had. 
.  .  .  He  knew  a  man  that  had  lost  an  arm,  but  he 
has  got  another  one.  Yes,  he  has  got  two  arms 
now.  He  seemed  as  if  without  a  limb  when  first  he 
entered  the  astral.  ...  I  am  told  that  when  any- 
one's blown  to  pieces,  it  takes  some  time  for  the 
spirit  body  to  complete  itself,  to  gather  itself  all  in 
and  to  be  complete.1 

O.  J.  L.    What  about  bodies  that  are  burnt  ? 

FEDA.  Oh,  if  they  get  burnt  by  accident,  if  they 
know  about  it  on  this  side,  they  detach  the  spirit 
first.  What  wre  call  a  spirit  doctor  comes  round 
and  helps.  .  .  .  We  have  terrible  trouble  some- 
times over  people  who  are  cremated  too  soon ;  they 
shouldn't  be.  There  are  men  here  and  women 
here  .  .  .  there  don't  seem  to  be  any  children  born 
here.  People  are  sent  into  the  physical  body  to 
have  children  on  the  earth  plane ;  they  don't  have 
them  here.  .  .  .  People  here  try  to  provide  every- 
thing that  is  wanted.  A  chap  came  over  the  other 
day  who  would  have  a  cigar.  c  That's  finished 
them,'  he  thought.  He  means  he  thought  they 

'Pp.  194, 195- 


228  THE  QUESTION 

would  never  be  able  to  provide  that.  But  there 
are  laboratories  over  here,  and  they  manufacture  all 
sorts  of  things  in  them.  Not  like  you  do,  out  of 
solid  matter,  but  out  of  essences,  and  ethers,  and 
gases.  It's  not  the  same  as  on  the  earth  plane,  but 
they  were  able  to  manufacture  what  looked  like 
a  cigar.  He  didn't  try  one  himself,  because  he 
didn't  care  to ;  you  know  he  wouldn't  want  to. 
But  the  other  chap  jumped  at  it.  But  when  he 
began  to  smoke  it,  he  didn't  think  so  much  of  it ; 
he  had  four  altogether ;  and  now  he  doesn't  look  at 
one.1  Some  call  for  whisky  sodas.  Don't  think 
I'm  stretching  it  when  I  tell  you  that  they  can 
manufacture  even  that.  But  when  they  have  had 
one  or  two,  they  don't  seem  to  want  it  so  much."  2 
Evidently  Havana  cigars  and  potable  whisky 
spoiled  the  palate  for  celestial  products.  The  savage 
method  of  supplying  tobacco  to  the  discarnates,  as 
exampled  in  the  following  incident,  shows  more  con- 
sideration and  no  mean  ethical  code.  At  the  funeral 
of  a  Chookteha  woman  a  man  drove  furiously  to  the 
spot,  "  leaped  from  the  sledge  before  it  stopped  and 
gave  a  packet  to  her  son,  saying  something  which  I 
did  not  hear.  Afterwards  I  found  that  the  man  had 
owed  some  tobacco  to  a  friend,  who  died  before  the 
loan  was  repaid,  and  the  borrower  now  availed  him- 
self of  this  opportunity  to  return  the  tobacco  by  the 
old  woman."  Her  body,  the  sledge  which  bore  it 
and  her  household  chattels,  and  the  deer  that 
dragged  it  were  all  placed  on  the  funeral  pile,  the 
spirit  of  the  tobacco  ascending  with  her  own.3 

!?.     197.  »P.    198. 

» In  Far  N.E.  Siberia,  p.  145.     By  I.  W.  Shklovsky. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    229 

The  communications  take  a  graver  turn  when,  at 
a  seance  given  by  Mrs  Kennedy  to  Sir  Oliver,  he 
asks  :  "  Before  you  go,  Raymond,  I  want  to  ask 
a  serious  question.  Have  you  been  let  to  see 
Christ  ?  " 

"Father,  I  shall  see  Him  presently.  It  is  not 
time  yet.  I  am  not  ready.  But  I  know  He  lives, 
and  I  know  He  comes  here.  All  the  sad  ones  see 
Him  if  no  one  else  can  help  them.  Paul  has  seen 
Him  :  you  see  he  had  such  a  lot  of  pain,  poor  chap. 
I  am  not  expecting  to  see  Him  yet,  father.  I  shall 
love  to  when  it's  the  time — Raymond."  l 

In  a  later  chapter  headed  "  A  Few  More  Records, 
with  some  Unverifiable  Matter"  we  are  told  that 
Raymond,  at  a  "strange  and  striking  sitting" 
given  to  Lady  Lodge,  spoke  thus  through  the  little 
Indian  "  control  "  : 

"  Mother,  I  went  to  a  gorgeous  place  the  other 
day." 

LADY  LODGE.     Where  was  it  ? 

"  Goodness  knows  !  I  was  permitted,  so  that  I 
might  see  what  was  going  on  in  the  Highest  Sphere. 
Generally  the  High  Spirits  come  to  us.  I  wonder 
if  I  can  tell  you  what  it  looked  like  !  ''  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  omits  "  the  description  and  the  brief  re- 
ported utterance  which  followed."  His  restraint 
is  to  be  commended  and  imitated. 

t;  I  felt,"  Raymond  continues,  "  exalted,  purified, 
lifted  up.  I  was  kneeling,  I  couldn't  stand  up.  I 
wanted  to  kneel.  Mother,  I  thrilled  from  head  to 
foot.  He  didn't  come  near  me,  and  I  didn't  feel  I 
wanted  to  go  near  him.  Didn't  feel  I  ought.  The 

*P.  207. 


230  THE  QUESTION 

Voice  was  like  a  bell.  I  can't  tell  you  what  he  was 
dressed  or  robed  in.  All  seemed  a  mixture  of  shin- 
ing colours."  x  And  so  it  goes  on  for  two  more 
pages,  which  need  not  be  quoted  here.  I  prefer  to 
follow  Sir  Oliver  in  making  no  comment  on  the 
"  unverifiable  matter."  He  passes  on  to  offer 
explanations  of  defects  in  Feda's  "  style  and 
grammar."  But  grammar  is  not  a  strong  point 
with  the  dwellers  in  the  Beyond.  When  a  sitter 
told  the  medium  that  he  wished  to  communicate 
with  Lindley  Murray,  the  question  was  put :  "  Are 
you  the  spirit  of  that  great  grammarian  ?  '  The 
reply  came  :  "  It's  me." 

Mrs  Wriedt  has  a  short-cut  method  of  communica- 
tion with  the  Beyond  in  dispensing  with  controls. 
She  makes  use  of  an  aluminium  trumpet  which 
"  assists  the  concentration  of  vibrations  from  those 
operating  on  the  other  side  as  a  megaphone  does 
between  operators  on  the  physical  plane."  A  few 
feet  separate  her  from  the  sitter,  near  whom  the 
trumpet  is  placed  on  the  floor ;  the  light  is  then 
switched  off  and  the  anxious  inquirer  sits  "  in  the 
velvet-black  darkness  waiting  for  the  unknown." 
Mrs  Wriedt  does  not  pass  into  any  trance,  but  talks 
naturally ;  voices,  sometimes  mixed,  as  if  two  or 
more  spirits  are  struggling  to  make  themselves 
heard,  speak  from  the  trumpet ;  the  answers  to  the 
questions  put  by  the  inquirer  are  sometimes  a  little 

1  P.  231.  Cf.  Tuckett,  p.  324.  At  a  sitting  given  by  Mrs  Piper 
at  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's,  at  which  his  friends,  Mr  and  Mrs  Thompson, 
were  present,  the  spirit  of  his  dead  brother,  Dr  Ted  Thompson, 
answers  through  his  control  a  question  put  by  Mr  Thompson  :  "  Do 
you  ever  see  Christ  ?  '-'•  "  Occasionally  we  do,  but  not  often :  He  is 
far  superior  to  us,  infinitely  superior,"  and  so  forth,  to  the  same  effect. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    231 

"  elusive,  unsatisfying "  at  a  first  sitting,  but  at 
subsequent  sittings  they  are  more  coherent  :  it  is 
the  old  dodge — the  medium  needs  time  and  oppor- 
tunity to  acquire  the  information  that  shall  remove 
the  scepticism  aroused  by  "  a  single  visit."  The 
spirits  with  whom  Mrs  Wriedt  gets  into  direct  touch 
range  from  cardinals  to  clowns.  Cardinal  Newman 
is  heard  to  utter  a  "  Latin  Benediction,"  and  that 
master  of  vigorous  and  pellucid  English  speaks  thus 
in  cryptic  tautology  :  "It  seems  to  me  that  I  put 
forth  the  wrong  light,  and  it  was  quenched  out  as 
suddenly  as  I  was  quenched  out,  and  I  had  to  be 
quenched  out  so  that  it  had  to  be  quenched  out." 
Cecil  Rhodes  says  that  he  is  glad  he  "  did  not 
leave  Stead  his  money."  Perhaps  he  has  given 
Stead  his  reasons  for  this  want  of  confidence ;  we 
are  not  told.  One  of  the  discarnates,  Greyfeather, 
probably  a  Red  Indian,  says:  "We  heapy  much 
glad  to  see  you."  And  the  ubiquitous,  whilom 
murdering,  ruffian,  John  King,  joins  the  seance 
singing,  of  course  in  trumpet  tones,  "Lead,  Kindly 
Light." 

The  spirit  voices  of  relatives  and  friends  are  not 
easily  recognisable,  but  for  this,  we  are  told,  there 
is  a  perfectly  common -sense  explanation  in  the  fact 
that  the  difference  in  tone  of  physical  voices  is  due 
to  the  formation  of  the  organs  through  which  they 
operate,  and  these  disintegrating  as  they  do  with 
the  physical  body,  the  voice  to  which  we  have 
been  accustomed  cannot  be  carried  on  into  the  new 
field  of  existence.  Why  only  the  voice  should  be 
affected  by  this  change  in  the  spiritual  anatomy  is 
not  clear,  since  a  lady  to  whom  Mrs  Wriedt  gave  a 


232  THE  QUESTION 

sitting  recognised  an  uncle  "  by  the  manner  of  his 
laugh."  i 

To  sum  up.  The  impression  left  after  reading 
the  tedious,  ambiguous  and  repellent  "  communica- 
tions "  which  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  others  believe 
to  have  come  from  a  spirit  world  through  the 
several  controls— the  little  Indian  girl,  the  yogi, 
the  old  washerwoman,  and  by  the  "  direct  voices  " 
through  trumpets — is  only  to  deepen  a  conviction 
that  they  need  no  assumption  of  the  supernormal 
to  explain  them.  They  are  the  utterances  of  Mrs 
Leonard,  Mr  Vout  Peters,  Mrs  Wriedt  and  the  rest 
of  the  mediums,  some  of  whom  may,  with  a  large 
charity,  be  credited  with  believing  themselves  to  be 
the  vehicles  of  "  control  "  revelations,  or,  with  less 
charity  and  more  truth,  be  classed  with  the  tricksters 
who  "  work  the  oracle  "  by  muscle-reading,  sham 
trances,  skilful  guessings  aided  by  hints  from  the 
sitters  and  by  tapping  common  or  special  sources  of 
information.  They  are  either  dreamy  neurotics  or 
humbugs.  "  The  amount  of  sophistication,"  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  naively  says,  "  varies  according  to  the 
quality  of  the  medium,"  2  and,  it  may  be  added, 
according  to  the  gullibility  of  the  consultant. 

Sir  W.  F.  Barrett's  revised  issue  of  his  On  the 
Threshold  of  a  New  World  of  Thought,  under  its  new 
title  of  On  the  Threshold  of  the  Unseen,  appeared 
when  this  book  was  nearly  completed.  It  is  adver- 
tised as  "  supplementing  in  a  most  striking  manner 
the  evidence  adduced  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  Ray- 
mond "  ;  hence  comment  upon  it  falls  into  place  in 

1  "  The  Great  Problem,"     The  London  Magazine,  February,  1917. 

2  Raymond,  p.  87. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    233 

this  section.  Sir  William  reminds  his  readers  that 
he  began  investigation  into  "  alleged  supernormal 
phenomena  "  forty  years  ago,  and  that  the  result 
of  the  co-operation  of  one  or  two  friends  in  that 
investigation  was  the  founding  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  in  1882.  The  candour  which 
informs  the  present  work  is  manifest  in  admission 
of  the  difficulties  besetting  a  momentous  subject. 
His  general  attitude  is  one  of  alternating  belief  and 
non-committal.  As  a  Swedenborgian  he  does  not 
subscribe  to  all  the  articles  of  the  Spiritualist  Creed 
without  qualification.  In  1886  he  stated  that,  re- 
viewing the  numerous  stances  which  he  had  attended 
during  the  previous  fifteen  years,  he  found  that  "  by 
far  the  larger  part  of  the  results  obtained  had 
absolutely  no  evidential  value  in  favour  of  Spiritual- 
ism ;  either  the  condition  of  total  darkness  forbade 
any  trustworthy  conclusions,  or  the  results  were 
nothing  more  than  could  be  explained  by  a  low  order 
of  juggling.  A  few  cases,  however,  stand  out 
as  exceptions."  l  One  "  exception,"  apparently,  is 
not  thus  explained.  Forty-one  years  ago  Sir 
AVilliam  satisfied  himself  that  only  by  the  action 
of  "an  unseen  intelligence  "  could  be  explained  a 
series  of  raps,  scratchings  and  movements  of  tables 
which  occurred  whenever  a  ten-year-old  girl  was 
present.  And  that  nothing  has  shaken  his 
credulity,  despite  the  report  of  his  own  Society 
condemning  the  poltergeists  as  a  group  of  mis- 
chievous hussies  (see  ante,  p.  86),  is  evidenced  in  his 
remark  that  "  no  doubt  whatever  rests  in  his  own 
mind  as  to  the  reality  and  supernormal  character 

1  P.  36- 


234  THE  QUESTION 

of  these  utterly  meaningless  phenomena." l  He 
prepares  his  readers  for  further  admissions.  "  I 
believe,"  he  says,  "  that  Slade  had  genuine  super- 
normal powers."  He  shares  Sir  William  Crookes's 
belief  in  Home's  "  enormous  elongation,"  finding 
confirmation  of  this  in  a  similar  phenomenon 
occurring  among  the  Neoplatonists,2  while  the 
records  of  levitation  of  holy  men  and  women  further 
satisfy  him  that  Home  accomplished  the  same 
miracle. 

Concerning  this  and  other  "  almost  incredible 
phenomena,"  Sir  William  Barrett  says  :  "  Since  they 
occurred  I  have  been  assured  by  Sir  William 
Crookes  that  no  subsequent  criticism  has  failed  to 
shake  [more  correctly,  has  shaken]  his  opinion  of 
their  supernormal  character,  the  elaborate  precau- 
tions he  took  preventing  the  possibility  of  any 
fraud.  Moreover,  Sir  William  Crookes,  in  his 
Presidential  Address  to  the  British  Association  in 
1898,  had  the  courage  to  state  in  reference  to  these 
investigations  he  had  nothing  to  retract  and  that 
he  adhered  to  the  statements  he  had  published."  3 
The  "  almost  incredible  phenomena"  are  set  forth 
by  Sir  William  Barrett  in  schedule  form,  of  which 
the  following  is  a  summary.  It  may  be  headed— 

SIR  WILLIAM  CROOKES'S   CREDO 

1.  I  believe  that  raps  and  sounds  varying  in  loudness  from 
ticks  to  thuds  to  be  caused  by  an  unseen  intelligence. 

2.  That  light  and  heavy  bodies  can  be  moved  without  visible 
cause  or  the  contact  of  any  human  being. 

3.  That  bodies  can  alter  their  weight. 

1P.  80.  »P.  73.  SP.  55. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    235 

4.  That  D.  D.  Home  was  raised  completely  oft  the  ground. 

5.  That  musical  instruments  can  be  played  without   human 
hands  and  in  a  way  impossible  to  be  played  by  normal  means. 

6.  That   luminous    clouds    condense    into    perfectly   formed 
hands  which  presently  fade  away. 

7.  That  intelligent  messages  are  written  by  unseen  hands. 

8.  That  red-hot  coals  can  be  handled  without  injury. 

9.  "  Most  astonishing  of  all,"  l    that   "  under  elaborate  test 
conditions  a  materialised   and  beautiful    female    figure  several 
times  appeared  clothed  in  a  white  robe,  so  real,  that  not  only  was 
its  pulse  taken,  but  it  was  repeatedly  photographed,  sometimes 
by  the  aid  of  the  electric  arc  light,  and  on  one  occasion  simul- 
taneously with  and  beside  the  entranced  medium. 

Possibly  the  phenomenon  of  ventriloquism  ex- 
plains Sir  William  Barrett's  hesitation  to  accept 
as  genuine  the  "  direct  voice  "  communications  of 
"  a  well-known  American  medium,"  2  who  may  be 
identified  with  Mrs  Wriedt,  and  he  leaves  "  the 
question  of  spirit  photographs  an  open  one," 
though  showing  leanings  towards  their  "  veridical 
character."  He  hesitates  to  discard  what  the  late 
Mr  Stead  and  Dr  A.  R.  Wallace  accepted.  A  like 
hesitation  attends  his  verdict  on  the  "  notorious 
medium,"  Eusapia  Palladino,  because  so  "  com- 
petent an  investigator "  as  the  late  "  eminent 
criminologist,  Professor  Lombroso,  and  the  neurolo- 
gist, Professor  Morselli,  were  convinced  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  extraordinary  phenomena  they 
witnessed." 3  An  appendix  is  allotted  to  an 
account  of  these,  of  which  the  reader,  probably,  has 
had  more  than  enough  already.  As  for  Cesare 
Lombroso,  he  went  per  saltum  from  one  extreme  to 

1  "  It  remains  to  this  day  absolutely  inexplicable  "  (1).    P.  87. 
1  P.  85.  *  P.  67. 


236  THE  QUESTION 

another.  Two  days  before  his  death  (in  1909) 
there  appeared  an  English  translation  of  his  last 
book,  After  Death  — What  ?  in  which  he  tells  us  that 
after  "  making  it  the  indefatigable  pursuit  of  a  life- 
time to  defend  the  thesis  that  every  force  is  a 
property  of  matter  and  the  soul  an  emanation  of 
the  brain,"  his  neuropathological  practice  com- 
pelled reconsideration  of  the  relation  of  mind  to 
body,  and  resulted  in  his  acceptance  of  all  the 
phenomena  of  spiritualism,  both  physical  and 
psychical,  as  genuine.  He  swallowed  the  lot  at  a 
gulp,  from  table  raps  to  materialisation  of  the 
departed,  spirit  photographs  and  spirit  voices ; 
every  story,  old  or  new,  alike  from  savage  and 
civilised  sources,  confirming  his  will  to  believe.  He 
accepted,  though  only  at  second-hand,  the  story 
that  a  babe  named  Yenker  gave  replies  to  raps 
when  two  months  old ;  of  another  wonder-child  who 
66  wrote  automatically  when  nine  days  old,"  and  of 
"Camisard  babes  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  months - 
even  while  still  sucklings  —  preaching  with  the 
purest  diction."  The  legends  of  holy  babes,  future 
saints,  who  refused  to  take  milk  from  their  mothers' 
breasts  on  Fridays  and  on  other  fasting  days,  pale 
before  marvels  in  which  the  credulous  professor, 
and  those  whose  credulity  he  has  strengthened,  will 
see  fulfilment  of  the  Psalmist's  words  :  "  Out  of  the 
mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  hast  thou  ordained 
strength."  l 

In  the  semi-obscurity  of  a  red  light  Eusapia  re- 
deemed her  promise  to  Lombroso  that  he  should  see 
his  mother.  There  detached  itself  from  the  curtain 

^s.  viii.  2. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    237 

of  the  medium's  cabinet  a  short,  veiled  figure,  which 
came  near  him  and  whispered  in  his  ear,  "  Cesar,  fio 
mio"  "This,"  he  says,  "was  not  her  habitual 
expression,  which,  when  she  met  me,  was  mio  fol, 
but  the  mistakes  in  expression  made  by  the  appari- 
tions of  the  deceased  are  well  known,  and  how  they 
borrow  from  the  language  of  the  psychic  and  of  the 
experimenters.  Removing  the  veil  from  her  face 
for  a  moment,  she  gave  me  a  kiss." 

Allowing  for  differences  in  detail,  this  suggests  a 
story  which  Sir  William  Barrett  quotes  as  among 
"  some  remarkable  instances  where  the  dying 
person  appears  to  see  and  recognise  some  of  his 
deceased  relatives  and  friends."  While  at  the  bed- 
side of  a  Mr  James  Moore,  who  lay  at  the  point  of 
death,  Dr  WTilson,  of  New  York,  says  that  "  some- 
thing happened  which  is  utterly  indescribable. 
Taking  my  hand  in  both  of  his,  while  he  appeared 
perfectly  rational  and  as  sane  as  any  man  I  have 
ever  seen,  the  only  way  that  I  can  express  it  is 
that  he  was  transported  into  another  world,  and 
although  I  cannot  satisfactorily  explain  the  matter 
to  myself,  I  am  fully  convinced  that  he  had  entered 
the  golden  city  —for  he  said  in  a  stronger  voice  than 
he  had  used  since  I  had  attended  him  :  '  There  is 
mother  !  Why,  mother,  have  you  come  here  to  see 
me  ?  No,  no,  I  am  coming  to  see  you.  Just  wait, 
mother,  I  am  almost  over.  Wait,  mother,  wait, 
mother  !  ' 

While  Sir  William  admits  that  «  one  cannot 
always  attach  much  weight "  to  this  sort  of  evidence, 
the  citation  of  the  story  commits  him  to  the  con- 
clusion, vague  as  this  may  be,  that  there  is  some- 


238  THE  QUESTION 

thing  in  it.  It  has  no  evidential  value  whatever, 
and  is  all  of  a  piece  with  the  many  stories  which 
have  their  explanation  in  hallucinations  of  the 
dying. 

Precious  to  me  above  all  memories  is  that  of  my 
brave,  bright,  beautiful-souled  mother,  hope  of  re- 
union with  whom  I  would  joyfully  nurture  were 
there  grounds  for  it.  She  is  often  in  my  thoughts  ; 
her  portrait  hangs  near  me,  and  it  may  be  that  if 
delirium  accompanies  my  death,  a  vision  as  of  her 
may  appear,  and  then,  perchance,  an  outburst  of 
triumphant  words  escape  my  dying  lips  which  on- 
lookers, if  such  there  be,  might  construe  as  evidence 
that  mother  and  son  have  met  on  "  the  threshold  of 
the  Unseen."  As  not  without  bearing  on  this,  I 
rarely  get  quickly  to  sleep,  and,  to  invite  it,  I  often 
recite  long  passages  from  Scripture  and  hymns 
learnt  in  boyhood,  and  poems  with  a  religious 
flavour — e.g.  Leigh  Hunt's  Abou  ben  Adhem.  I 
may  do  this  "  in  the  hour  and  article  of  death," 
but  no  warrant  should  be  drawn  therefrom  that  I 
returned  at  the  last  to  a  belief  abandoned  years  ago 
when  the  mind  was  unclouded.1 

While  Sir  William  Barrett  has  no  hesitation  in 
pronouncing  that  Eusapia  "is  a  medium  of  a  low 
moral  type,"  and  refuses  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  her,  no  such  reluctance  attaches  to  his  opinion 
of  the  Rev.  Stainton  Moses.  Of  that  medium's 
"  sanity  and  honesty,"  and  as  a  man  "  wholly  in- 
capable of  deceit,"  Sir  William  has  no  doubt. 
Moses  "  experienced  levitation  no  less  than  ten 

1  Cf .  Natural  Causes  and  Supernatural  Seemings,  p.  1 30.  By  Henry 
Maudsley,  M.D. 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    239 

times,"  and  that  phenomenon  was  manifested  by 
"  a  large,  very  heavy  mahogany  dining-table  "  in 
his  house.  Sir  William  would  do  well  to  read  a 
chapter  in  Mr  Maskelyne  and  Dr  Weatherly's  The 
Supernatural  ?  in  which  is  explained  the  trick  of 
lifting  heavy  furniture  performed  some  years  back 
by  the  "  Magnetic  Lady."  J 

He  tells  us  that,  in  1899,  the  "  Moses  of  old  " 
purported  to  communicate  with  Mrs  Piper,  starting 
with  forebodings  of  wars  to  come,  and  then  adding 
"  a  good  deal  of  solemn  twaddle."  Concerning  that 
lady,  he  frankly  tells  this  story  :  "  A  Dr  Stanley 
Hall  asked  her  if  his  niece,  Bessie  Beals,  could 
communicate.  She  professed  to  come,  and  gave 
various  messages  at  several  sittings.  But  she  had 
never  existed,  Dr  Hall  having  given  a  fictitious 
name  and  relationship."  2  Sir  William  naively 
says  :  "  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  we  cannot  take 
these  communications  at  their  face  value,  as  they 
are  sometimes  manifestly  false."  Then  he  hedges. 
"  They  probably  represent  phases  of  the  hypnotic 
self  of  Mrs  Piper,  created  by  some  verbal  or  tele- 
pathic suggestion  from  the  mind  of  the  sitter." 
After  this  it  seems  scarcely  worth  while  to  seriously 
discuss  his  contention  that  Mrs  Piper  is  the  vehicle 
of  communications  from  the  discarnate  spirits  of 
Dr  Hodgson  and  Mr  Myers.  His  usual  candour  for- 
sakes him  in  his  silence  about  the  sealed  letter  which 
Mr  Myers  left  behind  him. 

As  a  study  in  logomachy,  in  "  darkening  counsel 
by  words,"  Sir  William's  attempted  definition  of 
mediumistic  power  supplies  example.  "  The  nexus 

1  Pp.  274-288.  2  On  the  Threshold  of  the  Unseen,  p.  240. 


240  THE  QUESTION 

between  the  seen  and  the  unseen  may  be  physical, 
physiological,  or  psychical,  but  whichever  it  may 
be,  it  is  a  specialised  substance,  or  organ,  or  organ- 
ism ...  it  is  doubtless  a  peculiar  psychical  state 
that  confers  mediumistic  power,  but  we  know 
nothing  of  its  nature,  and  we  often  ruin  our  experi- 
ment and  lose  our  results  by  our  ignorance.  .  .  .l 
The  phenomenon  of  materialisation  of  a  part,  or  of 
the  whole  body,  is  termed  "  ectoplasy,  by  which  is 
meant  the  power  of  forming  outside  the  body  of  the 
medium  a  concentration  of  vital  energy,  or  vitilised 
matter,  which  operates  temporarily  in  the  same  way 
as  the  body  from  which  it  is  drawn  ;  so  that  visible, 
audible  or  tangible,  human-like  phenomena  are 
reproduced."  2  Let  those  who  can  make  sense  of 
all  this,  as  of  kindred  hypotheses  by  which  an 
assumption  is  sought  to  be  proved.  "  Intuitive 
certainty,"  says  Froude,  "  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
argument."  3 

However,  Sir  William  shows  some  return  to  a 
rational  consideration  of  the  matter  in  the  recogni- 
tion that  an  entranced  medium  "  is  not  in  a  normal 
condition,  but  shows  evidence  of  hysteria  .  .  ."  4 
that  the  messages  often  spring  from,  and  are  in- 
variably influenced  by,  the  medium's  own  subcon- 
scious life,5  "  so  that  it  would  be  rash  to  infer  that 
they  proceed  from  a  discarnate  human  personality," 6 
and  that,  "in  fact,  'psychical  research  '  in  general 
deals  with  the  varied  manifestations  and  operations 
of  the  unconscious  part  of  our  personality."  7  The 

IP.    120.  2P.   87. 

3  History  of  England.    Vol.  xii.,  p.  199.     (Cabinet  Edition.) 
•P.  123.    "  'P-33-  6P.  326.  7P-  134- 


MRS  LEONARD  AND  OTHERS    241 

evolved  is  the  involved  :  Nihil  est  in  intellectus  quod 
non  prius  in  sensu  fuerit.  Sensation  is  the  raw 
material  of  thought. 

The  book  abounds  with  so  many  "  hedging " 
qualifications  and  irreconcilable  assessments  of  so- 
called  spiritual  phenomena  that  there  will  be  no 
surprise  occasioned  to  learn  that,  in  Sir  William 
Barrett's  judgment,  "  the  inference  commonly 
drawn,  that  spirit  communications  teach  us  the 
necessary  and  inherent  immortality  of  the  soul,  is 
a  mischievous  error.  They  show  us  that  life  can 
exist  in  the  unseen,  but  entrance  on  a  life  after 
death  does  not  necessarily  mean  immortality— i.e. 
eternal  persistence  of  our  personality — nor  does  it 
prove  that  survival  after  death  extends  to  all."  l 
How  far  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  other  defenders  of  the 
faith  will  agree  with  this  is  here  no  matter  of  con- 
cern, but  the  suggestion  of  a  selected  number  of  im- 
mortals evokes  the  comment  that,  if  the  "  controls  " 
be  among  these,  the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  has  no  extension  to  a  discarnate  state. 
No  "  trailing  clouds  of  glory  from  God  who  is  our 
home"  follow  the  motley  group  through  whom 
not  a  single  ennobling  message  has  come ;  only 
nauseating  drivel  and  banal  inanity.  In  the  quota- 
tion from  the  Spirit  Teachings  of  Mr  Stainton  Moses  2 
we  have  a  sample  of  the  tawdry  rhetoric  on  trans- 
cendental themes  which  fills  kindred  deliverances  of 
other  "seers"  of  the  Lake  Harris  and  Davis  type. 
They  invite  the  question  :  "  Should  a  wise  man 
utter  vain  knowledge,  and  fill  his  belly  with  the  east 
wind  ?  "  3 

1  1'.  287.  2  See  ante,  p.  55.  *  Job  xv.  2. 

Q 


IX 

CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE 

ONE  would  have  thought  that,  to  those  who 
believe  in  them,  the  spirits  had  given  suffic- 
ing proof  of  their  existence.  But,  appar- 
ently, these  discarnates  are  not  content,  so  they 
have  devised  a  plan  of  supplying  further  evidence 
which  appears  to  reflect  small  credit  on  their  in- 
telligence :  it  seems,  in  its  confusion  of  nature,  to 
be  the  outcome  of  psychical  poltergeists.  Perhaps  it 
is  their  fun  to  relieve  the  monotony,  and  to  bewilder 
friends  "  on  this  side."  The  plan  is  for  the  same 
spirit  to  send  part  of  a  message  through  one  medium 
and  the  rest  of  it  through  another  medium,  these 
mediums  often  being  thousands  of  miles  apart  and 
unknown  to  each  other.  It  is  then  left  to  the  inter- 
preter to  put  the  unintelligible  parts  together  and 
make  of  them,  as  best  they  can,  one  intelligible 
whole.  The  method  has  been  termed  "  cross- 
correspondence  "  ;  appropriately  so,  if  by  cross  is 
meant  confusion.  The  ingenuity  which  is  necessary 
to  the  successful  interpretation  of  such  communi- 
cations from  the  spirits,  so  as  to  make  sense  of 
nonsense,  is  of  a  sort  compared  to  which  the  de- 
cipherment of  the  cipher  which  proves  that  Bacon 
wrote  Shakespeare's  dramas  is  child's  play. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  calls  this  cross -correspondence 
46  the  most  evidential  class  of  utterance."     He  adds 

242 


CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE  243 

that  "  the  subject  is  so  large  and  complicated  that 
anyone  who  wishes  to  form  an  opinion  on  it  is  bound 
to  study  the  detailed  publications  by  Mr  Piddington, 
Mrs  Verrall,  Miss  Johnson  and  others  in  recent 
volumes  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research.  .  .  .  The  main  feature  of  this  kind  of 
communication  is  that  we  are  not  required  to  study 
the  phenomena  exhibited  by  a  single  medium 
actuated  by  a  number  of  ostensible  controls,  but, 
conversely,  the  utterance  of  one  ostensible  control 
effected  through  the  contributory  agency  of  several 
different  mediums,  each  of  whom  writes  automatic- 
ally and  independently  of  each  other,  and,  at  first, 
were  unaware  that  any  kind  of  correspondence  was 
going  on.  In  many  cases,  moreover,  the  messages, 
as  separately  obtained,  were  quite  unintelligible  and 
only  exhibited  a  meaning  when  they  wrere  subse- 
quently put  together  by  another  person."  x 

A  feature  of  the  cross-correspondence  is  the 
numerous  obscure  literary  and  classical  allusions 
which  fill  them,  the  identification  of  which  needs  the 
rarest  erudition,  and  the  explanations  of  which 
are  to  be  found  not  in  the  scholarship  of  spirits,  but 
in  the  subconscious  intelligence  of  the  automatist, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  late  Mrs  Verrall,  who  was  an 
excellent  classicist.  A  passive  condition  of  the  will 
is  induced  :  "  Whether,"  says  she,  "  I  write  in  light 
or  dark,  I  do  not  look  at  the  paper.  I  perceive  a 
word  or  two,  but  never  understand  whether  it  makes 

1  Survival  of  Man,  pp.  222,  223.  "If  their  assumed  meaning  be 
confirmed  they  have  a  value  which  can  hardly  be  over-estimated." — 
Professor  Barrett:  Psychical  Research,  p.  230.  "  Ifs  "  and  ^assump- 
tions '•'  play  a  large  part  in  the  occult. 


244  THE  QUESTION 

sense  with  what  goes  before.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, it  will  be  seen  that  though  I  am  aware  at 
the  moment  of  writing  what  language  my  hand  is 
using,  when  the  script  is  finished  I  often  cannot  say, 
till  I  read  it,  what  language  has  been  used,  as  the 
recollection  of  the  words  passes  away  with  extreme 
rapidity."  1 

A  paper  on  the  "  Ear  of  Dionysius  "  by  the  Rt. 
Hon.  Gerald  Balfour,  published  in  the  last-issued 
volume  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  has  been  the  subject  of  recent  discussion 
in  The  Times  Literary  Supplement 2  and  The  Saturday 
Westminster  Gazette?  The  conclusions  arrived  at 
by  Mr  Balfour  and  others  warrant  reference  to  the 
contents  of  that  paper. 

On  the  26th  August  1910  an  automatist,  whose 
pseudonym  is  "  Mrs  Willett,"  purported  to  have 
received  from  a  discarnate  source  this  bald  message  : 
"  Dionysius's  Ear— the  lobe."  Apparently  its  mean- 
ing was  obscure  to  Mrs  Verrall,  who  is  reported 
as  being  present,  since  her  husband,  Professor 
Verrall,  expressed  surprise  at  her  ignorance.  The 
reference  is  to  the  story  that  the  Tyrant  of  that 
name  was  wont  to  sit  near  the  prison-grotto  in  the 
Latomia  quarries  at  Syracuse,  which  had  a  remark- 
able echo,  so  that  he  might  hear  what  the  Athenian 
prisoners  were  saying :  hence  its  name  :  "  L'Orecchio 
di  Dionisio."  Mrs  Willett  was  allowed  the  ample 
period  of  three  years  and  a  half  to  brood  over  the 

1  Proceedings,  S.P.R.    Vol.  xx.,  part  liii.     "  On  a  Series  of  Auto- 
matic Writings,  by  Mrs  A.  W.  Verrall.'4 

2  3rd  April  1917,  and  four  following  issues. 
8  i2th  May  1917. 


CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE  245 

significance  of  this  communication,  with  the  tenor 
of  which  Professors  Verrall  and  Butcher  were  made 
acquainted.  Professor  Verrall  will  be  remembered 
by  his  fine  study  of  Euripides  the  Rationalist,  con- 
cerning which  George  Meredith  wrote  to  me.  "  It 
is  a  key  to  the  poet's  contempt  and  loathing  of  the 
gods  of  his  country."  Professor  Butcher  will  be 
best  remembered  as  joint  translator  with  Andrew 
Lang  of  the  Odyssey,  concerning  which  it  was  said 
that  "  Butcher  turned  it  out  of  Greek  and  Lang 
turned  it  into  English."  Professor  Butcher  died  in 
December,  1910,  and  Professor  Verrall  in  June,  1912, 
each  of  them  before  Mrs  Willett  had  any  further 
communications  from  the  other  side  about  the 
"  Ear."  These  came  to  her  in  succession  in  January, 
February  and  March,  1914.  They  were  full  of 
classical  allusions  to  nymphs,  heroes  and  philosophers 
—Galatea,  Ulysses,  Aristotle  and  others,  and 
psychical  experts  affirmed  that  they  came  from  the 
two  discarnate  professors  :  so  that  there  was  not 
one  discarnate,  but  three  discarnates. 

But  of  this  jumble  of  incoherence  the  would-be 
interpreters  who  came  to  the  aid  of  the  bewildered, 
non-classical  recipient,  could  make  neither  head  nor 
tail.  However,  on  the  2nd  August  1915  —five  years 
after  the  receipt  of  the  first  communication —there 
came  to  Mrs  Verrall  this  supplemental  piece  of  in- 
formation :  "  Cythera.  Philox.  He  laboured  in  the 
stone  quarries  and  drew  upon  the  earlier  writer  for 
material  for  his  Satire,  Jealousy."  There  is  nothing 
recondite  about  this.  Dr  Smith's  Classical  Diction- 
ary tells  us  that  Philoxenus  of  Cythera  was  a 
distinguished  Greek  poet  (435-380  B.C.)  who  was 


246  THE  QUESTION 

cast  into  the  "  Ear  "  prison  by  Dionysius  because  he 
refused  to  revise  one  of  the  Tyrant's  poems,  bluntly 
telling  him  that  the  best  way  to  correct  it  was  to 
draw  a  black  line  through  the  whole  of  it.  Light 
on  the  mention  of  Galatea  in  one  of  the  communica- 
tions to  Mrs  Willett  is  thrown  by  an  article  on  Philox- 
enus  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  wherein  it 
is  said  that  his  masterpiece  "  was  the  Cyclops,  a 
pastoral  burlesque  on  the  love  of  the  Cyclops  for 
the  fair  Galatea,  written  to  avenge  himself  on 
Dionysius,  who  was  wholly  or  partially  blind  of 
one  eye."  Among  Mr  Verrall's  books  there  was 
found  a  copy  of  a  work  by  an  American  scholar  on 
the  Greek  Melic  Poets,  which  deals,  among  other 
authors,  with  Philoxenus,  and  of  which  Dr  Verrall 
made  use  in  his  lectures.  In  Mrs  Verrall's  talks 
with  her  husband  (she  had  studied  and  taught  both 
Latin  and  Greek),  gossip  about  that  poet  probably 
had  place,  and  the  curiosity  which  the  first  pur- 
ported communication  aroused  in  Mrs  Willett  must 
have  led  to  her  looking  up  references  and  gathering 
scraps  of  classical  lore  from  her  learned  co-automat ist. 
Mr  Balfour  asserts  that  the  two  had  no  communica- 
tions on  the  subject,  a  statement  hard  to  reconcile 
with  what  is  known  of  the  relations  between  people 
eager  to  solve  a  conundrum,  and  sharing  a  common 
belief.  But  Mrs  Verrall  is  no  longer  with  us  ;  both 
she  and  her  husband— humorist  as  well  as  humanist 
— are  beyond  the  marge  of  our  inquiry,  although 
what  he  would  have  said  may  be  guessed  at. 

Psychical  ingenuity  has  no  limits,  and  while  the 
comment  of  the  sceptic  on  its  toilsome  results  is, 
Partununt  monies,  nascetur  ridiculus  mus,  the  be- 


CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE  247 

liever,  in  the  person  of  Mr  Balfour,  affirms  that  "  the 
communications  have  their  source  in  some  intelli- 
gence or  intelligences  not  in  the  body,"  and  not— 
as  is  the  true  explanation — in  the  potential  con- 
sciousness of  the  automatist,  or,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested, by  her  looking  up  guide-books  to  Sicily  and 
reading  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel.  Sir  William  Barrett 
is  satisfied  as  to  the  ;c  positive  evidence  of  an 
ability  and  wide  classical  knowledge  quite  beyond 
the  power  of  the  automatist.  The  cryptic  allusions, 
it  is  true,  need  considerable  ingenuity,  learning  and 
skill  to  make  the  evidence  intelligible  to  ordinary 
minds.  This  recondite  mode  of  communication  may 
be  adopted  to  prevent  suspicion  that  the  message 
is  derived  from  terrene  minds  by  telepathy,  or  other 
sources  of  error.  Those  who  have  not  the  necessary 
time  or  knowledge  to  unravel  these  mosaics  of 
classical  scholarship  must  rest  content  with  the 
assurance  that  competent  and  unbiassed  investi- 
gators have  been  convinced  that  they  afford  con- 
vincing evidence  of  the  identity  of  the  deceased 
persons  from  whom  they  profess  to  come."  1  Others 
there  are  who,  after  reading  Mr  Balfour's  paper, 
will  agree  with  Sir  Edward  Brabrook  :  "I  confess  I 
hope  for  myself  a  better  employment  when  I  reach 
the  discarnate  condition  than  that  of  spending  years 
in  the  attempt  to  communicate  to  my  friends 
through  an  '  automatist '  inconclusive  evidences  of 
imaginary  erudition."  2 

The  following  throws  light  on  the  origin  of  the 
inconsequential  rubbish  that  fills  much  of  the  cross- 

1  On  the  Threshold  of  the  Unseen,  p.  245. 

2  Times  Literary  Supplement,  3rd  April  1917. 


248  THE  QUESTION 

correspondence  to  the  bewilderment  of  the  ordinary 
mind  :— 

"  1  MARLOES  ROAD,  W., 
"  October  22,  1908. 

"DEAR  CLODD,— The  anthropologist  gets  as  near 
his  primitive  man  as  he  can,  far  enough  away  ;  and 
the  psychist  takes  what  evidence  he  gets  to  go  to  a 
jury.  However,  as  you  are  rather  too  old  a  bird  to 
learn  a  new  tune  (while  the  older  bird  tries  to  pick 
up  the  melodies  as  he  goes  along),  here  is  a  curious 
psychological  game  with  nothing  in  it  to  shock  the 
retrograde  and  obsolete.  You  make  your  mind  as 
blank  of  conscious  thought  as  you  can  and  you  wait 
for  the  words — rather  than  thoughts — that  pop 
into  your  head.  As  one  rapidly  forgets,  you  write 
down  every  clause  and  wait  for  more.  The  result 
would  make  a  boiled  owl  laugh.  I  found  this  out 
only  to-day  and  have  been  giggling  over  the  records. 
Do  try  it ;  one  catches  an  aspect  of  one's  nature 
hitherto  veiled.  As  for  you,  as  you  see  illusions 
hypnagogique  the  faces  spoken  of  [I  had  told  Lang 
that  sometimes,  before  getting  to  sleep,  a  row  of 
leering  faces  would  pass  before  me],  you  are  much 
more  hallucinable  than  most  people.  I  find  that 
most  people  not  only  don't  see  them  but  don't 
believe  that  anybody  does.  This  is  the  true  scien- 
tific spirit.  Bless  you,  I  do  not  exclude  wild  animals, 
but  we  have  evidence  as  to  their  psychic  faculties. 
Dogs,  one  knows,  and  cats  are  highly  psychical,  but 
we  have  no  companionship  with  tigers,  etc. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  A.  LANG." 


CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE  249 

In  The  Morning  Post  of  the  same  date  he  describes 
the  experiment  referred  to  in  the  above  letter.  He 
made  his  mind  as  blank  as  possible  and  watched  for 
any  words  that  floated  into  his  consciousness.  "These 
words,"  he  says,  "  I  wrote  down.  The  results  were 
very  laughable.  My  own  way  of  writing  is  not  John- 
sonian. But  the  style  of  my  unpremeditated  writings 
was  full  of  long  words.  The  first  words  almost  that 
swam  uncalled  into  my  ken  were,  'affability  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  dawdling  persecutor.'  A  longer 
c  message '  began  thus  :  '  Observing  the  down-grade 
tendency  of  the  Sympneumatic  currents,  the  Primate 
remarked  that  he  could  no  longer  regard  Kafoozeleum 
as  an  aid  to  hortatory  eloquence.'  ' 

Sir  E.  B.  Tylor  quotes  from  Baron  de  Gulden- 
stubbe's  Pneumatologie  Positive,  in  which  he  tells 
how  the  spirits  dispense  with  the  material  aid  of 
Mrs  Verrall  and  other  automatists  :  "If  pieces  of 
blank  paper  are  set  out  in  suitable  places,  the  spirits, 
enveloped  in  their  ethereal  bodies,  will  concentrate 
by  their  force  of  will  electric  currents  on  the  paper 
and  so  form  written  characters.  The  Baron  pub- 
lishes a  mass  of  facsimiles  of  spirit  writings  thus 
obtained.  Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar  give  their 
names  near  their  statues  in  the  Louvre,  Juvenal 
produces  a  ludicrous  attempt  at  a  copy  of  verses  : 
Heloise  at  Pere-la-Chaise  informs  the  world,  in 
modern  French,  that  Abelard  and  she  are  united 
and  happy,  and  the  Baron  avers  that  Hippokrates 
attended  him  at  his  quarters  in  Paris  and  gave  him 
a  signature  which  of  itself  cured  a  sharp  attack  of 
rheumatism  in  a  few  minutes."  l 

1  Primitive  Culture.     Vol.  i.,  p.  148. 


X 

THEOSOPHY — MADAME    BLAVATSKY 

ALTHOUGH  the  majority  of  Spiritualists 
disown  the  connection,  their  creed  has 
affinities  with  that  of  Theosophists  and  of 
Christian  Scientists.  The  foundress  of  the  occult 
system  called  Theosophy  was  Helen  Petrovna, 
daughter  of  a  Russian  colonel.  She  was  married 
in  1848— when  seventeen— to  an  elderly  general 
named  Blavatsky,  from  whom,  after  three  months 
of  boredom,  she  ran  away.  Of  wanton,  erratic  and 
romantic  nature,  she  started  in  quest  of  adventures, 
amorous  and  psychical,  both  of  which,  on  her  own 
confession,  she  found  in  plenty.  From  Hindu 
gurus,  Egyptian  thaumaturgists,  Red  Indian 
medicine-men  and  Voodoo  sorcerers,  she  gathered 
a  heap  of  miscellaneous  experiences,  out  of  which, 
later  on,  she  evolved  the  farrago  known  as  the 
Esoteric  Philosophy  or  Wisdom  Religion.  Into 
this,  Mrs  Besant  says,  she  had  been  initiated  in 
Tibet  by  a  mysterious  brotherhood  of  holy  men, 
endowed  with  supernatural  powers,  living,  like  the 
gods  of  Lucretius,  in  "  sacred,  everlasting  calm." 
"  They  are,"  the  same  authority  adds,  "  living  men 
who  have  evolved  the  spiritual  nature  until  the 
physical  body  and  brain  consciousness  have  become 
ductile  instruments  for  the  spiritual  intelligence, 
and  who,  by  virtue  of  this  evolution,  are  said  to  have 

250 


THEOSOPHY-MADAME  BLAVATSKY      251 

gained  a  control  over  natural  forces  which  enables 
them  to  bring  about  results  that  appear  to  be 
miraculous.  The  possibility  of  this  evolution  and 
the  nature  of  the  powers  inherent  in  the  highly 
evolved  man  derive  inevitably  from  the  postulates 
of  the  Esoteric  philosophy."  l  The  existence  of  these 
"  Mahatmas,"  as  they  are  called,  was  not  known  in 
Tibet,  so  my  friend,  the  late  William  Simpson, 
who  was  there  in  1860,  told  me,  and  in  his  Lhasa 
and  its  Mysteries,  Lieut.-Col.  Waddell  says  :  "  Re- 
garding the  so-called  Mahatmas,  it  was  important 
to  elicit  the  fact  that  this  Buddhist  Cardinal,  one 
of  the  most  learned  and  profound  scholars  in  Tibet, 
was,  like  the  other  Lamas  I  have  interrogated  on 
the  subject,  entirely  ignorant  of  any  such  beings."  2 
But  this  is  to  anticipate. 

Madame  Blavatsky  has  thrown  some  light  on  her 
mode  of  life  for  twenty-five  years  after  her  divorce. 
In  a  letter  to  Mr  Solovyoff ,  her  dupe,  and  afterwards 
her  detector,  she  said  :  "I  will  tell  how  from  my 
eighteenth  year  I  tried  to  get  people  to  talk  about  me 
and  say  about  me  that  this  man  and  that  was  my 
lover  and  hundreds  of  them.  ...  So  there  will  be 
'  the  truth  about  H.  P.  Blavatsky '  in  which  psychol- 
ogy and  her  own  and  others'  immorality  and  Rome 
and  politics,  and  all  her  own  and  others'  filth  once 
more  will  be  set  out  to  God's  world.  I  shall  conceal 
nothing.  It  will  be  a  Saturnalia  of  the  moral  de- 
pravity of  mankind,  this  confession  of  mine,  a  worthy 
epilogue  of  my  stormy  life."  3  On  her  own  confession 

1  Chambers's  Encyclopedia.     Art.  "  Theosophy."  2  P.  409. 

8  A  Modern  Priestess  of  I  sis,  pp.  178-181.  Abridged  and  translated 
on  behalf  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  from  the  Russian  of 
V.S.  Solovyoff,  by  Walter  Leaf. 


252  THE  QUESTION 

to  a  Mr  Atsakoff,  written  in  1874,  Madame  Bla vat- 
sky  had  been  a  spiritualist  for  ten  years,  "  and  now," 
she  added,  "  all  my  life  is  devoted  to  the  doctrine." 
She  started  as  a  medium  in  1872  at  Cairo,  and 
until  the  autumn  of  1875  maintained  herself  by 
giving  seances  and  writing  on  Spiritualism.  She 
then  settled  in  New  York,  where  her  mediumistic 
powers  developed  as  "  astral  projections."  She 
gave  sittings  at  the  house  of  a  brace  of  notorious 
mediums,  the  Eddy  Brothers,  where  she  met  with 
the  credulous  Colonel  Olcott,  and,  from  the 
"  Beyond,"  with  the  "  pure  spirit  "  of  that  hardy 
old  rascal,  John  King,  with  whom  we  have  already 
made  acquaintance.  Of  him  she  said  :  "  John  King 
is  a  sufficient  recompense  for  all :  he  is  a  host  in 
himself."  A  temporary  slump  in  Spiritualism  gave 
her  the  chance  of  starting  in  the  occult  business  on 
her  own  account,  and,  in  conjunction  with  Colonel 
Olcott,  she  founded  the  Theosophist  Society  in  New 
York  in  October,  1875.  To  its  rooms  there  came 
other  phantom  visitors  :  John  King  gave  place  to 
Mahatmas  transported  thither  from  their  secret 
mountain  home  in  the  Himalayas  by  means  of  their 
astral  bodies,  for  the  Brothers  could  levitate  distances 
that  David  Dunglas  Home  could  not  approach,  and 
travel  whither  they  chose.  Colonel  Olcott  silenced 
a  sceptic  by  producing  as  conclusive  evidence  a 
turban  which  a  Mahatma  had  left  behind  him. 
The  supernormal  power  of  these  holy  men  was 
further  proven  by  their  possession  of  a  world-ether, 
named  Akaz,  by  which  wonders  were  wrought, 
chiefly  as  the  vehicle  of  letters  from  Tibet  to  Madame 
Blavatsky.  Under  the  title  of  7m  Unveiled  she 


THEOSOPHY-MADAME  BLAVATSKY     253 

gave  to  the  world  in  1877  the  new  science  and  phil- 
osophy of  which  she  elected  herself  High  Priestess, 
declaring,  with  a  modesty  foreign  to  her  nature, 
that  she  was  "  but  the  mouthpiece  of  a  wisdom 
higher  than  her  own  "  ;  the  chosen  medium  of  the 
Mahatmas.  Their  akasic  force  and  other  causes 
led  her  and  Olcott  to  transfer  the  Society's  quarters 
to  India  (first,  in  1878,  to  Bombay  and  next,  in 
1882,  to  Adyar),  where  the  Esoteric  Philosophy  with 
its  fundamental  creed — reincarnation  of  the  Ego  — 
breathed  its  native  air.  At  Adyar  there  was  set  up 
in  the  occult  room  of  the  Theosophic  temple  a  shrine 
which  became  the  scene  of  miracles  of  varying  value. 
It  lacked  the  glory  of  adornment  usually  enriching 
such  sacred  objects  ;  it  was  only  a  wooden  cupboard 
placed  against  the  wall,  having  sliding  panels  hidden 
by  a  mirror  at  the  back  so  that  communications  to 
and  from  the  Mahatmas  could  easily  be  dropped 
into  it.  "  The  more  advanced  initiates  so  string- 
ently enjoined  on  their  fellow-disciples  the  utmost 
reverence  for  the  shrine  that  the  majority  of  the 
native  members  durst  not  approach  it  within  some 
feet,  and  the  Europeans  respected  its  sanctity  by 
avoiding  all  sacrilegious  handling  of  it."  l  With  the 
aid  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Coulomb,  chosen  by 
the  Priestess  as  confederates  in  knavery,  many 
wonders  were  wrought,  largely  through  the  akasic 
force.  A  General  Morgan  testified  to  a  miracle. 
On  visiting  the  headquarters  to  see  a  painting  of  the 
Mahatma  Koot  Homi,  which  was  kept  in  the  shrine, 
he  was  after  some  delay  taken  to  the  "  occult  " 

1  A  full  description  of   the  shrine  is   given  in  the  Rev.   J.   W. 
Farquhar's  Modern  Religious  Movements  in  India,  p.  448.     (1915.) 


254  THE  QUESTION 

room  by  Madame  Coulomb,  the  custodian.  Too 
hurriedly  opening  the  door  of  the  shrine,  she  pre- 
tended that  she  had  failed  to  see  that  a  china  saucer, 
to  which  she  attached  value,  was  near  its  edge,  so 
down  fell  the  saucer,  dashed  to  pieces.  M.  Coulomb 
was  despatched  to  get  cement  to  mend  it ;  the 
debris  was  collected,  tied  in  a  cloth,  and  deposited 
in  the  shrine,  the  door  of  which  was  locked.  The 
General  remarked  to  Mr  Damodar,  the  Joint  Record- 
ing Secretary  of  the  Society,  that  if  the  Mahatmas 
thought  the  saucer  of  importance  they  could  make 
it  whole.  Soon  after  this,  Mr  Damodar,  who  seemed 
to  have  been  in  the  trance  state,  opened  the  door 
of  the  shrine,  and  drew  a  letter  from  the  shelf,  in 
which  was  this  message  : 

"  To  the  small  audience  present,  Madame  Coulomb 
has  occasion  to  assure  herself  that  the  devil  is  neither 
so  black  nor  so  wicked  as  he  is  generally  represented  : 
the  mischief  is  easily  repaired. — K.  H."  (Koot 
Homi.) 

On  uncovering  the  cloth  in  which  the  fragments  had 
been  put,  the  saucer  was  found  whole  and  with  no 
trace  of  any  breakage  upon  it ! 

The  "  miracle  "  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  there 
was  at  hand  a  saucer  to  match  the  broken  one, 
Madame  Coulomb  having  bought  the  pair  at  a  store 
on  the  day  when  the  "  accident  "  occurred. 

After  this  it  is  needless  to  expose  other  Theosophic 
tricks,  but  one  other  shall  be  mentioned.  The 
boards  of  the  wooden  ceilings  of  the  several  rooms 
had  interspaces  through  which  letters  from  the 
loft  above  could  be  dropped.  By  this  means  Mr 


THEOSOPHY-MADAME  BLAVATSKY      255 

Sinnett,  whose  Esoteric  Buddhism  compasses  the 
Theosophic  creed,  was  the  honoured  recipient  of 
an  important  communication  from  Koot  Homi.  All 
the  letters  were  the  handiwork  of  the  Priestess,  her 
writing  being  skilfully  varied. 

Three  years  after  her  death  Mrs  Besant  declared 
that  since  that  event  she  has  "  received  letters  in 
the  same  handwriting  as  the  letters  which  Madame 
Blavatsky  received."  *  Following  on  this,  the  news- 
paper report  adds  "  sensation  "  in  parenthesis. 

In  1884  a  preliminary  investigation  into  theo- 
sophical  phenomena  resulted  in  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  sending  Dr  Hodgson,  who  had 
exposed  Eusapia  Palladino,  to  India  to  look  fully 
into  the  matter.  One  result  of  his  inquiries  was  to 
explain  how  the  "  miracle  "  of  the  saucer  had  been 
worked  ;  and  probably  he  would  have  discovered 
much  more  of  interest  about  the  shrine  but  for  its 
destruction  by  Theosophists  before  his  arrival  on 
the  spot.  His  report  convicted  Madame  Blavatsky 
of  "  a  long  continued  combination  with  other  persons 
to  produce  by  ordinary  means  a  series  of  apparent 
marvels  for  the  support  of  the  Theosophic  move- 
ment," and  concluded  thus  :  "  For  our  own  part  we 
regard  her  neither  as  the  mouthpiece  of  hidden  seers 
nor  as  a  mere  vulgar  adventuress  :  we  think  that 
she  has  achieved  a  title  to  permanent  remembrance 
as  one  of  the  most  accomplished,  ingenious  and 
interesting  impostors  in  history." 

A  year  after  this,  at  her  invitation,  Mr  Solovyoff 

1 1  sis  Very  Much  Unveiled  :  the  Story  of  the  Great  Mahatrna 
Hoax,  p.  24.  By  F.  Edmund  Garrett.  Westminster  Gazette 
Library ,  1894. 


256  THE  QUESTION 

visited  Madame  Blavatsky  at  Wurzburg,  when  she 
poured  scorn  on  her  dupes.  "What  is  one  to  do," 
she  said,  "  when  in  order  to  rule  men  it  is  necessary 
to  deceive  them  ?  ...  for  almost  invariably  the 
more  simple,  the  more  silly,  and  the  more  gross  the 
phenomenon,  the  more  likely  it  is  to  succeed."  Not 
a  hint  of  this  exposure  of  a  woman  who  was  called 
"  the  most  monumental  liar  in  all  history  "  is  to  be 
found  in  Mrs  Besant's  article  already  named.  On 
the  contrary,  in  a  pamphlet  published  in  1907, 
championing  the  impostor,  Mrs  Besant  describes 
her  as  "  passionately  indignant  when  accused  of 
sins  she  loathed  ;  she  was  generous  and  forgiving  to 
a  repentant  foe.  She  had  a  hundred  splendid  virtues 
and  a  few  petty  failings."  The  story  of  Madame 
Blavatsky's  career  is  told  in  A  Modern  Priestess  of 
Isis  and  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  Mr  Podmore's  Studies 
in  Psychical  Research,  and  by  Mr  Farquhar.  She  died 
in  1891,  at  the  age  of  sixty.  Unlike  the  eightfold 
distribution  of  the  ashes  of  Gautama  the  Buddha, 
those  of  the  foundress  of  Esoteric  Buddhism  -were 
divided  into  three  portions,  to  be  distributed  between 
Adyar,  London  and  New  York.  Ultimately,  the 
whole  of  the  sacred  remains  were  brought  to  India, 
where  their  ultimate  disposal  by  Colonel  Olcott  (he 
died  in  1907)  is  not  clear.  But,  like  John  Brown, 
her  "  soul  goes  marching  on"  ;  thousands  of  be- 
lievers in  her  as  an  inspired  teacher  are  found  in  both 
hemispheres ;  the  akasic  force  is  unspent.  The 
one  redeeming  feature  in  the  movement  is  its  pro- 
mulgation of  the  doctrine  of  ethical  evolution  as 
fostering  a  larger  charity  towards  all,  regardless  of 
"  race,  sect  and  class." 


XI 

CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE— MRS    EDDY 

A  GLANCE  at  the  list  of  Sunday  services  in 
London  given  in  the  Saturday  papers  shows 
how  the  movement  known  as  Christian 
Science  has  caught-on  in  this  country.  The  "  revela- 
tion "  on  which  it  is  based  came  to  an  American, 
Mrs  Mary  Baker  Glover  Eddy,  in  1866,  when  she  was 
forty-five.  In  that  year,  she  says,  "  I  discovered  the 
Christ  Science  or  divine  Laws  of  Life,  Truth  and 
Love,  and  named  my  discovery  Christian  Science. 
God  has  been  graciously  preparing  me  during  many 
years  for  the  reception  of  this  final  revelation  of  the 
absolute  divine  Principle  of  scientific  mental  heal- 
ing." l  As  a  girl  she  was  attractive,  high-spirited 
and  sensitive  ;  she  heard  "  Voices  "  when  she  was 
was  eight ;  later  on  she  had  attacks  of  convulsive 
hysteria,  and  fell  into  cataleptic  trances  ;  in  short, 
was  a  confirmed  neurotic.  Her  father  said  :  "Mary 
Magdalene  had  seven  devils,  but  our  Mary  has  ten." 
She  became  obsessed  by  belief  in  animal  magnetism, 
and  when  her  last  husband  died  (she  was  married 
three  times)  she  said  it  was  due  to  "  malicious 
mesmerism,"  which  she  called  "  the  opposite  of 
divine  science."  Bad  health,  aggravated  by 
"  nerves,"  caused  her  to  consult  a  Mr  Quimby,  who 
was  a  homoeopath,  faith-healer  and  crank.  To  his 

1  Science  and  Health,  p.  107. 
R  257 


258  THE  QUESTION 

influence  on  her  may  be  traced  Christian  Science  ; 
in  fact,  he  is  its  real  "  discoverer."  His  theory  was 
that  disease  is  "  false  reasoning,"  and  this  set  her  on 
the  quest  of  her  "  discovery."  A  nerve-shattering 
accident  befell  her  ;  Quimby  came  to  the  rescue, 
but  her  recovery  was  wrought  by  her  reading  the 
story  of  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy,  told  in  the  ninth 
chapter  of  Matthew.  "  Son,"  said  Jesus  to  him, 
"be  of  good  cheer,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee." 
The  doubting  crowd  was  silenced  when  at  the  com- 
mand of  Jesus  the  man  took  up  his  bed  and  walked. 
Such  healing  power  was  in  these  words  that  she  felt 
herself  made  whole,  rose  from  her  bed  and  summoned 
her  friends  to  behold  the  wonder.  How  it  came  about 
she  told  them  she  could  not  fully  understand.  "  I 
could  only  assure  the  physician  who  attended  me 
that  the  divine  Spirit  had  wrought  the  miracle — a 
miracle  which  later  I  found  to  be  in  perfect  Scientific 
accord  with  divine  law."  1  She  needed  no  doctor 
after  that  ;  she  took  to  deep  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures; she  satisfied  herself  that  all  sins  and  dis- 
eases are  subjective  phenomena;  thought  out  her 
subject  and  with  the  aid  of  a  literary  parson,  the 
Rev.  J.  A.  Wiggin,  also  helping  herself  bountifully, 
with  his  consent,  to  materials  from  Quimby's 
manuscripts,  put  her  theory  of  Metaphysical  Heal- 
ing into  shape  and  published  it  under  the  title  of 
Science  and  Health,  with  a  Key  to  the  Scriptures.  It 
is,  in  fact,  the  Bible  of  the  sect.  Gradually  gather- 
ing a  ring  of  disciples — many  of  them  neurotic 
women — she  founded  her  new  religion.  Her 
gospel,  like  that  of  the  mediums,  was  not  "  without 

1  Retrospection  and  Introspection,  p.  38. 


CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE— MRS  EDDY      259 

money  and  without  price."  At  the  start  her  fee  to 
the  novitiates  was  one  hundred  dollars  each,  with  a 
life  annuity  of  ten  per  cent,  on  their  future  earnings. 
Later  on,  "  moved  by  a  strange  providence,"  she 
said,  "  I  was  led  to  name  three  hundred  dollars.  .  .  . 
God  has  since  shown  me  in  multitudinous  ways  the 
wisdom  of  this  decision.*"  l  She  died  very  rich. 

From  an  organisation  called  the  Mother  Church 
has  sprung  offshoots  scattered  "  from  China  to 
Peru,"  or,  more  precisely,  to  Argentina.  A  Board 
of  Education,  of  which  Mrs  Eddy  was  the  President, 
sits  in  Boston,  to  examine  candidates  and  issue 
certificates  to  teachers  of  Christian  Science.  The 
sect  has  no  official  ministers,  but  the  Readers  at  the 
Sunday  services  may  indulge  the  hope  that  in  time 
they  may  secure  promotion  as  Metaphysical  Healers 
or  Mind  Curists,  or  Viticulturists,  or  Magnetic 
Healers,  or  Phrenopathists,  or  Medical  Clairvoyants, 
or  Esoteric  Vibrationists,  or  Psychic  Scientists,  or 
Mesmerists,  or  Occultists.  The  Sunday  services 
commend  themselves  to  quiet -seekers.  The  in- 
terval for  silent  prayer,  the  homely  congregational 
singing  and  the  passages  from  the  Bible,  even  from 
the  fatuous  pages  of  Science  and  Health,  read  alter- 
nately by  the  Readers — a  man  and  a  woman — are 
all  nerve-soothers.  But  the  doctrines,  so  far  as  they 
can  be  gleaned  from  a  mixture  of  metaphysical 
terms  and  commentaries  on  numerous  passages 
from  the  Bible — a  mass  of  "confused  feeding"  — 
appear  to  centre  round  the  problems  of  the  nature 
of  Matter  and  of  Sin.  Matter  is  but  the  subjective 

1  See  ante,  p.  183,  and  Faith  and  Works  of  Christian  Science,  p.  71. 
By  Stephen  Paget. 


260  TIIE  QUESTION 

state  of  what  is  here  called  mortal  mind.  Mind  is 
the  principle  of  the  Universe.  All  disease  is  the 
result  of  education  and  can  carry  its  ill  effects  no 
further  than  mortal  mind  maps  out  the  way.  We 
weep  because  others  weep ;  we  yawn  because  they 
yawn,  and  we  have  small-pox  because  others  have 
it ;  but  mortal  mind,  not  matter,  contains  and 
carries  the  infection.  "  You  say  a  boil  is  painful,  but 
that  is  impossible,  for  matter  without  mind  is  not 
painful.  The  boil  simply  manifests  your  belief  in 
pain.  To  prevent  disease  or  cure  it  mentally  let 
spirit  destroy  the  dream  of  sense.  A  little  girl, 
who  had  occasionally  listened  to  my  explanation, 
wounded  her  finger  badly.  She  seemed  not  to 
notice  it.  On  being  questioned  about  it  she 
answered  ingeniously  :  '  There  is  no  sensation  in 
matter.' '  A  budding  psycho-physiologist ! 

"  Life,  God,  omnipotent  Good,  deny  death,  evil, 
sin,  disease.  Sin  is  error  :  it  is  no  part  of  man's 
true  nature  ;  only  Truth  alone  can  destroy."  1 

Messrs  Lodge  and  Barrett  and  less  prominent 
believers  in  telepathy  may  learn  a  lesson  from  the 
Christian  Scientists  in  their  utilisation  of  that  assumed 
phenomenon.  Thereby  the  afflicted  who  are  absent, 
no  matter  at  what  distance  from  the  appointed 
healers,  can  be  cured.  The  longitude  of  the  various 

1  Science  and  Health,  p.  113. 

I  am  tempted  to  repeat  the  story  of  a  lady  Christian  Scientist  who, 
calling  on  a  sick  neighbour,  was  told  by  the  servant  that  her  mistress 
was  too  ill  to  be  seen.  "  Tell  her,"  said  the  lady,  "  that  her  illness  is 
not  of  the  body  ;  she  think  she's  ill,  and  when  she  leaves  off  thinking 
she'll  be  well.  I'm  going  away  for  a  few  days  and  will  call  again  as 
soon  as  I  am  back.'-5  She  did  this,  and  on  asking  the  servant  how  her 
mistress  was,  the  girl  said  :  "  Well,  ma'm,  she  thinks  she's  dead  !  " 


CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE— MRS  EDDY      261 

soul-communion  time-tables  is  made  known  to  the 
scattered  invalids  (fees  prepaid) ;  then  they  meet 
at  the  given  hour  to  receive  the  telepathic  energies 
which  radiate  from  the  healing  Word.  The  com- 
mand is  :  "  Join  the  Success  Circle.  .  .  .  The 
Centre  of  that  Circle  is  my  omnipotent  WORD.  Its 
vibrations  radiate  more  and  more  powerfully  day  by 
day.  As  the  sun  sends  out  vibrations,  so  my  WORD 
radiates  Success  to  10,000  lives  as  easily  as  to  one." 

Based  on  religion  of  a  sort,  and  appearing  to  throw 
a  new  light  on  old  problems,  denying  the  reality  of 
matter,  of  disease,  suffering  and  sin,  denouncing 
drugs  and  doctors,  and  impudently  asserting  that 
"  obedience  to  the  so-called  physical  laws  of  health 
has  not  checked  sickness,"  and  proclaiming  this  in 
the  name  of  Christian  Science,  there  can  be  little 
wonder  that  many  have  found  in  it  a  balm  more 
soothing  even  than  that  which  the  old  lady  derived 
from  the  blessed  word  "  Mesopotamia."  You  get  a 
cold  in  the  head  and  you  cure  it  "  through  the 
realisation  of  the  omnipresence  of  Love."  Such  is 
the  magic  power  of  Science  and  Health  that  a 
Christian  Science  publication  tells  a  story  of  a  little 
girl  who  read  passages  from  that  book  to  a  lame 
sparrow  till  it  flew  away  ! 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  testimonies  of  heal- 
ing which  form  a  part  of  the  week-night  services  at 
the  various  churches  are  genuine  experiences.  The 
neurotic,  the  hypochondriac,  the  depressed,  the 
sufferer  from  le  malade  imaginaire  —  each  bear 
witness  to  the  cures  wrought  upon  them,  as  they 
honestly  believe,  by  the  mind-medicine  of  Christian 
Science.  But  these  maladies  are  functional,  and 


262  THE  QUESTION 

the  remedy  is  only  another  name  for  rest  cure, 
strengthened  by  exercise  of  what  in  theology  is 
called  faith,  but  which  is  only  another  name  for 
cultivation  of  quietude.  Every  wise  doctor  makes 
use  of  the  power  of  suggestion.  And  it  is  recog- 
nised that,  even  in  cases  of  threatened  organic 
trouble,  brain-mental  influence  has  been  effective 
in  arresting  it.  But  no  developed  organic  diseases, 
no  accidents  needing  surgical  treatment,  have  been, 
nor  can  be,  dealt  with  successfully  by  prayer  and  faith. 
A  broken  leg  is  not  mended  by  the  fatuous  assurance 
given  in  Science  and  Health  that  "  bones  have  only 
the  substance  of  thought  which  formed  them,"  and 
therefore  "  no  breakage  or  dislocation  can  really 
occur,"  and  there  have  been  many  sad  cases  where 
lives  have  been  sacrificed  through  the  sick  person's 
obstinate  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  mind  cure. 


PART  IV 
SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM 


XII 

SCIENCE   AND   SPIRITUALISM 

"  Obscurum  per  obscurius."    Whatever  we  know  nothing  about, 
let  us  make  the  explanation  of  everything  else. 

VAIN  is  the  effort  to  persuade  ourselves  that 
no  bias  or  prepossession  determines  our 
view  of  things  concerning  which  two  opinions 
are  possible.  Impartial  attitude  is  a  delusion, 
especially  when  we  deal  with  the  marvellous ; 
;t  nothing,"  as  Montaigne  says,  "  is  so  firmly  be- 
lieved as  that  which  is  least  known."  Every 
generation,  in  its  own  way,  seeketh  a  sign,  and  the 
spiritualists  believe  that  a  sign  has  been  given ;  that 
the  door  is  opened ;  the  veil  lifted ;  the  silence  of 
the  ages  broken  by  voices  from  the  Beyond. 

With  the  dawn  of  self -consciousness  —the  knowing 
that  he  knows — man  reached  the  plane  where  con- 
ceptions of  himself  as  something  apart  from  his 
surroundings  were  possible  ;  and,  with  this,  hazy 
wonderment  on  his  destiny.  The  lust  of  life, 
the  impulse  of  the  "  glory  of  going  on  and  still  to 
be,"  possessed  and  has  never  left  him  :  while  the 
belief  that  death  is  not  the  end  of  man  had  powerful 
impetus  from  the  dreams  of  the  night  and  the 
shadows  of  things  cast  by  the  day.  On  such  and 
like  unsubstantial  phenomena  the  fabric  of  belief 
in  immortality  has  been  raised  :  a  fabric  built  on 
265 


266  THE  QUESTION 

the  emotions  and,  seemingly,  as  unstable  as  its 
foundations.  Out  of  the  incomprehensible  has 
risen  the  illusive  :  specious  feelings  have  begotten 
the  belief  that  what  is  desired  must  needs  have  ful- 
filment ;  that  "  being  weary  proves  that  man  has 
where  to  rest."  Even  the  poet  from  whom  this  line 
is  quoted,  in  apostrophising  his  dead  father,  must 
needs  speculate  : 

"  0  strong  soul,  by  what  shore 
Tarriest  thou  now  ?     For  that  force 
Surely  has  not  been  left  vain  ! 
Somewhere,  surely,  afar, 
In  the  sounding  labour-house  vast 
Of  being,  is  practised  that  strength, 
Zealous,  beneficent,  firm  !  " * 

It  is  especially  at  stances  that  the  emotions, 
compact  as  they  are  of  fear,  hope  and  wonder, 
and  when  undisciplined,  parents  of  countless  evils, 
have  unchecked  play.  The  attitude  of  the  sitters 
is  receptive,  uncritical ;  exaltation  of  feeling 
strengthens  the  wish  to  believe  ;  the  power  of  sug- 
gestion, whose  continuous  influence  in  social  evolu- 
tion from  a  remote  past  cannot  be  over-estimated,  is 
dominant,  and  the  senses  are  prepared  to  see  and 
hear  what  they  are  told.  As  needful  to-day  as 
when  he  gave  it  more  than  sixty  years  ago  is  Fara- 
day's warning  against  the  "  tendency  to  deceive 
ourselves  regarding  all  we  wish  for,  and  the  necessity 
of  resistance  to  those  desires."  2  As  with  his  fellow- 
conjurer,  sense-deception  is  the  medium's  chief  tool, 
the  attention  and  concentration  of  the  befooled 

1  Rugby  Chapel.     By  Matthew  Arnold. 
3  Science  and  Education,  p.  50. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         267 

onlookers  are  diverted  by  his  patter,  while  dim  light 
or  total  darkness  as  essentials  of  his  trade  effect  the 
rest.  Added  to  these  there  is  the  fatigue  which  in 
time  overcomes  the  power  of  the  sense-organs  to 
report  truly.  Surely  one  can  trust  one's  senses  :  we 
say,  seeing  is  believing  ;  whereas  the  story  of  man's 
advance  is  the  story  of  his  escape  from  the  illusions 
of  the  senses,  especially  when  they  stimulate  a 
dominant  idea  or  obsession.  If  we  believed  what 
we  saw,  we  should  hold  to  the  error  that  the  earth  is 
flat  and  that  the  sun  revolves  round  it.  We  still 
talk  of  sunrises  and  sunsets. 

And  there  is  no  safety,  only  peril,  in  numbers ; 
the  medium  can  more  easily  hypnotise  or  hallucin- 
ate a  circle.  In  their  inquiry  into  Mesmer's  methods 
the  Committee  laid  stress  on  the  fact  that  perform- 
ances in  which  excitement  and  contagion  have  full 
play  are  more  successful  than  private  ones.  There 
is  active  what  M.  Gustave  le  Bon  calls  "  the 
psychological  law  of  the  mental  unity  of  crowds," 
as  manifest,  for  example,  in  the  recurring  epidemic 
mental  disorders  of  history,  from,  to  name  no  earlier 
one,  the  choroeamania  or  the  dancing  hysterics  of 
the  fourteenth  century  to  the  religious  revivals  of 
our  own  time. 

Concerning  the  amazingly  clever  Davey,  who  so 
deceived  the  very  elect  as  to  obtain  from  them 
certificates  as  to  the  supernormal  character  of  his 
tricks,  "  the  feature  is  not,"  says  a  writer  quoted  by 
M.  le  Bon,  "  the  marvellousness  of  the  tricks  them- 
selves, but  the  extreme  weakness  of  the  reports  made 
with  respect  to  them  by  the  non-initiated  witnesses. 
It  is  clear  that  witnesses  even  in  number  may  give 


268  THE  QUESTION 

circumstantial  relations  which  are  completely 
erroneous,  but  whose  result  is  that,  if  their  descrip- 
tions are  accepted  as  exact,  the  phenomena  which 
they  describe  are  inexplicable  by  trickery."  x 

So  long  as  man  lives  on  this  planet  he  will  be 
hoaxed  and  hocussed.  The  clever  shoemaker  who, 
posing  in  uniform  as  Captain  of  Kopenick,  walked 
into  the  Rathaus,  told  the  burgomaster  that  he  was 
dismissed  and  frightened  him  into  surrendering  the 
municipal  cash-box,  made  the  world  laugh  at  the 
befooled  German ;  but  the  laugh  was  turned  against 
us  when  the  story  of  the  arrival  of  150,000  Russian 
soldiers  in  France  via  England  had  general  credence ; 
in  fact,  there  are  people  who  still  believe  it.  Nor  is 
expert  knowledge,  as  foregoing  examples  of  be- 
fooled men  of  science  have  shown,  any  security 
against  deception.  Shrewd  Thomas  Hobbes  of 
Malmesbury — himself  a  timid  man — says  in  his 
Leviathan,  "  the  most  part  of  men,  though  they  have 
the  use  of  Reasoning  a  little  way,  as  in  numbering 
to  some  degree,  yet  it  serves  them  to  little  use  in 
common  life  in  which  they  govern  themselves,  some 
better,  some  worse,  according  to  their  differences  of 
experience,  quickness  of  memory  and  inclinations 
to  severall  ends."  2  Parallel  with  this  is  Herbert 
Spencer's  remark  that  "  men  are  rational  beings  in 
but  a  very  limited  sense,  that  conduct  results  from 
desire,"  3  and  a  similar  comment  by  Dr  Henry 
Maudsley  that  "  it  is  a  plausible  but  quite  false  pre- 

1  '•'  Annales  de  Science  Psychique."  The  Crowd;  p.  49.  By  G.  le 
Bon. 

*  Leviathan,  Part  I.,  chapter  v.,  p.  31.  (Oxford,  1881.  Reprint 
of  the  first  edition.)  *  Autobiography.  Vol.  ii.,  p.  366. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         269 

sumption  that  mankind  in  general  act  on  rational 
principles."  l  The  tendency  in  each  one  of  us  is  to 
travel  along  the  line  of  least  resistance  ;  the  appar- 
ent solution  of  a  problem,  especially  when  the  prob- 
lem deals  with  matters  of  gravity,  is  welcomed,  as 
relief  from  the  labour  of  thinking  and  from  the  pain 
of  new  ideas.  As  Giordano  Bruno  said :  "  Ignor- 
ance is  the  finest  science  in  the  world,  because  it  is 
acquired  without  labour  and  pains  and  keeps  the 
mind  free  from  melancholy."  2 

Hence,  to  quote  the  late  Professor  William  James : 
"  Our  faith  is  faith  in  someone  else's  faith,  and 
in  the  greatest  matters  this  is  most  the  case." 
Apposite  to  this  are  the  lines  which  Henry  Sidgwick 
composed  in  his  sleep,  or  at  least  awoke  thinking  of  : 

"  We  think  so,  because,  other  people  all  think  so, 
Or  because — or  because,  after  all,  we  do  think  so  ; 
Or  because  we  were  told  so,  and  think  we  must  think  so. 
Or  because  we  once  thought  so  and  think  we  still  think  so  ; 
Or  because,  having  thought  so,  we  think  we  will  think  so."  3 

A  stock  argument  of  the  easy-going  believers  in 
Spiritualism  is  :  How  can  we  deny  the  genuineness 
of  the  phenomena,  from  raps  to  messages  through 
"  controls,"  when  some  eminent  and  learned  men 
declare  their  belief  in  them  ?  Writing  to  my  wife, 
the  distinguished  author,  Eden  Phillpotts,  remarks : 
"  At  Birmingham  the  attitude  towards  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  is  rather  amazing.  He  seems  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  intellectual  giant  at  the  University, 
which  I  visited.  A  railway  foreman  with  whom  I 

1  Natural  Causes  and  Supernatural  Seemings,  p.  65. 
1  Giordano  Bruno.     By  W.  Boulton. 
*  Henry  Sidgwick  :  a  Memoir,  p.  124. 


270  THE  QUESTION 

had  a  talk  argued  thus  about  Sir  Oliver.  He 
admitted  that  his  ideas  and  opinions  were  remark- 
able, but,  he  said,  c  he's  a  great  man  and  wise  and 
learned,  so  who  are  we  uneducated,  common  men 
that  we  should  think  we  know  better  than  him  ?  ' 
The  foreman  spoke  for  the  multitude  who  do  not 
and  cannot  discriminate  :  they  assume  that  the  man 
who  can  speak  with  unchallenged  authority  on  the 
subject  of  which  he  is  master  is  entitled  to  speak 
with  the  same  authority  of  anything  and  everything 
else.  "  When,"  says  Hobbes,  "  a  man  cannot  assure 
himself  of  the  true  causes  of  things,  he  supposes 
causes  of  them,  or  trusteth  to  the  Authority  of  other 
men,  such  as  he  thinks  to  be  his  friends  and  wiser 
than  himself." 1  An  expert  in  physics  may  be 
ignorant  of  biology  and  psychology  ;  he  may  never 
have  read  a  book  on  anthropology  and  hence  re- 
mained ignorant  of  the  invaluable  material  bearing 
on  the  history  of  Spiritualism  in  such  classics  as 
Primitive  Culture  and  The  Golden  Bough,  wherein  are 
supplied  antiseptics  to  Spiritualism.  The  physicist 
and  the  mathematician  are  not  competent  witnesses 
to  the  truth  or  falsity  of  what  lies  outside  their 
province.  They  deal  with  what  is  exact,  definite, 
and  in  unvarying  relation,  which  begets  in  them  a 
serious  limitation.  On  the  contrary,  the  biologist 
and  psychologist,  whose  concern  is  with  living 
things,  are  confronted  with  variations  and  excep- 
tions which  cannot  be  confined  within  any  formula. 
Something  to  check  any  cocksureness  is  always 
manifesting  itself  in  the  phenomena  which  they 
investigate. 

1  Leviathan,  Part  I.,  chapter  xii.,  p.  79. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM          271 

Herein  may  be  found  a  key  to  the  fact  that,  with 
the  exception  of  the  late  Dr  A.  R.  Wallace,  who,  as 
a  young  man,  believed  that  "  electro-biology  "  was 
a  supernormal  phenomenon,  it  is  mostly  from 
physicists  that  Spiritualism  derives  support.  What 
little  trust  in  the  value  of  their  testimony  is  war- 
ranted is  seen  in  the  deceptions  to  which  they  have 
fallen  willing  victims.  To  cull  only  three  examples, 
take  Sir  William  Crookes,  with  his  reiteration  of 
belief  in  Florence  Cook  as  a  medium  of  the  material- 
isation of  spirits,  after  her  detection  in  fraud  :  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  in  his  belief,  after  witnessing  them,  in 
the  genuineness  of  the  performances  of  Eusapia 
Palladino,  and  the  admission  afterwards  that  he 
had  been  befooled  :  and  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  asserting 
his  conviction  that  the  dowser  discovers  the  pres- 
ence of  water  by  "the  faculty  of  clairvoyance" 
and  possession  of  a  "  supersensuous  perceptive 
power."  x  And  this  last-named  deliverance  in  the 
teeth  of  an  adverse  Report  of  a  Committee  of 
Engineers  and  Surveyors  appointed  to  examine  into 
this  alleged  power  2  :  '  Whatever  sensitiveness  to 
underground  water  may  exist  in  certain  persons,  of 
which  some  evidence  has  been  given,  it  is  not 
sufficiently  definite  and  trustworthy  to  be  of  much 
practical  value.  The  diviners,  as  a  rule,  confine 
their  attention  to  small  streams  of  water,  and  as 
there  are  few  places  where  these  cannot  be  found, 

1  Psychical  Research,  p.  183.  "I  believe  all  true  clairvoyance  to 
be  spirit  impression  and  that  all  true  dowsing  is  the  same." — A.  R. 
Wallace  to  Professor  Barrett :  Letters  and  Reminiscences  of  A.  R. 
Wallace.  Vol.  ii.,  p.  208. 

a  The  Sanitary  Record  and  Municipal  Engineering,  2nd  May  1913 
p.  466. 


272  THE  QUESTION 

they  may  well  show  a  large  percentage  of  success. 
This  confirms  the  conclusion  given  in  a  paper  by 
Mr  T.  V.  Holmes  in  the  Journal  of  the  Anthropo- 
logical Institute,  November,  1897,  written  in  answer 
to  a  paper  on  "  Water  Divining,"  contributed  by 
Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  to  the  XXXIInd  Part  of  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 
Mr  Holmes  says  :  "  As  to  the  nature  of  the  personal 
peculiarities  of  those  in  whose  hands  the  rod  turns 
violently,  I  will  only  add  that  they  probably  re- 
semble in  nervous  organisation  those  who  become 
intensely  excited  at  religious  meetings.  The 
amateur  diviner  appears  to  be  influenced  solely  by 
his  inner  sensations  :  the  professional  by  his  inner 
sensations  together  with  his  practical  knowledge 
of  water-bearing  surface-beds.  Both  unite  in  the 
erroneous  belief  that  underground  water  exists  (in 
water-bearing  beds)  concentrated  at  certain  spots 
and  absent  a  few  feet  away.  Consequently,  the 
facts  as  to  the  distribution  of  underground  water 
seem  to  be  fatal  to  the  notions  that  the  diviner's 
sensations,  whatever  their  origin,  are  caused  by  the 
peculiar  nearness  of  water  at  the  points  where  they 
are  specially  felt,  or  that  he  possesses  any  peculiar 
abnormal  faculty  for  its  discovery."  1 

The  reader  will  judge  for  himself  in  what  degree 
the  authority  of  these  eminent  physicists,  in  their 
assertions  of  belief  in  graver  matters  where 
mechanical  tests  fail  us,  is  impaired  by  these 
examples. 

On  one  of  the  rare  occasions  when  that  champion 
trickster  and  acutest  of  women,  Madame  Blavatsky, 

IP.  254. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         273 

spoke  the  truth,  she  said  :  "  I  have  not  met  with 
more  than  two  or  three  men  who  knew  how  to 
observe  and  see  and  remark  on  what  was  going  on 
around  them.  It  is  simply  amazing !  At  least 
nine  out  of  every  ten  people  are  entirely  devoid 
of  the  capacity  of  observation  and  of  the  power  of 
remembering  accurately  what  took  place  even  a  few 
hours  before.  How  often  it  has  happened  that, 
under  my  direction  and  revision,  minutes  of  various 
occurrences  and  phenomena  have  been  drawn  up  ; 
lo,  the  most  innocent  and  conscientious  people,  even 
sceptics,  even  those  who  actually  suspected  me, 
have  signed  en  toutes  lettres  as  witnesses  at  the  foot 
of  the  minutes  !  And  all  the  time  I  knew  that  what 
had  happened  was  not  in  the  least  what  was  stated 
in  the  minutes."  l 

Adverse  comment  continues  to  be  made  on 
the  aloofness  of  attitude  of  the  larger  number 
of  scientists  towards  Spiritualism.  In  Modern 
Spiritualism  the  late  Frank  Podmore  criticised 
with  some  asperity  their  refusal  to  take  the  thing 
seriously.2 

Science  knows  no  finality.  As  M.  Duclaux  finely 
said  :  "  Because  science  is  sure  of  nothing,  it  is 
always  advancing."  If  telepathy  can  be  proved ; 
if  the  "  hitherto  unknown  force  "  which  Sir  William 
Crookes  assumed  as  the  only  explanation  of  Home's 
levitation  and  fire  ordeals  can  be  demonstrated  to 
exist ;  science  will  welcome  it  as  a  further  unveiling 
of  the  arcana  of  nature.  Up  to  the  present  no  such 

1  A  Modern  Priestess  oj  I  sis,  p.  156.  By  V.  S.  Solovyoff.  Trans- 
lated by  Walter  Leaf.  ( 1 895 . ) 

1  Modern  Spiritualism.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  145. 
s 


274  THE  QUESTION 

verification  has  come,  and  investigation,  thus  far, 
warrants  no  invocation  of  the  supernormal  to 
explain  so-called  "  spiritual  "  phenomena.  It  is,  as 
Hobbes  wrote  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago  : 
66  Ignorance  of  naturall  causes  disposeth  a  man  to 
Credulity,  so  as  to  believe  many  times  impossi- 
bilities :  For  such  know  nothing  to  the  contrary, 
but  that  they  may  be  true,  being  unable  to  detect 
the  impossibility.  And  Credulity,  because  men 
loved  to  be  hearkened  unto  in  company,  disposeth 
them  to  lying,  so  that  Ignorance  itself,  without 
Malice,  is  able  to  make  a  man  both  to  believe  lyes 
and  tell  them :  and  sometimes  also  to  invent 
them."  x 

But  what  are  the  facts  ?  The  table-turning 
mania  spread  to  this  country  in  1853,  and  the  hold 
which  it  had  on  the  public  mind,  especially  when 
attributed  to  spiritual  agency,  caused  both  profes- 
sional and  scientific  men  to  investigate  the  pheno- 
menon. Amongst  the  latter  Faraday  took  the 
leading  part  in  an  inquiry,  the  outcome  of  which 
was  the  conviction  that  the  movements  were  due 
to  unconscious  muscular  action  of  the  hands  upon 
the  table.  To  prove  this,  he  devised  a  very  simple 
apparatus  in  the  shape  of  two  sheets  of  mill-board, 
between  which  he  placed  two  glass  rollers  and 
fastened  the  whole  with  two  elastic  bands,  an  index- 
pointer  being  fixed  to  the  apparatus  to  indicate 
whether  the  upper  board  moved  on  the  lower  one  — 
i.e.  whether  there  was  pressure  towards  one  side  or 
the  other.  The  upper  board  was  freely  movable 
upon  the  rods  when  the  tips  of  the  fingers  of  one  or 

1  Leviathan,  Part  I.,  chap,  ii.,  p.  77. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         275 

both  hands  were  placed  lightly  on  it.  "  Such  a 
'  planchette  '  (as  it  was  subsequently  termed)  was 
placed  on  the  table  beneath  the  fingers  of  each 
operator  in  a  '  table-turning  '  experiment,  and  it 
was  found  that  whereas  in  previous  experiments 
without  a  planchette  the  table  had  been  made  to 
move  by  the  hands  lightly  resting  on  it,  now  there 
was  no  movement  of  the  table  but  a  slight  forward 
displacement,  more  or  less  conspicuous,  of  the  upper 
board  of  the  planchette  as  it  moved  on  its  glass 
rollers  under  the  gentle  pressure  of  the  operators' 
fingers.  In  this  way  Faraday  showed  that  it  was 
possible  for  honest  experimenters  to  apply  uncon- 
sciously a  slight  push  to  the  table,  and  so  for  their 
united  unconscious  efforts  to  cause  it  to  move  or 
turn  in  a  manner  which  was  to  them  mysterious 
and  supernatural,  whereas  when  their  fingers  were 
separated  from  the  table  by  the  mobile  planchette, 
the  '  push  '  in  each  case  merely  caused  the  upper 
board  of  that  little  intermediary  to  move  instead  of 
acting  upon  the  table  itself."  1  Complete  proof  of 
unconscious  muscular  action  was  supplied  by  the 
fact  that  when  the  sitters  understood  the  purpose 
of  the  apparatus  and  kept  their  attention  on  it,  no 
movement  followed  ;  when  they  looked  away  from 
it,  it  wobbled,  though  they  believed  that  they  kept 
it  in  position. 

In  his  lecture  on  "Mental  Education,"  Faraday 
says  :  "A  universal  objection  was  made  to  it  by  the 
table  turners.  It  was  said  to  paralyse  the  powers  of  the 
mind  — but  the  experimenters  need  not  see  the  index, 
they  may  leave  their  friends  to  watch  that  and  their 

1  Science  and  Education,  p.  69. 


276  THE  QUESTION 

minds  may  revel  in  any  power  that  their  expectation 
or  their  imagination  can  confer.  So  restrained,  a 
dislike  to  the  trial  arises,  but  what  is  that  except  a 
proof  that  whilst  they  trust  themselves  they  doubt 
themselves,  and  are  not  willing  to  proceed  to  the 
decision,  lest  the  trust  which  they  like  should  fail 
them,  and  the  doubt  which  they  dislike  rise  to  the 
authority  of  truth."  l 

Sir  Ray  Lankester  adds  that  "By  the  irony  of 
human  fate,  Faraday's  detective  '  planchette  '  was 
subsequently  fitted  with  a  pencil  and  used  by 
4  occultists  '  to  obtain  writing  caused  by  the  uncon- 
scious, though  sometimes  conscious,  direction  of  its 
movements  by  the  hands  of  an  inquirer  lightly 
laid  on  it.  Such  writing  was  interpreted  by  the 
6  occultists  '  as  '  messages  from  the  spirit  world.' 
On  the  other  hand,  '  planchette-writing '  and  similar 
experimental  methods  offer  to  the  psychologist  a 
valuable  means  of  exploring  the  directive  move- 
ments given  unconsciously  to  the  muscles  of  the 
body  by  the  brain  in  many  persons  when  thus 
subjected  to  properly  guarded  and  well-devised 
experiment." 2  The  "  planchette "  is  still  taken 
seriously  by  spiritualists.  Mr  J.  A.  Hill,  while 
admitting  that  no  success  attended  his  experiments 
with  it,  discusses  its  possibilities  as  to  supernormal 
results.3 

After  the  action  brought  by  the  widow  Lyon 
against  Home,  in  1868,  it  transpired  that  Faraday 
had  accepted  an  invitation  from  the  defendant  to  a 
seance,  but  that  Faraday  had  imposed  conditions  of 

1  Science  and  Education,  p.  51.  2  Ibid.,  p.  69. 

8  Psychical  Investigations,  p.  221. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM          277 

investigation  which  Home  would  not  accept.  Little 
wonder  therefore  that,  choosing  his  own  terms,  he 
was  never  detected  by  his  dupes. 

In  1864  Tyndall  was  present  at  a  seance  at  the 
house  of  Mr  Newton  Crosland,  a  prominent  spiritual- 
ist. He  tells  the  result  in  his  Fragments  of  Science  : 
"  Nothing  occurred  which  could  not  have  been 
effected  by  fraud  or  accident."  l  In  January,  1874, 
Darwin  went  to  a  stance  at  the  house  of  his  brother 
Erasmus,  Mr  (afterwards  Sir  Francis)  Galton,  G.  H. 
Lewes  and  "  George  Eliot "  being  also  present. 
The  notorious  Williams  was  the  medium.  After 
describing  the  "  fun  in  the  dark,  chairs,  flutes,  bells 
and  candlesticks  flying  about,"  Darwin  concludes  : 
"  The  Lord  have  mercy  on  us  all,  if  we  have  to 
believe  such  rubbish  "  2  (see  ante,  p.  123).  Huxley 
attended  "  a  carefully  arranged  seance  "  at  the  same 
house.  A  full  report  of  this  is  given  in  the  Life  and 
Letters  3  :  "  My  conclusion  is  that  Mr  X  is  a  cheat 
and  an  impostor."  Huxley  had  already  been  present 
at  several  seances  at  the  house  of  his  brother  George 
as  early  as  1852,  given  by  Mrs  Hayden,  the  first 
medium  imported  from  America ;  also  at  the  houses 
of  various  friends,  meeting  mediums  "  by  whom  he 
was  most  unfavourably  impressed."  Hence  his 
justification,  after  such  sifting  of  the  matter,  for 
declining  to  join  a  committee  of  investigation  pro- 
moted by  the  London  Dialectical  Society  in  1869. 
"  If  anybody  would  endow  me  with  the  faculty  of 
listening  to  the  chatter  of  old  women  and  curates  in 
the  nearest  cathedral  town,  I  should  decline  the 

1  Pp.  314-322.  *  Life  and  Letters.     Vol.  iii.,  p.  187. 

1  Vol.  i.,  pp.  419,  420. 


278  THE  QUESTION 

business,  having  better  things  to  do.  And  if  the 
folk  in  the  spiritual  world  do  not  talk  more  wisely 
and  sensibly  than  their  friends  report  them  to  do, 
I  put  them  in  the  same  category.  The  only  good 
that  I  can  see  in  the  demonstration  of  the  truth  of 
Spiritualism  is  to  furnish  an  additional  argument 
against  suicide.  Better  live  a  crossing-sweeper 
than  die  and  be  made  to  talk  twaddle  by  a  medium 
hired  at  a  guinea  a  seance."  l  At  a  sitting  with  Mr 
Vout  Peters,  held  on  3rd  March  1916,  Mr  J.  A.  Hill 
says  there  came  this  message,  apparently  from 
Raymond  Lodge,  through  "  Moonstone "  :  "I 
have  come  into  touch  with  Huxley."  Then  Moon- 
stone says :  "  Who's  the  old  man  got  funny 
whiskers  ?  Square  forehead,  hair  caught  away 
here  (indicating  temples),  nose  full,  clean-shaven 
lips,  upper  lip  hangs  over,  scientific,  cold.  Not  a 
man  you  would  tell  your  heart  troubles  to.  Very 
clever.  Cold,  scientific  aspect.  (It  is  fairly  certain 
that  this  is  meant  for  Huxley ;  the  description  is 
good,  though  the  coldness — a  popular  view — is  prob- 
ably exaggerated.)  "  The  words  in  parentheses  are 
Mr  Hill's  comment.  Huxley  seems  to  have  escaped 
talking  the  "  twaddle  "  which  he  dreaded.  But  we 
ask  with  Geronte  in  Moliere's  Fourberies  de  Scapin, 
"  Que  diable  allait-il  faire  dans  cette  galere  ?  v 

1  Speaking  of  a  certain  member  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society, 
he  said  :  "  He  is  one  of  the  people  who  talk  of  the  'possibility  '  of 
the  thing,  who  think  the  difficulty  of  disproving  a  thing  as  good  as 
direct  evidence  in  its  favour. •' — Life  and  Letters.  Vol.  ii.,  p.  425. 

"  As  finite  added  to  finite  never  approaches  a  hair's-breadth  nearer 
to  infinite  ;  so  a  fact  incredible  in  itself  acquires  not  the  smallest 
accession  of  probability  by  the  accumulation  of  testimony. " — 
Burton's  Life  and  Letters  of  David  Hume.  Vol.  i.,  p.  480. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM          279 

In  Mrs  Piper's  trances  "  some  few  of  the  persons 
mentioned  were  obviously  dream-creations.  For 
example,  an  Adam  Bede  as  well  as  a  George  Eliot x 
are  alluded  to  as  real  individuals  on  the  other  side  1 
The  controls  through  wliom  Mr  Hill  receives  com- 
munications appear  to  be  a  spiritual  democracy  : 
at  least  they  reach  a  low  plane  in  one  who  says  : 
"Now,  I'm  only  an  uneducated  man— I'm  owd 
Billy — and  I  can  only  talk  Lancashire  dialect,  an' 
tha  mayn't  understand  it."  (In  the  flesh  he  was 
Billy  Matthews.)  Billy  adds  that  he  has  seen  Richard 
Hodgson,  who  says  to  him,  "  I've  brought  my  old 
friend,  Henry  Sidgwick,  with  me."  2 

Lord  Kelvin,  whose  attitude  towards  belief  in  the 
supernatural  was  sympathetic,  said  that  fraud  or 
bad  observation  explained  belief  in  Spiritualism. 
Professor  Clifford,  after  examination  into  the 
genuineness  of  the  phenomena,  put  his  conclusion 
with  brevity  :  "  The  universe  is  made  up  of  matter 
and  motion,  and  there's  no  room  for  ghosts."  More 
weighty,  because  of  his  position  as  the  first  President 
of  the  American  Branch  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  is  the  deliverance  of  the  late  distinguished 
astronomer,  Simon  Newcomb.  "  Nothing,"  he 
said,  "  has  been  brought  out  by  the  research  of  that 
Society  and  its  able  collaborators  except  what  we 
should  expect  to  find  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
nature." 3  Mr  Podmore  says  that  in  the  fifteen  years 
which  have  elapsed  since,  in  1882,  Professor  Henry 
Sidgwick,  in  his  Address  to  the  Society  for  Psychical 

1  Psychical  Investigations,  p.  208.     By  J.  A.  Hill. 

1  Ibid.,  p.  145. 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  January,  1909,  p.  139. 


280  THE  QUESTION 

Research,  felt  warranted  in  assuming  that  a  mass 
of  evidence  to  justify  impartial  examination  would 
be  forthcoming,  the  hope  has  not  been  realised. 
"  While  few  opportunities  have  been  afforded  to  the 
Society's  representatives  for  continuous  investiga- 
tion of  any  sort,  no  positive  results  have  been 
obtained  worthy  of  record.  All  spiritualist  mani- 
festations appear  indeed  to  have  become  less 
frequent,  not  only  in  private  circles,  but  with  pro- 
fessional mediums.  The  Spiritualist  papers  no 
longer  teem  with  records  of  marvellous  seances. 
There  has  been  little  to  encourage  the  Society 
to  investigate  the  performances  of  professional 
mediums." x  Its  main  service  has  been,  as  Mr 
Haynes  says,  "  to  extend  the  region  of  experimental 
psychology,"  *  and  to  make  evident  that  the  mind 
is  of  far  more  complex  nature  than  had  been 
suspected. 

Save  in  raps  and  in  table-tiltings  and  leapings,  the 
decline  in  the  presentment  of  the  physical  group  of 
phenomena  is  continuous,  and  there  is  even  a  slump 
in  materialisation  and  spirit  photographs.  Evi- 
dence, if  it  deserves  the  name,  centres  more  upon 
communications  from  the  departed  through  a  con- 
trol. The  change  is  one  for  which  spiritualists  are 
coy  at  giving  an  explanation. 

No  eminent  man  of  science  since  Huxley  has  dwelt 
more  insistently  on  the  limitation  of  human 
faculties  and  on  the  insoluble  eternal  problem  of 
the  Why,  the  Whence,  and  the  Whither  than  Sir 

1  Studies  in  Psychical  Research^  p.  83. 

8  The  Belief  in  Personal  Immortality^.  108 .  An  admirable  treatise, 
compendious  and  adequate. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         281 

Ray  Lankester.  In  an  essay  on  "  Science  and  the 
Unknown,"  he  demands  that  all  the  reputed  marvels 
of  Spiritualism  shall  be  brought  before  the  bar  of 
science  for  examination  and  testing. 

"  Lovers  of  science  have  never  been  unwilling  to 
investigate  such  marvels  if  fairly  and  squarely 
brought  before  them.  In  the  very  few  cases  which 
have  been  submitted  in  this  way  to  scientific 
examination,  the  marvel  has  been  shown  to  be 
either  childish  fraud  or  a  mere  conjurer's  trick,  or 
else  the  facts  adduced  in  evidence  have  proved  to 
be  entirely  insufficient  to  support  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  anything  unusual  at  work  or  beyond 
the  experience  of  scientific  investigators.  It  is  un- 
fortunately true  that  most  persons  are  quite  unpre- 
pared to  admit  the  deficiencies  of  their  own  powers 
of  observation  and  memory,  and  are  also  unaware 
of  their  own  ignorance  of  perfectly  natural  occur- 
rences which  continually  lead  to  self-deception  and 
illusion.  Moreover,  the  capacity  for  logical  infer- 
ence and  argument  is  not  common.  The  whole 
past  and  present  history  of  what  is  called  "  the 
occult "  is  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  of  self- 
deception  and  of  readiness  to  be  deceived  by 
others  to  which  misplaced  confidence  in  their 
own  cleverness  and  power  of  detecting  trickery 
renders  many— one  may  almost  say  most— people 
victims."  1 

Sir  H.  B.  Donkin  has  had  considerable  experience 
of  many  mediums,  and  speaks  with  the  authority  of 
a  mental  pathologist  of  the  first  rank  when,  as 
already  cited,  he  contends  that  the  demonstrative 

1  Diversions  of  a  Naturalist,  p.  364. 


282  THE  QUESTION 

value  claimed  for  the  conclusions  in  Raymond  as 
proved  "  rests  upon  nothing  but  assertion." 

This  is  cogently  emphasised  by  the  eminent 
neuropathologist,  Dr  Charles  Mercier,  in  an  article  on 
"  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  the  Scientific  World  "  in  the 
Hibbert  Journal  of  July,  1917.  He  says  that  "  it  is 
not  for  the  scientific  world,  or  for  anyone  else,  to 
disprove  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  assertions,  his  doctrines, 
his  interpretations,  or  his  facts.  The  onus  is  on 
him  to  prove  them.  He  is  to  bring  forward  evidence 
of  fact,  not  of  interpretation  of  fact ;  and  if  he  asks 
us  to  accept  his  interpretations,  they  must  be  of  such 
a  nature  that  no  other  interpretation  can  be  placed  upon 
the  fact.  As  long  as  his  facts  are  susceptible  of  in- 
terpretation by  the  operation  of  natural  laws,  he 
has  no  right  to  ask  us  to  follow  him  in  supposing 
that  they  are  supernatural.  As  long  as  he  offers  us 
interpretation  of  fact  in  the  place  of  fact,  he  is  not 
entitled  even  to  a  hearing.  As  long  as  his  facts  are 
observed  only  by  himself  or  by  those  who  have 
already  avowed  their  desire  to  interpret  them  in  a 
certain  way,  he  has  no  right  to  ask  us  to  accept 
them  as  indisputable."  l 

This  irrefragable  argument  was  anticipated  by 
Faraday.  He  says  "  that  the  asserter  of  any  new 
thing  has  no  right  to  claim  an  answer  in  the  form  of 
Yes  or  No,  or  think,  because  none  is  forthcoming, 
that  he  is  to  be  considered  as  having  established  his 
assertion.  So  much  is  unknown  to  the  wisest  man 
that  he  may  often  be  without  an  answer ;  as  fre- 
quently he  is  so,  because  the  subject  is  in  the  region 

1  P.  613.  And  see  DrMercier's  Spiritualism  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge , 
PP-  59,  131- 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM          283 

of  hypothesis,  and  not  of  facts.  In  either  case  he 
has  the  right  to  refuse  to  speak.  I  cannot  tell 
whether  there  are  two  fluids  of  electricity  or  any 
fluid  at  all.  I  am  not  bound  to  explain  how  a  table 
tilts  any  more  than  to  indicate  how,  under  the  con- 
jurer's hands,  a  pudding  appears  in  a  hat.  The 
means  are  not  known  to  me.  I  am  persuaded  that 
the  results,  however  strange  they  may  appear,  are 
in  accordance  with  that  which  is  truly  known,  and, 
if  carefully  investigated,  would  justify  the  well-tried 
laws  of  nature.  .  .  .  Let  those  who  affirm  the 
exception  to  the  general  laws  of  nature,  or  those 
others  who,  upon  the  affirmation  accept  the  result, 
work  out  the  experimental  proof."  x 

If  justification  of  the  attitude  of  men  who  have 
"  no  axe  of  their  own  to  grind  "  were  necessary, 
this  can  be  found  in  the  following  testimony  of  the 
well-known  "  Thought-reader,"  Mr  Stuart  Cumber- 
land. It  is  quoted  from  an  article  which  he  con- 
tributed to  The  Daily  Mail  of  the  5th  January  1917. 
After  recounting  his  experiences  at  home  he  says  : 
"  I  shortly  afterwards  went  to  the  West,  followed 
by  a  visit  to  the  East,  in  pursuit  of  my  investiga- 
tions, hoping  upon  hope  that  I  should  eventually 
find  some  genuine  instance  of  occult  manifestation. 
I  heard  much  about  the  alleged  miraculous  from 
people  whose  honesty  of  purpose  was  beyond 
question  and  whose  veracity  was  above  suspicion, 
and  I  saw  much  to  which  an  occult  origin  was 
attached,  but  the  assumed  occultism  of  which 
proved,  on  the  one  hand,  to  be  the  outcome  of 
highly  strung  expectation  or  false  sensorial  impres- 

1  Science  and  Education,  pp.  6 1,  62. 


284  THE  QUESTION 

sions  or,  on  the  other,  to  be  the  result  of  skilfully 
applied  chicanery. 

"  In  a  word,  I  have  never  yet  in  any  land  or  with 
any  medium  or  adept  discovered  any  alleged  occult 
manifestation  that  was  not  explicable  upon  a 
perfectly  natural  basis  and  which  in  the  majority 
of  instances  could  not  be  humanly  duplicated 
under  precisely  similar  conditions.  This,  as  the 
true  believer  would  say,  has  been  my  misfortune. 
But  there  it  is.  So  inherent  is  this  hankering  after 
the  supernatural  in  human  nature  that  many  would 
much  rather  seek  for  a  supernatural  than  a  natural 
explanation  of  what  may  seem  mysterious  or  out  of 
the  way  to  them. 

"It  is  just  this  longing  in  human  nature  upon 
which  these  professional  psychic  frauds  are  preying 
to-day. 

"  To-day,  with  its  heavy  death  toll  and  fateful 
uncertainty  so  closely  affecting  every  section  of  the 
community,  is  indeed  the  moment  for  the  practi- 
tioners on  the  shady  side  of  spiritism.  There  is 
a  natural  desire  among  the  bereaved,  or  those 
in  doubt  as  to  the  actual  facts  surrounding  the 
4  missing,'  to  seek  for  news  and  guidance  unobtain- 
able through  the  ordinary  channels.  Th  ese  credulous 
folk  are  told  that  this  or  that  medium  is  a  real 
wonder,  who  has  given  such  and  such  a  person  the 
most  astounding  revelations.  So  what  has  been 
vouchsafed  others  can  quite  as  well  be  revealed  to 
them.  Hence  the  run  upon  the  plausible  '  crooks,' 
who  so  readily  trade  upon  their  credulity. 

"  The  foolish,  credulous  dupes  never  for  a  moment 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         285 

consider  the  utter  incongruousness  of  the  association 
of  their  beloved  dead  or  missing  with  these  profes- 
sional '  spookists.'  It  never  enters  their  heads  that 
if  the  spirit  of  anyone  dear  to  them  could  return  at 
all,  it  would  be  to  them  direct  that  his  return  would 
be  manifested,  and  that  to  have  to  go  to  some 
strange  '  crook '  and  part  with  money  for  the 
privilege  of  being  put  in  touch  with  the  spirit  is  the 
height  of  absurdity.  They  are  told  that  they  them- 
selves are  not  mediiimistic,  and  that  it  is  only  through 
the  truly  mediumistic  that  such  communications 
are  possible.  Besides,  it  is  the  fashion  of  '  the 
thing '  to  go  to  these  mediums,  who,  '  poor  dears,' 
must  live  and  who  are  entitled  to  payment  for  the 
exhaustion  they  frequently  undergo  in  getting  in 
touch  with  the  spirits.  No  labourer,  in  fact,  is  so 
worthy  of  his  hire  as  one  in  the  spiritual  vineyard. 

:£  And  the  wine  he  presses,  as  he  rakes  in  the  notes, 
is  the  flow  of  tears  from  the  sorrowful  and  distressed. 

'  It  is  not  only  a  shady  business,  but  it  is  a  mean 
and  cruel  one  and  should  be  put  an  end  to.  If  the 
foolish  cannot  or  will  not  protect  themselves,  they 
must  be  protected  against  their  own  folly." 

"  Again  and  again,"  writes  Dr  Furness,  "  mediums 
have  led  round  the  circles  the  materialised  spirits 
of  their  wives  and  introduced  them  to  each  visitor 
in  turn.  Fathers  have  taken  round  their  daughters, 
and  I  have  seen  widows  sob  in  the  arms  of  their  dead 
husbands.  Testimony  such  as  this  staggers  me. 
Have  I  been  smitten  with  colour-blindness  ?  Before 
me,  as  far  as  I  can  detect,  stands  the  very  medium 
herself,  in  shape,  size,  form  and  feature  true  to  a 
line,  and  yet,  one  after  another,  honest  men  and 


286  THE  QUESTION 

women  at  my  side,  within  ten  minutes  of  each  other, 
assert  that  she  is  the  absolute  counterpart  of  their 
nearest  and  dearest  friend  ;  nay,  that  she  is  that 
friend."  1 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  cautions  the  bereaved  against 
devoting  so  large  a  portion  of  time  and  attention  as 
he  has  given  in  getting  and  recording  communica- 
tions from  the  spirit  world.  He  bids  them  accept 
his  assurance — he  settles  once  and  for  all  by  an  ipse 
dixit  the  momentous  question — that  those  who  have 
departed  this  life  "  are  still  active  and  useful  and 
interested  and  happy — more  alive  than  ever  in  one 
sense — and  to  make  up  their  minds  to  live  a  useful 
life  till  they  rejoin  them."  2 

Bowed  down  with  grief  and  clutching,  like 
drowning  men,  at  straws,  these  mourners,  while 
respecting  Sir  Oliver's  precept,  will  hasten,  if  their 
purses  permit,  to  follow  his  example.  They  will 
desire  to  be  themselves  assured  that  those  who  have 
departed  this  life  can  confirm  what  he  says.  Hence 
no  caution  that  he  can  give  can  lessen  his  unenvied 
responsibility  in  causing  a  rush  of  sorrowing  parents 
and  relatives  to  mediums,  preferably  to  the  woman 
through  whom  he  sought  news  from  his  dead  son. 
Mrs  Leonard  and  the  rest  of  them  will  bless  his  name 
for  the  harvest  of  fees  thereby  reaped.  Bookings 
"  in  advance  "  are  reported  by  the  newspapers  as 
active. 

The  quotation  cited  above  is,  in  its  elusiveness, 
typical  of  aught  else  that  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says 
about  another  life.  "  We  change  our  state  at  birth 

1  Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology,  p.  163.     By  Joseph  Jastrow. 

2  Raymond,  p.  342. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         287 

and  come  into  the  world  of  air  and  sense  and  myriad 
existence  ;  we  change  our  state  at  death  and  enter 
a  region  of  what  ?  Of  ether,  I  think,  and  still  more 
myriad  existence;  a  region  in  which  communion 
is  more  akin  to  what  we  here  call  telepathy,  and 
where  intercourse  is  not  conducted  by  the  accus- 
tomed indirect  physical  processes,  but  a  region  in 
which  beauty  and  knowledge  are  as  vivid  as  they 
are  here  ;  a  region  in  which  progress  is  possible  and 
in  which  '  admiration,  hope  and  love  '  are  even  more 
real  and  dominant."  1  Such  mellifluous  and  sooth- 
ing words,  penned,  we  know,  by  a  kindly  soul, 
should  fall  like  music  on  the  ears  of  the  incarnate 
devils  of  the  Kaiser  type.  For  admission  to  that 
region  will  be  theirs,  so  Raymond  tells  us,  without 
qualification,  after  they  have  done  penance  in  a 
reformatory,  a  sort  of  celestial  Borstal,  and  have 
there  shed  their  "  nasty  ideas  and  vices."  2  This 
:c  new  revelation  "  falls  into  line  with  the  belief  of 
the  late  Dean  Farrar.  "He  did  not  deny  the 
existence  of  hell ;  he  only  thought  that  fewer  people 
will  go  there,  and  perhaps  find  it  much  less  disagree- 
able than  is  generally  supposed."  3  Even  the  devil 
may  have  a  chance  : 

"  Auld  Nickie-ben  ! 
0  wad  ye  tak'  a  thought  an'  men' 
Ye  aiblins  might — I  dinna  ken — 
StiU  hae  a  stake." 

All  manner  of  questions  are  suggested  by  the 
foregoing.     No  hint  of  the  location,  or  of  the  latitude 

1P.  298.  »p.  230. 

•  An  Agnostic's  Apology,  p.  98.     By  Sir  Leslie  Stephen. 


288  THE  QUESTION 

and  longitude  of  the  ethereal  region,  has  been  given 
in  any  purported  communications  therefrom. 
When  Sir  Oliver  speculates  about  the  Universe  he 
contradicts  himself  on  the  same  page.  "  I  have 
learned,"  he  says,  "  to  regard  it  as  a  concrete  and 
full-bodied  reality  with  parts  accessible  and  in- 
telligible to  us,  all  of  it  capable  of  being  understood 
and  investigated  by  the  human  mind.  .  .  .  We 
must  admit  that  the  whole  truth  about  the  simplest 
thing  is  assuredly  beyond  us  ;  the  Thing  in  itself  is 
related  to  the  whole  universe  and  in  its  fulness  is 
incomprehensible."  l 

Although,  in  wise  restraint,  he  makes  "  no  asser- 
tion concerning  the  possible  psychical  use  of  the 
Ether  of  Space,"  he  assumes  that  each  spirit  is 
composed  of  a  detached  portion  of  it,  otherwise 
"  Eternal  form "  would  not  "  divide  the  eternal 
soul  from  all  beside."  In  his  chapter  on  the 
"  Resurrection  of  the  Body,"  in  Raymond,  we  gather 
that  materiality  clings  to  it.2  Mutilated  limbs  are 
replaced— there  is  Raymond's  communication  that 
he  "  knew  a  man  that  had  lost  his  arm  but  has  got 
another  one"3 — while  bodily  marks,  "  scars  and 
wounds  are  reassumed  for  purposes  of  identification 
and  when  re-entering  the  physical  atmosphere  for 
the  purpose  of  communication  with  friends."  4 
(This  tempts  to  ribald  quotation  from  the  old  farce 
of  Box  and  Cox  :  "  Have  you  a  strawberry  mark 
on  your  left  arm  ?  Then  you  are  my  long-lost 
brother.")  "  Details  connected  with  clothes  and 

1  Raymond,  p.  380. 

a  "  Something  of  matter,  very  much  refined,  will  remain." — Bos- 
well's  Life  of  Johnson.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  163.     (Birkbeck  Hill's  edition.) 
3  Raymond,  p.  195.  *  Ib.,  p.  324. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         289 

little  unessential  tricks  of  manner  may— in  some 
unknown  sense— be  assumed  too.1  "  The  clothes," 
says  another  writer,  "  are  not,  of  course,  material 
clothes ;  they  are  mere  accessories  assumed,  so  to 
speak,  to  facilitate  the  question  of  identity."  2 

This  assumption  of  unbroken  relations  between 
soul  and  body  is  one  of  several  points  on  which 
Spiritualism  is  in  conflict  with  orthodox  teaching, 
although  that  is  vague  enough  as  to  the  state  and 
location  of  the  soul  between  death  and  resurrection. 
With  an  ingenuity  which  has  never  failed  it,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  solves  the  difficulty  by 
putting  the  soul  in  purgatory.  In  what  mental 
muddle  a  Protestant  Doctor  of  Divinity  plunges 
himself  has  example  in  an  answer  to  the  problem 
given  by  the  Rev.  Professor  David  Smith  to  a 
correspondent  in  The  British  Weekly  of  the  18th 
January  1917.  "We  shall  not,"  he  assures  his 
querist,  "  lack  embodiment  in  the  Hereafter.  There 
awaits  us  a  nobler  vesture,  '  a  habitation  built 
by  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in 
the  heavens.'  This  is  the  resurrection-body,  '  a 
spiritual  body  (cf.  1  Cor.  xv.  44)  fashioned  like 
unto  our  Lord's  glorious  body'  (Phil.  iii.  21). 
The  comfort,  however,  is  only  partial,  or,  rather,  it 
is  ultimate  and  not  immediate.  For  it  is  at  the 
Second  Advent  that  the  dead  will  be  raised  incor- 
ruptible (1  Thess.  iv.  16),  and  meanwhile  their  souls 
must  remain  naked,  divested  of  their  earthly  tent- 
dwelling,  and  yet  unclothed  with  their  '  habitation 
from  heaven.'  .  .  .  Here  then  lies  the  comfort  of 
the  Christian  revelation  of  the  resurrection  of  the 

1  P.  324.         a  Ghostly  Phenomena,  p.  154.     By  Elliot  O'Donnell. 

T 


290  THE  QUESTION 

body.  It  is  our  assurance  that  heaven  will  be  no 
cheerless  world  of  unsubstantial  ghosts,  but  a  kindly 
and  homely  scene  where  we  shall  meet  in  the  fullness 
of  an  ennobled  humanity  and  resume  the  old  affec- 
tions with  a  deeper  and  warmer  intimacy." 

Contrast  with  this  tawdry  patchwork  of  texts 
and  comment  the  pagan  Emperor  Hadrian' s  address 
to  his  soul  at  the  approach  of  death  : 

"  Animula,  vagula,  blandula, 
Hospes,  comesque  corporis  ! 
Quas  nunc  abibi<£  in  loca, 
Pallidula,  frigida,  nudula, 
Nee,  ut  soles,  dab  is  joca  !  " l 

Dwelling  for  a  moment  on  the  overwhelming  feel- 
ing aroused  in  the  presence  of  the  revelations  of 
astronomy,  especially  in  their  correction  of  the 
geocentric  theory  in  which  the  sun  was  conceived  of 
as  an  appanage  to  the  earth,  and  the  stars  as  a 
subordinate  detail—  "  He  made  the  stars  also  "  2  — 
we  find  in  spiritistic  teaching  a  survival  of  the  anthro- 
pocentric  theory.  This,  as  is  well  known,  had  an 
ardent  exponent  in  the  late  Dr  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace  and,  implicitly,  has  support  from  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  who  sees  in  each  of  the  temporary  occupants 
of  this  speck,  one  of  others  as  the  sand  of  the  sea- 
shore innumerable,  "  an  infinite  worth  and  vital 

1  "  Soul  of  mine,  thou  fleeting,  clinging  thing, 
Long  my  body's  mate  and  guest, 
Ah  !   now  whither  wilt  thou  wing, 
Pallid,  naked,  shivering, 
Never,  never  more  to  speak  and  jest." 

But  an  adequate  translation  is  not  possible. 
2  Genesis  i.  16. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         291 

importance."  It  may  be  so ;  we  know  not ;  in  this, 
as  in  all  the  problems  that  confront  us  "we  may 
handle  the  veil  as  much  as  we  please ;  but  we  can- 
not raise  it."  1 

It  involves  no  small  stretch  of  the  imagination 
to  envisage  a  procession  of  millions  upon  millions 
of  individuals  of  such  "  infinite  worth  and  vital 
importance,"  from  the  semi-brutal,  proto-human 
ancestors  to  the  noblest  specimen  of  Homo  sapiens, 
pouring  in  continuous  stream  from  an  ageless  past 
to  an  eternal  future  under  conditions  where,  in  Sir 
Oliver's  words,  "  they  are  more  alive  than  ever," 
each  one  of  these  myriads — for  there  can  be  no 
exceptions— remaining  in  touch  with  earth.  Each 
one  :  the  myriad  babes  who  opened  their  eyes  here 
only  to  close  them  in  death  ;  the  aged  gathered  as 
'shocks  of  corn,  fully  ripe";  the  idiots;  the 
lunatics ;  the  crippled ;  the  untold  hecatombs  of 
the  slain,  the  starved,  the  tortured ;  the  eaters 
and  the  eaten — victims  of  ruthlessness  and  rapine; 
awakening  the  reflection  whether  human  existence 
has  not  been  more  a  curse  than  a  blessing  in  this 
tear-stained,  blood-soaked  world.  Mingled  with  that 
motley  crowd,  "  in  that  equal  sky,"  so  Raymond 
tells  us,  for  himself  and  others,  are  their  "  faithful 
dogs  to  bear  them  company."  This  is  confirmed 
by  no  less  an  authority  than  "  Owd  Billy,"  who 
communicates  through  a  medium,  Tom  Tyrrell,  that 
''  the  lower  brute  creation  passes  into  spirit  life, 
same  as  us."  2 

The  reflection  may  occur  to  some,  after  reading 

1  Fr 'Bethinking  and  Plain  Speaking ,  p.  157.     By  Sir  Leslie  Stephen. 

2  Psychical  Investigations,  p.  147. 


292  THE  QUESTION 

the  communications  purporting  to  come  from  the 
dead  and  proclaimed  as  a  "  new  revelation,"  that  they 
will  not  shine  by  comparison  with  the  utterances 
of  writers  of  whom  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  speaks  as  in- 
spired. "  No  man  also  having  drunk  old  wine 
straightway  desireth  new  :  for  he  saith,  The  old  is 
better."1 


RAYMOND 

O.  J.  L.  Raymond,  you  said 
your  house  was  made  of  bricks. 
How  can  that  be  ?  What  are 
the  bricks  made  of  ? 


FEDA.  That's  what  he 
hasn't  found  out  yet.  He  is 
told  by  some,  who  he  doesn't 
think  would  lead  him  astray, 
that  they  are  made  from  sort 
of  emanations  from  the  earth. 
He  says  there's  something  ris- 
ing like  atoms  rising,  and  con- 
solidating after  they  come : 
they  are  not  solid  when  they 
come,  but  we  can  collect  and 
concentrate  them  —  I  mean 
those  that  are  with  me.  They 


THE  BIBLE 

"As  it  is  written,  E}^e  hath 
not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
have  entered  into  the  heart  of 
man,  the  things  which  God 
hath  prepared  for  them  that 
love  Him." — i  COR.  ii.  9. 

"  For  we  know  that  if  our 
earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle 
were  dissolved,  We  have  a  build- 
ing of  God,  an  house  not  made 
with  hands,  eternal  in  the 
heavens." — 2  COR.  v.  i. 

"Ye  are  come  unto  Mount 
Sion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the 
living  God,  the  heavenly  Jeru- 
salem, and  to  an  innumerable 
company  of  angels,  To  the 
general  assembly  and  church 
of  the  first-born,  which  are 
written  in  heaven,  and  to  God 
the  Judge  of  all  and  to  the 
spirits  of  just  men  made 
perfect." — HEB.  xii.  22,  23. 


1  Luke  v.  39. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM 

appear  to  be  bricks,  and  when 
I  touch  them,  they  feel  like 
bricks,  and  I  have  seen  granite 
too.1 


293 


"Can  you  fancy  you  see  me 
in  white  robes  ?  2  My  suit  I 
expect  was  made  from  decayed 
worsted  on  your  side.  Some 
people  here  won't  take  this  in 
even  yet — about  the  material 
cause  of  all  things.  They  go 
talking  about  spiritual  robes 
made  of  light,  built  by  the 
thoughts  on  the  earth  plane. 
I  don't  believe  it. 


"  My  body's  very  similar  to 
the  one  I  had  before.  The  in- 
ternal organs  ...  to  all  appear- 
ances, are  the  same  as  before. 

"  People  here  try  to  provide 
everything  that  is  wanted.  A 
chap  came  over  the  other  day, 
who  would  have  a  cigar. 
"That's  finished  them,"  he 
thought.  He  means  he  thought 
they  would  never  be  able  to 
provide  that.  But  there  are 
laboratories  over  here  and  they 
manufacture  all  sorts  of  things 
in  them.  Not  like  you  do,  out 
of  solid  matter,  but  out  of 
essences  and  ethers  and  gases. 
It's  not  the  same  as  on  the 
*P.  198. 


"And  one  of  the  elders 
answered,  saying  unto  me, 
What  are  these  which  are 
arrayed  in  white  robes  ?  and 
whence  came  they  ?  And  I 
said  unto  him,  Sir,  thou  know- 
est.  And  he  said  to  me, 
These  are  they  which  came 
out  of  great  tribulation,  and 
have  washed  their  robes  and 
made  them  white  in  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb."  —  REV.  vii. 
13,  14- 

"Who  shall  change  our  vile 
body,  that  it  may  be  fashioned 
like  unto  his  glorious  body." 
— PHIL.  ii.  2. 

"  And  there  shall  in  no  wise 
enter  into  it  anything  that  de- 
fileth,  neither  whatsoever  work- 
eth  abomination,  or  maketh  a 
lie."— REV.  xxi.  27. 

"  Within  thy  gates  no  thing 

doth  come 

That  is  not  passing  clean, 
No  spider's  web, no  dirt, no  dust, 
No     filth      may    there     be 
seen."  F.  B.  P. 

Based    on    St    Augustine    (c. 
1580). 

2  P.  189. 


294 


THE  QUESTION 


earth  plane,  but  they  were  able 
to  manufacture  what  looked 
like  a  cigar.  He  (Raymond) 
didn't  try  one  himself,  because 
he  didn't  care  to  :  you  know 
he  wouldn't  want  to.  But  the 
other  chap  jumped  at  it.  But 
when  he  began  to  smoke  it,  he 
didn't  think  much  of  it  :  he 
had  four  altogether  and  now 
he  doesn't  look  at  one,  They 
don't  seem  to  get  the  same 
satisfaction  out  of  it,  so  gradu- 
ally it  seems  to  drop  from  them. 
But  when  they  first  come  they 
do  want  things.  Some  want 
meat,  and  some  strong  drink  ; 
they  call  for  whisky  sodas. 
Don't  think  I'm  stretching  it 
when  I  tell  you  that  they  can 
manufacture  even  that.  But 
when  they  have  had  one  or  two, 
they  don't  seem  to  want  it 
much — not  those  that  are  over 
here.1 

"There  are  men  here  and 
there  are  women  here.  .  .  . 
There  don't  seem  to  be  any 
children  born  here.  People  are 
sent  into  the  physical  body  to 
have  children  on  the  earth 
plane  :  they  don't  have  them 
here/'2 


"  They  shall  hunger  no  more, 
neither  thirst  any  more  ;  neither 
shall  the  sun  light  on  them, 
nor  any  heat.  For  the  Lamb 
Which  is  in  the  midst  of  the 
throne  shall  feed  them,  and 
shall  lead  them  unto  living  foun- 
tains of  waters :  and  God  shall 
wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes." — REV.  vii.  16,  17. 


C1  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto 
them,  Ye  do  err,  not  knowing 
the  scriptures,  nor  the  power 
of  God.  For  in  the  resurrec- 
tion they  neither  marry,  nor  are 
given  in  marriage,  but  are  as  the 
angels  of  God  in  heaven." — 
MATT.  xxii.  29,  30. 


Contrast  with  these  banalities  from  Raymond, 
audaciously  asserted  to  have  come  from  a  discarn- 
ate  spirit  who  had  been  accorded  sight  of  the 


1  P.  198. 


•P.  197- 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         295 

Redeemer,  the  lofty  note  struck  by  the  melodious 
Silurist,  the  restraint  of  which  adds  to  its  majesty : 

"  He  that  hath  found  some  fledg'd  bird's  nest  may  know, 
At  first  sight,  if  the  bird  be  flown ; 
But  what  fair  well  or  grove  he  sings  in  now, 
That  is  to  him  unknown. 

And  yet,  as  angels  in  some  brighter  dreams 

Call  to  the  soul  when  man  doth  sleep, 

So  some  strange  thoughts  transcend  our  wonted  themes, 

And  into  glory  peep." 

I  cannot  know  what  may  be  the  effect  of  the 
quotations  from  Raymond  on  other  minds,  but  on 
my  own  it  is  to  desire  extinction  rather  than  to  pass 
an  endless  life  amidst  such  unsavoury  and  repel- 
lent surroundings.  For  myself,  the  only  heaven  for 
which  I  might  indulge  desire  is  renewal  of  com- 
munion with  those  who  have  been,  and  who  are, 
dear  to  me  in  this  life — if  this  is  not  to  be,  then 
grant  me  "  a  right  long,  endless,  and  unawakening 
sleep."  l 

Certainly  one  result  of  the  nauseous  communica- 
tions dredged  from  the  subconsciousness  of  mediums 
in  feigned  or  genuine  trance  cannot  be  the  revival  of 
interest  in  the  minds  of  the  thoughtful  concerning 
a  future  life,  an  interest  which,  among  such,  is  wan- 
ing to  vanishing  point.2  Happily  the  void  thereby 
created  is  filled  by  the  sense  of  obligation  to  the 

1  Moschus  :  Lament  for  Bion,  idyll  iii. 

2  A  significant  example  of  this  is  supplied  by  no  less  an  authority 
than  the  Dean  of  St  Paul's  in  a  sermon  preached  in  the  Cathedral  last 
Easter  Sunday,  in  the  course  of  which  he  said:  On  the  subject  of 
immortality  people  differed  greatly,  both  in  what  they  desired  and 
what  they  found  it  possible  to  believe.     Some  desired  passionately 
a  continuance  of  the  familiar  life  with  which  the  body  was  inseparably 
associated.     Tennyson,  it  was  said,  grew  crimson  with  excitement 


296  THE  QUESTION 

past,  of  duty  to  the  present,  and  of  responsibility  to 
the  future ;  of  realisation  of  the  conditions  under 
which  we  live  and  which  are  not  of  our  seeking. 
But  whatever  their  cause,  they  supply  opportunity 
for  service  to,  and  advancement  of,  the  humanity  of 
which  we  are  parts,  and  whose  joys  and  sorrows  it  is 
our  destiny  to  share. 

It  may  even,  as  the  sense  of  these  responsibilities 
grows,  be  incumbent  to  combat  actively  a  "  belief 
which  may  easily  become  an  unhealthy  occupation, 
preventing  us  seeking  for  salvation  here"1:  a 
belief  against  which  Sir  J.  G.  Frazer  brings  this 
powerful,  this  true  indictment  : 

"  It  might  with  some  show  of  reason  be  main- 
tained that  no  belief  has  done  so  much  to  retard  the 
economic  and  thereby  the  social  progress  of  man- 
kind as  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  for 
this  belief  has  led  race  after  race,  generation  after 
generation,  to  sacrifice  the  real  wants  of  the  living 
to  the  imaginary  wants  of  the  dead.  The  waste 
and  destruction  of  life  and  property  which  this  faith 
has  entailed  are  enormous  and  incalculable  .  .  . 

if  he  heard  the  Resurrection  called  in  question.  <(  If  human  im- 
mortality be  not  true/'  he  said,  (<  then  no  God,  but  a  mocking  fiend, 
created  us."-  Browning  clung  to  the  belief  of  reunion  with  his  dead 
wife,  without  whom  continued  existence  would  be  intolerable. 
George  Meredith  was  content  with  a  super-personal  immortality. 
"  I  am  myself,"  Dr  Inge  declared, "  most  in  sympathy  with  Browning's 
faith  that  love  is  stronger  than  death.  But  as  for  the  survival  of  the 
physical  organism  by  which  we  are  known  to  others  as  individuals, 
when  we  think  of  our  bodily  and  mental  make-up,  with  all  its  in- 
herited and  acquired  defects,  its  disharmonies  which  have  fretted 
and  tormented  us  all  our  days,  do  we  want  it  resuscitated  in  another 
state  of  existence  ?"  What  would  be  intolerable  would  be  to  have 
to  believe  that  our  ideals  themselves  should  perish. 

1  Evolution  of  Religion.     Vol.  ii.,  p.  243.     By  Edward  Caird. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         297 

disastrous  and  deplorable,  unspeakable  the  follies 
and  crimes  and  miseries  which  have  flowed  in 
practice  from  the  theory  of  a  future  life."  1 

It  should  be  needless  to  disclaim  that  any  charge 
against  the  integrity  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  his 
fellow-spiritualists  is  made  in  the  animadversions 
passed  on  their  credulity  in  these  pages.  But  when 
he  affirms  "  I  am  as  convinced  of  continued  exist- 
ence on  the  other  side  of  death  as  I  am  of  existence 
here.  It  may  be  said,  you  cannot  be  as  sure  as  you 
are  of  sensory  experience,  I  say  I  can,"  2  such  plain- 
ness of  speech  must  be  met  by  equal  plainness. 

You,  Sir  Oliver,  knowing,  as  you  must  have 
known,  the  taint  which  permeates  the  early  history 
of  Spiritualism,  its  inception  in  fraud  and  the  detec- 
tion of  a  succession  of  tricksters  from  the  Fox  girls 
onwards,  and  thereby  cautioned  to  be  on  your  guard, 
have  proved  yourself,  on  your  own  admission,  in- 
competent to  detect  the  frauds  of  Eusapia  Palla- 
dino.  You  and  Sir  William  Barrett,  who  says  that 
"  there  is  evidence  of  his  supernormal  knowledge,"  3 
accept  and  quote,  as  par,ts  of  a  "  new  revelation," 
from  the  automatic  writings  of  the  Rev.  Stainton 
Moses.  Your  faith  in  the  integrity  of  Mrs  Piper, 
despite  her  failure,  crowned  by  her  confession, 
withdrawn,  it  is  true,  but  none  the  less  a  fact, 
remains  unshaken.4  You  lose  a  dear  son  in  the 

1  Psyche's  Task,  p.  52.  *  Raymond,  p.  375. 

3  Psychical  Research,  p.  227. 

4  "  It  next  occurred  to  Mrs  Piper  to  be  invaded  by  the  crowd  of 
verbose  pseudo-spirits  who  used  to  communicate  with  the  late  Rev. 
Stainton  Moses,  who  himself,  as  a  posthumous  <  communicator,'  was 
a  transparent  and  boastful  liar." — Andrew   Lang.     Letter  to   The 
Pilot,  23rd  November  1901. 


298  THE  QUESTION 

holiest  of  causes  for  which  a  man  can  die ;  you 
forthwith  repair  to  a  modern  Witch  of  Endor 
to  seek,  at  second  hand,  consolations  which  as- 
suredly he  whom  you  mourn  would,  in  preference, 
pour  direct  into  your  attuned  and  sympathetic  ear  ; 
you — one  of  the  most  prominent  and  best  known 
of  men — are  simple  enough  to  believe  that  your 
anonymity  and  that  of  your  wife  and  family  was 
secure  at  the  early  seances  which  Mrs  Leonard  and 
Mr  Vout  Peters  gave  you.  And  with  what  dire  result 
— the  publication  of  a  series  of  spurious  communica- 
tions, a  large  portion  of  which  is  mischievous  drivel, 
dragging  with  it  into  the  mire  whatever  lofty  concep- 
tions of  a  spiritual  world  have  been  framed  by  mortals. 

What  is  more  serious,  your  maleficent  influence 
gives  impetus  to  the  recrudescence  of  superstition 
which  is  so  deplorable  a  feature  of  these  days.  The 
difference  between  the  mediums  whom  you  consult 
and  the  lower  grade  of  fortune-tellers  who  are  had 
up  and  fined  or  imprisoned  as  rogues  and  vagabonds 
is  one  of  degree,  not  of  kind.  The  sellers  of  the 
thousands  of  mascots— credulity  in  which  as  life- 
preservers  and  luck-bringers  is  genuine  —  the 
palmists,  and  all  other  professors  of  the  occult,  have 
in  you  their  unacknowledged  patron. 

Thus  you,  who  have  achieved  high  rank  as  a 
physicist,  descend  to  the  plane  of  the  savage  animist, 
surrendering  the  substance  for  the  shadow.  Surely 
the  mysteries  which  in  your  physical  researches 
meet  you  at  every  turn,  baffling  your  skill  to  pene- 
trate, should  make  you  pause  ere  you  accept  the 
specious  solutions  of  the  momentous  problems  which 
lie  on  the  threshold  of  the  Unknown  Hereafter. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         299 

You,  and  those  who  credit  you  and  other  notable 
men  of  science  as  speaking  with  authority,  will  not  be 
shaken  in  your  convictions  ;  but  there  may  be  some 
who,  through  reading  these  pages,  will  agree  that 
when— it  may  be,  I  fear,  in  no  near  future— the 
ghost  of  Spiritualism  is  laid  its  epitaph  should  be : 

"BEHOLD,    I   WAS    SHAPEN   IN   INIQUITY, 

AND   IN   SIN   DID   MY   MOTHER   CONCEIVE   ME." 

The  Question  may  be,  and  should  be,  asked  : 
Granted  that  the  evidence  which  the  spiritualists 
adduce  in  support  of  their  belief  be  of  a  nature  which 
cannot  be  submitted  to  the  conditions  of  observa- 
tion, experiment  and  proof  required  by  science,  are 
there  not  materials  by  which  it  may  arrive  at  some 
undogmatic  conclusion  as  to  soul-survival  ?  There 
are,  and  these  are  supplied  by  comparative  psy- 
chology :  the  science  of  mind. 

Comparative  anatomy  has  demonstrated  the  fact 
of  correspondence  of  bodily  structure,  bone  for 
bone,  muscle  for  muscle,  nerve  for  nerve,  between 
the  highest  mammals  and  man;  his  fundamental 
relationship  to  the  anthropoid  apes  being  further 
proven  by  the  fact  that  the  same  kind  of  blood  flows 
through  the  veins  of  the  two.  And  comparative 
psychology  has  proved  that  there  is  no  break  in  the 
chain  of  mental  evolution.  "The  development  of 
the  mind  in  its  early  stages  and  in  certain  directions 
of  progress  is  revealed  most  adequately  in  the 
animal."  l  There  are  not  two  processes  of  evolu- 
tion, one  of  the  body  and  the  other  of  the  mind  ; 

1  Story  of  the  Mind,  p.  35.     By  Prof.  Baldwin. 


300  THE  QUESTION 

there  is  only  one  process  in  one  series  of  graduated 
stages;  hence  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  brain 
and  nerve  is  also  the  history  of  the  evolution  of 
mind.1  And  it  is  in  the  evolution  of  the  brain  that 
the  mammals  have  scored  ;  man,  as  the  "  roof  and 
crown  "  of  all  living  things,  thereby  securing  that 
lordship  in  the  animal  realm  of  which  he  has  made 
terrible  abuse.  His  dumb  subjects,  could  they 
have  faculty  of  human  speech,  would  curse  that 
dominance. 

This  proof  of  psychical  continuity,  that  ardent 
and  most  credulous  dupe  of  mediums,  Dr  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  disputed.  His  conception  of  the 
denizens  of  the  Beyond  excluded  animals  :  "  No 
ravenous  beast  shall  go  up  thereon ;  it  shall  not  be 
found  there."  Co-formulator  with  Darwin  of  the 
doctrine  of  natural  selection,  he  argued  that  it  did 
not  explain  the  origin  of  man's  spiritual  and  in- 
tellectual nature,  which,  he  contended,  must  have 
had  another  origin,  an  adequate  cause  to  be  found 
only  "  in  the  Unseen  Universe  of  Spirit."  The 
question  which  he  did  not  attempt  to  answer 
follows  : — At  what  stage  in  man's  evolution  was  this 
"  spiritual  essence  or  nature"  superadded?2  Was 
it,  once  and  for  all,  in  the  proto-human  creatures 
who  represent  both  apes  and  men,  being  a  blend  of 
both  ere  their  divergence  from  a  common  ancestor ; 
or  is  there  a  special  creation  of  the  soul  in  every 

1  "The  power  of  building  up  appropriate  cerebral  mechanism  in  re- 
sponse to  individual  experience  on  what  may  be  called  '  educability  '- 
is  the  quality  which  characterises  the  larger  cerebrum  and  is  that 
which  has  led  to  its  selection,   survival   and   further   increase   in 
volume." — Sir  Ray  Lankester's  The  Kingdom  oj  Man,  p.  123. 

2  Darwinism)  p.  474. 


SCIENCE  AND  SPIRITUALISM         301 

human  being  at  birth  ?  To  put  the  question  is  to 
submit  a  problem  the  solution  of  which  rests  with 
its  propounders. 

To  Job's  question,  "  If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live 
again?"  science  can  answer  neither  "yes"  nor 
"  no"  ;  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  evidence 
supplied  by  comparative  psychology  does  not  support 
the  belief  in  a  future  life.  It  leaves  it  unsolved. 

"  Into  this  Universe  and  Why  not  knowing, 
Nor  Whence,  like  Water  willy-nilly  flowing  : 
And  out  of  it,  as  Wind  along  the  waste, 
I  know  not  Whither,  willy-nilly  blowing." 

One  fact  is  clear  :  there  has  been  no  advance  in 
ideas  of  the  soul,  and  no  advance  in  knowledge  of 
the  conditions  of  existence  in  any  after  life,  from  the 
dawn  of  thought  to  the  present  day.  Spiritualism 
is  the  old  animism  "  writ  large." 


POSTSCRIPT 

WHEN  my  friend  Edward  Clodd  told  me  that  he 
wished  to  associate  my  name  with  this  book,  I 
accepted  the  compliment,  because  I  felt  that  it  was 
desirable,  indeed  a  duty,  that  some  member  of  the 
scientific  fraternity  should  have  the  courage  to 
support  his  indictment.  After  reading  through  the 
proofs,  I  feel  impelled  to  go  a  step  further  and  to 
offer  these  few  lines  in  direct  support  of  his  thesis. 
Written  with  utmost  sincerity  of  purpose,  straight 
from  the  shoulder,  in  conversational  style,  without 
attempt  at  Stevensonian  polish,  the  book  appears 
to  me  to  be  a  cumulative  and  forceful  gravamen 
against  a  movement  every  aspect  of  which  is  per- 
nicious—pernicious alike  to  the  prime  movers  and 
to  the  public  ;  one  which,  at  all  costs,  in  support  of 
sanity  of  human  outlook,  we  should  seek  to  stamp 
out  with  every  weapon  at  our  command. 

That  the  fair  name  of  Science  should  be  sullied 
by  the  publication  of  the  "  nauseating  drivel,"  as 
Mr  Clodd  properly  terms  it,  put  forward  in  Raymord 
is  not  only  regrettable  but  disastrous  to  our  cause  ; 
that  neither  the  Church  nor  educated  opinion  should 
have  had  the  courage,  the  sense  of  duty,  to  take  real 
exception  to  its  promulgation  cannot  well  be  re- 
garded otherwise  than  as  proof  that  we  are  living 
in  an  age  of  intellectual  decadence  ;  at  least,  it 
shows  that  even  the  inklings  of  scientific  method 
are  not  yet  spread  abroad. 

302 


POSTSCRIPT  303 

Seemingly,  the  rules  of  evidence  are  disregarded 
and  logic  entirely  discarded,  by  the  credulous 
followers  of  the  spiritualistic  faith.  We  are  forced, 
by  such  facts,  to  recognise  that  education  counts 
for  very  little ;  that  our  boasted  civilisation  is  but 
a  thin  veneer  ;  that  man,  as  Carlyle  persistently 
maintained,  is  infinitely  gullible.  It  is  clear  that 
we  still  retain  his  primal  nature  and  instincts  :  the 
tendency  to  belief  in  the  occult  is  our  heritage. 

Indeed,  the  human  mind  is  strangely  built ; 
apparently  it  has  compartments  and  these  are 
not  necessarily  interlocked.  The  great  Faraday  is 
probably  the  most  perfect  example  the  world  has 
known  of  the  experimental  philosopher ;  the  state- 
ments in  which  he  has  recorded  his  experimental 
studies  are  pure  logic  for  the  most  part.  His  lecture 
on  "  Observations  on  Mental  Education,"  published 
in  a  recent  reprint  of  lectures  delivered  at  the  Royal 
Institution  of  Great  Britain,  in  1854,  under  the  title 
of  Science  and  Education,  from  which  Mr  Clodd  has 
given  quotations,  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  essays 
ever  written  on  the  methods  of  philosophical  thought. 
But  while  recognising  the  value  of  such  methods  in 
ordinary  life  and  insisting  on  the  need  of  inculcating 
the  faculty  of  "  proportionate  judgment"  through 
scientific  education,  Faraday  clearly  recognises  the 
limitations  of  the  human  intellect.  In  matters  of 
religion— he  was  a  member  of  the  small  sect  known 
as  Glassites  or  Sandemanians — he  advisedly  put 
science  aside  and  gave  play  to  his  primitive  instincts ; 
he  then  became  the  pure  child  of  nature,  a  child  of 
faith.  We  are,  it  seems,  most  of  us  at  once  both 
Jekylls  and  Hydes ! 


304  THE  QUESTION 

It  is  certain  that  only  the  few  can  be  scientific  in 
any  proper  sense  of  the  term.  The  philosopher,  like 
every  other  form  of  genius,  is  born,  not  made  ;  he 
is  more  or  less  a  freak.  And  occupation  does  not 
necessarily  beget  general  competence.  A  man  may 
be  most  distinguished  as  a  worker  within  some  very 
narrow  field  and  yet  little  more  than  a  child  in 
general  affairs. 

Our  modern  science  is  the  outcome  of  experiment 
and  observation  logically  interpreted.  But  the 
element  of  interpretation  always  plays  a  large  part : 
and  we  may  easily  err  in  our  interpretations.  Our 
experiments  may  be  accurately  conducted  and  our 
observations  sound,  yet  our  inferences  may  be 
altogether  unsound.  The  true  man  of  science,  how- 
ever, is  one  who  never  rests  satisfied  with  an  ex- 
planation :  he  is  always  on  the  look-out  for  further 
evidence  in  support  of  any  conclusion  to  which  he 
may  have  been  led ;  he  is  always  prepared  to  alter 
his  view  or  hold  his  judgment  in  suspense  if  the 
evidence  be  unsatisfactory. 

Probably  the  most  telling  indictment  of  telepathy 
and  spiritualism  is  that  afforded  by  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Henry  Sidgwick  of  Cambridge,  the  distin- 
guished moral  philosopher,  who  was  an  eminently 
scientific  man  in  his  outlook.  To  quote  statements 
made  by  two  of  his  friends,  Professor  Soiiey  and 
Mr  F.  Podmore,  after  his  death,  which  are  cited  in 
his  biography x  : 

"Sidgwick  exerted  a  powerful  influence,  both  intellectual  and 
moral,  upon  his  pupils.  But  his  temperament  was  too  critical, 

1  Henry  Sidgwick.  A  Memoir.  By  A.  S.  and  E.  M.  S.  London. 
Macmillan  &  Co.  1906. 


POSTSCRIPT  305 

his  intellect  too  evenly  balanced,  to  admit  of  his  teaching  a 
dogmatic  system.  .  .  .  What  he  taught  was  much  more  a  method, 
an  attitude  of  mind  ;  and  his  teaching  was  a  training  in  the  philo- 
sophical temper — in  candour,  self-criticism  and  regard  for  truth. 
Upon  those  who  could  receive  it,  his  teaching  had  a  finer  effect 
than  enthusiasm  for  any  set  of  beliefs ;  it  communicated  an 
enthusiasm  for  truth  itself :  the  rigour  of  self-criticism  as  well  as 
the  ardour  of  inquiry."— P.  308. 

"  He  always  seemed  to  me  one  of  those  very  rare  characters 
whose  insight  was  so  pure  and  true,  that  his  decision,  whether  in 
practical  matters  or  in  purely  intellectual  problems,  would  not  be 
biassed  even  unconsciously  by  any  personal  preference.  Great 
lawyers,  no  doubt,  are  trained  to  deal  with  one  particular  class  of 
subjects  in  this  manner.  But  Mr  Sidgwick's  gift  of  clear,  un- 
biassed vision  on  all  questions  alike  has  always  seemed  to  me  a 
very  rare  quality.  I  don't  think  he  himself  realised  how  rare. 
He  often  gave  the  rest  of  the  world  credit — undeserved  credit,  as 
I  used  to  think — for  being  as  disinterested  in  their  judgments  as 
himself."— P.  319. 

Sidgwick — he  had  been  President  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research —was  in  close  touch  with  the 
spiritualists  of  his  day,  including  Sir  Oliver  Lodge ; 
he  took  part  in  their  so-called  investigations  on 
numerous  occasions.  But  he  was  beyond  reach  of 
the  "  confidence  trick"  and  although,  apparently,  he 
was  willing,  if  not  anxious,  to  be  convinced,  he  was 
never  able  to  believe  that  the  manifestations  were 
otherwise  than  illusory. 

The  fact  that  men  such  as  Sir  Wm.  Barrett,  Sir 
Wm.  Crookes  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  have  been  ardent 
advocates  of  spiritualistic  doctrines  can  only  be  of 
"  evidential "  value  if  it  can  be  shown  that  their 
inquiries  have  been  conducted  in  accordance  with  the 
canons  of  scientific  method.  As  this  is  not  the  case ; 


306  THE  QUESTION 

moreover,  as  they  have  been  shown  repeatedly  to  have 
been  the  victims  of  deception,  their  testimony  has 
no  special  weight  and  is  not  to  be  regarded,  in  any 
way,  as  "  scientific  evidence."  Only  when  methods 
such  as  Sidgwick  followed  are  adopted  shall  we  be 
able  to  give  any  special  credence  to  the  statements 
put  forward.  As  already  pointed  out,  Sidgwick 
was  never  persuaded  into  belief. 

As  I  write  this,  a  letter  appears  in  The  Sunday 
Times  (16th  September  1917)  under  the  title,  "  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge's  Innocence,"  written  by  Mr  Douglas 
Blackburn.  After  telling  how  he  and  a  confederate 
hoaxed  Messrs  Myers,  Gurney,  Podmore  and  others 
by  sham  telepathic  demonstrations  and  after  com- 
menting on  "  the  extraordinary  gullibility  displayed 
by  Messrs  Myers  and  Gurney,"  he  thus  concludes  : 

"  I  say  deliberately,  as  the  result  of  long  acquaintance  with 
and  personal  knowledge  of  most  of  the  leading  Occultists  of  the 
past  forty  years,  that,  while  I  acknowledge  their  absolute  honesty 
and  intent,  I  would  not  lay  a  shilling  against  a  ten-pound  note 
on  any  one  of  them  not  being  roped  in  by  the  venerable  Confidence 
Trick  at  the  first  time  of  asking." 

No  more  telling  statement  could  be  made. 

I  have  had  occasion  before  to-day  to  express  my 
opinion  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  as  a  critic,  in  an  article 
published  in  the  quarterly  review  Bedrock,  in 
January,  1914.  My  title,  "  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  In- 
tolerant, Infallible,"  was  sufficiently  significant.  To 
quote  one  passage  : 

"  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  apparently  is  an  advocate  of  obscurantism 
in  diction  ;  as  a  matter  of  practical  politics — from  the  point  of 
view  of  those  members  of  the  priesthood  of  science  who  desire  to 
be  credited  with  oracular  attributes — there  may  be  something  in 
it ;  but  to  my  mind  such  a  policy  is  absolutely  unscientific." 


POSTSCRIPT  307 

This  criticism  may  be  applied  verbally  to  Ray- 
mond ;  several  of  the  chapters  are  nothing  short  of 
obscurantism  run  riot,  utterly  unscientific  in  tone, 
thought  and  expression. 

It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  that  too  much  of 
"modern  science"  is  but  a  spurious  article;  even 
when  sound  on  the  experimental  side,  the  interpre- 
tation is  too  often  faulty  and  heavily  biassed.  Too 
many  are  playing  at  science  who  are  not  and  cannot 
ever  be  scientific ;  science,  in  fact,  is  under  a  cloud 
of  ecclesiasticism.  To  quote  from  the  close  of  my 
article  on  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  above  referred  to : 

"Opinions  stick,  in  these  days,  before  they  are  proved  to  be 
sound — if  uttered  by  those  in  authority.  At  all  costs,  this  must 
be  prevented  if  science  is  to  be  of  service  to  the  State.  Authority 
must  be  kept  in  order." 

HENRY  E.  ARMSTRONG. 


INDEX 


Aboriginal  Siberia,  78,  92,  98 

Abou-  b&n  Adhem,  238 

Acta  Sanctorum,  92 

Adam,  19 

Adyar,  253,  256 

Akasic  force,  253 

Akaz,  252 

Alexander  of  Abonoteichos ,  33,  37, 
50,  104 

Algonquins,  28 

Amazons,  19 

America,  spiritualism  in,  36 

American  mediums,  34,  52  ;  men- 
tality, 34 

Amorous  table,  79,  225 

Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  133 

Angekok,  185^. 

Angels  at  Mons,  177 

Animal  immortality,  26 

Animal  magnetism,  144 

Animism,  18,  27 

Anthropological  Society,  102 

Apparitions,  178 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  159 

Arnold,  Matthew,  266 

Ashburnam,  Dr,  23 

Atsakoff ,  Mr,  252 

Aura,  184  ;  of  cat,  185^. 

Australian  natives,  18,  24,  156 


BABIES,  wonderful,  236 

Bacon,  173  ;  Essayes  of,  1731*. 

Balfour,  Mr  Gerald,  244 

Ballon,  Adin,  23 

Balls  for  crystal-gazing,  154 

Bangs  Sisters,  132 

Barrett,  Sir  W.  F.,  54,  63,  64,  89, 
91,  in,  150,  165,  168,  183,  184, 
188,  232,  238,  241,  247,  260,  297 

Beauchamp,  Miss,  14 

Bell,  Robert,  44 

Besant,  Mrs,  145,  255,  256 


Bible,  292-294 

Biddy  (Control),  217 

Bishop,  W.  Irving,  153 

Blackall,  Mr,  62 

Blavatsky,  Madame,  50,  104,  250- 

256,  272  ;  exposure  of,  255 
Blindfolding,  151 
Blue  Book,  186 
Body-cells,  16 
Body,   experiments  on   weight   of, 

88,89 

Bombay,  253 
Boston,  34 
Boston  Globe,  209 
Brabrook,  Sir  E.,  247 
Braid,  James,  146 
Brain-cells,  14,  23,  174 
Bramwell,  Dr  Milne,  172 
Brand,  82,  125 
Breath  and  Spirit,  19 
Bridport,  Giles  de,  25 
British  Association,  234 
British  Weekly,  The,  289 
Brockway,  Madame,  217 
Brook  Farm,  34 
Browne,  Sir  T.,  ign.,  27,  93«. 
Browning,  Robert,  62,  87 
Bruno,  269 

Buddha,  92,  148,  181,  256 
Buguet,  M.,  133 
"  Bunhoseded,"  52 
Burmah  medium,  193 
Burnet's  History  of  My  Own  Time, 

74 

Bury,  Prof.  J.B.,  148?*. 
Butcher,  Prof.,  245 


CAGLIOSTRO,  143 
Cambridge,  57 
Candles,  blessing  of,  125 
Canoes,  spirits  on,  79 
Caraffa,  Cardinal,  133 
Carpenter,  Edward,  26,  29,  61,  63, 
131 

308 


INDEX 


309 


Carpenter,  W.  B.,  152 

Canington,  Hereward,  58,  95,  104, 
115,  119,  124,  184,  185,  186 

Celsus,  105 

Cheves,  Mrs,  222 

Chlorine  (control),  190,  127*1. 

Christian  Science,  257-262  ;  its 
doctrine  of  disease,  260  ;  its  doc- 
trine of  matter,  259 

Chrysostom,  149 

Cigars,  ethereal,  227 

Cintz,  Dr,  209 

Circles,  spiritualist,  36,  37 

Clairvoyant  medium,  tricks  of  the, 
186 

Clairvoyants,  29,  33,  40 

Clifford,  Professor,  123,  279 

Clifford,  Sir  Hugh,  175 

Clouston,  Sir  T.  S.,  172,  175 

Cock  Lane  Ghost,  68-73 

Colley,  Archdeacon,  129 

Columbia  University,  124 

Communicator,  187 

Congo  tribes,  20 

Connecticut  disturbances,  83 

Conner,  D.  B.,  208-209 

Consciousness,  16 

Controls,  55,  55 n.,  112,  187 

Conway,  M.D.,  123,  129 

Cook,  Florence  (Mrs  Corner),  60, 
126,  183  ;  detection  of,  127 

Cook,  Walter,  225 

Copertino,  St  Joseph  of,  92 

Coulomb,  M.,  253 

Cox,  Sergeant,  23 

Crawford,  Earl  of,  46 

Crawford,  W.  J.,  89 

Crawley,  A.  E.,  25 

Credulity,  274 

Crookes,  Sir  W.,  46,  60,  88,  93,  99, 
124,  126,  129,  273  ;  his  creed, 

234 

Crosland,  Newton,  277 
Cross-correspondence,  243-249 
Crystal-gazing,  152-166 
Cumberland,  Mr  Stuart,  283 
Curie,  M.  and  Madame,  58 
Czaplicka,  M.A.,  78,  92,  98,  194 


Davenport  Brothers,  48,  101  ;  con 

fession  of,  103 
Davenport,  Prof.,  64 
Davey,  S.  J.,  103,  106-108,  267 
David,  King,  122,  136 
Davis,  A.  J.,  39,  85 
Dawson,  Ellen,  107,  150 
Dee,  Dr,  160 
Dene  Hares  kins,  147 
Descartes ,  22 
Devachan,  145 
Dewar,  Sir  James,  129 
Dialectical  Society,  277 
Didier,  Alexis,  107,  151 
Dionysius,  Ear  of,  244 
Discoverie    of    Witchcraft,    38,    67 

78,  82,  182 

Divination,  modes  of,  155-163 
Donkin,  Sir  H.  B.,   103,   171,  173, 

281 

Dowsing,  272 
Doyle,  Sir  Conan,  17,  211 
Dramatis  persona  at  seances,  187 
Dreams,  18 

Drummer  of  Tedworth,  67 
Duclaux,  M.,  273 


EAR  of  Dionysius,  244 

Ectoplasy,  240 

Eddy,  M.   B.,  34,   143,    183,    257- 

262 

Eddy  Brothers,  252 
Eglinton,  W.,  50  ;  detection  of,  103 
Elbe,  Louis,  145 
*  Electric"  girls,  85 
Elliots  on,  Dr,  151 
Elongation,  47,  90,  96 
Endor,  Witch  of,  182 
Epworth  Rectory,  ghost  at,  28,  68 
Esoteric  Buddhism,  255 
Essay  on  Man,  43 
Ether,  23,  163,  287,  288 
Ethereal  medium,  23 
Ethereal  soul,  20 
Evidence  for  the  Supernatural,  174, 

192 


Daily  Chronicle,  117,  131 

Daily  Mail   on  spirit-photographs, 

134 

Darwin,  C.,  123,  300 
Darwin,  Sir  G.  H.,  203 


FAIRIES,  nature  of,  27 
Faraday,  170,  266,  274,  282 
Farrar,  Dean,  287 
Fasting,  147- 149 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  21 


310 


INDEX 


Faunus  message,  219 

Fay,  Mrs,  89 

Feda,  26,  188,  217,  219,  226,  230 

Feiidae,  95 

Ferguson,  J.  B.,  49,  102 

Feronia,  97 

Fire-ordeal,  47,  90,  96-99  ;  Fijian, 
98  ;  Huron,  98 

Fludd,  Robert,  142 

Fluidic  radiations,  145 

Ford,  Cornelius,  73 

Fox  girls,  35  ;  detection  and  con- 
fession of,  84 

Fox,  Katie,  35,  36,  58 

Frank,  H.,  24 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  59,  144 

Fraudulent  mediums,  list  of,  136 

Frazer,  Sir  J.  G.,  127,  157,  296 

Froude,  149 

Furness,  Dr  H.  H.,  109,  285 


GALEN, 40 

Galton,  Sir  F.,  277 

Gardner,  Dr,  132 

Garfield,  President,  in 

Ghost,  Cock  Lane,  68-73  ;  Cornelius 

Ford's,  73  ;  hand  of,  grasped/  73 
Gibbon,  148 
Gills  on,  Rev.  Mr,  41 
Glanvil,  92 

Golden  Bough,  The,  270 
Goligher,  Miss,  89 
Goodrich-Freer,  Miss,  163 
Greatrakes,  Master,  93,  142 
Greenlanders ,  20 
Guppy,  Mrs,  44,  59,  93,  95,   114, 

124, 132 
Gurney,  Edmund,  75,  167;;.,  201 


H 


HAIR  trick,  88,  119 

Hadrian,  290 

Hall,  S.  C.,  48 

Hall ,  Dr  Stanley,  239 

Hallucinations, 1 74- 1 80,  238 ;  census 

of,    21  ;     collective,     176,     267; 

committee  on,  179 
Hamlet,  27 
Hampole,  21 

Hand  and  foot  dodge,  123 
Hands,  Dr,  150 
Hare,  Dr,  20 
Haunted  houses,  65,  66 
Hayden,  Mrs,  34,  40,  277 


Haynes,  E.  S.  P.,  2iow.,  280 

Henslow,  Prof.,  24 

Herne  (medium),  59 

Hieroglyphed  turnips,  40 

Hill,  J.  A.,  24,  185,  209,  276,  278 

Hindus,  20 

Hirpi  Sorani,  97 

Hobbes,  22,  65,  77,  178,  268,  274 

Hodgson,  Dr,   106,    117,   123,   191, 

192,  206,  254 
Hogshead,  frolics  of,  95 
Holmes,  T.  V.,  272 
Holy  Ghost,  19 
Home  (or  Hume),  D.  D.,  41^.,  87, 

88,  90,  93,  273 
Homer,  27 
Homo  sapiens,  291 
Horace,  97^.,  219 
Houdin,  R.,  152 
Howard,  J.  and  M.,  206 
Howitt,  A.  W.,  18,  156 
Ho witt,  William,  62 
Hume,  278 
Hunt,  Leigh,  238 
Hunter,  John,  175 
Huxley,  16,  62,  123,  277,  278 
Hydeville  knockings,  35,  38,  41,  58 
Hyperboreans,  91 
Hypnotism,  147,  172,  175 


IAMBLICHUS,  92,  97 

Iliad,  27 

Incubation,  147 

Inge,  Dean,  296 

Intelligence,  the,  37 

Isis  Unveiled,  251,  252 

Isis  Very  Much  Unveiled,  255 


"  JACKSON,  MR,"  224 
ames,  Prof.  W.,  201,  211,  269 
astrow,  Joseph,  33,  107,  no,  176 
esus,  19,  47,  148,  229,  230^. 
ohnson,  Dr,  72,  73 
udaism,  Early,  181 
ulian,  148 
ulius  Casar,  27 

K 

KELLY,  Edward,  160 
Kelvin,  Lord,  279 
Kennedy,  Mrs,  215 


INDEX 


311 


Kennedy,  Paul,  215 

Kidneys  and  crystallomancy,  162 

King,  John,  59,  116,  124,  231,  252 

King,  Katie,  60,  124,  126 

Kingdom  of  Man,  169 

Kinglake,  A.  W.,  158 

Kirk,  Rev.  R.,  27,   142 n. 

Knerr,  Dr,  no 

Koot  Homi,  253 

Kropotkin,  Prince,  82 


LANE,  E.  W.,  159 

Lang,  Andrew,  6on.,  98w.,99,  H2W, 

119,   154^,   163,   iggw,  208,  213, 

245,  248,  297« 
Lankester,  Sir  E.   Ray,    103,    168, 

173,  276,  28l,  3OOM. 

Latah,  176 

Law  of  Parsimony,  112 

Leaf,  Dr  Walter,  191,  201,  202 

Le  Bon,  Gustave,  176,  267 

Leonard,  Mrs,  189,  215,  225,  232, 
286,  298 

Levitation,  43,  45,  90  ;  legends  of, 
92-94,  234 

Liar,  The,  91 

Light,  57,  89 

Limbs,  ethereal,  227 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  23,  53,  57,  63, 
64,  78,  in,  115,  118,  131,  154, 
165,  172,  184,  187,  191,  215, 
241,  260,  269,  282,  286,  290, 

297 

Lodge,  Lady,  79,  216,  225,  229 

Lodge,  Raymond,  215,  278;  and 
Jesus  Christ,  229  ;  clothes  of,  130, 
226  ;  photographs  of,  222 

Lombroso,  Prof.,  235 

Lourdes,  178 

Lucian,  33,  37,  50^.,  91,  104 

Lucretius,  18,  21,  26,  65 

Lund.T.  W.  M.,  195^ 

Lyall,  Sir  A.,  118 

Lyon,  Mrs,  42,  276 


M 

MACALISTER,  Prof.,  20 1 
McDougall,  Duncan,  25 
Machen,  Arthur,  177 
Magnetic  Lady,  239 
Mahatmas,  250 


Manganja  medicine-men,  80 

Maori  seance,  60 

Marcillet,  M.,  151 

Maskelyne,  J.  N.,  89,  102,  115,  117, 

134.  239 

Maskelyne  and  Cook,  103 
Materialisation  of  spirits,  58,  121, 

126,  131,  280 
Matthews,  Billy,  279,  291 
Maudsley,  Dr,  175,  268 
Medium,  psychology  of,  183 
Mediums,  181-189,  240;  and  drink, 

54,  54".,   114;  fraudulent,    136; 

and  light,  120  ;   savage,  193 
Melanesians ,  2 1 
Melville,  John,  162 
Mercier,  Dr  C.,  282 
Meredith,  George,  245,  296 
Mesmer,  F.  A.,  142-144,  267 
Mesmerism,  146,  149 
Mind,  evolution  of,  299 
Monck,  "  Dr,"  44,  129,  130 
Monks ,  trickery  of  Franciscan,  82 
Mons,  Angels  at,  177 
Monsieur  de  Poitrceaugnac,  200 
Montaigne,  22,  65,  265 
Moonstone  (Control),  222,  225,  278 
Moore,  James,  237 
Morselli,  Prof.,  235 
Morton  Prince,  Dr,  15*1. 
Moses,   W.    Stainton,    37,    52,    59, 

93,   111-114,    129,   133,   190,  238, 

241,  297 

Motion  at  a  distance,  56 
Mott,  F.  W.,  i6n. 
Motuan  medium,  127 
Mumler,  Mr,  132 
Munsterberg,  Prof.  H.,  122 
Murray,  Prof.  Gilbert,  29 
Myers,   F.  W.  H.,   14,   23,  52,  75, 

115,  117,  139,  167,  191,  204,  218, 

221,  239 
Myers,  Mrs  Eveleen,  221 


N 

NASQUAPE  Indians,  79 
Nautical  Almanack,  13 
Nerve-cells,  16 
Newcombe,  Prof.,  94,  279 
Newman,  Cardinal,  231 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  175 
Nias  Islanders,  25 
Nicaraguans,  21,  25 
Nistinares,  97 


312 


INDEX 


ODIC  fluid,  145 
Olcott,  Col.,  252 
Old  Calabria,  92 
Orleans,  Mayor  of,  83 
Osiris,  26 

Osier,  Sir  W.,  1471?. 
Oteri,  Dr,  121 
Owen,  R.  Dale,  53,  58 


PAGET,  Stephen,  183,  259/2. 

Palgrave,  F,  T.,  77 

Palladino,  Eusapia,  56  ff.;  H5ff.', 
235  ;  detection  of,  118,  124 

Paracelsus,  142 

Paris  Committee,  119 

Parish,  Edmund,  179^. 

Pasilalinic,  171 

Pausanias,  157 

Pelham,  Geo.,  191,  205,  208 

Personal  Equation,  13 

Personality,  multiple,  14,  187 

Phelps.Dr,  38,  84 

Phillpotts,  Eden,  269 

Philoxenus,  245,  246 

Phinuit,  190,  198,  212 

Phosphorus,  59,  113,  119 

Photographs,  spirit,  62-64,  131-135, 
281 ;  exhibition  of,  6? 

Piddington,  Mr,  192,  243 

Piper,  Mrs,  115,  184,  189,  190-214, 
297 ;  confession  and  retractation 
of,  191  ;  sources  of  her  informa- 
tion, 192 

Pisa,  25 

Planchette,  275 

Pocha  (control),  128,  217/2. 

Podmore,  Austin,  107 

Podmore,  Frank,  20 n.,  23,  36,  41, 
43.  5°.  52,  54.  61,  75,  85,  88,  100, 
103,  107,  109,  113,  120,  128,  133, 

152,    l86,    192,  212,  222,  273,  279 

Poltergeists,  28,  33,  86,  95,  233 

Premonitions,  173 

Primitive  Culture,  24^.,  80,  92,  101, 

270 
Psychical  laboratory,  125 


Q 

QUEEN  VICTORIA,  122 
Quimby,  Mr,  258 


R 


RALSTON,  W.  R.  S.,  81 

Rappings    and     rapping-alphabet, 

35.  37,  49,  81,  86w.,  233 
Raymond,    17,  23,  26,  53,   55,   79, 

130,      187,     2l6,     219,     222,     232, 

288,     292-294 ;     Reflections     on, 

225 

Reichenbach,  von,  145 
Resurrection-body,  289 
Revivalists,  34 
Rhodes,  Cecil,  231 
Richardson,  Sir  W.  B.,  99 
Richet,  Prof.,  56,  115 
Rita  (medium),  128 
Robsahm,  M.,  140 
Rogers,  E.  Dawson,  136 
Roman  Catholic  Church,   19,   125, 

289 

Rope-tying  trick,  49 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  21 
Rothe,  F.  A.,  129 


Saint  Paul,  189 

Samuel  (control),   130 

Samuel  (prophet),  182 

Satan,  28,  41,  93,  148,  182 

Saucer  miracle,  254 

Savage  dread  of  return  of  the  dead, 

126  ;   idea  of  the  soul,  19 
Science,  Christian,  257-262 
Science  and  Health,  258 
Scot,  Reginald,  38,  67,  78,  82,  182 
Scrying,  154 
Sealed  letter,  Myers',  221,  Hannah 

Wild's,  221 
Seances,  conduct  of,  36;    darkness 

at,  87, 113,  120, 125, 145  ;  prayers 

and  hymns  at,  44,  89,   122,  160, 

225,  231 
Secret  Commonwealth  of  Fairies,  27, 

142^ 

Seybert  Commission,  109 
Shaler,  Prof.,  203 
Shaman  seance,  194 
Shaw,  G.  Bernard,  75 
Showers,  Miss,  59 
Siberian   mediums,    194;     funeral, 

228 

Siderists,  145 

Sidgwick,  Prof.  H.,  115,  269,  279 
Silas  Marner,  75 
Silurist  (Henry  Vaughan),  295 


INDEX 


313 


Simpson,  William,  251 

Sinnett,  A.  P.,  36,  84,  145 

Slade,  "  Dr,"  49,  109,  234  ;    detec- 

tion of,  103 
Slate  trick,  50,  104;    antiquity  of, 

104 
Sludge,    Mr,  "  The    Medium,"    87, 


Smith,  Rev.  David,  289 

Snails,  sympathetic,  170 

Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
21,  65,  86,  117,  154,  160,  163, 
172,  179,  191,  221,  233,  243,  255 

Socrates,  178 

Solomon  Islanders,  28,  79 

Solovovo,  Count,  184 

Solovyoff,  Mr,  255 

Soul  as  ethereal,  20-22  ;  as  replica 
of  body,  25  ;  weight  of,  25 

Speer,    Dr   and    Mrs,    53,    59,    93, 

"3 

Spencer,  Herbert,  268 
Spiers,  James,  i39n. 
Spirit,  19  ;    -breathing,  20 
Spirits,  materialisation  of,  58,  121, 

126  ;    photographs   of,    62,    131- 

135  ;   voices  of,  27,  28 
Spiritualist,  The,  128,  130 
Spurrell,  H.  G.  F.,  io2«. 
Stead,  W.  T.,  217,  231,  233 
Stephen,  Sir  L.,  287 
Stewart,  Prof.  Balfour,  22 
Subliminal  self,  14,  187 
Survival    of   Man,    53,    64,    I3i>/., 

i39n.,  166,  167,  i84,243t>. 
Swedenborg,    19,    24,    33,    40,    55, 

112,  139-142,  177 
Syracuse,  244 


TABLE  tilting  and  turning,  37,  43, 

57,  216,  275 
Table,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  amorous, 

79,  225 

Tait,  P.  G.,  22 
Talmud,  159 
Teeth,  ethereal,  227 
Telepathy,  167-174,  260,  287 
Tellurists,  145 
Thackeray,  44«. 
Theosophist  Society,  252  ;    temple, 

253 

Thief,  detection  of,  80,  156,  160 
Thomas,  N.  W.,  155,  160,  163 
Threshold  of  the  Unseen,  232 


Tobacco,  228 

Tongans , 20 

Trance  state,  146,  150,  193,  279 

Trolls,  125 

Truth,  2i9«. 

Tuckett,   Dr  Ivor,   174,    192,  204, 

207,   23OM. 

Tulloch,  Principal,  17 
Turnips,  hieroglyphed,  40 
Tylor,  Sir  E.  B.,  24**.,  80,  149,  249 
Tyndall,  Prof.,  277 


U 

UGANDA  medium,  193 
Uncle  Remus,  99 
Unseen  Universe,  22 


VEDA,  Atharva,  138 
Vedas,  96 

Verrall,  Mrs,  165,  218,  243 
Verrall,  Professor,  244 
Victoria,  Queen,  122 
Virgil,  92,  97 

Visions  of  Swedenborg,  140 
Volckman,  Mr,  126 
Vout   Peters,   Mr,    215,    222,    232, 
.  278, 298 


W 


WADDELL,  Lieut.-Col.,  231 

Wake  Cook,  Mr,  129 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  52,  56,  62,  64,  86, 

90,  99,  130,  235,  290,  300 
Walpole,  Horace,  69,  161 
Water-divining,  272 
Weight  of  medium's  body,  88,  89 ; 

the  soul,  25 
Wesley,  Rev.  S.,  28,  68 
Whisky,  ethereal,  228 
Wiggin,  Rev.  J.  A.,  258 
Wild,  Hannah,  221 
Wilkinson,  J.  J.  Garth,  140,  141 
Willett,  Mrs,  244 
William  of  Occam,  ii2w. 
Williams  (medium),  59,  123,  277  ; 

detection  of,  128 
Wilson,  Prof.,  124 
Wilson,  Rev.  W.  182 


314  INDEX 

Wind  and  spirits,  61,  125  Y 

Witch,  Lancashire,  19 

Witch  of  Endor,  182  YAHWEH  (Jehovah),  19 

Witchcraft,  28,  93  Yucatan,  157 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  160 

Word,  Omnipotent,  261  Z 

World,  The,  89 

Wriedt,  Mrs,  115,  215,  230,  235  Zoist,  The,  150 


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