PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD (On Ne Meurt Pas) BY L. CHEVREUIL Translated by AGNES KENDRICK GRAY NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1920, BY E. P. BUTTON & CO. All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE GREAT PROBLEM . ... 1 II. TELEPATHY 16 III. ORGANIC DISORDERS . . . . , .37 IV. PREVIOUS LIVES 56 V. THE ESTABLISHED FACT 82 VI. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 97 VII. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS AND MATERIAL- IZED FORMS 125 VIII. COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS .... 146 IX. MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE . . .170 X. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS . . . 201 XI. MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND . . 233 XII. MORS JANUA VIT^E . 262 2038982 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD CHAPTER I THE GREAT PROBLEM The Study of the human soul as a psychic and physical entity, will be the science of to-morrow. CAMILLE FLAMMAHIOK. Do we really die? Few persons know what answer, based upon discovered facts, may to-day be made to this important question. Many, indeed, believe that there is no longer room for doubt that immortality of the human soul is a fallacy condemned by science. Because thinkers and philosophers have not been able in the course of the centuries to agree upon any one conception of immortality, the spiritualistic idea is considered visionary; and curiously, few believe that science, which has already solved so many prob- lems, can also solve this, the one most deeply signifi- cant to mankind. Religions give us no certain knowledge, and science, accepting only demonstration, does not comprehend the language of Faith. With respect for old philosophic and religious con- cepts, we desire to offend no conviction ; but let those who believe that they receive light from above be willing, at least, to regard without scorn those who 2 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD are seeking a solution from Nature; and who dig the soil hoping to encounter there a solid base upon which they may build. It is the year 1916; we have seen mankind at work; murder, theft and rape have incited no awakening of conscience in the neutral nations; the frightful storm which scatters death upon Europe has revealed many powers, many weaknesses. Something seems lacking in the guidance of humanity. Nineteenth Century Science committed this vio- lence upon reason and denied all that makes for the moral grandeur of mankind. It accepted the lie that there is nothing else in the universe but matter such as we know it: there is no soul, no intelligence; there are only reactions. The great scientific dogma was therefore that the cause of all things exists in this matter, which is reduced by a last analysis to the indivisible, indissoluble, eternal atom. To-day the dissolution of atoms must be admitted, and as it is vain to suppose that the dispersed matter is destroyed, we may affirm that the separation of the atoms is their passage into a beyond of which science knows nothing. There are, therefore, other physical possibilities than those admitted by or known to science. As for spiritualistic doctrines, they are insufficient; happy are those who have the faith, but we in our researches cannot enter the domain of mysticism; we must attack the problem from the earth. Studying faculties and manifestations of the human soul we follow its deviations and aberrations, in order to show clearly that its essence is spiritual and that material- ism cannot furnish its key. We do not die! This is the certainty that we THE GREAT PROBLEM 8 may acquire solely by observation applied to facts which are accessible to us. Knowledge may replace faith. There exists to-day a certain class of facts acquired by observation, which prove definitely that the soul exists in itself, that it exists before the crea- tion of the body, and survives the destruction of its mortal abode. Many scholars are aware of this; certain of the most illustrious have carefully explored the strange region of the soul and affirm that by wholly scientific methods they have reached assurances of which the world at large is ignorant. There exists a certain class of facts acquired by science, which prove that in the living being exists an invisible substance endowed with faculties which cannot be explained in relation to matter. This also the world does not know. Finally, we have a class of facts, more difficult to observe scientifically, which, submitted to minute examinations, have established that under certain conditions, deceased persons have been able to appear in the world of living beings. The body dies, it is true. But we will begin by proving that the body is not all, and that we have possibilities of survival in a material substratum which never fails us ; in other words, that we possess at the present time an invisible body which you per- haps do not know, and of which we shall speak. Some may say, "I want to see before I believe," to which we may reply, "You believe in forces . . . have you ever seen them?" Yet the undisturbed somnambulist sees the mag- netic emanations, and sees also the psychic body. As for us, we cannot see even the oxygen, which is ma- 4 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD terially the most indispensable element to us, since it is nourishment of life and much more essential than food. However, little more than a century ago men lived in absolute ignorance of this element so necessary to life, just as we live to-day in ignorance of this psychic element, the true body of the soul, indispensable to feeling and action. Invisibility has nothing to do with the supernatu- ral. The materialists of fifty years ago, who be- lieved that visibility or impenetrability was the es- sential condition of the material, were really super- stitious. Scientific spiritualism is established upon material bases, which are the foundations of a metapsychology of the invisible world. Associated with its observa- tions are scholars well qualified to give the facts an indisputable value. Unfortunately, many men, led astray by the sar- casm of a press utterly ignorant of the present state of investigation, imagine that the spirits are guar- dians or doorkeepers of the beyond, ready to answer at the first summons if somebody or other's grand- father is among the tenants of the dwelling. There is large opportunity for wit in presenting the facts of spiritualism, which delights free thinkers. Therefore, we must rise above vain mockery and have the courage to endure ridicule; the triumph of fools will be brief. We must, first of all, study animism, which is at once a dogma and an established fact. As a dogma, it holds that the soul is the animat- ing principle of the body ; as a fact, it is the exterior manifestation of forces called animic. THE GREAT PROBLEM 5 Materialists oppose animism to spiritualism. But this word animism can have no meaning upon their lips, since they will not admit the soul as a principle and reject as a fact the exteriorization of the sen- sory, motive and intellectual faculties of sensation acting outside of the human body. Thus they acknowledge the letter and not the spirit. It is therefore inconsequent to them to ex- plain anything by animism. But animism is a fact that they cannot deny; therefore it is stubbornness on their part to stand fast in their conception of physiology, while, on the other side, they combat the spiritualistic conception in the name of the animic theory, which for them can- not exist. The spiritualists teach that without animism there could be no possible relation between mind and mat- ter. Without animism, there could be no phenome- non of inspiration, no presentiment, none of those phenomena which make possible communication be- tween us and the departed. The possibility of spirit manifestation is subor- dinate to this very question of animism. Fifty years ago, animism was not scientifically accredited. That is why science discarded the ques- tion a priori. To a Biichner and his disciples s who mistook laws for causes, the question could not even be presented. Relying upon the known laws of physiology, Biichner declared blindly that they implied the rejection, pure and simple, of all action from a distance. The reasons for his conclusion were pitiable. The antiquity of man, he wrote, destroyed the tradition of the almanac of Mathieu de la Drome 6 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD for him when it asserts that God had not created man 2000 years before the deluge, spiritualism breaks down. All the arguments of Biichner are of this stamp. To him, thought-transmission would be a miracle; but this action is normally manifested in our organ- isms, and to-day it is no longer possible to deny that it is shown outside of organisms. However, people surrender reluctantly, giving up as little as may be, ceding as slowly as possible the ground that spiritualistic science is winning, and justifying this attitude by donning the hypocritical mask of scien- tific prudence. There are those who, though convinced of the reality of abnormal manifestations, still declare a tardy intention of regarding these facts only under a conventional aspect. They declare that they must study the simplest phenomena before going on to the more complex. They forget, however, that before pronouncing a judgment, all phases of a phenomenon must be studied. Those who have, so regretfully, conceded the reality of movement without contact, pretend to study only the physical side of the manifestation, without taking into account the intellectual, of which movement it is often but the expression. This is called, limiting the field of experiments; in other words, forbidding the search for causes. Those who wish thus to dictate to us the course to follow, assure us that the independent pioneers impede and confuse them in their experiments. Let us therefore explain this. It would be absurd pretension to hold to an ex- planation which explains only the simplest facts, THE GREAT PROBLEM T while other facts of the same order contradict this explanation. A fact is a fact, and no one has the right to elimi- nate one, however exceptional it may seem. That fact, even, which escapes our present comprehension, is all the more valuable, because it increases the limits of the possible and will serve as a basis for future discoveries. I dare even to say that the more exceptional a fact is, the less chance there is of seeing it repeated often, and it becomes more necessary since definite proof exists to give it publicity. The world must know that such a proof exists, lest it be forgotten and the limitation affect a new fact. We do not find astronomers neglecting even an isolated observation and taking no further account of a comet's appearance because it has ceased to appear. We do not hear them declare that it is unnecessary to observe the nebulae, when there is so much more to be observed in a nearer field. That, however, is the method which they wish to recommend, when they say we must not overflow into the sub- ject of communication with the beyond, until we shall have completely exhausted that of hypnotism. Yet who knows which of these two subjects will shed its light upon the other? The same physio- logical process can produce similar automatic re- sults, while the motive agents are different. If M. Pierre Janet is able to use hypnotism to produce, in an unconscious subject, an automatism of a spiritist appearance, he has simply proved that any mind could deposit in the lower strata of the organism a suggestion of similar nature. Whether the sugges- 8 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD tion be true or false matters little; M. Pierre Janet has created an illusion, let us say. But he could, also, have used the same means to convey a real message. It is only in looking towards spiritism that certain cases become explicable. According to the simplest method, we should have to conclude that, because one automatism may be explicable by spontaneous cellular activities, no other automatic action can be attributed to a higher source. But observation contradicts, absolutely, this conclusion. We will not say much concerning table moving. That popular phenomenon is sufficiently well known. As four or five persons are rarely found who are disposed to gather around a table for serious experi- ments and it is very difficult to arouse a common sympathy among them, only futile results, for the most part, are recorded, and indefinite observers pronounce definitely a verdict of condemnation. Experimentation is difficult, yet we need but to study those who have observed seriously, to gain an idea of the communications obtained by the lifting of objects without contact. Here we find again the proof of the fluidic element in communication with the brain of the audience, made manifest to our senses. Therefore, there is round a table something like a field of force, created by the fluidic exteriorization of all the persons present. There already is soul, thinking and acting. This is an animic manifesta- tion. In the exteriorizable element is a sensitive faculty that brings it into relation with the will. There is soul everywhere; there is, everywhere, a motive THE GREAT PROBLEM 9 faculty, capable of feeling an influence and of per- forming mechanically what the will dictates. Man's soul seems so bound to his body that physi- ologists ascribe to the body itself movements which are determined by the soul. It is as if we were to attribute to the telegraph wire the production of the electric current whose results are visible to us. Indeed, certain accidents have definitely established that the soul is not iden- tical with the functions of the body, as the mate- rialists believe. Magnetism and hypnosis alone, already tend to prove the action of a psychic force independent of the organism. After Mesmer, Puysegur and De- leuze, Baron du Potet penetrated far into the mys- tery, but the time was not ripe for understanding. Charcot saw very clearly the depth of the abyss, and dared not face it. "Hypnotism," he declared, "is a world wherein one encounters palpable, mate- rial, gross facts, side by side with other facts, abso- lutely extraordinary, and inexplicable at present, following no physiological law and wholly strange and surprising. I will address myself to the first and leave the latter untouched." To-day, however, the hour to study these latter facts has come. Facts accumulate, extraordinary cases are recorded by competent persons, and they prove in a most evident manner, that the bonds which unite the soul and the senses are not indissoluble. For example, long distance sight, reading without the use of the eyes, inversion of senses, etc. As early as 1886, Durand de Gros, a learned doctor, and, as rarely happens, also a profound philosopher, had written in his Physiologic phttoso- 10 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD phique: "If the retina were developed upon the spiral blade of the cochlea sonorous vibrations would replace light and sounds would be seen. Reciprocally, if the acoustic nerve should spread its fibers into the eye, Iwnwnous rays would become sounds." This statement, which was for the most part an intuition of genius in Dr. Durand, has been confirmed by experience, but it is in the invisible organism, the psychic body that such inversions may be produced, since of course the optic and acoustic nerves cannot be substituted one for the other experimentally. Yet these nerves are only conductors and it is due to their purely conductive faculty that the strange transposition imagined by Durand de Gros can be accomplished. However unlikely that may seem, it is true never- theless, and we are able to quote a competent au- thority. Here is the testimony of Lombroso : "In 1891 I had to contend in my medical practice with one of the most curious phenomena ever pre- sented to me. I was called upon to care for the daughter of a high official of my native city. This young person was often seized with paroxysms of hysteria, with accompanying symptoms, which neither pathology nor physiology could explain. At times, her eyes lost their sight, and by inversion, the sick girl saw with her ears. With bandaged eyes, she was able to read several printed lines held before her ear. We placed a magnifying glass between her ear and the sunlight, and she felt a burning sensa- tion, crying out that she was being blinded. She prophesied in detail, with mathematical exactitude, everything that would happen to her. THE GREAT PROBLEM 11 "Although these facts were not new, they were nevertheless extremely singular. I confess that to me, at least, they seemed inexplicable by physio- logical or pathological theories as developed up to that time. ... It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps spiritism might aid me in reaching the truth." x In short, the conception of a soul independent of the body, an active and no longer a function soul, alone might solve this problem to which no material- istic conception could offer a solution. When a fact of this kind is encountered, there is but one path to follow abandon the obsolete con- ceptions and declare frankly that physiology, such as taught by dogmatic materialism, will always be unable to explain vital movement. This is what Lombroso did in repudiating the old error. Why then do so many others close their eyes that they may not see? We must confess, it is because our official scholars are very timid they are afraid of having a soul. Others are bravely mistaken. They receive the evidence of the fact, but are hampered by a pre- conceived notion at the very basis of their scientific education. The facts are absurd in the face of their materialistic faith; they are absurd, inasmuch as the soul's existence is judged absurd. But the hypothe- sis of the soul makes these facts natural and explic- able, shows the bonds which unite them, and strange to say, the facts thus interpreted accord with all that we know of experimental science; agree with all i From the Italian magazine L' 'Arena, translated into French by Dr. Dusart, La Revue Scientifique Morale du Spiritisme, Aug., 1907. 12 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD scientific observations which they admirably explain and complete. It does not appertain to science to judge matters of the soul or of spiritualistic philosophy. These are questions beyond its province, but the soul gives rise to phenomena of animism, which at the present time allude every theory applicable to physical phe- nomena. Therefore it is the part of science to dis- cover in what realm, ethereal or other, and by what theory, undulatory or inductive, might be explained the phenomena of action at a distance and of thought-transference. Above all, science should make the amends honor- able to the animistic fact which implies the existence of a force which science has always denied; for one cannot admit the exteriorization of sensorial, motive, or intellectual faculties, without being converted to some spiritualistic idea. Materialists understood it in this way when they opposed every phenomenon of action at a distance with the argument of impossibility, for reasons which, they said, they alone were capable of appre- ciating. Action at a distance they would say to us, pitying our ignorance simply shows us that and your name will go down in history, more renowned than Kepler or Newton. Impossibility has become proof. The names of those who have demonstrated it have not become great in history, but the fact has become familiar, and has been christened Animism. Animism, so called, is simply the manifestation of the psychic body, an intermediary agency between mind and matter. THE GREAT PROBLEM 13 We cannot state that it acts according to physical laws, since it is manifested under a form still unknown to science. But it is made manifest, and that is the essential. The data we shall give concerning telepathy are the resume of forty years' experiments; those who have carried them on are scholars of the highest order. The facts which are the basis of our demon- strations have been verified or accepted by them after serious investigations. Leaving out all that pertains to history, tradition and legend, we shall endeavor to show that the simple statement of observations of material phenomena rests upon the word of absolutely competent and credible authorities. Then we shall see how the or- ganic machine conducts itself in face of these strange phenomena; how this delicate instrument is respon- sive to influences of inward or outward thought. It is this sensitiveness which opens the door to certain means of occult communication and makes possible a belief in the efficacy of prayer and in inspiration. Without making personal hypotheses, we shall set forth those statements which have been formulated upon animistic polyzoism. They seem to correspond strikingly to the prob- lems of the constitution of the human soul and the evolution of beings, at the same time according with all that we know concerning phylogenesis, ontogene- sis and embryology. Finally we shall demonstrate how we may acquire the certainty of after life. This conviction scientifically reached cannot but contribute to the raising of morale, need of which is everywhere felt. In scientific research lies our 14 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD sole port of refuge. Science, accepting only demon- strations, does not hear, does not comprehend the language of faith. The facts that we set forth demonstrate after life. Briefly, the rational basis of morale would be in absolute knowledge of the after life; science cannot reach this, but it can attain a relative knowledge, quite sufficient to prove the presence of soul in na- ture; and that there are not only forces but also psychic organisms. This is enough to cure us of that mental malady which causes us to teach that in the human body there is naught else but the functions of nutrition, circulation and respiration. It is not the activity of the liver and the spleen which causes us to love the true, the good and the beautiful, which incites indignation and arouses enthusiasm these are indeed psychic forces. They so truly exist that, through- out the history of humanity, they have always tri- umphed over the satanic forces of matter it is these forces that won the battle of the Marne. Let us then seek in the empiric experiments of animism, clairvoyance and telepathy, the scientific weapon with which we may combat the barbarous conception of materialism that was leading us to de- cadence. This study suffices to reinstate spiritistic teaching. Man is so constituted that he is insensible to arguments that do not touch him personally; he can only adopt a morality based upon knowledge of his destiny, since this alone will overcome his in- curable egoism. He must know that his happiness or unhappiness is but a natural consequence of the direction he him- self has chosen. He must know that the simple tele- THE GREAT PROBLEM 15 pathic law will subject him, in the Beyond, to the severe ordeal of confronting the lucidity of a throng of clairvoyant souls who will read him like an open book. A man's evil actions will then become the in- strument of his own torture. When he can no longer endure this he will have to flee the society of these clairvoyant souls, seeking solitude and shadows. His final escape will be a return a new incarnation, which will be a new ordeal. Here is something to move our egoism. If we are able to demonstrate that, justly, the happiness of each is jointly and severally concerned in the gen- eral progress, if we are all responsible, then the strong should labor to raise the weak; it will serve no end to hate them. Thus we come, by simple knowledge of the laws of evolution, under the great law of Christ: there is no other issue save to love one another and to live each for the other. That is the true scientific revelation, which gives us the key to a solid, practical and rational moral teaching. CHAPTER II TELEPATHY The action of one being upon another at a dis- tance, is a scientific fact, as certain as the ex- istence of Paris, Napoleon, oxygen or Sirius. C. FLAMMARIOK. ABOUT 1882, a committee of well-known English- men, who were more interested in intellectual facts than in the physical phenomena previously studied by Sir William Crookes and Russel Wallace, re- solved to devote scientific study to thought-trans- ference. With this in view, they founded the Society for Psychical Research. Having taken all precau- tions to eliminate any possibility of a code of in- genious signals being used, they were convinced of the reality of thought-transference. In the first volume of the organ of this society, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, will be found the reports of these experiments, with drawings and diagrams that give an idea of the results obtained. In 1883 and 1884, in Liverpool, Mr. Malcolm Guthrie discovered two sensitive subjects among the employees of a large woolen house, and began a series of experiments with which the great physician, Sir Oliver Lodge, was associated. Telepathic action is to-day a verified fact, but it is also true that it remains indefinable. This action 10 TELEPATHY 17 from a distance requires an intermediary, but no one is able to say whether this intermediary is of a physical order. The inner life of the soul rises from a region unknown to science, a region which by hypothesis or for convenience of speech we may call the psychic element. Yet despite this, and what- ever it may be, it is quite certain that the soul can- not be made manifest to this material world except by means of a physical expression. Telepathic action would be incomprehensible and even inconceivable if there were not, in the ether, a dynamic element that holds all being in its embrace. It is only by the intermediary of this element that the relations between body and soul may be explained, more especially the telepathic communi- cations which experience and repeated observations have forced us to admit. Telepathy is the universal phenomenon diffused throughout the world, the one phenomenon uniting all human beings and reaching as well to matter in which it calls forth life. Existent in the cosmos is an element which is to the life of the soul, what oxygen is to physical life. The effects of this upon ourselves we shall observe. The first experimenters declared that, if spon- taneous telepathy gave the results of which we have many witnesses, there must be some faculty in man, even if it be but a germ, which it must be possible to control. It was M. Charles Richet, I believe, who first en- deavored to establish the matter mathematically by applying the experiments to the divinations of num- bers in the mind of another; he obtained only rather inconclusive results. 18 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD In 1886, the Misses Wingfield used Dr. Richet's method, but limited the experiment to a number con- sisting of two figures, from ten to ninety-nine. Two thousand, six hundred and fourteen trials gave two hundred and seventy-five successful results; the average probability would have been only twenty- nine. Four hundred trials of another series, whose prob- ability would have been four, gave twenty-seven suc- cessful results. Enlarging the field of experiments, Mr. Guthrie of Liverpool conceived the idea of trying the trans- ference of sensations of taste, smell and touch. Messrs. Gurney and Myers tasted, smelled and touched while the mediums R and E diag- nosed their sensations. But the most decisive result obtained was re- corded through visual sensations. The first trials in this class were due, I believe, to the initiative of Mr. Rawson. They consisted in obtaining the graphic reproduction of a very simple design, such as a triangle, ring or flower. These experiments were successfully taken up by Mr. Guthrie, repeated on the Avenue de Villiers by M. Schmoll and ob- served anew by Lombroso and many other psy- chologists; briefly, they are now incontestable. In all these trials, the drawings have been repro- duced with an exactitude that leaves no doubt of the transmission of picture. Nevertheless it is cer- tain that the percipient does not always see the picture traced upon the model, but that he is struck by the idea sent to him by the Agent; this is per- ception of an active thought. In this way a ring traced flat upon the paper; TELEPATHY 10 o. i 20 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD was drawn in perspective; a foot drawn bare was represented with a shoe in the replica; a hand is indeed reproduced, but not in the same position, etc. Therefore we cannot attribute these results to the sensitiveness of lower centers. It is the normal and conscious sensitiveness which registers this kind of perception ; also the experiment demands a severe effort upon the part of the per- cipient and greatly fatigues him. We would also mention the attempts of Com- mandant Darget which tended to prove that the emission of a thought would have enough objective force to make an impression upon a photographic plate. He has made many communications upon this subject to the Academy of Sciences. All psy- chists know of the films representing the bottles photographed by Commandant Darget's thought- radiation. But let us return to telepathy. Images perceived by the brain are often rather vague ; those are much clearer which are obtained when the agent succeeds in influencing the lower organs, whose response, in this case, becomes purely automatic. Yet this kind of experimentation cannot be undertaken except with the aid of specially endowed subjects. We have valuable examples of it in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. In 1871, during a period of eight months, Mr. Newnham carried on a series of experiments through the mediumship of his wife, with whom he was able to communicate automatically. An exchange of questions and replies was made by the indirect way of a motive center, which set in movement Mrs. Newnham's hand, without her TELEPATHY 21 having the least consciousness of the questions ad- dressed to her or the answers which she made. Her husband's questions were never formulated, even in a low voice; he wrote them with a pencil well out of reach of her glances. In the course of his long experiments the replies were always in accord with the questions and we must note the important fact that five or six ques- tions were often put, one after the other, without Mrs. Newnham's knowing of what they treated. Thus, there was no communication of thought only movement was communicated. Mr. Newnham made three hundred and nine of these experiments. We will cite the following: "At that time," recounts Mr. Newnham, "I had a young man studying with me as a private pupil. On the 12th of February he returned from his vaca- tion, having heard of our experiments, and expressed his incredulity in a rather rough fashion. I told him that he might try whatever proof he desired, with this reserve alone, that I should see the question he put. "In consequence of this, Mrs. Newnham took her place in my study in her accustomed armchair while we retired into the living room and closed the door behind us. That done, the young man wrote upon a piece of paper, 'What is my eldest sister's first name?' We returned immediately to the desk where the answer already awaited us 'Mina.' It is the familiar abbreviation of the name Wilhelmina. I assure you this was completely unknown to me." This last remark of the professor has little im- portance, the value of the experiment lies in the fact 22 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD that a secondary center received, from a strange thought, movement and direction without passing through the central conscientiousness of the medium. In space, it is unimportant whether the motive agent should have been the husband's thought, that of the young man, or the thought of an unknown entity. This so-called telepathic phenomenon acts in us constantly without in the least attracting our at- tention. In this way we are in telepathic communi- cation with all our organs. We also take no note of the telepathic action which is translated to us by inspiration. Who is able to affirm whether he, himself, is the author of a brilliant idea or of an obsession? Who is sure of being the author of his own ideas? From a thousand obscure sensations, from reservoirs of our memory, we create within ourselves combina- tions which we call our thought, but we have only made manifest a synthesis of sensations already re- ceived which have come to us from sources of which we know nothing. But we are able to affirm that exterior thought flows in upon us in a more direct fashion, and we are able to say this from the observations which have been made. This influence can be localized; sometimes it reaches the brain directly and that seems natural. Sometimes it flows directly into secondary centers and that seems incredible, super- natural. The lower centers act, in this case, ac- cording to the normal process known to them alone, for they perceive telepathically, being like ourselves incapable of determining whence the perception comes to them. It is this which gives rise to automatisms. TELEPATHY 23 It is in observing ourselves and in observing the automatisms whose source we have been able to control, that it has sometimes been possible to de- termine the origin of the phenomena. As these sources are exterior, it is perfectly certain to-day that thought, emotion, and desire may influence at a distance either the brain or the sense organs. We shall quote some examples. CASE IN WHICH THE BRAIN Is DIRECTLY INFLUENCED This is the case to which one pays the least atten- tion, because it is the conscious ego which perceives this kind of influence, and the ego deliberates whether it will accept or reject the influence. Therefore the case is apparently normal. The following is one of numerous examples taken from the collection entitled Telepathic Hallucina- tions. Mr. A. Skirving, master-mason of the Winchester Cathedral, made the following deposition: "I was working in Regents Park for Messrs. Mowlen, Burt and Freeman, who at this time had a contract with the government for all the masonry work of the Capitol. I think it was at Gloucester Gate in any case, it was at that gate in Regent's Park to the west of the Zoological Gardens in the northeast corner of the Park. The distance from my house was too great for me to return for lunch so I carried my dinner with me and for that reason I had no need to leave my work during the day. "One day, however, I suddenly felt an intense desire to return to my house. As I had nothing to do there, I tried to rid myself of this wish but it 24 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD was impossible. The obsession to return home grew from moment to moment, but it was ten o'clock in the morning and there was nothing which should have called me from my work at that hour. I grew restless and ill at ease and felt that I should go, even at the risk of being laughed at by my wife; I could give no reason for leaving my work and losing six pence an hour for a stupid impulse. However, I could not rest. Finally I went home, moved by an urging which I could not resist. "When I reached the door of my house, I knocked and my wife's sister opened it. She was a married woman who lived several streets farther away. She looked surprised and said to me, 'Well, Skirving, how did you know?' 'Know what?' I answered. 'Why, about Mary Ann?' 'I know nothing about Mary Ann' (my wife). 'Then, what is bringing you back at this hour?' And I answered her, 'I can hardly tell you, it seemed to me that I was needed here at home. But what has happened?' Then she told me that a cab had run over my wife about an hour ago and that she had been seriously hurt. She had not ceased calling for me since her accident and had several violent crises. I hurried up the steps and although she was very ill she recognized me at once. She held out her arms to me, wound them about my neck and pressed my head to her breast. The crisis passed immediately, and my presence calmed her visibly ; then she slept and was better. Her sister told me that she had uttered heart-rending cries to call me to her although there was not the least probability that I would come. This brief story has but one merit; it is strictly true." ALEXANDER SKIEVING. The action produced upon a brain at a distance and by an exterior agent becomes even more evident TELEPATHY 25 when two separated persons simultaneously obey the same impulse. Here is a case given by a physician, Dr. Ede of Guilford: Lady G. and her sister had passed the evening with their mother, who was in her usual health, physically and mentally, at the time of their de- parture. In the middle of the night Lady G.'s sister awoke, greatly frightened, and said to her husband, "I must go at once to my mother please have the carriage called. I am sure that she is ill." Her husband, after having vainly tried to per- suade his wife that it was only imagination, sum- moned the carriage. When she drew near her mother's house, at the point of intersection of two streets, she saw Lady G. approach in her carriage. Each sister asked the other why she was there and each gave the same reply, "I could not sleep, feeling sure that mother was ill. That is why I returned." When they reached the house, they saw at the door their mother's personal maid and learned from her that their mother had been taken ill suddenly. She was dying and had expressed an ardent wish to see her daughters. 1 There are hundreds of classic examples whicli I might cite. The following is from the investigation of M. C. Flammarion in his book: L'Inconnu et les problemes psychiques. (The Unknown and Psychic Problems.) 27th Case: My great Aunt, Mme. de Thiriet, feeling that she was dying, appeared, four or five hours before her death, to be meditating deeply. i Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. (After the pamphlet by Ed. Bennet.) 26 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD "Are you in greater pain?" asked the lady, who told me this incident. "No, my dear, but I have just called Midon for my burial." Midon was a woman who had served her, and who lived at Eulmont, a village 10 kilometers from Nancy, where Mme. Thiriet was living. The lady who was present during her last moments thought that she was dreaming. But two hours later this lady was astounded at the arrival of Midon with black gar- ments in her arm. She said that she had heard Madame call her to attend her deathbed and render the last services. A. D'AEBOIS DE JTJBAINVILLE, Retired Custodian of Waters and Forests, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor at Nancy. It will be noted that in this case the agent was conscious of the telepathic action produced upon the subject. THE SENSE ORGANS PERCEIVE TELEPATHICALLY In the relations of the brain with the organs telepathy acts visibly. Man communicates with his sensory organs, such as the visual and auditory centers. Automatism and hallucination might be easily ex- plained as the awakening in special centers of a sensation unknown to us. Strangers as we are to the inmost perceptions of these small lower centers of consciousness, we are fully aware that a sensa- tion, known only to them and awakened in them without our knowledge, reaches us telepathically, and creates in us the identical interpretation what- ever may be the cause of the excitation of the organ. TELEPATHY 27 In other words, if a memory is capable of arousing a sensation in these lower centers, we are not cap- able ourselves of distinguishing this sensation from that transmitted by the same organ when it is in the presence of the real image. We have thus an illusion that is like reality. It is doubtless a modified image, as the picture produced upon a photographic plate differs from nature. But in the consciousness of the percipient this image is real and sufficiently similar to be sent to the spectator in the manner of a motion picture projection. Experience and numerous observations of this phenomena determine that telepathy reaches not only the brain, but is quite capable under certain conditions, still unknown, of reaching the psychic element directly in its secondary centers of conscious- ness. From this it follows that the ego is greatly surprised to receive thus indirectly an image which it has never seen, or to execute, automatically, ac- tions which are beyond the reach of its knowledge. That would seem to belie the axiom Nihil in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu. This proves quite simply that the sense organs can be impressed by a foreign influence. The trans- mitted image impresses itself first upon the secondary center and from there enters the consciousness of the percipient. Thus telepathy explains not only hallucinations, but also suggestions come from without, automat- isms, etc. 38 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD CASE IN WHICH TELEPATHY REACHES THE VISUAL SENSE This case is recorded in the February number, 1901, of the Journal of the Society of Psychical Research, told by Mr. David Fraser Harris, Lec- turer at the University of St. Andrew. I quote from the magazine: A few years ago, pressing business prevented my returning home to London at the end of the week, and as I did not care to spend Sunday in Manchester, I went on the Saturday afternoon to Matlock Bath with the intention of spending a quiet Sunday there, and returning by an early train on Monday morning. On arrival at my destination, a small private hotel not very far from Matlock Bath Station, I immediately ordered tea and went to the sitting room to warm myself as it was a raw, cold day in January with a lot of snow about and the temperature many degrees below freezing point. I happened to be the only visitor at the hotel, and I made myself comfortable in a large easy chair before a cheerful fire, waiting for my tea. It was hardly light enough to see to read. My back was turned to the window and I was not thinking of anything in particular; I was in a kind of passive, tranquil mood, when suddenly I seemed to become oblivious to my surroundings and in the place of the dark wall and the pictures facing me, I saw the front of my house in London with my wife standing at the door talking to a working man who held a large broom in his hands. My wife had a very concerned look, and I felt sure that the man was in great distress. I could not and did not of course hear what was spoken, but a strong intuition TELEPATHY 99 told me that the man was asking my wife's assistance. At that moment the servant entered the room with my tea and the scene I had just visualized van- ished, and I again realized where I was. I was, however, so strongly impressed and so convinced of the reality of what I had seen that after tea I wrote a letter to my wife telling her of the strange oc- currence and asking her to make inquiries about the man and to assist him as much as possible. What had actually occurred was this: A boy knocked at the door of my house (which is roughly 140 or 145 miles away from where I was) and asked the servant whether he might sweep the snow away from the pavement and doorway for a penny. Whilst the boy was speaking, a poorly clad and ill- looking man came and said, "Please let me sweep away the snow; this boy very likely will only spend the penny in sweets, while I want it for bread. I have a wife and four children all ill at home; we have no food and not even a fire, and nothing more to pawn, and we owe rent." The servant asked the man to wait while she told my wife. When she came to the door and spoke to him the man re- peated his statement to her, and added that he was a painter out of work and had been ill and that he and his family were in great distress, but that he did not want to go to the workhouse for relief if he could only get work of some kind. It was this scene that I witnessed at the very moment it happened and which was probably com- municated to me through the impression the man's distress made upon my wife's mind. The rest of the story is simply this: My wife told the man she would call at his home in the course of the afternoon and see what could be done. This she did and found that the man had told the truth. She at once helped the poor family with money, 30 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD clothing, food and fuel, and needless to say was very much astonished when she received my letter on Monday morning which told her what I had seen. A few days afterwards, I saw the man and in- stantly identified him as the man I had seen in my strange vision. He subsequently obtained a situa- tion as milk man and for about a couple of years regularly called m our neighborhood with a milk barrow. This is an example of what telepathy may accom- plish in reaching the visual sense. By this means an image which has never previously been placed before a subject may be present itself to him. However, it must be noted that the action pro- duced upon the secondary center is not exclusive of that always vaguer action which tends towards the brain. Thus, in the preceding case, we see that the husband in telepathic communication with his wife sees the same picture that is visible to her, a perfectly defined picture, equivalent to a flash of reality, since it photographs, so to speak, the features of the person. But at the same time, the percipient's brain was impressed by something very strong which gave him an intuition of what the un- fortunate man was asking. That which I wish to emphasize here is that telepathic action, exerted upon the secondary centers, is clear and precise, while it is vague and confused when addressed to the principal sense in which it can only arouse in- tuition. Another fact to be noted is the feeling of cer- tainty inspired in those who have received similar perceptions. Lady G. and her sister were so firmly convinced that it was indeed their mother who called TELEPATHY 31 them that they went through the unwonted proceed- ing of summoning their carriages at midnight. The mason of Winchester reasoned and struggled in vain against a seemingly irrational desire, and yielded despite the apparent absurdity of his determination. But a person who does not analyze her feelings, like the maid Midon, does not even perceive that she is the object of a phenomenon she has felt a reality and responds: "Madame called me and I am here." On the other hand, a person of high culture, the Lecturer of St. Andrew, experienced so little doubt that he wrote immediately to his wife to gather in- formation upon the subject of this man, apparition of whom he did not attribute to a dream. Naturally, all the cases of abnormal visions are not telepathic. Certain apparitions are due to images really present. For the moment, however, we shall not go beyond telepathy. CASE IN WHICH TELEPATHY REACHES THE AUDITOEY SENSE The following case is taken from Camille Flam- marion's book, Ulnconnu et les Problemes Psy- chiques, p. 140: Mme. A., mother of the person who told me this story, had had in her service for several years a maid to whom she was deeply attached. The woman married and went to make her home upon a farm, rather far from the little town where Mme. A. lived. One night she awoke suddenly and said to her husband: "Listen! do you hear? Madame is call- ing me!" But everything was calm and silent and her husband tried to quiet her. After a few mo- S3 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD ments the poor woman, growing more and more agitated, declared: "I must go to Madame, she is calling me, I am sure that I should go." But her husband, still believing her under the influence of a bad dream laughed at her, and after a short while she grew calm again. The next day her husband upon going to town learned that Mme. A., taken suddenly ill on the previous evening, had died in the night and while dying had called for her former maid at the very moment when the latter had heard the voice of her mistress. SUZANNE H. Paris (Letter 362). It would be useless to multiply examples; never- theless, as one might bring up the easy explanation of an imaginary summons, which by a strange coin- cidence was found to correspond with reality, we will cite one fact more. It is found in a series which disposes of this ob- jection. In this case the words which were heard by another at a distance were actually spoken by the agent in the presence of a witness. The following case is of this kind: L'Ineonnu, XXXIH. On the 22nd of January, 1893, I was called by telegraph to my aunt, 92 years old, who had been ill for several days. Upon my arrival I found my dear aunt dying and unable to speak. I took my place at her bedside to remain with her to the end. About ten o'clock at night, as I was seated beside her in a chair, I heard her call out with surprising strength : "Lucie ! Lucie ! Lucie !" I sprang up and saw that my aunt had lost consciousness, and I TELEPATHY S3 heard the death-rattle in her throat. Ten minutes later she drew her last breath. Lucie was another niece and my aunt's godchild who did not come to visit her often enough, as she frequently complained to the nurse. The next day I said to my cousin Lucie: "You must have been greatly surprised to receive the tele- gram announcing our aunt's death." But she re- plied : "Not at all. I was somewhat expecting it. Last night about ten o'clock, when I was sleeping soundly, I was awakened suddenly by having my aunt call me, 'Lucie ! Lucie ! Lucie !' and I could not sleep for the rest of the night." This is the fact which I declare to be true, asking you to use only my initials if you publish it, for the city where I live is composed, for the most part, of futile, ignorant, hypocritical people. P. L. B. (Letter 47.) Telepathy sometimes affects several centers at once, as sight and hearing. For example, there is the case of Mrs. Richardson, who, when she had an exact apparition of her husband wounded upon the battlefield, also heard and recognized his voice, say- ing, "Take this ring from my finger and send it to my wife," words which the general had indeed spoken. Richardson was more than 250 kilometers from her. This is reported in Telepathic Hallucinations, the forty-seventh case, and is surrounded by all the guarantees required in a serious investigation. CASE IN WHICH TELEPATHY REACHES THE TACTILE SENSE In the most usual case, there exists a certain sym- pathy at a distance, as when a blow or wound is 34 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD distinctly felt by a parent or friend of the agent at the very moment when the latter is struck. We find an excellent example of this in Telepathic Hallucinations, case CXXII, reported by Mrs. Severn (p. 40). Brantwood, October 27, 1883. I awoke suddenly, feeling that I had received a violent blow upon the mouth. I had the distinct sensation of having been out of doors, and that I was bleeding above my upper lip. Sitting up in bed I seized my handkerchief, crumpled and pressed it against the wounded spot. A few seconds later, in removing it, I was greatly surprised to see no trace of blood. I realized only then that it was impossible that anything could have struck me, for I had been lying in my bed and sleep- ing soundly. ... I thought I had merely been dreaming. But I looked at my watch, and seeing that it was seven o'clock and that Arthur (my hus- band) was not in the room I concluded rightly that he had gone out for an early morning sail on the lake as the weather was fine. Then I once more fell asleep. We breakfasted at nine-thirty. Arthur came in a little late and I noticed that he sat farther from me than usual and from time to time unobtrusively put his hand- kerchief to his lips as I myself had done. "Arthur," I said to him, "why do you do that?" and then added, somewhat disturbed, "I know you have hurt yourself, but I will tell you afterwards how I know." "Well," he began, "when I was in the boat just now, a sudden puff of wind came up and the tiller struck me on the mouth. I received a violent blow on the upper lip, which has bled a great deal, and I could not stop the blood." TELEPATHY 85 Then I said, "Have you any idea at what time that happened?" "It must have been about seven o'clock," he answered. I then told him what had happened to me, and he was greatly astonished as were all the persons who were breakfasting with us. This occurrence took place at Brantwood about three years ago. JOAN R. SEVEBN. CASE IN WHICH TELEPATHY REACHES THE SENSES OF TASTE AND SMELL These cases are naturally much less numerous, for the simple reason that the senses of smell and taste are not the ordinary agencies of our relations. However, we are certain that telepathy is a uni- versal phenomenon and that none of our senses are refractory to this means of communication. In the first place several experiments have yielded con- vincing evidence and in the second, we have examples spontaneously observed. We cite only the follow- ing: Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 327. January 26, 1885. In March, 1861, I was living at Houghton Hants. My wife who had delicate bronchial tubes was kept in the house at this season. One day, as I was rambling along a path bordered by hedges, I found the first wild violets of the spring and gathered the flowers to carry them to my wife. At the beginning of April I felt seriously ill and in June left the country. I had never told my wife exactly where I found the violets and, for the reason mentioned, I had not for many years walked with her in the place where I gathered the flowers. 36 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD In November, 1873, we were at Houghton with some friends; my wife and I took a little stroll in this path. On crossing the place a memory of the spring violets I had plucked over twelve years before suddenly came into my mind. After the usual in- terval of about twenty or thirty seconds my wife remarked. "It is strange, but if it were not im- possible, I would declare that I smell violets in the hedge." I had not spoken, nor made the least gesture or movement to indicate the subject of my thoughts, and the perfume of the violets had not come into my memory. The only thing of which I had thought was the place where the violets grew upon the bank. I have an extremely exact memory of places. Such are the facts ; we might multiply examples for each of these series, for the documentation has become extremely rich since the Society for Psychical Research has gathered together the material, and similar investigations have been undertaken by those scholars who were willing to interest themselves in these phenomena. It follows that among all human beings there is a possibility of transference of all sensations in general, and particularly of thought, at a great distance and that images thus transmitted are not illusory. In other words, telepathy can no longer be denied. Aside from this, there exist certain phenomena which seem also to produce objective images, where there is an absence of all objectivity. We shall see that there is no way of confusing these with the preceding telepathic cases. CHAPTER III ORGANIC DISORDERS What indeed is this demon that ravages our organs with the swiftness of lightning and the power of thunder? It is an idea a simple idea. DURAND DE GllOS. THE physiologic process which creates false images within us does not differ greatly from that which transmits telepathic images. But the distinc- tion between telepathy and hallucination is so easy to establish that it is strange that cultivated minds have confused such different effects, even to the point of explaining the former by the latter and attributing to both the same origin. Telepathy is authentic. Hallucination is false. Telepathy enters our being by no known material way ; hallucination enters by the usual channel of the senses. Telepathy comes from an actual outward source ; hallucination wells up within ourselves. Finally telepathy appears in quietude and medita- tion, and oftenest in connection with intimate cir- cumstances, and is never repeated. Hallucination, on the contrary, is manifested in excitement and persists or is subject to reappear- ance. In the cases we have given above, which are as- suredly attributable to exterior agencies, it was always found that the percipient had never had 37 38 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD similar visions nor hallucinations of any kind. The image never reappears after the moment when the agent is supposed to have exerted his influence. If there is repetition, it is to overcome the resistance of the percipient when he refuses to let himself be convinced; afterwards the obsession disappears. The telepathic actions, of which we have related several examples, present none of the characteristics of hallucinations induced by organic disorders, and elude all the definitions quoted by Briere de Bois- mont. De Boismont only observed effects produced by organic disorders, although he reports some which certainly have their foundation in telepathy, but he makes no distinction between them. The vapors of an overheated brain suffice to explain everything for him, and even when he finds himself facing a true case of apparition, it is still with the theory of the overheated brain that he finds his way out. If he had been better acquainted with the facts, he would not have generalized as he did; indeed the examples he cites and analyzes assume a character- istic which is lacking in apparitions; it is the per- manence of morbid states. It is always possible to ascertain the cause of hallucinations, they are due to fatigue, fright, fixed idea, or alcoholism. This type is common in the quotations of B. de Boismont. Here is one taken at random: Obs. 130. A little girl, nine or ten years old, had spent her birthday in company with several other children, in giving herself over to all the amusements of her age. Her parents, of very narrow religious views, had constantly told her stories of the devil, ORGANIC DISORDERS 39 hell and eternal damnation. That evening, upon entering her bedroom, the devil appeared and threat- ened to devour her. She uttered a loud cry, fled into her parents' room and fell at their feet as though dead. A doctor was called and restored her to consciousness after several hours. The child then told what had happened to her, adding that she was certain of being damned. The occurrence was immediately followed by a long and serious nervous illness. This type of apparition was formerly very fre- quent. Dr. Macario, in his Clinical Studies upon Demonimania expresses the opinion that this form of madness is common among the provincial mentally deranged, which he attributes to the fact that mate- rialism has not become as deeply rooted in French soil as one might believe. "Dread of the devil," declares de Boismont (p. 134), "and fear of future punishment once exercised a powerful influence upon the mind. In the space of six years we observed about fifteen cases in our establishment." The fixed idea also may create apparitions of the deceased. In this category fall the hallucinations of criminals pursued by their victims. Among other cases, Briere de Boismont cites that of Manoury, who had been guilty of the most egregious barbarism toward Urbain Grandier. Obs. 124. One evening, toward ten o'clock, Manoury, returning from a visit to a patient in the outskirts of the town, and walking with a friend and his brother, suddenly cried out, "Oh, there is Grandier ! What do you want with me ?" He began to tremble and fell into a frenzy from which his 40 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD two companions could not restore him. They led him home, trembling and speaking to Grandier whom he believed he still saw. During the few days that he lived, his state was unchanged. He died, always believing that Grandier was present and striving to ward off his approach while uttering terrible speeches. The distinctly marked characteristic of hallucina- tion is this persistence or repetition of the disturb- ance; and is an attribute lacking in telepathic visions. "Sully," continues Briere de Boismont, "relates that the lonely hours of Charles IX became frightful because of the repetition of moans and shrieks that assailed his ears during the massacre of Saint Bartholomew." If now we wish to consider apparitions, as ob- served to-day, we will find that they are always presented opportunely and in quiet. This is not the case with hallucinations. If the latter can be ex- plained by illness, remorse, fright, etc., the former are never due to similar causes. We find their in- contestable source in a telepathic action, distinct from cerebral activity each time that it is possible to trace back to the sources. It seems to us, then, that we should apply the word hallucinations only to those images which have, for the deluded one, the same value as the objects, and which are internal in their origin. Another word is needed to designate the image transmitted by the telepathic channel, that is to say, conveyed from an exterior source. True hallucination always has an internal cause; popular language instinctively words it thus: "To ORGANIC DISORDERS 41 put the thought on yourself," and this phrase ex- presses it exactly. The thought put on oneself is a self-created illu- sion, a sort of auto-suggestion which incites hal- lucination. As a result of dwelling too much upon the devil, one ends by causing him to appear. But it should be well understood that all of this may be explained by telepathy. We must not forget that there are within us unknown psychic centers, which under the stress of emotion become creators of images. These psychic centers are qualified to perceive telepathic sensations, whether they be con- veyed from our own brain or from an outside brain, and the difference is non-essential. Ordinarily these centers communicate telepathic- ally with us or at least we are only conscious of those images which we transmit to them, and of those to which we make a telepathic appeal in the operations of memory. The new phenomenon, which to-day is verified, is that these secondary centers can be reached from external sources without our being conscious of the fact. Since telepathic action is a universal phenomenon, there is no smallest physiological center which has not of its own consciousness and sensitiveness, and which does not perceive the effects of our thought. Consequently, a man tormented by a fixed idea, by remorse or fear, for instance, deeply affects these tiny organs, impressing thereon the creations of his thought. In them is produced an image or, rather, a sensation, analogous to that which exists when the individual is in the presence of a real image. By reason of the intensity or persistence of the image created under force of a strong emotion, the 42 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD secondary center holds this deeply cut image, and it only requires an occasion to arouse it, as a memory, in order to produce the appearance of reality. Thus one would understand the psychologic automatism obedient to its own activities, reviving the image when the emotion recalls it, and sending it back in the manner of a cinematographic projec- tion, to the brain of its creator. It is thus that we might accept the theory of the overheated brain as an explanation of certain phe- nomena. But how may we apply the hallucination theory to images which are transmitted by others and arise from realities? They act but feebly upon the organs which are not habitually influenced at a distance. Few subjects are capable of receiving them and usually it is an accident which happens but once in the lifetime of a percipient. These images are true, because the emotions which aroused them are not feigned. However, some mesmerists boast of having thus transmitted fictitious images. From this they have drawn absurd conclusions which to their minds explain the illusion of spirits. But these experiences, if they could be taken up again experimentally, would prove only one thing: that thought-transference is perfectly true; if the mes- merist succeeded in deceiving the medium with a fictitious image, he would have been equally able to transmit a true one. From this the proof follows that minds can communicate, and whether they be of the living or the dead is of no importance. We have before us a fact there is a psychic element, and we should study this unknown element. Organic disorders affect not only the sensory ORGANIC DISORDERS 43 organs ; far more extraordinary are the disturbances manifested in the motive centers. Without doubt, from the moment we admit there is no smallest physiologic center without its own consciousness and activity, it is easy to understand the spontaneous psychic action of the lower strata. Conceive a sort of psychic traumatism, some cause, physiological or otherwise, intercepting the communication between the little souls below and the unity that rules above ; telepathic transmission being once interrupted, each physiological center regains its independence. It is these abnormal states which initiate auto- matic actions, and particularly the phenomenon known under the name of "automatic writing." When we produce writing, the motive centers which receive our suggestions remain perfectly un- aware of the current of our thought; they execute only movements, and the motion they produce is outside of our personal consciousness. Thus I do not need to know the special locations of the motive centers, to act upon them. I dictate the succession of letters, without being cognizant of the manner in which my organism obeys me. If this organism is left to itself, and receives no further suggestion from without, since it is living it itself, it has a tendency to activity. It is reduced to its sole con- sciousness, that of movement, and produces the only movements known to its feeble memory down strokes, letters in incoherent succession and phy- siologists refuse to admit phenomena of a higher order. It is true that organic disorders produce inco- herent, childish or cryptic effects. But side by side with these are stupefying results, necessitating the 44 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD active intervention of an understanding, inquiring intelligence that informs us of facts concerning which we had no knowledge. Therefore, here as before, we are obliged to admit two different motive powers for the same phenomenon. We are then obliged through empiric demonstra- tion to establish two classes of phenomena : 1. Those which are due to awakening of unconscious activi- ties. 2. Those due to intelligences awake of them- selves, but remaining unconscious for the subject who produces them. Or better: 1. Incoherent movements from an in- ternal source. 2. Coordinated movements from an external source. This, as may be seen, is the distinction that we have already stated between hallucinations and tele- pathic phenomena which reach the sense organs, and it applies equally well to the same phenomenon cap- able of reading the motive organs. If we now pass from handwriting to the observa- tions of general disorders, we will fall into such an abyss of complications. I do not wish to treat the subject here, but solely to indicate its nature. It is a question of manifestations of different person- alities which are sometimes present in the same organism and appear now as a division of person- ality^ now as the true possession of all the organs, fallen under the power of a foreign influence. The soul is complex, its unity exists only in re- lation with the individual who knows himself in what is called his ego. But the psychic realm is com- posed of a multitude of little souls whose mass is divisible and in which a certain disorder is mani- fested. ORGANIC DISORDERS 45 A man may be seen under two very different aspects; a professor of mathematics in his class room reveals only a part of himself; he forgets momentarily all that is not related to his special subject. But perhaps outside of his class he may be a good musician; his family will see him oftener under the aspect of a violinist. Suppose, now, that as the result of an accident, this man has lost all memory of music ; he remains only a mathematician, and if you speak to him of his violin he does not understand you, he has never even played one. But at the end of several days the memory of the musi- cian returns and, on the other hand, mathematics is forgotten. Such is the aspect I do not say explanation but it is the aspect under which a certain known phenomenon, called division of per- sonality, is presented. But it also may happen, that a somnambulistic state may be revealed, during which, as an actor plays a role, the subject embodies with marvelous suc- cess the type of personality that may be proposed bo him. However, this effort does not bear examina- tion, because the subject keeps to generalities and is always incapable of giving evidence of special knowl- edge. But a new personality appears who knows no one of those present, whose social condition is different, and who shows that he possesses certain knowledge which by no possible hypothesis could be attributed to the somnambulistic subject. He seems, therefore, possessed by an influence foreign to himself. It is a phenomenon often presented by Mrs. Piper in a state of trance. To this the Society for Psychical 46 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Research has devoted several large volumes of its annals. Let us assume that an experiment made by com- petent authorities, however inexplicable it may be, becomes a truth, empirically stated, which suffices to admit it as a basis of future deductions. The case is inexplicable physiologically, yet remains a truth valuable to retain. But to repeat, we fall here into an abyss of com- plexity; it seems sometimes that a partial amnesia occasions in the subject the effacement of an entire period of his existence and yet, what is more aston- ishing, there is nothing, aside from that to indicate a disordered condition in the person. He is unaware that he does not remember. Thus an educated and carefully reared person falls into a trance, from which he awakens with a changed character and with no recollection of his previous condition. He no longer knows his intimate friends, his writing even is changed; in short, he is another person. A new crisis occurs and he awakes in his first state, entirely ignorant of the second state from which he has just come. Dr. Azam of Bordeaux, I believe, observed a case, which has become classic, in the person of Felida, whose changes of personality were manifested throughout many years. Almost each day an attack seized her and another person would appear, igno- rant of the song she had just sung before the crisis, unable to continue the needlework that she held in her hand. It became necessary for her family to put her in touch again with her work, in her new state. Becoming pregnant in her second state, she was absolutely unaware of it, in returning to her first ORGANIC DISORDERS 47 t' state. Felida II had a little dog of which she was very fond; Felida I drove it away as an intruder. Despite all the appearances of a possession, one may see, in these phenomena, the alternation of a personality, of which each role embraces but one period of time in the subject's life. For example, Felida I might possess only the memories of her girlhood, while Felida II would only know what had taken place after a certain date. We shall not seek to explain this appearance of alternating life, but merely mention it. There are numberless cases of division, in which the subject relives periods of his past existence and each period brings with it the corresponding morbid states. Occasionally we see a subject who has been extremely nearsighted and obliged to wear glasses, enjoying excellent sight in one of these states. Finally, this change in intellect, memory and moral- ity remains a mystery, unexplained by physiology, and one which psychology is still far from elucidat- ing. The Alcan Publishing House brought out in 1911 * the French translation of the case of Miss Beau- champ. Several personalities were manifested in this subject of Dr. Prince. Aside from the normal per- sonality, we find three others, differing in ideas, belief and temperament. Memories are also distinct for each personality. Therefore there are four personalities. The first, Miss Beauchamp, splendidly endowed and studious, suffers a nervous shock, to which the doctor attrib- utes the appearance of the disorders which followed. 1 La Dissasociation d'une Personalite, by Morton Prince, translated into French by Renee J. Ray and Jeaa Ray, Felix Alcan, Paris, 1911. 48 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD The second, B2, is only Miss Beauchamp put into an hypnotic state by Dr. Prince, who is perhaps wrong in considering B2 as a personality of the same nature as the others. The third, B3, seems the incarnation of a malicious spirit, who takes possession of the organs of Bl in order to live in a borrowed body and who thus deeply troubles her existence. The fourth, B4, represents another enigmatic character, which is, perhaps, only a division of Bl, in a state of personal diminution B4 represents an ordinary woman, less refined than Bl, a frivolous woman, living for herself. In reality, there are, from our point of view, only two new persons. The somnambulistic state is well known and, we believe, has no great relation with the mysterious entities which are present. The mes- merized subject is incontestably a new form of the subject, a new state of her ego. We cannot make the same statement concerning B2 and B4, who present themselves as foreign influ- ences. B3 received the name of Sally, and is a problem. She plays no part, she seems a distinct entity come into the body to amuse herself at her victim's ex- pense, a parasite who wishes to enjoy life and sub- stitute herself for Miss Beauchamp, while profiting by the latter's terrestrial relations. She differs from the other personalities in that the doctor, while treating his subject by hypnotism, can, at pleasure, bring Miss Beauchamp to the state of B3 or B4, but he can neither call upon nor expel Sally, who resists his suggestions. Indeed, it is often she herself who makes the suggestions; in her ORGANIC DISORDERS 49 struggle against the doctor, she suggests to Miss Beauchamp to understand quite the opposite of whatever he may be saying to her. Thus the life of Miss Beauchamp alternates be- tween three different conditions, which render her existence all the more difficult, as the doctor who hypnotizes her seems not to have acquainted her con- nections with these changes. We can understand the forlorn existence of one who, knowing nothing of her periods of absence, awakens in an unknown place, talking with people whom she does not know, or at least perceiving that she is not in touch with the questions under discussion, and who keeps apart, wondering always if she is not going mad. But Sally is a veritable little demon; unknown to Miss Beauchamp, and possessing all her organs, she writes letters, and makes appointments. We may imagine the astonishment of poor Bl who finds these inexplicable letters and believes herself possessed of the devil ! One thing alone moves Sally, the fear of losing this body which she abuses. The thought that the death of Miss Beauchamp would deprive her of her pleasures, makes her slightly more reasonable. Therefore she made a compact with the doctor, who had been unable to command her. Naturally, a professor of pathology of the nerv- ous system would put forth the thesis that there is no distinction to be made among these several per- sonalities, all of which he considers as divisions of the ego. However, I should like to present some objections in behalf of the unity and indivisibility ofi the human being, which theory it seems is rather lightly handled, when similar cases are treated. The different aspects of the ego do not necessarily 50 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD pertain to division. Mons. de Roches has distinctly shown in his studies upon the regression of memory, that the same subject, carried back by hypnotism through previously lived years, is seen under vary- ing aspects and with different characteristics. Here, however, there is neither change nor dissociation of personality; there is return to a former state, dif- fering greatly from the present state, by reason of his changed life and progress of his education. Here is nothing to lead one to infer a division of the ego. B4, one of the personalities who appeared, is, according to Dr. Prince, a person of this kind, seized with an amnesia that veils from her for the time being an entire period of her life. The subject takes up her life when she was eighteen years old, and is unaware of all that Miss Beauchamp has accom- plished and learned since then. Therefore there is no change in the ego. There are the same will, emo- tion and sensibility that live and move in a group of images and recollections common to both person- alities up to the eighteenth year, but which differ from the moment when B4 manifests a lapse of memory. That is why I feel I should be reserved in this war of words which discourses so freely upon the dissociation of the ego. Until now we have called this central seat of con- scious life which manifests itself as an indivisible entity, the ego. If It is used in another sense, it is necessary to warn the reader. Arms and legs have nothing in common with the ego, and I confess that I do not understand this hypothesis of dissociation. When one speaks of a division of the ego, it ap- ORGANIC DISORDERS 51 pears to me senseless; tHe subconscious ego itself seems to be nonsense; subconsciousness, simply, suf- fices for me. The subconsciousness which acts un- known to a conscious subject is not himself, since by himself, I mean his conscious part. In short, I have need of a comprehensible hypothesis, and I cannot allow discussion of an ego that is outside of myself. My subconsciousness is the under-being, beyond my consciousness. To express an hypothesis upon dissociation, there must be clarity of image. If the ego should be considered as a part of the material being, dis- sociation would be none other than a traumatic nervous affection, causing local paralysis. If it belongs to the psychic center which is self-cognizant, it is indivisible. In the first case, there can only be a mutilation of the being, and the parts are less than the whole; in the second, there can be but alterna- tions of the personality. In the case of Miss Beauchamp, certain persons speak ingenuously of the coexistence of several egos forming the different personalities. This recalls the mystery of the Trinity, according to which there are three Gods in One Person, each co-equal. Let us admit that the course of life is an aggre- gate of ideas and memories that form strata, as a tree whose years are counted by the rings, but this aggregate is distinct from the ego. It is only in conceiving the subject as in touch with several of these concentric strata, that I can create for myself an objective representation of what a change of personality might be. Thus we may imagine the life of Miss B. as con- centric circles representing the years she has lived 52 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD and we shall see that B4 is only the subject herself, presenting a lapse of several years. As for the artificial states, obtained through hyp- notism, we should not, I believe, consider them as per- sonalities. The problem, as concerning Miss B., is truly more complex and offers so strange an assem- blage, that we may well imagine that a foreign mani- festation has been introduced among the other phe- nomena. B3, called Sally, is not explicable by a redoubling of the ego, a formula which presents nothing tangible to the imagination. In order to express a concrete thought it was necessary to imagine groups of states of consciousness, which would have created a second ego unknown to the first. But these dissociated states cannot create a being ex nihilo, without the affinity of the conscious ego. By dissociation, we understand a group of iso- lated images ; the noise of the street that strikes our ear without attracting our attention, a detail me- chanically observed, while the mind is busy elsewhere these are images which may survive in our subcon- sciousness in the state of dissociation. Yet these images must rise to the higher consciousness, else they are as though dead; such a group of memories cannot animate itself to the point of creating a new, even though an artificial, personality. Is Sally fac- titious? All the personalities of Miss B. may be alternating states of a single ego, all save Sally. To call her the alter ego of Miss B., as does Dr. Prince, is to lay the problem but not to solve it. Sally affirms her independence by her acts and Miss B., when in a state of hypnotic lucidity, declares: "We are all the same person, except Sally." ORGANIC DISORDERS 53 Dr. Prince refuses to admit Sally, but she has diabolical tricks and ruses. Herself rebellious to suggestion, it is she who imposes her will upon Miss Beauchamp, by means of hypnotic and post-hypnotic suggestions. She follows her whims, writing letters which she posts, smoking cigarettes to annoy her medium, whose reserve and scruples she detests. Finally she wastes her money, destroys her bank notes, and treats Miss Beauchamp as a stupid victim. When Miss B. is in her normal state, Sally is always there, as an exterior witness who later will be in touch with all her acts. In the same way Sally is aware of whatever the other personalities do. The others, on the contrary, are nonexistent and incapable of knowing what Miss B. has done in her normal state. By means of her knowledge, Sally endeavors sometimes to conceal her coming and tries to play the part of Miss B. ; but as she has not the same education the doctor unveils her ruse by causing her to speak French. Sally, who does not know French, seeing herself caught, bursts into laughter and ex- hibits her true colors, greatly pleased with the joke. Sally can even recount dreams, which fact proves that she exists or coexists, at the time of the me- dium's conscious activity. Another peculiarity which distinguishes her from the other personalities is that physiologically she adopts herself with dif- ficulty to the organs. Having much trouble to speak, she stammered terribly in the beginning; once she demanded the use of her eyes and opened the lids with her hands. She declares that this body is en- tirely foreign to her, as a garment, and that within it she feels no illness, neither fatigue, hunger nor thirst. 54 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD The following is an example of the incarnations of Sally. On Christmas Eve Miss B. was at Church, seated on the right side of the nave. The choir was singing the processional. Suddenly she found herself on the left side and the choir still singing the pro- cessional. Twenty-four hours had passed for her like twenty-four seconds; Sally had confiscated her and brought her back the next day to the spot where she had been seized. Sally had profited by the invi- tations sent to Miss B., taken to herself all the Christmas pleasures, and had enjoyed herself greatly. There are other and even better illustrations. Once, when Miss B. was in the throes of the most violent delirium, Sally intervened, absolutely in her right mind, consented to be her nurse, and came at intervals to swallow the food or medicine, which the patient, in her delirium could not take. The lucid mind appearing at the same time as the delirious state, is one of the facts which prove the presence of two distinct entities. It is impossible to conceive of the ego thus severed in half. The conception that we have of an ego will not permit us to imagine the simultaneousness of these two contrary states in a single unity. To declare that Miss B. and Sally act under the influence of a single ego is to say there are two egos of the same person, which is accepting words whose mean- ing is inconceivable. It was easy to speculate concerning the arbitrary divisions of personality, but it is not so easy to give them an appearance of reality; Sally is too large a part to have been detached from the principal con- sciousness of Miss B. without the latter having been ORGANIC DISORDERS 55 diminished; the disintegration of Miss B.'s person- ality into so many small parts is purely arbitrary. Sally does not find her place in this scheme. No ego is found to which she is akin, and the mystery has not been elucidated. It is true we cannot say that she is a spiritual entity of the nature of those who give proofs ; but there is here a mysterious entity which might have been studied with profit. Here we have the manifestation of a foreign activity, whose secret lies in the unknown. All this proves, at least, the existence of a new world, which has not as yet been sufficiently explored. CHAPTER IV PREVIOUS LIVES I am thine invisible sister, I am thy divine soul, and this is the book of thy life. Within it are the pages filled with thy past existences and the white pages of thy future lives. (The Book of the Dead) Funeral Ritual of the Egyptians. THE soul is an entity distinct from the body; it accompanies the essential part of the human being in the course of the numerous incarnations necessary to our evolution. From the time of Plato the ma- jority of men have lived in the knowledge of this truth, and to-morrow they will dwell in the scientific certainty that this ancient philosophy has not de- ceived them. It is magnetism which is destined to reveal to us the fact that we have lived in the past. The labors of M. de Rochas, upon the regression of memory, have opened new vistas, of which we will speak briefly. We knew already that a subject, transported by magnetic passes into a former state to childhood, for instance would appear tractable to this sugges- tion. But this was generally believed to be the hack- neyed phenomenon which induces a hypnotized sub- ject to accept the part proposed, as that of an old man, a priest, a general, etc. Yet along with these 66 PREVIOUS LIVES 57 fictitious roles, are realities; thus it is well known that hypnotism may be misused to draw true reve- lations from a subject, or force him to confide his secrets. Not everything is false in the hypnotic con- dition, and the subject who returns to his childhood is playing a part that is a true repetition of states formerly lived. Colonel de Rochas, a remarkable experimenter, has introduced an innovation by submitting different sub- jects to methodical tests of memory regression, and by showing the fidelity of the pictures thus recon- structed. For example, a young girl of eighteen is progres- sively carried back; she passes always through the same phases; then slowly, by the same ways, she is returned to her real age before being awakened. At seven years of age she is going to school and is only beginning to write; at five years she can no longer read, and carried back to the cradle, she sucks. We can even go beyond, and the subject takes the posi- tion of the foetus in its mother's womb. With an orphan, who had been reared in Beyrout and whose father had been an engineer in the Orient, M. de Rochas attempted regression. At ten years of age she thought herself in Marseilles, where she had indeed been at that age, and M. de Rochas was unaware of this. At eight she was in Beyrout and spoke of her father and friends who came to the house. Asked how "good morning" is said in Turk- ish, she answered, "Salamalec," a word which in her waking state she had forgotten. At two years she was at Cuges in Provence, which was correct; at one year she could no longer speak and replied by signs of the head. 58 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD But here is where the operation becomes curious. In order to obtain these regressive states, M. de Rochas made longitudinal passes over his subject; and to recall her, transversal passes. In the course of these experiments, he perceived that if he con- tinued the transversal passes, the subject would go beyond her actual age in other words, was able to see herself in time to come. Here we must beware of the somnambulistic dream, the tendency which a subject always has to satisfy her observer, and the possibility of a change of personality ; the pictures thus obtained are rarely correct. However, in 1904, a subject who had been urged into the future, gave a successful result. I cite textually the case of Eugenie. 1 Thus I made her grow older, little by little; at thirty-seven years of age (she was then really thirty- five) she manifested all the symptoms of child birth and the shame of this event, because she was not re- married. This was to take place in 1906. Several months afterward she seemed to be drowning her- self. I caused her to grow older by two years new symptoms of birth. I asked her where she was at that time, and she answered, "Upon the water." This strange reply caused me to suppose that she was wandering, and I brought her back to her normal state. Everything that she had predicted came true. She took for her lover a glove-maker, by whom she had a child in 1906. Shortly afterward, grown despon- dent, she threw herself into the Isere and was saved by being seized by the leg. Finally, in January, 1909, another child was born, upon a bridge of the i Les Vies successives, by Albert de Rochas, Chacorne, 1911, p. 96. PREVIOUS LIVES 59 Isere, where she was taken suddenly with the birth- pangs in returning from her work. This is a curious fact and should be recorded, though there must be many added before we can pronounce upon it. The cases of regression are more interesting and we will return to them. It is, indeed, strange, but every subject describes in identically the same manner his or her going back to the past. They are transported back to six months of age, two months, into the body of the mother, where they take the position of the foetus; the regression is continued and they are in space. A brief lethargy and we are present at a new scene, the death of an old person. It is the beginning of the life which preceded the present incarnation, man- ifesting itself backwards, and continuing back to a still older incarnation. We will consider only the moment of birth; whether the subject be educated or not, the vision is always the same. First, before birth, the subject sees himself in space in the form of a ball, or as a slightly luminous mist, wandering about the organs of the mother; each sees, in the mother's womb, the body in which he is to be incarnated. Thus con- ception precedes the taking possession of the foetus by the spiritual body, which enters little by little "by puffs," as one subject said into the tiny body. Until then the subject sees himself as though he were placed upon the outside. Another subject, Josephine, depicts herself thus surrounding the body of her mother, only entering rather late, and little by little, into the child's body. All agree that the complete incorporation occurs at about seven years of age. 60 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD This is in accord with the lucid descriptions of the "sensitives," who also see the astral bodies of the dying leave their physical bodies, and seemingly float above them. Mayo, carried back before her birth, said that she was nothing, she felt that she existed and that was all, but she remembered having had another life. When led back to the world, she said that something had urged her to be reincarnated, and she had descended to her mother, when the latter was already pregnant, and had entered her physical body shortly before her birth and then but partially. As for material concerning former lives, it is almost impossible to classify the declarations of the subjects, since they contain elements of error and truth. But have we the right to be exacting in such a matter? If a single existence represented the en- tirety of being, we should have the right, in evoking this being, to require that a faithful report be given us. But when we have several successive existences unconnected, since they are separated by death, what may be the nature of the unity that obtains outside oif the time lived? What can be the quality and functioning of its memory? We cannot know. Interpolation and anachronism may legitimately appear as a necessary consequence of multiple lives. Victor Hugo has said : 1 "You do not believe in progressive personalities (that is, in reincarnations) under the pretext that you remember nothing of your previous existences. Yet how may vanished centuries remain graven upon i Reply of Victor Hugo, related by Arsene Houssaye, and cited by de Rochas. PREVIOUS LIVES 61 your memory when you no longer recall the thousand and one scenes of your present life? Since 1802, there have been ten Victor Hugos within me. Do you think that I remember all their deeds and all their thoughts? "When I shall have passed the grave to find another light, all these Victor Hugos will be in some degree strangers, but it will always be the same soul." Hence if the subject, in a hypnotic state, finds anew memories forgotten in his present life, it is because the soul, forever linked to its physiological state, finds therein the functional elements of mem- ory; but the former personalities are perforce non- existent, and of them only fragmentary recollections remain. An exceedingly interesting case is that of Mme. H., observed by M. Bouvier, whom Colonel de Rochas had told of his experiments. I can give here only a superficial idea of this case, in a resume necessarily too brief. 1 M. Bouvier speaks thus of the first regression of his subject, who has just reached the moment of birth: "Before conception, when the spirit is yet in space, she makes an effort to escape from the invincible force which seems to draw her; then, always going back in time, she gives replies about what she is doing, what her mode of existence is, until she takes up again the body which she had formerly quitted, to return to a new life. But strangely enough, each time that I caused her to enter her mother's womb, she passed through the same phase, characterized by the same attitude." 2 1 The Report occupies 38 pages. 2 A. de Rochas, Leg Vies successives, p. 178. 62 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD I must call attention, in passing, to the constancy of the process of incarnation, whoever may be the hypnotized subject. Mme. J. was thirty-nine years old. They tried through her to push the experiment to its utmost limit, to cause her to go back as far as possible in time. [Thus they went back to her twelfth exist- ence. From her first regression second life she indi- cates proper names which have not been found, in places whose description is nevertheless correct. Thus, at fifteen years of age, she has just left the class of the Dames Trinitaires in the Rue de la Gargouille in Brian9on. A note by M. de Rochas indicates that there was indeed a school for little girls kept by the Dames Trinitaires on the Rue de la Gargouille in that city. But the father of Mme. J. was born in Brian9on, he left the city when he was very young; Mme. J. was born long after in a town of Isere, her mother had never lived in Brian- 9on, nor had her husband, an army officer, ever been stationed there. Third Life. Still in Brian9on, at ten years, she gave the date 1748. Fourth Life. In 1702, at Ploermel. Fifth Life. The subject is a soldier; as in all the other lives it is pictures that are presented in the turning back of the course of time; the death scene is shown first. He dies from a lance thrust. Q. Where did you receive this blow and in what year? A. At Marignan, in 1515. (Poor Berry, you are done for!) Q. With whom were you? A. With Francis. PREVIOUS LIVES 63 Q. What Francis? A. The father, our Lord and Master, forsooth, the King of France. Q. What is your name? A. Michael Berry. Q. Against whom are you fighting? A. Against these Swiss swine, etc. Sixth Life. It is the year 1302. She is a young governess; only eighteen, she is with the Countess de Guise. Q. Who is the King? A. I do not know, they say he is Philippe le Bel. Seventh Life. It is 1010; at eighty-seven, she is an Abbess; at seventy-seven, she believes that the world is coming to an end. Q. Do you know who is the king? A. Robert II. At seventy. Q. Who is the King? A. Capet. At sixty, the same request. A. It is Capet. At forty- five. A. It is Louis IV. At thirty-five. Q. Who is the King? A. Louis IV, for several years past. They say he is ugly, fat and bloated, but I have not seen him. At twenty-four years. Q. What is the date? A. 947. Q. Who is the King? A. Louis IV. At fif- teen same question. A. Louis IV. Eighth Life. Chief of the Frankish warriors. He had been taken by Attila at Chalons-sur-Marne, and the Huns had burned out his eyes. Q. Are there other chiefs over you? A. There is the chief tribune Massoee. Q. And over him? A. The chief of the Chiefs, Merovoeus. Q. What year is it? A. 449. Q. Do you know God? A. There is some one above, it is Theos. Q. How do you worship him? A. Men are of- fered up as a burnt offering it is very beautiful. 64 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Ninth Life. He is a guard of the Emperor Probus. Q. What country are you in? A. At Romulus. Q. What year is it? A. 279. 1 At twenty-five Q. WTiat are you doing? A. I am at Tourino, with my wife. Q. Who united you? A. The praetor. Tenth Life. She is a woman called Irisee. She wishes to enter the service of the Gods and waits upon the priest Ali. Q. In what country are you? In Imondo. Q. What year is it? A. Ali says that we should not seek to find out; the Gods know. Eleventh Life. An unimportant child, dead at eight. This regression toward past ages is certainly curious and there is a mystery about it which has not yet been elucidated; but the hypothesis of a momentary revival of the memories of a mind freed from the body is surely the least improbable of the hypotheses so far formulated. It is to be regretted that this hypothesis has not been more often considered as a pivot for observa- tion. Note, for example, what great interest there would have been in submitting Miss Beauchamp's case to the experiment of regression. We feel the same regret upon the subject of the medium observed by Professor Flournoy, Helen Smith. The case of this medium would have been interesting in a very different way had it been studied upon the hypothesis of previous lives. iWe think it well to recall the chronology here. Francis I, 1515-1547 Philippe le Bel, 1478-1506. Robert II, 996-1081 Hugues Capet, 978-996. Louis le Gros, 936-954. Merovoeus, 448-458. Attila, 434-458. Probus Emperor from 276-282. PREVIOUS LIVES 65 In the case of Helen Smith there are very strange peculiarities, which seem incapable of explanation except on the ground of fragments of personal re- collections from previous lives, fragments that rise from the memory of the subject, put into a state of lucid somnambulism. It is in this spirit that I wish to reconsider the work of M. Flournoy, 1 whose study, well known to all psychologists, has been favorably received in scientific circles. The author writes in a spirit contrary to our interpretations, which is a guarantee to us that we may accept the facts which he himself could not easily admit. Only, M. Flournoy presents his theory first, his facts afterwards, and then makes his facts fit his theory. He declares himself hostile to any interpretation which infers the intervention of a foreign influence. At the mere thought of this, he says, he feels a nervous amusement, which sets him laughing. As for table-tipping, he states with a certain cynicism, "Whether objects do or do not move is vastly indifferent to me." (p. 357.) It is the salient characteristic of M. Flournoy that he attaches slight importance to the phenome- non itself, analyzing only its content; the faculty of creating instantly an imaginary language does not hold his attention. He demonstrates, and with rea- son, that this language is not authentic. Neverthe- less, it remains to be explained how operations of great complexity can be produced without a con- scious action. We know that we must beware of the names with which mediumistic personalities en- iFrom the Indies to the Planet Mars, by Th. Flournoy, Alcan, 1910. 66 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD dow themselves to meet the demands of curious per- sons ; generally they accept the first that is proposed to them. We do not know the personalities of the Beyond, and when we are concerned with a serious manifestant who is connected with important experi- ments, it must adopt a name. Miss Smith's familiar spirit answered to the name of Leopold, and later accepted the personality of Cagliostro, who, we believe, was suggested to him. In the case of Miss Beauchamp, Sally was a hostile and malevolent spirit. Leopold, on the contrary, is a guardian spirit; but the physical process of apparent possession is always the same difficulty in adapting the foreign influence to the organs of the medium. When Leopold wished to write, there was a struggle of twenty minutes, during which Helen resisted with all her strength; but in vain. Leopold snatched the pen from her, twisted and hurt her arm, until Helen, vanquished, wept and obeyed. Miss Smith, accustomed to hold her pen with the middle finger, was obliged to write with the index finger. Moreover, she produced an orthography different from her own, not only as to penmanship, much larger and more regular, but also as to spell- ing, which was of the last century. Leopold did not fail once to write "j'aurois" for "j'aurais" and to use archaic terms. If, for instance, he named the streets of Geneva, it was under their old names. The same struggle would begin for control of the vocal organs; it was not until a year after the first attempt that he succeeded in speaking freely. Here again there is a likeness with the case of Sally, who stammered terribly at the beginning. Helen suf- fered actually in her mouth and throat; then began PREVIOUS LIVES 67 to speak, with an Italian accent, in a deep and hol- low voice, wholly unlike the usual sweet tone of her pretty feminine voice. And it was not the voice alone that changed; archaism appeared in speech as it had in writing; the vocabulary was studded with obsolete words "phial" instead of "bottle," etc. Yet Leopold never forgot that he was Italian, and pronounced U like ou, and never used the new word, saying omnibus for tramway, etc., and all of this in a strong bass voice, very masculine and as Italian as possible. (From the Indies, p. 110.) For D. Flournoy this is but a well-played role; the person is but a modification of Helen a case of auto-hypnotism. Flournoy swallows the obstacle. Auto-hypnotism can be only the act of a self-cog- nizant will ; it is the usual mode of action exerted upon oneself or upon the motor centers, if so be they are considered as distinct from the ego. Auto-hypnotism would in this case be a reverse action ; the ego wishes to write in one manner, the hand in another, and the hand triumphs over the subject. It is the organic periphery attacking the brain and imposing its movements upon it, a way in which automatism does not function. Still a word concerning Leopold: he possesses complete independence, and when he announces to the mesmerist that he is the master, suggestion can change nothing. I have presented the personality of Leopold be- cause he is of a general type. All mediums have thus a familiar spirit which intervenes in phenomena. But I am not concerned with this role and pass on to facts of regression. The phenomenal condition of Miss Smith tends to 68 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD reconstruct two fragments of her past lives. The medium, or her guide, attributes to Marie Antoinette the most recent reminiscences, and the other incarna- tion, whose very incomplete fragments reappear in- termittently, carries us back to a much more distant period, to the 15th Century, in India, when the sub- ject was incarnated as a Hindu Princess. For M. Flournoy, these facts are psychic neo- plasms ; he states this in the beginning : "In pathology," he says, "neoplasms have for their point of departure certain cells remaining em- bryonic which suddenly become prolific by differen- tiation. Similarly, in psychology, it seems that certain remote and primitive elements of the indi- vidual, strata of infancy, still endowed with plasti- city and mobility, are peculiarly fitted to engender these strange subconscious growths, a sort of psychic tumors or excrescences, that we call second personalities." Is it necessary to assert that such an analogy is fantastic? The pathological neoplasm does not de- velop; it remains a monstrosity of a lower order. The second personality, upon the contrary, has per- ceptive faculties superior to those of the intelligent being of whom it is but a fraction. And then, to be precise, M. Flournoy should not have rested upon the vague terms of psychology. These neoplasms which detach themselves from the principal person- ality cannot detach themselves save as they borrow an organ in order to manifest themselves. Each suc- cessive personality must thus be represented, in the time in which it acts, by bundles of motive and sensitive fibers; these neoplasms, absolutely foreign PREVIOUS LIVES 69 to the principal being, must have their localization somewhere. The author realized this and wrote: "It should be agreed upon, once for all, that this cerebral mechanism is always understood; but one should never speak of it so long as there is nothing definite to be said concerning it." On the contrary, we should speak of it, in order to understand how grotesque, as applied to the given facts, such a localization would become. I should like to be shown, even by hypothesis, the different places that would be occupied in the organism by several intelligences, writing the same hand without mingling their memories nor their writing, without confusing their roles, each of which requires a special spelling and a different speech; finally, without tangling the skein of the complex creations whose memories they hold since they take up the thread without ever severing its connection. Flournoy tells us of the delicacy of choice, of the refined sensibility, the consummate though instinctive art, which guide the selection and storing of sub- conscious memories. I should greatly like to see the substratum of these things and know what was the primitive core of these formations. . . . What happy dilation of our spleen ! if once you begin trans- lating into physiological language. I should like to have some one tell me about the consummate art of a spinal ganglion, employing all its skill against the finesse of the glosso-pharyngeal, which would be the dupe of the refined sensibility of a solar plexus. I should love to see the implacable logic of a quad- rigeminal combated by the rhetoric of the medulla oblongata. For, seriously, that is what we must ccme to. It is with nonsense of this kind that we 70 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD should find ourselves confronted did we undertake to define the theory of the neoplasm. Scholars admit that these things elude positive science. "Ideal science," declares Berthelot, "varies ceaselessly and will always vary." And the psychologist Myers ex- claims in a moment of frankness : "We shall always find ourselves at last face to face with the inex- plicable, and the most Lamarckian reply is in reality as mystic as the most Platonic." The truth is that we cannot conceive of the presence in us of intelligences superior to our own unless we regard man as a concretion of all the psychic elements pertaining to his previous lives. This, therefore, would constitute the reserve a purely psychic reserve of all that is sub-conscious within us. Our individuality is only the partly conscious elaboration of a far more extended organism which represents the synthesis of all our former person- alities in the process of higher integration, which is immortality. Helen Smith thus revives the fragments of her past. In the role of Marie Antoinette, she attains remarkable perfection if we may believe M. Flournoy. "When the royal trance is complete, one should see the grace, elegance, distinction, even majesty sometimes, which transfigures the pose and gesture of Helen. She has truly the carriage of a queen (p. 326). . . . The unconstrained movement with which she never forgets to fling back her imaginary train at every turn ; all that which cannot be de- scribed is perfect in its naturalness and ease. This perfection of acting, which no actress could attain without much study, does not stop there. Old PREVIOUS LIVES 71 spelling flows as naturally from her pen: Instans, enfants, j'etois, etc., for instant, enfant, j'etais. Change of voice also takes place naturally and, when in this state, she is unaware of Miss Smith." From this it may be seen with what superior quali- ties a neoplasm would have to be endowed, while an automatic regression towards fragments of the past requires no transcendant faculty since, in place of a miracle of artfulness and clever lying, a natural mechanism suffices similar to the regressions obtained by M. Janet with Leonie and Rose, and those ob- tained by M. de Rochas. If we admit reincarnation, nothing exists but the present personality. Marie Antoinette comporting herself as the real person might do, is an intangible, non-existent thing ; there could never be two persons in one. The caterpillar and the butterfly which has issued from it cannot exist simultaneously. Nevertheless, I am not quite sure that M. Flournoy has not attempted to put a check upon this hypo- thesis from the fact that he succeeded through the medium in attributing the roles of Philippe Egalite, and the Marquis de Mirabeau to Messrs. Demole and Auguste de Morsier, presented as such. All present excitation can receive only a response improvised at the moment. Marie Antoinette, be- come the Smith girl, is incapable of acting spon- taneously as a queen, but Miss Smith is capable of regression. The only thing that she can do is to set in motion authentic negatives. Her somnam- bulistic consciousness may very well make use of images of the past to compose Harlequins; but al- though the medium possess no historic culture her presentments always show probability ; the style and 72 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD spelling are of the period, the facts and images con- form to history. What is more natural than that among the effaced images she should revive a family scene wherein she sees herself with her three children and Madame Elizabeth. This scene calls back the memory of an innocent melody, rather archaic and true to the period. The song of a mother who rocks her baby is among all actions one of those best calculated to affect the mechanism of memory. These ancient images should have been collected with reverent care in order not to strain the delicate instrument which has registered them. If it had been possible to use the method of M. Rochas in this case, one would have begun by asking the cooperation of Leopold, sole master of the or- ganism of the subject, and persuading him to lend his aid, because of the great value of the experiment. Then the medium, once hypnotized, instead of making a difficult leap into a too remote time, would have been led, little by little, to retrace the course of her present life; would have reentered the body of her mother; and it would have been interesting to learn if, in the Beyond, in the spirit state, she would have found the same evidences of her former lives. In place of that, what was done ? Miss Smith was made a source of amusement. At the close of a seance in which she had embodied the Hindu princess, or some one else, they suddenly suggested to her a return to the role of Marie Antoinette; for what reason? In order to escort the Queen to dinner, where they poured bumpers of wine for her, which she drained glass after glass, without turning a hair; whereas, in her normal state, Miss Smith was PREVIOUS LIVES 73 sobriety itself. Marie Antoinette took coffee . . . they made her smoke, etc. How different should be the procedure befitting the investigation of a mys- tery! Is it true then, as the author affirms, that this subject provokes in him only a mild amusement? Alas! The truth is that for the learned professor there was no mystery; he believed sincerely in his theory of the pathological neoplasm and experiments con- ducted in such a fashion could not militate against his theory. Thus, no order was observed in the production of the phenomena ; and it was not by a series of regres- sions, but suddenly, that Miss Smith reentered a far distant cycle of existence, returning to an incarna- tion which took place in India. "Miss Smith," declares Professor Flournoy, "is truly most remarkable in her Hindu somnambulism. One wonders, with stupefaction, how there comes to this girl from the shores of Lake Leman, who is without artistic education or special knowledge of the Orient, a perfection of technique which the great- est actress doubtless could not attain save by pro- longed studies or a visit to the banks of the Ganges." (From the Indies, p. 272.) However it may be, here are the facts: Helen in a somnambulistic state plays the role of a Hindu princess, Simandini, daughter of an Arab Sheik and wife of an Indian prince, Sivrouka Nayaca. This prince lived in Kanara and built there in 1401 the fortress of Tchandraghiri. At his death Simandini was burned alive upon his pyre. None of the persons present knew these proper names when they were cited; the history of India 74 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD is obscure and the medium had complete freedom of invention. Nevertheless, it was found that Kanara was situated in the province of Malabar, but no Tchandraghiri was found; or rather, Flour- noy discovered three, but they did not correspond in situation or date to the medium's story. As for the other names, at first undiscoverable, the scholars and historians consulted gave up hope of locating any clues to them. It was M. Flournoy himself who one day stumbled upon an old history of India in which he found the following passage: "Kanara and the adjacent provinces on the side of Delby may be regarded as the Georgia of Hin- doustan ; it is there, they say, that the most beauti- ful women are found of whom the natives are very jealous, seldom allowing them to be seen by strangers." "Tchandragari, whose name means Mountain of the Moon, is a vast fortress constructed in 1401 by the Rajah Sivrouka Nayaca. This prince, like his successors, was of the sect of Djains." (From Gen- eral History of Ancient India, by Maries, Paris, 1828, t. I. pp. 268-269.) M. Flournoy finds this document to fall short, under the pretext that the guarantee of Maries, as an historian, is not of the first order. If the work had been good, it would have been more widely known and might very probably have been the source of a romance imagined by the subliminal consciousness of Miss Smith. But the valueless book was buried in the deepest oblivion. For M. Flournoy it fails as an historical document, which means that we must nevertheless seek the source of the romance in the book by Maries, but we must guard against PREVIOUS LIVES 75 imagining it to have a basis of truth. However, they had not yet found Tchandragari ; it was Mr. Barth who filled this lack by finding a Fort Tchandraghiri, situated in South Kanara that is, corresponding to the conditions of time and place necessary to corroborate the romance. As for the impossibility of Miss Smith's having been able to study Maries' text, M. Flournoy calls that a negative objection. Only two copies of this work are known, both hidden in the dust of libraries, one in a private association with which no member or friend of the Smith family had ever been con- nected. The other was in the Public Library, where one must have lost his mind in order to consult it among the thousands of more interesting and more modern books. (From the Indies, ... p. 283.) "But," declares the professor, "Extravagance for extravagance, I still prefer the hypothesis that only requires natural probabilities to that which draws upon occult causes." Ah ! here is the real word let out. ... An occult cause ! But I can assure M. Flournoy that his ex- planation of a psychic wart would be an occult cause no less than is regression. We see the occult in the fact of ancient reminiscences appearing in a new organism; yet that is the sole explanation that official science is willing to give us concerning certain phenomena of a purely biological nature. If you accept the theory that physical aptitudes are mani- fested in us by reason of ancestral inheritance, I see few obstacles to believing that latent memories have the same origin. Helen denies vigorously that she could have known Maries' work and we know what resources hypno- 76 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD tism offers for the discovery of falsehood. Miss Smith elaborated a dream while in the hynotic state and it was easy to learn its source. This did not escape the professor who spoke of it frankly. "It would seem," he declared, "that the simplest course would be to profit by the hypnotic state of the seances to cause Helen's subconscious memory to confess, and lead her to tell her secrets ; but my trials in this direction have not yet been successful." In short, M. Flournoy's explanation is the neo- plasm, that is, the fact of a psychic monstrosity, of several monstrosities, spontaneously generated, whose faculties far surpass the mother-intelligence which has given them birth. Indeed, he declares, "whatever conscious and reflective work is able to accomplish, the subliminal faculties can execute to a far higher degree of perfection in subjects pos- sessing automatic tendencies." (From the Indies ... p. 273.) Here is in truth the intelligent wart! If the book of Maries had been the source of the romance, the medium would have borrowed more fully; automatic memory being infallible, she would have written Tchandragari, as in Maries' ; secondary elements, such as the residence of Mangalore, are not cited in the book. But what the medium could not have borrowed therefrom is the knowledge of Sanscrit. Helen spoke a Sanscrit that was, indeed, imperfect but that carried an extraordinary stamp of truth. M. Flournoy seized upon this imperfection, but perhaps it is excessive to ask that a somnambulistic memory, having passed the threshold of death, should remain unaltered. With the same exaction PREVIOUS LIVES 77 one might modify the Darwinian theory as applied to man, defying Darwin, or rather Huxley, to bring to light his anthropological recollections. That which may remain in the subconsciousness of the medium cannot be but a ruin, a distant trace. The Sanscrit language of Helen is only a jargon, and must be so of necessity. It seems, moreover, that the text submitted to the Orientalists may have been gathered by ear and written, I think, under the dictation of an English- man who did not know the language. Be that as it may, and despite everything, there are some authentic words; sometimes Helen writes, and Leo- pold translates, a phrase although, as he declares, he does not know Sanscrit. But he deciphers the thought of Helen to whom it comes intuitively in a state of trance. An Orientalist, M. deSaussure, was asked to examine the text, thus interpreted, and discovered several fragments having quite the sense indicated by Leopold. There were barbarisms, but some words were recognized as being wholly correct. In short, these are remnants of Sanscrit, among which some intelligible words nevertheless preserve their character. Thus the vowel a abounds, because the proportion of a's in Sanscrit as compared with French, is 4 to 1. The consonant f never appears, although so frequent in French, because it is foreign to Sanscrit. Is that not truly remarkable? The Hindu princess, if she really existed, has no longer any special individuality. She is only a young Swiss girl who, by a phenomenon of hypnotic re- gression, finds again fragments of ancient impres- sions among which some words, incompletely effaced from the memory, reappear mechanically. 78 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD But if Helen does not give to this language a clear reconstruction, its elements, at least, are cor- rect. It is a structure in ruins, of which there remain a few bricks, or fragments of sculpture that do not belie the style of their period. On the 6th of March, 1885, our medium welcomes the professor with a Hindu salutation: Atieya Ganapatindmd this form of address to the name of the elephant-headed god, which in the Hindu Pantheon symbolizes science and wisdom, is an in- telligent greeting addressed particularly to the pro- fessor and scholar, but M. Flournoy is pitiless. "No conjecture," he states, "is too trivial or foolish when it is a question of phenomena which are essen- tially of the dream order." 1 And here is the explanation. Since when one sneezes, a "God bless you" is said, the author relates the word atieya to the imitative sound "atiou" which, according to him, children use to imitate sneezing. If I understand rightly, this would mean that Helen's somnambulistic consciousness, before exclaiming "God bless you !" was struck by the idea of sneezing; this association of ideas would have brought the word atieya, and fortune aiding, the rest came of itself. What exegesis, good heavens, what exegesis! As for the other fragments, the professor awaits their explanation from some happy chance, like that which caused him to find Maries' text, which he persists in considering as the original source of the dream. The imitation of the person depicted attains an iQnce more the affirmation precedes the examination of the fact PREVIOUS LIVES 79 astonishing force of expression, but this is the in- herent characteristic of every hypnotic state. Only, these states, always unknown to the principal con- sciousness, are ordinarily incapable of producing that which has never been part of the subject. We cannot believe in the subconscious formation of a language which contains certain elements of truth, and whose origin hypnotic sleep refuses to disclose. Miss Smith, although very intelligent, possessed no linguistic abilities. She always dis- liked the study of languages and rebelled against German, which her father spoke fluently, and in which she was forced to take lessons for three years. Therefore, if these famous psychic excrescences swell only through elements brought in since childhood, it would be fragments of German which would be manifested in her vocabulary. But let us not forget, this subject has never been studied from the point of view of regression the preconceived hypothesis being always that of the psychic neoplasm, and this hypothesis serving as a pivot for the investigators. Nor did they guard against confusion; hypnotic states present many phases and degrees and they were not always careful to put the medium in the profound state necessary to the reconstruction of the more distant images. If they suggested the Hindu dream at an inoppor- tune moment, for example, when Miss Smith was in a state of superficial somnambulism, or when she had just manifested oneirocritic creations, it is evi- dent that the results would be distorted. Former lives do not revive themselves in order to overwhelm us with their proof; it is for ingenious observers to discover them by subtler means. 80 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD As I said in reference to Miss Beauchamp, it requires great temerity to break this ancient phi- losophic conception of the unity of the ego in order to admit spontaneous creations which have no sup- port. Auto-hypnotism, hyperamnesia are only words; unconscious cerebration implies two contra- dictory terms subliminal creations generated with- out the aid of the ego . . . teleological hallucina- tions; that is, illusions tending toward a real end, subconscious strata . . . infantile strata . . . neo- plasms . . . excresences . . . psychic warts . . . vain hypotheses. These are fatherless children whose power sur- passes human faculties; there would be no longer one consciousness, but four, five or six centers of subconsciousnes, which would play as complex a farce, each having its own manner of seeing, writing, speaking, of crossing the tf's or pronouncing the w's, without ever becoming confused, or omitting the archaic forms of the past century, without forget- ting the nationality of the figurant or his accent or spelling. Strange to say, these factitious beings would elude hypnotic suggestion ; they take the reins from the mesmerist and it is they themselves who hypnotize the subject, rectifying by means of auditory suggestions the error of the subject when he has wrongly interpreted a visual suggestion. A human intelligence is incapable of managing so many impostures at once. To the activity of these factitious personalities one would have to add many phenomena of recog- nized lucidity, valuable interventions and exact pre- visions. Thus one must needs divide phenomena into two parts: one, in the domain of facts that may be PREVIOUS LIVES 81 verified, would be sincere and truthful; and under subliminal impostures would be classed the same in- fluence when they were exercised in the doubtful domain. All this would be done with the avowed determina- tion not to believe in manifestations, nor in the ac- tion of the past upon our psychic sphere, nor in the action upon our nervous system of an invisible hypnotist. Before imposing upon us this belief in neoplasms of genius, it would have been well to show us some evidence of this ego cut in pieces to prove that Leopold is a division of Helen, and that he, divided in turn, produces the new personalities that come out one from another, like the sections of a tele- scope ! Where have these spontaneous generations ac- quired learning? How have they knowledge of idioms? For the proof new hypotheses are de- manded; there is not even a justification of this physiology of the soul which allows a division wherein each part would be greater than the whole. Spiritualism, in default of absolute proofs, pre- sents, at least, an explaining hypothesis. And this explanation becomes simple and normal when we admit the relations of the soul to its past. CHAPTER V THE ESTABLISHED FACT "I never said it was possible, I only said it was true." WILLIAM CBOOKES. SCIENCE, unwilling to recognize anything outside of matter, denies the possibility of any physical manifestation without contact, as if visibility were the essential condition of materiality. These are the manifestations which have been scorned, which are still unrecognized or admitted only to be denied all importance. Every new idea passes through three successive phases. At first men mock and combat, later the idea becomes self-evident; and finally men claim we are forcing doors that are already open. This is the history of table-tipping, automatic writing, haunted houses, and extra-physiological formations of strange shapes and human members. These are facts which, however absurd they may seem, nevertheless exist. In 1854, Count Agenor de Gasparin published a large work, in two volumes, upon turning-tables which he had studied from a strictly scientific point of view. His aim had been to demonstrate that table-tipping was a purely physical manifestation, and he had the simplicity to believe that because his demonstration had been made, it would remain THE ESTABLISHED FACT 83 uncontested. Alas! other demonstrations followed, and other experimenters showed the same simplicity. This has continued for sixty years. Gasparin placed three trays upon his table, the last being filled with stones ; the table thus weighted, rose upon the desired side. Certain scholars, witnessing the experiment, ex- pressed the theory of unconscious pressure! They agreed, therefore, that if flour were spread upon the table and no trace of finger prints remained after the lifting, no further objection would be pos- sible. This experiment was tried again and again with complete success. M. Marc Thury, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Geneva, strove in his turn to throw a new light upon these feats of lifting without contact. He operated in such a way as to obtain this movement under conditions where the mechanical action of fingers would have been impossible. In his presence, a child raised a piano weighing 400 pounds, and as this movement was explained as the result of action of the knees, the child repeated the phenomenon, kneeling upon a stool and playing on the piano in this position. The conclusions drawn by Thury were: 1. That a fluid is produced by the brain and is set free along the nerves. 2. That this fluid may go beyond the limits of the human body. 3. That it obeys will-power. Thury wrote upon this subject: "The task of Science is to bear witness to the truth. It cannot do this if it borrows a part of its data from revelation or tradition, for that is a 84 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD ging of the question and so the testimony of Science becomes void. "Natural facts fall into two categories of forces, the one necessary, the other free. In the first cate- gory belong the general forces of gravity, heat, light, electricity and growth. It is possible that others may be discovered one day, but at present these are the only ones that we know. To the second category of forces belongs the soul both of animals and the soul of man; these are indeed forces, for they cause movements and varied phenomena in the physical world." Thus the work of two experimenters contained already, in germ, this affirmation of something mate- rial, indeterminate, fluidic, in connection with the soul force, acting outside the human body and obedient to its will. Later, to put this fact beyond all dispute, regis- tering apparatus was constructed. Robert Hare, chemist at Harvard University, was the first to employ this method. In 1869, the Dialectic Society of London resolved upon an investigation and formed a committee that held fifty seances. In the course of these, important testimony, much of which came from high authori- ties, was registered. sub-committee No. 1 wrote : 1 "Your committee has avoided employing profes- sional or salaried mediums. The only mediumship was that of its members, all of good social position and strictest integrity. "Your committee has limited its report to facts i Report upon Spiritism. THE ESTABLISHED FACT 85 observed by its assembled members ; these facts were perceptible to the senses and possessed a reality susceptible of indisputable proof. 1 "Four-fifths of your sub-committee, at the outset of the experiments, were skeptical concerning the reality of the above-mentioned phenomena. They were convinced that these phenomena were the re- sult either of imposture, illusion, or unconscious muscular action. It was only in the face of over- whelming evidence, under conditions that excluded all possibility of these solutions, and after repeated experiments and proofs, that the most skeptical were convinced, little by little, despite themselves, that the phenomena observed in the course of their long investigation were incontestable facts. "These manifestations occurred so often, under so many and such diverse conditions, surrounded by so many precautions against error or illusion, and gave such invariable results, that the members of your subcommittee who followed the experiments, although the majority had begun in absolute skepti- cism, became fully convinced that a force exists capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, and that this force depends, in a manner still unknown, upon the presence of human beings." Here we have to deal with a definite conclusion. Each time that men have seriously studied the mat- ter in good faith, they have rendered a similar verdict. However, it will always be impossible to overcome preconceived opinion; those who had been inclined to accept this decision, refused it, because it was contrary to their expectations. They in- i Underlined in the report of the Committee. 86 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD sisted that a verdict of this nature should be con- firmed by a decisive authority. This was the cause and origin of the researches undertaken by Sir William Crookes. This time it was the complete routing of the skeptics. They had declared in advance their willingness to accept the conclusions of William Crookes. But they con- tinued to discuss, giving proof of ignorance and bad faith. "From all appearance," wrote Camille Flam- marion upon this subject, "they approved the en- trance of this ingenious chemist into these occult and heretical researches, only with the idea that he would demonstrate the falsity of these prodigies." In 1888, appeared an Italian medium, Eusapia Paladino, whose life was almost entirely devoted to scientific experimentation. All the scholars of Europe examined her, one by one, and all bore wit- ness to the reality of the facts. This time stress was laid upon a multitude of objective proofs, ob- tained by means of registering apparatus, and photographic evidence. Thus we have permanent proofs, visible to all, of table-tipping or the lifting of objects, taken at the moment of their rising, and attesting that at this moment there was no contact. In 1896, Colonel de Rochas wrote his fine book upon the outward manifestation of motivity, an in- destructible monument which established the definite proof and gave the records of the different controls exerted upon Eusapia up to the year 1896. In 1898, M. Guillaume de Fontenay wrote a book upon the same subject, relating only the seances at which he had been present with the Blech family and Camille Flammarion. 1 iA Propos Eusapia Paladino (concerning Eusapia Pala- dino), by Guillaume de Fontenay, Paris, 1898. THE ESTABLISHED FACT 87 Flammarion himself organized in 1898, in his home on the Avenue de 1'Observatoire, a series of seances, at which were present, among others, Arthur Levy, Victorien Sardou, Gustave le Bon, and M. and Mme. Ad. Brisson. At each seance, Eusapia was undressed and reclothed before two ladies ap- pointed to ascertain that she concealed nothing be- neath her garments. I shall not speak of the marvelous occurrences witnessed there, but shall con- cern myself solely with the fact of movement with- out contact. We have on this subject the confession of the scholarly astronomer who, after giving the events of these seances, wrote the following lines : "The levitation of a table, for example, and its complete detachment from the floor under the action of an unknown force contrary to weight, is a fact which can no longer be reasonably contested." As for the other far more remarkable phenomena, Camille Flammarion has seen them under conditions where verification was entirely possible. But, re- strained by prudence, he is content to write: "To be sure of such enormities, we must be a hundred times sure, not having seen them once, but one hun- dred times, as, for example, levitations." This then has been achieved. Levitation of tables without contact is henceforth beyond doubt, and should be affirmed without reserve. It has been witnessed, not once, but a hundred times; not by a few but by a great number. Let us recall the principal witnesses by citing some extracts from their testimony: William CrooJces. "There are many examples of heavy bodies such as tables, chairs, sofas, etc., hav- 88 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD ing been set in motion without the contact of the medium. I will mention briefly certain of the more striking instances. A chair in which I was seated partly described a circle while my feet were clear of the floor. On one occasion a chair moved slowly from a far corner of the room. This was visible to all those present. Another time an armchair came to the spot where we were seated and, at my request, returned slowly away to a distance of about three feet. During three consecutive evenings, a smah 1 table moved freely across the room, under conditions which I had expressly prepared before- hand, in order to brush aside all objections which might be raised to the genuineness of the occurrence. "On five different occasions, a heavy dining-room table rose from several inches to a foot and a half above the floor, under specially arranged conditions which rendered fraud impossible. At another time a heavy table rose above the floor in full light, while I held the hands and feet of the medium." Sir Alfred Russel Wallace. "I was so complete and confirmed a materialist that at this time I could not find room in my thought for the conception of a spiritual existence, nor for the existence of any other function whatever in the universe, save matter and force. Facts, however, are stubborn things. My curiosity was first aroused by certain minor but inexplicable phenomena observed in the family of a friend, and my desire for knowledge and my love of truth stirred me to pursue the investigation. Facts became more and more manifest, more and more varied, and farther and farther from all the teach- ings of modern science and from all that con- temporary philosophy discussed. They conquered me, they forced me to accept them as facts, long before I could admit the spiritualistic explanation. For THE ESTABLISHED FACT 89 there was then in my system of thought no place in which this could be entertained. By slow degrees a place was made." The same author wrote in his notes: "These experiments have persuaded me that there is an unknown power which emanates from the bodies of a group of persons placed in conjunction by their position about a round table with all their hands upon it." Cesar Lombroso. "Until now (1890), I have been the most relentless foe of spiritism. To all who urged me to examine this order of phenomena, I replied: 'Merely to speak of a spirit that animates tables and chairs is simply ridiculous ; the mani- festation of forces without matter is quite as in- conceivable as functional activity without organs. . . .' I acquired the conviction that spirit phe- nomena are explained for the greater part by forces inherent in the medium, and also, in part, by the intervention of super-terrestrial beings who possess powers of which the properties of radium may give an analogous idea. The solution of this problem will be one of the most far-reaching events of the New Century." A. de Rochas. "The refusal to believe in affirma- tions so numerous, unequivocal and precise, renders impossible the establishment of any physical science, for the student is not likely to have an opportunity to witness all the facts taught him, observation of which is often difficult." Ochorowicz. "The hypothesis of a fluidic double (astral body) which, under certain conditions, de- 90 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD taches itself from the body of the medium, seems necessary for the explanation of the majority of phenomena. According to this conception, the movement of objects without contact would be pro- duced by the fluidic members of the medium." Morselli. "Yes! These phenomena, the accept- ance of which seemed to me at first to be due to deception or naivete, fraud or the illusion of the senses either in good faith or obstinacy, are in very large number authentic and certain; as for the few upon which I am not yet satisfied, they infringe in no wise upon the existence of an extraordinary or preternatural category of facts, dependent upon special organisms endowed with the faculty of mak- ing manifest images and wishes." Pio Fioa. "Now that we are persuaded that the phenomena are authentic, we feel also a desire to declare it publicly and to proclaim that the rare pioneers in this branch of biology, destined to be- come one of the most important, see and observe, in general, with exactitude." And now, being shown the conclusions of these modern scholars who have seriously studied the facts, one may wonder why there are still the in- credulous. Why do certain persons who believe in wireless telegraphy, liquid air, and other phenomena they have never seen, of which they have not the slightest proof, and which they admit simply be- cause they have heard of them, refuse to admit another phenomenon which has resisted sixty years of polemics, has been subjected to every test and every scientific investigation? This is the question put by the learned neurolo- THE ESTABLISHED FACT 91 gist of the University of Genoa. Having thus re- ferred to his unbelief, he asserts anew: "To-day, fortified with a sufficient experience, after long and mature reflection upon what I have seen and touched with my hands, after unrelaxed study of the question of mediumship during many years, I have changed my opinion." In brief, here is the testimony of Morselli, upon that fact of special interest to us: "The autonomous lifting of a table is the favorite subject for photography. In broad daylight, we have seen a table rise to the height of our heads while we were standing in the middle of a room. We have also witnessed minuets of the table, with the gas brightly lighted and while the medium was enclosed within a cabinet." Finally, it is also important to cite the conclu- sion of Dr. Pio Fioa, professor of anatomy at the University of Turin, a conclusion which is infinitely valuable to us. "One must conclude from these facts that the nervous system of the medium is in touch with cur- rents which reach her from outside, and that cur- rents leaving her nervous system proceed from her. These are sensitive and motive currents, not auto- matic, differing from those we know, and prolonged outside the organism for a certain distance, like the rays of a form of energy not yet known." We ourselves declare that these conclusions are equivalent to the recognition of an unknown psychic 92 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD organ; to us it appears to be the old Perisprit, known to the spiritists for sixty years and to the Egyptians more than six thousand years before our Christian era. It is necessary to emphasize these scholarly wit- nesses, these testimonies ceaselessly renewed and these beginnings of scientific theories, because they are the very things of which the journals never make mention. According to these journals the essence and basis of the spiritualistic movement is always either ex- ploitation or weak-mindedness. The public is always ignorant of the serious foundation of the monument which is being raised, and it is even not rare to hear it said: "Since the papers show us that all this is only fraud and charlatanism, why do the scholars not undertake to elucidate the question? It should be settled." But when in 1864, Count A. de Gasparin accu- mulated experiment after experiment, it was even then for the purpose of settling it. When Robert Hare constructed the first appara- tus to establish certitude upon an objective basis, he planned to settle the question. When in 1869, the Dialectic Society of London created a commission of investigation, it was still for the purpose of settlement. When still later, it was asserted that Sir William Crookes was the sole authority capable of pronounc- ing judgment, and the unbelievers declared in ad- vance their intention of accepting as final the results of experiments based upon registering devices set- tling the matter was once more in order. M. Rochas added to all these proofs a new THE ESTABLISHED FACT 93 objective basis, by publishing the photographs of his work on L'Exteriorisation de la Motricite (The Outward Manifestation of Motivity), it was yet for the purpose of settlement. When Cesar Lombroso, in 1891, accepted a cele- brated challenge, and consented to examine Eusapia, that also was to settle the question. And when journalists, who do not know the first word of the problem, come to us to say that our affirmations rest upon no objective basis, it will be for them to settle it. Let them tell us then what is an objective basis, what is a proof, and why our proofs are not proofs. Several years ago, another attempt at solution was started. There was in Paris on the rue de Conde, a general Psychological Institute, whose be- ginning was not exactly favorable for our phenomena and whose method, marred with preconceived opin- ion and dogmatism, even succeeded in discouraging several eminent psychists who withdrew from its membership. It was this society which resolved to have done with the matter. They imagined that the previous experimenters must have been victims of collective hallucinations, and that since our senses may deceive us, their testimony could have no ob- jective value. The Institute then declared that if the testimony of the senses corresponded to the re- sults duly registered by the automatic apparatus constructed for this purpose, they would have set aside, this time, all possibility of error. This was done in the course of a long series of experiments, covering three years, under the direc- tion of Messrs. Curie, d'Arsonval, Bergson, Branly, Ed. Perrier, Boutroux, etc. These experiments 94 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD should have given results which we could no longer question. At the same time that the subject was being con- trolled, the automatic devices in a neighboring room were graphically inscribing the number and ampli- tude of the movements. They indicated liftings of the table, whether it was fully detached from the floor or if it raised one, two or three of its feet. Complete levitations of the four feet were registered during thirty to sixty seconds, while the attention of the spectators, thus relieved from the care of noting down the phenomenon, was occupied only in watching, some the hands, some the feet and others the knees or head of the medium. But it were better to give some extracts from the report of the General Institute. Extract from The Bulletin of the General Psychological Institute, p. 436: "Eusapia asks the Countess de Grammont, who is outside the chain, to seat herself upon the table. She sits upon the small side of the table opposite Eusapia. Under these conditions, the third and fourth feet (those farthest from the medium) are raised and as the table falls back, a foot is broken. ( Controllers : on the left, M. Yourievitch ; at the right, M. Curie). "Complete Lifting of the Table. The blinds of the two windows in the experimental room are open. (Controllers: at left, M. Yourievitch; at right, M. d'Arsonval.) Eusapia asks if M. Bergson (who is outside of the chain) sees both her knees. M. Berg- son : 'Very well.' " THE ESTABLISHED FACT 95 The table suddenly rises from all four feet. M. Yourievitch: "I am sure that I did not loose her hand." M. cPArsonval: "I, also." Another Case. Everyone is standing. At the request of Eusapia, M. Courtier holds her limbs; the table rises with its four feet about fifty centi- meters above the carpet. M. Debierne: "Her hand was upon the table." M. Courtier: "I hold both her legs." The table is lifted a second time under the same conditions. Let us cite a last example, in which the conditions of evidence seem absolute: p. 472. The small table (placed to the left of Eusapia, fifty centimeters from her chair) , is completely lifted while Eusapia's feet are fastened to the feet of her chair, by the laces of her boots, and her wrists at- tached to the wrists of the controllers. Reaching in its ascension the height of M. Curie's shoulders it turns over, with feet in air, then alights, its top against the top of the large table. The movement is not rapid, but appears to be carefully guided. Controllers: at left, M. Curie; at right, M. Yourievitch. Neither Curie, nor Fielding, nor Yourievitch, nor Courtier, under whose eyes the occurrence took place in a light sufficient to analyze its phases, noticed at this moment any suspicious movement of the sub- ject, who remained, as has been stated, bound hand and foot. ****** We have' felt that facts so simple, so clear, ofe" 96 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD served in broad daylight, subjected to an absolute control, and affirmed without restriction by scholarly authorities, could not be denied, save by persons suffering from cerebral anemia. That is also the opinion of Dr. Flournoy, the eminent psychologist, who, still hostile to our theories, but a conscientious scholar, bows before the facts and concludes: "The report of the General Psychological Insti- tute is overwhelming. ... I feel that the report constitutes a shining and decisive testimony in so much as there can be anything decisive in science." And the reader will draw the same conclusion, we trust. CHAPTER VI THE MOTIVE AGENTS It seems certain that in cases like those I cite, we have the proof of a thought, an intelligence at work in ourselves, and distinct from our own personalities. SIR JOHN HERSCHELL. AFTER having established the materialism of these facts, let us now examine the intelligence which they manifest and the sense in which they can be inter- preted. Heavy bodies moved by exterior substance can obey the most diverse agents. It is generally ad- mitted that these movements can be directed by the subconscious element or by surrounding ideas; but there is a fact which has been proved by observation, and which is no longer to be denied that the mo- tive agent can be a living person, present or not at the time of the experience, and even, sometimes, very far from the medium. These cases are valuable for study, since they are the only ones that show with certainty the agent who calls forth the phenomenon. In the discovery of this source we have been able to distinguish telepathy from organic disorders. Thus, we may affirm that not only organs, but also inert bodies, when they are enveloped by the animic influx, can be moved telepathically, although the person who 97 98 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD thinks is wholly unconscious of the effect produced. And it is well to guard against attributing this phenomenon to an unconscious agent, since conscious- ness is present; it is found in the active agent who is conscious of these ideas. When one has a true medium and when a table becomes animated after a suitable preparation, take a pack of cards, place one that no one has seen in the center of the table and ask who can guess the placed card; most often you will have no response, or will obtain only deplorable gropings. But stay on the outside of the circle, begin the trial again with a card that you alone have seen, and the table will divine accurately. Here is a proof of transmission of thought. Here you will be the active agent, the exterior substance will be at the same time sensitive and active; it will divine in you the thought formed and will find, in itself, the force which permits it to rise spontane- ously at the opportune moment. Such an organism, exteriorized, that is to say, acting outside of the physiological center which is its normal habitat, is open to all influences, exposed to all caprices, and it often becomes a mirror of errors and incoherences. Thus is shown a mani- festation of an inferior order. Nevertheless we see that, in the same field of mysterious force, an intelligence is manifested which shows itself independent; some special circumstance permits the discovery of the agent which has brought this reaction, and it happens that this was a living person, unknown to the audience one who sent true messages. There is a manifestation which becomes instructive, as it is of a much higher degree. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 99 Finally, the influence changes again, a mysterious entity seems to take possession of this force, and, through it, gives responses which it is impossible to attribute to a living person, and makes revelations which seem to establish the identity of one deceased. Therein is the transcendent manifestation. Numerous examples of these three degrees of manifestations are found in special works. What- ever we say of table-tipping, we could also say of automatic writing, and one sees by this, what close relations unite all these phenomena. Telepathy acts as well, directly upon the interior sensorium, as in- directly upon the secondary organs and the motor centers, and even, as is the case around a table, upon the animic substance which seems to overflow cor- poreal form as the field of magnetic force spreads around the braces of a magnet. Thus, pure thought tends to produce upon all sensitive organs, visual and auditory images, etc., and even motive images which produce the so-called unconscious movements. A phenomenon is capri- cious, it responds to our demands, it defers to our desires, but it does not obey our will. Good com- munications, however, are rare, because the nebulous psychic constitutes, in a manner, an amorphous be- ing as long as a directing entity has not taken possession of it. A true communication can only be obtained in as far as an intelligence intervenes strong enough to set aside the unformed thoughts which create confusion. It may be, however, that we hold the fact as a revelation. Each time that we have been able to trace back to the source of an automatic message, we have found it in a living person. We are very 100 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD certain then that the telepathic action we have seen affect sensitive centers can exert a similar influence upon the excitomotor centers, and thus create an altogether automatic mode of correspondence. A person physiologically endowed to produce automa- tic writing is alone in her home; a force incites her to take a pencil ; and she writes : "Your friend wishes to see you, he is at present on a certain street, such and such a number." You hurry there and find the message to be true. Another writes: "Your friend X is coming to see you, he has taken the 'bus at such a station, in half an hour he will be with you." It is not the consciousness of the subject that writes these things; nor is it the consciousness of the friend; the psychic force draws from somewhere the clairvoyance of which it gives proof. The rest is formed according to the ordinary processes of thought; that which we do ourselves in writing is well known; we think the written form; and the rest is mechanical the thought is equivalent to the ac- tion. Starting from there, one can and one should admit the presence of a third conscious entity, wit- ness of the actions of the friend X , and inform- ing the medium by thinking through her organism. It is not necessary, even, that this third person be conscious of the effect which she produces; with the medium thus endowed many things may be perceived as though by chance. I see no reason, however, for not admitting a voluntary and conscious intervention in the presence of clearly formulated expression. When a medium who writes takes the pen and indicates with great precision the means of finding THE MOTIVE AGENTS 101 a lost article, people at once say: "Cryptomnesia," but the medium is altogether a stranger to those who consult her on the lost article, and if the con- sultant has not lost this article himself, there can be no question of cryptomnesia. This knowledge must exist elsewhere than in the memory, and some intelligence must formulate the phrase which can start the motive mechanism only by an active thought; and an intelligence is necessary, foreign to the medium and the consultant, in order to know what neither of them could know. I believe, all the more, in the intervention of an occult intelligence, as the motor center is incapable of producing anything but movement. Neither is it easy to explain writing in a mirror, writing back- wards, the inversion of letters and syllables, etc. These games are difficult and would necessitate sus- tained attention. They certainly are not born in the thought of the audience; they are the automatic reflection of something which is thought in the Beyond. Sometimes the intelligence versifies and exacts an answer in rhyme. These are indications that we are not concerned with ganglionary intelligences. Cryptomnesia Cryptomnesia! Now, we believe that a conscious cerebration is necessary for a coherent wording. If these things reflect the men- tality of the experimenters, it is because there is somewhere an intelligence which gives the form and expression to their own thought which it reflects. In vain you will call that subconsciousness. These are thoroughly active states of consciousness, cap- able as we of influencing an organism, and knowing our language, philosophy, and sciences. [They are 102 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD cognizant of the effects they have produced. I should be interested to meet an opponent capable of maintaining that an unconscious person can act in a state of unconsciousness. They are not rare, how- ever, those naive people who still believe that psychic phenomena receive some elucidation from the theory of the unconscious agent. It is time to denounce this nonsense. Subcon- sciousness is the life of the heart and stomach; it is my digestion. Subconsciousness is also the mechanism of what is already very well known, that no longer has need of conscious direction : the cyclist holds his equilibrium subconsciously. It is, then, at the most, memory, insofar as it functions without attracting the attention of the subject. This is active subconsciousness, and I defy anyone to point out another. Automatic writing is a motive action exercised over the head of the subject in his inferior organs. This action reveals an autonomous intelligence and a knowledge foreign to the medium. Sometimes the subconscious agent is not content to act intelligently; it might also act physically in suppressing effort and fatigue. Nor should we forget the speaking medium. The process is always the same, that is to say, a force which passes over the will of the subject coerces his organs: and this force always gives proof of intelligence and special knowledge. For instance, the special knowledge will be in speaking a language unknown to the medium. The foreign influence must be indispensable here. Sometimes great forces seem to be unloosed. Thus, during the persecutions which followed the Revoca- THE MOTIVE AGENTS 103 tion of the Edict of Nantes, an unknown power in- vaded a whole region. In Dauphine, in Cevennes very little children who had never spoken a word, in sections where they spoke mostly a patois, would deliver in excellent French most remarkable dis- courses, which revived the courage of the persecuted. The Catholic children, inspired by the same force, spoke with the same import as the Protestants, that is, against their own church. This special case is no more clearly explained by fanaticism than by subconsciousness. Whoever is possessed by this in- fluence has no idea of the words spoken until he has given them utterance. A case which it is not possible to challenge, is that of the daughter of Judge Edmund ; the force which mastered her organs made her speak ten or twelve languages, perhaps more. And these are not the only motive faculties which fall under the domination of a foreign power; there are still the sensitive faculties. Note well this difference. Just now, we passed over the subject's will to make use of his organs; now we shall efface before him the existing realities in order to penetrate more easily into his sensibility. It is the real world which has entirely disappeared, to give place for a symbolic vision; it is anaesthesia imposed upon exterior organs before the image shows itself, before the vision appears, whose aim would seem incontestable and whose usefulness immediate. Thus it is that a lady sees the image of her mother lying upon the floor and, without inquiring into her vision, goes to find the doctor before returning home and saves the patient by going direct to the scene of the accident. 104 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT^WORLD At other times it is the auditory sense which is affected. Doctor Smith, alone in his study, hears these words: "Send some bread to the house of James Gandy." The doctor does not know the ad- dress and hesitates. "Send some bread to the house of James Gandy," the same voice repeats more strongly, and three times he hears the same injunc- tion. At the bakery, a young boy is found at the door of the shop and is ordered to carry bread to this address which is unknown to the doctor; there the children are crying with hunger, before their mother, who is praying God to send her something. 1 Oh, I know the explanation that will be given! the emotional state of the mother was such that it struck the percipiency of the good doctor. All of that does not explain the auditory phenomenon in the form in which it was perceived. Here took place what I call mirror action, an intelligence which re- ceives the prayer of the mother, and which produces the sensorial hallucination in creating the formula adapted to the circumstances. There are many cases, to my knowledge, where some particularly united persons have perceived these emotional states at a distance. It was then the psychic bond which estab- lished a direct communication; but in these cases the sensitive one heard the same words which had been spoken or thought a great distance from him. Here is another consideration; the doctor did not hear, "Oh God, send me some bread;" he did not hear, "I am hungry, Mother," nor any other word of the scene itself; he merely received a reiterated sum- mons. The emotional state which struck him was not that of an imploring person, but that of one i Case 287 Phantasms of the Living. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 105 who commands. I do not see what telepathic proc- ess could thus transpose the effects. I see nothing other than conscious and reflecting intelligence. Nor is telepathy a source that may be invoked when the phenomenon interests only one person. Thus a woman in her bath received a summons to unlock the door ; stupefaction, resistance, and the order was reiterated until she had unlocked the door. Later her maid found her in a faint in the bath tub, and she would certainly have been drowned had it not been possible to open the door. There is no subconscious explanation which gives a reason for these things that can also present them- selves under other forms ; for example, an aged lady, in a dark corridor, was about to fall into the open shaft of an elevator, in which the car had descended. A phantom barred her way. Hallucination? Yes, without doubt, but intelligent hallucination, pro- voked at an opportune time by a guardian spirit. Every other interpretation becomes too complicated. All this does not prevent writing, unconscious movements, automatic speaking, and visual and auditory images from appearing in their purely physiological form; but in this case the explanation is simple and does not become entangled in the diffi- culties encountered in the preceding cases. I have just cited two examples of timely warnings. The following is another which seems of the same type, although it be purely physiological. Myers gives us this example as an explanation of illusions in which the spiritists fail, but his comparison is unjustified. A lady, standing before her fireplace, held in one hand a bank note which she was preparing to put 106 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD into her drawer; in the other, a letter which was to be thrown into the fireplace. Mechanically she reread the letter; then, when she had finished it, and without paying attention to her act, she made an inverse gesture. The letter was going in the drawer, the money into the flames. But her arms stiffened and could not execute the movement. They had re- ceived a general inhibition. Perhaps this lady be- lieved in the intervention of a protective intelligence, but the physiological process is rather clear, never- theless. There is in each functional organ a sensi- tive consciousness. Consciousness A was given an order to grasp the bank note; consciousness B, equally expectant, was ready for the execution of a different order to put the letter into the fire. Unknown to the lady, each motive center was only awaiting its final command for the execution; at the precise moment when the gesture would become executory, the lady sent a suggestion in a contrary sense that produced a contraction. The lady hap- pened to be exactly in the situation of the drill ser- geant who is confused in commanding his platoon the order is not regular, and no one moves. This is a purely physiological explanation. Can we apply it to the preceding phenomenon? It is very evident that the inferior organism of the other lady had no knowledge of the position of the eleva- tor; hence the form of the phenomenon, owing to subconsciousness, would have been general inhibition the lady would have been unable to advance. In- stead, what do we find? An hallucinary and pre- servative form that is entirely different; and we know that hallucinations, when they are not un- healthy, are provoked by the emotional states of the THE MOTIVE AGENTS 107 persons with whom we are sympathetic. This lady can very well, then, have seen an image created by the emotional state of an invisible friend. But it is above all when the motive agent is a living person that this statement becomes interesting. Perty tells the following fact which is reported By Aksakof: 1 Sophie Swoboda, because of a family party, had been unable to prepare her lessons. She quit the company for a moment, and while she was alone found herself, mentally, face to face with her teacher. It seemed that she spoke to the teacher, explaining her neglect and expressing her regrets; and then, rejoining the party, she imparted to the guests what had just happened to her. At the same time the instructress, who was a writing medium, took a pencil and communicated with her husband; the communication stopped short and a handwriting, that she recognized as Sophie's, warned her that the lesson was not prepared. She carried the original writing to her pupil. It was the same text, with the same pleasant expressions, which Sophie had em- ployed in her fictitious conversation with the in- structress. From this example, and many others, we are en- titled to reject the conclusion of those who claim that automatic writing emanates always from the one who produces it. The secret depths of subcon- sciousness are certainly possible sources; but it is not safe to generalize from that, since cryptomnesia is out of the question in many cases whose motive agents are known to us. Aksakof cites as well the example of [Thomas i Animism and Spiritism, p. 478. 108 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Everitt, whose wife was a medium, and who by her mediation, corresponded with one of his friends. Florence Marryat, moreover, reports that she wrote with her own hands a communication coming from a sleeping person; and W. Stead, the great jour- nalist, corresponded at a distance with his son and several other living persons. In closing, let us note that between a table mes- sage and a written one, there is no essential differ- ence; these are the same forces which animate either an organism, or inanimate matter, and the effects differ only by reason of the imperfection of the means. An example which discloses, with the same evi- dence, the motive source of a communication obtained with a table, is taken from the ninth volume of the Proceedings of the S. F. P. R., p. 48. We can give only a resume. Case of Mrs. Kirby. Mrs. Kirby lived in Santa Cruz, California, on a ranch, where was employed an illiterate young English sailor named Thomas Travers. While they were trying an experiment with a table among the family, the table spelled the name of Mary Howels, entirely unknown to those present. Mary Howels, however, declared that she was the sister of Thomas Travers, which implied a contra- diction because, having also stated that she was not married, she would have borne the same name as her brother. The latter, on being questioned, admitted with embarrassment that he had changed his name since leaving the service of a whaling-vessel, fearing that he would be recalled by the maritime draft. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 109 In reality his name was indeed Howels. Mary Howels then spelled out : "I have a child, a daughter ; she is seven years old and lives at present on Cat Street in an evil house. I wish that my brother might take her away from there." Thomas, being illiterate, did not grasp the mean- ing of this message and they hesitated to tell him. But finally they said: "Your sister claims that she has a little girl seven years old" Tom counted on his fingers and replied "That is true, seven years to-day." The rest of the message moved him deeply and he promised to send fifty dollars the following month. But they asked him if there was really a Cat Street in Plymouth, England, for that was the original home of the false Travers. "Yes," he an- swered, "and it is in the worst section of the city." During the following days, Mary Howels mani- fested herself anew, announcing that her child was ill. Later, she was worse, then she said her daughter was dying and finally confirmed her death. "Well," they replied to her, "She is now with you." "No," answered the table. Strangely enough, the witnesses had continued this dialogue in the belief that they were conversing with the spirit of Mary Howels deceased; but she was living; they had forgotten to question her on this subject. That became interesting. Mrs. Kirby decided someone should write cautiously to Thomas' parents, and this she did in his name, asking news of the child. An answer came saying all were well save Mary's daughter, who was dead. The seances had been held in Santa Cruz, Cali- fornia, and Mary Howels was in Plymouth, England. 110 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD The time in Santa Cruz, between seven and nine (the time of the seances) corresponded to the middle of the night in Plymouth. Thus the thoughts of Mary Howels were exteriorized during her sleep, and it was the transmission of these thoughts that caused the table movement in Santa Cruz. The Commission of the Psychical Society cor- responded with Mrs. Kirby upon this subject; and in the hope of verifying the story, she wrote to the Post Office in Plymouth to ascertain if the above- named street really existed. The following reply was received: Post Office, Plymouth, January 23, 1888. SIB: In reply to your favor of the 21st inst., I am able to inform you, that until a few years ago, there was a street here, called Catte Street, and it is at present named StiUman Street. Yours very truly, R. A. LEVERTON, for the director. It is sometimes difficult to explain the automatic phenomenon; it is often possible to determine its agents. Render unto subconsciousness that which belongs to subconsciousness, and unto the spirit that which belongs to the spirit. The human mind has sufficiently proven its power to influence the organs; one can no longer deny it this faculty, which we judge normal, when it is exer- cised by ourselves, and abnormal when an outside agent substitutes itself for our normal action. When It is a question of telepathy or automatism, it is the THE MOTIVE AGENTS 111 same phenomenon which affects, in the first case, the sensitive centers, in the second, the excito-motor centers, and which produces, in the one, images, and in the other, movements. Henceforth, we know then, a possible motor agent of the phenomenon of un- conscious automatism; it is, indeed, the human person, an exterior source, foreign to the organs, which provokes the movement. This established, we cannot fail to wonder if the proof of a life in the Beyond could be given us, in the same way, in case a disembodied spirit could exert upon us a telepathic action followed by the same results. Incontestably, this proof has been given us; but one can always escape from it by supposing that there exists in the Beyond beings different from us but corresponding with us and knowing our language, so that they are enabled to play the roles of our disembodied friends, with an aim in view which we cannot comprehend. It is for the reader to judge the probability of this interpretation. We have an experiment made some years ago, by Doctor Ermacora, founder of the Review of Psychic Studies (La Revue des Etudes Psychiques). The doctor had a subject, Miss Manzini, who had given him phenomena of spiritistic appearance of the best quality. He asked the personality in the Beyond, who was manifested by automatic writing under the name of Elvira, to give him a proof of her objective reality, by a direct action which she was to exert upon a little girl of five years. The proof of Elvira was to consist in the creation of a dream, entirely imagined by Dr. Ermacora, which the child could recount upon awakening. Naturally, it was necessary to assure the complete 112 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD isolation of the child, an orphan, who was then liv- ing with the medium, Miss Manzini, who had her mother with her also. The child, kept in ignorance of the experiment that was to be tried, was removed to another part of the house and was often already asleep when the doctor dictated the scope of the dream. All verbal communication was rendered impossibe through seals affixed by the doctor upon the doors of the room where Miss Manzini slept, the other per- son being ignorant of the prepared subject. The doctor himself would come to break the seals the next morning and the child would be questioned. The experiments numbered one hundred. For subject matter of the dreams, they chose scenes most incompatible with the knowledge of the child . . . balloon ascensions, tempests, trips to the mountains, etc. Here are some examples : 1 No. 76. Subject of the Dream. The Child will be a blacksmith, out of work, who will go to ask employment from the farrier, who lives in a certain street of Padua. The latter, to test the skill of the workman, will give him a horse-shoe to fashion. While Angeline, the blacksmith, is forging it, the iron will break in pieces and they will discharge her on this account. "In the morning," wrote Dr. Ermacora, "I found the seals intact and the dream had taken place in its least details. The child could not tell the name of the street, but she described it exactly." Let me mention also this curious theme, which succeeded. i Taken from the book by Mr. Sage, The Frontier Zone. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 113 No. 82. The child will be an ant dragging a crumb of bread. And this other: No. 98. Subject of the Dream. The child will be a Frenchman, a professor at the University of Tokio. A friend will send him as a present ten bottles of Bordeaux, asking him to analyze the wind to learn if it contains iron; iron will be found in it. Finally, I requested Miss Marie to give verbally, two or three times, to the child, already asleep in another room, the suggestion to dream that she was playing with a red ball. The same control as in No. 80. The child re- counted her dream as usual to Mme. Annette, who reported it to me. In the dream she was an old gentleman who taught young people speaking an- other language. Another gentleman sent her a gift of several bottles of wine, she did not know the exact number, but thought it was eight or nine. She poured into this wine a little of the contents of a bottle and the wine became entirely black ; she added, there was iron in it. Mme. Annette, not understand- ing the meaning of these words, said to her: "But if the wine contained iron, this iron would have broken the bottles!" To which the child replied: "No ! no ! the wine simply tasted of iron." The chemical reaction dreamed by the child conforms to the truth, for iron really produces a very dark coloration. It must be noted that neither the little girl nor Miss Marie Manzini have the least notion of chemistry. So we have the right to suppose the intervention of another intelligence. There was no dream of the red ball. I know there is a ready theory for cases of this 114 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD kind, that of the subconscious agent; it is not the will that acts, but the idea alone. We believe that also, except, if we admit that the idea may act mechanically, outside of the consciousness of the one emitting it, it becomes most absurd to suppose that ideas, in a state of repose in the subconsciousness of the agent, may manifest themselves in the form of a discursive thought, or in the manner of complex images, in coherent order. That is why the inter- vention from the other world, perceiving the idea, and reviving it opportunely, seems to us much better adapted to the nature of the phenomenon. Let us pass to another phenomenon. Automatic writing gives exact information unknown to all the persons present, so that we must suppose there is somewhere a motive force acting at the moment. If it be a deceased spirit, it may act while dying as well as after its death. These spontaneous cases can almost never be verified ; however, there is a case of this kind which offers the advantage of having been noted by an eminent specialist. Case reported by Dr. Liebault, 4, rue de Bellevue, Nancy. 1 September 4, 1885. "I hasten to write to you concerning the act of thought-transference, of which I spoke when you honored me with your presence at my hypnotic seances in Nancy. 2 This occurence took place in a French family of New Orleans, who had come to live for a time in Nancy in order to settle some money matters. 1 Phantasms of the Living. London, 1886, p. 293. 2 Let us remark in passing, there is no thought-transference in an automatic action. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 115 "One day, the 7th of February, I believe, about eight o'clock in the morning, at the hour for break- fasting, Miss B felt a need, a something which urged her to write (it was what she called a trance), and she hurried at once to her large notebook, where she feverishly penciled indecipherable characters. She retraced the same characters upon the follow- ing pages, and finally, the excitement of her mind growing calmer, it could be read that a person named Marguerite was announcing her death. She imagined at once that a girl of this name, who was her friend and a teacher in the same boarding-school of Coblenz, where she had also taught, had just died. All the G family, including Miss B came immediately to me and we decided to discover, on that very day, whether this death had really taken place. "Miss B wrote to a young English friend, who was also an instructor at the school in question ; she made up a motive, being careful not to reveal the real motive of her letter. By return post, we received a reply in English, the essential part of which was copied for me a reply which I found in a portfolio scarcely two weeks ago and have mis- laid again. It expressed the surprise of the English girl, concerning Miss B 's letter, which she had not expected so soon, since its motive did not seem sufficient for its appearance. But at the same time the English friend hastened to tell our medium that their common friend, Marguerite, had died on the 7th of February, about eight o'clock in the morning. In addition, a small square of printed paper was inserted in the letter it was a death notice. It is unnecessary to tell you that I verified the envelope of the letter and that it seemed to me to have really come from Coblenz." 116 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD This is, therefore, a case where all fraud would have been impossible, and concerning which but two hypotheses remain: either the motive agent was the deceased person herself, or else an entity from the Beyond expressed the active thought, indispensable to transmission of the message. We shall now invalidate the first of these hypothe- ses, by quoting another case in which the dying per- son could not, at the moment of his death, have influenced the subject. 1 "On January 3rd, 1856, the steamboat 'ALICE,' which my brother Joseph then commanded, had a collision with another steamboat on the Mississippi, upstream from New Orleans. By reason of the shock, the flag mast or pole fell with great violence, and striking my brother upon the head, cracked his skull. Death was necessarily instantaneous. In the month of October, 1867, 1 went to the United States. During the visit I made in my father's home, at Camden, New Jersey, the tragic death of my brother naturally became the subject of our conversation. My mother then told me that she had seen my brother Joseph appear to her at the very moment of his death. The fact was confirmed by my father and my four sisters. The distance between Camden, New Jersey, and the scene of the accident is in a direct line of more than one thousand miles, but this distance is almost double by the postal route. My mother spoke of the apparition to my father and sisters on the morning of January 4th, and it was not until the 16th that is, thirteen days later that a letter arrived, confirming in its least de- tails, this extraordinary 'visit.' It is important i Phantasms of the Living, Vol. I, p. 204, taken from the French translation in Hallucinations TtUpathiques, p. 117. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 117 to note that my brother William and his wife, who now live in Philadelphia, then resided near the scene of the terrible accident. They also have assured me of the details concerning the impression produced upon my mother." Mrs. Collyer's Story. "On the 3rd of January, 1856, I did not feel well and retired early. Sometime afterwards, I felt ill at ease, and sat up in bed. I looked round the room and to my very great astonishment, saw Joseph standing near the door. He gazed at me with large mournful eyes and his head was swathed with bandages. He wore a soiled nightcap and a white garment like a surplice, also soiled. He was entirely disfigured; I was troubled for the rest of the night because of this apparition, etc." In reply to a request for enlightenment, Dr. Collyer wrote: "As I have stated, my mother received the spirit- ual impression of my brother, on the 3rd of January, 1856. My father, who is a scientist, calculated the difference in longitude between Camden, New Jer- sey, and New Orleans, and proved that the spiritual impression was produced at the exact moment of my brother's death. I may say that I have never be- lieved in any spiritual communion, as I have never believed that the phenomena produced when the brain is excited are spiritual phenomena. For forty years I have been a materialist and am convinced that all the so-called spiritual manifestations admit of a philosophic explanation, based upon physical laws and conditions. I do not wish to propound a theory, but in my opinion, there existed sympathetic 118 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD bonds of relationship between my mother and brother, who was her favorite son. When these bonds were broken by his sudden death, my mother was at the time in a condition which would favor the reception of the shock. 1 "In the story published by the Spiritual Maga- zine, I omitted to say, that before the accident, my brother Joseph had retired for the night to his bunk; the boat was moored along the levee, at the time it was struck by another vessel descending the Mississippi. Naturally, my brother was in his night clothes. As soon as he was called and someone told him a steamboat was close upon his own boat, he ran up on deck. These details were told to me by my brother William who was at that very time upon the scene of the accident. I cannot explain how the apparition wore bandages, for they could not have put them upon my brother until sometime after his death. The difference in time between Camden, New Jersey and New Orleans, is almost fifteen degrees, that is, an hour. "On the third of January, my mother retired early, about eight o'clock; this would have given seven o'clock (the time in New Orleans) as the hour of my brother's death." It is evident that a death so sudden would render impossible all active cerebration. Moreover, the victim received at the moment of the accident no iThe reception of the shock, as well as the broken bond, could be only metaphors upon the lips of a materialist. What shock could medullary substance produce at a distance of a thousand miles? As for the physical bond, if it be real it is impossible to say whether it is material or not. We can only accept what is proven; it has been proved that force may act at a distance, but not that matter may so act. If the mind CtS at a distance, it is because it is a force. THE MOTIVE AGENTS 119 visual image; therefore, he was unable to transmit one. However, the deceased person might have looked upon his own corpse and have been the motive agent of this transmission. But there is nothing to prove that the image was not transmitted by another witness of the accident. Despite the affirmations of Dr. Collyer, who claimed that his father had established coincidence in cal- culating the difference in longitude, in reality, noth- ing was proved, the report is silent concerning the hour of the accident and that of the vision. On the other hand, it is stated that the brother of the victim lived in the neighborhood. It is very prob- able then, that he had already seen the bandage and night clothes of the victim when the mother received the impression. Consequently, it was the brother William, who in this case served as a mirror, and it is he who may be presumed to have been the motive agent. This remark is important because it is too often supposed that visions of this kind, produced at the moment of dying, are due to a state of over-excite- ment preceding death. It is a gratuitous hypothesis, and it is interesting to note the numerous cases from which it must be excluded. When we find ourselves incontestably facing a cast of post-mortem apparation, and when the acci- dent has had no witnesses, a still bolder hypothesis is profounded, that of retarded telepathy. This hypothesis does not correspond to the facts; there must be an intelligence and an active force to explain telepathy. Also, post-mortem apparitions ordinarily accompany warnings which are outside 120 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD the knowledge of all living persons, as in the follow- ing case: Resume of page 291, Volume V, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. "Mrs. Brooks was traveling in Europe and had written to her son, employed in New York and living in Brooklyn, to join her. The latter replied, fixing the time of his departure. But in the mean- time he fell ill, and his mother was obliged to return home, recalled by the illness of her son. However, she found him already able to be up, and the doctor had no doubt of his complete recovery. "The young man then declared that a Mr. Hall, his professor and friend, who had died about five months before, had appeared to him and warned him that he would die of heart disease on Wednesday, the 5th of December, at three o'clock. "Young Brooks had never had the least heart trouble, and those of his friends to whom he told the warning held it of no importance. His doctor only laughed and assured him that his heart was in perfect condition. "On December 4th, he attended a funeral with a lady in whose company he passed the evening. He made her promise that she would come to see him the next day if he should write to her. The doctor, on his side, seeking to distract the patient by physical means, applied to his neck a blistering plaster. "Wednesday morning young Brooks arose as usual, breakfasted comfortably, and according to all ap- pearances seemed destined to a long life ; the doctor left him without the least disquietude. The young man insisted that his mother should not remain with him, saying: 'It would kill you to see me die.' His mother, in order to appear not to take him seriously, THE MOTIVE AGENTS 121 left him without opposition, but proposing to return. At two o'clock he lunched with the family, then feel- ing weak asked to return to his room where he wrote to the young lady, who arrived in twenty minutes. "He died in the presence of his family ten minutes after three. His mother and the doctor, who ar- rived a few moments later, were stunned to find the prediction come true." Mr. Gurney, who verified this case, wrote: "He was a young man of very strong character, excep- tional mind, and splendid physique." In special studies, this narrative and many others in similar vein always figure in the chapter upon premonitions. But the question raised is how a premonition may be given by an apparition without consciousness or aim, an apparition that could exist only by virtue of a previously expressed thought, and that would reach the subject under the form of retarded telepathy. It is of small importance, indeed, that the ap- parition may have been material, or spiritual, or whether it resulted from a simple mental vision. We shall not seek to determine its exterior nature, but we wish to know if, in the other world, there is an essential entity representing the active force, with- out which not one of these phenomena could be produced. The fact of determining the day and the hour of death is a feat beyond human powers, and auto- suggestion cannot furnish its explanation. A definite fact announced by a definite individual, even sup- posing that this agent be only an image perceived by the subconsciousness, necessitates the interven- tion of an intelligence which has created the image 122 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD as in a mirror. Whether the message be seen or heard, whether it be expressed by a vision or by automatic writing, from the moment that it con- tains correct information unknown to everyone present, we are, indeed, obliged to conclude that a foreign intelligence is the determining cause of these phenomena. There is another fact quoted from Human Per- sonality, by Frederick Myers, Vol. II, p. 244. "It concerns a lady, Eliza Manners (pseudonym). This lady, whom the author had known during her life, having been dead a certain time, manifested herself by automatic writing the day after the death of her uncle, a certain Mr. F . She described an incident tending to prove fully that she had really been present at the death-bed of her uncle." Myers in his work cites the report given in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. XII, p. 378, of which a summary follows here: "The notice of his death was inserted in a morning paper in Boston, and I had read it while going to a seance of Mrs. Piper. At this seance the first message came to us, against all expectation, from Mrs. Eliza. She explained in clear and definite terms that F was there near her, but that he could not express himself. She desired to recount how she had assisted F in drawing him to her. She said that she had been beside his death-bed, had talked with him, and repeated to me what she had said. She expressed herself in an unusual manner and specified that she had been heard and recognized by him. "All this was confirmed in detail in the sole way THE MOTIVE AGENTS 123 then possible, through an intimate friend of Mrs. Eliza and myself, and a friend likewise of the nearest living relative of Mr. F . I showed the report of the seance to my friend and to another of his relatives who had been near the death-bed. "A day or two afterward the latter declared spon- taneously that in his last hours Mr. F had seen Eliza, that she had spoken with him, and he re- peated what she had said. "The communication that this relative reported to my friend was the same that I had received from Mrs. Eliza during Mrs. Piper's trance; and what had occurred at the bedside of the dying man was entirely unknown to me." I will conclude these illustrations, having no in- tention to prove the case, but simply to show how, in eliminating, little by little, the insufficient hypo- theses one may create for himself a certainty con- cerning communications from the other world. In a spiritual influx, a telepathic influence, creat- ing automatic obedience in the organs, lies the normal interpretation of true hallucinations and automa- tisms. To sum up, experience proves that psychic phenomena have their source in a new force which manifests consciousness in all degrees. The motive agents of a table that rises without contact may be, turn by turn, elementary consciousness, the con- sciousness of a living person, surrounding influences, actions of the deceased or of occult entities, serving unconsciously as a mirror to our psychic powers, still inadequately studied. Automatic writing emanates equally from lower physiology, influenced by surrounding forces which are difficult to define but which in certain cases give 124 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD proof of intelligence and knowledge surpassing our grasp and which sometimes establish with great probability the identity of the deceased person who claims to communicate thus. Motive agents may act directly upon the brain, indirectly upon the sensory organs and mechanic- ally upon the motor and sensitive ganglion centers. The intellectual value of the phenomenon is in proportion to the degree of consciousness in the motive agent. CHAPTER VII TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS AND MATERIALIZED FORMS In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the King's palace; and the King saw the part of the hand that wrote. DAKIEL V, 6. AFTER the inferior, but very significant phenom- ena of which we have hitherto spoken, it is fitting to mention apparitions. They are of two orders : First, telepathic ; second, those which result from a real presence. Telepathy calls forth a visual image, similar to reality, which would be to the uninitiated equivalent to an appari- tion. On the other hand, the phenomenon of animism, which exteriorizes a portion of the animistic substance, would be falsely called an hallucination. We have, therefore, two wholly different phe- nomena in conjunction with the telepathic vision, there are corporeal materializations. We have seen that the London Society of Psychical Research had instituted, under trustworthy conditions of control, a series of experimental tests intended to set aside all doubt concerning the transmission of images created by thought. Granting this, the "sensitive" who perceives and draws with exact detail the pic- ture of a. small animal transmitted by an agent, may 125 126 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD W $ TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 127 be considered as having had an apparition of the lowest degree. It is under the same influence, that of a distant agent, that a woman sees her husband at the moment when he falls upon the battlefield. Many incidents of this nature are known to have occurred, and although they depend for credence upon the testi- mony of witnesses, their reality is undoubted. Here, then, a relation may be established between an apparition and the experimental transmission of thought. Apparitions themselves have been success- fully produced experimentally. Stainton Moses re- solved one evening to appear to Z. who was three miles away. He succeeded fully, and a few weeks later renewed the experiment with the same success. (Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 37.) Mr. S. H. B. having determined with all the power of his being to appear in a bedroom on the second floor where two persons of his acquaintance were sleeping, three miles away, was perceived standing near the bed of one. She awakened her sister who also saw him. These ladies, the Verity sisters, were interviewed by the authors of Phantasms of the Living; they gave explicit testimony and Gurney adds : "Miss Verity is a very exact and conscientious witness. She does not like the supernatural, but rather fears and dislikes it above all, in this particular form." Gurney asked Mr. S. H. B. to repeat the experi- ment after warning her in advance. This was done, and Miss Verity, while fully awake, saw the ap- parition distinctly in her room. It may be seen from this example, that an ap- parition is produced by the act of an extraneous will, that it is not always due to the illusion of an 128 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD overheated brain, and that it is a far cry to the ghost stories which are used to discredit apparitions. The following is a case of apparition willed by a living person (Telepathic Hallucinations, Case IX { p. 38): "I was living in Scotland with an aunt who was very dear to me, while my mother and sisters were in Germany. Each year I went to Germany to see my family. It happened that for two years I had not been able to visit them as had been my custom. I decided suddenly to leave for Germany, letting my family know nothing of my intention. I had never gone to them in early spring. I had no time to inform them of my plan by letter, and I did not wish to send a telegram for fear of alarming my mother. The idea came to me to wish with all my will to appear to one of my sisters, as a way of announcing my arrival. I thought of them with all possible intensity for a few moments only. I desired with all my power to be seen by one of them, and I myself experienced a vision which half-trans- ported me to my family. I concentrated my thoughts for about ten minutes only, I think. I set out by steamboat from Leith one Saturday evening toward the end of April, 1859, and it was about six o'clock of that same evening that I willed to appear be- fore some member of my family. I reached the house near six o'clock in the morning the following Tuesday, and entered the house without being seen, for the vestibule had just been swept and the entrance door was open. I entered the room where one of my sisters was standing with her back to the door. She turned as she heard the door open, stared at me fixedly, grew pale and dropped what she held in her hand. I had said nothing, but now spoke: 'It is I. Why are you so frightened?' She re- TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 129 plied, *I thought I was seeing you as Stinchen (another of my sisters) saw you Saturday.' "In answer to my questions, she told me how on Saturday evening about six o'clock, my sister had distinctly seen me come through a door into her room, open another door into my mother's room and close that door behind me. She hurried after what she thought was I, calling my name. She was absolutely shocked when she did not see me with my mother. They looked everywhere but naturally could not find me. My mother was greatly wrought up over the occurrence, as she feared I must be dying. "The sister who had seen me (that is, my appari- tion) had gone out the morning of my arrival. I seated myself upon the steps to await her return and note the effect upon her of seeing my real self. When she raised her eyes and saw me on the stair- way, she called me and fainted. My sister had seen nothing supernatural before or since, and I have not renewed these experiments, nor shall I ever do so, for my sister who was first to see me when I really came to the house fell seriously ill as a result of the shock she had undergone." J. M. RUSSELL. This example makes it clear that an apparition has none of the characteristics attributed to hal- lucination. They are two totally different phe- nomena, one of them, an hallucination, having its source in the subject, while the other, an apparition, emanates from an active exterior agent. When the person who appears as an apparition does not act consciously, he is not in his normal state, but in a state of natural or hypnotic sleep, 130 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD in a crisis of approaching death or a comatose con- dition. 1 The cases of spontaneous apparitions are not less instructive, and are due to an identical cause ; that is, lacking an intentional effort, it is a special excitation of the subject which lends his psychic power this extraordinary activity perceived by a "sensitive" and felt wherever his desire leads. Case 200. 2 A young man was seen upon the lawn of his home in England, while he himself was in Australia. Because of this apparition he was thought to be dead. But upon his return the young man said that he had been seriously ill, and that during his delirium had begged to be carried out under the large cedar on the lawn. He had then seemed to see the place as distinctly as he now saw it upon his return. Apparitions, like the phenomena of raps, are most often manifested spontaneously around the dying. It would be interesting to determine, in each case, if the apparition had preceded or followed death. But we cannot dilate upon this subject; those who might wish to go deeper should consult the work by Mr. Gabriel Delanne, Les Apparitions Material- isees des vivants et des morts (Materialized Appari- tions of the Living and the Dead). 3 Let us now consider material apparitions. Skep- tics insist that the spiritists draw their affirmations i See Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 266. * Resum6 from Phantasms of the Living, Vol. I, p. 540. This documentation is both enlightening and abundant. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 131 from nothingness, but as a matter of fact all the scholars of the Century have been challenged to take account of the matter for themselves. The in- credulous do not like to hear of the documents gathered by the Dialectic Society of London, by Sir William Crookes, Professor Charles Richet, Lombroso, Morselli and others. But according to these witnesses fragmentary materialization is no longer contestable. There can be no doubt to-day that the existence at least of materialized fluidic members has been verified experimentally, whether the psychic body really represents the mold upon which gather the particles of matter that cause its visibility, or whether this exteriorization of suggestible and mal- leable substance indeed espouses the forms of thought. A beginning of materialization would be a possible explanation of raps and table lifting. This conviction was some time ago reached by Dr. Ochorowicz, a learned physician, whose report published as early as 1895 gives the following con- clusion : The hypothesis of a fluidic double (astral body) which, under certain conditions, is detached from the body of the medium, seems necessary for an explana- tion of the majority of phenomena. According to this theory, the movement of objects without con- tact would be produced by the fluidic members of the medium. 1 It was evident in the case of the medium Eusapia Paladino that her muscular activity and contrac- 1 Conclusions of Dr. Ochorowicz after the stances of War- saw, in The Outward Manifestation of Motivity by Albert de Rochas. 132 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD tions were in correlation with the gestures of the fiuidic member. Well-controlled experiments have proved that the fluidic organ is often manifested in visible form as hands, feet or heads. Proof of this is set forth in the testimony: William Crookes. 1 I shall merely choose a few of the many instances in which I have seen the hands of the fluidic organ in full light. A small beautiful hand rose from a dining-room table and offered me a flower. It thrice appeared and dis- appeared giving me every opportunity to convince myself that the apparition was as real as my own hand. This manifestation occurred in the light, in my own room, while I was holding the hands and feet of the medium. More than once I have seen an object begin to move, then a luminous mist forming round about it, which condensing, took shape and changed into a perfectly modeled hand. All those present saw the hand at that moment. This hand is not always merely a hand; sometimes it is animated and very graceful, with moving fingers and the flesh ap- parently as human as that of any of the spectators. At wrist or arm, the hand grows vaporous, vanish- ing into a luminous mist. I have held one of these hands in mine with a determination not to let it go. No attempt or effort was made to escape my hold, but little by little the hand seemed to dissolve into vapor, and in this way slipped from my grasp. Examples of this sort of materialization are numerous, and I wish to give the testimony of Ch. Richet. *W. Crookes, New Experiments upon Psychic Force, 1897. Resume, p. 161. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 133 With this physiologist the proofs are somewhat more diffuse, for he analyzes endlessly. He wishes to foresee every obstacle and, as he declares, to be twenty times sure. The control, more than the phenomenon itself, absorbs his attention; such careful precautions are taken that it would be impossible to add more. Richet would not be sure of having securely held a hand, if at the interesting moment, his attention had not been as concentrated upon this hand as upon the phenomenon. But it is preferable to quote Richet: "It is clear that when I say a very distinct hand, I presuppose that all possible chicanery has been considered. A vague contact is not a hand; the sensation of a stump or palm is not enough. By a very distinct hand I mean a hand that is perfectly formed, the fingers of which may be felt, a hand which is capable of pinching the arm, pulling the hair or beard, in a word, of giving such sensations as only a hand may give. This is living, animated, absolutely identical with a human hand. / have made this experiment; and, besides successful ex- periments in Rome, I succeeded four times on the Island of Roubaud. Upon one occasion, I held in one of my hands both of Eusapia's and raised my other hand very high in the air. The hand which appeared to us caught two of my fingers, pulled at them strongly and after having pulled them, tapped sufficiently loudly upon the back of my hand for everyone to hear." 1 "However," continues Richet, "I am not the only one who has thus been touched by a distinct hand, while holding both Eusapia's hands." i L'Exttriorization de la Motricitt, pp. 188-188. 134 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD "On July 9th, Ochorowicz was touched on the back by a very distinct hand while he held Eusapia's two hands." "On July 21st, Lodge, holding both of Eusapia's hands, was distinctly touched upon the shoulder." "On July 26th, while holding both hands of the Medium, 1 felt a large hand stroking my head." All these quotations are connected with a series of experiments carried on at Carqueranne, and the Island of Roubaud by Charles Richet, who devoted his vacation in 1894 to this problem. Those present were Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Lodge, Mr. J. Ochorowicz, Mr. Frederick Myers, Baron de Schrenk (Notzing of Munich) and Dr. Segard, Chief Surgeon of the French Navy. The evidence of Charles Richet concludes thus: "That which makes an experiment of this kind instructive, and to my mind absolutely decisive, is that we must admit either a tactile hallucination, which seems to be absurd, or a practical joke on the part of one of the audience, which is inconceivable. Or else we must concede it to have been and this is the conclusion I have reached something like the materialization of a living hand. This conclu- sion I accept in despair of a cause, and I resign myself to it with deep reluctance." Why this reluctance? It is because Mr. Richet declared in the beginning that to him these facts were absurd? Surely, these facts are not absurd; they prove once more that we have a fluidic body, dependent both upon mind and matter. These experiments are instructive and offer a basis for the study of ani- mistic physiology. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 135 , There is a time for all things. To-day there is not a man, however unacquainted with the facts he may be, who can deny the formation of members, materialized outside the organs of the medium. Scholars have seen the results we obtained with patient effort. But once having seen, we must prove by experiment. There has been no failure here. We said to ourselves, since these hands which have been visible to the most skeptical, have an appear- ance of objectivity, we can perhaps preserve proofs of this objectivity by securing prints of them, photo- graphs or molds. Just such evidences have been secured. But this is a work which can be effected only after a long preparation. Observation requires endless patience, for the phenomenon does not de- velop at the first stroke; there are three factors in its production the medium, the audience, and the occult force. Their cooperation cannot be secured save after long sittings held intimately in the course of which the forces have become tractable. Newcomers, who ask to be invited to the first sitting, will not obtain the great experimental proofs in less time than was necessary for William Crookes, Charles Richet, and Lombroso to attain a convic- tion. The moral and scientific value of the experi- menters is the sole guarantee of the value of the experiments. The materialization of a hand is not a mechanical function and only those who are in the good graces of the medium and (let us not fear to state it) of the occult force, will obtain permis- sion to grasp this hand and to use the devices for control. It seemed at first that the most delicate control 136 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD to propose, in view of manifestations so fleeting, would be to secure the imprint of the hand in flour or smoke-black. This testimony, added to that of sight and touch, would refute the hypothesis, for- merly advanced, of hallucination on the part of the audience. Zoellner tried this experiment with the medium Slade, when the latter came to Leipsig in 1877. 1 An attempt to secure foot-prints succeeded with- out contact of Slade, although the medium had pre- dicted that this would be impossible. Zoellner placed sheets of paper, prepared with lamp-black inside a folding slate and placed the slate upon his knees in order to keep it in view. Five minutes later, in a well-lighted room, all hands resting upon the table, Zoellner remarked that he had twice felt a pressure upon the slate lying on his knees. Three raps upon the table having announced that all was over, the slate was opened and two imprints, one of the right foot, the other of the left, were found upon the paper. "My readers may judge," said Zoellner, "that it is impossible for me, after having witnessed these facts, to consider Slade an impostor or a prestidigi- tator." 2 The first idea of molding the materialized forms belonged to Mr. Denton, professor of Geology, well known in America, who died in 1883. His medium was Mrs. Hardy. All this chapter of Aksakof (pp. 127-172) should be studied in full, as it contains a complete history of the question. 1 Eugene Nus. Things of the Other World (Choses de L'autre Monde), p. 836. 2 Ib. p. 838. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 137 But history continues, or rather recommences ; all modern scholars have been able to obtain some of these molds which furnish positive and conclusive proofs of the phenomenon of materialization. In 1889, the Spanish Doctor, Manuel Otero Acevedo, armored with incredulity, came to Naples expressly to examine Eusapia. He demanded an imprint in clay. The report of this case is found in the work of Dr. de Rochas. 1 While in full light the table replied by raps and Eusapia suddenly inspired, said to Otero: "Take this vessel full of clay, put it opposite me on this chair, and indicate the spot where you wish the phenomenon to appear." The clay was placed about two yards from her and carefully examined by Dr. Otero, who covered it with his white handkerchief and indicated the spot. We all watched Eusapia. She thrust out her right arm convulsively, turned her hand in the direction of the clay and, extending three fingers, made an indefinable movement with them and said: "It is done." Raising the handkerchief, we found the imprint of three fingers at the precise point indicated by Otero. At this evident, palpable, overwhelming proof of a supernatural power, of an invisible, fluidic force, emanating from this woman, issuing from all her pores and from her magician fingers, but submissive to a will foreign to humanity, Professor Otero, Mr. Lassi and the engineer Agri, stared at one another in stupefaction. They respectfully thanked the in- visible John who replied instantly by greeting them i De Rochas: Outward Manifestation of Motivity, p. 12. Com- munication of Chiaia. 138 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD with four heavy raps upon the table in the middle of the room. Thus the seance closed. Another skeptic, Dr. Vizani Scozzi, of Florence, obtained a similar impress. Chevalier Chiaia secured a whole series of imprints in modeling clay. In the work of de Rochas, numerous specimens are found. Ochorowicz, himself, obtained a proof under conditions in which veri- fication was certain. Finally, as one cannot too often multiply testi- mony, we shall also cite the seances of Montfort PAmaury, the records of which are found in the work of G. de Fontenay. 1 I shall not concern myself here with the detractors who claim that the operation is no more difficult than the making of an omelette in a hat. Since the completeness of the control could not be under- stood by their feeble brains, they would never com- prehend that the magician could not succeed with his omelette under the same conditions of absolute surveillance. But one might suppose that the medium had stretched out her hand and placed her head in con- tact with the clay prepared for the purpose. This supposition, which seems natural to one who has not considered the conditions required for securing a mold, is not in the least probable. Considerable pressure is required for the penetra- tion of a form, whether the prepared substance be putty or potter's clay, and flesh is not able to bear iG. de Fontenay: A Propos d'Eusapia Paladino. (Soci6t6 d'6ditions Scientifiques, Paris, 1898) and at the close of which a magnificent imprint was made upon glazier's cement. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 139 this without deformation. A face pressed into putty would show flattened lips, a twisted or foreshortened nose. A cast can be obtained only by the process of the molder. The experiment with the hands is easy to make; in thrusting the fist into clay there was no such result as that obtained with Eusapia. I, myself, secured through her, the cast of a closed fist, and a clever molder on the rue Racine said he could not understand how this imprint could have been made. In accomplishing this it was necessary for the fluidic member, after a maximum of effort, to de- tach itself from the mold by dissolving in order to escape without deranging the substance. It is for this reason, also, that the paraffine mold was in- vented, which, in the form of a fragile glove, makes it possible to obtain a unique cast, defying imita- tion. Aksakoff published the conclusive report of a sculptor, charged with valuation of these objects, and the same appraisement was made with Eusapia. The eminent sculptor, Giuseppe Ronda, having lent his aid to Chevalier Chiaia, was convinced that it would be impossible to obtain such specimens by the direct process and became a confirmed spiritualist. The operation, even in potter's earth, is not as simple as the layman might believe. A form is not drawn in this clay as a moist stamp is printed upon paper. This has been confirmed by de Rochas, who, following his report upon the seances of Naples in 1895, wrote: "In order to silence the doubts which arose in his mind, the author wished to ask counsel of persons who afforded the best guarantees 140 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD of ability. An eminent young artist, Mr. George Kiewerk, a painter and sculptor of Florence, made a series of futile experiments in his studio, to repro- duce these imprints in potter's clay." An experiment made by Crookes tends to demon- strate that the fluidic organ is not always similar to that of the medium, but that the hand thus formed may borrow its momentary substance from other parts of the body. Crookes placed a small quantity of aniline dye upon the surface of the mercury prepared for the experiment. Aniline is a powerful dye and Crookes' hands bore traces of it for a long time. Katie King plunged her fingers into the color, yet the fingers of the medium were found unstained. Traces of the aniline were found, however, upon her arm. These experiments have never, I believe, occurred in a good light, as obscurity seems indispensable to the firm concretion of fluidic members. But we must not forget that, in default of direct observation, it has been possible to bring into light and watch effectively the hands or feet of the medium, so as to give assurance that the imprint was indeed obtained without fraudulent intervention. More recently experimenters have contrived ex- traordinary devices and preparations for control- ling experiments. These have not prevented the phenomena, but have given rise to the conviction that nothing equals the value of direct observation. We read in the Annals of Psychical Science for 1907, an account by Mr. Barzini, an Italian journal- ist, Editor of Corriere delta serra, who, at different times seized the mysterious hands that touched him. He wrote (p. 154) : TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 141 "The impression I received was very strange. Those hands did not escape, they dissolved, as it were. I missed them in my hands as though they had collapsed. One might have called them hands which grew soft, and melted away very rapidly after having attained the highest degree of energy and an absolutely life-like appearance at the moment of action." Farther on, he wrote: "A mandolin which had been placed upon a bed in the cabinet after having produced sounds at a distance, moved to the table where, in complete isola- tion, it began to play. It was entirely visible to all the audience? "We touched all around to assure ourselves of the isolation of the mandolin. Eusapia was held by her hands, one of which rested upon the edge of the table, the other upon her knee, and the mandolin continued to play. Of course there was no melody, but the chords vibrated strongly. The experimenters placed their hands a few feet above the strings and felt them vibrate more than ever. Prof. Morselli seized the neck of the mandolin with his left hand and the instrument quietly continued its intermittent arpeggios, taking them up each time as the experimenters desired. But each sound cor- responded exactly to a movement of the medium's fingers which, at a distance, made the motions of playing, and finally picked out the last notes upon the forehead of Prof. Morselli. i We underline this because all experimentors who put patience and perseverance into their work, finally obtain phenomena in a good light, whereas the detractors always claim that these performances take place in darkness. This, parrot like, they assert repeatedly, despite everything. 142 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD "It is needless to say that the mandolin did not belong to Eusapia, but was purchased by the ex- perimenters, 'and,' said Mr. Barzini, 'it was a simple instrument incapable of fraud.' " Again in the Annals of Psychical Science, we read (March number, 1907, p. 212), the account of a seance held under the direction of Prof. Lom- broso. Signer Mucchi, collaborator of la Stampa, speaks at length of the precautions taken to pre- vent all chicanery. "Moreover," he adds, "none of the most important phenomena produced could give rise to the least suspicion of trickery. They are all of such nature that one could not imitate them even by the most skillful sleight-of-hand." . . . "One of the spectators was asked to take a mandolin that was in the room and to place it upon a table upon which there was no clay. This gentle- man encountered, in his turn, mysterious hands which would and would not permit him to enter. Once he had seized the mandolin, he feared to see it snatched away and placed it quickly upon the inner table with the strings turned down. "The mandolin was at once inexplicably raised and carried to the experimental table, where in full sight of all present, it played of itself; at first one string at a time, with a clear sound as though produced by the pick of a nail, then with all the strings as if a finger swept over them. One of us was asked to play the mandolin upon the fingers of Eusapia; the sound of the string corresponded to each touch, and if the gesture were badly made, the resultant sound was incomplete and strident. "Finally, a hand which suddenly materialized TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 143 seized the instrument by the neck and placed it upon the shoulder of the player, and there, close to his face, the strings vibrated and strummed, while the hand dissolved and disappeared once more." Annals, July, 1907. Report of Dr. J. Venzano: "I, myself, seized a hand during a seance at the home of Signer Avellino, in the month of June, 1901. It was a rather large hand of a masculine type. I grasped it firmly with the intention of holding it as long as possible. After a while, al- though I had increased the force of my grip, the hand slipped freely from mine in an instant, as if it had suddenly diminished in size." We feel that the materialization of hands is now a proven fact. Must we still answer objections? I do not think it necessary, because the objec- tions are inexhaustible, and their authors betray in their evident prejudice an absolute ignorance of the conditions controlling experiments. The rec- ords of experimenters have already met all of these objections. Moreover, how can we reply to detractors who ever repeat, parrot-fashion, the same thing, answer- ing not at all the very simple statements urged upon them, such as that made by William Crookes as many as forty years ago. "I can only indicate here a few of the more striking facts, all of which, it would be well to remember, took place under conditions in which all deception was made impossible. It is absurd to attribute these results to trickery, for I will recall 144 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD^ to my readers that what I here report did not occur in the home of a medium, but in my own house where it was quite impossible to prepare in advance for fraud of any kind. A medium walking about my dining-room, where I was seated with several other persons who watched her closely, could not fraudulently play an accordion that I held in my own hands with the keys down, or cause it to float about the room playing. She could not bring with her devices to stir the window curtains or raise the Venetian blinds eight feet; to tie a knot in a hand- kerchief and place it in a distant corner of the room; to sound the keys of a piano at a distance; to cause a card case to fly about the apartment; to raise a carafe and a goblet above the table; to make a coral necklace rise upon one end; to open a fan and fan the company, or to set in motion a pendulum enclosed in a glass case, solidly sealed to the wall." 1 It is interesting to compare this testimony with the present-day words of Professor Morselli, spoken forty years later. "Mr. Barzini and I have not found it difficult to hold and watch the hands of this woman: after a little practice, we succeeded in holding securely her four extremities. At the same time we watched her head (almost always visible) and paid attention to the phenomena. Not every one is able to ac- complish this many-sided muscular tactile, and in- tellectual labor. But I am sure that each time I was charged with surveillance, Eusapia did not attempt, aside from one or two simple efforts, the famous trick of substitution of the hand (which, i Researches upon the Phenomena of Spiritualism, William Crookes. TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 145 moreover, does not explain the twentieth part of the Paladinian phenomena) ; also she could not have stroked my brow, pulled my mustache, or played upon a trumpet by using her feet, as some critics have foolishly imagined! "As for the rest the control used in spiritual seances is sometimes rather ridiculous: it wearies those who must exercise it and certainly prevents Eusapia from giving the new and spontaneous mani- festations which might be very remarkable through her mediumship. I would prefer to have the medium free for the most extraordinary phenomena of mate- rialization. I have had astounding results when Eusapia was bound upon a small bed, but who knows what energy she might manifest if she were left to the automatism of her subconscious self? All modification of habitual technique may be a check upon fraud, it is true, but it is also a hindrance and sometimes a complete preventive of mediumistic phenomena." I believe that we have now established as a fact the reality of materialized forms, and shall deal in the following chapter with the phenomena of com- plete materializations. CHAPTER VIII COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS The greatest hallucination is to believe that one knows all the laws of nature. EUGENE Nus. LET us now consider the reports of certain experi- menters concerning the production of compete ma- terialization in controlled seances. We have just read Professor Morselli's affirmation of having seen these great phenomena when Eusapia was bound upon a couch. As his testimony is particularly valu- able we sought the report of one of these seances to which he alludes, and found it in the former Revue des Etudes Psychiques (Review of Psychical Studies, Sept., 1902), Edited at that time by Mr. C. de Vesine. That was the hey-day of the medium- ship of Eusapia Paladino, whose power has since declined. Seance of Eusapia at Genoa, m 1902. Abridged account by Dr. J. Venzano, of Genoa. "A small rectangular table of white wood was placed about twenty centimeters from the cabinet; about a meter from it was arranged a double row of chairs. A piano was set diagonally in a corner of the room which was brilliantly lighted by a gas chandelier, equipped with Auer burners. 146 COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 147 "Before beginning the seance Madame Paladino, the medium, was rigorously examined. In our presence some of her clothing was removed, but the more detailed inspection was conducted by Mmes. Avellino and Montaldo in another room where the medium undressed completely. "The medium then re-clothed herself in the presence of the two ladies, who did not leave her for an in- stant and accompanied her directly to the experi- mental room. "The seance began at half-past ten o'clock. Madame Paladino seated herself at one end of the table, at her right Prof. Morselli, at her left, Boz- zano ; each laid a hand and foot upon one hand and one foot of the medium. "Almost at once the table was set in motion. The medium invited Dr. Morselli to place his free hand and arm upon her knees, in order to be assured of their immobility. The table rose more than forty centimeters, remaining suspended in air for almost a minute. "Note that during the levitation, the hands of the spectators were all raised; only the right hand of the medium, joined to Morselli's left, barely touched the surface of the table, while her left hand, free, was also lifted. "Shortly afterward there was a second levitation of the same duration. Almost immediately Eusapia rose, lifted the curtains of the cabinet and lay on her back upon the bed, to the bars of which Prof. Morselli and Signer Avellino fastened her firmly. They attached her wrists to the iron bars at the sides by means of a cord with many knots; they then passed the cord twice around the waist of the 148 . PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD medium, securely knotting the ends of the rope to the bars. They lowered the light, but so little that one could still read, as Prof. Morselli remarked, the smallest print on a paper. "After about a quarter of an hour, the table, which stood a meter from us and twenty centimeters from the cabinet, began to move by itself. At first, it rose upon two feet, giving several raps. "Sometime later the curtains stirred, as though they had been parted by two hands, and a large opening formed in the upper part, in which we could all observe the face of a young woman, whose head and that part of her body which was visible were surrounded by pure white drapery. The head seemed enveloped by several circular bands of this material, which left visible only a small oval portion of the face, a sufficient portion, however, for one to see exactly the eyes, nose, mouth and upper part of the chin. "The apparition remained visible to everyone for almost a minute. As Mr. Bozzano was pointing out that we saw only a part of the face, we noticed the finger-tips of two hands draw aside the drapery, thus displaying her form more clearly and com- pletely. Before disappearing, the figure bent her head in salutation, and threw us a kiss, the sound of which was distinctly heard by everyone. "After a few moments of rest, the table began again its automatic movements. Then the curtains parted once more, as though they had been opened from within by two hands, leaving an ample space in which was seen the figure of a man with large head and strong shoulders, surrounded also by white drapery. The head was enveloped in such a manner COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 149 that through the light fabric one could see the pink color of the face, the outlines of the nose, cheek- bones, and chin. Bozzano and Morselli declared they had noticed, also, a heavy beard upon the chin. This man's face remained visible for a minute, at least. "It leaned toward us several times, and before withdrawing, sent us several loud kisses, accompanied by expressive movements of the head. "When the curtains were drawn again we heard hands clapping inside the cabinet. "At this moment, we also heard Eusapia's voice, calling Professor Morselli in a plaintive tone. He went into the cabinet and found her in the same position in which she had been fastened. The medium in a trance, with evident signs of suffering, was com- plaining that her wrists were painfully bound. The professor finally loosened her wrists with much diffi- culty, because of the many complicated knots. Mme. Paladino then remained fastened only by feet and waist. "Signer Bozzano noticed that the professor, being seated directly beneath the chandelier, was obliged, when watching the medium, to shade his eyes from the light coming from above. He asked Signer Avel- lino, therefore, kindly to give his place to the pro- fessor. This was done, so that Dr. Morselli occupied the chair of Mr. Avellino. "When everyone was in his place, it was observed almost immediately, that the piano lid rose and fell automatically, causing a certain sound. "Almost at the same time, we became aware of the figure of a young woman in front of the curtain at the rig;ht, resembling somewhat the one of whom we 150 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD have spoken above. The apparition nodded her head several times, bowing, as though in greeting to us. Finally she vanished. Oh this occasion, we were all struck by a new fact, rather important for those readers who will not hesitate to accuse us of hallucination. "We noticed that the figure in question, while lean- ing forward in such a way as to remain a certain distance from the wall, illumined by the gas light, threw her shadow upon the wall, a shadow that followed all the movements of this body which was evidently materialized. "In the following interval, Professor Morselli, re- quested by Eusapia, whose weak and plaintive voice reached us from within the cabinet, drew his chair close to the piano. "A few moments after, a new figure of a woman appeared from the same side of the mediumistic cabinet as that from which we had seen the preced- ing figure come. However, if this new apparition bore some analogy to the other, there were, never- theless, some points of difference. The white bands were wrapped about her head an extraordinary number of times; the outer edges projecting so far that the face seemed sunk in their depths. The trunk of the materialized form was swathed in as many folds, giving the impression of an Egyptian mummy. This materialized form was so near us that we were even enabled to conjecture with a cer- tain exactitude concerning the nature of the fabric. It seemed rather heavier than ordinary gauze and perhaps not as thick as muslin. The figure leaned forward, resting her elbow upon the piano top. Here again, we could observe a curious fact. The fore- COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 151 arm visible to us was evidently a stump, since the sleeve fell back for at last 30 centimeters down the front of the piano, to the lid of the keyboard. The apparition raised this partially formed member, several times, throwing on the wall a shadow, which followed its every motion. "The woman in the white bands had scarcely re- turned to the cabinet, when we heard anew the plaints of Mme. Paladino, who with redoubled insistence, was imploring Professor Morselli to free her from the bonds which hurt her. "When we had once more regained our places the curtains parted for some distance from the floor, and through a wide oval space appeared the figure of a woman, holding in her arms a little child and almost seeming to rock him. This woman, who might have been forty years of age, wore a white bonnet, embroidered in white; and this headdress, while covering the hair, left visible the features of a broad face, with lofty brow. The remaining part of her body, not concealed by the curtain, was cov- ered with white drapery. As concerns the child, from what we could judge by the development of the head and body, it might have been three years old. The little head was bare, with very short hair and was on a slightly higher level than the mother's. "The body of the child seemed enveloped in swad- dling clothes, also of light, white fabric. The eyes of the woman were raised, gazing with affection at the child, who held his head bent toward her. "The apparition lasted for more than a minute. We all rose and drew nearer so that we might follow the slightest motions. Before the curtain fell back, the woman leaned her head forward while the baby r 152 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Bending down several times from right to left, fre- quently kissed her face, the childish sound of these kisses being distinctly heard. "Such is the scrupulously exact account of a seance whose importance may be easily imagined. The phenomena unfolded under conditions which abso- lutely circumvent all objections of the skeptics. The manifestations occurred in full light, in a chosen spot, carefully controlled and prepared by ourselves. The medium was subjected to a system of investiga- tions as complete as could be desired. "The medium was fastened in the cabinet in such a way as to defy the most carping criticism. . . . "DR. J. VENZANO." Such was the usual aspect of an experimenta] seance with Eusapia, when she was in full possession of her mediumistic powers. Naturally, the appear- ance of the phenomena changes with the experi- menters, since a phenomenon is not mechanical and each experimenter has his own ideas and proposes different conditions, by conceiving new apparatus. To-day Eusapia's mediumistic career is almost at an end; handicapped by the exactions of surveil- lance, her manipulations have not given the trans- cendent proofs that might have been obtained through her, if experimenters had continued to guide the seances along the path of spiritistic research. Yet there is little to regret, for Eusapia will have had the glory of triumphing over the unbelief of the scholars and have made possible the objective proof of manifestations of animism. Perhaps it is better that this first step was made in the beginning. In order to enter into spiritism and obtain the COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 153 presence of true entities, it is not wise to practice a method of control which is likely to kill or paralyze manifestation. One must approach ever so gently, by the mystic way. Personalities who may be identi- fied are not strong enough to resist those who re- pulse them with all the force of their skepticism. They come only by appeal. This complex question, however, would entangle us in a controversy which is out of place here. It is difficult to believe in the phenomenon, but belief in fraud is easy. I will not consider the question of fraud, as it would be an absolutely use- less diversion, since the acts of impostors and prestidigitators have no relation to a scientifically conducted examination. Moreover, as Morselli re- marks, the skeptics only reiterate objections which have been met conclusively a hundred times already. Therefore, we will recall the example of a famous materialization, for the benefit of the reader who cannot defend himself against these facile sugges- tions. It illustrates the fact that disbelief is never disarmed. It is the case of Katie King; a classic case, well supervised as evident as anything may be evident to the feeble human intelligence. It is a case of which the skeptics do not like to hear, because it hampers them and they would prefer to pass it over in silence. Having been unable to suppress it en- tirely, they disparage it, but by such clumsy assump- tions, such childish affirmations, that the ridicule rebounds upon them. When the medium has resisted triumphantly all control, they will tell you that she has cheated some- where else, at some time and under some other cir- 154 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD cumstances. This might be contested but it diverts the discussion, and we pass it by. They forget that it is just in order to reply to such contentions that a system of control has been organized, confided to an arbiter whose verdict every one has agreed, in advance, to accept. It was under these conditions that William Crookes, who for many years had studied the whole series of phe- nomena, was made arbiter of the mediumship of Florence Cook. You will hear it said, even to-day, that the phan- tom of Katie King was seized in the arms of a spec- tator, which is true; and that Florence Cook was thus unmasked, which is false. An incident of this kind is always exploited by men who do not understand the question of medium- ship. William Crookes was appointed to arbitrate in this case. At this time it was held ridiculous to believe in phenomena: passions were roused; the hour was tense and Crookes was warned that his future as a scholar might be wrecked: we can well understand how necessary it was that he should be on guard. The following is the history of the case : "A phan- tom had been seized by a spectator, and a true phantom thus embraced could only dematerialize. This was not the opinion of the skeptics, who in that day knew only the phantoms of Robert Hou:lini, which a sword might pierce; the phantom at the time being only an intangible thing. When, there- fore, it was seized it could do nothing but demater- ialize, which it did. There followed an indescribable confusion, under cover of which speculations were given free rein. There were shouts and cries, and, COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 155 as nothing remained in the arms of the person who believed he had seized something, the critics spread the report that the medium had fled in the darkness. There was only one thing to do, to examine the state of the medium. The critics however, had none of these scruples; they proclaimed upon the housetops that the medium had escaped, which was a falsehood. We have the testimony of a high authority concern- ing this seance, the great naturalist Russel Wallace." We may refer to his narration, in which he certifies that the medium was found securely fastened in her bonds. 1 The medium did what she should have done, she thought of the great scholar who was then studying spiristic facts, and promising to submit herself en- tirely to his control, asked his protection. Sir Russel Wallace states that William Crookes, having received permission, did what the skeptical gentleman had done without authority, that is, he took the spirit in his arms and declared it was evi- dently that of a living woman. However, this spirit form was not that of Miss Cook, nor of any human being, seeing that she ap- peared and disappeared in closed and carefully guarded rooms, in the private residence of William Crookes, as easily and completely as in the house of the medium herself. In an early letter addressed to the spiritualistic journals the scholar wrote in substance: "I am known to your readers, and they would believe, I trust, that I would not hurriedly adopt an opinion nor ask them to be of my mind after an 1 Russel Wallace, Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 252. 156 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD insufficient proof. But what I will ask them is this: that those who are inclined to judge Miss Cook severely, may suspend judgment until I am able to produce definite proof, which I believe will be suffi- cient to solve the problem. "At the present time Miss Cook is devoting her- self exclusively to a series of private sittings, wit- nessed only by one or two of my friends and myself. These seances will probably last for several months and I have the promise that every proof I may de- sire will be given to me. These seances have only continued for a few weeks, but there have been enough to convince me completely of the sincerity and entire honesty of Miss Cook, and to give me full reason for believing that the promise so freely made by Katie will be kept. "All which I now ask, is that your readers will not hastily presume that whatever, at first sight, may seem doubtful, necessarily implies deception, and that they be willing to suspend judgment until I shall speak once more of these phenomena. "I am, etc. "WILLIAM CEOOKES, "Feb. 3, 1874." After having experimented at length William Crookes finally wrote: "I am happy to say that I have at last obtained the absolute proof of which I spoke in the letter mentioned above." In the following terms he explains the precautions taken by him in the course of his experiments. "During these six months Miss Cook visited me frequently, often remaining an entire week. She brought with her only a small, unlocked satchel; during the day she was constantly in the company of Mrs. Crookes, myself, or some other member of COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 157 the family, and since she did not sleep alone, there were no opportunities for her to prepare anything, even of a less complete character, which might have played the role of Katie King. I, myself, had pre- pared and arranged my library, as well as the dark cabinet, and customarily after Miss Cook had dined and chatted with us she went straight to the cabinet and, at her request, I locked the second door, keep- ing the key during the seance." x The reader should keep in mind that the man who gives guarantee of these facts is a physician of the highest order, a man as experienced as Pasteur and Berthelot, a member of the Royal Society since 1856, and the author of well-known works upon Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy and Photography of the Heavens. The ingenious inventor of the photometer and of the spectral microscope, he also discovered Thallium and enlarged the domain of science by dis- covering radiant states whose effects upon matter are so formidable as to make possible photography through opaque bodies. Who is there, remembering all this and the testimony I have just cited, who would dare to contest that these conditions impose certainty ? However, there are still critics who, to-day, be- lieve that Miss Cook concealed her sister in a satchel and brought her into the house, hid her for six months from all the household, gave her bed and board, and in the face of the great scholar who exercised the strictest surveillance, continued suc- cessfully a stupid comedy for six months. Such credulity is revolting. This expose would not be complete if we did not i New Experiments upon Psychic Force. 158 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD give according to Crookes' own description the ac- count of a seance. A resume follows : "I pass now to the seance held yesterday evening at Hackney. Never has Katie appeared in such great perfection; for almost two hours she walked about the room in friendly conversation with those who were present. Several times she took my arm while walking, and the impression I received, that it was a living woman at my side and not a visitor from the other world, was so strong that the temp- tation to repeat a recent and curious experiment became almost irresistible. Realizing then, that if it were not a spirit beside me it was in any case, a lady, I asked her permission to take her in my arms in order to verify the interesting observations that a bold experimenter had recently made known. This permission was graciously given and I took advan- tage of it respectfully, as any gentleman would have done in the same circumstances. Mr. Volckman will be delighted to know that I can corroborate his assertion that the 'ghost,' which made no resistance, was a being as material as Miss Cook herself. But the sequel will show how wrong an experimenter may be, however careful his observations, in formu- lating an important conclusion when the proofs are not sufficient. "Katie then declared that on this occasion she felt able to show herself at the same time as Miss Cook. I lowered the gas, and with my phosphorus lamp entered the room which served as a cabinet. But beforehand I had asked one of my friends, who is. a rapid stenographer, to note down all observa- tions I might make while in the cabinet. I know the importance of first impressions and did not wish to confide to my memory more than was necessary. His notes are before me at this moment. COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 159 "I entered the room with precaution. It was dark and I groped for Miss Cook, finding her crouched upon the floor. Kneeling down, I let the air enter my lamp and by its light saw the young woman dressed in black velvet, as she had been at the beginning of the seance, and appearing com- pletely insensible. She did not stir when I took her hand and held the lamp near her face but she con- tinued to breathe quietly. Raising my lamp, I looked around me and saw Katie, who was standing close behind Miss Cook. She was clad in floating white drapery, as we had already seen her during the seance. Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine, and still kneeling, I raised and lowered the lamp, as much to illumine the whole figure of Katie as to convince myself fully that I really saw the true Katie, whom I had held in my arms a few moments ago, and not the phantom of a disordered brain. She did not speak but nodded her head in recogni- tion. Three different times I carefully examined Miss Cook, crouching before me, to assure myself that the hand I held was indeed that of a living woman, and thrice turned my lamp towards Katie to scrutinize her with sustained attention, until I had not the slightest doubt that she was really there before me. Finally Miss Cook made a slight move- ment, and at once Katie signed to me to go. I withdrew to another part of the cabinet and then lost sight of Katie, but I did not leave the room until Miss Cook was awakened and two of the as- sistants had entered with a light." Let us now consider the medium's point of view. What does she feel? What are her intimate sensa- tions? We possess a very valuable document, due to a society lady, Mme. d'Esperance, endowed with remarkable mediumistic powers. She has written a 160 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD kind of autoscope, describing her physical and men- tal sensations during the production of materializa- tion phenomena. It was in a most accidental manner that this lady discovered the power she possessed. In an intimate gathering, one evening when a per- sistent rain prevented her friends from returning home, someone proposed to x pass the time by at- tempting to hold a seance. Several persons offered themselves for the experiment, entering the dark cabinet; one fell asleep, another became frightened, finally the turn of Madame d'Esperance came, and we will let her take up the story. 1 "I do not like to confess it but at that moment I was seized with something very much like fear and felt a keen desire to run toward the light and rejoin the group of singers ; however, I remained seated. I felt glued to my chair, fearing that this 'some- thing' would touch me and convinced that if it did I should utter piercing cries. I became alternately burning hot and frozen and would have given much to be on the other side of the curtains. I knew I had only to stretch out my hand to push them aside but I was a prey to an indescribable sensation of solitude and isolation which seemed to place me at a vast distance from the others. This strange emo- tion almost overcame my desire to be brave and I was on the point of rushing from the cabinet when a hand, touching my shoulder, obliged me to reseat myself. "Strangely enough this pressure, which in other circumstances would have overwhelmed me immeasur- ably, had the effect of calming my fever and fear." i In Shadow Land (Au pays de 1'ombre by E. d'Esp6rance), pp. 188-189. COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 161 Numerous forms appeared about Madame d'Es- perance; many of them, had the physical appearance of persons known to the spectators, but had no resemblance to the medium. However, there were also forms in her exact likeness. Thus she recounts on page 238: "I obtained permission to leave my seat in the cabinet and came slowly and with difficulty from behind the curtains, where a white figure was stand- ing. To my infinite surprise I found myself face to face with myself; at least, so it seemed to me. "The materialized spirit was a little larger than I, and of more vivid complexion, her hair was longer, her features heavier and her eyes larger. Yet on looking at this face I thought I saw myself in a mirror, the resemblance was so great. "The spirit laid her hands upon my shoulders and gazing at me attentively murmured, 'Mignonne, ma petite.' (My dear little one)." This spirit, which appeared often, was called the French lady and was one of the rare apparitions capable of speaking. The author said concerning her: "She was my particular friend, as we all knew, and came on my account, although she gave much less attention to me than to the other members of the society. The special role I had to play in the seances prevented her, perhaps, from showing me her affection for she had noticed that whatever es- pecially occupied my mind or aroused my interest caused a weakening, a notable decrease in her power among us. She always showed far more regard to the others, particularly to Mr. F., the only one who could speak her native language." 162 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD It is certain that the entity manifesting herself in the very substance of the medium, would avoid releasing this matter which did not belong to her. At the slightest excitement, the subconscious action of the medium tended to recovery of her own cells; it was necessary, therefore, to leave the medium in her state of coma and to spare her all emotion. In some cases the assistants were able to furnish part of the elements, and thus relieve the medium. So extraordinary a phenomenon is always difficult to explain. We are forced to take account of the psychological analysis which Madame d'Esperance has given of herself. This analysis sets forth the consecutive sensations of the seizure of her bodily substance, and on the psychological side, the tele- pathic sensations which prove her participation in the life of the phantom. But we must not conclude that entities of the other worlds are not also present. Indeed, we notice that even though the sensation belongs to the medium, her passivity is required. The medium does not act within the phantom, and the latter has a tendency to dissolve as the will of the medium seeks to regain her organism. This means that the phantom can do nothing except by means of the organs it borrows and without which it would have no existence upon the material plane; but this does not mean that it is not master of its acts upon the mental plane. In fact, the medium, physiologically impoverished, finds herself in a strange situation. She shares the sensations of the phantom, since it is her own sub- stance which constitutes the materiality of the ap- parition. Whatever touches the phantom affects her, but it is wrong to see in this a proof of the COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 163 identity of the medium and her phantom. The iden- tity is wholly material, while the mentality of the phantom remains independent. This mutual sharing of matter by two possessors renders absolutely criminal the attacks made by new comers before they have gained any rational idea of the phenomenon. The race of unbelievers knows no golden mean between an outright deception and an apparition embodying their mystical idea of a heavenly creature, with them a p re-conceived notion. Like Miss Florence Cook, our medium was the victim of one of these brutal seizures. Madame d'Esperance thus describes the attack: "I do not know how the seance began. I had seen Yolande take her pitcher upon her shoulder and leave the cabinet. I learned later what took place. What I felt was the anguishing, horrible sensation of being crushed or smothered, the sensa- tion I imagine, of a rubber doll being violently em- braced by its small owner. Then terror overwhelmed me and I was in an agony of distress; I seemed to lose the use of my senses and imagined myself falling into a fearful abyss, knowing, seeing and hearing nothing save the echo of a piercing cry, which seemed to come from afar. As I felt myself falling I tried to grasp a support and found none; I fainted and came to, trembling with horror as from a death blow. "My senses seemed scattered to all the winds and it was only little by little, that I could come to my- self enough to understand what had happened. Yolande had been seized, having been mistaken for me!" 1 i Au pays de I' ombre, p. 244. 164 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Unfortunately there are still fools who declare that chicanery has been unmasked by similar actions. But it was just such an act which consequently placed Miss Florence Cook under the scientific con- trol of Messrs. Crookes and Varley, and such acts have left nothing in the arms of those who committed them. Did they seize some wretched mannikin? No but the medium came out physically broken, with a serious hemorrhage of the lungs. This outrage was later followed by fortunate con- sequences. The medium declared with sincerity, "If I have some part in the creation of these forms, I wish to know it." And taking up her experiments once more, with her usual spirit of investigation, decided not to enter the cabinet again, but to remain among the audience. In this second series of experiments, we should note two instructive seances. We might wonder if it is not a question of a mere redoubling of the medium, without intervention by an occult entity. Mme. d'Esperance answers the question. It was in Christiania during the course of a seance in which different apparitions had already appeared, Mme. d'Esperance thus completes her story: "Now they saw another figure advance, smaller, slenderer, and holding out her arms. Someone rose from the circle, hurried toward her and fell into her arms. I heard inarticulate cries, 'Anna, Oh, Anna ! My child, my love.' "Another person also approached and took the spirit in her arms; tears, sobs and thanksgivings were mingled. I felt my body drawn to the right and left and everything grew dark before my eyes. COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 165 I felt the arms of someone about me, and yet I was alone, seated upon my chair. I felt the heart of someone beat against my breast. I felt all this was happening to me, and yet there was no person near me except the two children. No one remembered my presence; all thoughts and all eyes seemed concen- trated upon the white and delicate figure surrounded by the arms of the two women in mourning. "It was indeed my own heart that I felt beating so distinctly but those arms around me? I had never experienced a contact as real and began to wonder who I was. Was I the white silhouette or the person seated in the chair? Were those my hands round the neck of the elderly lady, or were they mine which lay upon my knees? I mean upon the knees of the person seated upon the chair, in case that was not myself. "Certainly they were my lips that received the kisses ; it was my face that I felt wet with the tears shed so abundantly by the two ladies yet how could that be? It was a terrible feeling thus to lose con- sciousness of one's identity. I strove to raise one of those useless hands and to touch someone, in order to know if I really existed, or was merely the victim of a dream; if Anna were myself or if I had con- fused my personality with hers. I felt the trembling arms of the old lady, I felt the kisses, tears and caresses of her sister; I heard their blessings, and, seized with a veritable agony of doubt, I wondered how long it would last. How long shall we be two? And how will it end? Will I be Anna or will Anna be me? "Suddenly I felt two little hands slip into mine, which lay inert. They put me once more into pos- 166 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD session of myself. With a feeling of great joy I felt that I was indeed myself. Little Jonte, weary of being eclipsed by the three materialized forms, suddenly felt lonely and took my hands to comfort himself with my company. "How profoundly happy I was made by the simple touch of a child's hand! My doubts as to my in- dividuality and location had vanished and as these thoughts came to me, the white silhouette of Anna disappeared into the cabinet and the two ladies re- turned to their places, overcome, weeping, but transported with joy." It requires an effort of the imagination to put ourselves in the medium's situation, and to realize its dramatic character. After years of study, Mme. d'Esperance still wondered if she had been a victim of auto-suggestion. Sure of her sincerity, she was not sure of the reality of the apparitions. Recalling the resemblance of Yolande to herself, the brutal seizure from which she had formerly suffered raised a new problem. She no longer felt her body, was unconscious of her location, on the contrary she felt intensely whatever she saw come into contact with the phantom. The spectators, solely occupied with the apparition, seemed to ignore her presence, and her mind became deranged; finally, a child's caress released her from this anguish. Therefore, she was not absent, she was indeed there upon her chair, visible to all. She was not the other in whom all her sensations seemed confused. This phrase, "Am I Anna or is Anna myself?" is in its simplicity, absolutely expressive. It be- speaks the trouble of a sincere medium and explains COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 167 the hasty judgments of unfair experimenters. In short the confusion of sensations might cause the medium to lose the distinction between the organ and its double. When she wishes to make an effort, as was the case with Eusapia, upon whom were imposed experiments of a physical nature, she cannot always discern whether it be the invisible fluidic member or the hand of flesh that obeys the suggestion, and at the least suspicious movement of the latter, most unjust judgments are formed. In the case of Madame d'Esperance, it was her entire body which felt this uncertainty of itself, but her reasoning powers remained intact. This has been excellently said by M. Gabriel Delanne. "Thus it seems incontestable that insofar as matter is concerned, medium and phantom are strictly in- terdependent and intimately united; but from the psychological point of view, the separation is com- plete. They are two distinct beings existent at the same moment, but as different one from the other as if the same substance did not serve them at the same moment. A materialized spirit and a medium are somewhat like the Siamese twins, who had a part of the body in common, but whose heads thought separately, each on its own side." 1 Thus the phenomenon borrows the substance of the medium, dissociating the organs without dissolv- ing the thinking individuality. It is almost contrary with the outgoing of a soul ; the soul remains and the body partly withdraws, at the suggestion of a foreign influence. We might quote still other famous materializa- tions. In 1886 in London, Aksakof succeeded in i G. Delanne, Lea Apparitions Mattrialistes. Vol. 11, p. 687. 168 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD taking photographs in which the medium and the apparition were visible simultaneously. 1 The medium was Eglinton, the same who gave the magnificent apparition witnessed by the painter James Tissot, who preserved its memory for us in his splendid engraving. Dr. Gibier, founder of the Pasteur Institute in New York, gave an account of his experiences with Mrs. Salmon, in a memoir addressed to the Psychological Congress in Paris on the materializa- tion of phantoms. Charles Richet observed in Al- giers in 1905 at the home of General Noel a ma- terialized form, and in a minutely detailed report, demonstrated that this personage was neither a re- flected image, a mirror, a doll nor a mannikin. This, however, did not prevent certain petty individuals, seeking notoriety, from launching an infamous at- tack by setting forth hypotheses incompatible with the facts and mutually sustaining one another by each bringing forward a different version. Never- theless, Richet's report still exists unimpaired and among other conclusive statements he wrote: "In any case this remains, which is of considerable value that a living body took form before my eyes in front of the curtain, rising from the floor and returning into the floor. "I was so fully persuaded that this living body could not proceed from the curtain, that I suspected at first a trap, which was absurd. "The day following this experiment, I examined minutely the tile and the coach house directly under this part of the pavilion. The very high ceiling iSee G. Delanne, Lea Apparitions Materialises. Vol. II, pp. 294-399. COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 169 of this stable was plastered with lime, hung with spider webs and inhabited by spiders which had not been disturbed for a long time, when by means of a ladder, I explored the ceiling." 1 Those who know this scholarly physiologist, are aware that he makes no affirmation lightly. i Annales des Sciences Psychiques. Nov., 1905, p. 658. CHAPTER IX MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE In every living germ there is a creative idea which develops and manifests itself by organization. CLAUDE BERNARD. ABOUT 1895 Aksakoff arrived at this conclusion: "We see a prodigious fact rise before us, one that no one has dared examine, a fact which is destined to become one of the most brilliant acquisi- tions of anthropological science and which we shall owe to Spiritism namely: that the physical and psychic action of man is not confined to the periphery of his body." 1 In truth, as we have stated, the possibility of effecting an action on matter without contact is destined to modify all our ideas upon the existence of the nervous current which physiologists agree in considering as a product of the organism of man and animals. Though the power of moving a heavy body with- out contact necessitates the intervention of a mate- rial agent, no one any longer attributes this effect to a nervous current which could make itself felt outside of the ways of conduction. At once, the existence of a psychic element becomes a necessary lAnwmtme et Spiritisme, by Alexander Aksakoff, 1896, p. 523. 170 . MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 171 hypothesis, and another fact the mental sugges- tion passing from one brain to another proves the presence of an unknown element, material or im- material, we cannot tell which. Here we have firmly established, on a secure basis, the problem of existence of an active agent inde- pendent of our organs. Let us call this agent psychic force; in it we have the cause, the true motive power, of our organs. It is without contact, is it not, that Nature proceeds to operate on matter? Does not the force of gravitation suffice to prove action from a distance? And attraction, does it not act by means of the nervous current? A planet does not come out of nothingness, it comes from the invisible and is constituted as an opaque body. That is to say, it materializes itself. On the planet which was in the beginning but a lifeless desert all organized beings appeared. These were nothing but materializations. The germination of plants is a materialization which takes place under our eyes, and which is not caused by chemical action. Two similar grains, of different kinds, may be planted in a soil, chemically identical and make themselves into different chemical bodies. That is to say, their psychic faculty permits them to make a selection among the elements which are offered them, exactly as selection takes place within our stomachs and our intestines. That it is incontestably a psychic action will become still more apparent with further examination. The ivy, arrived at the top of the wall which sustains it, changes its form of materialization. From the simple climber that it was, it will develop branches and even modify the form of its leaves, which will no longer be star- 172 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD shaped. A climbing plant directs itself to the right or to the left, according as I incline the point of support, towards which it tends. Still further, the plant determines its own organs and the direc- tion of the so-called nervous current. If, in the beginning of summer, I cut a twig of privet or of elder just opening into leaf, and if I plant it up- side down in the ground, it will put forth roots, and strong ones, thus modifying the chemical composi- tion of its bud, and the sap, changing its course, will go up instead of down. Let us pass to the living animal. We can, by means of skillful graft- ing, reverse a rat's tail; and surely here the so- called nervous current would be able in this new position, to divert its direction. These are some of the reflections that present themselves in simple support of the fact that an object may be moved without contact. We may well state that the agent which shakes the table comes from an organic action; but it is the action of a psychic organ, to which we can attribute all active power, outside of the nervous current. Experience proves to us that this psychic element, exteriorized by a group of persons placed around a table, is sensitive and active. More than that, it is, like the human soul, accessible to the most unconscious and most distant suggestions. Something like a field of magnetic force is created by the fluidic exteriorization of all the persons present. This field of force is sensitive to sugges- tions, or creates an echo of all the present or ex- traneous thoughts, and is translated by movement. There is here a veritable animistic field, an element which is the vehicle of telepathic action. Here we MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 173 are in the presence of a colossal fact, of which many have failed to grasp the importance. It is that thought is capable of stirring matter without the help of the nervous current! But, in order not to offend the physiologists, I will agree with them that the nervous current incontestably exists; only, I should define it thus : All life in nature is sustained and nourished by a telepathic current extending everywhere and of an unknown essence. The portion of the current which traverses an organic unity is called nervous current. We shall develop this conception, and we hope to show how the presence in the human body of a fluidic invisible element, endowed with the double power of acting and of feeling, extending its action beyond the organs which enclose it, gives us the key to all organic movements. It even permits us to understand, in a certain measure, the first ap- pearance of beings upon earth, which is only a phenomenon of slow materialization under that form of evolution which science calls phylogenic. And we shall also explain the evolution of the individual that is to say, ontogenesis. ORGANIC MOVEMENTS Let us try to understand first how our individual self conducts itself within us, considered as the force capable of moving our organs. How shall we ex- plain the relation of soul and body. This may be explained very simply by supposing that our organs themselves are provided with a certain independent animic power, of which the re- 174 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD serve is fed by the same substantial currents which traverse our organism. We know that our body is merely the sum of small organisms which are called cells. The cells are agglomerated, specialized, and or- ganized according to the functions they are called upon to fulfill. One association will form, for ex- ample, the eyelid, the iris, and cornea, which are organs. A grouping of different organs constitutes a mechanism, such as the visual or respiratory mechanism. The construction of the organic edi- fice resembles very much the work of the compositor in a printing shop. First, he looks for the characters, which represent the cells ; and then he assembles them to form the words. Each phrase is an organ, many organs concur in the development of a com- plex argument, the whole forming the thesis, or body of the book, which represents physiological unity. Finally, the human body reduces itself, in the last analysis, to the cell which constitutes at the same time the tiniest living body and the feeblest degree of the thinking and acting substance of the mar- row and of the brain. It is a being, already evolved, which has not been able to realize its materialization except in a surrounding already prepared to re- ceive it. It is clothed in a medullary tube, whose formation preceded that of the brain. Even to-day a human being, when it is forming in the womb of its mother, begins by constructing itself on a medul- lary axis, without a skull, without a brain. The brain, temple of mystery, is the final un- folding of the materialization of the nervous system and the apparent seat of the activities perceived by our consciousness and interpreted by it. Be- MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 175 neath the brain is the spinal cord, which, as every- one knows, is protected by the vertebral column. Throughout its length, nerves go out, emanating everywhere, extending the voluntary action which comes from the brain to all the periphery (and beyond, let us not forget). On the other hand, the cutaneous surface is the ending of a multitude of nervous fibers which are the recipients of feeling. This constitutes the double function of the motory and sensory nerves, which in the vertebrae are repre- sented by a double column, descending and ascend- ing, or again centrifugal and centripetal, according to the direction of the telepathic current which transmits the activities or sensations. The direc- tion of a current does not exist by virtue of a specific property inherent to matter, but by a sug- gestion which has been long imposed and which may be modified. Aside from these clusters of the vertebral column, we have nerves which correspond to the senses of sight, hearing, smell, etc. These are grafted more directly on the brain cavity and communicate with the organic mechanism of far higher functions. They are our informers. The auditive and the visual mechanisms have already ac- quired an aptitude to retain sensations of sound and light. These our superior consciousness interprets in its turn, according to the internal representation which we have created for ourselves during the course of centuries. Thus cells, organs, and mechanisms represent to a certain degree an incorporation of the thinking and acting substance. At every step of the organic scale the soul is manifest in a matter which renews itself endlessly and whose integral renewals no more 176 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD harm the phenomenon of consciousness than they harm the superior physiological unity. Matter vanishes, but the sphere of animic force remains. In whatever part of the living body an anatomist may place his scalpel, he arouses a con- sciousness, touches a sensibility. What he calls re- actions are willed determinations; and, on our side, we term subconscious this independent action of an organ acting spontaneously. In short, the nervous system appears as a vast network of telepathic transmissions, through which we send messages reaching all points of our territory. They bring back to us all the information of interest on condition that we lend our attention. Such is the human being. At birth, he has an already organized net-work of nerves ; and if the child really came into the world for the first time, it would be as miraculous as the apparition of a book issuing from the printer's shop without the intervention of any intelligence. Let us now examine the process of materialization observed under its most rudimentary form, the only form available for scientific study. Most scientific men who have followed the seances of Eusapia Paladino, and have verified regretfully the reality of the plastic formations, have consoled themselves by affirming that nothing issued from her except by her own desire. If that were really attained, the will would then be capable of moving organic molecules and of drawing them outside the organism in order to model the meditated forms. It would thus create images or organs whose psychic exteriorization would furnish the material. We ask no more, for with the help of survival, MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 177 the survivor may in his turn manifest himself under the forms and appearances which he judges best. This would lead us to admit, at least, a material element in thought, and a creative power of the mind. Through this we should arrive at a new con- ception of all the movements of life. It is very certain that there is no death in or- ganic matter. There is nothing, however inert, which is not to a certain degree sensitive and con- scious. There are no organic molecules that do not depend, in some more or less distant manner, upon will. We come back to the old adage, Mens agitat molem. And, since Nature is simple in her laws, we must search for the origin of the creation of beings, nebulae and simple atoms in an immaterial force, in a thinking power of the same nature as that which we feel within ourselves. The materializations which produce forms at first nebulous, then hands, and then the entire phan- toms are related to the processes of evolution realized by nature. If there is something true in the theories previously advanced in the polyzoism of Durand de Gros, animism, transmission of images, and movements at a distance, etc. there is no longer room for sur- prise that thought may exercise a plastic action on exteriorized animic substance. Our organic rela- tions are telepathic phenomena ; the so-called nervous currents are psychic currents. As to seances of materialization, I am certain that ultimate experi- ments will convince us that the thought of the audience is like a motive center of excitation, as 178 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD capable of provoking systematic inhibition as of contributing to the creation of plastic forms. Materialization may be understood, then, as a sphere of momentarily exteriorized power, reinforced by organic molecules, upon which the will acts. * * * * Telepathy, acting in the organic sphere, adapts itself admirably to our physiological knowledge if we replace the purely conventional idea of the action of nervous currents for that of volition. This would be far more comprehensible, for I acknowledge that to speak of excitation of a nerve does not make its movement clear to me. You may call a certain center "excito-motor," but that does not confer upon it any activity. On the contrary, a volition transmitted by telepathy is an action that may be put in the same category as the facts pre- viously observed. The organs and the brain itself being necessarily strangers to telepathic perception, the phenomena presuppose the intermediary of psychic agents, not as yet known to physics. The nervous current is only an hypothesis, but psychical transmission is an empirical truth which it is no longer possible to disregard. We may even experi- ment with it anatomically. We may isolate from the brain the so-called nervous currents, and thereby note the subordinate currents which continue to act in a more restricted region. Thus, for example, we know that the sensitive and motive fibers emerge from the spinal column. We might believe that these fibers are simple conductors which live with the life of the brain, to which they are united. But this is not true. It astonishes many physiologists, but these groups of nerves have their own life. From MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 179 an ancient discovery, which has been verified by Claude Bernard, we find that if these groups of sensitive nerves are cut below the ganglion, which is near the point of contact, the nerve dies, or at least it seems to die, because it no longer gives signs of sensitivenes. But if the severance is made higher up, and the ganglion remains attached to the nerve, it lives. This is equivalent to saying that the ganglion occupies the place of the head and is the conscious center of the excitation, which is mani- fested by sensibility and movement. In other words, a group of nerves related to the brain, through the spinal column, obeys the suggestions of the brain. It no longer obeys when the communication has been cut. Deprived of its normal relation, it is thrown back on its independence, the excitation which it should transmit to the brain stops with itself. But if we excite, beyond it, the end of the nerve still ad- hering to the marrow, the brain receives the sensa- tion, on condition that the nerve in question is in the centripetal current, is a sensitive nerve. And the sensation, in this case, is analogous to the sensation which, in the same manner, would be sent by peripheric contact. But if it is a motive nerve, of centrifugal functions, the brain will receive no impression. We may then act on the part detached from the trunk and immediately the whole nervous mass will respond as a sensitive animal. The con- sciousness of touch is in the nerve, which perceives by itself and which manifests itself by movement. This then, is the manifestation of the soul in the secondary centers. The absence of reaction, how- ever, is not a proof of insensibility. The will has a power of inhibition upon the nervous centers, without 180 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD which it would be impossible to coordinate our move- ments. This power no longer exists from the moment that the nerve is deprived of its normal connection with the brain. Here I quote from the text of Mathias Duval: 1 "An animal in its physiological state may experi- ence an intense excitation without making the slightest movement. After the cutting of the spine, the slightest touch to that part of the body which has been deprived of nerves by the posterior seg- ment of the spine, will suffice to produce energetic movement in the corresponding members." Let us recall, again, the intensity of the somnambu- listic dream, analogous to the intensity of these physical movements, of a member detached from its principal center. In both cases this must result from a similar cause, the absence of a restraining power. This power, which is called the faculty of inhibi- tion and which seeems inexplicable to the physiolo- gists, because it does not answer to any of the theories of vital chemistry, is explained very easily by the animic theory, which accepts the idea of a psychic force and a will. A cell may, indeed, re- ceive the suggestion to remain impassive under ex- citation. Mucius Scevola held his hand motionless over the brazier, an act made possible by that psychic force which dominates our organs the motive souls execute only those of our suggestions which they fully understand. From the moment a cell obeys the idea of movement, it may equally well obey the idea of resistance to the movement. It has been proved that the brain does not act dynamically upon the organs, but that each functional mechanism has within itself its own will, and that the psychic con- i Physiologie, Mathias Duval, p. 70. MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 181 1 ductor acts in whatsoever is left of its organic domain, even after the removal of the brain. It is a fact which we cannot bring too strongly into evidence that, with man himself, the cerebral hemi- spheres have no other functions than those of will and of perception. The wish, transmitted tele- pathically to the motive organs, excites them; but these, in turn, act spontaneously, using their own dynamic force. In a word, physiological unity, a central consciousness merely sends a suggestion and the organs act spontaneously. "The faculties which survive," says Flourens, "after the ablation of the cerebral lobes are those on which depend the functions of nutrition (that is to say, digestion, circulation, respiration), of move- ment, locomotion, and even of sensation." 1 Here we must notice that the sensation of a func- tional mechanism absolutely escapes our observation. Flourens maintains that this faculty survives it would be more correct to say that it persists. In reality it exists, in a feeble degree, in the whole isolated part of the brain. Flourens presupposes, on the other hand, that the faculties of perception and of memory are lost; this should be understood as meaning the central perception and memory, for we must accord a special memory and volition to the inferior association, isolated from its center. When a decapitated frog acts, when its leg re- sponds by reactionary movements towards the ex- cited part, it is not the principal will which acts, but the ganglionary will. If, then, a movement may produce itself after the ablation of the cerebral lobes, it is true that perception does not exist for i Flourens, De la vie et de V intelligence, 1858, p. 66. 182 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD the frog, though the act is felt somewhere, and willed, because the leg directs itself towards the excited place; but the cause of the movement is a divisional entity, a kind of inferior animalcule. It is a ganglionary memory, which recognizes an ac- quired sensation, to which this local soul responds automatically. If the chicken from which the cerebral mass has been taken is incapable of looking for its food, a grain put into its beak is nevertheless capable of provoking deglutition. There remains, then, a local memory and perception, even a will; only they are no longer the memory, perception, and will of the chicken, but those of a sort of monster, which has descended to the lowest stage of the vital scale, where the bulb which subsists has become a sort of organic head. If there is deglutition, there is a re-awakening of many acquired memories ; and since all three have perceived something, sensibility is not dead, but it appreciates at its true value the sensa- tion presented. Will cannot be said to be absent from such an action, since deglutition is a movement which has to be willed before it can be executed. Therefore it must not be said that sensation has been separated from volition, but simply that the ways of com- munication between the cerebral soul and the small organic souls have been cut. Each organic apparatus has its own life and its personal sensations. Thus the visual apparatus may be affected by objects and still know nothing about the intellectual images provoked in us by that vision, since these pass outside of it. The experi- ments of Flourens have demonstrated that if one takes out the superior brain of an animal, leaving MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 183 to it, however, all the organs of the senses, the eye would conserve its visual power, the iris would be mobile and could follow the displacements of the light, and the retina would conserve its sensitive- ness. However, we could not say that there is a vision of the image, because the visual representa- tion exists only in the inner consciousness of the animal. If, on the contrary, we take away the tubercule on which the ocular mechanism depends, without touching the cerebral lobe, the eye will no longer have movement or sensibility. It appears, then, that the organ, a stranger to the psychic representations, possesses active and sensitive facul- ties, as well as perceptions known only to itself; and it is no longer possible to sustain the identity of consciousness and functions, in view of these ex- periments which show an animal, without a brain, whose functions continue while consciousness no longer exists. Physiology is full of mysteries which it seems possible to clarify if we accord a portion of soul to each division of physiological unity. But we must not forget the invisible physiology, the unknown element, revealed in former experiments and constituting the sensitive element which inter- penetrates all the organic machine. Matter in mind are thus related by an inter- mediary state recently discovered. The current of induction goes from mind to matter in passing through this intermediary. This process, it is not difficult to admit, though our education has not prepared us for it. But now that certainty exists concerning an exterior action, effected with- out the aid of organs, it seems impossible to avoid 184 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD the necessary deduction of the existence of an in- termediary organ. All our physiology gives us the proof of move- ment without contact. A cell is without contact with another cell, but nevertheless expansions and retractions are transmitted from one to the other and executed punctually under the sole direction of the will. Thus each cell is in telepathic relation with its neighbor; hence it is necessary that they should share alike sensibility and activity. In short, every organic division possesses a soul, or if we prefer, a part of a soul. This has been sufficiently established by the polyanimism of Durand de Gros, Every ganglion, every mechanism, every organ, seems to have a sensitive soul, endowed with will. The soul is not extinguished except in the lowest of the organic scale, at the dead point of inert matter, if it so be that inertia may exist in any part of nature. Our organs are but the material ex- pression of a form of life realized by our invisible soul. Dr. Durand de Gros felt the necessity of some- thing more than has been taught concerning simply physiological inductions, and was the first, I believe, to have the courage to put his ideas into circulation. He understood that there are no unconscious acts, and did not hesitate to conclude that the acts gen- erated by different points of the spinal column have souls as motive powers. He recognized, moreover, as an indispensable hypothesis, that there is a some- thing associated with our physical nature. He felt the necessity for introducing into our machine an occult agent of sensation; he affirmed that cerebral MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 185 matter is a stranger to telepathic perception and proclaimed it without reticence. Why has no one heeded these objurgations of a learned philosopher? It is because his system of polyanism makes too clear, things that it were better to leave in darkness ! Charcot saw this light and he withdrew. Is not scientific prudence an excellent excuse with which to hide the soul wherever it threatens to appear? At the present time all the embarrassing facts of animism are attributed to subconscious action of the brain, a strange formula, since it is contradictory in its terms. The poly- animistic system of Durand de Gros would admirably explain our subconsciousness, without doubt, but do we ever know whither we are tending? Scientific prudence prefers to avoid the danger. If we explain subconsciousness by the inferior centers of conscious- ness, the matter becomes too clear. We could not invoke unconscious cerebration to explain many of the verified cases of advice and warnings, and useful premonitions, which cannot be attributed to lower centers of consciousness. In order to do this we must presuppose that these inferior centers had been put into relation with an unknown magnetizer. What a horror! Science can not envisage such an eventuality. At present subconsciousness serves us as the tart for the filling, but on condition that we tolerate the vagueness and the implications which constitute the value of the word "subconsciousness." For subconsciousness is not the contrary of con- sciousness; it is simply that which is in the con- sciousness of others. And you see the danger. With the system of Durand de Gros we could have an intestinal consciousness very useful for our diges- 186 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD tion; a consciousness of the kidneys, the liver, or the lungs, unconscious functions so far as we are concerned, but conscious on the part of the agents who maintain them. So far, so good, but this leaves us without defense against the rising tide of phe- nomena which was so easily rejected in this domain without a proprietor. When a writing medium pro- duced a remarkable message, it was said, "It is sub- consciousness." But it was well understood that this consciousness dwelt in unknown regions. Can we now say, "It is the spleen of Miss X. that sends her news of her mother, imitating the signature of an unknown?" No, this would be difficult. The spleen is very necessary, but it is slightly lymphatic and conscientiously keeps guard over the white corpuscles of the blood; it never leaves these occu- pations to take up the pen. I know very well that we could easily find fault here. In the case at issue, we might say that all the faculties which concur in normal writing act unconsciously in mechanical writing. But this is absurd, because those faculties are purely motive and know only movement and do not know the mean- ing of the message. That is attributing much in- deed to motive consciousness, to believe it capable of coordinating ideas, imitating signatures, or speaking foreign languages. A motive ganglion which speaks Greek, or which improvises a whole system of philosophy, cannot have a very tranquil consciousness. This is where these experiments lead us into truth. They show us that the table, or the organs, are only simple agents of transmission, and that the motive agent is frequently found in the thought of a living MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 187 person. Here is a whole course of study, already outlined. A movement is conscious when it emanates from our own thought, and subconscious when we discover its origin in a foreign thought. I do not say an exterior thought, because our motive centers, for example, are wills foreign to ourselves, and yet within our organs. In daily speech one constantly makes the mistake of speaking of the body as it were oneself. It is important to remember that the body is only the implement of psychic force which constitutes the "ego" on the mental plane; the fact that consciousness is not in the instrument is already scientifically attested, but scientists do not wish to acknowledge it because it is difficult to take a step backward. It is certain that radio-activity, in changing our manner of see- ing, will drive materialism from its last entrench- ment; the atom is disappearing from the physical plane, it is nothing more than a creation like the celestial nebulae. Everything, then, comes from the invisible; there is in the invisible something almost immaterial, which condenses, and the being does not act differ- ently from the atom. There are psychic nebulae which precede the apparition of the first organic forms, and preside at their evolution. There is a nebula which precedes the birth of the child and presides over the development of the foetus in the womb of the mother. In experimenting with psychic phenomena, we see also that a psychic nebula pre- cedes the formation of that which Mr. Richet calls the ectoplasm. In brief, the feeble atom, which represents a con- densation of formidable energy, sums up within itself 188 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD the process of planetary formations. Living organ- isms are a condensation of the creative idea which tends to manifest itself, and we know that each embryonic phase of the child represents the succes- sion of animal forces in the order in which they have appeared upon earth. Here I seem to see a ray of light ; the same biogenetic law explains the forma- tion of the body of the child, the genesis of animal species, the condensation of planets. The planet is a slow materialization organized beings are slow materializations the embryonic process is a rapid materialization. The spiritualistic materialization, still more rapid, is an imperfect creation, like physiological neo- plasms, which appear sometimes in living bodies, and which are like an accident in nature, a plethoric superfetation, subject to abortion. We shall say nothing of the slow materialization of the planetary nebula, which is an evident fact. Let us seek to explain the materialization of beings in accord with ontogenetic facts. We do not have to inquire as to what may be the psychic substance. It exists, that is enough. Be it material, pure spirit, or cosmic force, we leave this discussion to the philosophers and are content to submit it to their observations. The preceding observations oblige us to admit that this is the force which creates organic movement. One working hypo- thesis, then, shall be that psychic substance exists before the object which it puts in movement, that is to say, before the organic formation. Before any creation, the soul has been obliged to manifest itself slowly, in the simple concretion of a primitive cell. The animic substance acting upon all the planet, MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 189 has of necessity formed throughout the earth a multitude of simple concretions. The history of the development of beings shows us a higher and higher consciousness, succeeding in effecting its progress upon the ruins of a multitude of organisms so delicate that their existence was per- petually menaced. If the spring of life had been in matter, it would have been impossible for any progress to be transmissible from one cell to the others which were destined to succeed it. Progress is impossible if each individual ends in death. On the contrary, the soul, changing only its body, little by little, and by degrees, is never abruptly deprived of its organs. 1 Life is founded upon life; a multitude of simple lives must have profited by a first experiment to associate themselves in an organ. Elementary souls, already rich in acquired memories, and new aptitudes came to unite in better organs. All the forces which must concur in future realiza- tions worked then, in the invisible, in materialization of the organs most indispensable to the manifestations of life on the physical plane. From the molecular ancestor to the organic construction which has made possible the manifestation of the human soul, every- thing that has ever lived in the past survives in the present of human beings. In order that man might appear in the world it was necessary that he be preceded by an immense elaboration of organic life. The Darwinian theory of selection is accommodated easily to the animistic theory. Darwin explains the modifications of be- ings ; but as to their origin, he says not a word. i Monadology, by Leibnitz, 2. 190 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD So we were saying that a will, of the same essence as that which we feel within ourselves, has already influenced the cellular organizations of atomic lives. From the first hour, telepathic action was affirmed in the simple association of several cells. Will, sensi- bility, memory have all progressed, because they have survived in associating themselves together. It is the persistence of animistic substance after death which permits individuals of the same species to re- constitute themselves into similar organs in following lives. Animals, declares Leibnitz, do not die abso- lutely. Arcella Vulgaris the simple globule of the proto- plasm is a being which already communicates by telepathy in the small sphere which obeys its sug- gestions. It is a materialization of the most ele- mentary order. Progress comes later, arising on the ascending scale of species, and it is thus that we may carry our origin back to the monocellular ancestor. But it would be an error to consider the philo- genetic ascension as a filiation of individuals, issuing one from the other, a kind of tree of Jesse ending in man. The multitude of simple elements which must have been materialized from the beginning would lead us to think that creation arose every- where at the same time. At the base of evolution species were infinite in number; they are infinitely reduced at the summit. From the time that they had consciousness of being, certain forms, evolving side by side, elaborated analogous organs. These are always the digestive, respiratory, visual, and auditory systems that the entities have realized in grouping round themselves billions of unities, similar to themselves, which, however, specialized in new MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 191 functions. It follows that an association goes back to very confused sources, and that it has innumer- able ancestors rather than a single ancestor, whence the difficulty in botany, as in zoology, of making a rational classification. The primitive species must at different degrees have realized analogous types. Two ovula, similar in origin, have been able to give birth to the crab and the lobster, but we cannot say that the crab is an intermediary stage in the evolution of the lobster. Similar forms have been able to constitute themselves side by side, without issuing one from the other. The same appetites have created the same organs ; and the identical needs, in response to environment, realized the same mechanism. It was always, for example, an intestine, a bony structure, or a respiratory mechanism of which each one solved the problem according to its fashion, some by different means, many by identical means. Thus the same ocular mechanism is always found in man and the animals which have no relationship with him. The fundamental law of Haeckel is that the plant, the animal, and man have their origin in a simple cell, the same for all, which increased by absorption and propagated by dividing itself in 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. This method of increase is very far from the ordinary popular idea; it obliges us to conceive a plastic force acting on matter. It is true that a living cell was the first manifestation of terrestial life, but when Haeckel tells us that this is our an- cestor, he means simply that the ovulum of a human embryo is a cell similar to the primitive cell. If we go back over the ascendent chain of human 192 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD genesis, we shall find at the end not an ancestral unity, but an elementary multiplicity of which man has become the summit and the directing unity. The creation formed in the womb of a woman is but a repetition of that which has been evolved through- out time, a preparation of animal forms, of which the human soul will come to take possession by a slow induction. When one asks why man, if he himself constructs his organs, has no consciousness of them, we may answer : "Because the animal souls do this work without him and that in their successive formations they have acted spontaneously." How may a cell proceed to its multiplication if it be not a center of plastic force, acting upon matter? We do not know of any cause of move- ment outside of this will which is in us; it is a con- scious force which calls forth life. The machine which creates its own movement and suspends its action at the right time differs essentially from mechanical processes which act of necessity. The machine has nothing of this spontaneity which re- tards movement up to the precise moment when it says, "I will." And let no one speak to us of a process of inhibition like a wick in a lamp. The amoeba, which is only a semi-liquid cell, resists the evaporation of solar action which would dry up an inert drop. Hence there is life there that is to say, a will which resists and we attest, once again, that we find in inferior organs the two constituent elements of animic essence, sensation and effort. Effort tends to association and organization; modi- fications are produced at random, by accidental meetings or under the influence of suitable surround- ings. The simple being wishes to grow and becomes MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 198 pluricellular. The pluricellular individuals wish to move, to nourish themselves, to know the exterior world, and they tend to the creation of organs. Species are different because each one represents the sum of the aggregates organized by it according to its appetites. Agreeable or disagreeable sensations are the factors which determine the choice. Thus life is an experimental test, and memory persisting, the being progresses. Often repeated suggestions become living ideas, in- corporated in the animic sphere as well as in matter. Each parcel of idea or feeling which passes under the fire of the will undergoes a process of digestion which assimilates or rejects it. Because aptitudes survive the destructions of the organic cells, the psychic sphere always progresses in quality and in quantity. There are in our organism millions of animalcules which are the result of distant existences. We reign in this domain, which is but the sum of small living souls which we have engendered in the course of the centuries. It is in this element that we normally communicate by telepathy. The spiritual being had no immediate empire over matter; it was necessary that the spirit of man should be grafted on the soul of the beasts. That is why animal evolution preceded the appearance of man on the earth. This conception of the evolution and constitution of the soul explains that each image recalls itself to the memory by a simple appeal, that of telepathy. All our knowledge is incorporated in an animic sphere obeying our suggestion. The history of the formation of beings such of 194 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD it as we have been able to reconstruct from observa- tion, confirms us in the idea that creation is pre- sented as a progressive materialization, realized around an animic substance, which subsists outside the present life and begins again with the additional experience so acquired. Our organism contains the synthesis of all that has preceded us. Thus is ex- plained the fact that preformed man does not exist in the semen; the mothers' wombs contains only the elementary soul now taking up again the function to which it has grown accustomed throughout thou- sands of centuries. The road traveled by the primi- tive cell, a road which only the unfailing patience of the centuries has allowed it to travel, to-day is cov- ered, in this new environment, the womb of the mother, with a rapidity which would savor of the miraculous if it were a question of a new being. But the identical passage takes place to-day in a short time because we are on a worn road, far away from the gropings of primitive evolution. The embryo finds, in an eminently favorable environment, all the elements for its new incorporation. A being repeats its journey without hesitation, and this is why remate- rialization is infinitely more rapid. This interpretation agrees with the observed facts of ontogenesis and with the facts of experimental psychology. It permits us to have recourse to a single process in order to explain both the appear- ance of life upon our globe and of the child in an evolved world, while it classes under the same bio- genetic law the two forms of evolution which seem so unlike. * * * * All birth is a ^materialization, and the doctrine MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 195 of successive lives gives us a satisfactory solution to all the problems. The organism of a child, when he comes into the world, is a mechanism so com- plicated that it could not be the product of a spon- taneous creation. As we have shown in the preced- ing pages, he is the crowning of innumerable efforts and of frequent gropings. It is an already organ- ized psychic force which presides at the refection of the organs; a multitude of tactile, motive, visual, and auditory cells, trained in their functions for centuries, are organized in the foetus before the presence of any intelligence is revealed. Even the first incarnation cannot be the moment of birth. The child, when he appears for the first time in his terrestial envelope, is visibly in possession of organs with which he has been familiar for a long time. It must be supposed that an evolution, parallel to that which was taking place in matter, was pre- paring the psychic organs for future incarnations. The human animal was already old when the living soul was breathed into him, the induction of psychic force into matter. The first truly human incarnation must have bor- rowed the materials for the new edifice from the astral plane, and constituted, perhaps, a new body from old organs. The visual mechanism and audi- tory organs realized by the animal species are not unworthy of humanity and do not differ from ours. For my part, I should like to possess the sight of a bird, the sense of smell of a dog, and the hearing of a cat. These steps of physiological progress were already realized, and the soul of these organs was already skilled in the use of its functions by the practice of millions of years, when the intelligent 196 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Being gained control and grafted itself on these organic forms. It is thus that humanity must first have appeared, not in a state of innocence, but in a state of ignor- ance which could not place it much above the animal. With time, spiritual light pierced the darkness; moral ideas entered at the same time that laws, families, and tribes began to be instituted, and cities organized: and all this combined to form countries. Now, men are born in unequal conditions of evolu- tion and not one, perhaps, comes to this world for the first time. It is necessary that man be born again and reincarnate himself until his moral evolu- tion be attained. Consider the child who is newly born. The animal in him is sufficiently developed, so that he has nothing more to learn of material life. He can see, can hear, he knows how to suckle the breast of his mother all functions belonging to the animal kingdom, from which he came, and, by consequence, already known to him. But he has painfully to acquire language, writing, and all the intellectual functions which are novelties to him. On this side, however, aptitudes are unequal and the differences are enormous, which, from a moral and intellectual point of view, separate the individuals of our species. Between the mollusk and the vertebra the physiological difference is great, but it is scarcely as great as the disproportion which may appear between two human beings. If we could see on the mental plane, we should be surprised at the great differences existing in hearts and intelli- gences which we are wont to class by families and species: the intellectual and moral scale would then appear in all its varieties. There is only one evolu- MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 197 tionary action which may give a reason for such dis- parity. As there has existed an uninterrupted chain in organic progress still visible in the animal king- dom, there must exist mentalities of different value in the mental kingdom to which man has attained. The progress, on this plane, can be made only by means of reincarnations. We see that the multitude of little children who are born, are only, from the physical point of view, little animals equally en- dowed; how then shall we explain that their intel- lectual endowment is so different. Education is powerless to change it; we see gentle and intelligent children, by the side of little rascals whose faces already bear the stamp of vice and bestiality. These latter show the retarded development of inferior mentality, while the intelligent child has already a certain experience of moral life, has already lived. This is the only explanation which satisfies reason and sentiment at the same time. We have seen that birth reunites interrupted rela- tions, that the foetus recapitulates the course of preceding evolutions. It is not the child who sug- gests its embryonic form, it is the embryonic enti- ties, who by virtue of psychic affinities, painfully created, reconstruct that is, re-incarnate them- selves round the first ovulum. It is thus that later on the child comes to be incarnated, in the recon- structed physiological unity. There is no precon- ceived plan; there is an order and a succession of forms previously learned and necessarily repeated. The visual soul cannot constitute itself otherwise than it has done in the animal species, and the same may be said of each organ. To believe, on one hand, that our faculties repre- 198 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD sent the sum of the chemical activities peculiar to our substance, and, on the other, that these faculties will be manifested in the child who is born for the first time, would be the height of absurdity. To create an eye without having seen, to construct an ear without having heard! It would be easier to conceive a child, still within the body of its mother capable of speaking its national tongue. The mir- acle would be no greater. When a child comes into the world, we are profoundly ignorant of the mystery which prepares his way; but we may presuppose a series of inductions: first, induction of the mental body, this latter inducting the ethereal body, which in turn, inducts matter. Differences in conditions and inequalities of birth are thus justified. We need no longer attribute to God the spontaneous creation of innocent souls sub- jected to such unequal tests. But it is, above all, unreasonable and impious to suppose that this divine creation subordinates the will of God to the capri- cious union of human beings. A philosopher, Jean Reynaud, annihilates this theological dream in the following terms. 1 "Unheard of things, baseness of souls, and if I dare say it, even while rejecting it, baseness of the Creator! "It is as if a libertine, outraging in wanton pas- sion, by violation or adultery, all the laws of Heaven and earth, should infamously signal to Him whose eye is all-seeing ; and as if the All-Powerf ul, deciding to create, should give life to the unfortunate soul which must accompany the fruit of the debauch. Such are the occasions for which we oblige the Creator to come forth from His sublime repose! Jean fteynaud !JW et Viel, 1864, p. 198. MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 199 The most dishonest or disgraceful passion finds in Him, when it wishes, a faithful cooperator, hasten- ing to crown by an infinite complement that which had been so wretchedly prepared for Him. No, I will never grant you that the miracle of the appear- ance of a new soul in the universe could take place by a demand of this kind. If that were the truth I should prefer to consider the soul, as do the ma- terialists, to be a product of the generation of man, than to make of it a creation of God, for impiety revolts me even more than absurdity. Here is an obstacle that we can never overcome, for all theologians will run aground here. It is a rock." This is, indeed, the fact. Is it necessary to add that the attribution of such an act to the Divinity would be incompatible with justice, reason, and goodness? God having to create souls, He could only create them alike, give to all the same fate. Equality is found only in the original nothingness from which they sprang; it is in evolution that the differentiation of souls and intelligences begins. God would commit grave injustice in the repartition of souls if, of two souls having not as yet lived and therefore still innocent, He should project one, de- prived of intelligence, into a place of misery, over- whelming it with moral and physical blemishes, while placing the other in a fair environment, endowing it with all the gifts of heart and mind. The hypothesis that the soul is contained in the seed would explain no more clearly how similar bodies produce souls so different. This hypothesis is inspired by the point of view that conceives energy as contained in matter, which is folly. A much more probable theory is that nature has conformed in this, as in everything, to the method which she constant]^ 200 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD follows, that of slow evolution. The soul develops itself under the influence of a creative will by which it is vivified. As solar magnetism attracts vegeta- tion, as the earth tosses up its fountain, so the in- dividual feels a will awaken within himself under the influence of the Divine Sun, and, like a flower on prepared soil, he germinates in the organic realm, as soon as the summit of evolution has been attained. There is thus a perfect order in a perfect justice. In the beginning, ignorance, with freedom for ex- perimentation. As soon as the will awakens, the being puts for his first effort, which he repeats in his successive lives. Free and without experience, he stumbles at each step. God is never an accomplice to his errors. God's light shines eternally upon consciousness. He who will not look toward this light, is liable to long gropings, and sooner or later, will recognize his error. In a word, we have come from nothing, but we all have the same course to follow, the same obstacles to overcome, the same kingdom to attain. Man dies and the child is reborn with the burden of his past, he is the author of his destiny; hence the great inequalities which appear from the moment of birth. But with each step that man takes toward truth, he feels himself more secure; there is always a little more light, a little more experience. He is the author of himself, the living negative of his own actions. The very quality of the astral body which surrounds him must bear the stamp of his failure, or manifest his greatness. If he generates hate, he develops Hell within himself, and can never attain Heaven until he completely understands the splendid solidarity which should unite the human family. CHAPTER X SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dream'd of in our philosophy." SHAKESPEARE. IT is indispensable that a distinction be made be- tween the psychic faculties with which we may ex- periment, and the phenomena of the Beyond, which we may observe only when they are produced spon- taneously. We often confuse the two things. A certain scholar who has seen different subjects taken from a hospital automatically trace letters and strokes, flatters himself that he has found the key to mechanical handwriting. When he puts his sub- ject to sleep, transmits to him the suggestion to write in his dream, giving to this suggestion the form of a spiritual communication, and then claims to have demonstrated the great error of the spirit- ualists, he is, without realizing it, proving by this very experiment, that a person may write under the influence of another person, and that it is precisely in this that transmission from the Beyond in the form of the spirit message consists. It is very true that he has produced a fallacious communication, but he would have been able by the same procedure to have given an authentic message. This is why we have given the history of these 201 202 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD phenomena by citing them at first from the experi- mental side only, and by showing that all the phenomena wrongly characterized as supernatural may be produced, not at will, but under such condi- tions as enable us to determine their origin. It has been proved that they all may have their source in the thought of a living person. Theoretically, we have no difference to make be- tween the suggestion that a living person is capable of exercising and that which, by hypothesis, could be exercised by a disincarnated spirit. Thus the most rudimentary manifestation from the Beyond is produced by means of knocks. It should not be concluded that every medium whose presence makes it possible to obtain these remark- able phenomena, may send you a message. This is, however, the first objection that the skeptics make; they say: "I have seen Eusapia produce her knocks. There are no spirits in that." In truth, experiment tends simply to put beyond a doubt the reality of a fact in which we have hitherto refused to believe a fact which proves the existence of a method of physiology previously un- suspected. These knocks which seem to proceed from material agents having all the attributes of compactness, coming from invisible agents represent something which is absolutely beyond natural physics and inexplicable to us. We have perhaps not noted this sufficiently, and the disdain which certain ex- perimental scholars affect before a fact which is not linked to any known experience is not always sincere. The old magnetisers have observed these facts. The clairvoyant de Prevort, reports the Baron de Potet, without interference, knocked at the house SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 203 of whoever she wished and said that it was not with her soul, but with her spirit and by the medium of the air that she thus knocked. She asserted that outside of the soul and intelligence there was a nervous force, and that this remains the envelope of the soul when the soul leaves the body. 1 The great physicist, William Crookes, who sub- jected all the manifestation of spirit matter to a most rigorous examination, speaks in these terms of raps: ". . . With the full knowledge of the numerous theories which have been brought forward, especially in America, to explain these sounds, I have tested them in every imaginable manner, until it was ab- solutely impossible for me to escape the conviction that they were indeed real, and that they were not produced by fraud or by mechanical means." An important question claims our attention here. Are these movements and these noises governed by an intelligence? From the beginning of my research, I have insisted that the power which produced these phenomena was not merely a blind force but that an intelligence directed it, or at least was associated with it. Thus the noises of which I have just spoken, were repeated a determined number of times; they became loud or soft at my demand; they resounded in different places. By a code of certain fixed signs which I had arranged in advance, the spirit answered my questions and the messages were given with more or less exactitude. i Baron de Potet, Traitt complet du Magnttitme, 5th Edi- tion, p. 240. 204 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD The intelligence which governs these phenomena is sometimes greatly inferior to that of the medium and oftentimes in direct opposition to her desires. When a determination has been made to perform an act which does not appear rational, I have seen most urgent messages sent out to cause the medium to reconsider. This intelligence is sometimes of such a character that one is forced to believe that it does not emanate from any of those who are present. 1 Around these real mediums who lend themselves to an unlimited control, as did D. D. Home, Kate Fox or Eusapia Paladino, every searcher may, be it by observation or by control, succeed in establishing the truth con- cerning the fact which to him seemed improbable. But it is necessary to push the investigation much further in order to attest that, if these facts occur outside of all intervention or, rather, as says the clairvoyant of Prevort, if they are produced by the mind of the medium, there are many other cases for which this explanation is insufficient, cases in which the same effects are produced even in the absence of any clairvoyant. Such are those which take place spontaneously and which co-incide always with death. The repetition of these sounds which aim to at- tract attention and which cease as soon as that end is attained, permits us to believe that there is a relation of cause and effect between death and the audible manifestation. This is the more convincing since so many of these cases have occurred as the result of a pact or particular promise, and the manifestation has been received by those interested, iNew Experiments on Psychic Force, by William Crookes. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 205 even before they knew of the death of the mani- festant. Raps are an example of the simplest and most frequent manifestation. We shall not multiply the examples and witnesses, in which literature abounds. We shall merely cite a few as types, choosing preferably those which have the advantage of being related by well-known persons. 1 DEAR MASTER AND FRIEND: It was in 1871 I was at the age when one gathers the little flowers of the field, as you gather the stars of the infinite; but during this time of passionate youth, I wrote an article which earned for me an imprisonment of several years. Everything comes to him, who has not learned to wait. I was in the prison of St. Peter at Marseilles. There I found a certain Gaston Cremieux condemned to death. I loved him very much, because we had had the same dreams and fallen upon the same hard reality. In our prison, at the hour of outdoor exercise, it often happened that we discussed the question of God and the immortal soul. One day, when several comrades had proclaimed themselves atheists and materialists with a vehemence out of the ordinary, I reminded them, on receiving a sign from Cremieux, that it was reprehensible on their part to speak thus in the presence of a prisoner condemned to death who believed in God and in the immortality of the soul. The condemned man said to me smilingly: "Thank you, my friend, when they shoot me, I will give you the proof of that immortality by appearing to you in your cell." i L'lnconnu, p. 76. 206 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD On the morning of the 3rd of November, at dawn, I was suddenly aroused by a series of sharp little knocks, given on my table. I turned around, the sound ceased, and I went to sleep. A few minutes later the same noise recommenced. I jumped from my bed and planted myself half awake, before the table; the noise continued. This was repeated two or three times, always under the same conditions, in the same manner. On awakening each morning, it was my habit to go, with the connivance of a friendly keeper, to the cell of Gaston Cremieux. . . . Alas, there were seals on the door and I saw, by looking through the peep hole, that the prisoner was no longer there. I had hardly made this discovery when the keeper threw himself into my arms. "We shot him this morning at daybreak, but he died courageously." This is my story. I am sending it to you just as it came from my pen. I was in my normal state, I had no suspicion of the execution and I heard perfectly the series of warnings. Here is the naked truth. CLOVIS HUGUES. Without doubt several isolated cases of this sort would not be of great value, but a multitude of analogous cases, and even more complicated ones, always coinciding with death, do not permit us to doubt that we here find ourselves in the presence of some of the greatest mysteries of the Beyond. The clairvoyant of Prevort said also, that the nervous spirit may produce other effects. "Souls," she said, "may not only speak, but are capable of producing sounds such as sighs, rustling of silk or rattling of paper, knocks on the wall and on the furniture, sounds of sand, of pebbles or of the shuf- fling of shoes on the ground; they are capable of SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 207 moving objects, be they ever so heavy, of opening and closing doors." "The nearer dissolution," said she, "the stronger and the louder are the sounds that they are capable of making, by the aid of air, or by their nervous spirit, and in truth, we find again all these forms of manifestations in the spontaneous phenomena." If a disincarnated spirit may arrange physical conditions which permit him to knock on material things, an intelligent being may be able to secure a better effect than knocking, for instance, by sound- ing a note on the piano. We have examples of this sort. L'Inconnu, page 108: About a year and a half ago, my father, a visit- ing cousin and my sister, were conversing in the dining-room. These three persons were in the room alone, when suddenly they heard the sound of the piano in the drawing-room. Much perplexed my sister took the lamp, went to the drawing-room, saw perfectly the keys rising and falling, and heard sounds. 1 She returned and recounted what she had seen. The others at first laughed at her story, thinking that a mouse was at the bottom of the affair; but as my sister was possessed of excellent eyesight and was not superstitious in the least, they thought it very strange. Moreover a week later a letter com- ing from New York, announced to us, the death of an old uncle who lived in that city. But more ex- traordinary still, three days after the arrival of the letter, the piano again began to play and, as on the first occasion, an announcement of death came to us a week later, that of my aunt, this time. i M. Victorien Sardou has reported to me an analogous fact. Note by Flammarion. 208 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD My uncle and aunt were a devoted couple, who had possessed a great attachment for each other, for their parents, and for the Juras, their place of origin. The piano never again played by itself. The wit- nesses of this scene will testify to you of the matter whenever you may wish it. We live in the country near Neufchatel and I assure you that we are not neurasthenics. EDWARD PARIS, Painter, Neufchatel, Switzerland. It should be noticed that all these spontaneous facts which occur unexpectedly to families, do not differ from the series of effects produced by mediums. A clairvoyant such as Eusapia may strike a note upon a piano, sound the chords of an instrument, turn a key at a distance, open and close the door of a wardrobe, under the best conditions of control, but these effects have only been obtained at a short distance, the dynamic power and the invisible organ residing in the physical body from which they were exteriorized. But the complete exteriorization on the part of a deceased man makes his field of action unlimited in space; it seems however to be limited in time to the few days which follow death. I acknowledge that I do not attach any value to the objection of certain scholars, who, having ex- amined the case of Eusapia, declared that there is no spirit therein. From the moment that a physical effect is pro- duced, outside of a physical organism, we are in the presence of a supernatural manifestation. Eusapia shows us a normal power of the Beyond, acting SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 209 under conditions but little known. It is she herself who acts ; but it is understood that a being from the other world produces the phenomenon when there is no longer a medium here to whom we may at- tribute it. This is exactly the case with manifestation after death. It is said that in these special cases the witnesses of the manifestations served as mediums; perhaps in a certain measure, but it cannot be ex- plained why these chance mediums can act outside of the zone where other mediums work; why they are not limited to the field of action immediately surrounding the organism in space; and why the exception occurs only when the phenomena is unex- pected and coincides with death. The proof of identity is often strengthened by the fact that the raps recall certain marked character- istics of the deceased, whether because of a rhythm or because they are heard in a place to which he was accustomed during his life, or better still, because there has been an understanding in advance. Finally, the mediums have also the faculty of dis- placing objects, of opening or shutting doors, of drawing bolts. We find many of these performances in spontaneous manifestations, always in concord- ance with a death, or with the dying moments, the sick person at that time being conscious of mani- festing himself at a distance. The clairvoyancy of the dying is instructive. It reveals to us that they are the undoubted agents of the phenomenon whose effect greatly exceeds the action which a medium could produce only at a short distance. 210 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD We could discuss this subject at greater length, for we have many examples, but our space is limited. Let us remember only that there is a distinction to be made concerning a phenomenon produced by an entity from the other world. The raps and move- ments of objects manifest themselves in a distinctive manner, according to the cases, and the distinction is the one we have made on the subject of telepathic transmissions. A simple animistic power coming from a medium will produce phenomena that may be repeated at will, or almost so; a foreign intervention may occur merely by accident. We do not generally understand the role of the double in manifestations, we do not take into ac- count its existence as if its reality were not proven; but, not only is the idea of the double a necessary hypothesis to the explanation of the majority of facts, but it also is manifested spontaneously. The spontaneous doubling of the human body is a phenomenon of great importance, for in it is found an unexpected confirmation of the possibility of ma- terialized apparitions. This phenomenon has been observed under numerous circumstances, and very wrongly classified among visual hallucinations, in as much as it has nothing in common with telepathy. In truth it is objective. Upon certain occasions photography has recorded it even when its visibility had not as yet attracted attention, though at other times it has been possible to observe the double of a person by his side. Take, for example, the case of Mrs. Stone: 1 1 Telepathic Hallucinations, 4th ed., p. 278. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 211 "I have been seen three times where I was not actually present, 1 and each time by different persons. The first time, it was my sister-in-law who saw me. She was at my bedside one night after the birth of my child. Looking at the bed where I was asleep, she saw me distinctly and saw also my double. She saw on one hand my natural body and on the other my spiritualized image. She closed her eyes several times, but on reopening them, continued to see the same apparition. In a short time the vision dis- appeared. She thought it was a premonition of death for me, and she did not speak of it to me until several months later." The presence of the double is so real that it is usually seen by all those present, as in the following Count D. and the sentries claime'd to have seen one night the Empress of Russia, seated on her throne in full court costume, while she was asleep. The lady-in-waiting in attendance, also convinced of the vision, went to awaken her. The Empress herself came into the throne room and saw her own image. She ordered a sentinel to make a fire and the image then disappeared. The Empress died three months afterwards. But the most clearly defined case is that of Emily Sagee, which had a number of witnesses and which has become a classic. It concerns a teacher whose double was seen many times by all the pupils of a 'The narrator means that the image was seen in one spot while she was nearby in another. 'Quoted in Materialized Apparitions, by Gabriel Delanne, Vol. I, p. 892. 12 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD boarding school at Newelcke in Russia. We cite certain passages from Aksakof : * "Among the teachers there was a French woman, Mile. E. Sagee, born at Dijon. A few weeks after her appearance in the house strange rumors began to be circulated concerning her among the pupils. When one girl would say that she saw her in a certain part of the establishment, another would affirm that she had met her elsewhere at the same moment. But things soon became complicated and took on a character which excluded all possibility of imagination or mistake. One day, Emilie Sagee was giving a lesson to thirteen pupils, among whom was Mile, de Gudenstubbe, and to make her demon- stration clearer Mile. Sagee wrote the passage to be explained, upon the board. The pupils saw sud- denly and to their great terror, two mesdemoiselles one beside the other. They resembled each other exactly and were making the same gestures. Yet the real person had a piece of chalk in her hand and was writing, while her double had none but was imitating the motions that the real Mile. Sagee was making as she wrote. "From this time on, there was great excitement in the school, so much the more as all the young girls, without exception, had seen the second form and agreed perfectly in their description of the phenome- non. Shortly after this one of the pupils, Mile. Antoinette de Wrangel, obtained permission to go with several companions to a party in the neighbor- hood. She was completing her toilet, when Mile. Sagee with her usual kindness and habitual willing- ness to assist, came to help her button up the back of her dress. The young girl, turning, perceived in the mirror, two Sagees at work upon her. She 1 Animisme et Spiritisms, p. 498. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 213 was so frightened at this sudden appearance that she fainted. "Some months passed and similar phenomena con- tinued to occur. At dinner, from time to time, the teacher's double was seen standing behind her chair imitating her movements while the real Mile. Sagee was eating, but the double used neither knife nor fork nor did she take any food into her hands. "Pupils present at the meals and servants in at- tendance have attested the truth of this phenomenon. "Nevertheless it did not always happen that the double imitated the movements of the real person. Sometimes when the latter would arise from her chair, the double would remain seated. "One day all the pupils, to the number of forty- two, were assembled in the same room busy with embroidery. It was a large room on the ground floor of the principal building. It had four glass doors, which opened on to a large garden belonging to the school. In the middle of this room was a long table around which the different classes gathered for their needlework. That day the young pupils were all seated about the table and could see very well what was going on in the garden. As they worked they saw Mile. Sagee busy picking flowers not far from the house; it was one of her favorite pastimes. "At the upper end of the table another teacher was seated in a chair of green morocco. She was in charge of the class. At a given moment this lady left the room and the chair remained empty. But only for a short time, for the young girls saw in it, quite suddenly, the form of Mile. Sagee. Imme- diately they looked into the garden and saw her still there picking flowers, but her movements were slower now, like those of a person overcome by sleep or exhausted by fatigue. They looked again at the S14 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD chair where the double was seated, silent and impas- sive, but with such an appearance of reality that if they had not seen Mile. Sagee and if that they had not known that it was impossible for her to have entered the room unperceived, they would have be- lieved it was she herself. But certain that they were not dealing with a real person, and more or less accustomed to these strange manifestations, two of the most venturesome pupils approached the chair and touching the apparition thought they felt a slight resistance, such as that occasioned by contact with any light material such as gauze or crepe. One even dared to pass in front of the chair and to go through part of the form, despite which, the appari- tion remained visible for a little while longer, then gradually faded away. The children observed at that instant that Mile. Sagee was again gathering flowers with her customary vivacity. The forty-two pupils described this phenomenon in exactly the same This proves that in the state of visible ex- teriorization the double has something corporeal; it is the beginning of materialization. If Mile. Sagee had given herself up to experimen- tation an occult entity might have manifested itself by taking possession of her double in order to produce certain phenomena at a distance, and might even have modeled the double into its own image and likeness. The best mediums are those who do not look for manifestations, but reveal themselves spon- taneously, and are surprised by intelligent opera- tions which they cannot attribute to themselves. The following story of Victorin Joncieres is taken from a book by Camille Flammarion : * . l Lei Forcet Naturelles Inconnuet, 1897. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 215 "I was leaving the exhibition room of our Con- servatory after having given an examination to a certain class in piano, when I was accosted by a lady who asked my opinion in regard to her daughter, as to whether I thought that she should enter upon an artistic career. In the course of a rather long conversation in which I promised to go and listen to the young artist, I found that I was engaged to make a call that very evening upon one of their friends, a high official of the State, and to be present at a spiritualistic seance. That even- ing the master of the house received me with extreme cordiality and conducted me into a large room with bare walls. A few people were gathered there, among them his wife and a professor of Physics at the Lycee in all about ten people. In the middle of the room was an enormous table of oak on which were placed paper, a pencil and a small harmonica, a bell and a lighted lamp. "The spirit has just announced to me," said he, "that he will come at 10:00 P.M. We have therefore a good hour ahead of us. I shall profit by it and read you some of the minutes of our seances of the past year." "He put his watch on the table it pointed to five minutes after nine o'clock and covered it with a handkerchief. For one hour, he read the most un- believable tales. I was impatient however to see something. Suddenly a violent cracking came from the table. Mr. X took off the handkerchief which covered the watch it was exactly ten o'clock. "Spirits, are you there?" he said. No one touched the table around which at his recommendation we formed a circle in which each held the other by the hand. A louder rap sounded. The young niece put her two small fingers on the edge of the table and asked us to imitate her. And this table of enormous weight raised itself above our heads in such a mannejc 216 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD that we were obliged to stand in order to follow it in its ascent. It balanced itself a few minutes in space, then descended slowly to the floor where it settled without noise. Mr. X brought out next a large drawing on glass. He placed it upon the table and put beside it a glass of water, a box of colors and a paint brush. He then extinguished the lamp, relighting it three minutes later. The design, still wet, was colored in two tones, in yellow and blue, without a single stroke of the brush having passed beyond the traced lines." It is certainly unfortunate that mediums such as these, often revealed in upper class families, are ab- solutely lost for close study and thorough ob- servation. A society woman does not care to subject herself to systematic and disparaging attacks of profes- sionals, as that class has no other weapon save in- sult. It is also very unfortunate that many persons with weak powers of clairvoyance and of small education have the strongest mania for acting as mediums and exhibiting their powers. Especially in the practice of automatic handwrit- ing this passion rages. Yet the abuse of table seances on account of their extreme simplicity be- cause everyone is able to obtain results is also much to be regretted. It is because too great haste is made to enter into conversation with the simple animistic forces that so many sittings, badly di- rected, end only in confusion. Therefore once again must the distinction be made between that which comes from without and that which comes from within; between the true and the fraudulent message. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 217 It is absolutely impossible to confound certain messages which come from a known source with the automatic handwriting of a medium who deceives himself. If it is a matter of raps, or of automatism of the motive centers of writing or speaking, there are always three explanations to offer for these phe- nomena: 1st, Automatism due to the organic dis- orders of a medium whose organs are mechanically relaxed; 2nd, Automatism caused by the thought of a distant agent; 3rd, Automatism behind which an intelligence reveals itself, which can be neither that of the medium, nor that of any other living person. It is this third case which constitutes the decisive proof of the Beyond. But the second has a decisive experimental value, since it confutes the skeptics who would maintain against every evidence, that all manifestations come from the medium. We have already cited the case of Mrs. Kirby for the table, that of Sophie Swoboda for writing, and the experi- mental counter-proof that was made with Mr. and Mrs. Newnham. It has been proved by these cases that the cellular activity of the motive organs may be released by the thought of an outsider; that is to say, the mus- cular agent is sensitive to telepathic action, and it is through this that the phenomena of the table, of handwriting and of all other automatic manifesta- tions, are related to the general phenomenon which produces these manifestations. A remark which may surprise people who have never reflected upon it is that messages of a high order, those which are pre- sented under telepathic forms such as inspiration, 218 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD presentiments, prophetic visions, are necessarily too vague and uncertain to constitute a proof. The popular phenomena, however, which are derived in- directly from inferior activities, those which manifest themselves under an exterior material form such as raps, automatisms, etc., are the only ones which appear on the physical plane in a definite form and confirmed by a certain degree of evidence. This is why the proof of survival, or simply the proof of the existence of supernormal intelligences can be obtained only in this way, a way so often ridi- culed. This explains sufficiently all the difficulties and obscurities that one meets in the practice of psychic study. A great number of manifestations reveal many things which could not be within the knowledge of the medium nor within the consciousness of any person in the gathering. It is therefore necessary to suppose that a supernormal intelligence, an en- tity from the Beyond, a witness of the revealed fact, has set in motion, according to the ordinary process, the automatism which operates the transmission of the message. This supposed agent may act more or less after the manner of an unconscious mirror. Example : * "Lady Mabel Howard was particularly gifted in automatic handwriting. One day some friends asked her if she could designate, by the aid of her powers as a medium, the location of some stolen jewels. Lady Mabel took a pen and wrote automatically, 'In the river below the bridge t Tebay.' There had been no reason to suspect i Proceedings of the Society for Psychic Research, Vol. IX, p. 44. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 219 this, and the knowledge of the experimenters was limited to the account of the theft in various news- papers. It developed, however, that the thieves had just been arrested at Tebay, but this circumstance was utterly unknown at the time of the communica- tion. The jewels were recovered a month later under the bridge." Camille Flammarion gives a series of facts of the same class, communicated by Mr. Castex-Des- granges. 1 Since they are of great interest, we sug- gest that the reader have recourse to them, as we are unable here to quote fully. To these communi- cations which reveal things outside the conscious- ness of those present it would be well to add those which concern special consciousness, and which the medium would find it impossible to draw from him- self. Thus a series of experiments conducted by Mr. J. P. Barkas with Madame d'Esperance as a medium, shows us that the motive agent, tracing automatically, was able to answer the most difficult scientific questions, dealing with heat, light, elec- tricity and magnetism, etc. 2 Even though these answers to difficult problems appear quite satis- factory, it behooves us to notice that the criticism would be of little value if it failed to discuss the intrinsic worth of the solutions proposed. The in- habitants from the other world are like us beings in the process of evolution; they do not at all possess the infallibility which by hypothesis is at- tributed to them by the incredulous. The value of 1 Les Forces Naturelles Inconnues, 1907, pp. 513-521. 2 Consult the Accounts given in Psychical Review, 878 Vol. I, p. 215; Animism and Spiritism, Aksakof p. 882. In Shadow- land. Mme. d'Esperance, p. 138. 220 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD the phenomenon consists wholly in the fact that an educated man may converse with the foreign entity on subjects concerning which the medium has no idea whatsoever. It is certain, moreover, that we communicate with a strange being every time that the medium carries on a conversation in a language of which he knows nothing, for there is no possible way of considering this fact as a pathological case. The cases are numerous in which testimony has been advanced showing that a medium has written or spoken in a foreign tongue. The most celebrated case, one whose authenticity is irreproachable, appeared in Spiritual Tracts, by Judge Edmunds, New York, 1858. Tract No. 6, Speaking in many Tongues. "The judge," says Aksakof, "en joyed during his time considerable fame in the United States for the high offices which he filled with distinction, first as President of the Senate, later as a member of the Court of Appeals." Judge Edmunds who had passed two years among the Indians could converse with his daughter in several little known dialects. But many other wit- nesses testify that his daughter gave communica- tion in the Indian language and also in Spanish, French, Polish and Greek. She spoke Italian, Portu- gese, Hungarian, Latin and other languages. We cite one of the best known episodes, as related by Aksakof. 1 "One evening when about ten people were gath- ered at my house, a certain Mr. Green, an artist of this city, came accompanied by a man whom he i Animitm and Spiritism, ed. 1895, p. 868. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 221 presented to us under the name of Mr. Evangelides, of Greece. "The latter spoke English imperfectly but ex- pressed himself very accurately in his native tongue. A personality which addressed him in English soon manifested itself and communicated to him a large number of facts, proving conclusively that the com- municant was one of his friends who had died in Greece several years before, but a friend of whose existence none of us had ever heard. "From time to time my daughter uttered a phrase or a few words in Greek, which suggested to Mr. Evangelides to ask the spirit if he himself could speak Greek. The conversation was then continued partly in Greek and partly in English by my daughter, and entirely in Greek by M. Evangelides. My daughter did not always understand what Evangelides said in Greek, but it happened fre- quently that she understood what the two were say- ing to each other, though it was in Greek. At times the emotion of Mr. Evangelides was so great that it attracted the attention of those present. We asked him the reason for it but he always evaded a response. At the end of the seance, however, he volunteered to us that he had never before been a witness of any spiritual manifestations, and that in the course of the conversation he had made various experiments in order to study this species of phe- nomena. These experiments consisted in touching on various subjects which my daughter could not possibly know, and then in changing the theme ab- ruptly by passing from every-day questions to ques- tions political, philosophical or otherwise. "In answer to my interrogations he assured us that the spirit understood Greek and spoke it cor- rectly." 222 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD It is not impossible that the telepathic sense gives a medium an intuition of the idea which passes through the brain of his interlocutor, even though he speaks in a foreign tongue; but this would never explain the automatic action considered in its active and unconscious form which, in space, is a motive suggestion exercised upon the vocal organs. Writing in a foreign language by a medium is another motive action which proves in an absolute manner the intervention of an outside influence. The natural explanation would be, that he who speaks a language, must have learned it, and those who reject this evidence invoke the exaltation of the intellect, or at least the hypothetical faculties of the somnambulistic consciousness; they do not per- ceive that they are having recourse to the marvelous and that they are explaining all by a miracle. We could cite many examples, but it suffices to know that these proofs exist and that the motive action coming from an exterior source is capable of affecting all the organs. There are, moreover, the cases of visual hand- writing which must be classed among the sensory hallucinations as visual images. Many mediums see certain graphic signs which they implicitly copy. These are reminiscent of many of the early experi- ments upon the transmission of thought, the process of which is slow and painful. It would seem rational to us to approach these facts through known examples of such transmission among living beings. The possibility of this has been experimentally demonstrated by Messrs. Guthrie, Rawson, Schmoll, Lombroso and others. A woman about thirty-five years old introduced SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 223 to Mr. Richet by Fred. Myers, who did not know Greek in fact, she was quite ignorant even of the alphabet was able to write several pages in that language, deciphering with difficulty from a text of different printed works of which she seemed to have only a mental vision. 1 Mr. Richet declares this fact inexplicable. Ac- cording to him, any explanation is absurd. "Be- cause these explanations are absurd," said he, "is that a reason for rejecting the facts? It would be a grave error to try, despite everything, to give a rational explanation to all the facts we do not understand." And without doubt, it seems to me, the nearness of relationship which we deduct from these cases is a tentative move toward a rational explanation. I do not see that there is any absurdity in calling a cat a cat, and a human spirit a human spirit. In attributing similar effects to similar causes we do not make a distinction between an incarnate human being and a disembodied human being. But for Mr. Richet spirit is a convenient invention. In the same manner he declares, as savages explain hail, rain, and flashes of lightning by the actions of genii or devils, we would explain the incomprehensible phenomena of the spirits. We see in this interpre- tation a slight lack of coherence. For my part I declare without hesitation that if hail, rain and lightning seemed to me to be spiritual manifesta- tions and if I obtained a certain fixed result in praying for hail and rain, then indeed, I would i A long study upon this interesting case is found in Annals of Psychic Science, June, 1905, Article of Chas. Richet entitled enoglossy. 224 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD attribute this remarkable effect to an intelligent cause. The agent who gives these communications does, in a certain measure, what he is asked to do. Often he himself dictates the conditions of the at- tempted experiment, indicates whether we should take a pen and seat ourselves at a table or remain passive in awaiting a visual image, an auditory image, or a motive suggestion. And yet the ob- jectors say : "There is nothing spiritual in all that, it is merely an unknown force." That may be, but this force possesses all the attributes of person- ality. When the agent who is the first cause of all these phenomena is suddenly forced to an action, it is often found to be the spirit of a living person who was capable of transmitting the image or the movement. This occurs, apparently, without the seeming participation of the human body, so that it is not absurd to say that the latter counts for nothing in the transmission of the thought; that this, in the case of deceased persons, is due to the animistic body, substantial and capable of ex- teriorization, which has our endowments. This we have shown by numbers of phenomena already cited. We have then the proof of an intervention from the Beyond each time that it becomes impossible to attribute to a living being an act which is beyond the organic possibilities of the medium, or of his acquired knowledge. Moreover, the intelligent agent varies his methods. Thus the automatic relaxation of the motive centers of a medium which could be explained by enthusiasm or impulse, cannot be ex- plained in the same way if the agent produces the writing by movements which his organism has never produced before, as, for instance, is the case with SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 225 the board. We know that there is a manner of spelling with a stationary board supplied with an arrow, which some unknown influence forces to journey towards different letters of the alphabet. The arms go through a new kind of gymnastics for which they have not been prepared by any previous training. It often happens that two persons may produce a phenomenon which separately they could not attain. It is evident then that if the movement were due to the awakening of certain unconscious activities, the union of the two pairs of hands would only impede the action. It is just the contrary which happens when this association is possible; harmony shows itself spon- taneously and the phenomenon occurs with a pre- cision which surprises all those present. It even happens that the board supplied with a pencil may write directly as on the paper. The following is an example which we find in the works of Sir Oliver Lodge. Two young girls were writing with a board, in the presence of some ten people. This board would not work with any other combination except that of the two girls. These young ladies, who were very well educated, conceived the idea of ask- ing a spirit who maintained that he had been first in a competition at the University, to give them the formula of an equation which should represent a curve forming the outline of a heart, which was the shape of the board of which they were making use. mi n ^ sin 1 The answer: R= Oliver Lodge says that Mr. Sharpe, of Bourne- mouth, was kind enough to trace an exact copy of i Human Survival, by Sir Oliver Lodge. 226 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD this curve and that this figure was a good repre- sentation of the ordinary form of a board. He adds, "It is naturally more difficult to invent an equation complying with a given curve, which the writing did in this instance than to trace a curve when the equation has already been given." Another complication which, even with allowance for enthusiasm or exaltation, surpasses the powers of man, organic as well as intellectual, is that pro- duced by several messages obtained simultaneously. For example, see in Aksakof (p. 381) what Dr. Wolfe says of the celebrated medium Mansfield, who wrote with both hands at once, and talked at the same time. Mr. Crookes, in his Researches on the Phenomena of Spiritualism (p. 167), testifies to a similar fact: "In my presence several phenomena were pro- duced at the same tune, and the medium was not aware of all of them. I saw Miss Fox write auto- matically a communication for one of the spectators, while a second communication on another subject was given to her by a different person by means of the alphabet and by raps. During this time she was talking with a third person without the slight- est embarrassment upon a third and quite different subject. In order to understand better to what point certain intelligent occult influences may take possession of physical organs and vary their action, even passing from one person to another, one must know of the curative effects which are sometimes pro- duced, which give every evidence of having been directed by spiritual beings." The following report is borrowed from the work of F. Myers, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death: SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 227 Curative action exercised upon Mrs. X.: "The author of the report, says Myers, is a doctor occupying an important scientific position in con- tinental Europe; we know of him because we cor- responded with him through a mutual friend. He enjoyed a European reputation as a scholar. He has discussed the case with his wife and with Dr. X, and has seen the account which we are now publish- ing in abbreviated form. "We are obliged to disguise the identity of Dr. X and even to withhold the name of his country, as the strangeness of the facts which we are to relate, would be regarded as absolutely in bad taste if presented to his present scientific following. Dr. Z, who makes his appearance here under the un- certain character of a magnetic spirit, is also a scholar of European fame and a personal friend of Dr. X. Mrs. X one dark night sprained her right foot. Fifteen days after our return to M. her foot was almost well, but shortly afterward I fell ill and Mrs. X became greatly fatigued in caring for me. During the whole winter, Mrs. X was obliged to keep to her room, her foot in plaster or treated with dressings of silicate. Finally this treatment was abandoned and there was a return to the simple bandage and the use of crutches. The circulation of the right foot caused an inflammation of the tissues and we were seriously alarmed. At this time several friends interested Mrs. X in certain attested feats of spiritism, of which up to this time she had but very vague ideas. The guiding spirit of a group of which one of my friends was a member proposed the spiritual intervention of Dr. Z. They settled on a day for a visit of the doctor to Mrs. X. Mrs. X was informed of the time set. Occupied by other things we completely forgot the date of the 228 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD meeting. But, on the said day, April, 1891, Dr. Z announced himself by raps on the table. Only then did we remember the promised interview. I asked the opinion of Dr. Z on the nature of the malady of Mrs X's foot and the knocks answered, through the medium of Mrs. the word, 'tuberculosis,' signifying that there were tuberculosis in the arti- culations. Of that in truth, there had been some symptoms. A few days later Dr. Z returned at our request. He promised to undertake the cure of Mrs. X's foot, warning us however that there would never be a complete cure, that the invalid would remain incapable of long walks and would suffer, more or less from this foot, whenever the weather was damp a fact which subsequent events con- firmed. On the 17th of August, 1891, the invalid felt for the first time an unusual sensation accom- panied by a tingling in her feet and a sense of heaviness in the members of her body, especially her feet. This sensation rapidly spread to the rest of her body, and when it reached her arms and hands a rotary movement was visible. This phenomenon appeared every evening after dinner as soon as she would seat herself in her easy chair. This was her condition when the family went to the country of R. At this place the manifestation occurred twice a day, lasting fifteen to twenty minutes. Ordinarily the invalid would place her two hands upon a table. The sensation of being magnetized was felt first in her feet, in which this rotatory movement began, and which then would gradually pass to the upper part of the body. The invalid grew capable of walking without great difficulty though every volun- tary movement of her foot was painful. Yet when this movement was produced by occult powers she did not feel pain. A new phenomenon developed. One day Mrs X felt herself pulled from her chair SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 229 and forced to stand upright. Her feet and her entire body responded to a series of gymnastics, whose movements were regular and rhythmical, as in an artistic dance. This occurred often in the succeeding days, and at the close of each attack the duration of which was one or two hours, the move- ments became very violent. Mrs. X had never had the simplest of gymnastic exercises, and these move- ments would have been exceedingly painful and ex- hausting, if she had been forced to do them of her own will. However, she was neither fatigued nor out of breath at the end of each exercise. Every- thing seemed to be progressing satisfactorily and Dr. Z announced that his care was no longer in- dispensable. But the next day an accident made matters much worse. Mrs. X, desirous of taking something from her wardrobe, mounted with great precaution upon a low chair, the four feet offering a sure, solid basis; just as she was getting down, the chair was violently pulled from under her and thrown some distance away. Mrs. X fell on her weak foot, and all the treatment had to begin again. In a later letter, Dr. Z explains that according to the story of Mrs. X this movement seemed due to an invisible force and not to a natural fall from the chair. Mrs. X was accustomed to bandage her foot herself every day. One day she was stupefied to feel her arms seized by an occult power, and directed by a force outside herself. From that day on the bandages were adjusted according to all the rules of art and with a perfection that would have done honor to the most skillful surgeon in the world. Though Mrs. X was very skillful herself, she had never had the slightest opportunity to acquire the least acquaintance with surgery, but nevertheless the bandages were irreproachable in their exactitude and everyone admired her skill. When Mrs. X 230 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD wished to renew the bandages she put them all rolled upon the table within reach of her hands and me- chanically her hand took the bandages, which seemed to assist more perfectly the occult operator. "Mrs. X was accustomed to dressing her own hair. One morning she laughingly said, 'A court hair dresser ought to arrange my hair, my arms are so tired.' Her hands immediately began to move automatically without any fatigue to her arms, which seemed sustained, and the result was a coiffure so intricate and beautiful that it was entirely differ- ent from anything she had habitually worn. The phenomena hitherto cited have been purely sub- jective. 1 "In those which follow, 'however, there is some- thing objective. When we are treated by a cele- brated physician, as remarkable as Dr. Z, it is but natural that we should wish to have our friends or neighbors enjoy the same privilege. An official in my department had been suffering from pleurisy for several years; he was forced to remain in bed, and suffered frequently from severe headaches. He consulted Dr. Z who prescribed an internal treat- ment, which to my great surprise consisted in cer- tain little pills at regular intervals which this dis- tinguished surgeon had never been known to use during his lifetime. He also had Mrs. X use mes- meric gestures of ten or fifteen minutes' duration. It is remarkable that though these passes were made with great violence, Mrs. X's hand never touched the face of the invalid, always remaining a milli- meter away from it. Of herself Mrs. X could i We respect the text of the report, but we acknowledge that we do not understand how one can qualify as subjective, phenomena whose cause is visibly outside of the subject and of which the latter has neither knowledge nor direction. In any case he comes to a decision prematurely and designedly upon the question under discussion. SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 231 never have been able to direct her movements with such a degree of precision. Another time a servant A, whose husband was sick in a hospital, came to see Mrs. X and with tears in her eyes, told her that she had lost all hope of his recovery. Mrs. X asked Dr. Z to take him under his care, which he promised to do, and added that he would make the patient unaware of his presence. The next day A, going to the hospital, found her husband very much dejected. 'Listen,' said he. 'To my general miserable state, there is now an added nervous con- dition. I was shaken all through the night, my arms and legs were constantly moving absolutely beyond my control.' A smiled at this, and told her husband that Dr. Z had undertaken his cure and that he would soon be better. The invalid was restored to his normal state and is very well, as well as is possible with an incurable pulmonary af- fection. "As to Mrs. X's foot, I have the firm conviction that it was cured by those rhythmic movements which were imposed upon her by occult magnetism. "You ask me if these agents belong to the human race. I answer, 'Yes,' provisionally, unless we pre- fer to admit that beyond our world there exists another world which, differing from humanity's world, yet knows and studies it as we study nature's realms a world in which for amusement, or from other motive, someone plays the role of our departed friends." I am far from exhausting the series of spon- taneous facts which are attributed to occult causes. I say nothing of haunted houses where, nevertheless, the whole series of facts observed through mediums may be spontaneously produced, because I wished 232 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD to limit myself to the simple facts which tend to prove the survival of departed spirits. If I seem to have made an arbitrary division in treating as a separate group, a series of mani- festations of very different kinds, it is because I have felt that these spontaneous facts, observed in all places and at different times, attested by reliable and intelligent witnesses, could not but help to con- vince those who find it difficult to accept proof of experimental seances. They are the only facts which are produced spontaneously with or without a medium and which are of such a nature as to silence all objection. For myself, I maintain that these facts establish beyond the shade of a doubt that there is in us a second body, which is not the soul but which serves as a substratum to a mysterious force. This William Crookes calls the psychic force. This second body and the element of which it is composed does not arise from what we know as the real physical, but is capable of experimentation. Finally, we have stated empirically that this body obeys thought, is capable of movement, and is malleable; that it is able to exteriorize itself and even to make itself material. In its normal state, this body explains all the manifestations of organic life and produces no other exterior manifestations ; but in some con- ditions, as yet insufficiently studied, it is easy to assert that this body is capable of exteriorization, and also that influence of every nature may act upon it and replace momentarily the norntal in- fluence that we commonly call personal action. CHAPTER XI MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND "For my part, I have no doubt whatsoever on the subject. I have had definite proof that the beings who communicate with us are really those whom they declare themselves to be." Sia OLIVER LODGE, Speech, November 22, 1914. WHERE is the Beyond? It is generally admitted by psychicists that the Beyond is not a place; mental life is not limited by space. The Beyond is a mental condition capable of crossing the present known limit of the relation of beings. Beyond? We are always there, even at present. We are there in such a manner, however, that from the physical plane we cannot communicate with our fellow beings without making for ourselves a new material means of communication. In the Beyond, we do not experience physical sensations, but we live through thoughts and feelings. It follows that in the present incorporation, we are not in a condition to communicate. Between you and me, relations cannot be established except by the aid of a subterfuge, which has been created by us through the medium of verbal images or words, which moreover would have remained abstract rep- resentations had it not been possible to clothe them with a material body for the physical plane. These images have taken on in handwriting a 233 234 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD visible body which presents itself to our visual facul- ties, and in the word which addresses itself, more particularly, tc the auditive organs. Thus sounds and written signs are the material symbols which affect the material organs, and through them reach the intellectual plane; and these conventional signs give you no absolute certainty in communicating with me since with my lips and with a pen, I can lie without your even suspecting it, because between you and me, no really direct relation may exist. The "ego" sees into the Beyond; it exists inde- pendently of the physical body, just as my thought exists by itself independent of those sounds by which I express it and of the material characters which I trace upon paper. We shall now approach the great question "Is there in the Beyond something other than ourselves ; are there manifestations from the Beyond which come from strange beings?" These manifestations, if they exist, are outside our- selves; they may produce themselves spontaneously and not otherwise. William Stead, the distinguished journalist and English spiritist whose heroic death occurred on the Titanic, defined his position in re- lation to the Beyond in the Review of January 15, 1909. He used a comparison from the recent ap- plication of wireless telegraphy. He compared the tomb to the ocean before Columbus had discovered America; then, by an ingenious supposition, Mr. Stead pictured the explorer and those who followed him, as incapable of navigating from the West to the East. No one then would have been able to make the return voyage. All Europe would there- fore have concluded the non-existence of another continent. Nevertheless American civilization would MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 235 have progressed along with that of the Old World. European navigators would have persisted in ex- ploring and, one day, one of them would have ar- rived at a flourishing republic on the other side of the water. What would he do then? He would hasten to use every resource of modern science to inform the mother country; he would try, let us say, wireless telegraphy, at that time quite imper- fect; thus in Europe they would have received dis- torted, obscure, possibly incomprehensible messages. After many deceptive messages, they would finally be able to decipher a somewhat clearer one: From Captain Smith (South Sea) to the Lloyds, in London. "Everybody alive, safe and sound. Discovery New World, filled with descendants of Columbus and his companions." But this message might be accredited to any European Marconi station; it would be necessary that a certain number of opinionated, incredulous searchers after the truth should undertake to follow up this statement and verify it by experiment, be- fore the people would be convinced and admit the possibility of a phenomenon at first seemingly un- believable. But gradually better equipped receiving stations would be established and the solution of practically the same difficulties which confront us when we try to establish with actual certainty the existence of another life after death, would have been achieved. 1 Our position is well defined by this comparison. The Beyond manifests itself spontaneously; if we i See the article in full in the Revue Scientifique et Morale du Spiritisme, March, 1909, p. 529. 236 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD reply with indifference, skepticism, or ridicule to the efforts which it makes, all effort will cease. The difficulty consists in the preliminary establishment of a receiving station. We must at least accept this hypothesis in order that we may have corre- spondence with the Beyond; we must pay attention to the slightest indication of a wireless telegraphy which may perhaps be sent us from beyond the tomb. And in order to be in condition to receive these hypothetical messages, we must also, so far as possible, perfect the receiving stations. These re- ceivers are the "sensitives"; in themselves they are but useless aids to lucidity. Even though they ob- tain the most valuable communications, of which they themselves are but the simple narrators, these communications would be worthless were they not attested by sufficient witnesses. The ideal receiving post would be that which could be established with a clairvoyant who was at the same time sensitive to these influences and capable of being put in touch with the Beyond in a somnambulistic state. It would be necessary, moreover, that this person be capable of great self-sacrifice, that he or she be surrounded by experimentalists thoroughly ac- quainted with such phenomena, well informed upon the history of physical science, not skeptical and working under the aforesaid hypothesis. There should be a resident medium in a locality where it would be possible to have many witnesses supplied with pecuniary resources and a material organiza- tion, making possible the maintenance of a society for study. This, the laws of France render impos- 1 sible, for a society may not possess any localities whose revenue permits it to supply funds for ex- MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 237 periments or to be used to contribute to the living expenses of its adherents. Fortunately, conditions are better in England. To her is the honor and the glory of having in- stituted a receiving station, where it was possible to obtain the first authentic message from the Beyond. It is great good fortune for us that the Society of Physical Research not only claimed such men as F. H. Myers, Hodgson and Oliver Lodge, who stand for absolute scientific guarantee, but that it found in the person of Mrs. Piper an exceptional medium whose enthusiasm and devotion is above all praise. . The case of Mrs. Piper studied with perseverance by these men who accept, provisionally and as hypothetical, the personalities of those who pre- sented themselves as the spirits of deceased relatives has given such results that all the consultants had the sensation of the real presence of the relatives and their friends. All the scholars who have fol- lowed these experiments closely had ended by ac- cepting this interpretation. In trying to explain the facts of clairvoyancy by the reading of thought and by subconsciousness, one attempts the impos- sible. If the sub-consciousness of Miss Smith has created seven or eight personalities of distinct characters, each one having its own language, its particular handwriting, and its characteristic orthography, Mrs. Piper could have produced several hundreds of personalities equally intelligent; that is to say, hundreds of memories which would make no confusion among themselves. I cannot, for want of space, dwell longer upon the obscurities of her early attempts. 1 They were gropings and i See the book by Mr. Sage, Mrs. Piper. 238 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD do not affirm in the least the value of the results since obtained. The trances of Mrs. Piper written by Mr. F. M. Myers, 1 may be divided into three phases: 1. When the principal directing being was Dr. Phinuit and when he made almost exclusive use of the vocal organs. 2. W^hen the communications were obtained in a state of trance, principally through automatic writ- ing and under the special surveillance of the being known as George Pelham. Nevertheless, Dr. Phinuit often communicated during this period, 1892-1894. 3. When the direction belonged to Imperator, Doctor Rector, and some others, and when the com- munications took place generally in writing, and sometimes by word. This last phase commenced in 1897, it continues to the present, and promises to continue hereafter. After the obscurities and confusions of the begin- ning the intervention of other spirits was a detri- ment to the phenomena. It seemed that it would be necessary to guard against these importunities, by a telephonic cabinet directed from the outside. Many mysterious entities concentrated to overcome these disturbing influences. Conditions were thus better established, the mysterious correspondents could express themselves more securely in influencing the motive centers of the medium. This agrees with many other experiments. It often happens that persons absolutely ignorant of spiritualism making a test merely for amusement see a being who puts the question to them, "Why are i Human Personality and itf Survival of Bodily Death, 1908, VoL VII, p. 257. MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 239 you here?" and the answer, "I do not know, I have seen a light, I was urged and I am here." Thus spirits think in words, think in writing; and if no disturbing influence comes to destroy the effect, the physiological mechanism of a medium would be apt to reveal itself automatically, under this simple excitation. In the case where two hands write at once, it is because there is harmony between the two spirits, though each one thinks in a different organ. Sometimes there is a struggle, a pause, or incoherence when a medium resists. This struggle, however, only seems real, we find it at the beginning of all mediumship ; but in the case of Mrs. Piper the order was not re-established until after the inter- vention of George Pelham. George Pelham, pseudonym, is one of the most interesting personalities of all those who tried to manifest themselves through the intermediary of Mrs. Piper. He was a young man, well brought up, who had casually studied the case of Mrs. Piper in company with Dr. Hodgson, secretary of the American Branch of the Society. He died, the vic- tim of an accident, and several weeks after his death communications obtained through the mediation of Mrs. Piper seemed to come from him* It was in 1892 that Dr. Phinuit, an enigmatic entity, who up to that time had commanded as a master, was chased from his domain, or at least forced to share it with a newcomer, who established his identity beyond a doubt. George Pelham, who had but recently died, seeme 1 to have kept intact his recollections, although in the course of the experiments, he declared "I am with- drawing from you more each day." For seven years 240 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD these experiments have lasted, for it was four weeks after George Pelham died, from an accident while riding, that his intervention revealed the value of the communication. George Pelham was confronted with an audience of thirty or more old friends, his father, and his mother. He recognized each one and called them all by name, maintaining the same attitude that in life he was accustomed to observe towards them. Every time a newcomer was presented to the medium he was introduced under a false name. It was neces- sary therefore, to possess great credulity in order to attribute this limitless power of divination to Mrs. Piper. Each consultant always asked very intimate ques- tions, even very futile details. G. Pelham was always able to give exact details, as for example, to indicate the special features of a porch, a swing, or a chicken coop of a country house. And these descriptions all conform to reality. Mr. Pelham, the father, received from the mouth of the spirit all he could have expected to hear from his living son. The sixteenth volume of the Annals of the So- ciety is especially dedicated to the seances of James Hyslop, a person of considerable importance in the State of New York. Prof. Hyslop was presented to Mrs. Piper at a most favorable time, that is, at a time when she was evolving, coming out from that early period of obscurity which characterized her beginning. His introduction took place, like all the others, later on and under the name of Mr. Smith, so as not to give the medium any indication of the personality of her MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 241 visitor. The professor had taken the precaution to mask himself in the carriage before approaching Mrs. Piper's house. He waited until she went into a trance before he spoke in her presence; despite all of these precautions the professor's father called him by name and talked to him, giving proofs of his identity and seeming to be well acquainted with the most intimate history of the family. He gave his son an exposition of the religious doctrines in which he had believed during his life. "Only some supernormal power," adds Professor Hyslop, "which one accorded to the second personality of Mrs. Piper, could have been able to reconstruct so per- fectly the moral personality of my deceased parents. But to admit it, would carry me too far into the improbable. I prefer to believe that it is my parents themselves to whom I have spoken, it is much simpler." At the last seance Prof. Hyslop threw off his intentional reserve. He neglected the precautionary measures which up to that time he had always taken ; he wished to see if this change of attitude would influence the communicant as it would affect a friend in the flesh. "The result," said Hyslop, "was that I conversed with my disincarnated father with as much facility as if I had talked with my living father over the telephone. We understood one an- other perfectly by half phrases and half words, as in an ordinary conversation." It would seem really true that in the best of these seances the voices from beyond the tomb have made themselves understood, and have answered successfully all the required con- ditions. Mrs. Piper acted under the strange, intelligent, 242 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD and conscious influence of the intimate life of the consultants. Telepathy does not explain at all this conduct of intelligent beings who make themselves manifest. Thus the latent desires and memories of the consultants are without effect on the communica- tions; sometimes even the spirits themselves make those confusions, which only they could cause; here is an example. 1 James Hyslop evoked the memory of a certain Mr. Cooper, whom he wished to recall to his father's memory. The latter began to speak quite volubly of Mr. Cooper but not at all in the manner, ex- pected by the consultant. The misunderstanding was later clarified. All that the father had reported was exact but related to another Joseph Cooper, the sire, with whom the deceased had been on very intimate terms, a fact of which the son was ignorant. The father later remembered the one whom his son had evoked, Samuel Cooper, and quickly cited the particular fact that they were wishing to recall to memory. Reading of thoughts cannot explain this and similar incidents. All this took place in a con- versation, but Mrs. Piper also wrote mechanically, and this method became the usual medium of George Pelham. It is on this occasion that we may attest, once more, the simultaneous action of motive agents. Thus, while Phinuit spoke by word of mouth to the medium, G. Pelham wrote on a totally different sub- ject, using her right hand, while a third interlocutor could have, with her left hand, answered a third consultant. We have cited the testimony of Hyslop but there are many others; the reader who wishes to consult the annals of the Society can find there Hodgson's reports, of which the following is the conclusion : i See these incidents in Mr. Sage's Mrs. Piper, p. 201. MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 243 "In the first communications, G. Pelham positively undertook the task of showing to the whole assembly that he could prove the continuation of his own existence and those of other communicants. This was in conformity with a promise he had made to me about two years before his death, saying that if he died before I did and if he still lived, he would give himself over entirely to establishing this truth. By the persistency of his effort to surmount all difficulties of communication in every possible manner, by his zeal to serve as introducer in a seance, by the good advice he gave to me as an experimenter and to the others present, he has dis- played, as far as I am able to judge this complex and still obscure problem, all the order and per- severance which characterized Pelham in his life. "To sum up, the manifestations of G. Pelham have not been of a changing or spasmodic nature, they were those of a continued and surviving personality remaining distinctly himself during the course o' several years and keeping his independent character, whether the friends of G. Pelham were present or not." x Further on, Hodgson concludes: "At present, I believe without the slightest doubt that the communicants referred to in the preceding pages are indeed those of whom I spoke, the real personalities that they claimed to be; that they have survived the change that we call death, and that they have directly communicated with us, these so- called living ones, by the intermediary of the organ- ism of Mrs. Piper, when in a trance." i Human Personality and its Survival, 1903, VoL II, p. 248. 344 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD We wish to make known, and we cannot emphasize it too strongly, that these communications are sur- rounded by the highest scientific guarantees. Hodg- son, from whom we quote these conclusions, was an eminent doctor, with the degree Ph.D. and LL.D. While quite young he had interested himself in psychic studies with the real aim of discovering their fraudulency and of exposing them. He made a visit to India to prove the unreality of the pretended phenomena attributed to the Yoghis and to the Fakirs, in which he succeeded beyond the fraction of a doubt. Later, he came to the United States thinking to achieve the same result with Mrs. Piper. But there the discoverer of fraud was himself con- quered, he became an assiduous member of the So- ciety for Psychic Research and did not hesitate to make sincere profession of his faith. We read in the Annals of Psychic Sciences of the year 1906, page 64, that the Reverend Dr. Minot J. Savage, who was intimately acquainted with Dr. Hodgson, considered him one of the most scrupulous, scientific, and skeptical investigators that he had ever known. He said of him that after having fought against the conviction for a number of years, he felt finally obliged to make known to the whole world that he was forced by the facts to believe that those whom we call dead are really the living; that we may communicate with them, that he was ab- solutely certain of having communicated with them and with several of their departed friends. He estab- lished thus, in an absolutely scientific manner, the identity of several of the intelligences who were manifested through Mrs. Piper. It is opportune to mention here the definite proof MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 245 of identity Dr. Minot Savage obtained through his own son. This case, reported by himself, is given by Ernest Bozzano, Annals of Psychic Research of the year 1906, page 534. "In the course of one of these seances with Mrs. Piper, a personality manifested itself, declaring that he was my son. I omit the description of the in- cident, in order to limit myself to the following episode: At the time of his death, my son, occupied, with a medical student and another old friend, a room on Joy Street, Boston. Formerly they lived on Beacon Street, but he had moved from there after my last visit, so I had never entered his room on Joy Street, had never even heard him speak of it, and could have had no idea of anything that he would say about it. He said to me, 'Papa,' and he said it with a real expression of anxiety, 'I wish you would go immediately into the room that I occupied, look into my drawer, and you will find there a pile of loose papers. There are some of them that I wish you would put aside, and destroy without de- lay.' Having said this, he did not seem to be satis- fied until I formally promised him to do as he wished. It must be remembered that Mrs. Piper was in a trance while her hand wrote this interview. She had not known my son personally, he did not remember ever having seen her. Moreover this allusion to the loose papers that for some unknown reason he de- sired so keenly should be destroyed, is of a nature to exceed the limits of all possible conjecture, even in case Mrs. Piper had have been awake. Though I was on very intimate terms with my son, such a Idemand seemed to me inexplicable; I was at a loss to discover the reason for it, and did not even try to do so. Nevertheless I went to the room in which he had lived. I found the papers, and had no sooner 246 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD begun to read them than I understood his reasons and the great importance which he attached to the promise I had made. He had thrown these papers into the drawer trusting to their safety, and I real- ized he would not wish to have them made public at any price. It is surely not I who would violate his confidence by revealing their contents. I shall limit myself to saying that my son's anxiety was completely justified. Perhaps someone wiser than I will be able to explain to me how Mrs. Piper could know such a secret." In this narration, we find the revelation of some- thing of a very intimate nature, evidently unknown to any living person. Consequently, telepathy is not a sufficient explanation and the intervention of the son of Minot Savage seems very certain. The Society of Research is not the only organiza- tion that has obtained like results, but they possess an abundant reserve of classic documents in which one may have faith because they have always re- jected, after investigation, those narrations of sub- jects in which a certain disagreement of witnesses was revealed. Nevertheless, outside of this Society, we have a rich documentation of facts surrounded by experi- mental guarantees. Thus the following case, for which a whole year of research was necessary before the identity of the communicant was established. It happened at the office of the commercial House of Mr. Fidler at Goteborg, Sweden. In 1890 Mme. d'Esperance was writing a business letter, when on her letter, already begun, appeared the name of Sven Strbmberg. As it was a very bungled letter Mme. d'Esperance laid the sheet aside, MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 247 but in the evening she mentioned the fact in her daily report and thus the copy of the letter, stuck away in the office, was later found and served to gratify to the date April 3, 1890. No one knew Sven Stromberg and the incident would have remained unnoticed if two very prominent psychicists had not happened, two months later, to become cognizant of similar experiences. These gentleman proposed to attempt several trials of spiritual photography. From the first seance a di- recting being, Walter, intervened and said, "There is a man here named Stromberg who wishes to an- nounce to his family that he is dead." Mr. Fidler then asked if he were the same one who had written his name upon a piece of paper at his office. They said yes, adding that his family lived in Jemtland, but that he, Stromberg, had died in America, at New Stockholm. Meanwhile, it happened that Aksakof and Bout- lerow, while preparing their photographic experi- ments, made a simple attempt to focus their photo- graphic apparatus when, to her great surprise, Mme. d'Esperance felt her hand touched; and as soon as the light of the magnesium flared up, a wit- ness declared that he had seen a man standing behind her. Walter then stated that it was the aforesaid Stromberg, who died at New Stockholm, March 31st. The plate, quickly developed, confirmed the state- ment of the apparition. Yet no one knew Sven Stromberg; and in the hope of obtaining an ex- planation or some light upon the matter, the photo- graph was sent to Jemtland in order to discover if a man having that appearance had emigrated to 248 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD America in 1886. On his part, Mr. Fidler had written to Canada to the Swedish consul. The response from Jemtland was negative, as the curate of the parish of Stroem, where the photograph had been sent, answered that he knew only a certain Sven Ersson, who had married and had gone to America about that period. On the other hand, they did not know New Stockholm, and for a moment it was decided to abandon the whole affair. But all was cleared up when news was received from America. Delayed information furnished by the consul to an- other correspondent of Mr. Fidler established the fact that Sven Ersson, of the parish of Stroem in Jemtland, Sweden, had married Sarah Kaiser and had emigrated to Canada, where he took the name of Stromberg. He had bought a strip of land in a county called New Stockholm, had three children and had died March 31, 1890. This is the resume of the facts in their essential elements. It is always possible to invent a fantastic theory to explain similar communications by the mystery of subcon- sciousness, but it is really far easier to believe the communicants; as Prof. Hyslop said, it is simpler. As may be seen, we have had recourse by prefer- ence, to the experiments where the prevailing condi- tions conformed to scientific exigencies, but it is not necessary to believe that the representatives of science alone are able to register these phenomena. On the contrary, their methods and skepticism act at variance with the manifestations, even preventing them sometimes from appearing. Successful mani- festations are obtained in the inner shrine of spirit- ualistic seances, but the testimony of scholars is MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 249 valuable in order to confirm whether the spiritualists have seen clearly and observed carefully. We might fill a whole book, dwelling simply upon spiritual documentation, for spirits as well as our- selves are capable of discerning the true and the false. For this ability, judgment, an upright spirit and a pure intention suffice. Are we asked for proofs of identity which may be produced in a spiritual seance? Read then, the following case which we have borrowed from the scholarly study of M. Gabriel Delanne. The case of Abbe Grimand. 1 On the 13th of January 1899, twelve persons were gathered at the house of Mr. David, Place Des Corps Saints (Square of Holy Bodies), number 9, at Avignon, for their weekly spiritualistic seance. After a moment of reflection, Mme. Gallas (in a state of trance) turned on her side towards Abbe Grimand and spoke to him in the sign language of the deaf-mutes. The mimic speech was so rapid, that the spirit was urged to communicate more slowly, which he did. As a precaution, the im- portance of which is evident, Abbe Grimand an- nounced the letters as they were transmitted by the medium. Since each isolated letter signified nothing, it was impossible, even though we desired, to inter- pret the thought of the spirit. It was only at the end of the communication, that the medium under- stood, after the reading had been made by one of the members of the group, charged with its transcrip- tion. Moreover, the medium had employed a double method, one which announced every letter of a word 1 Gabriel Delanne, Recherches sur la MMiwnnitt, Paris, 1902. 250 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD ' so as to indicate its orthography the only visible form for the eyes and another which emphasized articulation without paying any attention to the graphic form. This method of which M. Fourcade is the inventor, is in use only at the institution for deaf mutes at Avignon. These details were furnished by Abbe Grimand, director and founder of the estab- lishment. The communication relating to the great philanthropic work to which Abbe Grimand has de- voted himself, was signed brother Fourcade, deceased at Caen. None of the audience, with the exception of the venerable ecclesiastic had known or could possibly know the author of this communication, or his method; though he had spent some time at Avignon thirty years ago. The members of the group present at this seance signed their names to this communication Toursier, retired director of the Bank of France, Roussel, Domenach, David, Bre- mand, Cannel, and their wives. To the minutes is affixed the following attestation: I, the undersigned, Grimand, priest, director and founder of the Institution for infirmities of speech, for deaf mutes, for stammerers, and abnormal chil- dren, at Avignon, testify to the absolute accuracy of all that is reported here above. I owe it to truth to say that I was far from expecting such a manifesta- tion, of which I understand the great importance from the spiritualistic point of view, of which I am a faithful and fervent adept and which I do not hesi- tate to proclaim publicly. Avignon, April 17, 1899. Signed, GRIMAND, Priest. We must recognize that a communication obtained MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 251 by means of conventional signs which the deceased alone knew gives us the best proofs of identity that one could possibly wish. These proofs are often made by writing. In vain do we say that we must disdain these automatic messages; we know that they can be produced through automatism and we also know what dual personalities are capable of. But neither autom- atism, nor second or dual personality, could invent details relative to a family, reveal things of which the deceased alone could be aware, nor write in a language that the medium did not know. And these fictitious creations could not possibly imitate the writing of a person whom we wished to identify. We have already seen a person from the beyond, presented under the name of Elvira, give proofs of her purer and real existence by producing in a child's brain the suggestion of a certain dream. Here is an example of certain manifestations that the same being produced by writing. As before, it is Dr. Ermacora who gives the account. 1 Padua, June 17, 1892. Case of Doctor Ermacora. Miss Marie Manzini, living here at Padua, has been experimenting for several months with auto- matic writing. She is habitually influenced by a personality who announces herself under the name of Elvira. April 21, 1892, Mile. Maria Manzini received a letter from Venice announcing that her cousin Maria i Taken from the book by F. Myers, Human Personality, No. 858. 252 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD Alzetta was seriously ill with consumption. For a long time Mile. Manzini had not heard from this relative; she merely knew that she had remained a widow without any children, that she had remarried, and now had two children by her second husband. The evening of the same day she wrote in my presence under the control of Elvira. She asked the following questions : "Can you tell me whether my cousin is seriously ill?" A. After a moment's interval : "She has very little time to live, she is leaving three lonely children." Q. "Did you know that for the first time when I was told of her illness?" A. "No, I knew it for a long time, but I did not wish to trouble Marie" (the medium). Q. "In this case, why were you so long in an- swering?" A. "I went to see how she was, to be able to give you the precise details." The next day Mile. Manzini, writing to Venice, offered to visit the invalid. On the 24th she received a reply expressing a desire that she come and saying that the invalid was in the hospital. She wrote again to ask for the authorized visiting days. Before the return of this answer, Mile. Manzini wrote in my presence (April 28th), under the influence of Elvira and we put the following questions : Q. "How is the invalid at Venice? Do you know why the reply to my letter has not arrived? Do you know the visiting days at the hospital?" A. "The condition of the invalid remains the same. Not much hope. She has undergone a serious opera- tion; therein lies the danger. To-morrow morning Maria will receive a letter. Visitors such as she are received every day at the hospital." MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 253 Q. "Do you mean, like her, relatives of the in- valid?" A. "No, but like her, those that come from a distance." We could not see what connection there could be between an illness of the lungs and a surgical opera- tion, and we questioned the medium. A. "She is tubercular. But the operation was necessitated because of the birth of her last child." "In brief," the doctor concluded, "the automatic writ- ing informed us of facts entirely unknown to our ordinary consciousness; in particular, the fact that the invalid had three children, and that she had undergone an operation. "We are far from being able to invoice, as an explanation here, the aid of clairvoyance or telepathy. "Indeed, an automatic message explains the mat- ter most simply, and this explanation seems to be the true one." DR. G. We also obtain proofs of high value in the cases where certain manifestants, absolutely unknown to the persons present, reveal the circumstances of their death and give details which are confirmed by in- vestigation. We have already quoted the case of Stromberg. The Society of Psychical Studies at Nancy 1 has published examples of this. They are ordinarily poor devils killed by accidents or suicide who give all necessary information for identification. Bozzano relates in the Annals of Psychic Sciences (year 1909, page 222), the case of a young girl dead from poison, a case of such a nature as to i See the Revue Scientifique et Morale du Spiritiame, year 1907, Jan., Feb., March numbers. 254 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD convince the most skeptical. But on this matter the Society of Psychical Research is equally well supplied with documents; the reader will find there an example of the greatest value one whose worth is recognized by all serious investigators in the case of Blanche Abercrombie 1 attested by Myers. We shall not end this chapter without returning to the subject of phantoms. In treating material- izations we have seen the difficulties arising from this problem. If the apparitions are difficult to produce, they are even more difficult to control, so much so, that not only are we able to contest the reality of the ghost, but even to wonder if it will ever be possible to identify or to prove its existence. There are several cases where the proof of iden- tity has been obtained. In these the manifestation was produced with enough intensity and returned often enough to convince the experimenters that they were really in the presence of an intelligent entity, having all the appearances of the deceased. We have first the celebrated case of the wife of Mr. Livermore, Estelle; we find the following in the work of Aksakoif, upon the subject of her written communications : "There were about a hundred messages received on the cards which Mr. Livermore marked and brought himself. They were all written, not by the medium (of whom Mr. Livermore held the hands during the whole seance), but directly by the hand of Estelle and sometimes, even under the eyes of Mr. Liver- more, by the spiritual light created ad hoc, a light which permitted him to recognize undeniably the 'See Proceedings 8. P. R. Vol. XI, p. 96 and continuing, or Human Personality, Vol. II, p. 231. MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 255 hand and even the whole face of the one who wrote. The writing in these communicaions was a perfect reproduction of the handwriting of the living Mrs. Livermore. "We find therein a double proof of identity verified not only by the writing's being in every way similar to that of the deceased, but also couched in a language unknown to the medium. The case is ex- tremely important and presents to our eyes an ab- solute proof of identity." x Another woman received a similar proof from a deceased friend, through the mediumship of Eglin- ton. This friend was an Austrian, and the cor- respondence was in English. Once, however, she received a German letter written in Gothic char- acters very beautifully formed and in a faultless style. This German letter, Aksakoff remarked, pre- sents the same value as the messages of Estelle writ- ten in French. Some quite similar cases are met with that are supported by testimony not all of which has the same value, but we know enough to conclude that the phenomenon is possible and that the proof has been made. We have the good fortune to possess a decisive case; it is that of a phantom appearing spontane- ously in a haunted house, and seen by a lady who could enter into communication with him because of her natural gifts of clairvoyancy. By her as intermediary the Society of Psychical Research was able to undertake an investigation which leaves no doubt as to the objective reality nor the personal identity of the apparition. This proof rested upon i Aksakoff, Animism and Spiritism, pp. 547-648. 256 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD the knowledge of terrestial affairs on the part of a deceased spirit. Case of Mrs. Claughton. The case was investigated by F. W. H. Myers, who knew the names of all the persons implicated in this intimate little story, and who is willing to attest the reality of all the controlled facts As it is a question of a rather recent affair and the persons are well-known, the narrator has been obliged to omit certain details. Here is an abstract of my notes taken from the Proceedings. 1 Mrs. Claughton is a clairvoyant, of whom there are several in her family, but she had never tried to develop her gifts. She was a widow, having two children, accustomed to good society and known to every one as a vivacious, intelligent, and active woman, too much occupied with her own affairs to concern herself with those of others. In 1893 she lived at No. 6 Blake Street, in a house belonging to Mrs. Appleby, daughter of Mrs. Blackburn, who had died there after three days of residence. The house was haunted. Mrs. Claughton had been there three days when she saw a ghost which she described as answering to the appearance of Mrs. Blackburn, who had died in the house and who was absolutely unknown to Mrs. Claughton. There are material proofs that she twice saw this ghost, who spoke at length about facts unknown to Mrs. Claughton. Some facts were immediately veri- fied and were recognized as exact. The other de- tails furnished her concerned a delicate mission i Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. XI, p. 647. MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 257 which Mrs. Claughton was ordered to undertake. She was given the description of a village of which she had never heard (Myers designates the name as Meresby). She was also given the names and descriptions of several people whom she was to visit there; and the various incidents of the journey she was to take were accurately foretold. Mrs. Claughton then went to Meresby, where she found everything conforming to the information which had been furnished her. She was told that she would receive supplementary instructions, and she received them. She was instructed to make cer- tain communications to the survivors, which she did ; and if the intimate revelations could not be verified, at least material proofs were produced that she had effectively made the journey and the visits conform- ing to her recital of them. She had no other motive in going to Meresby than to perform the mission which had been confided to her by the apparition in the middle of the night. She, moreover, had no other motive than this in visiting people who were total strangers to her. She was to accomplish we know not what secret ceremony in a church of the place, and that in the middle of the night. She took the necessary steps to obtain authority for this visit (Myers knew the motives of the secrets guarded by the interested sur- vivors and feels that their silence is fully justified). There is no plausible hypothesis to explain why this woman undertook this voyage and made these efforts under the domination of an insane suggestion, since the visit was for her only a source of trouble and weariness. Moreover, in order to obey the injunc- tion of the ghost she had left a sick child at home. It should be noted that at the first word spoken by Mrs. Blackburn's ghost Mrs. Claughton had an- swered, asking her: 258 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD "Am I dreaming or is this a reality?" and that Mrs. Blackburn had replied: "If you doubt, look up the date of my marriage." And she gave the exact date of her marriage, which had been celebrated in India. The next night the ghost of Mrs. Blackburn ap- peared a second time, accompanied by a man who, declaring that he was buried in the cemetery of Meresby, gave the name of George Howard. Since Mrs. Claughton did not know him at all, he indicated the dates of his marriage and of his death, asking her to verify them in the parish register. He begged her, after this verification, to come to the church during the night, to lock herself in there alone, and to wait near the tomb of Richard Hart, in the south- east corner of the lower side. He also gave the latter's age and the date of his decease, which could be verified by the registers. He asked her to go to his grave and pick some white roses which she would find there and to send them to Dr. Ferrier with her railroad ticket. In order that she might do this she was told, her railroad ticket would not be requested upon her arrival. She was to receive the assistance of a dark man named Joseph Wright ; and his wife, in whose home she would stay, would tell her she had a child buried in the same cemetery. It was only later that she was to learn the end of the story whose secret was guarded. These revela- tions were made while two ghosts were present, but a third personage appeared whose name Mrs. Claughton cannot reveal. He was standing at the right of Mrs. Blackburn and seemed greatly troubled, hiding his face in his hands. At the end Mrs. Claughton fainted, but not before she had recourse to a signal for help which after the first apparition had been placed under her pillow. Dr. Ferrier, the administrator of the haunted house, verified the date MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 259 of Mrs. Blackburn's marriage, and discovered at the Post Office that Meresby was really a little town in Suffolk County. Mrs. Claughton then left Blake Street and came to London on Friday, where she dreamed that she had come to the village on a holi- day and was wandering from place to place looking for a lodging. Saturday she went to the depot and entered the lunch room asking the employee there to call her some time before the departure of the train; but the latter, by mistake, looked for her in the waiting room, so that she missed her train. She visited the British Museum about 3:50 in the after- noon. 1 At Meresby she had great difficulty in find- ing lodgings and finally sought refuge in the home of Joseph Wright, who was found to be the sac- ristan. On Sunday Mrs. Wright told her of her darling little girl buried in the cemetery. Mrs. Claughton attended the Sunday services, going im- mediately afterwards to the sacristy in order to verify the dates on the registers. Joseph Wright had known George Howard and recognized her description of the apparition. He then conducted Mrs. Claughton to the tombs of Richard Hart and George Howard, on the latter of which there was no grave stone but three mounds surrounded by a grating, twined with white roses. There she picked a white rose for Dr. Ferrier as she had been asked and visited the vicar, who showed himself quite un- sympathetic to her undertaking. After luncheon she visited, in company with Mrs. Wright, a park which surrounded the country house of George Howard. She then awaited the coming of night, wondering whether she would have the courage to fulfill her mission to the end. Joseph Wright took i The importance of these minute details is that they were verified in every particular. This is a method of the Society for Psychical Research from which it never deviates. 260 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD her to the church about one o'clock in the morning; they examined the nave to make sure there was no one there. Finally alone and without a light, at twenty minutes after one, she kept vigil over the tomb of Richard Hart, and without experiencing any fear. Here she received a communication, of which she is forbidden to speak. It was the con- tinuation of the story previously given to her on Blake Street. She was asked to take a second white rose from the tomb of Richard Hart and to give it to his daughter, whose home at Hart Hall was indicated to her. She was further asked to notice how charming was this daughter and how much she resembled her father. At a quarter of two in the morning Joseph Wright released Mrs. Claughton from the church. She gathered a rose for Miss Howard and returned to the house and went to bed, where she slept very well for the first time since Mrs. Blackburn had appeared to her. These are the facts. It is useless to try to at- tribute the phenomenon to an overexcited imagina- tion or to clairvoyancy ; and it is equally impossible to explain by imposture a drama so complex, and one which required the collaboration of so many honest people all unknown to one another. Mrs. Claughton was not the only one who saw the phantom. Before Mrs. Claughton's arrival Mrs. Blackburn's own daughter had seen her, but up to this point it would have been possible to doubt. The unique fact in this story is that all its elements have been verified and the witnesses are irrefutable. Yet, even so, there are people who reject a fact for the simple reason that it is unbelievable. Aside from the consideration that experience shows us every day that it is absurd to reject a fact upon that ground alone, the absence of critical sense is MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 261 to be deplored. The intellectual laziness of the ma- jority of people who reject phenomena because they do not care to take the trouble to understand them, is equally to be regretted. The voluntary in- credulity of skeptics is much more reprehensible than credulity. CHAPTER XII MORS JANUA VITAE Le vie est un degr6 de l'chelle des mondes Que nous devons franchir pour arriver ailleurs. LAMABTINE. I HAVE finished. I pause of necessity before this incomplete synthesis in which as yet I have not spoken of death. It is in death that the immortal soul triumphs, affirming its survival by frequent manifestations, the importance of which we can measure without awaiting the verdict of science. With the proofs which they contain in germ, each one of our chapters would suffice to prove an after- life. But if telepathy between living persons brings to us an experimental proof of the existence of the spiritual principle, it is in death that the continuity of this principle is confirmed. If the knocks, and other physical manifestations, present a certain in- terest, it is only in their connection with death that we find an answer to the enigma. If the apparitions of the living may enter into the domain of scientific inquiry, it will no longer be permissible to deny the apparitions of the dead on the popular grounds that they are impossible. Recall here the conclusion of F. W. Myers. I now advance a bold proposition, for I predict that be- cause of this new data a hundred years hence all reasonable men will believe in the Resurrection of 262 MORS JANUA VITAE 263 Christ ; while without this new fact no sensible person could then any longer possibly believe in it. 1 One may find the proof of immortality in the study of death and the dying, on the condition that observation be extended well beyond the patho- logical phenomenon which has nothing to do with the fact of survival. A mystery which closely touches that of after-life, the mystery of the fecundation of bees, was solved by a blind man. As Fra^ois Huber studied the life of the bees by weighing the observations of those who possessed the organ of which he was deprived ; so we, the blind ones of "the Beyond," may utilize the faculties of those who have the gift of clairvoyancy of that Beyond. I know that we must limit ourselves, nor trust to all clairvoyancy, but no one could easily persuade me that the clairvoyant de Prevort was a dissimulator, and that Madame d'Esperance was not absolutely sincere. I believe, moreover, that somnambulistic lucidity, when it is not distorted by the interpreta- tion of the medium, is a useful source of documenta- tion. Since this faculty has already been employed to diagnose the internal lesions of the human body, one may also use it to observe the various changes of the separation of the psychic body when it is on the point of leaving its mortal shell. Here is a curious experiment related by the Figaro in 1891. It is an account of a Belgian artist, Wiertz, whom Doctor D , his friend, put to sleep on the day of the execution of a murderer. After having experienced and described the suffer- ings of the condemned man, he cried out: "I am flying in space, but am I dead? Is everything fin- i Frederick W. Myers, Human Personality, Vol. II, p. 287. 264 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD ished? No, suffering may not continue always," etc. Erny, who recalled this fact, added: "Cannot this experiment be renewed, but in a less sinister fashion? Let us arrange to have a subject in a profound state of hypnosis in the room of a dying person, if the relatives will allow it. If not, let us operate in the room or hall of a hospital or sanitorium, at the moment when we know that a sick man is dying." 1 From his point of view, Dr. Ciriax has written: "The manner in which death is described by hun- dreds of clairvoyants proves that the soul or the spirit comes from its mortal envelope through the brain. These clairvoyants have remarked that, im- mediately after this departure, a vaporous cloud rises above the head and, taking a human form, condenses itself little by little, more and more re- sembling the dead person. When this fluidic body is formed it remains for some time but slightly attached to the mortal shell, by a fluidic tie from a region intermediate between the heart and the brain." 2 In 1910 there died in the United States a man who enjoyed the greatest esteem in America. He was a medium and a clairvoyant, highly intelligent and possessing rather extensive medical knowledge. His faculties of clairvoyancy were often applied in the diagnoses of illness. This man has written his memoirs and thus describes the process of death: "My faculties of clairvoyancy permitted me to study the psychic and physiological phenomenon of 1 Erny, Experimental Psychical Science, p. 98. E. Flam- marion, publisher. 2 Erny, P. P. pp. 99-100. MORS JANUA VITAE 265 death at the bedside of a dying person. It was a woman about sixty years of age to whom I had often given medical advice. When the hour of her death arrived I was very fortunately in a perfect state of health, making it possible for my faculties of clairvoyancy to function freely. I placed myself in such a manner as not to be seen nor disturbed in my psychic observation, and set myself to the task of studying the mysterious process of death. "I saw that the physical organization was no longer equal to the necessities of the intellectual principle, but the various internal organs seemed to resist the departure of the soul. The muscular sys- tem sought to retain its motive forces. The vascular tissue struggled to keep the vital principle. The nervous system contended with all its power against the annihilation of the physical senses, and the cerebral system tried to retain the intellectual principle. The body and the soul, like two spouses, resisted their final separation. These internal con- flicts seemed at first to produce painful and troubled sensations. I was very glad, however, that these physical manifestations did not indicate sorrow, or discomfort, but simply the separation of the soul and the organism. A little while afterwards, the head was surrounded by a brilliant atmosphere, when suddenly, I saw the brain and the posterior part of the brain extend their inferior parts and stop their galvanic functions. They became saturated with the vital principles of electricity and of magnetism which penetrates into the secondary parts of the body. Or, in other words, the brain became sud- denly ten times more preponderant than it was dur- ing its normal state. This phenomenon invariably precedes physical dissolution. "Moreover, I noticed the process by which the soul and the mind detached themselves from the body. 266 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD The brain attracts to itself the element of electricity, magnetism, movement, life, and sensibility, scat- tered about in the whole organism. The head be- comes luminous, and I noticed at the same time that the extremities of the body become cold. The brain took on a particular brilliancy. "From this fluidic atmosphere which surrounded the head, I saw another head being formed, which took shape more and more distinctly. It was so brilliant that I could barely gaze upon it, but in measure as this fluidic head became condensed the brilliant at- mosphere disappeared. I deduct from this that the fluidic elements which had been attracted from all parts of the body towards the brain and then eliminated under the form of a particular atmos- phere, were previously solidly united according to the superior principle of affinity of the universe, which makes itself felt in every particle of matter. With surprise and admiration I followed the phases of the phenomenon. In the same manner as the fluidic head became detached from the brain, I saw being formed successively the neck, the shoulders, the torso, and finally the entire fluidic body. It was evident to me that the intellectual parts of the human being are endowed with an elective affinity, which permits them to reunite at the moment of death. The deformities and defects of the physical body had almost entirely disappeared from the fluidic body. "While this spiritualistic phenomenon was develop- ing clearly before my clairvoyant faculties, before the material eyes of the people present in the room the body of the dying one seemed to be experiencing all symptoms of disturbance and pain. These, how- ever, were fictitious, for they announced only the departure of the vital and intellectual forces, with- drawing from the whole body in order to concentrate MORS JANUA VITAE 267 in the brain, and finally in a new organism. The mind or disincarnated intelligence raised itself up at a right angle above the head of the deserted body, but before the final separation of the tie, which had united the material and intellectual parts for so long, I saw a vital current of electricity forming itself on the head of the dying one and becoming the basis of a new fluidic body. This gave me the con- viction that death is only a rebirth of a soul where the spirit rises from an inferior state to a superior one, and that the birth of a child in this world, or the formation of a spirit in the other, are identical facts. Nothing was lacking, even the umbilical cord typified by the tie of vital electricity. This bond be- tween the two organisms continued for some time. I discovered then what I had not perceived in my psychic investigations, that a small portion of the vital fluid returned to the material body as soon as the cord or electrical bond was broken. This fluidic or electric element flowing over the whole organism prevents the immediate dissolution of the body. As soon as the soul of the person under my observation was released from the tenacious bonds of the body, I noticed that this new fluidic organism had become appropriated by its new form, but that the general appearance resembled its terrestial shape. It was impossible for me to know what was passing in this revivified intelligence, but I remarked its calm and its astonishment at the profound sor- row of those who were weeping near her body. She seemed to take into consideration their ignorance of what was really occurring." 1 Observations of this nature are valuable. Cer- tainly we are not unaware of what small credence must be accorded to clairvoyancy in general; but iF. N. Erney, Experimental Psychical Science, pp. 94-97. 268 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD when it is a question of exceptional clairvoyants, whose honor has been constantly affirmed through a long life, it would be folly not to take such testimony into account. The above description answers ex- actly to a true vision because it agrees with many similar observations. I acknowledge, nevertheless, that we should accept nothing of what the clairvoy- ants describe concerning the life beyond because they interpret according to their personal concep- tion the things perceived on the mental plane, and these are often indefinable ; yet we may believe them when they concern the physical plane. Here it was a question of the physical process of disincarnation. But we have other testimony than that of the clair- voyants the statements of the dying when they have been called back to life, and these latter cor- respond fully with the observation of clairvoyants. The return to life, after having crossed the threshold of death, permits a few of them to recount their impressions; when the latter are doctors and keen observers their testimony takes on an added value. Here is an example, the case of Dr. Wiltse, a physi- cian of Skiddy, Kansas, examined by Dr. Hodgson and F. Myers, the records collected by the annals of the Society F. P. R., vol. Ill, p. 180. The fact was published in the Journal of Surgery and Medicine of St. Louis, in November, 1889, and in the Mid-Continental Review of February, 1890. I abbreviate the narration of Dr. Wiltse: 1 "Finally the pupil of my eye contracted, my per- ceptions became feeble, my voice weakened, and I felt myself overpowered by a general sensation of i From Human Personality, Vol. II, pp. 315-321. MORS JANUA VITAE 269 heaviness. I made a violent effort to stretch out ray limbs. I crossed my arms on my chest, then, joining my stiffened fingers, fell suddenly into com- plete unconsciousness. "I remained about four hours without a throb of the pulse or a movement of the heart. I learned this later from Dr. S. H. Raynes, the only doctor present. During this time several of those present thought me dead; the rumor circulated outside and the bells of the village were already tolling for me. Dr. Raynes told me, nevertheless, that when he looked at my face he thought he perceived for a moment, a faint breath, so faint as to be almost imperceptible. Dr. Raynes imbedded a needle in my skin at various places from the head to the feet, but no evidence of life responded. Even though the pulse seemed to cease beating for four hours, the state of apparent death hardly lasted more than a half hour. I lost all ability to think, and all sen- sation of life ; I was in a state of absolute uncon- sciousness. When I regained the sense of existence, I felt that I was still in my body but that my body and myself no longer had anything in common. To my astonishment and joy, I was enabled to observe my real 'ego' while my nonexistent self was im- prisoned on every side as in a sepulchre of clay. With the interest of a physician I contemplated the marvels of the corporeal physiology with which I was confused, the living soul in the dead body. "I analyzed my state quite calmly, reasoning thus : 'I am dead according to the language of men and nevertheless I am a man more than ever. I am on the point of leaving my body.' I observed the in- teresting procedure of the soul, as it detaches itself from the body. A power which seemed not to come from within me shook my whole Ego from one side to the other, as one swings a cradle, and that seemed 270 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD to enable the soul to detach itself from the bond of corporeal tissue. "At the end of a moment this lateral movement stopped, and I felt, and heard at least so it seemed to me innumerable vibrations of little strings in the soles of the feet from the big toe to the heel. After that I began to withdraw gently from my feet towards my head. I saw myself come as far as the thigh, and said, 'Now there is no life below the hips.' I have no memory of having crossed the abdomen and chest, but I remember clearly when all seemed to be concentrated in my head, and to have made the reflection, 'Here I am all intact in my head. I shall soon be detached.' I passed around the brain as if I had been hollow, pressing it all around, with its membranes toward the center, and came through the sutures of the brain, emerging like the thin leaves of a membraneous envelope. As to the form and the color I remember very clearly that I appeared to myself somewhat like a Medusa's head. "In leaving, I noticed two women seated at my bedside, estimated the distance between the head of my bed and the knees of the woman opposite, and concluded there was sufficient space for me to stand there, but I experienced an extreme embarrassment at the thought that I would have to appear nude before her. Nevertheless, I decided to attempt it, saying to myself that according to all probabilities, she could not see me with the eyes of the body since I was a spirit. As soon as I went out, I floated from the earth upward to right and to left, like a soap bubble which adheres to the pipe, until at length I detached myself from the body, lightly falling to the floor, from which I arose, having taken on again all the appearance of an ordinary man. I was as .transparent as a blue flame and completely nude. MORS JANUA VITAE 271 With a painful sensation of embarrassment, I glided towards the half-open door in order to escape the glances from those ladies opposite me, also from the other persons whom I knew were around me. But having reached the door, I found myself dressed. Satisfied on this point, I came back to the company. As I was returning, my left elbow touched the arm of one of the two gentlemen who were standing near the door. To my stupefaction the arm passed with- out resistance through mine, then the divided parts came together without pain, rejoining themselves as if made of air. Quickly I looked at his face to see whether he had felt this contact, but he gave no sign of it. He remained standing, gazing fixedly at the bed which I had just left. I looked in the direction of the bed and saw my own corpse. I was there, lying in the attitude which I had so much trouble to assume, slightly turned on the right side, my feet close together and my hands crossed on the chest. I was surprised at the pallor of my face. I had not seen a mirror for several days and I should have thought myself less pale than the majority of people equally ill. I congratulated myself, for my own part, upon the decent attitude which I had given to my body, hoping that my friends would not be less favorably impressed with it. I saw a number of persons seated or standing around the body, and I noticed particularly two women who seemed to be kneeling at my left. I understood they were shedding tears. I have learned since th,t they were my wife and my sister, but at this moment I had no consciousness of personality wife, sister, or friend, all were the same to me. I wished later, to attract the attention of these per- sons with a view of confirming them in the certainty of their own immortality. I made some joyous bows and saluted the company with my right hand. I 272 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD placed myself in the very midst of them, but they paid no attention. Then the comedy of the situa- tion struck me and I laughed quite gayly. Never- theless, I thought, 'They must have heard this,' but it must have been otherwise, for no eyes were turned away from my corpse. I said to myself: 'They only see with the eyes of the body and can- not see the spirits. They examine what they be- lieve to be me, but they are mistaken. It is not I, I am here and I am more alive than ever.' "I went out of the open door, lowering my head and searching for a place to put my feet in order to go down to the vestibule. I crossed the door- sill, went down the steps, and out into the street. There I stopped to look around me. Never have I seen this street so distinctly as I saw it then; I noticed the redness of the soil and the puddles of water left by the rain. I cast an anxious eye about me as would one who is going to leave his home for a long time. I perceived then that I was taller than I had been in my terrestial life, a fact which gave me much pleasure. I was always too small for my own comfort. 'Now,' thought I, 'in my new existence I shall be according to my desire.' I noticed also that my clothes fitted my greater height exactly, and I wondered with astonishment whence they came, and how I found them on myself. The fabric was a kind of Scotch cloth, a good suit, not luxurious but presentable. 'I feel so well now,' I said to myself, 'and only a few moments ago I was terribly sick and was suffering. Here then is this change, which we call death and which fright- ened me so greatly. Now it is over and am I still a man full of life and thought? Yes, truly, and with a mind clearer than ever. What a wonderful state of well-being. I shall never more be sick and cannot die again.' In my exultation, I leaped for MORS JANUA VITAE 273 joy then again continued the contemplation of my figure and my clothes. "Suddenly I noticed that I could see a thin line down the back of my coat. 'How is it,' said I, 'that I can see my back?' I looked again to re- assure myself, at the back of my coat and my legs down to my heels; I put my hand to my face to touch my eyes; yes, they were in their place. 'Am I then, like an owl who can turn his head half-way round?' I tried that, but without success. Then it might be possible, I thought, that though sepa- rated from my body for the moment, I may have the ability of seeing with the eyes of my body ; and I turned to look back of me. By looking through the half-open door to see if the head of my own body were on a line with myself, I perceived a thin thread like that of a spider's web, starting from behind my shoulders and ending in the body oppo- site, at the base of the neck. "I deduced from this conclusion, that, thanks to that bond, I could still make use of the eyes of my body and I went down into the street. I advanced a few steps and lost consciousness. When I re- covered I was floating in space sustained by hands which were holding me lightly on either side. The possessor of these hands, if there were one, was be- hind me, pushing me through the air, which seemed a rapid and agreeable method of locomotion. In time, I understood my situation better; I had been taken away and placed with ease at the entrance of a narrow but well arranged passage, which arose at an incline of not less than 45 degrees. Raising my eyes, I found the sky and the clouds to be at their usual height; lowering them I noticed below the verdant crest of the woods. I thought, 'The tops of these trees below are as far away as the clouds above.' I examined the materials of the 274 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD road; it was made of fine sand and a kind of milky quartz. I picked up a piece and examined it quite closely. I remember very well that in the center there was a small black spot ; I looked at it minutely, and it was a small cavity apparently caused by chemical action of some metal. "It had rained and I felt the freshness of the air. I noticed that, despite the roughness of the slope I did not experience any fatigue in walking, my feet were light afcd my steps uncertain as those of a child. As I walked, the memory of my recent illness came back to my mind, and I was enjoying the sense of my renewed health and recovered strength. Then a feeling of loneliness overpowered me; I de- sired the society of some companion, and reasoned with myself: 'Some one dies every minute, I have been waiting merely 30 minutes, surely some one will die in these mountains and will come to keep me company.' Meanwhile I surveyed the space around me. Toward the east there was a long chain of mountains and a forest below extended to the side of the mountain, and beyond that, to its sum- mit. Below me was a wooded valley through which ran a beautiful river whose multitude of tiny waves were tossing up a veil of white spray. I compared this stream to an emerald river, and the mountains seemed greatly to resemble the heights of Waldron. The abrupt slope of the black rocks which lay to the right and the left of the road called to my memory Lookout Mountain, where the railroad passes between the Tennessee River and the moun- tain. Thus the three great faculties of the mind memory, judgment, and imagination acted together in all their integrity. "I awaited a companion for over a quarter of an hour, but no one came. Then I reasoned: 'It is probable that when one dies each has indivdually MORS JANUA VITAE 275 to follow his given path, and is obliged to travel alone. As there are not two men exactly alike, it follows that there cannot be two travelers faring along the same route in the other world.' "I felt certain that some being from the other world would come to meet me, but strangely enough I was not thinking of any one person in particular that I would have preferred. 'Angel or demon,' said I to myself, 'one or the other will come; I am curious to know which it shall be.' I thought then that I had never believed in all the dogmas of the Church, but that I had by my writings and my words affirmed a belief I considered better. 'But,' I continued, 'I know nothing; is there a place for doubt and a place for error? It is possible that I am hurrying on to a terrible destination.' Then something difficult to describe took place all around me, and coming from every point, I heard expressed thoughts. 'Be without fear, you are saved!' I heard no voice, I saw no being, but I was conscious that at different points, at various distances from me, some one was thinking and expressing things that concerned me. How could I take cognizance of them? It was so very mysterious that I doubted its reality. A sensation of doubt and fear over- powered me and I began to grow very miserable, when a face stamped with ineffable love and tender- ness appeared for an instant and strengthened my faith. "Without consciousness or effort on my part my eyes reopened; I noticed my hands and the little white bed on which I lay, and realizing that I had re-entered my body, I cried out with surprise and 276 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD disappointment 'What has happened? Must I die again?' I was very weak, but still strong enough to recount the preceding story in spite of all the ex- hortations to remain quiet." From replies made to investigators, it was evident that the sick man had correctly seen the facts and exterior images. Thus the two gentlemen seen near the door of the room in truth occupied that place, and the puddles of water seen in the streets were really outside, since the weather had been rainy. As to the thin fluidic thread, the subject may have had some knowledge of this theory, but he did not believe in it at all, so that no one could attribute this phenomenon to the visualization of an expectant idea. The recital of the doctor has been confirmed by five persons, who were then present, and Myers tells us that his interest was so keenly aroused that he, as well as his friend Hodgson, desired to make the personal acquaintance of the narrator. Thus all the testimony agrees in representing the process of death as a freeing of something which is not absolutely immaterial, but which is the seat of the thinking principle. It would be wrong, there- fore, to consider a phantom as an unreality. To reject a reality because it lends itself to raillery would be an attitude unworthy of a scientific mind. The histories of ghosts, "Les revenants" as they are called in French, the returning ones, find their justification in the established proof of the existence of a fluidic substratum which brings into objectivity the images of the world of thought. This has noth- ing of the supernatural, and there are apparitions MORS JANUA VITAE 277 of such an authentic character that it would be absurd not to take them into account. Knowing that a living being may act upon another by telepathy and produce by this means a visual image, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this vision is due to an exterior and active opera- tion. When this operation may influence the senses of several people it does not prove as yet, perhaps, its material objectivity, but it proves at least that which I shall call essential objectivity. The following apparition, seen independently by three people, has been reported by a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London in a well- known scientific journal, valued highly by all astronomers; English Mechanic and World of Science, of July 20, 1906. It is of importance to notice that the apparition appeared after a death. We shall give but a brief resume : On the tenth of January, 1879, Rev. Charles Tweedale, awakening in the middle of the night, saw his grandmother appear, observed her for several seconds, and then saw her gradually fade from sight into the moonlight. One thing in particular struck him that his grandmother was wearing an old-fashioned fluted bonnet. His own father was awakened too, at the same moment, and saw the same apparition (his mother) standing near his bed. Finally the sister of the latter who lived 30 kilometers from there, had the same vision of her mother, that same evening at 2 A.M. Mr. Tweedale, the father, noted the precise instant. As for Mr. Chas. Tweedale (the son) he was sure, according to the light thrown 278 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD on the walls, that the moon had crossed the meridian. He consulted on this subject the Secre- tary of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, who fixed the hour of the passage at 14 hrs. 19 minutes which corresponds to 2:19 o'clock in the morning. The grandmother had died at 15 min- utes after midnight. Thus three persons, inde- pendent of each other, had the same vision two hours after the decease. Moreover, Mr. Tweedale declares that he had not seen his grandmother for several years when she died. He wrote to his uncle and sent him a sketch of the bonnet, asking if there were an analogy between it and the mortuary head- covering of the deceased. The uncle replied, "The resemblance is striking." The Rev. Chas. Tweedale, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London ends with the fol- lowing reflections: "The fact which I have just reported presents all the guarantees of authenticity, and one could not, I think, regard it as fraudulent. I counsel all the incredulous to peruse the remarkable facts con- tained in Human Personality, by F. Myers, and also those of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Sixteen volumes may be consulted to great advantage. To those of our readers who would care to delve a little deeper into these perplexing problems with a true scholar, I would name Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, as also several eminent members of the Council of the Society." We often have great difficulty in impressing superficial minds with the notion that the appari- tions of deceased persons are really studied to-day, MORS JANUA VITAE 279 and by real scholars. The question is nevertheless much simplified by the data recently acquired by telepathic messages, provoking a vision which is a faithful picture of the situation in which the de- ceased found himself in his last minutes. Often the manifestation is limited to simple apparition, which is shown calm and smiling, at the very hour when the sick person is expiring; it is sometimes a true materialization that is, this invisible body, described by all clairvoyants, finds in the surround- ing air unknown resources of strength, so that by means of condensation it may attain visibility. We read in Telepathic Hallucinations, page 182, of a similar case of condensation and gradual formation, thus described by a friend of the deceased: "In proportion as it advanced, this fog, to call it thus, concentrated in a single place, grew thicker, and presented the contours of a human figure of which the head and shoulders became more and more distinctly visible, while the rest of the body seemed enveloped in a veil of gauze, like a mantle. The full light of the window fell upon the object, which was so lacking in consistency and so thin that the light, reflected on the highly varnished panels of the door, was visible through the lower part of the garment. The apparition had no color, it seemed to be a statue sculptured out from the fog." The witness of this apparition then recognized the features of a very dear friend; the face had an expression of peace, repose, and holiness. Then in an instant everything disappeared as a vapor does when it comes into contact with cold air. The next day's mail brought news that this friend had dred 280 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD at the very moment when he had been seen. It was a sudden death, that nothing could have predicted. This example belongs to a category of similar facts by which we may affirm that the apparition of the deceased is not always a matter of simple telepathy, but may sometimes be manifested by the ordinary process of materialization. Let us cite the following : Mr. Binet relates (The Unknown, p. 84) that a little friend of his appeared to him under the same conditions. It seemed to him that he saw a ray of moonlight walking, then this luminous shadow, float- ing as a dress, took the form of a body. It advanced towards the bed. "A thin face smiled at me," he said. "I cried out 'Leontine !' Then the luminous shadow, still gliding, disappeared at the foot of the bed." M. Binet was at this time at Donchery ; the sub- ject was a young girl killed in the bombardment of Mezieres ; and the apparition was made visible during the very night and at the hour when the child was killed. Independent of the interest which these apparitions present, independent of the cer- tainty of their reality and even of the proofs of identity which they carry with them, we must agree that those seen by several persons may also pro- duce themselves under conditions that tend to con- firm the materiality of images. They satisfy the conditions of real things, when the image has been well localized by everyone in the same place, when it is reflected in a mirror and ful- fills the laws of perspective, presenting its full face to one, and its profile to another, etc. MORS JANTJA VITAE 281 An account, by C. Flammarion, will be read with interest. It concerns an occurrence of which he knew all the elements, as it took place in his own family. We reproduce it in full and with the com- mentaries of the author: AN APPARITION Paris, Dec. 5, 1911. DEAR M. LEYMARIE: In answer to your request of last week for your Christmas number, a fortunate coincidence has allowed me to satisfy your wishes and I hasten to send you this account. Always engaged in unend- ing researches, I was looking without success for some new fact to bring to your notice when, this morning, a visit brought it to me. My lamented nephew, Capt. Camille Martin, of the Colonial In- fantry, died at Paris on the 22nd of last March, exhausted by fever and fatigue at the age of 46 years. He passed away in an apartment on the ave- nue des Gobelins, in which he had lived for over a year. His widow and step-daughter came to an- nounce his demise, both still trembling, though the event had occurred seven months previously, from a psychic phenomenon worthy of attention. A long absence from Paris had prevented them from speak- ing of it to me up to this time. About six weeks after the death of her husband, Mme. C. Martin, was in her bed, in the same apart- ment (but not in the death chamber), when, not as yet quite asleep, she perceived the shade of her hus- band, floating in air not far from her. Her daughter, asleep in another bed, awakened suddenly and perceived the shade of her step-father coming directly towards her, looking at her with the sunken 282 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD and sickly eyes which characterized him in the last hours of his life. She was so greatly frightened, that she uttered a dreadful cry, and even now, in relating these facts to me, she trembled from head to foot, and her features took on a strange pallor. I begged them both to write separately a summary of what they had seen and felt. These are the two accounts: Statement by Mme. Camille Martin. It was in the first week of May. I had gone to bed, quite late, about 11.30 or midnight, very much absorbed by the petty business details that I had been obliged to discuss during the day. The night was warm and the room but vaguely illumined by the lights of Paris. I was lying in bed unable to sleep, my eyes wide open, when I perceived a shadow, that of Ca- mille, with a grayish hue on his face, his eyes sunken, with deep, dark circles, and his person enveloped in a sort of grayish drapery. Half of his body was distinguishable; his legs seemed to disappear into a grayish tint, as if enveloped in a fog. The shade had just come in through an open window and seemed to float at about sixty centimeters above the floor, advancing, or rather gliding, in the direc- tion of my daughter's bed. From my bed, I could follow it the better because a mirror that faced me repeated each movement of the shade. Much dis- tressed, but without the least fear, I wondered what my poor Charles was seeking, when at this exact moment, as he was nearing my daughter's bed, she screamed in terror and called me, crying out. I answered, "Yes, I see him too, do not be afraid." But again she cried out more piercingly than before, and the shade disappeared in the mirror. After this vision, my daughter went to sleep again, quite calmly, more calmly than she ever had before, since this death. The next evening, the fear of see- MORS JANUA VITAE 283 ing this apparition again made her so nervous that she did not wish to sleep in her own bed, and asked to share mine, trembling all the while. As for my- self, I have never experienced the slightest fear. On the contrary, I felt a beneficent calm and passed the rest of the night without the smallest disturbance. Often since, I have tried again to see Camille, by thinking strongly of him, but have never obtained the slightest phenomenon. I must call to your notice, also, that at the time of this apparition, we frequently heard singular and inexplicable noises in the grooves of the floor, the doors would clap violently, even though they had been carefully closed and locked and tested at vari- ous times. Our apartment was, as you know, on the fifth floor. M. MARTIN. Statement by Mile. Bertha Dupont. This dates from about the first days of May between the fifth and the tenth. We had retired at midnight. I have the impression that I had been asleep about an hour when I felt myself awakened as by a fluid. Opening my eyes, I saw a shadow a short distance away from me. It seemed to be vaguely draped in a shroud, the arms crossed on the chest, the lower part of the body not being visible; it was like a fog about to lift. The shadow seemed to float and advance towards my bed. I have a very distinct impression that I was awake and saw it approaching me. I recognized the features of my step-father's face, and was seized with an overwhelming fear. He came directly towards me. After having seen and recognized him for perhaps two seconds, I called out in order to awaken Mother, who was sleeping in the same room, almost perpendicularly to my bed, and to tell her of my fear. She answered me quietly, 284 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD to my great surprise, for I had thought her asleep: "But I see it also, do not be afraid." In my terror I cried out another time to her and at this moment the shade vanished. I went to sleep quite calmed and the remainder of the night slept better than I had at any time since the death which had be- reaved us. BERTHA DUPONT. "Here are two observations of the same phenomena. The explanation generally admitted by physiologists is that this was a matter of hallucination. But I should really like to know the exact explanatory value of that word. It is considered as a synonym for the word illusion. That is to say, we have here a purely subjective phenomenon, and there is nothing that exists outside the brains of the two narrators. Their vision was a simple product of their imagina- tion, and nerves. Is a collective hallucination as sim- ple as that? We may suppose, it is true, that Mrs. Martin, under the vivid impression of the recent death of her husband, constantly kept alive by busi- ness discussions, believed she saw a shadow that had no real existence, herself creating it entirely, and that the waves emanating from her brain had affected that of her daughter. It is possible, but such an explanation, it must be acknowledged, is hypothetical and rather complicated. Let us fur- ther notice, that while the young girl watched this mysterious shade coming straight toward her, her mother had seen it in three-quarter view in the mirror. Divers theories have been brought out concerning apparitions of this nature. I do not assert that jtee can strictly affirm the reality of the presence of MORS JANUA VITAE 285 my dear nephew. It is not, as certainly, disproved. But the one hypothesis is not less acceptable than the others. Why destroy the fact of mere skepti- cism? It seems to me wiser and more logical to register the observation and add it to those of a similar nature. These documents will serve one day for definite discussion; let us not neglect any effort toward solution of the great problem. It may be something entirely different from a real apparition, but it is a fact of observation to analyze without any preconceived idea. We are still so ignorant of the mysteries of the soul. "CAMILLE FLAMMAEION." 1 The observations and documentation of which we have made use thus far, in order to establish the facts, are serviceable to conquer the resistance of the in- credulous. Now, however, that the credibility of the facts is well established, now that they have been verified everywhere, through mediums, with living persons, and at the bedside of the dying, we should lay aside all considerations of the objective or sub- jective nature of the phenomenon. Abandoning the mask of skepticism we should lend an ear to the voice of sentiment which has also the right to be heard. It is when the organs, ravaged by illness, are en- feebled, and cease to oppress the soul with the heavy weight of matter, that we all become clairvoyants. It is then that souls approach the frontier of the two worlds; telepathic communications are re-established quite naturally with the beyond; and the invisible appears to us. We read in Annals of Psychical Science, year i Extract from La Revue Spirite, January, 1912. 286 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLDj 1906, page 159; I take the following case from Volume III, page 32, of Proceedings of S. F. P. R. It was communicated to the Society by an Irish colonel. It being understood that the principal role of this event is held by the colonel's own wife, one may readily see why he would not desire the names to be published: About sixteen years ago, Mrs. said to me, "We shall have guests during the entire next week. Do you know of any one who could sing with our daughters?" I remember that my gunsmith, Mr. X., had a daughter whose voice was charming and who studied singing with the idea of becoming a pro- fessional. I told Mrs. of her, and offered to write to Mr. X., asking him kindly to permit his daughter to come and spend a week with us. This being decided upon, I wrote to the gunsmith and Miss Julia X. was our guest during the aforesaid time. I do not know whether Mrs. saw her afterward. As to Miss Julia, instead of devoting herself to her art, she married Mr. Henry Webley some time later. No one of us ever had occasion to see her again. Six or seven years passed. Mrs. , who had been ill for several months, was dying and expired the day following the one of which I shall speak. I was seated at her side and we were talking of certain matters which she wished very much to arrange. She seemed very calm and resigned; in full possession of her intellectual faculties. This is proved by the fact that later the wisdom of her views was attested, when the error of our lawyer's advice was recognized, he having judged useless some meas- ure suggested by the sick woman. Suddenly she changed her conversation and said, addressing her- self to me, "Do you hear those sweet voices singing?" MORS JANUA VITAE 287 I answered that I heard nothing. She added, "I have heard them several times to-day ; I do not doubt they are angels who are coming to welcome me into heaven; only it is strange, that among them there is one voice I am sure I know, but I cannot remember whose it is !" Suddenly she interrupted herself and said, indicating a point above my head, "Why, she is here in the room ! It is Julia X. Now she is drawing near, she is bending over you, she is lifting her hands in prayer. Look, she is going." I turned about, but saw nothing. Mrs. added, "Now, she has gone." I naturally felt that these affirmations were nothing less than the imaginations of a dying woman. Two days later, in looking over a number of the Times, I happened to read in the death notices the name of Julia X, wife of Mr. Webley. This im- pressed me so keenly that immediately after the funeral of my wife I went to , where I sought Mr. X, and asked him if Mrs. Julia Webley, his daughter, was really dead. He answered, "It is only too true, she died of puerperal fever. The day of her death she began to sing in the morning and sang through the day until death hushed her voice." Against those phenomena produced during the crisis preceding death, the objection is often raised that they are subjective hallucinations. However, upon examination, this explanation seems little better than the one of an excited brain; first because these visions are beyond all that could be expected from the activity of an organ facing annihilation; finally because the elements of truth which they contain can- not be explained by hallucination, if we consider the numerous proofs of identity and premonitions fur- nished by these apparitions. We have just seen Mrs. at the moment of the 288 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD final crisis receive a visit from a person whom she had no reason to suppose dead; and Mr. Bozzano remarks on this subject that we know no analogous hallucinations, producing, under the same form, ap- paritions of living people. On the contrary, many cases are presented in which the dying one perceives the specter of a person whom he thought still alive, and who in this case is really dead. Here, as in the preceding cases, we have only touched lightly upon the subject, not having treated any case thoroughly, hoping merely to arouse the curiosity of the reader by a glance over an assem- blage of facts, which it is very important to bring to the popular mind. He who is interested in these questions will find a special collection of books that will enable him to answer the objections that arise to these statements. But the great book has yet to be written upon the manifestations which take place around the dying. In the Annals of Psychic Sci- ences, Mr. Ernest Bozzano has published a series of ascending complexities, accompanied by very scholarly commentaries. We quote from it as follows : Dr. Paul Edwards called to the bedside of a friend, a jick perjon in full possession of all her faculties, reports the last words which, at the time of her death, she addressed to her husband.: 1 "Now my greatest desire is to go away. ... I see several shades who are moving around me all dressed in white; I hear a delicious melody. . . . O, there is Sadie, she is near me and knows perfectly who I am." (Sadie was a little child, whom she had lost about ten years before.) "Sissy," said her husband to her. 1 Annals 1906, p. 150-151, Boul. Pereire, 175 Paris. MORS JANUA VITAE 289 "Sissy, do you not see that you are dreaming?" "Ah, my dear," answered the sick lady, "why did you call me back? Now I shall have more difficulty in passing to the Beyond. I felt so happy there ; it was so delightful, so beautiful." After about three min- utes she added, "I am going now, again; and this time I shall not come back when you call me." This scene lasted but eight minutes. We could see that the dying woman was enjoying a complete vision of two worlds at one time, because she spoke of faces that were moving about her in the Beyond, and spoke to the mortals in this world. It has never happened to me since to be present at a more solemn or more impressive death, a true passing over into another world. OTHEE CASES TAKEN FROM THE ANNALS OF PSYCHIC SCIENCES Dr. Wilson of New York, who was present at the last moments of the tenor, James Moore, speaks as follows : "It was four o'clock and the light of dawn which he had awaited with such anxiety began to filter in through the closed shutters. I bent over him and noticed that his face was calm and his eye clear. He looked at me and taking my hand in his said to me, 'You have been a good friend to me, Doctor, you did not leave me.' Then something happened which I shall never forget to my dying day, something that my pen is impotent to describe. I cannot otherwise express myself than by saying that, though he seemed to have preserved all his reason, he was transported into the Beyond and, though I cannot well explain the matter, I am convinced that he penetrated the 290 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD spiritual 8omain. In fact, raising his voice more than he ever had during his illness, he cried out, 'There is my mother ! Are you coming to me, to see me here, Mother? No, no, it is I who will come to you. Wait a moment, Mother, I am almost free; I am able to join you; wait a moment.' His face had an expression of ineffable happiness, and the manner in which he spoke made an impression upon me the like of which I had never felt until that day. He saw his mother and he spoke to her; of that I am as firmly convinced as that I am seated at this minute. "In closing these memories, I wished to describe what has been the most extraordinary event which I have ever witnessed, and have recorded word for word that which I heard. It was the most beautiful death of the many at which I have been present." Another case, page 149. Mr. Alfred Smedley, on pages 50-51, in his work, "Some Reminiscences," describes as follows the last moments of his wife: "Some instants before her death her eyes were fixed upon something which seemed to fill her with an agreeable and very keen surprise; then she said, 'Why, there is my sister Charlotte, my mother, my father, my brother John, my sister Mary. Look, they are bringing Bessy Heap too. They are all here. Oh! it is beautiful; how lovely it is! Do you not see them?' 'No, my dear,' I answered, 'I regret that I do not.' 'You cannot see them?' she asked with surprise. 'But they are nevertheless here, they have come to take me with them. One part of our family has already crossed the great Sea, and soon we shall all be reunited in that celestial abode.' I must add that Bessy Heap was a faithful servant, MORS JANUA VITAE 291 much beloved by our family, and that she always had a particular affection for my wife. After this ecstatic vision the sick woman remained for some time quite exhausted, then raising her eyes fixedly, towards heaven, and stretching out her arms, she expired." Yes! there are beauties in death which, better than all reasoning, carry conviction, but there are also truths which tax reason. The cases which we have just cited are among the simplest, but the same visions are often found in the different forms of phenomena which we have described elsewhere. When the messengers who watch at the door of death begin to be visible to the dying, they show them- selves by particular signs which prove their identity, or at least they give signs of objectivity. Often they are the purveyors of special knowledge, giving useful warnings; interesting themselves in family affairs, or even again, as in the case of Elisa Man- ners, coming to collaborate with the experimenters with the fixed intention of furnishing a new proof of their identity. Consider these complications, weigh all this in your mind, and ask yourself if it be longer possible to believe in the theories of the accidental coincidence of hallucination? Another proof, which is not, as one would like to believe, merely an illusion, is that these same phe- nomena are perceived by very young children, too young to be accused of imposture. Even before be- coming ill they describe very naively the wisdom of a parent or little brother, who comes to tell them they are soon to pass over to the "other side," urging them to tell Mother not to weep. The senti- 292 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD ment of the "other side" is very common with chil- dren, whose ideas no other doctrine has ever warped. They have kept a memory of having lived before, a memory of which they often give startling proofs, citing names of different personages whom they knew or naming the professions which they followed in a preceding existence, describing places they had in- habited, and often even the manner in which they died. After you have studied the whole series of docu- ments based upon testimony of reliable witnesses, a synthetic examination of all the data will force con- viction upon you. You will bow to the evidence and will free yourself from the deceptive suggestion that the hypothesis of survival is not a rational hypothe- sis because it is contrary to scientific data. The materialists are those who claim to arrive at a de- duction, in the same manner as those who consecrated error in the past centuries, and retarded a progress which has been realized despite them. The material- ist! Have you ever wished to go deeper into the psychology of a man who believes that he is free to deny a thing because it shocks his conceptions concerning matter? Such a man does not under- stand that only the striking realities appreciable to our senses have the right to be affirmed in a world where all material appearances are but illusions. The first error of man was to believe that the sun rises, that the earth is immovable, that he himself is the cen- ter and the aim of creation. The materialist is a man incapable of freeing himself from the illusion of the senses, a man who believes that sensation should give him the full measure of everything. Incapable of abstracting, he finds it enough to discover some ves- MORS JANUA VITAE 203 tige of primitive man in a diluvian stratum of the third formation in order to believe that he has re- constructed the genesis of the world; for he qualifies as supernatural all that which transcends his under- standing. As a theologian of the fourteenth century denied that any other world than our small globe might have existed, so the materialist of to-day denies that there may exist something more subtle outside of our organism. The man who does not believe what he sees is very near to being ridiculous ; the materialist is absolutely ridiculous. Is it not he who yesterday denied the possibility of magnetism, of action at a distance, and wireless telegraphy? Is it not he who made the visibility of things the cri- terion of their reality, and who advanced the prin- ciple that the atom, being the only existing reality, contained within itself the cause of all things, and was the only basis of all that exists. The materialist is still more ridiculous to-day than the theologian of former times ; the latter could conceive our world as the center of a single system. But he who proclaims that the atom suffices to generate the world of thought, is he not as foolish as he who claims that our globe suffices to explain the generation of suns? Why do we always look below for the solution which can be found only above? Why should we refuse to take into account the reasons hidden in the mystery of the Cosmos under the pretext that our gaze can- not reach them and, in consequence, the cosmic rea- sons must be supernatural? But you, who assume to know the limits of life, look into your past ; your mistaken theories no longer avail. You said, "Life is impossible without oxygen, life is impossible in darkness, life is impossible under the great pressure 294 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD of the depths of the sea"; and perhaps you would have been right if matter contained the germ of life. But since, in fact, life transcends matter, is the vital principle which fashions matter and organizes it, adapting it to its ends, observation will always prove you wrong. Life is manifest everywhere, even where it is forbidden to appear, and continues where you said it had ended ; and life does not even begin where you believed it did. In order to limit life to the short space of time comprised between the cradle and the grave, it would be necessary to affirm that beyond these limits there is no longer mystery. And the materialist accepts no mystery, for, in order to per- suade himself that a milligram of inert substance may perform a miracle in nine months, he asserts that his chemistry explains the progress of the fretus, which comes into the world for the first time. He assumes, then, a knowledge of the absolute and an understanding of first causes, and, in his lack of comprehension of the mystery, it is he who accuses the spiritualist of pretending knowledge of the divine secret. But the reverse is true. It is not necessary to measure the infinite depth of the skies in order to ascertain whether they extend far beyond the milky way; he who should fix that limit, would claim to know the depth of things. When the theologian thus dared to fix the limits of creation, he was obliged to support himself by divine revelation, just as the materialist of our day takes his stand behind certain so-called scientific revelations which do not exist. Science teaches us nothing of "life" and it has never been possible to imprison the spirit and the intelli- gence within the limits of a human body. No, as- MORS JANUA VITAE 295 tronomy does not need to know the secrets of God, to enlarge the Universe. We ourselves have no need to possess absolute knowledge in order to make clear the scientific way which has enabled us to enlarge the domain of life. The spiritualist is, then, well within his rights when he looks into the Beyond and attempts to sound its marvelous depths. In this con- templation he perceives revelations which extend well beyond the realm of physics and chemistry; he per- ceives the spheres of the mind, of consciousness, and of intelligence, whose domain is unlimited and whose evolution is effected outside the limits of time and space. Man misunderstands himself because his soul, a pure diamond, is surrounded by a matrix, a gangue; and because the world which he sees does not fulfill his aspirations, he despairs. A day comes, nevertheless, when fatigue, and the oppression of the material stimulate him to make an effort. His mind tries to break its fetters, and the poor pilgrim of the earth wanders toward the city of the dead; he leans his ear close to the stone walls of his funeral vault and to his infinite surprise finds faith and hope, and raising his head cries out, "We do not die." No, we do not die, because the creative force is anterior to the condensation of organic lives, and because the study of the Beyond has proved to us that the indi- vidual soul pre-exists and survives corporeal destruc- tion. With the eyes of our body we see, it is true, the passing materializations of consciousness and intel- ligence, whose activity continues in the invisible, around the cosmic current from which everything is nourished. We do not die, for nothing of all that exists can die; the body itself is a survival and a 296 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD composition of the first organic souls which gave it birth. We have lived in the protozoa, in the zoophyte, the reptile, the bird, and the mammalia; and the little beings who have realized these forms have kept that memory in order to furnish us to-day the ma- terials for present incarnations. The long work of the centuries has not allowed its instincts to be lost its memories, nor the gropings of organic life; on these the human soul has been grafted. If one of these forces which presided at the first formations, had for a moment ceased to exist, the chain of successive progress would have been broken, all would have fallen back into the inertia of the original atom. If evolution progresses it is due to this survival and to the inferior souls which lived on in us, and which are concerned with the lower func- tions of organic life; through their help we are able to ascend and lift ourselves towards the plane of mental life. Nature has no other goal than life; that is why we do not die. Life is all and matter is nothing; therefore matter passes and life remains. And those who have crossed the threshold of the mystery come to us and prove that a telepathic tie binds them to us in a certain fashion. The doors of the sepulcher let rays of the new light filter through ; those who are but recently deceased hesi- tate no longer; pausing on the frontier of the two worlds, they are able to send us some material signs of their presence; from beyond the tomb they send out a last cry, of which we may catch the echo. Finally, when we ourselves arrive at the time of ordeal; when, after this sad life through which we have passed, we are awaiting obscurity and nothing- ness; our psychic vision pierces the veil of matter; MORS JANUA VITAE 297 those whom we have entombed with our hands re- appear in a new day, coming to radiate about us the aurora of their smiles. Those whom w have believed dead cry out to us, "We do not die !" Listen to these voices which are heard in the history of all peoples, in the traditions of every age; they are not legends. The new revelation for us is that science now affirms that she has verified communication, is placing it on an absolutely scientific basis, and that she intends to occupy herself in studying its laws. That which gives us the right to declare this is the testimony of eminent men, who have devoted many long years of study to the examination of these facts. Listen to the latest one in our time, who has just made him- self heard. Sir Oliver Lodge, who quite recently abandoned all qualifications and concluded in the fol- lowing fashion: "For my part, I have not the slightest doubt upon the subject, although for a number of years, even in the last century, I have had recourse to all sorts of different explanations, but little by little, one after the other, they have been eliminated, and have arrived at the proof that the beings who communicate with us are truly they whom they declare themselves to be. Not always, but in the end the conclusion is reached that 'survival' is scientifically proven by means of scientific investigation. I believe that man is surrounded by other intelligences. If you would go beyond humanity, there are limitations until you arrive at the Infinite Intelligence itself. Once you have passed beyond man, you advance and you must advance until you reach God, Himself." THE END UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000034316 o Uni