oofa* bp fcenrp fcolt CALMIRE, Man and Nature. Sixth edition revised. STURMSEE Man and Man. Third edition revised. THE COSMIC RELATIONS AND IMMORTAL- ITY, second edition, 2 vols. ON THE Civic RELATIONS. Being a third edition of " Talks on Civics" rewritten from the catechetical into the expository form, and revised and enlarged. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK THE COSMIC RELATIONS AND IMMORTALITY IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I THE COSMIC RELATIONS AND IMMORTALITY r HENRY HOLT Bting a second edition eftbt author" i treatise "ON THE COSMIC RELATIONS" VOLUME I BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY *br filter* iDe prr*< CambnDgr 1919 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HKNRY HOLT COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY HENRY HOLT Published November, igu Reprinted. March, igis Second edition, enlarged, November, 1919 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OP course no one could sanely undertake an exhaustive treatment of the subject indicated by the title of this book. What I have attempted is an outline of the evolution of the relations between the soul and the external universe, and a summary of the recognized relations that are still so im- maturely evolved as to be little understood. With the latest philosophy, I have assumed a germ of consciousness in each particle of the star dust, recognizing the consciousness when it becomes obvious in the recoil of protoplasm from contact, and following the evolution up through primitive life into the soul as we know it to-day. I have made this sketch with a special view to showing that the existence of an unknown universe is a corollary of the evolution of knowledge. This has often been expressed in a sentence, but not often systematically expounded and illus- trated. After this hasty sketch of the a priori indications of an unknown universe, I have gone at once into the a posteriori indications, giving an account of the mysterious relations that have been carefully studied only for a generation, between the human forces now termed telekinetic and the better known modes of force; and also of the psychical relations termed telepathic, following them up to those which some consider spiritistic. That these phenomena are of great interest, and the study of them of the very first importance, has been the belief of some of the first minds of our time, including minds so diverse as those of Mr. Gladstone and Professor James. These things upon the borders of our Cosmic Relations have been most notably studied by the Society for Psychical Research, and earliest perhaps among the motives for under- taking this book, was the desire to present, so far as I could in the limits, and in such organic shape as I could, the most 2033194 vi Preface important of the accounts of phenomena and comments upon them scattered through the forty odd volumes so far pub- lished by that Society. My compilation has naturally ac- creted with itself considerable material from kindred sources, including some from the observations of my friends and myself; and I have ventured to accompany it with many guesses and comments of my own as to causes and implica- tions of the phenomena. Where all is so vague, there can be no immodesty in any earnest student hazarding his guesses. The only immodesty conspicuous in the connection is that frequently shown by those who pooh-pooh the facts without knowing anything about them. Many of the facts presented are very nebulous, and the guesses are naturally more nebulous still. This has led to a great deal of deliberate repetition, of views from various angles, so much that I fear it will tax the patience of the readers whose approval I most desire. I trust, however, that they will bear with the repetitions better from knowing that, although there is probably a full share of those which result from imperfection in the author's grasp, there are many others which are of set purpose. I beg farther indulgence for some inconsistencies. For instance, in dealing with the most tremendous subjects that tempt our intellects, at one moment one is conscious of their immensity, and uses the habitual symbols for the feeling, and at the next moment, in a different connection, the word that he has just capitalized arises in some matter-of-fact connection without any emotional content, and slips off the pencil as free from emphasis as any other word. I let them stay as they fell, and hope that their inconsistencies will not bother the reader as much as they have bothered the proof readers. Those good (and sometimes very bad) people have also been greatly bothered by the extracts of heteromatic writing : for I left them to be printed just as I found them, and they are often superior to the rules of rhyme and reason, let alone rhetoric and proof reading. Moreover, there are folks who don't like being bound by rule : if there never had been such, this book would not have been possible or perhaps any other. In addition to the sins for which I have already sought Preface vii absolution, I have contradicted myself with a freedom per- haps not quite Emersonian, but also, alas! not quite with Emersonian excuse ; and perhaps the worst thing I have done, but a thing which I suspect has been done by more than one other author, even by as great a one as I have just named, is letting stand two or three sentences written in good faith, whose meaning is so elusive that, by the time of revision, it has escaped even the author. It may come back, though, when sought under different circumstances, even by a different person. To crown all the paradoxical treatment of a paradoxical subject, there is matter on pages 373-4 and 395-6 that perhaps ought to be in the preface, but it could not be understood without a knowledge of much that precedes it. I have not made so much apology without a vivid con- sciousness that qui s'excuse s'accuse. But is there not suf- ficient sanction in antique usage, for a preface being " The Author's Apology " ? And surely in these days of unrelent- ing book production, he has more need of apology than ever before. I do not envy the man, or have much hope for the work of the man, who can write on these vague subjects without painfully mistrusting himself. But there is at least one good reason for any aspirant setting out with a good heart though he may receive, and deserve, no atten- tion, or even contemptuous attention, he is at least essaying needed work: for our age takes too little interest in these subjects, even if some ages have taken too much. My obligations to many friends are great to Mr. Dorr, Professor Kellogg, and Professor Newbold they are beyond expression. That two of them have sometimes talked all night with me is but a faint indication. Professor Kellogg has read some of the proof, and Professor Newbold the whole of it So has Mr. Bartlett, the biographer of Foster. So also have several other friends, some of them at almost as great sacrifice of peace of mind as the proof readers. I have also to express my thanks to the Society for Psy- chical Research for permitting the publication of some of the matter in Professor Newbold's hands which is under their viii Preface control. It is given in Chapter XXXVI, and also in the Baker case on pp. 8591 Some passages have been printed in The Unpopular Re- view. As it is usual to acknowledge such facts, partly per- haps to warn off readers, so slight a circumstance as my being the editor ought not to prevent the acknowledgment here. H. H. FAIBHOLT, BURLINGTON, Vr. September 26, 1914. PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE interest in Psychical Eesearch which has sprung from the bereavements of the war, has brought a sudden demand for a new edition of this work. The title of the first edition was simply "On the Cosmic Relations." Sir William Bar- rett, in a notice approving of its contents, expressed dissatis- faction with its title, and made its inadequacy for the first time apparent to the author. Although the principal purpose of the book was to tell what had been done in Psychical Eesearch, the title came from a desire to show that the new phenomena under research were as legitimate a part of our relations to the cosmos as those which had preceded them, and thus to establish the scientific basis for the new knowledge by correlating it with the old. I also hoped thereby to lessen the opposition with which the new knowledge, so contrary to old prejudices, is generally received. But Sir William's comment opened my eyes to the fact that the book's title failed in what, to a person not of the Euskinian type of mind, is really the first object of a title to indicate the main purpose of the book ; and thereby incidentally facili- tate its circulation. I trust that the expansion of the title in this edition will remedy the defect, and excuse this long explanation. Since the first edition was published in 1914 " mediums " as gifted as their predecessors, and with a great variety of gifts, have cropped up everywhere and in all social positions, and Preface to the Second Edition ix there has been an enormous amount of involuntary writing by ouija board or pencil. Seldom has there been such a flood of literature, good and bad, contributed in an equal time to any other department of knowledge. This suggests that this book should be rewritten, but that would involve withholding it at a time when the demand is pressing and perhaps impor- tant. And rewriting is not really worth while : for there has been no such change in the aspect of the matters treated, as cannot readily be disposed of in a supplement. Yet not only has the general literature of the subject vastly increased, but my personal knowledge of the phenomena has increased also, and it may be worth while to give some idea of the new aggregate. This I have attempted in some supplementary chapters, and I have also made some modifications in the final summary of the first edition. I have added nothing to speak of about " materialization." Before Dr. Crawford's discoveries, summarized in Chapter LVI, I was so skeptical about it that I had not even studied the subject ; and I am still ignorant of it except at second hand. But Dr. Crawford's evidence, and some that has reached me privately, make me think that the topic is probably worthy of attention. I can not, however, hold back this edition to study it farther. When the first edition was published, there was compara- tively little information outside the Proceedings of the S. P. R., and as they were not easily accessible to readers gen- erally, I quoted from them very freely. But the English S. P. R. has not been as active as before the war, and has confined its reports more and more to studies deeper than the average lay student's interests go. But, on the other hand, there are now many good books within reach of everybody. Yet with the exception of Dr. Crawford's, they do little more than confirm what I have given already. All the additions I have found practicable are, in Chapter LVI some brief accounts of what appear to be the revolu- tionary discoveries in Telekinesis announced by Dr. Craw- ford ; in Chapters LVII and LVIII, some account of my own experiences with two remarkable new sensitives, touching whom nothing has yet been published except my own articles in The Unpopular (now the Unpartizan) Review, from which i Preface to the Second Edition I quote freely; and in Chapter LIX, I give some comments on the current flood of involuntary writing, and a brief ac- count of a few of the most remarkable and novel recent miscellaneous cases. Because of the progress of Psychical Eesearch since the first edition, the supplementary chapters (LVI-LIX) and the slightly modified final summary composing Chapter LX, are of course somewhat at variance with the first edition. Espe- cially are Chapters LVII, on my experiences with Mr. T. and LVIII, on my experiences with " Mrs. Vernon," at vari- ance with the statement, after my seance with Mrs. Piper, in Chapter XXVIII, that I had not been near a medium since, nor cared to go. But I did not go then, and have not gone since, to seek communication with my own departed ones (in fact I willed it away in the Piper sitting) but I have gone merely to study the subject; and I strenuously counsel against the habit of going for any other purpose. Notice Mrs. Travers- Smith's opinions on that point in Chapter LIX. To avoid making an entirely new index, a short sup- plementary index of the new matter has been printed after the original index. But introducing that new matter between the last two chapters of the first edition, has involved renum- bering the pages, and consequently the references after page 930 in the original index are seventy pages too small. They can be corrected by adding that number, or the corrected ones can be found in the supplementary index. In the investigation of the subject, probably the greatest need now obvious is the comparative study of the immense mass of alleged evidence already accumulated a search for generalizations regarding which sensitives generally agree; and that is needed whether the study leads to the discovery of underlying principles, or "busts up" the whole thing. I, for one, don't think it will. If I were younger and less committed to other work, I might attempt that study, but even then there would be no justification to keep this book out of print until the work should be done. There are others to do the work, and I earnestly commend it to them. What little comparative study has already been done has Preface to the Second Edition xi brought out some important uniformities which it may not be premature to call laws. The best summary of them that I know has been made by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The New Revelation. I give a brief but very significant quotation from it in Chapter LIX. Since the first edition appeared, we have had the terrible privilege of living through, or at least into, the greatest period of revolution the world has known. On its physical side the revolution has probably been no greater than on its psychical side. The accelerated weakening of old dogmas has greatly increased the interest in Psychical Research; but, of course, a stronger influence has been the hope of reunion with those whom the war has so cruelly torn away. Ex- travagant as the suggestion may appear, perhaps this interest may yet more than compensate all the suffering of the war. The least that can be expected from it is a better correlation of psychic phenomena with our previous knowledge, while as much can be hoped for as a clearer demonstration of the survival of death, a regenerated religion, and expectation of a rational heaven. An eminent scientific man casually remarked to me the other day : " I see that now Lodge and Conan Doyle have had their heads turned." I asked him if he had read their books, and when he told me he had not, I had my pleasure usual in such cases, of telling him that I knew he had not, when he made his remark. The splendid labors of the S. P. R. have been, especially lately, largely devoted to search for what James used to call " knock-down evidence." I don't expect it much more than I expect the exact squaring of the circle : what with telepathy, teloteropathy, and the possibility of verification only from incarnate minds, not to speak of the inevitable difference between the conditions of incarnate existence and postcarnate existence, if there is any, the conditions of the question, outside of Telekinesis, do not seem to admit of knock-down evidence. Yet evidence may be convincing without being con- clusive, and there does seem a visible chance that as people learn more and more of the facts that have already convinced xii Preface to the Second Edition most of the investigators that have " turned the heads " of Swedenborg, Lincoln, Myers, Hodgson, Lodge, Crookes, Bar- rett and the Balfours, and attracted the profound attention of Gladstone, Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, MacDougall, Schiller, Bergson, Gilbert Murray, James, and Lord Eayliegh as peo- ple learn more of these things, and as the fashion of involun- tary writing spreads, there will gradually spread a belief in immortality based on such evidence as we may have. Men have gone to the stake for convictions whose evidence was no stronger. With that conviction we may hope for a great increase in right reason, in morality, in hopefulness, and consequently in happiness. H. H. FAIRHOLT, BURLINGTON, VT. October 23, 1919. CONTENTS BOOK I CORRELATED KNOWLEDGE BAPTER FAOB I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. SKETCH OF HUMAN EVOLUTION BODY . . 13 III. SKETCH OP HUMAN EVOLUTION SOUL . . 29 IV. EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVEBSE .... 50 V. THE KNOWN UNIVERSE AND THE UNKNOWN . 55 VI. SOME ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION . . 67 BOOK II UNCORRELATED KNOWLEDGE VII. INTRODUCTION 81 PART I TELEKINESIS VIII. MOLAR TELEKINESIS 91 IX. MOLAR TELEKINESIS (Continued) DOWSING 123 X. MOLECULAR TELEKINESIS 142 XI. MOLAR TELEPSYCHIC TELEKINESIS . . . 167 XII. MOLECULAR TELEPSYCHIC TELEKINESIS . . 181 PART II XIII. AUTOKINESIS 197 PART III XIV. PSYCHOKINESIS . 216 ziii XIV Contents PART IV TELEPSYCHOSIS CHAPTER PAGE XV. '.INTRODUCTION 218 XVI. TELEPATHY BETWEEN FOSTER AND THE AU- THOR 221 XVII. EARLY TELEPATHIC SENSITIVES . . . 228 XVIII. EECENT TELEPATHIC SENSITIVES . . . 240 XIX. SUGGESTED CORRELATIONS OF TELEPATHY . 276 XX. THE COSMIC SOUL 294 XXI. THE COSMIC SOUL AND THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL 305 XXII. MIND AND BRAIN AGAIN .... 314 XXIII. THE IDEA 321 XXIV. POSSESSION IN GENERAL . . . .329 XXV. POSSESSION IN HETEROMATIC WRITING . 339 XXVI. DRAMATIC POSSESSION. EARLY CASES . 364 XXVII. PRELIMINARY EEGARDING THE S. P. B. SITTINGS ....... 368 XXVIII. MRS. PIPER : AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE . . 380 XXIX. HODGSON'S FIRST PIPER EEPORT, 1888-91 . 400 XXX. MRS. PIPER'S ENGLISH SITTINGS, 1889-90 . 426 XXXI. HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER EEPORT, 1892-5 GEORGE " PELHAM " . . . . .460 XXXII. HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER EEPORT (Con- tinued) MISCELLANEOUS SITTINGS . 479 XXXIII. HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER EEPORT (Con- tinued) THE THAW SITTINGS . . 496 XXXIV. HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER EEPORT (Con- cluded) HODGSON'S CONCLUSIONS . . 513 XXXV. PROFESSOR NEWBOLD'S EEPORT . . .531 XXXVI. FARTHER NEWBOLD NOTES . 552 Contents xv CHAPTER PAOK XXXVII. PROFESSOR HYSLOP'S REPORT . . .597 XXXVIII. MR. PIDDINGTON'S REPORT ON MRS. THOMPSON . . . . . . 602 XXXIX. THE THOMPSON-PIPER-JOSEPH MARBLE SERIES . . . . . . . .629 XL. THE THOMPSON-MYERS CONTROL . . 637 XLI. HETEROMATIC SCRIPT: MRS. HOLLAND . 647 XLJI. HETEROMATIC SCRIPT: MRS. VERRALL . 672 XUII. THE PIPER-HODGSON IN AMERICA . . 685 XLIV. THE PIPER-HODGSON IN AMERICA (Con- tinued) 713 XLV. THE HODGSON CONTROL IN ENGLAND . 737 XLVI. THE ISAAC THOMPSON SERIES IN 1906 . 749 XLVII. CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES .... 761 XLVIII. THE PIPER-MYERS AND THE CLASSICS . 774 XLIX. THE PIPER- JUNOT SITTINGS . . .785 BOOK HI ATTEMPTS AT CORRELATION L. RELATIONS OF THE MEDIUM'S DREAMS WITH OTHER DREAMS .... 830 LI. THE MAKING OF A MEDIUM . . .848 LJI. FINAL GUESSES REGARDING POSSESSION . 864 LIII. PROS AND CONS OF THE SPIRITISTIC HY- POTHESIS 870 LIV. THE DREAM LIFE 881 LV. DREAMS INDICATING SURVIVAL OF DEATH 914 xvi Contents BOOK IV SUPPLEMENT FOR SECOND EDITION LVI. RECENT PROGRESS. DR. CRAWFORD'S AN- NOUNCEMENTS 931 LVII. THE MEDIUMSHIP OF MR. T. 945 LVIII. THE MEDIDMSHIP OP " MRS. VERNON " . . 962 LIX. THE INVOLUNTARY WRITERS . . . .982 LX. FINAL SUMMARY 1000 LIST OF BOOKS 1063 THE COSMIC RELATIONS AND IMMORTALITY BOOK I CORRELATED KNOWLEDGE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION THERE is something more than resemblances of words to make this age of wireless telegraphs, horseless carriages, and tuneless music, an age of lawless laws and creditlcss creeds. When new things replace old ones, new conceptions must follow; and during the transitions, men's convictions are suspended. Accordingly the comparatively recent realization that the Cosmos is governed by law, uniform, just, and merci- less, has dethroned the god whom prayer influences to dis- turb the order of Nature. With such a god, goes most that such a god implies ; and until we assimilate new conceptions of the power behind the universe, we are getting along with a short supply of faiths, and in some respects not getting along at all well. It may not be hard for instance to trace the connection of the lawless laws and creditless creeds with the tuneless music, or with any other art which has parted with inspiration. The old views of our Cosmic Relations being gone, these conditions cry out for new ones. It is a commonplace, but a very true one, that we are apt to attribute too much of mankind's well-being to recent dis- coveries. Telephones and wireless telegraphs are useful as transmitters of words only if the words say something worth saying; and there has not been said as much worth saying since the invention of the telephone as there was during an equal period before that invention. The wealth developed by man's recently increased control of nature has put the 2 Introduction [Bk. I search for wealth in front of the searching of the spirit: neither in production nor in appreciation have literature, philosophy, or the arts, the place they had about the middle of the nineteenth century, and science has been turning more and more from the discovery of Nature's inspiring laws to the production of wealth. The relation between man and the universe outside him has been growing more mechanical and less emotional. True, the city dweller seeks Nature more than he did, but it is for his body's sake rather than his soul's sake, and he feels a responsive soul behind Nature less than he did. The fervors, thrills, and longings of the philosopher are gone with those of the devotee. With them have dis- appeared the inspirations of the poet and the artist. If they come back, they must come under new forms: the old ones are like worn-out garments. Of what the new ones may be we are about to search for some hints. Men have always had some sort of realization of the ineffable mystery surrounding what they know. From the savage's propitiation of the unknown Power behind every known thing, up to Spencer's predication of an Unknowable beside which all we know shrinks toward nothingness, that mystery has been the source of many of our best emotions, and often of our dominant ones. For long periods and over wide spaces, religion has been both an inspiration and a con- trol. Although it was behind the cruelties of the Inquisition and the asceticisms of the Thebaid, it was no less behind the sculpture of Greece, the painting of the Kenaissance, the poetry of the Divina Commedia and the Paradise Lost, and the music of the Twelfth Mass and the Stabat Mater. What perhaps is more, it filled the ages in which lived makers of other great works, who, while showing no consciousness that they were affected by religion, even while contemning it, unconsciously owed to it much of their inspiration. This is realized by most of the few living men who experienced and hated the Puritan education that survived beyond the first half of the last century. At college they may have hated to go to chapel, especially when compelled to it before daylight in winter, and in the shortened holidays of June afternoons; they may have despised many of the dogmas taught, and even many of the good teachers who were too stupid to see the Ch. I] Inspirations. Puritanism. Infidelity 3 new revolutions rushing through thought; but despite all the hatred and contempt, some of them feel yet the thrill from the old hymns sung in the slanting sunlight of the shortened holidays, and realize that those thrills were akin to those which made that an age of great music and great literature great- ness whose dwindling makes this age comparatively barren. Yet the inspirations of Rossini and Verdi and Abt and Lachner and our own Foster, and those of Tennyson and Emerson came from precisely the same universe that we have before us now nay, from a much narrower one; but the interpretations of it were different, were generally accepted and were embodied in a set of enthusiasms common to all men, and therefore doubly inspiring to all men, even to the few whose emotions affirmed when their intellects ignored or denied. The Calvinistic theology, with its outcrop of Puritanism, had made God a tyrant to whom all joy in his creatures was displeasing. This made morality consist in self-suppres- sion. The master of my preparatory school, though educated as a physician, counseled his boys against drinking water in hot weather : so far did the conviction go that all our desires inclined toward evil ; even in fevers, water was not permitted ; and at Yale in my time, not only were the students forced to go to chapel in the dark mornings and winter storms, but an offer to cushion the benches of the chapel was rejected be- cause it was feared the cushions would promote effeminacy. At the same time, in defiance of all consistency regarding the effeminacy, but most consistently regarding the asceticism, athletics were not encouraged, partly, whether so realized or not, because they gave pleasure. But the reaction against those monstrous opinions, in dethroning the monstrous god the opinions propitiated, de- throned the only god there was, and, to the minds of many, introduced a purely material universe one without malevo- lence but equally without benevolence a Cosmos, it is true, because orderly and governed by law, but with its emotional elements ignored, and even its beauty dissected away in the search for causes. These arid views were of course possible only during the passing of an intense emotional reaction. While the relations 4 Introduction [Bk. I of the Soul to God became abstractions too tenuous to con- sider, the interactions between the Soul and the rest of the Cosmos, were more distinctly recognized and investigated, and it became generally realized that of those interactions, hap- piness is, despite exceptions, the natural result: indeed, the Cosmos has come to appear an apparatus for the production of happiness, and, on the whole, despite many failures, a very successful one. At least in our corner of it, Nature has been at work longer than we can intelligently realize, in making man "from the dust of the earth" in evolving responsive matter from irresponsive, and in building up organisms of responsive matter for no other apparent reason than that the responses may produce happiness. All sane action is undertaken for the sake of happiness. Other reasons have been given, but they do not bear examina- tion. Action may be sane, however, and yet mistaken, or may even be deliberately counter to the happiness of the actor, in which case, as in self-sacrifice for another's sake, it will be intended for the happiness of someone other than the actor it may be even for the happiness of God, as in the Juggernaut sacrifices no less than in the Roman incense or the musical tributes of the rural New England melodeon and choir. Or the action may be counter to the happiness of someone else, in which case it will be for the happiness of the actor, as in robbery; or of some third person, as in removing a friend's enemy; or again even of God, as in persecuting those who deny him. Or, once more, the action may be against the immediate happiness of the actor, but for his at-least-supposed ultimate happiness, as in asceticism for the soul's sake; or it may be against the immediate happiness of another, but for his sup- posed ultimate happiness, as in religious persecution. But in whatever complexities the purpose of action may be dis- guised, it is, if sane, ultimately intended for happiness of somebody somewhere. Counter theories have been main- tained, but they have been demonstrated fallacious, both in logic and in practice. The proposition that, so far as we can see, happiness is the only known justification for the existence of either soul or universe, has probably been the object of more attack Ch. I] Happiness, Duty, Cosmic Law 5 than any other proposition in philosophy. The opposition, however, has been mainly against low definitions of the term happiness, which the critics have made for themselves. But that proposition is supported even by their suggestion that God made both soul and universe to amuse himself that his eyes might be delighted by human sacrifices, and his palate by their flesh; or that his ears might be tickled by melodeons, and his nose by incense such was one idea of Divine happiness entertained by some of those who made the suggestion. If happiness means the satisfaction of poor taste, or vanity, or sensuality, or means even mere amusement, the proposition is well founded. But where does happiness bulk larger in poor taste, or good taste; in vanity, or modesty; in excess, or temperance; in selfishness, or generosity; in laziness or activity? If happiness is most effectively sought in good work relieved by the recreation essential to its best efficiency, and directed to the greatest aggregate happiness regarding the happiness of the individual only as a component of that; in love of the beautiful universe and of the arts we generate from it ; in love of beautiful bodies and beautiful souls, and the beautiful moral law; and in grateful, hopeful, filial, intimate reverence for the Power and Beneficence obvious behind it all if happiness comes mainly from these things, who shall say that its production is not the main result, and the best result, of all the legitimate activities we know ? And yet it is but a by-product of duty. With this view that the cosmic relations are normally productive of happiness has come the realization that the substitution, in the control of the universe, of law for anthropomorphic volitions, has not done away with morality; and that discrediting the testimony on which, in our branch of the race, the hopes of immortality had mainly rested, did not destroy all bases for the hopes, especially as there began to appear new bases, which even conquered the skepticism of many investigators to whom the old ones appealed in vain. These new mental attitudes have resulted from much dis- cussion, but they are still so new that discussion can hardly yet have become superfluous, and that any earnest writer may hope to present some aspects worth noticing. In this hope 6 Introduction [Bk. I I venture one more consideration of our Cosmic Eelations one by no means exhaustive, even of our present knowledge, but only of some salient features of it. Our " Cosmic Eelations " is a brief term for the interactions between Soul and Universe. For those interactions to be successful which means for them to be productive of hap- piness, the actions on one side must of course be in conformity with the actions on the other. There are actions on both sides not controlled by our wills on one side, many of our own thoughts and feelings; and on the other, most of the processes of Nature. But we have always found the actions we do not control, consistent with each other in conformity with Nature's laws, as we phrase it; and when the actions we do control are also in such conformity, the actions we do not control always co-operate with us, and insure our success ; when our actions are not in conformity, the other actions op- pose us, and insure our failure. Conformity is what we call morality. With some of the reactions we are very familiar, some we know vaguely, there may be others at which we merely guess, and probably the vast majority we do not even guess about. The changes in our bodies on which our mental and physical well-being depends, are but very imperfectly known to us, and many not known at all. The same is true of con- ditions in our environment. We can yet foresee but im- perfectly the daily and seasonal changes of temperature and moisture on which our health and fortunes so largely depend ; and we guess but faintly that there are around us changes of magnetic and electrical tension which materially affect our vigor and spirits, and yet which we recognize but slowly and vaguely, and cannot anticipate, much less control. Such, however, as already hinted, is the obvious consistency of the universe, that there is every reason to believe that if we deduce correct principles of conduct regarding what we know, we will comport ourselves wisely regarding what we do not know. The vast majority of wise people have even carried this principle so far as to believe that if there is a life beyond the one we are leading, the full use of this one is the best possible preparation for that one. Some ascetics, however, Ch. I] Philosophy and Conduct. Soul and Universe 7 have advocated the subordination of this one to certain fancies which they have entertained regarding that one. To guard against such extremes, it is well to know the general laws of the happiness-producing Cosmos: for they indicate the right uses of less general knowledge. That is the reason for traditionally applying the term The Guide of Life to the general laws, embraced under the name Philoso- phy, and is why masters of special arts have always come to learn from masters of philosophy, and why widespread errors of philosophy have led to disastrous blunders in re- ligion, statecraft, economics, criminology, physical science, and invention blunders all the way from attempting to govern heterogeneous peoples by homogeneous suffrage, and attempting to cure laziness by fostering it, down to astrology and perpetual motion. As any treatment, however modest, of the widest generali- ties, must here and there touch the outlines of all we know, to make some sort of consistent whole it must include many things with which most readers are already familiar. But that is an infirmity of nearly all exposition: often the best that one can hope to reach, is putting old facts in new lights. Our study, like all others, needs a classification of subject- matter and a terminology, and our classification, like all others, cannot escape being a little arbitrary, with some overlapping at the lines of division. As already intimated, we will consider the Cosmos as con- sisting of the soul and the universe external to it. Yet some wise people deny any such duality part of them declaring that there is nothing outside the mind, and others declaring that mind is only a function of matter. Very well, we will consider this later; at present, for the first class of persons, let us divide the contents of the mind into what it does not project as seemingly outside itself, and what it does; and for the second class of persons, let us divide the functions of matter into those taking place in the nervous system, and those taking place outside of it. As said before, no classifica- tion is faultless, but any one of these will do to work with, 8 Introduction [Bk. I and the three are nearly enough identical to permit the terms of any one to apply to the others at least closely enough for our purposes. The terms in each case may well be cov- ered by the old-fashioned words subjective and objective. This is our first illustration of something that will come before us often and with which the reader is probably already only too familiar the absence in Nature of lines of demarcation, and the frequent necessity of assuming them for purposes of study. As with body and soul, so with animal and vegetable, chemical and physical, and hosts of other pairs of categories. Of most of the items under any pair, we can say: This comes under one of the pair, and this under the other; but there are some which we find it so difficult to place that we are tempted to say : This comes under both. Even to-day certain of the simplest organisms will be found included in both zoological and botanical text-books. Using our terms Soul and Universe, we place the body outside of the soul. But inside the soul we recognize a Something which says my body, my sensations, my thoughts, my feelings, my soul. This something we know only as making such remarks, and claiming such possessions ; but we at least give it a name Consciousness. But we call even it, my consciousness. What calls it so ? Another consciousness ? If so, that too must be "mine," and so on ad infinitum. Thus consciousness, like everything else, is ultimately a mystery beyond our faculties. Yet we include it with the mass of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, under the con- ception which, pace the quarrels of the psychologists, we call Soul. Outside of the soul,, too, are other souls, which, in relation to it, we are to include not in Soul, but in Universe: for as happiness is mainly produced by the interactions between one soul and other souls, unless we did include objective soul in universe, there would be but a sorry foundation for our fundamental proposition that the interactions between soul and universe are the cause of happiness. To this proposition it may be objected (How hard it is to make a proposition to which " it may be objected " never applies!) that the soul derives happiness from its own func- tions from studying its own processes, contemplating its Ch. I] Knowledge, Experience, Forecast 9 memories and imaginations, and constructing its interpreta- tions, theories, and schemes. True, but all these seem to have their origin in reactions between Soul and Universe. We will regard the universe as consisting of, first, the portion known to us; second, the portion partly known, or on the borderland between the known and the unknown; and third, the portion unknown, which is presumably im- measurably the largest. This classification, too, is like all others, very vague at the dividing lines so vague indeed that we have to begin by admitting the first portion to be, from one point of view, identical with the second; but we will find another point of view. What shall we understand by the known universe? It is really a sequence of phenomena. Until lately it was believed, and is still generally believed, that we can perceive, think, and feel only through vibrations in the objective universe, includ- ing nerve matter, and we may as well proceed provisionally on this belief until we reach the reasons that may point to supplementing it. Supplementing belief seems, in this genera- tion, to have been one of our most important functions. Knowledge is the recognition of uniformities and differ- ences in the aforesaid vibrations, and it is really knowledge, only as it can prophesy uniformities and differences in new vibrations. The ability thus to prophesy depends of course upon uni- formity and breadth of experience. Certainty varies as these vary, and as there is no final experience as the sun may not rise to-morrow morning; as next winter may be hot, and next summer cold ; as anything and everything may turn out differently from what it always has; there is of course no absolute certainty. Or looking at it from another angle : if certainty means demonstration not open to any possible doubt, absolute certainty is impossible to the human mind: for, as has often been said, absolute certainty would need infinite evidence, whose accumulation would require infinite time. Meanwhile " absolute " and " infinite " are words which are merely confessions of ignorance, and therefore " absolute certainty" is not only unattainable, but unthinkable; and over all this, some diseased minds have made a great pother. 10 Introduction [Bk. I But it is a far cry from such considerations, to the in- ference of the pessimists that as human knowledge is not certain, it is useless. We have found practical certainty, in the vast majority of instances, as reliable as absolute certainty could have been ; and our uncertain knowledge is not only the best knowledge we have, but it is good enough. Our degree of certainty that the sun will rise to-morrow morning, and that things will go as they have gone, except as their totality improves, has been a guide to all human effort, and a basis for all human happiness. Though the disasters that have come from mistakes have been many and serious, they have not been enough to prevent life being generally worth while to sane people not given to pessimism if any sane people are. There are those for whom the only certainty possible to men is not enough. Their trouble, however, is not with their mental food, but with their mental digestion. They need the help of the alienist rather than the philosopher. One often meets a general statement that the fact of evolu- tion of our faculties and of our knowledge of the Cosmos up to the present stages, demonstrates that the evolution of both will continue, and that therefore there must be not only a uni- verse, astronomical and microscopical, outside the one we know, but also an unknown universe within the one we partly know, and that this is as true of mind as it is of matter. But I have never seen an attempt to make this abstract state- ment more realizable more like the fruitful knowledge we have of visible and tangible things, by a sketch of evolution contrasting our universe with the universe of our primitive ancestors, and drawing from the contrast the legitimate in- ferences regarding the wider capacities and wider universe unknown to us, presumably infinitely vaster than those we know, and presumably to be enjoyed by our descendants, and possibly by ourselves in some other plane of being. The mysteries of that unknown universe of mind and matter have always been contemplated with awe, alike by the primi- tive savage and the most advanced saint and mystic, and this awe has been the parent of most of the religious emotions. But the developments in the universe of our daily experience during the past century, have been so much greater than ever before have so increased our control over the powers Ch. I] Consciousness of the Unknown. Plan of this Work 11 of Nature, and with it our wealth, that never perhaps, cer- tainly never since the luxurious days of Rome, have men's thoughts been so diverted from the mysteries and emotions which have marked the great religious ages. Those ages have had their extremes, but ours is in the opposite extreme, and sadly needs to have a portion of its interests lifted from Lombard Street and Wall Street, not to speak of the Savoy and the Waldorf-Astoria. Without a large consciousness of the universe beyond our knowledge, few men, if any, have done great things. The consciousness may have been mingled with dark and cruel superstitions, but it has been effective in spite of them. Even poor Napoleon had it, and if his age had not been enough like ours to afford him but a niggard supply, he might not have been the pitiable failure he was. The task I have set myself is, first, to attempt (in Book I) some such sketch of evolution as may impress, more than abstract statements can, a living consciousness of the exist- ence of the universe beyond our knowledge. For such a sketch the facts are yet meager, and have to be pieced together by not a little guesswork. Moreover, they largely relate to primitive and uninteresting things, and I fear my sketch will be dull, especially in the early stages, where its relation to its object cannot be very obvious. Moreover, as it must deal largely with commonplaces of knowledge, you may be impatient unless I am fortunate enough to lead you constantly to regard them as links in a chain of demonstration which, when completed, may possibly repay your attention. As soon as you find yourself bored, which I greatly fear you will, it may still be worth while to turn to Chapter V. There, after you skip what I fear may be some " fine writing " that I have been betrayed into, you will find the gist of every- thing between here and there ; and in Chapter VIII you will find the beginning of some things that may not have to de- pend on any powers of mine to make you " sit up and take notice." Having done what I can to arouse an interest in the Unknown, I shall proceed (in Book II) to give some account of a mass of phenomena which of late have fitfully emerged 12 Introduction [Bk. I from the Unknown, and which although they seem to have always been more or less a part of man's reactions with the Universe of both mind and matter, have been so small a part that, while they raise questions of the highest importance, they have been little explained that is to say: little correlated ' with the mass of verified and usable knowledge. Incidentally, and especially in conclusion (in Book III), I shall offer the leading guesses, and some of my own, as to the possible correlations and implications of these uncorrelated phenomena, and the answers they offer to the questions they raise. The last two books I trust will not tax the reader's patience as severely as the first one. We proceed now to the threatened sketch of evolution with reference to its demonstration of a universe beyond our knowledge. CHAPTER II SKETCH OF HUMAN EVOLUTION The Body FIRST for a rough survey of the apparatus through which the Soul maintains its reactions with the Universe. As this apparatus is evolved, its presumptive farther evolution involves a farther evolution of its functions, which means an increase of the reactions between Soul and Universe; and that means an increase of happiness. At the outset, the survey of the evolution of the apparatus may seem going over too familiar ground, but it will contain some implications that are not very familiar, and that are ancillary to our main purpose. It will also help some more specific work later. Moreover generally, probably always, the best way to study things and their relations is to begin with their evolution. Evolution began anterior to our knowledge, but it is now going on in things so much like any one we may wish to study, that we can generally get a fair notion of that thing's evolution, through the similar evolutions going on around us. For instance, from hints we get from other suns and systems, and from the action of mechanical laws that we know, we have made a history of the evolution of our solar system; and although no man ever saw that evolution, our history of it is probably more reliable than many histories of human events that profess to be made from the reports of witnesses. Similarly regarding the evolution of plants and animals and intelligence : we have primitive protoplasm and many primi- tive organisms with us now, and by watching them, and seeds and embryos which repeat their own ancestral evolution, we have learned much of the past biological evolution of which we are the summit. As we know (in the sense of "knowing" already ex- plained), the evolution of the human body took its start, if 18 14 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I we wish to assume a start anywhere, an immeasurable time ago, in a cell of protoplasm. The most primitive individual creature that we know is the amoeba. It is little more than a nucleated cell of protoplasm, and yet it does queer things. But first let us see if we can get behind it to a connection with inorganic nature: for inorganic objects do queer things too. Professor Holmes says (Evolution of Animal Intelligence, p. 67) : " There are various ways of imitating the movements of Amoeba by drops of oil or other fluids subjected to changes of surface tension. If a drop of mercury is placed in dilute nitric acid and a piece of potassium bichromate placed near it the drop of mercury will bulge out toward the bichromate and may surround it. The bichromate as it diffuses against the mercury causes a diminution of surface tension at the region of contact. The stronger contraction of the rest of the surface film forces the mercury to protrude at the weakest point, producing an outpushing resembling the pseudopod " [false foot] " of the Amoeba. It has been contended that varia- tions in surface tension account in great measure for the movements of Amoeba and other Khizopods much as in inor- ganic fluids. There is certainly a striking analogy between the phenomena in the two cases, but the studies of Jennings have shown that explanation of the phenomena is not quite so simple." Elsewhere Professor Holmes tells us that a drop of water will swallow a fine splinter of glass, and that a drop of chloroform will also, if the splinter is covered with shellac, and will eject it after the shellac is dissolved and becomes part of the drop. A drop of protoplasm with a nucleus, which we call an amoeba, will swallow pretty much anything it can manage to flow around, and after treating it, so far as con- ditions permit, as the drop of chloroform treats the shel- lac, will eject what remains, as the chloroform does the In view of such facts, one is almost tempted to ask whether the desire to draw an arbitrary line between "physical and chemical processes," on the one hand; and on the other the " super-physical agency . . . vital principle, or entelechy of some sort/' may not be simply the old theological prejudice, Ch. II] Origin of Life. Protozoa 15 and whether organic and inorganic are not simply two aspects of the same thing. To determine where, in the three performances above de- scribed, life begins, certainly will give material for debate to those fond of the exercise. Perhaps the question can be settled by the fact that you and I can be pretty closely proved to be descended from drops of protoplasm, and nobody yet heard from can be nearly as closely proved to be descended from drops of water or even drops of mercury or chloroform or oil, though the chloroform is complex matter, and the oil is organic matter. Professor Holmes (op. cit.) is my principal authority for the statements immediately following: In the material of amcebae and other low forms, various chemical reagents inserted in the water they inhabit, awaken reactions which lead to changes in form, sometimes enough to produce motion of the organism, and lead it to or away from the reagent It is thus difficult, if not impossible, in the simpler creatures, to draw the line between chemical reaction and animal motion, and even purposeful motion in creatures a little higher still. So with the effects of gravity some of these creatures find their way to the bottom of the receptacle, and others to the top. Chemical reactions, especially variations in the amount of oxygen, combine with gravity in producing these motions. Light, too, is an agent; and when the spectrum has been thrown on the water, there has been a marked clustering of some creatures toward the red end. Often clusters form in response to the conditions for instance around a drop of some reagent, sometimes to their destruction, though oftener to their betterment. If an electric current is sent through a mass of amoebae, it will move itself, or part of itself, toward the cathode. All may go, or, if the current is very strong, the point near the anode may contract and disintegrate. Paramecia, worms and mollusks generally react to elec- tricity negatively, and crustaceans positively. Masses of amabse elongate themselves toward favoring objects throw out pseudopods and attach themselves. We envy the crab who, if he happens to lose a limb, develops a 16 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I new one, but the crab may envy the amoeba who makes his limbs as he needs them extrudes a pseudopod in the direction where his reactions send him, and flows the rest of himself up into the pseudopod. Then he will do it again, and so travel. Amoebae also get (make themselves?) top-heavy, and roll over, and keep it up till they have traveled an appreciable distance. Creatures a degree higher have more or less per- manent cilia which they use similarly, and by which they regulate their motions. A grade farther on, these cilia become a swimming apparatus in later evolution, the tentacles of the octopus; or the creatures may evolve, instead of cilia or tentacles, a curtain like that of the jelly-fish. The cell of protoplasm has, in a sense, no interior organiza- tion: it gets all its nutriment and sensations (if it has any) from its surface from outside. But its descendants tend to evolve into sacs or tubes, and the water flowing through the opening of the sac or tube supplies some nutriment and sensations inside. This differentiation soon becomes marked, the nutriment being taken up more and more from the inside, and distributed through a system of minor tubes which become evolved throughout the material composing the prin- cipal one. In time, the central tube evolves a bulge which acts as a stomach, a gland shows up alongside it, and that pestilent organ a liver is introduced into the world, perhaps con- temporaneously with original sin. In time the lower end of the tube differentiates into various sorts of intestines, and appendicitis becomes a fashionable possibility. The upper end differentiates into a mouth, and when the mouth becomes human, not only do its lips and teeth become beautiful, but eating itself becomes a fine art, and a well-managed dinner table becomes a great educational and political influence. The subsidiary apparatus for circulating the blood also develops into a pumping engine and system of intakes arteries, and one of outlets veins, for the waste left after the nutritive matter has parted with its force. This waste is deposited in reservoirs from which it is discharged period- Ch. II] Digestive Organs, Limbs, Nerves 17 ically. Were it discharged constantly, as it is made, all re- finement of life, and present attractions of human beings for each other, would be non-existent. The circulatory and ex- cretory system also does its share for the aesthetic, in supply- ing red lips and pink cheeks and the flushes of emotion, and Cleopatra's " bluest vein." Meantime is evolved a parallel tube for gaseous food and waste. It opens into the mouth, and below ramifies into lungs, and, like the other tubes, in time makes its contribution to intelligence and beauty: for it contains the apparatus for the voices of Patti and Caruso, and an extension of it was covered by that same Cleopatra's nose upon whose dimensions Pascal rested the fortunes of the world. On the way up to all this, parts of the body surrounding the original tube have differentiated, as already partly in- timated, into the curtain of the jelly-fish, the radiates of the star-fish, the feelers of the octopus, the fins and tail of the vertebrate fish, the paddles of the amphibious lizard, the wings and legs of the bird, the legs of the quadruped; and at length the arms and legs from which are modeled those of the Apollos and Venuses. To receive the sensations which all these pieces of appa- ratus pick up (including the aches announcing that they need attention), and to direct their consequent activities, there is gradually evolved throughout the body a nervous system. It begins at the surface, where it gets its sensations from the external universe. A very primitive nervous system is an afferent nerve near the surface, bringing sensation to a ganglion, and from the ganglion an efferent nerve going to some sort of contractile tissue near the surface. The surfaces of some primitive animals are covered with such rudimentary systems the earliest distinguishable ones being little more than ganglia alone, which, in addition to producing contractions, in some way influence the surface nutrition and, in time, the tem- perature. But by and by these rudimentary systems get integrated into higher systems; two ganglia may be connected by a nerve, or each connected with a third ganglion, and by the 18 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I intervention of the third ganglion the afferent nerve to the first ganglion may provoke an answer through the efferent nerve from the second: so that a message that a surface spot itches, is not offset by a mere message from the ganglion to the spot to contract, but by a message through a different ganglion to a beak or a claw or a hand, to scratch it. Farther, two of such systems of three ganglia each, may be connected through each third ganglion with a seventh. And in this system, of seven, an afferent bringing a report from any of the six, may start, by way of the seventh, an afferent from any other of the six, or perhaps all of them. There may be a scratch ordered from one, a cry from another, a reflection on the cussedness of fleas from another, and so on. Two such sets of seven ganglia may both, by connection with a fifteenth ganglion, be incorporated into a set of fifteen, and then there will probably be some philosophizing, perhaps not only regarding the cussedness of fleas, but possibly re- garding a universe where fleas are possible, or even a god who permits them. These incorporations are not as systematic as described, but take place in all conceivable fashions. Moreover they need not be between ganglia connected by lines of nerves, but in most cases they actually are between adjacent cells connected in all sorts of ways by prolongations from globular or oval centers. Masses of cells so connected by many varying affixes, make up still larger ganglia; and in the higher ani- mals, the largest of these is the brain. Meanwhile the nerves at the surface have multiplied until, as any pin-prick will prove, they are as close together as some of the early casuists supposed the angels were on the needle's point. The ends of the afferent nerves all over the surface, includ- ing the sense organs, get intelligence from the external world, and transmit it to the first point where something is done about it at least to the first point where the nerve carrying intelligence in, meets, in a nerve-bunch or ganglion, a nerve carrying orders out. This meeting may be in a ganglion on the way to the brain, or in the brain itself. In the first case, the return message goes to the muscles near the affected spot, before the nerve from the spot affects Ch. II] Sympathetic Nervous System 19 the intelligence at all ; and the muscle gives some involuntary jerk. Or possibly the afferent nerve current will pass on, perhaps through sundry ganglia, to the brain itself. In this case, before any efferent message goes back, the situation may be thought over it may be concluded, for instance, that scratching is more trouble than it's worth, and no orders are issued, except sometimes a very imperative order to keep still, if the itching, or the impulse to sneeze, or perhaps the impulse to say something questionable, should be dangerously strong. Mingled with the lacework of afferent nerves to carry sen- sations from the surface of the body, but preponderantly behind them, is the network of efferent nerves leading to the muscles. Then, mainly well below the surface, both the afferent nerves and the efferent nerves begin to join each other, not only in ganglia, as stated, but also in "cables" going to other ganglia, the cables uniting into larger ones until these last go to the backbone, and one of them passes in on each side between each pair of vertebrae, and there unites with the principal cable of all, and passes up into the brain. A preparation of a human nervous system in the Jardin des Plantes looks like a statue of lace: so here again, as in every piece of apparatus or every function we have been con- sidering, evolution has been toward beauty, even though hid- den beauty. This is a rough sketch of the apparatus for the soul's voluntary reaction with the universe, whether the soul be a mere capacity to react to touch, or a capacity to receive im- pressions and ideas, and issue directions and ideas, with the power of a Bismarck or a Shakespere. In addition to the apparatus for voluntary reaction, is one in some respects more interesting still, and, as will become plainer as we proceed, more related to our present task. In fact the sketch of the nervous system already given, serves our immediate purpose only as contributing to an under- standing of the sketch we are about to give. In ffont of the spinal column, and on its respective sides, are two other cables which do not go to the brain, and into which enter 20 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I nerves from all the organs that act independently, or partly independently, of the will the heart, the lungs, the digestive organs, even the sweat pores on the skin, which help to regu- late the temperature of the body. These cables have several ganglia which act like subsidiary brains in regulating the actions of the connecting organs. The two nervous systems may be probably often have been, respectively called voluntary and involuntary, though they connect with each other so that, regarding respiration, for instance, they are both voluntary and involuntary; and, as in walking, playing music, or in some tricks of legerdemain, the voluntary one may be trained into almost involuntary action. Our wills control the first system, being limited only by our powers and whatever unresponsiveness there may be in the environment. With the other system (generally called the sympathetic) our wills have little to do, except so far as our knowledge and discretion affect the body's health. If the conscious purposeful human soul controls the nerves or most of them, which center in the brain, what controls the nerves centering in the sympathetic system, where the human will does not enter? There are overwhelming reasons for recognizing it as the same power that makes and vitalizes the flowers and the sequoia, the unthinking monad and the scarcely-more-thinking whale; causes the sun to lift moisture and to gild the clouds in which it floats; causes the air to float them, and the shifting wind to send them back to earth in storms and with lightnings the same power that causes the sun to burn, that rolls us away from him by night, that swings the other planets around him, and all the planets of other systems around their suns, and all (the word begins to lose meaning here) the suns around each other ; and still the same power that has evolved and sustains the mind of man to learn these things the power for which we may as well, perhaps, use the old name God, with all its reverend associa- tions, and despite all its besmirchings. The name can often save a lot of circumlocution, and we need not confine it to the anthropomorphic conceptions generally associated with it. Our limitations being what they are, it is fortunate that we do not have to take entire care of ourselves, and that so Ch. II] The Power not Ourselves 21 much care of us is taken by that " Power not ourselves.'* If we had to take thought to pump our own hearts and lungs, digest our food, secrete our bile, and perform the other functions essential to keep us in condition, we would forget, keep constantly ailing, or be letting something stop; and if it were the heart, we should die. In fact, if we had to attend to these functions from the beginning, we cannot conceive of our growing up at all; we cannot even conceive of our existence starting at all, if "God" had not started it for us. " He " sets the little apparatus going, and brings it to maturity, but allowing us, as it goes on, to do for ourselves as much as we can do well, and more. Where and how did the apparatus start? Nobody knows. Nobody knows where anything started even a train of cars. Did it start at the station, or in the factories, or in the ore beds, or in the star dust, or in the previous system smashed into star dust, or in the star dust that made that system, or where? In all our classifications, we have to assume a starting-point with reference to the inquiry at hand. Whether we begin man, as we have done, in primitive protoplasm, or in the cell differentiated from the male parent, the will and the power that assimilate and integrate and differentiate him, are both his own and not his own. If the soul creates the body (for which proposition Dr. William H. Thomson, in his new book on Brain and Personality, makes the latest argument and one of the best), the soul must be both the spark of life in the parent cell, and the power working outside of the independent volition of that cell, even when matured. There will be significant things to say about this later. The Senses So much in general for the apparatus through which the reactions between soul and universe take place. Now let us proceed to the more specific reactions. This will involve a more specific consideration of some portions of the apparatus. Here too we have to choose our starting-point Star dust may be a little too primitive, though I confess that I, for one, cannot conceive of anything physical or spiritual without its start at least that eirly. But let us start with as primitive a thing as we are familiar with. 22 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I A bit of rock reacts to gravity. Is there any sign of soul versus universe there? Hardly. Non-magnetic ore reacts to magnetic ore. Any sign there? Not yet probably. A bit of protoplasm, or the sensitive plant, expands to heat, or contracts to cold. The puzzle begins: there is life indeed, but expansion and contraction with heat and cold are no evidence of life : inanimate things show that. But when an animate thing does it, may it not mark a transition toward consciousness? The bit of protoplasm, or the sensitive plant, contracts to touch, and restores itself; the puzzle thickens: a rubber ball will do that, but the ball's contraction is only in proportion to the degree of the pressure, while the protoplasm's or the plant's contraction may be much greater or less than the degree of pressure. We have no doubt about that being a vital reaction some- thing that no inorganic thing will do; or if we find it done by anything before called inorganic, we will, I suppose, at once call that thing organic. Such primitive responses, although there were, strictly speaking, no nerves, were the first germs of nervous reaction. As evolution went on, however, portions of the primitive homo- geneous substance were more and more differentiated into nerve, and nerve differentiated and integrated into brain. Touch, as distinct from the special senses, is hardly differ- entiated at all. Very early in the scale of being, any portion of the surface contracts when touched. Some portions are more sensitive than other portions. Gradually from the sur- face with its one sense of touch, were differentiated, from the more sensitive portions, organs of special sense: response to contact with material objects being gradually refined into response to objects so nearly immaterial as odors, as air in vibration appealing to a gradually developed sense of hearing, and as (we assume) ether in vibration appealing to a gradually developed sense of sight. Light produces all sorts of changes in inorganic matter, find organic matter is less stable than even inorganic. Light has been impinging upon organic matter a long time: it is inconceivable that no changes should result, and that sus- Ch. II] Evolution of Sight 23 ceptibility to the touch of .rays of light should not appear stronger in some spots than in others. (For the reasons, read a hundred or two pages of Spencer's First Principles.) In the course of generations, perhaps as the result of chemical changes, such spots have become discolored by some sort of pigment, and the dark color increases the amount of light absorbed. Farther differentiations take place until we find features that we deliberate about calling eyes; and a few thousand generations farther on, we unhesitatingly call them eyes. The conception of the evolution of the senses thus becomes easy, and the placing of its evidences in sequence in the labor- atory, has been but a matter of detail. It has been easy to find the points where primitive eyes, or pigment patches, which would respond to white light, grow responsive to blue light or to red or orange or yellow or green or indigo or violet; and similar points regarding response by other senses. If receptacles of different colors are offered to mosquitoes, they avoid the yellow ones. This has led some recent investigators in mosquito regions to dress themselves and cover their shel- ters with yellow. When pigment first appears, it is generally flat behind the light-receiving tissues, and so can receive light from but one direction ; but later it and the receiving cells curve, and so become capable of receiving light from more direc- tions, and finally the curvature becomes, as in most seeing animals, the lining of a globe. The stained skin gradually develops into a crystal-clear lens on the outer surface of a ball filled with clear jelly, and on the back of its interior, the nerve, which first reported only the difference between light and dark, becomes spread out into the sensitive plate of a camera, and reports the images thrown upon it through the lens, with all the colors we know. The evolution goes from a fixed rudimentary lens to a developed lens up to fixed eyes of many lenses, as in the fly, or perhaps by a different route to the moving eye with a single lens. Eyes appear early in various parts of the body, on the back, belly, sides, legs, even the tail ; and in special prolonga- 24: Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I tions that can be moved in various directions, as if we had eyes in our hands. In the human embryo, the first trace of the eye is a line in the skin, which develops into a fold, and thence by slow stages up to the eye as we know it; and in contemporary animals we find eyes all the way from mere localized sensi- bility to light, up to the optical instrument in the head of man. Before leaving the eye, it may be worth while to quote, with a comment or two, a remarkable account of its varieties, by Dr. Edward A. Ayers (Harper's Magazine, September, 1908) : " The snake has no use for tears, nor the goose for parallel vision. The spider can spin the warp and woof of his destiny without gazing at the stars, and the sand-burrowing eel would soon starve with sensitive cornese. Nature holds to her excep- tionless law that the talent unused by the sire shall be with- held from the son. But simplicity has its compensations. If the spider cannot bend his neckless head nor move his socket- fixed eyes, he gets one for each point of the compass, whereby he can keep one eye on his struggling menu fly, and as many as needed upon the straining halyards and guys of his gum thread web. And each eye is set high, like a lantern on a hill, so its wide range of vision makes eye-rolling useless. But he can only focus four or five inches, and can be easily fooled with an imitation fly. Why are his eyes so beautiful for many are like rubies set in gold if the only creatures that can see them well have no sense of beauty ? " The rock-clinging starfish with his penta rays jeweled with eyes; and the wood-louse called a millepede with twenty- eight eyes, set in rows of sevens, as if his ancestors had gath- ered maternal impressions of navy-yard cannon-ball decora- tions; and the blood specialist leech, with ten little eyes surrounding his mouth to guard against tainted food; and the dozen-eyed silkworm with eyes single to spinneret output and market quotation each; and the caterpillar sticking his nose into an octagon crowned yoke of eye-gems, whence no salad leaf may escape his view. " A goose's eyes are larger than his brain. Man's eyes are the best all around yet evolved, though they can see less than the owl's in the dark; less keenly than the eagle's afar; change focus less quickly than the hawk's; cannot sweep clear the cornea without briefly hiding the view; cannot focus as near as the fish; nor glow back like the cat's in the dark; they 'Ch. II] Senses of Touch and Hearing 25 cannot see opposite points at one time like the chicken's, nor stare all day long like the snake's; they cannot self -gaze like the snail's, nor behold as small creatures as can the fly." Yet they can do vastly more things than can the eyes of any creature who surpasses them in some one capacity. The matured eye is in itself a thing of beauty and moral expression, and yet its functions have been evolved from reporting mere mechanical contact, up to reporting everything from the sun-studded- night to the dotted plate under the microscope from the menace of the storm-cloud to the love in eyes that answer. While senses responding to light and sound have been de- veloping, so of course has susceptibility to contact with hard bodies been developing into susceptibility to contact with soft bodies. Very primitive organisms, without definite sense- organs beyond those for mere contact, have been seen to con- tract and expand at contact with fluid as well as with air, light, sound. As the eye has grown from mere reflex action from mechan- ical contact, to reporting Nature and art, so has the ear from a mere sense of vibration, up to that of the songs of the birds and loved voices and the other forms of what we call music. Organs of hearing have generally been differentiated from the skin, but not always. In some animals far from the surface, even inside a chitin shell, are strings which are supposed to be organs of hearing, and which are evolved from muscles. In such positions these chorodontal organs could of course only be affected by vibrations heavy enough through water to affect the solid body imbedding the organs, but such organs have been found in a later stage associated with tympanous membranes which could transmit vibrations through the air. The Greenland whale hears well through the water, but does not appear to be affected by sounds through the air.* Insects often can hear only sounds of a certain pitch and quality generally those made by the opposite sex, as by the *K. Sajo, Scientific American Supplement, April 13, 1809. (Appar- ently quoted from "Prometheus"?.) 26 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I female mosquito. So sounds, as well as sights and smells, are emissaries of love. But for that matter, so can we hear only " sounds of a certain pitch," but about ten octaves in all, and probably only of a certain " quality," i.e., there are probably sounds of a pitch we can hear, whose quality prevents our hearing them. In insects, the ears, or what appear to be such, are pretty much anywhere, but generally in the antennae, feet, and abdomen. Mark Twain's famous biological statement that clams will lie perfectly still if you play slow music to them, is probably not strictly accurate: for many organisms not so high have visibly responded to sounds. The same that is true of the organs responding to touch, temperature, light, and vibrating air, is, mutatis mutandis, true of the organs of taste and smell. The antennae serve also as organs of smell. They, like organs of taste, are naturally near the orifice receiving the food. But the reports of the senses are not restricted to the organs specially differentiated for each. Lombroso (After Death What?, pp. 2, 3) gives the following case from his own experience, and there are many others well attested. "A certain C. S., daughter of one of the most active and intelligent men of all Italy . . . had lost the power of vision with her eyes, as a compensation she saw with the same degree of acuteness (7 in the scale of Jaeger) at the point of the nose and the left lobe of the ear. In this way she read a letter which had just come to me from the post-office, although I had blindfolded her eyes, and was able to distinguish the figures on a dynamometer. Curious, also, was the new mimicry with which she reacted to the stimuli brought to bear on what we will call improvised and transposed eyes. For instance, when I approached a finger to her ear or to her nose, or made as if I were going to touch it, or, better still, when I caused a ray of light to flash upon it from a distance with a lens, were it only for the merest fraction of a second, she was keenly sensitive to this and irritated by it. ' You want to blind me ! ' she cried, her face making a sudden movement like one who is menaced. Then with an instinctive simulation entirely new, as the phenomenon itself was new, she lifted her forearm to protect the lobe of the ear and the point of the nose, and remained thus for ten or twelve minutes. Ch. II] Transferred Senses 27 " Her sense of smell was also transposed ; for ammonia or asafctida, when thrust under her nose, did not excite the slightest reaction, while, on the other hand, a substance pos- sessing the merest trace of odor, if held under the chin, made a vivid impression on it and excited a quite special simulation (mimica). Thus, if the odor was pleasing, she smiled, winked her eyes, and breathed more rapidly; if it was distasteful, she quickly put her hands up to that part of the chin that had become the seat of the sensation and rapidly shook her head. " Later the sense of smell became transferred to the back of the foot; and then, when any odor displeased her, she would thrust her legs to right and to left, at the same time writhing her whole body; when an odor pleased her, she would remain motionless, smiling and breathing quickly." He farther says (op. cit., 5-7) : " As early as 1808 Petetin cited the cases of eight cataleptic women in whom the external senses had been transferred to the epigastric region and into the fingers of the hand and the toes of the feet (Electricite Animale, Lyons, 1808). " In 1840 Carmagnole, in the Giornale dell' Accademia di Medicina, describes a case quite analogous to ours. It con- cerned a girl fourteen years old " . . . who had " true fits of somnambulism during which she saw distinctly with the hand, selected ribbons, identified colors, and read even in the dark." " Despine tells us of a certain Estella of Neuchatel, eleven years old, who . . . was found to have suffered transposition of the sense of hearing to various parts of the body, the hand, the elbow, the shoulder, and (during her lethargic crisis) the epigastrium " Frank (Praxeos Mediae, Univ. Torino. 1821) publishes an account of a person named Baerkmann in whom the sense of hearing was transposed to the epigastrium, the frontal bone, or the occiput." The literature abounds in such cases, but I cited the first I happened upon, and there are hosts of illustrations, as we shall see later, of cosmic relations independent of any senses yet known. The implications of these facts we will touch upon later. The evolution of the different sense organs received another interesting suggestion and perhaps confirmation, from the experience, reported in the Revue Philosophique in 1887 (and by me got from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research), of a French sailor who came home from Mada- gascar with hysteria, sense-paralysis of the left side, but part of his right side so sensitive as to throw him into attacks 28 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I of hysteria. These abnormal conditions could be temporarily relieved by hypnotism, and, despite some skepticism at the time, appear to have been ultimately cured by the magnet. The point in his case which is of interest here, however, is that under hypnotization, the nerves of ordinary feeling ap- peared to act as nerves of special sense. When his ears were closed, he would repeat words spoken close to his fingers, and with his eyes bandaged, he would sort various colored wools. All this might be accounted for by telepathy instead of by interchange of nerve function, but how account for his picking out all the blue wools in the dark ? It was once the fashion in dealing with somnambulic patients to address the pit of the stomach instead of the ears, apparently with reference to the sympathetic nervous system. I don't know whether the fashion prevails yet. CHAPTER III SKETCH OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (Continual) The Soul (a) Sources IN proceeding to consider soul, I use the term in the popular sense, without any reference to the technical sense over which the psychologists are constantly quarreling. I take the word rather than mind, in order to cover the emo- tions and the will, as well as the mere intelligence. Yet it will often be natural to use the term mind interchangeably. In considering the evolution of soul, we are met at the outset by the question : Is there a primary something a mind- potential, from which thought and emotion are evolved, just as body is evolved from force and matter? At first sight it seems easy to find the raw material of soul in consciousness, and to assume a starting-point for what we now know as mind, when the matter in an amoeba con- tracts at a touch: for then there must be some sort of con- sciousness; but consciousness is not dynamic: so how can it be the raw material of thought, not to speak of emotion and will ? It is merely aware of them, as it is of sensation. Telesio " argued . . . from the human consciousness to the feeling of [in?] inorganic matter." Somewhere I have seen Weismann credited with the question : " Why should we not return to the idea of matter endowed with soul ? " It is probably as old as the other great guesses. The present aspect of it, however, could not have antedated the verification of the old guess of evolution, and that verification cannot be set before Darwin. Bergson says (C.eative Evolution, p. 199) : "An incidental process must have cut out matter and the intellect, at the same time, from a stuff that contained both." For myself, long before I knew the opinion as anybody's else, 29 30 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I I could not imagine mind existing in Shakespere without its germs existing in the star dust. And long after I first realized my incapacity to separate consciousness from the star dust, I found (italics mine) in James's Psychology (I, 149) : "// evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some shape must have been present at the very origin of things. Accordingly we find that the more clear-sighted evolutionary philosophers are beginning to posit it there. Each atom of the nebula, they suppose, must have had an aboriginal atom of consciousness linked with it; and, just as the material atoms have formed bodies and brains by massing themselves together, so the mental atoms, by an analogous process of aggregation, have fused into those larger consciousnesses which we know in ourselves and suppose to exist in our fellow-animals. Some such doctrine of atomistic hylozoism as this is an indispensable part of a thorough-going philosophy of evolution. According to it there must be an infinite number of degrees of conscious- ness, following the degrees of complication and aggregation of the primordial mind-dust. To prove the separate existence of these degrees of consciousness by indirect evidence, since direct intuition of them is not to be had, becomes therefore the first duty of psychological evolutionism." Mind, then, would appear to be as much a general element of the universe as Motion is, and not only to enter the body, as already said, with each unit of matter, but also in more complex forms through our perceptive organs as raw sen- sation, and in predigested shape from the memory of each mind and other minds. All this psychic material from any source, after it enters the organism is modified into a specific stream of thoughts and feelings, which we call the mind or soul, just as Motion (or Matter, if that is the more convenient phrase) is modified into a specific stream of molecular changes which we call the body. But however mind may enter the system, in passing through it is modified into a more complex form, as thread is modified into fabric as it passes through the loom ; but thought is no more made of brain-matter than cloth is made of loom matter. But if mind-potential is inextricably associated with matter, how can mind exist independently of matter what becomes of the idea of a soul surviving the body in which it was de- Ch. Ill] Force and Matter Limited, Mind Unlimited 31 veloped ? Mind is not limited in place or quantity, as appar- ently matter is. With our present knowledge we cannot imagine matter greater or less in amount than earlier or later forms of the same matter. But we can imagine one little flash of thought pervading the psychic universe. If all mind inhered in the star dust from which our world was evolved, no more mind was in the brain of Newton than in any other brain of the same weight, yet from New- ton's brain, mind spread over the world and over all suc- ceeding time, while from the other brain it spread no far- ther than the owner's interlocutors, and no longer than his life. The fact seems to be that mind outgrows matter as soon as perceptive organs are evolved that it comes to be not merely the presumed primitive mind-potential associated with matter, but more in amount and complexity, and in some degree in- dependent. Soon the star dust mind-potential becomes a rel- atively insignificant portion of the developed soul, and if the soul is to survive the body, apparently it can well afford to let the congeries of atoms, or whatever you call them, that have constituted the body, go their way to dissolution from each other, and carry with them their negligible portion of the original mind-potential. It is a world-old speculation regarding immortality, that after-existence cannot be conceived without pre-existence. I never saw any sense in the speculation, except as I have indi- cated regarding mind-potential in the star dust. But won't that, up through the life of protoplasm to that of the imme- diate parent germ, do well enough for pre-existence ? In light of this very simple knowledge, we cannot conceive of the soul at all without attributing to it a pre-existence, and I confess that I cannot conceive it then, without going back not only to the star dust, but to the hypothetical ( if we are not hypothet- ical enough already) system where the hypothetical smash-up furnished the hypothetical star dust; and so back through evo- lution and dissolution " time without end." These ideas of course are somewnat vague and paradoxical. But they are definiteness itself compared with some that we will be led into. How often may I be indulged in repeating the truism that our ideas of the universe beyond the little we 32 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I know must always be vague and paradoxical ? But it is only by starting with such ideas and reshaping them as we go along, that we come to know more. The idea that there is cosmic mind-potential just as there is cosmic matter and cosmic force, and that, like them, it flows into us, helping to evolve us, is fraught with some very important implications, and may help us to some in- teresting conjectures regarding some mysteries which we shall meet later. Meanwhile we will consider a few facts which go to support the idea, and will later consider in its light some of the salient phenomena of the evolution of soul, and see if the idea is consistent with them. The only alternative to the theory that the mind comes from outside, is that it is evolved inside that, in Cabanis' celebrated phrase, the brain secretes thought, as the liver secretes bile. This famous analogy, however, is but a very partial one: for bile is limited and sensizable (I don't know whether that word is in the dictionaries, but it's time it were), while thought is neither. And at least the most valuable por- tion of thought enters the brain as thought, thought already evolved from sensation, and supplied by memory or other minds, while bile does not enter the liver as bile. True, while thought generally enters the brain as thought, it sometimes, perhaps always, undergoes modification there; but it is not modified into something other than thought, as in the liver blood is modified into something other than blood. Cabanis' analogy is not even good as an analogy: to make it so, the brain would have to secrete thought from blood. What it does with the blood is not to secrete or transform thought, but merely to build itself up, and send away its waste. Those who hold the view that man is " one and indivisible " that the stream of thought is not from outside, but is secreted by the brain, only put the question a stage back, not asking themselves what runs the brain not considering that the fact that man eats potatoes and exudes heat, belongs in this connection. In holding their view, they are believers in perpetual motion. The entire being, body as well as mind, is but a fleeting Ch. Ill] The Stream of Consciousness 33 mass of physical vibrations and psychical experiences, and often has been well likened to a fountain: though it has a definite shape, it consists but of particles changing con- stantly and with varying degrees of rapidity those concerned in respiration, for instance, probably changing fastest; those in arterial and venous circulation, next ; and so on, in lessen- ing degree, until we get to those constituting bone or tooth- enamel, which probably abide in the body from five to ten years. At death so much of its energy as is in the form of heat, rapidly rushes back into the cosmic reservoir, and so much as is in the forms which we generalize as matter, begins to return immediately but more slowly. Most mani- festations of the psychic stream also cease to appear, but by no means all. It persists not only in memories and influences, but we shall see indications of it difficult to attribute to either. While force and matter seem to be limited constant in amount throughout the universe, and before and after their service in an individuality are in service elsewhere, we have a good deal of evidence, the best being very recent, that, at worst, revolutionizes all our previous experience of the reach of mind; and, at best, would indicate that even the individual mind, not to speak of mind in general, has no permanent limits in time or space. One school of philosophers reason that as force and matter, through all their variations, are both persistent and constant in amount, so mind must be. Perhaps none of them ever stated it exactly in this form: the proposition may be too evidently ludicrous. But hosts of them have stated it in hosts of other forms, regardless of the plain fact that mind is increasing every day: not only are there new thoughts, but what thoughts there are, are being disseminated indefi- nitely. An orator's mind pervades an audience, and next morning through the papers pervades his city and country, and in a few hours more, through the cables, pervades the civilized world. So far as the orator said new things, or old things in a new way, there is that much more mind in the world. It is not, as would be the case with matter or force, a mere substitution of a new form : for no mind to speak of has 34 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I disappeared : virtually all that there was before is still stored up in men's memories and in libraries ; and perhaps elsewhere, as we shall see later. Moreover, when matter takes any one of its transitory and limited forms, it arouses new ideas which are not transitory. This is of itself no argument against Cabanis' assertion that the brain secretes thought, but the men who produce the mind-things that last, say they don't come that way. Probably Cabanis himself, and each man who independently reaches Cabanis' conclusion, would call his apparently im- mortal and equally incorrect phrase, an inspiration some- thing breathed in from outside. This is, however, a denial of his own proposition. The theory that psychic phenomena are simply a result of nervous function, beginning with it, running parallel with it, and ending with it, is generally called parallelism, but parallelism does not prove beginning or ending together : for the soul could be entirely independent of the body, and yet act in exact correspondence with nervous function, the two being like instruments in the same orchestra. Nay, the body could even condition the soul without the soul being evolved from it, as a pipe conditions water running through it; or a channel conditions a river. Total parallelism is at best an assumption. M. Bergson is credited with being the last St. George effectually to dispose of it. Even on the assumption that all mind does run parallel with brain changes during all the brain's life, as parts of mind certainly do during parts of carnate life, it is no more proved that they start together and end together, than the same is proved of a railroad and river that somewhere keep each other company. The question soon ends in paradox, as questions on the borderland of knowledge always do: for the germ of the mind was in parent and parent's parent, back at least to pro- toplasm, and probably to star dust and beyond. Huxley suggested the name epiphenomenalism. But either name might apply to the opposite theory, of animism, that the soul is independent of the body: for if that is true, it is still true that during the limited period of the brain's activity, there is some approach, though apparently an irreg- Ch. Ill] Parallelism 35 ular approach, to parallelism or epiphenomenalism between its actions and those of the soul. But we shall meet later, serious, though not necessarily fatal, objections to believing that this approach is constant that all operations of what we call the individual mind are even accompanied by transmutation of brain tissue. Moreover, we shall meet reasons very strong recent reasons for believing that soul and body, though very closely identified during mortal life, may be so fundamentally in- dependent of each other, that when the body stops work and enters upon dissolution, the soul may " leave the body " and continue to exist independently, and instead of suffering by the disconnection, be merely relieved of certain trammels and limitations, notably those of time and space and matter. It looks a good deal as if the degree of parallelism may vary inversely as the grade of the psychic process, because (a) Low psychic processes like fear and anger use up force and tissue at a tremendous rate. On the other hand high processes courage, joy, sympathy, even artistic production, are stimulating and invigorating. It is true, however, that even the advent of a poem is sometimes attended by birth- throes. Lowell wrote the 1 " Commemoration Ode" almost at a one-night sitting, and he said that it " took the virtue out of " him fearfully. But undue deprivation of sleep did that, and if he had had a night of fear or sorrow, probably " the virtue " would have gone vastly worse. (b) Take another case which long puzzled me, until I found a provisional key. At a dinner well constituted socially and gastronomically, the brain and the stomach each can be doing its very best without at all interfering with the other. We are taught that either, to do its best, needs all the blood it can get, yet here both do their best at once! This makes it look more and more as if the higher sort of psychical function (and is it too much to call that normal psychical function?) involved very little transmutation of brain matter as if it were somehow largely independent of brain function. (c) But the main consideration is yet to come. A man can dream the most tremendous dreams, provided only they 36 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I be happy ones, and awake in better trim than if he had not dreamed at all not only without the slightest indication of fatigue or hunger, but stimulated and invigorated. This has been noticed after some of the mediumistic phenomena that would have been expected to be most exhausting. Now doesn't all this suggest strong probabilities that, as said, parallelism or epiphenomenalism and all that sort of thing, vary inversely as what we will call, until we know more, the dignity of the psychosis in other words, that there's no parallelism at all, but merely propinquity only while the streams that started at identity in the protoplasm have not yet definitely branched into the physical and psychical, and especially that after they branch, the psychical runs parallel with the physical only in so far as the psychical does not throw off branches of higher thought, and, especially, is not concerned with what we must so far regard as somewhat transcendental psychosis, as experienced in dreams and vari- ous extraordinary dream states in short, that the dream states are largely independent of the body that even when we lose strength in bad dreams and nightmares, it is because of the physical conditions which give rise to the psychoses, and not because of the psychoses themselves ? But there are other dreams of a happier and higher order, not traceable to physical conditions, and apparently involving no waste, but rather bringing recuperation. Now here for a page or two back, I have been asserting and denying both monism and dualism. The possibility the inevitability of so doing, seems to prove both true rather than both false. I have the very moderate grace to admit all this to appear very much like nonsense. As just said, we never get very far from everyday experience without reaching the land of paradox: what is generally called philosophy is mostly made up of it ; and at best consists of fumbling. This present piece of fumbling, however, seems to suggest a recon- ciliation in the greater including the less. Now let us fumble a little more at the relations of soul and body. Get all the mechanics and chemistry that are behind a Ch. Ill] Differences between Thoughts and Things 37 thought, and you haven't got the thought. A violinist's brain, the nerves leading to his arms and fingers, the muscles moving them, his violin and its bow, the vibrations in the air, the vibrations in the ear, the transfer of them to the hearer's brain, the changes in the brain : I've probably named everything mechanical that takes place, and yet I haven't even named the music. A big pile of rock, over it a lot of fog banks, behind both the setting sun; vibrations eastward from the whole affair; a poet's eyes receiving them and reporting them to his brain, and changes in his brain resulting : that's all of the mechan- ical : the poem is no part of them. The chasm between the instrument and the music, or the sunset and the poem, is absolutely impassable a chasm whose bottom never can be reached for crossing. Even if, as seems growing more and more reasonable to fancy, the sunset is merely a vehicle for the expressions of the cosmic mind, as a blush or a smile are expressions of the individual mind, the sunset is not the poem ; or the violin, the tune; any more than the blood in the maiden's cheek, or the smile of her mouth, are the joy in the lover's heart But here we are again on the edge of a swamp of paradox, as we were when we followed the track of monism and dualism to the limits of our circumscribed knowledge. But for vari- ety, let us start from the same center on still a third track. A lot of little lines and dots representing a poem, ether waves from them into an eye, transfers and changes in a brain. The same poem has reached its goal through an en- tirely different set of mechanical vehicles another illustration of the absolute separateness of thoughts and things. As does the poet, so the composer of the music puts down a lot of little prosy dots and lines, the violinist gets im- pressions from them into his mechanical eye and brain that you wouldn't finger for something pretty, and passes them along through his mechanical nerves and muscles to prosy catgut and horsehair ; and behold ! the heavenly music, and into many minds joy and inspiration ! And yet some philos- ophers would have us believe that the tune and the poem are so nearly of the nature of the signs on paper, and the 38 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I horsehair, and the catgut, and the brain, that when all these are gone, the tune and poem are gone. We know better, not as a speculation but as a fact. Mind, then, I for one cannot help regarding as distinct from Matter and Force a third fundamental element in the constitution of man. This apparently disproportionate attention to the nature of mind especially its source in mind-potential, may be justified in our later study of some mysterious psychical phenomena. Meanwhile let us see if the hypothesis that mind comes from outside is supported by a brief survey of its evolution. (&) The Perceptions and the Intellect Of course in sketching a few indications of the evolution of the senses, I incidentally touched some of the germs in the evolution of mind. The first reaction of organic life to anything in the en- vironment, would appear to be the first reaction between soul and universe. A primitive cell's experiences consist in expanding to heat and contracting to cold or touch, and, most of the time, in freedom from perceptible touch or change of temperature. It has probably some consciousness of at least the active conditions the changes, and possibly "late in life" some recognition of them as having been experienced before. With- out some sort of recognition of difference of condition, there could not be the reflex action to touch, which we generally regard as the most primitive response of organism to environ- ment, or, as I have chosen to phrase it, of soul to universe. Whether the response be what we would call conscious or not, there is some recognition of changed conditions, or there could be no response to them. There is Force, in the contraction; there is Matter transmuted, as in every physical change. These have come from outside to become part of the organism. We have seen that probably there also came with them something else that brought about the reaction, and the gradations are gradual and coherent from it to Newton's re- actions to the fall of the apple, or Darwin's to biological phenomena, or Spencer's to the phenomena of mind and Ch. Ill] Evolution of Perceptions 39 society, or Rembrandt's to lights and shadows, or Beethoven's to the bird's song and the thunder. Professor Whitman in Animal Behavior said: "The pri- mary roots of instincts reach back to the constitutional prop- erties of protoplasm." Professor Holmes says (op. cit., 180f.) : " Along whatever line organization reaches a certain degree of development intelligence appears on the scene. . . . In- telligence is not an entirely new power unrelated to the other activities of organic life, but a process growing out of " [The present writer would say accompanying] " other organic functions and having the same end as these other functions; it is, as Spencer has so well emphasized, but a higher phase of those processes of adjustment and regulation which make up the life of the animal." The simplest knowledge is of a single fact, yet the first consciousness, whether it appears in protoplasm or higher in the scale of life, it seems necessary to think, is not abso- lutely simple, but must contain in itself some sense of differ- ence from an immediately preceding state, and as soon as this sense of difference appears, an idea is evolved. When, for instance, a change of temperature passes, it is succeeded by a condition similar to that which preceded it, and when the experience takes place in a consciousness sufficiently evolved to associate the two conditions, a second grade of knowledge arises consciousness of likeness. The experience, say of heat, takes place in an organism high enough to recognize the antecedent and subsequent con- ditions as similar. A general idea is evolved. Countless generations later it gets a name cold; or vice versa, if the experience is of a fall of temperature, the earlier and later experiences correspond to what we give the name of heat; but the first conception of either cold or heat must be so foggy that it would probably not be noticed at all among the vastly clearer ideas of the vastly higher organism that gives it a name. The sun's heat is accompanied by light, and when a creature is evolved with some notion of heat, that is inevitably soon followed by an association with light; and a new idea is born. This too must be such a vague conception that it would 40 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I not be thought of in our own more mature experience, unless special attention were directed to it; but there it is in the primitive creature a general idea, faint and rudimentary as you please, but a general idea, as distinct from a specific experience. Imagination and the laboratory can both follow these little sensations and ideas. Suppose a primitive nervous system, with two centers con- nected, one experiencing the difference which we call rise of temperature, the other experiencing the difference which we call increase of light some such sense of it as we feel with our eyes shut: these senses of difference are associated by the nerve-fiber connecting the two centers which feel them. This makes possible some psychical change consequent upon the simultaneous experience of light and heat, there arises in that being something that would not have arisen but for association of heat and light something different from the single association of heat with heat or cold with cold, or either with the other something perhaps unnoticed the first time it appears, but something that in the course of genera- tions is going to lead the creature's evolved descendant, when it wants heat, to seek light, and when it wants coolness, to seek shade. This something, as has been said, is not a mere sensation it is a coupling of sensations, and that coupling is the germ of a thought of a concept that heat and light are associated. From that it is but a step to another con- cept that heat and light are not always associated; and many, but actual, steps to the concept that the change of condition meaning heat, generally takes place when there is a reddish or yellowish round light thing up above; and a step farther, that the change meaning heat does not take place when the round light thing up above is whitish. But all this involves the evolution and connection of several nerve centers; and of several more to notice that the two balls seldom appear in the sky at the same time. Thousands, perhaps millions, of generations later, those primitive concepts have grown into a generalization, and in time words have been found for it, which mean: fire burns. It takes thousands of generations more for fire to imply the combination of atoms of carbon with atoms of oxygen and indeed it means that to comparatively few people, even yet. Ch. Ill] Thought based on Likeness and Difference 41 The first word, whatever it was, which meant fire (whatever that then meant) came into existence only by virtue of vastly more nervous centers being evolved, and connected with the first two which had already made possible some change con- sequent upon the simultaneous experience of light and heat. Meanwhile, much earlier, and of preliminary necessity, arises a discrimination between good-to-eat and not-good- to-eat, and in time is made a distinction between likely-to-eat- me and not-likely-to-eat-me. The recognition of good-to-eat as distinct from not-good-to-eat, probably waits for the evolution of some sense of soft and hard, or even is pre- ceded by it in the rejection of, say, a grain of sand as contrasted with a thing soft enough to assimilate. But crea- tures are seen to feed long before any distinction is made. To the earlier forms, all is grist that comes to the mill : they let the water flow into the opening that is the precursor of the smiling mouth, and let it bring what it will " they eats 'em skins and all "; assimilable matter is assimilated, and the rest passes on. But despite the complexity of high types, let us keep well in mind that the elements of all thought are sensation, and consciousness of likeness and difference. The combination of these three elements, remembered in relation to various phenomena, make up the mental life of a Newton or a Spencer. Thought, then, is simply the arrangement of items of knowledge into classes, according to the test of likeness or difference. The most primitive thoughts that we have dealt with put the sensation of heat to-day into the class with the like sensation of yesterday, and the sensation of cold into a different class. So with the sensations of light and dark, and those of resistance, associated with floating bodies and the shore, and comparative non-resistance associated with the water. Let us farther illustrate the process of mind-building, from thoughts of a higher order. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. This is but a perception of unlikeness all other lines between two points are found to be unlike straight. The shortest 42 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I one, wherever we find it, we class with others like it, and call it straight. A straight line is one whose direction never varies. All lines whose directions vary we find are different from straight. We classify accordingly. Lines which are not straight we classify as zigzag or curved. We now recognize three kinds by the differences of each from the others, and the likenesses of those in each group to each other. Now for something more subtle: a line has direction, but no dimensions. This is a recognition of differences. As soon as we imagine breadth or thickness of a line, we recog- nize that we can divide such breadth or thickness, and still preserve the line that consequently breadth and thickness are different from the line; and we can cut these different things in two endlessly, and still retain something which is different from the line : we cannot reach the line until we imagine the something which differs from it all split away. Let us take a little course of thought less abstract than our recent mathematical one. First recognize that the whole material of mental action consists of thoughts and things. Each of these two sets, the mind groups because of their likeness, and separates the two sets because of their unlike- ness. Then follow down " things " (as the simpler group) by new recognitions of likeness and difference into animal, vegetable, and mineral; then follow down animals, still by recognitions of likeness and difference, into mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and articulates; then mammals, still by recognitions of likeness and difference, into any of the well- known classifications, and you will recognize how the whole vast department of thought called Natural History, has grown up by recognition of likeness and difference, from (if you will fix a provisional point) the early recognition by eater and eaten of a difference between them. Similarly, simply by classifications of likenesses and differences, you can roughly trace the growth of any other department of knowledge, or thought, or even emotion, from mathematics or chemistry up to poetry or the most ethereal charms of sex. Take a fair approximation to all the material of language, say Eoget's Thesaurus. You will find but classified lists of Ch. Ill] Thought and Language 43 words according to their likenesses, which face opposing lists of differing words which are also classified according to their likenesses. Now all these words represent thoughts and shades of thought that have been evolved by the discovery or evolu- tion of newer and finer shades of likeness or difference. And in fact, without going to all this trouble, you might, perhaps, seize the gist of the whole matter by reflecting a little on the fact that a definition, if a good one, is very apt to state what a thing or a thought is, and then what it is not. Now by similarly rejecting one thing as unlike, and accept- ing another as like, the world has gradually built up all its thinking. Some very good illlustrations are in Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy. Great efforts have been made, even by men among the first to declare that " there are no hard-and-fast lines in Nature," to split off mental evolution by a hard-and-fast line between man and beast. Thinkers have long found it comfortable to call a con- sciousness of sensation a percept, and the mental association of two or more percepts, a concept. Some affect to find the hard and fast line in concepts, declaring that there is no con- cept that is not embodied in a word, and that as beasts have no words, they can have no concepts. Some try to draw the line at instincts. All the time I care to spend over these discussions is to state their existence, and to state that many beasts have concepts and have words too, and to depend for readers upon people that recognize that they have. The concepts of the creatures below man are rudimentary, and so is their lan- guage. But if they do not possess both concepts and language, such as they are, and with them arts and sciences and even philosophies, such as they are, evolution covers less ground and covers it in a more halting way, and is, on the whole, a cheaper conception, than it appears to me. There are minds fond of trying to discover where things start. Ap- parently wider minds go beyond any conception that they started at all, and hold that any point for beginning their treatment is, like all classifications, merely a question of con- venience, and often a very difficult and profound one. 44 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I (c) The Emotions and the Will The evolution of the emotions is inextricably contempo- raneous with that of the perceptions and the intelligence, and necessarily has been somewhat anticipated in what has already been said. For purposes of discussion, the best point to assume for their start is probably, as with the thoughts, the first reaction. As all mind is built up of simple recognitions of likeness and difference, so all emotion is built up of likes and dislikes. The complexities of both are merely the complexities of their objects. Probably amoebae hate being poked or chilled, as wiser people do, only in greater degree. A time comes when the sensation of contact with a smooth surface turns into the very different sense of contact with a needle's point where mere sense of contact expands into sense of pain; and a time comes where sense of contact also expands into sense of pleasure. With the earliest sensations of touch or density or temper- ature or light, must come feelings of like or dislike: for, as easily tested in the laboratory, very early creatures show their preferences between heat and cold, and light and dark- ness, and even between different-colored lights. Light and heat and good-to-eat have a common quality which is felt many generations before it gets the name agreeable, and the converse is true of dark and cold and inedible. In time, to the good-to-eat class is added the quality sapid and other details constituting good-to-eat ; and if the creature during this "thinking" had language, he would be capable of a remark quite up to the intellectual small-change of ball-rooms, in : / float into pleasant bright warm places and find there soft things good to eat. These emotions of like and dislike, this sense of agreeable and disagreeable, are the germs of confidence and fear, love and hate, worship and exorcism, praying and cursing of the emotions of Job, Cleopatra, Paracelsus, and Hildebrand. Just where, in the ascending scale of being, inclination, disinclination, purpose, come in, cannot be determined. The lowest creatures give evidence of hardly anything more than Ch. IIIJ Likes and Dislikes 45 such reactions as take place in inorganic matter. The worm and the mosquito, however, seem to have something like a definite idea where they are going, and what they are going for. Professor Holmes makes a very just remark to the effect that though a contact reaction by an amoeba's pseudopod differs very materially from one by the heels of a mule, the two have an element in common. That element is self-de- termination, proverbially prominent in the mule, but only a foreshadowing in the amoeba. But even there, it is interesting in many ways. It is the germ of an independent soul. As we have said, the body's production and nutrition are largely independent of any symptom of its volition are largely de- pendent on " God," meaning by that venerable term at least all the power we know which is not subject to animal volition even to the extent Kipling goes in " McAndrews's Hymn." But the contraction and restoration of the protoplasm, while we call it involuntary, nevertheless has an element out of proportion to any outside force, and with a germ of inde- pendence which later evolves into self-control or voluntary action. It is individual betokens an individuality, and lies away back of Descartes' " Cogito, ergo sum." With like and dislike, comes in preference ; and with prefer- ence, will, purpose, and behavior. Distinct purpose seems to come in later than the amceba and protozoa generally. The restless wandering about of the earliest forms capable of real activity serves to throw them in the way of whatever food is within reach, but it is apparently unconscious. Professor Holmes says, however (op. cit. f pp. 64-65) : " Instinct, memory, fear, and a certain degree of intelligence are among the psychic endowments with which Binet credits the protozoa. A good sample of his interpretation of protozoan behavior is the following : ' The Bodo caudatus is a voracious Flagellate possessed of extraordinary audacity; it combines in troops to attack animalcule one hundred times as large as itself, as the Colpods, for instance, which are veritable giants when placed alongside of the Bodo. Like a horse attacked by a pack of wolves, the Colpod is soon rendered powerless; twenty, thirty, forty Bodos throw themselves upon him, eviscer- ate and devour him completely (Stein). " ' All these faots are of primary importance and interest, but it is plain that their interpretation presents difficulties. 46 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I It may be asked whether the Bodos combine designedly in groups of ten or twenty, understanding that they are more powerful when united than when divided. But it is more probable that voluntary combinations for purposes of attack do not take place among these organisms; that would be to grant them a high mental capacity. We may more readily admit that the meeting of a number of Bodos happens by chance; when one of them begins an attack upon a Colpod, the other animalcule lurking in the vicinity dash into the combat to profit by a favorable opportunity.' " More recent investigations have shown that the behavior of protozoa gives no evidence of the high psychic development assumed by Binet. There has been a strong tendency on the part of certain investigators to explain the behavior of these low forms as due in large measure to comparatively simple physical and chemical factors. Others contend that the phe- nomena are much more complex and at present defy analysis into physical and chemical processes, while a few go further and maintain that we must assume some super-physical agency, a vital principle, or entelechy of some sort, to explain the results." Let us now look at some of the indications of the dawn of other qualities, and I will venture on some suggestions more serious than at first they may seem, of the lines of evolution they point to. As we search the examples which Professor Holmes has collected, we seem to get within sight of the first prodigal, the first conservative, the first radical, the first coquette, and the first of many other types. The first prodigal perhaps we find in Nereis, who loves narrow places, and to whom sunlight is death. Yet give him some nice little glass tubes in sunlight, and he will crawl into them and stay there and die for it. Earwigs are very similarly constituted : they don't thrive in light, and do like crevices so much that they will leave an open space in shadow, and crawl under a glass plate, though it exposes them to full light. And where does fear begin? In creatures who similarly early avoid everything new ? Are these the first conservatives ? Or are they the first of the skeptics ? Probably both : it's not inconceivable that long ago some amoeba split into parts, one of which was the ancestor of lions and the other of lambs. That is: it would not be inconceivable if the cross Ch. Ill] Primitive Conduct 47 pairing on the way down did not make so many remote beings, ancestors of each present being. Where does the monkey's (and our) imitativeness begin? Soon after creatures show any reaction to light, some are apt to follow, so far as they can, objects or shadows which cross their range of vision. Eughna viridis has a red eye spot, but not at the end that goes first. It seeks soft light and follows it, but avoids strong light. Many protozoa show the same reaction, and others its reverse. Perhaps coquettishness starts in some of those which (or who?) love the light but swim toward it backwards. Higher organisms larval lobsters for instance, do the same thing. Fiddler crabs take it perhaps more coquettishly still sideways. Among the amoebae we find a suggestion of the first drama. Holmes says (op. cit. t p. 69) : " Amoeba, like higher animals, may follow its food. Jennings describes an Amoeba attempting to engulf a spherical cyst of Euglena. As the Amoeba came in contact with it the cyst rolled away; the Amoeba followed; the cyst continued to be pushed ahead, now one way and now another, and the Amoeba changed its course accordingly. After the cyst had been rolled against an obstacle and the Amoeba was about to suc- ceed in capturing it, a large infusorian appeared on the scene and swept it away." When we come to the question of the origin of Ethics, we find the biologists constantly speaking of the "be- havior " of primitive organisms. The word implies standards of conduct, and where there's a standard of conduct, there's ethics, though the standard may be no higher than "what is usual " ; and in that sense, the physicists and chemists and geologists apply the word " behavior " to inanimate matter. But is not " the usual thing " also a standard too much of a standard, in high society? The right search for happiness, and avoidance of unhappi- ness, are the fundamental causes of development; and the wrong searches, of destruction. Ethics begin in self-preserva- tion: that's a duty: and many steps up in insects, we see the start of altruism, in helping the preservation of others 48 Sketch of Human Evolution [Bk. I helping each other out of scrapes, and co-operation in various enterprises. Nobody can draw a line between the self-conserving re- flexes of the most primitive creatures, and the poet's fine frenzy or the policies of popes and emperors. The genealogy of Napoleon has not been traced back to the myriad drops of protoplasm which marked one stage of his evolution, and still less has it to the transition from inorganic matter to organic matter which probably was a stage in the evolution of the protoplasm. But beginning with the drops of mercury and chloroform that we considered in Chapter II, a set of specimens from them to Napoleon could be arranged with much more gradual differences than those in Marsh's line, in the Yale Museum, of horses, from the little five-toe up to Dexter, or in his famous " infant class " from monkey to man. Of course with our present knowledge, there would not be a strict hereditary line along the series, but the series could be made to look as if there were; and as knowledge advances, an actual line can be more and more approxi- mated. It may be interesting to dwell a moment on the evolution most involving emotions and ethics that of sex. It be- gan, as it persists, in division of the personality. The cell of amosba gradually divides itself into two; and the latest great romancer makes his hero, the morning after his union with his beloved, ask himself : " Am I two ? " Through all evolution, the mere physical reproduction has consisted of the parent organism giving up part of itself; and when the emotional stage becomes pronounced, the male and the female begin to give up, not only their tissue, but their rest and comfort, for each other and for the child. The evolution of monogamy seems, in a rough way, to accompany the evolution of beauty, intelligence, and character: among the leaders in these respects, in the lower creatures, as well as in mankind, monogamy is most frequently found ; the most noticeable instances being the birds generally, in their pairing season, and the swans for life; and the lions till the cubs are reared, and in some instances, it is believed, longer. With the ants and the bees, the overgrown intelligence Ch. Ill] Monogamy a Test of Progress 49 seems to have shut love out of the general experience, and evolved polyandry with a vengeance. With mankind, the prevalence of monogamy is the most distinct test of progress, not only as a characteristic of na- tions, but even of social sets. At the two extremes of life, among those debased by low nutrition and impoverished sen- sation, and among those at the other extreme, debased by excess of nutrition and sensation, monogamy languishes. Where bodies are healthiest, sensations and habits nearest normal, intelligence broadest, morals highest, and sensibilities keenest and most catholic, love in its whole blessed range, from parents to each other and to offspring, is deepest and most enduring; there monogamy has been the chief cause of the peculiar evolution, and is itself most thoroughly evolved ; and the family, as the foundation for the development of the individual and the state, is nearest intact. This development simply means the enlargement of the Cosmic Relations. Thus we have marked a few of the steps from the lowest manifestations to the highest, of the soul which reacts with the universe. Now let us turn our taper light upon a few fragmentary aspects nearest related to our purpose, of the universe. CHAPTER IV EVOLUTION OP THE UNIVERSE As comprehensive a word as universe is sure to be used in many senses. When I write here of the evolution of the universe, I do not mean the cosmogony the process that we generally assume to have begun when our bunch of the star dust began gravitating toward centers, and which has prepared the apparatus through which the Cause now manifests the objective half of the phenomena appreciable to-day. I mean the evolution of the soul's knowledge of these phenomena. Here again classification is arbitrary. The senses, intellect, and emotions all three respond to, and work upon, vibrations flowing in from an outside something. In this relation, it is really not the outside something, but the vibrations flowing from it, that the soul works upon; and in this sense, the sensations are the Universe; and it is this mass of sensations (and the memory of them), that, for the purposes of this treatise, I mean by the universe. As a plain matter of fact, what have we in mind as universe, when we speak of the interactions between the soul and the universe? Obviously that portion of the totality of things with which the soul interacts. Each soul then has its own universe, which is plainly that soul's portion of a greater universe; but souls of the same general development have much in common, and, roughly speaking, the knowledge of phenomena, and deductions from them, which are held in common by civilized people, is what is generally meant by the term "The Universe." But probably the soul reacts with more of the universe than it is aware of. This, however, need not affect our reasonings : they will, except by acknowledged inference, re- late only to what we know, though it is obvious that if they do that with fair success, they will probably be correct regarding the uncertain fringe on the outer edge of what we know. 50 Ch. IV] Each Consciousness has its own Universe 51 I don't propose to go into the evolution or the working laws of the objective universe. For those, read Spencer. The " universal " phenomena that have been discovered since he wrote the wider range of wave motion and radiation, follow the " universal " laws that he indicated, and no genius has shown us any new ones since. And I shall speculate very little regarding the universe in the sense of the totality of things. What I have read of such speculations has been mainly nonsense made up of words which are mere confessions of ignorance, and much of this nonsense has come from misdirected efforts of abler minds than mine. I only want to call attention to some of the Cosmic Relations between universe as we know it, whatever its laws, and soul as we know it. Plainly, as already hinted, the objective universe is not the same to any two people or any two organisms. Each organism has its own. The arnu-ba has its, and Humboldt has his, and we have every reason to believe that outside of the one that anybody has, or those that everybody has, is still left more universe than our imaginations can in any way compass. Its spaces range beyond our telescopes, and even the qualities of the little space we thoughtlessly claim to know, range far beyond our microscopes and our specu- lations. The dimensions and other characteristics of each creature's universe, are of course determined primarily by the sense organs, and secondarily by the nervous structures which register, accumulate, and compare the impressions received by the organs. At one end of our living world is a universe of only a few elements, or rather the difference between degrees of one element, of resistance and non-resistance, or of penetrability and impenetrability of water that the creature can float through, or of earth or log that it cannot : or possibly the difference is one of heat and cold water that is warm, or water that is cold; or of light and dark places that have a glow, or places that have not. At the other end are the universes of Newton, Humboldt, Helmholtz, Michel- angelo, and Shakspere. Each individual's universe is evolved with his mind, but 52 Evolution of the Universe [Bk. I don't let that make us, with some philosophers, " believe " that the mind and the universe are the same. More than one philosopher is deemed to have won a claim to undying fame by demonstrating that there is a universe external to the mind. Anybody can find a simpler demonstration than theirs, by going toward an open door in the dark, with his arms stretched out parallel to guard against it, and so moving that his arms will pass on the respective sides of the door, and leave him to strike it with his face. Yet, despite such demonstrations, this external universe seems to be losing its old contracted character of " matter," and becoming simply another mind; but there is not much question now, even among those given to that questioning of obvious facts which they call philosophy, that it has an existence outside of our minds. We know it only by its phenomena, and they are constantly in both our minds and the something external. A phenomenon results only from an interaction between an object and a perceiving subject. We will find reason as we go on, for get- ting as clear an idea of this as we can. I will attempt a simple demonstration. A boy goes into the pantry after a pie. There something gives him a sight-sensation of a round flat object, and an odor-sensation of an agreeable something proceeding from the object. If he pursues his investigation farther, he gets sensations of touch, of sound, as he cuts or breaks the pie, and then happily of taste. All he knows of the pie is these sensations. They constitute the complex phenomenon pie. They are, so far as concerns him (or us), the pie, and without them, there would be, at least for him and us, no pie. Some philosophers go so far as to say that there would be no pie at all that the pie exists only when, and as, somebody ex- periences these sensations. If they are right, the conclusion is a saddening one for the boy: for if he went away leaving half of the pie, there could be no half for him to come back to. The truth is that while he is away, there do not remain in the pantry any of the sensations which we call pie, but something remains which, when he comes back, can again arouse the sensations we agreed to call pie; and the happy Ch. IV] Realism and Idealism 53 fact that that something remains, proves that there is a universe outside of the mind. On the other hand, if a log of wood be shoved into the room, but no boy, there are still in the room none of the sensations which we agree to call pie. To arouse those sen- sations, the bit of the objective universe still there must be visited by a bit of the subjective universe. The boy comes in with that bit of the subjective universe eagerly acting in his brain and on his salivary glands, and again are created the sensations we call pie. The bearing of this disquisition on pie (a subject for which I have an Emersonian fondness) upon the wider questions of our Cosmic Relations, will be more obvious as your patience holds out I shall never forget my feeling when the extreme idealistic theory was first presented to me. As a boy I had just re- turned from my first trip to the Adirondacks. Probably not three hundred people a year went into those mountains then, and probably not three hundred lived in them. The impressions left in my mind were nearly all of glorious solitudes where I had been alone watching the runways of the deer. The memory of those solitudes, and the hope of being again amid them, were very precious to me. When I first was indoctrinated with the theory that the external universe has no existence except as seen by an intelligent mind, I said to myself: As, then, no one sees those lakes and mountains now, they no longer exist they are not there. The feeling was horrible. Even under the happy inspirations the lakes and mountains had brought, there always had been a heavy oppressive undertone of loneliness, which the rec- ollection of them revived; and it had not been free from some of the sense of terror of the supernatural fostered in those superstitious days. But this suggestion that those beautiful yet awful solitudes had disappeared when we dis- appeared, had in it something more eerie and terrible than could come to a boy from the cry of loon or owl or panther, or even from the silence and the loneliness that, in occa- sional moments of perverse imaginings, became more dreadful still. Against the unholy magic suggested by the doctrine, the 54 Evolution of the Universe [Bk. I boy's reason made little headway, and the philosophic diffi- culty did not take its place among clearly settled things until, to the old man musing on the boy's perplexities, came the suggestion of the pie, which, very wrongly, seems not to have occupied as large a space in the boy's horizon as the Adirondacks did. CHAPTER V THE KNOWN UNIVERSE AND THE UNKNOWN UNIVERSE THE Adirondacks existed after I left them, and before I saw them : so the whole universe visible to us must have ex- isted essentially the same as now, though different in some details, before there was an eye to see it ; and it has been slowly, slowly revealing itself to us as eyes have been evolved, and seems to have been evolving eyes for that express purpose. Let us imagine ourselves living in darkness relieved at times by just enough suggestion of light to make the darkness more visible, with no more sense of sound than an occasional vibration somewhere in our interior economy; about the same satisfaction from food and drink as has the patient who is nourished by anointing his surface with an odorless oil, and with no sensations beyond these, except a faint con- sciousness of contact with objects, and support from earth or water. Such experiences constituted the universe of most of our ancestors, and still constitute that of most of our contemporaries. Next assume a distinct sense of shadow between the rudi- mentary eye and the source of light. What an immense resource this is in seeking food and avoiding danger, not to speak of variety of life and of pleasure, as compared with the creature who has only the sense of touch! How im- mensely larger and more interesting is the universe of the later creature! To get some realization of this, recall even your own feeling at some time over the mere simple ex- perience of light after darkness, and yet you have so many more complex feelings, that this one appears by contrast insignificant. Very early comes in a sense of different kinds of light of color. Think of the contrast between engravings and oil- paintings. Imagine the landscape of the moon-lit night shifting to that of noon. But even in the senses of sight 55 56 The Known Universe and the Unknown [Bk. I alone, not to speak of other senses, this is but the beginning. With each sense evolved, a new universe is known. And now, for contrast (for which, through all my tedious exposition I have had a motive that will appear later), let us jump to the universe of to-day as I see it at this moment. As I look North, between the beautiful pillars of a Doric summer-house, two immense pines, light green with dark shadows, are in the panel at the left, soughing in the summer breeze. A mass of lower foliage is this side of them, con- spicuously a great round laburnum, above and beyond which a narrow sharp arbor-vitas shoots up, in lighter green against the darker pines. Above all, blue sky with white clouds. I would like to have it all painted. At the right are two more panels, of lawn and distant wood, with my distant neigh- bor's beautiful buildings with their peaked turrets, brownstone against the green, and then in another panel, where I could toss my pencil, rises a pretty little spruce, on whose spire a pretty little bird has been chattering at me a pretty little song nearly all the time I have been writing, and the pines have soughed their accompaniment. Then at the left of all I have described, as I now look West, comes the massive square corner pillar of the summer-house, and next it a fluted Doric column. They shut out the left edge of the left pine ; and on their other side opens a picture of absolutely different character, whose limit is, instead of a hundred feet, some sixty miles. The lower quarter of the panel is foreground my hill sloping rapidly in light green to where the men with horses, bay against the green, are turning the pretty cow-pond among the trees into a swimming-hole for my young people and their mother and me; then, above in the perspective, a field of buckwheat still green, then one of yellow stubble from the oats just cut. In the perspective, these fields appear al- most wooded with small locusts along some roads, and a few great maples and pines; then my woods so beautiful, the rolling light green deciduous trees making the jagged pines shooting up here and there in front and above, look almost black. Beyond, over the woods, stretches the pearly surface of Lake Champlain, with long faint blue lines of current. At the right, just above the trees, a low dark green island, Ch. V] Protozoan and Human Universes Contrasted 57 with a white lighthouse and keeper's home, reaches across about a quarter of the picture. A little higher in the per- spective, touching the left edge, is a smaller island. Beyond, far off, comes the other side of the lake in what the fore- shortening makes a virtually straight line across the picture ; and above it rise in faint misty blue, fold upon fold, miles upon miles until we come to rounded and peaked summits, the Adirondacks. Above them, white clouds with bluish gray shadows, the upper edges broken with the dark blue of a clear sky. One more panel between the pillars, to the left, is a beautiful variant of the one I have just described. Where I turn South, there rise from the plain two of those picturesque mountains of tilted strata that slope on one side and are precipitous on the other ; and as I turn farther to the East I come to the Green Mountains first, the beautiful reposeful gently-three-peaked Lincoln; next, the unsurpassed gracefulness of the Couching Lion, not the biggest mountain I know, but the one with the most uplift; then after a few lower summits to (though fast becoming shut-out by growing trees) Mansfield, with an outline that seems really ingeniously bulky, sometimes looks bigger than the Jungfrau, and yet in winter, in that strange green twilight that now and then comes over the snow, makes one think of fairies. Now contrast these lovely things open to my eyes and ears, with our ancestor's universe of darkness and silence. Then suppose that he had varied the monotony of his existence by splitting himself into a family, and contrast his experience of it with mine if my little daughter should happen to get off her pony and be chased down here by my six-foot boys. To emphasize once more the emotional contrast (for all of the contrasts, a reason will appear presently) : this beauti- ful universe, of which I have tried to give you some faint notion, is mine mine mine, even the miles and miles of mountains are as much mine to all significant intents, as if I owned them in fee simple. Compare this joy with the protozoon's right, title, and interest in his puddle. And then with all he can do, compare my privilege of making roads to all this loveliness, which was not accessible before, and leav- ing my gate open to all who care to come. 58 The Known Universe and the Unknown [Bk. I Then think of the joy of doing, however badly, what amid all this, I am trying to do with my pencil (among my joys I prize that of not writing with a pen), which has nothing in the primitive universe even to contrast with it. Then reflect that the scene before me is but a small part of the universe open to-day Niagara and the Grand Canyon and the Yosemite and the wonderful Pacific coast, and the Canadian Eockies, and the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Himalayas the whole wonderful world, and the ocean and the night. Then the great architecture and sculpture and pictures; beautiful men and women; the drama spoken and danced and sung; and Liszt's Preludes and the Pilgerchor and Beethoven's last quartets. Then, on the more intellectual side, the great books, long talks with great people, and with others who, like not a few of the great ones, are better than great. Keflect that beyond the joy of contemplating our universe, men have had the higher joy of creating no little of it all the art and thought and love. Nature supplied the material and gave the hints, but the production was our own. So I might go on for many pages more, describing the universe of the modern man, and contrasting it with the universe of the primitive animal; but perhaps I have taxed your patience even more than my purpose requires. And now for my purpose in trying to awaken some feeling of the contrast. It is to impress that, as our universe has been a gradual revelation, up step by step from the protozoon's, ours is presumably only a part of one as much beyond ours, as ours is beyond the protozoon's. The amphioxus must have vague feelings of something beyond what it can sense; and far more certainly do we. As the early creatures must have in their sight, faint presages of what we call color, or in their hearing faint presages of what we call timbre, we certainly have presages far wider. Are we not constantly feeling fore- tastes of we know not what, except that it seems high and good? There was certainly something prophetic, though not nec- essarily prophetic of my personal experience, in the exaltation brought me before sunrise this morning in the pearl-gray h. V] Enjoyment of Nature. Compensation 59 sky holding one throbbing planet over dark Mount Mansfield there was something beyond my eyes, as surely as there was beyond those of the tadpole in my pond. After I saw this, I found " something beyond " in another sense, but still in the same sense. I could not sleep, and so I wrote what happened. The dawn, which is seldom reported in words or pictures, is, other things even, more interesting than the sunset certainly more cheering, as com- ing light is more cheering than coming darkness. But there is a difference in the other direction too, as the night is poetry, and the daylight prose. As I watch, above the mountains the gray turns to yellow; the yellow to pink, the blue higher up growing more intense, and the mountains growing blue with it; and then the blue far up in the sky gradually comes down and absorbs the lighter colors. Across the wide valley below the deep blue mountains, the black trees rise here and there above the mists. The mist* spread over the swamps and the lines of streams. The cattle in the pastures begin lowing, and the dog barks, as he herds them for their milking. Now the mists have grown so that, beyond the low foothills, they make, over the Winooski River, a gray line against the great blue mountains. This side of the foothills, in the fields, the light greens and yellows of different crops begin to show all offset by gray in the pastures, and by the nearer mists with the black trees jutting from them. The sky over the mountains is very light now, but shades fast into the dark blue of the zenith. The planet has climbed far up into that, and is still bright there. The scene began to take on its everyday look before the sun came. I did not wait for him, but went to bed. But how richly I had been compensated for a restless night, and even for the mischief it is going to raise in an exacting day! And I must illustrate one of the truths for the sake of which I am writing this book, by saying that much as the slight infirmity which causes me restless nights and early wakings, has eaten into working power much even as it may eat into the fag-end of old age, I have, in ways similar to last night's, and in many widely different ways, 60 The Known Universe and the Unknown [Bk. I been richly paid. He is a wise man who knows unerringly what to call a misfortune. But to return to our demonstration. In the first place, the difference between the tadpole's sight and mine having come by a slow evolution, is there any reason whatever to believe that the evolution is finished at just the colors my sight responds to now? There are plenty of existing eyes otherwise normal that do not respond to all the colors to which most eyes already do : even to-day some people see only brown where others see red or green, and a daylight landscape appears to them only much as an extra-bright moonlight one. Still such defective eyes do respond better than, probably within historic times, eyes in general did. This point has had a very interesting but, as we shall see, somewhat questionable treatment by Dr. Bucke (Cosmic Con- sciousness: Philadelphia, 1901 and 1905). He first quotes on p. 28, Max Miiller (Science of Thought, I, 229) : " It is well known that the distinction of color is of late date ; that Xenophanes knew of three colors of the rainbow only purple, red, and yellow; that even Aristotle spoke of the tri- colored rainbow; and that Democritus knew of no more than four colors black, white, red, and yellow." Then Dr. Bucke goes on to say: " Geiger (Contributions to the History of the Development of the Human Race. Translated by David Asher, London, 1880, p. 48) points out that it can be proved by examination of lan- guage that as late in the life of the race as the time of the primi- tive Aryans, perhaps not more than fifteen or twenty thousand years ago, man was only conscious of, only perceived, one color. That is to say, he did not distinguish any difference in tint be- tween the blue sky, the green trees and grass, the brown or gray earth, and the golden and purple clouds of sunrise and sunset. So Pictet (Les Origines Indo-Europeennes, Paris, 1877, II) finds no names of colors in primitive Indo-European speech. And Max Miiller (op. cit., II, 616) finds no Sanskrit root whose mean- ing has any reference to color." Then Dr. Bucke continues, without specific references : " At a later period, but still before the time of the oldest lit- erary compositions now extant, the color sense was so far de- veloped beyond this primitive condition that red and black were Ch. V] Evolution of Sight 61 recognized as distinct. Still later, at the time when the bulk of the Rig Veda was composed, red, yellow, and black were recog- nized as three separate shades, but these three included all color that man at that age was capable of appreciating. Still later white was added to the list and then green; but throughout the Rig Veda, the Zend Avesta, the Homeric poems, and the Bible the color of the sky is not once mentioned, therefore, apparently, was not recognized. For the omission can hardly be attributed to accident; the ten thousand lines of the Rig Veda are largely occupied with descriptions of the sky ; and all its features sun, moon, stars, clouds, lightning, sunrise, and sunset are men- tioned hundreds of times. So also the Zend Avesta, to the writers of which light and fire, both terrestrial and heavenly, are sacred objects, could hardly have omitted by chance all mention of the blue sky. In the Bible the sky and heaven are mentioned more than four hundred and thirty times, and still no mention is made of the color of the former. In no part of the world is the blue of the sky more intense than in Greece and Asia Minor, where the Homeric poems were composed. Is it possible to conceive that a poet (or the poets) who saw this as we see it now could write the forty-eight long books of the Iliad and Odyssey and never once either mention or refer to itf But were it possible to believe that all the poets of the Rig Veda, Zend Avesta, Iliad, Odyssey, and Bible could have omitted the mention of the blue color of the sky by mere accident, etymology would step in and assure us that four thousand years ago, or, perhaps, three, blue was unknown, for at that time the subse- quent names for blue were all merged in the names for black. " The English word Hue and the German blau descend from a word that meant black. The Chinese hi-u-an, which now means sky-blue, formerly meant black. The word nil, which now in Persian and Arabic means blue, is derived from the name Nile, that is, the black river, of which same word the Latin Niger is a form." Homer certainly had a word for blue, though he may not have applied it to the sky. This last statement that I ever got transformed into g makes me prick up my ears, but perhaps it would not if I knew more; and we need not let it fatally affect the whole paragraph, or the statements (op. tit., 30, 31) : " As the sensations red and black came into existence by the division of an original unital color sensation, so in process of time these divided. First red divided into red-yellow, then that red into red-white. Black divided into black-green, then black again into black-blue, and during the last twenty-five hundred years these six (or rather these four red, yellow, green, blue) 62 The Known Universe and the Unknown [Bk. I have split up into the enormous number of shades of color which are now recognized and named " The power of exciting vision of the red rays is several thousand times as great as the energy of the violet, and there is a regular and rapid decrease of energy as we pass down the spectrum from red to violet. It is plain that if there has been such a thing as a growing perfection in the sense of vision in virtue of which, from being insensible to color the eye became gradually sensible of it, red would necessarily be the first color perceived, then yellow, then green, and so on to violet; and this is exactly what both ancient literature and etymology tell us took place." But in the face of all this pretty demonstration and these great authorities, stand the facts that the Egyptians used color very well four or five thousand years before Christ, and that the people in the Dordogne caves used it as much, prob- ably, as twenty thousand years before. Moreover, recent savages in a state presumably far behind that of the peoples whose writings are quoted by Dr. Bucke and his authorities, use many colors, and often with skill that puts civilized man to his trumps. Among them, however, we should be slow to put our wampum-making Indians: for they used the colored beads which we gave them. But we found them with their senses far enough evolved to appreciate those beads, as good William Penn knew to his profit. Yet although Dr. Bucke may claim too much, what he gives us is interesting and suggestive and in the general line of evolution; and as we go on, we shall meet growing reason to look for truth on both sides in most conflicts between theories, and even between theories and facts. It is an interesting question whether the eye as we know it, is to be farther differentiated to report more colors, or whether we must depend for farther knowledge of the invisible ends of the spectrum, upon instruments of our own devising. Somehow phenomena for which we have to depend on instruments, do not seem as really parts of our very own universe, as phenomena reported directly by our senses. It seems more in accord with the beneficence so prominent throughout previous evolution, that our senses shall be expanded. Yet on the other hand, while that would be more joy, it would not exercise our new and ineffably Ch. V] Senses still Evolving 63 valuable power of inventing instruments and hypotheses, and finding laws for ourselves. As with the eye, so with the ear. Is it going to stop at ten octaves, when even some insects appear to hear higher tones than we can, and the whale lower? So with the other senses. All are of course, like sight and hearing, the products of an evolution in response to the en- vironment. Almost equally of course, then, they are yet but small parts of a possible even probable development. In dreams, when separated from the activities of the body, consciousness approaches such experience of new faculties the surmounting of time and space and gravitation; and we cannot declare it impossible that consciousness separated alto- gether from the body should have such experiences, even to a degree compared with which the difference between a creature with one sense and a creature with six senses, is trifling. Men now living have seen striking evidence that such development is going on. Some very competent observers think they are now watching the most tremendous of all evolutions yet known in the faculties themselves, of which more later. As with the faculties, so, as already intimated, with the universe. As nearly all the universe we know is outside the protozob'n's, are not the indications virtually conclusive that, outside of the one we know, there is more, bearing to ours a ratio greater than ours bears to the protozoon's? What reason have we to believe that all the universe revealable to a possible sense of sight, is revealed to ours? We have excellent reason to believe that it is not. By photography and the Roentgen apparatus, we can now find at the ends of the spectrum, rays from which our eyes as yet get no direct sensation whatever. Instruments show us longer and shorter, and slower and quicker vibrations than those of which our senses take direct cognizance. And even between the two extremes that we do cognize, there seem to be gaps that we do not. This amounts to an almost mathematical reinforcement of the demonstration already given that the sensizable uni- verse, with its bounteous gifts to the intellect and the emo- 64 The Known Universe and the Unknown [Bk. I tions, with the numberless avenues for exploration that it offers the adventurous soul, and with the numberless new gifts it undoubtedly holds at the ends of those avenues, is, after all, but a mere foretaste of a universe waiting for the enjoyment of eyes evolved beyond ours, and containing intel- lectual and emotional exaltations that our blind gropings even now touch without understanding. Truths similar to those illustrated regarding the visible universe, must hold even more strongly regarding the audible universe, because music is far the youngest of the arts: it has no masterpiece two hundred years old, while all the other arts have masterpieces over two thousand. And yet are degrees between fragments so small in com- parison with the probable wholes, worth considering? The phraseology, however, assumes that the wholes are open to human conception a weakness haunting the phraseology of philosophic speculation. The evidence, then, seems conclusive from the evolution of the recognized faculties, not to speak of the vague new ones now the objects of so much research, that in proportion to our senses, we know virtually as little of the universe around us, as, in proportion to his senses, does the jelly-fish floating in the dancing sunlit water among the yachts and the bathers, and touching the loveliest of them with the same sensation as if she were a floating log. And yet the myriad particulars, objective and subjective, which make our universe so different from the jelly-fish's, would probably, when compared with the whole universe (so far as our minds can grasp the idea of a " whole " universe) show a ratio smaller than does the jelly-fish's universe when compared with ours. In a word, evolution has demonstrated the existence of a Heaven, and instead of being up above us (which meant something before Copernicus and Newton) it is all around us and in us, only waiting for faculty to recognize it. Nay, we have been living in it all the time. If to the Heaven I tried to describe from my summer-house and my east window, could be added reunion with those I have lost, and gratifica- tion of divine curiosities just fast enough to prevent dulling them, I, for one, don't want any better Heaven. Ch. V] Senses Reveal but Parts of Reality 65 Or from another point of view, did human imagination ever devise an entrance into Heaven, to be compared with the experience of a person born blind, suddenly restored to sight in presence of a beautiful landscape, or better still, of a beautiful and beloved person? Yet experiences of the same nature, but immeasurably greater, cannot be held im- possible to a creature without a sense, or with only one, or two, or five, or any number. Whatever the number, we cannot conceive the impossibility of another sense being added to the organism, or another field of response existing in the objective universe. But while the universe of the higher organism is a heaven compared with the universe of the lower organism, it is not generally appreciated as such: for in only exceptional cases has it had the benefit of the immediate contrast between blind- ness and sight, or deafness and hearing. However, each appearance has been only an appearance a quality : the " thing in itself " is unknown to us, and appar- ently must remain unknown to us, except so far as its phenomena are revealed. Put yourself on Lake Champlain or one of the few lakes to compare with it, or in the Yosemite, or by the Grand Canyon, or at Zermatt, realize that the immeasurable source of strong, beautiful, beneficent (is it too much to say benevolent?) Power, is revealing itself to you in the vibrations entering your eyes; regard the scene as simply a lovely aspect of an infinite source of loveliness partially re- vealing itself to you, and probably to reveal to our descendants immeasurably more of itself in ways that beggar our imagina- tion; or go and listen to great music, and realize it as a revelation, through the composer, of the same Power; saturate your soul with such revelations, and then, that you may appreciate them all the better, contrast them with the gross and fantastic and often hideous pictures with which, under the name of revelations, barbarous priests have imposed the awful power of mystery on barbarous peoples. But the powers of mystery are lovely as well as awful. The mists and mountains and dark shadows opposite me as I write, are both. I do not read their meaning, as I read the meaning of a 2 -f 2ab + b 2 , but they lift and expand 66 The Known Universe and the Unknown [Bk. I and deepen the soul as do no meanings that I can read ; and while they raise the most terrible questions, they answer them with : " Peace ! Wait ! Work ! Earn the rest that you feel is in Us! All will be well!" CHAPTER VI SOME ETHICAL ASPECTS OP EVOLUTION WITH suggestion of the Beneficence which has been breed- ing from our deaf and blind ancestors a progeny that enjoys the universe open to us, comes the question: What need of the ancestors' being deaf and blind? Perhaps an answer whose consistency with the fact would not be its sole merit would be : " None of your business." But really it is no detraction from the Beneficence (or any other name that you may see fit to spell with a capital) doing the evolution, that the evolution did not begin higher up. We cannot conceive its doing so, any more than we can really conceive a creation. Just at what point would our wisdom have the evolution begin, and what reason have we to believe that it could begin in any other way than it did, or that the inflow of the Cosmic Soul into us can be attained in any other way than through just that evolution? The Power does not seem to have been able to make the universe perfect, and yet we assume the power to be unlimited what- ever that may mean, in spite of all the evidence indicating that it is not Here comes in the inconsistency that we allege between an all-wise, all-good, and all-powerful God, and the existence of suffering. What do we know about " all," except all of some limited thing? The very phrase is part of that nonsense-jabbering that we always fall into when we use words greater than our actual conceptions. We merely assume such a God, despite the facts that we cannot conceive one, and we never saw any evidence of the existence of one. We simply see the greatest power we know, but a power we know to be imperfect, evolving the greatest universe we know, but a universe we know to be imperfect. We have much reason to believe that we are to see more ; but to juggle with words that imply having seen all, or having seen what we have not, is to babble idiocy. 67 68 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I All this suggested to Mill a deputy god of inferior powers a queer suggestion for a man of his ability to entertain: for the need of a deputy arises only from the principal's limitations : so why not admit them at once, without lugging in the deputy, or bothering ourselves to reconcile them with the gratuitous pseud-ideas of an almighty and all-benevolent cause and regulator of the universe? For our purposes, the Cause is just powerful enough and just benevolent enough to produce, so far, the universe as we know it, no more and no less; and if we are not satisfied with that amount of power and benevolence, after we have watched life long enough to realize the good evolved from its evils, and to catch glimpses of the possibilities of vastly greater future good, we are pretty hard to please. The real indications are of the obvious fact that our powers of apprehension are not unlimited. We are even so stupid that we are in the habit of saying that the universe is full of imperfections and suffering and death, when it is no such thing: it does contain imperfections, suffering, and death, but anybody who says it is " full of " them, simply has diseased perceptions. The sad facts play a very minor part. As I write this in my summer-house, the sheep are bleating as they feed in the sunlight down the hill, sleek and happy. All summer I've enjoyed watching them enjoy themselves. During that time half a dozen have been killed by dogs. There are scores of them left. Shall I say that their universe is "full of" dogs and death? More of them have been killed for my table. Am I proved capable of nothing but ruthless murder? Despite the misery in the universe, the joy is there, and immensely preponderant; and we constantly see the misery working out good. This is a fact apt to be denied by the inexperienced and unreflecting, and realized only as life grows longer and richer. Yet assertions of it abound in the utterances of those whose thought is wisest and deepest. For proofs of it, however, one is generally thrown back on his own ex- perience: because such proofs are most frequent and con- vincing in the things locked in each one's own breast. They Ch. VI] Detailed Reach of Natural Law 69 are seldom known to the biographers, and still more seldom given by the autobiographers and when the fundamental facts are known, their relations are seldom realized. Pious souls and many souls have been made pious by such ex- perience often delight in pouring out their convictions of the beneficence of God in bringing good from evil, but where their convictions rest on their actual experiences of real life, and not on mere religious ecstasy, they are natu- rally slow to expose the experiences to the world, espe- cially as the secrets of others are so often interwoven with them. Many must have wondered if it was not a duty to do violence to their own feelings, and give the world the benefit of such experience ; but if, as an extreme instance, the prema- ture death of someone useful and admirable and loved, has been demonstrated in the course of many years to have made possible for the survivors, shifts in the kaleidoscope of life so good that the lost one would gladly have died to effect them, to proclaim the particulars might not only expose to the cold world the tenderest feelings of many survivors, but might appear an underestimate of the life that is lost, and a lack of affection for the memory. And yet there is probably nobody of much experience and reflection, who does not know of just such instances. Moreover, in many such cases, the preponderance of good rests on the assumption that the life is continued beyond: I do not mean the easy general assumption that the lost one has entered into a state of bliss beside which the agonies of illness and death, and the sufferings of survivors, are as nothing ; but I mean a set of very obvious consequences which would be rational in the extreme if there is a future existence very much like this one to round them out, while without the possibility of such consequences in an after life, the present life often seems like chaos. And yet even that chaos can often be resolved by bravely and candidly offsetting life's joys against its sorrows, finding it as good as it generally is, and assuming the peace of oblivion at the end. That, however, is not the whole matter: for the educating influence of suffering in life here, as we know it, is highly 70 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I valued by the best souls, and its recognition is so general as to be almost a commonplace. Yet when one realizes that the universe is governed by law, it is hard to realize a law comprehensive enough to reach down into the details of each life, and make its reverses what the character needs to pick out among all the apparent jumble of microbes and snakes and tigers and bad machines and explosions, just the one and at just the time, that each human being needs it to do him or his survivors good. Equally hard is it to imagine a law which much oftener sends the apparent " accidents " of happiness in the same way. And yet some of the wisest of earth very strongly and deliberately suspect not a few of them hold as a belief founded on frequent verification, that the Law and the Power great enough to swing the stars, is also delicate enough to do just those little things. It has often been found worth while to search life and conscience closely for the evidences. Among the things hard to realize a generation ago and much harder the generations ago when the litanies were com- posed, would have been the attitude now growing more general toward one more hard subject. *We know now that among the greatest humbugs ever imposed upon humanity by human- ity, or inhumanity, has been the horror of death. As the views inculcated by the priest for his revenue's sake are gradually disappearing, we are gradually realizing that death is a much- maligned institution, and that, except in its apparent incon- gruities with the useful and hopeful, it has, everything considered, much to commend it. As evolution is making life more normal, death becomes more normal nearer a mere long-awaited and welcome release from weariness and ennui. Weariness and ennui are inevitable under limited conditions: the wider the conditions, however, the longer it takes to get tired of them; but the time must come. The question therefore is really : Why are our conditions limited ? and our answer is: Whatever impressions like the worm's impressions of scenery and music, we may get outside of time, space, matter, motion, and force, while we are subject to them, no mortal mind can really conceive of unlimited conditions. It seems to follow, absurd as it may at first Ch. VI] Legitimacy of Speculation 71 appear, that no mortal mind can conceive of conditions under which death must not in time be a blessing. That now it o often comes prematurely as to seem, and probably to be, a curse, is a corollary of imperfect evolution. But if, in our erring judgments, we must regard it as worse or better than it is, what have we to gain by regarding it as worse? There is a rapidly reviving impression that we don't know much about it anyhow, and that the little we do know is the worst there is to know. Part of the bad is the apparent fact that the universe beyond our senses must remain unenjoyed by us if death ends all. This tends to make the faith in such a universe more tantalizing than inspiring; but as we proceed, we may find some reasons why it should not be tantalizing. We have now been through such a summary as conditions permit of the reactions between soul and universe covered by our present knowledge by our recognized faculties on one side, and such phenomena as we have been able to correlate, on the other. But it is a plain corollary of evolution that there should at times appear germs of faculty but faintly and rarely apprehended, giving rise to phenomena new, strange, doubt- ful. In this vague field lie many, perhaps most, of our future possibilities, and it would be a very chary review of our cosmic relations that should leave it out, or that even should refrain from any inferences regarding the unknown that our faint glimpses of it may legitimately suggest. It is even true that as the old forms of belief regarding the cause and fate of the universe and the soul, are nearly all gone, the old fervors and the old despairs are nearly all gone too; and with them seem gone nearly all great productive powers of the spirit; and the world, with its great new mechanical inventions, is absorbed as never before since Rome fell, in the luxuries of material things. The making of inferences regarding the unsensed universe, notwithstanding their inevitable uncertainty and unverifia- bility, has been, the vast majority think, of great benefit to mankind: for the universe we do not know is presumably far more important possibly even to us in ways dimly sensed 72 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I than the universe we do know, and the vague borderland between the known and the unknown is the field of much of poetry and the other arts. Every good strong emotion and possibly every bad strong emotion (which must be a misapplication or an excess of a good one) brings the soul to the borders of the unknown to the frame of mind where one is very apt to cry out: " God ! " and sometimes as apt to cry it out in oath as in prayer. De Quincey speaks of literature as giving " exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth/' This is at least equally the effect of great music, painting, sculp- ture, even architecture of beauty in all its forms, most perhaps of the great aspects of Nature, including humanity. Certain it is that without an abiding consciousness that the known mass of phenomena is not all, and that behind them is a cause transcending our imaginations, life loses some of its best emotions, the imagination grows arid, and the moral impulses shrink. While what we know, and the in- creasing of it, can more than occupy all our working powers, they work all the better for an occasional dream of greater and less troubled things. When imaginations of the unknown world have most filled the consciousness, mankind has done its greatest creative work. For three thousand years, under both classical mythol- ogy and Christianity, the great outpourings of genius sprang from a consciousness saturated with relationships assumed, whether truly or falsely, to personal gods and immortal life. That consciousness built the Greek temples and the Gothic cathedrals; it carved the Apollo Belvedere and painted the Sistine Madonna; it wrote the Iliad and the Inferno and the Paradise Lost; it composed the masses of Haydn and Beethoven and the Stabat Mater; and it has done more to shape the conduct of mankind than all the science, all the codes, and all the armies: for though it has not shaped the sciences, it has inspired the codes, and impelled most of the armies. These relations to the unknown have often been lost sight Ch. VI] Inspiring Interest in the Unknown 73 of and ignored, but yet so generally and persistently have they been felt that until lately they constituted most of the atmosphere in which even the skeptic led his moral and emotional life; their fervors and their terrors made virtually all of man's existence vibrant: whatever may have been his speculations, ambitions, lusts, there was no escaping the con- sciousness of the mysteries of the universe and the obligations of the moral law, with all their power to terrify or inspire. The robber baron built a church, the Sicilian brigand prayed for the success of his expeditions, and even yet the " criminal rich," as well as the rich not criminal, give freely for re- ligious uses. These emotions have probably been the greatest of world-influences since men began to take the universe seriously. When, in the rhythmic course of Nature, great waves of them have rolled up, they have generally come nearly at the same time with great epochs of literature and art. The struggles of the early church were followed by the literary inspirations of St. Augustine. Baphael and Luther were born the same year, and Michelangelo only eight years before. The harrowing of the English Church by Henry VIII was the precursor of Shakespere and his companions; the Huguenot persecutions brought the age of the great French dramatists and pulpit orators; the wars of the Cavaliers and Puritans bred Milton, and presaged the literature of Queen Anne; the great school of American writers was born of the struggle of the free spirit against Puritanism; the Victorian age in Literature was the age of conflict between Moses on the one hand, and Lyell, Darwin, and Spencer on the other. Be it noted in passing that, very often, these outbursts of literary and artistic genius did not take place in the times of greatest agitation, but a generation later. This, as I have suggested before (Outlook for Nov. 24, 1906), may go a long way to account for genius : it seems to be born not made by its own experiences, but by fervors experienced by its pro- genitors. During all these birth-throes of the spirit, whatever differ- ences of opinion there were regarding the nature of God and of immortality, both were believed in, and enough things believed regarding both, to keep most of the world's active 74 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I minds busy ; and to accompany the good results of such beliefs with a terrible amount of bad ones, including some of the worst tragedies in history. Conflicting assertions regarding the supra-phenomenal unsheathed the sword of Islam, and gave western Europe the most terrible wars and persecutions in history; for hundreds of years such assertions turned friend against friend, brother against brother, parent against child. As a typical instance so recently as John Fiske's youth in the late fifties, in a small Connecticut city, his denial of orthodox Christianity ostracized him from social intercourse. But the reaction from all these extremes has been only less deplorable than the extremes themselves. After so many bad experiences from speculations regarding the unknown, it was not a strange reaction to deny such speculations any legitimacy at all. As knowledge widens, men depend more upon knowledge, and tend to believe that absorption in the Beyond, where we have no knowledge, is the deepest folly, because it is founding our greatest interests in our ignorance. The systems of belief reared regarding the Beyond have taxed so many of the best powers of the race, and have so generally come to nothing, that at last many of their most ardent admirers, while insisting that their building has the highest value, have come to admit that the value is not in what is built, but in the act of building just as it was generally held, a couple of generations ago, that the highest value of education is not in what is learned, but in the act of learning. To say that there is not a grain of truth in these positions would be fatuous as fatuous perhaps as the claim that the pre- ponderance of truth is in them. The best known expression of this attitude is of course Lessing's preference of "search for truth" to truth itself. No sane man really accepts this, yet it has been made famous by the unquestionable poetry of its expression, and notorious by the passion of mankind for the intellectual titillation given by epigrams with a spice of truth and a sharper spice of contradiction of what is known to be true. The acceptance of such an epigram makes the vulgar feel wiser than the acceptance of a plain truth that everybody can see. Yet the Ch. VI] Reactions from such Interests 75 innate stupidity of the epigram in question is entirely in keeping with the denouement of the masterwork in which it occurs. Despite all the poets have done for us, and no men have done more, many of them have a terrible amount to answer for. But it is almost superfluous to reiterate that, wasted and worse-than-wasted poetry and philosophy have been but a small part of the negative effects of absorption in the Beyond. Dogmatic statements regarding it have clashed; and quarrels when neither side can be proved wrong are interminable, and their passions illimitable. In reaction against all this, a little after the middle of the last century, arose a school led by perhaps the most powerful mechanical intellect yet known one the immensity of whose processes touched poetry. This school declared : " This uni- verse, so far as we know it, can all be expressed in mechanical terms, and we have found the terms or at least enough of them to show that in time the rest may be found; we are plainly on the track of principles that cover all we know, or can know with our tools for knowing. Those tools will never carry us beyond phenomena. Most of the wasted strength of historic ages has been in speculating beyond phe- nomena, and most of their miseries have come from conflict of opinions on alleged questions beyond phenomena. Now as truth there if not attainable, agreement is impossible. Let us stop all this waste and worry, and busy ourselves with the correlation of phenomena by the mighty new engine of truth we have just discovered after guessing at it for three thousand years in Evolution." This reaction differed from those led by Copernicus and Luther. That of Copernicus related primarily to the question of the earth's place and man's place, at the center of the universe. That led by Luther related mainly to the abuses in the church. Neither revolution materially disturbed philo- sophic opinions regarding man's origin, daily duties, or des- tiny, or the universe beyond phenomena, and neither offered an engine like evolution for the revision of opinions. Since Luther's day the course of thought had vastly widened, and yet it had been so dammed back in the churches, in the schools, and even in social relations, that when the 76 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I dams were finally thrown down by Lyell, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, and their friends, the flood of associations on which the old faiths depended, swept the faiths along with them, and the absurdities, abuses, persecutions, and horrors which, in the Christian and Moslem worlds, had attended speculation regarding God and Immortality, were so intensely reacted from, that for half a century some of the strongest minds have regarded such speculation as subversive of Philosophy, Morals, and general well-being. Nevertheless, the intellectual habits which had bred those speculations were so deep-seated that most of our contempo- rary philosophers have inherited more of them than they realize, and affect to ignore Spencer even while they habitually use his terms, and test all things by principles which, though faintly appearing as guesses from the beginning of philosophy, were first demonstrated as facts in mind, morals and society by him : indeed so much of his work has got into the very air that everybody, according to capacity, breathes in his principles, often without realizing whence they came. This ignorant, not to say ungrateful, attitude of many contemporaries regarding Spencer, is partly due to the brain evolved on the old philosophy being in many ways imperme- able to the new. But it is also due, and perhaps in a greater degree, to Spencer having poured out the child with the bath; while insisting on the consciousness of the Beyond, and not denying, though not asserting, the Hereafter, he rigidly refrains from any speculation regarding the details of eithei; and what little light he flashes toward both, is brief and cold and dry. Though his daily walk and conversation were very much informed by the esthetic side of Nature, his philosophy was very little ; and as it offers none of the beautiful assump- tions in which men have so long delighted, and deals very little in poetry, except as its immensities are poetic, people who cannot supply its poetical implications for themselves, are apt to reject it as bare and arid. But now comes along M. Bergson and covers the colossal structure with flowers a task for which the giant who reared it was not fitted. When I said this to M. Bergson, he supplemented it with one of his Ch. VI] Unknown and Unknowable 77 inimitable touches "I try to show how flowers inevitably grow out of it." It is the proverbial fate of genius to have to make its own constituency ; and while, in our day, that fate is not as heavy as it was in the days of Socrates and Christ, the work against habit and heredity is still hard and slow. It must be rhythmic too, as Spencer was the first clearly to demonstrate. All these things make it easy to understand how, in spite of the revolu- tion wrought in philosophy by him, in spite of the contempo- rary spread of his doctrines over Europe, America, India, and Japan, there has been a reaction since his death a reaction even among men who have for their main stock in trade, how- ever unconsciously accumulated and assorted, the principles that Spencer first clearly established, and even the terminology that he mainly created. While the principal cause of this superficial and ignorant unconsciousness of Spencer's influence has undoubtedly been his refusal to pander to the appetite for transcendental spec- ulation, he yet provided the word Unknowable with a capital U, which lifted it from a negation into an assertion, and gave us a new word for something beyond the little contents of our consciousness, to believe in and lift our emotions toward. But why doesn't the word Unknown answer the same pur- pose? As a negation, Unknowable is nothing but a truism: it cannot mean more than unknowable in the present state of our knowledge, and that is a matter of course: for when any item of the unknown becomes known, the state of our knowledge is changed. And to assert that no matter how many items become known, there will still remain an unknown residuum, and therefore that there must ever be an Un- knowable, is to make one of those assertions involving the pseud-idea of "infinity," in which the pre-Spencerian phil- osophy did its reasonings in circles, and which it is one of the first principles of scientific philosophy to avoid. If, again, the word means that the number of things not now known is greater than can be learned while our race lasts, it rises from a truism or a pseud-idea, into a guess, but only a guess, even if one with which most men would agree. 78 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I But to assert that beyond our experience and knowledge there is presumably an immensity of truth and beauty and happiness, beside which our knowledge is as nothing, is only to assert what we have almost as much reason to believe from our experience, as we have to believe the experience itself. And we have nearly the same reason to believe also that we, or at least our descendants, will have an increasing share in that transcendent beatitude. Regarding our own chances, some guesses will be ventured in later pages. I say guesses : for when, as was the fashion with our ancestors, such speculations assume the certainty that we now seldom attribute to anything but hypothesis checked by verification, they have their dangers. To the universe which transcends phenomena, the name transcendent naturally has been applied. Of course more nonsense has been talked about it than any other subject; and in spite of the best intentions, I probably have talked my share, and shall probably talk some more. The term connotes two ideas (a) the unknown residuum of cause, etc., behind phenomena; (6) the portion of the universe whence we have as yet received no phenomena. Despite Transcendentalism being a jaw-breaking term, it cut a great figure on Boston Sundays a couple of generations ago ; but for everyday use in our time, The Unknown might serve better. The Spiritual World is of course another term for the same thing, at least for its psychic side, if you wish to draw a distinction which to me grows more and more shadowy every day. When savages have had anything come to them from their Unknown, even if it were but a bullet from a musket, they have called it the work of spirits, and a large portion of civilized mankind does not materially differ from them to-day. That world, being Unknown, however, does not quite justify Spencer in calling it Unknowable, though we may be justified in spelling both with capitals. And our limited intellects are apt to get on high horses and say that, in any event, it must be Unknowable in its totality, just as if the word totality in the connection were an idea, instead of a pseud-idea. As to the universe which transcends our knowledge, the Ch. VI] No Magic Keys. Uses of Speculation 79 world's records abound in confident expectations of finding "keys" and "passwords" that shall at a flash make all the unknown, known ; and no end of " systems " of " know- ledge " of it have been built, which were, of course, nothing but card-houses with words on the cards. The only stable knowledge has been built of classified phenomena; and the only progress into the transcendent universe has been step by step. Thus only has some of the universe which was at first all transcendent to our ancestors, become known to us, and thus only, so far as we can see, will some of the universe which is transcendent to us, become known to our de- scendants. But speculation concerning the transcendent universe, when honestly regarded as speculation, is justified by several con- siderations : I. We never know when a speculation on the transcendent universe is going to bring a valuable slice of it into or Universe into the Known (capitals have their uses). The speculation of to-day points the way to the demonstration of to-morrow sometimes. II. Characteristics pervade phenomena which may be held to justify, though they may not strictly verify, some classes of conclusions regarding their cause. For instance, the general prevalence of beauty and happiness obvious to a healthy mind, prove the cause beneficent, and therefore give much reason to believe that it is benevolent. Such beliefs, however, must be held and enforced only in proportion to their verifiability. III. Some speculations beyond phenomena have verifiable advantages they unquestionably enlarge and intensify our interests; and beyond possible waste of time, which they share with all speculation and even all experiment, their only disadvantages arise when they impose rules of conduct whose advantages are unverifiable. IV. What is more, we must speculate, at least on the re- lations of the uncorrelated phenomena that are constantly coming from the transcendental universe toward the universe of knowledge that constitute the borderland of knowledge. But while science has been in the very act of demonstrating the legitimacy of guarded speculation, many have said that 80 Some Ethical Aspects of Evolution [Bk. I science was killing the imagination. Others, however, insist that science has been the healthiest stimulus of the imagina- tion, not only in hypothesis, but even in poetry : certainly it gave a new and very deep note to the poetry of Tennyson. But equally certainly, it has diverted the imagination into new channels, and these have not yet become so familiar so much a part of the general consciousness which responds to poetry, as to inspire it habitually and powerfully. Poetry does not come from, or appeal to, deep learning or high ingenuity, but to the common emotions of mankind. True there is poetry in the spectroscope showing us the composition of the farthest visible star, there is poetry in the fact that what we call that star may be only light that has reached us from the star since it was burnt out and dead; but such facts, although science is pouring them upon the poet in profusion, are as yet so unfamiliar that he responds not so much by feeling their emotional implications and turning them into poetry, as by efforts to comprehend them. Poetry does not go hand in hand with knowledge, but skips all along the way, sometimes following in the paths which knowledge has opened and smoothed, sometimes going ahead, and throwing its vague lights into mysteries yet to be explored. BOOK II UNCORHELATED KNOWLEDGE CHAPTER VII INTRODUCTION WHAT do we mean when we say we know a thing? That we recollect enough of its qualities to be sure that when we find an object possessing those we recollect, and no others inconsistent with them, it will be the thing we know, or one like it one in the class of things with which our recol- lections correlate it. Far off at the edge of the woods I see a moving object. I cannot make out another quality. I simply correlate it with the class moving objects. Otherwise I don't know what it is. It emerges from the shadow, and I see that I can correlate it with the smaller class of dark moving objects. A little nearer, and I am able to correlate it with the still smaller class of brown moving objects, but I don't know how high the grass around it is, and don't know whether to correlate it with cattle or deer or dogs. It begins to run toward me, and its motion correlates it with dogs. Its coming toward the house tends to correlate it with my dogs. That, taken in connection with its color, narrows the correlation down to collies: the color excludes it from the class Scottish terriers to which my third dog belongs. But among collies, I can't tell before it draws nearer whether it is Laddie or his son Shep; but as he runs up to me, his very long hair and comparative lack of white, and large head, and affection for me, correlate him with my recollections of Laddie, and I "know" him. Now here are successively the qualities visibility, motion, color, brown color, the addi- tional mass of visible qualities that go to make up dog, the invisible one of tendency to come to my home, which 81 82 Introduction to Boole II [Bk. II marks it as my dog, the specific colors which mark it as my collie dog, and the long hair and preponderance of brown and big head, which mark it as Laddie. Dear old fellow ! He was literally old, and within a month of my writing that passage, he fell miserably and incurably ill, and we had to chloroform him, which is more than we would do for each other under similar circumstances. Let the passage stand as a monument, however perishable, to as loving and constant a friend as I ever had. Now when I say I " knew " this dear dog, it is because the whole mass of qualities enumerated were correlated with my recollections of a corresponding mass of qualities which constituted Laddie. Had they not been, I should have had to say, if asked : " I don't know the dog." All the knowledge up to that point would have been uncorrelated with the knowledge essential to my knowing him. Now when certain people are present, there are crackings and tappings going on around the room. There is nothing visible or discoverable to account for them ; so we can't safely correlate them with mechanically caused noises. They are too frequent to be correlated with the shrinkage of wood- work. Jones, who has heard similar noises before, correlates them with certain qualities he has experienced before, and says he "knows" them that they are noises caused by spirits. I on the other hand having never heard anything of the kind, and having nothing to correlate the noises with, don't " know " what they are : to me it is uncorrelated knowledge. And as, so far, Jones and the rest of us know precious, little, if anything, about " spirits," I suspect that in some important respects it is really uncorrelated knowledge with him. Similarly I see tables move in presence of certain people who touch them very lightly or not at all : so I cannot correlate the moving power with muscular force. Nor can I correlate it with electricity: for electricity doesn't act on wood; or with anything else I know. So for me, the little knowledge I have of it is correlated with so little of what I know about modes of force, that I can't say that I "know" it. We say we know things, when what we know about them is correlated with what else we know, and the Ch. VII] How Knowledge Takes Shape 83 wider and closer the correlation, the better we know the things. Now as Jones thinks he knows all about spirits, and that what he knows about this force correlates itself with what he knows about spirits, and that therefore the force comes from spirits, there is no use in my telling him that it comes from the medium because the medium is as tired as if he had done the work with his muscles. Because the noise takes place only when the medium is present, I can only correlate it with human forces, though with none I had known before. Jones prefers spirits. Well, we have a good deal of such uncorrelated or half- correlated or miscorrelated knowledge it makes the border- land between knowledge and conjecture, and consists largely of both. As to knowledge and possible knowledge, we are each in the midst of two concentric spheres not perfect ones, but with irregular surfaces. Of course the spheres of no two men are alike. Each lives in one consisting of what he knows, or thinks he knows of his sensed and correlated knowledge. This shades into an including sphere made up of scraps of uncorrelated knowledge but partly sensed, of intuitions and impressions some of them little more than emotions many of them, however, undoubtedly the germs of knowledge yet to mature. Then, we have every reason to believe, beyond this sphere must be a measureless infinity outside of not only our sensed and partly-sensed knowledge, but of our intuitions and emotions. Most of the rest of our book will relate to the including sphere, and will consist largely of suggestions for correlating its vague knowledge with that of the sphere of things we know. The borders of the sphere of knowledge and the sphere surrounding knowledge, overlap in both experience and feel- ing, or intuition, or whatever you see fit to call it. When some of our ancestors attained a general sense of light, they must have had some vague impressions which have developed into our sense of color; so when they got as far as a clear general impression of sound, they must have had vague im- pressions of what are to us pitch and timbre and even har- '84 Introduction to Book II [Bk. II mony and discord. Now we, in experiences that exercise our present faculties to the full before great aspects of Nature, or great pictures, statuary, or music, are filled with exaltations of "we know not what" beyond our distinct sensations. Similarly in the laboratory, the workshop, the study, the forum, even the market-place, something just be- yond always invites us, and in overtaking it, we become vaguely and tantalizingly conscious of yet more beyond. This "beyond" presents itself partly in open questions solvable by our present clearly-evolved faculties, and partly through faculties but little evolved and little understood. The groups of course merge into each other, as we have so often had occasion to notice that subdivisions do. In the first group are the phenomena whose genuineness nobody doubts, but that are not yet correlated, like the Aurora Borealis ; or phenomena not yet actually witnessed, but clearly ascertained, like the Pole before Peary, or Neptune when Adams and Leverrier had told where it was, but no man had seen it. At these questions explorers and scientific men in general are working, with faculties like those of other men, though often superior in degree. In addition to this physical group of uncorrelated know- ledge, there is a similarly uncorrelated psychical group of phenomena considerably known and accepted, which includes visions sleeping and waking somnambulism, and both the foregoing under hypnotism and suggestion. But beyond that group of phenomena well known but poorly correlated, is a mass of phenomena newly and rarely observed which are as yet so strange that they are generally attributed to illusion or deceit. These phenomena are in the borderland of faculty, as well as in the borderland of knowledge. They depend upon human powers whose exist- ence is but lately suspected, and still generally doubted, and which, if they exist, are the very latest and rarest fruits of evolution. The fact that people vary enormously in their powers, is obvious to all but the immense majority having inferior powers. That great ability of any kind is rare, is probably a corollary of evolution (though I have not yet happened Ch. VII] Differences in Men's Sensibilities 85 on any demonstration of such a connection) : so it is to be expected that new powers should be manifested by but few people. That such is the case regarding certain powers to be described later, has been used as an argument against their genuineness. There may be other arguments against it that are good, but this one, as far as it goes, is certainly for it. Intellectually and emotionally men differ among themselves more widely than any other genus of animals. I don't mean merely the difference between ordinary men and Beethovens and Shaksperes, who have faculties in high degree which almost everybody has in perceptible degree, but I mean that some men seem to possess faculties which most men seem not to possess at all. One of these most marked differences is in the premonitions of the unsensed universe. Even on the emotional side, some men have virtually no such pre- monitions, while they illumine the faces of others so that you can often pick out such men on the street. Such premo- nitions are of course vague, and tend to become fantastic "such stuff as dreams are made of," and in the efforts to give them precision, many systems have been built; and too often those not built in the laboratories, have fallen to pieces with great destruction to the reasonable faiths that were built in with unreasonable ones, and to the accompany- ing systems of morality. In truth, so far, the laboratory, the observatory, and their kindred have been the only places of permanently successful effort to increase our knowledge of the Beyond. But in the laboratory and the study, feeling the Beyond is greatly " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Yet not only is the recognition of its existence a commonplace of healthy mental function, but emotional relations with it often seem essential to a worthy and symmetrical personality. It may well be questioned whether, even in the most common- place and humble people who command our respect, this feel- ing is not always very definite. Certainly the vast majority of them, even many of them who scoff at the ordinary mani- festations of religion, are religious in their way, having a fidelity to such ideals as they have, that rises to the mystical. There are indeed few human beings who are not some- 86 Introduction to Book 11 [Bk. II where, somehow, sometime, exalted by this mystical com- munion. It may be in a Gothic cathedral or a Methodist meeting-house, or in the chapel where the brigand prays for success in his expedition; it may be before the Matterhorn or the Sistine Madonna ; before McAndrews's engine or " a weed's plain heart." The person experiencing it may be a Saint Francis or an Uncle Tom; the occasions may be few in a life-time, or they may include almost every conscious moment; they may drive out of life almost every duty and responsibility, or they may overcrowd it with them, and in- tensify and sanctify them all, the humblest as truly as the greatest. But where, when, how, to whom, the feeling comes, it comes some time to nearly all; and whatever its name, it is a recognition of something beyond what we know, and greater than we know. And yet, while he who has not intensely felt his oneness with all conscious being, has not felt the Best, the attempt to live entirely in this feeling has on the whole been counter to the best uses of life narrowing, enervating, and even bestializing. While mysticism includes the roses of Saint Elizabeth, it also includes the filth of Stylites, and the un- natural ecstasies of the celestial marriage. But by no means all the persons who have had this mystic sense have been vagabonds and parasites. Some of them have left work of inestimable value, though of the value of much of it there have been enormous differences of opinion. James in his Varieties of Religious Experience, quotes with approval from Dr. Bucke's book which I have already cited. It contains some interesting theories, and quite interesting accounts of a couple of dozen people, from the prophet Moses to Walt Whitman, who have attained the Cosmic Con- sciousness, which Dr. Bucke places as the third plane in terrestrial experience, the first being mere consciousness of the environment, which beasts share with us ; the second, the ordi- nary human subjective consciousness, the name of which in our translation from German philosophy is very unfortunate " self consciousness " being well established as signifying awk- ward feelings in society. Dr. Bucke seems to think that Cosmic Consciousness the feeling of oneness with Nature our forces, its forces; our Ch. VII] Cosmic Consciousness 87 thoughts, its thoughts; our life, its life, universal and eter- nal ; our consciousness, all consciousness is the endowment of but a few favored beings, and that they generally get it at the culminating time of life, between thirty-five and forty-five, by some such knock-down experience as St. Paul's, and gener- ally accompanied with an apparent blaze of glory, subjective at least. I suspect that more people are* blest with it than he supposes. He says himself that it is not necessarily accom- panied with any extraordinary general capacities. I (anybody writing of these things, ought to contribute what he can to the sum of experience) I cannot remember when I did not have the rudiments of it before great scenery and great music, and it culminated in me ten years before the usual period he assigns. It came with the blaze of light, but the light was from the natural sunset which, however, seemed that evening not confined to the far-off clouds, but to pervade the whole atmosphere and all other things, including me, and to be per- vaded by energy and mind and sympathy. Dr. Bucke says, rightly, I think, that the influence lasts in its fullness but minutes, seldom hours, but is never lost, and is sometimes renewed and reinforced. But I wouldn't advise anybody wishing to retain it vividly, to plunge into the competition of American business ; and even into studies of practical affairs economics, politics, and the like: I suspect one has to keep his eyes pretty wide open to be fairly conscious of any Cosmic Relations that may inhere in such interests. It is not during the comparatively brief period covered by human records, that most of the impressions that have been in advance of knowledge during all evolution, have oeen overtaken by the understanding. With the exception of some indication that the color sense has developed some- what since Homer, our recognized senses and physical powers generally seem about the same in number and quality that they were at the earliest period we know of. Yet the pro- gress of mankind as we generally know it, has been some- what in the development of them. Everybody who sees much of ordinary laborers, knows that the best class of mankind has gone past the vast majority even in the ordinary senses of sight and hearing. 88 Introduction to Boole II [Bk. II But in the nineteenth century, especially late in it, began to appear indications that, in a few exceptional individuals, evolution had brought the human organism to a point where it exercises modes of force before little known, if at all; manifests a complexity of personality and relations to other personalities, before unsuspected ; and receives knowledge not only through new channels, but of a new kind. Yet these new faculties seem to belong in an old range beginning in knowing good people from bad " by instinct/' or knowing when there's an unseen cat in the room, and now extending up to seeing things without using eyes, hearing things without using ears, and getting, in other ways we don't know, impressions of the unsensed universe, including what appear to be innumerable personalities. These impressions may come from the recollec- tions (often unexpressed and even unconscious, so far as we know) of other people, or from discarnate intelligences, or in some other way that we cannot conjecture much more than a worm with only color pigments can conjecture the visions of Turner. In the presence of the latest of these phenomena, a man is like such a worm exposing his pigment-spot to the reflected lights which make our visible universe ; or like an insect with a rudimentary sense of hearing, fluttering in a hall where an orchestra is playing. They must have some stirrings which hold about the same place in their interests and sensations, that our wonderings do before these matters of which our senses give us such faint inklings, and among which our curiosities do such clumsy fumblings. In proceeding to the study of the borderland of knowledge, and to some conjectures of what may lie beyond the border- land, I shall attempt nothing but the study of phenomena, and a few cautious inferences from them. I lack the inclination and, I suspect, the capacity, to take a lot of words like "infinite," "eternal," "absolute," which are simply denials of knowledge, or " omniscience," " omnipresence," " omnipo- tence," which are assertions of something the human mind cannot grasp, and by keeping such words a long time in the air, as jugglers do their balls, construct a system of Philoso- phy. Previous to Spencer, and to some extent since, thinkers Ch. VII] Guesswork and Philosophy 89 have done so much of this that, despite suggestions like Kant's of the cosmogony, most of their work simply doubled on itself in circles, its predicates being merely its subjects in different phraseology; and its conclusions, like its premises, pseud- ideas with no possibilities of forecast in them. And yet for three thousand years the imagination has been the main instrument of philosophy, and curiosity beyond phenomena its main motive both to such an extent that minds devoted to the subject have, both by habit and sur- vival, been so shaped for such vaporings, that it is still rare to find a mind inclined to philosophy which does not habitu- ally seek those mists. And it is equally rare to find a mind so open to the implications of evolution as to be guided by them in all its speculations, and thus saved from clueless wandering in the fog. The more I read of philosophy and histories of philosophy, the harder I find it to understand why men now trouble themselves with the guesses that were made on the material thinkers had before the recent knowledge of the physiology of the senses, and the persistence of force, and its relations to nerve function. Until those discoveries, men certainly knew nothing worth considering regarding the fundamental question of the relations of mind and matter: so there could be no enduring basis for psychological speculation, nor the elements of a substantial organic body of doctrine to bear the name Philosophy. There was nothing but a chaotic fluttering mass of contradictions, without a single established principle on which to base a rule of conduct, much less any coherent body of ethics founded on what is, for us, universal law. Fragmentary rules of conduct had been derived from ex- perience, and embodied by men of genius in immortal phrases ; and those rules had been in various degrees wrought into sporadic and usually fleeting systems ; but the foundation for any universal and universally acknowledged systems of psy- chology, philosophy, or ethics, was unknown. I shall therefore not follow fashions still too current, by encumbering what I have to say with many citations of guesses that were .made before our recent knowledge. Among the good reasons why I don't cite them, is that I know, and care to know, very little about them. Even many guesses 90 Introduction to Book II [Bk. II that were made so recently as just before the accumulation and verification of facts by the Society for Psychical Re- search, are often too antiquated for our present purpose. I shall try, therefore, to make my examination of the subjects which tempt to the old-fashioned philosophy as free from it as I can. But that is no easy task : for everything we know each science into which we have classified it, shades off somewhere into the unknown, and much that we have to deal with has hardly emerged from it. The new questions are tangled up with questions older than our records, but which have had little scientific consideration until some thirty years ago, and have not had as much since as their importance may be found to justify. They have, however, to some ex- tent, been named and classified, which is the beginning of science, and are, some of them at least, being slowly cor- related with our present knowledge. Certainties have a tendency to grow commonplace. Even mountains and oceans satisfy for but a time : so the flights of great and venturesome souls tend to the shifting skies of un- verified beliefs. These are sometimes misleading, but often inspiring, and it is one of the highest of intellectual delights to watch them through history, gradually becoming brighter and more definite; and helping make them so is perhaps the highest of intellectual functions. BOOK II PART I TELEKINESIS CHAPTER VIII MOLAR TELEKINESIS WHILE the past half-century seems to have shown us more of our Cosmic Relations, and to have widened them more, than all preceding time since man was far enough evolved to write his history, most attention has been attracted by the revolutionary discoveries affecting transportation of mat- ter, and the communication of ordinary intelligence by molecular forces of which we had long had some sort of con- ception. Of late, however, much attention has been devoted to new faculties and new means of communication. Included with the phenomena out of which knowledge is built, is the evolution of the senses which take cognizance of those phenomena ; and during the last half-century much attention has been drawn to indications of an evolution of senses, or sensibilities, that take cognizance of phenomena before unknown, and that may perhaps surpass in importance (if comparisons can reasonably be made) any of the avenues of knowledge previously known. But in passing to the consideration of these matters, let it be distinctly understood that we are to consider only phe- nomena, and not mere speculations on assumptions regard- ing the transcendent world, which have made the bulk of what has been called philosophy. I shall deal freely in pro- visional assumptions, but only regarding phenomena, and I shall not use such words as infinite and eternal and un- conditioned, in any other sense than as indicating directions, regarding whose goals I shall not even knowingly make as- sumptions. To cut it short : beyond this point, this book, so 91 92 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I far as it is not record of fact, is mainly candid guesswork regarding fact. Yet in being so, it admits no affiliation with the famous masses of guesswork which announce themselves as established truth. On the borderland of our knowledge, we shall meet many strange and startling statements, among which there is un- doubtedly a substantial mass of fact, but just what that mass is, we shall find hard to determine, and after we have done our best to separate it, we shall find it equally hard to cor- relate it with our established knowledge. To the statements, the winnowing, and the correlation, we will now apply our- selves. And let us do so with the hope that we may find some new inspirations to lift us, if not back to our outworn creeds, at least to all in them which promoted our higher interests, and perhaps to more enlightened creeds promoting interests higher still. Early writings and traditions abound in accounts of magical control of nature, mysterious visions, and spiritual communi- cations and possessions, which may have been partly the results of some rudimentary senses or susceptibilities akin to those which, about the middle of the last century, were manifested in America, and since have appeared sporadically through Europe. At first persons occupying the two extremes of mental habit theologians and scientists, alike generally scouted these alleged phenomena as fraudulent, and refused even to investi- gate them. But the genuineness of some of them may now be considered established in the scientific world, and that of several others held fairly open to consideration. The phenomena are both physical and psychical, though with some mysterious connection between them: for most persons, though not all, manifesting one group, have mani- fested the other. The physical group is in the powers (I) to move material objects by some extra-muscular force, and often without con- tact; (II) to pass matter through matter without disintegrat- ing either mass; (III) to cause motion in the air without any obvious agency. The aforesaid changes effected by the mys- terious force or forces are molar. It is claimed that there are Ch. VIII] Kinds of Telekinesis 93 powers to produce also the following which are molecular: (IV) when near to certain objects notably running water and gold, and probably some others yet to be ascertained to establish involuntarily between the operator and the object, some sort of current not yet named, but apparently akin to magnetism, which not only makes the operator aware of the nearness of the object, but causes in him nervous and mus- cular reactions; (V) to produce sounds from tangible objects and from the air, by some agency as yet unknown; (VI) sim- ilarly to produce lights; (VII) also changes of the air's tem- perature; (VIII) also evanescent unmaterial semblances of material objects. To the first of these powers is now generally applied the name telekinesis. The tele, however, is not to be regarded in the frequent sense of distant from, but merely as not in contact with. And as the objects concerned in all of the eight cate- gories are not in contact with the operator's body, we may tentatively consider all these modes of force as telekinetic, though as more is known about them, such of them as survive scrutiny may receive separate names. The first of these alleged modes of force I have seen in action, and know to be genuine. There is plenty of honest testimony to the rest ; the only questions arise over the possi- bilities of illusion. The testimony to the fourth (" dowsing ") and fifth (sound) is strong enough to have convinced me. That to the sixth (light) I consider in some cases very good, but in most not yet convincing. For the rest, the testimony does not seem to me convincing, perhaps because the allega- tions are so improbable, but the testimony is too strong to be ignored. The telekinetic forces ex vi termini act outside the body. The following forces are alleged to have acted through the will upon the body itself. I venture to suggest the name autokinetic. They are said (I) to lift the body independently of any known agency; (II) to resist the effects of heat; (III) to produce stigmata and blisters. The testimony to the third seems convincing, also that to one class of incidents of the second ; to the first, as to some sorts of telekinesis, it is not as strong as the great improbability requires, and yet too strong to be ignored. 94 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I There is another new force of which we see evidences in the activities of the alleged spiritual mediums. I call it psychokinesis. It will be described in due course. The uncorrelated psychical phenomena we will consider in Part III of this Book II. I am fortunate in being able to begin an account of teleki- nesis from my own experience one which, in boyhood, in- augurated an interest in these subjects that has endured through a long life. In the winter of 1856-7 or the spring of 1857, on a Sunday afternoon, I was one of a dozen or so of the pupils of General Russell's school in New Haven who were loafing in one of the recitation rooms, when one of them said to P : " Ghost, show us the spirits ! " The boy addressed was a delicate-looking chap of medium height, some sixteen or seventeen years old, whose gentle and truthful nature had made him a favorite with us all to a greater degree perhaps than any other boy in the school. The subject once opened, there was a quite general talk about raps being heard about his bed, and similar stories. It was news to me. I had previously supposed that his nick- name of " Ghost " was the result of his comparatively shadowy appearance, but I was to learn better. He objected to giving the exhibition because, he said, it tired him so ; but at last he was persuaded. There were some music-stands in the room, probably two or three, over which we did our fluting and fiddling. Cer- tainly they contained no hidden batteries and connections. Each consisted of a wooden slab some two inches thick, and some fifteen by eighteen in width and length, resting on the floor ; then from this a stick some two by three, rising to the height required by the average player; and on top of the stick, an inclined piece about the size of the base, but much thinner, serving as a desk for the music. The whole thing was made, probably, of white pine, and unpainted. P stood before one of these stands, placing his fingers and thumbs lightly on the desk, which sloped with the top away from him. Soon, he said : " If there are any spirits pres- ent, will they please tip the stand?" No response. After Ch. VIII] P '* Music-Stand 95 several repetitions of the question, the stand tipped gently o- ward him. Now, as the desk sloped away from him, its tipping toward him by his muscular force was absolutely impossible. After a time the stand would tip in response to all sorts of questions, and spell words in response to letters as the alphabet was repeated. Later knowledge leads me to believe that these tippings were in response to P 's unconscious volition. Soon P *s arms began to jerk convulsively, so that his hands ceased their permanent contact with the stand, and began to tap it with increasing frequency and strength. Soon the stand ceased to fall back into its natural position of stand- ing on the floor, but even in the intervals between the tap- pings, while his hands did not touch it, remained tipping toward him, not rising and falling as his hands rose and fell, but tipped permanently. The force produced this sus- pension without contact literally was telekinesis. The jerkings increased in frequency and violence to a rapid tattoo of his fingers on the stand, the distances away from it between the beats increasing to nearly or quite a foot, and the stand steadily tipping more and more toward him until, probably, the top had passed the center of gravity, and yet it did not fall toward him or back toward its natural position, but was virtually held in what all previous knowledge would have declared an impossible position. Then he said : " Try to pull it down," and the strongest boy among us on one side of the base, and I, who was perhaps the heaviest, on the other, tried to turn the base back to the floor. We could not. We spread ourselves on the floor, throwing our hands and the weight of our bodies over the raised bottom of the stand, but we could only sway it a little, while his hands continued playing their tattoo both hands irregularly, not systematically relieving each other so as to exercise a continuous pressure, but leaving the stand, at in- tervals of perhaps a quarter of a second each, alternately with and without contact with him. The contest between the mus- cular force of the strong boys at the base, and P 's mysteri- ous force at the desk, continued for a minute or two, until the base of the structure was broken off or the nails drawn out, and P sank into a chair exhausted. The frail fellow had 96 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I put forth more force of some kind than the muscular force of two boys, each of much more than his weight and many times his muscular strength. We were out of breath and tired too. I don't remember whether P held the upper part suspended in the air, or whether a mysterious circuit with the earth was broken when we broke off the base. Fatigue like P 's is generally mentioned as following experiences like his, and the other manifestations of tele- kinesis. There are a few instances, however, where appar- ently no fatigue is experienced. I remember realizing at the time that his force could not be electrical, as it acted through wood. There was no cabinet, no subdued light, no machinery but a commonplace piece of furniture familiar to all of us, no money paid for the show, nothing but an honest and kindly boy sacrificing himself for the entertainment of his mates. The broken stand remained there as evidence that we had not been hypnotized, and I seem to remember some incon- venience from being unable to use it before it was mended. Now if I have not told those things exactly as they occurred, I never told any other concatenation of as many things exactly as they occurred. The fact of his putting forth more of his mysterious force than we did of our mus- cular force, is as indubitable as any fact in my experience. The manifestation was so simple and coherent that not only was room for error conspicuously lacking at the time, but room for failure or distortion of memory has been conspicu- ously lacking since. A decade ago, Podmore would probably have urged against this testimony that it has no confirmation; that the parties were all boys ; that the only witness was convicted during his youth of writing verses, and has since written fiction; that the testimony is nearly sixty years after the event, and that it was given when the witness was presumably in his dotage. Regarding the last objection I am not entitled to an opinion, and the others are all facts. The other witnesses of P 's phenomena I have entirely lost sight of, and indeed forgotten who they were, except the boy who helped me break the stand. He was a Spanish-American, and went back to his own people. Ch. VIII] Another Amateur Table Tipper 97 For anybody, however, who, in spite of all that, is rash enough to accept the testimony, telekinesis is proved. If I doubt that occurrence, I must doubt every other ex- perience I ever had. My certainty regarding those phenomena cannot be increased. But if it could be, it of course would be by the vast accumulation since then, of evidence of similar phenomena. There have been many ludicrous efforts to account for such things by mechanical means, and regarding my experience with P , I have been asked in many polite ways if I am a fool. But all this was long ago: of late the evidence for telekinesis is so strong as to have put an end to skepticism in a large part of the educated world. Manifestations of telekinesis have been known to come from many persons, and whatever the supplementary tricks of Eusapia Palladino the " medium " most noted at present there seems no extravagance in assuming that this mode of force is sometimes manifested by her, and is the foundation of anything genuine in her performances. Here is an account furnished by one of my sisters of an occurrence somewhat similar to mine, witnessed by her : " The remarkable ' table tipping ' of which I have told you occurred many years ago in the home of one of my school friends. She had an older, invalid sister, a charming, mag- netic woman, whose room was the center of all the life and gaiety of the family. One day a number of us girls were seated, as was our wont, around her bed an old-fashioned 'four-poster' (for it was an old-fashioned home), when the conversation drifted to ' spiritual rappings,' ghosts, etc. One of our number (Miss A.), who had recently displayed remark- able powers in moving and tipping furniture, was challenged to make a small but very heavy oval marble-topped table, probably three or three-and-a-half feet in its long diameter, move over to the bed and mount it. She accepted the chal- lenge, while we all watched with laughing incredulity. She simply rested the tips of the fingers of both hands on the table, and in a short time it began to move, she following. When it reached the foot of the bed it began at once slowly to wriggle up the side I can describe its motion in no better way until it lay on its side at the feet of the startled invalid. 98 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I " On inquiring of Miss A. what her sensations were while the table was moving, we were told that she felt as if a stream of cold water were running from her finger tips up her arms, and she now felt quite exhausted. "Not one of us could have lifted the table onto the bed, using all the strength we possessed. She was soon after for- bidden to make such experiments on account of the exhaustion which followed." The other witnesses of Miss A/s phenomena are all dead. But since that day so much well-authenticated evidence of similar phenomena has accumulated, that one witness is worth more now than a dozen were then. I have been somewhat surprised at the number of private persons free from all suspicion of deceit, and not working for money, who have manifested such phenomena. While I have been busy at this book, the conversation around the sup- per-table at the Authors' Club has more than once turned on experiences which have not yet been correlated with estab- lished knowledge, and probably half the men present have related some. The next case will be taken from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, but before giving it, it will be well to give some idea of that society and its publications, citations from which will constitute a large part of the remainder of this work. Of course, like all other phenomena, these we are con- sidering have their recurrent waves (Professor Newbold says at intervals of about six centuries) of frequency and scarcity, as required by the law of vibration, or " rhythm of motion " as Spencer calls it; and probably the only new thing about them is that the latest wave happened, as already stated, to start up in the middle of the last century, and roll into the ken of modern science. Under the present faith in facts, there has been accumulated a vast array of those connected with these subjects. But apparently unlike most other matters of wide curiosity, until comparatively lately few systematic attempts were made to " explain " them to correlate them with established knowledge. About 1880, a group of friends connected with the Uni- versities of Cambridge and Dublin, met for the investigation Ch. VIII] The Society for Psychical Research 99 of obscure phenomena. It will not be surprising if the future regards the gathering of these friends as epoch-making. In 1882 they founded the Society for Psychical Research. The name Psychical was too narrow : for physical phenomena have also been examined and reported upon. Up to that time, so far as I know, neither class of phenomena uncorrelated with existing science had received the attention of any organ- ized body of workers. In October, 1882, the society issued the first " Part " of its " Proceedings," to be hereafter alluded to in these pages so frequently as to require the abbreviation " Pr. S. P. R.," and later merely Pr. The first volume was completed in December, 1883. The twenty-sixth volume was completed in 1913.* The Society has also issued a " Journal " exclusively for its members, of which the fifteenth volume was completed in 1912. The general intellectual culture concentrated in the Society has seldom been equalled in any learned organization. The reports almost without exception are models of reasoning and diction. For their cultural effect alone most of them are well worth reading. The idea of vulgar and ignorant credulity in connection with the authors is ludicrous. Nor is it possible to feel regarding the reports as a mass, the misgivings ger- mane to the conclusions of purely literary persons regarding practical affairs : for though Frederic Myers, for instance, held a high position in literature ; Henry Sidgwick held one equally * The 8. P. R. was singularly fortunate in its founders. They were all remarkable persons. Among them, in addition to Professor (now Sir William) Barrett of the University of Dublin, who called them to- gether, were Professor Henry Bidpwick of the University of Cambridge, and Messrs. F. W. H. Mvers and Edmund Gurney, ex-fellows of Cam- bridge. Soon after the start, the Cambridge group was increased by Mrs. Sidgwickand Professor and Mrs. Verrall. all of whom, especially the ladies, contributed important matter to the Proceedings. Mrs. Verrall's are quite voluminous, and their scientific value is illuminated by rare literary charm Closely associated with those already named soon became America's greatest psychologist, Professor William James, and Dr. Richard Hodgson, who in many respects surpassed any of those named earlier, yet he did not, like some of them, leave an important book as A monu- ment, or, like others, attain fame in sciences outside of "Psychical Re- search." But in devotion to the cause, in acuteness of the intelligence which he brought to it. especially in the detection of fraud : and in grasp of the indications of general principle scattered among its bewil- dering phenomena, he was perhaps 3 first of all. James said that he 100 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I high in the sciences of mind and society; Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and Sir William Barrett have all received knighthood for their eminence in the physical sciences, and the position in psychology of Professors James, Royce, and Morton Prince I almost feel like asking the reader's pardon for naming in an American book. That such a society should have spent its time over trifling or unverified stories would be ridiculous to presume. The twenty-six volumes of the society's Proceedings, and its Journal, contain also pretty much everything of great con- sequence on the subject that has been reported elsewhere. There is also a similar single volume of reports of a very eminent American society that existed from 1885 to 1889, and several volumes of reports of a later American society. So much of these later American reports is duplicated or sum- marized in the English reports, that I have not made a thor- ough study of them. In addition to these various reports, the literature of the subject in English is already considerable, though until the last fifth of the last century, with the excep- tion of a few books on Mesmerism (or Hypnotism) and Som- nambulism, and the usual quack mystical works, it was mainly restricted to the general treatises on Psychology. The con- tinental reports and literature are worth attention, though until lately most continental investigators reported through the S. P. R. knew no handling of a large mass of elusive matter to surpass Hodg- son's report in Pr. XIII. Hodgson began as the hardest-headed of the skeptics, exposed more frauds than any other man, and eventually be- came an enthusiastic spiritist. The last dozen years or so of his life were spent in America as Secretary of the American Branch of the S. P. R Other officers and members hare been Lord Rayleigh ; Professors Bowditch. Cope, Crookes, Fullerton, L. P. Jacks, Langley, Lodge, Gilbert Murray, Newbold, Newcomb, Purapelly, Royce ; Drs. W. T. Harris, L. Emmett Holt, and Morton Prince ; and Messrs. Thomas Da- vidson, W. E. Gladstone, J. G. Piddington, Frank Podmore, and A. R. Wallace. Of the active members: Sidgwick, Podmore, Gurney, Myers, Hodg- son, and James have gone from earth perhaps into the deepest of the mysteries which absorbed so much of their interest. Professors Lodge, Crookes, and Barrett, who were all of the early group, and have contributed much to the Proceedings, still survive with years and honors thick upon them. Sir Oliver Lodge, approaching the subject with the usual scientific skepticism, became a convinced spiritist, and has written a volume on The Survival of Man. Ch. VIII] As to the Evidence 101 That large portion of the scientific world which has refused to study the phenomena, of course scouts the questions alto- gether. Professor Sidgwick, in his inaugural address as first Pres- ident of the Society, said (Pr. I, 8) : "It is a scandal that the dispute as to the reality of these phenomena should still be going on, that so many competent witnesses should have declared their belief in them, that so many others should be profoundly interested in having the question determined, and yet that the educated world, as a body, should still be simply in the attitude of incredulity." Probably no equal authority would find it worth while to express himself to that effect now. Throughout the early volumes of the Pr. S. P. R. a great deal of attention was given to questions of intentional fraud, and an enormous deal of it was unearthed. But gradually enough unquestionable phenomena and reliable " mediums " were found to leave the society little time or temptation to bother with others. The day for extreme skepticism regarding the actuality of most of the phenomena is now past. To doubt it is now, as in the oft-quoted phrase of Schopenhauer regarding telopsis, not skepticism, but ignorance. I shall not waste much space in attempts to authenticate them. Men have been very properly and profitably hung on the unsupported evidence of children, the only additional requirement being confirmative circumstances. Such circumstances, the existence of parallel verified cases, the character of the witness, and consistency of the general conditions, I shall try to regard in giving unsupported evidence. Yet the principle illustrated is the essential thing, and if it is so well supported as to deserve illustrating at all, it might sometimes be better illustrated for the general reader by even an impressive fictitious narra- tive, than by a squalid or malodorous fact. It is often impossible within the limits to give a fair ex- position of evidence on both sides. Persons caring for that must go to originals. I will give only what appear to me the points worth considering, with as fair an exhibition of the tendency of evidence as the space and my capacities permit. 102 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I We now proceed to some other cases of telekinesis taken from the Proceedings. I shall occasionally obtrude a query or suggestion or explanation in square brackets with my initials [thus: H. H.]. The first account is virtually identical with my experience with P and the music-stand. It is by Mr. George Allman Armstrong, of 8, Leesonplace, Dublin, and Ardnacarrig, Bandon . . . June 1, 1887. (Pr. VII, 158-9) : " This manifestation . . . required a great amount of concen- trated will power, and when successful the results were startling, and the apparent physical force developed really wonderful The table slowly swayed from side to side like a pendulum, stopped completely, and then, as if imbued with life, and quite suddenly, rose completely off the floor to a height of a foot or fourteen inches at least, and nearly always came down with immense force, which ... on several occasions proved destructive to itself, as the broken limbs of the table we used . . . could testify. This table, I may add, was a round, rather heavy, walnut one, with a central column, standing on three claw legs, and it would have been impossible for us unaided to have de- veloped the force (by muscular energy) required to produce this manifestation On several occasions I have succeeded in raising the table without contact, the latter rising to our fingers held over it at a height of several inches, like the keeper to a strong electro-magnet; in these instances the table swayed slowly in mid-air for many seconds before coming down with a crash Frequently . . . the table would rise on one leg, in which position I willed it to remain, the united efforts of the rest to press it down to its normal position being utterly fruitless, and often resulting in a fracture." In Pr. S. P. R. and elsewhere are given scores, probably hundreds, of authenticated accounts of phenomena similar to those just described, and due to both non-professional and professional mediums. There are two specially good ones in Pr. IV, 29, and IX, 259. The presumption for the genuineness of such phenomena is of course greater where the mediums are persons least likely to deceive, such as children, and my young friend P . There are many such cases. The two following accounts are furnished by Professor Alexander of the Uni- versity of Rio Janeiro (Pr. VII, 175f.) : Ch. VIII] The Davis Children 103 " At tea the dining-room table, round which were seated Mr. Davis, Mrs. Davis, their five little daughters, Mrs. Z., and I, swayed backward and forward, or rose at one end in sudden emphatic movements." A very homogeneous party! It will often be seen later that these phenomena are generally better as the sitters are more homogeneous. Professor Alexander's account continues: " I requested C., who was seated two places from me, her little sister D. being between us, to place her hand on the back of my chair, which she did, touching it with apparent lightness. The chair began at once to sway from side to side, and continued to do so after I had taken my feet from the ground. There was an application of great power All this while C. sat immovable; and it was very manifest that she made not the slightest effort. The next evening Mr. X., who is very muscular, took C.'s seat, while I retained my own; and he then tried" [By muscular force. H. H.} "to produce the same effect under exactly the same conditions, with the result that his chair slid back, while mine remained immov- able. My weight, which I suppose has not changed to any considerable degree since then, I find to be 13st." [182 Ibs. H. H.] " The high chair in which Amy, a child then thirteen months old, was seated was moved backwards and forwards about 10 or 12 inches, between the table and the wall, this being done so abruptly that the chair was sometimes forced partly under the table and threatened to fall backwards. The child, instead of being alarmed, chuckled and laughed, though we older people were sometimes rather anxious lest she should be hurt On the right hand of the child was seated Mrs. Z., on the left A. The chair, while moving, . . . was not twisted round as would be the case if it were drawn forward on one side only by the foot of either of the neighbors 1 have tried moving the same chair myself, when seated beside Amy, and find that, although I have rather more than the average strength in my lower limbs, the push can be given only with considerable difficulty, and has the effect of turning the chair half round." In the following case (Pr. VII, 160f.) this force apparently acted in the absence of a medium; but the last three para- graphs seem to indicate a medium after all. The word medium is a handy one if it is not taken to mean too much. Here of course it means only the medium prob- ably the generator of an unknown force. Later it will mean other things. " Our informant is a gentleman occupying a responsible position; his name may be given to inquirers. 104 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I " On Friday, September 23d, I took my four pupils to a circus, . . . leaving my two servants at home All but myself returned at about 5:30, and found the two servants on the doorstep, telling the boys not to go in by the area door . . . and explaining that all the bells were ringing violently, no one touching them, and they had been doing so almost ever since we left. I left home, I think, at about 7 o'clock. At about 9 :30 . . . the cook came over ... to say that we must come back, as there were such dreadful knockings going on in the house It sounded like a mallet on a wooden floor, speaking loosely. The laundryman came in soon after it began and was, I believe, quite scared A teacher in the board school was so scared by the knocking that he would not stay in the house, but went on the doorstep When I came back I found the same state of things; the servants almost in hysterics, and the bells ringing. The bells hang all in one row, just inside the area door and opposite the kitchen door, nine of them As to the possibility of cats or rats doing it: this is a new house. . . . We have never seen or heard the slightest trace of a rat, nor have we ever to our knowledge had a strange cat in ; nor, indeed, could one, as far as I know, get into the floor anywhere The bell hanger entirely agreed with me that it would be an im- possibility for any animal, or even animals, to ring them all as they were rung 1 ought to say that the wires of the bells distinctly pulled it was not only the bells or clappers moving; indeed, in one or two cases they could be heard grating under the floor. The bell-handles were not moved "Next day Mrs. K. took the boys to service, and when they came back . . . the cook told her (and I believe she is perfectly trustworthy, as far as truthfulness goes) that soon after they left the bells had begun to ring; two of them, at least, and so violently that at last she got the steps and got two of the bells off After that they heard the wires pulled in the floor, &c. " Then they went upstairs to do the bedrooms, Mary (the housemaid) clinging to her, as she did all the time, being too scared to go about by herself. When they had got half- way up the ' knocking ' began, just as on the previous occa- sion, and as I had heard it, in sets of two and three quickly repeated raps, or, rather, blows. They ran downstairs directly, in a fright. At last they summoned courage enough to go up, and going into the bedroom where two of the boys sleep they found the hairbrush belonging to one of them on the floor by the fireplace, smashed in half " I cannot help now connecting the occurrences with the housemaid 1 am, as I have said, perfectly certain that she had nothing to do voluntarily with the bell ringing ; indeed, . . . it would be literally impossible for her to ring the bells as they were rung, even apart from any necessity to conceal the method of doing so. Ch. VIII] Daniel Dunglas Home 105 " If any further proof of her freedom from complicity were needed, her state on the Saturday night would be enough. ...She was delirious all night... till 4 in the morning;... clearly asleep, though most of the time her eyes were wide open, I suppose in the ordinary ' somnambulist ' state. She talked incessantly all night, very much about the bells, &c., and in such a way as to show she was completely alarmed and terrified at it. ... The occurrences have taken place almost always, if not always, when she has been in a state of nervous excitement ; . . . she had been upset in her nerves for some days previously." The phenomena so far cited have had nothing to do with professional mediums or persons who could have had any possible motive to deceive. There are on record hundreds of cases from similar agents, but to quote more would tend toward monotony: so let us proceed to allegations of even more remarkable manifestations, from persons so unusually endowed as to make them notorious, and not only objects of legitimate curiosity, but important in the relation their per- sonal qualities bear to the qualities of the phenomena. There- fore I will give some account of the principal ones as we meet them. Perhaps the most numerous and remarkable exhibitions of queer things during the present cycle of them in America and Europe, were given by Daniel Dunglas Home. He was born in Scotland in 1833, brought to America when nine years old, lived for some time in Norwich, Conn., and is alleged to have exhibited in many places in America and Europe pretty much everything of the marvelous that has been exhibited by anybody. In addition to such phe- nomena as those already described, he is credited, or charged, with telepathy, telopsis (clairvoyance), prophecy, seeing and conversing with spirits, spirit possession, healing, and a habit of getting himself married and adopted by rich women. He also had a remarkable power of ingratiating himself with important people, even being a favorite at the courts of France and Russia. Many of the claims made for and by him seem so ex- travagant, and one side of his life, as hinted toward the end of the last paragraph, is so open to suspicion, that persons who directly know nothing of superusual phenomena, are tempted to dismiss all connected with him as humbug. 106 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Ft. I Before I read his autobiography (Incidents in My Life) I thought of him as a modern Cagliostro, but even Cagliostro, like pretty much everybody else, has lately been whitewashed; and after carefully reading Home's book, which quotes from competent sitters many accounts ranging from skepticism to enthusiasm, I am inclined to think that he was about as honest as a half-educated, anaemic, neurotic, woman-hunted sentimentalist is able to be, and this opinion is concurred in by nearly all the most able investigators, although Robert Browning, for instance, who certainly was not one of them, based " Sludge the Medium " on Home. As my own observa- tion forces me to accept some of these wonders, I do not find it easy to determine where to draw the line at the others. Some accounts of Home's are so full of gush as to seem on their face worthless; but they are supported by others from calm lawyers and men of science, which testify to things just as marvelous as those recounted by the gushers. Here is a description of Home's personality from Stainton Moses (Pr. IX, 295) of whom an account will be given a few- pages further on. " Mr. D. D. Home is a striking-looking man. His head is a good one. He shaves his face with the exception of a moustache, and his hair is bushy and curly. He gives me the impression of an honest, good person, whose intellect is not of a high order He resolutely refuses to believe in anything that he has not seen for himself. For instance, he refuses to believe in the passage of matter through matter, and when pressed concludes the argument by saying, ' I have never seen it.' . . . He accepts the theory of the return in rare instances of the departed, but believes with me that most of the manifestations proceed from a low order of spirits who hover near the earth sphere. He does not believe in Mrs. Guppy's passage through matter, nor in her honesty. He thinks that regular manifestations are not possible. Conse- quently, he disbelieves public mediums generally He said be was thankful to know that his mantle had fallen on me, and urged me to prosecute the inquiry and defend the faith. Altogether he made quite an Elijah and Elisha business of my reception. He plays and sings very nicely, and recites well. He wore several handsome diamonds, gifts from royal and distinguished persons. He is a thoroughly good, honest, weak, and very vain man, with but little intellect, and no ability to argue or defend his faith." Ch. VIII] Sir William Crookes on Home 107 There is a very interesting account of Home's personal character in Jour. S. P. R., VI, 107. Sir William Crookes says (Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 99) : " Mr. Home has frequently been searched before and after the seances, and he always offers to allow it. During the most remarkable occurrences I have occasionally held both his hands, and placed my feet on his feet. On no single occasion hare I proposed a modification of arrangements for the purpose of rendering trickery less possible, which he has not at once assented to, and frequently he has himself drawn attention to tests which might be tried. " I speak chiefly of Mr. Home, as he is so much more power- ful than most of the other mediums I have experimented with. But with all I have taken such precautions as to place trickery out of the list of possible explanations." The best evidential accounts of Home's phenomena, though there have been many others, are those by Sir William Crookes. On page 85 he gives the following instances of telekinetic molar effects produced by Home. But before I quote them, let me say that Sir William does not attribute them to " spirits." His " researches " were into what others called " spiritualism," not what he did. He says : P. 85 : " Tables, chairs, sofas, etc., have been moved when the medium has not been touching them 1 have had several repetitions of the experiment considered by the Committee of the Dialectical Society to be conclusive, viz., the movement of a heavy table in full light, the chairs turned with their backs on the table, about a foot off, and each person kneeling on his chair, with hands resting over the backs of the chair, but not touching the table. On one occasion this took place when I was moving about so as to see how every one was placed P. 88 : " On five separate occasions, a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches and one and a half feet off the floor, under special circumstances, which rendered trickery impos- sible. On another occasion, a heavy table rose from the floor in full light, while I was holding the medium's hands and feet On another occasion, the table rose from the floor, not only when no person was touching it, but under conditions which I had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable proof of the fact." P. 90 : "A medium, walking into my dining-room, cannot, while seated in one part of the room with a number of persons 108 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I keenly watching him, by trickery make an accordion play in my own hand when I hold it key downwards, or cause the same accordion to float about the room playing all the time." [The character of the playing will be described later. H. H.] " He cannot introduce machinery which will wave window-curtains or pull up Venetian blinds eight feet off, tie a knot in a hand- kerchief and place it in a far corner of the room, sound notes on a distant piano, cause a card-plate to float about the room, raise a water-bottle and tumbler from the table, make a coral necklace rise on end, cause a fan to move about and fan the company, or set in motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case firmly cemented to the wall." Here are the particulars about the necklace, etc. (Pr. VI, 113.) Miss Bird writes : " I remember the circumstances stated in this seance. I had noticed that the necklace worn by Mrs. William Crookes looked green. I asked her why her beads were green. She assured me they were her corals, and to convince me the neck- lace was passed into my hands. Instead of passing the neck- lace back I simply put it opposite me in the middle of the table. Almost as soon as I had placed the necklace it rose in a spiral shape. I called out eagerly to my brother, Dr. Bird, to look at the extraordinary conduct of the threaded corals, and whilst I was endeavoring to get his attention the erect necklace quietly subsided in a coil on the table. I have often recalled the incident, and although a skeptic by instinct, this one strange experience has made it impossible for me to doubt the assertions of others whose judgment is clear and whose uprightness is above suspicion. " ALICE L. BIRD." To this Dr. Bird adds: "I recollect my sister calling out to me: 'Look, look, at the necklace,' but at that moment my attention was directed elsewhere, and I did not actually see the phenomenon in question. " GEORGE BIRD." (C.) [I preface this paragraph with Sir William Crookes's initial, and shall frequently preface other paragraphs similarly, to indicate where the principal narrator takes up an interrupted theme. H. H.] " At the moment this occurred I was writing my notes and only caught sight of the necklace as it was set- tling down from its first movement. It made one or two slight movements afterwards, and, as I state, it seemed to me as if it had been moved from below. I mentioned this at the time and was then told by Miss Bird and others that the necklace had behaved as is now described by her. Not having seen it myself, I did not alter the statement in my note-book." Ch. VIII] Home in the Crookes Laboratory 109 Sir William published in the Quarterly Journal for Science for July 1, 1871, an account of some experiments carefully and frequently repeated in his laboratory, which demonstrated that Home could greatly increase or decrease the weight of a body by touching it. He later describes an experiment in which Home conveyed pressure not by touching the object moved, but merely by touching water that was in contact with the object, and later still without any contact whatever with any- thing related to the object moved, unless with the air and the ether. A description of the apparatus is given, but is not easy for the non-technical reader to understand. It can be found by the few who would study it, in the Journal for Science or in Mr. (as he was then) Crookes's book, the Researches, already cited. His dealings with his opponents, especially on pp. 46-8, are almost as interesting perhaps to the average reader more interesting, than his accounts of his experiments. He offered no explanation of the phenomena, simply at- tributed them to a mode of force previously unknown, which he suggested should be termed Psychic, and called upon his scientific brethren and all persons interested to assist in its investigation. The accounts, though they were subsequently confirmed by Mr. Huggins, the astronomer royal, and Mr. E. W. Cox, an eminent sergeant at law, were received with much de- rision. The author was called a spiritualist; explanations more improbable than the facts were offered by various per- sons, scientific and non-scientific; the author's farther papers on the subject were rejected by the Royal Society; sundry proceedings were taken by members of the Society for which the Society later passed a formal resolution of regret; and the whole affair was one of the most discreditable in the annals of science, except where science has been identified with theology. Sir William gave very full details of all the experiments and their reception. He said (Researches, p. 40) : "In the case of Mr. Home, the development of this force varies enormously, not only from week to week, but from hour to hour; on some occasions the force is unappreciable by my tests for an hour or more, and then suddenly reappears in 110 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Ft. I great strength. It is capable of acting at a distance from Mr. Home (not infrequently as far as two or three feet), but is always strongest close to him." (Op. cit., 10): "It has but seldom happened that a result obtained on one occasion could be subsequently confirmed and tested with apparatus especially contrived for the purpose. (Op. cit., 16-17): "A committee of scientific men met Mr. Home some months ago at St. Petersburg. They had one meeting only, which was attended with negative results; and on the strength of this they published a report highly unfavor- able to Mr. Home. The explanation of this failure, which is all they have accused him of, appears to me quite simple. Whatever the nature of Mr. Home's power, it is very variable, and at times entirely absent. It is obvious that the Russian experiment was tried when the force was at a minimum. The same thing has frequently happened within my own experi- ence. A party of scientific men met Mr. Home at my house, and the results were as negative as those at St. Petersburg. Instead, however, of throwing up the inquiry, we patiently repeated the trial a second and a third time, when we met with results which were positive. " To witness exhibitions of this force it is not necessary to have access to known psychics. The force itself is prob- ably possessed by all human beings, although the individuals endowed with an extraordinary amount of it are doubtless few. Within the last twelve months I have met in private families five or six persons possessing a sufficiently vigorous development to make me feel confident that similar results might be produced through their means to those here recorded, provided the experimentalist worked with more delicate ap- paratus, capable of indicating a fraction of a grain instead of recording pounds and ounces only. " Being firmly convinced that there could be no manifesta- tion of one form of force without the corresponding expendi- ture of some other form of force, I for a long time searched in vain for evidence of any force or power being used up in the production of these results. " Now, however, . . . after witnessing the painful state of nervous and bodily prostration in which some of these ex- periments have left Mr. Home after seeing him lying in an almost fainting condition on the floor, pale and speechless I could scarcely doubt that the evolution of psychic force is accompanied by a corresponding drain on vital force." [The reader will remember the similar cases already given. H.H.] " I have ventured to give this new force the name of Psychic Force, because of its manifest relationship to certain psycho- logical conditions." He farther quoted several eminent men of science as Ch. VIII] Bartldt's Life of Foster 111 having reached by experiment conclusions similar to his own, of whom one, 31. Thury, Professor at the Academy of Geneva, had, as early as 1855, proposed for the newly manifested force the name ectenic, because it acted in ezterno at a distance, without contact. Since then, however, the name telekinetic seems to have been settled upon by common use, though it is far from a fortunate name: for several forces already correlated are telekinetic. At the dispersal of the library of my late friend Dr. Richard Hodgson, Secretary of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Research, there came into my possession a little book now out of print, called "The Salem Seer. Reminis- cences of Charles H. Foster, by George C. Bartlett." The subject of this book was very well known from about 1865 to 1880. He traveled freely in America, England, and Australia, received all comers, and had a business agent the author of the little book referred to. Thirty years ago I should have hesitated to quote from this book, because few of its accounts have the standard of authenticity then considered essential. Of most of the events Mr. Bartlett, the author, who was generally present, is the only known witness, the other witnesses generally being news- paper reporters whose names are not given; but of course the presumption is that they saw what they reported, so that the testimony approaches very close to the standard two mutually confirmatory witnesses, and some of it is highly intelligent. Few of the witnesses were professed spiritualists, and nearly all of them began by doubting. Mr. Bartlett also quotes not a few who continued to doubt, and gives other evidence of his own sincerity. His book was probably not composed in awe of literary criticism, but is ingenuous to a degree that encourages confidence not the most " scientific " of evidence; but the skepticism regarding the phenomena to-day is rather regarding their alleged spiritistic source than their genuineness. In regard to Mr. Bartlett's testimony, moreover, it is to be said that he is still living at Tolland, Connecticut, where he enjoys the confidence and respect of his neighbors, and 112 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I where, though he has about reached his threescore years and ten, he is much given to playing tennis. We have exchanged several letters, and he called upon me during a recent visit to New York. I do not often meet a man who inspires me with as much confidence in his sincerity. It does not detract from the weight of his evidence that, notwithstanding the marvels it contains, he does not accept the spiritistic solution. But even assuming the accounts given and quoted by him to be unreliable, they describe occurrences so much like many later ones which have been abundantly verified, that they are almost as safe to reason or guess from. It is further to be said that the evidence now necessary to make one of these stories worth attention, is small beside what was necessary before the S. P. E. had accumulated such overwhelming evidence of similar occurrences. Now the bur- den of proof is rather on those who deny than on those who assert. I find that those who deny are almost invariably those who never saw the phenomena at all. So true is this, that now when I find anybody vociferously denying the pos- sibility of such things, and ask him if he ever saw any manifestation of them from accredited agents, I expect a negative answer, and am seldom disappointed. I have met people who say : " Oh, Foster is entirely discredited," and so far, not one of them had ever seen a manifestation of the strange powers from him or anybody else. Mr. Bartlett says that Foster spent a long time with Bulwer, and was the original of " Margrane " in A Strange Story. Bartlett says (op. cit., 24, 38, 49) : " Mediums who can easily become entranced, or be controlled successfully by this mysterious influence, can as easily be con- trolled by their associates in this life If their associations are in the higher and better walks of life, their lives will average well. On the contrary, if they are associated with the immoral, they are easily led down the stream. It has been my observation that when a man or woman has been controlled by these peculiar influences, they are inclined to be weak, dissipated, and im- moral. They are almost invariably kind-hearted, generous, and childlike." Those of sufficient importance to be investigated by the S. P. K. have been very decent people, perhaps partly from Ch. VIII] Fosters Character and Heredity 113 being in such good company, and some of the heteromatic writers of the very highest character and attainments. Bart- lett goes on : " It has been said, ' Money flowed into his coffers like water, and as freely flowed out, leaving nothing behind.' I wish to state most emphatically that not a dollar did Mr. Foster squan- der in gambling While he had many faults, gambling was not one of them. He did not even know the Ace of Spades from the Queen of Hearts " [which is much more than can be said of the researchers into Thought Transference or of the present writer on these profundities. H.H.]. Bartlett continues: " Foster stood apart from all men While he was like others he was also peculiarly unlike all others. He was extravagantly dual. He was not only Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but he repre- sented half-a-dozen different Jekylls and Hydes He was an unbalanced genius, and at times, I should say, insane. He had a heart so large indeed that it took in the world : tears for the afflicted; money for the poor; the chords of his heart were touched by every sigh. At other times, his heart shrunk up until it disappeared. He would . . . with the petulance of a child . . . abuse his best friends. He wore out many of his friends. . . . He was not vicious, but absolutely uncontrollable. He would go his own way, which way was often the wrong way. Like a child he seemed to have no forethought. He seemed to live for to-day, caring nothing for to-morrow He seemed impervious to the opinions of others, and apparently yielded to every desire; but after all he did not abuse himself much, as he continued in perfect health until the final breaking up." The sort of stock he came of is interestingly indicated by Bartlett (op. cit., 44-5) : " The next day we left for Salem. Mr. Foster's father was a particularly kind and pleasing man, without guile, and in his younger days followed the sea. We were sitting together one morning . . . [when] he remarked that he had passed a bad night. ...I inquired what was the matter? He replied that Aunt Bessie had annoyed him and mother (his wife) all night. I replied that I had heard Charles speak frequently of Aunt Bessie, but I had supposed she had died some years ago. ' Oh, yes,' he said, ' but she keeps coming back at night ; goes in and out of our room, pulls open the bureau drawers, and fusses over her old things.' He continued, 'We have asked her repeatedly to keep away, and not disturb us while we were sleeping, but every little while she comes back and makes a night of it.' Very innocently he said to me, ' Do you 114 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I not see spirits?' 'Why no,' I said, 'certainly not.' He re- plied that he did, and that he supposed every one did. That his family had ever since he could remember, and that he did not suppose his family differed in that respect from other families. I certainly think he was perfectly sincere, and that he saw visions. His wife, Mrs. Foster, mother of Charles, told me she had talked with spirits all her life, and that her mother and father also conversed with them. She said when Charles was a baby that she was too poor to hire a girl, and having to do her own work her spirit friends often came to her assistance, and that they had often rocked Charlie's cradle ~by the hour. To hear them speak of the other life, and of their communications with those who had passed to the other shore, made the intercourse between the two worlds seem as real as between Europe and America." This is telekinesis with a vengeance. I incline to assume that Mrs. Foster supplied the force. That assumption may not appear so strange later, as it does now. I had a seance with Foster in the early seventies, which will be described later under Telepathy. At that seance there were no phenomena of the mysterious force that had been ex- hibited before me by P , but there were other phenomena even more remarkable, and I was impressed that Foster was honest, and had powers beyond the recognized normal. Of virtually all the strange kinds of phenomena that we shall meet, there are many well authenticated instances on record. In selecting typical ones, I shall sometimes venture to select Foster's, so far as they cover the ground, despite his being a " paid medium " (as, for that matter, is Mrs. Piper), and despite his manifestations having transpired too early to be passed upon by the S. P. R., or any other authori- tative body. At the same time, I don't ask anybody to believe everything in them : even regarding some of the very passages I quote, my own judgment is certainly very much in reserve. I shall take more illustrations from Foster than I otherwise would, for the additional reason that the testimony regard- ing other leading " mediums " is easily accessible elsewhere, while that regarding Foster is not ; also because I know from personal observation, if I know anything, that he showed to me some of the powers as yet called supernormal; I wish anybody disposed to scout my quoting a book perhaps pur- posely neglected by more competent writers, might read it. Ch. VIII] Foster's Molar TeleUnesis 115 This is quoted by Bartlett (op. cit, p. 112) from Ash- burner's Notes and Studies in the Philosophy of Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism, in which are many references to Foster. The phenomena took place without Foster being in contact with the objects. " The table was lifted into the air, and remained there for some seconds. Then, it gently descended into the place it had before occupied, with the difference that the top was turned downwards, and rested on the carpet Some busts, as large as life, resting upon book-cupboards seven feet high, were taken from their places. One was suddenly put upon Mrs. W. C.'s lap; others, on my obtaining a light, were found on the table." The very simple molar phenomena already described are among the first of a series which merge, as do all things in nature, by insensible degrees into something very different in this case into psychical phenomena. The course of this merging which I shall try to follow in the treatment (though the topics are so mixed with each other that so doing is not always possible) is molar-physical; molecular-physical including materialization and levitation; molar-psychical, including alleged communications by moving heavy ob- jects; molecular-psychical, including alleged communications through raps, lights, and sounds. This will eventually bring us into the psychic universe, where we will unroll a fresh chart. First a few more cases of molar telekinesis: From Bartlett (op. cit., 112) : " About 12 o'clock one summer night we met Oregon Wilson and one or two friends on Broadway. Mr. Wilson, as usual, was in a lively frame of mind, and insisted upon our going to his studio to look at some new curios. . . . This, however, was only a pretext, as his real object was to induce Mr. Foster to give some physical manifestations He had often tried to persuade Mr. Foster to give him and his friends a dark seance; but Mr. Foster had always refused. We had been in the studio a few moments only when Mr. Wilson turned off the gas without giving any warning, and we were in utter darkness. What occurred that night will not be for- gotten by any of us, for it seemed for a few moments as though the world had come to an end; that the building had been blown up by dynamite, or that an earthquake was upon us! It seemed as though everything in the studio would be broken and ruined. Even I was frightened, for it seemed as 116 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I though there was danger of being hurt. We simultaneously said, ' Wilson, light the gas/ and when the gas was lighted, we found only a few things disarranged; and it is a mystery to this day how to account for the hurlubrelu. Poor Foster was faint. He could hardly stand, was pale as death, and there was a cold perspiration on his forehead." [Compare this with P 's and Miss A.'s exhaustion after their mani- festation. We shall meet many similar experiences. H. H.] ..." I know positively that no amount of money would induce Mr. Foster to sit in the dark for the purpose of producing physical manifestations. He did not wish to stand the pressure, and while we might say his reason was not afraid, his heart This matter of the light may be of much importance. / do not recall another case where darkness has caused the medium suffering, but on the other hand, all through the literature of the subject there seems some incompatibility between light and the phenomena. The incompatibility is obvious where fraud is attempted, but many experiences be- sides Foster's look as if there were some reason better than fraud. Light is by no means always inimical: it was not in my experience or my sister's, or in many, perhaps most, of those connected with the supposedly honest "mediums." Sir William Crookes says (op. cit., p. 85) : "It is a well-ascertained fact that when the force is weak, a bright light exerts an interfering action on some of the phenomena. The power possessed by Mr. Home is sufficiently strong to withstand this antagonistic influence; consequently, he always objects to darkness at his seances. Indeed, except on two occasions, when, for some particular experiments of my own, light was excluded, everything which I have witnessed with him has taken place in the light. I have had many opportunities of testing the action of light of different sources and colors, such as sunlight, diffused daylight, moonlight, gas, lamp, and candle light, electric light from a vacuum tube, homogeneous yellow light, etc. The interfering rays appear to be those at the extreme end of the spectrum." Bartlett gives another astounding account of telekinesis (op. tit., 44) : " The day before Mr. Foster left for his summer home in Salem, Mass., he purchased two empty champagne baskets for the purpose of packing therein his extra luggage. We were both awakened that night . . . there was a terrible commotion. Ch. VIII] Podmore. Poltergeists 11? The champagne baskets commenced running around the room. They flew up in the air, crashing against each other, . . . and in shorter time than it takes to relate it, all the chairs 'were piled upon our bed. No harm was done, however." The bell-ringing on page 104 and Foster's champagne baskets and the racket in Wilson's studio remind one of the alleged performances of the poltergeists (riotous ghosts) of which the literature of the subject is full. An interesting collection, with criticisms, is given by Mr. Podmore in Pr. XII, 45ff.* Poltergeists have been regarded with much skepticism, but as the phenomena attributed to them are more and more noticed to happen only when certain individuals (mediums?) are present, the doings are likely to find a place under recognized telekinetic phenomena. It may even be granted that my friend P was a "polterer" when he (or we?) broke the music-stand, and Foster certainly was when he had the rackets just recounted. In fact, telekinetic manifesta- tions shade off from simple table-tippings to those alleged wild riots of flying objects of all sorts. There is, however, a pretty definite class of these latter occurring generally in the * And here let me introduce Mr. Podmore. He was among the most active of the 8. P. It., and from the first till his death in 1911 the skep- tical critic. His principal works are Modern Spiritualitm (1902) and The Newer Spiritualitm (1911), largely a repetition of the former. But, despite their titles, the author was no spiritualist. Like Myers' great book, to be described later, these digest the Pr. 8. P. R., but not nearly so completely, and they go farther into the early phenomena kindred to those there recounted. He also published 8t'tdit in Psychical Hetenrch. Apparition* and Thought Trantference, and Naturalization of the Supernatural, and contributed very volumi- nously to the Pr. 8. P. R. In the consistories where attempts have been made to give the sanctity of spiritualism to our phenomena, he steadily bore the part of devil's advocate, and be performed it with rare labori- ousness, conscientiousness, and skill. Being human, he did not entirely rise superior to bias. Up to his death, however, his skepticism was gradually giving way. his last noteworthy expression, near the end of The Newer Spiritualitm, beintr : "If we reject, for the present, at any rate, the explanation ... of communication from the dead . . . there remains only the agency which has been provisionally named tele- pathy." He puts telekinesis and telepsychosis in the same boat, as the work of alleged spirits, while in my opinion the indications that tele- kinesis has anything to do with spirits, except as all consciousness and all force may be one, are not worth considering, while the indications that some telepsychoses have to do with postcarnate intelligence, are well worth considering. 118 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I presence of the uneducated, starting with the pranks of children or servants, and upsetting the judgment and exciting the imagination of superstitious and excitable people who tell wondrous stories, and whose excitement reacts upon and stimulates the original perpetrators. The next medium from whom I shall draw some illustra- tions possessed, of all yet known, the greatest combination of high gifts with high privileges of education, social opportunity, and social endorsement. I refer to William Stainton Moses. I go into considerable detail regarding him, as he will appear in our investigations more frequently and, on the whole, with perhaps more importance, than either Foster or Home. And yet by an irony of fate, the testimony to his manifestations is perhaps less satisfactory than in the case of the others. He led a very retired life and had few sitters, though they were of high character. The accounts of his experiences are mainly in his own note-books, and are so marvelous, but at the same time so apparently honest, and so well vouched for, that one is sometimes tempted to think: Perhaps he dreamt it. And yet his part in the Pr. S. P. R., whether for or against spiritism, is too important to ignore. The following particulars are condensed from an account by F. W. H. Myers * : * Myers was perhaps, up to his death in 1901. the most active con- tributor to the Pr. 8. P. R., and his alleged spirit has been very active since. He left a work which many regard as monumental, called Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. This work di- gested the fourteen volumes of Proceedings which had then accumu- lated. Its interpretations are frankly spiritistic, and it is constructive rather than critical: in fact, the author is often charged with having, in matters of evidence, entirely subordinated the critical sense to his spirit- istic convictions. He must at least have felt a temptation that I have felt in the present work, and sometimes yielded to, to admit question- able evidence pretty freely when it accords with established evidence, but keeping the reader fairly apprised of its nature, and letting him judge it for himself. Myers was no mean scholar and poet, and the beautiful style of his magnum opus often breeds a concurrence that its unassisted arguments might not always sustain. This book is much the most thorough and elaborate of all the text writings from the S. P. R evidence. It so arranges all the matter as to build up a systematic argument for the survival of the personality. Podmore's works constitute a running commentary upon the Pr. S. P. R.. with extracts from the beginning through Vol. XXIV, which was the last published before his death. Myers' book goes only through Vol. XIV. Ch. VIII] W. Stainton Moses 119 Moses was born in England in 1839, of an old Lincolnshire family (not, as the name suggests, a Jewish one). His father had been headmaster of a grammar school. The boy was given to sleep-walking and writing essays good ones for a boy in his sleep. Though fairly robust, he broke down in health at Oxford, and left without graduating. During some time of wandering he spent six months in a monastery on Mount Athos. He regained his health, returned to Oxfor'd, took his degree, was ordained, and at twenty-four became a curate on the Isle of Man. From '63 to '70 he was a good and self-sacrificing clergyman, beloved by his people, when an attack of whooping cough interfered with his preaching, which he relinquished permanently. He took a mastership in University College School and held it for nearly twenty years till his health broke down finally about 1889. He died in 1892. Myers says (Pr. IX, 250 et seq.) : " The physical phenomena about to be described began in 1872, and continued with gradually lessening frequency until 1881. The automatic script began in 1873, and finally died out, so far as we know, in 1883. During these later years Mr. Hoses was active in contributing to, and afterwards in edit- ing, the weekly newspaper Light; and he took a leading part in several spiritistic organizations. Of one of these the Lon- don Spiritualist Alliance he was president at the time of his death. In 1882 he aided in the foundation of the Society for Psychical Research; but he left that body in 1886, on account of its attitude towards Spiritualism, which he regarded as unduly critical. It is worth remarking that although, as the fact of his withdrawal shows, many members of the Society held an intellectual position widely differing from that of Mr. Moses, and although his own published records were of a kind not easily credible, no suspicion as to his personal probity and veracity was ever, so far as I know, either expressed or entertained. " Mr. Moses never married, and went very little into general society. His personal appearance offered no indication of his peculiar gift. He was of middle stature, strongly made, with somewhat heavy features, and thick dark hair and beard His expression of countenance was honest, manly, and reso- lute " 120 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I " Dr. Johnson, of Bedford, writes to me : "68, High-street, Bedford. "March 24th, 1893. " Dear Sir, As the intimate friend and medical adviser of the late Stainton Moses I have had ample opportunities of thoroughly knowing his character and his mental state. " He was a man even in temper, painstaking and methodi- cal, of exceptional ability, and utterly free from any halluci- nation or anything to indicate other than a well-ordered brain "I have attended him in several very severe illnesses, but never, in sickness or at other times, has his brain shown the slightest cloudiness or suffered from any delusion. "WM. G. JOHNSON." " University College School, Gower-street, London, W. C. "May 16th, 1893. " Dear Sir, ... He always impressed me with the idea that he was thoroughly earnest and conscientious, and I believe that perfect reliance can be placed on all his statements. Yours faithfully, " F. W. LEVANDER." Myers says elsewhere (Pr. IX, 253) : " I have heard him described as lacking in the grace of humil- ity, and in that spirituality of tastes and character which should seem appropriate to one living much in the commerce of the Unseen. But I have never heard anyone who had even the slightest acquaintance with Mr. Moses impugn his sanity or his sincerity, his veracity or his honor " With the even tenor of this straightforward and reputable life was inwoven a chain of mysteries which, as I have before said, in what way soever they be explained, make that life one of the most extraordinary which our century has seen " For almost all the sittings which -he describes, and for some which he does not describe, there is ... a second de- tailed, independent, contemporary record, by Mrs. Stanhope Speer, and for many of the sittings a third record, also independent and contemporaneous, although very brief, by Dr. Speer. For some few of them there is also a sim- ilar record by Mr. Percival, whose memory also confirms the other accounts. Parts of Mr. Moses' own record, indeed, are avowedly derived from the other sitters, since he depended upon them for information as to what went on when he was in trance. But he has always, I think, made this distinction clear in his notes. " The evidence for all the incidents is practically the same ; the whole group of witnesses are as fully pledged, say to the falling of pearls from the air as to the automatic script or the trance-phenomena., I at least can see no via media which can Ch. V1I1J Evidence regarding Moses. His Character 121 be plausibly taken. The permanent fraud of the whole group, or the substantial accuracy of all the records, are the only hypotheses which seem to me capable of covering the facts. * Some dozen other persons, who cannot plausibly be held to be all in the fraud, witnessed the phenomena. It is true that some of these witnesses are now dead or inaccessible. But Serjeant Cox left a printed statement; Dr. Thomson, of Clifton, proved his belief by continued collaboration; Mr. Percival, Mrs. Garratt, Miss Collins, and Mrs. Honeywood are still living, and cannot with any plausibility be treated as accomplices. Mr. Percival's evidence, in particular, is that of an outside and occasional member of the group, who is honorably known in academic and official life, and who would have had everything to lose and nothing to gain by complicity in such a fraud. " [Moses] was very reticent about exhibiting his powers, and consequently almost the only records are his own and those of his physician, Dr. Stanhope Speer, Mrs. Speer, and their son, Mr. Charlton T. Speer, Associate of the Royal Acad- emy of Music all persons of undoubted capacity and pro- bity " Dr. Speer's cast of mind was thoroughly materialistic, and it is remarkable that his interest in Mr. Moses' phenomena was from first to last of a purely scientific, as contrasted with an emotional or religious nature." In another place, however, Myers says of Moses (Pr. VIII, 599) : " He lacked and he readily and repeatedly admitted to me that he lacked all vestige of scientific, or even of legal, instinct. The very words ' first-hand evidence,' ' contemporary record,' ' corroborative testimony,' were to him as a weariness to the flesh. His attitude was that of the preacher who is already so thoroughly persuaded in his own mind that he treats any alleged fact which falls in with his views as the uncriticised text for fresh exhortation Having watched his conduct at critical moments, I see much ground for impugning his judg- ment, but no ground whatever for doubting that he has narrated with absolute good faith the story of his experience." (Pr.IX,258) : " The phenomena here to be described, strange ... as they often seem, cannot be called meaningless. The alleged operators are at pains throughout to describe what they re- garded as the end, and what merely as the means to that end. Their constantly avowed object was the promulgation through Mr. Moses of certain religious and philosophical views; and the physical manifestations are throughout described as de- signed merely as a proof of power, and a basis for the authority claimed for the serious teachings." 122 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Ft. I In some of the molecular phenomena, especially those of light, as will be seen later, the claims made for and by Moses, surpass those made for or by Foster and Home. But the molar telekinetic phenomena were not as prominent with Moses as with the others, or as his molecular phenomena; in fact he records his dislike " to violent physical manifesta- tions." More on this subject will appear later. Detailed accounts of all classes are given by Myers in Pr. IX and XI. I will give but a line to the molar in the following scraps from Moses' note-books (quoted in Pr. XI, 34 and 266) : " As soon as the gas was put out, a book from a closed cupboard at the corner farthest from me, and immediately behind Dr. Speer, was brought out and struck him on the shoulder, and fell near Mrs. S. This is the first attempt to bring an object from behind a sitter opposite to me. Usually the power seems to be behind me The objects come over my head when brought into the room, and movements of articles occur behind and near me. [Sounds occur] behind and near me usually, though at times . . . far away. " My records of seances during the latter half of the month of August show over fifty instances in which objects from different parts of the house were placed upon the table round which we were sitting. They were invariably small, and were generally thrown on the table." The records of Stainton Moses in Pr. IX, 269-72 contain accounts of his having, without any muscular action, brought from unknown sources into his seance rooms, and there scat- tered, bits of coral, seed pearls, powdered musk, and some aerial perfumes. This was done in dim light and sometimes with the " cabinet " of the fake mediums. But the character of Moses and of his witnesses makes it difficult to believe the phenomena fraudulent, and that they were not illusory is proved, I understand, by some of the articles being kept by persons present. Moses quotes Judge Edmunds in his book on Spiritualism, as bearing witness to odors being brought into " spiritual " seances, without any visible mechanical agency. Breezes are very frequently alleged to accompany other tele- kinetic phenomena. CHAPTER IX MOLAR TELEKINESIS (Continued) Dowsing UNDER Molar Telekinesis I venture tentatively to include another strange mode of force that has long been known, but manifested, so far as I know, by none of the " mediums " of other modes so far treated, and indeed by so few people as to be little credited. It appears to have some telekinetic qualities. To the modern mind, it may seem to find one pole in the system of an occasional human being, and the other in one of sundry inorganic substances, including especially running water. The passing of the current between the two poles is not always dependent on any intermediate conductor, any more than when ordinary magnetism passes between two separated pieces of iron, or telekinesis between a medium (using the word merely as medium of a force, not of any alleged spiritual communication) and an untouched object. But these alleged manifestations are said to be sometimes facilitated by a rod of wood or metal between the poles; and indeed to be with some " mediums " sometimes possible with that intermediary, and impossible without it. Note here the fact that the recognized telekinetic force seems sometimes to have its non-human pole in wood, as in P 's case, and wooden-table-tipping generally; or in mineral, as in Miss A.'s marble-topped table and others. We shall later apparently find one in metal. Where rods of wood have served as conductors, the force has deflected them sometimes strongly enough to crack or break them. To the person participating, the flow of the current has generally, but not always, been accompanied by fatigue, as in other exercises of the telekinetic power, and frequently by nausea and other physical discomforts, appar- ently more than in the other manifestations of the power. Most readers have anticipated that the foregoing para- graphs are an attempt to put into "scientific" shape the 128 124 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I performances of the " dowsers " who for centuries have been alleged to discover springs and metals underground. My guess at the kinship of the phenomena with those of telekinesis is, however, as will be explained later, at variance with the guesses of some of the theorists, but not with the impressions of nearly, if not quite all, of the actors and most of the observers; and I suspect that the discoveries reported in the Pr. S. P. E. have materially affected the later guesses of the theorists. Now the above allegations, like nearly all allegations of things unknown to general experience, have very properly been flouted by the vast majority of laymen who have not wit- nessed the occurrences, and accounted for by some scientists who have, on various hypotheses less probable than that the phenomena really indicate something new. But that fashion of accounting for things has been losing popularity since Edison, Bell, and Marconi. Dowsing, however, happens to have been certified to by, among others, so eminent a physicist as Professor (now Sir William) Barrett, after a very thorough investigation, which he reported in Pr. XIII and XV, and by other eminent men of science, among them Dr. Rossiter Raymond, Secretary of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and several Fellows of the Royal and Geographical Societies of England. Professor Barrett says (Pr. XIII, 2f.) : " At first sight few subjects appear to be so unworthy of serious notice and so utterly beneath scientific investigation. . . . Nevertheless, it is impossible to read the voluminous evi- dence, . . . without coming to the conclusion . . . that the evidence for the success of ' dowsing ' as a practical art is very strong and there seems to be an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made. "In 1814, Dr. C. Hutton, F. R. S., after examining the then accessible evidence . . . and witnessing Lady Milbanke's success with the rod, published a statement of his own be- lief in the practical value of the divining rod, though un- able to explain its behavior. And recently, in 1883, Dr. R. Raymond read a paper before the American Institute of Min- ing Engineers in which, after considerable investigation, the conclusion is arrived at : ' That there is a residuum of scientific value, after making all necessary deductions for exaggeration, self-deception, and fraud.' Ch. IX] Sir William Barrett on Dowsing 125 "In like manner, it is impossible to study this subject historically without being impressed by the number of those who have accepted as indisputable the practical value of the rod, during the four centuries it has been in use. . . . Among them were some of the most learned writers and the most painstaking investigators of their day, together with an array of practical miners and well-sinkers, men who ought to have known what they were talking about " At the present day, as in the past, those who have had the opportunity of examining most closely the practical use of the ' dowser's art ' are not to be found among the scoffers. The opinion expressed to me by many well-informed and critical observers who live in that region of the southwest of England where the ' rod ' has been longest in use, ... is by no means contemptuous or even unfavorable With some, like the late John Mullins, the number of failures seems to have been very few ; with others, . . . far more frequent. This is what might be expected if there be a peculiar instinct or faculty in certain persons which is not common to all. Moreover, as an easy way of earning a living without the trouble of any education, the class of professional dowsers is sure to be recruited by a number of rogues and charlatans It will also be noticed that a ' dows- ing faculty,' if such there be, is not confined to any particular age, sex, or class of society. Thus in case No. 1," [as num- bered in Prof. Barrett's article. H.H.] "the dowser was a clergyman; in No. 2, a judge; in No. 3, a local manufacturer; in Nos. 4, 13, 14, 18, and 19, a lady; in Nos. 5 and 9, a gar- dener; in No. 6, a deputy-lieutenant; in No. 8, a respected member of the Society of Friends; in No. 12, a miller; in No. 10, a little girl; in Nos. 11 and 15, a boy; in No. 20, a French count, etc In the lengthy list of those who have employed him [Mullins] to find water, and have been led by actual experience to have faith in the dowsing rod, will be found nearly a score of distinguished noblemen, more than a dozen owners of breweries and distilleries, or of paper and cloth mills and print works; town commissioners, and clergy- men; and landlords and their agents by the dozen." Professor Barrett's second paper says (Pr. XV, 136) : "Upwards of 200 cases of water-finding by dowsers in recent years have been investigated; in each case the inde- pendent evidence of disinterested persons . . . was sought. Gen- erally speaking, such evidence was obtained, the witnesses allowing their names and addresses to be given. . . . Omitting a remarkably successful series of cases by an American dowser, which Dr. Hodgson kindly investigated, 105 cases of British professional dowsers were given in my former paper; of these 95 were successful and 10 were failures " 126 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I Pr. II also contains confirmatory papers on the same sub- ject by Professor W. J. Sollas and Messrs. Edward R. Pease and E. Vaughan Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins collected in eighteen months twenty-two well authenticated cases of successful dowsing. "In an article published in Light for August 4th, 1S83, p. 349, it is stated that Professor Lochman, of the University of Christiania, who is described as a distinguished physiologist, recently read a paper on the divining rod before a scientific society in Christiania, in which he stated that his skepticism on this subject had lately been overcome by the discovery that he himself could use the rod successfully " From a letter to Professor Barrett by Mr. H. W. Whitaker, a well-known geologist, whom Professor Barrett calls "an utter disbeliever in the dowsing-rod, or in any practical good resulting from its use" (Pr. XIII, 75) : " John Mullins, ... if allowed to follow the indication of his rod, agreed, I understood, to receive no payment for sink- ing a well if a good supply of water were not obtained. When one remembers the heavy outlay involved in making a well, often through solid rock to a depth of 70 to 100 feet, or more, this agreement is a forcible illustration of the faith Mullins had in his divining rod " I will now give some typical cases. The Hon. M. E. G. Finch Hatton, M.P., writes thus of an experience with Mullins (Pr. II, 101) : "23 Ennismore Gardens, S. W., February 29th, 1884. "First he cut a forked twig from a living tree, and held it between his hands, the center point downwards and the two ends protruding between the fingers of each hand: He then stooped forward and walked over the ground to be tried. Suddenly he would stop and the central point would revolve in a half-circle until it pointed the reverse way. This he stated to be owing to the presence of a subterranean spring, and further that by the strength of the movement he could gage the approximate depth. " My brother, Hon. Harold Finch Hatton, and I each took hold of one of the ends, protruding as stated above, and held them fast while the phenomenon took place, to make sure that it was not caused by a movement, voluntary or otherwise, of the man's own hand or fingers. The tendency to twist itself, on the twig's part, was so great that, on our holding firmly Ch. IX] John and H. W. Mullins, Dowsers 127 on to the ends, the twig split and finally broke off. The same thing occurred when standing on a bridge over a running stream. " Stagnant water, he states, has no effect on the twig " On our way to the kitchen garden Mullins discovered a spring on the open lawn, whose existence was unknown to me, it had been closed in so long, but was subsequently attested by an old laborer on the place who remembered it as a well, and had seen it bricked in many years before. On reaching the kitchen garden I knew that a lead pipe, leading water to a tap outside the wall, crossed the gravel path at a certain spot. On crossing it the twig made no sign. I was astonished at first, till I remembered what Mullins had said about stagnant water, and that the tap was not running, I sent to have it turned on, reconducted Mullins over the ground, when the twig immediately indicated the spot. " When Mullins had passed on, I carefully marked the exact spot indicated by the twig. When he had left the garden, I said, 'Now, Mullins, may we blindfold you and let you try?' He said, ' Oh yes, if you don't lead me into a pond or any- thing of that sort.' We promised. Several skeptical persons were present who took care the blindfolding was thoroughly done. " I then reconducted him, blindfold, to the marked spot by a different route, leaving the tap running, with the result that the stick indicated with mathematic exactness the same spot. At first he slightly overran it a foot or so, and then felt round, as it were, and seemed to be led back into the exact center of influence by the twig. All present considered the trial entirely conclusive of two things: First, of the man's perfect good faith. Secondly, that the effect produced on the twig emanated from an agency outside of himself, and ap- peared due to the presence of running water. " My brother, Mr. Harold Finch Hatton, is present as I write, and confirms what I say one of the Misses Words- worth tried the twig, and was surprised to find that an influence of a similar nature, though not so strong, was imparted to it (Pr. XIII, 89) : " The Lincolnshire Chronicle of June 8th, 1895, contains a long report of a visit of Mr. H. W. Mullins, the son of John Mullins, to Catley Abbey. The newspaper report, which I have abridged, is as follows : " ' It was told to Mullins that his father asserted the seltzer spring flowed under a hedge on the other side of the field, in which we were then standing, and he was asked to indicate the place He had gone about 100 yards when the twig began to play, and digging his heel in the ground, he thus marked the spot. Mr. Allen, who was present when Mullins, Sr., also located the spring, sent a man for a spade, and a stake 128 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I was dug up, which eight years ago was driven in by Mr. Allen to mark the place. Mullins, Jr., had touched the spot exactly.' " From Mr. E. Vaughan Jenkins (Pr. II, 106) : " October 7th, 1882. " About thirty years ago I purchased a plot of land on a hill slope two acres in extent whereon to erect a residence of considerable value " The ' knowing ones '. . . did not consider there was the least possible chance of water being obtained on the plot of land any- where. In this dilemma, the foreman of the masons, a native of Devon or Cornwall I forget which exclaimed, ' Why don't you try the divining rod? '. . .He said his little boy, eleven years old, possessed the power in a remarkable degree The lad, an honest, innocent, and nice-looking little fellow, . . . placing the ends of the rod between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, bending it slightly and holding it before him at a short distance from the ground, started on his expedition, I and others follow- ing him and watching every movement closely. After going up and down, crossing and re-crossing the ground several times, but never on the same lines, the lad stopped, and, to our great surprise, we saw the rod exhibit signs of motion, the fingers and thumbs being perfectly motionless. The motion or trembling of the rod increasing, it slowly began to revolve, then at an accelerated pace, fairly twisting itself to such an extent that the lad, although he tried his best to retain it, was obliged to let it go, and it fled to some distance The next day . . . the well-sinkers . . . had the gratification of striking on a strong spring of pure and beautiful water coming in so fast as to cause them to make a hurried exit The father stated that when he was a boy he possessed the same power, but entirely lost it at sixteen years of age 1 was then, and I am now, fully convinced ... of the full integrity of the whole transac- tion, no fee or reward being asked for or expected, and I there- fore cannot avoid entertaining the opinion that there must be ' something in it,' that something being dependent upon some peculiar magnetic or other condition of the human agent employed " Mr. John Wood thus wrote to Mr. Vaughan Jenkins (Pr. XIII, 34) : " Whitfield Estate Office, February 4th, 1890. " The next thing was for each of the company to try with the rod, but not one of us had the ' faculty/ excepting my little daughter May. Subsequently the rod indicated water in several places, both in the hands of May and Mullins May finding it first sometimes and at other times Mullins. . . . May is now thirteen years of age. She has proved successful Ch. IX] Lady Milbanke and Bleton, Dowsers 129 in numerous cases; four wells have been sunk where she said there was water, and each one was a success n Here is the testimony of Dr. Hutton alluded to on page 124 regarding his experience with the divining-rod as used by Lady Milbanke (Pr. XIII, 42) : " Lady Milbanke showed the experiment several times in different places In the places where I had good reason to know that no water was to be found the rod was always quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly . . . till the twigs twisted themselves off below the fingers, which were considerably indented by so forcibly holding the rod between them. " All the company stood close to Lady M., with all eyes intensely fixed on her hands and the rods to watch if any particular motion might be made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of the kind was perceived, and all the company could observe no cause or reason why the rods should move in the manner they were seen to do." The capacity of Bleton, the celebrated French dowser of the eighteenth century, was discovered when he was a child", by his having " la fievre " when seated by a certain rock under which later a spring was found, and there are many similar cases (Pr. XIII, 272 et seq.). (Pr. XV, 265) : " The Chevalier de M. describes in detail one of several tests he made; he brought Bleton to his own house, arriving after dark; in passing through the village, which Bleton had not visited before, Bleton suddenly stopped and said water was there; he followed it in the darkness and arrived at a spot where he declared the spring existed; he was right; it was, in fact, the source of the fountain of the castle. Other tests are also given: altogether a remarkable and weighty testimony." Dr. Thouvenal (Pr. XV, 263) says of Bleton: " Sometimes, in order to try and deceive him, if his senses were concerned, I placed false marks as if to indi- cate a spring; sometimes after he had followed a spring across several fields I moved the pegs some feet away without his knowledge. Nevertheless, he was never led astray and always rectified such errors. In fine, I tried all sorts of ways to deceive him, and I can testify that in more than six hundred trials I did not succeed in doing so one single time." Here are a few of the many cases of dowsing for metals. 130 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I W. J. Brown, of Middlehill House, Box, Wilts, a member of the councils of several public bodies, says (Pr. XIII, 94) : " Some friends and myself arranged to test Mullins's capac- ity for discovering metal. In his absence we took ten stones off the top of a wall, and, having placed them on the road, we deposited a sovereign under three of them. Mullins passed his rod over the top of each stone, and without the slightest hesitation told us at once under which stones the sovereigns were. When he came to a stone under which there was no sovereign, he at once said, ' Nothing here, master/ but when he got to the others, he remarked, ' All right, master, thankee,' turned the stone over and put the sovereign in his pocket." Mr. H. B. Napier, agent for Sir Gabriel Goldney, thus wrote Professor Barrett (Pr. XIII, 148) : " Chippenham, Wilts, May llth, 1896. "At Gloucester some years ago a sovereign was lost under the board floor in the Finance Office. The members of the Council did not themselves know exactly where to find it, and sent for Mr. Tompkins, who indicated a particular spot on the floor, and on a carpenter being sent for the sovereign was found to be immediately beneath the spot " Mr. W. G. Hellier, of Wick St. Lawrence, near Weston- super-Mare, Bailiff of the Merchant Venturers of Bristol, states (Pr. XIII, 51) : " Whilst the dowser was tracing this spring, walking back- wards and forwards across the line of its course, I hid my pocket compass in the long grass in his track, and, when he came to it, the rod turned over, and he said, ' There is summat here/ I am certain that he did not see the compass until afterwards, when I showed it to him hidden." Now for various opinions on the causes of these phenomena. Thus Mr. Sollas, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Professor of Geology in the University of Dublin, says (Pr. II, 73) : "I am confident, from what I observed, that the sole im- mediate cause for the turning of the rod is to be found in the muscular contraction of the hand of the operator." Professor Barrett declared in his first paper (Pr. XIII, 253): " Doubtless a subconscious suggestion, of some kind, evoked Ch. IX] Exceptional Sensibilities in Dowsing 131 in the dowser's mind, excites the reflex action to which the actual moTement of the rod is due. " The recent discovery of a new type of obscure radiation from certain bodies, such as uranium salts, and also from numerous common bodies with which we are sur- rounded, renders it conceivable that a radiation, to which opaque bodies are permeable, may be emitted by water and metals, which unconsciously impresses some persons " Could not such a "radiation" affect the rod as well as the person? Dr. Lauder Bninton says (Pr. XIII, 8) : " When we hear that a man is able to discover water at a considerable distance below the ground on which he stands, we are at first apt to scout the idea as ridiculous, while if we were told that a caravan was crossing a desert, and that all at once the thirsty camels started off quickly, and at a distance of a mile or more water was found, we look upon the occur- rence as natural. In the same way we regard as very remark- able the story of a man tracing criminals with a divining rod, but it becomes quite ordinary if we put a bloodhound in the man's place." Probably it was also Dr. Bninton who said (Ibid., 276) : "I believe that the almost incredible acuteness of sight, scent, and hearing, which a.re found universally in certain classes of the lower animals, and are not uncommon in savage races, are occasionally possessed by certain individuals amongst civilized races. For instance: the presence of water-vapor in the air over certain spots makes itself evident to everyone as a visible fog in early morning. Now / am acquainted with a rheumatic patient who, on passing over such a spot during the day, when no vapor is visible, feels pains in her joints. Of course, such a condition of hyperesthesia is very rare in- deed." This doesn't account for the movement of the rod. Then the writer takes a different tack: " The moving of the rod in a diviner's fingers depends simply upon the bodily condition of the diviner himself, just as the rigidity of a pointer's tail when scenting game depends entirely upon the excitement of the dog." The dog's tail is directly in contact with his nervous system contains a part of it, in fact. The rod is not. Moreover, the tail stands still, whereas the rod moves violently. 132 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I And here speaks that acute observer, great naturalist, and saintly soul, Dr. Wallace, who wrote to Professor Barrett as follows (Pr. XV, 217) : "If the rod does move wholly by muscular action, it does not at all affect the power of the dowser in finding water, but the fact should be proved. To me, the evidence you adduce shows that it is not muscular action, and if this can be proved it, of course, places the dowser in the ranks of a physical 'medium,' which I have always held him to be. If the two facts you state are facts: (1) That the motion of the rod cannot be intentionally produced (by any novice) without visible muscular action of an energetic kind; and (2) that in an outsider's hands, holding the rod for the first time, it will often move if the dowser holds his wrists, and with no con- scious, and little visible, muscular action on the experimenter's part, then it follows that the motion is not produced by muscular action at all, but is a physical phenomenon analogous to hundreds of others occurring in the presence of ' mediums.' "I think you should have said: "The obvious explanation, of course, is that the rod is moved by the hands of the operator, acting consciously or unconsciously. .There are, however, many difficulties in the way of this view, and many facts which seem directly opposed to it.' After which your various statements would follow naturally. Now, they seem to me to be in the nature of a non sequitur! " Of course, I am a confirmed lunatic in these matters, so excuse the ravings of a lunatic, but sincere, friend. "ALFRED R. WALLACE." Professor Barrett says (Pr. XV, 311) : *' The probability that an explanation is to be found in some extension of our knowledge of human personality, some- thing new to science, and something akin to what has been termed clairvoyance, gains considerable weight from a critical study of cognate phenomena." But how about the rod? The first step regarding the correlation of these phenomena with familiar ones is to determine whether the rod is really moved independently of the conscious or unconscious volition of the dowser. On this subject early testimony is conflicting, but that recently accumulated seems to be overwhelming in favor of the independence of the force. True to the conditions of their craft, and very properly so, most of the scientific men who have been very familiar Ch. IX] Docs the Dowser Move the Rodf 133 with the processes by which things become not what they seem, or rather seem what they are not, have voted the dowser's force to be involuntary muscular contraction, re- sponse to clairvoyant vision, and several other things, some of which are harder to accept than a new and as yet un- correlated mode of force. Professor Barrett says (Pr. XIII, 24) that the movement of the rod is " an automatic action that occurs under certain conditions in certain individuals." Perhaps his meaning would have been expressed more precisely if he had said in connection with "certain individuals": for he goes on to produce a mass of evidence that the action is independent of the will and of muscular control is the influence upon the rod of a current between the organism and the object sought. Here are two bits of evidence that, so far as they go, seem to dispose of the case. Testimony of Sir E. Welby Gregory (Pr. II, 99) : " The lines of water indicated by Mullins had been marked by pegs 60 yards or 70 yards apart, and just visible above the grass. These lines Towers and his twig emphatically con- firmed, and I proceeded to test him. I had the projecting extremities of the prongs of the twig held tight by pincers, so that there could be no voluntary action on Towers' part when crossing the marked lines. Despite of this, the point of the twig twisted itself upwards, till the bark was wrinkled and almost split, while the strain and pressure upon the muscles of the man's hands were most apparent." The following from Mr. F. Bastable, 14, Foskelt Road, Fulham, appeared in the Carpenter and Builder of Septem- ber 30th, 1892 : (Pr.XIII,86): <r We procured two pairs of smith's tongs to see if the twigs did actually twist, and held them in a tight grip, with one pair securing the tips and the other the fork, but the contortions still went on between the points held." The following seems a pretty strong piece of evidence, especially considering its source. From Mr. H. W. Whitaker, the well-known geologist, an utter disbeliever in the dowsing-rod, or in any practical good resulting from its use (Pr. XIII, 69) : 134 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I " The diviner, named Lawrence, an old white-haired, benevo- lent-faced man . . . took ... a strong forked hazel twig, holding an end of each fork in each hand, and keeping his elbows tightly down to his side. I can only describe the antics of that twig as a pitched battle between itself and him! It twisted, it knocked about, it contracted and contorted the muscles of his hands and arms, it wriggled, and fought, and kicked, until it snapped in two and then what made it pain- ful to watch until you got used to it, the old man reeled, and clutched hold of anyone nearest to him for a few moments. It evidently exhausts him very much, though afterwards I asked him what effect it had on him, and he said it only made his heart beat most violently for a short time He was asked if he could mesmerize and he said, no. He held the wire over Lady D.'s watch, and it wriggled just as it had done over the water." If it is worth while to administer a farther quietus to a subject already disposed of, Professor Barrett does it, with his increased light in his second paper (Pr. XV, 277) : " Other correspondents have also urged that muscular action, whether conscious or unconscious, is an insufficient explanation of the phenomena actually observed. In the Journal of the S. P. R. for December, 1897, Mr. E. T. Bennett cites some of the evidence I gave in the previous Report in support of this view. Mr. Bennett urges, with much cogency, that as Fara- day's explanation of table-turning being due to involuntary muscular action is now recognized as inadequate to cover all the phenomena of this kind, so in like manner this explana- tion fails to cover all the cases of the twisting of the divining rod, and hence some other cause, external to the dowser, Is probably at work." This is followed by statements of various witnesses bearing on the point, with fuller particulars and references than I have space for. In fact the evidence is so overwhelming that the only explanation of Professor Sollas and others having stated a different opinion is that they did so before the evi- dence accumulated. In view of what has preceded, does not the dowser's force look much like merely one more form of magnetism? It is like the known forms, in being: I. A current between two poles. II. Evolved from a preceding mode of force that ab- sorbed by the human system from its usual sources of supply. Ch. IX] Does Dowser Use Force akin to Magnetism? 135 This is shown by the almost universal experience of fatigue and similar results after the experience. The best statement out of a vast number is that of Mr. Stears (Pr. XIII, 164) : " My powers vary with health. If tired I lose the power; provide the animal system with a fresh supply of food, and back the power comes." III. In producing sensations like those from the electro- magnetic current. The following accounts are but few out of many. Mullins stated to Mr. Plowman (Pr. XIII, 95) : Whenever he is dowsing and gets over a stream of water he feels a tingling sensation in his arms like a slight electric shock, and the strength of this sensation enables him to guess the approximate volume or depth of a spring." Mr. Stone (Pr. XIII, 124) adds: " The sensation I experience when over an underground spring is very like what is felt when grasping the handles of an electric machine, often seen at railway stations." Mr. Tompkins (Pr. XIII, 161) : " I feel a tingling sensation . . . when I get on to a running stratum of water The moment I cross a stratum of water I feel a sort of bracing sensation, which passes up my legs, back, and shoulders, and down the arms to the twig; when I get off the water course I feel the loss of this power, till I cross the water again." IV. In being transmissible from one person to another, by holding the wrists. V. In reversibility of the poles: sometimes the twig turns up, sometimes down. Sometimes it oscillates or twists. VI. Apparently in that the need of good conduction ap- pears to vary inversely as the strength of the current. I say : " apparently " because the phenomena suggesting this are confusing. The electric spark jumps unconnected inter- vals varying from a half inch between a child's finger and a metal bracket, to those between the poles of a Ruhmkorff coil, and those between a cloud and the earth. Some dowsers are able to work without any twig or steel spring, going en- tirely by sensations similar to those felt by others only when 136 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I holding a twig or spring. This looks very much as if the twig or spring helped close the circuit for a weak current, and were superfluous for those who can generate a strong current. The dowsing magnetism seems to differ from the earlier known magnetisms in the following particulars : I. Having its only known origin in the human system. II. Instead of being restricted, like the well-known forms, to metal and nerve tissue as conductors: it seems to act on water and possibly all known inorganic substances, and also on some, perhaps all, of the tissues of the human body, and presumably animal tissue in general, though all this may be practically through the nerve tissue. III. In apparently being directed by will, so far as will may be an element in setting the current in motion, and in determining the pole external to the human system. The dowsers are generally not affected when they are not de- liberately "at work," and perhaps are able to fix one pole of the current in any one of several substances they choose, perhaps in any substance whatever; certainly in water and metals, and are alleged to have traced a criminal in France. IV. In being apparently less reliable in the matter of isolation. At least the evidence is perplexing even con- tradictory. For particulars see Pr. XIII, 27, 31, 43, 58, 78, 186. V. In being, in a new and more intimate way, an extension of the control of mind over matter; and in giving one more hint that perhaps the two are but different manifestations of the same thing. A connection with electricity is suggested by a statement from Mr. A. B. Durfee, of Grand Eapids, Michigan (Pr. XIII, 217) that Mr. Cyrus Fuller, a noted dowser of that neighborhood a generation ago, told Mr. Durfee that whenever he found a tree in a forest " stricken by lightning, he was sure to find a stream " [underground] " leading very near to it." The exercise of the power is virtually always accompanied by physiological experiences, not only, as already stated, Ch. IX] Dowser's Telopsis and Visceral Sensations 137 fatigue and the sensations produced by grasping the handles of an electrical machine, but also, in some cases, nausea, palpita- tion, and " fearful perspiration." Oddly, but suggestively, the electric ( ?) thrill frequently goes to the solar plexus, in the near neighborhood of which it produces nausea. This is stated in several instances. The solar plexus seems to have some connection with telopsis as will be substantiated later. Some telopsists even seem to have a perception akin to sight through that region, and (as already stated), some dowsers have clairvoyant experi- ences in connection with the zoomagnetic (?) manifestations. Mr. J. F. Young, of Llanelly, a member of the S. P. R., and a successful amateur dowser, thus wrote to Professor Barrett (Pr. XV, 360) : " I found that after ' setting ' myself to use the rod, i.e., getting into an abstracted mental condition, lost to all around, when, or just before, the rod turned, I could, as it were clairvoyantly, see the underground springs and actually appeared able to trace them out as I walked along. My friend, Mr. Robertson, who, as you are aware, also uses the rod with success as an amateur water-finder, tells me he also had a similar experience, and we have since read that a 'diviner' named Adams, a Somerset man, frequently asserted the same thing." On this Professor Barrett expatiates (Pr. XV, 366) : " Now it is worthy of note that this inquiry has led us to the conclusion that some dowsers exhibit symptoms of induced catalepsy and experience singular sensations in the epigastrium when the object sought for is transcendentally ' perceived ' by them. I have already pointed out in Part XII that the visceral sensations of the dowser are probably emotional disturbances, arising from a psychical state, and it is likely enough that a similar explanation accounts for the cataleptic subject believ- ing he sees with his stomach, the sensation being there. But this explanation merely accounts for the secondary effects observed; the induction of the psychical state still remains a mystery." All very well, but what accounts for the rod acting utterly independently of the operator, as already abundantly indi- cated? After all this wading through the slough, I incline to do 138 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I deliberately what Professor Barrett was led toward doing by force of circumstances, and frankly accept (" provisionally " of course) both interpretations a new molecular force, and telepsychosis too, and a dozen others, if you please. I am by no means sure they are not fundamentally one, whatever the differences in their manifestations. Mr. Barrett's conclusions so far as they are unfavorable to a quasi-magnetic force, were probably reached before the days of the trolley-car and the telephone ; and certainly before the days of the wireless telegraph. Probably in these days of new modes of force, he would find a much more rational explanation of the dowser's spasm and the rod's action in a hypothetical mode of force which is, like electricity and magnetism, highly telekinetic, independent of any conductor (as is indeed the electric spark, in the laboratory or in the clouds) and for which I have, as already intimated, ventured to provisionally suggest the name zob'magnetism. And here I am again reminded of the difficulty of drawing distinctions in Nature. Perhaps all these mysterious powers are but different aspects of the same thing; and as I grope on I seem to get more definite and unified notions of what that thing is. I will give them later. The more I have read about these various modes of force, the more surprised I am at the scant evidence of efforts made to correlate them in the laboratory. I have not even seen any indication of a test whether table-tippers have the dowsing power or vice versa. Lines of investigation opened in this way might be very fruitful. The accounts of Foster, Home, Moses, and not a few others seem to indicate a probability that the organism pos- sessing any one of the as-yet-mysterious powers we have been describing is apt, though by no means sure, to possess some of the others. Of course to the ignorant all this spells fraud, and to even the credulous, so many accomplishments in one man, none of which are possessed by average men. are a tax on faith. But it should be carefully realized that the nearer these alleged powers may be found to be various manifestations of a single power, the more the tax on faith will decrease. As electricity, whether manifested as light, heat, or kinetic force, has its own range of vibrations, so these half-dozen Ch. IX] The Pendule Explorateur 139 new powers may be found to be associated in some other single range of vibrations in the outer world, which interplay with a corresponding capacity for nervous vibration that is as yet developed in a few, and but few, human beings. After I had written the foregoing passages, Professor Bar- rett's admirable little book on Psychical Research appeared, and I found to my astonishment that in it he had returned to, or perhaps merely more clearly expressed, his belief that involuntary muscular action moves the rod. Moreover, I found the same conviction expressed in Mrs. Sidgwick's presi- dential address in Pr. XXII. But wliat moves the muscles? Well ! " Hier steh ich, ich kann nicht anders." If it were only a question of physics, of course I would not dare to hold my opinion in face of Professor Barrett's. But it is a question of physiology and psychology, and not only of them, but of the interpretation of evidence and of " common sense " whatever that may mean. I'm not quite sure that I know, but I think it relates to a pretty wide field wherein an ordinarily successful man of affairs may legitimately be accorded as much weight as a specialist in some particular department of knowledge. Professor Barrett jumps to the dowsing-rod from the pendule explorateur. This is a weight at the end of a cord or chain held in the hand, and is generally believed to be swung by unconscious and imperceptible muscular contractions in the directions unconsciously willed by the person holding it. This swinging in intelligent directions such as toward letters of the alphabet on a ring surrounding the pendulum is attributed to muscular action, because it will not take place when the pendulum is suspended from any rigid inani- mate support. Then it cannot be willed into definite direc- tions even by persons in whose hands it will swing in definite directions. But in these hands it cannot be willed into definite direc- tions either. From this it is argued that the muscular action is involuntary. But I have not yet seen the demonstration that the agency is muscular at all, though I find no insuper- able difficulty in the hypothesis. But it is certainly a long jump from the possible muscular contractions of the pendulum-holder which are so minute 140 Molar Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I that he and the spectators only infer them, to the marked gyrations of the dowser's hands and arms. The queer thing is that the dowsers themselves, professional and amateur, unanimously declare (so far as I recall) that their gyrations are not involuntary efforts to move the rod, but voluntary efforts to keep it quiet, while Professor Barrett, and some other scientific onlookers, declare that the actors themselves don't know their own minds and bodies, and that what they deny regarding them is true; and what they assert, false. I don't know, though, that Professor Barrett's hypothesis necessarily traverses the one virtually held by the dowsers, and seeming probable to me. He says the rod is moved by involuntary muscular contraction. I guess that it is moved by zob'magnetism. The truth may be (though the men holding the rod deny it) that it is moved by involuntary muscular contraction, and that the involuntary muscular contraction is caused by zoomagnetism. Whatever may be the originality of my opinion regarding the force that moves the rod, I can at least contribute, vicari- ously, to the history of the subject one item which seems to have escaped attention. My young daughter says that Moses at the rock of Horeb was evidently the original dowser. Since this chapter was written, Journal S. P. R. CCXCIV has appeared with a letter from Germany announcing, in con- sequence of some remarkable successes with the dowsing rod, the formation of a very eminent society to investigate it. Breaks in the municipal water-pipes in Munich, and one in a dyke at Tambach near Gotha, are alleged to have been located by it. So far, the Germans " do not believe that the fundamental principle of a solution to the problem lies in a supernormal psychical gift of the dowser, but in the physical influence of the soil acting on him." The same number of the Journal contains a paper by Sir William Barrett, in which he says that he has received a letter from Professor Hyslop which " illustrates the need of further investigation on the question of the involuntary and unconscious muscular action which, I have assumed in my papers, gives rise to the sudden twisting of Ch. IX] Unconscious Muscular Action Doubtful 141 the dowsing rod. It is true, as will be seen from my Report in Proceedings, Vol. XV, pp. 276, et seq., and in subsequent papers in the Journal, that the hypothesis of unconscious muscular action needs to be stretched to almost incredible limits in some cases, and amongst dowsers themselves it is universally dis- credited. But what other hypothesis can take its place '. " It had already been my lot to suggest one in the foregoing pages. As 1 am not a physicist, I don't knew how many laws supposed to be established, it may run counter to. Even if it is correct, it is sure to run counter to some. CHAPTER X MOLECULAR TELEKINESIS Sounds As already noted, the molar manifestations of telekinesis are generally accompanied by molecular ones, especially of " raps " more or less akin to crackings in seasoned furniture. The source of these raps seems plainly molecular. There is no apparent mechanical cause of them, and the objects, gen- erally made of wood, from which they seem to proceed, give no indication, like cracks from change of temperature, of any change of structure caused by the source of the sound. Moreover, we shall see later that similar phenomena take place in the air itself. We are reminded constantly of the absence of definite lines of division in Nature. Allied with motions of the air started by causes not aerial, which, so far as our present knowledge goes, are essential to the transmission of sound, are alleged motions in the air, of whose origin we as yet know nothing. They accompany many sounds that seem to originate through obvious manifestations of the telekinetic force, and so, it is to be presumed, are a modification of it. I observed no raps when P raised the music-stand, though some of the other boys had heard raps around his bed. I slept in a remote room. The descriptions generally liken the raps, as said, to the cracking of unseasoned wood, but there are varieties of sounds, including one of a ticking in a letter. An account of this last is given by Myers from the narrative of Mrs. Anna Davies of Islington (Pr. VIII, 218) : " One evening I paid a visit to Mrs. Brown, and she gave me an Indian letter 1 placed it on the chimney-piece in our sitting-room, and sat down alone. I expected my brother home in an hour or two. The letter, of course, in no way 142 Ch. X] Ticking in a Letter. Various Raps 143 interested me. In a minute or two I heard a ticking on the chimney-piece, and it struck me that an old-fashioned watch which my mother always had standing in her bedroom must have been brought downstairs. I went to the chimney- piece, but there was no watch or clock there or elsewhere in the room. The ticking, which was loud and sharp, seemed to proceed from the letter itself. Greatly surprised, I removed the letter and put it on a sideboard, and then in one or two other places; but the ticking continued, proceeding undoubt- edly from where the letter was each time. After an hour or so of this I could bear the thing no longer, and went out and sat in the hall to await my brother. When he came in I simply took him into the sitting-room and asked him if he heard anything. He said at once, ' I hear a watch or clock ticking/ There was no watch or clock, as I have said, in the room. He went to where the letter was and exclaimed, ' Why, the letter is ticking.'. .. My brother took the letter to Mrs. J. W. either that night (it was very late) or next morn- ing. On opening it, she found that her husband had suddenly died of sunstroke, and the letter was written by some servant or companion to inform her of his death." In Home's case and many others, the presence of the " spirits " was generally announced by " raps " at the begin- ning of the seance; or, in common language, both those sets of manifestations tappings and raps, like steam from a safety valve, showed that the telekinetic force was ready for action. Sir William Crookes (Researches, 86-7) thus describes the varieties of raps. His account is supported by hosts of witnesses to one or more: " The popular name of ' raps ' conveys a very erroneous impression of this class of phenomena. At different times, during my experiments, I have heard delicate ticks, as with the point of a pin; a cascade of sharp sounds, as from an induction-coil in full work; detonations in the air; sharp metallic taps; a cracking like that heard when a frictional machine is at work; sounds like scratching; the twittering as of a bird, etc. " These sounds are noticed with almost every medium, each having a special peculiarity; they are more varied with Mr. Home, but for power and certainty I have met with no one who at all approached Miss Kate Fox In the case of Miss Fox it seems only necessary for her to place her hand on any substance for loud thuds to be heard in it, like a triple pulsation, sometimes loud enough to be heard several rooms 144 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I off. In this manner I have heard them in a living tree on a sheet of glass on a stretched iron wire on a stretched membrane a tambourine on the roof of a cab and on the floor of a theater. Moreover, actual contact is not always necessary; I have had these sounds proceeding from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium's hands and feet were held when she was standing on a chair when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling when she was enclosed in a wire cage and when she had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a glass harmonicon I have felt them on my own shoulder and under my own hands. I have heard them on a sheet of paper, held between the fingers by a piece of thread passed through one corner. With a full knowledge of the numerous theories which have been started, chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have tested them in every way that I could devise, until there has been no escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences not produced by trickery or mechanical means." When Sir William Crookes gives his testimony regarding physical phenomena, there is not much more to be said. But this foregoing statement regarding Miss Kate Fox needs reconciliation with the fact that Mrs. Maggie Fox Kane made " exposures " of the frauds which she claimed all three sisters had been guilty of. The reconciliation may partly consist in the fact that a great deal of money was made by public exhibitions of these exposures. But while they were going on, Mrs. Kate Fox Jencken wrote a letter printed in Light, expressing great distress over her sister's conduct, and saying of her and an associate who had long been a professional " exposer " of " spiritualism " : " They are hard at work to expose the whole thing if they can, but they certainly cannot." She also says that she had seen her sister but once since her return from England, and yet the issue of Light for November 3, 1888, two weeks earlier than the date of Mrs. Jencken's letter, said : " We learn from America that Mrs. Jencken and Mrs. Kane, two of the Fox Sisters, have started on an exposure tour." More particulars are given in the Jour, (not Pr.) S. P. R. for January, 1889, pp. 15f., and the S. P. R. seems to have considered the case settled by Mrs. Jencken's letter, as no more has been said about it. Ch. X] Raps Heard by Barrett, Moses, Crookes, Etc. 145 From Professor Barrett (Pr. IV, 34) : " Presently loud raps were given at this table beneath the hands of the sitters, so loud, in fact, they quite startled me. In character the sounds in general resembled the snapping noises occasionally made by furniture when the joints open under the heat of a room. But the sharpest and loudest cracks can be well imitated in strength and character by smartly striking a table with the edge of an ivory paper- knife " The following occurred in the presence of Moses. The initials are Dr. Speeds (Pr. IX, 319, Note) : "Sunday, July 20th. ... Knocks of the sharpest kind came on the table and then on the floor. It was as if large glass marbles had been thrown on the table, had bounded off on the floor, and then rolled away. Till a light was struck it was almost impossible not to believe that such had been the case. . . . S. T. S." Sir William Crookes prepared an apparatus with a parch- ment diaphragm connected by a lever with a tracing register- ing apparatus. On the diaphragm he placed a few bits of black lead. He got the medium (a non-professional lady whose name he does not give) to place her hands over the diaphragm, without contact. What followed he thus de- scribes (Researches, p. 39) : " Presently percussive noises were heard on the parchment resembling the dropping of grains of sand on its surface. At each percussion a fragment of graphite which I had placed on the membrane was seen to be projected upwards about l-50th of an inch, and the end C of the lever moved slightly up and down. Sometimes the sounds were as rapid as those from an induction-coil, whilst at others they were more than a second apart. Five or six tracings were taken, and in all cases a movement of the end C of the lever was seen to have occurred with each vibration of the membrane." This is from Bartlett (op. cit., 36) : " Thomas R. Hazard writes : " ' One day as I was passing down Fifth Avenue I ... saw Foster and a stranger standing quietly by an iron rail- ing Shortly after the stranger left, and Foster joined me [and] . . . told me that the gentleman who had just left him was an occasional visitant of his circles, who had a short time before joined him on the avenue and said to him: "Mr. 146 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I Foster, I wish you could make raps somewhere else than in your own room," to which Foster replied that he could have them come anywhere ! The gentleman said, " I will give you a dollar for each one you will make just here." .Where- upon Foster asked the skeptic to stand with him beside the iron railing and count aloud all the raps as they were made. Soon the raps came on the iron railing, and the gentleman counted them until the number ten was reached, when a pause ensued, and Foster asked if the raps should yet go on. " No," said the gentleman ; " I am satisfied," suiting his action to his word by handing Foster a ten dollar bill, which he then showed to me.' " Of course the skeptic will account for this on the obvious hypothesis that Foster lied. I knew him, and I don't think he did. In Mr. Armstrong's case he said of the raps on a table (Pr. VII, 158) : " They resembled the sound of the sparks given off by the prime conductor of a large Holtz electrical machine, . . . and the table always seemed supercharged with the ' force producing fluid,' if I may be permitted to use the term, on every portion of the table's surface, the chairs we sat on, and even on various articles of furniture at considerable distance from us." From Stainton Moses (Pr. IX, 280) : " They have been heard ... in strange rooms ... in the country . . . and even in the open air, under very curious circumstances. ... At Southend ... a pier more than a mile in length, my friend and I ... were sitting at the extreme end . . . when raps came ... on the rail in front of us They followed us all along the pier, and were audible at a great distance, as indeed any sound is if made on a long wooden rail. This was at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. At 8 p. m. we went on to the pier again The clear metallic rap was plainly audible . . . fifty yards from me [and] ... to both of us when we were seventy yards apart, and were apparently made in the space between us." The sounds so far described, notwithstanding their variety, have the common quality of proceeding from definite sources appreciable by the senses. We now go on to a category of sounds from no sensable sources. Professor Alexander gives the following in connection with the Davis children (Pr. VII, 180) : " A peculiar whistling sound was heard by some on one occasion coming from behind the curtains drawn before the Ch. X] The Davis Children's Raps. Moses 147 verandah door, and on another, by Mrs. Z. in the garden path leading down to the gate, where she had been seeing some friends out " Little girls, and big ones too, do sometimes make "a peculiar whistling sound." But what comes from other me- diums may suggest that this one was not of the usual kind. Prof. A. continues: " The sound which has since developed to such an extent was first heard by us on March 23d, 1873. At that time it resembled the plucking of a string in mid-air We called it the Lyre sound, for want of a better name A certain imita- tion of it could be made by slightly touching the wires of a piano at the upper notes I succeeded also in making some re- semblance to it by drawing my finger over the wires of a musical clock which hangs on the wall of the room adjoining. ... I sup- posed that the piano or clock must be used in some way to make a sound which seemed to be in mid-air. This theory was soon upset, for the sound came in rooms where there was no musical instrument; even in my own bedroom, where sometimes the sound has been so loud as to be distinctly audible through the wall in an adjoining room. . . . The sound would traverse the room and seem to die away in the distance, and suddenly burst forth into great power over the table, which appeared In some inexplicable way to be used as a sounding-board. The wood of the table vibrated under our hands exactly as it would have done had a violoncello been twanged while resting upon it It was no question of fancy or delusion. The sounds were at times deafening, and alternated between those made by the very small strings of a harp and such as would be caused by the violent thrumming of a violoncello resting on the top of a drum. . . . We never sat without them, and they formed almost the staple phenomenon of the seance. With them, as with other phenomena, great variety was caused by good or bad conditions." We are constantly reminded of the absence of definite lines of division in Nature: even if the sounds above described, and to be described hereafter, were carried by the air, their source seems to have been some molecular action in the atoms, as appears to be that of the " raps " already described. Stainton Moses suggests (Pr. XI, 49, 50) that some sounds are independent of the ear: " May 30th The peculiarity of the seance was that when I could hear the sound no one else could, and vice versa. 148 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I I heard by clairaudience and not by natural hearing, being very deaf with my cold 1 described it long before it was heard by the others, and heard it frequently when they did not. At the same time I was unconscious of sounds apparently made on the table under my nose." The sound referred to in the foregoing is the first among those indicated in the following from Pr. IX : (IX,268) : "... The most perfect musical sounds are made when I cannot hear them; and, as a general rule, to which the exceptions are so rare as only to serve to establish the prin- ciple, the best and most successful manifestations occur when the medium is deeply entranced." (IX,279-80) : ". . . Of late they [the sounds] have changed, and are usually audible to me before they strike the ear of any other person. How far this may be attributable to clairaudience, a faculty lately developed in me, I cannot say positively." (IX,342-3) : " At one seance as many as seven different sounds were going on at the same time in different parts of the room. It would have been quite impossible for any one person to have made them. " MARIA SPEER." Moses* note-book says of certain sounds (Pr. IX, 281) : " They represented two instruments, the one of three, the other of seven strings, and they were used in playing thus : Certain notes were sounded upon the three strings, and these were followed by a run made as if by running a finger-nail rapidly over the strings of the other instrument. The result was like what musical cognoscenti call ' a free prelude ' ; what I should describe as a series of notes, highly pitched, clear, and liquid in their melody, followed by a rapid run on an instrument of lower pitch. I speak of instruments, but . . . there was in the room an ordinary dining-room no musical instrument of any kind whatever." Dr. Speer says (Pr. IX, 281) : " The sound . . . during the space of fifteen months, almost invariably presented itself at each sitting A sound like that of a stringed instrument, played, or rather plucked, in mid-air, while there was no stringed instrument in the room. Every attempt was subsequently made to ascertain through what sub- stance the sound could be evolved The sounds were formed independently of any material substance. ... In process of time, the manifestation became most extraordinary. It was almost impossible (to an outsider it would have been absolutely im- possible) not to believe that a large stringed instrument, e.g., a violoncello, a guitar, a double bass, or a harp, was struck by Ch. X] Telekinetic Lights. Colonel Taylor 149 powerful human fingers On these occasions the sitters could distinctly feel a strong vibration transmitted from the points of the fingers in contact with the table up to the shoulder- joint " I confess myself entirely unable to give any idea of the way in which these remarkable sounds are produced " We have already, by almost insensible degrees, found our- selves in what I provisionally assume to be molecular action of the telekinetic force, though the force has so far generally been associated with the molar action. We will now leave that, and concern ourselves with some farther phenomena that are purely molecular, until we meet the molar again in discussing telekinetic phenomena associated with intelli- gence, into which, by the way, we have already drifted some distance, so inextricable from each other are the phenomena. Lights The molecular manifestations also include lights which sug- gest not only the electric spark and the alleged magnetic aura, but also often have characteristics peculiar to themselves. Un- fortunately their case, like all manifestations of telekinesis, is needlessly prejudiced by their being generally called " spirit lights." The name of course tends to awaken in some cre- dulity, and in others skepticism, both of which tend to obstruct proper investigation. But probably every light from an un- known source that has appeared since mankind had a word meaning " spirit " has been attributed to spirits. Whatever such a word may mean etymologically, in actual use it is no more or less than an x to express a mode of force as yet un- correlated with the modes already familiar. So it was with the lights of electricity, whether seen in the clouds or in the " artificial " spark. Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor, a frequent contributor to the Pr. S. P. R., thus describes a "spirit light" (Pr. XIX, 54) : " This light seemed to me not to illuminate things as much as a common light of equal brilliancy would do, but perhaps a very feeble light, when looked at after the eye has been some time in total darkness, may give an exaggerated impression of brightness. I felt no heat when the light was in my hand, nor did I feel the touch of anything." 150 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I The following manifestation by Foster (Bartlett, op. cit., p. 78) suggests the lights and electric crackling from a Kuhmkorff coil. " The lights were turned out without consulting Mr. Foster. Had he been consulted, he would probably not have given his consent, being as timid and apparently as afraid of darkness as a child. Two leaves of the dining-table were taken out, intending to shove the table together, to make it somewhat smaller. But the table would not shove. Who has not ex- perienced this difficulty with their dining-table! In this instance, however, I consider it fortunate that the leaves were left out. Many surprising physical manifestations occurred, so startling in their nature that I can hardly believe that they occurred myself! In these accounts of Foster, I have" [here- tofore? H. EL] "intentionally avoided mentioning the physical manifestations, and have thought it better to confine myself entirely to mental phenomena. The raps, I think, might be regarded as both mental and physical. Numerous questions were asked and answered by Mr. Foster, when suddenly, looking through the aperture which the vacant leaves left in the table, I perceived numerous small lights, like little balls of fire, in size from a large pinhead to that of a pigeon egg. The entire space of the lower part of the table was filled with these electric sparks, and this to me was a wonderful phenomenon. . . . [At each rap. H.H.] " one of these sparks, or balls of fire, darted against the side of the table or on the floor, pro- ducing the rapping, and disappeared. When" [There were three raps. H. H.] " we could see three little balls of fire separate themselves from the others, run one after another, strike, and disappear. ... If the rap was low, a little ball of fire; just in proportion to the loudness of the rap was the size of the ball used. A loud rap evidently required a large ball of fire to explode. Having discovered this first, I called the attention of the others to the fact. This lasted for nearly one hour." You will remember Foster's champagne baskets flying around the room (Bartlett, op. cit., 24). In that account it is stated that " what appeared to be electric sparks appeared in many places in the room." Here is an account by Moses (Pr. IX, 273-4) : " A number of cones of soft light similar to moon- light appeared in succession, until a dozen or more had been made. They presented the appearance of a nucleus of soft, yellow light, surrounded by a soft haze. They sailed up from a corner of the room and gradually died out. The most con- Ch. X] Stainton Moses' Lights 151 spicuous was shaped like a mitre and was 8 or 9 inches in height We determined to extemporise a cabinet for the purpose of developing them." Why " a cabinet " ? One does not seem to have been gen- erally essential to the production of lights by Moses, and does seem to have been generally essential to the production of anything by mediums more open to suspicion. " This was simply done by throwing open the door between two rooms, and hanging in the doorway a curtain with square aperture in the middle of it. On one side of the cur- tain a table was put for the sitters; on the other side I was placed in an easy-chair, and was soon in a state of deep trance, from which I never woke until the stance was concluded. What then took place is described in the records of friends who were present. Large globes of light . . . sailed out of the aperture and went into the room where the sitters were placed. They are described as of the same soft, pale hue, like moon- light. They were sufficiently bright to illumine the lintel and door-posts, and to cast a strong reflection into the room. Within the gauzy envelope was a bright point of concentrated light, and the size varied considerably. The cone shape pre- dominated, but some were like a dumbbell, and others like a mass of luminous vapor revolving round and falling over a central nucleus of soft, yellow light. They seem to have been carried in a materialized hand, a finger of which was shown at request by placing it in front of the nucleus of light. Round each was soft drapery, the outline of- which was usually perfectly distinct." Dr. Thomson of Clifton added the following (Pr. IX, 274) : " The appearance of the light reminded me strongly of what I have seen when an electric discharge is passed through an exhausted tube, with the exception, of course, of the latter being momentary, whereas in the present case the light con- tinued more or less for nearly an hour n Later Moses says (Pr. IX, 331) : "I had been very anxious to try the duration of the light, because an imitation of such lights is made by phosphorized oil; but lights so made are of very brief duration. I believe that a favorable trial would show that Mentor's " [another " spirit " whom we shall know better later. H. H.] " light would last seven or eight minutes." Sir William Crookes says (Researches, 91) : " These, being rather faint, generally require the room to be darkened. I need scarcely remind my readers again that, 152 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I tinder these circumstances, I have taken proper precautions to avoid being imposed upon by phosphorized oil, or other means. Moreover, many of these lights are such as I have tried to imitate artificially, but cannot. " Under the strictest test conditions, I have seen a solid self-luminous body, the size and nearly the shape of a turkey's egg, float noiselessly about the room, at one time higher than anyone present could reach standing on tiptoe, and then gently descend to the floor. It was visible for more than ten minutes, and before it faded away it struck the table three times with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During this time the medium was lying back, apparently insensible, in an easy- chair. "I have seen luminous points of light darting about and settling on the heads of different persons 1 have seen sparks of light rising from the table to the ceiling, and again falling upon the table, striking it with an audible sound." Compare Foster's audible lights, a couple of pages back. There are many similar cases. Professor Alexander says (Pr. VII, 183) : "A beautiful, transparent, bluish light... was one even- ing seen by all, except Mr. Davis himself, playing on his left shoulder. At my desire it moved to the right shoulder, but seemed to have some difficulty in staying there. . . . The room at the time was partially darkened, but not enough to hinder us from plainly distinguishing the features of the persons present." Dr. Speer says (Pr. IX, 275-6) : " He told me to rub my hands so as to generate more power, and very soon another large light . . . appeared " The way of renewing the light when it grew dim was by making passes over it with the hand They . . . seemed to be more easily and fully developed when I rubbed my hands to- gether or on my coat." This seems to correlate the lights definitely enough with the other modes of force manifested by the medium. I as- sume that the force came from Moses through Speer, though that may be superfluous: all people are supposed to have some power to gather and transmit electricity, and Moses's initiative may have been enough for the as yet mysterious force. These lights, however, were unlike any electric lights we know, except those in vacuum tubes. Lights, like sounds, have been in evidence so much more Cli. X] Temperatures. Matter through Matter 153 frequently in connection with ostensible intelligence, that I leave farther consideration of them to that branch of the subject, though we have already found the two inevitably somewhat tangled together. Temperatures Shall we class as molar or molecular, the motion of air? It is inseparably connected with phenomena of both heat and cold, and therefore is both. As the reader will frequently meet cases hereafter, I will not take the trouble to group them. As a specimen, however, take the following from Sir William Crookes's Researches, 86: " These movements, and indeed I may say the same of every kind of phenomenon," [telekinetic and telepsychic? H. H.] " are generally preceded by a peculiar cold air, sometimes amounting to a decided wind. I have had sheets of paper blown about by it, and a thermometer lowered several degrees. On some occasions ... I have not detected any actual move- ment of the air, but the cold has been so intense that I could only compare it to that felt when the hand has been within a few inches of frozen mercury." Similar allegations are made in connection with the mani- festations of most, if not all, of the mediums. Passing Matter Through Matter Here are the alleged cases from Sir William Crookes (Re- searches, pp. 96-7) : " I then went to the dining-room door, and telling the two boys to go into the library and proceed with their lessons, I closed the door behind them, locked it, and (according to my usual custom at seances) put the key in my pocket. " We sat down, Miss Fox being on my right hand and the other lady on my left, ... in total darkness, I holding Miss Fox's two hands in one of mine the whole time We all heard the tinkling of a bell, not stationary, but moving about in all parts of the room, . . . now touching me on the head, and now tapping against the floor. After ringing about the room in this manner for fully five minutes, it fell upon the table close to my hands "I remarked that it could not be my little hand-bell which was ringing, for I left that in the library. (Shortly before Miss Fox came I had occasion to refer to a book, which 154 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I was lying on a corner of a book-shelf. The bell was on the book, and I put it on one side to get the book. That little incident had impressed on my mind the fact of the bell being in the library.) The gas was burning brightly in the hall outside the dining-room door, so that this could not be opened without letting light into the room, even had there been an accomplice in the house with a duplicate key, which there certainly was not. " I struck a light. There, sure enough, was my own bell lying on the table before me. I went straight into the library. A glance showed that the bell was not where it ought to have been. I said to my eldest boy, 'Do you know where my little bell is ? ' ' Yes, papa,' he replied, ' there it is,' pointing to where I had left it. He looked up as he said this, and then continued, ' No it's not there, but it was there a little time ago.' ' How do you mean ? has anyone come in and taken it?' 'No,' said he, 'no one has been in; but I am sure it was there, because when you sent us in here out of the dining-room J.' (the youngest boy) ' began ringing it so that I could not go on with my lessons, and I told him to stop.' J. corroborated this, and said that, after ringing it, he put the bell down where he had found it." Sir William gives another where Home was the agent, in Pr. VI. This is from Stainton Moses (Pr. IX, 306, note) : "April 2d. The medium was greatly convulsed, and sud- denly a large stone was rolled violently across the table and fell on Mr. Percival's knee. The stone had been brought from the hall through a locked door, every hand at the table being held during the process. Mr. Percival had been anxious to have a proof of ' matter passing through matter,' and this indeed was a solid one, as the stone was very large and heavy. M. S." (Dr. [Mrs.?] Speer.) Podmore gives another instance (Modern Spiritualism, II, 69): " Communicated to the Dialectical Society by Mr. Fusedale : . . . The children and my wife would see the things they [the " spirits." H.H.] . . . took (in particular a brooch of my wife's) appear to pass through solid substances, such as the wall or the doors." If matter can pass through matter, the fundamental estab- lished axiom regarding it that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, is mistaken, and our notions Ch. X] Materialization 155 regarding matter must be revised we must face the question if the molecules of one body can pass through the inter- molecular spaces of another without either body losing its shape. The X-rays suggest some sort of an answer. The same is true with a vengeance, if there is a substantial founda- tion for the reports of materialization, and perhaps our later consideration of them may give us a clue towards an explana- tion of the new aspects of the subject Materialization Home, Foster, Stainton Moses, and perhaps one or two other agents in good standing, are alleged to have caused momentary phenomena (no lasting ones are yet alleged to have been produced) possessing one or more of the attributes heretofore associated with matter such as visibility, audi- bility, odor, taste, temperature, texture, and resistance to pressure; and there are several well-known agents of ques- tionable standing who claim to have done the same, among whom Eusapia Palladino is most prominent. Probably the majority of investigators now accept what we will provisionally call the other forms of telekinesis as fact, and are trying to correlate them with our previous knowledge. Materialization, on the other hand, they are still trying to account for by trickery and illusion. And yet what little character Home had, seems to have been so sincere! And Stainton Moses, had he been a fraud (which nothing told about him seems to encourage), would hardly have been con- tented to defraud so small a circle; and as to poor Eusapia Palladino, she is her own worst enemy, and that New York report for many reasons cannot quite overbalance the earlier reports. One of the men who joined in it told me that Tie did so with a mental reservation, and I am credibly informed that another confessed the same. The first one told me that he passed his hands between the floor and the legs of a table raised by Eusapia, and found the space absolutely free ; also that the table could not have been lifted from above by any known agency, unless telekinesis may be accounted a known agency. From the evidence, I believe that whatever 156 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I Eusapia's frauds, some of her manifestations of telekinesis were genuine. This raises some presumption that some of her materializations may have been too. I don't see, however, that it makes much difference whether they were or not: the evidence of her fraud does not fatally detract from the credi- bility of the witnesses in the other cases. I am not at all prepared to deprecate the efforts to hunt up tricks ; at the same time, after the impossibilities that have become the whole world's actualities during the last forty years, there does seem about as much justification for work- ing provisionally on the hypothesis that a respectably vouched-for marvel is true, as upon the old one that it is false. It may eventually seem that the claims of materialization may gain a little strength from the possibility that it may be a corollary of telekinesis. The case for materialization, how- ever, is different from that for the simpler forms of tele- kinesis. That is enough to convince anybody but the class of skeptics who take nothing on testimony unless they have experienced the like themselves, and are much more energetic in denying the experience of others than in enlarging their own. There are scores, probably hundreds, of mediums who have given well attested cases of molar and molecular tele- kinesis, but there are hardly half a dozen whose cases of materialization are worthy of any consideration. To begin a few well supported instances with a very mild example: From Bartlett (op. cit., p. 64) : "A gentleman, accompanied by two ladies dressed in deep mourning, visited Mr. Foster The seance had only con- tinued a short time when the elder lady said, ' Sarah Jane, behave yourself, and stop hunching me.' ' Why, mother, I am not hunching you, I am hunched myself.' Hundreds have testified that while attending the seances they have been touched by a hand, on the forehead, on the shoulder, or knee. Was it imagination or a fact ? " If this phenomenon was genuine, Foster produced the dis- tinguishing effect of matter resistance of which more later. But this is the only case from Foster I recall, and Bartlett overlooked it when he told me that all the materialization he had seen (obviously from others) was fraudulent. Ch. X] Crookes on Moses' Materializations 157 As we shall see later, materialized hands are quite gener- ally alleged to accompany the lights in the Moses phenomena. In the notes already quoted from Sir William Crookes, some indications of "materialization" have incidentally ap- peared. Here are some more (Pr. VI, 106, et seq.) : " Mr. A. R. Wallace then asked for ' Home, Sweet Home.' A few bars of this air were immediately sounded. He looked under the table and said he saw a hand distinctly moving the instrument " [An accordion. H. H.] " up and down, and play- ing on the keys. Mr. Home had one hand on the table and was holding the top end of the accordion, whilst Mr. A. R. Wallace saw this hand at the bottom end where the keys were. " We then heard a rustling noise on a heliotrope which was growing in a flower-pot standing on the table between Mr. Home and Mrs. Wm. Crookes. On looking round, Mrs. Wm. Crookes saw what appeared to be a luminous cloud on the plant. (Mr. Home said it was a hand.) We then heard the crackling as of a sprig being broken off, and then a message came: "'Four Ellen.' " Immediately the white luminous cloud was seen to travel from the heliotrope to Mrs. Wm. C.'s hand, and a small sprig of the plant was put into it. She had her hand then patted by a delicate female hand. She could not see the hand itself, but only a halo of luminous vapor over her hand." " A hand was seen by some, and a luminous cloud by others," [Did anybody see Polonius's whale? Clouds look very different to different people, especially to believers and disbelievers. H. H.] " pulling the flowers about which were in a stand on the table. A flower was then seen to be carried deliberately and given to Mrs. Wm. Crookes." The following is from Sir William Crookes' Researches, pp. 92-3: " The hands and fingers do not always appear to me to be solid and life-like. Sometimes, indeed, they present more the appearance of a nebulous cloud partly condensed into the form of a hand. This is not equally visible to all present. For instance, a flower or other small object is seen to move; one person present will see a luminous cloud hovering over it, another will detect a nebulous-looking hand, whilst others will see nothing at all but the moving flower. I have more than once seen, first an object move, then a luminous cloud appear to form about it, and, lastly, the cloud condense into shape and become a perfectly-formed hand. At this stage, the hand is visible to all present. It is not always a mere form, but sometimes appears perfectly life-like and graceful, the 158 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I fingers moving and the flesh apparently as human as that of any in the room. At the wrist, or arm, it becomes hazy, and fades off into a luminous cloud. " To the touch, the hand sometimes appears icy cold and dead; at other times, warm and life-like, grasping my own with the firm pressure of an old friend. " I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into vapor, and faded in that manner from my grasp." Dr. Speer says regarding Moses (Pr. IX, 275) : " The medium was entranced, and the controlling spirit informed me that he would endeavor to place the light in the medium's hand. Failing in this, he said he would knock on the table in front of me. Almost immediately a light came and stood on the table close to me. 'You see; now listen, I will knock.' Very slowly the light rose up, and struck three distinct blows on the table. ' Now I will show you my hand.' A large, very bright light then came up, and inside of it appeared the materialized hand of the spirit. . . . The power having become exhausted, he exhorted me to wake the medium." From Moses. (Pr. IX, 311-12) : " Sunday Evening, May 18th, 1873 Scent was brought, not as before, but by a cool wind laden with the odor. It was like otto [Sic for attar. H.H.] of roses, very powerful. As it passed round the circle Dr. and Mrs. Speer and I saw a figure carrying it apparently. I also saw a figure in the middle of the table when the lyre sound was heard there." It seems to me that all these odors we are about smell more of imagination than of anything else. We shall meet them again. (Pp. 309-10) : " Wednesday, May 7th, 1873. ... We all saw a hand descend from the top of the curtain and play the accordion. It was a large hand, and its reflection on the window-blind was strong. After this a head showed in similar way. When Mrs. Crookes was told to go into the room and occupy the chair ... a form was materialized as far as the middle. It floated near the folding doors, and advanced towards Mrs. Crookes, who screamed, and it vanished. " Mrs. Crookes, to whom I (F. W. H. Myers) have shown this account, makes the following comments (Pr. IX, 310-11) : " Mr. Home then left me and stood between the two rooms. The accordion was immediately taken from his hand Ch. X] Noses and Cox on Home's Materializations 159 by a cloudy appearance, which soon seemed to condense into a distinct human form, clothed in a filmy drapery, stand- ing near Mr. Home between the two rooms. The accordion began to play (I do not remember whether on this occasion there was any recognized melody), and the figure gradually advanced towards me till it almost touched me, playing con- tinuously. It was semi-transparent, and I could see the sitters through it all the time. Mr. Home remained near the sliding doors. As the figure approached I felt an intense cold, getting stronger as it got nearer," [We shall meet much of this change of temperature later. H. H.] " and as it was giving me the accordion I could not help screaming. The figure immediately seemed to sink into the floor to the waist, leaving only the head and shoulders risible, still playing the accordion, which was then about a foot off the floor. Mr. Home and my husband came to me at once, and I have no clear recollection of what then occurred, except that the accordion did not cease playing immediately. " Mr. Serjeant Cox was rather angry at my want of nerve, and exclaimed : ' Mrs. Crookes, you have spoilt the finest mani- festation we have ever had.' I have always regretted that my want of presence of mind brought the phenomena to so abrupt a termination." " Thursday, December HI h. Douglas House. Dr. and Mrs. S. and I (M.) The seance was short. I questioned Imperator " [A " spirit " of whom we shall learn more hereafter. H.H.] " as to a vision I had had on the previous night. He said that he had appeared to me. He was somewhat different in appearance to what had been described. I asked whether I should see him again. He knocked out : ' Watch.' The clouds of light, which had gathered as usual round me, lifted and went to my right hand. They condensed gradually into a pillar, and finally into a form, majestic, stately, and noble in mien. The body was draped as with a toga, though that might simply have been the spirit drapery. The right arm was extended and pointed towards me. The face was the face of my vision, though not so distinct. I asked that I might be touched, and the figure slowly stepped towards me, but did not touch me. Finally it faded away very gradually until it was dissipated in luminous mist. Dr. and Mrs. S. saw misty light,- but nothing more. I asked who it was, and ' Myself ' was rapped, but in Imperator's knocks." Vastly more impressive than the child's " It's me," but not a whit more intelligent. Imperator knew a language not evolved till a couple of thousand years after his death. So they are learning in the other world! 160 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I In the many cases of which a few are here given, Home and Stainton Moses are, so far as I know, the only persons (except Foster in the foregoing very mild case) who are said to have produced materializations without the conjunction of cabinets, curtains, partial darkness, and other accessories favorable to illusion. Eusapia Palladino's manifestations have all been open to these objections, as well as to the one from her frequent trickery. On the assumption, however, that any materializations have been genuine, there is room for some plausible guessing as to their relations to known modes of force. As has been seen, hands, limbs, faces, and entire human figures seem to appear. Sometimes objects are moved by apparently material hands. These hands are grasped by the company. Sometimes they feel natural, sometimes cold and clammy. All these phenomena are classed as "materializa- tions." Now what do we so far know of " materialization " of " matter " ? It has been followed down through atoms, molecules, ions, until the latest view is that each portion of it is an aggregate of units of force. All the phenomena of matter that we know of, save resistance, we have long known as manifestations of force in vibration heat waves, light waves, sound waves, and the rest; and now resistance seems to have been reduced, with the rest, to a mode of force. Our conceptions are gradually changing from those of two universes of, respectively, " matter " and " mind," to a single universe of vibrations, all of it, of course, objective to consciousness, as of old. Of the greater harmony of the later conception with our latest knowledge, there seems little question, but it is as revolutionary as was the conception of evolution from inferior ancestors; and, while it is not as repugnant to our habitual feelings as, at first, was the Dar- winian conception, it will take some time to make the unified universe of vibrations a permanent and consistent factor in our thinking. But that it will in time become not only that, but a welcome and fruitful one, seems highly possible. Till lately we have supposed we knew two worlds one of mind, and one which includes our own bodies external to mind. Each of these worlds has always been at bottom Ch. X] Speculations on Materialization 161 a mystery, and the relation between them a mystery. Each produces phenomena in the other, and yet to imagine mind and matter turning into each other, is very difficult, and until lately has been impossible. But now it really does seem as if the division between them might be but superficial and often merely one of those provisional lines with which our minds are constantly dividing, in the effort to conquer, the essential unity of Nature. In the chase that analysis and hypothesis have made after the smallest particle of matter, they now seem to have chased all the particles away, and found nothing really there but psychical influences that awaken in us the psychical effects which we call resistance, roughness, smoothness, form, color, etc., etc., just as in our visions, sleeping or waking, we ex- perience those same sensations, without the intervention of any particle of "matter." If there is, then, after all, but one source of sensation mind acting on mind, " materializa- tion " is not impossible, and there is no longer any necessity for reading libraries to find out that we don't know how mind can act on body, or body on mind. Now as, in our experience, mechanical energy, muscular energy, nervous energy, heat, light, electrical power, and the rest, are constantly transmuted into each other, is it not easily conceivable that any one of them may be transmutable into resistance to pressure? Nay, a step farther, is it improbable that the telekinetic force may belong with the rest in a mutually interchangeable group, which can produce on our waking perceptions as well as in our dreams, all the effects which, in certain combinations, we recognize as " matter " ? On this hypothesis, the force manifested by or through the materializers can (not inconsistently) be assumed to manifest itself as " matter," including such aggregates of force as we are familiar with in the forms which usually perform certain functions as hands which move things. Another guess. The supply of force connected with any one materializer is, of course, limited. Even the alleged " messages " through the mediums assert that, and the accom- panying phenomena illustrate it. When, on hypothesis, the telekinetic mode is transmuted into the modes which, in certain combinations and proportions, impress us as " matter," that 162 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Ft. I impression can last no longer than the amount of force available for the effect, holds out. Hence the force which manifests itself as a hand grasped by the sitter, gradually becomes exhausted that is, gradually changes, as all modes of force do, into other modes and the hand " fades " away. Still another guess. The aggregate of modes of force waves of light, heat, resistance, etc., which produce the im- pression of, say, a hand or a complete human form, with its drapery if you please of all those modes, only enough may be present, at any moment, to produce a portion of the phenomena usually impressing us as matter. The heat-mode may be absent, and the " hand " feels cold. The sight-mode alone may be present, the resistance-mode lacking, and the sitter's hand passes through the only partially " materialized " hand, or the partially materialized human figure ; or the spec- tator, trying to grasp the human figure that he sees, passes through it. Somewhere about the middle sixties, I saw a play or two at Wallack's, in which the visible elements, without the audible and incompressible ones, were successfully introduced by optical machinery. Moving figures apparently as " real " as the actual actors, were placed on the stage, and the actual actors walked right through them. The apparent hands or more complete figures which oppose no resistance, nevertheless are said to move objects. Even if they do, it is consistent with the hypothesis that, at such moments, the resistance-mode of force is temporarily added to the sight-mode. We even appear to have the resistance-mode separated from all the others e.g., from visibility, etc. (Cf. Foster's case ante.) I doubt if anj'body can believe the account of the attempt at independent writing by the pencil and the lath on pages 176-7, and similar cases, without assuming an invisible and an inaudible but resisting agent, or even per- sonality, handling the two objects. This conception is some- thing more than mere unthinking anthropomorphism. Now a question, in regard to which perhaps the reader will prefer to do his own guessing. If the alleged partial and temporary manifestations of human figures do really come through the thinking and feeling entities called Home, Ch. X] "Spirits" Superfluous in Telekinesis 163 Moses, and many others, whence come the complete and life- long manifestations of human beings that we know and are? Was Carlyle stretching language very far in calling us all spirits? "Ghosts," I believe, was his word. Do not our latest knowledge and best thinking result in the idea old in many forms that we are but expressions of a measureless force which is ourselves and also behind ourselves? Would any person given to the old phraseology be very fantastic in calling us thoughts of the divine mind? Please notice that hitherto this exposition, so far as I have been able to keep the threads distinct in spite of the in- evitable tangle with "spiritualism," has referred simply to a mode, or modes, of force, manifested, or alleged to be manifested, like electricity and magnetism, in mechanical action, and in the production of lights and sounds; and, unlike any modes of force previously known, in the pro- duction, without the use of matter, of objects sometimes re- sisting pressure and sometimes showing other attributes of matter. The word "spirit" and its derivatives have been used a few times, generally in passages quoted, as, at the pres- ent stage of human intelligence, it is inevitable it should be in the discussion of any phenomena not yet correlated with familiar ones. So far, however, we have really simply en- countered nothing more than new modes of force. As far as concerns the merely kinetic side, the production of motion in masses or molecules, it seems already as well correlated with the other modes of force we know, as, say, the electro- magnetic mode was a century ago : for : (I) We know its source, which is the human organism: for it is manifested only in the presence of specially endowed human beings, and never, so far as we know, in their absence, though Sir William Crookes thinks that probably all human beings have it, some, however, in inappreciable amounts, and I have already suggested the possibility of its existence in other animals. Much testimony indicates the possibility of one person possibly only a specially endowed one, collecting the power from others. So with electricity. (II) We know that it is a mode of chemical energy stored up in food and air, and is extracted from them by human 164 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Ft. I beings, just as muscular and some kinds of intellectual force are. (Ill) We know approximately, that it is quantitatively transmuted from those possessing it: for their other modes of force are depleted in apparent, though not yet closely- tested, proportion to the manifestations of this one. So far as we have got, then, there is nothing more super- normal or " spiritual " about the mode of force known as telekinetic, than about any other; and we can expect to keep on correlating it with the other modes, as we have correlated each of them with their fellows, and also to get practical advantages from it as we have from them. Magnetism is unquestionably telekinetic, and it might not be a strain of language to call electricity so, and even heat and light. So the mere capacity to act without contact does not necessarily entitle the new force more than any of the others, to the name. As magnetic aurse seem at last to be established, and as the new mode of force has also been associated with aurae and other lights without heat, its association with magnetism seems very close; and as it is, so far as we know, manifested only by human beings, anthropo-magnetism might be a good name for it ; buf as there is a strong probability that it may also exist, as electricity does, in some, if not all, of the lower animals, a more general name would perhaps be safer, and I have already used zoomagnetism. I had written this word several times before I knew that Dr. Liebeault had used it in a widely different connection, now virtually obsolete. I prefer to stick to it until mine too becomes obsolete, especially as, whatever may be the defects of such a name, it is a step toward embracing this new mode of force in the "natural," and correlating it with the modes we know better. But have we not merely got back to our old discarded acquaintance Animal Magnetism, seeking to be restored to credit under a new Greek first-name ? No : this is an entirely different character, and the different name may perhaps be found to have uses that more than counterbalance the objec- tions to its old associations. The suspicion that the - so-called telekinetic force may be magnetic, not only suggests its correlation with the modes Ch. X] Possible Uses of Telekinesis 165 of force generally recognized under that name, but with some other modes which are yet but faintly recognized, or regarded as illusions or frauds. These other modes would be partly explained if it should be found that heat in contact with a living human body possessing marked telekinetic power, can be converted into telekinetic power and stored in the system. But to com- plete the explanation, Home's non-combustion of the hand- kerchief, recited some pages farther on, would also have to be accounted for : so a more probable hypothesis would be that zoomagnetism is repellent of heat, and can be conveyed to vegetable fiber generally, as we have abundant evidence that it can to wood. These questions will probably soon be settled in the labora- tory. I am surprised that they do not appear to have already received more attention from such men as Sir William Crookes and Sir William Barrett. They may have had it, however, without the investigators being yet ready to report, although the former has lately said, in effect, that for many years he has been kept so busy with the old modes of force that he has had little time for the new ones. Possible Uses of Telekinesis If an electric eel were to make himself disagreeable to a tadpole, the tadpole would probably not gain from the ex- perience a very definite idea of the mode of force which moves the Morse recording instrument, the telephone, the trolley-car, the electric autos on land and water and in air, and the " wireless." The boys of whom I was one, who saw the playing with the same force in the Yale laboratory in the early sixties, had practically little more idea of its later uses than the tadpole would have ; and indeed Galvani, Volta, and Ampere could not have had much more realization than we boys had, of the possibilities lurking in the novel phenomena which attracted their attention. The new modes of force we have been considering may have possibilities even more revolutionary than those of gal- vanism and electricity. It seems not unreasonable to presume that so far as the occurrences grouped, perhaps unwarrantably, under the name of telekinesis, surpass in interest the picking 166 Molecular Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I up of paper by glass or amber rubbed with silk, or even the modest laboratory performances which were all that was known of electricity fifty years ago, that far at least will zoomagnetism eventually expand our reactions with the uni- verse beyond the expansion given to them by electricity. We may, even at the risk of " the dignity of letters," amuse ourselves with a few of the possibilities : young couples could place the furniture in their new flats independently of the servant problem; the mountains might not be made to come to Mahomet, instead of Mahomet's being obliged to go to them, but many smaller things could be brought, even perhaps through obstacles that are now as impermeable by matter as we once supposed them to be by light and electricity ; non-swimmers could (as we shall learn (?) in the next chap- ter) levitate themselves above water, though perhaps it would be too bold a flight to imagine those going down to the sea in ships lifting themselves and their ships over the shoals or off from the rocks, though persons threatened by runaway horses, automobiles, or trolleys, or railroad trains could simply levi- tate themselves over the dangerous objects, if indeed there should be need of encountering such objects : for levitation might make most human transits, if they were no longer than the limits imposed by food supply and digestive power, aerial instead of terrestrial, though it is not yet time to sell out aeroplane stock at a loss ; we might not, for lack of matches, have to go smokeless with tobacco in our pockets, or fireless with fuel on hand, though the indications of the new force being mutable into heat are as yet scant: the evidence re- garding its power, or some kindred power, to resist heat is, however, more positive, as we shall soon see. If that power becomes developed at the outset of conflagrations, a man could render himself to some extent immune against injury by fire, often long enough to escape danger, and perhaps could even be his own fire extinguisher. As to light, in an unanticipated and often dangerous darkness, the human sys- tem could supply its own. These suggestions are of course as much jokes as prophecies, but what would have seemed forty years ago, suggestions of the electric light, the trolley-car, the telephone, and wireless telegraphy? CHAPTER XI MOLAR TELEPSYCHIC TELEKINESIS THOUGH I have tried to restrict myself to physical matters, we have already found them inevitably tangled up with psychic ones. In fact I doubt if we know of one independ- ently of the other if their separation is anything more than one of the provisional mental processes which we have so often found classification to be. And yet until the recent strong indications that the incompressibility of matter is, like its visibility and other sense impressions, but vibration, the gulf between mind and matter was largely regarded as impassable; but now it is very doubtful if the mind can really make a coherent conception of any such impassable gulf. Nevertheless from some points of view it seems im- passable, and I have already spoken of it as such, and flatly guessed the other way. Here on the vague borderland of knowledge we get as badly mixed up as if we were philosophers; but then we acknowledge it. And though the borderland moves outward, those who enter it at any stage, always must get mixed up. Some of them have made all the discoveries, nevertheless. An impassable gulf between the physical and the psychical had long been regarded as necessary to the possibility of an immortal soul in a mortal body. It was held that without that impassable gulf, the body must drag down the soul with the body's death. It does not seem to have entered into any- body's mind that the vibrations constituting body might in time even take on the qualities of soul, unless indeed there was some such guess symbolized in the doctrine of the resur- rection of the body. On re-reading the foregoing sentence after some months, I find it, like many sentences more nearly famous, rather deficient in clear meaning. Yet in these gropings we must constantly encounter vague impres- sions, and it may be well to let some of them stand in the 167 168 Molar Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pi I hope that here and there may be one which in time will turn out a clue to something. The telekinetic force we have been considering has a pecu- liarity that, so far as I know, was never until about the middle of the last century, generally associated with the mani- festation of any recognized mode of force. We have been accustomed to intelligent reactions from human beings, some- times through inanimate things obviously regulated by them ; but through telekinesis we are getting intelligent reactions from inanimate things without the intelligence behind them being clearly understood. At first, the common inference was of course that the things were moved by " spirits," but many of the best investigators incline to the opinion that the intelligence regulating the movements was the intelligence initiating them that the medium, perhaps involuntarily, makes the intelligent re- actions. That may be true, but anybody who knows anything about it (which but few people have taken the trouble to) knows at least that if the only intelligence concerned is that of the medium, the intelligence does not always act through the muscles, or even the will. Perhaps it is well to say before beginning on these things, that I have no settled opinion regarding the source of this ostensible intelligence. So far, my opinion has inclined much more strongly to a " rationalistic " than toward a " spiritistic " interpretation. I don't think much of that pair of words, however : for I don't see why " spiritualism " is inevitably not rational, though it has not yet been proved so, to my satisfaction at least. Yet fairness compels me to admit that I begin with a bias. For reasons that I cannot tell in evidential detail, though I will later give an idea of their general nature, I believe, as far as I believe anything im- perfectly verified, that the soul survives the body; and there- fore I must of course consider telekinetic phenomena indicat- ing intelligence, under the bias of that belief. I can say, however, that so far, I do not regard them as demonstrating the belief, or even strongly supporting it. Amid the tangled phenomena of telekinetics, we have al- ready met some hints of intelligent manifestations. We will Ch. XI] Intelligence shown through " Table-tipping " 169 now proceed directly to them. We shall have occasion to go over much of the ground we have been over before, though with new crops on it Intelligent " Table-tipping," etc. First as to some molar phenomena : P *s music-stand, it will be remembered, tilted in answer to questions, and I attributed it to P 's unconsciously releasing the telekinetic force to answer his own questions. Let us now return to the Davis children. From Professor Alexander's account of those interesting young persons, part of which was given on pages 103 and 147, I purposely with- held some passages, in order that I might present them here to illustrate the manifestation of ostensible answering con- sciousness. He says that the table's " sudden emphatic movements . . . often meant, according to the usual ' yes ' or ' no ' signals [Usually one rap for No and three for Yes. H.H.] approval or disapproval of assertions made in the conversation. It would have been interesting to note whether the table represented the views of the mediums. Elsewhere he says (Pr. VII, 176) : " On one occasion, a light three-footed table was inverted ; and my hands, with those of Mr. Davis, Mrs. Davis, and the two girls, were lightly placed on each of the feet. Care was taken to see that no one did more than just touch the feet of the table ; and, under these conditions, it sprang rapidly from the floor into the lap of one of the sitters, and thence to the floor again, repeating this manoeuvre for each of us in turn. In the Thursday evening seances it was common for the table to place itself in the necessary position on our sitting down to it, either immediately before or after our hands had been placed on its surface." Here the table followed the natural inclinations of the sitters. Again the same apparent effect (Ibid., p. 177) : " A favorite dog . . . was seated on a chair I jokingly chal- lenged the invisible influence so to move the chair that the dog might be obliged to jump down. Nothing happened for a minute or so, when the dog left the chair apparently of its 170 Molar Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt, I own accord. Two or three seconds elapsed after it had sprung to the ground; and then the chair tilted before us all. In the same way a child's swing, hanging in a nook of the room, was at my desire subjected to a slight but very visible oscillation." This, too, was all in Professor Alexander's mind. From Moses's Researches in Spiritualism. Quoted in Pr. IX, 260-2 : " Motion without contact, directed by evident intelligence, is seen markedly in the following instance: I was calling on a friend, and the conversation fell on the phenomena of Spirit- ualism. A sitting was proposed, and nothing, or almost nothing, occurred. We were quite alone in the room, which was well lighted. We drew back from the table, intending to give up the attempt. My friend asked why nothing occurred. The table, untouched by us, rose and gently touched my tHroat and chest three times. I was suffering from severe bronchial symptoms, and was altogether below par. After this no rap or movement could be elicited, and we were fain to accept the explanation of our want of success." Moses was not up to the work, and himself knew that the source of his incapacity was in his bronchial tubes. The table presumably echoed him. In Chapter VIII it is stated that small objects from differ- ent parts of the house were " generally thrown on the table " when Moses and some friends sat. The original farther states that " such of them, however, as would easily break, were placed ?uietly, and our attention was drawn to them by a request or light." This apparently means that the seance was, as very usual, in a partly darkened room, that the objects thrown on the table themselves made noise enough to attract attention, but that when the more breakable objects were brought, the raps made the signal calling for the alphabet, and on its being given spelt out : " Light/' Thus far there is nothing not easily accounted for by the agency (presumably invol- untary) of the mediums. The Davis children, granted the force under their control, could have unconsciously made the table express their approval or disapproval. As one un- consciously nods or shakes one's head, so a very simple de- Ch. XI] /* Reflex from the Medium Sufficient? 171 sire, with hardly an intellectual element, could have brought their light table into the laps of the sitters or in a position for the circle. Similarly there need not have been more than a very simple reflex of their desire to have Professor Alexander's wishes carried out in the table tilting after the dog left it, or the swaying of the swing which he asked for. So too with sundry tables reported as keeping time to music, or with almost any response made by the table to a question or desire naturally entertained by the medium. But as we pursue our way, it seems gradually to go outside of these possible reflexes from the medium. In the account of Sir William Crookes' bell on page 153 the original says that before the bell was heard, the table spelt out : " We are going to bring something to show our power." Apparently there was no consciousness in the medium of what was coming. The same is true of Stainton Moses's big stone. The original account states that its appearance was preceded by a table message : " We have brought stone. Wait." On the face of it, these communications have much less than the preceding ones, the appearance of being reflexes from the medium. Tables have ascribed their motions to all sorts of angels and devils apparently expressing the conceptions in the mind of the medium of the force. Dr. Salveton's table (as reported in the Annals of Psychical Science, January-March, 1910) said that it was moved by "a devil named Dormon," who agreed to show himself. When asked why he did not come, the table said : " Candles." They were put out. Still he did not appear, and the table when asked the reason, said : " Gas," referring to a light in the hall which came in through the transom. This was put out. Regarding the rest of the experience, Salveton says: " We were all excited in the extreme, but the nervous state of Barthelemy G., C., and particularly that of Gabriel D., seemed to me to be abnormal I ... put a further preliminary question to the table Is there any danger in Dormon coming? Yes. What danger? Insanity. For all? No. For one only? Yes. Which one ? D Gabriel D., who had been thus named, was in a highly-strung condition, and cried out : 'I don't care. 172 Molar Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I No matter. We must go on to the end. I want to see what will happen.' " I learned later that Eugene B. had formerly had a lunatic in his family, who was a great ' table-turner,' and who asserted that these unusual movements were the work of the devil Dor- mon, and that he had often seen this devil, who had the appearance of a tall, beardless young man of corpse-like pallor and draped in a shroud." This of course points to the involuntary exercise on the table of human force, either muscular or psycho-kinetic. " I asked the table to tell Dormon " [the " devil "] " it was ill-mannered of him not to be willing to show himself without doing injury to one of us, that well-bred people did not act thus; that, in these circumstances, he had only to remain where he was, etc. Without allowing me to finish my diatribe, the table said to me, ' M ! ' as in the story of Cambronne at Waterloo, and, suddenly, with a noise comparable to that of a hard blow of a mallet on a big drum of extraordinary sono- rousness, the window was opened wide, the curtains not being moved at all; the heavy copper candlestick and the box of matches placed on the top of the trunk were thrown to the ground, and the wick of the candle was half-extinguished by touching the floor The table . . . began to turn, sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another, at such a rate that we could not follow it and the top slipped from under our fingers. Then it began to dance a kind of waltz, and by degrees got nearer to the trunk, in front of which, on the floor, there was still the overturned box with the matches scattered about. When it reached the trunk the table raised its feet, one after the other, and let them fall with a rubbing motion, twice in each direction. After a moment I noticed that each time the feet of the table fell the head of a match exploded. I called out to my comrades to press with all their might upon the table so as to stop its movement; despite the combined weight of seven of us leaning on the table, not merely with the tips of our fingers, but with our open palms, we were not able to stop it. Then, calling out to all of them to let go, and not to touch it, I took hold of the center support of the table, turned it over in the air, and put it down with the flat top downwards on the floor and placed both my feet on it so that it was unable to move. . . . Only the heads of the matches trodden on by the table had been rubbed and bruised, without a single exception. . . . None of the matches had been touched by the feet of the table anywhere but on the head." This is about the only account of " pure devilishness " Ch. XI] Dr. Salveton's Talk 173 that I have met with. One of the sitters was in a highly strung condition, and had just been threatened with in- sanity. In support of the hypothesis that the table echoes the medium, Dr. Salveton says: "I have never observed any instance in which a sensible answer was obtained which was absolutely unknown to all the experimenters without exception. I have, on the con- trary, only observed instances of replies known, supposed, or foreseen in advance, before being formulated by the table, by one of the experimenters, most frequently by the director of the experiment, sometimes also by another who appeared to play only a subordinate part. " It was not long before we observed : "1. That the sooner the table began to tremble after the chain of hands had been formed around the top, the more successful was the experiment, and the more easily and ac- curately the replies were given. In other words, the stronger and clearer the force, whether it was the sitters' force moving the table as an echo to themselves, or was independent of them. " 2. That the replies through the table were always very correct when they were previously known to one or other of those joining hands in the circle. " 3. That the replies were always confused or absurd when the table was asked things unknown to all present. " We formed the habit of leaving to the table itself the choice of the experimenter who was to put the question, a choice which it signified by leaning towards him. " Every time that the choice fell upon me I noticed that the reply that the table would make to each question came into my mind before the table gave the answer, and that every time that I did not clearly foresee the reply, the table either did not answer or did not do so in an intelligible manner. " On several occasions we asked the table the ages of some persons present (unknown to the questioner), the number of coins an experimenter had in his purse, the number of matches remaining in a partly emptied box, . . . and, for the most part, [Italics mine. H.H.] the table replied correctly." I suspect that the part where the table did not reply correctly was where (as probably in the case of the matches and the coins) nobody knew the fact that the case was, in one point, like that of the magician with my matchbox given on page 280. 174 Molar Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I I have yet to meet my first case of a superusual report of a fact not known to any human intelligence. Yet Salveton tells of the table, in answer to an inquiry for an unknown murderer, spelling out the name, occupation, and address. The name, occupation, and address were found in the Paris directory, but more than ten years having elapsed since the crime, it was too late for any proceedings. But in this case, a number of persons knew the name, occupation, and address, and if they really were connected with the murderer, that fact was known to at least the murderer himself. Yet despite all this, Dr. Salveton says : " A table has spelt out facts not known to any person pres- ent, but known to others. Its replies, however, were reported ' always very correct when they were previously known to one or other of those joining hands in the circle ' and ' always confused or absurd when the table was asked things unknown to all present.' " I hold it to be established, though not fully demonstrated, that the motive force of the table is quite unconnected with any diabolical or supernatural intervention, and that this force is connected with the scientifically studied phenomena of hypnotism and catalepsy; by the formation of a circle of hands by the experimenters, for a longer or shorter period, this force seems to be discharged from their persons, just as electricity is discharged from several cells coupled up to form a battery, and by the application of this force the table can be made to execute movements dictated by the will of all or one unknown to themselves, or vaguely perceived by one of them only, by a sort of collective, but very feeble, hypnotism." The first cases I gave showed that no " cells coupled " are necessary. Here is a more composite case from Bartlett (op. cit., p. 117). It anticipates what will be told later of Foster's reading from folded slips, and getting visions of the per- sonalities to whom the names belonged. From a Washington paper, name and date not given. Mr. Bartlett, though plainly sincere, had not a historian's care in his documentation. He tells me that every newspaper account in his book which was cut out by him, is properly attributed and dated, but that he used some clippings which were sent him by others without the desirable memoranda, Ch. XI] Foster's Rocking-Chair. Barrett's Amateur 175 and, especially in the confusion of travel, marking those often escaped him. "When the folded slip was placed on the table, three raps indicated that the spirit corresponding to the name was present. ' Yes,' said Mr. Foster, ' it is little . She is your cousin, who loved you very dearly, and is very glad you came here. She points to that rocking-chair in the corner, behind me, and says she will go and sit in it. If she can, she will make it rock.' " At this point we of course looked at the chair, but so many other ' signs and wonders ' crowded upon us that in a moment we had forgotten all about it, when suddenly the lad looked up in amazement, and pointed to the distant rocking- chair, which surely enough was rocking away vigorously. When the fact was noticed and acknowledged, raps came in all parts of the room, and the sofa jumped out of place once more, as if in confirmation of our acknowledgment." Apparently the following is a strong case for the medium being the source of the intelligence, and not some other mind behind the manifestations. In Pr. IV, 34, Professor Barrett gives an account of a seance with a lady (amateur) in Dublin, which, although interesting for the usual physical manifesta- tions, I quote mainly for the sake of its conclusion. The phenomena began with the usual raps, " like the ticking of a hard point on the oilcloth which covered the floor of the room In obedience to my request, the table raised the two legs nearest to me completely off the ground, some 8 or 10 inches, and thus suspended itself for a few moments. Again a similar act was performed on the other side. Next came a very unexpected occurrence. Whilst absolutely free from the contact of every person the table wriggled itself backward and forward, advancing towards the arm-chair in which I sat, and ultimately completely imprisoning me in my seat. ... It was followed by Mr. L. and Miss I., but they were at no time touching it "Addressing the table, I now asked if knocks could be given without the contact of the hand Three knocks quickly came. The hands of both Mr. L. and Miss I. were now held up, and whilst they partially withdrew from the table, the knocks still came, not so vigorously, but still there they were. This went on for some minutes, till they ceased to be heard. A refresher was then given in the shape of a few moments' contact with the hands. Once more the knocks returned, and continued some time after the hands were 176 Molar Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pi I removed." [Various ' refreshers ' of the force will be met with as we proceed. H. H.] " There was always a remarkable intelligence and often a jocosity about the sounds, and when a tune was played on the piano the raps kept time to it. Suddenly, only the tips of our fingers being on the table, the heavy loo table at which we were sitting made a series of very violent prancing movements (which I could not imitate afterwards except by using both hands and all my strength) ; the blows were so heavy that I hurriedly stopped the performance, fearing for the safety of the gas chandelier in the room below. " It is true the character of the pious platitudes spelt out by the table were just such as the medium herself (a Methodist) would be likely to concoct." Sir William Crookes says (Researches, p. 95) : "During a seance with Mr. Home, a small lath, which I have before mentioned, moved across the table to me, in the light, and delivered a message to me by tapping my hand; I repeating the alphabet, and the lath tapping me at the right letters. The other end of the lath was resting on the table some distance from Mr. Home's hands. " The taps were so sharp and clear, and the lath was evi- dently so well under control of the invisible power which was governing its movements, that I said, ' Can the intelligence governing the motion of this lath change the character of the movements, and give me a telegraphic message through the Morse alphabet by taps on my hand ? ' (I have every reason to believe that the Morse code was quite unknown to any other person present, and it was only imperfectly known to me.) Immediately I said this, the character of the taps changed, and the message was continued in the way I had requested. The letters were given too rapidly for me to do more than catch a word here and there, and consequently I lost the message; but I heard sufficient to convince me that there was a good Morse operator at the other end of the line, wher- ever that might be." I don't see the impossibility of " the good Morse operator at the other end of the line" being Sir William himself, as were plainly Professor Barrett's Dublin Methodist lady, and hundreds of others, including the father of the Davis children, in a part of Professor Alexander's report. From Crookes's Researches, p. 94 : "A 'good failure often teaches more than the most success- ful experiment.' It took place in the light, in my own room, with only a few private friends and Mr. Home present. Sev- Ch. XI] Pencil and Lath. Influence Covers Miles 177 eral circumstances . . . had shown that the power that even- ing was strong. I therefore expressed a wish to witness the actual production of a written message such as I had heard described a short time before by a friend. Immediately an alphabetic communication was made as follows: 'We will try.' A pencil and some sheets of paper had been lying on the center of the table; presently the pencil rose up on its point, and after advancing by hesitating jerks to the paper fell down. It then rose and again fell. A third time it tried, but with no better result. After three unsuccessful attempts, a small wooden lath, which was lying near upon the table, slid towards the pencil, and rose a few inches from the table; the pencil rose again, and propping itself against the lath, the two together made an effort to mark the paper. It fell, and then a joint effort was again made. After a third trial the lath gave it up and moved back to its place, the pencil lay as it fell across the paper, and an alphabetic message told us : ' We have tried to do as you asked, but our power is exhausted.' " M. Edmond Duchatel narrates in The Annals of Psychical Science, January-March, 1910, that he and a " psychometrist " seated at a table, got it to rap out a message from a friend three kilometres away whom he had asked to concentrate his attention on the topic at the hour appointed for the sitting, and that he got not only the message, but that he and his companion both got a pain in the shoulder from which, un- known to them, the absent friend was suffering. While the two persons were at the table, the distant third person went to sleep (an experience almost unknown to him in day-time) and was sleepy for hours after the seance closed. He lost the pain in the shoulder when it was conveyed to the sitters. It seems as obvious as anything in these foggy regions can be, that the message came to the " psychometrist's " sub- liminal consciousness (which will be explained later, see index) and was echoed back to him by the table. The case anticipates also our consideration of telepathy, but in the vast complexity of these phenomena, clear dis- entanglement and sequent arrangement are almost impossible. It may be handy to have a word for telepathic communica- tion with persons not present with the sitter a wider tele- pathy. Some of my Grecian friends suggest teloteropathy. But this is anticipating. Below are some of the occurrences and " messages " re- 178 Molar TelepsycMc Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I ported by Sir William Crookes to have taken place in the presence of Home. They gave to the manifestations of molar telekinesis a " spiritual " background. These are so generally associated that it is not practicable to give a considerable idea of telekinetic phenomena without bringing in the alleged spiritual element. Most of this, perhaps all, exhibited in connection with telekinesis, I am inclined, as in my friend P 's case, to attribute to the volition, often unconscious, of the operator. (Pr. VI, 102) : " Answers were given by raps and notes on the accordion. The alphabet being called for by five raps, the following message was spelled out : ' It is a glorious truth. It was the solace of my earth-life and the triumph over the change called death. Robert Chambers.' " (Ib. 107) : " Mr. Home then took the accordion in his right hand in the usual manner, and placing his left on the table it was held both by Miss Douglas and Mrs. Wm. Crookes. The light was then put out, and the following message was spelt : "'The Four Seasons. _ Winter first.' Spring The Birth of the Flowers.' ' Birds in Summer.' " The above messages were given whilst the piece was being played. It would be impossible to give any idea of the beauty of the music, or its expressive character. During the part typifying summer, we bad a beautiful accompaniment, the chirping and singing of the birds being heard along with the accordion. During autumn " [Which the spirits seem to have forgotten in the foregoing enumeration.] " we had ' The Last Rose of Summer' played. " Home said that the spirit playing was a stranger to him. It was a high and very powerful one, and was a female who had died young. "Mrs. Wm. Crookes said: 'Is it my cousin M ? It has flashed into my mind that it is she.' " Answer by raps : ' Yes.' " (Ib. 114) : " We soon had the message : ' We find we have no more power.' The meeting then broke up." On another occasion: " Mr. Home then took it in his hand, where it played, and delivered the following message by chords " [Presumably at the mention of letters of the alphabet. H. H.] " in the usual way: " ' Our joy and thankfulness to have been allowed to make our presence manifest. We thank you for your patience and we thank God for His love.' " Ch. XI] TeleUnetic Shell Carving? 179 (Ib. 119) : " We then saw the accordion expand and con- tract, and heard a tune played. Mrs. Win. Crookes and Mr. Home saw a light on the lower part of the accordion, where the keys were, and we then heard and saw the keys clicked and depressed one after the other fairly and deliberately, as if to show us that the power doing it, although invisible (or nearly so) to us, had full control over the instrument." The following is probably the most incredible case of intelligent molar telekinesis on record. In puzzling over it, one may properly ask: If the telekinetic power can move objects without contact, move them with discrimination and force or delicacy, where is the limit to what it can do with them? The case suggests that the field may be at least as broad as human faculty. According to all we have gathered before regarding the power, I, for one, don't know whether to believe in the following alleged manifestation or not. Where is one to draw the line ? The account at least indicates a direction in which to keep one's eyes open, but unlike most of what I quote from Moses, it rests on his unsupported testimony. From Stainton Moses' memorandum book (Pr. XI, 61-2) : "August 27th, 1875 Some time since a cameo was cut during a seance at Douglas House Last night the experiment was repeated under rery satisfactory circumstances A long message was rapped out by Catharine [A frequent " control " of Moses. A control is an alleged spirit producing phenomena, including communications of any kind, through a medium. II.II. j. She said they had brought a shell, and were going to cut a cameo; that I was in trance 'for the night,' and that I was to be left alone till morning, and not to be told of what was done. A light was struck, and Dr. and Mrs. S. saw a shell in the middle of the table. I was in deep trance Then Mentor came and Imperator. [Two other controls whom I believe we have met before, and shall often meet later. H.H.] After he left, light was called for, and in the center of the table was a cameo and a quantity of debris of shell. Noises had been heard as of picking, and I saw a hand. The shell is more clearly cut than the first, and shows a head, laurel-crowned. It is polished inside, and shows plain marks of the graving tool. The seance lasted about an hour. " From Mr. Moses' letter to Mrs. Speer August 1st, 1875 : " Mentor was the cunning workman who fashioned the cameo. He is not content with his work, which he says was bad, and that he can do much better. He actually carved it, 180 Molar TelepsycUc Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I he says. And I see no reason to doubt it, seeing that I can find no limit to spirit-power. If they are allowed to work in their own way they can do almost anything. It is only when we compel them to work in lines prescribed by us that they find any difficulty." I have deliberately transposed the chronological order of these passages, because the one now first opens the subject better. Assuming the authenticity of the story, it is not very easy to fasten the performance on Moses's involuntary self. The power that disintegrated the particles of shell presumably came from him, an agent apparently being always required, and the most remarkable feats being performed while the agent is in trance, as Moses was on this occasion. But that he supplied the direction of the power the artistic capacity is not an hypothesis so easy to adopt: for I have met no other intimation that he had any capacity in the representa- tive arts. The case leaves less room for the medium and more for the alleged control, than any other alleged tele- psychic telekinesis I can recall. And here at last we are face to face with the spiritistic hypothesis, and with the only choice as yet apparent, between accepting it or leaving the judgment in suspense an art in which apparently we shall have much practice as we pro- ceed. This astounding story is very properly " the limit " of our attention to molar telekinetic displays of intelligence. CHAPTER XII MOLECULAR TELEP8YCHIC TELEKINESIS So far as the tangled phenomena have permitted classifica- tion, we have now had illustrations of telekinetic phenomena under the heads of the unconscious molar (Chapters VIII, IX), the unconscious molecular (Chapter X), and the con- scious molar (Chapter XI). Let us proceed to the conscious molecular, though so intermixed are the phenomena and the accounts of them that I have already partly anticipated that division, and question my wisdom in having attempted any division at all. Intelligent Sounds First, the changes in furniture, etc., which produce " raps " expressing intelligence. To begin again with the most prob- able, or least improbable, manifestations those through the young and innocent Professor Alexander says of the Davis children (Pr. VII, 177): " From the first outbreak of the phenomena raps were the principal means used for announcing the supposed spirit pres- ence. They came on the floor, on the table, and, more rarely, on the walls, in signals which from the beginning were sharply individualized for each separate influence, the same individu- ality maintaining its characteristics throughout the sittings. As before stated, they varied in loudness from hardly per- ceptible ticks up to resounding blows, such as might be struck by a large wooden mallet. In the quality of some of these sounds there were also marked and persistent distinctions. . . . This individuality of the raps was early forced upon our notice; and we learnt to recognize them when heard." (Ib. 179) : " The same blows came, but with even more intensity; and they were finally requested by Mrs. Davis from another room not to make so much noise, as they would wake the children who were sleeping in other parts of the house. The blows seemed to Mr. Davis to shake the whole building. " Mr. Davis tapped out the alphabet from A to Z and 181 182 Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I the numbers 1 to in Morse signals. At each letter given the same sound was exactly imitated, the raps coming again near the elder girl on the floor at the other end of the room. The imitation was, indeed, so perfect that Mr. Davis declared it was his own ' sending.' " Mr. Davis was an expert telegrapher, and it seems not improbable that through sympathies which often accompany zoomagnetic power, and which will be dealt with later, it really was, unconsciously, his own " sending," via the chil- dren, especially in view of tha following paragraph (Cf. Home's lath, in the last chapter) : " Nevertheless, no message was given in Morse signals, the reason affirmed being that, as the medium did not know tele- graphy, they could not use her for that purpose. Now, Mr. Davis was the only person present who knew anything at all about Morse signals. . . . One only mistake was made at the letter Q, which was, however, correctly given the second time. All the other letters were smartly reproduced without the slight- est hesitation. . . . Mr. X. found, when he tried alone, that, although he knew telegraphy well, he could not kick out the signals with his feet "I may say that, in spite of the many little proofs we had obtained of the genuineness of our phenomena, my attitude and that of Mr. Davis towards each repetition of the mani- festations was always one of watchful suspicion. Protests were often made by the influences at work; and it was affirmed that we hindered their action by our persistent doubts." This necessity for faith for freedom from " doubts " of course suggests necessity of a willingness to be gulled, and was generally so interpreted in the days when we were even more ignorant than we are now. The topic will be discussed more fully later. Eaps very generally come in answer to questions. In the account (see in Chapter X) of Foster's percussive lights, the original said, in place of the words I first put in brackets: " When a question was asked, and the answer was no, which was signified by one rap," and, in the other place " the answer was yes," and the account, as I gave it, was followed by : " We asked the raps to come as rapidly as possible, which was done, dozens of them racing one after another, with scarcely any intermission. Then we asked the raps to come deliberately, then slow, which was immediately complied with. Ch. XII] Baps Respond to Auditors Will 183 That night's experience satisfied me forerer that there were raps produced through an agency which has not yet been ex- plained satisfactorily." The raps produced in Mr. Armstrong's presence (page 146) are said in the original account, to have come on his " ex- pressing a wish," and he farther says: " I could at will cause these sounds to cease or reappear, one, two, three, or any number I demanded, and, stranger still, I could induce a succession of knocks of various degrees of intensity and so delivered as to ' knock out ' with wonderful accuracy any tune I asked for. I can now recall amongst many such the airs of ' Not for Joe,' and ' The Blue-bells of Scotland,' as especially well marked." Apparently this manifestation of nerve force is sometimes as involuntary as that in St. Vitus's dance, as illustrated in the following from the Autobiography of a Journalist, by W. J. Stillman, the well-known artist and author, who was for a long time our Consul in Crete (I, 189-90) : " We heard of a remarkable case in the circle of our own acquaintance which had been kept from public knowledge as far as possible by the aversion to publicity of the father of the subject, my brother's chief foreman. She was a girl of fourteen, of a timid and nervous organization, who had suf- fered great annoyance by the persistence of the rappings about her wherever she might be; at first in her bedroom, but finally to her great dismay in the class-rooms of the primary public school of New York, in which she held the position of assistant teacher The rappings caused such fright amongst the school children that she was menaced with dismissal if they did not cease. She implored the agency which was responsible for the sounds to leave her alone at school and do what seemed best to them at home, and the rappings did actually cease at school." An apparent instance of the well-known reactive effect of prayer on the organism. From Sir Wm. Crookes (Pr. VI, 121), after an account of a seance with Home: "Raps then said: 'We must go.' The raps then com- menced loudly all over the room and got fainter and fainter until they became inaudible." (Ib. 122): "Miss Douglas said: 'Dear spirits, how pleased you would have been had you lived to witness the progress Spiritualism is now making.' Immediately a mes- sage was given in reply : ' We are not dead ! ' 184 Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I "I felt touched strongly on the knee by something feeling like fingers. On putting my hand down a sheet of paper was put into it. I said: 'Is anything written on it?' 'Yes.' It being too dark to see what was written, I asked that it might be told me by raps, and on repeating the alphabet I got the following: ' Kctojdourdaniel.' On striking a light the fol- lowing was seen neatly written: <R. C. to J. D. Our Daniel.' " [Alluding to Home.] " Miss Douglas said the R. C. was Robert Chambers, whilst J. D. were the initials of her own name." In these almost incredible performances there were none of the " cabinets " and other paraphernalia used by Eusapia Palladino and many others, and Sir William Crookes ex- presses great confidence in Home's sincerity, and in the gen- uineness of the phenomena manifested through him. Bartlett says (op. di., 105) : "I remember one evening calling with Foster upon Mrs. S., who had recently moved into unfurnished apartments. Mrs. S. said . . . * Please give us some physical manifestations. My parlor is just the place, heavy blankets being over the windows, to keep out the glare of the sun. One small wooden table is the only furniture.'. . . ' No,' replied Mr. Foster, describing at the same time how unpleasant it was for him to sit in the dark. Mrs. S. persisted, 'Do, please, just this once.' Finally Mr. Foster consented under these conditions: the table was to be placed under the chandelier, we three should take hold of hands around the table, matches should be placed % on the table, Mrs. S. agreeing to light the gas the moment Mr. Foster so requested. We sat in silence a moment, when Mr. Foster said the spirit of M.," [Ada Isaacs Menken, Mr. Bart- lett gives me permission to state. H. H.] " whom we all had known in life, was there. Mr. Foster said that he saw the spirit perfectly, and that she said if we would keep quiet she would dance, and that the noise from the heels of her shoes on the bare floor would give the tone and the character of the dance. She did so. It was a success. Within a few moments Foster said, ' Light the gas.' He was dripping with perspira- tion, which showed his peculiar nervous condition during physical manifestations. . . . After a short rest, the medium re- cuperated, and we turned off the gas the second time M. immediately returned and finished the dance. Whenever I think of that night, I can distinctly hear the clitter-clatter of the spirit dancer's shoes." Of course if Foster had good control over raps and tick- ings, he could, voluntarily or involuntarily, give them the Ch. XII] Temperatures, Moses' Raps 185 rhythm of a dance. His doing so need not be deliberately fraudulent: he may have, as he said, visualized a dancer. Neither is it proved (a negative is hard to prove) that there was not one. Mr. Bartlett continues the same account: " Mr. Foster then said the spirits told him they would cool the room (it being a hot summer's night). Immediately waves of wind rushed through the room, so cool that it seemed as though they came direct from an iceberg." As already intimated, wind rushes and cooling of tempera- tures are frequently noticed in the accounts of these phenom- ena. They include some which eminent men of science declare they have felt from a hole in Eusapia Palladino's head. That seems about the simplest of her phenomena, with the least chance for the cheating with which she seems to like to eke out her real powers if she has any as I have no doubt she has. Here is a far different manifestation from Stainton Moses (Pr. IX, 290) : " The room, which had been filled (especially round me) with floating clouds of light, grew suddenly dark, and absolute stillness took the place of the previous loud knockings. It would have been a strange scene for an ear-witness. The table, isolated, with no human hand touching it, giving forth a series of mysterious thuds of varying intensity, some of which might have been made by a muffled sledge-hammer, all indicating intelligence; an intelligence that showed itself by deliberation, or eagerness, or stately solemnity, according to the nature of the communication. Round the table three persons sitting with a hush of expectation, and faces (if they could have been seen) of awe-stricken earnestness; a question put, and a loud response, another, and a series, as though by a counsel cross- examining a dumb witness. The room shrouded in total dark- ness, except at one end, where shifting masses of luminous vapor now and again gathered into a pillar which dimly out- lined a form, and again dispersed and flitted round the head of one of the sitters. No scene could be imagined more calcu- lated to strike a novice with awe, none more solemn and impressive for those who participated in it. The Witch of Endor was not more surprised when her unholy incantation evoked the shade of Samuel than I was when Imperator, in answer to my solemn adjuration, professed himself to be a departed spirit." 186 Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I Here is in detail some of the conversation alluded to above : " Question. Are these communications from spirits? An- swer. Yes. Q. Spirits of the departed? A. Yes. Q. Are you a spirit once incarnated? A. Yes Q. Is the account given of these manifestations by spirits true? A. I don't know. Q. Is what you tell us true? A. Yes (emphatically) Q. Did you write that message the other night? A. No. Q. Were you there when it was written? A. No. Q. You did not come because Dr. Speer offended you? A. Yes. (Dr. S. again apologized, and the apology was received with a series of stately raps, suggestive of bows.)" [A pretty strong indication of "the will to believe "! H. H.] " Q. Then your absence let in an evil or lying spirit ? A. Yes." [Again the mediaeval superstition! It was afterward denied by Moses's " spirit," see p. 542 (Newbold sitting). H. H.] "Q. Are we liable to that? A. Yes. Q. Then you do leave me? A. No. Q. Not usually, you mean? A. Yes. Q. Then we must be guarded and careful to sit with solemnity, and follow guidance? A. Yes. Q. You are good? A. Yes. Q. I solemnly charge and adjure you in the name of God that you tell the truth. Are you a good spirit, once incarnated in the flesh? A. Yes. (Three of the loudest knocks I ever heard. We all involuntarily drew in our breath, and a feeling of awe stole over us.)" We are now getting into very high society. This gentleman Imperator we will return to again. But some other matters had better be treated first, one of them being Sir William Crookes's conclusions regarding the significance of raps (Re- searches, p. 95) : "Whilst I have observed many circumstances which appear to show that the will and intelligence of the medium have much to do with the phenomena, I have observed some cir- cumstances which seem conclusively to point to the agency of an outside intelligence, not belonging to any human being in the room "I have been with Miss Fox when she has been writing a message automatically to one person present, whilst a message to another person on another subject was being given alpha- betically by means of ' raps,' and the whole time she was conversing freely with a third person on a subject totally different from either." As we shall see later, Mrs. Piper wrote as one person, and at the same time talked as another. Ch. XII] Mysterious Sounds and Voices 187 Other sounds than raps are alleged to have manifested intelligence. All sounds so manifesting are, like raps, re- peated at request, a definite number of times, loud or faint, and in different places; and by a prearranged code of signals, give messages, and answer questions with varying accuracy. Dr. Speer says of the musical sounds described on p. 148 (Pr. IX, 281) : " Certain evidences of intelligence having been ap- parent in the manifestations, we ascertained that the sounds were in truth evidences of the presence of individuals pur- porting to have long since departed from earth-life. The intel- ligence was manifested first by answers to questions, which were given in the same manner as the raps on a table, one, two, three, five, etc. The peculiarity of the answers was that the tone of the sounds corresponded in a most singular and convincing manner with the nature of the response. In other words, the passions of individuals, as exemplified on earth by tones of speech, were here illustrated by the peculiar type and tone of the musical sound." Under Sounds we may as well include the unaccountable " voices " of which accounts began to appear in manuscripts long before there was any printing. The reader will prob- ably not care for more than a single veridical case. Stillman gives a good one (op. cit., I, 200-1) : "I saw one day a hunter who had come into the woods with a motive in some degree like mine impatience of the restraints and burdens of civilization, and pure love of solitude. He had become, not bestialized, like most of the men I saw, but animalized he had drifted back into the condition of his dog, with his higher intellect inert. He had built himself a cabin in the depth of the woods, and there he lived in the most complete isolation from human society he could attain " He seemed to have no desire for companionship, but there was nothing morose or misanthropic in his love of seclusion. . . . He had heard of spiritism, and his own experience led him to acceptance of its reality. In his solitary life, in the unbroken silence which reigned around him, he heard mysteri- ous voices, and only the year before he had heard one say that he was wanted at home. He paid no attention to it, thinking it only an illusion, but, after an interval, it was repeated so distinctly that he packed his knapsack, took his dog, and went out with the intention of going home. On the way he met a messenger sent after him, who told him that his brother had met with an accident which disabled him from all work, and begged him to come to his assistance. The voice had come 188 Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I to him at the time of the accident. As a rule, however, the voices seemed vagarious and he attached no importance to them, except as phenomena which interested him slightly." Stillman also " heard voices " in the silence of the woods, as many imaginative people do, but has not stated that any of them were veridical. Intelligent Lights As raps and other sounds have communicated intelligence from somewhere perhaps merely reflecting it from the me- dium, so have lights. Intelligence was manifested by Foster's lights, on pages 150 and 182. Sir William Crookes says (Researches, p. 91) : "I have had questions answered by the flashing of a bright light a desired number of times in front of my face I have had an alphabetic communication given by luminous flashes occurring before me in the air, whilst my hand was moving about amongst them. I have seen a luminous cloud floating upwards to a picture. Under the strictest test con- ditions, I have more than once had a solid, self-luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to any person in the room. In the light I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady; and on some occa- sions I have seen a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about." Here were intimations of materializations. Such are gen- erally associated with light. Moses says (Pr. IX, 275-6) : " Since the commencement of the present year we have had another kind of light altogether. ... It flashes with great rapid- ity, and answers questions by the usual code of signals. The light usually hovers over my head, sometimes coming into the circle, but more frequently floating in a distant corner of the room. It is not apparently solid, nor does it seem to be sur- rounded with drapery." Dr. Speer says (Pr. IX, 297) : " December 31st, 1872 A column of light about seven feet high was seen to move round the room, and about two feet to the right of the column was a large glowing mass of light Ch. XII] The Speers on Moses 189 During the time Imperator was entrancing the medium, and conversing with us through him, we saw a large bright cross of light behind the medium's head, rays surrounding it; after this it culminated into a beautiful line of light of great bril- liancy, reaching several feet high and moving from side to side. Behind this column of light on the floor was a bright cluster of lights in oblong shape. These remained for more than half- an-hour, and upon asking Imperator the meaning of the lights, he said the pillar of light was himself; the bright light behind him his attendant; and the numerous lights seen in the room belonged to the band. The light around the medium's head showed his great spiritual power. He also said in time we might see him; might do so now were our spiritual vision clearer." And here we are at last landed in the jumble of sounds, lights, trances, materializations, alleged spiritual communica- tions which, in addition to molar telekinetic phenomena, raps, and Heaven knows what else, for a dozen years or more, seem to have constituted the daily experience of Stain- ton Moses and those near to him. So far I have tried to keep the threads distinct, but they have now become too complicated. Moses' phenomena are so well summed up in a letter from Mr. Charlton Speer that, at the expense of some repetition, I give it virtually entire (Pr. IX, 344-9) : "My Dear Mr. Myers, You have asked for some of my personal recollections of seances with Mr. Stainton Moses, at which I was present. ... It is important to note that at these seances no less than ten different kinds of manifestations took place with more or less frequency. On occasions when we had fewer varieties we were usually told that the conditions were not good. When they were favorable the manifestations were more numerous, the raps more distinct, the lights brighter, and the musical sounds clearer. The various occurrences may be briefly enumerated as follows: " 1. Great variety of raps, often given simultaneously, and ranging in force from the rapping of a finger-nail to the tread of a foot sufficiently heavy to shake the room. " 2. Raps which answered questions coherently and with the greatest distinctness; also gave messages, sometimes of con- siderable length, through the medium of the alphabet. At these times all the raps ceased except the one identified with the communicating spirit, and perfect quiet prevailed until the message was delivered. We could nearly always tell at once with which spirit we were talking, owing to the perfectly dis- tinct individuality of each different rap. 190 ' Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I "3. Lights were of two different kinds objective and sub- jective Dr. Speer and myself being of entirely unmedium- istic temperaments, we were only able to see the objective lights, but Mr. Stainton Moses, Mrs. Speer, and other occa- sional sitters frequently saw and described those which were merely subjective. Another curious point in relation to the objective lights was that, however brightly they might shine, they never unlike an ordinary lamp threw any radiance around them or illuminated the smallest portion of the sur- rounding darkness when it was dark in the slightest degree. "4. Scents of various descriptions were always brought to the circle the most common being musk, verbena, new-mown hay, and one unfamiliar odor which we were told was called spirit-scent. Sometimes breezes heavy with perfume swept round the circle, at other times quantities of liquid musk, &c., would be poured on the hands of the sitters and, by request, on our handkerchiefs. At the close of a seance scent was often found to be oozing out of the medium's head, and the more it was wiped away, the stronger and more plentiful it became. " 5. The musical sounds, which were many and of great variety Having myself had a thorough musical education, I was able to estimate, at its true value, the importance of these particular manifestations The musical sounds pro- duced in the room in which there was no instrument, . . . were about four in number. First, there were what we called the ' fairy bells.' These resembled the tones produced by strik- ing musical glasses with a small hammer. ... It was difficult to judge where the sound of these 'fairy bells' came from, but I often applied my ear to the top of the table, and the music seemed to be somehow in the wood not underneath it; as on listening under the table, the music would appear to be above. Next we had quite a different sound that of a stringed instrument more nearly akin to a violoncello than. anything else It ... might perhaps be produced by placing a 'cello on the top of a drum The third sound was an exact imitation of an ordinary hand-bell, which would be rung sharply by way of indicating the presence of the particular spirit with whom it was associated. We naturally took care to ascertain that there was no bell of any kind in the room Lastly, we had a sound that it is exceedingly difficult to offer an adequate description of. The best idea of it I can give is to ask you to imagine the soft tone of a clarionet gradually increasing in intensity until it rivaled the sound of a trumpet, then by de- grees diminishing to the original subdued note of the clarionet, until it eventually died away in a long-drawn-out melancholy wail. This sound was ascribed to ' Odorifer.'. . . Like the two previous sounds I have described, it was always associated with one spirit. " It is a noteworthy fact that in no case did the controlling Ch, XII] Mr. Cliarlton Speer on Moses 191 agencies produce more than single notes, or at best isolated passages. This they accounted for as owing to the peculiarly unmusical organization of the medium. . . . Over and over again I thoroughly satisfied myself that there were no materials in the room which could in any way assist in making any kind of musical tones, and the clarionet and trumpet sound was one that I should be utterly at a loss to imitate in any way. " 6. Direct writing was often given, sometimes on a sheet of paper placed in the centre of the table and equidistant from all the sitters; at other times one of us would place our hands on a piece of paper previously dated and initialed, and usually a message was found written upon it at the conclusion of the stance. We always placed a pencil upon the paper, but some- times we only provided a small piece of lead, the results being the same in both cases. " 7. Movements of heavy bodies, such as tables and chairs, were by no means infrequent The dining-table ... at which we usually sat was an extremely weighty one, and was made from solid Honduras mahogany, but at times it was moved with much greater ease than the combined efforts of all the sitters could accomplish and these combined efforts were power- less to prevent its moving in a certain direction, if the unseen force willed it to do so. "8. The passage of matter through matter was sometimes strikingly demonstrated by the bringing from other rooms of various articles through closed and bolted doors. " 9. The direct spirit voice, as opposed to the voice of a spirit speaking through the medium while in a state of trance, we very seldom heard, and never with any clearness or dis- tinctness. But occasionally it was attempted, and by listening carefully we could distinguish one or two broken sentences which were hissed out in a sort of husky whisper. " 10. The inspirational addresses given by various spirits . . . though the voice proceeded from the medium it was always immediately apparent that the personality addressing us was not that of the medium. The voice was different, and the ideas were not always in accordance with those held at the time by the medium Although many spirits exercised this power of control, the voice which spoke was always different and in the case of those spirits which controlled regularly, we got to know perfectly well which intelligence was com- municating by the tone of voice and the method of enunciation. " Suddenly the medium Mr. Stainton Moses, who was sitting exactly opposite me, exclaimed, ' There is a very bright column of light behind you.' Soon afterwards he said that the column of light had developed into a spirit-form. I asked him if the face was familiar to him, and he replied in the negative, at the same time describing the head and features. When the seance was concluded I examined my sheet of paper, 192 Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I which my hand had never left, and found written on it a mes- sage and signature. The name was that of a distinguished musician. ... I purposely refrain from specifying him, as the use of great names very frequently leads to results quite differ- ent from those intended I asked Mr. Stainton Moses with- out, of course, showing him the written message whether he thought he could recognize the spirit he saw behind my chair if he saw a portrait of him. He said he thought he could, so I gave him several albums containing likenesses of friends, dead and alive, and also portraits of various celebrities. I remained in another part of the room, and did not watch him, nor even knew when he was looking at the right album. On coming to the photograph of the composer in question, he at once said without hesitation, ' That is the face of the spirit I saw behind you.' Then for the first time I showed him the message and signature. (Signed) " CHARLTON T. SPEER." November 5th, 1893. " Ashley Villa, Ventnor, "October 80th, 1893. "I wish to state that I am a daughter of Mrs. Stanhope Speer, and was present at many of the seances recorded in Light by my mother, and, further, that the facts therein stated are in my recollection, and are true, and that the phenomena actually took place. " CONSTANCE ROSALIE SPEER." I cannot see that it will do any harm at this late day, to state that, somewhere that I cannot trace, I have got the suggestion that the portrait was of Mendelssohn. There is a circumstance connected with this letter worth noting. Paragraph 5 regarding the musical sounds is en- tirely at variance with what Moses himself wrote in his note-book over nineteen years before, on September 3 and 4, 1874 (Pr. XI, 54) : " The musical sounds have reached seven " 1. Grocyn The sounds are very pure, and express feeling most wonderfully. They are most like a thick harp string. " 2. Chom makes the sound of an old Egyptian harp with four strings. There is little similarity to a stringed sound. " 3. Said makes a noise somewhat similar to Chom's, but the lyre has only three strings. It is an old Egyptian instrument, and the sound is like dropping water on a steel plate, a sort of liquid sound, very intense. I am told it is very like the sound of a harmonium reed. "4. Roophal makes a sound of a seven-stringed lyre, yery pretty rippling sound, but the strings do not seem to me to be arranged in harmonial progression. Ch. XII] Moses' Telekinetic Orchestra 193 " 5. Kabbila makes a sound like a drum, very deep, a sort of prolonged roll. " 6. makes a sound like the ringing of fine porcelain, only that the ring is very much more pronounced. This is a very intense sound. " 7. The Welsh Harper makes a sound as of the highest strings of a harp, sharp and ringing. " In addition there is a sound of a tambourine and a sort of flapping sound like large wings. These can scarcely be called musical in any sense, though they are but exaggerations of others in some way. The modus operandi is similar." These names were spelled out to Moses or his companions, the notes answering at significant letters when the alphabet was repeated. And what a lovely lot of names they are 1 If Koophal had only been accompanied by Damphool, they would have been perfect, and what an orchestra to accompany Imperator and his entourage! But in face of the claim generally made by "spirits," as will be more particularly indicated later, that they begin receding from the possibilities of earthly communication im- mediately after death, and are out of its reach altogether in a period somewhere stated at about six years, why should the vast majority of the gentlemen above named proceed from regions so remote in space and time back to the very infancy of music, when Europe has been supplying any number of potentially musical ghosts during the last cen- tury when the art has been at its best? There is not a single point of resemblance between the accounts, unless Moses' "ringing of fine porcelain" (Why "fine"?) has some resemblance to Speer's bells. Dr. Speer was a musician and Moses was not. Did they sound so amazingly different to the two men? Did Speer never hear, or in the nineteen years did he forget, the sounds Moses reported; or did Moses never hear those Speer reported, or did they come later in Moses' career, or did Moses imagine the whole thing, including his beautiful names? He does not speak of them as a single experience, but they "have reached seven." Yet despite all this mix-up, there seems no room to doubt there are too many other witnesses that there were a variety of frequent superusual sounds, with in- dications of intelligence behind them. Yet I confess myself 194: Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. 1 more nonplussed about the whole Moses matter than about even Home's fire performances: the testimony is so much better and fuller regarding the latter. Eegaj-ding the Moses phenomena, the Council of the S. P. E. expressed itself as follows (Pr. IX, 353) : " On the question whether the improbability of deception is greater or less than the improbability that the events actually occurred as recorded, the members of the Council individually entertain diverse views, and they do not feel called upon to express any opinion collectively. "If the human powers we are familiar with can produce such phenomena as those that took place in the presence of Moses, the methods certainly open new and important fields of investigation, even if less new and less important than would be opened by new powers." As I have said more than once, the time for the fraud hypothesis in any respectably vouched-for phenomena, is past. To my mind the strongest argument in favor of the honesty of the experiences whether they were objective, or co-operative hypnotic dreams, is in the portraits of Moses (after death) and of the three Speers Doctor, Mrs., and Mr. Charlton, their son, given in Pr. IX. I was tempted to reproduce them here for that argument's sake, but they by themselves would be out of proportion with the rest of the book. Moses' face, taken after death, gives an impression of strength and dignity which renders such weaknesses as fraud absurd. The eyes being closed, impressions of sin- cerity do not directly enter into the conditions; but if ever any three portraits meant honesty, those of the Speers do, and, in the portraits of the elders especially, very much in- telligence and everything that goes to make up goodness are liberally manifested. Often, as my mind dwells upon it, I come up to the im- pression that Moses imagined it all, as I think he imagined the Imperator group and his various musicians (though not the noises), and then I am brought up standing by the tes- timony of these good people, and so the only hypotheses open to my mind regarding Moses, and Home too, are three : I. That many wise and good people lied, and lied con- Ch. XII] Hypotheses regarding Moses 195 currently; and that Dr. and Mrs. Speer encouraged their son to lie. This I reject. It is less probable than even II. That there were numerous illusions dreams, what you please, possibly under the influence of hypnotism, so far identical with from a couple to half a dozen of these people, and at many times, that wherever several of the people give accounts of any one experience there is no material difference except in the nineteen-year-interval testimony over phenomena so uncertain as the quality of musical tones. This hypothesis, while I consider it more probable than the first, I consider less probable than III. That the events actually occurred in the normal ex- perience of the witnesses, though possibly the meaning of "normal" needs some sort of widening of which we have not yet any clear inkling. Now all I have said is that those three hypotheses are all that are open to my mind. Perhaps that is not strictly cor- rect : for in any doubtful case, no matter how many hypothe- ses in the usual sense are " open," there is always the chance that the correct one still lurks hidden behind. I have said that I think III the most likely one open. That is not saying that I accept it. Regarding the telekinesis of P and the psychoses of Foster, and of Mrs. Piper as will be shown later, to a certain extent I know, and anything farther not inconsistent with what I know, I am inclined to believe. Regarding Home and Moses and the other mediums, I directly know nothing, and my readiness to believe of course depends upon the concurrence of the testi- mony with that regarding mediums I do know. Regarding those I have not met, this gives me, so far, basis for little more than a suspended judgment, always qualified, however, by the fact that I know so many things not yet correlated with what everybody knows, and I recognize so fully that the field of possible knowledge is so immense beside the field of yet-recognized knowledge, that I am more ready than most people to accept alleged new phenomena as actually from the field of possible knowledge. The intelligence conveyed by the raps, sounds, and lights which we have so far dealt with by merely telekinetic means irrespective of impersonation or other utterance, vol- 196 Molecular Telepsychic Telekinesis [Bk. II, Pt. I untary or in trance, through the organism of a medium, does not seem to have amounted to much with anybody but Stain- ton Moses, and the answer to the question whether it did with him will be largely a matter of personal predilection. He thought it amounted to a great deal. We shall meet more about it later. The methodistical inspirations of Professor Barrett's friend, even the pious expressions through Home, and some through Moses, do not seem to tend much to edification, at least my edification ; in fact, almost all that has been received through raps and lights relates to the mere business of the manifes- tations, and despite an occasional bit of apparent independ- ence, like the " We are not dead " on page 183, there is very little difficulty in making it out an echo of the medium if one is disposed to. Whatever the messages (?) through telekinetic phenomena, they are so much surpassed by those through telepathy and " possession," that it seems hardly worth while to linger over the telekinetic ones. But before leaving this region of lights and sounds and phantasmagoric effects, presumably the reader who has so far followed "this strange eventful history" may care to know in a word how, after all, it impresses me. The raps and apparently the electric manifestations attending them and some molar telekinetic phenomena are so closely allied with plain telekinesis and the probable involuntary agency of the medium, that I believe in their genuineness. But the rest impresses me like a dream as if half a dozen people, more or less, had occasionally dreamed the same things. This impres- sion may hardly seem worth putting down again, with the conspicuousness of a chapter ending, as a final impression; but perhaps as we go on, it may prove to be. BOOK II PART II AUTOKINESIS CHAPTER XIII THE manifestations we have already seen of the modes of force grouped, perhaps too freely, under the name Telekinesis, have all been from the human body upon objects external to it. Not only the molar movement, but the mysterious changes of temperature, the sounds, lights, alleged materiali- zations, the alleged passing of matter through matter, have taken place only when a " medium " was present, and appar- ently in consequence of an energy manifested through him. We now approach a series of new phenomena even less cor- related with established knowledge, which are alleged to take place in the body itself. As usual, we approach the group through a phenomenon that might almost equally well be included in the group we are leaving. I refer to the alleged levitation of the human body by a force which apparently is generated in the body itself. I at first grouped this phenomenon with those of molar telekinesis, but as the object acted upon is not external to the body, I finally decided to place it with the new group, along with the resistance of the body to heat, and the pro- duction of stigmata and blisters under the influence of sug- gestion. The healing power of suggestion might probably be justly included also. The evidence for some of the alleged resistance to heat, and for the stigmata and blisters seems conclusive; that for levi- tation is not as strong, but certainly is too strong to be ignored. This new group has not yet, so far as I know, been even pro- 197 198 Autolcinesis [Bk. II, Pt. II vided with a name, in fact I don't know that the phenomena have yet been grouped at all, and do not feel sure that I am warranted in grouping them. Of course I do so tentatively. For that matter all classification is tentative, and with the process of knowledge is pretty sure to be upset, and names to go with it. As we must have a Greek name to command any respect, perhaps autokinesis will serve for the moment, and last at least as long as the book will. But I sometimes wish we could string out names from our own roots, as do the good Germans, even if we seemed to model them as they appear to, on their dachs- hunds. Levitation When I first read of levitation, in Home's case, I was tempted to give up farther attention to him and all his ways : it was too much like a man lifting himself by his bootstraps. A bird rises as a man walks, by transmuting molecular force into mechanical force moving a mechanical apparatus against a resisting medium. The same is true of perhaps all use made by men of known molecular forces except magnetism, and even the magnet could not lift itself without the aid of a " keeper " placed above it. But there does not seem to be any theoretical impossibility of the generation, perhaps from gravity itself, of a force counter to gravity, somewhat as negative magnetism is counter to positive. And this sentence is hardly written before along comes Mr. Farrows' alleged discovery that (so far as I can understand it, from the only account I have been able to see), he can directly concentrate the Hertzian waves upon a body with the result of counteract- ing the effect of gravitation. If then, the waves of zoomagnet- ism are convertible into Hertzian waves, " there you are ! " I want to caution the reader who may be skeptical regard- ing any one class of these phenomena, against applying here, on the very far borderland of knowledge, the doctrine " falsus in uno falsus in omnibus" with the same confidence that he would apply it in familiar fields. People who get in the way of seeing and recording strange things are very apt, without any bad intentions, gradually to get into the way of seeing and recording too many. Their doing so, however, Ch. XIII] Levitation, Moses 199 does not invalidate the genuine ones they gather in with the rest; but it does throw upon the reader the difficult task of discriminating, and in many situations, of keeping his mind shut and at the same time quite ready to open. But the evidence for levitation is at least worth reading, especially as it does not all relate to but one person. Yet there are probably not over half a dozen of whom it has been alleged in modern times. I can find space for only our old friends. Stainton Moses says (Pr. IX, 260) : " My first personal experience of levitation was about five months after my introduction to Spiritualism. Physical phe- nomena of a very powerful description had been developed with great rapidity One day (August 30th, 1872) ... I felt my chair drawn back from the table and turned into the corner near which I sat. It was so placed that my face was turned away from the circle to the angle made by the two walls. In this position the chair was raised from the floor to a distance of, I should judge, twelve or fourteen inches. My feet touched the top of the skirting-board, which would be about twelve inches in height. The chair remained suspended for a few moments." So far this is only the ordinary levitation of furniture the chair, which could have been done by ordinary telekinesis, with Moses on top of it; but he continues: " And I then felt myself going from it, higher and higher, with a very slow and easy movement 1 remember a slight difficulty in breathing, and a sensation of fullness in the chest, with a general feeling of being lighter than the atmosphere. I was lowered down quite gently, and placed in the chair, which had settled in its old position " This experiment was more or less successfully repeated on nine other occasions. On the 2d September, 1872, I see from my records that I was three times raised on to the table, and twice levitated in the corner of the room. The first move- ment on to the table was very sudden a sort of instantaneous jerk. I was conscious of nothing until I found myself on the table my chair being unmoved In the second attempt I was placed on the table in a standing posture. In this case I was conscious of the withdrawal of my chair and of being raised to the level of the table, and then of being impelled forward so as to stand upon it In the third case I was thrown on to the table, and from that position on to an adjacent sofa. The move- 200 Autokinesis [Bk. II, Pt. II ment was instantaneous, as in the first recorded case; and though I was thrown to a considerable distance and with con- siderable force, I was in no way hurt " These phenomena of levitation have presented themselves on a few other occasions 1 have discouraged them as much as possible, from a dislike to violent physical manifesta- tions. I have little power to prevent a special kind of mani- festation, and none whatever to evoke any that I may desire; but I do, as far as I can, prevent the very uncomfortable phenomena which at this period were so strongly developed." On December 3rd, Dr. and Mrs. Speer both sign a note (Pr. IX, 289) : "Mr. M. was moved about and floated twice." We can conceive a force in the body counteracting gravita- tion, but it is not so easy to see how a force impelling the body as the rush of heat drives the rocket, should pervade the chair or table too. Assuming the phenomena to be gen- uine, is it the same force impelling both, or is there one force raising the body and another making the chair or table stick to it? In the fog of our present knowledge, all guesses appear absurd. Sir William Crookes says (op. cit., p. 89) : " This levitation of human beings has occurred in my pres- ence on four occasions in darkness. The test conditions under which they took place were quite satisfactory, so far as the judgment was concerned; but ocular demonstration of such a fact is so necessary to disturb our pre-fonned opinions as to ' the naturally possible and impossible,' that I will here only mention cases in which the deductions of reason were confirmed by the sense of sight. " On one occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady sitting on it, rise several inches from the ground. On another occa- sion, to avoid the suspicion of this being in some way performed by herself, the lady knelt on the chair in such a manner that its four feet were visible to us. It then rose about three inches, remained suspended for about ten seconds, and then slowly descended. At another time two children, on separate occasions, rose from the floor with their chairs, in full daylight, under (to me) most satisfactory conditions: for I was kneeling and keeping close watch upon the feet of the chair, and observing that no one might touch them." Sir William does not tell us who were the agents in these Ch. XIII] Levitation, Home 201 cases. If the persons themselves were not, the cases, like the beginning of Moses' case on page 101, were hardly levitations of human beings at all, in the usual sense, but merely of chairs on which human beings were sitting. But there is a staggering number of vastly more improbable cases where persons are alleged to have levitated themselves. Sir William continues : " The most striking cases of levitation which I have wit- nessed have been with Mr. Home. On three separate occasions have I seen him raised completely from the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy-chair, once kneeling on his chair," [These two cases are like the preceding two levitations of furniture. H. H.] " and once standing up. On each occasion I had full opportunity of watching the occurrence as it was taking place. " There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home's rising from the ground, in the presence of as many separate persons, and I have heard from the lips of the three witnesses to the most striking occurrence of this kind the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, and Captain C. Wynne their own most minute accounts of what took place. To reject the recorded evidence on this subject is to reject all human testimony whatever; for no fact in sacred or profane history is supported by a stronger array of proofs." In Pr. VI, 126, Sir William says of Home : " He asked Mrs. Wm. Crookes to remove the chair from under him, as it was not supporting him. He was then seen to be sitting in the air, supported by nothing visible. (P. 119) " Mr. Home then walked to the open space in the room between Mrs. I.'s chair and the sideboard and stood there quite upright and quiet. He then said : ' I 'm rising, I 'm rising,' when we all saw him rise from the ground slowly to a height of about six inches, remain there for about ten seconds, and then slowly descend. From my position I could not see his feet, but I distinctly saw his head, projected against the oppo- site wall, rise up, and Mr. Wm. Crookes, who was sitting near where Mr. Home was, said that his feet were in the air. There was no stool or other thing near which could have aided him. Moreover, the movement was a smooth, continuous glide up- wards " Sir William Crookes' notes (in Pr. VI) also give other illustrations of levitation, both of the human body and in- animate objects. There is also the oft-quoted account of Home's being floated out-of-doors through one window and 202 Autokinesis [Bk. II, Ft. II back through another. Various hypotheses, none of them satisfactory, have been proposed to account for these phenom- ena on the theory of deception. Here is a case regarding Foster which was reported before the storm of modern criticism. It is from Ashburner, quoted by Bartlett (op. tit., p. 110) : " In my dunker-Kammer, a room the Baron von Reichenbach had taught me how to darken properly for experiments Suddenly a great alarm seized Mr. Foster; he grasped my right hand, and beseeched me not to quit my hold of him, for he said there was no knowledge where the spirits might convey him. I held his hand, and he was floated in the air towards the ceiling. At one time, Mrs. W. C. felt a substance on her head, and, putting up her hands, discovered a pair of boots above her head." Resistance to Heat The following cases seem to illustrate a mode of force counteracting the effects of heat. They would probably not seem worth quoting, to a reader in whose belief telekinesis was not firmly established. But that being granted, this form of autokinesis no longer seems impossible, though don't ask me if I believe in it : for I should answer : I don't know. Several travelers give mutually confirmatory accounts of the Fire-walk in Japan and Fiji. Mrs. Joseph Lindon Smith (wife of the well-known Boston artist, and daughter of the well-known New York publisher Mr. George Haven Putnam) gives me permission to state that she successfully went through it in Japan. How to account for what my friend tells me, I don't know. The late Andrew Lang had an interesting paper on the subject in Pr. XV, 2-15 from which the following extracts are made: " Science is acquainted with no substance alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like which will produce the result of preventing cauterization." [This is contradicted below by Mr. Lang himself, at least as concerns sensation. H. H.] " Sir William Crookes, at least, is not familiar with any such resources of science. His evidence as to fire-handling by D. D. Home is familiar, and I understand that Mr. Podmore can only explain it away by a hypothesis of a trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove or some such trans- Ch. XIII] Resistance to Heat. Fire-Walking in Fiji 203 parent dodge (Studies in Psychical Research, pp. 58-59). Per- haps be adds a little ' hallucination ' on the part of the spectators. But asbestos and hallucination are out of the question in the cases which I am about to quote. Home was, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when he performed with fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bernadette, was also in religious contemplation when she permitted the flame of a candle to play through her clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed quarter of an hour. Some Indian devotees, again, aver that they ' meditate ' on some divine being while passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares of Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in a more or less abnormal mental condition. But even this condition is absent in the well-attested Raiatean and Fijian examples," [Not to speak of Mrs. Smith, as above. H. H.] " in which, also, no kind of chemical preparation is employed. Finally, where savages are concerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt upon. But, first, the sole of a boot would be scorched in the circumstances, while their feet are not affected; next, the savages' feet were not leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers) ; thirdly, one of the Europeans who walked through the fire at Rarotonga declares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender. Thus every known physical or conjectured psychical condition of immunity fails to meet the case, and we are left wholly without an ascertained, or a good conjectural, ' reason why ' for the phenomena " Mr. Lang cites (Pr. XV, 4) : Te Umu-ti, or Fire-Walking Ceremony (From the Journal of the Polynesian Society) "In this Journal, Vol. II, p. 105, Miss Teuira Henry describes this ceremony as practised in Raiatea, of the Society Group. We have lately received from Colonel Gudgeon the following account of his experiences Since the date of the paper quoted, it has come to light that the Maoris of New Zealand were equally acquainted with this ceremony, which was performed by their ancestors. On reading Colonel Gudgeon's account to some old chiefs of the Urewera tribe, they expressed no surprise, and said that their ancestors could also perform the ceremony, though it has long gone out of practice. Editors." Colonel Gudgeon says: " The tohunga (priest) and his tauira (pupil) walked each to the oven, and then halting, the prophet spoke a few words, and then struck the edge of the oven with the ti" [A native Draccena. H. H.] " branches. This was three times repeated, 204 AutoUnesis [Bk. II, Pi II and then they walked slowly and deliberately over the two fathoms of hot stones. When this was done, the tohunga came to us, and his disciple handed his ti branch to Mr. Goodwin, at whose place the ceremony came off, and they went through the ceremony. Then the tohunga said to Mr. Goodwin, ' I hand my mana (power) over to you ; lead your friends across. Now, there were four Europeans Dr. W. Craig, Dr. George Craig, Mr. Goodwin, and myself and I can only say that we stepped out boldly. I got across unscathed, and only one of the party was badly burned; and he, it is said, was spoken to, but, like Lot's wife, looked behind him a thing against all rules. . . . A man must have mana to do it; if he has not, it will be too late when he is on the hot stone. . . . Quite half-an-hour afterwards someone remarked to the priest that the stones would not be hot enough to cook the ti. His only answer was to throw his green branch on the oven, and in a quarter of a minute it was blazing. As I have eaten a fair share of the ti cooked in the oven, I am in a position to say that it was hot enough to cook it well "I did not walk quickly across the oven, but with delibera- tion, because I feared that I should tread on a sharp point of the stones and fall All I really felt when the task was accomplished was a tingling sensation not unlike slight elec- tric shocks on the soles of my feet, and this continued for seven hours or more. The really funny thing is that, though the stones were hot enough an hour afterwards to burn up green branches of the ti, the very tender skin of my feet was not even hardened by the fire." Mr. Lang comments (Pr. XV, 5) : " On this report a few remarks may be offered. (1) No preparation of any chemical, herbal, or other sort was applied to the Europeans, at least. (2) ' The handing over the mono ' (or power) was practised by Home, sometimes successfully (it is alleged), as when Mr. S. C. Hall's scalp and white locks were unharmed by a red-hot coal; sometimes unsuccessfully. A clergyman of my acquaintance still bears the blister caused when he accepted a red-hot coal from the hand of Home, as he informs me by letter. (3) The ' walk ' was shorter than seems common : only twelve feet, four paces. (4) A friend of Colonel Gudgeon's was badly burnt, and the reason assigned was a good folk-lore reason, since the days of Lot's wife, of Theoc- ritus, and of Virgil: he looked behind. (5) The feeling as if of ' slight electric shocks ' is worthy of notice. (6) Colonel Gudgeon clearly believes that a man without mana had better not try, and by mono, here, he probably means 'nerve,' as we can hardly suppose, in spite of Home, that mana, in a super- normal sense, can be ' handed over ' by one man to another." Ch. XIII] Fire-Walking in Fiji 205 From an account of the Fiji Fire Ceremony. By Dr. T. M. Hocken, F.L.S. (Pr. XV, 6) : " A number of almost nude Fijians walk quickly and un- harmed across . . . the pavement of a huge native oven termed ' lovo ' in which shortly afterwards are cooked the succulent, sugary roots and pith of the Cordyline terminalis, one of the cabbage trees, known to the Maoris as the ' /// and to the Fijians as the ' masawe.' This wonderful power of fire- walking is now not only very rarely exercised, but, at least as regards Fiji, is confined to a small clan or family They steadily descended the oven slope in single file, and walked, as I think, leisurely, but as others of our party think, quickly, across and around the stones, leaving the oven at the point of entrance. The leader, who was longest in the oven, was a second or two under half a minute therein 1 gained permission to examine one or two of the fire-walkers prior to their descent into the oven. . . . The pulse was unaffected, and the skin, legs, and feet were free from any apparent ap- plication. I assured myself of this by touch, smell, and taste, not hesitating to apply my tongue as a corroborative. The foot-soles were comparatively soft and flexible by no means leathery and insensible This careful examination was repeated immediately after egress from the oven, and with the same result. . . . No incantations or other religious ceremonial were observed. Though these were formerly prac- tised, they have gradually fallen into disuse since the intro- duction of Christianity " I am absolutely certain as to the truth of the facts and the bona fides of the actors. A feature is that, wherever this power is found, it is possessed by but a limited few. I was assured, too, that any person holding the hand of one of the fire- walkers could himself pass through the oven unharmed " Dr. Sementini of Naples found that frequent friction with sulphurous acid rendered him insensible to red-hot iron; a solution of alum did the same. A layer of powdered sugar covered with soap made his tongue insensible to heat. In these and similar instances, however, an explanation, though probably not a very sufficient one, has been given, but in that forming the subject of this paper no solution has been offered " My next case occurs among a civilized race, the Japanese, and is vouched for by Mr. Lafcadio Hearn . . . and by Colonel Andrew Haggard (The Field, May 20th, 1899, p. 724). Colonel Haggard saw the fire-walk done in Tokio, on April 9th, 1899 Ablutions in cold water were made by the performers, and Colonel Haggard was told by one young lady that she had not only done the fire-walk, but had been ' able to sit for a long time, in winter, immersed in ice-cold water, without feeling the cold in the least.' 206 Autokinesis [Bk. II, Pt. II "In a private letter, Dr. Schischmanof hints at extase religieuse, as in the self-mutilations of Dervishes and Fakirs. Their performances are extraordinary enough, but there was no religious ecstasy in the little Japanese boy of six, whom Colonel Haggard saw pass through the fire, none in Colonel Gudgeon, none in the Fijians observed by Dr. Hocken." [And none in Mrs. Smith. H. H.] Many other instances, ancient and modern, with reflections upon them, are given by Mr. Lang. He also discusses the subject in his book on Modern Mythology. I quote from Sir William Crookes (Pr. VI, 103f.). Note date, Wednesday, March 9, 1871 : " Mr. Home sank back in his chair with his eyes closed and remained still for a few minutes. He then rose up in a trance and made signs for his eyes to be blindfolded. This was done. He walked about the room in an undecided sort of manner, came up to each of the sitters and made some remark to them. He went to the candle on a side table (close to the large table) and passed his fingers backwards and forwards through the flame several times so slowly that they must have been severely burnt under ordinary circumstances. He then held his fingers up, smiled and nodded as if pleased, took up a fine cambric handkerchief belonging to Miss Douglas, folded it up on his right hand and went to the fire. Here he threw off the bandage from his eyes and by means of the tongs lifted a piece of red hot charcoal from the center and deposited it on the folded cambric; bringing it across the room, he told us to put out the candle which was on the table, knelt down close to Mrs. W. F. and spoke to her about it in a low voice. Occasionally he fanned the coal to a white heat with his breath. Coming a little further round the room, he spoke to Miss Douglas, saying: 'We shall have to burn a very small hole in the handkerchief. We have a reason for this which you do not see.' Presently he took the coal back to the fire and handed the handkerchief to Miss Douglas. A small hole about half an inch in diameter was burnt in the center, and there were two small points near it, but it was not even singed anywhere else. (I took the handkerchief away with me, and on testing it in my laboratory, found that it had not undergone the slightest chemical preparation which could have rendered it fireproof.) " Mr. Home again went to the fire and, after stirring the hot coal about with his hand, took out a red hot piece nearly as big as an orange and, putting it on his right hand, covered it over with his left hand so as to almost completely enclose it, and then blew into the small furnace thus extemporized until the lump of charcoal was nearly white-hot, and then Ch. XIII] Home and the Fire in the Grate 207 drew my attention to the lambent flame which was flickering over the coal and licking round his fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner, held up the coal in front and said : ' Is not Qod good ? Are not His laws won- derful?/ " Going again to the fire, he took out another hot coal with his hand and holding it up said to me : 'Is not that a beautiful large bit, William? We' [That is: the alleged spirits pos- sessing him. H. II.) ' want to bring that to you. Pay no attention at present.' The coal, however, was not brought. " At Mr. Home's request, whilst he was entranced, I went with him to the fireplace in the back drawing-room. He said: 1 We ' [The alleged " spirits." H. H.] ' want you to notice par- ticularly what Dan is doing.' Accordingly, I stood close to the fire and stooped down to it when he put his hands in. He very deliberately pulled the lumps of hot coal off, one at a time, with his right hand and touched one which was bright red. He then said : ' The power is not strong on Dan's hand, as we have been influencing the handkerchief most. It is more difficult to influence an inanimate body like that than living flesh, so, as the circumstances were favorable, we thought we would show you that we could prevent a red-hot coal from burning a handkerchief. We will collect more power on the handkerchief and repeat it before you. Now ! ' " Mr. Home then waved the handkerchief about in the air two or three times, held it up above his head, and then folded it up and laid it on his hand like a cushion : putting his other hand into the fire, took out a large lump of cinder red-hot at the lower part, and placed the red part on the handkerchief. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been in a blaze. In about half a minute he took it off the handkerchief with his hand, saying : ' As the power is not strong, if we leave the coal longer it will burn.' He then put it on his hand and brought it to the table in the front room, where all but myself had remained seated." There can be no reasonable doubt that Sir William Crookes saw what he says he did, though it was doubted for many years, and he suffered in consequence. It is probably not widely doubted now, and was not widely doubted when he received his knighthood. The only open questions in the present state of our knowledge are : did he see it in his sleep? was he hypnotized ? If he was, another witness was too ; for along comes Stainton Moses, and testifies to even less possible (if that is possible) things of the same kind. Probably his truthful intentions stand as high as Sir William Crookes'. 208 AutoUnesis [Bk. II, Ft. II His account is dated two years later than Sir William's (April 30, 1873), and refers to a different occasion (Pr. IX, 307): "By degrees Mr. Home's hands and arms began to twitch and move involuntarily. I should say that he has been partly paralyzed, drags one of his legs, moves with difficulty, stoops, and can endure very little physical exertion. As he passed into the trance state he drew power from the circle by extending his arms to them and mesmerizing himself. All these acts were involuntary. He gradually passed into the trance state, and rose from the table, erect, and a different man from what he was. He walked firmly, dashed out his arms and legs with great power, and passed round to Mr. Crookes. He mesmer- ized him, and appeared to draw power from him. He then went to the fireplace, removed the guard, and sat down on the hearth-rug. There he seemed to hold a conversation by signs with a spirit. He repeatedly bowed, and finally set to work to mesmerize his head again. He ruffled his bushy hair until it stood out like a mop, and then deliberately lay down and put his head in the bright wood fire. The hair was in the blaze, and must, under ordinary circumstances, have been singed off. His head was in the grate, and his neck on a level with the top bar. This was repeated several times. He also put his hand into the fire, smoothed away the wood and coal, and picked out a live coal, which he held in his hand for a few seconds, but replaced soon, saying the power was not suf- ficient. He tried to give a hot coal to Mr. Crookes, but was unable to do it. He then came to all of us to satisfy us that there was no smell of fire on his hair. There was absolutely none. ' The smell of fire had not passed on him.' In the trance state he passed about the room amongst the furniture without touching any. He moved the lamp to the mantelpiece. He spoke in a soft, subdued voice, called himself ' Dan/ and said he had a work to do in London. During the evening we never heard who the spirits were, but I was told that friends of mine were present. " [Mr. Crookes, to whom I (Myers) have shown this ac- count, comments as follows twenty years later:] " March 9th, 1893. "I have a distinct recollection of the seance here described, and can corroborate Mr. Stainton Moses' account. I was not well placed for seeing the first part of the ' fire test ' here recorded My back was to the fire, and I did not at first turn round to see what he was doing. Being told what was taking place, I looked and saw Home in the act of raising his head from the fire. Probably this was the last occasion of the ' several times ' it was repeated, as I have no recollection of seeing it more than once. On my expressing great disap- Ch. XIII] Home and Another Orate Fire 209 pointment at having missed this test, Mr. Home told me to leave my seat and come with him to the fire. He asked me if I should be afraid to take a live coal [ember] from his hand. I said, No, I would take it if he would give it to me. He then put his hand among the hot coals [embers], and deliberately picked out the brightest bit and held it in his hand for a few seconds. He appeared to deliberate for a time, and then returned it to the grate, saying the power was too weak, and he was afraid I might be hurt. During this time I was kneeling on the hearth-rug, and am unable to explain how it was he was not severely burnt " I do not believe in the possibility of the ordinary skin of the hand being so prepared as to enable hot coals to be han- dled with impunity. ... It is possible that the skin may be so hardened and thickened by such preparations that super- ficial charring might take place without the pain becoming great, but the surface of the skin would certainly suffer severely. After Home had recovered from the trance I examined his hand with care to see if there were any signs of burning or of previous preparation. I could detect no trace of injury to the skin, which was soft and delicate like a woman's. Neither were there signs of any preparation having been previously applied. " I have often seen conjurers and others handle red-hot coals and iron, but there were always palpable signs of burning. A negro was once brought to my laboratory who professed to be able to handle red-hot iron with impunity. I was asked to test his pretensions, and I did so carefully. There was no doubt he could touch and hold for a brief time red-hot iron without feeling much pain, and supposing his feet were as resisting as his hands, he could have triumphantly passed the ' red-hot plowshare ' ordeal. But the house was pervaded for hours after with the odor of roast negro." These two witnesses may have been hypnotized, but tes- timony from sundry other witnesses to these and other im- possible (?) performances of Home are given in Journal S. P. R. IV and IX. As to collective hypnotism, there are probably no eviden- tially good cases on record. The celebrated East India one of a generation ago is " good " enough, however, to repeat for the present generation. A fakir threw a rope up twenty or thirty feet into the air, the end still trailing on the ground. Then he climbed it, coiled a little at the top, and sat on the coil, and then, if I remember the yarn correctly, drew the rope up after him. After he had performed the feat sundry 210 AutoJcinesis [Bk. II, Pi II times in several places, it occurred to somebody to photograph him in his exalted position. The plate showed no fakir and no rope. The story was repeated in the press throughout the civilized world, but on investigation, there proved to be no more story than there was rope or fakir on the sensitized plate, or than there was sensitized plate. Before the investi- gation, however, the story was credited to collective hypno- tism. Elongation Before closing this department of the subject, perhaps I ought at least to allude to the alleged elongations of the bodies of Home and Morse and Herne. I allude to them because, to my mind, they tend to cast discredit on the other stories of Home, and, by implication, on all the rest of the marvels chronicled by the S. P. R. Therefore, in what professes to be a general sketch of all those alleged phenomena, it would not be fair to suppress the elongations. If I must hold an opinion, it would incline to ascribe them to hallucination on the part of the witnesses, as it does regarding Home's per- formances with hot coals, though I should not be surprised if the world were yet to come into possession of a mode of zob'magnetism resisting heat, if it has not one already illus- trated in the Fire-walk. With my impression regarding these alleged elongations, I do not feel that my duty calls for more space than a reference to the testimony from several witnesses, which is in Journal S. P. R., IV, 123-6; X, 104f. Stigmata and Blisters Now by the way of this resistance to what usually affects the body, we come to another direction of the body's energies. Whether the future will associate either of them with what we now call telekinesis or autokinesis is of course doubtful. But as I get the eels out of the pot, I keep those nearest alike as well together as I can. If you don't see the point of the metaphor, try to write a little on these subjects yourself. From the bleeding spots on hands and feet symbolizing the wounds made by the nails of the cross, asserted to have been found on St. Francis of Assisi and other religious enthusiasts, Ch. XIII] Mentally Induced Stigmata and Blisters 211 kindred phenomena run all the way down through the miracles of Lourdes, to sundry well attested recent phenomena, and branch off into hypnotic therapeutics, and Faith Cure and Christian Science. The scientific world paid little attention to these stories before the case of Louise Lateau, of Belgium, who in 1868 be- gan to exude blood from side, hands, feet, and forehead, every Friday. There was an element of religious ecstasy in the case. It is as well vouched for as most other phenomena prominent in medical history. Myers gives the particulars in Human Personality, I, 492. There, and also in the Journal (not Proceedings) S. P. R., Ill, 100 (where, as well as in the Proceedings, many of his chapters first appeared) he gives a dozen well authenticated cases somewhat resembling the Lateau case, variously due to ordinary hypnotic sugges- tion, religious ecstasy, and other forms of self-hypnotism or auto-suggestion. Before going into them, however, let us anticipate Foster's exhibition in Chapter XVIII. He is there said to have shown some names "in letters formed of the living blood at that moment coursing through the hand." It looks as if the phenomenon should be classed with Stigmata. But the following staggering statements from Bartlett (op. cit., p. 23) look as if it was not even voluntary. "It was in the early days of my acquaintance with Mr. Foster that a friend of mine, by the name of Adams, from Kvan.-villr. In.!., called upon me. As he was leaving, Mr. Foster told him that in all his experience he had never known one individual to bring so many spirits; that he should suppose the whole Adams family had appeared to him, the room being literally packed with them, coming and going. About two o'clock the next morning, Mr. Foster called to me (I was sleep- ing in the same room), saying: 'George, will you please light the gas? I cannot sleep. The room is still filled with the Adams family, and they seem to be writing their names all over me.' And to my astonishment, a list of names of the Adams family were displayed upon his body. I counted eleven distinct names: one was written across his forehead, others on his arms, and several on his back. It seemed to me then, and still seems to me, as being almost miraculous. I can simply term it unexplained, genuine phenomena, where trickery was impossible." 212 Autolcinesis [Bk. II, Pt. II Whether or not it was stigmata a real phenomenon of the strange involuntary self which also saw his visions, or whether it was a trick to make more interesting the exhibition of his real powers, why should he have played such a trick on Bartlett? You can produce the effects yourself by writing on your skin with a blunt instrument (I've seen it done with a match) and then rubbing the spot. Whether Foster did it that way, I doubt : for if so, sometimes he must have done it through his coat sleeve, which I cannot; and at times the writing showed gradually while the sitter looked at the apparently undisturbed skin. Mr. Bartlett says: " As soon as Mr. Foster and I read that explanation, we tried the experiment, but it was a failure If the number of names which appeared on his arm and hand in one week had been caused by scratching matches on his flesh, I think he would have been badly mutilated. I know of no explanation of this ' blood-red writing on the arm.' " Myers considers the general subject in Pr. VII, 336-9, whence I take the following: "Professor Beaunis and Dr. Krafft-Ebing have slowed the pulse by hypnotic suggestion; and these savants, as well as Professor Bernheim, M. Focachon, and others, have produced redness and blisters by the same means. Drs. Mabille, Kama- dier, Bourru, Burot, have produced localized hypersemia, epis- taxis " [nosebleed] , " ecchymosis " [a spot produced by extrav- asated blood under the skin]. "Dr. Forel and others have restored arrested secretions at a precisely fixed hour. Dr. Krafft-Ebing has produced a rise of temperature at moments fixed by himself, a rise, for instance, from 37 deg. to 38.5 deg. C. Burot has lowered the temperature of a hand as much as 10 deg. C. by suggestion. He supposes that the mechanism employed is the constriction of the brachial artery, beneath the biceps. ' How can it be,' he asks, ' that when one merely says to the subject, "your hand will become cold," the vaso- motor nervous system answers by constricting the artery to the degree necessary to achieve the result desired ? C'est ce qui depasse noire imagination.'" The following is an abstract of Dr. Levillain's account of an experiment performed by Professor Charcot before a large class at the Salpetriere : " On April 26th, 1890, a hysterical woman was deeply hypno- Ch. XIII] Mentally Induced Stigmata and Blisters 213 tized, and it was suggested to her that her right hand and wrist would swell and become cyanosed. After she was woke [sir\, this suggestion gradually realized itself, and in four days the right hand was in the condition of that of the patients who had had spontaneous attacks. There was a smooth surface, hardly any pitting on pressure, but much dull- blue mottled swelling (which had obliged her to discontinue wearing her rings), and anaesthesia. A bright red patch was produced by touch. . . . M. Charcot re-hypnotized the patient, and assured her that her hand was quite natural again, helping his suggestion with a little massage. After a quarter of an hour the anaesthesia, venous color, and swelling were gone. " The subliminal consciousness " [We will consider this ex- pression later. H. H.], " it will be seen, was able to turn out to order the most complicated novelty in the way of hysterical freaks of circulation. Let us turn to an equally marked dis- turbance of the inflammatory type, the production, namely, of suppurating blisters by the word of command. This phenome- non has a peculiar interest, since, from the accident of a strong emotional association with the idea of stigmata on hands and feet, this special organic effect has been anticipated by the introverted broodings of a line of mystics, from 8. Francis of Assisi to Louise Lateau. A strange confirmation of ancient legend! A singular testimony to the intensity of the medita- tions of that great saint who Nel crudo sasso intra Tevere ed arno Da Cristo prese 1' ultimo sigillo, Che le sue membra due anni portarno." "The following experiment was performed by Dr. J. Ry- balkin, in presence of his colleagues at the Hopital Marie, at St. Petersburg. Dr. Ry balk in had previously experimented in the same way with his subject. "The subject ... was hypnotized at 8.30 a. m., and told: 'When you awake, you will be cold; you will go and warm yourself at the stove, and you will burn your forearm on the line which I have traced out. This will hurt you; a redness will appear on your arm; it will swell; there will be blisters.' On being awakened, the patient obeyed the sugges- tion. He even uttered a cry of pain at the moment when he touched the door of the stove, which had not been lighted. " Some minutes later, a redness, without swelling, could be seen at the place indicated, and the patient complained of sharp pain on its being touched. A bandage was put on his arm, and he went to bed, under our eyes. " At the close of our visit, at 11.30, we observed a consider- able swelling, accompanied with redness and with a papulous erythema at the place of the burn. A mere touch anywhere 214 Autokinesis [Bk. II, Pt. II within four centimeters of the burn caused severe pain. The surgeon, Dr. Pratine, placed a bandage on the forearm, which extended up to the superior third of the arm. " When the dressing was removed at 10 next morning we saw at the place of the burn two blisters, one of the size of a nut and the other of a pea, and a number of small blisters. Around this tract the skin was red and sensitive. Before the experiment this region had been anesthetic. At 3 p. m. the blisters met in one large blister. ... In the evening the blister, which was full of a semi-transparent yellowish fluid, burst, and a scab formed on the raw skin. A week later ordinary sensibility returned to the scar, and after a fortnight there was only a red mark in the place of the bum." Here is a case more suggestive in many ways than those already given, from Myers (op. cit., I, 493) : " A girl of about eighteen, who complained to me one day of a pain through her chest 1 magnetized ... as usual, and told ... in a whisper : " * You will have a red cross appear on the upper part of your chest, only on every Friday. In the course of some time the words Sancta above the cross, and Crucis underneath it will appear also; at same time a little blood will come from the cross.' In my vest pocket I had a cross of rock crystal. I opened the top button of her dress and placed this cross on the upper part of the manubrium, a point she could not see unless by aid of a looking-glass, saying to her, ' This is the spot where the cross will appear.' This was on a Tuesday Next day Mrs. G. told me she had seen the girl now and again put her left wrist over the top part of her chest, over the dress; this was frequently repeated, as if she felt some tickling or slight irritation about the part, but not otherwise noticed; she seemed to carry her hand up now and then unconsciously. When Friday came I said, after breakfast, ' Come, let me magnetize you a little; you have not had a dose for several days.' She was always willing to be magnetized' as she always expressed herself as feeling very much rested and comfortable afterwards. In a few minutes she was in a deep sleep. I un- buttoned the top part of her dress, and there, to my complete and utter astonishment, was a pink cross, exactly over the place where I had put the one of crystal. It appeared every Friday, and was invisible on all other days. This was seen by Mr. and Mrs. G., and my old friend and colleague, Dr. B. . . . About six weeks after the cross first appeared I had occa- sion to take a trip to the Sandwich Islands. Before going I magnetized the girl, told her that the cross would keep on showing itself every Friday for about four months 1 also asked Dr. B. and Mr. G. to write me by every mail to Hono- Ch. XIII] Faith Cure. Christian Science 215 lulu, and tell me if the cross kept on appearing every Friday While I was on the Sandwich Islands I received two letters from Mr. G. and one from Dr. B. by three different mails, each telling that the cross kept on making its appearance as usual; blood had been noticed once, and also part of the letter S above the cross, nothing more. I returned in a little less than three months. The cross still made its appearance every Friday, and did so for about a month more, but getting paler and paler until it became invisible, as nearly as possible four months from the time I left for the Sandwich Islands "M. H. BIGGS, M. D." To this account Edmund Gurney adds in a note quoted by Myers (op. cit., I, 493) : " As to the first two of these cases [the one quoted above and another], it is possible to suppose that the hypnotic suggestion took effect indirectly, by causing the girls to rub a patch of the right shape. The suggestion may have been received as a command, and there would be nothing very surprising in a subject's automatically adopting the right means to fulfil a previous hypnotic command. And even the third case might be so accounted for, if the rubbing took place in sleep. At the same time, it would be rash, I think, absolutely to reject the hypothesis of the more direct effect." In the sources I have quoted there are hosts of cases as remarkable as those I have given. Faith Cure, Christian Science It would be superfluous to say much about these here: for abundant literature is accessible. The votaries have got hold of a truth, though many of them have got it by the tail. The facts have been obscured by the fancies. Yet through religious associations, some phases of truth can be got by many people who otherwise, outside of commonplaces, could not get any phases at all. This is true even of morality. Many a mind incapable of grasping the sanctions of Natural Law, not to speak of subordinating inclinations for the sake of conformity with it, will perform no end of feats, objective and subjec- tive, and make no end of sacrifices, in conformity with a sup- posed command from even a mythical law-giver. My allotment of space for the subject is not small because I consider its importance small, but, as already intimated, be- cause of the abundant discussion within everybody's reach. BOOK II PART III PSYCHOKINESIS CHAPTER XIV A RATHER small allotment of space for a " Part " is made here in the interest of classification. Perhaps the future may furnish more material for this division. Now assuming Telekinesis to be established, perhaps we are as nearly ready to consider what I shall call Psychokinesis as people were a generation ago to consider Telekinesis. To introduce it here is to anticipate the phenomena of mediumship, but, as I often have occasion to remark, all these phenomena are so tangled up that, in the present state of our knowledge, cross classifi- cation is often inevitable. We need a name, and I hope the one I suggest will do, for a mode of force of which we shall meet many indications here- after, and which Hodgson describes as follows. Although it is incidentally implied everywhere in the literature of medium- ship, the passage I quote is the only direct allusion to it which I know (Pr. XIII, 400) : " The statements of the ' communicators ' as to what occurs on the physical side may be put in brief general terms as follows. We all hare bodies composed of ' luminiferous ether ' inclosed in our flesh and blood bodies. The relation of Mrs. Piper's etherial body to the etherial world, in which the ' communicators ' claim to dwell, is such that a special store of peculiar energy is accumu- lated in connection with her organism, and this appears to them as ' a light. ' . . . Several ' communicators ' may be in contact with this light at the same time. There are two chief ' masses ' of it in her case, one in connection with the head, the other in connection with the right arm and hand. Latterly, that in connection with the hand has been ' brighter ' than that in connection with the head. If the ' communicator ' gets into contact with the ' light ' and thinks his thoughts, they tend to be reproduced by move- ments in Mrs. Piper's organism. Very few can produce vocal 216 Ch. XIV] Mediums Seem to Use a Mode of Force 217 effects, even when in contact with the ' light ' of the head, but practically all can produce writing movements when in contact with the ' light ' of the hand. Upon the amount and brightness of this * light,' ccfteris paribus, the communications depend. When Mrs. Piper is in ill-health, the ' light ' is feebler, and the communications tend to be less coherent. It also gets used up during a sitting, and when it gets dim there is a tendency to incoherence even in otherwise clear communicators. In all cases, coming into contacc with this ' light ' tends to produce bewilder- ment, and if the contact is continued too long, or the ' light ' becomes very dim, the consciousness of the communicator tends to lapse completely " But we have not the testimony of any living observer for the manifestation of this force as a " light," though we have abun- dant testimony of its manifestation and fluctuation, in the varying degrees of vigor in mediumistic phenomena. Naming it, however, is of course a somewhat tentative step. Hodgson farther says (Pr. XIII, 410) : " What it is that gets used up during the trance I do not definitely know, but that there is something that does get used up, that represents directly or indirectly some peculiar form of energy, that when this is abundant the communications are clearer, and that when, ceeteris paribus, it approaches exhaustion, the communications become obscure and even absolutely in- coherent, I have no doubt." BOOK II PART IV TELEPSYCHOSIS CHAPTEE XV INTRODUCTION OF course these new manifestations of force that we have just considered were generally attributed to " spirits," as (pardon the frequent repetition) have been all new mani- festations of force; but the indications seem to be that the inanimate objects have been moved, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily, in response to the more or less defi- nite volitions of the persons exercising the force that the manifestations were psychical only in so far as they concerned the psyche of the operator. We now come to a group of phenomena that have nothing to do with material objects external to the communicator, and are physical only as concerns the communicator's organs of expression. The medium receives impressions apparently from other in- telligences than his own, without the intervention of any organs of communication with which we are familiar. These impressions include facts that could have been communi- cated by word, and also visions, auditions, and other sen- sations. They have apparently been derived from the minds of persons present, persons distant, and ostensibly persons no longer in the body. And right here we are met by a strange fact : discrete as are telekinesis and telepsychosis, rare as are the persons manifesting either, yet generally, not always, a person mani- festing one, manifests the other. No hint of an explanation of the apparent connection between them has, so far as I know, yet appeared. All we can yet do is to trace the tele- 218 Ch. XV] Generally Known Instances of Telepathy 219 kinetic power from its molar manifestations up through significant raps, lights, etc., to where these disappear, and direct mental impressions take their places. Both classes of phenomena, telekinetic and telepsychic, were manifested by Foster, Home, and Moses, but only the tele- psychic set through several important mediums whom we shall consider later. It is hard to account for the skepticism regarding telepathy which prevailed till within a dozen years among investigators who had long been familiar with it between the hypnotist and his subject; and when the whole cultivated world knew it between the conductor and his orchestra. The following extract from the New York Evening Post of April 8, 1912, is worth quoting in the connection. An orchestra had been practising under an average conductor for a concert which Nikisch was to conduct. The writer says [italics mine] : " The men were tired, baring been rehearsing all the morning and given a concert in the afternoon. Yet at seven o'clock of the same day Nikisch assembled them for another rehearsal. They hoped he would make it short and easy. He started off with the fifth Tchaikovsky symphony. The rest may be related in the player's own words, as chronicled in the London Musical Times of February, 1905: " ' Before we had been playing fire minutes we were deeply interested, and, later, when we came to the big fortissimo, we not only played like fiends, but we quite forgot we were tired. For my own part, I simply boiled over with enthusiasm. I could have jumped up and shouted as a matter of fact, when we reached the end of the first movement, we all did rise from our seats and actually shouted because we could not help it. The weird part of it all was that we played this symphony through with scarcely a word of correction from Nikisch quite differently from our several previous performances of the same work. He simply looked at us, often scarcely moving his baton, and we played as those possessed. We made terrific crescendos, sudden commas before some great chord, though we had never done this before.'" In this connection I am tempted to venture a speculation which may be utterly valueless, but which may be found to link in with later knowledge. In the biography called Theodore Thomas (Chicago, 1905), II, 25, the great conductor says that in the Ride and the Fire-Music of The Walkiire there are passages which 220 Introduction [Bk. II, Pi IV no violinist alone can play up to time, but which a dozen good violinists playing together can. This I accounted for by reasons which, for the present at least, are vague, but are not without analogues and supports that as the interchange of ability and diffusion of intelligence appear to have no fixed limits, and as the intelligence of a dozen men cannot be identical, it would be possible for each telepathically to receive a capacity in addition to his own from others attempt- ing exactly identical things with himself. Certainly this is not the only case where each of several working together can do more than each can do separately. In the higher psychoses there are strong indications that twelve times one are not barely twelve, but nearer twelve times twelve. Instance the telepsychic powers of the dream state, as we shall consider them later. This is all very well, and I don't altogether despair of its being very true. Nevertheless Thomas says : " The intervals which one man drops another will play, as no two players will drop the same interval, and so the general effect is satisfactory." That, too, is all very well, if failure in a rapid passage means to players of that grade only the dropping of notes. But I know that, to at least one amateur, it means the playing of occasional wrong notes, and I have reason to believe that it means the same to all players. If that is so, they would not all play the same wrong notes, but several of them would play different and discordant notes at the same time, of which, to the great leader, " the general effect " could not have been " satisfactory/' Therefore I continue to hold my theory that the dozen played together correctly when no one of them could have done it alone. Musicians generally have had something of the same experience in ensemble playing of doing with others what they could not do by themselves. This all looks like telepathy, which is in part another name for sympathy. There was another illustration under the eyes of almost everybody a generation ago : Planchette often writes what is not in the mind of the person using it, but is very distinctly in the mind of some other person present. CHAPTER XVI TELEPATHY BETWEEN FOSTER AND THE AUTHOR ONE Sunday evening in the early seventies, my wife and I went, unannounced and unknown, to see Foster. We did not give our names, but merely asked at the door of his boarding-house (near Washington Square) if he could see us. That he knew anything about us before would be a ridiculous supposition. He did not know my name, and if he had there were then even fewer persons to whom it meant any- thing than there are now, and no portrait of me had ever been published. We were ushered into the second-story front room, an ordinary "sitting-room," and Foster appeared. He was a dark man of about thirty-five, rather coarse and heavy, with a liberal jowl and a fairly genial face, expressive rather of interest in the things of this world than those of any less material one. His eyes were dark and rather dreamy. Neither in temperament nor physique was he of the " spirit- uality" to be expected, according to our usual standards, in one whose susceptibilities to the hidden world were evolved beyond those of men generally. Recent experiences, however, have tended to modify the old notions regarding the spiritual. His manner had nothing " professional " about it, but was easy, natural, and sincere. I expressed a desire for a sitting, and he invited us to be seated. He sat by the ordinary parlor table of that day, about two feet by four, on the side away from the windows, and we on the other side, with our backs to them. There was no machinery, no trance, no airs of mystery, none of the " knockings " or " table-tippings " then usually associated with " spiritual communications " nothing outside of ordinary conversation, except the remarkable sub- stance of the conversation. He merely reported to us im- pressions that came into his consciousness, and told us that 221 222 Telepathy between Foster and the Author [Bk. II, Pt. IV he thought they were put there by " spirits " (the universal and immemorial way of accounting for the unaccountable), but that he had no objection to our accounting for them in any way we pleased. After the natural comments on the object of our visit and the state of the weather, he remarked : " Claude is here." Claude was the name of a baby we had lost some seven years before, and was of course the name most prominent in our minds on going to see a " spirit medium." That he should have known that we ever had such a child, or anything else about us, was virtually impossible. Apparently he got it telepathically from our minds. Soon he began to declare the presence of other personalities friends we had lost, giving us the names of perhaps a dozen in about the order of their prominence in our minds. We put questions mentally. The " spirits' " answers always were germane to the questions, but were generally noncom- mittal, and when otherwise, were wrong as often as right. When my father was declared present, I said: "Ask him a question I have in mind." Foster soon answered : " He says it is best for you." My mental question was : " Is my way of life satisfactory to you ? " Soon after graduation I had lost a college friend who was perhaps the best endowed person of his age I have known, and who left behind him some unpublished MSS. In time Foster announced : " Sextus is here." I said : " Please get from him an answer to my mental question." Foster said : " I'll try. Keep your mind on it as closely as you can." It is well to note here that while some mediums invite concentration, others are confused by the sitter's letting his mind dwell on anything: they want it kept as nearly as possible a tabula rasa. We shall meet illustrations later. Foster, on the contrary, said to me several times: " Your mind is wandering. Concentrate it on the question ; help me all you can." At last he popped out: "He says, * Publish every word of them.' " Now that is the very last thing Sextus would have said : he was the most modest of men, and the most apt to settle such a question the other way, or depend on the judgment of his friends. Ch. XVI] Piecing-out Telepathic Impressions 223 Foster impressed me as sincere, but I don't think that he was able to draw an exact line between his " impressions " from outside, as described to me, and his own inventions, especially when he felt the impulse, not unnatural or entirely inexcusable, to show by pertinent answers that he had re- ceived correct impressions of questions in the mind of a sitter. His spiritistic theory of the origin of his impressions had started when it was the fashion to seek answers to questions through table tippings, and when he found in himself the sensibility to telepathic impressions, it was but a step almost imperceptible to a person of his lack of training, to supply coherent answers to questions, whether he was fully impressed with such answers or not. I don't think he intended to misrepresent, but simply did not distinguish. He probably got the impression of the question, and himself supplied the answer. This he did the more readily in the exultation of having caught the difficult question. As Foster got farther and farther away from our foremost interests, which I assume most easily impressed his mind, he began to write instead of talking, saying that perhaps the "spirits" would guide his hand to write better than they would communicate through speech. I think writing helped him to concentrate. He wrote several scraps of paper which are before me now. These are probably specimens of the now widely known " automatic " writing. One impression indicated on one of these scraps is in writing not clear, but pretty plainly seeming to be " Votre grandpere aux Fran$ais, Jean de Hass" Now I did have a grandpere Francois, but never knew him, and he was about the last person I would have thought of. Moreover, he was more than two generations back, and his name was De Hass, but it was not Jean. At the time, I did not know what it was, and, of course, neither did Foster there being nothing in my mind to give him an impression. So when he wanted a Christian name, he seems to have taken, voluntarily or involuntarily, the one which is most frequent. This jumping consciously or unconsciously to the most common names is very general among sensitives. Probably Foster knew no French, and I cannot find any warrant for the locution grandpere aux Fran^ais instead of 224: Telepathy between Foster and the Author [Bk. II, Pt. IV the natural grandpere Francis. It surprised me at the time, and surprises me still. It is barely possible that at some time I had got hold of some such false locution, and held it subliminally, and that Foster got it from my subliminal consciousness. To farther explain these unnecessarily long words for those to whom they are new: they are an invention "made in Germany," though in England and America quite usually attributed to Myers, but I never knew him to claim it. His first mention of it that I can find (in Pr. VII for 1891-2) was five years later than when Du Prel's Philosophy of Mysticism showed it to be common stock among " the inevi- table Germans." It seems to have started with Fechner. Myers did more, however, than any one else to establish it with English-speaking people as a working hypothesis. The words are used to distinguish between conscious thought and knowledge, and sub-conscious thought and know- ledge. Why folks did not find these shorter and simpler words good enough I have not been able to make out. The preposition and the root limen, or more strictly, limin, which means " threshold," is applied to a consciousness which seems to exist under or away from the threshold of our daily experience. There is abundant evidence of there being within reach of our memories more than we ordinarily realize so much, in fact, that some observers think that every experience and possibly every ancestral experience really survives in the subliminal memory, and can be awakened under extraor- dinary conditions, such as hypnotism and dreams and per- haps death. Some even go so far as to find reason to believe that each subliminal consciousness is part of an infinite con- sciousness in which our individual consciousnesses merge and communicate with each other telepathically. As we proceed, we shall find more to suggest such a theory, or rather to turn its name from a mere metaphor of locality into something more significant. The thing that struck me as most remarkable at Foster's was that as he was telling me that his impressions often came to him in visions, he exclaimed : " I had a strange one then! I saw a large oyster-shell over your head, and Ch. XVI] Impression Visualized 225 from it a pearl seemed to fall into your head/' Now my father, who had been dead fourteen years, having been one of the founders of the Baltimore oyster industry, the pearl coming to me from the oyster-shell was about as correct a symbol for some of my important experiences as could readily have been imagined. Foster knew no more about this than about the revenues of the latest mandarin in China. Foster gave many illustrations some to me and hosts to others that his sensitiveness was not restricted to another's passing thoughts, but was apt to respond to anything in character and experience, without any conscious initiative from the other ; and it was highly characteristic of the dream- like action of the " sensitive " mind that he should have caught this fact in my history and made a vision of it, just as people in general are constantly taking some trivial cir- cumstance and expanding it into a dream. Upon my asking him how he got such impressions, he said substantially: "All I know about it is that they come into my mind, and sometimes, like the oyster-shell, seem to appear to my eyes. I think they are communicated to me by spirits, but of course you'll think what you please." I asked : " Why, with your power of getting at secret things, don't you learn the secrets of the stock-market, and make yourself rich ? " He answered : " I feel that if I were to use my strange powers to get anything but a comfortable livelihood, they would be taken away." His biographer records, however, that he did receive a great deal of money in legitimate fees, and some in more or less legitimate bets as to what he could do, but that he was not avaricious, often declined to take a bet that he had won, and let his money pass through his fingers like water. For instance, Mr. Bartlett quotes (op. cit., p. 99) from the New York Graphic, October 24, 1874: " One night a total stranger to Foster called at his rooms and said: " ' Foster, I don't believe in your humbug. Now, you never saw or heard of me, and I will bet you twenty dollars that you can't tell my name. I do it to test you.' " ' T-w-e-n-t-y d-o-M-a-r-s,' repeated Foster; 'twenty dollars that I can't tell your name? Well, sir (putting his hand to his 226 Telepathy between Foster and the Auth(fr [Bk. II, Ft. IV brow), the spirit of your brother Clement tells me that your name is Alexander B. Corcorane.' " Mr. Corcorane was astonished, and took out his money to pay the medium, who pushed it back with a laugh." Of course he could have read both names from the visitor's mind. Foster did not tell me that he felt that his powers would be taken away if he used them to obtain anything for which he did not give an equivalent; but that was probably what he meant. He was not a person of the high education that seems necessary to enable most people to say very exactly what they mean. In fact my recollection seems to be that he was not very sure to say what he meant even grammatically. The conclusions established in me by the interview were that it could not be accounted for without the hypothesis of thought-transference, as it was called then telepathy, as it is called now; and that there was nothing correct in it which could not be accounted for by that hypothesis. He told me nothing important or verifiable which I did not know before, but the things he did tell me, he could not have known without absorbing impressions from my mind or from other incarnate minds or from the " spirits." His impressions had all the clearness and all the vagueness of dreams from exact names to the (to him) meaningless vision of the oyster shell and the pearl. Myers has marked the difference between a mental impres- sion and what might be called a sensory vision, like the pearl oyster, by the two words telepathy and telesthesia. Though perhaps he would confine telesthesia to a vision of an actual thing or circumstance. Of course all such things merge into each other as pretty much everything does into every- thing else a fact to which I have called attention probably often enough to tax your patience. The first two or three times I did it merely as a matter of general scientific interest ; but as I have progressed, I have been impelled to do it more by fumbling against a vague suggestion of something ; and as I have groped along, this something seems to become more definite and pervasive, until now it begins to look like a clue running through the whole subject, and leading by a new route to a better standpoint for looking through its vistas Ch. XVI] Telepathy Basis of Various Manifestations 227 than (so far as I know) has so far been realized. Perhaps we shall reach it definitely in due course. Foster's explanation of the " spirits " had been the general explanation for the mysterious during all previous history; and at his time many scouted telepathy as a less probable hypothesis. In fact telepathy was then scouted in favor of fraud by many probably most of such people as are now crying it up as against spiritism. Although in those days Foster was called a "spiritual medium," so was everybody else who did anything unex- plainable. Under the discriminations of to-day, Foster as I saw him, would not be regarded as a spiritual medium at all. He was, so far as I observed him, merely a telepathic sensitive. He did not profess to me that his body was used as a medium by another spirit. His own spirit was in the possession of it all the while, and simply communi- cated to us what he thought other spirits told him. What is to-day strictly meant by a spiritual medium is a person whose spirit seems to relinquish the body for the use of another spirit, who uses it to write and articulate, and by so doing generally expresses an alleged personality entirely distinct, perhaps in point of age and even of sex, from the medium's waking self. But we are going to meet evidence that Foster manifested these phenomena too. We shall find reason to regard them as in some respects quite different from what they seem. Many years after I sat with Foster, I left a sitting with Mrs. Piper more deeply, if possible, under the same im- pression of telepathy than I was when I left Foster. But there were additional features in her case that have since inclined me toward additional convictions. I will be more specific after we have been over the phenomena. CHAPTER XVII SOME EARLY TELEPATHIC SENSITIVES I HAVE introduced telepsychosis, as I introduced telekinesis, by a personal experience because, as between my readers and me, it is more direct than an experience from a third person. But in the former case I began with the simplest sort of illustration of the subject, while in the present case I have subordinated simplicity to the other consideration. Yet so many people have read of telepsychic experiences of many kinds; in fact, so many people have known of, and even experienced them, that any illustrations at all sometimes seem almost superfluous. But the experiences are as yet so little correlated with established knowledge that few people, if any, profess to " understand " them to any extent, and therefore more illustrations may be worth while to stimulate your guesses as well as to explain other guesses, including my own. Moreover, next to the question of survival of death, and strongly bearing upon it, this subject of telepathy, or telesthe- sia, has turned out to be far the most important with which the S. P. R. has had to deal. It seems to pervade nearly all superusual psychic phenomena, and it is therefore well to trace it from even earlier than the beginning of scientific examination. There have been many attempts to make the recent mani- festations, beginning about the middle of the last century, of a piece with manifestations going as far back as history. There are at least two pretty clear differences. Most of the early manifestations were associated with pathological condi- tions and religious ecstasy. The recent ones are generally free from the first, and those as late as the contemporary S. P. R. records, are free from the second. Indeed, while the compar- atively illiterate spiritualism of the American outbreak had religious associations, it had few religious ecstasies. The Ch. XVII] Swedenborg 229 manifestations were generally normal, the earlier ones seem to have been generally abnormal. There seems then a good deal of warrant for assuming that the recent phenomena come in the natural course of evolution, while the earlier phenomena may have been precocious, and therefore unsubstantial. The reader who cares for a more complete and detailed account than I have space for of these subjects previous to the foundation of the S. P. R., will find the best I know in Podmore's Modern Spiritualism (1902). But admirable as it was at the time, in the light of later knowledge much of it reads like the old disproofs of the possibility of a locomotive moving over twenty miles an hour, or of more than one electric light on a circuit. The earliest celebrated sensitive in the modern world was Swedenborg. His case of course received little general atten- tion before the movement of which one symptom was the foundation of the S. P. R. Nevertheless, the case had attracted the investigation and confidence of so great a man as Kant, who vouches for it, expressing himself as follows in a letter reprinted as Appendix II in his Dreams of a Ghost-seer (Goer- witz's translation, London, 1900) : "In the year 1759, towards the end of July, on Saturday, at four o'clock P.M., Swedenborg arrived at Gottenburg from England, when Mr. William Castel invited him to his house, together with a party of fifteen persons. About six o'clock Swedenborg went out, and returned to the company quite pale and alarmed. He said that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, in the Sodermalm (Gottenburg is about three hundred miles from Stockholm), and that it was spreading very fast He was restless and went out often. Ke said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, ' Thank God, the fire is extinguished the third door from my house.' . . . On Monday evening, a messenger arrived at Gottenburg, who was despatched by the Board of Trade during the time of the fire. In the letters brought by him the fire was described precisely in the manner stated by Swedenborg." This may have been pure telepathy from the minds of witnesses in Stockholm, or it may have been telopsis (clair- voyance) . 230 Some Early Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV Kant also said on another subject (op. cit., pp. 17-18) : " Madame Marteville, the widow of the Dutch ambassador in Stockholm, some time after the death of her husband, was called upon by Croon, a goldsmith, to pay for a silver service which her husband had purchased from him. The widow was convinced that her late husband had been much too precise and orderly not to have paid this debt, yet she was unable to find the receipt She requested Mr. Swedenborg . . . that if, as all people said, he possessed the extraordinary gift of conversing with the souls of the departed, he would perhaps have the kindness to ask her husband how it was about the silver service. Swedenborg did not at all object to complying with her request. Three days afterward the said lady had com- pany at her house for coffee. Swedenborg called, and in his cool way informed her that he had conversed with her husband. The debt had been paid several months before his decease, and the receipt was in a bureau in the room upstairs . . . that her hus- band had described to him how, after pulling out the left- hand drawer a board would appear which would be required to be drawn out, when a secret compartment would be disclosed, containing his private Dutch correspondence, as well as the receipt. Upon hearing this description the whole company arose and accompanied the lady into the room upstairs . . . and, to the great astonishment of all, the papers were discovered there, in accordance with his description." This, if telepathy, apparently could have been only from the mind of Marteville surviving bodily death, though there is a faint probability that some living person knew it. The only remaining hypotheses are that it was telopsis, or that we don't know. As Podmore, and I dare say others, point out (Modern Spiritualism, I, 15) : " The idea of intercourse with distinctively human spirits, if not actually introduced by Swedenborg, at least established itself first in the popular consciousness through his teaching For him there was no gulf fixed between this earthly life and that which he believed to lie beyond death. The great principle of continuity is preserved; Nature makes no leap, even over the grave, and heaven and hell are seen in his prosaic pages to be much like Stockholm or London." Which latter fact is, with me at least, an argument, pro tanto, for the genuineness of his heaven at least. Ch. XVII] Hudson Tuttle. Thomas L. Harris 231 Among the earlier uninvestigated cases of telepsychosis is that of Hudson Tuttle, an untutored country boy on the Erie shore of Ohio, who, in the early fifties, at the age of sixteen, without books at hand, wrote a fairly correct outline in fairly correct language of what was then known of the evolution of the planet and the life and thought upon it. This he of course supposed to be expressed through him by spirits (Tuttle, Hudson: The Arcana of Nature. Latest edition edited by Densmore. New York (date not given) : copyrighted in 1909). About the same time, probably a little earlier, Andrew Jackson Davis, "the Poughkeepsie Seer," also uneducated, wrote a similar work, Nature's Divine Revelations, and later The Great Harmonia, and half a score of others, in trance, at first brought on by hypnosis and later by auto-suggestion. In March, 1846, Davis gave a description of an eighth planet as yet unseen, with a " density four-fifths of water " ; and in the following September Neptune was discovered, with about that density. Davis said some other things, however, absurd on their faces : so the planet seems a coincidence. But he also declared a communion between incarnate and post- carnate spirits that would soon be abundantly manifested. Anybody who wants to, can of course apply this to the develop- ments in the Pr. S. P. R. For much of this I am indebted to Podmore, Modern Spiritualism, 1, 163. His account of Davis is very interesting. Of course both these men thought their writings inspired by spirits. There were many other writing mediums at the same epoch. A young ex-blacksmith, named Charles Lmton, in 1853 wrote heteromatically a religious rhapsody called The Healing of the Nations, which was well up to the standard of the educated pulpit; and there were several other performances of the kind, some of them in verse, or alleged verse, generally, but not invariably, very bad. Thomas L. Harris's were al- most endurable. Virtually all the stuff, however, was made of echoes, and a little of it of direct but perhaps involuntary telepathic plagiarism, or (even Podmore, from whom I have taken some of this edifying information, virtually admits) possibly telopsis. 232 Some Early Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pi IV These cases, like others before the overwhelming accumu- lation of scientifically sifted evidence by the S. P. R., at- tracted hardly any notice in the educated world, but now one can, without fear of ridicule, mention them as worth attention. The books of these authors and their fellows contain many quotations from works which the authors profess never to have seen except teloptically ; and it is hard to account for the existence of their books on any other hypothesis than teloteropathy and telopsis, unless it be that of fraud, which is now out of date and not countenanced by the circumstances. Tuttle and Davis, in the frequent enjoyment of what Davis called " the superior state," both lived to be old men, and I believe very good old men, and were alleged to be useful in diagnosing and prescribing for disease, and certainly were useful in raising above the hewing of wood and drawing of water the thoughts of many people who believed the lectures of these seers inspired by superhuman wisdom. There is little room for doubt that they did telepsychically absorb much that people generally have to attain by effort, and that, without any of what is ordinarily called education, they grew into the possession of a mass of irregular know- ledge which, eked out by the vocabulary that came with it, led a large number of disciples to believe themselves "getting somewhere " ; and probably they were, as compared with where they would have got without these teachers. I have had a little very little correspondence with this order of " spirit- ualists," and find them exceptionally good and kindly people. No more so, however, than that arch skeptic who has no belief whatever in Foster's " spirits," but implicitly believes in the man, and wrote his life. A word was said about our American seers diagnosing diseases. Davis at least did. Probably the telopsis which went to the pages of remote books went into the organs of the body. Much matter regarding this, on the part of many people, has been gathered, and I shall have a word to say about it later. It may have big possibilities. I have taken most of the foregoing data regarding Tuttle and Davis from Densmore's Introduction to Tuttle's Arcana. He also gives there an account of Mrs. Richmond, whose works and biography by Barrett I possess, but do not care to quote Ch. XVII] Mrs. Richmond 233 from, as all the space I can spare will be better filled by Densmore's account of her in his same introduction to Turtle (op. tit., p. 65) : " Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond (nee Scott) was born in 1840, near Cuba, Allegany County, N. Y." [The region from the Hudson to a few hundred miles west was the cradle of the mid-century " spiritualism." H. H.] " Her father, David W. Scott, was a mathematician and inclined to philosophic studies. Her mother, Lodensy Butterfield, had psychic gifts. . . . When eleven years of age she was asked to prepare a composition and took her slate and pencil into an arbor in the garden, expecting first to write the essay on the slate and then copy it on paper. In a little while she took the slate to her mother, saying she had fallen asleep and somebody had been writing on her slate. The writing began : ' My dear sister/ and was from a sister of Mrs. Scott who had passed away in childhood. A few days later Cora was seated at the feet of her mother, when sleep again overtook her, and the mother, thinking she had fainted, applied restoratives. Noticing a trembling motion of the hand, she placed the slate and pencil in the child's hand, which imme- diately began to write. In this way several messages, signed by different members of the family who had gone to spirit life, were written, each of them testifying to their existence in an- other sphere " A few months after the first writing on the slate, Cora was controlled by what purported to be the spirit of a German physician, but who withheld his name. For some four years the German physician, at a given hour every day, controlled Cora to diagnose and give medical advice to those who came to her father's house for that purpose. This occupied two, three, and sometimes six hours a day. Under the direction of this physician she dressed wounds, and sometimes performed minor surgical operations. Cora had no knowledge of any other language than English, but the influence controlling her some- times spoke through her in German. From the beginning of her mediumship. it was stated through the child that her mission was to be a public speaker, and that her efforts in the art of healing were experiences to fit her for her lifework. " It was not until she was fifteen that she began to give lectures before large audiences/' This is plainly the dream state as known to all who dream at all, but as highly developed among the mediums. Mrs. Richmond has spoken to large assemblies of spiritual- ists in America and England, and is, or was until lately, minister to a large congregation of them in Chicago. I have 234 Some Early Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV read some of her discourses, which seem at about the usual pulpit level, with more than the usual liberality. In the same connection, Densmore gave some account of Colville, which is doubly worth quoting from because its last episode the voyage is not in print elsewhere, even in the books by Colville from which Densmore takes most of his material. " W. J. Colville was born in England in 1860. The following facts of his life are gleaned from a recently published auto- biography : " My mediumship originally declared itself in early chil- hood. I was practically an orphan from birth " How I first came to see my mother clairvoyantly I do not know, but I distinctly remember becoming conscious, at fre- quent intervals, of the gentle, loving presence of a beautiful young woman, who invariably appeared to my vision attired in garments of singular beauty " I was first led to realize the unusual character of my vision when I mentioned the presence of the ' beautiful lady in white ' to two persons who were with me. I saw her very distinctly, yet they declared that we three were the only occupants of the apartment. The mystery of the fourth inmate was for me greatly intensified, when it appeared to me that the other two persons, besides her and myself, could pass through her and she through them, while they appeared completely unconscious of each other's presence The second evidence of clairvoyance did not refer to sight, as ordinarily understood, but to mental enlightenment, and this not only of a general but of a par- ticular character, going deeply and precisely into manifold de- tails of private family history, and including many revelations which brought consternation to the hearers when I reported my experiences. The people among whom I was being reared were desirous of hiding from me many facts concerning my parents of which my spirit mother evidently wished me to become aware." All the preceding matter was in the minds of the family and may have been caught by the child telepathically. An exception should be made of the mother's dress. This was an elaboration of the original data, such as is generally made in dreams. Even what follows is not necessarily prophecy or even telopsis: the aunt knew her own room and her own bonnet strings. That is the sort of difficulty with telopsis generally. Ch. XVII] W . J. Colville 235 " The third feature in my clairvoyance was the actual pre- dicting of coming events A single example will illustrate : My grandmother's sister in Lincolnshire had decided to visit Sussex, but had not communicated her intention to any one, although her mind was fully made up. I had never seen my great-aunt, and had rarely heard her mentioned, yet I distinctly saw her in the house where I was then living, and accurately described her appearance, even to the strings of the cap which she wore when, a few days later, she paid her sister a visit." What follows looks like telopsis, but it may have been telepathy from those who had read the novel. Page 81. "I was in Perth, West Australia, in 1896, when Marie Corelli's novel, The Treasure of Heaven, A Romance of Riches, reached Australian shores. The book had been widely advertised before its arrival, and a committee of arrangements had secured my consent to include a review of that book in a course of lectures I was then delivering in the Town Hall To my consternation I could not get hold of a copy until the evening on which I was to speak, and as the book contained nearly five hundred pages I gave up hope of reviewing it in my lecture and decided to treat the topic from my own stand- point, merely mentioning the fact that Marie Corelli's novel had just reached the city At the close of the lecture I was personally congratulated upon my exhaustive review of the entire story and . . . told that I had quoted passage after passage, in almost the exact words of the author, and had given a full synopsis of the entire tale 1 have often had experiences similar to the above and am therefore fully assured that it is quite possible to speak intelligently upon matters with which in my ordinary state I have merely the most superficial ac- quaintance n But now we come to something for which, as far as I can see, we must wait for a correlation with anything we know. " One night in February, 1906 ... I beheld in the air of the room the vision of a large ocean steamship and, near it, the date March 29th. Not having the least idea that the vision concerned me individually, I took it for granted that some of the other members of the party were about to take an un- expected trip across the Atlantic T was impressed to try my hand at automatic writing The writing ceased sud- denly and I felt no inclination . . . even to read what had been written until the following morning Next day I found written . . . the substance of what here follows : ' Your friends in Australia have decided to request you to leave San Francisco on the Oceanic steamer Sierra, due to sail March 29th. You 236 Some Early Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV must and will go then. There are several grave reasons for your so doing. Among them an event of great importance in California, the details of which you will learn in due season. This is an important crisis in your life, and when you realize all it signifies you will indeed know that unseen watchers guard diligently your pathway.' No name was signed . . . except the cryptic signature, ' One who knows.' " Within a few weeks I received a letter from the editor of a magazine in Sydney, urging me to comply with the request of a committee of friends ... to leave San Francisco, March 29th, on the Sierra" This, then, was telepathy ! Colville continues : " The second portion of the writing I did indeed soon come to understand. Reaching Sydney April 19th, 1906, passengers and crew were shocked by the awful tidings of earthquake and fire in San Francisco "I have often been asked to describe the difference between telepathic and spiritual messages. ... It is almost impossible to discriminate between a message received from a communi- cant on earth and from one who has passed to the other side of existence. What, indeed, is that ' other side ' but the side to which telepathy is indigenous? And can we afford to be sure that when we are functioning telepathically we are not behaving just as we should continue to behave were we sud- denly divested of our material envelopes ? " Now that I have rounded out nearly thirty years of public service, I feel it a solemn duty, as well as a high privilege, to bear unequivocal testimony to the always beneficial effect which mediumship has had on me from all standpoints. Mentally and physically I owe much to those very endowments and experi- ences which mistaken people imagine are weakening to mind and body." There is a strange incongruity in the psychic material which mediums get. The reader perhaps marveling at the smooth diction, ample vocabulary, and sound sense of what he may be perusing from an unlettered medium, is suddenly dumped into a passage conspicuously lacking in some one of those qualities, or perhaps all. These people for a time show results that ordinarily can be attained only by educa- tion, and then show a lack of them. It seems as if, in the first cases, they have teloteropathically received the results of somebody's education, and that, in the other cases, they are either teloteropathically representing another order of mind, Ch. XVII] " Analysis " in Tuttle's " Psychic Science " 237 or perhaps expressing their own. But whatever the inter- pretation of it, whatever portion of it is deliberately invented fraud, whatever its neglect hitherto by scholars, in view of much similar matter that has lately passed scientific scrutiny, I am satisfied that much of the humbler "spiritualistic" literature is sincere, results from spontaneous telepsychoses, is outside of and often in advance of general experience, opens up a new and promising range of mind, and is therefore worthy of careful study. Let all this be illustrated by a few passages. Here is the "Analysis" serving as preface to Tuttle's Psychic Science (Chicago, 1895) : " There is a Psychic Ether, related to thought, as the luminif- erous ether is to light. " This may be regarded as the thought atmosphere of the universe. A thinking being in this atmosphere is a pulsating center of thought-waves, as a luminous body is of light. " There is a state of mind and body known as sensitive, or impressible, in which it receives impressions from other minds. This state may be normal, or induced by fatigue, disease, drugs, or arise in sleep. The facts of clairvoyance, trance, somnambu- lism, and psychometry prove the existence of this ether, and are correlated to [with? H. H.] it. "Thought transference is also in evidence, as well as that vast series of facts which give intimation of an intelligence surviving the death of the physical body. " This sensitiveness may be exceedingly acute, and the in- dividual unconscious of it, and then it is known as genius, which is acute susceptibility to the waves of the psychic at- mosphere." All this might have been written by any leader of the S. P. R. From it we tumble into the middle ages, tautology, and bombast. " Sensitiveness explains the true philosophy of prayer. " All the so-called occult phenomena of mesmerism, trance, clairvoyance, mind-reading, dreams, visions, thought transfer- ence, etc., are correlated to and explained by means of this psychic ether. " All these phenomena lead up to the consideration of im- mortality, which is a natural state, the birthright of every human being." Next we have what may have been an accidental vague 238 Some Early Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV generality, with possible meanings not at all realized by the person expressing it, or it may have included many of the profound suggestions I have quoted from Professors Cope, Holmes, and others. " The body and spirit are originated and sustained together, and death is their final separation." Then comes in a sentence which reads like Spencer, and may be as profound as Boole, but which so far as I can fathom it seems like nonsense. " The problem of an immortal future, beginning in time, is solved by the resolution of forces at first acting in straight lines, through spirals reaching circles which, returning within themselves, become individualized and self-sustaining." Next a profound platitude that nobody fully appreciating most of his preceding matter would have thought of writing : " Spiritual beings must originate and be sustained by laws as fixed and unchanging as those which govern the physical world." Then follows: " Sensitiveness gives great pleasures and may give pain ; the author's experience as a sensitive, related, shows this." Now this jumble of profundities and superficialities, of clear statement of difficult things, and turgid statement of simple things, is typical of the old-fashioned spiritual litera- ture, but, and here's an additional rub, also of the latest communications through Mrs. Piper, professing to come from some of the best minds that have lately been known to the educated world. Is it not a pretty clear inference that what comes from them all is a jumble from all the minds going, including their own, and varying from single impressions all the way up to the complexes which portray a soul? This need not mean, though it may, that what professes to come from the eman- cipated spirits of Sidgwick, Myers, Hodgson, and James, necessarily has any such exalted source: it may come from memories and impressions of them in minds still on earth; but wherever it comes from, it comes in shape so questionable that even the early similar manifestations, so long neglected, ought not to be neglected longer. Ch. XVII] Impressions of Franklin and Bacon 239 But the early reports bring us nothing of the dramatic character so strongly indicative of personality independent of the medium, that abounds in the S. P. R. reports. Indeed previous to Foster I find nothing like the modern " possession." The medium sees and reports, sometimes with much veridicity, but that is all : the medium is not described as impersonating. Moreover I recall no clear case of spontaneous or self-induced trance in normal persons prior to those contemporary with the S. P. R., but my knowledge and my memory may be at fault there. Of course there are plenty of hysterical visions and, apparently, of telopsis. Among the early records, the name of Benjamin Franklin is given as a control much oftener than that of anybody else, in fact by almost if not quite every medium. This suggests at least the question whether, amid the strange jumble, there may not have been from his powerful personality as power- ful perhaps as any that earth has known something more than the mere impression which accounts of it had made on the waking medium. Podmore says, undoubtedly correctly (Modern Spiritualism, I, 268) : " Of all the august names which figure in the * inspirational ' literature of the period, none, it should be remarked, occurs more frequently, or is made sponsor for more outrageous nonsense." Bacon's share of the tommyrot was nearly as great CHAPTER XVIII RECENT TELEPATHIC SENSITIVES IN the foregoing survey of the early sensitives I have made no attempt to classify their manifestations, but in going on I will try, so far as the complexity of the phenomena permits, to group them under (a) simple impressions apparently re- ceived from the sitter; (b) visions similarly received (both a and b were illustrated to me by Foster) ; (c) simple im- pressions apparently received from distant minds; (d) visions similarly received; (e) impressions apparently received from ostensible intelligences surviving death; (f) visions similarly received ; and (g) impressions and visions without any assign- able source. Impressions from Persons Present The following is from Stillman (op. cit, I, 183f.) : " Mrs. H. K. Brown, the wife of our ablest sculptor of that day . . . was, apart from the peculiar powers she pos- sessed, one of the most remarkable women I have ever known, both morally and intellectually No physical ' manifesta- tion ' took place in her presence, and we never ' sat ' as a ' circle/ but her telepathic and thought-reading powers in ordi- nary social intercourse were most surprising. . . . Bryant, the poet, assured me that she had recounted to him events in his past life not known to any living person except himself, and I had, myself, the evidence that in her presence there was nothing in my past life beyond her perception 1 gave her one day a letter of Ruskin without disclosing the authorship, and in the course of a long analysis she said that the writer was not married, to which I replied that in this she was mistaken, and she rejoined, ' Then he ought not to be.' At that time Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin were, so far as I knew, living together, and no rumor of their incompatibility had come about. " Mrs. Brown explained the possession of her occult powers by a voice in the manner of Socrates's demon, which, she said, was always present with her, and which she recognized as en- tirely foreign to her. She repeated what she heard, word for 240 Ch. XVIII] Apparent " Possession " of Foster 241 word as the words came, hesitating and sometimes leaving a sentence incomplete, not hearing the sequence. When she asked who was speaking to her, she received only the reply, 'We are spirit,' and no indication of personality was ever offered." From Bartlett (op. cit., p. 64) : "Two gentlemen called on Mr. Foster, and inquired if he could answer some questions in a foreign language. He replied that he had usually been able to do so, and if the gentlemen would kindly be seated and write their questions on slips of paper [Writing evidently helped concentration. H. II. |. he would see what the results would be. I am quite sure that the mental strain was very severe on Mr. Foster during this seance, for beads of perspiration could be seen on his forehead frequently He answered numerous questions, but in a language which he said he had never before spoken. . . . He pronounced many of the words with some difficulty In justice to Mr. Foster, and to show what a wonderful test he had given them, one of the gentlemen made this explanation: Some years ago, he was shipwrecked, and drifted to an unknown island, where he was treated kindly by the natives, and where he was compelled to remain for three years before being rescued. It was there he learned this strange language. A young native, who was his most intimate companion, died a few weeks before he was rescued, and it was the spirit of this young man from whom he was supposed to have had the communication, as there was not another man in New York City, or in any part of Europe, who knew a word of the language." Bartlett gives a much more complicated case than this, for which I have not space. It now seems strange that it should not have occurred to Mr. Bartlett that the "spirit" was the sitter, but his ex- periences were before the world was familiar with telepathy. Apparently, however, he does not state the explanation he does give, as his own : for elsewhere, and in conversation with me, he stubbornly repudiates the spiritistic hypothesis. The speaking and understanding by mediums, of languages which, in their ordinary state, they do not understand at all, is testified to by a cloud of witnesses, and is one of the very strongest illustrations of the community of mind which will be found more obvious and more suggestive as we proceed. Podmorc (Modern Spiritualism, I, 258-59) quotes the follow- ing incidents from Judge Edmonds: 242 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV (P. 258.) " ' Some Polish gentlemen, entire strangers to her, sought an interview with Laura [Miss Edmonds] . . . and they received answers, sometimes in English and sometimes in Polish. The English she understood, but the other she did not, though they seemed to understand it perfectly. " ' This can be verified only by Laura's statement, for no one was present but her and the two gentlemen, and they did not give their names.' " (P. 259.) "'The incident with the Greek gentleman was this : He spoke broken English " ' Occasionally, through Laura, the spirit would speak a word or a sentence in Greek, until Mr. E. inquired if he could be understood if he spoke in Greek. The residue of the conversa- tion, for more than an hour, was, on his part, entirely in Greek, and on hers sometimes in Greek and sometimes in English. At times Laura would not understand what was the idea conveyed, either by her or him. At other times she would understand him, though he spoke in Greek, and herself when uttering Greek words. " ' My niece, of whom I have spoken, has often sung Italian, improvising both words and tune, yet she is entirely un- acquainted with the language. Of this, I suppose, there are a hundred instances. " ' One day my daughter and niece . . . began a conversation with me in Spanish, one speaking a part of a sentence and the other the residue. They were influenced, as I found, by the spirit of a person whom I had known when in Central America, and reference was made to many things which had occurred to me there, of which I knew they were as ignorant as they were of Spanish. " * To this only we three can testify.' " Podmore gives many more instances. He is of course very skeptical regarding all. Perhaps he would be less so if the recent much-better-recorded ones had been open to him. Yet despite them, I am not free from similar skepticism. I enjoyed the acquaintance of Judge Edmonds' daughter Laura (Mrs. Gilmore) a woman of rare charm, refinement, and cultivation, whose sincerity I deem beyond question. She told me many marvels of telopsis and precognition from her own experience. I had not then taken up the subject seri- ously, and was careless about notes and correspondence. Browning, the poet, tells (the evidence is in Pr. II, 130), of " wearing under his coat-sleeves some gold wrist-studs . . . which he had quite recently taken into wear, in the absence (by mis- take of a sempstress) of his ordinary wrist-buttons. He had Ch. XVIII] Browning and Count Giunasi. More Foster 243 never before worn them in Florence or elsewhere, and had found them in some old drawer, where they had lain forgotten for years. One of these studs he took out and handed to the Count [Giunasi], who held it in his hand awhile, looking earnestly in Mr. Browning's face, and then he said, as if much impressed, ' C'e qualche cosa che mi grida nelP orecchio, " Uccisione, uccisione! " ' (There is something here which cries out in my ear, ' Murder, murder ! ') " ' And truly,' says Mr. Browning, ' those very studs were taken from the dead body of a great-uncle of mine, who was violently killed on his estate in St. Kitts, nearly eighty years ago The occurrence of my great-uncle's murder was known only to myself, of all men in Florence, as certainly was also my possession of the studs.'" But Count Giunasi could have got it from Browning's mind. Account of a stance at the Continental Hotel on the last day of March, 1873, from the Philadelphia Press. Please remember what I have said before about Mr. Bartlett being generally a confirmatory witness of what he quotes. Bartlett (op. cit., 9) : "'Well, sir' (with the usual brusquerie of the journalist, who has no time to lose in conventionalities, for the paper must go to press at a certain time) ' well, sir, let me grasp the situation at once, and I confess candidly that I have not even a scintilla of doubt as to the falsity of Spiritualism and its varied forms and phases of humbug and jugglery.' " As the journalist approaches his subject more closely, he feels that his usual impersonality must be sometimes sunk as he recites his experiences for that one-half hour in the medium's room. These experiences are not simply strange, unaccountable, mysterious, or any of the words which denote the idea of things unaccounted for by natural causes; they are simply 'awful.' The writer feels as though he were drifting into sacrilege in his endeavor to give or to conceive of an idea of the power of this man. When the reporter saw this man look back over long years of time and long miles of space, and down deep into the moldering dust of long-forgotten graves, and drag up to the clear light of the present noonday sun of Philadelphia thoughts from the inmost recesses of the heart of a woman who, in life, would hardly have confessed those thoughts to herself when he saw the name of the woman and that of the man she loved (names which the inquirer had himself almost forgotten, time and circumstance having almost completely blotted them out of memory) when he saw those names written in plain, dis- tinct characters, in letters formed of the living blood at that moment coursing through the hand of Foster he could not 244 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV refrain from yielding to the impulse to cry out in ideal pain and awe-striking fear, stagger up from the table, and walk about the room till a modified calmness came to his excited feelings. And yet these were but the mere rudiments of the ' art,' if it may so be called ; but it may not be so called, even though the loss of a word leaves the sentence unfinished, for it was no ' art.' " Mr. Foster spoke the truth when he made the remark, ' Mr. , I will reveal to you things that you would not dare publish; they are too sacred; they touch family, social, and heart relations too nearly even to be mentioned by the faintest allusion.' And the listener paid the penalty for his skepticism and scoffing even to the uttermost farthing, such a penalty the amount of which he dare not publish." The emotion and " fine writing " in the report tend to detract from its probable accuracy, but on the other hand there is no indication of anything more than telepathy: the sitter apparently knew everything Foster told him. The initials on Foster's hand were a favorite exhibition of his, though he did not show it to me. It has already been treated under " Stigmata." Visions from Persons Present The other day one of my sisters went to see one of the Atlantic City gang of palmists, fortune-tellers, etc. He told her how long she had been a widow, and that she had made a mistake in selling a tract of land both of which facts were of course well known to her; evidently the fellow had some telepathic power. He said he " seemed to see " the tract of land, though my sister never saw it: he had a vision, as Foster had with me. The very first paper published by the S. P. R. was on " Thought Reading/' by a committee consisting of Professor Barrett and Messrs. Gurney and Myers ; and a very primitive paper it was, compared with what the same men were able to furnish from fuller experience. It asks the question (Pr. I, 13) : "Is there or is there not any existing or attainable evidence that can stand fair physiological criticism, to support a belief that a vivid impression or a distinct idea in one mind can be communicated to another mind without the intervening help of the recognized organs of sensation? And if such evidence be found, is the impression derived from a rare or partially Ch. XVIII] Mr. Outline's Report to S. P. R. 245 developed and hitherto unrecognized sensory organ, or has the mental percept been CToked directly without any antecedent sense-percept ? " And it handles the now antiquated questions of collusion, more or less conscious signaling, etc., etc., and discusses the willing game, the public exhibitions of Bishop, Cum- berland, and Corey, etc., etc. Then are given the results of some experiments with the Creery children tending to prove transfer of words and cards. There is another report from the same committee in Pr. I, 70-97, with duplicates of drawings made by " agents " and copied without being seen by " recipients." The resemblances are unmistakable. A similar report is in Pr. I, 161-213. Then comes a report, in Pr. I, 263-81, when Mr. Podmore had been added to the committee, which seems to be chrono- logically later than a report printed in Pr. II, 24ff., and to be a tabulated summary of it, but apparently from considera- tions of space or some other convenience, printed out of chronological order. The report in Pr. II is: " An Account of some experiments in Thought-Transference, Conducted by Malcolm Guthrie, J.P., and James Birchall, Hon. Sec. of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liver- pool." Mr. Guthrie writes (Pr. II, 24-5) : " A party of young ladies . . . found that certain of their number, when blindfolded, were able to name very correctly figures selected from an almanac suspended on the wall of the room, when their companions, having hold of their hands, fixed their attention upon some particular day of the month " About this time I read an article by Mr. F. Corder in the February number of CasselVa Magazine, which was written with such an air of truthfulness . . . that ... I thereupon determined to try the experiments, as described in Mr. Corder*s paper, upon my son, a nervous and susceptible fair-haired boy of ten years of ape. Much to my astonishment, and his own, he named quickly and without difficulty objects which I placed behind him when blindfolded He, however, would not perform more than two or three experiments at a time, saying that it made him ' feel queer.' " I, however, at a subsequent period, tested my son's powers under proper scientific conditions with the assistance of Mr. 246 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV Birchall; and we were both satisfied as to his possession of the faculty, although we did not consider him a useful subject for study " As to the party of young ladies to whom I referred ... I am a partner in one of the large drapery establishments in the city of Liverpool, and . . . the young ladies are connected with one of the show-rooms of that establishment." The experiments that these young ladies had begun for amusement were now continued scientifically. The report abounds in instances where some of them described unseen objects upon which the others concentrated attention, e.g. (Pr. II, 27f.) : " The idea or name of the object did not come first to the percipient, but the appearance seemed to dawn gradually upon the mind. . . . First the color impression was received, then the general shape, and afterwards any special characteristic, and finally, the name As an illustration, take the case of a blue feather. The 'subject' said, 'It is pale? It looks like a leaf; but it can't be a leaf looks like a feather curled. Is it a feather?' Again a key was described as 'A little tiny thing with a ring at one end and a little flag at the other, like a toy flag.' Urged to name it, she said, ' It is very like a key.' ^ " Proceeding a step further we agreed, in the absence of the subject from the room, to imagine some object, and, under similar conditions, to ask her to describe it. This experiment was also successfully performed " We . . . found that the movements of objects exhibited could be discerned. The idea was suggested by an experiment tried with a card which, in order that all present should see, I moved about and was informed by the percipient, Miss E., that it was a card, but she could not tell which one because it seemed to be moving about. ... I bought a toy monkey, which worked up and down on a stick by means of a string drawing the arms and legs together. The answer was : 'I see red and yellow, and it is darker at one end than the other. It is like a flag moving about it is moving Now it is opening and shutting like a pair of scissors.' " In the transference of names, short quotations, etc we met with but little success, but on one occasion, the proverb, ' Time flies,' having been thought of by the company, elicited the answer, ' Is it two words? is it " Time flies "? ' " After a while outsiders were called in to witness, and the experiments were not so successful because of nervousness and lack of concentration on the part of agent, or recipient, or Ch. XVIII] Mathematical Estimate of Experiments 247 both. Sometimes, after visitors had gone, agents and recipi- ents who had failed would make a fresh start with much success. Ideas of a colored church window, a revolving lamp to which clung a stuffed monkey swinging a cocoanut were conveyed with considerable success. So were names, numbers, tastes, in fact virtually all ordinary sensations except odors, and there are also drawings which the "recipients" reproduced with varying success. Some are given in the paper. The re- semblance is unmistakable. Sir Oliver Lodge has a report on Mr. Guthrie's experiments in Pr. II. He remarks (Pr. II, 190-1) : " How the transfer takes place, or whether there is any transfer at all, or what is the physical reality underlying the terms 'mind/ 'consciousness,' 'impression,' and the like; and whether this thing we call mind is located in the person, or in the space round him, or in both, or neither; whether indeed the term location, as applied to mind, is utter nonsense and simply meaningless concerning all these things I am absolutely blank, and have no hypothesis whatsoever. I may, however, be permitted to suggest a rough and crude analogy. That the brain is the organ of consciousness is patent, but that conscious- ness is located in the brain is what no psychologist ought to assert; for just as the energy of an electric charge, though apparently on the conductor, is not on the conductor, but in all the space round it; just as the energy of an electric current, though apparently in the copper wire, is certainly not all in the copper wire, and possibly not any of it; so it may be that the sensory consciousness of a person, though apparently located in his brain, may be conceived of as also existing like a faint ech in space, or in other brains, though these are ordinarily too busy and preoccupied to notice it." In Pr. II, 239ff., is given an account by Gurney of some experiments by M. Richet, and an application to them of the Calculus of Probabilities by Richet himself and the brothers Lodge. All is too technical for reproduction here, even if there were space. M. Richet's conclusion was that the probabilities that the experiments proved thought-trans- ference were two to one. Gurney thought that Richet's cal- culation left a wide element for mistake and unconscious fraud, and that leaving that element out, the probabilities were much higher. 248 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV In Pr. Ill, 424, begins a paper by Mr. Guthrie, nearly two years later than his preceding one. The experiments had gone on under the supervision of various eminent men of science, but Mr. Guthrie says (Pr. Ill, 425-6) : " I have noticed a falling off ... since our first great re- sults 1 am not equal to my former self in my power to give off impressions, and if I exert myself to do so, I experience unpleasant effects in the head and nervous system Then we have lost one of our percipients; and as the novelty and vivacity of our seances has departed, there is not tha same geniality and freshness as at the outset. The thing has be- come monotonous, whereas it was formerly a succession of surprises. We have now nothing new to try " Dr. Lodge tried the remarkable experiment of two independent visual impressions, transferred at the same time by two agents to the mind of one percipient, which resulted in a combined impression, in which the two originals were abso- lutely united." Here is his account of it. (Lodge : Survival of Man, p. 52) : " I arranged the double object between Miss R d and Miss E., who happened to be sitting nearly facing one an- other. . . . The drawing was a square on one side of the paper, a cross on the other. Miss R d looked at the side with the square on it. Miss E. looked at the side with the cross. Neither knew what the other was looking at nor did the percipient know that anything unusual was being tried Very soon Miss R d said, ' I see things moving about 1 seem to see two things. ... I see first one up there and then one down there 1 don't know which to draw 1 can't see either distinctly.' (Well anyhow, draw what you have seen.) She took off the bandage and drew first a square, and then said, ' Then there was the other thing as well . . . afterwards they seemed to go into one,' and she drew a cross inside the square from corner to corner, adding afterwards, 'I don't know what made me put it inside.' " The result was like a drawing of the back of an envelope. The diagrams in Pr. Ill were not apparently as successful as those in the earlier papers, but in the earlier papers none but successful ones were given, while this paper contains several unsuccessful ones. Farther accounts or criticisms of thought-transference are contained in Pr. IV to VIII and XI, but they add little. Ch. XVIII] Transference of Imagined Scenes 249 There is an interesting fact regarding two sisters as alter- nately agent and percipient, stated by Sir Oliver Lodge in Pr. VII, 375 : " So far as my own observation went, it was interesting and new to me to see how clearly the effect seemed to depend on contact, and how abruptly it ceased when contact was broken. While guessing through a pack of cards, for instance, rapidly and continuously, I sometimes allowed contact, and sometimes stopped it; and the guesses changed, from frequently correct to quite wild, directly the knuckles or fingertips, or any part of the skin of the two hands ceased to touch. It was almost like breaking an electric circuit At the same time, partial contact seemed less effective than a thorough hand grasp." In Pr. VIII, 434, are some remarkable experiments in guessing imagined scenes which had no existence. Mrs. Thaw, percipient; Dr. Thaw and Mr. Wyatt, agents. "1st Scene. Locomotive running away without engineer, and tears up station. Missed. " 2nd Scene. The first real FLYING MACHINE going over Madison Square Tower, and the people watching. Percipient: I see lots of people. Crowds are going to war. They are so excited. Are they throwing water? (Percipient said after- wards she thought it was a fire and that was the reason of the crowd.) Or sailors pulling at ropes. Agent said, ' What are they doing?' Percipient: They are all looking up. It is a balloon or someone in trouble up there. Agent said, ' Wliy balloon?' Percipient: They are all looking up. Agent said, ' I thought of a possible scene in the future.' Percipient : Oh, it's the first man flying. That's what he's doing up there. Agent: 'Where is it?' Percipient: In the city." In Pr. XI, 3, Mr. Rawson says : " If, as some maintain, thought moves by way of undulations (or vibrations) in some medium more subtle than ether which can permeate to the brain, the interposition of an obstacle may interfere with those undulations. The result of my experi- ments when an obstacle has been interposed shows that it does not arrest them entirely, and at the same time proves, to my satisfaction at any rate, that the success of the experiments cannot be attributed to collusion." An intervening object would of course distract the attention and lessen the confidence of both agent and percipient. Nev- ertheless successful experiments have been conducted with the two parties in separate rooms. All the experiments yet alluded 250 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV to were conducted, however, before the discovery of the vibra- tions in wireless telegraphy, which pass through all sorts of ob- stacles. After this discovery probably the influence of ob- stacles in thought-transference would not have been con- sidered. At least the later Pr. S. P. R., so far as they go, indicate that it has not been. By the appearance of Pr. XI in 1895 apparently the evi- dence for thought-transference had become so conclusive that the society did not care to publish more, at least of the ordinary kind, although there were aspects of it incidental to many phenomena described before and after, and there were some specially interesting experiments between two ladies pub- lished in the Journal (not the Proceedings) S. P. E. for March, 1906, and in Pr. XXI. The friends were generally separated twenty miles or more, and the ideas transferred were mainly visual, of scenery, persons, etc., one of the ladies being an artist. In 1895 appeared Podmore's book: Apparitions and Thought Transference, which is reviewed by Professor New- bold in Pr. XI, 149. The following remarks in the review are specially worth considering (Pr. XI, 150-2) : "It appears that tastes, smells, pains, visual images, motor impulses, and inhibitions have been transferred to normal and hypnotized patients, at varying distances and under conditions which preclude any supposition of the intervention of normal means. It is difficult to understand how anyone can follow Mr. Podmore's masterly presentation of these results without experiencing some degree either of conviction or of confusion. " ' If,' he says on page 144, ' all the [spontaneous] cases . . . hitherto recorded could be shown one by one to be explicable by more familiar causes . . . the grounds for the be- lief in telepathy would not be seriously affected; we should merely have to modify our conception of its nature, and restrict its boundaries.' " This material is interpreted by many in favor of two theories which are at present in the deepest disgrace in the scientific world, the doctrine of a life after death, and its twin, the belief that the intelligence does occasionally in some sense leave its body during life, and visit distant scenes. Mr. Podmore's object in adducing this evidence is, or seems to be, not merely to prove that there is such a thing as a non-sensory Ch. XVIII] Newbold on Podmore's "Apparitions" 251 communication between mind and mind while in the body, but also to show that, admitting such a non-sensory communica- tion as experimentally established, we can explain these spon- taneous phenomena without resorting to either of the above obnoxious doctrines. " We can be quite sure that . . . the phantasm does in- deed belong, as Mr. Podmore shows in the chapter on hallucina- tion in general, to the world of dream rather than to that of matter. But until we have fixed more certainly the relations of the dream-world to the material, it is as well not to be too dogmatic in our assumptions " But frequently the circumstances are such as strongly to suggest an extra-human origin for the telepathic impulse. Often the information thus conveyed is known to have been in possession of some friend or relative of the percipient who has recently died, and the information is sometimes such as we should suppose the dead would wish to convey to the living. When in such cases we not only know that the information was in the possession of the dead, but also have good reason for thinking that it is not in the possession of anyone living, or not in the possession of any living person known to the percipient, the presumption that the impulse originated with a dead person becomes very strong. Mr. Podmore's unwillingness to resort to this hypothesis is, I think, not unjustifiable. How- ever repugnant such a doctrine may be to our sensibilities as scientists, especially since it has been conjoined with the absurdities of ' Modern Spiritualism/ it is our duty to con- sider it fairly as one of the conceivable hypotheses. It is cer- tainly not yet proved. But there was a time when telepathy between living minds was also not yet proved, and it is not likely that it would have stood as near proof as it does to-day had Professor Sidgwick, Mr. Podmore, Mr. Gurney, Mr. Myers, Mr. Hodgson, and others, at every step refused to consider the hypothesis at all. Such evidence, as Mr. Podmore himself shows, should be considered in the aggregate." Here is another vision (Bartlett, op. cit., 51) : Says a writer in the New York World, Dec. 27, 1885: " While we were talking one night, Foster and I, there came a knock at the door. Bartlett arose and opened it, dis- closing as he did so two young men plainly dressed, of marked provincial aspect 1 saw at once that they were clients, and arose to go. Foster restrained me. " ' Sit down,' he said. ' I'll try and get rid of them, for I'm not in the humor to be disturbed ' " Foster hinted that he had no particular inclination to gratify them then and there, but they protested that they had 252 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV come some distance, and, with a characteristically good-natured smile, he gave in " Then follows an account of a fairly good seance taps on the marble table, reading pellets, describing persons, etc., until " I thought Foster was tired of the interview and was feign- ing sleep to end it. All of a sudden he sprang to his feet with such an expression of horror and consternation as an actor playing Macbeth would have given a good deal to imitate. His eyes glared, his breast heaved, his hands clenched " ' Why did you come here ? ' cried Foster, in a wail that seemed to come from the bottom of his soul. ' Why do you come here to torment me with such a sight? Oh, God! It's horrible ! It's horrible ! ... It is your father I see ! ... He died fearfully! He died fearfully! He was in Texas on a horse with cattle. He was alone. It is the prairies 1 Alone! The horse fell! He was under it! His thigh was broken horribly broken! The horse ran away and left him! He lay there stunned! Then he came to his senses! Oh! his thigh was dreadful! Such agony! My God! Such agony!' " Foster fairly screamed at this. The younger of the men . . . broke into violent sobs. His companion wept, too, and the pair of them clasped hands. Bartlett looked on concerned. As for me, I was astounded. " ' He was four days dying four days dying of starvation and thirst,' Foster went on, as if deciphering some terrible hieroglyphs written on the air. ' His thigh swelled to the size of his body. Clouds of flies settled on him flies and vermin and he chewed his own arm and drank his own blood. He died mad. And my God ! he crawled three miles in those four days ! Man ! man ! that's how your father died ! ' " So saying, with a great sob, Foster dropped into his chair, his cheeks purple, and tears running down them in rivers. The younger man . . . burst into a wild cry of grief and sank upon the neck of his friend. He, too, was sobbing as if his own heart would break. Bartlett stood over Foster wiping his fore- head with a handkerchief , "'It's true,' said the younger man's friend; 'his father was a stock-raiser in Texas, and after he had been missing from his drove for over a week, they found him dead and swollen with his leg broken. They tracked him a good distance from where he must have fallen. But nobody ever heard till now how he died.' " Now it is hardly to be supposed that the young visitor could ever have had this scene in his mind as vividly as Foster had. In that case where and how did Foster get the Ch. XVIII] The Vision of the White Fawn 253 vividness and emotion? How do we get them fa dreams? He dreamed while he was awake. Bartlett quotes the following " from Appendix P of Pro- fessor Carpenter's book." What book, he has forgotten, and a reasonable, though moderate, search has not enabled me to discover. " Some eight or ten years ago in New York City, a gentleman and his wife were seated, one summer afternoon, in their pleasant little parlor, talking of the ' hereafter,' when the hus- band jokingly remarked, ' Wife, if you die first, will you come to see me again ? ' She laughingly answered, ' Certainly, I will.' ' In what shape,' said the husband, ' will you come, so that I may be sure of your identity?' The wife replied, as glancing out of the open window she observed a pet white fawn playing in the yard, 'I will come in the shape of that white fawn.' " Five years later, the wife died. The grief-stricken hus- band, hearing of the remarkable gifts of Foster, concluded he would seek an interview. He was fortunate in finding Foster alone. Questions were written, folded and placed on the table in broad daylight, in the usual manner, but the result was dis- appointing. No response came. ' Strange,' said Foster, placing the papers one after the other to his forehead, 'I feel no in- fluence whatever. I fear that I am not in the proper condition to-day to satisfy you.' Again Foster placed the slips to his forehead without result, and then rather abstractedly leaned back in his chair. All at once, greatly to the astonishment of his interviewer, Foster jumped up with unmistakable symptoms of flurry and alarm in his countenance, at the same time brush- ing violently from his lap something nobody saw or felt but himself. At last he said : ' I know I must be out of sorts, un- strung; for although many strange things are constantly hap- pening, I never had an experience that startled me so before. It may seem very foolish to you, but as I had one of your slips pressed to my forehead, suddenly looking up, I saw a beautiful white fawn run across the floor towards me, and it jumped into my lap the moment I started from my chair. I cannot account for it cannot understand it; I only know I saw just what I have described.' " His visitor said not a word, gave no clue to an explanation, and did not subsequently visit Foster. As he said, he was ' afraid to do so.' " There was no actual fawn. Foster did not see any material thing teloptically, but got a suggestion from the husband's Btore of memories, and expanded it into its vision, as we are 254 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV constantly expanding all sorts of notions into dreams. The fawn was really less a construction of Foster's than my shell and pearl were ; for the fawn had been in the husband's mind, and the shell and pearl in combination, and especially with the pearl falling into my head, never had been in mine. My pearl and this fawn seem like catching dream-figments from another mind; why not dream-images of persons in the same way? Here is one more, but in it, as in many cases, the percipient sees against the sitter's mind. What did he see? From the Troy Press, March 6, 1875. Bartlett (op. cit., p. 108) : " He made almost a mental photograph of one of my rela- tives an aunt who died fifteen years ago, and whose memory has been especially dear to me. After he had given the shape of her face, her apparent age, the color of her hair, and a sad, thoughtful expression that especially characterized her face, I added : ' She had brown eyes.' Mr. Foster instantly looked up, as if into her face, and said : ' No ; hazel eyes.' I afterwards learned that he was right and I wrong about it." The sitter's subliminal vision could hardly have been more correct than his conscious one, and given Foster a correct image. This of course suggests that Foster saw the aunt's spirit rather than the nephew's recollection of her. And this suggests in turn that in the preceding case the wife actually did appear as the fawn, though the husband had not the faculty to see her. But in that case would not Foster have seen her jump into her husband's lap rather than his own ? Foster's " spirits " were sometimes in the body. Mr. Bart- lett writes (op. dt., p. 21) : " I have a vivid recollection of a certain seance where . . . the spirit was described as having bright red hair, freckled face, short chin-whiskers, etc. The gentleman said, ' You have given the name correctly, and you have perfectly described my brother, but he is alive and lives in Albany.' Mr. Foster re- plied, ' In these visions, I perceive the persons plainly, but I cannot always tell whether the spirit be in the body, or out of the body.' " Telepathy from the sitter. Here is a very significant circumstance, if it really is a cir- cumstance, but I may be mistaken in my impression. Foster, Ch. XVIII] Ideas from Distant Persons 255 Mrs. Piper, and others frequently talked or wrote about living persons, but although many of the dead persons they men- tioned, themselves took the floor and talked or were reported in propria persona, there is not a case that I can recall where any living person has professed to speak through a medium. Yet on seeing this Professor Newbold writes me: " If I am not mistaken Dr. Wiltse once was represented as so speaking through Mrs. Piper." Ideas from Persons Distant The following was probably more apt to be teloteropathy from the boy's mind than advice from any "spirit." (Bart- lett, op. cit., p. 100) : From the New York Graphic, October 24, 1874. " One day (and everybody knows the story in Philadelphia) Alexander McClure, the old Greeley leader of Pennsylvania, came into the Continental Hotel with Colonel John B. Forney. Mr. McClure was very sad, for he had received news that his son was drowned at sea. "'What do you think about it, Foster?' asked Colonel Forney. " ' Why, sir, the boy is not drowned at all,' replied Foster. ' He's alive and well, and you'll have a letter from him in a day or two, and then he will come home.' " Two days afterwards McClure met Foster, and said, with tears of gratitude : ' Why, Foster, you were right. My boy is all safe. I had a letter from him to-day.' " This illustrates a very frequent experience that the sensi- tive's susceptibility extends beyond the sitter and picks up impressions from the minds of distant persons; and the cases where sensitives have produced any verifiable thing not pos- sibly existent in such minds, are rare. But if they were not in such minds, they could not be verified. This, therefore, is of course not necessarily fatal to Foster's own conviction that the impressions were given him by " spirits." A wife feels a blow received by a distant husband (Pr. II, 128): " BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, October 27th, 1883. "I woke up with a start, feeling I had had a hard blow on my mouth, and a distinct sense that I had been cut, and was bleeding under my upper lip, and seized my pocket handker- chief, and held it ... to the part, as I sat up in bed, and after 256 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV a few seconds, when 1 removed it, I was astonished not to see any blood, and only then realized it was impossible anything could have struck me there, as I lay fast asleep in bed, and so I thought it was only a dream! but I looked at my watch, and saw it was 7, and finding Arthur (my husband) was not in the room, I concluded (rightly) that he must have gone out on the lake for an early sail "I then fell asleep. At breakfast (half -past nine), Arthur came in rather late, and I noticed he rather purposely sat farther away from me than usual, and every now and then put his pocket handkerchief furtively up to his lip. ... I said, * Arthur, why are you doing that ? ' and added a little anxiously, 'I know you've 'hurt yourself; but I'll tell you why afterwards.' He said, ' Well, when I was sailing, a sudden squall came, throwing the tiller suddenly round, and it struck me a bad blow in the mouth, under the upper lip, and it has been bleed- ing a good deal and won't stop.' I then said, ' Have you any idea what o'clock it was when it happened ? ' and he answered, ' It must have been about seven.' " JOAN K. SEVERN." Mr. Severn confirms the experience throughout. Vague uneasiness leads a husband to his injured wife (Pr. II, 125) : " CATHEDRAL YARD, WINCHESTER, January 31st, 1884. " I am a working foreman of masons at Winchester Cathedral More than thirty years ago ... in London . . . I carried my food with me, and therefore had no call to leave the work all day. On a certain day, however, I suddenly felt an intense desire to go home, but as I had no business there I tried to suppress it, but it was not possible to do so. Every minute the desire to go home increased 1 got fidgety and uneasy, and felt as if I must go, even at the risk of being ridiculed by my wife " The dbor was opened by my wife's sister . . . who lived a few streets off. She looked surprised and said, ' Why, Skir- ving, how did you know ? ' ' Know what ? ' I said. ' Why, about Mary Ann.' I said, ' I don't know anything about Mary Ann ' (my wife). 'Then what brought you home at present?' I said, ' I can hardly tell you. I seemed to want to come home. But what is wrong?'... She told me that my wife had been run over by a cab ... and she had called for me ever since, but was now in fits, and had several in succession. I went upstairs, and though very ill she recognized me, and stretched forth her arms and took me round the neck and pulled my head down into her bosom. The fits passed away directly, and my presence seemed to tranquilize her, so that she got into sleep, Ch. XVIII] Visions from Distant Persons 257 and did well. Her sister told me that she had uttered the most piteous cries for me to come to her "ALEXANDER SKIRTING." Visions from Persons Distant Here is an experience more attractive than the average in these studies. It is from Rev. P. H. Newnham of Maker, Davenport, England, given in a paper by Myers in Pr. III. At Oxford one night in 1854 Mr. Newnham went to bed with a violent headache, to which he was subject. Mr. Newnham says (Pr. Ill, 6f.) : " I dreamed that I was stopping with the family of the lady who subsequently became ray wife. All the younger ones had gone to bed, and I stopped chatting to the father and mother, standing up by the fireplace. Presently I bade them good-night, took my candle, and went off to bed. On arriving in the hall, I perceived that my fiancee had been detained downstairs, and was only then near the top of the staircase. I rushed upstairs, overtook her on the top step, and passed my two arms around her waist " On this I woke, and a clock in the house struck ten almost immediately afterwards. So strong was the impression of the dream that I wrote a detailed account of it next morning to my fiancee. " Crossing my letter, not in answer to it, I received a letter from the lady in question : ' Were you thinking about me, very specially, last night, just about ten o'clock? For, as I was going upstairs to bed, I distinctly heard your footsteps on the stairs, and felt you put your arms round my waist.' " Mrs. Newnham writes in confirmation. Stillman says (op. cit., I, 184) : " On one occasion, when Mr. and Mrs. Brown were on a fish- ing trip into the wild parts of New York State, and, returning, were on their way to the railway station, the wheel of their wagon broke and they had to go to a blacksmith on the road to have it repaired. She said to her husband that they would lose the train, to which the voice replied that they would be in time; for the train was late and they would arrive with a minute to spare, and in fact as they drew up at the station the train came in sight and they had a minute to spare Her husband implicitly and always followed the directions given her through her demon " The S. P. R. Committee reports (Pr. II, 161) : 258 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV " The account was sent to us by the Kev. Canon Warburton, The Close, Winchester. " ' Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to stay a day or two with my brother 1 found a note on the table apologizing for his absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance 1 dozed in an arm-chair, but started up wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating " By Jove, he's down ! " and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows and hands. (The house was one which I had never seen, nor did I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter I fell a-doze again for half an hour, and was awakened by my brother suddenly coming in and saying, " Oh, there you are. I have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever had in my life. Coming out of the ball-room, I caught my foot and tumbled full length down the stairs." "'W. WARBURTON. " ' The general impression was of a narrow landing brilliantly illuminated, and I remember verifying the correct- ness of this by questions at the time. " ' This is my sole experience of the kind.' " Here are three accounts of apparently teloteropathic veridi- cal dreams given me by Professor Pumpelly, though all three may have been teloptic, and the last one telakoustic : " Between forty and fifty years ago, while visiting my sister in New York City, I came down to breakfast where I found my brother-in-law reading the morning paper. Soon my sister also came down and joined us at table. She said she had had an awful dream; she had dreamed all night that she was stand- ing in a church, where a continuous procession of men was filing by her, carrying on litters something covered with sheets. " Her husband resumed reading his paper and soon said : 'Why, Netty, here it says that they are removing the bodies from the St. Mark's graves.' " Now, my sister's first child had been buried several years before in the graveyard of St. Mark's church. My sister had not seen the paper, and neither she nor her husband had heard of any intention to disturb the graves." " In the late winter of 1864-5, I was on my journey through Siberia. In one of the first nights after leaving Irkutsk I dreamed that I had arrived at my native village of Owego in New York and had walked home from the station. As I came up the driveway to the house I saw my mother and my father standing at the door showing signs of great grief. I noticed that my aunt, who lived with us and whom we all loved dearly, Ch. XVIII] Professor Pumpelly's Veridical Dreams 259 was not there. As soon as I waked I was so impressed by the dream that I made a memorandum, as I remember, in the form of an inverted torch, with the date. " When I reached St. Petersburg about three weeks later, I found in my mail the first news I had had, for six months, from home. I learned that the aunt I had missed in my dream had died. I do not remember now the relation in time between the dates of the death and the dream. It was close, and my impression is that I thought, in reading the letter, that there was coincidence." " In 1906 we were living in Capri. One morning my wife told me of dreaming that she found her sisters and her brother Otis (who had died several years before) in tears. When they saw her, Otis said : ' We must tell Eliza.' " That same day there came a cablegram saying that my wife's favorite brother Horace was very ill, and within an hour another cable saying he had died." Here is an unreported case that came to me direct yes- terday. The story will have to stand for what it may be worth on my sole attestation. The parties are known to me, but peculiar circumstances prevent confirmation by pub- lishing their names. On the first of January, 1912, a father was dying in one city and a daughter twelve years old was lying ill with pneumonia in another. Suddenly the child, with a rapt ex- pression, raised herself to a sitting posture; her attendant rushed in alarm to make her lie down, and the child ex- claimed : " Father was taking me in his arms ! " The father died at about the time. Whether before or after cannot be accurately determined. There are on record many similar occurrences well attested. Whether all visions are telepathic, including teloptic, is an open question. Myers inclines to the opinion that they are not that sometimes the telergic effect includes a modifica- tion of space that makes the vision objective. Certainly such modifications of space can be produced by mechanical means, as in the theatrical exhibitions I have already described. Whether they can be produced by telergy is a question. There are on record hundreds of such visions well attested, from those of simple objects deliberately transferred according to 260 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV the early S. P. R. reports, to the complex ones spontaneously received by Foster, Colville, and others. The phenomena thus far given I have been content to group under telepathy from the living, though some of them are hard to account for in that way. At the present time the great storehouse for these ex- periences is Phantasms of the Living, by Edmund Gurney, Frederic W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, London, 1886. This book is now out of print. It is criticised in Podmore's Apparitions and Thought Transference. There is a very good article, with many cases, in Pr. V (Part XIV) by Gurney, com- pleted by Myers after Gurney's death. There is also an im- portant discussion by Mrs. Sidgwick on Phantasms of the Dead, with some cases, in Pr. Ill (Part VIII), 69f. Others are in Pr. VI (Part XV), by Myers, and in Part XVI by Podmore and Myers, and in Pr. VIII (Part XXII) by Myers. Space requires that generally the few accounts given here should be much condensed. The increased vividness of de- tails and frequent accompanying discussions and abundant confirmations in the original statements would generally re- pay the reader for going to the sources cited. It may be worth while to repeat that the volumes of the Pr. S. P. R. generally consist of several parts, which can be had separately from Messrs. W. B. Clarke & Co., of Boston. Ideas Apparently from the Dead A weakness in the assumption that any telepathic intelli- gence or vision really comes from the dead is in the fact that the circumstances are nearly always in the minds of survivors near the scene of death, and may be teloteropathically con- veyed to the percipient. It is a question, however, in many cases, whether that hypothesis does not strain probability more than the spiritistic hypothesis. That it does, seems more frequently the conclusion of those who have read many of the cases, than of those who know but few. But compare the extracts from Professor Pumpelly a page or two back. Stillman (op. cit., I, 186-7) tells the following of a seance where a child of seven, whose name is suppressed, acted as medium. Stillman's questions were mental. Ch. XVIII] The Stillman Steamboat Case 261 " After several relatives had been named, I asked if our brother Alfred was there, to which she instantly replied, ' There is a gentleman sitting on the corner of the table by you who says his name is Alfred.' The opportunity then occurred to me of asking a ' test question/ which was, ' If Alfred is here, will he tell me when he last saw Harvey?' The relevance of this question will appear from the fact that they were together on the steamer whose boiler burst on the Mississippi, killing my brother and causing injury to the cousin such that he committed suicide a month later. The reply was, ' He says he does not remember.' At this I remarked guardedly to the doctor [Another brother of Stillman, who was present. H. H.] : 'I asked Alfred when he last saw Harvey, and he replies that he doesn't remember, but he must have seen him on board the boat.' To this she instantly replied, with an explosive laugh, 4 He says that if he did it was all blown out of him! ' ... It was quite in accordance with the character of my brother to joke on the most serious subjects he was an inveterate joker " All the facts were known to at least two persons present. But where did the joke come from? Here is a second Foster stigmata case, not given for the stigmata, however. From Bartlett (op. c\t., p. 12) : "During the same sitting a word of three letters appeared upon the back of Mr. Foster's hand the letters were formed by a red discoloration of the skin. The word was one which was agreed upon by the gentleman and his wife before her death, and it was to be used as a test by the one who should die first. The word had never been mentioned to any person." In this test, as in the fawn test, Foster was more successful than, as we shall see, Mrs. Piper has been with some important agreed post-mortem tests. There are many habitual seers of waking visions, and hearers of voices, and the heteromatists who write while awake are closely allied with them. They are generally religious enthusi- asts. St. Theresa, Joan of Arc, and the Seeress of Provost are among the classical examples. A remarkable recent one is Mme. Sophie Radford de Meissner, an American widow of a Russian diplomat. She has just published an account of her experience in a little volume entitled There are no Dead. She believes herself in constant communication by audible voices with her husband and son and others who have died. The book 262 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV abounds in the orthodox anthropomorphic conceptions, and yet it falls in with what perhaps I may call the very reasonable present-day idea of Heaven as a sublimated earth scenery, occupations, and all. As the old mixtures from the Apoca- lypse, Milton, Bunyan, etc., were believed in with religious fervor, the replacing of them strongly suggests outside influ- ence ; and that the experience is so general, makes the sugges- tion stronger still. But Mme. de Meissner's heaven is by no means entirely secu- larized. Her controls often see Christ, and have frequent re- ligious services, and the angels and archangels sing with them. I give a few passages : (Op. cit., Foreword.) " There is no attempt at anything in the way of ' test ' cases, despite the fact that many such have been shown me, though never in reply to a demand for the same. Spontaneously things have been told me, either for my own guidance, or for that of friends in sorrow and despair; and spontaneously have I been informed of things that have after- ward come to pass; but any attempt at forcing communications in regard to future happenings has invariably been met by a well deserved rebuke from those who are 'given charge' over all of us." (Op. cit., 5.) "You all think so wrongly of the life here it differs so little from that in the world, except in that it is so much more grand and full." This is directly against her intense orthodoxy. (Op. cit., 12.) " ' There is no night here what you call the night is the best time of all, for then you are with us. As soon as you are asleep your Spirit is here, and we sit and talk either in the house or in beautiful gardens, or on the river's brink.' " (Op. cit., 23.) " (In reading a book of Professor Hyslop's, I mentioned 'Rector's' name aloud, and he at once responds:) " ' Yes ; I am here do you want anything ? ' " (I tell him of how K. F. had told me I would be able to help others, and add that I cannot see just how that may be.) " A. ' You will know in a few weeks. You will be much stronger, and will see them soon. It will come by prayer and fasting.' " The Titanic went down April 14th. On the 17th Mme. de Meissner thought she had communications from W. T. Stead. On the morning of the 18th she thought she had communica- tions from Major Butt. It was not till the evening of the Ch. XVIII] Mme. de Meissner's Cases 263 18th that newg of the arrival of the Carpathia gave her any other assurance of their deaths that she remembered when writing. But of course during the interval, the papers were full of wireless messages that probably mentioned them. For the particulars of all this, I shall have to refer you to the book. On reading these accounts, the habitual student is apt to say to himself: "This admirable lady is more gifted with emo- tional and imaginative power than with dry-as-dust judicial habits. I wonder how many of these details are very natural post facto imagination ! Certainly her imagination sometimes supplies pretty wide interpretations of other incidents." I give the following as illustrating what will appear to many a point weak enough to raise questions regarding the whole experience and it is not the only one. Yet if it is all imagi- nation, it is at least a graceful bit, and there are many more graceful things in the book. It will sometimes be a little hard, though, for any but the very orthodox to sympathize with them. Madame even goes so far as to have the mere pronouncing of a sacred name break up very trying situations. Here is the experience : (Op. cit., 61-2.) " October 2, 1902. (Reading in the Journal de St. Petersbourg of three workmen who had been run over by an express train in Austria, I hear these unhappy men beg me to help them they have no idea where they are, but are entirely in the dark. Can see no way at all they cannot pray, for they never did that in their lives, and do not know how.) " (' Ask God to help you.') " A. ' Who is Oodf ' " (' Say : " Our Father Who art in Heaven," after me.') " (This they do; then I hear an exclamation, and the words:) " ' Now it is growing lighter, and we can see a little. Oh, don't leave us, for we don't know at all where to go, or what to do; but there is a young man coming toward us, and it gets lighter as he comes nearer ' " (From my son) ' Pray for these poor men but I can take them only a little way yes, they can have work if they want it.' " (Here they are shown a garden with flowers, and they say:) " ' No, we don't know anything about flowers we only know how to work on the rails.' " (From my son) ' I cannot show them that, but there is one here who can.' " (From the men) ' Ah, here comes someone who we see will give us work. Yes, now we see the work we are to do; and we 264 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV will not be alone, for there are some men further down the road, poor workmen like ourselves, and we can talk to them after a while. Yes, now we are at work here, and we understand that we must work as well as we can in order to come to a lighter and brighter place.'" Whatever impressions one may get from the book, there is sure to be among them one that whether or not the experiences are all pure auto-suggestions, they are a source of much happi- ness to the author and, apparently, many of her friends ; and the apparent fact that no harm comes from them suggests a degree of genuineness. All such matter where deliberate de- ceit is out of the question, is worth studying : for even negative results help fix the boundaries of the positive ; and that there is an important positive of some sort, whether a vast addition to our general Cosmic Relations, or only to our traditional psychology, is an opinion that can now be contradicted only by the ignorant. From Bartlett (op. cit., p. 62) : "While I was connected with Mr. Foster I know of no one stance which created such a sensation, and the reports of which were so widely copied, as that given to Mr. C. E. De Long, of San Francisco, an extended account of which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, of January 23, 1874. " Mr. De Long was wholly unknown to Foster. They all sat down to the table, and after Foster had smoked awhile at his cigar, he said : ' I can only get one message to-night, and that is for a person named Ida. Do either of you know who Ida is ? ' " Mr. De Long looked at Foster with rather a startled look, and said, ' Well, yes, I rather think I do. My wife's name is Ida.' " ' Well,' said Foster, ' then this message is for her, and it is important. But she will have to come here and receive it.' " The next evening the same two, accompanied by Mrs. De Long, were ushered into Foster's parlor After Foster had smoked for several minutes in silence, he suddenly said : ' The same message comes to me. It is for Ida. This is the lady, is it? ' he asked, as of the spirit. ' Oh, you will write the message, will you? Well, all right,' and with this he took up a pen and dashed off the following: " ' To my daughter Ida Ten years ago I entrusted a large sum of money to Thomas Madden to invest for me in certain lands. After my death he failed to account for the investment to my executors. The money was invested, and twelve hundred and fifty acres of land were bought, and one-half of this land now belongs to you. I paid Madden on account of my share Ch. XVIII] The Vineyard-Madden Investment 265 of the purchase $650. He must be made to make a settlement. " ' Your father, " ' VINEYARD.' " Both Mr. and Mrs. De Long sat and heard this communica- tion read with astonished faces. Mrs. De Long . . . was terribly frightened . . . for she knew that Foster did not know who she was, nor who her father might have been " Mr. De Long . . . next day called on Mr. Madden . . . [and] asked Mr. Madden if there was not yet some unsettled business between himself and the estate of the late Mr. Vineyard. Mr. Madden thought for a moment, and then he said there was When informed that Mrs. De Long had only just learned of this investment of her father's, Mr. Madden expressed much surprise. He said he supposed she and her husband and the executors knew all about it, but were simply letting the matter rest for the property to increase in value. Mr. Madden then said that he was ready to make a settlement at any time. Thia was readily assented to by Mr. De Long, and accordingly, on Saturday last, Mr. Madden transferred a deed for 625 acres of the land to Mrs. De Long " Meanwhile Foster is overrun with people anxious to inter- view their deceased parents, for the purpose of finding out if the old folks are quite sure that their estates have been fully and properly settled." The dramatic features the letter, etc., are not unlike the dramatic features of ordinary dreams. ' All could have been teloteropathy from Mr. Madden's mind. But if so, as in many similar instances, it must have been communicated in- voluntarily. Visions Apparently from the Dead The records contain perhaps more visions apparently from the dead than mere communications of unknown verifiable intelligence. This of course generated the idea that often the personages are present in a " spiritual " body palpable enough to affect the eye, but telesthesia would be enough. In the general gossip regarding Foster, the feature that decided me to go to him was my being told by Professor Pumpelly that Foster had announced to him the death, too recent to be reported by any means then known, of a friend in China whom, from Foster's description, Professor Pum- pelly at once recognized as Sir F. B. He also told me that news of the death was received through ordinary channels in due time after Foster had told him of it. 266 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV This would be interpreted by skeptical experts as a case of teloteropathy. They would say that plenty of people in China knew of Sir F/s death, and Foster unconsciously tapped their minds, being stimulated thereto by a previous tapping of Professor Pumpelly's mind; in other words, Professor Pumpelly's presence put Foster's mind in sympathetic con- nection with minds holding knowledge of special interest to Professor Pumpelly. The men who have given incomparably more attention to the subject than have any others Myers and Hodgson one of whom began his studies as a thorough skeptic, would say that the spirit of Sir F. gave the im- pression for his friend to Foster. My impression, for which reasons will appear as we proceed, is that some sort of psychic record of all facts pervades the universe, and that Foster caught up this one and others of interest to his sitters.* (Pr. V, 408f.) From the Eev. G. M. Tandy, Vicar of West- Ward, near Wigton, Cumberland. "When at Loweswater, I one day called upon a friend, who said, 'You do not see many newspapers; take one of those lying there.' I accordingly took up a newspaper, bound with a wrapper, put it into my pocket, and walked home. " In the evening I was writing, and, wanting to refer to a book, went into another room where my books were. I placed the candle on a ledge of the bookcase, took down a book, and found the passage I wanted, when, happening to look towards the window, which was opposite to the bookcase, I saw through the window the face of an old friend whom I had known well at Cambridge, but had not seen for ten years or more, Canon Kobinson (of the Charity and School Commission). I was so sure I saw him that I went out to look for him, but could find no trace of him. " I went back into the house and thought I would take a look at my newspaper. I tore off the wrapper, unfolded the paper, and the first piece of news that I saw was the death of Canon Robinson ! . . . I had not heard or read of his illness, or death, and there was nothing in the passage of the book I was reading to lead me to think of him." Miss Hosmer, the sculptor, gives the following (Harriet Hosmer: Letters and Memories. New York, 1912) : * Since this book and its index were made up Professor Pumpelly tells me that in the nearly fifty years since this occurrence, our memories of it have grown apart. So it is best to regard it only as a "hypothetical Ch. XVIII] Miss Hosmer's Maid 267 " When I was living in Rome I had for several years a maid named Rosa, to whom I became much attached 1 was greatly distressed when she became ill with consumption and had to leave me. I used to call frequently to see her ... and on one occasion she expressed a desire for a certain kind of wine. I told her I would bring it to her the next morning During the rest of the afternoon I was busy in my studio, and do not remember that Rosa was in my thoughts after I parted from her. I retired to bed in good health and in a quiet frame of mind. I always sleep with my doors locked, and in my bed- room in Rome there were two doors; the key to one my maid kept, and the other was turned on the inside. A tall screen stood around my bed. I awoke early the morning after my visit to Rosa and heard the clock in the library next, distinctly strike five, and just then I was conscious of some presence in the room, back of the screen. I asked if anyone was there, when Rosa appeared in front of the screen and said, ' Adesso sono contento, adesso sono felice ' (Now I am content, now I am happy). For the moment it did not seem strange, I felt as though everything was as it had been. ... In a flash she was gone. I sprang out of bed. There was no Rosa there. ... In the first moment of surprise and bewilderment I did not reflect that the door was locked "At breakfast I mentioned the apparition to my French landlady, and she ridiculed the idea as being anything more than the fantasy of an excited brain Instead of going to see Rosa after breakfast, I sent to inquire, for I felt a strong premonition that she was dead. The messenger returned, say- ing Rosa had died at five o'clock. When I told Mr. Gladstone of this ... he said he firmly believed in a magnetic current, action of one mind upon another, or whatever you choose to call it, but could not believe ghosts had yet the power of speech. However, to me this occurrence is as much of a reality as any experience of my life. " Then, too, I have had many strange flashes of inner vision in seeing articles that were lost. I have never been able to produce them by reasoning or strong desire. They have come literally in a flash " If it were possible I should like to know if Miss Hosmer really " awoke " and " sprang out of bed." The vast ma- jority of visions occur in bed and are probably dreams. Here is one of the most impressive visions on record. As the percipient was not in bed it was probably not an ordinary dream, though I do not see that it is of much consequence whether it was or not. I put it here among visions appar- ently caused by the dead, but it may be a true telopsis. 268 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV Mrs. Sidgwick treats it as such in a valuable article On the Evidence for Clairvoyance in Pr. VII. If it was a telopsis, apparently it remained latent from 3 A.M. until somewhere about 9 or 10, meanwhile causing the depres- sion with which the percipient awoke. If it did not remain latent, there are at least two guesses open that it took time to come telepathically from some witness, or that it was tel- epathed by a postcarnate soul. (Pr. VII, 33f.) : " Statement of Mr. A. B. Wood. "On October 24th, 1889, Edmund Dunn, brother of Mrs. Agnes Paquet, was serving as fireman on the tug Wolf, a small steamer engaged in towing vessels in Chicago Harbor. At about three o'clock A.M., the tug fastened to a vessel, inside the piers, to tow her up the river. While adjusting the towline Mr. Dunn fell or was thrown overboard by the towline, and drowned " " Mrs. Paquet's Statement. " I arose about the usual hour on the morning of the accident, probably about six o'clock. I had slept well throughout the night, had no dreams or sudden awakenings. I awoke feeling gloomy and depressed, which feeling I could not shake off. After . . . [two or three hours. H. H.] ... I went into the pantry, took down the tea canister, and as I turned around my brother Edmund or his exact image stood before me and only a few feet away. The apparition stood with back toward me, or, rather, partially so, and was in the act of falling for- ward away from me seemingly impelled by two ropes or a loop of rope drawing against his legs. The vision lasted but a moment, disappearing over a low railing or bulwark, but was very distinct. I dropped the tea, clasped my hands to my face, and exclaimed, ' My God ! Ed. is drowned.' " At about half -past ten A.M. my husband received a telegram from Chicago, announcing the drowning of my brother. When he arrived home he said to me, ' Ed. is sick in hospital at Chicago; I have just received a telegram,' to which I replied, ' Ed. is drowned ; I saw him go overboard.' I then gave him a minute description of what I had seen. I stated that my brother, as I saw him, was bareheaded, had on a heavy blue sailor's shirt, no coat, and that he went over the rail or bulwark. I noticed that his pants' legs were rolled up enough to show the white lining inside. "I am not nervous, and neither before nor since have I had any experience in the least degree similar to that above related. " My brother was not subject to fainting or vertigo " AGNES PAQUET." Ch. XVIII] Mrs. Paquet's Drowned Brother 269 " Mr. Paquet's Statement. " Wishing to break the force of the sad news I had to convey to my wife, I said to her : ' Ed. is sick in hospital at Chicago; I have just received a telegram.' To which she re- plied : ' Ed. is drowned ; I saw him go overboard.' " I started at once for Chicago, and when I arrived there I found the appearance of that part of the vessel described by my wife to be exactly as she had described it, though she had never seen the vessel; and the crew verified my wife's de- scription of her brother's dress, &c., except that they thought that he had his hat on at the time of the accident. They said that Mr. Dunn had purchased a pair of pants a few days before the accident occurred, and as they were a trifle long before, wrinkling at the knees, he had worn them rolled up, showing the white lining as seen by my wife." Considerable confirmatory matter is added. Colonel H., vouched for by Mr. Gurney, tells (Pr. V, 412) : " how, nearly twenty-three years before, he had formed a friendship with two brother subalterns, J. P. and J. 8., and how his intercourse with J. P. had been continued at intervals up to the time of the Transvaal war, when J. P. was ordered out on the staff. J. S. was already on the scene of action. Both had now attained major's rank; the narrator himself had left the service some years previously. " On the morning that J. P. was leaving London, to embark for the Cape, he invited the narrator to breakfast with him at the club, and they finally parted at the club-door. " ' Good-bye, old fellow,' I said, ' we shall meet again, I hope/ "'Yes,' he said, 'we shall meet again.' "I can see him now, as he stood, smart and erect, with his bright black eyes looking intently into mine. A wave of the hand, as the hansom whirled him off, and he was gone. "The Transvaal war was at its height. One night...! awoke with a start Standing by my bed, between me and the chest of drawers, I saw a figure, which, in spite of the unwonted dress unwonted, at least, to me and of a full black beard, I at once recognized as that of my old brother-officer. . . . I started from sleep, and sat up in bed looking at him. His face was pale, but his bright black eyes shone as keenly as when, a year and a half before, they had looked upon me as he stood with one foot on the hansom, bidding me adieu. " Fully impressed for the brief moment that we were sta- tioned together at C in Ireland or somewhere, and thinking I was in my barrack-room, I said, ' Hallo ! P., am I late for parade?' P. looked at me steadily, and replied, 'I'm shot.' " ' Shot! ' I exclaimed. ' Good God! how and where? ' 270 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV " ' Through the lunge/ replied P., and as he spoke his right hand moved slowly up the breast, until the fingers rested over the right lung. " ' What were you doing ? ' I asked. " ' The General sent me forward,' he answered, and the right hand left the breast to move slowly to the front, pointing over my head to the window, and at the same moment the figure melted away. I rubbed my eyes, to make sure I was not dream- ing, and sprang out of bed. It was then 4.10 A.M. by the clock on my mantelpiece. " The [second] morning I ... seized with avidity the first paper that came to hand. . . . My eye fell at once on the brief lines that told of the battle of Lang's Neck, and on the list of killed, foremost among them all being poor J. P. I noted the time the battle was fought, calculated it with the hour at which I had seen the figure, and found that it almost coincided. " About six months afterwards ... an officer who was at the battle of Lang's Neck . . . confirmed every detail More than a year after the occurrence ... on my asking J. S. if he had heard how poor P was shot, he replied, ' Just here,' and his fingers traveled up his breast, exactly as the fingers of the figure had done, until they rested on the very spot over the right lung." The following narrative was communicated by Mr. Edward A. Goodall, of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colors, London (Pr. V, 453) : " At midsummer, 1869, I left London for Naples Arrived at the hotel [in a village near by. H.H.] and while sitting per- fectly still in my saddle talking to the landlady, the donkey went down upon his knees as if he had been shot or struck by light- ning, throwing me over his head upon the lava pavement " It must have been on my third or fourth night, and about the middle of it, when I awoke, as it seemed, at the sound of my own voice, saying : ' I know I have lost my dearest little May.' Another voice, which I in no way recognized, answered: 'No, not May, but your youngest boy.' " The distinctness and solemnity of the voice made such a distressing impression upon me that I slept no more. I got up at daybreak, and went out, noticing for the first time tele- graph-poles and wires. "Without delay I communicated with the postmaster at Naples, and by next boat received two letters from home. I opened them according to dates outside. The first told me that my youngest boy was taken suddenly ill; the second, that he was dead. Ch. XVIII] Animals Seem to See Visions 271 " Neither on his account nor on that of any of my family had I any cause for uneasiness. All were quite well on my taking leare of them so lately. My impression ever since has been that the time of the death coincided as nearly as we could judge with the time of my accident. " Mr. Goodall thinks that the mule's sudden fall otherwise inexplicable may have been due to terror at some apparition of the dying child. When this paper was read to the Society for Psychical Research, Mr. Pearsall Smith gave the following apparently parallel instance: " A prominent barrister at Philadelphia . . . had parted, under painful circumstances of controversy, with a friend who had later gone to Italy for his health. Afterwards, while camping out in the wilds of the Adirondacks, one day his horse became excited and refused to advance when urged. While engaged in the contest with the horse, the barrister saw before him the apparition of his friend with blood pouring from his mouth, and in an interval of the effusion he heard him say, '/ have nothing against you.' Soon afterwards he heard that his friend had at that time died during a discharge of blood from the lungs." I might properly include here, under apparent telepathy from the dead, some more remarkable dream visions which I prefer to leave for a special treatment of dreams. They will be found in Chapter LV. Miscellaneous Tele psychoses Without Assignable Source Here is a vision pure and simple that is interesting, but suggests nothing and explains nothing, and is one of a dozen that cropped up one night around the table at the Authors' Club, as they will crop up around any table if the conversa- tion stimulates them. This one was given me by Dr. Rossiter Johnson, and is unusual in not occurring while the percipient was in bed, in involving the sense of hearing as well as that of sight, and in having two witnesses. I don't trouble to get the affirmation of the second one : the time when confirmation of a respectable witness is needed in these matters is past. Dr. Johnson writes that in August, 1895, near Amagansett, Long Island, he was driving with his secretary in a neigh- borhood known as Hardscrabble. " We traversed a piece of the road that lies between two turns. First it turns at right angles to the north, passes a single farmhouse, and after a course of three or four hundred 272 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Pt. IV yards, turns at right angles to the east. When we were in this part of the road, it was about half -past nine, and the moon had risen. After we had passed the farmhouse (which was completely dark, as if all the inmates had gone to bed), we were skirting a large field on the east side of the road, when, just the other side of the fence, suddenly appeared a spirited team attached to a farm wagon, not at all like the buggy we were in, going in the same direction that we were going, but much faster. It appeared that the field was not cultivated very close to the fence, and there was a belt of bushes, with weeds or grass (wild growth of some sort) ; and the hoofs of the horses and wheels of the wagon were distinctly heard crashing through this. At the moment when the wagon was abreast of our carriage, the distance between them could not have been much more than a dozen yards. The horses and wagon were perfectly distinct. I could not say that I saw any driver. They went at a very rapid rate till they reached the corner of the field, and then disappeared. Their whole course while they were visible to me was about one hundred yards. When we arrived at the turn of the road, they were nowhere in sight. I said to my secretary : ' Did you see anything ? ' and in answer she described exactly what I had seen. " As the apparition was between us and the moon, there could be no possibility of seeing on that side a shadow of the buggy. I could recall nothing in my whole experience that could have suggested such an apparition; neither could my secretary." Miss Hosmer, the sculptor, tells the following three stories in the biography already cited: " Lady A. wears a curious gold ring designed by her husband. When taken from the finger it can be straightened into a key " All of her valuables, from jewel cases to her writing room, where many important papers are kept, are fitted with locks for this key. One morning she came into my room much distressed, saying she could not find her ring key. ... I saw the ring key, in my mind's eye, plainly on the table in her daugh- ter's apartment The ring was found just where I saw it." This may have been a stored up memory, but how about this? " On another occasion Lady A. could not find a despatch, box containing valuable papers. ... A vision of it flashed across my brain. I said, 'It is useless to search here, the box is at Drummond's bank, in one of your large boxes.' ... I went to Ch. XVIII] Prophetic Visions 273 the bank I asked the clerk to bring out his ledger containing the list of boxes. . . . When I ran my hand down the list (there were seren) it stopped at five. Number five was brought from the vault into the private room After taking out all the carefully packed articles I was rewarded by finding the lost box at the very bottom " How and why these visions come is, as yet, an unknown science, but I firmly believe it will be made clear some time, perhaps at no distant day." And this? " Shortly after dinner I made the original observation that I would take possession of the sofa and have ' forty winks.' I had just lain down when I was moved to say, ' I have such a feeling of a carriage accident.' I then dozed off for about ten minutes . . . when a tremendous crash under my windows, in the Cortile of the Barberini Palace, startled us both. Up I flew to the nearest window, and there was the Princess Or- aini's carriage, upside down, on a pile of bricks, which in true Italian fashion had been left right in the driveway, with no lantern." Here are some more incidents that our classification is not broad enough to cover. Lake the last from Miss Hosmer, they open up the question of prophecy, and that opens up the question of determinism; and that I have always considered too tough to be handled by me or anybody else. A few years since, a young woman had a sitting with an obscure medium in Cambridge, who was under investigation by James. She told her sitter : " You will lead thousands." A series of accidents led the young woman to start an en- tirely new charity, and she has brought it to the point where she is literally " leading thousands." These facts are in my personal knowledge, except as I depend on testimony regard- ing the sitting. Many years ago another young woman, with an older friend, went, as a lark, to consult a negro woman who was " telling fortunes " in New York. To the young woman the fortune-teller said : "I see books, books, everywhere books in piles!" A year or two later the young woman married a young law student, whom she did not know at the time of the "fortune-telling," and who after the marriage became a publisher and the owner of many " piles of books." I can vouch for the story: for I was the young man. 274 Recent Telepathic Sensitives [Bk. II, Ft. IV My last extract under this head will be from Foster, and I want to say an additional word about him here. After witnessing what he unquestionably did in my presence, what he is alleged to have done in the presence of others appears no more incredible than what I knew him to do would have appeared before its actuality was experienced. The teller of the very big Foster stories, after his long observation of Foster, shows himself in the following ex- tracts (op. cit., p. 59) : "I question whether Foster, or any other medium, ever pre- dicted anything of value as regards the future. If in any large degree it were possible, it would seem a violation of law either natural or spiritual " Is it better to know aught of the future ? Have we not care enough with the present? " Mr. Foster's power was astonishing because unusual, but it was limited. . . . Although I have received many remarkable tests, and what to the ordinary spiritualist would be proof positive of direct communication between this and the spirit life, I am still skeptical. The communications were never decided enough. It seems to me, if it were true, such a great truth would be known and accepted by all mankind. Spirit telephone and telegraphy seem to work unsatisfactorily a thick veil seems to hang between. I feel that there is a gulf, a barrier, a dense fog, that will not dissipate." Yet in the face of this Bartlett gives the following (op. cit., p. 60) : " We met an impulsive dashing young man, by the name of Armijo, at Charpiot's Hotel, in Denver, Colo He was in- clined to be a little abusive, and, although possibly not intend- ing to do so, was almost insulting. He intimated the whole thing was a fraud ; and finally said he would bet a large amount that Mr. Foster could not tell anything that was not in his own mind; could not tell anything which the future would verify. Mr. Foster had borne with him very patiently, but showed that he was somewhat vexed. Suddenly he said, rather excitedly, ' I can tell you something that will happen to you which is very painful, if I choose, but I do not care to give you pain.' Armijo immediately defied him and said, ' That is all stuff.' Finally Foster said, 'Well, young man, you will "blow your brains out inside of three months.' And sure enough, in a few weeks, picking up the Denver Rocky Mountain News, we read as follows: "'Sad suicide. P. C. Armijo, the sheep owner, suicides. Ch. XVIII] Prophecies Tend to Realize Themselves 275 He puts a bullet through his heart. LOTC the cause of the rash act. The end of a promising life.' " Bartlett very wisely comments: " It is my opinion in this instance that Mr. Foster made a mistake. He should have controlled his temper, as I am quite sure no good ever comes from giving vent to such impressions. And, although after the stance the young man laughed and ridiculed the prediction, still is it not possible that it might have preyed upon his excitable mind until he became crazed? Or was his suicide the natural course of events? The account in the paper referred to the ' Foster prophecy.' " We have now reached the end of my space for phenomena tentatively accounted for by telepathy, telopsis, and telakousis. Many of the most intelligent spiritists would not confidently lay those we have had to the charge of spirits, but there are other phenomena which a few of the best minds of the age attribute to intelligences that have survived the body. Be- fore going to this latter class, however, it may be well to do what we can to correlate with existing knowledge what we have already been over, especially as our attempts may enable us to grope more intelligently along the still mistier way before us. CHAPTER XIX SUGGESTED CORRELATIONS OF TELEPATHY AMONG the chaos of opinions called forth by the strange phenomena we have been considering, there is at least one on which probably all critics agree that our old conceptions of the range of mind and the connection between minds must be broadened. Our minds are now demonstrated to flow into each other with a freedom not realized before the latter part of the last century. But as abnormal and exceptional, such things had been fancied, and perhaps exceptionally experi- enced, from the remotest tradition. It had long been sus- pected, and by some persons believed, that, under stress of great emotion, some souls could impress some sympathetic souls at a distance; and writers of fiction had occasionally represented such occurrences, but they were regarded as in the regions of romance, possible, if at all, only to almost superhuman powers, and subjects of almost reverential awe. Whatever their bases, until lately the modern mind has generally regarded them as only of the confused limbo of myth and fancy. For only about thirty years has anything of the kind been accepted as fact, and been placed under scientific observation and classification. It is now established that such communi- cation is frequent between persons of apparently all degrees of intelligence, culture, and character, provided they be endowed, as many are, with a certain sensibility which is as yet some- what undefined, and does not seem to depend upon the posses- sion of any one of, or group of, the said varieties of intelli- gence, culture, or character. In other words, as I have already said, and probably will say more than once again, it looks as if mind, from single ideas up to whole personalities from faint impressions like Foster's of my pearl-oyster up to clear impressions of individualities, were floating about the universe, from all sorts of places into all sorts of places, just as freely 276 Ch. XIX] Telepathy and Hypnosis 277 as motion floats from muscle to electric battery, to heat, to light, to vegetable nutrition, and back into muscle or as oxygen floats from water to iron rust, to vegetable, to blood, to the expired breath and back to iron rust. Moreover, it looks as if each person were the center of a lot of these floating ideas, and that individuals pick them up in all ways and degrees, from the cause of the babe's mys- terious smile apparently at nothing at all, up to the sources of our best dreams ; and from impressions like those seized by Foster from pretty much everything going, up to those aggre- gations of thought, sensibility, and will which apparently accrete to themselves bodies, and then leave them, and which it seems the purpose and justification of the universe to evolve. Some leading students claim that although most people do not show any telesthesia, we all have it subliminally in some degree, but that only the sensitives manifest it apprecia- bly. As it is not " at home " at all times to all comers, they say that when not at home it is beneath the threshold sub- liminal as already explained. And when anybody does any- thing psychologically queer and smarter (American " smart ") than most folks can do, they generally charge it up to his subliminal self. As far as yet used, the phrase seems to me something to look wise over, and use as a scrap-basket for anything you don't understand, and want to have folks (per- haps including yourself) think you do. But perhaps we can make this subliminal self, or whatever else you see fit to call it, something more than a mere name for the unknown faculties which accomplish the mysterious results. Granting, as we must, that there is something call it what you will that does these queer things, the real question is: what makes it do them what is the modus operandi of it all? Now for a guess: anybody who claims to do more than guess in these regions is a suspicious character. Telepathy and Hypnosis The way to correlate the unknown with the known is to seek points of resemblance. Examination sometimes discloses enough between the matter under investigation and familiar 278 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Ft. IV things, to group it with them. In the woods you hear an ob- ject stirring in the bushes. It eludes you so that you can't tell at first whether it is reptile, bird, or quadruped. You catch a glimpse of a brown surface as big as your hand, then you know it is either bird or beast; for there is no reptile in that region who could make such a display. Your next glimpse shows that it has feathers, not fur ; and so by getting particular by particular, you correlate with it those that con- stitute partridge, and not chicken or turkey. Or if you are in a new and wild region, the particulars you get may go so far as to show you that you have found a bird, but the later particulars may not correspond to anything you knew before. Then to " know " the bird you will have to become familiar with new particulars by studying them in books or in as many specimens as you can find. On rereading this, I suspect it is an unconscious echo from Spencer. If so, so much the better. Now let us see how far we can correlate this unfamiliar telepathy with what we knew before. Are there any well known examples of one person thinking another person's thoughts and seeing visions under the influence of another person? There unquestionably are. Many of the compara- tively familiar range of phenomena once called mesmeric and now called hypnotic come under that category; and if we can get telepathy into the same category we will be that much nearer to understanding or " knowing " it. So to bring hyp- nosis into this comparison I will, as with telekinesis and telepathy, give the slight general notion of it contained in my own experience. I hope that an old man's fondness for his boyhood is not leading me to overestimate the fitness of introducing a second batch from the school where, when we were boys, P first aroused my interest in telekinesis. In the early fifties there turned up in N"ew Haven a couple of wandering apostles of culture, who gave exhibitions at "The Temple" (of the Muses?), which then stood on the corner of Court and Temple Streets, and where I remember seeing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" played: conformably with its name, "The Temple" admitted only "moral shows." The apostles aforesaid illustrated publicly and taught privately Ch. XIX] Some Primitive Hypnotism 279 what they were pleased to term "Electro-psychology." The "electro" was supposed to come in through a tin or zinc disk about as big as a silver dollar and twice as thick, in the concaved center of one side of which was inserted a silver half dime. The subjects, selected more or less pellmell from the audience, went on the stage, and each held one of the disks in the palm of the hand, and gazed at it intently for a few minutes, when the operator told one to close his eyes, made a few passes, and asked if he could open them. In many instances the subject could not. The "electricity" (galvanism) between the two metals (what little there may have been of it) of course had "no- thing to do with the case." The result came from gazing at the bright object, just as the same result was rediscovered a generation later and called for the first time hypnosis. The operator told one subject : " Now you may open your eyes to look at that steamboat coming." The subject did so, and was at once much interested in the imaginary boat, the operator suggesting : " How fast she comes ! What a lot of people on board ! " and other things to the same effect, all of which were responded to by the subject; and some of them, if I remember rightly, suggested by him. Between them they got her up to an imaginary dock, and when she was near the operator asked : " Don't you see anybody you know on board ? " Whereupon the subject began waving his hand to the passengers and calling them by name, and I think indicating the reception of responses. After the sub- ject had uproariously called to Smith or Jones the operator exclaimed : " Why, he's fallen overboard ! Help him out ! " Whereupon the subject grabbed somebody near him on the stage, and struggled to get him ashore. There were many performances of the same kind. I have never myself seen any other case of dramatic vision produced by the hypnotizer, and you may attribute this one to collusion or post facto memory on my part, if you please ; but innumerable others are on record, including some where hypnotizers have suggested the same vision to a number of subjects at once, and each subject has filled it out and acted it out according to his own waking idiosyncrasies, and differ- ently from the others. 280 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pt. IV I believed, and still believe, these exhibitions to have been genuine. The overwhelming mass of comparatively recent evidence for similar things would alone go far to justify me, but there were strong considerations in the same direction at the time. General Eussell, our schoolmaster, became greatly inter- ested, and, because he thought the show educational, took his boys several times, and took lessons in the art himself, and exercised it a little, if I remember rightly, upon some of the boys. But he soon gave it up because, I remember distinctly, in spite of its being unmistakably "real," he wasn't sure that it didn't " come of the devil " a gentleman in whom he and all the other learned people of New Haven at that time had the profoundest confidence. Moreover, John Tuttle learned it too. John kept a shop a couple of blocks from the school, where it was no un- common feat for one of us boys (who were kept well exer- cised) to demolish an entire pie on a Wednesday or Saturday afternoon, or even at a midday recess. One Saturday after- noon John tried his black art on a boy who is now one of the leading bankers in New York, and closed his eyes effectu- ally. He could not affect me. It has occurred to me since I have read somewhat on the subject, that probably the other boy was acquiescent with the experiment, and I resisted. Possibly, however, he had only got farther along with his pie! Now in cases where a vision experienced by one mind is plainly due to the influence of another mind, near or remote, may not the influence be in some way akin to the hypnotic influence which produced the vision of the steamboat? A much simpler experience which I had many years later with Hermann the prestidigitator is instructive. His wife, I believe it was, remained on the stage while he went among the audience and got from them all sorts of questions, to which, without knowing them by any usual means, she gave immediate answers. Wishing to see if there was any telopsis involved, I handed him my match-box, asking how many matches were in it. He asked me, and I said that I did not know. He opened the box and counted them, and the instant Ch. XIX] Hermann's Hypnotic Telepathy 281 he knew the number, she flashed it back correctly. Plainly he had hypnotized her before he started among the audience, and subsequently telepathically impressed upon her the answers to the questions put to him. This occurrence left me for a long time confident that apparent telopsis is all telepathy, but later facts have diminished that confidence. It is well to tax a reader's credulity only by degrees, and I now give a much better illustration of hypnotic telepathy and vision building. Several instructive and entertaining instances are given in a paper by Mrs. Sidgwick on Clair- voyance and Telepathy in Pr. VII, especially those from Dr. Wiltse of Skiddy, Kansas. I have space for but one (Pr. VII, 77f.) : "Mr. William Howard and Mr. N. Parker called upon me early one morning (stating that they had called by request of neighbors) to ask me to hypnotize Fannie for the purpose of possibly gaining some knowledge of the whereabouts of the body of Uncle Julian Scott, who had ridden into the Emerald River late the night before and was drowned " I then stated the case to her, asking her to go with us [in her mind. H. H.] to the river, where we would take a skiff and look for the body. 'Is Uncle Julian drowned? Poor old man ! ' she exclaimed. She expressed her willingness to go with us, only stipulating that Mrs. Wiltse should accompany us. I pretended to get horses, and we started (in her mind). "It was three miles to the river. On the real road lived a Mrs. Hall, a widow, and Fannie called out suddenly, 'There is Mrs. Hall's place! Let us have her go with us! ' ' All right, Fannie, she says she will go with us, and here we are already ! ' A few moments of that peculiar deep sleep to suggest the pas- sage of time, and I rouse Fannie again by a gentle shake, and say, ' Here we are, and here is the boat ; now I will paddle slowly and you look carefully into the water. Now what do you see?' She immediately began to describe rocks, logs, snags, bottom, &c. (Suggestion. I had constantly to repeat the question, 'What do you see? Do you see anything? Can you see the bottom?' &c., or she would shortly be snoring.) " After a little she said suddenly, as if somewhat excited, ' There is something over yonder ahead of us ! ' Q. ' Which way, Fannie?' F. 'Right hand, way down yonder. Paddle nearer to it.' Q. ' All right. Here we go! Now, what is it? ' F.' I see now. It is a hat.' Q. 'Where?' F. 'Don't you see there in that drift?' (This is according to Mrs. Wiltse's recollection of the affair. My own is that it was in a bush.) Q. ' Describe the place, Fannie, so we can get it as we come 282 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pt. IV back.' F. 'Don't you see?' &c. And she described certain peculiarities upon the bank. " Soon after this she announced an object near the left bank of the stream and asked to be paddled over there. Then asked if we did not see an old tree body under the water near the bank. Q. ' Yes, Fannie, what about it?' F. 'Why, don't you see ? There is something under it.' Q. ' What is it, Fannie?' F. 'I can't see. Paddle closer.' Q. 'All right! Here we are!' (Silence on Fannie's part.) Q. 'What is it, Fannie ? ' F. ' Some big dark thing ; I can't see what. There is a saddle there. Don't you see it ? ' Q. ' Yes, Fannie, what else ? ' F. ' Something, but I can't see it good ; the water is muddy. The saddle is there. I can see it, and one stirrup is gone.' Q. ' All right. Can you see anything on the bank that we may know the spot as we come back ? ' F. ' Why, of course. Don't you see how the sand is worked up in that low spot around the roots of that tree ? ' "I see that my evidence upon the points in regard to the saddle with its missing stirrup and the hat is not as explicit and at first hand as I could wish But common rumor had it that Fannie was right upon these points. As to the rest of the points, I was witness myself to the accuracy of her statements, which I will proceed to conclude. " We passed on down the river, Fannie professing inability to see anything more of interest, and after a few minutes complaining of being tired and cold, and teasing to go back, said there was no use to go any further, that they would not find Uncle Julian now, and repeated her curious assertion about the uselessness of going any farther, by saying with considerable stress, ' It will be no use ever to look below right here ! ' Q. ' All right, Fannie. We will go back, but first show us some mark by which we shall remember the place, can you ? ' ' Why, don't you see ? ' she exclaimed in a tone of seeming disgust. Q. 'What is it, Fannie?' F. ' Oh, don't you see that tall bridge?' Q. 'Where, Fannie?' F. 'Why, right there! We just now passed under it, right there it is.' (Note. Bridges in these parts were very scarce. The Emerald River had at that time but one bridge crossing it, an iron railroad bridge, which I feel sure Fannie had never seen, as there was no public road to it, it crossing the river at a wild, isolated, almost inaccessible spot in the mountains, several miles from where we were sitting.) ' What kind of a bridge is it, Fannie ? ' I asked, purposely for a test of the reality of her vision, for she was now back into the realm of my own knowledge, and I was somewhat surprised at her correctness. F. (hesitating for a space as if taking a careful view, then in a tone of curious surprise) ' Why, it looks as if it must be made of iron ! ' (Suggestion.) Ch. XIXJ Dr. Wiltse's Uncle Julian Case 283 " Just as I had suggested that we were on the way back, Mr. Howard was called to the door, where a neighbor informed him, in so low a tone that none inside heard it, that the body had been recovered and conveyed to the residence of his (Uncle Julian's) son, who lived on the bank of the river near the ford where we had made our imaginary start with a boat. The message had all the appearance of truth. Mr. Howard came in looking rather chagrined, as I certainly felt, and informed me in a whisper of the news. ' Be quiet,' I replied, ' I will try another experiment.' I didn't believe this could be suc- cessful. " ' Fannie/ I said, ' here we are now at the landing. We are all of us cold. Let us go into the Scotts' and warm.' She agreed. I pretended we had entered the house, when Fanny exclaimed in a much excited manner, 'Why, there he is.' Q. 'Who, Fannie?' F. ' Why, don't you see it?' Q. 'See what, Fannie?' F ' Why, they have found Uncle Julian and got him laid out.' She then went on to speak of different relatives and friends who were there, of their crying, &c., naming such persons as we supposed it would be very certain would be there. " Here was telepathy, most likely, with a vengeance [and dream-building, too. H. H.], for not a word of the whole thing was true. The body was not recovered until fourteen days after the drowning ... by a train hand from a moving train crossing the bridge Fannie had declared we had 'just passed under,' where it had lodged upon an old drift just below the bridge 1 have as often thought of the perfectly apparent prophecy of Fannie in her emphatic assertion, ' We have just passed under that tall bridge and it will be useless ever to look for Uncle Julian below here ! ' I could flip a marble from the top of the bridge into the drift where rested his body fourteen days after her curious trip by water to that identical spot by way of what? I listen for the answer. Had I possibly dem- onstrated the soul, as I began experimenting with the dismal hope of perhaps some time accomplishing, fifteen years prior to this, which hope I had never once quite relinquished?" He certainly had demonstrated telepathy and dream build- ing. Their connection with " the soul " we shall see more of. The foregoing shows that hypnosis not only starts the visions the hypnotizer suggests, but also frequently develops a teloptic capacity independent of any voluntary suggestion of the hyp- notizer. Therefore probably a sensitive under the influence, conscious, or unconscious, of a sitter, or possibly of some re- mote mind, could pick up a wide range of matter through telesthesia. 284 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pt. IV Now in this vision the subject was, during a large part of the time, in deeper trance than my steamboat dreamer; and both of them, though in trance, were apparently wide awake, " Fannie " part of the time, and my man all the time. So was Foster when he saw the pearl and the fawn. Does it not appear almost conclusive that he, like the others, was hypnotized that, whatever else a sensitive may be, he is so sensitive to the hypnotic influence that he is rendered tele- pathic and perhaps teloptic and telakoustic by anyone who happens along any postcarnate one, if you please that he sees and hears, more or less accurately, the things that the sitter or even someone at a distance consciously or uncon- sciously suggests? Hypnotic visions hold out also a second hope of correlation with visions in general, in that they cover both the sleeping and apparently waking fields waking while the influence is slight, sleeping when it has become strong. This all would de- pend upon the amounts and qualities of the power of the sitter and the sensitive, hence perhaps we can account for the good sittings and the bad ones and the different varieties of them. The hypothesis seems to correlate the hypnotic phenomena pretty well, but of course there are gaps. How, for instance, does it fit with Foster's wanting me to concentrate my mind, and with other sensitives saying the exact opposite that they do best when the sitter's mind is a tabula rasa ? Perhaps the solution may be that generally, where the sitter wants a specific thing, he must do his best to get it ; but that he will be apt to get more things if the sensitive is not restricted to specific ones, but simply picks up all that happen along. The hypnotic hypothesis also tends to correlate with the other facts it covers, the third fact that sympathetic sitters generally get more than skeptical ones, and much more than antagonistic ones. Mr. Bartlett tells me, however, that the skeptics got the best sittings from Foster, apparently putting him on his mettle. This was certainly not true of Mrs. Piper, however, but she was always in deep trance. Does this hypothesis, then, bring everything from the sitter, Ch. XIX] The Interrelation of Minds 285 and under it must the spiritistic hypothesis throw up the sponge ? Not by any means. In the first place it does not "bring everything from the sitter." How can it bring true things that he never knew, and even true things directly contrary to all he ever knew, which the sensitive (or the control?) insists upon, and which are subsequently found to be correct? The hypothesis, then, must go beyond the sitter, and admit the notion, already intimated, that in some way we cannot yet make much of a guess at, the sensitive gets impressions teloteropathically from any sort of mind anywhere. James's objection to world-wide telepathy that it is almost inconceivable that the mind should select the fitting thought among the myriad thoughts of myriads of people would prob- ably not have been made after he became familiar with the wireless telegraph. Probably each mind receives only the thoughts to which it is keyed. Why not lump all those minds into the cosmic mind, of which each is a part? We know that any sort of a fact, or rather memory of a fact, may be in any number of minds at the same time, and we know that all facts, or rather all memories of them, are in the aggregate mind at all times. The only open question is the interrelation of its components, and telepathy is giving a new outlook on that. From that limitless storehouse perhaps the sensitive draws or is flowed in upon. Virtually all the commentators have suggested this, but they have been contented with mere pass- ing suggestions. We shall group some of them later. All this conveys a tentative idea of how the sensitive gets the hints, and how, just as we constantly dress up all sorts of hints into elaborate dreams, these hypnotic hints are dressed up into symbols, like the pearl, and the fawn, or into per- sonages, such as those Foster and others sometimes describe and sometimes enact, or as we all associate with in dreams. But the hints must be pretty elaborate to make the personages as nearly exact copies of their originals as they so often are ! Compare Chapter XXIII on "The Idea." I know I am repeating, and I intend to often. Many people besides subjects known to be hypnotized have visions, waking and sleeping, which are so much more definite 286 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pi IV than mere recollections or imaginations, as to constitute a class by themselves. These people " see things " which presumably are not there, as definitely as if they were. These visions seem to be most generally of persons, and have, even when waking, the definiteness of ordinary dreams, with apparently all the ordinary attributes of matter but resistance and per- manency. When such visions have anything out of the com- mon, such as relations to important events, those who know most about these matters quite generally believe that there is often a causal relation mathematically demonstrated to be far beyond any possibilities of mere coincidence. Does some other will, as in hypnosis, facilitate them or generate them? Many of those who know most about them believe that such is the case. "Will," however, is often too strong a word : many cases would be better described by " influence," or even by " unconscious influence." Hypnosis seems much like dreaming in this other respect : that the wide horizon of dreams is possible only when the mind is freed from its absorption in outer details. Similarly in hypnosis the attention is diverted from things in general and concentrated on one thing, and that a thing not in itself provocative of thought on the silver coin in the zinc disk, if you please, or on any bright point on the chalk mark on the floor to which the chicken's head is held for a time with the effect of rendering her unable to raise it. Or the subject may be, as I have been, laid on his back and gently crooned to sleep with assurances that the trouble the physician attacks is going to yield to suggestions of betterment. Whatever the way, the mind is freed of all distractions, and the hypnotizer's suggestion is made to occupy the whole of it. The suggestion may be of an act, and the act is done; of an inhibition, and there is nothing else in the mind to oppose it; of a vision, say the steamboat, and the mind is filled with it. Sometimes the psychic power may be strong enough to overcome all competing distractions and impress the vision in the midst of ordinary daily interests. Sometimes the re- cipient may be, like the mediums, so susceptible to some sorts of psychic impression as to receive them when other people could not in the midst of alien conversation or occupation. Sometimes the recipient may be peculiarly susceptible to them Ch. XIX] Telepathy and the Dream State 287 only in sleep or trance. Here ie probably still another illus- tration of the arbitrariness of classification: at first glance we hold sleeping and waking to be distinct, but there's an indistinct region between them peopled by all sorts of visions, just as sleep is peopled by dreams. Probably all people have visions in the borderland between waking and sleeping; not so many have them on the far side while sleeping; and very few have them on the hither side while awake; and yet a few certainly do. This seems to imply in these people some power of having the dream state side by side with their ordinary waking life. That power may exist to some degree in all of us: there is no knowing when any one of us may have a vision while he is awake. Telepathy and the Dream State As already remarked, the vast majority of these impressions come while the percipient is in bed, and it seems probable that they come more than is supposed in dreams. From my own experience I for one have no doubt of it. One often dreams of things taking place in the room, and then the tendency is to suppose oneself awake. I had a very strong demonstration of this last night. When I supposed I had not yet fallen asleep, I suddenly saw that a light in the hall had been switched on, and heard some talk, apparently from one or two of my boys, with their mother in her room next mine. Then one of them came into my room and told me that his younger brother had indigestion, but that a doctor in Montreal (whence the speaker had come a few hours earlier) had that afternoon given him and a friend an awful lot of pills, and that there were enough left over for the brother. Then he went out, switched off the light in the hall, and I turned to go to sleep. My sleep was intermittent and full of dreams, and in the intervals my conscience reminded me that at dinner I had eaten something apt to be productive of visions, and I began to suspect the reality of my boy's visit to my room. In the morning I found that the boy had not been there at all : the whole thing had been a dream. And of course I am con- 288 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pt. IV firmed in the belief that I have stated that, as the vast majority of visions are reported as seen when the seer is in bed, the vast majority are dreams. That, however, does not lessen my faith in the occasional veridicity of dreams : on the contrary, whatever significance waking visions may have held is proportionally transferred to dreams. I have had several which there is such strong reason to believe both telepathic and veridical that, unless they were, my universe is chaos. Though most dreams are matters of ludicrous stupidity, there have been others which in early times, and not always fool- ishly, made and unmade empires, and in modern times have made and unmade souls. The absence of any known agent for some visions suggests some active capacity in the sensitive which serves, like sight or hearing, to involuntarily pick up (I sometimes like a split infinitive) any circumstance, past or present, which happens to be in range, perhaps in some sort of memory, individual or cosmic, the range of course often being influenced by the pres- ence of any person in any way connected with the circum- stance, and his exerting some influence on the sensitive. Impressions Lying Dormant Many visions come when the presumed agents of them are under great stress that may be transmuted into some sort of hypnotic power. Yet on the other hand, as many come when the presumed agent is in articulo mortis, with all the powers that we know, apparently exhausted. It is easy to assume that under such circumstances there may be awakened powers that we don't know powers akin to those already mentioned, which seem to transcend physical conditions. But many visions even come after the death of the only conceivable agent. In these we seem reduced to the alterna- tives, on the one hand, of the vision being impressed before the death, and lying dormant, or on the other hand, of the agent's surviving bodily death and impressing the vision after it. There are many genuine cases of impressions lying dormant, though some very conspicuous cases have lately been discovered to be faked. Ch. XIX] Telepathy and Telopsis 289 Rudimentary Senses as Shown in Visions and Dreams Another category where we can correlate telepathy with what we know, seems to be that of the rudimentary senses. Why may not the impressibility of the sensitive, or of any hypnotic subject, be due to the action of a rudimentary sense or faculty as yet developed to a noticeable degree in only a few people ? We certainly have senses beyond the half dozen usually enumerated. As they were once rudimentary the eye a pigment spot, and the ear, in one instance, a mere vibrating cord inside a chitin shell and as these senses must have been subjectively known by faint and often paradoxical sensations, so now, have we not strong reason to believe that human beings have rudimentary connections with the objective world, whose reports are as yet very faint and para- doxical ? Telepathy and Telopsis Here, however, on the borderland of knowledge, we cannot yet tell whether telesthesia telopsis and telakousis are really anything more than telepathy. We cannot be certain that visions of remote scenes or persons come from observation of the actualities: there is no case, so far as I know, where any telesthetic has verifiably reported anything not already in the consciousness of some human being. Houses, rooms, known places of any kind, and what people are doing there are all memories in some minds, and may be telepathically impressed on the mind that seems teloptic. As an illustration of this and a test of a sensitive's ability to get outside of human knowledge I may refer back to my little experience with Herrmann and the match-box already related. Sir Oliver Lodge tried the same thing with Mrs. Piper (Pr. VI, 194). From a confused mass of lettered cards he picked some without reading them and put them in en- velopes. There was no correspondence between the reports of the medium and the contents of the envelope. On the other hand, Foster read galore from sealed enve- lopes and from rolled pellets of paper, but the contents must have been already known to the writers. There is a puzzle, however, in the fact that if a name was written on one of half 290 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pi IV a dozen slips, and all rolled into pellets without his seeing them, he would pick out the right one. Of this so-called " influence," we shall see more. There are certainly very few cases of telopsis that cannot be accounted for by telepathy or teloteropathy. But in Pr. XI, 379, Myers quotes one that cannot be. A sensitive in Boston successfully directed where to search at Natick for the bodies of two boys whom nobody knew to have been drowned, though on the chances considerable ineffective search had been made near the spot. The seeress subsequently went to the place, and although nobody had indicated to her the exact spot where the bodies were found, she stood on the shore and tossed over her back a stone which fell into the exact place. The only apparent solutions open are telopsis or tele- pathy from the cosmic soul, perhaps the special portions of it that had been associated with the living boys. Most cases of superusual warning can be accounted for by usual causes, especially if we include telepathy among them, but some cannot for instance, the voice which warned the dentist away from a vulcanizing apparatus which soon ex- ploded (Pr. XI, 424f.). There is an elaborate prediction of death in Pr. XI, 432f. which, among hypotheses yet open, can be accounted for only by prophetic telesthesia or spiritism. Generally of course such predictions hasten their own fulfillment, but in this case, the decedent had known nothing of it. Of prophetic dreams there are many. One of the best is the Rev. Dr. Kinsolving's about the snake (Pr. XI, 495) : " I seemed to be in woods back of the hotel at Capon Springs, W. Va., when I came across a rattlesnake, which when killed had two black-looking rattles and a peculiar projection of bone from the tail, while the skin was unusually light in color. The impression of the snake was very distinct and vivid before my mind's eye when I awoke in the morning, but I did not mention the dream to anyone, though I was in the act of telling my wife while dressing, but refrained from so doing because I was in the habit of taking long walks in the mountains, and I did not wish to make her nervous by the suggestion of snakes. " After breakfast, I started with my brother along the back of the great north mountain, and when about twelve miles from the hotel we decided to go down out of the mountain into the road and return home. As we started down the side of the Ch. XIX] Possible Uses of Telepathy 291 mountain I suddenly became vividly conscious of my dream, to such an extent as to startle me, and to put me on the alert. I was walking rapidly, and had gone about thirty steps, when I came on a snake coiled and ready to strike. My foot was in the air and had I finished my step I would have trodden upon the snake. I threw myself to one side and fell heavily on the ground. I recovered myself at once and killed the snake with the assistance of my brother, and found it to be the same snake in every particular with the one I had had in my mind's eye. The same size, color, and peculiar malformation of the tail. " It is my belief that my dream prevented me from treading on the snake, but I have no theory on the subject, and get con- siderably mixed and muddled when I try to think on the line of such abnormal experiences." Another very striking one about an accident is in Pr. XI, 517. There are some very remarkable forebodings that could not have been telepathic, in the experience of a railroad engineer, given in Pr. XI, 559f. ; and some interesting testimony re- garding the percipient and narrator in this case, is given in Pr. V, 333f. There are more good ones later in the same paper. Possible Uses of Telepathy The possibilities of telepathy in terrestrial communication are obvious. We have had hints of the possibility of telepathic communi- cation with postcarnate intelligences, and shall have more as we go on. For the present a word may be worth while re- garding communication with intelligences whose existence is not so often questioned. While it seems entirely impossible that there shall be any physical transit among the heavenly bodies, because of the lack of a supporting medium, telepathy holds out some sug- gestion of communication with them. But the different ex- periences which inevitably result from the different relations of planets to their suns and each other, and their different densities, gravities, lights, atmospheres, etc., involve differ- ences in the inhabitants of any two planets so great that even telepathic communication is hardly conceivable. But if telop- sis and telakousis are or shall become independent of telepathy, 292 Suggested Correlations of Telepathy [Bk. II, Pt. IV our seeing and hearing those remote fellow-creatures and their environments becomes rationally conceivable perhaps even more conceivable than would have been our present astronom- ical knowledge say of the weight of the sun, to the Magi that watched the star of Bethlehem. Here is another possibility perhaps more immediate. Tut- tle, Davis, and the general run of their kind candidly confess themselves uneducated and generally in youth rather stupid along conventional lines ; and yet the two named, without any effort on their part, produced works up to the humble average of printed matter, which pass among many people for gospels ; and they spent their mature lives in the enjoyment of what, to the man in the street, answered the purposes of an educa- tion. In this last particular we might couple with them Home, only his " education," ignorant boy as we know him to have been, passed muster not only with the man in the street but with princes and philosophers. Now all this "education" was telepsychic. What hopes for the future that fact holds out, can be appreciated only by those who have had young people to care for in this revolu- tionary age. The education extending from Boccaccio to Doctor Arnold is entirely inadequate to the needs developed in the last half century. Until the last third of the last century there was one pattern of education for everybody (except Mill and Spencer), and despite the recent variety of patterns, we have got little farther than confused experiment. Meanwhile the small colleges where all sorts of boys were thrown into a salutary struggle for the survival of the fittest, have, in America, grown into colleges so large that the contact of .all sorts of boys is no longer possible, but they all fall into strata, mainly according to wealth and social position, where those in one stratum have little chance for association with the best intellects and characters in the other strata. The rich boys, no longer held toward the pace of impecunious friends, take their college course merely as the opportunity of their lives to have a good time, which is generally a very wild one; while the poorer boys go through without the influence of the refinements which, in the old days, their predecessors rubbed off from their more fortunate friends, Ch. XIX] Telepathy in Education 293 and often reciprocated by certain greater refinements which flourish best in soil not over-rich. The state of affairs in the colleges, however, is not so bad as in the elementary schools. In the colleges there is some chance for a boy to study what he is fitted for, whether or no there is a chance for him to study it in the way he is fitted for. But in the secondary schools there is little chance at either for any boy above the average for whom those schools are designed. The increased college entrance require- ments of recent years are hard on all the boys, especially in schools where there is an attempt to round them out into something like symmetrical education. This taxes the teachers so as to make attention to individual needs espe- cially to those of an occasional recalcitrant genius out of the question. Now into this chaos of problems and pains are we to look for light and order some time through the advent of telepathic education guided of course by experience? Are the rills of our little share of the psychic universe eventually going to pour into all of us as freely as they did into the gifted ignoramuses whom I named a page or two back ? The hope does not seem extravagant. Yet the first person to whom I suggested it answered in substance : " Then we may as well lower the flags of character at once. Character means effort." I replied : " There's not much danger of our not finding work enough. The attempt in my college days to supply it artificially, by giving us such stuff as pages of chemical formulae to memorize, is laughed at now. Besides, we're not going to get telepathy any faster than we get character to handle it. Nature has been mighty conservative with it so far." Doubtful as this outlook may be, it is a big one. But this book is fast becoming too big for its purpose. CHAPTER XX THE COSMIC SOUL THE community of minds indicated by telepathy and some allied phenomena which we shall reach later, has revived in apparently all students the vague impression as old as phi- losophy, which we have already been led to touch upon more than once, that in some mysterious way all mind is one, just as all force is one and all matter is one that mind, instead of being a disconnected aggregation of individual parts, like the sand on the beach, is more like the drops in the ocean, where all the individual parts are blended. The metaphor fails, of course, because in the mass of fluid the drops lose their identity. Perhaps a better metaphor would be that of the body politic, where ideas are inter- changed, but the body is made up of individuals ; but that metaphor fails in the lack of complete mutual interflow. All metaphors illustrate but that part of the aspects of the subject to which we apply them, and fail regarding the other aspects. The coming of the unknown into the known is like the com- ing of what we call a " dissolving view " ; we get partial and inconsistent bits, and group them into guesses that at first may be very wide of the truth, but that gradually, with more light, become coherent and workably intelligent. And yet though telepathy frequently forces upon us that old notion that all mind is one, we nevertheless have the knowledge that all the minds we clearly know are individual. The idea is too big, and in its modern aspects too new to be a clear one, yet the conception of the Cosmic Soul has been touched upon by virtually all writers upon the Cosmic Ee- lations ; and some have poetized a great deal upon panpsych- ism; but, so far as I know, nobody has attempted to use the conception persistently and systematically as a clue through the psychic mysteries we are considering: all the recent investigators seem to have rested with (may I say?) a lazy 294 Ch. XX] Suggestions of Leaf, van Eeden, Lodge 295 content and an almost fetichistic reverence, upon the mere phrase " the subliminal self " which Myers imported from the school of Du Prel, or upon the, in some respects, wider notion of sundry divisions of the self. But though the Cosmic Soul is the first choice of hardly anybody, it is an alternate choice of virtually everybody. Here are some of the various aspects the notion has taken. We got a trace of it back where Professor Holmes asks whether the behavior of protozoa is due to " physical and chemical factors," or whether we must assume an " entelechy of some sort to explain the results." Dr. Leaf says (Pr. VI, 565), italics mine: " If then this under self, of whose workings we are only BO irregularly and so imperfectly conscious, has such susceptibility to other minds at all, it is no wild assumption to suppose that it is continually receiving impressions from other minds, indeed from every other mind in the universe, with varying clearness and force depending on some conditions which we cannot at present even guess at." Dr. van Eeden says (Pr. XVII, 86) : " I have heard the source of this supernormal information de- nominated by an English poet as ' the collective memory of the race,' and this broad and mystical conception, however vague, seems to me in some respects the safest working hypothesis for further investigation." Sir Oliver Lodge says (Pr. VI, 464), italics mine: " Undoubtedly Mrs. Piper in the trance state has access to some abnormal sources of information, and is for the time cognizant of facts which happened long ago or at a distance; but the question is how she becomes cognizant of them. Is it by going up the stream of time and witnessing those actions as they occurred; or is it through information received from the still existent actors, themselves dimly remembering and relating them; or, again, is it through the influence of con- temporary and otherwise occupied minds holding stores of forgotten information in their brains and offering them un- consciously to the perception of the entranced person; or, lastly, is it by falling back for the time into a one Universal Mind of which all ordinary consciousnesses past and present are but portions? I do not know which is the least extravagant sup- position." 296 The Cosmic Soul [Bk. II, Ft. IV And also (Pr. VI, 648) : " There is yet another kind of mind-reading, if such it can be called, which, though difficult to formulate and contemplate, yet frequently suggests itself, viz., the gaining of knowledge through some hidden community of mind, through the existence of some central world-mind " Myers says (Human Personality, I, 217-19) : " Bodily death ensues when the soul's attention is wholly and irrevocably withdrawn from the organism, which has become from physical causes unfit to act as the exponent of an inform- ing spirit. Life means the maintenance of this attention; achieved, in this view, by the soul's absorption of energy from the spiritual or metetherial environment. For if our individual spirits and organism? live by dint of this spiritual energy, underlying the chemical agency by which organic change is carried on, then we must presumably renew and replenish the spiritual energy as continuously as the chemical " If this be so there may be a truth deeper than we can at this moment stay to discuss in many subjective experiences of poets, philosophers, mystics, saints. And if their sense of inflowing and indwelling life indeed be true ; if the subliminal uprushes which renew and illumine them are fed in reality from some metetherial environment; then a similar influence may by analogy exist and be recognizable along the whole gamut of psychophysical phenomena " The nascent life of each of us is perhaps a fresh draft, the continued life is an ever-varying draft, upon the cosmic energy. In that environing energy call it by what name we will we live and move and have our being; and it may well be that certain dispositions of mind, certain phases of per- sonality, may draw in for the moment from that energy a fuller vitalizing stream " Let men realize that . . . their own spirits are co-operative elements in the cosmic evolution, are part and parcel of the ultimate vitalizing Power." Elsewhere Myers says (Pr. VII, 120) : " Just as a study of the propagation and interference of light- waves depending on artifices of great complexity has made known to us inferentially, yet not the less certainly, an obscure physical entity which we style the cosmic ether; so also may experiments on the propagation and interruptions of clairvoyant or telepathic knowledge or memory conceivably reveal to us in- ferentially, but not the less certainly, an obscure psychical en- tity which we can best describe to ourselves as an anima mundi or cosmic record of all things." Ch. XX] Myers Demands Nothing Less. James 297 In Myers's exposition of his theory of the Subliminal Con- sciousness in Pr. VII and in Human Personality (I, llf.) he piles up the indications of superusual faculty until he gets far beyond our usual conceptions of human powers, and where apparently nothing short of the cosmic soul could be equal to the results. James runs up against the same notion all the while. In Pr. XXIII, 4, he named as possibly accounting for the medium's report of forgotten things: " Access to some cosmic reservoir, where the memory of all mundane facts is stored and grouped around personal centers of association." Is "personal center of association" a bad name for per- sonality ? Here are some extracts from his A Pluralistic Universe: (Page 299.) " For my own part I find in some of these ab- normal or supernormal facts the strongest suggestions in favor of a superior co-consciousness being possible. I doubt whether we shall ever understand some of them without using the very letter of Fechner's conception of a great reservoir in which the memories of earth's inhabitants are pooled and preserved, and from which, when the threshold lowers or the valve opens, in- formation ordinarily shut out leaks into the mind of exceptional individuals among us." Each individual mind seems to be a subdivision of that reservoir, all subdivisions being subject to intercommunication. (Page 308.) " They have had their vision and they know that is enough that we inhabit an invisible spiritual environ- ment from which help comes, our soul being mysteriously one with a larger soul whose instruments we are." In his Psychology he says (I, 346) : " I find the notion of some sort of an anima mundi thinking in all of us to be a more promising hypothesis, in spite of all its difficulties, than that of a lot of absolutely individual souls." In Memoirs and Studies, James farther says : (Page 201.) "My own dramatic sense tends instinctively to picture the situation as an interaction between slumbering faculties in the automatist's mind and a cosmic environment of other consciousness of some sort which is able to work upon them." 298 The Cosmic Soul [Bk. II, Pt IV (Page 204-5.) " There is a continuum of cosmic conscious- ness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir." What follows seems to indicate that he really means that rills from it plunge into us, which has long been my guess. Throughout the passage it is consoling to the ordinary writer to find himself among a gentle mixture of metaphors by so great a man: " Our ' normal ' consciousness is circumscribed for adapta- tion to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection. Not only psychic research, but metaphysical philosophy, and speculative biology are led in their own ways to look with favor on some such 'panpsychic' view of the universe as this. Assuming this common reservoir of consciousness to exist, this bank upon which we all draw, and in which so many of earth's memories must in some way be stored, or mediums would not get at them as they do, the question is, What is its own structure? What is its inner topography?" Podmore says (New. Spir., II, 162) that in his book on Spiritism, the " famous philosopher, Edward von Hartmann . . . explained the physical phenomena as due to some force analogous to electricity or magnetism emanating from the medium's body ; but held that the mental manifestations point to a transcendental origin. He suggests, in short, that in thought-transference or clairvoy- ance the mind of the seer is in connection with the Absolute, and through the Absolute with other individual minds." Podmore also quotes (New. Spir., II, 172) Charles Bray (On Force, its Mental and Moral Correlates) : " Our bodies are continually giving off thought rays, just as they give off heat rays. These thought emanations, it must be inferred, are not lost to the universe ; and, indeed, ' many facts now point to an atmosphere or reservoir of thought, the result of cerebration, into which the thought and feeling generated by the brain are continually passing.' With this general thought- reservoir the persons called spirit mediums may be presumed to be in communication." The conception is not restricted to " psychical researchers " in the special sense, but looms up in some form in almost Ch. XX] Bergson. Paradoxes Fringe all Knowledge 299 all philosophic writing. That we may be up to the latest fashion, let us take the following from Bergson (Creative Evolution, 191, italics mine) : " From this ocean of life in which we are immersed, we are continually drawing something, and we feel that our being, or at least the intellect that guides it, has been formed therein by a kind of local concentration." (/&., 269.) " On flows the current, running through human generations, subdividing itself into individuals Thus souls are constantly being created which, nevertheless, in a certain sense pre-existed. They are nothing else than the little rills into which the great river of life divides itself." When he writes of " life " dividing itself into individuals, he probably would permit us to read " mind " or " souL" In such matters we are pretty far along when we get hold of anything substantial enough to call an idea. But the vague groping feeling, yet a strong feeling, of a reality behind all these paradoxes and metaphors, is by no means rare a reality which is part of the advanced man's substi- tute for the Mumbo Jumbo god, which is the best that the mass of mankind, even of "civilized" mankind, have so far been able to place behind their universe. All paradoxes? Of course they are. The whole fringe of our knowledge is made of paradoxes. All metaphors? Of course they are: so is nearly all our language after it gets past material things and the primary sensations and operations that they initiate. Vague adumbrations of the general notion of course are found as far back as Pantheism is, but in the shape I am fumbling over, it could not antedate modern evolution, in- cluding the modern conceptions of force and matter. This is probably why, in the indexes of the half-dozen histories of philosophy I have at hand, I find the term World-Soul in but two, and no closer equivalent than Pantheism in any of the others, and in one or two (I don't care to look again for the sake of exactness) not even that. The books all, of course, contain various paragraphs about Pantheism. Weber (History of Philosophy, translated by Thilly, p. 94f.) has one on the World-Soul apropos of what Plato had to say on the subject. The definite thing that can be dug out 300 ' The Cosmic Soul [Bk. II, Ft. IV from his imaginative and sometimes poetical confusions is that the cosmos has, in Weber's phrase: " a soul, the mysterious link which unites the contrary prin- ciples in the cosmos, and whose function it is to subordinate the material world to the Idea, or to subject brutal necessity to reason, to adapt it to the final purpose of the Creator. . . . The soul of the world consists of Number, which subjects chaotic matter to the laws of harmony and proportion." whatever all that may mean nothing that I can see, unless the cart before the horse, while in the various modern notions there does seem to loom up something behind the fog, some- thing which is simply the facts which Plato had not. Paulsen says (Introduction to Philosophy, Thilly's transla- tion, 232ff.) : "Is all striving and willing, as it confronts us in the thou- sand diverse forms of existence, finally combined into the unity of one being and will? Does a unity of inner life, in whose self -movement and self-realization all individual life and striv- ing is included, correspond to the unity of the physical world in universal reciprocal action?" That last sentence has some correspondence with the ques- tion: Is Mind as much of a constituent of the universe as matter and motion? I shall give reasons for thinking that it is more of one, if there can be a difference in essentials. (76., 234.) " Eeality is not annihilated by becoming a thing of the past. The past remains an eternal constituent of reality, and the present moment does not comprise the whole of reality." If Paulsen had had the recent evidence (much of which we shall meet later) that everything past exists in memory somewhere say in the Cosmic Mind (The inheritance of all ancestral experience is not big enough to fill the bill) that statement would have had additional certainty and significance. (76., 234.) " May we now . . . say : What we see in our own lives on the small scale, what we seem to recognize also in the life of the earth, is true of the world at large? Are its aim and being contained in a universal life, in an eternal spiritual life, the fullness of which far surpasses our notions of it, but of whose essence we get a glimpse in our own spiritual natures ? "I believe that we may make such statements and that we Ch. XX] Paulsen, Science Inadequate 301 may add: There is no view which explains existence more simply and clearly." Certainly none which so well fits the phenomena of tele- pathy and, we shall see later, of " possession." (76., 235-6.) "That this view is indeed more plausible than any other is shown by the fact that all thinkers, with the exception of a few philosophizing physicists, are remarkably unanimous in regarding it as the final explanation of the universe. In the East as in the West, in ancient as well as in modern times, the thoughts of the freest and profoundest have converged towards this point Wherever modern philosophy finds its freest and boldest expression, it invariably returns to this view Existence is a unified spiritual life, the visible part of which is the evolution of psychical life, and particularly of earthly human life. " During the ascendancy of speculative philosophy, this the- ory . . . was regarded as absolute truth. ... It was called the secret religion of the cultured classes, and its followers were convinced that it would gradually penetrate into such circles as were as yet unable to grasp truth except in concrete images. But it happened otherwise. As far as there can be any question of a philosophical world-view among the cultured (most of them get along without any), it is more apt to be found along the lines of natural-scientific materialism or of an epistemological skepticism. The physical view of things has dislodged the poetical-speculative reflection. The notion of an inner uni- versal life is, for the most part, wholly foreign to our natural scientists. The idea of a world-soul . . . seems to them to be as childish a dream as that of anthropomorphic gods. They do not need the hypothesis, they can explain the world by means of atoms and physical forces, excepting, perhaps, that small remainder, the states of consciousness in the brain of living beings. Science ... no longer allows itself to indulge in the childish play of such fantastical speculations And the ed- ucated classes, intimidated by the self-assurance of natural science, are ashamed to profess views that do not bear its stamp." All of which casts some light upon the facts that within a generation literature and art have drooped, that the soul of man has taken up its residence in his pocket, that gambling has again become a current amusement in circles otherwise respectable, and that the best thing the age could do with the proudest of its typical creations the Titanic was to send it to destruction for the chance of being able to advertise a trifling increment of speed. 302 The Cosmic Soul [Bk. H, Pt IV Heaven forfend, however, any attempt to cure such ills by a revival of the old type of speculative philosophy ! Dog- matism was a worse ill than any of them, and a priori dogmatism is the worst of dogmatisms. Let us see if we can focus the various glints shown in the last half dozen pages into something like a systematic statement. Of course all our terms must be provisional; in fact, with our recent experience of the rapid evolution of knowledge, we are pretty near a recognition that all terms whatever must be provisional. But let us go ahead with those we have. Of course we can get notions of these vague ideas only by repetition of them from various points. I hope the repetition will not overtax your patience. Mind is as fundamental and pervasive a constituent of the universe as Matter and Motion are. We cannot account for mind as it is to-day without associating it with the atoms from which we assume it to have started, though it is by no means limited to them. Unlike matter and motion, it is not fixed in quantity ; every moment its raw material is being worked up into new thoughts, emotions, fancies and psychic personalities, if you please; and all these are added to the previous sum, pervade innumerable individualities, and through some phenomena which we have already seen and others which we shall see later, now generally appear to be as indestructible as matter and motion. All this looks very much like good hard fact. Now for a venture on the thin ice. A soul is made up of experiences, thoughts, feelings. How, then, about the old and widespread notion of the souls at death flowing back into the cosmic soul ? This question is suggested, not only by the considera- tions just given, but also, of course, by the way things sus- piciously like departed psychic personalities have been showing themselves through the sensitives and in ordinary dreams. But though perhaps we flow back into this constantly increasing aggregate of mind the Cosmic Soul it seems much more obviously to flow into us at times and in de- grees that vary enormously, as we vary. Into the least sensitive or receptive, it does not go perceptibly beyond the ordinary psychoses of daily life; into others it seems to Ch. XX] Excluding Phenomena Admits Telepathy 303 penetrate in ways to which we hardly know how to assign limits. Will it not presumably, as evolution goes on, flow more and more into all of us? Now the human receptacles for mind seem to be, to use our poor phrase, elastic; and the flow of mind depends on many more conditions than we have any idea of. One of them, as we all know, is the flow of blood. Another seems to be (to express it as well as we can with our rough matter-made metaphor- words) making a place for the inflow by excluding ordinary matters of attention, as in hypnosis. There are all degrees of this exclusion, from the hypnotic subject's con- centrating his attention on a single object or yielding it ex- clusively to its hypnotizer, to Foster's voluntarily excluding what does not concern his sitter, and perhaps feeling a hyp- notic influence from the concentration of attention he asks from his sitter; on to, as we shall see later, Mrs. VerralPs excluding everything she can when awake; to everybody's excluding almost everything in sleep ; to Mrs. Piper's excluding everything in trance. Under these conditions, to speak very roughly and provisionally, there seems to be a cosmic inflow in proportion to the space provided for it. Foster gets an occasional idea supernormally from the sitter and perhaps even from discarnate minds; Mrs. Verrall gets a string of them ; we nearly all get varying dreams, and some of us get dreams beside which waking life is insignificant; and Mrs. Piper appears to get the experiences of hundreds of souls by the exclusion of her own and the reception of theirs. There seems a close relation between hypnosis and cosmic inflow. In fact, what is hypnosis but an inflow from one unit of the cosmic mind to another from the agent to the subject? What else is telepathy? Our being too ignorant to make an answer does not prove the identity, but it does leave the field open for exploration which may confirm the identity. But without the body, which seems as if it were devised for the evolution of the individual soul, how do the alleged departed souls remain individual? They profess to answer by saying that they still have bodies, but better ones than those we know. But we are anticipating. Whether it all means spiritism or not, it certainly means 304 The Cosmic Soul [Bk. II, Pt. IV at least wider reach of mind than we knew before some as yet faint reaction and apparent blending of each mind with more of the mind pervading the universe. To cultivate this general view of the psychic universe as a whole, now seems as important for the psychologist, as similar views of matter and motion are for the physicist. In opening up this wider reach psychical research has done a work of unsurpassed importance. The fruition of that work we have but begun to enter upon. There seems reason- able hope that there is waiting something beside which all that comes from our as yet rudimentary senses is insignificant. And now probably you see why I have harped so on the impossibility of rigid classifications in Nature on the fact that those of science are necessarily arbitrary why I have tried in so many connections to impress the truth that, so far as we can really conceive, all Nature is one. I have done it to prepare the way to the conception that all Soul is one. But, if in solitude at such places as the Gornergrat, or Lake Champlain, or anywhere under the stars, you have not already felt that conception, you will probably find my efforts wasted, and they may be mere waste anyhow, except as they may possibly stimulate somebody else to better ones. CHAPTER XXI THE COSMIC SOUL AND THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL BUT how about the bearing of this doctrine of the Cosmic Soul on the question of our individuality? Each of us sets a good deal of store by his individuality, some of us rightly, but take away from one of us the stream of vital energy that in one sense is not himself at all, but flows from outside to outside through his sympathetic nervous system, and also take away the stream of consciousness that certainly in large part flows from outside into his afferent sys- tem and at least partly back to outside through his efferent system take away these streams which are not himself, and how much individuality is left ? The individuality of a corpse that perceptibly begins to disappear within three days. The individuality, then, does in part come from outside. Yet it is unquestionably largely determined in amount and character by the body the size, shape, and quality of the brain and the blood-vessels supplying it, and, in less degree, by the qualities of the heart and organs that affect the blood supply. When the stream of mind-potential goes through a man he is affected by just those things that his organism is fitted to respond to. It is somewhat as if the brain cells and their connections were a number of wireless telegraph re- ceivers responding to such vibrations as they are keyed to. The kinds of this responsiveness make up a man's individu- ality. The other persons who respond to nearly the same kinds are congenial with him. Farther, like the telegraph instrument, he not only receives, but he sends out what he has to say for himself also determines his affinities. The stream of thought that flows through us, then, is certainly not part of our individuality; and it certainly is part of our individuality. What it shall be for any one of us is determined more definitely than perhaps at any other time, when (so far as there is a " when " to the determination 305 306 Cosmic Soul and Individual Soul [Bk. II, Pt. IV of anything) it is fixed which one of a myriad of spermatozoa is to become the tenant of a waiting ovum. That sperma- tozoon seems to have its individual stream or streams of outside power and mind-potential, while it is accreting to itself pound after pound of matter, foot-pound after foot- pound of energy, and later, universe after universe of ideas. Its body, its energies, its universes will be unlike those of any other creature: it will be an individual. One soon comes to have an individual share in determining what one's psychic stream shall consist of and whither it shall flow. Whether it shall consist of the thoughts of butcher, baker, or candlestick-maker, one has pretty much his own way. So has he, but in less degree, as to whether it shall be the thoughts of rich man, poor man, beggar-man, or thief. In still less degree he determines whether it shall be the thoughts of doctor, lawyer, priest, or engineer; still less whether it shall be those of statesman, philosopher, artist, or poet; and scarcely at all whether it shall be those of Shak- spere, Newton, Humboldt, Lincoln, or Spencer. In one sense, and in a very important sense, such men have relatively less choice regarding their own individualities than have the rest of mankind regarding theirs. The greater the individuality, the less is it determined by itself. But from another side: the greater the individuality, the more is it determined by itself as it grows up. Lincoln had to make Lincoln, but he could not help making Lincoln. Not only can the man largely determine the contents of his psychic stream, but he can also largely determine what he shall do with it; and this not only, as already indicated, in the broad general current of his life, but in the many special things that are largely independent of the current. But despite all this, the stream comes from outside him and flows back to outside him, and is almost as independent of him as if it ran through a hose, though he can use it in the same ways to water gardens in his mind, or to put out mental conflagrations, or, like a sand-blast, to carve inscrip- tions and decorations. And while he uses his stream of thought to affect both the world and his own mind, all the while that stream of thought is not exclusively himself. And it is himself! All those things are his work! Ch. XXI] The Stream of Consciousness 307 When we think of a man as an individual it is because we take thought of only part of him, and probably the least significant part : we cannot form a passably thorough idea of a man without saturating it through and through with the idea of the Cosmic Inflow from outside of God, if you please. " When me they fly, I am the wings." Again I have been writing paradoxes, and I shall write many more : that alarm bell always rings when we reach the limits of our faculties. Under ordinary circumstances the individual is conscious of only the limited portion of the stream of mind which con- stitutes " him " the " him " of the moment ; but in dream, trance, hypnosis, and apparently articulo mortis, at least by drowning, he seems conscious of a much larger proportion of his own stream, sometimes apparently of all since the first conscious experience. The stream, then, after it has passed on is not lost, hopelessly sunken, or evaporated. Though the man is not ordinarily conscious of the whole stream after it has passed him, it seems to exist somewhere somewhere whence it can be brought The recovered thing is but a copy of the stream, one presentation of the " Idea " of the man. But at least the Idea is not lost. .The medium telepathic- ally from somebodies' memories, or heteromatically from a postcarnate individuality presents some sort of a rendering of it at any moment a rendering that is more than a stream of memories more like a thinking, feeling, responding man. We have, I trust, reached some sort of a reconciliation between the idea of a Cosmic Consciousness and an individual consciousness, the interflow between them being most strongly manifested in states of inspiration and dream. We have what seem to be the facts, whether we can reconcile them or not. The Transcendent Ego The last guess is at variance with the guess that inspiration and dream come from a transcendent ego a subliminal self, unless we adopt the Cosmic Mind as the transcendent ego the subliminal self. I cannot find any transcendent ego in the ordinary sense 308 Cosmic Soul and Individual Soul [Bk. II, Pi IV anything more in a man strictly as an individual independent of cosmic inflow than what has been evolved by the sense- reactions between him, including his ancestors, on the one side, and on the other, the environment, including what has been put into him by that portion of the reactions constituting his education. In the strict sense of ego or self, apparently there cannot be more than that much, if that much. And yet it is often said of almost any man : " He surpassed himself." This is of course a contradiction in terms another paradox on the borders of knowledge. Yet it relates to a universally admitted phenomenon. Now what does the phrase mean what phrase that is not a contradiction in terms will express it ? If there is any matter not yet verified, upon which thinkers have agreed through all recorded time, it is that these people who surpass themselves orators, poets, artists, musi- cians, generals, even dancers and clowns everybody who does anything, is occasionally " inspired " breathed into : and that must be from outside. What makes a " sensitive," or a genius, seems to be ability beyond that of people in general, to evoke the contents of the subliminal consciousness, whatever it may be Cosmic Soul if you please, into the supraliminal or vigilant or waking con- sciousness. This is imagination inspiration " possession," though we may yet conclude that they may be also something more. The theory of inspiration is encouraged by the great ability shown at times by men like Tolstoy whose intelligence and reasoning powers are inferior who are constantly ignoring or even contradicting obvious facts ; to whom two and two are as apt to make five or seven, as four ; and yet who, between times, gush out streams of imagination that fertilize the ages. The source of the inspiration has lately seemed to contain all mind that is on our planet, or ever has been, and to manifest it in all degrees, from the lightest thought, imagina- tion, or emotion, up to those complexes of them all which we recognize as human souls. As we go on we shall find accumulating indications in this direction. True, Poe made out that the general scheme of "The Raven " was not inspiration, but a pure piece of mechanical construction, and the finding of the refrain a piece of me- Ch. XXI] The Transcendent Ego 309 chanical investigation ; but there are other things in the poem that he would probably himself have called inspiration if he had not been guardedly defending the contrary thesis ; and he is generally thought to have supported it merely for the sake of making a sensation, which is more easily done by con- tradicting the truth than by supporting it. The fact seems to be, however, that the mechanical inspirations of a Poe or an Edison are inspirations as truly as the different in- spirations of a Shakespere. The idea of a transcendent ego seems to have come from the idea of a transcendent universe. But the transcendent universe is virtually demonstrable, while the transcendent ego, as a purely individual quality independent of the cosmic soul, seems far from demonstrable, and indeed counter to the indications of evolution: for evolution apparently pro- duces only the known ego resulting from interactions between the known self and the known environment. Anything more must apparently be an inflow from outside the known universe. Those who hold for the individual subliminal are used to seeing the physical man limited to his x pounds, and so they assume a psychical man limited to his x capacities. This x, however, they say = y + z, y being what the man does ordinarily, and z being what he can do only in inspira- tion or dream. Du Prel uses over and over again a com- parison of y + z to the visible universe. When the man is awake y only is in evidence this planet and the sun. When he goes to sleep or goes into trance, or shows telepathic powers, z appears the stars, but they were there all the while, only not in evidence. Yet, it seems well to repeat, Du Prel seems to posit a limited y + z (= x) faculties, just as he posits x pounds for the body. Now in view of such facts as that thoughts from single brains are spreading into all the brains of the civilized world every day, and that it has already become commonplace doc- trine among all students that "the subliminal self forgets nothing," isn't it a fundamental error to let the constant familiarity with x pounds lead us to posit for each man a limited x (= y + z) set of faculties, or, in more general terms, to let the known fact that matter (motion) is limited, 310 Cosmic Soul and Individual Soul [Bk. II, Ft. IV lead us more or less consciously to reason as if mind were limited to assume even, in face of the now incontrovertible facts of the dream-state the waking visions of Foster and Stillman's friend, inspiration, ordinary dreams, trance, hypno- sis, mediumship that even the individual's mind is limited? It may be a likely guess that that portion of it which has been evolved directly in connection with reactions between material organism and material environment the y mind, perhaps is limited; but how about the z mind of the dream state as just particularized? Apparently it has not grown up in the observed processes of evolution; before Mesmer it had not attracted much attention beyond an occasional comment by an occasional genius ; but all the while, with the evolution of the y mind, that z mind has been spasmodically manifest- ing itself more and more, until in our time such a man as Gladstone has pronounced its study the most important study of the age, and the first psychologist of recent years probably devoted more attention to it than to any other department of his subject. The y mind has observably been evolved, and we know, after a fashion, how. But let us amend that phrase- ology, and, provisionally at least, say that the capacity to receive it has been evolved. This does not seem to contradict any facts, and may be useful. The z mind, on the other hand, seems sprung upon us all of a sudden, or at least upon our modern observation, though Joseph was an authority on it in Egypt, and there have been others, in their way. But our modern students of psycholog- ical evolution have hardly paid any attention to it, and the special students of it have hardly tackled it from the evo- lutionary standpoint. Why ? I hazard a guess. May it not be that, unlike the y mind of everyday life, the z mind has not, to any significant extent, been evolved in the individual, that primarily it is as old as the universe, though it grows with all mental action in the universe that it is the Cosmic Soul ? What appears to be the human evolution of the y mind is mainly constantly increasing ascertainment of truth already existing in the cosmic mind open by logical and experimental processes to human knowledge. The z mind, on the other hand, may be the cosmic mind spasmodically flowing in with- out such process, but shaped into individuality by each con- Ch. XXI] The Y Mind and the Z Mind 311 stitution, as each bay of the ocean gets individuality from the shores. Accordingly, if any portion, and not all, of the mind survives bodily death, we would expect it to be the portion we have designated by z, and later it may be found interesting to inquire if, of the survivals alleged through the mediums, any preponderant portion is of the z mind of that part of the personality least connected, or least obviously connected, with the evolutionary reaction between body and environ- ment ; and if " evidential " matter sought so signally in vain is not after all part of the y mind, which is mainly an apparatus for the conduct of earthly life, and which, there- fore, we could hardly expect to find strong and clear beyond it. The phenomena suggest that the ordinary reactions between the body and its environment evolve the commonplace self- preserving faculties, and that exceptional circumstances which we don't begin to understand even heredity seems to have little to do with them produce sporadic persons specially open to the exceptional forms of cosmic inflow genius, medium- ship, and the rest. Even the quite general form of dreaming is by no means universal, and dreams of a high order seem to come rarely even to good dreamers, while persons subject to mediuraistic visions are rarer than poets. The discovery, if discovery it be, that the subliminal self is the Cosmic Soul, may impress some readers as belonging in the same class with the immortal discovery in Natural History, made after so much investigation and reflection, that a snaric is a boojum. Argument against such an impression would be wasted. The subliminal self is as much a part of accepted knowledge as is the law of association of ideas, and the Cosmic Soul is at least an intuition of most of the minds whose intuitions have been among the most important of humanity's guiding lights. The conception that the sub- liminal self and the Cosmic Soul are the same, may yet be demonstrated to a clearness that will place it among those beacons. (Let me not be misunderstood regarding the guidance of intuitions. They point out promising directions, but not always infallibly.) 312 Cosmic Soul and Individual Soul [Bk. II, Pt. IV Of the transcendent ego, or subliminal self, then, as gen- erally described, I see no evidence; but of it as the Cosmic Soul, I see much evidence. The capacity to receive the Cosmic Inflow and farther evolve it seems to be in course of evolution, and it often looks as if that capacity might, while we are yet in the body, 'enormously enlarge our cosmic relations, through the dream state ; and there is also enlargement for the old, old hope that when we leave the body we may remain ourselves, and yet become "one with God." It looks, too, as if these possibilities might be the supreme justification for the evolution of the universe. There may be justification enough in birds and flowers, in the play of lambs and children, in sex, in love, in the maternity around which so much of the world's worship has centered, in know- ledge, in wisdom, even as they have been ordinarily under- stood; but a new significance, a new joy, a new glory over and beyond them all sometimes seems to have been lately promised by that as yet dim conception of the Cosmic Soul. Now in wandering around amidst these mists I here come upon an idol whose exaggerated cult I hate, but there may be something in its temperate cult. I mean the idol of a priori knowledge the notion that all knowledge is in the mind, waiting to be dug out. Though man's mind may not contain latent all knowledge, assuming a cosmic mind, of course all knowledge is there, and the German professor evolving his camel in his study, so far as he had any telepathic communion with the cosmic mind, was right. But there is no sign that all knowledge is in any human mind or accessible by any human mind, even in the dream state. And unless it is there, it can hardly be dug out by contemplation unchecked by verification. And now, having extracted whatever hope or consolation or amusement we may have been able to derive from these pages of guesswork, let us see if we can get them into a paragraph. There are unquestioned facts abundance of them outside so-called mediumship that demonstrate something in man Ch. XXI] Th* True Mysticism and the False 313 beyond his surface faculties, to which the terms transcendent ego and subliminal self have been applied. But is that ego merely of himself ? Does it not seem to be rather each man's share that portion which the individual's conformation and circumstances permit to pass into him of that which tran- scends our conception, and of which we confess our incapacity wholly to conceive, by such words as infinite and eternal, and which we attempt to express by such metaphors as " kinship with the gods," or the better one of "God in us"? If in that later metaphor we must include universal motion, why not universal mind? Around this vague conception, more perhaps than anywhere else, center the vague lights that we have on this whole subject. I shall try to indicate them wherever we meet them, but all my indications will necessarily be vague, and many of them inevitably mistaken; and as I have revised my work I have come to fear that my persistency in these attempts will sorely try your patience. But I believe the attempts would be much surer and less trying if the many men who have trod these misty paths before, every one of whom seems to have seen those lights, had tried more persistently to follow their indications ; and I believe that the ultimate solution will be found among them. I hope this chapter may have suggested some of the wider notions of mind which recent experience demands. Yet it is very largely analogy and imagination. I don't propose to go to the stake for it, or send anybody else for denying it. But, if you please, it is not all analogy or imagination, but it has a very visible claim to being hypothesis based on un- questionable facts. While we have been groping in the dark it has been a dark where some pretty definite things have kept turning up in some very suggestive ways. Speculation to account for facts, however mystic it may be, is a very different matter from the mysticism which scorns facts, and seeks truth only as visions and telepathic impres- sions from assumed mystic intelligences often through the mortification of the flesh and vexations of the spirit, which seldom find truth, and generally weaken the powers that seek it. CHAPTER XXII MIND AND BRAIN AGAIN Now let us go on to some facts in the general constitution of mind which support the preposterous jumble of propositions in the last two chapters. Possibly as we proceed, they may seem less preposterous, and we may even find them supported, if that's not too big a word, by others. But let us keep safe in the realization that, until all are verified, we must not assume them to be true, but equally realizing that verified fancy is the chief source of progress. These chapters are very repetitious. It has been said often, but is not apt to be said too often, that the first essential of good writing is knowing what you are writing about. Now I am writing about certain facts, but as to the inferences from them, I don't know : nobody knows : we are all guessing ; but somebody must do the guessing and the bad writing bookfuls of it if our descendants are to know. The " common law " of our Cosmic Relations is going to be in no small degree developed, as much of the common law of our Civic Relations has been developed, by " text writers " correlating the cases. The vague notions of a cosmic mind are dimmed by the indications that mind is but a persistent individual secre- tion of brain; but the vague conceptions clear up again so far as we are able to think of mind as independent of brain. Some reasons for so thinking were given in Chapter III. There are others that I did not give there, because I thought that they would be less tedious here, where they could be con- sidered in connection with telepathy. We have seen some indications that mind may be not a product of our mechanical part, but a redistribution, into combinations ever growing higher, of a primordial element like force and matter an element inherent in each atom of our structure, and also, like force and matter, constantly flowing into us from the external universe, and constantly going out. This primordial element I have already, probably 314 Ch. XXII] Mind Potential Varies 315 following somebody whom I have forgotten, termed " mind- potential." But I would now expand that term to cover anything, from whatever it is that leads an amoeba to contract when touched (while any inorganic thing that looks like it, will not) up to whatever any psychic organism works over into something else up to, say, the effects on the sensoria of the sounds in Nature which Beethoven works into a great piece of music, or the woodland colors and murmurs which inspired " Thanatopsis," or the charms of womanhood which have bred an infinite variety of poems. Moreover, each product of mind becomes mind-potential for farther products : so under that term I would include even the impressions made on the sitter or reader by an alleged personality ex- pressed through a sensitive. And there is not only more mind, but higher mind. Mind- potential, from its lowest to its highest forms, is constantly worked into higher forms, new thoughts, feelings, impulses, all sorts of mental and emotional products. If, then, there is a cosmic soul, it would seem as already intimated to be constantly growing by accretions from the souls developed on the planets. The material for furnishing copies of those individual souls, or so much of them as is worth copying, seems to be all there. Some specially gifted persons, more or less in the dream state, and all of us in ordinary dreams, are able to recover portions when even the memory of the originators cannot. And the mind-product can be recovered not only from each one's own memories, but from each other's mem- ories, and apparently in much greater degree, independently of the body, from some cosmic reservoir of all memories. Mind's independence of the body, and its inflow to the individual from outside is farther suggested by the following group of considerations, some of which we have seen before from a different point, or used before for a different purpose. I. As we have seen, the matter and motion constituting a man can be in only one place at one time, but his thoughts and emotions can be in any number of places at any number of times. II. Mind, unlike matter and force, is free from limitation 316 Mind and Brain Again [Bk. II, Ft. IV and measurability. Motion disposes itself toward measure- ment in the most obliging manner : it sets part of itself off in the form of matter, which part we can measure readily ; it also places some of the remaining and imponderable part of itself at our disposition so that we can measure it by its effects upon matter. Even when it is amusing itself in blowing down forests, or tumbling seas, or splitting up the earth, or swing- ing planets, we can still measure it, but only by its effects upon matter. We cannot similarly measure mind. We can reduce to foot-pounds the power that rolls Neptune for a year; but we would never think of reducing to foot-pounds the thoughts of Bismarck that built the German Empire, or even those of Moltke that moved the armies which took part in the building. And yet, such is the continuity of the universe that strict classification fails here as everywhere; the differences ail around are but differences of degree. Mind is measurable, but thus far only in ways too insignificant to be worth taking into account. We can already, to some extent, measure it by its effect on matter, through the sphygmograph, for instance, and we shall measure it more; but it is hard to foresee that we shall measure it much. To measure mind as completely as we measure force we would have to know even more re- condite things than how many foot-pounds bring the flash to the hero's eye, or the blush to the maiden's cheek. And if we should ever think we had got the thing cornered, there might escape from somebody one little thought that would set all the men's eyes in the world flashing and all the maidens' cheeks blushing, and would prove our measurements naught. III. A given mental individuality varies from time to time more than its physical companion, the brain. The healthy powers of the body vary but little, but in inspiration and dream (including somnambulism, trance, etc.), the powers of the mind immensely surpass its ordinary powers. These enormous differences take place in the same person, and so suggest at least a partial independence of the brain. The inference springing from these differences, so far as I know, philosophers have, up to date, treated very queerly. On one hand, they have ignored it; they all, so far as I know, gen- erally assume that the colossal powers a man shows only Ch. XXII] Mind Does Not Vary as Brain 317 occasionally are carried about with him all the time. A more reasonable inference seems to be that they are not, but they are temporary increases in the flow into him from the Cosmic Soul. And on the other hand, of the philosophers I know who ordinarily ignore this inference, most, if not all, incidentally imply it in such passages as those already quoted regarding the Cosmic Soul. IV. Minds differ more than brains do in amount, and at least in mechanical structure. Just how much weight to attach to this we don't know: for there may be differences in molecular structure that, if we knew them, would account for the differences in mind. Yet Dr. William Hanna Thom- son assures me that so far as we know, the differences in brains, when compared with the differences in minds, are as nothing. V. In addition to the enormous differences in amount be- tween the psychical manifestations of different individuals or of the same individual at different times, there seems to be another line of cleavage which may indicate something im- portant. On one side of the line is the group of manifesta- tions which are (a) under voluntary control, (b) shown by all men, and (c) running closely parallel with manifestations of physical force, as shown in increased flow of blood and consumption of tissue, and subsequent fatigue corresponding with the intensity and duration of the psychical manifesta- tions. On the other side is a group of manifestations (a) not under the control of the individual, (b) almost entirely (except in dreams) outside the experience of ordinary in- dividuals, and (c) not usually accompanied by any noticeable expenditure of physical force. With certain qualifications, which I will immediately specify, this second group includes inspirations, visions waking and sleeping, nearly all perhaps all veridical dreams, and nearly all perhaps all pleasant ones, and all the phenomena of somnambulism, hypnotism, and trance, and automatic writing and the other forms of mediumship. For convenience' sake, all of these are generally included under the phrase " the dream state," even inspira- tion being often included with them. Inspiration is perhaps the principal borderland where the two groups, like all groups divided by human classification, shade into each other. 318 Mind and Brain Again [Bk. II, Pt. IV Ordinary dreams belong with the second group of psycho- ses apparently independent of physical function, in so far as they are not to any extent under the control of the individual, are apparently not experienced by all men, and do not gen- erally involve any appreciable waste of force and tissue. But they are far from being unqualifiedly in the second group, because they are appreciably under the control of some men (Stevenson and van Eeden, for instance) and are experienced by a very large portion of mankind. In short, they, like inspiration, are on the borderland between ordinary psychic processes, and those which seem to be largely in the tran- scendent universe. The classification of the two groups js rough and tentative, partly because with our present knowledge we cannot be very sure of our material we cannot be sure we have exact recollections of even our "best" dreams, and of many we have hardly any recollections at all. But the classification seems fairly to fit what material we have, and will be found to make a farther fit with some wider classifications to be attempted later. The differences are clear enough (and that is the point I am after), and suggest inflows through different channels one from our worldly experiences, the others direct from the cosmic mind. As already noticed, " the dream-state " evinces powers en- tirely surpassing those of the vigilant state in the reception of higher-developed mind-potential, the vivifying of fainter memories, the solution of harder problems, the transcending of time and space, the reception of telepathic impressions, the veridical copies of personalities incarnate and (alleged) post- carnate, etc., etc. All these capacities seem illimitable, and again suggest inflows from an illimitable source. The first of the groups of capacities those of waking hours that are common to all men, and subject to each man's control, we more readily assume to be in some way peculiarly his originated in his brain from the reactions of his soul with the universe or even the secretion of his brain, than we can assume the same of those exceptional capacities in the second group which comparatively few men display, and no man to any great extent controls. I think we shall find weight added to this suggestion as Ch. XXII] Dreams and Tax on Tissue 319 we go on to consider illustrative details of the manifestation of the exceptional and more or less involuntary powers. In marking the differences between the two groups, one qualification is that although in the long run some phenomena of the dream-state do seem something of a physical tax, and even characterize some forms of invalidism, they occur more markedly with people in good health, and it is generally when they present anything shocking or distressful that they are attended by noticeable waste of force and tissue. Doubts have been thrown on this, the old ascetic idea of mortification of the flesh has even been held out as essential to mediumship. As a cause, this is not true at all ; and as a result, it is seldom true farther than the fatigue occasioned by telekinesis. The cases of Foster, Colville, Tuttle, Davis, Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Thompson are all the other way. Moses had rather defective health, and so had Home, but their cases make no larger pro- portion of the whole than would be those of the defectives among people not mediumistic. In psychosis apparently freed from physical parallelism, we may include much of the experience, perhaps all the best experience, of the mediums. Foster showed no more fatigue in his cheerful sitting with me than any other equally long sitting at a table would naturally involve, though he did show much from his more terrible experiences, as already narrated in the extracts from Bartlett. And Mrs. Piper, when favor- ably circumstanced and well taken care of, seems better for her trances than without them. Colville, we saw, emphatic- ally testified the same thing, and the general testimony is to the same effect. Of course this question of parallelism in the higher psycho- ses may be settled before long by experiment, though it is not easy to get together the proper conditions of experi- ment. Meanwhile the considerations expressed in the last few pages seem to offer a strong hint that there may be some modes of mental action without any physical correlate. In- deed have we not long been familiar in the dream-state with features that may perhaps be more easily accounted for by a hyper-physical or metaphysical psychosis than on any other theory yet in sight? 320 Mind and Brain Again [Bk. II, Pt. IV This hypothesis may throw some light on telepathy and receive some from it. A fundamental difficulty with telepathy is the assumed lack of a physical medium for transmission of the assumed physical changes in the agent's brain to the brain of the recipient. Possibly one is not needed, but if one is, why are we not as much at liberty to assume an ether for these assumed vibrations as we have been to assume an ether for light or heat? But is it inconceivable that we may yet find that in the phenomena involving telepathy we can drop questions of " energy " and " neural tremors " altogether ? Apparently such a result will be inevitable if telepathy from discarnate intelligences shall ever be accepted as part of established science. In this connection the following remarks by Myers are well worth considering (Pr. VI, 3201) : " When we come to telergy, to the power of propagating in- fluences or phantasms at a distance [and, shall we add, of receiv- ing them when awake or asleep? H.H.] then the familiar paral- lelism between bodily and mental states assumes a quite strained and hypothetical air. At first ... we spoke of phan- tasms coincident with moments of death or crises, as though a strong upheaval of the conscious being disengaged some in- fluence which might be felt afar off. But as further cases were gathered in it became clear that the ' crisis ' which facili- tated telergic action was not necessarily a moment of conscious excitement or strain. Quite otherwise; for it was found that the ' agent,' at the moment of the apparition, was often asleep, or fainting, or even in a state of coma. Not the moment of death alone, but also the hours of abeyance and exhaustion which precede death, were found apt to generate these appear- ances. Nor is the moment of death itself, under ordinary circumstances, a moment of impulse or exaltation. Far oftener it is an imperceptible extinction of energies which hare already waned almost into nothingness. "It would, then, be nearer the truth to say that telergic action varies inversely than that it varies directly, with the observable activity of the nervous system or of the conscious mind." [Of., my suggestion earlier regarding brain change varying inversely as the grade of the psychic process. H. H.] " And it follows that the presumption commonly urged against the conscious mind's continuance after bodily decay loses much of its force when we are considering this new-found form of mental energy, so much less manifestly dependent upon bodily CHAPTER XXIII THE IDEA BUT before we go on to explore the deeper mysteries, or, it may be, the higher heights, perhaps we had better put into our rucksacks another notion as old as philosophy, of which not much use has been made lately, but which, like the Cosmic Soul, is touched upon by pretty much everybody, and which seems to gain new significance under the light of recent developments. We will perhaps best approach it indirectly. You and I enter the Metropolitan Museum from Fifth Avenue. I try to turn to the right, but you say : " No ! Let's go on and see the Parthenon." I go with you to the model of the restora- tion, and say : " Why, this is much more the Parthenon than the ruins on the Acropolis," and you answer: "Oh, if we could only have seen the real one ! " I suggest : " If you're so much devoted to it, why don't you devote some of your oppressive wealth to having it restored on the spot? Perhaps the Greek government would be happy to have you." And you, being of rather a romantic turn, object : " But that wouldn't be the Parthenon." I ask :" Why not ? Couldn't you leave all that's there now, to keep up the associations ? " You say : " Perhaps, but the real architect couldn't superin- tend it." I answer : " If that counts, there's hardly a cathe- dral in Europe that lofty souls like yours have any right to gush over: for there's hardly one that was finished in the lifetime of the architect, or within that of anybody who ever saw him. On the same principle, Beethoven's last quartets, regarded by many connoisseurs as the greatest music in the world, are not the real thing : for he never heard them played : he composed them after he was deaf. And yet so far wrong is your contention that the work is not complete unless its creator supervises its production, that Beethoven's deafness is regarded by some as having been a prerequisite of that great 322 The Idea [Bk. II, Ft. IV music : it is doubted if his inspirations could have been so wonderful if they had been interrupted by any external sounds. Observe, too, please, in this connection, that, as there can be an indefinite number of legitimate copies of the music, or renderings of it, it seems reasonable that there could be as many legitimate Parthenons." " The architect's plan, then," you suggest, " must be the real thing." " In the hands of the workmen," I answer, " there were a dozen copies of it, and possibly the original draft itself. Is any one of them more 'the real thing' than the other? Or would the first draft be more 'the real thing' than any other ? The ' real thing,' then, as you have probably antici- pated, is 'the temple not built with hands' the Idea in the mind of the genius: the architect's plan, like the com- poser's notes or the poet's writing, is merely an expression of it; and any one of the three can be read from the paper and received by another mind, without marble, or musical instrument, or speech." Ideas are the nearest to permanent of human productions. Buildings crumble, men die, all portraits of them vanish ; still the Ideas of them seem indestructible. The Idea of St. Mark's Campanile has just been expressed again after what some would presume to call " the real thing " fell. The Iliad was not in writing: it was merely given to the air by the poet's voice, and yet it outlasts Greece and Eome ; and many a little poem survives, fresh and perfect, while the Pyramids crumble. The streams of force and matter that built up the bodies of generations pass on as their works decay, while the streams of mind going through the same bodies build Ideas that do not die. They live not only in the minds and records of suc- ceeding generations, but as the pervasiveness of mind seems unlimited, they seem also to survive in the Cosmos inde- pendently of the generations of men. When, as in dreams and trances, we are not occupied with the phenomena called the material world, copies of the Ideas come in upon us from unlimited distances in time and space. Sometimes the artist draws them, just as the architect's assist- ants do ; or as some artist, thousands of years after the archi- tect is dead, extracts his Idea from the ruins or some other Ch. XXIII] Plato on The Idea 323 manifestation. William Blake, as he happens to be both seer and artist, sees and reproduces any number of strange people and things from ancient or distant environments; and with such vraisemblance that it is hard, and probably unnecessary, to believe that the originals never had " material " form. And in dreams we all of us see similar things, both clearly and jumbled up. " See " is a limited and inaccurate term. Our senses are of course mere machines for doing what some of us, in some conditions, can do a great deal better without them. This generalization goes even so far as our muscles. Under some circumstances, just as the telepsychic genius has no need of senses, the telekinetic genius has no need of muscles. Thus we get a glimpse of what seems to be a soul without the need of a body. And yet we get no glimpse of any way in which that soul could have been developed without a body. We do get a glimpse, however, of its ultimately, after being developed, getting along without a body; and in the apparent relations of the individual soul with the cosmic soul, we get a glimpse of how. The foreshadowing of this set of notions in Plato is probably the nearest distinct of those heretofore presented. As dug out by Weber (I am through digging in Plato, for myself or even for my readers), it relates to at least two distinct things one, abstract or generalized ideas beauty, strength, wisdom, as distinguished from beautiful, strong, and wise persons; the other nearly what I have tried to express: he says, for instance (or Weber says for him, op. cit. t 84) : " The Ideas are the models or the originals, and the natural beings or the individuals are the copies. . . . They are the thoughts of God, which no human intelligence can wholly re- produce, but which are none the leas real, absolutely real." But he goes on (op. cit. f p. 84) : " Now, every beautiful object, be it a man or a statue, an act or an individual, is doomed to destruction and oblivion; beauty in itself is imperishable." Now I have tried to clarify an impression not merely that generalities are indestructible (as they can be in a succession of particulars even if the particulars be perishable in detail), but that behind each particular thing is an individual Id( 324 The Idea [Bk. II, Pt. IV may I say a concrete Idea ? which is indestructible ; and that all things which appeal to the senses are merely copies of the Idea which transcends the senses that this is true even of our bodies, and that when they are gone the Idea sur- vives. Weber says of this conception as expressed by Plato (pp. 85-6) : " To sum up : (1) The Ideas are real beings; (2) the Ideas are more real than the objects of sense; (3) the Ideas are the only true realities; the objects of sense possess a merely bor- rowed existence, a reality which they receive from the Ideas. The Ideas are the eternal patterns (mzparfefyuara) after which the things of sense are made; the latter are the images (<fc>*<z), the imitations, the imperfect copies (opoiu/iaTa, funfoeif). The entire sensible world is nothing but a symbol, an allegory, or a figure of speech. The meaning, the Idea expressed by the thing, alone concerns the philosopher. His interest in the sen- sible world is like our interest in the portrait of a friend of whose living presence we are deprived. " The world of sense is the copy of the world of Ideas ; and conversely the world of Ideas resembles its image. Parmenides, 132; Timceus, 48." Not only do Ideas seem stored up somewhere independently of human minds, but are there not indications that Ideas are produced there that there are possible sources of all the ideas which reach us, even those of us who cannot express them ? As one such, I know that, as I shall particularize later, I have seen things in my dreams superior to any that human art has yet accomplished, and so, I presume, have others. Itfay, we all know that each supreme work of art is a presenta- tion of such an Idea, whether it came in an ordinary dream or in a waking inspiration. But of those who have thus ex- pressed any work, I have never met the recorded experience '(pace Poe's doubtful account of " The Eaven ") of one who claims to have created it himself. On the contrary, they are all eager to claim that they were " inspired " by the muse or the god or the daimone whatever anthropomorphic character they may have given to the power not themselves. If asked if they are proud of their work, they convey as best they can the feeling that they are proud of being so constituted as to be of being selected to be the mediums of their inspira- tions from their respective divinities. Ch. XXIII] Inspiration, Subliminal Self, Cosmic Sovl 325 Now Du Prel, Myers, and their school want to dethrone those old divinities, and deprive the artist of his claim to be the agent of a higher power ; and so have provided him with their "subliminal self," which throws out these splendid things as a spring throws water a consciousness of his own he does it himself after all; but they haven't told us where are the headwaters of the spring. I suspect both sides are right, as they are in so many world- old battles. The artist is inspired by the god, and the god the cosmic soul is his subliminal consciousness, as the cosmic force is the motive power of his heart. You may not under- stand how it is so (I certainly do not), but while you can begin by thinking of the man and the cosmic power separately, you can no more round out a conception of either without including the other than you can round out a conception of the voluntary nervous system through which man acts, without including the involuntary nervous system through which the cosmos supplies man the capacity to act. In this unity of "diversity, independence with dependence, free will linked to another will, " Behold ! I show you a mystery/' This is of course as true as it was of Paul's. But how should it be other than a mystery? These things are on the borderland of our knowledge, where the best we can do is to fumble in the dark, unless, as some of the wisest think, it were still better to keep out of the dark altogether. But some others of the wisest think that we can learn very valuable things there perhaps strike an electric switch : so let us fumble a little farther. Every creation of man from tool to temple has behind it an Idea the man's Idea furnished him by the God. An object of Nature expresses "God's" Idea direct, not com- municated through man. In a portrait, it is expressed in another form by man, as the builder expresses the architect's idea. But back of each object of art or Nature, there lies the Idea. (See p. 487, 1. 8 from bottom.) Now how about us? Some of us are pretty fine creations a few of us more beautiful, more august, than any works of art. Was there an " Idea " a " plan " behind the creation of each one of us? In what mind? Certainly not in the 326 The Idea [Bk. II, Pt. IV mind of either parent: neither of them had a definite idea of what one of us would be like, beyond a possible remote composite of both of them: anything like a prophetic sketch or " plan " of one of us in their minds was out of the question. But I hope I am not too wild in suggesting that somehow the Idea of each one of us got into the universe perhaps before the spermatozoon entered the ovum, perhaps only as the in- dividual was developed. Is it unreasonable, then, to fancy that the Idea of each of us was and is in the Cosmic Mind, and just as the Parthe- non in stone is but one copy of the architect's Idea, so, from the " Idea " of one of us in the Cosmic Mind is constructed the copy we know in carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, iron, and a few other elements? That copy resists pressure and, varying a good deal in dimensions and details, sometimes abides a hundred years. It assimilates food, wastes tissues, sees, hears, thinks, feels, talks, and interchanges thoughts and feelings, and is in all ways apparent to our waking senses. Those Ideas have also been expressed in various other copies descriptions, photographs, paintings, statues as well as in our bodies and souls themselves. Then outside of our ordinary waking senses, in vision, dream, trance, still other copies are presented. These other copies do not abide with us long, though they return, and they do think, feel, talk, weep, laugh, interchange thoughts and feelings, resist pressure, and perform other physical functions, certainly the most intense of them, though they may not have been observed to perform all. Thus the expressions of an Idea are both physical and psychical. Apparently the more impor- tant expression is the psychic so important that even while the two are together, from Homer down to Lincoln, the phys- ical one sometimes appears to have been only ancillary evolved only that it might promote the evolution of the other. The physical expression in time 'disappears before our eyes. The Idea on its psychic side (assuming its existence and reasoning from the Ideas of other things) seems somehow not subject to death, and we often act on assumptions possibly no wilder than that it may find farther expression after the death of the copy we call the body. As the Idea behind the San Marco Campanile was capable Ch. XXIII] The Expression Goes, The Idea Abides 327 of resurrection though the bricks fell, so, we have some faint evidence, abide the Ideas behind our visible frames, though their atoms disintegrate ; and so, apparently much more prob- ably, abide the Ideas constituting our psychic individualities. They keep bobbing up in the most unexpected and inex- haustible ways from what has been called the subliminal soul, and what some of us prefer to call the cosmic soul. They come up in ordinary dreams and in all sorts of visions ; come up in copies which closely duplicate the familiar " living " body and "living" soul, and have sometimes made com- munications later demonstrated to have been "true," and sometimes more important than anything in our waking life. We know as a fact that these dream copies have apparently been expressed over and over again, often very strikingly, through many " mediums," and there would be no little justi- fication for calling gratuitous the efforts to make them out anything less than copies. The dream copies as presented by the mediums, are not always as complete or as convincing as the copy our faculties have enabled us to know during ordinary life, or as the copies in our own dreams. But there is a strong presumption that the expressions through the mediums may not be convincing because the method of expression is poor. We know, too, that this later sort of expression is very recent, and, like many faculties under evolution, unaccountably spo- radic, and appears to be as yet in a stage very elementary compared with a possible later one. Now with these demonstrations, such as they are, to our presumably elementary apprehension, such as it is, of the sur- vival of the Idea, and of its various presentations, is it wildly extravagant to suppose that the Idea really does survive death in new expressions new bodies even, to which the one with which we are familiar may be merely preliminary and rudi- mentary ? This is not sheer guesswork built up on a jumble of words which in themselves are but professions of ignorance: it is a tentative interpretation of facts, which we have got to inter- pret somehow, or resign the right and responsibility to use our intellects. It may be all wrong, but doesn't it seem to be in a direction where truth may ultimately appear more clearly? 328 The Idea [Bk. II, Pt IV I have deliberately put some chapters of guesswork re- garding these psychic mysteries right in the midst of the phenomena to which the guesses apply, instead of putting them before all the phenomena as deductions for the phe- nomena to verify ; or after them all, as inductions which the phenomena suggest. The inconsistency has been partly due to the matter being so tangled up that it is hard to discuss any without being led to discuss more, but partly because in such uncertain studies it is well, after enough facts have been given to justify any guesses, to make the guesses as aids to the mere exposition of the remaining facts, not to speak of their interpretation. We will now go on to the partly anticipated phenomena. CHAPTER XXIV POSSESSION(T) IN GENERAL WE now come to the phenomena which bring the question of the Cosmic Inflow closer than do any others, and which, of all the field we are exploring (and some would think of all human annals), are probably the most interesting and the most puzzling. They are perhaps the only phenomena whose claims to interpretation by the spiritistic hypothesis are ad- mitted by the weight of authority to be worthy of con- sideration. Nearly all such telepsychoses as have been recounted here take place while the sensitive is in possession of his usual faculties, and are described or expressed by the medium volun- tarily. But there are telepsychoses which are expressed in- voluntarily and unconsciously. Between these two classes of expressions there is of course (as always between associated groups) a transition group. In fact conformably with the in- structive gradualness of the transitions in Nature to which I have alluded so often, we find all degrees of such phenomena, from the simplest telepathy to the inspiration which leads almost everybody occasionally, without conscious effort, to " surpass himself " ; to that which sets " the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling " ; to that which sets Mrs. Verrall, while otherwise perfectly conscious, to writing intelligent things she does not intend; to that which sets Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper similarly writing while their intelligence is other- wise engaged perhaps in studying a profound treatise or something else utterly at variance with the written topics; to that which makes Mrs. Holland occasionally write in trance, and Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Thompson always ; and so by degrees to the apparently complete " Possession," where the medium's soul appears to abandon the body and leave it at the service of the hypothetical souls who use it to express themselves. When the medium's soul is thus apparently absent, the vital processes still continue: they are carried on through 330 Possession (?) in General [Bk. II, Pt. IV the sympathetic nerve and its jponnections ; while the brain with all thought, feeling, and voluntary movement is appar- ently abandoned by the original personality, and apparently open to use of other personalities. These individualities, in vocabulary, inflection, and, some- times, gesture, appear as boys and girls, adults and old people, men and women ; Americans, Indians, English, French, Hawaiians, Chinese ; schoolboys, pedagogues, scholars, philoso- phers, prize-fighters, butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers. All talk through the medium with a dramatic verisimilitude that, while perhaps never reaching the impressiveness or humor of the great dramatists, seems, in variety and faithful- ness to nature, 'almost, if not quite, to surpass them all. The ways of accounting for these strange phenomena we will consider incidentally in connection with the phenomena themselves, and systematically after we have been over as full accounts of them as space permits. Many students believe that the soi-disant other souls are simply dissociated personalities of the medium, but at least for purposes of study, we must discriminate Possession from Dissociation, and yet the difference between them, like so many differences we have noted, is so gradual that it is hard to tell where one ceases and the other begins. Perhaps the best distinction is that where a person thinks and acts unlike " thonself," without claiming to be any other specific person who has existed, we consider the new personality simply dis- sociated we might almost say differentiated from the old. This is generally the result of accident or disease. But when the new personality appears without any occasion from acci- dent or disease, and claims to be somebody that has existed in another body, and talks and acts, and especially shows excep- tional knowledge, as if it had so existed, some commentators say, often provisionally, that the new body is " possessed " by the soul that formerly " possessed " the other body. But this classification, like all others, is defective : for there are many insane persons who believe themselves to be some- body else some of them always, some only occasionally. But they do not show enough of the foregoing requirements to fool anybody, and have not noticeably displayed mediumistic phenomena. Ch. XXIV] Acted Dreams. Automatism 331 On reading the proofs, I see that it will probably be well, without disturbing the preceding two paragraphs, to state here, as a possible clue through the labyrinth we are approaching, the conclusion I have reached (tentatively: that's as far as it is yet time to go) that the phenomena of apparent posses- sion result from the medium's identifying " thonself " with, and so acting out, characters that are telepathically presented in dreams, possibly by the sitter, possibly by other incarnate intelligence, possibly by postcarnate intelligence, possibly by any two of those things, or by all. This cryptic utterance comes from so many considerations that to make it clearer by giving them, especially with their illustrations, would be vir- tually to give the rest of the book : so we may as well resume that process. It seems a corollary from the law of evolution that there should always be not only a few men vastly greater than the rest, but also that when new and strange faculties appear, they should appear only in a few people. Dreams we all have, som- nambulism not so many have, and hypnotism and trance we have long known occasionally ; but telepathy and " medium- ship" and "possession," all three seem to be comparatively rare wonders of yesterday, though of course some scholars think they have found evidence of them, as of everything else, in remote antiquity. We shall find in all these phenomena many traits in com- mon. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to give the phe- nomena names which do not imply opinions ; and this while the weight of judgment appears to be that the time for opinions is not yet come. A prominent alternate name for " possession " is automatism, and Myers has so established it that some objections to it seem worth considering. Inanimate matter is generally moved by the immediate application of outside force. When the force is stored up within the matter, so that when it is released the matter appears to be self-moving, the motion is called automatic. Myers applies the term to all superusual experience and function in the broadest sense, covering all superusual sensa- tion, waking and sleeping; but when he applied the term automatic to the writing and speaking and gesticulating of 332 Possession (?) in General [Bk. II, Pt. IV the sensitives, he supported the thesis that those acts were not performed by the consciousnesses of the mediums, but by consciousness outside; while he called the phenomena auto- matic he strove with all his strength to prove them hetero- matic, and produced in the reader's apprehension mine, at least a good deal of wobbling. To one who has groped much among these uncertainties there can be no wonder that a man of even Myers's ability sometimes fell into an inconsistency, especially as he naturally used the language as he found it. And yet in this case it seems a little strange that, with his facility in coining words, he rested content with the old one. His definition of automatism is (Human Personality, I, " The products of inner vision or inner audition externalized into quasi-percepts, these form what I term sensory autom- atisms. The messages conveyed by movements of limbs or hand or tongue, initiated by an inner motor impulse beyond the conscious will these are what I term motor automatisms. And I claim that when all these are surveyed together their essential analogy will be recognized beneath much diversity of form. They will be seen to be messages from the subliminal to the supraliminal self; endeavors conscious or unconscious of submerged tracts of our personality to present to ordinary waking thought fragments of a knowledge which no ordinary waking thought could attain." Here he clearly restricts the whole business to the indi- vidual soul : no sign yet of his attributing any of it, as he does later, to other intelligences acting through the organism instead of its usual soul. But he goes on (p. 223) to say that: "All human terrene faculty will be in this view simply a selection from faculty existing in the metetherial world; such part of that antecedent, even if not individualized, faculty as may be expressible through each several human organism." " Faculty existing in the metetherial world " seems a pretty good expression for Cosmic Soul. Furthermore, on page 218, under Hypnotism, he had said : " There may be a truth deeper than we can at this moment stay to discuss in many subjective experiences of poets, philo- Ch. XXIV] Myers on the Metetherial World 333 sophers, mystics, saints. And if their sense of inflowing and indwelling life indeed be true; if the subliminal uprushes which renew and illumine them are fed in reality from some metetherial environment; then a similar influence may by analogy exist and be recognizable along the whole gamut of psychophysical phenomena " The nascent life of each of us is perhaps a fresh draft, the continued life is an ever-varying draft, upon the cosmic energy. In that environing energy call it by what name we will we live and move and have our being; and it may well be that certain dispositions of mind, certain phases of person- ality, may draw in for the moment from that energy a fuller vitalizing stream." He closes the chapter with: " Let men realize that . . . their own spirits are co-operative elements in the cosmic evolution, are part and parcel of the ultimate vitalizing Power." Myers wrote these passages in speculation on the source of the curative power of hypnotism, and they seem to in- dicate the conviction I have already expressed that hyp- notism opens the soul to influxes from a cosmic reservoir of knowledge and will, just as other agencies open the blood and nerves to influxes from the cosmic store of matter and force. This is a broader view than the exclusively individual one of the subliminal self. Though not without vagueness and paradox, it certainly seems pointed to by the facts; it offers an explanation where " subliminal self " is but a name ; and is at least implied, even when tenninologically ignored, by almost every writer on the subject. Our supraliminal souls are individual, but they blend more or less with our subliminal souls, which, as I fear I am wearying you by contending, seem to be such inflows from a cosmic soul as our individual make-ups permit. We cannot draw a definite line between the supraliminal and the subliminal, any more than we can between any other related categories, and we are hardly to be charged with inconsistency if, in treating of one aspect of soul, we omit, or fail, to keep the other aspects equally in front. But does it not seem probable that we will be on a more helpful way to the truth if, in treating the subliminal aspect, we keep as far as we can from confining it to the personal character- 334 Possession(?) in General [Bk. II, Ft. IV istics, and keep prominent, as far as we can, the cosmic characteristics? True it seems to be that strictly personal characteristics determine the inflow of the cosmic element, but as we look out through the channels open in the per- sonality, we catch glimpses of that to which we can see no limit in content or time, and to which we give the names that only express our incapacity infinite and eternal. But although Myers so clearly went for his automatism outside of the purposeful individual, and into a cosmic in- flow, later, as we shall have abundant occasion to see, he absolutely leaves the cosmic inflow, and yet does not return to the subliminal individual soul of his " automatist," but attributes the "messages" to individual souls which have left the body, and this he does without any insistent recur- rence to his implied suggestion that both are different aspects of the same thing the individual souls as parts of the cosmic soul. This all seems very inconsistent, and it is very inconsistent unless the postcarnate souls and the automatist's soul are all regarded as parts of the cosmic soul. But for " subliminal self " substitute " cosmic soul," or, more definitely, " cosmic inflow," and we have a hypothesis consistent with itself so far as one in these vague regions can be. But I don't recall Myers ever being consistent enough to perform that very simple feat of substitution; and it was avoided with what seemed to me almost fatuous care by Du Prel, an immediate forerunner in Fechner's doctrine of the subliminal self, who, for all I know, may have invented the name. Du Prel's motive, however, was plain enough: he wrote in the days of the reaction against the old theologies, begun by Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, and their fellow-laborers on the Continent, and carried out on the Continent to such extremes that Du Prel and many others would account for a thing on any hypothesis, no matter how extravagant, rather than on one involving an intelligent cause and regulator be- hind the phenomenal universe : apparently for fear that some- body might call it God. Man's was the highest intelligence for which they would see any evidence, and they gave him a " subliminal self " to account for any manifestations in or through him which, a generation earlier, would have been Ch. XXIV] The Hypothesis of the Subliminal 335 called superhuman, and seem so to some of us in this genera- tion. Du Prel was specially put to it to account for the per- sonalities that oppose the self in dreams, and he fished them out of his universal reservoir " the subliminal." If in a dream or trance an individuality leads you along some ridgepole you never could have traversed alone, or solves some problem beyond your powers, or even opposes you with some knock-down argument you never thought of, that other per- sonality is simply your " divided self " according to Du Prel and his company; but according to some simpler souls, in- cluding mine, that other individuality is more nearly what it appears to be an independent inflow of the cosmic soul into you. The modus operandi I don't attempt to explain, but I'd rather attempt that than Du Prel's and Myers's job of explaining the second personality as a divided part of the first. Myers hung on to the hypothesis and the name for it, and this he did after he had accepted the human personality's survival of bodily death, and the cosmic soul; and he did so much to popularize the individual subliminal hypothesis in the English-speaking world, that he seemed to feel for it the affection sometimes felt for an adopted child. If he had risen so far beyond his partiality for his bantling just as it was, as to persistently identify it with the cosmic inflow, he would, if I mistake not, have avoided many inconsistencies and have added materially to the unity of his work. Of course in the present state of our knowledge this proposed shape of the hypothesis would probably have run him into other inconsistencies, as I am perfectly conscious that it is running me ; but I think it would still have left the balance to the good, and have brought us a step nearer to correlating the phenomena with established knowledge. But in every one of the steps Myers certainly did go out- side of the sensitive for his motive power. The operations of the medium's brain, or hand, or tongue, or other members, are apparently caused by an agency other than the conscious- ness which we ordinarily recognize as the specific human being. That agency may be what is called the subliminal consciousness, but the chief English-speaking apostle of the 336 Possession (?) in General [Bk. II, Pt. IV term, while he says it is that, defines that into something more. The agency may be some sort of a halfway cosmic soul, as one individuality amusing itself by aping other in- dividualities (not a very likely hypothesis) ; or it may be a really cosmic soul acting in a genuine capacity not yet clearly comprehensible differentiating itself into each individual thus becoming originator and sustainer of individual souls, and, in some as yet mysterious way, identical with them. Things seem to point this way, and Myers, apparently in spite of himself, involuntarily kept admitting that they did. I do not say that he was not justified in doing so, and that the phenomena are really heteromatic, but if, like Myers, I were fully confirmed in a belief in spiritism, I should say so. Myers's inconsistency in using the word automatic when he means heteromatic probably is due to his trying to ride two, or rather three, horses. If all the phenomena are due to his pet subliminal soul, and that is all shut up in the medium, the proceedings are of course automatic. But once admit telepathy, even from the sitter, not to speak of teloteropathy from remote incarnate intelligences, and much less from dis- carnate ones, and your automatism is gone. As the writings profess to be heteromatic, and as the theory of the cosmic inflow, which I tentatively accept, would make them heter- omatic, I shall call them heteromatic. Between the holders of the hypothesis of the subliminal self there is confusion and controversy. The spiritistic side, led perhaps by Myers and adhered to by Hodgson, Lodge, and others, claims that the medium's subliminal soul is a distinct thing, and that there are other things equally distinct appear- ing as the souls of the " possessors " of the medium, all of which souls, they incidentally admit, may be inflows from the cosmic soul. The anti-spiritistic side, led perhaps by Podmore, admits the subliminal soul, but as to the possessions being manifesta- tions of other souls, they are no such things, but mere processes of the medium's subliminal soul largely telepathic reflec- tions from other incarnate souls. The dramatic quality of these reflections, initiative, comment, repartee, discussion, disagreement, even violent argument, expressions of satisfac- Ch. XXIV] Perhaps all Sides Correct 337 tion and dissatisfaction ranging all the way from joy to a rage that smashes things all this is left unaccounted for. There is a third group in the controversy, led perhaps by James, which goes very little farther than to say: it is not yet time for an opinion. And there is at least a fourth position, though I hardly see signs of its being occupied by a "group," which would claim that there seem some glimmerings of everybody being right (as in most controversies) in the direction of the hypothesis, as yet very vague and paradoxical, that although the individual soul is contained within the pretty definite limits of its individuality, yet within those limits, it is a portion a sort of bay if you please, of the cosmic soul, and is subject to occasional influxes or tides from the cosmic soul in the shape of all sorts of inspirations (which turns the fluid metaphor of a tide into a gaseous one), not only those of music, poetry, hypothesis, eloquence, etc., but of all sorts of dreams and visions, normal or hypnotic, and " possessions " of all degrees, from heteromatic writing up to entire apparent substitution or at least predominance of a soul that, like the minor inspirations or possessions, has drifted in from the cosmic aggregate. In writing this hypothesis I have been trammeled by the inevitable behindhandedness of words in such connections, and the most abstract words being, as we all know, metaphors from material things. I am very conscious, too, that the statement contains a luxuriant abundance of things already said by others as well as myself, and I again crave your patience for my repetitions. The conceptions are necessarily too vague for definite statement once for all, and whether they are anything more than mirages, and even if they are only mirages, what they are can best be determined by approach- ing them through all the avenues that may be found open. Whether the " possession " is only apparent, or is partial, or is complete, or is one at one time and the others at other times, is an open question. Apparently all three may occur in the same sitting. There is undoubtedly another soul than the medium's in- 338 Possesswn(f) in General [Bk. II, Pt. IV volved, but the method of its action upon him, perhaps we shall find, does not go so far as substitution for his soul. Mrs. Sidgwick very fully and ably argues this view in Pr. XV, but she pays so little attention to the dramatic elements in the sittings attributing them almost exclusively to telepathy, even if from postcarnate spirits, that the argu- ment leaves my opinion in suspense, except so far as my fumbling feeling about the Cosmic Soul sometimes seems to render both telepathy and possession names for something bigger. Of course there may have been what we provisionally call possession in many of the phenomena already given, especially those under telepathy; but the indications of it are much stronger in the set which we now approach heteromatic writing and dramatic impersonation. The ancients also asso- ciated the idea with dreams and the like, and we may yet be brought back to a somewhat similar impression. I, for one, have reached it already. CHAPTER XXV POSSESSION (?) IN HETEROMATIC WRITING ON revising this chapter, I find it among the most unsatis- factory in the book, and my own work in it among its most unsatisfactory parts. Yet its relation to some of the least unsatisfactory of later chapters, leads me to advise you, if your patience is not yet exhausted, at least to skim through it. Ever since there was writing, of course there has been writing more or less " inspired." The capacity for it, as Dr. Crookes declares of the capacity for telekinesis, seems to exist in some degree in everybody. James says (Memories and Studies, pp. 199-200) : " I have come to see in automatic writing one example of a department of human activity as vast as it is enigmatic. Every sort of person is liable to it, or to something equivalent to it; . . . our subconscious region seems, as a rule, to be dominated either by a crazy ' will to make-believe/ or by some curious ex- ternal force impelling us to personation. The first difference between the psychical researcher and the inexpert person is that the former realizes the commonness and typicality of the phe- nomenon here, while the latter, less informed, thinks it so rare as to be unworthy of attention. / wish to go on record for the commonness. " The next thing I wish to go on record for is the presence, in the midst of all the humbug, of really supernormal know- ledge " Mahomet professed that the Koran was entirely hetero- matic from the Angel Gabriel. Swedenborg was devoted mainly to science, and with great success, until 1745, when he claimed that God appeared to him and said : " I have chosen thee to unfold the spiritual sense of the Holy Scripture. I will myself dictate to thee what thou shalt write " ; and surely from even the very un- sympathetic point of view which I myself share, the writing was a very extraordinary performance. 339 340 Possession( ?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Ft. IV Blake, time and again, disclaimed voluntary authorship of his writings. Accounts of several other heteromatic writers are given in Miss Underbill's Mysticism and Psychology, pp. 78-80 : " Madame Guyon states in her autobiography, that when she was composing her works she would experience a sudden and irresistible inclination to take up her pen ; though feeling wholly incapable of literary composition, and not even knowing the subject on which she would be impelled to write. If she resisted this impulse it was at the cost of the most intense discomfort. She would then begin to write with extraordinary swiftness; words, elaborate arguments, and appropriate quotations coming to her without reflection, and so quickly that one of her longest books was written in one and a half days. " ' In writing I saw that I was writing of things which I had never seen: and during the time of this manifestation, I was given light to perceive that I had in me treasures of knowledge and understanding which I did not know that I possessed.' " Similar statements are made of St. Teresa, who declared that in writing her books she was powerless to set down anything but that which her Master put into her mind. So Blake said of ' Milton ' and ' Jerusalem,' ' I have written the poems from im- mediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without premeditation and even against my will. The time it has taken in writing was thus rendered non-existent, and an immense poem exists which seems to be the labor of a long life, all produced without labor or study.' " There are, of course, extreme forms of that strange power of automatic composition, in which words and characters arrive and arrange themselves in defiance of their authors' will, of which most poets and novelists possess a trace " As already indicated, apparent possession to the extent of heteromatic writing was manifested in America by, among others, Tuttle, Davis, and Colville. Foster never did it to any extent. Here is a case from Stillman, through a friend whom he calls Miss A. (op. cit., 1, 190-1) : " After having been for some time troubled by the rappings she began to feel involuntary motions in her right hand which increased to constantly recurring violent exercise of the muscles, when it occurred to her from the character of the motions that the hand wanted a pencil to write and she laid paper and a pencil on the table. Her hand then took possession of the pencil and began to scrawl aimlessly over the paper until, after the interval of many days, the agency seemed to have sufficient Ch. XXV] Stillman's Miss A. Stainton Moses 341 control over the muscles to form legible letters The hand wrote legibly and neatly in reply to mental, i.e., unspoken ques- tions, she having no control of the muscles so long as the ' influence ' . . . chose to use it. She knew what was written only when the writing was finished and she read it, as we did; and the writing was . . . quite as regular and well formed when her eyes were bandaged As a further test of the involuntary character of this we ... tried her with . . . my brother talk- ing with her from one side of the table, while she was writing in reply to my mental questions on the other. " Under these circumstances she wrote for us the re- plies in conversations with what purported to be the spirits of three deceased relatives . . . and the handwriting of the . . . series of communications was a better imitation of their writing than I, knowing it, could have produced. That of my sister- in-law . . . my brother recognized ... as that of his wife, but that of our brother was a perfect reproduction down to the smallest accidents, and that which was given as the responses of my cousin equally so, and executed with a rapidity of which I was incapable a large scrawling hand, that of our brother being of a character entirely opposed, slowly and laboriously formed, with occasional omissions of the last line of a final n quite common in his writing. The girl had never known either of these relatives." Stainton Moses was about the earliest of the heteromatic writers who have come under modern scientific criticism. The writing began in 1873, nine years before the foundation of the S. P. R., so, though none of it is given before Vol. VIII, chronologically it properly comes before that from others given in earlier volumes. In addition to the diary-like account of his seances, upon which we have already drawn, he left twenty-four note- books of automatic writing, which are treated by Myers in Pr. VIII, IX, XI. He says (Pr. XI, 64) : " These automatic messages were almost wholly written .by Mr. Moses's own hand while he was in a normal waking state. The exceptions are of two kinds. (1) There is one long pas- sage . . . alleged by Mr. Moses to have been written by himself while in a state of trance. (2) There are, here and there, a few words alleged to be in ' direct writing ' ; written, that is to say, by invisible hands, but in Mr. Moses's presence " Putting these exceptional instances aside, we find that the writings generally take the form of a dialogue, Mr. Moses proposing a question in his ordinary thick, black handwriting. An answer is then generally, though not always, given; written 342 Possession (?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Ft. IV also by Mr. Moses, and with the same pen, but in some one of various scripts which differ more or less widely from his own." And elsewhere (Pr. IX, 257-8) : " As a general rule the same alleged spirits both manifested themselves by raps, &c., at Mr. Moses's sittings with his friends, and also wrote through his hand when he was alone. In this, as in other respects, Mr. Moses's two series of sittings when alone and in company were concordant, and, so to say, com- plementary; explanations being given by the writing of what had happened at the seances. When ' direct writing ' was given at the seances, the handwriting of each alleged spirit was the same as that which the same spirit was in the habit of em- ploying in the automatic script. The claim to individuality was thus in all cases decisively made. [And on p. 334.] Each series presupposes and refers to the other. The trance- addresses given at the seances are continued by the messages written in privacy. The phenomena of the seances are pre- dicted in the automatic script [This suggests that Moses's agency, involuntary perhaps, may have been behind both. H.H.] and similar phenomena sometimes occur to Mr. Moses when alone." (Page 255.) " The ' controls ' themselves are of various types; and there is one rare 'control' (' Magus ')... whose utterances seem to me shifty and exaggerated, in a way very common in automatic script, and who does apparently endorse a complete impostor. The utterances of other 'controls' for the most part reflect Mr. Moses's own opinions on other mediums, or are sometimes more severe. [Page 257.] [There are] spirits who give such names as Rector, Doctor, Theo- philus, and, above all, Imperator. . . . The names which they assert to have been theirs in earth-life . . . are for the most part both more illustrious and more remote. . . . Mr. Moses himself . . . justly felt that the assumption of great names is likely to diminish rather than to increase the weight of the communication For a long while one of his main stumbling- blocks lay in these lofty and unprovable claims. Ultimately he came to believe even in these identities, on the general ground that teachers who had given him so many proofs, both of their power and of their serious interest in his welfare, were not likely to have deceived him on such a point. But he did not count upon a similar belief in others, and he expressly wished to avoid seeming to claim special authority for the teachings on the ground of their alleged authorship " We shall find later that after Moses's death his alleged spirit gave an entirely different set of names for the earthly originals of these alleged personalities. Ch. XXV] Moses' Writing Controls 343 Moses says (Pr. XI, 65-7) : " I soon found that writing flowed more easily when I used a book that was permeated with the psychic aura; just as raps come more easily on a table that has been frequently used for the purpose, and as phenomena occur most readily in the medium's own room." One argument for this point of view could be found in the well-known effect upon violins of much playing. But Mr. Bartlett tells me that Foster had no experience parallel to that of Moses in this regard. Moses continues : " At first the writing was very small and irregular, and it was necessary for me to write slowly and cau- tiously, and to watch the hand, following the lines with my eye; otherwise the message soon became incoherent, and the result was mere scribble. In a short time, however, I found that I could dispense with these precautions. The writing, while becoming more and more minute, became at the same time very regular and beautifully formed. As a specimen of caligraphy some of the pages are exceedingly beautiful. The answers to my questions (written at the top of the page) were paragraphed and arranged as if for the press, and the name of God was always written in capitals, and slowly, and, as it seemed, reverentially. The subject-matter was always of a pure and elevated character. . . . Throughout the whole of these writ- ten communications, extending in unbroken continuity to the year 1880 [From 1873. H.H.], there is no flippant message, no attempt at jest, no vulgarity or incongruity, no false or misleading statement " The earliest communications were all written in the minute characters that I have described, and were uniform in style and in the signature, ' Doctor, the Teacher.' . . . Whenever and wherever he wrote, his handwriting was unchanged, showing, indeed, less change than my own does during the last decade. The tricks of style remained the same, and there was in short a sustained individuality throughout his messages. He is to me an entity, a personality, a being with his own idiosyncrasies and characteristics quite as clearly defined as the human beings with whom I come in contact " After a time, communications came from other sources, and these were distinguished each by its own handwriting, and by its own peculiarities of style and expression 1 could tell at once who was writing by the mere characteristics of the caligraphy." Myers, having seen all the heteromatic writing, tacitly endorses Moses's statements regarding its visible qualities. 344 Possession? ?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Ft. IV "By degrees I found that many spirits who were unable to influence my hand themselves sought the aid of a spirit 'Rector' [a gentleman whom we shall meet often. H.H.], who was apparently able to write more freely and with less strain on me; for writing by a spirit unaccustomed to the work was often incoherent, and always resulted in a serious drain upon my vital powers. They did not know how easily the reserve of force was exhausted, and I suffered proportion- ately." Apparently in Moses's case it taxed some source of physical energy which ordinary writing does not; and yet there are several automatic writers who give no indication of tax. Even Mrs. Piper, with the arduous phenomena attending her trances, can hardly be said to " suffer," unless the trance is unduly prolonged. Moses continues (Pr. XI, 67) : "I had, obviously, no right to print that which concerned others. Some of the most striking and impressive communica- tions have thus been excluded " This is one of the great disadvantages regarding the veri- fication of all alleged communications through mediums: the most evidential are those too personal to print. Moses goes on: " At first . . . even . . . the thoughts were not my thoughts. Very soon the messages assumed a character of which I had no doubt whatever the thought was opposed to my own. [We have met and shall meet more of this enough to have seriously disturbed my original conviction that the phenomena are prin- cipally due to the sitter or writer. H.H.] But I cultivated the power of occupying my mind with other things during the time that the writing was going on, and was able to read an abstruse book, and follow out a line of close reasoning while the message was written with unbroken regularity. Messages so written extended over many pages, and in their course there is no correction, no fault in composition, and often a sustained vigor and beauty of style. " In several cases, information of which I was assuredly ignorant, clear, precise, and definite in form, susceptible of verification, and always exact, was thus conveyed to me. [Such cases abound with nearly all the honest mediums. H.H.] I never could command the writing. It came unsought usu- ally, and when I did seek it, as often as not I was unable to obtain it. [This, too, is quite usual. H.H.] The particular Ch. XXV] Imperator's Teaching of Moses 345 communications which I received from the spirit known to me as Imperator mark a distinct epoch in my life 1 underwent a spiritual development that was in its outcome a very re- generation For me the question of the beneficent action of external spirit on my own self was then finally settled. I have never since, even in the vagaries of an extremely skeptical mind, and amid much cause for questioning, ever seriously entertained a doubt." Myers comments (Pr. XI, 69) : " The tone of the spirits towards Mr. Moses himself is habitually courteous and respectful. But occasionally they have some criticism which pierces to the quick, and which goes far to explain to me Mr. Moses's unwillingness to have the books fully inspected during his lifetime. . . . The reader will generally find the evidence for identity much more satisfactory in the case of spirits recently departed, and more or less on the medium's own level, than in the case of spirits more exalted and remote." Which might be translated into ordinary language to the effect that time usually dims recollections and interests, wherever they exist. It might even hold if a " spirit " is nothing more than an echo of a medium ; but that it is more than that, whatever else it may be, the evidence strongly indicates. But the fading of memories apparently is true only of the everyday consciousness upon which new events crowd the old the supraliminal. From the subliminal (or the Cosmic Soul?) the remotest experiences are constantly pop- ping up in pristine freshness : time seems to make no differ- ence whatever. Imperator seems to have impressed himself more than any other " spirit," and he professed to date a long time back. Yet this does not traverse Myers's " eviden- tial " point. Myers farther comments on Imperator (p. 107) : " The teaching which he offers as the highest boon, and which Mr. Moses accepts as such, is by no means so novel or so illuminating as is sometimes implied. But this is only to say that Imperator is not our appointed guide; that it is not we who are directly reached by his exhortation or argument. His utterances, like other human utterances, fall short of the uni- versality, the permanence, which their author would fain give them. But in regard to their primary end, the develop- ment of Mr. Moses's own soul, I know not if words of more 346 Possession (?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV weight could have been spoken, or that sturdy and downright spirit led onwards by any surer way." After a good deal of reading and pondering, I find the pro- portion of Moses's self in all these proceedings looming in my apprehension larger and larger. The benefits he got from them look to me like that portion how large a portion I am not saying of the benefits of prayer which are independent of external results, and consist in the benefit to character from intense absorption in an inspiring subject. Here is a very suggestive interview between Moses and " Imperator " (Pr. S. P. R. IX, 255-6). " Our friends " (line 3) refers to Rector, Doctor, and Prudens. " John King " was a " spirit " that used to " materialize " at these seances. " The more material spirits," " Kabbila," " deceiving spirits " isn't all this the terminology of a set of ideas now outworn, which would readily have obtained lodgment in Moses's mind during his youth, and which tends to mark the whole passage as an involuntary creation of his own? " Q. Was anyone present at the last seance at Mrs. IVs ? I was much impressed. A. Yes. I was not present myself but our friends were there. We do not advise you to rest much on that. Q. What? I thought it conclusive proof. A. You must use your own judgment. We do but warn you to be care- ful. Q. Do you mean to say it was not genuine? A. We only urge you to be wary. The manifestation was suspicious and is not to be depended on. Q. I am surprised. Who writes? A. It is I, tl: S: D. [Imperator, Servus Dei. H.H.] Q. Then you will tell me. Am I to understand that the manifestation was not of a materialized form? A. We do not feel it part of our work to save you from the use of your own powers. You are warned. Exercise your observing faculties. Q. But I am bewildered. A. It is needful for you to work through such experience. We may not save you from it. Only be wary. Q. I have long wanted information about those forms and have had grave doubts, but I have believed in J. K. [John King]. A. It is not our plan to give you any further information now. We only say that what was then presented was dubious. Q. But I am to write about it. Was it a materialization at all ? Is there such a thing ? A. You will know all in due time, but that was not reliable. We urge you to be careful. You are always careful, as you think. But be wary as to generalizing too rapidly. There is in the manifesta- tion of the lower spirits much deception, nor can you ever be Ch. XXV] Moses Compared with Mrs. Piper 347 sure that such is not being practised. It is so in all the mani- festations in which the more material spirits are concerned. Q. You do not tell me much. A. We do not purpose to do so. We only warn. It was not reliable. Q. But I had my hand in J. K.'s and the other on the medium's body. There could be no deception there. A. On the medium's boot, but not on his body, as Kabbila informs us. But we will go no further. It is not our habit to go so far. Seek not further information. It will not be given. We do not wish to communicate at length now. You have done all that you are capable of doing. Q. But I want to ask further. Are my senses good for nothing, or am I so easily deceived? A. No, no. Neither. But you know nothing of occult influence when deceiving spirits are present. The mixture of the true and false would make it impossible for you to arrive at fact. Hence have we warned you so urgently to beware of the introduction of such. They are fatal to our work. Cease now. "tI:S:D. "tR. [Rector.]" And the general style of expression and the signatures ! It all looks to me as if Moses had unconsciously dramatized the whole thing, and imagining St. Paul, as later indicated, for the role of " Imperator " had so much impressed himself as to give his language the coloring it bears throughout, and, as we shall see later, even to impress Hodgson and Mrs. Piper. But most of the dramatizations of Mrs. Piper are a differ- ent matter. There are scores, probably hundreds, of them to each one of Moses', and they are generally of people who are known to have been real, and who are recognizable by their friends. Imperator and his companions may have been real too, but there is little in the nature of proof, and we shall later meet something much like disproof. But there are good reasons for giving some account of them. Here is a characteristic bit of Moses's experiences from his diary, quoted in Pr. IX, 71 : " On an evening in the month of January, 1874, I repeatedly said to Mrs. Speer, ' Who is Emily C ? Her name keeps sounding in my ear.' Mrs. Speer replied that she did not know anyone of that name. 'Yes,' I said very emphatically, 'there is someone of that name passed over to the world of spirit.' . . . It became a regular thing for us to receive a message giving such facts as an obituary notice would contain. We therefore 348 Possession(?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV looked for them, and we found an announcement of the death of 'Emily, widow of the late Captain C C .' On a subsequent evening in the following year . . . she returned again. Dr. Speer and I had gone out for a walk in the afternoon . . . and at our seance in the evening came ' Emily C C .' I inquired what brought her, and her answer was rapped out on the table. ' You passed my grave.' ... At this time I never went near a graveyard but I attracted some spirit, identified afterwards as one whose body lay there. I said, ' No, that is impossible; we have been near no graveyard,' and Dr. Speer confirmed my impression. The communication, however, was persistent, and we agreed that we would take the same walk the next day. We did so, and at a certain place I had an impulse to climb up and look over a wall . . . and my eye fell at once on the grave of 'Emily C C ,' and on the dates and particulars given to us, all exactly accurate." As Moses intimates, it became a regular thing for him to have such experiences; several are given. They seem to mean that among the other superstitions with which his mind was saturated was that of spirits haunting their graves. But then how about that strange power to see through a stone wall, or at least feel through one, which perhaps we are all going to admit before long that some folks have, and perhaps not ? In addition he seems to show here the subliminal memory which, without the operator's knowledge, retains all sorts of things that come out in the conditions where that do- all and bear-all which we call the subliminal self has full swing. This unlimited capacity even in the most ordinary man who dreams, seems to point to something not really in the ordinary man, but something greater, outside him, and occasionally working through him. Is it the Cosmic Soul? Here is another instance of Moses's overlooking points obviously open to criticism of the faith that swalloweth all things. I am not sure Saint Paul included that character- istic, and I do not assert that Moses's faith may not have been justified. He says (Pr. XI, 74) : " There stands ... a short letter written automatically by me in a peculiar archaic handwriting, phrased in a quaint old- fashioned spelling. It is signed with the name of the spirit . . . who was a man of mark 1 have since obtained a letter in his handwriting, an old yellow document, preserved on account of the autograph. The handwriting in my book is a fair imita- Ch. XXV] The Blanche Abercromby Case 349 tion of this, the signature is exact, and the piece of old-fash- ioned spelling occurs exactly as it does in my book. This, it was said, was purposely done as a point of evidence." And similarly (p. 81) : " I have had repeated cases of signatures which are veritable facsimiles of those used by the persons in life; such, for example, are the signatures of Beethoven, Mozart, and of Swedenborg " This would be more remarkable if the signatures were those of private persons, which he would have been less apt to have seen and forgotten having seen, but retained in his "sub- liminal memory." Even the " archaic handwriting phrased in a quaint old-fashioned spelling " may be similarly accounted for. I don't say it must be. Here is Myers's presentation (from Pr. XI, 96) of the cele- brated (if a thing can be celebrated among a small part of the public) "Blanche Abercromby" case which he calls " in some ways the most remarkable of all, from the series of chances which have been needful in order to establish its veracity. The spirit in question is that of a lady known to me, whom Mr. Moses had met, I believe, once only, and whom I shall call Blanche Abercromby " This lady died on a Sunday afternoon, about twenty years ago, at a country house about two hundred miles from London. Her death, which was regarded as an event of public interest, was at once telegraphed to London, and appeared in Monday's Times; but, of course, on Sunday evening no one in London, save the Press and perhaps the immediate family, was cog- nizant of the fact. It will be seen that on that evening, near midnight, a communication, purporting to come directly from her, was made to Mr. Moses at his secluded lodgings in the north of London. The identity was some days later corrobo- rated by a few lines purporting to come directly from her, and to be in her handwriting. There is no reason to suppose that Mr. Moses had even seen this handwriting. His one known meeting with this lady and her husband had been at a stance not, of course, of his own " On receiving these messages Mr. Moses seems to have mentioned them to no one, and simply gummed down the pages in his MS. book, marking the book outside 'Private Matter.' The book when placed in my hands was still thus gummed down, although Mrs. Speer was cognizant of the communica- tion. I opened the pages . . . and was surprised to find a brief 350 Possession ( f) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pi IV letter which, though containing no definite facts, was entirely characteristic of the Blanche Abercromby whom I had known. ... I happened to know a son of hers sufficiently well to be able to ask his aid and ... he lent me a letter for comparison. The strong resemblance was at once obvious, but the A of the sur- name was made in the letter in a way quite different from that adopted in the automatic script. The son then allowed me to study a long series of letters From these it appeared that during the last year of her life she had taken to writing the A (as her husband had always done) in the way in which it was written in the automatic script." Here is the equally celebrated Garfield case, but there does not exist, so far as I am aware, a word of testimony regard- ing it outside of Moses's diary, quoted in Pr. XI, 102: "30, St. Peter's Bedford. " September 20th, 1881, 10 A.M. This morning, on awaking at 5.54 A.M., I was aware of a spirit who desired to communi- cate. It turned out to be Mentor, with him B. Franklin, [Epes] Sargent, and others. ^They told me in effect, 'The President is gone. We were with him to the last. He died suddenly, and all our efforts to keep him were unavailing. We labored hard, for his life was of incalculable value to our country. He would have done more to rescue it from shame than anyone now left.' [Notwithstanding the universal sympathy and cordial recognition of the President's many virtues, this opinion was by no means universal among the best-informed Americans " in the body " at the time, whatever may have been the opinion in the " spirit world." H.H.] I asked why it had been deemed necessary to come to me with the news. It was replied that a period of great activity in the spirit world was now being renewed, and that my sympathies with him and with his work, and their own knowledge of me, had inclined them to bring the news The evening papers Globe and Echo which I purchased at 4.30 P.M., gave me the first mun- dane information of the event. It is now stated that he died at 10.50 P.M., and on the 19th (yesterday). That in English time is 3.50 A.M. of this day, 20th, or two hours before I woke and got the message." Here is the famous steam-roller incident, the most striking evidential piece of Moses's ostensibly heteromatic writing, and there is much of the same kind. This is taken from his diary (Pr. XI, 42) : "February 20th, 1874 The Baron had previously mag- netized me very strongly, and had rendered me more than usually clairvoyant. He also recognized a spirit in the room, but Ch. XXV] The Steam Roller Case 351 thougjit it was the spirit of a living person. After dinner, when we got upstairs, I felt an uncontrollable inclination to write, and I asked the Baron to lay his hand upon my arm. It began to move very soon, and I fell into a deep trance. As far as I can gather from the witnesses, the hand then wrote out, ' I killed myself to-day.' This was preceded by a very rude drawing [" which resembled a horse fastened to a kind of car or truck," Mr. Percival says in The Spiritualist of March 27th], and then 'Under steam-roller, Baker-street, medium passed,' [i.e., W. S. M., H.H.] was written. At the same time I spoke in the trance and rose and apparently motioned something away, saying, ' Blood ' several times. This was repeated, and the spirit asked for prayer. Mrs. G. said a few words of prayer, and I came out of the trance at last, feeling very unwell. On the following day Dr. Speer and I walked down to Baker-street and asked the policeman on duty if any accident had occurred there. He told us that a man had been killed by the steam-roller at 9 A.M " Here is Mr. Percival's comment on the same incident (Pr. XI, 76-78) : " Neither he nor anyone present was aware that a man had committed suicide there in the morning by throwing himself under a steam-roller. A brief notice of the occurrence appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette in the evening, but none of the party had seen that paper It is worth remarking that on the front of the steam-roller which was used in Baker-street a horse is represented in brass, and this, perhaps, may serve to account for its appearance in the medium's drawing, where we should certainly not expect to find it." Myers says (Pr. XI, 92) : " Further information about this suicide was given by entry, February 23, 1874. It is remarkable that ' Miss X,' a frequent contributor to the Pr., then a child, was prevented by a monition (as she informs me) from entering the street where the traces of this incident were still risible." " February 23rd, 1874. " Q. I very much wish to communicate with Imperator. FA long pause.] A. ' Whatever communication you hold must be brief. You are unfit to commune now.' Q. That spirit who communicated at Mrs. Gregory's. ("The place of the steam-roller communication. H.H.] A. ' He was what he said. It surprises us much that he should have been able to attach himself to you. It was owing to your being near the place where he met his bodily death. Do not direct your mind strongly to the subject lest he vex you.' Q. What does he want ? Can I help him ? A. ' He was wretched and sought 352 Possession(f) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV help in ignorance. Prayer will aid him.' Q. Well, now, how comes it that he woke at once, and Sunshine [an allusion to somebody who had died earlier. H.H.] sleeps still? A. 'He has not yet slept. It will be well if he gets repose which will enable him to progress hereafter. . "<tI:S:D. "'xTheophilus.'" The following bit of Moses's heteromatic writing refers to the same incident (Pr. XI, 921) : " February 24th, 1874. " Q. Is the spirit unharmed by such a ghastly mutila- tion as that ? . . . A. The spirit body is not to be harmed by injury to the body of earth otherwise than by the shock. And the very shock might stir it rudely into action, and excite it rather than lull it into quiescence. You are not now in a con- dition which enables us to go far into the subject. You have far from recovered your spiritual tone as yet. Q. Then that spirit haunted the place of its departure? A. It is usually so that a spirit which has so rudely been severed from the body would hover near even for a long time after. Q. How did it come to pitch on me? A. You passed by, and being in a highly sensitive condition the disturbed spirit would naturally be attracted to your sphere, even as iron is attracted to a power- ful magnet. Moreover, when he came near he would be enabled to discern you by the aura which surrounds you and which is visible to the spirit eye. Light and attraction would both enable him to recognize a channel of communication which he longed for. You have been told before that an aura surrounds all material objects, and that aura in the case of a medium is recognizable afar off by spirit eyes All spirits know this, though all do not [suspicious grammar for such a very heavy intellectual swell. H.H.] profoundly understand it Hence it is that the highly developed are more open to attack from the grosser spirits. Q. Then to spirit eye, the aura declares the character? A. To the more developed and progressed [He has just intimated that the spirit in question was anything but "developed and progressed." H.H.] it does so, and hence the concealment is not possible in our spheres. The spirit carries its character impressed on the very atmosphere it breathes. This is a law of our being. Q. Very beautiful, but very awful! A. Nay, friend, not so: but a great safeguard, seeing that we know we are open to the gaze and the knowledge of all. It is well that it should be so. We pause." To me all this sort of thing seems to speak as plainly of the imagination of the Anglican clergyman, as Judge Ed- Ch. XXV] Reading of Closed Books by " Spirits " 353 rounds' visions speak of the imagination of a man of matter- of-fact mind who, presumably, as such men often do, loved such reading as the Apocalypse and Milton and Bunyan, and who fell into the role of "medium." But admitting all that, how account for the testimony of the Speers and half a dozen other good people to Moses's tel- ekinetic performance his lights and music and materializa- tions, and the true things he told which he could not have learned by any means we are as yet familiar with ? The Reading of Closed Books by " Spirits " If the following is correctly told it indicates something more than telepathy. It is an alleged interview, with the answers automatically written, between Moses and some "spirit " whose name is not given (Pr. S. P. R., XI, 106) : " Q. Can you read? A. No, friend, I cannot, but Zachary Gray can, and Rector. I am not able to materialize myself, or to command the elements. Q. Are either of those spirits here ? A. I will bring one by and by. I will send Rector is here. Q. I am told you can read. Is that so? Can you read a book? A. [Spirit handwriting changed.] Yes, friend, with difficulty. Q. Will you write for me the last line of the first book of the ^Eneid? A. Wait. Omnibus errantem terris et fluctibus astas. [This was right.] Q. Quite so. But I might have known it. Can you go to the book-case, take the last book but one on the second shelf, and read me the last paragraph of the ninety-fourth page? I have not seen it, and do not even know its name. A. ' I will curtly prove by a short historical narrative, that popery is a novelty, and has gradually arisen or grown up since the primitive and pure time of Chris- tianity, not only since the apostolic age, but even since the lamentable union of kirk and the state by Constantino.' [The book on examination proved to be a queer one called Roger's Antipopopriestian, an attempt to liberate and purify Christian- ity from Popery, Politikirkality, and Priestrule. The extract given above was accurate, but the word ' narrative ' substituted for ' account.'] Q. How came I to pitch upon so appropriate a sentence? A. I know not, my friend. It was by coinci- dence. The word was changed by error. I knew it when it was done, but would not change. Q. How do you read? You wrote more slowly, and by fits and starts. A. I wrote what I remembered, and then I went for more. It is a special effort to read, and useful only as a test. Your friend was right last night; we can read, but only when conditions are very good. 354 Possession(f) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Ft. IV We will read once again, and write and then impress you of the book: 'Pope is the last great writer of that school of poetry, the poetry of the intellect, or rather of the intellect mingled with the fancy.' That is truly written. Go and take the eleventh book on the same shelf. [I took a book called Poetry, Romance, and Rhetoric.} It will open at the page for you. Take it and read, and recognize our power, and the per- mission which the great and good God gives us, to show you of our power over matter. To Him be glory. Amen. [The book opened at page 145, and there was the quotation perfectly true. I had not seen the book before: certainly had no idea of its contents] [These books were in Dr. Speer's library. F. W. H. M.] " Here is the last veridical heteromatism quoted from Moses in the Pr. S. P. E. It is in XI, 103. Mrs. Speer writes: "Dr. Speer died February 9th, 1889, and shortly after his death Mr. Moses received from him a remarkable proof of identity, of which he wrote me an account at the time " Mr. S. M. came one Sunday to dine with us. He looked strange and remarked to me, ' I have seen your husband again, and he sent you a message which I do not understand.' He seemed troubled, and I saw he was unable to take any dinner. Suddenly he took out his pocket-book and rapidly wrote some- thing in one of the sheets, tore it out, and handed it to me, saying, ' Can you make anything out of this ? ' I saw a messag<\ written 'Tell dearest all's well.' The word omitted was a pet name he often called me when alone. I think no one had ever heard it, and I am quite sure Mr. Moses never had. The name is too absurd to print, as pet names often are " Now to sum up Moses. The following case was not by automatic writing, but by raps. I give it because of its instructiveness regarding Moses's mental make-up. He says (Pr. XI, 72) : "Perhaps I may here mention a case in which I endeavored to mislead a communicating spirit but without any success. If there be truth in the allegations of the too-clever people that constitute the Society for Psychical Eesearch [Moses resigned in 1886, disgusted because his associates would not swallow everything that he would. H.H.] there should have been con- veyed from my brain to that of the impersonal entity with which I communicated the falsity I had fabricated. [This is a sheer Mosesism, see below. H.H.] There came a spirit who represented herself to be my grandmother 1 then asked if she remembered me as a child. She did. I proceeded to detail two imaginary incidents such as might occur in a child's Ch. XXV] Defects of the Subliminal Theory 355 life. I did it so naturally that my friends were completely deceived Not so, however, my ' Intelligent Operator at the other end of the line.' She refused altogether to assent to my story. She stopped me by a simple remark that she remembered nothing of the sort. ... I certainly rose from the table convinced that I had been talking to a person that desired to tell the truth, and that was extremely careful to be exact in statement." If the spirit was an echo of Moses's self, of course it would not echo what Moses knew to be false (except so far as some folks delight in what is false, which apparently Moses did not). But assuming it to be an echo, the dramatic char- acter of the responses would remain to be accounted for. Yet even that would not seem difficult to anybody who has successfully written dialogue. Such a person knows that, in such a mind, thoughts readily take the shape of dialogue and the dramatic tinge naturally resulting. But admitting that, we still have to account for the fact that these dramatic impersonations often appear in the automatic writing and trance utterances of people who never show any dramatic power in the ways we consider normal ; and then of course the difficulty, with difficulties generally, is pitchforked on to " the subliminal self." This has been done until, to at least my perhaps irreverent imagination, the strictly individual sub- liminal self is beginning to look like a joke. And yet the readiness of so many intelligent people to attribute every- thing superusual to it is one of many circumstances that are making it loom into an immensity of which perhaps we have had some glimpse, but of which their imaginations do not yet all seem to have caught the significance. All this carries instruction regarding the queer intellect of Moses an intellect that could assume that the falsity would be conveyed, but that the telepathy would stop at the convenient point of not conveying the fact that it was a falsity; and an intellect that could utterly ignore so obvious a reflection from himself, and attribute the phenomena en- tirely to another intelligence. This last point, however, may not be fairly open to criticism regarding the mind of a firm believer: the criticism, if directed at all, should be directed to the belief. There is a degree of ingenuousness in the following sen- tence which, especially when associated with things that have 356 Possession (?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV been noted before, inclines me to quote it as an element to be considered in estimating Moses's mind (Pr. IX, 291) : " So closed a most impressive seance ; in which the opinion of the intelligences themselves declared unmistakably [Italics mine. H.H.] for the Theory of Departed Spirits. Though this would not form any strong argument to convince one who had made up his mind in an opposite direction, still it must be allowed to have its weight." The following passage, too, is so peculiar that the reader may care to take it into consideration (Pr. IX, 291) : " Taken in connection with other collateral evidence such as the materialized spirit form, the strongly marked individuality which pervades communications from each particular spirit, the totally different nature of the knock in each case, and the fact of certain tests being given, the balance of evidence must be allowed to be strong. " For instance, I see a materialized form which bears re- semblance to a deceased friend (Step No. 1). I see that form standing by during the progress of phenomena (Step No. 2). A knock different from any other is given (Step No. 3). That knock gives a communication which purports to come from the person whose form I see near me (Step No. 4). Questioned, that communicating intelligence asserts in the most solemn manner that it is what it pretends to be, and persists in that statement on being adjured (Step No. 5). On being further pressed a test known only to myself is given to prove identity (Step No. 6). That information is confirmed by other com- municating intelligences, who knock with their own special knock, and are apparently distinct individualities (Step No. " Step No. 5," I think, will be apt to strike the hard- headed reader as showing the same ingenuousness manifested in the quotation before the last. Moses continues: " This forms a strong link [Does he mean chain ? There are seven elements. H.H.] of credence in favor of the theory advanced by the intelligences themselves. On the other side is the manifest fact that communications purporting to come from our deceased friends are not always trustworthy, and that they are generally marked by evidences of intellectual weak- nesses. It may be that the falsehoods are traceable to lying spirits who personate spirits of good, and that the low order (intellectually speaking) of the communications may be ac- counted for by the tortuous channel through which they come and the medium through which they have been filtered. But Ch. XXV] Difficulties Support Genuineness 357 the explanation is not perfectly satisfactory. And there is the additional stumbling-block that it is prime facie extremely unlikely that the spirits of the noble, the learned, and the pure should be concerned in the production of physical and intellectual phenomena which, when not silly, are frequently mischievous, and when distinctly true are not new, and being new are not true." It is now held by common consent that these communica- tions, no matter if thoroughly genuine, are, in their nature, difficult to make; and the reader as he goes on will find growing reason to believe the same. Probably he may even come to regard imperfection as a tag of genuineness. And connected with this hypothetical difficulty of com- munication is another point not hypothetical at all. Plainly it is not part of the cosmic order (or divine plan, if you prefer) that at our present stage of evolution we should know much of any possible future life, even if there is one. There is more to say on these points later: at present it is enough if we continue our examination with a realization that it is a priori probable that communication between this little universe of our experience and the presumably greater one beyond, would be difficult, and not to any great degree possible to our present faculties or consistent with our pres- ent duties. And yet it does seem possible that we have lat- terly attained a degree of evolution consistent with our having something more than the say-so of prophets to assure us that a future life exists and is happy. If these are reasonable positions we need not take much account of the fact that the communications are frequently of the character Moses calls a " stumbling-block." My read- ing, however, has not, that I remember, covered any appar- ently genuine ones which were " mischievous " in any worse sense than sportive, though there may have been such. When I say " genuine " of course I mean only honest not deliber- ately fraudulent. I do not mean the word to endorse a spiritistic interpretation. The notion of " lying spirits," in which Moses and many others deal, is of course a part of the traditional theology, but it hardly seems necessary, and will probably be found peculiarly repulsive by those who regard evil as simply an exaggeration or disproportion, which includes a lack of the 358 Possession (?) in-Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV good, which is incident to the imperfections of the present life. A control purporting to be Moses, later gave up " lying spirits " and a good deal more that was his. See Chapter XXXV. Moses goes on to say (Pr. IX, 292) : " The argument that God permits for the establishment of a fading faith, manifestations such as these, would satisfactorily dispose of all objections." I should be a bit slow to accept this argument unless the manifestations were clearer, but Myers tells us (Pr. IX, 293-4) : "Mr. Moses came in a few months more to believe com- pletely in the actual identity of the communicating intelli- gences. But this passage in his diary [i.e., the preceding, not all of which have I quoted. H.H.] tends to show (what on other testimony also I believe to have been the case) that he was by no means anxious to believe in, or to defer to, the claims of alleged 'spirit guides/ His previous Anglican con- victions were very strong; and his intellectual habit of mind inclined rather to the side of stubbornness than of pliancy." When even Myers perpetrates such a phrase as " intellectual habit of mind " we can well allow anybody the margin for inadvertences that I suggested should be allowed to Moses, and that we all occasionally need. We have to recognize, however, in his relations to his superusual experiences, that in the last quarter of the nine- teenth century he was, as Myers reminds us, an Anglican clergyman, and that his experiences strongly appear to be in writing colored by his type of mind. If we want any farther illustrations of what that type was, they abound in the next extract. From a letter of Mr. Moses to Mrs. Speer, dated April, 1876 (Pr. XI, 63) : " I send you a package which you will see is ' spiritual.' It contains a fragment of spirit-drapery sweetened by some spirit musk. Magus is the operator, and I believe Mentor with him. At any rate, those two have been at work. I think that the musk smells more powerfully than usual. I had a long and very beautiful communication from Imperator yes- terday (Easter Day) which I am minded to copy out and print. Ch. XXV] Letter, Moses to Mrs. Speer 359 Easter Day seems to be a favorite with them. I have had a message on that day every year. The idea is the passage from Death to Life symbolized by the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and typifying the death of Self Denial, and Self Sacrifice lead- ing to the Regeneration or Resurrection of the Spirit from dead Matter to the higher life. It is well worked out, and very striking. There was also a communication written out about the state of affairs in the spiritual world. You must read what Imperator says. He does not speak hopefully, and wishes us not to meet yet, though he evidently contemplates the resuming of our circle hereafter. But by that time, he says, my physical mediumship will either be absolutely under control, so as to be no longer fraught with danger, or will have ceased. The latter seems to be implied, though he seems to hint that material evidence will always be forthcoming. He is very decisive in saying what he does, and says that we are none of us ever left. It gives me a very strong idea of prearranged plans and of wise and powerful protection. He evidently looks far ahead; his plans are now for the far future, and the mind is first pre- pared. I am quite conscious of that. " I shall probably hear more before we see each other. I heard nothing of the Moravians this year." This refers to a poltergeist racket alleged to be raised every Easter by the ghosts of people buried in a Moravian churchyard near which Moses lived. Apparently he could not be near a churchyard without stirring up a ghost. He says so himself (Pr. XI, 71). He continues the present theme : "Nor was I conscious of any 'presence/ which looks like a withdrawal from the objective. But Mentor's drapery and musk are objective enough. [' The letter from which these extracts are taken' (adds Mrs. Speer), 'still retains the scent of the musk referred to at the commencement, as "sweetening the spirit-drapery," although it was written nearly seventeen years ago. The drapery is lost, but the strong perfume of musk remains fresh and pungent.'] " On May 2nd, 1880, occurred the last sitting which Mrs. Speer has recorded. She concludes her records in Light (October 21st, 1893) with the following words: "I have now come to the end of the seances at which any notes were properly taken. Other meetings we have since had occasionally, and at times Imperator spoke through Mr. S. M. until within a few months of his decease. Raps were sometimes heard and messages given. Musk and coral were also brought and scattered over the room at several different times. Half 360 Possession (?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV that took place could not be recorded, and often the addresses were imperfectly taken down. It is also impossible to give any idea of the impression produced upon the circle by the beauty and refinement of some of the manifestations, or by the power and dignity of Imperator's influence and personality." "Musk," of all perfumes, for "refinement"! I confess that the effect on me of Imperator's musk and other " prop- erties," and so much of his utterances as I have cared to read, has been something like that of an ordinary service and sermon in a very " high " church. Whether such would be the effect on others, I don't know; and whether such an effect answers to one's spiritual needs is a personal matter. At first one result of the effect on me was an impulse to relegate the whole thing to the limbo of buried superstitions. But then I reflected that, though Moses's manifestations don't happen to suit my tastes, a large portion of Mrs. Piper's, outside of those from the Imperator group, do, and that fact is to me an argument for their genuineness, though not a proof of it. Why, then, shouldn't the manifestations through Moses be suited to people of a different taste, of whom there are a great many more than of my taste, and some of whom, to judge by the portrait of Dr. and Mrs. Speer, and of Moses too, are certainly in some respects a great deal better people than I am? If the order of nature really does permit communications with intelligences beyond our ordinary observation, there ap- pears no reason why those communications should not be con- formed to the tastes and capacities of the people participating in them, and should not be credited to spirits possessing, in the respective cases, congeniality with the mediums. People who like musk go to heaven, I suppose, as well as those who don't, and are just as apt to talk back to earth, and if Moses, with all his virtues, happened not only to like musk, but also to be a prig (I don't know well enough to say whether he was or not), why should not his intimates in the other world like musk, and be prigs too? But Mrs. Piper was nothing of that kind, nor by a long shot was Hodgson, unless Imperator and his gang corrupted him toward the last of his life here, which, as will be seen, doesn't seem indicated by Hodgson's alleged post-mortem com- munications ; and yet, as will also be seen, the Imperator group Ch. XXV] Moses' "Spirit Teachings" 361 (or at least some manifestations doubtfully professing to be they) swooped down on him and Mrs. Piper too. Perhaps my distaste for all that sort of thing is abnormal. If so, I am of course not entitled to pass judgment. As the earth is big enough for all of us, so presumably will heaven be too, and the change in the twinkling of an eye probably will not be of all of us to the same pattern; and so the in- dication of there being a variety of patterns ought not to be taken as an argument that all the indications are fallacious. Of what were the profundities which Imperator wrote through Moses, Myers gave little idea. I don't find the Spirit Teachings in which Moses chronicled them, a book over which I care to spend much time. I did give an evening to it, however, and found that it expresses the reactions of the soul of an Anglican clergyman with itself or kindred souls. For those who are fond of tracing the evolution of ideas of questionable present value, from primitive peoples down to the primitive-minded people to-day, the book may have interest and, possibly, value. But it will not do much for those who find the days microscopically short for keeping up with live interests. Here is a fair enough sample. Perhaps you can find where the superhuman wisdom comes in: I can't. But I can find a good deal of old-fashioned anthropomorphism. M. A. Oxon : Spirit Teachings, London, 1907, p. 16 : " The other, the philosopher, hampered by no theories of what ought to be, and what therefore must be bound by no sub- servience to sectarian opinion, to the dogmas of a special school, free from prejudice, receptive of truth, whatever that truth may be, so it be proven he seeks into the mysteries of Divine wis- dom, and, searching, finds his happiness. He need hare no fear of exhausting the treasures, they are without end. His joy throughout life shall be to gather ever richer stores of knowledge, truer ideas of God. The union of those two the philanthropist and the philosopher makes the perfect man. Those who unite the two. progress further than spirits who progress alone. " ' His life,' you say. Is life eternal? " Yes ; we have every reason to believe so. Life is of two stages progressive and contemplative. We, who are still pro- gressive, and who hope to progress for countless myriads of ages (as you eay), after the farthest point to which your finite mind 362 Possessionf?) in Heteromatic Writing [Bk. II, Pt. IV can reach, we know naught of the life of contemplation. But we believe that far f ar in the vast hereafter there will be a period at which progressive souls will eventually arrive, when progress has brought them to the very dwelling-place of the Omnipotent, and that there they will lay aside their former state, and bask in the full light of Deity, in contemplation of all the secrets of the universe. Of this we cannot tell you. It is too high. Soar not to such vast heights. Life is unending, as you count it, but you are concerned with the approach to its threshold, not with the inner temple. " Of course. Do you know more of God than you did on earth f " We know more of the operations of His love more of the operations of that beneficent Power which controls and guides the worlds. We know of Him, but know Him not; nor shall know, as you would seek to know, until we enter on the life of contemplation. He is known to us only by His acts." At the close of Myers's second paper on Moses, in Pr. XI, 113, he said : " At some future date, should my readers desire it, I shall hope to record some more of the Moses phenomena," but he did not, although before his death he had nearly six years to do it in. So far, you may think the attention paid to Moses and his friends unjustified. But they appear again in some very puzzling ways. Whoever or whatever the Imperator group may be, there is this important point regarding them: they were contrary to Moses's previous beliefs, and he fought and fought them until at last they overthrew his previous beliefs. And yet, those who fight the obvious implications of these strange experi- ences, and the vastly more obvious implications of experiences stranger still (some of which we shall learn later) say that these opinions contrary to his own, came from the deepest and best and wisest stratum of his own nature. So they say that a similar overturning in a dream, of a terribly dangerous opinion of my own, apparently by a discarnate person deeply interested in my welfare, was done by myself. My guess that all these are enlightened and led by the Cosmic Inflow may be absurd, any other guess may be absurd, but among all possible absurdities, can any other be as absurd as that the agency that contradicts and overthrows a man's deepest con- victions is himself? Ch. XXV] Moses' Atmosphere Oppressive 363 To go from Moses to the other heteromatists seems like going from a close room an oriental close room into the open air; and I say this despite a very vivid recollection, not altogether canny, of Mrs. Piper in trance : for I also remem- ber the naturalness of her controls, contrasted with the stilted- ness of those of Moses. To many of us a future life in their company would be a doubtful blessing; while with Mrs. Verrall's and Mrs. Holland's and Mrs. Piper's people, at least before Imperator and his entourage appeared among them, it would apparently retain whatever of attractiveness life has here, with immunity from many of its ills. CHAPTER XXVI DRAMATIC "POSSESSION "(?) EARLY CASES WE now leave for a time the heteromatic writing form of apparent possession, and take up the dramatic form. We have records of apparent possession from far back of the Delphic priestess inspired or intoxicated by her subterranean fumes, down to our own time, and through varieties of priests and seers similarly affected by their favorite tipples or by hypnosis or auto-suggestion or spirits, if you see fit to look at it in that way. We will begin with a few cases in modern times previous to the records of the S. P. R. As I have often said, there are no abrupt transitions in Nature. Possession and telesthesia insensibly shade into each other. Which was Foster's experiencing the pain in the following? (Bartlett, op. cit., 146) : From the Melbourne Argus: " I took a slip of paper, and holding it in my hand on a card, carefully concealed from other eyes than my own, wrote, ' Have you seen ? ' giving the name of a cousin of mine. ... I folded the paper and handed it towards him. As soon as he touched it, and before it left my hand, he rejoined, ' She says she has seen , and what is more, he is here now. He is standing behind your chair.' And after a moment's pause he added, ' He was killed.' I said, ' Yes. How ? ' and was told to point pri- vately to the letters of the alphabet on a card and the reply would be rapped out. I pointed and raps came at the letters DROW at which moment Mr. Foster, who could not have seen what I was doing, put his hand suddenly on his side and exclaimed, 'What a pain! He was killed by a fall. And I have a vision of water a fall in water,' the truth being that my cousin hurt his side in plunging into the St. George's Baths, Liverpool, and was drowned before it was suspected that he was doing more than indulging in a prolonged dive." 364 Ch. XXVI] Foster's Apparent " Possession " 365 Here we reach apparently full possession (Bartlett, op. cit. t 93): From the Sacramento Record, December 8, 1873 : " Foster at one time seized A.'s hand, exclaiming, ' God bless you, my dear boy, my son. I am thankful I at last may speak to you. I want you to know I am your father, who loved you in life and lores you still. I am near to you; a thin veil alone separates us. Good-by. I am your father, Abijah A .' " ' Good heavens ! ' exclaimed A., ' that was my father's name, his tone, his manner, his action.' " ' And,' said Foster, ' it was a good influence ; he was a man of large veneration.' " I said that the above indicated possession. But it is not possession to the extent of complete expulsion of the original consciousness, as in the trances of Home, Moses, and Mrs. Piper. And which is the following? (Bartlett, op. cit., 103) : " [Letter to editor, written Nov. 30, 1874] " New York Daily Graphic : . .. He told me he saw the spirit of an old woman close to me, describing most perfectly my grandmother, and repeating : ' Resodeda, Resodeda is here ; she kisses her grandson.' Arising from his chair, Foster embraced and kissed me in the same peculiar way as my grandmother did when alive." But here the possession seems complete (Bartlett, op. dt. t 140). From the Melbourne Daily Age: " Mr. Foster. . . in answer to the question, What he died of? suddenly interrupted, ' Stay, this spirit will enter and possess me,' and instantaneously his whole body was seized with quiv- ering convulsions, the eyes were introverted, the face swelled, and the mouth and hands were spasmodically agitated. Another change, and there sat before me the counterpart of the figure of my departed friend, stricken down with complete paralysis, just as he was on his death-bed. The transformation was so life-like, if I may use the expression, that I fancied I could detect the very features and physiognomical changes that passed across the visage of my dying friend. The kind of paralysis was exactly represented, with the palsied hand ex- tended to me to shake, as in the case of the original. Mr. Foster recovered himself when I touched it, and he said in reply to one of my companions that he had completely lost his own identity during the fit, and felt like waves of water flowing all over his body, from the crown downwards." 366 Dramatic "Possession" (?). Early Cases [Bk. II, Pt. IV Here is a still more remarkable case from Stillman (op. cit. f I, 192). The medium was, I believe, the one in the hetero- matic writing already taken from Stillman. The possession seems to have been throughout free from trance. "I asked Harvey [the control, Stillman's cousin. H.H.] if he had seen old Turner, the landscape painter, since his death, which had taken place not very long before. The reply was 'Yes,' and I then asked what he was doing, the reply being a pantomime of painting. I then asked if Harvey could bring Turner there, to which the reply was, ' I do not know ; I will go and see,' upon which Miss A. said, ' This influence [Harvey's. H.H.] is going away it is gone'; and after a short pause added, ' There is another influence coming, in that direction,' pointing over her left shoulder. ' I don't like it,' and she shud- dered slightly, but presently sat up in her chair with a most extraordinary personation of the old painter in manner, in the look out from under the brow and the pose of the head. It was as if the ghost of Turner, as I had seen him at Griffiths's, eat in the chair, and it made my flesh creep to the very tips of my fingers, as if a spirit sat before me. Miss A. exclaimed, ' This influence has taken complete possession of me, as none of the others did. I am obliged to do what it wants me to.' I asked if Turner would write his name for me, to which she replied by a sharp, decided negative sign. I then asked if he would give me some advice about my painting, remembering Turner's kindly invitation and manner when I saw him. This proposition was met by the same decided negative, accompanied by the fixed and sardonic stare which the girl had put on at the coming of the new influence. This disconcerted me, and I then explained to my brother what had been going on, as, the questions being mental, he had no clue to the pantomime. I said that as an influence which purported to be Turner was present, and refused to answer any questions, I supposed there was nothing more to be done. " But Miss A. still sat unmoved and helpless, so we waited. Presently she remarked that the influence wanted her to do something she knew not what, only that she had to get up and go across the room, which she did with the feeble step of an old man. She crossed the room and took down from the wall a colored French lithograph, and, coming to me, laid it on the table before me, and by gesture called my attention to it. She then went through the pantomime of stretching a sheet of paper on a drawing-board, then that of sharpening a lead pencil, following it up by tracing the outlines of the subject in the lithograph. Then followed in similar pantomime the choosing of a water-color pencil, noting carefully the necessary fineness of the point, and then the washing-in of a drawing, broadly. Ch. XXVI] The Stillman-Turner Case 367 Miss A. seemed much amused by all this, but as she knew nothing of drawing she understood nothing of it Then with the pencil and her pocket handkerchief she began taking out the lights, ' rubbing-out,' as the technical term is. This seemed to me so contrary to what I conceived to be the execution of Turner that I interrupted with the question, ' Do you mean to say that Turner rubbed out his lights?' to which she gave the affirmative sign. I asked further if in a drawing which I then had in my mind, the well-known ' Llanthony Abbey,' the central passage of sunlight and shadow through rain was done in that way, and she again gave the affirmative reply, emphatic- ally. I was so firmly convinced to the contrary that I was now persuaded that there was a simulation of personality, such as was generally the case with the public mediums, and I said to my brother, who had not heard any of my questions [He says above that they were mental. H.H.], that this was another humbug, and then repeated what had passed, saying that Turner could not have worked in that way. " Six weeks later I sailed for England, and, on arriving in London, I went at once to see Ruskin, and told him the whole story. He declared the contrariness manifested by the medium to be entirely characteristic of Turner, and had the drawing in question down for examination. We scrutinized it closely, and both recognized beyond dispute that the drawing had been executed in the way that Miss A. indicated. Ruskin advised me to send an account of the affair to the Cornhill, which I did; but it was rejected, as might have been expected in the state of public opinion at that time, and I can easily imagine Thackeray putting it into the basket in a rage. "I offer no interpretation of the facts which I have here recorded, but I have no hesitation in saying that they com- pleted and fixed my conviction of the existence of invisible and independent intelligences to which the phenomena were due." To me they seem the nearest I have come to a communica- tion of something not known to any earthly intelligence, and yet it may have been so known. CHAPTER XXVII PRELIMINARY REGARDING THE S. P. R. SITTINGS IT is again one of the classifications whose inevitable arbi- trariness I have harped upon to illustrate the unity of things, that now places before us as a separate category the sittings of Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Thompson, and a few others. I prefer to use the space mainly for the two named, as the best. Their manifestations were in trance, and though the voice no longer takes part, gestures still do in a remarkable degree. Mrs. Piper's sittings for communications in response to ordinary human interests, with scientific experiment only as incidental, are reported in Pr. VI, VIII, XIII, XIV, XVI, XXIII, and XXIV. Sittings with special view to cross- correspondence and very tedious sittings most of them are, though productive in response to close study are reported in XXII and XXIV. Cross-correspondences are two or more " messages " through different sensitives which are meaning- less taken separately, but significant when taken together. Such cases seem to prove a mind outside of the sensitive's. More of Mrs. Piper's sittings are reported for the first time in Chapters XXVIII and XXXVI of the present work. Mrs. Thompson's sittings are reported in Pr. XVII and XVIII. The principal features that set the S. P. K. sittings apart from others are that they are (a) better reported, sometimes stenographically, and al- ways at least by competent and trained observers taking notes, or by the medium's own script; (6) better guarded against fraud, though in the light of the vast evidence accumulated during the last thirty years, bothering with the idea of deliberate fraud, even in the primi- tively authenticated cases of Foster and Moses, seems silly; (c) with the possible exception of my Chapters XXVIII and XXXVI, infinitely better edited and commented upon. Ch. XXVII] Superior Sitters and Controls 369 Since 1882 these matters, previously neglected, have received the closest attention of some of the best minds in both hemi- spheres ; (d) evoked by vastly better sitters largely the editors and commentators above referred to; (e) emanating from vastly better alleged controls whether actual personalities or appropriate and suggestive memories in the minds of survivors. Latterly they profess to be many of the eminent sitters alluded to of course after their deaths. Among the recent alleged controls have been not only Moses himself, Myers, and Hodgson, but also the equally high in- telligences of " George Pelham," Gurney, and Sidgwick, who had not been habitual sitters. There have been from these controls and others, sittings which in number, variety, veri- similitude, and dramatic quality are as much superior to other sittings as illumination from the sun is superior to that from the moon. The mediums, as already indicated, vary very much in effec- tiveness, just as all machines for communication vary their capacity is evolved to different degrees of efficiency, just as all faculties are, and the communications therefore, and for other reasons, vary in clearness, consecutiveness, and intelli- gibility. The degree of success seems to depend partly upon the condition of the medium and the atmosphere, but much more upon the character of the sitter. The mediumistic faculty needs sympathy and co-operation. The sitter and the medium are a pair striving for a result. If we are studying what is done by pairs in racing, or tennis, or golf, or duet-music, or telepathic communication, there is no use, except for expert study, in spending time with pairs who do badly. From this point of view, in the examination we are about to make, we may as well confine our attention to what comes to good sitters from good mediums. But there is also the point of view of the man who " wants to see both sides," and I shall try to meet his just requirements. In the early days the need of sympathy was held sympto- matic of fraud. The time for that is past. Perhaps as a result of the conditions, many of the com- munications fall below the intelligence of the alleged spirits 370 Preliminary on the S. P. R. Sittings [Bk. II, Pt. IV while they were in the body; often they contradict what would be expected of the spirits; and often they are sheer nonsense. All this is no worse than might reasonably be expected even if the communications were (or are) genuine. Sir William Crookes says (Researches, pp. 84-5) : " A third error is that the medium must select his own circle of friends and associates at a seance; that these friends must be thorough believers in the truth of whatever doctrine the medium enunciates; and that conditions are imposed on any person present of an investigating turn of mind, which entirely preclude accurate observation and facilitate trickery and de- ception. In reply to this I can state that ... I have chosen my own circle of friends, have introduced any hard-headed un- believer whom I pleased, and have generally imposed my own terms, which have been carefully chosen to prevent the possi- bility of fraud." Directly counter to this, Moses testifies (Pr. IX, 259) : "We had ventured on one occasion, contrary to direction, to add to our circle a strange member. Some trivial phenomena occurred, but the -usual controlling spirit did not appear. When next we sat, he came ; and probably none of us will easily forget the sledge-hammer blows with which he smote the table. The noise was distinctly audible in the room below, and gave one the idea that the table would be broken to pieces. In vain we withdrew from the table, hoping to diminish the power. The heavy blows increased in intensity, and the whole room shook with their force. The direst penalties were threatened if we again interfered with the development by bringing in new sit- ters. We have not ventured to do so again ; and I do not think we shall easily be persuaded to risk another similar objurga- tion." But later we read of several people joining the circle at different times in peace and quietness ! ! Translation to the spirit world ( ?) does not seem to make us angels of consistency all at once, though perhaps in Moses's case, as in so many others, time may have changed conditions. When -several good witnesses swear they saw something remarkable done, the production of a thousand other good witnesses who saw it tried in vain means little, and means less in proportion to the supposed difficulty and rarity of the act unless they can prove their experience the only genuine experience, and the opposite experience the result of fraud Ch. XXVII] Reports Usually Best Passages 371 or misapprehension. The fraud question, however, in connec- tion with most of the phenomena I have bothered with or shall bother with, is simply out of date. It follows, extreme as the statement will first appear, that except so far as the negative sittings directly tend to explain away the positive ones, they are negligible. Yet I wish to present the negative side as strongly as I can without boring you with repeated quotations of uninteresting and resultless matter. But I wish to emphasize the fact that, although poor sittings are probably less apt to be reported than effective ones, they do appear in the reports pretty often perhaps a tenth of the total; and this notwithstanding that successful sitters are apt to return often, while unsuccessful ones are not. I also wish to emphasize that in some cases the attempts to " explain away " bear a very fair aspect of success, though candor compels me to say that they often seem to me more improbable than the flat-footed spiritistic hypothesis which I began by scouting, and which I am not yet ready to accept. I wish, too, to be distinctly understood as admitting tele- pathy from the sitter wherever that will serve, and telotero- pathy from other incarnate minds wherever there is room for it. And finally I wish to state that the tests perhaps most ingeniously devised and generally regarded as most crucial, of which we shall meet the details later the reading after death, through the medium, of sealed letters prepared by the communicator before death, have failed in the two reported cases, and that such reading does not, for any reason that I can see, appear more difficult than other feats performed by or through the medium. This, however, I take to be mainly an argument against accounting for the phenomena by telopsis. This test was once regarded by a good many as final against the survival of the author of the letter. It is certainly final against his ability and inclination, if he survive, to com- municate matter that from our point of view should be as easy to him as other matter which he or the medium does communicate, except in the vital point that the contents of the letter can be proved not to be in the mind of any living person, while of little or nothing else in the matter com- 372 Preliminary on the S. P. R. Sittings [Bk. II, Pt. IV municated through the medium, can that be proved. The alternatives then are: (I) If the writer can't tell what he did himself for the express purpose of telling it if he should survive, he did not survive; (II) he did survive, as shown by many other proofs, but there are insurmountable obstacles to his giving the proof in question. Of this more later. The circumstances under which the controls appear are very various. We have had some indications of them already, but they will grow much more distinct as we go on. In many of the most important sittings there are ostensibly gathered around the medium several " personalities," of whom generally one acts as spokesman, or writer, for the others, though the others sometimes speak or write for themselves. Who shall be the spokesman seems to be determined by the natural selection of some " person " of superior experience or intimacy with the medium. " He " often professes to repeat verbatim, and it is not always possible to tell whether the alleged communication is to be taken as direct or indirect. Thus Mrs. Piper, for the earlier part of her mediumship, was generally controlled by an alleged French physician call- ing himself Dr. Phinuit, who spoke for " everybody," but she appeared gradually to come more readily under the immediate control of any " personality " who wished to communicate, though as Phinuit gradually disappeared, part of his place was inherited by George Pelham and also by Hector, pro- fessedly one of the Imperator group with whom we have already become acquainted in connection with Stainton Moses ; and Imperator himself occasionally took a hand. Mrs. Thompson is generally under the ostensible control of her daughter Nelly, who died in infancy, but has been growing up. (?) Since the deaths of Gurney, Myers, and Hodgson, they have ostensibly controlled very freely, the automatic writings of Mrs. Verrall, Mrs. Holland, and Miss Eawson being almost dominated by them. The sittings, recorded but not printed by the S. P. R., are announced to be largely incoherent and insignificant. But not a few too intimate for publication are, for that very reason, more impressive than anything that has been pub- lished. Even from those published, of course I can Ch. XXVII] Propaganda versus Exposition 373 give but fragments; and at best one who has read and re- read thousands of pages of records of sittings and comments thereupon can hardly pick out the few hundred pages most worth boiling down for one who has read but little. The difficulties of the task are greatly increased by the editors and commentators having more generally had in mind their fellow- students than the average uninitiated reader. There are at least two obvious ways in which this material can be presented. In Human Personality Myers, who had but half of the present accumulation to select from, strung his on the thread of his theories, and used it in advocacy of them. To do this, of course, he had to select here and there without regard to chronological sequence. I have preferred to attempt an outline by approximately consecutive specimens from the Pr. S. P. R. and a few other records. Myers's method has advantages for propagandism which this has not; but this has enabled me to present what perhaps I may call the Piper drama the appearing, mani- festations, and disappearing of her principal " controls," Phi- nuit and G. P., and her relations with Myers and Hodgson living and with their alleged personalities when they had ceased to " live." From this chronological presentation, per- haps you can better decide whether, in the later manifestations, those personalities were mere memories or refrain from de- ciding. My method of presentation has also left me absolutely un- trammeled by any theory, except what has grown up during the work itself. This condition has probably enabled me to present both sides more fairly than I could otherwise have done. It is tantalizing to be able to give only such small scraps of the reports : they must afford a very inadequate notion not merely of the variety of the phenomena, but of the impressions pro and con. The matter I had selected as desirable for con- veying even the impression worth attempting here, was about twice as much as I can give room. It is of course desirable that interested readers should be able to roam at will through the Pr. S. P. R., and even readers who have not them within reach, can practically do so at moderate expense. A full set up to 1912 would cost well over 374 Preliminary on the S. P. R. Sittings [Bk. II, Pt. IV a hundred dollars, but nearly all the volumes consist of sev- eral " Parts," and these can be bought separately in paper at not over a dollar and a half each. The American agents are the W. B. Clarke Company of Boston. If you want fuller de- tails of any topic than are given here, by naming to the agents the volume and page cited, you will enable them to send you the Part. My naming the Part as well as the volume and page containing each citation, would be a nuisance to us both. The sittings themselves soon become borous, but the treat- ment of them by the various editors is generally interesting, and nearly all literature of a very high order. As I have re- read and re-read it since making the first draft of this book, the inadequacy and injustice to the whole subject of what I can give here, has been doubly borne in upon me, and I should be tempted to suppress it if it were possible otherwise to urge readers to the sources from which I have drawn, if there were any chance that even when so urged, those getting an inad- equate notion here would seek the vastly better one there, and if (the reason perhaps of least worth) it were not for features on which I have dwelt when my predecessors have not. In case you may care for fuller, and in many ways vastly better, treatment of the sittings, let me recommend you, in the order given (not necessarily that of merit, but approximately that of interest to the lay reader) to the following papers from which I have but briefly abstracted Hodgson's report in Part (not Volume) XXXIII; James's in Part LVIII, and Piddington's (on Mrs. Thompson) in Part XL VII. The editorial matter in all these is very full, and of very high rank even as literature alone. Perhaps merely as sittings, the Junot series (the last which I abstract) in Part LXI are the most interesting of all. The editorial matter there is very good as far as it goes, but to go very far would have been superfluous, as there were few points not adequately treated by the editors of sittings pre- viously published. Next in interest to most intelligent readers perhaps indeed greater than any other part to one who has read the first two I have named, is Mrs. Verrall's admirable account of her own and Mrs. Holland's automatic writing, which fills all of Vol. XX. This too is of high value as literature. A little patient practice will be needed in reading the Ch. XXVII] Peculiarities of Reports 375 records, partly because they are reported in so many ways, notes of sittings having been kept by various people in various forms. I have found it impracticable to reduce them to uni- formity. The words of the "controls" uttered or written by (or through?) the medium, in some cases are not set off by any sign. This is often unfortunate, especially where the medium's utterances are jumbled up in the same paragraph with those of the sitters in parenthesis, and of various com- mentators in brackets. Professor Newbold says (Pr. XIV, 8) : " The reader will observe that ' yes ' and ' no ' are often written when no questions are recorded. This is due to the fact that, the writing being exceedingly illegible and coming very rapidly, the sitter reads aloud with a slight interrogatory inflection at any convenient resting point, as at the end of a sheet or at an apparent pause in the sense. To this the writer responds with ' yes ' or ' no,' to show whether he is being correctly understood. If these utterances are, as I believe them to be, entirely dissev- ered from the normal consciousness of Mrs. Piper, they as truly reveal to us a new world of mind as the microscope reveals a new world of matter " Moreover, there are not infrequent grammatical errors that divert the attention. I have thought best not to correct any of them. Some may be misprints; some from inadequate memoranda or stenographic reports ; some from indistinctness of heteromatic script; some may be due to the heteromatists (though if any occurred in the script of the highly educated ones, they were probably edited out) ; but I feel disposed to take them as slips of the alleged communicators, even when they professed to be such high and mighty personages as the Imperator group. This is especially the case where those per- sonages tried thee-ing and thou-ing, and slipped up on the " number " of their pronouns and verbs. This of course tends to make them out as at least partly the products of the imagi- nation of a medium unpractised in such language; and it does not seem greatly to stretch consistency to assume that they might be genuine personages, and their reported language subjected to a coloring from the channel through which it comes. Editors have often found difficulty in separating the words of different controls: they appear to interrupt each other, 376 Preliminary on the S. P. R. Sittings [Bk. II, Pt. IV and sometimes there seems to be a veritable struggle among them for possession of the medium. It is therefore not always easy (or possible, for that matter) for even the practised reader to get the meaning clearly. I have risked straining the patience of such readers by continuing my own interpola- tions intended to help the novice. I hope none of them will appear too banal. They are, as hitherto, in square brackets and followed by my initials, and should be discriminated from other notes in square brackets by sitters or other editors. I realize that these frequent interruptions are apt to be- come a nuisance to some readers whose sympathy I should be very sorry to lose, especially to those who are already in the habit of reading sittings and interpreting for themselves. But, to lay readers generally, for whom espe- cially I write, they are apt to be serviceable, even if at the expense of some annoyance. I hope I have not made the reports of sittings more tedious than they naturally are, by the attempted help I have interjected. Like some other writings, accounts of sittings should be taken in moderate instalments, especially if they are read seri- ously, in order that the mind may be keen for all the indica- tions, for or against. And after you get through, if you are reasonable, as of course you are, you will find it a matter of incontrovertible indications both ways. Don't feel discouraged by the sitting given first: probably it is given more in detail and with less editing into smooth- ness, than the later ones. If you find yourself inclined to stop, don't before you have tried skipping, and looked into the Junot sittings, which are the last. I have intentionally repeated a good many of my own comments, and unintentionally not a few, but it hardly seems worth while to fish them out, especially as the reasons suf- ficiently sound, I trust, for the deliberate repetitions, will probably in some degree hold good so far as they may be good at all for the accidental ones. All the sittings published have, of course, had editors, and remarks by the editors are of course frequently injected into the reports. Sometimes when, in the course of a sitting, the editor speaks in propria persona, and there seems danger of Ch. XXVII] "Evidential" Tests 377 ambiguity, I prefix his initial to the paragraph. Keep this in mind, or you will occasionally be puzzled. The controls say that not all of them can communicate through any known medium, and that some can communicate through some mediums but not through others. Often one of them who claims that he cannot communicate through the medium then present, professes to make his communication to another " spirit," who delivers it through the medium. Phi- nuit, George Pelham, and Rector are the most frequent in- termediaries. I want to say at the outset that if we are to consider as evidential of spiritism only facts not possibly known by any incarnate intelligence, the sittings do not seem to me worth taking into account. Not only do the indications pro and con too nearly offset each other; but, as has often been said, the only accessible proof of a statement is in some incarnate mind, and all such proof must open up the suspicion of telepathy, or at the worst teloteropathy. Therefore I give the extracts from the records of sittings not so much for their " evidential " value as for whatever in- dication they may contain that the things said, no matter whether facts or falsities, are said by substantially the per- sonalities claiming to say them for whatever they may show of (a) the habits of mind and turns of expression of the alleged communicator; (6) emotions, initiative, response be- yond the reach of telepathy; and (c) growth in the alleged communicator's character from the sittings of one year to those of later years. The question is whether these are in kind and degree sufficiently identical with the personalities alleged. If they are, the facts or falsities communicated seem to me of minor consequence. On the other hand, if the personalities communicating the facts or falsities lack in- dividuality and vraisemblance, they may all be summed up as the medium and the sitter; and the facts or falsities summed up as successful or unsuccessful telepsychoses from incarnate minds. What indications of personal identity the records contain, cannot be fairly indicated in half a dozen sittings. Yet, out- side of the Pr. S. P. R. and Myers's bulky volumes, they have been very lightly treated by anybody. Podmore in his big and 378 Preliminary on the S. P. R. Sittings [Bk. II, Pt. IV important two-volume work, devotes to them less than twenty pages. I shall give them some hundreds enough, I hope, to give a fair outline of the Piper drama. The impressions made upon me by the various phenomena, I have given pretty much as they occurred. They often con- tradict each other flatly, but, as will be seen, out of the mass of confusion, some elements gradually preponderated and shaped themselves into a theory which at last grew pretty firm and distinct, but of course I hold it only tentatively. But after the revolutions that have come within less than a century, how many opinions will it do to hold in any other way? I for one find agreeable the change from the close over- stimulated atmosphere of Moses into the often prosy paths but natural human interests usually brought before us by Mrs. Piper. Her controls generally profess to be ordinary people seeking communication with friends they have left behind. Whether she really gives that communication or not, she gives an astonishing semblance of it, and with a verisimilitude and vastness of detail that place her in a class apart. Mrs. Piper differs from many of the heteromatists in that her writing is in trance. In the early part of her career her vocal organs were used by several controls, each with a special voice and enunciation, but that has gradually disappeared, and for many years she has manifested only by writing and gesture. No other heteromatist's scripts, not even Mrs. Verrall's, have been scrutinized by as many careful and competent students as Mrs. Piper's, and perhaps none have impressed people as strongly with the conviction that they emanate from a life beyond ours. In one sense they say very little, and reiterate that little ad nauseam; but the little is said by so many ostensible per- sonalities, and in such a number of different connections, as to produce probably more dramatic variety, so far as mere variety goes, than ever before was expressed through a single human being. But what is said contains nothing that could be uttered only by a soul suddenly admitted to vast superhuman knowledge, as the old theories assumed the postcarnate soul to be. An error in those theories, however, is no argument against the present manifestations. Ch. XXVII] Skipping Best for Some Readers 379 So far as regards the Pr. S. P. R., the cheap stage scenery and inflated conversation borrowed from all sorts of mytho- logies, and attributed by most of the early " mediums " to the life beyond earth, Mrs. Piper has little use for, although she did descend a good way into both when, about midway in her career, Stainton Moses, postcarnate, turned up with his grandiloquent friends Imperator & Co. Mrs. Piper describes little scenery, and her people, while uttering many incoher- ences, outside of Imperator & Co., talk little coherent non- sense, and in their conversations with the sitters are as true to nature as anybody ; and this is probably the strongest support for the belief that the communications are from actual personalities. But since the foregoing paragraph was in type Professor Xewbold has intrusted to me some records of sittings not re- ported in the Pr. S. P. R., that call for modifications of this statement They will be discussed in Chapter XXXVI. I want finally to repeat again that the sittings tend soon to become borous, but I hope that some readers who do not care to study them may be repaid for skipping through them : many quotations of interesting comment are scattered among them, and a general knowledge of them is essential to under- standing anything that may be worth while, if there is any- thing worth while, in the speculations which follow them. CHAPTER XXVIII MRS. PIPER: AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE As in Telekinesis and Telepathy, I began, for the reasons there given, with my own experience; for the same reasons, I run counter to chronology to present a sitting I had with Mrs. Piper in 1894. It was a typical Piper seance of the period. Although it was not printed in the Pr. S. P. R. be- cause I was then too busy and procrastinating to revise the copy which Hodgson sent me, it has some special points worth noting, and in general can serve as a text for ex- pounding many of the points of mediumism. One special point is that it is one of the sittings when Mrs. Piper both spoke and wrote automatically before she ceased the former, and after she began the latter. Mrs. Piper's psychic manifestations in an ordinary sitting are much more complex than Foster's were, but so far as I know, she has not, like him, given telekinetic ones. In fact telekinesis appears for the time to be under a cloud. I have read no account of it from an English medium since Home and Moses, though Eusapia Palladino still has her adherents, of whom I am one as far as the lion's skin goes, but of late it seems to have been shrinking, and the fox's to be expanding. This slowing up in telekinetic phenomena, however, is probably nothing but an illustration of the law of the rhythm of motion. But to return to Mrs. Piper and Foster. While the impressions of both were obviously due to some sensibility not yet evolved in people generally, Mrs. Piper, while appearing a person much more susceptible to spiritual impressions (whatever that may mean), in her own personality had, in a sense, nothing to do with the matter. Foster expressed himself, giving an account of what he saw and felt, while she abolished herself, appearing to move her own personality from her body, giving place to other apparent personalities who expressed themselves through her vocal Ch. XXVIII] Genuineness. Modus Operandi 381 organs, gestures, and writing. What they did, did not seem to pass through her consciousness, and the apparent passage of their consciousnesses through her organism involved some disturbance in it. Mrs. Piper was in a trance, the passage of the communications distorting her face, changing her voice, and seeming to affect her whole being. Foster, on the contrary, appeared as wide awake, intelligent, and cheerful as people generally are in ordinary conversation. He re- marked, after perhaps an hour or an hour and a half, that he was feeling a little tired. Mrs. Piper, on coming out of the trance after perhaps an hour, was somewhat exhausted. This, however, was not the case some years later, as will appear. Mrs. Piper did not know who I was, unless Hodgson had told her, and I am confident he had not. There was a good chance for her to read about me from his mind, as he knew me well, but she read next to nothing that he knew! Before we began, Hodgson placed some sheets of paper and pencils on a small table within reach of Mrs. Piper, and others on the mantel east of the table for his own memoranda. Mrs. Piper and I sat facing each other on the west side of the table. Hodgson moved to and fro between the table and the mantel. She did not hold my hand. Early in her career, as re- corded in many places, she seems to have held her sitter's hands through the whole stance, but gradually she came not to touch the sitter at all. The change appears to have come some time between '89 and '96. When that change took place, the suggestions of " muscle reading " in her case, made by Mr. Podmore and others, were disposed of. In the early reports are also several allusions to the seance room being darkened. That, too, had become outgrown before my sitting, and with it, of course, the deductions of fraud naturally drawn from it. After we had been seated a minute or two, Mrs. Piper's eyeballs rolled upward, her face became slightly convulsed, and she began talking in a rough voice not her own. As I remember, the voice at first affected me as if it were coming from a statue, but I soon got used to it She was apparently 382 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pi IV " under the control " of Phinuit, an alleged French physician, with whom readers of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Eesearch are well acquainted, and whom I will later introduce more at length to others. At times there seemed to be changes of control not noted in the report. I attempt to note such, and have essayed a few other incidental improvements. These notes are some- times interpolated in square brackets, with my initials, but often in the separate paragraphs and in the larger type of the author's usual part of the book. Below are given Hodgson's notes of what was said, and exact transcripts of what was written. The reader new to the subject should know that alleged communications through alleged mediums generally come with apparent diffi- culty a sort of stammering or feeling for words, and con- siderable confusion. Literal reproductions, despite such in- serted elucidations as may be practical, are not very smooth reading. The confusion is attributed by some to the medium's delays in " fishing " for intimations from sitters ; by others to difficulties inherent in the case, especially with inexperi- enced controls. All these elements of confusion might suggest to one read- ing for the first time well annotated notes of a sitting, that he is examining a photograph of chaos and old night. As I have already cautioned, patience is needed not only for understanding the notes, but for estimating them as evidence. Don't let the difficulty of the following sitting discourage you regarding the later ones. They are apparently much more freely " edited," and are much easier reading. Sitting of April 8, 1894 Present, Richard Hodgson, Henry Holt. Notes by Hodgson. " Phinuit speaking. [See Note 1, at end of sitting, p. 390.] * Came all the way from spirit to see you. Want to tell you some- thing about yourself. That gentleman [referring to Sitter] has spirits around him all the time. He don't believe it, but he's a medium.'" Later indications tend to verify this, but I have not tried to increase them : I have been too busy, and have wanted to keep a level head as far as I can. Ch. XXVIII] Friend's Troubles Reported . 383 " Sitter. ' You don't know me, do you ? ' Ph. ' I have never met you before.' G. P. [breaking in] ' Awful scrape over here. Want you to help me out. A. [assumed initial] is in a dan- gerous condition.' Ph. [explaining] ' G. P. wants to speak to you. He knows you.' " G. P. is the "George Pelham " well known to readers of the Pr. S. P. R., whom I will more fully introduce to others later. When living he was a friend of mine as well as of Hodgson, and of my friend indicated by the pseudo initial A. "S. 'All right.'" Here G. P. " assumed control " of the medium so Hodg- son's notes say, but possibly " Phinuit " reported for him. I cannot remember now whether there was a change of voice. "G. P. 'I'd like to know where Mabel is, and who the dickens is that? Do you know what I mean I' S. 'Mabel? No.' G. P. ' A.'s in a critical state. He's not himself now. He's terribly depressed.' S. ' Can you tell anything [more] about AJ ' G. P.' Friend of yours in body.* S. ' Of Hodg- son ? ' [This question and the following seem to have been mild "tests": I knew the man well. H.H.] G. P. 'Yes.' S. ' Did I ever know him ? ' G. P. ' Yes you knew him very well. You're connected with him.' S. ' Through whom ? ' G. P. 'Do you know any B.?' [assumed initial. H.H.] S. 'Are A. and I connected through B.?' G. P. 'Write to B. and he'll tell you all about it' " [See Note 2.] It turned out later that A. actually was low in his mind, and that B., whom nobody present knew, was trying to get him diverting occupation. This was found, too, to be a case of cross-correspondence. None of these circumstances were known to anybody pres- ent, but they were known to other minds " in the body," and hence the medium's utterance of them is open to the inter- pretation of teloteropathy. Similar instances are not rare. " G. P. [apparently : notes are uncertain] continued. ' Somebody wants to come in here. There's a lady with you [natural, but probably I willed a change of subject. The mediums generally respond promptly to such willing.] Go on writing, it will help you.' [This may be taken to have referred to some literary work on which I was engaged.] G. P. ' You're going away. Don't go to sleep. Wake up and talk to me. 384 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pt. IV [Repeated in two or three ways.] Au revoir! I'll see you later.' " Here Mrs. Piper's right hand began reaching and grasping, and Hodgson put a pencil in it. She wrote continuously in a very large sprawling, irregular hand. Among other pas- sages were those given below. The omitted ones are con- fused. My part of the dialogue was probably (it was nearly eighteen years before this writing) put by Hodgson on each sheet as the medium went to the next, and the whole revised by me in the typewritten copy which he sent. Before going to press I paragraph and punctuate a little, though at danger of forcing intelligibility. The explanatory or suggestive com- ments of Hodgson or myself are in rectangular brackets, mainly from notes made at the time. At the risk of discouraging you, and the certainty of pre- senting the material of the sittings in a disadvantageous form, I have concluded to let it stand with all its obscurities and eccentricities, edited only by comment. The S. P. R. reports are generally selections with the mold marks smoothed away, but you may care for a specimen of the unmitigated thing, even at the cost of extra hard reading. " G. P.' And how are you? G. P. G. P. [signature repeated] I am not dead. How are you H.? [evidently referring to me, whose initial Mrs. Piper did not know.] I am glad to see him. Come and speak. Watson help those fingers. [Reference to Watson (unknown) suggests similarity of sound to Hodgson Medium's fingers cramped.] Too bad about A. I am sorry for him. I have however [been] a help to him. I am here. Carlton [unknown] is a . I see you H. [Sitter] speak to me.' S. ' Can you hear well? ' G. P.' Not clearly H. I'll get in stronger in a moment. All O.K. H. we will be O.K. in a moment how is W ? ' [A living acquaintance of G. P. and myself, but seldom in my mind, certainly not then, but whom G. P. in the flesh or spirit, would very naturally ask about. He was not known to Mrs. Piper or Hodgson. H.H.] S. ' First-rate, I think.' G. P.' Good. Can't I help him don't you think ? How are you getting on with your writing old man ? Can't I help you?'" Apparently referring to my literary work aforesaid. This desire to help is constantly manifested by G. P., and is, on the whole, more characteristic of those in the alleged new life certainly of G. P. than in this life. Ch. XXVIII] G. P. Criticises Remote Conversation 385 "G. P. 'I think he is going across water.' S. 'Do you mean I am?' G. P.' No F. J. [a common friend not in my mind at the time] [undeciph.l .' S. 'Will you answer me a question? ' G. P.' Yes I should be pleased.' S. ' Will you tell me what you think of that talk last night?' [A controversial talk on philosophic subjects at the Century Club table, as I remember, in which Hodgson and I had participated.] G. P. ' Nonsense.' [Possibly medium telepathically gave my own im- pression. The hand motioned to me not to speak, and the written answers anticipated what I thought of saying.] G. P. ' I know what you would ask, so will, yes I. Baby nonsense or talk this is my well.' S. ' It made me tired.' G. P.' So it does me and it is rubbish. Rubbish don't bother your clear brain about such trash ... if it moves at ... thanks [probably for assistance with pencil] ... if it moves at all it will only talk baby talk ... yes tell him he goes to B [unrecognized now] and hears nonsense.' H. ' Now tell him.' S. ' She reads my mind like a book' [referring to medium]. G. P. ' Not out of your mind old chap you mistake it concerns E. G. and yours truly.' " S. [to Hodgson] ' Do you know who E. G. is? ' [Writing resumed.] G. P.' Perfectly. Oh, yes, Edmund Gurney. He was there and tried to get... (when was it?) the impression where you dined where D.?' S. 'Dined?' [Referring to occasion of aforesaid talk.] G. P.' Yes. Yes.' S. 'You think it was nonsense?' G. P.' Exactly. Rightly named, yes. This is what I am trying to tell you my good friend: your clear brain ought to clear up such nonsense.' S. [or possibly Hodgson] ' But you held the mind-stuff theory yourself.' G. P.' Well, mind stuff theory is all right when put on a clear basis ... no ... but I want to keep you fellows on the right track, you certainly understand me very well considering you know me so little in my present state . . . yes . . . very . . . perfectly only I find it a little difficult to express my thoughts through this protoplasm. [Note 3.1 Exactly . . . yes . . . evolution . . . yes . . .' S. ' What can you tell me about A. ? ' G. P.' All about him.' S.' Are you troubled about him ?' G. P. ' Not exactly troubled, yet I am afraid he has a mood of de- pression at the present time which is not entirely satisfactory, think so, H.?...What about your work? are you clearing up weather any maters [matters?] and how about cosmical weather. [This was on G. P.'s mind especially in conection with Hodgson who was present, but I don't know that he had ever discussed it with me] . . . Philosophy.' [Topics I was working on.] S. ' Can you tell me my name ? ' G. P. ' Yes, I will surprise, I will surprise you in a moment by telling you old chap just who you are.' " This illustrates one of the most perplexing and frequent 386 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pt. IV features of mediumistic communications. If the medium was simply reading my mind, why shouldn't she promptly read so clear and simple a thing as my own name, especially as, on the telepathic hypothesis, she was reading much foggier and more complex things? Her not doing so, and number- less similar cases, make very strongly against the telepathic hypothesis. But on the spiritistic hypothesis, why should my old friend delay giving my name, and end without giving it at all? When at last it was given (see below) it was by my ostensible remote cousin, who never saw me. Still the surname was his own. " G. P. [continuing] ' I am also [ ?] talking baby talk . . . yes . . . what about the one and the many, the many and the one. [Same true as regards " cosmical weather." See above] . . . yes, I will here... do you believe in telepathy? A AUK [substi- tuted letters, harking back to A.'s troubles.] Yes . . . and will be the instigator, hear you me? Where is [undeciph.] Verm [?] yes . . . yes . . . tell me I must clear up these things H. I know. Give me time and I'll explain all, don't worry me, do you . . . D ... e too bad.' " The writing here became very hurried and confused, appar- ently from the attempted intrusion of my young cousin, Albert, who had lately been drowned, and who now seemed to appear and want to communicate. " G. P. [apparently to my cousin]. Til tell him... yes in a moment, did you ... oh, I can't hear you [apparently a child of mine breaks in here and is addressed by G. P.] well dear, come along . . . Papa . . . who is Roy [ ?] Ray yes ... all ... yes . . . but there is a child here ' [I had lost children, and willed the medium to stop impersonating them, and she left the sub- ject. Note 4]. G. P. 'and a young Hall [effort, as appears later, for Holt] who passed out of [the body?] by drowning [My cousin. I never saw him] the young man is, he died, as you term it, by drowning, and his name is Alfred' [wrong, but corrected later.] S. 'What's his other name?' G. P. 'Am telling you can't you wait? Haccket. G. [or J.] Alfred... what . . . Hackett ... yes ... all I hear ... he ... yes and he knew him very well.' S. ' The name Alfred is a mistake.' G. P. ' Not a mistake, not in the least. Don't you recall Alfred? He knew you years ago perfectly and John also, he was the one who was with him.' " This looks like an echo of the prominence in the mind of most Holts of the name of Sir John, the English chief Ch. XXVIII] Sitter's Drowned Cousin Manifested 387 justice in the seventeenth century, from whom not a few of the Americans of the name claim to be descended, in spite of the fact that he had no children. "8. 'I don't know him.' G. P. 'You do know him... this . . . yes ... it is so and right ask John [unrecognized] he is ... brother [Albert had no brother John] [ ?] in earth . . . r. . . this is important. Henry ' [Sitter's Christian name. G. never used it in life.] S. ' Are you sure Alfred is the name ? ' G. P. ' I am not sure but I think it is very nearly right as I hear it. HA...H O W I know, don't mind me.' S. ' I am listening [Reading probably meant] attentively.' G. P.' You don't quite believe me, that is that I am I Yes. yet I am all that remains of yours truly G. P. H on Horn H o r t e on [Farther efforts towards sitter's name.] (S. Horton?) no leave . . . H o n . . . I want . . . please don't worry him [apparently alluding to cousin] he is in a dream keep quiet and let him see where he is ... yes . . . Ard [ ?] for him . . . yes I did . . . Alfred J [or G ?] are you talking H . . . Haris . . . what . . . Harry [Sitter's usual name with intimates, but G. P. never used it in life] . . . keep clear if you can and I'll help Hone.' [Apparently my cousin shoves G. P. aside and takes control of the medium.] A. ' Do speak speak to me now . . . not 11.' S. ' Yes you were drowned.' A. ' You know me. Do, oh do tell my mother to cheer up and don't worry . . . she . . . yes . . . Holt [Correct at last]... Yes.'" Some people are so opposed to the spiritistic hypothesis, or perhaps I should say to any hypothesis but fraud, that they attribute to it this " feeling for " names which is very frequent among mediums. I can't see any indication that it may not be a perfectly natural process, on the hypothesis of limited power both to apprehend and to communicate in either " spirit " or medium, or of obstacles to both, which the means are not fitted readily to overcome. " G. P. [apparently]' and you must speak to him, you heard . . . you . . . S. ' Where is his mother ? ' A. [apparently] ' In the South . . . yes . . .' [she had been there lately, but had returned. I knew the first fact, and I think I knew the sec- ond.] S. 'Are you sure she's in the South?' A. 'Yes she is there now.' [Note 5.] S. ' Does she live there?' A ' No, not her home.' [Correct.] ' Alfred now you must know, do, oh do please. [See Note 6.] I ask of you it was. the great- est sorrow to her . . . yes . . . [undeciph.] and Uncle Will [not recognized. See below regarding identifying mother.] will know.' S. ' Uncle Will ? ' A.' W not William not ... No ... will know.' S. 'Will know?' A.' Yes, please tell her for 388 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Ft. IV me. [Several pencils rejected, on ground, apparently, that they had been handled by other persons. Writing resumed.] Thanks . . . don't let anybody touch those any more ... no ... thanks.' S. ' Won't it be distressing if I tell his mother ? ' A. ' Tell her. But I shall be there before you are, and I will help her to bear it. Albert was my name rightly spelt [for the first time] but she called me Al . . . yes and Allie.' " The medium stopped writing, and Phinuit took control again, speaking: " P. ' There's a great deal more thought here than's said. Dp you sleep pretty well? [I did not.] You sit in chair with arms, and write on bits of paper [True: on pad.] Eggs are very good for you.' S. ' All of the egg?' [I used the white at breakfast daily.] P. ' You take the white of it very nicely.' [Correct.] S. ' You are reading my mind. How about fruit ? ' P. ' Fruit's good.' [It was very bad for me, though I persisted in it from mistaken advice. Phinuit appears to have telepathically received my false impression.] S. ' These are only vague generalities.' P. ' Well, that's specific enough. Do you want me to tell you the color of your grand- father's cat's tail ? ' [Sitter asks about wines, mentioning names. Phinuit said he didn't know names of places. Sitter speaks of white wines, etc., and Khine wines.] S. ' Not [good] for me? ' P. ' White wines good acid. Sweet wines not good. [Correct.] You taste oranges when you eat them. They come up in your throat.'" I ate them habitually at breakfast. This and the arm- chair and writing are wonderful bits of telepathy or some- thing else. "S. 'If I don't eat fruit, I'll get lithemia.' P. 'Take potatoes.' S. ' Disagreeing with the faculty.' P. ' Grated potatoes beaten with milk. Something the matter with liver? ' S. < Now No.' [Sitter had taken blue pill the night before.] P. 'There's no disease in your liver.'" [Correct, Note 7]. G. P. seems to return. " G. P. ' He seems to be very anxious H. [apparently referring to Albert] and will say... Oh! Here comes a military man with epaulets on his shoulders and had a bullet wound in his head... too bad' [see below]. S. 'But George people don't wear epaulets on their knees.' P.' On knees? Who said knees? ' S. ' You're getting tautological.' G. P.' Not in the least H. but I am as in a dream. Shall I be more philosoph- ical?' S. 'Oh no! But be like yourself.' G. P. 'But you seem not like yourself any more than I, I don't know why. Ch. XXVIII] Errors Mixed with Truths 389 Perhaps you can explain Why Why Why. Yes. ..yea. ..his son has been speaking now to me [apparently a repetition of why recalled to Sitter's mind a similar habit of repeating "Why? Why? Why?" in Sitter's living little son, and the im- pression went over telepathically into the medium, leading to a confusion of my living son with the drowned cousin] . . . yea he wants to have Helen know where he is. El liza . . . Ellen [no such person recognized : not his mother's name.] . . . yes in the body ? ' S . ' Where is she now ? ' G. P.' In the South I hear. Do speak.' S. 'What color was the military suit?' G. P.' It was Red.' " This is suggestive. I associate my cousin Albert, father of the drowned boy, with visits in childhood to my grand- father's, and one of the conspicuous recollections of those visits is a young cousin in a much-too-big red military coat that one of the elders used to wear at " general trainin'." But the bullet hole is a mystery. The " grandpere aux Franqais " in my Foster sitting is said to have been a general, but he was not of that family, and I never looked him up. " G. P. ' Now you must speak I cannot keep him up and seem my natural self, not for {'.} him... there was [is?] a sister Margaret . . . [No sister. H.H.] Al . . . I declare you must speak . . . dazed . . . why ...Hou Hou Hor II or Ho a.' S. ' It would be unfortunate to add an x, George.' G. P. ' No sarcasm needed.' S. ' I don't mean it as sarcasm.' G. P. ' Thanks. Thanks, no I should must confess I should not treat you thus, not much, too bad, help the poor fellow will you H. . . . you can indeed. Where am ... yes trust me as you used . . . did in years gone by. I look ... yes ... tell father I have ex- plained all ... will explain and it will be clear to ... We '" Possibly Albert had resumed "control," though this may have been a reference by G. P. to his own father, with whom I had always been more intimate than with G. P. himself. "G. P.-< Where is H-s?' S. <H-s?' G. P. 'Yes.' [It happened that the sitter had been thinking specially of H s the day before.] G. P.' Tell him W. [H s's deceased daughter] is really not dead, and is with H. a great deal . . . yes . . . H ' S. ' What HJ ' [For some reason, probably the indistinctness of the writing, the name does not seem to have been clear at the moment, though it was later recognized.] G. P. ' In the body . . . yes . . . yes . . . and you remember him or I do. Ask her father and the message will [undeciph. "be taken" see be- low.] Frank. [Possibly a dear friend of Sitter, wishing to 390 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pt. IV communicate, but too late for the medium's psychokinetic power. [Note 8] ... yes . . . what [undeciph.] my thinking now ... be taken . . . little mixed . . . who is Stead [Perhaps the well known W. T. Stead, who was then visiting mediums] ... no all right . . . do you know A. [undeciph.] . . . yes there it is ... A 1 bert H J H A J H I am going.' The writing ends abruptly, and the medium wakes. I make no apology for having treated the apparent per- sonalities at one moment as if they were simply human beings in a new stage of existence, and at the next moment as if they were dramatizations by the medium. The first method is of course sometimes adopted provisionally as the most con- venient, but both ways correspond to the alternating impres- sions of any sitter not die-stamped with the spiritist view or its extreme opposite. When I was a score of years younger (and wiser, as the younger think?), I should have been more consistent in the non-spiritistic way. Now, while I believe in a future life, so far as it will do to use the word " believe " in the absence of complete verification (whatever that may mean), I am still in doubt whether "the spirits of just men made perfect " or the spirits of any men at all, speak through the mediums. At the moment I suspect they impress the mediums telepathically to speak for them. This seems as in ordinary dreams, only so much more intensely that (as sometimes in my dreams) the dreamer feels identified with the "agent," and Mrs. Piper speaks as the agent. The following comments would have interrupted the mem- oranda of the sittings too much, had they been placed among them. NOTE 1. The amount of discussion already bestowed upon Dr. Phinuit, of whom we shall see much more, almost places him, with Junius, not to speak of the Baconian Shak- spere, among the great problematical characters of literature. Through the dozen volumes of the S. P. K., from VI, where he makes his first appearance, up to where he disappears, nearly every commentator has a whack at him, and the whacks soon get very amusing. Half the whackers say he does not know French ; the other half prove that he does. Mrs. Sidgwick and Mr. Lang state that he does not, and consider him an unmitigated scoundrel. Ch. XXVIII] Opinions Matters of Temperament 391 Neither of these commentators, by the way, was a "good sitter." On the other hand, Mr. Rich, who was a good sitter, found Phinuit at home in French; Sir Oliver Lodge, also a good sitter, is fond of the old fellow; and I, who also am a good sitter, think Phinuit, not only as I talked with him, but as I have read about everything in print regarding him, one of the most natural and amusing characters I ever met, and far from the least lovable. Half the commentators say that he is an ignorant quack, who never uses a scientific term; the other half say that he has helped them and their friends, and given them effi- cacious prescriptions abounding in the technicalities of the pharmacopeia. The whole discussion is a very remarkable instance re- markable even in the debatable regions of Psychical Research of how honest and intelligent people amid new and ques- tionable experiences, do not see with their eyes or hear with their ears, but do both with their temperaments. The evi- dence will increase as we proceed. An objection is reasonably taken to Phinuit's uncertain and unverifiable character. But that character is not nearly as uncertain and unverifiable as some commentators make out. Wherever Mrs. Piper got the Phinuit of my sitting, whether from her own invention or from me, or from himself, she certainly did not get from me his prescription of grated potatoes as a cure for my ailments: all I had to give in that line was objection by the very highest authorities to just that food. Of all ways to account for him yet proposed, far the least labored seems to be that she got him from himself; but being the least labored does not necessarily prove that way the nearest correct. Maybe it will yet be found correct in the form that she got him from the cosmic con- sciousness, where perhaps he and she and you and I are always to be found by such as have the finding power. NOTE 2. The medium gets impressions of all sorts from things and persons connected with the sitter or the control. In this instance, I was "connected with" B, but only so far as he had become a professor at Yale long after my graduation : I did not know him personally. But my intimate 392 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pt. IV connection with A was not only direct, but through several persons intimate with us both and with G. P. Mere tele- pathy, certainly mere telepathy from my mind, would have " spotted " some one of these connections much more readily than the alleged one with B, which was hardly a connection at all. The simplest solution for the whole business, though perhaps not the most "scientific," or even rational, is that the spirit of G. P. was troubled about A, and habitually thinking of me at the University Club as a Yale man, was reminded, on my turning up at the seance, of the solution of A's troubles proposed by B, who was at Yale, and, it turned out later, was trying to get A a place there, and G. P. wanted me to help. NOTE 3. " This protoplasm." G. P. uses the expression at other sittings, and I think that no other of Mrs. Piper's controls does. If she makes them herself, how does she keep them so distinct? The sittings, however, abound in com- plaints from the controls that they find it hard to express themselves through the " too solid flesh " of the mediums. NOTE 4. Illustrations of the same experience (in shutting off would-be communicators, by will) are frequent. I am evidently far from alone in feeling a repugnance from hav- ing communications from loved and lost ones pass through the body or even the dreams of a stranger. But those who seek such communications may have better nervous organisms than mine, and I do not wish to have my avoiding what pur- ported to be such communications, indicative of any opinion regarding their genuineness. I experience no such repugnance regarding communications in my own dreams, as will be abundantly demonstrated later : for there the communication is not through an intermediary. NOTE 5. This is one of the very frequent cases of the medium going counter to the sitter's knowledge, and goes to controvert the telepathic theory. Among such cases are many where the medium (or control) turns out to be right, and the sitter wrong. NOTE 6. This intense desire, so natural under the alleged circumstances, to prove survival to their friends, will be found characteristic of virtually all the controls. Those Ch. XXVIII] Controls Wish to Prove Survival 393 claiming to be persons familiar while on earth with the methods of Psychical Research, strenuously and ingeniously use those methods for the purpose. We shall find, after the deaths of Myers and Hodgson, that their alleged spirits, like that of G. P., apparently bent all their powers toward that end. With them it is generally alleged to be for the promotion of science, but with the controls generally, as in the case just given, it is of course for the comfort of survivors. NOTE 7. As already intimated, there has been a great deal of difference among the commentators as to Phinuit's knowledge and capacity as a physician. His diagnosis of me might have been telepathic from me, but his dietary certainly was not. He has made many diagnoses that cer- tainly were not telepathic, and prescriptions as technical as doctors generally make, with good results. Instances will appear in later extracts. NOTE 8. "Frank [possibly a dear friend," etc.]. I said " possibly," and after " dear friend " I was tempted to add : " or Mrs. Piper's personation of one." But why should Mrs. Piper personate an individual she never heard of, and of course cares nothing about, for the delectation of another individual she never heard of and cares nothing about? The answer, " Because the latter gives her ten dollars," doesn't fit the case: she is amply demonstrated to be not that sort of person. Perhaps James would say, in his pet phraseology : Because she has a " will to communicate," which is another way of saying: Because she wants to. But why should she want to? And why, on the telepathic hypothesis, out of the hundreds of persons who have affected my memories, should she pick out this friend when I had not him specially in mind, and when there were " on the other side " other persons whose effect on me had been much greater? Or, to put a stronger case, if she picked G. P. out of my mind, why of all people who have left traces there should it be he ? The traces of him were not as strong as those of many other men much younger than myself. Such questions have been asked by innumerable sitters. The only answer worth con- sidering that I have seen, and that may not be worth much, is that when the sitter does not select the communicator, 394 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Ft. IV and Mrs. Piper does not, the only alternative is that he selects himself that, in this case, G. P. communicated be- cause before he died he had determined and announced that if there was any survival of death he was going to give evidence of it if he could ; and " Frank/' if the occurrence of the name had anything to do with my friend, sought to communicate probably because he was of a peculiarly affec- tionate disposition peculiarly apt to want to console those who had mourned him, and among his generally conservative circle of friends I was the first one who had given him any chance by turning up at a sitting. If at the time, amid the confusion natural to both the sitter's mind and the writing, I had attached all this significance to the name, probably I should have tried to give him the chance; but probably I would not have succeeded : for " the light was going out," as the controls generally express it. Many of them have declared that to them a medium, when in condition to receive communication, is surrounded by a light, and that as the nervous sensibility or capacity is consumed in the process of communication, the light fades away. When I say: "the controls say" this, I am not expressing any opinion as to what a control is. The reader, if he is built that way, may, for all me, consider it a fraudulent impersonation by a sec- ondary self of the medium, and made up of data telepathically acquired. But the reader, by the time he gets through with the facts, will find himself saddled with a pretty tough job. A good many people, however, and some of them not very highly endowed, have been equal to the job, or thought they were. The uninitiated reader who has struggled through the incoherences of this sitting will probably be surprised and, I fear, discouraged to learn that, judging by the published records of other sittings, this is a fairly good one. I take shame to myself for neglecting to write out my comments and return the record to Hodgson. With his experience, he prob- ably would have edited it into much more comprehensible shape. I prefer to leave it with its imperfections. If, instead of attributing the whole thing to telepathy, I had then estimated the importance of the subject as I Ch. XXVIII] Changes in Author's Views 395 do now, and had the leisure I have now, I should hare returned it, even if I had realized that, after eighteen years, my comments would be much better informed, and I would have occasion to use the matter again in an exposition of my own. But my attitude regarding spiritism that it was nothing but telepathy from the sitter, having been fixed in my interview with Foster, and considerable reading and in- timate association with Hodgson and some other members of the S. P. R. not having changed it; and finding, at the time, in my seance with Mrs. Piper nothing but telepathy, I felt no interest in farther personal investigation. I went away from the sitting with the conviction : " She gave me nothing which was not in my own mind: ifs the same old story " ; and I have not been near a medium since, and do not care to go. (See Preface to Second Edition.) After this confession, my venturing to write upon the subject may seem to others, as it often does to me, pre- sumptuous. That view, however, would have silenced most of the historians: for hardly any one of them, or even any editor, witnesses the events or hears the debates that he gen- eralizes upon ; nor often does any philosopher discover or even witness most of the facts that he correlates, nor (I hope I am not wearying you) any scientist most of the facts on which he bases his discoveries. There exist better books on this department of my subject than I dare hope this is going to be, but most of the good ones appeal principally to students who have held many sittings; and were begun to support theses, while I write for lay readers, and at least began with the intention of letting the theses regarding this part of my subject form themselves as I should go along. Moreover, my long experi- ence as a publisher has taught me that intermediaries are needed between experts and lay readers. I have habitually said to experts to whom I have suggested non-technical books : "The right point of view must cover both knowledge and ignorance; I can trust you for the knowledge, and I can supply the ignorance." I am doing something of that here. Nevertheless, if the persons who get and read an average book, would get and read the forty volumes of the Proceedings 396 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pt. IV and Journal of the S. P. R., and would arrange from their necessarily heterogeneous contents, fairly systematic presenta- tions of the principal classes of phenomena, probably this book would not have been written. I even doubt if it would have been if there were any probability that as many persons as may read it, would ever read, in Part XXXIII (Vol. XIII), Hodgson's treatment of the ground he covers. There are only two reasons why I do not advise you, if your time is limited, to drop this book where you are, and substitute that : Hodgson does not cover the ground that I shall attempt to cover in my chapters on the dream life, and in my final summary, and in the passages preliminary to them; and, so far as I know, no other writer on the general subject has been as persistently haunted as I have by the conception of the Cosmic Soul. And again, in a subject consisting so largely of specula- tion, and interpreted so largely by temperament, there is a chance of almost any work, however humble, doing some- thing that other works do not. Behind all the apologia I have given, is the fact that I have found the change from a disbelief in the survival of bodily death, so fruitful, intellectually as well as emotionally, that I am prompted to do what I can to share it with others. Never- theless, my convictions do not rest on the phenomena of mediumship, to which I do not yet confidently assign the spiritistic hypothesis at least as it is usually understood. But when, about 1908, I had my long row of " Proceed- ings " bound up, and began to read consecutively what, before, I had merely dipped into spasmodically, the aspects of the evidence underwent some change. Moreover, in the mean- time I had received, in other ways, indications pointing more strongly to survival of bodily death than to any explanation I could frame or find (see Chapter LV). This of course tended to change my point of view regarding the phenomena shown by the "mediums," but by no means reversed it. I gradually realized, however, that my conclusion that Mrs. Piper gave me nothing which was not in my own mind, was very superficial. The effect on me of reading the Pro- ceedings is that if we render unto telepathy all the things which are telepathy's, there is still a great deal to be ac- counted for. Ascribe every verified statement in the reports, Ch. XXVIII] Experiences Outside Telepathy 397 if you will, to telepathy, what are you going to do with the immense number of alleged personages through whom the statements come, with their own consistent opinions regarding the statements and other things, their initiatives, discriminations, responses, retaliations? Mrs. Piper gave me at least the following things which were not in my own mind : I. The impersonation of Phinuit. Mrs. Piper didn't get from me his humor or bumptiousness or medical skill or philanthropy or dramatic qualities generally. She may have got him from the first medium with whom she sat (see Chapter XXIX), and it may have been a delib- erate invention of that medium, expanded by her; but not by her supraliminal self : for that knows next to nothing of what occurs in her trances; and her honesty regarding it is now beyond all question. If she had developed and expanded a fictitious dramatic impersonation, which she calls Phinuit, she did it through her subliminal self an activity to which I find it more and more difficult to apply the term " self," ex- cept only so far as its nature and degree are determined by the conformation of the self as a receiving and transmitting in- strument. But so far as the subliminal self is a motive power, I grow less and less able to conceive it as anything but a cosmic inflow, different from the cosmic inflow making our ordinary (supraliminal) selves, in being a special in- flux depending upon some unusual circumstance in Mrs. Piper's case, presence of a sitter and the condition of trance. In guessing the Cosmic Soul to contain in some mys- terious way "the potency and power" of all the ideas, impressions, memories, psychical activities in what we call the universe, I of course guess it to contain all the groups of them which we call personalities. Until lately, person- alities have appeared to be " real or imaginary " : the real ones appearing to be created by a spontaneous cosmic inflow independent of any human volition, into a receptacle that we know in each case as an independent human body; the imaginary ones, so far as we have known until lately, are created by a cosmic inflow sought and controlled more or less definitely by a real personality an author. We know some of 398 Mrs. Piper: Author's Experience [Bk. II, Pt. IV them as Colonel Esmond, Becky Sharp, lago, Eosalind, and the like, and entertain regarding them many of the opinions and feelings that we entertain regarding real personalities. Now supposing Phinuit never to have existed in the flesh, are he and his class, of these imaginary personalities, or do they belong to still a third class a cosmic inflow without a " human body," and yet not " created by a cosmic inflow sought or controlled ... by a real personality " ? If he did once exist in the flesh, of course he is just such an individual effect of the cosmic inflow as G. P. and my cousin and hosts like them, and as you and I may yet be in fact are already, only we have so far been (or had to be) content to use only our own bodies. This is guess and speculation. Whether I'm ready to swear to it as fact, as I do to the words uttered to me by the Phinuit personality or impersonation I am guessing about, is another matter. II. Mrs. Piper did not get from me Phinuit's statement, whether true or not, that I am a medium a point on which there was probably never an opinion, or even a curiosity, in any mortal mind. Whence, then, could the assertion have been telepathed ? I am a very good dreamer, and she may have per- ceived some mediumistic quality in my makeup. There is probably more than is realized, in everybody's. III. She did not get from me Phinuit's question whether I wanted him to tell me the length of my grandfather's cat's tail. IV. She did not get from me the dramatic verisimilitude of G. P.'s comments and remarks. / didn't call her " this protoplasm " ; and she didn't call herself that by a long shot. Then somebody other than I must have invented those phrases and all the other things she did not get from me. To say that she did, is, as we shall have abundant evidence later, to say that she is the greatest dramatist that ever lived. To say that her subliminal self did, is but to beg the question. So is it to say that a secondary self was Phinuit and a tertiary self G. P., and so on down to the hundreds of her controls. V. She did not get from me the facts about A and B, yet she may have got them teloteropathically from either or both of those persons. Ch. XXVIII] Telepathy Inadequate 399 VI. She did not get from me her G. P. : for hers was not merely the G. P. I had known, but one who had grown. She may have got from me some facts of his personality, but where did she get his anxiety to prove his continued existence, and to have me do something to better the state of affairs with A and B? VII. She may have got from me the facts that my cousin Albert was drowned and that his mother was (or had been) in the South, but she did not get from me his poignant anxiety to have me tell his mother that he had survived the drowning. Among these seven points are germs which we will find growing as we proceed to sittings of far more interest CHAPTEK XXIX HODGSON'S FIRST PIPER REPORT, 1888-91 Mrs. Pipers Early Experiences FROM my experiences with Mrs. Piper, let us now turn to the records where, but for reasons given, we would naturally have begun. Probably the first public mention of Mrs. Piper in any organ seriously associated with science is in the Proceedings of the American S.P.E. for July, 1886. On p. 95 is the state- ment: " In two persons (one of them being the Mrs. P. who is men- tioned in the report on mediumistic phenomena) an arm was made absolutely anaesthetic, whilst retaining its muscular con- tractility." And in the " report " aforesaid (pp. 102-6) signed by no less a person than James, it is stated : " This lady can at will pass into a trance condition, in which she is 'controled' by a power purporting to be the spirit of a French doctor, who serves as intermediary between the sitter and the deceased friends. This is the ordinary type of trance-medi- umship at the present day " I am persuaded of the medium's honesty, and of the genuine- ness of her trance ; and ... I now believe her to be in possession of a power as yet unexplained." Now the hypnotic theory of telepsychosis that I advanced earlier, if it is to fit Mrs. Piper, must be modified to this extent. She is not readily thrown into the hypnotic trance by anybody but herself. Neither is she susceptible to ordinary thought-transference, when vigilant, like Mr. Guthrie's young women, and she has an appreciable number of failures in trance. James reports on all that in Pr. American S.P.R., 102f., and adds: " So far as the evidence goes, then, her medium-trance seems 400 Ch. XXIX] Mrs. Piper's Early Experiences 401 an isolated feature in her psychology. This would of itself be an important result if it could be established and general- ized " The result seems to have since been " established and gen- eralized," and she does not even exhibit telekinesis, which was done by Foster, Home, and Moses. The first important report published on Mrs. Piper is in Pr. VI, by Myers, Lodge, and James, and covers sittings in England from the latter part of November, 1889 till early in February, 1890. But this does not deal with manifestations as early as some reported in Pr. VIII by Hodgson, and covering sittings from 1887 through 1891. In making my selections, I will attempt to follow chronology as closely as practicable, and accordingly will draw on Pr. VIII before Pr. VI. The papers in the Proceedings being prepared by different persons, widely differently circumstanced, even in different continents (not excluding Asia), the order of their publica- tion was by no means that of the occurrence of the events they chronicled. Hence in our attempts at a chronological order, which at best we can attain but very roughly, we will have to skip to and fro among the volumes. Hodgson prefaces his report with an interesting account of Mrs. Piper's initiation into mediumship (Pr. VIII, 46f.) : " Mrs. Piper herself has given me what information she could. In reply to inquiries in January, 1888, she informed me that her husband's father and mother ... in 1884 . . . persuaded her to try consultation with a medium who gave medical advice. She was at that time suffering from a tumor. She visited Mr. J. R. Cocke, a blind medium, also a ' developer ' of mediums. He professed to be controlled by -a French physician whose name was pronounced Finny. While there, she felt curious twitchings, and thought she might become completely unconscious. On a second visit to Mr. Cocke he placed his hands on her head, and shortly after she became unconscious. As she was losing con- sciousness she was aware of a flood of light and saw strange faces, and a hand moving before her. The ' flood of light ' she had experienced once before, a few months previously ; it imme- diately preceded a swoon, caused by a sudden blow on the side of the head. When she lost consciousness on the occasion of her second visit to Mr. Cocke, she was said to have been controlled by an Indian girl who gave the name ' Chlorine,' and to have given a remarkable test to a stranger who was present. She 402 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV had several more sittings with Mr. Cocke, and was again con- trolled, apparently on each occasion by ' Chlorine.' " This name is evidently pitched upon on account of its euphony and apparent femininity, by some consciousness we can't tell whose, perhaps Mrs. Piper's subliminal (what- ever that may mean) unaware of the meaning of the word (which I hardly need tell the reader usually refers to a rather fetid gas), and especially of its etymological meaning light green. Hodgson continues: " On her second visit to Mr. Cocke, he professed to be con- trolled by John Sebastian Bach. After this she tried sitting at home with her relatives and friends. Phinuit (sic) ' controlled ' first, and since then regularly, but she was also ostensibly con- trolled at occasional times by Mrs. Siddons, Bach, Longfellow, Commodore Vanderbilt, and Loretta Ponchini. It was said that ' Mrs. Siddons ' recited a scene from Macbeth, Longfellow was said to have written some verses, and Loretta Ponchini (who purported to be an Italian girl) to have made some drawings. These verses and drawings have not been preserved " Dr. Phinuit only came at first to give medical advice. He ' didn't care to come for other matters,' as he thought them ' too trivial.' " Finally Sebastian Bach said they were going to concentrate all their powers on Phinuit, and he ultimately became the chief control. " Mr. Piper says that there is no question but that it is the same Phinuit or personality who controls Dr. Cocke, no matter how their names are spelt." The questions regarding him are different from those re- garding most of the other controls : for, with the exception of the Imperator group, they, in ordinary life, were generally known, personally or historically, to the sitters ; while Phinuit has loomed upon the world as free from origins as Melchize- dek, and some people think, despite his lack of priestly ways, with as important a mission. But he has alleged a lot of origins that, so far, cannot be traced. Even, however, if they never can be, the fact would not prove that he never existed. He himself (I use the term simply for convenience, without expressing any opinion, and shall do so freely regarding other controls) says through Mrs. Piper (Pr. VIII, 50; Hodgson's comments are interspersed) : Ch. XXIX] Phinuit's Account of Himself 403 " ' Phinuit is one of my names ; Scliville is my other name ; Dr. Jean Phinuit Scliville ; they always called me Dr. Phinuit.' He was unable to tell the year of his birth or the year of his death, but by putting together several of his statements, it would appear that he was born about 1790 and died about 1860. He was born in Marseilles, went to school and studied medicine at a college in Paris called ' Merciana '( ?)College, where he took his degree when he was between twenty-five and twenty-eight years old. ' Merciana. You know the name " Meershaum " f That is the same name ; I cannot spell it ; sounds something like that.' He also studied medicine at ' Metz, in Germany.' At the age of thirty-five he married Marie Latimer, who had a sister named Josephine. ' Josephine was a sweetheart of mine first, but I went back on her and married Marie after all.' Marie was thirty years of age when he married her, and died when she was about fifty. He had no children. P. : 'Do you know where the Hospital of God is, Hospital de Dieu (Hotel Dieu)?' Sitter: ' It is in Paris.' P. : 'Do you remember old Dyruputia ? Dyr- uputia [Dupuytren ?] was the head of the hospital, and there is a street named for him.' He went to London and from London to Belgium. ' I went to very different places after my health broke down.' " On Dec. 26, 1889, Phinuit said to Sir Oliver Lodge through Mrs. Piper (Pr. VI, 520) : " ' I have been 30 to 35 years in spirit, I think. I died when I was 70 of leprosy, very disagreeable. I had been to Australia and Switzerland. My wife's name was Mary Latimer. I had a sister Josephine (p. 495). John was my father's name. I studied medicine at Metz, where I took my degree at 30 years old, married at 35. Get someone to look all this up, and take pains about it. Look up the town of , also the Hotel Dieu in Paris. I was born in Marseilles, am a Southern French gen- tleman. Find out a woman named Carey. Irish. Mother Irish, father French. I had compassion on her in the hospital. My name is John Phinuit Schlevelle (or ?Clavelle), but I was always called Dr. Phinuit. Do you know Dr. Clinton Perry? Find him at Dupuytren, and this woman at the Hotel Dieu. There's a street named Dupuytren, a great street for doctors This is my business now, to communicate with those in the body, and make them believe our existence.' " Hodgson comments regarding the statements he quoted, and that just given. He says : " Some discrepancies will be noticed between these statements and those given in Pr.VI,520, and I understand that no trace of ' Jean Phinuit Schliville ' has been discovered at the medical schools where Phinuit claims to have studied and practised, or 404 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV along other lines of inquiry suggested by the few fragments which he offers of his life history " Concerning his inability to speak French, Phinuit's original explanation to me was that he had lived in Metz the latter part of his life, and there were many English there, so that he was compelled to speak English and had forgotten his French. I replied that this explanation was very surprising, and that a much more plausible one would be that he was obliged to use the brain of the medium, and would therefore manifest no more familiarity with French than she possessed. This trite enough suggestion appeared to Phinuit also more plausible, since a few days later he offered it himself to another sitter as an ex- planation of his inability to sustain a conversation in French ! " There is a very simple answer to all this: he could speak French, though Mrs. Piper could not. See pages 414 and 420. < " Dr. C. W. F. [see Report No. 23, Pr.VIII,98f. H.H.], reques- tioned Phinuit about the prominent medical men in Paris in Phinuit's time. The names of Bouvier and Dupuytren were given. Dr. F. tells me that he (Dr. C. W. F.) knew nothing about Bouvier previously, but knew well about Dupuytren. The doctors he had in mind at the time of his question ' were Vel- peau, Bouillaud, Nelaton, Andral, and many others, all promi- nent forty or fifty years ago with extended reputations.' [If it is all telepathy, why didn't Phinuit name one of them from Dr. F.'s mind? H.H.] Taking the foregoing considerations together, it appears to me that there is good reason for concluding that Phinuit is not a French doctor." Or he must be a French doctor communicating under dis- Hodgson goes on to say something which tends very strongly to separate Phinuit's personality from Mrs. Piper's (Pr. VIII, 55-6) : " On one occasion, not long before a sitting (June 30th, 1888), Mrs. Piper was startled by a very near sudden clap of thunder, and Phinuit, on being afterwards questioned, appeared to have no knowledge of the circumstance, and apparently tried to guess at what had occurred. Similarly on questioning Phinuit at one of my early sittings concerning the life of Mrs. Piper, he pro- fessed ignorance on the subject, but said that he would ' find out things.' . . . Soon afterwards, however, Phinuit told me of inci- dents in connection with Mrs. Piper which I think that Mrs. Piper herself would never have mentioned to me 1 have also met with several cases where Mrs. Piper [in the waking state? H.H.] knew not a little of the sitter's ordinary environment, Ch. XXIX] Hodgson's First Account of PJiinuit 405 names of friends, &c., and yet this information was not given by Phinuit." Hodgson says (Pr. VIII, 5) of one occasion when he per- suaded Phinuit to stand up : " Mrs. Piper stood up without changing the position of her feet, at the same time throwing her head slightly back and her chest forward, and thrusting the thumbs jauntily into what would have been the annholes of her waistcoat had she worn one." Hodgson continues (pp. 8-9) : " I have been at sittings where Phinuit has displayed such paltering and equivocation, and such a lack of lucidity, that I believe had these been my only experiences with him I should without any hesitation have condemned Mrs. Piper as an im- postor. Such failures appear to depend sometimes, but not al- ways, on the sitter. As Phinuit himself confessed (May 26th, 1888) : ' Sometimes when I come here, do you know, actually it is hard work for me to get control of the medium, and sometimes not at all. Then I am weak and confused.' " Considering, then, my own first six sittings [from which we will have extracts later. H.H.], I find that all the correct (veri- fiable) statements made by Phinuit concerned matters known to me, except the insignificant prophecy that my sister (in Aus- tralia) would soon have a fourth child a boy. I had no (con- scious) knowledge even that another child was ' coming very soon.' On the other hand, I did not consciously know the Chris- tian name of my mother's father, though I had probably heard it, and this was incorrectly given as John. [Identically the same with Foster and my " Orandpere aux Franqais" H.H.] Further, Phinuit failed to obtain information, or made funda- mental mistakes, in matters about which my own recollections were very clear and vivid. The most striking circumstances cor- rectly mentioned were concerning the lady whom I have called ' Q.' and my cousin Fred, and were such as I should expect those persons to select, if in actual communication with me, as proofs of identity. But then, again, Phinuit was unable to tell me of circumstances about which I made special inquiry, and which were at least as familiar to the alleged ' spirit ' as those described to me. Thus, Phinuit never told me the full name of ' Q.,' though I frequently asked for it at later sittings. His explana- tion was that ' Q.' refused to tell him, but Phinuit has frequently urged his ignorance on this point as a proof that he cannot ' read my mind ' (an inability of which he is very anxious to assure me), and I suspect that this ignorance may be assumed." But there is too much of just that sort of ignorance in all mediumistic manifestations. All the experience since this 406 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV writing of Hodgson's (1891) indicates that ignorance to be a powerful argument against the telepathic hypothesis: if the mediums read the minds of the sitters or of absent persons, why should many of the least definite things be read, and many of the most definite left unread? But, on the other hand, Hodgson continues (pp. 9-10) : " However this may be, there is no doubt but that Phinuit's unquestionable failure to obtain satisfactory replies to many questions which have been asked of ' deceased friends ' is a most formidable objection, as we shall see later, to the ' spirit hypo- thesis ' at least as it is commonly accepted. " Admitting now that the facts mentioned at these first sit- tings of mine were drawn by Phinuit from my mind, I must notice that they were, certainly most of them, and possibly all of them, obtained from my mind at a time when I was not con- sciously thinking of them Vivid conscious thinking of a cir- cumstance does not seem, indeed, to help Pbinuit in any way, but rather the contrary." Not so Foster with me : quite the reverse, and not so Mrs. Thompson generally, and numerous other cases. Mrs. Verrall comments on her experience with Mrs. Thompson's control (Pr. XVII, 174) : "When at Nelly's suggestion I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything but what she calls ' muggling her.' " Hodgson resumes (Pr. VIII, 11) : " My conclusion, then, about my own [Hodgson's. H.H.] first six sittings is that the statements made by Phinuit may be re- garded as explicable on the hypothesis that he had access to portions of my ' subconscious ' mind." We shall find that farther experience reversed Hodgson's conclusions. But even at that stage of the game he farther concludes a striking illustration of the self-contradictions incident to these perplexing phenomena (Pr. VIII, 56) : " I am convinced, as regards the bare information shown by Phinuit, that it cannot be accounted for entirely by thought- transference from the sitters, and that at least some hypothesis which goes as far as thought-transference from the minds of dis- tant living persons is demanded." I am astonished to find throughout the Pr. S. P. E. how much there is of this " harping on my daughter " on " bare information." Grant all the telepathy (" bare information ") Ch. XXIX] Miss E. 0. W.'s Sittings 407 you please from the sitter and from incarnate intelligences the world over; deny, if you please, any telepathy ("bare in- formation ") whatever from discarnate intelligences, you have still got to account for the give-and-take and general dra- matic character of the controls. How do you propose to ? By the medium's secondary personalities? Then are you ready to allow that she has a thousand ? If not, have you any third hypothesis to offer but the spiritistic? I certainly have not, except spiritism as interpreted by the Cosmic Inflow, which, vague as it is, nevertheless seems to me, amid all its fogs, more like a fact than a hypothesis. I shall have more to say regard- ing secondary personalities. Hodgson goes on to give details from forty-one of the sittings which Mrs. Piper gave before she went to England in 1889. After a few extracts from them, I will devote a chapter to the English reports in Pr. VI, and a few words about Hodgson's reports from twelve more sittings after her return to America up to the end of 1891. Miss E. 0. W.'s Account of Sittings with Mrs. Piper (Pr. VIH,29f.). " My forty-fire sittings with Mrs. Piper cover the period from November 12th, 1886, to June 19th, 1889. In forty-one of these the control was taken, for at least a part of the hour, by a per- sonal friend whose subjects of conversation, forms of expression, and ways of looking at things were distinctly unlike either Mrs. Piper's or Dr. Phinuit's. The clearly-marked personality of that friend, whom I will call T., is to me the most convincing proof of Mrs. P.'s supernatural power, but it is a proof impossible to present to anyone else 11 T. was a Western man, and the localism of using like as a conjunction clung to him, despite my frequent correction, all his life. At my sitting on December 16th, 1886, he remarked, 'If you could see it like I do.' Forgetful for the instant of changed conditions, I promptly repeated, ' As I do.' ' Ah,' came the re- sponse, ' that sounds natural. That sounds like old times.' " March 1st, 1888, he requested, ' Throw off this rug,' referring to a loose fur-lined cloak which I wore. I ... weeks after re- called that he bad once, while living, spoken of it in the same way as I threw it over him on the lounge. February 18th, 18S7, T. remarked, ' I like your arrangement here,' referring to a new gown by a term which he was wont to use. " March 2nd, 1887, came this : ' I never knew you had a little sister here. She tells me she has been here a long time, ever 408 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV since she was a little toddling baby.' Certainly not I [from whose mind it could be read on the hypothesis of " telepathy from the sitter." H.H.], nor Mrs. P., who has children of her own, would speak of a four months old child as a ' toddling baby.' It is more thinkable of a man who, like T., never knew anything of young children. " I have received from T., dictated through Mrs. P. to her husband and sent me by post, seven letters at intervals . . . each contains familiar allusions and the old-time opening and closing phrases, either of which is too long and individual to have been merely chanced upon. The post-office address of the first is worth mention. Mrs. P. had learned from me neither name nor residence On November 16th, 1886, Dr. P. told me that T. was dictating a letter to me. ' How will you address it ? ' I asked. ' T. knows your address and will give it to the medium.' November 29th, a friend, who had been sitting with Mrs. P., brought me word that the promised letter had been mailed to Miss Nellie Wilson, Care David Wilson, Beading, Mass. " By applying at the post-office at Heading I was able to ob- tain the letter. I alter the names, but these points may be noted : " 1. My surname is given correctly. " 2. I have a cousin, David Wilson, of whose relationship and friendship T. was well aware. His home, however, has always been in New York. "3. Heading was my home during my childhood and youth, but I removed from it thirteen years ago. I knew T. only sub- sequent to that removal. " 4. While living there I wrote my name with the diminutive, Nellie, but since then have preferred to write my baptismal name Ella, or merely the initial E. T. was wont to use the initials merely. " At my next sitting, November 30th, I inquired about this mongrel address. ' T. was not strong enough,' [differences of clearness are often attributed to differences of " strength " in the communicating " spirit." H.H.] said Phinuit, ' to direct where the letter should be sent, but he thought your cousin David would attend to your getting it. Your other friends here [in the " spirit world." H.H.] helped us on the rest of the ad- dress.' ' But they would not tell you to send to Reading.' ' Yes, they would, they did. It was Mary told us that.' ' Nonsense,' said I, thinking of a sister of that name. ' Not Mary in the body. Mary in the spirit.' ' But I have no such friend.' ' Yes, you have. It was Mary L. Mary E. Mary E. Parker told us that.' I then recalled a little playmate of that name, a next door neighbor, who moved away from Reading when I was ten years old, and of whose death I learned a few years later. I had Ch. XXIX] Hodgson's First Sitting 409 scarcely thought of her for twenty years. The ' E.' in the name I hare not verified." The address of this letter proves one of six things, or some seventh thing unimaginable in the present state of our know- ledge. Of the five possible solutions which will the reader who does not prefer to suspend his judgment, accept as strain- ing the probabilities least? Each strains them some. They are: (I) Mrs. Piper fooled somebody. The solution is out of date. (II) Mrs. Piper patched together reminiscences lying latent in Miss Wilson's mind, and unknown to her supralim- inal self. (Ill) Mrs. Piper had tapped incarnate minds other than Miss Wilson's. (IV) Mrs. Piper had an inflow from the cosmic consciousness (an idea which everybody men- tions with respect but nobody has yet tried persistently to apply) of knowledge which had once been part of Miss Wil- son's individuality, but had lost that connection, though re- connectable with her mind or any mind under favorable cir- cumstances. The "favorable circumstances," so far as we can guess, were a desire somewhere in that cosmic mind, presumably in the portion of it constituting a postcarnate Mr. T. (for there is no apparent reason for inferring such a desire in Mrs. Piper's mind: that could only be a desire to humbug, and, as already said, is out of date), to address a letter to Miss W., and a successful (sufficiently successful) search for her address among other portions of that mind. (V) The spiritistic theory as usually held, which may not extravagantly be considered included in IV. No one of these hypotheses is very satisfactory, but we in- crease knowledge mainly by unsatisfactory hypotheses which farther knowledge sometimes modifies until they become sat- isfactory. R. Hodgson. First Sitting. May Ith, 1887. (Pr.yiTI,60.) [From notes made on return to my rooms immediately after the sitting.] " Phinuit began, after the usual introduction, by describing [correctly. H.H.] members of my family Phinuit tried to get a name beginning with ' R,' but failed. [A little sister of mine, named Rebecca, died when I was very young, I think less than eighteen months old.] " Phinuit mentioned the name ' Fred.' I said that it might be my cousin. ' He says you went to school together. He goes on 410 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV jumping-frogs, and laughs. He says he used to get the better of you. He had convulsive movements before his death, strug- gles. He went off in a sort of spasm. You were not there.' [My cousin Fred far excelled any other person that I have seen in the games of leap-frog, fly the garter, etc. He took very long flying jumps, and whenever he played, the game was lined by crowds of schoolmates to watch him. He injured his spine in a gymnasium . . . lingered for a fortnight, with occasional spas- modic convulsions, in one of which he died.] Phinuit described a lady, in general terms, dark hair, dark eyes, slim figure, etc., and said she was much closer to me than any other person : that she ' died slowly It was a great pain to both of you that you weren't there. She would have sent you a message, if she had known she was going. She had two rings ; one was buried with her body; the other ought to have gone to you. The second part of her first name is sie.' [True, with the exception of the statement about the rings, which may or may not be true No ring ever passed between the lady and myself After trying in vain to ' hear distinctly ' the first part of the name, Phinuit gave up the attempt, and asked me what the first name was. I told him. I shall refer to it afterwards as ' Q.'] " At Hodgson's second sitting, November 18th, 1887, Phinuit referred to the beautiful teeth of "Q." and Hodgson says: " < Q.'s ' teeth were not beautiful." R. Hodgson. Fourth Sitting. December th, 1887. (Pr.VIII,63f.) " Information purporting to have been received from ' Q.' The chief new matter was : "(a) That I had given her a book, 'Dr. Phinuit' thinks, of poems, and I had written her name in it, in connection with her birthday. [Correct.] "(6) . . . [Correct. This includes a reference to circumstances under which I had a very special conversation with ' Q.' I think it impossible that ' Q.' could have spoken of this to any other person. It occurred in Australia in 1875.] "(c) That she 'left the body' in England, and that I was across the country. [This is incorrect. ' Q.' died in Australia. I was in England.]" Here (a) and (&) go strongly for telepathy from the sitter, and (c) goes just as strongly against it. " He referred to a church to which both ' Q.' and myself used to go, and then asked if it was in ' Hanover Square.' I replied, No, whereupon he told me not to note anything until he got it ' clearer.' " ' Dr. Phinuit ' then charged me with weighing too much who he was, where he came from, etc., while he was trying to Ch. XXIX] Hannah Wilde, J. F. Brown, " Aunt Kate " 411 give me information, and said that this harassed and confused him. I should, he said, be as ' negative ' as possible during the sitting. [The charge was justified, as I had actually drifted into the consideration of what Phinuit was, etc.] " This series of sittings continued the famous (?) Hannah Wilde communications (Pr. VIII, 69-84), which included a vast number of things that were so, and one apparently most important thing, that was not, namely, a letter written by Phinuit which purported to be a copy of a sealed letter left by Miss Wilde, and had no relation whatever to it. See the sim- ilar case of the Myers letter. Chapter XLI. There are some sittings of which Hodgson says (Pr. VIII, 85): " Mr. John F. Brown, a member of our Society . . . writes to me on February 20th, 1891, that he is fully convinced that Mrs. Piper's dealings with him have been false and fraudulent throughout. His opinion, I believe, is that Mrs. Piper pretends to go into trance, proceeds by guesswork, questioning, etc., and adds such information as she has been able to obtain by secret inquiry beforehand concerning the sitters. I understand that he attributes importance to the details of all his visits to Mrs. Piper, and his accounts are therefore given in full." All that about "secret inquiry" now seems ludicrous. I quote this allusion and a few others of the same kind to show both sides. I have read over Mr. Brown's details, and find them more interesting than I fear he did, but less inter- esting than some others which would better occupy our limited space than this, for instance (Pr. VIII, 92-3) : " 5, Boylston-place, March 6th, 1889. " Mr. Robertson James has just called here on return from a sitting with Mrs. P., during which he was informed by Mrs. P. entranced that ' Aunt Kate ' had died about 2 or 2.30 in the morning. Aunt Kate was also referred to as Mrs. Walsh. " Mrs. Walsh has been ill for some time and has been ex- pected during the last few days to die at any hour. This is written before any despatch has been received informing of the death, in presence of the following: " RICHARD HODGSON. " WILLIAM JAMES. " ROBERTSON JAMES. " On reaching home an hour later I found a telegram as follows : ' Aunt Kate passed away a few minutes after mid- night. E. R. WALSH.' "(Signed) WM. JAMES. 412 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV , " Mrs. William James, who accompanied Mr. Kobertson James to the sitting on March 6th, writes as follows: " 18, Garden-street, CAMBRIDGE, March 28th, 1889. " Concerning the sitting mentioned above on March 6th, I may add that the ' control ' said, when mentioning that Aunt Kate had died, that I would find ' a letter or telegram ' when I got home, saying she was gone. " ALICE H. JAMES. " July, 1890. "It may be worth while to add that early at this sitting I inquired, ' How is Aunt Kate ? ' The reply was, ' She is poorly.' This reply disappointed me, from its baldness. Nothing more was said about Aunt Kate till towards the close of the sitting, when I again said, ' Can you tell me nothing more about Aunt Kate?' The medium suddenly threw back her head and said in a startled way, ' Why, Aunt Kate's here. All around me I hear voices saying, " Aunt Kate has come." ' Then followed the announcement that she had died very early that morning, and on being pressed to give the time, shortly after two was named. " A. H. J." And here is a manifestation eight months after Mrs. Walsh's death, of a control claiming her name and impersonating her. The reader will probably agree that Hodgson was a pretty good reporter, and that if Mrs. Piper was not really " pos- sessed " (by a cosmic inflow of Mrs. Walsh's personality?) Mrs. Piper or her subliminal self, whatever that may mean, was a pretty good dramatic author and actress. R. Hodgson. November 1th, 1889. (Pr.VIII,93-4.) [From a letter written to Professor W. James on the day of the sitting.] " Mrs. D. and I had sitting to-day at Arlington Heights, and the usurpation by ' Kate Walsh ' was extraordinary. She (Mrs. Piper) had got hold of my hands, and I had to make a few fragmentary notes afterwards of the remarks, themselves frag- mentary, which she made. The personality seemed very intense, and spoke in effortful whispers. "' William William God bless you.' Sitter: 'Who are you?' 'Kate Walsh.' S. 'I know you.' 'Help me help me ' [Taking [i.e., Mrs. Piper "taking," &c. H.H.] my right hand with her right, and passing it to her left and making me take hold of her left hand.] ' That hand's dead dead this one's alive ' [i.e., the right] ' help me.' " The left hand . . . was cooler than either of my hands, while the right hand was warmer than either of my hands [the im- plication being that Mrs. Piper was possessed by Mrs. Walsh. H.H.] Ch. XXIX] "Aunt Kate" Continued 413 " ' I'm alive I'm alive Albert's coming over soon. He can't stay poor boy poor boy Albert Albert Alfred Albert I know you Alice Alice William Alice ' S. ' Yes, I know. I'll tell them. You remember me. I stayed with you in New York.' ' Yes, I know. But, oh, I can't remember. I'm so cold I'm so cold. Oh, help me help me' [making tremulous movements of hands]. S. ' I know. I'll tell them. You remem- bor me ; my name's Hodgson.' ' Yes. Mr. Hodgson. Where are the girls? Yes. You had fish for breakfast on the second day, didn't you ? ' S. ' I don't remember very well.' ' And the tea who was it spilt the cup of tea? Was it you or William?' [I think I remember something about the tea, but not very clearly. R.H.] ' You were in the corner room bedroom upstairs. Were you cold? Then there was some blancmange you didn't like that. No. It was cream Bavarian cream. [Is all this Mrs. Piper, or is it Shakspere, or is it the spirit of a fussy old lady? H.H.] Albert poor boy; he's coming soon. William [something about arranging the property] William God bless him.' " The above was much less than was really said. But that was the sort of thing, and nothing a la mode Phinuit at all. It was the most strikingly personal thing I have seen." This, some commentators want us to believe, was " another personality" of Mrs. Piper if Phinuit was. Four in the case of Sally Beauchamp are well established, and eleven in the case of Dr. Wilson's patient (Pr. XVIII). I wonder how many Dr. Prince would consider a probable number, and at what number the spiritistic hypothesis would begin to appear easier than the divided personality one. James thus commented on Hodgson's letter (Pr. VIII, 94) : " The ' Kate Walsh ' freak is very interesting. The first men- tion of her by Phinuit was when she was living, three years or more ago, when she had written to my wife imploring her not to sit for development [i.e., as a medium. H.H.]. Phinuit knew this in some incomprehensible way. A year later [in a sitting] with Margaret Qibbens [sister of Mrs. James], I present, Phi- nuit alluded jocosely to this fear of hers again, and made some derisive remarks about her unhappy marriage, calling her an ' old crank,' etc. Her death was announced last spring, as you remember. In September, sitting with me and my wife, Mrs. Piper was suddenly ' controlled ' by her spirit, who spoke directly with much impressiveness of manner, and great similarity of temperament to herself. Platitudes. She said Henry Wyckoff had experienced a change, and that Albert was coming over soon ; nothing definite about either. Queer business ! " 414: Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV (7. W . F. } M.D. Providence, R. I., May 11th, 1889. (Pr.VIH,98f .) [Extracts from a letter to James.] [The sittings] " rather force me to believe that Dr. P. is not a fictitious personage Dr. P. has partially forgotten his French, so far as speaking it goes, yet I am convinced that he understands all that I say in that language, and that Mrs. P. does not, from my tests of her capacity, and she impresses me as being a truly honest woman " Q. : ' How long do you think I shall live? ' (He had pretty well described my physical condition.) He answered this ques- tion by counting in French on the medium's fingers to eleven. Q. : ' What influence has my mind on what you tell me ? ' A. : ' I get nothing from your mind; I can't read your mind any more than I can see through a stone wall.' He added that he saw objectively the persons of whom he spoke to me, and that they conveyed to him the messages given The names of several persons he called up he spelt in French, as Robert, not being able, seemingly, to pronounce them well in English. . . . ' How do you get what you tell me about myself; my length of life, my going to Europe, etc. ? ' A. : ' I get it from your astral light.' [He generally says from spirits. H.H.] . . . The doctor has em- phasized my own mediumistic power at each seance, and has said that I would surely write. ' Get a planchette, and I will come to your own house as a test.' " As already said, and probably will be said again, people with mediumistic aptitudes get good sittings. A good illustration of the fallibility of the communications isinPr. VIII, 114: Miss A. A.B., Boston. January or February, 1888. " I went to Mrs. Piper chiefly to see if she could tell me of some china we had lost. It had been stored during a long ab- sence in Europe, and upon our return we could not find it She said, ' You have lost some china, and you feel very badly about it. It was taken from your home by a man who has been in the employ of your family a long time ' Several months after Mrs. Piper told me this, the china was found precisely where it was first placed, and where it had been overlooked, as the box was believed to contain something else." Apparently telepathy of the sitter's suspicion. And here are two of the reverse (Pr. VIII, 115) : " ' Did you ever own a bird ? ' ' Yes.' ' It is a parrot, and is flying all about your head now.' ' Do birds, then, have another life?' 'I tell you this anything that you have had here and want there again, you will have. You will have that parrot again.' I never owned but one bird, and that was a gray parrot." Ch. XXIX] Revs. W. H. and M. J. Savage 415 The dramatic character of the second makes it a double strain on the telepathic theory (Pr. VIII, 104f.) : Rev. W. H. Savage. December 28th, 1888. " ' Ah ! Here is somebody from outside he says his name is Robert West. He wants to send a message to your brother.' Then, after a moment, ' I wrote an he is writing it and I am reading for you an AR TI article A G A against his W work in the AD V Advance. What the dickens is the Ad- vance f ' I said, ' It is a paper.' Then she continued, ' I thought he was wrong, but he was right, and I repent, he was right. I want you to tell him for me. I am sorry 1 want to right all the wrong I did in the body.' I said to her, ' Can you see him ? ' ' Yes,' she replied. ' How does he look ? ' I asked. ' He has grayish blue eyes, a beard, a rather prominent nose, a firm mouth, a large forehead, and he brushed his hair up, so,' brush- ing my hair with her hand, to show the fashion of his. ' He is of medium build, rather tall. He died of hemorrhage of the kidneys.' . . . The description of Mr. West is photographic in its truth. His appearance at our interview was entirely unheralded by anything leading up to it " Mr. M. J. Savage writes on June 26th, 1890 : " Mr. West . . . became editor of The Advance. While on that paper he wrote a severe criticism on me, my doctrines, and my work. My brother had not seen this criticism, and did not even know about it. " Neither of us knew the cause of his death. On writing to The Advance, after this sitting, the correctness of Mrs. Piper's statement as to his death was confirmed. " Mr. W. H. Savage further writes July 5th, 1890: " 1. When Mrs. P. began speaking of Mr. West, she turned with a surprised look, as at an unlocked for interruption, with the remark, ' Ah ! here is, etc.' [as above. H.H.] " 2. When I asked for a description she turned again in the same direction and said, ' Hold up your head and let me look at you.' Then she went on to describe as given in the statement. " 3. She gave the date of death correctly, as well as cause. " 4. I did not know that West was dead. " 5. As my brother says, I had never heard of the attack on my brother of which the interview speaks." Rev. M. J. Savage. January 15th, 1889 (Pr.VIII.105f.) " On January 15th, 1889, the Rev. M. J. Savage had a sitting with Mrs. Piper, in the course of which Rev. Robert West pur- ported to communicate, stating that his body was buried at Alton, 111., and giving the text on his tombstone. Mr. Savage was unaware of either of these facts at the time of the sitting. He soon afterwards ascertained that Rev. Robert West's grave was at Alton, 111., but he did not ascertain the text on the tomb- stone. He recently informed me of the circumstance, and I 416 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV have since obtained from Mr. J. A. Cousley, editor of the Daily Telegraph, Alton, 111., a copy of the inscriptions on the tomb- stone. I requested Mr. Savage then to furnish me with the text which had been given to him through Mrs. Piper. Yester- day he found his notes made on the day of the sitting, and read me the text, which agreed with that sent to me from Alton viz., ' Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord/ R. HODGSON. " The above is correct. (Signed) M. J. SAVAGE. " July 25th, 1890." The following, if genuine (and there seems no more reason to doubt it than any other Piper manifestation), looks more like a case of "possession" than perhaps any other case of hers: Miss A. M. R. (Pr.VIII,lllf.) " BOSTON, February Tilth, 1888. " At the first sitting I tried to get some information regarding a friend who had then been dead about three months. I was told by Dr. Phinuit . . . that I probably would not get anything satisfactory for some time, and was advised to wait about eight months. At the expiration of that time I sat again, and at the third sitting from that time (I think my dates are correct) the medium was controlled for a few minutes during the hour by what purported to be the spirit of my friend who, however, seemed to have such imperfect control that he could only speak in a choked, whispering voice. At the next sitting he was stronger, and now is able to take control and talk easily and distinctly for perhaps half an hour. I have received the impres- sion, from what has been told me through the medium, that for some months after the death of my friend he did not sufficiently understand the conditions of his new existence, or the conditions under which he could return, to be able to reach me through any medium." " BOSTON, December Vlth, 1888. " He used to be lame He has often said to me, ' You know my lame leg ; well, it is all well now.' ... He tried very hard [i.e., acting through the medium. H.H.] to raise himself from the chair without succeeding at first. I told him he had better not try, as it might be too much for the medium. He in- sisted on trying, however, but commenced rubbing one leg, and asked me if I could remember which leg was lame. [This strange sort of ignorance is very characteristic of " controls." H.H.] At last he raised himself, but instead of walking, as Dr. P[hinuit] would do, he leaned heavily on me, and seemed to hop or hitch along on one foot exactly as a person would do who could use only one foot in walking. After he came back, he dropped into the chair exhausted, and said that was the hardest work he had done since coming back, and that it was too much Ch. XXIX] Miss A. M. E.'s Lame Control 417 of the real life for him; he did not like it He says that his spiritual body was not lame, but that he had to come back that way so I would recognize him " " BOSTON, June 23rd, 1890. " At each sitting I have conversed with two personalities, Dr. P., the regular control, and the control which claims to be the spirit of my friend H When my friend H. takes control of the medium it seems to be quite a different personality, although there is something in the voice or manner of speaking that is like Dr. P. The voice, however, is not nearly so loud. When I asked him once why this was, he told me that Dr. P. was right by him and that he could not stay a moment without his help. In a great many little ways he is quite like what my friend used to be when living, so much so that I am afraid it would take a great deal of explanation to make me believe that his identical self had not something to do with it. ... This, too, in spite of the fact that he does not always know how to spell his own name correctly, though I am happy to be able to state that he cer- tainly knows what his name is. He says the longer he is away the more he forgets about things in this life, though he does not forget his friends He insists that he can see me in my room, and often knows what I am doing. At one time he asked me how I liked that little drab-colored book that I had been reading with another person. There was a particular book which I had been reading aloud with a friend, but it was covered with brown paper, as I remember, and I had no idea what the cloth cover was. On reaching home I took off the paper cover, and found that it was a drab-colored cloth cover. I may have seen the book when new, and before the paper cover was put on, but if I did I had completely forgotten about it." These subliminal memories are frequent. The mediums often get them contrary to the supraliminal convictions of the sitters. Do they get them from the sitter's mind, or have they passed into the cosmic mind via postcarnate souls ? This account concludes (Pr. VIII, 113-4) : " When I talk with H. about the philosophy of spirit return, he always seems more or less puzzled, and generally refers me to Dr. P., saying that he knows more about such things. He hardly knew at first what I meant by the medium, but says that he has for the time being another organism, and that is about all he knows. When he asked me why I did not come oftener to see him, I explained to him, somewhat as I would to a child, that the medium was not always at command, and that I had to pay money for a sitting with her. He said, ' I am an expensive article, then ? ' I replied, ' Yes, you spirits are quite expensive articles.' " 418 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pi IV Mr. F. 8. 8. (Pr.Vin,119.) "(Question: Well, Sarah is her middle name. What is her other? Could not answer.) [Phinuit says (H.H.)] ' She is dif- ferent from your mother; has very original ways of thinking, and ideas. She is very positive; set as the hills; and doesn't believe <in me. She is a crank, and so am I, but she will have to be a good deal bigger than she is to scare me.'. . . My aunt had given several sittings to [had several with? H.H.] Mrs. P., but with no success; hence she had become somewhat skeptical ; hence the medium's words, ' She does not believe in me.' Mrs. P. had no possible means of associating my aunt and me, to my knowledge." Mr. M. N. (Pr.VIII,120f.) " Briefly stated, the three cases of prophesying which I have experienced with Mrs. Piper, and which have come true, are as follows : " She told me that a death of a near relative of mine would occur in about six weeks, from which I should realize some pecuniary advantages. . . . My wife, to whom I was then en- gaged, went to see Mrs. Piper a few days afterwards, and she told her (my wife) that my father would die in a few weeks. " About the middle of May my father died very suddenly in London Previous to this Mrs. Piper (as Dr. Phinuit) had told me that she would endeavor to influence my father about certain matters connected with his will before he died. Two days after I received the cable announcing his death, my wife and I went to see Mrs. Piper, and she [Phinuit] spoke of his presence, and his sudden arrival in the spirit-world, and said that he (Dr. Phinuit) had endeavored to persuade him in those matters while my father was sick. Dr. Phinuit told me the state of the will, and described the principal executor, and said that he (the executor) would make a certain disposition in my favor, subject to the consent of the two other executors, when I got to London, Eng. Three weeks afterwards I arrived in Lon- don; found the principal executor to be the man Dr. Phinuit had described. The will went materially as he had stated . . . and my sister, who was chiefly at my father's bedside the last three days of his life, told me that he had repeatedly complained of the presence of an old man at the foot of his bed, who annoyed him by discussing his private affairs. " The second instance I would give you is as follows : " Dr. Phinuit stated that I would receive a professional offer within two weeks by letter, to my present address, with the name of the manager's firm on the left hand corner of the envelope, and (as far as I could understand him) either from a man named French, or else from a Frenchman. Within the time stated the letter came, answering to the description of its appear- ance, and to this address, but the offer was from a Frenchman. Ch. XXIX] Mr. J. Rogers Rich 419 " The third is as follows: " Dr. Phinuit stated on one occasion that some relative was suffering at that time from a sore or wounded thumb. We knew of no one at the time Shortly after this conversation my aunt stated that she had received a letter from cousins ' Oh, by- the-bye . . . Jennie has . . . injured her thumb in some machine.' . . . Dr. Phinuit cured me, or apparently did so, by a prescription sent me by Mrs. Piper, of an internal trouble from which I had suffered for eighteen months." The following report (Pr. VIII, 126f.) by Mr. J. Rogers Rich, made from contemporary notes of the sittings, is among the best, and illustrates (by the converse) what has been re- marked more than once that scientific (and consequently skeptical?) people do not make the best sitters. This artist made an admirable one. " I had always had a dislike for any ' mediums ' or ' spiritual- ists ' of every kind, but on meeting this woman I was at once attracted to her by the simple and sympathetic manner which she showed on greeting me, and I felt a delicacy about making an appointment for a sitting, she seeming to me too gentle and refined for a business of this sort. I was at once struck with the peculiar light, or inward look, in her eyes. Her voice was full and agreeable, but in every way a 'feminine' voice, and there was an entire absence of any masculinity in her manner, which I had been expecting to find under the circumstances. " My first sitting with her was on September 6th, 1888. With little trouble she went into the trance . . . and after a moment's silence ... I was startled by the remarkable change in her voice an exclamation, a sort of grunt of satisfaction, as if the person had reached his destination and gave vent to his pleasure thereat by this sound, uttered in an unmistakably male voice, but rather husky. I was at once addressed in French with, ' Bonjour, Mon- sieur, comment vous portez vous ? ' to which I gave answer in the same language, with which I happen to be perfectly familiar. My answer was responded to with a sort of inquiring grunt, much like the French ' Hein ? '. . . Nearly all my interviews were begun in the same manner. ... I was quite unwell with nervous troubles The first thing told me was of a ' great light behind me, a good sign,' &c. Then suddenly all my ills were very clearly and distinctly explained and so thoroughly that I felt certain that Mrs. Piper herself would have hesitated to use such plain language! Prescriptions were given to me for the purchase of herbs, and the manner of preparing them My profession (painting) was described, and my particular talents and manner- isms in design were mentioned My mother was clearly de- scribed ! She was ' beside me, dressed as in her portrait (painted 420 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV a year or two before her death), and wearing a certain cameo pin, the portrait of my father.' " "Second Sitting on October 5th . . . The 'Doctor' told me of my niece being frequently 'in my surroundings,' and that she was then at my side. Up to this time I had not heard my name mentioned, so I asked for it from my niece. The ' Doctor ' was again puzzled and said, ' What a funny name wait, I can- not go so fast ! ' Then my entire name was correctly spelt out but entirely with the French alphabet, each separate letter being clearly pronounced in that language. My niece had been born, lived most of her short life, and died in France. Then the attempt to pronounce my name was amusing finally calling me ' Thames Rowghearce Reach.' The ' Doctor ' never called me after that anything but ' Reach.' " It is now time for a comment on Hodgson's expressions on p. 404 regarding Phinuit's French. Between there and here they have been traversed more than once, this time, I think, pretty strongly : for the spelling of a name " entirely with the French alphabet, each separate letter being clearly pronounced in that language," is a feat that few English-speaking students could accomplish, because the matter is of little con- sequence, and generally neglected. I have been in France some, and have translated two French books without incurring critical censure that I am aware of, and yet that feat would be far beyond me. Mr. Rich's farther remarks on this subject at the close of his account are the most important which it has evoked (Pr. VIII, 131) : "One day Mrs. Piper pointed to a plain gold ring on my finger and said: ' C'est une alliance, how you call that? A wed- ding ring, n'est-ce pas ? ' This was true. Now if Mrs. Piper had learned French at school here [which she did not or any- where else. H.H.] she would most probably have called this ring * un anneau de marriage,' and not have given it the technical name ' alliance.' I several times carried on a short conversation in French, making my observations in that language and receiv- ing answers in the same, but which were always curt, and ended with an expressed wish in broken English not ' to bodder about French but to speak in English.' I made use, too, of certain slang expressions which were apparently perfectly understood but answered in English, though correctly." But to return to Mr. Rich's earlier record (Pr. VIII, 128-9) : Ch. XXIX] Mr. Rich's Friend Newell 421 "November 8th. . . . A friend's sister had met with a loss by fire, and wished to see what could be done towards tracing the incendiary. This lady had a habit of coloring or bleaching her hair, of which she had sent a lock as a test. 'Dr. Phinuit' at first refused to touch the hair, saying that it was 'dead and devilish ! ' As I knew nothing whatever of the persons con- nected with the fire, I noted down the descriptions given, which tallied perfectly with that of the parties suspected, as I after- wards learned. . . . Breaking into the run of conversation, the ' Doctor ' of a sudden said, ' Hullo, here's Newell ! ' (mentioning the name of a friend who had died some months before). ' Newell ' is a substitute for the real name. I should add that ' Newell ' had frequently purported to communicate directly with his mother through Mrs. Piper at previous sittings, but this was the first time that any intimation of his presence was given to me. I was totally unprepared for this, and said, ' Who did you say ? ' The name was repeated with a strong foreign accent, and in the familiar voice and tone of the ' Doctor.' Then there seemed for a moment to be a mingling of voices as if in dispute, followed by silence and heavy breathing of the medium. All at once I was astonished to hear, in an entirely different tone and in the purest English accent, ' Well, of all persons under the sun, Rogers Rich, what brought you here? I'm glad to see you, old fellow? How is X and T and Z, and all the boys at the club?' Some names were given which I knew of, but their owners I had never met, and so reminded my friend ' Newell,' who recalled that he followed me in college by some years and that all his acquaintances were younger than I. I remarked an odd movement of the medium while under this influence; she apparently was twirling a mustache, a trick which my friend formerly practised much." Now if all this drama is telepathy, it certainly is not of the " common or garden variety," and if " Newell " is a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper, it is one of hundreds of instances of that woman having secondary personalities who are men. I have read accounts of a good many undoubted cases of sec- ondary personality, and have yet to read one where the sex was crossed. Aren't these interpretations growing to look a little absurd ? Mr. Rich now gets back to Phinuit's prescription (Pr. VIII, 129-30) : " I had been following the treatment prescribed by the ' Doc- tor,' and had prepared at my home the herbs, etc., according to his orders, as I thought. But I found that the medicine had not the effect promised and so told him. The answer was that it was 422 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV my fault for ' they were not properly prepared.' I assured him that they were, whereat he said that ' that old nigger . . . had not followed my directions, had used the wrong proportions, had for- gotten to watch the cooking, and was a fool anyway ! ' On in- quiry I found this to be the fact, for she had understood me to say a quart instead of a pint, and confessed to having forgotten the mixture and allowed it to boil down but ' thought it wouldn't make any difference.' " A lock of hair belonging to a friend who is quite noted for his amusing self-conceit was greeted with a laugh and recognized as belonging to ' His Koyal Highness,' or the ' Duke B,' calling him by his real name and attaching the titles by way of ' chaff.' " Some prophecies were made to ' occur soon,' but I regret to say that the ' Doctor's ' idea of ' soonness ' and mine differ greatly for they are not yet fulfilled. " June 3rd, 1889. My ninth sitting. This time I asked to communicate with my friend ' Newell,' previously referred to in my fourth sitting. The ' Doctor ' said, * I'll send for him,' and kept on talking with me for a while. Then he said, ' Here's Newell, and he wants to talk with you " Reach," so I'll go about my business whilst you are talking with him, and will come back again later.' Then followed a confusion of words, but I clearly heard the voice of the ' Doctor ' saying : ' Here, Newell, you come by the hands while I go out by the feet,' which apparently being accomplished in the proper manner, my name was called clearly as ' Rogers, old fellow ! ' without a sign of accent [Remember that "Phinuit" always pronounced it with an accent. H.H.] and the same questions put as to how were the ' fellows at the club.' My hand was cordially shaken [by the medium. H.H.], and I remarked the same movement of twisting the mustache, which was kept up by Mrs. Piper during the interview. ' Newell ' spoke of a ' pastel ' which I was drawing . . . and described the pleasure he had in watching me do it. He told me of certain private family affairs which I knew to be correct. Finally he bade me good-by. Before going he spoke to me of his ' present life,' and told me that he was writing a poem ; that he was now pursuing his literary studies with the greatest pleasure, &c., &c. ' But,' he said, ' was I not sick, and did I not suffer before I left you all? Why, the leaving of the material body, Rogers, is ter- rible. It is like tearing limb from limb; but once free, how happy one is.' When ' Newell ' left me there was the usual dis- turbance in the medium's condition, and then the resumption of the familiar voice, accent and mannerisms of Dr. Phinuit." The Doctor's remark: "Here, Newell, you come by the hands while I go out by the feet " has haunted me since I first read it many years ago, and for several reasons. Ch. XXIX] Sympathetic Ganglia. The Dog Grover 423 The hypnotists have found a peculiar sensibility in the pit of the stomach, near the sympathetic ganglia. Their subjects and some somnambulists appear to hear and see from there. And there are suggestive accounts of its being the place of entrance and exit of the soul or astral (?) body suggestive because it is near the umbilicus, where the foetus derives its nutriment from the mother. Whatever that may amount to, it seems absurd that the hands, and of all things the feet, should be the avenues of spiritual entrance and exit; but in the light of our inherited preconceptions, a good many things uncovered by " psychical research " have seemed absurd, and yet some of them have, in time, become quite matters of course. It has already ineffectually taken me nearly twenty years to get over the feet and what they suggest. They have been one reason why I do not care to visit mediums. I don't want any of the souls I love coming to me through a stranger's body, especially the inferior members of such a body. Phinuit, however, does not appear to have been a very finical person, and as a medical man he is presumably to be credited with superiority to many of a layman's prejudices. But with all my objections to the passage, isn't it as dra- matic as Falstaff or Pistol ? I don't see how one can read it without laughing at the idea that telepathy can be made to cover the whole case. For myself, its dramatic quality so far tends to overcome its coarseness and apparent absurdity, that, commonplace as it is, it stands high among the phenomena that weigh with me for the spiritistic hypothesis and almost equally high with those that weigh against it. It would stand higher still in the latter class if it were not so magnificently in keeping with delightful old Phinuit. I'm sorry for any reader of the Proceedings who does not enjoy him with the two gentlemen I named before him. Mr. Rich continues (Pr. VIII, 130) : " Then I produced a dog's collar. After some handling of it the ' Doctor ' recognized it as belonging to a dog which I had once owned. I asked ' If there were dogs where he was ? ' ' Thousands of them ! ' and he said he would try to attract the attention of my dog with this collar. In the midst of our con- versation he suddenly exclaimed, ' There ! I think he knows you are here, for I see [him] coming from away off ! ' He then de- 424 Hodgson's First Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV scribed my collie perfectly, and said, ' You call him, Reach,' and I gave my whistle by which I used to call him. ' Here he comes ! Oh, how he jumps! There he is now, jumping upon and around you. So glad to see you! Rover! Rover! No G-rover, Grover ! That's his name ! ' The dog was once called Rover, but his name was changed to Grover in 1884, in honor of the election of Grover Cleveland." This too is perhaps telepathy ! Or are we on the brink of finding that a woman's secondary selves are not only men, and by the hundred, but sometimes dogs ? The only demonstration necessary would be for Mrs. Piper to try to bark. Mr. Rich continues (p. 130) : "A child was constantly beside me and in my surroundings. It was attracted to me and had much influence over me : 'It is a blood relation, a sister.' I denied this to hare ever been a fact for I never had a sister and never heard of one. The answer came : ' I know that, you were never told of it. The birth was premature, the child dead, born some years before you were. Go and ask your aunts to prove it.' On questioning an aunt who had been always a member of our family, I learned that such had been the case, and that by the time I came into the world the affair had been forgotten and there had never been a reason for informing me of the circumstances, proving that I in no way had any intimation of it, and that this communication could not be explained by thought-transference or the like." Note that though Mr. Rich was a grown man, this sister, born several years before he was, appeared to Phinuit as a child. Similar anomalies in regard to even stillborn children appear several times in the reports. It is no explanation of them to say that they are inconsistent with the spiritistic hypothesis. We may yet find that they are not. Either way, they await explanation. Generally the controls appear as having grown, and in long series of sittings (see Junot Series, Chapter XLIX) as growing. Mr. Rich remarks (p. 131) : " Although the ' prophecies ' of the ' Doctor ' were not fulfilled at the time I understood him to mean as ' in the spring ' or ' in the fall,' I have since found several of these things come true, and in the season which he mentioned, but not that year in which he led me to expect them to be realized." Barring some comparatively insignificant matters, this Ch. XXIX] Chronology of Reports 425 closes the sittings previous to Mrs. Piper's departure for Eng- land late in 1889. We will now turn to her sittings there, reported in Pr. VI, and then give a brief glance back to Pr. VIII, where Hodgson gives those from her return in the spring of 1890 through 1891 CHAPTER XXX MRS. PIPER'S ENGLISH SITTINGS, 1889-90 THESE were held under the supervision of Sir Oliver Lodge and Dr. Walter Leaf, and the report of them has an introduc- tion by Myers, and is followed by a statement of impressions of Mrs. Piper by James. All these experts expressed perfect confidence in the honesty of the medium, and that the phe- nomena were not explicable by any agency yet known to science. Sir Oliver Lodge says (Pr. VI, 445) : " The details given of my family are just such as one might imagine obtained by a perfect stranger surrounded by the whole of one's relations in a group and able to converse freely but hastily with one after the other; not knowing them and being rather confused with their number and half-understood mes- sages and personalities, and having a special eye to their phys- ical weaknesses and defects. A person in a hurry thus trying to tell a stranger as much about his friends as he could in this way gather would seem to me to be likely to make much the same kind of communication as was actually made to me." With rather more confusion, one gets this impression con- stantly in reading the hundreds of pages of such reports, and it reminds me, and probably many, of frequent similar im- pressions in dreams, which naturally awakens the notion of inflow of more or less confused material from the cosmic mind. Touching Phinuit, Sir Oliver Lodge says (Pr. VI, 448f.) : " The name is useful as expressing compactly what is naturally prominent to the feeling of any sitter, that he is not talking to Mrs. Piper at all. The manner, mode of thought, tone, trains of idea, are all different. You are speaking no longer to a lady but to a man, an old man, a medical man. All this cannot but be vividly felt even by one who considered the impersonation a consummate piece of acting. " Whether such a man as Dr. Phinuit ever existed I do not know, nor from the evidential point of view do I greatly care It can be objected, why if he was a French doctor has he so en- 426 Ch. XXX] Sir Oliver Lodge on Phinuit 427 tirely forgotten his French? [But he has not. See p. 420. H.H.] ... I am unable to meet this objection, by anything beyond the obvious suggestion that Mrs. Piper's brain is the medium util- ized, and that she is likewise ignorant. But one would think that it would be a sufficiently patent objection to deter an im- personator from assuming a role of purely unnecessary diffi- culty " Admitting, however, that ' Dr. Phinuit ' is probably a mere name for Mrs. Piper's secondary consciousness, one cannot help being struck by the singular correctness of his medical diag- noses. [Of course this, like everything else in the sittings, is de- nied by somebody. Cf. ante. H.H.] In fact the medical state- ments, coinciding as they do with truth just as well as those of a regular physician, but given without any ordinary examina- tion and sometimes without even seeing the patient, must be held as part of the evidence establishing a strong prima facie case for the existence of some abnormal means of acquiring information. Not that it is to be supposed that he is more infallible than an- other. I have one definite case of distinct error in a diag- nosis "At times Dr. Phinuit does fish. Occasionally he guesses; and sometimes he ekes out the scantiness of his information from the resources of a lively imagination. . . . The fishing process is most marked when Mrs. Piper herself either is not feeling well or is tired. . . . When he does not fish he simply draws upon his memory and retails old facts which he has told before, occasion- ally with additions of his own which do not improve them. His memory seems to be one of extraordinary tenacity and exactness [more than any human memory. H.H.I, but not of infallibility; and its lapses do introduce error [as to fishing, see p. 523. H.H.]. " He seems to be under some compulsion not to be silent. Possibly the trance would cease if he did not exert himself. At any rate he chatters on, and one has to discount a good deal of conversation which is obviously, and sometimes confessedly, in- troduced as a stop-gap It would be a great improvement if, when he realizes that conditions are unfavorable, he would say so and hold his peace. I have tried to impress this upon him, with the effect that he is sometimes confidential, and says that he is having a bad time; but after all he probably knows his own business best, because it has several times happened that after half an hour of more or less worthless padding, a few minutes of valuable lucidity have been attained. " I have laid much stress upon this fishery hypothesis. . . . But in thus laying stress I feel that I am producing an erroneous and misleading impression of proportion. I have spoken of a few minutes' lucidity to an intolerable deal of padding as an occasional experience, but in the majority of the sittings held in my presence the converse proportion better represents the facts." 428 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV The amount of attention given everywhere to Phinuit may seem out of proportion, especially here, and also especially in view of the fact that for several years, the old fellow has been absent from mortal converse, and replaced by a great variety of people (?) who speak, or rather write, for themselves. But this attention to him is, on my part at least, largely because he may help toward an explanation of those " other people." Here is an episode explaining a nickname that Phinuit habitually applied to Sir Oliver (Pr. VI, 47 If.) : " Cousin married, and the gentleman passed out at sea, round the sea Hullo, he's got funny buttons, big, bright. . . A uni- form. He has been a commander, an officer, a leader; not mil- itary, but a commander. . . . [A little further on Phinuit sud- denly brings out the word Cap'n in connection with him, but, in a curious and half puzzled way, applies it to me. It remained my Phinuit nickname to the end, though quite inapplicable.] Your mother has got a good picture of him taken a long time ago, pretty good, old-fashioned, but not so bad of him. Yes, pretty good. He looks like that now. He looks younger than he did " As in this vision, so it was in one of my own dreams which I suspect was in several respects veridical; and in two other dreams where I cannot trace any veridicity, the persons had grown young. But in another which I fully believe to have been veridical, the person had grown older in proportion to the time since " passing over," but there was a peculiar reason for such a manifestation: I fancy that my friend may have wanted to appear to " grow old along with me." You see I am now justifying Phinuit's report of my medi- umship, but don't be alarmed. There is not much of it. Even if more were possible, I have been too busy with other things, and have a disinclination regarding it. Phinuit asks (Pr. VI, 551) : " ' Do you remember the little one that passed out of the body ? ' E. C. L. [Sir O.'s sister. H.H.] : * No, but I know there was one.' ' Well, he's here But you wouldn't know him now. He's grown up.' E. C. L. : ' Then they do grow ? ' ' Certainly. He's about 35, I should say. [The brother referred to, who died aged five weeks, would have been 33.] They all look about 35 here.' " But how about such utterances as this to Mrs. Leaf (Pr. Ch. XXX] Controls Growing in Years 429 VI, 594), and in the case of Mr. Rich's sister? Do they not flatly contradict what has been said about growing up? " ' There is a little child round you. The little body of a child. It belonged to your aunt that is in the spirit, that passed out years and years ago; you will have to ask your mother about it. You will find that it is a little child that never lived in the body.' R. M. L.: ' Whose child was that? ' ' The child does not know whose child she was. Don't you see, the child was too young. I can't get it to talk to me. I see this little one; it belongs either to an aunt or a cousin. Your mother will know about it.' " [This is not known to be correct of the child of an aunt or cousin. Mrs. Leaf had herself lost a baby, born dead.]" There are some things to suggest that if there are post- carnate souls, they can appear as of any age in their experi- ence and so show their history since separation, to anyone rejoining them. One naturally speculates whether, if there is a future state, those there keep growing old with all the disagreeables inci- dent to so doing. Twice, in dreams, I remember very vividly, the old had grown young. This recalls Peter Ibbetson's state- ment that he and his beloved kept themselves about twenty- seven. There are reports that Peter Ibbetson is not all fancy, but even if it were, such reports would be inevitable. This whole question seems as much of a jumble as the ques- tion arising from the controls' frequent assertion that their life is free from pain, while the medium is frequently acting evidences of pain usually that of their last illnesses. In sev- eral places the controls say this is done to prove identity. Here is an account by Sir Oliver that makes strongly for the telepathic hypothesis, but the last sentence is rather against it (Pr. VI, 466-7) : "You have a son in the body a smart boy clever, but not very strong . . . but he has got worms badly ' Ought he to go to school ? ' ' By no means. You ought to keep him at home and nurse him, and give him vermifuge. You will, won't you? Worms are his chief trouble ; they consume his food, his stomach is filled with slime; he feels nausea; no ambition; rather irri- table.' [All this about my eldest boy is painfully true, except that it is perhaps a little exaggerated. We had suspected worms before, and perceiving the outside symptoms correctly described as above, we took the matter in hand seriously, and after acting 430 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt, IV for some days under medical advice we established the truth of the aboTe statement precisely.]" And yet it is frequently said that Phinuit could not t " ' Can you tell me what his favorite pursuit is ? ' " [This I asked because he exhibits a remarkable and constant hankering after architecture, spending all his spare time when not feeling sick and headachy in drawing plans of houses and in reading about buildings. The reply was utterly wide of the mark.] " ' Pursuit ? oh, takes an interest in natural things ; is mu- sical.' " We may as well follow this boy through the sittings (Pr. VI, 505f.) : "Mrs. L.: 'Do you remember little V?' [The Lodges' sick boy. H.H.] Dr. : ' I do remember.' O. L. : < Where is he now? ' Dr. : ' He is with Mary [i.e., his grandmother : true] . He is better there, and we are going to take good care of him, that nothing serious happens. You remember. See if we don't take good care of him, in your life, not in ours. Our interest is very great, very large, and we could do a great deal. And, Marie, dear [Mrs. Lodge. H.H.], do not worry; be brave Do not eend him to school. Let him stay at home and rest well, and get strong He will pull through, and come out all right. He has got worms. Yes, he has got them still; but he will outgrow it, and make a fine boy. Do not worry. I don't tell you that to encourage you, but because it is true.' Mrs. L. : ' Are they little or are they big worms ? ' Dr. : ' Large, not small, but large worms; that is they are not tapeworms. No.' [True.] Mrs. L. : ' What should we give him ? ' Dr. : ' You give him vermifuge to take. Suggest some.' [N.B. This is not the usual Phinuit method of prescription : it is quite exceptional.] O. L. : ' Mer- cury ? ' Dr. : ' No, too strong. Weaken him.' Mrs. L. : ' San- tonin? Scammony? Quassia?' Dr.: 'Yes, scammony is good. Give him that with quassia alternately.' O. L. : ' Both injected? ' Dr. : ' Yes, best thing in the lot I tell you you have got a great comfort in that boy.' Mrs. L. : ' Will he live to be a man ? ' Dr. : ' Fretting ! It is all bosh, and you had better be asleep than fretting about people. Do as I told you. He will come out all right. That's what's the matter. Give him hot water to drink You make the vermifuge I told you Take good care of yourself, Marie, we'll take good care of him. Change will do him good. There is others in your surroundings that needs looking after just as much and more. [This grammar was not telepathed from the Lodges! H.H.] You need not worry about any of them for the present. It is all right. It will be Ch. XXX] Controls Do Best near Home 431 all right ____ But God knows. What He told me to say, and what He allows me to know, I know and no more. I can't help getting mixed up sometimes; and it makes me mad. I'd like to be all straight, not crooked. I do take care of you. When the voice of Dr. Phinuit is no longer heard in the body, remember you had a friend in me, and one who will always look after you, no matter what one says about me. I go on. I fight, fight them all ; and they will always do ---- Get good for me to do. God bless you all, and the best wishes. Captain ! Is there anything else? I will speak to you again. Doctor! ' " Sir Oliver thus speaks about something which the reports had suggested to me before I had read up to his mention of it, and which to me did not by any manner of means "seem absurd" (Pr. XXIII, 138, A.D. 1909): " One curious circumstance I feel constrained to mention though it will seem absurd and that is that the controls seem to do best in their own country. For instance, long ago [1889. H.H.], before any of us on this side of the Atlantic had seen Mrs. Piper, a control calling itself Gurney sent messages through that medium while she was still in America; which messages, when recorded on this side, were thought feeble and unworthy, so that the control was spoken of both by Prof. W. James and by those in England as ' the pseudo-Gurney.' When, however, Mrs. Piper came over here the ' Gurney ' messages became bet- ter, and could be described as quite fairly lifelike." It was this Gurney control whom Sir Oliver Lodge reported in Pr. VI as " Mr. E.," but revealed in a later paper in Pr. XXIII as Edmund Gurney. The later report duplicates and enlarges a contemporary report in which he suppressed several matters that twenty years later he felt free to print. I quote here from the later account, interrupting, and I fear confusing, our chronological order, for the sake of getting in the com- ments which Sir Oliver made in 1909. He says (Pr. XXIII, " I learnt in this way more about the life and thoughts of Edmund Gurney than I had known in his lifetime. [And Mrs. Piper knew less. Then where did it come from? H.H.] My acquaintance with him . . . began in the early seventies, when . . . he ... sat on the benches of University College, London, to listen to my regular college lectures on Mechanics and Physics ---- He was good enough to strike up a friendship with his youthful instructor, and I occasionally lunched with him, and once or twice saw him in his rooms at Clarges Street. "The talk gradually turned upon psychical matters ---- Mr. 433 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV Gurney was even then at work on systematic preparation for the book, Phantasms of the Living Before long he introduced me to his friend, F. W. H. Myers, who, like Mr. Gurney, was pa- tience itself in trying to inspire my superficial and dogmatic materialism with an element of larger sense. " A few years after all this the S.P.R. was founded, but I was not one of the original members. I joined, I suppose, after the Liverpool thought-transference experiments in 1883 and 1884 [see p. 245 f.]. I had migrated to Liverpool in 1881, and remained there till 1900. Professor Barrett I had of course known all along as a physicist, and in the eighties we had some conversa- tions on thought-transference in connection with the Liverpool experiments, in some of which I took part, and on which I re- ported in the Pr.S.P.R.,Vol.2. " Until 1884 I was unconvinced of the possibility of telepathy; and not till the end of 1889 did the evidence for survival of per- sonality beyond bodily death make any serious impression upon me. . . . Edmund Gurney died in 1888, at a time when I was entirely absorbed in orthodox physical experiments and the- ory "The first mention of Gurney in my sittings occurred on Saturday evening, December 21, 1889. ... (A photograph of my late Demonstrator Mr. Clark was here handed in.) L. : ' Can you tell who this is?' [Phinuit.]: 'Well I will try. Edmund will help me. A vessel burst in his stomach, and he passed out very suddenly. He was away, not at home. A clever fellow and a great help. He fell. Edmund sends his love to you.' (A letter from Edmund Gurney was handed in.) L. : ' Can you read this? ' P. : ' Oh, I don't know. I can't read it word for word. I can tell you what it is about. It has got Edmund's influence on it. So had that picture. Had you kept it with Edmund's let- ter? ' L. : ' Well it had been in the same pocket.' P. : ' You must not do that. You mix things up if you do that. No, I can't read this letter. It is something about some books ' " [Here the personality seemed to change and to represent Ed- mund Gurney. He spoke so naturally that for a time I forgot to take notes, but nothing evidential was said. The notes go on thus : They are henceforward very imperfect, i.e., fragmentary.] " G. : ' I am here, I etherially exist. I wrote to you about some books for the Society. I have seen a little woman that's a me- dium, a true medium. I have written to Myers using her hand. I did do it, I, Edmund Gurney, I.' L. : 'Is this a medium here now ? ' G. : ' Yes, she's a medium. Very few you will get like Dr. Phinuit. He is not all one would wish, but he is all right. You are Lodge. I know you. Lodge we shall beat them yet. There is no death, only a shadow and then Light. Experiment and observation are indispensable. We have to use some method like this to communicate " ' Yes, God is in Nature, all Nature is God. We are a reflec- Ch. XXX] The Gurney Control 433 tion of God. Don't give up a good thing. The world will know, and our Society will know, that there is no death. I didn't know. I would have given anything to have had you come and speak to me, if you had passed away first, as I am speaking to you now.' L. : 'Is it goocl to be where you are?' G.: 'Yes, it is good, the only good thing. Life in material world is beauti- ful. Marriage is beautiful, but this is far better.' L. : 'Is there no marriage?' G. : 'No, no, Swedenborg was all wrong. Jesus Christ was right ; he knew. He was a reflection of God.' " Evening of 25th Dec., 1889. (Pr.XXO,149f.) "(Phinuit now seemed to leave, and another control, speaking in a more educated voice, took his place; the change taking place with a little uncertainty and difficulty as to how to man- age it, and a seeming colloquy between the departing and en- tering controls, Phinuit giving sotto voce instructions. After the change was over, the voice said) : ' Lodge, how are you ? I tell you Edmund Gurney is living, not dead. Edmund Gurney, that's me : you know me, don't you ? ' L. : ' Yes, Gurney, de- lighted to see you again.' G. : ' Don't give it up Lodge. Cling to it, it's the best thing you have. It's coarse in the beginning but it can be ground down fine. You'll know best and correct ( I) It can only come through a trance. You have to put her in a trance. You've got to do it that way to make yourself known.' [Foster required no trance, and many of the heteromatic writers require no trance. H.H.] L. : 'Is it bad for the medium?' G. : ' It's the only way Lodge; in one sense it's bad, but in an- other it's good. It is her work. If I take possession of the medium's body, and she goes out, then I can use her organism to tell the world important truths. There is an infinite power above us. Lodge believe it fully, infinite over all, most marvel- ous. One can tell a medium she's like a ball of light. You look as dark and material as possible, but we find two or three lights shining. It's like a series of rooms with candles at one end. Must use analogy to express it. When you need a light you use it, when you have finished you put it out. They are like transparent windows to see through. Lodge, it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle to us here in a way though we understand it better than you. I work at it hard. I do. I'd give anything I possess to find out. I don't care for material things now, our interest is much greater. I am studying hard how to communicate; it's not easy. But it's only a matter of a short time before I shall be able to tell the world all sorts of things through one medium or another. Who's that ? ' L. : ' It is my brother. He's taking notes How is it they see their things?' G.: 'I don't know, there is something about articles worn by spirits which retains their personality ( ?) and a spirit controlling a medium is sensi- tive to such. In nine cases out of ten they will recognize their things; it doesn't come from your mind.' L. : 'Then it's not 434 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV ordinary thought transference.' G. : ' No, it's not that. Investi- gate. You can verify with patience. From time to time you will hear from me and I will advise you. I met a lady in Amer- ica a Mrs. Dorr ' [mother of Mr. George B. Dorr, whom we shall meet later. H.H.]. [A lady well known to Mrs. Piper, but I did not happen to know the name then. O. J.L.] L. : ' Daw ? ' G. : ' No, Dorr, D o r r, a very nice lady ; very intellectual spirit- ual and good. 1 had a long talk with her, and through her I found the medium. She is a medium. These people are links between the material and spirit worlds Where's Myers ? Give him my love. I want to help him. Lodge, when I passed out at first I didn't know who I was, nor where I was. I hunted about for my friends and for my body. Soon however my sister welcomed me. Three of them, all drowned. If I see Myers I will talk to him. No spirit in the spirit world is more anxious to let friends know than I was. [S.ome private matter here.] Don't mention this. Tell Myers if you like. Myers is my con- fidential friend. There is nothing I wouldn't have him know. Kate is my wife, my sister is Ellen, [abbreviated] Lodge keep up your courage; there is a quantity to hope for yet. Hold it up for a time. Don't be in a hurry. Get facts ; no matter what they call you, go on investigating. Test to fullest. Assure your- self, then publish. It will be all right in the end no question about it. It's true ' L. : ' What sort of person is this Dr. Phinuit? ' [It is noteworthy that all the Controls treat Phinuit as a genuine person of whom they have to speak circumspectly when he is likely to be able to overhear what they are saying or read what they are writing. Compare, for instance, statements about him made by G. P. in the Hodgson Keport; footnote to page 369, Vol. 13.] In the present instance the Gurney Control replied to my question thus : ' Dr. Phinuit is a peculiar type of man ; he goes about continually and is thrown in with everybody. He is eccentric and quaint but good hearted. I wouldn't do the things he does for anything. He lowers himself sometimes ; it's a great pity. He has very curious ideas about things and people, he receives a great deal about people from themselves (?). And he gets expressions and phrases that one doesn't care for, vulgar phrases he picks up by meeting uncanny people through the medium. These things tickle him and he goes about repeating them. He said to me the other day " Mr. Gurney what you think a gentleman said to me the other day : he said ' put that in your pipe and smoke it, Dr.' " He picks up this sort of thing and it tickles him. He has to interview a great number of people and has no easy berth of it. A high type of man couldn't do the work be does. But he is a good-hearted old fellow. Good-bye Lodge. Here's the Doctor coming.' L. : ' Good-bye Gurney. Glad to have had a chat with you.' " (The Control here changes back again.) P. : ' This [ring] belongs to your Aunt. Your Uncle Jerry tells me to ask By Ch. XXX] Aunt Isabel More Gurney 435 the way, do you know Mr. Gurney's been here; did you hear him? ' L. : ' Yes, I've had a long talk with him.' " Evening of 2Qth Dec., 1889. (Pr.XXm,154.) " (Dr. Phinuit speaking and reporting in the first person.) ' I could almost come back and die over again to see you. You tell Mary that her sister Isabel [See later] still lives; tell her she has done nobly; tell her William and I are together. That lazy gardener ! ' " (Then the voice and manner changed to that of the Gurney control. G. : ' Don't give up a good thing, Lodge Who is here ? ' L. : ' This is my wife.' G. : ' How do you do, Mrs. Lodge (shaking hands) [i.e., the medium does. H.H.]. I remember having tea with you once.' [It was true that Mr. Gurney had done so.] L. : (Introducing) ' Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.' G. : 4 Yes, I remember you, I think. [They had once met.J Good-by, Lodge ; don't divulge my secrets.' L. : ' No, all right ; good- by ' " [L.] The point of this short episode is the sudden and natu- ral stoppage of the conversation directly the control realizes that strangers are present. That and the introductions that followed were all just as if the Gurney control were a person really present." Monday Evening, 3rd February, 1890. (Pr.XXIII,155f.) " Phinuit suddenly said, ' Here's Mr. Gurney.' (Thereupon the control appeared to change, the impression somehow con- veyed being very much as if Phinuit were leaving and another coming in his place. The voice also became different and more educated than before. No longer was I called ' Captain,' nor were people's relations and personal affairs any more regarded as objects of interest.) . . . G. : ' It is wonderfully difficult to com- municate. All the time I've been here I have only found two mediums beside this one. More people might be mediums, but many won't when they can.' L. : ' What constitutes a medium ? ' G. : ' Not too much spirituality and not too much animalism, not the highest people and not the lowest. Sympathetic and not too self-conscious, able to let their minds be given up to another that sort of person easily influenced. Many could, but their pride and a sense of self comes in and spoils it.' [Despite Phinuit and Gurney, my conscience does not trouble me on the point, if you will pardon my saying so. H.H.] L. : ' Gurney, what about those table-tilting and physical things? Is there anything in them ? ' G. : ' Mostly fraud. The rest electricity. [Apparently a queer remark for Gurney, but possibly not beyond natural carelessness. Of course all modes of force are inter- changeable. H.H.] A person's nerves are doing they don't know what. They are often not conscious when they move things.' L. : ' It's like automatic writing then ? ' G. : ' Something. 436 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV Often the tilts and noises are made by them when under the control of some other spirit, and then the message may be gen- uine. Trance things and automatic writing are good. Often good. Other things sometimes, but mostly fraud.' L. : ' Can things be moved without contact V G. : ' No, all bosh.' [We know better now; there are hosts of cases. See under Tele- kinesis. H.H.] L. : ' Then that Eglinton writing, with bits of pencil untouched ? ' G. : ' Trickery, Lodge. Not worth a thought. Most of this I have gone into, and it's as false as that elf, that fiend, I might say. She bewitched me once. What's her name, that woman who smoked?' L.: 'Blavatsky?' G.: 'That's her name Who is this V L. : ' It's my sister, a young girl.' G. : ' Oh ; pleased to make your acquaintance. I didn't meet you I think.' E. C. L. : ' No, I never saw you.' G. : ' Glad to see you now. . . . Phinuit will be coming back soon. He's a good old man. He has a hard place. I wouldn't do the work he does for anything. Seeing all manner of people and hunting up their friends, and often he has hard work to persuade them that they are really wanted.' L. : 'Is he reliable ? ' G. : ' Not perfectly, he is not a bit infallible. He mixes things terribly sometimes. He does his best ; he's a good old man but he does get confused, and when he can't hear distinctly he fills it up himself. He does invent things occasionally, he certainly does. Sometimes he has rery hard work.' L. : ' Are his medical prescriptions any good ? ' G. : ' Oh, he's a shrewd doctor. He knows his business thor- oughly. He can see into people [He certainly did into me. H.H.], and is very keen on their complaints. Yes, he is good in that way, very good.' L. : ' Can he see ahead at all ? Can anyone ? ' G. : ' I can't. I haven't gone into that. I think Phinuit can a little sometimes. He can do wonderful things; he has studied these things a good deal ; he can do many things that I can't do But he is far from being infallible.' L. : ' The Thompsons are waiting in next room. Shall I call them in ? ' G. : ' The Thompsons ? Oh, I know, I met them at your house once at dinner I think. No, I don't specially want to see them. Well, Lodge, I must be going. Good-by.' (Here the medium seemed to sleep a few moments, and then woke up again in the Phinuit manner, putting out hand and feeling sitter's head.) ' Eh, what. Oh, yes. All right. [This was internal colloquy.] Look here, Mr. Gurney has been here ; he told me to express his regret that he had not said good-by to Miss Lodge.' E. C. L.: ' Oh, it doesn't matter a bit.' P. : ' I'm to tell him that, am L Very well ' " [L.] Again it was the dramatic character of the speaking that was impressive -rather than the things said 1 attach no importance to what is said concerning physical phenomena: it does not pretend to represent more than an individual opinion, whoever the individual may be The casual reference of un- known phenomena, part to fraud, the rest to ' Electricity/ though Ch. XXX] Significance in Changes of Control 437 quite common with uneducated people, was especially unworthy of Edmund Gurney, and not in the least the sort of thing he would have said to me when alive. [Then it was not telepathy from Sir Oliver, whatever it was. H.H.] . . . But the little friendly speeches to my sister were quite appropriate to Mr. Gurney, and so especially was the readiness to depart the instant he heard that the Thompsons were waiting to come in Not that he had any objection to them; but, besides the dislike of keeping anyone waiting, he had the natural unwillingness of the man of sensitive temperament to be thrown with strangers needlessly. " It will have been observed that several times in the record I have emphasized the change of control. I have done so all the more explicitly because now [1909. H.H.] it seems a compara- tively extinct, or at any rate a less pronounced, feature. The whole business of ' control ' seemed more difficult then [1889. H.H.], and it is possible that a personality really changes now without our noticing the change so much. Then, however . . . once I remember it occupied a minute or two, with a muttered internal colloquy going on, as if there were a tangle or a hitch somewhere. " The naturalness of the change in manner and memory was very pronounced A reader may think that this is due to the perfection of conscious acting, while a sitter of any experience will hardly think that. The fluctuation of memory is certainly not artificial; it is a genuine change of personality whatever that may be ... unmistakably analogous to multiple personality, whether that be ever due to control by actual possession or not " February 3rd, 1890 (as reported on p. 550, Vol. 6), I asked for a certain person to come and control instead of only sending messages, and was told that it was too difficult. I pleaded ' Mr. Gurney does.' To which Phinuit replied, ' You are greedy. Yes, Mr. Gurney does, but Mr. Gurney is a scientific man, who has gone into these things. He comes and turns me out some- times. It would be a very narrow place into which Mr. Gurney couldn't get.' " This closes the report which Sir Oliver made in 1909 (Pr. XXIII), giving more fully than he did in Pr. VI the con- temporaneous report of the Gurney sittings that took place in 1889. The appearances of the Gurney control in 1889 were largely picked out and made consecutive, from sittings when other controls also appeared. We will now revert from the account of the Gurney control in Pr. XXIII, then twenty years old, to the contemporary account in Pr. VI of the other controls 438 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Ft. IV who sometimes appeared at the same sittings when Gurney did, and sometimes at others. Here is a characteristic Phi- nuit touch (Pr. VI, 484) : " She remembers more than you do. What do you think she says to me? She says, don't swear, doctor; she did, sure as you live." There is a very remarkable case of telopsis, too long to give here, in Pr. VI, 487-90. Sitting 44. December 24ta, 1889. (Pr.VI,499, 506.) "Present: O. J. L.; later, M. L. also; with Briscoe taking shorthand notes all the time. (Verbatim report as a specimen taken at random.) " Dr. : ' How do you do, Doctor ? ' (Evidently referring to the last sitter, Dr. C.) " O. L. : < H'm. I am very well, thank you.' Dr. : ' 'Ullo, I thought it was the Doctor (i.e., Dr. C.). You know I saw him last.' O. L. : ' Yes, you did.' Dr. : < Two times. Well, I thought it was him, don't you know.' [Again this bad grammar cannot be telepathic from Sir O., nor was it apt to come from Mrs. Piper. The bearing of this on the genuineness of Phinuit 13 worth considering. H.H.] . . . Dr. : ' Do you know who Jerry J E R K Y is ? ' O. L. : ' Yes. Tell him I want to hear from him.' U[ncle] J[erry. H.H.] : ' Tell Robert, Jerry still lives. He will be very glad to hear from me. This is my watch, and Robert is my brother [surviving. H.H.], and I am here. Uncle Jerry my watch.' (Impressively spoken.) O. L. : ' Do you see Aunt Anne now ? ' Dr. : ' Yes, she looks the same iden- tical ; always the same Aunt Anne [Apparently Aunt Anne takes control. She was a devoted aunt who had brought up Sir Oliver and his brothers and sisters. Bear this in mind. H.H.] We took good care of him. You little woman [to Lady Lodge. H.H.], didn't we?'" With reference to the next sitting, Sir Oliver says (Pr. VI, 455) : 41 One of the best sitters was my next-door neighbor, Isaac C. Thompson, F.L.S., to whose name indeed, before he had been in any way introduced, Phinuit sent a message purporting to come from his father. Three generations of his and of his wife's family living and dead (small and compact Quaker families) were, in the course of two or three sittings, conspicuously men- tioned with identifying detail ; the main informant representing himself as his deceased brother, a young Edinburgh doctor, whose loss had been mourned some 20 years ago, " Sir Oliver introduces the sitting (Pr. VI, 5071) : Ch. XXX] Uncle Jerry, Aunt Anne. Thompsons 439 " The next sitting was the first with our neighbors the Thomp- sons. Mrs. Piper had been introduced to them a day or two before, and liked them particularly; they are too near neighbors to attempt making strangers of. Their children also she had seen more or less: though no other relatives." Sitting 45. December 24th, 1889. (Pr.VI,508f.) "Present: O. L., Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, and A. L. [a brother of Sir Oliver, I believe. H.H.] taking notes. " 0. L. holding hands [i.e., Mrs. Piper's. This had been nec- essary perhaps in the beginning, but it was outgrown before I saw her in 1894. H.H.]. Mr. and Mrs. T. some way off. " P. : ' Hulloa, Captain, I've been talking to your friends. Had a long talk with Uncle Jerry. He remembers you now, as a boy with Aunt Anne [this is exactly how he would remember me], but you were kind of small. He knew you but he didn't know me very well ; wondered what the devil I wanted trying to talk to him and how I got here. Yes, he remembers his watch it's in possession of Robert. He used to call him Bob. (Took watch in hands.) Ha ! well, this watch came from Russia yes Uncle Jerry said so. [Unlikely.] . . . Who are those people over there?' O. L. :' Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.' P.: 'Oh! why that's the gentleman to whom his father sent his love and said something about Ted. Didn't you tell him?' O. L.: 'Yes, I did, but wasn't sure you meant him.' P. : 'Of course I did. They're a couple, they are. One wants to do something and the other doesn't.' [Had just been discussing a proposition on which they took different views.] . . . P. : 'I say, Captain, your friends have a lot to tell you, they're just clamoring to get at you. Why the devil don't you give them a chance ? ' O. L. : ' Well, I will next time.' P.: ' There's Marion Agnes. Ha, ha, I got it that time Adnes Agnes.' Mrs. T. : ' Agnes, all right.' [Phinuit had had difficulty in pronouncing it once before. H.H.] (Watch handled again. It was a repeater, and happened to go off.) P. : ' Hullo, I didn't do that. Jerry did that, to remind you of him. Here, take it away it goes springing off it's alive.' Mrs. T.: 'What can we do for Theodora's headaches?' P. : ' Nerves of stomach out of order. Have you got anything of hers to give me ? ' O. L. : ' Go and get a lock of her hair.' (Mr. T. went next door for that purpose.) P.: 'It was Uncle Jerry, the one that had the fall. I'll bring you some more news of him. Give me back his nine-shooter. (Meaning the watch.) [Here hair was brought in, and O. L. and A. L. were ordered by Dr. P. to "clear out," which they did.] I don't care to talk diseases before everybody. [Note 0.] Confound it, I saw your influence before anyone else here. Didn't the Captain tell you? You lost your purse, and if you had told me I could have found it Mighty mean trick about the purse ! Lord ! done as quick as a fly. [Note P.] Who is the lady wears a 440 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV cap in the spirit? She don't part her hair in the middle she sends her love to you (Mrs. T.).' Mrs. T. : 'Perhaps it is my mother.' P. : ' Well, I see more than a dozen ladies, but she wears a lace cap. There was some throat trouble in your mother. (Indicating.) [Note Q,~\ The mother of one of you is in the body. I think it is the gentleman's. She is an angel she is & good woman has some trouble with ankle left one it catches her. She will be with you for some time.' [Note R.~\ " NOTES " 0. Mr. T.'s daughter's headaches well described, and some rery old-fashioned herb remedies suggested, with the recom- mendation to see him (Dr. P.) again in six weeks if not cured. " P. Mr. T. was robbed of his purse in London 30 years ago serious matter to him then. " Q. Remarkably correct description of Mrs. T.'s mother, who always wore lace caps and with ribbons to hide a lump on throat she parted her hair at side. " B. Mr. T.'s mother, aged 81, living in Cheshire. The state- ment about pain in ankle was true; she had rheumatic pains in left ankle at the time." Sitting 46. Christmas Day, 1889. (Pr.VI,512f.) " Present : O. L. and Alfred Lodge " P. : ' How are you, Captain ? Who have you got to see us this time ? ' O. L. : ' No one. We are having this to ourselves.' P. : ' How's Mr. Thompson? He's all right, is he? I am pleased he was here. How are you, Alfred ? . . . Give me some things of Aunt Anne's, and give me Uncle Jerry's watch again Aunt Anne wants to know where her very dark brown cloak is; if Eleanor has it. A funny-looking thing; is that what you call sealskin ? She would like Ellen to have it. They want Eleanor Ellenelly Ellen to make a change in her surroundings, for her good, at least until Alfred is settled. She is all mixed up now. [True.] She should come into your surroundings, the work will be good for her, it will take her out of herself. Give her something to think about, it will be better for her physically and every way. Your mother says so, Uncle Jerry says so, Uncle John says so, your mother and father say so, and Aunt Anne says so. There now, they are very anxious about it.' [All these were no longer living, and Phinuit professed to speak for them from the spirit world. H.H.] O. L. : ' But they must send her name better.' " [NOTE (Pr.VI,507). [L.]. The welfare of my only sister, Eleanor, commonly called Nellie, much younger than the brothers, and left in their charge is naturally a care to us, and the advice given and subsequently iterated again and again by Phinuit, as the one message which my mother was anxious to send, is extremely natural. Mrs. Piper had not seen, nor so far Ch. XXX] Lodge Family Controls 441 as I know heard of, my sister, who was in Staffordshire during this first series; but at the second series of sittings she was present on a short visit. The state of her health has for some time made her place of abode and study a serious consideration.] " P. : ' Give me a pencil. (Wrote on back of letter while hold- ing it to forehead the word ' Nellie ' distinctly.) There, that's her name, and that's your Aunt Anne's writing; she wrote it. ... This was a Russian watch the Emperor of Russia once had it. [Know nothing of this.] . . . Captain, your friends [in " spirit world." H.H.] are very anxious about Nelly. They Wow she's not been feeling well. Let her be in your surroundings for a little while. It will do her good. If you can't see it now you will see it in the future It's true, I tell you. They know what they are talking about Our poor little Alfred [her brother. 11.11. | can't see it as we can. He wants her in his surroundings to be with him. Your mother says it's not wise, not yet, anyhow. . . . She says distinctly, " She must be in Oliver's surroundings for a while." [All this advice would be exceed- ingly important if it could be depended on Her keeping house for Alfred was one of the floating ideas.] To appre- ciate my advice is one thing, to remember me is another. Don't forget me, my boy. Jerry says, " Do you know Bob's got a long skin a skin like a snake's skin upstairs, that Jerry got for him ? " It's one of the funniest things you ever saw. Ask him to show it you. Oh, hear them talking ! Captain ! ' " [ L. J This episode of the skin is noteworthy. I cannot imagine that I ever had any knowledge of it. Here is my Uncle Robert's account of it when I asked him about it : ' Yes, a crinkly thin skin, a curious thing; I had it in a box, I remember it well. Oh, as distinct as possible. Haven't seen it for years, but it was in a box with his name cut in it; the same box with some of his papers.'" [Teloteropathy from Uncle R? H.H.] Sitting 47. Evening of Christmas Day, 1889. (Pr.VT,516f.) "Present: O. J. L. and A. L. (taking notes). " ' Captain, do you know that as I came I met the medium going out [i.e., his spirit met the medium's spirit? H.H.], and she's crying. Why is that ? ' [Why couldn't he know tel- epathically, if telepathy accounts for all this? H.H.] O. L.: 'Well, the fact is she's separated from her children for a few days, and she is feeling rather low about it.' P. : ' How are you, Alfred? I've your mother's influence strong. (Pause.) By George ! that's Aunt Anne's ring (feeling ring I had put on my hand just before sitting), given over to you. [Aunt Anne takes control? H.H.] And Oily dear, that's one of the last things I ever gave you. It was one of the last things I said to you in the body when I gave it you for Mary. I said, " For her, through you." ' [This is precisely accurate. The ring was her most valuable trinket, and it was given 442 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV in the way here stated not long before her death.] . . . O. L. : 1 Yes, I remember perfectly.' A. A. : 'I tell you I know it. I shall never forget it. Keep i^ in memory of me, for I am not dead. Each spirit is not so dim ( ?) that it cannot recollect its belongings in the body. They attract us if there has been anything special about them. I tell you, my boy, I can see it just as plain as if I were in the body. It was the last thing I gave you, for her, through you, always in remembrance of me. (Further conversation and advice, ending) Convince yourself, [Kegarding spirits' survival ? H.H.] and let others do the same. We are all liable to make mistakes; but you can see for your- self ' " P. : ' Give me that watch. [Trying to open it.] Here, open it. Take it out of its case. Jerry says he took his knife once and made some little marks up here with it, up here near the handle, near the ring, some little cuts in the watch. Look at it afterwards in a good light and you will see them.' [There is a little engraved landscape in the place described, but some of the skylines have been cut unnecessarily deep, I think, apparently out of mischief or idleness. Certainly I knew nothing of this, and had never before had the watch out of its case. O.J.L.] " Extract from letter [from Uncle Robert]. (Pr.VI,528.) " GREAT GEARIES, ILFORD, September 16th, 1890. " As you wished me to send you notes of anything that struck me in the report of Mrs. Piper's sittings here goes The marks on the watch I do not think were made by him, as I cannot remember his having a repeater until he lost his sight. The term 'little shaver' fits his method of expression to a T." Sitting 49. December 26ta, 1889. (Pr.VI,520f.) "Present: O. L., alone; afterwards M. L. also. " Then came Mrs. Lodge, and Phinuit began to diagnose her illness, which he did very exactly, and to prescribe for her. The prescription was wild carrot infusion and laudanum lotions, with precise and minute instructions. The prescriptions have done good. The complaint has been a long-standing one." In connection with this should be read the following (Pr. VI, 546-7) : " P. : ' Mary, you come here ; let those people clear out. You have been taking carrot.' M. L. : ' Yes, you told me to.' P. : ' Yes, I know. Well, now you have taken plenty of that. Get some Uva3 Ursi. Do you know what that is? (No.) Well, it's mountain cranberry. Get some of those leaves. You can get the infusion, but leaves are better because pure. Let them steep and take a wineglassful before going to bed. Take it instead of carrot for three weeks and then carrot again. (Medical details gone into, accurate in general, but one statement which turned out false. Prescribed also for third boy, viz., 2oz. Huxum's h. XXX] Phinuit's Prescriptions 443 tincture of cinchona, 2oz. French dialyzed iron, and 4oz. drug- gists' simple syrup; a teaspoonful after shaking in wineglass of water, with a few drops of lemon juice or other acid.) He has a pain here when he runs, blood poor, &c. [Details correct.] Give him milk, lime water, and eggs.' (Further advice to M. L., who having had the influenza badly, was in low spirits, with attempts to cheer her.) " And yet more than one objector has said that Phinuit is absolutely ignorant of medicine! Here is a strange, strange circumstance. It fits well enough here to justify an episode. June 26, 1895, Phinuit says to Professor Newbold, as per the unpublished Notes : " Nothing special the matter with your liver, but it is inactive sometimes and that throws the bile into the stomach. Do you know what aloes are? Get some rhubarb, aloes, and mandrake, 5/8 grain of aloes, 2/8 mandrake, and 1/8 of rhubarb com- pounded into a small pill and take one every night." Now years ago I was very seriously troubled by bile working up into the stomach. A very great physician gave me Elixir Euonymus, which acted like magic. I learned that it was a cholagogue. A few months ago I said : " By the way, Doctor, I may have to go to Euonymus again, but it has always struck me as strange that when I was troubled by excess of bile, you gave me a drug to make more. It did the trick, however, and that's enough." I forget his answer: for I was leaving somewhat hastily, having already used up more time than either of us had to spare. Probably no more passed than a laugh over the satisfactory result of the paradox. I remember that he admitted it to be a paradox, and that I felt that his facing it and doing his work in spite of it, was an illustration of his greatness. Well, here is Phinuit doing pre- cisely the same thing! Now was Mrs. Piper, masquerading as Phinuit, a really great doctor too? Or was Phinuit really himself and a great doctor? He was no doctor at all, accord- ing to several skeptical commentators not in the opinion of Sir Oliver Lodge, however, in whose family he " practised," and whose opinions are thought worthy of respect by the people in England who confer knighthoods, and elect the presidents of the A. A. S., not to speak of those everywhere who grate- fully read his writings and profit by his investigations. Do you realize that through Mrs. Piper, a woman of no 444 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV special education or capacity, except in her strange gift when she was not herself, spoke a trained, judicious, resourceful, and successful physician? This physician used slang and swore. So have a great many other good physicians. He was vain. So are a great many other good physicians. He pieced out his knowledge with conjecture. That's the habit, and even the tradition, of the profession it is necessary in many cases, more than in any other profession in the main honest. With unvarying labor and patience, despite a little humorous irri- tability, this physician treated many people, as we have seen and shall see more later, to their physical and emotional good, and he misled no man to his hurt. Was she that physician? Did she get the knowledge, training, character, telepathically from some other physician? Account for it in all ways yet tried, is not the simplest and most rational just the plain fact? Beside this explanation every other yet offered is labored, sophisticated, and self-deceiving. This one, it is true, is counter to nearly all human experience. So are a great many things that people don't bend all their energies to make seem different from what they appear. I am not arguing for spiritism : I don't yet know whether to " believe " in it or not. I'm arguing only for common sense, as I see it, and honesty towards one's self wherever the ways may lead. They may, on the whole, lead away from spiritism, for all I know, but they don't in this case. But to return to the sitting (Pr. VI, 522) : " P. : ' She has a picture of him. [Apparently Lady Lodge's deceased brother. H.H.] They talked about having it copied.' [Right] M. L.: 'What sort of picture?' P.: 'It's a paint- ing of him.' M. L.: 'Who did it?' P.: 'Wait a bit, I'll ask him. Oh, I see, you done it yourself. [Again, telepathy would hardly give him bad grammar from Lady Lodge. H.H.] [True, and he used to be pleased with it.] He says so. It's a good one. You're a good little girl, Mary. I say, do you know who Isabella is?' M. L.: 'Yes, yes.' P.: 'Oh, it is splendid; you never saw her sad. Though she had her troubles, too.' M. L. : ' She had, indeed.' P. : ' She is as beautiful as ever, and as pure as the snow. She's a good creature.' [Isabella takes possession. H.H.] ' I tell you, you dear thing, to be as brave as I was always do the best you can ; do what your conscience tells you. Take that advice from Isabella. Oh, what larks we had! Oh! (Laughing all over.) Do you remember Clara? (Laugh- Ch. XXX] Lodge and Thompson Families 445 ing again, and jigging about in chair.) I'll sing for you. Why, Mary dear, who ever thought to see you again like this, and Oliver too? Oh, such fun! What shall I do for you now I'm here ? ' M. L. : ' Sing us one of your songs.' I. : ' Shall I ? You used to sing and play some yourself. Your papa and I have more fun than you could shake a stick at. Mary, how fat you are! Where are your crimps? (Feeling hair.) You used to crimp it. [True.] Getting lazy, eh? Well, this is fun to see you again. Oh, I do feel so happy. (Dr. P. chuckling.) She whistled, and away she goes. I never saw such a merry girl as that, never. How happy she is. Mary, it's about time you brightened up.' [This extraordinary episode was very realistic, and represented our memory of a bright-dispositioned aunt by marriage of my wife's.] " (Sitting 50, last of first aeries. December 26th, 1889. (Pr.VI,523f.) " Present : O. L. and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson ; later M. L. also " (To Mrs. L.) : ' Aunt Izzie wants to talk to you. [See previous sitting, ' Isabella '; Aunt Izzie was her familiar name.] [She takes possession. H.H.] 'Shall I sing to you? What would you like? You have not been well lately. Are you glad to hear of Aunt Izzie? I could almost come back and die over again to see you. You tell Mary that her sister Isabel still lives; tell her she has done nobly; tell her William and I are together. That lazy gardener ! ' [This message is exceedingly intelligible. The Mary referred to is my wife's mother, recently widowed, and left with a house and garden to manage in Staffordshire. ' Aunt Izzie ' had been staying with her quite recently, at a time when the gardener was troublesome.] (Then the voice and manner changed [to Gurney. H.H.] 'Don't give up a good thing, Lodge ' "Mr. T.: 'Can you tell me about my other sister?' P.: ' Sarah no Eliza-Maria that's it. She's all right. We are together and happy. That's Ted's sister and Ike's sister. She and Ted and father are all together. She teaches entirely, and is very religious. But she doesn't know you (Mrs. T.) in spec- tacles. (Took them off.) That's right; now I know you Cap'n, I'm going to leave you. God bless you and keep you in His holy keeping. God bless you, Susie, Ike, Marie, and Cap- tain ! Cap'n, I hate to leave you, but I've got to go. Au revoir, au revoir! Marie. I've got to go, but not for long; hope to see you soon again. Cap'n, speak to me again. Good-by, good-by, good-by.' " End of the First Series of Liverpool Sittings. Sitting 77. (First after interval.) January 31st, 1890. (Pr.VI,531f.) " Present : O. L., M. L., and, for first time, E. C. L. " After recognitions and greetings, and saying that Myers had 446 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Ft. IV j told him to take care of the medium and not stay too long, he [Phinuit. H.H.] began sending messages about my sister, but speedily became aware of someone present and recognized her with ' Hallo, by George, that's Nelly Come here, Siss (to Nellie). [Sir Oliver's sister. Phinuit sees her (?) for the first time, and recognizes her. Cf. pp. 440-1. H.H.] Your father [i.e., his " spirit." H.H.] wants me to look at you. Oh, you're not at all right. You're wrong.' E. C. L.: ' Oh, I'm pretty well.' P.: ' You feel pretty well, but you're not. You haven't a right cir- culation at all. You are what they call anaemic,' &c. [Full med- ical details given at considerable length, all true, and prescrip- tions practically identical with what had been tried by London and Malvern consulting physicians. Then advice given to stay with me instead of elsewhere.] " Sitting 79. February 1st, 1890. (Pr.VI,536f.) " [Here M. L. entered with our second boy, who had begged to see Dr. Phinuit, all the children being curious about the strange voice. Phinuit immediately personated A[unt] A[nne.] . . . A. A.: 'Mary, bring him here. You dear little fellow. God^ bless you. That's what's his name. Oliver dear, have I lost my memory? That's Burney, Bury B, Bodie Brodie. Yes, Brodie. [The name Burney is, as it happens, a natural one to occur first to A. A.] I remember you, my dear, when you were quite small light hair a chubby little thing. You don't remember Aunt Anne ? ' M. L. : ' No.' A. A. : < He was the last, I think. Let's see, another older and another younger. Yes, three. One older and one younger.' M. L. : ' Yes, there were three.' A. A. : ' But this was my boy. Oliver, wasn't that the last? Seems to me another one that I saw.' O. L. : ' Yes, three altogether.' A. A. : ' Another boy. Three boys. One named after your father ' (to M. L.). M. L.:'Yes.' A. A. :< That was the last.' (Further friendly remarks to Brodie about his lessons and so on. Some from Phinuit speaking in his own person. Ending :) ' Glad to see that fellow; done me good. [The grammar puzzle again. H.H.] Good-by, Brodie. That's a piece to make a man of. Let him go That boy is a deep thinker Nell [Sir O.'s sister], how's your heart? Smashed yet?' E. C. L.: 'My what?' P. : ' No, no, it's has had his heart smashed. [Convention- ally true.] . . . Nelly, have you got your medicine ? ' E. C. L. : ' No.' P. : ' She must take it (and so on, insisting on her taking it, which she had not intended to do). Nell, how do you suppose f knew the name of the man owning the chain ? ' E. C. L. : ' ij can't imagine.' P. : ' No, can you tell a body's name like that ? ' E. C. L. : ' No.' P. : ' No, it will be a good test, to him and to the world. Be a good girl. God watch over you, bless you, and all good spirits guide and help you. I'll see you again. I must go. Au revoir.'" Ch. XXX] More of Thompson Family 447 Sitting 80. February 2nd, 1890. (Pr.VI,539f.) "Present: E. C. L. and O. L. (E. C. L. holding hands. O. L. taking notes.) " P. : ' Here's Ted Thompson, he says it was only the child's erratic condition, but a good thing really, and it will come out all right. We knew it was going to happen, but didn't think it worth bothering about She was afraid of being snubbed. What on earth is he talking about? He don't want me to know what he means. He says: " Tell Ike it's all right; ' try again ' never was beat. It will come out all right. And tell Susie too." ' " [Mr. Thompson had been much troubled by a young daugh- ter having run home from school. This happened since the first series of sittings. Nothing had been said about it, and I was curious to see whether Dr. Phinuit would get hold of it. The Thompsons had not been in during this present series. ' Ike ' and ' Susie ' are Mr. and Mrs. Thompson ] " Ted (control) : ' Maria's all right, tell them. She passed out at 12 years old. [True.] He sends his love to his mother. Who are you ? ' O. L. : ' I am a friend of your brother and live next door. I hope he will be able to come and see you next time if you will come again. He is a good friend of mine.' T. : ' That will be very kind of you. I do not wish to intrude or take up your time, but if you can arrange this it will be very kind. I was going to be a physician myself, but was cut off. [True.] I do not regret it. Happiness reigns in my veins. And tefl Ike, if you please, to go and see mother often, and that Fanny had better stay with her for the present. He will understand. [Quite intelligible.] . . . Ask him not to let trivial things bother him. He has been fretting lately. Send her [the runaway schoolgirl. 1 1. II . ] to another place and she won't fly back again. She was a little bit homesick. There are a good many have done it before, and will do it again. Don't lay it up against her for too long. [Quite intelligible and useful advice.] Tell them I am unseen but in peace and happiness. Remember me to Ike, and if you will let me see him again I shall be grateful. I do not want to annoy you but he was my brother and I am very fond of him.'" Sitting No. 83, last in England. February 3rd, 1890. (Pr.VI,550f.) "Present: O. L., E. C. L., and afterwards Mr. and Mrs. T. and M. L. " P. : ' Ike, did you ever hear from me and from father before? ' Mr. T. : ' No, never before just lately.' P.: ' That's a mistake, Ike. You heard once before some time ago. You shouldn't forget.' Mr. T. : ' Oh, yes, so I did, many years ago. For the moment I did not think of it.' [Referring to an old interview which his friends had had with some medium at Bris- 448 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt, IV tol, when vivid personal messages from Dr. T. were likewise sup- posed to be sent.] . . . P. : ' Now, all you people come here. Good- by, Susie. Good-by, Ike. Good-by, Nelly. Now, all clear out and let me talk to Marie. (Long conversation of a paternal kind, with thoroughly sensible advice. Then O. L. returned.) Captain, it's not good-by, it's au revoir, and you shall hear of me when I've gone away.' O. L.: 'How can I?' P.: 'Oh, I will tell some gentleman a message and he will write it for me. You'll see. " ' Au revoir, au revoir/ &c." End of Second Series of Sittings at Liverpool. and last of Phinuit and his Lodge friends; and my scraps, though selected with great care and labor, must give a very inadequate idea of their association. I strongly recommend the interested reader to get Pr. Part (not Volume) XVII. We now reach the sittings edited by Dr. Leaf (Pr. VI, 558-615). Dr. Leaf speaks of Phinuit's " complete ignorance of French." This has already been disposed of. It is not strange, however, that testimony of what occurs in these foggy regions is contradictory: it is hard enough to get good evidence in everyday affairs. Dr. Leaf also ascribes to Phinuit rather more " fishing " than other commentators do, and gives ingenious demonstrations of it, but yet says (Pr. VI, 56 If.) : " His supposed fishing was employed, if at all, only when the supernormal power was for a time in abeyance; possibly it is only an imagination of my own. But even with all risk of being misunderstood, it seems essential that this side should be put forward, if only to show that the investigators were fully alive to all the various methods by which it might be possible to take advantage of their credulity or carelessness. The more I consider the whole of the evidence, the more I remain convinced that it gives proof of a real supernormal power, subject, how- ever, under conditions at which we can hardly even guess, to periods of temporary eclipse " It is probable that here a certain amount of muscle-reading was called into play as a guide to a right conclusion. The medium usually sat with the hand of the sitter pressed to her forehead. The attitude is a favorite one with so-called thought- reading performers. [As already said, this was given up later, as she appeared to grow in power. H.H.] ... A very common statement was that some relation of the sitter was lame in the knee, or still more commonly that he had rheumatism there. This was usually accompanied by a grasping of the knee, which Ch. XXX] Dr. Leafs Opinions 449 euggests muscle-reading. In one case the suffering was followed downwards and rightly located in the toe. At other times the pain was said to be in the head headaches or neuralgia. This was equally accompanied by feeling over the sitter's head. Not only are rheumatism and headaches two of the commonest of complaints, and the most likely to be guessed right, but the knee and the head were the most accessible portions of the sitter's frame, and those about which unconscious information could best be giTen. ' Suffering from a cold,' too, was a favor- ite diagnosis. As the sittings took place in December and Jan- uary, and the later ones during the height of the influenza epi- demic, it is not to be wondered at that this was generally ad- mitted to be correct. " I have now gone through all the possible explanations of divination by fraud which after a careful study of the whole of the evidence I am able to suggest. It will be found that they are far from covering the whole of the facts." Now there was nothing of the kind in my sitting some years later, or, I suspect, in any of the sittings after the ex- clusively writing period set in. The time has passed for this sort of ingenuity, and commentators seldom trouble them- selves with it now. I give it, however, " to be fair." Here I think is a questionable saltus, unless the first sen- tence is restricted to the incidents in hand (Pr. VI, 567) : " Several instructive incidents point directly against any knowledge derived from the spirits of the dead! For instance, in Mrs. H. Leaf's first sitting a question was put about ' Harry/ whose messages Phinuit purported to be giving: 'Did he leave a wife ? ' No answer was given to this at the time, but in accordance with Phinuit's frequent practice the supposed hint was stored up for future use ; and at Mrs. H. Leafs next sitting she was told, ' Harry sends his love to his wife.' Now, as a matter of fact Harry never was married. In Mrs. B.'s second sitting and in Mrs. A.'s account of her brother's suffering in the arm, wrong facts were stated which corresponded to the sitter's belief. This evidently indicates thought-transference, not spiritual communication." It seems to me, as perhaps illustrated in the first sentence of the above quotation, that commentators generally have erred in trying to restrict mediumistic phenomena to some one of several causes thought-transference, fishing, fraud, sec- ondary personality, or that merely nominal omnium gatherum, the subliminal self, whereas there is a strong chance that al- most every s&mce shows them all, in the case of the honest 450 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV mediums, allowing a little for unconscious fraud and fishing. In this view, the whole thing readily comes under the hypo- thesis of the Cosmic Soul of ideas and impressions of all sorts floating about the universe picked up in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of combinations, and remodeled into all sorts of new combinations. Phinuit as above gets the ideas Harry, wife, and remolds them into " Harry sends his love to his wife," just as in the case I gave early, Foster got the ideas Sextus, manuscripts, publish, and blurted out, " He says : ' Publish every word of them,' " when Sextus, I know if I know anything unverified, never said any such thing. It is quite probable too that all the ideas Harry, Sextus, manuscripts, publish came from the sitter's mind. Wherever they came from, they were parts of the hypothetical Cosmic Soul. Now in that hypothetical soul " Harry " may be any- thing from a mere name, to Colonel Esmond, or the Harry in question, just as Parthenon may be a name, a memory, a char- coal sketch, a photograph, a painting, the original structure, a restoration of it in picture or model, or the ruins still left. And the aforesaid " Harry " may be a memory in a sitter's mind, and so be reflected into Phinuit's, or hypothetically a survival of the original soul once expressed in a visible Harry, and as such have not only announced himself at the first sit- ting, and even (for "communications" often seem difficult, and often are plainly open to misunderstanding) have started Phinuit into his blunder at the second sitting, by trying to send some message to the sitter which Phinuit, with the idea wife already in his head, misunderstood. But even if we don't grope after an explanation of the " subliminal self " but merely cover our mysteries with that name, and if we insist on drawing a line (which the hypothetical cosmic inflow can save us the trouble of doing) between thought-transference and spiritism, that some phenomena are due to the one does not prevent other phenomena being due to the other. That most of the inflows of the Cosmic Soul in dreams are inco- herent nonsense, does not prevent others being coherent, up to creations transcending the art of the waking world, and even up to prophecy. Don't find fault with all this because it is vague. What else can be our glimpses into the unknown world of these phenomena, whether it is a post-mortem world Ch. XXX] Phinuit Reflects Mrs. Piper 451 or not ? Demand only that what we think we see, shall not be inconsistent with what we feel clear about. Dr. Leaf says (Pr. VI, 567) : " On the whole, then, the effect which a careful study of all the reports of the English sittings has left in my mind is this: That Dr. Phinuit is only a name for Mrs. Piper's secondary personality, assuming the name and acting the part with the aptitude and consistency which is shown by secondary personali- ties in other known cases." But he does not express an opinion regarding her other controls, or whether each one of them was a "secondary" personality; or how many thousand secondary personalities, and of how many sexes, a woman can have! In fact, up to the stage of these sittings, these questions hardly came to the surface, because nearly all of the alleged communications were through Phinuit, other apparent communicators so seldom taking control that the change of control was not often, if ever, specially noted in the reports a grave omission which I have ventured here and there to attempt to supply. Dr. Leaf gives first (Pr. VI, 568-74) a very remarkable case of telopsis in the sitting of Mr. J. T. Clarke at Professor W. James's house at Chocoma, New Hampshire. I have no space for these remarkable sittings, but urge them on the attention of the interested reader. Sitting on December 2Sth, 1889. (Pr.VI,589.) " Present : Mrs. Herbert Leaf, and Walter Leaf reporting. Mrs. H. Leaf was introduced as ' Miss Thompson.' " P. : 'I see you. How are you, you lady ? I say, Captain 1 Captain, come here.' [' Captain ' is the name by which Dr. Phinuit speaks of Professor Lodge.] W. L. : ' The captain is not here.' P.: 'Oh, then, that's you, Walter? Where are we now? Where be IT" I have taken the above for its next to last word, as throwing some possible light on Phinuit. "Where be I?" is rank Connecticut Yankee of the time before the New York and New Haven Railroad was built. It is probably Massachusetts Yankee too. Mrs. Piper does not use such language, but it abounded in her ancestry and " surroundings." Phinuit's use of it is the extreme illustration of that strange blend of New England and France which constitutes him. I cannot see, however, that this disproves the previous incarnation of the 452 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Ft. IV fellow. On the cosmic-soul hypothesis, Phimrit's portion of it has often been in the same receptacle with Mrs. Piper's. It is not necessary to suppose that her exclusion was complete. In fact, many considerations look as if any number of souls at least my z souls on p. 310 might telepathically virtually occupy the same body at the same time. Of course there is nothing " scientific " about this guess : we are far beyond the reach of science. Such guesses, however, sometimes suggest a direction in which it pays science to keep an eye open. But to return to Phinuit as a possible guest of Mrs. Piper's mortal frame, which I don't believe he was more than telepathically. Here is a piece of intense Phinuitism (Pr. VI, 595) : " I don't think Harry ever knew him [Professor Verrall ? H.H.] ; he passed out before you got hitched. " [Correct; Harry died August, 1887, and I was married the following September. K.M.L.] " On p. 606 of Pr. VI, Professor Macalister, writing to Mr. Myers, says: " Mrs. Piper is not anaesthetic during the so-called trance, and if you ask my private opinion it is that the whole thing is an imposture and a poor one." Now as Mrs. Piper has been proved "anesthetic during the so-called trance " several times by authorities at least as high as Professor Macalister (James being one), some ques- tion arises as to the value of the second opinion he states, and of the value of the opinions held on the whole subject by any excessively scientific person without enough mediumistic faculty, whatever that may be, to make a good sitter. This somewhat strenuous observation calls for a word. I have already spoken of the advantage of a sympathetic attitude on the part of the sitter. There seems to be more in this than merely the greater liability of the sympathetic to be gulled, and I venture on a few suggestions of what the " more " may be. People in general, including sitters, fall into two classes: those of the intuitive, humanistic, and sympathetic make-up, and those of the calculating scientific, skeptical make-up "Platonists and Aristotelians." The first group, I need hardly say, includes the poets and most of those gener- Ch. XXX] Platonists and Aristotelians 453 ally called philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Goethe. The second group includes Aristotle, Bacon, and Spencer, all of whom the " high priori " philosophers hardly admit to be philosophers at all. Now the first group seems to include the dreamers and the mediums. Socrates with his inner voice and his hours of sleepless unconsciousness, was in all probability a medium ; and Plato and Goethe were both great dreamers; while regarding Aristotle, Bacon, and Spencer I cannot recall at the moment any assertion of remarkable dreams. Now it is noticeable through the reports that scientific men, especially those devoted to the inorganic sciences, get very little out of the sittings, and are disposed to vote them all humbug. Sir Oliver Lodge is a marked exception. Sir William Crookes and Sir William Barrett have devoted them- selves mainly to the telekinetic phenomena. I am as far as possible from intimating that either class is superior to the other. It would be interesting to debate whether we owe more to Shakespere or to Spencer, although I should hardly take Shakespere for the mediumistic type of man, but rather (if you and God will forgive me), for the medium-mystic, and he is always in media tutissimus. Assuming the generalizations in the preceding paragraphs to be well founded, we might risk a much more uncertain one that as truth is generally indicated first to the intuitive type of mind Kant with the nebular hypothesis and Goethe with the relations of the vertebrae to the skeleton and the leaves to the plant so the free appearance of the phenomena of medi- umship to the intuitive type of person, and the scant appear- ance to the scientific type, have a certain correspondence with Nature's general ways, and so far raise a presumption that the phenomena are normal and deserve study. There may even be in this some color for presumptions going farther. I want, however, to guard against being supposed to rate intuition higher than I do. Early in this book I enlarged on the inevitability of intuitions beyond the reports of senses in course of evolution, as probably all our senses still are. Yet intuition proves nothing, but merely points ways for investi- gation often misleading ways. Nevertheless a man cannot speak of it with any respect without danger of being supposed 454 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV to rate it as high as did the German professor with his camel. Professor Bergson has suffered from this to such an extent that when, before his American lectures, he told me he con- sidered intuition inconclusive without verification, I was a little surprised; and when I told Mr. Eutgers Marshall what he had said, I was thought to have misunderstood him. It is not surprising, then, to be told that Professor Mac- alister's sitting was " unsatisfactory," and it is an amusingly incorrect one throughout. The same is true of the next sit- ting, the sitter's account of which begins in the following aus- picious manner, but note well the last line. Mr. Barkworth was plainly not the victim of any gullible sympathy. Mr. T. BarJcworth. December 3rd. (Pr.VI,606.) " In commencing the seance I held the medium's hands, which were icy cold and did not seem to gather warmth. Pulse very feeble, often quite imperceptible, and somewhat rapid. The medium seemed to find my influence uncongenial; she com- plained more than once that I had done something to her, that her head was bad, that she felt queer, had never felt so before, &c. She continually groaned as if in suffering. After long waiting Mr. Myers took my place with much better results." Professor G. H. Darwin (p. 627) naturally is "wholly un- convinced of any remarkable powers or of thought-transfer- ence." Equally naturally, though conversely, the next sitting with Miss Alice Johnson is not half bad. Yet Dr. Leaf finds much apparent fishing in it, but ends with (Pr. VI, 614) : " Even on the most unfavorable view, therefore, it seems ne- cessary to assume more than chance and skill in order to explain this sitting." The following of course falls in with the good cases. Un- fortunately, for the excellent reasons given below, no details are furnished. Miss X. December 1tJi. (Pr.VI,629.) " Miss X. was introduced, veiled, to the medium in the trance state, immediately after her arrival at Mr. Myers' house. She was at once recognized, and named. 'You are a medium; you write when you don't want to. You have got Mr. E.'s influence about you. [E. was Edmund Gurney. Miss X. was a crystal- gazer, and very prominent in the S.P.R. H.H.] This is Miss X. that I told you about.' She was subsequently addressed by Ch. XXX] Miss X. Mr. Konstamm 455 her Christian name, one of similar sound being first used but corrected immediately. " A large part of the statements made at this and the follow- ing sittings were quite correct, but in nearly all cases of so private and personal a nature that it is impossible to publish them. [As so often in the best sittings. H.H.] . . . But these sittings were perhaps the most successful and convincing of the whole series " ' You see flowers sometimes ? ' (Asked, * What is my favorite flower? There is a spirit who would know.') ' Pansies. No, delicate pink roses. You have them about you, spiritually as well as physically/ Miss X. has on a certain day in every month a present of delicate pink roses. She frequently has hallucina- tory visions of flowers." The following is suggestive. Compare with it the various remarks on the influence of the sitter. Mr. E. M. Konstamm. January 25th. (Pr.VI,645.) " Mr. K. was told that be knew one Allen, a smart fellow, but lame. This the sitter is inclined to refer to Mr. Rider Haggard's ' Allan Quatermain.' whose adventures he had just been reading." Commenting at the close of this series of sittings, Sir Oliver Lodge says (Pr. VI, 647-8) : "Is thought-transference from the sitter, of however free and unconscious a kind, a complete and sufficient mode of accounting for the facts? Mr. Leaf definitely takes the posi- tion that ... it is sufficient, and, considering the large amount of labor he has spent on the documents, his opinion is entitled to very great weight. For myself, I am not so convinced, but I cor- dially admit the difficulty of any disproof of his position " Here are a few extracts from Professor James's paper in this same volume (Pr. VI, 651f.) : " As for the explanation of her trance-phenomena, I have none to offer. The primd facie theory, which is that of spirit-control, is hard to reconcile with the extreme triviality of most of the communications. What real spirit, at last able to revisit his wife on this earth, but would find something better to say than that she had changed the place of his photograph? And yet that is the sort of remark to which the spirits introduced by the mysterious Phinuit are apt to confine themselves. I must admit, however, that Phinuit has other moods. He has several times, when my wife and myself were sitting together with him, sud- denly started off on long lectures to us about our inward defects and outward shortcomings, which were very earnest, as well as 456 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV subtile morally and psychologically, and impressive in a high degree. These discourses, though given in Phinuit's own person, were very different in style from his more usual talk, and prob- ably superior to anything that the medium could produce in the same line in her natural state." All of which exceptional facts may mean simply that in this case the sitter had the exceptional intellect and character, including the candor, modesty, and capacity of self-examina- tion of William James. Possibly it was a case of a man show- ing himself to himself of the fourth-dimensional trick of turning a rubber ball inside out without destroying it an anticipation of the possible port-mortem privilege of each soul as a member of the Cosmic Soul, of regarding itself face to face or the further possibility of telepathically regarding itself as reflected in another soul. This last possibility is, I suppose, rank spiritism. I rather like it. But whatever the facts mean, they do not necessarily mean for one moment that the " control " exercising this sympathy and delivering the resulting lecture, was not a discarnate spirit that had been incarnate in a voluble and profane but very amiable old French physician, rather mixed in a good many of his far-back memories, and in some of his properties much influenced by Yankee contact. James goes on to say of him (p. 655) : " Phinuit himself, however, bears every appearance of being a fictitious being. His French, so far as he has been able to dis- play it to me, has been limited to a few phrases of salutation, which may easily have had their rise in the medium's ' uncon- scious ' memory ; he has never been able to understand my French [He understood Mr. Rich's, Chap. XXIX! H.H.] ; and the crumbs of information which he gives about his earthly ca- reer are, as you know, so few, vague, and unlikely sounding, as to suggest the romancing of one whose stock of materials for in- vention is excessively reduced. He is, however, as he actually shows himself, a definite human individual, with immense tact and patience, and great desire to please and be regarded as in- fallible. . . . The most remarkable thing about the Phinuit per- sonality seems to me the extraordinary tenacity and minuteness of his memory. The medium has been visited by many hundreds of sitters, half of them, perhaps, being strangers who have come but once. To each Phinuit gives an hourful of disconnected fragments of talk about persons living, dead, or imaginary, and events past, future, or unreal. What normal waking memory could keep this chaotic mass of stuff together? Yet Phinuit Ch. XXX] Discussion by James 457 does so; for the chances seem to be, that if a sitter should go back after years of interval, the medium, when once entranced, would recall the minutest incidents of the earlier interview, and begin by recapitulating much of what had then been said. So far as I can discover, Mrs. Piper's waking memory is not re- markable, and the whole constitution of her trance-memory ia something which I am at a loss to understand." Which naturally harks back to the theory that she, or "he," draws on a stock that fills the universe. And how does that theory stand comparison with the theory that several controls independent of Phinuit (and later Imperator and his gang) speaking to each of " many hundreds of sitters " and keeping them all distinct, are all of them secondary, or alternating, personalities of Mrs. Piper? James says (p. 656f.) of the E. control: " I confess that the human being in me was so much stronger than the man of science that I was too disgusted with Phinuit's tiresome twaddle even to note it down. When later the phe- nomenon developed into pretended direct speech from E. [Gur- ney. H.H.] himself I regretted this, for a complete record would have been useful. I can now merely say that neither then, nor at any other time, was there to my mind the slightest inner verisimilitude in the personation. [Later, regarding the Hodg- son control, his opinion was very different. See Chapters XLIII and XLIV. H.H.] But the failure to produce a more plausible E. speaks directly in favor of the non-participation of the medium's conscious mind in the performance. She could so easily have coached herself to be more effective. " Her trance-talk about my own family shows the same inno- cence Few things could have been easier, in Boston, than for Mrs. Piper to collect facts about my own father's family for use in my sittings with her. But although my father, my mother, and a deceased brother were repeatedly announced as present, nothing but their bare names ever came out, except a hearty message of thanks from my father that I had ' published the book.' I had published his Literary Remains; but when Phinuit was asked ' what book ? ' all he could do was to spell the letters L, I, and say no more " The aunt who purported to ' take control ' directly was a much better personation [than Phinuit. H.H.], having a good deal of the cheery strenuousness of speech of the original. She spoke, by the way, on this occasion, of the condition of health of two members of the family in New York, of which we knew nothing at the time, and which was afterwards corroborated by letter. We have repeatedly heard from Mrs. Piper in trance 458 Mrs. Piper's English Sittings, 1889-90 [Bk. II, Pt. IV things of which we were not at the moment aware. If the super- normal element in the phenomenon be thought-transference it is certainly not that of the sitter's conscious thought. It is rather the reservoir of his potential knowledge which is tapped; and not always that, but the knowledge of some distant living person, as in the incident last quoted. It has sometimes even seemed to me that too much intentness on the sitter's part to have Phinuit say a certain thing acts as a hindrance. [Again the reverse of Foster. H.H.] " My mother-in-law, on her return from Europe, spent a morn- ing vainly seeking for her bank-book. Mrs. Piper, on being shortly afterwards asked where this book was, described the place so exactly that it was instantly found. I was told by her that the spirit of a boy named Robert F. was the companion of my lost infant. The F.'s were cousins of my wife living in a distant city. On my return home I mentioned the incident to my wife, saying, ' Your cousin did lose a baby, didn't she ? but Mrs. Piper was wrong about its sex, name, and age.' I then learned that Mrs. Piper had been quite right in all those particulars, and that mine was the wrong impression. But, obviously, for the source of revelations such as these, one need not go behind the sitter's own storehouse of forgotten or unnoticed experiences [or the world-soul's? H.H.]. Miss X.'s experiments in crystal-gazing prove how strangely these survive. If thought-transference be the clue to be followed in interpreting Mrs. Piper's trance-utter- ances (and that, as far as my experience goes, is what, far more than any supramundane instillations, the phenomena seem on their face to be) we must admit that the ' transference ' need not be of the conscious or even the unconscious thought of the sitter, but must often be of the thought of some person far away." Hodgson's report of the sittings in America from Mrs. Piper's return in 1890 to the end of '91 (Pr. VIII, 133f.) contains much of an "evidential" nature, including some remarkable telopses. But so abundant are such cases that it hardly seems worth while to string them along. They prove nothing more than telepathy, unless they contain dramatic elements; and the present state of the skeptical argument is such that even each dramatic case tends to add a recruit to Mrs. Piper's regiments of alternate selves. Credat Ju- dceus! In May, 1892, Hodgson closed as follows (Pr. VIII, 58) his comments on the sittings reported: " The foregoing report is based upon sittings not later than 1891. Mrs. Piper has given some sittings very recently which Ch. XXX] Hodgson's Promised Developments 459 materially strengthen the evidence for the existence of some faculty that goes beyond thought-transference from the sitters, and which certainly prima facie appear to render some form of the ' spiritistic ' hypothesis more plausible. I hope to discuss these among other results in a later article." We shall meet this discussion in time. CHAPTER XXXI HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER REPORT, 1892-5 I. The G. P. Sittings SOME six years later than the reports drawn from in the preceding chapter, Hodgson, in Pr. XIII, published another report on Mrs. Piper's trance, taken from some five hundred sittings. During the five years had been de- veloped heteromatic writing and the control known as G. P., and Mrs. Piper had undergone two important surgical opera- tions, which had entirely remedied a somewhat defective state of health, with great benefit to the manifestations. Through the heteromatic writing, not only were the records better kept, but there were many more manifestations of knowledge of facts unknown to the sitter and afterwards verified, and much more indication of the characteristics of various persons than had been practicable through Phinuit's talk. My abstract can give but a very inadequate idea of this matter. The interested reader should get Pr. Part XXXIII of Vol. XIII. Touching the writing, Hodgson says (Pr. XIII, 291f.) : " The first case of this automatic writing which I witnessed myself occurred on March 12th, 1892. The sitter, a lady, had taken several articles as test objects, among them a ring which had belonged to Annie D . "Phinuit made [oral. H.H.] references to this lady, giving the name Annie, and just before the close of the sitting Mrs. Piper's right hand moved slowly up until it was over the top of her head. The arm seemed to become rigidly fixed . . . but the hand trembled very rapidly. Phinuit exclaimed several times: ' She's [i.e., Annie D. ? H.H.] taken my hand away,' and added : 'she wants to write.' I put a pencil between the fingers, and placed a block-book on the head under the pencil. No writing came until, obeying Phinuit's order to ' hold the hand,' I grasped the band very firmly at its junction with the wrist and so stopped its trembling or vibrating. It then wrote : ' I am Annie 460 Ch. XXXI] Early Piper Writing 461 D [surname correctly given] ... I am not dead ... I am not dead but living 1 am not dead . . . world . . . good bye ... I am Annie D .' The hold of the pencil then relaxed, and Phinuit began to murmur ' Give me my hand back, give me my hand back.' The arm, however, remained in its contracted position for a short time, but finally, as though with much difficulty, and slowly, it moved down to the side, and Phinuit appeared to regain control over it. Previous to this I had witnessed a little of Phinuit's writing, but I was not aware that any other ' control ' had used the hand while Phinuit was mani- festing at the same time [by the voice. H.H.] . . . The char- acteristics of the actual handwritings themselves . . . vary super- ficially a great deal, according to the excitement, so to speak, of the purported ' communicator,' to the frequency of his writing in that way previously, and probably to other causes difficult to estimate except speculatively. It would seem, more- over, that until instructed in some way, the quasi-personality that guides the writing is unaware that he is writing. The process from the point of view of the ' communicator ' rather resembles the definite thinking of his thoughts, with the object of conveying them to the sitter, and I feel very sure that this is true whatever theory may be held as to the identity of the ' communicator,' whether this is what it purports to be, or merely another stratum of Mrs. Piper's mind believing itself to be an extraneous intelligence." Hodgson says (Pr. XIII, 292-3) : " When the arm is being seized ' for the purpose of writing,' as also to a less extent when Phinuit is regaining control, it shows a certain amount of spasmodic movement, which occasion- ally is extremely violent, knocking pencils and block-books helter- skelter off the table, and requiring considerable force to restrain it. Sometimes, but not often, the writing will be interrupted by a spasm in the arm, and the hand will be strongly clenched and bent over at the wrist, but after an interval that can be meas- ured in seconds rather than minutes, the hand will be released and proceed with the writing." Do the probabilities seem preponderant that all this is genuine, or that it is " put up " ? Nothing like it is reported in the Proceedings, of the other heteromatic writers. All of which seems congruous with Mrs. Piper's apparently more thorough " possession " in other respects. Hodgson continues : "It is not necessary for Phinuit to stop talking while the hand is writing. On one occasion when I was present Phinuit was listening to the stenographic report of a previous interview, commenting upon it, making additions to his statements about some objects, and at the same time the hand was writing freely 462 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pi IV and rapidly on other subjects, and holding conversation with another person, the hand purporting to be 'controlled' by a deceased friend of that person. [Perhaps this is put up, too? Is it within the compass of mortal faculty? Is it two controls at the same time? The brain consists of two halves. H.H.] This lasted for over twenty minutes. On another occasion, when I was not present, I was informed that Phinuit for about an hour kept up a specially rapid and vigorous talk, more voluble even than usual with him, with two or three young girls who were present at the sitting, and during the whole of this time the hand was writing on other matters with another person. The only one that appeared to be distracted was the sitter who was talking with the ' hand,' who was remonstrated with by the ' hand ' for not paying sufficient attention to it. I have . . . never failed to get this double action when desired if Phinuit was present and the hand was being used by another ' control.' In all cases when the ' hand ' is writing independently of Phi- nuit, the sense of hearing for the ' hand-control ' appears to be in the hand, whereas Phinuit apparently always hears through the ordinary channel. This apparent heteraesthesia will be con- sidered in Part II. of my Eeport." Also during the five years since Hodgson's first report, to the two accounts of professed control by personal friends of sitters there given, he was able to add many, especially from George " Pelham," and he stated that they had inspired the following significant remark, which I think worth repeating, as he did. It closed his previous report in Pr. VIII, and is reprinted in the volume we are now considering (Pr. XIII, 290): " Mrs. Piper has given some sittings very recently which materially strengthen the evidence for the existence of some faculty that goes beyond thought-transference from the sitters, and which certainly prima facie appear to render some form of the ' spiritistic ' hypothesis more plausible." To this he added in the new report (Pr. XIII, 291) : "The results present an appearance precisely in accordance with what we should expect from returning ' spirits ' communi- cating under the conditions involved, and . . . such results do not fall into orderly relation with one another on the hypothesis of telepathy from the living." To prove this Hodgson presented a masterly examination of the evidence ; and, in short, it was this series of phenomena that turned Hodgson, the arch skeptic and arch unveiler of Ch. XXXI] George " ' Pelliam" 463 frauds, into a spiritist. Of this report, so high an authority as James later said (Pr. XXIII, 28) : "I admire [it] greatly ... especially in sections 5 and 6, where, taking the whole mass of communication into careful account, he decides for this spiritist interpretation. I know of no more masterly handling anywhere of so unwieldly a mass of material." Here, too, should my scrappy extracts interest any reader, I advise "thon" to get the full report in Pr. Part (not Volume) XXXIII. George " Pelham " is the principal control in this series. He was of a leading New York family, graduated from Har- vard, and for some years after graduation lived in or near Boston ; but for three years before his death, had made his headquarters in New York and the family seat at , at both of which places, and elsewhere, I had seen much of him. He had been trained in the law, but I think had not practised, but had been a rather assiduous reader in literature and philosophy. He had published a meritorious biography of an eminent ancestor, and another volume of "pure lit- erature." Perhaps I may as well digress here to add my own to the general testimony that the Piper controls calling themselves George " Pelham " and (much later in this record) Hodgson and Myers are fac-similes of the men as I knew them ; and to give my testimony whatever weight it may be entitled to, I venture to explain also how I knew the last two. Hodgson I knew even better than " Pelham," in his frequent visits to New York, and mine to Boston ; and especially for a fortnight or so while we were both attending the Chicago Fair in '93, when we met virtually every day, and frequently several times a day. We also were together for a week or so on a visit to Old Farm. (See Chapter XLIV.) Myers was there at the same time, and so was James, the house-party probably having been selected somewhat with reference to the common interests of its members in Psychical Research. Under such circum- stances I came to know Myers better than probably would have been the case in years of ordinary meetings. Yet candor obliges me to say that since I wrote the fore- 464 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV going passage, a lady who thinks she knew G. P. better than anybody else did tells me that his alleged postcarnate self is not like him at all. Does this illustrate anything more than the different aspects a person presents to different people ? Hodgson says (Pr. XIII, 295) : " G. P. met his death accidentally, and probably instantane- ously by a fall in New York in February, 1892, at the age of thirty-two He was an Associate of our Society, his interest in which was explicable rather by an intellectual openness and fearlessness characteristic of him than by any tendency to be- lieve in supernormal phenomena We had several long talks together on philosophic subjects, and one very long discussion, probably at least two years before his death, on the possibility of a 'future life.' In this he maintained that in accordance with a fundamental philosophic theory which we both accepted, a ' future life ' was not only incredible, but inconceivable ; and I maintained that it was at least conceivable. At the conclusion of the discussion he admitted that a future life was conceivable, but he did not accept its credibility, and vowed that if he should die before I did, and found himself ' still existing,' he would ' make things lively ' in the effort to reveal the fact of his con- tinued existence." That his " spirit," or at the very least, recollections of him which must have been in other minds than Hodgson's or Mrs. Piper's, and which were telepathically obtained and dramat- ically combined by Mrs. Piper, should have at length con- verted Hodgson to the spiritistic belief, is a strange outcome. As a " control " G. P. differs in some particulars from his earthly self as known to me. He greeted me through Mrs. Piper with a degree of jollity and bonhomie that I had never seen in him on earth. The genial helpful creature "going about doing good " in aid of everybody's communication, that appears as his manifestations from another world ( ?), he may have been at heart in this one ; but if he was, it was under a mask of shyness or reserve developed on a sensitive nature by contact with a rough world. Yet he had an unusual degree of candor, not to say self-assertion, which, though never boisterous, was apt, at times, to become somewhat dogmatic. I never thought of him as a happy man here, while utterances attributed to him give a welcome impression that he is a happy man there. This impression I think must have had more Ch. XXXI] 0. P.'s First Appearance 465 effect on Hodgson's opinions regarding G. P.'s postcarnate existence than Hodgson has stated, or perhaps realized. I think any friend of G. P.'s must be somewhat affected by it, even if unconsciously. This I find more the case regarding him than I later found regarding the controls representing Hodgson and Myers : for they were happier men here. Hodgson goes on to say of G. P. (Pr. XIII, 295-6) : " On March 7th, 1888, he had a sitting with Mrs. Piper. . . . I may add my own opinion that Mrs. Piper never knew until recently that she had ever seen G. P " G. P.'s conclusion was, briefly, that the results of this sitting did not establish any more than hypenesthesia on the" part of the medium. " I knew of G. P.'s death within a day or two of its occurrence, and was present at several sittings with Mrs. Piper in the course of the following few weeks, but no allusion was made to G. P. On March 22nd, 1892, between four and five weeks after G. P.'s death, I accompanied Mr. John Hart [not the real name], who had been an old intimate friend of his, to a sitting." That he did not appear till a month after his death is in accord with the many indications and assertions that it takes time for the newly emancipated soul to " find itself " from a dazed condition after death. If telepathy were all, Hodgson's mind was probably fuller of G. P. at the first sitting after his death than a month later. It often seems too as if the presence of a close friend were necessary to help the control's early utterance. This one did not speak at Hodgson's many sittings, until the first sitting when his closer friend Hart was present. After Phinuit had announced a " George," an uncle of Mr. Hart, he went on (Pr. XIII, 297f.) : " There is another George who wants to speak to you. How many Georges are there about you any way? " [R. H.] The rest of the sitting, until almost the close, was occupied by statements from G. P., Phinuit acting as inter- mediary. George Pelham's real name was given in full, also the names, both Christian and surname, of several of his most intimate friends, including the name of the sitter. Moreover, incidents were referred to which were unknown to the sitter or myself. One of the pair of studs which J. H. was wearing was given to Phinuit '(Who gave them to me?) [Throughout these sittings, the sitters' remarks are in parentheses. H.H.] That's mire. I gave you that part of it. I sent that to you. (When?) Before I came here. That's mine. Mother gave you 466 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV that. (No.) Well, father then, father and mother together. You got those after I passed out. Mother took them. Gave them to father, and father gave them to you. I want you to keep them. I will them to you.' Mr. Hart notes : ' The studs were sent to me by Mr. Pelham as a remembrance of his son " James and Mary [Mr. and Mrs.] Howard [Pseudonyms. H.H.] were mentioned with strongly specific references, and in connection with Mrs. Howard came the name Katharine. ' Tell her, she'll know. I will solve the problems, Katharine.' Mr. Hart notes : ' This had no special significance for me at the time, though I was aware that Katharine, the daughter of Jim Howard, was known to George, who used to live with the How- ards. On the day following the sitting I gave Mr. Howard a detailed account of the sitting. These words, " I will solve the problems, Katharine," impressed him more than anything else, and at the close of my account he related that George, when he had last stayed with them, had talked frequently with Katharine (a girl of fifteen years of age) upon such subjects as Time, Space, God, Eternity, and pointed out to her how unsatisfactory the commonly accepted solutions were. He added that some time he would solve the problems, and let her know, using almost the very words of the communication made at the sitting.' Mr. Hart added that he was entirely unaware of these circumstances. I was myself unaware of them, and was not at that time ac- quainted with the Howards " G. P. : ' John, if that is you, speak to me. Tell Jim I want to see him. He will hardly believe me, believe that I am here. I want him to know where I am . . . O good fellow. All got dark, then it grew light " ' Go up to my room. (Which room ?) Up to my room, where I write. I'll come. Speak to me, John. (What room?) Study. (You said something about a desk just now.) I left things all mixed up. [Remember : his death was sudden. H.H.] I wish you'ld go up and straighten them out for me. Lot of names. Lot of letters. I left things mixed up. You answer them for me. Wish I could remember more, but I'm con- fused "'Who's Rogets? [Phinuit tries to spell the real name.] % (Spell that again.) [At the first attempt afterwards Phinuit leaves out a letter, then spells it correctly.] Rogers Rogers has got a book of mine. (What is he going to do with it?) ' " Both Hart and G. P. knew Rogers, who at that time had a certain MS. book of G. P. in his possession. The book was found after G. P.'s death and given to Rogers to be edited. G. P. had promised during his lifetime that a particular disposition should be made of this book after his death. This action . . . was here, and in subsequent utterances which from their private nature I cannot quote, enjoined emphatically and repeatedly, Ch. XXXI] G. P. Sends for Relatives and Friends 467 and had it been at once carried out, as desired by G. P., much subsequent unhappiness and confusion might have been avoided. " During the latter part of the sitting, and without any re- levance to the remarks immediately before and after, which were quite clear as expressions from G. P. came the words, ' Who's James? Will William.' [It must be remembered that Phinuit was talking throughout.] This was apparently explained by Phinuit's further remarks at the close of the sitting. " Phinuit: ' Who's Alice? (What do you want me to say to her?) [To R. H.] Alice in spirit. Alice in spirit says it's all over now, and tell Alice in the body all is well. Tell Will I'll explain things later on. He [George] calls Alice, too, in the body. I want her to know me, too, Alice and Katharine Speak to him. He won't go till you say good-by. [The hand then wrote : George Pelham. Good day ( ?) John.] ' " [Alice James, the sister of Professor William James, had recently died in England. The first name of Mrs. James is also Alice. Alice, the sister of Katharine, is the youngest daughter of Mr. Howard and was very fond of G. P.] " As 1 have already said, the most personal references made at the sitting cannot be quoted ; they were regarded by J. H. as profoundly characteristic of Pelham, and in minor matters, where my notes were specially inadequate, such as in the words of greeting and occasional remarks to the sitter, the manner of reference to his mother with him ' spiritually,' and to his father and [step] mother living, etc., the sitter was strongly im- pressed with the vraisemblance of the personality of Pelham." Mrs. Piper's time was so engaged that it was nearly three weeks before these astounding developments could be followed up by G. P.'s intimate friends the Howards, for whom, during the interval George (as, for at least convenience' sake, we will provisionally admit the control to be) asked through Phinuit at nearly every sitting when his friends, especially Jim (Howard) were to be brought. On April 11, 1892, they came. Hodgson says (Pr. XIII, 300f.) : " I made the appointment, of course without giving names . . . during nearly the whole of the time of trance apparently G. P. controlled the voice directly. The statements made were inti- mately personal and characteristic The Howards, who were not predisposed to take any interest in psychical research, but who had been induced by the account of Mr. Hart to have a sitting with Mrs. Piper, were profoundly impressed with the feeling that they were in truth holding a conversation with the personality of the friend whom they had known so many years. . . . All the references to persons and individuals are correct. " G. P. : ' Jim, is that you ? Speak to me quick. I am not 468 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV dead. Don't think me dead. I'm awfully glad to see you. Can't you see me? Don't you hear me? Give my lore to my father and tell him I want to see him. I am happy here, and more so since I find I can communicate with you. I pity those people who can't speak " (What do you do, George, where you are?) " ' I am scarcely able to do anything yet; I am just awakened to the reality of life after death. It was like darkness, I could not distinguish anything at first. Darkest hours just before dawn, you know that, Jim. I was puzzled, confused. Shall have an occupation soon. Now I can see you, my friends. I can hear you speak. Your voice, Jim, I can distinguish with your accent and articulation, but it sounds like a big bass drum. Mine would sound to you like the faintest whisper. (Our con- versation then is something like telephoning ?) [Remember : the sitter's part is given in parentheses throughout. H.H.] Yes. (By long distance telephone.) [G. P. laughs.] (Were you not surprised to find yourself living?) Perfectly so. Greatly sur- prised. I did not believe in a future life. It was beyond my reasoning powers. Now it is as clear to me as daylight. We have an astral fac-simile of the material body. [G. P. when living would probably have jeered at the associations of the word * astral/ E.H.] . . . Jim, what are you writing now? (No- thing of any importance.) Why don't you write about this? (I should like to, but the expression of my opinions would be no- thing. I must have facts.) These I will give to you and to Hodg- son if he is still interested in these things. [Cuts both ways, as the living G. P. knew that " these things " made Hodgson's sole occupation. H.H.] (Will people know about this possibility of communication ?) They are sure to in the end. It is only a question of time when people in the material body will know all about it, and everyone will be able to communicate. ... I want all the fellows to know about me What is Rogers writing ? (A novel.) No, not that. Is he not writing something about me? (Yes, he is preparing a memorial of you.) That is nice; it is pleasant to be remembered. It is very kind of him. He was always kind to me when I was alive. Martha Rogers [de- ceased daughter] is here. I have talked with her several times. She reflects too much on her last illness, on being fed with a tube. We tell her she ought to forget it, and she has done so in good measure, but she was ill a long time. She is a dear little creature when you know her, but she is hard to know. She is a beautiful little soul. She sends her love to her father. . . . Berwick, how is he? Give him my love. He is a good fellow; he is what I always thought him in life, trustworthy and honor- able. How is Orenberg? He has some of my letters. Give him my warmest love. He was always very fond of me, though he understood me least of all my friends. We fellows who are eccentric are always misunderstood in life. I used to have fits Ch. XXXI] 0. P. Arranges for a Test 469 of depression. I have none now. I am happy now. I want my father to know about this. We used to talk about spiritual things, but he will be hard to convince. My mother will be easier ' " He referred to a tin box of German manufacture which he said was either in New York or Z [giving the name, a very peculiar one, of the locality of his father's country residence.] He said that it contained letters from three persons whom he specified. He wished the Howards to have this box. They re- plied that the letters were all burned. " G. P. : ' I think not. I want you to have them. I want you to tell my father about this. (Can't you give us something that will convince him? something we don't know and he does?) I understand, a test. You can tell him about this tin box that I left in my room. I know they have taken the chest, but this tin box they have not.' [The box was found at Z , but there were no letters in it. ... This was explained to G. P. at a sitting on May 14th, 1892, by Mrs. Pelham. Phinuit: 'That's the one I had reference to. He says he put some letters in before going across the water, but he doesn't remember taking them out.'] " At the sitting of April 13th, G. P. had direct control of the voice for about twenty minutes only. Then Phinuit acted as intermediary, and there was also a little writing, a few lines by G. P., in the form of an affectionate letter to Mr. and Mrs. Howard. Apparently G. P. was more confident of giving his own exact words by the direct writing process than by the method of getting Phinuit to repeat them. " Mr. Howard was absent during part of the sitting The following is from Mr. Howard's notes on his return to the sitting: " G. P. : ' I answered part of that question [the part he an- swered was correct], but did not give the names of the other two people because it would be no test, because I told her [Mrs. Howard] the names of the other two in life, and as she knows them, if I was to give the names in her presence, they would say it was thought-transference. No, I shall reserve the two names to tell Hodgson some time when he is alone with me, because he does not know them.' [All true.] " A good deal of persistence and purpose and emotion in this kind of " telepathy " ! But in the conservative search for non- spiritistic sources of the phenomena, a statement in Mrs. How- ard's absence would simply be attributed to teloteropathy from her, as if she were present. It should be noted that during G. P.'s life, telepathy from the sitter had been re- luctantly conceded as a defense against the spiritistic hypo- thesis, but it was not till after his death that teloteropathy 470 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV from persona at a, distance had been conceded ; and it was not until 1909 seven years later, that James, one of the most steadfast holders of the conservative fort, in his report on the communications from Hodgson's alleged spirit, admitted, as among the possible " sources other than R. H.'s surviving spirit for the veridical communications from the Hodgson control," " access to some cosmic reservoir, where the memory of all mundane facts is stored and grouped around personal centers of association." James had a subtler mind than mine or almost anybody's. Mine is not subtle enough to be very seriously impressed by the difference between " memory of mundane facts stored and grouped around personal centers of association" and a sur- viving personality ; and" what difference does impress me, is pretty well filled up when, in addition to " the memory of mundane facts," the "personal center" also has "grouped around " it, the initiative, response, repartee and emotional and dramatic elements that, as shown not only by the G. P. control, but, years later, by the Hodgson control, and by hun- dreds of others, make a gallery of characters more vivid than those depicted by all the historians. I don't say, though, that they are more vivid than those depicted by the dramatists and novelists, but I may yet say it; nor do I yet say that they are not, like those of the dramatists and novelists, fictional in a sense; though even claiming them to be historical, as in a sense they are, is not claiming them to be surviving. Many historical characters have put in that claim through Mrs. Piper and other mediums, and while our greatest psychologist knew as much as anybody about the claims, and seemed some- what on the road to admitting them to be from surviving personalities, he did not live to go farther than memories " stored and grouped around personal centers of association." This thesis seems supported by Foster's communications in languages unknown by him, and possibly by the French which Phinuit did know, despite the assertions of Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. James, and others. But d bos the " memories " ! one is tempted to say ; credit them all to telepathy if you will: what are they beside the active and spontaneous emotions and responses? Ch. XXXI] G. P. Tinged by the Medium 471 At the sitting last quoted, G. P. wrote, in answer to the question below (Pr. XIII, 303) : " (Can't you tell us something he or your mother has done?) ' I saw her brush my clothes and put them away. I was by her side as she did it. I saw her take my sleeve buttons from a small box and give them to my father. I saw him send them to John Hart. I saw her putting papers, etc., into a tin box.' " The incident of the ' studs ' was mentioned at the sitting of Hart. G. P.'s clothes were brushed and put away, as Mrs. Pel- ham wrote, not by herself, but by ' the man who had valeted George.' " This incident is used by Mrs. Sidgwick in Pr. XV, 31, in support of the thesis that a medium's communications are influenced by education and social habits. I am disposed entirely to endorse this. The communications seem to me to come from a blending of the control, the medium, and the sitter. Perhaps this utterance will seem less Delphic as we go on. Hodgson says that ten days after (Pr. XIII, 304) : " Mr. Pelham wrote to Mrs. Howard on April 24th, 1892 : '. . . The letters which you have written to my wife giving such extraordinary evidence of the intelligence exercised by George in some incomprehensible manner over the actions of his friends on earth have given food for constant reflection and wonder. Preconceived notions about the future state have received a severe shock.'" On May 16th the following occurred (Pr. XIII, 314). Is this play of conversation covered by telepathy or even by memories " stored," etc. ? " [Phinuit speaks on behalf of G. P.] ' Ask Hodgson whether this is important to him or not. I am determined to [writing again] transfer to you my thoughts, although it will have to be done in this uncanny way. (Never mind. That's all right. We understand, etc.) Good. I will move heaven and earfh to ex- plain these matters to you, Hodgson. [Phinuit speaks.] [For G. P.?H.H.] You see I am not asleep. [Written.] I am wide awake, and I assure you I am ever ready to help you and give you things of importance in this work. [Phinuit speaks.] It was like Greek to him before he came here. I could not believe this existence. [Written.] I am delighted to have this oppor- tunity of coming here to this life, so as to be able to prove my experiences and existence here. Dear old Hodgson, I wish I could have known you better in your life, but I understand you now, and the philosophy of my being taken out and (Didn't you 472- Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV go too soon?) Not too soon, but it is my vocation to be able to explain these things to you and the rest of my friends. [This he (?) carried out for years. H.H.] (Does it do you harm ?) And it is all nonsense about its doing me harm, for it surely does no harm, and will help to enlighten the world. What think you, Hodgson? (I agree entirely. I think it's the most im- portant work in the world.) Oh, I am so glad your exalted brains are not too pretentious to accept the real truth and philo- sophy of my coming and explaining to you these important things. (Now, George, we mustn't keep the medium in trance too long.) Do not worry about her, she is having a good time, and I will do no harm. You know that too well. [Phinuit speaks.] He says he's not an idiot. (Oh, I know he's not an idiot, etc.) " [Written.] ' I understand. You see I hear you. Now I will proceed with my important conversation. Your material universe is very exacting, and it requires great practice and per- severance to do all I want to say to you.' " [Cf . " this pro- toplasm " in my sitting, Chapter XXVIII. H.H.] November 22nd, 1892. (Pr.XIII,413.) " Present : Mr. and Mrs. Howard, R. H. and Reporter. " After a short conversation with Phinuit, G. P. wrote : " ' Haloo, Hodgson, you know me. Haloo, Jim, old fellow, I am not dead yet. I still live to see you. Do you remember how we used to ask each other for books of certain kinds, about cer- tain books, where they were, and you always knew just where to find them. [This was characteristic. The sitting was held in my library, where George and myself had . . . frequent occasion to turn up references in one book or another. George, living, had remarked several times on my accurate knowledge of loca- tion of the books in my shelves. J] Halloa, I know now where I am. Jim, you dear old soul, how are you ? ' " November 28th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,414-5.) "Present: Mr. and Mrs. Howard, and (part of the time) their eldest daughter Katharine, R. H. and Reporter. " ' Katharine, how is the violin? [She plays the vio- lin.] ... To hear you playing it is horrible, horrible ' Mrs. H. : ' But don't you see she likes her music because it is the best she has.' G. P. : ' No, but that is what I used to say, that it is horrible.' [George was always more or less annoyed by hear- ing Katharine practise when she was beginning the violin as a little child. K] " The above, we are assured, is "telepathy"! The follow- ing (Pr. XIII, 416f.) maybe? " Mrs. Piper [on coming out of the trance. H.H.] : ' There is the man with the beard' [whom she saw in the trance. H.H.]. Ch. XXXI] Mrs. Piper in French and Italian 473 Mrs. Piper then described what she thought was a dream. 'I saw a bright light and a face in it, a gentleman with a beard on his face, and he had a very high forehead and he was writing.' R. H. : ' Would you know it again if you saw it ? ' Mrs. Piper : 1 Oh, yes. I would know it, I think.' R. H. : ' Well, try and recall it.' [See note at end of sitting.] " [Medium says she feels queer and as if she could turn right round and go into the trance again. Does not know what is the matter with her. After saying this she becomes entranced again very quickly at 9.22, and Phinuit appears, shouting.] " Ph. : ' You know you don't play that on me. George Pelham is a very clever fellow, but I am going to tell you he passed by me, and do you know what he did, he let her go without signal- ing to me at all; he did it by mistake; he told me afterwards, and so I came back to tell you [To Katharine] Vous etes bonne fille. C'est la petite de madame: bonne fille, bonne fille, grande belle fille.' [I was struck by Phinuit's speaking French all at once to Katharine, as she always speaks French with her sisters, having lived so long in France. There was more French than was here reported, as the stenographer does not know French well, and had to get what we could remember from us afterwards. Mr. Howard and I were much struck by the thor- oughly French use of the word belle. Katharine is in no sense of the word a beautiful girl as English people generally under- stand the word belle, but she is conspicuously a tall, well-devel- oped, well-made girl, of the sort to which belle in the French sense would be applied. K.] " How about the frequent claim that Phinuit knew no French ? " Mrs. Piper is apparently about to come out of trance when another control takes possession for a few minutes, who is thought by Mrs. Howard to be Elisa, and who whispers some- thing in Italian to Mrs. Howard. [Mrs. Piper knew no Italian. H.H.] Again Mrs. Piper is apparently about to come out of trance when Phinuit returns for a moment to say au revoir. [What follows is in substance the conversation between Elisa and Mrs. Howard.] " E. : ' Pazienza, pazienza, pazienza.' Mrs. H. : ' Si cara Elisa.' E. : [Tries to give a message in Italian to her sister, but Mrs. H. could only catch a few words.] Mrs. H. : ' Non comprendo bene.' E. : ' Taceo, pazienza, pazienza. Dire tutto a Frederica [name of sister] a rivederla. Elisa a rivederla.' [Signs of suffering indicating the trouble that caused the death of Madame Elisa.] Mrs. H. says in Italian ' Don't suffer, Elisa.' E. : ' Pa- zienza a rivederla.' " After Mrs. Piper comes out of trance she is shown a collec- tion of thirty-two photographs, nine of them being of men, from 474 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV which she selects the picture of the person whom she saw when coming out of trance the first time. The photograph that she first picked out was an excellent likeness of G. P. She after- wards picked out another photograph of him. She stated that she never knew the gentleman when living." Within twenty- four hours in this experiment, or some other, as reported elsewhere, the dream recollection had faded away ; she could not recognize the photograph. Now in face of such an occurrence as this (and it does not stand alone), the talk about subliminal self, in the usual sense, secondary personality and all that, simply " won't do." We can talk about telopsis here, if we want to, but telopsis of what ? Of that photograph ? Nonsense ! And as strange as anything else about it, is that there is nothing strange about it. In my own dreams I see any number of people I never saw before, just as plainly as I see any number on the street, and if photographs were handed me, as those were to Mrs. Piper, immediately on awaking, I could identify them. Had I seen fit to develop the mediumship Phinuit ascribes to me (and Sir William Crookes, by implication ascribes to all of us), or had you seen fit to develop the mediumship probably latent in you (instead of perhaps killing it by scientific skepticism an admirable thing in its place) had we devel- oped our mediumship so that we were giving sittings and having friends at hand with pictures of the people we saw in our dreams, we might be identifying controls too. This iden- tification is nothing out of the ordinary course of nature, only the wit to see that it is, has but just come. If it is a step toward accepting the spiritistic hypothesis, what is the harm ? Only it is well to remember that " fools rush in." As to the attempted solution that Mrs. Piper sees G. P. as he exists in the memory of his friends, and picks out the photograph of the man she sees: in the mind of an average friend mine, for instance, he doesn't exist with the defi- niteness of a photograph. If I had tried, when I sat with Mrs. Piper, to describe him to an artist to enable him to draw a portrait, I should have been wrong in so many particulars that the portrait would not have been recognizable. I should have given him a square forehead, and a photograph I have looked at since, which I recognized as a very good one, has Ch. XXXI] G. P.'s Intense Scene with Howard 475 a round forehead, and having seen that portrait within a year, I couldn't say now whether the nose is straight or slightly aquiline. I only feel sure that it was not pug. I don't remember, either, whether his mouth was firm or rounded, or his chin and jaw light or pronounced. Yet at the sitting when Mrs. Piper saw him, the sitter may have been gifted with a much more pictorial memory than mine; and with any sitter, Mrs. Piper may have just as definite an idea as the sitter has, and that may be, like mine, definite enough to recognize, but not to describe. But can telepathy convey more than the agent can describe ? She may have seen the man at all the sittings, as we see in dreams people that we never knew or know we knew, or it may have been the man himself who used her organism to speak and write when it was asserted that he did. Each one of us will have to fumble to his own conviction if he ever reaches one. Mine is simply that she saw him in dreams, and the sitters or his surviving personality impressed those dreams upon her. One reason for that conviction is that despite the occasional alleged going out of one control, and coming in of another, generally the controls succeed and interrupt each other without any intervals, as in dreams. Hodgson continues (Pr. XIII, 321-2) : " It was during this sitting [Dec. 22, 1892] that perhaps the most dramatic incident of the whol series occurred. " Mr. Howard : ' Tell me something . . . that you and I alone know. I ask you because several things I have asked you, you have failed to get hold of.' G. P. : ' Why did you not ask me this before? ' Mr. H. : ' Because I did not have occasion to.' G. P. : 'What do you mean, Jim?' Mr. H. : 'I mean, tell me some- thing that you and I alone know, something in our past that you and I alone know.' G. P. : ' Do you doubt me, dear old fellow ? ' Mr. H. : ' I simply want something you have failed to answer certain questions that I have asked now I want you to give me the equivalent of the answers to those questions in your own terms ' G. P. : ' You used to talk to me about ' " The writing which followed . . . contains too much of the personal element in G. P.'s life to be reproduced here. Several statements were read by me, and assented to by Mr. Howard, and then was written ' private ' and the hand gently pushed me away. I retired to the other side of the room, and Mr. Howard took my place close to the hand where he could read the writing. He did not, of course, read it aloud, and it was too private for 476 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV my perusal. The hand, as it reached the end of each sheet, tore it off from the block-book, and thrust it wildly at Mr. Howard, and then continued writing. The circumstances narrated, Mr. Howard informed me, contained precisely the kind of test for which he had asked, and he said that he was ' perfectly satisfied, perfectly.' After this incident there was some further conversa- tion with references to the past that seemed specially natural as coming from G. P. " ' Jim, I am dull in this sphere about some things, but you will forgive me, won't you ? . . . but like as when in the body sometimes we can't always recall everything in a moment, can we, Jim, dear old fellow ? . . . God bless you, Jim, and many thanks. You often gave me courage when I used to get de- pressed. You know how you especially used to fire at me some- times, but I understood it all, did I not, old f ellow ? . . . and I used to get tremendously down at the heel sometimes, but I am all right now, and, Jim, you can never know how much I love you and how much I delight in coming back and telling you all this When I found I actually lived again I jumped for joy, and my first thought was to find you and Mary. And, thank the Infinite, here I am, old fellow, living and well ' " Characteristic also of the living G. P. was the remark made to me later, apparently with reference to the circumstances of the private statements : " ' Thanks, Hodgson, for your kind help and reserved manners, also patience in this difficult matter.' " All this, I suppose, is mere telepathy or the subliminal self of an average New England housewife! Hodgson's comments apply equally well to the following : December 19th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,433f.) " Present : Mr. and Mrs. Howard, E. H., and Keporter. " Mrs. Howard gives a letter . . . saying, ' I want you to see your father's letter, because there is something in it that will please you.' " G. P. : ' This does not sound as father would talk when I was in the body He believes that I exist ' [calls for Hodgson, complains of being muddled, and asks Hodgson to put his hand 'up there' (i.e., probably against the forehead)], i.e., the medium's forehead. This frequent claim by the controls of bodily characteristics and functions (including their giving, sometimes in pantomime, through the medium, the symptoms of their last illnesses) is very incongruous with their frequent claims of exemption from bodily infirmities, and is one of the suggestions that after all the medium " does it all " ; and as soon as one gets comfortably settled in this, to Ch. XXXI] G. P. Philosophizes 477 many, uncomfortable conviction, along comes something to upset it G. P. continues (Pr. XIII, 433-4) : " ' He was pained, but he is no longer pained, because he feels that I exist.' Mrs. Howard: ' That is right; I hare read it.' G. P. : ' That brings me nearer to my father; now give him my tenderest love and tell him that I am very near him, and see him almost every day, if I could go by days, but I can't judge of that, because I have no idea of time; that is one thing I have lost, Hodgson. . . . You of all others are the one that I want to be absolutely certain of my identity. . . . Hodgson, I mean, and Jim, I want you both to feel I am no secondary personality of the medium's [struggling to get the last phrase out.] . . . Now, about my theory of spirit life independent of the material sub- stance. I live, think, see, hear, know, and feel just as clearly as when I was in the material life, but it is not so easy to explain it to you as you would naturally suppose, especially when the thoughts have to be expressed through substance materially. . . . Nevertheless, I am bound to do just all I can for you to prove to you that I (George Pelham) do absolutely exist, independ- ently of the material body which I once inhabited Tou see as I was explaining to you about thought, and had not strength materially nor time to finish, I will go on to that again and in a little more detail, which will explain to you (as well as any- thing) how and what I am now, i.e., as a spiritual Ego. Thought is, as I said before, in no wise dependent upon body, but must necessarily, as you see, depend upon the body of an- other person or Ego in the material to express one's thought fully after the annihilation of one's own material body. ... In consequence of this you see that there must necessarily be more or less confliction between one's spiritual Ego or mind, and the material mind or Ego of the one which you are obliged to use to explain these difficult problems to you, my friends, in the material ' " Questions asked for. R. H. asks what becomes of the me- dium during trance. ' She passes out as your etherial goes out when you sleep.' R. H. : ' Well, dp you see that there is a con- flict, because the brain substance is, so to speak, saturated with her tendencies of thought? ' G. P. : ' No, not that, but the solid substance called brain, it is difficult to control it, simply because it is material . . . her mind leaves the brain empty, as it were, and I myself or other spiritual mind or thought takes the empty brain, and there is where and when the conflict arises.' " People who knew G. P. have said to me : " You know per- fectly well that George was too intelligent a fellow for his spirit to talk the twaddle it is alleged to." Well, after more 478 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV attention to the matter than they have given, I conclude that I don't know any such thing. The expression " my tenderest love " at the beginning of the foregoing paragraph, struck me as one of those rare and happy collocations of a couple of simple words that come only to people with a touch of genius, and the next dozen lines and many lines throughout his com- munications, are anything but twaddle. Often though the sense persists, the expression weakens into superfluities and repetitions, but hardly worse than a good writer's first draft sometimes shows, because of sleepiness or wandering; and it would not be extravagant for a holder of the spiritistic hypo- thesis to claim that in such cases there is strong evidence to justify ascribing the " twaddle " to difficulties in genuine com- munication. CHAPTER XXXII HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER REPORT, 1892-5 (Continued) II. Miscellaneous Sittings October, 1893. (Pr.XIII.480f.) " Sitter : Mr. L. Vernon Briggs, Hanover, Mass. " The medium was then given a handkerchief of a Hono- lulu boy who had been shot in Boston intentionally or unin- tentionally was not known. This boy had shown great affection for a person present following them [sic] twice to Boston from Honolulu as a stowaway. The medium showed great suffering placed her hand to her side, saying, ' It's my stomach Oh, my side. They put me out too quick.' Here the medium seemed to suffer too much, and Dr. Phinuit was asked to take control and speak for the boy. [This makes a jumble with the claim of freedom from bodily ills, and the other claim of repre- senting them for evidential purposes. H.H.] Conversation con- tinued through Dr. Phinuit. ' Is this you, Kalua?' [This question was put by Mr. Briggs. R.H.] ' Yes, I did not kill myself. He killed me. We were gambling that was wrong. He hid my purse under the steps where I was killed.' [The cellar was examined five planks, one below another, were taken up but no purse was found.] Kalua also said there was shrub- bery near it. [There was no shrubbery in the cellar of this house.] " The boy seemed delighted to speak with his friend, and finally took the hand and wrote, 'This is splendid Oh, Dr., help me.' He asked questions, and tried to give the name of a place in the Hawaiian Islands, which finally was made out. He then tried to write his own language, and did write some words which were understood. For instance, he wrote 'lei,' which means ' wreaths ' and which he always made daily for his friend. " Dr. Phinuit said what he heard sounded like Italian and that the boy was singing which he was always doing in life. He spoke again of his death, and said : ' The man had a hot temper and disputed with me, and he shot me he did not mean to.' [Question] 'What became of the revolver?' [Answer] 4 He threw the revolver into the hot-box where the pepples are. [Note. This was true the revolver was found in the furnace.] 479 480 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV [Known to Mr. Briggs. By pepples was meant pebbles, inter- preted by the sitters as coals. R.H.] " ' Did you get my trunk ? ' * Yes.' ' So glad you have it- keep my things.' < Did you get them, M. ? ' ' Yes.' " He was asked where his father was. And we could only understand Hiram. Phinuit could not get Hawaii for some time it was finally written Hawaiin Islands. We asked which one Phinuit said it was Tawai. This was interesting, as the island is spelled with a K, but pronounced with a T." Now, if you please, recall what has already been said (p. 452f.) about scientific and sympathetic sitters, and look forward to what Hodgson says on pages 520 and 526; and then, in contrast with all the foregoing touches of personality obtained by sympathetic sitters, compare the following by an eminent man of science. Probably the reader free from the skeptical habit has found in the records somewhat more " reminiscence of old affection ... to make the presence of a beloved spirit seem real." April 28th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,460f.) " Sitter : Professor J. M. Peirce. R. H. taking notes. " In regard to the indefinable, unreasoned impression made by the interview, a point to which I am forced to attrib- ute much importance in the case of some of my friends who have visited Mrs. Piper, I must say that I received none that tends to strengthen the theory of a communication with the de- parted. No personal trait, no familiar and private sign, no reminiscence of old affection, no characteristic phrase or mode of feeling or thought, no quality of manner was there, to make the presence of a beloved spirit seem real. I never for one in- stant felt myself to be speaking with anyone but Mrs. Piper, nor do I perceive any change of voice or personality, beyond what is ordinarily witnessed in skilled impersonation Whatever the explanation of the phenomena, I believe this process to go on, a struggle for knowledge to whose issue the sitter con- tributes. J. M. PEIRCE. "P.S. Since writing the foregoing, I have gone over the notes in detail, making a memorandum of successes and failures. I am surprised to see how little is true. Nearly every approach to truth is at once vitiated by erroneous additions or develop- ments." But here is another eminent scientific man whom I know intimately, but who has the sympathies of a practising physi- cian. Ch. XXXII] Scientific Sitters 481 May 6th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,462f.) " Sitters : Dr. and Mrs. L. E. H. New York. " [Dr. H. says :] The large number of little details brought out about the family are extremely interesting, the most marked being those relating to Walter, his death and his friends, and to David, many of the remarks made by both of these are strictly characteristic. However, nothing appeared in the sit- ting which could be afterwards confirmed, which was not fully known either to Mrs. H. or myself. [Otherwise confirmation, even of truth, might be impossible. H.H.] All the things here brought out might be explained as simply mind-reading, but a wonderful example of that." So I thought for some time after my sitting, but I thought differently on knowing more and thinking more. This is another illustration of the fallacious treatment of mere know- ledge of facts as the main indication of personality. Another eminent scientific sitter blest with a poetic imagina- tion (Pr. XIII, 524-5) : May 25M, 1894. " Sitters : Professor and Mrs. N. S. Shaler, at the house of Professor W. James Account of the sitting given by Pro- fessor Shaler ... in a letter to Professor James. " The statements made by Mrs. Piper, in my opinion, entirely exclude the hypothesis that they were the results of con- jectures, directed by the answers made by my wife " While I am disposed to hold to the hypothesis that the per- formance is one that is founded on some kind of deceit, I must confess that close observation of the medium made on me the impression that she is honest. Seeing her under any other con- ditions, I should not hesitate to trust my instinctive sense as to the truthfulness of the woman. " I venture also to note, though with some hesitancy, the fact that the ghost of the ancient Frenchman who never existed, but who purports to control Mrs. Piper, though he speaks with a first-rate French accent, does not, so far as I can find, make the characteristic blunders in the order of his English words which we find in actual life. Whatever the medium is, I am convinced that this ' influence ' is a preposterous scoundrel. " I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of knowledge which the medium seems to have concerning my wife's brother's affairs They had the real life quality. So, too, the name of a man who was to have married my wife's brother's daughter, but who died a month before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given, both as regards surname and Christian name, though the Christian name was not remem- bered by my wife or me. So, too, the fact that all trouble on 482 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV account of the missing will was within a fortnight after the death of Mr. Page cleared away by the action of the children was unknown. The deceased is represented as still troubled, though he purported to see just what was going on in his family." Another eminent scientific man, though one also blessed with a poetical imagination (XIII, 482-3) : "1524, Walnut Street, PHILADELPHIA, PA., January 27th, 1894. " MY DEAR JAMES. I have read, with care, since the receipt of your note, the memoranda you and I made at my sitting with Mrs. Piper. " If I had never seen you and heard your statements in regard to Mrs. P., my afternoon sitting with her would have led me to the conclusion that the whole thing was a fraud and a very stupid one. Of course I do not think this, because I am bound to consider all the statements made, not merely the time spent with me. As to this point I want to make myself clear, because I should like on another occasion to repeat my sitting " On re-reading your notes I find absolutely nothing of value. None of the incidents are correct, and none of the very vague things hinted at are true, nor have they any kind or sort of relation to my life, nor is there one name correctly given " S. WEIR MITCHELL (M.D.)." With which contrast the following. This sitting will appeal very differently to different temperaments. To some it will probably appear illusive gush, and they can skip. But skip- ping does not account for it. To others it will probably appear the most important sitting on record. Whether one scoffs or prays, it will at least be worth while to use a little imagination to see the entranced medium, with face gen- erally as expressionless as if a statue were speaking, pouring forth at one moment some brusquerie in the rough deep tones of Phinuit ; at the next, in the same voice softened to gentle- ness, petting a child; then, perhaps, a return of the gruff tones in some biting sarcasm to some interloping control; then perhaps issuing from the same mouth, a child's voice singing the little boat song all going on amid the weeping relatives who join in the song, with the sympathetic Hodgson assisting the performance, and probably perplexed to know whether he is in Heaven or in bedlam. I confess that I have such perplexity, with the doubt that James intimates some- where, whether so important a section of the universe one Ch. XXXII] The Sutton Sittings 483 including so much and such deep feeling, can be bedlam. And yet look at the mediaeval church at intervals for nearly fifteen centuries, and from the Nile to the Pillars of Hercules! Sitting with Mrs. Piper at Arlington Heights, December Sth, 1893. (Pr.XIII,485f.) " Present, Mrs. Howard, Rev. S. W. Sutton, and myself [Mrs. Sutton. H.H.] Report by Mrs. Sutton from notes taken by Mrs. Howard during the sitting. [Hodgson says (p. 484):] "Mrs. Sutton [the sitter. H.H.] herself has had many remarkable psychical experiences, espe- cially in seeing the ' figures ' of deceased persons, and in 1887 published a little book giving an account of some of these. It was called Light on the Hidden Way, with an Introduction by James Freeman Clarke. " Phinuit said : '. . . A little child is coming to you. This is the dearest lady I have met for a long time the most light I have seen while in Mrs. Piper's body. He reaches out his hands as to a child, and says coaxingly: Come here, dear. Don't be afraid. Come, darling, here is your mother. He de- scribes the child and her ' lovely curls.' Where is papa ? Want papa. [He takes from the table a silver medal.] I want this want to bite it. [She used to bite it.*] [The notes marked with asterisks were added some four years after the sitting. H.H.] [Reaches for a string of buttons.] Quick 1 I want to put them in my mouth. [The buttons also. To bite the buttons was for- bidden. He exactly imitated her arch manner.*] I will get her to talk to you in a minute A lady is here who passed out of the body with tumor in the bowels. [My friend, Mrs. C., died of ovarian tumor.*] She has the child she is bringing her to me. [He takes some keys.] These bring her to me these and the buttons. Now she will speak to me. Who is Dodo? [Her name for her brother George.] Speak to me quickly. I want you to call Dodo. Tell Dodo I am happy. Cry for me no more. [Puts hand to throat.] No sore throat any more. [She had pain and distress of the throat and tongue.*] Papa, speak to me. Can not you see me? I am not dead, I am living. I am happy with Grandma. [My mother had been dead many years.*] Phinuit says: Here are two more. One, two, three here, one older and one younger than Kakie. [Correct.*] That is a boy, the one that came first. [Both were boys.*] . . . Was this little one's tongue very dry? She keeps showing me her tongue. [Her tongue was paralyzed, and she suffered much with it to the end.] Her name is Katharine. [Correct.*] She calls herself Kakie. She passed out last. [Correct.*] Tell Dodo Kakie is in a spiritual body. Where is horsey? [I gave him a little horse.] Big horsey, not this little one. [Probably refers to a toy cart-horse she used to like.] Dear Papa, take 484 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV me wide. [To ride.] Do you miss your Kakie? Do you see Kakie? The pretty white flowers you put on me, I have here. I took their little souls out and kept them with me. Phinuit describes lilies of the valley, which were the flowers we placed in her casket. " Papa, want to go to wide horsey. [She plead this all through her illness.] Every day I go to see horsey. I like that horsey. I go to ride. I am with you every day. [We had just come from Mr. Button's parents, where we drove frequently, and I had seen Kakie with us. (This means that Mrs. Sutton had seen the ' apparition ' of Kakie. R.H.) Margaret (her sister) is still there, driving daily.] [I asked if she remembered any- thing after she was brought down stairs.] I was so hot, my head was so hot. [Correct.*] [I asked if she knew who was caring for her, if it was any comfort to her to have us with her.] Oh, yes, oh, yes. [I asked if she suffered in dying.] I saw the light and followed it to this pretty lady. You will love me always? You will let me come to you at home. I will come to you every day, and I will put my hand on you, when you go to sleep. Do not cry for me, that makes me sad. Eleanor. I want Eleanor. [Her little sister. She called her much during her last illness.*] I want my buttons. Row, Row, my song, sing it now. I sing with you. [We sing, and a soft child voice sings with us] [i.e. Mrs. Piper's child-voice. H.H.], " Lightly row, lightly row, O'er the merry waves we go, Smoothly glide, smoothly glide With the ebbing tide. " [Phinuit hushes us, and Kakie finishes alone.] " Let the winds and waters be Mingled with our melody, Sing and float, sing and float, In our little boat. Papa sing. I hear your voice, but it is so heavy. [Papa and Kakie sing. Phinuit exclaims: See her little curls fly!] [Her curls were not long enough to fly at death, six weeks before.*] Kakie sings : Bye, bye, ba bye, bye, bye, O baby bye. Sing that Tfdth me, papa. [Papa and Kakie sing. These two songs were the ones she used to sing.] [She sang slight snatches of others in life not at the sitting.*] Where is Dinah? I want Dinah. [Dinah was an old black rag-doll, not with us.] I want Bagie [her name for her sister Margaret.] I want Bagie to bring me my Dinah. I want to go to Bagie. I want Bagie. I see Bagie all the time. Tell Dodo when you see him that I love him. Dear Dodo. He used to march with me, he put me way up. [Correct.*] Dodo did sing to me. That was a horrid body. I liave a pretty body now. Tell Grandma I love her. I want her to know I live. Grandma does know it, Marmie Great grand- ma, Marmie. [We called her Great Grandmother Marmie but Ch. XXXII] The Sutton Sittings 485 she always called her Grammie. Both Grandmother and Great Grandmother were then living.*] " Here is Hattie. Speak to her. I am so happy. [Button string broke Phinuit is distressed. We gather them up and propose to re-string them.] Hattie says that is a pretty picture there. [Hattie was the name of a dear friend who died several years ago. She was very fond of my copy of the Sistine Ma- donna, and in her last illness asked to have it hung over her bed, where it remained till after she passed away. This did not occur to me when Phinuit gave her words, nor for some weeks after the sitting.] [It was plainly stored away somewhere all the time. In the cosmic soul? Such cases are frequent. H.H.] I want the tic-tic. Take the buttons, and give me the pretty tic-tic. Open the tic-tic. Mamma, do you love me so? Don't cry for me. I want to see the mooley-cow, where is the mooley- cow? [R. H.: Did she so call it? A.: Yes.*] Take me to see the mooley-cow. [She used to be taken almost daily to see the cow.] Phinuit says : I cannot quite hear what it is she calls the tic-tic. She calls it ' the clock/ and holds it to her ear. [That was what she called it.] . . . She has the most beautiful, great, dark violet eyes. [Correct.*] She is very full of life very in- dependent, but very sweet in disposition " [Kakie again.] I will put my hand on papa's head when he goes to sleep. Want the babee. [Her characteristic pronuncia- tion.*] Phinuit takes the doll and says : She wants it to cuddle up to her, so. She wants to sing to it, Bye baby, bye bye. God knew best, so do not worry. The little book. Kakie wants the little book. [She liked a linen picture book.*] . . . Phinuit describes a gentleman with a beautiful face, greatly agitated, also a very large gentleman with him he was a great preacher Phillips Phillips Brooks. He says : I want to say that when I made mistakes in life, I hope you will do all in your power to rectify them. [I asked if he did not believe in an after-life?] Yes, but I did not believe in the possibility of communication after death Here we see its full importance. [Mrs. Howard notes : ' I knew Phillips Brooks from the time I was a girl and had more than one long talk with him.' It was known to myself and also to Mrs. Howard, that the Rev. Phillips Brooks had spoken disparagingly of attempts to obtain communications from the ' deceased ' through Mrs. Piper's trance. R.H.] " [There was also a long and painful effort with great agita- tion and anxiety to give an address asked for. This address is not known by those desiring to have it. To obtain it was the object of the communication with the gentleman whose necktie was placed in Mrs. Piper's hand. Nothing intelligible was ob- tained.*] " If nobody knew this address, the failure is consonant with the fact that in no sitting whose report I have ever read, has 486 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV any communication been made of any new knowledge that could not be obtained by the sweat of the mortal brow. The mere fact of immortality, if it be a fact, may perhaps with the aid of a little faith, be so imparted, and with it much that is worth more than most other knowledge; but I have not met anything farther of importance. The cases of apparent pro- phecy are not yet frequent enough or clear enough to reason from. In fact nothing seems to be but the dramatic veri- similitude, the range of the controls' knowledge, their appar- ent growth, and the reasonableness of the conditions (so far as they can explain them) under which they profess to be. Of all this more anon. A little more of the sort of thing that must be infinitely precious to some minds follows (Pr. XIII, 489) : "After the writing, we thought the sitting over, and Mr. Sutton had gone across the room, when Kakie's little voice piped up. Want papa want papa. Dear papa. [Phinuit pats his face.] Do you love me, papa ? Want babee. Sings, Bye, bye papa, sing mama sing. Cuddles doll up in neck and sings. [An exact imitation marvelously animated and real.*] " It may Be of interest to note that the day before the sitting, Mr. Sutton had questioned whether it was right or desirable for them to bring them back for our gratification. It did not occur to him during the sitting, but Alonzo said ' Do not think it wrong to bring us back we love to come.' " The ' sitting ' was as a whole very satisfactory. The con- versation did not follow the order of our conscious minds, and had the movement and vivacity of objective personalities. "KATHARINE PAINE SUTTON." A second sitting of the same people, Dec. 21st, was much like the first. I cull a few touches. There's nothing to pre- vent anybody from skipping them. Second sitting with Mrs. Piper at Arlington Heights f December 21**, 1893. (Pr.XIII,489f.) "Present, Mrs. Howard and myself [Mrs. Sutton. H.H.]. Report by Mrs. Sutton from notes taken by Mrs. Howard during the sitting. " Dr. Phinuit assumed control, . . . recognized me cor- dially and said: Baby wants to see her mamma, come, dear. A sweet child voice sang softly [the little boat song as before. H.H.] " [The child voice again.] Kakie did see papa. Papa is marching with Eleanor. Sings, ' March, march,' etc. [Eleanor Ch. XXXII] The Button Sittings 487 is a little invalid. Mr. Sutton carries her a great deal often sings, ' March,' etc. had done so at this time.*] " I asked her to sing ' Bye Bye ' with me, which she did pre- cisely as when here. I could not repress the tears. Phinuit said: You must not weep. When the little shroud is wet, the child grieves. " ' Kakie ' says : Dear Mamma, do you love me so? I love you and I see you. I am happy here, I have so many little children to play with and I love my Auntie. I like to be with you. I play with Eleanor. [Living sister. H.H.] Does Eleanor see me? I play with her every day. I like the little bed. I play with it. [The lady with whom we stayed in Duxbury had lent Eleanor a doll's bed, which she greatly enjoyed. Of course we had not associated it with Kakie.] Where is Bagie? [Her name for her sister Margaret.] " Phinuit said : Mary C. wishes to speak to you. [See previ- ous sitting. R.H.] She said: We will care for your babies. We lore them dearly. Hattie [a deceased friend*] is here. She loves them too. ... I can see you and. know the darkness and perplexities, but it is the darkness just before the dawn 1 see you are nervous and impatient sometimes when the aching body is tired out, but control your nerves, can't you, dear? that is all I want to change in you. I know you try, but it seems as if you ought to rise above it. [This is not in the least like her.*] " Phinuit said : There are many here anxious to speak to you. Here is your father and your mother. They have been here a long time, your mother came first. [Correct.*] They are very bright. They want to tell you to be patient. They see bright days before you. [No. We have had much illness and tribula- tions manifold with smaller income than ever before.*] n The most scientific investigator, despite all the suspicious emotional element, must at least admit Mrs. Button's candor. " Kakie wants her buttons. [I gave them to Phinuit.] She wants them all, they are not all here. [At the previous sitting the string had broken and they scattered on the floor. We thought we found them all, but when Mrs. Piper's sweeping day came, the rest were found.] [How is this for " evidence " ? H.H.] Phinuit said: There are eignt buttons here. Kakie, let me see how many you have. [He counts twelve in French.] I ex- claimed: Do you have buttons there? He replied: She had not the button, but she has the idea of them, which is the reality. [See Chapter XXIII. H.H.] " [Kakie asks for her ball. I gave it to Phinuit, who tries to find what she wants to do with it.] Bite it? Toss it? Roll it? Throw it? [No, she wants a string. Mrs. H. gave him a string. He tries to tie it around the ball.] [A little red wooden ball with a hole through it. The ball had a string through it when she used to play with it.*] No, that is not right, through it. 488 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV There, there, be a good little girl. Don't cry. Don't be impa- tient, you want your mamma to see how you can do it, so she will know it is you, don't you, dear? Old man will do it for her. [The " old man " was Mrs. Piper, was he? H.H.] [He put the string through, held it up, and hit it with the finger, making it swing.] That is it, is it not, darling? Nice little girl as ever was. [While she was sick, it was her great delight to have me hold the string, and let her hit the little red ball with her finger or spoon. She made the motions as if doing it, after she be- came unconscious.] " [Again I saw her for a moment, (i.e., Mrs. Sutton herself saw the ' apparition ' of Kakie. See introductory remarks to her sittings. R.H.) standing at the table, trying to reach a spool of tangled red knitting silk, and at the same moment Phinuit reached for it, saying :] She wants that, she and Eleanor used to play with. She calls it Eleanor's. She is delighted with it it brings her nearer her little sister. [All true, but I had not connected it with Eleanor in my thought.] I gave Phinuit a lock of Eleanor's hair. He felt it a moment and said: You cut that close to the head that was right. I can see her per- fectly lovely little girl. [I had not told him whose hair it was.] . . . How that poor child has suffered! [She is recovering from spinal meningitis and paralysis.] [He gives a correct diagnosis and advice that apparently was good : for after them he continues. H.H.] : " I do not see her go out of the body She must have great care, or she will go put like that [snapping his fingers]. [She ... begins to... im- prove *] [Phinuit returns to Kakie. H.H.] . . . She wants Eleanor's hair. Phinuit makes the motion of drawing something from it and giving it to her, saying : Now she has it. She can get nearer her little sister with it I gave him a bit of Mr. Button's hair, without saying whose it was. As he took it, he said laugh- ing: That is papa's hair, mighty little of it, was not he stingy of it though? [When I cut it, Mr. Sutton warned me playfully that he had not much to spare.] He will live to be a hundred. You need not worry about that. [Mrs. S. has all of a woman's solicitude for a perfectly healthy husband. S.W.S.*] " Phinuit exclaimed : I see you in such a pleasant home ! All the surroundings so pleasant lovely trees. Mr. Sutton will re- ceive a ' call ' soon from a good parish, and will accept it. ... [I named several places.] I think it ends in ton Winchendon sounds like it. ... Vestry, church parlors, etc. a comfortable support ... it will be a permanent settlement. . . . [We came to Athol to a small struggling parish and small salary ! No vestry, or anything of the sort. . . . The permanence of the settlement is problematical.*] "Phinuit turns his head, as if looking at a child beside me, and says : Yes, I know ' Kakie wants,' but Kakie must be pa- tient, others want to speak to mamma. [She was very persistent Ch. XXXII] The Heywood Sittings 489 with ' Kakie wants ' when here.] . . . You dear little girl, you want to get in mamma's lap, and you shall. [Phinuit makes the movement of lifting her into my lap, and for a moment I saw her distinctly lying in my arms, with the sweet look of demure contentment she used to have when I held her.] Phinuit said: You have a child here who came long ago. He is a beautiful spirit now, he does not get near enough for me to hear him, but I can see him. And there is another little one here, too, they call ' baby,' not long here, it never lived on earth. Mary C- has it. She does love that baby so, she and Hattie. Eliz- abeth is here, too, they love you and will care for your babies. [Elizabeth. Possibly an old lady I dearly loved, but I never called her or heard her called Elizabeth.*] " Kakie wants the little bit of a book mamma read by her bedside, with the pretty, bright things hanging from it mamma put it in her hands the last thing she remembers. [This is curious. It was a little prayer-book, with cross, anchor, and other symbols, in silver, attached to ribbons for marking the places 1 read it ... when she seemed unconscious, and after her death I placed it in her hands to prevent the blood settling in the nails. The last thing she remembered was my placing it in her hands ! What does this signify ?] [Mrs. Piper held her hands in just that position when she asked for it.*] " Here is a specimen of what investigators have to contend with. That it can be got up deliberately on the spur of the moment, or is apt to be intended, seems hardly supposable. March 3rd, 1894. (Pr.Xin,501-2.) " Mr. Charles Heywood, Gardner, Mass. (Associate Am.S.P.R.) "R. H. present part of the time. "Mr. Heywood accompanied me for a sitting on March 1st, 1894. There was no speech but apparently strenuous attempts at writing as by different persons. The oddities of spelling and writing were probably Phinuit's. The following is the complete record of the writing of March 1st. " no light no light here [Spelt backwards and written for- wards, on thgil, etc.]. "no liht liht [Spelt backwards and written forwards] no [written correctly]. " no liht can't stay y yes no liht [Spelt backwards and written forwards]. " can't stay [Spelt forwards and written backwards, i.e., yats tnac, beginning with the letter c and writing from right to left], here [spelt backwards and written forwards, the h in mirror-writing]. Phinuit [mirror-writing] followed by a stroke with an r perhaps intended for Dr. on tighl [or lighl]. too bad [spelt backwards and written forwards] bad dab oot. Dr. Phinuit [spelt backwards and written forwards, and some of the 490 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV letters mirror-writing]. Adieu [Spelt backwards and written forwards]. No use G. P. [followed by a scrawl suggesting Adieu] " Extracts from Letters from Mr. Heywood. (Pr.XIII,503f.) GARDNER, January Wth, 1895. " Phinuit made some remarkable prophecies at my last sitting. The minor predictions, many of them, were fulfilled, and I naturally expected a corresponding realization of the two great predictions up to which the lesser led ; but the Doctor evi- dently took too much for granted. The big things failed to occur." GARDNER, February Wth, 1896. " I send all which I can positively submit to strange eyes, and I beg to assure you that what is omitted is of a char- acter which exhibits startling internal evidences of being com- municated by the personality of my dead wife Phinuit's read- ings from locks of hair, gloves, etc., pressed against Mrs. Piper's forehead, were excellent so far as they related to the character of the persons and their circumstances, but his predictions were simply my own ideas of the probabilities, and in almost every instance have failed Favorite expressions often used by her [his wife when living. H.H.], i.e., ' Don't be stupid! ' ' Now you are waking up!' 'Well, I should say I had!' 'Don't IV 'Well I guess!' 'Dear,' and particularly 'Dear little boy,' flowed from the pencil in such a familiar way that I felt the influence of her personality very strongly. Some little traits were shown in the impatient brushing away of loose articles upon the table, and the pounding of the table with the fingers when perplexed. When I saw that motion I exclaimed : ' Ah ! now I recognize you beyond a doubt ! ' Little things like that seemed to supply the missing links in the chain of identity." From the Automatic Writing at Sitting of March 3rd, 1894. (Pr.XIII,505f.) " D. : ' Charlie, I am Dorothy [a pet name of my wife] C-h-a-r-1-i-e, this is to you. Will tell you all soon. Wait for him' [me, her.] " G. P. : ' The lady is ' [through?] [This was a fragment in- tended for somebody who had sat the previous day.] [Such in- terpolations are quite frequent. H.H.] Read [a scrawl, perhaps meant for ' Charlie.'] [Daisy ?] I am here [a scrawl, then ' strong.'] C. H. : ' What is that? ' G. P. : ' Strong. I am and I saw her and in consequence right it for you.' Hodgson and Heywood : 'Ha ha ! See How George spells " write " ! ' G. P. : 'Am I not right? [Presumably to D. P. B.] Well, do speak and I will help you. This was a mistake, if you please ' " The initials evidently refer to Mrs. Heywood, and are Ch. XXXII] The Heywood Sittings 491 probably those of her maiden name. They are spelled out below. "C. H,: 'Is this Daisy?' D. P. B.: 'Yes, and I love you and I want you to forgive me for not coming before. I tried so hard to reach you, dear Charley, you know ' [Neither I nor my wife ever spelt my name ' Charley.' C.H., '96] [Date of note. Sittings were in '94. H.H.] C. H.: 'Yes, I know, dear, but now you have come to me.' D. P. B. : ' Oh, speak to me ! My cough is right all now [all right now.] Where is my pic- ture, dear? Give it to me a minute.' [My wife had no cough.] [I carry a photograph of my wife in my watch case. Taking the watch from my pocket I placed it in the hand, which rested upon it a few seconds, and then resumed as follows :] D. P. B. : ' Dp you miss me now ? I see you always.' C. H. : ' I can scarcely believe this to be you, Daisy. Can't you give me some proof?' " [Then followed an attempt to write a name. Probably ten minutes were consumed in this effort, but she seemed unable to write the whole name She finally spelt it phonetically, but I ... failed to recognize what she was driving at, and remained in utter ignorance until the next sitting, when she was able to write the full name correctly, and imparted a bit of information of which I was entirely ignorant. She had intended to tell me the matter, and about a month before her death had started to do so, but something had turned the con- versation In attempting to explain the matter at her first sitting, she referred me by name to a person who might readily have given me the needed information, but I felt unwilling to discuss the matter.] " C. H. : 'I can't think what that means.' D. P. B. : ' Do, dear. Give it [the watch] to me a minute. Oh, how this helps me. I am still a little confused fused fused.' [If this fre- quent sort of thing is fraud, it is pretty ingenious fraud. But how absolutely consistent it is with difficult communications from some source I H.H.] " [Then follows a reference of an extremely personal nature, which afforded me a strong proof of personality. It was per- fectly intelligible at the time, and it began with ' I tell you this, but don't let that gentleman hear me,' evidently referring to Pelham, as Hodgson had left the room sent out some time be- fore by Phinuit. Abridged from original transcript. C.H. '96.] " D. P. B. : ' Don't feel strange with me, dear, for I love you and always did.' C. H. : ' Can't you give me some further proof of your identity?' D. P. B.: 'I will Am I dreaming? Where are you now ? ' C.H. : ' Right here, near you. I wish I might see you.' D. P. B. : ' I will try to have you see me as I am. Poor little boy too bad yes do you recall recall can't I help you when you go home. I say don't you hear me ? '. . . " [When I professed ignorance of some of the circumstances 492 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV the pencil rather impetuously wrote ' Don't be stupid/ and then ' Don't be discouraged.'] " D. P. B. : ' A . . . is gone and I am glad of it. I am so happy for that. Now talk to me, dear. Don't you know the Sunday we went to the Point' C. H. : * Point? ' D. P. B. : ' Yes [joy- fully]. That is what I want to say: was it Sunday? And I remember it so well. P oint Pines ' [triumphantly] . C. H. : ' Oh, the Point of Pines.' D. P. B. : ' Yes.' C. H. : And that is what you were trying to say, is it ? ' D. P. B. : * Yes, all the time. Do you remember the little place where we sat. I go there often, yet I don't see you there.' C. H. : ' Well, haven't you seen me there sometimes ? ' D. P. B. (joyously) : ' Well, I should say I had ! ' C. H. : ' Oh, I recognize that expression ! I know now that you are Daisy.' D. P. B. : ' Well, 7 know I am D.' [a scrawl]. C. H. : ' Can you write your name ? ' D. P. B. : ' Yes, I'll give it to you Bb-R-A-a. [Here the hand seemed angry at its inability to write, and covers the paper with dots.] Over. I wrote it. I wrote it. Do read. It is over here, turn ' [hand fumbles among the loose sheets lying on the table covered with writing]. C. H. : 'Can you give me your middle initial?' D. P. B.: 'Yes, P. D. B. do read R no more A that is not ' [a scrawl]. C. H. : ' Will you give it me later ? ' D. P. B. : ' Yes, before I go I will write it in full. Yes. Now let me speak my mind. Do you go west ? ' C. H. : ' No. Didn't you like me to go West? ' D. P. B. : ' Not a bit. You know how I felt. Don't try to fool with me now. . . . You want me to speak natural [ly] ' [which was exactly the wish framed in my mind], C. H. : ' You feel well and happy, then? ' D. P. B. : ' Don't I well, I guess! [one of her favorite idioms]. All burden that about.' " [Then follows some advice upon a certain matter which events have proven to be invaluable. Any other course than the one advised would have been fatal to my welfare. C.H., '96.] "D. P. B.: 'Where are those pants?' C. H.: 'Pants?' D. P. B. : ' Yes those light things. I did not like them too much like a negro.' C. H. : ' Negro, is that ? ' D. P. B. : ' Yes ' [joyfully and flourishingly]. " [During the summer of 1891, the year before the death of my wife, I owned a pair of very light and very loud trousers, which afforded endless amusement to my wife and myself We called them my coon pants! But reminiscences of that sort, as may be imagined, were far from my mind during the seance.] " C. H. : ' And you don't consider yourself dead ? ' D. P. B. : ' I don't think I am dead not much ! I want to trouble you a little while longer. What about your hair? Yes, dear.' [The hand dropped the pencil and came forward to my head and fingered my hair.] C. H. : 'It's longer than it was when you were here. Ch. XXXII] Mrs. J. E. R. E. 493 That's the fashionable cut now.' D. P. B. : ' Looks well.' C. H. : ' You like it, don't you ? ' D. P. B. : ' Yes.' C. H. : ' Others do, too.' D. P. B. : ' I don't care whether they do or not. I do. Where is the cradle ? ' C. H. : ' It's in the baby's room.' D. P. B. : ' It's where I can't see it. I can't find it.' C. H. : ' If you go in there you can't fail to see it [suddenly recollecting] Oh, I know what you mean ! ' D. P. B. [energetically] ' Now you are just waking up!' " [ The hand, in the exuberance of its pleasure at my evidence of intelligence, swept watch, note book, loose sheet and pencils off the table on the floor. After they were replaced the writing continued.] " D. P. B. : ' Too bad.' C. H. : ' Oh, that's all right.' D. P. B. : - I know, but see what I did. Look here, do you remember the cradle you never got? ' C. H.: ' Yes, and that's a very good evi- dence that Daisy is here. I remember very well. And you re- member that promised cradle.' D. P. B. : ' Yes, I am now. Well, I guess I do.' " C. H. : ' Will you be near me and help me in the future? ' D. P. B. : Yes, I wilL I promise. Ask him [G. P.!] to help me.' GEOBGE [?] : ' Yes, I will ' Enter Hodgson. " HODGSON* : ' Come, Dr. Phinuit, it is time to close the sitting.' D. P. B.: ' Who are you?' C. H.: ' This is Mr. Hodgson, the Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research.' D. P. B. : ' Do you know my baby? He is a very nice boy. You go and see him. He looks like me.' C. H. : ' Now remember your promise to write your full name.' D. P. B.: 'Yes, D. P. B. [indis- tinctly.] Now D. P. B. [in startlingly distinct capitals] Daisy Park Bradford. [The ' Park ' scrawly ; the ' Bradford ' very plainly written]. Da [scrawl] Par [oh well, this me?] For- give me for my wrongs.' C. H. : ' But there are no wrongs to forgive.' D. P. B. : * Mistakes.' [Then, as if seized by desire to summarize rapidly the proofs of identity, the hand scrawled in coarse, hurried letters ' Point of Pines ' ' the Seat ' ' Don't take A.... no' 'My stomach is better so is the baby']. C. H. : ' You remember what we dreaded for the baby? ' D. P. B. : ' Well, yes, but no fear of them now. I must go.' C. H. : ' Good-by ! ' D. P. B. : ' No, don't say good-bye.' [And with this the sitting terminated.] " April 4th, 1894. (Pr.XIII,510f.) " Sitter: Mrs. J. E. R. R. (Associate A.B.SP.R.) " Mrs. Piper became first controlled by Dr. Phinuit. " [Spoken] : That lady's a medium. You have a very won- derful light, but you doubt yourself sometimes Do you know Robert who troubled your whole life ? . . . Never will any more. Yes, indeed, Robert was a great sorrow, and we are glad to re- form him here " Taken as a whole it would appear that the effort was made 494 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV by several of my nearest relatives to inform me of the death of the bad influence of my life, and to let me know that they knew a story I had never told to any one of them. I do not know whether R. E. W. is living or dead. " Mrs. R. writes later : "DEAR DR. HODGSON, What do you think of this? I have just received reply from England as to Dr. W., who you will remember George, through Mrs. Piper, said was ' there.' Well, he is alive, well, and stronger than ever 1 for years have not thought consciously of Dr. W. nor cared whether he lived or died, nor have I borne him malice for the trouble, as ' George ' emphasized it, that his influence brought into my young life. Why then so strange a re-awakening? Why so false a test? . . . "J.E.R.K." Which is offset by this (Pr. XIII, 513) : " CARNEGIE STUDIOS, March 23rd [1895]. "DEAR DR. HODGSON, When I had my sitting with Mrs. Piper, perhaps you remember that Phinuit broke off suddenly to say : ' There's a little child coming, it is still in the body, not born yet.' I asked if it was Dr. Moore's baby whose arrival I was then anxiously awaiting. Phinuit said : ' Yes, but he is not coming to stay, he is guarded by a great spirit.' The baby was born a couple of weeks later, and died suddenly this morning. "I have not the papers here but I think my recollection is correct. I have remembered it several times since the child's birth, but it seemed so healthy I thought it was all a mistake. It may seem worth while to note this without mentioning names. Cordially yours, J. E. K. R." May 26th and 29th, 1894. (Pr.XIII,525f.) " Sitter : Professor C. E. Norton, of Harvard, at the house of Professor W. James. . . . Professor Norton has made the follow- ing statement: " First, that there was no question as to Mrs. Piper's good faith, or as to her delusion in respect to the nature of the influences to which she was subject when in the trance state. [She herself had no opinion. H.H.] " Her conditions seemed to me analogous to those of an ill person dreaming a suggested dream, in which trains of dream to which the dreamer has been accustomed are modified by the special conditions of the moment " There was no evidence of acquaintance with any facts known only to myself, or which were remote and obscure " As to the origin of many of the phantasmagorias of her trance dreams, I formed a very distinct opinion, but many ex- periments would be required to test its correctness, and these I shall never make." Ch. XXXII] Remarkable Telopses 495 If the following was simply Mrs. Piper's telopsis of a lady with sore eyes, what was the reason for sending any " love " and giving the husband's initial? (Pr. XIII, 528) : " Dr. K on May 16th, 1896 . . . made the following state- ment in the course of a letter in reply to my [Hodgson's. H.H.] inquiry on another matter. " I receired from Mrs. P. a few words of communica- tion from someone who claimed to be my Uncle G ' Give my love to L. and tell her I see the trouble with her eyes.' L. is the initial of my uncle's widow I had but just returned from a year's trip abroad, and I knew nothing about my Aunt L Later, when I reached my home, I found out that my aunt had been for some little time under treatment for some trouble with her eyes." About November BOth, 1895. (Pr.Xni,534-5.) " Sitter : Professor Herbert Nichols. " The following account, undated, was forwarded to me [Hodg- son] by Professor James, to whom it was sent. " [Received by R. H. December 24M, 1895.] " Just before coming away I had a wonderful sitting with Mrs. Piper. As you know, I have been a Laodicean toward her heretofore. But that she is no fraud, and that she is the greatest marvel I have ever met I am now wholly convinced. Think my interview more wonderful than any I have ever heard reported of her before " Mamma and I one Christmas exchanged rings. Each had engraved in his gift the first word of his favorite proverb. The ring given me I lost many years ago. When Mamma died a year ago, the ring I had given her was, at her request, taken from her finger and sent to me. Now I asked Mrs. Piper ' What was written in Mamma's ring?' and as I asked the question I held the ring in my hand and had in mind only that ring. But I had hardly got the words from my mouth till she slapped down on the paper the word in the other ring" CHAPTEE XXXIII HODGSON'S SECOND PIPER REPORT, 1892-5 (Continued) HI. The Thaw Sittings THE sittings of Dr. and Mrs. Thaw are much like those of Mrs. Sutton. They had lost twin children, Margaret, aged six months, a year before the sittings began, and Ruth, fifteen months old, three months before. Much of the baby talk alleged to come from Ruth was natural to her age at death. Of course none of Margaret's could have been natural at six months; and at the sittings much talk was ascribed to both that would have been impossible to children at eighteen months, their putative age at the time of the sittings. More- over, in the report of the sitting of March 12th it is definitely stated that the last one who died had only six words at the time of death three or four months before. The increase of vocabulary in that time seems to indicate a rate of develop- ment unknown in earthly conditions, or additions in Phinuit's, or Mrs. Piper's, impersonations. Yet the impersonations are too good and contain too much superusual knowledge to be merely faked. The whole thing is a puzzle. Dr. and Mrs. Thaw are both of the mediumistic tempera- ment, if that term may be provisionally allowed, and the sit- tings are among the most successful on record. Mrs. Thaw has told me of hearing the tappings about her bed which are alluded to in the sittings. Hodgson says (Pr. XIII, 536-7) : "The record of one sitting... is omitted altogether, at the request of the sitter, as being too intimately personal, and con- taining much very private matter concerning the deceased. [As already suggested, perhaps unnecessarily often, this is inevitable, and most regrettably the case with the best evidence. H.H.] . . . The records should be read in detail to be appreciated, as the form in which the information is given is in most cases not less important than the matter." 496 Ch. XXXIII] The Thaw Babies 497 Unfortunately space imposes a most difficult choice between the full presentation of a narrow variety of sittings or a scanter presentation of a greater variety. I, of course, have tried to go in medio: no pun intended. The notes in brackets are by Dr. Thaw, except where they bear my initials. I have peppered more than my usual proportion of com- ments through these sittings. I hope they will be less of a nuisance than a help. First Sitting. February 14th, 1892. Present, Dr. and Mrs. A. B. Thaw, and Mrs. Holmes. (Pr.XIII,537f.) " 1.1 A little child comes here to gentleman. Puts hand on his head. [Child always did so.] Light golden hair. [Correct.] [Dr. T. has hair in pocket; stands ten feet away.] Little boy. [Child was very generally mistaken for boy.] " Phinuit [in a child's voice, for ' R ' [Ruth, the baby. H.H.] : ' Tell mamma not to trouble so. [Here, and at times later, there seemed to be great physical distress and pain in abdomen, throat and head.] It pains me so here. [Hands on abdomen.] [Cor- rect. Child had dysentery, with sore throat.] My throat hurts. The powder I Take it away. I don't like it. Take it away.' [Bismuth was given through entire illness of two weeks, and was always given with trouble.] " Did the child's suffering continue, or would a child do this and what follows for evidential purposes? It may be worth while to repeat that "spirits" often declare that those in their world are freed from their earthly pains, but they also give indications of suffering pain as here. Some of them have said they did it for evidential purposes. " Phinuit : ' Curly golden hair.' [Hair was very curly.] Phi- nuit [for R] : ' I am not dead. I am not dead. I am not dead.' Phinuit: 'My head aches so! [To Mrs. H.] Sis! Put your hand on my head. Throat so bad! Hurt so!' [Pause.] Phi- nuit [for R.] : ' I can't tell why mamma don't speak to me ! Don't put it in the bottle. Take it away.' Phinuit: 'Little girl! Long light hair. Eh Eh Eth Ethie, Ethie, Ethie. [Changing sound of E.] She's trying to tell me. Net- tie. Ne-thie. [This appears to be feeling for the name Ruthie. See below. H.H.] Can't get it. There's something the matter. This little child hasn't learned to talk.' [Correct, except for a few words which were mentioned at later sittings.] " And yet she did talk very precociously, or Phinuit talked for her, before and after this. 498 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV " [2.] Phinuit [for K.] : ' Take me up in your arms ! The stars! Stars! When I saw the stars, then I knew I wouldn't stay. [A good deal for a child of fifteen months to know. H.H.] The book! I want the book. The book! I want mamma to speak to me. I am trying to reach my mamma.' [Phinuit has pains or distress here.] Phinuit : ' Never saw anyone so anxious to come. Trying to get through the veil. But can't do it.' [Some mumbling here.] Phinuit [for R.] : ' I've come such a long way to speak to you, mamma. They took all my things and put them in the box. [Correct.] I didn't like that. Oh, dear ! There's papa too.' ^Phinuit: ' This is dreadful. This little girl will take me out with her. She's tearing me to pieces. [Great pain apparently.] See the little curls! Ethie! Ethie! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! [More suffering.] What do I see? I don't want Harry. [To Mrs. H.] [Pause.] Here come two ! Baby and little girl. [Correct.] She's gone to get baby.' Phinuit [for R.] : ' She's here, too. And I'm not sorry.' Phinuit : ' Ellie Ethie. [We tell Phinuit that the first letter of the name is R.] These children are crazy, trying to get to you. To reach through the veil.' Phinuit [for R.] : ' I've been to you once. [About six weeks after the death, Mrs. T. woke one night and heard a noise like light rapping on the foot of the bed, which lasted for several minutes. She told me about it in the morning.] I'll come again often. Some time you'll see me. See papa writing. Tell papa to go home and think about it. [Eighteen months old child! They develop fast " there " ! H.H.] Tell papa I'll come to him, too. I'll touch him.' Phinuit : ' Ret-tie. Ret-thie. [Phinuit is given watch and chain that belonged to Dr. T.'s mother, who died thirty years before.] Here comes a lady. Grandma ! She's here, too, with children. Grandpa in the body. [Mrs. T.'s father is living.] Never saw such a trouble to reach anybody. [Another pause.] . . . Oh, dear ! In the body. Another one, to be. Coming to stay with you. [See later in this sitting.] I've got something the matter with my teeth. [Baby was teething when she died.] . . . Take me in your arms, mamma. [Suddenly.] And there's my picture! [Mrs. T. was painting a picture of Ruthie when she was taken ill.] It's good. It was the last chance. I watched it every day. And you never did better.' [A very precocious connoisseur ! H.H.] . . . Phinuit : ' Who's mother ? Grandma. Hear the little one call Grandma.' " If she was still "the little one," in comparison with her sister she had not been growing; they were twins. " Phinuit [for R.] : ' Tell papa to think it over, and when alone I'll come again.' [And neither at eighteen months could natu- rally have said this. H.H.] . . . Phinuit [impressively] : * Friends, let me speak a word to you. Let me tell you there will be an- other that will stay. [Mrs. T. asks if there are any more.] One Ch. XXXIII] Some Older Friends 499 now. Only one.' Mrs. T.: (Will she stay?) Phinuit: 'She will stay. One more ! [Mrs. H. asks, * Boy or girl ? '] Phinuit : ' I'm a little boy. Three sisters ! Two to stay and two to go, but not to die 1 ' [Pause.] [Mrs. T. has since had two children, both girls, born one in October 1893, the other in September, 1895] . . . Phinuit [for R.] : ' Speak to me, mamma ! Speak to me. I want to stay. Can't you think I'm here? Tell papa. [Watch is given again.] Watch. Grandma's. Put Sis's hand on my head. [Short pause.] Ruth! Two Ruths! Two of them. Mamma v s grandma.' [Correct.] . . . Phinuit [for R.] : ' Great grandma. My namesake ' " Do children of eighteen months know about great-grand- parents and namesakes? Much of this is telepathy, but how about the dramatic quality? " Phinuit [Loud] : ' Friend ! H O W A He's talking to me. I hear him whisper. He's coming nearer.' [Phinuit here gives a nickname for a friend recently dead. Nickname not known to anyone present. On inquiry his widow said it was the name commonly used by his mother and sisters, all dead, but not used by anyone living. A. B. Thaw.] [Compare with Mrs. Speer's case. p. 354. H.H.] " [3.1 H . H . [Giving name of friend.] "(Mrs. T.: Does he know the babies?) Phinuit [speaking softly and with feeling] : ' Quite well, quite well.' [True.] " Second Sitting. February 21th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,541f.) " [R. Hodgson and Miss R. have first part of sitting; those present at last half are Dr. and Mrs. A. B. Thaw and Mrs. Thaw's brother, Mr. A. Dow, who writes shorthand.] " Phinuit : ' Come here, little girl, come here. Tells me to pat you on the head. [To Dr. T.] That's it. She talks very sweetly and very softly. She comes here and says that Who is BBerthie Bertie B-E-A-R-T-A-I-C-E. [Living child Bea- trice her own pronunciation.] Ruth, Ruthie Ruthie here This little girl... she has brought another little girl. Little Marjery Marjaret. You speak to papa too.' " A good deal to ask of a six months' baby; and Phinuit always insists that she's " the little one " as compared with her twin Ruth. He also often represents her as walking. " ' Here comes a lady to you. You have got her picture a very large picture of her. [Correct of Dr. T.'s mother.] And she has come. She is attracted by the influence in the body. I will awaken her in a minute. Don't hurry me, please. The children don't like to be sent away. The little one is gone. Little Ruth is here with me, with little light curls all over her head. [To Dr. T.] She makes me pat your head. But two will 500 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Ft. IV stay. Little Betty is going to stay in the body with you. And there is going to be one more that is going to stay. There will be two with you and two of us here. I can't quite' [Broken.] " "[To Dr. T.] ' This is your mother. This is her watch. She says, ' Tell W [Dr. T.'s father] that the baby is all right." [Mother died in premature childbirth, but father was also dead at the time of the sitting.] [Why didn't she meet him then, in- stead of sending a message ? H.H.] [But Dr. Thaw's then living brother was also named W . See below. R.H.] I don't know what that means. . . .' (Dr. T. : Are you all happy there ?) E. : 'I am very happy. Oh, if you will only believe there is no death ! I live and love you. Don't let these little things worry you. It grieves me. Will you cherish me in your memory as you always did, and think of me as I am ? Watching over you. [To Mrs. T.] This dear little woman. [Placing hands on heads of Dr. and Mrs. T.] Who is L ? I don't know. I only love you. I will stay with you.' R. [Baby Ruth. H.H.] : ' Speak to me. Tell Betty [living sister. H.H.] I love her.' (Mrs. T.: How does Margaret look?) Phinuit: 'The dear little thing- dear little thing. There, pat her, and papa, we love.' M. : 'He used to take me on his arm. I see him. He can take me no more in the body, but in the spirit, if he will. You have carried me, you have seen me. You will see me again. Truly, truly, truly!' (Mrs. T.: What can we do to see you?) 'Mamma, dear! Mamma, dear! We'll be with you. Do nothing. Be patient. When your pillow is wet, I cannot rest. When you are cheerful, I am happy. Don't cry. In the body. Dry away those tears, and don't fret. That's all right.' " As said at the outset regarding the vocabularies of the children, this advice from a child of six months is of course highly incongruous, and suggests either manufacture on the part of Phinuit (whatever that may mean) or developments much more rapid in the other life than in this one, or dreams with their mixture of true and false. Third sitting. March Vtth, 1892. (Pr.XIII,545f.) " [Dr. and Mrs. Thaw. Mr. Alexander Dow writing shorthand.] " ' Here's the baby. Oh ! I'm so fond of this little one. She wants me to tell you she's not afraid of me any more. She knows I talked to you in the body. You know what I mean? I explained it to Ruthie.' (Mrs. T.: Little Ruthie!) Phi- nuit : ' The little baby is Margaret. She is very delighted. She wants a posie give her some posies. [Mrs. T. had brought some little flowers for the babies, at this time on the table in paper.] Posie, posie, give one posie. [Taking flowers and sep- Ch. XXXIII] The Thaw Babies Again 501 'arating them.] That's for the little one.' (Mrs. T.: I brought them for the little ones.) Phinuit: 'That's for the little one. She wants some for the other one just two or three. You don't know how the little one can speak now. [But if she had been growing so as to speak, how was she still " the little one " ? Very possibly an entirely genuine dream. Perhaps pp. 428-9 may have some interest in this connection. H.H.] You know she takes the spirit of these things the spiritual thing and the spirit part is just as real to her as your life is to you.' M. : 'Come to me, Mamma.' (Mrs. T.: If I might see her!) Phinuit: 'What a bright facel She has grayish blue eyes large, full and pretty. I call them blue, a grayish blue. What a Tery bright and pretty little mouth she hasl [Correct descrip- tion of M.] She loves you both. Do you know, I can get more from the children than I can from the old ones, because there is such a strong tie between you. [Has often been noted. H.H.] . . . She wants me to separate the posies and give some to the other baby. I will give her so many [separating flowers], and that one will have so many. Just the same for each little one.' R. : 'Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty. Where's the little blue flowers? Pretty, pretty, pretty.' Phinuit: 'Oh! That's a pretty baby- Ruth Pretty, pretty, pretty. Do you love the babies ? ' (Dr. T. : What do you think, Dr.?) Phinuit: 'She says that. Baby, baby, babie. This little one says Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty. BABY Can you hear her speak? Do you hear her speak ? Bettie Bettie Bettie she keeps calling Bettie. Give me the little toy thing. I like that it refreshes her. I never saw two brighter children. You know they have no more pain in the stomach.' (Dr. T. : Doctor, don't they ever suffer in the spirit body ?) Phinuit : ' No more pain no pain.' (Dr. T. : Do they grow up as we do here?) Phinuit: 'In just the same number of years, but in this world there is no time. Life goes on forever. That is, there is no death. I tell you, friends, just as sure as you live in the body, I lived once in the body. I lived in Germany and Paris and Marseilles. I know if those cranks weren't so stupid they could find me. [Referring to efforts on the part of the S.P.R. to find out about him.] Well! I hear Baby, calling baby, baby, baby.' [All these words baby pretty Bettie were given with just the accent Ruth gave when she was alive. Pretty was one of the first words, and she said it constantly about anything she liked. These were the only words, except Mamma and Papa and pussie.] " Mrs. Thaw told me that the absolute resemblance between these ejaculations and those of her child while living con- vinced her that they were made by the child's surviving spirit. But here is the constantly recurring fact that the little one seems to have got a suspiciously large vocabulary in the few 502 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV months since her death one perhaps as full as Mrs. Piper's. And yet similar things constantly happen in dreams, and some dreams contain truth. " Phinuit : ' Do you know she takes your hand and pats it like that [patting Mrs. T.'s hand] like that. You will see her just as sure as you live. The veil will be lifted so you can see these two little ones when you are partially dreaming. It will not be a dream. It will be real [Pointing to Dr. and Mrs. T.'s foreheads.] I see a great big light. What is that light ? What is that light here? [The mediumistic nature of the sitters? H.H.] You, friends, are going to make a change in your life. It is going to be the best change you can make. The baby speaks to me. [Very precocious intelligence from a child! Dream mixture again, but apparently veridical and prophetic, though possibly only telepathic ! H.H.] It's in a different street a different place entirely. It's a pretty place. I see the change. I see all the little details. I see it in detail, that I can't describe. [All correct.] "'Who is that lady that is with you? No, the stout lady. [Not stout.] She is very good to your little girl. [The living one. H.H.] . . . She has care of the little ones, and is cranky sometimes.' (Mrs. T. : Do the babies remember her?) [She was the nurse who had charge of them all their lives.] Phinuit: ' The little ones, the babies in the spirit world, remember her very well Who's M J ? Your mother told me to tell you.' [All correct. Aunt of Dr. T.] (Dr. T.: Is she happy now ?) Phinuit : ' She remembers you when you were a little fellow. She was with you when your mother come out of the body.' [Correct.]" " Come " not " went " is very dramatic, as coming from Phinuit's side ; and the bad grammar was not telepathed from Dr. and Mrs. Thaw. ' AH Who is Ellie? Who is Nellie? The baby calls that she calls her Nellie. [Nurse spoken of before.] Nellie! That's a good memory for the little one, isn't it? Such pretty light curls ! All over her head. Just as perfect a little girl as can be ! ... You will see her in the new house. She wants me to go there for you. She says there is going to be a better change for you. It's going to be near the corner [correct of new house], and you will go up to the upper room, up one flight front, and in that room you will see the babies come to you. This is a kind of what do you call it? A sitting place. You will get the babies there. You stay there some twilight evening. They will come to you. You will hear some patter, patter of the little ones, and soon you will realize they are with you. I shouldn't be surprised if you saw '" Ch. XXXIII] Phinuit Moralizes and Felicitates Himself 503 Mrs. Thaw tells me she often heard the " patter, patter," but never saw. " ' How funny your mother wears her hair! [Smoothing hair as Dr. T.'s mother always wore it.] Wears it so funny. She's the picture of modesty; she's the most modest looking woman you ever saw ! You know that what you call death in the body is natural. You know that it is hard, particularly when those you love pass over behind the veil. But they are far more happy behind the veil than in the body. For it is God's will to take them, as they hare lived. We tell you of these things, because it is right for you to know, and the instrument like the one I have here [i.e., the medium. H.H.] is to use to explain what we are in the spirit. But sometimes it is very hard to get the in- fluences straight, and I tell you everything I can, and even then it is hard for everyone Look on it right. Don't let it worry you and affect your health. Little woman, keep straight. Don't be too much exercised, and keep perfectly cool. You will get all you want. It will be a help to you in the body. When you meet a friend and you want them to know your experience, you can explain it to them with perfect reason. Go on with your own experience. If they do not wish to listen to you do not bother them. Your mother is guiding me every minute.' " Few people could stand this free communication (if com- munication it be) or want it. Some people stop it, as already indicated, by willing the medium to cease, which the medium seems always to do readily. " ' But here's well, wait a minute Annie Annie no, Anna Eliza. That's the name. Comes. Anna Eliza. That's the mother, Eliza. Anna Eliza. I hear it. [Mrs. T.'s dead aunt. She was called Aunt Eliza, and it was unknown to us at the time that she had a first name Anna.] . . . They tell me I am smart enough to hear this all right. [Dr. T. offers suggestion.] I don't want any of your help, Ellen. [To A. D.] What the dickens is your name ? A-l '[Laughs.] (Dr. T. : What is it?) Phinuit : ' I know. I know what it is.' [Laughs.] (Dr. T. : Well, tell us what it is.) Phinuit: ' Oh, no. I know what it is just the same.' (Dr. T.: Tell us.) Phinuit: 'Well, it's a great long name, and it ends with e-r.' (Dr. T.: Good guess, Doctor!) Phinuit: 'Oh, I am guessing, am I? What a good fellow I am to guess! [Spells.] Al-e-x-a-n-d-e-r. How do you like that? You can call that what you like. You can give it a name. [Is this telepathy, or is Phinuit one of the best dramatic characters ever drawn ? If he is, who drew him ? Apparently it was not in Mrs. Piper's power to do it. H.H.] Do you know, if it hadn't been for your little girl I never should have found it out. The little curly headed one. She tried to spell it for me 504 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV but couldn't. [Children of eighteen months don't " try to spell " often in this world! H.H.] She told your sister [pointing to Mrs. T.J, and she asked this lady the lady the little one went to find [Dr. T.'s mother in first sitting], and she tells her, and then she came and spelled it for me. Grace is with your little ones, and she makes me put your hand up there so and she wants to be remembered to her papa in the body. [All true.] Who's L ? [Spelling diminutive.] Your mother just called that to me. She comes closer closer. She wants you to tell I-d-a it sounds like thai I-d-a. Oh! L !' [Dr. T.'s sister's usual name.] " Fourth sitting. March 18th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,553f.) " [Mr. Perkins sitting. Mr. A. Dow writing. Mrs. Thaw in back part of room.] " Phinuit to Mr. D. : ' Aleck, you pay more attention to me and stop your writing.' [He was taking notes. H.H.] . . . (Mr. P.: What hour was I born?) Phinuit [counting]: <Un, deux, trois, quatre [up to ten]. Oh, you were born at two o'clock. We begin at one, that's dark; then two.' [After some confusion, not understanding whether night or day, decides at two at night.] (Mr. P.: Father thought it was eleven.) Phinuit: ' Your mother tells me you were born at two, and she was there then and ought to know. If your father says you were born at eleven he makes a mistake, that's all there is about it.' " Here is a remarkably dramatic passage. I do not mean melodramatic, but merely lifelike the sort of thing not easy to invent. " He says something about Bawldin Baldwin. I don't know how you pronounce it. You know who he is? Well, he sends love to you, and says that you kind of misunderstood him, and it was too bad. You can make it all right now. And he says ' Tell George he is a good fellow, but he didn't understand me; you must say so.' [Mr. P. and friend B. had misunder- standing for several months before B's death.] . . . There's some- one calling who speaks in a whisper. George will tell you something. [This friend's name, George Baldwin.] (Mr. P.: Well, I'll listen.) Phinuit: ' Ask Fred. He's there with you; tell him I'm all right. [Verified afterwards. Fred, an intimate friend of G. B.] It was a cough that took me off, consumption, for I passed out with it [True] and you fellows were good to me, but you never quite understood me; you never did, quite. I ... taught in the school [G. B. taught in preparatory de- partment of same school.] . . . It's not long since I came here. I'm so glad to see you. Look here! I want to talk to you. I tell you there's only a veil between us. There's a good time for you boys ... I don't see you come here for a long time. I hope one of you will drop round and see me sometimes [i.e., through Ch. XXXIII] Older Friends Again. Phinuit Prophesies 505 the medium. H.H.] I didn't think I was coming here but woke up. I choked at first, but I'm better now. You wouldn't go to sleep if you had seen me when I first waked up. I didn't think I was going to wake up like this. You haven't got all your wits about you yet, and so you don't recognize your friends. I'll be with you; I'll help you out in all your little difficulties. I'll be with you. I mean well.' (Mr. P.: Will you tell me about them ? There's one that passed out after you did.) Phi- nuit: ' This one talks in a whisper to me. Good fellow, mean* well. What a funny nose he has. He looks as if his nose turned up a little. You know what I mean.' [Correct.] " Could anything be more absurd than the supposition that Mrs. Piper "got up" all this? " [Mrs. T. gives mother's glove again] . . . ' She's nearer to you [pointing to Mr. D., then to Mrs. T.] I can't make out which one she's more with, but she's nearer one of you.' (Mrs. T. : She's living with me now.) Phinuit : ' Oh, you live in one home, but I see the other in another home, and she lives with you [pointing to Mrs. T.] [Pointing to Mr. D.] She's very fond of you.' (Mrs. T. : Yes, he's better than I am.) Phinuit : ' What nonsense, he isn't better than you, don't be jealous.' (Mrs. T.: I'm not jealous.) Phinuit [nibbing Mrs. T.'s head] : ' No, and you are not going to begin in your old age, are you ? You be a good girl. You'll be all right if you don't read lying down. . . .' (Mrs. T. : What about Father's business ?) [Phinuit immediately makes motions as of playing on piano keys. Mrs. T.'s father's invention, a typesetter, with keys like a piano.] Phinuit : ' It has keys. Keys with letters on them. [Correct.] [Mr. D. takes Mrs. T.'e place.] Oh, it's such a funny thing. Did he invent them? Well, he's a great man. There's going to be a spring addition that's going to be very useful, and after a few months of dullness it will be all right He's going to sell some of these things Add the spring part, and it will be good. All this long pull and dull time was for the best. [Long struggle to get the thing started.] . . . George Perkins. Do you know how I got his name first. One of his friends whispered me his name. George is a good fellow. Honest fellow. George is true blue. Don't tell that to him ; he might get conceited.' (Mr. D.: I don't believe he'll get conceited.) Phinuit: 'Well, I'm only in fun.' [Mrs. T. takes Phinuit's hand] [i.e., the medium's. H.H.] (Are we going to do any good in our work?) Phinuit: 'You are going to make a change. Who's Emily? You're going to change your life. I'll be there. [Mrs. T. found on getting home that the Christian name of principal of the school they were starting was Emma. This we had never heard or seen, as the lady was not known personally to Mrs. T., and her acceptance . . . was not received by us until after the sitting.] . . . 506 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV It's going to be splendid. It has to do with the mind. [Feeling Mrs. T.'s eyes.] The physical being of those who can't see. To benefit the blind, the ignorant. I don't mean the eyesight. [Dr. and Mrs. T. starting free primary school and kindergarten.] Margery will be there. Mamma, mamma, I love you. Don't cry. Ruthie will be there.' (Mrs. T. to children : Do you sleep there?) Ruthie: 'I sleep, I wake, I play. I wake, I sleep, I play.' (Mrs. T.: Won't they knock for me again?) R.: 'Ill go on Bettie's bed and tap, tap, tap for you. Don't cry. I live. I am here. Tell mamma I am here. Pat papa for me. Posie posie posie.' Phinuit : ' Speak to me, friends, I'm getting weak. Speak to me, I can't hear you.' (Mrs. T. : Good-by, Dr. Phinuit.) Phinuit [in a weak voice] : ' Speak louder, friends, I'm going.' " Sixth Sitting. May 10th, 1892. (Pr.XIII,564f.) " Phinuit: ' Florence [Mrs. Thaw. H.H.], I'm glad to see you. (Well, we're glad to see you.) Good boy, doctor Sometimes I come a long way to see you. Where's the tube ? [Reference to phonograph.] ... I had a long talk with Alva. He wants me to tell this to you and to Sabrina when I saw her. He caused her a great deal of sorrow, and he's sorry for it. [Sabrina is Mrs. Dow. Alva was her first husband, deceased. The statements made about him are true. R.H.] Tell her about this, or you'll do him a great injustice. He's been in great suffering. You can help him out of this. (What can we do?) Get her to say that inwardly and in her very soul she freely and frankly for- gives him. You'll be the means of saving his soul. I talked with him.' [Further remarks about tlie great distress of Alva and his desire to be forgiven, and to be helped in attaining a higher state.] . . . " (How is W going to pass out ?) * He's going to sleep, and when he wakes he'll be in the spirit. Heart will stop. Kid- neys out of order. He's out of order all over. It'll be one of the greatest reliefs to all concerned.' [Note. At the time of sitting Dr. T. had no more reason to expect the death of W than at any time for two or three years, W being a chronic invalid with asthma. . . . W died September 3rd, in sleep, of heart failure, four months later. In the sitting of May 22nd the time of death is put at ' six months, or a little less.'] " See his appearance as control in twelfth sitting, page 510 of this book. Sixth sitting continues : " ( Can you tell us about Dr. H to-day ?) [Pause.] ' Hallo, doctor. I want to thank you for all the many kind things you've done for me. The children are all right. There's not one of them coming to me. What's that about the grave, the tomb? (I don't know.) Well, tell them not to worry about it. [Dr. H.'s wife was for nearly a year much depressed by the fact that Ch. XXXIII] Phinuit Prophesies and Prescribes 507 H.'s body lay in vault awaiting burial.] He says something about A . [Spelling name of daughter.] She coming out all right, and I know it. She's going to stay in the body for the present. [H.'s daughter A was dangerously ill at that time, but on our next visit was found to have passed the crisis.] I'm glad to see you, my best friends. The first time I saw you, you looked like great black specks to me. Now you look more like yourselves. [Speaks of the spiritual activities there], "a nigher range of activities is carried on than in your universe. Words cannot express how beautiful it is like the dawn in the body," etc., etc. [This long speech so characteristic of Dr. H. that Dr. T., wishing to know whether he or Phinuit was speak- ing, said:] (Can you tell me anything about Dr. Phinuit?) I'm talking to you myself, you rascal. I'm talking for him. (Well, you're trying to make us think he's talking.) I'm simply telling you what he says. I'm trying to imitate him.' " Who made these dramatic touches, and the little ones which follow, from the seventh sitting, May 19, 1892 (Pr. XIII, 570)? " [Dr. Phinuit listened to his own voice in phonograph, say- ing, ' Oh, you're a nice old fellow. You've got me on record.'] " [Phonograph says, ' I'm going out.'] So I am going out. Ha, ha, that's good." Eighth Sitting. May 20th, 1892. (Pr.Xin,570f.) " [Mr. L. Dow sitting/] " (How about Medium? She has a cough) ' My Me- dium? She has a cough, has she? Well, you have her put a half ounce of turpentine in a half a cup of boiling water, and inhale it. (What for her trouble under the arm?) Oh, that's poor blood. A tonic will scatter that. You give her two ounces of tincture of cinchona; four ounces of French dialyzed iron and four ounces simple syrup. Give her a teaspoonful one half- hour before meals.' " And Phinuit knew no medicine! Was he Mrs. Piper? Ninth Sitting. May 22nd, 1892. (Pr.XIH,572f.) " Sitter, Miss Ellen Heffern, nurse of Mrs. Thaw's children. " She told me to get that. [Object given which the sitter supposed to be her mother's hair. It was, however, an Agnus Z)et.] . . . [Miss Heffern brought several articles to the sitting in a parcel The Agnus Dei . . . was wrapped in paper, and she supposed that this particular packet contained her mother's hair. . . . R.H., 1898.] Put that in there. Put it in there and wear it, [thrusting nis finger down the neck of the sitter] just as she told you to. [When sitter insisted that Phinuit was wrong about this object he tore off paper and showed the Agnus Dei.~\ [True. Mother had told sitter to wear it.] " 508 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV Later, Dr. and Mrs. Thaw sitting. All the following dramatic business (Pr. XIII, 575-6) strains the telepathic and divided personality theories hard : " [Phinuit writes Harry twice, in mirror writing. (Harry is the name of one of Dr. Thaw's brothers. R.H.) The hand was then seized by another ' influence,' and the following was written, during the course of which Phinuit made occasional remarks like these to the communicating intelligence; 'I told you if you'd come with me I'd show you your friends, you old idiot.'. . . ' He's as stubborn as a mule.'. . . ' Don't thump me,' etc.] . . . [Phinuit then struggles to ' get his hand back.'] I got it away. [To Mrs. T.] What are you worrying about? (I want to go to you.) What? (To the babies sometimes.) Oh, you wicked, wicked little thing, etc. [To Dr. Thaw. H.H.] Dr., can't you straighten her out better than that? You stop your worrying. You've nothing to worry about. Go to sleep. ... (I want to see them so much sometimes.) Oh, you act like a baby. Come here, dearie, come along. Look at the little curly-headed one. [To Dr. T.] Your mother's got her. See her jump her. [Dandling.] Can't you see her, you stupid fools? (No.) You can see her, can't you, Hodgson? (No.) Humph. [The reader may be good enough to remember what was said earlier about the mixing up of Phinuit's remarks and the children's. H.H.] Tell mamma p-tee, p-sse, happy little Ruthie. Bring a posies. That's a spirit posy. Don't worry mother. Dranma, she says. Ruth, dranma, don't worry papa, don't worry you [to Mrs. T.] pt-tee, pt-tee. [Remember what Mrs. Thaw told me about these ejaculations. H.H.] [Phinuit departs heavy breathing.] Pttee. Pttee. (Little baby. How do you do, baby?) Pt-tee. (Little Margaret with you ?) Pt-tee. [Points upwards and to one side at picture with forefinger. Hand rises, finger points, trembles, and hand sinks.] " Of this scene Hodgson says (Pr. XIII, 385) : " I was taking notes, sitting slightly to one side and partly behind Mrs. Piper, while Dr. and Mrs. Thaw were sitting in front of her, with their heads somewhat bowed. Phinuit appar- ently 'left,' and his place was taken by Ruthie, who began whispering pttee pttee. The hand rose and turned somewhat diagonally and extended the forefinger and pointed towards a picture on the far side of the room. The Thaws did not see this action until I drew their attention to it, when they looked up, and followed the direction of the pointing. The hand then trembled and sank. Dr. Thaw noted : ' During the last month of Ruthie's life it was a regular morning custom to bring her to the room in which this sitting was held our bedroom and she would always point, as hand did in sitting, with one finger Ch. XXXIII] The Babies. Pantomime at Picture 509 (unusual with a baby) and say "pt-tee, pt-tee," just as in sit- ting. This little incident had not been in either sitter's con- scious mind since baby's death, six months before. Mrs. Piper had never been in that room until the actual time of sitting. Many other pictures in the room, two of which Mrs. Piper's hand could have pointed at more easily than the particular one always noticed by the baby.' " But to return to the ninth sitting : " [Phinuit returns.] Baby wanted to come. The old lady stood up behind her so she wouldn't fall. Don't be so impa- tient, little one, wait a minute, darling. Thank mamma for the posy. Bring the posy again another day. She has no pain no teeth. I'm happy, happy. Don't cry any more. (And little Margaret?) Little one can't talk so well. Little Margaret, Margie, beautiful, they're just like flowers in blossom. (Why, they were twins. Why can't she talk as well as the other ?) She doesn't talk so much. Her talk is different; she doesn't articu- late quite so distinctly. I can understand it, but you wouldn't. Little da da da dada." One of the mutually exclusive explanations so far suggested is that Margaret lived here six months less than Ruth. " (Why did she put her finger up?) Pt-tee, Pt-tee. That's what she used to do in the body. Your mother says she had the baby do that so that you'd know it's baby." Tenth Sitting, May 23rd, 1892. (Pr.XIII,577f.) " [Present : Dr. and Mrs. Thaw. R. H. taking notes.] " [Phinuit to Mrs. Thaw. H.H.] ' Well, little girl, you're got over your worrying. I'll go and find some friends for you. (I want to bring my little Betty in to you.) [Servant Nellie brings in Beatrice, Mrs. T.'s little daughter.] Ha! Nice little girl, come here. Here comes the baby. Two babies. Give me Ruthie's play-toys. [Rosary.] See the baby. It's too heavy for her. [Puts rosary round Mrs. T.'s head, between her and Betty.] See! That's little Margaret. Dad, Dad, Dad. Ptee, pssy, Nanna, Nanna. [Stroking B.'s hair.] Pttee, pttee, pttee. [Phinuit leaves, Baby comes. Finger points toward picture.] Pttee pttee, etc. There, there, etc. [Places B.'s hand on Mrs. Piper's head, strokes B.'s hair, etc., points toward picture again, 'Pttee, ptt-ee.' Places hand on Dr. T.'s head and pats it.] [Phinuit returns. Mrs. T. is sending B. away.] Ruthie wants the little one to stay Who's Elsine? [Struggles after name.] That's W , too. W in the body.' (Who's speaking?) Dr. H. : ' George William . . . Andre Valliere says tell George I'm all right. I have seen Whiskers.' [' Alfred Howell's dog, then dead.' Dr. Thaw, 1896.] " 510 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV I retain this partly because I want to see my dog Laddie mentioned in Chapter VII, and his predecessor, Whiskers. Eleventh Sitting. May 29th, 1892. [R. H. taking notes.] (Pr.XIII,579f.) After a sitting with the Thaw's nurse, which was as Irish as that good woman herself " There were indications of ' change of control/ after which there was a long silence while Mrs. Piper's hand pulled as though at a mustache, moved her hair back from the forehead, and felt my [Hodgson's. H.H.] face over. I said ' Hallo, who's there? What's the matter? Why don't you speak ?' Finally the voice came, very different apparently from Phinuit's: ' That's the funniest I didn't think I could get it can't be possible I've got here at last. Well! Well! Well. You've changed since I came here, tremendously. You don't know me, do you ? I'm George Pelham.' " For some time sittings had been arranged with persona unknown to G. P., whom (at his then stage of development?) he would not have been apt to seek. Later apparently he tried to be on hand to help everybody. "This incident occurred about a fortnight after the sitting with G. P.'s father and mother. The series of stenographically reported sittings did not begin till the following November. A long conversation ensued, in which one or two obscurities in recent sittings were referred to, but dealing chiefly with G. P.'s experiences immediately after death, first impressions, anxiety to speak with friends, etc. Nearly all this was spoken into the phonograph, and scarcely any notes were taken. Unfortunately we found later that the phonographic record gave us only a few scattered words here and there When asking G. P. to talk into the phonograph, I said, ' You know what a phonograph is ? ' ' Of course I dp. Why, Hodgson, you must think I've got very unintelligent since I came over here.' " Telepathy and divided personality ! ! ! Twelfth Sitting. [Over seven months since previous one. H.H.] January 16th, 1893. (Pr.XIII,580f.) " [Dr. and Mrs. Thaw sitting. A. D. taking shorthand notes.] " Phinuit : ' That's Florrie. [Mrs. Thaw. H.H,] I'm so glad to see you. How are you ? Where's the doctor ? ' (I'm here.) Phinuit : ' You're here too ! I'm so glad to see you Here, speak to the baby. She has a gentleman with her. Who is who is I know that gentleman just as well as can be. That is the gentleman I told you was going to pass out of the body. That is W . That's your brother W . [See p. 506.] Ch. XXXIII] Dr. Thaw's Brother. Dr. II 511 [Brother assumes control. H.H.] Well, I never! Oh, hello 1 B-l-r. B-l-r. B-l-r. [Dr. A. B. Thaw is usually called by his middle name, Blair, by his relatives and intimate friends. R.H.] Hello, Florence, Florence. How are you? [Phinuit while apparently repeating for W., interjects in his own character as follows. H.H.] He speaks kind of queer. [Then he repeats for W., or W. for himself. H.H.] I want to speak to you. Come here. Well, I never ! I have seen you a great many times since I passed out of the body, but there is one thing I want to tell you of particularly. Listen to me. B-l-r. B-l-r. B-l-r. I can't get that name right. You listen to it and interpret the best you can. Look, here, I want to tell you, my brother, one thing my brother. I wish I had my life in the body over again, I would do differently. (In what way?) In many ways, I assure you. Where is L ? L . L . Well, did you think I was coming here like this? (The Dr. [Phinuit. H.H.] told me. W .) Why didn't you tell me? I had no sooner got out than I realized I lived again. But I didn't know this. Did you know this? Why didn't you tell me? You wanted to surprise me My sufferings are at an end. ... I want you to think of me as being perfectly happy. ... I think father was glad to see me, but you know he didn't think this any more than I did. [And this lifelike picture is telepathy is it? Or a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper? I am afraid the constant demonstration of the inadequacy of these notions may be lead- ing me to remark upon it too often. H.H.] (What did he say about it ? Do you ever talk about coming to see me with father ?) Father has been here [i.e., to the medium. H.H.] before, and he knew it, and he told me about it. But this is the first channel that has been open to me No more pain. I am glad to get out of it, thank the Lord! I wouldn't go back into the body for all the world and all there is in it. [Remember that he had been a great sufferer. H.H.] "Phinuit: [smoothing fur on Mrs. T.'s shoulder some time.] Pussie! Pussie! Pussie! [Ruthie used to do so with her mother's fur coat in the last month of her life, and say, Pussie, Pussie. This was the first time fur was worn at a sitting (H wants to know about the verses he left.) ... Phinuit [reporting for Dr. H. ? H.H.] : As I go dreaming along I look back to you with a great deal of happiness. You were my ideals, you always will be When you sleep I oftentimes go to you and I shall never forget you. And do tell my family so." These Thaw sittings, if viewed from the spiritistic side, strike me as full of impossibilities. And these Thaw sittings, if viewed from any other side I can see, also strike me as full of impossibilities. In other words, at present they seem ab- solutely unexplainable. We can only wait for time, or draw 512 Hodgson's Second Piper Report [Bk. II, Pt. IV our conclusions on the main question, if we must draw them, and can, from other sources. In sittings with other people in later years, Phinuit apolo- gizes for being interrupted by these children, and remarks upon how finely they are growing. He does not go into any explanations to his sitters. His remarks are very casual, and their significance would not be apparent to anybody unfamil- iar with these sittings. I don't know or much care whether my friends Hodgson, James, and Newbold would call this " evidential." To me it seems enormously so. But I fear my use of the word is shamelessly untechnical. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. PHONE .^avUKB , -j. 0,- L QL JAN 12 1987 1 RENEWALS 3 1158 01132 9108 000 024 599 3