HOW THE CAMP TURNED SPIRITUALIST

I made up my mind to rag for an evening or two more and to face the music, when it came, in the proper spirit. There was a recognized form of punishment at Yozgad for a “rag.” It was a “posh.”^[3] In my case, with Doc., Matthews, Price, and of course the Seaman (who always joined in on principle) as my torturers, I expected it would be a super-posh, and trembled accordin’. I had no doubt in my own mind that discovery would come very soon.

When evening came round, there were Alec, Doc., and Price waiting round the spook-board with their tongues out, wanting more “Sally.” I sat down with the unholy joy of the small boy preparing a snowball in ambush for some huge and superior person of uncertain temper, and with not a little of his fear of being found out before the snowball gets home on the target.

“Now, Doc.,” said I, trying to avert suspicion from myself, “don’t you get larking. I’m beginning to suspect you.”

“And I’m suspecting you,” he laughed. “Come on, ye old blackguard!”

We started, and for several minutes got nothing but a series of unintelligible letters. The reason for this was simple enough. The “medium’s” mind was blank. I hadn’t the foggiest notion of what to say, and could only push the glass about indiscriminately. Matthews and Price faithfully noted down every letter touched. This kept everybody happy, and as a matter of fact formed a useful precedent for future occasions.

“It’s there all right,” said Alec. “Keep it up, you fellows. We’ll get something soon.”

Gatherer came in, and after watching for a minute gave an order to the Spook in his parade voice: “Go round and look at your letters.”

The indiscriminate zig-zagging stopped and the glass went round the circle slowly.

“Gee! Snakes!” said Alec. “That’s the stuff, Gatherer; give It some more!”

“No sense in being afraid of the blighter,” said Gatherer. “Here! Stop going round now! Tell us who you are!”

“Go—to—hell!” came the answer.

Gatherer was not abashed. “Is that where you are?” he asked, and the Spook began to swear most horribly. My mind was no longer blank; it teemed with memories of my court in Burma, and the glass said to Gatherer what the old bazaar women of the East say to one another before they get “run in.”

“All right, old chap,” said Gatherer. “That’s enough. I’m sorry. I apologise.”

“Go away,” said the Spook, and until Gatherer obeyed the glass would do nothing but repeat, “Go away,” “Go away,” to every question that was asked.

Looking back, I can see this was an important episode. Of course the glass wrote “go away” because I could think of nothing better to say at the moment (practice was to make my imagination much more fertile), and it kept on repeating the request because I had begun to wonder if I really could make Gatherer leave the room.

“Shall I go?” Gatherer asked.

“Faith! You’d better,” said the Doc., “or who knows what It will be saying next?”

Gatherer went, and the Spook began to write again. It might well do so, for It had begun to establish its “Authority.”

Now, for successful spooking, “Authority” is all-important. The utterances of a medium “under control” must be, and are for the believer, the object of an unquestioning reverence.

I have two small mites of children. They usually demand a “story” of an evening. Since my return they have gradually established a precedent, and it has become a condition for their going to bed. I take them on my knees, their silky hair against my cheeks, and look into the fire for inspiration about “elephants” or “tigers” or “princesses,” or whatever may be the subject of immediate interest and then I begin. I don’t go very far without a question, and when that is successfully negotiated there are two more questions on the ends of their restless tongues. The linked answers comprise the story. Nobody makes any bones about the credibility of it, because “father tells it.” Thousands of other fathers are doing the same every day. Parents yet to be will continue the good work for the generations unborn.

What the parent is for the child, the medium is for “believers.” The gentle art, as Hill (my ultimate partner in the game) and I know it, is merely a matter of shifting the authorship of the answers from yourself to some Unknown Third, whose authority has become as unquestionable to the “sitter” as the father’s is to the child. Once that is achieved the problem in each case is precisely the same. It consists in answering questions in a manner satisfactory to the audience. I also find there is no fundamental difference in the material required for the “links.” Granted the “authority,” the same sort of stuff pleases them all alike, children and grown-up “sitters.” If you have ever watched a true believer at a sitting you will know exactly what I mean; and if you can describe the palace of an imaginary princess, you can also describe the sixth, or seventh, or the eighth “sphere.” But of course you must always be careful to call it a “palace” in the one instance, and a “sphere” in the other.

I did not realize this all at once. I did not set out with any scheme of building up the Spook’s authority. I laid out for myself no definite line of action against my friends. My policy, in fact, was that by which our own British Empire has grown. I determined to do the job nearest to hand as well as I could, and to tackle each problem as it arose. I would “rag around a bit” and then withdraw as soon as circumstances permitted me to do so gracefully. But circumstances never permitted. One thing led to another, and my “commitments” in the spook-world grew steadily, as those of our Empire have done in this.

Nor, needless to say, did I see at this time the faintest resemblance between Alec calling for “Sally” and my small boy demanding a “story” at my knee. To me, Alec and Doc. and Price (not to mention the rest of the camp) were grown men, thewed and sinewed, with the varied store of wisdom that grown men acquire in their wanderings up and down the wide seas and the broad lands of this old Empire of ours. They were “enquirers”—not “true believers” as yet—and as I was to find out in due course, they were “no mugs” at enquiring. I could only hug myself at the idea of the poshing I would get when the rag was discovered, and fight my hardest to ward off the evil day.

Soon after Gatherer left the room my career as a medium almost came to an inglorious end. The trap into which I nearly fell was not consciously set, so far as I am aware, for in those early days when everything was fresh the interest of the audience was centred more in the substance of the communications than in the manner in which they were produced.

The situation arose in this way: being a medium was a tiring game. An hour on end of pushing the glass about at arm’s length required considerable muscular effort. Your arm became as heavy as lead; until we got into training Doc. and I had to take frequent rests. This fatigue was natural enough, and everybody knew of it, but nobody knew that practically the whole of my body was subjected to a physical strain. At this period of my mediumship I used to close my eyes quite honestly; I was therefore obliged to remember the exact position of each letter, not only in its relation to other letters but also to myself, so as to be able to steer the glass to it. The slightest movement of the spook-board, caused, for example, by my sleeve or the Doc.’s catching on the edge of it, as sometimes happened, was sufficient to upset all my calculations until I had had an opportunity of glancing at it again. I used to try to guard against this by resting my left hand lightly on the edge of the board. I could then feel any movement, and at the same time my left hand formed a guide to my right, for, before closing my eyes, I used to note what letter my little finger was resting on. I had two other guides—my right and my left foot under the table gave me the angles of two other known letters. If the reader will try and sit for an hour, moving his right hand freely, but with both feet and the left hand absolutely still, he will understand why indefinite sittings were impossible. Add to this the concentration of mind necessary to remember the letters, to invent suitable answers to questions, and to spell them out.

“I am fagged out,” I said wearily. “Don’t you feel the strain, Doc.?”

“Only my arm.” He rubbed the numbness out of it. “Come on, Bones, let’s get some more; this is interesting.”

“I’m dead beat. I feel it all over me. It seems to take a lot out of me.”

The three looked at me curiously. They obviously regarded me as a medium who had been under “control.” (En passant, I wonder if the “exhaustion” of all mediums after a sÉance is not due to similar causes?)

“Right you are, Bones,” said Price, “I’ll take your place. You come and note down.”

I took his pencil and notebook, and he sat down to the board with the Doc. The glass moved and touched letters, but they made, of course, nothing intelligible. After a space, when I had rested, Doc. said his arm was tired and suggested I should take his place. I did so. Price and I were now at the glass. Somebody asked a question. I started to reply in the usual way, but luckily realized in time what I was doing, and instead of giving a coherent answer, allowed the glass to wander among the X’s and Y’s at its own sweet will. It had flashed across my mind that so long as I obtained answers only when the Doc. was my partner, no “sceptic” could tell which of the two of us was controlling the glass. If, on the other hand, I obtained answers in conjunction with others as well as when with the Doc., while no other pair in combination could do so, I was clearly indicated as the control, and a very simple process of elimination would doom me to discovery. I therefore came to a hurried decision that only when the Doc. was my partner should the Unknown be allowed to speak, and it was not till long after the Spook had proved to the satisfaction of our “enquirers” its own separate existence that I permitted myself to break this resolution.

So Price and I continued to bang out unintelligible answers until everybody was tired of it. Matthews, who amongst other objectionable pieces of knowledge had acquired something of Mathematics, then worked out the Combinations and Permutations of four spookists, two together, and insisted we should test them all. We did. The only result was pages of Q’s and M’s, of X’s, Y’s and Z’s. Bones and the Doc. were the only pair who got answers.

At our after-sÉance talk, this led to a new discovery—new, that is, for us. It was obvious that mediums must be en rapport! We attacked the subject from all sides, and as usual others joined in our discussion. When I went to bed, Matthews was demonstrating, with the aid of two tallow candles on a deal box, something about wave-lengths, and positive and negative electricity, and tuning up and down to the same pitch. I am sure I don’t know what it was all about, but it clearly proved the necessity of something being en rapport with something else in the material world. Therefore why not the same necessity for spiritual things? So far as I remember, Alec, old man, your theory was quite sound—it was your facts that were wrong! Perhaps I should have told you so, and saved you much hard thinking: but put yourself in my place—wasn’t it fun?

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Thus we continued for several evenings. The camp looked on with mingled amusement and interest. Our sÉances began to be a popular form of evening entertainment. Quite a little crowd would gather round the board, and ask questions of the Spook. For the most part, at this stage, the audiences were sceptical—they suspected a trick somewhere, though they could not imagine how it was done. Curiously enough, suspicion centred not on me, but on the perfectly innocent Doctor. The poor man was pestered continually to reveal the secret. He swore vehemently that he had nothing to do with it, but it was pointed out to him that the glass only wrote when he was there—a fact he could not deny.

This sceptical attitude of the camp was of the utmost value to me. It amounted to a challenge and spurred me to fresh efforts. The whole affair being a rag, with no definite aim in view, it would not have been fair play to the enquirers to have told an out-and-out lie. But I considered it quite legitimate to dodge their questions if I could do so successfully. The following is a type of the conversations that were common at this period:

“Look here, Bones, is this business between you and the Doc. straight?”

“How do you mean, ‘straight’?”

“This spooking business! Is it genuine?”

“Jack,” I would say confidentially (or Dick, or Tom, as the case might be), “I’ll tell you something. The whole thing is mysterious. I assure you there is no arrangement whatsoever between the Doc. and myself. The camp think we are in league for a leg-pull. But we’re not. We took this business up as an enquiry—see, here’s the original postcard.”

And I would produce the well-worn bit of cardboard which first suggested the spooking, and gently disentangle Jack’s fingers from my buttonhole.

Perhaps “Jack” would be satisfied and go away, or perhaps he would be a persistent blighter and carry on.

“But how is it done, Bones?”

“You mean, what makes the glass move?”

“Well—yes.”

“My own theory—it may be wrong, of course, because I’ve never done much at Psychical Research—my own theory is that the movement must be due to muscular action on the part of the mediums. I believe Oliver Lodge and those other Johnnies hold that the muscular action is subconscious, but that is Tommy-rot. Anything is subconscious so long as you don’t think of the process of thought, and nothing is subconscious so long as it is known. Besides,” I would add, looking up into my questioner’s face as innocently as I could, “as soon as the glass begins to move about I am quite conscious of every movement. That’s straight. The Doc. will tell you the same thing. I must admit that he has often pointed out to me that one seems to be following the glass about. He has been analysing his own sensations from the medical point of view, and he is rather interesting on this point. You should ask him about it.”

“I will,” Jack would say, and off he would go to cross-examine the poor old Doc.

Probably Dick or Tom had been listening to our conversation, and would now chip in with:

“That’s all very well, Bones, but I believe you’re playing the fool all the time. Now aren’t you?”

“Right-o, Dick! If you like to think I’m ass enough to sit there night after night for the mere lark of the thing, you’re welcome.”

“But the whole affair’s absurd, impossible,” Dick would protest.

“You say so, but what about Oliver Lodge? He has studied this business for years, and swears he gets into communication with the next world in this way. And he is a scientist, my boy, while you are a plain soldier man and don’t know your arm from your elbow in these matters. A few years ago I expect you were saying that wireless telegraphy and flying and all the rest of our modern scientific marvels were impossible. You are the conservative type of fellow who doesn’t believe a thing possible until he can do it himself. Why, you old idiot, for all you know you may be a medium yourself. Why don’t you come along and try some night?”

And Dick would come, and try, and get nothing!

I was often grateful in those days for my past experience as a magistrate in Burma. My study of law and lawyers helped me considerably in the gentle art of drawing a red herring across my questioners’ train of thought.

I was beginning to think that the business had gone on long enough, and it was time to confess, when Fate stepped in again. Intrigued by our success, several other groups of experimenters had been formed in the camp, notably in the Hospital House. One fine morning we were electrified by the news that there also “results” had been obtained.

The Doc. came up to me as I was walking in the lane. He was all hunched up with glee.

“Faith,” he said to me, “the sceptics have got it in the neck. Here’s Nightingale and Bishop been an’ held a long conversation with the spooks last night.”

“I don’t see that that will make much difference to the sceptics,” said I.

“But I do,” said the Doc. “The camp doesn’t believe in it now because you’re you and I’m me. But who in Turkey or out of it can suspect fellows like Bishop and Nightingale?—that’s what I want to know.”

“And why not suspect Bishop and Nightingale?” I asked.

“Ach! ye might as well suspect a babe unborn. Not one of the two of them has the imagination of a louse. They’re plain, straightforward Englishmen—not Celtic fringe like you an’ me—an’ the camp knows it.”

“But don’t you suspect them yourself?” I asked. “You said the other day that you suspected me, you know.”

“So I did, but that’s different, as I say. These two are genuine enough.”

“No doubt,” said I, for I was quite open-minded about the possibilities of “spooking.” “Whom were they talking to last night?”

“Oh—just Sally, and Silas P. Warner, and that lot,” said the Doc. “Same crowd of spooks as we get ourselves.”

I glanced at him to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. Lord! Doc. dear, how I longed to laugh!

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Either Nightingale or Bishop (I did not know which at the time) was fudging. I knew this for certain because they were using “spooks” of my own creation. It puzzled me at the time to know why they should not have invented spooks of their own. I learned long afterwards that mine were adopted because it was thought that my show was possibly genuine. If so, what could be more natural than that the spirits which haunted the Upper House should also be found next door?

The position was now rather funny. I knew, of course, that both “shows” were frauds. The villain of the piece in the Hospital House knew his own show was a fraud, but was not sure about mine. The majority of the camp, on the other hand, were inclined to think there might be something in the Hospital House exhibition, although they had viewed mine with suspicion. But if they accepted the Hospital House, they had to accept ours too, the spooks being the same. And, in the course of time, that was what happened.

The development in the Hospital House had another result. My little “rag” was assuming larger proportions than I had intended, and as often happens in this funny old world, circumstances were beginning to tie me up. I could not now confess without giving somebody else away at the same time as myself. Besides, I did not very much want to confess. The “conversion” of a large portion of the camp was in sight, for Doc. was quite right in his analysis of the situation, and the entry of Bishop and Nightingale on the scene had disposed everybody to further enquiry into the matter. The position was beginning to have a keen psychological interest for me.

So I compromised with my conscience. Freeland drew for me a fitting poster—a picture of a spook-glass and board, and beneath it I placed a notice which said that ours was the original Psychical Research Society of Yozgad, that it had no connection with any other firm, and that we held sÉances on stated evenings. Our fellow-prisoners were asked to attend. The closest inspection was invited. The poster ended by saying that the mediums each suspected the other and would welcome any enquirer who could decide how the rational movements of the glass were caused. Muscular action, thought transference, spiritualism and alcoholism were suggested to the camp as possible solutions.

Shortly after this notice was put up, Doc. and I were asked if we objected to a series of “tests.” Doc., strong in his own innocence, welcomed the suggestion. As for me, it was exactly what I wanted—the raison d’Être of my notice. Up to now it had been “a shame to take the money.” This put us on a reasonable basis. If all were discovered, as I expected would be the case, I’d get my poshing, there would be a good laugh all round, and that would be the end of it. If by any fluke of fortune I survived, the testers would only have themselves to blame afterwards. It was now a fair fight—my wits against the rest—catch as catch can, and all grips allowed. Neither the Doc. nor I made any conditions, nor did we want to know beforehand the nature of the tests to which we were to be subjected.

But I took my precautions. I secretly nicked the edges of the circle on which the letters were written in such a way that I could always recognize, by touch, the position of the board.