OF THE EPISODE OF LOUISE, AND HOW IT WAS ALL DONE

Those who still remained sceptical were completely puzzled. Our success was due, of course, to the cause which makes all spooking mysterious—inaccurate and incomplete observation. In the first place, Alec Matthews had been guilty of a bad slip. He was certain that he had kept the board in his possession and that the mediums could not have seen it. He forgot he had come into Gatherer’s room before the sÉance, to ask some question about a hockey match, and had carried the new board in his hand. I was sitting in the corner. He stayed in the room, standing near the door, for perhaps fifteen seconds—just enough for me to run my eye round the board. After Alec left Gatherer twitted me on being very silent, and asked if I was “homesick.” I was memorizing the new position of the letters.

In the next place, at the sÉance I was carelessly bandaged. I could see the edge of the board next me, and from that calculated the position of the other letters, so that the fact that the glass could at once write ‘Yes, ask something,’ was not so wonderful after all.

In the third place, Little himself gave away the key to the code when he tried to tell us what B-M-X stood for. Everybody remembered that Alec had stopped him from saying what it was, but nobody seemed to notice he had begun to tell us and had given away the important fact that B stood for V. The knowledge of the position of one letter gave me a clue for reconstructing the whole board. Finally, the recoding by the Spook (by going one letter to the left all the way round) was due to an accident. I had not noticed that V and D had changed places, and that the new board read V-D instead of D-V. V was the key letter given away by Little, and as I saw it in my mind’s eye one place too far to the left, the rest followed automatically.^[4]

This was the last attempt at an organized test. The investigators were satisfied. The foundations of Belief had been laid. The rest was absurdly easy—merely a matter of consolidating the position. It was extremely interesting from a psychological point of view to notice how the basic idea that they were conversing with some unknown force seemed to throw men off their balance. Time and again the “Spook,” under one name or another, pumped the sitterwithout the latter’s knowledge. It was amazing how many men gave themselves away, and themselves told the story in their questions, which they afterwards thought the Spook had told in his answers. I could quote many instances, but let one suffice. As it concerns a lady, I shall depart from my rule, and call the officer concerned “Antony,” which is neither his true name nor his nickname.

One night we had been spooking for some time. There was the usual little throng of spectators round the board, who came and went as the humour seized them. Our War-news Spook had occupied the stage for the early part of the evening, and had just announced his departure. We asked him to send someone else.^[5]

“Who are you?” said Alec. As he spoke the door opened and “Antony” came in, and stood close to my side.

“I am Louise,” the board spelt out.

I felt Antony give a little start as he read the message. Without a pause the Spook went on:

“Hello, Tony!”

“This is interesting,” said Tony. (That was give-away No. 2.) “Go on, please. Tell us something.”

I now knew that somewhere Tony must have met a Louise. That was a French name. So far as I knew he had not served in France. But he had served in Egypt. One night, a month or so before, in talking of Egyptian scenery, he had mentioned a long straight road with an avenue of trees on either side that “looked spiffing by moonlight,” and ran for miles across the desert. It had struck me at the time that there was nothing particularly “spiffing” about the type of scenery described; nothing, at any rate, to rouse the enthusiasm he had shown, and his roseate memory of it might have been tinged by pleasant companionship. Remembering this, I ventured to say more about Louise. Nothing could be lost by risking it.

“You remember me, Tony?” asked the Spook.

“I know two Louises,” said Tony cautiously.

“Ah! not the old one, mon vieux,” said the Spook.

(Now this looks as if the Spook knew both, but a little reflection shows that, given two Louises, one was quite probably older than the other.)

“Antony” was delighted.

“Go on,” he said. “Say something.”

“Long straight road,” said the Spook; “trees—moonlight.”

“Where was that?” asked Tony. There was a sharpness about his questioning that showed he was hooked.

“You know, Tony!”

“France?”

“No, no, stupid! Not France! Ah, you have not forgotten, mon cher, riding in moonlight, trees and sand, and a straight road—and you and me and the moon.”

“This is most interesting,” said Antony. Then to the board: “Yes, I know, Egypt—Cairo.”

“Bravo! You know me. Why did you leave me? I am in trouble.”

This was cunning of the Spook. Tony must have left her, because he had come to Yozgad without her. But Tony did not notice. He was too interested, and his memory carried him back to another parting.

“You told me to go,” said Tony. “I wanted to help”—which showed he hadn’t!

“But you didn’t—you didn’t—you didn’t!” said the Spook.

Tony ran his hand through his hair. “This is quite right as far as it goes,” he said, “but I want to ask a few questions to make sure. May I?”

“Certainly,” said Doc. and I.

He turned to the board (it was always amusing to me to notice how men had to have something material to question, and how they never turned to the Doc. or me, but always to the board. Hence, I suppose, the necessity for “idols” in the old days).

“Have you gone ba——” He checked himself and rubbed his chin. “No,” he went on, “I won’t ask that.—Where are you now?”

He had already, without knowing it, answered his own question, but he must be given time to forget it.

“Ah, Tony,” said Louise, “you were a dear! I did love so your hair.”

This was camouflage, but it pleased Tony.

“Where are you now?” Tony repeated, thinking, no doubt, of soft hands on his hair.

“Why did you not help me?” said Louise.

“Look here, I want to make sure who you are. Where are you now?”

“Are you an unbeliever, Tony? C’est moi, Louise, qui te parle!”

“Then tell me where you are,” Tony persisted.

“Oh dear, Tony, I told you I was going back. I went back!”

“By Jove!” said Tony, “that settles it. Back to Paris?”

“I wish you were here,” sighed poor Louise. “The American is not nice—not nice as you, Tony.”

“American?” Tony muttered. “Oh yes. I say, what’s your address?”

The movement of the glass changed from a smooth glide to the “slap-bang” style abhorred by all of us.

“Look here, young feller! You get off the pavement. I don’t want you butting round here!” said the glass. “I’m Silas P. Warner——”

“Go away, Silas!” “Blast you, Silas!” “Get out of this!” “We don’t want to talk to you, we want Louise!” An angry chorus rose from Matthews, Price, and the rest of the interested spectators. Silas had a nasty habit of butting in where he was not wanted—always at crucial and exciting points—and was unpopular.

But Silas would not go. He asserted Louise was in his charge. He would not tolerate these conversations with doubtful characters. Tony could go to hell for all he cared. He didn’t care two whoops if it was a scientific experiment—and so forth, and so on.

“One more question,” pleaded poor Tony, “and if she gets this right I must believe. How does she pronounce the French word for ‘yes’?”

This question, if genuine, again gave a clue to the answer. For it showed she did not pronounce it in the ordinary way. And I felt pretty certain the question was genuine. When a sitter is setting a trap his voice usually betrays him. It is either toneless, or the sham excitement in it is exaggerated. Tony’s voice was just right. So I decided quickly not to fence, but to risk an answer. The most probable change would be a V for the W sound, or the W sound would be entirely omitted. There was therefore a choice of three sounds, “Ee,” “Vee,” and “Evee.” The problem was to give the questioner, without his realizing it, a choice of all three sounds in one answer—he would be sure to choose the one he was expecting.

The glass wrote “E” and paused. Tony beside me was breathing heavily. I gave him plenty of time to say “That’s right,” but as he didn’t the glass went on—

“V-E-E.” He could now choose between Vee and Evee.

“Evee!” said Tony. “That’s it exactly! Ye gods, she always said it that funny way—evee, evee!” He began to talk excitedly.

After the sÉance, Tony took me apart and declared he had never seen anything so wonderful in his life. He told me the whole story of Louise. How they rode together along the long straight road near Cairo; how it was full moon, and there was an avenue of lebbak trees through which the silver light filtered down; and how at the end of the ride they parted. I don’t think anybody else was privileged to hear the whole story, but next day he told everybody interested that as soon as he came into the room the blessed glass said “Hello, Tony! I’m Louise.” If the reader will turn back a page or two he will see this is another instance of bad observation. The Spook said, “I’m Louise,” at which “Antony” started; and only then did the Spook say, “Hello, Tony!” The startled movement which provided the link was forgotten, and the simple inversion of Tony’s memory—putting “Hello, Tony!” before “I’m Louise,” instead of after it—made it impossible for the outsider to discover the fraud. With the lapse of a little time, his memory played him further tricks. A month later he was convinced the Spook had told him the whole story straight off, with all the details he gave me afterwards in his room. This was all very helpful, from one who had been a strenuous unbeliever. And a poor, overworked medium saw no reason to correct him.

Eighteen months later I sat, a free man, in Ramleh Casino at Alexandria. Opposite me, at the other side of the small round table, was one of the Yozgad converts to spiritualism. I had just told him all our work had been fraudulent, and had quoted the Tony-Louise story to show how it was done.

The Convert thought a moment.

“Granted that Tony, by his start, provided the link between ‘Louise’ and himself,” he said, “there is still one thing to explain.”

“What is that?”

“What made you connect the long straight road, and the trees, and the moonlight, with ‘Louise’?”

“Well,” I said, “that, of course, was a mere shot in the dark—a guess.”

The Convert smiled pityingly at me.

“You call it guessing. Do you know what I think it was?”

“No,” said I.

“Unconscious telepathy—you were influenced by ‘Antony’s’ thoughts.”

Is there any way of converting believers? What is a man to say?

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Spiritualists have divided the statements of spooks into “evidential” matter and “non-evidential” matter. Evidential matter is that which is capable of proof in the light of knowledge acquired by the sitters (or their friends) either prior to or subsequent to the sÉance. In every case its basic hypothesis is ignorance on the part of the medium. Provided the medium has no apparent means of knowing a thing, or no apparent grounds for formulating a guess, he or she is presumed to be ignorant. Thus, in Sir Oliver Lodge’s book, Raymond, the evidential value of the photograph incident rests on the adequacy of the proof that the medium had no knowledge of the photograph described. My own experiences as a medium incline me to the belief that whereas it may be possible to prove that a given person has had no given opportunity of acquiring a given piece of knowledge, it is never possible to prove that he has not had some opportunity or, in the alternative, that he is not guessing. That is to say, when a statement is correct, knowledge can sometimes be proved. Ignorance, or guesswork, can never be proved. In Yozgad the Spook described a “tank” with very fair accuracy, told of the fall of Kut, the capture of Baghdad, the great German offensive in North Italy, and many more things which were subsequently proved to be correct. It named officers, and gave details of past experiences known only to themselves. A lot of good fellows—Peacocke, Matthews, Edmonds, Mundey, Price, “Tony,” and many others were victimized in turn.

Our news was of two kinds—general and personal. The general news dealt chiefly with the war. A little of it I obtained from home. Any “exclusive” item of news I got in my letters I published through the spook-board, and left it to Father Time and the Turkish post to bring corroboration. When corroboration arrived, the Spook’s statement became evidential. But this was only a small portion of the information given. The rest was guesswork, and the items which turned out to be correct were remembered afterwards, as further “evidential matter.” The rest was set aside as “not proven,” and forgotten.

The personal news was also largely guesswork. The medium’s usual method was to throw out a cap and watch who tried it on, as in the case of Louise and Tony. He then proceeded to try to make it fit. If he failed, no harm was done, for no special impression was made. The “fishing” references were simply not understood, and forgotten. If he succeeded, it was another piece of evidential matter. These were bows drawn at a venture.

But we also took the gifts the gods sent. One of the most amusing and successful coups in the personal news branch was made by the repetition of a long story told in extreme confidence by the sitter himself to the medium months before. In vino veritas!—sometimes. Nightingale banked everything on its truth and on the fact that the confidential stage of winey-ness has a very short memory, and he won. The sitter—hitherto a sceptic—was afflicted with exceeding great alarm and despondency. He approached the two enthusiasts (Edmonds and Mundey), who kept the records of the sÉances for the future benefit of the Psychical Research Society, and got the sÉance wiped off the slate! Then he departed—a True Believer! Of course, the gift of a complete story like this was a rarity. But it was a common trick, both with the Hospital House spook and our own, to store up some trivial experience, the name of a person or a place, casually mentioned in conversation—and then spring it on its author some weeks or months later when a suitable opportunity occurred. The medium simply waited for the victim to enter the room and then the glass wrote: “Hello, Tom (or Dick or Harry). Here you are. I haven’t seen you since we met at the Galle Face,” or the Swanee River, or whatever place Tom happened to have mentioned. Whereupon, for a sovereign, the surprised Tom would ejaculate: “Heavens above! That must be old Jack Smith!” The Spook then saved up old Jack Smith for a future use. And so the story grew. Next time it would be: “Hello, Tom. I’m Jack Smith. Remember the Galle Face, old chap?”

The “non-evidential” matter also turned out a howling success. We got in some very fancy work in our descriptions of “spheres.” Nearly a year later (1918) Sir Oliver Lodge’s book Raymond reached the camp, and in it was found corroboration for many of our flights of imagination. It was known that none of us had been “spookists” before. So in a sense, and for our camp, even the non-evidential matter became evidential. The resemblances between the utterances of our spooks and the trivialities in Raymond were so manifest that the genuineness of our performances was considered proved. Who said two blacks never make a white? Indeed, we were considered to have advanced human knowledge further than Lodge. For not only had we got into touch with the 4th, 5th, 6th, and nth spheres, but also with one unknown to other spiritualists—the minus one sphere, where dwell the souls of the future generations who have not yet entered this Vale of Tears. There were plenty of “literary” men in the camp. Nobody recognized Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird in a new setting!

In building up the reputation of our spooks there was one type of sÉance we did not encourage. We threw aside the strongest weapon in the medium’s armoury. The emotional fog which blinds the critical faculty of the sitter is most valuable to the medium, and is quite easy to create. A “Darling Boy” from a dead Mother, or a “My son” from a dead Father does it. But there were limits to which we could not go. We created our fog, and built up our Spook’s reputation without the introduction of what are called “harrowing spiritual experiences.” Our spooks were all impersonal to the audience (Sally, Silas P. Warner, Beth, George, Millicent, and so on); nobody’s dear dead was allowed to appear on the scene. Louise was no exception; she was still alive, and “on this side.” The rule was only once broken, so far as I am aware, and then only partially so. Under extreme pressure a private sÉance was granted to a most persistent sitter. He wanted his father to speak to him. One of our usual spooks appeared. But we never reached the stage of direct communication. The emotional strain on all concerned was so obvious that I cut short the sÉance. Nor was it ever repeated. Indeed, to the best of my recollection it was the last sÉance conducted by me in the camp. It showed me one thing clearly—given the necessary emotional strain, the sitter is completely at the mercy of the medium.

I know well that conversations with the dear dead are the every-day stock-in-trade of the average medium. It makes mediumship so much easier. Besides, for all I know, the medium may be genuine. And far be it from me to decry the efforts of eminent scientists to forge their links with the world beyond by any means they choose. They want to “break through the partition.” In their effort they have perhaps every right to circularize the widows and mothers of those whose names adorn the Roll of Honour. To the scientist, a widow or a mother is only a unit for the purpose of experiment and percentage. To the professional medium she represents so much bread and butter. Assuredly these bereaved ladies should be invited to attempt to communicate with their dead husbands and their dead sons! The more the merrier, and there is no time like the present. We have a million souls just “gone over” in the full flush of manhood. The fodder of last year’s cannon is splendid manure for the psychic harvests of the years to come. Carry on! Spread the glad tidings! Our glorious dead are all waiting to move tables and push glasses, and scrawl with planchettes, and speak through trumpets, and throw mediums into ugly trances—at a guinea a time. There they are, “on the other side,” long ranks of them, fresh from the supreme sacrifice. They are waiting to do these things for us before they “go on” further, into the utter unknown. Hurry up! Walk up, ye widows, a guinea is little to pay for a last word from your dead husbands, Many of you would give your immortal souls for it! Walk up, before it is too late. You may find, to begin with, they are “a little confused by the passing over,” a “little unskilled” at the handling of these uncouth instruments of expression—the table, the glass, the trance. But be patient. They only need practice and will improve with time. Go often enough to the mediums, preferably to the same medium, and your dead will learn to communicate. And, above all, “have faith.” It is the faithful believer who gets the most gratifying results.

Ah, yes. We know that “faithful believer.” He is apt to be stirred by his emotions, and a little careless in the framing of his questions.

I have seen men die from bullets, and shell, and poison; from starvation, from thirst, from exhaustion, and from many diseases. God knows, I have feared Death. Yet Death has ever had for me one strong consolation—it brings the “peace that passeth all understanding.” Like me, perhaps, you have watched it come to your friends and lay its quiet fingers on their grey faces. You have seen the relaxation from suffering, the gentle passing away and then the ineffable Peace. And is my Peace, when it comes, to be marred by this task of shifting tables, and chairs, and glasses, Sir Oliver? Am I to be at the beck and call of some hysterical, guinea-grabbing medium—a sort of telephone boy in Heaven or Hell? I hope not, Sir. I trust there is nobler work beyond the bar for us poor mortals.

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Be that as it may, ours at Yozgad was a comparatively healthy spiritualism, conducted by a collection of spooks who did not encourage snivelling sentimentalism, even under the guise of scientific investigation. With the exception of a monotonous melancholic, who butted in at regular intervals to inform us plaintively that he was “buried alive,” the spooks were a decidedly jovial lot. They kept us in touch with the outside world. We walked with them down Piccadilly, dined with them in the Troc., and tried to hear with them the music of the band. We conversed with Shackleton on his South Polar expedition, with men in the trenches in France, and with ships on the wide seas. From Cabinet Meetings to the good-night chat between “Beth Greig” and her girl friend, nothing was hidden from us. There was no place to which we could not go, nothing we could not see with the Spook’s eyes, or hear with his ears. A successful night at the spook-board was the nearest we could get, outside our dreams, to a breath of freedom. We forgot our captivity, our wretchedness, our anxieties, and lived joyously in the fourth dimension. And it was better than novels—streets ahead of novels—for it might be true.