HOW WE FELL INTO A TRANCE AND SAW THE FUTURE

Our next sÉance, held on the 24th March, purported to be an explanation of and an introduction to that special species of trance talk which appeals to all superstitious minds—the reading of the future. The real lesson which we wished the Turk unconsciously to assimilate was the fact that a “ray” exists—called by the Spook the “telechronistic ray”—which preserves both the past and the future in the present for anyone who can get into touch with it, and that Jones and Hill were developing the power to get into touch with it. At the time, the Turks paid very little attention to the telechronistic ray. Their interest was centred in the trance-talk description of the future finding of the treasure. But later on, when the Spook offered to disclose, under proper conditions, the whereabouts of all hidden treasures, the Turks remembered their lesson and themselves quoted the “telechronistic ray” sÉance as an argument in favour of the Spook being able to fulfil its offer.

Further, the trance-talk picture of the future was intended to be a very gentle introduction of the idea that when the treasure was discovered the mediums would be away from Yozgad, because they would send news of its whereabouts by letter.

The sÉance is no doubt poor stuff from a metaphysical point of view, but it was good enough for the Turks, and I quote it in full as an example of the way in which we entangled our victims in a labyrinth of confused reasoning. For it must always be borne in mind that a medium can have no more valuable asset in his sitter than a theory of spooking, and the more ill-defined, tortuous and confused that “theory” may be, the easier it becomes to hoodwink its exponent. The really dangerous man to a medium is not at all the gentleman possessed of a vast knowledge of spooks and their ways, and consequently prepared to explain phenomena in the light of that knowledge, but the ordinary everyday man, without any theories of the supernatural and preferably with a good knowledge of conjuring, of logic, and of the tricks of the cross-examiner, who will apply to what he sees and hears the tests of his everyday experience. Confusion, in one form or another, is the alpha and omega of the medium’s stock in trade.

The sÉance opened with a little speech by MoÏse. We encouraged him—or rather, the Spook did—to make these speeches, and gradually he formed the habit of writing them beforehand so as to make sure of omitting nothing of importance. In time, they amounted to a report of everything that had happened in connection with ourselves or with the rest of the camp since the last sÉance. In this way our knowledge was kept up to date, and we gained much important information. The speeches were delivered—not to us, but to the piece of tin which was our spook-board, and which MoÏse always addressed as “Sir.” It contained for him as real a personality as the idol does for the savage, and he treated it with similar reverence. He lied to us, in our capacity as ordinary mortals, with a face of brass, but he never lied to his sacred piece of tin. Picture him, then, leaning over the board with paper and pencil ready to take down the Spook’s answer while we set our fingers on the glass, and as wooden as possible an expression on our faces, and listened to his oration.

Lest he should make any mistake over the “beam of light” MoÏse decided to write in the dark. He sat at a table at one side of the room, while Hill and I sat at the other side. For some time there was dead silence. Then Hill and I began to grunt, and make strange noises in unison. The noises changed gradually from grunts to groans, and from groans to guttural sounds, thence to some unknown tongue, and finally into English. When we had practised together in private (it took a lot of practice to get grunt-and-groan perfect) we had never been able to proceed very far without laughing. Indeed it was the most ridiculous farmyard concert that mortal man ever listened to, and Hill had objected that we ran a great risk of laughing or being laughed at and spoiling everything. But what is ridiculous in daylight may be intensely eerie in the dark. And so it proved. The unhappy Pimple nearly fainted with fright, but he stuck to his post and his note-taking with a courage that roused our unwilling admiration. He showed us his notes afterwards—the paper was wet from the clamminess of his hands, and the writing showed clear traces of his jumpiness.

We pretended to be describing a scene before our eyes. We were following a man who carried a letter. We described how the messenger passed through a door into a garden. He had great difficulty in closing the door, for something was wrong with the latch. We followed him through the garden—past the trees and flowers and well, all of which we described—into a house with a curious window that stood out four-square to the right of the door. Thence up the steps, inside, through a small hall, up a staircase and into a bedroom, detailing the furniture and the pictures as we passed each article. We gave a minute description of the bedroom, the red carpet, the two ottomans, the position of the bed and the cupboard, and we were much struck by the enormous footstool on the right of the door, the wicker bag on the floor near the bed, and the sword on the wall between two pictures. The messenger gave the letter to someone on the bed, whom we could not see clearly. We heard him call, and a lady came in—a lady with very beautiful hands. They went out together, carrying a lantern. Another man joined them, with pick and shovel. Then everything turned black. There was a pause in the trance-talk for perhaps a minute. Then we cried out that we saw the group again. They had been digging. We could see the hole by the lamplight. They were pulling things out of the hole—boxes they looked like! Yes, boxes! The man with the pick raised it above his head and smashed open a box, and—“Gold! Gold! Gold!” (so loud and so suddenly did we shout together that the Pimple leapt to his feet). Then blackness again, and a reversal of the opening proceedings—we lapsed first into the unknown tongue, and thence through the guttural sounds to the groans and the little farmyard grunts with which we had begun. A few minutes’ silence, and Hill spoke in his natural voice:—

“I am afraid it’s no good!” he said, “nothing is going to happen.”

The Pimple struck a match with shaking fingers, and lit the lamp.

“Something has happened,” he said, “you’ve both been in a trance. It was terrible!”

“Have we?” said I, and looked as dazed as I could. (It is easy to look dazed in a sudden glare of light.) “I feel just as usual, only very, very tired.”

At the Pimple’s request we got out the spook-board and he read over the record to the Spook.

“That was the future,” the glass explained; “did you recognize the picture, MoÏse?”

MoÏse. “No, Sir.”

Spook. “Stupid! What did they find? Who were they? What was the house? Don’t be silly! You know it well. Read it again!”

(MoÏse re-read the record.)

MoÏse (in excitement). “Yes, Sir! I recognize it now. May I tell the mediums what the picture was?”

Spook. “Yes. Then no more to-night. Mediums are much improved, but this strains them.”

MoÏse. “Good-night, Sir. And many thanks.”

Turning to Hill and myself, MoÏse explained that in our trance-talk we had given a perfect description of the Commandant’s house. He was half crazed with excitement and nervous strain. It was “wonderful,” “marvellous,” “undoubted clairvoyance.” He congratulated us “from the base of his heart.” It was a “beautiful word-picture.” It was more—a “word-photograph”—and of a house we had never seen! It beat the photograph incident in Raymond (MoÏse, by the Spook’s orders, had just finished translating Raymond to the Commandant), “for it was much more detailed.” He believed we were greater spiritualists than Sir Oliver Lodge. “Was it so?” “Was it not so?”

“Oh no, MoÏse,” said Hill. “We are only mediums. He is in your position, you know—an investigator and recorder. But I suppose it is not unlike the photograph incident, as you say.”

“It is better—far better,” said the Pimple.

I believe it was better. Only it spoils a conjuring trick or a psychical phenomenon to explain how it is done, and unfortunately I have already told the reader how Doc. O’Farrell described Kiazim’s house to me. So the photograph incident in Raymond will remain a “marvel” while our word-picture is simply a fraud.