  Scheme of Vital Faculty. IX. A. The following scheme I have felt myself the full force of this objection, and I believe that some effort to meet it has become absolutely needful. Undoubtedly a record of facts without theories is the first essential. But the facts individually are like "stones that fall down from Jupiter,"—isolated marvels, each of which seems incredible until we have made shift to colligate them all. Let us begin, then, by taking the most generalised view possible of all these phenomena. They appear, at any rate, to depend upon the presence of living human beings; and they are therefore in some sense phenomena of life. If, then, they are phenomena of life, they must be in some way derived from, or must bear some analogy to, the vital phenomena, the faculties and functions with which we are familiar in the experience of every day. Yet to say this brings us little nearer to our aim. Spirits may have ruled Mr. Moses' mind and body just as truly as our own conscious will rules our mind and body. It is here that we ought to feel the advantage of previous discussions on man's own supernormal faculties,—on the powers of the Self below the threshold of ordinary consciousness. We have traced these powers in detail; we have noted the extension of the normal spectrum of consciousness beyond both red and violet ends, in response to subliminal control. Perhaps the profounder conception of the Self thus gained may help us to bridge over that gulf between the performances of the ordinary man and those of the so-called medium which heretofore has involved so difficult a leap. We may find that the spirit's power over the organism which it controls or "possesses,"—while possibly going much further than any subliminal power in the organism itself, as known to us,—may yet advance along similar lines, and receive explanation from hypnotic or telepathic phenomena. I will endeavour, then, to set side by side, in tabular form, the main heads of vital process or faculty as exercised (1) under normal or supraliminal control; (2) under subliminal and telepathic control; (3) under what is claimed as disembodied or spiritual control. In arranging this scheme my first object is to bring all such phenomena as we actually have before us into intelligible connection; introducing by the way a few of the explanations given to Mr. Moses by his guides. Those explanations, however, are for the most part slight and vague, and our experimental knowledge of the phenomena is, of course, merely nascent and fragmentary. My scheme, therefore, cannot aim at complete logical arrangement. It must involve both repetitions and lacunÆ; nor can it be such as the physiologist would care to sanction. But it will, at least, be a first attempt at a connected schedule or rational index of phenomena apparently so disparate that the very possibility of their interdependence b even now constantly denied. SYNOPSIS OF VITAL FACULTY I. First Series:—Phenomena Supraliminally Controlled, or Occurring in Ordinary Life.
II. Second Series:—Phenomena Subliminally Controlled.
III. Third Series:—Phenomena Claimed as Spiritually Controlled.
IX. B. (1) The following case is quoted from the Journal S.P.R., vol. v. p. 253. Professor Luther writes:— Hartford, Conn., March 2nd, 1892. ...Miss C. is often in my study and consults my books freely, so that her dream was not remarkable. The dream of Mrs. L. (my wife) was also ordinary in character. The coincidence in time of the dreams may have been merely a coincidence. But that after these occurrences Mrs. L. should suddenly, without the least premeditation and without hesitation, take the right book and open it at the right page with the certainty of a somnambulist, seems to me strange.... These events took place yesterday, last night, and this morning. F. S. Luther Mrs. L. and Miss C. live at the same hotel and meet daily. Miss C. is engaged in writing an essay upon Emerson, and expresses to Mrs. L. her wish to obtain some particulars as to Emerson's private life. Mrs. L. regrets that she has no book treating of the subject. During the night following this conversation Mrs. L. dreams of handing Miss C. a book containing an article such as is desired, and Miss C. dreams of telling Mrs. L. that she had procured just the information which she had been looking for. Each lady relates to the other her dream when they meet at breakfast the next morning. Mrs. L. returns to her room, and, while certainly not consciously thinking of Emerson, suddenly finds in her mind the thought, "There is the book which Miss C. needs." She goes directly to a bookcase, takes down vol. xvii. of the Century Magazine, and opens immediately at the article, "The Homes and Haunts of Emerson." Mrs. L. had undoubtedly read this article in 1879, but she had never studied Emerson or his works, nor had she made any special effort to assist Miss C. in her search, though feeling a friend's interest in the proposed essay. After receiving the book and hearing how it was selected, Miss C. relates her dream more fully, it appearing that she had seemed to be standing in front of Mrs. L.'s shelves with a large, illustrated book in her hands, and that in the book was something about Emerson. Still later it is found that Miss C. had actually noticed the article in question while actually in the position reproduced in her dream. This, however, had happened about a month previous to the events just narrated, and before she had thought of looking up authorities as to Emerson, so that she had entirely forgotten the occurrence and the article. Neither did she, at that time, call Mrs. L.'s attention to the article, or mention Emerson. According to the best information attainable, Miss C. was not thinking of her essay at the time when Mrs. L. felt the sudden impulse to take down a certain book. And perhaps it should be added that the volume is one of a complete set of the Century variously disposed upon Mrs. L.'s shelves. [This account is signed by Professor Luther, Mrs. L., and Miss C.] Of special interest are a few cases where the actual mechanism of some brief communication from the spiritual world seems to suggest and lead up to the mechanism which we shall afterwards describe either as ecstasy or as possession. (2) I give here a case which suggests such knowledge as may be learnt in ecstasy;—as though a message had been communicated to a sleeper during some brief excursion into the spiritual world,—which message was remembered for a few moments, in symbolic form, and then rapidly forgotten, as the sleeper returned fully into the normal waking state. What is to be noted is that the personality of sleep, to which I attribute the spiritual excursion, seems at first to have been "controlling" the awakened organism. In other words, Professor Thoulet was partially entranced or possessed by his own spirit or subliminal self. I quote from Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 503-5, a translation of the original account of the case in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques (September-October, 1891). Professor Thoulet writes to Professor Richet as follows:— April 17th, 1891. ...During the summer of 1867, I was officially the assistant, but in reality the friend, in spite of difference in age, of M. F., a former officer in the navy, who had gone into business. We were trying to set on foot again the exploitation of an old sulphur mine at Rivanazzaro, near Voghera, in Piedmont, which had been long abandoned on account of a falling in. We occupied the same rooms, and our relations were those of father and son, or of elder and younger brother.... I knew that Madame F., who lived at Toulon, and with whom I was M. F. and I slept in adjoining rooms, and as it was hot we left the door between them open. One morning I sprang suddenly out of bed, crossed my room, entered that of M. F., and awakened him by crying out, "You have just got a little girl; the telegram says ..." Upon this I began to read the telegram. M. F. sat up and listened; but all at once I understood that I had been asleep, and that consequently my telegram was only a dream, not to be believed; and then, at the same time, this telegram, which was somehow in my hand and of which I had read about three lines aloud, word for word, seemed to withdraw from my eyes as if some one were carrying it off open; the words disappeared, though their image still remained; those which I had pronounced remained in my memory, while the rest of the telegram was only a form. I stammered something; M. F. got up and led me into the dining-room, and made me write down the words I had pronounced; when I came to the lines which, though they had disappeared from my memory, still remained pictured in my eye, I replaced them by dots, making a sort of drawing of them. Remark that the telegram was not written in common terms; there were about six lines of it, and I had read more than two of them. Then, becoming aware of our rather incorrect costume, M. F. and I began to laugh, and went back to our beds. Two or three days after I left for TorÉe; I tried in vain to remember the rest of the telegram; I went on to Turin, and eight or ten days after my dream I received the following telegram from M. F., "Come directly, you were right." I returned to Rivanazzaro and M. F. showed me a telegram which he had received the evening before; I recognised it as the one I had seen in my dream; the beginning was exactly what I had written, and the end, which was exactly like my drawing, enabled me to read again the words which I saw again. Please remark that the confinement had taken place the evening before, and therefore the fact was not that I, being in Italy, had seen a telegram which already existed in France—this I might with some difficulty have understood—but that I had seen it ten days before it existed or could have existed; since the event it announced had not yet taken place. I have turned this phenomenon over in my memory and reasoned about it many times, trying to explain it, to connect it with something, with a previous conversation, with some mental tension, with an analogy, a wish,—and all in vain. M. F. is dead, and the paper I wrote has disappeared. If I were called before a court of justice about it, I could not furnish the shadow of a material proof, and again the two personalities which exist in me, the animal and the savant, have disputed on this subject so often that sometimes I doubt it myself. However, J. Thoulet, Professor Richet adds:— M. Thoulet has lately confirmed all the details contained in his letter. He has no longer any written trace of this old story, but the recollection of it is perfectly clear. He assured me that he had seen and read the telegram like a real object.... (3) And now I quote a case where a kind of conversation is indicated between the sleeper and some communicating spirit;—recalling the scraps of conversation sometimes overheard (as it were) between Mrs. Piper and some "control" when she is in the act of awaking from trance. These moments "between two worlds" are often, as will be seen, of high significance. In the case here cited we seem to see Mr. Goodall at first misapprehending a message, and himself automatically uttering the misapprehension, and then receiving the needed correction from his invisible interlocutor. From Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 453-5. The following narrative was communicated by Mr. Edward A. Goodall, of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, London:— May 1888. At Midsummer, 1869, I left London for Naples. The heat being excessive, people were leaving for Ischia, and I thought it best to go there myself. Crossing by steamer, I slept one night at Casamicciola, on the coast, and walked next morning into the town of Ischia. Liking the hotel there better than my quarters of the previous night, I fetched my small amount of luggage by help of a man, who returned with me on foot beside an animal which I rode—one of the fine, sure-footed, big donkeys of the country. Arrived at the hotel, and while sitting perfectly still in my saddle talking to the landlady, the donkey went down upon his knees as if he had been shot or struck by lightning, throwing me over his head upon the lava pavement. In endeavouring to save myself my right hand was badly injured. It soon became much swollen and very painful. A Neapolitan doctor on the spot said no bones were broken, but perfect rest would be needful, with my arm in a sling. Sketching, of course, was impossible, and with neither books, newspapers, nor letters I felt my inactivity keenly. 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, 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 telegraph-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. 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 leave 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. In writing to Mrs. Goodall, I called the incident of the voice a dream, as less likely perhaps to disturb her than the details which I gave on reaching home, and which I have now repeated. My letters happen to have been preserved. I have never had any hallucination of any kind, nor am I in the habit of talking in my sleep. I do remember once waking with some words of mere nonsense upon my lips, but the experience of the voice speaking to me was absolutely unique. Edward A. Goodall. Extracts from letters to Mrs. E. A. Goodall from Ischia:— Wednesday, August 11th, 1869. The postman brought me two letters containing sad news indeed. Poor little Percy. I dreamt some nights since the poor little fellow was taken from us.... August 14th. I did not tell you, dear, the particulars of my dream about poor little Percy. I had been for several days very fidgety and wretched at getting no letters from home, and had gone to bed in worse spirits than usual, and in my dream I fancied I said: "I have lost my dearest little May." A strange voice seemed to say: "No, not May but your youngest boy," not mentioning his name.... Mr. Goodall gave me verbally a concordant account of the affair, and several members of his family, who were present at our interview, recollected the strong impression made on him and them at the time. (4) The next case is precisely a miniature case of possession. From the Journal S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 278-280. "The following account" (writes Dr. Hodgson) "was sent to me by Mr. John E. Wilkie at the suggestion of one of our American members Washington, D. C., April 11th, 1898. In October 1895, while living in London, England, I was attacked by bronchitis in rather a severe form, and on the advice of my physician, Dr. Oscar C. De Wolf, went to his residence in 6 Grenville Place, Cromwell Road, where I could be under his immediate care. For two days I was confined to my bed, and about five o'clock in the afternoon of the third day, feeling somewhat better, I partially dressed myself, slipped on a heavy bath robe, and went down to the sitting-room on the main floor, where my friend, the doctor, usually spent a part of the afternoon in reading. A steamer chair was placed before the fire by one of the servants, and I was made comfortable with pillows. The doctor was present, and sat immediately behind me reading. I dropped off into a light doze, and slept for perhaps thirty minutes. Suddenly I became conscious of the fact that I was about to awaken; I was in a condition where I was neither awake nor asleep. I realised fully that I had been asleep, and I was equally conscious of the fact that I was not wide awake. While in this peculiar mental condition I suddenly said to myself: "Wait a minute. Here is a message for the doctor." At the moment I fancied that I had upon my lap a pad of paper, and I thought I wrote upon this pad with a pencil the following words:— "Dear Doctor,—Do you remember Katy McGuire, who used to live with you in Chester? She died in 1872. She hopes you are having a good time in London." Instantly thereafter I found myself wide awake, felt no surprise at not finding the pad of paper on my knees, bcause I then realised that that was but the hallucination of a dream, but impressed with that feature of my thought which related to the message, I partly turned my head, and, speaking over my shoulder to the doctor, said: "Doctor, I have a message for you." The doctor looked up from the British Medical Journal which he was reading, and said: "What's that?" "I have a message for you," I repeated. "It is this: 'Dear Doctor: Do you remember Katy McGuire, who used to live with you in Chester? She died in 1872. She hopes you are having a good time in London.'" The doctor looked at me with amazement written all over his face, and said: "Why,—— what the devil do you mean?" "I don't know anything about it except that just before I woke up I was impelled to receive this message which I have just delivered to you." "Did you ever hear of Katy McGuire?" asked the doctor. "Never in my life." "Well," said the doctor, "that's one of the most remarkable things I ever heard of. My father for a great many years lived at Chester, Mass. There was a neighbouring family named McGuire, and Katy McGuire, a daughter of this neighbour, frequently came over to our house, as the younger people in a country village will visit their neighbours, and used That closed the incident, and although the doctor told me that he would write to his old home to ascertain the exact date of Katy's death, I have never heard from him further in the matter. I questioned him at the time as to whether he had recently thought of Katy McGuire, and he told me that her name had not occurred to him for twenty years, and that he might never have recalled it had it not been for the rather curious incident which had occurred. In my own mind I could only explain the occurrence as a rather unusual coincidence. I was personally aware of the fact that the doctor's old home had been Chester, Mass., and had frequently talked with him of his earlier experiences in life when he began practice in that city, but never at any time during these conversations had the name of this neighbour's daughter been mentioned, nor had the name of the neighbour been mentioned, our conversation relating entirely to the immediate members of the family, particularly the doctor's father, who was a noted practitioner in that district. John E. Wilkie. Dr. De Wolf, in reply to Dr. Hodgson's first inquiry, wrote:— 6 Grenville Place, Cromwell Road, S.W., April 29th, 1898. Dear Sir,—In reply to your letter of the 27th inst., I regret that I cannot recall with any definite recollection the incident to which Mr. Wilkie refers. I do remember that he told me one morning he had had a remarkable dream—or conference with some one who knew me when a young lad.—Very truly yours, Oscar C. De Wolf. Dr. Hodgson then sent Mr. Wilkie's account to Dr. De Wolf, with further inquiries, to which Dr. De Wolf replied as follows:— 6 Grenville Place, Cromwell Road, S.W., May 4th, 1898. Dear Sir,—Mr. Wilkie's statement is correct except as to unimportant detail. My father practised his profession of medicine, in Chester, Mass., for sixty years—dying in 1890. I was born in Chester and lived there until 1857, when I was in Paris studying medicine for four years. In 1861 I returned to America and immediately entered the army as surgeon and served until the close of the war in 1865. In 1866 I located in Northampton, Mass., where I practised my profession until 1873, when I removed to Chicago. Chester is a hill town in Western Mass., and Northampton is seventeen miles distant. While in Northampton I was often at my father's house—probably every week—and during some of the years from 1866 to 1873 I knew Katy McGuire as a servant assisting my mother. She was an obliging and pleasant girl and always glad to see me. She had no family in Chester (as Mr. Wilkie says) and I do not know where she came from. Neither do I know where or when she died—but I know she is dead. There is nothing left of my family in Chester. The old homestead still remains with me, and I visit it every year. The strange feature (to me) of this incident is the fact that I had not thought of this girl for many years, and Mr. Wilkie was never within 500 miles of Chester. We had been warm friends since soon after my location in Chicago, where he was connected with a department of the Chicago Tribune. I came to London in 1892 and Mr. Wilkie followed the next year as the manager of Low's American Exchange, 3 Northumberland Avenue. His family did not join him until 1895, which explains his being in my house when ill. Mr. Wilkie is a very straightforward man and not given to illusions of any kind. He is now the chief of the Secret Service Department of the U.S. Government, Washington, D. C. Neither of us were believers in spiritual manifestations of this character, and this event so impressed us that we did not like to talk about it, and it has been very seldom referred to when we met.—Very truly yours, Oscar C. De Wolf. |
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