Difficulties and objections—The identity of Imperator—Vision at a distance—Triviality of the messages—Spiritualist Philosophy—Life in the other world.

Up till now I have said a great deal of evil of telepathy. I believe that I have demonstrated, not that the theory is false, but that it is an unlikely explanation of the facts. Shall we say, then, that the spiritualistic hypothesis, the only reasonable one after the dismissal of telepathy, can be accepted without difficulty and without objections? Not at all. Many objections, more or less serious, are still made to the spiritualistic hypothesis. To my mind there is only one that is serious; I will speak of it in conclusion. Many of the others are raised by persons who have a merely superficial acquaintance with the problem; their arguments are more polemical than scientific.

To begin with, some of them want to know why the controls, Imperator, Doctor, Rector, Prudens, conceal themselves under these pseudonyms. If they are, as they say, disincarnated spirits, who formerly lived in bodies, why do they not say who they were? Does not their silence on this point indicate that they are only secondary personalities of the medium?

This objection is not very serious. In the first place, the controls told Stainton Moses their names. If they do not wish these names revealed, it is without doubt for excellent reasons, which it is not difficult to imagine. There is every indication that these controls belonged to a generation considerably remote from ours; their language, the turn of their minds, and some of their assertions, all point to this. If they were well-known men, and had revealed their names, the critics would merely see a reason the more for crying fraud. They would say, "The medium has read all that, and repeats it to us in hypnosis." If, on the other hand, they were obscure persons, and had given information about their lives, the information would be unverifiable. And then the sceptics would cry on the spot, "Folly; these are the inventions of the medium's secondary personality." The controls may have still other reasons for not revealing themselves to us. This life, when once it has been left behind, may seem to the spirit to be a more or less painful nightmare. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that he does not care to recall to others the part he played in this nightmare, even if the part were a distinguished one. We ourselves know nothing but this life; we do not admit that there is any other. Therefore we all wish to shine in it like meteors, if possible. Possibly disincarnated spirits, seeing things from a higher point of view, think otherwise. In short, the controls, Imperator, Rector, Doctor and Prudens, may refrain from speaking of their former life simply because they are wise. Would it not have been wiser of Phinuit to hold his tongue than to tell us a mass of improbabilities?

Amongst those who study these phenomena there are many who see in the triviality of the greater part of the messages a strong presumption against the spiritualist hypothesis. Some of these messages are signed, it is true, by illustrious names—though that is not the case with Mrs Piper. But this regrettable fact may be variously explained. In the first place, there may be rogues, charlatans and fools on both sides, since it is probable that the soul passes from this world to the other just as it is, and that, if it progresses at all, it progresses slowly. How many individuals see in spiritualism only a means of putting forward their wretched personalities or of exploiting their contemporaries! Such persons would not shrink from representing their lucubrations as communications from the next world; they would sign them with the most august of names if to do so would further their designs. Finally, it is not even necessary to suppose that these messages are due to dishonesty; the number of mystifiers may be at least as great on the other side as on this; a sort of law of affinity which seems to rule the world of spirits may cause these lower beings to be attracted by uncultured mediums, while the great spirits are repelled by them. It would be these larvÆ of the other world who give the messages which disconcert when they do not scandalise us. But the man of science should not be rebuffed by these messages which, in spite of their contents, are important, if they result in irresistible proof of the fact that there exist outside of us and around us intelligent beings resembling ourselves.

But when we are dealing with developed spirits, who have begun by giving proofs of their identity, it is not true that the messages are always trivial. They often contain ideas of much breadth of view and elevation. The form is generally defective, but those who have studied Mrs Piper's phenomena will be indulgent to the form, and sometimes even to the matter. The spirit in contact with the medium's organism suffers, as I have said several times, from a kind of delirium; besides which the organism only responds to his efforts imperfectly. "My dear friends," says George Pelham, "do not look at me too critically; to try to transmit your thoughts through the organism of a medium is like trying to crawl through a hollow log." In short, the difficulties are enormous.

It may very well be that great spirits have really been the authors of very poor messages. It has happened to each of us to make poetical or other compositions in our dreams which we have thought admirable; we say in delight, "What a pity I shall not be able to remember that when I wake!" But sometimes we do remember, and then we smile with contempt at what had delighted us during sleep. Now the communicators constantly repeat that they are dreaming while they are in the atmosphere of the medium. "Everything seems so clear to me," says Robert Hyslop to his son, "and when I try to tell you, James, I cannot."

These considerations prove that we must not hasten to conclude, with Professor Flournoy, that if there is a future life it is one of wretched degeneration, one more misery added to all the others which overwhelm us in this miserable universe.

No; as Professor James says, in this world we live only at the surface of our being; if death is not annihilation, then it is an awakening. It does not follow that the life of the other world is not higher and more intense than this, because communication with it is difficult.

Another serious objection to the spiritualist hypothesis is the philosophy with which certain too eager persons have connected it. Spiritualism, which should at present be but the mere beginning of a science, is, according to them, already a philosophy for which the universe holds no secrets. How should such puny creatures as ourselves hope to solve the problems of the universe by a priori reasoning? All that we can reasonably hope, is to wrench from nature some of the secrets nearest to us, surrounding ourselves with a thousand precautions in order not grossly to deceive ourselves.

I rank the spiritualistic philosophy with other philosophies. Perhaps some of its dicta proceed from spirits, if spirits exist, but the system as a whole most surely does not. But then, it will be said, the people who have elaborated this philosophy must have been impostors. No, not inevitably; I will even venture to say that imposture is unlikely. The key to the mystery may be found in other characteristics of humanity.

The most formidable obstacle to the admission of the spiritualist hypothesis is in the messages which tend to represent the other world, in which, it appears, matter is not perceived, and space and time are unknown, as being all the same a servile copy of this, or a sketch of it. If Phinuit or another control is asked to describe a communicator, the description is generally given with exactness, and is the same there as it was here; sometimes the communicator even goes so far as to wear the same clothes, made of the same material. But these descriptions are without importance, as it may be replied that the communicators or controls give these details purely to prove identity. However, I know of no message in which the communicator has been frank enough to say, "Of course you may suppose that the form I have here is not the same as I had in your world." Or again, "The idea of form differs totally in our world and in yours; I cannot make you understand what that idea is here, so it is of no use to question me." Unfortunately neither communicators nor controls speak thus; they all say or allow it to be supposed that the human form is the same in both worlds.

But when action and events in that world are represented as being the same as in this, then our credulity cries out in remonstrance. That a deceased doctor should tell us that he continues to visit his patients, a painter that he continues to daub canvas, is more than we can admit. But, it may be explained, the doctor and the painter are temporarily delirious; they do not know what they are saying. Unfortunately these passages are too numerous to be always attributed to delirium. Certain communicators say, with all the gravity in the world, and when they seem in full possession of themselves, that they breathe, live in houses, listen to lectures, and that a deceased child is beginning to learn to read. This is an enormous difficulty, I repeat. I point it out without trying to solve it; I am unable to offer a plausible explanation. Professor Hyslop has tried, but I do not think he has succeeded.