It was natural that out of all these mystic practices—those I have already indicated and the others I am about to indicate—a cult or religion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name of spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to call it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of course, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied spirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain physical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the rÔle of the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of those manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation—i.e. the actual incarnation of spiritual forms—physical manifestations such as table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc., trance utterances and spirit photography.
From the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of clairvoyance.
Clairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a technical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the terminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as "that psychic power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the spiritualism sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of vision, spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this power; in some it is developed, and in others it has but a casual quickening. Its extent is governed by the rate of vibration under which it operates; thus, one clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to another may be invisible because of the degree of difference in the intensity of the powers."
Further, "subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person which enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the brain of that person, at will, pictures and images which are seen as visions by that person, without the aid of the physical eye. These pictures and images may be of things spiritual or material, past or present, remote or near, hidden or uncovered, or they may have their existence simply in the conception or imagination of the spirit communicating them."
Putting aside, however, all "supernatural" explanation, let us consider how we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance. What we see is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or woman by no means above, and often below, the intellectual average utters, and the hand writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal ken of the minds of such a man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is, to put it bluntly, staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife or sister accidentally dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and whilst she was still continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom you were present at a clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance informed you of the circumstances, you would no doubt be astounded. Well, the manifestations of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No matter how our reason is baffled at first, it behoves us not only to seek a natural explanation of the fact but also to ascertain and authenticate the fact itself. But a man may not implicitly trust his senses.
I soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious phenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even furnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver my opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it can explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped with unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the cloud of witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and experienced investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic Myers, Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet, Professor William James, Professor Janet, Mr Frank Podmore and Professor Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent the white light of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a special study of the matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the case of trance lucidity and clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer or speaker is not at work. Yet there certainly would seem to be an operating intelligence, having a special character and a special knowledge.
What, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain its special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the second question.
1. By telepathy from living people.
2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious, individual agency of deceased persons.
These he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there is a wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives. We can here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.
The mystery of mediumship has probably received more attention from M. Flournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from anyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English investigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close quarters subjects of a more normal type than the SalpetriÈre patients are unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of HÉlÈne Smith.
"HÉlÈne [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially remarkable. She is, to all outward appearances at the present time, healthy even to robustness. From the age of fifteen she has been employed in a large commercial establishment in Geneva, and holds a position of some responsibility. But it is in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year she was persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It soon appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first her mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and assisting in tilting the table, whilst still retaining more or less consciousness and subsequent memory of her experiences. Shortly after M. Flournoy's admission to the circle, in the winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's mediumship advanced a stage, and she habitually passed at the sÉance into a trance state, retaining subsequently no memory of her visions and doings in that state. Her development followed at first the normal course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her sitters, purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the like. She offered numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from time to time controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of her earliest trances were under the guidance and inspiration of Victor Hugo. Within a few months the spirit of the poet—too late, indeed, for his own post-mortem reputation, for he had already perpetrated some verses—was expelled with ignominy by a more masterful demon who called himself Leopold. The newcomer was at first somewhat reticent on his own past, and when urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in moral platitudes. Later, however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe Balsamo, Count Cagliostro. It then appeared that in HÉlÈne herself was reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that others of the mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans, etc....
"It is HÉlÈne's extra-planetary experiences, however, which have excited most attention, and which furnished to the attendants at her circle the most convincing proofs of her dealings with the spiritual world. In November 1894, the spirit of the entranced medium was wafted—not without threatenings of sea-sickness—through the cosmic void, to arrive eventually on the planet Mars. Thereafter night after night she described to the listening circle the people of our neighbouring planet, their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she drew pictures of the inhabitants, human and animal—of their houses, bridges, and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the characters of the Martian script are unlike any in use on earth, and that the words (of which a translation is furnished) bear no resemblance, superficially at least, to any known tongue. The spirits—for several dwellers upon Mars used HÉlÈne's organism to speak and write through—delivered themselves with freedom and fluency, and were consistent in their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In fact, Martian, as used by the entranced HÉlÈne, has many of the characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising that some of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the authenticity of the other revelations, were apparently convinced that these Martian utterances were beyond the common order of nature."
All his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his mind that HÉlÈne must somewhere have come across one of the works containing Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes were suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the language, it is just such a work of art as one might form by substituting for each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary collocation of letters, and for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol. The vowel and consonant signs are the same as in French; so are the inflections, the grammar, the construction. (Take, for example, the negative ke ani=ne pas, the employment of the same word zi to express both la "the" and lÀ "there.") If it is childish as a work of art, it is miraculous enough as a feat of memory. But the reader has not forgotten what the subliminal self is capable of achieving as regards time appreciation mentioned in an early chapter. When, however, it comes to HÉlÈne's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M. Flournoy, in spite of his long investigation, can find no explanation of the supernormal to fit the case. Her mediumship since 1892 included manifestations of all kinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they soon ceased. Her clairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a remarkable character. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which she was apparently unacquainted, has been carefully investigated and authenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of spiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from trained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants as the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been subjected to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this type of evidence that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of spiritualism really rests. It is at once the most impressive, the most interesting, and the most voluminous.
Of Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have seen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the University College School for eighteen years, a man who was never detected in the slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a host of intimate friends. Stainton Moses left a mass of published testimony to his pretended communications from the spirits of deceased persons. He attached great importance to the evidence for spiritualistic doctrines. Altogether the "controls" or communicators numbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses or other members of the circles had known in life; others—such as Swedenborg, Bishop Wilberforce, and President Garfield—were historical personages. Besides these there was a class of individuals of no particular importance, and apparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it is worthy of remark that the spirits by whom Moses was "controlled" never withheld any data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one sÉance a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name "Rosmira." She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on 10th January 1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that his surname was Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the whole particulars were to be found in the "Death" notices in The Daily Telegraph. "Mr Moses' spirits," comments Mr Podmore in his "History of Spiritualism," habitually furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such other particulars of their lives as could be gathered from the daily papers, from published biographies, or from the Annual Register and other works of reference. All the spirits, indeed, gave their names, with one exception—an exception so significant that the case is worth recording. The Pall Mall Gazette for 21st February 1874 contains the following item of intelligence:—
"A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under a steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in York-place, Marylebone, and was killed immediately."
"Mr Moses was present at a sÉance that evening, and his hand was controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy suicide, to write an account of the incident, and to draw a rough picture of a horse attached to a vehicle. The name of the dead man, it will be seen, does not appear in the newspaper account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who gave proofs of their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous."
But a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance utterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings, couched in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily "without any conscious intervention on the part of the mortal penman." In fact, so far was this so that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his mind, during their production.
The claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully investigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an eminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic attainments.
I will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:—
Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the four following heads:—
(a) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his consciousness.
(b) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in his consciousness.
(c) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at the moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the statements of the medium.
(d) Things unknown to the sitter.
With regard to things under head (a) Mrs Verrall says:
"Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response from the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by me has been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the evidence of the other sitter, I should have been disposed to believe that I had unconsciously uttered the thought aloud.
"Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was in my house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain friend of my daughter's, who is often at the house, would be there, when 'Nelly' added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name my daughter's friend, exactly as though I had uttered the passing thought. Again, when 'Nelly' was describing a certain bag given to me for my birthday, something she said made me for a moment think of a small leather handbag left in my house by a cousin and occasionally used by me, and she said: 'You had an uncle that died; it was not long after that.' The father of the cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I have known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag as a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly described till my momentary thought apparently distracted her attention to the other bag. I have had in all some five or six instances of such apparently direct responses as the above to a thought in the sitter's mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything but what she calls 'muggling her.'"
Another difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls not infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are liable to be misinterpreted. Mrs Verrall writes in her report of her sitting with Mrs Thompson:
"Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The name was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman, Merrythought, Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of these who,' etc. Later, 'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's not quite right; it's like the name of a garden'; and after in vain trying to give her the name exactly, she said: 'I will tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman because that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on spoke of my mother as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with indifference" ("Proceedings," part xliv. p. 208).
It is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit communications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with the use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on "Human Personality," should be studied in this connection. He points out that there is "no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the power to express all the thoughts and emotions of man." And if this is true of man in his present state, how much more does it apply to man in another and more advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he says: "There is a certain quality which reminds one of translation, or of the composition of a person writing in a language in which he is not accustomed to talk."
As a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:
"That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the hypothesis of fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part fails to explain the phenomena seems to be equally certain; that to more causes than one is to be attributed the success which I have recorded seems to me likely. There is, I believe, some evidence to indicate that telepathy between the sitter and the trance personality is one of these contributory causes. But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense of the term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the occurrences observed by me, is my present belief."
Instances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few weeks ago the Rome correspondent of The Tribune reported that a boy of twelve, at Capua, "was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart would break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said that he had just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the point of death, assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter came from America announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's vision, his mother tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be regarded as 'possessed,' but her efforts were vain, several persons having been present when he explained the cause of his grief."
The explanation of telepathy would hardly seem to fit the case, since the father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days previous to the vision.
I shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic illustration of the marvels of clairvoyance—that of Mrs Piper.
