If than apt fcarpawad fey a fpiead Right waiaasa shall ha fee To rea J 1 - net ta lend, rn to me Not that imparted knowledge doth Diminish learning's store; But books, jl finwhen often lent Return ,t(/ mP no more. L Go. then, my book, for friendship's sake Instruct, amuse - and be A treasm-e to my friend;- then oaks A quick return to me. Marguerite L. Bamberger 36 Test 74th Street New York, New York. D UKE UNIVERSIT Y LIBRARY Gift of UajigcuuXii Bambe/igeA Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/aredeadalive01ride One of the Most Remarkable Pictures of Levitation Ever Published The illustration shows the medium floating - in the air. Among those in the circle are Drs. Murani, Patrizi and Cipriani. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? The Problem of Physical Research that the World’s Leading Scientists Are Trying to Solve, and the Progress They Have Made By FREMONT RIDER With Statements of tlieir Personal Belief by Sib Oliver Lodge Count Leo Tolstoi Db. Cesaee Lombboso Dr. V. Maxwell Pbofessob William Baebett William T. Stead Andrew Lang Sir William Crookes Dr. Charles Richet De. Filippo Bottazzi Camille Flammarion Professor William James And Others NEW YORK B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 1909 Copyright, 1908-09, by THE DELINEATOR Copyright, 1909, by B. W. DODGE & COMPANY Registered at Stationers' Hall , London (All Rights Reserved) Printed in the United States of America V QLa ffij) Wits PREFACE Modern science is making great strides forward to¬ ward the solving of the problems which have ever most troubled humanity. Materially, we are coming into the enjoyment of many such solutions; spiritually, we are making but the first ragged breaches in a hitherto impregnable fortress. “In science, the great held for new discoveries ” says Prof. William James, “is alzvays the unclassified resid¬ uum. Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to. .. . Only the born geniuses let themselves be worried and fascinated by these outstanding exceptions, and get no peace till they are brought within the fold. Your Galiloes, Gal- vanis, Fresnels, Purkinjes and Darwins are alzvays get¬ ting confounded and troubled with insignificant things. . . It is in this “dust-cloud of exceptional observations” floating around the science of psychology that the stu¬ dents of psychical research have groped forward, blind¬ ly but carefully, to an increasingly firm hold of a few fundamental facts. Ghosts, spirit rappings, materiali¬ zations, table levitations, trance speaking and writing, ’James: The Will to Believe, pp. 299, 300. vii PREFACE viii telepathy, clairvoyance—these formed no immediately attractive field for scientific investigation. Every one of these subjects has been, arid is, so permeated with fraud that with most of them there is the gravest doubt if so much as one genuine example ever occurred. Yet a few keen-eyed and clear-headed investigators have braved ridicule and indifference, and assert that they have found beneath a tremendous accretion of error a nucleus of truth. To present this nucleus as clearly as he may is the author’s whole purpose here. He presents no theories, and takes no side, but tries only to give a selection of typical observed facts and certain unbiased inferences which may logically be drawn from them. If, having read the book, the reader is able to class him definitely as either a believer or a disbeliever in spiritualism, the author will have failed in his purpose; for he has en¬ deavored to give an impartial presentation of a sub¬ ject, tangled perhaps more than any other, with con¬ flicting theories and obscured with the grossest fraud and the most deep-rooted prejudice both pro and con. With no subject so much as with spiritualism would illiteracy and ignorance seem easily able to speak with authority; certainly in no other subject are usually clear-minded people carried to such childish credulity on the one hand, or absurdly indefensible denial on the other. But the phenomena which have converted to psychi- cism the greatest scientists of Europe, and are now creating widespread comment in every intelligent cen¬ ter of the globe, are not, we must remember, the credu¬ lous mingling of hysteria, darkness and fraud which we commonly associate with spiritualism; they are PREFACE ix facts of cold daylight, things of the laboratory, weighed, measured, dissected, counted, by the exact methods of calculating, unsympathetic science. Of course, Crookes, the inventor of the Crookes tube; Curie, the discoverer of radium; Lombroso, the founder of the science of criminology; Sir Oliver Lodge, the eminent biologist; Morselli, the psycholo¬ gist, and their several hundred brother scientists, may be very much mistaken in what they say they have dis¬ covered. That, the author will not pretend to decide; but surely, what they consider zvorthy of credence on such a vital subject is at least worthy of our serious consideration. The past year has seen an important renaissance of interest in psychical research. But even in the Hood of spiritualistic books making their appearance, there zvould seem to be need of a book making an attempt, not to add to, but to sum up past achievement. When these articles, in a much abbreviated form, first ap¬ peared in The Delineator, under the same caption, Are the Dead Alive? they called forth a flood of letters from their readers. Indeed, no subject introduced recently by that magazine aroused so much earnest comment , both of approval and condemnation, from so many varied points of view. Among the hundreds of letters received were reports of personal experiences; if not corroborative, at least very interesting and significant. And there were re¬ quests, too—pathetic appeals for help from some re¬ cently bereaved. Could the writer tell them hozv, in¬ deed, they might know their dead zvere alive? Could he show them how to communicate with them? Could he “recommend a thoroly reliable medium”? No, alas! X PREFACE he could do none of these things; and the wisest re¬ searcher in psychical science will tell you, if he be hon¬ est, that he cannot. For roe are, as yet, learning the veriest rudiments of metapsychics, and no man yet even knows what or when we may know. All the author would do is to light up a little the way already traversed. Glen Tor-on-the-Hudson, Dec. 3, 1908. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS One of the most remarkable pictures of levitation ever published . Frontispiece FACING PAGE An instantaneous photograph, taken by M. de Fontenay, of table levitation produced by the medium, Auguste Politi . “ 12 Sir William Crookes. “ 22 Photograph of a table levitation with the medium Eusapia Paladino . “ 50 Camille Flammarion . “ 55 Daniel Dunglas Home, greatest of all so-called “physical” mediums . “ 61 Sir Oliver Lodge . “ 72 Eusapia Paladino . “ 75 Plaster casts of impressions in clay, produced at a distance by an unknown force. “ 80 Lecture-room of the Societe d’Etudes Psychiques at Milan . “ 88 The lonely Isle Roubaud in the Mediterranean where Eusapia was investigated by Charles Richet . “ 88 Dr. Pio Foa, Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, University of Turin . “ 98 Colonel Albert de Rochas, propounder of the theory of the “astral double”. “ 113 Dr. Cesar Lombroso, Alienist Professor of Psy¬ chiatry, University of Turin. “ 120 m xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The famous Bourne case of dual personality. “ 136 The “Watseka Wonder,” the most famous recorded case of “obsession” . “ 142 Frederic W. H. Myers, formulator of the hypoth¬ esis of the “subliminal self” . “ 147 The famous Bertha Huse case of clairvoyance.... “ 157 Impression of two clenched hands in clay, made at a distance by Eusapia Paladino. “ 164 William T. Stead . “ 171 Alleged genuine “spirit photograph”. “ 178 Fraudulent “spirit photograph”. “ 178 Alleged photograph of an ancient, taken in Chi¬ cago by Mr. Blackwell . “ 188 Mr. Frank Podmore . “ 198 Photographs showing the progression of an al¬ leged “materialization” . “ 212 A typical table levitation with Eusapia Paladino “ 240 Dr. V. Maxwell, an enthusiastic psychical researcher . “ 258 A typical example of “spirit writing”: I. The medium’s normal handwriting_ “ 266 II. Automatic writing by the medium. “ 276 III. Automatic writing later in the seance.. “ 286 Mrs. Leonora Piper, of Arlington, Mass. “ 291 Dr. Richard Hodgson . “ 305 Professor William James of Harvard University “ 312 Handwriting of the medium, Mile. Smith, to show the difference between normal and alleged “controlled” writing . “ 324 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Chap. I. Introduction. 1-21 Introduction, 1—Is fraud an explanation of all spiritual¬ istic phenomena? 3—The strange phenomena com¬ prised under the heading “Psychical Research,” 6— The phenomena observed by Sir William Crookes, 9—All professional spiritualistic phenomena are permeated with fraud, 14—Has science been neglecting a rich field of in¬ quiry? 19— “To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge is to bring reproach on science . . —Sir William Crookes, 22. Chap. II. The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism . 23-54 Mere prestidigitation cannot explain all alleged “spirit manifestations,” 25—The notable spiritualistic investiga¬ tion of the London Dialectical Society, 27—“Spirit” slate¬ writing, 32—The famous Zollner phenomena, 37—Rap- pings: the Fox Sisters, 40—Are the rappings genuine? 43 —Table-tipping, 47—The researches of De Gasparin: What causes table-tipping? 50— “That the soul survives the body I have not the shadow of a doubt . . .”—Camille Flarnmarion, 55. Chap. III. The Mediumship of D. D. Home 61-71 Home’s levitations, 63—“Elongation”: the heat phenom¬ ena, 67— “I am convinced of the persistence of human existence beyond bodily death . . —Sir Oliver Lodge, 72. xiii XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Chap. IV. Eusapia Paladino: The Italian Medium .73-98 The beginning of Eusapia’s mediumistic career, 75—The downfall of Eusapia in England, 82—A new series of sittings in Genoa, 85—The first Turin seances, 91—The second Turin seances, 95— “I am convinced that after death man does not perish entirely . . .” — Botazzi, 99. Chap. V. The Later Mediumship of Eusapia Paladino . 101-19 The startling materializations produced at Naples, 106—Is this psychic energy a form of radio-activity? ill—Eusa¬ pia’s manifestations and the problem of the future life, 116— “Spiritualistic phenomena are authentic . . —Cesar Lombroso, 120. Chap. VI. Obsession and Dual Personality 123-46 The hypothesis of the “subliminal self,” 127—Cases of dual personality, 134—The remarkable case of Ansel Bourne, 136—The famous case of the “Watseka Wonder,” 139 — “Our records prove the persistence of the spirit life . . .”—Frederic W. H. Myers, 147. Chap. VII. Clairvoyance and Clairaudience 149-70 Clairvoyance, 152—The celebrated case of Bertha Huse, 157 —Clairaudience, 161—What is clairvoyance? 163—Pre¬ cognition, or prophecy, 167— “I do not believe the dead depart . . .”—William T. Stead, 171. TABLE OF CONTENTS xv PA Oil Chap. VIII. Ghosts. 173-97 “Spirit photography,” 177—The projection of the “astral body”? 184—Apparitions of the dead, 187—The Morton “haunting,” 191— “Survival is improbable . . .”—Charles Richet, 198. Chap. IX. What Are Ghosts ?—“Material¬ izations” . 201-20 Not all “ghosts” are subjective, 205—Do animals see apparitions? 207—The famous “Katie King” materializa¬ tion, 217— “The dead have never really died . . .”—Alfred Rus¬ sell Wallace, 221. Chap. X. Telepathy. 224-49 Fraudulent telepathic phenomena, 227—Spontaneous tel¬ epathy, 232—The proof of telepathy, 237—Telepathic hypnosis and suggestion, 245—What is telepathy? 248— “We deal only with presumption and prejudices . . —Andrew Lang, 250. Chap. XI. Premonitions. 252-7 What is the explanation of premonitions? 256— “We are at the dawn of a new religion . . .”— V. Maxwell, 258. Chap. XII. Mediumship. 261-87 The phenomena of “automatism,” 266—Various phases of motor automatism, 268—Rules for conducting mediumistic experiments, 272—Typical mediumistic phenomena, 274—■ Apparently supernormal knowledge displayed in medium¬ istic communications, 279—The mediumship of William Stainton Moses, 282— “No experimental proof of survival after death will ever reach an absolutely conclusive scientific demonstratios . . .”—Professor William Barrett, 288. XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE! Chap. XIII. The Piper Case. 291-311 The early phases of the Piper case, 295—Mrs. Piper is investigated in England, 299—The appearance of the Pel¬ ham “control,” 304—Pelham is displaced by the “imperator controls,” 307— “Psychical Research has bridged the chasm . . — Professor William James, 312. Chap. XIV. Telepathy vs. Spiritualism.' 315-40 The “telepathic hypothesis,” 320—Arguments for the tele¬ pathic hypothesis, 324—Objections to the telepathic hypo¬ thesis, 326—Other arguments for spiritualism, 331—“The dramatic play of personality” in mediumistic communica¬ tion, 333— “I feel, I know with certitude that in dying I shall be happy . . .”—Count Tolstoi, 341. Chap. XV. Conclusion. 343 - 5 ° Spiritualism and the Bible, 345—The difficulty of knowing of the “Other World,” 347—The evidence of future happi¬ ness, 350. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION For countless centuries man has been puzzled by certain occurrences which have not fitted into his es¬ tablished order of things. Ever since the beginning, since man groped forward into a clear belief in the future life, there has existed, for instance, a concurrent belief that the “spirits” of the dead in “the other world” sometimes came back to earth, sometimes communi¬ cated with those they had left behind here. But “ghosts” were something that modern science, as it grew up in the past three centuries, could not explain; so science cheerfully denied that they existed. Then there were other queer occurrences—you and I nay have had them—a friend, perhaps, on the other side of the world, suddenly dies, and we wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with an inexplicable realization of our friend’s decease. We call such a case a “strange coincidence.” At some other time we are inexplicably warned of a danger suddenly imminent to ourselves, and we call that warning a “presentiment.” Even two-score years ago there were some people who said that these “coincidences” and “presentiments” were 1 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? examples of a hitherto unsuspected power that they called telepathy or “thought transference.” But mod¬ ern science had no place in its scheme of things for telepathy, so again it cheerfully denied that the alleged instances really occurred. About the middle of the last century there appeared a new class of phenomena, in some respects even more bewilderingly contrary to the existing laws of science. Mysterious rappings were heard, with no one to make them, and musical instruments played when no “natural” explanation seemed possible. Solid articles, especially tables, danced violently around and occasion¬ ally rose of their own accord into the air and floated there. Rarely, persons were “levitated” in the same way. Under favorable conditions forms were said to appear and disappear instantaneously. For these and other similar wonderful occurrences science had no explanation; they were contrary to all her established laws. So science denied that they ever occurred; and those who witnessed them, in default of any other explanation, ascribed them to the work of “spirits” of the dead. Of course, the little genuine phenomena, admitting that there were some genuine, during this last half-cen¬ tury were imitated by a host of charlatans, self-styled “mediums,” seeking notoriety and fortune attheexpense of an easily duped public. As a consequence, spiritual¬ ism fell into such disrepute that for some time reputable scientists declined even to investigate its pretensions. Yet the more thoughtful, as the century drew near its close, argued that where so much smoke was there must be a little fire. Thousands of people were claim¬ ing that they had seen tables tipped and levitated, that ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 3 they were daily receiving messages from friends who had died. Ghosts were part of the tradition of every race on earth. Scores of respectable men and women, contrary to their expectation and better judgment, ad¬ mitted the reception of telepathic messages. Here were facts that science, in the opinion of some of its leaders, could no longer ignore. Is Fraud an Explanation of all Spiritualistic Phenomena? The first cry that the average man makes in the presence of alleged supernatural phenomena is that of fraud, and on the whole he is abundantly justified. The history of mediumship is one long, dishearten¬ ing record of fraud and exposure. That nearly all alleged spiritualistic phenomena are fraudulent there isn’t the slightest doubt. That every “medium” who in the daily papers advertises “advice” for sale is an arrant rascal may be taken as a foregone conclusion. That some of the most noted mediums, after months and sometimes years of scientific cooperation, have turned out to be impostors, is true. But if we immediately dismiss in disgust the whole subject we are gravely in danger of the opposite error. When Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, author of The Law of Psychic Phenomena, himself an opponent of the ex¬ treme spiritualistic position and an ethical writer of weight, says: “The man who denies the phenomena of spiritualism to-day is not entitled to be called a skeptic; he is simply ignorant”; and when the great English scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co¬ discoverer with Darwin of evolution, recently said, “No more evidence is needed to prove spiritualism, for no accepted fact in science has a greater or stronger 4s ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? array of proof in its behalf,” does it not behoove the man in the street at least to read before scoffing ? Sir William Crookes, once president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the three or four greatest English scientists of the nine¬ teenth century, the discoverer of the element thallium, and inventor of the Crookes tube which made possible the X-ray, studied various phases of mediumship for five years with scientific care and thoroness. At the end of that time he announced his conversion to spirit¬ ualism. Sir Oliver Lodge, an admitted authority in biology and metaphysics, after many years of investigation, asserts his unqualified belief in the reality of telepathy, clairvoyance and similar so-called “occult” phenomena. Professor Richet, of the University of Paris, and Pro¬ fessor William James, of Harvard, perhaps the most eminent psychologists of Europe and America re¬ spectively, have devoted a large part of their lives to the study of mediumship. These men are not tyros in scientific research, or liable to be hoodwinked by fraud or biased by personal feeling; they are among the leaders in the intellectual life of their respective countries. Nor do they stand alone, by any means. The (British) Society for Psychical Research, for thirty years the recognized leader in the investigation of psychical phenomena, was founded in 1882 for the express purpose of investi¬ gating “all that large group of phenomena outside the boundaries of orthodox science.” This included, of course, clairvoyance, rappings, apparitions, and trance writing and speaking, as well as the various allied phenomena of hypnotism. The society owed its in- ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 5 ception to Professor W. F. Barrett, of Dublin, to whose agitation its founding was chiefly due, and to two close friends, Frederic W. H. Myers and Professor Sidgwick, of Cambridge. Frederic Myers was a stu¬ dent of psychology of such depth and breadth that his monumental work. Human Personality, may be said to have revolutionized our conceptions of psychol¬ ogy. Professor Sidgwick was one of the greatest philosophical thinkers and writers of the century. From the beginning the investigations of the society proceeded with scientific caution. It numbered among its members the leaders of the intellectual world. Among its presidents have been Arthur James Bal¬ four, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Professor Balfour Stewart, the eminent logician. Yet this society, after unmasking and discarding a tremendous accretion of fraud and error, finds enough left to state officially that the existence of ghosts and the occurrence of telepathy at least are scientifically proved. And the Society for Psychical Research is but a type of similar societies in France, America* and Italy which have rallied around them the greatest in¬ vestigators in their respective countries. The men mentioned are but a few of those who are professed be¬ lievers in the reality of spiritualistic phenomena. Hudson, Hodgson and Stead in England; Dessoir in Germany; Hyslop, Funk and Sidis in America; Janet, Richet, Ochorowicz, Flammarion, Du Prel, De Gaspa- rin, Maxwell in France; and Lombroso, the great criminologist, Foa and Morselli in Italy—the list of names is a long one. In fact, there are now in all the world hut one or tzuo scientists of the first rank who deny the actual proha- 6 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? bility of the future life; while a large proportion claim that this life has been actually proved by the occurring phenomena of spiritualism. You are probably surprised at this; you probably never suspected the slightest favorable consensus of scientific opinion on this matter. All your life you have believed in a future life, simply because you have —believed; but all your life, perhaps, too, you have hoped and sought in vain for proof, tangible, visible, scientific proof, that your loved ones who had gone before were alive, that your faith might be more than a faith, might be an actual knowledge. Now these men assert that they have found this proof. What is it they have found? Their scholarly attainments give their discoveries weight; and you and I at least want to know. In the light of the reports of these eminent scientists who have investigated spiritualism most thoroly, you and I have neither the right—nor the desire prob¬ ably—to cast aside the whole subject without at least a cursory investigation on our own account. After personal examination of the facts and a weighing of the conclusions derived from them, personal judg¬ ment may be reached which, even if it be adverse, is founded, not on contemptuous ignorance, but on un¬ biased acquaintance with the facts. The Strange Phenomena Comprised Under the Heading “Psychical Research” Putting aside for the moment all question of a future life, the psychical phenomena which we propose to investigate are claimed by the men who have stud¬ ied them most to prove the existence of very wonder- ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Y ful abilities, powers which we are accustomed to think utterly unworthy of credence, and existing, if at all, only in the imagination or perhaps in a vague “other world.” It is asserted, as we have seen, that there are, for example, really such things as: Clairvoyance, the ability to see independent of the eyes, the material organs of sight, to see spontane¬ ously, for example, what is within a locked drawer or what is happening a thousand miles away. Clairaudience, a similar ability of hearing inde¬ pendent of the material organs of hearing. Telepathy, the ability to communicate thought in¬ dependent of all physical senses, transcending space, giving the power to read the thoughts of another, be he a few feet or miles away. Prevision, the ability to transcend time. This may be either retrocognition, that is, the power of knowing what happened in the past, or, more rarely, precogni¬ tion, or prophecy, of seeing take place what has never happened, but in the future will occur. Telekinesis, the ability to affect physical objects without contact, as, for example, moving chairs or other objects when at a distance from them. Self-projection, the ability of a man to make him¬ self visible at a distance. These are indeed wonderful things, beside which the greatest discoveries of modern science fade into comparative insignificance. That is, if they are true, you say. Well, that is exactly what we shall try to find out; but with one qualification. Our purpose, you will remember, is to answer an even larger ques¬ tion, “Are the dead alive?” and we shall consider all 8 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? psychic phenomena from the standpoint of their rela¬ tion to that question. We shall very soon discover that the phenomena divide themselves into two general classes. We have table-tippings, rappings, materializations, knot-tying, and other “cabinet manifestations” which do not give alleged “messages” from the “other world,” and, in¬ deed, may claim no connection with it. These “phys¬ ical phenomena,” therefore, however interesting in themselves, are irrelevant to the main point at issue and may be treated by us at much less length. We have, on the other hand, table-tippings, rap¬ pings and materializations with “messages.” These, together with apparitions, auditions, automatisms (that is, automatic trance speaking and writing through a medium), are of value, because they purport to be communications from discarnate (deceased) “spirits.” You will see at once, then, that the question of the genuineness of these alleged spiritual phenomena di¬ vides itself into two: 1. —Do tables tip spontaneously? Do human beings and other material bodies rise and float in the air? Does writing occur of its own accord between sealed slates, etc.—that is, do these things, considered sim¬ ply as physical events, ever genuinely happen? 2. —Is the source of the alleged messages in the “other world”? All these wonderful things, in other words, may or may not happen; even having proved, if we can, that they do happen, as actual, visible, physical phenomena, we have still to prove their spir¬ itual origin. The first question, as for our purposes the less im¬ portant, we shall consider briefly, preliminary to the ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 9 second. To undertake the solution of the latter at all advisedly, we should know something about the allied phenomena of clairvoyance, telepathy and sec¬ ondary personality and possession (the “possessed by demons” of the Bible). A large field this, evidently, and one of absorbing interest; what shall we find therein ? The Phenomena Observed by Sir William Crookes Before beginning any detailed consideration of the phenomena mentioned by the various writers quoted, it may be well to note a few of the more famous his¬ torical instances—one or two of the striking and typical landmarks, as it were, of the country we are about to traverse. To give quickly an idea of the extent and impor¬ tance of well-authenticated psychic phenomena, I can do no better than to review very briefly Crookes’ famous Report on the Investigation of Phenomena Called Spiritual. Weighing on the one hand Sir Will¬ iam Crookes’ position as one of the foremost scientists of Great Britain, and on the other the extraordinary nature of the phenomena he describes, we may well understand the amazed outcry that arose upon the publication of his report. Sir William Crookes was in middle life when he made the researches, carried on over a period of several years, the results of which are embodied in his Report. Lest it be thought that his maturer judgment repudiated the conclusions reached in those earlier days, I shall quote his own statement thereon, delivered as part of his President’s Address before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1898. 10 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “No incident in my scientific career is more widely known than the part I took many years ago in certain psychic researches. Thirty years have passed since I published an account of experiments tending to show that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordi¬ nary intelligence common to mortals. This fact in my life is, of course, well understood by those who honored me with the invitation to become your presi¬ dent. Perhaps among my audience some may feel curious as to whether I shall speak out or be silent. I elect to speak, altho briefly. To ignore the sub¬ ject would be an act of cowardice—an act of cowardice I feel no temptation to commit. I have nothing to retract. I adhere to my already published statements. Indeed, I might add much thereto.” He had said with truth: “There appear to be few instances of meetings held for the express purpose of getting the phenomena under test conditions, in the presence of persons properly qualified by scientific training to weigh and adjust the value of the evidence which might present itself.” He realized in advance the storm that would follow the announcement of the results of his inquiry, and his preliminary words are a model of judicious rebuttal. “The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary that even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind between reason, which pronounces it to be scien¬ tifically impossible, and the consciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight—and these corrobo¬ rated, as they were, by the senses of all who were ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 11 present—are not lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions.” With these few words of introduction, Sir William proceeds to classify simply and relate with the ut¬ most brevity a series of the most marvelous phenom¬ ena that—if bona fide —it ever befell mortal man to witness. He states, for instance, that he had observed “the movement of heavy bodies with contact, but without mechanical exertion”; that he had heard during his experiments raps and other noises varying from “deli¬ cate ticks as with the point of a pin,” to “a cascade of sharp sounds as from an induction-coil in full work” and “detonations in the air”; that he had seen “'move¬ ments of heavy bodies when at a distance from the medium”; that he had watched “a chair move slowly up to the table from a far corner when all were watch¬ ing it”; that he had repeatedly witnessed “the rising of tables and chairs off the ground without contact with any person”; and even “the levitation of human be¬ ings”; that he had seen “luminous appearances,” not once, but many times, and under the most varied forms ; that once “in the light” he had seen “a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady”; and “on some occa¬ sions a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about”; that there had been several times “appearances of hands, either self-luminous or visible by ordinary light.” He tells how once “a beautifully formed small hand rose up from an opening in a dining-table and gave me a flower”; and he adds: “I have more than once seen, first, an object move, 12 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? then a luminous cloud appear to form about it, and, lastly, the cloud condense into shape and become a perfectly formed hand. At this stage the hand is visible to all present. It is not always a mere form, but sometimes appears perfectly life-like and graceful, the fingers moving and the flesh apparently as human as that of any in the room. At the wrist or arm it becomes hazy, and fades off into a luminous cloud. I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into vapor, and faded in that manner from my grasp.” These are facts, of course, which seem utterly be¬ yond belief, yet the evidence which Sir William Crookes brings up in their support is imposing. In answer to the immediate accusation of trickery, we are told that the occurrences took place in the writer’s “own house, in the light, and with only private friends present besides the medium,” and they hap¬ pened, not once, but scores and hundreds of times, ob¬ served by many witnesses, under every test condition that expert scientific knowledge and trained detective ingenuity could devise. Against the accusation of some kind of a wholesale self-hypnotization of the whole company, the writer contends: “The supposition that there is a sort of mania or delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful of intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, and that they all concur, to the minutest particulars, in the details of the occurrences of which they suppose An Instantaneous Photograph, Taken by M. de Fontenay, of Table Levitation Produced by the Medium, Auguste Politi It is noteworthy that no scientist who has investigated instances of levitation at first hand now denies the reality of the phenomena. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 13 themselves to be witnesses, seems to my mind more incredible than even the facts they attest.” But there is stronger evidence. Sir William Crookes did not rely alone upon human eyes and touch, only too fallible as these often are. The amount of force was measured with a dynamometer; the loss of weight of levitated bodies registered on specially prepared scales; the inexplicable cold rush of air which preceded or accompanied the more startling phenomena “lowered a thermometer several degrees.” Dynamometers, scales, thermometers cannot be hypnotized! The entire report is of absorbing interest, and the more important parts of it will be considered at greater detail later. The purpose here is simply to show that the occurrence of phenomena of a most astounding character is asserted soberly and in the most emphatic terms by men of the very highest scientific reputation. One more incident might be quoted, however, as an example, as Sir William Crookes says, of those “special instances which seem to point to the agency of an exterior intelligence.” “During a seance with Mr. Home, a small lath, which I have before mentioned, moved across the table to me, in the light, and delivered a message to me by tapping my hand, I repeating the alphabet, and the lath tapping me at the right letters. The other end of the lath was resting on the table, some distance from Mr. Home’s hands. “The taps were so sharp and clear, and the lath was evidently so well under control of the invisible power which was governing its movements, that I said: ‘Can the intelligence governing the motion of this lath change the character of the movements and give me 14. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? a telegraphic message through the Morse alphabet by taps on my hand?’ (I have every reason to believe that the Morse code was quite unknown to any other person present, and it was only imperfectly known to me.) Immediately I said this, the character of the taps changed and the message was continued in the way I had requested. The letters were given too rapidly for me to do more than catch a word here and there, and consequently I lost the message; but I heard sufficient to convince me that there was a good Morse operator on the other end of the line, wherever that might be.” All Professional Spiritualistic Phenomena Are Permeated With Fraud We have already noted that the first cry that the average man makes in the presence of alleged spiritual¬ istic phenomena is that of fraud; and that on the whole he is only too well justified. The record of profes¬ sional mediumship is a disheartening one. The Fox sisters, who started the spiritualistic furore in this country in the early ’qo’s, confessed in after life that their “spirit” rappings were made by movements of the knee joints. Eusapia Paladino, most famous of all “physical mediums,” was detected by the committee of the Society for Psychical Research in the most transparent fraud. The pretensions of Mme. Bla- vatsky, founder of the cult known as the Theosophical Society, with thousands of adherents, were utterly riddled by Dr. Richard Hodgson, that sleuth keen¬ eyed in detecting the shady weaknesses of mediums. Slade, who completely mystified Zollner and other savants of Germany, met a much-merited Waterloo at ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? l5 the hands of the Seybert Commission of the University of Pennsylvania. In short, M. Flammarion, the eminent French as¬ tronomer and psychologist, says : “During a period of more than forty years I believe that I have received at my home nearly all of them—men and women of divers nationalities and from every quarter of the globe. One may lay it down as a principle that all professional mediums cheat.” The statement of J. N. Maskelyne, thoroly fa¬ miliar with all phases of mediumship as he was, is definite and unequivocal. “There does not exist, and there never has existed, a professional medium of any note who has not been convicted of trickery or fraud.” “The net result of the investigations conducted by the Society for Psychical Research,” says another writer recently, “was to produce the conviction that no results obtained thru professional mediums were to be trusted, so long as the conditions rendered fraud possible; and, further, that practically all professional mediums are frauds!” In short, the history of medium- ship is one continuous disheartening record of fraud. But if, as was said before, we in disgust dismiss the whole subject, we are gravely in danger of committing an opposite error. It is unfortunately true that the scientist is not the best observer or critic of psychic phenomena. Mother Nature, who works by invariable rule and never lies, however much she hides, does not begin to require that alertness, detective skill and hard common sense which the investigator who is contesting the wiles of a crafty charlatan must have. As Mr. Bruce says: “Experience has demonstrated that even the best 16 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? trained observers fail to perceive all that transpires in the seance room, and that, consequently, the quick¬ witted medium of fraudulent tendencies has ample opportunity to effect his triumphs by trick and device. Conclusive proof of this was afforded by the late S. J. Davey, a member of the Society for Psychical Re¬ search, who, after a little practice, succeeded in dupli¬ cating the most sensational performances of the ‘slate¬ writing’ medium, Eglinton. So successful was he that the English spiritists denounced him as a renegade medium. But he frankly operated thruout on the conjurer’s principle that the hand is quicker than the eye.” 1 But we have testimony from other men, investiga¬ tors of a different stamp. Mr. Hereward Carrington, an expert prestidigitator himself, after a lifelong study of fraudulent spiritualistic phenomena, says: “There may be much fraud in modern spiritualism; in fact, I am disposed to believe that fully ninety- eight per cent, of the phenomena, both mental and physical, are fraudulently produced; but a careful study of the evidence, contemporary and historic, has convinced me that there must have been some genuine phenomena at the commencement of this movement, in order that the first mediums may have copied them by fraudulent means, and that a certain percentage of the phenomena occurring to-day is genuine. A counterfeit implies a genuine, and a shammer some¬ thing to sham.” M. Flammarion, quoted above, adds that he unques¬ tionably believes that, tho all professional mediums ’Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 109-112. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 17 sometimes cheat, “they do not always cheat; and they possess real, undeniable psychic power.” 1 The author of The Revelations of a Spirit Medium, a man who, as Mr. Carrington says, . . pro¬ duced the phenomena that converted hundreds to the belief, and who knows the disgusting details of the frauds practiced from A to Z, stated . . . that he himself was ‘more spiritualist than anything else,’ and advised his readers to go on investigating, for ‘you will find in the chaff that is so plentiful some good grains.’ ” 2 And yet this same writer had made this sweeping statement: “His own career and the fact that he has met no other professional medium, male or female, in his long experience and extensive travels, who were not ‘crooked,’ leads him to the conclusion that from the professional you are to expect nothing genuine.” “Of all the mediums he (the author) has met in eighteen years, and that means a great many, in all phases, he has never met one that was not sailing the very same description of craft as himself. Every one; no exception.” Alfred Russell Wallace declares that the facts ob¬ served in the history of spiritualism “are incontest¬ able”; and Dr. Elliotson, long a determined opponent of spiritualism, said finally: “I am now quite satisfied of the reality of the phenomena.” 3 Mr. Frank Podmore, at the conclusion of his monu¬ mental and scholarly attack on the whole spiritualist ’Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 3. ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 338. “Wallace: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 99. 18 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? position, sounds a note of warning against an indis¬ criminate denial of all psychic phenomena. In other words, here, as elsewhere in human expe¬ rience, we must “prove (test) all things” and “hold fast to that which is good.” We must remember that D. D. Home and Mrs. Piper, whose performances are in every respect the most wonderful of all, have never been detected in the slightest suspicion of fraud. And they were for many years under the severest scrutiny of investigators trained for that very work. All Mr. Carrington’s shrewd observation and analysis, laying bare the thousand clever devices with which unscrupu¬ lous mediums have hoodwinked credulous humanity, but make more startlingly conclusive the slender section in the back of his book that he believes are “Genuine Phenomena.” In his conclusion he states his position with clear¬ ness: “While sounding a timely warning ... by thus calling the public attention to the methods of trickery at present in vogue, I do not wish it to be understood that I thereby relegate the whole of the evidence for the supernormal to the waste-basket. That is precisely what I do not wish to do or lead others to do. It is because I believe that there do exist cer¬ tain phenomena, the explanations for which have not yet been found, . . . that I think it necessary to distinguish those phenomena from the fraudulent ‘mar¬ vels’ so commonly produced, and which are the only spiritualistic phenomena with which the public is ac¬ quainted. When these shall have been cleared away, . . . the real, systematic, scientific study of psychic phenomena will have begun.” 1 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp.415-6. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 19 It is doubly unfortunate that scientific men, as a body, have affected a lofty disdain of the whole psychic field, blind to the fact that they are missing an exceptional opportunity for opening up a virgin territory of fabulous value to mankind. Has Science Been Neglecting a Rich Field of Inquiry? Mr. Myers, in a refreshingly sane criticism of the conservative stand, points out the “ever-growing dis¬ like felt by the votaries of advanced and established sciences to the rude and approximate work which has been needed in the infancy of every science,” adding: “Psychical research is the left wing of Experimental Psychology. It may be argued that present methods of research are rather rash skirmishings; but surely there is an opposite danger ... in the temptation to cling too exclusively to the safe methods of sciences exacter than it [psychology] can in reality be. . . . Men who insist on electric lamps along their road never reach Central Africa. . . .” In a masterly defense of his own position, Sir Will¬ iam Crookes said: “My object in thus placing on record the results of a very remarkable series of ex¬ periments is to present such a problem, which, ac¬ cording to Sir William Thomson, ‘Science is bound by the everlasting law of honor to face fearlessly.’ It will not do merely to deny its existence or try to sneer it down. Remember, I hazard no hypothesis or theory whatever; I merely vouch for certain facts, my only object being—the truth. Doubt, but do not deny; point out, by the severest criticism, what are considered fal¬ lacies in my experimental tests, and suggest more con¬ clusive trials; but do not let us hastily call our senses 20 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? lying witnesses merely because they testify against preconceptions. I say to my critics, Try the experi¬ ments; investigate with care and patience as I have done. If, having examined, you discover imposture or delusion, proclaim it and say how it was done. But, if you find it be a fact, avow it fearlessly, as ‘by the everlasting law of honor’ you are bound to do.” 1 In the introduction to his own study, M. Flammarion takes an incontrovertible stand: “We are inclined to smile at everything that relates to the marvelous, to tales of enchantment, the extravagances of occultism, the mysteries of magic. This arises from a reason¬ able prudence. But it does not go far enough. To deny and prejudge a phenomenon has never proved anything. The truth of almost every fact which con¬ stitutes the sum of the positive sciences of our day has been denied. What we ought to do is to admit no unverified statement, to apply to every subject of study, no matter what, the experimental method, with¬ out any preconceived idea whatever, either for or against.” 2 The trouble is that your man of science objects to the conditions imposed by the medium, the darkened room for example, and the constrained position, which often prevents anything like genuine investigation. He points out that there is a peculiar, mysterious atmos¬ phere in a seance room which works on the emotions and unsettles the judgment. He declines to become involved in any study wherein gross fraud has been and is so prevalent; and he denies the existence of ’Quoted in Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 316. 'Ibid., p. 1. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 21 any phenomena not reproducible (as are the phenomena of chemistry, physics and biology) at will. Of course, this position is both selfish and scien¬ tifically indefensible. We have no more right to in¬ sist that a “materialization” must take place in daylight than to insist that a photographic plate must be de¬ veloped in daylight. We know nothing as yet regard¬ ing the laws of psychic phenomena. We cannot dic¬ tate how they should happen; we cannot reproduce them at will, simply because we don’t know enough about them; and to take such a position is as absurd as that of the savant of medieval times would have been who denied the existence of lightning because he could not manufacture it when he pleased. To such an astounding and unequivocal statement as that of Professor Challis, Plumierian professor of astronomy at Cambridge University, mere scoffing is, it seems to me, no really adequate answer. “I have been unable to resist the large amount of testimony to such facts [spiritualism] which has come from many independent sources and from a vast num¬ ber of witnesses. ... In short, the testimony has been so abundant and consentaneous, that either the facts must be admitted to be such as are reported, or the possibility of certifying facts by human testimony must be given up.” “TO STOP SHORT IN ANY RESEARCH THAT BIDS FAIR TO WIDEN THE GATES OF KNOWLEDGE IS TO BRING REPROACH ON SCIENCE.” “No incident in my scientific career is more widely known than the part I took, many years ago, in certain psychical researches. Thirty years have passed since I published an ac¬ count of experiments tending to show that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a Force exercised by intelligence differ¬ ing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals. To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criti¬ cism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to do but to go straight on, ‘to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper of his reason; to follow the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times re¬ semble a will-o’-the-wisp.’ ********* “That a hitherto unrecognized form of force—whether it is called psychical force or X-force is of little consequence—is involved in these occurrences (spiritual phenomena) is not with me a matter of opinion, but of absolute knowledge. The nature of the force, or the cause which immediately excites its activity, forms a subject on which I do not at present feel competent to form an opinion.” —Sir William Crookes. n Sir William Crookes Perhaps the foremost English scientist of the latter nineteenth century, formerly president of the British Association for the Advance¬ ment of Science. His record of mediumistic phenomena personally observed is astounding. CHAPTER II THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRIT¬ UALISM We have already remarked how difficult it is for the average man, even one trained in scientific obser¬ vation, to discover the fraudulent devices of a tricky medium with years of sleight-of-hand experience. You may watch the exhibitions of Hermann and Kellar, knowing they are clever tricks, yet utterly unable to explain how the result is obtained. Kellar gave ex¬ hibitions of slate-writing before the Seybert Commis¬ sion which completely mystified them, yet he announced beforehand that the phenomena were entirely trickery. Dr. Hyslop notes that often the seances of mediums are “much poorer exhibitions than those of the most ordi¬ nary prestidigitator.” Yet they manage to deceive their spectators. The amateur investigator without the least experience confronts a man who for years has made a lifework of producing illusion, who knows every variety of trap-door, secret catch, slide, dummy appa¬ ratus, concealed wires, etc., and every method of using them. Probably ninety-eight per cent, of the “materializa¬ tions” seen in the seance room are not even an ade¬ quate illusion; that is, are such flimsy makeshifts that it seems as if no normal human being could be de¬ ceived. They are compounded, in fact, of a very natural and pitiful longing to see, a clever suggestion 23 24 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? from the medium that they are seen, and a very slight “ghost” framework on which both feelings are hung. But against the accusation that all his “physical” phenomena are fraudulent, the spiritualist brings up one very strong kind of testimony, that of the pres¬ tidigitators themselves. After a seance with Alexis, the clairvoyant medium, Robert Houdin, probably the greatest of all modern magicians, wrote: “I have, therefore, returned from this seance as astonished as it is possible to be, and persuaded that it is utterly impossible that chance or skill could ever produce effects so wonderful.” 1 Harry Kellar, whose stage performances are known to thousands in this country, said in a letter to the Indian Daily News (Calcutta, 1882), regarding the mediumistic performances of Mr. Eglinton: “It is needless to say I went as a skeptic, but I must own that I have come away utterly unable to explain by any natural means the phenomena that I witnessed on Tuesday evening. . . . After a most stringent trial and strict scrutiny of these wonderful experiences, I can arrive at no other conclusion than that there was no trace of trickery in any form, nor was there in the room any mechanism or machinery by which could be produced the phenomena which had taken place. The ordinary mode by which Maskelyne and other conjurers imitate levitation . . . could not pos¬ sibly be done in the room in which we were assem¬ bled.” 2 '“Tout a fait impossible que le hazard ou l’adresse puisse jamais produire des effets aussi marveilleux.” Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 53. 2 Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 52. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 25 These statements, while interesting, are in no way conclusive, however. We must remember that Bella- chini, the noted conjurer of the Prussian court, gave Slade a similar endorsement j 1 and that the trickery of this very Eglinton who puzzled Kellar had been al¬ ready uncovered in England. 2 In other words, even the best magicians may not know all the tricks of their own trade, and may be mystified just as possibly, even if not as easily, as ordinary folk. But, on the other hand, in fairness to the spiritualist, it must be admitted that Kellar states that the alleged “explanations” of Eglinton’s performances would not cover all of them, and Bellachini asserts positively of Slade: “I have not in the slightest degree found any¬ thing to be produced by means of prestidigitative mani¬ festations or by mechanical apparatus; . . . any explanation of the experiments which took place under the circumstances and conditions then obtaining by any reference to prestidigitation is absolutely impossible.”® It is evident then that in this direction we reach but very little solid footing either way. Mere Prestidigitation Cannot Explain All Alleged “Spirit Manifestations” But any intelligent examination of spiritualistic phe¬ nomena soon brings us to instances which mere trick¬ ery cannot explain. No hypothesis of prestidigitation, no matter how cleverly worked out, can, for instance, explain the table- 'Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 54. 5 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, p. 355. "Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 54. 26 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? tipping incident mentioned by Professor Morgan. A skeptical friend present at a seance was loudly scoffing at the so-called spirits, and daring them to display their powers. Spontaneously, without contact, the heavy table around which the experimenters were standing broke away from them and pinned the skeptic against the wall with such force that he cried for mercy. “A medium,” as Sir William Crookes says in his famous report, cannot, by trickery, “. . . while seated in one part of the room with a number of per¬ sons keenly watching him, . . . make an accor¬ dion play in my own hand when I hold it keys down¬ ward, or cause the same accordion to float about the room playing all the time. He cannot introduce ma¬ chinery which will wave window-curtains or pull up Venetian blinds eight feet off, tie a knot in a hand¬ kerchief and place it in a far corner of the room, sound notes on a distant piano, cause a card-plate to float about the room, raise a water-bottle and tumbler from the table, make a coral necklace rise on end, cause a fan to move about and fan the company, or set in motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case firmly cemented to the wall.” Trickery does not explain the case noted of the medium Meurice by Dr. Maxwell. “On one corner there is a statuette in porcelain . . . five inches high. M. Meurice told me he was going to make this statuette move. I stood near him, with my hand on his back; I stooped down and looked fixed¬ ly and narrowly at the statuette during the whole oper¬ ation. M. Meurice proceeded exactly as in the pre¬ ceding experiments, and when his hands—joined to¬ gether at the finger-tips—were at a distance of six ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 27 inches from the statuette, the latter swayed, bent slow¬ ly forward, and fell over. I affirm most positively that there was no hair or thread or normal link of any kind whatsoever between the statuette and the medium’s hands.” 1 Trickery does not explain the remarkable series of experiments carried on in 1870 by the Committee of the London Dialectical Society. The Notable Spiritualistic Investigation of the London Dialectical Society The Dialectical Society was an association of schol¬ ars and scientists which had been founded two years before with Sir John Lubbock as president. The com¬ mittee “to investigate alleged spiritual manifestations” consisted of twenty-seven members, among them Al¬ fred Russell Wallace, Varley, the eminent practical electrician, and Professor Morgan, the president of the Mathematical Society. The remarkable nature of the phenomena observed by the various sub-committees into which, for prac¬ tical working purposes, the larger committee resolved itself may be judged by the fact that the Report states that the following propositions “appeared to be es¬ tablished” : “1. That sounds of a varied character, apparently proceeding from articles of furniture, the floor and walls of the room (the vibrations accompanying which sounds are often distinctly perceptible to the touch) occur without being produced by muscular action or mechanical contrivance. ‘Maxwell: Metapsychical Phenomena, p. 323. 28 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “2. That movements of heavy bodies take place without mechanical contrivance of any kind or ade¬ quate exertion of muscular force by the persons pres¬ ent, and frequently without contact or connection with any person. “3. That these sounds and movements often occur at the times and in the manner asked for by persons present, and, by means of a simple code of signals, answer questions and spell out coherent communica¬ tions. “4. That the circumstances under which the phe¬ nomena occur are variable, the most prominent fact being that the presence of certain persons seems neces¬ sary to their occurrence, and that of others generally adverse. But this difference does not appear to de¬ pend upon any belief or disbelief concerning the phe¬ nomena. “That oral and written evidence received by your committee not only testifies to phenomena of the same nature as those witnessed by the sub-committees, but to others of a more varied and extraordinary character. “This evidence may be briefly summarized as fol¬ lows : “1. Thirteen witnesses state that they have seen heavy bodies—in some instances men—rise slowly in the air and remain there for some time without visible or tangible support. “2. Fourteen witnesses testify to having seen hands or figures, not appertaining to any human being, but life-like in appearance and mobility, which they have sometimes touched or even grasped, and which they are therefore convinced were not the result of im¬ posture or illusion.^ ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 29 “Thirteen witnesses declare that they have heard musical pieces played upon instruments not manipu¬ lated by any ascertainable agency. . . . “5. Five witnesses state that they have seen red-hot coals applied to the hands or heads of several persons without producing pain or scorching; and three wit¬ nesses state that they have had the same experiment made upon themselves with the like immunity. . . . “8. Three witnesses state that they have been present when drawings, both in pencil and colors, were pro¬ duced in so short a time, and under such conditions, as to render human agency impossible. “9. Six witnesses declare that they have received information of future events, and that in some cases the hour and minute of their occurrence have been ac¬ curately foretold, days and even weeks before. “In addition to the above, evidence has been given of trance-speaking, of healing, of automatic writing, of the introduction of flowers and fruits into closed rooms, of voices in the air, of visions in crystals and glasses, and of the elongation of the human body.” 1 To appreciate the difficulty of assuming the impli- fication of fraud a sufficient explanation of these phe¬ nomena, it must be remembered that, in the words of the Report: “1. All of these meetings were held at the private residences of members of the committee, purposely to preclude the possibility of prearranged mechanism or contrivance. “The furniture of the room in which the experiments 1 Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, July 20, 1870. 30 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? were conducted was on every occasion its accustomed furniture. The tables were in all cases heavy dining- tables, requiring a strong effort to move them. . . . “The room, tables and furniture generally were re¬ peatedly subjected to careful examination before, dur¬ ing and after the experiments, to ascertain that no concealed machinery, instrument or other contrivances existed by means of which the sounds or movements . . . mentioned could be caused. “2. Your committee have avoided the employment of professional or paid mediums, the mediumship be¬ ing that of members of your sub-committee [the prin¬ cipal medium was the wife of a prominent member of the Dialectical Society], persons of good social posi¬ tion and of unimpeachable integrity, having no pe¬ cuniary object to serve, and nothing to gain by decep¬ tion. “3. The members of the committee itself were men of all professions, ingenious lawyers, shrewd business men, skilful physicians, practical scientists. . . . About four-fifths entered upon the investigation wholly skeptical as to the reality of the alleged phenomena, firmly believing them to be the result either of im¬ posture or of delusion, or of involuntary muscular action. It was only by irresistible evidence, under con¬ ditions that precluded the possibility of either of these solutions, and after trial and test many times repeated, that the most skeptical of your sub-committee were slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena exhibited in the course of their protracted inquiry were veritable facts. “4. There were no hasty generalizations or in¬ sufficient data. No less than forty meetings were held ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 31 and ‘careful notes were taken and signed for verifica¬ tion by all present.’ “5. There was a minimum of chance for self-delusion or inadequate observation. The experiments were conducted in the light of gas, except on the few occa¬ sions specially noted in the minutes. “The sounds were distinctly audible to the ear, . . . the motions obvious to the sight. It was not a question of doubtful mental impression only, but of actual meas¬ urement. The table and other pieces of furniture had changed their position by so many inches, feet, yards. “At times,” say the authors of the Report in closing, “we sat under the table when the motions and sounds were most vigorous. We held the hands and feet of the psychic. Our ingenuity was exercised in the in¬ vention and application of tests. After trials often repeated we were compelled to confess that imposture was out of the question.” 1 At greater detail, Mr. Cox, in the Report of the sub¬ committee, says: “The smaller furniture of the room is frequently at¬ tracted to the place where the psychic sits. Chairs far out of reach and untouched may be seen moving along the floor in a manner singularly resembling the motion that may be observed in pieces of steel attracted by a magnet, which rise a little, fall, move on, stop, until fully within the influence of the magnetic force, and then jump to the magnet with a sudden spring. . . . Nor is this phenomena at all dubious to the spectator. 1 Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical Society. Comment by Mr. Edw. Cox, F.R.G.S. 32 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? However it may be done, the fact is indisputable that it is done.” 1 And, lest all this fail to be conclusive, read the com¬ mittee’s summary of the results of its work: “The motions were witnessed simultaneously by all present. They were matters of measurement, and not of opinion or fancy. And they occurred so often, under so many and such various conditions, with such safeguards against error or deception, and with such invariable results, as to satisfy the members of your sub-committee by whom the experiments were tried, wholly skeptical as most of them were when they en¬ tered upon the investigation, that there is a force capable of moving heavy bodies without material con¬ tact, and which force is in some unknown manner de¬ pendent upon the presence of human beings.” “Spirit” Slate-Writing The phenomena of slate-writing, in spite or the large place it assumes in the literature of spiritualism, may be dismissed by us with a few words, and for a very simple reason. It is so permeated and impregnated with gross fraud of a hundred varied kinds that there is the gravest doubt whether there is or ever was one genuine case. Mr. Carrington says: “If we were to read carefully thru the historical evidence for the phenomena of slate-writing, we should find it to con¬ sist of one long and practically unbroken series of ex¬ poses of fraud and trickery, with no real evidence worth mentioning for the genuine manifestations of 1 Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical Society. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 33 any supernormal power, nor any indication of any force or agency whatever at work beyond the muscles of the medium.” 1 In short, nowhere has a perverted human ingenuity displayed itself to better advantage; and the cleverness often shown, displayed in a better cause, would inspire enthusiastic admiration. Slate-writing phenomena, it might be explained, consists in the appearance of writing on slates in the presence of a medium, the slates being so sealed or handled that it seems veritably impossible for any “messages” to appear without the intervention of spirits. The great blow to the pretensions of slate-writing mediums was given by the Seybert Commission. Henry Seybert, a spiritualist, left a large sum of money to the University of Pennsylvania for the express pur¬ pose of making an exhaustive scientific investigation of spiritualism. A committee was appointed, which made a perfunctory Report, chiefly on the notorious medium, Slade. All the mediums examined were pro¬ fessionals, little money was expended, and the results published were so incomplete as to be practically value¬ less; but the work was abandoned and Mr. Seybert’s money diverted by the university to other uses. There are few more flagrant examples of misappropriation of funds; and the large amount of serious work since done and still to do shows how little excuse those in authority had for their action. The wrong is one, how¬ ever, which even yet could and should be righted. The methods of producing fraudulent slate-writing are multiform. ‘Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 84. 34 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? In one case “the medium had secreted uncier the finger-nail of his first finger a minute fragment of slate-pencil, and, when the slate was in position all he had to do was to extend this finger, and to write on the under surface of the slate whatever he desired. . . . The writing is scrawling, but that makes no difference; the sitters are glad to get it just the same.” 1 In another case the medium made pencils “by pul¬ verizing a slate-pencil and mixing the powder thus ob¬ tained with ordinary mucilage, forming a thick paste. This was cut into small squares, about the size of a rice grain. These squares were allowed to dry per¬ fectly hard. . . . When he seated himself to give the writings he would deposit about a dozen of the mucilage pencils on his left knee. . . . He held them a few seconds in his closed hand before sticking them on his knee. This warmed them and made them sticky, so that they stuck where he put them.” 2 Double slates with secret flaps and springs of vari¬ ous kinds are of course common. In his Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, the fascinating expose of fraudulent spiritualist devices from which these quo¬ tations are made, Mr. Carrington gives the following absurdly simple yet very mystifying variation: “A book of poems is handed to one of the investi¬ gators with the request that he insert, anywhere be¬ tween its pages, a paper-knife, in order to mark the place. This is done. A slate is then shown, blank and cleaned. The person holding the book is now re¬ quested to open it and read the first verse on each 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 104. 2 Ibid., p. 108. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 35 page. Immediately this is done, the slates are opened, and the verses just read are found copied between the slates. ‘There!’ you will say, ‘your silicate flap or acid-writing will not work in this case, for the writing is done after the book is opened and read, and this is done only after the slates are fastened together.’ “The writing was done through the flap method, just the same! How did the medium know where the book would be opened? He did not care where it was opened, as the book was especially made for him, and every page was exactly alike, with the exception of the number!” 1 But for downright cleverness the following trick¬ writing probably deserves a blue ribbon: “Examined and marked slates . . . are so sealed and fastened together that it would be an utter impossibility for the medium to open the slates in the slightest degree. The slates are free from writing or preparation of any kind when they are placed together, and they are fastened by the sitter himself, after a small piece of chalk has been placed between them. Let us suppose the sitter begins by screwing the frames of the slates together in several places, not only at the corners. . . . But, further, the skeptic proceeds to cover the heads of these screws with sealing-wax; after which he proceeds to fasten or gum the frames of the slates together all the way round with strips of sticking- plaster, securing these in place and finally sealing the frame together in several different places, placing his signet on the seals. If he choose, he may glue the wooden frames of the slates together, also. The oper- ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 124-5. 36 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE?, ation has probably occupied many minutes. Medium and sitter now hold the slates beneath the table be¬ tween them for the space of, perhaps, a minute. At the end of that time the medium requests his sitter to take away the slates and open them, or to open them there, as the case may be. The sitter does so, and is amazed to find a message on the inner surface of one of the slates. It is very badly written, it is true, but the sitter is, rightly enough, glad to get writing of any kind under such conditions. “At first sight, such a test would appear absolutely beyond the bounds of any sort of trickery. I have stated that the slates were free from writing, as well as from preparation of any kind, when they were put together by the sitter, and this is strictly the truth. The writing was produced after the slates were placed together and sealed up as I have described. But this is an impossibility? Not so, evidently, since the writing is really there! Then it must be genuine! Thus rea¬ sons the skeptic, and, indeed, we can hardly blame him for his belief. “The trick, in this case, is worked upon entirely dif¬ ferent lines from any test so far described. I have stated that a piece of chalk (not slate-pencil) was placed between the slates, and it is chiefly in the chalk that the trick lies. It is not an ordinary piece of chalk, but is made of a compound of powdered chalk, water, glue and iron filings. These were all blended together and allowed to become dry and hard. This is the piece of ‘chalk’ placed between the sitters’ slates. “Now, when the slates are placed under the table, the medium extracts, from his sleeve or elsewhere, a magnet, and with this he traces a series of letters on ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 87 the under side of the bottom slate, in ‘mirror-writing.’ The iron filings in the mixture will follow the magnet, and the chalk will write on the slate in the regular manner. The medium locates the piece of chalk, in the first instance, by tipping the slate at an angle, so that the chalk will run into one corner. He first of all places the magnet in that corner and drags the bit of chalk to the middle of the slate before proceeding to write out the message.” 1 The recountal of all this fraudulent phenomena would have little value except as it shows the real dif¬ ficulties with which the investigator of psychic phe¬ nomena has to contend. As Mr. Carrington well notes regarding the above experiments: “The ingenuity of this test will serve ... to show the reader the extreme cunning of the profes¬ sional medium, and how useless it is for the average individual, quite unacquainted with even the ordinary methods of trickery or the elements of conjuring, to hope to cope with the medium on his own ground, and even to beat at his own game a man who, naturally crafty, has made this particular branch of deception his life-study.” 2 The Famous Zollner Phenomena That collection of incidents known to students of spiritualism as the “Zollner phenomena,” striking though they are, may also be dismissed with but a few words, and for the same reason as were the slate¬ writing phenomena—the possibility or even probability 'Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 134-6. 'Ibid, p. 136. 38 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? of fraud. Some of them may have been genuine, but with a small space at our disposal, and with a wealth of unquestioned phenomena sufficient for all our needs, we need not even discuss those upon which the shadow of a reasonable doubt has been cast. First, very briefly as to the facts : x Dr. Zollner was an eminent physicist and psychologist and of the very highest reputation. The phenomena were observed, and his own conclusions corroborated, by three other professors of equally high rank, Fechner, Scheibner and Weber. The medium was Slade, the American. The seances took place at Zollner’s house. Most of the phenomena observed, while not spectacu¬ lar, were more than usually astounding, from a scien¬ tific viewpoint: 1. There were levitations, etc., in the customary manner, but of a remarkable character. 2. Knots were tied in endless cords. 3. Two wooden rings were slipped over the leg of a wooden table of a greater circumference than the rings themselves. 4. Slate-writing occurred under very careful test conditions. In spite of the circumstantial evidence of genuine¬ ness which Dr. Zollner’s account bears, the whole is vitiated. Zollner was attempting to find corroboration for his pet theory of “the fourth dimension” (the sec¬ ond and third phenomena above, if genuine, could not take place in our world of merely three dimensions) ; and his observation and testimony are biased by that Tor these see especially Zollner’s own book, Transcendental Physics. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 39 idea. Slade’s reputation was bad; the Seybert Com¬ mission had detected him in deliberate fraud. In re¬ gard to the corroborative testimony of Zollner’s asso¬ ciates, Mr. George S. Fullerton showed that “both Fechner and Scheibner were partially blind at the time, and depended more on what Zollner told them was taking place than on what they could see for them¬ selves; while Weber was, in many ways, an incompe¬ tent witness of such phenomena. As to Zollner, the chief narrator, it was found that he was of slightly unsound mind (though all his associates admitted that this did not impair his capacity as an investigator or observer) ; . . . that he was, in many ways, an incautious observer and believer; and, lastly, and by far the most important point of all, is the fact that neither he nor any of his three colleagues knew any¬ thing whatever of conjuring or the possibilities of de¬ ception.” 1 In a masterly analysis of the rope-tying phenomena, Dr. Hyslop notes twelve defects in the evidence, any one of which would be “sufficient to nullify its scien¬ tific character.” 2 Mr. Carrington, after a careful ex¬ amination of the evidence, is “convinced” that the rings passed over the table leg “could have been man¬ aged by adroit trickery” ; 3 and he even explains how it may have been done. As to the “broken screen incident” (a case, by the way, which Zollner considered so conclusive that he detailed it at great length), where a strong wooden screen was apparently wrenched apart in the middle of 'See the Seybert Commission Report, pp. 104-14. 2 See Hyslop: Borderland of Psychical Research, pp. 232-9. 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 31. 40 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? a seance with a violent crack, falling in two pieces, the screws and other fastenings being wrenched from their sockets, “I would ask,” says Mr. Carrington 1 simply, “what proof have we that this tearing apart was not done before the seance, and the two parts merely tied together by means of a piece of thread, which could be pulled off later, allowing the two halves of the screen to fall apart as stated? There was plenty of time for Slade to ‘fix’ anything he liked before the seance, from all accounts, and there is nothing in the reports which would forbid our assuming that such an interpretation is the right one.” The miraculous disappearance of the table makes interesting reading, but the incident is too ill-attested to warrant further mention here. Sufficient now that, on the whole, in spite of the important place the Zoll- ner case holds in the history of spiritualism, we may assert the evidence so defective as to render it for our purposes unworthy of careful consideration. Rappings: The Fox Sisters A special interest attaches to the phenomena of rap¬ pings, because with them modern spiritualism took its birth. There are many now alive who remember the early days of the Fox manifestations, for it was as recently as March, 1848, that Miss Kate Fox, a nine-year-old girl in a farmer’s family at Hydesville, a little village in central New York, imparted the astounding infor¬ mation that she was in communication with the dead. It was some time before her hard-headed and skeptical ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 27. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 41 family became convinced that any intelligence directed the mysterious loud knockings with which the house¬ hold was annoyed. Soon, however, the signals were translated. They declared that “a murdered man was buried in the cellar of the house; it indicated the ex¬ act spot in the cellar under which the body lay; and upon digging there, at a depth of six or seven feet, considerable portions of a human skeleton were found. Yet more, the name of the murdered man was given, and it was ascertained that such a person had visited that very house and had disappeared five years before, and had never been heard of since. The signals fur¬ ther declared that he, the murdered man, was the sig¬ naler ; and as all the witnesses satisfied themselves that the signals were not made by any living persons, or by any assignable cause, the logical conclusion . . . was that it was the spirit of the murdered man, how¬ ever improbable and absurd that might seem.” 1 The fame of the two sisters, Margaret and Kate (for both seemed to have developed this unknown power), was noised abroad locally. The neighbors came skep¬ tical, heard and saw, and were converted. Soon after a visit was made to Rochester, but the report of the miraculous doings of the sisters had pre¬ ceded them, and the ability accompanied them. More or less violent accusations of imposture were met with a readiness to undergo the most searching tests that the skeptics could devise. Three consecutive commit¬ tees of townspeople were appointed, examined the phe¬ nomena thoroly, and arrived finally at the same con- 'YVallace: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 151. 42 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? elusion—that the phenomena observed were certainly supernormal. “The last and most skeptical committee reported that they had heard sounds, and failed utterly to dis¬ cover their origin. They had proved that neither ma¬ chinery or imposture had been used, and their ques¬ tions, many of them being mental, were answered cor¬ rectly. . . A more striking development soon appeared: their mediumship became imparted spontaneously to those with whom they came in contact. Mrs. Fish, a married sister of the Fox girls, living in Rochester, was the first to develop the new power. Kate Fox visited Auburn, near by, and the result was another crop of incipient “mediums” there. The movement spread like wildfire. “Sometimes,” says a recent investigator, “the con¬ tagion was conveyed by a casual visit. Thus Miss Harriet Bebee, a young lady of sixteen, had an inter¬ view of a few hours with Mrs. Tamlin, a medium of Auburn, and on her return to her own home, twenty miles distant, the raps forthwith broke out in her presence. In the course of the next two or three years, indeed, the rappings had spread throughout the greater part of the Eastern States. Thus a writer in the New Haven Journal, in October, 1850, refers to knockings and other phenomena in seven different families in Bridgeport, forty families in Rochester, in Auburn, in Syracuse, ‘some two hundred’ in Ohio, in New Jersey, and places more distant, as well as in Hartford, Springfield, Charlestown, and elsewhere. A 'Wallace: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 151. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 43 year later a correspondent of the Spiritual World estimated that there were a hundred mediums in New York City, and fifty or sixty ‘private circles’ were reported in Philadelphia.” 1 The enthusiastic spiritualist must admit that some years later Kate Fox made what purported to be a confession of trickery, stating that the mysterious ‘Tappings” that had puzzled all investigators were caused by voluntary cracking of abnormally loose knee and toe joints. And, on the other hand, the opponent of spiritualism must admit: First, that some years later, on her death bed, she retracted this alleged con¬ fession, reiterating the supernatural character of the phenomena produced by her; and second, that the “con¬ fession” comes very far short of explaining all the phenomena which occurred. So the Fox case rests at present. At all events, the sisters were most directly instrumental in launch¬ ing the spiritualistic movement, and, tho later devel¬ oping other mediumistic faculties, the phenomena of rappings are those with which their names are cftenest associated. Are the Rappings Genuine? But it is impossible to dismiss the whole subject of rappings with an airy wave of the hand: the evidence is too voluminous and too strongly attested; and even with Miss Fox it is difficult to pass a final and posi¬ tive opinion. To show what conflicts of testimony the investigator must weigh and reconcile, the com¬ ments of Sir William Crookes on her case are in¬ structive : “For several months I enjoyed almost unlimited op- ’Podmore: Modern Spiritualism t Vol. I., p. 182. 44- ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? portunity of testing . . . the phenomena of these sounds. With mediums, generally, it is necessary to sit for a formal seance before anything is heard; but in the case of Miss Fox it seems only necessary for her to place her hand on any substance for loud thuds to be heard in it, like a triple pulsation, sometimes loud enough to be heard several rooms off. In this man¬ ner I have heard them in a living tree, on a sheet of glass, on a stretched iron wire, on a stretched mem¬ brane, a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, and on the floor of a theater. Moreover, actual contact is not always necessary; I have had these sounds proceeding from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium’s hands and feet were held, when she was standing on a chair, when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling, when she was enclosed in a wire cage, and when she had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a glass harmonicon, I have felt them on my own shoulder and under my own hands, I have heard them on a sheet of paper, held between the fingers by a piece of thread passed thru one corner. With a full knowl¬ edge of the numerous theories which have been started, chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have tested them in every way that I could devise, until there has been no escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences, not produced by trickery or mechanical means.” 1 These sounds are, as Sir William Crookes said, “noticed with almost every medium, each having a special peculiarity.” 2 This latter fact is noted also ’Crookes: Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena Called Spiritual.—Quarterly Journal of Science, Jan., 1874, p. 83. 'Ibid. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 45 by Professor Barrett. “Not only,” he says, “do the raps indicate that they are governed by some intelli¬ gence, but the raps themselves are distinct and per¬ sonal in character, just as handwriting or the touch of varied individuals on a typewriter or on an electric keyboard is different. Each individuality has his own particular kind of rap.” 1 They appear, too, in varied forms and in the most unexpected places. M. Flammarion notes the case of a Dr. Maxwell, whose mediumistic friend produced raps in restaurants and railway lunch-counters. These were contrary to his own desire, being so loud as to attract attention and even cause personal annoyance. Victorin Joncieres, the well-known composer, re¬ lates the following experience: “On the next day, before my departure, I went to pay a visit to M. X. He received me in his dining- hall. Through the large open window a beautiful June sun flooded the room with its brilliant light. “While we were conversing in a desultory way, a piece of military music rang out in the distance. ‘If there is a spirit here,’ said I, smiling, ‘it ought by rights to accompany the music.’ At once rhythmic taps, in exact harmony with the double-quick time, were heard in the table. The crackle of sounds in it died away little by little in a decrescendo very skilfully timed to the last vanishing blare of the bugles. “ ‘Give us a fine tattoo to finish,’ said I, when the sounds had completely ceased. The reply was a series of sounds like the heavy roll of drums, given with such force that the table trembled on its legs. I put my hand J S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, pp. 34-5. 46 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? on it and very plainly felt the vibrations of the wood as it was struck by the invisible force.” 1 Jacolliot, in his Occult Science in India, tells of a Hindu fakir, on the former’s own veranda, who ex¬ tended both hands “toward an immense bronze vase full of water. Within five minutes the vase commenced to rock to and fro on its base, and approach the fakir gently and with a regular motion. As the distance diminished, metallic sounds escaped from it, as if some one had struck it with a steel rod. At certain limes the blows were so numerous and quick that they produced a sound similar to that made by a hail¬ storm upon a metal roof.” 2 One important question, to be considered more fully later, should be at least mentioned here: Are these sounds governed by any apparent intelligence? The earliest Fox rappings, as we have noted, spelled out a message regarding the body in the cellar—facts apparently known to no living person. The same is noted by Professor Barrett, M. Flammarion, and many other investigators. The immaterial drummer obeyed the request of M. Joncieres; but Sir William Crookes notes that the raps are “frequently in direct opposition to the wishes of the medium,” and in Dr. Maxwell’s case the noises displayed a most waggish perversity. “At a very early stage of the inquiry,” says Crookes, “it was seen that the power producing the phenomena was not merely a blind force, but was associated with or governed by intelligence; thus the sounds to which I have just alluded will be repeated a definite number of ‘Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 346. ’Jacolliot: Occult Science in India, p. 231. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 47 times; they will come loud or faint, and in different places at request; and, by a prearranged code of sig¬ nals, questions are answered and messages given with more or less accuracy.” 1 Table-Tipping Of all the physical phenomena of spiritualism, table¬ tipping (including loosely in that term all forms of movement of material bodies without the exertion of force) is perhaps the most common. For that reason it has been most carefully observed and most widely discussed. In the very beginning, whatever our presuppositions pro or con, or whatever explanation we may make as to reasons or causes, the fact that tables and other articles of furniture do under certain conditions move, apparently of their own accord, must be admitted as established. The phenomenon itself is simple. A number of peo¬ ple sit around a table, placing the tips of their fingers lightly on the top. The number of persons in the circle, the size or weight of the table, darkness or daylight—these conditions seem to make very little difference. After a varying interval of anticipation, the table will begin to tremble and finally to jump up and down with nervous little jerks or hops. Occasion¬ ally its movements will become violent, and the table will progress around the room without help or guid¬ ance (voluntary, at least) from the experimenters. Rarely, the table will move and even rise in the air, apparently of its own accord, without any visible con¬ tact whatever. ’Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, p. 83. 48 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Now, as was said, these facts are incontestable. That furniture does act in the manner described no scien¬ tist, who has examined the evidence, denies. Mr. Car¬ rington, tho a scathing critic of spiritualism, admits: “There can be no doubt that a large part of the [table-turning] phenomena, at least, are genuine, how¬ ever we may choose to interpret them. . . . The sole difficulty lies in the interpretation of the facts; in the explanation that is given of the phenomena ob¬ served.” 1 M. Flammarion says: “For me the levitation of ob¬ jects is no more doubtful than that of scissors lifted by the aid of a magnet.” 2 Dr. Marvin, in his attack, The Philosophy of Spiritualism, says: “The phenomena are genuine. The hypothesis which spiritualists en¬ deavor to build on these phenomena is altogether an¬ other thing.” Prof. W. F. Barrett notes several in¬ stances in his paper entitled On Some Phenomena, Commonly Called Spiritualistic, Witnessed by the Author. Sir William Crookes calls “the movement of heavy bodies with contact, but without mechanical exertion . . . one of the simplest forms of the phenomena observed. It varies in degree from a quivering or vibration of the room and its contents to the actual rising into the air of a heavy body when the hand is placed on it. The retort is obvious that if people are touching a thing when it moves, they push it or pull it or lift it. I have proved experimentaly that this is not the case in numerous instances, but as a matter of evi- ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 64. ’Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 49 dence I attach little importance to this class of phe¬ nomena by itself, and only mention them as a prelim¬ inary to other movements of the same kind, but without contact.” 1 He speaks of this class a little later as follows: “The instances in which heavy bodies, such as tables, chairs, sofas, etc., have been moved, when the medium has not been touching - them, are very numerous. I will briefly mention a few of the most striking. My own chair has been twisted partly round, while my feet were off the floor. A chair was seen by all pres¬ ent to move slowly up to the table from a far corner, when all were watching it; on another occasion an arm¬ chair moved to where we were sitting, and then moved slowly back (a distance of about three feet), at my request. On three successive evenings a small table moved slowly across the room, under conditions which I had specially prearranged, so as to answer any ob¬ jection which might be raised to the evidence. I have had several repetitions of the experiment considered by the committee of the Dialectical Society to be con¬ clusive, viz., the movement of a heavy table in full light, the chairs turned with their backs to the table, about a foot off, and each person kneeling on his chair, with hands resting over the backs of the chairs, but not touching the table. On one occasion this took place when I was moving about so as to see how every one was placed.” 2 Passing on in his ascending scale of apparent difficulty, Crookes makes the follow¬ ing interesting note on his “Class V” instances of “the rising of tables and chairs off the ground, without 'Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, p. 82. 'Ibid, p. 84. 50 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? contact with any person.” It answers a question very frequently asked: “A remark is generally made when occurrences of this kind are mentioned. Why is it only tables and chairs which do these things? Why is this property peculiar to furniture? I might reply that I only ob¬ serve and record facts, and do not profess to enter into the why and wherefore; but, indeed, it will be obvious that if a heavy, inanimate body in an ordinary dining-room has to rise off the floor, it cannot very well be anything else but a table or a chair. That this propensity is not specially attached to furniture, I have abundant evidence; but, like other experimental demonstrators, the intelligence or power, whatever it may be, which produces these phenomena can only work with the materials which are available. “On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches and one and one-half feet off the floor, under special circumstances which ren¬ dered trickery impossible. On another occasion a heavy table rose from the floor in full light, while I was holding the medium’s hands and feet. On another occasion the table rose from the floor, not only when no person was touching it, but under conditions which I had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable proof of the fact.” 1 The Researches of De Gasparin: What Causes Table-Tipping? Considering the phenomena of table-tipping in some¬ what more regular order, we will find that the first, and what is still in many respects the most important 'Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, pp. 84-5. Photograph of a Table Levitation with Eusapia Paladino Tables have been levitated so many thousands of times in perfectly authenticated instances that denial of this phenomenon would seem to be difficult. Hundreds of photographs, similar to the above, have been taken at many places and with various mediums. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 51 scientific investigation ever made was that of Count Agenor de Gasparin, at Valleyres in Switzerland, in 1853, formal report of which was shortly after published in two imposing volumes. 1 The phenomena were observed with unimpaired success under test conditions of the most stringent and varied kind. Tables tipped, moved vigorously, and were levitated repeatedly and at will for months and before any one who wished to observe. Careful record was kept, and a large amount of data secured. To prove the absence of contact, the top of the table was dusted with flour with a bellows, then the heavy table was levitated, rising bodily into the air, not once, but several times. Afterward “the table was scrupulously examined; no finger had touched it, or even grazed it in the slightest degree.” 2 At times the tables displayed a most per¬ verse stubbornness, refusing to stir in answer to any amount of waiting or coaxing. At other times, under seemingly identical conditions, “they have seen the same table legs perform levitations that were so free and energetic that they anticipated the hands, got the start of the orders, and executed the thoughts almost before they were conceived, and with an energy well- nigh terrifying.” With Eusapia Paladino, most famous of all “phys¬ ical mediums” to-day, table-tipping is so usual an occurrence as no longer to excite even comment. But her exploits are marvelous enough to receive later the special mention they deserve. 1 Des Tables tournantes, du Surnaturcl en general, et des Esprits, par le comte Agenor de Gasparin. 'Paris, Dentu, 1854. 2 For a summary of the experiments of De Gasparin, see Flammarjon’s Mysterious Psychic Forces ( Chap. VI. 52 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Before I go further, however, I wish to make what may seem an astonishing statement: For the purposes of our inquiry it does not make one iota of difference whether tables ever tipped or not. No space would be given even to a discussion of the phenomena were it not that no other one class of facts bulks so largely in the popular conception of the methods of psychic research. When the phenomena were first observed they were inexplicable by the forces of existing science. Science being at fault, it was the easiest thing to lay it all to “spiritual” intervention. When the phenomena at last attracted the attention of men of science, attempts were at once made with varying success to enunciate a satisfactory theory. Remember, I am still speaking entirely of the “phys¬ ical” aspects of the phenomena, with the movements of bodies by an inexplicable force. The alleged mes¬ sages rapped out by tables are another matter, which will be considered in their proper place. Regarding table-tipping phenomena, science has taken three attitudes: 1. Scoffing and complete denial. Forced from this position by the overwhelming weight of the evidence presented, it said: 2. That the phenomena were due to “unconscious muscular action.” This theory rests on a foundation of observed experimentation and is an adequate ex¬ planation for a good deal of the simpler phenomena. Professor Faraday invented an instrument for register¬ ing this unconscious “push and pull” action in indi¬ vidual cases; “and Professor Jastrow further con¬ clusively proved, in a careful series of experiments ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 53 conducted some years ago, that not only is this action present and operative in all normal individuals, but that this push and pull corresponded invariably with the expectation of the sitter, who had his hands on the board.” Not only this, but, as Mr. Carrington adds, “there is a great deal of evidence that goes to show that this unconscious muscular force is frequently stronger and more powerful than the individual could consciously control or summon. ... At all events, we know that in moments of extreme fear or excite¬ ment, when the conscious mind is largely in abeyance, many acts are performed which would be quite im¬ possible to the normal individual, being beyond his normal muscular ability.” 1 We even have a phrase in the melodramatic novel: “With a sudden access ‘of superhuman strength’ the hero (or heroine) tore down the barred door (or severed the cable) with his (or her) bare hands”; or performed some other ordinarily “impossible feat.” The same thing has been noted with subjects in an hypnotic condition. This theory, however, failed utterly, of course, to explain the levitation or movement of articles with¬ out contact. A third hypothesis was perforce formu¬ lated: 3. That there is some hitherto unknown force ema¬ nating from the human organism which is capable of influencing material bodies; and Professor Thury, in a “conscientious monograph,” coins the word “psychode” for this “intermediary between the mind and the body,” which “can project itself beyond the limits of the body.” ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 68. 54 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Little, however, has really been accomplished in proof or disproof. Science generally accepts what she can explain (table-tipping), and flatly denies any¬ thing further (levitation), an eminently safe but rather illogical proceeding! This, too, in defiance of the un¬ qualified assertion in the strongest terms of such sci¬ entists, writers and philosophers, many of them emi¬ nent, as Myers, Lodge, Aksakof, Flammarion, Lom- broso, De Gasparin, Richet, Crookes, Hyslop, Thury, Porro, Limoncelli, Carrington, Zollner, Marvin, Bar¬ rett, Schiaparelli, Gerosa, Sully-Prudhome, Du Prel, Ermacora, Hodgson, Ochorowicz, Morselli, Bianchi and hundreds of other independent and honest ob¬ servers. These men assert because they have seen, tested, and believe they have proved. Science, generally, not having seen, denies out of hand, because the phe¬ nomena are inexplicable and “impossible.” The reader in this case must choose for himself. Camille Flammarion Noted as an astronomer and as a writer and investigator of occult phenomena. THAT THE SOUL SURVIVES THE BODY I HAVE NOT THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT.” That the Soul survives the destruction of the body I have not the shadow of a doubt. It is not the body which pro¬ duces life. It is Life which organizes the body. The purely mechanical explanation of the Universe is in¬ sufficient. We live in the middle of an unexplored world in which the psychic forces play a role as yet but imperfectly understood. These forces are of an order superior to the physical and mechanical, generally. To men familiar with the history of Science, the attitude of people who deny certain phenomena simply because they are not yet understood and explained, is simple folly. The thing which we are in the habit of naming “common sense” is only an expression of the state of general ignorance. There are very few people who have the intelligence free and broad enough to accept, without some preconceived idea, new and unexplained facts. As for me, I am only a humble student in the prodigious problem of the Universe. I search and I commune with the Sphinx. “What are we?” We know, proof positive, scarcely more to-day than we did in the time when Socrates propound¬ ed his famous maxim, Know Thyself! It is true that we have learned how to measure the distances to the stars, we can analyze the substance of the sun, and weigh worlds. Is the study of ourselves, then, less interesting than that of the exterior world? This is not probable. But I hasten to warn you that I am not wise enough to explain this mystery which surrounds the problem of Life and Death. I pass my life in a retired garden consecrated to one of the Nine Muses (Astronomy), and in my attachment for that beautiful Infant I seldom find time to visit other Temples. It is only at intervals, for the renewed vigor which the change brings, and by curiosity, that I permit my investigations to drift in the direction of the “Unknown Shore.” 55 56 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? In the intervals of my more pressing work, during the long nights passed at the top of my observatory in thought and study, I have always observed certain phenomena, which seemed to be the action of unknown forces. Sometimes they seemed analogous to those which the magnetizer uses to put his patient to sleep. Magnetism, hypnotism—these are forces but little understood, by the way, even by those who make use of them. On other occasions it seemed to me that these forces were similar to the action produced by thunder. And again they seemed to be forces distinct from all others, a something which nearest approaches to the human intelligence. For some years I have been in the habit of referring to this element as the Psychic Forces. In the study of these Psychic phenomena we can afford to brave the smiles of the incredulous, for this touches the greatest problem of Humanity—the problem of Survival. If these forces of which we have been speaking are real, then they must be natural, since there is nothing in Nature which is not logical. One thing is certain, there is no effect without a cause. The supernatural does not exist, and the day of miracles is past. It is only by positive study of effects that we are able to arrive at the cause. One of the first conclusions at which I have arrived after years of experimenting is that the human being possesses within himself certain fluidic and psychic forces the nature of which is as yet only imperfectly understood, and that this force is capable of moving objects at a distance, without con¬ tact. It is the expression of our Will and our desires. Man is a double being, and that double nature is to himself still a mystery. We think. But what is a thought? No one knows. We walk. But what is the organic act? No one knows. Tell me, he who can, how a thought is conceived, and where, and what is the nature of cerebral action! It is dangerous to believe, and it is dangerous not to believe, in a Supreme Intelligence. As to the knowledge of the psychol¬ ogy of the Soul, we are to-day where chemistry was in the days of Albert the Grand. We know nothing! Your heart ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 57 beats night and day. It is a spring very well wound up. But who wound it? What holds the earth in space? The laws of gravitation and energy. What is it that kills in a rifle ball? Its speed, its energy, the invisible element which exists everywhere in everything. We know so little of our mental being that it is impossible for us to know of what we ourselves are capable, and especially in certain states of unconsciousness. The intelligence which directs us is not always personal. Matter is not in reality what it seems to our vulgar senses; that is, to our sight and touch. But it is one with energy, and is only a manifestation of the movements, invisible and im¬ ponderable. The Universe is a vast dynamo, and matter but an appearance. We are living in the breast of an unexplored world in which the psychic forces play a role as yet but little understood and appreciated. We are, as regards these phychic forces, in about the position in which Columbus found himself when he first touched land in the New World. We are floating on the borders of a great unknown. We are at the dawn of a new Science, and who can foretell its influence in the world of thought? Our terrestrial organism may be compared to a harp with only two strings—that of sight and that of hearing. By those two nerves only are we capable of receiving sensations. Now there exists in reality in Nature not two, but ten, a hun¬ dred, a thousand kinds of movements. Psychical science informs us that we live in the midst of a world invisible to us, and that it is not impossible that there exists also on the earth beings absolutely different from our¬ selves, incapable of manifesting themselves to us, except dimly, because of our very limited means or organs of communication. The most rational means which scientific men to-day possess of studying this dim connection which we have with these un¬ known forces is through the channel of Mediums, or sensitives, and this has led to the founding in all civilized countries of the Societies of Psychical Research. For the thing dubbed 58 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “spiritualism” is a science and not a religion. It is a science of which we know, as yet, only the A, B, C. Scientific men of England, of America, of Germany, and of Italy, who have devoted years to the study of the psychology of “raps,” and of the existence of these unknown forces capable of moving objects at a distance, as a table or a chair—all of these men are unanimous in swearing to the existence of these phenomena as a fact. But no one knows their mode of repro¬ duction. They exist as positively as the phenomena of elec¬ tricity. There is an invisible cause which produces these “raps.” Is this cause within ourselves or outside of us? That is the question. In experimenting with mediums this force which comes into existence usually pretends to be some reincarnated spirit of the dead. But if we push our investigations and our questions to the end, these so called spirits generally finish by answers which would indicate that this is an error. I do not say that spirits do not exist. On the contrary, I have reason to admit their existence, as in the experiments I have made it is not possible to eliminate the hypothesis of their existence. There is also the possibility of the existence of the Soul after death without the possibility of our being able to communicate with it. We often take our ideas for reality. This is a mistake. For example, to us the air is not a solid. We pass through it without effort. An iron door, on the contrary, we find impene¬ trable. But with electricity, exactly the contrary obtains. It passes through iron and finds the air an impenetrable solid. Flesh, clothes and wood are transparent for the X-rays, while glass is opaque. Newton discovered that all of the celestial Planets move as if attracted and held in space by a common force. He called it gravity. That force was not explained in his day, and, for the matter of that, it has never been explained. A medium places his or her hand upon a table and it moves. But the force which moves it is unexplained. Is it, then, untrue because of that? Let us remember that almost every scientific fact which exists to-day has been denied. Many objections have been made because a medium under ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 59 control brings forth his best efforts in semi-obscurity. And we are bound to admit that this is an inconvenience for the in¬ vestigators. But it is in no way, to the intelligent mind, at least, a suspicious circumstance. Try, if you will, to develop a photographic negative anywhere except in a dark room; or to produce electricity in a room the atmosphere of which is saturated with humidity. Light is the natural medium for producing certain effects, and it completely opposes the pro¬ duction of certain others. Prevent, if you can, light from blackening iodine, or make it blacken lime. Ask of electricity why it will pass instantly from one end to another of a long wire, and then why it refuses to pass through a piece of glass one-eighth of an inch in diameter. Ask of night-blooming flowers to expand in the daytime, and of those which open only in the sunshine to blow at night. Give me a reason for the diurnal and nocturnal respiration of plants. Why do plants inhale oxygen, and exhale carbonic acid gas during the night, when they do exactly the opposite in the sunshine? Suppose some one says he will only believe in the existence of the stars when he has seen them in the daytime. What would be thought of his mentality? But it is useless to multi¬ ply examples. We might go on indefinitely. Man is only a feeble atom, a speck lost in the contemplation of the Infinite. He has thought himself capable to unravel the mystery of the Universe when he has not yet mastered the material forces around him. He has tried to explain the grandeur of the skies when he is incapable of analyzing the grain of dust at his feet. In any case, if the investigations of the Society of Psychical Research have not yet given all that people pretend, nor all that it will yet give, one is bound to admit that it has consid¬ erably enlarged the nature of the understanding of the quali¬ ties of the Soul and its faculties. It has practically demon¬ strated the existence of the Soul as an entity, distinct from the body. Many other forces will be discovered as we make progress along these lines. Things exist in the Universe of which human intelligence has never dreamed. The earth turned on its axis, and the celestial bodies moved in perfect harmony with the laws of gravitation, ages before we were aware of it, 60 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? and while we still fondly imagined the earth to he the center of all, a fixed body with a flat surface. Terrestrial magnetism belted the earth for centuries while the Races of men slept in blissful ignorance of the existence of such a force. The possi¬ bilities of wireless telegraphy were in the electric currents then as now. The waves of the ocean lapped the shores in musical cadence long before there were human ears to listen to them. Our mental eyes are opening to the light of the Creation but slowly. And to sum up my convictions as regards a future existence, my researches have brought me to this conclusion: (1) That the Soul exists as a real entity, independent of the body. (2) It is gifted with faculties as yet unknown to Science. (3) It can act at a distance, without the medium of the Senses. There exists in Nature a psychic element of variable activity, the essence of which rests yet hidden. For my own part, I shall be content if my work and investi¬ gations, extending now over a period of more than thirty years, can help to form a point of departure for those who shall come after me. —-Camille Flammarion. Daniel Dunglas Home The greatest of all so-called “physical mediums.” Altho his phe- nomena were quite the most wonderful on record, he was never once so much as suspected of fraud. CHAPTER III THE MEDIUMSHIP OF D. D. HOME I have purposely reserved what is by far the most imposing group of purely “physical” phenomena to the last. If the spiritualist has already convinced you of the adequacy of his evidence for the supernormal, you will at least find an account of the Home phe¬ nomena intensely interesting reading. If you are still equally sure, on the contrary, that spiritualism is mere¬ ly a gigantic hoax, the Home phenomena must at least make you pause and reconsider. Daniel Dunglas Home is by far the most striking “physical” medium in the history of spiritualism, part¬ ly from the very wonderful nature of the feats he per¬ formed, partly from the high social and scientific rank of the persons who witnessed and recorded his ex¬ ploits, partly from the fact that never once in his long career was he detected in or even so much as suspected of any form of fraud. Scotch by birth, he came to America while still but a child, and resided in a small town in Connecticut through youth and early manhood. Soon after the Fox sisters attracted the attention of the curiosity-loving public, Home found himself the possessor of medium- istic ability. And it is a noteworthy testimonial to the genuineness of the phenomena produced by him, 61 62 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? that his family were so annoyed at times by his medi- umistic rappings and other antics that they turned the boy out-of-doors. “It is hardly likely,” notes Mr. Car¬ rington, “that if Home had control over the phenomena, he would voluntarily have carried them to this extent.” 1 Becoming a convert to spiritism in 1855, while still a very young man, he traveled abroad in the cause in which he was rapidly winning himself world-wide fame. “Everywhere he went he scored distinct tri¬ umphs, both as a medium and as a social favorite. He seems to have been a man of a fascinating personality, gaining with ease the friendship and confidence of all who came to know him. Belief in the genuineness of his pretensions was further strengthened by his per¬ sistent refusal to accept payment for his mediumistic performances—a fact which, it may incidentally be said, caused most people to overlook the equally ob¬ vious circumstance that he none the less owed his live¬ lihood almost entirely to his mediumship, admirers showering gifts upon him and frequently entertaining him as their guest for months at a time.” 2 His seances were attended by nobility and even royalty, by scientists and philosophers, among the latter Sir William Crookes; and indeed the latter's famous Report is based very largely on phenomena observed with Home. Everywhere he gave success¬ ful exhibitions of absolutely inexplicable phenomena, and, so far as his health would permit—for he was never robust—continued to do so till the day of his death, some twenty years ago in France. 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 373. 2 Bruce: Riddle of Personality, p. 164. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 63 With performances as striking as those of Home, the possibility of fraud must, of course, be squarely faced. But the entire absence even of suspicion has already been noted. Even Mr. Podmore, who attempt¬ ed to explain every alleged spiritualistic phenomenon on purely natural grounds, is forced with Home to admit there is no evidence of fraud. Mr. Carrington, who, as we have seen, knows the shady side of spirit¬ ualism from A to Z, says: “So far as it is known, tho Home was under far more careful and prolonged scru¬ tiny than any other medium, fraud was never detected at any of Home’s seances, nor was it even suspected on any occasion. . . . Home always sat in the circle, side by side with the other sitters, and never made use of a cabinet of any sort. He also had a great objection to darkness, and insisted upon as much light as possi¬ ble on all occasions. So far as he (Mr. Podmore] was enabled to ascertain, there was not indicated in the records one iota of evidence against Home’s character. ‘On the other hand,’ he says, ‘the internal evidence of the books and narratives seems to afford good ground for supposing that the phenomena were genuine’ ’ n Home’s Levitations We have already noted Sir William Crookes’ opin¬ ion of the genuineness of the Home phenomena in general. If stronger testimony were possible, how¬ ever, it must be found in his remarks upon Home’s levitations: “There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home rising from the ground, in the presence of ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 372-3. 6*4 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? as many separate persons, and I have heard from the lips of the three witnesses to the most striking occur¬ rence of this kind—the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lind¬ say and Captain C. Wynne—their own most minute accounts of what took place. To reject the recorded evidence on this subject is to reject all human testi¬ mony whatever, for no fact in sacred or profane his¬ tory is supported by a stronger array of proofs . 1 “The accumulated testimony establishing Mr. Home’s levitations is overwhelming,” says Sir William Crookes. “It is greatly to be desired that some person, whose evidence would be accepted as conclusive by the scientific world—if indeed there lives a person whose testimony in favor of such phenomena would be taken —would seriously and patiently examine these alleged facts.” It might be well now to consider certain of these examples of alleged levitation. Mr. Carrington’s note regarding them is interesting: “Incredible as it may seem that a human being should be lifted off the ground, and remain in that position for some time, in opposition to the law of gravity, it is, nevertheless, one of the best attested of all the phenomena occurring in Home’s presence, the quality and quantity of the evidence being both good and abundant. How famous the case is may be gauged by the fact that it is men¬ tioned in Brewer’s Dictionary of Miracles, page 218.” 2 First, quotations from the account of Sir William Crookes contained in his Report: “The levitation of human beings . . . has oc¬ curred in my presence on four occasions in darkness. 'The italics are mine. ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 378. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 65 . . . I will here only mention cases in which the de¬ ductions of reason were confirmed by the sense of sight. “On one occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady sitting on it, rise several inches from the ground. On another occasion, to avoid the suspicion of this being in some way performed by herself, the lady knelt on the chair in such manner that its four feet were visible to us. It then rose about three inches, remained sus¬ pended for about ten seconds, and then slowly descend¬ ed. At another time two children, on separate occa¬ sions, rose from the floor with their chairs, in full day¬ light, under (to me) most satisfactory conditions; for I was kneeling and keeping close watch upon the feet of the chair, and observing that no one might touch them. “The most striking cases of levitation which I have witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On three sepa¬ rate occasions have I seen him raised completely from the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy-chair, once kneeling on his chair, and once standing up. On each occasion I had full opportunity of watching the occurrence as it was taking place.” 1 On another occasion Sir William wrote: “The best cases of Home’s levitation I witnessed were in my own house. On one occasion he went to a clear part of the room, and, after standing quietly for a minute, told us he was rising. I saw him slowly rise up with a continuous gliding movement, and remain about six inches off the ground for several seconds, when he slowly descended. On this occasion no one moved from their places. On another occasion* I was invited ’Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, p. 85. 66 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? to come to him, when he rose eighteen inches off the ground, and I passed my hands under his feet, round him, and over his head when he was in the air. On several occasions, Home and the chair on which he was sitting at the table rose off the ground. This was generally done very deliberately, and Home sometimes then tucked his feet on the seat of the chair and held up his hands in full view of all of us. On such occa¬ sions I have gone down and seen and felt all four legs were off the ground at the same time, Home’s feet being on the chair. Less frequently the levitating power extended to those next to him. Once my wife was thus raised off the ground in her chair.” 1 Even more conclusive, however, is the much-quoted account of another levitation given in the famous report of the Master of Lindsay (better known as the Earl of Crawford) : “I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare, and a cousin of his. During the sitting, Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a twelve-inch projection to each win¬ dow, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. “We heard the window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside our window. “The moon was shining into the room; my back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the '‘Journal S. P. R., Vol. VI., pp. 341-2. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 67 window-sill, and Home’s feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room, feet foremost, and sat down. “Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an aperture. “Home said, still entranced, ‘I will show you,’ and then, with his back to the window, he leaned back, and was shot out of the aperture, head-first, with the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly. “The window is about seventy feet 1 from the ground. I very much doubt whether any skilful tight-rope dancer would like to attempt a feat of this description, where the only means of crossing would be by a peril¬ ous leap, or being borne across in such a manner as I have described, placing the question of the light aside.” 2 The “cousin of his” referred to was a Captain Wynne; both he and Lord Adare corroborated in writing the correctness of the account given above. “Elongation”: The “Heat Phenomena.” Another phenomena observed with Home, and to a certain extent peculiar to him, was that of elongation. There are many probably who consider the ability to stretch one’s fingers to double their normal length, or voluntarily extend one’s arm an extra foot, even more 'In his statement before the Dialectical Society he gives this distance as 85 feet. 2 See the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical Society, p. 2x2. 68 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? remarkable than the ability to float in the air unsup¬ ported. Space forbids more than a single example of this phenomena, this also from the account by the Master of Lindsay, as given in the Report of the Dialectical Society. “. . . I saw Mr. Home, in a trance, elongated eleven inches. I measured him standing up against the wall, and marked the place; not being satisfied with that, I put him in the middle of the room, and placed a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I meas¬ ured him again in his natural size, both directly and by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, as I had full view of his feet, and, moreover, a gentle¬ man present had one of his feet placed over Home’s insteps, one hand on his shoulder, and the other on his side, where the false ribs come near the hip-bone. . . . There was no separation of the vertebrae of the spine, nor were the elongations at all like those resulting from expanding the chest with air; the shoulders did not move. Home looked as if he was pulled up by the neck; the muscles seemed in a state of tension. He stood firmly in the middle of the room, and, before the elongation commenced, I placed my foot on his instep. I will swear he never moved his heels from the ground.” 1 Commenting on the evidence, Mr. Carrington says: “The defects in the report seem to me to be such as ‘From the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical Society, pp. 207-8, 213-14. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 69 would be made by any person drawing up a report of unusual occurrences; minor inaccuracies exist, but the central facts seem to have been carefully noted, and rather more than the usual care exercised against fraud.” 1 A third class of extraordinary incidents of which it is necessary to make mention are the heat phenomena. “I have frequently seen Home, when in a trance, go to the fire and take out large red-hot coals, and carry them about in his hands, put them inside his shirt, etc. Eight times I have myself held a red-hot coal in my hands without injury, when it scorched my face on raising my hand. Once, I wished to see if they really would burn, and I said so, and touched the coal with the middle finger of my right hand, and I got a blister as large as a sixpence; I instantly asked him to give me the coal, and I held the part that burned me in the middle of my hand, for three or four minutes, without the least inconvenience.”* These facts are corroborated by other writers. An¬ other heat incident, throwing as it also does a side¬ light upon Home’s own character, is most interesting. “Mr. Home again went to the fire, and, after stir¬ ring the hot coals about with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as big as an orange, and, putting it on his right hand, covered it over with his left hand, so as to almost completely enclose it, and then blew into the small furnace thus extemporized until the lump of charcoal was nearly white-hot, and then drew my at¬ tention to the lambent flame which was flickering over 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 395. 'Quoted in the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical Society, pp. 208-9. 70 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? the coal and licking round his fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner, held up the coal in front, and said, ‘Is not God good? Are not his laws wonderful ?’ ” x It hardly seems as if Home would utter the abso¬ lutely unnecessary blasphemous mockery implied in his words if he knew that the phenomena he was producing were fraudulent. Several theories have been attempted to explain these heat phenomena “naturally,” but even the opponents of spiritualism are forced to admit that none of the theo¬ ries cover all the evidence. It must be remembered that the coals were taken from the open grate in houses where Home would have no opportunity of “fixing” the coals in any way if any way were known to be pos¬ sible. Furthermore, Home seemed able to impart his strange power to other persons at will, the same persons being burned by the same coal when this power was withdrawn. In one instance mentioned by Sir William Crookes, Home placed a blazing piece of charcoal on a cambric handkerchief and fanned it to a white heat. Except for a tiny burned hole, the handkerchief was unharmed, and Sir William, after careful laboratory analysis of the handkerchief afterward, was unable to find any trace of special chemical or other preparation. As Sir William Crookes has noted, the evidence for the Home phenomena in quantity and quality is quite overwhelming. There remain a respectable number of scientists, entirely ignorant of this evidence, who airily or angrily deny. Those, like Mr. Podmore, who have examined it carefully, and yet are opposed to the whole 1 Proceedings S. P. R., Vol. VI., p. 103. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 71 spiritualistic hypothesis, are forced into unassenting silence. The reader may accept or not. If he does it may pre¬ dispose him to accept certain other phenomena much less spectacular and almost, if not quite, as well at¬ tested. If he does not it will still in no way endanger any constituent grounds for the solution of the main problem of a future life; for, as has already been stated, these physical phenomena, true or false, are not vital to its solution. “I AM CONVINCED OF THE PERSISTENCE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE BEYOND BODILY DEATH.” “If any one cares to hear what sort of conviction has been borne in upon my mind, as a scientific man, by twenty years’ familiarity with these questions which concern us, I am willing to reply as frankly as I can. I am, for all personal purposes, convinced of the persistence of human existence beyond bodily death, and though I am unable to justify that belief in a full and complete manner, yet it is a belief which has been produced by scientific evidence that is based upon facts and experience.” —Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S. 72 Sir Oliver Lodge Terhaps the most eminent English-speaking scholar in the investigation of psychical phenomena. CHAPTER IV EUSAPIA PALADINO: THE ITALIAN MEDIUM Spiritism seems to be no respecter of persons. The power of mediumship may come to a cultured uni¬ versity graduate like William Stainton Mo6es; it may come to an ignorant Italian peasant woman like Eu- sapia Paladino. Imagine the latter, heavy featured except for her wonderful dark liquid eyes, never able to read or write, not able even to speak correct Italian, but using habitually a corruption of the Apulian dialect, but observed for years with interest, almost with awe, by the greatest scholars of Europe. Eusapia is a Neapolitan, born in 1854 at the tiny village o-f Minerno-Murge. Left as an orphan to the scant, if kindly, care of friends, while but a baby, she received an injury that may have something to do with her mediumistic powers. There is a marked de¬ pression in her head, the result of that early fall, and during the trance state a cool wind, which often ac¬ companies psychical phenomena, is felt to issue from this “opening.” In the house of her peasant friends her powers first became manifest through the queer antics of furni¬ ture and bric-a-brac. But her rise in fame has been spectacular. The humble servant and saleswoman, turned out of her first employment for her ignorance 73 74 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? and laziness, is now the protegee of nobility—the Duke of the Abruzzi is among her patrons—and the confi¬ dante of scientists. Incidentally, her mediumship has made her wealthy. But she is still the peasant woman, her coarseness softened a little by suffering and by traces of the stress of many seances, her eyes sharpened a little with the native shrewdness of her class. Yet in appearance she is anything but striking; in temperament she is often peevish, sometimes malicious—sometimes exhibiting a certain pride and dignity. On one occasion, for instance, “she was staying with the Grand Dukes in Saint Petersburg: the Grand Duchess often sent for her to come and talk to her or keep her company in the drawing-room, but when visitors came she made an imperious sign, showing her the door. Twice Eusapia rather reluctantly obeyed, but at last she rebelled, and, planting herself in front of the princess, she said: ‘Madame la Grande Duchesse, you doubtless mistake me for a basket which is carried to market when it is required, and left in a corner when it is done with. Either I shall remain in the drawing-room with all the visitors, or I shall leave the castle.’ “And the princess by blood, not to discontent the princess of spiritism, consented that she should remain in the drawing-room.” 1 Considering her temperament, her lack of education, she is in truth hardly the person one would choose at random as the messenger with another world. Yet ’From a Biography of Eusapia Paladino, by Mme. Paola Carrara (the daughter of Lombroso). See the review in the Annals of Psychical Science t v. 6, p. 217. Eusapia Paladino Most famous of living ''physical” mediums, from a photograph taken at the beginning of her mediumship II ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 75 to this humble Neapolitan country woman seems vouch¬ safed a power that is revolutionizing psychical science and reviving the hopes of all humanity. The Beginning of Eusapia’s Mediumistic Career Eusapia lacks initiative even in her spiritistic mani¬ festations. Her seance-room habits and conventions are the typical ones of spiritualism as it developed in this country, for it was to a Sig. Damiani, an ardent spiritist who had learned of American spiritualism while in England, that she owed her earliest develop¬ ment. He first became acquainted with her in 1872, discovered her mediumistic powers, and the ten years following were a period of slow development and locally increasing fame under his tuition. 1 As far back as 1888, however, Eusapia had attracted the notice of a number of scientists, and already num¬ bered among her friends such men as Professor Chiaia, of Naples. Convinced himself of the genuineness of her phenomena, he endeavored to secure wider scien¬ tific cooperation in his investigations, especially that of his friend Lombroso, the eminent criminologist. Lom- broso had been openly and even contemptuously skep¬ tical of all psychic phenomena; and it was not till February, 1891, when Professor Chiaia’s accounts of the alleged wonders had beeen corroborated by numer¬ ous others, that he consented to investigate for him¬ self. Of these first important sittings in Naples, M. Flam- marion, the noted French astronomer and author, is 1 Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 334. 76 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? our chief chronicler. In fact, his book, Mysterious Psychic Forces, is mainly a record of these first for¬ mal investigations of Eusapia. The seances took place in a room chosen by Lom- broso himself in a local hotel, and the arrangements were entirely under his direction. Among those pres¬ ent, besides Lombroso, were Professors Gigli, Limon- celli and Vizioli, and M. Bianchi, then superintend¬ ent of the insane asylum at Sales. At their first seance several hours passed by without marked result, and, as is often the case, bade fair to be a failure. “But,” says Flammarion, telling the story, “when MM. Limoncelli and Vizioli were taking leave, the medium being still seated and bound, and all of us standing around the table conversing . . . we heard noises in the alcove, and saw . . . the round table which was behind them slowly advancing toward Mme. Paladino, still seated and bound. “On seeing this strange, unexpected phenomena oc¬ cur in full light, we were all stupefied with amazement. M. Bianchi and M. Lombroso’s nephew dashed into the alcove, under the impression that some person concealed there was producing the movement of the portieres and the round table. Their astonishment was unbounded when they ascertained that there was no one there, and that, under their very eyes, the table continued to glide over the floor in the direction of the medium.” 1 At another time says M. Flammarion: “I saw, and plainly saw, the rough deal table (a table 'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 148-9. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 77 a yard long and nearly two feet wide and resting on four feet) rise up several times from the floor and, without any contact with visible objects, remain sus¬ pended in the air, several inches above the floor, dur¬ ing the space of two, three and even four seconds. “This experiment was renewed in full light without the hands of the medium and of the five persons who formed the chain about the table touching the latter in any way.” 1 Succeeding sittings of the Naples series gave fur¬ ther manifestations: the more common poltergeist phe¬ nomena—that is, the ringing of bells, the throwing of objects about the darkened seance room, twitchings of hair and beard, etc.—as well as the materialization of ghostly hands. So significant were the results ob¬ tained that Lombroso was forced to admit a growing confusion in his own mind, if not actual belief in these “occult” phenomena. “I regret,” he wrote to a friend about this time, “that I combated with so much per¬ sistence the possibilities of the facts called spiritualis¬ tic.” Lombroso’s interest and provisional conversion were contagious. So great was the weight of his authority that other coteries of scientists were eager to investi¬ gate the pretensions of the Neapolitan peasant woman. Eusapia was at this time married and living humbly in a poorer quarter of Naples. With some reluctance she consented to new tests of her powers, concerning which, it may be noted here, she had no theories and even, it seemed, but little curiosity. She went to Milan, giving sittings there in the pri- 'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 180. 78 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? vate home of a M. Finzi. The sittings were again under the direct control of Lombroso himself, assisted by Dr. Ermacora, professor of natural philosophy at Milan University, and M. Gerosa, a physicist of inter¬ national repute. Every effort was made to obviate fraud in the medium and self-delusion in the investigators. The latter formed an imposing company, including, be¬ sides those named above, Charles du Prel, professor of philosophy at the University of Munich; Charles Richet, of Paris, an earnest and experienced student of psychic phenomena; Schiaparelli, director of the observatory at Milan; and M. Aksakof, councilor of state of the Emperor of Russia, and destined later to secure even more remarkable results from Eusapia. Yet these sittings were a complete success, resulting in the almost unqualified adherence of every member present to the astounding nature of the phenomena ob¬ served. In their efforts to secure material proof, attempts were made, and successfully, to photograph levitated tables as the latter floated without support in the air. Prints of “astral” (spirit?) hands were made on smoked paper prepared for the purpose; yet the me¬ dium’s hands, examined immediately, were found free of any sign of soot. The medium herself was levitated and the spectral hands were seen on several occasions. As a variation of her ordinary experiments, Eusapia would project, without contact (that is, so she would assert), a force capable of making impressions in clay or plaster. “In full light,” says M. Flammarion of another occa¬ sion, “Eusapia calls M. Morselli, and, controlled by ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 79 the two persons next her, brings him with her toward the table, upon which is placed a mass of modeling plaster. She takes his open hand and pushes it three times toward the plaster, as if to sink the hand into it and leave upon it an impression. M. Morselli’s hand remains at a distance of more than four inches from the mass; nevertheless, at the end of the seance, the experimenters ascertain that the lump of plaster con¬ tains the impression of three fingers— deeper prints than it is possible to obtain directly by means of volun¬ tary pressure .” 1 We are told that Eusapia’s clay impressions are usu¬ ally profiles; “these profiles have a certain resemblance to a Eusapia grown old, and in fact are said to be reproductions of the face of ‘John King’ [her control], her father in a former life.” 2 We have already noted the general impression made at this time upon the investigators. Lombroso was at least ready to admit the probability of the existence of hitherto unknown forces. M. Sully-Prudhomme, the famous poet and author, member of the French Academy and a witness some¬ what later of many of the phenomena under con¬ sideration, wrote: “My conviction is that I witnessed phenomena which I cannot relate to any ordinary physical law. My im¬ pression is that fraud, in any case, is more than im¬ probable—at least so far as concerns the displacement at a distance of heavy articles of furniture arranged ‘Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 183-4. (The italics are mine.) 2 Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 354 - 80 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? by my companions and myself. That is all that I can say about it.” 1 Enrico Morselli, professor of psychology at the Uni¬ versity of Genoa, believed most of the phenomena ob¬ served by him to be genuine; and Dr. Porro, the noted astronomer, director in turn of the observatories at Genoa and Turin and of the National Observatory of the Argentine Republic, at La Plata, stated in a care¬ ful and detailed report: “The phenomena are real. They cannot be explained either by fraud or hallucina¬ tion.” 2 Morselli in May, 1907, reiterates the same view at greater length in a careful summing up of Eusapia’s place in spiritualism: “There can no longer be any doubt as to the reality of Eusapia’s phenomena. They have now been seen by too many persons under excellent conditions of verification, with the full certainty that the medium had not her hands and feet free, and that many of the phenomena occurred at a distance which excluded all possibility of deception; and there are now too many trustworthy men, accustomed to observe and experi¬ ment, who say that they have now become convinced that Eusapia’s mediumship is genuine. “We have now got far beyond the time when her phenomena could be explained by the exchange of hands and feet in the dark; the method of inquiry into her phenomena is very different. ... In fact, none of the most celebrated mediums are accredited by so many explicit declarations by scientific men of the 'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 177. 'Ibid., p. 178. Plaster Casts of Impressions in Clay Produced at a distance by an unknown force. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 81 foremost rank; no one, from Home and F. Cook on¬ ward, has allowed the introduction into the sittings of scientific instruments and methods with so much tolerance as Paladino,” 1 At the earlier date of which we are writing, how¬ ever, there still lurked with Charles Richet, the cau¬ tious, in common with the great majority even of the professed psychical researchers, a remnant of anti- mystical presupposition. “I laughed at Crookes and his experiments,” wrote Richet; and this bias was hard to overcome. “Cer¬ tainty,” he well says, “follows on habit rather than observation.” He determined to subject Eusapia to even more rigid tests and more varied experiments. In his new studies Richet was joined by two eminent in¬ vestigators, Von Schrenck-Notzing and Siemiradski, of the French Institute; yet in their new investiga¬ tions—this was in 1894—they could still find no trace of fraud, and manifestations occurred more wonder¬ ful than any that had preceded. Still unconvinced, however—for such is the strength of scientific doubt—Richet invited Eusapia to his own home. Here for three months the ignorant peasant woman dumfounded his expert scientific knowledge and met successfully every test imposed. “Alone with her and Ochorowicz [a noted psychologist], a man of penetrating perspicacity, I renewed my experiments in the best possible conditions of solitude and quiet reflection. We thus acquired,” wrote Richet, “a posi¬ tive proof of the reality of the facts announced at Milan.” 1 Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, pp. 328-9. 82 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? It was natural, of course, that the English Society for Psychical Research should by this time have heard of and should have wished to investigate phenomena of such importance. Lengthy reports of her exploits had appeared in the most scholarly journals of France and Italy; the savants who had observed had utterly failed to find evidence of fraud, and were almost a unit in their acceptance of the phenomena. The Downfall of Eusapia in England After some delay, at the invitation of M. Richet, an English committee, consisting of Professor Oliver Lodge, Mr. Myers and Professor J. Ochorowicz, held sittings with Eusapia; and they, like all previous in¬ vestigators, became convinced of the genuineness of the phenomena she produced. These sittings were, however, strongly criticized by that militant critic, Dr. Hodgson, an expert in the detection of psychic fraud; and finally, for his benefit, another series was held in Cambridge, England. Here he succeeded in discovering the medium in actual trickery, for the first time, but beyond ques¬ tion. Eusapia was consequently “immediately dropped by the society.” “She had been detected in trickery,” adds Mr. Carrington, summing up this controversy, “and, according to the standards of the society, that was enough to condemn her from future publicity, so far as they were concerned. . . . The continen¬ tal investigators, convinced that the medium did not always practise fraud of the kind discovered by Dr. Hodgson, continued their researches, and (apparently) showed that phenomena were produced when trickery was not possible—at least trickery of the sort Dr. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 83 Hodgson detected. So strong was this new evidence, indeed, that Mr. Myers and Professor Lodge retracted their former beliefs, and became more than ever con¬ vinced that supernormal phenomena did occasionally happen in Eusapia’s presence, while perfectly willing to admit that fraud had been practised at Cambridge, and would account for all the phenomena there wit¬ nessed. . . J ’ 1 The case seemed at that time very evidently one where the unbiased investigator could not, although that would be of course the easy way, discard all the phenomena as fraudulent and worthless. He had still to weigh and “prove” (test). This was in fact the situation regarding Eusapia till as recently as two years ago. On the one hand she had been once convicted of deliberate fraud, giving, of course, a strong presumption that all her phenomena were fraudulent. She had been officially discredited by the foremost psychical society in the world, the English Society for Psychical Research; and among English-speaking scientists was generally believed a daring and skilful impostor. On the other hand there was the testimony of a hundred or more scholars and investigators of the first rank. There were the cases of Myers and Sir Oliver Lodge, actual witnesses of her fraud, and yet later reconverted to belief in her supernormal powers. There were the proofs of M. Flammarion, who, like Sir William Crookes, not satisfied with the evidence of his own eyes, on several occasions took photographs of tables levitated by the medium while they floated in ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 11, 13. 84* ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? mid-air. 1 And there was finally a very striking test made some years before by M. Aksakoff, who “obtained a levitation, in the seances at Milan, after having tied Eusapia’s feet with two strings, the ends of which were short and had been sealed to the floor very near each foot.” 2 Two years ago the student of mediumship might very well have said: “The truth of the matter prob¬ ably is that Eusapia has genuine powers; but, when they are dormant and dilatory, she cannot resist the natural temptation ‘to help the “spirits” along a little.’ Were hers the only testimony we would be justified in throwing it all out of court; having, however, evidence of genuine table levitation in other cases, we can but give an unbiased presentation of her case, mentioning it at all simply because of its wide notoriety and his¬ torical importance.” But that was the situation two years ago. Since then she has given new proofs of her powers, so con¬ vincing in the nature of the tests imposed that it may be fairly said that a new era in psychic research has been inaugurated. There have been, as we have noted, a number of conventions in the conduct of the seance most irri¬ tating to those striving to obviate trickery: these con¬ ventions Eusapia has boldly defied. For instance, here¬ tofore the mystic phenomena could supposedly occur only in a darkened room: some of Eusapia’s most wonderful manifestations have been in daylight or 'These were reproduced in his book. Though interesting, they were taken under circumstances too adverse (photograph¬ ically) to be conclusive. “Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 156, footnote. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 85 the full glare of electric light. The “influences” sup¬ posedly could not work away from their familiar haunts: Eusapia’s greatest triumphs have been in the coldly unsympathetic interiors of physical laboratories surrounded by scientific precision instruments regis¬ tering with exactitude every phase of her manifesta¬ tions. The usual medium is able to work only in a secret cabinet and does not allow herself to be touched: Eusapia has effected wonders as great as any in the history of mediumship while her hands and feet were tightly held and without the aid of any cabinet what¬ ever. At last, and for the first time, we would seem to have psychic phenomena brought out from the baf¬ fling obscurity of mysticism, superstition—and fraud— into the dazzling white light of purely scientific test and observation—surely no inconsiderable achieve¬ ment! A New Series of Sittings in Genoa The climax of Eusapia’s mediumship, the sittings held within the past year at Naples, were fittingly an¬ ticipated by series of most remarkable sittings held in Turin, Genoa and Milan. In 1905 Eusapia had spent a long visit in Paris, but with comparatively slight results. Returning to Italy, in the latter part of the same year, a new series was given in Milan before the local Societe d’Etudes Psychiques. This series was under the auspices of the Corriere della Sera, an important daily newspaper of northern Italy, and under the direc¬ tion of such authorities as Lombroso and Fogazzaro. In 1892 the then proprietor of the Corriere had been instrumental in detecting Eusapia in gross fraud, name- 86 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? ly that tricky releasing of a hand or foot from control that had killed her pretensions in England. At this time, however, Eusapia so far redeemed herself as to actually convert to spiritism the paper’s present edi¬ tors. The reports of the Milan sittings were fea¬ tured in the Cornere, and, tho inconclusive, created no little comment. 1 This Milan series was quickly overshadowed in im¬ portance, however, by the Genoa sittings, held under the direction of Dr. Henrico Morselli, of whom men¬ tion has already been made, the professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Genoa. Among his confreres were M. Bozzano, an expert in spiritistic investigation; a Dr. Venzano, M. Berisso, an artist, and his wife, at whose home the seances were held; and M. Barzini, editor of the Corriere della Sera. The medium, previous to the seance, was completely undressed and searched. During the sittings her hands and feet were carefully controlled. The room was lighted, adequately if feebly, by an alcohol lamp. To prevent the intrusion of a possible confederate the doors were sealed on the inside. At the very first seance there were remarkable ex¬ amples of levitation, apports 2 and materialization. For instance, says M. Barzini: “A big table weighing eighty pounds, standing in a corner by the window, on which we had placed cases containing photographic plates, frames, a metronome, . . . a dynamometer and other objects, approached 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. HQ- 2 “Apports” are articles suddenly introduced into the seance room by the medium with no visible origin; in other words, matter apparently spontaneously created from thin air. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 87 us, then withdrew again. A frame came and lay in my hand. Suddenly our plates were thrown on the ground; the frames followed them. Dr. Morselli was fearing for the fate reserved for his metronome when we heard it mysteriously set going and ticking regular¬ ly. A few moments later the machinery was stopped, resumed its movement and was again stopped. . . . Metronomes are not in the habit of doing this on their own account: the experience elicited exclamations of surprise from us.” At once the metronome, “doubt¬ less feeling flattered,” as Barzini humorously says, jumped blithely of its own accord over on to the table before the medium “and began cheerily to beat time’* there. All this happened in a good light. 1 At the second seance Professor Morselli had hung two photographic plates on sticks tied to the back of Eusapia’s chair. These were to register possible radia¬ tions emanating from the medium. During the seance they heard “a delicate and restrained sound” behind the medium. Upon looking they saw to their aston¬ ishment that the knots fastening the vertical sticks to the chair were slowly untying themselves. The blue and white strings, plainly seen, were “patiently un¬ done” by invisible fingers. Then, to complete the won¬ der, the photographic frames did not fall when loose, but gently floated away into the cabinet. 2 At this seance, too, there was an excellent example of what is often referred to as “bulgings” of the cabi¬ net curtain. So clear is M. Barzini’s description of 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 122. ’Ibid, p. 123. 88 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? this case—a typical one—that it is worth repeating verbatim. “Dr. Morselli felt himself touched in several places by the moving curtain. He thought he observed be¬ hind the curtain the presence of a complete human form, whose body leaned against his, the arms pressing against him; we all saw the arms wrapped round by the curtain. “I got up suddenly, drawing the medium against me, and I put my head between the opening of the cur¬ tains to look into the cabinet. ... It was empty. Professor Morselli felt behind the curtain at the spot where it bulged out, and was assured that it was empty. What, from the outside, appeared to be a moving hu¬ man body covered by the curtain, was, on the inside, a cavity in the stuff, an empty mold. “It reminded one of Wells’ Invisible Man. I then wished to touch the bulging part of the curtain on the outside . . . and I encountered the effectual re¬ sistance of a living head. I distinguished the fore¬ head, I moved the palm of my hand downward on to the cheeks and on the nose, and when I touched the lips the mouth opened and seized me under the thumb; I distinctly felt the strain of a clean bite. At the same moment a hand pressed against my chest and pushed me back, the curtains swelled out and fell back inert. All this time the medium remained in view.” 1 At the third seance Professsor Morselli caught Eusapia in her usual fraud. She had, unnoticed for a moment by him, released her left hand and was reach- l Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 120-5. The italics are mine. In a half-million-doilar building devoted to the The Lonely Isle Roubaud, in the Mediterranean, study of psychical phenomena. Where Eusapia Paladino was investigated by Chas. Richet. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 89 ing toward a trumpet which they had laid on the table. He immediately cried in warning to the others “E. T. V.!” [a prearranged signal of detected trickery], and seized her hand again. Eusapia understood his cryptic “E. T. V.,” however, and said sadly: “Don’t say that!” Of course all the party at once redoubled the closeness of their watch upon her. Now comes the remarkable part, as Barzini says. “At this moment, while the control was certainly more rigorous than ever, the trumpet was raised from the table and disappeared into the cabinet. . . . Evidently the medium had attempted to do with her hand what she subsequently did mediumistically.’’ 1 This example of fraud would seem, if anything, to strengthen Eusapia’s position. If we are to believe a hundred reliable witnesses in thousands of instances her trickery is unnecessary. “Such a futile and fool¬ ish attempt at fraud is,” as Barzini says, “inexplica¬ ble.” Unless, as perhaps it is, it is actually involuntary. Lombroso, after remarking that Eusapia “often lacks common sense, but she has an intuition and intelligent subtlety which contrast with her lack of culture,” adds: “Ingenuous to such a degree that she lets herself be imposed upon and taken in by any intriguer, she yet sometimes—before and during the trance—shows a degree of cunning which often amounts to deceit. Thus on one occasion she was seen to pull out a hair in order to place it on the plate of a little balance in such a way as to depress it; another time she was sur¬ prised while secretly getting some flowers to simulate 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 208. 90 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? an apport and forming of her handkerchief with her hands some mannikins to represent phantoms.” Why should she attempt to do these things fraudu¬ lently when she has apparently proved again and again her ability to do them genuinely? Why, indeed? At the fourth seance there were two especially re¬ markable levitations. “The table rose in the air to the height of our shoulders, completely isolated, and while Dr. Venzano counted the seconds aloud, so as to time the duration of the phenomenon, the table marked each second as it was counted by raising and lowering one of its ends. . . . As we followed the count of seconds we were amazed at its length. But the table evidently felt some pride in its performance, as it continued pluckily; when sixty seconds had been counted, the table fell back to the ground. . . .” 1 A little later it went up again, floating this time seventy-eight seconds, which may be said to break the levitation record! In fact, at this sitting, the psychic forces, whatever they might be, appeared to be especially obliging. “Unknown to the others,” continues the record, “Dr. Morselli had brought with him a piece of string, about sixteen inches long; this he laid on the table. The string disappeared, then came back, wagging like the tail of an animal. The professor examined it and then said, in a tone of disappointment ‘. . . I wanted to see it knotted.’ ” It evidently had not understood what was expected of it; but, as Barzini says, ‘it was not lacking in good will,’ for it at once mysteriously 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 210-11. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 91 vanished, only to reappear instantaneously shortly after with three neat knots tied in it at regular intervals. 1 There were numerous materializations, especially of hands and of shadowy and more or less vaporous ap¬ pearances. Sometimes these were felt; occasionally the experimenters were able to clasp the etheric members. “The feeling,” says M. Barzini, . . was very curious; they did not escape from my grasp; they dis¬ solved, so to speak. They slipped out of my hands as if they had collapsed. They seemed like hands that had very rapidly melted and dissolved, after manifest¬ ing a high degree of energy, and an absolutely life-like appearance while performing actions.” 2 The First Turin Seances Shortly after the Genoa sittings, in February, 1906, Lombroso held a new series with Eusapia, this time in Turin. The company present was a representative one: Drs. Imoda and Audenino, assistants to Prof. Lombroso; M. Pomba, an engineer; Count Guy Bor- relli; two lawyers, M. Maris and M. Jacques Bar- baroux; M. Emile Barbaroux; Dr. Joseph Roasenda; Dr. Norlenghi, a member of the municipal council of Turin; Professor Jannacone, of the University of Turin; M. Bocca, a publisher; two ladies, one an American, and Sig. Mucchi, a newspaper man. The sittings were held, this time not at a private house, but in the psychiatrical laboratory of the university. Every precaution was taken to obviate fraud; although “none 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 211. “From the report by M. Barzini in the Corriere della Sera, of Milan. Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 210. 92 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? of the most important phenomena which occurred,” says Sig. Mucchi in his report, “left room for the slightest suspicion of trickery. They were all of such a kind that they could not be imitated even by the cleverest jugglery.” Moreover, this time the room \vas lit by electric light l 1 Manifestations began almost immediately. “A cold wind came from behind the curtain, which suddenly opened as if it had been opened by two hands. A hu¬ man head came out, with a pale, haggard face, of sin¬ ister evil aspect. It lingered a moment and then dis¬ appeared.” 2 A moment later “a woman’s small hand . . . reappeared near the curtain, seized one of the feet of the footstool, and pushed it. Sig. Mucchi broke the chain [of hands] and, by a rapid action, seized the warm hand, which at once seemed to dissolve and dis¬ appeared.” 3 At the close of the seance the reporter placed his hand on the deep scar which the medium has on the left side of her head and felt a cold, strong, continuous breeze issuing from it, like a human breath. He sub¬ sequently felt the same cold breeze issuing, though less strongly, from the tips of her fingers. It was at the third sitting that Dr. Mucchi became involved in a weird struggle with the invisible entities that seemed to be at work around them. A mass of' clay had been placed within the cabinet in the hope that Eusapia might be able to produce some of her 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 305. *Ibid., p. 306. s Ibid., p. 306. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 93 inexplicable molds therein. After some waiting they were told “typtologically”—that is, by rappings with¬ in the table—“The impression is made.” Eager to view the result, Dr. Mucchi rose and went toward the cabinet. “I was about to enter,” he says . . but was repelled by two hands made of noth¬ ing. I felt them; they were agile and prompt; they seized me and pushed me back. The struggle lasted for some time; the hands seemed to take pleasure in resisting me; they pushed me back if I tried to enter, and pulled me forward if I retired. I ended by seiz¬ ing the lump of clay . . .” whereupon “they thrust me out with a violent shove that nearly upset every¬ thing. There were observable on the clay two or three impressions such as might be made by a closed fist.” 1 Was there ever a stranger combat? A strong man in a desperate physical struggle with—thin air! In¬ explicable, you may say, nay, impossible! Yet there was an abundant if dim electric light: Dr. Mucchi is a skilled observer: this phenomena is of a piece with scores of well-authenticated other instances. Surely the thing cannot be airily smiled away. A little later a mandolin lying on the table in the plain sight of every one played of itself; the strings throbbing separately or in unison without any visible cause. “One of us was asked to play on the medium’s fingers as if they were a mandolin; a string sounded in correspondence with each touch, and if the touch was vague the sound was incomplete or strident.” But the still was not all. Shortly afterward “a hand, which suddenly materialized, seized the instrument by 'Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 309. 94- ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? the handle and placed it on the shoulder of the player, and there, under his very nose, the strings shook and twanged.” Then “the hand dissolved and disap¬ peared.” 1 At both the third and fourth sittings appeared an¬ other example of that, even with Eusapia, rare phe¬ nomena, what appeared to be a materialized head. It acted as though it were one known to Pomba, the engineer: reaching out from the curtain its two hands, it held him with a caressing gesture while it kissed him. This appearance was seen by all present, being plainly visible, though at no time sharply defined. It seemed indeed to be continually varying in size, dimin¬ ishing and increasing visibly, “so that sometimes it appeared to be that of an adult, sometimes that of a child. It was evidently subject to the variations of the emission of the mediumistic force . . . the medium seemed more fatigued when the head was more largely developed.” 2 But, alas for the easy path toward complete belief, again there was a brazen example of trickery. One of the most astounding phenomena of the Genoa sit¬ tings had been a registration of 242 pounds pressure on a dynamometer, showing a greater strength than that exerted by the strongest man. Who or what could have so powerfully affected the instrument? This time the invisible fingers at work on the in¬ strument were observed more carefully, and “John” was caught tampering with the needle in an unusually clever way. 3 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5 , p. 310. 2 Ibid., p. 313. ‘Ibid,, pp. 311-12. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 95 Yet alas too for the decryer of all these phenomena, for he must admit: 1. That apparently invisible fingers were perform¬ ing the trick! 2 . That strength pressures of nearly 150 pounds were exerted time and again in the production of levi¬ tations which the witnesses claimed were indisputable. Truly it is a tangled thread to unsnarl. 1 The Second Turin Seances So suggestive had these Turin sittings been, so im¬ portant the results obtained, that they had hardly been finished ere Eusapia was prevailed upon to give a sup¬ plementary series in the same place. The latter sit¬ tings were under the auspices of Drs. Amedeo Herlitz- ka, Carlo Foa and Alberta Aggazotti, all professors in the University of Turin and assistants of the famous psychologist, Professor Mosso, all comparatively young men, but all enthusiastic, if cold-blooded, re¬ searchers in laboratory science, absolutely devoid of anything like superstition, and considering poor Eu¬ sapia merely as a case in abnormal psychology, whose strange manifestations must be weighed and dissected in the interests of pure science. Imagine the sensation that set half Europe on the qui vive when these researchers prefaced the careful report resulting with these words: “The conditions under which the seances occurred are of a nature to afford peculiar guarantees that we were the victims neither of fraud, nor of clever charlatans, nor of hal- ‘For a detailed account of the first Turin sittings see the report by Sig. Mucchi in La Stampa, a Milanese journal. See also the Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 305-14. 96 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? lucination.” Nay, rather the phenomena seemed to them inexplicably but most wonderfully genuine; and they said with convincing boldness: “Now that we are persuaded of the authenticity of the phenomena, we feel it our duty to state the fact publicly in our turn, and to proclaim that the few pioneers in this branch of biology (destined to become one of the most im¬ portant) generally saw and observed correctly.” 1 They, like the other scientists, preferred the evidence of exact instruments to that even of their own eyes and ears. Hence the presence of a dynamometer, a revolving self-registering cylinder connected electric¬ ally with a switch, and photographic plates wrapped in light-proof paper. Besides the experimenters there were present only Count Verdun, in whose house the seances took place, Dr. Imoda, the Chevalier Rostain and “a lady.” The first sitting, as is generally the case, was comparatively lacking in interest, though there was considerable poltergeist phenomena; but at the second, at which a Dr. Arullani had been added to the company, occurred one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of spiritualism. Toward the middle of the evening there had been a number of remarkable levitations, “table No. i” having floated high in the air, over the heads, indeed, of some of the company, also turning itself over. “Table No. i” was described as “a strong table of white wood, about two feet nine inches high and three feet long by twenty-two inches broad, weighing seventeen pounds.” When it had seemed to quiet down for a moment, Dr. Arullani, who was especially skeptical, approached it to 'The italics are mine. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 97 examine it closely; but “the piece of furniture, moving violently toward him, repulsed him.” 1 A moment later the medium announced quietly in her natural voice: “I am going to break the table.” “. . . All those who were on the left of the medium could observe, by a very good red light, the various movements of the table. The latter bent down and passed behind the curtain, followed by one of us (Dr. Carlo Foa), who saw it turn over, and rest on one of its two short sides, while one of the legs of the table came off violently, as if under the action of some force pressing upon it. At this moment, the table came violently out of the cabinet and continued to break up under the eyes of every one present; at first its different parts were torn off, then the boards them¬ selves went to pieces. Two legs which still remained united by a thin slip of wood floated above us and placed themselves on the seance table.” 2 Of this astounding phenomena there can seem to be, from the evidence, no question. The table cer¬ tainly existed, and after the seance was over was found “broken into . . . pieces of various sizes.” 3 Nor is there any doubt about its breaking: “the nails were torn out, the rivets and boards were broken.” 4 It hap¬ pened “in the midst of many witnesses, under good . . . light. The medium was most carefully controlled —during the occurrence of the most important phe¬ nomena, Eusapia’s legs were placed horizontally on our knees.”® 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 378-9. 'Ibid., p. 379. 'Ibid., p. 383. *Ibid., p. 385. 'Ibid., pp. 378-9. 98 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Furthermore, the strength required literally to pull to pieces such a table is enormous, greater in fact than most men could exert, to say nothing of Eusapia. But what did rend that table? The investigators in this case admit candidly their complete mystification. Dr. Pio Foa Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, University of Turin, and a student for many years of mediumistic phenomena. “I AM CONVINCED THAT AFTER DEATH MAN DOES NOT PERISH ENTIRELY.” I am convinced that after death man does not perish en¬ tirely; all of his individuality is not destroyed; his more noble and spiritual qualities persist in another life, higher and more comprehensive. It is a life which we do not know as yet, but which is revealed to us by an inner consciousness. The Bible and the sacred books speak to us of that other life, describing it in a language so picturesque and sincere that millions of men have believed that they were dictated to us by some one who must know perfectly the life beyond the grave. Man¬ kind has universally attributed these pages to divine origin, and has believed them to be a revelation made by God to man. The moment we admit the probability of man’s sur¬ vival after death we must also face the possibility of the doc¬ trine of spiritualism—that is, that it is possible that we are surrounded, in the air, by spirits or beings, their pure essence, which under special conditions may be able to manifest them¬ selves to us. The question becomes one of sufficient impor¬ tance to be worthy of scientific study and research. Thus we have to-day such men as Lombroso, Pio Foa, Richet, Flam- irarion, Sardou, Crookes, Stead and others, who are bringing all their intelligence to bear to try to investigate and deter¬ mine the nature of the force possessed by some individuals of moving objects at a distance without contact, and of cer¬ tain other mediumistic phenomena, materializations princi¬ pally. Personally, I have made a long series of investigations with the celebrated medium, Eusapia Paladino, who is a Neapolitan in origin. These experiments were made under strictly scien¬ tific conditions, with the assistance of Drs. Galeotti, de Amicis, Lombardi, and a few other eminent men, professors in the Uni- 99 100 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? versity of Naples. The question is most complex and difficult to solve. Up to the present time I would not say that we have suffi¬ cient proof to determine exactly the nature of these forces, or of the phenomena, if you prefer. But they exist and are real. That has been attested to so many times, by men of unimpeachable probity, that they are no longer to be denied. I know there are those who claim that Eusapia Paladino is a charlatan and a fraud, and that all of the scientific men are mere dupes. But those assertions are made by people who have never assisted at her seances. On my own account I can state that with me Eusapia has never resorted to tricks. I have seen a table, which was placed a yard away from the medium, moved about in broad daylight without being touched by any one. I have seen my own eye-glasses, which I wear without a string, picked up by an invisible hand when they had fallen on the floor, and placed gently on my nose again. I have seen a little lock of hair placed so softly on the table before us, by a force invisible, that we were not aware of what was being done until we saw it lying there. We have requested that flowers be placed on the table, and at a given moment they appeared on a whatnot, four feet away from the medium. The same nosegay I saw pass caressingly over the face of one of the scientists present, and pose itself on his knee. Twice I have seen a dark form, which might be a head, appear behind the head of Eusapia, when she was in a trance state. Gradually the form became lighter, pale, and then as if illuminated. Some one asked the medium who it was, and she answered in a feeble voice, “It is Peppino.” Another time Eusapia applied her forehead to mine, at the same time saying, “Look!” And we saw a human head, very pale, but clearly illuminated, appear behind her own. But I could go on indefinitely talking of my experiments with this medium, which have extended over a number of years. I quite understand that to the uninitiated much of this seems too strange for belief, and that only those who have had the experiences can really conceive of their reality. And as for the explanation of these manifestations, that will be for coming generations to solve. —Filippo Botazzi. CHAPTER V THE LATER MEDIUMSHIP OF EUSAPIA PALADINO While recent enthusiasm over Eusapia was still at white heat, Bottazzi and Galeotti, the one of the depart¬ ment of physics, the other professor of general path¬ ology, at the University of Naples, the medium’s na¬ tive city, determined on a new series of sittings. These were not so much for the purpose of imposing ad¬ ditional tests; for by this time the great majority of Italian investigators had come to consider fraud a dis¬ missed solution: but it was hoped that with increased knowledge of conditions favorable to mediumistic manifestation new and perhaps more startling data might be secured. In this they were not disappointed. Bottazzi’s introduction is a model of scientific cau¬ tion. “Barzini’s descriptions were excellent,” he writes, “but we wanted documents and proofs. So many, however, had already seen these, and yet had doubted; we ought to be able to furnish evidence analogous to that given in our scientific publications.” “Everything must be registered by writing and photography, i.e., all that can be registered. Will she be able to impress a photographic plate? Will she be able to illuminate a screen treated with platino-cyanide 101 102 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? of barium? Will she be able to discharge a gold-leaf electroscope without touching it?” 1 M. Bottazzi appreciated fully the vital weakness in the usual testimony of the seance. “To assert,” he says, “that Mr. X., being present at a particular seance, heard a touch upon a telegraphic key which had been placed in the cabinet out of reach of the medium’s visible hand, is obviously less valuable than to be able to show the incredulous public a graphic tracing of the movements of the electro-magnetic needle, connect¬ ed with the keyboard, recorded on a sheet of smoked paper at a considerable distance from the medium. For it is always possible to suggest that Mr. X. was the victim of hallucination. “It will not avail to add that the sounds were heard by all those present. The obstinately incredulous will reply: ‘That may be; but it was a case of collective hallucination.’ ” 2 Nor was the data in this way secured insufficiently scrutinized or carelessly collated. “I wrote the detailed account of the phenomena which occurred during each seance,” says Bottazzi, “sometimes on the same night, or else the following morning; and it is from these accounts, after I had interrogated my friends on certain doubtful or con¬ troverted points, that this report has been written with a calm and collected mind.” 3 How far Bottazzi’s mental attitude differed from that of the professed spiritualist is significantly shown by the phrase with which he opens the report of each 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 151. p. 261. “Ibid., p. 267 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 103 seance. It is a statement of religious theorizing or sentimental-hapsody? Not exactly. He begins thus: “First Seance (April lyth , 1907). “Barometric pressure at 9 p.m.: 760.79 mm.; tem¬ perature, 9.7 0 Cent.” 1 And this cold, precise exactitude, it may be noted here, is matched in much of the recent work with Eusapia. Listen, for instance, to a sample of Lom- broso’s description of the medium herself: is there any trace here of emotionalism or mysticism? Eusapia has, he says, “a stenocrotaphy—that is to say, the bizygomatic diameter of her head is larger than the frontal one (127 to 113) ; a dolichocephaly (73), which, however, is ethnic; a head of small circumfer¬ ence (530) ; an asymmetry in the cranium as well as in the face, the right side being more developed. The left eye presents the Claude Bernard-Horner phenome¬ non, as in the case of epileptics. The eyes are choroec- topic above and within, and react only feebly to light, but have good power of accommodation,” etc., etc. 2 Nor were the assistants invited by Bottazzi required to have spiritualistic leanings or even knowledge. On the other hand, “It was thought advisable to choose sitters quite new to mediumistic seances . . . per¬ sons whose scientific prestige was indisputable.” 3 Eusapia’s new inquisition, if we may call it that, showed, therefore, some new names, but those equally distinguished in scientific circles. Besides Galeotti 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 271. 'Ibid., pp. 167-8. ‘Ibid., p. 153. 104. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? and Bottazzi, there were M. Luigi Lombardi and Dr. Scarpa, both professors in the electrical department of the Naples Polytechnic High School; Dr. T. de Amicis, a physician and professor of dermatology in the Uni¬ versity of Naples; and Dr. Pansini, a noted expert in medical semeiotics; Emanuele Jona, an engineer, and president of the Italian Electro-technical Association; the venerable Senator Antonio Cardarelli, professor of clinical medicine at the university; and Nicola Minu- tillo, instructor in Roman law. Only a part of these persons were present at all the seances. The experiments took place in a room forming part of the physiological laboratories of the university. The walls were bare of curtain or ornament: the furniture the simplest: the cabinet, which Eusapia was not even allowed to touch, was one improvised by Bottazzi him¬ self. “Although she approached it, . . . and felt impelled several times to touch the outside of the cur¬ tain, she never,” he says, ‘‘put her hand into the cabinet, and never examined the interior of it, either before or during a seance.” 1 At all sittings her hands and feet were held contin¬ uously by two or more of the party, wary of the slight¬ est suspicious movement, and cognizant of every tremor, even, that she might make. Moreover, even in the selection and disposition of the scientific appa¬ ratus, effort was made to assure a minimum of oppor¬ tunity for fraud. “The receiving instruments which were to be put in motion, and the surface on which they rested, were generally, after the first seance, so firmly fixed, that, in spite of all her efforts, Paladino 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 268. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 105 could scarcely even move them. ... I passed the electric wire and the tubes through holes made in the wood,” says Bottazzi, ‘‘or I arranged them so that they only passed over a very small portion of the sur¬ face.” * 1 “The mediumistic chain was not always strictly maintained. In addition to two breaks demanded by Eusapia, Bottazzi, Galeotti and Scarpa frequently rose from their seats and left the room, either to put the cylinders in motion in the neighboring room, or to look for some string, asked for by Eusapia, or for some other reason. “Our seances have always been accompanied by a certain amount of movement on the part of those present; a convinced spiritist who was present at the seventh seance was scandalized by it; but this was very natural. Spiritists attend with their souls already at¬ tuned to admiration; their faith is absolute (so much the better for them and such as they), and nothing disturbs them. We, on the contrary, were disturbed by doubts, and I am not even now, as I write, free from them, after seven seances in which I have seen the oc¬ currence of phenomena in which fraud could play no part.” 2 “Often, Mine. Paladino, wheni completely entranced, was not satisfied with the contact of only two con¬ trollers, but she asked in a faint voice for the hand of another neighboring sitter, or she desired that a hand should be placed on her knees, and that she might lay her forehead on the head of one of the controllers.” 3 'Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 269-70. i Ibici., pp. 378-9. 3 Ibid., p. 380. 106 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? We cannot follow those momentous sittings in detail, but merely outline briefly a few of the more wonderful phenomena that occurred. We must remember that even the simplest poltergeist manifestations that oc¬ curred—the shaking of the table, the setting in motion of a metronome, the throwing of small objects about the room spontaneously, the beating of a drum—even these phenomena are wonderful enough when we con¬ sider the rigidity of the tests imposed by these zealous but skeptical savants. “We obliged her to do things she had never done before,” says Bottazzi naively; and surely they did! The Startling Materializations Produced at Naples But these phenomena sank into comparative insig¬ nificance, for, at the third sitting, in plain sight, a small table rose spontaneously and floated in midair, while, as Bottazzi notes, “we watched it in amazement”; and, at this same seance, at which Mme. Bottazzi was pres¬ ent, a great black hand and arm crept slowly out from behind the curtain of the cabinet, lightly touched Mme. Bottazzi, who happened to be nearest, frightening her severely, then apparently dissolved into thin air. Here was a phenomenon which defied explanation, which dazed belief. Imagine the impression it made on these sober, hard-headed men of science, apparently face to face with what an hour before they might well have called “impossible.” “We felt the sensation as of contact with a realhand,” says Bottazzi, reporting the phenomenon, “bony, nerv¬ ous, often neither hot nor cold, but sometimes hot; a hand, in fact, of flesh and bones and blood. To whom ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 107 does this hand belong, which is generally encountered more than half a yard away from the medium’s head, and while her visible hands are rigorously controlled by her two neighbors ? “Is it the hand of a monstrous long arm which liber¬ ates itself from the medium’s body, then dissolves, to ‘materialize’ afresh afterward ? “Is it something analogous to the pteropod of an amoeba, which projects itself from the body, then re¬ treats into it and appears again in another place? “Mystery l” 1 At a later sitting this same great black hand came out from the curtain and gently grasped Bottazzi by the nape of the neck. At this seance, Dr. Porro, the astronomer, was present. “Letting go Professor Por- ro’s hand,” says Bottazzi (Porro was next him in the circle), “I felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. It was a left hand, neither hot nor cold, with rough, bony Ungers, which dissolved under pressure. It did not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal; it dissolved, dematcrialized, melted.” These astral hands—“etheric hands” is the term Lombroso uses to describe them—are not always visi¬ ble; yet they would seem to be the active instruments in the production of the poltergeist phenomena. A mandolin plays itself; the keys of a typewriter strike of themselves spontaneously; an invisible something ripples over the keys of a piano; an electric light switch is closed repeatedly (a switch several feet from Eu- sapia, while her limbs are carefully controlled) ; a tiny electric dynamo is wound up and set going; a vase of 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 285-6. 108 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? flowers is transported about the room. These things happen, are attested to by unimpeachable witnesses. What causes them? “Astral hands?” Hands formed of some substance of which we know nothing, shot out from the body of the medium at will in different direc¬ tions and at lightning speed? “What a colossal fabrication!” the reader may ex¬ claim. “Why, that’s absolutely impossible!” Impossible? The scientist is coming to the point where he no longer dares call anything “impossible.” Impossible? when these pseudo limbs have been seen and handled, not once, but repeatedly! Dr. Giuseppe Venzano saw a monstrous, shadowy arm spring out spontaneously from Eusapia’s shoulder and grasp a glass of water; three other scientists pres¬ ent simultaneously witnessed the same thing. “At another time,” says Bottazzi, “later on, the same hand [the black hand of which mention has already been made] was placed on my right forearm—I saw a human hand, this time of natural color, and I felt with mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and nervous. The hand dissolved (/ saw it with my own eyes ) and retreated as if into Mme. Paladino’s body, describing a curve .” 1 Is there anything hesitating or equivocal about that statement? Bottazzi saw it, and, lest he alone might have been deceived, a dozen others saw similar phe¬ nomena. Fontenay gives a more detailed and significant de¬ scription of these materialized hands in their typical form. “The materialization was incomplete,” he says, 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 413. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 109 “or seemed so to me. It did not appear very solid, and, although the apparition was very rapid, it seemed to me that the fingers were not all distinct and separate from each other. I had the impression of an enormous crab’s claw rather than of a real hand. Imagine a lined mitten, or rather a very large hand, of which the thumb and forefinger were pressed together, and the three other fingers also pressed together. “This apparition was seen and described as I have just described it, with very slight variations, by the majority of those present.” 1 The hands, we are told, were of various sizes, some gigantic in dimensions, some normal; and lest there be any mistake about their objective reality, Bottazzi had photographs taken of them. 2 On another occasion, near the close of a sitting, the cabinet was opened somewhat inadvertently, and the ghostly fragments of arms and legs were found lying inside. “The apparitions, or materializations,” says Bottazzi, at another tme, “were numerous and multiple. . . . I saw hands and closed fists appear over Mme. Pala- dino’s head, in the opening between the curtains ; some¬ times they were of ordinary size, at others at least three times larger than Mme. Paladino’s hand and fist. Twice I advanced my hand rapidly to seize them, chief¬ ly because those farthest off affirmed that these were objects presented by the usual invisible hand; but I 'Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 182. s Some of similar photographs of “materialized hands’’ are reproduced in this volume. 110 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? was always too late; the apparition dissolved, and I found the space vacant .” 1 At the eighth sitting Eusapia was controlled in a way that would seem to destroy any lingering shred of an opportunity for fraud. Eleavy cords were bound tight¬ ly about her wrists, these were led through iron rings sunk in the floor, and the ends sealed with lead seals, similar to those used in this country to secure the doors of freight cars. Tightly bound as she was, so tightly bound as to be hardly able to move, other pre¬ cautions were not relaxed in the slightest. Yet, for¬ tunately for the adherents of spiritualism, there were continued levitations and striking materializations of Eusapia’s astral limbs. Galeotti, who happened to be holding Eusapia’s right arm, suddenly cried: “I see two left arms identical in appearance. One is on the little table, and it is that which Mme. Bottazzi touches. [Mme. Bottazzi was “controlling” the medium on the other side.] The other seems to come out of the medium’s shoulder, to approach and touch Mme. Bottazzi, and then return and melt into the medium’s body again. This is not an hallucination. I am awake. I am conscious of two simultaneous visual sensations, which I experience when Mme. Bottazzi says she has been touched .” 2 Another remarkable phenomenon in connection with Eusapia’s manifestations of which mention should be made was the strange lights which appeared. In the fourth sitting, simultaneously with the materializations, 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 383-4. 2 Ibid., p. 422. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Ill little curling tongues of flame, pale mauve in color, had floated across the curtains of the cabinet. At other times these flames appeared above Eusapia’s head. “They seemed to me,” says Bottazzi, “like little flames, in size like those of an ordinary candle, but shorter and not of yellow light, but rather violet, more luminous in the center, more attenuated at the periphery; they seemed to disengage themselves from the body of the medium, then rose with a slow, undu¬ lating movement, dissolving into space .” 1 At the Turin sittings lights appeared which also “started from the medium’s head, but they were pro¬ jected like a minute Roman candle .” 2 Is This Psychic Energy a Form of Radio-Activity? What was the nature and cause of these luminous appearances, not uncommon at spiritualistic seances, but rarely, if ever, before under expert scientific ob¬ servation? In the light of the then recent discoveries of the Curies the answer came almost spontaneously: Might they not be some form of radio-activity? And experiment seemed to confirm the suggestion. Flammarion noted a “diaphanous luminosity” issuing from the hole, as well as round the fingers, almost form¬ ing “a second misshapen outline.” Lombroso, in cor¬ roboration, noted that by merely holding a photo¬ graphic plate, masked by three thicknesses of light¬ proof paper, in the medium’s hand, an X-ray-like print of her index finger was made on the plate, as if there was radio-activity therein. Simultaneously, her hand 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 383. 'Ibid., p. 308. 112 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? shuddered convulsively and she went into the trance state. Lombroso, in fact, goes even further, and, in a care¬ ful summing up of the Paladino phenomena recently published, advances the daring theory that the spiritual agents themselves are composed of radio-active mat¬ ter. The*theory, coming from such a source, is indeed epoch-making, and his statement of it deserves to be quoted in his own words. “This is the first occasion, if I am not mistaken,” he says, “that we have come into intimate experimental contact with these phenomena—I will even say with the organism called spirit—with these transitory, im¬ palpable representatives of the life beyond, the existence of which is both maintained and disputed, through fear or through respect for universal tradition, renewed, as it is, by thousands of facts which occur constantly under our very eyes. And we find, as I already fore¬ saw some years ago, that these bodies belong to that other state of matter, the radiant state, which has now a sure foothold in science, and which is the only hy¬ pothesis which can reconcile the ancient, universal be¬ lief in the persistence of some manifestation of life after death, with the results of science .” 1 In fact, wonderful as these phenomena seem, their trend seems not at all in support of a spiritualistic hypothesis. Those that know most are still chary of explanation, but the greater part of the explanations that have been attempted have been along biological lines. The idea of an “astral body,” of the power of the 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 179. Colonel Albert De Rochas Propounder of the theory of the “astral double” and noted for his work in the photography of “etheric” bodies. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 113 human personality to project to a distance a more or less substantial image of itself, is not a new one to the student of occultism. Already, too, in the study of hyp¬ notism, De Rochas had taught the possibility of what he termed the “fluidic double.” He claimed that in the trance state the psychic herself, or the hypnotizer if the trance be hypnotic, is able to externalize limbs or even the complete body of the entranced subject. This “astral” externalization is visible to the subject as a cloud of smoky vapor; to the others present it is gen¬ erally invisible. Yet De Rochas claims to demonstrate the objective existence of the astral body. For instance, unnoticed by the psychic, he pinches the air where he thinks the astral body may be floating, and there is a resulting reflex on the corresponding portion of the psychic’s body. It is interesting to note in this connection that Morselli has discovered with Eusapia a marked “ex¬ ternalization of sensibility,” has succeeded in making her feel pin pricks in the air (her eyes being closed), “an inch or two from her skin .” 1 The “fluidic double” of De Rochas, as a whole, or in parts, forms itself in obedience to the thought of the medium or of those present. It moves with marvel¬ ous precision, regardless of darkness (in fact, light seems inimical to its production), and with wonderful swiftness. We have not yet considered one remarkable feature, the synchronism in movement between Eusapia’s invisi¬ ble (or visible) “astral” limbs and her natural body. This synchronism had been noted several years before. 1 Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 345. 114 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? At the earliest Naples sittings Flammarion noticed that almost imperceptible tremors of Eusapia’s hand coincided with blows struck several feet away, appar¬ ently by an invisible hand. Somewhat later it was recorded that the impressions of hands in clay syn¬ chronized with little convulsive pushes of Eusapia’s hands. But in these astounding Bottazzi sittings the corre¬ spondence was too complete to be mere coincidence. When the little table before mentioned commenced to move about the room it was seen that each little jerk¬ ing movement of the table was accompanied by a con¬ vulsive jerk from Eusapia. Says Bottazzi on this point: “Each advance of the table corresponded with the most perfect synchronism with the push of Eusa¬ pia’s legs against Jona’s knees—in other words she really executed movements identical with those that she would have made had she been pushing the table with her visible limbs.” At another time “a glass was flung from the cabinet by these invisible agencies, and this fling coincided exactly with a kick which Paladino gave to Jona, as if the same will governed both movements.” At another time “Eusapia said distinctly: T have touched the smoked cylinder; look at my fingers.’ She held out her one hand, then the other toward us. We carefully examined her fingers: there was no trace of smoke on them. On the cylinder, however, was very clearly visible the impression of little finger tips, like those of Eusapia .” 1 At another time Professor de Amicis was drawn to- 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 404-5. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 115 ward the cabinet with some force by an invisible arm. As he approached, the curtain bellied out and an in¬ visible face was pressed against his and invisible lips kissed his own. “At the same time,” says Bottazzi significantly, “Eusapia’s lips moved as if to kiss, and she made the sound of kissing, which we all heard.” During the fifth sitting occurred the mandolin play¬ ing already mentioned. The instrument lay before them in full light several feet from where Eusapia sat; yet as the strings moved so moved her finger tips in unison. “It would be necessary to have Paladino’s fingers in the palm of one’s hand,” says Bottazzi, and it was he who had them so on this occasion, “to be convinced that the evolutions, twangings of the strings, etc., all synchronized with the very delicate movements of her fingers, and with the dragging and pushing movements of the medium’s hand, as if she were directed in the execution of these movements by a will which knew the effect to be produced. These were not irregular, impulsive, disordered movements; they were precise and coordinated, whether they were movements of one finger or of several fingers, and were identical with those which we should make if we wished to seize or to vibrate the strings with precision and delicacy .” 1 In short, as Bottazzi himself says, “Whatever may be the mediumistic phenomenon produced, there is almost always at the same time movement of one or several parts of the medium’s body.” Moreover, there seemed to be with these “astral” limbs of Eusapia’s a continuous and very natural proc¬ ess of education to unaccustomed uses. She spoke as 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 389-90. 116 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? though they were veritable parts of her organism, but parts which were often inadequate and fumbling, the limbs of a child learning to walk, the fingers of a pianist training in dexterity. “During the seance Professor Galeotti and I in¬ vited in Italian, in French, and in English (these are small concessions that it is necessary to make to Eusapia’s deep-rooted predilections), to make the rod of the metronome move, to lower the balance and to press the ball of India-rubber; we afterward explained how these objects were made, and what movements should be made with the hands in order to move, to lower, and to press them. In vain! She excused her¬ self, saying that she did not find, or that she did not see these objects, or that she did not know how to do it. Then she complained that the objects were too far off, that she could not reach them. . . .” “In the following seances, as we shall see,” says Bottazzi, “Eusapia obeyed these same orders; the but¬ tons were pressed, the rod of the metronome was set swinging, etc., and the fact that we did not obtain these results in the first seances shows, in my opinion, that Eusapia needed to learn how to make these move¬ ments, with which her invisible hands were unfamiliar, just as she would have to learn to make them with her visible hands .” 1 Eusapia’s Manifestations and the Problem of the Future Life So far, therefore, from Eusapia’s manifestations helping to answer the question, “Are the dead alive?” 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 277-8. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 117 they seem at first glance but to render the issue more confusing. Are discarnate (disembodied) spirits necessary to an explanation of Eusapia’s poltergeist phenomena and materializations? “Not at all,” reply Morselli, Bot- tazzi, Porro, Foa, Galeotti and most of the eminent in¬ vestigators who have witnessed her exploits. More probably, say they, the explanation is purely biological; we have here to do with hitherto unsuspected powers of the bodily organism, powers very wonderful and im¬ portant, but not all mystical or in any respect spiritual. “One thing is certain,” says Bottazzi, for instance, “that it is not a being, foreign to the organism of the medium, who produces the mediumistic phenomena; because she herself is aware of them, and she either indicates this by her words or it becomes apparent through the relation which the phenomena bear to other accompanying incidents .” 1 On the other hand, the most eminent of them all, Lombroso himself, like our own Crookes, maintains now that some theory of discarnate spirits is the only one adequately explaining all the phenomena. In sup¬ port of this view, Lombroso relates the following sig¬ nificant manifestation: “One day Eusapia said to M. R.: ‘This phantom comes for you.’ She then fell at once into a profound trance. A woman of great beauty appeared, who had died two years before; her arm and shoulders were covered by the edge of the curtain, in such a way, however, as to indicate the form. Her head was cov¬ ered with a very fine veil; she breathed a warm breath 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 397. 118 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? against the back of M. R.’s hand, carried his hand up to her hair, and very gently bit his fingers. Meanwhile, Eusapia was heard uttering prolonged groans, showing painful effort, which ceased when the phantom disap¬ peared. The apparition was perceived by two others present, and returned several times. An attempt was then made to photograph it. Eusapia and John con¬ sented, but the phantom, by a sign with the head and hands, indicated to us that she objected, and twice broke the photographic plate. “The request was then made that a mold of her hands might be obtained, and although Eusapia and John both promised to make her comply with our de¬ sire, they did not succeed. In the last seance, Eusapia gave a more formal promise; the three usual raps in the table endorsed the consent, and we indeed heard a hand plunged in the liquid in the cabinet. After some seconds, R. had in his hands a block of paraffin, with a complete mold, but an etheric hand advanced from the curtain and dashed it to pieces. “This concerned—as we afterward learned—a wom¬ an who had a strong reason for leaving no proof of her identity. It is evident, therefore . . . that a third will can intervene in spiritistic phenomena, which is neither that of ‘John,’ nor of Eusapia, nor of those present at the seance, but is opposed to all of them .” 1 A little later he adds: “It is true that the majority of the motor phenomena, and the most intelligent phe¬ nomena, start from the neighborhood of the medium, especially on the left side, which (she being left- handed) is the strongest in the trance. It is true that 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, pp. 175-6. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 119 these efforts are preceded by synchronous movements on the part of the medium; it is true that sometimes an ethereal body which serves as an arm, and which moves the objects, has been seen to issue from her skirt or from her back, in full light; but it does not follow because the medium is a great factor, even the greatest factor, in these efforts that they are exclusively her own doing .” 1 But even admitting “discarnate spirits” as an, or even the, explanation, does not assume necessarily, we must remember, that these discarnate spirits are the spirits of the dead. That would still remain to be proved—the “problem of identity,” the final problem. '■Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 177. “SPIRITUALISTIC PHENOMENA ARE AUTHENTIC’ It would require a volume to demonstrate that the dead have a fragmentary existence which completes itself in the presence of the medium. I am just finishing a work which contains many experi¬ ments and graphic demonstrations, together with my psycho¬ logical and chemical studies. This book will be published in English. But to sum up in a few words, I have attended at least a hundred spiritualistic seances at Genoa, at Turin, at Naples and at Venice. I am perfectly convinced of the authenticity of the phe¬ nomena produced by the medium Eusapia Paladino. Never¬ theless, when she finds herself in a condition not favorable to the production of these phenomena, such as raising a table off the floor and moving objects about the room, she does not hesitate to resort to tricks. This is partly due to a great desire to please those who expect something from her. Also, I am convinced that before many years this celebrated medium will be incapable of producing them at all. Her power is diminishing day by day. The spiritualistic force with which she is gifted is becoming extinct. I do not make this statement by guess, but by actual observation of her. Already, at the present time, she materializes but rarely, whereas a few years ago she did this with comparative ease. At the actual moment, also, her materializations have become vague in outline, fragmentary, a sort of phosphorescence diffi¬ cult to distinguish. As to the explanation of her manifestations, Eusapia Pala¬ dino is a confirmed hysteric, owing, probably, to an accident— to a blow which she received on the head, in the right temple, when she was a child of three years. The scar remains, a deep hole in the temple. During her trances there exhales from this hole in the temple a gaseous vapor. As to whether science can rend asunder the mystery which 120 Dr. Cesar Lombroso Alienist Professor of Psychiatry, University of Turin, founder of the science of criminology, and one of the foremost investigators of Eusapia Paladino. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 121 surrounds the production of these phenomena, I will say of certain of them, yes; of others, no, not yet. Science has not made the necessary advance to affirm positively whether they are a reality, or whether they may be due to trick or possibly to the hallucination of those who witness them. But as to the moving of objects at a distance without con¬ tact, such as raising a table from the floor or the moving of objects about the room—such as a chair, for instance—in my opinion there is no longer any room for doubt as to their authenticity. There are a number of instantaneous photo¬ graphs in existence, for the matter of that, which speak for themselves. These were taken after every precaution had been taken by the scientific men present to prevent fraud. The medium, Eusapia Paladino, had both her legs and her hands tied, while, for further safety, an investigator sat on each side of her holding her hands and with a foot pressed down firmly on each of her feet. And yet the photograph taken at the instant shows the table almost twelve inches ofi the floor! But I have seen other things more wonderful than this; I was present one day when a pot of flowers weighing six pounds, which was sitting on the table around which were grouped the scientific men, suddenly lifted itself in the air, making a circle over our heads, and then settled down near the spot from which it had risen. On another occasion, at Venice, I assisted at a most strange occurrence. By the aid of the medium we invoked the spirit of a defunct countess, Countess M-. The spirit was very long in making her appearance, and when she did she quickly disappeared, leaving a message written on the table in Latin. It read: “There is a dirty pig among you.” We were stupefied. And again we begged the spirit to return and explain. When she did, she wrote: “I will not come again until he leaves the room.” Naturally, we all remained, as no one was willing to pose as the pig. Finally she came and indicated the one meant. He was a well-known literary man, known and respected by us all. For 122 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? a moment he was nonplussed. Then a light broke over his face. In his wanderings he had picked up a book for its rare binding. It was an old but very obscene brochure. He had it in his pocket. As to the levitations of the table, it has been proved that the weight of Paladino increases during the time the table is in the air exactly the weight of the table, although there are a hundred witnesses ready to take oath that she does not touch it. And I am willing to make a deposition that the table rises in the air, as well as to the moving of objects at a distance, without contact, and that this is done honestly, without any trick whatsoever. —Cesar Lombroso. CHAPTER VI OBSESSION AND DUAL PERSONALITY It is a rather interesting fact that three very emi¬ nent scientists, speaking, so far as I know, independ¬ ently, have used the same figure of speech to denote those extensions of human consciousness which we are about to study. The scientist knows that all our forces—heat, light, electricity—are merely vibrations of the ether at widely differing velocities. If the atmosphere vibrates a hun¬ dred or a thousand times a second, and the vibration strikes the drum of our ear, we call the effect “sound.” If the ether vibrates a certain number of million times a second the vibrations will cause a steel needle to swing—we call that effect “electricity.” When vibra¬ tions, a million times faster yet, strike the retina of our eye, we say that they are “light.” Sound, elec¬ tricity, heat, light—they are all but vibrations of the ether, growing inconceivably faster and faster as we go up the ascending scale. Ten years ago scientists thought they had reached the end of the scale: now they see no end. Millions of times a second faster than light are vibrations that we call the X-ray; even faster are the “N-rays;” and faster and faster yet the radiations from radium, and other wonderful forces that men are finding in exist¬ ence as they reach out into the Unknown. 123 124 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? But even as the whole great scale fades away at the end into something still beyond our grasp, so each part of it, distinct by itself, is not continuous with the other parts. Between the vibrations that we call “electricity,” and the vibrations that we call “heat,” we imagine there must be other vibrations filling up the gap: but we do not knoiv, simply because we have no senses that can comprehend them. The spectrum is just such a little scale. Below the darkest red at the lower end we can¬ not see: at the other end, as the vibrations get faster and faster thru the orange, the blue and the violet, is another unknown gap. That is, we cannot see it: but surely the vibrations are there. Some of them, for in¬ stance, that we have never seen, and never can see, mark their presence on' a photographic plate. “The limits of our spectrum,” as Myers says, “do not inhere in the sun that shines, but in the eye that marks his shining. Beyond each end of that prismatic ribbon are ether-waves of which our retina takes no cognizance. Beyond the red end come waves whose' potency we still recognize, but as heat and not as light. Beyond the violet end are waves still more mysterious; whose very existence man, for ages, never suspected, and whose intimate potencies are still but obscurely known .” 1 That is the figure of speech to which I at first re¬ ferred. Just as there are limits at either end of the scale o*f vibrations beyond which our own senses can tell us nothing, so may there be psychic forces at work beyond the limits of our consciousness. These are ’Myers: Human Personality, p. 18. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 125 seemingly supernatural to us, when by some chance we witness their effect, but really are no more supernatural than the X-ray that pierces the solid body, or the in¬ visible ultra-violet ray that marks the photographic plate. Dr. Osier, one of the three scientists to whom I re¬ ferred, in one of his Ingersoll lectures on immortality, said: “There is much to suggest, and it is a pleasing fancy, that outside our consciousness lie fields of psy¬ chical activity analogous to the invisible yet powerful rays of the spectrum. The thousand activities of the bodily machine, some of them noisy enough at times, do not in health obtrude themselves upon our con¬ sciousness, and just as there is this enormous subcon¬ scious field of vegetable life, so there may be a vast su- praconscious sphere of astral life, the manifestations of which are only now and then in evidence .” 1 Myers utters almost the same thought. Just as there are unknown and unsensed forces at work beyond the limits of the spectrum, “even thus,” he says, “I venture to affirm, beyond each end of our conscious spectrum extends a range of faculty and perception, exceeding the known range, but as yet indistinctly guessed. The artifices of the modern physicist have extended far in each direction the visible spectrum known to Newton. It is for the modern psychologist to discover artifices which may extend in each direction the conscious spec¬ trum as known to Plato or to Kent. The phenomena cited in this work carry us, one may say, as far onward as fluorescence carries us beyond the violet end. The ‘X-rays’ of the psychical spectrum remain for a later ’Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 340. 126 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? age to discover. Yet something of clearness will be gained by even this rudimentary mental picture—rep¬ resenting conscious human faculty as a linear spectrum whose red rays begin where voluntary muscular con¬ trol and organic sensation begin, and whose violet rays fade away at the point at which man’s highest strain of thought or imagination merges into reverie or ec¬ stasy .” 1 The third is Sir W. Crookes, who uses almost the same figure, which Dr. Funk, in his introduction to The Widoiv’s Mite, thus comments upon: “If I understand correctly Mr. Crookes’ table of vi¬ brations, the differences between sound, electricity, light, X-rays and radium are only the differences in the frequency of vibrations or waves—those of sound in the coarse atmosphere, and those of the others in ether, possibly something higher; that is, if an ear were sufficiently sensitive, it could hear color, hear the beauty of a picture. Radium is vibration up to the sixtieth degree or step. . . . “The human body is coarse, made up of slow, slug¬ gish vibrations, but were these vibrations as rapid as those of the X-rays, our bodies would be invisible and pass thru many solids; and were they as rapid as ra¬ dium, they would pass thru all solids, as Christ’s res¬ urrected body passed thru the walls of the chamber at Jerusalem. Scientists will soon make the miracles of Christ elementary. Already they are changing their attitude toward what has been regarded as supernat¬ ural.” ^yers: Human Personality, pp. 18-19. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 127 Do not misunderstand these statements. They are not explanations of psychic phenomena; I do not say that “ghosts” have anything to do with the spectrum: these are simply figures of speech, analogies to make clear one very important fact, that apparitions, clair¬ voyance and all the other very wonderful phenomena that I mentioned in the first paper, are not necessarily sup miatural. Simply because they are not a part of our every-day consciousness does not mean that they do not exist, any more than X-rays do not exist be¬ cause we can’t see them: they are supernatural no more than the X-ray is supernatural. Clairvoyance, telepathy may be new powers of the human organism—that is, new to our past experience —but just as much a part of our universe as light or sound: they are governed likewise by natural laws, perhaps by the very same laws. Let us see. The Hypothesis of the “Subliminal Self ” No name stands higher in the realm of knowledge which we are discussing than that of Frederic W. H. Myers, already several times mentioned. From the very foundation of the Society for Psychical Research none worked more enthusiastically; none reasoned more keenly; none gave of time and effort more gen¬ erously. Naturally idealistic in temperament, it was natural that his sympathies should be early aroused: it was also natural that he should press on, more di¬ rectly perhaps than the facts warranted, to the goal which he very soon set up—the scientific proof of an existence after death. Yet not so fast as entirely to vitiate his work. His 128 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? enthusiasm was tempered with patience, and he com¬ bined in the formation of his own theories an admirably catholic judgment and a keen sense of proportion and ability of analysis. As a result, his master work. Hu¬ man Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, a two-volume summing up of his life-long study of the psychic problem, must be conceded, with all its faults, an epoch-making contribution to the literature of psy¬ chology. This work, published shortly after his death —for he was cut off in middle life “at the zenith” of his power—gave to the world the first complete working out of his hypothesis of the subliminal self; and its ap¬ plication to the problems under consideration. And, “daring in its conception, it was applied by him with even greater boldness. It was not enough to utilize it as an excellent working hypothesis to explain . . . phenomena which . . . the Society for Psychical Research had made it impossible for science longer to ignore. If, on the one hand, it could be plausibly main¬ tained by him that, for example, men of genius owe their fame to a capacity for utilizing powers which lie too deep below the threshold of consciousness for the ordinary man’s control; that the appeal of the hypnotist is to the subliminal . . . self, and that it is the sub¬ liminal self that sends and receives telepathic mes¬ sages, he could, on the other hand, see every reason for affirming that the indwelling principle, unifying the subliminal and supraliminal, persists after the death and decay of the bodily organism .” 1 And what was this hypothesis of “the subliminal self”? ‘Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 45-6. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 129 The definition of “self” current in psychology is probably familiar. Myers himself quotes Reid for a clear summing up of the conservative idea of person¬ ality, the answer that the average man would give to the question, What is it that “I” is? What do I mean when I say “myself”? “My personal identity, . . . implies the continued existence of that indivisible thing which I call ‘myself.’ Whatever this ‘self’ may be, it is something which thinks and deliberates and resolves and acts and suf¬ fers. I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feel¬ ing; I am something that thinks and acts and suffers. My thoughts and actions and feelings change every moment; they have no continued, but a successive, ex¬ istence ; but that self, or I, to which they belong, is permanent. . . . The identity of a person is a perfect identity; ... it is impossible that a person should be in part the same and in part different, because a per¬ son ... is not divisible into parts .” 1 This is clear and exact, as simple as any definition of anything as intangible as “self” could be. It had done duty as the accepted idea of the nature of per¬ sonality for a century; in fact, since the birth of the science of psychology. The trouble was, it was altogether too simple to de¬ fine a thing which scientists were discovering was very complex indeed. The old definition did not cover the facts: the old idea of “self” had to be broadened very materially. Mr. Bruce summarizes very clearly some of the difficulties in which psychologists found them¬ selves. ’Reid: Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, p. 318. 130 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “If this unity and continuity on which Reid lays such stress be the essential elements of the ‘self,’ what becomes of it in the disintegrations affecting it during bodily life? Where locate it in insanity, in hysteria, in somnambulism, spontaneous or induced, in the trance states of mediums apparently surrendering their organ¬ ism to the control of some extraneous self ? Still more perplexing becomes the problem, on the basis of the ‘common-sense’ view of personality, when there is in¬ volved complete, or seemingly complete, disintegrations [cases of “dual personality”], such as those revealed in the experience of Mary Reynolds and Ansel Bourne.” 1 Some new conception of “self” became imperative. Myers attacked the problem enthusiastically, yet seri¬ ously, and his new hypothesis was the result of many years’ study and elaboration. If its completed form did not appear till 1903, it was tentatively submitted to the attention of the scientific world as far back as 1887. In an article on The Drift of Psychical Research 2 he had written: “Considerable evidence has already been laid before the world to show that: 1. There exists in each of us a subliminal self; that is to say, a certain part of our being, conscious and intelligent, does not enter into our ordinary waking intelligence, nor rise above our habitual level of consciousness, into the supraliminal life. 2. This subliminal life exerts facul¬ ties above the normal —faculties, that is to say, which apparently transcend our known level of evolution. Some of these, as hyperesthesia, or keener sensibility, and hypermesia, or fuller memory, seem to be exten- 1 Bruce: Riddle of Personality, p. 34. Tn the National Review, v. 24. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 151 sions of faculties already known. Others, however, altogether exceed our [ordinary] range of powers: as telepathy . . . clairvoyance . . . retrocognition ... or precognition. ... 3. This subliminal knowledge or faculty . . . may be communicated to our conscious¬ ness ... by means of sensory or motor automatism.” In the first chapter of his masterwork he outlines his theory of the “subliminal self” in more elaborate form: “The idea of a threshold ( limen, . . .) of conscious¬ ness—of a level above which sensation or thought must rise before it can enter into our conscious life—is a simple and familiar one. The word subliminal —mean¬ ing ‘beneath the threshold’—has already been used to define those sensations which are too feeble to be indi¬ vidually recognized. I propose to extend the meaning of the term, so as to make it cover all that takes place beneath the ordinary threshold, ... of consciousness —not only those faint stimulations whose very faint¬ ness keeps them submerged, but . . . sensations, thoughts, emotions, which may be strong, definite and independent, but which . . . seldom merge into that supraliminal current of consciousness which we habitu¬ ally identify with ourselves. “Perceiving . . . that these submerged thoughts and emotions possess the characteristics which we associate with conscious life, I feel bound to speak of a sub¬ liminal, . . . consciousness —a consciousness which we shall see, for instance, uttering or writing sentences quite as complex and coherent as the supraliminal con¬ sciousness could make them. Perceiving further that this conscious life beneath the threshold . . . seems to be no . . . intermittent thing; . . . but that there also 13a ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? is a continuous subliminal chain [or chains] of mem¬ ory . . . involving just that kind of individual and per¬ sistent revival of old impressions and response to new ones, which we commonly call a Self—I find it per¬ missible and convenient to speak ... of a subliminal Self. “I do not, indeed, by using this term, assume that there are two . . . parallel selves existing always with¬ in each of us. Rather / mean by the subliminal Self that part of the Self which is commonly subliminal ; 1 ... I conceive that there may be—not only co-opera¬ tions [between these two parts of the Self] . . . —but also upheavals and alternations of personality of many kinds, so that what was once below the surface may, for a time, or permanently, rise above it. And I con¬ ceive, also, that no Self of which we can here have cog¬ nizance is, in reality, more than a fragment of a larger Self . . ” 2 The above should be read carefully, as it is one of the most important keys to the scientific explanation to the whole range of psychic phenomena. To put the hypothesis even more simply, Myers believes that we possess, not one simple “self,” but a complex “self,” composed, as it were, of many parts. One of these parts, he says, comes up into the consciousness of every-day life; that part is the “self” we know, the one that hears, sees, talks, thinks, loves. The other parts of our “self” are usually “below the threshold” of con¬ sciousness, are “sub-liminal.” Ordinarily, we do not ‘These italics, and the paragraphing of the quotation, are mine. 2 Myers: Human Personality, Vol. I., pp. 14-15. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 133 know they are there: but they, he says, are the parts that are at work in our dreams; they are the ones that are acted upon by the hypnotist. It is these subliminal parts of our “self,” he goes on, that give us premoni¬ tions, that are capable of practising clairvoyance and telepathy, and, finally, may be that part of the “self” that persists after the change we call “death.” A very important hypothesis this, as you can see. Clearly understood at the outset, it will make very clear and possible a great deal of the most wonderful phe¬ nomena of which we are going to speak. Bear in mind, then, as we go on, this new idea of “self.” It is something like an iceberg: a small part of it out in the sunlight of consciousness, feeling the breezes—meaning by them the various forces that re¬ cord themselves on our five senses. But a large part of it below the surface of the water, sub-liminal, out of sight and knowledge of this daylight of conscious¬ ness. But at times a little light does filter down thru the lower mass, and we say we have dreams; and once in a while the submerged part strikes an obstruction un¬ seen by the conscious self, and a tremble shudders up thru the whole, and we say we have a “premonition ”; and once in a while some warm current (of disease, perhaps) will eat away part of the iceberg, and it will “turn turtle,” and the “self” we knew every day will go down out of sight, and another “self” (but, after all, only another part of the same “self,” of the same iceberg) will flash up out of the unknown into the day¬ light of consciousness; and to the outer world it will seem that a new person has taken possession of the former person’s body. 134 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? This phenomena of “dual personality” is not so rare as one might suppose. By Myers’ hypothesis, just out¬ lined, we all have other personalities latent within us; we are all, as it were, possible cases of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, if only the chance comes right to bring out one of our “other selves.” Yet, for all that, the cases which have been noted are profoundly interesting; several have been studied with great care, but space forbid us to more than mention them here. Cases of Dual Personality There was Mary Reynolds, a Pennsylvania girl, who woke one day from a deep sleep as one new born. Her relatives and friends were strangers to her; everything she had ever known, even how to talk, had vanished, and had to be learned anew. Even her manner and disposition had changed. After a few weeks she woke, this time her original self, with no memory of the period when she had been Mary Reynolds No. 2. So she alternated between her two personalities—or rather the two parts of her own personality, so distinct as to seem two separate people—for several years. Finally, however, Mary Reynolds No. 2 got the better of Mary Reynolds No. i, and remained as the Mary Reynolds till her—or shall we say “their”?—death. Then there was Mme. B., carefully studied by Pro¬ fessor Janet, among others, who had three distinct per¬ sonalities, called, respectively, by him, Leonie, Leontine and Leonore. Unlike Mary Reynolds, these “selves” seldom alternated spontaneously, but generally ap¬ peared at various stages of hypnosis. Leonie knew nothing of the existence of the other two Madame B. s; ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 135 Leontine knew what Leonie did and thought and said, but nothing about Leonore; while Leonore knew all about what happened when both Leonie and Leontine had command. Another French case, Felida X., shows even more concretely the absolute change of personality which a case of this kind exhibits. Felida X., when she had lapsed back into her first self, “knew nothing of the dog that played at her feet, or of the acquaintance of yesterday. She knew nothing of her household ar¬ rangements, her business undertakings, her social du¬ ties.” Making a virtue of necessity, Felida accustomed herself, whenever she felt the premonitory symptoms of an attack, to zvrite letters to her other self, giving full directions as to the conduct of her domestic and social affairs, and in this way she was enabled to bridge the gap in memory to some extent. The case of Miss Beauchamp, who had four distinct personalities, is, perhaps, most interesting of all, but too long and complex to quote here. The third one, who called herself “Sally,” had an impish disposition, which caused Miss Beauchamp (meaning by that Miss Beauchamp’s body’s first inhabitant) no end of trou¬ ble. Miss Beauchamp, who was in straitened circum¬ stances financially, was by nature cautious and thrifty. “Sally” frittered away her carefully hoarded earnings. Miss Beauchamp was deeply religious and guarded in her actions. “Sally” was irreligious, coquettish, and addicted to smoking cigarets. Miss Beauchamp wear¬ ied easily. “Sally” never felt tired, and would fre¬ quently take her other self, all unconsciously, on long walks, allowing Miss Beauchamp to awake from the trance state in some distant suburb, penniless and worn 136 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? out. For a time Dr. Prince (who had the case under observation) “gave her some relief by hypnotizing ‘Sally’ into quiescence, but before long ‘Sally’ be¬ came unmanageable even with the aid of hypnotism. She had her good qualities, however. Once, .according to Dr. Prince, when Miss Beauchamp despairingly gave up the struggle and essayed suicide by gas, ‘Sal¬ ly’ assumed control, turned off the gas, and opened the window.” 1 The situation was saved by the appearance on the scene of Personality No. 4, who routed ‘Sally’ and Nos. 1 and 2; and has remained since then the only “Miss Beauchamp.” The Remarkable Case of Ansel Bourne The case of Ansel Bourne is such a clear example of dual personality that I venture to describe it at great¬ er length. Mr. Bourne had been more or less subject to semi¬ epileptic seizures, partly resulting from a sunstroke suffered when a young man. The latter event was also indirectly the cause of a deep religious awakening, which resulted in his becoming an itinerant preacher. One morning in 1861, being at that time 61 years old, and residing in the village of Greene, R. I., he myste¬ riously disappeared. Some two weeks later a stranger, named A. J. Brown, appeared in Norristown, Pa., and renting a store of a Mr. Earle, set up a little shop for the sale of confectionery and notions. Mr. Brown, appearing ’Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 86-9. rhe store which Bourne, as A. J. II. The Bourne home in Greene, R. I. III. Ansel Bourne—from a contemporary ■irown, rented in Norristown, Fa. photograph ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 137 respectable and steady-going, was admitted into the Earle family, and lived with them for six weeks. Dur¬ ing this period he took an active part in the work of the local church, ran his store methodically and suc¬ cessfully, and gained the acquaintance and respect of his new neighbors. Suddenly, early one morning, he aroused the Earles with inquiries as to where he was; denied that he owned a shop ; that he had ever seen the Earles, or that his name was Brown. He declared his name was Ansel Bourne, and became so excited that he was thought to be insane, and put under surveillance. He prevailed on the local physician, however, to telegraph his nephew, Andrew Harris, in Providence; and three days later this gentleman appeared, wound up “Mr. Brown’s” store and accounts, and took his thoroly be¬ wildered uncle back home. But how did he happen to be in Norristown, Pa.? He could not tell himself, for he remembered not a scrap of the events of the last two months. Luckily, Dr. Hodgson heard of the case, became acquainted with Mr. Bourne, and succeeded in hypnotizing him. Lo, as Dr. Hodgson half anticipated, in the hypnotic state Mr. Bourne again became “Mr. Brown,” with a memory of all that he had done during that two months previously blank. This he related in detail to Dr. Hodgson; and the facts given were such that the whole account was afterward independently verified. “He said” [while in the hypnotic state], says Dr. Hodgson, in his report on the case, “that his name was Albert John Brown; that on January 17, 1887, he went from Providence to Pawtucket in a horsecar, thence by train to Boston, and thence to New York, where he arrived 138 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? at 9 p.m., and went to the Grand Union Hotel, regis¬ tering as A. J. Brown. He left New York on the following morning and went to Newark, N. J.; thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in the evening, and stayed for three or four days in a hotel near the depot. . . . He thought of taking a store in a small town, and after looking around at several places, among them Germantown, chose Norristown, . . . “He stated that he was born in Newton, N. H., July 8, 1826 (he was born in New York City, July 8, 1826), had passed thru a great deal of trouble, losses of friends and property; loss of his wife was one trouble—she died in 1881; three children living— but everything was confused prior to his finding him¬ self in the horsecar on the way to Pawtucket; he want¬ ed to get away somewhere—he didn’t know where— and have rest. He had six or seven hundred dollars with him when he went into the store. He lived very closely, boarded by himself, and did his own cooking. He went to church, and also to one prayer-meeting. At one of these meetings he spoke about a boy who had kneeled down and prayed in the midst of the pas¬ sengers on a steamboat from Albany to New York [an incident of which he was well aware in the Ansel Bourne personality]. “He had heard of the singular experience of Ansel Bourne, but did not know whether he had ever met Ansel Bourne or not. . . . He used to keep a store in Newton, N. H., and was engaged in lumber and trading business [Ansel Bourne had at one time been a carpenter] ; had never previously dealt in the business which he took up at Norristown. He kept the Norris¬ town store for six or eight weeks; how he got away ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 139 from there was all confused; since then it had been a blank. The last thing he remembered about the store was going to bed on Sunday night, March 13, 1887. . . . He did not feel ‘anything out of the way.’ Went to bed at eight or nine o’clock, and remembered lying in bed, but nothing further.” 1 But what, you ask, have these phenomena of dual personality, interesting though they are of themselves, to do with our main problem of the future life? The relation of the two will be clear enough if we carry this alternation of personality a single step further. So far—unless we except the irrepressible “Sally,” who claimed that she was an entirely distinct person¬ ality—we have witnessed, according to Myers’ hypothe¬ sis, various parts of a person’s self successively in con¬ trol of his body. Now we come to a group of cases, where the original personality has been displaced by what claims to be an outside personality altogether; in other words, the body is “possessed” by another “spirit,” and this spirit claims to be discarnate; that is, belonging to a person that is dead. The Famous Case of the “Watseka Wonder” A complete discussion of this phenomena of “con¬ trol” by an exterior personality (motor automatism is the name given it by Myers) may better be reserved a little till we take up the question of mediumship. I shall, however, give the history of one very striking case here, to show the intimate relation between it and dual personality. 'S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VII., pp. 221-58. 140 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? The case of Raney Vennum, the “Watseka Wonder,” so called, is attested to—so far as the facts can be at¬ tested—very strongly, the evidence having been exam¬ ined with “great pains” by Col. J. C. Bundy, who is en¬ dorsed by Myers as “a skilful and scrupulously honest investigator,” by his associate, Dr. Stevens, by Dr. Hodgson, and by Myers himself. For the story of “the Wonder” I can do no better than quote the ex¬ cellent condensation given by Dr. Funk. 1 “Raney Vennum was a girl about fourteen years of age, living, in 1878, at Watseka, Ind. In the same town had died, in 1865, thirteen years before, a girl by the name of Mary Roff. Mary died about a year after Raney’s birth. Of course, the girls never knew each other. Raney’s parents were not Spiritualists, and, up to this time, Raney had always been in good health. Her trouble began with trances, in which she said she visited heaven and angels. She heard voices at night calling her. “Her experiences at this time seemed to be those of an insane person. She became sullen and disagree¬ able, and her friends thought of sending her to an asylum. One day Raney said that a spirit by the name of Mary Roff wanted to come to her, and the next day Mr. Vennum called at the office of Mr. Roff and informed him that his daughter claimed to be Mary Roff, and wanted to go home. He said: ‘She seems like a child real homesick, wanting to see her pa and ma and her brothers.’ 'Funk: The Widow’s Mite, pp. 408-12. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 141 “After the supposed control of Mary Roff, Raney became ‘mild, docile, polite, and timid, knowing none of the family, but constantly pleading to go home,’ and ‘only found contentment in going back to heaven, as she said, for short visits.’ “About a week after Mary took control of Raney’s body, Mrs. A. B. Roff and her daughter, Mrs. Min¬ erva Alter, Mary’s sister, hearing of the remarkable change, went to see the girl. As they came in sight, far down the street, Mary Raney, looking out of the window, exclaimed exultingly, ‘There come my ma and sister Nervie!’—the name by which Mary used to call Mrs. Alter in girlhood. As they came into the house she caught them around their necks, wept and cried for joy, and seemed more homesick than before. At times she seemed almost frantic to go home [to the Roff home]. “On the nth day of February, 1878, they sent the girl to Mr. Roff’s, where she met her ‘pa and ma’ and each member of the family, with the most gratifying expressions of love and affection, by words and em¬ braces. On being asked how long she would stay, she said, ‘The angels will let me stay till some time in May’; and she made it her home there till May 21, three months and ten days, a happy, contented daugh¬ ter and sister in a borrowed body. “The girl, now in her new home, seemed perfectly happy and content, knowing every person and every¬ thing that Mary knew when in her original body, twelve to twenty-five years ago, recognizing and calling by name those who were friends and neighbors of the family from 1852 to 1865, when Mary died, calling attention to scores, yes, hundreds, of incidents that 142 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? transpired during her natural life. During all the period of her sojourn at Mr. Roff’s she had no knowl¬ edge of, and did not recognize any of, Mr. Vennum’s family, their friends or neighbors, yet Mr. and Mrs. Vennum and their children visited her and Mr. Roff’s people, she being introduced to them as to any stran¬ gers. After frequent visits, and hearing them often and favorably spoken of, she learned to love them as acquaintances, and visited them with Mrs. Roff three times. “One day she met an old friend and neighbor of Mr. Roff’s, who was a widow when Mary was a girl at home. Some years since the lady married a Mr. Wag¬ oner, with whom she yet lives. But when she met Mrs. Wagoner she clasped her around the neck and said: ‘O Mary Lord, you look so very natural, and have changed the least of any one I have seen since I came back.’ Mrs. Lord was in some way related to the Vennum family, and lived close by them, but Mary could call her only by the name by which she knew her fifteen years ago, and could not seem to realize that she was married. Mrs. Lord lived just across the street from Mr. Roff’s for several years, prior and up to within a few months of Mary’s death; both being members of the same Methodist church, they were very intimate. . . . “One evening, in the latter part of March, Mr. Roff was sitting in the room waiting for tea, and reading the paper, Mary being out in the yard. He asked Mrs. Roff if she could find a certain velvet headdress that Mary used to wear the last year before she died. If so, to lay it on the stand and say nothing about it, to see if Mary would recognize it. Mrs, Roff readily The “Watseka Wonder,” the Most Famous Recorded Case of Obsession I. The Roff home in 1S77, where most of the recorded events occurred. II. Raney \ ennum, who. as a TIT. Mary Roff, whose spirit ap- girl of fourteen, developed re- parentlv returned to inhabit the markable mediumistic powers. body of Lurancy Vennum. IV'. The Vennum house in Watseka, Illinois. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 143 found and laid it on the stand. The girl soon came in, and immediately exclaimed as she approached the stand, ‘Oh ! there is my headdress I wore when my hair was short!’ She then asked, ‘Ma, where is my box of letters? Have you got them yet?’ Mrs. Roff replied, ‘Yes, Mary, I have some of them.’ She at once got the box, with many letters in it. As Mary began to examine them she said: ‘Oh, ma, here is a collar I tatted! Ma, why did you not show to me my letters and things before?’ The collar had been preserved among the relics of the lamented child as one of the beautiful things her fingers had wrought before Lu- rancy was born; and so Mary continually recognized every little thing and remembered every little incident of her girlhood. . . . “Scores of tests were made like those just mentioned, which seemed to establish, as nearly as anything could establish, the identity of this spirit control. After three months and ten days’ sojourn in Raney’s body, Mary told her supposed parents that Raney was coming back, and that she must return to the angels. When Raney returned she had to be introduced anew to all of the new acquaintances that Mary had made, even to Mary’s doctor and to the members of the Roff family. Her health was restored. She grew to womanhood, and afterward married. . , . “In this strange Watseka case it will be observed that the person that claimed to be Mary Roff never appeared to any one at Watseka except thru the body of Raney. She never materialized in an inde¬ pendent body; at any rate, no one reposted to have seen such a materialization. If this was a spirit, as Mr. Hodgson thinks, then it was a case‘of obsession.” 144 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Here we have a straightforward and seemingly con¬ vincing narrative. Unfortunately for unbiased cre¬ dence, further embellishments are given, especially by enthusiastic spiritualist writers, which weaken rather than strengthen the report. Tho the most important, the alleged “Mary Roff” possession was not the only one. At an earlier date she claimed to be “Katrina Hogan,” sixty-three years old, and recently arrived from Germany “thru the air.” At this time “the girl sat near the stove, in a common chair, her elbows on her knees, her hands under her chin, feet curled up on the chair, eyes staring, looking in every way like an ‘old hag.’ . . . She appeared sullen and crabbed, calling her father ‘Old Black Dick,’ and her mother ‘Old Granny.’ ” At another time she claimed to be a young man, “Willie Canning,” son of “Peter Canning,” who had “ran away from home, got into difficulty, changed his name several times, and finally lost his life.” 1 These appear suspiciously like the amazingly coher¬ ent and detailed cases of dual personality of which we have already noted examples. As showing, however, the attitude of the spiritualist, we are told, for example, that at the birth of her first child (about four years after she married George Binning, a respectable farmer living near Watseka) “she was entranced, her eyes turned heavenward, beautiful smiles played over her features as the work of deliverance went painlessly on, ’From a sketch of the life of Lurancy Vennum, by E. W. Stevens, published in The Carrier Dove, a spiritualist paper of San Francisco, in 1887. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 145 and not until the new soul voiced its presence did she show any sign of consciousness of what occurred.” 1 Mary Roff herself, it may be noted, suffered from acute hysteria, was under almost constant medical care, and by the neighbors generally was considered actually insane. She was often thrown spontaneously into a deep trance, sometimes suffering acute pain. In the summer of 1864 she seemed to have almost a mania for bleeding herself for relief, as she said, “of the lump of pain in the head.” Drs. Fowler, Secrest, and Putwood, were called, and applied leeches. She would apply them herself to her temples, and liked them, treating them like little pets, until she seemed sound and well. On Saturday morning, July 16, 1864, in one of her desponding moods, she secretly took a knife with her to the back yard, and cut her arm terribly, until, bleed¬ ing excessively, she fainted. This occurred about 9 a.m. She remained unconscious until 2 p.m., when she became a raving maniac of the most violent kind, in which condition she remained five days and nights, requiring almost constantly the services of five of the most able-bodied men to hold her on the bed, altho her weight was only one hundred pounds, and she had lost nearly all her blood. When she ceased raving she looked and acted quite natural and well, and could do everything she desired as readily and properly as at any time in her life. Yet she seemed to know no one, and could not recognize the presence of persons at all, altho the house was nearly filled with people night and day. She had no sense whatever of sight, 'From an appendix to the above sketch by Dr. Cora Ellison. 146 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? feeling, or hearing, in a natural way, as was proved by every test that could be applied. She could read blind¬ folded, and do everything as readily as when in health by her natural sight. She would dress, stand before the glass, open and search drawers, pick up loose pins, do anything and all things readily, and without annoy¬ ance, under heavy blindfoldings. 1 This remarkable phenomenon of clairvoyance is at¬ tested to by numerous witnesses, including the physi¬ cians attending, the editor of the Iroquois County Re¬ publican , and later of the Danville Times, and the local clergymen. She repeatedly read lengthy extracts from closed books and the writing within sealed letters. a From a biography of A. B. Roff, by Dr. Cora Ellison, in The Carrier Dove, a well-known spiritualist magazine. Frederic W. H. Myers A keen and earnest investigator of psychical phenomena, an eminent psychologist, and formulator of the hypothesis of the “subliminal self.’’ 'OUR RECORDS PROVE THE PERSISTENCE OF THE SPIRIT LIFE.” I will briefly state facts which our records [the records of the Society for Psychical Research] have, to my mind, actually proved. In the first place, they prove survival, pure and simple; the persistence of the spirit’s life as a structural law of the universe; the inalienable heritage of each several soul. In the second place, they prove that between the spiritual and the material worlds an avenue of communication does, in fact, exist—that which we call the despatch and the receipt of tele¬ pathic messages, or the utterance and the answer of prayer. In the third place, they prove that the surviving spirit retains, at least in some measure, the memories and the loves of earth. Without this persistence of love and memory, should we, in truth, be the same? To what extent has any philosophy or any revelation assured us of this until now? v ********* For theses like the following, considerable evidence has al¬ ready been laid before the world: There exists in each of us a subliminal self; that is to say, a certain part of our being, conscious and intelligent, does not enter into our ordinary waking intelligence. This subliminal self exerts faculties above the normal; faculties, that is to say, which apparently transcend our known level of evolution. Some of these, as hyperesthesia (keener sensibility) and hypermesia (fuller memory), seem to be extensions of faculties already known. Others, however, alto¬ gether exceed our ordinary range of powers, as telepathy, or direct knowledge of other minds; clairvoyance, or direct knowl¬ edge of distant facts; retrocognition, or direct knowledge of past facts; and precognition, or knowledge of facts in the future. In this . . . environment where telepathy operates, many 147 148 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? intelligences may affect our own. Some of these are the minds of living persons; but some appear to be discarnate, that is, spirits like ourselves, but released from the body, al¬ though still retaining much of the personality of earth. These spirits appear still to have some knowledge of our world, and to be in certain ways able to affect it. The messages that reach us from this other world, although mixed with much triviality and confusion, are on the whole concordant. The discarnate spirit seeking to talk to earth sees a “light”— a glimmer of translucency in the confused darkness of our material world. This “light” indicates a sensitive—a human organism so constituted that a spirit can temporarily inform or control it, not necessarily interrupting the stream of the sensitive’s ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand only, or, perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper’s case, using voice as well as hand, and occupying all the sensitive’s channels of self-mani¬ festation. Even in such fashion, through Mrs. Piper’s trances the thronging multitude of the departed press to the glimpse of light. Eager, but untrained, they interject their uncompre¬ hended cries; vainly they call the names that no man answers; like birds that have beaten against a lighthouse, they pass in disappointment away. It is our duty to search for and train such other favored individuals as already show this form of capacity for medium- ship, always latent, perhaps, and now gradually emergent in the human race. The investigator must remember that this inquiry must be extended over many generations; nor must he allow himself to be persuaded that there are short cuts to mastery. I will not say that there cannot be any such things as occult wisdom, but every claim of this kind examined has proved deserving of complete distrust. We have no confidence here more than elsewhere in any methods except the open, candid, straightforward methods which the spirit of modern science demands. —Frederic W. H. Myers. CHAPTER VII CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE Before we outline a few typical examples of clair¬ voyance, a word should be said regarding the nature of the phenomenon itself, for the medium is usually, but not necessarily, in a light trance, and this medium- istic trance state is accompanied by marked physiologic changes. The first stage is usually one of super-emotional ac¬ tivity. The medium “sighs deeply . . . yawns and hic¬ coughs.” 1 Her facial expression may in a few mo¬ ments run the gamut of all the emotions. “Some¬ times,” we are told of Eusapia, “her face flushes; the eyes become brilliant and liquid, and are opened wide. The smile and the motions are the mark of the erotic ecstasy. She says ‘mio caro’ (‘my dear’), leans her head upon the shoulder of her neighbor, and courts ca¬ resses when she believes that he is sympathetic. It is at this point that phenomena are produced, the success of which causes her agreeable and even voluptuous thrills. During this time her legs and her arms are in a state of marked tension, almost rigid, or even undergo convulsive contractions. Sometimes a tremor goes thru her entire body.” 2 With other mediums the breathing 'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 142. 2 Ibid. 149 150 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? becomes labored, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, much slower. There may be a decided change in the heart action, the pulse often rising to one hundred and twenty times a minute. There may be semi-hysteria at this stage, sudden contractions of the muscles with a resultant twitching of the limbs, all of which are probably more painful to the spectator than to the sub¬ ject. To this often succeeds a second intermediate stage of quiescence and pallor. The limbs become relaxed listlessly or rigid; the eyes close; the face becomes deathly pale and the skin clammy and moist, “frequent¬ ly covered with perspiration.” In the final and usual stage of mediumistic trance there is more natural action. The balls of the eyes are rolled up so that only the whites are visible, but the subject seldom appears to be in pain. The medium is now extremely sensitive to light, sudden light pro¬ ducing the physiologic and emotional effect of acute hysteria; and Maxwell believes that in extreme cases light might even prove fatal. There is hyperesthesia (increased sensibility) in all the nerve centers, and the whole body is sometimes in a shiver of continuous twitchings and tremblings. As to the medium’s own feelings during this period, Flammarion has this to say of Eusapia: “She suddenly experiences an ardent desire to produce the phenomena; then she has a feel¬ ing of numbness and the goose-flesh sensation in her fingers; these sensations keep increasing; at the same time she feels in the inferior portion of the vertebral column the flowing of a current which rapidly extends into her arms, as far as her elbows, where it is gently ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 151 arrested. It is at this point that the phenomenon takes place .” 1 To this stage occasionally succeeds a fourth of deep torpor, complete obliviousness to all sensory stimuli like sound or light, regular but sometimes almost sus¬ pended breathing and heart action, and relaxation or rigidity of the limbs. Progression from one stage to another, and from consciousness to the trance state and vice versa, is, we should remember, spontaneous and apparently volun¬ tary with the medium. There is no hypnosis; tho the coming of the trance state seems to be hastened by har¬ mony in the attendant circle, by low, pleasant noises, like soft singing, and by the linking of the circle of hands. There is every reason for thinking that the morbid phenomena accompanying the trance transition are un¬ natural, and due to our, as yet, imperfect understand¬ ing of essential conditions. Mrs. Piper’s mediumship has so far improved of recent years that the transition is now accompanied with no more physical disturbance than a simple falling to sleep. Whereas in her early experiences she looked forward with more or less dread to the purely physical ordeal, there is now a calmness and utter lack of annoyance in the various stages of the trance state: With most manifestations there is, nevertheless, an unquestionably severe vital strain'on the physical forces of the medium. Those who have seen Home immedi¬ ately after some'remarkable exhibition of psychic pow¬ er, pale as death, his face covered with perspiration, 'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 142. 152 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? and so weak as to be almost or quite in a fainting condition—few of those who have seen him thus, re¬ marks Sir William Crookes, could doubt the genuine¬ ness of the phenomena he exhibited. Clairvoyance Before attempting any explanation of clairvoyance or clairaudience, let us gain as clear an idea as possible of what they are, by giving some typical examples. Mr. Podmore quotes a simple case of alleged clair¬ voyance as told in a letter from Professor Gregory, of the University of Edinburgh, in which the latter tells of a lady, unknown to him personally, but hypnotized by a friend of his. By seemingly clairvoyant power, while in the trance, she described Professor Gregory’s house in Edinburgh most accurately. “I now asked her to go to Greenock,” continues Pro¬ fessor Gregory, “forty or fifty miles from where we were ... to visit my son, who resides there with a friend. She soon found him, and described him accu¬ rately, being much interested in the boy, whom she had never seen or heard of. She saw him, she said, playing in a field outside a small garden in which stood a cottage, at some distance from the town, on a rising ground. He was playing with a dog. I knew there was a dog, but had no idea of what kind, so I asked her. She said it was a large but young Newfoundland, black, with one or two white spots. It was very fond of the boy, and played with him. ‘Oh!’ she cried sud¬ denly, ‘it has jumped up and knocked off his cap.’ She saw in the garden a gentleman reading a book and looking on. Pie was not old, but had white hair, while ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 153 his eyebrows and whiskers were black. . . . Being asked to enter the cottage, she did so, and described the sitting-room. In the kitchen she saw a young maid¬ servant preparing dinner, for which a leg of mutton was roasting at the fire, but not quite ready. She also saw another elderly female. On looking again for the boy, she saw him playing with the dog in front of the door, while the gentleman stood in the porch and looked on. Then she saw the boy run upstairs to the kitchen, which, she observed with surprise, was on the upper floor of the cottage (which it is) and receive something to eat from the servant—she thought a potato. “I immediately wrote all these details down and sent them to the gentleman, whose answer assured me that all, down to the minutest, were exact, save that the boy did not get a potato, but a small biscuit, from the cook. The dog was what she described; it did knock off the boy’s cap at the time and in the place mentioned; he was himself in the garden with a book, looking on; there was a leg of mutton roasting and not quite ready; there was an elderly female in the kitchen at that time, altho not of the household. Every one of which facts was entirely unknown to me, and could not, therefore, have been perceived by thought-reading, altho, had they been so, as I have already stated, this would not have been less wonderful, but only a different phenome¬ non.” In the next two instances you will note that in each case the phenomena are ascribed to “spirits.” But for the present we will ignore the cause of the phenomena, 154 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? our purpose now being simply to establish the existence of clairvoyance in carefully recorded cases. Sir William Crookes tells of a lady who was “writing automatically by means of the planchet. I was try¬ ing to devise,” he says, “a means of proving that what she wrote was not due to ‘unconscious cerebration.’ The planchet, as it always does, insisted that, altho it was moved by the hand and arm of the lady, the intelligence was that of an invisible being who was playing on her brain as on a musical instrument and thus moving her muscles. I therefore said to this in¬ telligence : ‘Can you see the contents of this room ?’ ‘Yes,’ wrote the planchet. ‘Can you see to read this newspaper?’ said I, putting my finger on a copy of the Times, which was on a table behind me, but with¬ out looking at it. ‘Yes,’ was the reply of the planchet. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you can see that, write the word which is now covered by my finger, and I will believe you.’ The planchet commenced to move. Slowly, and with great difficulty, the word ‘however’ was written. I turned around and saw that the word ‘however’ was covered by the tip of my finger. “I had purposely avoided looking at the newspaper when I tried this experiment, and it was impossible for the lady, had she tried, to have seen any of the printed words, for she was sitting at one table and the paper was on another table behind, my body interven¬ ing .” 1 You will note that in this, as in the previous in¬ stance, neither party knew beforehand the information to be given. 'Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, pp. 91-2. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 155 Dr. Funk quotes the following example of clairvoy¬ ance related by Dr. Savage from his own experience: Dr. Savage “said to a spirit that was writing through the hand of a young man: “ ‘If you are really a person, and are really here, you ought to be able to go somewhere in the city for me, and find out something at my request, return, and tell me about it.’ “The spirit said he had never done anything of the kind, but would try. Dr. Savage sent him to his house to find out what Mrs. Savage was doing. Mrs. Sav¬ age had told the doctor before he left home that morn¬ ing that she would be away all forenoon. In four or five minutes the spirit returned and said: ‘Mrs. Savage was at home, and when I was there she was standing in the front hall, saying good-by to a caller.’ The doc¬ tor believed that she was anywhere but home. Yet it turned out that a caller had come, and Mrs. S. did not go elsewhere, as she had expected; and on comparing notes, Dr. Savage found that at the time that the spirit said he called she was saying good-by to her guest .” 1 The following story of alleged clairvoyance during a dream appeared in the Paris Matin, a typical example of clairvoyance as met with in spiritualistic literature. It is, of course, valueless as proof, however, lacking as it does any documentary or testimonial corroboration. “A Rev. Dr. Perring, a minister near London, had recently buried his eldest son. Two nights after the funeral Mr. Perring saw in a dream his son covered with blood, and heard exactly the voice of his son say: ‘Oh, father, do come and stop them; I cannot rest in See Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 254. 156 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? my coffin!’ The poor father, very upset by the dream, tried to sleep again, when another vision came. He heard again the voice of his son shouting and scream¬ ing, and the words, ‘Oh, father, they are pulling my body to pieces!’ As soon as the daylight came the min¬ ister went to the church, and saw that the grave had been disarranged; and after further examination, that some one had been in in the night and had broken the jaws of the corpse and had stolen the teeth. After inquiry the police found the teeth at a dentist’s in the locality.” Another example of clairvoyance, somewhat more carefully attested, but still by itself unconvincing, is that related of a very remarkable contemporary boy medium, John Flottum, of Singsaas, in Norway. The exploit in question, typical of many similar ones performed by him, was the finding of the body of Helge Dehli, a wealthy farmer of the Tonset neighborhood. This was in June, 1907, and Fldttum was at that time but thirteen years old. This case was investigated by the Christiania Aftenposten, one of the most important Norwegian dailies, and is considered by them convinc¬ ingly attested to. Flottum was not sent for till Dehli had been missing eight days, and every usual method of search had been exhausted in vain. Arrived at the Dehli farm, near Glommen, he looked at the missing man’s photograph. Then suddenly he “hurried into the house and sat down to draw. The drawing gradually took shape until it represented a map of the surrounding country (a sec¬ tion unfamiliar to the boy), then he drew a line along the track which the missing man had taken after he left his home. The Famous Bertha Huse Case of Clairvoyance Lake near Enfield. Mrs. Edwin Huse, Mrs. Titus, mother of Bertha. the medium. The “Shaker Bridge,” scene of the tragedy. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 157 “The work was evidently a great effort to him. He supported his head with one hand, while with the other he traced the lines, bit by bit, with a long interval be¬ tween each stroke, while the perspiration ran down his face. . . . He saw the man with his ‘inner vision’; he saw him leave the house and wander along the track which he had marked out. . . . Now and then the man vanished from the boy’s vision, and then the drawing came to a standstill.” At such a point, with Dehli lying, to the boy’s clair¬ voyant sight, under a large tree near a river, the bov, despite the most exhausting efforts, could go no fur¬ ther. Search was enthusiastically begun, however, by the whole parish, following the twisting trail marked on the boy’s map, and next day the tree which the boy had seen was found. Dehli was not there, but his hand¬ kerchief was, and at sight of it the boy passed off into an even more painful trance. Early the next morning Flottum ordered a boat, which circled over the river as he directed. “Suddenly he stood up and exclaimed, ‘This is where he lies!’ And sure enough, the body was found at the very spot.” In appearance Flottum is described as a lively, nor¬ mal, thoroly healthy boy. His clairvoyant power was not discovered till he was twelve years old, but he has already given many startling manifestations of his abil¬ ity. The Celebrated Case of Bertha Huse With the celebrated case of Bertha Huse. however, we seem to attain a new standard of care in investi¬ gating the claims alleged and in corroborating the facts 158 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? in question. Were the Flottum and Matin cases un¬ supported by corroborative instances, we might dis¬ miss them offhand as coincidences, or even outright fic¬ tion ; but can we do the same with the Huse case ? On Monday, October I, 1898, a Miss Bertha Huse left her home at Enfield, N. H., before the rest of the family had arisen, and mysteriously disappeared. She was last seen alive by neighbors who noticed her walk¬ ing toward the so-called Shaker Bridge. Later in the day, alarmed at her inexplicable absence, the fam¬ ily instituted a search, and during the afternoon sev¬ eral hundred men and boys scoured the woods and near-by lake shore. This being fruitless, a Mr. Whit¬ ney, a local mill owner, sent to Boston for divers, and one named Sullivan searched the lake all day Tuesday, and Wednesday till noon, especially around the Shaker Bridge, on which Bertha had last been seen, but no trace of her was found. On this same Wednesday evening a Mrs. Titus, liv¬ ing in Lebanon, a village about five miles from Enfield, started in her doze with a horrified cry and unseeing, staring eyes, that so alarmed her husband that he woke her up. When he had shaken her into consciousness she said: “Why did you disturb me? In a moment I should have found that body.” In the middle of the night his wife again woke him with moans, and this time he waited till she spoke. Still asleep, she said in a monotonous undertone: “She followed the road down to the bridge, and on getting part way across it, stepped out on that jutting beam which was covered by white frost. . . . While so stand¬ ing she slipped on a log, fell backward, and slid in un¬ derneath the timberwork of the bridge. You will find ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 159 her lying head in, and you will only be able to see one of her rubbers projecting from the timberwork.” Mr. Titus lighted a lamp and watched and talked with her for an hour in very low tones; when ques¬ tioned on this subject she would answer, but would not hear about other things. She said something about cold, and Mr. Titus said, “Are you cold, Nellie?” She said, “Oh, oh! I am awfully cold.” (It was late fall; the water of the lake was almost freezing, and Mrs. Titus seemed to be speaking of the drowned girl.) Now, on Sunday, the day before the suicide of Ber¬ tha Huse, Mrs. Titus had said to her husband: “George, something awful is going to happen. I can¬ not tell you what it is, now, but can later on.” On Monday morning, at 6.40, as he was leaving for the Mascoma Flannel Company’s mill, where he worked, she said, shuddering, that it had “happened.” It was not till that night that the Tituses heard of the girl’s disappearance. On the morning following his wife’s clairvoyant mes¬ sage (Thursday), at her earnest solicitation, Mr. Titus told it to Mr. Ayer, his employer, and to others; and finally, the same day, the two went over to Enfield and enlisted the rather incredulous interest of Mr. Whit¬ ney. The diver listened to them both, but replied that he had searched in vain the previous day in the spot now indicated by Mrs. Titus as she stood on the bridge. She, however, was insistent. “You did not search there,” she said, pointing more closely, and describing exactly the position in which the body lay. To humor her he put on his suit, and five minutes later brought the corpse to the surface. Unscrewing his helmet, he said: “I did not look in that place yesterday as the 160 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? brush and debris were so thick there that I could not see; in fact, all I could feel of the body was the rubber projecting from the timberwork.” This would seem to be one of the most convincing cases of alleged clairvoyance on record, being care¬ fully investigated at the time by Dr. Harris Kennedy, of Roxbury, a cousin-in-law of Professor William James, of Harvard, and by the latter eminent psycholo¬ gist. The details are attested to by numerous wit¬ nesses, the full account being given in Volume I of the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research. Mrs. Titus had had occasional trances (involuntary), a tendency inherited from her mother, but had at the time little, if any, reputation as a spiritualist. She did not know Bertha Huse. Previous to finding the body, Mr. Titus had imparted his wife’s message to a large number of reputable persons who now bear witness to the seeming reality of her powers. Several “natural” explanations of the case have been made, such as the fact that traces of footprints were seen on the bridge, the theory that Mrs. Titus, con¬ trary to both her own and her husband’s testimony, might have been in Enfield at six o’clock that cold win¬ ter morning and have seen the girl commit suicide. But neither of these, improbable as they would seem in themselves, explain how Mrs. Titus could describe the exact position of the body. Sullivan, the diver, says: “She was lying in a deep hole, head down. It was so dark that I could not see anything; I had to feel entirely.” At this place the water was eighteen feet deep, and, as he says, completely dark; besides that, ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 161 the supporting timbers of the bridge would have hid¬ den the body from the roadway. Subsequently the diver gave details of rescuing bod¬ ies, and added: “It is my business to recover bodies in the water, and I am not afraid of them; but in this instance I was afraid of the woman on the bridge. . . . How can any woman come from four miles away, and tell me, or any other man, where I would find this body?” I have detailed these examples of clairvoyance be¬ cause they are typical. But do not suppose they are isolated cases. Nearly all instances of clairaudience include clairvoyance; and of simple clairvoyance the literature of spiritualism abounds in examples. Sir William Crookes quotes several, substantiated in the most precise terms; the note-books and published works of the Rev. Stainton Moses, the great English medium, are full of cases; Myers gives a score in his Human Personality, especially the very striking, if horrible, Storie case; other instances are noted by Dr. Funk, Mr. Podmore, Dr. Hyslop, and other writers on the subject. I shall quote some of these later in the discus¬ sion of the closely allied telepathic phenomena. Clairaudience Clairaudience seems to differ from clairvoyance in two respects. It seldom occurs except in combination with clairvoyance, and it generally consists of a sin¬ gle detached sound or a short sentence. I have seen no record, for instance, of the receipt, clairaudiently, of an extended discourse. We do have, on the other hand, such incidents as that related by Commander T. Aylesbury, of Sutton, 162 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Surrey, where a drowning boy utters a cry that is heard by both his mother and his sister in England, fourteen thousand miles away. 1 We have the case quoted by Dr. Funk, where two sisters in Brooklyn hear a brother in Texas, whom they believed was dead, inquiring about a letter. 2 We have the example, also noted in The Widow’s Mite, of the Jeannette. “A few years ago the wife of one of the officers on board of the Jean¬ nette? the vessel sent by the New York Herald to ex¬ plore the polar seas, wrote to me that one night she was suddenly awakened, and was amazed to see her husband at her bedside. He said to her, ‘Count, count.’ She says that she heard distinctly a ship’s bell. She heard the word again, ‘Count.’ She counted six strokes, when he said, ‘Six bells, and the Jeannette is lost,’ and the vision disappeared. She wrote that ‘the Jeannette was lost at the time I had that vision.’ ” Another case in which the human voice is carried many hundred miles is noted in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. “On September 9, 1848, at the siege of Mooltan, Major-General R., C.B., then adjutant of his regi¬ ment, was most severely and dangerously wounded, and, supposing himself dying, asked one of the officers with him to take the ring off his finger and send it to his wife, who at the time was fully one hundred and fifty miles distant, at Ferozepore. “ ‘On the night of September 9, 1848, I was lying on my bed,’ ” says his wife, who tells the story, “ ‘between ’Myers: Phantoms of the Living, v. 2, pp. 227-8. ’Funk: The Widow’s Mite, pp. 312-14. 'Ibid., p. 311. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 163 sleeping and waking, when I distinctly saw my hus¬ band being carried off the field, seriously wounded, and heard his voice saying, “Take this ring off my finger and send it to my wife.” All the next day I could not get the sight or the voice out of my mind. In due time I heard of General R. having been severely wounded in the assault on Mooltan. He survived, however, and is still living. It was not for some time after the siege that I heard from Colonel L., the offi¬ cer who helped to carry General R. off the field, that the request as to the ring was actually made to him, just as I had heard it at Ferozepore at that very time.’ What Is Clairvoyance? For these cases of clairvoyance and clairaudience, assuming, if necessary, for the moment, that they are genuine occurrences, there is, of course, the immediate and easy explanation of “spiritual” intervention. But, leaving spirits for a moment out of it, is there, first, no possibility of any other, any “natural” explan¬ ation? For if there is, we are bound to advance it. In the first place, I venture to assert that we dare not, from our present knowledge, set any limits to the possible powers of our mere bodily organism. A man would immediately sav, for example, “Why not ‘set limits’? My will, for example, can move only my arm and what my arm can touch—in other words, only those objects which are actually in contact with the ‘proto¬ plasmic skeleton’ which represents the life of my or¬ ganism.” Yet a moment’s thought will show that this ’S. P. R. Proceedings, v. i, pt. i, pp. 30-1. 164? ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? is not strictly true. “I can sometimes,” says Myers, “move objects not in actual contact, as by melting them with the heat, or (in . . . dry air . . .) kindling them with the electricity which my fingers emit. And,” he goes on, “I see no very definite limit to this power. I do not know all the forms of energy which my fin¬ gers might, under suitable training [or suitable condi¬ tions], emit.” 1 How prophetic these words of Myers are is brought home by the fact that, as we saw in the second article on Eusapia Paladino, Lombroso has very recently suggested with some basis that the human body is itself continually emitting hitherto unknown radiations allied to the mysterious “N-rays!” But if we are, after all, still ignorant of all the pos¬ sible powers of the body, how much more are we igno¬ rant of the limits to be set for the abilities of the “self” which controls that body! And especially does our ignorance appear overwhelming when we consider, as we have done, that this “self” of ours is not a simple unit, but includes a whole host of “subliminal” parts, of which we have hardly as yet so much as proved the existence. We already have, however, a collection of phenom¬ ena acting as a guide, because they illustrate very un¬ usual abilities of this same “subliminal self,” namely, the phenomena of hypnotism. The hypnotic trance, we remember, simply means, according to* Myers’ theory, that the subject’s body is temporarily under the con¬ trol of some one of the subliminal parts of his own “self.” Each of these selves which develop under hypnosis ‘Myers: Human Personality, p. 313. Impression of Two Clenched Hands in Clay, Made at a distance without contact by the medium Eusapia Paladino ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 165 has its own individuality, its own knowledge and feel¬ ings and memories. At one stage of hypnosis, for example, the subject may be under the control of a part of his subliminal self, which we will call “X.” “X” thinks that he is Professor So-and-so, of the Uni¬ versity of So-and-so, and he will act, speak, talk and think as that professor would. Wake the subject up, and he will have no memory of his “professor” state, when the “X” part of his personality had control; but put him back (by hypnotizing him again) into the “X” condition, and he will pick up again the “professor” life just where he left off with it a little before, remem¬ bering all that he did in his former trance, but nothing of his own life outside it. But there is something even more interesting. When the subject is in “X” state let the hypnotizer say to him, “Sixty minutes from now shut the window behind you.” The subject is then awakened, and remembers absolutely nothing of his “X” state or of the command given him while in it. But exactly sixty minutes later, unconsciously, and without knowing why he does it, the subject gets up and closes the window indicated. Deep down in his subliminal self, in that “X” part of his personality unknown to his consciousness, that com¬ mand was waiting all the time, and when the moment came it rushed up from below the threshold and made the body for a moment obey it. Now—and this is the significant point—a study of hypnotism shows us that the subliminal self, when it thus has temporary control of the body, is able to do very unusual things. When it pleases, it is able, for instance, to do what the conscious will can never do—- change the tissue structure of the body. That is, a man, 166 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? in certain stages and conditions of hypnosis, not only can imagine, in answer to the hypnotizer’s suggestion, that he is burned, but can actually, by thinking, raise a blister on the spot indicated. For some years psychologists have been aware of a very remarkable phenomena, known as stigmatization. The name came from the fact that its earliest sponta¬ neous manifestations were the result of brooding over “the stigmata of Christ’s passion—the marks of wounds in hands and feet and side.” It was soon found that these morbid imaginings could actually produce upon the subject the marks of the wounds. This is another case of the subliminal self’s control over the tissues of the body ; for stigmatization is merely a step further. The subject has put himself into a semi¬ hypnotic state; instead of being hypnotized by an ex¬ ternal mind, he has put himself under the control of his own subliminal self. But this part of the personality can do more than change tissue structure. By suggestion, for example, the hypnotic subject’s eyes may be made to run as he smells of simple water; and conversely, obeying a simi¬ lar suggestion, the fumes of strong ammonia may cause not a tear. Here we have control of the secretions. The subliminal self can make the muscles as rigid as stone (catalepsis) ; it can create or dissipate hunger, alcoholism, and other desires and appetites, almost at will; it can, to a certain extent, nullify or restore any of the senses. Doing all these things, it was very early seen that hypnosis was an efficient agent in the cure of disease. Let the patient but put himself partly under the con¬ trol of his subliminal self, and results so marvelous as ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 167 to seem almost “miraculous” may be effected. Mind- cure, so called—“suggestive therapeutics”—is nothing new to the psychologist, nor original to the Christian Science denomination, as the latter would sometimes have us believe. Christian Science does deserve every credit, however, for emphasizing in a large way its remedial practicability. Doing these things too, knowing that we are but be¬ ginning to open up a vast domain of unknown powers governed by the subliminal portion of our conscious¬ ness, powers infinitely greater and more wonderful than those exerted by the conscious self, and in further view of the large evidence for the occurrence of the phenomena, we would seem to have a ground sufficient to prevent a dogmatic denial of the very possibility of at least occasional cases of genuine clairvoyance. Precognition, or Prophecy Rarely, but occasionally, in the history of spiritual¬ ism, occur cases of actual precognition, or prophecy, when the clairvoyant sight of the medium, in some wonderful way, seems actually to pierce the veil of the future. Mere flashes of this precognitive knowledge we call premonitions; these will be considered later. But here are two very striking and carefully attested cases of clairvoyant prophecy. The first is the account of a Mrs. McAlpine, quoted in the Report on the Cen¬ sus of Hallucinations, and corroborated by a sister of Mrs. McAlpine and the local papers: 1 “I remember in the June of 1889, I drove to Castle- blaney, a little town in the County Monaghan, to meet ‘Reported in S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, p. 416. 168 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? my sister, who was coming by train from Longford. I expected her at three o’clock, but as she did not come with that train, I got the horse put up, and went for a walk in the demesne. The day was very warm and bright, and I wandered on under the shade of the trees to the side of a lake, which is in the demesne. Being at length tired, I sat down to rest upon a rock at the edge of the water. My attention was quite taken up with the extreme beauty of the scene before me. There was not a sound or movement, except the soft ripple of the water on the sand at my feet. Presently I felt a cold chill creep thru me, and a curious stiffness of my limbs, as if I could not move, though wishing to do so. I felt frightened, yet chained to the spot, and as if im¬ pelled to stare at the water straight in front of me. Gradually a black cloud seemed to rise, and in the midst of it I saw a tall man, in a suit of tweed, jump into the water and sink. “In a moment the darkness was gone, and I again became sensible of the heat and sunshine, but I was awed, and felt ‘eerie’—it was then about four o’clock or so—I cannot remember either the exact time or date. On my sister’s arrival I told her of the occurrence; she was surprised, but inclined to laugh at it. When we got home I told my brother; he treated the subject in much the same manner. However, about a week after¬ ward, Mr. Espie, a bank clerk (unknown to me), com¬ mitted suicide by drowning in that very spot. He left a letter for his wife, indicating that he had for some time contemplated his death. My sister’s memory of the event is the only evidence I can give. I did not see the account of the inquest at the time, and did not ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 169 mention my strange experience to any one, saving my sister and brother.” 1 Another example was communicated to Professor Richet by Professor Thoulet. “During the summer of 1867 I was officially the as¬ sistant, 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 Riva- nazzaro, near Voghera, in Piedmont, which had been long abandoned on account of a falling in. . . . “I knew that Madame F., who lived at Toulon, and with whom I was slightly acquainted, would soon be confined. . . . “M. F. and I slept in adjoining rooms, and as it was hot, we left the door between them open. One morn¬ ing 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 tele¬ gram 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. 'From the Report on the Census of Hallucinations in the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 10, p. 332. 170 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “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. . . . “Two or three days after I left for Toree; 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 re¬ ceived the following telegram from M. F.: ‘Come di¬ rectly. You were right.’ “I returned to Rivanazzaro, and M. F. showed me a telegram which he had received the evening before. I recognized 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 re¬ mark 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 under¬ stood —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, try¬ ing 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.” William T. Stead Editor of the English “Review of Reviews,” writer and humanitarian— an earnest believer in spiritualism. ‘I DO NOT BELIEVE THE DEAD DEPART.” The question, “Do the Dead Return?” is best answered by asking another question: “Do the dead depart?” I do not believe the dead depart. They are still with us, closer and nearer than they ever were before they laid aside this earthly vesture of decay. The space at my disposal is too brief to set forth even in barest outline the reasons which have brought me to this conviction. But they are such that I do not believe any fair- minded, inteligent person, who will devote himself to a care¬ ful examination of the phenomena on which this conviction rests, will come to any other conclusion than that at which I have arrived. Recent scientific discoveries have rendered the hypothesis of communication between the living and the so-called dead much more thinkable by the average man that it was fifty or even fifteen years since. Photography, the telephone, the X-rays and wireless telegraphy are accustoming mankind to the possibility of many things which our fathers would have dismissed as absolutely incredible. Fifty years ago the possi¬ bility of holding vocal converse with a friend at a distance of a hundred miles would have been scouted as scientifically out of the question. To hear a voice while seeing no man was in former times deemed so uncanny an experience as to justify an assumption of a supernatural agency. All previous generations, as the result of invariable expe¬ rience, linked together as an obvious axiom that when the ear could hear the eye must be able to see the speaker. That assumption has been broken down by the telephone. Wireless telegraphy has familiarized us with the possibility of transmitting thought by electric waves even across the Atlantic without the need of a telegraph cable. The phe¬ nomena of thought-reading or telepathy have shown that mind can communicate with mind without an electric battery. 171 173 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? All these things have done much to break down skepticism, and I no longer fear being written down as a lunatic when I say that I have the same confidence as to the certainty of communication with friends who have passed over into the other world as I have in our ability to talk through the tele¬ phone to distant friends. Several years ago a dearly loved friend of mine promised me that if she passed over before I did she would endeavor to do four things: (i) She would use my hand by means of automatic writing to communicate with me; (2) she would make herself visible in her habit as she lived to one or more of her friends who possessed the gift of seeing; (3) she would come and be photographed; (4) she would control some medium and give me a message hall-marked as genuine by a private sign known only to her and myself. Within a year of her death she did all four. She wrote with my hand describing her experiences after her transition. She appeared once in broad daylight in the street to one friend. To another she appeared in a well-lighted dining-room when dinner was being served, and she also appeared to a third less publicly. She has been photographed four or five times, the portrait being instantly recognizable by all who knew her, although except to clairvoyants no form was visible before the camera. None of the photographs so produced was identical with any of those taken during her earth-life. The fourth and last test was given unexpectedly by a strange medium to a friend of mine. It referred to an incident that transpired at her death, and it was accompanied by the mathematical sym¬ bol which we had privately agreed upon as the one which should be the test or hall-mark of her identity. —William T. Stead. CHAPTER VIII GHOSTS Perhaps no one class of spiritualistic phenomena bulks more important in the popular imagination than that of apparitions of the dead. Indeed, “ghosts,” if the spiritualist can prove that they exist, whatever explanation we put upon their appearance, must be conceded an important link in our chain of evidence regarding a life after death. Very early in its career the Society for Psychical Research, under the leadership of Mr. Edmund Gur¬ ney, undertook the study of apparitions, and with such success that they were soon able to assert that they had proved there were such things as “ghosts.” They compiled, over a period of many months, a careful Cen¬ sus of Hallucinations observed by over seventeen thou¬ sand individuals. The work was in the hands of a special committee, of which Mr. Frank Podmore, Pro¬ fessor Henry Sidgewick and F. W. H. Myers were members, and associated with them were some four hundred enumerators. These last were asked to propound to twenty-five adults, chosen at random, the following question: “Have you ever, when believing yourself to be com¬ pletely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or be¬ ing touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of 173 174 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?” Every effort was made to remove bias, pro or con, and to secure honest answers, without regard to the possible final result. This result was, however, as we have seen, startling. After deducting all questionable hallucinations due by any possibility to sleep or disease (insanity or de¬ lirium), there remained one thousand six hundred and eighty-four answers, or ten per cent., more or less strongly affirmative. Three hundred and fifty-two of these “ghosts” which were seen were apparitions of living persons, and one hundred and sixty-three appa¬ ritions of the dead. But, more than this, sixty-three of these were circumstantially attested apparitions al¬ most or quite coincident (within twelve hours) with the time of death. Allowance on the one hand for pos¬ sible lapse of memory, and on the other every leeway for possible error, fraud, or coincidence in the testi¬ mony, reduced the number of accepted coincidences one-third. Perhaps the startling nature of the fact just given is not at first sight apparent. Here we have a half hundred people out of seventeen thousand-odd who say that they saw a ghost of a person within twelve hours of that person’s death. Well, what of it? you say. Ad¬ mitting these people are honest in their belief, you prove nothing; it may have been all their imagination; as the scientist would say, their “ghosts” were all hal¬ lucinatory, apparitions which existed merely in the minds of the percipients, and without any objective quality. But the committee combined with their census a ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 175 few statistics. It took but very little simple mathe¬ matics to ascertain that at the current annual death rate for England and Wales (19.15 per 1,000 in 1890) the chances that any given person would die on a given day were nineteen thousand to one. This meant that, if nineteen thousand apparitions of living persons were witnessed on a given day, one, and one only, by the laws of chance, should be that of a person dying, about to die, or recently dead. But—and mark you, this is the significant point— we have in the Census , as we have seen, not twice or even a hundred times this number, but over four hun¬ dred times this number which, by chance alone, should have occurred. The complete results of the Census were printed in Myers’ Phantasms of the Living and in the Proceed¬ ings of the Society, together with all the figures ob¬ tained, and the methods and allowances used in secur¬ ing the final result. Not a person, after an examina¬ tion of the evidence, can question the absolute fair¬ ness of calculation and the large margin of possible error allowed. Yet the Census rendered unavoidable this very striking, and, indeed, epoch-making conclu¬ sion, which the committee italicized: “Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists which is not due to chance. This we hold as a proved fact.” And the point is not merely that in some mysterious way a person is more likely at about the time of an¬ other person’s death to see (or think he sees) an appa¬ rition of that person. If we think a moment we see that the real truth is deeper and more important. In most of the cases the “percipient” (the person 176 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? who saw the apparition) did not know that the person was dying (or dead): in very many cases he was not thinking of the dying person at all, and did not even know that he was ill, or (if death was due to an acci¬ dent) that he was in any possibility of danger. In other words, there would be no reason why the per¬ cipient should at that moment see an apparition, except that at that moment the apparition did really exist. One man might, some day, happen to have an hallu¬ cination of a man at that moment dying. But if a hundred men “happen” to have hallucinations of peo¬ ple at that moment they are dying, we have every reason to say that here is something more than mere hallucination—that the ghosts seen really do exist. And striking as this mathematical proof is, it is still not the most convincing, as Myers well points out. “I must add that while this argument from statis¬ tics and percentages . . . constitutes technically the strongest support of the thesis of causal connection between deaths and apparitions, it is yet by no means the only support, nor even the most practically con¬ vincing. Those deaths and those apparitions are not mere simple momentary facts—as tho we were deal¬ ing with two clocks which struck simultaneously. Each is a complex occurrence, and the correspondence is often much more than a mere coincidence of time alone. Sometimes, indeed, the alleged coincidence is so de¬ tailed and intimate that, if the evidence for a single case is fully believed, the case is enough to carry con¬ viction.” 1 ’Myers: Human Personality, v. I, pp. 573-4- ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 177 “Spirit Photography” If a “ghost” can make impression on the eye—that is, be seen—why can it not make an impression on a photographic plate? More than this, since the pho¬ tographic plate is incontestably more sensitive than the human eye, that is, sensitive to rays that we cannot “see” at all, what more possible—nay, even probable— than that the camera shall record the presence of “ghosts” utterly invisible to the eye? And what fur¬ ther or stronger proof, continues the advocate of “spirit photography,” what further or stronger proof is neces¬ sary in support of apparitions than the appearance of unmistakable pictures of them upon a photographic plate? The camera cannot lie. There is the crux of the discussion of this particular class of phenomena; we know very well that the cam¬ era is, on occasion, a most accomplished and unblush¬ ing liar; so much so, indeed, that those best qualified to judge look on every spirit photograph with well- founded suspicion. The subject is, however, one so closely allied with that of apparitions, and so widely considered a part of spiritism, that before proceeding further with our “ghosts” we will examine it a little, if only to dismiss it from consideration. “Fraud has been writ large over spirit photography,” says Dr. Funk, “and all spirit photographs are viewed by the public with more suspicion, perhaps, than is any other class of psychic phenomena.” 1 “That these spirit photographs,” adds Mr. Carrington, “can be produced by trickery no one doubts who is acquainted with the "Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 451 . 178 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? evidence and the facts in the case. Granting that the medium is free to manipulate the plates, before, during and after the seance, or at any one of these times, it is well known that he is able to produce exact repro¬ ductions of supposedly spirit forms by purely fraudu¬ lent means. . . .” l And continuing, Mr. Carrington outlines some of the numerous ways in which fraudulent spirit photo¬ graphs may be produced. “By a clever device, the sensitive plate may be im¬ pressed with the figure of a ghost while in the dark slide, on the way to or from the operating-room, or even while in the camera itself. Indeed, twenty differ¬ ent varieties of deceptions may be practiced without exposure. A common artifice is to place a microscopic picture within the camera box, so that, by means of a small magnifying lens, its image may be thrown upon the plate. Spectral effects may also be produced by covering the back of a sensitive plate with pieces of cut paper, and using artifices well known to retouch¬ ers. . . . Extraordinary spectral effects, such as that of a man shaking hands with his own ghost, cutting off his own hand, or followed by his own doppleganger, may be produced by ‘masking,’ a process which it would take too long to describe here. There is scarcely any conceivable absurdity in portraiture which may not be accomplished by the camera; and the peculiari¬ ties of the business are so extraordinary, the opportuni¬ ties for humbug so excellent, and the methods and mod¬ ifications of methods whereby spirit photographs may ‘Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 206. Alleged Genuine “Spirit Photograph” Fraudulent “Spirit Photograph” (Reproduced from Funk’s “The Widow’s Mite.”) (Reproduced from phenomena of ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 179 be manufactured, so numerous, that it is hopeless for any person totally ignorant of photography to detect fraud.” 1 Undoubtedly the most usual method of deception, however, is the device of “double exposure,” a trick perfectly familiar to every photographer. The sight of the hazy “ghost” in the developt picture, with the furniture behind it showing dimly thru its “spectral” robes, is quite convincing—unless you know how it is done. I cannot forbear quoting here a description, most amusing in its naivete, of another mediumistic trick closely allied to spirit photography. “Sometimes a circle is treated to the rare sight of seeing a picture form or materialize before their eyes, when no human hand is touching the canvas, the pic¬ ture apparently forming upon it of its own accord! This is a most astonishing test. Here is the explana¬ tion: “A picture is made with concentrated solutions of sulphocyanide of potassium, ferrocyanide of potassium and tannin, all of which will be invisible until brought out by the proper reagent. This is a weak solution of tincture of iron, which is thrown upon the canvas by means of an atomizer. The first then comes out red, the second blue, and the third black. Either the medium, or a confederate, creeps behind the canvas during the seance, and thoroly sprays over the back of the picture, when it will develop as stated. In order to cover the sound of the atomizer, a music-box is set ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 216. 180 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? going, or the sitters are requested to sing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ ”* But altho the evidence is strongly presumptive of fraud in nearly every case of spirit photography, it would be hardly fair to the spiritualists to leave the subject without citing at least one comparatively well- attested case on the other side. This particular ex¬ periment was performed by the Rev. J. T. Wills, D.D., pastor of the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, Cal., and is quoted by Dr. Funk. “I wish to say that for some time past my friend, Dr. W. J. Pierce, of this city, had been telling me some strange things about spirit photography, which seemed to be incredible, and but for the fact that they were told me by such a man as Dr. Pierce, I should have paid no attention to them; but having known him for over thirty years as a man of truth, I could not doubt his word for one moment, but fearing it possible that the doctor might be deceived in some way in the matter, I said to him that I would like to see for my¬ self how the thing was done, and, if possible, find out the secret of the process; and so to gratify my wish, the doctor made an engagement with the medium, Mr. Edmund Wyllie, to meet me at the doctor’s office on April I, at 4 p.m., where the doctor has a dark room, and all the equipment for photography development purposes. At the time appointed I went, and on my way I called at a place where photographic supplies are sold, and bought a half dozen 4x5 Crown-Cramer sensitized plates, and took them with me in my coat pocket to the office, where I met the medium, who ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism , pp. 222-3. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 181 impressed me as being an honest man. After some little talk with him, I told him I wanted to test the matter for myself, and that I would like him to wash his hands, which he did, first in alcohol, then with soap and water, then again in alcohol, and then he dried them thoroly with a clean towel; and when his hands were examined, and found to be perfectly clean, we went into the dark room, which was not really dark, but was lighted with a little lamp with orange-color light, such as photographers use in the developing- room. Then I took the plates out of my pocket and took one plate out of the package, and after marking it on one corner, thus, <£, and holding it at each cor¬ ner of the end toward me, I held the plate toward the medium, who placed his hands, the one on top of the other, underneath, holding the plate between his palms, while I continued to hold on to the corners and never let it go from my grasp for one instant, until, to my surprise, ... I heard three distinct taps upon the plate; then the medium removed his hands and I put the plate at once into the developer and developt it myself. Neither was it out of my possession for one second from the time that I bought it, some four blocks away, until I had it fully developt; and to my aston¬ ishment . . . there was the face of a lady on it, and that so plain, that it has been recognized by my daugh¬ ter as the likeness of a lady who was never in Cali¬ fornia, and who died in England several years ago.” 1 Apparitions of the Living But certainly not spirit photography, and perhaps not even that summing up of the Census of Hallucina- J Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, pp. 463-4. 182 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? tions, seem to be sufficient reason for such a daringly positive statement as the following one of Dr. Savage: “There is no sort of question that there are phan¬ tasms of both the dead and living; but no scientific man takes that as proving immortality. It simply raises a question as to what they are and what they mean. But that what we call ghosts exist, no unprejudiced student has the slightest doubt.” 1 Once again I feel called upon to repeat a warning that I have already given. I cannot, in any brief space, begin to give the complete arguments for or against any of the propositions here submitted. For complete briefs of either side, for circumstantial, re¬ peated and detailed examples, the interested reader must turn to the works cited. If he thinks he dis¬ covers a flaw in the writer’s presentation, he must re¬ member that the omission was purposed, and, indeed, rendered necessary by the treatment adopted. But let him remember this: there are no gaps wit¬ tingly left which have not been satisfactorily filled in the primary sources: my purpose is to give a condensa¬ tion of the results obtained by others, to summarize the salient points in the work of many men. When I state that the Census “seems to prove” the coincidence of death apparitions, I mean that the reader who dis¬ covers apparent loopholes in my presentation will find, on reference to the original work, that probably all his objections were foreseen and adequately answered. Did the Census itself fail to present a connected chain of argument, I would so have stated. To enter into any exhaustive study of the evidence would mean, not 'Savage: Life After Death, p. 257. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 183 a series of short articles, but a series of volumes. I can here but digest, with typical examples, the results ob¬ tained by reputable men who have themselves made the exhaustive research. For the truth of the occurrence of apparitions of living persons there is a formidable amount of evi¬ dence; so much so, that Dr. Funk, among many oth¬ ers, says, “it now seems certain.” “Whether,” he adds, “this vision is mental, or seen by the eye, is not yet certainly established. It is cer¬ tain that the person who sees the vision is often as sure that he sees with his eyes as he is of anything else that his eyes see. . . ,” 1 The first instance I shall give is a premonitory one (that is, one shortly before death), and is related by the distinguished scientist, Dr. Geo. J. Romanes, F.R.S. “Toward the end of March, 1878, in the dead of the night, while believing myself to be awake, I thought the door at the head of my bed was opened, and a white figure passed along the side of the bed to the foot, where it faced about and showed me it was cov¬ ered, head and all, with a shroud. Then, with its hands it suddenly parted the shroud over the face, re¬ vealing between its two hands the face of my sister, who was ill in another room. I exclaimed her name, whereupon the figure vanished instantly. Next day (and certainly on account of the shock given me by the above experience) I called in Sir W. Jenner, who said my sister had not many days to live. She died, in fact, very soon afterward. “I was in good health, without any grief or anxiety. ’Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 390. 184 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? My sister was being- attended by our family doctor, who did not expect anything serious; therefore, I had no anxiety at all on her account, nor had she herself. I have never, either before or after this, had such an experience. . . Z’ 1 This is but a sample of a very large number of such “premonitory apparitions” contained in the records of the Society for Psychical Research. Several others will be given later in the consideration of premonitions as such. The Projection of the “Astral Body”? If ghosts of living persons can occur spontaneously there is, of course, the possibility that they can be produced at will; and, indeed, we find that there are on record a number of such successful attempts. One very striking case seen by a Miss G., happened in broad daylight, and was the result of a strong effort of will power on the part of a Mr. Kirk, who made the attempt thus to project his own “ghost.” “A peculiar occurrence happened to me on the Wednesday of the week before last,” says Miss G., reporting the case to the Society. “In the afternoon (being tired by a morning walk), while sitting in an easy chair near the window of my room, I fell asleep. At any time I happen to sleep during the day (which is but seldom), I invariably awake with tired, uncom¬ fortable sensations, which take some little time to pass off; but that afternoon, on the contrary, I was sud¬ denly quite wide awake, seeing Mr. Kirk standing near my chair, dressed in a dark-brown coat, which I had frequently seen him wear. His back was toward the 'Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 49. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 185 window, his right hand toward me; he passed across the room toward the door . . . but when he got about four feet from the door, which was closed, he disap¬ peared.” 1 Another case, reported at length by Mr. Myers, is remarkable for two reasons: there were two percipients and the experiment was repeated, each time success¬ fully. The evidence was closely examined by Mr. Gur¬ ney, and is corroborated in many important details, and is remarkably strong thruout. The account is written by Mr. S. H. B., who “projected” the “ghost” of himself in this instance. “On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, having been reading of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom on the second floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, viz., Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged, respectively, twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be there was one o’clock in the morning, and I also had a strong intention of making my presence perceptible. 1 Report on the Census of Hallucinations. S. P. R. Proceed¬ ings, Vol X., p. 270. 186 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in the course of conversation (with¬ out any allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced toward her, and awoke her little sister, who saw me, also. “I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative; and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied about one o’clock in the morning. “This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event and signed it. “This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of this kind, and its complete success star¬ tled me very much. “Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now, at certain times, set in motion at will.” 1 The account is verified by both the Misses Verity. Dr. Funk notes another interesting case, where a man’s spirit—if we are to believe his account—traveled several hundred miles by train, returning to his body just in time to prevent his being given up as dead. He seemed, however, to be invisible to others thruout this strange experience. 'Myers: Phantasms of the Living, v. i, pp. 104-9. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 187 Is it possible that a human being can, by willing to do so, send a ghost of itself (what an East Indian adept would call its “astral body”) hundreds or thou¬ sands of miles almost instantaneously? Is it possible, in the first place, that a man’s spirit, accompanied, or without this ghostly body, can leave the material body and travel at will, seemingly regardless of time or space ? It may seem safer to say that, as yet, we don’t know; but there are instances which seem to point in this direction. Apparitions of the Dead In seeking the explanation of ghosts, not of the liv¬ ing but of the dead, as of other matters lying entirely outside ordinary human experience, our only clue, as Myers says, is some attempt at continuity with what we already know. Thus we have seen that telepathy, and even clairvoyance, are not inconceivable in this day of the wireless telephone, the proved existence of those mysterious rapid vibrations of the ether of which, as yet, we know tantalizingly little except that exist¬ ence, and the, as yet, almost unknown “higher” forces of the human mind and body. But granting the possibility of clairvoyance, that is, granting the projection, for many miles, of a power of sight, it is but a step to view as possible the similar projection of the apparition of a living person. And similarly, as Dr. Hyslop notes, “If thoughts of the liv¬ ing can produce hallucinations at a distance, it is but a step to the supposition that the dead, if they actually survive death, can produce similar effects. . . ” x 'Hyslop: Borderland of Psychical Research, p. 192. 188 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “If they survive death,” you will notice. But be¬ fore attempted explanation, let us consider a few, a few out of a very large number, of typical instances of the phenomena itself. We have one on the authority of no less a person than Lord Brougham, the philosopher and scientist, who was traveling in Sweden at the time of the inci¬ dent he describes. “We set out for Gothenberg, determined to make Norway. About one in the morning, arriving at a de¬ cent inn, we decided to stop for the night. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage of a hot bath before I turned in, and here a most re¬ markable thing happened to me—so remarkable that 1 must tell the story from the beginning. “After I left the high school I went with G., my first intimate friend, to attend the classes in the uni¬ versity. There was no divinity class, but we frequently in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave subjects—among others, on the immortality of the soul, and on a future state. This question, and the possibil¬ ity, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead appearing to the living, were subjects of much specu¬ lation ; and we actually committed the folly of draw¬ ing up an agreement, written with our own blood, to the effect that whichever of us died the first should appear to the other, and thus solve the doubts we had entertained of the ‘life after death.’ “After we had finished our classes at the college, G. went to India, having got an appointment there in the civil service. He seldom wrote to me, and after the lapse of a few years I had almost forgotten him; moreover, his family having little connection with Edin- Spirit Photography Alleged photograph of an ancient, taken in Chicago by Mr. Blackwell (on the left). This same "spirit" has appeared on his plates in many parts of the world. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 189 burgh, I seldom saw or heard anything of them, so that all his schoolboy intimacy had died out, and I had nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath, and while lying in it, and enjoying the comfort of the heat after the late freezing I had undergone, I turned my head around, looking toward the chair on which I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the bath. On the chair sat G., looking calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I know not, but on recovering my senses I found myself sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever it was that had taken the likeness of G., had disap¬ peared.” 1 This, it will be noted, rests entirely on Lord Brough¬ am’s personal word; but remembering the bias of his writings, it seems unlikely that he would fabricate a ghostly visit. Here is another typical instance of an apparition occurring at or soon after the moment of death. “A gentleman,” says Dr. Hyslop, relating the inci¬ dent, “had a friend whom he calls J. P., that had gone out to the Transvaal, in Africa. When they bade each other farewell they expected to see each other again. But one night the narrator had gone to bed about one o'clock. Early in the morning this expe¬ rience took place: “ ‘Standing by my bed, between me and the chest of drawers, I saw a figure, which, in spite of the unwonted dress—unwonted, at least, to me—and of a full black beard, I at once recognized as that of my old brother officer. He had on the usual khaki coat worn by the ’Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 48-9. 190 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? officers on active service in eastern climates. A brown leather strap, which might have been the strap of his field-service glass, crossed his breast. A brown leather girdle, with sword attached on the left side, and revol¬ ver-case on the right, passed around his waist. On his head he wore the ordinary white pith helmet of service. I noticed all these particulars in the moment that I started from sleep, and sat up in bed looking at him. His face was pale, but his bright black eyes shone as keenly as when, a year and a half before, they had looked upon me as he stood with one foot on the hansom, bidding me adieu.’ “ ‘Fully impressed for the brief moment that we were stationed together at C-, in Ireland, or somewhere, and thinking I was in my barrack-room, I said, “Hello, P.! Am I late for parade ?” P. looked at me steadily and replied, “I’m shot.” “ ‘ “Shot!” I exclaimed. “Good God! How, and where ?” “ ‘ “Through the lungs,” replied P., and as he spoke his right hand moved slowly up to his breast until the fingers rested over the right lung. “ ‘“What were you doing?” I asked. “ ‘ “The general sent me forward,” he answered, and the right hand left the breast, to move slowly to the front, pointing over my head to the window, and at the same moment the figure melted away. I rubbed my eyes, to make sure I was not dreaming, and sprang out of bed. It was 4.10 a.m. by the clock on my man¬ telpiece.’ “That day the gentleman looked for news from the war, but found none, and spoke to a friend about his experience, and on the next day the news placed his ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 191 friend, J. P., among- the killed in the battle of Lang’s Neck. The London Gazette shows that the man was killed probably between eleven and twelve o’clock on January 28. It seems probable that the narrator’s time, 4.10 in the morning, is wrong for his experience, but Mr. Gurney thinks that the apparition took place after death, or very close to it. . . .” 1 I cannot here relate another interesting case, given by Dr. Hyslop on the authority of Mr. Ira Sayles, of the U. S. Geological Survey, of an apparition of a young man which pointed to a bullet hole over its right eye (discovered afterward to be really the cause of his death) ; or of the very striking case of the twin brother of Mrs. Storie, already mentioned, who was run over while asleep on a railroad track. Mrs. Storie’s narra¬ tive is given at length in Phantasms of the Living; and the way in which she saw the entire tragedy, as it was taking place hundreds of miles aivay from her, makes very interesting reading. Neither can I do more than mention the gentleman who saw an apparition of his brother in a theater in Toronto, while the latter was dying in China; or the interesting case reported by the well-known writer and physician, Dr. S. Weir Mitch¬ ell ; or of the apparition of Lord L-, seen by the Duchess of Hamilton. The Morton “Haunting” Something further, however, must be said regard¬ ing the famous Morton case, partly because it is prob¬ ably the best authenticated instance of “haunting” on ’Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 245 - 7 - 192 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? record, partly because it stands as a type of a large class. Unlike those previously mentioned, this is an instance where the ghost appears some years after the death of the person. The case was most fully described by a Miss R. C. Morton, whose paper, a Record of a Haunted House , appears in Volume VIII of the Proceedings . 1 The ghost in question was seen independently, however, by at least twenty other persons besides herself, six of whom made “independent first-hand statements.” These witnesses were examined by Frederic Myers personally, and their testimony was so detailed and completely corroborative that, were this an incident in ordinary life, the assumption would be considered proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. The house in which the Mortons resided “was built about the year i860; the first occupant was Mr. S., an Anglo-Indian, who lived in it for about sixteen years. During this time, in the month of August, year uncertain, he lost his wife, to whom he was passion¬ ately attached, and to drown his grief took to drink¬ ing. About two years later Mr. S. married again. His second wife, a Miss I. H., was in hopes of curing him of his intemperate habits, but instead, she also took to drinking, and their married life was embittered by constant quarrels, frequently resulting in violent scenes. . . . She died on September 23, 1878. “After Mr. S.’s death the house was bought by Mr. L., an elderly gentleman, who died rather suddenly 'The following quotations regarding the case are from this paper. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 193 within six months of going into it. The house then remained empty for some years—probably four. “During this time there is no direct evidence of haunting, but when inquiry was made later on, much hearsay evidence was brought forward. In April, 1882, the house was let by the representatives of the late Mr. L. to Captain Morton, . . Miss Morton continues: “The family consists of Captain M. himself; his wife, who is a great invalid; neither of whom saw anything; a married daughter, Mrs. K., then about twenty-six, who was only a visitor from time to time, sometimes with, but more often without, her husband; four unmarried daughters: myself, then aged nineteen, who was the chief percipient, and now give the chief account of the apparition; E. Morton, then aged eight¬ een; L. and M. Morton, then fifteen and thirteen; two sons, one of sixteen, who was absent during the greater part of the time when the apparition was seen; the other then six years old. “My father took the house in March, 1882, none of us having then heard of anything unusual about the house. We moved in toward the end of April, and it was not until the following June that I first saw the apparition. “I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed, when I heard some one at the door, and went to it, thinking it might be my mother. On opening the door I saw no one; but on going a few steps along the pas¬ sage I saw the figure of a tall lady, dressed in black, standing at the head of the stairs. After a few mo¬ ments she descended the stairs, and I followed for a short distance, feeling curious what it could be. I 194 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? had only a small piece of candle, and it suddenly burnt itself out; and being unable to see more, I went back to my room. “The figure was that of a tall lady, dressed in black of a soft woolen material, judging from the slight sound in moving. The face was hidden in a hand¬ kerchief held in the right hand. This is all I noticed then; but on further occasions, when I was able to observe her more closely, I saw the upper part of the left side of the forehead and a little of the hair above. Her left hand was nearly hidden by her sleeve and a fold of her dress. As she held it down, a portion of a widow’s cuff was visible on both wrists, so that the whole impression was that of a lady in widow’s weeds. There was no cap on the head, but a general effect of blackness suggested a bonnet, with long veil or a hood.” Somewhat later Miss Morton says, for her narrative is altogether too long to quote in full: “After the first, I followed the figure several times downstairs into the drawing-room, where she remained a variable time, generally standing to the right-hand side of the bow-window. From the drawing-room she went along the passage toward the garden door, where she always disappeared. “The first time I spoke to her was on January 29, 1884. I opened the drawing-room door softly and went in, standing just by it. She came in past me and walked to the sofa and stood still there; so I went up to her and asked her if I could help her. She moved, and I thought she was going to speak, but she only gave a slight gasp and moved toward the door. Just by the door I spoke to her again, but she seemed as ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 195 if she were quite unable to speak. She walked into the hall, and then by the side door she seemed to disap¬ pear as before.” Miss Morton then proceeds to relate a large num¬ ber of instances when the apparition was seen, by many different people, on one occasion by as many as four people in one evening. The apparition continued to be seen at intervals during the next three years. “At Mr. Myers’ suggestion, I kept a photographic camera constantly ready to try to photograph the fig¬ ure, but on the few occasions I was able to do so, I got no result; at night, usually only by candlelight, a long exposure would be necessary for so dark a figure, and this I could not obtain.” The narrative thruout is a very remarkable one. Miss Morton, as Dr. Funk notes, was a “capital wit¬ ness, not being in the least nervous.” Frequently, she says, she “tried to communicate with the figure, con¬ stantly speaking to it, and asking it to make signs, if not able to speak, but with no result. I also tried especially to touch her, but did not succeed. On cor¬ nering her, as I did once or twice, she disappeared.” Myers says that Miss Morton had “scientific training, and was at the time her account was written (April, 1892) preparing to be a physician.” Here are the “proofs of immateriality” of the appa¬ rition, with which Miss Morton sums up her account: I. “I have several times fastened fine strings across the stairs, at various heights, before going to bed, but after all others have gone up to their rooms. ... I made small pellets of marine glue, into which I in¬ serted the ends of the cord, then stuck one pellet lightly 196 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? against the wall and the other to the banister, the string being thus stretched across the stairs. They were knocked down by a very slight touch, and yet would not be felt by any one passing up or down the stairs, and by candlelight could not be seen from below. They were put at various heights from the ground, from six inches to the height of the banister, about three feet. I have twice at least seen the figure pass through the cords, leaving them intact. 2. “The sudden and complete disappearance of the figure while still in view. 3. “The impossibility of touching the figure. I have repeatedly followed it into a corner, when it disap¬ peared, and have tried to suddenly pounce upon it, but have never succeeded in touching it or getting my hand up to it, the figure eluding my touch. 4. “It has appeared in a room with the doors shut. On the other hand, the figure was not called up by a desire to see it, for on every occasion when we had made special arrangements to watch for it we never saw it. . . .” 1 We must remember, too, that the figure was seen “by about twenty people, many of them not having previously heard of the apparition.” Tho its identity —and this question of identity becomes of importance a little later—was never proved, Miss Morton be¬ lieves, for the following reasons, that it was the second Mrs. S.: “1. The complete history of the house is known, and if we are to connect the figure with any of the previous occupants, she is the only person who in any way re¬ sembled the figure; and the figure is undoubtedly con¬ nected with the house, none of the percipients having ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 197 seen it anywhere else, nor had any other hallucina¬ tion. “2. The widow’s garb excludes the first Mrs. S. “3. Altho none of us had ever seen the second Mrs. S., several people who had known her identified her from our description. On being shown a photo-album containing a number of portraits, I picked out one of her sister as being most like that of the figure, and was afterward told that the sisters were much alike. “4. Her stepdaughter and others told us that she especially used the front drawing-room, in which she continually appeared, and that her habitual seat was on a couch placed in a similar position to ours. . . 'See the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 8, pp. 311-32; also, Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 396-400; Myers: Human Personality, v. 2, pp. 389-96. / “SURVIVAL IS IMPROBABLE" Survival is a hypothesis which people who do not stop to reflect accept complacently. But the philosopher is a little more reserved. Life is painful enough not to give us any very brilliant idea of what is to follow, and it is with something akin to terror that I figure the possibility that I, my ego, my consciousness, can have no end, and will live eternally. Who knows, in that case, what is reserved for me? We are all, all such deplor¬ able cowards, so ridiculously feeble in the face of the im¬ mensity of the universe, that we have everything to fear from the colossal forces, perhaps unjust, perhaps absurd, which will have the power, perhaps eternally, to submit us to tortures and to misery. Happily this survival is improbable. A lamp goes out when the oil is finished. The consciousness will become extinguished when it lacks carbon and oxygen. Then it will be night, sleep, repose; night without dawn, sleep with no awakening, repose with no return to activity. It is true that there are some who believe they have given scientific proofs of survival. But these proofs are very fragile. Who knows, nevertheless, but that one day new proofs will be discovered? Our ignorance is so profound that everything is possible. Metaphysics is making such progress that the proofs, either negative or positive, may perhaps be forthcoming. In any case, we may be assured of one thing—that this will only be demonstrated by the most painstaking and laborious scientific research. This, and this only, will shed light on the future of our “me,” our ego, our being. We keep track rather badly of the march of ideas. Every¬ thing around us changes—costumes, machinery, language, even —and these changes, which are gradual, pass unperceived. Once a progression has been effected it enters so rapidly into our manners that we have trouble to realize that it has not always existed. Young people to-day do not imagine that thirty years ago the telephone, the phonograph, bicycles, auto- 198 Mr. Frank Podmore Most scholarly of all the anti-spiritualistic investigators of psychical phenomena. His masterly attack, “A History of Modern Spiritualism,” is the authority. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 199 mobiles, sleeping-cars, antiseptics, X-rays, and even the theory of microbes, did not exist. It appears to-day as though these things had always existed, and that one could not live without them. Nevertheless, you only need to call up the recollections of a man of my generation, and he will tell you that not only these things were unknown, but that no one dreamed that they would one day exist. We change, then, and we change very rapidly, but by little transitions, imperceptibly. Now in psychical science everything is so profoundly modi¬ fied that to get any idea of this it is necessary to look back about thirty years. Thirty years ago neither animal mag¬ netism, nor hypnotism, nor any of the phenomena called occult, were accepted. Nor did any one give himself the trouble to study them. All such investigations were treated with a smile of incredulity and disdain. The most simple thing was to deny everything. In the encyclopedia of 1875 the definition given for animal magnetism is thus summed up: “Animal magnetism does not exist.” The doctrines of psychical phenomena were flouted equally by the sages and the vulgar. It was not even admitted that an honest man could occupy himself seriously with such “non¬ sense,” to try to discover whether the manifestations were true or false. This is one of the reasons why I have such a profound admiration for that great savant, Sir William Crookes. It is not alone that he discovered new metals, invented admirable instruments with which to work, by which fertile discoveries have been made, and imagined audacious theories the profound penetration of which each day confirms. But it is for another thing that I admire him most—for his scientific courage! The professional courage of the savant is equal any day to that of the soldier who rushes with fixed bayonet into the thick of battle. Sir William Crookes was one of the first of the scien¬ tific men to dare to publish his investigations in spiritualistic phenomena. And this opened up the road to hundreds more timid. To-day young students talk, as a matter of course, of animal magnetism, hypnotic suggestion, and other phenomena of a 200 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? similar order. They cannot imagine the discredit such ideas brought down upon the head of the young aspirant of three decades ago. I remember yet when I told my father, by whose counsel and high intelligence I was always guided, I wanted to publish my investigations on somnambulism. He cried: “But, my boy, do you want to ruin your career?” Happily, one is never quite lost when one defends what one believes to be true. So I am convinced that in the near future, after new facts have been demonstrated, after able experimenters, aided by powerful mediums, shall have thrown new light on certain phenomena which are as yet rather shad¬ owy, we shall be brought to modify profoundly all of our conceptions on metaphysics and metaphysical manifestations. We will have other hypotheses than that of angels and spirits, or of human emanations, for the explanation of the tipping of tables and of materialized bodies. There is a force which exists, an unknown force, as truly as the law of natural selection existed long before Darwin so named it, and as the theory of electricity was true long before Ampere, Faraday or Franklin made their discoveries in regard to it. Up to the present time the phenomena which we have been able to examine have been only fragmentary. The tie which binds them escapes us. But it will not always be so. The day will come when an explanation will be given, an explanation quite different to all those which our ignorance has constructed. The discovery is perhaps quite simple. Let us, then, have confidence in a science which will open up to us a limitless horizon. Do we not know already that science has diminished by one-half the miseries and ills of humanity, miseries into which we have fallen through ignorance? Well, what medical and physical science has done for the human body may we not hope metaphysical science in turn may accomplish for the spiritual self when the question of survival will become no longer a theory, a problem, but an established fact? Then let us work, study, employ sure methods, and not abandon ourselves to hollow phrases and uncertain hopes. Science alone, and a severe science, will have the right to solve the Grand Problem. —Charles Richet. CHAPTER IX WHAT ARE GHOSTS?—“MATERIALIZA¬ TIONS” It is, of course, useless to give stories of ghostly appearances with any great hope that the reality of the apparitions will be accepted by the reader, no mat¬ ter how circumstantial the accounts may be, unless we can at least suggest what the “ghost” may be, and what laws govern its appearances. Now, however easy it may be to “tell ghost stories” when we attempt in simple language to give any ade¬ quate scientific explanation of the phenomena we very quickly find ourselves in deep water. “Whatever else, indeed, a ghost may be,” says My¬ ers, “it is probably one of the most complex phenomena in nature. It is a function of two unknown variables —the incarnate spirit’s sensitivity and the discarnate spirit’s capacity of self-manifestation. . . .” 1 First, in the light of the researches of the Society for Psychical Research, what is a ghost? “The popular view regards a ghost as a deceased person permitted by Providence to hold communion with survivors. And this short definition contains, I think,” says Myers, “at least three unwarrantable as¬ sumptions. ‘Myers: Human Personality, p. 229. 201 202 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “In the first place, such words as permission and Providence are simply neither more nor less appli¬ cable to this phenomenon than to any other. We con¬ ceive that all phenomena alike take place in accordance with the laws of the universe, and consequently by permission of the Supreme Power in the universe. Un¬ doubtedly, the phenomena with which we are dealing are in this sense permitted to occur. . . . But if we attempt to find in these phenomena any poetical jus¬ tice, or manifest adaptation to human cravings, we shall be just as much disappointed as if we endeavored to find a similar satisfaction in the ordinary course of terrene history. “In the second place, we have no warrant for the assumption that the phantom seen, even though it be somehow caused by a deceased person, is the deceased person, in any ordinary sense of the word. Instead of appealing to the crude analogy of the living friend, who, when he has walked into the room, is in the room, we shall find for the ghost a much closer parallel in those hallucinatory figures or phantasms which living persons can sometimes project at a distance. “But experience shows that . . . there is a tendency, so to say, to anthropomorphose the apparition; to sup¬ pose that, as the deceased person is not provably any¬ where else, he is probably here; and that the apparition is bound to behave accordingly. All such assumptions must be dismissed, and the phantom must be taken on its merits, as indicating merely a connection with the deceased .” 1 . . . “And in the third place, just as we must cease to say that the phantom is the deceased, so ‘The italics are mine. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 203 also must we cease to ascribe to the phantom the mo¬ tives by which we imagine that the deceased might be swayed. We must, therefore, exclude from our defini¬ tion of a ghost any words which assume its intention to communicate with the living. It may bear such a relation to the deceased that it can reflect or repre¬ sent his presumed wish to communicate, or it may not. If, for instance, its relation to his post-mortem life be like the relation of my dreams to my earthly life, it may represent little that is truly his, save such vague memories and instincts as give a dim individuality to each man’s trivial dreams.” 1 No one could state more clearly than does Myers the things which a “ghost” is generally suposed to be, but which science says it is not. Now, what is it? “Let us attempt, then,” continues Mr. Myers, “a truer definition. Instead of describing a ghost as a dead person permitted to communicate with the living, let us define it as a manifestation of persistent personal energy, or as an indication that some kind of force is being exercised after death which is in some way con¬ nected with a person previously known on earth. . . .” 2 This is far from being as definite as the sensationalist might desire; but the very carefulness of its generality renders it more capable of scientific acceptation and further investigation. Furthermore, as Myers goes on to state, the “spirit” of the person, so far from causing the “ghost” of him¬ self to be seen, may not even know that his “ghost” exists, or is being seen. Nay, more than that, there ’Myers: Human Personality, Vol. II., p. 3- ’Ibid., p. 4. 204 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? is considerable evidence in support of an even more striking thesis, namely, that a ghost may be simply an impression of some kind on the ether or atmosphere not requiring any action on the part of the deceased person, voluntary or involuntary! It “may be (in oth¬ er words) some residue of the force or energy which he generated while yet alive,” which remains hanging around the place where he was accustomed to be. Edmund Gurney suggests this theory of veridical after-images, as he calls them, in his comment upon the “recurring figure of an old woman—seen on the bed where she was murdered,” stating that she may be only “the survival of a mere image, impressed, we can¬ not guess how, or we cannot guess what, and percep¬ tible at times to those endowed with some cognate form of sensitiveness.” 1 Now, this latter theory, if correct, means, of course, that we may have true “ghosts,” that is, sensible appa¬ ritions of persons that have died, without this proving that those persons have any continued existence after death at all. They may have died, and died utterly “for good and all,” and still leave behind these sort of lifeless, unsubstantial “husks” of themselves to float around their habitual haunts for weeks or years after¬ ward. There are, indeed, several facts that seem to support the theory that this may be all that simple “haunting” is. This, for instance, accounts for the clothes of the ghost, a difficulty which in other cases has been often urged, “and never,” says Mr. Myers, “satisfactorily answered.” It is supported by the fact that these *S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, p. 417. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 205 “haunts” appear in the places frequented by the de¬ ceased, and never elsewhere; and are frequently “laid,” according to the popular idea, when repairs or altera¬ tions are made of the place where they occur. Such an apparition as Miss Morton’s may be accounted for wholly by this hypothesis. But tho I believe this theory possible, and, indeed, probable in some cases, it is very difficult to explain all “ghosts” in this way. There are many cases, and several reasons, that point to the probability of the continued existence after death of the person whose ghost appears. Ghosts occasionally speak (we are considering now only of those certified by the records of the Society for Psychical Research). They appear in places where they, in their human existence, never were, and to persons whom they never knew. And there is incon¬ testable evidence that the thought and emotion of liv¬ ing persons has affected the movements or other ac¬ tions of the apparition; a thing that could not happen were the “ghost” merely a lifeless, unsubstantial husk. Not All “Ghosts” Are Subjective Before closing we must face courageously the diffi¬ culty—and this is the first and strongest argument brought up by the anti-spiritualist—that these appari¬ tions, tho possibly believed genuine by those who see them, are entirely subjective; that is, they are hallu¬ cinations, that exist only in the mind of the person seeing them. “There remain three, and I think only three, condi¬ tions,” says Mr. Edmund Gurney, “which might es¬ tablish a presumption that an apparition or other imme- 206 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? diate manifestation of a dead person is something more than a mere subjective hallucination of the percipient’s senses. Either (i) more persons than one might be independently affected by the phenomenon; or (2) the phantasm might convey information, afterward dis¬ covered to be true, of something which the percipient had never known; or (3) the appearance might be that of a person whom the percipient himself had never seen, and of whose aspect he was ignorant, and yet his description of it might be sufficiently definite for identification. . . -” 1 For the encouragement of the would-be believer in spiritualistic phenomena, the materialist must admit that every one of these conditions has been met over and over again. Miss Morton’s case is one among many where a “ghost” has been seen simultaneously by several observers. (And the anti-spiritualist’s answer to this—namely, that one of these persons has an hal¬ lucination, and the others present telepathically receive from him, and have the same hallucination, simulta¬ neously—does, I confess, seem to me a trifle far¬ fetched.) The ghost, in very many cases, gives infor¬ mation unknown to the percipients. For instance, the officer in the Transvaal, and the young man mentioned by Dr. Sayles, gave information about their own deaths absolutely unknown to those who saw their appari¬ tions. Miss Morton’s case, also, is an example of the third requirement, the identification of the ghost of a stran¬ ger; tho, in fairness to the spiritualist, it should be added that there are many much stranger instances. J Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 240. !ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 207 To overturn the hallucination theory we have, also, however, two strong positive arguments. The first was noted in our account of the Census of Hallucinations, namely, that seemingly conclusive body of proof connecting ghosts directly with the decease of their owner. Mr. Gurney puts the case very neatly: ! “According to the doctrines of probabilities, an hal¬ lucination representing a known person would not, by chance, present a definite time relation to a special cog¬ nate event—viz., the death of that person—in more than a certain percentage of the whole number of similar hallucinations that occur; and if that percentage is decidedly exceeded, there is reason to surmise that some other cause than chance—in other words, some objective origin for the phantasm—is present.’’ 1 Do Animals See Apparitions? But there is another very striking collection of facts pointing to the objective reality of apparitions, facts which have not, it seems to me, been treated with the importance they deserve. I speak of the effect which these apparitions have had upon animals. People, you may argue, have hallucinations; do animals? And do they also “receive them telepathically” and simultane¬ ously from humans? Alfred Russell Wallace has collected a number of these instances. . . . “I have already mentioned the case of the female figure in white, seen by three persons, floating over a hedge ten feet above the ground, when the horse they were driving ‘suddenly stopped and shook with fright.’ In the remarks upon this case in Phantasms of the Liv- ‘See the S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. V., pp. 403-408. 208 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? mg, no reference is made to this fact, yet it is surely the crucial one, since we can hardly suppose that a wholly subjective apparition, seen by human beings, would also be seen by a horse. During the tremen¬ dous knocking recorded by Mr. Garling ... it is stat¬ ed that there was a large dog in a kennel near the front entrance, especially to warn off intruders, and a little terrier inside that barked at everybody; yet, when the noise occurred that awakened the servants, sixty feet away, ‘the dogs gave no tongue whatever; the terrier, contrary to its nature, slunk shivering under the sofa, and would not stop even at the door, and nothing could induce him to go into the darkness.’ “In the remarkable account of a haunted house dur¬ ing an occupation of twelve months by a well-known English church dignitary, the very different behavior of dogs in the presence of real and phantasmal dis¬ turbances is pointed out. When an attempt was made to rob the vicarage, the dogs gave prompt alarm, and the clergyman was aroused by their fierce barking. During the mysterious noises, however, tho these were much louder and more disturbing, they never barked at all, but were always ‘found cowering in a state of pitiable terror.’ They are said to have been more . . . perturbed than any other members of the establish¬ ment, and ‘if not shut up below, would make their way to our bedroom door and lie there, crouching and whining, as long as we would allow them.’ 1 “In the account of haunting in a house at Ham¬ mersmith, near London, which went on for five years, where steps and noises were heard, and a phantom S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VI., p. 151. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 209 woman seen, ‘the dog whined incessantly’ during the disturbances, and ‘the dog was evidently still afraid of the room when the morning came. I called to him to go into it with me, and he crouched down, with his tail between his legs, and seemed to fear entering it.’ 1 “On the occasion of a ‘wailing cry,’ heard before a death in a rectory in Staffordshire, a house standing quite alone in open country, ‘we found a favorite bull¬ dog, a very courageous animal, trembling with terror, with his nose thrust into some billets of firewood which were kept under the stairs.’ On another occasion, ‘an awful howling, followed by shriek upon shriek,’ with a sound like that caused by a strong wind, was heard, altho everything out of doors was quite still, and it is stated, ‘We had three dogs sleeping in my sisters’ and my bedrooms, and they were all cowering down with affright, their bristles standing straight up; one—a bulldog—was under the bed, and refused to come out, and when removed was found to be trembling all over.’ The remark of Mrs. Sidgwick on these and other cases of warning sounds is, that ‘if not real, natural sounds, they must have been collective hallucinations.’ But it has not been shown that ‘real, natural sounds’ ever pro¬ duce such effects upon dogs, and there is no suggestion that ‘collective hallucination’ can be telepathically trans¬ ferred to these animals. In one case, however, it is suggested that the dog might have ‘been suddenly taken ill.’ (!) 2 “In the remarkable account by General Barter, C.B., of a phantasmal pony and rider, with two native 1 S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VIII., p. 116. ‘‘Ibid., Vol. XIII., pp. 307-08. 210 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? grooms, seen in India, two dogs, which immediately before were hunting about in the brushwood jungle which covered the hill, came and crouched by the gen¬ eral’s side, giving low, frightened whimpers; and when he pursued the phantasm the dogs returned home, tho on all other occasions they were his most faithful com¬ panions. ... 1 “During the disturbances at the Cemetery of Ahrens- burg, in the island of Oesel, where coffins were over¬ turned in locked vaults, and the case was investigated by an official commission, the horses of country peo¬ ple visiting the cemetery were often so alarmed and excited that they became covered with sweat and foam. Sometimes they threw themselves on the ground, where they struggled in apparent agony, and notwithstanding the immediate resort to remedial measures, several died within a day or two. In this case, as in many others, altho the commission made a most rigid investigation, and applied the strictest tests, no natural cause for the disturbances was ever discovered.” 2 “In the wonderful case of haunting in Pennsylvania, given by Mr. Hodgson in The Arena 3 . . . when the apparition of the white lady appeared to the inform¬ ant’s brother, we find it stated: ‘The third night he saw the dog crouch and stare, and then act as if driven around the room. Brother saw nothing, but heard a sort of rustle, and the poor dog howled and tried to hide, and never again would the dog go to that room.’ ” Now, these instances, by no means rare, are, as Alfred Russell Wallace himself said . . . “certainly re- 1 S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. XIV., pp. 469-70. a R. D. Owen: Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, pp. 186-92. 3 Arena for September, 1890, p. 419. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 211 markable, and worthy of deep consideration. The facts are such, as on the theories of telepathy and hallucina¬ tion ought not to happen, and they are especially trust¬ worthy facts, because they are, almost invariably, intro¬ duced into the narrative as if unexpected; while that they were noticed, shows that the observers were in no degree panic-struck with terror. They show unmis¬ takably that large numbers of phantasms . . . are ob¬ jective realities; while the terror displayed by the ani¬ mals that perceive them, and their behavior, so unlike that in the presence of natural sights and sounds, no less clearly proves that, tho objective, the phenomena are not normal, and are not to be explained as in any way due to trick or to misinterpreted natural sounds.” 1 Whether ghosts exist at all or not, it is now for the reader to judge. Whether they may always exist with¬ out implying necessarily a future life for the person whom they appear to represent, this also he must de¬ cide. He may now either answer for himself the ques¬ tion : Do ghosts help to prove the existence of a future life? Or, like Dr. Hyslop, in a caution uttered a few years ago, he may for a while defer judgment. . . . “Nor would I encourage confidence,” says the latter, “in the spiritistic explanation of phantasms of the dead, until we have gathered much more material, and perhaps material with better evidence of its supernor¬ mal character. Apparitions are not likely to be suffi¬ cient proof of survival after death for the scientific man until better records are made of the facts. . . .” 2 Apparitions, however, by no means give the final an¬ swer to the question—are the dead alive ? Ghosts may, ’Wallace: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, pp. 243-4. s Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 271. 212 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? or may not, exist—and not decisively effect the solution of the main problem. “Materializations ” No phenomena in spiritualism would be more as¬ tounding and inexplicable, if genuine, than those of “materialization.” Yet that is the next logical step in the ascending scale which we have been following. If objective apparitions of the dead may appear per¬ ceptible to the senses of sight and hearing, why not veritable “materializations,” perceptible to all the senses, including that of touch? If we have come so far, we must, logically, at least listen to the evidence for this even more remarkable phenomenon, or else retrace our steps and at some past crossing of the ways take another path. “Needless to say, if this fact of materialization and dematerialization he a fact, it is one of the most ex¬ traordinary, as well as one of the most important, that science has ever discovered, and one of the most diffi¬ cult of solution that the man of science will ever be called upon to explain or solve.” 1 I do not recall at this moment—except a hint given by Mr. Myers—any sug¬ gested explanation; and indeed the cases which lay strong claim to authenticity are so rare as to render our data extremely deficient. Of fraudulent “materialization” there is, of course, an endless amount, fraud so puerile and transparent that one wonders how any sane man or woman could be for a moment deceived. Wire busts, inflated rub¬ ber, cork soles, gauze dresses, phosphorescent clothing, false hair, jointed dummies and sticks—these are a few 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 230. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 213 of the many “properties” of the professional “material¬ izing medium.” The amazing thing is that with such simple apparatus he can do so much, even with the aid of a superabundant nerve, the darkness of the seance-room, and the half-hysterical credulity of his patrons. It goes without saying, therefore, that the usual “materialization,” in the dark, under circum¬ stances prohibitive of anything like adequate observa¬ tion, should not, and does not, receive the slightest consideration from the scientist. In our resume of the more important phenomena observed with the medium, Eusapia Paladino, we re¬ counted a large number of instances of partial mate¬ rialization, instances which in their number and vari¬ ety, the careful stringency of the tests imposed and the high standing of the observers reporting, form quite our most important and convincing body of evidence in support of the phenomena. But there are not a few other instances in the history of spiritualism that cannot be dismissed so easily. Some of the more striking observed by Sir W. Crookes have already been quoted . 1 Occult Science in India contains a number of very remarkable examples. A few years ago, Professor Richet detailed at some length in the Annals of Psychic Science a very striking exam¬ ple of materialization occurring under careful test con¬ ditions. Dr. Stanhope Templeman Speer relates a case 2 in which the Rev. W. Stainton Moses was the medium, in which a very life-like hand materialized out of the center of a floating globe of light. ‘See his Notes. S S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, pp. 245-53. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 214 We have already spoken of the Fox sisters, of their confession of fraud, and of their later retraction of this confession. Lest the reader gain an erroneous idea of the importance of the phenomena observed with them, it should be stated that in the mature life of the sisters these were not confined to rappings, but were often very remarkable materializations, seemingly in¬ explicable by any hypothesis of fraud. “Miss Fox’s powers were most remarkably shown in the seances at Mr. Livermore’s, a well-known New York banker, and an entire sceptic before commencing these experiments. These sittings were more than three hundred in number, extending over five years ... in four different houses . . . and under tests of the most rigid description. The chief phenomenon was the ap¬ pearance of a tangible, visible, and audible figure of Mr. Livermore’s deceased wife . . . often most dis¬ tinct, and absolutely life-like. It moved various objects about the room. It wrote messages on cards. It was sometimes formed out of a luminous cloud, and again vanished before the eyes of the witnesses. It allowed a portion of its dress to be cut off, which, tho at first of strong and apparently material gauzy texture, yet in a short time melted away and became invisible. Flowers which melted away were also given. . . .” x Speaking of “materialized” dresses, I might speak of an incident in the “Katie King” seances, described more fully a little later. On the evening on which Katie King terminated her three years’ materialized “life” on earth, she took leave of her medium, Miss Cook, and wrote “letters to some of her friends, signing them ‘Annie Owen Morgan,’ saying that was her true 'Wallace: 'Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, pp. 163-4. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 215 name during her life on earth. She also wrote a letter . . . her medium, and chose for her a rosebud as a good-by gift. Katie then took the scissors, cut off a lock of her hair, and gave some of it to all of us. She then took Mr. Crookes’ hand and made the tour of the room, pressing the hand of each of us in turn. She then sat down again, and cut off several pieces of her robe and of her veil, for remembrances. Seeing such holes in her robe (she being seated all this while be¬ tween Mr. Crookes and Mr. Tapp), some one asked her if she could repair the damage, as she had done on previous occasions. She then held the cut part of the robe in the light, gave one rap upon it, and instantly that part was whole and unblemished as before. Those near her touched and examined the stuff, with her per¬ mission. They affirmed that there was neither hole nor seam, nor anything added at the very place where, an instant before, they had seen holes Several inches in diameter .” 1 The strongest evidence, however, that we have is that of the cases observed by Sir W. Crookes with the medium, D. D. Home. Some of these were quoted in the opening article of the series; but others deserve further consideration here. As an introduction to the materialization proper, Sir W. Crookes speaks of “luminous appearances” mani¬ festing themselves “under strictly test conditions.” “These, being rather faint, generally require the room to be darkened. I need scarcely remind my readers again that, under these circumstances, I have taken proper precautions to avoid being imposed upon by 'The Spiritualist for May 27, 1874. 216 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? phosphorized oil or other means. Moreover, many of these lights are such as I have tried to imitate arti¬ ficially, but cannot .” 1 “Under the strictest test conditions, I have seen a solid, self-luminous body, the size, and nearly the shape, of a turkey’s egg, float noiselessly about the room, at one time higher than any one present could reach, standing on tiptoe, and then gently descend to the floor. It was visible for more than ten minutes, and before it faded away it struck the table three times, with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During this time the medium was lying back, apparently in¬ sensible, in an easy-chair. . . . Under the strictest test conditions, I have, more than once, had a solid, self- luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to any person in the room .” 2 Of the “appearance of hands” we have already noted several instances. Here are others noted in the same report: “On another occasion a small hand and arm, like a baby’s, appeared, playing about a lady who was sitting next to me. It then passed to me, and patted my arm and pulled my coat several times .” 3 “A hand has repeatedly been seen by myself and others, playing the keys of an accordion, both of the medium’s hands being visible at the same time, and sometimes being held by those near him.” “The hands and fingers do not always appear to me to be solid and life-like. Sometimes, indeed, they pre¬ sent more the appearance of a nebulous cloud, partly condensed into the form of a hand.” It may be noted ’Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, p. 87. ‘Ibid. *Ibid., p. 88. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 217 that this accordion was in a wire cage, the wires being charged electrically and connected with a galvanome¬ ter as an additional safeguard. On still another occasion “a luminous hand came down from the upper part of the room, and after hov¬ ering near me for a few seconds, took the pencil from my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw the pencil down, and then rose up over our heads, gradually fading into darkness .” 1 The materialization of something more than hands, that is, of “phantom forms and faces,” Sir W. Crookes says, “are the rarest of the phenomena I have witnessed. The conditions requisite for their appearance appear to be so delicate, and such trifles interfere with their production, that only on very few occasions have I wit¬ nessed them under satisfactory test conditions. . . .” In this connection he cites but two cases, of which I will quote only the second. “As in the former case, Mr. Home was the medium. A phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its hand, and then glided about the room playing the instrument. The form was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at the same time. Coming rather close to a lady who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished .” 2 The Famous “Katie King” Materialization The record of the final and most striking case of all that Sir W. Crookes observed, namely, that of the ma- ’Crookes: Notes. Quae. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, p. 89. '‘Ibid., p. 190. 218 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? terialized spirit of “Katie King,” already mentioned, is too long to quote in its entirety here. Those interested will find it reprinted at length in Dr. Funk’s Widow’s Mite. Very briefly, what Sir W. Crookes would have us believe is this: that a Miss Cook, a medium, material¬ ized at will for several years a spirit from the other world, called “Katie,” unknown to him or any one else who saw and conversed with her; that “Katie” acted as would any human being in the flesh; was a beautiful young woman, with a most charming personality, but who came and vanished at intervals, and finally for¬ ever, spontaneously. However much we may dislike to accept such a wholesale “violation(?) of the laws of nature,” the advocate of the hypothesis of fraud in this case must take into account these facts: 1. “Katie” was seen by and conversed with a large number of people, including the children of the Crookes family, and this not once or twice, but over a period of nearly three years. 2. To prevent trickery, the more significant seances were held in Sir W.’s own library, the materializations taking place in a “cabinet” which he had improvised himself. 3. Miss Cook, the medium, was a schoolgirl of fif¬ teen. “To imagine,” says Sir W., that she “should be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for three years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time should submit to any test which might be imposed upon her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing to be searched at any time, either before or after a seance, and should meet with even better success in my own house than at that of her ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 219 parents, knowing that she visited me with the express object of submitting to strict scientific tests—to im¬ agine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be the result of imposture does more violence to one’s reason and common sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms.” 4. “Katie” was really “material,” spoke and walked; her heart heat; her lungs “were found to be sounder than her medium’s”; she suffered Sir W. to embrace her, as proof of her materiality; she allowed her pic¬ ture to be taken; she was a favorite with, and told stories to and played with the Crookes children; and yet, added to her “humanness” (however much we may say that this latter was mere imagination), she ap¬ peared to all observers to have a beauty and charm that was hardly earthly; and she frequently, in a second or two, vanished into thin air. 5. “Katie”—and this is the favorite “explanation”— was not the medium herself, disguised. If it be not sufficient proof that their hair was not the same in color, that “Katie” was six inches taller than Miss Cook, that Miss Cook’s skin bore marks that Katie’s lacked, this fact must seem conclusive: that the two were seen and felt side by side, at one and the same time, Miss Cook in the deep trance that accompanied Katie’s materialization, Katie standing by Sir W. . . . “Three separate times,” says he, “did I carefully ex¬ amine Miss Cook, crouching before me, to be sure that the hand I held was that of a living woman, and three separate times did I turn the lamp to Katie, and examine her with steadfast scrutiny, until I had no doubt whatever of her objective reality. At last Miss Cook moved slightly, and Katie instantly motioned me 220 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? to go away. I went to another part of the cabinet, and then ceased to see Katie, but did not leave the room till Miss Cook woke up and two of the visitors came in with a light.” 6 . No person resembling Katie was ever seen any¬ where else but in the seance-room, and during such time as Miss Cook was entranced. This remarkable case is well worthy of careful read¬ ing. Strongly substantiated as it appears to be, and oc¬ curring under such seemingly good test conditions, it is, nevertheless, alone insufficient to warrant our belief in such revolutionary phenomena. Yet, remembering the rank of Sir William Crookes as a scientist, and the wealth of evidence attesting to the mysterious Katie, we may well consider it, if not a link in the chain of scientific evidence for a future life, at least the rough iron out of which a strengthening corroborative chain may be some day forged. “THE DEAD HAVE NEVER REALLY DIED” During the last sixty years evidence has been accumulating in every part of the world which affords demonstration that the so-called dead have never really died at all, but have passed into a new and higher stage of existence. Many of these are able to communicate with us and most of them as¬ sure us that when they wake from the sleep we call death they find themselves much more alive than ever they were before. And this is only what we may expect; for we all feel that our mental faculties are to some extent clogged and stifled by the garment of flesh, and that only when in the most per¬ fect health do our higher faculties attain their fullest ex¬ pression. This rapid entrance on a state of spiritual well-being and happiness seems to be very general among those who have led ordinarily good and natural lives, but is by no means uni¬ versal. Those who have led selfish or sensual lives, or have given way to evil passions of any kind, have a different awak¬ ening, into a world of darkness or gloom, often of solitude for a longer or shorter period and infinitely varied in the sur¬ roundings according to their previous lives. But whatever germs of good are in them are ultimately developed through the kind ministrations of spirit-helpers, and thenceforth progress towards a higher and happier state depends mainly on themselves. We have all kinds of phenomena which are inexplicable even to the scientific mind, except on a spiritualistic hypothesis. We have the alteration of the weight of bodies, which has often been tested. We have the phenomena of articles of vari¬ ous kinds being moved without human agency, such as chairs, tables and musical instruments. More curious is the convey¬ ing of bodies to a distance; flowers and fruits are the most common of these, but also other bodies, such as letters and various small objects, have been conveyed long distances— sometimes several miles. 221 m ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Further, we have that curious phenomena which is recorded more or less throughout history, the raising or levitation of human bodies into the air and sometimes conveying them a considerable distance. More remarkable by far than these, be¬ cause beyond all human power to produce, is the tying of knots on endless cords, the taking of coins out of sealed boxes, and the passage of solid rings over the body far too large for them to pass over by any natural means. All these things have happened in the presence of careful scientists and their assistants; I have frequently myself seen, in good light, sticks and handkerchiefs pass through a curtain. We have chemical phenomena. Chief among these is that of protection from the effects of fire. Mr. D. D. Home, de¬ ceased now some years, and perhaps the most remarkable medium that ever lived, used to take from a grate a brilliant, red-hot mass of coals, carry them about the room in his hands, and by his peculiar power indicate certain persons who were able to have them placed in their hands, and placing them there they would experience no unpleasant results. In view of the numerous men who have investigated this matter and given their decision, we may entirely throw aside the idea that imposture, only in slight measure, has produced these phenomena. ********* Scientific men almost invariably assume that in this inquiry they should be permitted at the very outset to impose condi¬ tions, and if under such conditions nothing happens, they con¬ sider it a proof of imposture or delusion. But they well know that in other branches of research, nature, not they, determines the essential conditions without a compliance with which no experiment will succeed. The underlying laws of the testimony of evidence are sim¬ ple. If a man of good judgment, in full possession of his senses and a reputation for honesty, tells us of a certain fact which he witnessed, we are inclined, in the absence of con¬ tradictory evidence, to believe the fact that he states. If ten ARE THE DEAD ARIVE? 223 men, similarly endowed, say they witnessed the same thing, we feel reasonably certain; whereas the concurrent independ¬ ent testimony of a thousand sincere, capable men may be said to make assertion a certainty. As I have already said, in my introduction to “Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,” outside of modern spiritualism I know nothing in recognized science to support the belief in immor¬ tality. Up to the time when I first became acquainted with the facts of spiritualism I was a confirmed philosophical skep¬ tic. My curiosity was at first excited by some slight but in¬ explicable phenomena occurring in a friend’s family, and my desire for knowledge and love of truth forced me to continue the inquiry. The facts compelled me to accept them as such long before I could accept the spiritual explanation of them; there was at that time no place in my fabric of thought into which it could be fitted. By slow degrees a place was made; but it was made, not by any preconceived or theoretical opin¬ ions, but by the continuous action of fact after fact which could not be got rid of in any other way than by accepting the explanation of them which spiritualism presents. —Alfred Russell Wallace. CHAPTER X TELEPATHY At the very beginning of the discussion of telepathy I am going to make a bold, and what may seem an unwarranted, statement —Telepathy is now an estab¬ lished scientific fact. It is quite true that concerning the laws that govern it, we know little, but it is equally true that we have, literally, thousands of well-authen¬ ticated instances attesting the truth of its existence. Sir Oliver Lodge, the noted scientist, says: “What we [the Society for Psychical Research] can challenge the judgment of the world upon is telepathy. Here is the beginning of a wider conception of science. Directly men see and admit, as they must do from the overwhelming evidence, that it is possible to trans¬ mit ideas direct from brain to brain without the inter¬ mediaries of speech and hearing, they are looking into and gaining admission to new fields of exploration.” 1 And Dr. Hyslop, the cautious, here none the less posi¬ tively asserts: “In some way, the thoughts of one per¬ son make themselves known to the mind of another. The fact is very rare, and is much more rare than the general public supposes. But it occurs often enough for us to suppose that extra-organic stimuli, of the 1 Pall Mall Magazine, January, 1904. 324 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 225 nature of mental states, can produce effects on the minds of others.” 1 Dr. Minot J. Savage finds an analogy in the purely physical world. “We know that when two musical instruments are placed at a certain distance apart,” he says, “and keyed so as precisely to correspond with each other, one will sometimes respond when the other is touched. It is possible that there may be such a thing as minds of brain molecules keyed to each other so that, when some great sorrow, or anticipated evil, or stress, touches one of them, there is response in the other, no matter how great the distance that may sepa¬ rate them.” 2 Frederic Myers, speaking of “ecstasy,” meaning by that the ability of the spirit, under certain conditions, to leave the body and transcend time and space, says: “It is hardly a paradox to say that the evidence for ecstasy is stronger than the evidence for any other religious belief. . . . [One reason being that it is a] fact that it is common to all religions. I doubt whether there is any phenomenon, except ecstasy, of which this can be said. From the medicine-man of the lowest sav¬ ages up to St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, with Buddha, Mahomet and Swedenborg on the way, we find records which, though morally and intellectually much differ¬ ing, are, in psychological essence, the same.” 3 The reason why the great body of scientific men refuse to accept telepathy is that it is the first step into a land whose existence science has hitherto denied; 'Hyslop: Borderland of Psychical Research, p. 190. “Savage: Life Beyond Death, p. 266. “Myers: Human Personality, p. 338. 226 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? and it is the first step that counts. If telepathy were the whole story! But, as Myers says, 1 “If we have once got a man’s thought operating apart from his body—if my fixation of attention on the two of dia¬ monds does somehow so modify another man’s brain a few yards off that he seems to see the two of dia¬ monds floating before him—there is no obvious halting place on his side till we come to ‘possession’ by a de¬ parted spirit, and there is no obvious halting place on my side till we come to ‘traveling clairvoyance,’ with a corresponding visibility of my own phantasm to other persons in the scenes which I spiritually visit.” The evidence proving telepathy is strong, clear, al¬ most conclusive; but your scientist dares not admit it because of the further admissions to which he will then be bound. Before the scientist “ever looms the bogy of spiritism”; and as a consequence, telepathy is denied, or explained away without investigation. In the early days of the Society for Psychical Research, special emphasis was laid upon the active investigation of telepathy, and with such success that in two years the Society was able to claim “to have proved the reality of thought transference.” But the way of the Society, because of the astounding nature of the conclusions which it so soon reached, was not an easy one. It was hampered by the very richness of the hitherto un¬ touched field which it was opening up. In the introduction to his Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, Myers says of this forma¬ tive period in the Society’s history: “Our methods, our canons, were all to make. In those early days we 'Myers: Human Personality, p. 191. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 227 were more devoid of precedents, of guidance, even of criticism that went beyond mere expression of con¬ tempt, than is now readily conceived.” 1 But, as we have already seen, within a few short years the Society felt itself able to establish “the thesis that a communication can take place from mind to mind by some agency not that of the recognized organs of sense. We found that this agency, discernible even on trivial occasions by suitable experiment, seemed to connect itself with an agency more intense, or at any rate more recognizable, which operated at moments of crisis or at the hour of death.” 2 It must not be inferred that that Society stands alone in the conclusions which, after extended experimenta¬ tion, it has reached. Dr. Hudson arrived at an iden¬ tical result independently; M. Flammarion and M. Richet, among others, have formed concurrent conclu¬ sions. Fraudulent Telepathic Phenomena With telepathy, as with every other phenomena of spiritualism, there is, besides the minute portion that has been accepted by the psychic researcher as genuine, a luxuriant parasitic growth of fraud and trickery. “Mind-reading” is in the repertoire of every prestidigi¬ tator; and each professional, if he be of any note, has evolved a new method cleverer in some respect than those of his fellow craftsmen. It will be worth while for us to examine one or two instances of this fake telepathy, if only to ascertain wherein it differs from the genuine. 'Myers: Human Personality, v. i, p. 7. ‘Ibid, v. 1, p. 8. 228 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Code question and answer from the assistant in the audience to the “professor” on the stage, is an old device, probably familiar to the reader. This method is too bungling, however, for the modern “business” of magic, and other ways are devised by which the usher assistant conveys secretly the desired informa¬ tion to the blindfolded reader. “The performer passes among the audience, and is shown numbers on bills, dates on coins, etc., which the assistant on the stage immediately names correctly. “The secret lies in the fact that the performer has, passed up his legs, and inside the trousers, copper wires, the ends of which connect with metal plates on the soles of his shoes, and so arranged that the circuit may be completed by pressing together two wires, separated by a spring, which is directly under the per¬ former’s waistcoat. He stands on the metal rim of the carpet which runs down the aisle, and to the other ends of which are attached wires, leading either to the assistant directly, or to some third person, who conveys the message to the assistant upon the stage by means of signals. When the performer sees the date on the coin, the number of the banknote, etc., all he has to do is to touch the two wires together a cer¬ tain number of times, and the signal is interpreted at the other end of the line. A code is always employed to shorten and quicken the process.” 1 There is another large class of “thought-reading” experiments which involves the answering of questions written on a piece of paper seen only by the writer. Here, again, the methods of fraud are legion; the cu- x Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 297. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 229 rious will find a large number detailed by Mr. Carring¬ ton. I can here but give two samples. “The medium has written and sent up to him a num¬ ber of questions on separate slips of paper, and these are all piled before him on the table. He picks up one of these, puts it to his forehead, and, after more or less hesitation, tells its contents. It is acknowledged as correct by some member of the audience, and the medium immediately opens the paper and verifies the fact that he has given the message correctly. Ihe next pellet is picked up and the contents read in like man¬ ner, until all the pellets have been read in turn. . . . The secret consists in the fact that the medium has a confederate in the audience, the contents of whose pellet he already knows. This pellet is marked, so that the medium can distinguish it from all the others in the pile. He picks up any pellet in the heap but his confederate’s, and holds it against his forehead. After a time he reads aloud the contents of the confederate’s slip, which that person acknowledges as correct. As soon as he has done so, the medium opens the pellet, ostensibly to ascertain if he has read its contents cor¬ rectly, thereby gaining a knowledge of the contents of that pellet, which he reads as the contents of the next one, and so on thruout the entire pile, the medium keeping ‘one ahead’ all the time and reading each pellet in turn.” 1 Of course the trick is nothing but a very simple legerdemain; but when well performed it is astonish- 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 279-80. 230 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? ingly convincing. Here is another, however, which is somewhat more ingenious: “A trick-table has a hollow leg, which fits over a hole in the floor of the room, and communicates with the room below. The top of the table is covered with (i) a piece of thin silk, (2) a piece of carbon-paper, the size of the top of the table, placed over the silk, and (3) a very thin oilcloth covering, stretched tightly over the top of the table. To one corner of the silk is at¬ tached a thread, and this passes down to the room below, thru the hollow leg of the table. “When the sitter is seated at the table the medium hands him one sheet of paper and a pencil, with the request that he (the sitter) write a question on the paper, and immediately fold it up and place it in his pocket. Meanwhile the medium leaves the room, ‘so that he shall not see what the sitter is writing upon his piece of paper.’ The sitter writes the question, as directed, and after folding up the paper places it in his pocket. No sooner has he done so, however, than the medium returns to the room, and astonishes the sitter by informing him of the contents of the paper in his pocket. “As may be imagined, the trick is worked by means of the table, and in this way: The sitter, having only one sheet of paper in his hands, and having no solid substance against which to press this, naturally places the paper on the table, and writes his question in that manner. The pressure of the pencil, pressing upon the carbon-sheet, makes a copy of the question on the silk sheet underneath it, and the medium has only to pull it off the table and down into the room below. Then he is enabled to read the question, and on going back ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 231 to the seance-room he can astonish his sitter by telling him what is on the folded-up paper in his pocket. This is an extremely effective test.” 1 But very early in the history of alleged telepathic phenomena appeared cases that were very evidently not the result of mere trickery. “A large blackboard was placed upon an easel, on the stage, and the performer, after securing a number of persons from the audience to assist him . . . would have himself securely blind¬ folded by the members of the committee, and then step up to the blackboard, chalk in hand. ... A banknote would now be handed to some other member of the committee, and he, grasping the hand of the mind- reader, would concentrate his mind on the number of the note. The performer would then proceed to trace on the board, very slowly, the number of this note, which the assistant would certify was correct. . . . Each of the above-mentioned performers succeeded in opening a safe, the combination of which they did not know, they merely holding the hand of the person who did know the combination.” 2 Here was something which the hypothesis of fraud would not cover. It will be noted that in each case, however, the “reader” was in touch with the person thinking the message, and it was not very long before it was discovered that the explanation of the alleged “telepathy” was “muscle¬ reading.” “The person holding the performer’s hand gave him the required information by means of slight, unconscious movements, which the performer inter¬ preted, also more or less unconsciously.” 3 ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 282-3. 2 Ibid., pp. 292-3. s Ibid., p. 294. 232 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? So expert did these muscle-readers become, that they were able to do really astonishing feats. One is record¬ ed, for instance, of driving a cab across the city blind¬ folded and finding a hidden article. But there were other phenomena that even muscle¬ reading could not explain—cases of apparent thought transference when the “percipient” (the person receiv¬ ing the message) was at a distance, even miles, from the sender. For these cases the psychicist found him¬ self forced back to the hypothesis of telepathy. Of professional “exhibitions of mind-reading,” however inexplicable they may seem, Mr. Carrington sounds this note of warning: “We know nothing, as yet, however, of the laws that govern . . . telepathy, and cannot command the phenomena to appear at our beck and call, or summon them at will; and consequently, any one who does so at once stamps himself as an impostor. . . . The only thing we know about telepathy is that— we know nothing about it! When, therefore, public performers give nightly exhibitions of ‘thought-read¬ ing,’ ‘clairvoyance,’ and so on, it may be taken for granted that these exhibitions are nothing more than clever conjuring performances.” 1 Spontaneous Telepathy I shall first cite an early instance of spontaneous telepathy, selecting one which is most typical, re¬ gardless in this case of the rigidity of the tests sur¬ rounding it. I do this, not to give proof of telepathy, but to show the kind of material existent which the ’Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 291-3. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 233 Society used as a starting point for its own investiga¬ tions. It is a letter to the English Spectator, signed by the author, Mrs. Caroline Barber: “I had one day been spending the morning in shop¬ ping, and returned by train just in time to sit down with my children to our early family dinner. My youngest child—a sensitive, quick-witted little maiden of two years and six weeks old—was one of the circle. Dinner had just commenced, when I suddenly recol¬ lected an incident in my morning’s experience which I had intended to tell her, and I looked at the child with the full intention of saying, ‘Mother saw a big black dog in a shop, with curly hair,’ catching her eyes with mine as I paused an instant before speaking. Just then something called off my attention, and the sen¬ tence was not uttered. What was my amazement, about two minutes afterward, to hear my little lady an¬ nounce, ‘Mother saw a big dog in a shop.’ I gasped, ‘Yes, I did!’ I answered, ‘but how did you know?’ ‘With funny hair,’ she added quite calmly, and ignoring my question. ‘What color was it, Evelyn?’ said one of her elder brothers. ‘Was it black?’ She said ‘Yes.’ “Now, it was simply impossible that she should have received any hint of the incident verbally. I had had no friend with me when I had seen the dog. All the children had been at home, in our house in the coun¬ try, four miles from town; I had returned, as I said, just in time for the children’s dinner, and I had not even remembered the circumstance until the moment when I fixed my eyes upon my little daughter’s.” 1 It is very difficult, in fact impossible, as the reader ’Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 113. 2S4 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? will at once see from the example given, to prove genu¬ ine reported cases of spontaneous telepathy. They rest entirely on the word of the reporter. Prepared tests, under conditions absolutely excluding fraud or chance, are perhaps no less interesting, and infinitely more con¬ clusive. The method generally used by the Society in its test experiments in telepathy is thus described by Sir Oliver Lodge in his account of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie’s Liver¬ pool sittings: 1 “The experiments which I have wit¬ nessed proceed in this sort of way: One person is told to keep in a perfectly passive condition, with a mind as vacant as possible; and to assist this condition the organs of sense are unexcited, the eyes being bandaged and silence maintained. It might be as well to shut out the ordinary street hum by plugging the ears, but as a matter of fact this was not done. “A person thus kept passive is ‘the percipient.’ In the experiments I witnessed the percipient was a young lady, one or other of two who had been accidentally found to possess the necessary power. Whether it is a common power, or not, I do not know. So far as I am aware, very few persons have been tried. I my¬ self tried, but failed abjectly. It was easy enough to picture things to oneself, but they did not appear to be impressed on me from without, nor did any of them bear the least resemblance to the object in the agent’s mind. For instance, I said a pair of scissors instead of the five of diamonds, and things like that.” In this connection it might be interesting to quote an experience of the late Dr. Hudson, throwing ‘See the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. i, pt. 6, pp. 190-8. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 935 light, as it does, on the very natural question, Is telepathy a faculty dormant in every person, capable of being developt by proper training? “I determined, if possible, to develop the faculty in my own mind, at least far enough to resolve any lingering doubt that might be unconsciously entertained. Accordingly, I caused myself to be securely blindfolded in the pres¬ ence of my family and two or three trustworthy friends, and instructed them to draw a card from the pack, place it upon a table, face up, and in full view of all but myself. I enjoined absolute silence, and requested them to gaze steadily upon the card and patiently await results. I determined not to yield to any mere mental impression, but to watch for a vision of the card itself. I endeavored to become as passive as possible and to shut out all objective thoughts. In fact, I tried to go to sleep. I soon found that the moment I approached a state of somnolence I began to see visions of self- illuminated objects floating in the darkness before me. If, however, one seemed to be taking definite shape it would instantly rouse me, and the vision would van¬ ish. At length I mastered my curiosity sufficiently to enable me to hold the vision long enough to perceive its import. When that was accomplisht, I saw—not a card with its spots clearly defined, but a number of objects arranged in rows, and resembling real dia¬ monds. I was finally able to count them, and finding that there were ten, I ventured to name the ten of diamonds. The applause which followed told me that I was right, and I removed the bandage and found the ten of diamonds lying on the table. The vision was symbolical merely, but no other possible symbol 236 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? could have conveyed a clearer idea of the fact as it existed.’' 1 To return to the account by Sir Oliver Lodge: “An¬ other person sitting near the percipient, sometimes at first holding her hands, but usually and ordinarily with¬ out any contact at all but with a distinct intervening distance, was told to think hard of a particular object, either a name, or a scene, or a thing, or of an object or drawing set up in a good light and in a convenient position for staring at. This person is ‘the agent,’ and has, on the whole, the hardest time of it. It is a most tiring and tiresome thing to stare at a letter, or a tri¬ angle, or a donkey, or a teaspoon, and to think of noth¬ ing else for the space of two or three minutes. Wheth¬ er the term ‘thinking’ can properly be applied to such barbarous concentration of mind as this I am not sure; but I can answer for it that if difficulty is an important element in the definition of ‘thinking,’ then it is difficult enough in all conscience. “Very frequently more than one agent is employed, and when two or three people are in the room they are all told to think of the object more or less strenu¬ ously, the idea being that wandering thoughts in the neighborhood certainly cannot help, and may possi¬ bly hinder, the clear transfer of impression. As re¬ gards the question whether, when several agents are thinking, only one is doing the work, or whether all really produce some effect, I have made a special ex¬ periment which leads me to conclude that more than one agent can be active at the same time. We con¬ jecture that several agents are probably more power- ’Hudson: The Evolution of the Soul, p. 188. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 237 ful than one, but that a confusedness of impression may sometimes be produced by different agents attending to different parts or aspects of the object; this, how¬ ever, is mere conjecture. “Most people seem able to act as agents, tho some appear to do better than others. I can hardly say whether I am much good at it or not. I have not often tried alone, and in the majority of cases when I have tried I have failed; on the other hand, I have once or twice apparently succeeded. We have many times succeeded with agents quite disconnected from the percipient in ordinary life, and sometimes complete strangers to them . . . “The object looked at by the agent is placed, usu¬ ally, on a small, black, opaque wooden screen, between the percipient and agents, but sometimes it is put on a larger screen behind the percipient.” The Proof of Telepathy The above gives a very clear idea as to how the telepathic experiments were conducted. Obviously, nothing could be simpler or fairer. Now for some examples of the ideas transmitted. First, the transmis¬ sion of thoughts of objects. In these experiments, re¬ corded by Sir Oliver Lodge , 1 a Miss R. was the per¬ cipient, and Mr. Birchall, mentioned above, the agent. “Object — a blue square of silk. — (Now, it’s going to be a color; ready!) ‘Is it green?’ (No.) ‘It’s something between green and blue. . . . Peacock.’ (What shape?) She drew a rhombus. . . . “Next object—a key on a black ground. —(It’s an object.) In a few seconds she said, ‘It’s bright. ... It *S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. I., Part VI., pp. 190-8. 288 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? looks like a key/ Told to draw it, she drew it just in¬ verted. “Next object — three gold studs in morocco case. — ‘Is it yellow ? . . . Something gold . . . Something round ... A locket or a watch, perhaps.’ (Do you see more than one round?) ‘Yes; there seem to be more than one. . . . Are there three rounds? . . . Three rings.’ (What do they seem to be set in?) ‘Something bright, like beads.’ (Evidently not understanding or attend¬ ing to the question.) Told to unblindfold herself and draw, she drew the three rounds in a row quite cor¬ rectly, and then sketched around them absently the outline of the case, which seemed, therefore, to have been apparent to her, tho she had not consciously at¬ tended to it. It was an interesting and striking experi¬ ment. “Next object—a pair of scissors, standing partly open, with their points down .—‘Is it a bright object? . . . Something long ways (indicating verticality). ... A pair of scissors standing up. ... A little bit open.’ Time, about a minute altogether. She then drew her impression, and it was correct in every par¬ ticular. The object in this experiment was on a settee behind her, but its position had to be pointed out to her when, after the experiment, she wanted to see it. “Next object—a drawing of a right-angle triangle on its side .—(It’s a drawing.) She drew an isosceles triangle on its side. “Next—a circle with a cord across it. —She drew two detached ovals, one with a cutting line across it. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 239 “Next—a drawing of a Union Jack pattern .—As usual in drawing experiments, Miss R. remained silent for perhaps a minute, then she said, ‘Now I am ready.’ I hid the object; she took off the handkerchief, and proceeded to draw on paper placed ready in front of her. She this time drew all the lines of the figure except the horizontal middle one. She was obviously much tempted to draw this, and, indeed, began it two or three times faintly, but ultimately said, ‘No, I’m not sure,’ and stopped.” Here are two interesting ‘‘Experiments at a Sitting in the room of Dr. Herdman, Professor of Zoology at University College.” “Object—a drawing of the outline of a flag. —Miss R., as percipient, in contact with Miss E. as agent. ORIGINAL REPRODUCTION Very quickly Miss R. said, ‘It’s a little flag’; and when asked to draw, she drew it fairly well, but perverted. 240 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? I showed her the flag (as usual after a success), and then took it away to the drawing-place to fetch some¬ thing else. I made another drawing, but instead of bringing it I brought the flag back again, and set it up in the same place as before, but inverted. There was no contact this time. Miss R—d and Miss E. were acting as agents. “Object—same flag, inverted .—After some time Miss R. said: ‘No, I can’t see anything this time. I still see that flag. . . . The flag keeps bothering me. ... I sha’n’t do it this time.’ Presently I said, Well, draw what you saw, anyway.’ She said, ‘I only saw the same flag, but perhaps it had a cross on it.’ So she drew a flag in the same position as before, but added a cross to it. Questioned as to aspect, she said, ‘Yes, it was just the same as before.’ ” Mr. Guthrie also conducted a very remarkable se¬ ries of twelve drawings, some rather complicated, by thought transference. The results obtained were de¬ cidedly in support of the telepathic theory, even the partial failures, as is often the case, being corrobora¬ tive, and very interesting. These drawings are re¬ produced by Dr. Funk in The Widoiv’s Mite. An interesting variation was made in one case: one agent thought of one drawing and simultaneously an¬ other agent thought of another drawing, the percipient not knowing that anything unusual was being tried. “A mixed and curiously double impression was thus produced and described by the percipient, and both the objects were correctly drawn.” The account says: “Miss R—d and Miss E. happened to be sitting near- 1. The table at rest II. The table in the air A Typical Table Levitation with Eusapia Paladino The man on the right is Flammarion, on the left Lombroso ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 241 ly facing one another. . . . The drawing was a square on one side of the paper, a cross on the other. Miss X ORIGINALS R—d looked at the side with the square on it. Miss E. looked at the side with the cross. Neither knew what the other was looking at. . . . Mr. Birchall was silently asked to take off his attention, and he got up and looked out of the window before the drawings were brought in, and during the experiment. There was no contact. Very soon Miss R. said, ‘I see things moving about. ... I seem to see two things. ... I see first one up there and then one down there. ... I don’t know which to draw. ... I can’t see either dis¬ tinctly.’ (Well, anyhow draw what you have seen.) She took off the bandage and drew, first, a square, and then said, ‘Then there was the other thing as well . . . REPRODUCTION afterward they seemed to go into one,’ and she drew a cross inside the square, from corner to corner, add- 24>2 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? ing afterward, ‘I don’t know what made me put it in¬ side.’ ’ ,:l Another decidedly encouraging series of experi¬ ments was conducted by Edmund Gurney and Fred¬ eric Myers, the transference this time being, not of thoughts of objects, but of tastes. “The agent was Mr. G. A. Smith, and the ‘subject’ a very intelligent young cabinetmaker, named Conway, who had been thrown into a light hypnotic trance. For the first set Mr. Smith was in light contact with Conway, behind whom he stood. No hint was given to Conway as to whether his answers were right or wrong; he was simply asked by Dr. Myers or myself what he felt. Mr. Smith kept perfect silence thruout . 2 I now gave Mr. Smith in succession— Conway said: Sugar .“Sweeter; not so bad as before.” Citric acid... .“Bitter; something worse—a lit¬ tle reminds me of cayenne— sweety.” r A raspberry drop ....“ A sweetish taste—like sugar.” Salt .“I told you I liked sweet things, not salt —such a mixture!” Cloves .“Don’t like it; hot—little bit of honey mixed with it.” Salt .“Something acid, salty—first one thing, then another—like brine.” ‘See Nature for June 12, 1884. ’See S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. II., Part VI., pp. 205-6. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 243 Powdered ginger... .“Hot; dries your mouth up. Don’t like it—reminds me of mustard.” Sugar .“A little better—a sweetish taste.” Powdered alum .“You call that sweet, do you? Brackish and bitter this— enough to skin your mouth out —bitter.” Cayenne pepper. .“It’s hot, and there is some sugar in it, just to soften it over a bit. It is hot— you would feel hot, I can tell you.” Cloves. .“Not so very much better, but it’s sweeter; it’s sugar, only something else with it.” Vinegar .Conway had sunk into a deeper hypnotic sleep, and made no remark.” These examples, remember, are not isolated cases, but typical ones selected from a vast accumulation of telepathic data. The curious, and perhaps incredulous, reader, is strongly urged to examine the Proceedings and other publications of the Society for Psychical Research. Mathematical proof is generally most convincing of any, and fortunately is here not lacking. If we can demonstrate that the number of correct answers given by a percipient is many times greater than the laws of mere chance would allow, we have strong evidence of the reality of telepathy. Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, 244 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? among others, made extensive experiments along this line. Playing-cards or numbers were generally select¬ ed for the thought transmission, as it was with them easier to calculate the mathematical chances. The principle involved is simple. If a person is told that some number between I and ioo is to be thought of, the chances are ioo to I that he will guess the cor¬ rect number. In other words, the chances are that out of every hundred guesses he will get one right. If we find that instead of one out of a hundred, the per¬ cipient gets thirty or forty or sixty “guesses” right, we say, quite reasonably, that there must be something more here than guessing. Similarly, with a pack of cards; the chances that a person will guess correctly the suit of any card chosen at random are 4 to i; the chances that he will guess the number of a card correctly are 13 to 1; the chances that he will name correctly both suit and number—that is, tell the exact card out of the whole pack—are 52 to 1. If, therefore, the percipient manages forty times out of fifty to tell you correctly the exact card you are thinking about, you say at once there must be thought transference here. The actual percentages of Professor Sidgwick’s ex¬ periments are not quite as high as in our supposititious case; but they are many times greater than pure chance would indicate. “The results were: Twenty-three tri¬ als, with six answers right the first time and six the second guess. Counting only the correct answers for the first guess, the percentage was one in three and three-fourths, or twenty-six per cent., against one chance in fifty-two, or about two per cent., as cards were used. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? £45 “Professor Balfour Stewart reports a table much better than this. He experimented with numbers be¬ tween ten and one hundred; with objects, and names, as well as cards. Things chosen No. of trials No. right on 1st. guess 2d. guess If first guess only counted Chances Cards Nos. from 3 6 IO 9 i right in I in 52 10 to IOO 20 5 3 1 “ “4 1 “ 90 Objects 21 6 1 1 “ “3 1 “ 40 Names 8 4 3 1 “ “2 I ndefini te “To remove the objections which might be based very naturally upon fraud and suggestion in certain conditions, the committee made experiments in which the selected objects were known only to one or more of the committee itself, and the results were summar¬ ized in the following statistics, the things chosen being, variously, cards, numbers and words. There were 497 trials made. Of these, ninety-five were correct on the first guess . . . forty-five on the second . . . five on the third. . . . The chances for success were estimated as one in forty-three, while the actual success was one in 5i> or two per cent, for the chances and nineteen per cent, for the successes.” 1 Telepathic Hypnosis and Suggestion Soon after telepathy began to be studied, and proofs of its existence began to accumulate, the question was asked: If thoughts (impressions) can be thus trans¬ mitted at a distance, why cannot motor suggestions (expressions) ? In other words, if I can make you, ‘Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 122-3. 246 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? perhaps miles away, think of the picture of which I am thinking, why cannot I make you, still miles away, tnove your arm as I suggest to you telepathically ? The best answer, of course, was to try and see; and we have one or two striking examples of this telepathic suggestion. We have already mentioned the case of Conway, receiving telepathically the tastes of things which another man was eating. Of hypnosis exerted telepathically, Myers gives one remarkable instance: “The subject of these experiments . . . was Profes¬ sor Pierre Janet’s well-known subject, Madame B. The experiments were carried out with her at Havre, by Professor Janet and Dr. Gibert, a leading physi¬ cian there. . . . “In the evening (22d) we all dined at M. Gibert’s, and in the evening M. Gibert made another attempt to put her to sleep at a distance from his house in the Rue Sery—she being at the Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme —and to bring her to his house by an effort of will. At 8.55 he retired to his study, and MM. Ochorowicz, Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers, went to the Pavil¬ ion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the house. At 9.22 Dr. Myers observed Madame B. com¬ ing half way out of the garden gate, and again re¬ treating. Those who saw her more closely observed that she was plainly in the somnambulic state, and was wandering about and muttering. At 9.25 she came out (with eyes persistently closed, so far as could be seen), walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert’s house, tho not by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared after¬ ward that the bonne had seen her go into the salon at 8.45, and issue thence, asleep, at 9.15; had not looked ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 247 in between those times). She avoided lamp-posts, ve¬ hicles, etc., but crossed and recrossed the street re¬ peatedly. No one went in front of her or spoke to her. After eight or ten minutes she grew much more uncertain in gait, and paused as tho she would fall. Dr. Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure; it was 9.35. At about 9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 reached the street in front of M. Gibert’s house. There she met him, but did not notice him, and walked into his house, where she rushed hurriedly from room to room on the ground-floor. M. Gibert had to take her hand before she recognized him. She then grew calm. “M. Gibert said that from 8.55 to 9.20 he thought intently about her, from 9.20 to 9.35 he thought more feebly; at 9.35 he gave the experiment up, and began to play billiards; but in a few minutes began to will her again. It appeared that his visit to the billiard- room had coincided with her hesitation and stumbling in the street. But this coincidence may, of course, have been accidental. . . ,” x Another example of a similar power is noted by Dr. Hyslop in his discussion of telepathic experiments, the object of which was to induce unconsciousness in some portion of another person’s body by merely thinking it. “There were 107 trials at the production of anesthe¬ sia by telepathy in a selected finger, the finger selected varying as required. There was, of course, one chance out of ten each time that the finger would be guessed, if it were a mere question of telepathy or getting what 1 See the Bulletins de la Socicte de Psychologie Physiologique, tome 1, p. 24, and Revue Philosophique, August, 1886. See also Myers: Human Personality, pp. 382-3. 248 ARE THE HEAD ALIVE? the agent was thinking about. But here the additional circumstance that anesthesia was to be produced makes the matter more difficult and interesting. But of the 107 trials, sixty-three, or nearly fifty-nine per cent., were successes; and forty, or more than forty-six per cent., of the instances were failures. The chances against success were enormous when the whole num¬ ber is taken into account.” 1 The field that these and similar experiments open up for a possible enlargement of our normal human powers is, obviously, so wonderful as to be little short of miraculous. If I can, by merely thinking, paralyze a man’s finger on the opposite side of the room, there is no reason in the nature of the phenomena why I cannot spontaneously, by merely thinking, paralyze a man’s whole body on the opposite side of the world. If I can, by thinking, make a man near me imagine he is tasting salt, there is no reason in the nature of the phenomena why I cannot, by merely thinking, cause my friend in Greenland to taste and imagine he is eat¬ ing a square meal. (This genuinely Barmecide feast would probably give him very slender nourishment, however!) Do the Arabian Nights or Baron Mun¬ chausen present any wilder dreams of the imagination than these wonders that sober scientists and psycholo¬ gists assert are veritable actual facts ? What Is Telepathy? Regarding the nature or cause of this telepathic abil¬ ity, questions are easy to ask, but difficult to answer. Myers believed, and his opinion is concurred in by other investigators, that telepathy is one of the powers of the “subliminal self,” that great submerged portion ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 249 of our personalty of which I have already spoken. When we wish to exert telepathic powers, the first thing we do is to put in abeyance the supraliminal (or ordinary) self. That is, as the percipient shuts out her ordinary consciousness, stops up the senses of sight and hearing, so much the more clearly does the sub¬ liminal self do its telepathic work. If the condition is carried a step further, and the percipient is lightly hypnotized (that is, remember, the body is put un¬ der the control of the subliminal self), the ability to re¬ ceive telepathic messages is correspondingly again in¬ creased. It is as if a man in his normal consciousness saw with his normal eyes, heard with his material ears, thought with a brain of cell and tissue. But let a por¬ tion of the subliminal consciousness be put in control of his body —even tho it be involuntary, and for a sec¬ ond s dash of tune —and the man finds he exerts the same abilities of sight and hearing and thinking, but abilities marvelously magnified many times. How this happens, we, as yet, simply don’t know; but that it does happen, a very large number of very eminent scientists sincerely believe. “WE ONLY DEAL WITH PRESUMPTION AND PREJUDICES” The question, “Are the Dead Alive?” means, I suppose, “Does consciousness survive the death of the body?” It is at present impossible—setting aside faith and religion—for any mortal to answer this question on grounds of actual experimental knowl¬ edge. We only deal with presumption and prejudices. Since man was man, it has been sufficiently obvious that normal in¬ telligence—“the mind”—develops and decays as the fleshly body develops and decays. The mind flourishes and is at its best, as a rule, between the ages of eighteen and twenty- eight, in my private opinion, but every one can fix the age of intellectual vigor in accordance with his own observation, knowledge and experience. It is admitted, universally, that the mind, like the body, has its periods of growth, maturity, decadence and decay. Consequently, it is a natural inference that when the bodily life of the individual is extinct, the life of the mind vanishes like the flame of a burned-out candle. It is no less clear, and has been clear to mankind from the first, that the normal consciousness can be extinguished, tem¬ porarily, by a sufficient knock on the head; and that in dream¬ less sleep it gives no signs (to its owner’s normal conscious¬ ness) of its existence. The inference that death is a sleep which knows no waking is no ancient commonplace. When modern science minutely examines the nervous and cerebral mechanisms, and knows that each mental action has a cerebral concomitant, the conclusion that consciousness, that mental existence, is a bodily function, like digestion, seems quite natural. Yet we have only presumptions. On the other side, since man was man, other phenomena have been observed which have led to the opposite conclusion. Among human faculties those of clairvoyance, or “Vue a distance,” and telepathy— communication between mind and mind through no known 250 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 251 channel of the senses; of precognition and retrocognition— the inexplicable knowledge of things past and things future— have always been recognized in belief, and have, by many, been accepted as facts of experience. If they are facts—and I am persuaded that they are—and if the system which we call materialism can only ignore them and deny them without examining the evidence, then there is no limit to the range and possibilities. Consciousness so independent of a known material base for such exploits may be capable of a separate existence, for all that we can tell. But till science pays more serious attention to the alleged phenomena, every one will form an opinion, or go without an opinion, in accordance with his own temperament, bias and information. As the Greek poet says, “Soon shall we know better than prophets.” —Andrew Lang. CHAPTER XI PREMONITIONS I have set by themselves a large and important group of telepathic phenomena that we call premonitions. I say “telepathic”; but we shall note several examples where the information received could apparently come from no mortal mind. A premonition is advance information of a coming event, imparted to our consciousness inexplicably, and often instantaneously. We say that we have “premoni¬ tions” of impending disaster. What do we mean? Examples will probably occur to every reader; the literature of spiritualism is full of them. “A . . . Mr. Skirving . . . was irresistibly compelled to leave his work and go home— why, he knew not—at the moment when his wife was, in fact, calling for him in the dis¬ tress of a serious accident.” 1 “A Mr. Garrison, . . . left a religious meeting in the evening, and walked eighteen miles under the strong impulse to see his mother, and found her dead.” 2 “Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, famous for her devoted services during the war, and one of the greatest woman speakers that the world has ever known, told 1 See Myers: Phantasms of the Living, v. i, p. 285. J S. P. R. Journal, v. 8, p. 125. 252 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 253 me how her life was saved during her travels in the West, on a certain occasion, by her hearing and in¬ stantly obeying a voice. She did not know where it came from, but she leaped as the voice ordered her to, from one side of a car to the other, and instantly the side where she had been sitting was crushed in and utterly demolished.” 1 “A bricklayer has a sudden impulse to run home, and arrives just in time to save the life of his little boy, who had set himself on fire.” 2 “A Boston dentist had been working at a set of teeth, and was bending over the bench on which was the copper containing the rubber, when - he heard a voice calling, in a quick and imperative manner, these words: ‘Run to the window, quick ! Run to the win¬ dow, quick!’ twice repeated. Without thinking from whom the voice could have come, he at once ran to the window and looked out to the street below, when suddenly he heard a tremendous report in his work¬ room, and looking around, he saw the copper vessel had exploded, and had been blown up thru the plaster¬ ing of the room.” 3 “Major Kobbe . . . was prompted to visit a distant cemetery, without any conscious reason, and there found his father, who had, in fact, for certain unex¬ pected reasons, sent to his son, Major Kobbe, a request (accidentally not received) to meet him at that place and hour.” 4 'Savage: Life Beyond Death, p. 284. ’Myers: Phantasms of the Living, v. 2, p. 377. ‘Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 310-11. ‘Myers: Phantasms of the Living, v. 1, p. 288. 254« ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? All these are typical cases 1 out of a great number. What does it mean? Whence come these mysterious warning voices that stand us in such good stead ? To take an even more striking example: “Mr. Wm. H. Wyman writes to the editor of the Arena as fol¬ lows : “ ‘Dunkirk, N. Y., June 26, 1891. “ ‘Some years ago my brother was employed, and had charge as conductor and engineer of a working train, on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Rail¬ way, running between Buffalo and Erie, which passes thru this city. ... I often went with him to the Grave Bank, where he has his headquarters, and returned on his train with him. On one occasion I was with him, and after the train of cars was loaded we went to¬ gether to the telegraph office to see if there were any orders, and to find out if the trains were on time, as he had to keep out of the way of all regular trains. After looking over the train reports, and finding them all on time, we started for Buffalo. As we approached near Westfield Station, running about twelve miles per hour, and when within about one mile of a long curve in the line, my brother all of a sudden shutt off the steam, and quickly stepping over to the fireman’s side of the engine, he looked out of the cab window, and then to the rear of his train, to see if there was any¬ thing the matter with either. Not discovering any¬ thing wrong, he stopped and put on steam, but almost immediately again shut it off and gave the signal for brakes, and stopped. After inspecting the engine and 1 Several others are mentioned in Myers: Human Person¬ ality, p. 372. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 255 train, and finding nothing wrong, he seemed very much excited, and for a short time he acted as if he did not know where he was or what to do. I asked what was the matter. He replied that he did not know, when, after looking at his watch, and others, he said that he felt that there was some trouble on the line of the road. I suggested that he had better run his train to the station and find out. He then ordered his flagman with his flag to go ahead around the curve, which was just ahead of us, and he would follow with the train. The flagman started, and had just time to flag an extra express, with the general superintendent and others on board, coming full 40 (forty) miles per hour. The superintendent inquired what he was doing there, and if he did not receive orders to keep out of the way of the extra. My brother told him that he had not re¬ ceived orders, and did not know of any extra train coming; that we had both examined the train reports before leaving the station. The train then backed to the station, where it was found that no orders had been given. The train despatcher was at once dis¬ charged from the road; and from that time to this both my brother and myself are unable to account for his stopping the train as he did.” 1 These, especially the last, are evidently anticipations of future events; and in an earlier chapter we had two very striking cases of actual precognition, or prophecy. What Is the Explanation of Premonition? There are apparently three, and only three, possible explanations of premonition. ‘Reported in S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, p. 416. 256 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? x. Telepathy: that is, that the information received, sometimes in the flash of a second, was known (that is, was in the mind) of some other human being some¬ where, and was communicated instantaneously to the percipient’s mind. This theory does not explain, how¬ ever, why the percipient, almost invariably busy with other matters, should be in a proper state of sensitive¬ ness to receive a telepathic message; it does not ex¬ plain why this warning should come, as it often does, in the very “nick of time,” as we say; it does not ex¬ plain those cases—like that of the Boston dentist, or Mrs. Livermore in the railroad accident—in which it is impossible to conceive how the warning knowledge could be in any other mind. 2. The second explanation is what Frederic Myers calls hyperesthesia; that is, temporary abnormal acute¬ ness of the senses; a hearing or seeing power of the subliminal self greater than the supraliminal self (the ordinary consciousness) could ever exert. But altho, in some way that seems to us just as miraculous, the engineer might have heard unconsciously the approach of that express, many miles away, tho the dentist might have seen, subconsciously, some danger signal in his laboratory vessel which he automatically obeyed, it is difficult to see how this could explain Professor Thoulet’s telegram, not written till ten days after he saw it, or the sight of the suicide of Mr. Espie, which did not occur until a week later. 3. The third explanation is that the premonition is given by spirits. This is, of course, if we accept the spiritualistic hypothesis at all, the easy solution of nearly all premonitions. They are messages whispered by the spirits of the departed to our subconscious self, ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 257 warning us, whom they love, of the approaching dan¬ ger which they are able to foresee. Certainly this hypothesis accounts for the instantaneous timeliness of many of these premonitions as neither of the other hypotheses do. I am familiar with no other explanation of premoni¬ tion than those given. To the theories of hyperes¬ thesia and telepathy there are certainly grave objec¬ tions; but many will think the theory of spiritual help, from a scientific standpoint, even more objec¬ tionable. “WE ARE AT THE DAWN OF A NEW RELIGION ” We have a soul which is making and perfecting its own body. This life is not the first we have lived, nor will it be the last. The material body is passing on from one evolution to another, and the soul from one reincarnation to another. This is my belief, but that has not been in any radical way influenced by my researches in metaphysical science. The words in the Bible declaring that there is nothing new under the sun are still good. To-day we only differ as re¬ gards our belief in the problem of haunted houses, tipping tables and materialized spirits. And, most of all, our method of studying them has progressed. Psychic phenomena existed in the days of the ancient Romans. The trials and punish¬ ments of sorcerers and witches exist upon the statute books of the European courts of the fifteenth century. In early times the truth of sorcery, witchcraft, evil spirits and of visions was never questioned. If I am not mistaken, a few witches were burned even in America, at Salem, Massachusetts. To-day—and it is only to-day—scientific men, professors, chemical experts, doctors—most of all those interested in nervous and neurotic cases—have taken up seriously the study of a certain class of facts which have come inevitably under their observation. I am not blind to the fact that my testimony, unaided, would be of very little importance. I have made my experi¬ ments in my own way, for my own enlightenment, without any thought of convincing some one else against his will as to the truth of my observations. But the results of my labors, added to those of such men as Richet, Myers, Lombroso, Hodgson, Flammarion, Lodge and others, make a tangible be¬ ginning on the threshold of a science which, if not altogether new, is still almost wholly unexplored. Perhaps—I say per¬ haps—out of this will come the unraveling of the mystery of the “au-dela’%—the future life. I feel sometimes as if I 258 Dr. V. Maxwell A French lawyer and physician, who, taking up the subject at first as a hobby, has become one of the most careful and enthusiastic of all the investigators of psychical phenomena. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 259 were on the dawn of a new religion, one in which all humanity will be united; one without a ritual, one where no propa¬ ganda will be necessary. The revival of interest in metapsychical phenomena in the present century dates practically from the advent of the Fox sisters, of Rochester, New York. Thus we may say that the present reaction against materialism comes in a great wave out of the West. It has permeated every civilized land, pene¬ trated into every station of life, and is sweeping the material¬ ism of the German school, for instance, off its feet and into oblivion. It would be manifestly impossible here for me to go into any details as to my experiments and observations. I will, therefore, only outline a few facts. I have demonstrated to my entire satisfaction that there exists in nature a force capable of moving objects at a dis¬ tance without contact. This force is often manifested by raps or other noises, and the nature of it remains as yet hidden or unexplained. On occasions it seems to be a conscious or intelligent force or forces, and there are abundant examples to indicate that it might be the spirits of the dead. The preponderance of evidence, however, goes to prove that it is an exteriorized force emanating from the medium and from the sitters in a seance. And here we come in contact with a fact which we cannot explain. That is, that only certain persons are gifted with the mediumistic force. To find a good medium, or psychic, is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the path¬ way of the investigator. In my own experience, the most powerful natural mediums I have found have been persons in private life, people of position not easily accessible to the demands of the operator, who under no circumstance would permit their names to be used in connection with a published report. Mediums, like singers, are born; and, like singers, it takes time, patience and much work to make their manifesta¬ tions of practical or scientific value. The analysis of intellectual phenomena raises difficulties which are much more complicated than the simple observa¬ tion of a physical fact. For this reason I have given my attention principally to 260 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? the study of physical phenomena. In this I have to defend myself only against two enemies—the fraud of others and my own illusions. Now, I feel certain of never having been the victim of either. When, for example, as has happened in my experience many times, I have seen in the refreshment- room of a railway station, in a restaurant or in a tea-shop, in broad daylight, a piece of furniture change place of its own accord, I have a right to think I am not in the presence of furniture especially arranged to produce such effects. When I make sure of the absence of contact between the experi¬ menters and the article which is displaced, I have sufficient reason to exclude the hypothesis of fraud. When I measure the distance between the objects before and after displacement, I have sufficient reasons for excluding the hypothesis of the illusion of my senses. If this right be refused me, I should like to know how any fact whatever can be observed. I have but one answer for those who may distrust my qualifications as an observer: Let them take the trouble of experimenting for themselves. I have no decided opinion as to the nature and origin of this force. It may be kindred to the energy which circulates in our nerves, and causes our muscles to draw up. I have always thought there was nothing supernatural in these phenomena. My conclusions have not changed. I can only certify to their existence as a fact. I observed once a medium whose perspiration was luminous. When coming from the daylight into a dark room, his head, collar and hair were phosphorescent. That is not a meta¬ physical phenomenon, only a physiological one, due to the presence of calcium sulphide on the perspiration. But with the same medium, and with two other ones, I have witnessed on many occasions the phenomenon called by spiritualists “spirit lights.” These lights are bright sometimes, and at other times very weak. They do not last long, but disappear in a few seconds. My observations are not sufficient in num¬ ber to allow me to have an opinion on their cause. But their reality seems probable to me. They seemed to obey the same laws as the movements and raps. _y. Maxwell. CHAPTER XII MEDIUMSHIP So far we have been considering this psychic prob¬ lem entirely from one end—your and my end, the earth- world end. Supposing for a moment that we may see more clearly the setting of the stage for the final act in this drama of spiritism, let us view the problem from an imaginary other end. Let us suppose we are “spirits,” whatever that means, in a future existence, wherever that may be, and try to imagine what we would do. In the first place, we assume that we would want to communicate, if possible, with those we left behind on earth. But how should we communicate ? On earth we re¬ ceive communications thru one of two senses—sight or hearing. Why should “spirits” be thought to com¬ municate otherwise ? But how can they ? arises the im¬ mediate question, for speaking necessitates material organs of speech; writing involves a bodily hand to grasp a pencil. The spirit is immaterial; has no body; needs none to communicate in its own world. Immediately comes the answer: the spirit may tem¬ porarily use some living person’s body! Exactly: and that is just what it seems to do. Really, when you think about it, is not that the natural and simple thing 261 £6£ ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? for a disembodied spirit to do? Myers says he con¬ siders the main objection usually raised to mediumistic communications really a confirmatory point. He says: “I should have expected knowledge of a future world to come, if at all, thru some use made by disembodied spirits of living organisms /’ 1 And to those who can¬ not see why there need to be mediums. Dr. Minot J. Savage asks a question which impresses me as at the same time an excellent answer: “People ask me again and again—and I am answering these questions as tho I believed—if the people in the other world, my friends in the other world, can communicate with anybody, why don’t they come directly to me? Why must they go to a psychic, a stranger, somebody about whom I know nothing? “In the first place, I tell you frankly I do not know anything about it. Pmt I have a theory which seems to me a very reasonable one. Let me ask a counter question. If electricity will run along a wire—I am using the old theory that electricity is a fluid, but I do not know what it is, and do not know of any one who does—if electricity can convey a message from Chicagt) to New York over a wire, why cannot it convey it over a board fence ? I do not know; and there is nobody in the world who does know.” We even have examples of cases where discarnate spirits have tried hard to write or speak directly, with¬ out making use of some human body as a medium, but have failed. Sir W. Crookes gives a very striking case of this: “My second instance [of direct writing] may be considered the record of a failure. ‘A good 'Myers in the National Review for 1898, p. 232. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 263 failure often teaches more than the most successful experiment.’ It took place in the light, in my own room, with only a few private friends and Mr. Home present. Several circumstances, to which I need not further allude, had shown that the power that evening was strong. I therefore expressed a wish to witness the actual production of a written message such as I had heard described a short time before by a friend. Immediately an alphabetic communication was made as follows: ‘We will try.’ A pencil and some sheets of paper had been lying on the center of the table; pres¬ ently the pencil rose up on its point, and after advan¬ cing by hesitating jerks to the paper, fell down. It then rose, and again fell. A third time it tried, but with no better result. After three unsuccessful at¬ tempts a small wooden lath, which was lying near, upon the table, slid toward the pencil and rose a few inches from the table; the pencil rose again, and propping itself against the lath, the two together made an effort to mark the paper. It fell, and then a joint effort was again made. After a third trial the lath gave it up and moved back to its place, the pencil lay as it fell across the paper, and an alphabetic message told us, ‘We have tried to do as you asked, but our power is exhausted.’ ”* But having assumed that the spirits will communi¬ cate thru some human body, what determines whose they shall use? Why do they use some “medium’s”? Why not yours or mine, if you or I are the ones they wish to communicate with? And here, again, the spiritualist’s answer is simple, ’Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874., PP- 89-90. 264 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? and sounds plausible. The supplanting of a person’s own spirit by the exterior spirit of a deceased person is, he says, a very delicate operation; but few persons are psychically able to allow the use of their body to these spiritual “controls.” Certain conditions, certain abilities, a certain training, are prerequisite; and these you and I may not happen to> possess. And we have some clue, too, as to what these pre¬ requisites are. We have already seen that one part of our personality, the subliminal part, seems able to practice certain powers of telepathy and clairvoyance quite exceeding our normal human experience. These are powers, too, which racial tradition and popular be¬ lief have attributed to beings of a higher order of ex¬ istence, and particularly to the “spirits” of the dead. These unusual powers of the subliminal self are de¬ veloped in comparatively few persons, and these chosen apparently at random from the great mass of human beings. In other words—and this is the gist of all “mediumship”—but a few persons are able to meet the deceased “spirits” on a common ground, on a com¬ mon basis of subliminal ability; only a few, that is, are “sensitive” to communications from the other world. But is it not an assumption, you may ask, to assert that there is any connection between telepathy and sensitiveness to spirit communications ? It is; but there are several facts that seem to support it. Tel¬ epathy, for instance, seems to occur only in a momen¬ tary or partial trance, or at least when the subliminal self is wholly or partly in control of the body. Just so spirit messages are received (except very rarely) when the body is in a whole or partial state of trance. When we say, therefore, that the subliminal self is ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 265 in very close connection, or working harmony, with the discarnate spirit, we shall probably be not far wrong. Myers goes so far as to say, “Considering . . . the evidence which shows that that portion of the per¬ sonality which exercises these powers during our earth¬ ly existence does actually continue to exercise them after our bodily decay, we shall recognize a relation — obscure but indisputable—between the subliminal and the surviving self .” 1 But do not ask me why the spirit is not able to write without using a bodily instrument. I do not know; no man on earth knows. As Mr. Myers well says, it is our duty not to argue or complain why mediums can, or why you and I cannot, do it, but to “search for and train such other favored individuals as already show this form of capacity . . . always latent, perhaps, and now gradually emergent in the human race.” You have no more right to ask why a discarnate spirit must transmit its message thru a medium than to ask why you or I do not happen to be able* to practice telepathy or see clairvoyantly. We may premise at the very beginning, then, that the task of our discarnate spirits from the other world, even if they were desirous of communicating, would not be an easy one. We find that we would have to express ourselves thru some human body, or not at all; and, alas! we would find, too, that there are in all the world apparently few persons who have the power to enter into communication with us. So we would search till our discarnate spirit, as Frederic Myers says in a very striking passage, “seeking ... for some ’Myers: Human Personality, p. 168. 266 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? open avenue, discerns something which corresponds ... to a light —a glimmer of translucency in the con¬ fused darkness of our material world. This ‘light’ indicates a sensitive —a human organism so constituted that a spirit can temporarily inform or control it, not necessarily interrupting the stream of the sensitive’s ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand only, or perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper’s case, using voice as well as hand, and occupying all the sensitive’s channels of self-manifestation .” 1 “But all this amounts to nothing,” you may inter¬ rupt impatiently; “it is all, as you yourself have con¬ fessed, pure assumption. I can just as well assume something entirely different; and can you then find flaws in my assumption?” Yes; you will have no shadow of proof to support an assumption utterly and thruout different from mine. I have made a series of related assumptions; a little later we shall see how remarkably closely the facts seem—mind you, I say seem —to bear them out. The Phenomena of “Automatism ” We soon find, however, that tho an overwhelming proportion of alleged messages from the spirit world are transmitted thru mediums, they come in various ways, with some of which the medium may seem to have little to do. In the second article of the series we discussed at some length the “physical phenomena” of mediumship. We saw that rappings, table-tipping, etc., are claimed by the spiritualist to be evidence of the existence of *Myers: Human Personality, p. 335. 'Xi^y'UAy^^*- . y£Zt*yty^ yZy? -eZZ^/st-y CZ^y>- a^-cL yv^rp^. 0^^ ^*-1+^/ y^y/Z^y <*- rr-V^C*- ^'^W - ^r/^C. * C^v'L^X-l^ cr-y^ y^y^Z~C^yZc^(, C^-^^pC. ■Zc^Z- ZZy^^Z S^/^ZZ Z^^ZZyy. „ ^lyXt^yy -Z^Zf-~^ZZrZy&yZ?C^t^£ ^^Z*ZyZ**C -X^t^ cZy!yAty^6 Ay^yrf^ I. A Typical Example of “Spirit Writing” This is the medium’s normal handwriting. (Compare this with the plates facing pages 276 and 286). ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 267 spirits; and we stated his reason—or one of his rea¬ sons—for making that claim, namely, that the phenom¬ ena seemed to him to be too remarkable to admit of any “natural” explanation. And I have shown, too, that this claim is considered by many of those scientists who have really investigated the phenomena to be unwarranted. They admit the occurrence of genuine rappings and table-tippings, but assert, nevertheless, that these phenomena are explicable without any “spirit” intervention. The subliminal self, they say, may be able and probably does in rare instances exert genuine powers of telepathy, telekinesis and clairvoy¬ ance. “Yes, we admit now your wonderful phenom¬ ena,” they continue, “but we can explain them all with¬ out any spiritual help; you must bring forward some better reason than that to make your ‘spirit’ hypothesis scientifically tenable.” And the spiritualist thereupon brings forward his second reason, a reason that we have hardly heretofore mentioned, the fact that table-tipping, rapping, and, in fact, all the physical phenomena of spiritualism, are occasionally a means of transmitting messages; and the further fact that these messages are of such a na¬ ture that they could come only from another world. This, as you can readily see, is a very important fact. It is surprising enough for a table to float up into the air of its own accord ; but it is more surprising if, by some code arranged with it, it raps out an intel¬ ligent sentence; and it is even more astonishing if this sentence is a bit of information, afterward found to be entirely true, but at the moment of its delivery un¬ known and unsuspected by any person in the room. 268 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? This, we must admit, is a very strong argument for spiritualism. Is any other hypothesis possible now? I have purposely, heretofore, omitted any discussion of the message-transmitting phase of all these phe¬ nomena. The alleged spiritualist message is occasion¬ ally transmitted by rappings, by table-tippings, by slate-writing, by flashes of light, etc., but it is seen in its fullest development, is most often given, and has been for years most carefully studied, thru automatisms; that is, thru direct writing and speaking by a medium. Now, the arguments for and against the spiritualistic origin of these messages are identical, whether they come thru a table controlled by a medium, or thru her own hand. If we work out the problem in one case we do it in all. If we can prove one is due to spirits, we have proved the others are. It has, therefore, seemed wise to postpone this final problem, the authen¬ ticity of spirit messages, until we have described au¬ tomatisms, the most typical and perfectly developed of all spiritual phenomena. I have, therefore, described and discussed all the previous phenomena only in their independent aspects; but the reader will now under¬ stand that everything said in the future regarding mes¬ sages received by direct writing applies equally well to those received by table-tipping, etc. Various Phases of Motor Automatism In the light trance which is the typical condition for communication the medium may either speak or write the messages which come to her. In the more com¬ mon examples she merely repeats messages given her by persons “on the other side.” In its most developt form, however—that is, motor automatism (as in Mrs. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 269 Piper’s case)—the spirit claims to take entire control of the medium’s body (in other words, to be an exam¬ ple of “possession,” like the “Watseka Wonder” al¬ ready noticed). The medium then speaks, not in her own voice, but in the voice—so far as she can do so— of the alleged spirit; her handwriting is not her own, but changes with that of each spirit who uses her body; her gestures are not her normal ones, but may be characteristic of the discarnate spirit who claims to be present. In other words, the medium speaks and acts in every way as the spirit who claims to be in control of her body would do. “The influence of the subject’s mind,” says Dr. Hyslop, “conscious and un¬ conscious, is completely suppressed, and the nervous system becomes a delicate machine for the intromission of messages from without, atfecting it as an automatic piece of machinery .” 1 Sometimes the personalities claiming to have con¬ trol are of very different kinds of people. Mile. Smith, the famous medium observed by Professor Flournoy, and described at length in his From India to the Planet Mars, not content with having among her numerous “controls” Cagliostro, the magician of the sixteenth century, and an Indian princess, imported, in later phases of her mediumship, spirits from Mars! In his very interesting book, Professor Flournoy has many samples of the Martian writing and sketches of Mar¬ tian landscapes drawn by these Martian spirits, who claimed to be using Mile. Smith’s fingers. Frederic Myers defines most clearly this phenomena ’Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 344. 270 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? of possession, or motor automatism. “In possession the automatist's [the medium’s] own personality does for the time altogether disappear, while there is a more or less complete substitution of personality; writ¬ ing or speech being given by a spirit thru the entranced organism. . . .These phenomena of possession are now the most amply attested, as well as intrinsically the most advanced, in our whole repertory . 1 “The claim, then, is that the automatist, in the first place, falls into a trance, during which his spirit par¬ tially ‘quits his body’; enters at any rate into a state in which the spiritual world is more or less open to its perception; and in which, also—and this is the novelty —it so far ceases to occupy the organism as to leave room for an invading spirit to use it in somewhat the same fashion as its owner is accustomed to use it. “The brain being thus left temporarily and partially uncontrolled, a disembodied spirit sometimes, but not always, succeeds in occupying it; and occupies it with varying degrees of control. . . . “The controlling spirit proves his identity mainly by reproducing, in speech or writing, facts which be¬ long to his memory and not to the automatist’s mem¬ ory. He may also give evidence of supernormal per¬ ception of other kinds. “His manifestation may differ very considerably from the automatist’s normal personality . . . the spirit selects what parts of the brain machinery he will use, but he cannot get out of that machinery more than it is constructed to perform. The spirit can, in¬ deed, produce facts and names unknown to the autom- Ttalics are mine. 'ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 271 atist; but they must be, as a rule, such facts and names as the automatist could easily have repeated, had they been known to him; not, for instance, math¬ ematical formulas or Chinese sentences, if the autom¬ atist is ignorant of mathematics or of Chinese .” 1 Sometimes two spirits, as Myers suggests, struggle for control of the medium’s body; sometimes two or more control different parts of the medium’s body at the same time; sometimes a second one comes and pushes the first one out, and the first one slinks hur¬ riedly away—or at least these are the impressions given to those present. Questions are asked the spirit and answered directly in speech or writing. When she awakes from the trance she generally, but not always, remembers absolutely nothing of all that has taken place. “After a time,” says Mr. Myers, “the control gives way, and the automatist’s spirit returns. The automatist, awaking, may or may not remember his experiences in the spiritual world during the trance. In some cases (Swedenborg) there is this memory of the spiritual world, but no possession of the organism by an external spirit. In others (Cahagnet’s subject) there is utterance during the trance as to what is being discerned by the automatist, yet no memory thereof on waking. In others (Mrs. Piper) there is neither ut¬ terance as a rule, or at least no prolonged utterance, by the automatist’s own spirit, nor subsequent mem¬ ory ; but there is writing or utterance during the trance by controlling spirits.”* This, then, is the phenomena of automatism as de¬ scribed by a spiritualist; let us examine for ourselves. ‘Myers: Human Personality, Vol. II., pp. 190-91. -Ibid., p. 191. m ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Rules for Conducting Mediumistic Experiments Dr. Hyslop lays down the most important rules for the conduct of mediumistic experiments, rules which he says must be observed before we have the slightest right to consider the possibility of a supernormal source for the communications: (1) “In various ways the extent of the medium’s honesty must be attested. This is not because any scientific results should depend upon honesty, but be¬ cause the belief or proof of it will remove the first objection of the skeptic. (2) “The statements, testimony, beliefs and opinions of the medium will count for nothing in scientific proof of the supernormal. (3) “The medium should not know the sitter or person coming at first to experiment. This precaution shuts out a certain type of fraud as impossible. . . . (4) “Adequate allowance, whether in or out of the trance, must be made for ‘suggestion,’ or conscious or unconscious hints from the sitter, in which informa¬ tion may be conveyed to the medium. (5) “As perfect a record as possible should be made and kept of all that is said and done by the medium and experimenter. (6) “The quality of the facts or evidence in favor of the supernormal must be such as excludes explana¬ tion by chance coincidences, guessing, suggestion, sec¬ ondary personality, and fraud of all kinds; that is, they should take the nature of tests. . . . (7) “In applying the spiritualistic hypothesis to the phenomena we must be careful to observe that the facts have a definite bearing upon the question of the per- 273 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? sonal identity of deceased persons not known to the medium.” [That is, those “spirits” who claim to be communicating, themselves unknown to the medium, must, be able to prove by their communications that they are whom they claim to be. This proving of per¬ sonal identity, of which more will be said later, is a thing upon which the spiritualist rightly lays- great stress.] (8) If the medium remains normally conscious; that is, does not go into a trance state, “proper allow¬ ance must be made” for the possible influence of the medium’s own. mental and physical condition. (9) “When a trance is secured zve have to exclude all phenomena that can be explained by ‘secondary personality,’ or unconscious mental action. Not all that occurs in a' trance, if any of it, is attributable to supernormal sources. We must be able to distinguish between what comes from without the subject and. what is consciously and unconsciously produced.” Here is the crux of the whole spiritistic problem: if part of the phenomena occurring in the trance state can be ascribed to the subliminal self (the “secondary personality,” of Dr. Hyslop), can it not all be so ac¬ counted for, thus dropping altogether the hypothesis of spirits? This problem must be considered at more detail later. Typical Mediumistic Phenomena I am first going to quote a mediumistic experience of Dr. Funk, because in subject matter and a con¬ fusing combination of definiteness and indefiniteness it is typical. 274? ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “Shortly after this experience of mine with Miss B. (the medium) there was visiting in my home in Brooklyn a niece of my wife’s, whose home was in Toledo, Ohio. She was a total stranger in New York. I will here call her Miss M. Miss M. had had some experience in Ohio in investigating psychic phe¬ nomena. ... As she was a stranger in the city, I thought it well to have her make a test visit to Miss B., which she did in. November, 1903. . . . “Miss M. is a rapid stenographer, and made notes on the back of the envelopes of what the medium said about each. In her report to me she said that “ ‘Miss B. did not at any time ‘fish’ for information, as is usual with many mediums, and I gave her not the slightest clew about myself, my own name, home, or history, or about the contents of any of the envelopes; nor did she ask a single question about any until after she had given what information she could.’ “Miss M. took with her a number of sealed envel¬ opes. Among these were' three prepared by myself. These I got ready in my library, without the slightest intimation being given to Miss M. or to any one else as to their contents. “Envelope one contained a medical thesis written by the father of Miss M., who was a physician. It was nearly forty years old. The paper was written, in the opinion of Miss M., when her father was attending medical lectures at Willoughby College in Ohio. The medium, after touching the envelope, said: “ ‘I hear the. word “Toledo.” I get the letters “F” and “W.” I do not know what these letters mean. I also get the name “Ella.” This Ella is your oldest sister. There are three of you.. I see two brothers- ARE. THE DEAD. ALIVE? 275 in-law. You are not married. Your oldest sister has six children. You are not living with her, but you have been together during the summer. Your oldest sister does not live in Toledo, but toward Cincinnati. Your father says, “Tell Ella she has not heart trouble; it is only nervousness.” I hear “Tom.” Your sister has a son by that name.” ’ “Miss M. tells me that ‘This reading by the medium was correct in every point. She did not fumble, half utter a name and then change it. Each name was given correctly at first. The letters “F” and “W” were correct, if F referred to the surname of my father, and W if it referred to the name of the college for which this thesis was prepared.’ The medium also gave an accurate detailed description of the cemetery and grave where Miss M.’s father and mother are bur¬ ied. She said: “ ‘Your father says you need not worry so much about the condition of the grave; that that does not signify. Your father also says, “I knew at 11.30 on Thursday night that I could not get well.” ’ “Miss M. informs me that she has a hired man to take care of the graves, and that she has been con¬ cerned because the burial plot has been permitted to run down. Her sister Ella had expressed concern about her heart; naturally so, because both her father and her mother had died of heart trouble. Miss M. also says, ‘My father died on March 7, 1890; the night before his death he had a very bad turn, and we felt that he had given up all expectation of getting well. He died about two hours afterward.’ After getting this report from Miss M., I looked in a perpetual cal¬ endar, and found that March 7 fell on Friday. Miss 276 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? M. informs me that her father died at 1.30 a.m. Hence the Thursday night in -the message is correct.” 1 The second example of automatism is interesting be¬ cause it shows how incongruous some of the com¬ municators are with the medium and those present with her. The receipt of the communication taken from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research is thus described, “Miss A.,” the medium, writing au¬ tomatically while entranced: “On June 27, 1891, Miss A. took pencil in hand. ■ The following notes were made directly after the sitting, and the automatic script is in my hands (Mr. F. W. H. Myers). 2 The hand¬ writing of the soi-disant Jack Creasy is barely legible and of an uneducated type. [“Much scribbling. At last, very illegibly, and many times, was written] ‘Jack.’ (‘Jack who?) (Miss A. said, ‘I dare say Jack the Ripper, or some one of that kind.’) Jack Creasy. (What do you want?) Help pore Mary. (Where did you live?) [Very illegible.] Fillers [or] Tillers Buildings. (Where?) Greenwich. “(Are you in the flesh?) x Funk: The Widow’s Mite, pp. 227-9. 2 As generally in descriptions of mediumistic communica¬ tions, the matter here given in parentheses ( ) is the questions of those interrogating the medium; that outside the parenthe¬ ses is the automatic writing of the medium. Various explana¬ tory notes are put in brackets [ 1. II. A Typical Example of “Spirit Writing” Automatic communication, purporting to come from Dr. Hyslop’s fattier, written by the medium, Mrs. Smead. in successive trances. (Reproduced from Hyslop’s “Preliminary Report on the Trance Phe¬ nomena of Mrs. Smead ") Compare this with the plates facing pages 266 and 286. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 277 No—flesh all burnt. [Then a rude drawing, not rec¬ ognizable.] (Were you burnt?) Yes—piche kitl. (In Fillers Buildings?) In Blackwell Road. (When?) Long—perhaps twenty month. (Was it an accident?) Awful. Mister Lennard put us to shift the mixter; Bob Heal put the light for me the pitch vat cort. “(What works?) Tar. (At Greenwich?) Yes, Blackwell Rode. (What kind of works?) Abot. (Do you mean Abbot’s works?) Abots—yes—yes—Blackwell. (Were many killed?) I know nothin’. (What help do you want for Mary?) Don’t know nothin’—find her—and help her—ask after pore Jack Creasy’s Mary. (Is she at Greenwich? Can you give her address?) Can’t tell—can’t see—she was there. (Where?) Fullur (or Fillers) Buildings. Bless you. [No further writing occurred.”] It is, perhaps, needless to say that none of those pres¬ ent knew of any “Jack Creasy,” or had ever heard of such an accident as the one described. “Investigation proved, however, that a Jack Creasy had been burnt 278 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? by an explosion of a pitch vat, and died from the effects of it. The accident took place in the tar-distilling works of Forbes, Abbot & Lennard, at Greenwich. The works were bounded on one side by Blackwell Lane. Apparently the name Fuller or Fillers is a mistake for Forbes, though we have no evidence of this. No such person as Bob Heal could be found, and the wife of Jack Creasy was not named Mary. The death of Jack Creasy occurred two years previous¬ ly, and was mentioned with the accident in the local papers, which it is probable that Miss A. never saw. Dr. Hyslop, in quoting the case, remarks that it is mainly “interesting for the apparent mental confusion in the ‘communication.’ 1,1 A unique case, showing how, as often, the communi¬ cating spirit claims to have, and apparently does have, a knowledge above the normal, is that of Dr. “X,” who was in frequent consultation with the “spirit” of a Dr. “Z” on the “other side.” “Under other circumstances I have myself consulted Dr. Z. as to patients under my professional care. On each occasion he has given a precise diagnosis and has indicated a treatment, consisting mainly of dosimetric granules, sometimes associated with other treatment. These facts have been repeated many times, and I owe a great gratitude to Dr. Z. for the advice which he has given me. His prescriptions were always rational; and when I showed fear as to certain doses which ap¬ peared to me too large, he took pains to reassure me, but stuck to his prescriptions. I have never had to repent following the advice of my eminent colleague ’Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 366. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 279 in the other world; and I am bound to state that every time that a medical question has been submitted to him the replies and advice of Dr. Z. have been of astonish¬ ing clearness and precision .” 1 Apparently Supernormal Knowledge Displayed in Medium- istic Communications Here is a partial report of a seance held by Dr. Hyslop with a medium, Miss X., not a professional, “who took no pay for what she did, sat only for a few friends occasionally . . . and had no theories of her powers.” Dr. Hyslop, who had had communications from what he had reason to believe to be the spirit of his father, had arranged with the latter a test sentence (in a for¬ eign language) known only to himself and Dr. Hodg¬ son, by which at future sittings with other mediums the elder Hyslop might at once prove his identity. Dr. Hyslop was unknown to the medium, and was in¬ troduced to her by those arranging the sitting as “Rob¬ ert Brown, of Nebraska.” “Miss X. . . . did not go into a trance. The first words written were, ‘Why, James.’ Astonished at the promptness with which this correct hit at my name oc¬ curred, I asked, ‘Who says that ?’ and received the two Christian names and initial of the surname of my wife, who had died eight months before, the middle Chris¬ tian name being very unusual. This was given with a little difficulty and confusion. ... [A little later] followed this passage: “ ‘Your name is not Robert. It is James. Isn’t it ’Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 358. 280 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? James? Well, wait a little. We don’t want too much flutter here.’ “ ‘(You know why I want full details.) Ah, but you have had these, now let me talk. Don’t ask for more proof. (I have not had them from you.) I doubt if I can give you the one thing you most desire this moment. (What do I desire this moment?) [I was not conscious of any particular desire at the time. I was certainly not thinking of what was referred to in the reply.] The sign, well, not exactly password, but the test. If you will keep motionless I can be able to give even that.’ “Here Miss X. remarked that she felt as if she were going to sleep, and that she was afraid she might go into some state which she did not like. She went to the window to throw off the tendency, and resumed the writing on her return. . . . The reference to the ‘sign, well, not exactly password, but the test,’ is sur¬ prisingly accurate. It is not a passzyorcf, but a pass- sentence, and hence a ‘sign’ or ‘test.’ The apparent tendency of Miss X. here to go into a trance in this connection is a most suggestive incident, as that is the condition in which I would most naturally expect the pass-sentence to be given. . . . Miss X. ... of course knew nothing of my expectation of a pass-sentence .” 1 Yet the skeptic will probably answer that after all the test sentence was not given. Reserving till a little later the logical history of the Piper case, I shall give one example of a seance held by Dr. Minot Savage with Mrs. Piper before she was studied by the Society for Psychical Research. ’Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 236-8. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 281 “1 had sittings with Mrs. Piper years ago,” he says, “before the society was organized, or her name was publicly known. On the occasion of my first visit to her she was, I think, in a little house on Pinckney Street, in Boston. At this time she went into a trance, but talked instead of writing. The first person who claimed to be present was my father. He had died in Maine at the age of ninety. Pie had never lived in Boston, nor, indeed, had he visited there for a great many years, so that there was no possibility that Mrs. Piper should ever have seen him, and no likelihood of her having known anything about him. She described him at once with accuracy, pointing out certain pe¬ culiarities which the ordinary observer, even if he had ever seen him, would not have been likely to notice. Without any question on my part she told me that it was my father, and added, ‘He calls you Judson.’ This, tho a little fact, is striking enough to call for notice. Judson is my middle name. ... In all my boyhood all the members of the family, except my father and my half-brother, soon to be referred to, had always called me Minot. Father had called me Judson thru my boyhood, as I always supposed, out of a tender feeling for the daughter who had given me the name. For fifteen or twenty years, however, before his death he had fallen into the family way, and had also called me Minot. It struck me, then, as peculiar and worthy of note that Mrs. Piper should actually describe him, and, among other personal peculiarities which she men¬ tioned, should have called up this tiny fact from the oblivion of the past. “She went on to say: ‘Here is somebody else be¬ sides your father. It is your brother—no, your half- 282 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? brother, and he says his name is John.’ This John was my mother’s boy. Then Mrs. Piper went on to describe, with somewhat painful accuracy, partly in pantomime and partly by speech, the method of his death; and she added: ‘When he was dying, how he did want to see his mother!’ Now this half-brother John had also been in the habit of calling me Judson in the years long past. It had been a good many years since I had seen him. He had never lived in Boston, and there is no conceivable way by which Mrs. Piper could have known anything about him. He was not consciously in my mind, and I was not expecting to hear from him. He had died a year or two before this in Michigan, in precisely the way in which the medium had described the facts. As to his exclamation about his mother, it came to me as peculiarly personal and appropriate, because he was one of those who would be spoken of as a ‘mother-boy.’ He was pas¬ sionately devoted to her.” 1 The Mediumship of William Stain ton Moses No history of mediumship could profess complete¬ ness without some consideration of the life of the Rev. William Stainton Moses, of whom mention has already been made. He was in no sense a professional medium. A man of deeply religious and high moral character, he considered the communications, which he sincerely believed he received from the other world, solely in their ethical and spiritual significance. Tho on occasion exhibiting physical phenomena as remark¬ able as that of Home, he refused to attach any impor¬ tance to them, and being naturally retiring, gave lit- l Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 252. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 283 tie opportunity for outside investigation. “He himself regarded them as a mere means to an end, in accord¬ ance with the view urged on him by his ‘control’—that they were intended as proofs of the power and au¬ thority of these latter, while the real message lay in the religious teaching imparted to him.” 1 Frederic Myers has summarized excellently Mr. Moses’ peculiar place in the history of mediumship. 2 “Here was a man of university education, of manifest sanity and probity, who vouched to us for a series of phenomena—occur¬ ring to himself, and with no doubtful or venal aid— which seemed at least to prove, in confusedly inter¬ mingled form, . . . theses unknown to science. . . . He spoke frankly and fully; he showed his note¬ books ; he referred us to his friends; he inspired a be¬ lief which was at once sufficient, and which is still suffi¬ cient, to prompt to action. “My original impressions as regards Mr. Moses were strengthened,” says Myers, “by the opportunity which I had of examining his unpublished MSS. after his death, on September 5, 1892. These consist of thirty- one notebooks—twenty-four of automatic script, four of records of physical phenomena, and three of retro¬ spect and summary. . . . “With the even tenor of this straightforward and reputable life was interwoven a chain of mysteries which, as I think, in what way soever they be explained, make it one of the most extraordinary which our cen¬ tury has seen. For its true history lies in that series of physical manifestations which began in 1872 and 'Myers: Human Personality, p. 321. 'Ibid., pp. 321-4- 284 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? lasted some eight years, and that series of automatic writings and trance utterances which began in 1873, received a record for some ten years, and did not, as is believed, cease altogether until the earthly end was near. “These two series were intimately connected; the physical phenomena being avowedly designed to give authority to the speeches and writings which professed to emanate from the same source. . . . Mr. Moses was sometimes, but not always, entranced while these phys¬ ical phenomena were occurring. Sometimes he was en¬ tranced, and the trance utterance purported to be that of a discarnate spirit. At other times, especially when alone, he wrote automatically, retaining his own ordi¬ nary consciousness meanwhile, and carrying on lengthy discussions with the ‘spirit influence’ controlling his hand and answering his questions, etc. As a general rule, the same alleged spirits both manifested them¬ selves by raps, etc., at Mr. Moses’ sittings with his friends, and also wrote thru his hand when he was alone. . . . When ‘direct writing’ was given at the seances, the handwriting of each alleged spirit was the same as that which the same spirit was in the habit of employing in the automatic script. The claim to individuality was thus in all cases decisively made. “Now, the personages thus claiming to appear may be divided roughly into three classes: “A.—First, and most important, are a group of per¬ sons recently deceased, and sometimes manifesting themselves at the seances before their decease was known thru any ordinary channel to any of the per¬ sons present. These spirits, in many instances, give ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 285 tests of identity, mentioning facts connected with their earth lives which are afterward found to be correct. “B.—Next comes a group of personages belonging to generations more remote, and generally of some distinction in their day. Grocyn, the friend of Eras¬ mus, may be taken as a type of these. Many of these also contribute facts as a proof of identity, which facts are sometimes more correct than the conscious or ad¬ mitted knowledge of any of the sitters could supply. In such cases, however, the difficulty of proving iden¬ tity is increased by the fact that most of the correct statements are readily accessible in print, and may conceivably have either been read, and forgotten by Mr. Moses, or have become known to him by some kind of clairvoyance. “C.—A third group consists of spirits who give such names as Rector, Doctor, Theophilus, and, above all, Imperator. These, from time to time, reveal the names which they assert to have been theirs in earth life. These concealed names are, for the most part, both more illustrious and more remote than the names in Class B. . . . “These automatic messages were almost wholly writ¬ ten by Mr. Moses’ own hand, while he was in a normal working state. The exceptions are of two kinds: (I) There is one long passage, alleged by Mr. Moses to have been written by himself while in a state of trance. (2) There are, here and there, a few words alleged to be in ‘direct writing’—written, that is to say, by invisible hands, but in Mr. Moses’ presence; as sev¬ eral times described in the notes of seances where other persons were present. “Putting these exceptional instances aside, we find 286 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? that the writings generally take the form of a dialog, Mr. Moses proposing a question in his ordinary, thick, black handwriting. An answer is then generally, tho not always, given, written also by Mr. Moses, and with the same pen, but in some one of various scripts which differ more or less widely from his own. . . . “A prolonged study of the MS. books has revealed nothing inconsistent with this description. I have my¬ self, of course, searched them carefully for any sign of confusion or alteration, but without finding any; and I have shown parts of them to various friends, who have seen no points of suspicion. It seems plain, more¬ over, that the various entries were made at or about the dates to which they are ascribed. They contain constant references to the seances which went on con¬ currently, and whose dates are independently known; and in the later books, records of some of these seances are interspersed in their due places among other matter. The MSS. contain also a number of allusions to other contemporaneous facts, many of which are independently known to myself. “I think, moreover, that no one who had studied these entries thruout would doubt the originally pri¬ vate and intimate character of many of them. The tone of the spirits toward Mr. Moses himself is ha¬ bitually courteous and respectful. But occasionally they have some criticism which pierces to the quick, and which goes far to explain to me Mr. Moses’ un¬ willingness to have the books fully inspected during his lifetime. He did, no doubt, contemplate their be¬ ing at least read by friends after his death; and there are indications that there may have been a still more private book, now doubtless destroyed, to which mes- III. A Typical Example of “Spirit Writing” Automatic communication, purporting to come from Dr. Hvslop’s ( Kpnr\/' m e t by the , mecljuin, Mrs. Smead. in successive trances, nnmen/of M fr0I e Hy j °P s Preliminary Report on the Trance Phe- 266 and 276 MrS ' bmead ' ] Com P are tn.s with the plates facing pages ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 287 sages of an intimate character were sometimes con¬ signed. . . . “That they were written down in good faith by Mr. Moses as proceeding from the personages whose names are signed to them, there can be little doubt. But as to whether they did really proceed from those personages, or no, there may in many cases be very great doubt—a doubt which I, at least, shall be quite unable to remove.” “NO EXPERIMENTAL PROOF OF SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH WILL EVER REACH AN ABSOLUTELY CON¬ CLUSIVE SCIENTIFIC DEMONSTRATION” I take it that by the above question, addressed to me, is meant, “Have we any trustworthy evidence outside of the events recorded in the New Testament—evidence that will stand strict scientific scrutiny—that human personality sur¬ vives the death of the body?” In my opinion we have such evi¬ dence, and it is slowly but surely accumulating. At present I cannot say that there exists much psychical evidence of scien¬ tific value for the identity of the discarnate human spirit many months or years after death. The evidence begins to grow in abundance and weight as we approach a limited period after death; and when we come to within a few days, still more, within a few hours of death, the evidence becomes large in volume and conclusive in character. It may be that a decay or dissolution of the spirit, as of the body, takes place more or less slowly after death, possibly to be followed, as the Chris¬ tian religion gives us reason to hope, by, in many cases, a reintegration of the spirit and a transition to a larger and fuller life, the new and vivid environment of which would probably cause a more or less complete lapse of all earthly memories. Though in my opinion the weight of evidence will eventu¬ ally lead to a very general acceptance of the fact that human intelligence and self-consciousness can exist without a material brain and body, yet it seems to me highly probable that no single experimental proof of the survival of human personality after death will ever reach an absolutely CONCLUSIVE scien¬ tific demonstration. This particular field of psychical inquiry belongs to an order other than that with which science deals, and this being so, it cannot be adequately investigated with the limited faculties we now possess. On the other hand, those 288 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 289 who have devoted long years to a searching investigation of the evidence of survival after death, and who have approached the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit, have found the cumulative value of the evidence to be so strong that it was impossible to withhold belief in the fact of that survival. In support of this it is only necessary to refer to that shrewd and able investigator, and at first complete agnostic, the late Dr. Hodgson. Both he and the late Frederic Myers were slowly but irresistibly driven to believe from recent evidence that human personality transcends the shock of death. Emi¬ nent scientific men, such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, Dr. A. R. Wallace, and others, have also been driven to the same opinion, and so was that acute thinker, the late Professor De Morgan, father of the now well-known novelist. It is sometimes urged that the manifestations of life in the unseen are so paltry as to excite contempt. But is anything paltry that manifests life? In the dumb agony which seizes the soul when some loved one is taken from us, and the awful sense of separation comes over and paralyzes us as we gaze on the lifeless form, should we deem the lifting of a finger or the movement of the lips, or any action of the dead, a paltry thing, if it assured us that death had not ended a loved life, and still more, that death will not end all, but that life and personality remain though the clothing of the body be gone? Another line of evidence is afforded by the records of appa¬ ritions at the moment of death. The cautiously expressed but decisive conclusion was arrived at after prolonged investigation by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick and others, that between deaths, and apparitions of the dying or deceased person, a connection exists not due to chance alone. A recent case of a veridical, or truth-telling phantasm, appearing for some time after death, which I have carefully investigated, and know the percipient, is so impressive and convincing I will briefly narrate the facts. A gentleman of some note shot himself in London, in the spring of 1907. There can be little doubt that his mind was unhinged at the time by the receipt that morning of a letter from a young lady that blighted his hopes. Before taking his life he scribbled a memorandum leaving an annuity to a 290 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? young lady who was his godchild, and to whom he was much attached. Three days afterward (on the day of his funeral) he appeared to this godchild, who was being educated in a convent school on the Continent, informing her of the fact of his sudden death, of its manner, and of the cause which had led him to take his life, and asking her to pray for him. The mother, anxious to conceal from her daughter the distressing circumstances of her godfather’s death, waited to write until a few days AFTER the funeral, and then only stated that her uncle (as he was called) had died suddenly. Subsequently, upon meeting her daughter, on her return from the Continent, the mother was amazed to hear not only of the apparition, but that it had communicated to her daughter all the cir¬ cumstances which she had never intended her daughter to know. Careful inquiry shows that it was impossible for the information to have reached her daughter through normal means, for the percipient was not only secluded in a convent, but the regulations were so strict that no newspaper or other sources of news were allowed into the convent, even had the facts been published at the time, which was not the case. Even letters to the pupils are restricted and supervised. —Professor William Barrett, F.R.S. Mrs. Leonora Piper of Arlington, Mass. Most famous of all spirit-writing mediums, and never detected in fraud. She lias been the means of converting to spiritualism many oi the most prominent English and American investigators. CHAPTER XIII THE PIPER CASE The case of Mrs. Leonora F. Piper, of Arlington, Mass., is as preeminent in the field of psychical me- diumship as that of D. D. Home in physical medium- ship, and for the same reason—she has never once been detected in or suspected of fraud. It is not that the phenomena observed with Mrs. Piper are of a particularly striking nature; a seance with her compared with one with Home, for example, would probably seem distinctly “slow.” But for a quarter of a century Mrs. Piper has been under the continuous and strict surveillance of the Society for Psychical Research; she has been subject to the closest scientific observation; the data secured with her is more voluminous and evidential than with any other medium; and she, more than any other, has been the means of converting to the spiritualistic hypothesis nearly all the prominent investigators of psychic phe¬ nomena. Of the genuineness of Mrs. Piper’s messages, as dis¬ tinguished from their authenticity, there can be no doubt. That is, she herself is honest in her belief in their supernormal origin; whatever may be the truth of that contention. Every one who has made anything more than the most superficial investigation of her me- 291 292 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? diumistic powers is convinced at least of the entire absence of fraud. Dr. Hyslop, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, all assert their strong faith in the genuineness of the phenomena exhibited. Dr. Hodg¬ son, ever strongly skeptical, who was sent to this coun¬ try by the English Society for Psychical Research for the avowed purpose of revealing whatever duplicity there was, came, saw, but, unlike Caesar, was con¬ quered, and converted to spiritualism. Professor James, as early as 1885, wrote he was “persuaded of the medium’s honesty and of the genuineness of her trance, and altho at first disposed to think that the ‘hits’ she made were either lucky coincidences, or the result of knowledge on her part of who the sitter was, and of his or her family affairs, I now believe her to be in possession of a power as yet unexplained.” 1 Some¬ what later, “Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Har¬ vard University, had two sittings. He could not re¬ port anything indubitably supernormal. But he said that ‘there was no question as to Mrs. Piper’s good faith.’ ” 2 Frederic Myers writes in a similar manner. “On the whole, I believe that all observers, both in America and in England, who have seen enough of Mrs. Piper in both states to be able to form a judgment, will agree in affirming (1) that many of the facts given could not have been learned even by a skilled detective; (2) that to learn others of them, altho possible, would have needed an expenditure of money as well as of time, which it seems impossible to suppose that Mrs. Piper ’Quoted in Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 127-8. 2 Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 210. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 293 could have met; and (3) that her conduct has never given any ground whatever for supposing her capable of fraud or trickery. Few persons have been so long and so carefully observed; and she has left on all ob¬ servers the impression of thoro uprightness, candor and honesty.” 1 The reality of the trance state has been determined conclusively, so far as experimental test can do so. “Mrs. Piper goes into a ‘trance’ whose nature we do not know,” says Dr. Hyslop, “except that it involves the suspension of her normal consciousness, and in this condition the alleged messages from discarnate spirits are written visibly by her own hand. Her head lies upon a pillow placed upon a table, and is turned away from the writing. The tests for anesthesia, ot¬ her unconscious state, were exceptionally severe, and such as are never employed by physicians to ascertain a similar condition. The writing does not present any special mystery to the scientific mind, as it is familiar with automatic work of this kind where there is no pre¬ tense or evidence of discarnate intervention. It is the contents of the ‘messages’ that suggest some extraordi¬ nary origin, at least simulative of spiritistic communi¬ cations.” 2 As Dr. Hyslop notes in his analysis of the Piper case, the alleged fraud may take many forms. Infor¬ mation may be given unconsciously by the sitters in answer to clever “fishing” by the medium; or even mere intonations of the voice. Detectives may be em¬ ployed to gather advance information regarding sit- ’S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 6, pp. 436-42. ’Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 131. 294. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? ters. Sleight-of-hand tricks of various kinds may ac¬ count for much “supernatural” knowledge, and shrewd guessing and a keen study of human nature for more. Yet not only those scientists already quoted, but also Mrs. Sidgwick, 1 Mr. Frank Podmore, 2 Mr. Andrew Lang, 3 Professor Richet, and practically every investi¬ gator present at one of Mrs. Piper’s sittings, refuses to consider fraud a sufficient explanation of the re¬ markable results obtained. Dr. Hyslop goes so far as to say: “In the phe¬ nomena, however, which I have summarized in this book, and in the cases concerned, I do not propose to discuss the hypothesis of fraud. I consider that it has been excluded from consideration as long ago as 1889, and I think that every intelligent person who examines the facts carefully, and in their details, will not be willing to accept the responsibility which his theory of fraud will impose upon him for its assertion.” 4 And Mr. Carrington adds“The more we study the case, the more are we convinced that there cannot possibly be any system of fraud that would account for it. Were all the mediums in the United States to combine their information for the exclusive use of Mrs. Piper, and were she to conduct an elaborate system of private and paid inquiry herself, that would not begin to ac¬ count for many of the incidents that have transpired at the Piper seances, or for the case as a whole.” I shall now run over as briefly as I may the psychic 1 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 15, pp. 16-38. 2 Ibid., v. 14, pp. 50-78. s Ibid., v. 15, pp. 39-52. 'Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 247. 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism , p. 413. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 295 history of this remarkable medium, illustrating the ac¬ count with typical bits of the recorded phenomena. The Early Phases of the Piper Case Perhaps the first scientist to give serious considera¬ tion to Mrs. Piper was William James, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He thus relates the impression created by his first sittings with her, and the messages given him therein: “The most convin¬ cing things said about my own immediate household were either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortu¬ nately, the former things cannot well be published. Of the trivial things, I have forgotten the greater num¬ ber, but the following rarer nantes may serve as sam¬ ples of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug and I a waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a per¬ son of stealing the rug, which was afterward found in the house.) She told of my killing a gray-and-white cat with ether, and described how it had ‘spun round and round’ before dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife warning her against all mediums, and then went on a most amusing criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman’s character. (Of course, no one but my wife and I knew of the existence of the letter in question.) She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain ‘tantrums’ of our second child, ‘little Billy-boy,’ as she called him, reproducing his nur¬ sery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard footsteps on the stairs, etc. Insig¬ nificant as these things sound when read, the accumu- 296 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? lation of a large number of them has an irresistible effect.” 1 At another time he says: “I was told by Mrs. Piper that the spirit of a boy named Robert F. was the com¬ panion of my lost infant. The F.’s were cousins of my wife, living in a distant city. On my return home I mentioned the incident to my wife, saying, ‘Your cousin did lose a baby, didn’t she? But Mrs. Piper was wrong about its sex, name and age.’ I then learned that Mrs. Piper had been quite right in all those particulars, and that mine was the wrong im¬ pression.” 2 Such a report as this, coming from a scientist as emi¬ nent as Professor James, excited, of course, much com¬ ment and interest among the members of the Society for Psychical Research, and finally Dr. Hodgson, who had already won a name for himself in the detection of “psychic” fraud, was commissioned to investigate Mrs. Piper. We have already noted the result. Detectives em¬ ployed by him to shadow the medium and her family gave negative results; and his own efforts to discover fraud were unavailing. “My . . . knowledge of Mrs. Piper,” says Dr. Hodgson in his own account of the first investiga¬ tion, “began in May, 1887, about a fortnight after my arrival in Boston, and my first appointment for a sit¬ ting was made by Professor William James. “I had several sittings myself with Mrs. Piper, at which much intimate knowledge, some of it personal, ’Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 102. 2 Ibid., p. 245. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 297 was shown of deceased friends or relatives of mine; and I made appointments for sittings for at least fifty persons whom I believed to be strangers to Mrs. Piper, taking the utmost precautions to prevent her obtaining any information beforehand as to who the sitters were to be. The general result was the same as in my own case. Most of these persons were told facts thru the trance utterance which they felt sure could not have become known to Mrs. Piper by ordinary means. . . . My own conclusion was that—after allowing the wid¬ est possible margin for information obtainable under the circumstances by ordinary means, for chance coin¬ cidence and remarkable guessing, aided by clues given consciously and unconsciously by the sitters, and helped out by supposed hyperesthesia on the part of Mrs. Piper—there remained a large residuum of knowledge displayed in her trance state which could not be accounted for except on the hypothesis that she had some supernormal power; and this conviction has been strengthened by later investigations.” 1 Mrs. Piper’s chief “control” at this period was the spirit of a French physician named “Phinuit” (pro¬ nounced Finn-wee). His whole name, he said, was “Dr. Jean Phinuit Scliville,” but “they always called me ‘Dr. Phinuit.’ ” “He was unable to tell the year of his birth or the year of his death,” says Dr. Hodgson, “but by putting together several of his statements, it would appear that he was born about 1790, and died about i860. He was born in Marseilles, went to school and studied medi¬ cine at a college called ‘Merciana’ (?) College, where 1 Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 116-18. 298 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? he took his degree when he was between twenty-five and twenty-eight years old. He also studied medicine at ‘Metz, in Germany.’ At the age of thirty-five he married Marie Latimer, who had a sister named Jose¬ phine. Marie was thirty years of age when he married her, and died when she was about fifty. He had no children. “He mentioned the ‘Hospital of God,’ or ‘Hospital de Dieu’ (Hotel Dieu),” adds Dr. Hyslop, “and re¬ ferred to Dupuytren and Bovier, the former of whom is known to have been a distinguished French physi¬ cian and surgeon, who was born in 1777 and died in 1835. But there were contradictions in Phinuit’s story of himself, and in addition to this, inquiries as to the existence of any such person in France did not con¬ firm the story in a single detail. The consequence was that he has always been treated, and must be treated, in the discussion of these phenomena, as a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper. But on any theory, he is the central psychological phenomenon of the case for the apparent management of it in its early history.” 1 Commenting on this Phinuit “control,” Professor James said: “The most remarkable thing about the Phinuit per¬ sonality seems to me the extraordinary tenacity and minuteness of his memory. The medium has been vis¬ ited by many hundreds of sitters, half of them, per¬ haps, being strangers, who have come but once. To each, Phinuit gives an hour full of disconnected frag¬ ments of talk about persons living, dead, or imaginary, and events past, future, or unreal. What normal wak- ^yslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 124-5. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 299 ing memory could keep this chaotic mass of stuff to¬ gether? Yet Phinuit does so; for the chances seem to be that if a sitter should go back after years of inter¬ val, the medium, when once entranced, would recall the minutest incidents of the earlier interview, and be¬ gin by recapitulating much of what had then been said. So far as I can discover, Mrs. Piper’s waking mem¬ ory is not remarkable, and the whole constitution of her trance memory is something which I am at a loss to understand .” 1 Mrs. Piper is Investigated in England After an exhaustive investigation, Dr. Hodgson an¬ nounced himself, if not convinced, at least extremely puzzled, and recommended that Mrs. Piper allow fur¬ ther study of her case directly by the Society for Psy¬ chical Research. She agreed, and went to England; elaborate precautions being taken by Sir Oliver Lodge and others who had her in charge to prevent her gain¬ ing any information regarding prospective sitters. Here are some of his statements regarding what was done to obviate fraud: “Mrs. Piper’s correspondence was small, something like three letters a week, even when the children were away from her. The outsides of her letters nearly al¬ ways passed through my hands, and often the insides, too, by her permission. “The servants were all, as it happened, new. . . . Consequently, they were entirely ignorant of family connections, and could have told nothing, however largely they had been paid. ‘Quoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 244. 300 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? “The ingenious suggestion has been made that they ;were her spies. Knowing the facts, I will content my¬ self with asserting that they had absolutely no connec¬ tion with her of any sort. . . . “In order to give better evidence, I obtained per¬ mission, and immediately thereafter personally over¬ hauled the whole of her luggage. Directories, biogra¬ phies, ‘Men of Our Time,’ and such-like books, were entirely absent. In fact, there were scarcely any books at all. “The eldest child at home was aged nine, and the utmost of information at his disposal was fairly well known to us. My wife was skeptically inclined, and was guarded in her utterances, and tho a few slips could hardly be avoided—and one or two of these were rather unlucky ones—they were noted and re¬ corded. “Strange sitters frequently arrived at II a.m., and I admitted them myself straight into the room where we were going to sit; they were shortly afterward in¬ troduced to Mrs. Piper under some assumed name. “The whole attitude of Mrs. Piper was natural, un- inquisitive, ladylike, and straightforward. . . . “Her whole demeanor struck every one who became intimate with her as utterly beyond and above sus¬ picion .” 1 “These statements illustrate the kind of precautions generally taken during the history of the Piper ex¬ periments. . . . The whole burden of proof now rests upon the man who persists in irresponsible talk and ’Quoted by Hyslop in Science and the Future Life, pp. 119- 121. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 301 suspicion of fraud. I say boldly that no intelligent man, whether scientific or otherwise, would any longer advance such an hypothesis without giving specific evi¬ dence that it is a fact rather than an imaginary possi¬ bility .” 1 Seances, often two a day, were held for several weeks; and tho some were almost complete failures, others were marked with conspicuous success. “True incidents were often given in such a mass of error as to make it necessary to discount their value. Some sittings . . . have all the appearance of the ordinary medium’s talk and associational reproductions. Names were often given in a manner to suggest guessing and ‘fishing,’ and even tho they were strikingly right, their significance had to be skeptically received or wholly rejected .” 2 Myers speaks in almost the same terms: “ ‘Phinuit’ —to use his own appellation, for brevity’s sake—is by no means above ‘fishing.’ . . . There were some inter¬ views thruout which Phinuit hardly asked any ques¬ tions, and hardly stated anything which was not true. There were others thruout which his utterances showed not one glimpse of real knowledge, but consisted wholly of fishing questions and random assertions .” 3 One of the most complete failures was the sitting with Professor Macalister. “He spoke of the failure in strong and uncomplimentary language. He thought it a case of hystero-epilepsy, and that Mrs. Piper was wide enough awake to profit by suggestion .” 4 ’Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 121. 2 Ibid., p. 163. ’Quoted in Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 250. ‘See Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 163-4. 302 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? But on the other hand, thousands of items were given which by no possible explanation could have been known to the medium; her successes were as fre¬ quent and more striking than her failures. For ex¬ ample, in one of the first sittings Mrs. Lodge asked Phinuit to tell her something of her father, who died when she was but two weeks old. Several highly in¬ teresting but not conclusive remarks were made; then Phinuit gave this very remarkable “message”: “ ‘He had an illness and passed out with it. He tried to speak to Mary, his wife, and stretched out his hand to her, but couldn’t reach, and fell, and passed away. That’s the last thing he remembers in this mortal body.’ He added a statement about taking some medicine, the last he took, and then that something had happened to his right leg and it was caused by a fall, affecting the leg below the knee. It was also stated that it gave him pain at times. “The facts were that Mrs. Lodge’s father had his health broken by tropical travel and yellow fever, and his heart was weak. A severe illness of his wife was a great strain on him. As she was recuperating he entered her room one day, quite faint, half dressed, and holding a handkerchief to his mouth, which was full of blood. ‘He stretched out his hand to her, re¬ moved the handkerchief and tried to speak, but only gasped and fell on the floor. Very soon he died.’ He had broken his leg below the knee once by falling down the hold, and in certain states of the weather it afterward pained him. “Phinuit made the further statement that he had had trouble with his teeth; that he wore a sort of uniform with ‘big, bright buttons’; that he traveled a good ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 303 deal. ... A little later it was intimated that he was a captain. The facts were that during his married life he had been troubled much with toothache; his position was that of captain in the merchant service; he traveled a great deal as a consequence, though his travel was mentioned before the statement was made that he was a captain .” * 1 Another sitting, held later, with Miss Goodrich- Freer, author of Essays in Psychical Research, was especially successful. “You see flowers sometimes?” asks Phinuit. “(What is my favorite flower? There is a spirit who would know.) ‘Pansies. No, delicate pink roses. You have them about you, spiritually as well as physically.’ Miss X. has, on a certain day every month, a present of delicate pink roses. She frequently has hallucinatory visions of flowers . 2 “ ‘There is an old lady in the spirit,’ continues Phinuit, ‘wearing a cap, who is fond of you—your grandmother. She is‘the mother of the clergyman’s wife’s mother. (Not correct.) She wears a lace col¬ lar and a big brooch ; bluish-gray eyes, dark hair turned grayish, with a black ribbon running thru it; rather prominent nose and peaked chin; named Anne.’ This is a correct description of a friend of Miss X., whom she was in the habit of calling ‘Granny.’ ” s Unable to discover fraud, but equally certain that the evidence for out-and-out spiritualism afforded by Mrs. Piper was still inconclusive, the Society for Psy¬ chical Research reserved final decision, in the meantime delegating Dr. Hodgson to continue his investigation ’Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 140-2. i lbid., pp. 159-61. s Ibid., p. 161. 304* ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? of her in this country. Mrs. Piper’s sittings with Dr. Hodgson, both the first and second series, were among the most remarkable held, being very rich in evidential data. In considering the first series, “it should be remem¬ bered that he was a native of Australia, graduated at the University of Melbourne, and afterward came to England, where he had been Lecturer at Cambridge University before he was sent to India to investigate Madame Blavatsky. He had come to this country for the first time about a fortnight before his first sitting with Mrs. Piper.” The Appearance of the Pelham “Control” Shortly after Mrs. Piper’s English visit there oc¬ curred a most extraordinary change in her “control.” Dr. Hodgson had had a friend, a young man, unmar¬ ried, and known in the records of the Society, out of consideration of the feelings of his surviving relatives, as “George Pelham.” A lawyer and author, a native of Boston, but for several years resident in New York, he had joined the Society for Psychical Research. “His interest . . . was explicable rather by an intellectual openness and fearlessness characteristic of him, than by any tendency to believe in supernormal phenomena. . . . We had several long talks together on philosophic subjects,” says Dr. Hodgson, “and one very long dis¬ cussion, probably at least two years before his death, on the possibility of a ‘future life.’ In this he main¬ tained that in accordance with a fundamental philo¬ sophic theory which we both accepted, a ‘future life’ was not only incredible, but inconceivable. At the con- Dr. Richard Hodgson He was one of the most enthusiastic investigators in psychical research. This photograph, reproduced from Mr. Carrington’s “Physi¬ cal Phenomena of Spiritualism,” Dr. Hodgson had taken to show that a face may be made to appear over jewelry, as the result of fraudulent manipulation of the plates, a thing which spiritualists have frequently asserted impossible. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 305 elusion of the discussion he admitted that a future life was conceivable, but he did not accept its credibility, and vowed that if he should die before I did, and found himself ‘still existing,’ he would ‘make things lively’ in the effort to reveal the fact of his continued exist¬ ence.” 1 In the early part of 1892 “George Pelham” was killed accidentally and very suddenly. About a month afterward Dr. Hodgson was present at a sitting, with another friend of George Pelham’s, when Phinuit spoke the latter’s full name, and said that he was pres¬ ent and desired to communicate. At this and succeeding seances, George Pelham gave numerous proofs of his identity, recalling incidents un¬ known to any of his hearers, but afterward verified; in short, gave what Phinuit himself had never been able to give, seemingly conclusive evidence that he was indeed the spirit he pretended to be. Pelham at once began to assume the functions of a “control,” Phinuit being gradually pushed into the background. Unlike Phinuit, whose messages had al¬ ways been spoken, Pelham transmitted his in writing, which made possible, of course, a much more perfect record. At times both “controls” communicated at once, Mrs. Piper speaking Phinuit’s message and writ¬ ing Pelham’s simultaneously. With Pelham’s advent, Mrs. Piper’s mediumship took on a newer and im¬ proved stage. Phinuit was always a bit of a rascal, and something of a faker; but now the communica¬ tions became in every way more definite and correct. With Pelham Dr. Hodgson made interesting ex- ’Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 127. 306 r ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? periments of various kinds, some of which seem re¬ markably conclusive; for example, sending Pelham “in the spirit” somewhere to see what a designated person was doing, and later verifying the information thus obtained. For example: “George Pelham was asked to go away and watch the Howards, and report. Before the sitting ended George Pelham returned, and thru Phin- uit said: ‘She’s writing, and taken some violets and put them in a book. And it looks as if she’s writing that to my mother. Who’s Tyson . . . Davis? I saw her sitting before a little desk or table. Took little book, opened it, wrote letter he thinks to his mother. Saw her take a little bag and put some things in it belonging to him; placed the photograph beside her on the desk. That’s hers. Sent a letter to Tyson. She hunted a little while for her picture, sketching. He’s certain that the letter is to his mother. She took one of George’s books and turned it over and said: “George, are you here ? Do you see that ?” These were the very words. Then she turned and went up a short flight of stairs. Took some things from a drawer, came back, sat down to the desk, and then finished the letter.’ Davis was the name of Mrs. Tyson’s father. “Of this set of ‘communications,’ Dr. Hodgson says: ‘The statements made as to what Mrs. Howard was doing at the time were not one of them correct as re¬ gards the particular time, tho they seem to indi¬ cate a knowledge of Mrs. Howard’s actions during the previous day and a half, as appears from the fol¬ lowing statements made in a letter to Dr. Hodgson by Mrs. Howard: ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 307 ‘ ‘ ‘I did none of those things to-day, but all of them yesterday afternoon and the evening before. “ ‘Yesterday afternoon I wrote a note to Mrs. Tyson declining an invitation to lunch; this I did at a little table. Later I wrote to his mother at a desk, and see¬ ing George’s violets by me, in their envelope, gave them to my daughter to put in my drawer, not “into a book.” This is the only inaccuracy of detail. The day before I also wrote to his mother, putting his photo¬ graph before me on the table while I was writing. Did “hunt for my picture,” my painting of him. What he says about the book is also true, tho I can’t tell at precisely what time I did it, as I was alone at the time. In all other matters my memory is corroborated by my daughter, who took the note to Mrs. T.’s, and saw me put photo before me on the desk. “ ‘While writing to his mother I did “go and take things from a drawer, came back again, sat down to the desk, and then finished the letter.” This was the letter finished at the desk, not the one written at a table.’ “The extraordinarily interesting feature of this ex¬ periment is the disparity in time between the facts ex¬ pected and the facts obtained, the past and not the present seeming to have been cognized.” 1 Pelham is Displaced by the Imperator “Controls ” In 1898 Dr. Hodgson published a second report on the Piper case. In the six years that had elapsed since the first he had made long and careful experimenta¬ tion. Almost simultaneous with his first report had Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 197-9. 308 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? occurred the first significant change of “controls.” Shortly previous to the second occurred a second change. A new group of “controls” appeared, no other than W. Stainton Moses, the English medium, and a little later the “Rector,” “Imperator,” and “Doc¬ tor” group that we have already noticed as being his most important “controls.” Phinuit had for some time ceased to appear; now Pelham was displaced as chief control, and “Imperator” took full charge of the “spirit” side of the case. Dr. Hodgson consulted with him as he might with any other associate regarding the various details of the seances held and experiments tried. “ ‘Imperator’ claimed that the indiscriminate ex¬ perimenting with Mrs. Piper’s organism should stop, that it was a ‘battered and worn’ machine, and needed much repairing; that ‘he,’ with his ‘assistants,’ ‘Doctor,’ etc., would repair it as far as possible, and that in the meantime other persons must be kept away. I then for the first time,” says Dr. Hodgson, “explained to the normal Mrs. Piper about W..S. Moses and his al¬ leged relation to ‘Imperator,’ and she was willing to follow my advice and try this new experiment.” * 1 His advice was followed, and the wisdom of this course appeared to be justified by an again increased excel¬ lence of the messages received, in clearness, accuracy and literary quality. “Those who had sittings in pre¬ vious years, and who have been present since the change which I have described, were all struck by the improvement in the clearness and coherence of the communications.” 2 ’Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 129. i Ibid., p. 130. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 309 In fact, by 1898, so strong- was the evidence for the future life by this time collected, that Dr. Hodgson, in his second report, felt compelled to come out defi¬ nitely a believer in spirits. At about this time a new investigator became inter¬ ested in Mrs. Piper, Dr. Hyslop, then Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. Cooperating with Dr. Hodgson, he held numerous sittings during the following two years. At the beginning of his inquiry every effort was made to conceal his real identity from the medium. “Driving to her residence in a closed carriage, he donned a mask before entering her pres¬ ence, was introduced to her as ‘Mr. Smith,’ and while she was in her normal state maintained complete si¬ lence. From the outset he obtained messages that left him in a state of bewilderment, relating as they did to occurrences transpiring years earlier, in connec¬ tion with the careers of dead relatives and friends.” 1 A number of instances of these messages will be given in the succeeding article. Sufficient here to state that in the end Dr. Hyslop, like Dr. Hodgson, became con¬ vinced of their genuinely spiritual origin. I have given one or two examples of prophecy among those quoted. The record has many more, how¬ ever, some much more complex and remarkable. Here is another simple instance, quoted by Dr. Hyslop: “Miss W. says: ‘In the spring of 1888, an acquaint¬ ance, S., was suffering torturing disease. There was no hope of relief, and only distant prospect of release. A consultation of physicians predicted continued phys- 'See Bruce: The Riddle of Personality, p. 133. 310 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? ical suffering and probably mental decay, continuing perhaps thru a series of years. S.’s daughter, worn with anxiety and care, was in danger of breaking in health. “How can I get her away for a little rest?” I asked Dr. Phinuit, May 24, 1888. “She will not leave her father,” was the reply, “but his suffering is not for long. The doctors are wrong about that. There will be a change soon, and he will pass out of the body be¬ fore the summer is over.” His death occurred in June, 1888.’ 7,1 Phinuit and the other controls were oftentimes asked for information unknown to the questioner, as, for example, the location of lost articles. Sometimes he was able to tell; sometimes he was not. Certain of these failures are as interesting from a psychical stand¬ point as successes would have been. “March 2, 1887, I was asked by my mother to in¬ quire the whereabouts of two silver cups, heirlooms, which she had misplaced. Said Dr. Phinuit, ‘They are in your house, in a room higher up than your sleeping- room, in what looks to me the back part of the house, but very likely I am turned around. You’ll find there a large chest filled with clothing, and at the very bot¬ tom of the chest are the cups. Annie (my mother’s name) placed them there, and will remember it.’ Re¬ turning home, I went to the room on the third floor, at the front of the house, but remotest from the stairway, found the chest (of which I knew) and the contents (of which I was ignorant) both as described, but no silver. Reporting the message to my mother, I learned Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 172. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 311 that she had at one time kept the cups in that chest, but more recently had removed them.” 1 But one more fact is needed to bring the history of the Piper case down to date. Shortly after Dr. Hys- lop’s connection with the case, psychical research seemed to have lost one of its most valued and enthusi¬ astic workers by the death of Dr. Hodgson. But with¬ in a few months, behold the “spirit” of Dr. Hodgson himself appearing as a “control” of Mrs. Piper. And as a fact, he seems now to have ousted both “Pelham” and the “Imperator” group; and directs the spirit side of this unique system of communication in quite as masterly a manner as he directed our side when in the body. Knowing exactly the kind of proof of his spiritual existence desired by his old associates, he has done his best to supply it, and with such success that Dr. Hyslop now seems absolutely certain of spirit communication, and the other scientific men who are studying the case are either genuinely puzzled or on the verge of conviction. Such is Mrs. Piper’s psychic history as a conserva¬ tive spiritualist might relate it, a life story certainly unique in human experience. Is it true? That is the great question. We have messages, that is certain; but where do they come from? We have facts; that is unquestioned; but what is the explanation of them? If “spirits” do not control Mrs. Piper, who or what does ? Let us see. ‘Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 168. “PSYCHICAL RESEARCH HAS BRIDGED THE CHASM” “No part of the unclassified residuum [of human knowledge] has usually been treated with a more contemptuous scientific disregard than the mass of phenomena generally called mysti¬ cal. Physiology will have nothing to do with them. Orthodox psychology turns its back upon them. Medicine sweeps them out, or at most, when in an anecdotal vein, records a few of them as “effects of the imagination,” a phrase of mere dis¬ missal, whose meaning, in this connection, it is impossible to make precise. All the while, however, the phenomena are there, lying broadcast over the surface of history. No matter where you open its pages, you find things recorded under the name of divinations, inspirations, demoniacal possessions, ap¬ paritions, trances, ecstasies, miraculous healings and produc¬ tions of disease, and occult powers possessed by peculiar indi¬ viduals over persons and things in their neighborhood. We suppose that “mediumship” originated in Rochester, N. Y., and animal magnetism with Mesmer; but once look behind the pages of official history, in personal memoirs, legal docu¬ ments, and popular narratives and books of anecdotes, and you will find that there was never a time when these things were not reported just as abundantly as now. . . . “I have myself . . . collected hundreds of cases of hallu¬ cination in healthy persons. The result is to make me feel that we all have potentially a “subliminal” self, which may make at any time irruption into our ordinary lives. At its lowest, it is only the depository of our forgotten memories; at its highest, we do not know what it is at all. Take, for in¬ stance, a series of cases. During sleep, many persons have something in them which measures the flight of time better than the waking self does. It wakes them at a pre-appointed hour; it acquaints them with the moment when they first 812 Professor William James Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 313 awake. It may produce an hallucination, as in a lady who informs me that at the instant of waking she has a vision of a watch-face with the hands pointing (as she has often veri¬ fied) to the exact time. It may be a feeling that some physio¬ logical period has elapsed; but, whatever it is, it is sub¬ conscious. “A subconscious something may also preserve experiences to which we do not openly attend. A lady taking her lunch in town finds herself without her purse. Instantly a sense comes over her of rising from the breakfast-table and hearing her purse drop upon the floor. On reaching home she finds noth¬ ing under the table, but summons the servant to say where she has put the purse. The servant produces it, saying: “How did you know where it was? You rose and left the room as though you didn’t know you had dropped it.” “The same subconscious something may recollect what we have forgotten. A lady accustomed to taking salicylate of soda for muscular rheumatism wakes one early winter morn¬ ing with an aching neck. In the twilight she takes what she supposes is her customary powder from a drawer, dissolves it in a glass of water, and is about to drink it down, when she feels a sharp slap on her shoulder and hears a voice in her ear saying: “Taste it!” On examination she finds she has got a morphine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in this quasi-explosive way. “A like explanation offers itself as most plausible for the following case. A lady with a little time to catch the train, and the expressman about to call, is excitedly looking for the lost key of a packed trunk. Hurrying upstairs with a bunch of keys, proved useless, in her hand, she hears an “objective” voice say distinctly, “Try the key of the cake-box.” Being tried, it fits. This also may well have been a case of for¬ gotten experience. “Now the effect is doubtless due to the same hallucinatory mechanism; but the source is less easily assigned as we ascend the scale of cases. A lady, for instance, goes after breakfast to see about one of her servants who has become ill over night. She is startled at distinctly reading over the bedroom ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? SU door in gilt letters the word “smallpox.” The doctor is sent for, and ere long pronounces smallpox to be the disease, al¬ though the lady says, “The thought of the girl having small¬ pox never entered my mind till I saw the apparent inscrip¬ tion.” Then come other cases of warning, for example, that of a youth sitting in a wagon under a shed, who suddenly hears his dead mother’s voice say, “Stephen, get away from here quick!” and jumps out just in time to see the shed roof fall. . . . “It is the intolerance of science for such phenomena, her peremptory denial either of their existence or of their sig¬ nificance (except as proofs of man’s absolute innate folly), that has set science so far apart from the common sympathies of the race. I confess that it is on this, its humanizing mission, that the society’s (the S. P. R.) best claim to the gratitude of our generation seems to depend. It has restored continuity to history. It has shown some reasonable basis for the super¬ stitious aberrations of the foretime. It has bridged the chasm, healed the hideous rift that science, taken in a certain narrow way, has shot into the human world.” !—Professor William James. —[From “The Will to Believe.”] CHAPTER XIV TELEPATHY vs. SPIRITUALISM I have outlined the most famous case in the history of spiritualism. Now, what of it? What does it amount to? What tests shall we impose upon alleged spirit mes¬ sages which shall seem to afford proof of their authen¬ ticity? Here is the medium, lying in a trance, with her hand nervously traveling across a sheet of paper and inscribing thereon statements that claim to come from intelligences in another world. They write coherently; answer questions; apparently make every effort, so far as they can in writing, to have us believe the writing is what they say it is. How are we to know ? We have two very strong, if not conclusive tests: 1. The writing must give us information which ap¬ parently could not be obtained thru any but a super¬ normal source. 2. The facts given must in some wav prove the personal identity of the sender. Let me be more specific. To take up the first ques¬ tion, what information will prove for these “messages” a supernormal origin? At first blush we might say: “Let the spirit tell us something about itself, about what death is, about what ‘heaven’ is like, the condi¬ tions existing there in the realm where it is. That is S16 816 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? surely something no one on earth would know.” Yes, very true. But even supposing, as will be explained later, that the spirit could tell us these things, don’t you see no one on earth would know, either, whether it was tell¬ ing us the truth or not? The medium herself might be making it up, as we say, “out of whole cloth”; and we could not say it was true or false. In other words, we must be able to verify the facts obtained. I will give an example of what I mean. If the spirit gives us a statement about something done by him on earth, and surely known to no one else on earth but him, and on investigation we find that his statement is correct, that seems strong evidence of a supernormal origin of the writing, doesn’t it? There are many such cases in the history of medium- ship, carefully attested, and some very striking. A man, for instance—and this was a test experiment —wrote a short letter, sealing it, and showing it to no other living soul. Some months after his death his mother received an alleged message from him—this time, as it happened, by table-tipping—which spelled out the entire contents of this test letter. The letter was then unsealed, and its contents found to be exactly what the spirit said they were. This is but one example out of many, where facts were given by the spirits which were known neither to the medium, to those present, nor, in fact, to any living person; yet on investigation the facts were found to be correct. This would seem rather a stumbling- block to the opponent of the spirit theory; we shall see later what he has to say. In the second place, we said that these spirits must ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 317 prove their identity. The man in the above case proved his, in a way, by telling the contents of that letter that he had himself written. Yet the problem of proving identity by writing is not as easy as you might at first think. Here is one of the older examples of this proof, reported by William Stainton Moses: “A spirit, who claimed to be an old American sol¬ dier, communicated to him (Mr. Moses himself was the medium) at Isle of Wight, England. The spirit said that his name was Abraham Florentine, and that he fought on the American side in the War of 1812, and that he had lately died in Brooklyn, U. S. A., his home. He gave his age and his time of service in the war. Rev. Stainton Moses declared that he had never heard of the existence of such a man, but was so im¬ pressed by the truthfulness of the spirit that he com¬ municated the facts to an English paper, and requested American papers to copy. The case was taken up by Epes Sargent in America, and hunted down, and it was found that all that this spirit said about himself was truth.” 1 This seems rather conclusive, doesn’t it? But there are faults in it, nevertheless, some of which I shall point out later. Dr. Hyslop says “the task of proving identity ... is a gigantic one,” and surely he should know. Let us imagine for a moment that you are writing to a friend—on a typewriter, let us say, so that the question of handwriting does not enter—and you wish to prove to him that it is you, John Jones, who are writing to him. How shall you do it? You would not write about philosophy and death and 'Funk: The Widow’s Mite, p. 446. 318 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? heaven; if you did, he would say, “That doesn’t prove to me you are John Jones; any one could write that.” But supposing, instead of philosophy, you wrote, “I’ll show you that I am John Jones: do you remember last week, Wednesday, as I was walking in the country with you, I reached over and brushed a caterpillar off your coat?” “There,” your friend will say, “there’s proof that this is John Jones that is writing. No living soul knows about that little incident except the two of us—and the caterpillar.” Now from this you can understand, I think, why we find that the surest proof of personal identity is found in little, trivial, seemingly unimportant facts. The medium might have found out that your father died of apoplexy; but she probably would not know that ten years before, in a different city, one afternoon, on the front porch, he broke an apple in two for you and Johnnie. In other words, this fact, tho trivial, is stronger proof than the other that the spirit writer is your father. We have strong statements of belief like that of William T. Stead. “I feel it impossible to resist the conclusion that these communications are what they profess to be—real letters from the real Julia, who is not dead, but gone before. I know, after five years’ almost daily intercourse with her thru my automatic hand, that I am conversing with an intelligence at least as keen as my own, a personality as distinctly defined, and a friend as true and tender, as I have ever known. From those who scout the possibility of such a phenomenon I would merely ask the admission that in this case their favorite theory of intentional fraud, at least on the part of the medium, is excluded by the ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 319 fact that these messages were written by my own hand, no other visible person being present.” But we have the even stronger evidence of “identity” in thousands of trivial incidents like those I have men¬ tioned. Dr. Hyslop says: “In one of my own sit¬ tings the communicator twice exclaimed (so to speak, as the message came in automatic writing), ‘Give me my hat!’ just as he left off communicating. This lan¬ guage had no connection with the rest of the com¬ munication, but, strange enough, my inquiries brought out accidentally that the communicator, in life, was accustomed to use this very expression in situations like this, when suddenly called to go outdoors.” 1 Dr. Hyslop also mentions another example occurring in a sitting in which an uncle of his claimed to be the communicator. “He began with an announcement of his name. He said, ‘I am James McClellan, and you are my namesake.’ I was the namesake of this uncle. He added, ‘I always despised the name of Jim.’ This I did not know, but I felt the statement was quite prob¬ able, as we always called him ‘Uncle Mack.’ On in¬ quiry of his two living daughters, one of them did not know whether this was true or not. But the other re¬ called it distinctly, and mentioned several instances in which her father and mother had endeavored to cor¬ rect the habit of the neighbors of calling him Jim.” 2 Here is an example observed by “Miss W.” at an¬ other Piper sitting. “T. was a Western man, and the localism of using like as a conjunction clung to him, despite my frequent corrections, all his life. At my 1 Harper's Magazine, March, 1901. 'Ibid., June, 1900. 320 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? sitting on December 16, 1886, he remarked, ‘If you could see it like I do.’ Forgetful, for the instant, of the changed conditions, I promptly repeated, ‘As I do.’ ‘Ah,’ came the response, ‘that sounds natural. That sounds like old times.’ ”* The “Telepathic Hypothesis” We have already hinted that in this explanation of the phenomena of mediumship, when we have elimi¬ nated fraud and chance, we are still far from a solu¬ tion of the problem. In fact, our difficulties have but just begun. But it may well be asked, If these mediumistic mes¬ sages do not come from “spirits,” where can they come from? What possible other explanation is there for them? The spiritualist would certainly seem to have his case pretty well proved. Let us see. The disbeliever begins by admitting that the medium does have messages which she believes are genuine; but he denies vigorously that spirits have anything to do with them. He believes that they, one and all, are evolved unconsciously by the medium’s own subliminal self. He believes that this subliminal self can also unconsciously imitate every phase of personal identity, and do it so cunningly and completely as to deceive the most expert investigator. He believes that all the al¬ leged “spirit” messages are telepathic in their origin, and are explicable simply and solely by telepathy. This is why Dr. Hyslop called the task of proving the “per¬ sonal identity” of the spirits a “gigantic one.” No wonder! Here we have, then, plainly, two theories to which 'Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 167-8. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 321 the spiritistic problem has, within the last few years, narrowed down—telepathy vs. spiritism. Which is cor¬ rect? But plainly, a conception of telepathy broad enough to cover mediumistic communications must be some¬ thing more than the telepathy we have so far consid¬ ered. We have, so far, spoken of telepathy, you re¬ member, as the “reading” by some person of what an¬ other person is thinking at the time. All our experi¬ mental proof bears out this simple theory. There is some evidence, however, in support (i) of a telepathy in which other persons are concerned besides simply a sender and percipient; and (2) a sort of delayed percipience, in which the percipient is aware, not of the thoughts of the agent at that moment, but of the thoughts he had hours, or possibly days, or even years, before. Dr. Hudson is the most enthusiastic advocate of this multiple telepathy; that is, telepathy involving more than two people; and he gives the following case as a typical example; “I once hypnotized a lady, and asked her to de¬ scribe my home, which she knew nothing of. She de¬ scribed everything correctly, even a huge mastiff lying on a bearskin rug on the library floor. But doubt was thrown upon her lucidity when she described the li¬ brary desk as being covered with a white cloth, and said that a lady was sitting at the desk, ‘doing some¬ thing’ that she could not clearly make out. As my desk is covered with a black cloth, and as ladies sel¬ dom work at it, I regarded the description as an effort at guessing. But on my return home I learned that my wife had been ‘doing something’ with pulverized 322 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? sugar, and had covered the table with newspapers. As that was the only time in the long history of my library desk that it had been so covered, or so employed, I can¬ not ascribe the phenomenon to coincidence.” 1 Now I admit the possibility of multiple telepathy; but I confess I fail to see how this is necessarily an example of it. We do not need to assume that the medium did otherwise than to read directly from Mrs. Hudson’s mind by simple telepathy. Or another pos¬ sible explanation is that the medium saw the room herself, clairvoyantly, telepathy not entering at all. In a similar way the “Godfrey case,” tho much quot¬ ed, does not seem a typical case of delayed percipi- ence, for other factors enter in. This was an instance in which a clergyman endeavored, at 10.45 p.m., to pro¬ ject, telepathically, an apparition of himself to a friend. His experiment succeeds; but the “ghost” is not seen by his friend till 3.30 a.m. This, however, is rather an example of self-projection than telepathy; and to discuss it would get us off into still deeper waters. In spite, however, of this breakdown of the typical examples of each phenomena, most psychic researchers admit that there are cases which clearly point to a delayed percipience. Perhaps the reader does not grasp fully, at first thought, what a wonderful enlargement of the powers of telepathy this implies. It means that we may unknowingly extract a thought from another man’s consciousness; that that man may die; and then, that hours, days, or even years, afterward, that thought may flash up from our subliminal self, where it has 'Myers: Do We Survive Death? National Review, Octo¬ ber, 1898. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 323 lain so long, appearing then to our every-day con¬ sciousness as a veritable “message” from the dead! “For where else could it come from?” you quite natu¬ rally ask. “He is the only one who knew that fact, and he died without telling a soul.” Such a wonderful enlargement of the powers of telepathy may seem more incredible to many than even a belief in spirits. Yet even the ardent spiritualist must admit that other observed telepathic phenomena give some ground for the assumption. In any event, the possibility renders indefinite what Myers considered the final and perfect proof of spiritualism: namely, the receipt of a spirit message giving the contents of a sealed letter known only to a person who has died. And the spiritualist has to admit, too, that probably a large portion of alleged spirit messages do have a tel¬ epathic origin. He admits that facts once known to the medium—but which, now forgotten, she says with perfect honesty she does not know—lie down there in her subliminal memory till some chance working of the trance state brings them as a bona fide “message.” Or she may never have known the fact, but it may be known to some one present in the company. And here again, unknown to the waking consciousness of the medium, her subliminal self, in some mysterious telepathic wav, reaches out and gains that fact from the sitter’s mind, and the sitter hears it delivered thru the entranced lips of the medium as a veritable mes¬ sage from the dead. Very wonderful and inexplicable this, you sav, and hard to believe. Yes; but is it as wonderful and inex¬ plicable and hard to believe as a message from a person in the other world? As a fact, it is to that last ques- 324 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? tion, or a similar one, that a final analysis of the prob¬ lem finally brings you: which of two things, judging the data at hand, do you think more incredible ? Proof is here but a relative term. The telepathist has not yet succeeded in proving his opponent wrong. Even Frank Podmore, the most noted anti-spiritualist, admits: “Whether the belief in the intercourse with spirits is well founded or not, it is certain that no critic has yet succeeded in demonstrating the inadequacy of the evi¬ dence upon which the spiritualists rely.” 1 And we must always remember that men like Myers and Hys- lop and Hodgson, who have examined the phenomena most closely, and weighed the data most carefully, are strong in their spiritualistic conclusions. On the other hand, the spiritualist has not proved that telepathy is not an explanation for all spiritistic phenomena. We may have to stretch our conception of telepathy a lot to make it cover all cases, but the telepathist does not scruple to stretch it. Arguments for the Telepathic Hypothesis Having seen the possibility of the telepathic explana¬ tion of mediumship, let us examine specifically some of the reasons advanced in support of it. I. The character of the mistakes, confusions and omissions are just such as a telepathic origin would presuppose. Genuine telepathy is a groping for facts, many of which it hits, some of which it does not. An examination of any record of telepathic experiments will show this. Compare, for instance, the ability of the percipient in Dr. Guthrie’s experiments to gain ‘Podmore: Modern Spiritualism. cf c/fomt cJe. ireccoc tentnr- onu p'yomeJJt mens ttC.Compo-enC l aaotd muP te , Cju 'duyurd'foLu- a ceZ conTa-ifT jje.