CHAPTER XIII

'Any little flower from a tulip to a roseIf you'll be Mrs. John James BrownOf Hon-o-lu-la-lu-la town.'

This song is fitted to the medium's revelations as given above, and the next point of interest is whether the medium is informed of her success. This we are not told, but we find on page 95 that when another medium had hit the mark, with asentence now interpreted as a warning of the death of Raymond before it took place, Sir Oliver wrote to the daughter of the medium: 'The reference to the Poet and Faunus in your mother's last script is quite intelligible, and a good classical allusion; you might tell the communicator sometime if there is opportunity.'

Plainly he is desirous of letting his mediums know when they succeed and it is fair to suggest that the Hullulu medium found she had hit the mark, the interpretation of the gibberish being 'Honolulu', though Hottentot failed to score. A medium will always follow up a lucky shot and it needs not even an appeal to chance to explain the repetition of the word at the next sitting, after the verification, which was on May 26th (the date of the simultaneous test), the following being the words used:—

(The medium says): 'You could play.'(N. M. L. asks): 'Play what?'(The medium): 'Not a game, a music.'(N. M. L.): 'I'm afraid I can't, Raymond.'(Feda (sotto voce): 'She can't do that'): 'He wanted to know whether you could play Hulu-Honolulu.'

(The medium says): 'You could play.'

(N. M. L. asks): 'Play what?'

(The medium): 'Not a game, a music.'

(N. M. L.): 'I'm afraid I can't, Raymond.'

(Feda (sotto voce): 'She can't do that'): 'He wanted to know whether you could play Hulu-Honolulu.'

One of the strongest 'evidential' stories in the book being thus explicable without calling upon the supernatural, any others lose their value even if no explanation can be based on the available facts; but apart from this explanation the choice of the test word throws a light upon the little group tilting the table at Birmingham. With the whole dictionary and all geography from which tochoose, they selected a sound which had occurred in a former revelation and therefore had a chance of repetition. If in his laboratory days Sir Oliver examined a substance for the presence of arsenic, he would first test his reagents for the presence of that metal lest they might contain a trace of it and vitiate the experiment. In this test the experimenters did what was equivalent to selecting an arsenic-contaminated test-tube to use in an analysis for that substance.

How did the word come to be selected? If the family of this distinguished man had used ordinary caution in formulating the test, they would certainly have chosen a word that had not occurred before, and I think that point must be clear to the reader. But, though they are probably sensible people in ordinary life, when they turn to the spirit world they fall a prey to their dissociated streams, in which was the knowledge that the word or something like it had been used before and was likely to be used again, especially if, as I suggest, the medium knew it had scored. Hence these believers were, as far as concerned their dissociated streams, deliberately introducing a source of error or, in laboratory language, cooking the experiment.

Among my card tricks is included the elementary one (technically known as 'forcing a card') described at the beginning of this chapter, but I may let some one choose a card from the pack on the table whilst my back is turned; then, the card being placed in the pack which I have now taken in my hand, I do some other trick. It is commonfor these tricks to be confounded, and for one of my audience to assure friends that I let him or her take a card from the pack on the table when my back was turned and then named it by 'thought-reading.' Such a performance is beyond me, but a like garbled account is characteristic of what we hear concerning séances: the story-tellers are in a state of mental confusion, they add or subtract in order to make the result emphatic, any power of criticism they possess is suspended, and we are asked to swallow the final product and confess ourselves believers.

After considering my own experiences and the evidence produced by Sir Oliver Lodge, I have reached the conclusion that no one desirous of believing only the truth can accept anything 'supernormal' without the strictest investigation on the spot, aided by a knowledge of trickery, verbal or material, as well as of the results produced by dissociation and logic-tight compartments in the minds of the would-be honest.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shows how convincing a twice-told tale becomes. I borrow fromThe New Revelation(p. 64):—

'Or once again, if Raymond can tell us of a photograph no copy of which had reached England, and which proved to be exactly as he described it, and if he can give us, through the lips of strangers, all sorts of details of his home life, which his own relatives had to verify before they found them to be true, is it unreasonable to suppose that he is fairly accurate in his description of his own experiences and state of life at the moment at which he is communicating?'

The words 'can tell us of a photograph no copy of which had reached England' would lead us to believe that information that the photograph existed came from Raymond: fortunately the original account is accessible.

Here is the photograph story, taken fromRaymond(p. 195). The medium speaks, saying: 'You have several portraits of this boy. Before he went away you had got a good portrait of him—two—no three. Two where he is alone and one where he is in a group of other men. He is particular that I should tell you of this. In one you see his walking-stick'. (Moonstone here put an imaginary stick under his arm.)

This is ordinary guess-work, and it would be true of the families of most officers, even as to the stick; but it was not true in this case, for we read that though they had 'single photographs of him of course, and in uniform', they hadnotone of him in a group of other men; yet this is the revelation referred to by Sir Arthur—the photograph incident that has impressed so many.

Let us put the two statements side by side:—

Not being able to explain the extraordinary identity of these photographs, I must leave the problem to the creator of Sherlock Holmes; we shall gain no help from Sir Oliver, for his ideas ofidentity, as we shall see in the next paragraph, are equally curious.

Now for 'exactly as he described it': Sir Oliver Lodge, having been informed in an ordinary letter that a group photograph containing Raymond is being sent to him from France, went to another medium and told her, 'He said something about having a photograph taken with some other men' (this itself is a garbled statement); leading questions followed, and the medium fenced with them. Here are the important ones:—

O. J. L.: 'Do you recollect the photograph at all?''He thinks there were several others taken with him, not one or two, but several.' (This is not even a guess.)O. J. L.: 'Does he remember how he looked in the photograph?''No, he doesn't remember how he looked.'O. J. L.: 'No, no. I mean was he standing up?''No, he doesn't seem to think so. Some were raised up round; he was sitting down, and some were raised up at the back of him. Some were standing, and some were sitting, he thinks.'

O. J. L.: 'Do you recollect the photograph at all?'

'He thinks there were several others taken with him, not one or two, but several.' (This is not even a guess.)

O. J. L.: 'Does he remember how he looked in the photograph?'

'No, he doesn't remember how he looked.'

O. J. L.: 'No, no. I mean was he standing up?'

'No, he doesn't seem to think so. Some were raised up round; he was sitting down, and some were raised up at the back of him. Some were standing, and some were sitting, he thinks.'

(Here is a correct description, anyhow; it is an even chance whether he is sitting or standing, and, the sitting chance being taken, the rest is padding. We are told on page 279 that another photograph showed him standing, so that a hit could have been scored if the other chance had been taken.)

O. J. L.: 'Did he have a stick?''He doesn't remember that.'

O. J. L.: 'Did he have a stick?'

'He doesn't remember that.'

(Yet the presence of a stick in the picture is hailed on page 110 as one of the strikingly correct peculiarities mentioned by Raymond. Be it noted that the stick was spoken of in connection with one of the three photographs that the family was said to havebefore he went away, and is used as 'evidence' concerningthe one sent home from France.)

O. J. L.: 'Was it out of doors?''Yes, practically.'Feda (sotto voce): 'What you mean, "yes practically," must have been out of doors or not out of doors. You mean yes, don't you?'Feda thinks he means 'yes,' because he says 'practically'.O. J. L.: 'It may have been a shelter.''It might have been. Try to show Feda. At the back he shows me lines going down. It looks like a black background, with lines at the back of them. (Feda here kept drawing vertical lines in the air.)'

O. J. L.: 'Was it out of doors?'

'Yes, practically.'

Feda (sotto voce): 'What you mean, "yes practically," must have been out of doors or not out of doors. You mean yes, don't you?'

Feda thinks he means 'yes,' because he says 'practically'.

O. J. L.: 'It may have been a shelter.'

'It might have been. Try to show Feda. At the back he shows me lines going down. It looks like a black background, with lines at the back of them. (Feda here kept drawing vertical lines in the air.)'

(The shelter is suggested by O. J. L.; Feda takes the hint and visualises the shelter. Most shelters have vertical lines in their structure. Such lines occur in the photograph and are strong 'evidence.' The background is not black except for two open windows.)

The only revelation worthy of attention is this: 'He remembers that some one wanted to lean on him; but he is not sure if he was taken with some one leaning on him.... The last what he gave you, what were a B, will be rather prominent in that photograph. It wasn't taken in a photographer's place.' (Few out-door groups are.)

In the photograph he has some one's handresting on his shoulder, and an ambiguous guess scores a hit. As for B, Sir Oliver writes: 'I have asked several people which member of the group seemed most prominent; and except as regards central position a well-lighted standing figure on the right has usually been pointed to as the most prominent. This one is "B", as stated, namely, Captain S. T. Boast.'

Some initials are guessed—C, B, R, and K. As there are twenty-one people in the group, and the alphabet contains only twenty-four letters (excluding X and Z), it is hardly a mathematical surprise that seventy-five per cent. are correct.

So much for the photograph that proved to be 'exactly as he described it' (Sir Arthur) and 'one of the best pieces of evidence that has been given' (Sir Oliver).

'All sorts of details of his home life' we must suppose refers to the scenery of Woolacombe, the tent, the boat that went (or didn't) on land, the song about Hululu and the Hottentot, the fishing rods that are not understood at present, and so on.

As a test of unintentional garbling I asked a professional man, who had readRaymondsympathetically, to give me a short account of what the medium said about the photograph. Here is his version, and it must be understood that he knew I should criticise it:—

'Sir Oliver Lodge was told by a medium that Raymond wished to tell him about a photograph taken in France. The medium said the photograph was of a group of officers including Raymond—a photo Sir Oliver had not seen.There were lines running vertically in the background. Raymond is seated.Some one's knee was preventing him from sitting comfortably and annoyed him. He was holding a stick.The photo was out of doors, but in a sheltered position.'

The only points in which this tallies with the book description of what the medium (not Sir Oliver) said are those shown by the words in italic. The rest is garbled, and for the garbling my friend and Sir Oliver are about equally responsible.

I have since asked other intelligent people to read the chapter and then write out the story; the result is generally similar to that just given. The affair is such a to-do about nothing that the sympathetic and uncritical reader, deceived by the fuss, thinks there must be something in it and makes additions of his own to account for his belief. Had he read it critically he would have recognised the emptiness of the story, but once he is impressed by it he must improve it or become aware of its flimsiness.

Once again I must emphasise the way in which a guess, wide of the truth, is wrenched into an application to something entirely irrelevant. The first medium says that before Raymond went away his family had a photograph which showed him in a group of other men;because this is not true, it is twisted into a reference to a photograph taken in France and not yet received. The revelations of this medium must be cut out of the story, and the whole incident is reduced to Sir Oliver Lodge beingtold in an ordinary letter that a group photograph is on its way to him; then he tells another medium about a group photograph, and in answer to leading questions she makes the halting guesses reproduced above.

This is the famous photograph story, stripped of exaggeration and garbling. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would lead us to believe that the medium told Sir Oliver about the existence of the photograph, but the true account shows that, so far from this being the case,Sir Oliver told the medium.

It is a commonplace of spiritualism that a medium may be guilty of trickery at one time and genuinely gifted at another. We may freely admit that mediums are peculiar people, but when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes on a subject that needs careful observation and description and gives this distorted account of the photograph story, he can expect little credence when he writes in the same book equally convincing stories of the supernatural and puts them before the public as a contribution to religious thought. He gives a list of eminent men who vouch for the genuineness of supernatural phenomena, and says that the days are past when their opinions can be dismissed with the empty 'All rot' or 'Nauseating drivel' formula. I agree, and regard their opinions as interesting objects of psychological study. A little research could produce a longer list of men, equally eminent in their day, who believed in witchcraft and were willing to execute people in accordance with that belief. The belief mayyet return with all its horrors ifThe New Revelationis taken seriously. On page 168 we read concerning the Cheriton poltergeist[19]:—

'It is very probable that Mr. Rolfe is, unknown to himself, a physical medium, and that when he was in the confined space of the cellar he turned it into a cabinet in which his magnetic powers could accumulate and be available for use.' (It is hard to believe that he who speaks like this about 'magnetic powers' once had at least an elementary knowledge of physics.) On page 170 we read, concerning another poltergeist, that '... a clergyman, with some knowledge of occult matters, has succeeded by sympathetic reasoning and prayer in obtaining a promise from the entity that it will plague the household no more.'

Poor Mr. Rolfe has had a narrow escape of being mixed up with an 'entity' who, or which, might have led him to the stake in a thorough-going spiritualist age.

This relation between spiritualism and witchcraft is not a fantasy of my unconscious; listen to this from another believer:—

'The dangers of the spiritual world are greater because, bad as a man living on our plane may be, he cannot compare in that respect with a thoroughly wicked denizenof the fourth-dimensional space, whose power is all the greater because his very existence is almost universally denied. What little good was ever in him has been blotted out in the course, perhaps, of centuries; his cunning passes earthly comprehension; his experience of the ways and foibles of humanity is profound; his malignity is dreadful. To be fully under the influence of such an entity as this is to be at his mercy, and, as no such word exists in his vocabulary, the end is a foregone conclusion, unless another force of a contrary character and at least as powerful is directed against him.'[20]

It is indeed fortunate that the existence of these entities is almost universally denied. Hangings and burnings would be soon in fashion again if any large proportion of us were influenced by such a horrible complex.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has given an account to the papers (seeDaily Telegraph, February 18th, 1919) of a séance in Wales. Hymns were sung to produce a suitable emotional state, and 'the lights were turned down in order to obtain the proper conditions, because ether transmits light, and is also the source of all psychic phenomena.' Then, the medium being tied down, a tambourine rattled, and a coat and furniture flew about. The bearing of this upon life in the hereafter, which Sir Arthur discusses in connection with the performance, is not clear, but the effects are identical with those produced by the Davenport Brothers, who were exposed in 1868.[21]

The list of witnesses, who numbered about twenty, leads me to remark that though in a multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom yet in a crowd of witnesses there is Herd Instinct. With a conspicuous member of the Herd like Sir Arthur in the lead, the sway of emotion will dull any criticism, and if a few are unconvinced they will remain silent.[22]

The statement that ether is the source of all psychic phenomena is startling, but unsupported. Another believer, Sir William Crookes, says, concerning exhibitions of what he calls 'Psychic Force', that '... everything recorded has taken placein the light'.[23]So there seems to be some fundamental error about the observations of one of them. But Sir William's results were obtained from the famous Daniel Home, whose years of experience in credulity allowed him to take risks which the humble beginners in Wales hardly dared.

To examine all the stories of the supernatural is impossible; many are, I frankly admit, inexplicableon the evidence; but it is fair to assert that when an observer, on a subject which requires the most careful watching and closest reasoning, shows by his own account that he is ready to be deceived, then we cannot be convinced by hisstatements when they are unverifiable. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is thus ruled out of court, for his account of the photograph story shows, to put it gently, a lack of clear writing, and his readiness to thrust upon the public a repetition of the Davenport tricks, without a warning as to their history, is not what we should expect from a man who has studied the subject for thirty years.

Sir William Crookes gives detailed accounts of marvellous happenings, but two mediums in whom he had implicit trust were detected in deliberate fraud by other people,[24]so that his critical powers failed him.

Some of his accounts show curious lapses. In one experiment an accordion is placed in a cage under the table and Mr. Home puts his hand into the top of the cage to do psychic things with the instrument. The temperature of the room is carefully recorded (that doesn't matter, but imparts a scientific flavour to the observations) although we are not told why the experiment was done under the table instead of in a more convenient position on top of it, though 'my assistant went under the table, and reported that the accordion was expanding and contracting,' and 'Dr. A. B. now looked under the table and said that Mr. Home's hand appeared quite still.' Sir William would never have made such an omission if he had been using the same reasoning powers that he used in his scientific descriptions.

It is noticeable that the chief 'scientific' supporters of spiritualism are eminent in physical science; they have been trained in a world where honesty is assumed to be a quality of all workers. A laboratory assistant who played a trick upon one of them would find his career at an end, and ordinary cunning is foreign to them. When they enter upon the world of Dissociates, where deceit masquerades under the disguise of transparent honesty, these eminent men are but as babes—country cousins in the hands of confidence-trick men—and their opinions are of less value than those of a smart schoolboy.

Spirit photographs are useful to people who desire to show material evidence for their beliefs, and for more than fifty years the desire has been met by periodical outbreaks of this particular manifestation, with occasional exposures of fraud. The spirit effects can be produced by double exposure of one plate or by printing on one paper from two negatives, so that the declaration that a photograph is that of a spirit carries no proof with it and one must examine the circumstances under which the photograph is obtained.

A friend of mine, with a decided tendency to belief in the reality of spirit photography, was good enough to show me photographs of himself with spirit forms beside him, and undertook to repeat his visit to the photographer—who is accepted as genuine by leading spiritualists and appears to be the chief exponent in the art of spirit photography in this country—and take with him plates supplied by myself.

The photographer allows you to bring your own plates, goes with you into the dark-room, and allows you to initial the plate before it is put in the frame (whether it is your plate which you mark depends upon the will and dexterity of the artist, aided by the darkness and a preliminary hymn and prayer which should remove all doubts from your mind). Then the plate is put in the camera and, whilst attendant ladies pass into a trance, an exposure is made with yourself as the sitter. Next the plate is developed under your eyes and perhaps a spirit form is revealed.

I provided my friend with a packet of four plates, three of which had been exposed so that on being developed they would show a very conspicuous cross. At the séance two plates were first exposed and developed; on one appeared a cross with the portrait of the sitter, on the other appeared only the portrait.

The photographer now knew that one plate at least was marked, and when the remaining two plates were exposed and developed the cross appeared on both of them.[25]There had been no substitution, but no spirit photographs either. Then the old excuse appeared—'one negative thought will spoil a whole circle', or, in otherwords, 'if you are on the watch for trickery we won't perform'.

It must be remembered that even in a 'good' séance only one or two spirit results may appear in several exposures, so the photographer can always expose, develop, and examine any or all of your plates, and at the least suspicion that yours are marked he may refrain from substituting his own prepared plates and blame the spirits for the lack of manifestations.

One may ask why a private mark (say a faint file scratch on the edge) was not put on the plates so that the photographer himself could not detect, even after development, that they were marked in any way? Such a course would at once reveal whether substitution had taken place—though even then the real believer could declare that the spirits had removed the scratches.

But this test is frustrated by the photographer—simple honest man—who refuses to part with the plates; he says they are now his property, but he will let you have some prints!

In this example we find, as in so much 'evidential material', a point where investigation is blocked and credulity is demanded. Another piece of evidence is produced in this case, and I am shown a spirit photograph beside a lady's. The lady claims that the spirit is that of a young man, now deceased, to whom she was engaged. She was a stranger to the photographer, so how could he produce the likeness even if he substituted his own plates? But when I showed this spiritphotograph to a friend, with a query as to sex, she answered, 'But itisa woman, isn't it? It looks rather like N——.'

Now N—— is a mature maiden lady, so that the sexless features of the spirit leave plenty of room for the play of fancy.

We are invited to accept or disprove stories of spirit photography reported from the Continent, but whilst leading spiritualists in this country accept the productions of the man whose methods I have described I must refuse attention to anything they vouch for farther afield.

Mr. Crawford, a mathematician and engineer of Belfast, has published reports of investigations of table-lifting séances, and builds up a theory of spiritual cantilevers which he believes to explain his results. The theory is pretty and the diagrams are impressive, but the facts first call for examination.

Reading his accounts, I find that the experiments are carried out in a dim red light, for a sudden white light causes the immediate cessation of the phenomena. In addition there is a sacred line between the medium and the levitated table which must not be investigated on pain of dreadful results to the medium. This threat of physical evil to the medium if the sceptic should investigate at a crucial point is a common pretext, but though sceptics have often taken the risk, and seized a spirit to discover a disguised medium, there is no record of such disastrous results as Mr. Crawford would have us fear.

I suggest that this investigator should use his technical knowledge to show how a simple but material cantilever, operated by the medium along the sacred line, can produce levitation of the table.

The complaint is made that scientific men scoff at spiritualism and yet refuse to investigate it; in the last two examples we see why this is inevitable. Investigation is prevented in each at the very point where fraud might be detected; so long as such obstruction is maintained the spiritualists are likely to continue their complaints, and one must be content to speculate on the mental state which allows a few men of scientific training to support their claims.

The reader must not think that my aim is to convert spiritualists from their belief. It is, as I have tried to show in earlier chapters, useless to attack rationalisations in an effort to penetrate a logic-tight compartment; as soon as one defence is broken down another is built up, and one can only take comfort from the history of other examples ofPseudodoxia Epidemica, as Sir Thomas Browne (he himself being, strangely enough, an active believer in witchcraft) called them, and look forward to the fading away of this delusion. Just as the belief in witchcraft passed away from the educated and intelligent, lingering only amongst the ignorant, so this delusion will pass and leave our descendants to wonder how some of us came to be its victims.

After meeting my first medium I came away with the feeling that he was a rather artful liar; but now, whilst retaining that opinion, I am ready to admit that perhaps his lying was not a product of his consciousness. I know nothing of his history, but he was accepted by intelligent people as honest and respectable; moreover, records of spiritualism contain so many examples of people whose belief in their own supernatural powers must be accepted as real in spite of manifest deceit, that we must again fall back upon dissociation to explain their state of mind.

I shall assume the existence of three groups just as in connection with hysteria, and classify mediums, clairvoyants, water-diviners and other producers of the supernatural into—

1. The deceiver pure and simple.2. The deceiver who has repressed the consciousness of deceit and become a Dissociate.3. The subject who has never been conscious of deceit, but, led astray by his unconscious, has deceived himself from the beginning and finished as a Dissociate.

1. The deceiver pure and simple.

2. The deceiver who has repressed the consciousness of deceit and become a Dissociate.

3. The subject who has never been conscious of deceit, but, led astray by his unconscious, has deceived himself from the beginning and finished as a Dissociate.

To place any performer in the proper group is again a matter of judgement. Having a small repertory of tricks, including water-divining and a few manifestations with a pack of cards, I have sometimes put myself in the first group with temporary success.

The development of a case of the second group is probably not a phenomenon that has ever been continuously observed, but Robert Browning has formed such an excellent conception of it inMr. Sludge, the Medium, that his description bears comparison with my theory of the development of some hysterics. David Sludge is a house-servant and his master is pictured discussing high finance with his guests when the boy breaks in, saying, 'Sir, I've a five-dollar note.' The scorn of the guests is immediate:—'He stole it, then; shove him out'. And David is given the swift kick of ignominy.

'But,' says the poet,

'Let the same lad hear you talk as grandOf signs and wonders, the invisible world.If he break in with "Sir, I saw a ghost!"Ah, the ways change!'

Browning leaves us to imagine the boy's motive; perhaps his was just a boyish trick inspired by a desire for notoriety of which he himself was scarcely conscious, but, like the unfortunate hysteric who meets credulity, David is led on to produce more manifestations.

'And, David, (is not that your Christian name?)Of all things, should this happen twice—it may—Be sure while fresh in mind, you let us know!'

Then later:—

'"... came raps!While a light whisked" ... "Shaped somewhat like a star?Well, like some sort of stars, ma'am." "So we thought!And any voice? Not yet? Try hard, next time,If you can't hear a voice; we think you may."'So David holds the circle, rules the roast,Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball,Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps,As the case may be.'

'So David holds the circle, rules the roast,Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball,Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps,As the case may be.'

Then begins his conflict; like the patient who successfully feigns symptoms, he finds withdrawal difficult:—

'You'd prove firmer in his place?You'd find the courage—that first flurry over,That mild bit of romancing-work at end, ...To interpose with "It gets serious, this;Must stop here. Sir, I saw no ghost at all.Inform your friends I made—well, fools of them,And found you ready-made. I've lived in cloverThese three weeks: take it out in kicks of me!"I doubt it. Ask your conscience!'

Says poor David:—

'There's something in real truth (explain who can)One casts a wistful eye at.'

Now he faces the same dilemma that the developing hysteric has to meet, and as the hystericreaches a false salvation by the repression of the knowledge of deceit so does David:—

'Why, when I cheat,Mean to cheat, do cheat, and am caught in the act,Are you, or, rather, am I sure o' the fact?Well then I'm not sure! I may be, perhaps,Free as a babe from cheating: how it began,My gift ... no matter; what 'tis got to beIn the end now, that's the question; answer that!Had I seen, perhaps, what hand was holding mine,Leading me whither, I had died of fright.'

Nor does the poet omit the development of Receptivity:—

'I'm eyes, ears, mouth of me, one gaze and gape,Nothing eludes me, everything's a hint,Handle and help.'

At the last the youth, once an innocent jester, pours a stream of half-believed lies upon the man who, having caught him in his fraud, lets him go with a chance to start life afresh.

Browning does not carry the idea of repression as far as I do, Sludge producing clouds of rationalisations to cover his inconsistencies. The idea of dissociation does not present itself, but the whole picture can be taken to represent the evolution of many mediums with their mixture of belief and deception.

Just as in the hysteric we meet with mechanical ways of deceit, shown by self-inflicted injuries, so in the medium we meet with mechanical tricks for the production of spurious phenomena. Inboth cases fully-conscious deceit, reconciled to the moral complexes by rationalisations, is the easiest explanation, but sometimes fully-conscious deceit is unlikely.

There is a disappointing lack of originality in spiritualist literature, for the same stories of the marvellous are repeated in one book and another. The Fox Sisters, Slade, Eglington, Eusapia Palladino and others appear according to the fancy of the writer, and their fraudulent tricks may or may not be acknowledged. It is a peculiarity of spiritualist reasoning that if a medium is caught cheating it only proves that he was cheating when he was caught; if he is not caught next time, we must accept as genuine the phenomena then produced.

But no spiritualist writer can avoid the names of Home, Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper, forthey were never caught cheating; nevertheless, we apparently need testimonials at great length to their honesty. Mr. J. Arthur Hill gives two pages of testimonials to Stainton Moses, and repeats a story telling how the Reverend medium made an automatic drawing of a horse and truck and gave a spirit message concerning a man who had been killed that day under a steamroller in Baker Street. Mr. Hill says: 'Mr. Moses had passed through Baker Street in the afternoon, but had heard nothing of any such incident.'[26]

If Mr. Hill knew anything about dissociation he would not give us this oft-quoted but flimsystory. Whence does he obtain his evidence that the medium had heard nothing of the incident? Of course, from the honest personality of Mr. Stainton Moses himself.

But a story of some terrifying episode is often, by psychological technique, extracted from a war-strained soldier only to be repressed and honestly denied by the man a little while later. If the dissociated sufferer can deny the truth of an incident which, when recalled again, fills him with horror, then the denial by another Dissociate that he has heard of a street accident does not carry weight, even if we read a bookful of testimony to his honesty.

The accounts of this famous medium, who is still held in awe by believers, are full of such happenings. On another occasion the spirit in possession of him gave the names of members of a family who had died in India and were unknown to him or any one present. The names were verified by reference to the obituary column ofThe Timesof a few days before. We can assume that the honest Stainton Moses did not readThe Times, but that the dissociated Stainton Moses read and remembered.

With this dissociation well established and having for its object the production of occult phenomena, we can understand the rest of the manifestations that he produced for his circle of friends. He received numerous communications from the dead, produced spirit lights, transferred objects from one room to another through closed doors, floatedabout, and, in short, went through all the spiritualist repertory.

The ball is kept rolling by all sorts of people. The late Archdeacon Wilberforce, who believed in 'objective entities that seem able to manipulate or influence nerve currents, or magnetic ether, or whatever it is, of persons in the flesh',[27]wrote approvingly of him: 'The most remarkable medium I ever knew was the Reverend Stainton Moses, a clergyman in my father's diocese of Oxford'.[28]

Of the same medium Mr. Podmore says: 'Apart from the moral difficulties involved, there is little or nothing to forbid the supposition that the whole of these messages were deliberately concocted by Mr. Moses himself and palmed off upon his unsuspecting friends.'[29]

The moral difficulties disappear when we consider the case as one of dissociation. His spirit communications were psychologically identical with the automatic writings of the Glastonbury archæologists (see Chapter IX); he read obituary notices, studied out-of-the-way stories of men and women, and from the stores of his unconscious he produced this information as news from the spirit world. But, knowing nothing of the ways of the unconscious and becoming a prey to his own dissociated stream, he fed this stream and drifted with it into something a little removed from sanity.

I know not how the manifestations began, andwhether he belonged to my second or third group I do not attempt to discuss; I am satisfied if I have made it clear that the work of this wonderful medium can be explained otherwise than by one of the two alternatives of spiritualism or conscious deceit.

We meet with the same rush to testify to the honesty of Mrs. Piper. Sir Oliver Lodge of course guarantees her, and the late Professor William James, the Harvard psychologist, wrote of her: 'Practically I should be willing now to stake as much money on Mrs. Piper's honesty as on that of any one I know, and am quite satisfied to leave my reputation for wisdom or folly so far as human nature is concerned to stand or fall by this declaration.'[30]

This honesty of the main personality of the Dissociate leads astray professors of physics or of the old psychology.[31]It is the honest but mistaken man who misleads his fellows. We are on our guard against the rogue, and the conscious deceiver must needs be a good actor if he would succeed. The best actor knows he is acting, but the Reverend Moses needed no effort to preserve for years the appearance of straightforwardness and honesty. As far as he knew, hewasstraightforward and honest, though beneath his consciousness lay fathomless possibilities of deceit,ever ready to take advantage of the externals of an honest man.

As I said in Chapter VI, an authoritative and confident manner makes easy the acceptance of suggestion. What can be more authoritative and confident than the manner of a man who believes what he says and knows that his hearers are willing to believe? If what he says are lies and delusions, that makes no difference in his manner, and his unsuspicious hearers are still ready to stake their reputations upon his honesty. That readiness only makes them the more suggestible and renders valueless their opinion as to the truth of what he says.

Spiritualist writers are glib concerning 'subliminal consciousness', and, knowing not what they mean, attribute to it powers of communication with the spirit world. The only one worthy of study is the late F. H. Myers, and though his stories of the marvellous are largely repetitions of old material yet his treatment of the psychology of double personality is illuminating. His work onHuman Personality, if free from the spiritualist complex, would probably rank well in advance of its period. He has a good grasp of the subject of hysterical double personality, giving some excellent examples, but postulates a transition from the imaginings of the hysteric to the revelations of the spirit world. That the mind should pass through disease on its way to divine revelation, the boundary between the two being only a matter of judgement, is a necessary part of his explanation ofmediumism. Just as spiritualists will maintain their belief in a medium after fraud has been detected, placing upon unbelievers the onus of proving fraud in every case, so Myers, knowing the workings of hysterical double personality, claims the right to exclude hysteria whenever he pleases and to attribute a divine origin to the material then produced. This demand appeals neither to the religious man nor to the sceptic.

I take the liberty of borrowing a story from Mr. Hereward Carrington, a spiritualist of some critical power.[32]

'One of the most interesting cases that I have ever encountered is the following, which I consider of remarkable psychological interest from various points of view.During the early summer of 1911, a gentleman called upon me, stating that he knew a wonderful physical medium, of the same type as Palladino. He himself was a lawyer; his friend, the medium, was also a lawyer, and had "a scientific interest in these things," and in "having the remarkable manifestations which occurred in his presence solved," etc. For three years and a half, I was told, this case had been under private observation, and the manifestations had grown more and more numerous and bewildering as time went on. This, and much more of like nature, I heard by way of preliminary to the investigation of what appeared to be a very promising case.An evening having been arranged, the two gentlemen called at my house, and, after a chat, the demonstrations were undertaken.A broom was placed on the floor, and then, the medium kneeling over the object (or, rather, squatting on the ground), he placed his fingers on either side of the broom-handle,and then gradually took them away. As he did so the broom was seen to rise into the air. It remained suspended in space for a few seconds, then fell to the floor. The effect was most striking, while the phenomenon was of that simple order which one would naturally expect to discover in a simple undeveloped medium.The first two or three experiments interested me immensely, I must confess. But I noted one particular thing about the movements of the medium, which was that every time he placed an object on the floor, he placed it very close to his knees; this caused me to look between his knees intently instead of at the object during the next few trials. The result was that I distinctly sawa fine black threadstretched from leg to leg, forming a loop, into which the various objects were slipped in the act of placing them on the floor. The rest was only a matter of balance.In spite of the fact that I had discovered themodus operandi, I did not wish to act hastily, having been accused so often in the past of condemning too hastily upon discovering the fraud. Accordingly I asked the medium to meet me a few evenings later at the office of my friend, Dr. Gustave Sayer, and here we witnessed a second demonstration. It would be useless to repeat the details of this performance, which was simply a repetition of the first. Suffice it to say that not only was the medium seen using the loop of thread throughout, but this loop broke twice during the evening—once in the middle of the experiment—the thread being heard to break, and the object at once falling to the ground.On the first occasion the medium made an excuse, retired upstairs, and evidently arranged the thread, for he came down again in a few minutes and proceeded to give us a further test. Upon the thread (audibly) breaking a second time, however, he said that he "did not think he could do any more for us that evening," and sat down, apparently exhausted.It was the most flagrant and bare-faced swindle I ever came across, and in this Dr. Sayer agrees with me.And yet here was a young lawyer practising thesetricks, apparently for no motive, and constantly lying about them in a most astonishing manner; and this was a case from which much was to be hoped, apparently.'

'One of the most interesting cases that I have ever encountered is the following, which I consider of remarkable psychological interest from various points of view.

During the early summer of 1911, a gentleman called upon me, stating that he knew a wonderful physical medium, of the same type as Palladino. He himself was a lawyer; his friend, the medium, was also a lawyer, and had "a scientific interest in these things," and in "having the remarkable manifestations which occurred in his presence solved," etc. For three years and a half, I was told, this case had been under private observation, and the manifestations had grown more and more numerous and bewildering as time went on. This, and much more of like nature, I heard by way of preliminary to the investigation of what appeared to be a very promising case.

An evening having been arranged, the two gentlemen called at my house, and, after a chat, the demonstrations were undertaken.

A broom was placed on the floor, and then, the medium kneeling over the object (or, rather, squatting on the ground), he placed his fingers on either side of the broom-handle,and then gradually took them away. As he did so the broom was seen to rise into the air. It remained suspended in space for a few seconds, then fell to the floor. The effect was most striking, while the phenomenon was of that simple order which one would naturally expect to discover in a simple undeveloped medium.

The first two or three experiments interested me immensely, I must confess. But I noted one particular thing about the movements of the medium, which was that every time he placed an object on the floor, he placed it very close to his knees; this caused me to look between his knees intently instead of at the object during the next few trials. The result was that I distinctly sawa fine black threadstretched from leg to leg, forming a loop, into which the various objects were slipped in the act of placing them on the floor. The rest was only a matter of balance.

In spite of the fact that I had discovered themodus operandi, I did not wish to act hastily, having been accused so often in the past of condemning too hastily upon discovering the fraud. Accordingly I asked the medium to meet me a few evenings later at the office of my friend, Dr. Gustave Sayer, and here we witnessed a second demonstration. It would be useless to repeat the details of this performance, which was simply a repetition of the first. Suffice it to say that not only was the medium seen using the loop of thread throughout, but this loop broke twice during the evening—once in the middle of the experiment—the thread being heard to break, and the object at once falling to the ground.

On the first occasion the medium made an excuse, retired upstairs, and evidently arranged the thread, for he came down again in a few minutes and proceeded to give us a further test. Upon the thread (audibly) breaking a second time, however, he said that he "did not think he could do any more for us that evening," and sat down, apparently exhausted.

It was the most flagrant and bare-faced swindle I ever came across, and in this Dr. Sayer agrees with me.

And yet here was a young lawyer practising thesetricks, apparently for no motive, and constantly lying about them in a most astonishing manner; and this was a case from which much was to be hoped, apparently.'

This story hardly needs comment; but the writer's attitude towards another and more famous medium, Eusapia Palladino, is very different.

Until I read the book from which these passages are quoted I thought no one regarded this lady as anything but an exposed fraud; even Sir Oliver Lodge has written concerning her, 'my only regret is that I allowed myself to make a report, although only a private report, to the Society for Psychical Research, on the strength of a few exceptionally good sittings, instead of waiting until I had likewise experienced some of the bad or tricky sittings to which all the Continental observers had borne frequent witness.'[33]

Mr. Carrington says of this lady[34]:—

'In any event, it appears to me obvious that, even assuming that fraud was intended on this occasion, it proves nothing more than the fact that Eusapia will resort to clever trickery whenever the occasion is given her to do so—a fact which all students of her phenomena know full well already; and it does not in the least prove that the whole séance was fraudulent—which is what is implied in Professor Munsterberg's article. Every one knows well enough that scores of phenomena have been observed in the past which could not possibly have been accounted for, even assuming that the medium had both her feet free—a fact I have previously pointed out. The difference between Eusapia and the other mediums spoken ofin this volume is this, that in their case they invariably fail whenever "test conditions" are imposed, whereas Eusapia generally succeeds; further, the whole tenor and setting of the séance, so to speak, is entirely different. Lastly, we have the unanimity of opinion amongst scientific men as to Eusapia's powers, whereas we have nothing of the sort in the case of any other medium. On the contrary, whenever they are investigated along these lines, they either fail altogether or are detected in fraud.'

This gentleman has reason for pride in his powers of observation, but his spiritualist complexes are so firmly enclosed in their logic-tight compartment that his own critical powers beat in vain against the door. It was unfortunate for the young lawyer, but at the same time inexplicable, that Mr. Carrington pitted his observations, made at two sittings only, against those of the people who had had the case under private observation for three and a half years. Surely this respectable young man deserved the laurels of mediumism as much as did Eusapia. What are two failures against three and a half years' manifestations that 'had grown more and more numerous and bewildering as time went on'? I am sure that, if Mr. Hereward Carrington had given his blessing, this young man might have become a famous medium instead of being blighted after his years of successful effort.

But Mr. Carrington cannot conceive an alternative between a bare-faced swindle and a spirit manifestation, and in this he is harsher than I. It is plain that this young lawyer had the respect of his friends and was believed to be honest, justlike Mrs. Piper and Stainton Moses, and Mr. Carrington missed a chance of useful psychological investigation when he dismissed the case so curtly. The chance cannot be recalled, but a talk with this medium might have helped in the understanding of his distinctly disordered mind. I once had the chance of a frank talk with the accomplice of a professional medium, but, though he had some belief in the occult, he was so fully conscious of his roguery that I learned no more psychology than I have picked up from a three-card trickster. Anyhow, Mr. Carrington gives us an example of a medium in the making who we can only guess was a man whose disappointed ambitions and neurotic 'Will to Power' had led him astray.

I wonder how Mr. Carrington explains the failure of previous observers to detect the trickery? The man's apparent honesty of course helped, but the Herd Instinct was also at work and converts would be unlikely to criticise when a few reputable people had expressed their belief. Certain card-tricks are safer from detection by a large audience than by a small one. If three people are present and one thinks he detects the trick he may speak, for he is only in a minority of one to two; but if five out of fifteen detect it, each one, feeling he is in a minority of one to fourteen, is over-ruled by his sense of insignificance and remains silent accordingly. It is easier to sway a crowd than to persuade an individual.

Let me make it clear that I do not merely compare the medium with the hysteric, I regardthem as identical except in those cases where the medium is a conscious deceiver. The attitude of the believers in the honesty of the medium is the same as that of the sympathising friends of the hysteric patient, and it is often as difficult and thankless a task to explain the patient's condition to his or her friends as it is to save the credulous from falling a prey to the fortune-teller. But such difference as there may be is in favour of the unfortunate hysteric, who is the victim of forces that are too powerful to be resisted without help and who often anxiously desires recovery.

I have seen in a man suffering from war-strain the spontaneous development of what would be accepted as clairvoyance; the identity of his performance with that of the medium is of great importance. The patient was in that condition of dissociation or partial hypnosis into which these men easily pass, and was apparently 'seeing' some of the horrors he had experienced. As a rule such revivals of war episodes can be relied upon as a true reproduction of actual events, but in this case there were inconsistencies in the story. For example, describing how Uhlans drove their lances into Belgian babies, he said: 'If I had my revolver I'd let them have it,' but gave no indication of what he, a British soldier, was doing unarmed and under such circumstances. Moreover, though the account was given with due emphasis, there was a lack of the emotion characteristic of the revival of actual horrors.

Then a break came in the story, and he went onto describe a tragedy which had recently roused public interest. He saw the murderer walking with his victim, described how she handed over certain articles to him, and then how the man shot her and hurried off.

All this was graphically related as if he were actually witnessing the tragedy, and as I listened I realised how any one ignorant of the workings of a disordered mind would feel compelled to believe in the reality of clairvoyance and might be impelled to act upon the belief, for the description of the murder, if true, could only have been derived from something like second-sight.

The cause at work in producing these fantasies was fairly clear. The man had seen three years of fighting, and had resolutely tried to forget all that he had passed through; he had the usual symptoms of 'shell-shock', and in addition complained bitterly of being haunted by dreams of murder. I know not what particular happening had so impressed him, but in his unconscious were the memories of many horrors which, refused admission to his consciousness, insisted on manifesting themselves by dreams and waking fears.

Every horrible thing he read or heard was joined on to his dissociated stream of memories and emotions, to be reproduced in dreams and fantasies.

In his imaginings there was a mixture of truth and fancy; the figure of the murderer, for example, proved to be associated in his mind with the figure of an officer who was present at a time of great emotional strain, and the articles handedover by the victim were identical with articles familiar to the patient and of emotional importance to him. The other reproductions proved to be of incidents which had been related to him and to which he had given an intimate personal interest whilst elaborating them; his own experiences were more deeply repressed.

His condition was identical with that of the honest medium—whether Stainton Moses or more recently advertised seers—but fortunately his friends recognised the true nature of his disorder and, instead of cultivating it as a 'gift', took steps to have it treated as a disease.

In the description of mediums we often find hints of hysterical symptoms. Sir Oliver Lodge tells of the sighings and writhings of one of his performers, but it is not often that a definite diagnosis is made as in the following extract[35]:—

'I do not think that any one who has seen the effects of agoodséance upon Eusapia could doubt its reality. She has been known to suffer from partial paralysis, from hysteria, nausea, amnesia, loss of vision, as well as great weakness, prostration, etc., after the séance. I have seen her actively nauseated—excessively ill—after a good séance of this character, a symptom which is unlikely to be simulated, even if it could be. It is only after agoodséance that such things occur, however. After a poor séance at which, perhaps, much fraud has occurred ... I think that Eusapia often simulates exhaustion when, as a matter of fact, there is little or none, but this would not deceive one who has carefully watched her for weeks and months together, and has observed the effects of a genuine séance upon her.'

The behaviour described by Mr. Carrington is precisely that of the hysteric, but it is not clear what he means when he says that her being actively nauseated is a symptom unlikely to be simulated, even if it could be. Hysterical vomiting—resulting from mental processes, and not from any physical cause—is very common, and is a simulation of bodily disease, though I do not imply that the patient is aware of the simulation. Perhaps being nauseated was, in this case, a symbol of the disgust which one personality felt towards the frauds and lies of the other. Eusapia, having reached a condition of hysterical dissociation, presents the material symptoms of such a condition, for the nausea, paralysis, amnesia, loss of vision, prostration, etc., are classical symptoms of hysteria. The spiritualist actually holds them forth as proofs of the reality of spirit communication! Let the reader bear in mind that they show Eusapia to have been not merely a cheat, but mentally diseased.

There is a sad list of books purporting to instruct beginners how to communicate with the dead, and the instructions are such as to induce dissociation—a mental condition with possibilities of self-deception and hysterical manifestations like those shown by Eusapia Palladino.

Bad enough it is to believe the fantasies of a diseased mind to be revelations from beyond the grave, but how can one sufficiently condemn men of learning and position who would lead along the pathway of disease those who mourn their lost ones?

A few extracts fromHow to Speak with the Dead[36]will illustrate these pernicious attempts.

(Page 88) 'By sitting in some place quite alone and free from interruption, and by adopting a mental attitude of passive receptivity and expectancy, the soul becomes ready to perceive and be affected by any spirits that may be in its vicinity and that may attempt to open up communications.... The manifestations ... may vary from thought-suggestion to positive physical phenomena ... such as the hearing of a voice or even the visual appearance of some supernormal object. All depends upon whether the sitter is or is not susceptible to psychical influence, and also upon whether the locality or the sitter personally is or is not haunted.'

Then (page 91) when the Dissociation has developed:—

'In cases where the sitter is markedly "psychic" it frequently happens that normal control over the body is lost. A condition of trance supervenes, and while this continues the spirit—which may be either a "second personality" or a soul from the outside—that has gained the upper hand makes use to a greater or less extent of the brain and other organs subject to its mastery. The hand may write: the mouth may speak: the whole body may be engaged in some impersonation; and all this may take place beyond the scope of the sitter's normal consciousness.'

Lest the hysterical dissociation is not yet enough developed, the victim receives, on page 98, another thrust along the road to disease:—

'If it be found on trial that psychic powers exist to an appreciable extent it may be taken for granted that they are capable of very great increase by persevering effort and systematic employment.'

A warning is both given and stultified on page 107:—

'Self-deception and the imaginations bred of wishes and emotions are to be guarded against;' ... 'in solitary Expectancy fraud and trickery are completely absent, and all manifestations are matters of the most simple personal observation, the accuracy of which can be confirmed—as in an ordinary scientific laboratory—by the test of repetition.'

These directions are sufficient to start victims along the path taken by Eusapia, and, though we do not know how this woman reached the condition described by Mr. Carrington, yet the men who fostered her deception certainly helped the unfortunate creature in her development of a second personality compounded of delusion and fraud. The description of the other case of Mr. Carrington's contains a significant phrase: 'the phenomenon was of that simple order which one would naturally expect to discover in a simple undeveloped medium.' Just so: the game was only beginning, but, if the medium had developed, the split-off personality would have taken charge and limitless cheating and fraud could have been carried on by a medium who was to all seeming an honest man.

But as I showed that the causes of hysteria are to be found in conflict and repression, only taking the 'Will to Power' and 'repression of the knowledge of deceit' as particular forms applying to a few cases, so I must allow that the medium may not always be influenced by the last twofactors. The hysteric is the prey of emotions and experiences which cannot be faced unaided, and the strivings and desires that arise from the unconscious, which in one individual may find expression in social work, may find vent by a neurosis in another, or by mysticism in a third.

The desires may be of the noblest kind, and, failing to find legitimate expression, may show themselves in fantasies. I am not the first to draw attention to the psychology of Joan of Arc, and we can picture her urged by the noblest emotions to seek in a dissociated stream powers beyond the reach of consciousness; her visions were real to her, and tradition may be believed when it relates the story of her detection of King Charles disguised as one of his own courtiers. 'Be not amazed, nothing is hid from me', are the words attributed to her, and the incident well exemplifies the hypersensitivity of a dissociated stream.

I cannot picture a modern medium actuated by high motives, but am ready to admit that even in our days there may be mystics whose dissociations arose from commendable origins. Theosophy is bound up with the story of two women, Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Besant; the former was a self-confessed deceiver, but the latter is a very different kind of woman. Brought up in strict religious surroundings, she found herself compelled to cast aside her religious beliefs and, at great personal sacrifice, take up a public attitude directly opposite to them; but her oldbeliefs still lay in the unconscious, and when the opportunity arose she found relief from her conflict in a fantastic creed of the supernatural. No one who has studied her life can deny her honesty, but honesty does not make her beliefs easier of acceptance.

Before leaving the subject of mediums I must allude again to witchcraft. To those who believe in spirits, good or evil, which can take possession of us and make us do their will, and can throw about bricks and sand and furniture in our material world, there is nothing remarkable in epidemics of bewitchery, especially as the witch-finders were more fortunate than our spiritualists in having the unanimous support of the most eminent authorities of their day.

To explain the psychology of witchcraft is beyond the scope of this book, but it is not hard to conceive that when the belief in witchcraft was strong certain unfortunate people who set out to play tricks, maybe for notoriety or temporary gain, became ensnared by credulity and finding escape difficult came to believe in their own powers. Thus dissociation would be set up and on the side of the witch-finders Herd Instinct (or suggestion) and logic-tight compartments did the rest.

The fact that confessions of witchcraft were apparently common makes this explanation more probable.

For a career ending at the stake to have such a trivial origin as a desire for notoriety is in agreementwith the history of Sludge, whose downfall began with a desire to draw attention to himself. Call them ambitions and the desires seem less trivial, nor do I shrink from suggesting that the 'gifts' of the water-diviner and the most financially disinterested medium, even of Mr. Stainton Moses himself, have origin in a desire to shine before one's fellows—a neurotic 'Will to Power'.

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