I will give two or three of Phinuit's diagnoses as examples. I will choose those which have been given to Dr Hodgson about himself, as my readers now know him well.

At one of the first sittings[38] Dr Hodgson had with Mrs Piper, Phinuit pronounced the following judgment on his physical constitution, "You are an old bach (bachelor), and will live to be a hundred." And he added that Dr Hodgson had at the time a slight inflammation of the nasal membranes, though there was no external sign to guide him.

On another occasion Dr Hodgson asked him a question about a pain he had had but which he no longer felt. Phinuit was evasive at first, saying, "I have told you already that you are perfectly well." He then passed his hand over Dr Hodgson's left shoulder, placed his finger under the left shoulder-blade scapula, on the exact spot where the pain had been, and said it must have been caused by a draught, which was probably true. Another time, Dr Hodgson complained of a pain, without explaining where. Phinuit instantaneously put his finger on the painful spot, below the chest. He said at first that the pain was caused by indigestion, but then corrected himself spontaneously and said it was caused by a muscle strained in some unusual exercise. Dr Hodgson had not thought of this explanation; but it was true that, two days before, when going to bed, and after some weeks' interruption, he had exercised himself with bending his body backwards and forwards. The pain appeared next day. Phinuit ordered applications of cold water on the painful spot, and friction with the hand. Naturally there exist other diagnoses more complicated and extraordinary than those I have quoted.

In terminating this study of Phinuit, I must return to the eternal question—Is Phinuit a different personality from Mrs Piper, or is he only a secondary personality? None of those who have studied the question closely have ventured to decide it categorically. There is no so clearly defined distinction between the normal personality and the secondary personalities which have so far been studied as there is between Mrs Piper and Phinuit. In fact, the medium and her control have not the same character, nor the same turn of mind, nor the same information, nor the same manner of speech. It is not so with normal and secondary personalities. Our personality may split into fragments, which, at a cursory glance, may appear to be so many different personalities. But when these fragments are closely studied numerous points of contact are found. When suggestion is added to this segregation, the separation between the normal and secondary personalities is even more emphatic. But then there are traces of automatism present which are not to be found in Phinuit. He seems to be as much master of his mental faculties and of his will as you or I.

Finally, if we consider that many of Mrs Piper's controls carry the love of truth further than Phinuit, that they have succeeded in proving their identity in the eyes of their intimates, who were none the less sceptics to begin with; if we consider the George Pelham and Hyslop cases, among others, which we shall fully discuss a little further on, we shall be almost tempted to let Phinuit benefit by the doubt about his colleagues, and to believe that he is really a consciousness different from that of Mrs Piper.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 520.

[33] Ibid., vol. viii. p. 50.

[34] Proc. of the S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 98.

[35] Proc. of S.P.R., part xxi. vol. viii. p 51.

[36] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 449.

[37] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 51.

[38] Ibid.



CHAPTER VII

Miss Hannah Wild's letter—The first text given by Phinuit—Mrs Blodgett's sitting—Thought-reading explains the case.

There is a case of which I shall speak with some detail in this chapter, for three reasons:—(1) The good faith of the experimenters being unquestioned, if the experiment had succeeded we should certainly have had a first step towards proof of a future life. Experiments of this kind must be arranged if the desired end is to be attained. Even if only one out of ten were successful, we should have established a method of procedure, and should certainly in time discover the truth. (2) This example will once again show the reader the character of Phinuit, who hesitates at no invention, and risks being caught in the act of imposture sooner than own to his ignorance or incapacity. (3) The reader will find in it examples of the untrue assertions which are found in all the bad sittings.

This dishonesty of Phinuit certainly complicates the problem singularly. But I wish to present it as it actually is, with its dark and bright sides. Science must endeavour to explain both.[39]

Miss Hannah Wild died on July 28, 1886. She was a strong Baptist, and remained so to her last moments. About a year before her death a Boston spiritualist paper published a message supposed to have come from her dead mother. Miss Hannah Wild was much struck by it.

Her sister advised her to try the following experiment. Miss Hannah Wild should write a letter whose contents she alone knew, and when she died, she should return, if not prevented by circumstances stronger than her will, and communicate the contents of the letter to her sister through some medium. The letter would only be opened when some message bearing all the marks of authenticity should arrive.

This was done. Hannah Wild wrote the letter, sealed it and enclosed it in a tin box. It was understood that no mortal hand was to touch it. When giving it to her sister she said, "If I can come back it will be like ringing the City Hall bell!"

Mrs Blodgett, Hannah Wild's sister, adds, "Hands have never touched that letter; it was in my husband's safe. When I sent it to Professor James I took it out with scissors."

Mrs Blodgett having, in the last half of 1886, seen Professor James's name in a journal concerned with Psychical Research wrote to him and told him the above circumstances. In consequence he tried to get the letter read through Mrs Piper. He sent her, not the letter, of course, but a glove which Miss Hannah Wild had worn on the day she wrote the letter, and the lining of her hat.

Mr J. W. Piper, Mrs Piper's father-in-law, acted as sitter. Phinuit took his time, and tried for the contents of the letter during several sittings. The result was a long dramatic elucubration, which reminds us involuntarily of certain of Mlle. Smith's subliminal productions. I will give three paragraphs of it. The remarks between parentheses are Mrs Blodgett's; the reader will appreciate the facts by the light the remarks throw upon them. However, it may not be useless to remark that Phinuit found Miss Hannah Wild's exact name, which had been carefully hidden from him.

1. "Dear Sister,—In the bottom of my trunk in the attic with my clothes I have placed a little money and some jewels, given to me, as you know, by mother, and given to her by grandfather, who has now passed away. Bessie, I now give to you; they are all I have, I wish I could have more. It has grieved me not a little not to have given the Society something, but as you know, sister, I am unable to do so. If it be possible I will give them my presence in spirit." (Sister left no trunk. Never lived in any house with an attic. Mother never gave her any jewels. Mother's father died in 1835. Mother died in 1880, and gave all her jewels to me. These jewels had previously been given to mother by myself. Sister left money, and could have given the Society some had she chosen to do so.)

2. "The table-cover which I worked one year ago I want you to give sister Ellen, John's wife. The reason I did not dispose of them before will be a satisfactory proof of spirit return. My dearest sister, should you ever marry, as I think you will, take the money and use it as you think best, to buy a wedding outfit." (She never worked a table-cover. I worked one and gave her. Brother John died when five years old. There is no one by the name of Ellen connected with the family. She did think I would marry, but knew that I had plenty of money to buy an outfit.)

3. "Do not dress in mourning for me, for if it be true the spirit can return I want to see you dressed in light, not black. Not for me now, my dear sister Bessie. Try to be cheerful and happy through your married life, and when you hear from me—this for you a copy, 'remember sister Hannah is not dead, only passed out of the body.' I will give you a beautiful description of our life there and of my darling mother if I see her." (Hannah always wore black, and often said it would be wicked for me to take it off, for my child always said, "Mamma, you will always wear black for me," and I have worn black for twenty years, ever since my child died.)

And so forth.

Phinuit's elucubrations were six good manuscript pages long. Except Hannah Wild's name everything was wrong. And yet Mr J. W. Piper affirms that during all the sittings he had the feeling that he was talking to the spirit of Miss Hannah Wild. Phinuit was asked for a description of the communicator; all the details were false. After this it is unnecessary to say that the letter Miss Hannah Wild had written before her death, when opened by Professor James, after receiving the Phinuit letter, differed totally from that document.

So far the Blodgett-Wild case is on the whole commonplace. Phinuit lied when he pretended to communicate with Hannah Wild's spirit; for there is no more reason here than elsewhere to suppose conscious fraud on Mrs Piper's part. But this is the point at which the case becomes interesting, and where it may perhaps throw some light on Phinuit's manner of procuring information, and on the character of Phinuit himself. If we judged only from this case, it would seem that Phinuit was merely a secondary personality of Mrs Piper, possessing the extraordinary power of reading people's minds unhindered by distance. But let us say at once that a number of other cases render the problem much more complex. The conclusion to be drawn from what follows is, that if Phinuit is really what he asserts that he is, he does not draw his information only from disincarnated spirits, whom he is supposed to perceive objectively; he also reads the minds of the living, and with the information he finds there he creates personages, apparently life-like, and bearing a strong resemblance to deceased persons.

On the 30th of May 1888[40] Mrs Blodgett in person had a sitting with Mrs Piper. The time was fixed by Dr Hodgson, who took care, as usual, not to name the future sitter, and not to give any hint of her identity. In my eyes this sitting is remarkable. Mrs Blodgett, with great good sense, sums it up thus: "All the details which were in my mind Phinuit gave exactly. On all the points of which I was ignorant he gave false replies, or said nothing."

During the whole sitting Phinuit asserted that he was literally repeating the words of Miss Hannah Wild, present. I shall quote the most typical incidents. The remarks between parentheses are taken from Mrs Blodgett's comments.

Hannah Wild.[41]—"Bessie, Betsie Blodgett, my sister. How glad I am to see you! I am Anna, Hannah, your sister, Hannah Wild. How's father and all the folks? Oh, I am so glad to see you!" (All this time Mrs Piper kept on slapping me with her hand just like sister. When she died my name was not Blodgett but Bessie Barr.)

H. W.—"Saw you once before in that audience. Threw a message at you." (Four weeks after sister's death, John Slater, a medium, said, pointing to me amongst a large audience, "There is a lady here who wants to have you know she is here. She says she will tell you what is in that paper soon.")

H. W.—"How's the Society, Lucy Stone and all of them?" (Lucy Stone is the editor of the Woman's Journal, and wrote a piece about sister when she died.)

H. W.—"My photo in that bag."

Mrs Blodgett had brought a bag containing several things which had belonged to her sister. Mrs Piper tried to open it, but could not. It seems that Miss Hannah Wild, living, could only open the bag with difficulty. Mrs Blodgett opened it. The so-called Hannah Wild threw the objects out pell-mell, saying, "Picture of mine in here." This was so. Now this photograph was the only thing in the bag which Mrs Blodgett did not know was there; she had slipped her sister's will into an envelope in which the photograph already was, but she had not consciously noticed it was there. Her subconsciousness had probably been more perspicacious, and it is from that Phinuit had probably drawn the detail; at least unless he has the power of seeing certain things through opaque bodies.

H. W.—(Takes her will, which she had shaken out of the envelope containing the photograph.) "This is to you. I wrote it and gave it to you. That was my feelings at the time I wrote it. You did not think as I did. You made me feel sad sometimes. But you did take good care of me. I always felt there was something that would never part us. Do just as I told you to. You remember about my dress? Where's my comb? You remember all about my money? I told you what to do with that. That ain't written in this paper. I told you that on my death-bed." (All this is correct, except that I know nothing about a comb. The will disposed of her books and dresses and all her things, except her money.)

H. W.—"How is Alice?"

Mrs B.—"What Alice?"

H. W.—"The little girl that's a namesake." (Our living sister Alice had a child named Alice Olivia, and Hannah always called her Alice: it was our mother's name. The others called her Ollie. Hannah did not like this, and did all she could to make us know that she did not want the Alice dropped.)

H. W.—"Mother is here. Where's doctor? Where's brother?" (My husband is a doctor; Hannah knew him. We have one brother living named Joseph, who travels most of the time.) Hannah Wild takes a gold chain wrapped in silk. Mrs Blodgett says, "Hannah, tell me whose and what is that?"

H. W.—(Feeling tassel at end of chain) "My mother's chain." (The chain was a long chain of mother's. It was cut in two after she died. Hannah had worn one half. The half which I took to the sitting had not been worn since mother's death, and it had a tassel on the end, different from the half Hannah had worn.)

H. W.—"Who's Sarah?"

Mrs B.—"Sarah Grover?"

H. W.—"No, Sarah Obb—Hodg—" (The medium's hand points to Mr Hodgson, and the voice says it belongs to him.) Then Hannah Wild adds, "Sarah Hodson." (Sarah Hodson was a friend of sister's at Waterbury, Connecticut. I had thought of her the night before when I met Mr Hodgson, as she also came from London, England.)

H. W.—"Where is my big silk handkerchief?"

Mrs B.—"I gave it to Clara. You told me to."

H. W.—"Where is my thimble?"

Mrs B.—"I don't know."

H. W.—"I saw you put it into this bag." (The handkerchief was a large silk one given to sister by a lady who lived with us for years, and it came from England. I did not know I had put Hannah's thimble in the bag, but found on return to the hotel that it was there on the bed, with the rest of the things I had taken out of the bag before starting for the sitting.)

Mrs B.—"Can you tell me, sister, how many brothers you have in spirit life?"

H. W.—"One, two, three." (I asked her how many brothers, because William had only been dead since March 27 in the same year (1888). "Three" was correct.)

Mrs B.—"Can you tell me where that letter is now that you wrote?"

H. W.—"It is at home, in tin box."

Mrs B.—"Can't you tell me more about it?"

H. W.—"I have told you. It would be like ringing church bells if I could come back." (The letter was in the bag wrapped up in rubber cloth. Sister did say when we put the letter in tin box, "It would be like ringing the City Hall bell if I can come back.")

H. W.—"Where's William and doctor?"

Mrs B.—"Hannah, you tell me where William is."

H. W.—"He is here. I found him."

Mrs B.—"How long has he been?"

H. W.—"Weeks. You know all about it. He sticks to you all the time every day. William wants to know how you like that lot."

Mrs B.—"What lot?"

H. W.—"You ought to know. You bought it to bury him in. William is better out of the world than in it. He was a strange fellow. He don't like that lot. Do you?"

Mrs B.—"No." (I had bought him a lot in Woodlawn Cemetery, N.Y. His wife wanted him buried there. We wanted to take him to our home and bury him by mother. Brother was very proud, and we thought the lot was not as nice as he would like.)

At the end of the sitting the so-called Hannah Wild said that she must go because it was church time, and she would not miss it. Mrs Blodgett remarks that this is also characteristic of her sister. It was Decoration Day, and the living Hannah Wild would certainly not have missed it. This last incident is odd; but there are many analogous ones in the literature of the subject and in Mrs Piper's sittings. Often the communicator will not allow that he is dead, or has passed into another world; if he is asked what he is doing, he appears surprised, and affirms that he is carrying on his usual occupation; if he is a doctor, he asserts that he continues to visit his patients. Phinuit is often asked to describe the people of whom he speaks. He pictures them as they were on earth, in their customary dress, and he affirms that he so sees them. At the end of one sitting Professor Hyslop's father exclaims, "Give me my hat!" Now this was an order he often gave in his lifetime when he rose painfully from his invalid chair to accompany a visitor to the gate. I repeat, these incidents are odd and embarrassing for the spiritistic hypothesis. It is difficult to admit that the other world, if it exists, should be a servile copy of this. Should we suppose that the bewilderment caused by death is so great in certain individuals that it is some time before they perceive the change in their environment? It is difficult to admit this. Should we suppose these speeches are automatisms of the communicator, rendered half unconscious towards the end of the sitting by the heavy atmosphere of the medium's organism? But, when the communication is not direct, when an intermediary is speaking through the organism, what should we think? Are these traits thrown in intentionally by the communicator, the better to prove his identity? No doubt these incidents are very embarrassing to the spiritistic hypothesis. On the other hand, if we allow that the self-styled communicators are created by the entranced Mrs Piper from the elements she finds here and there in the minds of living persons, these incidents are quite natural; it would be surprising not to meet with them. I mention the difficulty in passing; it will not fall to my lot to solve it.

However this may be, Mrs Blodgett left the sitting convinced that she had been conversing with her own consciousness externalised, and not with the spirit of her sister. But if it had not been for the previous incident of the letter, which had invited distrust, and if Mrs Blodgett had had less judgment, she would probably have left the sitting convinced that she had been talking to her defunct sister. Many spiritualists must commit like errors every day. This shows what circumspection is needed in such studies as these.

Mrs Blodgett asked Dr Hodgson to have some sittings for her, to try again to obtain the text of the famous letter.[42] At the sitting of August 1, 1888, Dr Hodgson gave Phinuit a lock of Hannah Wild's hair. Phinuit began by saying it was not her hair; he then recognised his mistake, but said that someone else must have touched it. Then he gave a new version of the letter. "This letter is concerned with an incident in Hannah's former life," he affirmed. Then he dictated, "It's something about Hannah's early history, that letter is. At one time I met a person whom I loved. A circumstance in our affection changed my whole life. Had it not been for this one thing I should have been married and happy. Consequently I went into religious work, and did all the good I could. Whoever reads this letter after I am gone will know why I remained Hannah Wild...." Mrs Blodgett's comment on this text is very interesting. She says, "This is not what my sister wrote on her deathbed, but it is perfectly true. It was the great grief of sister's life."

How could Phinuit guess this by simply touching a lock of hair? Can it be that our feelings, our sorrows and joys, leave a persistent vibration on the objects we touch, which sensitives can perceive after even a long interval? Numerous and well-observed facts would almost compel us to believe so. It would seem as if the vibrations of the soul imprinted themselves on matter as sound waves are recorded on the cylinder of a phonograph. Certain subjects, in an abnormal state, would be able to recover them. There is, after all, nothing in this repugnant to science.

This abnormal state, which allows sensitives to apprehend past vibrations, is perhaps only a partial abandonment of the body by the spirit. In that case it would be easier to understand that those who, like Phinuit, have entirely quitted their bodies, those who are in another world, can read these vibrations as easily as we can read a book. But if this is so, why does not Phinuit own it? It would be marvel enough to satisfy his vanity. It would not, in any event, prevent his obtaining information directly from disincarnated beings. But he ought to state precisely in each case from what source he derives his knowledge. He does nothing of the kind, and thus renders it almost impossible for us to believe in his individuality.

At this same sitting Phinuit asserted that he would give the letter word for word if he had a longer lock of hair. So Mrs Blodgett sent a longer lock, which was given to him on October 3, 1888. The text he gave was as incorrect as the preceding ones. A last effort was made in 1889, again without result. Miss Hannah Wild has not come back from the other world to tell us what she wrote on her death-bed.

I will end with another example which demonstrates Phinuit's cleverness in reading people's minds even at a distance. On June 3, 1891,[43] Mrs Blodgett wrote a letter to Phinuit. Dr Hodgson read it to him at a sitting on the 15th of the same month. This drew from Phinuit the following statement, which had nothing to do with the contents of the letter: "She's been reading a funny book—a life of somebody. She called on an old friend of Hannah's—somebody I told her to go and see. Mrs Blodgett has a friend named Severance." Mrs Blodgett writes on June 17, "Really Phinuit is doing wonderfully well as far as thought-transference goes. Saturday night, June 13, I gave a talk to the Young Women's Rooms about Helen Gardener's new book, Is this your Son, my Lord?" (On the) "14th I did not go to see the friend in body, but I know my mind went, and I wrote him the letter to ask him what Phinuit told me to do when there." Mrs Blodgett adds:—"I had a friend named Severance, but sister Hannah had never heard of him."

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 69.

[40] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 75.

[41] Phinuit is speaking, but as he is supposed to be repeating Miss Hannah Wild's words literally, it is easier to speak as if she were speaking directly.

[42] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 78.

[43] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 83.



CHAPTER VIII

Communications from persons having suffered in their mental faculties—Unexpected communications from unknown persons—The respect due to the communicators—Predictions—Communications from children.

The Blodgett-Hannah Wild case is, I repeat, of a kind to throw discredit on the spiritualist hypothesis. If it and analogous cases alone were considered, it would be needful to ask why earnest men, after long hesitation, have finally given the preference to this hypothesis. But psychic phenomena, and mediumistic phenomena in particular, are infinitely various; they present a multitude of aspects, and it would not be wise to consider them separately.

In this Hannah Wild case everything seems to support the telepathic hypothesis. By this must be understood, not only the reading of thoughts in the consciousness, and even in the subconsciousness, of the persons present, but also in that of absent persons, however far off they may be. And what Phinuit calls "the influence" must be added. This mysterious "influence" might be the traces of vibrations left on objects by our thoughts and feelings. Evidently this hypothesis plunges us into mystery, at least as much as does the spiritualist hypothesis. Nevertheless, we should be obliged to give it the preference, if it were sufficiently supported, because it is, after all, more in touch with our present conceptions than its rival.

Even the incident of the medium who, designating Mrs Blodgett amidst a numerous audience, said to her, "There is a lady here who wants to speak to you; she will soon give you the contents of the paper," can easily be explained by telepathy. Mrs Blodgett was in the presence of a medium. Now some medium was to reveal to her the mysterious text of her sister's letter. That was enough to bring the recollection of the letter into the foreground of her consciousness, where the medium may have read it telepathically.

But again, there are an infinite number of other cases which telepathy does not explain at all, or only insufficiently. I shall try to show this by repeating some of the arguments put forward by Dr Hodgson in his remarkable report in 1898, and in the chapter entitled "Indications that the 'Spirit' Hypothesis is True."[44]

The most important of these arguments is founded upon the communications of persons whose mental faculties had been impaired by illness for a more or less long period before their deaths. A long series of concordant observations inspired Dr Hodgson with this argument. It is as follows:—"If we had to do with telepathy, the communications should be most clear and abundant in the cases where the memories of the dead are most clear and abundant in the minds of the living."

But experience shows that this is not so. When the self-styled communicator has suffered from mental illness before his death, the communications repeat the trouble feature by feature; they are full of confusion and incoherence. This confusion and incoherence is all the graver, as the mental trouble preceding death was graver. It disappears slowly, but sometimes traces of it appear years after. Telepathy does not explain this. If there is madness in the mind of the dead person, there is none in the minds of the living who remember him. On the other hand, if we introduce the spiritualist hypothesis, the fact is quite admissible, either because the mental trouble may only slowly disappear, or because (and the controls assert this) the mere fact of the disincarnated spirits plunging again into the atmosphere of a human organism temporarily reproduces the trouble.

Besides, there is always more or less incoherence in the communications made very shortly after death, even when the communicator has kept his full mental faculties up to his last moments. But if the communicator were really what he says he is, we should expect this, for three reasons—the violent shock of disincarnation must trouble the mind; the arrival in an entirely new environment, where he must at first be unable to distinguish much, should trouble him still more; and lastly, these first attempts at communication may be impeded by his want of skill in using the strange organism; he would require a sort of apprenticeship.

But when no mental trouble has preceded death, the incoherence of the first communications does not last. They soon become as clear as the imperfection of the means which the dead man has to use permits. In the George Pelham case, which we shall examine later on, the first communications were also incoherent. Yet George Pelham was soon to become one of the most clear and lucid, if not the most clear and lucid, of all the dead persons who have claimed to manifest through Mrs Piper's organism. But George Pelham died suddenly by an accident, and his intellectual faculties, which, moreover, were above the average, had never been injured.

This is, I repeat, what experience seems to show. But doubtless many more observations are needed before we can affirm that it is really proved.

However, unless Dr Hodgson and his colleagues are mistaken, these facts are contrary to what we should expect on the telepathic theory. I will quote some examples.

Dr Hodgson tried to obtain communications from one of his friends, designated by the initial A., more than a year after the latter's death. He spent six sittings over it, but the result was meagre. He obtained some names, and with difficulty some mention of certain incidents of A.'s life. Some of the incidents were even unknown to Dr Hodgson at the time, but all was full of incoherence and confusion. Finally he gave it up on the advice of George Pelham, who said that A.'s spirit would not be clear for some time yet. This A. had suffered from violent headaches and nervous exhaustion for some years before his death, though the troubles had not amounted to insanity. Now, just at the time when A. was incapable of manifesting clearly, other spirits were manifesting with all desirable lucidity in identical circumstances. Another case quoted by Dr Hodgson is that of a Mr B. who had committed suicide in a fit of insanity. He was not personally known to Dr Hodgson. During several years Mr B.'s communications were extremely confused, even about matters with which Dr Hodgson was well acquainted.

A third communicator, an intimate friend of Dr Hodgson's, had also committed suicide. About a year after his death he still seemed to be ignorant of events which he had known well in his lifetime and which were quite clear in the inquirer's mind. More than seven years after his death he wrote through the medium's hand, "My head was not clear, and is not yet, when I speak to you."

On December 7,[45] 1893, M. Paul Bourget, of the Academie Francaise, and his wife, had a sitting with Mrs Piper. M. Paul Bourget much wished to communicate with an artist who had committed suicide at Venice by throwing herself out of a gondola. There exists no written report of this sitting, and consequently we do not know exactly what it was worth. But on December 11[46] M. Bourget had another sitting, and this time Dr Hodgson accompanied him and took notes. The artist seemed to make desperate efforts to communicate and to write herself, but she could only produce two or three French words, amongst which apparently was the exclamation, "Mon Dieu!" Nevertheless her Christian name was given and the place where she had killed herself, Venice, and the syllable Bou, the beginning of Bourget, was often repeated. Why were the results so poor? M. and Mme. Bourget knew this person well, and their minds were full of reminiscences on which the medium had only to draw.

However, some people might reason as follows. Objects having been used by the persons with whom it is desired to communicate are nearly always given to Mrs Piper. If the medium obtains her information not only from the minds of the living, but likewise from the "influence," that is, from the vibrations which our thoughts and feelings may have left recorded on these objects, the imperfections of the earlier communications of persons whose minds have been disturbed might be explained by the theory that the "influence" left by an insane person would be neither so clear nor so easy to read as that left by a sane one. But then why should the communicators grow clear with time? Why should they become lucid at the time when they ought to be still more confused, if the telepathic hypothesis is the correct one?

But this interpretation falls to the ground entirely when we take into account the numerous communicators who are unknown, or almost unknown, to the sitters, of whom absolutely nobody is thinking, and who come in the middle of a sitting to send a message to their surviving relatives. Mrs Piper cannot have produced these communications by means of the "influence" left on objects, unless we suppose that the presence of these objects is not necessary and that any "influence" may strike the medium from any point of the compass at the moment when she least expects it. That would perhaps be stretching the hypothesis beyond allowable limits. And these cases are, I repeat, numerous and very interesting. I quote three for my readers' edification.

During the 46th[47] of the English sittings with Messrs Oliver and Alfred Lodge as sitters, Phinuit suddenly exclaimed,—

"Oh, dear, there is something very bad about this. Here's a little child called Stevenson—two of them—one named Mannie (Minnie?) wants to send her love to her father in the body and the mother in the body—she had sore throat and passed out. He is very bad and has gone away very unhappy. She's clinging to me and begging me to tell you that she's little Mannie Stevenson, and that her father's almost dead with grief, he sits crying, crying dreadful, and he's gone away very unhappy. Tell him she's not dead, but sends her love to him; and tell him not to cry."

Professor Lodge.—"Can she send her name any better?"

Phinuit.—"Oh, they called her Pet, and when she was ill they called her Birdie. And tell mamma too, do."

Professor L.—"Well, I will if I can."

Professor Lodge could not discover the Stevenson family, which was a pity, for two reasons; first, that a message from beyond the tomb might have restored the despairing parents to a little hope and calm; and secondly, because cavillers could not have attributed the incident to the medium's cunning, which they would not fail to do if other incidents of the same nature did not make this interpretation almost inadmissible.

At the 45th English sitting,[48] when Messrs Oliver and Alfred Lodge and Mr and Mrs Thompson were the sitters, Phinuit suddenly said,—

"Do you know Richard Rich, Mr Rich?"

Mrs Thompson.—"Not well; I knew a Dr Rich."

Phinuit.—"That's him; he's passed out. He sends kindest regards to his father." And Phinuit began directly to speak of something else.

At the 83rd sitting, when Mr and Mrs Thompson were again present, Phinuit said all at once,—

"Here's Dr Rich;" upon which Dr Rich proceeds to speak.

Dr Rich.—"It is very kind of this gentleman" (i.e., Dr Phinuit) "to let me speak to you. Mr Thompson, I want you to give a message to father."

Mr Thompson.—"I will give it."

Dr R.—"Thank you a thousand times; it is very good of you. You see I passed out rather suddenly. Father was very much troubled about it, and he is troubled yet. He hasn't got over it. Tell him that I am alive—that I send my love to him. Where are my glasses" (the medium passes her hands over her eyes)? "I used to wear glasses" (true). "I think he has them, and some of my books. There was a little black case I had; I think he has that too. I don't want that lost. Sometimes he is bothered about a dizzy feeling in his head—nervous about it—but it is of no consequence."

Mr T.—"What does your father do?"

(The medium took up a card and appeared to write on it, and pretended to put stamp in corner.)

Dr R.—"He attends to this sort of thing. Mr Thompson, if you will give this message I will help you in many ways. I can and I will."

Professor Lodge remarks about this incident, "Mr Rich, senior, is head of Liverpool Post Office. His son, Dr Rich, was almost a stranger to Mr Thompson, and quite a stranger to me. The father was much distressed by his son's death, we find. Mr Thompson has since been to see him and given him the message. He (Mr Rich, senior) considers the episode very extraordinary and inexplicable, except by fraud of some kind. The phrase, 'Thank you a thousand times,' he asserts to be characteristic, and he admits a recent slight dizziness. Mr Rich did not know what his son means by a black case. The only person who could give any information about it was at the time in Germany. But it was reported that Dr Rich talked constantly about a black case when he was on his deathbed."

No doubt Mr and Mrs Thompson knew Dr Rich, having met him once. But they were quite ignorant of all the details here given. Whence did the medium take them? Not from the "influence" left on some object, because there was no such object at the sitting.

At a sitting on the 28th November 1892,[49] at the house of Mr Howard, when those present were Mr and Mrs Howard, their daughter Katherine, and Dr Hodgson, Phinuit suddenly asked,—

"Who is Farnan?"

Mr Howard.—"Vernon?"

Phinuit.—"I don't know how you pronounce it. It is F-a-r-n-s-w-o-r-t-h." (Phinuit spelt it.)

Dr Hodgson.—"What about it?"

Phinuit.—"He wants to see you."

Dr H.—"He wants to see me?"

Phinuit.—"Not you, but this lady."

Mrs H.—"Well, what does he want to say to me? Is it a woman or a man?"

Phinuit.—"It is a gentleman; and do you remember your Aunt Ellen?"

Mrs H.—"Yes; which Aunt Ellen?"

Phinuit.—"She has got this gentleman." (I.e., this man was in her service.)

Further on, Phinuit adds, "That gentleman wanted to send his love to her, and to be remembered to you—so that you may know he is here, and it is a test. These little things sometimes interrupt me greatly and when I go to explain it to you, you can't understand it. But sometimes when I am talking to you, I am suddenly interrupted by somebody who don't realise what they are doing, and then I give you what they say as near as I can, you understand that, and it is very difficult sometimes for me to discern it and place it in the right place."

Mrs Howard asked her Aunt Ellen if she had known anyone named Farnsworth, without telling her more. Phinuit was right: a gardener named Farnsworth had worked for her uncle and then for her grandfather thirty-five or forty years before. Mrs Howard had never heard of him.

Incidents like those I have just related are evidently difficult to explain on the telepathic theory.

But a more complete refutation of the telepathic hypothesis would be to get a certain number of fulfilled predictions. The medium could not read events which have not yet occurred, either in the minds of the living or in the "influence" left on objects. Phinuit has often tried his hand at predictions; I will quote one.

At M. Bourget's second sitting,[50] in 1893, a Mrs Pitman appeared, who had lived a long time in France and spoke French well, and who offered to help the artist with whom M. Bourget wished to talk in her efforts to communicate.

In 1888, Mrs Pitman, who was a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, had had two sittings with Mrs Piper. Among other things, Phinuit said to her, "You are going to be very sick; you will go to Paris; you will be very sick: you will have great weakness in the stomach and head. A sandy complexioned gentleman will attend you while you are ill beyond the sea." In consequence of this, Mrs Pitman asked Phinuit what the end of the illness would be. Phinuit made evasive replies. Mrs Pitman asked Dr Hodgson's intervention; he insisted in his turn, and Phinuit got out of it by saying, "After she gets over the sickness she will be all right."

Mrs Pitman replied that there was nothing the matter with her stomach; she contradicted Phinuit on every point, and he appeared much annoyed. But Mrs Pitman soon fell ill. She was attended by a Dr Herbert, who was very fair; he diagnosed inflammation of the stomach. Then Mrs Pitman began to believe in Phinuit's prediction; but interpreting his last words wrongly, she believed she should recover. Dr Charcott attended her at Paris for a nervous illness. She suffered from weakness in the head, and her mental faculties were impaired. In short, she died.

Again, other communications which do not fit in with the telepathic theory are those from very young children. When they communicate a short time after death, they reproduce their childish gestures, they repeat the few words they had begun to stammer; they ask by gestures for the toys they liked. All these details are evidently to be found in the minds of the parents. But when these children communicate long years after their death, it is as if they had grown in the other world; they only rarely allude to the impressions of their babyhood, even when these impressions remain vivid in the minds of the father and mother. George Pelham was one day acting as intermediary for a child who had been dead many years. The mother naturally spoke of him as a child, and George Pelham remonstrated, "Roland is a gentleman; he is not a little boy."[51]

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 370.

[45] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 494.

[46] Ibid., p. 495.

[47] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 514.

[48] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 509.

[49] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 416.

[50] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 496.

[51] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 512.



CHAPTER IX

Further consideration of the difficulties of the problem—George Pelham—Development of the automatic writing.

Phinuit's empire remained uncontested till the month of March 1892. He sometimes yielded his place to other controls, but rarely through a whole sitting. However, in March 1892, a new communicator appeared, who imposed his collaboration on Phinuit, with the latter's consent or without it. This newcomer called himself George Pelham,[52] and asserted that he was the disincarnated spirit of a young man of thirty-two, who had been killed four or five weeks before by a horse accident. However that may be, this new control had more culture, more moral elevation, and a greater love of truth than the so-called French doctor. The latter benefited by the companionship; he tried to be more truthful, and seemed to make fewer appeals to his imagination; in short, all the sittings improved, even those in which Phinuit appeared alone.

The newcomer did everything in his power to establish his identity. His success is still a matter open to discussion, in the view of some persons, and their doubts at least prove that, in order to solve this greatest of all problems, it is not enough that the communicators should give us numerous details which would seem at a first glance to establish their identity, though the few cases in which identity appears to be proved furnish us with a strong presumption in favour of survival after death. If George Pelham is what he says he is, future generations will owe him profound gratitude; he has done all that he could, under circumstances which are, it appears, very unfavourable, although we are not in a position to understand the difficulties.

It is not always easy to prove identity, even between the living. Imagine a man in England, at the end of a telegraph or telephone wire; imagine that a certain number of his friends at the other end of the wire, in France, refuse to believe him when he says he is So-and-so, and say, "Please prove your identity." The unfortunate man will be in difficulties. He will say, "Do you remember our being together in such a place?" The reply will be, "Nonsense; somebody has told you of that incident, and it does not in the least prove that you are the person you say you are." And so on, and so on. One fact is incontestable, however; there is somebody at the end of the wire. The telepathic theory asserts that, in spite of appearances, there is no one at the end of the wire, or, at least, that no one is there but the medium, temporarily endowed with powers as mysterious as they are extraordinary. But to return to George Pelham.

Pelham is not his exact name. The last syllable has been slightly modified, from motives of discretion. He belonged to a good family in the United States, which counts Benjamin Franklin amongst its ancestors. He had studied law, but when his studies were finished he gave himself up exclusively to literature and philosophy. He had published two works, which brought him much praise from competent judges. He had lived for a long time in Boston or its neighbourhood. The last three years of his life were passed in New York. In February 1892 he fell from his horse and was killed on the spot.

He had interested himself in Psychical Research, though very sceptical about the matter. He was a member of the American Society, and later of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Research. Dr Hodgson knew him very well, and liked to talk to him on account of the soundness of his judgment and the liveliness of his intelligence. But neither time nor circumstances had allowed ties of affection or real friendship to be established between them.

Two years before George Pelham's death, he and Dr Hodgson had a long discussion regarding a future life. George Pelham maintained that it was not only improbable, but also inconceivable. Dr Hodgson maintained that it was at least conceivable. After much exchange of argument, George Pelham ended by allowing so much, and finished the conversation by saying that, if he should die before Dr Hodgson, and should find himself "still existing," he would "make things lively" in the effort to reveal the fact.

George Pelham, more fortunate than many others who, before or after him, have made the same promise, seems to have kept his word. That many others have been unable to do so proves nothing. The means of communication are still definitely rare; Mrs Piper is an almost unique medium of her kind up to the present day. It may be that the great majority of the inhabitants of the other world are in the same position as the great majority in this, and are ignorant of the possibility of communication. Even if those who promise to return know of this possibility, the difficulty of recognising their friends must be great, since they do not seem to perceive matter. Their friends who are still in the body should, it appears, call them by thinking intently of them, by presenting to good mediums articles which belonged to the dead, and to which a strong emotional memory is attached, and by asking the controls of these mediums to look for them.

When these precautions are not taken, the survivors are wrong to blame their friends' failure to keep their word, or to conclude that all is ended with the death of the body.

George Pelham may have been enabled to manifest himself by particularly favourable circumstances. He knew of Mrs Piper's existence, although, most probably, Mrs Piper did not know him. In 1888 the American Society for Psychical Research had nominated a commission for the investigation of mediumistic phenomena; this commission asked Mrs Piper for a series of sittings. I do not know whether George Pelham was a member of the commission, but he was present at one of the sittings. The names of all the sitters were carefully kept private, and nothing happened of a nature to draw the attention of the medium to George Pelham, who in all probability passed unnoticed.

Dr Hodgson thinks he can affirm that Mrs Piper only quite recently learned that George Pelham had been present at one of her sittings. The name of George Pelham must have been revealed to her considerably later on, for, in her normal state, she is quite ignorant of what she has said in her trance state; she learns it, as do all those who are interested in these questions, by reading the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research except when Dr Hodgson thinks proper to tell her anything.

With the appearance of George Pelham there arose a new method of communication—the method of automatic writing.

It was only on March 12, 1892,[53] that it was granted to Dr Hodgson to be present for the first time when this writing was produced; although it had occurred on rare occasions before. Phinuit was serving as intermediary for a communicator who called herself Annie D. Towards the end of the sitting Mrs Piper's arm rose slowly till the hand was over the top of her head. The arm remained rigid in this position, but the hand trembled very rapidly. Phinuit exclaimed, "She's taken my hand away," and added, "she wants to write." Dr Hodgson put a pencil between Mrs Piper's fingers and a block-book on her head. "Hold the hand," said Phinuit. Dr Hodgson grasped the wrist and stopped the trembling. Then the hand wrote, "I am Annie D. I am not dead but living," and some other words; then Phinuit murmured, "Give me back my hand." The arm remained contracted and in the same position for a short time, but finally, slowly, and as though with much difficulty, it moved down to the side. During the following sittings the writing was produced in the same inconvenient position. But on April 29, 1892, Dr Hodgson arranged a table so that Mrs Piper's right arm could rest comfortably on it; then, seizing the arm and commanding with all his power, "You must try to write on the table," he succeeded, by using not a little force, in getting the arm down. Since then the writing has been produced with the arm resting more or less on the table. When a control takes possession of the arm to write, it is seized with violent spasmodic convulsions. The block-books, writing-books, pencils, and everything on the table are thrown in confusion on to the floor. Sometimes considerable force must be employed to keep the arm still. Then a pencil is placed between the fingers, and the writing begins. Sometimes, but rarely, the writing is interrupted by a spasm; the hand is firmly closed and the wrist bent, but after a few seconds the spasm disappears, and the writing begins again.

On most occasions, since the automatic writing has become easy, two controls have manifested simultaneously—one by means of the voice, the other by writing; Phinuit continuing to use the voice, according to his former custom. George Pelham, although he also uses the voice occasionally, prefers writing. On the 24th February 1894 a control wrote, "There is no reason why various spiritual minds cannot express their thoughts at the same time, through the same organism." This is really what happens. The voice may keep up a conversation with a sitter while the hand keeps up another in writing with someone else on a wholly different subject. If the sitter who is talking with the hand allows his attention to be distracted by what the voice says, the hand recalls his attention by its movements. When anyone is speaking to the hand control, it is necessary to speak to the hand, and close to the hand, or there is a risk of not being understood. In short, one must behave as if the hand were a complete and independent being.

Observation of this phenomenon suggested to Dr Hodgson that by using the left hand he could perhaps obtain three communications on three different subjects. He tried and succeeded, although imperfectly; no doubt because, in the normal state, the left hand is not used to writing.

Formerly Phinuit used to protest when the hand was seized, and asked at once that it should be returned to him, as we have seen above. Since the automatic writing has been developed the hand may be used by one control without the fact being perceived by the control who is using the voice. One day Phinuit was talking with a sitter about his relations, when the hand suddenly, and so to say surreptitiously, wrote for Dr Hodgson a communication supposed to come from an intimate friend, and treating of a subject altogether different from those of which the voice was speaking. Dr Hodgson adds that it was "precisely as if a caller should enter a room where two strangers to him were conversing, but a friend of his also present, and whisper a special message into the ear of the friend without disturbing the conversation."[54]

Phinuit seems to prefer not to notice what the hand is doing. He talks as long as he has an interlocutor, but, when the messages given through the hand distract the attention of this interlocutor, Phinuit often says, "I'll help him." What does he mean by this? It is a mystery. But if it is wished to continue the conversation with him, the ear must be addressed directly he is ready to resume. All this does not interrupt the writing; the head and the hand do not interfere with one another.

The observers of these strange phenomena, especially Dr Hodgson, maintain that the controls write without consciousness that they are writing, as, no doubt, they speak without consciousness that they are speaking. According to what they say, these controls perceive in the body of the medium two principal masses of the mysterious fluid, the unknown energy which appears like light to them, and which they call the "light." One of these masses is in the head, the other in the hand. The controls think "in" this light, and their thoughts are transmitted to us automatically through the organism.

The automatic writing differs according to the controls. They do not always succeed in reproducing the characteristics of their handwriting when alive. George Pelham has tried to do so at least once, and did not succeed. But this should not surprise us; we do not work as well with other people's tools as with our own. In any case this difference in the handwriting is a presumption the more in favour of the difference of individuality.

The writing often looks like that on a lithographic stone, and can only be read when reflected in a glass; this writing, which is called mirror-writing, is produced as rapidly as ordinary writing, though Mrs Piper, in her normal state, would be unable to write in this way. This mirror-writing has been often observed in subjects who write automatically; the cause for it is still to be found.

On other occasions words are written backwards. Thus for hospital, latipsoh will be obtained. With certain mediums not only words but whole sentences are thus written. To read them, they must be begun at the last letter and read backwards to the first. Syllables are also often misplaced in Mrs Piper's automatic writing; thus hospital may be written hostipal. I remind the reader that I am referring to facts well attested by competent men, about which there can be no question of fraud.

There exist detailed minutes of many of the sittings, copied from stenographic notes. An attempt was made to introduce a phonograph. Phinuit jokingly felt the mouth with his hands and asked, "What is this thing with a tube?" The attempt to explain its use to him was unsuccessful. However, the phonograph recorded the sitting fairly well, but the experiment was not repeated—why, I do not know, for the intonations of the controls would have been an interesting study.

I have often used expressions of affirmation in this chapter, and the reader might therefore conclude that the existence of spirits is no longer a hypothesis in my eyes, but a reality. I have already warned him, and warn him again, that I speak thus only for convenience' sake, and that the existence of spirits is still as hypothetical to me as to anyone else.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] Not the real name. See p. 78, Trans.

[53] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 291.

[54] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 294.



CHAPTER X

How George Pelham has proved his identity—He recognises his friends and alludes to their opinions—He recognises objects which have belonged to him—Asks that certain things should be done for him—Very rarely makes an erroneous statement.

Some of my readers must have asked themselves what the returning George Pelham can have said to make grave and intelligent men think he has proved his identity. I shall try to give them some idea by relating such incidents as I can report without entering into too slight or complete details. I cannot relate everything, in the first place for want of space, and secondly, because I should be tiresome—a thing to be avoided in a popular work like the present.

When Dr Hodgson wrote the report which appeared in 1898, George Pelham, who, like Phinuit, is always ready to act as intermediary (though employing writing instead of speech) had had occasion to see one hundred and fifty sitters, among whom thirty were old friends of his. He recognised the whole thirty, and never mistook a stranger for a friend. He not only addressed them all by name but took with each of them the tone he had been accustomed to take.

We do not speak in the same way to all our friends. The tone of our conversation differs according to the character and the age of the person we address, and according to the degree of esteem or affection we have for him. These shades of manner are typical, though instinctive, and therefore are difficult to reproduce artificially.

George Pelham, then, addressed the thirty friends whom he had the opportunity of meeting through the medium in the tone which he was in the habit of taking formerly with each one of them. The incidents I shall quote are only examples; I have said why I cannot recapitulate all that has been published about these sittings.[55] Besides, the sitters, for reasons easy to imagine, have declined to permit the publication of all that was most private, and consequently most convincing, in the sittings.

From the beginning George Pelham asks to see his father. He says that he wishes to talk to him about private affairs, and also that he should like to convince him, if possible, of his existence in a new world. Mr Pelham was at once informed, and though he was very sceptical both by nature and education, he, with his second wife, George Pelham's step-mother, visited Mrs Piper at once. They were introduced under false names. Quite at the beginning of the sitting George Pelham wrote, "Hullo, father and mother, I am George!" The communications which followed were altogether what Mr Pelham, senior, would have expected from his living son.

At one of the earliest sittings he asks after one of his friends, a young writer, and urges that he should edit one of his, George Pelham's, unpublished papers.

While George Pelham was living in Boston he was connected by bonds of strong affection with the Howard family. He lived with them often and for long periods. He and James Howard often discussed serious philosophical problems together. At the first sitting George Pelham insistently asked for the Howards.[56] "Tell Jim I want to see him. He will hardly believe me, believe that I am here. I want him to know where I am. O good fellow!" He welcomes Mr and Mrs Howard in a characteristic way: "Jim, is that you? Speak to me, quick. I am not dead. Don't think me dead. I'm awfully glad to see you. Can't you see me? Don't you hear me? Give my love to my father, and tell him I want to see him. I am happy here, and more so since I find I can communicate with you. I pity those people who can't speak."

A Mr Vance has a sitting. George Pelham had known him. At first the communicator does not appear to notice him, being occupied in giving messages to Dr Hodgson. But presently George Pelham recognises him, and says, "How is your son? I want to see him some time." "George, where did you know my son?" "In studies in college." "George, where did you stay with us?" "Country, peculiar house, trees around, porch that projects at the front. Vine at the side. Porch at the front, and swing on the other side." All this was correct.[57]

Miss Helen Vance and George Pelham had belonged at the same time to a society formed for mutual aid in the art of writing. She came to a sitting some time after it had begun. Mrs Piper, in her normal state, had never met her. Nevertheless, George Pelham asks her at once, "How is the society getting on?" A little later on, the following dialogue takes place between Miss Vance and George Pelham: "Now, whom do you have to correct your writings?" "We correct one another's." "But do they give satisfaction?" "Yes." "What, in their corrections?" "Yes, but not as much as you; your corrections were better than theirs." "Well, that is what I am trying to get out of you." "In other words, George, you wanted a compliment from me." "Oh, bosh, you know me better than that."

Miss Warner had two sittings with Mrs Piper[58] five years after George Pelham's death. He had known her when she was quite a child, but he had not seen her for three years before he died, and in eight years a child becomes a tall young girl. Consequently, at the first sitting, George Pelham did not recognise Miss Warner at all. At the second sitting he admitted this and said, "I do not think I ever knew you very well." "Very little. You used to come and see my mother." "I heard of you, I suppose." "I saw you several times. You used to come with Mr Rogers." "Yes, I remembered about Mr Rogers when I saw you before." "Yes, you spoke of him." "Yes, but I cannot seem to place you. I long to place all my friends, and could do so before I had been gone so long. You see, I am farther away—every day I get further away from you. I do not recall your face; you must have changed." At this moment Dr Hodgson said, "Do you remember Mrs Warner?" "Of course, oh, very well. For pity's sake, are you her little daughter?" "Yes." "By Jove! how you have grown! I thought so much of your mother, a charming woman."

George Pelham not only recognises his friends,[59] as we have just seen; he also remembers their opinions, their occupations, their habits. James Howard is an author. He asks him, "Why don't you write on this subject?" (the future life). Rogers writes also. He asks, "What is Rogers writing now?" "A novel." "I don't mean that. Isn't he writing something about me?" "Yes, he is preparing a memoir of you." "That is kind of him. One is pleased not to be forgotten. He was always very good to me when I was alive."

He remembers the opinions of his father, and the discussions they had upon philosophical questions. "I should like to convince my father," he says; "but it will be hard. My mother will be easier." He says to James Howard, "Do you remember how we used to ask each other for books of certain kinds, about certain books, where they were, and you always knew just where to find them." Formerly, when James Howard and George Pelham were talking together in the evening, the first-named habitually smoked a long pipe. At a sitting held in the library where these conversations used to take place, George Pelham said to Mr Howard, "Get the long pipe and smoke." Katharine is one of James Howard's daughters, who plays the violin. Formerly her practising used to greatly annoy George Pelham, who lived with the Howards. He said to her at a sitting, "Katharine, how is the violin? To hear you playing is horrible, horrible." Mrs Howard replies, "Yes, George, but don't you see she likes her music because it is the best she has." "No, but that is what I used to say."

"Marte" is a pseudonym adopted by Dr Hodgson to designate a well-known American writer. He is a monist, a partisan of Darwinism, convinced that the death of the body is for us the end of all. At a sitting George Pelham said to him, "Evolution is all right in the real life, as Darwin says, but it goes on evoluting in the ideal life, which fact he, of course, knew nothing of until he came here."

George Pelham also recognises objects which have belonged to him, principally those which have some remembered emotional association.

John Hart, at the first sitting at which George Pelham appeared, gave some sleeve-links he was wearing, and asked, "Who gave them to me?" "That's mine. I sent that to you." "When?" "Before I came here. That's mine. Mother gave you that." "No!" "Well, father then, father and mother together. You got those after I passed out. Mother took them, gave them to father, and father gave them to you. I want you to keep them. I will them to you." All this is correct.

At another sitting Mrs Howard gives a photograph. She placed it on the top of the medium's head. "Do you recognise this?" "Yes, it is your summer house; but I have forgotten the name of the town." "Don't you remember D.?" "Oh, the little brick house and the vine, grape-vine some call it. Yes, I remember it all; it comes back as distinctly as the daylight. Where is the little outhouse?" All this is correct. The outhouse which George Pelham was surprised not to see was a henhouse left just out of the photograph. At another sitting Mrs Howard put a book on the medium's head. We must not forget that the medium's eyes are shut, and the ocular globes upturned. "Do you recognise this book?" "Oh, yes, it is my French Lyrics." Needless to add that this was correct. George Pelham asks for information on the subjects which interested him in life. He asks to have things done for him. At the first sitting he said to the sitter, John Hart, "Go up to my room, where I write. I left things all mixed up. I wish you'd go up and straighten them out for me. Lots of names, lots of letters. You answer them for me."

Evelyn is another of Mr. Howard's daughters. George Pelham had given her a book, and had written her name in it. He asks her if she remembers it.

He has not forgotten his former speeches either. He was fond of Evelyn, but this did not prevent his constantly teasing her. Thus she is weak in mathematics. At one sitting George Pelham says to her, "I won't tantalise Evelyn now; I used to torment her a great deal, but she will forgive me, I know." Which does not prevent his adding directly after, "Evelyn is a girl that can always tell how much two and two is. You have just learned, haven't you? You are not a great one for mathematics, are you?" But he adds quickly, "Now be good, Evelyn. It doesn't matter so much about your lessons; being good is the most important point of all."

James Howard had asked George Pelham several questions to which the latter had not replied, asserting that he had forgotten. On this account James Howard still doubted George Pelham's identity. One day the former said, "George, tell me something that you and I alone know. I ask you, because several things I have asked you you have failed to get hold of. We spent a great many summers and winters together and talked on a great many things and had a great many views in common, went through a great many experiences together. Tell me something now that you remember." The hand at once began to write eagerly: the occurrences related were so private that they cannot be published. At a given moment the hand wrote "Private." Dr Hodgson then left the room. On his return James Howard told him that he had obtained all the proof he could desire, and that he was "perfectly satisfied, perfectly."

At the first sitting at which George Pelham appeared, when John Hart was the sitter, George spoke suddenly of Katharine, James Howard's daughter, and he said something which at the time had no meaning for John Hart. "Tell her, she'll know. I will solve the problems, Katharine." When John Hart reported these words to the Howards they were more struck than by anything else. During George Pelham's last stay with them he had talked frequently with Katharine upon deep philosophical questions, such as Time, Space, Eternity, and had pointed out to her how unsatisfactory the commonly-accepted solutions were. Then he had added the words of the communication almost textually, "I will solve those problems some day, Katharine." Remark that at this time the Howards had never yet seen Mrs Piper, that John Hart knew absolutely nothing of these conversations, and that Dr Hodgson, who took notes at the sitting, did not at the time know the Howards or of the conversations.

George Pelham had received a good classical education. He was a Humanist. Consequently a rather large number of Latin expressions are found in his language; usual, no doubt, with people of his education, but with which Mrs Piper is not acquainted in her normal state. Phinuit, who cannot have been a good Latinist, does not employ them either. Observation of this fact inspired Professor Newbold[60] with the idea of asking George Pelham to translate a short fragment of Greek, and he proposed the first words which occurred to him; the beginning of the Paternoster: [Greek: Pater hemon ho en tois ouranois]. George Pelham made some attempts, and finally translated "Our Father is in heaven." Professor Newbold then proposed a longer phrase, which he composed himself on the spot for the occasion: [Greek: Ouk esti thanatos; hai gar ton thneton psychai zoen zosin athanaton, aidion, makarion]. This means, "There is no death; the souls of mortals really live an immortal eternal happy life." George Pelham called to his aid Stainton Moses, who in his lifetime passed for a good Hellenist. Both together only succeeded in understanding the first proposition, "There is no death." These experiments, at all events, prove that Mrs Piper in the trance state can understand a little Greek, though in her normal state she does not even know the letters. Again, George Pelham and Stainton Moses may have known Greek tolerably well and have forgotten it: it is an accident which has happened to many of us.

With regard to this translation of Greek, we might form another hypothesis. We might suppose that the spirits of George Pelham and Stainton Moses—if there are spirits—perceiving thought directly, and not its material expression, have partly understood what Professor Newbold wanted to say, without knowing in what language it was expressed. If they did not understand wholly and completely, it would be because a thought expressed in a foreign language has in our minds a certain vagueness. We might go further; we might suppose that Mrs Piper's subconsciousness perceives the thought directly, independently of the form in which it is expressed. Mrs Piper has often pronounced words and short sentences in foreign languages. Phinuit likes to say, "Bonjour, comment vous portez vous? Au revoir!" and to count in French. Mme. Elisa, an Italian, the dead sister of Mrs Howard, succeeded in writing or pronouncing some short sentences in more or less odd Italian. I find also at a sitting where the communicator was supposed to be a young Hawaian three or four words of Hawaian very appropriate to the circumstances. Mrs Piper is ignorant of all this in her normal state. I have just said that spirits—if there are spirits—perceive thought directly. They themselves tell us this. On the other hand, they do not perceive matter, which is non-existent to them. This brings me to a new feature of the sittings, principally of those with George Pelham. If this feature does not increase the proofs of identity, it is at least an evidence of the abnormal powers of the medium.[61] George Pelham is asked to go and see what a certain person is doing at a given time and to come back and relate it. He goes, and partially succeeds. This is what appears to happen: if the act is strongly conceived in the mind of the person he is watching, he perceives it clearly; if it is nearly automatic, he perceives it vaguely; if it is wholly automatic, he does not perceive it at all. He often says that actions have occurred which have only been planned and not executed, at other times he reports past actions as present. This is because spirits have not, it appears, a clear notion of time. I have unfortunately neither time nor space to give examples of this.

Can we say that the communicator George Pelham has never made a partially or wholly erroneous assertion? No. But the number of such assertions is very small, which was not the case when Phinuit reigned alone. Here is one such assertion, at which there has been much cavilling; people have insisted on seeing in it the stamp of Mrs Piper and her social environment, and not at all the stamp of the aristocratic George Pelham. George Pelham is asked, "Could you not tell us something which your mother has done?" He replies,[62] "I saw her brush my clothes and put them away. I was by her side as she did it. I saw her take my sleeve buttons from a small box and give them to my father. I saw her put some papers in a tin box." When Mrs Pelham is questioned by letter, she replies, "George's clothes were brushed and put away, not by me, but by the man who had valeted him." And the hasty conclusion is, Mrs Piper on this occasion thought herself among her own class. She forgot that Mrs Pelham did not brush and put away clothes herself. This is perhaps a too hasty triumph. The most highly-bred women may occasionally brush and put away clothing. Now suppose that what I have said above about the way in which spirits perceive our actions should be true. George Pelham may have seen the project of the action in his step-mother's mind, and not its execution by the valet. It may be objected that he ought to have supposed she would not do it herself. Why? I do not see it. Perhaps he knew that his step-mother was capable, occasionally, of putting away clothes herself.

George Pelham is often asked questions which he cannot answer. But he does not at all pretend to have forgotten nothing. If there is another world, spirits do not go there to ruminate on what has happened in our incomplete life. They go there to be carried away in the vortex of a higher and greater activity. If, therefore, they sometimes forget, it is not astonishing. Nevertheless, they seem to forget less than we do.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Those readers who are interested in this question are recommended to read Dr Hodgson's Report, Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii., Trans.

[56] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 300.

[57] Ibid., p. 458.

[58] Proc. of S.P.R., p. 324.

[59] For reports of these sittings see Proc. of S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 413-441.

[60] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiv. p. 46.

[61] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 329.

[62] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 303.



CHAPTER XI

George Pelham's philosophy—The nature of the soul—The first moments after death—Life in the next world—George Pelham contradicts Stainton Moses—Space and time in the next world—How spirits see us—Means of communication.

The communicator, George Pelham, did not confine himself to obtaining recognition from his friends; he talked a great deal of philosophy with them, especially with Dr Hodgson. Indeed, if he had not done so, the omission might have created a doubt as to his identity, for in his lifetime he was fond of such discussions. But for the present Dr Hodgson has kept back these speculations from the other side of the grave, thinking quite rightly that no value would attach to them until unmistakable evidence had been produced for the existence of "another world." Still there are to be found among the reports of the sittings some fragments of these philosophic theories, and they form an interesting subject of study.

The philosophy may be only that of Mrs Piper. But it may on the other hand be the philosophy of the discarnate George Pelham, and for that reason it is not unworthy of examination. Supposing, however, that the assertions made are actually those of an inhabitant of the other world who in this world was intelligent, honest and cultivated, the question still arises whether we must regard them as expressing Absolute Truth. Surely not; if another world exists beyond this one, its inhabitants have mounted one step—but one step only—above us on the infinite ladder of existence. They do not see the Eternal face to face. It is quite possible that they may be able to see clearly truths of which we have no glimpse, but we are not bound to believe more than we like of what they tell us.

If the existence of the discarnate George Pelham is established, a new light is undoubtedly thrown on the old problem as to the nature of the soul, a problem as old as the world itself. The disciples of Plato's Socrates tried to interpret it by the charming analogy of the lyre and its harmony; asking whether man may not be compared to a lyre and his soul to its harmony, a harmony which ceases to exist when the instrument is broken. Using more modern terms, we may ask whether the soul is the resultant of the forces of the bodily organism, or whether it is the indestructible and mysterious motor which produces the action of that organism.

George Pelham declares that the soul is in truth the motor, and that the body is merely a machine used temporarily by the soul to act upon the obscure world of matter. He speaks to this effect: Thought exists outside matter and is in no way dependent upon matter. The destruction of the body does not have as its consequence the destruction of thought. After the dissolution of the body the Ego continues its existence, but it then perceives thought directly, is much more free, and can express itself much more clearly than when it was stifled by matter. The soul and thought are one; thought is the inseparable attribute of the Ego or individual soul. On its arrival in this world the soul is ready to register innumerable new thoughts; it is a tabula rasa upon which nothing has been inscribed.

This is a noble thought, if true, and one that wonderfully widens our narrow outlook. But, as I have said, I reserve my right of critical examination. Elsewhere George Pelham says, "We have an astral facsimile—the words are his—of our physical body, a facsimile which persists after the dissolution of the physical body." This would seem to be the astral body of the Theosophists. But the term "facsimile" is perplexing, as I have always believed that the particular form which Humanity actually has was entirely determined by the laws of our physical universe, that it was an adaptation to its surroundings, and that if a modification, however slight, were made in, for instance, the laws of gravity, the human shape would undergo a corresponding variation. Sir William Crookes has lately made some interesting observations on this subject. But to this question I will return again.

Now, the physics of the next world must be very different from the physics of this world, seeing that the next world is not material, or at least that its matter is excessively subtle. How then should the shape we men have in this world persist in the next?

Now, if we have an astral body which accompanies our Ego in the next world, and if that astral body consists of a fluid similar to what we suppose ether to be, or identical with that ether, this fluid must be matter in some form, though matter obviously subject to quite other laws than those of our world of palpable substance. Moreover, there is no proof that the soul is not the resultant of the organic forces of this astral body. If this astral body, as is probable, in its turn suffers disintegration, there is no proof that the soul survives this second disaggregation. If all these suppositions were proved, the old problem concerning the nature of the soul would have been carried back a stage, but it would not have been solved.

But, as things are, this is, perhaps, to carry speculation too far. Let us curb our ambition and ask George Pelham what are the sensations felt immediately after death. Everything was dark, he says; by degrees consciousness returned and he awoke to a new life. "I could not distinguish anything at first.[63] Darkest hours just before dawn, you know that, Jim. I was puzzled, confused." This is probable enough. If things are thus, death must be a sort of birth into another world, and it is easy to understand that the soul which has been just born into that new world cannot see or comprehend much in it till some time after such birth.

James Howard remarked to George Pelham that he must have been surprised to find himself still living, to which George Pelham replied, "Perfectly so. Greatly surprised. I did not believe in a future life. It was beyond my reasoning powers. Now it is as clear to me as daylight." Elsewhere he says that when he found that he actually lived again he jumped for joy. This joy is comprehensible enough; those of us who are resigned to the prospect of annihilation are few. The thought that death is annihilation makes us, against all principles of logic, shiver to the very marrow. Such a feeling perhaps points to a revolt of the soul within that knows itself immortal and cannot without a shiver of fear face the idea of non-existence, an idea in opposition to its very nature.

With the impressions of George Pelham may be compared those of another communicator called Frederick Atkin Morton, who had passed into the next world in quite a different way. This Morton had lately started a newspaper; anxiety, overwork, and perhaps other causes made him lose his reason. His insanity lasted but a short time; in one of its attacks he shot himself in the head and was killed on the spot. The first time that he tried to communicate, his remarks showed great incoherence;—no matter for surprise if Dr Hodgson's observations on this subject are recalled. But his thoughts soon became clear, and at the second sitting his communications were definite enough. This is how he relates to his brother Dick his impressions about his own death. He does not speak of suicide, an action which he probably committed without full consciousness of what he was doing, but at the end of the sitting Mrs Piper's hand wrote the word "Pistol." Death had been due to a pistol shot.[64] "When on Sunday," he says, "I began to lose my mental equilibrium, then suddenly I realised nothing and nobody." In answer to the question as to what his next experience was he goes on: "I found I was in this world. I did not know for the moment where I was only I felt strange and freer; my head was light in weight, also my body ... my thoughts began to clear when I observed I had departed from my material body. Ever since then I have been trying to reach you, Dick. I saw a light and many faces beckoning me on and trying to comfort me, showing and assuring me I should soon be all right, and almost instantly I found I was. Then I called for you and tried to tell you all about where and how I was, and, with one exception, this is the only chance I have had. Now you see I am taking advantage of the opportunity."

After the question of how a man passes into the next world, the most interesting one to us is how he feels when he gets there. Generally speaking, the reports are satisfactory. One of Professor Hyslop's uncles, though he seems to have had a happy life here, says to his nephew, among other things,[65] "I would not return for all I ever owned—music, flowers, walks, drives, pleasures of all kinds, books and everything." Another communicator, John Hart, the first sitter to whom George Pelham appeared, said on his own first appearance, "Our world is the abode of Peace and Plenty." If this is the case, what a pleasant surprise awaits us, for in this world we have not much experience of Peace and Plenty. But I fear that John Hart has exaggerated; every day the Reaper's sickle casts from this world into the other such elements of discord, not to reckon those who must long ago have been there, that I wonder what means are taken to prevent their creating a disturbance. However this may be, if when we leave this world we pass into another, let us hope that the new world will be a better place than the old one, or else we shall have every reason to regret that death is not annihilation.

But George Pelham, in his turn, assures us that we do not lose by the change. He died, it will be remembered, at the age of thirty-two. When Dr Hodgson asked him whether he had not gone too soon, he replied with emphasis, "No, Hodgson, no, not too soon."

If, however, spirits are happy, more or less happy, according to the spiritualists, as they are more or less developed—and there seems nothing inadmissible in this theory—we must suppose that their happiness is not purely contemplative. One could soon have enough of such happiness as that. They are active; they are, as we are, occupied, though we cannot understand wherein their occupation consists. That this is so is affirmed and reaffirmed in the sittings, and we might assume it, even if the spirits did not assert it. George Pelham says to his friend, James Howard, that he will have an occupation soon.[66] The first time that I read this statement, in a review which only reproduced a short fragment and in no way gave the real effect of these sittings, I remember that the impression produced on me was very disagreeable. How unsophisticated, I thought, must these so-called investigators be not to see that such a phrase as that cannot come from a spirit; it bears too clearly the stamp of earth!

Since then reflection has made me admit that spirits might very well also have their occupations; the next world, if it exists, must be a sphere of fresh activity. Work is the universal law. When George Pelham was asked in what consisted the occupations of spirits, he replied that they were like the noblest occupations of men, and consisted in helping others to advance. This reply will doubtless not satisfy those who are actuated only by an idle curiosity, but it contains a profound philosophic truth. If our varied occupations upon earth are regarded from a somewhat superior point of view, it will be seen that their ultimate end is nothing else than the perfection of mankind. Those of us who have evolved furthest realise this, and the rest do not; the case must be the same in the next world, though George Pelham does not say so. All our efforts and exertions are regarded with indifference by nature who has no use for them, but the necessities of life make men feel that they are brothers, and oblige them to polish one another, like the stones of the beach rolled to and fro by the waves and rounded and polished by rubbing one against another. Willingly or not, consciously or unconsciously, we force one another to advance and to improve in all respects. The world has been, I think with justice, compared to a crucible in which souls are purified by pain and work and prepared for higher ends. I should not like to go as far as Schopenhauer and say that it is a mere penal settlement.

A celebrated English medium, William Stainton Moses, in a book well known to spiritualist readers, Spirit Teachings, developed, or rather allowed his spirit-guides to develop, the theory that souls leave this earth taking with them all their desires and all their evil passions. Having no body in the next world to enable them to gratify these desires they are subjected to a veritable punishment of Tantalus. Thereupon they endeavour to satisfy their material passions at least, if I may so say, vicariously; they urge on incarnate men, all unaware, to abandon themselves to these vices and passions. They incite the gambler to play, the drunkard to drink; in a word, they push, as far as in them lies, every vicious man to the bottom of the abyss created by his own vice; crime and debauchery intoxicate them and fill them with joy. Further developed and noble souls, in spite of all their efforts, are unable to conjure away the influence of the undeveloped and evil souls. In a word, we have here the old fable of demons and angels arranged to suit the doctrines of modern spiritualism. It is indeed the old fable with a difference; demons desire the perdition of man from jealousy, because being themselves eternally condemned they wish to drag down with them as many souls as possible; the evil souls of Stainton Moses desire the perdition of man to gratify their own bad inclinations. Demons are spirits, wicked indeed, but yet spirits, whereas the evil souls of Stainton Moses are only miserable ghosts driven mad by love of matter. Certainly everything is possible, as Professor Flournoy says, but this theory is somewhat astonishing, for it seems to make the inhabitants of the next world gravitate round our miserable earth, and is like the old astronomical theory that placed our little globe in the centre of the universe. If there be another world, it is hard to believe that its inhabitants spend the greater part of their time in attending to us, some of them to harm us and the rest to do us good.

Professor William Romaine Newbold, in a sitting which took place on June 19, 1895, asked George Pelham what we ought to think of this theory of Stainton Moses.[67]

Professor Newbold.—"Does the soul carry with it into its new life all its passions and animal appetites?"

George Pelham.—"Oh, no, indeed, not at all. Why, my good friend and scholar, you would have this world of ours a decidedly material one if it were so."

Professor Newbold.—"The writings of Stainton Moses claimed that the soul carried with it all its passions and appetites, and was very slowly purified of them."

George Pelham.—"It is all untrue."

Professor Newbold.—"And that the souls of the bad hover over the earth goading sinners on to their own destruction."

George Pelham.—"Not so. Not at all so. I claim to understand this, and it is emphatically not so. Sinners are sinners only in one life."

The result of this denial of Moses's doctrine was that George Pelham was asked to find Stainton Moses and beg him to come himself and communicate. Here is a fragment of conversation between Professor Newbold and the discarnate Stainton Moses.

Professor Newbold.—"You taught that evil spirits tempt sinners to their own destruction?"

W. S. Moses.—"I have found out differently since I came over here. This particular statement given me by my friends as their medium when I was in the body is not true."[68]

Professor Newbold.—"Your second statement was that the soul carries its passions and appetites with it."

W. S. Moses.—"Material passions. Untrue. It is not so. I believed that we had every desire after reaching this life as when in the body, but I find that we leave all such behind; in other words, evil thoughts die with the body."

So on this point the teaching of George Pelham differs from that of Stainton Moses. But, says Professor Newbold, for the most part they agree pretty well.

Now when we reach this other world it is certain that we shall at first be completely at a loss there, as all that we here regard as indispensable conditions of existence will there be lacking. Spirits say that they do not perceive matter which is for them as if non-existent, whereas here present-day science asserts that outside matter moved by force there is nothing. It would be strange if the science of to-morrow were to prove that matter is only a sort of temporary illusion of mind. Here we conceive nothing outside space and time, whereas spirits seem to have but confused notions of space and time. Such, in the first place, is the view which they constantly assert; and, in the next place, if they are asked, for example, how long it is since they died they are generally unable to say. In their communications again, they often relate as occurring in the present actions that have taken place long ago. I have said already that George Pelham has often been asked to go and see what certain absent persons are doing and to return and report it; he has generally been successful, but he has sometimes made the curious mistake of taking the past for the present. Here is an illustration. He is told to go and see what Mrs Howard, absent at the time, was doing; he returns and reports. Dr Hodgson writes to ask Mrs Howard what she was doing at the time of the sitting, and hears from her in reply that she did none of the things reported on the day of the sitting, but that she had done them all in the course of the afternoon and evening of the preceding day.[69] It seems likely that George Pelham had read the thoughts of Mrs Howard, and in his inability to appreciate time had taken the past for the present.