The same sort of thing seems to occur in the case of space. Phinuit, to oblige Professor Newbold, goes to find Stainton Moses. Phinuit says that he inhabits a great sphere, and that Stainton Moses lives in a very distant part of this sphere. But in spite of this he brings him back almost at once. When the medium is presented with objects likely to attract the so-called spirits with whom the sitters are anxious to communicate, these spirits for the most part arrive at once, no matter where they may have died; John Hart, who died at Naples, communicates two days afterwards at Boston. But it is hardly to be presumed that the spirits are there waiting for us. If their appearance can be hastened or delayed by sympathy or antipathy, on the other hand what we call distance seems not to disturb them in the least; and yet we are perpetually finding in the communications such phrases as, "Every day I am getting further from you," "Now I am very far away from you." But such phrases are probably not to be interpreted literally. The spirits go further from us as they make progress in the spiritual world and doubtless also as the things of this world occupy less and less place in their recollections.

The spirits see us but they do not see our bodies, since they do not perceive matter. They see the spirit within us but it appears to them more or less obscure, as long as it is within the body. "It is by the spiritual part of your being that I see you," says George Pelham, "that I am able to follow you and to tell you from time to time what you are doing."

And what do they think of our life upon earth? Here is a quotation from George Pelham which will tell us:[70] "Remember we always shall have our friends in the dream life, i.e., your life so to speak, which will attract us for ever and ever, and so long as we have any friends sleeping in the material world; you to us are more like as we understand sleep, you look shut up as one in prison."

Professor Hyslop had a sister who died as a very young child; she sends a short message to her brother saying that he dreams while she lives and that she sends him her love.

Our life then would seem to be but a sleep accompanied by dreams which are sometimes terrible nightmares. If this be so we can but hope for dawn and waking, and wish soon to hear the crowing of the cock which will put to flight the phantoms of the night. Happy should we be if we had a certainty that it would be so!

This reminds me of a fine passage in a Spanish poet, which I cannot refrain from quoting: "To live is to dream; experience teaches that man dreams what he is till the moment of awakening. The king dreams that he is a king and passes his days in the error, giving orders and disposing of life and property. The rich man dreams the wealth that is the cause of his anxiety; the poor man dreams the poverty and need from which he suffers. I too dream that I am here laden with chains, and in by-gone days I dreamt that I was happy. Our dreams are but dreams within a dream."

So our world may be compared with the cave of which Plato speaks in the Seventh Book of the Republic. In the conversation between Dr Hodgson and George Pelham, when George Pelham promised that if he were the first to die and if he found that he had another life he would do all that he could to prove its existence, they referred to the old Platonic myth. In the communications of the so-called George Pelham allusion was made to the allegory, and that justifies me in briefly recalling it.

Plato imagines prisoners who from their birth have been enchained in a dark cave in such a way that they are not able either to move or to turn their heads, and can only look straight in front of them. Behind and above the captives a great fire burns, and between the fire and the captives men pass to and fro carrying in their hands vessels, statues, images of animals and plants, and many other objects. The shadows of these men and of the objects that they carry are thrown upon that wall of the cavern which is opposite to the captives, who thus know nothing of the external world but these shadows which they take to be realities, and they spend their time discussing the shadows, naming them and classifying them.

One of the captives is carried off from the gloomy place and transported into the external world. At first the light dazzles him and he can distinguish nothing. But by degrees, as time goes on, his sight adapts itself to its surroundings and he learns to look upon the stars and moon, and the sun itself. When he has been brought back into the cave and again sits beside his companions, he takes part in their discussions and tries to make them understand that what they take for realities are only shadows. But they, confident in the results of their lengthy reflections on the subject, laugh him to scorn. The same thing would happen to a soul which had dwelt for a time in the world of spirit and had been brought back into the world of matter.

When Plato's captive is brought back into the cave, his eyes, no longer used to half-darkness, can distinguish nothing for some time; if he is questioned about the shadows of the passing objects he does not see them, and his answers are full of confusion. Perhaps something like this happens to the discarnate spirits who try to manifest themselves to us by borrowing the organism of a medium. Such at least is the suggestion of George Pelham; in that way he would explain the incoherence, the confusion, the false statements made by many of the communicating spirits:[71] "For us to get into communication with you, we have to enter into your sphere, as one like yourself asleep. This is just why we make mistakes as you call them, or get confused and muddled so to put it. I am not less intelligent now. But there are many difficulties. I am far clearer on all points than I was, shut up in the body. 'Don't view me with a critic's eye, but pass my imperfections by.'"

George Pelham also tells us how we may summon the spirits of those with whom we desire to communicate. The thoughts of his friends reach him; if he is to come and make himself manifest his friends must think of him. He adds that, so far from the communications being injurious to the communicating spirits or the sitters, they are positively to be desired.

On one occasion Dr Hodgson asked what became of the medium during the trance.[72]

George Pelham.—"She passes out as your ethereal goes out when you sleep."

Dr Hodgson.—"Well, do you see that there is a conflict, because the brain substance is, so to speak, saturated with her tendencies of thought?"

George Pelham.—"No, not that, but the solid substance called brain—it is difficult to control it simply because it is material; her mind leaves the brain empty as it were, and I myself, or other spiritual mind or thought, take the empty brain, and there is where and when the conflict arises."

All this is very unintelligible in the present condition of our knowledge. But here is another passage even less intelligible and one which in its naivete almost suggests that the speaker is playing with us. George Pelham says to his friend James Howard at the first sitting at which James Howard was present:[73] "Your voice, Jim, I can distinguish with your accent and articulation, but it sounds like a big brass drum. Mine would sound to you like the faintest whisper."

J. Howard.—"Our conversation, then, is something like telephoning?"

George Pelham.—"Yes."

J. Howard.—"By long-distance telephone."

George Pelham laughs.

Understand who may! Are these only analogies? One does not know what to think. Another difficult thing to understand is the "weakness" which the spirits complain that they feel, especially towards the end of the sittings. George Pelham actually says that we must not demand from spirits just what they have not got, namely, strength. If the spirits mean that the medium's "light" grows weak and no longer provides them with the unknown something that they require in order to communicate, why do they not express themselves more clearly?

It will perhaps be thought that I have dwelt a little too long on what I have called the philosophy of George Pelham. I have thought it best to do so, and there is no harm done so long as I leave it to my readers to believe as much as they like.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 301.

[64] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiv. p. 18.

[65] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi. p. 315.

[66] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 301.

[67] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiv. p. 36.

[68] In another sitting W. S. Moses says that, as he held this view very strongly in life, he felt sure that he had been told it by his spirit-guides.

[69] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 305, 306.

[70] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 362.

[71] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 362, 363.

[72] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 434.

[73] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 301.



CHAPTER XII

William Stainton Moses—What George Pelham thinks of him—How Imperator and his assistants have replaced Phinuit.

For those of my readers who are unacquainted with spiritualist literature, and in order to facilitate the understanding of what follows, I must give a short sketch of the life of the English medium, William Stainton Moses. He was born in 1839, and died in 1892. He studied at Oxford, and was then curate at Maughold, near Ramsey, in the Isle of Man. His great kindness made him beloved by all his parishioners there. When an epidemic of smallpox drove even the doctors away, he remained faithfully at his post, caring for bodies and comforting souls. But he had precarious health, and was overworked at Maughold. He obtained another curacy, where there was less work, at Saint George's, Douglas, also in the Isle of Man. It was at Douglas that the friendship, broken only by death, was formed between him and Dr Stanhope Speer. A throat-affection soon after prevented his preaching, and he left the service of the Church to give himself up to teaching. He went to London, where he became tutor to the son of Dr Stanhope Speer, who was living there. Finally, at the beginning of 1871, he obtained a mastership in University College School, and there he remained till 1889.

Till 1872 William Stainton Moses knew nothing of spiritualism. If he had vaguely heard of it, he had no doubt hastened to condemn the new superstition which carried off sheep from his flock.

However, in 1872, Mrs Speer, being ill and confined to her room, read Dale Owen's book, The Debatable Land. The book interested her, and she asked Stainton Moses to read it. He did so, but only to please his friend's wife. Nevertheless he became curious to know how much truth there might be in the matter. He visited mediums, and took Dr Speer with him, and both were soon convinced that here was a new force.

It was at the time when spiritualistic phenomena were attracting much attention in the United States and England, and when learned bodies were appealed to from all sides to put an end to these phantasmagoria. It was the period when the materialised apparition of Katie King appeared and talked to numerous spectators who came from widely separated places. Sir William Crookes could see her and photograph her as much as he pleased; heedless of his environment, he published what seemed to him the truth.

Thereupon the man whose brain had till then been considered one of the most lucid and best organised which humanity has produced, lost considerably in the opinion of his contemporaries. But no doubt the future will avenge him.

The Speer family and Stainton Moses now began to hold sittings by themselves. Stainton Moses[74] at once showed himself to be an extraordinarily powerful medium. Neither he nor anybody else had suspected this mediumship till now. Many other mediumships have been revealed in the same way, suddenly, by experiment. This shows that faculties, valuable for the study of these disturbing problems, may exist in some of us who least expect it.

The physical phenomena which occurred in the presence of Stainton Moses were numerous and varied.

These phenomena cannot be due to the subconsciousness of Stainton Moses, and they seem to point to external intervention more clearly than do the communications he has left us. The best known of these communications is entitled Spirit Teachings. It is a long dialogue between self-styled disincarnated spirits and Stainton Moses. Stainton Moses also wrote automatically without being entranced. Spirit Teachings, among other things, was obtained in this way. The medium is still saturated with his theological education; he discusses, he cavils, and his spirit-guides show him the absurdity of a great part of his beliefs. We know that his robust faith began to be shaken by doubt about the time when his mediumship revealed itself. If we left the above-mentioned phenomena out of consideration, we might not unreasonably be tempted to see in these dialogues only a doubling of personality; on one hand the personality of the clergyman defending his doctrines foot by foot, on the other hand the personality of the reasoning man formulating his own objections to them.

The self-styled spirit-guides of Stainton Moses formed a united group obeying one chief, who called himself Imperator. Rector, Doctor, Prudens, were his subordinates. Naturally, they asserted they were the souls of men who had lived on earth; the above names were borrowed for the circumstance; their real names were revealed to Stainton Moses, who wrote them in one of his note-books, but always refused to publish them. I beg the reader to observe this detail, which will become important later.

Stainton Moses had the temperament of an apostle but not at all that of a man of science. The contents of the messages interested him much more than their origin. The former clergyman liked better to discuss a doubtful text than patiently to accumulate facts while guarding himself in all possible ways against fraud. Certainly he was scrupulously honourable; no conscious falsehood ever passed his lips, but his temperament makes his interpretations doubtful, and with reason. He was one of the first members of the Society for Psychical Research, but the methods which the Society adopted from the beginning were not of a kind to please him; for his part, he believed that abundant proofs already existed, and he saw no use in minutely examining a large number of small facts.

Dr Speer's son, whom Stainton Moses had taught, praises his judgment, his modesty, his inexhaustible charity. Modest he really was, and it never occurred to him to be vain of the miraculous phenomena which occurred in his presence; he never thought of making a venal use of his mediumship. Although he published his communications, he hardly ever published reports of his phenomena. It was Frederic Myers who published these from the note-books of the Speer family and of Stainton Moses himself. The notes are in agreement, although they were made separately, and without any idea of publication.

The son of Dr Speer asserts that Stainton Moses never refused a discussion, and never despised an opponent. But, on the other hand, Frederic Myers, who knew him well, assures us that he bore contradiction badly, and was quickly irritated by it. The manner in which he retired from the Society for Psychical Research tends to prove that it is Myers who is right. The son of Dr Speer, in his gratitude to his former master, must have deceived himself.

I will now explain the reason of this long preamble about Stainton Moses. At a sitting which took place on June 19, 1895, Professor Newbold, conversing with George Pelham, obtained from him the enunciation of doctrines which contradicted those given by Stainton Moses in Spirit Teachings. Professor Newbold[75] then asked,—

"Do you know of Stainton Moses?"

George Pelham.—"No, not very much. Why?"

Professor Newbold.—"Did you ever know of him or know what he did?"

G. P.—"I only have an idea from having met him here."

Professor N.—"Can you tell me what he said?"

G. P.—"No, only that he was W. Stainton Moses. I found him for E.[76] and Hodgson."

Professor N.—"Did you tell Hodgson this?"

G. P.—"I do not think so."

At the sitting on the next day, Professor Newbold returns to the charge.

"Can you bring Stainton Moses here?"

G. P.—"I will do my best."

Professor N.—"Is he far advanced?"

G. P.—"Oh, no, I should say not. He will have to think for a while yet."

Professor N.—"What do you mean?"

G. P.—"Well, have you forgotten all I told you before?"

Professor N.—"You mean about progression by repentance?"

G. P.—"Certainly I do."

Professor N.—"Was not he good?"

G. P.—"Yes, but not perfect by any means."

Professor N.—"Was he a true medium?"

G. P.—"True, yes, very true; his 'light' was very true, yet he made a great many mistakes and deceived himself."

Phinuit, sent to find Stainton Moses, ends by bringing him. George Pelham warns the sitter against the confusions and incoherences of Stainton Moses's communications. "When he arrives," says George Pelham, "I will wake him up."

Professor N.—"Is he asleep?"

G. P.—"Oh, Billie, you are stupid, I fear, at times. I do not mean wake him up in a material sense."

Professor N.—"Nor did I."

G. P.—"Well, then, old man, don't be wasting light."

Professor N.—"I'm not wasting light, but I am obliged to find out what you mean."

G. P.—"Well, this is what I wish also."

Professor N.—"Stainton Moses has been nearly three years in the spirit.... Do you mean to say that he is not yet free from confusion?"

These explanatory passages would be of great value if we were sure that we were not dealing with a secondary personality of Mrs Piper.

Later still, George Pelham returns to the probable mental confusion of Stainton Moses, and to the necessity for taking certain precautions in order to obtain clear communications. He was quite right. These sittings, in which Stainton Moses was the self-styled communicator, are exactly those which make the spiritualist hypothesis most difficult to accept. All the exact information given existed already in the minds of those present; all the rest was untrue. Stainton Moses had an excellent chance of proving his identity. We have said that he had written down the real names of his "spirit-guides" or "controls" in one of his note-books. At the time these sittings were taking place in America, Frederic Myers, in England, was studying these note-books in order to publish so much of them as he thought fit. He knew these names, but I believe he was the only person in the world who knew them. Stainton Moses was told, "Give us the names of your spirit-guides; it will be a splendid proof. Mr Myers knows them, but we do not. We will send them to him, and if they are correct we shall no longer be able to have a reasonable doubt of your identity." The self-styled Stainton Moses seemed perfectly to understand what was asked of him; he gave the names, and every one of them was wrong.

In October 1896 Dr Hodgson made George Pelham understand the necessity of obtaining exact information from Stainton Moses, in order that the problem, which seemed to interest George Pelham as much as it did Dr Hodgson, might be solved. Stainton Moses then said that he would ask the help of his former spirit-guides. The latter communicated directly several times, in November and December 1896 and in January 1897. But finally they demanded that the "light" of the medium should be put at their exclusive disposal. Imperator explained that these unconsidered experiments with all sorts of spirits—more or less undeveloped and disturbed—as communicators, had made Mrs Piper as a medium into a machine "worn out," and incapable of being really useful. He, Imperator, and his friends would be able to restore her in time. But they must have the right to keep away such communicators as they should judge likely to injure her again. Dr Hodgson explained the importance of trying this experiment to Mrs Piper in her normal state. Mrs Piper, docile as usual, consented. The last appearance of Phinuit occurred on January 26, 1897. Phinuit had formerly said, "They find fault with me, they won't understand that I do all I can, but when they do not hear my voice any longer they will regret me." However, he is not regretted. Whoever the controls Imperator, Rector, Doctor and Prudens may be, since they have controlled the communications, these have acquired a coherence, clearness and exactness unknown before; errors are rare, and evident falsehood unknown. Besides, Mrs Piper enters the trance differently. Formerly there was more or less painful struggle; she had violent convulsions and spasmodic movements; at present she enters the trance quietly, as if she were falling asleep.

If, in truth, Mrs Piper entranced is merely an automaton, a "machine," of which use is made to communicate between two worlds, it is perfectly evident that, on this side as well as the other, it is well to have honourable and experienced experimenters. Phinuit was not perhaps wanting in experience, but he was assuredly wanting in honesty; or possibly he did not perceive the extreme importance of veracity in these matters; he did not lie for the pleasure of lying, but he did not hesitate to lie, if needs were, to escape from some difficulty.

The new report of Professor Hyslop, which I am about briefly to analyse, will show us the new phase of Mrs Piper's mediumship. The results are already good. Imperator asserts nevertheless that the "machine" still needs repair, and that he will obtain still more wonderful results by-and-by.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] For an account of the mediumship of W. Stainton Moses the reader is referred to Mr F. W. H. Myers's articles in the Proc. of S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 245, and vol. xi. p. 24.

[75] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiv. p. 36.

[76] Another communicator.



CHAPTER XIII

Professor Hyslop and the journalists—The so-called "confession" of Mrs Piper—Precautions taken by Professor Hyslop during his experiments—Impressions of the sittings.

The last report[77] we possess of the phenomena accompanying Mrs Piper's trance is that of Professor James Hervey Hyslop, of Columbia University, New York. This report appeared in November 1901. The minutes of the sittings, the notes, the remarks of the sitter, the discussion of hypotheses, the account of experiments made at the University in order to throw light on certain points, all together make a report of 650 pages of close reading. It refers, notwithstanding, only to sixteen sittings, of which the first took place on December 23, 1898. But the smallest incidents and the slightest arguments are scrupulously weighed. It is, in short, a work of considerable extent.

Professor Hyslop has an absolutely sincere and very lucid mind. It is a pleasure to follow him through this mass of facts and arguments; everything is scrupulously classified, and the whole is illuminated by a high intelligence. Professor Hyslop occupies with good right an eminent place amongst the thinkers of the United States. Besides his classes, he gives numerous lectures, which are well attended.

The report he has published has been long waited for. As he is a man of mark and has long occupied himself with Psychical Research, the inquisitive journalists on the other side of the Atlantic quickly found out that he had been experimenting with Mrs Piper. He was interviewed; he was prudent, and contented himself with recommending the reporters to study the preceding reports published upon the same case. But reporters are not so easily contented; they have to satisfy an exacting master in the public, which wants to know everything, and which would cease to purchase any paper simple enough to say, "I have done all I could to get information on this point for you, but I have failed." The public will have none of such honesty as that, though if a falsehood is offered, it is not angry; in the first place, because at the moment it does not recognise the falsehood, and in the second, because by the time it finds out it is busy over something else. Consequently, as they must live, journalists find themselves sometimes obliged to invent. So the reporters put into Professor Hyslop's mouth the following sensational words, "In a year I shall be able to demonstrate the immortality of the soul scientifically." These words were reproduced by the greater number of the American papers and by a large number of English ones. Specialist publications in France in their turn commented on them. It will be understood with what eagerness the report was expected after this by all men interested in psychical studies. They have not been disappointed. Professor Hyslop is too modest for such unbounded pretension; he knows that the great problem will not be solved at one stroke, nor by one man. "I do not claim," he says, "to demonstrate anything scientifically, not even the facts I offer." This phrase does not at all resemble the declaration put into his mouth. But if he has not definitively and scientifically proved the immortality of the soul, he has approached the problem very nearly and thrown a vivid light on more than one point. In any case the journalists have advertised him thoroughly, perhaps without intending it.

Speaking of journalists, I must relate another quite recent incident, which is interesting to us, as it concerns Mrs Piper personally. One of the editors of the New York Herald interviewed Mrs Piper and on October 20, 1901, published an article somewhat speciously entitled, "The Confessions of Mrs Leonora Piper." In this article it was stated that Mrs Piper intended to give up the work she had been doing for the S.P.R. in order to devote herself to other and more congenial pursuits, that it was on account of her own desire to understand the phenomena that she first allowed her trances to be investigated and placed herself in the hands of scientific men, with the understanding that she should submit to any tests they chose to apply, and that now, after fourteen years' work, the subject not being yet cleared up, she felt disinclined for further investigation. Her own view of the phenomena was expressed in this article as follows:—"The theory of telepathy strongly appeals to me as the most plausible and genuinely scientific solution of the problem.... I do not believe that spirits of the dead have spoken through me when I have been in the trance state.... It may be that they have, but I do not affirm it.... I never heard of anything being said by myself during a trance which might not have been latent in my own mind or in the mind of the person in charge of the sitting, or in the mind of the person trying to get communication with someone in another state of existence, or of some companion present with such a person, or in the mind of some absent person alive somewhere else in the world."

In the Boston Advertiser of October 25, 1901, there appeared a statement dictated by Mrs Piper to a representative of the paper, saying that she had made no such statement as that published in the New York Herald to the effect that "spirits of the departed do not control" her, and later in the Boston Journal for October 29, 1901, there appeared an account of interviews with Dr Hodgson and Mrs Piper, in which Mrs Piper stated that though she had said "something to the effect that" she "would never hold another sitting with Mr Hodgson," and that she "would die first" to a New York Herald reporter the summer before, when she gave the original interview, she now intended, regardless of whatever may have been said, to go on with the present arrangement with Dr Hodgson and the Society as formerly. She still held and expressed the view that the manifestations are not spiritualistic, and felt that the telepathic theory is more probable than the spiritualistic hypothesis.

It will be seen that in none of these reports is there any justification for the somewhat sensational use of the word "Confessions" in the original article. Mrs Piper made no statements, as the use of that word suggests, concerning the source of her knowledge; she expressed her preference for one of two hypothetical explanations of the origin of that knowledge. No question was raised in the original article as to Mrs Piper's honesty or as to the genuineness of her trance phenomena; on the contrary she is represented by the reporter of the New York Herald as holding a view of those phenomena which asserts that they are not fraudulent. She expresses her personal preference for the telepathic hypothesis rather than the spiritualist hypothesis as an explanation of them; on this point it should be remembered that the medium is not in a more favourable position for forming an opinion than those who sit with her, since she does not remember what passes while she is in trance, and is therefore dependent for her knowledge on the reports of the sitters.

The allegation of the New York Herald as to her intention to discontinue the sittings was unfounded; after a suspension of some months owing to the state of her health, she gave a sitting to Dr Hodgson on October 21, the day after the article in the Herald appeared, and it was then arranged to resume the sittings after a further interval of three months. This has been done, and Mrs Piper gave sittings to Dr Hodgson all through the spring of last year, and is still doing so through the winter of 1902-1903.

The reader will excuse this digression on a subject which made some stir at the time, and is interesting as throwing light on the medium's own attitude towards her trance phenomena.

To return to Professor Hyslop's report.

Professor Hyslop told only his wife and Dr Hodgson of his intention to have sittings with Mrs Piper. The days were fixed, not with Mrs Piper in the normal state, but with Imperator, the chief of the present controls, while she was in trance. Now we must never forget that Mrs Piper has no recollection of what happens during the trance. Professor Hyslop's name was not given to Imperator; Dr Hodgson called him the "four times friend," because Professor Hyslop had at first asked for four sittings. I should not call this a transparent pseudonym.

Professor Hyslop had once been present at one of Mrs Piper's sittings, and his name had been pronounced. Although there seemed to be small chance of her recognising him, as the sitting had taken place six years before, and Professor Hyslop did not then wear a beard as he now does, he put on a mask while he was in a closed carriage at some distance from Mrs Piper's house. He kept on his mask during the first two sittings, and then the precaution became useless, because his father's name was pronounced by Mrs Piper at the end of the second. Dr Hodgson presented him as Mr Smith, which name is given to all new sitters. Professor Hyslop never spoke before Mrs Piper in her normal state, except twice to utter short sentences, and he took pains to change his voice as much as possible. He avoided all contact with the medium throughout all the sitting. Most of the facts were obtained from the communicators without previous questioning. When Professor Hyslop was obliged to ask a question, he did so in such a way that it did not contain a suggestion of the answer. To prevent Mrs Piper's seeing him during the sitting, he kept always behind her right shoulder, the easiest position too for reading the writing.

But when we recollect that Mrs Piper's head is always buried in pillows during the trance, we shall think this a superfluous precaution.

As I have said in the preceding chapter, Phinuit no longer manifests. This is what now appears to take place on the "other side." Rector places himself in the "machine," and it is he who produces the automatic writing. This Rector seems to have had much experience of these phenomena. The communicator comes close to Rector and speaks to him, in whatever manner spirits may speak. Imperator remains outside the "machine," and prevents the approach of all those likely to injure it, or who have nothing to do with the sitter. Besides, before he allows a communicator to enter the "machine," he gives him advice as to what he should do, and helps him to arrange and clear up his ideas. Imperator's two other helpers, Doctor and Prudens, appear but rarely. George Pelham appears sometimes, when his services are needed.

The communicators were few in number during Professor Hyslop's sixteen sittings. They were, his father, Robert Hyslop, who gave much the most important communications; his uncle, Carruthers; his cousin, Robert Harvey MacClellan; his brother Charles, who died in 1864, aged four years and a half; his sister Annie, who also died in 1864, aged three years; his uncle, James MacClellan; and lastly, another MacClellan named John.

Professor Hyslop's father, Robert Hyslop, is the communicator who takes up the greater part of the sittings. But he cannot remain long in the "machine," he complains of having his ideas confused, of suffocating or getting weak; for example, he says, "I am getting weak, James, I am going away for a moment; wait for me." During these absences Imperator sends another member of the family in his place "so that the light may not be wasted." It would thus seem that the "weakness" which the spirits complain of is only a feeling they have when they have been in contact with the "machine" for a certain time; Imperator says that then they are like a sick and delirious man. This explains the words of George Pelham, "You must not ask of us just what we have not got—strength." But it is indispensable to say that the former communicators did not explain enough about this weakness; and they were not sufficiently well inspired to go out when they felt it coming on. Dr Hodgson at last, having often remarked this semi-delirium of the communicators towards the end of a sitting, when the light was failing, succeeded in suggesting to them to go away when they felt themselves getting weak. The possibility of this suggestion is interesting to those who prefer the hypothesis of telepathy.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] Professor Hyslop's report is contained in Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi.



CHAPTER XIV

The communications of Mr Robert Hyslop—Peculiar expressions—Incidents.

After we have read the report of Professor Hyslop, weighed the slightest facts with him, discussed the arguments for and against with him, we cannot be surprised at his having ended by adhering to the spiritualist hypothesis; in other words, we cannot be surprised that, in spite of his previous prejudice, he should have ended by exclaiming, "I have been talking with my father, my brother, my uncles. Whatever supernormal powers we may be pleased to attribute to Mrs Piper's secondary personalities, it would be difficult to make me believe that these secondary personalities could have thus completely reconstituted the mental personality of my dead relatives. To admit this would involve me in too many improbabilities. I prefer to believe that I have been talking to my dead relatives in person; it is simpler." This is the conclusion at which Professor Hyslop has arrived, and he takes the reader with him, in spite of himself. As may be imagined, I do not pretend to do the same in a hurried sketch like the present. Here, as was the case with George Pelham, the incidents quoted are only examples selected from a great number; some important detail of the said incidents may even be accidentally omitted. If the forgotten detail lays the incident open to some great objection, the reader must blame me only for it, and turn to Professor Hyslop's book for himself.[78]

Professor Hyslop's father, Mr Robert Hyslop, was a private person in the strictest sense of the word; he never did anything to attract public attention to him; he did not write in the papers, and never, or hardly ever, lived in towns. He was born in 1821, and lived on his farm in Ohio till 1889, when he went into a neighbouring State. He returned to his old home in August 1896, ill with a sort of cancer of the larynx. The old home then belonged to his brother-in-law, James Carruthers, and he died there on the 29th of the same month. In 1860 he had contracted a spinal affection, the result of over-exertion, and this had degenerated, some years later, into locomotor ataxy; he lost by degrees the use of one of his legs and used a crutch; there was afterwards an improvement, but he could never walk without a stick. In 1876 he had a slight attack of apoplexy, which affected his hearing, one ear being quite deaf. Three years before his death he further had the misfortune to lose his voice, probably from paralysis of the larynx. A year before his death a fresh affliction was added to all the others; he thought it was catarrh, but it was probably cancer of the larynx; and it was accompanied by frequent spasms which threatened his life.

In short, for thirty-five years at least, Mr Robert

Hyslop was an invalid. His life was by necessity passed indoors, or at least on his farm. This life was necessarily without events calculated to attract a stranger's notice. There was consequently very little possibility that the medium could obtain information about him by normal means. But when an obscure man like Mr Robert Hyslop returns from the Beyond to establish his identity by relating a number of small facts, too slight and unimportant to have been observed outside his intimate circle, such a man furnishes us with a much stronger presumption in favour of a future life than a personage in public life could do. Even if the latter only reported incidents of his private life, it would be easier to suppose that the medium had been able to procure them. During nearly all his life, but principally during the last twenty years, the thoughts of Mr Robert Hyslop turned on a small number of subjects—his solicitude for his family; the administration of his farm, which gave him much care; the fulfilment of his religious duties, in which he never failed; and lastly, political events, which much interested him, because they naturally reacted upon his private affairs. Consequently the greater part of the facts I shall quote belonged to one or other of these four categories of his preoccupations.

But, to begin with, it will be useful to speak of a point which characterises an individual as clearly as his features do—I mean his speech. Each of us has his own language, his familiar expressions; each of us expresses himself in his own way under given circumstances. When Buffon said "the style is the man," he expressed an absolute truth. When somebody talks to us by telephone, without giving his name, we say, without a shade of hesitation, "It is So-and-so. I know him by his style." I repeat that everybody has this individuality of expression; it is, however, less marked in educated people. But men only slightly cultivated use stereotyped expressions, above all when they are growing old; the language of some of them is almost entirely composed of aphorisms and proverbs. If Mr Robert Hyslop did not altogether belong to this class, he yet, his son tells us, used particular expressions, and always the same in analogous cases; some of them indeed were altogether peculiar to him.

Now, when he communicates through Mrs Piper, he uses the same language that he used when alive. Professor Hyslop has incessantly occasion to remark, "This expression is quite like my father; he would have used it when he was alive in such a case." There is even a passage of the communications so characteristic in this way that it is nearly too much so; it would almost suggest fraud. I will reproduce one of these passages.[79] "Keep quiet, don't worry about anything, as I used to say. It does not pay. You are not the strongest man, you know, and health is important for you. Cheer up now and be quite yourself. Remember it does not pay, and life is too short there for you to spend it in worrying. What you cannot have, be content without, but do not worry, and not for me. Devoted you were to me always, and I have nothing to complain of except your uneasy temperament, and that I will certainly help."

When a father has repeated the same advice in the same terms hundreds of times in his life, and when, after his death, he repeats it again through an intermediary, it must certainly be difficult to say, "That is not he; it is not my father."

I should much like to give the reader the greatest possible number of these small facts, which convince us almost in spite of ourselves. But it is impossible to do so without surrounding them with commentaries indispensable to bring out all their importance. Thus, Mr Robert had a horse named Tom, an old and faithful servant. It had grown too old to work, but he would not kill it. He pensioned it, so to speak, and left it to die a natural death on the farm. At one sitting he asks, "Where is Tom?" and as James Hyslop did not understand what Tom he was speaking of, the communicator added, "Tom, the horse, what has become of him?"

Mr Robert Hyslop wrote with quill pens, which he trimmed himself; he had often trimmed them for his son James. He recalls this detail about the quill pens at one of the sittings.

He was very bald, and had complained of feeling his head cold during the night. His wife made him a black cap which he wore once. At one of the sittings he spoke of this cap. James Hyslop, who had been away from home a long time, had never heard of any black cap. But he wrote to his step-mother, who corroborated the statement.

At another sitting the communicator, Robert Hyslop, said that there were always two bottles on his desk, one round and one square. Professor Hyslop was ignorant of this detail, as of the preceding. His step-mother, when questioned, had difficulty in remembering this, but his brother recalled it at once; the round bottle held ink and the square one contained gum.

Another time Robert Hyslop asks, "Do you remember the penknife I cut my nails with?" "No, father, not very well." "The little penknife with the brown handle. I had it in my vest and then coat pocket. You certainly must remember it?" "Was this after you went west?" "Yes." Professor Hyslop was unaware of the existence of this penknife. He wrote separately to his step-mother, brother and sister, asking them if their father had possessed a brown-handled penknife with which he cut his nails, without telling them why he wanted this information. All three replied, "Yes, we have it still." But it appears that Mr Robert Hyslop did not keep the knife either in his coat or waistcoat pockets, but in his trousers pocket.

These little facts will suffice as examples. I will go on to more important ones.

Mr Robert Hyslop had a son who had caused him much anxiety all his life. He had often talked of these anxieties to his favourite son James, and had died carrying them with him into the grave. He speaks of them repeatedly during the sittings exactly as he did in life. "Don't you remember, James, that we often talked of your brother and the trouble he gave us? Don't worry about it any more, all will go well now, and if I know that you do not worry I shall be all right."

He remembers all the members of his family and names them correctly, except for two odd mistakes of which I shall speak later. He alludes to incidents in the lives, and traits in the characters of each of them. He sends them expressions of affection, "Have I forgotten anybody, James, my son? I should not like to forget anybody." He specially asks after his youngest child, Henrietta; he wants to know if she has succeeded in her examinations, and he expresses delight when he hears that, on the whole, life promises well for her.

Mr Robert Hyslop was an orthodox Calvinist; he belonged to the small, very strict sect of Associate Presbyterians and refused to join the United Presbyterian Church in 1858. He was extremely rigid in religious matters. When he caused his son James to be educated, he hoped the latter would become a minister, though he left him free choice. When he saw his son modify his religious beliefs he was very much pained. By degrees, however, he became resigned. It is easy to understand from all this that religious preoccupations were in the foreground in his mind. He often talked of religion to his family, he read the Bible and numerous commentaries on it, and sometimes, rather than allow his family to go to the church of a less orthodox sect, he himself preached to them at home. Consequently, if he had not alluded to his former religious life during the sittings, the omission might have caused a grave doubt of his identity. But this is not the case; he constantly alludes to his ancient religious ideas.

At one of the first sittings he says, for example, "Do you remember what my feeling was about this life? Well, I was not so far wrong after all. I felt sure that there would be some knowledge of this life but you were doubtful, remember you had your own ideas, which were only yours, James."

This last phrase, "You have your own ideas," Professor Hyslop remarks, had been often repeated to him by his father in his lifetime. "He meant that I was the only one of his children who was sceptical, and this was true." Robert Hyslop's former religious ideas were the cause of a strange incident. One day Dr Hodgson said to him, "Mr Hyslop, you ought to look for my father and make friends with him. He had religious ideas like yours. I think you would understand each other very well, and I should be pleased." At a following sitting the communicator said to Dr Hodgson, "I have met your father; we talked, and we liked each other very much, but he was not very orthodox when he was alive." Dr Hodgson's father was really a Wesleyan—that is to say, he belonged to a very liberal sect. But in another place Robert Hyslop adds, "Orthodoxy does not matter here; I should have changed my mind about many things if I had known." In another sitting he says to his son, alluding to the telepathic hypothesis, "Let that thought theory alone. I made theories all my life, and what good did it do me? It only filled my mind with doubts." In short, it appears that Robert Hyslop, the rigid Calvinist, has greatly modified his views since he has been disincarnated.

At the last visit Professor Hyslop paid to his father, in January or February 1895, a long conversation took place between them on religious and philosophical subjects. Professor Hyslop spoke of his psychical studies. The possibility of communication between the two worlds was discussed at length, and Swedenborg and his works were mentioned. During the sittings Robert Hyslop constantly returns to this conversation, which had made a profound impression on him; much more profound than would have been expected, considering his religious views. He recalls the points which were discussed by him and his son one after another, and adds, "You remember I promised to come back to you after I had left the body, and I have been trying to find an opportunity ever since." Now, no such promise had been made explicitly. But James Hyslop had written to his father on his deathbed, "Father, when all is over, you will try to come back to me." Robert Hyslop must from that moment have resolved to return if possible; and he must have believed he had told his son so, which was not the case.

When he was living in Ohio, Mr Robert Hyslop had a neighbour named Samuel Cooper. One day Cooper's dogs killed some sheep belonging to Robert Hyslop. An estrangement followed, which lasted several years. At one of the sittings in which Dr Hodgson represented Professor Hyslop, he asked a question which the latter had sent him in writing. Professor Hyslop hoped the question would turn his father's attention to the incidents of his life in Ohio. The question was, "Do you remember Samuel Cooper, and can you say anything about him?" The communicator replied, "James refers to the old friend I had in the West. I remember the visits we used to make to each other well, and the long talks we had concerning philosophical topics." At another sitting, when Dr Hodgson was again alone, he returned to the same idea. "I had a friend named Cooper who was of a philosophical turn of mind and for whom I had great respect, with whom I had some friendly discussion and correspondence. I had some of his letters ... you will find them." Another time, when Professor Hyslop was present, he said, "I am trying to remember Cooper's school." The next day he returns to the point, "You asked me, James, what I knew about Cooper. Did you think I was no longer friend of his? I had kept some of his letters; and I think they were with you." In all this there was not a trace of Samuel Cooper, and Professor Hyslop did not know what to think. He therefore put a direct question in order to bring his father back to the point he had in mind. "I wanted to know if you remembered anything about the dogs killing sheep?" "Oh, I should think I did ... but I had forgotten all about it. That was what we had the discussion about.... Yes, very well, James, but just what you asked me this for I could not quite make out as he was no relation of mine ... if I could have recalled what you were getting at I would have tried to tell you. He is here, but I see him seldom." This episode is interesting. All that Robert Hyslop said at first about Cooper has nothing to do with Samuel Cooper, but is entirely true of an old friend of his, Dr Joseph Cooper. Robert Hyslop had really had many philosophical discussions with him, and they had corresponded. Professor Hyslop had perhaps heard his name, but did not know that he was an old friend of his father. It was his step-mother who told him this, in the course of an inquiry he made amongst his relatives to clear up doubtful incidents in the sittings. We see that disincarnated beings are capable of misunderstanding as well as ourselves.

But the following is the most dramatic incident. Professor Hyslop, remembering that his father had thought his last illness catarrh, while he himself believed it to be cancer of the larynx, asked the communicator a question aimed at bringing up the word "catarrh." He asked, "Do you know what the trouble was when you passed out?" The double meaning of the word "trouble" caused a curious misunderstanding, which the telepathic hypothesis will find it difficult to explain.

The communicator replied in distress, "No, I did not realise that we had the least trouble, James, ever. I thought we were always most congenial to each other. I do not remember any trouble—tell me what it was about? You do not mean with me, do you?" "Father, you misunderstand me. I mean with the sickness." "Oh, yes, I hear—I know now. Yes, my stomach." "Yes, was there anything else the matter?" "Yes, stomach, liver and head—difficult to breathe. My heart, James, made me suffer. Don't you remember what a trouble I had to breathe? I think it was my heart which made me suffer the most—my heart and my lungs. Tightness of the chest—my heart failed me; but at last I went to sleep." A little further on he says, "Do you know, the last thing I recall is your speaking to me. And you were the last to do so. I remember seeing your face; but I was too weak to answer."

This dialogue at first disconcerted Professor Hyslop. He had tried to make his father tell the name of the malady from which the latter thought he suffered—catarrh. It was only when he read over the notes of the sitting, a little later, that he perceived all at once that his father had been describing the last hours of his life in the terms habitual to him. Professor Hyslop had been mistaken again. The doctor had noticed pain in the stomach at 7 a.m. The heart action began to decline at 9.30; this was shortly followed by terrible difficulty in breathing, and death followed. When his father's eyelids fell, James Hyslop said, "He is gone," and he was the last to speak. This last incident seems to indicate that consciousness in the dying lasts much longer than is believed.

Soon after Professor Hyslop asked his father if he remembered some special medicine he had sent him from New York. The communicator had much trouble in remembering the very strange name of this medicine, but ended by giving it, though incorrectly spelled.

During the first fifteen sittings Professor Hyslop had asked as few questions as possible, and when he was obliged to do so, he had so expressed them that they should not contain the answer. But at the 16th sitting he abandoned this reserve intentionally. He wished to see what the result would be if he took the same tone with the communicator as is taken with a friend in flesh and blood. Professor Hyslop says, "The result was that I talked with my disincarnated father with as much ease as if I were talking with him living, through the telephone. We understood each other at a hint, as in an ordinary conversation." They spoke of everything—of a fence which Robert Hyslop was thinking of repairing when he died; of the taxes he had left unpaid; of the cares two of his children had caused him, one of whom had never given him much satisfaction, while the other was an invalid; of the election of President M'Kinley and of many other things.

Can it be said that there were no inexact statements made by the communicator during all these sittings? There are some, but very few. I shall speak of them in the following chapter. In any case, there is no trace of a single intentional untruth in the whole sixteen sittings.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi. In what follows here there is no attempt to give the actual words of Professor Hyslop's communicators. Trans.

[79] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi. p. 40.



CHAPTER XV

The "influence" again—Other incidents—Statistics.

At this point I must return to a fact which is surprising on any hypothesis we may prefer: the utility of presenting to the medium objects which have belonged to the person from whom we wish to obtain the supposed communications. Phinuit used to say that he found the "influence" of the dead persons on these objects, and the "influence" was all the stronger if the object had been worn or carried long, and if it had passed through few hands; different successive "influences" seem to weaken one another. I have said that we are totally ignorant of the nature of this "influence," but I have also said that it might not improbably be supposed to consist of vibrations left by our thoughts and feelings upon material objects. However this may be, Phinuit seemed to read this "influence," and draw from it the greater part of the information he gave. Generally, in spite of his affirmations to the contrary, he did not appear to be in direct relation with the communicators at all. Since the disappearance of the Phinuit regime and the appearance of that of Imperator, the presentation of small objects is still of use; but it must be remarked that it has never been indispensable, and that communicators often appear without having been attracted by any "influence." But under the present system the information received appears to be much less read from the "influence"; there is much more sense of the real presence of the communicators. Of what use, then, are the small objects given to the medium? Neither the controls nor the communicators have explained, which is a pity. Under the new system managed by Imperator and his helpers such small articles seem chiefly useful for "holding" the communicator, for preventing his going away, and for maintaining a certain cohesion in his thoughts. Rector constantly repeats, "Give me something to keep him and clear up his ideas." The communicator would apparently need a point de repere in order to remain at the desired place, and this point de repere would be furnished him by some object he has often used, the "influence" left on which he seems to perceive more clearly than anything else. According to George Pelham, we may also suppose that the communicator somehow perceives the mind of the sitter, but this mind is imprisoned in matter, and greatly clouded by it; the communicator only recognises the mind of the sitter when it is functioning actively, if I may thus express it; when the sitter is thinking, and, above all, thinking of the communicator. This is why, when the communicator perceives that his ideas are becoming confused, he constantly says reproachfully to the sitter, "Oh! why don't you speak? Say something to me, help me. You want me to work for you, but you will not do anything for me." The dead cousin of Professor Hyslop, Robert MacClellan, says to him, for example, "Speak to me, for Heaven's sake. Help me to reach you." Analogous passages are very numerous.

I return to Professor Hyslop's report. The most important communicator after his father during the sittings was his uncle Carruthers, whose name, however, was always mangled by Rector, and given as Clarke or Charles. This uncle had died only twenty days before the first sitting.[80] At his first communication he inquires anxiously about his wife Eliza, Robert Hyslop's sister, whom his death had left desolate. "It is I, James," he says to the inquirer. "Give my love to Eliza; tell her not to get discouraged, she will be better soon. I see her often in despair." Professor Hyslop asks, "Do you know why she grieves?" "Yes, because I left her; but I did not really leave her. I wish I could tell you all I would like ... you would not think I had left entirely. Will you comfort her? She ought not to be left lonely." "Yes, I will comfort her." "I am so glad!" At that time Professor Hyslop did not guess that his aunt was so completely alone and in such deep despair. He only found this out on inquiry.

I will quote another incident of "Uncle Carruthers'" communications, because on account of its stamp of vivid realism it is one of those which the telepathic hypothesis does not explain satisfactorily. Mr Carruthers suddenly perceives the presence of Dr Hodgson and says, "You are not Robert Hyslop's son, are you? You are not George."[81] Dr Hodgson replies, "No, I am not George." "No, James, I know you very well, but this one" (speaking again to Dr Hodgson), "Did you know the boys? Did you know me?"

I shall only quote one more incident of these interesting sittings. The communicator this time is Professor Hyslop's brother Charles, who died in 1864 aged four and a half. Robert Hyslop's last child had been born long after Charles's death. "James, I am your brother Charles. I am happy. Give my love to my new sister Henrietta. Tell her I shall know her some day. Our father often talks of her." A little further comes this curious phrase, "Our father would much like you to have his pictures, if you are still in the body, James."

I have said there were some inexact statements, but they are very few. I will quote two concerning proper names.

The family name of "Uncle Carruthers" could never be given properly. He was always called Uncle Charles or Clarke. The error is probably attributable to Rector, to whom the name Carruthers was not familiar.

The other mistake is odder still, though it may also be attributed to Rector. Robert Hyslop's second wife was named Margaret, familiarly called Maggie. Now, although it was impossible to misunderstand when Robert Hyslop was talking of his wife, this name Maggie never came correctly. Professor Hyslop waited a long time without rectifying the mistake; he waited for the communicator to perceive it and correct it himself, but this spontaneous correction was not made. At last he wanted the matter cleared up, and Dr Hodgson explained that the name of Professor Hyslop's step-mother had not been given. Rector, failing to understand, gave up his place to George Pelham, who began by administering a tolerably sharp scolding to the sitters. "Well, why do you not come out and say, Give me my step-mother's name, and not confuse him about anything except what you really want? By Jove! I remember how you confused me, and I don't want any more of it. I am going to find out, and if your step-mother has a name you shall have it." George Pelham went out of the "machine" and returned shortly, saying, "I do not see any reason for anxiety about Margaret." Margaret was really the name asked for, but one would have expected to obtain it in its more habitual form, Maggie. However, it is easy to understand that Robert Hyslop should not have given the familiar name of his wife to a stranger like George Pelham.

While Professor Hyslop was preparing his report, a number of his friends who knew of his researches asked him what proportion of truth and error he had met with in these manifestations. This frequently-repeated question suggested to him the idea of making tables in which this proportion should be made clear at a glance. This kind of statistics would be important for the class of persons who think themselves stronger-minded than the rest, and who tell you, "I only believe in the eloquence of figures." Such people do not realise that battalions of figures are like battalions of men, not always so strong as is supposed.

However, Professor Hyslop took all the "incidents" or statements made by the communicators and classed them according to the amount of truth or error they contained. He then divided the incidents into factors. I will give an example which will help me to define later on what Professor Hyslop means by incident and factor[82]: "My Aunt Susan visited my brother." This is an incident, or statement of a complete fact. This incident is composed of four factors which are not necessarily connected with one another. The first is my aunt, the second the name Susan, the third the visit, the fourth my brother. Therefore an incident may be defined as a name, a conception or a combination of conceptions forming an independent fact; it may be again a combination of possibly independent facts forming a single whole in the mind of the communicator. The factors would be the facts, names, actions, or events which do not necessarily suggest each other, or which are not necessarily suggested by a given name or fact.

Naturally, in tables constructed on these lines, the facts cannot be classified according to their importance as proofs; they can only be reckoned as true or false. Thus incidents which have only a restricted value as proofs are on a level with others which are in themselves very valuable as proofs. This is really the weak point of these statistics. The proofs need to be examined one by one, and not as a whole.

However, the tables have one advantage; the greatest sceptic, after a glance at them, can no longer invoke chance, the great Deus ex machina of the ignorant and indolent.

Professor Hyslop has constructed a table for each sitting, and a table of the sittings as a whole. I cannot reproduce these tables for the readers, who would require the notes of the sittings to understand them. I shall only give the definite results.

Thus, out of 205 incidents, 152 are classed as true, 37 as indeterminate, and only 16 as false. Out of the 927 factors composing these incidents, 717 are classed as true, 167 as indeterminate, and 43 as false.[83]

It should be said that Professor Hyslop has perhaps overestimated the number of false and unverifiable incidents. Many incidents or factors classed as false or unverifiable have been later found to be exact. And besides, the incidents of a transcendental and consequently unverifiable nature might have been omitted from these tables. But in this case again it has been thought better to give the false and doubtful facts full play. The reader must draw from these results whatever conclusion seems to him the most correct.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] See Professor Hyslop's Report, Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi. p. 90, etc., for "Carruthers."

[81] Name of one of Professor Hyslop's brothers.

[82] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi. p. 115.

[83] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xvi. p. 121.



CHAPTER XVI

Examination of the telepathic hypothesis—Some arguments which render its acceptance difficult.

I have mentioned in passing what should be understood by the word telepathy. I shall repeat my explanation; it is necessary that the reader should have it well in mind, as in this chapter I am about to examine the telepathic hypothesis and endeavour to find out if it will cover the facts which we are studying. By telepathy is here meant, not only the power of obtaining information from the consciousness and subconsciousness of the sitters on the part of the secondary personalities of Mrs Piper, but also their power to read the consciousness and subconsciousness of persons somewhere or anywhere else on earth, no matter where, distance in no way increasing the difficulty of this reading. This is evidently among hypotheses a wide and far-reaching one, and yet, if we reject the spiritualistic hypothesis, there is no other which will cover all the facts.

The following arguments here briefly indicated are, with others, developed at length in Professor Hyslop's book. I shall not again go over those which circumstances have necessitated my explaining with sufficient clearness before in the course of this work.

To begin with, what is the origin of this telepathic hypothesis? Is it justified by the facts of experimental or spontaneous observation among psychologists? Certainly not; if we only reckoned the experiments and observations of official psychology, the hypothesis of telepathy, as we understand it, would be almost unfounded. This hypothesis is in reality founded on our ignorance; we may admit it temporarily, because we are ignorant of the latent powers of the human mind, and because we have every reason to think these latent powers great and numerous. I think that the first wide use of it was made in the famous book by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, Phantasms of the Living. The telepathic hypothesis might very well be admitted as an explanation of the facts recorded in that book, although the spiritualistic hypothesis would explain them as well, or even better. But when we are considering other facts, such as those of Mrs Piper's trance, for example, the telepathic hypothesis, in order to explain them, must be stretched beyond permitted limits.

In the first place, with regard to reading the consciousness of those present, it would seem that, if we were dealing with telepathy, the so-called communicator ought generally to bring out the facts of which the sitters have been thinking most intently. But this hardly ever happens; in Professor Hyslop's sittings it never happens. Certainly many of the incidents related were in the consciousness of the sitters, but the latter were not thinking about them till the communicator recalled them.

For the same way, if we were dealing with telepathy, it is to be supposed that the communicators would be the persons whom the sitters expect. Now this is far from being the case. In the fifteen years during which Mrs Piper's mediumship has been studied, a great number of communicators have appeared about whom nobody was thinking. Professor Hyslop, among others, says that he has met with several communicators whom he did not in the least expect. Others whom he expected did not appear. It is a fact worthy of remark that in Professor Hyslop's sittings only those persons appeared who were capable of telling something of a nature to prove their identity; the others seem to have been systematically put aside by Imperator, even when information concerning them was abundant in the consciousness and subconsciousness of the sitter.

It would seem that, if we were dealing with telepathy, the self-styled communicators would most easily utter the least remote ideas of the sitters' minds; the nearest, most vivid ideas ought to appear first. Now this is far from being the case. It seems to make no difference to the communicator whether the idea is familiar or otherwise to the minds of the living.

When it is a question of facts entirely unknown to the sitters and known only to persons living at a great distance, this distance might be expected to affect telepathic mind-reading; nothing in nature authorises us to neglect this law of distance. We can only conceive the telepathic process as a propulsion of waves through space; these waves should decrease with distance; the contrary is absolutely inconceivable. Now this does not happen; if the fact exists only in the consciousness of a person who is at the time at the far ends of the earth, it makes no difference in the precision of the details. If an analogy should be made between telepathy—as we must conceive it, to explain the phenomena—and wireless telegraphy, Mrs Piper entranced must be regarded as a mere coherer of the telepathic waves. But this analogy is non-existent; wireless telegraphy is far from being unaffected by distance, and besides, when the coherer functions, it is because another instrument is emitting particular waves. When a fact known only to a distant person is reported, as in Mrs Piper's phenomena, it rarely happens that the distant person was actively thinking of the fact, which was lying unnoticed in the lowest strata of his consciousness. When the experimenter makes his inquiries at the conclusion of the sitting, it is often found that a definite effort on the part of the absent person is required before the fact is recalled to memory.

It would be well to reflect before we grant to telepathy a power of omniscience, independent of all known laws.

Another well-observed fact, opposed to the telepathic theory, is the selection made amongst incidents by the communicator. If we were dealing with telepathy, the secondary personalities of the medium would sometimes be mistaken, make blunders, record facts which the so-called communicator could never have known, but which the sitter alone knows well. Now this never happens. The reported facts are always common to at least two consciousnesses, that of the communicator and that of the sitter, or that of the communicator and that of a distant person. The inaccuracies prove nothing against this argument; if they are wilful falsehoods they simply prove that the communicator is a liar, and not that he is a secondary personality of Mrs Piper. If the reported facts are unverifiable, this does not prove that they are inexact.

If the telepathic theory expresses the truth, we must grant an almost infinite power to telepathy. This supposition is indispensable to account for the facts. Then how shall we understand the errors and confusions of the communicators? How can an infinite power seem at times so limited, so finite, when the conditions remain unchanged? On the other hand, the lapses of memory and confusions are quite explicable on the spiritualistic theory; we cannot reasonably think that a change so great as death should not induce some disturbance of mind, at least temporarily, or should not greatly weaken certain groups of memories which, in the new surroundings, have no longer any practical use.

A change of communicators has always been frequent, but was especially so in Professor Hyslop's sittings. Mr Robert Hyslop constantly says to his son, "James, I am getting weak; wait for me, I am coming back." And then another communicator appears on the spot. The telepathic hypothesis cannot explain this fact; it would seem quite natural that the communicator should be always the same. To explain it, another hypothesis—that of suggestion on the part of the sitter—must be added to the telepathic hypothesis. But the spiritualistic hypothesis, on the other hand, explains this perfectly well, even though we may be compelled to reckon with the complications which the admission of the existence of another world may introduce.

The existence of the self-styled intermediaries between sitter and communicator is another fact which does not fit in with the telepathic theory. Formerly Phinuit was the most common intermediary; then George Pelham collaborated with him; in Professor Hyslop's sittings, and, I believe, in all subsequent sittings since the installation of the Imperator regime, the intermediary is Rector. It is he who presides at the functioning of the "machine," because he is particularly competent—so say the communicators. These intermediaries have very defined and life-like characters. Phinuit, George Pelham and Rector are as unlike each other as possible. What, on the telepathic hypothesis, has had the power to create them? Mrs Piper's secondary personalities should have incarnated the communicator without intermediary. In order to understand this ephemeral reconstitution of a consciousness which has for ever vanished, we should have to allow that the scattered elements of this consciousness had temporarily grouped themselves around the point de repere formed by the secondary personality of Mrs Piper. We should then see how difficult it is to explain the presence of these intermediaries. But if, on the other hand, we accept the spiritualistic hypothesis as well founded, we must admit that these intermediaries account for their presence very plausibly.

Here is another argument, which, I think, is very strong, against the hypothesis of telepathy. Subjects in the hypnotic state, and the secondary personalities which appear in this hypnotic state, according to the precise and decisive experiments made by modern science, have an extremely definite notion of time. If you tell a hypnotised subject to perform an action in a year, at such an hour and minute, he will never fail, so to speak, although when he is awakened there remains in his memory no trace of the order. Now the communicators, in the phenomena we are studying, have an extremely vague notion of time, because, they say, time is not a concept of the world in which they live. How is it that telepathy, which can do so much, owns itself incapable, or nearly so, of determining the moment when an action has been performed? What prevents it from reading the idea of time, as well as any other idea, in the minds of the persons present, since the notion of time is as clear and precise in them at least as any other notion?

To conclude, I should say that we are entirely ignorant of the point where the powers of telepathy begin and end. What I have just said makes the telepathic hypothesis an unlikely explanation; but, as Boileau said long ago, "Le vrai peut quelque fois n'etre pas vraisemblable"—Truth may sometimes be unlikely.



CHAPTER XVII

Some considerations which strongly support the spiritualistic hypothesis—Consciousness and character remain unchanged—Dramatic play—Errors and confusions.

The unity of character and consciousness in the communicators is one of the reasons which most strongly support the spiritualistic hypothesis. If we were dealing with Mrs Piper's secondary personalities, the first difficulty would be found in their great number. I do not know the exact number of communicators who have asserted their appearance by means of her organism. But several hundreds may be found in the Reports of the Society for Psychical Research, and they are certainly far from being all mentioned. Now each communicator has kept the same character throughout, to such an extent that, with a little practice, it is possible to recognise the communicator at the first sentence he utters, if he has already communicated. Some of the communicators only appear at long intervals, but nevertheless they remain unchanged. But, on the telepathic hypothesis, it is not easy to understand that a self-styled communicator, a merely ephemeral consciousness reconstituted out of the scattered recollections of the sitters, should be thus reconstituted only at long intervals, suddenly, often without apparent cause, and always with the same characteristics. This unity of consciousness and character is particularly evident in the controls—that is, in such of the communicators as have appeared uninterruptedly for years, on account of their acting as intermediaries for others, and helping them with their experience. If it cannot reasonably be admitted that the occasional communicators are only secondary personalities of the medium, the impossibility must be extended to the controls. Either all the communicators are, without exception, secondary personalities, or none of them are; for all give the same impression of intense life-likeness and reality. If they are indeed secondary personalities, science has hitherto studied none like them. I have already sketched Phinuit's character, which has remained consistently the same during twelve years. The reader should also have a sufficiently clear notion of George Pelham's individuality, which is also consistent; even now, when George Pelham appears, we find him unchanged.

The individualities of the present controls are even more marked, and not less consistent. None of those who, up to the present time, have communicated through Mrs Piper have in the least resembled Imperator and his assistants. The principal traits of Imperator's character are a profound and sincere religious sentiment, much gravity and seriousness, great benevolence, an infinite pity for man incarnate on account of the miseries of this life of darkness and chaos; and with this, an imperious temper, so that he does well to call himself Imperator; he commands, and will be obeyed, but he wills only the right. The other spirits who gravitate around him—Rector, Doctor, Prudens, and George Pelham—pay him profound respect. This character of Imperator is quite the same as we find in the works of Stainton Moses. Those who decline to accept the spiritualist hypothesis on any terms may say that Mrs Piper has drawn the character from this source. She must at least know the book we have mentioned—Spirit Teachings. When the effort to communicate with Stainton Moses was made, and nothing was obtained but incoherence and falsehood, Dr Hodgson, wishing to discover what influence the normal Mrs Piper's knowledge of Stainton Moses's works might have upon the secondary personality calling itself Stainton Moses (if we are dealing with secondary personalities), took her a copy of Spirit Teachings. She read it, or it is to be concluded she did so, but there was no result, and no effect upon the communicator who called himself Stainton Moses. Nevertheless, I repeat, it may be asserted with some probability that Mrs Piper took the character of Imperator from this source. But then, from whence did she take the other characters?

Imperator and his friends speak in a distinctive biblical style. Generally, at the beginning of the sittings, Imperator either utters a prayer himself or dictates one to Rector, who reproduces it. Here is a specimen. "Holy Father, we are with Thee in all Thy ways, and to Thee we come in all things. We ask Thee to give us Thy tender love and care. Bestow Thy blessings upon this Thy fellow-creature. Help him to be all that Thou dost ask him. Teach him to walk in the path of righteousness and truth. He needs Thy loving care. Teach him in all things to do Thy holy will ... and we leave all else in Thy hands. Without Thy care we are indeed bereft. Watch over and guide his footsteps and lead him into truth and light. Father, we beseech Thee so to open the blinded eyes of mortals that they may know more of Thee and Thy tender love and care." Among the phrases which ring familiarly to English ears we notice one peculiarity, and one that constantly recurs. Imperator calls God "Father," and yet, when he commends man to God, he calls him God's fellow-creature, His neighbour, and not His creature. Evidently Imperator's idea of God differs from ours; it would seem that he thinks us an emanation from the Divine, eternal as the Divine itself.

Many readers may not be inclined to attach much value to Imperator's prayers. They will take them for one of the diabolical inventions of which secondary personalities are capable. Evidently, if we take them apart from the rest, this is the most plausible explanation; but the character and ideas of Imperator must be considered as a whole. I can assure my readers that there is nothing diabolical about him. If Stainton Moses and Mrs Piper have created him, they have created a masterpiece; Imperator inspires respect in the most sceptical.

There is another aspect of the phenomena which telepathy does not explain; the dramatic play. The personages at the other end of the wire act, as far as we can judge, with all the appropriateness and distinctive characteristics of reality. There are incidents of this dramatic play, which telepathy cannot explain, in nearly all the sittings. I have given some of them in passing, and will now give some more examples. At M. Bourget's second sitting Mrs Pitman, whom I have mentioned before, suddenly appears, and speaks nearly as follows:[84] "Monsieur, I come to offer you my help. I lived in France and spoke French fairly well when I was living. Tell me what you want, and I can perhaps help you to communicate with this lady." In order to understand the appropriateness of this intervention we must remember that George Pelham, who was acting as intermediary, had complained at the beginning of the sitting that the communicating spirit spoke French and that he did not understand her.

One day George Pelham is asked for information about Phinuit, and is about to give it. But Phinuit, who is manifesting through the voice while George Pelham is doing so in writing, perceives this and cries, "You had better shut up about me!" And the spectators witnessed a sort of struggle between the head and the hand. Then George Pelham writes, "All right, it is settled; we will say no more about it."

During a sitting in which the sitter's wife gave proofs of identity of a very private nature to her husband she said, "I tell you this, but don't let that gentleman hear." "That gentleman" could not be Dr Hodgson, who had left the room; it was the invisible George Pelham who was habitually present at the sittings at this period.

On April 30, 1894, Mr James Mitchell has a sitting.[85] Phinuit begins by giving him appropriate advice about his health. He ends by saying, "You worry, too." Then he adds, "There's a voice I hear as plainly as you would a bell rung, and she says, 'That's right, doctor, tell him not to worry, because he always did so—my dear husband—I want him to enjoy his remaining days in the body. Tell him I am Margaret Mitchell, and I will be with him to the end of eternity, spiritually.'"

The communicators often ask one or more of those present to go out of the room, and they give one or other of the following reasons, according to circumstances. The first is that very private information is about to be given. I have quoted an example in speaking of George Pelham, when James Howard asked him to tell something which only they two knew. George Pelham, preparing to do so, begins by asking Dr Hodgson to leave the room. How oddly discreet for secondary personalities! On other occasions certain persons are asked to go out temporarily, because, say the controls, "You have relations and friends who want very much to communicate with you, and they prevent all communication by their insistence and their efforts."

On a certain occasion Professor Hyslop rises and goes to the other end of the room, passing Mrs Piper, upon which George Pelham, apparently offended, writes, "He has passed in front of Imperator! Why does he do that?"

It would need a volume to recount all the little analogous incidents which telepathy does not explain. These will do as examples. Will it be said that these small dramas resemble the creations of the same kind which occur in delirium or dreams? But in the first place, in delirium and dreams, the spectator does not realise, as he does here, the presence of persons who have given many details tending to prove their identity. Again, the real cause of these creations of dream and delirium is unknown to us. We might assert, without being fanciful, that sickness is only their opportunity and not their cause. Lastly, a third group of facts, which strongly militates in favour of the spiritualist hypothesis, consists of the mistakes and confusions. This would probably not be the opinion of a superficial observer; many take these errors and confusions as a reason for entirely rejecting the spiritualist hypothesis; generally because they have a strange notion of a "spirit," without any analogy in nature. Deceived by absurd and antiquated theological teaching, they imagine that the most pitiable drunkard, for example, becomes a being of ideal beauty and omniscience from the day he is disincarnated. It cannot be so. Our spirits, if we have them, must progress slowly. When they leap into the great unknown they do not at the same time leap into perfection; they were finite and limited, and do not become immediately infinite. Disincarnated man, like incarnated man, has lapses of intelligence, memory and morality. The existence of these lapses very well explains the greater part of the mistakes in the communications. I have no room to develop this idea, but the reader can do it easily. I will only quote one example of lapse of memory. Mr Robert Hyslop said he had a penknife with a brown handle, which he carried first in his waistcoat pocket and afterwards in his coat. On inquiry, it was discovered that he was mistaken, and that he really carried it in his trousers pocket. What man living has not made a hundred such mistakes? In order to explain the phenomena we are studying by the telepathic hypothesis, we must suppose that telepathy has infinite power with which no obstacle can interfere. Then why does it make mistakes? And why does it make just the mistakes that an imperfect, finite spirit would make? Must we suppose that Dame Telepathy is a mere incarnation of the demon of fraud and deceit?

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Evidently addressing George Pelham.

[85] Proc. of S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 519.



CHAPTER XVIII

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

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

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

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