{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36730/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36730","id":"gutenberg_36730","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36730","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Parapsychology","Spiritualism"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE\n\n                            BY BECKLES WILLSON\n\n\n    WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY\n    PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.\n\n    _Past President of the Society for Psychical Research_\n\n    LONDON\n    T. WERNER LAURIE\n    CLIFFORD'S INN\n    E.C.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION VII\n\nI. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE \"SUPERNATURAL\"\n\nII. THE HYPNOTIC STATE\n\nIII. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING\n\nIV. DREAMS\n\nV. HALLUCINATIONS\n\nVI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD\n\nVII. ON \"HAUNTINGS\" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA\n\nVIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD\n\nIX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA\n\nX. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA\n\nXI. THE MATERIALISATION OF \"GHOSTS\"\n\nXII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY\n\nXIII. CLAIRVOYANCE\n\nXIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES\n\nAFTERWORD\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\n\nThe following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment\nthereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in\nthe columns of _The Westminster Gazette_.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n_By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S._\n\n\n_Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for\nPsychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from\nthe testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and\ndeception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto\nunrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be\nof supreme interest and importance._\n\n_It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic\ninvestigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from\nthe disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would\nbe a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve\ncontinuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of\nwhich should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these\nobscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry\nwhich has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less\nobscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has\nachieved is in no small measure due to the wise counsel and ungrudging\nexpenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry\nSidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the\ndetails of its work._\n\n_Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must\nrecognise the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has\nendeavoured to maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the\nevidential value varies enormously. The testimony of honest and even\ncareful witnesses requires to be received with caution, owing to the\nintrusion of two sources of error to which untrained observers are very\nliable. These are unconscious_ mal-observation _and unintentional_\nmis-description. _I cannot here enter into the proof of this statement,\nbut it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a credulous observer\nbut a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to these errors\nwhen, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical\nphenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has\nhitherto scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within\nmy own knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had\nfrequently scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in\nthe \"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,\" one day\nseriously informed me he had been converted to a belief in\nthought-transference by some conclusive experiments he had witnessed.\nUpon inquiring where these experiments took place I found it was at a\npublic performance of a very inferior Zancig who was then touring\nthrough the provinces!_\n\n_Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that \"the light heart and open\nmind\" with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew\nhis labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he\nfound himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the\nnumerous and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society\nhave had to face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the\navailable evidence, and this study has convinced him--as it has\nconvinced, so far as I know, every other painstaking and honest\ninquirer--that no theories based on fraud, illusion, nor even on\ntelepathy, are adequate to account for the whole of the phenomena he has\nreviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr Willson tells us that he\nhas been led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory explanation of\nthese phenomena is the action of discarnate human beings--that is to\nsay, the Spiritualistic hypothesis._\n\n_I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the\nsmall residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other\nhypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question\narises, Is the evidence on which it is based sufficiently_ abundant,\ntrustworthy, _and_ conclusive, _to warrant such a far-reaching\nstatement? Here we must turn from the author to ascertain what has been\nthe conclusion arrived at by those who have given long years to a\nsearching experimental investigation of these phenomena, and who have\napproached the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit. The most\nnoteworthy instance is the testimony of that shrewd and able\ninvestigator, the late Dr Hodgson. His patient and laborious inquiry\ninto the trance phenomena of Mrs Piper ultimately led him to the\nconclusion arrived at by Mr Willson. Dr Hodgson's well-known exposure of\nMadame Blavatsky and other fraudulent mediums and his sane and cautious\njudgment render his opinion of great weight. Then, again, we find that\nthis also was the conclusion to which Frederic Myers was gradually\ndriven. And long prior to this it was the conclusion arrived at by that\nacute thinker, the late Professor de Morgan, and it is the conclusion\nstrongly held by the great naturalist, Dr A. R. Wallace, and held also\nby several other eminent investigators I might name._\n\n_So momentous a conclusion, if capable of such complete verification as\nto be universally accepted by science, would obviously throw all other\ndiscoveries into the background. I say if capable of being verified by\nscientific methods, but, although the weight of opinion will, in my\nopinion, ultimately lead to a very wide acceptance of this conclusion,\nyet it seems to me highly probable that the experimental discovery of\nthe survival of human personality after death will always elude\nconclusive scientific demonstration. This particular field of psychical\ninvestigation belongs to an order other than that with which science\ndeals; and, this being so, it can never be adequately investigated with\nthe limited faculties we now possess._\n\n_In any case, as I said in a letter published in_ The Times, _so long\nago as September 1876, before science is in a position to frame any\nsatisfactory hypothesis of the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena, a\nnumber of antecedent questions will have to be investigated and decided.\nProminent among these, I urged more than thirty years ago, was the\nquestion whether ideas or information can be voluntarily or\ninvoluntarily transferred from one mind to another independently of the\nrecognised organs of perception. Experiments I had then recently made\nled me to the conclusion that something new to science, which might\nprovisionally be called thought-transference, now known in its wider\naspect as telepathy, did really exist. This, if established, would, as I\npointed out, unquestionably solve some of the so-called spirit\ncommunications which had so puzzled investigators. But the idea of\nthought-transference was at that time just as obnoxious to official\nscience as Spiritualism. Mr Willson quotes the implacable disbelief,\neven in the possibility of telepathy, which that great man Helmholtz\nexpressed to me. And it is amusing now to recall the fierce outcry\naroused by the paper I read at the British Association meeting in 1876,\nwhen, after narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had\nwitnessed, I asked that a committee of scientific men should be\nappointed to investigate preliminary question of the possibility of\nthought-transference.[1] It is true the evidence on behalf of telepathy\nhas since become so abundant that now few deny its probability, but even\ntelepathy has not yet taken its place among the recognised scientific\nverities. I hope this recognition will not be long delayed, but until it\noccurs it is almost as illegitimate to use telepathy, as some do so\nfreely, for the foundation of their theories of transcendental phenomena\nas to use the spiritualistic hypothesis itself._\n\n[Footnote 1: The Spectator, _I believe, alone, generously supported me,\nand in an editorial article on 30th September 1876 expressed the hope\nthat \"the British Association would really lake some action on the\nsubject of the paper, in spite of the protests of the party, which we\nmay call the party of superstitious incredulity_.\"]\n\n_To those who have carefully studied the evidence there is, however,\nlittle doubt that telepathy does afford an adequate explanation of\ncertain well-attested phenomena, such as phantasms of the living or\ndying person. And telepathy, which may now be considered as highly\nprobable, leads on to the evidence for man's survival after death--to\nthis I will return later on._\n\n_Then, again, recent investigations have established the fact that the\nrange of human personality must be extended to include something more\nthan our normal self-consciousness. Our Ego is not the simple unitary\nthing older psychologists taught, but a composite structure embracing a\nself that extends far beyond the limit of our conscious waking life.\nJust as experimental physics has shown that each pencil of sunlight\nembraces an almost endless succession of invisible rays as well as the\nvisible radiation we perceive, so experimental psychology has shown\nthat each human personality embraces an unconscious as well as a\nconscious self. Mr Myers, using Du Perl's conception of a threshold, has\ntermed the former our_ subliminal self. _And just as the invisible\nradiation of the sun can only be rendered perceptible by some agency\noutside our vision, so this subliminal self reveals itself only by some\nagency outside our own volition. The subliminal self not only contains\nthe record of unheeded past impressions--a latent memory--but also has\nactivities and faculties far transcending the range of our conscious\nself. In this it also resembles the invisible radiation of the sun,\nwhich is the main source of life and energy in this world._\n\n_Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and\nrepair of our body and brain, which go on automatically and\nunconsciously within us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious\npersonality. All life shares with us this miraculous automatism. No\nchemist, with all his appliances, can turn breadstuff into brainstuff or\nhay into milk. Further, the subliminal self seems to have faculties\nwhich can be emancipated from the limitations of our ordinary life.\nGlimpses of this we get when the conscious self is in abeyance, as in\nsleep, hypnosis, and trance. Here and there we find certain individuals\nthrough whom this sub- or supra-liminal self manifests itself more\nfreely than through others; they have been termed \"mediums,\" a word, it\nis true, that suggests Browning's \"Sludge.\" But, as scientific\ninvestigation has shown all mesmerists and dowsers are not charlatans,\nso it has shown all mediums are not rogues._\n\n_This extension of human faculty, revealing, as it does, more profoundly\nthe mysterious depths of our being, enables us to explain many phenomena\nthat have been attributed to discarnate human beings. The question\narises, Does it explain all so-called Spiritualistic phenomena? In my\nopinion, and in that of others who have given more time to their\ncritical investigation than I have, it does not. At present we have to\ngrope our way, but the ground is being cleared, and the direction which\nthe future explorer of these unknown regions has to take is becoming\nmore evident._\n\n\n\n\nOccultism and Common-Sense\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nSCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE \"SUPERNATURAL\"\n\n\nWhen I first ventured into the wide and misty domain of Occultism, with\na light heart I set forth and an open mind. My sole aim was to\nascertain, as far as the means at the disposal of an ordinary man with\nlittle of the mystic in his composition would allow, what degree of\nprobability attached to published phenomena, which the ordinary laws of\nNature, as most of us understand them, could not satisfactorily explain.\n\nAt the threshold of my inquiry, one prominent and, as it seemed to me,\ndisconcerting fact confronted me--namely, that although for a couple of\ngenerations \"supernatural\" manifestations had been promiscuously\nexhibited before the public, challenging full investigation and inviting\nbelief; although almost every day the newspapers report some striking\ncase of spirit apparition or materialisation, coincident dreams,\nclairvoyance, trance utterances, or possession, often seemingly well\nattested; yet in spite of all this testimony academic science continued\nto dispute the very basis of such phenomena. Any investigator must needs\nrecognise here a very anomalous situation. On the one hand are, let us\nsay, half-a-million people, often highly intelligent, cultured, sane\npeople, firmly protesting that they have witnessed certain astonishing\noccult manifestations, and on the other hand the Royal Society and the\nBritish Association, and other organised scientific bodies established\nfor the investigation of truth, absolutely refusing to admit such\nevidence or to regard it seriously. Forty years ago Faraday, besought to\ngive his opinion, in this wise wrote: \"They who say they see these\nthings are not competent witnesses of facts. It would be condescension\non my part to pay any more attention to them.\" Faraday's attitude was\nthat of Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Agassiz. The first-named, however,\nrather gave away his prejudice by saying: \"Supposing the phenomena to be\ngenuine, they do not interest me.\" Tyndall's utterance also deserves to\nbe recalled: \"There are people amongst us who, it is alleged, can\nproduce effects before which the discoveries of Newton pale. There are\nmen of science who would sell all that they have, and give the proceeds\nto the poor, for a glimpse of phenomena which are mere trifles to the\nspiritualist.\" He added: \"The world will have religion of some kind,\neven though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of\nspiritualism.\" Spencer's words were: \"I have settled the question in my\nown mind on a priori grounds.\" Professor Carpenter called spiritualism\n\"a most mischievous epidemic delusion, comparable to the witchcraft\ndelusion of the seventeenth century.\"\n\nWhat, then, has happened to strengthen the case of the believers in\nghosts, clairvoyance, thought-transference, sensory automatism, in,\nsay, the last quarter of a century? What new evidence exists which would\nmake the mid-Victorian scientific men reconsider their position? Suppose\nFaraday and Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall, were alive to-day, would they\nsee reason to alter their opinions?\n\nI remember once--and I now give it as typical--overhearing a psychical\nexperience. It was in a first-class compartment on a train coming from\nWimbledon. One of my fellow-passengers, an intelligent, well-spoken man\nof about thirty-five, was relating to three friends the following\nextraordinary story. As nearly as I can recollect, I give the narrator's\nown words:--\n\n     \"One week ago last Tuesday, at eleven o'clock at night, my\n     wife, who had just retired to bed upstairs, called out to me:\n     'Arthur! Arthur!' in a tone of alarm. I sprang up and ran\n     upstairs to see what was the matter. The servants had all gone\n     to bed. 'Arthur,' said my wife, 'I've just seen mother,' and\n     she began to cry. 'Why,' I said, 'your mother's at\n     Scarborough.' 'I know,' she said; 'but she appeared before me\n     just there' (pointing to the foot of the bed) 'two minutes ago\n     as plainly as you do.' Well, the next morning there was a\n     telegram on the breakfast-table: 'Mother, died at eleven last\n     night.' Now, how do you account for it?\"\n\nThere was silence for a full minute.\n\n\"A wonderful coincidence. Your wife's hallucination coincided with her\nmother's death!\"\n\nAnother occupant of the carriage caught up the word:\n\n\"Yes, coincidence. A thing which mightn't happen once in a million\nyears.\"\n\nNobody else ventured a remark. Yet they seemed unconvinced. There was no\none to tell them--even I did not know then--that these \"coincidences\"\nwere constantly happening, every year, perhaps every month; that an\nintelligent body of men--the Society for Psychical Research--has made a\ncensus of such hallucinations, all apparently well attested; that\nnewspapers devoted to occult matters constantly record these things;\nthat volumes--monthly, weekly, almost--fairly pour from the press\ndetailing, expounding, dissecting, elaborating such evidence; that the\ntheory of coincidence has already been rejected by many men of the first\nrank of science; and that official science itself is reluctantly\nreconsidering its position in more than one direction.\n\nYet so slowly do the masses move in intellectual life, so tardily do\ntruths, concerning not merely occult but physical and material\ninvestigation, percolate through to the workaday world, that the\nresearches, the activities, the ascertained truths of students of\npsychical phenomena are as a closed book. Perhaps the attitude of apathy\nwith which occult phenomena and occult science are regarded by the\naverage man is not unnatural. To him all miracles that are not\nScriptural and ancient and, as it were, institutional are highly\nimprobable, if not impossible. All super-naturalism, he will tell you,\nis morbid. \"There may be something in these things,\" he says, \"but it is\nnot proved. As for spiritualism, my belief is that mediums are\nimpostors. Most of the spiritualists I have seen are 'cranks'--they are\ncertainly dupes--and I have no doubt that if I interested myself in\nthese matters I should end by becoming also a 'crank.'\"\n\nThis I maintain is the position of the ordinarily educated normal man.\n\n\"The moment,\" wrote Lord Lytton, \"one deals with things beyond our\ncomprehension, and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled,\nwe revolt from the probable, as it appears to the senses of those who\nhave not experienced what we have.\" Now, that is just what the candid\ninquirer must avoid throughout his inquiry. It is often difficult to\nresist employing supernormal hypotheses; but, until normal hypotheses\nare exhausted, the resistance must be made. On the other hand, it is\nwell to bear in mind Mr Andrew Lang's timely remark, \"there is a point\nat which the explanations of common-sense arouse scepticism.\"\n\nAt all events, not even the most materialistic man-in-the-music-hall,\nwith two eyes in his head, can deny that the great wave of occultism,\nwhich twenty years ago seemed to be receding, is again returning with\ngreater force and volume, submerging many of the old sceptical theories\nand wetting even the utterly callous and ignorant with its spray. It is\nnot so long ago that the very fact of hypnotism was doubted--Mesmer was\nlong regarded as a mere quack--but to-day the induced trance is\nuniversally credited. To hypnotism must the miracle of telepathy now be\nadded? Has it really been ascertained, after a thousand experiments and\nbeyond the possibility of error, that a mode of apprehension exists\nwhich has no connection with the five senses? For twenty-five years the\nmembers of the Society of Psychical Research have carried on their\ninvestigations of both sleeping and waking subjects, under every\nconceivable condition, and are at last fain to announce that such a\nmystic faculty does exist by which brain can communicate with brain\nwithout any known sensory agency.\n\nAs to the kind of \"ghost\" story recorded above, what an exact analogy\nit bears to the following, to be found in a recent volume of the\n\"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research!\" The statement was\nreceived from a Madame Broussiloff, of St Petersburg:--\n\n     \"On the 16th (28th) of February of this year, between nine and\n     ten o'clock in the evening, I, the undersigned, was sitting in\n     our drawing-room--the small one--facing the large drawing-room,\n     which I could see in its entire length. My husband, his\n     brother, with his wife, and my mother, were also sitting in the\n     same room with me round a large round table. I was writing down\n     my household accounts for the day, while the others were\n     carrying on some gay conversation. Having accidentally raised\n     my head and looked into the large drawing-room, I noticed, with\n     astonishment, that a large grey shadow had passed from the door\n     of the dining-room to that of the antechamber; and it came into\n     my head that the figure I had seen bore a striking resemblance\n     in stature to Colonel Ave-Meinander, an acquaintance of ours,\n     who had lived in this very lodging for a long time. At the\n     first moment, I wished to say at once that a ghost had just\n     flashed before me, but stopped, as I was afraid of being\n     laughed at by my husband's brother and his wife, and also of\n     being scolded by my husband, who, in view of the excitement\n     which I showed when such phenomena were taking place, tried to\n     convince me that they were the fruits of my fancy. As I knew\n     that Meinander was alive and well, and was commander of the\n     Malorossuesky 40th Regiment of Dragoons, I did not say anything\n     then; but when I was going to bed I related to my mother what I\n     had seen, and the next morning could not refrain from\n     mentioning it to my husband.\n\n     \"Our astonishment was extreme when, on the 18th of February\n     (2nd of March), we learned Nicholas Ottovitch Ave-Meinander had\n     actually died after a short illness on the 16th (28th) of\n     February at nine o'clock in the evening, in the town of\n     Strashovo, where his regiment is stationed.\n\n     \"The above account is confirmed by the percipient's mother,\n     Marie von Hagemeister, and by the husband, Colonel Alexis\n     Alexeievitch Broussiloff. Both state solemnly that Colonel\n     Meinander died at nine P.M. on the evening of 16th February\n     (28th) at Stashovo, 1200 versts from St Petersburg.\"\n\nTo explain this phenomenon in the terms of telepathy, the grey shadow\nseen by Madame Broussiloff was not a ghost, not the \"bodiless spirit in\nthe likeness of a man,\" but \"a waking dream projected from the brain of\nthe seer under the impulse of the dying man's thought.\"\n\nBut telepathy itself requires consideration and explanation. Sir William\nCrookes has repeatedly given publicity to his theory of brain-waves and\nto a kindred conception of ether substance, along which intelligence can\nbe transmitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to virtually\ninterminable distances.\n\nThat mind should effect mind in a new mode may mean no more than that\nbrain can act upon brain by means of ethereal vibrations hitherto\nunsuspected. The power itself may be but a lingering vestige of our\ninheritance from primeval times, a long-disused faculty \"dragged from\nthe dim lumber-room of a primitive consciousness, and galvanised into a\nbelated and halting activity.\"\n\nOr, on the other hand, may not such faculty be regarded not as\nvestigial, but as rudimentary? Telepathy, if we follow the gifted author\nof \"Human Personality,\" is a promise for the future, not an idle\ninheritance from the past.\n\nOur business now is, all mystic speculations apart, to consider the\nphenomena in the order in which, if not yet actually accepted, they\nwould seem to evoke least opposition from the academic science of the\nday. What is the net result of the evidence for all classes of\nsupernormal phenomena? That I shall endeavour to point out, as concisely\nand lucidly as I can, in the following chapters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE HYPNOTIC STATE\n\n\nNot least of the wonders of modern psychical research is the discovery\nthat nothing in all the phenomena is new--that under other names and by\nother races every sort of manifestation was familiar to the most remote\npeoples. This would certainly seem to meet the argument of the\nphysicist--it is not necessary to refer again to Professor Tyndall's\nuncomplimentary phraseology--who declares that all this popular\noccultism is a product of the last generation or two. Take hypnotism.\nHypnotism (or mesmerism) was formerly alleged to be an emanation from\nthe body--an effluence of intense will-power. The belief in such an\nemanation is centuries old. \"By the magic power of the will,\" wrote\nParacelsus, \"a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the\nother side hear what is said on that side ... the ethereal body of a\nman may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles or\nmore.\" Twenty years ago this creed was laughed out of court by Huxley,\nTyndall, and other leading men of science. To-day we are told by those\nwho have witnessed the experiments of Charcot, Janet, and others that\n\"the existence of an aura of spirit-force surrounding the body like an\natmosphere, in some cases at all events, can be proved as a physical\nfact.\"\n\nWhatever the explanation, whatever the definition of this miraculous\nagency, hypnotism is now universally accepted. The manifestations of its\npower must convince the most sceptical. A spell-bound subject is\nfrequently made to share the sensations of the hypnotist, his ocular\nperceptions and his sense of touch. In the hypnotic sleep the subject\neasily becomes insensible to pain. A member of the Society reports that\nhe has seen a youth in this condition who suffered gladly the most\ninjurious attacks upon his own person--who would allow his hair to be\npulled, his ears pinched, his fingers even to be scorched by lighted\nmatches. But the same youth would next moment indignantly resent the\nslightest injury upon his hypnotiser, who would at the time be standing\nat the other end of the room.\n\nOne thing in common all the hypnotic methods appear to possess, the\ndiversion of attention from external surroundings and the working of a\nsub-consciousness in a manner not characteristic of the ordinary life of\nthe subject. In cases described by Mr Greenwood no difficulty was\nencountered in impersonations suggested to the subject unless they\nsavoured too much of the ridiculous. \"Thus,\" he writes, \"a suggestion\nthat M., the subject, was myself and that I was he succeeded; and in his\nreverse capacity he continued the course of experiments upon himself,\ndevising several original and ingenious varieties to which I, for the\nsake of the experiment, acquiesced in subjecting myself. He also behaved\nwith considerable dignity and verve as King Edward VII., until I threw a\nmatch at his head, a proceeding which appeared to conflict so strongly\nwith dramatic verisimilitude that he lapsed back into his ordinary\nhypnotic condition, nor could I reinduce the impersonation. On the other\nhand, statements that he was the Emperor of China, and that he was a\nnurse and I a baby, failed to carry any conviction, being either\nreceived with passive consent or rejected with scorn.\" It is interesting\nto note that in the waking state of the subject he explained that he was\nonly conscious that he was not the characters he was bidden to assume,\nand if asked would have said as much, but that he was irresistibly\nimpelled to act as though he were.\n\nThe production of sleep in the subject at a distance is one of the\nlatest attested marvels of hypnotism. The long series of experiments\nmade in France by Professor Richet and Professor Janet would appear to\nattest this power. In some trials made at Havre, in which the\nexperimenters were Professor Janet and Dr Gibert, the subject of the\nexperiment was a certain Madame B. or \"Leonie,\" then a patient of Dr\nGibert. The facts were recorded by the late F. W. Myers and his\nbrother, Dr A. T. Myers, who were present:\n\n     \"We selected (he states) by lot an hour (eleven A.M.) at which\n     M. Gibert should will, from his dispensary (which is close to\n     his house), that Madame B. should go to sleep in the Pavilion.\n     It was agreed that a rather longer time should be allowed for\n     the process to take effect, as it had been observed that she\n     sometimes struggled against the influence and averted the\n     effect for a time by putting her hands in cold water, etc. At\n     11.25 we entered the Pavilion quietly, and almost at once she\n     descended from her room to the _salon_, profoundly asleep. We\n     did not, of course, mention M. Gibert's attempt of the previous\n     night. But she told us in her sleep that she had been very ill\n     in the night, and repeatedly exclaimed: 'Pourquoi M. Gibert\n     m'a-t-il fait souffrir? Mais j'ai lave les mains\n     continuellement.' This is what she does when she wishes to\n     avoid being influenced.\n\n     \"In the evening (22nd) we all dined at M. Gibert's, and in the\n     evening M. Gibert made another attempt to put her to sleep at\n     a distance from his house in the Rue Sery--she being at the\n     Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme--and to bring her to his house by an\n     effort of will. At 8.55 he retired to his study; and MM.\n     Ochorowicz, Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers went to the\n     Pavilion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the\n     house. At 9.22 Dr Myers observed Madame B. coming half way out\n     of the garden gate, and again retreating. Those who saw her\n     more closely observed that she was plainly in the\n     somnambulistic state and was wandering about and muttering. At\n     9.25 she came out with eyes persistently closed, so far as\n     could be seen, walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier\n     without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, though\n     not by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared afterwards\n     that the bonne had seen her go into the _salon_ at 8.45 and\n     issue thence asleep at 9.15; had not looked in between those\n     times.) She avoided lamp-posts, vehicles, etc., but crossed and\n     recrossed the street repeatedly. No one went in front of her or\n     spoke to her. After eight or ten minutes she grew more\n     uncertain in gait, and paused as though she would fall. Dr\n     Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure; it was 9.35. At about\n     9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 reached the street in front\n     of M. Gibert's house. There she met him, but did not notice\n     him, and walked into his house, where she rushed hurriedly from\n     room to room on the ground floor. M. Gibert had to take her\n     hand before she recognised him. She then grew calm.\n\n     \"On the 23rd M. Janet lunched in our company and retired to his\n     own house at 4.30 (a time chosen by lot), to try to put her to\n     sleep from thence. At 5.5 we all entered the _salon_ of the\n     Pavilion, and found her asleep with shut eyes, but sewing\n     vigorously (being in that stage in which movements once\n     suggested are automatically continued). Passing into the\n     talkative stage, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez\n     fait dormir a quatre heures et demi.' The impression as to the\n     hour may have been a suggestion received from M. Janet's mind.\n     We tried to make her believe that it was M. Gibert who had\n     sent her to sleep, but she maintained that she had felt that it\n     was M. Janet.\n\n     \"On 24th April the whole party chanced to meet at M. Janet's\n     house at three P.M., and he then, at my suggestion, entered his\n     study to will that Madame B. should sleep. We waited in his\n     garden, and at 3.20 proceeded together to the Pavilion, which I\n     entered first at 3.30, and found Madame B. profoundly sleeping\n     over her sewing, having ceased to sew. Becoming talkative, she\n     said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez commande.' She said\n     that she fell asleep at 3.5 P.M.\"\n\nOf the twenty-five trials made in the course of two months, eighteen\nwere wholly and four partially successful.\n\nThis somnolent state might, it is thought, have been induced by\ntelepathy; in fact, as we shall see, telepathy will in some quarters\nhave to bear the burden of most, if not all, of the phenomena under\ninvestigation.\n\nNot only is the hypnotic subject frequently induced to do the will of\nthe operator, but he may actually have presented to his intelligence\ncertain ideas or images, material or imaginary, known only to the\nhypnotiser. After following carefully all the experiments conducted by\nthe late Professor Sidgwick and others, in the presence of witnesses of\nrepute, I do not see how it is possible to deny the fact of telepathy.\nIn these experiments the subject or percipient was always hypnotised,\nremaining so to a varying degree throughout the experiment.\n\nAlbeit, even as regards this thought-transference, we must be on our\nguard against a too rash acceptance of unknown or supernormal agencies\nin every bona-fide experiment. Certainly all experiments of the\nhypnotiser do not _ipso facto_ prove that any new method of apprehension\nhas been employed. The hypnotised subject is extremely susceptible to\nsuggestions, and might even glean an indication of what is proceeding\nthrough the look, the gestures, the very breathing, of those present.\nThe utmost precautions, therefore, were taken by the Society for\nPsychical Research when it began its experimental inquiries.\n\nThe subject of the picture was always carefully chosen by one of the\nexperimenters--Mrs Sidgwick or Miss Alice Johnson. Any possibility of\nthe percipient being able to guess at the subject through chance,\nassociation, or ideas was rigorously excluded. To prevent any hint being\nunconsciously imparted by the third experimenter, Mr G. A. Smith,\nsilence was enjoined upon him, and he was placed behind the percipient\nor in another room; yet the percipient actually saw and described the\nprojecting impression as if it were a real picture before his eyes. When\nMr Smith went downstairs with Miss Johnson he was asked by her to think\nof an eagle pursuing a sparrow. Mrs Sidgwick, who remained upstairs with\nP., the percipient, in a few minutes induced him to see a round disc of\nlight on the imaginary lantern-sheet, and then he saw in it \"something\nlike a bird,\" which disappeared immediately. He went on looking (with\nclosed eyes, of course), and presently he thought he saw \"something\nlike a bird--something like an eagle.\" After a pause he said: \"I thought\nI saw a figure there--I saw 5. The bird's gone. I see 5 again; now it's\ngone. The bird came twice.\" Mr Smith then came upstairs, and P. had\nanother impression of an eagle. He was told that the eagle was right,\nand there was something else besides, no hint being given of what the\nother thing was. He then said that the first thing he saw \"was a little\nbird--a sparrow, perhaps--he could not say--about the size of a sparrow;\nthen that disappeared, and he saw the eagle. He had told Mrs Sidgwick so\nat the time.\"\n\nWe see the mental machinery at work in another case, where the subject\nagreed upon was \"The Babes in the Wood.\" To begin with, P. sat with\nclosed eyes, but, when no impression came, Mr Smith opened his eyes,\nwithout speaking, and made him look for the picture on a card. After we\nhad waited a little while in vain, Mr Smith said to him: \"Do you see\nsomething like a straw hat?\" P. assented to this, and then began to\npuzzle out something more: \"A white apron, something dark--a child. It\ncan't be another child, unless it's a boy--a boy and a girl--the boy to\nthe right and the girl to the left. Little girl with white socks on and\nshoes with straps.\" Mr Smith asked: \"What are they doing? Is it two\nchildren on a raft at sea?\" P.: \"No; it's like trees in the\nbackground--a copse or something. Like a fairy-story--like babes in a\nwood or something.\"\n\nWe see it in an even more pronounced degree where the subject sat on a\nsailing boat. Miss Johnson, who did not know what the subject of the\npicture was, asked Miss B. whether it was anything like an animal. Miss\nB. said: \"No; got some prong sort of things--something at the bottom\nlike a little boat. What can that be up in the air? Cliffs, I\nsuppose--cliffs in the air high up--it's joining the boat. Oh, sails!--a\nsailing-boat--not cliffs--sails.\" This was not all uttered\nconsecutively, but partly in answer to questions put by Miss Johnson;\nbut, as Miss Johnson was ignorant of the supposed picture, her questions\ncould, of course, give no guidance.\n\nMany experiments have been made in the transference of imaginary scenes,\nwhere both operator and subject have attempted to attain a conscious\nunity of ideas by means of rough drawings. A slight sketch was made,\nwhich was then projected to the brain of the percipient, who proceeded\nto reproduce the unseen, often with amazing fidelity.\n\nIn these experiments actual contact was forbidden, to avoid the risk of\nunconscious indications by pressure. In many cases, however, the agent\nand percipient have been in the same room, and there has therefore still\nbeen some possible risk of unconscious whispering; but this risk has\nbeen successfully avoided. It yet remains doubtful how far close\nproximity really operates in aid of telepathy, or how far its advantage\nis a mere effect of self-suggestion--on the part either of agent or\npercipient. Some experimenters--notably the late Mr Kirk and Mr\nGlardon--have obtained results of just the same type at distances of\nhalf-a-mile or more. In the case of induction of hypnotic trance, Dr\nGibert, as we have seen, attained at the distance of nearly a mile\nresults which are commonly believed to exact close and actual presence.\n\nHypnotic agencies, according to Myers, may be simplified into suggestion\nand self-suggestion. The same author defines suggestion as \"successful\nappeal to the subliminal self.\" Many striking cases of moral reforms\nproduced by this means have been recorded by Dr Auguste Voisin. For\ninstance:\n\n     \"In the summer of 1884 there was at the Salpetriere a young\n     woman of a deplorable type. Jeanne Sch---- was a criminal\n     lunatic, filthy in habits, violent in demeanour, and with a\n     lifelong history of impurity and theft. M. Voisin, who was one\n     of the physicians on the staff, undertook to hypnotise her on\n     31st May, at a time when she could only be kept quiet by the\n     strait jacket and _bonnet d'irrigation_, or perpetual cold\n     douche to the head. She would not--indeed, she could not--look\n     steadily at her operator, but raved and spat at him. M. Voisin\n     kept his face close to hers and followed her eyes wherever she\n     moved them. In about ten minutes a stertorous sleep ensued, and\n     in five minutes more she passed into a sleep-waking state, and\n     began to talk incoherently. The process was repeated on many\n     days, and gradually she became sane when in the trance, though\n     she still raved when awake. Gradually, too, she became able to\n     obey in waking hours commands impressed on her in the\n     trance--first trivial orders (to sweep the room and so forth),\n     then orders involving a marked change of behaviour. Nay, more;\n     in the hypnotic state she voluntarily expressed repentance for\n     her past life, made a confession which involved more evil than\n     the police were cognisant of (though it agreed with facts\n     otherwise known), and finally of her own impulse made good\n     resolves for the future. Two years later (31st July 1886) M.\n     Voisin wrote that she was then a nurse in a Paris hospital, and\n     that her conduct was irreproachable. It appeared then that this\n     poor woman, whose history since the age of thirteen had been\n     one of reckless folly and vice, had become capable of the\n     steady, self-controlled work of a nurse at a hospital, the\n     reformed character having first manifested itself in the\n     hypnotic state, partly in obedience to suggestion, and partly\n     as the natural result of the tranquilisation of morbid\n     passions.\"\n\nThere is a mass of evidence to testify to the marvellous cures that have\nbeen effected in this way. Kleptomania, dipsomania, nicotinism,\nmorphinomania, and several varieties of phobies have all been known to\nyield to hypnotic suggestion. Nor is it always necessary that the mind\nof the patient should be influenced by another person; self-suggestion\nis at times equally efficacious. Here is a case in point, taken from\n\"Proceedings,\" vol. xi. p. 427. The narrator is Dr D. J. Parsons.\n\n     \"Sixteen years ago I was a little sick; took half-a-grain of\n     opium, and lay down upon the bed. Soon, as I began to feel the\n     tranquillising effect of the opium, I saw three men approaching\n     me; the one in front said: 'You smoke too much tobacco.' I\n     replied: 'I know I do.' He then said: 'Why don't you quit it?'\n     I answered by saying: 'I have been thinking about it, but I am\n     afraid I can't.' He extended his right arm, and placing his\n     forefinger very near my face gave it a few very significant\n     shakes, said, in a very impressive manner: 'You will never want\n     to use tobacco any more as long as you live.' He continued by\n     saying: 'You swear sometimes.' I answered: 'Yes.' He said:\n     'Will you promise to quit?' I intended to say 'Yes,' but just\n     as I was about to utter the word yes, instantly a change came\n     over me, and I felt like I had been held under some unknown\n     influence, which was suddenly withdrawn or exhausted. I had\n     been a constant smoker for more than twenty years.\n\n     \"Since the occurrence of the above incident I have not touched\n     tobacco; have felt ever since like it would poison me, and I\n     now feel like one draw at the pipe would kill me instantly. My\n     desire for tobacco was suddenly and effectually torn out by the\n     roots, but perhaps I shall never know just how it was done.\n\n     \"D. J. PARSONS, M.D.\n\n     \"_Sweet Springs, Missouri._\"\n\nIt would seem in the above case that the suggestibility was heightened\nby the use of opium, which at the same time developed a monitory\nhallucination.\n\nLeading men of science now hold that the popular belief in the dangers\nof hypnotism is grossly exaggerated, it being far less open to abuse\nthan chloroform. Nevertheless some danger is only too manifest, and\nParliament may yet be asked to do what Continental governments have\ndone--viz. to make the practice of hypnotism, save under proper medical\nsupervision, a punishable offence. As an illustration of these dangers I\nmay mention the testimony of an operator given before the Psychical\nResearch Society. Owing to the ready susceptibility of one subject he\nbegan to fear that he might acquire an influence which might be\ninconvenient to both, and so enjoined that he should be unable to\nhypnotise him unless he previously recited a formula asking the operator\nto do so. After several failures he states: \"I eventually succeeded in\nimpressing this so strongly upon him that it became absolutely\neffective, and the formula became requisite, for I could not, even with\nthe utmost co-operation on his part, influence him in the least. One\nnight, however, after retiring to bed I was surprised by his entering\nthe room with the request that I should waken him. I expressed\nastonishment and asked whether he was really asleep. He assured me that\nhe was, and explained that while he had been conversing in the\ndrawing-room after dinner, other persons being present, he had\nexperimentally recited the formula _sotto voce_ and had immediately,\nunperceived by myself or others in the room, gone off in the hypnotic\nstate and could not get out of it again. I protested that this was an\nextremely unfair trick both on himself and on me, and to guard against\nits recurrence I enjoined that in future a mere repetition of the\nformula should not suffice, but that it should be written down, signed\nand handed to me. This has hitherto proved completely successful, and in\nthe absence of the document no efforts on the part of either of us has\nhad any effect whatever.\"\n\nIt would seem, however, that the hypnotic subject is by no means\nentirely at the mercy of the operator. Thus Dr Milne Bramwell, in\n\"Proceedings,\" vol. xii. pp. 176-203, cites a number of cases in which\nsuggestions had been refused by hypnotic subjects. He also mentions two\nsubjects who had rejected certain suggestions and accepted others. A\nMiss F., for example, recited a poem, but would not help herself to a\nglass of water from the sideboard; while a Mr G. would play one part,\nbut not others, and committed an imaginary crime. Dr Bramwell comes to\nthe following conclusion:--\n\n     \"The difference between the hypnotised and the normal subject,\n     as it appears to me from a long series of observed facts, is\n     not so much in conduct as in increased mental and physical\n     powers. Any changes in the moral sense, I have noticed, have\n     invariably been for the better, the hypnotised subject evincing\n     superior refinement. As regards obedience to suggestion, there\n     is apparently little to choose between the two. A hypnotised\n     subject, who has acquired the power of manifesting various\n     physical and mental phenomena, will do so, in response to\n     suggestion, for much the same reasons as one in the normal\n     condition.... When the act demanded is contrary to the moral\n     sense, it is usually refused by the normal subject, and\n     invariably by the hypnotised one.\"\n\nThe hypnotic state evinces an extraordinary extension of faculty. Dr\nBramwell's remarkable series of experiments on \"time appreciation\" shows\nthat orders were carried out by the subject at expiration of such\nperiods as 20,290 minutes from the beginning of the order. In her normal\nstate the female subject of this experiment was incapable of correctly\ncalculating how many days and hours 20,290 minutes would make, and even\nin her hypnotised condition could reckon only with errors; yet, what is\nsingular to relate, even when a blunder was made in the former\ncalculation the order of the hypnotist was none the less fulfilled when\nthe correct period expired. The conclusion is not easy to avoid: that\nbeneath the stratum of human consciousness brought to the surface by\nhypnotism there is one--perhaps two--\"subliminal\" strata more alert and\nmore capable than our ordinary workaday ego.\n\nWhat light this theory of a \"subliminal\" self will shed on our subject\nwe will see when we come to discuss clairvoyance and the trance\nutterances of the spiritualistic \"medium.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPHANTASMS OF THE LIVING\n\n\nWe have seen that the hypnotic agent is able to project from his own\nbrain certain thoughts and images into the mind of the percipient.\n\"When,\" writes Professor Barrett, \"the subject was in the state of\ntrance or profound hypnotism, I noticed that not only sensations, but\nalso ideas or emotions, occurring in the operator appeared to be\nreproduced in the subject without the intervention of any sign, or\nvisible or audible communication.... In many other ways I convinced\nmyself that the existence of a distinct idea in my own mind gave rise to\nsome image of the idea in the subject's mind, not always a clear image,\nbut one that could not fail to be recognised as a more or less distorted\nreflection of my own thought. The important point is that every care was\ntaken to prevent any unconscious muscular action of the face, or\notherwise giving any indication to the subject.\"\n\nThis presumed mode of communication between one individual and another,\nwithout the intervention of any known sense, Professor Barrett, arguing\non electrical analogies, is inclined to suggest might be due to some\nform of nervous induction. But is this faculty restricted in its\noperation to a hypnotised subject? If it were, the significance of the\nphenomena would be very much lessened. We should leave telepathy out of\nour account. But it is not so restricted. The ideas and images are\ncapable of being projected not only to a hypnotised person, but to one\nwho is apparently not under any hypnotic influence whatever. Yet we\nstill must be careful of how we call in the aid of any \"supernatural\"\nagency to account for the influences I am about to relate--the\ntranslation of ideas and motor impulses from one person to another\nwithout the aid of any known sense. The transference of pictures which\nwe described in the last article has been achieved in hundreds of cases\nby an agent upon a hypnotised percipient. Here we have telepathy\napparently at work, but not, however, at any great distance, nor\nsuccessful in conjuring up really vivid or ominous hallucinations. The\nscientific term for these is \"sensory automatisms,\" and many instances\nof these are given by Edmund Gurney, author of \"Phantasms of the\nLiving.\"\n\nAt an early period the Society for Psychical Research began a \"Census of\nHallucinations,\" which, with Gurney's book, now renders it possible for\nus to consider these phenomena with some certainty. The net result of\nall this investigation would seem to demonstrate that a large number of\nsensory automatisms occur amongst sane and healthy persons. We will\nlater consider what difficulty lies in the way of attributing to\ntelepathy the bulk of these phenomena. There is a widely accepted theory\nthat telepathy is propagated by brain-waves, or, in Sir W. Crooke's\nphraseology, by ether-waves, of even smaller amplitude and greater\nfrequency than those which carry X-rays. Such waves are supposed to pass\nfrom one brain to another, arousing in the second brain an excitation\nof image similar to the excitation or image from which they start in the\nfirst place. It has been pointed out that on this view there is no\ntheoretical reason for limiting telepathy to human beings. Why may not\nthe impulse pass between men and the lower animals, or between the lower\nanimals themselves?\n\nI myself have exhumed from the records a case in point. General J. C.\nThompson describes a remarkable apparition of a dog, with every mark of\nreality, at the time when the dog was killed in a city more than a\nhundred miles distant. General Thompson says:\n\n     \"Jim, the dog whose ghost I refer to, was a beautiful collie,\n     the pet of my family, residing at Cheyenne, Wyoming. His\n     affectionate nature surpassed even that of his kind. He had a\n     wide celebrity in the city as 'the laughing dog,' due to the\n     fact that he manifested his recognition of acquaintances and\n     love for his friends by a joyful laugh, as distinctively such\n     as that of any human being.\n\n     \"One evening in the fall of 1905, about 7.30 P.M., I was\n     walking with a friend on Seventeenth Street in Denver,\n     Colorado. As we approached the entrance to the First National\n     Bank, we observed a dog lying in the middle of the pavement,\n     and on coming up to him I was amazed at his perfect likeness to\n     Jim in Cheyenne. The identity was greatly fortified by his\n     loving recognition of me, and the peculiar laugh of Jim's\n     accompanying it. I said to my friend that nothing but the 105\n     miles between Denver and Cheyenne would keep me from making\n     oath to the dog being Jim, whose peculiarities I explained to\n     him.\n\n     \"The dog astral or ghost was apparently badly hurt--he could\n     not rise. After petting him and giving him a kind adieu, we\n     crossed over Stout Street and stopped to look at him again. He\n     had vanished. The next morning's mail brought a letter from my\n     wife saying that Jim had been accidentally killed the evening\n     before at 7.30 P.M. I shall always believe it was Jim's ghost I\n     saw.\"\n\nThis story, circumstantially narrated by an American general, recalls Mr\nRider Haggard's celebrated dream that he saw his dog, Bob, in a dying\ncondition, probably about three hours after the dog's death.\n\nBut we need not pause on such bypaths as these.\n\nPerhaps the simplest form of thought-transference at a distance is that\nin which we find a vague mental unrest, unaccompanied by any visual or\nauditory hallucination. Cases are not infrequently met with where the\npatient suffers from acute depression and anxiety which are not\nconnected at the time with any definite event. _The Journal of the\nSociety for Psychical Research_, July, 1895, yields the following.\n\nMiss W. writes:\n\n     \"On January 17th of this year (1895) I was haunted all day with\n     an indefinable dread, amounting to positive terror if I yielded\n     in the least to its influence. A little before six o'clock I\n     went to my maid's room and casually inquired of her whether\n     she believed in presentiments. She answered: 'Don't let them\n     get hold of you; it is a bad habit.' I replied: 'This is no\n     ordinary presentiment. All day long I have felt that something\n     terrible is impending; of what nature I do not know. I have\n     fought against it, but to no purpose. It is a terror I am\n     positively _possessed_ with.' I was proceeding to describe it\n     in fuller detail, when my mother entered the room with a\n     telegram in her hand. One glance at her face told me that my\n     foreboding had not been a groundless depression. The telegram\n     was to the effect that my brother had been taken very ill at\n     Cambridge and needed my mother at once to nurse him.\n\n     \"I presume that the intensity of my foreboding was due to the\n     very serious nature of his illness.\n\n     \"I experienced at different times what are in common parlance\n     termed 'presentiments'; but only on one other occasion has the\n     same peculiar _terror_ (a chilling conviction of impending\n     trouble) beset me.\"\n\nThis is corroborated both by the maid and Miss W.'s brother, an\nundergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, who had met with a serious\naccident the same afternoon. The affection between brother and sister\nwas, it is related, very close.\n\nOf a well-known type of case the following is a good example. The Hon.\nMrs Fox Powys is the narrator:--\n\n     \"July 1882.\n\n     \"I was expecting my husband home, and shortly after the time he\n     ought to have arrived (about ten P.M.) I heard a cab drive up\n     to the door, the bell ring, my husband's voice talking with the\n     cabman, the front door open and his step come up the stairs. I\n     went to the drawing-room, opened it, and to my astonishment saw\n     no one. I could hardly believe he was not there, the whole\n     thing was so vivid, and the street was particularly quiet at\n     the time. About twenty minutes or so after this my husband\n     _really_ arrived, though nothing sounded to me more real than\n     it did the first time. The train was late, and he had been\n     thinking I might be anxious.\"\n\nIn response to further inquiries, Mrs Powys added:\n\n     \"To me the whole thing was very noisy and real, but no one else\n     can have heard anything, for the bell I heard ring was not\n     answered. It was a quiet street in town, and there was no\n     vehicle of any kind passing at the time; and on finding no one\n     on the landing as I expected, I went at once to the window, and\n     there was nothing to be seen, and no sound to be heard, which\n     would have been the case had the cab been driven off.\"\n\nHere the expectation of Mr Fox Powys' arrival seems to have caused an\nauditory hallucination. In other cases of a similar nature the\nhallucination is visual, the percipient actually seeing the figure of\nthe expected person.\n\nThe authors of \"Phantasms of the Living\" give the following case as an\n\"interesting puzzle\" and invite the reader to decide whether or not it\naffords evidence for telepathy. The narrator, Mr W. A. S., is described\nas an unexceptionable witness who has never had any other visual\nhallucination.\n\n     \"January 14th, 1883.\n\n     \"In the month of April 1871, about two o'clock in the\n     afternoon, I was sitting in the drawing-room of my father's\n     house in Pall Mall. The window of the room fronted south; and\n     the sun was shining brightly in at the window. I was sitting\n     between the fireplace and the window, with my back to the\n     light; my niece was sitting on the opposite side of the\n     fireplace; and opposite me at the farther corner of the room\n     was a door partly open, leading directly to the staircase. I\n     saw what I supposed at the first moment to be dirty soapy water\n     running in at the door; and I was in the act of jumping up to\n     scold the housemaid for upsetting the water, when I saw that\n     the supposed water was the tail or train of a lady's dress. The\n     lady glided in backwards, as if she had been slid in on a\n     slide, each part of her dress keeping its place without\n     disturbance. She glided in till I could see the whole of her,\n     _except the tip of her nose, her lips and the tip of her chin,\n     which were hidden by the edge of the door_. Her head was\n     slightly turned over her shoulder, and her eye also turned, so\n     that it appeared fixed upon me. She held her arm, which was a\n     very fine one, in a peculiar way, as if she were proud of it.\n     She was dressed in a pale blue evening dress, worked with white\n     lace. I instantly recognised the figure as that of a lady whom\n     I had known some twenty-five years or more before; and with\n     whom I had frequently danced. She was a bright, dashing girl, a\n     good dancer, and we were good friends, but nothing more. She\n     had afterwards married and I had occasionally heard of her, but\n     do not think I had seen her for certainly more than twenty or\n     twenty-five years. She looked much as I used to see her--with\n     long curls and bright eyes, but perhaps something stouter and\n     more matronly.\n\n     \"I said to myself: 'This is one of those strange apparitions I\n     have often heard of. I will watch it as carefully as I can.' My\n     niece, who did not see the figure, in the course of a minute or\n     two exclaimed: 'Uncle A., what is the matter with you? You\n     look as if you saw a ghost!' I motioned her to be quiet, as I\n     wished to observe the thing carefully; and an impression came\n     upon me that if I moved, the thing would disappear. I tried to\n     find out whether there was anything in the ornaments on the\n     walls, or anything else which could suggest the figure; but I\n     found that all the lines close to her cut the outline of her\n     figure at all sorts of angles, and none of these coincided with\n     the outline of her figure, and the colour of everything around\n     her strongly contrasted with her colour. In the course of a few\n     minutes, I heard the door bell ring, and I heard my brother's\n     voice in the hall. He came upstairs and walked right through\n     the figure into the room. The figure then began to fade away\n     rather quickly; and though I tried I could in no way recall it.\n\n     \"I frequently told the story in society, treating it always as\n     something internal rather than external and supposing that the\n     lady was still alive; and rather making a joke of it than\n     otherwise. Some years afterwards I was staying with some\n     friends in Suffolk and told the story at the dinner-table,\n     saying that it was no ghost as the lady was still alive. The\n     lady of the house said: 'She is not alive, as you suppose, but\n     she has been dead some years.' We looked at the peerage and\n     found she had died in 1871. (I afterwards found out that she\n     had died in November, whereas the apparition was in April.) The\n     conversation continued about her, and I said: 'Poor thing, I am\n     sorry she is dead. I have had many a merry dance with her. What\n     did she die of?' The lady of the house said: 'Poor thing\n     indeed, she died a wretched death; she died of cancer in the\n     face.' She never showed me the front of her face; it was always\n     concealed by the edge of the door.\"\n\nI will now concern myself with the power of an agent to project himself\nphantasmally--that is, to make his form and features manifest to some\npercipient at a distance as though he were actually present. In Gurney's\n\"Phantasms of the Living\" is given at length a case of a simple nature.\nHere there was not one but two percipients.\n\n     On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been\n     reading of the great power which the human will is capable of\n     exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that\n     I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom on the second\n     floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in\n     which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance--viz. Miss L. S.\n     V., and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven\n     years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a\n     distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not\n     mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to\n     either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was\n     only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up\n     my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be\n     there was one o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong\n     intention of making my presence perceptible.\n\n     \"On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in\n     question, and in the course of conversation (without any\n     allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me that\n     on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by\n     perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed\n     when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little\n     sister, who saw me also.\n\n     \"I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most\n     decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of\n     the occurrence she replied about one o'clock in the morning.\n\n     \"This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event\n     and signed it.\n\n     \"This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment\n     of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.\n\n     \"Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put\n     forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was\n     conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in\n     my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising\n     some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but\n     which I can now at certain times set in motion at will.\n\n     \"S. H. B.\"\n\nThe account given by Miss Verity is as follows:--\n\n     \"January 18th, 1883.\n\n     \"On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our\n     house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr B. in my\n     room, about one o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much\n     terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the\n     apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr B., I told\n     him what had happened; but it was some time before I could\n     recover from the shock I had received, and the remembrance is\n     too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.\n\n     \"L. S. Verity.\"\n\nMiss E. C. Verity says:\n\n     \"I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister\n     in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct.\n     I saw the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under\n     the same circumstances.\n\n     \"E. C. Verity.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"The witnesses (comments Gurney) have been very carefully\n     cross-examined by the present writer. There is not the\n     slightest doubt that their mention of the occurrence to S. H.\n     B. was spontaneous. They had not at first intended to mention\n     it; but when they saw him their sense of its oddness overcame\n     their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly sober-minded and\n     sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a\n     considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of\n     marvel.\"\n\nOn another occasion the agent announced privately to the investigator\nthat he would project himself at a stated time. He did so; and the lady\nwrote as follows:--\n\n     \"44 Norland Square, W.\n\n     \"On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had\n     a distinct impression that Mr S. H. B. was present in my room,\n     and I distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He\n     came towards me, and stroked my hair. I _voluntarily_ gave him\n     this information when he called to see me on Wednesday, April\n     2nd, telling him the time and the circumstances of the\n     apparition, without any suggestion on his part. The appearance\n     in my room was most vivid and quite unmistakable.\n\n     \"L. S. Verity.\"\n\nMr B.'s own account runs thus:\n\n     \"On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence\n     perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at\n     twelve midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr\n     Gurney that I should post him a letter on the evening on which\n     I tried my next experiment (stating the time and other\n     particulars), I sent a note to acquaint him with the above\n     facts.\n\n     \"About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she\n     voluntarily told me that on March 22nd, at twelve o'clock\n     midnight, she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst\n     widely awake) that her nerves had been much shaken, and she had\n     been obliged to send for a doctor in the morning.\n\n     \"S. H. B.\"\n\nAnother case of a similar nature is reported by the American branch of\nthe Society for Psychical Research:\n\n     \"On July 5th, 1887, I left my house in Lakewood to go to New\n     York to spend a few days. My wife was not feeling well when I\n     left, and after I had started I looked back and saw her\n     standing in the door looking disconsolate and sad at my\n     leaving. The picture haunted me all day, and at night, before I\n     went to bed, I thought I would try to find out, if possible,\n     her condition. I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of\n     the bed, when I covered my face with my hands and willed myself\n     in Lakewood at home to see if I could see her. After a little\n     while I seemed to be standing in her room before the bed, and\n     saw her lying there looking much better. I felt satisfied she\n     was better, and so spent the week more comfortably regarding\n     her condition. On Saturday I went home. When she saw me she\n     remarked: 'I don't know whether I am glad to see you or not,\n     for I thought something had happened to you. I saw you standing\n     in front of the bed the night (about 8.30 or before 9) you\n     left, and as plain as could be, and I have been worrying myself\n     about you ever since. I sent to the office and to the depot\n     daily to get some message from you.' After explaining my effort\n     to find out her condition, everything became plain to her. She\n     had seen me when I was trying to see her and find out her\n     condition. I thought at the time I was going to see her and\n     make her see me.\n\n     \"B. F. Sinclair.\"\n\nThe foregoing is corroborated by Mrs Sinclair. She states that she saw\nher husband, not as he was dressed at the moment of the experiment, but\n\"in a suit that hung in a closet at home.\" The apparition caused her\ngreat anxiety, so that her husband's view of her improved appearance was\nnot really true. The son, Mr George Sinclair, avers that in his\nmother's vision his father's face was \"drawn and set, as if he was\neither dead or trying to accomplish something which was beyond him.\"\n\nAnother case investigated by the Society is also striking. The date is\n1896.\n\n     \"'One night, two or three years ago, I came back from the\n     theatre to my mother's flat at 6 S---- Street; and after I had\n     been into her bedroom and told her all about it, I went to bed\n     about one A.M. I had not been asleep long when I started up\n     frightened, fancying that I had heard someone walk down the\n     passage towards my mother's room; but, hearing nothing more,\n     went to sleep again. I started up alarmed in the same way three\n     or four times before dawn.\n\n     \"'In the morning, upon inquiry, my mother (who was ill at the\n     time) only told me that she had had a very disturbed night.\n\n     \"'Then I asked my brother, who told me that he had suffered in\n     the same way as I had, starting up several times in a\n     frightened manner. On hearing this my mother then told me that\n     she had seen an apparition of Mr Pelham. Later in the day Mr\n     Pelham came in, and my mother asked him casually if he had been\n     doing anything last night; upon which he told us that he had\n     come to bed willing that he should visit and appear to us. We\n     made him promise not to repeat the experiment.'\n\n     \"Mrs E., the mother, states that she was recovering from\n     influenza at the time. At half-past ten, as she lay reading:\n\n     \"'A strange, creepy sensation came over me, and I felt my eyes\n     were drawn towards the left-hand side of the room. I felt I\n     must look, and there, distinct against the curtain, was a blue\n     luminous mist.\n\n     \"'This time I was impelled to cast my eyes downward to the side\n     of my bed, and there, creeping upwards towards me, was the same\n     blue luminous mist. I was too terrified to move, and remember\n     keeping the book straight up before my face, as though to ward\n     off a blow, at the same time exerting all my strength of will\n     and determination not to be afraid--when, suddenly, as if with\n     a jerk, above the top of my book came the brow and eyes of Mr\n     Pelham.'\n\n     \"Instantly her fears ceased. She 'remembered that Mr Pelham had\n     experimented on her before at night'; and 'in one moment mist\n     and face were gone.'\n\n     \"For his part, Mr Pelham explains that he 'carefully imagined'\n     himself going down the steps of his house, and so along the\n     streets, to Mrs E.'s flat, and to her drawing-room and bedroom;\n     he then went to bed with his mind fixed on the visit and soon\n     fell asleep. He has made other trials, but without any positive\n     success, though during one of them Mrs E. was wakened suddenly\n     by the feeling that someone was in the room, and it occurred to\n     her that Mr Pelham was again experimenting.\"\n\nThe occurrences above related are most significant, if true, and I am\nbound to say the _bona fides_ of the narrators seems to me indisputable.\nIs it a spirit showing itself partially dissociated from the living\norganism; evincing independence, a certain intelligence and a certain\npermanence? Or is this a mere image of the agent, conceived in his own\nbrain and projected telepathically to the brain of the percipient? So\nfar, we are merely groping our way. Yet, is it not possible that we have\nlaid hands upon a credible explanation of the eternal mystery of\n\"ghosts\"? We shall see.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nDREAMS\n\n\nHaving partially discussed the subject of phantasms projected from the\nbrain of the agent to that of the percipient, I must now briefly\ndescribe another group for which the evidence is very abundant--that of\n\"veridical\" dreams. This is a term used to describe apparitions\ncoinciding with other events in such a manner as to suggest a\nconnection. Your dream or hallucination is said to be veridical when it\nconveys an idea which is both true and previously unknown to you.\n\nMaking every allowance for the element of chance, there is a mass of\nevidence which mere coincidence cannot explain away. Yet we must not\noverlook the frequency of dreams, even of a striking character, which\nmay once or twice in a million times actually hit on the coincident\nevent. But besides coincidence, there is at times another normal\nexplanation. Mr Podmore relates how a neighbour of his on the night of\n24th June 1894 dreamed President Carnot had been assassinated. He told\nhis family before the morning paper announcing the news had been opened.\nAs has been pointed out, in a case of that kind it seems possible that\nthe information may have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the\nshouts of a newsboy, or even from the conversation of passers-by in the\nstreet.\n\nBefore any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal\ncommunication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances\nabout to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the\ndreamer or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was\nsuspected.\n\nOne of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:\n\n     \"Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a\n     day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister,\n     living at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his\n     chambers I found a note on the table apologising for his\n     absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance somewhere in\n     the West End, and intended to be home soon after one o'clock.\n     Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair, but started up\n     wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's down!'\n     and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly\n     illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top\n     stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows\n     and hands. (The house was one which I have never seen, nor did\n     I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter, I\n     fell a-doze again for half-an-hour and was awakened by my\n     brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh, there you are! I\n     have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever\n     had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot,\n     and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'\n\n     \"That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always\n     thought it must have been something more.\"\n\nA member of the Society for Psychical Research narrates that on 7th\nOctober 1900 he woke abruptly in the small hours of the morning with a\npainful conviction upon him that his wife, who was that night sleeping\nin another part of the house, had burst a varicose vein in the calf of\nher leg, and that he could feel the swelled place three inches long:\n\n     \"I wondered whether I ought to get up and go down to her room\n     on the first floor, and considered whether she would be able to\n     come up to me; but I was only partly awake, though in acute\n     distress. My mind had been suddenly roused, but my body was\n     still under the lethargy of sleep. I argued with myself that\n     there was sure to be nothing in it, that I should only disturb\n     her, and so shortly went off to sleep again.\n\n     \"On going to her room this morning I said I had had a horrid\n     dream, which had woke me up, to the effect that she had burst a\n     varicose vein, of which just now care has to be taken. 'Why,'\n     she replied, 'I had just the same experience. I woke up at\n     2.15, feeling sure the calf of my leg was bleeding, and my\n     hand seemed to feel it when I put it there. I turned on the\n     light in alarm, noticing the time, and wondered if I should be\n     able to get up to thee, or whether I should have to wake the\n     housekeeper. Thou wast in the dream out of which I woke,\n     examining the place.'\n\n     \"Though I did not note the hour, two o'clock is about the time\n     I should have guessed it to be; and the impression on my mind\n     was vivid and terrible, knowing how dangerous such an accident\n     would be.\"\n\nThe foregoing is thus corroborated by the lady:\n\n     \"I felt twinges of pain in my leg off and on in my sleep\n     without being entirely roused till about 2.15 A.M. Then, or\n     just before, I dreamt or had a vivid impression that a vein had\n     burst, and that my husband, who was sleeping in another room up\n     another flight of stairs, was there and called my attention to\n     it. I thought it felt wet, and trickling down the leg as if\n     bleeding, passed my hand down, and at first thought it seemed\n     wet; but on gaining fuller consciousness found it all right,\n     and that it was not more painful than often when I got out and\n     stood on it. Thought over the contingency of its actually\n     bursting, and whether I could so bandage it in that case as to\n     make it safe to go up to my husband's room, and thought I could\n     do so.\n\n     \"Looking at my watch, found it about 2.20.\"\n\nAs to dreams in which a death occurs there is a vast mass of testimony.\nThe late Dr Hodgson, on 19th July 1897, received the following letter:--\n\n     \"DEAR HODGSON,--Five minutes ago Mr J. F. Morse, who has all\n     his life had dreams which were more or less verified later,\n     came to my room and said: 'I believe my wife died last night,\n     for I had a dream of a most remarkable nature which indicates\n     it. I shall be able to let you know soon, for I shall get word\n     at my office when I reach there. I will then send you word.'\n     His wife is in a country place in Delaware Co. Pa. She is ill,\n     but he had no idea she would not live for months, as the\n     enclosed letter of July 15th will show; but she was ill, and\n     would be likely to decline slowly and gradually. I will get\n     this off or in the mail before I hear any more.\n\n     \"Mr Morse in his appearance looks like one who had just lost a\n     dear friend, and is in a state of great mental depression, with\n     tears in his eyes....\n\n     \"M. L. HOLBROOK.\"\n\nOn the evening of the same day a telegram was received announcing the\nunexpected death of Mrs Morse at 9.15 on the evening of Friday, 16th\nJuly.\n\nA prominent Chicago journalist, Mr F. B. Wilkie, reported that his wife\nasked him one morning in October 1885, while still engaged in dressing,\nand before either of them had left their sleeping-room, if he knew\nanyone named Edsale or Esdale. A negative reply was given and then a\n\"Why do you ask?\" She replied: \"During the night I dreamt that I was on\nthe lake-shore and found a coffin there, with the name of Edsale or\nEsdale on it, and I am confident that someone of that name has recently\nbeen drowned there.\" On opening the morning paper the first item that\nattracted his attention was the report of the mysterious disappearance\nfrom his home in Hyde Park of a young man named Esdale. A few days\nafterwards the body of a young man was found on the lake-shore.\n\nThis case was carefully investigated and authenticated by Dr Hodgson,\nand bears some unusual features.\n\nOf dreams that may be reasonably regarded as telepathic the following is\na striking example. It is contributed to \"Phantasms of the Living\" by a\nMrs Hilton--a lady engaged in active work, and not in any respect a\n\"visionary.\"\n\n     \"234 Burdett Road, E.\n\n     \"April 10th, 1883.\n\n     \"The dream which I am about to relate occurred about two years\n     ago. I seemed to be walking in a country road, with high grassy\n     banks on either side. Suddenly I heard the tramp of many feet.\n     Feeling a strange sense of fear I called out: 'Who are these\n     people coming?' A voice above me replied: 'A procession of the\n     dead.' I then found myself on the bank, looking into the road\n     where the people were walking five or six abreast. Hundreds of\n     them passed by me--neither looking aside nor looking at each\n     other. They were people of all conditions and in all ranks of\n     life. I saw no children amongst them. I watched the long line\n     of people go away into the far distance, but I felt no special\n     interest in any of them, until I saw a middle-aged Friend,\n     dressed as a gentleman farmer. I pointed to him and called out:\n     'Who is that, please?' He turned round and called out in a loud\n     voice: 'I am John M., of Chelmsford.' Then my dream ended. Next\n     day when my husband returned from the office he told me that\n     John M., of Chelmsford, had died the previous day.\n\n     \"I may add that I only knew the Friend in question by sight and\n     cannot recollect ever speaking to him.\n\n     \"MARIE HILTON.\"\n\nAbout a year later Mrs Hilton experienced a dream of a similar kind,\nagain coincident with the death of an acquaintance seen in the phantom\nprocession. It is worth noting \"remarks Mr Gurney,\" that these\ndreams--for all their _bizarrerie_--seem to belong to a known type.\n\nIn another category of phenomena belong precognitive dreams in which\ncertain events, especially deaths, are foretold. Mr Alfred Cooper, of 9\nHenrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W., states, and his statement is\nattested by the Duchess of Hamilton, that:\n\n     \"A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L----, in\n     1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton in Hill Street to see\n     him professionally. After I had finished seeing him we went\n     into the drawing-room where the Duchess was, and the Duke said\n     to me: 'Oh, Cooper, how is the Earl?'\n\n     \"The Duchess said: 'What Earl?' and on my answering: 'Lord\n     L----,' she replied, 'That is very odd. I have had a most\n     extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a\n     short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene\n     as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L----,\n     in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a\n     red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a red\n     lamp was distinctly shown.'\n\n     \"I then said: 'I am attending Lord L---- at present; there is\n     very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he\n     will be all right very soon.'\n\n     \"Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the\n     end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him\n     suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.\n\n     \"I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead\n     man. There were two male nurses attending him; one had been\n     taken ill. But when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess\n     was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the\n     Earl, and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the\n     bath with the red lamp over it, it is rather rare to find a\n     bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my\n     mind.\n\n     \"The vision seen by the Duchess was told two weeks before the\n     death of Lord L----. It is a most remarkable thing. This\n     account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of\n     Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the\n     vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.\n\n     \"MARY HAMILTON.\n\n     \"ALFRED COOPER.\"\n\nMr Myers adds:\n\n     \"The Duchess only knew Lord L---- by sight, and had not heard\n     that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened\n     her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the\n     same thing again.\n\n     \"An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F.\n     W. H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the Duchess related the\n     dream on the morning after its occurrence.\"\n\nOne of the most interesting and well-authenticated cases of dreams\nforetelling a death is that of Mr Fred Lane, understudy to that popular\nactor the late William Terriss. His statement is as follows:--\n\n     \"Adelphi Theatre,\n\n     \"December 20th, 1897.\n\n     \"In the early morning of December 16th, 1897, I dreamt that I\n     saw the late Mr Terriss lying in a state of delirium or\n     unconsciousness on the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in\n     the Adelphi Theatre. He was surrounded by people engaged at the\n     theatre, amongst whom were Miss Millward and one of the footmen\n     who attend the curtain, both of whom I actually saw a few hours\n     later at the death scene. His chest was bare and clothes torn\n     aside. Everybody who was around him was trying to do something\n     for his good. This dream was in the shape of a picture. I saw\n     it like a tableau on which the curtain would rise and fall. I\n     immediately after dreamt that we did not open at the Adelphi\n     Theatre that evening. I was in my dressing-room in the dream,\n     but this latter part was somewhat incoherent. The next morning,\n     on going down to the theatre for rehearsal, the first member of\n     the company I met was Miss H----, to whom I mentioned this\n     dream. On arriving at the theatre I also mentioned it to\n     several other members of the company including Messrs Creagh\n     Henry, Buxton, Carter Bligh, etc. This dream, though it made\n     such an impression upon me as to cause me to relate it to my\n     fellow-artists, did not give me the idea of any coming\n     disaster. I may state that I have dreamt formerly of deaths of\n     relatives and other matters which have impressed me, but the\n     dreams have never impressed me sufficiently to make me repeat\n     them the following morning, and have never been verified. My\n     dream of the present occasion was the most vivid I have ever\n     experienced; in fact, lifelike, and exactly represented the\n     scene as I saw it at night.\"\n\nThree members of the company--Mr Carter Bligh, Mr Creagh Henry, and Miss\nH---- --made statements that Mr Lane related his dream in their presence\non the morning of 16th December. Mr Lane was in the vicinity of the\nAdelphi Theatre when the murderer, named Prince or Archer, who had been\nemployed as a super at the theatre, stabbed Terriss at the stage\nentrance to the theatre. The actor was taken to the Charing Cross\nHospital, where he died almost immediately. It is interesting to note\nthat it was Lane himself who ran to the hospital for the doctor, and on\nhis return looked in at the stage entrance and saw Terriss lying on the\nstairs just as he had seen him in the dream.\n\nWhile I am fully alive to the possibilities of coincidence, there\ncertainly does not seem to be much besides levity in the theory that \"it\nhappened to be Jones's hour to see a hallucination of Thompson when it\nhappened to be Thompson's hour to die,\" especially when, as frequently\nhappens, the hallucination occurs more than once to the same percipient.\n\nA Parisian journalist, M. Henri Buisson, sends to \"The Annals of\nPsychical Science\" an account of three premonitory dreams all of which\nwere told to others before they were fulfilled. In the first, which\noccurred on June 8th, 1887, M. Buisson saw his grandmother \"stretched\ndead on her bed, with a smile on her face as if she slept.\" Above the\nbed, in a brilliant sun, he read the date, \"June 8th, 1888,\" just a\nyear later; and on that day his grandmother died quite suddenly, with\nher face as calm as he had seen it in his dream.\n\nOn another occasion M. Buisson saw his mother, not dead, but very ill,\nand attended by a doctor, who had died more than a year before, after\nhaving been the family physician for thirty years. The next day M.\nBuisson received a telegram saying that his mother was ill, and, in\nfact, she died during the day.\n\nIn April 1907, M. Buisson dreamt that he received notice to quit his\nhouse on pretence of a message from the Prefect of Police, and that on\nlooking out of the window he saw the Prefect in the street, dressed in a\nleather jacket, with a soft hat, and a slipper on one foot. He also\ndreamt that a fire had broken out. On the evening of the next day he\nheard the fire-engines, and on following them he found the Prefect on\nthe spot, dressed just as in the dream, having hurt one foot, he had to\ngo about in a slipper.\n\nOf still another type is the clairvoyant dream. The following is\nrelated by Mr Herbert J. Lewis, of Cardiff:--\n\n     \"In September 1880 I lost the landing-order of a large steamer\n     containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port\n     of Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the\n     next morning. I received the landing-order at four o'clock in\n     the afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found\n     that I had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my\n     utmost to find the officials of the Customs House to get a\n     permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance, preventing\n     the ship from discharging. I came home in a great degree of\n     trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my\n     situation in consequence.\n\n     \"That night I dreamt that I saw the lost landing-order lying in\n     a crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the\n     Customs House.\n\n     \"At five the next morning I went down to the Customs House and\n     got the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of\n     which I had dreamt, and found the paper in the very place. The\n     ship was not ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went\n     on board at seven and delivered the landing-order, saving her\n     from all delay.\n\n     \"I can certify to the truth of the above statement,\n\n     \"HERBERT J. LEWIS,\n\n     \"THOMAS LEWIS\n\n     \"(Herbert Lewis's father).\n\n     \"H. WALLIS.\"\n\n(Mr E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the\nfollowing corroborative note.)\n\n     \"August 14th, 1884.\n\n     \"I made some inquiries about Mr Herbert Lewis's dream before I\n     left Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in\n     which the order was found. His theory as to how the order got\n     in the place in which it was found is that it was probably put\n     there by someone (perhaps with malicious intent), as he does\n     not see how it could have fallen so.\n\n     \"The fact that Mr H. Lewis is exceedingly short-sighted adds\n     to the probability of the thing which you suggest, that the\n     dream was simply an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the\n     other hand, he does not believe it was there when he searched.\n\n     \"E. J. NEWELL.\"\n\nNow, it seems to me in the above case that the dreamer's subliminal self\nmay have taken note of the lost landing-order without his\nsuper-consciousness being aware of it, and that the fact returned to him\nin his dream.\n\nIn R. L. Stevenson's \"Across the Plains\" may be found a striking chapter\non dreams. It contains an account of some of the most successful dream\nexperiments ever recorded. Stevenson's dreams were of no ordinary\ncharacter; they were always of great vividness, and often of a markedly\nrecurrent type. This faculty he developed to an unusual degree--to such\nan extent, indeed, that it became of great assistance to him in his\nwork. By self-suggestion before sleep, we are told, the great novelist\nwould secure \"a visual and dramatic intensity of dream-representation\nwhich furnished him with the motives of some of his most striking\nromances.\" But \"R. L. S.\" is not the only one who has secured assistance\nof dreams. Here is an account given by a German, Professor Hilprecht, of\nan experience of a similar nature (\"Human Personality,\" i. 376):\n\n     \"One Saturday evening, about the middle of March 1893, I had\n     been wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks\n     preceding, in the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments\n     of agate, which were supposed to belong to the finger-rings of\n     some Babylonian. The labour was much increased by the fact that\n     the fragments presented remnants only of characters and lines,\n     that dozens of similar small fragments had been found in the\n     ruins of the temple of Bel at Nippur with which nothing could\n     be done, that in this case furthermore I never had the\n     originals before me, but only a hasty sketch made by one of the\n     members of the expedition sent by the University of\n     Pennsylvania to Babylonia. I could not say more than that the\n     fragments, taking into consideration the place in which they\n     were found and the peculiar characteristics of the cuneiform\n     characters preserved upon them, sprang from the Cassite period\n     of Babylonian history (_circa_ 1700-1140 B.C.); moreover, as\n     the first character of the third line of the first fragment\n     seemed to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an\n     interrogation point, to King Kurigalzu, while I placed the\n     other fragment as unclassifiable with other Cassite fragments\n     upon a page of my book where I published the unclassifiable\n     fragments. The proofs already lay before me, but I was far from\n     satisfied. The whole problem passed yet again through my mind\n     that March evening before I placed my mark of approval under\n     the last correction in the book. Even then I had come to no\n     conclusion. About midnight, weary and exhausted, I went to bed\n     and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed the following\n     remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian\n     Nippur, about forty years of age and clad in a simple abba, led\n     me to the treasure chamber of the temple, on its south-east\n     side. He went with me into a small low-ceiled room, without\n     windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps\n     of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he\n     addressed me as follows:--'The two fragments which you have\n     published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together, are\n     not finger-rings, and their history is as follows. King\n     Kurigalzu (_circa_ 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel,\n     among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli, an inscribed\n     votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the\n     command to make for the statue of the god Ninib a pair of\n     earrings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no\n     agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command\n     there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into\n     three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a\n     portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served\n     as earrings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which\n     have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you\n     will put the two together you will have confirmation of my\n     words. But the third ring you have not yet found in the course\n     of your excavations and you never will find it.' With this the\n     priest disappeared. I awoke at once and immediately told my\n     wife the dream, that I might not forget it. Next\n     morning--Sunday--I examined the fragments once more in the\n     light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all\n     the details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the\n     means of verification were in my hands. The original\n     inscription on the votive cylinder read: 'To the god Ninib, son\n     of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented\n     this.' The problem was at last solved.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nHALLUCINATIONS\n\n\nFrom the occurrence in a dream of the ideas of events which happen to\ncoincide with actual events, let us turn to apparitions occurring during\nthe waking hours of the percipient.\n\nThe late Professor Sidgwick, at the head of a committee, sent out the\nfollowing question to 17,000 educated persons not known to have had\nhallucinations:--\"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be\ncompletely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a\nliving being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice, which\nimpression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external\nphysical cause?\"\n\nThe replies demonstrate how frequent are hallucinations amongst healthy,\nnormal-minded persons. No fewer than 1684, or one in ten, of the\npersons interrogated, had had visual and auditory and even tactile\nhallucinations, realistic human phantoms, and other apparitions. We find\nthat, according to the age classification, of 1295 visual hallucinations\n72 occurred while the percipients were under ten years of age, 217\nbetween the ages of ten and nineteen, 300 between twenty and\ntwenty-nine, 143 between thirty and thirty-nine, 81 between forty and\nforty-nine, 40 between fifty and fifty-nine, 22 between sixty and\nsixty-nine, 5 later than seventy, and 415 at unstated ages. Some of the\nhallucinations occurred immediately after waking, others while the\npercipients were awake in bed; but the great bulk occurred in a fully\nawakened state, and a large number appeared out of doors.\n\nOf hallucinations of which we may say that they are due to a projection\nfrom the agent's mind, commonly to a dying man or woman, to that of the\npercipient, perhaps one of the most famous is that of Lord Charles\nBeresford, as described by him to the Society for Psychical Research:\n\n     \"It was in the spring of 1864, whilst on board H.M.S. _Racoon_,\n     between Gibraltar and Marseilles, that I went into my office on\n     the main deck to get a pipe; and as I opened the door I saw my\n     father lying in his coffin as plainly as I could. It gave me an\n     awful jerk and I immediately told some of the fellows who were\n     smoking just outside the usual place between the guns, and I\n     also told dear old Onslow, our chaplain. A few days after we\n     arrived at Marseilles, and I heard of my father's death, and he\n     had been buried that very day and at the time, half-past twelve\n     in the day. I may add that at the time it was a bright, sunny\n     day, and I had not been fretting about my father, as the latest\n     news I had of him was that although very ill he was better. My\n     dear old father and I were great chums, more so than is usual\n     between a man of seventy-two and a boy of twenty, our\n     respective ages then.\"\n\nThe evidence is so bulky that we may quote only a case here and there at\nrandom:\n\n     \"On December 9th 1882 Mr T. G. Keulemans was living with his\n     family in Paris. The outbreak of an epidemic of smallpox caused\n     him to remove three of his children, including a favourite\n     little boy of five, to London, whence he received in the course\n     of the ensuing month several letters giving an excellent\n     account of their health.\n\n     \"On the 24th of January 1881, at half-past seven in the\n     morning, I was suddenly awoke by hearing his voice, as I\n     fancied, very near me. I saw a bright opaque white mass before\n     my eyes, and in the centre of this light I saw the face of my\n     little darling, his eyes bright, his mouth smiling. The\n     apparition, accompanied by the sound of his voice, was too\n     short and too sudden to be called a dream; it was too clear,\n     too decided, to be called an effect of the imagination. So\n     distinctly did I hear his voice that I looked round the room to\n     see whether he was actually there. The sound I heard was that\n     of extreme delight, such as only a happy child can utter. I\n     thought it was the moment he woke up in London, happy and\n     thinking of me. I said to myself: 'Thank God, little Isidore\n     is happy as always.' Mr Keulemans describes the ensuing day as\n     one of peculiar brightness and cheerfulness. He took a long\n     walk with a friend, with whom he dined; and was afterwards\n     playing a game at billiards when he again saw the apparition of\n     his child. This made him seriously uneasy, and in spite of\n     having received within three days the assurance of his child's\n     perfect health he expressed to his wife a conviction that he\n     was dead. Next day a letter arrived saying that the child was\n     ill; but the father was convinced that this was only an attempt\n     to break the news; and, in fact, the child had died, after a\n     few hours' illness, at the exact time of the first apparition.\"\n\nAnother case as recited by Madame D----, of St Gaudens, is to be found\nin \"Posthumous Humanity.\" She says:\n\n     \"I was still a young girl, and slept with my elder sister. One\n     evening we had just retired to bed and blown out the light. The\n     smouldering fire on the hearth still feebly lighted the room.\n     Upon turning my eyes towards the fireplace I perceived, to my\n     amazement, a priest seated before the fire and warming himself.\n     He had the corpulence, the features, and the general appearance\n     of one of our uncles who lived in the neighbourhood, where he\n     was an archbishop. I at once called my sister's attention. She\n     looked in the same direction, and saw the same apparition. She\n     also recognised our uncle. An indescribable terror seized us\n     both, and we cried 'Help!' with all our might. My father, who\n     slept in an adjoining room, awakened by these desperate cries,\n     jumped out of bed and ran in with a candle in his hand. The\n     phantom had disappeared, and we saw no one in the room. The\n     next morning a letter was received informing us that our uncle\n     had died the previous evening.\n\n     \"At Wiesbaden, Professor Ebenan, whose old sister kept his\n     house, stated that he had a friend residing forty or fifty\n     miles off--likewise a professor--who was very poor and had a\n     large family. On hearing that his wife was dying, Mr E---- went\n     to see them, and brought back their eldest boy, for whom a\n     little bed was put up in Mr E----'s room.\n\n     \"One morning, about ten days after, Mr E---- called and asked\n     me: 'Do you believe that at the moment of death you may appear\n     to one whom you love?' I replied: 'Yes, I do.' 'Well,' he said,\n     'we shall see. I have noted the day and the hour, for last\n     night after I went to bed the child said sweetly (in German):\n     \"Yes, dear mamma, I see you.\" To which I replied: \"No, dear\n     boy, it is I; I am come to bed.\" \"No,\" he said, \"it is dear\n     mamma, she is standing there smiling at me,\" pointing to the\n     side of the bed.' On his next visit Mr Ebenan told us that he\n     had received a letter informing him that at that time, and on\n     that evening, the wife had breathed her last.\"\n\nIn some cases a vague shadowy form is seen which gradually acquires\ndefiniteness. Here is an interesting example contributed to\n\"Proceedings,\" vol. x., by a Mr T. A.:--\n\n     \"9th May 1892.\n\n     \"I saw a darkish vapour leave my father's head when he died,\n     about twelve years ago, and it formed into a figure full-sized,\n     and for seven consecutive nights (I) saw it in my room, and saw\n     it go each night into the next room, in which he died. It\n     became more distinct each night and brighter each night, till\n     it was quite brilliant, even dazzling, by the seventh night. It\n     lasted, say, one and a half minutes. It was quite dark when the\n     phantom used to appear. I was quite awake, going to bed; [age]\n     thirty two.\"\n\nIn other cases what is first seen is a glow of light--the apparition\nsubsequently appearing in it.\n\nMr R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, made the following statement\nto the Society for Psychical Research:--\n\n     \"'Just before Christmas 1894 I went over to Liverpool with one\n     of my brothers and my sister. It was a very fine clear day and\n     there was a great crowd of people shopping in the streets. We\n     were walking down Lord-street, one of the principal streets,\n     when, passing me, I saw an old uncle of mine whom I knew very\n     little, and had not seen for a very long time, though he lived\n     near me. I saw three distinct shapes hobbling past (he was\n     lame), one after another, in a line. It didn't seem to strike\n     me at the moment as being in the least curious, not even there\n     being three shapes in a line. I said to my sister: \"I have just\n     seen Uncle E----, and I am sure he is dead.\" I said this, as it\n     were, mechanically, and not feeling at all impressed. Of course\n     my brother and sister laughed. We thought nothing more about it\n     while in Liverpool. The first thing my mother said to us when\n     getting home was: \"I have some news\"; and then she told us that\n     this uncle had died early that morning. I don't know the\n     particular hour. I saw the three shapes at about twelve in the\n     morning. I felt perfectly fit and well, and was not thinking of\n     my uncle in the least, nor did I know he was ill. Both my\n     brother and my sister heard me say that I had seen him and\n     believed he was dead, and they were equally astonished at\n     hearing of his death on our return home. My uncle and I knew\n     each other very little. In fact, he hardly knew me by sight,\n     although he knew me well when I was a small child.'\n\n     \"The corroboration from the percipient's mother and sister is\n     quite ample; the day of the agent's death coincided with the\n     apparition, but the hour is not certainly known.\"\n\nAnother well-known case is that of Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who\nwrites:\n\n     \"On Saturday, October 21st, 1893, I was in Berlin with Lord\n     Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together and returned before\n     midnight. I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright\n     light in the room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found\n     myself looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall opposite\n     my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my father, the Maharajah\n     Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it were, out of this picture;\n     not like a portrait of him, but his real head. The head about\n     filled the picture frame. I continued looking, and still saw my\n     father looking at me with an intent expression. Though not in\n     the least alarmed, I was so puzzled that I got out of bed to\n     see what the picture really was. It was an oleograph\n     commonplace picture of a girl holding a rose and leaning out of\n     a balcony, an arch forming the background. The girl's face was\n     quite small, whereas my father's head was the size of life and\n     filled the frame.\"\n\nThe Prince's father had been in ill-health for some time, but nothing\nalarming was to be expected. On the day following the dream he mentioned\nit to Lord Carnarvon, and on the evening of that day Lord Carnarvon\nhanded him a telegram announcing the elder Prince's death. He had had an\napoplectic seizure on the previous evening and never recovered. It is\ninteresting to note that he had often said that he would try to appear\nto his son at death if they happened to be apart. The account is\nconfirmed by Lord Carnarvon.\n\nIt sometimes happens that the point of hallucination is not quite\nreached. The following instance, communicated to the Society for\nPsychical Research, is straightforward enough:\n\n     \"'20 Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh,\n\n     \"'December 27th, 1883.\n\n     \"'In January 1871 I was living in the West Indies. On the 7th\n     of that month I got up with a strong feeling that there was\n     something happening at my old home in Scotland. At seven A.M. I\n     mentioned to my sister-in-law my strange dread, and said even\n     at that hour what I dreaded was taking place.\n\n     \"'By the next mail I got word that at eleven A.M. on the 7th of\n     January my sister died. The island I lived in was at St Kitts,\n     and the death took place in Edinburgh. Please note the hours\n     and allow for the difference in time, and you will notice at\n     least a remarkable coincidence. I may add I never knew of her\n     illness.\n\n     \"'A. C----N.'\n\n     \"In answer to inquiries, Mr C----n adds: 'I never at any other\n     time had a feeling in any way resembling the particular time I\n     wrote about. At the time I wrote about I was in perfect\n     health, and in every way in comfortable circumstances.'\"\n\nThere is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the\nagency primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been\nreceived, a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A\ntruly hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations\nwith no external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce\nthese hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for\nPsychical Research that the case of one of his patients proved that\nhallucinations could be produced by self-suggestion. \"He could, by a\nsimple effort of the mind, himself believe almost any delusion--_e.g._\nthat he was riding on horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or\nthat he saw snakes--if left to himself the delusion vanished slowly.\nAnyone else could remove it at once by a counter-suggestion. He made,\"\nhe adds, \"these experiments without my consent, as I consider them\nunsafe.\"\n\nHallucination is at times accompanied by curious organic effects. One of\nthe commonest of these is a feeling of cold--generally described as a\n\"chill\" or \"cold shudder.\" The following example is taken from the\nCensus of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:--\n\n     FROM MISS K. M.\n\n     (_The account was written in 1889._)\n\n     \"[About twenty years ago] I was about ten years old, and was\n     staying with friends in Kensington. Between the hours of eight\n     and nine P.M., we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the\n     door open, [it] being a very warm evening. Suddenly I\n     experienced a cold shudder, and on looking through the door\n     opposite which I was sitting, I saw the figure of a little old\n     lady dressed in a long brown cloak with a large brown hat,\n     carrying a basket, glide down the stairs and disappear in the\n     room next the drawing-room. The impression was that of someone\n     I had never seen. I was talking on ordinary subjects, neither\n     ill, in grief, or anxiety. There were several other people in\n     the room, but no one noticed anything but myself. I have never\n     had any experience of this kind before or since.\"\n\nOccasionally, but very rarely, pain is described as resulting from a\nhallucination. Other effects include fainting fits and tactile\nimpressions. Noise would appear in some cases to produce visual\nhallucinations, by creating in the hearer a strong expectation of seeing\nsomething corresponding to it, or that may account for it. From\n\"Phantasms of the Living\" we glean the following:--\n\n     \"Between sleeping and waking this morning, I perceived a dog\n     running about in a field (an ideal white and tan sporting dog),\n     and the next moment I heard a dog barking outside my window.\n     Keeping my closed eyes on the vision, I found that _it came and\n     went with the_ barking of the dog outside; getting fainter,\n     however, each time.\"\n\nA weak state of health on the part of the percipient would seem to be\nconducive to hallucinatory visions. Here is a case in point contributed\nto the \"Society for Psychical Research Proceedings,\" vol. x., by a\nProfessor G----:\n\n     \"Saw an old woman with red cloak, nursing a child in her arms.\n     She sat on a boulder. Place: a grassy moor or upland, near\n     Shotts, in Lanarkshire. Date: over twenty years ago. Early\n     autumn, in bright sunny weather. Made several attempts to reach\n     her, but she always vanished before I could get up to the\n     stone. Place far from any dwelling, and no spot where anyone\n     could be concealed.\n\n     \"[I was] walking; had been slightly troubled with insomnia\n     which afterwards became worse. Age about thirty.\n\n     \"No one [was with me]. I heard a vague report that a woman with\n     red cloak was sometimes seen on the moor. Can't now remember\n     whether I had heard of that report before I saw the figure--but\n     think I had not.\n\n     \"Saw many years ago (age about twenty-one), a dog sitting\n     beside me in my room: saw this only once: was troubled slightly\n     with insomnia at the time which afterwards became worse.\"\n\nThe percipient's own view, the collector tells us, is that the\nexperience on the moor was entirely due to \"nerves,\" as both then and\npreviously when he saw the dog he had been much overworked, and in each\ncase a severe illness followed.\n\nNot always does a visual hallucination take the form of a living human\nform. Occasionally the object seen or the sound heard is non-human in\ncharacter. In insanity and in diseases such cases are frequently met\nwith, the hallucination being often of a grotesque or horrible sort.\nThus we have a case in which a young child beheld a vision of dwarfish\ngnomes dancing on the wall. Among the phantasms of inanimate objects in\nthe collection of the late E. Gurney were a star, a firework bursting\ninto stars, a firefly, a crown, landscape vignettes, a statue, the end\nof a draped coffin coming in through the door, and a bright oval\nsurrounding the words \"Wednesday, October 15, Death.\" Geometrical\npatterns, sometimes taking very complicated forms, comprise another\nknown type of hallucination.\n\nAs to a theory for hallucinations, the most acceptable one is that they\nhave their origin in the brain, and that the senses are made to share in\nthe deception. There is little doubt that William Blake's hallucinations\nwere voluntary. Gurney refers to a friend, a painter, who was able to\nproject a vision of his sitter out into space and paint from it. We have\nalready seen that a hypnotic agent can cause his subject not merely to\nsee things but to feel them, even to the extent of crying out with pain\nwhen an imaginary lighted match is applied to his finger.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nPHANTASMS OF THE DEAD\n\n\nThus far I have devoted myself to an investigation of phenomena for\nwhich the theory of telepathy is not inapplicable. It is, however, when\nwe come to discuss hallucinations from which the idea of a living agent\nis apparently excluded that I feel myself entering on even more delicate\nand mysterious territory. Having dealt with phantasms of persons at the\npoint of death, I now propose to deal with phantasms of persons already\ndead. Where, indeed, the death has been very recent, the telepathic\ntheory still serves, for the reception conveyed by the dying agent might\nconceivably remain dormant in the sub-consciousness of the percipient,\nand only be aroused in a dream or during a propitious waking moment.\n\nThis would apply to the case of a lady who saw the body of a well-known\nLondon physician, about ten hours after death, lying in a bare\nunfurnished room, which turned out to be a cottage hospital abroad. Mr\nMyers, in his \"Human Personality,\" has collected a large number of\nexamples of apparitions of departed spirits, upon which he lays the\nutmost stress, because they, more than any other kind of evidence, tend\nto support his great theory of the survival of personality. If, he\nreasons, we can gain a number of well-authenticated cases of\nhallucinations projected telepathically from an agent before death, an\nequal amount of evidence of hallucinations projected by an agent after\ndeath would prove the continuance of life beyond the grave! And some of\nthe cases which the Society of Psychical Research, both in this country\nand America, have collected are certainly of an impressive character.\n\nUnhappily, most of the best and most convincing cases are too long to be\ngiven here; they cannot even profitably be summarised.\n\nIn one instance Mr F. G. of Boston, whose high character and good\nposition are vouched for by Professor Royce and Dr Hodgson, states that\nnine years after the death of a favourite sister an apparition appeared\nbefore him:\n\n     \"The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully\n     into my room. While busily smoking my cigar and writing out my\n     orders, I suddenly became conscious that someone was sitting on\n     my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I\n     turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for\n     a brief second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so\n     sure was I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight,\n     calling her by name, and as I did so the apparition instantly\n     vanished.\"\n\nBut that is not the most extraordinary part of the story. The visitation\nso impressed the percipient that he took the next train home and related\nto his parents what had occurred. He particularly mentioned a bright red\nline or scratch on the right-hand side of his sister's face, which he\nhad distinctly seen:\n\n     \"... When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her\n     feet, and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently\n     recovered her self-possession, with tears streaming down her\n     face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as no\n     living mortal but herself was aware of the scratch, which she\n     had accidentally made while doing some little act of kindness\n     after my sister's death.... In proof, neither my father nor any\n     of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of\n     the incident, yet _I saw the scratch as bright as if just\n     made_. So strangely impressed was my mother, that even after\n     she had retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to me, and\n     told me _she knew_ that I had seen my sister. A few weeks later\n     my mother died.\"\n\nNow, is it not a little singular that, although both Dr Hodgson and Mr\nMyers record this incident, the theory of telepathy between a living\nagent and a living percipient does not occur to them? Is it not\nconceivable that the mother, on whose mind the incident of the scratch\non the features of the corpse had admittedly preyed, should have\nunwittingly communicated her secret to her son? In other words, the\nmother projected a phantasm of her dead daughter to the mind of her son.\n\nIn the \"Proceedings of the Society\" there is a case which, according to\nMr Stead, \"appears to suggest that the deceased are continuing to take\nan interest in mundane affairs.\" The story is communicated by Miss\nDodson. On Sunday, 5th June 1887, close upon midnight, Miss Dodson was\nroused by hearing her name called three times. She answered twice,\nthinking it was her uncle. The third time she recognised the voice of\nher mother, who had been dead sixteen years. \"I said,\" continued Miss\nDodson, \"'Mamma!'\"\n\n     \"She then came round a screen near my bedside with two children\n     in her arms and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes\n     over them, and said: 'Lucy, promise me to take care of them,\n     for their mother is just dead.' I said: 'Yes, mamma.' She\n     repeated: '_Promise_ me to take care of them.' I replied: 'Yes,\n     I promise you,' and added, 'Oh, mamma, stay and speak to me, I\n     am so wretched.' She replied: 'Not yet, my child,' then she\n     seemed to go round the screen again and I remained, feeling the\n     children to be still in my arms and fell asleep. When I awoke\n     there was nothing. Tuesday morning, 7th June, I received the\n     news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given birth to a\n     child three weeks before, which I did not know till after her\n     death.\"\n\nProfessor Sidgwick says, as the result of an interesting conversation\nwith Miss Dodson, that the children were of the ages corresponding with\nthe ages of the children of her sister-in-law; they seemed to be a\nlittle girl and a baby newly born. The only way an ingenious sceptic can\nget round this case is by supposing that a telepathic impulse from the\nliving brother might conceivably embody itself in the form of his\nmother. But the idea of a brother in Belgium being able to transmit a\ntelepathic message in the assumed shape and with the voice of his\nmother, who had been dead for sixteen years, and also to telepath into\nexistence in London the two little children who were living in his house\nat Bruges, is rather a clumsy hypothesis. But what other have we?\n\n     \"Mr Theobald, an Australian, forwards to the Society a paper\n     discovered amongst the effects of his uncle, now dead. The\n     apparition, as will be seen, occurred on October 24th, 1860,\n     and the account is endorsed on 9th November by the percipient's\n     father. Further particulars sent to Mr B---- by the percipient\n     (who is here called Mr D----) are dated November 13th, 1860.\n     The first account seems to have been sent by the percipient to\n     his father, and by the father to Mr B----\"\n\nThe percipient had been identified, and confirms, as will be seen, this\nearly narrative, which is as follows:--\n\n     \"On the evening of Wednesday, October 24th, 1860, having\n     retired to bed about nine o'clock, I had slept, I conclude,\n     about two hours, making it then about eleven o'clock P.M. I was\n     awoke from my sleep by a hand touching my forehead, and the\n     well-known voice of Mrs B---- pronouncing my name, E----. I\n     started up and sat in bed, rubbed my eyes, and then saw Mrs\n     B----. From the head to the waist the figure was distinct,\n     clear, and well defined; but from the waist downwards it was\n     all misty, and the lower part transparent. She appeared to be\n     dressed in black silk. Her countenance was grave and rather\n     sad, but not unhappy.\n\n     \"The words she first uttered were: 'I have left dear John.'\n     What followed related entirely to myself, and she was permitted\n     by a most kind Providence to speak words of mercy, promise, and\n     comfort, and assurance that what I most wished would come to\n     pass. She came to me in an hour of bitter mental agony, and was\n     sent as a messenger of mercy....\"\n\nOccasionally there is a curious variant, when the phantasm is auditory\nand not visible. In the case published in \"Proceedings of the Society\nfor Psychical Research,\" vol. iii. p. 90, Mr Wambey heard a phantasmal\nvoice as though in colloquy with his own thought. He was planning a\ncongratulatory letter to a friend, when the words \"What, write to a dead\nman? write to a dead man?\" sounded clearly in his ears. The friend had\nbeen dead for some days.\n\nGurney was much impressed by the unexpectedly large proportion of cases\nwhere the percipient informed us that there had been a _compact_ between\nhimself and the deceased person that whichever passed away first should\ntry to appear to the other. \"Considering,\" he adds, \"what an extremely\nsmall number of persons make such a compact, compared with those who do\nnot, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its existence has a\ncertain efficacy.\"\n\nA characteristic case is thus reported by a Mr Bellamy:\n\n     \"When a girl at school my wife made an agreement with a\n     fellow-pupil, Miss W., that the one of them who died first\n     should, if divinely permitted, appear after her decease to the\n     survivor. In 1874 my wife, who had not seen or heard anything\n     of her former school friend for some years, casually heard of\n     her death. The news reminded her of her former agreement, and\n     then, becoming nervous, she told me of it. I knew of my wife's\n     compact, but I had never seen a photograph of her friend, or\n     heard any description of her.\" (Mr Bellamy told Gurney in\n     conversation that his mind had not been in the least dwelling\n     on the compact.)\n\n     \"A night or two afterwards, as I was sleeping with my wife, a\n     fire brightly burning in my room and a candle alight, I\n     suddenly awoke and saw a lady sitting by the side of the bed\n     where my wife was sleeping soundly. At once I sat up in the bed\n     and gazed so intently that even now I can recall her form and\n     features. Had I the pencil or the brush of a Millais I could\n     transfer to canvas an exact likeness of the ghostly visitant. I\n     remember that I was much struck, as I looked intently at her,\n     with the careful arrangement of her coiffure, every single hair\n     being most carefully brushed down. How long I sat and gazed I\n     cannot say, but directly the apparition ceased to be, I got\n     out of bed to see if any of my wife's garments had by any means\n     optically deluded me. I found nothing in the line of vision but\n     a bare wall. Hallucination on my part I rejected as out of the\n     question, and I doubted not that I had really seen an\n     apparition. Returning to bed, I lay till my wife some hours\n     after awoke, and then I gave her an account of her friend's\n     appearance. I described her colour, form, etc., all of which\n     exactly tallied with my wife's recollection of Miss W. Finally\n     I asked, 'But was there any special point to strike one in her\n     appearance?' 'Yes,' my wife promptly replied, 'we girls used to\n     tease her at school for devoting so much time to the\n     arrangement of her hair.' This was the very thing which I have\n     said so much struck me. Such are the simple facts.\n\n     \"I will only add that till 1874 I had never seen an apparition,\n     and that I have not seen one since.\n\n     \"ARTHUR BELLAMY.\"\n\nThe following case, from \"Proceedings,\" vol. viii. p. 178, bears a\ndistinct resemblance to the old-fashioned ghost stories. Mrs M., the\ninformant, writes under date 15th December 1891:\n\n     \"Before relating my experience of having seen a ghost, I should\n     like my readers thoroughly to understand that I had not the\n     slightest idea that the house in which my husband and I were\n     living was haunted, or that the family residing there for many\n     years before us had had any family troubles. The house was\n     delightfully situated [etc.]. The house being partly new and\n     partly old we occupied the old part for our sleeping\n     apartments. There were two staircases leading to them, with a\n     landing and window, adjoining a morning sitting-room. One night\n     on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a\n     peculiar moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great\n     distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it\n     continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to\n     the landing window of which I have spoken, drew the blind\n     aside; and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl\n     in kneeling posture before a soldier, in a general's uniform,\n     sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for pardon;\n     but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I feel\n     for the girl, that without a moment's hesitation I ran down the\n     staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to\n     come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared!\n     Not in the least nervous did I feel then;--went again to my\n     bedroom, took a sheet of writing paper and wrote down what I\n     had seen. [Mrs M. has found and sent us this paper. The\n     following words are written in pencil on a half sheet of\n     notepaper:--\"March 13th, 1886. Have just seen visions on\n     lawn:--a soldier in general's uniform,--a young lady kneeling\n     to him. 11.40 P.M.\"] My husband was away from home when this\n     event occurred, but a lady friend was staying with me, so I\n     went to her bedroom and told her that I had been rather\n     frightened by some noises;--could I stay with her a little\n     while? A few days afterwards I found myself in a very nervous\n     state; but it seemed so strange that I was not frightened at\n     the time.\n\n     \"It appears the story is only too true. The youngest daughter\n     of this very old proud family had had an illegitimate child;\n     and her parents and relatives would not recognise her again,\n     and she died broken-hearted. The soldier was a near relative\n     (also a connection of my husband's); and it was in vain she\n     tried to gain his--the soldier's--forgiveness. [In a subsequent\n     letter Sir X. Y.'s career is described. He was a distinguished\n     officer.]\n\n     \"So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier\n     that some months after the occurrence, when I happened to be\n     calling with my husband at a house where there was a portrait\n     of him, I stepped before it and said: 'Why, look! There is the\n     General!' And sure enough it _was_.\"\n\nIn a subsequent letter Mrs M. writes:\n\n     \"I did see the figures on the lawn after opening the door\n     leading on to the lawn; and they by no means disappeared\n     instantly, but more like a dissolving view--viz. gradually; and\n     I did not leave the door until they had passed away. It was\n     impossible for any real persons to act such a scene.... The\n     General was born and died (in the house where I saw him).... I\n     was not aware that the portrait of the General was in that room\n     (where I saw it); it was the first time I had been in that\n     room. The misfortune to the poor girl happened in 1847 or\n     1848.\"\n\nMrs M. then mentions that a respectable local tradesman hearing of the\nincident remarked: \"That is not an uncommon thing to see _her_ about the\nplace, poor soul! She was a badly used girl.\"\n\nMr M. writes as follows under date 23rd December 1891:--\n\n     \"I have seen my wife's letter in regard to the recognition of\n     Sir X. Y.'s picture at ----. Nothing was said by me to her on\n     the subject; but knowing the portrait to be a remarkably good\n     likeness I proposed calling at the house (which was that of a\n     nephew of Sir X. Y.'s), being anxious to see what effect it\n     would have upon my wife. Immediately on entering the room she\n     almost staggered back, and turned pale, saying--looking hard\n     at the picture--'Why, there's the General!' ... Being a\n     connection of the family I knew all about the people, but my\n     wife was then a stranger, and I had never mentioned such things\n     to her; in fact they had been almost forgotten.\"\n\nHere is a case where the phantasm was visible to several persons at the\nsame time. It is given by Mr Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and\nRoyal Naval Club, Albemarle Street, W.\n\n     \"December 3rd, 1885.\n\n     \"On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at\n     his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, N. S. Wales.\n     About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion one\n     evening about nine o'clock to go to one of the bedrooms in the\n     house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and\n     as they entered the room--the gas burning all the time--they\n     were amazed to see, reflected as it were on the polished\n     surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was\n     barely half figure, the head, shoulders, and part of the arms\n     only showing--in fact, it was like an ordinary medallion\n     portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it\n     did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel\n     jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and\n     half-alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a\n     portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was\n     its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.\n\n     \"Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss\n     Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had\n     time to speak, she exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Do you see papa?'\n     One of the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the\n     moment, and she was called in and asked if she saw anything,\n     and her reply was, 'Oh, miss! the master.' Graham--Captain\n     Towns' old body-servant--was then sent for, and he also\n     immediately exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord save us! Mrs Lett, it's the\n     captain!' The butler was called, and then Mrs Crane, my wife's\n     nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally, Mrs Towns\n     was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards\n     it with her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she passed\n     her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually\n     faded away, and never again appeared, though the room was\n     regularly occupied for a long time after.\n\n     \"These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no\n     doubt; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses;\n     the same question was put to each one as they came into the\n     room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each. It\n     was by the merest accident that I did not see the apparition. I\n     was in the house at the time, but did not hear when I was\n     called.\"\n\n     \"C. A. W. LETT.\"\n\n     \"We the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify\n     that it is strictly accurate, as we were both witnesses of the\n     apparition.\n\n     \"SARA LETT,\n\n     \"SIBBIE SMYTH\n\n     \"(_nee_ TOWNS.)\"\n\n\"Mrs Lett assures me,\" wrote Gurney, \"that neither she nor her sister\never experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.\nShe is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of\neach of the later witnesses was _independent_, and not due to any\nsuggestion from the persons already in the room.\"\n\nThe following, taken from the \"Report on the Census of Hallucinations,\"\nmay belong to either the ante-mortem or post-mortem category:--\n\n     \"At Redhill on Thanksgiving Day, between eight and nine in the\n     evening, when I was taking charge of the little daughter of a\n     friend, during my friend's absence on that evening, I left the\n     child sleeping in the bedroom, and went to drop the blinds in\n     two neighbouring rooms, being absent about three minutes. On\n     returning to the child's room in the full light of the\n     gas-burner from above I distinctly saw, coming from the child's\n     cot, a white figure, which figure turned, looked me full in the\n     face, and passed down the staircase. I instantly followed,\n     leaned over the banisters in astonishment, and saw the\n     glistening of the white drapery as the figure passed down the\n     staircase, through the lighted hall, and silently through the\n     hall door itself, which was barred, chained, and locked. I felt\n     for the moment perfectly staggered, went back to the bedroom,\n     and found the child peacefully sleeping. I related the\n     circumstance to the mother immediately on her return late that\n     night. She was incredulous, but said that my description of the\n     figure answered to that of an invalid aunt of the child's. The\n     next morning came a telegram to say that this relation who had\n     greatly wished to see her niece had died between eight and nine\n     the previous evening.\n\n     \"I had just put down the 'Pickwick Papers,' with which I had\n     been whiling away the time, was free from trouble and in good\n     health.\"\n\nSister Bertha, Superior of the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracey, Newton\nAbbot, states:\n\n     \"On the night of November 10th, 1861, I was up in my bed\n     watching, because there was a person not quite well in the next\n     room. I heard a voice which I recognised at once as familiar to\n     me, and at first thought of my sister. It said in the brightest\n     and most cheerful tone, 'I am here with you.' I answered,\n     looking and seeing nothing, 'Who are you?' The voice said, 'You\n     mustn't know yet.' I heard nothing more and saw nothing, and am\n     certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was not in the\n     least frightened, and felt convinced it was Lucy's [Miss Lucy\n     Gambier Parry's] voice.\n\n     \"I have never doubted it from that moment. I had not heard of\n     her being worse. The last account had been good, and I was\n     expecting to hear that she was at Torquay. In the course of the\n     next day (the 11th), mother told me that she had died on the\n     morning of the 10th, rather more than twelve hours before I\n     heard her voice.\"\n\nA case reported by Mr John E. Husbands, of Melbourne House, Town Hall\nSquare, Grimsby, is interesting:\n\n     \"I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a\n     bright moonlight night. The windows were open, and the blinds\n     up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a\n     young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing\n     at the side of my bed, and pointing with the first finger of\n     his right hand to the place where I was lying. I lay for some\n     seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I\n     then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly\n     that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some\n     days afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not speak,\n     but his eyes and hands seemed to tell me that I was in his\n     place. As he did not answer, I struck at him with my fist as I\n     sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out\n     of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut,\n     keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon inquiry I found\n     that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was\n     occupying.\"\n\nThere is, too, the famous case of Mrs de Freville and the gardener Bard.\nThe percipient, who had formerly been in the employ of this somewhat\neccentric lady, who was especially morbid on the subject of tombs and so\nforth, was in the churchyard of Hinxton, Saffron Walden, on Friday, 8th\nMay 1885. He happened to look at the square De Freville stone vault,\nwhen, to his amazement, he distinctly saw the old lady, with a white\nface, leaning on the rails. When he looked again she was gone, although\nit puzzled him to know how she could have got out of the churchyard, as,\nin order to reach any of the gates, she must have passed him. Next day\nhe was told that Mrs de Freville was dead. As the apparition was seen\nabout seven and a half hours after death, it could, as I have suggested,\nbe considered a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment of death\nand remaining latent in the brain of the percipient; otherwise, the\ncase belongs to the category of Haunting, which we will glance at in the\nnext chapter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nON \"HAUNTINGS\" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA\n\n\n\"Do I believe in ghosts?\" asks Mr Andrew Lang. \"One can only answer:\n'How do you define a ghost?' I do believe, with all students of human\nnature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the\nsenses. But as to whether such hallucinations among the sane are ever\ncaused by physical influence from the minds of others, alive or dead,\nnot communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a\nbalance of doubt. It is a question of evidence.\"\n\nIf the evidence of \"hauntings\" were measurable by bulk alone, no phase\nof occultism would be more completely demonstrated. It is only when we\ncome to examine the quality of the available data that we realise how\nformidable a task it is we have undertaken. In nothing, perhaps, have\ncredulity and superstition been allowed so wide a scope; nowhere is it\nmore difficult to winnow the grain of reliable testimony from the chaff\nof mythology and invention. For we must remember that the belief in\nghosts is as old as the hills themselves. It is common to all countries\nand to all nations, and in the literature of every language are to be\nfound tales of the supernatural scarcely less plausible than many which\nassail our ears to-day.\n\nWhat I now set myself to investigate is that class of phenomena\nseemingly attached to various localities and comprising, besides\napparitions, sights and sounds of various kinds and degrees. According\nto Mr E. T. Bennett, for twenty years assistant secretary of the\nPsychical Research Society, the records of the Society contain\ndescriptions of \"a large number of cases in which the evidence of the\nreality of phenomena incapable of ordinary explanation is absolutely\nconclusive.\"\n\nWhen the sounds are intelligible, or a sentence is spelt out in response\nto the inquiry of the auditor, the _raison d'etre_ of the manifestation\nis more or less obvious. But there is evidence of a large number of\nso-called \"hauntings\" where steps are heard, or noises which convey no\nintelligible information. Sometimes, also, we are told that\nsimultaneously with the death of a friend bangs have been heard, which,\nbut for the coincidence of their occurrence in association with a death,\nare without meaning. M. Flammarion cites several cases of this sort. The\nfollowing will serve as an illustration:--[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: It will be found on page 178 of \"L'Inconnu et les Problemes\nPsychiques.\"]\n\n     M. E. Deschaux relates that his grandfather \"was awakened one\n     evening at eleven P.M. by three very distinct raps on the door\n     of his room. Astonished, he rose, lit the lamp, opened the\n     door, but saw no one. Supposing that some trickster had been\n     the cause of his disturbance, he returned to bed grumbling, but\n     again three knocks were heard on the door. He got up quickly,\n     intending that the culprit should pay dearly for his untimely\n     joke, but in spite of careful search, both in the passage and\n     on the staircase, he could not discover where this mysterious\n     culprit had disappeared to. A third time, when he was again in\n     bed, three raps were audible on the door. This time the\n     grandfather had a presentiment that the sound was caused by the\n     spirit of his mother, although nothing in the tidings he had\n     previously received from his family incited him to this\n     supposition. Five or six days after this manifestation a letter\n     arrived from his own country announcing the death of his mother\n     which had occurred precisely at the hour at which he had heard\n     the knocks. At the moment of her death, his mother, who had a\n     particular affection for him, had insisted that a dress which\n     her 'boy in Paris' had some time before sent her as a present\n     should be brought and placed on her bed.\"\n\nHere we seem to have a distinct motive for the visitation; but on the\nother hand observe how many cases we come across where the phenomena\nappears to be due solely to the wanton and mischievous impulses of the\ninvisible agents.\n\nThere is for example the case of a house in which spiritual\nmanifestations, often of a disturbing character, were continually being\nproduced, related by Mr Inkster Gilbertson in _The Occult Review_ on the\nauthority of a West End physician who is called Dr Macdonald. The swish\nof a silk dress and the slamming of doors were among the least important\nof the phenomena from a psychical point of view, though the sound of\nsomeone coming through a skylight and dropping on to the landing was\ncertainly calculated to terrify the ladies, who \"came up from the\ndrawing-room screaming and shouting, expecting to find some dreadful\ntragedy being enacted.\" These manifestations consisted entirely of\nsounds, but at the regular sittings which were held in the house a\ndrawer was taken from its place in the bedroom and left on the hall\nstand, the loose wooden leaves which converted a billiard-table into a\ndining-table were slid off the end and deposited on the floor, and a\nscreen was several times seen to fold itself up without being touched.\n\nThe most peculiar occurrences, however, were the antics of certain keys\nbelonging to doors in the house. \"The door of the front bedroom was\noften found locked, and the key would disappear.\" The doctor kept his\neye on the key and presently saw it move round, locking the door, and\nthen \"he saw the last of the key disappearing through the hole.\" At\nanother time the lady of the house, her children, and the maid were\nlocked in for some hours. \"The key would be kept away for days; then it\nwould suddenly appear. One day it was found in Mrs Macdonald's lap; once\nit was quietly laid on the doctor's head,\" and so forth. On one occasion\nwhen the key was not given up the doctor called out: \"Won't you send us\ndown the key before we go?\" They were passing down the stairs and,\nbefore they reached the bottom, the key was gently dropped on the\ndoctor's head. The most careful observations failed to discover the\nknown means by which the feats could be accomplished. The evidence of\nthe intelligence and of the mischievous disposition of these uncanny\ntricksters was borne out by sounds of dancing being heard outside the\ndoor just afterwards.\n\n\"The possible non-ghostly explanations,\" says Mrs Sidgwick, \"of what\npass as ghostly phenomena may be conveniently classed with reference to\nthe various sorts of error by which the evidence to such phenomena is\nliable to be affected. I should state these as (1) hoaxing, (2)\nexaggeration or inadequate description, (3) illusion, (4) mistaken\nidentity, (5) hallucination.... I think, however, that anyone who has\nread the evidence will at once discard the first of these alternatives\nso far as the great mass of the first-hand narratives is concerned.\"\n\nThere are not a few cases, however, where the ghostly manifestations\nhave been found to be due to human agency. The following instance was\nbrought to my notice by a well-known firm of estate agents at Tunbridge\nWells:--\n\n     \"There is an old Manor House in this district which is locally\n     known as the 'Haunted House.' The original mansion was,\n     according to Hasted, one of the homes of the Colepepers. In\n     the reign of Charles II. the mansion was rebuilt in the style\n     of the period. It has, however, outlived its purpose, is out of\n     repair and was for many years let in tenements to labourers. It\n     is now untenanted. Some few months ago the lurid tales of\n     ghostly visitors induced a local spiritualist, encouraged by\n     some mischievous friends, to hold a _seance_ in the house at\n     midnight, and to perambulate the rambling building from time to\n     time during the night. The spirits lived up to their reputation\n     and gave all kinds of manifestations which included streams of\n     water from invisible buckets that met the investigator as he\n     groped up the staircase and along the passages. In the end the\n     whole thing was found to be a hoax and to have been organised\n     by the spiritualist's friends. He is not communicative on the\n     subject. The old house still stands empty and deserves a better\n     fate.\"\n\nThe classic case of haunting in England is, perhaps, that of Willingdon\nMill. Other spectre-ridden edifices in the kingdom there may well be,\nbut their stories, however grim and ghastly, are apt to relapse into\ninsignificance beside those narrated of this famous Tyneside building.\n\nWillingdon Mill, which is situated in Northumberland nearly half-way\nbetween Newcastle and North Shields, was built about the year 1800.\nWhen, thirty-four years later, certain unaccountable noises and other\nphenomena began to attract attention the occupants consisted of a worthy\nQuaker, Joseph Proctor by name, his wife, servants and family. Joseph\nProctor used to keep a diary wherein he chronicled the strange\nhappenings in his house. The greater portion of this was published in\n_The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. v., but full\naccounts of the affair have appeared in many publications, among which\nmay be mentioned Howitt's \"Visits to Remarkable Places,\" Crowe's \"Night\nSide of Nature,\" \"The Local Historian's Table Book,\" and Stead's \"Real\nGhost Stories.\"\n\nIt was a servant girl that first called attention to the mysterious\nnoises. She positively affirmed that she had heard \"a dull heavy tread\non the boarded floor of the room unoccupied above, commonly pacing\nbackwards and forwards and, on coming over to the window, giving the\nfloor such a shake as to cause the windows of the nursery to rattle\nviolently in their frames.\" This disturbance usually lasted about ten\nminutes at a time. At first the girl's tale was discredited, but before\nmany days had elapsed every member of the family had heard precisely\nwhat the girl described. The room was vigorously searched but no clue to\nthe phantom footsteps was forthcoming. Even the expedient of covering\nthe floor with flour was without result; the \"dull, heavy tread\" left no\ntraces upon the whitened boards.\n\nIt was not long before other unaccountable noises were heard all over\nthe house and ghostly figures were seen by several persons. To\nillustrate the kind of occurrence that was constantly going on in the\nhouse, and which, indeed, became so frequent that they were thought very\nlittle of, I quote the following extracts from Joseph Proctor's\ndiary:--\n\n     \"7 mo., 14th, 1841:--J. and E. P. heard the spirit in their own\n     room, and in the room overhead, making a noise as of something\n     heavy being hoisted or rolled, or like a barrel set down on its\n     end; also noises in the Camproom of various and unaccountable\n     character.\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"8 mo., 3rd.--Since the last night there have been few nights\n     during which some branch of the family has not heard our\n     visitor. One night, J. P. was awoke and heard something hastily\n     walk, with a step like that of a child of 8 or 10 years, from\n     the foot of the bed towards the side of the room, and come back\n     seemingly towards the door, in a run; then it gave two stamps\n     with one foot; there was a loud rustling as if of a frock or\n     night-dress. I need scarcely say the door was locked, and I am\n     quite certain there was no other human being in the room save\n     E. P., who was asleep. The two stamps aroused E. P. out of her\n     sleep. About this time Joseph, on two or three occasions, said\n     he had heard voices from underneath his bed and from other\n     parts of the room, and described seeing on one occasion a boy\n     in a drab hat much like his own, the boy much like himself too,\n     walking backwards and forwards between the windows and the\n     wardrobe. He was afraid, but did not speak.\n\n     \"Noises as of a band-box falling close at hand, as of someone\n     running upstairs when no one was there, and like the raking of\n     a coal rake, were heard about this time by different members of\n     the family.\"\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"8 mo., 6th.--On the night of the third, just after the\n     previous memorandum was written, about 10.30 P.M., the servants\n     having all retired to bed, J. and E. P. heard a noise like a\n     clothes horse being thrown down in the kitchen. Soon the noises\n     became louder and appeared as though some persons had burst\n     into the house on the ground floor and were clashing the doors\n     and throwing things down. Eventually J. P. got one of the\n     servants to go downstairs with him, when all was found right,\n     no one there, and apparently nothing moved. The noises now\n     began on the third storey, and the servants were so much\n     alarmed that it was difficult to get them to go to bed at all\n     that night.\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"8 mo., 6th to 12th.--My brother-in-law, George Carr, was with\n     us. He heard steppings and loud rumblings in the middle of the\n     night, and other noises.\"\n\nA curious feature in this case was the number of apparitions seen. Thus\nwe have clear testimony of the presence of a lady in a lavender silk\ndress, of an old bald-headed man in a flowing robe like a surplice, of a\nlady in grey, and of a horrid eyeless spectre who glared fixedly at the\nworld through empty eyeholes. Added to these there were animals of all\nsorts and descriptions, cats, monkeys, rabbits and sheep.\n\n     \"On one occasion, during the period that Thomas was courting\n     Mary, he was standing at the window outside (no followers being\n     allowed inside, lest fabulous reports were sent abroad). He had\n     given the usual signal. The night was clear, and the stars\n     beamed forth their light from a cloudless sky. Suddenly\n     something appeared which arrested my father's attention.\n     Looking towards the mill, which was divided from the house by\n     an open space, he beheld what he supposed was a whitish cat. It\n     came walking along in close proximity to his feet. Thinking\n     Miss Puss very cheeky he gave her a kick; but his foot felt\n     nothing and the cat quietly continued its march, followed by my\n     father, until it suddenly disappeared from his gaze. Still the\n     ghost was not thought of by him. Returning to the window and\n     looking in the same direction, he again beheld it suddenly come\n     into existence. This time it came hopping like a rabbit, coming\n     quite as close to his feet as before. He determined to have a\n     good rap at it, and took deliberate aim; but, as before, his\n     foot went through it and felt nothing. Again he followed it,\n     and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The\n     third time he went to the window, and in a few moments it made\n     its third appearance, not like unto a cat or a rabbit, but\n     fully as large as a sheep, and quite luminous. On it came and\n     my father was fixed to the spot. All muscular power seemed for\n     the moment paralysed. It moved on, disappearing at the same\n     spot as the preceding apparitions. My father declared that if\n     it was possible for 'hair to stand on end' his did just then.\n     Thinking that for once he had seen sufficient, he went home,\n     keeping the knowledge of this scene to himself.\"\n\nIt is not to be wondered at if the queer doings at Willingdon Mill began\nto be rumoured abroad. They reached the ears of a certain Dr Edward\nDrury of Sunderland, who was, not unnaturally, rather sceptical. He\nasked and obtained permission to sit up alone in the house one night\naccompanied only by his faithful dog and with a pair of pistols in his\npocket. His opportunity came in July, 1840, when all the family, with\nthe exception of Joseph Proctor himself, was away from the mill. The\nnight was fruitful with horror, and the following letter addressed to\nthe miller nearly a week after the event tells its own tale:--\n\n     \"Monday Morning,\n\n     \"6th July, 1840.\n\n     \"_To_ MR PROCTOR.\n\n     \"DEAR SIR,--I am sorry I was not at home to receive you\n     yesterday, when you kindly called to inquire for me. I am happy\n     to state that I am really surprised that I have been so little\n     affected as I am after that horrid and most awful affair. The\n     only bad effect I feel is a heavy dulness in one of my\n     ears--the right one. I call it a heavy dullness, because I not\n     only do not hear distinctly but feel in it a constant noise.\n     This I never was affected with before; but I doubt not it will\n     go off. I am persuaded that no one went to your house at any\n     time _more disbelieving in respect to seeing anything\n     peculiar_; now no one can be more satisfied than myself. I\n     will, in the course of a few days, send you a full detail of\n     all I saw and heard. Mr Spence and two other gentlemen came\n     down to my house in the afternoon to hear my detail; but, sir,\n     could I account for these noises from natural causes, yet, so\n     firmly am I persuaded of the horrid apparition, that I would\n     affirm that what I saw with my eyes was a punishment to me for\n     my scoffing and unbelief; that I am assured that, as far as the\n     horror is concerned, they are happy that believe and have not\n     seen ... it will be a great source of joy to me if you never\n     allow your young family to be in that horrid house again.\n     Hoping you will write a few lines at your leisure, I remain,\n     dear sir, yours very truly,\n\n     \"EDWARD DRURY.\"\n\nTo this letter the sturdy Quaker sent a characteristic reply.\n\n     \"Willingdon,\n\n     \"7th mo., 9, 1840.\n\n     \"Respected Friend, E. DRURY,--Have been at Sunderland, I did\n     not receive thine of the 6th till yesterday morning. I am glad\n     to hear thou art getting well over the effects of thy\n     unlooked-for visitation. I hold in respect thy bold and manly\n     assertion of the truth in the face of that ridicule and\n     ignorant conceit with which that which is called the\n     supernatural, in the present day, is usually assailed.\n\n     \"I shall be glad to receive thy detail, in which it will be\n     needful to be very particular in showing that thou couldst not\n     be asleep, or attacked by nightmare, or mistake a reflection of\n     the candle, as some sagaciously suppose. I remain,\n     respectfully, thy friend,\n\n     \"JOSH. PROCTOR.\n\n     \"_P.S._--I have about thirty witnesses to various things which\n     cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on any other principle\n     than that of spiritual agency.\"\n\n\nFour days later Dr Drury wrote out a full account of his experience.\n\n     \"Sunderland,\n\n     \"13th July 1840.\n\n     \"DEAR SIR,--I hereby, according to promise in my last letter,\n     forward you a true account of what I saw and heard at your\n     house, in which I was led to pass the night from various\n     rumours circulated by most respectable parties, particularly\n     from an account by my esteemed friend, Mr Davison, whose name I\n     mentioned to you in a former letter. Having received your\n     sanction to visit your mysterious dwelling, I went, on the 3rd\n     of July, accompanied by a friend of mine, T. Hudson. This was\n     not according to promise, nor in accordance with my first\n     intent, as I wrote you I would come alone; but I felt gratified\n     at your kindness in not alluding to the liberty I had taken, as\n     it ultimately proved for the best. I must here mention that,\n     not expecting you at home, I had in my pocket a brace of\n     pistols, determining in my mind to let one of them drop before\n     the miller, as if by accident, for fear he should presume to\n     play tricks upon me; but after my interview with you, I felt\n     there was no occasion for weapons, and did not load them, after\n     you had allowed us to inspect as minutely as we pleased every\n     portion of the house. I sat down on the third storey landing,\n     fully expecting to account for any noises that I might hear, in\n     a philosophical manner. This was about eleven o'clock P.M.\n     About ten minutes to twelve we both heard a noise, as if a\n     number of people were pattering with their bare feet upon the\n     floor; and yet, so singular was the noise, that I could not\n     minutely determine from whence it proceeded. A few minutes\n     afterwards we heard a noise, as if someone was knocking with\n     his knuckles among our feet; this was followed by a hollow\n     cough from the very room from which the apparition proceeded.\n     The only noise after this, was as if a person was rustling\n     against the wall in coming upstairs. At a quarter to one I told\n     my friend that, feeling a little cold, I would like to go to\n     bed, as we might hear the noise equally well there; he replied\n     he would not go to bed till daylight. I took up a note which I\n     had accidentally dropped and began to read it, after which I\n     took out my watch to ascertain the time, and found that it\n     wanted ten minutes to one. In taking my eyes from the watch\n     they became riveted upon a closet door, which I distinctly saw\n     open, and saw also the figure of a female attired in greyish\n     garments, with the head inclining downwards, and one hand\n     pressed upon the chest as if in pain, and the other--viz. the\n     right hand--extended towards the floor, with the index finger\n     pointing downward. It advanced with an apparently cautious\n     step across the floor towards me; immediately as it approached\n     my friend, who was slumbering, its right hand was extended\n     towards him; I then rushed at it, giving, as Mr Proctor states,\n     a most awful yell; but instead of grasping it I fell upon my\n     friend, and I recollected nothing distinctly for nearly three\n     hours afterwards. I have since learned that I was carried\n     downstairs in an agony of fear and terror.\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"I hereby certify that the above account is strictly true and\n     correct in every respect.\n\n     \"EDWARD DRURY.\"\n\nSo intolerable became life in this uncanny house that, in 1847, Joseph\nProctor and his family moved to South Shields. For the last night of\ntheir residence was reserved a more than usually turbulent\ndemonstration. \"There were,\" says Mr Edmund Proctor, \"continuous noises\nduring the night, boxes being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down\nthe now carpetless stairs, non-human footsteps stumped on the floors,\ndoors were, or seemed to be, clashed, and impossible furniture corded\nat random or dragged hither and thither by inscrutable agency; in short,\na pantomimic or spiritualistic repetition of all the noises incident to\na household flitting. A miserable night my father and mother had of it,\nas I have often heard from their own lips; not so much from terror at\nthe unearthly noises, for to these they were habituated, as dread lest\nthis wretched fanfaronade might portend the contemporary flight of the\nunwelcome visitors to the new abode. Fortunately for the family this\ndread was not realised.\"\n\nAfter undergoing various vicissitudes, the house was finally divided\ninto small tenements, in which condition it still remains. But of late\nyears nothing has been seen or heard of the ghostly visitors. Perhaps,\nsmitten with dismay by the deterioration of their former dwelling-place,\nthey have taken up their abode elsewhere. For Willingdon Mill, formerly\ngay with flowers and creepers, is now a wreck of its former self. The\nmill is used as a warehouse; the stables and outhouses have been pulled\ndown; while the house stands out gaunt and forbidding, a picture of\ndesolation and decay.\n\nMr W. T. Stead, in his \"Real Ghost Stories,\" has given us many thrilling\nexamples of nocturnal apparitions, and of these the uncanny experience\nof the Rev. H. Elwyn Thomas, of 35 Park Village East, N. W., is well\nworth repeating.\n\nMr Thomas, after having conducted a service at the church at Llangynidr,\naccompanied three young friends of his for about half-a-mile on their\nhomeward way.\n\n     \"When I wished good-night to my friends, it was about twenty\n     minutes to nine, but still light enough to see a good distance.\n     The subject of our conversation all the way from the chapel\n     until we parted was a certain eccentric old character who then\n     belonged to the Crickhowell church. Many laughable incidents in\n     his life had been related by my friends for my amusement, at\n     which I laughed heartily again and again. I walked a little\n     farther down the road than I intended, in order to hear the end\n     of a very amusing story about him and the vicar of a\n     neighbouring parish. Our conversation had no reference whatever\n     to ghosts or ghostly things. Neither were we in the mood\n     befitting a ghostly visitation. Personally I was a strong\n     disbeliever in ghosts, and invariably ridiculed those who I\n     then thought superstitious enough to believe in them.\n\n     \"When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends I\n     saw on the bank of the canal (which runs parallel with the road\n     for six or seven miles) what I thought at the moment was an old\n     beggar. The spot was a very lonely one. The nearest house was a\n     good quarter of a mile away. The night was as silent as death.\n     Not a single sound broke upon the silence from any quarter. I\n     could not help asking myself where this old man had come from\n     to such a place. I had not seen him in going down the road.\n\n     \"I then turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look\n     at him, and had no sooner done so than I saw within half-a-yard\n     of me one of the most remarkable and startling sights I hope\n     it will ever be my lot to see. Almost on a level with my own\n     face I saw that of an old man, over every feature of which the\n     putty-coloured skin was drawn tightly, except the forehead\n     which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were extremely\n     thin, and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth\n     stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those\n     of a corpse, and the eyes, which seemed far back in the middle\n     of the head, were unnaturally luminous and piercing. This\n     terrible object was wrapped in two bands of old yellow calico,\n     one of which was drawn under the chin and over the cheeks and\n     tied at the top of the head, the other was drawn round the top\n     of the wrinkled forehead and fastened at the back of the head.\n     So deep and indelible an impression it made on my mind, that\n     were I an artist I could paint that face to-day, and reproduce\n     the original (excepting, perhaps, the luminous eyes) as\n     accurately as if it were photographed.\n\n     \"What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a\n     glance. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face\n     again towards the village, and ran away from the horrible\n     vision with all my might for about sixty yards. I then stopped\n     and turned round to see how far I had outdistanced it, and, to\n     my unspeakable horror, there it was still face to face with me,\n     as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my umbrella and raised\n     it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings when I could\n     see nothing between the face and the ground except an irregular\n     column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella went as a\n     stick goes through water!\n\n     \"I am sorry to confess that I again took to my heels with\n     increasing speed. A little farther than the place of this\n     second encounter, the road which led towards my host's house\n     branched off the main road, the main road itself running right\n     through the centre of the village, in the lower end of which it\n     ran parallel with the churchyard wall. Having gone a few yards\n     down the branch road, I reached a crisis in my fear and\n     confusion when I felt I could act rationally: I determined to\n     speak to the strange pursuer whatever he was, and I boldly\n     turned round to face him for the third time, intending to ask\n     him what he wanted, etc.,\n\n     \"He had not followed me after I left the main road, but I could\n     see the horribly fascinating face quite as plainly as when it\n     was close by. It stood for two or three minutes looking\n     intently at me from the centre of the main road. I then\n     realised fully it was not a human being in flesh and blood; and\n     with every vestige of fear gone I quickly walked towards it to\n     put my questions. But I was disappointed, for no sooner had I\n     made towards it than it moved quickly in the direction of the\n     village. I saw it moving along, keeping the same distance from\n     the ground, until it reached the churchyard wall; it then\n     crossed the wall, and disappeared near where the yew-tree stood\n     inside. The moment it disappeared I became unconscious. When I\n     came to myself, two hours later, I was lying in the middle of\n     the road, cold and ill. It took me quite an hour to reach my\n     host's house, which was less than half-a-mile away, and when I\n     reached it I looked so white and strange that my host's\n     daughter, who had sat down with her father to wait my return,\n     uttered a loud scream. I could not say a word to explain what\n     had happened, though I tried hard several times. It was five\n     o'clock in the morning when I regained my power of speech; even\n     then I could only speak in broken sentences. The whole of the\n     following week I was laid up with great nervous prostration.\n\n     \"The strangest part of my story remains yet to be told. My\n     host, after questioning me closely in regard to the features of\n     the face, the place I had first seen it and the spot where it\n     disappeared, told me that fifteen years before that time an old\n     recluse, answering in every detail to my description (calicoes,\n     bands and all), lived in a house whose ruins still stand close\n     by where I first saw it, that he was buried in the exact spot\n     in the churchyard where I saw the face disappearing, and that\n     he was a very strange character altogether.\n\n      \"I should like to add that I had not heard a syllable about\n     this old man before the night in question, and that all the\n     persons referred to in the above story are still alive.\"\n\nHere is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in\n_Light_. The narrator is a Colonel X.\n\n     \"When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night\n     the sentry came to tell me that there was something very\n     extraordinary going on in the White Chapel, which, in those\n     days, was used as a storeroom.\n\n     \"I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed\n     up and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly\n     lit up, and presently priests in vestments and boys swinging\n     silver censers came in and arranged themselves before an altar.\n     Then the large entrance doors opened and a procession of\n     persons in old quaint costumes filed in. Walking alone was a\n     lady in black, and behind her was a masked man, also in black,\n     who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded away, and\n     there was utter darkness.\n\n     \"Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so\n     laughed at that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a\n     gentleman introduced himself as the keeper of the records of\n     the Tower, and said that he had heard my story, but wished to\n     hear it again from my own lips; and when I had told it he\n     remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision has been seen\n     by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's death.'\"\n\nIt not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in\na court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in \"Sights and Shadows,\"\ngives an account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year\n1890.\n\n     \"A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner,\n     Miss Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of L23.\n\n     \"The last-named persons took possession of it in due course;\n     but two days subsequently they became aware of the presence of\n     a spirit or ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs\n     Kinney asserted, 'threw heavy things at her,' and so alarmed\n     and inconvenienced her, that in a very short period both\n     husband and wife were forced to quit their abode.\n\n     \"This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it;\n     and, because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised\n     to decline to pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to\n     release them from their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's\n     rent; and when this remained for sometime unpaid, sued them for\n     it before Judge Kisby.\n\n     \"A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants,\n     who, having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in\n     question, asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that\n     of several other people. This, however, was disallowed by the\n     judge.\n\n     \"It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side\n     or the other had been said regarding the haunting when the\n     house was let; yet that the rent was due and must be paid.\n\n     \"A judgment was consequently entered for the landlady although\n     it had been shown indirectly that unquestionably the house had\n     the reputation of being haunted, and that previous tenants had\n     been much inconvenienced and affrighted.\"\n\nAnother case is chronicled which took place in Dublin in 1885. Dr Lee's\naccount is confirmed by _The Evening Standard_ of February 23rd of that\nyear.\n\n     \"Mr Waldron, a solicitor, sued his next-door neighbour, one\n     Kiernan, a mate in the merchant service, to recover L500 for\n     damages done to his house. Kiernan altogether denied the\n     charges, but asserted that Waldron's residence was notoriously\n     haunted. Witnesses proved that every night from August 1884, to\n     January 1885, stones were thrown at the windows and doors and\n     other serious damage done--in fact that numerous extraordinary\n     and inexplicable occurrences constantly took place.\n\n     \"Mrs Waldron, wife of the plaintiff, swore that one night she\n     saw one of the panes of glass of a certain window cut through\n     with a diamond, and a white hand inserted through the hole. She\n     at once caught up a bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand,\n     cutting off one of the fingers. Neither this finger, however,\n     could be found nor were any traces of blood seen.\n\n     \"A servant of hers was sorely persecuted by noises and the\n     sound of footsteps. Mr Waldron, with the aid of detectives and\n     policemen, endeavoured to find the cause, but with no avail.\n     The witnesses in this case were closely cross-examined, but\n     without shaking their testimony. The facts appeared to be\n     proved, so the jury found for Kiernan, the defendant. At least\n     twenty persons had testified on oath to the fact that the house\n     had been known to have been haunted.\"\n\nThe possible agency of small boys in the matter of stone-throwing is\napparently overlooked, while it can be easily imagined that a servant\ngirl, well aware of the uncanny reputation of the house she lived in,\nwould very soon develop a capacity for hearing mysterious sounds and\nfootsteps on the smallest provocation. Then again the testimony of the\nplaintiff's wife was surely very damaging to her own case since she was,\npresumably, endeavouring to prove that the whole of the \"extraordinary\nand inexplicable occurrences\" were due to some mad freak on the part of\nher neighbour.\n\nOn the whole I can find no class of occult phenomena of greater\nantiquity and persistence than that of haunting. Even though the ghost\nmay not be as visible as that of Hamlet's father, yet the idea of a\nperturbed spirit revisiting its former haunts or the scene of its bodily\nmurder finds credence amongst all peoples and epochs in the world's\nhistory. Fable is usually the dulled image of the truth: just as what we\ncall presentiment or rumour is a kind of aura or van-wind of truth. On\nthese grounds alone I should be inclined to take the legendary evidence\nfor haunting seriously, just as every man who investigates its\nastonishing history now perceives that witchcraft is not to be dismissed\nas a mere groundless superstition. Indeed, I lay it down as a\nproposition that any belief which spontaneously and universally arises\nand persistently survives must have truth in the web of it. But the\nmodern authentic testimony for haunting is so clear and strong and the\nattestors so clear-headed and indeed inexpugnable that we must really\nbelieve the physical sounds, with their revealed significance, actually\noccurred and do occur. Hallucination I put here out of the question.\nNeither will the theory of telepathy between the living serve to account\nfor anything here.\n\nThere is some other solution of the mystery. Has it been propounded? We\nshall see. Cock Lane is not now to be dismissed derisively. Nor are\nthese manifestations to be treated in the spirit of one of the\ncharacters in Mr Wells' \"Love and Mr Lewisham\"--\"Even if it be true--it\nis all wrong.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD\n\n\nNo serious inquirer into the mysteries of occultism should neglect to\nstudy the peculiar human faculty locally known as Dowsing. Science has\nhitherto turned a cold shoulder to the skilled wielders of the divining\nrod, and at first sight perhaps few subjects appear to be so little\nworthy of investigation. To begin with it is a matter of common\ngeological knowledge that the mode of distribution of underground water\nis very different from that imagined by the professional dowser. The\nlatter will locate a spring in a certain spot and give you scrupulous\ndetails as to its depth and the amount of water it will yield. He may go\non to tell you that a few feet distant is another spring, of a totally\ndifferent depth, and that between the two no water will be found. The\nassertions are ridiculed by the practical geologist, whose point of\nview is admirably expressed in the following letter. The writer is the\nRev. Osmond Fisher, M.A. (author of \"Physics of the Earth's Crust\").\n\n     \"Harlton Rectory, Cambridge,\n\n     \"February 4th, 1896.\n\n     \"It appears to me that the assumption which underlies the\n     belief in the divining rod is erroneous. It is only under\n     exceptional circumstances, as among crystalline rocks, or where\n     the strata are much disturbed, that underground water runs in\n     channels like water in a pipe, so that a person can say, 'I am\n     now standing over a spring,' whereas a few paces off he was not\n     over one. What is called a spring, such as is reached in a\n     well, is _usually_ a widely extended water-saturated stratum.\n     Ordinarily where water can be reached by a well, there are few\n     spots [in the neighbourhood] where a well would not find it.\n\n     \"The question which is really worthy of investigation in this\n     and similar cases seems to be how such an idea ever originated\n     and to what it owes its vitality.\"\n\nFrom the geologist's point of view, then, the so-called \"diviner\" is the\nmerest charlatan, who, so far as the finding of water or mineral veins\nis concerned, would be equally successful were he to substitute the\ndice-box or the coin for his more usual implement the hazel wand. It is,\nhe argues, a matter of guessing--and nothing more. The question becomes\ncomplicated when we remember that among the ardent devotees of the \"rod\"\nare to be numbered country squires, M.P.'s, doctors, clergymen, and\nfarmers, who would have nothing to gain by pretending to a power which\nthey did not possess.\n\nThe Society for Psychical Research has devoted a considerable amount of\nattention to the subject. So far back as 1884 a paper on \"The Divining\nRod,\" prepared by Mr E. R. Pease, was read at a general meeting of the\nSociety. The following is an abstract:--\n\n     \"The Divining Rod is a V-shaped twig, commonly of hazelwood,\n     but sometimes of steel watchspring, whalebone and other\n     substances. It first came into use about three centuries ago,\n     and during the seventeenth century it was the subject of much\n     controversy and of numerous experiments by the learned men of\n     the time. Many theories were proposed to explain its action,\n     but none of them would now be regarded as plausible, and\n     various test experiments which were made uniformly failed. In\n     1701, the Inquisition condemned the use of the rod, and after\n     this date the popularity of divining greatly diminished. In the\n     seventeenth century it was used to discover murderers and\n     thieves, buried treasures, lost boundaries, and other hidden\n     objects, as well as metals and water springs. At present it\n     appears to be chiefly used in the West of England for the\n     discovery of water springs, and in America for oil wells and\n     mines. Mr E. Vaughan Jenkins, of Cheltenham, has made and\n     presented to the Society for Psychical Research a very valuable\n     collection of evidence of its use in England for locating\n     wells. He has communicated with various well-known 'diviners,'\n     and has received direct from landowners, architects, builders,\n     commercial firms and others, careful records of the successful\n     choosing of well sites by diviners in places where professional\n     geologists or local experts were hopeless of success. It seems\n     also that diviners travel about the country and 'dowse' in\n     localities new and strange to them.... The divining rod is\n     always held in a position of extreme tension, and at the same\n     time of unstable equilibrium. Slight muscular contractions\n     produce violent and startling effects. It would seem therefore\n     that the action of the rod may be caused by unconscious\n     movements of the diviner's hands, due possibly to a sensation\n     of chill on reaching water-bearing spots, or perhaps merely to\n     an unwritten practical science of the surface signs of hidden\n     water.\"\n\nMr Pease eventually came to the conclusion that \"the evidence for the\nsuccess of dowsing as a practical art is very strong--and there seems to\nbe an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made.\"\nFifty years ago Dr Mayo, F.R.S., came to a similar conclusion after\nexhaustive experiments with the divining rod, both in England and\nabroad, and in 1883, Dr R. Raymond, the distinguished secretary of the\nAmerican Institute of Mining Engineers, summed up the result of his\ninvestigations in the following opinion:--\"That there is a residuum of\nscientific value, after making all necessary deductions for\nexaggeration, self-deception and fraud\" in the use of the divining rod\nfor finding springs and deposits of ore.\n\nIn 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the\nCouncil of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of\nthe matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett\nundertook the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against\nthe subject was not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a\nfew weeks' work would enable him to relegate it\n\n    \"Into a limbo large and broad, since called\n    The Paradise of fools.\"\n\nSix years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous\nreport, which occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the\n\"Proceedings.\" Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece\nof patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast\nthat it is only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.\n\nThe following case was sent by Miss Grantham:--\n\n     \"100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,\n\n     \"February 1st, 1893.\n\n     \"My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of\n     his farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish,\n     and as he had previously told us he was able to discover the\n     presence of water underground by means of a twig, we asked him\n     to go with us one day to see if he could find water. Mr B.\n     began by cutting a twig out of the hedge, of hazel or\n     blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches long, then\n     taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and first\n     finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about\n     the field in which my father proposed digging a well, and at\n     two spots the point of the twig turned right up, exactly\n     reversing its previous position; in fact so strong was its\n     impulse to point upwards, that we found that unless Mr B.\n     relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his fingers. We put\n     small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about twelve\n     years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since\n     quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same\n     ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found\n     water, neither did we point them out to him, but at these\n     places his twig behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father,\n     mother, and four or five others, then cut similar twigs out of\n     the hedge, but with none of us would they divine water. My\n     father then took Mr B. over some ground where he knew of the\n     existence of an underground stream; he did not tell Mr B. this,\n     but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again turned\n     upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one\n     of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water,\n     and it was found at the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the\n     boy both said that they did not feel any abnormal influence\n     whatever when the twig divined water.\n\n     \"EMMA L. GRANTHAM.\"\n\nAnother case (from Somersetshire) is quoted from in _The Western\nGazette_ of 10th February 1893. Evercreech is at the foot of the\nMendips.\n\n     \"A well has recently been sunk on the premises of Messrs W.\n     Roles & Son, of Evercreech Junction, on the site of the\n     proposed milk factory. Mr Henry Smart, head gardener at Pennard\n     House, was successful with the divining twig (or rod), and a\n     well was sunk to a depth of 60 feet, when a spring was found\n     which yielded no less than 15,000 gallons of water in ten\n     hours. Water came at such a rate that a powerful pump had to be\n     erected temporarily by Messrs Hill & Son, of Bruton, and was\n     kept working day and night in order to keep the water down for\n     the purpose of walling (the well). At the present time there is\n     50 feet of water in the well, the supply increasing daily.\"\n\nProfessor Barrett wrote to Messrs Roles to know if a well had been sunk\npreviously, and if the above statement was correct. They reply that the\naccount is quite correct, and add: \"We had previously sunk a well\nwithout the use of the rod, to nearly the same depth, but it was\n_unsuccessful_. Six yards from this useless well the diviner found the\nspring which now yields enough to supply a small village if required.\"\n\nThe Rev. Martin R. Knapp, M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, writes\nto Professor Barrett as follows:--\n\n     \"72 Forest Road, Dalston, N.E.,\n\n     \"November 14th, 1896.\n\n     \"In the summer of 1892, I entered on the vicarage of North\n     Wootton in North Somerset, and had reason at once to look for\n     water. I was advised to try a 'water-finder,' and did so. The\n     dowser was a retired miller, and came provided with a number of\n     forked twigs. Holding one he traversed the place, and at\n     certain points the twig oscillated violently in his hands, and\n     there, he professed, he should find water.\n\n     \"There was an interesting sidelight in the matter that I will\n     tell you of. My builder, who came from Bath, was very sceptical\n     about the whole thing. Three or four of us who were on the spot\n     tried to see if the twigs would 'play up' with us.\n\n     \"We were unsuccessful till this man tried his hand, scoffing\n     the while. But directly that he came to the spots the dowser\n     had found the twig showed vigorous signs of animation. When his\n     hand was being twisted in his efforts to keep the twig steady,\n     I cried to him to hold fast, with the result that the twig\n     twisted itself into two pieces.\n\n     \"At Wells, close by, lived a coachman, who was reported to have\n     the power to find, not only water but minerals. He carries\n     neither rod nor twig, and told me when I inquired, that his\n     sensations are undoubted and extraordinary whenever he is\n     directly above either water or minerals.\n\n     \"MARTIN R. KNAPP.\"\n\nIn answer to inquiries Mr Knapp informed Professor Barrett the builder\nwas a stranger to the locality, and the spots where the rod moved were\nunlikely to suggest water below. The twig in the builder's hand, Mr\nKnapp says, in every case corroborated the dowser's indications, and\nhence he (the builder) was unmercifully chaffed, as he had treated the\nwhole thing with such contempt. Mr Knapp says it is possible that the\nplaces indicated by the dowser might have been perceived by the builder,\nbut it was the spontaneous and vigorous movement of the twig, evidently\ncontrary to the holder's intention and against his will, that excited\ntheir astonishment.\n\nDr Hutton, F.R.S., the distinguished mathematician--to whom the Royal\nSociety entrusted the gigantic labour of making an abridgment of the\nwhole of the Transactions of the Royal Society from its foundation in\n1666 to the beginning of this century--gives the following account of\nhis experiments with the divining rod as used by Lady Milbanke:--\n\n     \"At the time appointed (eleven A.M., 30th May 1806) the lady,\n     with all her family, arrived at my house on Woolwich Common,\n     where, after preparing the rods, etc., they walked to the\n     grounds, accompanied by the individuals of my own family and\n     some friends, when Lady Milbanke showed the experiment several\n     times in different places, holding the rod in the manner\n     described elsewhere. In the places where I had good reason to\n     know that no water was to be found the rod was always\n     quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water\n     below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly in the\n     manner above described, till the twigs twisted themselves off\n     below the fingers, which are considerably indented by so\n     forcibly holding the rod between them.[3]\n\n     \"All the company stood close to Lady M. with all eyes intensely\n     fixed on her hands and the rods to watch if any particular\n     motion might be made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of\n     the kind was perceived, and all the company could observe no\n     cause or reason why the rods should move in the manner they\n     were seen to do.\n\n     \"After the experiments were ended, everyone of the company\n     tried the rods in the same manner as they saw Lady M. had done,\n     but without the least motion from any of them. And in my\n     family, among ourselves, we have since then, several times,\n     tried if we could possibly cause the rod to turn by means of\n     any trick or twisting of the fingers, held in the manner Lady\n     Milbanke did, but in vain; we had no power to accomplish it.\"\n\n[Footnote 3: Dr Hutton does not say _how_ he knew that water was, or was\nnot, below the surface. He was not, however, one likely to make loose\nand random statements. According to a footnote in _The Quarterly\nReview_, vol. xxii. p. 374, it appears that the ground chosen for the\nexperiment was a field Dr Hutton had bought, adjoining the new College\nat Woolwich, then building.]\n\nThe following is a remarkable case, and an important one from an\nevidential point of view. It is not known whether the \"diviner\" in this\ncase was an amateur or not; he is now dead.\n\n_The Bristol Times and Mirror_ of 16th June 1891 states:\n\n     \"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery at Shepton Mallet needed a large\n     water supply; accordingly excavations had been made to find\n     water, but without success. About two years since, during an\n     exceptionally dry season, it became absolutely necessary to\n     obtain a further supply of brewing water; hence several boring\n     experiments were made on the property. At the suggestion of a\n     gentleman in the locality, the services of a 'diviner' were\n     obtained, and although the principal members of the firm\n     professed to have no faith in his 'art,' yet he was allowed to\n     try the fields on the company's property, and those on the\n     neighbouring estate, and discovered the well now used by the\n     brewery.... The soothsayer who carried the divining rod, a\n     hazel branch, was Mr Charles Sims, a local farmer, and a\n     notable discoverer of wells in the district. Operations were\n     immediately commenced, and, after excavating and dynamiting\n     through the rock, to the depth of fifty feet, a magnificent\n     spring was discovered in a fault of the rock, which proved to\n     be of exceptionally fine water, and of even a finer quality\n     than the town's supply.\"\n\nProfessor Barrett wrote to the Secretary of the brewery to make\ninquiries and he replied as follows:--\n\n     \"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,\n\n     \"September 12th, 1896.\n\n     \"Replying to your letter in regard to a local diviner, we had\n     one of the name of Sims, from Pilton, who successfully denoted\n     a spot on our ground where we have had an abundant supply of\n     water since. This was some eight years ago.\n\n     \"The writer of this letter also has had some considerable\n     experience with Mr Lawrence of Bristol, who was one of the most\n     noted divining rod men in the West of England. He also was\n     successful in denoting a supply for a Bristol brewery with\n     which the writer was connected; and in numerous other instances\n     in the neighbourhood. Mr Lawrence bore a very high reputation.\n     We believe he died a few months ago at a ripe old age.\n\n     \"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,\n\n     \"J. CLIFFORD,\n\n     \"_Manager_.\"\n\nHaving written to ask if a previous boring had been made, and if so,\nwhat depth, and with what result, the following reply was received:--\n\n     \"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,\n\n     \"September 18th, 1896.\n\n     \"Replying to yours of the 14th, a boring was carried out to the\n     extent of some 140 feet _without success_ on another portion of\n     our premises, before it was successfully done at the spot\n     indicated by the water finder; here, a well was sunk and\n     abundant water obtained at a depth of 40 feet.\n\n     \"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,\n\n     \"J. CLIFFORD,\n\n     \"_Manager_.\"\n\nIn the following case, the best advice was obtained and some L1000 spent\nfruitlessly searching for an underground spring prior to the dowser's\nvisit. The first notice of it appeared in a local newspaper, _The West\nSussex Times and Sussex Standard_, from which the following letter is\nreprinted:--\n\n     \"Warnham Lodge, Horsham,\n\n     \"January 3rd, 1893.\n\n     \"Having had very great difficulty in the supply of water to\n     this house, I sent for John Mullins, of Colerne, near\n     Chippenham, who, by the aid of a twig of hazel, pointed out\n     several places where water could be found. I have sunk wells in\n     four of the places and it each case have been most successful.\n\n     \"It may be said that water can be found anywhere--this is not\n     my experience. I have had the best engineering advice and have\n     spent many hundreds of pounds, and hitherto have not obtained\n     sufficient water for my requirements, but now I have an\n     abundant supply.\n\n     \"I certainly should not think of sinking another well without\n     previously consulting John Mullins.\n\n     \"HENRY HARDEN.\"\n\nIt is sometimes urged that only springs yielding a limited supply of\nwater are found by dowsers, who fix on spots where more or less surface\nwater can be got from shallow wells rather than run the risk of sinking\na deep well. Many of the cases already cited refute this notion, and the\nfollowing bears on the same point. It is from Messrs Beamish & Crawford,\nthe well-known brewers, of Cork.\n\n     \"Cork Porter Brewery, Cork,\n\n     \"December 30th, 1896.\n\n     \"In reply to your letter of 26th inst., we beg to state:\n\n     \"1. We had an old well yielding a small supply of water. It was\n     about 30 feet deep.\n\n     \"2. No new well was fixed on by Mullins. He bored down to a\n     depth of about 60 feet below the bottom of the old well, and\n     therefore about 90 feet below the surface of the ground.\n\n     \"3. The supply of water now obtained from the new pipes sunk by\n     Mullins is, as nearly as we can estimate, about 10,000 gallons\n     per hour.\n\n     \"BEAMISH & CRAWFORD LTD.\"\n\nIt goes without saying that professional dowsers are not always\nsuccessful in their quests. \"I am inclined,\" states Professor Barrett,\n\"to think we may take from ten to fifteen per cent. as the average\npercentage of failures which occur with most English dowsers of to-day,\nallowing a larger percentage for partial failures, meaning by this that\nthe quantity of water estimated and the depth at which it is found have\nnot realised the estimate formed by the dowser.\"\n\nWhat then is the secret of the dowser's often remarkable success? The\nquestion is whether, after making every allowance for shrewdness of eye,\nchance, coincidence, and local geological knowledge, the dowser has any\ninstinctive or supernormal power of discovering the presence of\nunderground water. Professor Barrett, who has perhaps devoted more time\nto the subject than any other man living, is inclined to answer in the\naffirmative.\n\n\"There appears to be evidence,\" he writes, \"that a more profound stratum\nof our personality, glimpses of which we get elsewhere in our\n'Proceedings,' is associated with the dowser's art; and the latter seems\nto afford a further striking instance of information obtained through\nautomatic means being more remarkable than, and beyond the reach of,\nthat derived from conscious observation and inference.\"\n\nIn another passage he adds:\n\n    \"For my own part, I have been driven to believe that some dowsers--\n\n    \"Whose exterior semblance doth belie\n    The soul's immensity\"\n\n    nevertheless give us a glimpse of\n\n    \"The eternal deep\n    Haunted for ever by the eternal mind.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nMEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA\n\n\nIn my inquiry so far the reader will note that I have taken one thing\nfor granted--the fact of telepathy. In order to convince him to the\nextent to which this great scientific truth has convinced me, it would\nbe necessary for me to lead him through a thousand pages of evidence for\ntelepathic phenomena, attested by some of the leading physicists of the\nday. I am aware that there are still sceptics on the subject of\ntelepathy, but the testimony is overwhelming, and every year sees the\nranks of scepticism growing thinner.\n\nNot many years ago a very learned man, the late Professor von Helmholtz,\nalthough confronted with _prima-facie_ evidence of thought transference\nor telepathy, declared: \"I cannot believe it. Neither the testimony of\nall the Fellows of the Royal Society, nor even the evidence of my own\nsenses, would lead me to believe in the transmission of them from one\nperson to another. It is clearly impossible.\" An opinion in these terms\nis very rare to-day. We are apt to express our incredulity in language\nfar more guarded and less emphatic.\n\nAbout hallucinations, however, there is no scepticism. We have remarked\nsensory hallucinations of an occasional nature; we now come to regard\nthem as a cult, for I suppose there is no manifestation in the world, no\ngift, no prodigy even, that is not prone to the fate of being exploited\nfor particular ends.\n\nA poet, we will say, by some rare \"subliminal uprush,\" produces a\nbeautiful poem. He is at once chained to his desk by publishers and\ncompelled to go on producing poetry for the rest of his life. It is\ninevitable that many of his manifestations will be false; and for that\nreason, in spite of an occasional jewel of truth, he runs serious risks\nof being denounced in the end as no poet.\n\nI have no doubt it is the same with the producers or the agents of\noccult phenomena. Sensory hallucinations may be stimulated. They may be\nstimulated by intoxication and disease, or they may be stimulated by the\nmorbid conditions of a spiritualistic _seance_. Everything in these\nconditions--the prolonged darkness, the emotional expectancy--promotes\nthe peculiar frame of mind apparently requisite. Constant\nexercise--perpetual aspiration develops the power of seeing visions.\nAfter a time, in well-known cases, they appear to need no inducement to\ncome spontaneously.\n\nOne well-known medium, Mr Hill Tout, confesses that building and\npeopling _chateaux en Espagne_ was a favourite occupation of his in his\nearlier days. This long-practised faculty is doubtless a potent factor\nin all his characterisations, and probably also in those of many another\nfull-fledged medium.\n\nHallucinations need not be visual only; they are frequently auditory.\nMiss Freer gives an account of one induced by merely holding a shell to\nthe ear. There is another case of a young woman in whom auditory\nhallucinations would be excited on hearing the sound of water running\nthrough a tap. Given the basis of actual sound, the hallucinable person\nquickly causes it to become articulate and intelligible. Thus, is it\nunreasonable to suppose that the vague, nebulous lights seen at dark\n_seances_ would furnish the raw material, so to speak, for sense\ndeception?\n\nThus, we have the basis and beginning, from one point of view, of modern\nspiritualism. But before we examine the question of clairvoyance or\ntrance utterances of spiritualistic mediums we must first of all go into\nthe subject of physical phenomena.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo-called physical phenomena are a comparatively modern excrescence on\nthe main growth. It is only within the last half-century that they have\nattained any considerable development. The faith in the communion and\nintervention of spirits originated before their appearance and will\nprobably outlast their final discredit. At the best, whatever effect\nthey may have had in advertising the movement with the vulgar, they\nseem to have exerted only a subsidiary influence in inducing belief with\nmore thoughtful men and women.\n\nThese physical phenomena consist chiefly of table rapping, table moving,\nringing of bells, and various other manifestations for which a normal\ncause is not apparent. For a long time, in the early days of modern\nspiritualism, the cult was chiefly confined to \"miracles\" of this sort.\nOne of its most notable props was the manifestations, long continued and\nobserved by many thousands, of the famous Daniel Dunglas Home. It is\nfifty years ago now since Home came to England and began his _seances_,\nwhich were attended by Lord Dunraven, Lord Brougham, Sir D. Brewster,\nRobert Owen, Bulwer Lytton, T. A. Trollope, Garth Wilkinson, and others.\nFor thirty years Home was brought before the public as a medium, dying\nin 1886. He seems to have been an amiable, highly emotional man, full of\ngenerous impulses, and of considerable personal charm. His frankness and\nsincerity impressed all those who came in touch with the man. Mr Andrew\nLang has called him \"a Harold Skimpole, with the gift of divination.\"\n\nHome dealt with both clairvoyance and physical manifestations.\nOstensibly through him came an enormous number of messages purporting to\nproceed from the dead friends of certain of those attending the\n_seances_. In the records of these _seances_ will be found the signed\nstatements of Dr Garth Wilkinson, Dr Gully, Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall, the\npresent Earl of Dunraven, Earl of Crawford, Dr Hawksley, Mrs Nassau\nSenior, Mr P. P. Alexander, Mr Perdicaris, and others, that they had\nreceived messages giving details of a private nature that it seemed in\nthe last degree probable could be known to the medium. Home's\nmanifestations were for the most part those which any attendant at a\nspiritualistic _seance_ can witness for himself to-day. The room he used\nwas, compared with those used by other mediums who insisted on complete\ndarkness, well lighted, as he had a shaded lamp, a gas-burner, or one or\ntwo candles lighted. The manifestations generally began with raps; then\nfollowed a quivering movement of the table, which one present described\nas like \"the vibration on a small steamer when the engines begin to\nwork\"; by another as \"a ship in distress, with its timbers straining in\na heavy sea.\" Then, suspended in the air, the table would float, and in\nits shelter musical instruments performing could be heard; the sitters\ncould feel their knees being clasped and their dresses pulled; many\nthings would be handed about the circle, such as handkerchiefs, flowers,\nand even heavy bells. During the performance messages were rapped out by\nthe spirits, or delivered through the mouth of the medium. In this\nrespect, where intelligence is shown, they would partake of the nature\nof trance utterance, a thing to be analysed later.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nRobert Bell, a dramatist and critic, having been present at one of these\n_seances_, acknowledged that he had seen things which he was satisfied\nwere \"beyond the pale of material experiences.\" After describing various\nmanifestations, hands felt under the table, touching the knees, and\npulling the clothes, bells rung by invisible agency, and various\narticles thrown about the room, he proceeds to describe \"levitation\":\n\n     \"Mr Home was seated next the window. Through the semi-darkness\n     his head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands\n     might be seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he\n     said, in a quiet voice, 'My chair is moving--I am off the\n     ground--don't notice me--talk of something else,' or words to\n     that effect. It was very difficult to restrain the curiosity,\n     not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few words\n     awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon some\n     different topic. I was sitting nearly opposite Mr Home, and I\n     saw his hands disappear from the table, and his head vanish\n     into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke\n     again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He\n     had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from\n     the ground. As he ascended higher he described his position,\n     which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became\n     horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the\n     gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse.\n     In a moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass\n     across the window, against the grey, silvery light of which he\n     would be visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his\n     figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet\n     foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he\n     passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way and\n     recross the window, which he did. His own tranquil confidence\n     in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most\n     novel peril gave confidence to everybody else; but with the\n     strongest nerves it was impossible not to be conscious of a\n     certain sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle\n     for several minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly,\n     over our heads. I heard his voice behind me in the air, and\n     felt something lightly brush my chair. It was his foot, which\n     he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the spot where it was on\n     the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon it, when he\n     uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with\n     a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair,\n     but floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He\n     now passed over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we\n     could judge by his voice of the altitude and distance he had\n     attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which he made a\n     slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed his\n     place at the table. An incident which occurred during this\n     aerial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity to it, was\n     that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground under\n     the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the\n     air from the distant corner of the room.\"\n\nA well-known physician, Dr Gully, who was present at this _seance_,\nwrote confirming the account in _The Cornhill Magazine_ given by the\nabove writer.\n\nDuring the ensuing forty years mediumistic performances became of common\nand almost daily occurrence in this country. Two or three forms of\nso-called spirit manifestation--such as materialisation, spirit\nphotography, and slate-writing--afterwards became connected with many of\nthe _seances_. But first the manifestations in daylight consisted of\nraps and tiltings of a table; afterwards, when the lights were turned\nout or turned very low, spirit voices, touches of spirit hands, spirit\nlights, spirit-born flowers, floating musical instruments, and moving\nabout or levitation of the furniture.\n\nUntil Sir William Crookes began to investigate the alleged\nspiritualistic phenomena, all investigation had been undertaken by\npersons without scientific training. After a year of experiments he\nissued a detailed description of those conducted in his own laboratory\nin the presence of four other persons, two of whom, Sir William Huggins\nand Sergeant Fox, confirmed the accuracy of his report. The result was\nthat he was able to demonstrate, he said, the existence of a hitherto\nunknown force, and had measured the effect produced. At all events,\nthese inquirers were convinced of the genuineness of Home's powers.\n\nSuppose we glance at the possible alternative--viz. that Home was a\nconjurer of consummate skill and ingenuity. For one of the physical\nphenomena, that of tilting a table at a precarious angle without\ndisplacing various small objects resting on its polished surface, Mr\nPodmore suggests an explanation. He thinks that the articles were\nprobably held in position on the table when it was tilted by means of\nhairs and fine threads attached to Home's dress. He has various\nexplanations for other of the phenomena, but he confesses that there\nremain a few manifestations which the hypothesis of simple trickery does\nnot seem to fit. In going over a mass of evidence relating to Home, the\nhypothesis of conjuring seems to be rather incredible; when one bears in\nmind Home's long career as a medium, how his private life was watched by\nthe lynx-eyed sceptics, eager to pounce upon the evidence of trickery,\nand that he was never detected, it certainly seems to me, at all events,\nthat Home's immunity from exposure is strong evidence against the\nassumption of fraud. Home was merely the type of a large class of\nmediums purporting to be controlled by spirit power, whose _seances_ are\na feature of modern life.\n\nCertain experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home came very near to\nsatisfying the most stringent scientific conditions, especially those in\nthe alteration in the weight of a board. In these experiments one end of\nthe board was on a spring balance and the other rested on a table. The\nboard became heavier or lighter as Home placed his fingers on the end\nresting on the table and \"willed\" it, and the different weights were\nrecorded by an automatic register. This effect might have been produced,\nsays Mr Podmore, by using a dark thread with a loop attached to some\npart of the apparatus--possibly the hook of the spring balance--and the\nends fastened to Home's trousers. But this particular trick does not\nseem to have occurred to those experimenting, and the description of the\n_seances_ does not exclude it.\n\nSuggesting an explanation of an event does not prove that it so\noccurred, and Mr Podmore adds: \"It is not easy to see how the\ninvestigators ... could have been deceived, and repeatedly deceived, by\nany device of the kind suggested.\"\n\nOne of the most remarkable of Daniel Dunglas Home's manifestations\noccurred on 16th December 1868, at 5 Buckingham Gate, London. There were\npresent the Master of Lindsay (now the Earl of Crawford), Viscount Adare\n(the present Earl of Dunraven), and Captain Wynne. The Master of Lindsay\nhas recorded the circumstances, as follows:--\n\n     \"I was sitting with Mr Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his.\n     During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that\n     state was carried out of the window in the room next to where\n     we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between\n     the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not\n     the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a\n     twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge\n     to put flowers on. We heard the window in the next room lifted\n     up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in air\n     outside our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my\n     back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the\n     window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it. He\n     remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the\n     window and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down.\"\n\nHere is Lord Adare's account of the central incident:\n\n     \"We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown\n     up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our\n     window; he opened the window and walked in quite coolly.\"\n\nCaptain Wynne, writing to Home in 1877, refers to this occasion in the\nfollowing words:\n\n     \"The fact of your having gone out of the one window and in at\n     the other I can swear to.\"\n\nIt is surely not a little remarkable that an occurrence of so\nextraordinary a nature should be testified to by three such clear-headed\nmen as Captain Wynne and Lords Lindsay and Adare. To cross from one\nwindow to another by ordinary means was clearly impossible, and it would\nbe a brave conjurer indeed who would essay such a feat at a distance of\neighty-five feet from the ground. What then is the explanation? Mr\nPodmore suggests that the three witnesses were the victims of a\ncollective hallucination; but this theory is not easy to accept, and Mr\nAndrew Lang has heaped it with ridicule. \"There are,\" he writes, \"two\nother points to be urged against Mr Podmore's theory that observers of\nHome were hallucinated. The Society's records contain plenty of\n'collective, so-called telepathic hallucinations.' But surely these\nhallucinations offered visionary figures of persons and things not\npresent in fact. Has Mr Podmore one case, except Home's, of a\ncollective hallucination in which a person actually present is the\nhallucination; floats in the air, holds red-hot coals and so\nforth--appears outside of the window, for instance, when he is inside\nthe room? Of course, where conjuring is barred. Again, Home's marvels\nare attested by witnesses violently prejudiced against him, and (far\nfrom being attentively expectant) most anxious to detect and expose\nhim.\"\n\nIf the case of Home presents difficulties to the rational sceptic, that\nof William Stainton Moses, who died in 1892, presents an even harder\nproblem. I will refer to Moses later when we come to discuss\nclairvoyance, but at first his mediumistic powers were manifested in\nphysical phenomena. He was a clergyman and a scholar, an M.A. of Oxford,\nand for nearly eighteen years English master in University College\nSchool. He was held in esteem and even affection by all who were most\nintimately associated with him. Yet Moses was responsible for table\nrapping, levitation of furniture, playing of musical instruments and\n\"apports\"--the latter term expressing the movement or introduction of\nvarious articles either by the request of the sitters or spontaneously,\nsuch as books, stones, shells, opera-glasses, candle-sticks, and so\nforth. All this began in 1872, and the phenomena observed at the various\n_seances_ were carefully recorded by the medium's friends, Dr and Mrs\nSpeer, C. T. Speer, and F. W. Percival. It must be borne in mind that\nMoses was in his thirty-third year before he suspected mediumistic\npowers. There have been any number of hypotheses to account for the\nphysical phenomena furnished at these _seances_. Jewels, cameos, seed\npearls, and other precious things were brought and given to the sitters.\nScent was introduced; familiar perfumes--such as sandalwood, jasmine,\nheliotrope, not always recognised--were a frequent occurrence at these\n_seances_. Occasionally it would be sprayed in the air, sometimes poured\ninto the hands of the sitters, and often it was found oozing from the\nmedium's head and even running down.\n\nIn Mrs Speer's diary for 30th August there is the following record:--\n\n     \"Many things were brought from different parts of the house\n     through the locked door this evening. Mr S. M. was levitated,\n     and when he felt for his feet they were hanging in mid-air,\n     while his head must have almost touched the ceiling.\"\n\nDr Speer also records a \"levitation\" on 3rd December:\n\n     \"Mr M. was floated about, and a large dining-room chair was\n     placed on the table.\"\n\nMrs Speer tells us that they sat in the fire-light, and that the\n_seances_ were held in more or less complete darkness. Moses' own\naccount of the levitation is much fuller. He says that he was fully\nconscious that he was floating about the room, and that he marked a\nplace on the wall with a pencil, which was afterwards found to be more\nthan six feet from the floor. Subsequently musical sounds became a\nfeature of the manifestations. In September 1874 Mrs Speer gives a list\nof them, mentioning ten or more different kinds, including the\ntambourine, harp, fairy-bells, and many stringed instruments, and\nascribes their production to eight different spirits.\n\nIn the early materialisations of Stainton Moses we find that hands, and\noccasionally the fore arm, were seen holding lights. These spirit lights\nare described as hard, round, and cold to the touch. In his description\nof one incident at a _seance_ Moses himself pens a significant passage,\nwhich seems to confirm the suspicion that the spirit lights were really\nbottles of phosphorised oil:\n\n     \"Suddenly there arose from below me, apparently under the\n     table, or near the floor, right under my nose, a cloud of\n     luminous smoke, just like phosphorus. It fumed up in great\n     clouds, until I seemed to be on fire, and rushed from the room\n     in a panic. I was fairly frightened, and could not tell what\n     was happening. I rushed to the door and opened it, and so to\n     the front door. My hands seemed to be ablaze, and left their\n     impress on the door and handles. It blazed for a while after I\n     had touched it, but soon went out, and no smell or trace\n     remained.... There seemed to be no end of smoke. It smelt\n     distinctly phosphoric, but the smell evaporated as soon as I\n     got out of the room into the air.\"\n\nSuch candour disarms us: can there be any ground for the theory that\nhere was a case of self-deception on a large scale? Or is there yet an\nalternative explanation? Perhaps we shall discover one.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nMORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA\n\n\nWhat we have to remember is that by far the greater part of the physical\nphenomena which is said to occur at a _seance_ is really nothing\nextraordinary. All physical occurrences are normal that are capable of\nbeing produced by a clever conjurer; and there is no doubt that with due\npreparation such a one could achieve table rapping, introduce flowers\nand move furniture. But the problem is, how, under the stringent\nconditions imposed, and in the face of the close scrutiny, to which\nthese manifestations are subjected, they can be done. As Sir Oliver\nLodge says: \"I am disposed to maintain that I have myself witnessed, in\na dim light, occasional abnormal instances of movement of untouched\nobjects.\" He goes on to say that \"suppose an untouched object comes\nsailing or hurtling through the air, or suppose an object is raised or\nfloated from the ground, how are we to regard it? This is just what a\nlive animal could do, and so the first natural hypothesis is that some\nliving thing is doing it: (_a_) the medium himself, acting by tricks or\nconcealed mechanism; (_b_) a confederate--an unconscious confederate\nperhaps, among the sitters; (_c_) an unknown and invisible live entity,\nother than the people present. If in any such action the extraordinary\nlaws of nature were superseded, if the weight of a piece of matter could\nbe shown to have _disappeared_, or if fresh energy were introduced\nbeyond the recognised categories of energy, then there would be no\nadditional difficulties; but hitherto there has been no attempt to\nestablish either of these things. Indeed, it must be admitted that\ninsufficient attention is usually paid to this aspect of ordinary,\ncommonplace, abnormal physical phenomena. If a heavy body is raised\nunder good conditions, we should always try to ascertain\" (he does not\nsay that it is easy to ascertain) \"where its weight has gone to--that is\nto say, what supports it--what ultimately supports it. For instance, if\nexperiments were conducted in a suspended room, would the whole weight\nof that room, as ascertained by outside balance, remain unaltered when a\ntable or person was levitated inside it? Or, could the agencies\noperating inside affect the bodies outside?--questions, these, which\nappear capable of answer, with sufficient trouble, in an organised\nphysical laboratory; such a laboratory as does not, he supposes, yet\nexist, but which might exist and which will exist in the future, if the\nphysical aspect of experimental psychology is ever to become recognised\nas a branch of orthodox physics.\"\n\nRecently, Dr Maxwell, of Paris, published his researches and\nobservations on physical phenomena, and he states that under \"material\nand physical phenomena\" are comprised (1) raps; (2) movements of objects\n(_a_) without contact, or (_b_) only with such contact as is\ninsufficient to effect the particular movement in question; (3)\n\"apports\"--_i.e._ the production of objects by some supernormal agency;\n(4) visual phenomena--_i.e._ the appearance of lights and of forms,\nluminous or otherwise, including among the latter the class of alleged\nphenomena known as materialisations, and (5) phenomena leaving some\npermanent trace, such as imprints or \"direct\" writings or drawings, etc.\nUnder the class of \"intellectual phenomena\" may be included such\noccurrences as automatic writing, table tilting, etc.\n\nAs regards raps Dr Maxwell hazards certain conclusions, of which he says\nthe most certain is the close connection of the raps with the muscular\nmovements on the part of the sitters. Every muscular movement, even a\nslight one, appears to be followed by a rap. Thus if, without anyone\nnecessarily touching the table, one of the sitters frees his hand from\nthe chain made round the table by others, moves it about in a circle\nover the surface of the table, then raises it in the centre and brings\nit down towards the table, stopping suddenly within a few inches of it,\na rap will be produced on the table corresponding with the sudden\nstoppage of the hand. Similarly, a rap will be produced by a pressure of\nthe foot on the floor, by speaking, by blowing slightly, or by touching\nthe medium or one of the sitters. Raps produced in this way by the\nsitters are often stronger than those produced by the medium himself. Dr\nMaxwell suggests as a working hypothesis that there is a certain\naccumulated force, and that if its equilibrium be suddenly disturbed by\nthe addition of the excess of energy required for the movement, a\ndischarge takes place producing the effect.\n\nDr Maxwell has made a series of experiments with Eusapia Paladino.\n\n     \"It was about five o'clock in the evening,\" he writes, \"and\n     there was broad daylight in the drawing-room at l'Aguelas. We\n     were standing around the table. Eusapia took the hand of one of\n     our number and rested it on the right-hand corner of the table.\n     The table was raised to the level of our foreheads--that is,\n     the top reached a height of at least four and three-quarter\n     feet from the floor.... It was impossible for Eusapia to have\n     lifted the table by normal means. One has but to consider that\n     she touched but the corner of the table to realise what the\n     weight must have been had she accomplished the feat by\n     muscular effort. Further, she never had sufficient hold of it.\n     It was clearly impossible for her, under the conditions of the\n     experiment, to have used any of the means suggested by her\n     critics--straps, or hooks of some kind.\"\n\nMost of the phenomena discussed by Dr Maxwell were obtained through the\nmediumship of Eusapia Paladino. He was a member of the committee which\nmet in 1896 to investigate this medium, who had just concluded the\nseries of performances held under the auspices of the society at\nCambridge, which were entirely unfavourable to her claims. The French\ncommittee was made aware of the fraudulent devices which the Cambridge\ninvestigators claimed to have discovered. He recommends all who believe\nthat Dr Hodgson and his Cambridge colleagues have had the last word in\nthe controversy to read the report which will be found in the _Annales\ndes Psychiques_, for 1896. The English sitters arrive at conclusions in\ndirect conflict with those of the French, who claim that they had long\nknown of the tricks \"discovered\" at Cambridge, and in consequence took\nmeans to guard against them. Dr Maxwell indicts the Cambridge way of\ncontrolling the medium, which he says consisted, for a time at least, in\naffording the medium opportunities to cheat to see if she would avail\nherself of them. Opportunities of which she took the fullest advantage.\n\nNevertheless, Dr Maxwell offers but little encouragement for the theory\nof spiritualistic agency. \"I believe,\" he says, \"in the reality of\ncertain phenomena, of which I have repeatedly been a witness. I do not\nconsider it necessary to attribute them to a supernatural intervention\nof any kind, but am disposed to think that they are produced by some\nforce existing within ourselves.\"\n\nIn the same way as certain psychical phenomena, such as automatic\nwriting, trance, \"controls,\" crystal vision, and so forth, in which an\nintelligence seems to be present independent of the intelligence of the\nmedium, can be shown beyond dispute to be merely manifestations of his\nsubliminal intelligence, frequently taking the form of a dramatic\npersonification; so may the agency, revealing itself in raps, movements\nof objects, and other phenomena of a physical character, perhaps be\ntraceable, not to any power external to the medium and the sitters, but\nmerely to a force latent within themselves, and may be an\nexteriorisation in a dynamic form, in a way not yet ascertained, of\ntheir collective subliminal capacities.\n\nHowever strange new and unknown facts may be, we need not fear they are\ngoing to destroy the truth of the old ones. Would the science of physics\nbe overthrown if, for example, we admit the phenomenon of \"raps\"--_i.e._\naudible vibrations in wood and other substances--is a real phenomenon,\nand that in certain cases there may be blows which cannot be explained\nby any mechanical force known to us? It would be a new force exercised\non matter, but none the less would the old forces preserve their\nactivity. Pressure, temperature, and the density of air or of wood might\nstill exercise their usual influence, and it is even likely that the\ntransmission of vibrations by this new force would follow the same laws\nas other vibrations.\n\nIn the opinion of the leading members of this society, some of the\nphysical phenomena which have been adduced as among those proclaimed to\nhave occurred, such as \"apports,\" scent, movement of objects, passage of\nmatter through matter, bear a perilous resemblance to conjuring tricks,\nof a kind fairly well known; which tricks if well done can be very\ndeceptive. Hence extreme caution is necessary, and full control must be\nallowed to the observers--a thing which conjurers never really allow.\nSir Oliver Lodge says that he has never seen a silent and genuinely\ncontrolled conjurer; and in so far as mediums find it necessary to\ninsist on their own conditions, so far they must be content to be\ntreated as conjurers. For instance, no self-registering thermometer has\never recorded the \"intense cold\" felt at a _seance_. Flowers and fruit\nhave made their appearance in closed rooms, but no arsenic has\npenetrated the walls of the hermetically sealed tube. Various\ninvestigators have smelt, seen, and handled curious objects, but no\ntrace has been preserved. We have to depend on the recollection of the\nobserver's passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the\nrustle of spirit garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies.\nExquisite scents, strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly\nout of nothing, and have returned whence they came unrecorded by\nphotography, unweighed, unanalysed.\n\nBriefly, then, the result of my carefully formed judgment is that a\nlarge part of the physical phenomena heard, seen, felt at the average\nspiritualistic _seance_ must be placed on a level with ordinary\nconjuring. To return to the recent case of Eusapia Paladino. A number of\nEnglish scientists, interested in the reports of her _seances_, induced\nher to come to England and repeat them at Cambridge. Every effort was\nmade to make the experiments as satisfactory as possible. They used\nnetting for confining the medium or separating her from objects which\nthey hoped would move without contact; different ways of tying her were\ntried; also sufficient light was used in the _seance_ room. She refused\nto submit to any of these conditions. The investigators pressed her at\neach sitting to allow some light in the room, and they long persevered\nin making the control in every case as complete as she would allow it to\nbe. She permitted a very faint light usually at the beginning, but\nbefore long she insisted on complete darkness, and until the lights were\nextinguished the touches were never felt. The sitters then held the\nmedium, the only method of control allowed, as firmly and continuously\nas possible. This she resisted, and then every form of persuasion was\nused, short of physical force, to induce her to submit. But she was\nallowed to take her own way without remonstrance when the sitters were\nconvinced of the constant fraud practised.\n\nIt is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have\nconvinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia\nPaladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge\ninvestigators are condemned as hasty and premature.\n\nBut, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the\nconditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the\nmedium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the\nresult of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading\nspiritualists themselves.\n\nFor, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for\nsupernormal physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least\nan unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis\nis no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the\nHertzian waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years\nago.\n\nThis is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena\nwhich cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown\nextensions of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the\nmost inexplicable and best attested of the manifestations presented by\nDaniel Dunglas Home. The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the\nwitnesses of undoubted integrity, and, from the nature of the\nexperiment, the illuminations of the room were generally more adequate\nthan in the case of the levitations and elongations. On one occasion,\nHome thrust his hand into the fire, and bringing out a red-hot cinder\nlaid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at the end of half-a-minute it\nwas removed, the handkerchief was quite free from any traces of burning.\n\nNot content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them\non to others present at the _seance_, who were generally able to receive\nthem with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated\nby an ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands\nwith some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home\npossessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable\ndifficulty in transferring it to the hands of his spectators.\n\nHere is an account of a _seance_ which took place on the 9th May 1871.\nAfter various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room\nwere extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot\ncharcoal, and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he\nborrowed for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal\nto white heat with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in\none small hole. Mr Crookes, who was present at the _seance_, tested the\nhandkerchief afterwards in his laboratory and found that it had not been\nchemically prepared to resist the action of fire.\n\nAfter this exhibition--\n\n     \"Mr Home again went to the fire, and, after stirring the hot\n     coal about with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as\n     big as an orange, and putting it on his right hand, so as\n     almost completely to enclose it, and then blew into the small\n     furnace thus extemporised until the lump of charcoal was nearly\n     white hot, and then drew my attention to the lambent flame\n     which was flickering over the coal and licking round his\n     fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner,\n     held up the coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not\n     his laws wonderful?'\"\n\nAmong those who have left on record their testimony to this\nmanifestation are Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, H. D. Jencken, W. M.\nWilkinson, S. C. Hall, etc. etc.\n\nAs the great mathematician Professor de Morgan once wittily and wisely\nwrote:\n\n     \"If I were bound to choose among things which I can conceive, I\n     should say that there is some sort of action of some\n     combination of will, intellect, and physical power, which is\n     not that of any of the human beings present. But, thinking it\n     very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies--say,\n     half-a-million--about which no man knows anything, I cannot but\n     suspect that a small proportion of these agencies--say, five\n     thousand--may be severally competent to the production of all\n     the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The\n     physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but\n     miserably insufficient; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient,\n     but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the\n     second asking the first for more results of trial.\"\n\nIt is inconceivable that such a man as Stainton Moses--a hard-working\nparish priest and a respected schoolmaster--should deliberately have\nentered upon a course of trickery for the mere pleasure of mystifying a\nsmall circle of acquaintances. The whole course of his previous life,\nhis apparently sincere religious feeling, all combine to contradict such\na supposition. Neither is it credible that such a petty swindler would\nhave carried out his deceptions to the end, and have left behind fresh\nproblems, the elucidation of which his eyes could never behold.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTHE MATERIALISATION OF \"GHOSTS\"\n\n\nIf much of the physical phenomena just described be well within the\nscope of natural possibility, it is somewhat otherwise with the class of\nmanifestations I shall now touch upon. It is one thing to exert\nconsciously or unconsciously, as Home, Cook, Paladino, Moses and other\nmediums have done, in the presence of scientifically trained witnesses,\nunknown and supernormal muscular power. Table rapping, levitation,\n\"apports,\" may all be genuine enough and accounted for in a manner\nwhich, if not wholly satisfying, is at least not unreasonable. But when\nthose assisting at a _seance_ actually behold with their eyes and touch\nwith their hands, and even photograph with a camera, the materialised\nobjects of the spirits with whom the medium is in communion, the pulse\nof the inquirer quickens. He is now indeed approaching the crucial\nproblem, the crowning achievement of spiritualism. For although in a\nformer chapter we have the testimony of people who saw \"ghosts,\" these\nghosts might, to my mind, clearly be the result of telepathy. They\nappear on special occasions at important and significant crises, but the\nclaim of the spiritualistic medium is that he can casually, and on the\ndemand of one of the circle, produce a visible, tangible figure of a\ndeceased husband, wife, parent, or friend.\n\nThis materialisation is wholly a recent species of manifestation. One of\nthe first to testify to having seen a materialised figure at a _seance_\nwas the well-known S. C. Hall, who recognised during one of Home's\n_seances_ the figure of his deceased sister. Other mediums repeated the\nfeat, and shadowy forms and faces began to appear and move about during\ntheir dark _seances_. It is a suspicious fact that in some cases these\nforms, made visible by a faintly luminous vapour, were accompanied by an\nodour of phosphorus. Sceptics naturally took great advantage of the\nalleged circumstance. Soon, however, a new medium, Florence Cook, was\nrumoured to have produced materialised forms in a good light which\nbaffled all the sceptics. Miss Cook claimed to be \"controlled\" by a\nspirit known under the name of \"Katie.\"\n\nWe have this account from a writer who early attended to examine the\nmystery fairly:\n\n     \"In a short time, however, Katie--as the familiar of Miss B.\n     was termed--thought she would be able to 'materialise' herself\n     so far as to present the whole form, if we arranged the corner\n     cupboard so as to admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened\n     the door, and from it suspended a rug or two opening in the\n     centre, after the fashion of a Bedouin Arab's tent; formed a\n     semicircle; sat and sang Longfellow's 'Footsteps of Angels.'\n     Therein occurs the passage, 'Then the forms of the departed\n     enter at the open door.' And, lo and behold! though we had left\n     Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair and clad in an ordinary\n     black dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall,\n     female figure, draped classically in white, with bare arms and\n     feet, did enter at the open door, or rather down the centre\n     from between the two rugs, and stood statuelike before us,\n     spoke a few words, and retired; after which we entered the\n     Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as before,\n     knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1,\n     the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and\n     on a subsequent occasion--for I have seen it several times--we\n     took four very good photographic portraits of it by magnesium\n     light. The difficulty I still felt, with the form as with the\n     faces, was that it seemed so thoroughly material and\n     flesh-and-blood-like.\"\n\nIt is not my intention to speak of the multitude of early\nmaterialisations. As Mr Podmore points out, at these manifestations\npractically no precautions were taken against trickery. There was\nnothing, so far as can be discovered, to throw any hindrance in the way\nof the medium, if she chose, impersonating the spirit by exhibiting a\nmask through the opening of the curtain or by dressing herself up and\nwalking about the room. Nor were there any collateral circumstances to\njustify belief in the genuineness of the manifestations.\n\nNevertheless, Miss Cook's claims attracted the attention of Sir William\nCrookes. He attended several _seances_--one, once, at the house of Mr\nLuxmoor, when \"Katie\" was standing before him in the room. He had\ndistinctly heard from behind the curtain the sobbing and moaning\nhabitually made by Miss Cook during such _seances_. At another _seance_,\nheld at his own house, 12th March 1874, \"Katie,\" robed in white, came to\nthe opening of the curtain and summoned him to the assistance of her\nmedium. The man of science instantly obeyed the call, and found Miss\nCook, attired in her ordinary black velvet dress, prone on the sofa. On\nanother occasion he declares he saw two forms together in a good light;\nmore than this, he actually procured a photograph of \"Katie.\" But of\nthis I will speak later, when I come to discuss spirit photography.\n\nOne of the most noted materialising mediums of to-day is Charles Miller,\nof San Francisco, of whom a certain Professor Reichel has recently\nwritten a lengthy account.\n\nMiller's _seances_ are described as very conclusive. At the first one,\nafter Miller had retired into the cabinet, \"the curtain was pulled\naside, showing the medium asleep, and six fully developed phantoms\nstanding beside him. Two spoke German to friends from their native\nland,\" and one discussed matters of a private nature with Professor\nReichel. Similar occurrences were many times repeated, and\ndematerialisations were often \"made before the curtain, in full view of\nthe sitters\" and \"in ample light to observe everything.\" Professor\nReichel says:\n\n     \"In the _seances_ with Mr Miller I heard the spirits speak in\n     English, French, and German, but I have been assured repeatedly\n     that in a _seance_ of seventy-five persons, representing many\n     of the various nationalities in San Francisco, twenty-seven\n     languages were spoken by materialised spirits, addressing\n     different sitters.\"\n\nEqually good results were obtained in a room taken at the Palace Hotel,\nfor a special testsetting, the results of which were communicated to\nColonel de Rochas, and again when Mr Miller visited the Professor at Los\nAngeles. The following incidents are of special interest, as throwing\nlight on the forces made use of in the production of the phenomena, and\nin reference to allegations of fraud or personation:--\n\n     \"A sitting took place at noon. Before it began, and while\n     Miller was standing in front of the cabinet, I heard 'Betsy's'\n     voice whisper: 'Go out for a moment into the sun with the\n     professor.' Accordingly I took Mr Miller by the arm, and\n     together we went out into the sunshine. After a few moments we\n     returned, and at the moment we entered the dark room the\n     writer, as well as everyone else present, saw Mr Miller\n     completely strewn with a shining, white, glittering, snowlike\n     mass, that entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. This\n     singular occurrence had been witnessed repeatedly--even when\n     the medium had not previously been in the sun. At such times it\n     appeared gradually after the room had been darkened.\"\n\nThis snowlike mass the author regards as \"the white element of\nmagnetism, which the phantoms use in their development.\" He also says:\n\n     \"In another _seance_ held by Miller, 'Betsy' told me that she\n     would show me something that often happened in _seances_ with\n     other materialisation mediums--namely, that the medium himself\n     frequently appeared disguised as a spirit. She asked me to come\n     to the curtain, where she told me that the medium himself would\n     come out draped in white muslin, and the muslin would then\n     suddenly disappear. This was verified. When the medium came out\n     in his disguise, I grasped him by the hand, and like a flash of\n     lightning the white veiling vanished.\"\n\nReichel quotes Kiesewetter to the effect that in these cases \"there is a\nkind of pseudo-materialisation, in which the medium, in hypnosis, walks\nin a somnambulistic condition, playing the part of the spirit, in which\ncase the mysterious vanishing of the spiritual veilings points to an\nincipient magical activity on the part of the _psyche_.\"\n\nLarge numbers of Miller's materialisations were photographed, showing,\nbesides the fully materialised forms, \"several spirits who could not be\nseen with the physical eyes, one of whom was immediately recognised.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe experiments of Sir William Crookes and others by Mr Cromwell Varley,\nwith various mediums, supply us with the best proof we have that medium\nand spirit possess separate identities. Of course there were, and are\nstill, numerous so-called exposures of mediums in the act of\nmaterialisation. On other occasions the materialised form has been\nseized and found to be the medium himself.\n\nA typical incident of this kind was the exposure of the mediums William\nand Rita, which took place in Amsterdam, under circumstances which made\nit difficult for the most hardened believer to lay all the blame upon\nthe spirits. The incident took place in the rooms of a spiritualist; the\nmembers of the circle were spiritualists; and it was aggrieved and\nindignant spiritualists who made the facts public. Suspicion had been\naroused; one of the sitters clutched at the spirit form of \"Charlie,\"\nand grasped Rita by the coat collar. Up to this point, no doubt, the\nspiritualist theories already referred to were elastic enough to cover\nthe facts. But when the mediums were searched there were found in their\npockets or hidden in various parts of their clothing--on Rita a nearly\nnew beard, six handkerchiefs, assorted, and a small, round scent bottle,\ncontaining phosphorised oil, bearing a resemblance all too convincing to\n\"Charlie's\" spirit lamp; on Williams a dirty black beard, with brown\nsilk ribbon, and several yards of very dirty muslin--the simple\ningredients which represented the spiritual make-up of the repentant\npirate, John King--together with another bottle of phosphorised oil, a\nbottle of scent, and other \"properties.\"\n\nBut we have not to deal here with the obviously fraudulent features of\nmodern spiritualism. Years ago Mr H. W. Harrison summed up the position.\nHe pointed out that there were two classes of so-called\nmaterialisations: (1) forms with flexible features, commonly bearing a\nstrong resemblance to the medium, which move and speak. These are the\nforms which come out when the medium is in the cabinet; (2) Forms with\nfeatures which are inflexible and masklike (the epithet is not Mr\nHarrison's) and which do not move about or speak. Such inflexible faces\nare seen chiefly when the medium is held by the sitters, or is in full\nview of the circle. Mr Harrison then continues: \"We have patiently\nwatched for years for a living, flexible face, in a good light, which\nface bore no resemblance to that of the medium, and was not produced on\nhis or her own premises. Hitherto this search has been prosecuted\nwithout success. Mr A. R. Wallace and Mr Crookes have witnessed a great\nnumber of form manifestations, without once recording that off the\npremises of the medium they have seen a living, flexible, materialised\nspirit-form bearing no resemblance to the sensitive. Neither has Mr\nVarley made any such record.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe presumption must be one of fraud, especially when conditions are\nlaid down which serve to prevent full investigation. I have before me\nthe printed conditions of a North London Spiritualistic society:\n\n     \"As a member of the society you must bear in mind that you will\n     be bound _in honour_ to accept all the rules laid down by our\n     Spirit controls, and by the leader of the meeting, as to the\n     conditions under which the meetings are held, such as the\n     darkened room, the holding of hands so as to form a strongly\n     magnetic ring in front of the medium, etc.--and it is\n     interesting to note that the great Mesmer, when he was\n     conducting his experiments in magnetism more than one hundred\n     years ago, had discovered the advantage of 'a circle' formed in\n     this way, for he writes: 'The power of magnetism is augmented\n     by establishing a direct communication between several persons.\n     This can be done in two ways: the more simple is to form a\n     chain, with a certain number of persons made to hold each\n     other's hands; it can also be done by means of the 'baquet' (a\n     mechanical contrivance invented by himself).\"\n\n     \"No one should ever attempt to touch a spirit unless invited to\n     do so by the spirits themselves, and the circle, once formed,\n     must never be broken by unloosing of hands. If this becomes\n     _really_ necessary at any time, permission should first be\n     asked, when the controlling spirit will give instructions as to\n     how it is to be carried out.\"\n\nI cannot forbear from quoting further the following passage addressed to\nmembers of the society:--\n\n     \"You will greatly assist us in obtaining good results if you\n     will kindly use a little discretion in the matter of your food,\n     especially on the day of the meeting, when fish, vegetables,\n     fruit (especially bananas), and light food of that description\n     are most helpful, but meat, wine, beer, or spirits (wine and\n     spirits especially) should be carefully avoided; and we find\n     that it is better to make a good meal in the middle of the day,\n     a substantial tea at 5.30, and supper after the meeting, as by\n     following this plan the members of the circle are able to give\n     off more of the spiritual _aura_ which is used by the controls\n     in building up the forms which appear to us, each member of the\n     circle contributing his or her share unconsciously.\n\n     \"The use of non-actinic light, such as that obtained from a\n     small dark lantern, is defended on the grounds that the actinic\n     rays coming from the violet end of the spectrum are so rapid in\n     their movements that they immediately break up any combination\n     of matter produced under such circumstances. Any form of light,\n     except the red, or perhaps the yellow, rays would have this\n     effect. That is one reason why the cabinet is employed,\n     because that would shut off any form of light from the medium\n     whilst the forms are building up; although on several\n     occasions, from time to time, when the form has thus been built\n     up fully, we have been able to use a red light strong enough to\n     illuminate the whole of the room.\"\n\nSo long as spiritualists, as I have before remarked, maintain this\nattitude, so long must they meet with incredulity on the part of\nofficial science. In nearly all these private circles the precautions\ntaken against trickery are absurdly lacking, and, as we have just seen,\nfrequently purposely omitted. Thus we have to fall back in considering\nthe genuine character of the phenomena on the good faith of the medium.\nWhen the medium is known to be a man of blameless life, and has long\nbeen before the public undetected in any deception, the presumption\nwould certainly appear to be in favour of his bona-fides. But of what\nvalue is this presumption should the medium not be conscious of his\nactions when his impersonation of this or that character is wholly\nundertaken by his secondary or subliminal self? Here we begin to have\nglimmerings of the great truth which may conceivably underlie the\nparable of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and investigations into the marvels of\nmultiple personalities lead us further towards the light.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the whole, the conclusion I have arrived at is that, where the\nelement of fraud is eliminated, we might rationally seek for an\nexplanation in hallucination. Take the famous case of Archdeacon Colley\nand Mr Monck. The Archdeacon actually declared that he saw the psychic\nor spirit form grow out of his left side:\n\n     \"First, several faces, one after another, of great beauty\n     appeared, and in amazement we saw--and as I was standing close\n     up to the medium, even touching him--I saw most plainly,\n     several times, a perfect face and form of exquisite womanhood\n     partially issue from Dr Monck, about the region of the heart.\n     Then, after several attempts, the full-formed figure, in a\n     nebulous condition at first, but growing solider as it issued\n     from the medium, left Dr Monck and stood, a separate\n     individuality, two or three feet off, bound to him by a slender\n     attachment, as of gossamer, which, at my request, 'Samuel,' the\n     control, severed with the medium's left hand, and there stood\n     embodied a spirit form of unutterable loveliness, robed in\n     attire spirit-spun--a meshy webwork from no mortal loom, of a\n     fleeciness inimitable, and of transfiguration whiteness truly\n     glistening.\"\n\nNow, as Mr Podmore somewhat satirically points out:\n\n     \"It is difficult to believe that the exquisite spirit form\n     which presented itself to Mr Colley's glowing imagination was\n     merely a confection of masks, stuffed gloves, and muslin,\n     actuated by a jointed rod, but we cannot help remembering, if\n     Mr Colley did not, that articles of this kind had, a\n     twelve-month previously, been found, under compromising\n     circumstances, in the possession of Dr Monck.\"\n\nThe recognitions which take place at _seances_ are undoubtedly to a\nlarge extent sense deceptions. There is now a professional medium at\nwhose _seances_ spirit faces are constantly being recognised. Of course\nthe performance takes place in the dark. A faintly illuminated slate\nshows the profiles against the background, and one or other of the\nmembers generally recognises it. The mouth and chin of the female faces\nshown at these _seances_ are generally veiled, but this does not appear\nto affect the recognition.\n\nOn the whole, the testimony for and against the reality of spirits at\nthe better class of _seance_ is pretty evenly balanced. I hesitate to\ndisturb it, although remarking, parenthetically, that the believers have\nthe most, if not the best, of the literature on the subject.\n\nAnd for those who are deeply perplexed there is always the theory of\nhallucination to fall back upon.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nSPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY\n\n\nIf the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation\nof the spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular,\noral, and tactile evidence of the dark _seance_, the theory of\nhallucination would account for much that is perplexing. But the problem\nbecomes complicated when the spiritualists come forward with proof that\ntheir senses have not misled them. It is only a few months since that a\nyoung man in the north of England, on photographing his mother and\nsisters, was greatly startled to find his late father's face also on the\nplate. He had not made use of the camera, we are told, for eighteen\nmonths. Recently, too, a professional photographer in London was\ncommissioned to photograph a grave which was surmounted by a beautiful\nbasket of flowers. To his consternation, within the handle appeared the\nfacial lineaments of the deceased.\n\nThe earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from\n1862, when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a\nphotograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been\ndead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr Mumler\nof Boston, who considered that many of the \"spirit photographs\"\nafterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our\nmodern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire\nto cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters.\n\nMumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says:\n\n     \"I have been investigated by the best photographers in America,\n     and have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have\n     been tried in a court of justice, and been honourably\n     acquitted; and, lastly, I have the evidence of thousands of\n     people who have had pictures taken, and recognised the\n     likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never had a\n     picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in\n     the hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain\n     of evidence that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds,\n     and animals have frequently appeared upon the plates and one\n     lady was delighted to recognise by her side her faithful old\n     black retriever.\"\n\nNot till ten years later did a photographer named Hudson succeed, with\nthe aid of a medium, in producing spirit pictures. The _modus operandi_\nappeared simple. The sitter was posed before the camera, and the picture\nwas subsequently developed, when besides the sitter's own image there\nappeared another figure or figures usually draped, with the features\nblurred or only partly distinguishable. Usually these figures were\nrecognised unhesitatingly by the sitters as portraits of deceased\nrelatives or friends. Afterwards the practice of spirit photography\nreceived a rude shock. They were examined carefully by professional\nphotographers, and some of them were found to bear clear marks of double\nexposure, the background in each case being visible through the dress of\nthe sitter--a fatal defect in spirit photography. Moreover it was found\nthat in some cases the medium had dressed up to play the role of spirit.\nWhereupon several of those who had professed to recognise the \"ghosts\"\nnow hastened to repudiate their recognition. But spirit photography was\nnot to be quashed so easily. The experiments went on, and faces and\nfigures appeared on the developed plate which seem to have considerably\nbaffled the experts. Sir William Crookes now resolved to put the matter\nto a test by attempting to obtain a photograph of \"Katie,\" the famous\n\"control\" of Miss Cook, the medium. The young lady gave a series of\nsittings in May 1874 at Sir William's house for the purpose. These\nsittings took place by electric light, no fewer than five cameras being\nsimultaneously at work. The medium lay down on the floor behind a\ncurtain, her face muffled in a shawl. When the materialisation was\ncomplete \"Katie\" would appear in the full light in front of the\ncurtain:\n\n     \"I frequently,\" writes Sir William Crookes, \"drew the curtain\n     on one side when Katie was standing near; and it was a common\n     thing for the seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see\n     Miss Cook and Katie at the same time, under the full blaze of\n     the electric light. We did not on these occasions actually see\n     the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we saw her\n     hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under the influence of\n     the intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally. I have\n     one photograph of the two together, but Katie is seated in\n     front of Miss Cook's head.\"\n\nI have not seen these photographs of \"Katie,\" but Mr Podmore has, and\nwhen comparing them with contemporary portraits of Miss Cook herself he\nis inclined to consider the likeness between the two sets unmistakable.\n\"The apparently greater breadth of 'spirit' face,\" he writes, \"may well\nbe due to the fact that, whereas Miss Cook wore hanging ringlets,\n'Katie's' hair is effectually concealed by the drapery, which in most\ncases comes down over the forehead, and falls in two thick folds on\neither side of the head, something like the headgear of a sphinx. Again,\nas Miss Cook, when photographed, wore her ordinary dress, which\nconcealed her feet, the apparent difference in height on some occasions\nbetween herself and the spirit figure cannot be relied upon. One piece\nof evidence would, indeed, have been conclusive--that the ears of the\nspirit form should have appeared intact, for Miss Cook's ears were\npierced for earrings. But the encircling drapery effectually concealed\nboth the ears and the hair of the spirit 'Katie.'\"\n\nThe evidence for photographs of invisible people which we sometimes hear\nabduced as adequate is surprisingly feeble. For instance, in a recent\nanonymous and weak book, said to be written by a member of the Society\nfor Psychical Research, two photographs are reproduced which are said to\nhave been obtained under what are considered crucial conditions; but the\nnarrative itself at once suggests a simple trick on the part of the\nphotographer--viz. the provision of backgrounds for sitters with vague\nhuman forms all ready depicted on them in sulphate of quinine.\n\nSir Oliver Lodge is of opinion that it is by no means physically\nimpossible that some of these temporary semi-material accretions might\nbe inadequate to appeal to our eyes, and yet be of a kind able to\nimpress a photographic plate; but here he confesses that the evidence,\nto his mind, wholly breaks down, and he admits that he has never yet\nseen a satisfying instance of what is termed a spirit photograph; nor is\nit easy to imagine the kind of record apart from testimony which in such\na case would be convincing, unless such photographs could be produced at\nwill.\n\nA conviction of fraud having entered the minds of the sceptically\ninclined, the exposure of a certain Parisian photographer, Buguet, shook\nthe faith of the credulous. Buguet enjoyed in London an extraordinary\nsuccess. Many leading people sat to him and obtained \"spirit\nphotographs,\" by them clearly recognisable, of their deceased\nrelations. No less than forty out of one hundred and twenty photographs\nexamined by Stainton Moses were pronounced by the sitters to be genuine\nlikenesses of spirits, and baffled the scrutiny of the sceptics.\nNevertheless Buguet was arrested and charged by the French Government\nfor fraudulent production of spirit photographs. At his trial Buguet\ndisconcerted the whole spiritualistic world by confessing, he said that\nthe whole of his spirit photographs were obtained by means of double\nexposure. To begin with, he employed three or four assistants to play\nthe part of ghost. Nevertheless, in spite of his confession, in spite of\nthe trick apparatus confiscated by the police, at Buguet's trial witness\nafter witness, people high in the social and professional world, came\nforward to testify that they had not been deceived, that the spirit\nphotographs were genuine. They refused to doubt the evidence of their\nown eyesight. One M. Dessenon, a picture dealer, had obtained a spirit\nportrait of his wife; he had been instantly struck with the likeness,\nand had shown it to the lady's relatives, who exclaimed at once on its\nexactness. The judge asked Buguet for an explanation. The prisoner\nreplied that it was pure chance. \"I had,\" he said, \"no photograph of\nMadame Dessenon.\" \"But,\" cried the witness, \"my children, like myself,\nthought the likeness perfect. When I showed them the picture, they\ncried, 'It is mamma!' I have seen all M. Buguet's properties and\npictures, and there is nothing in the least like the picture I have\nobtained. I am convinced it is my wife.\" As a result, many\nspiritualists, including Stainton Moses and William Howitt, refused to\nconsider the case one of fraud. They regarded Buguet as a genuine medium\nwho had been bound to confess to imaginary trickery. Yet after this\nspirit photography as a profession has not flourished in this country.\nThere is one professional who is responsible for many ghost pictures.\nBut in his productions appear unmistakable signs of double exposures.\nYou see the pattern of the carpet and the curtain of the study visible\nthrough the sitter's body and clothes. In one instance at all events,\nwhere the ghost represents a well-known statesman, the head has\nobviously been cut from the photograph and the contour draped to hide\nthe cut edges. But the phenomena of spirit photography are abundant\nenough in private circles.\n\nI have before me as I write a number of reputed spirit photographs\nobtained by private persons both with and without the aid of a\nprofessional medium. In one sent me by a gentleman resident at Finsbury\nPark, which is a very impressive specimen of its kind, the fact of a\ndouble exposure is obvious to the least experienced in dark-room\nmatters. Notwithstanding, the photographer has apparently made a\nspeciality of this kind of work.\n\n     \"In my collection [he writes] of over two thousand specimens\n     are portraits of Atlantean priests, who flourished about 12,000\n     years ago, Biblical patriarchs, poets, Royalties, clerics,\n     scientists, literary men, etc., pioneer spiritualists, like\n     Emma H. Britten, Luther Marsh, Wallace, and John Lamont. The\n     latest additions are, I am happy to say, my kind old friend\n     Mrs Glendinning, and a worthy quartette of earnest workers in\n     Dr Younger, Mr Thomas Everitt, Mr C. Lacey, and David Duguid.\"\n\nOne of the most curious instances of a ghost photograph occurred in the\nsummer of 1892. Six months previously a lady had taken a photograph of\nthe library at D---- Hall. She kept the plate a long time before\ndeveloping it, and when developed it showed the faint but clearly\nrecognisable figure of a man sitting in a large arm-chair. A print from\nthe photograph was obtained and shown, when the image was immediately\nrecognised as the likeness of the late Lord D----, the owner of\nD---- Hall. What was more, it was ascertained that Lord D---- had\nactually been buried on the day the photograph was taken. A copy of the\nphotograph was sent to Professor Barrett, who examined it and reported\n(1) that the image is too faint and blurred for any likeness to be\nsubstantiated; (2) that the plate had been exposed in the camera for an\nhour and the room left unguarded; (3) that actual experiments show that\nan appearance such as that on the plate could have been produced if a\nman--there were four men in the house--had sat in the chair for a few\nseconds during the exposure, moving his head and limbs the while.\n\nAnother ghost picture described by Mr Podmore was probably caused in a\nsimilar way. A chapel was photographed, and when the plate was developed\na face was faintly seen in a panel of the woodwork, which the\nphotographer recognised as a young acquaintance who had not long since\nmet with a tragic death. \"In fact,\" writes Mr Podmore, \"when he told me\nthe story and showed me the picture, I could easily see the faint but\nwell-marked features of a handsome melancholy lad of eighteen. A\ncolleague, however, to whom I showed the photograph without relating the\nstory, at once identified the face as that of a woman of thirty. The\noutlines are in reality so indistinct as to leave ample room for the\nimagination to work on; and there is no reason to doubt that, as in the\nghost of the library, the camera had merely preserved faint traces of\nsome intruder who, during prolonged exposure, stood for a few seconds in\nfront of it.\"\n\nIn spite of all the damaging _exposes_ and these discouraging\nexplanations many intelligent persons the world over will still go on\nbelieving in the genuineness of spirit photography. Let me give a few\nexamples of their testimony. M. Reichel, to whom allusion has already\nbeen made, states that at one of Miller's _seances_ in America, held on\n29th October 1905, those present suddenly heard a great number of voices\nbehind the curtain:\n\n     \"Betsy told us that sometimes there are Egyptian women and\n     sometimes Indians who come in a crowd to produce their\n     phenomena. On October 29th and again on November 2nd I sent for\n     a San Francisco photographer, Mr Edward Wyllie, to see what\n     impression would be made on a photographic plate by the beings\n     who appeared. Some remarkable pictures were taken by\n     flashlight. Besides the fully materialised forms, there were\n     shown on the photographs several spirits who could not be seen\n     by the physical eyes.\n\n     \"In one of the latter figures I instantly recognised an uncle\n     of mine, whom I had made acquainted with spiritualism about\n     twelve years previously, through the assistance of another\n     medium.\"\n\nA correspondent sends me an interesting account of investigating\nmaterialised spirits in daylight:\n\n     \"Miss Fairlamb (afterwards Mrs Mellon) was the medium, and the\n     photographs of 'Geordie' and others taken in the garden in\n     broad daylight were quite successful. The conditions must have\n     been most harmonious, as 'Geordie' afterwards, when twilight\n     came on, walked about the lawn, and even ventured into the\n     house, returning to the tent, which served as a cabinet, with\n     an umbrella and hassock in his hands.\"\n\nDr Theodore Hausmann, one of the oldest physicians in Washington,\nU.S.A., has devoted many years to this particular phase of mediumship.\nHe places himself before his camera in the study and photographs his\nspirit visitors, who have included his father, son, and President\nLincoln. The opening paragraph in an article he wrote is as follows:--\n\n     \"Grieving parents, the bereaved widow and mother, will only be\n     too happy if they can see the pictures of those again who were\n     so dear to their hearts, and whose image gradually will vanish\n     if nothing is left to renew their memories.\"\n\nThere have been many touching letters from relatives of grateful thanks,\nwho imagine themselves in this way to have received portraits of their\ndear ones who have passed away.\n\nIn a work which I have come across in which spiritualism is by no means\nsupported Mr J. G. Raupert acknowledges:\n\n     \"That as regards spirit photographs, he 'obtained many striking\n     pictures of this character, under good test conditions, and\n     attended by circumstances yielding unique and exceptionally\n     valuable evidence.... The evidence in favour of some of these\n     psychic pictures is as good as it is ever likely to be, and,\n     respecting some of these obtained by the present writer, expert\n     photographic authorities have expressed their verdict. Sir\n     William Crookes has obtained them in his own house under\n     personally imposed conditions, and many private experimenters\n     in different parts of the world have been equally successful.\"\n\nThis from an avowed opponent is striking testimony to some kind of\nmanifestation which is not, in intent, at least, fraudulent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nCLAIRVOYANCE\n\n\nIt was natural that out of all these mystic practices--those I have\nalready indicated and the others I am about to indicate--a cult or\nreligion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name\nof spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to\ncall it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of\ncourse, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied\nspirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain\nphysical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the role\nof the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of\nthose manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation--_i.e._\nthe actual incarnation of spiritual forms--physical manifestations such\nas table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc., trance utterances\nand spirit photography.\n\nFrom the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of\nclairvoyance.\n\nClairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a\ntechnical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the\nterminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as \"that\npsychic power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the\nspiritualism sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of\nvision, spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this\npower; in some it is developed, and in others it has but a casual\nquickening. Its extent is governed by the rate of vibration under which\nit operates; thus, one clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to\nanother may be invisible because of the degree of difference in the\nintensity of the powers.\"\n\nFurther, \"subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person\nwhich enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the\nbrain of that person, at will, pictures and images which are seen as\nvisions by that person, without the aid of the physical eye. These\npictures and images may be of things spiritual or material, past or\npresent, remote or near, hidden or uncovered, or they may have their\nexistence simply in the conception or imagination of the spirit\ncommunicating them.\"\n\nPutting aside, however, all \"supernatural\" explanation, let us consider\nhow we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance.\nWhat we see is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or\nwoman by no means above, and often below, the intellectual average\nutters, and the hand writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal\nken of the minds of such a man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is,\nto put it bluntly, staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife\nor sister accidentally dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and\nwhilst she was still continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom\nyou were present at a clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance\ninformed you of the circumstances, you would no doubt be astounded.\nWell, the manifestations of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No\nmatter how our reason is baffled at first, it behoves us not only to\nseek a natural explanation of the fact but also to ascertain and\nauthenticate the fact itself. But a man may not implicitly trust his\nsenses.\n\nI soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious\nphenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even\nfurnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver\nmy opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it\ncan explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped\nwith unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the\ncloud of witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and\nexperienced investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William\nCrookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic\nMyers, Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet,\nProfessor William James, Professor Janet, Mr Frank Podmore and\nProfessor Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent\nthe white light of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a\nspecial study of the matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the\ncase of trance lucidity and clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer\nor speaker is not at work. Yet there certainly would seem to be an\noperating intelligence, having a special character and a special\nknowledge.\n\nWhat, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain\nits special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the\nsecond question.\n\n1. By telepathy from living people.\n\n2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious,\nindividual agency of deceased persons.\n\nThese he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there\nis a wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives.\nWe can here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.\n\nThe mystery of mediumship has probably received more attention from M.\nFlournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from\nanyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English\ninvestigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close\nquarters subjects of a more normal type than the Salpetriere patients\nare unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of Helene\nSmith.\n\n     \"Helene [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had\n     occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially\n     remarkable. She is, to all outward appearances at the present\n     time, healthy even to robustness. From the age of fifteen she\n     has been employed in a large commercial establishment in\n     Geneva, and holds a position of some responsibility. But it is\n     in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year she was\n     persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It\n     soon appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first\n     her mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and\n     assisting in tilting the table, whilst still retaining more or\n     less consciousness and subsequent memory of her experiences.\n     Shortly after M. Flournoy's admission to the circle, in the\n     winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's mediumship advanced a stage,\n     and she habitually passed at the _seance_ into a trance state,\n     retaining subsequently no memory of her visions and doings in\n     that state. Her development followed at first the normal\n     course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her\n     sitters, purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the\n     like. She offered numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from\n     time to time controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of\n     her earliest trances were under the guidance and inspiration of\n     Victor Hugo. Within a few months the spirit of the poet--too\n     late, indeed, for his own post-mortem reputation, for he had\n     already perpetrated some verses--was expelled with ignominy by\n     a more masterful demon who called himself Leopold. The newcomer\n     was at first somewhat reticent on his own past, and when\n     urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in moral platitudes.\n     Later, however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe Balsamo, Count\n     Cagliostro. It then appeared that in Helene herself was\n     reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that\n     others of the mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans,\n     etc....\n\n     \"It is Helene's extra-planetary experiences, however, which\n     have excited most attention, and which furnished to the\n     attendants at her circle the most convincing proofs of her\n     dealings with the spiritual world. In November 1894, the spirit\n     of the entranced medium was wafted--not without threatenings of\n     sea-sickness--through the cosmic void, to arrive eventually on\n     the planet Mars. Thereafter night after night she described to\n     the listening circle the people of our neighbouring planet,\n     their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she drew pictures\n     of the inhabitants, human and animal--of their houses, bridges,\n     and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she\n     both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the\n     writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the\n     characters of the Martian script are unlike any in use on\n     earth, and that the words (of which a translation is furnished)\n     bear no resemblance, superficially at least, to any known\n     tongue. The spirits--for several dwellers upon Mars used\n     Helene's organism to speak and write through--delivered\n     themselves with freedom and fluency, and were consistent in\n     their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In fact,\n     Martian, as used by the entranced Helene, has many of the\n     characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising\n     that some of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the\n     authenticity of the other revelations, were apparently\n     convinced that these Martian utterances were beyond the common\n     order of nature.\"\n\nAll his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his\nmind that Helene must somewhere have come across one of the works\ncontaining Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes\nwere suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the\nlanguage, it is just such a work of art as one might form by\nsubstituting for each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary\ncollocation of letters, and for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol.\nThe vowel and consonant signs are the same as in French; so are the\ninflections, the grammar, the construction. (Take, for example, the\nnegative ke ani=ne pas, the employment of the same word zi to express\nboth la \"the\" and la \"there.\") If it is childish as a work of art, it is\nmiraculous enough as a feat of memory. But the reader has not forgotten\nwhat the subliminal self is capable of achieving as regards time\nappreciation mentioned in an early chapter. When, however, it comes to\nHelene's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M. Flournoy, in spite of his\nlong investigation, can find no explanation of the supernormal to fit\nthe case. Her mediumship since 1892 included manifestations of all\nkinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they soon ceased. Her\nclairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a remarkable\ncharacter. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which she was\napparently unacquainted, has been carefully investigated and\nauthenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of\nspiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from\ntrained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants\nas the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been\nsubjected to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this\ntype of evidence that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of\nspiritualism really rests. It is at once the most impressive, the most\ninteresting, and the most voluminous.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have\nseen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the\nUniversity College School for eighteen years, a man who was never\ndetected in the slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a\nhost of intimate friends. Stainton Moses left a mass of published\ntestimony to his pretended communications from the spirits of deceased\npersons. He attached great importance to the evidence for\nspiritualistic doctrines. Altogether the \"controls\" or communicators\nnumbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses or other members of the\ncircles had known in life; others--such as Swedenborg, Bishop\nWilberforce, and President Garfield--were historical personages. Besides\nthese there was a class of individuals of no particular importance, and\napparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it is worthy of\nremark that the spirits by whom Moses was \"controlled\" never withheld\nany data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one\n_seance_ a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name\n\"Rosmira.\" She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on\n10th January 1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that\nhis surname was Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the\nwhole particulars were to be found in the \"Death\" notices in _The Daily\nTelegraph_. \"Mr Moses' spirits,\" comments Mr Podmore in his \"History of\nSpiritualism,\" habitually furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such\nother particulars of their lives as could be gathered from the daily\npapers, from published biographies, or from the _Annual Register_ and\nother works of reference. All the spirits, indeed, gave their names,\nwith one exception--an exception so significant that the case is worth\nrecording. _The Pall Mall Gazette_ for 21st February 1874 contains the\nfollowing item of intelligence:--\n\n     \"A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under\n     a steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in\n     York-place, Marylebone, and was killed immediately.\"\n\n     \"Mr Moses was present at a _seance_ that evening, and his hand\n     was controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy\n     suicide, to write an account of the incident, and to draw a\n     rough picture of a horse attached to a vehicle. The name of the\n     dead man, it will be seen, does not appear in the newspaper\n     account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who gave proofs of\n     their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this\n     particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous.\"\n\nBut a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance\nutterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings,\ncouched in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily \"without any\nconscious intervention on the part of the mortal penman.\" In fact, so\nfar was this so that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his\nmind, during their production.\n\nThe claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully\ninvestigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an\neminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic\nattainments.\n\nI will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:--\n\n     Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the\n     correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the\n     four following heads:--\n\n     (_a_) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his\n     consciousness.\n\n     (_b_) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in\n     his consciousness.\n\n     (_c_) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at\n     the moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the\n     statements of the medium.\n\n     (_d_) Things unknown to the sitter.\n\nWith regard to things under head (_a_) Mrs Verrall says:\n\n     \"Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own\n     observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response\n     from the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by\n     me has been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the\n     evidence of the other sitter, I should have been disposed to\n     believe that I had unconsciously uttered the thought aloud.\n\n     \"Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was\n     in my house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain\n     friend of my daughter's, who is often at the house, would be\n     there, when 'Nelly' added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name\n     my daughter's friend, exactly as though I had uttered the\n     passing thought. Again, when 'Nelly' was describing a certain\n     bag given to me for my birthday, something she said made me for\n     a moment think of a small leather handbag left in my house by a\n     cousin and occasionally used by me, and she said: 'You had an\n     uncle that died; it was not long after that.' The father of the\n     cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I have\n     known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag\n     as a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly\n     described till my momentary thought apparently distracted her\n     attention to the other bag. I have had in all some five or six\n     instances of such apparently direct responses as the above to a\n     thought in the sitter's mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion\n     I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of\n     helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything\n     but what she calls 'muggling her.'\"\n\nAnother difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls\nnot infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are\nliable to be misinterpreted. Mrs Verrall writes in her report of her\nsitting with Mrs Thompson:\n\n     \"Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The\n     name was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman,\n     Merrythought, Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of\n     these who,' etc. Later, 'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's\n     not quite right; it's like the name of a garden'; and after in\n     vain trying to give her the name exactly, she said: 'I will\n     tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see\n     school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman\n     because that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on\n     spoke of my mother as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with\n     indifference\" (\"Proceedings,\" part xliv. p. 208).\n\nIt is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit\ncommunications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with\nthe use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on \"Human\nPersonality,\" should be studied in this connection. He points out that\nthere is \"no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the\npower to express all the thoughts and emotions of man.\" And if this is\ntrue of man in his present state, how much more does it apply to man in\nanother and more advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he\nsays: \"There is a certain quality which reminds one of _translation_, or\nof the composition of a person writing in a language in which he is not\naccustomed to talk.\"\n\nAs a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:\n\n     \"That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally\n     obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the\n     hypothesis of fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part\n     fails to explain the phenomena seems to be equally certain;\n     that to more causes than one is to be attributed the success\n     which I have recorded seems to me likely. There is, I believe,\n     some evidence to indicate that telepathy between the sitter and\n     the trance personality is one of these contributory causes.\n     But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense\n     of the term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the\n     occurrences observed by me, is my present belief.\"\n\nInstances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few\nweeks ago the Rome correspondent of _The Tribune_ reported that a boy of\ntwelve, at Capua, \"was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart\nwould break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said\nthat he had just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the\npoint of death, assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter\ncame from America announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's\nvision, his mother tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be\nregarded as 'possessed,' but her efforts were vain, several persons\nhaving been present when he explained the cause of his grief.\"\n\nThe explanation of telepathy would hardly seem to fit the case, since\nthe father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days\nprevious to the vision.\n\nI shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic\nillustration of the marvels of clairvoyance--that of Mrs Piper.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nMRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES\n\n\nAlmost alone amongst mediums of note, Mrs Piper of Boston has never\nresorted to physical phenomena, her powers being entirely confined to\ntrance manifestations. No single medium, not even Helene Smith, has been\nsubjected to such close and continuous observation by expert scientific\nobservers. In 1885, this lady's case was first investigated by Professor\nWilliam James, of Harvard (brother of the famous novelist). Two years\nlater Dr Hodgson and other members of the Society for Psychical Research\nbegan their observation of her trance utterances. This course of\nobservation has continued for twenty years, and nearly all Mrs Piper's\nutterances have been placed on record. The late Dr Hodgson was\nindefatigable in his labours to test the genuineness of the phenomena.\nHe spared no pains, and died, I believe, convinced that all means of\naccounting for them had been exhausted.\n\nThere is so much evidence concerning Mrs Piper, who, two years ago came\nto England at the invitation of the Society for Psychical Research, and\nwas subjected to numerous tests, that I hesitate how best to typify its\npurport. Most striking is a letter to Professor James in the Society's\n\"Proceedings\" from a well-known professor, Shaler of Harvard, who\nattended a _seance_, with a very open mind indeed, on 25th May 1894, at\nProfessor James's house in Cambridge (Boston).\n\nProfessor Shaler was disposed to favour neither the medium nor even the\ntelepathic theory. He writes:\n\n     \"MY DEAR JAMES,--At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I\n     made the following notes:--\n\n     \"As you remember, I came to the meeting with my wife; when Mrs\n     Piper entered the trance state Mrs Shaler took her hand. After\n     a few irrelevant words, my wife handed Mrs Piper an engraved\n     seal, which she knew, though I did not, had belonged to her\n     brother, a gentleman from Richmond, Virginia, who died about a\n     year ago. At once Mrs Piper began to make statements clearly\n     relating to the deceased, and in the course of the following\n     hour she showed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with his\n     affairs, those of his immediate family, and those of the family\n     in Hartford, Conn., with which the Richmond family had had\n     close social relations.\n\n     \"The statements made by Mrs Piper, in my opinion, entirely\n     exclude the hypothesis that they were the results of\n     conjectures, directed by the answers made by my wife. I took no\n     part in the questioning, but observed very closely all that was\n     done.\n\n     \"On the supposition that the medium had made very careful\n     preparation for her sittings in Cambridge, it would have been\n     possible for her to have gathered all the information which she\n     rendered by means of agents in the two cities, though I must\n     confess that it would have been rather difficult to have done\n     the work.\n\n     \"The only distinctly suspicious features were that certain\n     familiar baptismal names were properly given, while those of an\n     unusual sort could not be extracted, and also that one or two\n     names were given correctly as regards the ceremony of baptism\n     or the directory, but utterly wrong from the point of view of\n     family usage. Thus the name of a sister-in-law of mine, a\n     sister of my wife's, was given as Jane, which is true by the\n     record, but in forty years' experience of an intimate sort I\n     never knew her to be called Jane--in fact, I did not at first\n     recognise who was meant.\n\n     \"While I am disposed to hold to the hypothesis that the\n     performance is one that is founded on some kind of deceit, I\n     must confess that close observation of the medium made on me\n     the impression that she was honest. Seeing her under any other\n     conditions, I should not hesitate to trust my instinctive sense\n     as to the truthfulness of the woman.\n\n     \"I venture also to note, though with some hesitancy, the fact\n     that the ghost of the ancient Frenchman who never existed, but\n     who purports to control Mrs Piper, though he speaks with a\n     first-rate stage French accent, does not, so far as I can find,\n     make the characteristic blunders in the order of his English\n     words which we find in actual life. Whatever the medium is, I\n     am convinced that this 'influence' is a preposterous scoundrel.\n\n     \"I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of\n     knowledge that the medium seems to have concerning my wife's\n     brother's affairs. Certain of the facts, as, for instance,\n     those relating to the failure to find his will after his sudden\n     death, were very neatly and dramatically rendered. They had the\n     real-life quality. So, too, the name of a man who was to have\n     married my wife's brother's daughter, but who died a month\n     before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given,\n     both as regards surname and Christian name, though the\n     Christian name was not remembered by my wife or me.\n\n     \"I cannot determine how probable it is that the medium, knowing\n     she was to have a sitting with you in Cambridge, or rather a\n     number of them, took pains to prepare for the tests by\n     carefully working up the family history of your friends. If she\n     had done this for thirty or so persons, I think she could,\n     though with some difficulty, have gained just the kind of\n     knowledge which she rendered. She would probably have forgotten\n     that my wife's brother's given name was Legh, and that of his\n     mother Gabriella, while she remembered that of Mary and\n     Charles, and also that of a son in Cambridge, who is called\n     Waller. So, too, the fact that all trouble on account of the\n     missing will was within a fortnight after the death of Mr Page\n     cleared away by the action of the children was unknown. The\n     deceased is represented as still troubled, though he purported\n     to see just what was going on in his family.\n\n     \"I have given you a mixture of observations and criticisms; let\n     me say that I have no firm mind about the matter. I am\n     curiously and yet absolutely uninterested in it, for the reason\n     that I don't see how I can exclude the hypothesis of fraud,\n     and until that can be excluded no advance can be made.\n\n     \"When I took the medium's hand, I had my usual experience with\n     them--a few preposterous compliments concerning the clearness\n     of my understanding, and nothing more.\"\n\nAmong those who have made a careful study at first hand of Mrs Piper's\nclairvoyance besides Dr Hodgson and Professor James are Sir Oliver\nLodge, the late Frederic Myers, Mrs Sidgwick, Walter Leaf, Professor\nRomaine Newbold, and Professor J. H. Hyslop, and all of these have\nrecorded their conviction that the results are not explicable by fraud\nor misrepresentation.\n\nAnother account which sheds light on what occurs at Mrs Piper's seances\nis furnished by Professor Estlin Carpenter, Oxford. It is dated 14th\nDecember 1894:\n\n     \"DEAR PROFESSOR JAMES,--I had a sitting yesterday with Mrs\n     Piper at your house, and was greatly interested with the\n     results obtained, as they were entirely unexpected by me.\n     Various persons were named and described whom we could not\n     identify (my wife was present); but the names of my father and\n     mother were correctly given, with several details which were in\n     no way present to my mind at the time. The illness from which\n     my father was suffering at the time of his death was\n     identified, but not the accident which took him from us. A\n     penknife which I happened to have with me was rightly referred\n     to its place on the desk in his study, and after considerable\n     hesitation Mrs Piper wrote out the word _organ_ when I asked\n     concerning other objects in the room. She added spontaneously a\n     very remarkable item about which I was in no way thinking--viz.\n     that on Sunday afternoons or evenings (her phrase was\n     'twilight') we were accustomed to sing there together. She\n     stated correctly that my mother was older than my father, but\n     died after him; and she connected her death with my return from\n     Switzerland in a manner that wholly surprised me, the fact\n     being that her last illness began two or three days after my\n     arrival home from Lucerne. She gave the initials of my wife's\n     name rightly, and addressed words to her from her father,\n     whose first name, George, was correct. She also desired me, in\n     my father's name, not to be anxious about some family matters\n     (which have only recently come to my knowledge), though their\n     nature was not specified. Finally, though I should have\n     mentioned this first, as it was at the outset of the interview,\n     she told me that I was about to start on a voyage, and\n     described the vessel in general terms, though she could not\n     give its name or tell me the place where it was going. I saw\n     enough to convince me that Mrs Piper possesses some very\n     extraordinary powers, but I have no theory at all as to their\n     nature or mode of exercise.\"\n\nAnother who visited Mrs Piper was the famous French author, M. Paul\nBourget, who was astonished at what he heard. He happened to have on his\nwatch-chain a small seal which had been given him by a painter, long\nsince dead, under the saddest circumstances, of whom it was impossible\nthe medium could ever have heard; yet no sooner had she touched the\nobject than she related to him the circumstance. One could quote case\nafter case in the Society's reports, but in all the time Mrs Piper has\nbeen under such rigid scrutiny not one suspicious instance or one\npointing to normal acquisition of facts has been discovered.\n\nSome have boldly hazarded the conjecture that Mrs Piper worked up the\n_dossiers_ of her sitters beforehand; inasmuch as she could easily\nobtain her facts in many ways; by reading private letters, for instance,\nor information derived from other mediums, or by employing private\ninquiry agents. These things are said to be habitually done by\nprofessional clairvoyants, by either going themselves or sending an\nagent in the capacity of, say, a book canvasser, to some town or\ndistrict, and get all the information they can, to return some months\nlater and give clairvoyant sittings. There is a belief, and it is\npossibly correct, that there is an organisation which gives and\nexchanges information thus obtained by the members of the Society.\nPerhaps this may account for the extraordinary good fortune of some\nspiritualists in obtaining \"tests.\" Some sitters who went to Mrs Piper\nhad visited other mediums previously. But one may be sure that all\nprecautions were taken to ensure against her knowing the names of the\nsitters, so that she could not use any information, even if she had\nobtained any, in this way. Those best qualified to judge are convinced\nthat her knowledge was not gained in this way, partly because of the\nprecautions used and partly by reason of the information itself.\n\nAs has been said, Mrs Piper was under the close scrutiny of Dr Hodgson\nfor many years, and nothing of the kind has ever come to light. Also Dr\nHodgson arranged beforehand her sittings for more than ten years, never\ntelling her the names of the sitters, who in almost every instance were\nunknown to her by sight, and were without distinction introduced under\nthe name of \"Smith.\" She made so many correct statements at many\nindividual sittings, and the proportion of successful sittings is so\nhigh, that it is very difficult to attribute fraud to her. About dates\nshe appears to be very vague. She prefers to give Christian names to\nsurnames, and of the former those in common use rather than those out of\nthe way. As her descriptions of houses or places are generally failures,\nshe seldom attempts them. Mrs Piper seems to be weakest, indeed, just\nwhere the so-called medium is most successful. Her strongest points are\ndescribing diseases, the character of the sitter, his idiosyncrasies,\nand the character of his friends, their sympathies, loves, hates, and\nrelationships in general, unimportant incidents in their past histories,\nand so on. To retain such information in the memory is very difficult,\nand to obtain it by general means well-nigh impossible.\n\nMany of the personalities or \"controls\" of Mrs Piper speak, write, and\nact in a way extraordinarily in consonance with those characters as they\nwere on earth. In other words, her \"controls\" have well-differentiated\nidentities. Each has a different manner, a different voice, different\nacts, different ways of looking at things; in fact, has a different\ncharacter. For example, there is the spirit of G. P., a young journalist\nand author who died suddenly in February 1892. A few weeks later his\nspirit possessed Mrs Piper's organism, and although he was unknown to\nMrs Piper in life, yet for years since then he has carried on numerous\nprolonged conversations with his friends, including Dr Hodgson, and\nsupplied numerous proofs of his knowledge of the concerns of the\ndeceased G. P. G. P.'s personal effects, MSS., etc., are referred to, as\nwell as private conversations of the past, and, moreover, he suddenly\nrecognises amongst those attending Mrs Piper's _seances_ those whom he\nknew during life. Dr Hodgson was unable to find any instance when such\nrecognition has been incorrectly given. But G. P. is only one of several\ntrance personations speaking through Mrs Piper's organism and recognised\nby friends.\n\nAfter a contemplation of Mrs Piper's trance utterances alone we are\ninevitably faced by a choice of three conclusions: either (1) fraud (and\nfraud I hold here to be absolutely inadmissible); or (2) the possession\nof some supernormal power of apprehension; or (3) communication with\nthe spirits of deceased persons.\n\nDr Hodgson was driven by sheer force of logic to accept the third of\nthese hypotheses. Others who have studied the phenomena have followed.\nDr J. H. Hyslop has published a record of the sittings held with Mrs\nPiper in 1898 and 1899. His report contains the verbatim record of\nseventeen sittings, and no pains have been spared to make the record\ncomplete. It has exhaustive commentaries and accounts of experiments\nintended to elucidate the supposed difficulties of trance communication.\nProfessor Hyslop finally arrives at the conclusion, after an extensive\ninvestigation, during which no item of the evidence has failed to be\nweighed and no possible source of error would seem to have escaped\nconsideration, that spirit communication is the only explanation which\nfits all the facts, and he altogether rejects telepathy as being\ninadequate.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI hope that those who have so far followed me in this brief inquiry into\nthe mysteries of occult phenomena will recognise the impartiality with\nwhich I have endeavoured to conduct it. I said in the beginning that I\nset out with a light heart as well as an open mind. I had no idea of the\nextent of the territory, I knew little of its voluminous literature, of\nthe extraordinary ramifications of occultism, of the labours of the many\nlearned men who have spent their whole lives in seeking to separate fact\nfrom superstition. My mind was light because, frankly, I believed--with\na sort of inherent, temperamental belief--that, however much the\ntestimony concerning coincident dreams, hallucinations, mediumistic\nmanifestations, materialisation, and clairvoyance might mystify, it was\nall capable of normal explanation--there was nothing supernatural about\nit. And so throughout the inquiry I sought to show how, chiefly,\ntelepathy was a working hypothesis in most of the manifestations, while\nfor the physical ones, such as table rapping, levitations, and the rest,\nan unknown extension of human muscular power might possibly exist to\nsolve the mystery. So far I strode forward with some confidence. But\nnow the time has come when my confidence deserts me. Telepathy breaks\ndown. It is a key which by no amount of wriggling will turn the lock.\n\"It is not,\" as one leading inquirer has said, \"that telepathy is\ninsufficient: it is superfluous.\" If the existence of disembodied\nspirits is proved, then all the other phenomena are also proved.\n\nIf the case of Mrs Piper--under rigid surveillance for years--has\nconvinced some of the profoundest intellects of the day--men who began\nby being sceptical--that disembodied spirits are responsible for her\nutterances, it would certainly tend to convince me. But I carefully\nguarded myself from conviction until I had read the evidence--even to a\n_resume_ of this medium's utterances last year in London under the\nauspices of the Society for Psychical Research--and I assert with\nconfidence that no metaphysical theory has ever been formulated that\nwill account for these manifestations save one--the survival of the\nhuman personality after death. Once Mrs Piper is admitted as genuine,\nthen it follows that the spiritistic manifestations which have puzzled\nmankind, not merely for generations or during the modern cult of\nspiritism, but ever since primitive times, become, as it were,\nemancipated.\n\n\"It does seem to me,\" said Mr Balfour, in his famous Society for\nPsychical Research address, \"that there is at least strong ground for\nsupposing that outside the world, as we have, from the point of science,\nbeen in the habit of conceiving it, there does lie a region, not open\nindeed to experimental observation in the same way as the more familiar\nregions of the material world are open to it, but still with regard to\nwhich some experimental information may be laboriously gleaned; and even\nif we cannot entertain any confident hope of discovering what laws these\nhalf-seen phenomena obey, at all events it will be some gain to have\nshown, not as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but as a matter of\nascertained fact, that there are things in heaven and earth not hitherto\ndreamed of in our scientific philosophy.\"\n\n\n\n\nAFTERWORD\n\n\n_And so our little tour into the occult is ended and we return into the\nglare of common things--things which we know and can touch and find a\npractical use for. If only a little of this light we hold so cheap were\nto illumine the tenebrous fastnesses we have just left, then, perhaps\nwe, in our dull worldly way, might be able to assimilate the mystic to\nthe common, the unseen to the seen, the unknown to the known. But we are\nnot vouchsafed this white light; yet, even in the shadows to which our\neyes have grown accustomed, we have heard enough to make us wonder and\nmaybe make us doubtful when some voice, even such a voice as Matthew\nArnold's, cries out to us: \"Miracles are touched by Ithuriel's\nspear\"--\"Miracles do not happen.\"_\n\n_True, miracles do not happen: but there are events of frequent\noccurrence in this age, as in all ages of which we have a record, which\nare miraculous in the sense of their being supernormal--for which\nscience offers no consistent explanation. Is not hypnotism a miracle? Is\nnot telepathy a miracle? Is not the divining rod a miracle? Would Sir\nWilliam Ramsay or Sir James Crichton-Browne throw these manifestations\ninto the limbo of humbug and charlatanism? And supposing they, and such\nas they, continue incredulous--is not incredulity a fixed quantity in\nany society? Were men ever unanimous in their impressions--in their\nprepossessions, in the chromatic quality with which they steep every\nsurrounding fact before they allow their critical faculties to be\nfocussed upon it?_\n\n_It may be objected by the reader that I who have led him on this little\ntour into the wilderness of the occult have myself seen no ghosts. Where\nare my own experiences? Where the relation of my own personal contact\nwith hypnotists, telepathists, mediums, mysteries? Would not that have\nbeen of interest? It may be so: if the phenomena appertaining to those\nin their best and most convincing quality were always to appear on a\ncasual summons and if I were confided in by the public at large as a\nsane, unprejudiced witness._\n\n_Granted that I have seen no ghosts, I have at least done this: I have\nmet the men--better men--who have. That at the beginning was the real\npurpose of my brief itinerary. I designed less a tour into the occult\nitself than an examination of witnesses for the occult whom I met on\nthe literary bypaths of occultism. This I hope I have done, not\nsatisfactorily--very hurriedly--yet honestly, and wanting like a\nreturned traveller to tell folks more ignorant than myself of what I had\nheard of wonders which each man must, in the last resort, see for\nhimself and meditate upon for himself._\n\n_The blind leading the blind--yea--but--he who hath ears let him hear!_\n\n_One word more. I should like to see a census of all the minds which\nembrace a belief in the truth of supernormal phenomena. It would\nastonish the sceptic. It would reveal to him that the attitude of\nsociety at large towards spiritualism and the other world is not the\nattitude of any but a fraction of the component parts of society--not\neven the evenly balanced attitude of Huxley towards God Almighty. We\nshould see something quite different; something even distinct and apart\nfrom religion. We should see men, often without any religion at all\nproperly speaking, breaking out into the ejaculation of Hamlet to\nHoratio and refusing to believe that certain occurrences in their\nexperience are to be explained away by chance or delusion. And even in\nreligious men the conviction seems to me secular rather than arising\nfrom orthodox faith._\n\n_\"Far be it from me,\" wrote Emerson, \"the impatience which cannot brook\nthe supernatural, the vast: far be it from me the lust of explaining\naway all which appeals to the imagination and the great presentiments\nwhich haunt us. Willingly I, too, say Hail! to the unknown artful powers\nwhich transcend the ken of the understanding.\" Amen!_\n\n_Only yesterday I picked up a book, a sort of literary autobiography, by\nthe author of \"Sherlock Holmes,\" to find the following passage:--_\n\n_\"I do not think the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It\nis one of several incidents in my life which have convinced me of\nspiritual interposition--of the promptings of some beneficent force\noutside ourselves which tries to help us where it can.\"_\n\n\n\n\nA Catalogue of the Publications of T. Werner Laurie.\n\n\nABBEYS OF GREAT BRITAIN, The (H. Clairborne Dixon and E. 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Demy\n8vo, cloth gilt, 10s. 6d. net.\n\nSTORY OF CRIME, The (H. L. Adam). 10s. 6d. net.\n\nSTRINGER (Arthur), The Wire Tappers. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.\n\nSTUDIES IN PICTURES (J. C. Van Dyke). 6s. net.\n\nSUNSHINE AND SPORT IN FLORIDA (F. G. Afialo). 16s. net.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM: Fraudulent and Genuine. By\n    HEREWARD CARRINGTON. Eleven Plates. 435 pp. Demy 8vo. 10s.\n    6d. net.\n\nIn its first part this book deals with the exposure of all kinds of\ntrickery resorted to by fraudulent \"mediums\" in producing alleged\nspiritistic phenomena--slate-writing, sealed letters, materialisation\netc.,--and explains clearly, by description and illustrative pictures,\nexactly how the tricks are effected. In the second part of the volume is\ngiven an account of the most important phenomena which are vouched for\nby eminent scientists, which, after the most careful analysis, cannot be\nexplained by any of the means known to legerdemain. Among those are\nrecorded the famous experiments of Sir William Crookes, Professor\nRichet, Doctor Lombroso, etc.\n\nAs will appear from the description of the book's contents Mr\nCarrington's position is that, while a very great portion of alleged\npsychic phenomena is spurious or fraudulent, there yet remains a\nsubstantial residuum of cases apparently genuine which can only as yet\nbe classed as supernormal.\n\n\n    PROOFS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH. By R. J. THOMPSON. A Collation\n    of Opinions as to a Future Life by the Most Eminent Scientific Men\n    and Thinkers of the Day. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.\n\nA Collation of Opinions as to a Future Life by such Eminent Scientific\nMen and Thinkers as Prof. N. S. Shaler, Prof. C. Richet, Camille\nFlammarion, Prof. Brunot, Sir William Crookes, Prof. Th. Flournoy, Prof.\nElmer Gates, Prof. William James, Dr Paul Joire, Dr Lombroso, Prof. S.\nNewcomb, Prof. Hyslop, Dr M. J. Savage, Sir Oliver Lodge, Prof. Alfred\nRussel Wallace, Cardinal Gibbons, Andrew Lang, and many others. The book\ncontains many arguments from a scientific standpoint that will interest\nall who wish evidence other than theological.\n\n\n    DO THE DEAD DEPART? and Other Questions. By E. KATHARINE BATES,\n    author of \"SEEN AND UNSEEN.\" Crown 8vo. 6s. net.\n\nThis somewhat original way of putting a well-worn query, prepares the\nreader for another book from the pen of Miss E. Katharine Bates.\n\nIn the present volume psychic matters are treated from a more\nphilosophical standpoint than in \"Seen and Unseen,\" which made\nno claim to be other than a truthful record of personal\nexperiences. CONTENTS--SOME OBJECTIONS TO SPIRIT RETURN--SOME\nINSTANCES OF SPIRIT RETURN--A MOTHER'S GUARDIANSHIP IN AMERICA--A\nCURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF SPIRIT METHODS--BIBLICAL\nINCIDENTS--CLAIRVOYANCE--CLAIRAUDIENCE--RE-INCARNATION--AUTOMATIC\nWRITING--MATERIALISATION--HOW THE DEAD DEPART--GUARDIAN\nCHILDREN--APPENDIX","title":"Occultism and common-sense","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":55511}