The Melbourne Cup.--Psychic healing.--M. J. Bloomfield.--My own
experience.--Direct healing.--Chaos and Ritual.--Government House
Ball.--The Rescue Circle again.--Sitting with Mrs. Harris.--A good
test case.--Australian botany.--The land of myrtles.--English
cricket team.--Great final meeting in Melbourne.
It was the week of weeks in Melbourne when we returned from Nerrin, and
everything connected with my mission was out of the question. When the
whole world is living vividly here and now there is no room for the
hereafter. Personally, I fear I was out of sympathy with it all, though
we went to the Derby, where the whole male and a good part of the female
population of Melbourne seemed to be assembled, reinforced by
contingents from every State in the Federation. A fine handsome body of
people they are when you see them _en masse_, strong, solid and capable,
if perhaps a little lacking in those finer and more spiritual graces
which come with a more matured society. The great supply of animal food
must have its effect upon the mind as well as the body of a nation. Lord
Forster appeared at the races, and probably, as an all round sportsman,
took a genuine interest, but the fate of the Governor who did not take
an interest would be a rather weary one--like that kind-hearted Roman
Emperor, Claudius, if I remember right, who had to attend the
gladiatorial shows, but did his business there so as to distract his
attention from the arena. We managed to get out of attending the famous
Melbourne Cup, and thereby found the St. Kilda Beach deserted for once,
and I was able to spend a quiet day with my wife watching the children
bathe and preparing for the more strenuous times ahead.
One psychic subject which has puzzled me more than any other, is that of
magnetic healing. All my instincts as a doctor, and all the traditional
teaching of the profession, cry out against unexplained effects, and the
opening which their acceptance must give to the quack. The man who has
paid a thousand pounds for his special knowledge has a natural distaste
when he sees a man who does not know the subclavian artery from the
pineal gland, effecting or claiming to effect cures on some quite
unconventional line. And yet ... and yet!
The ancients knew a great deal which we have forgotten, especially about
the relation of one body to another. What did Hippocrates mean when he
said, "The affections suffered by the body the soul sees with shut
eyes?" I will show you exactly what he means. My friend, M. J.
Bloomfield, as unselfish a worker for truth as the world can show, tried
for nearly two years to develop the medical powers of a clairvoyant.
Suddenly the result was attained, without warning. He was walking with a
friend in Collins Street laughing over some joke. In an instant the
laugh was struck from his lips. A man and woman were walking in front,
their backs towards Bloomfield. To his amazement he saw the woman's
inner anatomy mapped out before him, and especially marked a rounded
mass near the liver which he felt intuitively should not be there. His
companion rallied him on his sudden gravity, and still more upon the
cause of it, when it was explained. Bloomfield was so certain, however,
that the vision was for a purpose, that he accosted the couple, and
learned that the woman was actually about to be operated on for cancer.
He reassured them, saying that the object seemed clearly defined and not
to have widespread roots as a cancer might have. He was asked to be
present at the operation, pointed out the exact place where he had seen
the growth, and saw it extracted. It was, as he had said, innocuous.
With this example in one's mind the words of Hippocrates begin to assume
a very definite meaning. I believe that the surgeon was so struck by the
incident that he was most anxious that Bloomfield should aid him
permanently in his diagnoses.
I will now give my own experience with Mr. Bloomfield. Denis had been
suffering from certain pains, so I took him round as a test case.
Bloomfield, without asking the boy any questions, gazed at him for a
couple of minutes. He then said that the pains were in the stomach and
head, pointing out the exact places. The cause, he said, was some slight
stricture in the intestine and he proceeded to tell me several facts of
Denis's early history which were quite correct, and entirely beyond his
normal knowledge. I have never in all my experience of medicine known so
accurate a diagnosis.
Another lady, whom I knew, consulted him for what she called a "medical
reading." Without examining her in any way he said: "What a peculiar
throat you have! It is all pouched inside." She admitted that this was
so, and that doctors in London had commented upon it. By his clairvoyant
gift he could see as much as they with their laryngoscopes.
Mr. Bloomfield has never accepted any fees for his remarkable gifts.
Last year he gave 3,000 consultations. I have heard of mediums with
similar powers in England, but I had never before been in actual contact
with one. With all my professional prejudices I am bound to admit that
they have powers, just as Braid and Esdaile, the pioneers of hypnotism,
had powers, which must sooner or later be acknowledged.
There are, as I understand it, at least two quite different forms of
psychic healing. In such cases as those quoted the result may be due
only to subtle powers of the human organism which some have developed
and others have not. The clairvoyance and the instinctive knowledge may
both belong to the individual. In the other cases, however, there are
the direct action and advice of a wise spirit control, a deceased
physician usually, who has added to his worldly stock of knowledge. He
can, of course, only act through a medium--and just there, alas, is the
dangerous opening for fraud and quackery. But if anyone wishes to study
the operation at its best let him read a tiny book called "One thing I
know," which records the cure of the writer, the sister of an Anglican
canon, when she had practically been given up by doctors of this world
after fifteen years of bed, but was rescued by the ministrations of Dr.
Beale, a physician on the other side. Dr. Beale received promotion to a
higher sphere in the course of the treatment, which was completed by his
assistant and successor. It is a very interesting and convincing
narrative.
We were invited to another spiritual meeting at the Auditorium.
Individuality runs riot sometimes in our movement. On this occasion a
concert had been mixed up with a religious service and the effect was
not good, though the musical part of the proceedings disclosed one young
violinist, Master Hames, who should, I think, make a name in the world.
I have always been against ritual, and yet now that I see the effect of
being without it I begin to understand that some form of it, however
elastic, is necessary. The clairvoyance was good, if genuine, but it
offends me to see it turned off and on like a turn at a music hall. It
is either nonsense or the holy of holies and mystery of mysteries.
Perhaps it was just this conflict between the priest with his ritual and
the medium without any, which split the early Christian Church, and
ended in the complete victory of the ritual, which meant the extinction
not only of the medium but of the living, visible, spiritual forces
which he represented. Flowers, music, incense, architecture, all tried
to fill the gap, but the soul of the thing had gone out of it. It must,
I suppose, have been about the end of the third century that the process
was completed, and the living thing had set into a petrifaction. That
would be the time no doubt when, as already mentioned, special
correctors were appointed to make the gospel texts square with the
elaborate machinery of the Church. Only now does the central fire begin
to glow once more through the ashes which have been heaped above it.
We attended the great annual ball at the Government House, where the
Governor-General and his wife were supported by the Governors of the
various States, the vice-regal party performing their own stately
quadrille with a dense hedge of spectators around them. There were few
chaperons, and nearly every one ended by dancing, so that it was a
cheerful and festive scene. My friend Major Wood had played with the
Governor-General in the same Hampshire eleven, and it was singular to
think that after many years they should meet again like this.
Social gaieties are somewhat out of key with my present train of
thought, and I was more in my element next evening at a meeting of the
Rescue Circle under Mr. Tozer. Mr. Love was the medium and it was
certainly a very remarkable and consistent performance. Even those who
might imagine that the different characters depicted were in fact
various strands of Mr. Love's subconscious self, each dramatising its
own peculiarities, must admit that it was a very absorbing exhibition.
The circle sits round with prayer and hymns while Mr. Love falls into a
trance state. He is then controlled by the Chinaman Quong, who is a
person of such standing and wisdom in the other world, that other lower
spirits have to obey him. The light is dim, but even so the
characteristics of this Chinaman get across very clearly, the rolling
head, the sidelong, humorous glance the sly smile, the hands crossed and
buried in what should be the voluminous folds of a mandarin's gown. He
greets the company in somewhat laboured English and says he has many who
would be the better for our ministrations. "Send them along, please!"
says Mr. Tozer. The medium suddenly sits straight and his whole face
changes into an austere harshness. "What is this ribald nonsense?" he
cries. "Who are you, friend?" says Tozer. "My name is Mathew Barret. I
testified in my life to the Lamb and to Him crucified. I ask again: What
is this ribald nonsense?" "It is not nonsense, friend. We are here to
help you and to teach you that you are held down and punished for your
narrow ideas, and that you cannot progress until they are more
charitable." "What I preached in life I still believe." "Tell us,
friend, did you find it on the other side as you had preached?" "What do
you mean?" "Well, did you, for example, see Christ?" There was an
embarrassed silence. "No, I did not." "Have you seen the devil?" "No, I
have not." "Then, bethink you, friend, that there may be truth in what
we teach." "It is against all that I have preached." A moment later the
Chinaman was back with his rolling head and his wise smile. "He good
man--stupid man. He learn in time. Plenty time before him."
We had a wonderful succession of "revenants." One was a very dignified
Anglican, who always referred to the Control as "this yellow person."
Another was an Australian soldier. "I never thought I'd take my orders
from a 'Chink,'" said he, "but he says 'hist!' and by gum you've got to
'hist' and no bloomin' error." Yet another said he had gone down in the
_Monmouth_. "Can you tell me anything of the action?" I asked. "We never
had a chance. It was just hell." There was a world of feeling in his
voice. He was greatly amused at their "sky-pilot," as he called the
chaplain, and at his confusion when he found the other world quite
different to what he had depicted. A terrifying Ghurkha came along, who
still thought he was in action and charged about the circle, upsetting
the medium's chair, and only yielding to a mixture of force and
persuasion. There were many others, most of whom returned thanks for the
benefit derived from previous meetings. "You've helped us quite a lot,"
they said. Between each the old Chinese sage made comments upon the
various cases, a kindly, wise old soul, with just a touch of mischievous
humour running through him. We had an exhibition of the useless
apostolic gift of tongues during the evening, for two of the ladies
present broke out into what I was informed was the Maori language,
keeping up a long and loud conversation. I was not able to check it, but
it was certainly a coherent language of some sort. In all this there
was nothing which one could take hold of and quote as absolutely and
finally evidential, and yet the total effect was most convincing. I have
been in touch with some Rescue Circles, however, where the identity of
the "patients," as we may call them, was absolutely traced.
As I am on the subject of psychic experiences I may as well carry on, so
that the reader who is out of sympathy may make a single skip of the
lot. Mrs. Susanna Harris, the American voice-medium, who is well known
in London, had arrived here shortly after ourselves, and gave us a
sitting. Mrs. Harris's powers have been much discussed, for while on the
one hand she passed a most difficult test in London, where, with her
mouth full of coloured water, she produced the same voice effects as on
other occasions, she had no success in Norway when she was examined by
their Psychic Research Committee; but I know how often these
intellectuals ruin their own effects by their mental attitude, which
acts like those anti-ferments which prevent a chemical effervescence. We
must always get back to the principle, however, that one positive result
is more important than a hundred negative ones--just as one successful
demonstration in chemistry makes up for any number of failures. We
cannot command spirit action, and we can only commiserate with, not
blame, the medium who does not receive it when it is most desired.
Personally I have sat four times with Mrs. Harris and I have not the
faintest doubt that on each of these occasions I got true psychic
results, though I cannot answer for what happens in Norway or
elsewhere.
Illustration: AT MELBOURNE TOWN HALL, NOVEMBER 12TH, 1920.
Shortly after her arrival in Melbourne she gave us a seance in our
private room at the hotel, no one being present save at my invitation.
There were about twelve guests, some of whom had no psychic experience,
and I do not think there was one of them who did not depart convinced
that they had been in touch with preternatural forces. There were two
controls, Harmony, with a high girlish treble voice, and a male control
with a strong decisive bass. I sat next to Mrs. Harris, holding her hand
in mine, and I can swear to it that again and again she spoke to me
while the other voices were conversing with the audience. Harmony is a
charming little creature, witty, friendly and innocent. I am quite ready
to consider the opinion expressed by the Theosophists that such controls
as Harmony with Mrs. Harris, Bella with Mrs. Brittain, Feda with Mrs.
Leonard, and others are in reality nature-spirits who have never lived
in the flesh but take an intelligent interest in our affairs and are
anxious to help us. The male control, however, who always broke in with
some final clinching remark in a deep voice, seemed altogether human.
Whilst these two controls formed, and were the chorus of the play, the
real drama rested with the spirit voices, the same here as I have heard
them under Mrs. Wriedt, Mrs. Johnson or Mr. Powell in England, intense,
low, vibrating with emotion and with anxiety to get through. Nearly
everyone in the circle had communications which satisfied them. One
lady who had mourned her husband very deeply had the inexpressible
satisfaction of hearing his voice thanking her for putting flowers
before his photograph, a fact which no one else could know. A voice
claiming to be "Moore-Usborne Moore," came in front of me. I said,
"Well, Admiral, we never met, but we corresponded in life." He said,
"Yes, and we disagreed," which was true. Then there came a voice which
claimed to be Mr. J. Morse, the eminent pioneer of Spiritualism. I said,
"Mr. Morse, if that is you, you can tell me where we met last." He
answered, "Was it not in '_Light_' office in London?" I said, "No,
surely it was when you took the chair for me at that great meeting at
Sheffield." He answered, "Well, we lose some of our memory in passing."
As a matter of fact he was perfectly right, for after the sitting both
my wife and I remembered that I had exchanged a word or two with him as
I was coming out of _Light_ office at least a year after the Sheffield
meeting. This was a good test as telepathy was excluded. General Sir
Alfred Turner also came and said that he remembered our conversations on
earth. When I asked him whether he had found the conditions beyond the
grave as happy as he expected he answered, "infinitely more so."
Altogether I should think that not less than twenty spirits manifested
during this remarkable seance. The result may have been the better
because Mrs. Harris had been laid up in bed for a week beforehand, and
so we had her full force. I fancy that like most mediums, she habitually
overworks her wonderful powers. Such seances have been going on now for
seventy years, with innumerable witnesses of credit who will testify, as
I have done here, that all fraud or mistake was out of the question. And
still the men of no experience shake their heads. I wonder how long they
will succeed in standing between the world and the consolation which God
has sent us.
There is one thing very clear about mediumship and that is that it bears
no relation to physical form. Mrs. Harris is a very large lady, tall and
Junoesque, a figure which would catch the eye in any assembly. She has,
I believe, a dash of the mystic Red Indian blood in her, which may be
connected with her powers. Bailey, on the other hand, is a little,
ginger-coloured man, while Campbell of Sydney, who is said to have
apport powers which equal Bailey, is a stout man, rather like the late
Corney Grain. Every shape and every quality of vessel may hold the
psychic essence.
I spend such spare time as I have in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens,
which is, I think, absolutely the most beautiful place that I have ever
seen. I do not know what genius laid them out, but the effect is a
succession of the most lovely vistas, where flowers, shrubs, large trees
and stretches of water, are combined in an extraordinary harmony. Green
swards slope down to many tinted groves, and they in turn droop over
still ponds mottled with lovely water plants. It is an instructive as
well as a beautiful place, for every tree has its visiting card attached
and one soon comes to know them. Australia is preeminently the Land of
the Myrtles, for a large proportion of its vegetation comes under this
one order, which includes the gum trees, of which there are 170
varieties. They all shed their bark instead of their leaves, and have a
generally untidy, not to say indecent appearance, as they stand with
their covering in tatters and their white underbark shining through the
rents. There is not the same variety of species in Australia as in
England, and it greatly helps a superficial botanist like myself, for
when you have learned the ti-tree, the wild fig tree and the gum trees,
you will be on terms with nature wherever you go. New Zealand however
offers quite a fresh lot of problems.
The Melbourne Cricket Club has made me an honorary member, so Denis and
I went down there, where we met the giant bowler, Hugh Trumble, who left
so redoubtable a name in England. As the Chela may look at the Yogi so
did Denis, with adoring eyes, gaze upon Trumble, which so touched his
kind heart that he produced a cricket ball, used in some famous match,
which he gave to the boy--a treasure which will be reverently brought
back to England. I fancy Denis slept with it that night, as he certainly
did in his pads and gloves the first time that he owned them.
We saw the English team play Victoria, and it was pleasant to see the
well-known faces once more. The luck was all one way, for Armstrong was
on the sick list, and Armstrong is the mainstay of Victorian cricket.
Rain came at a critical moment also, and gave Woolley and Rhodes a
wicket which was impossible for a batsman. However, it was all good
practice for the more exacting games of the future. It should be a fine
eleven which contains a genius like Hobbs, backed by such men as the
bustling bulldog, Hendren, a great out-field as well as a grand bat, or
the wily, dangerous Hearne, or Douglas, cricketer, boxer, above all
warrior, a worthy leader of Englishmen. Hearne I remember as little more
than a boy, when he promised to carry on the glories of that remarkable
family, of which George and Alec were my own playmates. He has ended by
proving himself the greatest of them all.
My long interval of enforced rest came at last to an end, when the race
fever had spent itself, and I was able to have my last great meeting at
the Town Hall. It really was a great meeting, as the photograph of it
will show. I spoke for over two hours, ending up by showing a selection
of the photographs. I dealt faithfully with the treatment given to me by
the _Argus_. I take the extract from the published account. "On this,
the last time in my life that I shall address a Melbourne audience, I
wish to thank the people for the courtesy with which we have been
received. It would, however, be hypocritical upon my part if I were to
thank the Press. A week before I entered Melbourne the _Argus_ declared
that I was an emissary of the devil (laughter). I care nothing for that.
I am out for a fight and can take any knocks that come. But the _Argus_
refused to publish a word I said. I came 12,000 miles to give you a
message of hope and comfort, and I appeal to you to say whether three or
four gentlemen sitting in a board-room have a right to say to the people
of Melbourne, 'You shall not listen to that man nor read one word of
what he has to say.' (Cries of 'Shame!') You, I am sure, resent being
spoon-fed in such a manner." The audience showed in the most hearty
fashion that they did resent it, and they cheered loudly when I pointed
out that my remarks did not arise, as anyone could see by looking round,
from any feeling on my part that my mission had failed to gain popular
support. It was a great evening, and I have never addressed a more
sympathetic audience. The difficulty always is for my wife and myself to
escape from our kind well-wishers, and it is touching and heartening to
hear the sincere "God bless you!" which they shower upon us as we pass.
This then was the climax of our mission in Melbourne. It was marred by
the long but unavoidable delay in the middle, but it began well and
ended splendidly. On November 13th we left the beautiful town behind us,
and embarked upon what we felt would be a much more adventurous period
at Sydney, for all we had heard showed that both our friends and our
enemies were more active in the great seaport of New South Wales.