The Institut Metaphysique.--Lecture in French.--Wonderful musical
improviser.--Camille Flammarion.--Test of materialised hand.--Last
ditch of materialism.--Sitting with Mrs. Bisson's medium,
Eva.--Round the Aisne battlefields.--A tragic
intermezzo.--Anglo-French Rugby match.--Madame Blifaud's
clairvoyance.
One long stride took us to Paris, where, under the friendly and
comfortable roof of the Hotel du Louvre, we were able at last to unpack
our trunks and to steady down after this incessant movement. The first
visit which I paid in Paris was to Dr. Geley, head of the Institut
Metaphysique, at 89, Avenue Niel. Now that poor Crawford has gone,
leaving an imperishable name behind him, Geley promises to be the
greatest male practical psychic researcher, and he has advantages of
which Crawford could never boast, since the liberality of Monsieur Jean
Meyer has placed him at the head of a splendid establishment with
laboratory, photographic room, lecture room, seance room and library,
all done in the most splendid style. Unless some British patron has the
generosity and intelligence to do the same, this installation, with a
man like Geley to run it, will take the supremacy in psychic advance
from Britain, where it now lies, and transfer it to France. Our nearest
approach to something similar depends at present upon the splendid
private efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Hewat MacKenzie, in the Psychic College
at 59, Holland Park, which deserve the support of everyone who realises
the importance of the subject.
I made a _faux pas_ with the Geleys, for I volunteered to give an
exhibition of my Australian slides, and they invited a distinguished
audience of men of science to see them. Imagine my horror when I found
that my box of slides was in the luggage which Major Wood had taken on
with him in the "Naldera" to England. They were rushed over by
aeroplane, however, in response to my telegram, and so the situation was
saved.
The lecture was a private one and was attended by Mr. Charles Richet,
Mr. Gabrielle Delanne, and a number of other men of science. Nothing
could have gone better, though I fear that my French, which is
execrable, must have been a sore trial to my audience. I gave them
warning at the beginning by quoting a remark which Bernard Shaw made to
me once, that when he spoke French he did not say what he wanted to say,
but what he could say. Richet told me afterwards that he was deeply
interested by the photographs, and when I noted the wonder and awe with
which he treated them--he, the best known physiologist in the world--and
compared it with the attitude of the ordinary lay Press, it seemed a
good example of the humility of wisdom and the arrogance of ignorance.
After my lecture, which covered an hour and a quarter, we were favoured
by an extraordinary exhibition from a medium named Aubert. This
gentleman has had no musical education whatever, but he sits down in a
state of semi-trance and he handles a piano as I, for one, have never
heard one handled before. It is a most amazing performance. He sits with
his eyes closed while some one calls the alphabet, striking one note
when the right letter sounds. In this way he spells out the name of the
particular composer whom he will represent. He then dashes off, with
tremendous verve and execution, upon a piece which is not a known
composition of that author, but is an improvisation after his manner. We
had Grieg, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and others in quick succession, each of
them masterly and characteristic. His technique seemed to my wife and me
to be not inferior to that of Paderewski. Needles can be driven through
him as he plays, and sums can be set before him which he will work out
without ceasing the wonderful music which appears to flow through him,
but quite independently of his own powers or volition. He would
certainly cause a sensation in London.
I had the honour next day of meeting Camille Flammarion, the famous
astronomer, who is deeply engaged in psychic study, and was so
interested in the photos which I snowed him that I was compelled to
leave them in his hands that he might get copies done. Flammarion is a
dear, cordial, homely old gentleman with a beautiful bearded head which
would delight a sculptor. He entertained us with psychic stories all
lunch time. Madame Bisson was there and amused me with her opinion upon
psychic researchers, their density, their arrogance, their preposterous
theories to account for obvious effects. If she had not been a great
pioneer in Science, she might have been a remarkable actress, for it was
wonderful how her face took off the various types. Certainly, as
described by her, their far-fetched precautions, which irritate the
medium and ruin the harmony of the conditions, do appear very
ridiculous, and the parrot cry of "Fraud!" and "Fake!" has been sadly
overdone. All are agreed here that spiritualism has a far greater chance
in England than in France, because the French temperament is essentially
a mocking one, and also because the Catholic Church is in absolute
opposition. Three of their bishops, Beauvais, Lisieux and Coutances,
helped to burn a great medium, Joan of Arc, six hundred years ago,
asserting at the trial the very accusations of necromancy which are
asserted to-day. Now they have had to canonise her. One would have hoped
that they had learned something from the incident.
Dr. Geley has recently been experimenting with Mr. Franek Kluski, a
Polish amateur of weak health, but with great mediumistic powers. These
took the form of materialisations. Dr. Geley had prepared a bucket of
warm paraffin, and upon the appearance of the materialised figure, which
was that of a smallish man, the request was made that the apparition
should plunge its hand into the bucket and then withdraw it, so that
when it dematerialised a cast of the hand would be left, like a glove
of solidified paraffin, so narrow at the wrist that the hands could not
have been withdrawn by any possible normal means without breaking the
moulds. These hands I was able to inspect, and also the plaster cast
which had been taken from the inside of one of them. The latter showed a
small hand, not larger than a boy's, but presenting the characteristics
of age, for the skin was loose and formed transverse folds. The
materialised figure had also, unasked, left an impression of its own
mouth and chin, which was, I think, done for evidential purposes, for a
curious wart hung from the lower lip, which would mark the owner among a
million. So far as I could learn, however, no identification had
actually been effected. The mouth itself was thick-lipped and coarse,
and also gave an impression of age.
To show the thoroughness of Dr. Geley's work, he had foreseen that the
only answer which any critic, however exacting, could make to the
evidence, was that the paraffin hand had been brought in the medium's
pocket. Therefore he had treated with cholesterin the paraffin in his
bucket, and this same cholesterin reappeared in the resulting glove.
What can any sceptic have to say to an experiment like that save to
ignore it, and drag us back with wearisome iteration to some real or
imaginary scandal of the past? The fact is that the position of the
materialists could only be sustained so long as there was a general
agreement among all the newspapers to regard this subject as a comic
proposition. Now that there is a growing tendency towards recognising
its overwhelming gravity, the evidence is getting slowly across to the
public, and the old attitude of negation and derision has become
puerile. I can clearly see, however, that the materialists will fall
back upon their second line of trenches, which will be to admit the
phenomena, but to put them down to material causes in the unexplored
realms of nature with no real connection with human survival. This
change of front is now due, but it will fare no better than the old one.
Before quitting the subject I should have added that these conclusions
of Dr. Geley concerning the paraffin moulds taken from Kluski's
materialisation are shared by Charles Richet and Count de Gramont of the
Institute of France, who took part in the experiments. How absurd are
the efforts of those who were not present to contradict the experiences
of men like these.
I was disappointed to hear from Dr. Geley that the experiments in
England with the medium Eva had been largely negative, though once or
twice the ectoplasmic flow was, as I understand, observed. Dr. Geley put
this comparative failure down to the fantastic precautions taken by the
committee, which had produced a strained and unnatural atmosphere. It
seems to me that if a medium is searched, and has all her clothes
changed before entering the seance room, that is ample, but when in
addition to this you put her head in a net-bag and restrict her in other
ways, you are producing an abnormal self-conscious state of mind which
stops that passive mood of receptivity which is essential. Professor
Hyslop has left it on record that after a long series of rigid tests
with Mrs. Piper he tried one sitting under purely natural conditions,
and received more convincing and evidential results than in all the
others put together. Surely this should suggest freer methods in our
research.
I have just had a sitting with Eva, whom I cannot even say that I have
seen, for she was under her cloth cabinet when I arrived and still under
it when I left, being in trance the whole time. Professor Jules Courtier
of the Sorbonne and a few other men of science were present. Madame
Bisson experiments now in the full light of the afternoon. Only the
medium is in darkness, but her two hands protrude through the cloth and
are controlled by the sitters. There is a flap in the cloth which can be
opened to show anything which forms beneath. After sitting about an hour
this flap was opened, and Madame Bisson pointed out to me a streak of
ectoplasm upon the outside of the medium's bodice. It was about six
inches long and as thick as a finger. I was allowed to touch it, and
felt it shrink and contract under my hand. It is this substance which
can, under good conditions, be poured out in great quantities and can be
built up into forms and shapes, first flat and finally rounded, by
powers which are beyond our science. We sometimes call it Psychoplasm in
England, Richet named it Ectoplasm, Geley calls it Ideoplasm; but call
it what you will, Crawford has shown for all time that it is the
substance which is at the base of psychic physical phenomena.
Madame Bisson, whose experience after twelve years' work is unique, has
an interesting theory. She disagrees entirely with Dr. Geley's view,
that the shapes are thought forms, and she resents the name ideoplasm,
since it represents that view. Her conclusion is that Eva acts the part
which a "detector" plays, when it turns the Hertzian waves, which are
too short for our observation, into slower ones which can become
audible. Thus Eva breaks up certain currents and renders them visible.
According to her, what we see is never the thing itself but always the
reflection of the thing which exists in another plane and is made
visible in ours by Eva's strange material organisation. It was for this
reason that the word Miroir appeared in one of the photographs, and
excited much adverse criticism. One dimly sees a new explanation of
mediumship. The light seems a colourless thing until it passes through a
prism and suddenly reveals every colour in the world.
A picture of Madame Bisson's father hung upon the wall, and I at once
recognised him as the phantom which appears in the photographs of her
famous book, and which formed the culminating point of Eva's mediumship.
He has a long and rather striking face which was clearly indicated in
the ectoplasmic image. Only on one occasion was this image so developed
that it could speak, and then only one word. The word was "Esperez."
We have just returned, my wife, Denis and I, from a round of the Aisne
battlefields, paying our respects incidentally to Bossuet at Meaux,
Fenelon at Chateau Thierry, and Racine at La Ferte Millon. It is indeed
a frightful cicatrix which lies across the brow of France--a scar which
still gapes in many places as an open wound. I could not have believed
that the ruins were still so untouched. The land is mostly under
cultivation, but the houses are mere shells, and I cannot think where
the cultivators live. When you drive for sixty miles and see nothing but
ruin on either side of the road, and when you know that the same thing
extends from the sea to the Alps, and that in places it is thirty miles
broad, it helps one to realise the debt that Germany owes to her
victims. If it had been in the Versailles terms that all her members of
parliament and journalists should be personally conducted, as we have
been, through a sample section, their tone would be more reasonable.
It has been a wonderful panorama. We followed the route of the thousand
taxi-cabs which helped to save Europe up to the place where Gallieni's
men dismounted and walked straight up against Klueck's rearguard. We saw
Belleau Wood, where the 2nd and 46th American divisions made their fine
debut and showed Ludendorff that they were not the useless soldiers he
had so vainly imagined. Thence we passed all round that great heavy sack
of Germans which had formed in June, 1918, with its tip at Dormans and
Chateau Thierry. We noted Bligny, sacred to the sacrifices of Carter
Campbell's 51st Highlanders, and Braithwaite's 62nd Yorkshire division,
who lost between them seven thousand men in these woods. These British
episodes seem quite unknown to the French, while the Americans have very
properly laid out fine graveyards with their flag flying, and placed
engraved tablets of granite where they played their part, so that in
time I really think that the average Frenchman will hardly remember that
we were in the war at all, while if you were to tell him that in the
critical year we took about as many prisoners and guns as all the other
nations put together, he would stare at you with amazement. Well, what
matter! With a man or a nation it is the duty done for its own sake and
the sake of its own conscience and self-respect that really counts. All
the rest is swank.
We slept at Rheims. We had stayed at the chief hotel, the Golden Lion,
in 1912, when we were en route to take part in the Anglo-German
motor-car competition, organised by Prince Henry. We searched round, but
not one stone of the hotel was standing. Out of 14,000 houses in the
town, only twenty had entirely escaped. As to the Cathedral, either a
miracle has been wrought or the German gunners have been extraordinary
masters of their craft, for there are acres of absolute ruin up to its
very walls, and yet it stands erect with no very vital damage. The same
applies to the venerable church of St. Remy. On the whole I am prepared
to think that save in one fit of temper upon September 19th, 1914, the
guns were never purposely turned upon this venerable building. Hitting
the proverbial haystack would be a difficult feat compared to getting
home on to this monstrous pile which dominates the town. It is against
reason to suppose that both here and at Soissons they could not have
left the cathedrals as they left the buildings around them.
Next day, we passed down the Vesle and Aisne, seeing the spot where
French fought his brave but barren action on September 13th, 1914, and
finally we reached the Chemin des Dames--a good name had the war been
fought in the knightly spirit of old, but horribly out of place amid the
ferocities with which Germany took all chivalry from warfare. The huge
barren countryside, swept with rainstorms and curtained in clouds,
looked like some evil landscape out of Vale Owen's revelations. It was
sown from end to end with shattered trenches, huge coils of wire and
rusted weapons, including thousands of bombs which are still capable of
exploding should you tread upon them too heavily. Denis ran wildly
about, like a terrier in a barn, and returned loaded with all sorts of
trophies, most of which had to be discarded as overweight. He succeeded,
however, in bringing away a Prussian helmet and a few other of the more
portable of his treasures. We returned by Soissons, which interested me
greatly, as I had seen it under war conditions in 1916. Finally we
reached Paris after a really wonderful two days in which, owing to Mr.
Cook's organisation and his guide, we saw more and understood more,
than in a week if left to ourselves. They run similar excursions to
Verdun and other points. I only wish we had the time to avail ourselves
of them.
A tragic intermezzo here occurred in our Paris experience. I suddenly
heard that my brother-in-law, E. W. Hornung, the author of "Raffles" and
many another splendid story, was dying at St. Jean de Luz in the
Pyrenees. I started off at once, but was only in time to be present at
his funeral. Our little family group has been thinned down these last
two years until we feel like a company under hot fire with half on the
ground. We can but close our ranks the tighter. Hornung lies within
three paces of George Gissing, an author for whom both of us had an
affection. It is good to think that one of his own race and calling
keeps him company in his Pyrennean grave.
Hornung, apart from his literary powers, was one of the wits of our
time. I could brighten this dull chronicle if I could insert a page of
his sayings. Like Charles Lamb, he could find humour in his own physical
disabilities--disabilities which did not prevent him, when over fifty,
from volunteering for such service as he could do in Flanders. When
pressed to have a medical examination, his answer was, "My body is like
a sausage. The less I know of its interior, the easier will be my mind."
It was a characteristic mixture of wit and courage.
During our stay in Paris we went to see the Anglo-French Rugby match at
Coulombes. The French have not quite got the sporting spirit, and there
was some tendency to hoot whenever a decision was given for the English,
but the play of their team was most excellent, and England only won by
the narrow margin of 10 to 6. I can remember the time when French Rugby
was the joke of the sporting world. They are certainly a most adaptive
people. The tactics of the game have changed considerably since the days
when I was more familiar with it, and it has become less dramatic, since
ground is gained more frequently by kicking into touch than by the
individual run, or even by the combined movement. But it is still the
king of games. It was like the old lists, where the pick of these two
knightly nations bore themselves so bravely of old, and it was an object
lesson to see Clement, the French back, playing on manfully, with the
blood pouring from a gash in the head. Marshal Foch was there, and I
have no doubt that he noted the incident with approval.
I had a good look at the famous soldier, who was close behind me. He
looks very worn, and sadly in need of a rest. His face and head are
larger than his pictures indicate, but it is not a face with any marked
feature or character. His eyes, however, are grey, and inexorable. His
kepi was drawn down, and I could not see the upper part of the head, but
just there lay the ruin of Germany. It must be a very fine brain, for in
political, as well as in military matters, his judgment has always been
justified.
There is an excellent clairvoyante in Paris, Madame Blifaud, and I look
forward, at some later date, to a personal proof of her powers, though
if it fails I shall not be so absurd as to imagine that that disproves
them. The particular case which came immediately under my notice was
that of a mother whose son had been killed from an aeroplane, in the
war. She had no details of his death. On asking Madame B., the latter
replied, "Yes, he is here, and gives me a vision of his fall. As a proof
that it is really he, he depicts the scene, which was amid songs, flags
and music." As this corresponded with no episode of the war, the mother
was discouraged and incredulous. Within a short time, however, she
received a message from a young officer who had been with her son when
the accident occurred. It was on the Armistice day, at Salonica. The
young fellow had flown just above the flags, one of the flags got
entangled with his rudder, and the end was disaster. But bands, songs
and flags all justified the clairvoyante.
Now, at last, our long journey drew to its close. Greatly guarded by the
high forces which have, by the goodness of Providence, been deputed to
help us, we are back in dear old London once more. When we look back at
the 30,000 miles which we have traversed, at the complete absence of
illness which spared any one of seven a single day in bed, the
excellence of our long voyages, the freedom from all accidents, the
undisturbed and entirely successful series of lectures, the financial
success won for the cause, the double escape from shipping strikes, and,
finally, the several inexplicable instances of supernormal, personal
happenings, together with the three-fold revelation of the name of our
immediate guide, we should be stocks and stones if we did not realise
that we have been the direct instruments of God in a cause upon which He
has set His visible seal. There let it rest. If He be with us, who is
against us? To give religion a foundation of rock instead of quicksand,
to remove the legitimate doubts of earnest minds, to make the invisible
forces, with their moral sanctions, a real thing, instead of mere words
upon our lips, and, incidentally, to reassure the human race as to the
future which awaits it, and to broaden its appreciation of the
possibilities of the present life, surely no more glorious message was
ever heralded to mankind. And it begins visibly to hearken. The human
race is on the very eve of a tremendous revolution of thought, marking a
final revulsion from materialism, and it is part of our glorious and
assured philosophy, that, though we may not be here to see the final
triumph of our labours, we shall, none the less, be as much engaged in
the struggle and the victory from the day when we join those who are our
comrades in battle upon the further side.
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"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has given us a classic."--Sir W. Robertson
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* * * * *
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=THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN in FRANCE
and FLANDERS 1914=
=With Maps, Plans and Diagrams. FOURTH EDITION=
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* * * * *
_The Second Volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
History of the War_
=THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN in FRANCE
and FLANDERS 1915=
=With Maps, Plans and Diagrams. SECOND EDITION=
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* * * * *
_The Third Volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
History of the War_
=THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN in FRANCE
and FLANDERS 1916=
=With Maps, Plans and Diagrams=
"We gave praise, and it was high, to the first and second volumes of
'The British Campaign in France and Flanders.' We can give the same to
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far surpassing everything that went before in magnitude and
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human import of every kind."--_Observer_
_The Fourth Volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
History of the War_
=THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN in FRANCE
and FLANDERS 1917=
=With Maps, Plans and Diagrams=
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and truth as is exhibited here, it will indeed be a work which every
student who fought in France in the Great War will be proud to possess
on his shelves."--_Sunday Times_
"It will find with others of the series a permanent place in all
military libraries as a reliable work of reference for future students
of the war."--_Observer_
* * * * *
_The Fifth Volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
History of the War_
=THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN in FRANCE
and FLANDERS January to July, 1918=
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the Allies, leading to their final victory, will bring to a close a
series which, on its own lines, is unsurpassable."--_Scotsman_
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campaign the most glorious and the most deadly in all the history of the
British race, and a record well qualified to live among the notable
books of the language."--_Edinburgh Evening Dispatch_
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_The Sixth Volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
History of the War_
=THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN in FRANCE
and FLANDERS July to November, 1918=
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