ON THE CREATION AND MATERIALIZATION OF FORMS
I have suggested more than once, in preceding chapters of this book, and
in _The Art of Creation_ and elsewhere, that in the ordinary evolution
of thought, in dreams, in trance and in other psychic states, we are
witness of a process which is continually and eternally going on, by
which the faintest invisible forms and outlines, the nearest
cloud-currents of the inner soul, gradually condense themselves, pass
into visibility, tangibility, and so forth, and (if the process is
continued) ultimately take their place among the substantial things of
the outer world.
Hitherto this thought has been applied in certain departments of
inquiry, but I am of impression that its considerable and world-wide
significance has been missed. Freud, in his _Traumdeutung_, insists that
behind the dream, and inspiring its action and symbolism there always
lurks an emotion, a desire, a wish. And Havelock Ellis (though with due
caution) corroborates this. He speaks[102] of “the controlling power of
emotion on dream-ideas,” and says, “the fundamental source of our
dream-life may be said to be emotion.” That is, an emotion (from
whatever source) arises in the mind. Vague and cloudlike at first, it
presently takes form, and (if in sleep) clothes itself with the imagery
of a dream, which becomes at last vivid and dramatic and _real_, to a
degree which astounds us. But dream-life is only a paraphrase, so to
speak, of waking life—a phase largely corresponding to the waking life
of children[103] and animals; and in waking life the same thing happens.
A wish or desire appears in the background of the mind; it moves forward
and becomes a definite thought and a plan; then it moves forward again
and becomes an action; the action creates a result; and the desire
finally establishes itself or its image in the actual world. These
emotions and desires and the images which sprung from them have a
certain vitality and growth-power of their own. The figures in dreams
move of themselves and concatenate with each other of their own
accord—much as the figures do in a drama, as Coleridge long ago
observed—and as the waking thoughts of all of us do, when we leave them
a little to themselves and to go with loose rein. More than that; in
some cases waking thoughts or passions become powerful enough to take
possession of the whole man and embody themselves in his
deeds—sometimes to heroic, sometimes to criminal ends. Or, taking
possession of _portions_ of the man, they precipitate conflict within
him. The dramatic quality of dreams is evidently due to the different
figures or incidents of the dream being inspired by different qualities
or experiences of the dreamer; and in the waking man the same process
may lead to tragic struggles and disintegrations of personality. In
hysteric patients, where the central controlling power is weak, the very
thought or fear of a disease may seize upon a certain centre in the body
and stimulate there all the symptoms of that disease; or a mental image
may seize upon a certain portion of the brain, and break up the
personality with strange new manifestations.
In all these cases, and scores of others which we cannot consider now,
the same action is taking place—by which invisible psychic and
spiritual forces, for good or evil, are ever pressing forward into the
manifest, and condensing themselves into visible and even tangible
forms, or taking possession of existing forms for the purpose of
expression and manifestation. And here we have (as I think will be seen
one day) the whole rationale of Creation—we have the conception which
brings into line the phenomena of the visible and material world and
their genesis, with the genesis of thoughts in our own minds, and
_their_ passage into visibility and expression; we have the conception
which unites the mental and material, and which makes the whole Creation
luminous with meaning. Especially is this obvious to-day, when the
theory of electrons is introducing us to a world as far finer and
subtler than the atom, as the atom is finer and subtler than the
tangible world of our experience; and is suggesting that these finest
states of matter are of the nature of electrical charges, which, again,
are quite analogous to mental states.[104] Thus we have, almost forced
upon us as the key to the creation of visible forms, the conception, of
a process of condensation by which the most subtle thought and emotion
does in course of time (brief or lengthy) tend to manifest itself in
material shape, and may ultimately take on the most persistent and
quasi-indestructible forms.
* * * * *
Reverting, then, to the subject of last chapter, we see that a
‘spiritual’ body—that is, a material body of a texture so fine and so
swiftly plastic as to be the analogue of thought—is a conception quite
in line with the conclusions of modern science; and that granted the
existence of such a thing, it is quite in line also to conclude that it
would tend toward condensation and manifestation in grosser and more
visible form. I gave in that chapter some general outline of how such
condensation might take place. I now propose to consider this process
more in detail, and to give some evidence as to its actually taking
place.
There is something perhaps a little comic about the idea of spirit
photography—something which has thus helped to retard its acceptance.
The busy photographer with his camera is so banal, and sometimes so
obnoxious, a figure, that to think of him photographing a ghost, or the
spirit of a dead relation, verges on bathos or the burlesque.
Nevertheless, Nature does not attend to our canons in such matters, and
in reality the thing is perfectly feasible and in order. It is well
known that the photographic plate is most sensitive to the violet end of
the spectrum—that it is this end which has the actinic quality.
Moreover, it is known that the actinic quality extends _beyond_ this
end, and that there are ultra-violet rays which we cannot see, and which
yet are photographically powerful. But the violet rays, as is also well
known, are those whose light-waves are smallest—being only about half
the size of the red waves;[105] and the ultra-violet rays are still
smaller. Consequently, by means of the violet end of the spectrum,
information can be got about small objects and infinitesimal details
which would elude the more ordinary light. A particle, in fact, may be
so small that it would reflect the violet waves, while it would be
unable to reflect the red—just as a boat floating on the water will
reflect and turn back tiny ripples, while it will simply be tossed about
by good-sized waves. Advantage has been taken of this in microscopy, and
by ingenious arrangements photographs of objects under the microscope
can now be taken by ultra-violet light, so as to show the very minutest
details.
The application of this to the question before us is clear. If there be
a spiritual body, composed of particles so infinitesimal as to be—to
begin with—far beyond the limits of visibility, yet gradually
condensing and accreting to themselves other and subsidiary particles,
there might come a time when such a cloud-form would approach the limit
of visibility—the molecules of which it was composed having grown so
far. It would be perfectly natural, then, for a body composed of such
molecules to come into the region of possible photography in the camera
through the ultra-violet rays _before_ it came into the region of
visibility to the human eye by means of ordinary light. And thus the
seeming paradox may be accounted for—of the appearance of spirit-forms,
or even thought-forms, on the photographic plate which are not yet
discernible by the eye. At a later stage of materialization the form may
of course yield an image both to the eye and to the camera.[106]
Again, in this connection, it is often urged against the reality of
spirit-forms, ghosts, and so forth, that they cannot bear a strong
light; and this is held to dispose of all their claims for
consideration. But what has just been said shows that on the contrary
such an effect is just what might be expected. The delicate growing
structure, whose particles were just large enough to reflect the smaller
light-waves, might easily be broken up and quite disintegrated by the
larger and more powerful weaves of a strong glare—just as, in fact,
_our_ forms, which can endure light, are broken up and disintegrated by
the still larger waves of intense _heat_. Katie King, who, as before
mentioned, appeared so many times in connection with the medium Florence
Cook, was frequently seen to fade away if the light was too strong. “At
the earlier seances she could only come out of the cabinet for a few
seconds at a time, once or twice during the seance; she had to go back
quickly into the cabinet to gather fresh power from her medium, saying
that the strong and unaccustomed brilliancy of the light made her ‘melt
quite away.’”[107] And Nepenthes, that finely formed and beautiful
figure which appeared in connection with Mme. D’Espérance, was more than
once seen, by a large company assembled, to walk by the side of the
medium up to the open French window at the end of the room and then to
disappear as she came into the full daylight.[108]
Photographs, it may be noticed, of forms appearing at seances, or in
connection with sitters, vary from mere cloudlike masses without or
almost without shape to very distinct human figures with much detail of
feature and dress,[109]—the same figure being often recognized in
various stages of clearness and definition. And this is interesting
because it entirely corroborates the observations made in hundreds of
seances, and in other cases, in which a form is first distinguished by
the eye as a faintly luminous cloud, and gradually grows in distinctness
and definition till it becomes visible in all detail, and even tangible.
Mme. D’Espérance, whose book, _Shadowland_, should be read on account of
its intelligent handling and obvious sincerity, as well as on account of
the remarkable phenomena reported, describes (p. 151) the first occasion
on which a ‘materialization’ appeared to her:—“One evening, for some
reason or other, we were sitting without a lighted lamp. The daylight
had not faded when we commenced the sitting, but though it grew dark no
one suggested making a light. Happening to glance over to the part of
the room where the shadows were deepest it seemed to me that there was a
curious cloudy luminosity standing out distinct and clear from the
darkness. I watched it for a minute or two without saying anything,
wondering where it came from and how it was caused. I thought it must be
a reflection from the street lamps outside, though I had never seen it
like that before. While I watched, the luminous cloud seemed to
concentrate itself, become substantial, and form itself into a figure of
a child, illuminated as it were by daylight that did not shine on it
but, somehow, from within it—the darkness of the room seeming to act as
a background, throwing up by contrast every curve of the form and every
feature into strong relief.” And in another passage she says:—“As soon
as I have entered the mediumistic cabinet my first impression is of
being covered with spider webs. Then I feel that the air is filled with
substance, and a kind of white and vaporous mass, quasi-luminous, like
the steam from a locomotive, is formed in front of the abdomen. After
this mass has been tossed and agitated in every way for some minutes,
sometimes even for half-an-hour, it suddenly stops, and then out of it
is born a living being close by me.”[110]
Another figure—that of Yolande (a young woman)—is mentioned in the
same book (p. 254) as appearing again and again out of such a filmy
cloudy patch on the floor. Similarly, Professor Richet noticed over and
over again the outgrowth of a figure (Beni Boa) from a white cloud.
“Near the cabinet we could see, betwixt the curtain and the table, a
whitish globe forming, luminous, and rotating on the floor; from this
globe Beni Boa sprang.” The figure would then walk round the room and
disappear again; but after a time the white cloud would again form and
Beni Boa reappear. And Professor Lombroso, alluding to this,
says:[111]—“This observation is of great importance, since it is not
possible to attribute to fraud the formation of a luminous patch on the
floor which transforms itself into a living being.” Further, Lombroso
says:—“Five photographs were obtained at these sittings by magnesium
and chlorate of potash light, with a Kodak and with a Richard
stereoscopic apparatus simultaneously, which fact excludes the
possibility of photographic fraud; and all the plates were developed in
Algeria by an optician who was unaware of what had preceded. On the
plates appeared a tall figure wrapped in a white mantle” (and similar to
the figure which the seven sitters present at the seances had seen).
I have alluded to this cloud-formation before as characteristic of an
early stage of the appearance of these figures, and as suggesting a
process of condensation going on. Lombroso, from various considerations
which he brings forward (p. 185),[112] seems convinced that the
phenomena of these forms are largely connected with radio-activity. He
says:—“It would seem that these bodies belong to that further state of
matter, the radiant state, which now at last has established a firm
footing in science—and which thus offers the only hypothesis which can
reconcile the ancient and universal belief in the persistence of some
form of life after death with the postulates of science which maintain
that without organ there can be no function.” This radio-active
condition of matter is of course that finest and most active state
represented by the electrons—in which each electron is excessively
minute,[113] yet moves at enormous speed, and carries with it an
electric charge. It connects itself with condensation in this way, that
“an electric charge assists vapor to condense,” and “where ions (_i.e._
positively or negatively charged particles) are present in considerable
numbers a thick mist will form whenever the space is saturated with
vapor.”[114] And Fournier d’Albe says:[115]—“In the physical theory of
ionization and condensation we have become familiar with the fact that
the smallest charged particles are the most effective promoters of
condensation. In fact, it would suffice to extract a very small
proportion of the innumerable electrons within the body to bring about a
vigorous condensation in the moist air around it.”
Thus it is quite probable that the cloud-formation, which in general
precedes the manifestation of distinct figures, is due to condensation,
and in part at any rate to a condensation of water-vapor on the
accreting particles of the spirit-body. And this is made the more
probable by the strong sensation of _cold_ which so frequently
accompanies these appearances, and which is a common accompaniment of
condensation. Crookes, in his _Researches_, emphasizes this in
connection with almost all the phenomena, and says[116] they “are
generally preceded by a peculiar cold air, sometimes amounting to a
decided wind. I have had sheets of paper blown about by it, and a
thermometer lowered several degrees. On some occasions ... the cold has
been so intense that I could only compare it to that felt when the hand
has been within a few inches of frozen mercury.” Some such sensation
seems to be quite a common experience, and the authoress of
_Shadowland_, speaking of her earlier sittings (p. 228), says:—“It was
not long before the same strange disturbances in the air began as on the
previous occasion. I felt my hair blown and lifted by currents of air,
and cool breezes played about my face and hands.”
Thus (with the corroborating evidence of Crookes’ thermometer) we may
suppose that, after all, the cold airs and shivering sensations which
seem so often to accompany apparitions may not be merely subjective to
the observer, but may be real phenomena due to physical condensations
taking place in his immediate proximity. Moreover, it has to be noted
that the condensations may not be merely of water-vapor, but of other
substances as well, namely (according to an opinion now gaining ground),
of fine matter or effluences provided by the bodies of the sitters
present (or some of them) as well as by the body of the medium. The
passage last quoted from _Shadowland_ continues: “then began a strange
sensation, which I had sometimes felt at seances. Frequently I have
heard it described by others as of cobwebs being passed over the face,
but to me, who watched it curiously, it seemed that I could feel fine
threads being drawn out of the pores of my skin.” And in another
passage[117] the same writer describes the cloud which precedes a
materialization as “a slightly luminous haze” which often appears “about
the head, shoulders, elbows and sometimes the knees and feet (of the
medium). Frequently it gathers slowly at the fingers, increasing in
density till it resembles a slight transparent film of slightly luminous
cotton wool.” Further, she explains that it goes on condensing till it
becomes cobwebby and perceptible to touch. The evidence generally seems
to show that these clouds are of the nature of effluences from the
medium or other person present; and the above quotation affords
corroboration of that view and makes easily intelligible the great
exhaustion from which mediums often suffer on these occasions. It
suggests also that the condensation is by no means of water-vapor only,
but of other substances drawn from the interior vitality of the persons
concerned, and necessary for the building up of the apparitional form.
It is difficult in the case, for instance, of “Katie King,” who, as
already said, appeared hundreds of times during two or three years, or
of Estella Martha, who appeared to her husband during five years and in
380 or more seances in connection with the medium Kate Fox,[118] not to
believe that such figures are (as we should say) _really_ the
individuals they profess to be, and not mere thought-forms or images
projected from the medium’s under-mind. But whichever view we take, it
is obvious that they are centres in some degree, of intelligent force or
vitality, centres which, though in their essence rare and tenuous as
thought or feeling, succeed in clothing themselves with a certain grade
of corporeality by the use of the materials at hand, and in so coming
into visible manifestation. And this general view is confirmed by the
fact, so often observed, that when the same figure appears repeatedly,
it does, as time goes on, acquire skill and adroitness in carrying out
the process of condensation or whatever it is, which is concerned, and
consequently comes into manifestation and activity more quickly and
decisively. Also, it may be noted, and has often been observed (as in
the case of the said Estella Martha and many others), that by practice
the figure attains the power of enduring strong light—that is, its
state of condensation reaches a point of solidity almost comparable with
that of _our_ tissues, which are not as a rule disintegrated by light.
The radio-activity of the ‘inner being’ also helps to explain the
extraordinary manifestations of sheer physical force in these
connections. Some of these manifestations have been so astonishing, that
the fact alone has caused them to be disbelieved; but though, of course,
fraud has played a part in such phenomena, and has to be guarded
against, it is now quite evident that in a multitude of cases fraud does
not enter at all.
Eusapia Paladino, for instance—though capable of little
fraudulences—was obviously the seat of extraordinary powers not to be
explained by these. Mr. Carrington, who made a special study of this
medium, and who (as I have said before) has also made a special study of
fraudulent methods in so-called spiritualism, vouches most strongly for
the great exhibitions of inexplicable _force_ in her
vicinity—especially perhaps in the way of _levitations_. He
says:—“Every one who has studied Eusapia’s phenomena knows that
practically every seance (for some reason) commences with
table-levitations—this, whether they are wanted or not! It seems the
necessary programme, and it is almost invariably carried out. Seeing
them time after time, one can obtain a very fair idea of their nature
and reality. And I may say that I now consider levitations as well
established as any other physical facts. They are not open to the
objection to which most psychical phenomena are subjected—that they
cannot be repeated or induced and studied experimentally, as one would
study other physical facts—for they can be induced and studied in just
this laboratory manner. I have probably seen several hundreds of these
levitations now, under every conceivable condition and in _excellent
light_, and I consider them so far established that, as Count Solovovo
said, “the burden of proof is now on the man who asserts that they are
_not_ real, not upon the man who asserts that they _are_.” These are
pretty strong words, and by a very responsible observer! And then Mr.
Carrington proceeds with a detailed account of these and other physical
phenomena.[119]
Some years ago, the reports and accounts of such phenomena were
generally at once dismissed as absurd and incredible; but by a
remarkable coincidence the last few years have seen the wonderful
development of the science of radio-activity—dating from the
epoch-making experiments of Crookes, in 1879 and earlier. These
experiments, curiously enough, were worked out during much of the same
period as Crookes’ researches into spiritualistic phenomena, and have
led to the shedding of much light upon the latter. For the new science
developed from them, and already more or less popularized,[120] compels
us to suppose that the most enormous forces lurk all around, within the
very structure of the atom itself—which of course is totally invisible
to our eyes. The new facts observed, with regard to radium and other
such substances, seem to compel the supposition that each atom is
composed of an immense number (say 100,000) of highly charged electrical
particles moving each with huge velocity—a velocity at any rate
comparable to that of light. The dissociation of such atoms and the
liberation of their constituent particles develops a fabulous energy.
When it is calculated that one gramme or fifteen grains of matter (say
the weight of thirty postage stamps) moving with the speed of light,
would have energy enough to lift the British Navy to the top of Ben
Nevis (Crookes); or that one milligramme (say the sixty-sixth part of a
grain of wheat) at the same speed would represent the energy of fifteen
million foot-tons (Lodge); or when, according to J. J. Thomson, the
combined speed and mass of the electrons within such a milligramme of
matter would total up to the work represented by a hundred million
kilogram-metres;[121] then we can at any rate see—whatever small
variations there may be in the estimates—how immense are the
potentialities of the tiniest points of matter; how each minutest atom
comprehends, as Shelley says, “a world of loves and hatreds” (_i.e._
positive and negative electric charges); we realize that no
manifestations of unexpected power are _per se_ incredible; and we are
indeed rather inclined to wonder how it is that these great inter-atomic
energies do not more often force themselves on our attention!
It is evident that any such condition of being as we have supposed in
the case of the ‘inner’ or ‘spiritual’ body, might afford means for the
liberation—even from a single atom—of forces amply sufficient for the
most ‘miraculous’ phenomena; and we are led to wonder and to ask whether
it may not be the case that, after all, our gross bodies are really a
hindrance rather than a help—whether it may not be true that the powers
we could exert _without_ them and independently of muscles and sinews
and hands and feet would be far greater than those we actually do exert
by means of these organs and appendages; whether, in fact, our gross
bodies do not exercise a _limiting_ effect, confining our activities to
certain very clearly specified directions, and within certain very
definite bounds? At any rate, this point of view is worth considering.
Certainly the well-established facts of telepathy, and the equally
well-established facts of the projection of phantoms from persons dying,
or passing through great danger, to friends even at a great distance,
seem to show that the inner self of one person can send out rays or in
some way impress itself on the inner self of another far-off
person;[122] and this, under the theory of electrons moving at
prodigious speed, seems not impossible. For though there is a difficulty
in supposing ordinary physical vibrations or radiations to reach
effectively from one person to another (say a thousand miles away) on
account of the law of space itself, which makes such radiations diminish
in intensity as the square of the distance increases, yet in the case of
electrical radiations it seems possible to suppose two people related to
each other as positive and negative poles—in which case the radiations
of electric charges would pass along lines connecting the two, and with
comparatively little loss of intensity. Our present rather crude and
lumbering bodies probably impede these subtle exertions of force; and
the fact (already noted once or twice) of the greater activity of people
in the telepathic or phantasmogenetic directions, when they are
themselves outwardly in a dying or exhausted condition, seems to point
to a considerable liberation of these powers after death.
On the other hand, the well-established facts of perceptivity at a great
distance, or without the mediation of the gross body and the usual
end-organs, point in the same direction. Considerable investigations
have been made in this subject; and not only is the evidence for
occasional clairvoyance at a distance well established, but there are
curious cases in which the faculty of sight or of hearing seems to be
transferred from its natural organ to some other part of the body, as of
seeing with the knee, or the stomach, or the finger-tips. Myers gives
considerable attention to this subject, and thinks that Professor
Fontan’s experiments[123] “cannot lightly be set aside”; while Lombroso
quotes an hysterical patient of his own, a girl of fourteen, who lost
the sight of her eyes, but was able to read perfectly with the lobe of
her left ear! Later on, in the same patient, the sense of smell
concentrated itself in the heel of her foot! Mrs. Piper, as is well
known, commonly raises her _hand_ for the sitter to speak into, as if it
were her ear. And in cases of somnambulism the sleepwalker will
sometimes move securely through difficult or dangerous places with eyes
absolutely closed. All these things seem to point to an aboriginal power
of perception independent of the end-organs. It is obvious that if in
the course of evolution our present faculties of sight, hearing, and so
forth have been developed from the diffused sensitivity of an amœba or
some such creature, then those faculties must have existed, in their
undifferentiated state, in the amœba; or, to put the matter another way,
the faculty of sight clearly does not reside in the cornea of the eye,
or in the crystalline lens, or even in the retina itself; which are
merely an apparatus evolved for dealing with the details of the matter.
The retina catches the light-disturbance, and the optic nerve conveys it
to the brain, and the brain-cells are agitated by it; but where does
_sight_ come in? At some point, doubtless, the agitations of the
brain-cells or of their internal molecules are _seen_ and interpreted;
but the being that sees and interprets them may (we had almost said
_must_) be capable of directly seeing and interpreting similar
agitations in the outer world—that is, it may or must by its nature be
capable of seeing the events of the outer world without the mediation of
the end-organs or the brain. Frederick Myers, dealing with this subject,
says:—“I start from the thesis that the perceptive power within us
precedes and is independent of the specialized sense-organs, which it
has developed for earthly use. ‘It is the mind that sees and the mind
that hears, the other things are blind and deaf.’”[124] He thinks that
in the development or unfolding of life on our planet “certain
sensibilities got themselves defined and stereotyped upon the organism
by the evolution of end-organs. Others failed to get thus externalized;
but may, for aught we know, persist nevertheless in the central
organs.”[125] It is evident—however we may explain the matter—that
activities and sensibilities do persist and manifest themselves in the
human organism quite independent of the ordinary and stereotyped
end-organs, and this fact must go far to persuade us, not only that
there is an inner, a more subtle, and a more durable body than that
which we usually recognize, but that in some respects this latter body
is a limitation and a hindrance to the activity of the former, and to
the swiftness and range of the perceptions of the soul.
* * * * *
What, then, it will naturally be asked, is the object or purpose or use
of our incarnation in this grosser body?—why, if there is such an
ethereal or spiritual frame within, should it thus tend to accrete
denser particles upon itself and ultimately to clothe itself in a
vesture of so opaque and material a nature? It would be rash to attempt
to answer so profound a question offhand—off one’s own bat as it were;
and still more rash perhaps to accept any of the ready-made answers
which are offered in such profusion, and in so many different jargons
and lingos, by the sects and schools, from the Gnostics and Theosophists
to the most philistine of the chapels and churches. Yet if one may
venture a suggestion, it would seem rather likely that the object and
purpose and use of this process by which the soul is entangled in
matter, and its operation and perception so strangely hampered and
limited, is—limitation; that _limitation_ itself and even _hindrance_
are part and parcel of the great scheme of the soul’s deliverance. But
the further consideration of this I will defer to a later chapter.[126]