APOLLONIUS
OR THE
PRESENT AND FUTURE
OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
APOLLONIUS
OR
The Present and Future of
Psychical Research
BY
E. N. BENNETT, M.A.
_Late Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford_
Κέρδος ἄν εἴη μήτε πιστεύειν μήτε ἀπιστεῖν πᾶσιν
_Phil. Vit. Apoll. II, 45_
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
APOLLONIUS, COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY E. P.
DUTTON & COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED. :: :: PRINTED IN U. S. A.
APOLLONIUS
OR THE
PRESENT AND FUTURE
OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Psychical research has in the last twenty-five years lived down the
obloquy and suspicion which surrounded its earlier days, and secured an
assured position as a recognized branch of scientific study. In nearly
every European country and in the United States of America men of
acknowledged eminence in their professions――philosophers, scientists,
doctors, literary men――have devoted themselves to the earnest study of
those obscure and baffling phenomena which form the subject matter of
psychical research, though this field of scientific endeavour holds
at present few allurements in the shape of personal advantage or
reward, no appreciable endowments exist to facilitate such research,
no professorial chairs are reserved for its devotees. The patient and
unselfish toil of those men, who have given to psychical research years
which otherwise might have brought them rich material gains, is based
on their deep and abiding interest in the subject, and their frank
endorsement of Schopenhauer’s words:
“The phenomena under discussion are, at least from a
philosophical standpoint, of all the facts presented to us by
the whole of experience without comparison the most important;
it is therefore the duty of every educated man to make himself
thoroughly acquainted with them.”
Nevertheless, in spite of the recent emergence of psychical research
into the clearer light of scientific tolerance and even encouragement,
it must be admitted that its literary output has within recent years,
as far as the English-speaking races are concerned, fallen far behind
the brilliant and yet substantial work of its earlier pioneers. Few,
if any, of our modern researchers in Great Britain have reached the
high level attained by the works of, say, Myers, Gurney, Podmore,
Professor and Mrs Sidgwick, and Professor James of Harvard. Nor again
has any adequate progress been maintained in the experimental work
which characterized the earlier history of the Society for Psychical
Research. Our main evidence for telepathy is still the careful work of
the Sidgwick group at Brighton, and little has been accomplished in
the investigation of “physical phenomena” since the perplexities and
disappointments of the Palladino experiments. In America the glory has
indeed departed from a movement which was formerly illumined by the
splendid work of William James, Hyslop, Hodgson, and Prince.
On the other hand, if in Great Britain the earlier branches of
experiment have to some extent been neglected, a vast amount of useful
work has been accomplished since the death of Myers in the new field
of “cross correspondence,”[1] which, in the opinion of some, may well
prove to be the most productive of all our areas of research. On the
Continent too experimental work of a high order has been developed
during recent years, more especially in France and in Germany, the
results of which have been given to the world in the writings of such
men as Richet, Osty, Schrenck-Notzing, Tischner, Dessoir, Driesch, and
others. The happy selection this year of Dr Driesch as President of the
S. P. R. is a tribute to the fine work of himself and his countrymen.
No better future could indeed be desired for psychical research than
that it should occupy the serious attention of German scholars and be
treated in accordance with the painstaking and efficient methods of
German science.
[1] i. e. two mediums sitting widely apart, sometimes even in
different countries, receive different messages alleged to
come from the same discarnate personality. When taken
separately such messages may be obscure and meaningless;
when read in conjunction they present a clear and intelligible
meaning.
But while the advance of psychical research on strictly scientific
lines has to some extent fallen short of the hopes of our pioneers,
an unprecedented development has taken place in the cruder and less
critical forms of what is popularly known as “Spiritualism”. This
increased interest in spiritualistic phenomena has been followed by
a vast output of books devoted to the acceptance of the spiritist
theory and generally characterized by the absence of scientific
spirit or critical investigation. Thousands of persons who fully
admit their acceptance of the “facts of spiritualism” and allege that
they find in the teachings of the spiritualist creed guidance in life
and consolation in death appear to be satisfied with a minimum of
reason for the faith which is in them. Popular enthusiasm for occult
experiences has produced no corresponding increase in the number of
serious students. The valuable material accumulated with immense care
in the _Proceedings_ of the Psychical Research Society is to a large
extent unknown to and unexplored by the modern spiritualist, who
professes to base his claims, if called upon to do so, on uncritical
data derived from professional clairvoyants or his own automatic
script. The result has been a veritable flood of alleged messages from
another world which, in some cases, have been supplied to the Sunday
newspapers by discarnate and obliging intelligences with the regularity
of an editorial leader. The recognized spiritualist churches, “Lyceums”
and similar organizations in Great Britain, 610 in number apart from
independent societies and groups, possess a membership of at least
54,000; and, despite the honourable efforts of many educated and
enlightened spiritualists who are determined enemies of mediumistic
fraud, a steady increase has taken place in the ranks of those
pseudo-mediums who trade on the credulity of the public.
At first sight this strange development might appear to be wholly out
of keeping with the spirit of an age which may reasonably be described
as materialistic. The appalling failure of organized Christianity to
avert or shorten the War, the diseased growths which have fastened upon
our music, art, and drama, the waste and extravagance in our social
life, the cruel self-seeking of our international conduct――these and
other influences of the War-period and its aftermath have provided a
fitting inspiration for large sections of our population which appear
to have little taste for much beyond the life-purpose of Mr. Wells’
hero “to put one’s hands on the dibs, and have a good time.” But
history has demonstrated in the case of individuals and nations alike
that material and even intellectual progress does not necessarily
eliminate superstition. The sceptical Julius Caesar crawled up the
steps of the Capitol to avert the jealous wrath of the gods; the
Renaissance was responsible for two centuries of witch-burning. And so
we find that side by side with the weakening of moral and religious
sanctions a widespread spirit of credulous and uncritical belief
pervades the community. The vast developments in the circulation of
cheap newspapers while adding enormously to the information of the
public on current events, has also led our less educated citizens in
general to accept what they see in print. During the War-fever even
men of recognized position whose training might, one would think,
have instilled into them some measure of intellectual caution, have
exhibited amazing credulity. The late Bishop of Carlisle, and the
Editor of _Punch_ are typical of thousands of our fellow-citizens,
clerical and lay alike, who accepted without question such grotesque
fabrications as the German “Corpse Factory” or the “Crucified
Canadian.” Stories embodied in the _Bryce Report_ and similar
publications were received without any misgiving or discrimination by
ninety-nine per cent. of our population. The nebulous story of the
singularly inefficient “Angels of Mons” formed the text of lay and
ecclesiastical addresses. The national mind, carefully tutored by the
fraud or stupidity of controlled journalism, was ready when the War
ceased to exchange the material horrors of this world for the spiritual
excitements of the next.
The most powerful impulse, however, behind the new spiritualism has
come from the staggering loss of human life in the Great War. Never
before in the world’s history has the cry of human bereavement been so
loud and bitter, for the vast majority of the millions who perished in
the conflict were young men leaving behind them a heritage of sorrow
incomparably greater than that which follows from the loss of the old,
who in far greater numbers die every year in the ordinary course of
nature. Nor has the poignancy of their grief for the loss of sons and
brothers been lessened for those among the survivors who have reached
the conviction that these vast armies of the world were led to the
slaughter on false pretences, and that the soldiers died not, as most
of them honestly believed, to promote justice, peace, and freedom, but
to subserve the same vile motives of imperialist and commercial greed
which have promoted every other modern war.
In earlier ages the Christian religion did indubitably inspire in the
minds of its adherents a genuine conviction of a life beyond the grave
and a future recognition of those lost awhile. But Protestantism in its
violent rejection of earlier tenets has so far attenuated the doctrine
of a future existence that its harsh interdicts on prayers for the
dead and its vague and inconsistent beliefs as to the state of the
departed have to a large extent ceased either to attract or convince.
At Omdurman the writer saw thousands of men advancing against the most
terrific fire of the century’s warfare with the name of God upon their
lips and real conviction of a future life in their hearts――but these
men were not Christians. The carelessness, timidity, or corruption of
the Churches have served to devitalize not only the ethical precepts
of their Master but also that immortality which He brought to light.
But, although the old springs of comfort have to a large extent ceased
to flow, the needs of the human heart remain, and are turned to those
fresh sources of assurance and consolation which are so lavishly
offered by modern Spiritualism.
* * * * *
Those who undertake the scientific consideration of psychic phenomena
must realize the existence of certain initial difficulties specially
attached to this branch of research. No form of scientific work is
more exposed than this to the dangerous influence of the “personal
equation” in the researcher. An astronomer might conceivably be
prejudiced in his work on Mars by some _a priori_ tendency to regard
that planet as the home of sentient beings, but the influence of such
personal factors in scientific research may generally be regarded as
almost negligible. When, however, we find ourselves in contact with
psychic phenomena which indicate intelligence, it is often difficult to
dissociate our conclusions as to the source of such intelligence from
our other beliefs or disbeliefs. On an occasion famous in the annals
of the Society for Psychical Research a sealed envelope containing
a written statement by the late F. W. Myers was opened in order to
test the accuracy of Mrs Verrall’s automatic ‘Myers’ script, which
had previously claimed to reveal the words of the sealed message. I
shall never forget the look of cruel disappointment which appeared on
the faces of some of those present when the two messages were found
to be dissimilar. On the other hand one of the party, a persistent
opponent of the spiritist hypothesis, received the result with obvious
satisfaction.
That such preconceived hopes or opinions colour the general attitude
of the devotees of popular and uncritical spiritualism is obvious.
Given a dark room, a professional medium inadequately controlled or
uncontrolled and a cardboard trumpet, the voice which comes through
the trumpet is, to a large extent, accepted as that of a discarnate
friend because the sitters are already convinced of a survival or
earnestly desire to be so convinced. Even in the later work of
psychical researchers of a higher order, men of intellectual eminence
and scientific training, a certain relaxation of critical rigidity is
sometimes noticeable. In these cases the lapse from earlier standards
of evidence is no doubt due to the absolute conviction secured by long
and critical investigations at some previous period. When already
convinced intellectually by earlier experiences of the reality of the
phenomena under investigation, even men of the mental calibre of a Sir
William Crookes may almost insensibly deviate in subsequent discussions
from the evidential standard of the investigations from which they
derived their earlier conclusions.
There exists another weakness of the human mind against which the
psychical researcher must always be on his guard. Those perverse
tendencies which are covered by the term ‘megalomania’ form a sinister
factor which serves continually to warp the judgment and even, in
some cases, the moral sense of those who lay claim to the possession
of supernormal powers. It is doubtful whether this form of mental
perversity, appearing often as a kind of kink in otherwise normal and
regular minds, has ever been adequately recognized by those whose
task it has been to collate the facts and estimate the validity of
alleged psychic phenomena. Megalomaniac impulses, indeed, would appear
to provide at any rate a partial explanation of many declarations
about strange and startling occurrences outside the actual area of
the _séance_ room. The writer, from personal experiences in several
modern wars, including the last, and a careful study of war psychology
and war-literature, has come to the conclusion that of the large
number of atrocities which are alleged to disfigure the record of all
civilized armies only a very small percentage ever occur at all. Some
of these stories are certainly invented by Propaganda Departments,
civil and military, whose members, in some instances, do not scruple
to disseminate falsehoods in order to blacken the good name of an
enemy people and so increase the ferocity and fighting efficiency of
their own troops. But the bulk of these atrocity tales are due to the
megalomaniac desire on the part of soldiers or civilians to recount
thrilling and terrible events or pose as the actual participants in
some gruesome episode. A civilian refugee or a wounded soldier in
hospital (a normally truthful person) will sometimes invent in detail
an atrocity story in order to impress an interrogator or a nurse and
so secure for himself an amount of megalomaniac satisfaction. It is
presumably the same curious impulse which brings to famous criminals
in the dock offers of marriage from ordinarily decent and respectable
women, or leads an obscure tourist to carve his initials on the
Parthenon, or stimulates people to frenzied social effort in order to
shake the hand of a royal personage, however commonplace his character
or feeble his achievement.
But if this form of mental perversion finds so many outlets in the
course of everyday life, we may well expect it to flourish even more
abundantly in the environment of psychic happenings. After all, what
ordinary experience, however desirable, could vie in value and interest
with the power to receive or convey actual messages from the dead? What
ordinary scientific achievement could equal the exercise of a power
which could secure the passage of matter through matter, bring about
the levitation of a table without personal contact in defiance of the
laws of gravitation, or cause the appearance of a materialized hand or
even a full-length figure?
The professional mediums who every Sunday, sometimes more frequently,
conduct the spiritualist services in our towns are obviously regarded
as persons of great importance and authority by their large audiences,
and the consciousness of this, apart altogether from the fact of their
fees, may stimulate them to supplement, if need be, the output of
possibly genuine phenomena by an ever-ready supply of pseudo-messages
and haphazard “delineations.” The humbler mediums, usually unpaid, who
form the centre of thousands of “circles” in our working-class homes
are invested with an importance and feel a mental exaltation quite
foreign to the drabness of their ordinary surroundings and occupations.
And here again if genuine powers of clairvoyance are inadequate or
non-existent, this special form of spiritual pride will still provide
a satisfactory flow of messages from the deceased buccaneer or Indian
chief who acts as the “control.”
It is difficult indeed to assign any limits to the intrusion of
this singular influence in the domain of psychical research. In one
remarkable instance a London barrister of recognized standing and
enjoying a large income from his profession posed for some time in
private circles as a physical medium. He claimed _inter alia_ the
power of causing the partial levitation of a table by placing his
hands on the top. Yet at a sitting conducted by members of the S. P.
R. this gentleman was easily detected in the childish trick of having
inserted inside his cuffs two small pieces of wood, which were thus
introduced under the table’s edge! On another occasion I found during
the investigation of a case in Hampshire that a maid-servant, possibly
in collusion with her mistress, was producing luminous crosses by
rubbing moistened matches on the furniture and walls――there being no
conceivable motive for this transparent deception beyond the desire to
be regarded as a successful “medium”. Much, if not all of the story
of the Rev. Stainton Moses’ career can probably best be explained
as an amazing example of spiritual megalomania. Such a theory of
course involves the disagreeable conclusion that a clergyman and a
public-school master, endowed with a kindly and generous disposition,
must have spent years of his life in the systematic deception of
his most intimate friends and, later on, of the public at large.
Nevertheless, all said and done, the moral miracle in this astonishing
case is, as Mr. Podmore suggested, more easy than the physical one.
The extraordinary poltergeist cases――cases by no means infrequent and
widely distributed――in which furniture is violently moved, windows and
crockery smashed, and pictures thrown down, can usually be traced to
the furtive trickery of little boys, or more commonly little girls,
who do not scruple to destroy their parents’ property and peace of
mind in order to secure for themselves the secret satisfaction of some
megalomaniac impulse.
Apart from the deliberate imposture, due more often than we suspect
to the megalomaniac impulses referred to above, there is some ground
for believing in the existence of a still more subtle form of apparent
fraud. It is frequently asserted by mediums of repute that they
are unable to do justice to themselves or exercise their gifts to
good purpose because of the unsatisfactory influence of one or more
sitters of an aggressively sceptical type, a curious parallel――be it
said in all reverence――to the strange remark of the Evangelist that
the miracles of Our Lord were sometimes actually prevented by the
disbelief of His hearers.
But may the disbelieving sitters, in some instances, go further
than a mere hindrance of genuine phenomena and actually cause the
production of trickery and fraud on the part of the medium? Given a
medium susceptible to telepathic suggestion, and one or more sitters
suspecting or convinced in advance that all they will witness at the
_séance_ will be an exhibition of trickery, it is easy to see that
telepathic suggestion of fraud, conscious or unconscious, from the
minds of these sceptics may result in trickery which is primarily due
not to the medium but to themselves. This risk is obviously accentuated
when the medium falls (as, for example, in Mrs Piper’s case) into a
cataleptic condition or some form of ordinary hypnosis.
In any case it is confidently asserted by psychical researchers of
capacity and experience that the same medium may be fraudulent at one
moment and genuine at another. Such a thesis is doubtless hard of
acceptance to ordinary men or women, however disposed they may be
to an unprejudiced consideration of psychic phenomena; and it was,
in fact, rejected by the original founders of the Psychical Research
Society, who definitely refused to include within the area of their
investigations the alleged phenomena of any medium once detected in
the perpetration of fraud. Further experience, however, has apparently
modified this once inflexible attitude, and at any rate a majority
of the Council of the S. P. R. are now willing to hold experimental
_séances_ with mediums against whom fraud has been openly alleged or
actually proved. The writer shares the view of this majority, for, as
far as he can judge from personal experience or the definite testimony
of others, a medium like Eusapia Palladino was, sometimes, indubitably
guilty of patent and childish trickery (which she would subsequently
admit quite shamelessly), and at other times produced valid phenomena
of amazing interest under the strictest test-conditions.
We need not devote much time to the deliberate fraud and trickery
which have always been admittedly associated with certain manifestations
of mediumship and have frequently inspired such disgust and contempt in
the minds of would-be investigators that they have abandoned the quest
altogether. Those who have persevered in spite of discouragement know
what it is to find oneself in uncomfortable and ill-ventilated rooms,
holding the hands of unknown persons in the dark, tortured by the
metallic music of a cheap gramophone, or compelled to join in discordant
renderings of revivalist hymns or dreadful ditties like “Where is now
the prophet Daniel?” And one realizes all the time that the music is
meant to drown the noise caused by a fraudulent medium in wrapping
himself in muslin or adjusting a false beard, and further that one will
have to pay a guinea for this wretched exhibition! What researcher,
again, has not experienced the boredom of public or private sittings for
“delineations”, when a medium, after a few spasmodic twitchings, “passes
under control” and proceeds to describe the appearance of the deceased
relatives and friends of the members of a credulous audience, which will
subsequently contribute to the “silver collection”? Who, too, has not
reflected with amazement upon the staggering credulity of men and women
who accept the delineated “old gentleman with white hair” or the “old
lady with grey hair parted in the middle” as unquestionably their late
father or mother; or, in a materializing _séance_, believe that the same
piece of butter muslin waved in one direction is a lost grandparent and
waved in another direction is a little child? Such wearisome and sordid
experiences form the _via dolorosa_ of researchers, who are prepared
to seek for gold even in the muddiest streams, and sometimes find
it; for, even if ninety-five per cent. of the alleged phenomena are
explicable by trickery or deception, the remaining five may defy all
such explanations.
The student of psychical research is confronted at the outset by a
considerable volume of reasoned and unreasoned opposition. Persons
who in other directions are entirely opposed to each other’s points
of view combine for a common assault: uncompromising materialists
and devout evangelical Christians form a strange alliance against
what they vaguely describe as “spiritualism”. An even more curious
dislike comes from large masses of our population who, without any
deep convictions or reasoned arguments for their hostility, are
irritated by a movement which appears to upset the even tenor of
their mental conservatism. Even cultured people are not proof against
this prejudice: at many dinner tables any sustained reference to the
alleged phenomena of mediumship would be regarded as “bad form” and
thoroughly objectionable. When the writer entered the House of Commons
he was informed by the chairman of his Liberal Association that his
membership of the Psychical Research Society would “do him harm in the
constituency”. This unintelligent aversion to spiritual novelties,
which almost wrecked the Salvation Army in its infancy, secured the
triumph of the Dayton “fundamentalists,” and now, though happily with
diminishing force, assails the study of clairvoyance or telepathy,
seems analogous to that primitive instinct which impels wild birds to
combine for the destruction of an exotic parrot which has escaped from
its cage.
Even as regards the more serious of his opponents, the apologist
of psychical research is entitled to object at the start that
comparatively few of these are adequately equipped for their task. It
is lamentable that our hostile critics have for the most part scarcely
taken the trouble to understand our position or furnish themselves with
more than a quite superficial knowledge of the facts. What a sorry
figure would be cut by most of our lay and ecclesiastical opponents
were they set an examination paper on the evidences accumulated by the
Psychical Research Society, to go no further! One of the best known
opponents of the phenomena of mediumship has admitted that he has never
made any personal investigation of the claims of any prominent medium,
British or foreign, and a _brochure_ distributed to his audience
exhibits an amazing ignorance of the subject matter against which his
platform diatribes are directed. There is another reason for popular
hostility. Much of the fraud which admittedly exists is of a peculiarly
heartless character, for its exponents derive their resources largely
from bereaved men and women who fly to spiritualism for tidings of
their lost ones and for solace in their grief. The natural indignation
felt against such traffickers in human sorrow undoubtedly predisposes
many superficial critics to assume in their haste that all public
mediumship is fraudulent.
Apart from the more or less unintelligent prejudices of the public
generally, the scientific investigation of the phenomena of mediumship
is hampered by the professional antagonisms of the Church and the Law.
The menace of legal proceedings, while a terror to the fraudulent,
is also a deterrent to the supply of genuine phenomena. Mediums are
usually persons of a very sensitive and nervous temperament, and
the fact that at any moment a Mrs Leonard is liable to the same
legal procedure and the same conviction as the most insignificant
fortune-teller is not conducive to the regular supply of those
supernormal facts which form the subject-matter of scientific psychical
research. From time to time, and apparently by concerted action, legal
proceedings are set on foot by the authorities against public mediums.
The requisite evidence is furnished by detectives or journalists
who have secured sittings with the defendants, and the prosecution
takes place under an Act of George IV, directed against “vagabonds”
and “fortune-tellers”. Our magistrates usually maintain on these
occasions that the essential part of the legal offence is the medium’s
claim to “foretell the future”, and this is apparently accentuated
and aggravated by the “intention to deceive” or the acceptance of
money or reward. During an epidemic of legal medium-baiting in
1917, men and women were sentenced to heavy fines, up to £50, or
imprisonment, because of their claims to foretell the future. Yet
a little reflection might have caused our magistrates to remember
that all the official representatives of organized religion are
regularly engaged in foretelling the future and are paid――and quite
rightly――for their services in this respect. The so-called “sport”
of the race-course is――as many of us know to our cost――built upon an
elaborate and extensive system of prophecy for payment――whether the
forecasts are made in the columns of the most respectable newspapers
or in the circulars of professional tipsters. Nor, indeed, can one
wholly dissociate those manifold pledges which disfigure our political
elections from the same suspicion; for these prophetic anticipations
are made in order to win votes and so secure the social and pecuniary
rewards which result from electoral success.
Some of the magistrates who tried and condemned these mediums displayed
a pitiable ignorance of the whole subject of psychic phenomena. Almost
anybody indeed appears to be considered competent to dogmatize about
theological or psychic matters without any credentials in the shape
of adequate study or experience. The following extract from the well
known “Brockway” case serves to illustrate the mental equipment of a
magistrate for a trial of this character:
“The Rev. G. H. St. John Mildmay stated that he had had two
sittings with the defendant and was amazed that she could tell
him names that he had written in a paper which was then folded
up and held in her hand.... He was convinced that she was
perfectly genuine.
_Magistrate_: You have, I suppose, seen conjurors taking
cards out of people’s hair and such things? (_Laughter_).
_Witness_: There was nothing resembling that.”
A subsequent reference by one of the witnesses to the possible
influence of “lying spirits” was followed by this edifying dialogue:
“_Mr. Barker_ (_prosecuting Counsel_): I object to such
ridiculous questions.
_Mr. Wild_ (_for the defence_) asked the magistrate to rule
whether such a question was ridiculous.
_The Magistrate_ (_with emphasis_): I certainly think it is
ridiculous.
Mr. Wild then said――with justice――that it was evidently waste
of time to go on, and left the Court.”
The antagonism of the Christian Churches, a _damnosa hereditas_ from
the unspeakable records of past centuries, is now a waning force,
chiefly confined to the ranks of what the late Dean Rashdall rather
roughly called “the inferior clergy”. There are some exceptions. The
distinguished Dean of St. Paul’s, a devoted student of the obsolete
fantasies of Neoplatonic philosophy, seems quite unable to dissociate
the serious study of psychic phenomena from the fraudulent banging of
tambourines or the wearing of false wigs. He is ready to consider the
unsupported assertions of Plotinus, that that third-century mystic on
one occasion enjoyed some form of beatific vision in the “contemplation
of the One”; but on the other hand the more recent and infinitely
better supported testimony of a Lombroso, Crookes, or William James
as to the occurrence of a psychical or clairvoyant phenomenon is
contemptuously ignored. Now and again sincere representatives of
medieval Christianity like Lord Hugh Cecil are to be found who ban the
_séance_-room because they are convinced that clairvoyance is a form of
necromancy and ‘controls’ like Mrs Piper’s “Phinuit” or Mrs Leonard’s
“Feda” demoniacal agencies totally unfit for Christian intercourse.
The more general and more enlightened attitude of at any rate the
Anglican Church is embodied in the _Report_ of the bishops at the
Lambeth Conference of 1920:
“We say without hesitation that we welcome scientific
investigation: we recognize the patience and the skill with
which members of the Psychical Research Society examine the
mass of evidence of all kinds submitted to them, and above
all the unmistakable desire to safeguard the inquiry against
illusion or fraud, to arrive at truths, and to interpret
scientific facts correctly.”
Yet side by side with this moderate and reasonable resolution we find
that the Conference registered a very strong warning against “the habit
of recourse to _séances_ and mediums”. Here again is revealed once
more the ignorance of many well-meaning and able critics who possess a
merely superficial acquaintance with the subject. How, for example, can
we study scientifically the phenomena of clairvoyance without recourse
to clairvoyant mediums? Such an embargo would――to go no further――have
robbed us of the profoundly interesting records of Mrs Piper’s
trance-mediumship, or the striking results contained in Dr Osty’s
volumes. One might almost as well approve of the scientific study of
anatomy and forbid recourse to the dissecting-room.
* * * * *
At this point, and in view of the admitted imperfections which mark
the course of our inquiry into supernormal phenomena――the fraud and
credulity and malobservation which so easily beset our work――the
question may fairly be asked: “Has psychical research really any
future?”
To such a query I have no hesitation in giving an emphatic “Yes.”
One may go further and say that at no period since the subject was
seriously studied have we had better reasons for such an answer. Within
the last few years a veritable revolution has occurred in the general
attitude of science towards the phenomena of the universe. In the
light of Einstein’s discoveries the dogmatism of the materialist has
become obsolete. The old scientific outlook has been undermined and
superseded by scientists themselves. Atoms and electrons are no longer
regarded as ultimate realities. According to Professor Eddington,
“there is nothing to prevent the assemblage of atoms forming the brain
from being itself a thinking machine in virtue of that nature which
physics leaves undetermined and undeterminable.” Not only the ‘laws of
Nature’ but space and time and the great globe itself may conceivably
be mental phenomena, themselves the creations of mind. And so it has
come to pass that such an utterance as Professor Clifford’s: “The
Universe is made of ether and atoms and there is no room for ghosts”
remains only a fragment of an outworn scientific creed. The division
of the external world into a material world and a spiritual world is
now held by scientists to be superficial. No inherent impossibility
rules out of court the possible manifestations of other minds than
ours, functioning apart from our own brains and bodies. “We may
doubt,” says Professor Eddington, “whether there is any branch of
knowledge from which exact science is excluded”: there _is_ “room for
ghosts,” and room for other supernormal phenomena hitherto ignored or
denied by scientists in general. The fact of telepathy indicates the
existence of other methods of mental communion outside the recognized
channels of sense, and for that reason is rejected _a priori_ by
some of the more conservative representatives of science. “Such a
direct transmission of ideas from one mind to another” writes Dr
Jodl, “without any perceptible physical method of communication would
indicate the presence of a crack in the very foundations of all our
views on nature, and, if proved, would lead us to a complete revision
of fundamental principles.” Dr Henning declares that “psycho-physics,
yes, even psychology, as a science, must be utterly wrecked before we
have recourse to telepathy.” How different in tone is the statement
of one of the most acute among our younger thinkers, Professor Broad
of Cambridge[2], who not only tolerates the existence of a spiritual
world but postulates the actual necessity of a “psychic factor” in
order to provide a coherent explanation of the universe and ourselves.
[2] _The Mind and its Place in Nature_, 1925.
Since the advent, then, of a new scientific revelation the field lies
open for further work and further advances in psychical research. No
longer denied access to the precincts of orthodox science or received
with a dubious welcome, the professed student of supernormal phenomena
can claim and receive a definite status as the representative of an
acknowledged branch of scientific study. But in realizing this, he must
realize too the responsibilities of a position so assured. Two objects
must be permanently kept in view――the accumulation of fresh facts, and
the exercise of rigid control and accuracy in our experiments.
In the discovery of new material we are, of course, faced by the
irritating and disappointing character of the phenomena with which
we deal. They are often spasmodic, sporadic, irregular. They do not
occur in any fixed sequence nor can they be predicted. Even when
our experiments yield obvious success, we are ignorant of what the
conditions of such success may be: no satisfactory experimental control
of these wayward phenomena seems at present feasible. If they are
reached through the channels of mediumship, we are again exposed to the
varying and uncertain influences exercised by the physical or mental
condition of the medium at the moment. It is quite clear that these
‘sensitives’ are in almost all cases persons of a definitely neurotic
or hysterical temperament; indeed, if we can ever establish the actual
connection between these pathological conditions and the production of
supernormal phenomena we shall have gone a long way in unravelling the
tangled skeins of psychical research. The discovery and classification
of fresh psychic facts may mean the expenditure of long and tedious
hours, but without the renewed exercise of “_recherche lente,
persévérante, obstinée_” we cannot hope to convince ourselves or to
speak with our enemies in the gate. In this department of research more
than all others our facts soon become more or less obsolete, or at any
rate lose their compelling force. No one now alludes to the careful
mechanical safeguards against fraud devised by Sir William Crookes
in the eighties. Our generation has almost forgotten the convincing
experiments in telepathy carried out by the Sidgwicks and Professor
Barrett, and no longer quotes the Stainton Moses phenomena which Myers
accepted. The call is for the production of fresh data collected by
our own contemporaries. Without therefore troubling ourselves unduly
for the time being with explanations and theories about the facts,
without intruding into the work the will to believe or disbelieve, let
us devote ourselves to experiment and empirical facts. Surely among
the thousand members of the Society for Psychical Research, to go no
further, enough recruits could be found to supplement adequately by
their own unselfish efforts the splendid work of our own pioneers in
Great Britain and America.
Further, in the process of accumulating and systematizing our facts
we must accept as an axiom of unquestioned validity that natural
and normal causes must be eliminated before we have recourse to
the supernatural or supernormal. In other words, we must regard it
as _prima facie_ more probable that the medium is consciously or
unconsciously fraudulent or that the sitters are the victims of
credulity or malobservation than that men and women possess a capacity
for acquiring knowledge or influencing matter which transcends the
recognized facts of ordinary experience. Our course then as psychical
researchers is clear. We must exercise such drastic and complete
control over the whole course of our experiments as to render deception
an unthinkable hypothesis. That such methods of control exist and can
be applied is indubitable: that they are occasionally absent from
_séances_ conducted by scientific and educated persons must equally be
admitted.
Podmore revealed several defects in the alleged safeguards against
fraud accepted in certain experiments with Florence Cook and even D.
D. Home; and quotes a serious instance of careless description in the
record of the famous experience of the London Dialectical Society with
the latter medium: where the statement that “the room was illumined
by moonlight” is shewn from the calendar (as in the parallel of Sir
John Moore’s burial) to have been incorrect. In more recent times the
conditions observed in Warsaw and in Paris with the mediums Kluski and
Gujik have been sometimes unsatisfactory. Nor can any impartial critic,
in view of the surprisingly lax conditions which prevailed, necessarily
accept the widely recorded successes of Professor Gilbert Murray in
thought-transference as manifestations of anything abnormal or unusual.
In the case of any less distinguished performer it would have been
difficult to regard such experiments, in the absence of any repetition
of them under test conditions, as worth the serious consideration of a
scientific body.
The collection of fresh facts is, to a large extent, conditioned by
the supply of sensitives and by the provision of adequate funds for
such research. Apart from the existing opportunities provided by
University chairs of Mental Science, Mental Philosophy and the like,
which have already contributed largely to this study when held by
men like McDougall, James, Schiller, and Broad in Great Britain and
America, private generosity will always apparently be ready to assist
in some measure the experimental work of psychical research. The most
serious obstacle arises not from the absence of monetary assistance
but from the fact that the feelings entertained towards one another
by the warring sects of religion are reflected in the rivalries and
disputes of the societies engaged in the study of psychic phenomena.
That regular supply of sensitives which is required for an adequate
collection of empirical facts is seriously hindered by the violent
animosities of leaders who fight over the bodies of well-known mediums
and sometimes tempt them, like football professionals, by the dangerous
offer of a higher fee.
* * * * *
If we accept the view that psychical research holds ample promise of a
useful future, we may next consider the various lines of our advance.
Any serious study of psychical research demands as its first essential
a knowledge of the results secured from a careful consideration of
telepathic phenomena. Many researchers would, indeed, maintain that
their investigations need not extend beyond these limits. They regard
telepathy, once scientifically established, as a working hypothesis
which will cover the whole field of those abnormal phenomena which
form our subject-matter. From this point of view, apparitions,
clairvoyance, crystal-visions, even the physical phenomena of the
_séance_-room――these and other abnormal happenings can be explained
by the exercise in one shape or another of the transference of human
thought and volition outside the ordinary channels of sense.
Those who hold that thought-transference is the solvent of all our
perplexities in psychical research may point to the fact that down
the centuries one marvel after another appears to have been directly
attributable to this cause. A useful monograph might be written on
this fascinating theme. To go no farther, it is easy to see how the
miracles recorded in Biblical and ecclesiastical literature, and the
amazing records of witchcraft and sorcery, may to a large extent be
brought within the compass of the telepathic solution.
No serious attempts to investigate the conditions or results of
thought-transference appear to have been undertaken before the middle
of last century. It was not indeed until 1876 that Sir William Barrett
really initiated the careful and scientific study of telepathic
phenomena which has been continued by the Society for Psychical
Research in England and on the Continent by Boirac, Osty, Tischner, and
many other distinguished savants. The results obtained have been, it is
true, questioned and criticized at every turn by certain scientists who
deny that telepathy is either proven or indeed possible. Professor Jodl
(quoted by Tischner) goes so far as to say: “Such a direct transmission
of ideas from one mind to another, without any perceptible physical
method of communication, would indicate the presence of a crack in
the very foundations of all our views on Nature.” “Psycho-physics”,
writes Dr Henning, “yes, even psychology as a science must be utterly
wrecked before we have recourse to telepathy.” It is, however, useless
to indulge in mere _a priori_ refutations or, in the case of telepathic
experiments, to concentrate on the failures and ignore the successes.
It is of course impossible within the very narrow space-limits of this
little book to furnish any detailed reference of such experiments.
Suffice it to say that evidence varied, cumulative and irresistible now
exists which has established telepathy as a scientific fact.
The study of telepathic phenomena suggests the interesting question
whether telepathy is a psychic factor of permanent and regular
character or whether it represents merely the dying embers of a once
more active force. Can the transference of human thought apart from
physical media be developed and systematized on such a scale as to
suggest immense possibilities in the human relationships of the
future? Or will such development be inevitably retarded by the fact
that telepathy is a dying sense to be classed with various obscure
eccentricities of the human body which serve merely as vestigial
landmarks in the long history of the race? Despite the alluring
possibilities of the first suggestion, indications certainly exist
which lend colour to the pathetic belief that research has only
discovered this force in the evening of its existence.
This view of telepathy as a “rudimentary survival” seems to be
strengthened by the admitted fact that manifestations of telepathy
are far more certain and more striking when the percipient is under
hypnotic suggestion; for, if it be the subliminal self which rises
above the threshold in hypnotic slumber and obeys the suggestion of
the agent’s mind, this is itself in all probability a manifestation of
race-experience rather than that of the individual. The everyday self,
the product of normal experience, is influenced to a much slighter
degree by hypnotic suggestion than that mysterious entity, the
secondary self, trailing its clouds of precarnate existence.
In the dim recesses of our race-history our pithecoid ancestors in
default of language may well have possessed telepathic powers for the
communication of their simple ideas, which powers have gradually been
rendered less necessary as language developed, and may ultimately,
unless stimulated and exercised, finally perish from atrophy. Such a
theory would be illustrated by those stories which are furnished by
reliable travellers and missionaries with reference to the amazing
transmission of news which at times appears to take place amongst
native races of a low level of civilization under circumstances which
preclude any opportunity for normal methods of communication.