purpose, blind and irrelevant, or movements only in sympathy with the
will of the assistant, one might rest in the conclusion that there is a
new and unknown force, which, mayhap, is a transmutation of one's own
nervous energy, derived from organic electricity, and this fact in
itself would be important; but the blows are apparently struck inside
the wooden substance of the table, and the movements are in response to
questions put to invisible beings.
In this way did the phenomena begin in 1848, in the United States, when
the Misses Fox heard, in their chamber, the noise of raps within the
walls and furniture. When their father, after several months of
vexatious inquiry, at last bethought himself of old ghost stories, and
appealed to the cause of these noises, the cause answered the questions
asked, by means of certain raps agreed upon, and declared itself to be
the soul of a former proprietor, killed in that very house. This soul
asked for their prayers, and for the burial of its former body.
Is this invisible cause within us, or is it outside of ourselves? Are we
capable of doubling ourselves in some way, yet without knowing it,--of
unconsciously giving, by mental suggestion, the answers to our own
questions, and of so producing certain physical effects without being
aware of it? Again, is there around us an intelligent atmosphere, a sort
of spiritual cosmos? or are there invisible beings, who are not human,
but so many gnomes, hobgoblins, or imps?--for such an invisible world
may exist around us. Finally can these effects really come from the
souls of the departed, who are able to return from the other world? And
where is this other world? Four hypotheses thus present themselves.
The lifting of a table, the displacement of an object, might be
attributed to an unknown force, developed by our nervous systems, or by
some other means; at any rate, these movements do not prove the
existence of an outside spirit. But when--by naming the letters of the
alphabet or by pointing to them on a tablet--the table, by certain
sounds in the wood, or by certain tips, composes an intelligent
paragraph, we are compelled to attribute this intelligent effect to an
intelligent cause. The medium himself may be the cause; and the easiest
way would evidently be to admit that he is tricking us, either by simply
striking the leg of the table with his foot, if he operates by raps, or
by directing the movements of the table, through bearing upon it more or
less heavily.
This, indeed, happens very often, and is what discourages so many
inquirers.
There are conditions, however, in which fraud is not supposable. The
fact that phenomena can be counterfeited is no reason for concluding
they do not exist. In experiments with magnetism and hypnotic
suggestion, many delusions beset the experimenters, and there is more or
less intentional foolery on the part of the subjects. Thus have I seen,
at the prison-hospital of Salpétrière and elsewhere, young women
outrageously deceiving the most serious investigators, who did not in
the least suspect such insincerity. At market fairs there may often be
seen booths where sleepwalkers are exhibited, who simulate genuine
somnambulism more or less cleverly. Yet one would palpably err who
should deny the existence of real magnetism, somnambulism, or hypnotic
suggestion, because of these humbugs and mockeries.
Let us, therefore, pass by fraud, and examine cases where all the
experimenters knew one another, and did not knowingly deceive, and thus
let us consider a series of observed facts. Here are some communications
for which I can vouch. They are sentences, dictated by raps:
God does not enlighten the world with thunder and meteors. He
controls peacefully the stars which shine. Thus do divine
revelations follow one another, with order, reason, and harmony.
Religion and Friendship are two companions, who help us along
life's painful road.
My brother: in the Law [this communication was addressed to an
Israelite] revive thy memory! Saul came to the Pythoness of
Endor, and begged her to raise the spirit of Samuel; and the
spirit of Samuel appeared, announcing to the King the nation's
destiny and his own. (1 Samuel xxviii.) "The spirit [wind]
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is
everyone that is born of the Spirit." (John iii. 8.)
This New Testament text was the more remarkable because it was written
in Latin. Here, therefore, are intelligible sentences and accurate
quotations. Could blind chance have composed them? Without forgetting
possible imposition, our hypotheses still await explication.
Here are other specimens which demand a certain astuteness and decided
mental struggle for their dictation. One paragraph begins thus: _Suov
imrap engèr_. The other: _Arevèlé suov neib_. It is necessary to spell
these two phrases backward, commencing at the end. Here the hypothesis
of mental suggestion becomes very complicated, as also the theory of
environment, and would imply special adroitness in the medium. Someone
asked: "Why have you dictated thus?" The power replied: "In order to
give you marvellous and unexpected evidence."
Here is another communication of a different kind, beginning, _Aimairs
vn oo uu ssevt_. To the demand what this bizarre assemblage of letters
signified, the answer came: "Read every alternate letter!" This
arrangement brought out these four lines:--
Amis, nous vous aimons bien tous,
Car vous êtes bons et fidèles.
Soyez unis en Dieu; sur vous
L'Esprit Saint étendra ses ailes.
This stanza may be translated thus:
You one and all, oh friends, we love,
For you are good, and faithful tread.
Be one in God; and then above
The Holy Ghost his wings will spread.
Surely this is sufficiently innocent of poetic pretension; but the mode
of dictation was decidedly difficult. This somewhat reduced, as it
seemed to us, the supposition of fraud, but did not altogether destroy
it.
A communication of a yet different kind is an imitation of Rabelais,
which is not so badly done, but cannot be well translated into English,
because of its grotesque and idiomatic character.
As to the identity of spirits, even if it could be demonstrated that the
preceding quotations emanated from disembodied minds, this would not be
a sufficient reason for admitting that the signatures are not entirely
apocryphal.
5
In a great many cases, too long to be reported in this essay, where the
communicating cause has declared itself to be the soul of a certain dead
person,--of a father, a mother, a child, or a kinsman,--names, dates,
and details were given, which were absolutely in accordance with facts
whereof the medium was ignorant; but in the cases where the identity
appeared to be best indicated, the questioner had his hands resting on
the table, repeated the alphabet, and might have unconsciously induced
the result. You try to invoke a man who bore, let us suppose, the name
of Charles. When the letter _c_ is pronounced, you exercise your
influence without knowing it. If the experiment is made by rocking the
table; you exercise a different pressure at that particular moment. If
the communication is by raps, and the letter passes without the expected
sound, you naturally allow it to be seen that there is a mistake. We
deceive ourselves without being aware of it. This frequently happened to
me during two years with this word Charles, which was the name of my
mother's brother, living in New Orleans. During those two years he told
me how he died; yet at that very time he was in the vigor of life. This
was in 1860 and 1861, and he did not pass away till 1864. We had,
therefore, been the dupes of an illusion.
Auto-suggestion, or self-suggestion, is also extremely frequent in these
experiments, as well as with writing mediums. I have before my eyes some
charming fables, published by Monsieur Jaubert, President of the Civil
Tribunal of Carcassonne, and some delicate poems, obtained through
planchette, by P. F. Mathieu,--besides some historic and philosophical
works,--all leading to the conclusion that these mediums have written
under their own influence; or, at best, affording no scientific proof of
a foreign influence.
There remain still unexplained the raps, and the motion of objects more
or less heavy. On this point I fully share the opinion of the great
chemist, Mr. Crookes, who says:
When manifestations of this kind are exhibited, this remark is
generally made: "Why do tables and chairs alone show these
effects? Why is this the peculiar property of furniture?"
I might reply that I am simply observing and reporting facts,
and that I need not enter into the _whys_ and _wherefores_.
Nevertheless it seems clear that if, in an ordinary dining-room,
any heavy inanimate body is to be lifted from the floor, it
cannot very well be anything except a table or a chair. I have
numerous proofs that this property does not appertain alone to
articles of furniture; but in this, as in other experimental
demonstrations, the intelligence or force--whichever it be that
produces these phenomena,--cannot choose but use objects
appropriate to its ends.
At different times during my researches I have heard delicate
raps, which sounded as if produced by a pin's point; a cascade
of piercing sounds, like those of a machine in full motion;
detonations in the air; light and acute metallic taps; cracking
noises, like those produced by a floor-polishing machine; sounds
which resembled scratching; warbling, like that of birds.
Each of these noises, which I have tested through different
mediums, had its special peculiarity. With Mr. Home they were
more varied; but, in strength and regularity, I have heard no
sounds which could approach those which came through Miss Kate
Fox. During several months I had the pleasure, on almost
innumerable occasions, of testing the varying phenomena which
took place in the presence of this lady, and it was the sounds
which I specially studied. It is usually necessary with other
mediums, in a regular séance, to sit awhile before anything is
heard; but with Miss Fox it seems to be merely necessary to
place her hand on something, no matter what, for the sounds to
manifest themselves like a triplicated echo, and sometimes loud
enough to be noticeable across several intervening rooms.
I have heard some of these noises produced in a living tree, in
a large pane of glass, on a stretched wire, on a tambourine, on
the roof of a cab, and in the box of a theatre. Moreover,
immediate contact is not always necessary. I have heard these
noises proceeding from the flooring and walls, when the medium's
hands and feet were tied, when he was standing on a chair, when
he was in a swing suspended from the ceiling, when he was
imprisoned in an iron cage, and when he lay in a swoon on a
sofa. I have heard them proceed from musical glasses. I have
felt them on my own shoulders, and under my own hands. I have
heard them on a piece of paper, fastened between the fingers by
a string through the corner of the sheet. With a full knowledge
of the numerous theories which have been brought forward to
explain these sounds, especially in America, I have tested them
in every way I could devise, until it was no longer possible to
escape the conviction that these sounds were real, and produced
neither by fraud nor by mechanical means.
An important question forces itself upon our attention: Are
these movements and noises governed by intelligence? From the
very beginning of my investigations I have satisfied myself that
the power producing these phenomena was not simply blind force,
but that some intelligence directed it, or at least was
associated with it. The noises, whereof I have spoken, were
repeated a determinate number of times. They became either
strong or feeble, at my request, and came from different places.
By a vocabulary of signals previously agreed upon, the power
answered questions, and gave messages with more or less
accuracy.
The intelligence governing these phenomena is sometimes
obviously inferior to that of the medium, and is often in direct
opposition to his wishes. When a determination has been reached
to do something which could not be regarded as quite reasonable,
I have seen communications urging a reconsideration of the
matter. This intelligence is at times of such a character that
one is forced to believe it does not emanate from any person
present. (Researches in Spiritualism, by William Crookes.)
This last sentence might be slightly modified, and the words _forced to
believe_ might be replaced by the words _disposed to believe_; for human
nature is complex, and we are not perpetually the same, even to
ourselves. What uncertainty we often find in our own opinions, upon
points not yet elucidated; and this we feel, even when called upon to
judge actions or events! Are we not sometimes contradictions to
ourselves?
Among the experiments made with these physical and psychical
manifestations of the tables, I will mention, as among the best, those
of Count de Gasparin, and of my sympathetic friend, Eugene Nus. The
Count has obtained rotations, upliftings, raps, revelations of numbers
previously thought of, movements without any human contact, and so on.
He concludes that human beings are endowed with a fluid, with an unknown
force, with an agency capable of impressing objects with the action
determined by our wills. (On Table-turning, Supernaturalism in General,
and Spirits.)
Eugene Nus has obtained, besides sentences dictated by the table,
certain philosophic definitions given almost invariably in exactly a
dozen words each. Here are some of them:
Geology: Studies in the transformation of the planets in their
periods of revolution.
Astronomy: Order and harmony of the external life of worlds,
individually and collectively.
Love: The pivot of mortal passion; attractive sexual force; the
element of continuity.
Death: Cessation of individuality, disintegration of its
elements, a return to universal life.
Let us note, in passing, the strangely singular fact of a departed soul
declaring that death is always the cessation of individuality!
There are whole pages of this kind. Eugene Nus had, as companions in his
experiments, Antony Méray, Toussenel, Franchot, Courbebaisse, a whole
group of transcendental socialists. Well, this is absolutely the
language of Fourier. The words _aroma_, _passional_, _solidarity_,
_clavier_, _composite_, _association_, _harmony_, _pivotal force_, are
in the vocabulary of the table. The author therefore inclines towards
the following explanation, as given in his Choses de l'Outre Monde
(Things of the Other World), Volume I. Paris, 1887.
Mysterious forces residing in human nature; emanations from
inmost potentiality, unknown till our day; the duplication of
our experimental power, which gives ability to think and act
outside ourselves.
(_To be concluded in July Arena._)
THE CHIVALRY OF THE PRESS.
BY JULIUS CHAMBERS.
[Illustration: (signed) Yours sincerely: Julius Chambers]
In the splendid days of Rome, the editor was he who introduced the
gladiators as they entered the arena to fight the tigers.
To-day, the editor directs the newspaper and he often affects to believe
that his mission on earth is to fight the tiger himself.
The editor of this class is a barbarian who forgets that Rome is only a
memory.
The successful editor of to-day recognizes the fact that the newspaper
exists to amuse and instruct, to uphold public honor and private virtue
quite as much as to denounce fraud or expose official corruption. The
newspaper is powerful exactly in proportion as it is successful in
representing the people who read it; in following, rather than
dictating, their line of policy; and, whether it exists for the people
or not, it certainly endures only by their sufferance and good-will.
Therefore, it is well that we consider the relations of the people at
large to the newspaper; then, the editor's relation to his neighbors,
the public; and, finally, the chivalry of editors toward each other.
The newspaper is so large a part of our modern life that it would be
trivial to argue the question whether it can be dispensed with. Men who
live abreast of the age cannot consent to miss a single day's communion
with the news of the world. The non-arrival of the mail will render an
active man absent from town utterly miserable. The purchaser of the
daily newspaper of to-day receives for the price of a half yard of
calico a manufactured article that has required the employment of
millions of capital to produce,--to say nothing of genius to sustain.
And he is often somewhat grateful.
But the chivalry of the public toward the newspaper is peculiar. The
public would appear to believe that anything it can coax, wheedle, or
extort from the newspaper is fair salvage from the necessary
expenditures of life.
Recently I listened in amazement to the Rev. Robert Collyer boast at a
Cornell University dinner of having beguiled the newspapers of the
country. He told how he had schemed and got money to build a new church
after the Chicago fire. He did not make it very clear that the civilized
members of his race clamored for the new edifice, but he made painfully
apparent his ideas of chivalry to the press.
"In this matter," he began, "I have always been proud of the way in
which I 'worked the newspapers.' I succeeded in raising the money,
because I coaxed the editors into coöperating with me. I wrote long
puffs about the congregation and its pastor, and got them printed. Then
I hurried 'round with the subscription list and a copy of the paper."
Of course, this was all said good-naturedly, was meant to be funny, and
was uttered from a public rostrum with an utter obliviousness to the
mental obliquity that a moment's thought will disclose. It left upon my
mind much the same impression as that once made by hearing an apparently
respectable man boast of having stolen an umbrella out of a hotel rack.
Later in the evening, when the reverend gentleman occupied a seat near
mine, I asked, with as much naiveté as I could command, if he had
"worked" the plumbers, the architects, the masons, the carpenters, and
the bell-founders? To each of these questions he returned a regretful,
"No."
Despite his apparent innocence regarding the purport of my inquiry, I
doubt if this gentleman would have boasted that he secured his clothes
for nothing, that he wheedled his chops from his butcher, or coaxed his
groceries from the shopkeeper at the corner of his street.
And yet, he spoke with condescension of the editor and his means of
livelihood!
Theoretically, the editor is the public's mutton. Men who know him boast
of their influence with him, and over him. They dictate his policy for
him--or say they do, which, of course, is the same thing. Men who never
saw him claim to own him. Strangers, casually introduced, ask him
questions about his personal affairs that would be instantly resented in
any other walk of life.
An experience of my own will illustrate what I mean. At a country house,
near Philadelphia, I was introduced to a respectable-looking old man. In
the period following dinner, as we sat on the porch to enjoy a smoke,
this stranger interrogated me in the most offensive way. When he had
paused for breath I gave him a dose of his own medicine. "The deadly
parallel" column will tell the story.
WHAT HE ASKED. WHAT I ASKED.
I hear you are an editor? I am told you are a hatter?
Do most newspapers pay? Is hat-making profitable?
How much do editors earn? How much does your business net
you yearly?
You began as a reporter? Grew up in the trade?
Does it require any You can "block a hat while I wait"?
education to be a reporter?
Do you write shorthand? You can handle a hot goose?
Eh? used to? Could once?
Please write some: let's Please take this hat and show me how
see how it looks? it is put together.
Curious-looking Have seen a great many queerly shaped
characters, aren't they? hats in your time, no doubt?
How many columns can you How many hats can you make in a day?
write a day?
Do you write by the column? Do you work by the piece?
What? Don't write at all? Ah? Don't work any longer? Supposed every
How strange!--and so on. hatter made his own hats!--and so on.
The editor may be to blame for this state of things; but if so, his
good-nature is responsible. He endures more than other men. He is often
worried by the troubles of other people; but he never has been weaned
from the milk of human kindness. He may be over-persuaded, he may be
deceived, and editors have been fooled, like judge and jurors, by the
perjured affidavit of apparently honorable men--but he still continues
to believe in mankind.
The chivalry of the politician toward the press is comprehended to a
nicety by every man who has served as a newspaper correspondent at
Washington.
The average congressman thinks it clever to deceive a newspaper editor
or correspondent. He believes they are to be "used," whenever possible,
for the congressman's advantage. A correspondent is to be tricked or
cajoled into praising the statesman, revising the bad English in his
speeches, "saving the country and--the appropriations." All the
charities require and demand his aid, and, I am ashamed to say (knowing
as I do what a hollow mockery some of the alleged charities really are),
generally get the assistance they ask.
The chivalry of the press toward the public is unquestionable. The
editor keeps awake nearly all night to serve it, and the facts are not
altered because in best serving the public he serves himself.
Journalism, I regret to say, is often spoken of as a "profession," and
while we may accept the plebeian word "journalism," as describing a
daily labor, I sincerely desire to enter a protest against its
designation as a profession. It seems entirely proper to me that this
word be relegated to the pedagogue, the chiropodist, and the
barn-storming actor who so boldly assert a right to its use.
The making of the newspaper is a mechanical art. It matters very little
how much intelligence--or genius, if you prefer the word--enters into
its production, the inter-dependence of the so-called "intellectual"
branch of the paper upon its mechanical adjuncts is so great that it
cannot be maintained that the manufactured article offered to purchasers
in the shape of a newspaper is the product of any one lobe of brain
tissue. Of what value are a hundred thousand copies of the best
newspaper in this land, edited, revised and printed, if its circulation
department break down at the critical moment? And what about the
newsman? Who shall say that he does not belong to journalism? He's to
the service what the Don Cossack is to the Russian hosts. He's the
Cossack of journalism--our Cossack of the dawn!
While it is easy to determine the point at which the newspaper begins
its existence, it would be very difficult indeed to decide exactly where
it receives its finishing touches. For years, geographers wrangled
regarding the point at which the day began. In other words, this being
Monday, they quarrelled regarding the point at which the sun ceased to
shine on Monday, and began to shine on Tuesday.
Philosophers who have discussed the nice points of the daily newspapers
have claimed that it dates its origin from the paper mill; but I fail to
see why, if we are to go back to the paper mill, we shall not go much
further and seek the component parts from which the paper is originally
made, showing at once the absurdity of any such an assumption. While not
inclined to argue this point, it is my humble judgment that the
newspaper begins its existence the moment the managing editor opens his
desk for the day's work. He is its main-spring! Whatever of distinctive
character it possesses in methods of handling the news of the day it
owes to him, and it is these very features that render one journal
better or worse than others. He it is, as a rule, who establishes the
chivalry of the press toward the public. It is he who decides the line
of attack or defense when the vast interests which he represents are
assailed.