recent sporadic cases of volatile objects.[2] His first instance (Worksop,
1883) yields no proof of fraud, and can only be dismissed by reason of the
bad character of the other cases, and because Mr. Podmore took the
evidence five weeks after the events. To this example we confine
ourselves. This case appears to have been first reported in the 'Retford
and Gainsborough Times' 'early in March,' 1883 (really March 9). It does
not seem to have struck Mr. Podmore that he should publish these
contemporary reports, to show us how far they agree with evidence
collected by him on the spot five weeks later. To do this was the more
necessary, as he lays so much stress on failure of memory. I have
therefore secured the original newspaper report, by the courtesy of the
editor. To be brief, the phenomena began on February 20 or 21, by the
table voluntarily tipping up, and upsetting a candle, while Mrs. White
only saved the wash tub by alacrity and address. 'The whole incident
struck her as very extraordinary.' It is not in the newspaper report. On
February 26, Mr. White left his home, and a girl, Eliza Rose, 'child of a
half-imbecile mother,' was admitted by the kindness of Mrs. White to share
her bed. The girl was eighteen years of age, was looking for a place as
servant, and nothing is said in the newspaper about her mother. Mr. White
returned on Wednesday night, but left on Thursday morning, returning on
Friday afternoon. On Thursday, in Mr. White's absence, phenomena set in.
On Thursday night, in Mr. White's presence, they increased in vigour. A
doctor was called in, also a policeman. On Saturday, at 8 A.M., the row
recommenced. At 4 P.M. Mr. White sent Eliza Rose away, and peace returned.
We now offer the
STATEMENT OF POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS. A man of good intelligence, and
believed to be entirely honest....
'On the night of Friday, March 2nd, I heard of the disturbances at Joe
White's house from his young brother, Tom. I went round to the house at
11.55 P.M., as near as I can judge, and found Joe White in the kitchen
of his house. There was one candle lighted in the room, and a good fire
burning, so that one could see things pretty clearly. The cupboard doors
were open, and White went and shut them, and then came and stood against
the chest of drawers. I stood near the outer door. No one else was in
the room at the time. White had hardly shut the cupboard doors when they
flew open, and a large glass jar came out past me, and pitched in the
yard outside, smashing itself. I didn't see the jar leave the cupboard,
or fly through the air; it went too quick. But I am quite sure that it
wasn't thrown by White or any one else. White couldn't have done it
without my seeing him. The jar couldn't go in a straight line from the
cupboard out of the door; but it certainly did go.
'Then White asked me to come and see the things which had been smashed
in the inner room. He led the way and I followed. As I passed the chest
of drawers in the kitchen I noticed a tumbler standing on it. Just
after I passed I heard a crash, and looking round, I saw that the tumbler
had fallen on the ground in the direction of the fireplace, and was
broken. I don't know how it happened. There was no one else in the room.
'I went into the inner room, and saw the bits of pots and things on the
floor, and then I came back with White into the kitchen. The girl Rose
had come into the kitchen during our absence. She was standing with
her back against the bin near the fire. There was a cup standing on the
bin, rather nearer the door. She said to me, "Cup'll go soon; it has
been down three times already." She then pushed it a little farther on
the bin, and turned round and stood talking to me by the fire. She had
hardly done so, when the cup jumped up suddenly about four or five feet
into the air, and then fell on the floor and smashed itself. White was
sitting on the other side of the fire.
'Then Mrs. White came in with Dr. Lloyd; also Tom White and Solomon
Wass. After they had been in two or three minutes, something else
happened. Tom White and Wass were standing with their backs to the
fire, just in front of it. Eliza Rose and Dr. Lloyd were near them, with
their backs turned towards the bin, the doctor nearer to the door. I
stood by the drawers, and Mrs. White was by me near the inner door. Then
suddenly a basin, which stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up
into the air, _turning over and over as it went. It went up not very
quickly, not as quickly as if it had been thrown_. When it reached the
ceiling it fell plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention to it,
and we all saw it. No one was near it, and I don't know how it happened.
I stayed about ten minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know what
to make of it all. I don't think White or the girl could possibly have
done the things which I saw.'
This statement was made five weeks after date to Mr. Podmore. We compare
it with the intelligent constable's statement made between March 3 and
March 8, that is, immediately after the events, and reported in the local
paper of March 9.
STATEMENT BY POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS.--During Friday night, Police
Constable Higgs visited the house, and concerning the visit he makes the
following statement.
'About ten minutes past [to?] twelve on Friday night, I was met in Bridge
Street by Buck Ford, and Joe's brother, Tom White and Dr. Lloyd. Tom said
to me, "Will you go with us to Joe's, and you will see something you have
never seen before?" I went; and when I got into the house Joe went and
shut the cupboard doors. No sooner had he done so than the doors flew
open again, and an ordinary sized glass jar flew across the kitchen, out
of the door into the yard. A sugar jar also flew out of the cupboard
unseen. In fact, we saw nothing and heard nothing until we heard it smash.
The distance travelled by the articles was about seven yards. I stood
a minute or two, and then the glass which I noticed on the drawers jumped
off the drawers a yard away, and broke in about a hundred bits. The next
thing was a cup, which stood on the flour-bin just beyond the yard
door. It flew upwards, and then fell to the ground and broke. The girl
said that this cup had been on the floor three times, and that she had
picked it up just before it went off the bench. I said, "I suppose the cup
will be the next." The cup fell a distance of two yards away from the
flour-bin. Dr. Lloyd had been in the next house lancing the back of a
little boy who had been removed there. He now came in, and we began
talking, the doctor saying, "It is a most mysterious thing." He turned
with his back to the flour-bin, on which stood a basin. The basin flew up
into the air obliquely, went over the doctor's head, and fell at his feet
in pieces. The doctor then went out. I stood a short time longer, but
saw nothing farther. There were six persons in the room while these things
were going on, and so far as I could see, there was no human agency at
work. I had not the slightest belief in anything appertaining to the
super-natural. I left just before one o'clock, having been in the
house thirty minutes.'
As the policeman says, there was nothing 'super-natural,' but there was an
appearance of something rather supernormal. On the afternoon of Saturday
White sent the girl Rose away, and a number of people watched in his house
till after midnight. Though the sceptical reporter thought that objects
were placed where they might easily be upset, none were upset. The ghost
was laid. 'Excited expectation' was so false to its function as to beget
no phenomena.
The newspaper reports contain no theory that will account for White's
breaking his furniture and crockery, nor for Rose's securing her own
dismissal from a house where she was kindly received by wilfully
destroying the property of her hostess. An amateur published a theory
of silken threads attached to light articles, and thick cords to heavy
articles, whereof no trace was found by witnesses who examined the
volatile objects. An elaborate machinery of pulleys fixed in the ceiling,
the presence of a trickster in a locked pantry, apparent errors in the
account of the flight of the objects, and a number of accomplices, were
all involved in this local explanation, the explainer admitting that he
could not imagine _why_ the tricks were played. Six or eight pounds' worth
of goods were destroyed, nor is it singular that poor Mrs. White wept over
her shattered penates.
The destruction began, of course, in the _absence_ of White. The girl Rose
gave to the newspaper the same account as the other witnesses, but, as
White thought _she_ was the agent, so she suspected White, though she
admitted that he was not at home when the trouble arose.
Mr. Podmore, reviewing the case, says, 'The phenomena described are quite
inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.[3] Yet he elsewhere[4] suggests
that Rose herself, 'as the instrument of mysterious agencies, or simply as
a half-witted girl, gifted with abnormal cunning and love of mischief, may
have been directly responsible for all that took place.' That is to say, a
half-witted girl could do (barring 'mysterious agencies') 'what is quite
inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means,' while, according to the
policeman, she was not even present on some occasions. But it is not easy
to make out, in the evidence of White, the other witness, whether this
girl Rose was present or not when the jar flew circuitously out of the
cupboard, a thing easily worked by a half-witted girl. Such discrepancies
are common in all evidence to the most ordinary events. In any case a
half-witted girl, in Mr. Podmore's theory, can do what 'is quite
inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.' There is not the shadow of
evidence that the girl Rose had the inestimable advantage of being
'half-witted;' she is described by Mr. Podmore as 'the child of an
imbecile mother.' The phenomena began, in an isolated case (the tilted
table), _before_ Rose entered the house. She was admitted in kindness,
acted as a maid, and her interest was _not_ to break the crockery
and upset furniture. The troubles, which began before the girl's arrival,
were apparently active when she was not present, and, if she _was_
present, she could not have caused them 'by ordinary mechanical means,'
while of extraordinary mechanical means there was confessedly no trace.
The disturbances ceased after she was dismissed--nothing else connects her
with them.
Mr. Podmore's attempt at a normal explanation by fraud, therefore, is
of no weight. He has to exaggerate the value, as disproof, of such
discrepancies as occur in all human evidence on all subjects. He has to
lay stress on the interval of five weeks between the events and the
collection of testimony by himself. But contemporary accounts appeared in
the local newspapers, and he does not compare the contemporary with the
later evidence, as we have done. There is one discrepancy which looks as
if a witness, not here cited, came to think he had seen what he heard
talked about. Finally, after abandoning the idea that mechanical means can
possibly have produced the effect, Mr. Podmore falls back on the cunning
of a half-witted girl whom nothing shows to have been half-witted. The
alternative is that the girl was 'the instrument of mysterious agencies.'
So much for the hypothesis of a fraud, which has been identical in results
from China to Peru and from Greenland to the Cape.
We now turn to the other, and concomitantly active cause, in Mr. Podmore's
theory, hallucination. 'Many of the witnesses described the articles as
moving slowly through the air, or exhibiting some peculiarity of flight.'
(See e.g. the Worksop case.) Mr. Podmore adds another English case,
presently to be noted, and a German one. 'In default of any experimental
evidence' (how about Mr. William Crookes's?) 'that disturbances of this
kind are ever due to abnormal agency, I am disposed to explain the
appearance of moving slowly or flying as a sensory illusion, conditioned
by the excited state of the percipient.' ('Studies,' 157, 158.)
Before criticising this explanation, let us give the English affair,
alluded to by Mr. Podmore.
The most curious modern case known to me is not of recent date, but it
occurred in full daylight, in the presence of many witnesses, and the
phenomena continued for weeks. The events were of 1849, and the record is
expanded, by Mr. Bristow, a spectator, from an account written by him in
1854. The scene was Swanland, near Hull, in a carpenter's shop, where Mr.
Bristow was employed with two fellow workmen. To be brief, they were
pelted by odds and ends of wood, about the size of a common matchbox. Each
blamed the others, till this explanation became untenable. The workrooms
and space above were searched to no purpose. The bits of wood sometimes
danced along the floor, more commonly sailed gently along, or "moved as if
borne on gently heaving waves." This sort of thing was repeated during six
weeks. One piece of wood "came from a distant corner of the room towards
me, describing what may be likened to a geometrical square, or corkscrew
of about eighteen inches diameter.... Never was a piece seen to come in
at the doorway." Mr. Bristow deems this period 'the most remarkable
episode in my life.' (June 27, 1891.) The phenomena 'did not depend on the
presence of any one person or number of persons.'
Going to Swanland, in 1891, Mr. Sidgwick found one surviving witness of
these occurrences, who averred that the objects could not have been thrown
because of the eccentricities of their course, which he described in the
same way as Mr. Bristow. The thrower must certainly have had a native
genius for 'pitching' at base-ball. This witness, named Andrews, was
mentioned by Mr. Bristow in his report, but not referred to by him for
confirmation. Those to whom he referred were found to be dead, or had
emigrated. The villagers had a superstitious theory about the phenomena
being provoked by a dead man, whose affairs had not been settled to his
liking. So Mr. Darwin's spoon danced--on a grave.[5]
This case has a certain interest _à propos_ of Mr. Podmore's surmise that
all such phenomena arise in trickery, which produces excitement in the
spectators, while excitement begets hallucination, and hallucination
takes the form of seeing the thrown objects move in a non-natural way.
Thus, I keep throwing things about. You, not detecting this stratagem, get
excited, consequently hallucinated, and you believe you see the things
move in spirals, or undulate as if on waves, or hop, or float, or glide
in an impossible way. So close is the uniformity of hallucination
that these phenomena are described, in similar terms, by witnesses
(hallucinated, of course) in times old and new, as in cases cited by
Glanvil, Increase Mather, Telfer (of Rerrick), and, generally, in works of
the seventeenth century. Nor is this uniform hallucination confined to
England. Mr. Podmore quotes a German example, and I received a similar
testimony (to the flight of an object round a corner) from a gentleman who
employed Esther Teed, 'the Amherst Mystery,' in his service. _He_ was not
excited, for he was normally engaged in his normal stable, when the
incident occurred unexpectedly as he was looking after his live stock. One
may add the case of Cideville (1851) and Sir W. Crookes's evidence, and
that of Mr. Schhapoff.
Mr. Podmore must, therefore, suppose that, in states of excitement, the
same peculiar form of hallucination develops itself uniformly in America,
France, Germany, and England (not to speak of Russia), and persists
through different ages. This is a novel and valuable psychological law.
Moreover, Mr. Podmore must hold that 'excitement' lasted for six weeks
among the carpenters in the shop at Swanland, one of whom writes like a
man of much intelligence, and has thriven to be a master in his craft.
It is difficult to believe that he was excited for six weeks, and we still
marvel that excitement produces the same uniformity of hallucination,
affecting policemen, carpenters, marquises, and a F.R.S. We allude to Sir
W. Crookes's case.
Strictly scientific examination of these prodigies has been very rare. The
best examples are the experiments of Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., with
Home.[6] He demonstrated, by means of a machine constructed for the
purpose, and automatically registering, that, in Home's presence, a
balance was affected to the extent of two pounds when Home was not in
contact with the table on which the machine was placed. He also saw
objects float in air, with a motion like that of a piece of wood on small
waves of the sea (clearly excitement producing hallucination), while Home
was at a distance, other spectators holding his hands, and his feet being
visibly enclosed in a kind of cage. All present held each other's hands,
and all witnessed the phenomena. Sir W. Crookes being, professionally,
celebrated for the accuracy of his observations, these circumstances are
difficult to explain, and these are but a few cases among multitudes.
I venture to conceive that, on reflection, Mr. Podmore will doubt whether
he has discovered an universal law of excited malperception, or whether
the remarkable, and certainly undesigned, coincidence of testimony to the
singular flight of objects does not rather point to an 'abnormal agency'
uniform in its effects. Contagious hallucination cannot affect witnesses
ignorant of each other's existence in many lands and ages, nor could they
cook their reports to suit reports of which they never heard.
We now turn to peculiarities in the so-called Medium, such as floating in
air, change of bulk, and escape from lesion when handling or treading in
fire. Mr. Tylor says nothing of Sir William Crookes's cases (1871), but
speaks of the alleged levitation, or floating in air, of savages and
civilised men. These are recorded in Buddhist and Neoplatonic writings,
and among Red Indians, in Tonquin (where a Jesuit saw and described the
phenomena, 1730), in the 'Acta Sanctorum,' and among modern spiritualists.
In 1760, Lord Elcho, being at Home, was present at the _procès_ for
canonising a Saint (unnamed), and heard witnesses swear to having seen the
holy man levitated. Sir W. Crookes attests having seen Home float in air
on several occasions. In 1871, the Master of Lindsay, now Lord Crawford
and Balcarres, F.R.S., gave the following evidence, which was corroborated
by the two other spectators, Lord Adare and Captain Wynne.
'I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During
the sitting, Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried
out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in
at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six
inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was
there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as
a ledge to put flowers on. _We heard the window in the next room lifted
up_, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside
our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my back was to the
light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window sill, and Home's
feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few
seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost
and sat down.
'Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which
he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed
his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an aperture. Home
said, still entranced, "I will show you," and then with his back to the
window he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture, head first, with
the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly. The window is about
seventy feet from the ground.' The hypothesis of a mechanical arrangement
of ropes or supports outside has been suggested, but does not cover the
facts as described.
Mr. Podmore, who quotes this, offers the explanation that the witnesses
were excited, and that Home 'thrust his head and shoulders out of the
window.' But, if he did, they could not see him do it, for he was in the
next room. A brick wall was between them and him. Their first view of Home
was 'floating in the air outside our window.' It is not very easy to hold
that a belief to which the collective evidence is so large and universal,
as the belief in levitation, was caused by a series of saints, sorcerers,
and others thrusting their heads and, shoulders, out of windows where the
observers could not see them. Nor in Lord Crawford's case is it easy
to suppose that three educated men, if hallucinated, would all be
hallucinated in the same way.
The argument of excited expectation and consequent hallucination does not
apply to Mr. Hamilton Aïdé and M. Alphonse Karr, neither of whom was a man
of science. Both were extremely prejudiced against Home, and at Nice went
to see, and, if possible, to expose him. Home was a guest at a large
villa in Nice, M. Karr and Mr. Aïdé were two of a party in a spacious
brilliantly lighted salon, where Home received them. A large heavy table,
remote from their group, moved towards them. M. Karr then got under a
table which rose in air, and carefully examined the space beneath, while
Mr. Aïdé observed it from above. Neither of them could discover any
explanation of the phenomenon, and they walked away together, disgusted,
disappointed, and reviling Home.[7]
In this case there was neither excitement nor desire to believe, but a
strong wish to disbelieve and to expose Home. If two such witnesses could
be hallucinated, we must greatly extend our notion of the limits of the
capacity for entertaining hallucinations.
One singular phenomenon was reported in Home's case, which has, however,
little to do with any conceivable theory of spirits. He was said to become
elongated in trance.[8] Mr. Podmore explains that 'perhaps he really
stretched himself to his full height'--one of the easiest ways conceivable
of working a miracle, Iamblichus reports the same phenomenon in his
possessed men.[9] Iamblichus adds that they were sometimes broadened as
well as lengthened. Now, M. Féré observes that 'any part of the body of an
hysterical patient may change in volume, simply owing to the fact that the
patient's attention is fixed on that part.'[10] Conceivably the elongation
of Home and the ancient Egyptian mediums may have been an extreme case of
this 'change of volume.' Could this be proved by examples, Home's
elongation would cease to be a 'miracle.' But it would follow that in this
case observers were _not_ hallucinated, and the presumption would be
raised that they were not hallucinated in the other cases. Indeed, this
argument is of universal application.
There is another class of 'physical phenomena,' which has no direct
bearing on our subject. Many persons, in many ages, are said to have
handled or walked through fire, not only without suffering pain, but
without lesion of the skin. Iamblichus mentions this as among the
peculiarities of his 'possessed' men; and in 'Modern Mythology' (1897) I
have collected first-hand evidence for the feat in classical times, and in
India, Fiji, Bulgaria, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, and many other
places. The evidence is that of travellers, officials, missionaries, and
others, and is backed (for what photographic testimony is worth) by
photographs of the performance. To hold glowing coals in his hand, and to
communicate the power of doing so to others, was in Home's _répertoire_.
Lord Crawford saw it done on eight occasions, and himself received from
Home's hand the glowing coal unharmed. A friend of my own, however, still
bears the blister of the hurt received in the process. Sir W. Crookes's
evidence follows:
'At Mr. Home's request, whilst he was entranced, I went with him to the
fireplace in the back drawing-room. He said, "We want you to notice
particularly what Dan is doing." Accordingly I stood close to the
fire, and stooped down to it when he put his hands in....
'Mr. Home then waved the handkerchief about in the air two or three times,
held it above his head, and then folded it up and laid it on his hand like
a cushion. Putting his other hand into the fire, he took out a large
lump of cinder, red-hot at the lower part, and placed the red part on the
handkerchief. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been in a blaze.
In about half a minute he took it off the handkerchief with his hand,
saying, "As the power is not strong, if we leave the coal longer it will
burn." He then put it on his hand, and brought it to the table in the
front room, where all but myself had remained seated.'
Mr. Podmore explains that only two candles and the fire gave light on one
occasion, and that 'possibly' Home's hands were protected by some
'non-conducting substance.' He does not explain how this substance was put
on Lord Crawford's hands, nor tell us what this valuable substance may be.
None is known to science, though it seems to be known to Fijians, Tongans,
Klings, and Bulgarians, who walk through fire unhurt.
It is not necessary to believe Sir W. Crookes's assertions that he saw
Home perform the fire-tricks, for we can fall back on the lack of light
(only two candles and the fire-light), as also on the law of hallucination
caused by excitement. But it _is_ necessary to believe this distinguished
authority's statement about his ignorance of 'some non-conducting
substance:'