The sort of thing I have described is usually known as normal
clairvoyance, because the sensitive is in a normal state, not in
trance. But there is a further stage, into which, indeed, Mr Wilkinson
sometimes passes, in which there is a change of personality, and a
spirit purports to speak or write with the medium's organs. There
is nothing weird or uncanny in the procedure, nothing deathly or
coma-like; the medium usually sits up and even walks about, though
some trance mediums have to sit still and keep their eyes closed. I
have had visits from many trance mediums; and most of them have failed
to get anything evidential--which at least suggests their honesty, for
they could easily have obtained _some_ information about my deceased
relatives. But the whole matter of trance control is a thorny problem.
Indubitably, evidence of supernormal faculty is sometimes given in
this state, but we of the S.P.R. are divided as to what the control
really is. Some think it is a spirit, as claimed; others think it is
a secondary personality of the medium, as in the remarkable case
of split personality described in Dr Morton Prince's book _The
Dissociation of a Personality_. Mrs Sidgwick, widow of the Professor
and sister of Mr A. J. Balfour, has made a careful psychological study
of the case of Mrs Piper, given in 657 pages of _Proceedings_, vol.
28, and her conclusion is that though telepathy from the dead is
probably shown, and certainly some kind of supernormality, the
controls themselves are dream-fragments of the medium's mind. I am not
qualified to pronounce an opinion on Mrs Piper, not having met her;
but as to the trance mediums I have experimented with, I incline to
agree with Mrs Sidgwick. I think it may be a dodge of the subliminal
to get the over-anxious normal consciousness temporarily out of
the way. But this is a psychological detail, and a difficult one,
requiring much further study. From the psychical research point of
view Mrs Piper's case may be studied in _Proceedings_, vols. 6, 8, 13,
16, and a few of the later ones, or some idea of it can be got from
Sir Oliver Lodge's _Survival of Man_. All the investigators were
convinced of either telepathy or something more. Fraud was excluded by
introducing sitters anonymously, Dr Hodgson himself introducing over
150 different people in this way, and taking careful notes. I have
experimented similarly with Wilkinson, introducing people from distant
places such as Middlesex and Northumberland as well as from towns
nearer home, either under false names or with no names at all, and
being present myself to take notes. Friends of mine have done the same
thing. We were unanimously sceptical to start with, probably more
sceptical than most of those who will read this paper, for we
disbelieved in survival itself. We are now convinced that the fraud
theory is out of the question, that at the very least a complicated
theory of mind-reading--including the reading of the minds of distant
and unknown persons--must be assumed if the theory of survival and
communication is to be avoided.
Of late years there has been a great development in automatic writing
among quite non-professional mediums--private people who are members of
the S.P.R., as for instance the late Mrs Verrall, Classical Lecturer at
Newnham--and some noteworthy evidence has been obtained. But it is too
complex even to summarise here. It seems to be the work of Gurney,
Hodgson, Myers, and Sidgwick, on the other side, for different messages
have come through different sensitives, making sense when put together,
and sense characteristic of these departed leaders. This had not been
thought of, so far as we know, by any living person, and it seems to
eliminate telepathy from the living, for the messages are not understood
until the bits are pieced together. The evidence fills several volumes
of our _Proceedings_, and students should read them carefully.
There are many other kinds of mediumship or psychic faculty, and many
volumes are in existence on each phase; the library of the London
Spiritualist Alliance contains about 3,000. I have read about 500 of
them, and would not recommend anyone else to do the same. There is a
great deal of rubbish among them, though they are not all rubbish. The
reading I recommend is the _Proceedings_ of the S.P.R., the writings of
Sir William Barrett, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr W. J. Crawford, and, above
all, the great work of F. W. H. Myers, _Human Personality and Its
Survival of Bodily Death_, in the original two-volume edition. The
abridged one-volume edition omits many of the illustrative cases. I do
not think that conviction is to be achieved by mere reading; books
would never have convinced me. But careful reading is perhaps
sufficient to lead a fairly tolerant mind to realise that there is
something here which must not be dismissed off-hand; something which is
worthy of investigation. That is as much as we expect. Sir Oliver Lodge
often says that we shall do well if we succeed, in this generation, in
modifying the psychological climate, creating an atmosphere more
favourable to unprejudiced examination of the facts. We have no desire
for revolutions; we want knowledge to grow slowly and surely. The
S.P.R. has been in existence only thirty-seven years, and the
subject is in its scientific infancy. Take the beginnings of any one
science--say, Chemistry, dating it somewhat arbitrarily from Priestley
or Dalton--and note what a little way discovery had gone in a like
period. With increased numbers of workers the pace increases; but in
every science the progress at first must be slow. In psychical research
a good start has been made, and the investigators seem to be certainly
on the track of something, whether their inferences are right in
every detail or not. And every advance in science has extended our
conceptions of this wonderful universe. The heavens declare the glory
of God in a tremendously larger way than they did in the days of the
old Ptolemaic astronomy, though man foolishly fought the Copernican
idea because it seemed to lessen our dignity by making our earth a
speck on the scale of creation instead of the central body thereof. So
with all other phenomena, physical and psychical. We may be sure that
all discovery will be real revelation. With this faith--a well-grounded
faith--we need not fear advance.