Probably few of us keep a diary nowadays. I don't. But I somehow got
into the habit, soon after I became interested in psychical things, of
jotting down in a notebook the conclusions at which I had arrived--or
the almost complete puzzlement in which I found myself, as the case
might be. Glancing recently through these records of my pilgrimage, it
seemed to me that a sketch of it might be of some interest or amusement
to others.
Professor William James says in his _Talks to Teachers_ that it is
very difficult for most people to accept any new truth after the
age of thirty; and that indeed old-fogeyism may be said to begin
at twenty-five. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that, coming
fresh to the subject at thirty-two--in 1905--I found the struggle to
psychical truth a very long and arduous affair. Having been brought up
on the ministrations of a hell-fire-preaching Nonconformist pastor
whose theology made me into a very vigorous Huxleyan agnostic, I was
biased against anything that savoured of "religion," and moreover
"spiritualism" was unscientific and absurd. So I thought, in my
ignorance; for I knew nothing whatever of the evidence on which
spiritualistic beliefs are based.
However, I fortunately ran up against hard facts which soon cured me of
negative dogmatism. I became acquainted with a medium who satisfied me
that she could diagnose disease, or rather her medical "control" could,
from a lock of the patient's hair; and this without any information
whatever being given. Also that the diagnosis often went beyond the
knowledge of the sitter, thus excluding telepathy from anyone present or
near. But this did not prove that the control was a spirit, so I turned
to other investigations.
First, I set myself to "read up". I feel sure that this is the best
course for beginners to adopt, after once achieving real open-mindedness.
It enables one to investigate with proper scientific care when
opportunity arises, and with much better chance of securing good
evidence. Without this preparation, an investigator has little idea how
to handle that delicate machine called a medium, and indeed no amount of
reading will entirely equip the experimenter, for there are many things
which only experience can teach. Also, without this preparation, the
investigator will be liable either to give things away by talking too
much, or will create an atmosphere of suspicion and discomfort by being
too secretive. It takes some practice to achieve an open and friendly
manner while never losing sight of the importance of imparting no
information that would spoil possible evidence. This of course is
desirable from the medium's point of view as well as that of the sitter.
It is hard on a medium if, for example, a really supernormally-got name
does not count because the sitter himself had let it slip.
I think my reading began with _Light_ and some of Mr E. W. Wallis's
books, but I soon found my way to the _Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research_, and recognised that here was what I was seeking.
I cannot sufficiently express my admiration, which is as great as ever,
for such masterly pieces of evidence as, for instance, Dr Hodgson's
account of sittings with Mrs Piper, in volume 13. If we were perfectly
logical beings, without prejudice, that account ought to convince
anybody; certainly it ought to convince the reader of the operation of
_something_ supernormal, and it ought to go a long way towards
excluding telepathic theories and rendering the spirit explanation the
most reasonable one. But we are not logical beings. We require to be
battered for a long time by fact after fact before we will admit a new
conclusion. I remember saying, as indeed I noted down in the diary
mentioned, that a few of these volumes, with Myers's _Human Personality_,
left me in the curious position of being able to say that, though I was
not convinced, I felt that logically I ought to be, for the evidence
seemed irrefragable. Then I read Crookes' _Researches in the Phenomena
of Spiritualism_, and my logical agreement was accentuated, for Sir
William Crookes was my scientific Pope, in consequence of my having
worked from his chemical writings, and having an immense admiration
for his mind and method. But my actual inner conviction was not much
changed. Kant says somewhere that we may test the strength of our
beliefs by asking ourselves what we would bet on them. At this point I
had not got to the stage of being prepared to bet much on the truth of
the survival of human beings or the possibility of communicating with
them if they did survive. I thought the case was logically proved, but
I didn't feel it in my bones, as the phrase goes. For this, personal
experience is necessary; at least it is for an old fogey of over
thirty, with my particular build of mind.
And I was fortunately able to get this experience. One of the two
best-known mediums in the North of England, Mr A. Wilkinson, happened
to live only a few miles away, though he was and is generally away from
home, speaking for spiritualist societies from Aberdeen to Exeter,
and being booked over a year ahead. However, I was able to get an
introduction to him through friends who also carried out investigations
with him (described in my _New Evidences in Psychical Research_), and
since then, with intermissions due mainly to ill-health, I have
had friendly sittings with him continuously. To him I owe my real
convictions, and for this I cannot adequately thank him. Without his
kindness I could never have achieved certainty; for owing to a damaged
heart I could not get about to interview mediums, and there was no other
medium within reasonable distance. Besides, Mr Wilkinson has stretched a
point in my case, for he does not give private sittings, preferring to
confine himself to platform work; and I suppose he makes an exception in
my case in view of my inability. I here once more thank him for all he
has done for me.
At my first sitting with him he described and named my mother and other
relatives, whom he saw apparently with me. I had no reason to believe
that he had any normal knowledge of these people; certainly I had never
mentioned them to him, and it was in the last degree unlikely that
anyone else had. My mother had been dead twenty-two years, and was not
at all a prominent person. Moreover, he got by automatic writing a
signed message from her, giving the name of the house in which we lived
at the time of her death, but which we had left eleven years later. This
seemed to be given by way of a test. At later sittings my father and
other relatives manifested, with names and identifying detail, and
the proof began to be almost coercive. The evidence went beyond any
possibility of the medium's normal knowledge, and was characteristic of
the different communicators in all sorts of subtle ways. Telepathy alone
remained as a possible alternative to the spirit explanation. Then came
a peculiar phase, as if there were a definite plan on the part of some
of my friends on the other side for the purpose of utterly convincing me
by bringing evidence which could not possibly be accounted for by any
supposition of a reading of my own mind. A spirit friend of mine would
turn up, bringing with him a spirit whom I had never heard of, and
saying that he was a friend of his; and on inquiry I would find that it
was so--and sometimes it needed a great deal of inquiry, which made it
all the better evidence, for it showed how difficult it would have been
for the medium to obtain the information; though indeed at this stage
the evidence had forced me past crude suspicions of that sort. On other
occasions unknown spirits would appear, and I would find that they
belonged to the last visitor I had had. Several incidents of this kind
are described in my book _Psychical Investigations_. After some years
of this kind of experience I became fully satisfied that the spirit
explanation was the only reasonable one. Some writers, like Miss Dougall
in a recent volume of essays called _Immortality_, invent a complicated
hypothesis according to which my mind photographs the mind of a visitor
and the medium on his next visit develops and reads off the photograph;
but I confess that my credulity does not stand the strain put upon it by
such a hypothesis. Besides, I have lately had--as if to get round even
such tortured theories as this--evidence giving details which have not
been known to any person I have ever met. I was told to write to a
certain friend of mine, father of the ostensible communicator. The facts
were unknown even to him, but he was able to verify them completely;
and they were characteristic and evidential of the identity of the
ostensible communicator.
If all my results were of the kind I have had through Mr Wilkinson the
case would, for me, be so utterly and overwhelmingly proved that doubt
would be absurd. But this is too much to expect. I have had many
other mediums here, with varying success, but nothing approaching Mr
Wilkinson's. In many cases it is fairly obvious that the medium's
subliminal--or the control's imagination--has been doing part of the
business, no doubt unknown to the medium's normal consciousness. But in
no case have I had any indication of fraud. This seems sufficient answer
to Mr Edward Clodd's credulous acceptance of the theory of a Blue-Book
and inquiry system which enables mediums to post themselves up about
likely sitters. It would be the easiest thing in the world for an
imitation medium to learn enough about me to give what would seem on the
face of it a fairly "good" sitting. But this is never the case. Either
the medium fails or he is so successful that normal knowledge is ruled
out. On Mr Clodd's theory, I ought to have neither of these extremes;
I ought to have no failures, and no results going beyond what inquiry
could produce. But I need not labour this point, for Mr Clodd has
recently confessed his almost absurd innocence of any first-hand
experience. In a letter to the _International Psychic Gazette_ for
April, 1918, he said he had been to a sitting about fifty years ago, but
he does not remember much about what happened! Yet he sets up as an
authority on this branch of experimental science! It is like someone
writing on chemistry after being in a laboratory once, fifty years ago.
Some of my most curious experiences, concerning which I have not yet
published anything in detail, have been in connexion with crystal
vision. I happen to know a sensitive--not a professional medium or even
a spiritualist--who has physical-phenomena powers of very unusual and
indeed probably unique type. Not only can she see in the crystal and
get evidential messages by writing seen therein, but the writing or
pictures are visible to anyone present. I have seen them myself. As
many as six people at a time, myself among them, have seen the same
thing, and not one of the six was of suggestible type or had had any
hallucinations. All were middle-aged, except one young lieutenant, and
we were indeed a rather exceptionally un-neurotic and stodgy lot. But
though the things seem objective--I am going to try to photograph them,
also the sensitive, in the hope of confirming the Crewe phenomena--they
are somehow more or less influenced by the sensitive's own mind,
without her conscious knowledge; for, _e.g._, in one message,
purporting to come from my father, I was addressed as Arthur, a name
which would be natural to the medium who knows me mostly from printed
matter and a few letters, but which is entirely inappropriate in
relation to my father. Yet a good deal of evidence of identity has come
through this sensitive, and this "mixture" does not invalidate the
case. Again, a queer feature of this sensitive's powers is that lost
objects are frequently found as a result of instructions given in the
crystal; and in many of these cases it seems certain that the position
of the lost object could not have been known to any incarnate mind,
or of course it would not have been left there. In one case it was a
valuable ruby; in several others it was Treasury notes. This sensitive
also is a medium for very good raps, which all present can hear quite
distinctly and which show intelligence, answering questions and so
forth.
I have therefore reached the conviction that human survival is a fact,
that the life over there is something like an improved version of
the present one, and--a comforting thought, supported by much of my
evidence--that we are met at death by those who have gone before. Some
of my more mystical friends, who have not needed such prolonged jolting
to get them out of materialistic grooves, are rather bored with me for
dwelling so much on the evidence and on the nature of the next state.
They call it "merely astral"; as for them, their minds soar in higher
flights. One friend, a sort of radical High Churchman, said to me some
time ago that he was "not interested in the intermediate state". But
I rather think that he will have to be. I may be wrong, but I suspect
that, whether they like it or not, these good people will have to go
through the intermediate state before they get anywhere else. Good
though they are, I do not believe they are good enough for unalloyed
bliss or union with the Godhead. Such sudden jumps do not happen.
Progress is gradual. Indeed, I have noticed lately that my High
Churchman friend has shown much more interest in these merely psychical
things. Perhaps he thinks he had better turn back and make sure of the
next state and its nature, perceiving that it is a necessary bridge or
"tarrying-place" (which is the alternative reading for the "mansions"
of our Father's house) on the way to the heaven which he quite rightly
aims at.
As to the future of psychical science and opinion, I feel sure that
great things are now ahead. The war, with the terrible amount of
mourning it entails, has quickened interest in the subject, and for
millions of people the question of survival and the next state has
become an urgent and abiding one. Their interest, instead of being
almost wholly on this side, is very largely over there, whither their
loved ones have gone. Similarly with the soldiers who have come safely
through the war. All have lost friends, all have faced the possibility
of sudden or slow and painful death. And probably all young people at
present, and most adults, have out-grown the crude beliefs of last
century's orthodoxy with its everlasting hell, and are ready for a more
rational system. This is being supplied, backed by scientific proof, by
psychical research and scientific spiritualism. It seems likely that the
religion of the best minds for the next half-century or so, and perhaps
onward, will be something like that which Myers came to hold in his
later years. It does not much matter whether the spiritualist sect
grows as an institution or not. Many people will accept its main belief
without feeling it necessary to leave the communion to which they
already belong. It seems certain that the idea itself will be the ruling
idea in many minds for a long time, and no doubt psychic faculty will
become much more common, for thousands are now trying to develop it who
never cared to try before. Quite possibly the effort on both sides of
the veil, in consequence of so many premature deaths, may bring about
a closer communion between the two sides than has ever been known
hitherto. A great lift-up of earthly thought would be the result, a
perhaps final emergence from the chrysalis stage of materialism; and we
shall then be near the time when, as the inspired Milton makes his
Raphael say:
"Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend
Ethereal, as we, or may, at choice,
Here or in heavenly Paradises dwell."