Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling, accents and
punctuation remains unchanged.
The page number referenced in the the caption to Fig.39 is missing.
As in the original the Figure numbers are not sequential.
The footnotes are located at the end of the book.
Italics are represented thus _italic_, and bold thus =bold=.
FROM INDIA
TO
THE PLANET MARS
_A STUDY OF A CASE OF
SOMNAMBULISM_
WITH GLOSSOLALIA
BY
TH. FLOURNOY
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA
TRANSLATED BY
DANIEL B. VERMILYE
[Illustration: Publisher’s Device]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1900
Copyright, 1900, by DANIEL B. VERMILYE.
_All rights reserved._
[Illustration: Handwritten French Authorisation]
I authorize Messrs. Harper & Brothers to translate and to publish in
the English language my book “From India to the Planet Mars.”
THEODORE FLOURNOY
GENEVA, June 20, 1900
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE vii
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF MLLE. SMITH 15
III. MLLE. SMITH SINCE HER INITIATION INTO SPIRITISM 35
I. THE MEDIUMISTIC BEGINNINGS OF MLLE. SMITH 36
II. MLLE. SMITH IN HER NORMAL STATE 41
III. SPONTANEOUS AUTOMATIC PHENOMENA 48
1. PERMANENCE OF EXTERIOR SUGGESTIONS 49
2. IRRUPTIONS OF SUBLIMINAL REVERIES 51
3. TELEOLOGICAL AUTOMATISMS 58
IV. THE SEANCES 60
IV. THE PERSONALITY OF LEOPOLD 76
I. PSYCHOGENESIS OF LEOPOLD 80
II. PERSONIFICATION OF BALSAMO BY LEOPOLD 96
III. LEOPOLD AND THE TRUE JOSEPH BALSAMO 107
IV. LEOPOLD AND MLLE. SMITH 116
V. THE MARTIAN CYCLE 139
I. ORIGIN AND BIRTH OF THE MARTIAN CYCLE 140
II. LATER DEVELOPMENT OF THE MARTIAN CYCLE 152
III. THE PERSONAGES OF THE MARTIAN ROMANCE 172
ESENALE 173
ASTANÉ 177
POUZÉ, RAMIÉ—VARIOUS PERSONAGES 188
IV. CONCERNING THE AUTHOR OF THE MARTIAN
ROMANCE 190
VI. THE MARTIAN CYCLE (CONTINUED)—THE MARTIAN
LANGUAGE 195
I. VERBAL MARTIAN AUTOMATISMS 198
II. THE MARTIAN TEXTS 210
III. REMARKS ON THE MARTIAN LANGUAGE 241
1. MARTIAN PHONETICS AND HANDWRITING 246
2. GRAMMATICAL FORMS 249
3. CONSTRUCTION AND SYNTAX 251
4. VOCABULARY 252
5. STYLE 255
IV. MLLE. SMITH AND THE INVENTOR OF MARTIAN 257
VII. THE MARTIAN CYCLE (CONCLUDED)—THE ULTRA-MARTIAN 261
VIII. THE HINDOO CYCLE 275
I. APPARITION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE HINDOO
CYCLE 279
II. SIVROUKA AND M. DE MARLÈS 297
III. THE ARAB ELEMENTS OF THE ORIENTAL CYCLE 309
IV. THE HINDOO LANGUAGE OF MLLE. SMITH 314
V. THE SOURCES OF THE HINDOO DREAM 337
IX. THE ROYAL CYCLE 342
X. SUPERNORMAL APPEARANCES 364
I. THE STUDY OF THE SUPERNORMAL 365
II. PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 375
1. APPORTS 375
2. MOVEMENTS OF OBJECTS WITHOUT CONTACT 377
III. TELEPATHY 387
IV. LUCIDITY 396
1. MEDICAL CONSULTATIONS 398
2. OBJECTS RECOVERED 401
3. RETROCOGNITIONS 406
V. INCARNATIONS AND SPIRIT MESSAGES 413
1. CASE OF MLLE. VIGNIER 425
2. CASE OF JEAN THE QUARRYMAN 430
3. CASE OF THE SYNDIC CHAUMONTET AND
OF THE CURÉ BURNIER 431
XI. CONCLUSION 441
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The translation into English of _From India to the Planet Mars_ has
been undertaken in response to the demand created by the widespread and
increasing interest which is manifesting itself both in Great Britain
and the United States in the phenomena exhibited by its heroine—an
interest which marks a new era in the progress of human knowledge.
Twenty—even ten—years ago the phenomena which Prof. Flournoy here
describes in detail, and of which he offers a keen, skilful,
psychological analysis, would have met with the sneers of popular
science and the contempt of obscurantist orthodoxy; the book would have
found few readers.
Times have greatly changed since the Society for Psychical Research was
founded, eighteen years ago, by a few thoughtful men (included among
them were those whose names would have conferred honor upon any body
of men) interested in the investigation of abnormal mental or psychic
phenomena.
In explaining their reasons for organizing that society, its founders
made the following statement:
“From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and
present, including observations accurately made by scientific men of
eminence of various countries, there appears to be, among much illusion
and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena which are
_prima facie_ inexplicable on any generally recognized hypothesis, and
which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible
value.”
The organization of this society constituted the first attempt in the
world’s history to investigate the phenomena of clairvoyance, automatic
writing and speaking, trance conditions, second sight, apparitions of
persons at the point of death, alleged spirit messages, etc., by a
scientific body formed upon a broad basis.
As was to have been expected, the work and aims of the society were
met by a storm of derision and ridicule, and by attacks which poured
in from every quarter, the bitterest of which came from the always too
numerous class of narrow-minded scientists, whose partisan prejudices,
confining them to a narrow rut, hinder their seeing anything from a
point of view other than that of their preconceived hypotheses, and
prevent them from attaining that open-mindedness which is indispensable
to and one of the first requisites of a true scientist in any field of
investigation.
The interest shown to-day in the work of psychical research—among
the evidences of which may be noted the reception accorded this work
of Prof. Flournoy, which has, within a few months from the date of
its publication, attained its third French edition—demonstrates the
ultimate triumph of the founders of that society in their efforts to
bring the thinking public to a realization of the supreme importance
of a systematic scientific study of the mysterious psychic phenomena
so long neglected by official science, but which are now beginning to
assume their rightful place in the field of study and observation.
Men have come to realize that the facts proved by science have not thus
far been adequate to satisfy the needs of mankind, and many are to-day
asking whether the scientific investigation of psychic phenomena may
not succeed in proving _the preamble of all religions_.
Already science has disclosed the existence of a hidden, subliminal
world within each individual being, and it is the investigation of
that part of the individuality of Hélène Smith which our author has
undertaken in the following pages.
The importance of the subject and its intense interest lie in the fact
that psychical research hints at a possible solution, by means of the
same methods which science has been accustomed to use in the physical
world, of the great problem of man’s future destiny, of an answer to
the question asked by Job four thousand years ago, “If a man die,
shall he live again?” and which has been repeated in vain by every
generation of men who have since inhabited the earth.
While, it is true, the great majority of men are still skeptical as to
the ability of science ever to solve this problem, it is, however, a
fact that a continually increasing number of thoughtful men are coming
to believe that the hidden subliminal world within us may point to an
unseen but spiritual world without, communication with which, if once
established, would furnish us with the solution so ardently longed for.
Such men do not believe that it behooves them to be content with the
passivity of pure Agnosticism are not willing that _Ignoramus et
Ignorabimus_ should be their only creed. They are beginning to search
for new facts in the domain of the human mind, just as they have
searched for and found them everywhere else they have looked for them.
Mr. F. W. H. Myers, the pioneer and leader of the psychical research
movement, in an address recently delivered, says: “Starting from
various stand-points, we endeavor to carry the newer, the intellectual
virtues into regions where dispassionate tranquillity has seldom yet
been known.... First, we adopt the ancient belief—implied in all
monotheistic religion, and conspicuously confirmed by the progress
of modern science—that the world as a whole, spiritual and material
together, has in some way a systematic unity: and on this we base
the novel presumption that there should be a unity of method in the
investigation of all fact. We hold therefore that the attitude, the
habits of mind, the methods by which physical science has grown deep
and wide, should be applied also to the spiritual world. We endeavor to
approach the problems of that world by careful collection, scrutiny,
testing of particular facts; and we account no unexplained fact too
trivial for our attention.”
This is just what Prof. Flournoy has endeavored to do in regard to the
strange phenomena manifested by Mlle. Hélène Smith. No fact has been
regarded by him as too trivial to escape his keen, careful scrutiny
from a psychological point of view.
The first task which the investigators of these obscure mental
phenomena set themselves was, naturally, that of separating and sifting
the real, actually existent facts from the mass of fraud and deception
in which mercenary charlatans, aided by the easy credulity of the
simple-minded, had contrived so completely to bury from sight the true
phenomena that for a long time the intelligent public refused utterly
to believe in the existence of any real phenomena of the kind, but
insisted that everything when fully probed would be found to be mere
delusion, the result of trickery and fraud.
Probably no scientific fact since the dawn of modern science has
required so great a weight of cumulative evidence in its favor to
establish the reality of its existence in the popular mind than have
the phenomena in question. The task, however, has been accomplished.
Prof. Flournoy’s heroine, although she is a high-minded, honorable
woman, regarded by all her neighbors and friends as wholly incapable
of conscious fraud, has been subjected to the closest surveillance on
the part of a number of eminent physicians and scientists of Geneva
for more than five years past, while Mrs. Piper, the famous Boston
medium, has been subjected to an even closer scrutiny by the Society
for Psychical Research for the past fifteen years. In spite of the fact
that this society has announced its willingness to become responsible
for the entire absence of fraud in Mrs. Piper’s case, and of a similar
declaration on the part of Prof. Flournoy and his associates in
regard to Mlle. Smith, there still remain a considerable number of
ultra-skeptical persons who persist in asserting that fraud and deceit
are at the bottom of, and account for, all this species of phenomena.
The well-known gentlemen who have investigated these cases have never
been accused of easy credulity in other matters, and have cautiously
and perseveringly continued, in their endeavor to satisfy skepticism,
to pile Pelion upon Ossa in the way of cumulative proofs of the
genuineness of the phenomena and to safeguard their investigations in
every possible manner against all possibility of fraud, until they
have finally come to feel that more than sufficient proof has been
furnished to satisfy any honest, fair-minded, sensible doubt. They
do not feel that they have the right to devote further time to the
question of the genuineness of the facts observed by them—time which
they believe might be better employed in endeavoring to discover the
laws by which the phenomena are governed. They believe that those
who are not satisfied with the evidence already offered will not be
convinced by any amount of further testimony—that their skepticism is
invincible. For persons so constituted this book will have no interest;
its perusal will afford them no pleasure.
The endeavor to explain these mysterious phenomena by scientific
investigators has resulted in their adoption of one or other of two
hypotheses, viz.:
1. That the phenomena are the product of and originate in the
subliminal consciousness of the medium; or,
2. That the phenomena are really of supernormal origin and emanate from
the disincarnate spirits of the dead, who return to earth and take
temporary possession of the organism of the medium, talking through her
mouth, writing with her hand while she is in a somnambulistic state.
The first theory involves the crediting of the subliminal consciousness
with almost miraculous powers of telepathy, since, on that hypothesis,
it is necessary, in order to account for the knowledge possessed by the
medium, to suppose that her subliminal consciousness is able to roam
at will throughout the entire universe and read the mind of any being
possessing the information sought for.
All open-minded investigators freely admit that either of the above
hypotheses may be untrue; that very little is known by them as yet in
regard to the nature of the phenomena; that the data are too slight to
justify more than a provisional hypothesis, which the discovery of new
facts may at any time entirely demolish. But, thus far, the hypotheses
above given seem to be the only ones which will in any way rationally
account for the facts: in which case, it is evident that each
individual observer will be influenced in his choice of a hypothesis by
his religious belief, which will greatly affect the point of view from
which he approaches the subject, and also by his natural temperament,
habits of thought, etc.
Prof. Flournoy states that he has endeavored to keep constantly in mind
and to be guided by two propositions, which he designates respectively
the “Principle of Hamlet” and the “Principle of La Place,” the former
being, “_All things are possible_,” the latter, “_The weight of the
evidence ought to be proportioned to the strangeness of the facts_.”
Guided by these two principles, Prof. Flournoy has come to the
conclusion that Mlle. Smith really possesses the faculty of
telekinesis—the ability to move ponderable objects situated at a
distance, without contact and contrary to known natural laws. On
the other hand, he does not believe the phenomena manifested by her
to be of supernormal origin. The various alleged “spirit” messages,
“incarnations,” “gift of tongues,” and all other apparently supernormal
phenomena, in his opinion, spring from Mlle. Smith’s subliminal
consciousness, and he exercises great skill and ingenuity in his effort
to trace the very wonderful and astonishing manifestations with which
he has had to deal to natural sources.
Whether the individual reader adopts the author’s views and theories,
or finds in others a more natural explanation of the facts narrated by
Prof. Flournoy, he cannot fail to admire the frankness, candor, and
entire freedom from prejudice displayed by him. He evinces a true,
open-minded, scientific spirit, never distorting facts in order to make
them fit his hypotheses, and freely admitting the possibility of the
discovery of new facts at any time, of a nature to compel him to adopt
some other hypothesis than that which he has provisionally assumed to
explain the phenomena.
* * * * *
A word on another subject before the reader goes on to the perusal of
this narrative of strange facts:
One who is interested in Psychical Research, when he has finally
succeeded in convincing some obstinate skeptic of the genuineness of
the phenomena—when the doubter has at last yielded to the weight of
evidence, then, very frequently, the next question, which comes as
a wet blanket to dampen the ardor of the enthusiastic devotee, is:
“_Cui bono?_ Admitting the truth of the facts, what useful purpose is
subserved by their study? Science will never succeed in solving the
problem of man’s future destiny. It is all a waste of time and will end
in nothing.” And in a review of this very book, which recently appeared
in one of our leading metropolitan newspapers, the reviewer asks, “What
will science make of all this?” (referring to the phenomena manifested
by Mlle. Smith); and then answers his own question by saying, “It is
very unlikely that science will ever discover the nature of these
mysterious phenomena or the laws which govern them.”
From this conclusion the followers of Psychical Research emphatically
dissent. It seems passing strange to them that such an opinion should
be held by intelligent men at the present stage of development of
human knowledge, in view of the mighty discoveries which have been
wrested from nature by the laborious process of persevering observation
of seemingly trivial facts. An eighteenth-century writer might with
some show of reason have made a similar observation in regard to Dr.
Franklin and his experiments with kite and key in a thunder-storm.
It would indeed, at that epoch, have seemed unlikely that science
would succeed in discovering the secret of the electric fluid by such
means. But to-day, at the dawn of the twentieth century, with all the
experience of the past to judge from, are not the probabilities all in
favor of great results to science from repeated experiments by trained
observers, such as Prof. Flournoy, upon cases similar to that of Mlle.
Smith?
If the hypothesis that the world as a whole, spiritual and material
together, has in some way a systematic unity, be true—and that is
the hypothesis accepted by a majority of thinking men at the present
time—then the importance of collecting and recording and analyzing
such facts as those presented to us in the present narrative cannot be
overestimated.
The scientific demonstration of a future life may be one of the great
triumphs reserved for the science of the twentieth century to win,
and Hélène Smith and Prof. Flournoy may ultimately appear to have
contributed largely to its accomplishment.
To those who still persist in asking _Cui bono?_ in reference to such
work as that which Prof. Flournoy has here so ably performed, I beg
leave to quote further from Mr. Myers the following:
“The faith to which Science is sworn is a faith in the uniformity,
the coherence, the intelligibility of, at any rate, the material
universe. Science herself is but the practical development of this
mighty postulate. And if any phenomenon on which she chances on her
onward way seems arbitrary, or incoherent, or unintelligible, she does
not therefore suppose that she has come upon an unravelled end in the
texture of things; but rather takes for granted that a rational answer
to the new problem must somewhere exist—an answer which will be all
the more instructive because it will involve facts of which that first
question must have failed to take due account.
“This faith in the uniformity of material Nature formulates itself
in two great dogmas—for such they are;—the dogma of the Conservation
of Matter and the dogma of the Conservation of Energy. Of the
Conservation of Matter, within earthly limits, we are fairly well
assured; but of the Conservation of Energy the proof is far less
complete, simply because Energy is a conception which does not belong
to the material world alone. Life is to us the most important of
all forms of activity—of energy, I would say—except that we cannot
transform other energies into Life, nor measure in foot-pounds that
directive force which has changed the face of the world. Life comes we
know not whence; it vanishes we know not whither; it is interlocked
with a moving system vaster than that we know. To grasp the whole
of its manifestation, we should have to follow it into an unseen
world. Yet scientific faith bids us believe that there, too, there is
continuity; and that the past and the future of that force which we
discern for a moment are still subject to universal Law.
“Out of the long Stone Age our race is awakening into consciousness of
itself. We stand in the dawn of history. Behind us lies a vast and
unrecorded waste—the mighty struggle _humanam condere gentem_. Since
the times of that ignorance we have not yet gone far; a few thousand
years, a few hundred thinkers, have barely started the human mind
upon the great æons of its onward way. It is not yet the hour to sit
down in our studies and try to eke out Tradition with Intuition—as
one might be forced to do in a planet’s senility, by the glimmer
of a fading sun. _Daphni, quid antiquos signorum suspicis ortus?_
The traditions, the intuitions of our race are themselves in their
infancy; and before we abandon ourselves to brooding over them let us
at least first try the upshot of a systematic search for actual facts.
For what should hinder? If our inquiry lead us first through a jungle
of fraud and folly, need that alarm us? As well might Columbus have
yielded to the sailors’ panic when he was entangled in the Sargasso
Sea. If our first clear facts about the Unseen World seem small and
trivial, should that deter us from the quest? As well might Columbus
have sailed home again, with America in the offing, on the ground that
it was not worth while to discover a continent which manifested itself
only by dead logs.”
It is deeply to be regretted that no appeals have availed to persuade
Mlle. Smith to consent to the publication of her photograph, in
connection with Prof. Flournoy’s account of the phenomena manifested
by her.
She shrinks from the publicity which her possession of these strange
powers has thrust upon her. She dislikes extremely the notoriety given
to her mysterious faculties, and refuses to be interviewed concerning
them, or to discuss Prof. Flournoy’s book.
The name Hélène Smith is, as the reader will doubtless guess, merely
a pseudonym. The individuality designated by that name, however, is
held in highest esteem—in veneration even—by a very large circle of
friends and acquaintances in the city on the shores of Lake Leman, in
which she has passed her life from infancy, for whose benefit she is
always ready to exercise her mysterious gifts and to give her services
freely to such as seek her aid, refusing always to accept any pecuniary
compensation for her services. Attaching, as she does, a religious
significance to her powers, she would deem it a sacrilege to traffic in
them.
DANIEL B. VERMILYE.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK,
_July, 1900_.
FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In the month of December, 1894, I was invited by M. Aug. Lemaître,
Professor of the College of Geneva, to attend some seances of a
non-professional medium, receiving no compensation for her services,
and of whose extraordinary gifts and apparently supernormal faculties I
had frequently heard.
Having gladly accepted the invitation of my worthy colleague, I found
the medium in question, whom I shall call Mlle. Hélène Smith, to be a
beautiful woman about thirty years of age, tall, vigorous, of a fresh,
healthy complexion, with hair and eyes almost black, of an open and
intelligent countenance, which at once invoked sympathy. She evinced
nothing of the emaciated or tragic aspect which one habitually ascribes
to the sibyls of tradition, but wore an air of health, of physical and
mental vigor, very pleasant to behold, and which, by-the-way, is not
often encountered in those who are good mediums.
The number of those invited to take part in the seance being
complete, we seated ourselves in a circle, with our hands resting
upon the traditional round table of spiritistic circles. Mlle.
Smith—who possesses a triple mediumship: visual, auditive, and
typtological[1]—began, in the most natural manner, to describe the
various apparitions which passed before her eyes in the partially
darkened room. Suddenly she stops and listens; she hears a name spoken
in her ear, which she repeats to us with astonishment; then brief
sentences, the words of which are spelled out by raps on the table,
explain the meaning of the vision. Speaking for myself alone (there
were three of us to divide the honor of the seance), I was greatly
surprised to recognize in scenes which passed before my eyes events
which had transpired in my own family prior to my birth. Whence could
the medium, whom I had never met before, have derived the knowledge of
events belonging to a remote past, of a private nature, and utterly
unknown to any living person?
The astounding powers of Mrs. Piper, the famous Boston medium, whose
wonderful intuition reads the latent memories of her visitors like
an open book, recurred to my mind, and I went out from that seance
with renewed hope of finding myself some day face to face with the
“supernormal”—a true and genuine supernormal—telepathy, clairvoyance,
spiritistic manifestations, it matters not by what name it be called,
provided only that it be wholly out of the ordinary, and that it
succeed in utterly demolishing the entire framework of established
present-day science.
I was able at this time to obtain general information only concerning
the past of Mlle. Smith, but it was all of a character favorable to
her, and has since been fully confirmed.
Of modest bearing and an irreproachable moral character, she has for
years earned an honorable living as an employée of a commercial house,
in which her industry, her perseverance, and her high character have
combined to secure her a very responsible and important position.
Some three years prior to the date of my introduction to her she
had been initiated into a spiritistic group, where her remarkable
psychic powers almost immediately manifested themselves; and she
then became a member of various other spiritistic circles. From its
commencement her mediumship manifested the complex type to which I
have already alluded, and from which it has never deviated. Visions
in a waking state, accompanied by typtological dictation and auditive
hallucinations, alternately appeared. From the point of view of their
content these messages had generally a bearing on past events usually
unknown to the persons present, but which were always verified by
referring to biographical dictionaries or to the traditions of the
families interested. To these phenomena of retrocognition or of
hypermnesia were joined occasionally, according to the environment,
moral exhortations, communicated through the table, more frequently in
poetry than in prose, addressed to the sitters; medical consultations,
accompanied by prescriptions generally appropriate; communications
from parents or friends recently deceased; or, finally, revelations as
piquant as they were unverifiable concerning the _antériorités_ (that
is, the previous existences) of the sitters, almost all of whom, being
profound believers in spiritism, would not have been at all surprised
to learn that they were the reincarnations respectively of Coligny, of
Vergniaud, of the Princess Lamballe, or of other notable personages. It
is necessary, finally, to add that all these messages seemed to be more
or less bound up with the mysterious presence of a “spirit” answering
to the name of Leopold, who assumed to be the guide and protector of
the medium.
I at once undertook to improve my acquaintance with Hélène Smith. She
freely consented to give seances for my benefit, alternating with a
series which she was giving M. Lemaître, and another for the benefit
of Prof. Cuendet, vice-president of the Geneva Society (spiritistic)
for Psychic Studies, all of which I was permitted to attend. In this
way I have been able to be present at the greater part of Hélène’s
seances during the past five years. The personal observations that I
have thus been able to make, reinforced by notes on sittings which I
was unable to attend, kindly furnished me by MM. Lemaître and Cuendet,
form the basis of the study which follows; to which must be added,
however, certain letters of Mlle. Smith, as well as the numerous and
very interesting conversations I have held with her either immediately
preceding or following her seances, or at her home, where I also have
had the advantage of being able to talk with her mother. Finally,
various documents and accessory information, which will be cited
in their respective time and place, have also been of assistance
in enabling me partially to elucidate certain obscure points.
Notwithstanding all these sources of information, however, I am still
very far from being able to disentangle and satisfactorily explain the
complex phenomena which constitute Hélène’s mediumship.
Dating from the period at which I made the acquaintance of Mlle. Smith
(_i. e._, from the winter of 1894-95), while most of her spiritistic
communications have continued to present the same character as to form
and content as before, a double and very important modification in her
mediumship has been observed.
1. As to their psychological form.—While up to that time Hélène had
experienced partial and limited automatisms only—visual, auditive,
typtomotor hallucinations—compatible with the preservation to a
certain extent of the waking state, and not involving noticeable loss
of memory, from that time and with increasing frequency she has been
subject to an entire loss of consciousness and a failure to retain, on
returning to her normal state, any recollection of what has transpired
during the seance. In physiological terms, the hemisomnambulism without
amnesia, which had been her stopping-point up to that time, and which
the sitters mistook for the ordinary waking state, was now transformed
into total somnambulism with consecutive amnesia.
In spiritistic parlance, Mlle. Smith now became completely entranced,
and having formerly been an ordinary visual and auditive medium, she
now advanced to the higher plane of an “incarnating medium.”
I fear that this change must in a great measure be attributed to my
influence, since it followed almost immediately upon my introduction
to Hélène’s seances. Or, even if the total somnambulism would
have inevitably been eventually developed by virtue of an organic
predisposition and of a tendency favorable to hypnoid states, it is
nevertheless probable that I aided in hastening its appearance by my
presence as well as by a few experiments which I permitted myself to
make upon Hélène.
As is well known, mediums are usually surrounded by a halo of
veneration, which prevents any one from touching them during their
trances. The idea would never occur to any ordinary frequenter of
spiritistic circles to endeavor to ascertain the condition of the
medium’s sensory and motor functions by feeling her hands, pinching
the flesh, or pricking the skin with a pin. Silence and immobility are
the strict rule, in order not to hinder the spontaneous production
of the phenomena, and a few questions or brief observations on the
receipt of a message is all that is permissible by way of conversation,
and no one therefore would, under ordinary circumstances, dare to
attempt any manipulation of the medium. Mlle. Smith had always been
surrounded by this respectful consideration, and during the first
three seances I conformed myself strictly to the passive and purely
contemplative attitude of the other sitters. But at the fourth
sitting my discretion vanished. I could not resist a strong desire to
ascertain the physiological condition of the charming seeress, and I
made some vigorous elementary experiments upon her hands, which lay
temptingly spread out opposite me on the table. These experiments,
which I renewed and followed up at the succeeding seance (February
3, 1895), demonstrated that there is present in Mlle. Smith, _during
her visions_, a large and varied assortment of sensory and motor
disturbances which had hitherto escaped the notice of the sitters,
and which are thoroughly identical with those that may be observed
in cases of hysteria (where they are more permanent), and those that
may be momentarily produced in hypnotic subjects by suggestion. This
was not at all astonishing, and was to have been expected. But one
consequence, which I had not foreseen, did occur when, four days after
my second experimental seance, Mlle. Smith fell completely asleep for
the first time at a sitting with M. Cuendet (February 7th), at which
I was not present. The sitters were somewhat frightened, and, in
trying to awaken her, discovered the rigidity of her arms, which were
considerably contractured. Leopold however, communicating by means of
the table upon which she was leaning, fully reassured them, and gave
them to understand that such sleep was not at all prejudicial to the
medium. After assuming various attitudes and indulging in some amusing
mimicry, Mlle. Smith awoke in excellent spirits, retaining as a last
recollection of her dream that of a kiss which Leopold had imprinted
upon her forehead.
From that day on somnambulisms were the rule with Hélène, and the
seances at which she did not fall completely asleep for at least a
few moments formed rare exceptions to the course of events during the
next four years. It is a great deprivation for Mlle. Smith that these
slumbers ordinarily leave her no memory upon her awakening of what
has transpired in her trance, and she longs for the seances of former
times when the visions unfolded themselves before her eyes, furnishing
her with a pleasing spectacle which was always unexpected, and which,
continually being renewed, caused the seances to be to her a source
of great delight. For the sitters, on the other hand, these scenes of
somnambulism and incarnation, together with the various physiological
phenomena of catalepsy, lethargy, contractures, etc., which accompanied
them, added great variety and additional interest to Hélène Smith’s
remarkable and instructive triple mediumship.
The greater sometimes implies the less: simultaneously with the access
of complete somnambulism came new forms and innumerable shades of
hemisomnambulism. The triple form of automatism which distinguished
the first years of Mlle. Smith’s spiritistic experiences has been
wonderfully developed since 1895, and it would now be difficult to
name any principal forms of psychic mediumship of which she has not
furnished curious specimens. I shall have occasion to cite several
of them in the course of this work. Hélène constitutes the most
remarkable medium I have ever met, and very nearly approaches the ideal
of what might be called the polymorphous, or multiform, medium, in
contradistinction to the uniform mediums, whose faculties only concern
themselves with one kind of automatism.
2. A modification analogous to that which took place in the psychologic
form of the messages consisting of a marked improvement in their depth
and importance, was noticeable simultaneously in their content.
Alongside of the unimportant communications, complete at one sitting
and independent one of another, which filled up a large part of each
of Hélène’s seances and in no wise differentiated her faculties from
those of the majority of mediums, she manifested from the beginning a
marked tendency to a superior systematization and a more lofty chain of
visions; communications were often continued through several seances,
and reached their conclusion only at the end of several weeks. But
from the period at which I made the acquaintance of Mlle. Smith this
tendency towards unity began to assert itself still more strongly.
Several long somnambulistic dreams began to appear and to develop, the
events of which continued to be unfolded through months, even years,
and indeed still continue; a species of romance of the subliminal
imagination analogous to those “continued stories” which so many of our
race tell themselves in their moments of _far niente_, or at times when
their routine occupations offer only slight obstacles to day-dreaming,
and of which they themselves are generally the heroes.
Mlle. Smith has no fewer than three distinct somnambulistic romances,
and if to these is added the existence of that secondary personality
to which I have already alluded, and which reveals itself under the
name of Leopold, we find ourselves in the presence of four subconscious
creations of vast extent, which have been evolved on parallel lines for
several years, and which manifest themselves in irregular alternation
during the course of different seances, or often even in the same
seance.
All of these have undoubtedly a common origin in Hélène’s subliminal
consciousness; but in practice, at least, and to all appearance,
these imaginative constructions present a relative independence and a
diversity of content sufficiently great to render it necessary to study
them separately. I shall confine myself at present to a general view of
them.
Two of these romances are connected with the spiritistic idea of
previous existences. It has, indeed, been revealed that Hélène Smith
has already lived twice before on this globe. Five hundred years ago
she was the daughter of an Arab sheik, and became, under the name of
Simandini, the favorite wife of a Hindoo prince named Sivrouka Nayaka,
who reigned over Kanara, and built in the year 1401 the fortress of
Tchandraguiri. In the last century she reappeared in the person of the
illustrious and unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Again reincarnated, as a
punishment for her sins and the perfecting of her character, in the
humble circumstances of Hélène Smith, she in certain somnambulistic
states recovers the memory of her glorious avatars of old, and becomes
again for the moment Hindoo princess or queen of France.
I will designate under the names of “Hindoo” or “Oriental” cycle and
“Royal” cycle the whole of the automatic manifestations relative to
these two previous existences. I shall call the third romance the
“Martian” cycle, in which Mlle. Smith, by virtue of the mediumistic
faculties, which are the appanage and the consolation of her present
life, has been able to enter into relation with the people and affairs
of the planet Mars, and to unveil their mysteries to us. It is in
this astronomical somnambulism that the phenomenon of glossolalia[2]
appears, which consists of the fabrication and the use of an unknown
language, and which is one of the principal objects of this study; we
shall see, however, that analogous facts are likewise presented in the
Hindoo cycle.
The personality of Leopold maintains very complex relations with the
preceding creations. On the one hand, it is very closely connected with
the Royal cycle, owing to the fact that the name of Leopold is only a
pseudonym under which is concealed the illustrious Cagliostro, who, it
appears, was madly infatuated with Queen Marie Antoinette, and who now,
discarnate and floating in space, has constituted himself the guardian
angel in some respects of Mlle. Smith, in whom after a long search he
has again found the august object of his unhappy passion of a century
ago.
On the other hand, this rôle of protector and spiritual guide which
he assumes towards Hélène confers upon him a privileged place in her
somnambulisms. He is more or less mixed up in the greater part of
them; assists at them, watches over them, and perhaps in a measure
directs them. He also occasionally appears in the midst of a Hindoo
or a Martian scene, delivering his message by certain characteristic
movements of the hand.
To sum up: sometimes revealing himself by raps upon the table, the
taps of a finger, or by automatic writing; sometimes incarnating
himself completely and speaking by the mouth of Mlle. Smith while
entranced—Leopold fulfils in these seances the multiple and varied
functions of spirit-guide, giving good advice relative to the manner
of acting towards the medium; of stage-manager hidden behind the
scenes watching the performance and ready at any time to intervene;
of benevolently disposed interpreter willing to furnish explanations
of all that is obscure; of censor of morals sharply reprimanding the
sitters when he deems it necessary; of sympathetic physician prompt at
diagnosis and well versed in the pharmacopœia, etc. He also appears
under his own name of Cagliostro to the somnambulistic gaze of the
resuscitated Marie Antoinette and answers her questions by means of
auditive hallucinations. Nor is this all: to make our summary complete,
it is necessary also to investigate the personal connection of Mlle.
Smith with her invisible protector. She often invokes and questions
Leopold at her own convenience, and while he remains sometimes for
weeks without giving any sign of life, he at other times readily
responds to her by means of voices or visions which surprise her while
fully awake in the course of her daily duties, and in which he lavishes
upon her in turn material or moral advice, useful information, or the
encouragement and consolation of which she has need.
Although I have accused myself of perhaps having had much to do with
the transformation of Hélène’s hemisomnambulism into complete trances,
I believe myself, however, altogether innocent of the origin, and
therefore of the subsequent development, of the great subliminal
creations of which I have spoken. The first, that of Leopold, is of
very early date, even going back probably, as we shall see, prior to
Mlle. Smith’s initiation into spiritism. As to the three cycles, they
did not, it is true, commence to display their full amplitude until
after I had made Hélène’s acquaintance; and since they start from the
time when she first became subject to veritable trances, it would seem
as though that supreme form of automatism is the only one capable of
allowing the full expansion of productions so complex, and the only
psychological _container_ appropriate and adequate to such a _content_.
But the first appearance of all three was clearly prior to my presence
at the seances. The Hindoo dream, where I shall be found playing a rôle
which I did not seek, evidently began (October 16, 1894) eight weeks
before my admission to Mlle. Smith’s seances. The Martian romance,
which dates from the same period, is closely connected, as I shall
also show, with an involuntary suggestion of M. Lemaître, who made
the acquaintance of Hélène in the spring of 1894, nine months before
my introduction to her. The Royal cycle, finally, had been roughly
outlined at seances held at the home of M. Cuendet, in December, 1893.
Nevertheless, I repeat, only since 1895 have the exuberant growth and
magnificent flowering of that subliminal vegetation taken place under
the stimulating and provocative influence, albeit wholly unintentional
and altogether unsuspected at the time, of the varied environments of
Mlle. Smith’s seances.
As far as the indiscreet revelations in regard to my own family,
which so much astonished me at my first meeting with Mlle. Smith, are
concerned, as well as the innumerable extraordinary facts of the same
kind with which her mediumship abounds, and to which she owes her
immense reputation in spiritistic circles, it will suffice to return in
the closing chapters of this book.