MLLE. SMITH SINCE HER INITIATION INTO SPIRITISM
Having endeavored in the preceding chapter to reconstruct in its
chief characteristics the history of Mlle. Smith up to the time when
spiritism begins to be mixed up with it, I would have preferred in the
present chapter to make a detailed study of her psychological life
during these last years, without however, as yet, touching upon the
content, properly so called, of her automatisms. Not having been able
to accomplish this design to my satisfaction, for want of time and
patience, I shall endeavor at least to systematize my notes somewhat
by grouping them under four heads. I shall trace the birth of Hélène’s
mediumship as far as it is possible for me to do so from the meagre
accounts I have been able to procure concerning a time at which I was
not acquainted with her. Then, passing to facts with which I am more
familiar, I will describe rapidly her normal state as I have been able
to see it for the last five years. This would have been the place for
a study of individual psychology, but I have been compelled to abandon
the idea on account of multiple difficulties. Finally, I will offer
a few remarks on the abnormal side of her existence, which it is
convenient to divide into two groups, namely, _the spontaneous_—that
is to say, springing up of themselves in the course of her ordinary
life; or those _provoked_ by the voluntary seeking for favorable
circumstances, and which constitute the seances properly so called.
I. THE MEDIUMISTIC BEGINNINGS OF MLLE. SMITH
In the winter of 1891-92 Mlle. Smith heard spiritism spoken of
by one of her acquaintances, Mme. Y., who lent her Denis’s book,
_Après la Mort_. The perusal of this work having vividly excited
Hélène’s curiosity, Mme. Y. agreed to accompany her to her friend,
Mlle. Z., who was interested in the same questions, and who produced
automatic writing. They then decided to form a circle for regular
experimentation. I take from the notes which Mlle. Z. has had the
kindness to furnish me, the account, unfortunately very brief, of
the seances at which Hélène’s mediumistic faculties first made their
appearance.
“It was on the 20th of February, 1892, that I made the acquaintance
of Mlle. Smith. She was introduced to me by Mme. Y., for the purpose
of endeavoring to form a spiritistic group. She was then altogether
a novice in spiritism, never having attempted anything, and did not
suspect the faculties that have since developed themselves in her.
“February 20.—First reunion: We seat ourselves at the table; we succeed
in making it oscillate. We regard Mme. Y. as the medium upon whom we
can reckon. We try for writing. We receive through me encouragements
to proceed.
“February 26.—Progress; the table moves itself considerably, salutes
one by one all the members of the group, and gives us certain names, of
which only one is recognized.... Writing: Mlle. Smith, who tries for
the first time, writes mechanically, her eyes closed, some phrases, of
which we can decipher some words.
“March 11.—Nothing at this seance, except a communication written by
myself.
“March 18.—Progress; clear communication by the table. Attempt to
experiment in the darkness (which was not absolute, the hall outside
having some incandescent lights which diffused a feeble light; we could
distinguish each other with difficulty). Mlle. Smith sees a balloon,
now luminous, now becoming dark: she has seen nothing up to this time.
Writing: Mlle. Smith writes mechanically a quite long communication
from the father of M. K. [a Bulgarian student present at the seance];
advice to him.”
At this point the sitters became so numerous that they broke up into
two groups, of which the one continuing to meet with Mlle. Z. does not
concern us. Mlle. Smith became a member of the other, which met at the
house of a lady named N., where weekly seances were held for a year and
a half (up to the end of June, 1893). The records of these meetings,
kept by Mme. N., are unfortunately very brief and obscure on many
points of interest to the psychologist. Those of the first months are
in the handwriting of Mlle. Smith, who acted as secretary of the group
for thirty seances. As she only took down at the time the headings of
the communications of the spirits and wrote out the remainder on the
following day, we cannot rely very strongly on the objective accuracy
of these accounts, which, however, have the advantage of presenting
to us the mediumship of Hélène, as related by herself. She speaks of
herself in the third person.
The following is a summary of the two first seances held in this new
environment:
“March 25, 1892.—Eleven persons around a large and heavy dining-table
of oak with two leaves. The table is set in motion, and several spirits
come and give their names (by raps), and testify to the pleasure it
gives them to find themselves among us. It is at this seance that Mlle.
Smith begins to distinguish vague gleams with long white streamers
moving from the floor to the ceiling, and then a magnificent star,
which in the darkness appears to her alone throughout the whole of the
seance. We augur from this that she will end by seeing things more
distinctly and will possess the gift of clairvoyance.
“April 1.—Violent movements of the table, due to a spirit who calls
himself David and announces himself as the spiritual guide of the
group. Then he gives way to another spirit who says he is Victor Hugo,
and the guide and protector of Mlle. Smith, who is very much surprised
to be assisted by a person of such importance. He soon disappears.
Mlle. Smith is very much agitated; she has fits of shivering, is very
cold. She is very restless, and sees suddenly, balancing itself above
the table, a grinning, very ill-favored face, with long red hair. She
is so frightened that she demands that the lights be lit. She is calmed
and reassured. The figure disappears. Afterwards she sees a magnificent
bouquet of roses of different hues being placed on the table before
one of the sitters, M.P. All at once she sees a small snake come out
from underneath the bouquet, which, crawling quickly, perceives the
flowers, looks at them, tries to reach the hand of M.P., withdraws for
an instant, comes back slowly, and disappears in the interior of the
bouquet. Then all is dissolved and three raps are given on the table,
terminating the seance. [M.P. interprets the meaning of the vision of
the bouquet and the serpent as a symbolic translation of an emotional
impression experienced by Mlle. Smith].”
Such was the birth of Hélène’s mediumship. Scarcely anything happened
on the 20th of February, when the movements of the table were not
attributed to her (although in all probability she caused them); in the
following seances she appeared in two attempts at automatic writing
(unfortunately lost) in imitation of the writing medium with whom she
was sitting. The outcome of this second attempt leads us to suppose
that Hélène’s faculties would have developed rapidly in that direction
if she had not abandoned it and changed her environment.
Her visual faculty, suggested by the experiments at obscure seances,
shows itself on the 18th and 25th of March in the form of elementary
hallucinations or vague figures having their point of departure
probably in the simple entoptical phenomena, the retina’s own light,
consecutive images, etc. Then, encouraged by the predictions of the
sitters, she attained on the 1st of April to visions properly so
called, having a varied content and a real or symbolic signification.
At the same time her typtological automatism was perfecting itself. We
recognize it in the name of Victor Hugo, coming especially for Mlle.
Smith, and suspect it to have been a name already given at the second
seance.
Auditive hallucinations follow closely upon the visual, but it is
impossible to know at just what date, as the records do not clearly
indicate whether the messages recorded had that origin or were rapped
out on the table. To these known forms of automatism must be added
the frequent phenomena of emotion, shiverings, sadness, restlessness,
fear, etc., which are experienced by Hélène without knowing why, and
are afterwards found to be in perfect conformity to, and in evident
connection with, the content of those emotional phenomena which they
generally precede by a few moments.
Thus, in a half-dozen weekly seances, the mediumship of Mlle. Smith
was invested with a complex psychological aspect, which from that time
it preserved intact for three years, and of which I was a witness
after I made her acquaintance. This rapidity of development is not
at all unusual; but there is this peculiarity about Hélène, that her
mediumistic faculties, after their first appearance, remained for a
long time stationary, and then underwent all at once, in the spring
of 1895, the enormous transformation and tremendous expansion which
I have described in the first chapter, and to which I will not again
refer.
II. MLLE. SMITH IN HER NORMAL STATE
I was about to say that in her normal state Mlle. Smith is normal.
Certain scruples restrain me, and I correct myself by saying that
in her ordinary state she seems just like anybody else. By this I
mean that outside of the gaps which the seances and the spontaneous
eruptions of automatism make in her life, no one would suspect,
observing her performance of her various duties, or in talking with her
on all sorts of subjects, all that she is capable of in her abnormal
states, or the curious treasures which are concealed in her subliminal
strata.
With a healthy and ruddy complexion, of good height, well proportioned,
of regular and harmonious features, she breathes health in everything.
She presents no visible stigmata of degeneration. As to psychic defects
or anomalies, with the exception of her mediumship itself, I know
of none, the timidity of her youth having entirely disappeared. Her
physical strength is marvellous, as shown by the fact that she bears
up under the strain of a business which demands nearly eleven hours of
her time each day, nearly all of which she is compelled to stand on
her feet, and from which she takes only one week’s vacation in summer.
Besides this confining work away from home, she assists her mother
about the house morning and evening, in the housekeeping duties, and
finds time besides to read a little, to practise at her piano, and to
make the lovely handiwork, which she designs and executes herself with
remarkable originality and good taste. To a life so full must be added,
besides, the spiritistic seances which she is generally willing to give
on Sunday, and sometimes on a weekday evening, very disinterestedly,
to persons who are interested in psychic questions or who desire to
consult Leopold on important subjects.
While hesitating to affirm that a person presenting phenomena so
extraordinary as those of mediumship is perfectly normal in other
respects, I am pleased to discover that as far as Mlle. Smith is
concerned, through my conversations with her and as the result of
my investigations concerning her, she does not present a single
abnormality, physical, intellectual, or moral, between the periods
of the irruptions of her automatisms. Her field of vision, which she
has permitted me to measure with a Landolt perimeter, is normal for
white as well as for colors, for which latter she has a very delicate
perception. There is no trace of tactile anæsthesia in her hands. There
is no known motor trouble. The tremor of the index-finger gives a line,
of four oscillations per second on an average, differing not at all
from the fines obtained from persons perfectly normal (see Fig. 2).
It cannot be expected that I should paint a full moral and intellectual
portrait of Mlle. Smith, as I should be in danger of hurting her
feelings in case my attempt should come to her notice. I can only
touch on a few points. One of the most striking is her great native
dignity; her bearing, her manners, her language are always perfect,
and have a certain quality of _noblesse_ and pride which accords well
with her somnambulistic rôles. On occasion she shows a stately and
regal hauteur. She is very impressionable, and feels little things
very keenly. Her antipathies as well as her sympathies are quick,
lively, and tenacious. She is energetic and persevering. She knows
very well what she wants, and nothing passes her by unperceived, nor
does she forget anything in the conduct of others towards her. “I
see everything, nothing escapes me, and I forgive but never forget,”
she has often said to me. Perhaps a severe moralist would find in
her a certain exaggeration of personal sensibility, but that sort of
self-love is a very common characteristic of human nature, and is very
natural in mediums who are continually exposed to public criticism.
She is very intelligent and highly gifted. In conversation she shows
herself vivacious, sprightly, and sometimes sarcastic. Psychic
problems, and all questions connected with mediumistic phenomena, of
which she is herself so striking an example, occupy her mind a great
deal and form the principal subject of her private thoughts and of her
conversations with people in whom she is interested.
Her philosophical views are not wanting in originality or breadth. She
does not believe in spiritism, in the generally accepted sense of the
term, and has never consented, in spite of the advances which have been
made to her, to become a member of the Geneva Society (spiritistic)
for Psychic Studies, because, as she says, she has no fixed ideas on
subjects so obscure, does not care for theories, and “does not work
in the interest of any party.” She investigates, she observes, she
reflects and discusses, having adopted for her motto, “The truth in all
things, for all things, and always.”
There are two points in regard to which she is uncompromising—namely,
the objective reality of Leopold, and the supernormal content of her
automatisms. No one dares tell her that her great invisible protector
is only an illusory apparition, another part of herself, a product of
her subconscious imagination; nor that the strange peculiarities of her
mediumistic communications—the Sanscrit, the recognizable signatures
of deceased persons, the thousand correct revelations of facts unknown
to her—are but old forgotten memories of things which she saw or heard
in her childhood. Such suppositions being contrary to her inmost
beliefs, and seemingly false in fact, easily irritate her, as being in
defiance of good sense and an outrage on truth. But outside of these
two subjects she will examine and discuss coolly any hypothesis one
chooses. The idea that she should be the reincarnation of a Hindoo
princess or of Marie Antoinette, that Leopold is really Cagliostro,
that the visions called Martian are really from the planet Mars, etc.,
all seem to her to conform fully to the facts; but these beliefs are
not indispensable to her, and she is ready, should they prove to be
false, to change to other theories—as, for example, telepathy, a
mixture of occult influences, a mysterious meeting in her of intuitions
coming from some higher sphere, etc.
Undoubtedly the supposition of her pre-existences in India and on the
throne of France seems to her to explain in a plausible manner the
feeling, which has followed her from childhood, of belonging to a world
higher than that in which the chance of birth has imprisoned her for
this life; but she does not affirm a positive belief in that brilliant
past, is not wholly convinced of it, and remains in a sensible state of
expectancy of the true explanation of these ultimate mysteries of her
life.
There is another subject, also, which is close to her heart. She has
heard it said that in the eyes of scientists and physicians mediums
are considered to be fools, hysterical subjects, or insane, or, in
any event, abnormal, in the bad sense of the word. But, in the light
of the experience of every day of her life, she protests vigorously
against this odious insinuation. She declares emphatically that she is
“perfectly sane in body and mind, not in the least unbalanced,” and
repels with indignation the idea there can be any serious abnormality
or the least danger in mediumship such as she practises. “I am far from
being abnormal,” she wrote me recently, “and I have never been so clear
of vision, so lucid, and so apt to judge correctly as since I have
begun to develop as a medium.”
Leopold, too, speaking through her voice during her trances, has
more than once solemnly testified as to her perfect health. He has
also returned to the subject by letter; we shall find farther on a
very interesting certificate of mental equilibrium dictated by him
and written by him with her hand, as if to give more weight to his
declarations (see Fig. 8, p. 137.)
It is incontestable that Hélène has a very well-organized brain, as is
evidenced by the admirable manner in which she manages the important
and complicated department which is under her direction in the
commercial establishment in which she is employed. To accuse her of
being insane, simply because she is a medium, as some charitable souls
(the world is full of them) do not hesitate to do sometimes, is, to say
the least, a most inadmissible _petitio principii_.
The opinion which Mlle. Smith holds in her normal state concerning her
automatic faculties is altogether optimistic; and there is nothing
to prove her in the wrong. She regards her mediumship as a rare and
precious privilege, with which nothing in the world would induce her
to part. True, she also sees in it the reason for the malevolent
and unjust judgments, the jealousies, the base suspicions, to which
the ignorant multitude have in all ages subjected those who have
succeeded in elevating themselves above it through the possession
of faculties of this kind. But, on the whole, the disadvantages are
more than counterbalanced by gains of a high order, and the inward
satisfaction attached to such a gift. And here I desire to emphasize
the statement, once for all, that Hélène does not belong to the class
of professional mediums, nor to those who use their mediumship for
the purpose of coining money. Mlle. Smith, who earns her living in
the position which her intelligence and fitness have secured for her,
and through which her family enjoys a modest ease, never accepts any
pecuniary compensation for her seances or consultations. Such a traffic
in faculties which have a sort of religious signification in her eyes
would be absolutely repugnant to her feelings.
Hélène’s spontaneous automatisms have often aided her in, without
ever having interfered with, her daily occupations. There is, happily
for her, a great difference in intensity between the phenomena of her
seances and those which break in upon her habitual existence, the
latter never having caused such disturbance of her personality as the
former.
In her daily life she has only passing hallucinations limited to one
or two of the senses, superficial hemisomnambulisms, compatible with
a certain amount of self-possession—in short, ephemeral perturbations
of no importance from a practical point of view. Taken as a whole, the
interventions of the subliminal in her ordinary existence are more
beneficial to her than otherwise, since they often bear the stamp of
utility and appropriateness, which make them very serviceable.
Phenomena of hypermnesia, divination, lost objects mysteriously
recovered, happy inspirations, true presentiments, correct
intuitions—in a word, teleological automatisms of every sort—she
possesses in so high a degree that this small coin of genius is more
than sufficient to compensate for the inconveniences resulting from
the distraction and momentary absence of mind with which the vision is
accompanied.
In the seances, on the contrary, she presents the most grave functional
alterations that one can imagine, and passes through accesses of
lethargy, catalepsy, somnambulism, total change of personality, etc.,
the least of which would be a very disagreeable adventure for her if it
should happen to occur in the street or at her office.
But here I am obliged to leave Hélène’s ordinary state to enter upon
the study of her automatisms.
III. SPONTANEOUS AUTOMATIC PHENOMENA
The automatisms which occur outside the seances in Mlle. Smith’s
every-day life, those, at least, which she is able to recall and
narrate, are of a frequency very variable and utterly independent of
any known circumstances; sometimes presenting themselves two or three
times in the same day; at others, two or three weeks will elapse
without a single one. Extremely diverse in their form and content,
these phenomena may be divided into three categories, based upon
their origin. The first proceed from impressions received by Hélène
in moments of special suggestibility; the second are the fortuitous
apparitions above the ordinary level of her consciousness, the romances
in process of elaboration to which we are coming; the last, which
differ from the two preceding species (which are always useless, if
not detrimental) by their beneficial character and their adaptation to
the needs of the moment, are roused by those teleological automatisms
to which I have already called attention as having occurred in her
childhood, and which have shared in the general recrudescence of her
subconscious life under the lash of the spiritistic experiences.
Let us pass these different cases rapidly in review.
1. _Permanence of exterior suggestions._—The spiritistic reunions are
naturally their principal source. I do not mean that she has there been
subjected to experiments in post-hypnotic suggestion. Justice to all
those who have attended the seances compels the statement that they
have never abused the suggestibility which she shows on such occasions,
by suggesting ideas of such a nature as to cause her annoyance on
the following days. The most that has been attempted has been the
suggestion of some small matters by way of harmless experiment, to be
executed by her a few moments after awaking from her trance. There
is no need of intentional suggestions to influence her in a lasting
manner; therefore we have avoided as far as possible everything that
might leave disagreeable traces behind, and have suggested to her
before the end of the seance that she have on the morrow no headache,
fatigue, etc.; but it sometimes happens that certain incidents,
often absolutely insignificant, are engraved on her memory in a most
unlooked-for manner and assail her as inexplicable obsessions during
the ensuing week. The following are some specimens of involuntary
suggestion, which generally linger for three or four days, but may
occasionally continue for twelve or fifteen.
Hélène told me one Sunday that she had been possessed several times
during the day by the hallucinatory image of a straw hat, the inside of
which was turned towards her, and which remained vertically in the air
about three or four feet in front of her, without being held by any
one. She had the feeling that this hat belonged to me, and I happened
finally to recollect that at the seance of the preceding Sunday I
happened to fan myself with this very hat during her final trance, the
image of which had been engraved on her mind in one of the flashes in
which she opened her eyes and closed them again instantly before her
final awaking. This obsession, said she, was very strong on Monday and
the following day or two, but lessened somewhat towards the end of the
week.
At another time she preserved during a whole week the sensation of the
pressure of my thumb on her left eyebrow. (Compression of the external
frontal and suborbital nerves is a means I often employ to hasten her
awaking, after a hint given by Leopold.)
There happened to her also twice in the same day an auditive and visual
hallucination of an aged person whom she did not recognize, but the
extremely characteristic description of whom corresponds so well with
that of a gentleman of Geneva who had been mentioned to her a few days
previously, immediately before the commencement of a seance (when she
was probably already in her state of suggestibility), that there is
scarcely any doubt but that these apparitions were the consequence of
that conversation.
Following another seance where she had, at the beginning of a Hindoo
scene, made vain efforts to detach a bracelet from her left wrist, she
preserved for three days the feeling of something grasping that wrist,
without understanding what it could be.
In the same way, various feelings of sadness, anger, a desire to laugh
or to weep, etc., the cause of which she was unable to explain, have
often followed her for a considerable length of time after the seances
of which these feelings were the manifest emotional echo. This is often
the effect of our dreams on our waking state: we forget the dreams, but
their influence remains, and is often more marked in the dreams of a
hypnotized person or a somnambulist than in those of ordinary sleep.
The seances are not the exclusive source of the involuntary suggestions
which trouble Mlle. Smith in her daily life without any benefit to
herself. It is evident that on every occasion when she finds herself
in that particular condition of least resistance which we, in our
ignorance of its intrinsic nature, designate by the convenient name of
“suggestibility,” she is exposed to impressions capable of returning
to assail her in the course of her daily occupations. Fortunately this
condition of suggestibility does not seem to develop itself readily in
her outside of the spiritistic reunions.
2. _Irruptions of subliminal reveries._—I shall have too many occasions
to cite concrete examples of visions, voices, and other spontaneous
outpourings of the work of imagination, which are continually going on
under the ordinary consciousness of Mlle. Smith, to dwell long on this
point. Some general remarks will suffice.
The connection which the unforeseen phenomena maintain with those
of the seances themselves is very varied. Sometimes we are able to
recognize them as reproductions, more or less incomplete, of episodes
which occurred at the preceding seances, and consider them simple
echoes or post-hypnotic repetitions of these last. Sometimes, on the
contrary, it appears that we have to deal with preparatory rehearsals
of scenes which will unfold themselves at length and will be continued
at some later seance. Finally, sometimes it is a question of tableaux,
having no connection with those which fill up the seances; they
are like leaves, flying away never to return, romances which are
continually being fabricated in the deep subliminal strata of Mlle.
Smith’s consciousness.
Hélène, in fact, does not long remember, nor in much detail, with a few
exceptions, those visions which take place in her ordinary state, and
which occur most frequently early in the morning, while she is still
in bed, or just after she has arisen and while working by the light
of her lamp; sometimes in the evening, or during the brief moments of
rest in the middle of the day, and, much more rarely, while in the full
activity of waking hours she is at her desk. If she had not long since,
at my request, and with great good will, acquired the habit of noting
in pencil the essential content of these apparitions, either during
the apparition itself (which she is not always able to do) or else
immediately afterwards, we should have still more deficiencies in the
plot of her romances to deplore. Hélène’s psychological state, during
her spontaneous visions, is known to me only by her own descriptions.
She is fortunately a very intelligent observer and a good psychologist.
Her narratives show that her visions are accompanied by a certain
degree of obnubilation. For a few moments, for instance, the room, the
light of the lamp, disappear from before her eyes; the noise of the
wheels in the street ceases to be heard; she feels herself becoming
inert and passive, while a feeling of bliss and ecstatic well-being
permeates her entire individuality in the presence of the spectacle
which appears to her; then the vision, to her great regret, slowly
fades from her view, the lamp and the furniture reappear, the outside
noises again make themselves heard, and she is astonished that the
idea did not occur to her to put down in pencil the strange words
she has heard, or that she did not touch or caress, for example, the
beautiful birds of many-colored plumage flying and singing around her.
Sometimes she has maintained sufficient presence of mind to scribble
from dictation the words striking her ear; but the wretched handwriting
proves that her attention, all absorbed by the apparition, could not
follow the pencil, and that the hand directed it badly. At other times
the reverse is the fact. It appears in the course of the vision as
though some one took hold of her arm and guided it in spite of herself;
the result is splendid calligraphies, wholly different from her own
handwriting, executed without her knowledge, and during the execution
of which her mind was wholly absent, if we can judge from the surprise
she shows on awaking when she finds before her these strange writings,
and from analogous scenes which transpire at the seances.
The preceding is applicable especially to the more frequent cases—that
is, to the morning or evening visions which happen to her at home,
in that intermediate condition between sleep and waking, always so
favorable, as we know, to the development of unconscious cerebration.
But there are innumerable shades and gradations between this middle
type, so to speak, and its opposite extremes; on the one hand is the
fortunately very exceptional case where she is seized with ecstasy
while at her place of business; and, on the other hand, that in which
the automatism limits itself to inscribing some unknown characters
or words in another hand than her own in her correspondence and
writings—peculiar _lapsus calami_, which she is not slow to perceive on
coming to herself.
The following is an example of a case of ecstasy:
Having ascended one day to an upper story, to look for something in a
dark store-room, she had an apparition of a man in a turban and large
white cloak, whom she had the impression of recognizing,[4] and whose
presence filled her with a delightful calm and profound happiness. She
could not recall the conversation which passed between them, which,
though in an unknown language, she nevertheless had the feeling of
having perfectly comprehended. On the departure of the mysterious
visitor she was astonished to find herself brought back to sombre
reality, and stupefied on noting by her watch that the interview had
lasted much longer than it had seemed to do. She preserved all that
day a delicious feeling of well-being as the effect of the strange
apparition.
The phenomenon of mingling strange writing with her own is of
relatively frequent occurrence, and we shall see divers specimens of
it in the following chapters, apropos of the romances to which it
especially belongs. I will give here only one complex example, which
will serve at the same time as an illustration of a special kind of
automatism, very harmless, to which Hélène is also subject, and which
consists in making verses, not without knowing, but at least without
intending to do so, and in connection with the most trifling matters.
There are times when, in spite of herself, she feels compelled to speak
in distinct rhymes of eight feet, which she does not prepare, and does
not perceive until the moment she has finished uttering them.[5] In
this particular case it is by a quatrain (a very unusual occurrence)
that she replies to some one who had consulted her in regard to some
blue ribbon. But this quatrain, by its style, by the vision of the
blond head of a child which accompanies it, and by the manner also in
which she writes it, causes us to hazard the conjecture that it is
an inspiration depending on the underlying Royal cycle; while in the
following letter, in which she narrates the affair to M. Lemaître, her
pen inscribes, all unknown to her, strange characters evidently due
to the cropping out of the Martian cycle, of which she speaks in the
letter (see Fig. 1, a passage of that letter making a Martian M and V
in the words _vers_ and _rimait_):
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Fragment of a letter (normal handwriting)
of Mlle. Smith, containing two Martian letters. (Collection of M.
Lemaître.)]
“I have heard some Martian words this afternoon, but have not been
able to retain them in my mind. I send you those heard a few days
ago, when I had the vision of which I am about to make you the design
(Martian lamp). Yesterday morning I for the first time spoke in verse,
without being aware of it; it was only on finishing the sentence that
I perceived that it rhymed, and I reconstructed it to assure myself
of the fact. A little later, on examining some ribbons, I began anew
to speak in verse, and I send those also; they will amuse you. It
is a curious thing that I had at that same moment the vision of the
blond curly head of a child bound with a blue ribbon. The vision
lasted more than a minute. What is still more curious, I do not at all
recollect having worn ribbons of that shade as a child: I remember some
rose-colored, some red, but I have no recollection whatever of any blue
ribbons. I really do not know why I spoke these words; it is the more
amusing. I was obliged to speak them, I assure you, in spite of myself.
I was eager to put them on paper, and I noticed in writing them down
that, for a moment, the handwriting was not regular, that is, it was
slightly different from mine.”
Here is the quatrain, the pencil impression of which is too faint to
enable a fac-simile to be reproduced here, and in it I have indicated
by italics the words and syllables the calligraphy or orthography of
which differs from that of Hélène and becomes the style of automatic
handwriting called that of Marie Antoinette:
“Les nuances de ces rubans
_Me_ rappelent _mes_ jeunes ans;
Ce bleu _ver_di, je m’en sou_vien_,
Sans mes cheveux _alloit_ si bien!”
The head of curly blond hair, ornamented with blue ribbons, also
figures in the visions of the Royal cycle, and appears to belong, as is
here the case, sometimes to Marie Antoinette herself, sometimes to one
or other of her children, especially the Dauphin.
While it is generally easy to connect these eruptions of the subliminal
volcano with the various dreams from which they emanate, such is
not always the case, and there are visions the origin of which is
doubtful and ambiguous. We must not forget that, alongside of the
grand cycles of Hélène which are better known, there also float in
her latent imagination innumerable small accessory systems, more or
less independent, which supply a large part of the seances, such
as revelations of former events connected with the families of the
sitters, etc.; it is not always possible to identify the fragments
coming from these isolated dreams.
3. _Teleological automatisms._—The spontaneous phenomena of this
category, possessing as a common characteristic a practical utility
for Hélène more or less marked, can be subdivided into two classes,
according to their direct attachment to the personality of Leopold, or
their not belonging to any distinct personality, and which only express
in a vivid manner the result of the normal working, although more or
less unconscious, of the faculties of memory and of reason. I confine
myself now to citing one case of each of these classes, of which we
shall see other examples in the chapters relating to Leopold and to
supernormal appearances.
One day Mlle. Smith, wishing to take down a large and heavy object
from a high shelf, was prevented from so doing by the fact that her
uplifted arms seemed as though petrified and incapable of being moved
for some seconds; she saw in this a warning and gave up her intention.
In a later seance Leopold said that it was he himself who had caused
Hélène’s arms to become rigid, in order to prevent her from attempting
to lift the object which was too heavy for her and would have caused
some accident to befall her.
On another occasion a clerk who sought vainly for a certain pattern
asked Hélène if she knew what had become of it. Hélène replied
mechanically and without reflection, “Yes, it was sent to Mr. J.” (a
customer of the firm); at the same time there appeared before her in
large black figures about eight or ten inches in height the number
18, and she added, instinctively, “It was eighteen days ago.” This
statement caused the clerk to smile, because of its improbability,
the rule of the house being that customers to whom patterns were lent
for examination must return them inside of three days or a messenger
would be sent for them. Hélène, struck by this objection, and having
no conscious recollection of the affair, replied, “Really, perhaps I
am wrong.” Meanwhile, an investigation of the date indicated in the
records of the house showed that she was perfectly correct. It was
through various negligences, with which she had nothing at all to do,
that the pattern had not been sent for or recovered. Leopold, on being
asked, has no recollection of this circumstance, and does not appear to
have been the author of this automatism of cryptomnesia, nor of many
other analogous phenomena through which Hélène’s subconscious memory
renders her signal services and has gained for her a well-merited and
highly valued reputation.
Thus we see that if the spontaneous automatisms of Mlle. Smith are
often the vexatious result of her moments of suggestibility, or the
tempestuous irruption of her subliminal reveries, they also often
assume the form of useful messages. Such compensation is not to be
despised.
IV. THE SEANCES
Mlle. Smith has never been hypnotized. In her instinctive aversion,
which she shares with the majority of mediums, to anything that seems
like an attempt to experiment upon her, she has always refused to allow
herself to be put to sleep. She does not realize that in avoiding the
idea she has actually accepted the reality, since her spiritistic
experiences in reality constitute for her an autohypnotization, which
inevitably degenerates into a hetero-hypnotization, as she is brought
under the influence of one or other of the persons present at the
seance.
All her seances have somewhat of the same psychologic form, the
same method of development running through their immense diversity
of content. She places herself at the table with the idea and the
intention of bringing into play her mediumistic faculties. After an
interval, varying from a few seconds to a quarter of an hour, generally
in a shorter time if the room is well darkened and the sitters are
perfectly silent, she begins to have visions, preceded and accompanied
by very varied sensory and motor disturbances, after which she passes
into a complete trance. In that state, it rarely happens, and then only
for a few moments, that she is entirely unconscious of the persons
present, and, as it were, shut up within her personal dream and plunged
into profound lethargy (hypnotic syncope). Ordinarily she remains
in communication, more or less close, with one of the sitters, who
thus finds himself in the same relation towards her as a hypnotizer
towards his subject, and able to take advantage of that _rapport_, by
giving her any immediate or future suggestions that he may desire.
When the seance consists only of waking visions, it lasts generally
only a short time—an hour to an hour and a half—and is ended quickly
by three sharp raps upon the table, after which Mlle. Smith returns
to her normal state, which she scarcely seems to have left. If the
somnambulism has been complete, the seance is prolonged to double that
length of time, and often longer, and the return to the normal state
comes slowly through phases of deep sleep, alternating with relapses
into somnambulistic gestures and attitudes, moments of catalepsy, etc.
The final awakening is always preceded by several brief awakenings,
followed by relapses into sleep.
Each of these preliminary awakenings, as well as the final one, is
accompanied by the same characteristic movements of the features. The
eyes, which have been for a long time closed, open wide, stupidly
staring into vacancy, or fix themselves slowly on the objects and
the sitters within their range of vision, the dilated pupils do not
react, the face is an impassive and rigid mask, devoid of expression.
Hélène seems altogether absent. All at once, with a slight heaving
of the breast and raising of the head, and a quick breath, a gleam
of intelligence illumines her countenance, the mouth is gracefully
opened, the eyes become brilliant, the entire countenance lights up
with a pleasant smile and gives evidence of her recognition of the
world and of her return to herself. But with the same suddenness with
which it appeared, that appearance of life lasts but a second or two,
the physiognomy resumes its lifeless mask, the eyes becoming haggard
and fixed close again, and the head falls on the back of the chair.
This return of sleep will be followed by another sudden awaking, then
perhaps by several more, until the final awaking, always distinguished,
after the smile at the beginning, by the stereotyped question, “What
time is it?” and by a movement of surprise on learning that it is so
late. There is no memory of what has transpired during the seance.
A complete description of the psychological and physiological phenomena
which present themselves, or which might be obtained in the course
of the seances, would detain me too long, since there is absolutely
nothing constant either in the nature or in the succession of the
phenomena, and no two seances are evolved exactly in the same manner. I
must confine myself to some striking characteristics.
Three principal symptoms, almost contemporaneous generally, announce
that Mlle. Smith is beginning to enter into her trance.
There are on the one side emotional or cœnæsthetic modifications, the
cause of which is revealed a little later in the subsequent messages.
Hélène is, for instance, seized by an invincible desire to laugh, which
she cannot or will not explain; or she complains of sadness, fear, of
different unpleasant sensations, of heat or of cold, of nausea, etc.,
according to the nature of the communications which are approaching and
of which these emotional states are the forerunners.
There are, on the other hand, phenomena of systematic anæsthesia
(negative hallucinations), limited to those sitters whom the coming
messages concern. Hélène ceases to see them, while continuing to
hear their voices and feel their touch; or, on the contrary, she
is astonished to no longer hear them, though she sees their lips
moving, etc.; or, finally, she does not perceive them in any manner,
and demands to know why they are leaving when the seance is hardly
begun. In its details this systematic anæsthesia varies infinitely,
and extends sometimes to but one part of the person concerned, to
his hand, to a portion of his face, etc., without it always being
possible to explain these capricious details by the content of the
following visions; it would seem that the incoherence of the dream
presides over this preliminary work of disintegration, and that the
normal perceptions are absorbed by the subconscious personality eager
for material for the building up of the hallucinations which it is
preparing.
Systematic anæsthesia is often complicated with positive
hallucinations, and Hélène will manifest her surprise at seeing, for
example, a strange costume or an unusual coiffure. This, in reality, is
the vision which is already being installed.
The third symptom, which does not manifest itself clearly in her,
but the presence of which can be often established before all the
others by investigation, is a complete allochiria,[6] ordinarily
accompanied by various other sensory and motor disturbances. If, at
the beginning of the seance, Hélène is asked, for example, to raise
her right hand, to move the left index-finger, or to close one eye,
she begins straightway to carry into effect these different acts; then
all at once, without knowing why and without hesitation, she deceives
herself in regard to the side, and raises her left hand, moves her
right index-finger, closes the other eye, etc. This indicates that she
is no longer in her normal state, though still appearing to retain her
ordinary consciousness, and with the liveliness of a normal person
discusses the question of her having mistaken her right hand or eye
for her left, and vice versa. It is to be noted that Leopold, on such
occasions of pronounced allochiria, does not share this error in regard
to the side. I have assisted at some curious discussions between him
and Hélène, she insisting that such a hand was her right, or that the
Isle Rousseau is on the left as one passes the bridge of Mont Blanc or
coming from the railway station, and Leopold all the while, by means of
raps upon the table, giving her clearly to understand she was wrong.[7]
A little after the allochiria, and sometimes simultaneously with it,
are to be found various other phenomena, extremely variable, of which I
here cite only a few. One of her arms is contractured as it rests upon
the table, and resists the efforts of the sitters to lift it up, as
though it were a bar of iron; the fingers of the hand also participate
in this rigidity. Sometimes this contracture does not exist before,
but establishes itself at the same instant that some one touches the
forearm, and increases in proportion to the efforts which are made
to overcome it. There is no regularity in the distribution of the
anæsthesia (changing from one instant to another), the contractures, or
convulsions which the hands and arms of Hélène exhibit. It all seems
due to pure caprice, or to depend only on underlying dreams, of which
little is known.
Certain analogous and likewise capricious phenomena of anæsthesia,
paralysis, sensations of all sorts, of which Hélène complains, often
appear in her face, her eyes, her mouth, etc. In the midst of all these
disturbances the visions announce themselves, and the somnambulism is
introduced with modifications, equally variable, of other functions,
evidenced by tears, sobbings, sighs, repeated hiccoughs, various
changing of the rhythm of respiration, etc.
If Hélène is experimented upon and questioned too long, the development
of the original visions is obstructed, and she easily reaches a degree
of sensibility where she falls into the standard class of public
representations of hypnotism—a charmed and fascinated state in which
she remains riveted before some brilliant object, as, for example,
the ring, trinkets, or cuff-button of one of the sitters; then
precipitates herself in a frenzy upon the object, and tries to secure
it; or assumes emotional attitudes and poses under the influence of
joyous airs upon the piano; experiences suggested hallucinations of
all kinds, sees terrible serpents, which she pursues with a pair of
pincers; beautiful flowers, which she smells with deep respirations and
distributes to the sitters; or, again, bleeding wounds which have been
made on her hand, and which cause her to shed tears. The commonplace
character of these phenomena causes their long continuance to be
deprecated, and the ingenuity of all is exercised in endeavoring by
different means, none of which is very efficacious or very rapid, to
plunge her into profound and tranquil sleep, from which she is not long
in passing of her own accord into complete somnambulism and in taking
up the thread of her personal imaginations.
If all these disturbing investigations have been successfully avoided,
the spontaneous development of the automatisms is effected with
greater rapidity and fulness. It is possible then to behold, in the
same seance, a very varied spectacle, and to listen, besides, to
certain special communications made in a semi-waking state to one or
other of the sitters; then, in complete somnambulism, a Hindoo vision
is presented, followed by a Martian dream, with an incarnation of
Leopold in the middle, and a scene of Marie Antoinette to wind up
with. Ordinarily two of these last creations will suffice to fill up a
seance. One such representation is not performed without the loss of
considerable strength by the medium, which shows itself by the final
sleep being prolonged sometimes for an hour, interrupted, as I have
said, by repetitions of the preceding somnambulistic scenes, easily
recognizable by certain gestures or the murmuring of characteristic
words. Passing through these diverse oscillations and the ephemeral
awaking, of which I have spoken above, Hélène finishes by returning to
her normal state; but the seances which have been too long continued or
too full of movement leave her very much fatigued for the rest of the
day. It has also sometimes happened to her to re-enter the somnambulism
(from which she had probably not completely emerged) during the course
of the evening or on returning home, and only to succeed in recovering
her perfectly normal state through the assistance of a night’s sleep.
As to the real nature of Hélène’s slumbers at the end of the seances,
and her states of consciousness when she awakes, it is difficult for me
to pronounce, having only been able to observe them under unfavorable
conditions—that is, in the presence of sitters more or less numerous
and restless. The greater part certainly consist of somnambulisms, in
which she hears all that passes around her, since although she seems
profoundly asleep and absent, the suggestions then given her to be
carried out after awaking are registered and performed wonderfully—at
least when Leopold, who is almost always on hand and answers by
movements of one finger or another to questions put to him, does not
make any opposition or declare that the suggestion shall not be carried
out! There are also brief moments when Hélène seems to be in a profound
state of coma and kind of syncope without trace of psychic life; her
pulse and respiration continue to be regular, but she does not react to
any excitation, her arms, if raised, fall heavily, no sign of Leopold
can be obtained, and suggestions made at that instant will not be acted
upon.
These lethargic phases, during which all consciousness seems to be
abolished, are generally followed by cataleptic phases in which the
hands and arms preserve every position in which they may be placed,
and continue the movements of rotation or of oscillation which may be
forced upon them, but never for more than one or two minutes.
In default of more complete experiments, I submit the following
comparison of Hélène’s muscular force and of her sensibility to pain
before and after a seance lasting nearly three hours, the second half
being in full somnambulism. At 4.50 o’clock, on sitting down at the
table three dynamometric tests with her right hand gave kilos. 27.5,
27, 25—average, 26.5. The sensibility to pain measured on the back
of the median phalanx of the index-finger with the algesiometer of
Griesbach, gave for the right, grs. 35, 40, 20, 20—average, 29; for
the left, 35, 20, 20, 15—average, 22.5 grs. (Sensibility slightly more
delicate than that of another lady present at the seance, not a medium
and in perfect health.)
At 7.45 o’clock, some minutes after the final awaking: dynamometer,
right hand, 8, 4.5, 4.5—average, 5.7; algesiometer, complete analgesia
both as to right and left, on the whole of the back of the index as
well as the rest of the hand and wrist, the maximum of the instrument
(100 grs.) was attained and passed without arousing any painful
sensation but only an impression of contact.
One hour later, after dinner: dynamometer 22, 22, 19—average, 21;
algesiometer, 20, 18 for the right; 15, 20 for the left. It is
possible, then, to say that her muscular force and sensibility to pain,
both normal immediately before her entrance upon the seance, are still
abolished in the first fifteen minutes after awaking, but are found to
be restored in about an hour. Perception of colors, on the contrary,
appeared to be as perfect immediately after awaking as before the
seance. The tremor of the index-finger, normal before the seance, is
very much exaggerated in its amplitude for a certain time after awaking
and reflects sometimes the respiratory movements, as can be seen by
the curves of Fig. 2. This denotes a great diminution of kinesthetic
sensibility and of voluntary control over the immobility of the hand.
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Tremor of right index-finger. A, B, C,
fragments of curves taken in the normal state before the seance (A and
C with closed eyes; B, with open eyes looking at the index-finger); D,
E, F, fragments of curves received in succession a quarter of an hour
after the seance. The curve F reflects the respiratory oscillations.
The curves go from right to left, and the interval between the two
vertical lines is ten seconds.]
The state in which Mlle. Smith carries out the post-hypnotic
suggestions made to her in the course of her somnambulisms, when they
do not come into collision with either the pronounced opposition
of Leopold or the states of lethargy of which I have spoken, is
interesting on account of its varied character, which seems to depend
upon the greater or less ease with which the hallucination or the act
suggested can be reconciled with Hélène’s normal personality. Their
execution in the full waking state seems to be confined to suggestions
of simple acts, free from absurdity, the idea of which would be easily
accepted and carried out by the normal self when the desired moment
arrived. If, on the contrary, it is a question of more complicated and
difficult things, compatible, however, with the rational points of view
of the normal waking state, Hélène falls momentarily into somnambulism
for the execution of the order given, unless she has permanently
remained in that state, in spite of her apparent awaking, in order not
to re-enter definitely and completely upon her ordinary state until
after the execution of the order, of which there then remains to her no
recollection whatever.
From the foregoing facts we may conclude that little or nothing of that
which goes on around her escapes her subconscious intelligence, and
it is from this source that her somnambulistic romances are nourished
afresh.
A word more as to the preparation for the seances. I do not refer to a
conscious preparation, but to a subliminal incubation or elaboration,
unknown by her, showing itself on the level of her ordinary personality
in the form of fugitive gleams and fragmentary images during her sleep
at night or the moments of awaking in the morning. Mlle. Smith, in
reality, has no hold, possesses no influence, upon the nature of her
visions and somnambulisms. She is able, undoubtedly, up to a certain
point, to aid their appearance in a general way, by cultivating
tranquillity of mind, securing darkness and silence in the room, and by
abandoning herself to a passive attitude of mind; or to hinder it, on
the other hand, by movement, or distraction of attention; but with the
fixed and concrete content itself of her automatisms she has nothing
to do and no share in the responsibility for it. So far as her great
cycles or her detached messages are concerned, they are fabricated in
her in spite of herself, and without her having a word to say about
their production, any more than one has in the formation of his dreams.
When it is recollected, on the other hand, that the phenomena of
incubation, of subliminal preparation, or unconscious cerebration, are
universal facts, playing their rôle in the psychology of every human
being, we can rely upon finding them also among the mediums, and upon
their holding a place with them much more important than with others,
owing to the fact that their subconscious life is so much more fully
developed.
With each one of us the expectation or the simple perspective of any
event—a departure, a visit, an errand, or undertaking to do anything,
a letter to write, in short, all the more insignificant incidents of
daily existence, when they are not absolutely unforeseen—promote a
psychological adaptation more or less extended and profound.
Alongside of and underneath the conscious expectancy, certain physical
or mental attitudes, voluntarily assumed in view of the event, always
effect an underlying preparation of an inward kind, a change which
we may regard, according to the side from which we consider the
individual, as a peculiar psychical orientation or cerebral adjustment,
a modification in the association of ideas or in the dynamics of the
cortical nerves. But everything points to the fact that in persons
gifted with mediumship this underlying preparation is capable of
assuming on occasion a greater importance than is the case with
ordinary mortals, a much more complete independence of the ordinary
consciousness.
To return to Mlle. Smith, when she knows some time in advance who
will be present at her next seance, and what people she will almost
surely meet there, it would be altogether natural that such previous
knowledge of the environment and of the sitters would influence her
subliminal thoughts and in some degree direct the course of the latent
incubation. It may well be asked, therefore, whether the varied
spectacle which the seances furnish is really always impromptu and has
its birth on the spur of the moment like ordinary dreams, or whether
it has been subconsciously thought out, the seance being only the
performance of an arrested programme, the representation _coram populo_
of scenes already ripened in the deep subliminal strata of the medium.
Neither of these two hypotheses, held to exclude the other, answers to
the facts, but there is some truth in both of them.
The _menu_ of the seances—if the expression is permissible—is always
composed of one or two _plats de résistance_, carefully prepared in
advance in the subliminal laboratories, and of various _hors d’œuvres_
left to the inspiration of the moment. To speak more exactly, the
general plot, the chief lines and more striking points of the scenes
which unfold themselves are fixed according to a previous arrangement,
but the details of execution and accessory embellishments are entirely
dependent upon chance circumstances. The proof of this is found, on the
one hand, in the suppleness, the perfect ease, the appropriateness with
which Hélène’s automatisms—if we can still apply the word automatism
to those cases in which spontaneity, self-possession, free use of all
the faculties constitute the dominant characteristics—often adapt
themselves to unexpected situations in the environment or capricious
interruptions on the part of the sitters; on the other hand, in
the fact that Leopold, interrogated at the beginning of the seance,
ordinarily knows very well and announces the principal vision or
incarnations which are about to make their appearance, provided,
at least, the spectators do not hinder their unfolding by their
tempestuous clamor for something else.
The animated conversations, sometimes full of spirited repartee,
between Leopold or Marie Antoinette and the sitters, could not have
been prepared in advance, and are altogether opposed to the stereotyped
repetition which is generally expected of automatic phenomena. But, on
the other hand, such repetition, almost entirely mechanical and devoid
of sense, presents itself on frequent occasions. I have, for instance,
seen somnambulistic scenes presented which were entirely misplaced,
and constituted at the time veritable anachronisms, which would have
perfectly fitted the situation eight days previously in another
environment, and for which the aforesaid scenes had been evidently
intended; but, having been withheld until the last moment by unforeseen
circumstances, the following seance gets the benefit of these postponed
messages.
Here is proof that Hélène’s subliminal imagination prepares up to a
certain point her principal productions, in view of the conditions
and surroundings under which the seance will probably take place, and
also that these products, once elaborated, must be eliminated and
poured forth with a sort of blind necessity, at the right or the wrong
time, whenever the entrance of Hélène into a favorable hypnoid state
furnishes them an opportunity so to do. It follows also that her
normal personality has nothing whatever to do with the preparation of
the seances, since she can neither suppress nor change scenes badly
adapted to the actual environment, the appearance of which sometimes
greatly annoys Mlle. Smith when they are recounted to her after the
seance; nor can she provoke the messages, the production of which she
desires and vainly hopes for—as, for example, a medical consultation
with Leopold, the incarnation of a deceased parent, or a scene from
one cycle rather than from the others, for the benefit of a sitter who
particularly desires it, and whom she is very desirous to please.
Much more could be said concerning the psychological side of the
seances of Mlle. Smith, but I must limit myself. It will be possible to
gain a more complete idea of this subject by studying the illustrations
in the following chapters on the chief cycles of her brilliant
subliminal fantasy.