THE MARTIAN CYCLE
The title of this book would naturally commit me to a review of the
Hindoo romance before investigating the Martian cycle. Considerations
of method have caused me to reverse this order. It is better to
advance from the simple to the complex, and while we certainly know
less concerning the planet Mars than of India, the romance which it
has inspired in the subliminal genius of Mlle. Smith is relatively
less difficult to explain than the Oriental cycle. In fact, the former
seems to spring from pure imagination, while in the latter we meet with
certain actual historical elements, and whence Hélène’s memory and
intelligence have gained a knowledge of them is an extremely difficult
problem for us to solve. There is, then, only _one_ faculty at work in
the Martian romance, as a professional psychologist would say, while
the Oriental cycle calls several into play, making it necessary to
treat of it later, on account of its greater psychological complexity.
While the unknown language which forms the vehicle of many of the
Martian messages cannot naturally be dissociated from the rest of the
cycle, it merits, nevertheless, a special consideration, and the
following chapter will be entirely devoted to it. It does not figure
in the present chapter, in which I shall treat of the origin and the
content only of the Martian romance.
I. ORIGIN AND BIRTH OF THE MARTIAN CYCLE
“We dare to hope,” says M. Camille Flammarion, at the beginning of
his excellent work on the planet Mars, “that the day will come when
scientific methods yet unknown to us will give us direct evidences of
the existence of the inhabitants of other worlds, and at the same time,
also, will put us in communication with our brothers in space.”[13]
And on the last page of his book he recurs to the same idea, and
says: “What marvels does not the science of the future reserve for
our successors, and who would dare to say that Martian humanity and
terrestrial humanity will not some day enter into communication with
each other?”
This splendid prospect seems still far off, along with that of wireless
telegraphy, and almost an Utopian dream, so long as one holds strictly
to the current conceptions of our positive sciences. But break these
narrow limits; fly, for example, towards the illimitable horizon which
spiritism opens up to its happy followers, and as soon as this vague
hope takes shape, nothing seems to prevent its immediate realization;
and the only cause for wonder is found in the fact that no privileged
medium has yet arisen to have the glory, unique in the world, of being
the first intermediary between ourselves and the human inhabitants
of other planets; for spiritism takes no more account of the barrier
of space than of time. The “gates of distance” are wide open before
it. With it the question of means is a secondary matter; one has only
the embarrassment of making a choice. It matters not whether it be by
intuition, by clairvoyance, by telepathy, or by double personality that
the soul is permitted to leave momentarily its terrestrial prison and
make the voyage between this world and others in an instant of time,
or whether the feat is accomplished by means of the astral body, by
the reincarnation of disincarnate omnisciences, by “fluid beings,”
or, in a word, by any other process whatever. The essential point is,
according to spiritism, that no serious objection would be offered
to the possibility of such communication. The only difficulty would
be to find a mediumistic subject possessing sufficient psychical
faculties. It is a simple question of fact; if such a one has not yet
been found, it is apparently only because the time is not yet ripe.
But now that astronomers themselves appeal to those “unknown methods
of actual science” to put us _en rapport_ with other worlds, no doubt
spiritism—which is the science of to-morrow, as definite as absolute
religion—will soon respond to these legitimate aspirations. We may,
therefore, expect at any moment the revelation so impatiently looked
for, and every good medium has the right to ask herself whether she is
not the being predestined to accomplish this unrivalled mission.
These are the considerations which, to my mind, in their essential
content inspired in the subliminal part of Mlle. Smith the first idea
of her Martian romance. I would not assert that the passages from M.
Flammarion which I have quoted came directly to the notice of Hélène,
but they express and recapitulate wonderfully well one of the elements
of the atmosphere in which she found herself at the beginning of her
mediumship. For if there are no certain indications of her ever having
read any work on the “heavenly worlds” and their inhabitants, either
that of M. Flammarion or of any other author, she has, nevertheless,
heard such subjects discussed. She is perfectly familiar with the name
of the celebrated astronomical writer Juvisy, and knows something of
his philosophical ideas, which, by-the-way, is not at all surprising
when we consider the popularity he enjoys among spiritists, who
find in him a very strong scientific support for their doctrine of
reincarnation on other planets.
I also have evidence that in the circle of Mme. N., of which Hélène
was a member in 1892, the conversation more than once turned in the
direction of the habitability of Mars, to which the discovery of the
famous “canals” has for some years specially directed the attention
of the general public. This circumstance appears to me to explain
sufficiently the fact that Hélène’s subliminal astronomy should be
concerned with this planet. It is, moreover, quite possible that the
first germs of the Martian romance date still further back than the
beginning of Hélène’s mediumship. The Oriental rôle shows indications
of concerning itself with that planet, and the very clear impression
which she has of having in her childhood and youth experienced many
visions of a similar kind “without her noticing them particularly,”
gives rise to the supposition that the ingredients of which this cycle
is composed date from many years back. Possibly they may have one
and the same primitive source in the exotic memories, descriptions,
or pictures of tropical countries which later branched out under the
vigorous impulsion of spiritistic ideas in two distinct currents, the
Hindoo romance on the one side and the Martian on the other, whose
waters are mingled on more than one occasion afterwards.
While, on the whole, therefore, it is probable that its roots extend
back as far as the childhood of Mlle. Smith, it is nevertheless with
the Martian romance, as well as with the others, not a mere question
of the simple cryptomnesiac return of facts of a remote past, or of
an exhumation of fossil residua brought to light again by the aid of
somnambulism. It is a very active process, and one in full course of
evolution, nourished, undoubtedly, by elements belonging to the past,
but which have been recombined and moulded in a very original fashion,
until it amounts finally, among other things, to the creation of an
unknown language. It will be interesting to follow step by step the
phases of this elaboration: but since it always, unfortunately, hides
itself in the obscurity of the subconsciousness, we are only cognizant
of it by its occasional appearances, and all the rest of that
subterranean work must be inferred, in a manner somewhat hypothetical,
from those supraliminal eruptions and the scanty data which we have
concerning the outward influences which have exerted a stimulating
influence upon the subliminal part of Hélène. It was in 1892, then,
that the conversations took place which were to prepare the soil for
this work of lofty subliminal fantasy, and planted in Hélène’s mind the
double idea, of enormous scientific interest, that she could enter into
direct relation with the inhabitants of Mars, and of the possibility,
unsuspected by scientists, but which spiritism furnishes us, of
reaching there by a mediumistic route. I doubt, however, whether that
vague suggestion on the part of the environment would have sufficed
to engender the Martian dream—since for more than two years no sign
of its eruption manifested itself—without the intervention of some
fillip more concrete, capable of giving a start to the whole movement.
It is not easy, unfortunately, for want of records of the facts, to
assign with precision the circumstances under which and the moment when
Hélène’s subconscious imagination received that effective impulsion,
but an unequivocal trace is discovered, as I am about to show in the
contemporaneous report of the proceedings of the first distinctly
Martian seance of Mlle. Smith.
In March, 1894, Hélène made the acquaintance of M. Lemaître, who, being
exceedingly interested in the phenomena of abnormal psychology, was
present with others at some of her seances, and finally begged her to
hold some at his house. At the first of these (October 28, 1894),
Hélène met a lady, a widow, who was greatly to be pitied. Besides
suffering from a very serious affection of the eyes, Mme. Mirbel had
been terribly afflicted by the loss of her only son, Alexis, seventeen
years old, and a pupil of M. Lemaître. While not yet fully convinced
of the truth of spiritism, it is easy to understand that Mme. Mirbel
was very anxious to believe in that consolatory doctrine, and ready
to accept it, if only some proofs could be furnished her; and what
more convincing testimony could she ask or receive than that of a
message from her beloved child? Moreover, it was probably not without
a secret hope of procuring a communication of this nature that she
accepted the invitation which M. Lemaître had sent her with the idea
of procuring some moments of distraction for the unhappy mother. As
happens frequently in Hélène’s case, this first seance fully satisfied
the desires of the sitters and surpassed their expectations. Speaking
only of that which concerns Mme. Mirbel, Hélène had the vision, first,
of a young man, in the very detailed description of whom there was no
difficulty in recognizing the deceased Alexis Mirbel; then of an old
man whom the table called Raspail, brought by the young man that he
might treat his mother’s eyes, who thus had the double privilege of
receiving through the table words of tenderness from her son, and from
Raspail directions for the treatment of the affliction of her eyes.
Nothing in that seance recalled in any way the planet Mars, and it
could not be foreseen from anything that occurred there that Alexis
Mirbel, disincarnated, would return later under the name of Esenale as
official interpreter of the Martian language.
It was altogether different a month later (November 25), at the second
reunion at M. Lemaître’s, at which Mme. Mirbel was again present. On
this occasion the astronomical dream appeared at once and dominated the
entire seance.
From the beginning, says the report of the seance, Mlle. Smith
perceived, in the distance and at a great height, a bright light. Then
she felt a tremor which almost caused her heart to cease beating, after
which it seemed to her as though her head were empty and as if she
were no longer in the body. She found herself in a dense fog, which
changed successively from blue to a vivid rose color, to gray, and
then to black: she is floating, she says; and the table, supporting
itself on one leg, seemed to express a very curious floating movement.
Then she sees a star, growing larger, always larger, and becomes,
finally, “as large as our house.” Hélène feels that she is ascending;
then the table gives, by raps: “Lemaître, that which you have so long
desired!” Mlle. Smith, who had been ill at ease, finds herself feeling
better; she distinguishes three enormous globes, one of them very
beautiful. “On what am I walking?” she asks. And the table replies:
“On a world—Mars.” Hélène then began a description of all the strange
things which presented themselves to her view, and caused her as much
surprise as amusement. Carriages without horses or wheels, emitting
sparks as they glided by; houses with fountains on the roof; a cradle
having for curtains an angel made of iron with outstretched wings,
etc. What seemed less strange, were people exactly like the inhabitants
of our earth, save that both sexes wore the same costume, formed of
trousers very ample, and a long blouse, drawn tight about the waist and
decorated with various designs. The child in the cradle was exactly
like our children, according to the sketch which Hélène made from
memory after the seance.
Finally, she saw upon Mars a sort of vast assembly hall, in which was
Professor Raspail, having in the first row of his hearers the young
Alexis Mirbel, who, by a typtological dictation, reproached his mother
for not having followed the medical prescription which he gave her a
month previously: “Dear mamma, have you, then, so little confidence in
us? You have no idea how much pain you have caused me!” Then followed a
conversation of a private nature between Mme. Mirbel and her son, the
latter replying by means of the table; then everything becomes quiet,
the vision of Mars effaces itself little by little; the table takes
the same rotary movement on one foot which it had at the commencement
of the seance; Mlle. Smith finds herself again in the fogs and goes
through the same process as before in an inverse order. Then she
exclaims: “Ah! here I am back again!” and several loud raps on the
table mark the end of the seance.
I have related in its principal elements this first Martian seance, for
the sake of its importance in different respects.
The initial series of cœnæsthetic hallucinations, corresponding to a
voyage from the earth to Mars, reflects well the childish character of
an imagination which scientific problems or the exigencies of logic
trouble very little. Without doubt spiritism can explain how the
material difficulties of an interplanetary journey may be avoided in a
purely mediumistic, fluid connection; but why, then, this persistence
of physical sensations, trouble with the heart, tremor, floating
sensation, etc.? However it may be, this series of sensations is from
this time on the customary prelude, and, as it were, the premonitory
_aura_ of the Martian dream, with certain modifications, throughout all
the seances; sometimes it is complicated with auditive hallucinations
(rumbling, noise of rushing water, etc.), or sometimes olfactory
(disagreeable odors of burning, of sulphur, of a coming storm), oftener
it tends to shorten and simplify itself, until it is either reduced to
a brief feeling of _malaise_, or to the initial visual hallucination
of the light, generally very brilliant and red, in which the Martian
visions usually appear.
But the point to which I wish to call special attention is that
singular speech of the table, on the instant at which Mlle. Smith
arrives on the distant star, and before it is known what star is
concerned: “Lemaître, that which you have so much wished for!” This
declaration, which may be considered as a dedication, so to speak,
inscribed on the frontispiece of the Martian romance, authorizes us,
in my opinion, in considering it and interpreting it in its origin,
as a direct answer to a wish of M. Lemaître, a desire which came at a
recent period to Hélène’s knowledge, and which has enacted with her
the initiatory rôle of her astronomical dream.
It is true that M. Lemaître himself did not understand at the moment to
what this preliminary warning referred, but the note which he inserted
at the end of his report of that seance is instructive in this regard:
“I do not know how to explain the first words dictated by the table:
‘Lemaître, that which you have so much wished for!’ M. S. reminds me
that in a conversation which I had with him last summer I said to him:
‘It would be very interesting to know what is happening upon other
planets.’ If this is an answer to the wish of last year, very well.”
It must be added that M. S., who had been sufficiently struck by this
wish of M. Lemaître to remember it for several months, was, during
all of the time referred to, one of the most regular attendants upon
the seances of Mlle. Smith; and, to one who knows by experience all
that happens at the spiritistic reunions, before, after, and during
the seance itself, there could hardly be any doubt but that it was
through M. S., as intermediary, that Mlle. Smith had heard mentioned
M. Lemaître’s regret at our relative ignorance of the inhabitants
of other planets. This idea, probably caught on the wing during the
state of suggestibility which accompanies the seances, returned with
renewed force when Hélène was invited to hold a seance at the house of
M. Lemaître, and made more vivid also by the desire, which is always
latent in her, of making the visions as interesting as possible to the
persons among whom she finds herself. Such is, in my opinion, the seed
which, falling into the ground and fertilized by former conversations
concerning the inhabitants of Mars and the possibility of spiritistic
relations with them, has served as the germ of the romance, the further
development of which it remains for me to trace.
One point which still remains to be cleared up in the seance, as I
come to sum up, is the singularly artificial character and the slight
connection between the Martian vision, properly so called, and the
reappearance of Raspail and Alexis Mirbel. We do not altogether
understand what these personages have to do with it. What need is there
of their being to-day found on the planet Mars simply for the purpose
of continuing their interview with Mme. Mirbel, begun at a previous
seance, without the intervention of any planet? The assembly-hall at
which they are found, while it is located on Mars, is a bond of union
all the more artificial between them and that planet in that there is
nothing specifically Martian in its description and appears to have
been borrowed from our globe. This incident is at bottom a matter out
of the regular course, full of interest undoubtedly for Mme. Mirbel,
whom it directly concerns, but without intimate connection with the
Martian world. It was evidently the astronomical revelation, intended
for M. Lemaître, and ripened by a period of incubation, which should
have furnished the material for this seance; but the presence of Mme.
Mirbel awoke anew the memory of her son and of Raspail, which had
occupied the preceding seance, and these memories, interfering with
the Martian vision, become, for good or ill, incorporated as a strange
episode in it without having any direct connection with it. The work
of unification, of dramatization, by which these two unequal chains
of ideas are harmonized and fused the one with the other through the
intermediation of an assembly-hall, is no more or no less extraordinary
than that which displays itself in all our nocturnal phantasmagoria,
where certain absolutely heterogeneous memories often ally themselves
after an unexpected fashion, and afford opportunity for confusions of
the most bizarre character.
But mediumistic communications differ from ordinary dreams in
this—namely, the incoherence of the latter does not cause them to
have any consequences. We are astonished and diverted for a moment as
we reflect upon a dream. Sometimes a dream holds a little longer the
attention of the psychologist, who endeavors to unravel the intricate
plot of his dreams and to discover, amid the caprices of association
or the events of the waking state, the origin of their tangled
threads. But, on the whole, this incoherence has no influence on the
ultimate course of our thoughts, because we see in our dreams only the
results of chance, without value in themselves and without objective
signification.
It is otherwise with spiritistic communications, by reason of the
importance and the credit accorded them.
The medium who partially recollects her automatisms, or to whom the
sitters have detailed them after the close of the seance, adding also
their comments, becomes preoccupied with these mysterious revelations;
like the paranoiac, who perceives hidden meanings or a profound
significance in the most trifling coincidences, she seeks to fathom the
content of her strange visions, reflects on them, examines them in the
light of spiritistic notions; if she encounters difficulties in them,
or contradictions, her conscious or unconscious thought (the two are
not always in accord) will undertake the task of removing them, and
solving as well as possible the problems which these dream-creations,
considered as realities, impose upon her, and the later somnambulisms
will bear the imprint of this labor of interpretation or correction.
It is to this point we have come at the commencement of the
astronomical romance of Mlle. Smith. The purely accidental and
fortuitous conjunction of the planet Mars and Alexis Mirbel in the
seance of the 25th of November determined their definitive welding
together. Association by fortuitous contiguity is transformed into a
logical connection.
II. LATER DEVELOPMENT OF THE MARTIAN CYCLE
This development was not effected in a regular manner; but for the
most part by leaps and bounds, separating stoppages more or less
prolonged. After its inauguration in the seance of November 25, 1894,
it suffered a first eclipse of nearly fifteen months, attributable to
new preoccupations which had installed themselves on the highest plane
of Mlle. Smith’s subconsciousness and held that position throughout the
whole of the year 1895.
Compared with the seance of November, 1894, that of February, 1896
(of which a résumé follows), shows interesting innovations. Raspail
does not figure in it and henceforth does not appear again, which was
probably due to the fact that Mme. Mirbel had failed to make use of the
method of treatment which he had prescribed for her eyes. Young Mirbel,
on the contrary, sole object of the desires and longings of his poor
mother, occupies the highest plane, and is the central figure of the
vision. He now speaks Martian and no longer understands French, which
complicates the conversation somewhat. Further, not possessing the
power of moving tables upon our globe, it is through the intervention
of the medium, by incarnating himself momentarily in Mlle. Smith, that
he henceforth communicates with his mother. These two latter points
in their turn cause certain difficulties to arise, which, acting as a
ferment or a suggestion, will later usher in a new step in the progress
of the romance: Alexis Mirbel cannot return to incarnate himself in
a terrestrial medium if he is imprisoned in his Martian existence;
he must first terminate that and return to the condition in which he
again floats in interplanetary space; which “fluid” or wandering state
permits him at the same time to give us the French translation of
the Martian tongue; since, according to spiritism, a complete memory
of previous existences, and consequently of the various languages
pertaining to them, is temporarily recovered during the phases of
disincarnation.
These anticipatory hints will assist the reader in following more
easily the thread of the somnambulistic romance in the résumé of its
principal stages.
February 2, 1896.—I sum up, by enumerating them, the principal
somnambulistic phases of this seance, which lasted more than two hours
and a half, and at which Mme. Mirbel assisted.
1. Increasing hemisomnambulism, with gradual loss of consciousness of
the real environment—at the beginning the table bows several times to
Mme. Mirbel, announcing that the coming scene is intended for her.
After a series of elementary visual hallucinations (rainbow colors,
etc.), meaning for Mme. Mirbel that she would finally become blind,
Hélène arose, left the table, and held a long conversation with an
imaginary woman who wished her to enter a curious little car without
wheels or horses. She became impatient towards this woman, who, after
having at first spoken to her in French, now persisted in speaking in
an unintelligible tongue, like Chinese. Leopold revealed to us by the
little finger that it was the language of the planet Mars, that this
woman is the mother of Alexis Mirbel, reincarnated on that planet,
and that Hélène herself will speak Martian. Presently Hélène begins
to recite with increasing volubility an incomprehensible jargon, the
beginning of which is as follows (according to notes taken by M.
Lemaître at the time, as accurately as possible): “=Mitchma mitchmon
mimini tchouainem mimatchineg masichinof mézavi patelki abrésinad
navette naven navette mitchichénid naken chinoutoufiche=”.... From this
point the rapidity prevented the recognition of anything else, except
such scraps as “=téké ... katéchivist ... méguetch=,” ... or “=méketch
... kété ... chiméké=.” After a few minutes, Hélène interrupts
herself, crying out, “Oh, I have had enough of it; you say such words
to me I will never be able to repeat them.” Then, with some reluctance,
she consents to follow her interlocutrix into the car which was to
carry her to Mars.
2. The trance is now complete. Hélène thereupon mimics the voyage to
Mars in three phases, the meaning of which is indicated by Leopold:
a regular rocking motion of the upper part of the body (passing
through the terrestrial atmosphere), absolute immobility and rigidity
(interplanetary space), again oscillations of the shoulders and the
bust (atmosphere of Mars). Arrived upon Mars, she descends from the
car, and performs a complicated pantomime expressing the manners of
Martian politeness: uncouth gestures with the hands and fingers,
slapping of the hands, taps of the fingers upon the nose, the lips, the
chin, etc., twisted courtesies, glidings, and rotation on the floor,
etc. It seems that is the way people approach and salute each other up
there.
3. This sort of dance having suggested to one of the sitters the idea
of performing upon the piano, Hélène suddenly fell upon the floor in an
evidently hypnotic state, which had no longer a Martian character. At
the cessation of the music she entered into a mixed state, in which the
memory of the Martian visions continually mingle themselves with some
idea of her terrestrial existence. She talks to herself. “Those dreams
are droll, all the same.... I must tell that to M. Lemaître. When he
[the Martian Alexis Mirbel] said ‘Good-day’ to me, he tapped himself
upon the nose.... He spoke to me in a queer language, but I understood
it perfectly, all the same,” etc. Seated on the ground, leaning
against a piece of furniture, she continues, soliloquizing in French,
in a low voice, to review the dream, mingling with it some wandering
reflections. She finds, for example, that the young Martian (Alexis)
was a remarkably big boy for one only five or six years old, as he
claimed to be, and that the woman seemed very young to be his mother.
4. After a transitory phase of sighs and hiccoughs, followed by
profound sleep with muscular relaxation, she enters into Martian
somnambulism and murmurs some confused words: “=Késin ouitidjé=” ...
etc. I command her to speak French to me; she seems to understand, and
replies in Martian, with an irritated and imperious tone, I ask her
to tell me her name; she replies, “=Vasimini Météche=.” With the idea
that, perhaps, she “is incarnating” the young Alexis, of whom she has
spoken so much in the preceding phase, I urge Mme. Mirbel to approach
her, and thereupon begins a scene of incarnation really very affecting;
Mme. Mirbel is on her knees, sobbing bitterly, in the presence of her
recovered son, who shows her marks of the most profound affection and
caresses her hands “exactly as he was accustomed to do during his
last illness,” all the time carrying on a discourse in Martian (=tin
is toutch=), which the poor mother cannot understand, but to which an
accent of extreme sweetness and a tender intonation impart an evident
meaning of words of consolation and filial tenderness. This pathetic
duet lasted about ten minutes, and was brought to an end by a return
to lethargic sleep, from which Hélène awakened at the end of a quarter
of an hour, pronouncing a short Martian word, after which she instantly
recovered the use of her French and her normal waking state.
5. Questioned as to what had passed, Hélène, while drinking tea,
narrates the dream which she has had. She has a sufficiently clear
memory of her journey and of what she has seen on Mars, with
the exception of the young man, of whom she has retained only a
recollection of the scene of incarnation.
But suddenly, in the midst of the conversation, she begins to speak in
Martian, without appearing to be aware of it, and while continuing to
chat with us in the most natural manner; she appeared to understand
all our words, and answered in her strange idiom, in the most normal
tone, and seemed very much astonished when we told her that we did
not understand her language; she evidently believes she is speaking
French.[14] By questioning her concerning a visit which she had made
a few days before to M. C., and asking her the number and the names
of the persons whom she met there, we succeed in identifying the four
following Martian words: =Métiche S.=, _Monsieur S._; =Médache C.=,
_Madame C._; =Métaganiche Smith=, _Mademoiselle Smith_; =kin’t’che=,
_four_. After which she resumes definitively her French. Interrogated
as to the incident which has transpired, she is astounded, has only a
hesitating and confused memory of her having spoken at all this evening
of her visit to M. C., and does not recognize nor understand the four
Martian words given above when they are repeated to her. On several
occasions during this seance I had made the suggestion to Hélène that
at a given signal, after her awaking, she would recover the memory of
the Martian words pronounced by her and of their meaning. But Leopold,
who was present, declared that this command would not be obeyed, and
that a translation could not be obtained this evening. The signal,
though often repeated, was, in fact, without result.
It has seemed to me necessary to describe with some detail this seance,
at which the Martian language made its first appearance, in order to
place before the reader all the fragments which we have been able to
gather, without, of course, any guarantee of absolute accuracy, since
every one knows how difficult it is to note the sounds of unknown
words. A curious difference is to be noticed between the words picked
up in the course of the seance and the four words several times
repeated by Hélène, the meaning and pronunciation of which have been
determined with complete accuracy in the post-hypnotic return of the
somnambulistic dream. Judged by these latter, the Martian language
is only a puerile counterfeit of French, of which she preserves in
each word a number of syllables and certain conspicuous letters. In
the other phrases, on the contrary, also making use of later texts
which have been translated, as we shall see hereafter, it cannot be
discovered what it is. We are constrained to believe that these first
outbreaks of Martian, characterized by a volubility which we have
rarely met with since then, was only a pseudo-Martian, a continuation
of sounds uttered at random and without any real meaning, analogous
to the gibberish which children use sometimes in their games of
“pretending” to speak Chinese or Indian, and that the real Martian was
only created by an unskilful distortion of French, in a post-hypnotic
access of hemisomnambulism, in order to respond to the manifest desire
of the sitters to obtain the precise significance of some isolated
Martian words.
The impossibility, announced by Leopold, of procuring a translation
that same evening of the pretended Martian spoken for the first time
during that seance, and the fact that it could not again be obtained,
give some support to the preceding theory.
The circumstance that Hélène, in remembering her dream in phase No.
3, had the sentiment of having _well understood_ this unknown jargon,
is not an objection, since the children who amuse themselves by
simulating an uncouth idiom—to recur to that example—do not retain
the least consciousness of the ideas which their gibberish is assumed
to express. It seems, in short, that if this new language was already
really established at that time in Hélène’s subliminal consciousness
to the point of sustaining fluently discourses of several minutes’
duration, some phrases at least would not have failed to gush forth,
spontaneously sometimes, in the course of ordinary life, and in order
to throw light upon visions of Martian people or landscapes. More
than seven months had to elapse before that phenomenon, which was so
frequent afterwards, began to appear.
May we not see in this half-year a period of incubation, employed in
the subliminal fabrication of a language, properly so called—that is
to say, formed of precise words and with a definite signification, in
imitation of the four terms just referred to—to replace the disordered
nonsense of the beginning?
However it may be, and to return to our story, one can imagine the
interest which that sudden and unexpected apparition of mysterious
speech aroused, and which the authority of Leopold would not allow to
be taken for anything other than the language of Mars. The natural
curiosity of Hélène herself, as well as that of her friends, to know
more about our neighbors of other worlds and their way of expressing
themselves should naturally have contributed to the development of the
subliminal dream. The following seance, unhappily, did not justify the
promise with which it began.
February 16, 1896.—“At the beginning of this seance, Hélène has a
vision of Alexis Mirbel, who announces, by means of the table, that he
has not forgotten his French, and that he will give a translation of
the Martian words another day. But this prediction is not fulfilled.
Whether Hélène, for the reason that she is not feeling well to-day,
or that the presence of some one antipathetic to her has hindered the
production of the phenomena, the Martian somnambulism, which seemed
on the point of breaking forth, did not make its appearance. Hélène
remains in a crepuscular state, in which the feeling of present reality
and the Martian ideas on the level of consciousness interfere with and
mutually obscure each other. She speaks in French with the sitters,
but mingling with it here and there a strange word (such as =méche=,
=chinit=, =chéque=, which, according to the context, seem to signify
_pencil_, _ring_, _paper_), and appears far away from her actual
surroundings. She is astonished, in particular, at the sight of M. R.
occupied in taking notes by the _procès verbal_, and seems to find
that manner of writing with a pen or pencil strange and absurd, but
without explaining clearly how it was to be otherwise accomplished.
The importance of this seance is in the fact that the idea stands out
clearly (which was not to be realized until a year and a half later) of
a mode of handwriting peculiar to the planet Mars.”
This seance, which was almost a failure, was the last of that period.
Hélène’s health, which became more and more impaired by standing too
long on her feet and overwork at her desk, necessitated her taking a
complete rest. I have mentioned the fact that during these six months,
without any regular seances, she was subject to a superabundance
of spontaneous visions and somnambulisms; but these automatisms
belonged to the Hindoo or other cycles, and I do not believe that
she experienced during that time any phenomena which were clearly
related to the Martian romance. On the other hand, as soon as she was
re-established in and had returned to her normal mode of life, the
latter appeared again with all the more intensity, dating from the
following nocturnal vision. (See Fig. 9.)
September 5, 1896.—Hélène narrates that having arisen at a quarter-past
three in the morning to take in some flowers that stood upon the
window-sill and were threatened by the wind, instead of going back
to bed immediately she sat down upon her bed and saw before her
a landscape and some peculiar people. She was on the border of a
beautiful blue-pink lake, with a bridge the sides of which were
transparent and formed of yellow tubes like the pipes of an organ,
of which one end seemed to be plunged into the water. The earth was
peach-colored; some of the trees had trunks widening as they ascended,
while those of others were twisted. Later a crowd approached the
bridge, in which one woman was especially prominent. The women wore
hats which were flat, like plates. Hélène does not know who these
people are, but has the feeling of having conversed with them. On
the bridge there was a man of dark complexion (Astané), carrying in
his hands an instrument somewhat resembling a carriage-lantern in
appearance, which, being pressed, emitted flames, and which seemed
to be a flying-machine. By means of this instrument the man left the
bridge, touched the surface of the water, and returned again to the
bridge. This tableau lasted twenty-five minutes, since Hélène, upon
returning to consciousness, observed that her candle was still burning
and ascertained that it was then 3.40 o’clock. She is convinced that
she did not fall asleep, but was wide awake during all of this vision.
(See Figs. 10 and 11.)
From that time the spontaneous Martian visions are repeated and
multiplied. Mlle. Smith experiences them usually in the morning, after
awaking and before rising from her bed; sometimes in the evening, or
occasionally at other times during the day. It is in the course of
these visual hallucinations that the Martian language appears again
under an auditive form.
September 22, 1896.—During these last days Hélène has seen again
on different occasions the Martian man, with or without his
flying-machine; for example, he appeared to her while she was taking a
bath, at the edge of the bath-tub. She has had several times visions
of a strange house the picture of which followed her with so much
persistency that she finally painted it (see Fig. 12). At the same
time she heard on three different occasions a sentence the meaning of
which she does not know, but which she was able to take down with her
pencil as follows: “=Dodé né ci haudan té méche métiche Astané ké dé mé
véche.=” (As was ascertained six weeks after, by the translation given
in the seance of the 2d of November, this phrase indicates that the
strange house is that of the Martian man, who is called Astané.)
This phrase was undoubtedly Martian, but what was the meaning of it?
After having hoped in vain for nearly a month that the meaning would be
revealed in some way or other, I decided to try a disguised suggestion.
I wrote to Leopold himself a letter, in which I appealed to his
omniscience as well as to his kindness to give me some enlightenment
in regard to the strange language which piqued our curiosity, and,
in particular, as to the meaning of the phrase Hélène had heard. I
asked him to answer me in writing, by means of Hélène’s hand. We did
not have to wait long for a reply. Hélène received my letter the
20th of October, and on the evening of the 22d, seized with a vague
desire to write, she took a pencil, which placed itself in the regular
position, between the thumb and the index-finger (whereas she always
held her pen between the middle and index-finger), and traced rapidly,
in the characteristic handwriting of Leopold and with his signature,
a beautiful epistle of eighteen Alexandrine lines addressed to me, of
which the ten last are as follows, being an answer to my request that
the secrets of Martian be revealed to me:
“Ne crois pas qu’en t’aimant comme un bien tendre frère
Je te diroi des cieux tout le profond mystère;
Je t’aideroi beaucoup, je t’ouvriroi la voie,
Mais à toi de saisir et chercher avec joie;
Et quand tu la verras d’ici-bas détachée,
Quand son âme mobile aura pris la volée
Et planera sur Mars aux superbes couleurs;
Si tu veux obtenir d’elle quelques lueurs,
Pose bien doucement, ta main sur son front pâle
Et prononce bien bas le doux nom d’Esenale!”[15]
I have been very sensible to the pledges of fraternal affection that
Leopold has accorded me, but this time I was especially moved, and
although the very uncommon name of Esenale meant absolutely nothing
to me, I took care not to forget the singular rule which had been
furnished me. At the following seance an opportunity for using it
presented itself, and Leopold went so far as to direct himself the
application of his method by giving us his instructions, sometimes with
one finger, sometimes with another, during Hélène’s Martian trance.
Monday, November 2, 1896.—After various characteristic symptoms of the
departure for Mars (vertigo, affection of the heart, etc.), Hélène went
in a deep sleep. I had recourse to the prescribed method, but Leopold,
by the fingers of the right hand, indicated that the proper moment had
not yet arrived, and said: “When the soul shall again have regained
possession of itself thou shalt execute my order; she will then
describe to you, while still asleep, that which she shall have seen
on Mars.” Shortly after he adds, “Make her sit down in an easy-chair”
(instead of the uncomfortable one which she had taken, as was her
wont); then, as her peaceful sleep still continued, he informs us
again that she is _en route_ towards Mars; that once arrived up there
she understands the Martian spoken around her, although she has never
learned it; that it is not he, Leopold, who will translate the Martian
for us—not because he does not wish to do so, but because he cannot;
that this translation is the performance of Esenale, who is actually
disincarnate in space, but who has recently lived upon Mars, and also
upon the earth, which permits him to act as interpreter, etc.
After half an hour of waiting, Hélène’s calm sleep gave way to
agitation, and she passed into another form of somnambulism, with
sighs, rhythmic movements of the head and hands, then grotesque Martian
gestures and French words murmured softly to the hearing of Leopold,
who seems to accompany her on Mars, and to whom she confides some of
her impressions in regard to that which she perceives. In the midst of
this soliloquy a vertical movement of the arm, peculiar to Leopold,
indicates that the moment has arrived for carrying out his directions.
I place my hand on Hélène’s forehead, and utter the name of Esenale,
to which Hélène replies in a soft, feeble, somewhat melancholy, voice:
“Esenale has gone away ... he has left me alone ... but he will return,
... he will soon return.... He has taken me by the hand and made me
enter the house [that which she saw in her vision, and of which she
made the drawing a month ago—see Fig. 12].... I do not know where
Esenale is leading me, but he has said to me, ‘=Dodé né ci haudan té
méche métiche Astané ké dé mé véche=,’ but I did not understand; ...
=dodé=, _this_; =né=, _is_; =ci=, _the_; =haudan=, _house_; =te=, _of
the_; =méche=, _great_; =métiche=, _man_; =Astané=, _Astané_; =ké=,
_whom_; =dé=, _thou_; =mé=, _hast_; =véche=, _seen_.... This is the
house of the great man Astané, whom thou hast seen.... Esenale has told
me that.... Esenale has gone away.... He will return ... he will soon
return ... he will teach me to speak ... and Astané will teach me to
write.”
I have abridged this long monologue, constantly interrupted by
silences, and the continuation of which I only obtained by having
constant recourse to the name of Esenale as the magic word, alone
capable of extracting each time a few words from Hélène’s confused
brain. After the last sentence or phrase, in which one can see a
categorical prediction of the Martian writing, her weak, slow voice
was finally hushed, and Leopold directs by means of his left middle
finger the removal of the hand from the forehead. Then follow the
customary alternations of lethargic sleep, sighs, catalepsy, momentary
relapses into somnambulism, etc. Then she opens her eyes permanently,
very much surprised to find herself in the easy-chair. Her brain is
greatly confused. “It seems to me as though I had a great many things
on my mind, but I cannot fix upon anything.” By degrees she regains
a clear consciousness, but of the entire seance, which has lasted an
hour and a half, there only remain some fragments of Martian visions
and no recollection whatever of the scene with Esenale and that of the
translation.
This process of translation, the first application of which is here
presented, becomes from this time the standard method.
For more than two years and a half, the imposition of the hand upon
Hélène’s forehead and the uttering of the name of Esenale at the
proper moment during the trance constitute the “open sesame” of the
Martian-French dictionary buried in the subliminal strata of Hélène’s
consciousness. The idea of this ceremonial is evidently to awaken by
suggestion—in a certain favorable somnambulistic phase, which Leopold
recognizes and himself announces by a gesture of the arm—the secondary
personality which has amused itself by composing the phrases of this
extra-terrestrial language.
In spiritistic terms, it amounts to invoking the disincarnate Esenale,
otherwise called Alexis Mirbel, who, having lived on both planets, can
easily devote himself to the functions of an interpreter.
The only difference between this scene of translation and other seances
is in the ease and rapidity with which it is performed. Esenale seems
sometimes to be thoroughly asleep and difficult to awaken; Hélène
persists in replying by the stereotyped refrain, and incessantly
repeats, in her soft and melancholy voice, “Esenale has gone away—he
will soon return—he has gone away—he will soon return.” Then some more
energetic passes or friction on the forehead are necessary, instead of
the simple pressure of the hand, in order to break up this mechanical
repetition, which threatens to go on forever, and in order to obtain,
finally, the repetition and translation, word by word, of the Martian
texts. Otherwise the voice continues identical with that of the
refrain, soft and feeble, and one can never know whether it is Esenale
himself who is making use of Hélène’s phonetic apparatus without
modifying it, or whether it is she herself, repeating in her sleep what
Esenale has told her; the categorical distinctness and absence of all
hesitation in pronunciation of the Martian are in favor of the former
supposition, which is also corroborated by the fact that it was also
in this same voice that Alexis Mirbel (Esenale) spoke to his mother in
the scenes of incarnation. (See Fig. 13.)
[Illustration: Fig. 13. Martian landscape. Greenish-yellow sky. A
man with a yellow complexion, dressed in white, in a boat of brown,
yellow, black, and red colors on a blue-green lake; rose-tinted rock,
with white and yellow spots; dark green vegetation; buildings of
brown, red, and rose-lilac tints, with white window-panes and curtains
of bright blue.]
It would be wearisome to recount in detail all the further
manifestations of the Martian cycle, which occur frequently in numerous
seances and also under the form of spontaneous visions in the daily
life of Mlle. Smith. The reader can gain an idea of them both from the
remarks of the following paragraph, as well as from the explanatory
résumés added to the Martian texts, which will be collected in the
following chapter. It merely remains for me to say a word here as
to the manner in which the pictures of Hélène relative to Mars, and
reproduced in autotype in the Figs. 9 to 20, have been made.
None of these pictures has been executed in complete somnambulism, and
they have not, consequently, like the drawings of certain mediums, the
interest of a graphic product, absolutely automatic, engendered outside
of and unknown to the ordinary consciousness. They are nothing more
than simple compositions of the normal consciousness of Mlle. Smith.
They represent a type of intermediary activity, and correspond to a
state of hemisomnambulism. We have seen above (p. 20) that already in
her childhood Hélène seems to have executed various pieces of work in
a semi-automatic manner. The same performance is often reproduced on
the occasion of the Martian visions, which sometimes pursue her so
persistently that she decides to execute them with pencil and brush;
work which, in anticipation, often frightens her by its difficulty,
but which, when the time comes, accomplishes itself, to her great
astonishment, with an ease and perfection almost mechanical. Here is an
example:
One Tuesday evening, having already retired, Hélène saw on her bed some
magnificent flowers, very different from ours, but without perfume,
and which she did not touch, for during her visions she has no idea of
moving, and remains inert and passive. The afternoon of the following
day, at her desk, she found herself enveloped in a red light, and at
the same time felt an indefinable but violent affection of the heart
(_aura_ of the voyage to Mars). “The red light continues about me, and
I find myself surrounded by extraordinary flowers of the kind which I
saw on my bed, but they had no perfume. I will bring you some sketches
of them on Sunday.” She sent them to me, in fact, on Monday, with the
following note: “I am very well satisfied with my plants. They are the
exact reproduction of those which it afforded me so much pleasure to
behold [No. 3, in Fig. 16, which, beforehand, Hélène despaired of being
able to render well], which appeared to me on the latter occasion, and
I greatly regret that you were not here to see me execute the drawing:
the pencil glided so quickly that I did not have time to notice what
contours it was making. I can assert without any exaggeration that
it was not my hand alone that made the drawing, but that truly an
invisible force guided the pencil in spite of me. The various tints
appeared to me upon the paper, and my brush was directed in spite of
me towards the color which I ought to use. This seems incredible, but
it is, notwithstanding, the exact truth, The whole was done so quickly
that I marvelled at it.”
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Martian landscape. Pink bridge, with yellow
railings plunging down into a pale-blue and purple-tinted lake. The
shores and hills of a red color, no green being visible. All the trees
are of a brick-red, purple, or violet tint. [From the collection of M.
Lemaître]]
[Illustration: Fig. 15, Fig. 16, Fig. 17
Fig. 15. Light-brown and yellow trunk and leaves; double-lobed flowers
of a vivid red, out of which proceed yellow stamens like black
threads. Fig. 16. Large leaves, light yellowish brown; flowers with
purple petals with black stamens and black stems covered with little
purple leaves like petals. Fig. 17. Large violet fruit with black
spots, surmounted by a yellow and violet plume. The trunk of brown
color with black veins, with six branches of the same character ending
in a yellow hook. Red-brick soil.]
The house of Astané (Fig. 12), and the extensive landscapes of Figs.
13 and 14, are also the products of a quasi-automatic activity, which
always gives great satisfaction to Mlle. Smith. It is, in a way, her
subliminal self which holds the brush and executes, at its pleasure,
its own tableaux, which also have the value of veritable originals.
Other drawings, on the contrary (for example, the portrait of Astané,
Fig. 11), which have given Hélène much trouble without having satisfied
her very well, should be regarded as simple copies from memory, by the
ordinary personality, of past visions, the memory of which is graven
upon her mind in a manner sufficiently persistent to serve as a model
several days afterwards. In both cases, but especially in the first,
Hélène’s paintings may be considered as faithful reproductions of the
tableaux which unfold themselves before her, and consequently give us
better than most verbal descriptions an idea of the general character
of her Martian visions.
Let us see now what kind of information the messages and somnambulisms
of Hélène furnish us in regard to the brilliant planet whose
complicated revolutions formerly revealed to a Kepler the fundamental
secrets of modern astronomy.
III. THE PERSONAGES OF THE MARTIAN ROMANCE
In using the word “romance” to designate the Martian communications,
taken as a whole, I wish to state that they are, to my mind, a work
of pure imagination, but not that there are to be found in them
characteristics of unity and of internal co-ordination, of sustained
action, of increasing interest to the final dénouement. The Martian
romance is only a succession of detached scenes and tableaux, without
order or intimate connection, and showing no other common traits beyond
the unknown language spoken in it, the quite frequent presence of the
same personages, and a certain fashion of originality, a color or
quality badly defined as “exotic” or “bizarre” in the landscapes, the
edifices, the costumes, etc.
Of a consecutive plot or intrigue, properly so called, there is no
trace. I naturally speak only of that which we have learned from the
seances of Mlle. Smith, or from the spontaneous visions which she
recollects sufficiently to narrate afterwards. But this fails to shadow
forth the hidden source whence they all spring.
Without determining the question, I am inclined, nevertheless, to
accord to the Martian romance, in some profound stratum of Hélène’s
being, a much greater continuity and extent than would appear from
judging it solely by the fragments known to us. We have only, in my
opinion, a few pages, taken at hazard from different chapters; the bulk
of the volume is wanting, and the little we possess does not enable
us to reconstruct it in a satisfactory manner. We must, therefore, be
content with sorting this _débris_ of unequal importance, according to
their content, independently of their chronological order, and grouping
them around the principal personages which figure in them.
The anonymous and mixed crowd which forms the base of some of the
Martian visions only differs from that of our own country by the large
robe common to both sexes, the flat hats, and the sandals bound to the
feet by straps. The interest is confined to a small number of more
distinct personages having each his own name, always terminating in an
_e_ with the men and in an _i_ with the women, except only in the case
of Esenale, who occupies, however, a place by himself in his quality of
disincarnated Martian, fulfilling the function of interpreter. Let us
begin by saying a few words about him.
ESENALE
We have seen (p. 164) that this name was hinted at by Leopold on the
22d of October, 1896, without any other explanation as a means of
obtaining the signification of the Martian words. Then at the first
recurrence to this talisman (November 2d, see p. 166) we learn only
that he was a deceased inhabitant of Mars, whose acquaintance Leopold
had recently made in interplanetary space. It was only at the following
seance (November 8th), where we find Mme. Mirbel, that, after an
incarnation of her son Alexis, followed by the scene of translation
(see text 3) and in response to questions of the sitters—which
answered very well the purpose of suggestion—Leopold affirmed by
the left index-finger that Esenale was Alexis Mirbel. It cannot be
determined whether that identification constituted a primitive fact
which it pleased Leopold to keep secret, only revealing it at the
end of a seance at which Mme. Mirbel was present, or whether, as
I am inclined to regard it, it was only established at that same
seance, under the domination of the circumstances of the moment. As a
translator of Martian, Esenale did not show great talent. He had to be
entreated, and it was necessary often to repeat his name while pressing
or rubbing Hélène’s forehead, in order to obtain the exact meaning
of the last texts which had been given. He possessed, it is true, an
excellent memory, and faithfully reproduced, before giving it word by
word, the French for the Martian phrases which Hélène had heard several
weeks before and only seen again five or six months afterwards (text
24), and of which there had been no previous opportunity to obtain a
translation. But it was to these latter texts, not yet interpreted,
that he confined his willingness; on two occasions only did he add, of
his own accord, some words of no importance (texts 15 and 36.) Text
No. 19, for instance, has always remained untranslated, and my later
efforts (June 4, 1899) to obtain the meaning of the unknown words =milé
piri= have been in vain; moreover, Esenale has not been able to fill up
the gaps in text No. 24.
Alexis Mirbel, after the two first Martian seances, reported on pp.
146 and 154, called Esenale, often accorded his mother, in scenes of
incarnation, somewhat pathetic, touching messages of filial tenderness
and consolation (texts 3, 4, 11, 15, and 18). It is to be noted that,
although opportunities for continuing this rôle were not wanting,
he appears to have completely abandoned it for the last two years.
His last message of this kind (October 10, 1897, text 18) followed a
month after a curious seance in which Leopold sought to explain to
us spontaneously—no one had mentioned the subject—certain flagrant
contradictions in the first manifestations of Alexis-Esenale. Here is a
résumé of that scene, with the text of Leopold’s communication:
September 12, 1897.—After sundry waking visions, Mlle. Smith hears
Leopold speaking; her eyes are closed, and, appearing to be asleep, she
repeats, mechanically and in a slow and feeble voice, the following
words, which her guide addresses to her: “Thou art going to pay close
attention. Tell them now [the sitters] to keep as quiet as possible,
that is what often mars the phenomena, the comings and goings, and the
idle chatter of which you are never weary. You recollect there was,
several months ago, a young man, that young man Alexis Mirbel, who
came to give counsel to his mother at a reunion you held with M. (I do
not understand the name he gave) ... at Carouge[16].... Well, at that
moment he happened—that is to say, two days before—to die on ... (I
could not understand the name) ... where he had been ... or he had
regained life.[17] This is why I have come to tell you to-day he was
in that phase of separation of the material part from the soul which
permitted him to recollect his previous existence—that is to say, his
life here below in this state; he not only recollects his first mother,
but can speak once more the language he used to speak with her. Some
time after, when the soul was finally at rest, he no longer recollected
that first language; he returns, he hovers about (his mother), sees her
with joy, but is incapable of speaking to her in your language.[18]
Whether it will return to him I do not know and cannot say, but I
believe that it will. And now listen.” Here Mlle. Smith seems to awake,
opens her eyes, and has a long Martian vision, which she describes in
detail. She now sees a little girl in a yellow robe, whose name she
hears as =Anini Nikaïné=, occupied with various childish games—_e. g._,
with a small wand she makes a number of grotesque little figures dance
in a white tub, large and shallow, full of sky-blue water. Then come
other persons, and, finally, Astané, who has a pen in his fingers, and,
little by little, takes hold of Hélène’s arm and throws her into a deep
trance for the purpose of causing her to write text No. 17.
These spontaneous explanations of Leopold are interesting in that they
betray clearly the subliminal desire to introduce some order and logic
into the incoherences of the mediumistic reveries. It is a form of
the process of justification and retrospective interpretation intended
to make the incidents of the past accord with the dominant ideas of
the present (see p. 95). In appearance, the theory upon which Leopold
rested, after having doubtless meditated long, is quite awkward;
but perhaps it was difficult for him to do better, since no one can
accomplish the impossible.
ASTANÉ
“The great man Astané” is the reincarnation on Mars of the Hindoo
fakir Kanga, who was a devoted companion and friend of Simandini. He
has preserved in his new existence the special character of savant or
of sorcerer, which he formerly possessed in India, and he has equally
retained all his affection for his princess of old, who has been
restored to him in Mlle. Smith; he frequently utilizes his magic powers
to _evoke_ her—that is to say, to re-enter into spiritual communication
with her, notwithstanding the distances between their actual places
of habitation. The ways and means of that evocation remain, however,
enveloped in mystery. We cannot say whether it was Hélène that rejoined
Astané on Mars during her somnambulism, or whether it was he who
descended “fluidly” towards her and brought to her the odors of the
far-distant planet.
When Astané says to Hélène, during a seance: “Come to me an instant.
Come and admire these flowers,” etc. (text 8), or shows her the
curiosities of his Martian abode, it seems as though he had really
called her to him through space; but when he appears to her, while
awake, at the edge of her bath-tub, and expresses his chagrin at
finding her still on this miserable earth (text 7), it must be admitted
that it is he who has descended to her and inspires her with these
visions of an upper world. It is of no importance, on the whole. It
is here to be noted that, in these evocations, Astané only manifests
himself in visual and auditive hallucinations, never in tactile
impressions or those of general sensibility; in the sphere of emotion
his presence is accompanied by a great calm on the part of Hélène, a
profound bliss, and an ecstatic disposition, which is the correlative
and pendant of the happiness experienced by Astané himself (texts 10,
17, etc.) at finding himself in the presence of his idol of the past.
The social state of Astané—I should rather say his name, his quality
of sorcerer, and his previous terrestrial existence in the body of
Kanga—was not immediately revealed.
Nevertheless, at his first apparition (September 5, 1896, see p.
162), he rises superior to the crowd, inasmuch as he alone possesses
a flying-machine incomprehensible to us. In the following weeks Mlle.
Smith hears his name, and sees him again on many occasions, as well as
his house (Fig. 12), but it is only at the end of two months and a half
that his identity and his “evocative” powers become known, at a seance
at which I was not present, and during which Hélène did not, contrary
to her usual custom, fall completely asleep. The following is a résumé
of the notes, which I owe to the kindness of M. Cuendet:
November 19, 1896.—Contrary to the experience of the preceding seances,
Mlle. Smith remained constantly awake, her arms free on the table,
conversing and even laughing all the while with the sitters. The
messages were obtained by means of visions and typtological dictations.
Hélène having asked Leopold how it happens that she had been able to
communicate with a being living on Mars, she has a vision in which
Astané appears to her in a costume more Oriental than Martian. “Where
have I seen that costume?” asks she; and the table replies “_In
India_,” which indicates that Astané is an ex-Hindoo reincarnated on
Mars. At the same time Hélène has a vision of an Oriental landscape
which she believes she has already seen before, but without knowing
where. She sees Astané there, carrying under his arm rolls of paper of
a dirty white color, and bowing in Oriental fashion before a woman,
also clothed in Oriental garments, whom she also believes she has seen
before. These personages appear to her to be “inanimate, like statues.”
The sitters ask whether the vision was not a simple tableau (of the
past) presented by Leopold; the table replies in the affirmative,
then inclines itself significantly towards Mlle. Smith, when some one
asked who that Oriental woman might be, and the idea is put forth that
possibly she represents Simandini. Finally, to further questions of the
sitters, the table (Leopold) dictates again that Astané in his Hindoo
existence was called _Kanga_, who was a “_sorcerer of the period_”;
then that “_Astané on the planet Mars possesses the same faculty of
evocation which he had possessed in India_.” Leopold is then asked if
the power of Astané is greater than his. “_A different power, of equal
strength_,” replies the table. Finally, Hélène desiring to know whether
Astané when he evokes her sees her in her real character or that of her
Hindoo incarnation, the table affirms that he sees her in her Hindoo
character, and adds: “_and, in consequence, under those characteristics
which she [Hélène] possesses to-day and which are in such striking
harmony with those of _Sima_N_dini_,” insisting on the _N_ in the middle
of the name.
It is to be remarked that at this sitting it was Leopold who gave all
the information in regard to the past of Astané, and that he recognizes
in him a power over Hélène almost equal to his own. It is strange that
the accredited guide of Mlle. Smith, ordinarily so jealous of his
rights over her and ready to take offence at all rival pretensions,
so freely accords such prerogatives to Astané. This unexpected
mildness is still more surprising when the singular similarity of
position of these two personages in regard to Hélène is considered.
Kanga, the Hindoo fakir, holds in the life of Simandini exactly the
same place as Cagliostro in the life of Marie Antoinette, the place
of a sorcerer giving beneficial counsel, and at the same time of a
platonic adorer, and both of them in their actual rôles of Astané and
of Leopold preserve for Mlle. Smith the respectful attachment which
they had for her illustrious former existences. How is it these two
extra-terrestrial pretenders do not hate each other the more cordially
since their rival claims upon Hélène have identical foundations? But,
far from in the least disputing her possession, they assist each
other in the most touching fashion. When Astané writes in Martian by
Mlle. Smith’s right hand that the noise of the sitters threatens to
make him insane (see text 20) it is Leopold who comes to his rescue
in making them keep silent by his gestures with the left arm. When
Leopold indicates to me that the moment for pressing Hélène’s forehead
has arrived, it is Astané who lends him his pencil in order that the
message may be written (see below, seance of September 12, 1897, and
Fig. 23), and the exchange of powers takes place between them without
the medium experiencing the least shock, and without its betraying
itself outwardly otherwise than by the difference of their handwriting.
It is true that Leopold’s apparitions to Hélène are infinitely more
frequent and his incarnations much more complete than those of Astané,
who shows himself to her at increasing intervals, and has never
attained to speaking by her mouth. It makes no difference: these two
personages resemble each other too much for mutual toleration—if they
are really two.
My conclusion presses. Astané is, at bottom, only a copy, a double, a
transposition in the Hindoo-Martian manner of Leopold. They are two
variations of one primitive theme. In regarding these two beings, as I
do, in the absence of proof to the contrary, not as real and objective
individualities, but as pseudo-personalities, dream fictions, fantastic
subdivisions of the hypnoid consciousness of Mlle. Smith, it may be
said that it is the same fundamental emotion which has inspired these
twin rôles, the details of which have been adapted by the subliminal
imagination to correspond to the diversity of the circumstances. The
contradiction painfully felt between the proud aspirations of the
_grande dame_ and the vexing ironies of reality has caused the two
tragic previous existences to gush forth—intrinsically identical,
in spite of the differences of place and epoch—of the noble girl of
Arabia, having become Hindoo princess, burned alive on the tomb of her
despot of a husband, and of her Austrian highness, having become Queen
of France and sharing the martyrdom of her spouse.
On parallel lines, in these two dreams issuing from the same emotional
source, it is the universal and constant taste of the human imagination
for the marvellous, allied to the very feminine need of a respectful
and slightly idolatrous protector, which on the one side has created
out of whole cloth the personage of Kanga-Astané, and on the other
hand has absorbed, without being careful in modifying authentic
history, that of Cagliostro-Leopold. Both are idealistic sorcerers, of
profound sagacity, tender-hearted, who have placed their great wisdom
at the service of the unfortunate sovereign and made for her, of their
devotion, amounting almost to adoration, a tower of strength, a supreme
consolation in the midst of all the bitternesses of real life. And as
Leopold acts as guide for Hélène Smith in the general course of her
actual earthly existence, so Astané seemingly plays the same rôle in
the moments of that life in which Hélène leaves our sublunar world to
fly away to the orb of Mars.
[Illustration: Fig. 12. House of Astané. Blue sky; soil, mountains,
and walls of a red color. The two plants, with twisted trunks, have
purple leaves; the others have long green lower leaves and small
purple higher leaves. The framework of the doors, windows, and
decorations are in the shape of trumpets, and are of a brownish-red
color. White glass (?) and curtains or shades of a turquoise-blue. The
railings of the roof are yellow, with blue tips.]
[Illustration: Fig. 14. Martian landscape. Sky of yellow; green lake;
gray shores bordered by a brown fence; bell-towers on the shore, in
yellow-brown tones, with corners and pinnacles ornamented with pink
and blue balls; hill of red rocks, with vegetation of a rather dark
green interspersed with rose, purple, and white spots (flowers);
buildings at the base constructed of brick-red lattice-work; edges and
corners terminating in brown-red trumpets; immense white window-panes,
with turquoise-blue curtains; roofs furnished with yellow-brown
bell-turrets, brick-red battlements, or with green and red plants
(like those of Astané’s house, Fig. 12). Persons with large white
head-dresses and red or brown robes.]
If, then, Astané is only a reflection, a projection of Leopoldd in
the Martian sphere, he has there assumed a special coloring, and has
outwardly harmonized himself with this new situation.
He is clothed in a voluminous, embroidered robe; he has long hair, no
beard, a yellow complexion, and carries in his hand a white roll, on
which he writes with a point fastened to the end of the index-finger.
His house (Fig. 12) is quadrangular, with gates and windows, and
reminds one by its exterior aspect of some Oriental structure, with a
flat roof embellished with plants.
The inside is also appropriate. The furniture recalls ours by force
of contrast. We have few details; with the exception of a musical
instrument with vertical cylinders, closely related to our organs, upon
which Hélène sometimes sees and hears Astané playing, seated on a stool
with one foot, resembling a milking-stool.
When we pass to the garden the same amalgam of analogies and
unlikenesses to our flora are discovered. We have seen that Hélène has
been often haunted in the waking state by visions of Martian plants and
flowers, which she finally draws or paints with a facility approaching
automatism; these specimens, as also the trees scattered over the
landscapes, show that Martian vegetation does not differ essentially
from ours. Of the animals we do not know much. Astané has often with
him an ugly beast, which caused Hélène much fright on account of its
grotesque form—about two feet long, with a flat tail; it has the “head
of a cabbage,” with a big green eye in the middle (like the eye of
a peacock feather), and five or six pairs of paws, or ears all about
(see Fig. 18). This animal unites the intelligence of the dog with the
stupidity of the parrot, since on the one hand it obeys Astané and
fetches objects at his command (we do not know how), while, on the
other hand, it knows how to write, but in a manner purely mechanical.
(We have never had a specimen of this handwriting). (See Fig. 18.)
In fact, as to other animals, beyond the little black bird cited,
without description (text 20), and a species of female deer for the
purpose of nursing infants (text 36), Hélène saw only horrid aquatic
beasts like big snails, which Astané caught by means of iron nets
stretched over the surface of the water.
Astané’s property is enclosed by large red stones, on the border of the
water, where Hélène loves to retire with her guide to converse in peace
and to recall to mind with him the ancient and melancholy memories of
their Hindoo existence; the general tone of these conversations is
entirely the same as that of her conversations with Leopold.
There is a mountain also of red rocks, where Astané possesses some
excavated dwelling-places, a kind of grotto appropriate to the
sorcerer-savant which he is.
[Illustration: Fig. 18. Astané’s ugly beast. The body and tail are
rose-colored; the eye is green with a black centre; the head is
blackish; the lateral appendices are brownish-yellow, covered, like
the whole body, with pink hair.]
[Illustration: Fig. 11, Fig. 19
Fig. 11. Astané. Yellow complexion, brown hair; brown sandals; roll
of white paper in his hand; variegated costume, or red and white;
brick-red belt and border. Fig. 19. Martian lamp, standing against a
rose and blue-colored tapestry.]
The corpse of Esenale, admirably preserved, is also to be seen there,
among other things, about which the disincarnate Esenale sometimes
floats in “fluid” form, and which Hélène still finds soft to the
touch, when, after much hesitation, and not without fright, she gained
courage to touch it with the end of her finger, at the invitation of
Astané. It is also in this house, excavated in the rock, that Astané
has his observatory, a pit traversing the mountain, by means of which
he contemplates the heavens (text 9), our earth included, by means of a
telescope, which the beast with the head of a cabbage brings him.
To these qualities of savant Astané joins those of wise counsellor and
of patriarchal governor. We also see a young girl named Matêmi coming
to consult him frequently (texts 22 and 28), perhaps on matrimonial
affairs, since Matêmi reappears on several occasions with her lover
or her _fiancé_, Siké, and, among others, at a great family _fête_,
presided over by Astané. (See Fig. 19.)
The following are some details concerning that vision, which occupied
the greater part of a seance (November 28, 1897). Hélène sees, in a
vast, red, initial light, a Martian street appear, lighted neither by
lamps nor electricity, but by lights shining through small windows in
the walls of the houses. The interior of one of these houses becomes
visible to her: a superb, square hall, lighted at each angle by a kind
of lamp, formed of four superposed globes,—two blue and two white—not
of glass (Fig. 19); under each lamp a small basin, over which was a
kind of cornucopia pouring forth water. There were many ornamental
plants. In the middle of the hall, a grove, around which are placed a
number of small tables with a polished surface like nickel. There are
young people in Martian robes; young girls with long hair hanging down
their backs, and wearing at the back of the head a head-dress of roses;
colored blue or green butterflies attached to the neck.
There were at least thirty speaking Martian (but Hélène did not hear
them distinctly). Astané appeared “in a very ugly robe to-day,” and
showed himself full of friendly gallantry towards the young girls. He
seats himself alone at one of the tables while the young people take
their places at others, two couples at each. These tables are adorned
with flowers different from ours: some blue, with leaves in the shape
of almonds; others starry, and as white as milk, scented like musk;
others, again, the most beautiful, have the form of trumpets, either
blue or fire colored, with large rounded leaves, with black figures.
(See Fig. 20.)
Hélène hears Astané pronounce the name “Pouzé.” Then come two men in
long white trousers with a black sash; one wears a coat of rose color,
the other a white one. They carry ornamented trays, and, passing in
front of each table, they place square plates upon them, with forks
without handles, formed of three teeth an inch in length: for glasses
they had goblets like tea-cups, bordered with a silver thread. Then
they brought in a kind of basin a cooked animal resembling a cat, which
is placed before Astané, who twists it and cuts it rapidly with his
fingers, tipped with sharp silver tips; square pieces are distributed,
among the guests, on square plates with furrows around the edges for
the juice. Every one is filled with a wild gayety. Astané sits at each
table in succession, and the girls pass their hands through his hair.
New plates are brought, and pink, white, and blue basins tipped with
flowers. These basins melt, and are eaten like the flowers. Then the
guests wash their hands at little fountains in the corners of the room.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Flying-machine held by Astané, emitting yellow
and red flames. [From the collection of M. Lemaître.]]
[Illustration: Fig. 20. Plant of Martian design. Fire-red flowers;
violet-gray leaves.]
Now one of the walls is raised, like the curtain of a theatre, and
Hélène sees a magnificent hall adorned with luminous globes, flowers,
and plants, with the ceiling painted in pink clouds on a pink sky, with
couches and pillows suspended along the walls. Then an orchestra of ten
musicians arrive, carrying a kind of gilded funnel about five feet in
height, with a round cover to the large opening, and at the neck a kind
of rake, on which they placed their fingers. Hélène hears music like
that made by flutes and sees every one moving; they arrange themselves
by fours, make passes and gestures, then reunite in groups of eight.
They glide about gently, for it could not be called dancing. They do
not clasp each other’s waists, but place their hands on each other’s
shoulders, standing some distance apart. It is terribly warm. It is
“boiling hot.” They stop, walk, talk, and it is then that Hélène hears
a tall young brunette (Matêmi) and a short young man (Siké) exchange
the first words of text No. 20. Then they depart in the direction of a
large bush with red flowers (_tamiche_) and are soon followed by Ramié
and his companion.
At this moment the vision, which has lasted an hour and a quarter,
passes away. Hélène, who had remained standing during the whole
description, now enters into complete somnambulism, and Astané causes
her to write Martian phrases which she had heard and repeated a short
time before. During the entire vision Leopold occupied her left hand,
which was hanging anæsthetically down her body, and replied by his
index-finger to the questions which I asked in a low voice. I thus
learned that this Martian scene was not a wedding, or any special
ceremony, but a simple family _fête_; that it was no recollection or
product of Hélène’s imagination but a reality actually passing on Mars:
that it was not Leopold but Astané who furnished this vision and caused
her to hear the music: that Leopold himself neither saw nor heard
anything of it all, yet knows all that Mlle. Smith sees and hears, etc.
This résumé of a family _fête_, presided over by Astané, gives the
measure of the originality of the people of Mars. The visions relating
to other incidents are of the same order: read the description of
the Martian nursery (text 36), of the voyage in a _miza_ a sort of
automobile, the mechanism of which is entirely unknown to us (text
23), of the operation of chirurgery (text 29), of the games of the
little Anini (p. 176, etc.). We see always the same general mixture
of imitation of things which transpire among us, and of infantile
modifications of them in the minute details.
POUZÉ RAMIÉ—VARIOUS PERSONAGES
Of the other personages who traverse the Martian visions we know too
little to waste much time upon them. The name of the one who appears
most frequently is Pouzé. He is present at the banquet, and we meet
him also in the company of a poor little withered old man with a
trembling voice, in connection with whom he occupies himself with
gardening or botany, in an evening promenade by the shore of the lake
(text 14). He also figures again by the side of an unknown person named
Paniné, and he has a son, Saïne, who had met with some accident to his
head and had been cured of it, to the great joy of his parents (texts
23 and 24).
Finally, we must devote a few words to Ramié, who manifests himself for
the first time in October, 1898, as the revealer of the ultra-Martian
world, of which we shall soon take cognizance. Ramié seems to be a
relative of Astané, an astronomer, not so brilliant as Astané, but
possessing the same privilege, which the ordinary Martians do not seem
to enjoy, of being able to take hold of Hélène’s arm, and of writing
with her hand. There is, to my mind, no fundamental difference between
Leopold, Astané, and Ramié, in their relation to Hélène; they are only
a reproduction in triplicate of one identical emotional relation, and
I do not think I am mistaken in regarding these three figures as three
very transparent disguises of the same fundamental personality, which
is only a hypnoid subdivision of the real being of Mlle. Smith.
It is much wiser to leave to the future—if the Martian and
ultra-Martian romances continue to develop—the task of enlightening
ourselves more completely as to the true character of Ramié. Possibly
some day we shall also know more concerning the couple called Matêmi
and Siké, as well as many others, such as Sazéni, Paniné, the little
Bullié, Romé, Fédié, etc., of whom we now know scarcely more than their
names, and understand nothing in regard to their possible relationships
to the central figures of Astané and Esenale.
IV. CONCERNING THE AUTHOR OF THE MARTIAN ROMANCE
The general ideas which the Martian cycle suggests will most assuredly
differ, according to whether it is considered as an authentic
revelation of affairs on the planet Mars, or only as a simple fantasy
of the imagination of the medium; and meanwhile, holding, myself, to
the second supposition, I demand from the Martian romance information
in regard to its author rather than its subject-matter.
There are two or three points concerning this unknown author which
strike me forcibly:
First: He shows a singular indifference—possibly it may be due to
ignorance—in regard to all those questions which are most prominent
at the present time, I will not say among astronomers, but among
people of the world somewhat fond of popular science and curious
concerning the mysteries of our universe. The canals of Mars, in the
first place—those famous canals with reduplication—temporarily more
enigmatical than those of the Ego of the mediums; then the strips of
supposed cultivation along their borders, the mass of snow around the
poles, the nature of the soil, and the conditions of life on those
worlds, in turn inundated and burning, the thousand and one questions
of hydrography, of geology, of biology, which the amateur naturalist
inevitably asks himself on the subject of the planet nearest to us—of
all this the author of the Martian romance knows nothing and cares
nothing. Questions of sociology do not trouble him to a much greater
extent, since the people occupying the most prominent place in the
Martian visions, and making the conversation, in no wise enlighten us
as to the civil and political organization of their globe, as to the
fine arts and religion, commerce and industry, etc. Have the barriers
of the nations fallen, and is there no longer a standing army up there,
except that of the laborer occupied in the construction and maintenance
of that gigantic net-work of canals for communication or irrigation?
Esenale and Astané have not deigned to inform us. It seems probable
from certain episodes that the family is, as with us, at the foundation
of Martian civilization; nevertheless, we have no direct or detailed
information in regard to this subject. It is useless to speculate.
It is evident that the author of this romance did not care much for
science, and that, in spite of her desire to comply with the wishes
of M. Lemaître (see p. 149), she had not the least conception of the
questions which arise in our day, in every cultivated mind, as to the
planet Mars and its probable inhabitants.
Secondly: If, instead of quarrelling with the Martian romance about
that which it fails to furnish us, we endeavor to appreciate the full
value of what it does give us, we are struck by two points, which I
have already touched upon more than once in passing—viz., the complete
identity of the Martian world, taken in its chief points, with the
world in which we live, and its puerile originality in a host of minor
details. Take, for example, the family _fête_ (p. 188). To be sure, the
venerable Astané is there saluted by a caress of the hair instead of a
hand-shake; the young couples while dancing grasp each other not by the
waist but by the shoulder; the ornamental plants do not belong to any
species known to us: but, save for these insignificant divergences from
our costumes and habits, as a whole, and in general tone, it is exactly
as with us.
The imagination which forged these scenes, with all their decoration,
is remarkably calm, thoughtful, devoted to the real and the probable.
The _miza_, which runs without a visible motor power, is neither more
nor less extraordinary to the uninitiated spectator than many of
the vehicles which traverse our roads. The colored globes placed in
an aperture of the walls of the houses to light the streets recall
strongly our electric lamps. Astané’s flying-machine will probably soon
be realized in some form or other. The bridges which disappear under
the water in order to allow boats to pass (text 25) are, save for a
technical person, as natural as ours which accomplish the same result
by lifting themselves in the air. With the exception of the “evocative”
powers of Astané, which only concern Mlle. Smith personally and do
not figure in any Martian scene, there is nothing on Mars which goes
beyond what has been attained or might be expected to be accomplished
by ingenious inventors here below.
A wise little imagination of ten or twelve years old would have deemed
it quite droll and original to make people up there eat on square
plates with a furrow for the gravy, of making an ugly beast with a
single eye carry the telescope of Astané to him, of making babies to be
fed by tubes running directly to the breasts of animals like the female
deer, etc. There is nothing of the _Thousand and One Nights_, the
_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, fairy stories, or the adventures of Gulliver,
no trace of ogres nor of giants nor of veritable sorcerers in this
whole cycle. One would say that it was the work of a young scholar to
whom had been given the task of trying to invent a world as different
as possible from ours, but _real_, and who had conscientiously applied
himself to it, loosening the reins of his childish fancy in regard to
a multitude of minor points in the limits of what appeared admissible
according to his short and narrow experience.
Thirdly: By the side of these arbitrary and useless innovations the
Martian romance bears in a multitude of its characteristics a clearly
Oriental stamp, upon which I have already often insisted. The yellow
complexion and long black hair of Astané; the costume of all the
personages—robes embroidered or of brilliant hues, sandals with thongs,
flat white hats, etc., the long hair of the women and the ornaments in
the form of butterflies for their coiffures; the houses of grotesque
shapes, recalling the pagoda, kiosk, and minaret, the warm and glowing
colors of the skies, the water, the rocks, and the vegetation (see
Figs. 13 and 14), etc.: all this has a sham air of Japanese, Chinese,
Hindoo. It is to be noted that this imprint of the extreme East is
purely exterior, not in any wise penetrating to the characters or
manners of the personages.
All the traits that I discover in the author of the Martian romance can
be summed up in a single phrase, its profoundly infantile character.
The candor and imperturbable naïveté of childhood, which doubts
nothing because ignorant of everything, is necessary in order for one
to launch himself seriously upon an enterprise such as the pretended
exact and authentic depictions of an unknown world. An adult, in the
least cultivated and having some experience of life, would never waste
time in elaborating similar nonsense—Mlle. Smith less than any one,
intelligent and cultivated as she is in her normal state.
This provisional view of the author of the Martian cycle will find its
confirmation and its complement in the following chapters, in which
we shall examine the Martian language, from which I have until now
refrained.