THE MARTIAN CYCLE (CONCLUDED).—THE ULTRA-MARTIAN
All things become wearisome at last, and the planet Mars is no
exception to the rule. The subliminal imagination of Mlle. Smith,
however, will probably never tire of its lofty flights in the society
of Astané, Esenale, and their associates. I myself, I am ashamed to
acknowledge, began, in 1898, to have enough of the Martian romance.
Once having satisfied myself as to the essential nature of the Martian
language, I did not desire to make a profound study of it, and since
the texts had made their appearance so slowly, for two years, as to
threaten to continue during the remainder of my natural existence,
as well as that of the medium, without coming to an end; finding, on
the other hand, that the texts, considered as simple psychological
curiosities, varied but little and were at length likely to become
burdensome, I decided to try some experiment which, without drying up
their source, might at least break through this monotony. Up to that
time, without giving a positive opinion as to the Martian, I had always
manifested a very real interest in these communications, as well as in
Mlle. Smith in her waking state, and in Leopold in his incarnations.
Both of these showed themselves fully persuaded of the objective verity
of this language, and of the visions which accompanied it. Leopold
had not ceased, from the first day, to affirm its strictly Martian
authenticity. Hélène, without maintaining absolutely that it came from
Mars rather than from any other planet, shared the same faith in the
extra-terrestrial origin of these messages; and, as appeared from many
details of her conversations and conduct, she saw in it a revelation of
the loftiest import, which might some day cause “all the discoveries
of M. Flammarion” to sink into insignificance. What would happen if I
made up my mind to strike this strange conviction a telling blow, and
demonstrate that the pretended Martian was only a chimera, a product,
pure and simple, of somnambulistic autosuggestion?
My first tentative experiment, addressed to Leopold, had no appreciable
influence on the course of the Martian cycle. It was at the seance
of February 13, 1898. Hélène was profoundly asleep, and Leopold was
conversing with us by gestures of the arm and spelling on the fingers.
I categorically informed him of my certainty that the Martian was of
terrestrial fabrication, and that a comparison with the French proved
it so to be. As Leopold responded by emphatic gestures of dissent,
I detailed to him some evidences, among others the accord of the
two languages as to their pronunciation of _ch_, as to the homonym
of the pronoun and article _le_. He listened to me, and seemed to
understand my arguments, but he refused to admit the force of these
characteristic coincidences, and said: “There are some things more
extraordinary,” and was unwilling to give up the authenticity of the
Martian. We stood by our respective opinions, and the later texts do
not show any trace of our interview. It seemed, therefore, that it was
not through the intervention of Leopold that a modification of the
Martian romance was to be suggested.
I allowed some months to pass, then tried a discussion with Hélène
while she was awake. On two occasions, in October, 1898, I expressed
to her my utter skepticism as to the Martian. The first time, on the
6th of October, in a visit which I made to her outside of any seance,
I confined myself to certain general objections to it, to which she
replied, in substance, as follows: First, that this unknown language,
by reason of its intimate union with the visions, and in spite of its
possible resemblances to the French, must necessarily be Martian, if
the visions are. Then nothing seriously opposes that actual origin of
the visions, and, consequently, of the language itself; since there are
two methods of explaining this knowledge of a far-off world—namely,
communications properly _spiritistic_ (_i. e._, from spirits to
spirits, without material intermediary) the reality of which cannot be
held to be doubtful; _and clairvoyance_, that faculty, or undeniable
sixth sense, of mediums which permits them both to see and hear at any
distance. Finally, that she did not hold tenaciously to the distinctly
Martian origin of that strange dream, provided it is conceded that it
comes from somewhere outside herself, it being inadmissible to regard
it as the work of her subconsciousness, since she had not, during her
ordinary life, absolutely any perception whatever, any sentiment, not
the shadow of a hint of that alleged interior work of elaboration to
which I persisted in attributing it against all the evidence and all
common-sense.
Some days later (October 16th), as Mlle. Smith, perfectly awake after
an afternoon seance, passed the evening at my house, and seemed to be
in the fulness of her normal state, I returned to the charge with more
of insistence.
I had until then always avoided showing her the full translation of the
Martian texts, as well as the alphabet, and she only knew by sight, so
to speak, the Martian handwriting, and was ignorant of the value of the
letters.
This time I explained to her in detail the secrets of the language,
its superficial originalities and fundamental resemblances to French;
the frequent occurrence of _i_ and _e_, its puerile construction,
identical with French, even to the slipping in of a superfluous
euphonic =m= between the words =bérmier= and =hed= in order to imitate
the expression _reviendra-t-il?_ its numerous caprices of phonetics
and homonyms, evident reflexes of those to which we are accustomed,
etc. I added that the visions seemed to me to be also suspicious
through their improbable analogies with that which we see on our globe.
Supposing that the houses, the vegetation, and the people of Mars
were constructed on the same fundamental plan as those here below, it
was nevertheless very doubtful whether they had the same proportions
and typical aspect; in short, astronomy teaches us that on Mars the
physical conditions—the length of the year, the intensity of weight,
etc.—are all other than with us: the last point, in particular, should
act on all the products, natural and artificial, in such a way as to
alter greatly the dimensions as well as the proportions of height
and size which are familiar to us. I observed, again, that there are
doubtless on Mars, as on the earth, a great variety of idioms, and
the singular chance which made Esenale speak a language so similar to
French was very astonishing. I concluded, finally, by remarking that
all this was easily explicable, as well as the Oriental aspect of
the Martian landscapes and the generally infantile character of that
romance, if it were regarded as a work of pure imagination, due to a
secondary personality or to a dream state of Mlle. Smith herself, who
recognized having always had “great taste for that which is original
and connected with the Orient.”
For more than an hour Hélène followed my demonstration with a lively
interest. But to each new reason, after having appeared at first a
little disconcerted by it, she did not hesitate to repeat, like a
triumphal refrain and as an unanswerable argument, that science is
not infallible; that no scientist has yet been on Mars; and that
consequently it is impossible to affirm with any certainty that affairs
there are not conformable to her visions. To my conclusion she replied
that, as far as concerns Mars or anything else, her revelations did
not, in any case, spring from sources within herself, and that she did
not understand why I was so implacable against that which is the most
simple supposition, that of their authenticity, or why I should prefer
to it this silly and absurd hypothesis of an underlying self plotting
in her, unknown to her, this strange mystification.
Maintaining all the while that my deductions appeared to me strictly
correct, I felt bound to admit that science is not infallible, and that
a voyage to Mars could alone solve all our doubts as to what takes
place there. We parted good friends, but that conversation left me with
a very clear impression of the complete uselessness of my efforts to
make Mlle. Smith share my conceptions of the subliminal consciousness.
But this, however, neither surprises nor grieves me, since from her
point of view it is perhaps better that she thus believes.
The following shows, however, that my reasonings on that evening,
sterile in appearance, were not without effect. If they have not
modified Mlle. Smith’s _conscious_ manner of seeing, and, above
all, the opinion of Leopold, they have nevertheless penetrated to
the profound strata where the Martian visions are elaborated, and,
acting there as a leaven, have been the source of new and unexpected
developments. This result brilliantly corroborates the idea that the
whole Martian cycle is only a product of suggestion and autosuggestion.
Just as formerly the regret of M. Lemaître at not knowing that
which passes on other planets had furnished the first germ of that
lucubration, so now my criticisms and remarks on the language and
peoples of that upper world served as a point of departure for new
circuits of Hélène’s subliminal imagination. If, in fact, the content
of our discussion of the 16th of October, which I have above briefly
summed up, is compared with the visions of the following months (see
beginning with text 30), it is clear that these latter contain an
evident beginning of an answer, and are an attempt to satisfy the
questions which I raised. A very curious attempt is there made, naïve
and infantine, like the whole Martian romance, to escape the defects of
which I complained on that occasion, not by modifying and correcting
it—that would have been to reverse and to contradict herself—but
by going beyond it in some sort, and by superposing upon it a new
construction, an _ultra-Martian_ cycle, if I may be permitted that
expression, hinting at the same time that it unfolds itself on some
undetermined planet still farther away than Mars, and that it does not
constitute an absolutely independent narrative, but that it is grafted
on the primitive Martian romance.
The suggestive effect of my objections of the 16th of October was
not immediate, but became a work of incubation. Text 30, coming the
following week, differed but slightly from the preceding, save for the
absence of a euphonic letter, which, however, had been better in place
between the words =bindié idé=, _trouve-t-on_, than in the =bèrimir m
hed= of text 15, to which I had attracted Hélène’s attention; possibly
it is allowable to regard this little detail as a first result of my
criticisms. The apparition, a little later, of a new Martian personage,
Ramié, who promised Hélène some near revelations as to a planet not
otherwise specified (text 31), proves that the ultra-Martian dream
was in process of subconscious ripening, but it did not burst forth
until the 2d of November (seventeen days after the suggestion with
which I connect it), in that curious scene in which Ramié reveals to
Mlle. Smith an unsuspected and grotesque world, the language of which
singularly differs from the usual Martian. The detailed description
of that strange vision, which Hélène sent me, is worth the trouble of
citing (see also texts 32 to 35):
“I was awakened, and arose about twenty minutes ago. It was about a
quarter-past six in the morning, and I was getting ready to sew. Then,
for an instant, I noticed that my lamp was going out, and I ended by
not seeing anything more. At the same moment I felt my waist clasped,
strongly held by an invisible arm. I then saw myself surrounded by a
rose-colored light, which generally shows itself when a Martian vision
is coming. I quickly took paper and pencil, which are always within
reach on my toilet-table, and placed these two things on my knees, in
case some words should come to be noted.
“Hardly were these preparations concluded when I saw at my side a man
of Martian visage and costume. It was, in fact, the personage [Ramié]
who had clasped my waist with his left arm, showing me with his right
hand a tableau, at first indistinct, but which finally outlined itself
quite clearly. He spoke also some sentences, which I can note very
well, it seems to me [text 32, where Ramié attracts the attention
of Hélène to one of the worlds which surround him and makes her see
strange beings.]
“I saw then a section of country peopled by men altogether different
from those which inhabit our globe. The tallest of all were three feet
high, and the majority were an inch or two shorter. Their hands were
immense, about ten inches long by eight broad; they were ornamented
with very long black nails. Their feet also were of great size.
“I did not see any tree, any bit of verdure. I saw a medley of houses,
or rather cabins, of the most simple style, all low, long, without
windows or doors; and each house had a little tunnel, about ten feet
long [see Fig. 33] running from it into the earth.
[Illustration: Fig. 33. Ultra-Martian houses. Drawn by Mlle. Smith
after her vision of November 2, 1898.]
“The roofs were flat, supplied with chimneys, or tubes. The men,
with arms and bodies bare, had for all clothing only a sort of skirt
reaching to the waist and supported by a kind of suspenders thrown over
the shoulders, which were apparently very strong. Their heads were very
short, being about three inches high by six inches broad, and were
close shaven. They had very small eyes, immense mouths, noses like
beans. Everything was so different from what we are accustomed to in
our world that I should have almost believed it to be an animal rather
than a man I saw there, had there not suddenly issued from the lips of
one of them some words, which, fortunately—I hardly know how—I was able
to note down. This vision lasted a quarter of an hour. Then I found my
waist liberated, but my right hand was still firmly held, in order to
trace strange characters on the paper” (text 34, adieux of Ramié to
Hélène).
A little later there was a continuation, or an abortive repetition, of
the same vision; the table did not appear distinctly, and Ramié (text
35) contented himself with teaching Hélène things concerning a world
beyond, a near neighbor to Mars, and a coarser language, of which
Astané alone could furnish a translation. This is, in effect, what took
place two weeks later: Astané incarnated himself with gestures and
peculiar spasmodic movements, and repeated (in Hélène’s ordinary voice)
the barbaric text, followed word by word by its Martian equivalents,
which Esenale, in turn, succeeding Astané, interpreted in French, in
his customary manner. Leopold also informed us, in reply to a question
of one of the sitters, that this uncouth and primitive world was one
of the smaller planets; but it is to be presumed that he would also
have answered in the affirmative if he had been asked if it were called
Phobos or Deimos; and, in short, one of the satellites of Mars would
answer better than the asteroids to the globe “very near to ours,” of
which Ramié spoke.
Up to this point the ultra-Martian messages were confined to the
preceding. The last texts obtained (37 to 40) seem to announce that
the end has not been reached on that side, and cause us to hope for
new revelations, when the astronomer Ramié, as the result of his
having studied under the skilful direction of his master Astané, shall
be in a position to make further discoveries in the Martian sky.
Psychologically speaking, this amounts to saying that the process of
latent incubation continues; a new ultra-Martian language is in a
state of development in the subliminal depths. If it bursts forth some
day, I shall hasten to bring it to the knowledge of the scientific
world—in another edition of this book. For the present I limit myself
to remarking how much the little ultra-Martian we possess already
indicates the wish to answer my questions of the 16th of October.
I had accused the Martian dream of being a mere imitation, varnished
with brilliant Oriental colors, of the civilized environment which
surrounds us—and here is a world of terrifying grotesqueness, with
black soil, from which all vegetation is banished, and the coarser
people of which are more like beasts than human beings. I had
insinuated that the people and things of that upper world ought really
to have other dimensions and proportions than with us—and here are the
inhabitants of that farther world veritable dwarfs, with heads twice as
broad as they are high, and houses to match. I had made allusion to the
probable existence of other languages, referred to the superabundance
in Martian of _i_ and _e_, impeached its syntax and its _ch_, borrowed
from the French, etc.—and here is a language absolutely new, of a very
peculiar rhythm, extremely rich in _a_, without any _ch_ at all up to
the present moment, and of which the construction is so different from
the French that there is no method of discovering it.
This latter point, above all, seems to me to present in its apogee the
character of childishness and puerility which clearly shows itself in
that unexpected appendix to the Martian cycle, as in the entire cycle
itself. Evidently the naïve subliminal philologist of Mlle. Smith has
been struck by my criticisms on the identical order of the words in
Martian and in French, and has endeavored to avoid that defect in her
new effort at an unknown language.
But not knowing in just what syntax and construction consist, she has
found nothing better to suit her purpose than the substitution of
chaos for the natural arrangement of the terms in her thought, and the
fabrication of an idiom which had decidedly nothing in common with the
French in this respect. Here is where the most beautiful disorder is
practically a work of art. It has, moreover, succeeded, since, even
with the double translation, Martian and French, of text 33, it is
impossible to know exactly what is meant.
It is possibly the little girl _Etip_ who is sad, and who _weeps_
because the man _Top_ has done _harm_ to the _sacred_ animal _Vanem_
(which had _hidden_, _sick_, _under_ some _green branches_), wishing
to _enter in_ to a _blue basket_. At least it could not have been the
_branch_, the _man_, or the _basket_ which was _sacred_, the child
sick, etc.
The green branch is out of harmony with a world in which, according to
Hélène’s vision, there were neither trees nor verdure; but Esenale
has not specified whether it means _vert_ or _ver_, _vers_, etc., nor
whether _caché_ and _entré_ are participles or infinitives. I leave
this rebus to the reader and come to my conclusion, which will be
brief, since it accords with the considerations already given at the
end of the two preceding chapters.
The whole Martian cycle, with its special language and its
ultra-Martian appendix, is only, at bottom, a vast product of
occasional suggestions on the part of the environment, and of
autosuggestions which have germinated, sprouted, and borne abundant
fruit, under the influence of incitement from the outside, but without
coming to amount to anything but a shapeless and confused mass, which
imposes on one by its extent much more than its intrinsic worth, since
it is supremely childish, puerile, insignificant in all aspects,
save as a psychological curiosity. The author of this lucubration is
not the real adult and normal personality of Mlle. Smith, who has
very different characteristics, and who feels herself, in the face
of these automatic messages, as though in the presence of something
foreign, independent, exterior, and finds herself constrained to
believe in their objective reality and in their authenticity. It seems,
indeed, rather a former, infantine, less evolved state of Hélène’s
individuality, which has again come to light, renewed its life, and
once more become active in her Martian somnambulisms.
It is hardly necessary to add, in conclusion, that the whole
spiritistic or occult hypothesis seems to me to be absolutely
superfluous and unjustified in the case of the Martian of Mlle. Smith.
Autosuggestibility set in motion by certain stimulating influences
of the environment, as we come to see through the history of the
ultra-Martian, amply suffices to account for this entire cycle.