THE HINDOO CYCLE
While the Martian romance is purely a work of fantasy, in which the
creative imagination was able to allow itself free play through
having no investigation to fear, the Hindoo cycle, and that of Marie
Antoinette, having a fixed terrestrial setting, represent a labor
of construction which was subjected from the start to very complex
conditions of environments and epochs. To keep within the bounds of
probability, not to be guilty of too many anachronisms, to satisfy the
multiple demands of both logic and æsthetics, formed a particularly
dangerous undertaking, and one apparently altogether beyond the
powers of a person without special instruction in such matters. The
subconscious genius of Mlle. Smith has acquitted itself of the task
in a remarkable manner, and has displayed in it a truly wonderful and
delicate sense of historic possibilities and of local color.
The Hindoo romance, in particular, remains for those who have taken
part in it a psychological enigma, not yet solved in a satisfactory
manner, because it reveals and implies in regard to Hélène, a knowledge
relative to the costumes and languages of the Orient, the actual
source of which it has up to the present time not been possible to
discover. All the witnesses of Mlle. Smith’s Hindoo somnambulisms who
are of the same opinion on that subject (several refrain from having
any) unite in seeing in it a curious phenomenon of cryptomnesia,
of reappearances of memories profoundly buried beneath the normal
waking state, together with an indeterminate amount of imaginative
exaggeration upon the canvas of actual facts. But by this name of
cryptomnesia, or resurrection of latent memories, two singularly
different things are understood. For me it is only a question of
memories of her present life; and I see nothing of the supernormal in
that. For while I have not yet succeeded in finding the key to the
enigma, I do not doubt its existence, and I will mention later certain
indications which seem to me to support my idea that the Asiatic
notions of Mlle. Smith have a wholly natural origin.
For the observer inclined towards spiritism, on the contrary, the
sleeping memory which is awakened in somnambulism is nothing less
than that of a previous existence of Mlle. Smith, and that piquant
explanation, which was first given by Leopold, profits in their eyes
from the impossibility which I find in proving that it is anything else.
Doubtless, if one was familiar with all the incidents of Hélène’s life
from her earliest childhood, and if it were absolutely certain that her
knowledge of India had not been furnished her from the outside, through
the normal channel of the organs of sense, it would be necessary to
seek elsewhere for the solution of the riddle, and to choose between
the hypothesis of an atavic memory, hereditarily transmitted across
fifteen generations, and actual telepathic communication with the brain
of some Indian savant, or a spiritistic reincarnation. But we do not
find ourselves in that position. There is nothing less known, in its
details, than the daily life of Mlle. Smith in her childhood and youth.
But, when all the feats of which the subconscious memory of our present
life is capable are considered, it is not scientifically correct to
have recourse to a pretended “anteriority,” of which the only guarantee
is the authority of Leopold, in order to explain the somnambulistic
apparitions of facts of which Mlle. Smith in her waking state has no
remembrance, I admit, but the origin of which may well have been hidden
in the unknown recesses of her past life (reading, conversation, etc.).
The plot of the Hindoo romance, which I have already briefly hinted at
on divers occasions, is as follows:
Hélène Smith was, at the end of the fourteenth century of our era,
the daughter of an Arab sheik, possibly named Pirux, whom she left
in order to become, under the name of Simandini, the eleventh wife
of Prince Sivrouka Nayaka, of whom I have the honor to be the actual
reincarnation. (I pray the reader once for all to pardon me the
immodest rôle which has been imposed upon me in this affair against my
will.)
This Sivrouka, who reigned over Kanara, and built there, in 1401,
the fortress of Tchandraguiri, does not seem to have been a very
accommodating person; although not bad at heart, and quite attached to
his favorite wife, he had a wild humor and very uncouth manners. More
could not be expected of an Asiatic potentate of that epoch. Simandini,
nevertheless, passionately loved him, and at his death she was burned
alive on his grave, after the fashion of Malabar.
Around these two principal personages are grouped some secondary
figures, among others a faithful domestic named Adèl, and a little
monkey, Mitidja, which Simandini had brought to India with her from
Arabia; then the fakir Kanga, who occupies a much more important place
in the Martian romance, in which we have seen him reincarnated as
Astané, than in the Hindoo cycle.
Some other individuals, all masculine—Mougia, Miousa, Kangia,
Kana—appear in obscure rôles, concerning which nothing certain can be
said.
The hypnoid states, in which this romance has manifested itself
with Hélène, present the greatest variety and all degrees, from the
perfect waking state (apparently), momentarily crossed by some visual
or auditive hallucination, the memory of which is preserved intact
and allows a detailed description, up to total somnambulism, with
amnesia upon awakening, in which the most striking scenes of ecstasies
or incarnations are unfolded. We shall see divers examples in the
following pages.
I. APPARITION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORIENTAL CYCLE
Without recurring to the strange and little-known visions which already
haunted the childhood and youth of Mlle. Smith (see pp. 20-25), I will
retrace the principal stages of her Asiatic romance from the birth of
her mediumship.
During the three first years there were but few manifestations of this
sort, in the seances, at least, while as to the automatisms which
developed at other times, especially at night, or in the hypnagogic
state, we know nothing.
In November, 1892, two seances of the N. group are occupied with the
apparition of a Chinese city—Pekin, according to the table—in which a
disincarnate spirit, a parent of one of the group, is found performing
a mission to a sick child.
In her seances of 1894, Hélène had on several occasions detached
visions belonging to the Orient, as appeared from their content, or
hints dictated by the table. She also saw Teheran; then the cemetery
of the missions at Tokat (June 12th); a cavalier with a white woollen
cloak and a turban bearing the name of Abderrhaman (September 2d); and,
finally, an Oriental landscape, which depicted a ceremony of Buddhist
aspect (October 16th). This latter vision, more especially, seemed to
be a forerunner of the Hindoo romance, since the records of the seances
of that period show an _ensemble_ of characteristic traits which will
be again met with in the later Hindoo scenes—_e.g._, an immense garden
of exotic plants, colonnades, rows of palm-trees, with enormous stone
lions at the head; rugs of magnificent design, a temple surrounded by
trees, with a statue, apparently that of Buddha; a procession of twelve
women in white, who kneel, holding lighted lamps; in the centre another
woman, with very black hair, detaches herself from the procession,
balances a lamp, and burns a powder which expands into a white stone
(the continuation of the romance shows this woman to be Simandini, of
whom this was the first appearance).
February 17, 1895.—At the end of a rather long seance, the table
dictates _Pirux sheik_, and replies to our questions that it refers to
an Arab sheik of the fifteenth century. At this moment Hélène awakes,
saying that she had seen a man with a black mustache and curly hair,
wearing a cloak and a turban, who seemed to be laughing at and mocking
her. The spelling out of Pirux was not very clear, and Leopold, when
interrogated later, neither affirmed categorically, nor did he deny,
that this name was that of the sheik, father of Simandini.
March 3.—Seance with six persons present, all having their hands upon
the table. After a brief waiting, Hélène is surprised at no longer
being able to see my left middle finger, while she can see all my other
fingers quite clearly. My bunch of keys, which I then place upon my
middle finger, likewise disappears from her view. This very limited,
systematic, visual anæsthesia authorizes the prediction, following
numerous examples of former seances, that the phenomena about to
appear will concern me. Presently begins a long vision, consisting of
scenes which Hélène believes she has already partially seen before.
She describes a pagoda, which she draws with her left hand, with a
few strokes of her pencil; then an avenue of palms and statues, a
procession, and ceremonies before an altar, etc.
The principal rôles are played by a personage in sandals, a great
yellow robe, a helmet of gold, ornamented with precious stones (first
appearance of Sivrouka) and by the woman with black hair and white
robe, already seen on the 12th of October (Simandini).
In the first part of the vision, Hélène, who follows that woman with
ecstatic gaze, describing her to us, sees her coming towards me, but
at that moment the invisibility of my finger was extended to my entire
person, and Hélène neither sees nor hears me. While she was fully
conscious of the other sitters, she was astonished at seeing this
woman make “on the empty air” certain gestures of laying-on of hands
and benediction, which were made upon my head. On several occasions
I change my place, and seat myself in different parts of the room.
Each time, after a few seconds, Hélène turns towards me, and, without
perceiving me, sees the woman with black hair place herself behind
my seat and repeat her gestures of benediction in space, at a height
corresponding to that of my head.
As the vision continues, I do not play any further rôle, but it has to
do with a ceremony during which the Hindoo woman with a diadem on her
head burns incense in the midst of her twelve companions, etc.
During all this time the table, contrary to its custom, gave no
explanation; but Hélène, having herself asked some questions, remarks
that the imaginary woman replies to her by certain signs of her
head and reveals to her many things that she had known in a former
existence. At the moment of the disappearance of the vision, which
had lasted more than an hour, Mlle. Smith hears the words (“Until
presently”). The continuation, in fact, was not long delayed.
March 6.—Repetition and continuation of the preceding seance, with
this degree of progress—viz., that the visual hallucination of the
woman with the black hair was changed into a total cœnæsthetic
hallucination—_i.e._, instead of a simple vision an incarnation was
produced. After a very impressive scene of benediction, Hélène gave
herself up to a succession of pantomimes in which she seemed to take
part in a fearful spectacle and to struggle with enemies (scene of
the funeral pile). She ended by seating herself on the divan when she
recovered her normal state, after a series of psychical oscillations,
various attitudes, etc. The last of her phases of mimicry was to tear
off and throw away all the ornaments which an Asiatic princess could
wear—rings on all her fingers, bracelets on her arms and wrists, a
necklace, diadem, ear-rings, girdle, anklets. Once awake, she had no
recollection of the scene of benediction, but recalled quite distinctly
the dreams corresponding to the other pantomimes. She saw again the
black-haired woman, the Oriental landscape of the preceding seance,
etc. In the course of her description the passage of the simple vision
into the scene of incarnation was reflected in a change of the form
of her narrative; she spoke to us of the woman in the third person,
then suddenly adopted the first person, and said “I” in recounting
among other things that she—or the black-haired woman—saw a corpse on
the funeral pile, upon which four men, against whom she struggled,
endeavored to force her to mount. When I drew her attention to this
change of style, she replied that, in fact, it seemed as though she
herself was that woman.
Independently of the Hindoo romance, these two seances are interesting
from a psychological point of view, because the change from a
visual, objective hallucination into total cœnæsthetic and motor
hallucination occurs in it, constituting a complete transformation
of the personality. This generalization of partial automatism at the
beginning, this subjugation and absorption of the ordinary personality
by the subliminal personality, does not always produce amnesia with
Hélène, that unique impression which she might describe on awakening as
being herself and some one else at the same time. (Compare, p. 119.)
It must be noted that in the particular case of the identification
of the black-haired Hindoo woman with Mlle. Hélène Smith of Geneva,
the problem of the causal connection is susceptible of two opposite
solutions (and the same remark will be equally appropriate in the case
of Marie Antoinette).
For the believing spiritist it is because Mlle. Smith is the
reincarnation of Simandini—that is to say, because these two
personages, in spite of the separation of their existences in time and
space, are substantially and metaphysically identical—that she really
again becomes Simandini, and feels herself to be a Hindoo princess in
certain favorable somnambulistic states. For the empirical psychologist
it is, on the contrary, because the visual memory of a Hindoo woman
(her origin is of no importance) grows like a parasite and increases
in surface and in depth like a drop of oil, until it invades the whole
impressionable and suggestible personality of the medium—this is why
Mlle. Smith feels herself becoming this woman, and concludes from it
that she formerly actually was that person (see p. 28-30). But we must
return from this digression to the Hindoo dream.
March 10.—After various waking visions relating to other subjects,
Hélène enters into somnambulism. For twenty minutes she remains seated
with her hands on the table, by means of raps struck upon which Leopold
informs us that a scene of previous existence concerning me is being
prepared; that I was formerly a Hindoo prince, and that Mlle. Smith,
long before her existence as Marie Antoinette, had then been my wife,
and had been burned on my tomb; that we should ultimately know the name
of this Hindoo prince, as well as the time and place of these events,
but not this evening, nor at the next seance. Then Hélène leaves the
table, and in a silent pantomime of an hour’s duration, the meaning of
which, already quite clear, is confirmed by Leopold, she plays, this
time to the very close, the scene of the funeral pile as outlined in
the preceding seance.
She goes slowly around the room, as if resisting and carried away in
spite of herself, by turns supplicating and struggling fiercely with
these fictitious men who are bearing her to her death.
All at once, standing on tiptoe, she seems to ascend the pile, hides,
with affright, her face in her hands, recoils in terror, then advances
anew as though pushed from behind. Finally she falls on her knees
before a soft couch, in which she buries her face covered by her
clasped hands. She sobs violently. By means of her little finger,
visible between her cheek and the cushion of the couch, Leopold
continues to reply very clearly by yes and no to my questions. It is
the moment at which she again passes through her agony on the funeral
pile: her cries cease little by little; her respiration becomes more
and more panting, then suddenly stops and remains suspended during
some seconds which seem interminable. It is the end! Her pulse is
fortunately strong, though a little irregular. While I am feeling it,
her breathing is re-established by means of a deep inspiration. After
repeated sobs she becomes calm, and slowly rises and seats herself
on a neighboring sofa. This scene of fatal _dénouement_ lasted eight
minutes. She finally awakens, remembering to have seen in a dream the
dead body of a man stretched on a funeral pile, and a woman whom some
men were forcing to ascend the pile against her will.
There was nothing Oriental in the succeeding seances, and the Hindoo
dream did not appear again until four weeks later.
April 7.—Mlle. Smith went quickly into a mixed state, in which the
Hindoo dream was mingled and substituted, but only so far as concerns
me, for the feeling of present reality. She believes me absent, asks
other sitters why I have gone away, then rises and begins to walk
around me and look at me, very much surprised at seeing my place
occupied by a stranger with black curly hair and of brown complexion,
clothed in a robe with flowing sleeves of blue, and with gold
ornaments. When I speak to her she turns around and seems to hear my
voice from the opposite side, whither she goes to look for me; when I
go towards her she shuns me; then, when I follow her, she returns to
the place I had just left. After some time occupied in these manœuvres
she ceases to be preoccupied with me and my substitute in the blue
robe, and falls into a deeper state. She takes on the look of a
seeress, and describes a kind of embattled château on a hill, where she
perceives and recognizes the before-mentioned personage with the curly
hair, but in another costume and surrounded by very ugly black men, and
women “who are good looking.”
Interrogated as to the meaning of this vision, Leopold replies: “_The
city of Tchandraguiri in Kanaraau_” (_sic_); then he adds, a moment
later, “_There is a letter too many in the last word_,” and ends by
giving the name _Kanara_, and adding the explanation “_of the fifteenth
century_.” Upon awaking from this somnambulistic state, which lasted
two hours, Hélène recalls having had a dream of a personage with curly
hair, in a blue robe, richly ornamented with precious stones, with a
cutlass of gold, bent backward, suspended from a hook. She recollects
having held a long conversation with him in a strange language which
she understood and spoke very well herself, although she no longer
knows the meaning of it.
April 14.—Very soon passing into a deep sleep, Mlle. Smith leaves the
table and gives herself up to a silent pantomime, at first smiling,
then finishing in sadness and by a scene of tears.
The meaning of this is explained by Leopold as follows: Hélène is
in India, in her palace of Tchandraguiri, in Kanara, _in 1401_, and
she receives a declaration of love from the personage with the curly
hair, who is the Prince Sivrouka Nayaka, to whom she has been married
for about a year. The prince has flung himself upon his knees, but he
inspires in her a certain fright, and she still regrets having left
her native country in order to follow him. Leopold affirms that she
will remember, on awaking, in French, all that the prince has said to
her in Sanscrit, and that she will repeat to us a part of it, but not
all, because it is too private. After awaking she seems in reality to
recall clearly her entire dream, and tells us that she found herself
on a hill, where they were building; that it was not exactly a city,
nor even a village, since there were no streets; that it was rather an
isolated place in the country, and that which was being built was not
in the form of a house; it had holes rather than windows (a fortress
and loop-holes).
She found herself in a fine palace, very beautiful as to its interior,
but not its exterior. There was a great hall, decorated with greens,
with a grand staircase at the end, flanked by statues of gold. She held
a long conversation there, not in French, with the swarthy personage
with the black curly hair and magnificent costume; he finally ascended
the staircase, but she did not follow him.
She appeared to recall well the meaning of all that he said to her in
their conversation in a foreign language, but seemed embarrassed by
these memories, and would not consent to relate them to us.
May 26.—In the course of this seance, as Hélène, in a silent
somnambulism, incarnates the Hindoo princess, I hand her a sheet of
paper and a pencil in the hope of obtaining some text or drawing. After
divers scribblings she traces the single word _Simadini_ in letters
which are not at all like her usual hand (see Fig. 34).
[Illustration: Fig. 34. Simadini]
Then taking a fresh sheet, she seems to write on it with a happy smile,
folds it carefully and thrusts it in her corsage, takes it out again,
and rereads it with rapture, etc. Leopold informs us that Simadini is
the name of the Hindoo princess, and that she is reading a love-letter
from Sivrouka. On awaking she remembers having been “in such a
beautiful palace,” and of having received there a very interesting
letter, but the contents of which she refused to disclose to us, being
evidently too confidential.
I intercalate here two remarks apropos of the name Simadini, which is
one of the first known examples of a handwriting of Mlle. Smith other
than her own normal hand.
First: When, four months later, Leopold began to communicate in writing
(pp. 98-103), a certain analogy in the formation of the letters, and
the identical way of holding the pencil, caused us to believe that it
was he who had already traced the word in Fig. 34. But he has always
denied it, and we have never been able to discover the author of it.
Secondly: I said above, (p. 204), that there had been divergences in
the orthography of this name. Here, in substance, is a fragment of a
letter which Mlle. Smith wrote me in the winter following (February 18,
1896), depicting to me the vexatious impressions which she still had
concerning it.
“... I am very sad, and I cannot tell why. I have a heavy heart, and
for what reason I do not know myself. It came to such a pass to-day
(you are going to laugh) that it seemed to me as though my left cheek
had grown perceptibly thinner. I am sure that at this moment you would
not recognize Simadini, so piteous and discouraged is her countenance!
Think, that at the very moment in which I trace these words, I hear a
voice speaking to me in my right ear: “_Not Simadini, but Simandini!_”
What do you think that can be? It is very strange, is it not? Have
we misunderstood that name? Or, perhaps, may it not be I who have
misunderstood it?...”
Mlle. Smith here forgets that the name did not come to her on the first
occasion by auditive hallucination, in which case it might be that she
had misunderstood it, but by writing in somnambulism, which excludes
any mistake of her ordinary consciousness. We must confine ourselves
to registering as a fact, inexplicable hitherto, this correction of
a graphic automatism by an auditive automatism at the end of several
months. Between the two orthographies, I have adopted the second, which
has undergone no further changes, and figures only in the Martian texts
(10, 16).
June 16.—Fuller repetition of the scene of the letter of the Hindoo
prince. Impossible to learn the contents of it. I suggest to her to
remember and to relate them to us upon awakening, but Leopold replies:
“_She will not reveal it. Why have you not gained her confidence
sufficiently, that she may tell you everything without fear?_” and the
suggestion had no effect.
June 30.—Somnambulism with silent pantomime, the meaning of which is
given by Leopold: It is the scene of the betrothal of Simandini and
Sivrouka at Tchandraguiri. There is first a phase of oppression, with
sighs and gestures as of a struggle against various pretenders who wish
to seize her; then laughter and ecstasy, provoked by the arrival of
Sivrouka, who delivers her and drives off his rivals; finally, joy and
admiration on accepting the flowers and jewels which he offers her.
I have reported, too much at length perhaps, though still greatly
abridged, these first appearances of the Oriental romance, because
they form a continuous series, in the reverse of the chronological
order, conformably to a spiritistic theory which holds that in these
memories of previous existences the mediumistic memory goes back and
recovers the “images” of the more recent events before those which
are more remote. During this first period of four months, the Hindoo
cycle made irruption into eight seances (about one-twentieth of those
at which I have been present since I have had knowledge of them), and
has manifested itself somewhat like the panorama of a magic lantern,
unfolding itself in successive tableaux.
This whole history can be summed up by a few principal tableaux: there
was the scene of the death on the funeral pile, prepared in vision
in the seance of the 6th of March and executed on the 10th; then the
scene of the interior of the palace and the fortress in process of
construction (7th and 14th of April); that of the love-letter (26th of
May and 16th of June); finally, the betrothal (30th of June). There
must be added to these the grand tableau at the beginning, first
presented in vision the 3d of March, then realized three days later
with the astonishing exclamation Atièyâ Ganapatinâmâ. The meaning of
this scene has never been explained by Leopold, but seems to be quite
clear. A species of prologue can be seen in it, or even apotheosis,
inaugurating the entire romance; it is the Hindoo princess of four
centuries ago recognizing her lord and master in flesh and blood, under
the unexpected form of a university professor, whom she greets with
an emphasis wholly Oriental in blessing him, very appropriately, in
the name of the divinity of science and of wisdom—since Ganapati is an
equivalent of Ganesâ, the god with the head of an elephant, patron of
sages and savants.
It can be easily conceived that these two words of Oriental resonance,
spoken aloud at a period at which the Martian was not yet born—and
followed by all the conversations unfortunately unheard by us, which at
the waking at the subsequent seances Hélène recalled having held in a
strange language (in _Sanscrit_, according to Leopold) with the Hindoo
prince of her dreams—would excite a lively curiosity and a desire to
obtain longer audible fragments of this unknown idiom. It was only
in September, 1895, that this satisfaction was afforded us, during a
seance at which the Oriental romance, which had given no further sign
of life since the month of June, made a new outbreak. Starting from
that moment, it has never ceased during these four years to reappear
irregularly, and, suffering some eclipses, accompanied on each occasion
by words of a _Sanscritoid_ aspect. But the plot of the romance has no
longer the same clearness that it showed at the beginning. In place of
tableaux linking themselves in a regular chronological order, they are
often no more than confused reminiscences, memories, without precise
bonds between them, which gush forth from the memory of Simandini. As
the fragments of our youthful years surge up incoherent and pell-mell
in our dreams, Mlle. Smith, too, finds herself easily assailed in her
somnambulisms by visions connected with certain episodes, and not
forming an entire continuation of supposed Asiatic pre-existence.
Some of these scenes concern her life as a young Arab girl. One sees
her there, for example, playing joyously with her little monkey,
Mitidja; or copying an Arab text (see Fig. 35, p. 312), which her
father, the sheik, surrounded by his tribes, furnishes her; or
embarking on a strange boat, escorted by black Hindoos, for her new
country, etc. But much the larger number of her somnambulistic trances
and her spontaneous visions have reference to her life in India and
to the details of her daily existence. Her bath, which the faithful
domestic Adèl prepares for her; her walks and reveries in the splendid
gardens of the palace, all full of a luxurious vegetation and rare
birds of brilliant colors; her scenes of tenderness and of affectionate
effusions—always stamped, this is to be noted, with the most perfect
propriety—towards the Prince Sivrouka, when he is kindly disposed;
scenes of regret also and abundant tears for the memory of her far-off
native land, when the capricious and brutal humor of the Oriental
despot makes itself too severely felt; conversation with the fakir
Kanga; devotions and religious ceremonies before some Buddhist image,
etc., all this forms an _ensemble_ extremely varied and full of local
color. There is in the whole being of Simandini—in the expression of
her countenance (Hélène almost always has her large eyes open in this
somnambulism), in her movements, in the quality of her voice when she
speaks or chants Hindoo—a languishing grace, an abandon, a melancholy
sweetness, a something of languor and of charm, which corresponds
wonderfully with the character of the Orient, as the spectators
conceive it to be, who, like me, have never been there, etc. With all
this a bearing always full of _noblesse_ and dignity conforms to that
which one would expect of a princess; there are no dances, for example,
nothing of the _bayadère_.
Mlle. Smith is really very wonderful in her Hindoo somnambulisms. The
way in which Simandini seats herself on the ground, her legs crossed,
or half stretched out, nonchalantly leaning her arms or her head
against a Sivrouka, who is sometimes real (when in her incomplete
trance she takes me for her prince), sometimes imaginary; the religious
and solemn gravity of her prostrations when, after having for a long
time balanced the fictitious brazier, she crosses her extended hands
on her breast, kneeling and bowing herself three times, her forehead
striking the ground; the melancholy sweetness of her chants in a minor
key, wailing and plaintive melodies, which unfold themselves in certain
flute-like notes, prolonged in a slow decrescendo, and only dying away
at the end of a single note held for fully fourteen seconds; the agile
suppleness of her swaying and serpentine movements, when she amuses
herself with her imaginary monkey, caresses it, embraces it, excites
it, scolds it laughingly, and makes it repeat all its tricks—all this
so varied mimicry and Oriental speech have such a stamp of originality,
of ease, of naturalness, that one asks in amazement whence it comes
to this little daughter of Lake Leman, without artistic education or
special knowledge of the Orient—a perfection of play to which the best
actress, without doubt, could only attain at the price of prolonged
studies or a sojourn on the banks of the Ganges.
The problem, as I have already stated, is not yet solved, and I am
obliged still to endeavor to discover whence Hélène Smith has derived
her ideas in regard to India. It seems that the more simple method
would be to take advantage of the hypnotic state of the seances to
obtain a confession from Hélène’s subconscious memory, and persuade it
to disclose the secret; but my efforts in that direction have not as
yet succeeded. It is doubtless incompetency on my part, and I will end,
perhaps—or some one better qualified than I—in finding the joint in the
armor. The fact is that hitherto I have always run up against Leopold,
who will not allow himself to be ejected or ridiculed, and who has
never ceased to affirm that the Sanscrit, Simandini, and the rest are
authentic. All the trails which I have thought I have discovered—and
they are already numerous—have proved false. The reader must pardon me
for not going into the details of my failures in this regard.
If it was only a question of the Hindoo pantomime the mystery would not
be so great: some recitations at school, newspaper articles concerning
the incineration of the widows of Malabar, engravings and descriptions
relative to the civil and religious life of India, etc.—in short, the
varied sources of information which, in a civilized country and at our
epoch of cosmopolitanism, inevitably meet some time or other the eyes
or ears of every one of us and form part of the equipment (conscious
or unconscious) of every individual who is not altogether uncultured,
would more than suffice to explain the scene of the funeral pile,
the prostrations, and the varied attitudes. There are, indeed, some
well-known examples showing how small a thing a cunning intelligence,
furnished with a good memory and a fertile and plastic imagination,
needs in order to reconstruct or fabricate out of nothing a complex
edifice, having every appearance of authenticity, and capable of
holding in check for a considerable length of time the perspicacity
even of skilled minds. But that which conscious and reflecting labor
has succeeded in accomplishing in the cases referred to, the subliminal
faculties can execute to a much higher degree of perfection in the case
of persons subject to automatic tendencies.
But two points remain, which complicate the case of the Hindoo romance
and seem to defy—thus far, at least—all normal explanation, because
they surpass the limits of a simple play of the imagination. These are
the precise _historical_ information given by Leopold, some of which
can be, in a certain sense, verified; and the Hindoo _language_ spoken
by Simandini, which contains words more or less recognizable, the real
meaning of which is adapted to the situation in which they have been
spoken. But, even if Hélène’s imagination could have reconstructed
the manners and customs and scenes of the Orient from the general
information floating in some way in cosmopolitan atmosphere, still one
cannot conceive whence she has derived her knowledge of the language
and of certain obscure episodes in the history of India. These two
points deserve to be examined separately.
II. SIVROUKA AND M. DE MARLÈS
When Kanara, Sivrouka, Simandini, etc., successively made their
appearance, slowly spelled out by Leopold, with the date of 1401, my
companions of the seance and I hastened to investigate Brouillet, who
brought to mind the province of Malabar in connection with the first
of these names, but left us in utter darkness as to the others. The
geography of Vivien Saint-Martin revealed the existence of no fewer
than three Tchandraguiris—a hill, a river, and a small town in the
district of Arcot-Nord (Madras). The latter—or rather its citadel
on the summit of the hill—answered quite well to the description
given by Hélène in her visions of the 7th and 14th of April, but
the construction of this fortress dates back only to 1510, and this
locality is very far removed from the Kanara where Leopold locates this
entire story (see pp. 286-288).
As to Sivrouka and his surroundings, neither biographical dictionaries
nor encyclopædias were able to furnish me the least hint on this
subject. Living historians or Orientalists to whom I addressed
myself were of a discouraging unanimity in replying that they did
not recognize even the names, the historic correctness of which they
regarded as doubtful, and they did not at all remember having met with
them in works of fiction.
“I have there,” said a learned professor of history, showing me a
good-sized bookcase, “numerous works on the history of India; but they
relate only to the north of the peninsula; and as to what transpired
in the south during the period to which you refer, we know almost
nothing. Your names are unknown to me and do not recall to my mind any
personage, real or fictitious.”
“The very name of Sivrouka seems to me improbable as a Hindoo name”
replied another, who was unable to give me any more information on the
subject.
“I greatly regret,” wrote a third, on receipt of Hélène’s texts, “not
to have succeeded in getting upon the trail of the recollections of
your medium. I cannot think of any book which would be likely to
furnish the information. Tchandraguiri and Mangalore (where several
scenes of the Hindoo cycle are located) are correct, but Madras (_id._)
did not exist in 1401. Its name and foundation do not go further back
than the seventeenth century. That region was then a dependency of the
kingdom of Vijayanagara, and a naïk in the service of those princes
resided successively at Tchandraguiri and at Mangalore. I can make
nothing of Sivrouka; the king of Vijayanagara, in 1402, was Bukkha II.,
or Bukkha called Siribukkha, Tiribukkha. But the naïk who so often
changed his residence was evidently not a ruling prince. Was it a
romance? Certain details caused me to doubt it. A romancer so careful
in regard to local coloring as to introduce into his narrative Indian
words, would not have given the title of the prince under the Sanscrit
form _Nayaka_, but would have used the vulgar form naïk; he would not
have made the wife, in speaking to her husband, call him by his name
Sivrouka (as Hélène constantly does in this somnambulism). I have no
recollection of having read anything of this kind, and I know of no
work of fiction from which the story might have been taken.”
It will be readily understood that I was annoyed at not being able to
establish clearly my presumed Asiatic previous existence. However,
while professional science was administering to me these cold douches,
I continued, on my own account, to search the libraries at my disposal,
and here one fine day I accidentally came across, in an old history of
India, in six volumes, by a man named De Marlès, the following passages:
“Kanara and the neighboring provinces on the side towards Delhi may be
regarded as the Georgia of Hindustan; it is there, it is said, that the
most beautiful women are to be found; the natives, however, are very
jealous in guarding them, and do not often allow them to be seen by
strangers.”
“Tchandraguiri, which signifies _Mountain of the Moon_, is a vast
fortress constructed, in 1401, by the rajah Sivrouka Nayaka. This
prince, as also his successors, belonged to the sect of the Djaïns.”
At last! With what a beating heart did I fasten my eyes on that
irrefutable historic evidence that my preceding incarnation, under the
beautiful skies of India was not a myth! I felt new life in my veins.
I reread twenty times those blessed lines, and took a copy of them to
send to those pretended savants who were ignorant even of the name of
Sivrouka, and allowed doubts to be cast upon his reality.
Alas! my triumph was of brief duration. It seems that the testimony
of De Marlès is not of the highest order. This author is held in
slight esteem in well-informed circles, as may be seen from the
following passage in a letter of M. Barth, which merely expresses, in
a vigorous and lively manner, an opinion which other specialists have
confirmed:[22]
“It is through a letter of M. Flournoy that I learn that there has
existed since 1828 in Paris, printed in Roman characters, a history
of India by De Marlès containing a statement that the fortress of
Candragiri was built in 1401, and that its founder was Sivrouka Nayaka.
What new facts there are in books one no longer consults! And that
of De Marlès is, indeed, one of those that are no longer consulted.
I found it yesterday at the library of the Institute. It would have
been impossible to have done worse, even in 1828. But sometimes we
find pearls in a dung-hill, and perhaps this Sivrouka Nayaka is one of
them. Unfortunately, the author gives no hint as to the sources of his
information; and later, in his fourth volume, in which he narrates the
history of the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, he does not say a
word more either of Candragiri or of Sivrouka.”
Here was a terrible blow to my Hindoo existence, which poor M. de
Marlès had so well established for me.
Nevertheless, the hope still lingers that his information, although not
reproduced by later writers more highly esteemed, may perhaps still be
correct. This is quite possible, since science has not yet spoken its
last word in this department, hardly even its first, if men still more
competent may be believed, beginning with M. Barth himself.
“Up to the present moment,” says he, “there is no trustworthy history
of the south of the peninsula.... The Dravidian languages of India is
a domain very unfamiliar to the majority of Indian scholars.... There
is nothing to draw upon but some works and monographs on the aboriginal
chronicles and legendary traditions; and it would be necessary to know
the Dravidian languages on the one hand and Arabic on the other, to be
able to examine or even consult them with profit. The only works which
we are able to follow are those which undertake to make this history by
epigraphic documents, but these, thus far, say nothing of Simandini, of
Adèl, of Mitidja, or even of Sivrouka.”
This silence of epigraphy is certainly to be regretted; but who knows
whether it will not some day enlighten us by proving De Marlès to
be right—and also Leopold—by narrating to us the true story of the
Hindoo princess, the Arabian monkey, and the slave Adèl! It costs
nothing to hope! Already, thanks again to M. Barth, I have gained
information concerning another Tchandraguiri than the one of the
District of North Arcot mentioned by Vivien de Saint-Martin—_i.e._, a
Tchandraguiri, situated in South Kanara, and in the citadel of which a
hitherto unknown inscription has been discovered which must date back
to the time of King Harihara II., of Vijayanagara, who reigned at the
beginning of the fifteenth century.[23] Here is something approaching
the somnambulistic revelations of Mlle. Smith. While awaiting their
definite confirmation by new archæological discoveries, traces of
Sivrouka may be sought for in the earlier works upon which De Marlès
must have drawn. Unfortunately these works are not easy to find, and
are inconvenient to consult. Professor Michel, of the University of
Liège, has had the kindness to run through those of Buchanan[24] and of
Rennell,[25] but without result.
If De Marlès did not invent Sivrouka out of whole cloth, which is
hardly supposable, it was very probably in the translation of Ferishta
by Dow,[26] that he found his facts. I have, unhappily, not yet been
able myself to consult that very rare work, which is not to be found
in Geneva, so far as I am aware, nor to obtain accurate information
regarding its contents.
The uncertainty which hovers over the historical problem extends,
naturally, to the psychological problem also. It is clear that if
certain inscriptions, or even some old work, should come some day to
tell us not only of Sivrouka, but of Simandini, of Adèl, and the other
personages who figure in Hélène’s Hindoo romance, but of whom De Marlès
does not whisper a word, we should no longer care about the latter
author, and the question would then be as follows: Could Mlle. Smith
have had cognizance of these early works, and if not, how do their
contents reappear in her somnambulism? But in the actual condition of
things, and all allowance made for possible surprises in the future,
I do not hesitate to regard as the more probable and more rational
supposition, that it was really the passage of De Marlès, quoted above,
which furnished the subliminal memory of Hélène the precise date of
1401—and the three names of the fortress, the province, and the rajah.
Various other traits of the visions of Mlle. Smith betray likewise the
same inspiration. The scene in which she sees them engaged in building,
and her description of that which is being built, suggest clearly the
idea of a fortress furnished by the text. The translation _Mountain of
the Moon_ contributed to causing her to locate the scene upon a hill.
The beauty of the women of the country, on which De Marlès dwells, has
its echo in the remark of Hélène that the women whom she sees are “good
looking.” Finally, the princely character of Sivrouka, mentioned by
De Marlès, is found throughout the length of the entire romance, and
displays itself in the splendor of his costume, of the palace, of the
gardens, etc.
It is possible that the names and the nationality of the other
personages—Simandini, Adèl, the monkey, the sheik, etc.—may have been
borrowed from some unknown work, which would be, for the Arabian
portion of the narrative, the pendant to De Marlès for the Hindoo past.
This may be, but it is not necessary. It is permissible to regard,
provisionally, the imaginations built up around Sivrouka, as an
ingenious expedient, by means of which Hélène’s imagination finds a way
of binding to that central figure, and also of blending in a single
whole, her other Oriental memories not specifically Hindoo.
The hypothesis which I am about to assume, which connects directly
with De Marlès the data of Hélène’s Asiatic dream, contained likewise
in the work of that author, arouses, nevertheless, two objections. The
first is drawn from the slight differences of orthography between the
text of De Marlès and the words spoken by Leopold. This difficulty
is only insurmountable by elevating the inerrancy of the subliminal
memory to the plane of absolute infallibility, though the latter
must be admitted to be ordinarily very much superior to that of the
conscious memory. But the favorite comparison of the forgotten
memories, reappearing in somnambulisms, to unchangeable, absolutely
true photographic impressions, causes us readily to exaggerate the
fidelity of the unconscious memory-images. The example of certain
dreams—in which memories of childhood sometimes return with a startling
clearness, but, nevertheless, altered or distorted in some details,
conformably to later experiences or to recent events—suffices to show
that automatisms of the memory are not always sheltered by influences
of the imagination, nor absolutely free from error.
In this particular case there are two divergences between De Marlès and
Leopold: the latter has substituted a _k_ for the _c_ in Nayaca, and
has omitted the _n_ in Tchandraguiri (compare pp. 286 and 288). Another
mistake, which he immediately corrected, consisting in dictating first
_Kanaraau_, was evidently a confusion such as frequently occurs in
writing, occasioned by a too rapid passing from the word _Kanara_ to
the information following, and already about to come—“_au_ fifteenth
century.” The spelling Nayaka, instead of Nayaca, is attributable to
the termination of the word _Sivrouka_, which precedes it. Identity of
pronunciation has produced identity of orthography.
The second objection is of a negative character. It consists in the
impossibility of showing where, when, or how Mlle. Smith obtained
cognizance of the text of De Marlès.
I admit frankly that I know nothing about it, and I give full credit to
Hélène for the indomitable and persevering energy with which she has
never ceased to protest against my hypothesis, which has the faculty of
exasperating her in the highest degree—and one readily understands that
it would naturally do so. For it is in vain that she digs down to the
very bottom of her memories; she does not discover the slightest trace
of this work. And not only that, but how can one seriously suppose
that she has ever had the slightest intimation of it, since she never
studied the history of India, has neither read nor heard anything on
the subject, the very name of De Marlès having been utterly unknown to
her up to the day on which she learned that I suspected that author of
being the source of the Hindoo romance? It must, indeed, be admitted
that the idea of the passage in question having come before the eyes
or ears of Mlle. Smith through any ordinary channel seems a trifle
absurd. I only know in Geneva of two copies of the work of De Marlès,
both covered with dust—the one belonging to the Société de Lecture, a
private association of which none of the Smith family nor any friend
of theirs was ever a member; the other in the Public Library, where,
among the thousands of more interesting and more modern books, it is
now very rarely consulted. It could only have happened, therefore,
by a combination of absolutely exceptional and almost unimaginable
circumstances that the work of De Marlès could have found its way into
Hélène’s hands; and how could it have done so and she not have the
slightest recollection of it?
I acknowledge the force of this argument, and that the wisest thing
to do is to leave the matter in suspense. But if the question must
be decided, though there is scarcely any choice, extravagance for
extravagance, I still prefer the hypothesis which only invokes natural
possibilities to that which appeals to occult causes.
Possibly the work of De Marlès may have been heard of by Mlle. Smith
without her normal consciousness taking note of it. Either when among
her friends or acquaintances, or with her parents, she might have heard
some passages read in her young days, etc. The fact that she has no
conscious recollection of it proves nothing against such a supposition
to any one who is at all familiar with the play of our faculties.
It goes without saying that my method of reasoning is the inverse of
that which generally prevails in spiritistic circles. Witness the
celebrated Aksakoff, as a single example, who, discovering that a
curious typtological message was found already in print in a book
which could not readily have come to the knowledge of the medium, and
recognizing the fact that the message came from that book, says: “But
in what way could the brain of the medium have been made aware of the
contents of the book? There is the mystery. _I refuse to admit that it
could have been through natural means. I believe it was by some occult
process._”
Very well! this is plain language, and the frankness of the declaration
charms me to such a degree that I cannot resist the temptation to
appropriate it for myself in the case of Mlle. Smith and M. de Marlès,
transposing only two words: “_I refuse to admit that it could have
been through occult means. I believe it was by some natural process._”
Evidently, in doubtful cases (which are in an enormous majority), in
which the natural and the occult explanations are in direct opposition,
without the possibility of a material demonstration as to which is
true in fact, a decision must be reached in accordance with personal
taste and feeling. Between these two methodological points of view
a reconciliation is scarcely possible. The reader may think what he
will. But, right or wrong, I claim the first of these as my opinion,
and regard the tendency of the supernatural and occult to substitute
themselves, on account of the insufficiency of our knowledge, for the
acquired rights of natural hypothesis, as an unjustifiable reversal of
rôles.
To those who shall find my hypothesis decidedly too extravagant—or
too simple—remains a choice between the multiple forms of occult
hypothesis. Shall it be Leopold who, in his all-powerful state of
disincarnation, has read in the closed volume of De Marlès? Or has
there, indeed, been a telepathic transmission of this passage from the
brain of some unknown terrestrial reader to that of Mlle. Smith? Shall
it be with her a case of clairvoyance, of lucidity, of intuition in
the astral body; or, again, of trickery on the part of some facetious
spirit? And if, taking the reincarnationist theory seriously, it is
admitted that Sivrouka, 1401, and Tchandraguiri, are indeed really
reminiscences of the past life of Simandini, how explain that curious
coincidence in their choice and their spelling with precisely the
designations used by M. de Marlès?
Verily my brain reels in the midst of all these alternatives, and I
hasten to pass to another subject.
III. THE ARAB ELEMENTS OF THE ORIENTAL CYCLE
Here is a problem for the partisans of the Oriental pre-existence of
Mlle. Smith: How comes it that, recovering in her trances the use of
the Hindoo which she formerly spoke at the court of Sivrouka, she has
totally forgotten Arabian, which, however, had been her mother-tongue
in that same previous existence, and which she was accustomed to use
exclusively up to the time of her departure from her native land, in
her eighteenth year?
If the emotions caused by her royal marriage had destroyed all memory
of the past, one could understand how the idiom might have become
obscured along with the rest in that loss of memory of her life as a
young girl.
But such was not the case. She preserved very vivid memories of her
father the sheik, of his tents gleaming in the sunlight, of the
people, of the camels and landscapes of Arabia. In many seances and
spontaneous visions she finds herself carried back to that first half
of her Asiatic existence. But then she narrates in French that which is
unfolded before her eyes, or gives herself up to a silent pantomime.
She has never spoken or written anything at all resembling Arabian. Can
it be supposed that already in her Hindoo life she had assimilated the
language of her adopted country to the point of losing even the latent
memories of her maternal language? That would be contrary to all known
psychological analogies.
However, in saying that Hélène has never written or spoken Arabian
I exaggerate. On one occasion she spoke four words of it. It is the
exception which proves the rule. In fact, not only did she fail to
accompany that single text with any pronunciation, but she executed it
as a drawing, and apparently copied, without comprehending, a model
which an imaginary person presented to her.
Here is a review of that incident:
October 27, 1895.—Shortly after the beginning of the seance Mlle.
Smith has an Arabian vision: “Look at those tents! There are no stones
here—it is all sand ... [she counts the tents one by one]. There
are twenty of them. That one is beautiful. Don’t you find it so, M.
Lemaître—that largest one? It is fastened by cords and small stakes
...“ etc. Then she describes the personages: The one who is smoking,
seated in a corner, with his legs crossed; others all black (the table
says they are negroes, and that the scene takes place in Arabia);
then a man clothed in white, whom Hélène has the feeling of knowing
without being able to recognize him; she places her finger upon her
forehead, in the attitude of a person trying to remember, and the table
(on which she has her left hand) informs us then that she lived in
Arabia in her life as Simandini, and that she is trying to recollect
those far-distant times. A quite long scene follows, in which her Arab
reminiscences alternate and mingle with the consciousness of the real
environment, though she neither sees nor hears us. At this point a
state of mental confusion ensues, which seems to be very painful to her.
“... M. Lemaître! M. Flournoy! are you there? Answer me, then. Did I
not come here this evening? If only I could ... however, I am not _en
voyage_.... I really believe it is Sunday at last ... I understand
nothing more about it. I think my brain is so tired that all my ideas
are mixed up ... however, I am not dreaming.... It seems to me that I
have also lived with them ... [the sitters at the table], and with them
[the Arabs of her vision].... But I know them—all those men. Tell me,
then, who you are! Did you arrive in Geneva lately? [They are, says the
table, Arabs who lived five centuries ago, among them the father of
Simandini.] Come nearer, then, come here. I want you to speak to me!
M. Lemaître! Oh, that pretty little sketch! What is that sketch? [The
table having said that it is a drawing which her father is presenting
to her, and that she can copy it, a pencil and a sheet of paper are
placed before her, the latter of which seems to be transformed into
papyrus in her dream.] That green leaf is pretty. Of what plant is
it the leaf? I think I have a pencil; I am going to try to make this
sketch....”
After the usual struggle between the two methods of holding the pencil
(see pp. 100-102), she yields to Leopold’s manner of holding it,
saying, “So much the worse”; then traces, slowly and with great care,
Fig. 35, from left to right, often raising her eyes to her imaginary
model, as if copying a drawing. After which she goes profoundly
asleep; then other somnambulisms come.
On awaking she recollects the state of confusion through which she had
passed. “Wretched evening,” said she. “I was unhappy. I felt that I was
living here, as I always have, and I saw some things as though I were a
foreigner. I was with you, but I was living elsewhere,” etc.
This whole scene gives the distinct impression that the Arab phrase
only existed in Hélène’s recollection as a visual memory, without
meaning or any verbal images. It was for her an incomprehensible piece
of writing, a simple drawing, like Chinese or Japanese characters would
be for us. Evidently it was a text which had come before her eyes at
some propitious moment, and, having been absorbed by the subliminal
imagination—always on the watch for matters of Oriental aspect—had been
incorporated in a scene of the Asiatic dream.
[Illustration: Fig. 35. Arabian text drawn from left to right by Mlle.
Smith in hemisomnambulism: elqalil men elhabib ktsir, _the little from
the friend (is) much_. Natural size.]
Such, at least, is the supposition which seems to me the most
plausible. For, to regard it as a fragment of Arabian, which Hélène
could speak and write fluently if she were in an appropriate state of
somnambulism—as Leopold pretended one day to be the fact—seems to me an
hypothesis still more arbitrary, and little in accord with the other
trance phenomena of Mlle. Smith.
Occasions have not been wanting to her in the five years during which
her exotic romances have been unfolding themselves to make use of her
supposed philological reserves by speaking and writing Arabian, if her
subliminal memory had so desired.
She has presented all degrees and kinds of somnambulism, and more
visions of Arabia than could have failed to awaken by association the
corresponding idiom, if it really was slumbering in her. The complete
and total isolation of the text given above, in the midst of this flood
of Oriental scenes, seems to me, therefore, to testify strongly in
favor of my supposition that it has to do with a visual flash, unique
in its kind, accidentally encountered and stored up, and that the
Asiatic secondary personality of Mlle. Smith is absolutely ignorant of
Arabic.
Concerning the other details of the Arab somnambulisms of Hélène, I
have nothing to say; they do not go beyond the ideas which she could
unconsciously have gathered from the surrounding environment; and to
the other sources of her knowledge must be added whatever she might
have heard from her father, who had at one time lived in Algeria.
The proper names connected with the Arab scenes, with the possible
exception of Pirux, awaken certain associations of ideas, without
making it possible to affirm anything with certainty as to their
origin.
IV. THE HINDOO LANGUAGE OF MLLE. SMITH
The nature of the Hindoo language of Hélène is less easy to explain
clearly than that of the Martian, because it has never been possible to
obtain either a literal translation of it or written texts. Besides,
being ignorant of the numberless dialects of ancient and modern India,
and not believing it to be incumbent upon me to devote myself to
their study solely that I might be able to appreciate at their proper
value the philological exploits of an entranced medium, I am not in
a situation to allow myself any personal judgment in regard to this
matter.
There is not even left to me the resource of placing the parts of the
process as a whole before the reader, as I have done in the case of the
Martian, for the reason that our ignorance of Hélène’s Hindoo, added
to her rapid and indistinct pronunciation—a real prattle sometimes—has
caused us to lose the greater part of the numerous words heard in the
course of some thirty Oriental scenes scattered over a space of four
years.
Even the fragments which we have been able to note down present for
the most part so much uncertainty that it would be idle to publish all
of them. I have communicated the best of them to several distinguished
Oriental scholars. From certain information which they have kindly
given me, it appears that the _soi-disant_ Hindoo of Hélène is not
any fixed idiom known to these specialists; but, on the other hand,
there are to be found in it, more or less disfigured and difficult
to recognize, certain terms or roots which approach more nearly to
Sanscrit than any actual language of India, and the meaning of which
often very well corresponds with the situations in which these words
have been uttered. I proceed to give some examples of them:
* * * * *
1. The two words, =atiêyâ ganapatinâmâ=, which inaugurated the Hindoo
language on the 6th of March, 1895 (see p. 282), and which were
invested at that moment, in the mouth of Simandini, with the evident
meaning of a formula of salutation or of benediction, addressed to her
late husband, inopportunely returned, were articulated in a manner so
impressive and so solemn that their pronunciation leaves scarcely any
room for doubt.
It is all the more interesting to ascertain the accord of my scientist
correspondents upon the value of these two words; the first recalls to
them nothing precise or applicable to the situation, but the second
is a flattering and very appropriate allusion to the divinity of the
Hindoo Pantheon, which is more actively interesting to the professional
world.
M. P. Oltramare, to whom I sent these words, without saying anything
as to their source, replied: “There is nothing more simple than the
word =ganapatinâmâ=; it means, ‘_who bears the name of Ganapati_,’
which is the same as _Ganesa_.... As to =atiêyâ=, that word has not
a Hindoo appearance; it might perhaps be =atreya=, which, it seems,
serves as a designation for women who have suffered an abortion, an
explication which, however, I do not guarantee. [In order to affirm
more concerning these words, it would be necessary to know] whether
they are really Sanscrit, since if they belong to the vulgar languages,
I excuse myself absolutely.”
M. Glardon, who is more familiar with the vulgar languages and
speaks Hindustani fluently, did not hint to me of any other meaning
for =atiêyâ= and saw also in the other word “an epithet of honor,
literally, ‘_named Ganapati_,’ familiar name of the god Ganesa.”
M. de Saussure also found no meaning whatever for the first term, in
which he inclines now to see an arbitrary creation of the Martian
order, and he remarked that in the second, “the two words, =Ganapati=,
well-known divinity, and =nâmâ=, _name_, are constructed together,
in some inexplicable manner, but not necessarily false. It is quite
curious,” adds he, “that this fragment, which is mixed up with the name
of a god, may be properly pronounced with a kind of solemn emphasis
and a gesture of religious benediction. This denotes, indeed, an
intelligent and intentional use.”
According to this first brief specimen, therefore, Hélène’s Hindoo
appears to be a mixture of improvised articulations and of veritable
Sanscrit words adapted to the situation. Later specimens only serve to
corroborate this impression.
* * * * *
2. The next outbreak of Hindoo took place five months later (September
15, 1895), in the midst of a very long Oriental seance, in which I only
refer to points especially interesting to us—to wit, Hélène’s supposed
Sanscrit, the French interpretation which Leopold gave of it, and the
curious evidences of agreement of these two texts.
In one tender scene, with sighs and tears, in connection with Sivrouka,
Hélène uttered in an exceedingly sweet voice the following words:
=ou mama priva= (or =prira, priya=)—=mama radisivou=—=mama sadiou
sivrouka=—=apa tava va signa damasa=—=simia damasa bagda sivrouka=.
During the various phases which precede the awaking, I ask Leopold the
meaning of these words. He at first refused to give it, saying, “Find
it out yourself”; then, as I insist, “I would have preferred that
you found it out yourself.” I beg him to give at least the correct
spelling of an Oriental text furnished us in so uncertain a manner,
but he disappeared, saying he was ignorant of Sanscrit. By means of
later questions which he answers by “yes” and “no,” it is discovered
that they are words of love from Simandini to her husband, who was
about to leave her for a voyage to his principality. Then suddenly, as
the awaking seems to be approaching, Leopold moves the index-finger
feverishly, and commences to dictate impatiently: “_Hasten_ [to spell]
... My good, my excellent, my dearly loved Sivrouka, without thee where
to find happiness?” His answers to our questions lead us to understand
that this is the substantial meaning of all the Sanscrit spoken that
evening (and given above), that it is not he, Leopold, who speaks this
language to Hélène, because he does not understand it, but that it is
indeed he who gives us the French equivalent for it, not by a literal
translation of the words themselves, since he does not understand them,
but by interpreting the inmost feelings of Mlle, Smith, with which
he is perfectly familiar. Shortly afterwards Hélène awakes without
recollection.
According to M. de Saussure there are certainly in this text some
Sanscrit fragments answering more or less to the interpretation of
Leopold. The most clear are =mama priya=, which signifies _my dear,
my dearly loved_, and =mama sadiou= (corrected to =sâdhô=), _my good,
my excellent_. The rest of the phrase is less satisfactory in its
present condition; =tava= could well be _of thee_, but =apa tava= is
a pure barbarism, if it is intended for _far from thee_. In the same
way the syllable =bag= in =bagda= seems to mean, independently of the
translation of Leopold, =bhâga=, _happiness_, but is surrounded by
incomprehensible syllables.
* * * * *
3. In a subsequent seance (December 1, 1895), Hélène gave herself up
to a varied series of somnambulistic pantomimes representing scenes in
the life of Simandini, which were thought to be located at Mangalore,
and in the course of which several Hindoo words escaped her, of which,
unhappily, no interpretation could be obtained from Leopold. But here
again, if one is not too difficult to satisfy, a meaning more or less
adapted to the pantomime is finally discovered.
In the midst of a playful scene with her little monkey, Mitidja, she
tells him in her sweetest and most harmonious tones (A), =mama kana
sour= (or =sourde=) =mitidya= ... =kana mitidya= (_ter_). Later,
answering her imaginary prince, who, according to Leopold, has just
given her a severe admonition (the reason for which is not known), and
to which she listened with an air of forced submission, and, almost
sneeringly, she tells him (B), =adaprati tava sivrouka= ... =nô simyô
sinonyedô= ... =on yediô sivrouka=. Returning to a better feeling and
leaning towards him, she murmurs with a charming smile (C) =mama plia=
... =mama naximi= (or =naxmi=) =sivrouka= ... =aô laos, mi sivrouka=.
In the fragment (A), one may suppose the =mama kana= to be a term of
affection, taking the =kana= to be equivalent to the Sanscrit _kânta_,
“beloved,” or _kanistha_, “darling,” unless it be translated, as M.
Glardon does, =kana= (corrected to =khana=) =mitidya= _to eat for
Mitidja_.
In the phrase (B), according to M. de Saussure, “the last words might,
with some show of reason, make us think of the word =anyediuh=, _the
following day_, or, _another day_, repeated twice; and, on the other
hand, the first word might be transformed into =adya-prabhrti=,
_starting from to-day_; which, combined with other syllables,
themselves conventionally triturated, might give something like:
=adya-pra-bhrti tava, sivruka= ... =yôshin= ... =na anyediuh, any
ediuh=: _from to-day, of thee, Sivrouka, that I am_ ... _wife_ ... _not
another day, another day_—which, besides (if it has any meaning at
all,) has scarcely any connection with the scene.”
In the phrase (C) the words =mama plia= evidently mean the same as the
words above, =mama priya=, _my beloved_; =naxmi= might be =lakshmî=,
_beauty and fortune_; and the last words might contain =asmi=, _I am_.
While, therefore, recognizing some words of pure Sanscrit, the whole
appearance of these first texts presents, on the other hand, certain
matters quite suspicious, from the point of view of construction, of
the order of the words, and possibly also the correctness of the forms.
“_E. g._,” observes M. de Saussure, “I do not remember that one can
say in Sanscrit, ‘my Sivrouka,’ nor ‘my dear Sivrouka.’ One can well
say =mama priya=, _my well beloved_, substantively; but =mama priya
Sivruka= is quite another thing: but it is _my dear Sivrouka_ which
occurs most frequently. It is true,” adds my learned colleague, “that
nothing can be affirmed absolutely, especially concerning certain
epochs at which much bad Sanscrit was made in India. The resource
always remains to us of assuming that, since the eleventh wife of
Sivrouka was a child of Arabia, she had not had time to learn to
express herself without error in the idiom of her lord and master,
up to the moment at which the funeral pile put an end to her brief
existence.”
The misfortune is, in assuming by hypothesis the point of view of
the romance, one exposes himself to another difficulty. “The most
surprising thing,” remarks M. de Saussure, “is that Mme. Simandini
spoke Sanscrit, and not Pracrit (the connection of the first with the
second is the same as that between Latin and French, the one springing
from the other, but the one is the language in which the savants
write, while the other is the spoken language). While in the Hindoo
drama the kings, the brahmins, and the personages of high degree are
observed habitually to use Sanscrit, it is questionable if such was
constantly the case in real life. But, under all circumstances, all
the women, even in the drama, speak Pracrit. A king addresses his wife
in the noble language (Sanscrit); she answers him always in the vulgar
language. But the idiom of Simandini, even though it be a Sanscrit very
hard to recognize, is not in any case the Pracrit.”
The numerous Hindoo speeches of Mlle. Smith during these latter years
give rise to certain analogous observations, and do not throw any new
light on their origin. I shall confine myself to a few examples, which
I have chosen less for the sake of the Sanscritoid texts themselves,
which are also always defective and distorted, than for the reason that
the varied circumstances in which they have been produced afford a
certain psychological interest.
* * * * *
4. Scene of Chiromancy. In the course of a long Arab seance, then
Hindoo (February 2, 1896), Hélène knelt down by the side of my chair,
and, taking me for Sivrouka, seized and examined my hand, all the while
carrying on a conversation in a foreign language (without seeming to
notice my actual words). It seems that this conversation contained
some expression of anxiety in regard to my health, which had inspired
several somnambulisms of Mlle. Smith during the preceding months (an
example will be found on pp. 121-122).
At the same time at which she attentively examines the lines of my
hand, she pronounces the following fragmentary sentences, separated
by silences corresponding to the hallucinatory replies of Sivrouka:
“=Priya sivrouka= ... =nô= [signifying No, according to Leopold] ...
=tvandastroum sivrouka= ... =itiami adia priya= ... =itiami sivra
adia= ... =yatou= ... =napi adia= ... =nô= ... =mama souka, mama baga
sivrouka= ... =yatou=.” Besides sivra, which, Leopold says, is an
affectionate name for Sivrouka, we can divine in this text other terms
of affection: =priya=, _beloved_; =mama soukha, mama bhâga=, “_Oh, my
delight, oh, my happiness!_” M. Glardon also calls attention to the
word =tvandastroum=, which approaches the Hindustani _tandarast_ (or
_tandurust_), “who is in good health”—_tandurusti_, “health,” coming
from the two words _tan_, “physical condition,” and _durust_, “good,
true,” of Persian origin. But he adds that it is possibly only a
coincidence, and seems to me doubtful whether he would have thought of
the connection if it were not found in a scene of chiromancy.
* * * * *
5. The Hindoo cycle, like the others, makes numerous irruptions into
the ordinary life of Mlle. Smith, and affects her personality in most
varied degrees, from the simple waking vision of Oriental landscapes
or people up to the total incarnations of Simandini, of which Hélène
preserves no memory whatever. One frequent form of these spontaneous
automatisms consists in certain mixed states, in which she perceives
personages who seem to her objective and independent, while continuing
to have the feeling of a subjective implication or identification in
regard to them, the impression of an indefinable _tua res agitur_.
It then easily happens that the conversations she has with them are a
mixture of French and a foreign language which she is wholly ignorant
of, though feeling the meaning of it. The following is an example:
March 1, 1898.—Between five and six in the morning, while still in bed
but wide awake, as she affirms, Hélène had “a superb Hindoo vision.”
Magnificent palace, with a huge staircase of white stone, leading to
splendid halls furnished with low divans without cushions, of yellow,
red, and more often of blue materials. In a boudoir a woman (Simandini)
reclining and leaning nonchalantly on her elbow; on his knees near her
a man with black curly hair, of dark complexion (Sivrouka), clothed
in a large, red, embroidered robe, and speaking a foreign language,
not Martian, which Hélène did not know, but which, however, she had
the feeling of comprehending inwardly, and which enabled her to write
some sentences of it in French after the vision. While she _listened_
to this man speaking, she _saw_ the lips of the woman open, without
hearing any sound come from her mouth, in such a way that she did not
know what she said, but Hélène had at the same time the impression
of answering _inwardly, in thought_, to the conversation of the man,
and she noted his reply. (This means, psychologically, that the words
of Sivrouka gushed forth in auditive images or hallucinations, and
the answers of Simandini-Hélène in psycho-motor-spoken images of
articulation, accompanied by the usual representation of Simandini
effectuating the corresponding labial movements.) Here is a fragment
of conversation noted by Hélène in pencil at the outset of the vision,
in her ordinary handwriting, but very irregular, attesting that she had
not yet entirely regained her normal state.
(Sivrouka.) “My nights without repose, my eyes red with tears,
Simandini, will not these touch at last thy =attamana=? Shall this day
end without _pardon, without love_?” (Simandini.) “Sivrouka, no, the
day shall not end without pardon, without love; the =sumina= has not
been launched far from me, as thou hast supposed; it is there—dost thou
see?” (Sivrouka.) “Simandini, my =soucca, maccanna baguea=—pardon me
again, always!“
This little scrap of conversation, it may be remarked in passing,
gives quite correctly the emotional note, which is strong throughout
the whole length of the Hindoo dream in the relationship of its two
chief personages. As to the Sanscritoid words which are there mingled
with the French, they have not an equal value. “=Sumina=,” says M. de
Saussure, “recalls nothing. =Attamana=, at most =âtmânam= (accusative
of =âtmâ=), _l’âme_, ‘the soul’; but I hasten to say that in the
context in which =attamana= figures one could not make use of the
Sanscrit word which resembles it, and which at bottom only signifies
(_âme_) ‘soul’ in philosophical language, and in the sense of ‘_l’âme
universelle_,’ or other learned meanings.”
* * * * *
6. The apparition of isolated Hindoo words, or words incorporated in
a non-Hindoo context, is not very rare with Hélène, and is produced
sometimes in auditive hallucinations, sometimes in her writings (see,
_e. g._, Fig. 37, p. 333); sometimes, again, in the course of words
uttered in hemisomnambulism more or less marked. The list which has
been collected of these detached terms shows the same mixture of pure
Sanscrit and unknown words, which can only be connected with that
language by some transformation so arbitrary or forced as to destroy
altogether the value of such comparison.
To this second category belong, for example, =gava=, =vindamini=,
=jotisse=, also spelled by Mlle. Smith. These terms, of whose
signification she is absolutely ignorant, struck her ear in the
course of a Hindoo vision which occurred in the morning when she
first awoke. The last of these words recalls to M. de Saussure the
Sanscrit _jyôtis_, “a constellation”; but then he would pronounce it
_djiôtisse_, which hardly corresponds to the manner in which Hélène
heard and wrote it. There must be added to these examples certain
Hindoo words which have made irruptions into some Martian texts.
These are _Adèl_, a proper name, and _yestad_, “unknown,” in text
13; and (in text 31) _vadasa_, which, according to the rest of the
sentence, seems to designate some divinities or some powers, and in
which MM. de Saussure and Glardon suspect a mangled reminiscence of the
Sanscrit term _dévâ-dâsa_, “slave of the gods.”
* * * * *
7. To crown these specimens of the Sanscrit of Hélène, let us cite her
“Hindoo chant,” which has made half a dozen appearances in the last two
years, and of which Leopold deigned, on a single occasion, to outline
the translation.
The utterances consist essentially of the Sanscrit word _gaya_ “chant,”
repeated to satiety, with here and there some other terms, badly
articulated and offering discouraging variations in the notes taken by
the different hearers. I will confine myself to two versions.
[Illustration: Fig. 36. Modulation of a Hindoo song. The final _G_ of
the three variations was held with perfect steadiness during fourteen
seconds. The series A was often doubled and trebled before the
continuation.]
One of them is by Hélène herself. In a spontaneous vision (May 18,
1898, in the morning, upon awaking), she perceived a man, richly
dressed in yellow and blue (Sivrouka), reclining upon beautiful
cushions near a fountain surrounded by palm-trees; a brunette woman
(Simandini) seats herself on the grass, sings to him in a strange
language a ravishing melody. Hélène gathers the following fragments of
it in writing, in which may be recognized the disfigured text of her
ordinary song, “=Ga haïa vahaïyami= ... =vassen iata= ... =pattissaïa
priaïa=.”
The other version is that of M. de Saussure, very much better qualified
than we are to distinguish the Hindoo sounds. He was quite near
Hélène, who sang seated upon the ground, whose voice for the moment
articulated so badly that several words escaped him, and he does not
vouch for the accuracy of his text, which is as follows, as he wrote
it to the measure: “=Gâya gaya naïa ia miya gayä briti= ... =gaya vaya
yâni pritiya kriya gayâni i gâya mamatua gaya mama nara mama patii si
gaya gandaryô gâya ityami vasanta= ... =gaya gaya yâmi gaya priti gaya
priya gâya patisi=....”
It was towards the end of this same seance that Leopold, undoubtedly
with the idea of doing honor to the distinguished presence of M. de
Saussure, decided, after a scene of Martian translation (text 14, by
Esenale), to give us, in Hélène’s voice, his interpretation of the
Hindoo chant, which follows, _verbatim_, with its mixture of Sanscrit
words: “Sing, bird, let us sing! =Gaya!= Adèl, Sivrouka, sing of the
spring-time! Day and night I am happy! Let us sing! Spring-time bird,
happiness! =ityâmi mamanara priti=, let us sing! let us love! my king!
Miousa, Adèl!”
In comparing these translations of the Hindoo text, certain points of
resemblance are discovered between them. Outside the two perfectly
correct words, =gâya=, _song_, and =vasanta=, _spring-time_, the idea
of “_let us love_” is discovered in =priti= and =briti= (Sanscrit
_prîti_, the act of loving), and an approximate equivalent of “_my
king_” in =mama patii=, recalling the Sanscrit _mama patê_, “my
husband, my master.”
It is, unfortunately, hardly possible to carry the identification
further, except perhaps for _bird_, which, with some show of reason,
might be suspected in =vayayâni=, vaguely recalling =vâyasân=
(accusative plural of =vâyasa= _bird_).
As to the melody of this plaintive ditty, M. Aug. de Morsier, who heard
it at the seance of the 4th of September, 1898, has kindly noted it as
exactly as possible (see Fig. 36).
The preceding examples suffice to give an idea of Hélène’s Hindoo, and
it is time to conclude.
It apparently does not belong to any actually existing dialect. M.
Glardon declares that it is neither ancient nor modern Hindustani, and,
after having put forth at the beginning, by way of simple hypothesis,
the idea that it might be Tamil, or Mahratta, he now sees in it a
_mélange_ of real terms, probably Sanscrit and invented words. M.
Michel, likewise, is of the opinion that the grotesque jargon of
Simandini contains fragments of Sanscrit quite well adapted to the
situation. All my correspondents are, on the whole, of exactly the same
view, and I could not better sum up their opinion than by quoting the
words of M. de Saussure:
“As to the question of ascertaining whether all this really represents
Sanscrit, it is evidently necessary to answer, _No_. One can only say:
“First: That it is a medley of syllables, in the midst of which there
are, incontestably, some series of eight to ten syllables, constituting
a fragment of a sentence which has a meaning (especially exclamatory
phrases—_e. g._, =mama priya=, _mon bien-aimé_ (“my well-beloved”);
=mama soukha=, _mes délices_ (“my delight”)).
“Secondly: That the other syllables, of unintelligible aspect, never
have an anti-Sanscrit character— _i. e._, do not present groups
materially contrary or in opposition to the general figure of the
Sanscrit words.
“Thirdly and finally: That the value of this latter observation is, on
the other hand, quite considerably diminished by the fact that Mlle.
Smith seldom launches out into complicated forms of syllables, and
greatly affects the vowel _a_; but Sanscrit is a language in which the
proportion of the _a_’s to the other vowels is almost four to one, so
that in uttering three or four syllables in _a_, one could hardly avoid
vaguely encountering a Sanscrit word.”
It follows from this last remark of M. de Saussure that it ought not to
be very difficult to fabricate Sanscrit after the mode of Simandini, if
only one is possessed of some veritable elements which can serve as a
model and give tone to the remainder. And there is no need to know very
much of it, either, as M. Barth remarks:
“Has Mlle. Smith been in communication with any person from whom she
could have taken some scraps of Sanscrit and of history? That would
suffice, in this case, for the original germ, even though it were but
slight. Imagination would do the rest. Children are very frequently
_onomatopoioi_”
But it is, naturally, Mlle. Smith herself who furnishes us, in her
own Martian, the fact most likely to throw light upon her Hindoo.
It evidently is not difficult for a subconscious activity capable
of manufacturing a language out of whole cloth to make another by
imitation and by spinning out some real data. Also, as to the beginning
of the Martian (a year later, as we have seen, to that of the Hindoo),
M. de Saussure does not hesitate to make this comparison, and explains,
_e.g._, the initial Sanscritoid text, the famous phrase of benediction,
=atiêyâ ganapatinâmâ=, by the same process of fabrication which shone
forth in the words of Esenale or Astané.
I am not convinced that the general process of replacing word for word
the French terms by terms of Oriental aspect, which is certainly the
process employed in the fabrication of the Martian, has been made use
of in the case of Hélène’s Oriental words. Leopold, who has laid so
much stress on procuring us a _quasi_-magical means of obtaining the
literal translation of the Martian, has never condescended to do the
same thing for the Hindoo, but has confined himself to outlining for
us some free and vague interpretations, which scarcely add anything to
that which the pantomime permits us to divine. This leads us to think
that an entire precise translation of the Hindoo is impossible—in
other terms, that Hélène does not fabricate her _pseudo_-Sanscrit
by following step by step a French plot, and by maintaining in her
neologisms the meaning which has been once adopted, but that she
improvises and leaves the result to chance, without reflection (with
the exception of some words of true Sanscrit, the meaning of which she
knows and which she applies intelligently to the situation).
It is not, then, to the Martian texts proper, in my opinion, that we
must compare Hélène’s Hindoo, but to that _pseudo_-Martian jargon
spoken with volubility in certain seances, and which have never been
noted with certainty nor translated by Esenale.
It is understood, too, that while Hélène’s subliminal self can safely
give itself up to the creation of a definite language in the freedom
which the planet Mars affords, where there is no pre-existing system
to be conformed to nor any objective control to fear, it would be very
imprudent and absurd to repeat the process in connection with India:
the few words of pure Sanscrit which were at its disposal kept it
from inventing others, the falseness of which would be evident at the
first attempt at a literal and _verbatim_ translation. It, therefore,
contented itself with these veridical elements, insufficient in
themselves alone for the construction of complete sentences, being a
jargon devoid of meaning, but in harmony through their dominant vowels
with the authentic fragments.
Now how could these authentic fragments have come into the possession
of Mlle. Smith, who has no recollection whatever (nor has her
family) of ever having studied Sanscrit, or of having ever been in
communication with Oriental scholars? This is the problem which my
researches have encountered hitherto, and as a solution of which I can
think of nothing more likely than that of a fortunate chance, analogous
to that which enabled me to discover the passage of De Marlès. I am,
for the time being, reduced to vague conjectures as to the extent of
Mlle. Smith’s latent knowledge of Sanscrit, and the probable nature of
its manner of acquisition.
I had long thought that Hélène might have absorbed her Hindoo
principally by _auditive_ means, and that she had, perhaps, in her
infancy lived in the same house with some Indian student, whom she had
heard, across the street or through an open window, speaking aloud
Sanscrit texts with their French translation. The story of the young
domestic without education is well known, who, seized with a fever,
spoke both Greek and Hebrew, which had been stored up in her mind,
unknown to her, while she was in the service of a German savant. _Se
non è vero è ben trovato._ In spite of the just criticisms of Mr. Lang,
apropos of its poorly established authenticity, this standard anecdote
may be considered as a type of many other facts of the same kind
which have since been actually observed, and as a salutary warning to
distrust subconscious memories of auditive origin. But Indian scholars
are rare in Geneva, and this trail has yielded me nothing.
I am really inclined to admit the exclusively _visual_ origin of
Hélène’s Sanscrit. First, it is not necessary for her to have heard
that idiom. Reading of texts printed in French characters coincides
very well with a pronunciation so confused and badly articulated as
hers; and, further, it alone can account for certain inexplicable
errors of pronunciation if Mlle. Smith had acquired that language by
ear.
The most characteristic of her errors is the presence in Hindoo of the
French sound _u_, which does not exist in Sanscrit, but is naturally
suggested by reading if it has not been previously ascertained that
that letter is pronounced _ou_ in the Sanscrit words in which it
appears.
Other observations militate in favor of the same supposition. Never in
the seances has Simandini ventured _to write_ Sanscrit, and it is in
French letters that her name was given (see p. 288).
[Illustration: Fig. 37. Fragment. Final sentence of a letter of Mlle.
Smith, finished (or rather remaining unfinished), during the irruption
of a spontaneous access of Hindoo somnambulism. Note foreign words,
_boulboul_ (Persian name for nightingale), _Kana_ (Hindoo slave of
Simandini), and _radyiva_ (Sanscrit name for blue lotus); also the
Sanscrit letters _a_, _e_, _i_, _d_, _r_, taking the place of the
French initials. Note also the change of form of the _t_’s.]
Still, Hélène subconsciously possesses a part, at least, of the
Devanagari alphabet, since sometimes certain characters belonging to it
slip into her normal writing. But it is to be noted that her knowledge
of this kind does not seem in any way to go beyond that which might
have resulted from a rapid glance at a Sanscrit grammar.
In certain cases this irruption of foreign signs (altogether analogous
to that which has been seen in the case of the Martian) is connected
with an access of spontaneous somnambulism and makes part of a whole
troop of images and of Oriental terms.
An interesting example is found in Fig. 37, which reproduces the end
of a letter which Hélène wrote me from the country. All the rest of
this six-page letter is perfectly normal, both as to handwriting and
content, but suddenly, tired by her effort of prolonged attention, she
begins to speak of her health, sleep overcomes her, and the last lines
show the invasion of the Oriental dream.
Kana, the slave, with his tame birds, and the brilliant plants of the
tropics, substitute themselves little by little for the actual room.
The letter reached me unfinished and without signature, as is shown in
Fig. 37; Hélène closed it mechanically during her somnambulism, without
knowledge of this unusual termination, at which she was surprised and
annoyed when I showed it to her later.
Examination and comparison of all these graphomotor automatisms show
that there are in Hélène’s subconsciousness some positive notions,
albeit superficial and rudimentary, of the Sanscrit alphabet. She knows
the exact form of many isolated characters, and their general value,
in the abstract, as it were, but she does not seem to have any idea of
their concrete use in connection with other letters.
In a word, these fragments of graphic automatisms betray a knowledge
of Hindoo writing such as a curious mind might be able to acquire by
perusing for some moments the first two or three pages of a Sanscrit
grammar. It would retain certain detached forms; first, the _a_ and
the _e_, which, striking the eye at the commencement of the two first
lines (containing the vowels, and usually separated from the following
lines containing the consonants) of the standard arrangement of the
Hindoo letters in ten groups; then the series of ciphers, occupying a
line by themselves and easy to retain; finally, some other simple signs
gleaned at hazard; but there will probably not be retained any of the
too complicated figures resulting from the union of several characters
in order to form words. This supposed genesis entirely corresponds with
the extent of the notions as to Sanscrit writing of which Mlle. Smith’s
subconsciousness gives evidence.
It will suffice in summing up, to account for Mlle. Smith’s Hindoo
language, that perhaps in the N. group, or in some other spiritistic
environment of which I am ignorant, some one, for the sake of
curiosity, may have shown her and allowed her to glance over a Sanscrit
grammar or lexicon, immediately after a seance, during that state of
suggestibility in which the exterior suggestions are registered very
strongly in her case, often without leaving traces in her conscious
memory. The fact will also be explained that Hélène has no memory
whatever of it, is absolutely convinced that she never saw or heard the
least fragment of Sanscrit or any other Oriental language.
[Illustration: Fig. 38. Examples of Sanscrit characters, automatically
substituted for French words and ciphers, in words and figures
appearing in the normal writings of Mlle. Smith (_la_me, _ru_bis,
1_6_6, _pli_s, 2_86_5, 15_4_). Natural size.]
I ought also to add that the information which I have up to the present
time been able to gather has furnished me with no positive indication
of the truth of my supposition, while, on the other hand, it has not
tended to establish its falsity.
V. THE SOURCES OF THE HINDOO DREAM
This paragraph will have no meaning whatever for those who hold
the Oriental cycle to be in reality the reappearance in Mlle.
Smith’s somnambulistic states, of memories belonging to an anterior
existence in which she was an Asiatic princess, and I myself naik of
Tchandraguiri, Professor Seippel, an Arab slave, etc.
I shall confine myself in this case to an expression of regret that the
chance which has united us afresh, after five centuries of separation,
did not leave us in the midst of those tropical splendors instead of
transporting us to the banks of the Rhône just where the fog is densest
in winter. It is a severe punishment for our past misdeeds. But when
one pushes his skepticism so far as only to see in the entire Hindoo
dream a fantastic product elaborated out of certain scattered facts,
as I have done in the preceding paragraphs, one is likewise punished
for his want of faith by the obscure problems which are met with on
the subject of the sources of this dream. I would say also that it is
difficult to understand why the hypnoid imagination of Mlle. Smith gave
itself up to such pranks, and distributed as it did the rôles of this
comedy.
It is easy to understand how a nature given to subconscious reveries,
and such as I have described in the first chapters of this book, has
taken pleasure in the fiction of the tragic destiny of Simandini, and
also that she felt specially attracted towards the career of Marie
Antoinette.
But M. Seippel, whom I quoted above, has nothing about him of the
Arab, and still less of the slave, neither in outward appearance
nor in character; and as to myself, let us say here, M. F.—if I may
be permitted to substitute harmless initials for the always odious
“I”—as for M. F., there is generally to be met with in him, under some
diffidence, a certain mildness of manner and disposition, which would
scarcely seem to predestinate him to the energetic and wild rôle of a
violent, whimsical, capricious, and jealous Oriental despot.
As to the psychological origins of the Hindoo dream—considered not so
much in its Oriental decoration, but in its essential note, which is
the relation of Simandini to Sivrouka (the pretended anteriority of
M. F.)—two hypotheses can be framed, between which it is difficult to
choose.
First. From the point of view of psychopathology I should be tempted to
cause this entire somnambulistic romance to be included in that which
Freud calls _Abwehrpsychosen_, resulting from a sort of autotomy which
frees the normal self from an affective idea incompatible with it;
which idea revenges itself by occasioning very diverse perturbations,
according to the subjects, from disorders of innervation, coming to
disturb the daily life (hysteria by somatic conversion of the affective
coefficient of the repulsed idea), up to the case in which the self
only escapes the intolerable contradiction between the given reality
and the idea which besets it by plunging itself entirely into the
latter (mental hallucinatory confusion, delirium, etc.).
Between these varied results may be found that in which the idea
excluded from the consciousness becomes the germ of hypnoid
developments, the point of departure of a secondary consciousness
unknown to the ordinary personality, the centre of a somnambulistic
life in which the tendencies which the normal self has driven far away
from it may take refuge and give themselves free play.
This is, perhaps, the happiest solution, from a practical and social
point of view, since it leaves the individual in a state of perfect
equilibrium and free from nervous troubles, outside of the very limited
moments in which the underlying processes break out in accesses of
somnambulism.
Such may be the case of the Hindoo dream and the origin of the
attributing of the rôle of Sivrouka to M. F. Nothing, assuredly, in
the normal life or being of Mlle. Smith would cause the suspicion that
she had ever consciously felt towards the latter the absurd sentiments
which good sense would have condemned in advance; but divers hints of
her subliminal life, independently of the Hindoo cycle itself (certain
dreams, etc.), have sometimes seemed to betray a latent conflict,
which the sane and reasonable self would have quickly gotten rid of
by the banishment from the ordinary personality of the affective
idea, inadmissible in the given conditions of reality. Hence, with
a temperament accustomed to mediumistic doubling of personality
and imbued with spiritistic doctrines, the birth and development,
underneath the level of the normal consciousness, of this romance of a
former existence, in which emotional tendencies incompatible with the
present life have found on occasion a sort of theoretic justification
and a free field for expansion.
Secondly: It may also be presumed, and I prefer to admit, that the
sentiments of Simandini towards her fictitious rajah, far from being
the reflection and somnambulic transposition of an impression really
felt by Mlle. Smith in regard to some one real and determined, are only
a fantastic creation—like the passion with which juvenile imaginations
are sometimes inflamed for an ideal and abstract type while awaiting
the meeting with a concrete realization more or less like it—and that
the assimilation of Sivrouka to M. F. is only a coincidence due to
the simple chance of Mlle. Smith having made the acquaintance of M.
F. at the time when the Hindoo dream was about to begin. Two points
strengthen this hypothesis of a contingent and superficial confusion
between M. F. and Sivrouka. First, the Hindoo dream was evidently begun
by a characteristic vision in which Simandini appeared, almost two
months before the admission of M. F. to the seances (see pp. 279-281).
Instead of supposing that the subconsciousness of Mlle. Smith foresaw
already the probable arrival of this new spectator, and reserved for
him in advance a leading rôle in the romance of former existence which
she was in process of elaborating (which is not altogether impossible,
it is true), it hardly seems as though M. F. could have stood for
anything in the dream-personage of Sivrouka. In the second place,
it is only in the light somnambulisms and her mixed or crepuscular
states that Mlle. Smith happens to take M. F. for the Hindoo prince
and to seat herself at his feet in attitudes of tenderness and
abandon (without otherwise ever departing from the bounds of perfect
propriety); as soon as the trance becomes profound and the Hindoo
somnambulism complete, M. F. ceases to exist for her, as well as the
others present, and she then is concerned only with an absolutely
hallucinatory Sivrouka. This is the place to state that Hélène has
never presented any phenomenon similar to—far from it—certain cases in
which have been seen the awakening in the hypnotic subject of gross
and more or less bestial tendencies, for which the subjects would have
blushed in their waking state. There is nothing of that nature in Mlle.
Smith. Somnambulism does not detract in any way from the elevation of
her moral sense. The same is true of her deepest trances or when she
“incarnates” personages very different from her ordinary character—she
never departs from that real dignity which is a trait of her normal
personality.
To sum up—the hypothesis of a purely accidental identification, a
kind of association by simple contiguity between the Hindoo prince
and M. F., seems to me, on the whole, the most natural. It releases
the latter, besides, from all responsibility (altogether involuntary,
however) for the sentiments so profound, so disinterested, so worthy of
a less tragic fate, which the imaginary personage of Sivrouka Nayaka
inspires in the poor Princess Simandini.