Early trances--Careful first observations by Professor William James of
Harvard University, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
I have already explained on what occasion Mrs Piper had her first
trance. Suffering from a traumatic tumour, she had gone to ask advice of
a blind medium named Cocke. This medium gave medical consultations, but
he also asserted that he had the power of developing latent mediumship.
At this first sitting Mrs Piper felt very strange thrills, and thought
she was going to faint. At the following sitting Mr Cocke put his hands
on her head. She felt at once that she was on the point of losing
consciousness. She saw a flood of light, as well as unrecognised human
faces, and a hand which fluttered before her face. She does not remember
what happened afterwards. But when she woke she was told that a young
Indian girl named _Chlorine_ had manifested through her organism, and
had given a remarkable proof of survival after death to a person who
happened to be present.
Mrs Piper was therefore really a medium. Her personal friends
immediately began to arrange sittings with her. Little by little
strangers were admitted to this private circle. Various self-styled
spirits communicated by her means in the earlier days. Phinuit, who
later took almost sole possession of Mrs Piper's organism, was far from
being alone at first; his place was disputed. The first controls, if
they themselves are to be believed, were the actress Mrs Siddons, the
musician John Sebastian Bach, the poet Longfellow, Commodore Vanderbilt
the multi-millionaire, and a young Italian girl named Loretta Ponchini.
At the outset Dr Phinuit, when he appeared, confined himself to
diagnosing and giving medical advice. He thought everything else beneath
him.
At last, one evening, John Sebastian Bach announced that he and all his
companions were about to concentrate their power on Dr Phinuit, and make
him the principal control. Naturally we do not know what they did, but
it is certain that from that time Dr Phinuit became so much the
principal control that he had almost sole possession of Mrs Piper's
organism for years. As we shall see, he ceased to confine himself to
giving medical consultations. He willingly replied to all questions
addressed to him, and he even talked readily on all sorts of subjects
without being questioned at all.
The first person of educated intelligence who had an opportunity to
examine and study, although somewhat summarily, Mrs Piper's trance
phenomena, was Professor William James of Harvard University. In 1886 he
made a brief report of them, which he published in the _Proceedings of
the American Society for Psychical Research_. Professor James did not at
first recognise all the importance of the Piper case. No shorthand
report of the sittings was made, and he did not even take complete
notes. However, he assured himself that fraud had nothing to do with the
phenomena, but without taking all the minute precautions which others
have since taken. He satisfied himself that here was an interesting
mystery, and says so in his report, but he left the charge of looking
for the key to others. But I shall give an account of the sittings of
Professor James, in the first place because it would be improper to
neglect even the superficial studies of a man of such eminence, and
secondly, because they will give my readers a clear idea of the
phenomena.[8]
Professor James made Mrs Piper's acquaintance in the autumn of 1885 in
the following way. His mother-in-law, Mrs Gibbens, had heard a friend
speak of Mrs Piper, and as she had never seen a medium, she asked for a
sitting out of curiosity. Mrs Gibbens, who went sceptical, returned
rather impressed. She had heard a number of private details which she
believed were unknown outside her family. On the day following Professor
James's sister-in-law went in her turn to see Mrs Piper, and obtained
even better results than her mother. For example, the inquirer had
placed a letter in Italian on the medium's forehead. It must be observed
that Mrs Piper is entirely ignorant of that language. Nevertheless,
Phinuit gave a number of perfectly correct details about the writer of
the letter. The mystery became interesting, as the young Italian who had
written it was only known to two people in the whole United States.
Later on, at other sittings, Phinuit gave the exact name of this young
man, which he had been unable to do at first.
Professor James's attitude when these facts were related to him can be
imagined. He did what most of us do, or have done. He played the _esprit
fort_, joked his relatives about their credulity, and thought that women
were decidedly deficient in critical spirit. His curiosity was none the
less awakened. Some days after, in the company of his wife, and having
taken all possible precautions that Mrs Piper should not know his name
or intentions beforehand, he went and asked her for a sitting. Intimate
details, principally about Mrs James's family, were repeated. Others
even more circumstantial were given. What was the least easily obtained
was just what could have been learned with the greatest facility if Mrs
Piper had acquired these details fraudulently or by normal means,
namely, proper names. Professor James was the first to notice a fact
which a large number of observers have since remarked. The impression
that the names are shouted to Phinuit by a spirit is unavoidable.
Phinuit, who is to transmit them, hears imperfectly, doubtless on
account of his position, which all the controls describe as very
uncomfortable and painful--the organism of the medium seems to plunge
the controls into a semi-somnolence.
Thus Phinuit mangles the names he repeats. It appears that the
communicating spirit is conscious of this and corrects. Phinuit repeats
the name thus several times, and very often only succeeds in giving it
exactly after several attempts. It even sometimes happens that a name
cannot be given all at a sitting, but then it is generally given at a
subsequent one.
Thus, at this first sitting of Professor James, the name of his
father-in-law, _Gibbens_, was first given as _Niblin_, and then as
_Giblin_. Professor James had lost a child a year before. He was
mentioned, and his name, _Herman_, was given as _Herrin_. But the
details which accompanied the enunciation of the name prevented mistake,
on the part of the sitters, about the person intended.
Professor James brought away from this first sitting the conclusion that
unless Mrs Piper, by some chance inexplicable to him, knew his own and
his wife's families intimately, she must be possessed of supernormal
powers. In short, his first scepticism was shaken, and he had twelve
further sittings with Mrs Piper in the course of the winter. Moreover,
he obtained circumstantial details from relatives and friends who
likewise had sittings.
The following are some examples of Phinuit's clairvoyance.[9]
Professor James's mother-in-law had, on her return from Europe, lost her
bank-book. At a sitting held soon afterwards Phinuit was asked if he
could help her to find it. He told her exactly where it was, and there
it was found.
At another sitting, Phinuit said to Professor James, who this time was
not accompanied by Mrs James, "Your child has a boy named Robert F. as a
playfellow in our world." The Fs. were cousins of Mrs James, who lived
in a distant town.
On returning home Professor James said to his wife, "Your cousins the
Fs. have lost a child, haven't they? But Phinuit made a mistake about
the sex; he said it was a boy." Mrs James confirmed the perfect
exactness of Phinuit's information; her husband had been wrong.
At the second sitting which Mrs Gibbens had she was told among other
things that one of her daughters, mentioned by name, had at the time a
bad pain in her back, to which she was by no means subject. The detail
was found to be exact.
On another occasion Phinuit announced to Mrs James and her brother,
before the arrival of any telegram, the death of their aunt, which had
just occurred in New York. It is true that this death was momentarily
expected.
At another sitting Phinuit said to Professor James, "You have just
killed a grey and white cat with ether. The wretched animal spun round
and round a long time before dying." This was quite true.
Phinuit, again, told Mrs James that her aunt in New York, the one whose
death he had announced, had written her a letter warning her against all
kinds of mediums. And he sketched the old lady's character, not very
respectfully, in a most amusing way.
I quote these examples to give an idea of the kind of information
furnished by Mrs Piper's controls. But it must not be believed that this
is all. The controls do not need to be entreated to speak. Phinuit is
particularly loquacious, and he often talks for an hour on end. His
remarks are frequently incoherent, and often also obviously false. But,
at the very least, in the good sittings, truthfulness and exactitude
much preponderate, whatever may be the source from which Phinuit
obtains his facts; whether he gets them from disincarnated spirits, as
he asserts; whether he reads them in the consciousness or
sub-consciousness of the sitter, or whether they are furnished him by
what he calls the "influence" which the persons to whom the objects
presented to him belonged have left upon them.
I have forgotten to say that Phinuit asks to have brought to him objects
of some sort which have belonged to the persons about whom he is
consulted. He feels the objects, and says at once, "I feel the influence
of such-a-one; he is dead or he is alive; such a thing has happened to
him." Detail follows on detail, for the most part exact.
As I have already said when speaking of Professor James, Phinuit showed
intimate knowledge of Mrs James's family. Now, there were no members of
the family in the neighbourhood; some were dead, others in California,
and others in the State of Maine.
What I have said will suffice to give the reader a first idea of the
general features of the phenomena. I shall be able in future, while
reporting the facts, to examine as I proceed the hypotheses which they
suggest.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 651.
[9] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 657.