Communications from persons having suffered in their mental
faculties--Unexpected communications from unknown persons--The respect
due to the communicators--Predictions--Communications from children.
The Blodgett-Hannah Wild case is, I repeat, of a kind to throw discredit
on the spiritualist hypothesis. If it and analogous cases alone were
considered, it would be needful to ask why earnest men, after long
hesitation, have finally given the preference to this hypothesis. But
psychic phenomena, and mediumistic phenomena in particular, are
infinitely various; they present a multitude of aspects, and it would
not be wise to consider them separately.
In this Hannah Wild case everything seems to support the telepathic
hypothesis. By this must be understood, not only the reading of thoughts
in the consciousness, and even in the subconsciousness, of the persons
present, but also in that of absent persons, however far off they may
be. And what Phinuit calls "the influence" must be added. This
mysterious "influence" might be the traces of vibrations left on objects
by our thoughts and feelings. Evidently this hypothesis plunges us into
mystery, at least as much as does the spiritualist hypothesis.
Nevertheless, we should be obliged to give it the preference, if it
were sufficiently supported, because it is, after all, more in touch
with our present conceptions than its rival.
Even the incident of the medium who, designating Mrs Blodgett amidst a
numerous audience, said to her, "There is a lady here who wants to speak
to you; she will soon give you the contents of the paper," can easily be
explained by telepathy. Mrs Blodgett was in the presence of a medium.
Now some medium was to reveal to her the mysterious text of her sister's
letter. That was enough to bring the recollection of the letter into the
foreground of her consciousness, where the medium may have read it
telepathically.
But again, there are an infinite number of other cases which telepathy
does not explain at all, or only insufficiently. I shall try to show
this by repeating some of the arguments put forward by Dr Hodgson in his
remarkable report in 1898, and in the chapter entitled "Indications that
the 'Spirit' Hypothesis is True."[44]
The most important of these arguments is founded upon the communications
of persons whose mental faculties had been impaired by illness for a
more or less long period before their deaths. A long series of
concordant observations inspired Dr Hodgson with this argument. It is as
follows:--"If we had to do with telepathy, the communications should be
most clear and abundant in the cases where the memories of the dead are
most clear and abundant in the minds of the living."
But experience shows that this is not so. When the self-styled
communicator has suffered from mental illness before his death, the
communications repeat the trouble feature by feature; they are full of
confusion and incoherence. This confusion and incoherence is all the
graver, as the mental trouble preceding death was graver. It disappears
slowly, but sometimes traces of it appear years after. Telepathy does
not explain this. If there is madness in the mind of the dead person,
there is none in the minds of the living who remember him. On the other
hand, if we introduce the spiritualist hypothesis, the fact is quite
admissible, either because the mental trouble may only slowly disappear,
or because (and the controls assert this) the mere fact of the
disincarnated spirits plunging again into the atmosphere of a human
organism temporarily reproduces the trouble.
Besides, there is always more or less incoherence in the communications
made very shortly after death, even when the communicator has kept his
full mental faculties up to his last moments. But if the communicator
were really what he says he is, we should expect this, for three
reasons--the violent shock of disincarnation must trouble the mind; the
arrival in an entirely new environment, where he must at first be unable
to distinguish much, should trouble him still more; and lastly, these
first attempts at communication may be impeded by his want of skill in
using the strange organism; he would require a sort of apprenticeship.
But when no mental trouble has preceded death, the incoherence of the
first communications does not last. They soon become as clear as the
imperfection of the means which the dead man has to use permits. In the
George Pelham case, which we shall examine later on, the first
communications were also incoherent. Yet George Pelham was soon to
become one of the most clear and lucid, if not the most clear and lucid,
of all the dead persons who have claimed to manifest through Mrs Piper's
organism. But George Pelham died suddenly by an accident, and his
intellectual faculties, which, moreover, were above the average, had
never been injured.
This is, I repeat, what experience seems to show. But doubtless many
more observations are needed before we can affirm that it is really
proved.
However, unless Dr Hodgson and his colleagues are mistaken, these facts
are contrary to what we should expect on the telepathic theory. I will
quote some examples.
Dr Hodgson tried to obtain communications from one of his friends,
designated by the initial A., more than a year after the latter's death.
He spent six sittings over it, but the result was meagre. He obtained
some names, and with difficulty some mention of certain incidents of
A.'s life. Some of the incidents were even unknown to Dr Hodgson at the
time, but all was full of incoherence and confusion. Finally he gave it
up on the advice of George Pelham, who said that A.'s spirit would not
be clear for some time yet. This A. had suffered from violent headaches
and nervous exhaustion for some years before his death, though the
troubles had not amounted to insanity. Now, just at the time when A. was
incapable of manifesting clearly, other spirits were manifesting with
all desirable lucidity in identical circumstances. Another case quoted
by Dr Hodgson is that of a Mr B. who had committed suicide in a fit of
insanity. He was not personally known to Dr Hodgson. During several
years Mr B.'s communications were extremely confused, even about matters
with which Dr Hodgson was well acquainted.
A third communicator, an intimate friend of Dr Hodgson's, had also
committed suicide. About a year after his death he still seemed to be
ignorant of events which he had known well in his lifetime and which
were quite clear in the inquirer's mind. More than seven years after his
death he wrote through the medium's hand, "My head was not clear, and is
not yet, when I speak to you."
On December 7,[45] 1893, M. Paul Bourget, of the _Academie Francaise_,
and his wife, had a sitting with Mrs Piper. M. Paul Bourget much wished
to communicate with an artist who had committed suicide at Venice by
throwing herself out of a gondola. There exists no written report of
this sitting, and consequently we do not know exactly what it was worth.
But on December 11[46] M. Bourget had another sitting, and this time Dr
Hodgson accompanied him and took notes. The artist seemed to make
desperate efforts to communicate and to write herself, but she could
only produce two or three French words, amongst which apparently was the
exclamation, "Mon Dieu!" Nevertheless her Christian name was given and
the place where she had killed herself, Venice, and the syllable _Bou_,
the beginning of Bourget, was often repeated. Why were the results so
poor? M. and Mme. Bourget knew this person well, and their minds were
full of reminiscences on which the medium had only to draw.
However, some people might reason as follows. Objects having been used
by the persons with whom it is desired to communicate are nearly always
given to Mrs Piper. If the medium obtains her information not only from
the minds of the living, but likewise from the "influence," that is,
from the vibrations which our thoughts and feelings may have left
recorded on these objects, the imperfections of the earlier
communications of persons whose minds have been disturbed might be
explained by the theory that the "influence" left by an insane person
would be neither so clear nor so easy to read as that left by a sane
one. But then why should the communicators grow clear with time? Why
should they become lucid at the time when they ought to be still more
confused, if the telepathic hypothesis is the correct one?
But this interpretation falls to the ground entirely when we take into
account the numerous communicators who are unknown, or almost unknown,
to the sitters, of whom absolutely nobody is thinking, and who come in
the middle of a sitting to send a message to their surviving relatives.
Mrs Piper cannot have produced these communications by means of the
"influence" left on objects, unless we suppose that the presence of
these objects is not necessary and that any "influence" may strike the
medium from any point of the compass at the moment when she least
expects it. That would perhaps be stretching the hypothesis beyond
allowable limits. And these cases are, I repeat, numerous and very
interesting. I quote three for my readers' edification.
During the 46th[47] of the English sittings with Messrs Oliver and
Alfred Lodge as sitters, Phinuit suddenly exclaimed,--
"Oh, dear, there is something very bad about this. Here's a little child
called Stevenson--two of them--one named Mannie (Minnie?) wants to send
her love to her father in the body and the mother in the body--she had
sore throat and passed out. He is very bad and has gone away very
unhappy. She's clinging to me and begging me to tell you that she's
little Mannie Stevenson, and that her father's almost dead with grief,
he sits crying, crying dreadful, and he's gone away very unhappy. Tell
him she's not dead, but sends her love to him; and tell him not to cry."
Professor Lodge.--"Can she send her name any better?"
Phinuit.--"Oh, they called her Pet, and when she was ill they called her
Birdie. And tell mamma too, do."
Professor L.--"Well, I will if I can."
Professor Lodge could not discover the Stevenson family, which was a
pity, for two reasons; first, that a message from beyond the tomb might
have restored the despairing parents to a little hope and calm; and
secondly, because cavillers could not have attributed the incident to
the medium's cunning, which they would not fail to do if other
incidents of the same nature did not make this interpretation almost
inadmissible.
At the 45th English sitting,[48] when Messrs Oliver and Alfred Lodge and
Mr and Mrs Thompson were the sitters, Phinuit suddenly said,--
"Do you know Richard Rich, Mr Rich?"
Mrs Thompson.--"Not well; I knew a Dr Rich."
Phinuit.--"That's him; he's passed out. He sends kindest regards to his
father." And Phinuit began directly to speak of something else.
At the 83rd sitting, when Mr and Mrs Thompson were again present,
Phinuit said all at once,--
"Here's Dr Rich;" upon which Dr Rich proceeds to speak.
Dr Rich.--"It is very kind of this gentleman" (_i.e._, Dr Phinuit) "to
let me speak to you. Mr Thompson, I want you to give a message to
father."
Mr Thompson.--"I will give it."
Dr R.--"Thank you a thousand times; it is very good of you. You see I
passed out rather suddenly. Father was very much troubled about it, and
he is troubled yet. He hasn't got over it. Tell him that I am
alive--that I send my love to him. Where are my glasses" (the medium
passes her hands over her eyes)? "I used to wear glasses" (true). "I
think he has them, and some of my books. There was a little black case I
had; I think he has that too. I don't want that lost. Sometimes he is
bothered about a dizzy feeling in his head--nervous about it--but it is
of no consequence."
Mr T.--"What does your father do?"
(The medium took up a card and appeared to write on it, and pretended to
put stamp in corner.)
Dr R.--"He attends to this sort of thing. Mr Thompson, if you will give
this message I will help you in many ways. I can and I will."
Professor Lodge remarks about this incident, "Mr Rich, senior, is head
of Liverpool Post Office. His son, Dr Rich, was almost a stranger to Mr
Thompson, and quite a stranger to me. The father was much distressed by
his son's death, we find. Mr Thompson has since been to see him and
given him the message. He (Mr Rich, senior) considers the episode very
extraordinary and inexplicable, except by fraud of some kind. The
phrase, 'Thank you a thousand times,' he asserts to be characteristic,
and he admits a recent slight dizziness. Mr Rich did not know what his
son means by _a black case_. The only person who could give any
information about it was at the time in Germany. But it was reported
that Dr Rich talked constantly about a black case when he was on his
deathbed."
No doubt Mr and Mrs Thompson knew Dr Rich, having met him once. But they
were quite ignorant of all the details here given. Whence did the medium
take them? Not from the "influence" left on some object, because there
was no such object at the sitting.
At a sitting on the 28th November 1892,[49] at the house of Mr Howard,
when those present were Mr and Mrs Howard, their daughter Katherine, and
Dr Hodgson, Phinuit suddenly asked,--
"Who is Farnan?"
Mr Howard.--"Vernon?"
Phinuit.--"I don't know how you pronounce it. It is
F-a-r-n-s-w-o-r-t-h." (Phinuit spelt it.)
Dr Hodgson.--"What about it?"
Phinuit.--"He wants to see you."
Dr H.--"He wants to see me?"
Phinuit.--"Not you, but this lady."
Mrs H.--"Well, what does he want to say to me? Is it a woman or a man?"
Phinuit.--"It is a gentleman; and do you remember your Aunt Ellen?"
Mrs H.--"Yes; which Aunt Ellen?"
Phinuit.--"She has got this gentleman." (_I.e._, this man was in her
service.)
Further on, Phinuit adds, "That gentleman wanted to send his love to
her, and to be remembered to you--so that you may know he is here, and
it is a test. These little things sometimes interrupt me greatly and
when I go to explain it to you, you can't understand it. But sometimes
when I am talking to you, I am suddenly interrupted by somebody who
don't realise what they are doing, and then I give you what they say as
near as I can, you understand that, and it is very difficult sometimes
for me to discern it and place it in the right place."
Mrs Howard asked her Aunt Ellen if she had known anyone named
Farnsworth, without telling her more. Phinuit was right: a gardener
named Farnsworth had worked for her uncle and then for her grandfather
thirty-five or forty years before. Mrs Howard had never heard of him.
Incidents like those I have just related are evidently difficult to
explain on the telepathic theory.
But a more complete refutation of the telepathic hypothesis would be to
get a certain number of fulfilled predictions. The medium could not read
events which have not yet occurred, either in the minds of the living or
in the "influence" left on objects. Phinuit has often tried his hand at
predictions; I will quote one.
At M. Bourget's second sitting,[50] in 1893, a Mrs Pitman appeared, who
had lived a long time in France and spoke French well, and who offered
to help the artist with whom M. Bourget wished to talk in her efforts to
communicate.
In 1888, Mrs Pitman, who was a member of the American Society for
Psychical Research, had had two sittings with Mrs Piper. Among other
things, Phinuit said to her, "You are going to be very sick; you will go
to Paris; you will be very sick: you will have great weakness in the
stomach and head. A sandy complexioned gentleman will attend you while
you are ill beyond the sea." In consequence of this, Mrs Pitman asked
Phinuit what the end of the illness would be. Phinuit made evasive
replies. Mrs Pitman asked Dr Hodgson's intervention; he insisted in his
turn, and Phinuit got out of it by saying, "After she gets over the
sickness she will be all right."
Mrs Pitman replied that there was nothing the matter with her stomach;
she contradicted Phinuit on every point, and he appeared much annoyed.
But Mrs Pitman soon fell ill. She was attended by a Dr Herbert, who was
very fair; he diagnosed inflammation of the stomach. Then Mrs Pitman
began to believe in Phinuit's prediction; but interpreting his last
words wrongly, she believed she should recover. Dr Charcott attended her
at Paris for a nervous illness. She suffered from weakness in the head,
and her mental faculties were impaired. In short, she died.
Again, other communications which do not fit in with the telepathic
theory are those from very young children. When they communicate a short
time after death, they reproduce their childish gestures, they repeat
the few words they had begun to stammer; they ask by gestures for the
toys they liked. All these details are evidently to be found in the
minds of the parents. But when these children communicate long years
after their death, it is as if they had grown in the other world; they
only rarely allude to the impressions of their babyhood, even when these
impressions remain vivid in the minds of the father and mother. George
Pelham was one day acting as intermediary for a child who had been dead
many years. The mother naturally spoke of him as a child, and George
Pelham remonstrated, "Roland is a gentleman; he is not a little
boy."[51]
FOOTNOTES:
[44] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 370.
[45] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 494.
[46] _Ibid._, p. 495.
[47] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 514.
[48] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 509.
[49] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 416.
[50] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 496.
[51] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 512.