Professor Hyslop and the journalists--The so-called "confession" of Mrs
Piper--Precautions taken by Professor Hyslop during his
experiments--Impressions of the sittings.
The last report[77] we possess of the phenomena accompanying Mrs Piper's
trance is that of Professor James Hervey Hyslop, of Columbia University,
New York. This report appeared in November 1901. The minutes of the
sittings, the notes, the remarks of the sitter, the discussion of
hypotheses, the account of experiments made at the University in order
to throw light on certain points, all together make a report of 650
pages of close reading. It refers, notwithstanding, only to sixteen
sittings, of which the first took place on December 23, 1898. But the
smallest incidents and the slightest arguments are scrupulously weighed.
It is, in short, a work of considerable extent.
Professor Hyslop has an absolutely sincere and very lucid mind. It is a
pleasure to follow him through this mass of facts and arguments;
everything is scrupulously classified, and the whole is illuminated by a
high intelligence. Professor Hyslop occupies with good right an eminent
place amongst the thinkers of the United States. Besides his classes,
he gives numerous lectures, which are well attended.
The report he has published has been long waited for. As he is a man of
mark and has long occupied himself with Psychical Research, the
inquisitive journalists on the other side of the Atlantic quickly found
out that he had been experimenting with Mrs Piper. He was interviewed;
he was prudent, and contented himself with recommending the reporters to
study the preceding reports published upon the same case. But reporters
are not so easily contented; they have to satisfy an exacting master in
the public, which wants to know everything, and which would cease to
purchase any paper simple enough to say, "I have done all I could to get
information on this point for you, but I have failed." The public will
have none of such honesty as that, though if a falsehood is offered, it
is not angry; in the first place, because at the moment it does not
recognise the falsehood, and in the second, because by the time it finds
out it is busy over something else. Consequently, as they must live,
journalists find themselves sometimes obliged to invent. So the
reporters put into Professor Hyslop's mouth the following sensational
words, "In a year I shall be able to demonstrate the immortality of the
soul scientifically." These words were reproduced by the greater number
of the American papers and by a large number of English ones. Specialist
publications in France in their turn commented on them. It will be
understood with what eagerness the report was expected after this by
all men interested in psychical studies. They have not been
disappointed. Professor Hyslop is too modest for such unbounded
pretension; he knows that the great problem will not be solved at one
stroke, nor by one man. "I do not claim," he says, "to demonstrate
anything scientifically, not even the facts I offer." This phrase does
not at all resemble the declaration put into his mouth. But if he has
not definitively and scientifically proved the immortality of the soul,
he has approached the problem very nearly and thrown a vivid light on
more than one point. In any case the journalists have advertised him
thoroughly, perhaps without intending it.
Speaking of journalists, I must relate another quite recent incident,
which is interesting to us, as it concerns Mrs Piper personally. One of
the editors of the _New York Herald_ interviewed Mrs Piper and on
October 20, 1901, published an article somewhat speciously entitled,
"The Confessions of Mrs Leonora Piper." In this article it was stated
that Mrs Piper intended to give up the work she had been doing for the
S.P.R. in order to devote herself to other and more congenial pursuits,
that it was on account of her own desire to understand the phenomena
that she first allowed her trances to be investigated and placed herself
in the hands of scientific men, with the understanding that she should
submit to any tests they chose to apply, and that now, after fourteen
years' work, the subject not being yet cleared up, she felt disinclined
for further investigation. Her own view of the phenomena was expressed
in this article as follows:--"The theory of telepathy strongly appeals
to me as the most plausible and genuinely scientific solution of the
problem.... I do not believe that spirits of the dead have spoken
through me when I have been in the trance state.... It may be that they
have, but I do not affirm it.... I never heard of anything being said by
myself during a trance which might not have been latent in my own mind
or in the mind of the person in charge of the sitting, or in the mind of
the person trying to get communication with someone in another state of
existence, or of some companion present with such a person, or in the
mind of some absent person alive somewhere else in the world."
In the _Boston Advertiser_ of October 25, 1901, there appeared a
statement dictated by Mrs Piper to a representative of the paper, saying
that she had made no such statement as that published in _the New York
Herald_ to the effect that "spirits of the departed do not control" her,
and later in the _Boston Journal_ for October 29, 1901, there appeared
an account of interviews with Dr Hodgson and Mrs Piper, in which Mrs
Piper stated that though she had said "something to the effect that" she
"would never hold another sitting with Mr Hodgson," and that she "would
die first" to a _New York Herald_ reporter the summer before, when she
gave the original interview, she now intended, regardless of whatever
may have been said, to go on with the present arrangement with Dr
Hodgson and the Society as formerly. She still held and expressed the
view that the manifestations are not spiritualistic, and felt that the
telepathic theory is more probable than the spiritualistic hypothesis.
It will be seen that in none of these reports is there any justification
for the somewhat sensational use of the word "Confessions" in the
original article. Mrs Piper made no statements, as the use of that word
suggests, concerning the source of her knowledge; she expressed her
preference for one of two hypothetical explanations of the origin of
that knowledge. No question was raised in the original article as to Mrs
Piper's honesty or as to the genuineness of her trance phenomena; on the
contrary she is represented by the reporter of the _New York Herald_ as
holding a view of those phenomena which asserts that they are not
fraudulent. She expresses her personal preference for the telepathic
hypothesis rather than the spiritualist hypothesis as an explanation of
them; on this point it should be remembered that the medium is not in a
more favourable position for forming an opinion than those who sit with
her, since she does not remember what passes while she is in trance, and
is therefore dependent for her knowledge on the reports of the sitters.
The allegation of the _New York Herald_ as to her intention to
discontinue the sittings was unfounded; after a suspension of some
months owing to the state of her health, she gave a sitting to Dr
Hodgson on October 21, the day after the article in the _Herald_
appeared, and it was then arranged to resume the sittings after a
further interval of three months. This has been done, and Mrs Piper gave
sittings to Dr Hodgson all through the spring of last year, and is still
doing so through the winter of 1902-1903.
The reader will excuse this digression on a subject which made some stir
at the time, and is interesting as throwing light on the medium's own
attitude towards her trance phenomena.
To return to Professor Hyslop's report.
Professor Hyslop told only his wife and Dr Hodgson of his intention to
have sittings with Mrs Piper. The days were fixed, not with Mrs Piper in
the normal state, but with Imperator, the chief of the present controls,
while she was in trance. Now we must never forget that Mrs Piper has no
recollection of what happens during the trance. Professor Hyslop's name
was not given to Imperator; Dr Hodgson called him the "four times
friend," because Professor Hyslop had at first asked for four sittings.
I should not call this a transparent pseudonym.
Professor Hyslop had once been present at one of Mrs Piper's sittings,
and his name had been pronounced. Although there seemed to be small
chance of her recognising him, as the sitting had taken place six years
before, and Professor Hyslop did not then wear a beard as he now does,
he put on a mask while he was in a closed carriage at some distance from
Mrs Piper's house. He kept on his mask during the first two sittings,
and then the precaution became useless, because his father's name was
pronounced by Mrs Piper at the end of the second. Dr Hodgson presented
him as Mr Smith, which name is given to all new sitters. Professor
Hyslop never spoke before Mrs Piper in her normal state, except twice to
utter short sentences, and he took pains to change his voice as much as
possible. He avoided all contact with the medium throughout all the
sitting. Most of the facts were obtained from the communicators without
previous questioning. When Professor Hyslop was obliged to ask a
question, he did so in such a way that it did not contain a suggestion
of the answer. To prevent Mrs Piper's seeing him during the sitting, he
kept always behind her right shoulder, the easiest position too for
reading the writing.
But when we recollect that Mrs Piper's head is always buried in pillows
during the trance, we shall think this a superfluous precaution.
As I have said in the preceding chapter, Phinuit no longer manifests.
This is what now appears to take place on the "other side." Rector
places himself in the "machine," and it is he who produces the automatic
writing. This Rector seems to have had much experience of these
phenomena. The communicator comes close to Rector and speaks to him, in
whatever manner spirits may speak. Imperator remains outside the
"machine," and prevents the approach of all those likely to injure it,
or who have nothing to do with the sitter. Besides, before he allows a
communicator to enter the "machine," he gives him advice as to what he
should do, and helps him to arrange and clear up his ideas. Imperator's
two other helpers, Doctor and Prudens, appear but rarely. George Pelham
appears sometimes, when his services are needed.
The communicators were few in number during Professor Hyslop's sixteen
sittings. They were, his father, Robert Hyslop, who gave much the most
important communications; his uncle, Carruthers; his cousin, Robert
Harvey MacClellan; his brother Charles, who died in 1864, aged four
years and a half; his sister Annie, who also died in 1864, aged three
years; his uncle, James MacClellan; and lastly, another MacClellan named
John.
Professor Hyslop's father, Robert Hyslop, is the communicator who takes
up the greater part of the sittings. But he cannot remain long in the
"machine," he complains of having his ideas confused, of suffocating or
getting weak; for example, he says, "I am getting weak, James, I am
going away for a moment; wait for me." During these absences Imperator
sends another member of the family in his place "so that the light may
not be wasted." It would thus seem that the "weakness" which the spirits
complain of is only a feeling they have when they have been in contact
with the "machine" for a certain time; Imperator says that then they are
like a sick and delirious man. This explains the words of George Pelham,
"You must not ask of us just what we have not got--strength." But it is
indispensable to say that the former communicators did not explain
enough about this weakness; and they were not sufficiently well inspired
to go out when they felt it coming on. Dr Hodgson at last, having often
remarked this semi-delirium of the communicators towards the end of a
sitting, when the light was failing, succeeded in suggesting to them to
go away when they felt themselves getting weak. The possibility of this
suggestion is interesting to those who prefer the hypothesis of
telepathy.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] Professor Hyslop's report is contained in _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol.
xvi.