Some considerations which strongly support the spiritualistic
hypothesis--Consciousness and character remain unchanged--Dramatic
play--Errors and confusions.
The unity of character and consciousness in the communicators is one of
the reasons which most strongly support the spiritualistic hypothesis.
If we were dealing with Mrs Piper's secondary personalities, the first
difficulty would be found in their great number. I do not know the exact
number of communicators who have asserted their appearance by means of
her organism. But several hundreds may be found in the Reports of the
Society for Psychical Research, and they are certainly far from being
all mentioned. Now each communicator has kept the same character
throughout, to such an extent that, with a little practice, it is
possible to recognise the communicator at the first sentence he utters,
if he has already communicated. Some of the communicators only appear at
long intervals, but nevertheless they remain unchanged. But, on the
telepathic hypothesis, it is not easy to understand that a self-styled
communicator, a merely ephemeral consciousness reconstituted out of the
scattered recollections of the sitters, should be thus reconstituted
only at long intervals, suddenly, often without apparent cause, and
always with the same characteristics. This unity of consciousness and
character is particularly evident in the controls--that is, in such of
the communicators as have appeared uninterruptedly for years, on account
of their acting as intermediaries for others, and helping them with
their experience. If it cannot reasonably be admitted that the
occasional communicators are only secondary personalities of the medium,
the impossibility must be extended to the controls. Either all the
communicators are, without exception, secondary personalities, or none
of them are; for all give the same impression of intense life-likeness
and reality. If they are indeed secondary personalities, science has
hitherto studied none like them. I have already sketched Phinuit's
character, which has remained consistently the same during twelve years.
The reader should also have a sufficiently clear notion of George
Pelham's individuality, which is also consistent; even now, when George
Pelham appears, we find him unchanged.
The individualities of the present controls are even more marked, and
not less consistent. None of those who, up to the present time, have
communicated through Mrs Piper have in the least resembled Imperator and
his assistants. The principal traits of Imperator's character are a
profound and sincere religious sentiment, much gravity and seriousness,
great benevolence, an infinite pity for man incarnate on account of the
miseries of this life of darkness and chaos; and with this, an imperious
temper, so that he does well to call himself Imperator; he commands, and
will be obeyed, but he wills only the right. The other spirits who
gravitate around him--Rector, Doctor, Prudens, and George Pelham--pay
him profound respect. This character of Imperator is quite the same as
we find in the works of Stainton Moses. Those who decline to accept the
spiritualist hypothesis on any terms may say that Mrs Piper has drawn
the character from this source. She must at least know the book we have
mentioned--_Spirit Teachings_. When the effort to communicate with
Stainton Moses was made, and nothing was obtained but incoherence and
falsehood, Dr Hodgson, wishing to discover what influence the normal Mrs
Piper's knowledge of Stainton Moses's works might have upon the
secondary personality calling itself Stainton Moses (if we are dealing
with secondary personalities), took her a copy of _Spirit Teachings_.
She read it, or it is to be concluded she did so, but there was no
result, and no effect upon the communicator who called himself Stainton
Moses. Nevertheless, I repeat, it may be asserted with some probability
that Mrs Piper took the character of Imperator from this source. But
then, from whence did she take the other characters?
Imperator and his friends speak in a distinctive biblical style.
Generally, at the beginning of the sittings, Imperator either utters a
prayer himself or dictates one to Rector, who reproduces it. Here is a
specimen. "Holy Father, we are with Thee in all Thy ways, and to Thee we
come in all things. We ask Thee to give us Thy tender love and care.
Bestow Thy blessings upon this Thy fellow-creature. Help him to be all
that Thou dost ask him. Teach him to walk in the path of righteousness
and truth. He needs Thy loving care. Teach him in all things to do Thy
holy will ... and we leave all else in Thy hands. Without Thy care we
are indeed bereft. Watch over and guide his footsteps and lead him into
truth and light. Father, we beseech Thee so to open the blinded eyes of
mortals that they may know more of Thee and Thy tender love and care."
Among the phrases which ring familiarly to English ears we notice one
peculiarity, and one that constantly recurs. Imperator calls God
"Father," and yet, when he commends man to God, he calls him God's
fellow-creature, His neighbour, and not His creature. Evidently
Imperator's idea of God differs from ours; it would seem that he thinks
us an emanation from the Divine, eternal as the Divine itself.
Many readers may not be inclined to attach much value to Imperator's
prayers. They will take them for one of the diabolical inventions of
which secondary personalities are capable. Evidently, if we take them
apart from the rest, this is the most plausible explanation; but the
character and ideas of Imperator must be considered as a whole. I can
assure my readers that there is nothing diabolical about him. If
Stainton Moses and Mrs Piper have created him, they have created a
masterpiece; Imperator inspires respect in the most sceptical.
There is another aspect of the phenomena which telepathy does not
explain; the dramatic play. The personages at the other end of the wire
act, as far as we can judge, with all the appropriateness and
distinctive characteristics of reality. There are incidents of this
dramatic play, which telepathy cannot explain, in nearly all the
sittings. I have given some of them in passing, and will now give some
more examples. At M. Bourget's second sitting Mrs Pitman, whom I have
mentioned before, suddenly appears, and speaks nearly as follows:[84]
"Monsieur, I come to offer you my help. I lived in France and spoke
French fairly well when I was living. Tell me what you want, and I can
perhaps help you to communicate with this lady." In order to understand
the appropriateness of this intervention we must remember that George
Pelham, who was acting as intermediary, had complained at the beginning
of the sitting that the communicating spirit spoke French and that he
did not understand her.
One day George Pelham is asked for information about Phinuit, and is
about to give it. But Phinuit, who is manifesting through the voice
while George Pelham is doing so in writing, perceives this and cries,
"You had better shut up about me!" And the spectators witnessed a sort
of struggle between the head and the hand. Then George Pelham writes,
"All right, it is settled; we will say no more about it."
During a sitting in which the sitter's wife gave proofs of identity of a
very private nature to her husband she said, "I tell you this, but don't
let that gentleman hear." "That gentleman" could not be Dr Hodgson, who
had left the room; it was the invisible George Pelham who was habitually
present at the sittings at this period.
On April 30, 1894, Mr James Mitchell has a sitting.[85] Phinuit begins
by giving him appropriate advice about his health. He ends by saying,
"You worry, too." Then he adds, "There's a voice I hear as plainly as
you would a bell rung, and she says, 'That's right, doctor, tell him not
to worry, because he always did so--my dear husband--I want him to enjoy
his remaining days in the body. Tell him I am Margaret Mitchell, and I
will be with him to the end of eternity, spiritually.'"
The communicators often ask one or more of those present to go out of
the room, and they give one or other of the following reasons, according
to circumstances. The first is that very private information is about to
be given. I have quoted an example in speaking of George Pelham, when
James Howard asked him to tell something which only they two knew.
George Pelham, preparing to do so, begins by asking Dr Hodgson to leave
the room. How oddly discreet for secondary personalities! On other
occasions certain persons are asked to go out temporarily, because, say
the controls, "You have relations and friends who want very much to
communicate with you, and they prevent all communication by their
insistence and their efforts."
On a certain occasion Professor Hyslop rises and goes to the other end
of the room, passing Mrs Piper, upon which George Pelham, apparently
offended, writes, "He has passed in front of Imperator! Why does he do
that?"
It would need a volume to recount all the little analogous incidents
which telepathy does not explain. These will do as examples. Will it be
said that these small dramas resemble the creations of the same kind
which occur in delirium or dreams? But in the first place, in delirium
and dreams, the spectator does not realise, as he does here, the
presence of persons who have given many details tending to prove their
identity. Again, the real cause of these creations of dream and delirium
is unknown to us. We might assert, without being fanciful, that sickness
is only their opportunity and not their cause. Lastly, a third group of
facts, which strongly militates in favour of the spiritualist
hypothesis, consists of the mistakes and confusions. This would probably
not be the opinion of a superficial observer; many take these errors and
confusions as a reason for entirely rejecting the spiritualist
hypothesis; generally because they have a strange notion of a "spirit,"
without any analogy in nature. Deceived by absurd and antiquated
theological teaching, they imagine that the most pitiable drunkard, for
example, becomes a being of ideal beauty and omniscience from the day he
is disincarnated. It cannot be so. Our spirits, if we have them, must
progress slowly. When they leap into the great unknown they do not at
the same time leap into perfection; they were finite and limited, and do
not become immediately infinite. Disincarnated man, like incarnated man,
has lapses of intelligence, memory and morality. The existence of these
lapses very well explains the greater part of the mistakes in the
communications. I have no room to develop this idea, but the reader can
do it easily. I will only quote one example of lapse of memory. Mr
Robert Hyslop said he had a penknife with a brown handle, which he
carried first in his waistcoat pocket and afterwards in his coat. On
inquiry, it was discovered that he was mistaken, and that he really
carried it in his trousers pocket. What man living has not made a
hundred such mistakes? In order to explain the phenomena we are studying
by the telepathic hypothesis, we must suppose that telepathy has
infinite power with which no obstacle can interfere. Then why does it
make mistakes? And why does it make just the mistakes that an imperfect,
finite spirit would make? Must we suppose that Dame Telepathy is a mere
incarnation of the demon of fraud and deceit?
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Evidently addressing George Pelham.
[85] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 519.