Difficulties and objections--The identity of Imperator--Vision at a
distance--Triviality of the messages--Spiritualist Philosophy--Life in
the other world.
Up till now I have said a great deal of evil of telepathy. I believe
that I have demonstrated, not that the theory is false, but that it is
an unlikely explanation of the facts. Shall we say, then, that the
spiritualistic hypothesis, the only reasonable one after the dismissal
of telepathy, can be accepted without difficulty and without objections?
Not at all. Many objections, more or less serious, are still made to the
spiritualistic hypothesis. To my mind there is only one that is serious;
I will speak of it in conclusion. Many of the others are raised by
persons who have a merely superficial acquaintance with the problem;
their arguments are more polemical than scientific.
To begin with, some of them want to know why the controls, Imperator,
Doctor, Rector, Prudens, conceal themselves under these pseudonyms. If
they are, as they say, disincarnated spirits, who formerly lived in
bodies, why do they not say who they were? Does not their silence on
this point indicate that they are only secondary personalities of the
medium?
This objection is not very serious. In the first place, the controls
told Stainton Moses their names. If they do not wish these names
revealed, it is without doubt for excellent reasons, which it is not
difficult to imagine. There is every indication that these controls
belonged to a generation considerably remote from ours; their language,
the turn of their minds, and some of their assertions, all point to
this. If they were well-known men, and had revealed their names, the
critics would merely see a reason the more for crying fraud. They would
say, "The medium has read all that, and repeats it to us in hypnosis."
If, on the other hand, they were obscure persons, and had given
information about their lives, the information would be unverifiable.
And then the sceptics would cry on the spot, "Folly; these are the
inventions of the medium's secondary personality." The controls may have
still other reasons for not revealing themselves to us. This life, when
once it has been left behind, may seem to the spirit to be a more or
less painful nightmare. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that he
does not care to recall to others the part he played in this nightmare,
even if the part were a distinguished one. We ourselves know nothing but
this life; we do not admit that there is any other. Therefore we all
wish to shine in it like meteors, if possible. Possibly disincarnated
spirits, seeing things from a higher point of view, think otherwise. In
short, the controls, Imperator, Rector, Doctor and Prudens, may refrain
from speaking of their former life simply because they are wise. Would
it not have been wiser of Phinuit to hold his tongue than to tell us a
mass of improbabilities?
Amongst those who study these phenomena there are many who see in the
triviality of the greater part of the messages a strong presumption
against the spiritualist hypothesis. Some of these messages are signed,
it is true, by illustrious names--though that is not the case with Mrs
Piper. But this regrettable fact may be variously explained. In the
first place, there may be rogues, charlatans and fools on both sides,
since it is probable that the soul passes from this world to the other
just as it is, and that, if it progresses at all, it progresses slowly.
How many individuals see in spiritualism only a means of putting forward
their wretched personalities or of exploiting their contemporaries! Such
persons would not shrink from representing their lucubrations as
communications from the next world; they would sign them with the most
august of names if to do so would further their designs. Finally, it is
not even necessary to suppose that these messages are due to dishonesty;
the number of mystifiers may be at least as great on the other side as
on this; a sort of law of affinity which seems to rule the world of
spirits may cause these lower beings to be attracted by uncultured
mediums, while the great spirits are repelled by them. It would be these
larvae of the other world who give the messages which disconcert when
they do not scandalise us. But the man of science should not be rebuffed
by these messages which, in spite of their contents, are important, if
they result in irresistible proof of the fact that there exist outside
of us and around us intelligent beings resembling ourselves.
But when we are dealing with developed spirits, who have begun by giving
proofs of their identity, it is not true that the messages are always
trivial. They often contain ideas of much breadth of view and elevation.
The form is generally defective, but those who have studied Mrs Piper's
phenomena will be indulgent to the form, and sometimes even to the
matter. The spirit in contact with the medium's organism suffers, as I
have said several times, from a kind of delirium; besides which the
organism only responds to his efforts imperfectly. "My dear friends,"
says George Pelham, "do not look at me too critically; to try to
transmit your thoughts through the organism of a medium is like trying
to crawl through a hollow log." In short, the difficulties are enormous.
It may very well be that great spirits have really been the authors of
very poor messages. It has happened to each of us to make poetical or
other compositions in our dreams which we have thought admirable; we say
in delight, "What a pity I shall not be able to remember that when I
wake!" But sometimes we do remember, and then we smile with contempt at
what had delighted us during sleep. Now the communicators constantly
repeat that they are dreaming while they are in the atmosphere of the
medium. "Everything seems so clear to me," says Robert Hyslop to his
son, "and when I try to tell you, James, I cannot."
These considerations prove that we must not hasten to conclude, with
Professor Flournoy, that if there is a future life it is one of
wretched degeneration, one more misery added to all the others which
overwhelm us in this miserable universe.
No; as Professor James says, in this world we live only at the surface
of our being; if death is not annihilation, then it is an awakening. It
does not follow that the life of the other world is not higher and more
intense than this, because communication with it is difficult.
Another serious objection to the spiritualist hypothesis is the
philosophy with which certain too eager persons have connected it.
Spiritualism, which should at present be but the mere beginning of a
science, is, according to them, already a philosophy for which the
universe holds no secrets. How should such puny creatures as ourselves
hope to solve the problems of the universe by _a priori_ reasoning? All
that we can reasonably hope, is to wrench from nature some of the
secrets nearest to us, surrounding ourselves with a thousand precautions
in order not grossly to deceive ourselves.
I rank the spiritualistic philosophy with other philosophies. Perhaps
some of its dicta proceed from spirits, if spirits exist, but the system
as a whole most surely does not. But then, it will be said, the people
who have elaborated this philosophy must have been impostors. No, not
inevitably; I will even venture to say that imposture is unlikely. The
key to the mystery may be found in other characteristics of humanity.
The most formidable obstacle to the admission of the spiritualist
hypothesis is in the messages which tend to represent the other world,
in which, it appears, matter is not perceived, and space and time are
unknown, as being all the same a servile copy of this, or a sketch of
it. If Phinuit or another control is asked to describe a communicator,
the description is generally given with exactness, and is the same there
as it was here; sometimes the communicator even goes so far as to wear
the same clothes, made of the same material. But these descriptions are
without importance, as it may be replied that the communicators or
controls give these details purely to prove identity. However, I know of
no message in which the communicator has been frank enough to say, "Of
course you may suppose that the form I have here is not the same as I
had in your world." Or again, "The idea of form differs totally in our
world and in yours; I cannot make you understand what that idea is here,
so it is of no use to question me." Unfortunately neither communicators
nor controls speak thus; they all say or allow it to be supposed that
the human form is the same in both worlds.
But when action and events in that world are represented as being the
same as in this, then our credulity cries out in remonstrance. That a
deceased doctor should tell us that he continues to visit his patients,
a painter that he continues to daub canvas, is more than we can admit.
But, it may be explained, the doctor and the painter are temporarily
delirious; they do not know what they are saying. Unfortunately these
passages are too numerous to be always attributed to delirium. Certain
communicators say, with all the gravity in the world, and when they seem
in full possession of themselves, that they breathe, live in houses,
listen to lectures, and that a deceased child is beginning to learn to
read. This is an enormous difficulty, I repeat. I point it out without
trying to solve it; I am unable to offer a plausible explanation.
Professor Hyslop has tried, but I do not think he has succeeded.