Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE
BY BECKLES WILLSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.
_Past President of the Society for Psychical Research_
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE
CLIFFORD'S INN
E.C.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION VII
I. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"
II. THE HYPNOTIC STATE
III. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING
IV. DREAMS
V. HALLUCINATIONS
VI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD
VII. ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA
VIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD
IX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA
X. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
XI. THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"
XII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY
XIII. CLAIRVOYANCE
XIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES
AFTERWORD
NOTE
The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment
thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in
the columns of _The Westminster Gazette_.
INTRODUCTION
_By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S._
_Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for
Psychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from
the testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and
deception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto
unrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be
of supreme interest and importance._
_It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic
investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from
the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would
be a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve
continuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of
which should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these
obscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry
which has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less
obscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has
achieved is in no small measure due to the wise counsel and ungrudging
expenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry
Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the
details of its work._
_Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must
recognise the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has
endeavoured to maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the
evidential value varies enormously. The testimony of honest and even
careful witnesses requires to be received with caution, owing to the
intrusion of two sources of error to which untrained observers are very
liable. These are unconscious_ mal-observation _and unintentional_
mis-description. _I cannot here enter into the proof of this statement,
but it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a credulous observer
but a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to these errors
when, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical
phenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has
hitherto scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within
my own knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had
frequently scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in
the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," one day
seriously informed me he had been converted to a belief in
thought-transference by some conclusive experiments he had witnessed.
Upon inquiring where these experiments took place I found it was at a
public performance of a very inferior Zancig who was then touring
through the provinces!_
_Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that "the light heart and open
mind" with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew
his labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he
found himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the
numerous and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society
have had to face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the
available evidence, and this study has convinced him--as it has
convinced, so far as I know, every other painstaking and honest
inquirer--that no theories based on fraud, illusion, nor even on
telepathy, are adequate to account for the whole of the phenomena he has
reviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr Willson tells us that he
has been led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory explanation of
these phenomena is the action of discarnate human beings--that is to
say, the Spiritualistic hypothesis._
_I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the
small residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other
hypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question
arises, Is the evidence on which it is based sufficiently_ abundant,
trustworthy, _and_ conclusive, _to warrant such a far-reaching
statement? Here we must turn from the author to ascertain what has been
the conclusion arrived at by those who have given long years to a
searching experimental investigation of these phenomena, and who have
approached the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit. The most
noteworthy instance is the testimony of that shrewd and able
investigator, the late Dr Hodgson. His patient and laborious inquiry
into the trance phenomena of Mrs Piper ultimately led him to the
conclusion arrived at by Mr Willson. Dr Hodgson's well-known exposure of
Madame Blavatsky and other fraudulent mediums and his sane and cautious
judgment render his opinion of great weight. Then, again, we find that
this also was the conclusion to which Frederic Myers was gradually
driven. And long prior to this it was the conclusion arrived at by that
acute thinker, the late Professor de Morgan, and it is the conclusion
strongly held by the great naturalist, Dr A. R. Wallace, and held also
by several other eminent investigators I might name._
_So momentous a conclusion, if capable of such complete verification as
to be universally accepted by science, would obviously throw all other
discoveries into the background. I say if capable of being verified by
scientific methods, but, although the weight of opinion will, in my
opinion, ultimately lead to a very wide acceptance of this conclusion,
yet it seems to me highly probable that the experimental discovery of
the survival of human personality after death will always elude
conclusive scientific demonstration. This particular field of psychical
investigation belongs to an order other than that with which science
deals; and, this being so, it can never be adequately investigated with
the limited faculties we now possess._
_In any case, as I said in a letter published in_ The Times, _so long
ago as September 1876, before science is in a position to frame any
satisfactory hypothesis of the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena, a
number of antecedent questions will have to be investigated and decided.
Prominent among these, I urged more than thirty years ago, was the
question whether ideas or information can be voluntarily or
involuntarily transferred from one mind to another independently of the
recognised organs of perception. Experiments I had then recently made
led me to the conclusion that something new to science, which might
provisionally be called thought-transference, now known in its wider
aspect as telepathy, did really exist. This, if established, would, as I
pointed out, unquestionably solve some of the so-called spirit
communications which had so puzzled investigators. But the idea of
thought-transference was at that time just as obnoxious to official
science as Spiritualism. Mr Willson quotes the implacable disbelief,
even in the possibility of telepathy, which that great man Helmholtz
expressed to me. And it is amusing now to recall the fierce outcry
aroused by the paper I read at the British Association meeting in 1876,
when, after narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had
witnessed, I asked that a committee of scientific men should be
appointed to investigate preliminary question of the possibility of
thought-transference.[1] It is true the evidence on behalf of telepathy
has since become so abundant that now few deny its probability, but even
telepathy has not yet taken its place among the recognised scientific
verities. I hope this recognition will not be long delayed, but until it
occurs it is almost as illegitimate to use telepathy, as some do so
freely, for the foundation of their theories of transcendental phenomena
as to use the spiritualistic hypothesis itself._
[Footnote 1: The Spectator, _I believe, alone, generously supported me,
and in an editorial article on 30th September 1876 expressed the hope
that "the British Association would really lake some action on the
subject of the paper, in spite of the protests of the party, which we
may call the party of superstitious incredulity_."]
_To those who have carefully studied the evidence there is, however,
little doubt that telepathy does afford an adequate explanation of
certain well-attested phenomena, such as phantasms of the living or
dying person. And telepathy, which may now be considered as highly
probable, leads on to the evidence for man's survival after death--to
this I will return later on._
_Then, again, recent investigations have established the fact that the
range of human personality must be extended to include something more
than our normal self-consciousness. Our Ego is not the simple unitary
thing older psychologists taught, but a composite structure embracing a
self that extends far beyond the limit of our conscious waking life.
Just as experimental physics has shown that each pencil of sunlight
embraces an almost endless succession of invisible rays as well as the
visible radiation we perceive, so experimental psychology has shown
that each human personality embraces an unconscious as well as a
conscious self. Mr Myers, using Du Perl's conception of a threshold, has
termed the former our_ subliminal self. _And just as the invisible
radiation of the sun can only be rendered perceptible by some agency
outside our vision, so this subliminal self reveals itself only by some
agency outside our own volition. The subliminal self not only contains
the record of unheeded past impressions--a latent memory--but also has
activities and faculties far transcending the range of our conscious
self. In this it also resembles the invisible radiation of the sun,
which is the main source of life and energy in this world._
_Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and
repair of our body and brain, which go on automatically and
unconsciously within us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious
personality. All life shares with us this miraculous automatism. No
chemist, with all his appliances, can turn breadstuff into brainstuff or
hay into milk. Further, the subliminal self seems to have faculties
which can be emancipated from the limitations of our ordinary life.
Glimpses of this we get when the conscious self is in abeyance, as in
sleep, hypnosis, and trance. Here and there we find certain individuals
through whom this sub- or supra-liminal self manifests itself more
freely than through others; they have been termed "mediums," a word, it
is true, that suggests Browning's "Sludge." But, as scientific
investigation has shown all mesmerists and dowsers are not charlatans,
so it has shown all mediums are not rogues._
_This extension of human faculty, revealing, as it does, more profoundly
the mysterious depths of our being, enables us to explain many phenomena
that have been attributed to discarnate human beings. The question
arises, Does it explain all so-called Spiritualistic phenomena? In my
opinion, and in that of others who have given more time to their
critical investigation than I have, it does not. At present we have to
grope our way, but the ground is being cleared, and the direction which
the future explorer of these unknown regions has to take is becoming
more evident._
Occultism and Common-Sense
CHAPTER I
SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"
When I first ventured into the wide and misty domain of Occultism, with
a light heart I set forth and an open mind. My sole aim was to
ascertain, as far as the means at the disposal of an ordinary man with
little of the mystic in his composition would allow, what degree of
probability attached to published phenomena, which the ordinary laws of
Nature, as most of us understand them, could not satisfactorily explain.
At the threshold of my inquiry, one prominent and, as it seemed to me,
disconcerting fact confronted me--namely, that although for a couple of
generations "supernatural" manifestations had been promiscuously
exhibited before the public, challenging full investigation and inviting
belief; although almost every day the newspapers report some striking
case of spirit apparition or materialisation, coincident dreams,
clairvoyance, trance utterances, or possession, often seemingly well
attested; yet in spite of all this testimony academic science continued
to dispute the very basis of such phenomena. Any investigator must needs
recognise here a very anomalous situation. On the one hand are, let us
say, half-a-million people, often highly intelligent, cultured, sane
people, firmly protesting that they have witnessed certain astonishing
occult manifestations, and on the other hand the Royal Society and the
British Association, and other organised scientific bodies established
for the investigation of truth, absolutely refusing to admit such
evidence or to regard it seriously. Forty years ago Faraday, besought to
give his opinion, in this wise wrote: "They who say they see these
things are not competent witnesses of facts. It would be condescension
on my part to pay any more attention to them." Faraday's attitude was
that of Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Agassiz. The first-named, however,
rather gave away his prejudice by saying: "Supposing the phenomena to be
genuine, they do not interest me." Tyndall's utterance also deserves to
be recalled: "There are people amongst us who, it is alleged, can
produce effects before which the discoveries of Newton pale. There are
men of science who would sell all that they have, and give the proceeds
to the poor, for a glimpse of phenomena which are mere trifles to the
spiritualist." He added: "The world will have religion of some kind,
even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of
spiritualism." Spencer's words were: "I have settled the question in my
own mind on a priori grounds." Professor Carpenter called spiritualism
"a most mischievous epidemic delusion, comparable to the witchcraft
delusion of the seventeenth century."
What, then, has happened to strengthen the case of the believers in
ghosts, clairvoyance, thought-transference, sensory automatism, in,
say, the last quarter of a century? What new evidence exists which would
make the mid-Victorian scientific men reconsider their position? Suppose
Faraday and Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall, were alive to-day, would they
see reason to alter their opinions?
I remember once--and I now give it as typical--overhearing a psychical
experience. It was in a first-class compartment on a train coming from
Wimbledon. One of my fellow-passengers, an intelligent, well-spoken man
of about thirty-five, was relating to three friends the following
extraordinary story. As nearly as I can recollect, I give the narrator's
own words:--
"One week ago last Tuesday, at eleven o'clock at night, my
wife, who had just retired to bed upstairs, called out to me:
'Arthur! Arthur!' in a tone of alarm. I sprang up and ran
upstairs to see what was the matter. The servants had all gone
to bed. 'Arthur,' said my wife, 'I've just seen mother,' and
she began to cry. 'Why,' I said, 'your mother's at
Scarborough.' 'I know,' she said; 'but she appeared before me
just there' (pointing to the foot of the bed) 'two minutes ago
as plainly as you do.' Well, the next morning there was a
telegram on the breakfast-table: 'Mother, died at eleven last
night.' Now, how do you account for it?"
There was silence for a full minute.
"A wonderful coincidence. Your wife's hallucination coincided with her
mother's death!"
Another occupant of the carriage caught up the word:
"Yes, coincidence. A thing which mightn't happen once in a million
years."
Nobody else ventured a remark. Yet they seemed unconvinced. There was no
one to tell them--even I did not know then--that these "coincidences"
were constantly happening, every year, perhaps every month; that an
intelligent body of men--the Society for Psychical Research--has made a
census of such hallucinations, all apparently well attested; that
newspapers devoted to occult matters constantly record these things;
that volumes--monthly, weekly, almost--fairly pour from the press
detailing, expounding, dissecting, elaborating such evidence; that the
theory of coincidence has already been rejected by many men of the first
rank of science; and that official science itself is reluctantly
reconsidering its position in more than one direction.
Yet so slowly do the masses move in intellectual life, so tardily do
truths, concerning not merely occult but physical and material
investigation, percolate through to the workaday world, that the
researches, the activities, the ascertained truths of students of
psychical phenomena are as a closed book. Perhaps the attitude of apathy
with which occult phenomena and occult science are regarded by the
average man is not unnatural. To him all miracles that are not
Scriptural and ancient and, as it were, institutional are highly
improbable, if not impossible. All super-naturalism, he will tell you,
is morbid. "There may be something in these things," he says, "but it is
not proved. As for spiritualism, my belief is that mediums are
impostors. Most of the spiritualists I have seen are 'cranks'--they are
certainly dupes--and I have no doubt that if I interested myself in
these matters I should end by becoming also a 'crank.'"
This I maintain is the position of the ordinarily educated normal man.
"The moment," wrote Lord Lytton, "one deals with things beyond our
comprehension, and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled,
we revolt from the probable, as it appears to the senses of those who
have not experienced what we have." Now, that is just what the candid
inquirer must avoid throughout his inquiry. It is often difficult to
resist employing supernormal hypotheses; but, until normal hypotheses
are exhausted, the resistance must be made. On the other hand, it is
well to bear in mind Mr Andrew Lang's timely remark, "there is a point
at which the explanations of common-sense arouse scepticism."
At all events, not even the most materialistic man-in-the-music-hall,
with two eyes in his head, can deny that the great wave of occultism,
which twenty years ago seemed to be receding, is again returning with
greater force and volume, submerging many of the old sceptical theories
and wetting even the utterly callous and ignorant with its spray. It is
not so long ago that the very fact of hypnotism was doubted--Mesmer was
long regarded as a mere quack--but to-day the induced trance is
universally credited. To hypnotism must the miracle of telepathy now be
added? Has it really been ascertained, after a thousand experiments and
beyond the possibility of error, that a mode of apprehension exists
which has no connection with the five senses? For twenty-five years the
members of the Society of Psychical Research have carried on their
investigations of both sleeping and waking subjects, under every
conceivable condition, and are at last fain to announce that such a
mystic faculty does exist by which brain can communicate with brain
without any known sensory agency.
As to the kind of "ghost" story recorded above, what an exact analogy
it bears to the following, to be found in a recent volume of the
"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research!" The statement was
received from a Madame Broussiloff, of St Petersburg:--
"On the 16th (28th) of February of this year, between nine and
ten o'clock in the evening, I, the undersigned, was sitting in
our drawing-room--the small one--facing the large drawing-room,
which I could see in its entire length. My husband, his
brother, with his wife, and my mother, were also sitting in the
same room with me round a large round table. I was writing down
my household accounts for the day, while the others were
carrying on some gay conversation. Having accidentally raised
my head and looked into the large drawing-room, I noticed, with
astonishment, that a large grey shadow had passed from the door
of the dining-room to that of the antechamber; and it came into
my head that the figure I had seen bore a striking resemblance
in stature to Colonel Ave-Meinander, an acquaintance of ours,
who had lived in this very lodging for a long time. At the
first moment, I wished to say at once that a ghost had just
flashed before me, but stopped, as I was afraid of being
laughed at by my husband's brother and his wife, and also of
being scolded by my husband, who, in view of the excitement
which I showed when such phenomena were taking place, tried to
convince me that they were the fruits of my fancy. As I knew
that Meinander was alive and well, and was commander of the
Malorossuesky 40th Regiment of Dragoons, I did not say anything
then; but when I was going to bed I related to my mother what I
had seen, and the next morning could not refrain from
mentioning it to my husband.
"Our astonishment was extreme when, on the 18th of February
(2nd of March), we learned Nicholas Ottovitch Ave-Meinander had
actually died after a short illness on the 16th (28th) of
February at nine o'clock in the evening, in the town of
Strashovo, where his regiment is stationed.
"The above account is confirmed by the percipient's mother,
Marie von Hagemeister, and by the husband, Colonel Alexis
Alexeievitch Broussiloff. Both state solemnly that Colonel
Meinander died at nine P.M. on the evening of 16th February
(28th) at Stashovo, 1200 versts from St Petersburg."
To explain this phenomenon in the terms of telepathy, the grey shadow
seen by Madame Broussiloff was not a ghost, not the "bodiless spirit in
the likeness of a man," but "a waking dream projected from the brain of
the seer under the impulse of the dying man's thought."
But telepathy itself requires consideration and explanation. Sir William
Crookes has repeatedly given publicity to his theory of brain-waves and
to a kindred conception of ether substance, along which intelligence can
be transmitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to virtually
interminable distances.
That mind should effect mind in a new mode may mean no more than that
brain can act upon brain by means of ethereal vibrations hitherto
unsuspected. The power itself may be but a lingering vestige of our
inheritance from primeval times, a long-disused faculty "dragged from
the dim lumber-room of a primitive consciousness, and galvanised into a
belated and halting activity."
Or, on the other hand, may not such faculty be regarded not as
vestigial, but as rudimentary? Telepathy, if we follow the gifted author
of "Human Personality," is a promise for the future, not an idle
inheritance from the past.
Our business now is, all mystic speculations apart, to consider the
phenomena in the order in which, if not yet actually accepted, they
would seem to evoke least opposition from the academic science of the
day. What is the net result of the evidence for all classes of
supernormal phenomena? That I shall endeavour to point out, as concisely
and lucidly as I can, in the following chapters.