MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
What we have to remember is that by far the greater part of the physical
phenomena which is said to occur at a _seance_ is really nothing
extraordinary. All physical occurrences are normal that are capable of
being produced by a clever conjurer; and there is no doubt that with due
preparation such a one could achieve table rapping, introduce flowers
and move furniture. But the problem is, how, under the stringent
conditions imposed, and in the face of the close scrutiny, to which
these manifestations are subjected, they can be done. As Sir Oliver
Lodge says: "I am disposed to maintain that I have myself witnessed, in
a dim light, occasional abnormal instances of movement of untouched
objects." He goes on to say that "suppose an untouched object comes
sailing or hurtling through the air, or suppose an object is raised or
floated from the ground, how are we to regard it? This is just what a
live animal could do, and so the first natural hypothesis is that some
living thing is doing it: (_a_) the medium himself, acting by tricks or
concealed mechanism; (_b_) a confederate--an unconscious confederate
perhaps, among the sitters; (_c_) an unknown and invisible live entity,
other than the people present. If in any such action the extraordinary
laws of nature were superseded, if the weight of a piece of matter could
be shown to have _disappeared_, or if fresh energy were introduced
beyond the recognised categories of energy, then there would be no
additional difficulties; but hitherto there has been no attempt to
establish either of these things. Indeed, it must be admitted that
insufficient attention is usually paid to this aspect of ordinary,
commonplace, abnormal physical phenomena. If a heavy body is raised
under good conditions, we should always try to ascertain" (he does not
say that it is easy to ascertain) "where its weight has gone to--that is
to say, what supports it--what ultimately supports it. For instance, if
experiments were conducted in a suspended room, would the whole weight
of that room, as ascertained by outside balance, remain unaltered when a
table or person was levitated inside it? Or, could the agencies
operating inside affect the bodies outside?--questions, these, which
appear capable of answer, with sufficient trouble, in an organised
physical laboratory; such a laboratory as does not, he supposes, yet
exist, but which might exist and which will exist in the future, if the
physical aspect of experimental psychology is ever to become recognised
as a branch of orthodox physics."
Recently, Dr Maxwell, of Paris, published his researches and
observations on physical phenomena, and he states that under "material
and physical phenomena" are comprised (1) raps; (2) movements of objects
(_a_) without contact, or (_b_) only with such contact as is
insufficient to effect the particular movement in question; (3)
"apports"--_i.e._ the production of objects by some supernormal agency;
(4) visual phenomena--_i.e._ the appearance of lights and of forms,
luminous or otherwise, including among the latter the class of alleged
phenomena known as materialisations, and (5) phenomena leaving some
permanent trace, such as imprints or "direct" writings or drawings, etc.
Under the class of "intellectual phenomena" may be included such
occurrences as automatic writing, table tilting, etc.
As regards raps Dr Maxwell hazards certain conclusions, of which he says
the most certain is the close connection of the raps with the muscular
movements on the part of the sitters. Every muscular movement, even a
slight one, appears to be followed by a rap. Thus if, without anyone
necessarily touching the table, one of the sitters frees his hand from
the chain made round the table by others, moves it about in a circle
over the surface of the table, then raises it in the centre and brings
it down towards the table, stopping suddenly within a few inches of it,
a rap will be produced on the table corresponding with the sudden
stoppage of the hand. Similarly, a rap will be produced by a pressure of
the foot on the floor, by speaking, by blowing slightly, or by touching
the medium or one of the sitters. Raps produced in this way by the
sitters are often stronger than those produced by the medium himself. Dr
Maxwell suggests as a working hypothesis that there is a certain
accumulated force, and that if its equilibrium be suddenly disturbed by
the addition of the excess of energy required for the movement, a
discharge takes place producing the effect.
Dr Maxwell has made a series of experiments with Eusapia Paladino.
"It was about five o'clock in the evening," he writes, "and
there was broad daylight in the drawing-room at l'Aguelas. We
were standing around the table. Eusapia took the hand of one of
our number and rested it on the right-hand corner of the table.
The table was raised to the level of our foreheads--that is,
the top reached a height of at least four and three-quarter
feet from the floor.... It was impossible for Eusapia to have
lifted the table by normal means. One has but to consider that
she touched but the corner of the table to realise what the
weight must have been had she accomplished the feat by
muscular effort. Further, she never had sufficient hold of it.
It was clearly impossible for her, under the conditions of the
experiment, to have used any of the means suggested by her
critics--straps, or hooks of some kind."
Most of the phenomena discussed by Dr Maxwell were obtained through the
mediumship of Eusapia Paladino. He was a member of the committee which
met in 1896 to investigate this medium, who had just concluded the
series of performances held under the auspices of the society at
Cambridge, which were entirely unfavourable to her claims. The French
committee was made aware of the fraudulent devices which the Cambridge
investigators claimed to have discovered. He recommends all who believe
that Dr Hodgson and his Cambridge colleagues have had the last word in
the controversy to read the report which will be found in the _Annales
des Psychiques_, for 1896. The English sitters arrive at conclusions in
direct conflict with those of the French, who claim that they had long
known of the tricks "discovered" at Cambridge, and in consequence took
means to guard against them. Dr Maxwell indicts the Cambridge way of
controlling the medium, which he says consisted, for a time at least, in
affording the medium opportunities to cheat to see if she would avail
herself of them. Opportunities of which she took the fullest advantage.
Nevertheless, Dr Maxwell offers but little encouragement for the theory
of spiritualistic agency. "I believe," he says, "in the reality of
certain phenomena, of which I have repeatedly been a witness. I do not
consider it necessary to attribute them to a supernatural intervention
of any kind, but am disposed to think that they are produced by some
force existing within ourselves."
In the same way as certain psychical phenomena, such as automatic
writing, trance, "controls," crystal vision, and so forth, in which an
intelligence seems to be present independent of the intelligence of the
medium, can be shown beyond dispute to be merely manifestations of his
subliminal intelligence, frequently taking the form of a dramatic
personification; so may the agency, revealing itself in raps, movements
of objects, and other phenomena of a physical character, perhaps be
traceable, not to any power external to the medium and the sitters, but
merely to a force latent within themselves, and may be an
exteriorisation in a dynamic form, in a way not yet ascertained, of
their collective subliminal capacities.
However strange new and unknown facts may be, we need not fear they are
going to destroy the truth of the old ones. Would the science of physics
be overthrown if, for example, we admit the phenomenon of "raps"--_i.e._
audible vibrations in wood and other substances--is a real phenomenon,
and that in certain cases there may be blows which cannot be explained
by any mechanical force known to us? It would be a new force exercised
on matter, but none the less would the old forces preserve their
activity. Pressure, temperature, and the density of air or of wood might
still exercise their usual influence, and it is even likely that the
transmission of vibrations by this new force would follow the same laws
as other vibrations.
In the opinion of the leading members of this society, some of the
physical phenomena which have been adduced as among those proclaimed to
have occurred, such as "apports," scent, movement of objects, passage of
matter through matter, bear a perilous resemblance to conjuring tricks,
of a kind fairly well known; which tricks if well done can be very
deceptive. Hence extreme caution is necessary, and full control must be
allowed to the observers--a thing which conjurers never really allow.
Sir Oliver Lodge says that he has never seen a silent and genuinely
controlled conjurer; and in so far as mediums find it necessary to
insist on their own conditions, so far they must be content to be
treated as conjurers. For instance, no self-registering thermometer has
ever recorded the "intense cold" felt at a _seance_. Flowers and fruit
have made their appearance in closed rooms, but no arsenic has
penetrated the walls of the hermetically sealed tube. Various
investigators have smelt, seen, and handled curious objects, but no
trace has been preserved. We have to depend on the recollection of the
observer's passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the
rustle of spirit garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies.
Exquisite scents, strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly
out of nothing, and have returned whence they came unrecorded by
photography, unweighed, unanalysed.
Briefly, then, the result of my carefully formed judgment is that a
large part of the physical phenomena heard, seen, felt at the average
spiritualistic _seance_ must be placed on a level with ordinary
conjuring. To return to the recent case of Eusapia Paladino. A number of
English scientists, interested in the reports of her _seances_, induced
her to come to England and repeat them at Cambridge. Every effort was
made to make the experiments as satisfactory as possible. They used
netting for confining the medium or separating her from objects which
they hoped would move without contact; different ways of tying her were
tried; also sufficient light was used in the _seance_ room. She refused
to submit to any of these conditions. The investigators pressed her at
each sitting to allow some light in the room, and they long persevered
in making the control in every case as complete as she would allow it to
be. She permitted a very faint light usually at the beginning, but
before long she insisted on complete darkness, and until the lights were
extinguished the touches were never felt. The sitters then held the
medium, the only method of control allowed, as firmly and continuously
as possible. This she resisted, and then every form of persuasion was
used, short of physical force, to induce her to submit. But she was
allowed to take her own way without remonstrance when the sitters were
convinced of the constant fraud practised.
It is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have
convinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia
Paladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge
investigators are condemned as hasty and premature.
But, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the
conditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the
medium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the
result of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading
spiritualists themselves.
For, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for
supernormal physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least
an unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis
is no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the
Hertzian waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years
ago.
This is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena
which cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown
extensions of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the
most inexplicable and best attested of the manifestations presented by
Daniel Dunglas Home. The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the
witnesses of undoubted integrity, and, from the nature of the
experiment, the illuminations of the room were generally more adequate
than in the case of the levitations and elongations. On one occasion,
Home thrust his hand into the fire, and bringing out a red-hot cinder
laid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at the end of half-a-minute it
was removed, the handkerchief was quite free from any traces of burning.
Not content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them
on to others present at the _seance_, who were generally able to receive
them with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated
by an ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands
with some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home
possessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable
difficulty in transferring it to the hands of his spectators.
Here is an account of a _seance_ which took place on the 9th May 1871.
After various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room
were extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot
charcoal, and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he
borrowed for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal
to white heat with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in
one small hole. Mr Crookes, who was present at the _seance_, tested the
handkerchief afterwards in his laboratory and found that it had not been
chemically prepared to resist the action of fire.
After this exhibition--
"Mr Home again went to the fire, and, after stirring the hot
coal about with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as
big as an orange, and putting it on his right hand, so as
almost completely to enclose it, and then blew into the small
furnace thus extemporised until the lump of charcoal was nearly
white hot, and then drew my attention to the lambent flame
which was flickering over the coal and licking round his
fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner,
held up the coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not
his laws wonderful?'"
Among those who have left on record their testimony to this
manifestation are Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, H. D. Jencken, W. M.
Wilkinson, S. C. Hall, etc. etc.
As the great mathematician Professor de Morgan once wittily and wisely
wrote:
"If I were bound to choose among things which I can conceive, I
should say that there is some sort of action of some
combination of will, intellect, and physical power, which is
not that of any of the human beings present. But, thinking it
very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies--say,
half-a-million--about which no man knows anything, I cannot but
suspect that a small proportion of these agencies--say, five
thousand--may be severally competent to the production of all
the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The
physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but
miserably insufficient; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient,
but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the
second asking the first for more results of trial."
It is inconceivable that such a man as Stainton Moses--a hard-working
parish priest and a respected schoolmaster--should deliberately have
entered upon a course of trickery for the mere pleasure of mystifying a
small circle of acquaintances. The whole course of his previous life,
his apparently sincere religious feeling, all combine to contradict such
a supposition. Neither is it credible that such a petty swindler would
have carried out his deceptions to the end, and have left behind fresh
problems, the elucidation of which his eyes could never behold.