CLAIRVOYANCE
It was natural that out of all these mystic practices--those I have
already indicated and the others I am about to indicate--a cult or
religion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name
of spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to
call it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of
course, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied
spirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain
physical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the role
of the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of
those manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation--_i.e._
the actual incarnation of spiritual forms--physical manifestations such
as table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc., trance utterances
and spirit photography.
From the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of
clairvoyance.
Clairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a
technical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the
terminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as "that
psychic power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the
spiritualism sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of
vision, spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this
power; in some it is developed, and in others it has but a casual
quickening. Its extent is governed by the rate of vibration under which
it operates; thus, one clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to
another may be invisible because of the degree of difference in the
intensity of the powers."
Further, "subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person
which enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the
brain of that person, at will, pictures and images which are seen as
visions by that person, without the aid of the physical eye. These
pictures and images may be of things spiritual or material, past or
present, remote or near, hidden or uncovered, or they may have their
existence simply in the conception or imagination of the spirit
communicating them."
Putting aside, however, all "supernatural" explanation, let us consider
how we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance.
What we see is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or
woman by no means above, and often below, the intellectual average
utters, and the hand writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal
ken of the minds of such a man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is,
to put it bluntly, staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife
or sister accidentally dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and
whilst she was still continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom
you were present at a clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance
informed you of the circumstances, you would no doubt be astounded.
Well, the manifestations of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No
matter how our reason is baffled at first, it behoves us not only to
seek a natural explanation of the fact but also to ascertain and
authenticate the fact itself. But a man may not implicitly trust his
senses.
I soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious
phenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even
furnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver
my opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it
can explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped
with unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the
cloud of witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and
experienced investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William
Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic
Myers, Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet,
Professor William James, Professor Janet, Mr Frank Podmore and
Professor Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent
the white light of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a
special study of the matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the
case of trance lucidity and clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer
or speaker is not at work. Yet there certainly would seem to be an
operating intelligence, having a special character and a special
knowledge.
What, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain
its special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the
second question.
1. By telepathy from living people.
2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious,
individual agency of deceased persons.
These he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there
is a wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives.
We can here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.
The mystery of mediumship has probably received more attention from M.
Flournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from
anyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English
investigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close
quarters subjects of a more normal type than the Salpetriere patients
are unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of Helene
Smith.
"Helene [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had
occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially
remarkable. She is, to all outward appearances at the present
time, healthy even to robustness. From the age of fifteen she
has been employed in a large commercial establishment in
Geneva, and holds a position of some responsibility. But it is
in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year she was
persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It
soon appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first
her mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and
assisting in tilting the table, whilst still retaining more or
less consciousness and subsequent memory of her experiences.
Shortly after M. Flournoy's admission to the circle, in the
winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's mediumship advanced a stage,
and she habitually passed at the _seance_ into a trance state,
retaining subsequently no memory of her visions and doings in
that state. Her development followed at first the normal
course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her
sitters, purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the
like. She offered numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from
time to time controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of
her earliest trances were under the guidance and inspiration of
Victor Hugo. Within a few months the spirit of the poet--too
late, indeed, for his own post-mortem reputation, for he had
already perpetrated some verses--was expelled with ignominy by
a more masterful demon who called himself Leopold. The newcomer
was at first somewhat reticent on his own past, and when
urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in moral platitudes.
Later, however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe Balsamo, Count
Cagliostro. It then appeared that in Helene herself was
reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that
others of the mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans,
etc....
"It is Helene's extra-planetary experiences, however, which
have excited most attention, and which furnished to the
attendants at her circle the most convincing proofs of her
dealings with the spiritual world. In November 1894, the spirit
of the entranced medium was wafted--not without threatenings of
sea-sickness--through the cosmic void, to arrive eventually on
the planet Mars. Thereafter night after night she described to
the listening circle the people of our neighbouring planet,
their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she drew pictures
of the inhabitants, human and animal--of their houses, bridges,
and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she
both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the
writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the
characters of the Martian script are unlike any in use on
earth, and that the words (of which a translation is furnished)
bear no resemblance, superficially at least, to any known
tongue. The spirits--for several dwellers upon Mars used
Helene's organism to speak and write through--delivered
themselves with freedom and fluency, and were consistent in
their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In fact,
Martian, as used by the entranced Helene, has many of the
characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising
that some of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the
authenticity of the other revelations, were apparently
convinced that these Martian utterances were beyond the common
order of nature."
All his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his
mind that Helene must somewhere have come across one of the works
containing Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes
were suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the
language, it is just such a work of art as one might form by
substituting for each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary
collocation of letters, and for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol.
The vowel and consonant signs are the same as in French; so are the
inflections, the grammar, the construction. (Take, for example, the
negative ke ani=ne pas, the employment of the same word zi to express
both la "the" and la "there.") If it is childish as a work of art, it is
miraculous enough as a feat of memory. But the reader has not forgotten
what the subliminal self is capable of achieving as regards time
appreciation mentioned in an early chapter. When, however, it comes to
Helene's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M. Flournoy, in spite of his
long investigation, can find no explanation of the supernormal to fit
the case. Her mediumship since 1892 included manifestations of all
kinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they soon ceased. Her
clairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a remarkable
character. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which she was
apparently unacquainted, has been carefully investigated and
authenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of
spiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from
trained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants
as the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been
subjected to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this
type of evidence that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of
spiritualism really rests. It is at once the most impressive, the most
interesting, and the most voluminous.
* * * * *
Of Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have
seen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the
University College School for eighteen years, a man who was never
detected in the slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a
host of intimate friends. Stainton Moses left a mass of published
testimony to his pretended communications from the spirits of deceased
persons. He attached great importance to the evidence for
spiritualistic doctrines. Altogether the "controls" or communicators
numbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses or other members of the
circles had known in life; others--such as Swedenborg, Bishop
Wilberforce, and President Garfield--were historical personages. Besides
these there was a class of individuals of no particular importance, and
apparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it is worthy of
remark that the spirits by whom Moses was "controlled" never withheld
any data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one
_seance_ a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name
"Rosmira." She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on
10th January 1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that
his surname was Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the
whole particulars were to be found in the "Death" notices in _The Daily
Telegraph_. "Mr Moses' spirits," comments Mr Podmore in his "History of
Spiritualism," habitually furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such
other particulars of their lives as could be gathered from the daily
papers, from published biographies, or from the _Annual Register_ and
other works of reference. All the spirits, indeed, gave their names,
with one exception--an exception so significant that the case is worth
recording. _The Pall Mall Gazette_ for 21st February 1874 contains the
following item of intelligence:--
"A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under
a steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in
York-place, Marylebone, and was killed immediately."
"Mr Moses was present at a _seance_ that evening, and his hand
was controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy
suicide, to write an account of the incident, and to draw a
rough picture of a horse attached to a vehicle. The name of the
dead man, it will be seen, does not appear in the newspaper
account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who gave proofs of
their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this
particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous."
But a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance
utterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings,
couched in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily "without any
conscious intervention on the part of the mortal penman." In fact, so
far was this so that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his
mind, during their production.
The claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully
investigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an
eminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic
attainments.
I will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:--
Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the
correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the
four following heads:--
(_a_) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his
consciousness.
(_b_) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in
his consciousness.
(_c_) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at
the moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the
statements of the medium.
(_d_) Things unknown to the sitter.
With regard to things under head (_a_) Mrs Verrall says:
"Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own
observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response
from the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by
me has been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the
evidence of the other sitter, I should have been disposed to
believe that I had unconsciously uttered the thought aloud.
"Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was
in my house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain
friend of my daughter's, who is often at the house, would be
there, when 'Nelly' added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name
my daughter's friend, exactly as though I had uttered the
passing thought. Again, when 'Nelly' was describing a certain
bag given to me for my birthday, something she said made me for
a moment think of a small leather handbag left in my house by a
cousin and occasionally used by me, and she said: 'You had an
uncle that died; it was not long after that.' The father of the
cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I have
known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag
as a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly
described till my momentary thought apparently distracted her
attention to the other bag. I have had in all some five or six
instances of such apparently direct responses as the above to a
thought in the sitter's mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion
I have fixed my attention on some detail for the sake of
helping her to get it, I have never succeeded in doing anything
but what she calls 'muggling her.'"
Another difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls
not infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are
liable to be misinterpreted. Mrs Verrall writes in her report of her
sitting with Mrs Thompson:
"Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The
name was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman,
Merrythought, Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of
these who,' etc. Later, 'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's
not quite right; it's like the name of a garden'; and after in
vain trying to give her the name exactly, she said: 'I will
tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see
school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman
because that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on
spoke of my mother as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with
indifference" ("Proceedings," part xliv. p. 208).
It is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit
communications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with
the use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on "Human
Personality," should be studied in this connection. He points out that
there is "no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the
power to express all the thoughts and emotions of man." And if this is
true of man in his present state, how much more does it apply to man in
another and more advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he
says: "There is a certain quality which reminds one of _translation_, or
of the composition of a person writing in a language in which he is not
accustomed to talk."
As a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:
"That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally
obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the
hypothesis of fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part
fails to explain the phenomena seems to be equally certain;
that to more causes than one is to be attributed the success
which I have recorded seems to me likely. There is, I believe,
some evidence to indicate that telepathy between the sitter and
the trance personality is one of these contributory causes.
But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense
of the term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the
occurrences observed by me, is my present belief."
Instances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few
weeks ago the Rome correspondent of _The Tribune_ reported that a boy of
twelve, at Capua, "was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart
would break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said
that he had just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the
point of death, assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter
came from America announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's
vision, his mother tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be
regarded as 'possessed,' but her efforts were vain, several persons
having been present when he explained the cause of his grief."
The explanation of telepathy would hardly seem to fit the case, since
the father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days
previous to the vision.
I shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic
illustration of the marvels of clairvoyance--that of Mrs Piper.