THE ACCOUNTS OF BELIEVERS
One is repeatedly faced with a story of the marvellous and invited to
explain it away or believe in the supernatural. My favourite way of
dealing with such a proposition is to borrow a pack of cards, invite the
story-teller to take a card, and, without letting me see it, to think of
it whilst holding my hand. After a silent pause I name the card and may
be told, 'of course that's a trick', and on assuring my friends that the
spirits have told me the name of the card I am called a scoffer; somehow
a pack of cards is not spiritual enough.
Some stories are hard to explain without full evidence, and here is one
of them: A friend assured me that in _Raymond_ was an account of how one
of Sir Oliver Lodge's family went to London to visit a medium, and how
after she had started some others of the family met in Birmingham, and,
calling up the spirit of Raymond, asked him to say 'Honolulu' at the
London seance. Sure enough at the London seance held on the same day
'Honolulu' came into the spirit talk. This account is substantially
correct (see pp. 271 _et seq._) and the incident is inexplicable so
far; Sir Oliver Lodge says of the episode:--
'1. It establishes a reality about the home sittings.
2. It so entirely eliminates anything of the nature of collusion,
conscious or unconscious.
3. The whole circumstances of the test make it an exceedingly good
one.'
Then, after suggesting Telepathy as an explanation, he writes: 'I
venture to say there is no normal explanation, since in my judgement
chance is out of the question.'
If the information had stopped at this no explanation on natural lines
would be possible, but so painfully honest is Sir Oliver that in the
same book he supplies full material for such an explanation. At a London
seance on December 20th, 1915, with the same medium there occurs the
following:--
(Question): 'What used he to sing?'
(Answer): 'Hello-Hullolo, sounds like Hullulu-Hullulo, something
about "Hottentot," but he is going back a long way he thinks.'
On April 11th, 1916, a song of Raymond's is found with the words written
in pencil:--
'Any little flower from a tulip to a rose
If you'll be Mrs. John James Brown
Of Hon-o-lu-la-lu-la town.'
This song is fitted to the medium's revelations as given above, and the
next point of interest is whether the medium is informed of her success.
This we are not told, but we find on page 95 that when another medium
had hit the mark, with a sentence now interpreted as a warning of the
death of Raymond before it took place, Sir Oliver wrote to the daughter
of the medium: 'The reference to the Poet and Faunus in your mother's
last script is quite intelligible, and a good classical allusion; you
might tell the communicator sometime if there is opportunity.'
Plainly he is desirous of letting his mediums know when they succeed and
it is fair to suggest that the Hullulu medium found she had hit the
mark, the interpretation of the gibberish being 'Honolulu', though
Hottentot failed to score. A medium will always follow up a lucky shot
and it needs not even an appeal to chance to explain the repetition of
the word at the next sitting, after the verification, which was on May
26th (the date of the simultaneous test), the following being the words
used:--
(The medium says): 'You could play.'
(N. M. L. asks): 'Play what?'
(The medium): 'Not a game, a music.'
(N. M. L.): 'I'm afraid I can't, Raymond.'
(Feda (_sotto voce_): 'She can't do that'): 'He wanted to know
whether you could play Hulu-Honolulu.'
One of the strongest 'evidential' stories in the book being thus
explicable without calling upon the supernatural, any others lose their
value even if no explanation can be based on the available facts; but
apart from this explanation the choice of the test word throws a light
upon the little group tilting the table at Birmingham. With the whole
dictionary and all geography from which to choose, they selected a
sound which had occurred in a former revelation and therefore had a
chance of repetition. If in his laboratory days Sir Oliver examined a
substance for the presence of arsenic, he would first test his reagents
for the presence of that metal lest they might contain a trace of it and
vitiate the experiment. In this test the experimenters did what was
equivalent to selecting an arsenic-contaminated test-tube to use in an
analysis for that substance.
How did the word come to be selected? If the family of this
distinguished man had used ordinary caution in formulating the test,
they would certainly have chosen a word that had not occurred before,
and I think that point must be clear to the reader. But, though they are
probably sensible people in ordinary life, when they turn to the spirit
world they fall a prey to their dissociated streams, in which was the
knowledge that the word or something like it had been used before and
was likely to be used again, especially if, as I suggest, the medium
knew it had scored. Hence these believers were, as far as concerned
their dissociated streams, deliberately introducing a source of error
or, in laboratory language, cooking the experiment.
Among my card tricks is included the elementary one (technically known
as 'forcing a card') described at the beginning of this chapter, but I
may let some one choose a card from the pack on the table whilst my back
is turned; then, the card being placed in the pack which I have now
taken in my hand, I do some other trick. It is common for these tricks
to be confounded, and for one of my audience to assure friends that I
let him or her take a card from the pack on the table when my back was
turned and then named it by 'thought-reading.' Such a performance is
beyond me, but a like garbled account is characteristic of what we hear
concerning seances: the story-tellers are in a state of mental
confusion, they add or subtract in order to make the result emphatic,
any power of criticism they possess is suspended, and we are asked to
swallow the final product and confess ourselves believers.
After considering my own experiences and the evidence produced by Sir
Oliver Lodge, I have reached the conclusion that no one desirous of
believing only the truth can accept anything 'supernormal' without the
strictest investigation on the spot, aided by a knowledge of trickery,
verbal or material, as well as of the results produced by dissociation
and logic-tight compartments in the minds of the would-be honest.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shows how convincing a twice-told tale becomes. I
borrow from _The New Revelation_ (p. 64):--
'Or once again, if Raymond can tell us of a photograph no copy of
which had reached England, and which proved to be exactly as he
described it, and if he can give us, through the lips of strangers,
all sorts of details of his home life, which his own relatives had
to verify before they found them to be true, is it unreasonable to
suppose that he is fairly accurate in his description of his own
experiences and state of life at the moment at which he is
communicating?'
The words 'can tell us of a photograph no copy of which had reached
England' would lead us to believe that information that the photograph
existed came from Raymond: fortunately the original account is
accessible.
Here is the photograph story, taken from _Raymond_ (p. 195). The medium
speaks, saying: 'You have several portraits of this boy. Before he went
away you had got a good portrait of him--two--no three. Two where he is
alone and one where he is in a group of other men. He is particular that
I should tell you of this. In one you see his walking-stick'. (Moonstone
here put an imaginary stick under his arm.)
This is ordinary guess-work, and it would be true of the families of
most officers, even as to the stick; but it was not true in this case,
for we read that though they had 'single photographs of him of course,
and in uniform', they had _not_ one of him in a group of other men; yet
this is the revelation referred to by Sir Arthur--the photograph
incident that has impressed so many.
Let us put the two statements side by side:--
Before he went away you ... Raymond can tell us
had ... one where he is in a of a photograph no copy of
group of other men. He is which had reached England?
particular that I should tell
you of this.
Not being able to explain the extraordinary identity of these
photographs, I must leave the problem to the creator of Sherlock Holmes;
we shall gain no help from Sir Oliver, for his ideas of identity, as we
shall see in the next paragraph, are equally curious.
Now for 'exactly as he described it': Sir Oliver Lodge, having been
informed in an ordinary letter that a group photograph containing
Raymond is being sent to him from France, went to another medium and
told her, 'He said something about having a photograph taken with some
other men' (this itself is a garbled statement); leading questions
followed, and the medium fenced with them. Here are the important
ones:--
O. J. L.: 'Do you recollect the photograph at all?'
'He thinks there were several others taken with him, not one or
two, but several.' (This is not even a guess.)
O. J. L.: 'Does he remember how he looked in the photograph?'
'No, he doesn't remember how he looked.'
O. J. L.: 'No, no. I mean was he standing up?'
'No, he doesn't seem to think so. Some were raised up round; he was
sitting down, and some were raised up at the back of him. Some were
standing, and some were sitting, he thinks.'
(Here is a correct description, anyhow; it is an even chance whether he
is sitting or standing, and, the sitting chance being taken, the rest is
padding. We are told on page 279 that another photograph showed him
standing, so that a hit could have been scored if the other chance had
been taken.)
O. J. L.: 'Did he have a stick?'
'He doesn't remember that.'
(Yet the presence of a stick in the picture is hailed on page 110 as one
of the strikingly correct peculiarities mentioned by Raymond. Be it
noted that the stick was spoken of in connection with one of the three
photographs that the family was said to have _before he went away_, and
is used as 'evidence' concerning _the one sent home from France_.)
O. J. L.: 'Was it out of doors?'
'Yes, practically.'
Feda (_sotto voce_): 'What you mean, "yes practically," must have
been out of doors or not out of doors. You mean yes, don't you?'
Feda thinks he means 'yes,' because he says 'practically'.
O. J. L.: 'It may have been a shelter.'
'It might have been. Try to show Feda. At the back he shows me
lines going down. It looks like a black background, with lines at
the back of them. (Feda here kept drawing vertical lines in the
air.)'
(The shelter is suggested by O. J. L.; Feda takes the hint and
visualises the shelter. Most shelters have vertical lines in their
structure. Such lines occur in the photograph and are strong 'evidence.'
The background is not black except for two open windows.)
The only revelation worthy of attention is this: 'He remembers that some
one wanted to lean on him; but he is not sure if he was taken with some
one leaning on him.... The last what he gave you, what were a B, will be
rather prominent in that photograph. It wasn't taken in a photographer's
place.' (Few out-door groups are.)
In the photograph he has some one's hand resting on his shoulder, and
an ambiguous guess scores a hit. As for B, Sir Oliver writes: 'I have
asked several people which member of the group seemed most prominent;
and except as regards central position a well-lighted standing figure on
the right has usually been pointed to as the most prominent. This one is
"B", as stated, namely, Captain S. T. Boast.'
Some initials are guessed--C, B, R, and K. As there are twenty-one
people in the group, and the alphabet contains only twenty-four letters
(excluding X and Z), it is hardly a mathematical surprise that
seventy-five per cent. are correct.
So much for the photograph that proved to be 'exactly as he described
it' (Sir Arthur) and 'one of the best pieces of evidence that has been
given' (Sir Oliver).
'All sorts of details of his home life' we must suppose refers to the
scenery of Woolacombe, the tent, the boat that went (or didn't) on land,
the song about Hululu and the Hottentot, the fishing rods that are not
understood at present, and so on.
As a test of unintentional garbling I asked a professional man, who had
read _Raymond_ sympathetically, to give me a short account of what the
medium said about the photograph. Here is his version, and it must be
understood that he knew I should criticise it:--
'Sir Oliver Lodge was told by a medium that Raymond wished to tell
him about a photograph taken in France. The medium said the
photograph was of a group of officers including Raymond--a photo
Sir Oliver had not seen. _There were lines running vertically in
the background. Raymond is seated._ Some one's knee was
preventing him from sitting comfortably and annoyed him. He was
holding a stick. _The photo was out of doors_, but in a sheltered
position.'
The only points in which this tallies with the book description of what
the medium (not Sir Oliver) said are those shown by the words in italic.
The rest is garbled, and for the garbling my friend and Sir Oliver are
about equally responsible.
I have since asked other intelligent people to read the chapter and then
write out the story; the result is generally similar to that just given.
The affair is such a to-do about nothing that the sympathetic and
uncritical reader, deceived by the fuss, thinks there must be something
in it and makes additions of his own to account for his belief. Had he
read it critically he would have recognised the emptiness of the story,
but once he is impressed by it he must improve it or become aware of its
flimsiness.
Once again I must emphasise the way in which a guess, wide of the truth,
is wrenched into an application to something entirely irrelevant. The
first medium says that before Raymond went away his family had a
photograph which showed him in a group of other men; _because this is
not true_, it is twisted into a reference to a photograph taken in
France and not yet received. The revelations of this medium must be cut
out of the story, and the whole incident is reduced to Sir Oliver Lodge
being told in an ordinary letter that a group photograph is on its way
to him; then he tells another medium about a group photograph, and in
answer to leading questions she makes the halting guesses reproduced
above.
This is the famous photograph story, stripped of exaggeration and
garbling. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would lead us to believe that the
medium told Sir Oliver about the existence of the photograph, but the
true account shows that, so far from this being the case, _Sir Oliver
told the medium_.
It is a commonplace of spiritualism that a medium may be guilty of
trickery at one time and genuinely gifted at another. We may freely
admit that mediums are peculiar people, but when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
writes on a subject that needs careful observation and description and
gives this distorted account of the photograph story, he can expect
little credence when he writes in the same book equally convincing
stories of the supernatural and puts them before the public as a
contribution to religious thought. He gives a list of eminent men who
vouch for the genuineness of supernatural phenomena, and says that the
days are past when their opinions can be dismissed with the empty 'All
rot' or 'Nauseating drivel' formula. I agree, and regard their opinions
as interesting objects of psychological study. A little research could
produce a longer list of men, equally eminent in their day, who believed
in witchcraft and were willing to execute people in accordance with that
belief. The belief may yet return with all its horrors if _The New
Revelation_ is taken seriously. On page 168 we read concerning the
Cheriton poltergeist[19]:--
'It is very probable that Mr. Rolfe is, unknown to himself, a physical
medium, and that when he was in the confined space of the cellar he
turned it into a cabinet in which his magnetic powers could accumulate
and be available for use.' (It is hard to believe that he who speaks
like this about 'magnetic powers' once had at least an elementary
knowledge of physics.) On page 170 we read, concerning another
poltergeist, that '... a clergyman, with some knowledge of occult
matters, has succeeded by sympathetic reasoning and prayer in obtaining
a promise from the entity that it will plague the household no more.'
[Footnote 19: A poltergeist is a spirit that throws things about; its
appearance is generally associated with the presence of some young
person, whose tricks may be detected to the discredit of the ghostly
cause. If trickery is not detected the poltergeist is the manifestation
of an evil spirit.]
Poor Mr. Rolfe has had a narrow escape of being mixed up with an
'entity' who, or which, might have led him to the stake in a
thorough-going spiritualist age.
This relation between spiritualism and witchcraft is not a fantasy of my
unconscious; listen to this from another believer:--
'The dangers of the spiritual world are greater because, bad as a
man living on our plane may be, he cannot compare in that respect
with a thoroughly wicked denizen of the fourth-dimensional space,
whose power is all the greater because his very existence is almost
universally denied. What little good was ever in him has been
blotted out in the course, perhaps, of centuries; his cunning
passes earthly comprehension; his experience of the ways and
foibles of humanity is profound; his malignity is dreadful. To be
fully under the influence of such an entity as this is to be at his
mercy, and, as no such word exists in his vocabulary, the end is a
foregone conclusion, unless another force of a contrary character
and at least as powerful is directed against him.'[20]
[Footnote 20: _Problems of the Borderland_, p. 49, by J. Herbert Slater.
Wm. Rider & Sons, 1915.]
It is indeed fortunate that the existence of these entities is almost
universally denied. Hangings and burnings would be soon in fashion again
if any large proportion of us were influenced by such a horrible
complex.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has given an account to the papers (see _Daily
Telegraph_, February 18th, 1919) of a seance in Wales. Hymns were sung
to produce a suitable emotional state, and 'the lights were turned down
in order to obtain the proper conditions, because ether transmits light,
and is also the source of all psychic phenomena.' Then, the medium being
tied down, a tambourine rattled, and a coat and furniture flew about.
The bearing of this upon life in the hereafter, which Sir Arthur
discusses in connection with the performance, is not clear, but the
effects are identical with those produced by the Davenport Brothers, who
were exposed in 1868.[21]
[Footnote 21: See _The Question_, p. 103.]
The list of witnesses, who numbered about twenty, leads me to remark
that though in a multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom yet in a
crowd of witnesses there is Herd Instinct. With a conspicuous member of
the Herd like Sir Arthur in the lead, the sway of emotion will dull any
criticism, and if a few are unconvinced they will remain silent.[22]
[Footnote 22: In _Spiritualism--the inside Truth_ (chap. vi) Stuart
Cumberland tells how this medium refused to admit him to a seance.
Stringent precautions, however, were followed by a failure to produce
spirit manifestations.]
The statement that ether is the source of all psychic phenomena is
startling, but unsupported. Another believer, Sir William Crookes, says,
concerning exhibitions of what he calls 'Psychic Force', that '...
everything recorded has taken place _in the light_'.[23] So there seems
to be some fundamental error about the observations of one of them. But
Sir William's results were obtained from the famous Daniel Home, whose
years of experience in credulity allowed him to take risks which the
humble beginners in Wales hardly dared.
[Footnote 23: _Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism_, p. 25. 'Two Worlds'
Publishing Co., 1903.]
To examine all the stories of the supernatural is impossible; many are,
I frankly admit, inexplicable _on the evidence_; but it is fair to
assert that when an observer, on a subject which requires the most
careful watching and closest reasoning, shows by his own account that he
is ready to be deceived, then we cannot be convinced by his statements
when they are unverifiable. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is thus ruled out of
court, for his account of the photograph story shows, to put it gently,
a lack of clear writing, and his readiness to thrust upon the public a
repetition of the Davenport tricks, without a warning as to their
history, is not what we should expect from a man who has studied the
subject for thirty years.
Sir William Crookes gives detailed accounts of marvellous happenings,
but two mediums in whom he had implicit trust were detected in
deliberate fraud by other people,[24] so that his critical powers failed
him.
[Footnote 24: Miss Fox and Mrs. Cook; see _The Question_, pp. 84 and
127.]
Some of his accounts show curious lapses. In one experiment an accordion
is placed in a cage under the table and Mr. Home puts his hand into the
top of the cage to do psychic things with the instrument. The
temperature of the room is carefully recorded (that doesn't matter, but
imparts a scientific flavour to the observations) although we are not
told why the experiment was done under the table instead of in a more
convenient position on top of it, though 'my assistant went under the
table, and reported that the accordion was expanding and contracting,'
and 'Dr. A. B. now looked under the table and said that Mr. Home's hand
appeared quite still.' Sir William would never have made such an
omission if he had been using the same reasoning powers that he used in
his scientific descriptions.
It is noticeable that the chief 'scientific' supporters of spiritualism
are eminent in physical science; they have been trained in a world where
honesty is assumed to be a quality of all workers. A laboratory
assistant who played a trick upon one of them would find his career at
an end, and ordinary cunning is foreign to them. When they enter upon
the world of Dissociates, where deceit masquerades under the disguise of
transparent honesty, these eminent men are but as babes--country cousins
in the hands of confidence-trick men--and their opinions are of less
value than those of a smart schoolboy.
Spirit photographs are useful to people who desire to show material
evidence for their beliefs, and for more than fifty years the desire has
been met by periodical outbreaks of this particular manifestation, with
occasional exposures of fraud. The spirit effects can be produced by
double exposure of one plate or by printing on one paper from two
negatives, so that the declaration that a photograph is that of a spirit
carries no proof with it and one must examine the circumstances under
which the photograph is obtained.
A friend of mine, with a decided tendency to belief in the reality of
spirit photography, was good enough to show me photographs of himself
with spirit forms beside him, and undertook to repeat his visit to the
photographer--who is accepted as genuine by leading spiritualists and
appears to be the chief exponent in the art of spirit photography in
this country--and take with him plates supplied by myself.
The photographer allows you to bring your own plates, goes with you into
the dark-room, and allows you to initial the plate before it is put in
the frame (whether it is your plate which you mark depends upon the will
and dexterity of the artist, aided by the darkness and a preliminary
hymn and prayer which should remove all doubts from your mind). Then the
plate is put in the camera and, whilst attendant ladies pass into a
trance, an exposure is made with yourself as the sitter. Next the plate
is developed under your eyes and perhaps a spirit form is revealed.
I provided my friend with a packet of four plates, three of which had
been exposed so that on being developed they would show a very
conspicuous cross. At the seance two plates were first exposed and
developed; on one appeared a cross with the portrait of the sitter, on
the other appeared only the portrait.
The photographer now knew that one plate at least was marked, and when
the remaining two plates were exposed and developed the cross appeared
on both of them.[25] There had been no substitution, but no spirit
photographs either. Then the old excuse appeared--'one negative thought
will spoil a whole circle', or, in other words, 'if you are on the
watch for trickery we won't perform'.
[Footnote 25: This is doubtful. My informant reported that he saw no
cross on the last two plates, but when the four prints came to hand the
cross appeared on three of them. Two prints were identical--though each
was supposed to be from its own negative. If the photographer aimed at
puzzling me he has succeeded.]
It must be remembered that even in a 'good' seance only one or two
spirit results may appear in several exposures, so the photographer can
always expose, develop, and examine any or all of your plates, and at
the least suspicion that yours are marked he may refrain from
substituting his own prepared plates and blame the spirits for the lack
of manifestations.
One may ask why a private mark (say a faint file scratch on the edge)
was not put on the plates so that the photographer himself could not
detect, even after development, that they were marked in any way? Such a
course would at once reveal whether substitution had taken place--though
even then the real believer could declare that the spirits had removed
the scratches.
But this test is frustrated by the photographer--simple honest man--who
refuses to part with the plates; he says they are now his property, but
he will let you have some prints!
In this example we find, as in so much 'evidential material', a point
where investigation is blocked and credulity is demanded. Another piece
of evidence is produced in this case, and I am shown a spirit photograph
beside a lady's. The lady claims that the spirit is that of a young man,
now deceased, to whom she was engaged. She was a stranger to the
photographer, so how could he produce the likeness even if he
substituted his own plates? But when I showed this spirit photograph to
a friend, with a query as to sex, she answered, 'But it _is_ a woman,
isn't it? It looks rather like N----.'
Now N---- is a mature maiden lady, so that the sexless features of the
spirit leave plenty of room for the play of fancy.
We are invited to accept or disprove stories of spirit photography
reported from the Continent, but whilst leading spiritualists in this
country accept the productions of the man whose methods I have described
I must refuse attention to anything they vouch for farther afield.
Mr. Crawford, a mathematician and engineer of Belfast, has published
reports of investigations of table-lifting seances, and builds up a
theory of spiritual cantilevers which he believes to explain his
results. The theory is pretty and the diagrams are impressive, but the
facts first call for examination.
Reading his accounts, I find that the experiments are carried out in a
dim red light, for a sudden white light causes the immediate cessation
of the phenomena. In addition there is a sacred line between the medium
and the levitated table which must not be investigated on pain of
dreadful results to the medium. This threat of physical evil to the
medium if the sceptic should investigate at a crucial point is a common
pretext, but though sceptics have often taken the risk, and seized a
spirit to discover a disguised medium, there is no record of such
disastrous results as Mr. Crawford would have us fear.
I suggest that this investigator should use his technical knowledge to
show how a simple but material cantilever, operated by the medium along
the sacred line, can produce levitation of the table.
The complaint is made that scientific men scoff at spiritualism and yet
refuse to investigate it; in the last two examples we see why this is
inevitable. Investigation is prevented in each at the very point where
fraud might be detected; so long as such obstruction is maintained the
spiritualists are likely to continue their complaints, and one must be
content to speculate on the mental state which allows a few men of
scientific training to support their claims.
The reader must not think that my aim is to convert spiritualists from
their belief. It is, as I have tried to show in earlier chapters,
useless to attack rationalisations in an effort to penetrate a
logic-tight compartment; as soon as one defence is broken down another
is built up, and one can only take comfort from the history of other
examples of _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, as Sir Thomas Browne (he himself
being, strangely enough, an active believer in witchcraft) called them,
and look forward to the fading away of this delusion. Just as the belief
in witchcraft passed away from the educated and intelligent, lingering
only amongst the ignorant, so this delusion will pass and leave our
descendants to wonder how some of us came to be its victims.