the above. I am indebted to the "Revelations of a Spirit Medium" for an
explanation of this test. "The investigators are seated in a circle around
the table, male and female alternating. The person sitting on the medium's
right--for he sits in the circle--grasps the medium's right wrist in his
left hand, while his own right wrist is held by the sitter on his right
and this is repeated clear around the circle. This makes each sitter hold
the right wrist of his left hand neighbor in his left hand, while his own
right hand wrist is held in the left hand of his neighbor on the left.
Each one's hands are thus secured and engaged, including the medium's. It
will be seen that no one of the sitters can have the use of his or her
hands without one or the other of their neighbors knowing it. As each hand
was held by a separate person, you cannot understand how he [the medium]
could get the use of either of them except the one on his right was a
confederate. Such was not the case, and still he _did_ have the use of one
hand, the right one. But how? He took his place before the light was
turned down, and those holding him say he did not let go for an instant
during the séance. He did though, after the light was turned out for the
purpose of getting his handkerchief to blow his nose. After blowing his
nose he requested the sitter to again take his wrist, which is done, but
this time it is the wrist of the left hand instead of the right. He has
crossed his legs and there is but one knee to be felt, hence the sitter on
the right does not feel that she is reaching across the right knee and
thinks it is the left knee which she does feel to be the right. He has let
his hand slip down until instead of holding the sitter on his left by the
wrist he has him by the fingers, thus allowing him a little more
distance, and preventing the left hand sitter using the hand to feel about
and discover the right hand sitter's hand on the wrist of the hand holding
his. You will see, now, that although both sitters are holding the same
hand each one thinks he is holding the one on his or her side of the
medium. The balance of the séance is easy."
An amusing incident happened during my sitting with Mr. Tabor. Growing
somewhat weary waiting for him to "manifest," I determined to undertake
some materializations on my own account. I adopted the subterfuge of
getting my right hand loose from the lady on my right, and produced the
spirit hand that clasped the wrist of several of the sitters in the
circle. Mr. X-- asked "Jim" if everything was all right in the circle,
every hand promptly joined, and the magnetic conditions perfect. "Jim"
responded with three affirmative taps on the table top. I congratulate
myself on having deceived "Jim," a spirit operating in the fourth
dimension of space, and supposedly cognizant of all that was transpiring
at the séance. Once, when the medium was floating the trumpet over my
head, I grasped the instrument and dashed it on the table. He made no
further attempt to manipulate the trumpet in my direction, and very
shortly brought the séance to a close. No written communications were
received during the evening.
4. Spirit Photography.
You may deceive the human eye, say the advocates of spirit
materializations, but you cannot deceive the eye of science, the
_photographic camera_. Then they triumphantly produce the spirit
photograph as indubitable evidence of the reality of ghostly
materializations. "Spirit photography," says the late Alexandre Herrmann,
in an article on magic, published in the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, "was the
invention of a man in London, and for ten years Spiritualists accepted the
pictures as genuine representations of originals in the spirit land. The
snap kodak has superseded the necessity of the explanation of spirit
photography."
To be more explicit, there are two ways of producing spirit photographs,
by _double printing_ and by _double exposure_. In the first, the scene is
printed from one negative, and the spirit printed in from another. In the
second method, the group with the friendly spook in proper position is
arranged, and the lens of the camera uncovered, half of the required
exposure being given; then the lens is capped, and the person doing duty
as the sheeted ghost gets out of sight, and the exposure is completed. The
result is very effective when the picture is printed, the real persons
being represented sharp and well defined, while the ghost is but a hazy
outline, transparent, through which the background shows.
Every one interested in psychic phenomena who makes a pilgrimage to the
Capital of the Nation visits the house of Dr. Theodore Hansmann. For ten
years Dr. Hansmann has been an ardent student of Spiritualism, and has had
sittings with many celebrated mediums. The walls of his office are
literally covered with spirit pictures of famous people of history,
executed by spirits under supposed test conditions. There are drawings in
color by Raphael, Michel Angelo, and others. In one corner of the room is
a book-case filled with slates, upon the surfaces of which are messages
from the famous dead, attested by their signatures.
In the fall of 1895, a correspondent of the _New York Herald_ interviewed
Doctor Hansmann on the subject of spirit photographs, and subsequently
visited the United States Bureau of Ethnology, where an interview was had
with Mr. Dinwiddie, an expert photographer. Here is the substance of this
second interview, published in the _Herald_, Nov. 9, 1895.
"Dr. Hansmann's collection of 'spirit' photographs is most interesting.
There is one with the face of the Empress Josephine, and on the same plate
is the head of Professor Darius Lyman, for a long time Chief of the Bureau
of Navigation. The head of the Empress Josephine has a diadem around it,
and the lights and shadows remind one of the well known portrait of her.
On another plate are Grant and Lincoln, Among his other photographs Dr.
Hansmann brought out one of a man who was described to me as an Indian
agent. Around his head were eleven smaller 'spirit' heads of Indians. In
looking at the blue print closely it seemed to me as if I had seen those
identical heads--the same as to light, shade and posing--somewhere before.
"I was aided at the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution by
Mr. F. Webb Hodge, the acting director, who on looking at the blue print
named the Indians directly; several of the pictures were of Indians still
alive. This, of course, immediately disposed of the idea of the blue
print Indians being spirits.
[Illustration: FIG. 29--SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH.
[Taken by the Author.]]
"Moreover, Mr. Dinwiddie produced the negatives containing the identical
portraits of these Indians and made me several proofs, which on a
comparison, feature by feature, light for light, and shade for shade, show
unquestionably that the faces on the blue print are copies of the
portraits made by the photographer of the Bureau of Ethnology.
"Mr. Dinwiddie asked me to sit down for awhile, and offered to make me
some spirit photographs. This he did, and the results obtained may be
considered as far better examples of the art of 'spirit' photography than
those of the medium, Keeler.
"The matter was very simply done. Mr. Dinwiddie asked one of the ladies
from the office to come in, and, she consented to pose as a spirit. She
was placed before the camera at a distance of about six feet, a red
background was given her, so that it might photograph dark, and she was
asked to put on a saintly expression. This she did, and Mr. Dinwiddie gave
the plate a half-second exposure. Another head was taken on the other side
of the plate in much the same manner. After this was done the other or
central photograph was taken with an exposure of four seconds, the plate
being rather sensitive.
"The plate was then taken to the dark room and developed. The negative
came out very well at first, and the halo was put on afterward, when the
plate had been dried. The halo was made by rubbing vignetting paste on the
back, thus shutting out the light and leaving the paper its original hue.
The white shadowy heads which are frequently shown in black coats, and
which the mediums claim cannot be explained, are also done in this manner
with vignetting paste, the picture being afterward centred over these
places, which will be white, the final result showing soft and indefinite,
and giving the required spiritual look.
"Mr. Dinwiddie did not attempt to produce the hazy effect, but this is
very easily accomplished in the photograph by taking the spirit heads a
trifle out of focus. He claims that all of these apparent spiritual
manifestations are but tricks of photography, and ones which might be
accomplished by the veriest tyro, if he were to study the matter, and give
his time to the experiment. It is only a wonder that the mediums do not do
more of it.
"The photograph mediums have always claimed that they were set upon by
photographers for business reasons, but Mr. Dinwiddie is employed by the
government and has no interests whatever in such a dispute."
[Illustration: FIG. 30--SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH BY PRETENDED MEDIUM.]
The eminent authority on photography, Mr. Walter E. Woodbury, gives many
interesting exposes of mediumistic photographs in his work, "Photographic
Amusements," which the student of the subject would do well to consult.
Fig. 30, taken from "Photographic Amusements" is a reproduction of a
"spirit" photograph made by a photographer claiming to be a medium. Says
Mr. Woodbury: "Fortunately, however, we were in this case able to expose
the fraud. Mr. W. M. Murray, a prominent member of the Society of Amateur
Photographers of New York, called our attention to the similarity between
one of the 'spirit' images and a portrait painting by Sichel, the artist.
A reproduction of the picture (Fig 31) is given herewith, and it will be
seen at once that the 'spirit' image is copied from it."
5. Thought Photography.
During the year 1896 considerable stir was created by the investigation of
Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc, of Paris, in the line of "Thought Photography,"
which is of interest to psychic investigators generally. Dr. Baraduc
claimed to have gotten photographic impressions of his thoughts, "made
without sunlight or electricity or contact of any material kind." These
impressions he declared to be subjective, being his own personal
vibrations, the result of a force emanating from the human personality,
supra-mechanical, or spiritual. The experiments were carried on in a dark
room, and according to his statement were highly successful. In a
communication to an American correspondent, printed in the _New York
Herald_, January 3, 1897, he writes: "I have discovered a human, invisible
light, differing altogether from the cathode rays discovered by Prof.
Roentgen." Dr. Baraduc advanced the theory that our souls must be
considered as centers of luminous forces, owing their existence partly to
the attraction and partly to the repulsion of special and potent forces
bred of the invisible cosmos.
A number of French scientific journals took up the matter, and discussed
"Thought Photography" at length, publishing numerous reproductions of the
physician's photographs; but the more conservative journals of England,
Germany and America remained silent on the subject, as it seemed to be on
the borderland between science and charlatanry. On January 11, 1897,
the American newspapers contained an item to the effect that Drs. S.
Millington Miller and Carleton Simon, of New York City, the former a
specialist in brain physiology, and the latter an expert hypnotist, had
succeeded in obtaining successful thought photographs on dry plates from
two hypnotized subjects. When the subjects were not hypnotized, the
physicians reported no results.
[Illustration: FIG. 31--SIGEL'S ORIGINAL PICTURE OF FIG 30.]
As "Thought Photography" is without the pale of known physical laws,
stronger evidence is needed to support the claims made for it than that
which has been adduced by the French and American investigators. "Thought
Photography" once established as a scientific fact, we shall have,
perhaps, an explanation of genuine spirit photographs, if such there be.
6. Apparitions of the Dead.
In my chapter on subjective phenomena, I have not recorded any cases of
phantasms of the dead, though several interesting examples of such have
come under my notice. I have thought it better to refer the reader to the
voluminous reports of the Society for Psychical Research (England). In
regard to these cases, the Society has reached the following conclusion:
_Between deaths and apparitions of dying persons a connection exists which
is not due to chance alone. This we hold as a proved fact._
The "_Literary Digest_," January 12, 1895, in reviewing this report, says:
"Inquiries were instituted in 17,000 cases of alleged apparitions. These
inquiries elicited 1,249 replies from persons [in England and Wales] who
affirmed that they themselves had seen the apparitions. Then the Society
by further inquiries and cross-examinations sifted out all but eighty of
these as discredited in some way, by error of memory or illusions of
identity, or for some other reason, or which could be accounted for by
common psychical laws. Of these eighty, fifty more were thrown out, to be
on the safe side, and the remaining thirty are used as a basis for
scientific consideration. All these consisted of apparitions of dead
persons appearing to others within twelve hours after death, and many of
them appearing at the very hour and even the very minute of death. The
full account of the investigation is published in the tenth volume of the
Society's Reports, under the title, 'A Census of Hallucinations,' and
Prof. J. H. Hyslop, of Columbia College, wrote an article giving the gist
of the report and his comments in the '_Independent_,' (December 27,
1895), from which I cull these few notable paragraphs:
"'The committee which conducted the research reasons as follows: Since the
death rate of England is 19.15 out of every thousand, the chances of any
person's dying on any particular day are one in 19,000 (the ratio of 19.15
to 365 times 1,000). Out of 19,000 death apparitions, therefore, one can
be explained as a simple coincidence. But thirty apparitions out of 1,300
cases is in the proportion of 440 out of 19,000, so that to refer these
thirty well-authenticated apparitions to coincidence is deemed
impossible.'
"And further on:
"'This is remarkable language for the signatures of Prof. and Mrs.
Sidgwick, than whom few harder-headed skeptics could be found. It is more
than borne out, however, by a consideration which the committee does not
mention, but which the facts entirely justify, and it is that since many
of the apparitions occurred not merely on the day, but at the very hour or
minute of death, the improbability of their explanation by chance is
really much greater than the figures here given. That the apparition
should occur within the hour of death the chance should be 1 to 356,000,
or at the minute of death 1 to 21,360,000. To get 30 cases, therefore,
brought down to these limits we should have to collect thirty times these
numbers of apparitions. Either these statistics are of no value in a study
of this kind, or the Society's claim is made out that there is either a
telepathic communication between the dying and those who see their
apparitions, or some causal connection not yet defined or determined by
science. That this connection may be due to favorable conditions in the
subject of the hallucination is admitted by the committee, if the person
having the apparition is suffering from grief or anxiety about the person
concerned. But it has two replies to such a criticism. The first is the
query how and why under the circumstances does this effect coincide
generally with the death of the person concerned, when anxiety is extended
over a considerable period. The second is a still more triumphant reply,
and it is that a large number of the cases show that the subject of the
apparition has no knowledge of the dying person's sickness, place, or
condition. In that case there is no alternative to searching elsewhere for
the cause. If telepathy or thought transference will not explain the
connection, resort must be had to some most extraordinary hypothesis. Most
persons will probably accept telepathy as the easiest way out of the
difficulty, though I am not sure that we are limited to this, the easiest
explanation.'
"Professor Hyslop then proceeds to consider the effect of the committee's
conclusion upon existing theories and speculations regarding the relations
between mind and matter, and foresees with gratification as well as
apprehension the revolt likely to be initiated against materialism and
which may go so far as to discredit science and carry us far back to the
credulous conditions of the Middle Ages. He says:
"'The point which the investigations of the Society for Psychical Research
have already reached creates a question of transcendent interest, no
matter what the solution of it may be, and will stimulate in the near
future an amount of psychological and theological speculation of the most
hasty and crude sort, which it will require the profoundest knowledge of
mental phenomena, normal and abnormal, and the best methods of science to
counteract, and to keep within the limits of sober reason. The hardly won
conquests of intellectual freedom and self-control can easily be
overthrown by a reaction that will know no bounds and which it will be
impossible to regulate. Though there may be some moral gain from the
change of beliefs, as will no doubt be the case in the long run, we have
too recently escaped the intellectual, religious, and political tyranny of
the Middle Ages to contemplate the immediate consequences of the reaction
with any complacency. But no one can calculate the enormous effect upon
intellectual, social, and political conditions which would ensure upon the
reconciliation of science and religion by the proof of immortality."
IV. CONCLUSIONS.
In my investigations of the physical phenomena of modern spiritualism, I
have come to the following conclusion: While the majority of mediumistic
manifestations are due to conjuring, there is a class of cases not
ascribable to trickery, namely, those coming within the domain of psychic
force--as exemplified by the experiments of Gasparin, Crookes, Lodge,
Asakoff and Coues. In regard to the subjective phenomena, I am convinced
that the recently annunciated law of telepathy will account for them. _I
discredit the theory of spirit intervention._ If this be a correct
conclusion, is there anything in mediumistic phenomena that will
contribute to the solution of the problem of the immortality of the soul?
I think there is. The existence of a subjective or subliminal
consciousness in man, as illustrated in the phenomena mentioned, seems to
indicate that the human personality is really a spiritual entity,
possessed of unknown resources, and capable of preserving its identity
despite the shock of time and the grave. Hudson says: "It is clear that
the power of telepathy has nothing in common with objective methods of
communications between mind and mind; and that it is not the product of
muscle or nerve or any physiological combination whatever, but rather sets
these at naught, with their implications of space and time.... When
disease seizes the physical frame and the body grows feeble, the objective
mind invariably grows correspondingly weak.... In the meantime, as the
objective mind ceases to perform its functions, the subjective mind is
most active and powerful. The individual may never before have exhibited
any psychic power, and may never have consciously produced any psychic
phenomena; yet at the supreme moment his soul is in active communication
with loved ones at a distance, and the death message is often, when
psychic conditions are favorable, consciously received. The records of
telepathy demonstrate this proposition. Nay, more; they may be cited to
show that in the hour of death the soul is capable of projecting a
phantasm of such strength and objectivity that it may be an object of
personal experience to those for whom it is intended. Moreover, it has
happened that telepathic messages have been sent by the dying, at the
moment of dissolution, giving all the particulars of the tragedy, when
the death was caused by an unexpected blow which crushed the skull of the
victim. It is obvious that in such cases it is impossible that the
objective mind could have participated in the transaction. The evidence is
indeed overwhelming, that, no matter what form death may assume, whether
caused by lingering disease, old age, or violence, the subjective mind is
never weakened by its approach or its presence. On the other hand, that
the objective mind weakens with the body and perishes with the brain, is a
fact confirmed by every-day observation and universal experience."
This hypothesis of the objective and subjective minds has been criticised
by many psychologists on the ground of its extreme dualism. No such
dualism exists, they contend. However, Hudson's theory is only a working
hypothesis at best, to explain certain extraordinary facts in human
experience. Future investigators may be able to throw more light on the
subject. But this one thing may be enunciated: _Telepathy is an
incontrovertible fact_, account for it as you may, a physical force or a
spiritual energy. If physical, then it does not follow any of the known
operations of physical laws as established by modern science, especially
in the case of transmission of thought at a distance.
It is true, that all evidence in support of telepathic communications is
more or less _ex parte_ in character, and does not possess that validity
which orthodox science requires of investigators. Any student of the
physical laws of matter can make investigations for himself, and at any
time, provided he has the proper apparatus. Explain to a person that water
is composed of two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, and he can easily verify
the fact for himself by combining the gases, in the combination of H2O,
and afterwards liberate them by a current of electricity. But experiments
in telepathy and clairvoyance cannot be made at will; they are isolated in
character, and consequently are regarded with suspicion by orthodox
science. Besides this, they transcend the materialistic theories of
science as regards the universe, and one is almost compelled to use the
old metaphysical terms of mind and matter, body and soul, in describing
the phenomena.
It is an undoubted fact that science has broken away from the old theory
regarding the distinction between mind and matter. Says Prof. Wm. Romaine
Newbold, "In the scientific world it has fallen into such disfavor that
in many circles it is almost as disgraceful to avow belief in it as in
witchcraft or ghosts." We have to-day a school of
"physiological-psychology," calling itself "psychology without a soul."
This school is devoted to the laboratory method of studying mind. "The
laboratory method," says Roark, in his "Psychology in Education," "is
concerned mostly with _physiological_ psychology, which is, after all,
only _physiology_, even though it be the physiology of the nervous system
and the special organs of sense--the material tools of the mind. And after
physiological psychology has had its rather prolix say, causal connection
of the physical organs with psychic action is as obscure and impossible of
explanation as ever. But the laboratory method can be of excellent service
in determining the material conditions of mental action, in detecting
special deficiencies and weaknesses, and in accumulating valuable
statistics along these lines.
"It has been asserted that no science can claim to be exact until it can
be reduced to formulas of weights and measures. The assertion begs the
question for the materialists. We shall probably never be able to weigh an
idea or measure the cubic contents of the memory; but the rapidity with
which ideas are formed or reproduced by memory has been measured in many
particular instances, and the circumstances that retard or accelerate
their formation or reproduction have been positively ascertained and
classified."
That it is possible to explain all mental phenomena in terms of physics is
by no means the unanimous verdict of scientific men. A small group of
students of late years have detached themselves from the purely
materialistic school and broken ground in the region of the supernormal.
Says Professor Newbold (_Popular Science Monthly_, January, 1897): "In the
supernormal field, the facts already reported, should they be
substantiated by further inquiry, would go far towards showing that
consciousness is an entity governed by laws and possessed of powers
incapable of expression in material conceptions.
"I do not myself regard the theory of independence [of mind and body] as
proved, but I think we have enough evidence for it to destroy in any
candid mind that considers it that absolute credulity as to its
possibility which at present characterizes the average man of science."
PART SECOND.
MADAME BLAVATSKY AND THE THEOSOPHISTS.
1. The Priestess.