ON THE MANNER OF COMMUNICATION
Perhaps the commonest and easiest method of communication is what
is called 'automatic writing'--the method by which the above
examples were received--i.e. writing performed through the agency
of subconscious intelligence; the writer leaving his or her hand
at liberty to write whatever comes, without attempting to control
it, and without necessarily attending at the time to what is being
written.
That a novice will usually get nothing, or mere nonsense or
scribbling, in this way is obvious: the remarkable thing is that some
persons are thus able to get sense, and to tap sources of information
outside their normal range. If a rudiment of such power exists, it
is possible, though not always desirable, to cultivate it; but care,
pertinacity, and intelligence are needed to utilise a faculty of
this kind. Unless people are well-balanced and self-critical and
wholesomely occupied, they had better leave the subject alone.
In most cases of fully-developed automatism known to me the
automatist reads what comes, and makes suitable oral replies or
comments to the sentences as they appear: so that the whole has then
the effect of a straightforward conversation of which one side is
spoken and the other written--the speaking side being usually rather
silent and reserved, the writing side free and expansive.
Naturally not every person has the power of cultivating this simple
form of what is technically known as motor automatism, one of the
recognised subliminal forms of activity; but probably more people
could do it if they tried; though for some people it would be
injudicious, and for many others hardly worth while.
The intermediate mentality employed in this process seems to be a
usually submerged or dream-like stratum of the automatist whose hand
is being used. The hand is probably worked by its usual physiological
mechanism, guided and controlled by nerve centres not in the most
conscious and ordinarily employed region of the brain. In some cases
the content or subject-matter of the writing may emanate entirely
from these nerve centres, and be of no more value than a dream; as
is frequently the case with the more elementary automatism set in
action by the use of instruments known as 'planchette' and 'ouija,'
often employed by beginners. But when the message turns out to be of
evidential value it is presumably because this subliminal portion of
the person is in touch, either telepathically or in some other way,
with intelligences not ordinarily accessible,--with living people at
a distance perhaps, or more often with the apparently more accessible
people who have passed on, for whom distance in the ordinary sense
seems hardly to exist, and whose links of connexion are of a kind
other than spatial. It need hardly be said that proof of communion
of this kind is absolutely necessary, and has to be insisted on;
but experience has demonstrated that now and again sound proof is
forthcoming.
Another method, and one that turns out to be still more powerful, is
for the automatist not only to take off his or her attention from
what is being transmitted through his or her organism, but to become
comprehensively unconscious and go into a trance. In that case it
appears that the physiological mechanism is more amenable to control,
and is less sophisticated by the ordinary intelligence of the person
to whom it normally belongs; so that messages of importance and
privacy may be got through. But the messages have to be received
and attended to by another person; for in such cases, when genuine,
the entranced person on waking up is found to be ignorant of what
has been either written or uttered. In this state, speech is as
common as writing, probably more common because less troublesome to
the recipient, _i.e._ the friend or relative to whom or for whom
messages are being thus sent. The communicating personality during
trance may be the same as the one operating the hand without trance,
and the messages may have the same general character as those got
by automatic writing, when the consciousness is not suspended but
only in temporary and local abeyance; but in the trance state a
dramatic characterisation is usually imparted to the proceedings, by
the appearance of an entity called a 'Control,' who works the body
of the automatist in the apparent absence of its customary manager.
This personality is believed by some to be merely the subliminal self
of the entranced person, brought to the surface, or liberated and
dramatised into a sort of dream existence, for the time. By others
it is supposed to be a healthy and manageable variety of the more or
less pathological phenomenon known to physicians and psychiatrists as
cases of dual or multiple personality. By others again it is believed
to be in reality the separate intelligence which it claims to be.
But however much can be and has been written on this subject, and
whatever different opinions may be held, it is universally admitted
that the _dramatic semblance_ of the control is undoubtedly that of
a separate person,--a person asserted to be permanently existing
on the other side, and to be occupied on that side in much the
same functions as the medium is on this. The duty of controlling
and transmitting messages seems to be laid upon such a one--it is
his special work. The dramatic character of most of the controls
is so vivid and self-consistent, that whatever any given sitter
or experimenter may feel is the probable truth concerning their
real nature, the simplest way is to humour them by taking them at
their face value and treating them as separate and responsible and
real individuals. It is true that in the case of some mediums,
especially when overdone or tired, there are evanescent and absurd
obtrusions every now and then, which cannot be seriously regarded.
Those have to be eliminated; and for anyone to treat them as real
people would be ludicrous; but undoubtedly the serious controls
show a character and personality and memory of their own, and they
appear to carry on as continuous an existence as anyone else whom
one only meets occasionally for conversation. The conversation can
be taken up at the point where it left off, and all that was said
appears to be remarkably well remembered by the appropriate control;
while usually memory of it is naturally and properly repudiated by
another control, even when operating through the same medium; and
the entranced medium knows nothing of it afterwards after having
completely woke up.
So clearly is the personality of the control brought out, in the
best cases, so clear also are the statements of the communicators
that the control who is kindly transmitting their messages is a real
person, that I am disposed to accept their assertions, and to regard
a control, when not a mere mischievous and temporary impersonation,
as akin on their side to the person whom we call a medium on ours.
The process of regular communication--apart from the exceptional
more direct privilege occasionally vouchsafed to people in
extreme sorrow--thus seems to involve normally a double medium of
communication, and the activity of several people. First there is the
'Communicator' or originator of ideas and messages on the other side.
Then there is the 'control' who accepts and transmits the messages
by setting into operation a physical organism lent for the occasion.
Then there is the 'Medium' or person whose normal consciousness is in
abeyance but whose physiological mechanism is being used. And finally
there is the 'Sitter'--a rather absurd name--the recipient of the
messages, who reads or hears and answers them, and for whose benefit
all this trouble is taken. In many cases there is also present a
Note-taker to record all that is said, whether by sitters or by or
through the medium; and it is clear that the note-taker should pay
special attention to and carefully record any hints or information
either purposely or accidentally imparted by the sitter.
In scientific and more elaborately conducted cases there is also some
one present who is known as the Experimenter in charge--a responsible
and experienced person who looks after the health and safety of the
medium, who arranges the circumstances and selects the sitters,
making provision for anonymity and other precautions, and who
frequently combines with his other functions the duties of note-taker.
In oral or voice sittings the function of the note-taker is more
laborious and more responsible than in writing sittings; for
these latter to a great extent supply their own notes. Only as
the trance-writing is blindfold, _i.e._ done with shut eyes and
head averted, it is rather illegible without practice; and so the
experimenter in charge frequently finds it necessary to assist the
sitter, to whom it is addressed, by deciphering it and reading it
aloud as it comes--rather a tiring process; at the same time jotting
down, usually on the same paper, the remarks which the sitter makes
in reply, or the questions from time to time asked. Unless this is
done the subsequent automatic record lacks a good deal of clearness,
and sometimes lacks intelligibility.
For a voice-sitting the note-taker must be a rapid writer, and if
able to employ shorthand has an advantage. Sometimes a stenographer
is introduced; but the presence of a stranger, or of any person
not intimately concerned, is liable to hamper the distinctness and
fulness of a message; and may prevent or retard the occurrence of
such emotional episodes as are from time to time almost inevitable in
the cases--alas too numerous at present--where the sitter has been
recently and violently bereaved.
It is perhaps noteworthy--though it may not be interesting or
intelligible to a novice--that communicators wishing to give
private communications seldom or never object to the presence of
the actual 'medium'--_i.e._ the one on our side. That person seems
to be regarded as absent, or practically non-existent for a time;
the person whose presence they sometimes resent at first is the
'control,' _i.e._ the intelligence on their side who is ready to
receive and transmit their message, somewhat perhaps as an Eastern
scribe is ready to write the love-letters of illiterate persons.
As to the presence of a note-taker or third person on our side, such
person is taken note of by the control, and when anything private
or possibly private is mentioned--details of illnesses or such
like--that third person is often ordered out of the room. Sometimes
the experimenter in charge is likewise politely dispensed with,
and under these circumstances the sitting occasionally takes on
a poignant character in which note-taking by the deeply affected
sitter becomes a practical impossibility. But this experience is
comparatively rare; it must not be expected, and cannot wisely be
forced.
Another circumstance which makes me think that the more responsible
kind of control is a real person, is that sometimes, after
gained experience, the Communicator himself takes control, and
speaks or writes in the first person, not only as a matter of
first-person-reporting, which frequently occurs, but really in his
own proper person and with many of his old characteristics. So if
one control is a real person I see no reason against the probability
of others being real likewise. I cannot say that the tone of voice
or the handwriting is often thus reproduced--though it is, for a few
moments, by special effort sometimes; but the unusual physiological
mechanism accounts for outstanding or residual differences. Apart
from that, the peculiarities, the attitudes, the little touches
of manner, are often more or less faithfully reproduced, although
the medium may have known nothing of the person concerned. And the
characteristic quality of the message, and the kind of subjects dealt
with, become still more marked in such cases of actual control, than
when everything has to be transmitted through a kindly stranger
control, to whom things of a recondite or technical character may
appear rather as a meaningless collocation of words, very difficult
to remember and reproduce.
NOTE ON DIFFICULTY OF REMEMBERING NAMES
When operating indirectly in the ordinary way through a
control and a medium, it usually appears to be remarkably
difficult to get names transmitted. Most mediums are
able to convey a name only with difficulty. Now plainly
a name, especially the proper name of a person, is a
very conventional and meaningless thing: it has very few
links to connect it with other items in memory; and hence
arises the normally well-known difficulty of recalling
one. Conscious effort made to recover a name seems to
inhibit the power of doing so: the best plan is to leave
it, and let subconsciousness work. An example occurred
to me the other day, when I tried to remember the name
of a prominent statesman or ex-Prime Minister whom I had
met in Australia. What I seemed to recollect was that
the name began with "D," and I made several shots at
it, which I recorded. The effort went on at intervals
for days, since I thought it would be an instructive
experiment. I know now, a month or two later, without
any effort and without looking it up, that the name was
Deakin; but what my shots at it were I do not remember.
I will have the page in the note-book looked up and
reproduced here, as an example of memory-groping, at
intervals, during more than one day. Here they are:--D.
Dering, Denman, Deeming, Derriman, Derring, Deeley,
Dempster, Denting, Desman, Deering.
Now I knew the name quite well, and have known it for
long, and have taken some interest in the gentleman who
owns it; and I am known by some members of my family to
have done so. Hence if I had been on 'the other side'
and could only get as far as D, it would have seemed
rather absurd to anyone whose memory for names is good.
But indeed I have had times when names very much more
familiar to me than that could not on the spur of the
moment be recalled--not always even the initial letter;
though, for some reason or other, the initial letter is
certainly easier than the word.
The kind of shots which I made at the name before
recalling it--which it may seem frivolous to have
actually recorded--are reminiscent of the kind of shots
which are made by mediums under control when they too
are striving after a name; and it was a perception of
this analogy which caused me to jot down my own guesses,
or what, in the case of a medium, we should impolitely
call 'fishing.' I think that the name was certainly in
my memory though it would not come through my brain. The
effort is like the effort to use a muscle not often or
ever used--say the outer ear--one does not know which
string to pull, so to speak, or, more accurately, which
nerve to stimulate, and the result is a peculiarly
helpless feeling, akin to stammering. In the case of a
medium, I suppose the name is often in the mind of the
communicator, but it will not come through the control.
The control sometimes describes it as being spoken or
shown but not clearly caught. The communicator often does
not know whether a medium has successfully conveyed it or
not.