Charles Richet - Thirty Years of Psychical Research
Charles Richet - Thirty Years of Psychical Research
Charles Richet - Thirty Years of Psychical Research
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
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Thirty Years of Psychical
Research
B E IN G
A Treatise on Metapsychics
BY
j&tto got*
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1923
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CoratiGHT, 1023,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
C h apter VI. S C
p o r a d ic ................................... 245
r y p t e s t h e s ia
3
4 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
be nothing in the universe but the natural and the normal. From
the moment that a fact exists it is necessarily both natural and
normal. The terms supernatural and supernormal must
therefore be rejected along with the occult. This latter term
is indeed somewhat naive, for the occult simply means that
which is involved in mystery and therefore inaccessible to us.
In 1905,1 proposed the term Metapsychic,1 which has been unani
mously accepted. It has on its side no less an authority than
Aristotle. Aristotle, having discussed the physical forces, went
on to write on those great laws of nature that transcend physics.
He took the title Meta-physics, {nita rot cpviinoi).
This term must now be defined.
Metapsychic facts are marked off from the physical in that
they seem due to an unknown intelligence, whether human or
non-human. In nature we observe intelligence only among living
beings; in man we perceive no sources of cognition otherwise
than through the senses. We leave to normal psychology the
study of human and animal intelligence. Metapsychic phenomena
are quite different; they seem due to unknown but intelligent
forces, including among these unknown intelligences the astonish
ing intellectual phenomena of our subconsciousness.
Leaving aside the sharply demarcated field of normal psychol
ogy, metapsychics is the only science that deals with intelligent
forces. All other forces as yet studied by men of science, from
the point of view of cause and effect, are blind forces devoid of
self-consciousness and capricein other words, without person
ality or will. We cannot suspect the least intellectuality in the
combination of chlorine and sodium. Mercury expands by heat
without its being able to understand or modify its expansion. The
sun projects calorific, electric, and luminous rays without will or
choiceit has neither personality nor thought. But the forces
that govern presentiments, telepathy, movements of objects with
out contact, apparitions, and certain mechanical and luminous
phenomena do not seem to be blind and unconscious forces like
those of chlorine, mercury, and the sun. They have none of the
fatality that attaches to the mechanical and chemical reactions of
When, in 1905, I presented this word in the course of my presidential
address to the S. P. R., London, Mr. W. Lutoslawski pointed out to me that
(Wyklady Jagiellonskie,
in a Polish publication Cracow, 1902), he had already
suggested this word; but this was for somewhat different reasons. E. Boirac
has suggested the term Parapsychics, which has not found acceptance, while
the term Metapsychics is now generally adopted.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 5
matter. They appear to have intellectuality, will, and intention,
which may not be human, but which resemble human will and
intention. Intellectualitythe power of choice, intention, and
decision conformably to a personal willcharacterizes all meta
psychic phenomena.
I shall divide our subject-matter into Objective and Subjective
Metapsychics.
Objective metapsychics deals with certain mechanical, physical,
or chemical effects perceptible to our senses, not proceeding
from known forces, but seemingly directed by intelligence. It
states, classifies, and analyzes these material phenomena.
Subjective metapsychics studies those phenomena that are
purely intellectual. These are characterized by an indication of
some realities that are not revealed by our senses. Everything
takes place as if we had a mysterious faculty of cognition
luciditywhich the classical physiology of sensation cannot as
yet explain. I propose to call this faculty Cryptesthesia, i.e., a
sensibility whose nature escapes us.
Metapsychic science therefore treats of purely mental phe
nomena that can be admitted without reference to any known
laws of living or inert matter, or any change in our concepts of
the different physical energiesheat, light, electricity, gravitation,
etc., which we are accustomed to measure and specify.
Objective metapsychics, on the contrary, deals with certain ma
terial phenomena inexplicable by ordinary mechanicsthe move
ment of objects without contact, haunted houses, phantoms, mate
rializations that can be photographed, sounds, and lightsall of
them tangible realities affecting our senses.
In other words, subjective metapsychics is internal, psychic, and
non-material: objective metapsychics is material and external.
The boundary between the two orders of phenomena is some
times uncertain; often, however, it is sharply marked. For in
stance, the assassination of Queen Draga was announced in
Paris on the 11th of June, 1904, at the very minute that it was
committed in Belgrade, by a medium who could have had no
normal means of cognizance of thiscrime. This is a fact of
subjective metapsychics.
Eusapia Paladino placed her hands half a yard above a heavy
table; her hands, her feet, her knees, her waist, her head, and her
mouth were all held; the table rose off its four legs without con
tact. This is a fact of objective metapsychics.
6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Frequently the phenomena pertain to both kinds, and it is dif
ficult or impossible to distinguish between them. A. sees the
apparition of his dying father, B. If other persons present see
nothing, the vision is obviously subjective; but if the image of B.
is seen simultaneously by A., and by others, still more if the
apparition has been photographed leaving its impression on the
sensitive plate, this is not only a subjective but also an objective
fact, there being a material accompaniment, and A.s vision Can
no longer be considered merely subjective.
Subjective phenomena are much more frequent than the ob
jective ; mediums giving the latter are rare. Moreover when
material phenomena are produced they are nearly always accom
panied by noteworthy subjective facts.
Metapsychics can therefore be defined asa science dealing
with mechanical or psychological phenomena due to forces that
seem to be intelligent, or to unknown powers latent in human
intelligence. This science is therefore profoundly mysterious;
indeed, its mysteries are such that extreme scientific caution is
called for in dealing with them.
2. Is There a Science of Metapsychics?
This question must be put, for to many men of science none
of the alleged facts in the domain of magnetism or spiritualism
deserve serious consideration. They say, A science cannot be
constructed out of gossip; and the accounts you bring us are
nothing more. The hallucinations with all their wealth of detail
described by simple people are matter for the alienist, and the
performances of mediums are vulgar frauds. Mediums who
claim supernatural powers and allege that they are intermediaries
between the dead and the living are either hallucinated or trick
sters. As soon as precautions are taken against credulity and
fraud the error or the imposture is always manifest. No un
deniable fact of lucidity or movement of objects without contact
has ever been established before a committee of enquiry com
posed of men of scientific standing. If chance, mal-observation,
and trickery are eliminated, nothing remains of the so-called
metapsychics but a vast illusion. The stricter the conditions, the
slighter the phenomena become, till they vanish altogether. A
science that claims to be experimental but relies on experiments
that cannot be reproduced is no science at all. You affirm ex
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 7
traordinary and unbelievable things that upset all that science has
hitherto accepted as true, but you cannot prove them, for up to
the present such proof has evaded all methodical research. It is
not for us to prove that the facts you affirm are false; it is for
you to prove that they are true.
Further, even if we were to see these strange facts we should
think ourselves tricked or hallucinated, for your work lies among
impostors, and the things you affirm are too absurd to be true.
Such is the kind of language used by honourable men of science
who deny the reality of all metapsychic phenomena. If they
were right this book would be absolutely useless, even ridiculous;
and might be entitled A Treatise on an Error. But, as we shall
endeavour abundantly to prove, these facts exist, and are called
occult only because they are not understood.
We have read and re-read, studied and analyzed the works
written on these subjects, and we declare it vastly improbable,
and even impossible, that eminent and upright men such as Sir
William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Reichenbach, A. Russel Wal
lace, Lombroso, William James, Schiaparelli, F. W. H. Myers,
Zllner, A. de Rochas, Ochorowicz, Morselli, Sir William Barrett,
Ed. Gurney, C. Flammarion, and many others, in spite of their
close attention and their scientific knowledge, should all have been
duped over and over again a hundred times by tricksters or have
been the victims of an astounding credulity. It Is not possible
that they should all and always have been so blind as not to per
ceive frauds necessarily gross; so incautious as to form conclusions
where no conclusion was legitimately possible; and so unskilful
as never to have made a single unexceptionable experiment. A
priori, their experiments deserve careful consideration and not to
be contemptuously rejected.1
The history of all sciences warns us that the simplest discoveries
have been rejected a priori, as being incompatible with science.
Medical anesthesia was denied by Majendie. The action of mi
crobes was contested for twenty years by all the scientists of all
the academies. Galileo was imprisoned for saying that the earth*
*An eminent English scientist, Lord Kelvin, quoted by Myers (A. S. P.,
1904, xiv, 365), ventures to express himself as follow s:
I hold myself bound to reject everything that tends to the acceptance of
this wretched superstition of animal magnetism, turning tables, spiritualism,
clairvoyance, and rappings. There is no mystical seventh sense. Clairvoyance
and all the rest are but the results of mal-observation combined with inten
tional imposture practised on simple and credulous minds.
8 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
revolves. Bouillaud declared that the telephone was but ven
triloquism. Lavoisier said that stones cannot fall from the sky,
for tiere are no stones in the sky. The circulation of the blood
was only admitted after forty years of sterile discussion. In a
lecture in 1827 at the Academy of Sciences, my great-grandfather,
P. S. Girard, considered it folly to suppose that water could be
led to the upper floors of houses by pipes. In 1840, J. Mller
declared that the speed of nerve-impulses could never be meas
ured. In 1699, Papin constructed the first steamboat; a hundred
years later Fulton rediscovered the possibility of steam naviga
tion, but it was not applied till twenty years later. When in
1892, under the guidance of my distinguished master, Marey, I
made my first attempt in aviation, I met with only incredulity,
contempt, and sarcasm. A volume might be written on the
absurd criticisms with which every great discovery has been
received.
This is not a matter of the opinions of the crowd, which are
of no importance; they are the opinions of scientists, who imagine
that they have laid down boundaries that science cannot overpass.
These boundaries soon become milestones on the road of progress,
as Flammarion remarks. When such men declare that such and
such a phenomenon is impossible, they make an unfortunate con
fusion between what is contradictory of known laws and what
is new. This must be emphasized, for it is the cause of disastrous
misunderstandings.
Heat expands bodies; and if any one tells us that mercury,
copper, lead, or hydrogen under the usual conditions of experi
ment do not expand when heated I have the right to deny the
statement, for it is in flagrant contradiction with observed facts
frequently verified. But if a new metal is discovered and a
physicist tells me that it contracts instead of expanding when
heated I cannot deny this a priori. However improbable this
anomaly in the laws of physics may be, I must, if not guilty of
presumption, verify the exception, since it applies to a new
substance that may be different from all others.
Every new truth necessarily appears highly improbable; such,
however, are of frequent occurrence in the evolution of the
sciences, and as soon as a discoverer enunciates one it excites
opposition. Instead of testing, men deny it. Claude Bernard
states that the animal body generates sugar, and forthwith objec
tions are made. To admit this is to upset scientific conclusions.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 9
Sugar is a vegetable product, animals consume it. The sugar
that has been found in animal organisms is sugar derived from
food, or from changes in a dead body. In short, sugar cannot
be generated by an animal organism. We know the fate of
these statements.
Again, let us suppose magnetic attraction to be unknown, and
the magnet a very rare object. A traveller who has seen a mag
net but cannot find another, states that he has seen a body that
attracts iron. His statement will provoke universal opposition
and denial. Why should steel have a property not possessed by
copper, lead, or any other known body? Nothing like it has ever
been seen ; if the thing were true it would have been known long
since.1
Everything of which we are ignorant appears improbable, but
the improbabilities of today are the elementary truths of
tomorrow.
Among the discoveries which by reason of my advanced age
I have seen developed under my own eyes, so to speak, I will
take four which in 1875 would have seemed absurdly inadmis
sible:
1. The voice of an individual speaking in Paris can be heard
in Rome. (Telephone.)
2 . The germs of all diseases can be bottled and ultivated in a
cupboard. (Bacteriology.)
3. The bones of a living person can be photographed. (X-rays.)
4. Five hundred guns can be taken through the air at a speed
of 180 miles an hour. (Aroplanes.)
Anyone who uttered such audacities in 1875 would have been
thought a dangerous lunatic.
Our routine-keeping intelligence is such that it rejects any
thing to which it is unaccustomed, and from a careful study of
the facts around us, we should be content to say, There are some
that are usual and some that are unusual. We ought to say no
more than this, and above all we should be careful not to make
two classesfacts that are understood, and facts that are not
understood. For in truth we really understand nothing, abso
lutely nothing, of the truths of science, whether great or small.*
*When tuberculosis was stated to be contagious, a professor of the Faculty
of Paris said, I f tubercles were contagious that would be known already,
and in 1878 his words were almost unanimously approved by the Medical
Faculty.
10 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
What is matter? Is it continuous or discontinuous? What is
electricity? Is the hypothesis of the ether really understood by
those who accept it? We see a stone fall back when thrown
upwards; do we therefore understand gravitation? Two gases
combine to form a new body in which the same atoms as in the
gases are found ; have we really understood what has taken place ?
Why should such and such an ovule fertilized by a certain zoo
sperm produce an oak-tree, a bear-cub, an elephant, or a Michel
angelo, according to its kind? How does the spider make its
web, or the swallows find their way across the seas? These
marvels do not astonish us because we are used to them. But
we ought to have the courage to admit that usual as they are,
they are none the less mysteries.
The facts of metapsychics are neither more nor less mysterious
than the phenomena of electricity, of fertilization, and of heat.
They are not so usual; that is the whole difference. But it is
absurd to decline to study them because they are unusual.1
We constantly find that the authors and observers who have
busied themselves with metapsychics show a very regrettable
tendency to consider only their own observations as exact, and
to reject all others. Thus (with certain exceptions) those who
have confined their studies exclusively to telepathy and the sub
jective side of metapsychics are prone to attach excessive im
portance to that aspect of the facts and to refuse credence to phe
nomena of telekinesis and ectoplasm, however well substantiated.
This is the case with several eminent members of the English
S. P. R. They are easily satisfied in cases of mental transmission,
even though that may be sometimes explicable by coincidence;
*1 have been able to observe a curious instance of the folly with which
this fear of the unaccustomed can afflict an honourable scientist. During the
Exhibition of 1900 at Paris, I presented to ' the Psychological Congress a
Spanish child, Pepito Arriola, aged three years and three months, who played
amazingly on the piano. He composed military or funeral marches, waltzes,
habaneras, minuets, and played some twenty difficult pieces from memory.
A hundred members of the Congress heard and applauded him. T his tiny
marvel of precocity came to my house, and in my drawing-room, on my piano,
twice during the day and in the evening before a number of persons, he
played at a distance from his mother. Then, four years later, comes an
American psychologist, Mr. Scripture, who announces that I was the victim
of an illusion, and that the music had been played not by Pepito Arriola, who
was too little to play, but by his mother!
Incredulity carried to such a point of aberration matches the credulity
of the celebrated geometer Chasles, who showed with pride an autograph
letter, in French, from Vercingtorix to Julius Caesar. The scepticism of
Mr. Scripture is of the same stamp as the credulity of Chasles.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 11
but as soon as physical phenomena are in question they demand
impossible proofs even when such proofs are useless to the
demonstration.
Conversely, an experimenter who considers himself to have
seen a materialization will take it as well authenticated, though his
study may have been quite superficial; and will put forward
exaggerated and ridiculously severe criticisms of transmission of
thought or of materializations described by other observers per
haps quite as competent as himself.
When a phenomenon is unusual, even those who are open to
new truths do not admit it without personal verification. It seems,
however, that our criticism, severe as it may be (and should be),
ought to be exercised as much, if not more, upon our own ob
servations than on those of others. If I permit myself to criticize
the mentality of scientists towards metapsychic matters, I do so
because I have fallen into the same mistake myself. In working
at this subject I did not follow the procedure usual in the study
of other sciences. I made experiments before studying books;
so that I started by acquiring personal convictions, which were not
in the least bookish. Only subsequently did I read and meditate
on the works of ancient and modern experimentalists who have
devoted themselves to such researches. I was then astounded
at the volume and the completeness of the proofs. My own
experiments and those of others finally led me to a profound
conviction that metapsychics is a real science to be treated like
all other scienceslaboriously, methodically, and with respect.
These unusual phenomena are real: (1) There is a faculty of
cognition other than our usual faculties; ( 2 ) there are move
ments of objects other than those to which we are accustomed.
And it is irrational to refuse to study these unusual phenomena
by the methods of observation and experiment that have answered
so well in all other sciences. Claude Bernard has differentiated
the sciences that rest on observation from those that rest on
experiment. Metapsychics belongs to both classes. It is often
experimental, like chemistry and physiology; but it is often akin
to historical science and rests on human testimony.
Under its experimental aspect it should be treated as an ex
perimental science, by technical methods of research, with scales,
photography, by graphic methodsall the devices of exact meas
urement employed by physiologists. I perceive no essential dif
ference between the proper experimental methods, except that the
12 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
chemist and the physiologist are dealing with easily procurable
materials, whereas the student of metapsychics requires a
medium, a human subject difficult to find, easily put off his bal
ance, and highly capricious, who must at all times be handled
very diplomatically. But once an experiment has begun it should
be carried out as rigorously as one on arterial pressure or on the
heat generated by burning acetylene.
In no kind of experiment are all the conditions absolutely within
control. This axiom of scientific method applies more strongly in
metapsychics than in any other science. Darkness may be neces
sary, or silence; or perhaps noise? Perhaps some ill-defined
psychological conditions may be essential also? After all, this
applies to all infant sciences; in their embryonic stage the condi
tions requisite to the development of the facts to be proved are
not known. The experimenter falls into gross mistakes and the
experiment fails just when he naively imagines that he has pro
vided all the elements of success.
In so far as it is an observational and traditional science, meta
psychics has abundant documentary evidence. This is profoundly
unequal in value, and it is necessary to know how to choose the
material and to separate the wheat from the tares by severe criti
cism. But to condemn all recorded observation would be irra
tional; all historical science is derived from such records. Has
not medicine up to the time of Claude Bernard and Pasteur been
a science of observation? Is it not largely so today? A great
physiologist has said that a well-observed fact is as valid as a
good experiment. This is perhaps going a little too far, for the
certitude given by an observation is of inferior quality to that re
sulting from a good experiment. Nevertheless, the sciences that
rest on observations are valid, and it is folly to wish to reject
records.
But there is no need to set the one method in opposition to the
other. . When observation and experiment lead to the same re
sults they mutually confirm each other. In this book, therefore,
will be found two chapters on each variety of phenomena, one
dealing with experiments and the other with observations, whether
the matter in hand concerns lucidity (cryptesthesia), the move
ments of objects (telekinesis), or materializations (ectoplasmic
forms).
Experimental method is relatively easy, whereas the method
of observation is extremely difficult. The documentary evidence
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 13
is often doubtful. It is voluminous, far too voluminous; meta
psychic science is hampered by imperfect experiments and mal-
observation. Those who have cultivated it, instead of handling
it with scientific exactitude, have treated it as a religion for
adeptsan error that has had disastrous results.
Spiritualists have intermingled religion and science to the great
detriment of the latter,
Not that I would blame the efforts of spiritualists ; that would
be gross ingratitude. While official science, followed by the im
mense majority of the public, rejected disdainfully without ex
amination, and often with obvious ill-will, the work of Crookes,
A. R. Wallace, and Zllner, the spiritualists took up the facts and
set to work upon them. But instead of making them matters of
science, they made them matters of religion. They carried on
their sances in a mystical atmosphere, with prayers; speaking
of moral regeneration; preoccupied with mysteries; convinced
that they were conversing with the dead ; and losing themselves
in infantile discursiveness. They refused to see that metapsychic
facts are of the present, not of the beyond, for perhaps there is
no beyond. The beyond has been their ruin, and they have lost
themselves in puerile theology and theosophy.
When a historian studies the Capitularies of Charlemagne, he
is not thinking of the beyond ; when a physiologist is measuring
the muscular contractions of a frog he says nothing about ultra
terrestrial spheres; when a chemist determines the amount of
nitrogen in lecithin he says nothing about human survival. Meta
psychics must be treated after the same manner, without dreams
about ethereal worlds or psychic emanations; we must remain
on the earth, take all theory soberly, and only consider humbly
whether the phenomenon studied is true, without seeking to
deduce the mysteries of past or future existences.
For instance, when we are studying cryptesthesia and seeking
to discover whether a sensitive will give the name we are think
ing of, without any indication on our part, our whole attention
should be vigilantly concentrated on giving absolutely no sign
whatever, and on comparing the letters given by the subject with
those in the name thought of according to the mathematical prob
ability of 1:25, since there are twenty-five letters in the alphabet.1
If we are studying telekinesis, the limbs of the medium must be
xThe French alphabet has twenty-five letters only.
14 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
held firmly enough to make sure that the table cannot be moved
by her hands, her feet, or by any trick soever.
It does not interest me to go beyond this. I am keenly in
terested in these humble tasks which need no small courage
to undertake, without connecting them with the immortality of
the soul.
What valuable observations and marvellous experiments have
been distorted and deformed by the constant and dangerous de
sire of laying the foundations of a new religion! Spiritist religion
is inimical to science. I might borrow from the Bible the motto
for all our studies: Omnia in numero et pondere, says the preacher
an admirable principle, applicable to all science and the very
negation of religious mysticism.
If a creed be needed, it is the creed of truthnaked truth
without adornments and without verbiage. Let us verify phe
nomena, and try to link them together by any theory that has as
much verisimilitude as possible, but let us never sacrifice the facts
which are certainly true to the theory, which is probably false.
No doubt metapsychic phenomena often seem to impel us to
nebulous inferences as to human immortality, to emanations from
an unknown Will, to reincarnation, and to fluidic projections
from the living or the dead. I have endeavoured to set aside these
premature theories, though I have not been able to do this en
tirely. What purpose has been served by the ponderous volumes
on alchemy before Lavoisier? He did achieve more with his
scales than did all the dissertations of Goclenius, Agrippa, and
Paracelsus. If we desire that metapsychics should take rank as
a science, let us first establish its facts on a solid foundation. Our
successors will go further, no doubt, but our duty today is less
ambitious; let us have the intellectual modesty that befits our
ignorance.
Nevertheless, in certain respects metapsychics cannot be com
pared with any other science. No intelligence is apparent in the
various modes of energy, whereas both in objective and subjective
metapsychics the phenomena seem due to some kind of intelli
gence. The intelligence that pertains to metapsychic things may
be purely human; but if so it proceeds from a region of human
intelligence quite unknown to us, since it reveals things that our
senses cannot reveal and acts upon matter otherwise than by
muscular contraction. In any case the province of metapsychics
differs from that of all other forces, these latter being certainly
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 15
blind and unconscious. Perhaps it may eventually be proved
that the metapsychic forces producing the phenomena are as un
conscious as electricity and heat. Then metapsychics will form
a branch of physics and psychology. This would be a great ad
vance, and far from being saddened thereby we should rather
be glad; for there is a real mental intellectual distress, felt by
none more than myself, in the supposition that unknown, arbi
trary, and capricious powers are the only ones endowed with
intelligence.
But this day has not yet dawned and we must conclude pro
visionally: (1) That the metapsychic facts are real; (2) that
they are to be studied like every other science without religious
preoccupations, and (3) that they are seemingly directed by
human or non-human intelligences whose intentions we can only
partially perceive.
3. Historical Summary
Events and discoveries are so intermingled that any division
into distinct periods is necessarily artificial. Nevertheless, this
division must be made in. order to throw some light on this obscure
and tangled subject. I suggest, therefore, the following four
periods:
1. The Mythical, up to Mesmer (1778).
2. The Magnetic, from Mesmer to the Fox sisters (1847).
3. The Spiritist, from the Fox sisters to William Crookes
(1847-1872).
4. The Scientific,which begins with William Crookes (1872).
May I venture to express the hope that this book will help to
inaugurate a fifth, that of recognition as a science?
1. The Mythical Stage
It is for historians rather than for men of science to seek in
ancient religions and popular traditions all that has been said on
the supernatural, the occult, the magical, and the incomprehensible.
The perusal of sacred books, cabalistic and magical works has
but slight scientific interest.1
lA n able and very detailed summary of these has been given by C. de
Vesme, Storia dello spiritismo, 3 vols., Turin, Roux Frascati, 1896-1898.
Translated into German, Leipzig, 1904. Its bibliography will be found with
Manuel bibliographique des
a brief analysis in a fine work by Albert Caillat,
sciences psychiques ou occultes,3 vols., Paris, L. Dorbon, 1913.
16 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Miracles and prophecies have played a great part in nearly
all religions. Real metapsychic phenomena, putting telekinesis
for the miracles and premonitions for the prophecies, are perhaps
at the root of some religious beliefs; but what can we build on
stories that date back twenty centuries, transformed by ignorant
and credulous priests? Dealing with a fact of the present day
studied in a laboratory by skilled experimentalists with all mod
ern technical instruments, we often hesitate to form any conclu
sions. How, then, can we affirm anything concerning an improb
able event said to have taken place two thousand years ago before
three fanatics and four adepts ? Probably it is not entirely false;
but we cannot discriminate between its falsehood and its truth. We
shall, therefore, deliberately set aside the miracles of all religions,
and all the prodigies connected with the death of Caesar, of Jesus
Christ, or of Mahomet.
Nevertheless there are, in this immeasurable period of credulity
and ignorance, some facts worthy of mention.
Firstly, the very curious story of the daemon of Socrates.
The two illustrious disciples of SocratesPlato and Xenophon
state formally that Socrates claimed to -have a familiar genius, a
daemon, who foretold events and sometimes prescribed his con
duct. Even Socrates believed this being to be other than him
self because it revealed things unknown. This daemon was what
spiritualists call a guide.
In the Theagetes, Plato makes Socrates say: By the favour
of the Gods, I have, since my childhood, been attended by a semi-
divine being whose voice from time to time dissuades me from
some undertaking, but never directs me what I am to do. You
know Charmides the son of Glaucon. One day he told me that
he intended to compete at the Nemean games. . . . I tried
to turn Charmides from his design, telling him, While you were
speaking, I heard the divine voice. . . . Go not to Nemea.
He would not listen. Well, you know he has fallen.
In the Apology for Socrates, Xenophon attributes to him the
words: This prophetic voice has been heard by me throughout
my life: it is certainly more trustworthy than omens from the
flight or the entrails of birds: I call it a God or a daemon. I have
told my friends the warnings I have received, and up to now the
voice has never been wrong. Socrates frequently insisted that
the predictions of his familiar genius were always verified.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 17
Throughout antiquity the story of Socratess daemon has always
been perfectly well known.
Plutarch speaks of it: Socrates having a pure and clear
faculty of hearing could easily be affected, and this being so we
may conjecture that what reached him was not a voice or a
sound but the silent voice of a daemon touching the intelligence
of his soul. The intelligence of daemons having its own light,
shines upon those who are capable of receiving it, needing neither
the names nor the words which men use in speaking to one
another, by which they represent their ideas; but as for pure
intelligences these are known only to those who have an inner
and divine light.
Socrates, on hearing these voices, would break off his con
versation, or stop in his walk, saying in explanation that he had
heard the god.
Myers has written ably on this subject, comparing it (with
good reason, as I think) to the voices heard from childhood by
Jeanne dArc. He finds, however, only one instance of clair
voyance attributed to this daemon: As the philosopher was in
conversation with Eutyphron, he suddenly stopped and warned
his friends to turn into another street. They would not listen;
but misfortune overtook themthey met a drove of swine that
jostled them and threw them down.
In his treatise De Divinatione Cicero speaks without reserve of
predictions, as in the case of Socrates; but, strange to say, he
expresses no astonishment. Without believing in it he does not
reject it. He says, De Legibus, ii, 32, 33, I think there veritably
is a divination, that which the Greeks call fxavTiKrf. If we admit
that there are gods whose spirit governs the world and watches
over mankind, I do not see why we should refuse credence to
divination.
Referring to his brother Quintus he gives some instances of
premonition, notably a dream of Quintus, in which he saw his
brother Tullius fall from his horse (which was a fact). Tullius
replied, The anxiety you felt for me caused you to dream
of me. The coincidence of the dream and the accident was
a matter of chance ; and this answer appears to have satisfied
Cicero.
Cicero gives an account (De Divinatione, i, 27) of another
metapsychic phenomenon which I abridge as follows:
Two friends having arrived at Megara went to lodge, one in
18 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
an inn and one in a private house. The latter dreamed that his
comrade called him to save him from an assassin. He awoke,
thought it only a dream, and went to sleep again. But his friend
appeared to him and said: Since thou wouldest not save my
life at least avenge me, se interfectum in plaustrum a caupone
esse conjectum, et supra stercus injectum. . . . Hoc somnio
commotus mane bulbulco praesto ad portam fuisse, quaesisse ex
eo quid esset in plaustro, ilium perterritum fugisse, mortuum
erutum esse; cauponem, re patefacta, poenas dedisse. And
Cicero, without being beyond measure astonished, remarks, Quid
hoc somnio dici divinius potest ? 1
Further, in speaking of oracles, in which he nevertheless is
inclined to believe, he says, Multa falsa, imo obscura, idque
fortasse . . . nobis facilius evenit appropinquante morte, ut
animi futura auguretur.2 Tacitus {Annals, xi, 21) speaks of a
vision that appeared to Curtius Rufus: Oblata ei species muliebris
ultra modum humanun et audita est vox.8
A search through history would reveal many facts of a meta
psychic nature; but no serious inferences can be drawn from
them. Who today would venture to speak seriously of Simon
Magus, or Apollonius of Tyana, even of Cardan or Cornelius
Agrippa? Magi, magicians, and mystics have no place in the
science of today, nor in sane metapsychics as now understood.
The apparition to Brutus, recounted by Plutarch, deserves
mention: A little before he left Asia he was sitting alone in
his tent, by a dim light, and at a late hour. The whole army lay
in sleep and silence, while the general, wrapped in meditation,
thought he perceived something enter his tent: turning towards the
T ranslator ' s N ote T he passages quoted m ay be re n d e red a s fo llo w s:
" That he had been killed and thrown into a waggon by the innkeeper and
that manure had been thrown over his body. Alarmed at this dream in the
morning he had waited for the waggoner by the gate (of the town) and had
asked him what was in the w aggon; the man fled, terrified, and the corpse had
been uncovered. The innkeeper on the case being proved had paid the
penalty.
What clearer proof of the intervention o f Heaven can there be than
this dream?
*Much is false, I should rather say unintelligible, and this (i.e., premoni
tion) perhaps happens to us more readily on the approach o f death, that the
future of the soul may be forecast.
*There appeared to him the form of a woman of more than human size
and a voice was heard . . . The context runs, T u es Rufe, qui in hanc
provinciam proconsule venies. You are the man, Rufus, who will come to
this province as proconsul.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 19
door, he saw a horrible and monstrous spectre standing silently
by his side. What art thou? said he boldly. Art thou God or
man, and what is thy business with me? The spectre answered,
I am thy evil genius, Brutus! Thou wilt see me at Philippi.
To which he calmly replied, Ill meet thee there. When the
apparition was gone he called his servants, who told him they
had neither heard any voice nor seen any vision. (Plutarch's
Lives, Brutus, Langhomes translation.)
The voices and visions of Jeanne dArc belong also without
doubt to the class of metapsychic phenomena. These voices and
visions were perceived by herself alone, and must therefore be
admitted as subjective. The explanation that they were hallucina
tions is much too easy, for they were followed by far too many
real facts and by too frequent verification of their predictions to
be accounted for by a disordered mind. It is impossible.to doubt
that Jeanne was truly inspired.
At the same time, as for the phantom seen by Brutus, the
apparitions at Lourdes, and the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana
and Simon Magus, any scientific appreciation of these ancient
testimonies is impossible, and it is better to admit with F. W. H.
Myers that it is probable that Jeanne possessed certain meta
psychic powers, without claiming to give an exact definition of
them.
There might be some profit in the study of hagiographies, for
saintly persons have certainly exhibited very real metapsychic
phenomena. Instances of aureoles about the head, bilocation,
the odour of sanctity, insensibility to fire, levitation, speaking
in strange tongues, and prophecy are to be found in the lives of
many saints: St. Francis dAssisi, St. Theresa, St. Helena, St.
Alphonso of Liguori, and St. Joseph of Copertino (1603-1663).
I set aside the stories of stigmata and all such organic phe
nomena, for these effects of mindthat is to say, of the central
nervous systemon the circulation and nutrition of various parts
of the body (the trophic nerves) do not fall within the province
of metapsychics. It will suffice to refer to the many publications
by medical men on this subject.1*
*M. Apte, Les stigmatiss, tude historique et critique sur les troubles
vaso-moteurs chez les mystiques, Th. de doctorat, Paris, 1903. Kohnstamm,
Hypnotische Stigmatisierung (Zeitschr . f.d. Ausbau d. Entwicklungslehre,
1908, ii, 314-321). Gr res, La mystique divine, naturelle et diabolique, trad.
fr., Paris, 1854, ii, 174-210. Bourneville, Science et miracles, Louise Lateau,
20 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
But I hesitate to deny all the ancient instances of levitation;
Gorres cites no less than seventy-two cases, and states, moreover,
that he does not give all of them. But it is impossible to deter
mine how much truth there is in these miracles. The saint
who had most is certainly St. Joseph of Copertino, beatified in
1753. Of him Gorres says, His ecstasies and ascensions were
witnessed not only by the people and the members of his order,
but Pope Urban VIII saw him one day in this state and was
intensely astonished. Joseph bethinking himself that he was in
the presence of the Vicar of Christ fell into an ecstasy and was
raised above the ground.
For a long time, and even today, it has been the custom to
scoff at these superstitionsthe levitations of saints, somnam
bulistic predictions, premonitions of death by dreams, ecstatic
healings, stigmata, haunted houses, apparitions, and the like
lumping them together with unmeasured contempt as unworthy
of any examination.
This seems to me a grave error. Assuredly everything in
these stories is not true, but neither are they entirely false. The
strange stories we hear provoke an incredulous smile and one is
apt to think the narrator not quite sane. But that is not so,
neither is he lying. The stories told us are scarcely ever lies
and very rarely complete illusions. People exaggerate, alter,
arrange their accounts, forget essential details and add imaginary
ones; but all these legends contain some fragment of truth.
The history of the sciences shows that it has often been necessary
to return to notions once thought to be puerile. The very exist
ence of hypnotism and of spiritualism shows that mere denials
without examination, instead of aiding, tend to fossilize science
routine rather than the desire of progress dominating the minds
of those who claim to be scientific. But for detail of all these
legends, from which we can scarcely hope to extract the truth
imbedded therein, I refer readers to the work of Gorres.1 It
is very complete, though naturally his credulity is limitless. It
ou la stigmatise belge, Paris, 1875. Carr de Montgron, La vrit des
miracles oprs par Vintercession du diacre, Paris, ii, Cologne, 1747. Alfred
Maury, La magie et Vastrologie, Paris, 1895. P. Janet, Bulletin de l'Institut
psychologique international, July, 1901. A . de Rochas, A. S. P., January, 1903.
*1 endeavoured to analyze a very curious old instance of possession
at Presburg in 1641, but could deduce nothing. (Phnomnes mtapsychiques
dautrefois, A. S. P., 1905, pp. 197-217; 413-421.)
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 21
is, however, interesting to note that nearly all present meta
psychic phenomena are to be found in it.
The nave imagination of the Christians of those days does not
refer all these metapsychic powers to God and good angels:
the devil also is capable of many marvels when he takes posses
sion of some unlucky woman: he is nearly as powerful as God,
and confers wonderful powers on his victim:
1. The power of perceiving the thoughts of others, even when
not expressed;
2. Knowledge of languages unknown to the possessed and the
ability to speak them;
3. Knowledge of future events;
4. Knowledge of events at a distance beyond the limits of sight;
5. Suspension in the air (levitation).
All these are real metapsychic phenomena; it is therefore
credible that such things should have occurred now and again,
alike to the saintly and the possessed, in all times.
Even divining tables are mentioned in antiquity (Mens divina-
tori). Tertullian speaks of chains and tables for divination,
and adds that this is a common fact (Figuier, Histoire du mer
veilleux, Paris, 1873, i, 18). According to Ammianus Mar-
cellinus a table was made and on it was placed a slab engraved
with the twenty-four letters of the alphabet. A ring suspended
by a thread was held over it which swung to certain letters.
These being written down gave an oracular message.
2. The Magnetic Stage1
With Mesmer all changes: he introduced animal magnetism,
which, though not to be confounded with metapsychics, is closely
allied to it.2 In 1766 Anton Frederic Mesmer (1723-1815)
produced, as his thesis for a medical degree, an essay on the
physiological influence of the planets. During the next ten years
'O n Mesmers work and the origins of magnetism see the remarkable
Hypnotism,
article by Ochorowicz, in the Dictionnaire de Physiologie, C. Richet,
Geschichte des neueren Occul-
Paris, 1909, viii, pp. 709-777 ; also K. Kiesewetter,
tismus; geheimwissenschaftliche Systme von Agrippa bis Karl du Prel, second
edition, Leipzig, 1907. The bibliography of animal magnetism and hypnotism
will be found in M. Dessoirs book.
*Cf. Figuier,Histoire du merveilleux, Paris, 1873, i, 18.
22 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
he studied, endeavouring to harmonize astronomy and medicine,
and to bring himself to notice. In 1778 he came to Paris and
published his first didactic work. It was immediately apparent
that new and extraordinary facts were involved. He rose into
vogue. The Royal Society of Medicine, the Academy of Sciences,
and the Faculty took the matter up and showed that Mesmers
methods gave rise to a certain psycho-physiological state which
might sometimes be efficacious in the curing of disease.1
The new doctrine obtained numerous adherents among doc
tors, magistrates, gentlemen, and scientists. Animal magnetism
was commonly practised. Puysegur, aided by dEslon and Deleuze,
the librarian of the Jardin des Plantes, modified the methods of
Mesmer and created animal magnetism (induced somnambulism),
such as we know it today. Mesmer, by adopting the word
magnetism, only meant action at a distance, just as Paracelsus
and Goclenius treated of the magnetic action of planets or of
substances. In this sense Mesmer was nearer to metapsychics
than his immediate successors.
With Puysegur, dEslon, and Deleuze magnetization became
a therapeutic method, though henceforth metapsychic facts
action at a distance, vision through opaque bodies, clairvoyance
or luciditywere observed facts; but strangely enough nearly
all the efforts of the magnetizers were concentrated on the diag
nosis and cure of disease. Petetin, a physician of Lyons, cited
a number of cases of cryptesthesia which he attributes naively
to epigastric sensibility: one of his cataleptic patients could
distinguish and name a card placed on the epigastric region.
Petetin is one of the old-time magnetizers who studied the psycho
logical, or rather metapsychic, phenomena that so often accom
pany hypnosis, with special care.
Baron du Potet, and Husson, a physician of the Paris Hos
pital and a member of the Academy of Medicine, made, in 1825,
some remarkable experiments on somnambulism induced from a
distance. A notable report was presented by Husson to the
Paris Academy of Medicine, and appeared in 1833.2
Mmoire sur la dcouverte du magntisme animal, Paris, P. F. Didot,
1779. Ochorowicz has done full justice to Mesmer who was a genuine dis
coverer and forerunner.
Maxime de Puysgur, Rapport des cures opres Bayonne par le
magntisme animal, Mmoires pour servir a ltablissement
Bayonne, 1784.
du magntisme animal, Histoire critique de magntisme
Paris, 1820. Deleuze,
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 23
Among the conclusions adopted, I give the following, which
will seem bold, even today:
An effort of will or a fixed gaze has sufficed to produce
magnetic phenomena, even when the subject was unaware.
A somnambulic state may give rise to new faculties, designated
as clairvoyance, intuition, or interior prevision.
By an effort of will it is possible not only to act on the patient,
but even to induce complete somnambulism and to dispel it,
unknown to and out of sight of the patient, through closed doors.
We have seen two somnambulists with closed eyes distinguish
objects placed before them; they have named the color and value
of cards, have read words of script or some lines in books selected
at random, and this when the eyelids were held down with our
fingers.
In spite of these declarations the scepticism of official science
prevailed. Hussons report was disputed and then forgotten,
and the metapsychic phenomena were taken up by novelists, and
denied or disdained by men of science.
In Germany Justinus Kemer,1 physician and poet, studied
for a long while Federica Hauff, a medium whose extraordinary
faculties were well worthy of attention. Federica Hauff was
undoubtedly a powerful medium; she saw spirits and produced
materializations. One day, says Kerner, I was conversing
with her brother, when he said: Hush! a spirit is crossing the
room going toward my s i s t e r Then I saw a vague form like
a luminous column about human height standing at the foot of
the bed of the seeress, whispering to her.
Around her spontaneous rappings were heard, and she could
even cause them on neighbouring objects, on tables, and on the
animal, 1813. Pttin, Electricit animale, mmoires sur la catalepsie.
Foissac, Rapport et discussions sur le magntisme animal, Paris, 1825.
Deleuze, Instruction pratique sur le magntisme animal. Final dition, Paris,
1853.
There is, however, a posthumous work by Deleuze, Mmoire sur la facult
de prvision, with notes by M. Mi elle, Paris, 1834.
Rapports et discussions de lAcadmie royale de mdecine sur le mag
ntisme animal, Paris, 1833.
1Die Seherin von Prevorst, Erffnungen ber das innere Leben d. Menschen
und ber das Hereinragen einer Geisterwelt in die unsere, Stuttgart, 1829,
fifth dition, Stuttgart, 1877. Die Seherin von Prevorst und ihre Geschichte
in der Geisterwelt, nach Juitinus Kerner von einem ihrer Zeitgenossen, Stuttgart,
1869. A . Reinhard, Justinus Kerner und das Kernerhaus, su Weinberg, Tbin
gen, 1886. J. Kerner, Bltter aus Prevorst Originalien und Lesefrchte fr
Freunde des innern Lebens, Stuttgart, 1831-1839.
24 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
wood of her bed. Different objects moved without contact, she
was levitated, and seems to have spoken in unknown tongues.
It was only during the years from 1826 to 1829 that these
remarkable phenomena were observed; during the whole of this
time she was very ill and could scarcely leave her bed. All
who studied Federica Hauff (such as the Magistrate Pfaffer
and Strauss, the celebrated author of the Leben Jesu), instead
of ridiculing her, were convinced not only of her good faith but
of the metapsychic phenomenathen called supernatural.
At this time there appeared, also in Germany, the works of
Reichenbach. These are obscure physiological rather than meta
psychic records, for the action of steel magnets on organic bodies
must not be confused with cryptesthesia or telekinesis. Unfor
tunately the work of Reichenbach has been more disputed over
than studied.
Belonging strictly to the metapsychic domain were the observa
tions made in France on lucid somnambulists such as Mme.
Pigeaire1 and Alexis Didier, but men of science, with the rarest
exceptions, concerned themselves with somnambulism only to try
to disprove it. Their attitude is easily understandable: somnam
bulic consultants, lucid or super-lucid, appeared in every town,
both in France and abroad, exploiting the alleged healing virtues
of magnetism. They were to be found at every fair, plying a
dubious trade; they told fortunes by cards, they saw the future
in coffee-grounds, and practised palmistry.
Credulous people visited them and men of science shrugged
their shoulders. In such a medley, the clairvoyance of persons
like Mme. Lenormand, Mme. Pigeaire, and Alexis Didier was
lost, though some serious notices were published.2
XA. de Rochas has published part of these in French with some inter
esting notes.
*Du Potet, Essai sur renseignement philosophique du magntisme animal,
Paris, 1845. Lafontaine, Lart de magntiser ou le magntisme vital consi
dr sous le point de vue thorique, pratique et thrapeutique,
Paris, 1847.
Fifth edition, 1887. A . Bertrand, Du magntisme animal en France, suivi de
considrations sur lapparition de iextase dans les traitements magntiques,
Paris, 1826. Teste, Manuel pratique du magntisme animal, Paris, 1840.
Elliotson, Animal Magnetism, Lancet, 1837, 1838, pp. 122, 282, 377, 400, 441,
516, 546, 615, 634. Esdaille, Reports of the magnetic hospital, Calcutta, 1848,
p. 761. Passavant, Untersuchungen ber den Lebenmagnetismus und das
Hellsehen, second edition, Franckfurt A . M., 1837.
Many journals, mostly ephemeral, appeared; others survived a consider
able time. The Journal du Magntisme, edited by Du Potet, 1845-1885. The
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 25
3. The Spiritist Stage
In 1847 an event took place, apparently insignificant, but really
of considerable import, introducing unforeseen facts and equally
unforeseen doctrines.
Animal magnetism, being of doubtful therapeutic value, was
making no progress. The coming of spiritism with its new
methods and new theories inaugurated a new era. This is the
third period in the development of metapsychic science. It runs
from 1847 to 1872.
In 1846, in the little town of Hydesville (Arcadia) near New
York, one Michael Weakman heard an unusual noise outside.
He went out and saw nothing; but as the noises continued and
disturbed him, he left Hydesville. His house was taken by John
Fox and his two daughters, Kate and Margaret, aged twelve
and fourteen. One night on going to bed the two girls heard
noises and raps, and discovered (December, 1847, and March,
1848), that these showed intelligence.
The phenomena soon developed, and several persons verified
that these intelligent rappings bore witness to certain facts that
had been kept secret. In August, 1848, the Fox family left
Hydesville for Rochester. Leah Fish, the elder sister of Kate
and Margaret, joined them for spiritualist manifestations.
Isaac Post suggested the use of an alphabet to converse with
these unknown powers which stated that they were spirits.
Many gatherings, sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes hotly
inimical, were held to verify the facts announced by the Fox
sisters, who were becoming more and more notorious. The first
scientific enquiry seems to have taken place at St. Louis (Mis
souri), in June, 1882; it appears to have reported favourably.
Nevertheless the Fox family were certainly not disinterested;
public sances were given at which places were paid for as at a
circus.
All these early stages of spiritualism, arising in the first place
from chance, and then pushed by shameless commercialism, are
very sordid.1
Zoist, a journal of cerebral physiology and mesmerism and their application to
human welfare, London, 1843-1853. Archiv fr den thierischen Magnetismus,
Altenburg and Leipzig, 1817-1822. Others might be cited.
lIt is, however, to be noted that the admirable discovery of surgical anes
thetics, also made in America, offers analogous features. It arose by a
26 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
But the start was made. First in America, and afterwards
in Europe, the practice of table-turning and spiritualist doctrines
made extraordinary progress during the next three years. As
for animal magnetism in 1780, so for table-turning in 1850, an
amazing infatuation set in; but it is simply puerile to see in this
nothing more than a huge and collective illusion. Moreover,
some reasoned conclusions were blended with the fanatical cre
dulity of blind and ignorant masses, and the equally blind and
ignorant denials by scorners. It was soon found that the phe
nomena of raps and telekinesis could be observed with other
mediums than the Fox sisters.1
Among these reasoned conclusions none was more influential
than those of Judge Edmunds, a senator respected throughout the
United States for probity and sagacity.
The mental instability of mediums is, for the most part, such
that their affirmations, whether positive or negative, have but
small value. That the Fox sisters, after the enormous develop
ment of spiritualism that followed on their early demonstrations,
should have tricked is possible or probable, not to say certain.
There are many instances of very strong mediums who pre
sented at first authentic phenomena, but later on, urged by
cupidity or vanity, finding their powers failing, have supple
mented them by fraud. It is difficult to suppose that the phe
nomena of rapping, which is certainly true, should have been
chance and immediately Horace Wells and Morton took out a patent in order
to draw profit from the discovery; but this greed of gain detracted nothing
from its reality. O. and W. Wright patented their aroplane, but this did
not diminish the value of their invention.
*A singular result followed. Margaret Fox, then become Mrs. Kane,
avowed in 1888 that all her revelations as a child and a young woman were
impostures. The sitting of the Musical Academy of Boston at which she made
this astonishing declaration provoked great indignation. T he other sister,
Kate, then Mrs. Joncken, afterwards Mrs. Sparr, and addicted to drink, made
the same confession in November, 1888, at Rochester. But in 1892 both
Margaret and Kate retracted their confessions. These unfortunate facts
prove nothing but the mental frailty of mediums.
In fine, when a fact has been affirmed, it is not enough merely to say that
there was lying and trickery ; it must also be shown how the trick was carried
out. A Mr. Blackman has told (Confessions of a Telepathist, J. S. P. R.,
October, 1911, p. xi6) how he in collusion with G. A . Smith deceived Gurney,
Myers, Podmore, H. Sidgwick, and Barrett. But in this so-called exposure he
certainly told some lies. I believe, too, that Marthe Braud once told a certain
lawyer at Algiers that she had tricked at the Villa Carmen; but later on she
denied this, and her statements have no value either way. A curious chapter
might be written on the pseudo-confessions o f mediums.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 27
invented by the .Fox sisters without being real.1 Before 1847
these rappings were unknown; then these two young girls come
on the scene and give striking examples of them.
Then the same phenomenon is verified far and wide, and after
many such instances the girls say they were lying! It is
probable that the denial is the lie, and that seeing public favours
and money diminishing they thought to regain notoriety for
their puny personalities by a recantation.
In 1847 Margaret was fifteen and Kate twelve. Can we sup
pose that these two children organized a fraud that was tested
thousands of times during seventy-five years? The reality of
rappings does not depend on the Fox sisters. In 1888 it was too
late for denial and their recantation proves nothing.2
It is deplorable that from 1849 onward the Fox family should
have given theatrical spiritist performances for payment, but this
no more invalidates the facts than the patents taken out by Wells
and Morton for the use of ether contradict the facts of anesthesia.
The rapid development of spiritualism cannot be traced
here. A petition signed by fourteen thousand persons was pre
sented to the Senate of the United States in 1852, asking for a
scientific commission of enquiry. It had become a new religion;
spiritualist circles and journals were numerous.
Among the early American spiritualists, besides Edmunds,
must be placed Professors Britten, David Wells, Bryant, Bliss,
all of the University of Pennsylvania, and above all others Dr.
Robert Hare,8 professor of chemistry at Harvard, convinced
after having been sceptical.
In Europe spiritualism spread very rapidly; not without stir
ring up lively opposition. Scientific men, especially, refused to
admit the actuality of the phenomena, and to explain the un
deniable facts of raps and table-turning, they invented compli-*
(Les Sciences Psychiques, Revue de Paris,
*According to J. M axwell March
i, 1921) the bishop, Adrien de Montalembert, seems to have verified that
such raps took place with a nun of Lyons.
*The experiments by Aksakoff and Boutleroff with Kate Fox (of little
interest now) are mentioned further on (A. S. P., 1901, xi, 192). For
further details in the history of spiritualism, see E. Morselli, who gives
abundant and precise details (Psicologia e spiritismo,
Turin, 1908, i, 12-27).
sHare, Experimental investigations of the spirit manifestations demon
strating the existence of spirits and their communications with mortals,
Philadelphia, 1856. Makan, Modern mysteries explained and exposed, Boston,
1855 (University).
28 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
cated theories, and gave explanations, some of which were quite
correct, and others subtly erroneous.1
At that time, about 1854, the phenomena of unconscious mus
cular action, quite established today, was unknown. The credit
of an ingenious and rational explanation belongs to Chevreul.
He was supported by Babinet, Faraday, Carpenter, and by nearly
all physiologists and physicians.2
In point of fact the study of table-turning is one of the most
difficult in objective metapsychics, for nothing is harder than to
determine the part played by the unconscious in the oscillatory
movements of the table. Even when the good faith of the experi
menters is not in doubt, they evidently cannot be held responsible
for unconscious and involuntary muscular contractions. There
fore it was not possible at that time to prove in an unimpeach
able manner that movement could be produced without muscular
contraction.
Similarly for the raps. An eminent physiologist, M. Schiff,
showed in his own person that a crack, comparable to the raps
supposed to be produced by spirits, could be made by muscular
displacement of a certain tendon. This infantile explanation
that we smile at today was well received by scientists who prob
ably had never heard the raps which cause wood to vibrate some
times loudly, sometimes with musical rhythm, and have nothing
in common with the snappings of a tendon, even supposing that
other persons than the illustrious Florentine physiologist can
produce them. His assertions had been preceded by those of
xSee De Mirville, Pneumatologie des sprits et de leurs manifestations
diverses (fluidiques, historiques, etc.), Paris, first edition, 1853, fifth edition,
S vols., 1863-1864. Gasparin, Des tables tournantes, du surnaturel en gnral,
etc., Paris, 1854. Thiery (2) Les tables tournantes considres au point de vue
de la physique gnrale, Geneva, Kessmann, 1855. E. Hornung, Spiritualis-
tiche Mittheilungen aus der Geisterwelt, Berlin, 1859 and 1862. C. Kiesewetter,
Die Entwickelungsgeschichte des Spiritismus von der Urseit bis sur Gegen-
wart, Leipzig, Spohr, 1893. Leymarie, Histoire du spiritisme, compte rendu du
congrs spirite de 1889, Paris, librarie spirite, 1890, pp. 3-45. Malgras,
Les pionniers du spiritisme, Paris, Lib. des sciences psychologiques, 1906.
*Chevreul, De la baguette divinatoire, du pendule explorateur, et des tables
tournantes, Paris, 1854. Babinet, Etudes et lectures sur les sciences dobser
vation, Paris, 1856. Carpenter, Principles of mental physiology and psycho
logical curiosities of spiritualism (Pop. Sci. Monthly, 1877, Ui, 128).
Faraday, The table-turning delusion, Lancet, 1853. Cumberland, Fraudulent
aspects of spiritualism, Journal of Mental Science, 1881, xxvii, 280-628.
Morin, Le magntisme et les sciences occultes, Paris, 1855. See also on
Faraday's work the recent article by Fr. Grnewald, Faraday ber d. Tisch-
rcken, Psych. Stud., 1920, xlvii, 151, '295, 298.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 29
Flint,1 another distinguished physiologist, who, after observation
of the Fox sisters, attributed the raps to the crackings of their
knee-joints.
Spiritualists made but poor replies to these experimental ob
jections; they ought, as was done later, to have met them by
experiment. Instead, they put forward theories and started a
new religion.
This theorization of spiritism was mainly due to L. H. D.
Rivail (1803-1869), a doctor of medicine scarcely known under
the name of Rivail, but celebrated under the pseudonym of Allan
Kardec.2
The spiritist theory of Allan Kardec is simple enough: The
soul does not die; after death it becomes a spirit and seeks to
manifest through certain privileged beings (mediums), capable
of receiving directions and impulses from spirits; the spirit seeks
reincarnation, i.e., to live again in a human form, of which it is
the soul; all human beings pass through successive transmigra-
tory phases, as Pythagoras had previously taught; their peri-
sprit can, under certain exceptional circumstances, materialize;
they know the past, the present, and the future. Sometimes they
materialize and can act on matter; from the moral point of view
we should let ourselves be guided by good spirits who lead us
towards right, and refuse to listen to bad spirits who lead us
into error.
The intellectual energy of Allan Kardec deserves unfeigned
admiration. Despite an exaggerated credulity he puts his faith
in experiment, and rests on that, so that his work is not only
a far-reaching theory but also a great collection of facts.
This theory has, however, a deplorably weak side. The whole
fabric of his system (which is that of spiritualism in general)
is based on the astonishing hypothesis that mediums, embodying
a so-called spirit, are never mistaken, and that automatic writ
ings, unless prompted by evil spirits, reveal verities to be ac
1A . Flint, On the discovery of the source of the Rochester knockings, and
on sounds produced by the movements of joints and tendons, Quart. Journ.
Med. Sci., New York, 1869, iii, 417-446. Schiff, Comptes rendus de VAcad.
des Sciences, A pril 18, 1859. Jobert, Velpeau, Cloquet, discussion on the
same, ibid., passim.
*Livre des esprits, Paris, 1857, first edition. Livre des mdiums, Paris,
1861, first edition. More than thirty editions have been issued of these cele
brated books which have been translated into all languages. Allan Kardec was
Iso the founder of the Revue Spirite, now in its thirtieth year.
30 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
cepted. If, then, we were to follow Kardecs theory, we must
take at face-value all the divagations of the subconscious, which,
with some exceptions, show a very primitive and puerile intelli
gence. To build a doctrine on the word of so-called spirits is a
very grave error. Nevertheless no influence between 1847 and
1871 was comparable to that of Allan Kardec, and no one has
made a deeper impress on metapsychic science.
Spiritualism was defended in England by Robert Dale Owen
and by Alfred Russel Wallace.1 Wallace was the man whose
genius anticipated Darwins work; his books bear witness to
his courage, for indeed much courage was required to write
in defence of a science that had so little scientific character.
In Germany Zllner stood alone. The time was ripe for the
appearance of the great pioneer of metapsychic scienceSir
William Crookes.
4. The Scientific Stage
Great as were the merits and the courage of Crookes, he was
preceded by the members of the Dialectical Society of London
who, to the number of thirty-six, met at the suggestion of Ed
munds, in January, 1869, to study mediumistic phenomena scien
tifically. Among them was the engineer, Cromwell Varley, the
distinguished naturalist, Russel Wallace, and an acute lawyer,
Serjeant Cox, all of whom seem to have played a leading part.
Well-known scientists such as Tyndall and Carpenter declined
to participate, and there were dissidents among the commission
itself; notably Lubbock and Huxley, who opposed the report of
the majority.2
The facts verified by the Dialectical Society were surprisingly
evidential: they did not, however, secure scientific assent, but
they had one excellent resultthey impelled William Crookes
to study the question. Fortunately he had the assistance of two
powerful mediums with whom to experimentFlorence Cook
and D. Dunglas Home.
1R. D. Owen, Footfalls on the boundary of another world, Philadelphia,
1877; The debatable land between this world and the next, N ew York and
London, 1871. A. Russel Wallace, A Defence of Modern Spiritualism Fort (
nightly Review), London, 1874, xv, 630-657. The Scientific Aspect of the
Supernatural, London, 1866. On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, London,
1873.
*Report on Spiritualism by the Committee of the London Dialectical
Society, together with the evidence oral and written, and a selection from the
correspondence. (Longmans, London, 1871.)
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 31
Crookes was then thirty-seven years old, in the full vigour of
his age and powers. He had already a high scientific standing.
In 1863 he had discovered a new metalthalliumand had done
distinguished work in spectroscopy, astronomy, and meteorology.
He was editor of the Chemical News and of the Quarterly Jour
nal of Science, when he decided to study Homes remarkable
powers.
From 1869 to 1872 he published articles contrasting strongly
by the precision of their language and severe experimental
method with the usual style of spiritualist publications. It was
the beginning of the scientific period. I do not say that these
things are possible. I say that they exist, said Crookes.1
The idolatry of current ideas was so dominant at that time
that no pains were taken either to verify or to refute Crookess
statements. Men were content to ridicule them, and I avow
with shame that I was among the wilfully blind. Instead of
admiring the heroism of a recognized man of science who dared
then in 1872 to say that there really are phantoms that can be pho
tographed and whose heartbeats can be heard, I laughed.
This courage had, however, no immediate or considerable
effect; it is only today that Crookes work is really understood.
It is still the foundation of objective metapsychics, a block of
granite that no criticism has been able to touch. At the close of
a laborious and distinguished life he said, "I have nothing to
withdraw of all I have borne witness to.
Henceforward spiritualists will know that experiment is the
path of progress, rather than religious or mystical speculation.
The whole subject should now be an experimental science, scep
tical of theories and as exact on its own lines as chemistry,
physics, or physiology.
Animal magnetism has passed through a similar evolutionary
stage. Since Puysegur, Deleuze, and Du Potet it has made no
progress. James Braid of Manchester, by calling it hypnotism
did not change its mystical aspect nor its unfortunate association
with medicine. The result was that the doctors and physiologists*
*Many o f his writings are polemical; I will only cite the follow ing:
Experimental investigations on psychic force, London, Gilman, 1871. Re
searches on the phenomena of spiritualism, London, Burns, 1894. On
Psychical Research, Report Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1898-1899.
pp. 185-205. Psychic force and modern spiritualism, A reply to the Quarterly
Review and other critics, London, 1872.
32 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
of 1875 gave little more credence to it than to the materializations
of Katie King.1
In 1875, while still a student, I was able to prove that we are
here concerned with a phenomenon of normal physiology; that
the intelligence in this induced state remains intact and is some
times super-excited, and that there is no need to imagine any
magical or magnetic action. Some years later I gave the first
examples of duplicated personalities, hinted at by Philips and
Azam.2 These changes of personality throw much light on so-
called spiritualist phenomena.
Nothing that I said in my article of 1875 was entirely new;
the old magnetizers had seen the same facts. So also when
Crookes established the reality of phantoms, he said scarcely any
thing that had not already been stated by spiritualists. The
novelty consisted in rigorous application of experimental method
to phenomena till then imperfectly verified and only partially
studied, and therefore given no place in science.
Following on my article many experiments were widely made,
and animal magnetism ceased to be an occult science.3
The efforts of those who study metapsychics should now be
directed to bringing this science out of the category of the occult,
as animal magnetism has been brought.
Another noteworthy event, as important as Crookess work, was
also of British origin. The Society for Psychical Research4 was*
*J. Braid, NeuryPnology, or the rationale of nervous sleep considered in
relation with animal magnetism. Illustrated by numerous cases of its suc
cessful application in the relief and cure of diseases, London, Churchill, 1843.
New edition, 1899. Power of the mind upon the body, London, 1846. Trans
lated into French and German.
*Ch. Richet, Du somnambulisme provoqu. Journ. de lanat. et de la
physiologie, 1875, xi, 348-378. Revue philosophique, 1880, x, 337-384.
A. F. pour lavancement des sciences, Reims, 1881, ix, 50-60. Azam , Le
ddoublement de la personnalit. Rev. scientif., 1890, xlvi, 136-141.
sHeidenhain, Zur Kritik hypnotischer Untersuchungen. Breslau aertstl.
Zeitschrift, 1880, 52-55, and Revue scient., 1880, xviii, 1187-1190. Chambard,
art. Somnambulisme du Diet, encycl. des Sc. Mdicales.
I need not, here mention the observations of Charcot and Bernheim, both
subsequent to my article of 1875, and manifestly prompted by it (1878-1885).
The very interesting history of suggestion does not pertain to metapsychics.
The complete bibliography up to 1902 will be found in the article Hypno
tism, in the Index Catalogue (2), 1902, vii, 743-766. (See also Morselli,
Il magnetismo animale, la fascinazione, gli stati hypnotici, second edition,
Turin, 1886.)
The presidents of this society have been Henry Sidgwick, 1882-84-92;
Balfour Stewart, 1885-87; A. J. Balfour, 1893; William James, 1894-95;
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 33
founded by the persevering efforts of E. Gurney and F. W. H.
Myers. A group of eminent persons drew together to make
investigations in the despised region of occultism, in order to
discover by rigorous scientific method the truths underlying these
strange facts. Thence has grown a colossal assemblage of facts,
experiments, and theories that has furnished data for the meta
psychic science of today.
This scientific reform was not limited to England. In France
a similar effort was made, following the example of Gurney and
Myers, though with lesser resources and fewer adherents. With
the help of Th. Ribot and L. Marillier the Socit de psychologie
physiologique was founded. Its existence was brief, for it aimed
at arousing interest in metapsychic research among psychologists,
physiologists, and physicians. They declined to take it seriously.
I then, with Dariex, founded the Annales des Sciences Psychiques
(1890-1920), C. de Vesme subsequently becoming the zealous
editor. This is now replaced by the Revue Mtapsychique di
rected by Geley, holding a just mean between the credulity of
the spiritualist publications and the blind ignorance of the jour
nals of official psychology.
However, important as are the psychical societies, and useful
as are their publications, their value still depends on experimental
research by single individuals. There can be no psychical re
search without a medium. The function of such societies is to
prevent the powers of remarkable mediums being lost to science
in unmethodical sances held without rigorous supervision.
Between 1885 and 1920 there were many powerful mediums:
Slade, Eglinton, Stainton Moses, Eusapia, Mme. dEsprance,
Mrs. Thomson, Marthe Braud, Stanislawa Tomczyk, Miss Gol-
igher, and Mrs. Leonard; but if I had to cite only two out of
these, I should take Mrs. Piper for subjective, and Eusapia Pala-
dino for objective phenomena.
William Crookes, 1896-99; F. W. H. Myers, 1900; Oliver Lodge, 1901-03; Sir
William Barrett, 1904; Charles Richet, 1905; G. Balfour, 1906-07; Mrs. H.
Sidgwick, 1908-09; A . Arthur Smith, 1910; Andrew Lang, 19 11; Carpenter,
1912; H. Bergson, 1913; Schiller, 1914; Gilbert Murray, 1915; Professor
Jacks, 19 17; Lord Rayleigh, 1919; W . McDougall, 1921.
The Proceedings published by Trbner & Co. form twenty-eight volumes,
to which must be added the Journal (1884-1920), printed for private circu
lation. A very good index appeared in 1904, giving the chief cases referred
to in Phantasms of the Living and in the Proceedings of the American
S. P. R. The headquarters o f the S. P. R. are at 20 Hanover Square.
34 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Mrs. Piper, of Boston, studied with extraordinary patience by
William James, and afterwards by R. Hodgson, and then with
equal perseverance by Hyslop, and also by F. Myers, Sir Oliver
Lodge, and Sir William Barrett, has powers of clairvoyance and
cryptesthesia probably greater than any before observed. She
tells those who visit her, at once, and almost without hesitation,
the names of their relatives, with episodes in their lives, unknown
to her visitor, that can be verified only after long and painstaking
enquiry.
If there were no other medium in the world but Mrs. Piper
that would be sufficient to establish scientifically the facts of crypt
esthesia.
Eusapia Paladino1 has been studied hundreds of times by the
leading scientific men of Europe. Schiaparelli, Porro, Aksakoff,
G. Finzi, A. and F. Myers, O. Lodge, E. Feilding, Lombroso, A.
de Rochas, Ochorowicz, J. Maxwell, A. de Schrenck-Notzing, C.
Flammarion, Bottazzi, Morselli, Foa, Sabatier, A. de Watteville,
A. de Gramont, Carrington, and many more have all verified with
her the reality of movements without contact and materializations.
Even if there were no other medium than Eusapia in the world,
her manifestations would suffice to establish scientifically the
reality of telekinesis and ectoplasmic forms.
Both Mrs. Piper and Eusapia have always showed complete
readiness to comply with scientific tests, accepting all control
without taking offence. It is mainly through them that the
development of metapsychic science in recent years has been
possible. Scientific men of the future should recognize with
gratitude the debt they owe to them and to their predecessors,
D. D. Home and Florence Cook.
More recent experiments with Marthe Braud, Stanislawa
Tomczyk, and Miss Goligher have opened wide possibilities be
fore objective metapsychics.
Thus metapsychics has acquired the right to be held a separate
science under that name, differentiated from hypnotism on the
one hand and from spiritualism on the other. I gave it this name
and made this claim in 1905. Hypnotism is a nearly normal
accompaniment in animal magnetism; it is an induced mental
state such that normal consciousness is modified and transformed,
xThe complete bibliography of publications relating to Eusapia has been
Bibliografia Paladiniana,
given by Morselli under the suggestive title o f in a
remarkable book,Psicologia e spiritismo, Turin, Bona, 1908, 134-170.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 35
and new phases of consciousness, sometimes multiple, appear
while the normal consciousness is asleep. But hypnotism still
belongs to psychology, so that somnambulism only pertains to
metapsychics on the emergence of faculties of cognition which
do not exist at all in the normal state. To these faculties I have
given the name of cryptesthesia.
It is in no way doubtful that cryptesthesia is developed by
means of hypnotism, magnetism, and somnambulism, but meta
psychics is concerned with hypnotism only through its intensi
fication of cryptesthesia.
At the other pole of the so-called occult sciences is spiritualism;
and here the facts must be dissociated from theories. Spiritual
ism, according to the formula of Allan Kardec and others, is a
theory leading to a religion; but this takes us very far beyond
science. Not that metapsychics should abjure all theory; no
science, however young, can dispense altogether with theories,
even hypothetical theories, but theory must always be subordinate
to the facts; it must never dominate them and look on them as
accessory to a religion. This was what the founders of meta
psychic scienceGurney, Myers, and Crookesendeavoured to
achieve.
Neither the magnetizers nor the spiritualists should be con
temned. That would be a grave injustice. They carried out
laborious investigations that are the foundation of metapsychics,
disregarding ridicule, hostility, and the rejection of their work
by official science.
But we have reached a new stage. It is no longer admissible
that a new medium should be developed by a small circle without
the methods employed in all sciencesscales, photography, cine
matography, and graphic diagrams. Similarly, rigorous and
exhaustive enquiry, such as is carried out by the S. P. R., is
indispensable for all subjective phenomena. Complete certitude
is required, half-certitudes will not do.
In fine, modern metapsychics should be limited on the subjective
side to the psychological phenomena that conscious human intelli
gence, however keen, is incapable of producing; and on the objec
tive side to material facts produced apparently by intelligent causes
that the known and classified natural forces (light, heat, elec
tricity, gravitation, and mechanical power) are unable to explain.
In this brief historical summary I have not been able to indi
cate the work that has been done. Its bibliography is already
36 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
enormous. I should like, however, to indicate, to those who wish
to study the spiritualism, the occultisms, and the metapsychics
of the half century that has now elapsed, the chief works dealing
with the subject, all of them useful and some indispensable. Only
leading works are here mentioned:
Aksakoff, Animismus und Spiritismus, Versuch einer Kritischen
Prfung der mediumnistischen Phaenomene, Leipzig, Mutze,
1890, 4th ed., in two vols., 1902, trad, fr., Libr. des sciences
psychologiques, 1895. E. Bozzano, Ipotesi spiritica e teorie scien-
tifiche, Genova, Donath, 1903. A. Brofferio, Per lo spiritismo, 1st
ed., Milano, Briola, 1892, 3d ed., Torino, Bocea, 1903, trad, all.,
Berlin, 1894. G. Delanne, Le spiritisme devant la science, Paris,
Chanuel, 1895, 5th ed., 1897, Les apparitions matrialises,
Paris, Leymarie, 2 vols., 8vo, 1911. Recherches sur la mdi
umnit, Paris, 1896. Fr. Myers, The human personality and
its survival to bodily death, London, Longmans, 2 vols., 8vo,
1902. Oliver Lodge, La survivance humaine. A. de Rochas,
V extriorisation de la motricit, Paris, Chanuel, 1896, 4th ed.,
1906. L'extriorisation de la sensibilit, Paris, Chanuel, 1895,
5th ed., Chacornac, 1905. Les tats profonds de l'hypnose, Paris,
Chacornac, 1892. Les tats superficiels de l'hypnose, Paris, Cha
cornac, 1902. J. Maxwell, Les phnomnes psychiques. Re
cherches, observations, mthodes, Paris, Alcan, 1905, MetaPsy-
chical Phenomena, London, Duckworth, 1905. E. Boirac,
L'avenir des sciences psychiques, Paris, Alcan, 1907. La psycho
logie inconnue, Paris, Alcan, 1915. Carmelo Samona, P siche
misteriosa: i fenomeni detti spiriticci, Palermo, Reber, 1910.
E. Flammarion, Les forces naturelles inconnues, Flammarion,
Paris, 1907. Linconnu et les problmes psychiques, Paris, Flam
marion, 1900. La mort et son mystre, Paris, 1920. Morton
Prince, A dissociation of personality, Boston, Turner, 1906. Zll
ner, WissenschafFtliche Abhandlungen, part iii, Die transeenden
tle Physik und die sogenannte Philosophie, Leipzig, Stachmann,
1878-1879. J. H. Hyslop, Science and a future life, Boston,
Turner, 1905. Innocenzo Calderone, La Rincarnazione, Milano,
dit. Veritas, 1913. Stainton Moses (Oxon), The higher aspects
of spiritualism, London, 1880. Spirit identity, London (Spirit
ualist alliance, 1902). G. Geley, De l'inconscient au conscient,
Paris, Alcan, 1919. L'tre subconscient, 4th ed., Paris, 1919.
J. Grasset, L'occultisme hier et aujourd'hui, Montpellier, Coulet,
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 37
1908. Osty, Lucidit et intuition, Paris, Alcan, s. d. Florence
Marryat, There is no death, Leipzig, Heinemann, 1892. Chev-
reul, On ne meurt pas, Paris, 1914. S. Ottolenghi, La sugges
tione a le facolta psichiche occulte in rapporto alla pratica legale
e medico forense, Torinb, Bocca, 1900. Amirai Usborne Moore,
Glimpses of the next state, London, Watts & Co., 1912. Du Prel,
Das Rthsel des Menschen, Leipzig, Mutze, 1885, trad, it., Mi
lano, Galli, 1894. Monistische Seeleneehre; ein Beitrag auf L
sung des Menschenrthsels, Leipzig, Gnther, 1888. L. Denis,
Aprs la mort, expos de la doctrine des esprits, dern. d.,
1918, Paris, Leymarie, trad, ital., Milano, 1914. Fr. Podmore,
Modem spiritualism; a history and a criticism, London, Methuen,
2 vols., 1902. Wahu, Le spiritisme dans lantiquit, et dans les
temps modernes, Paris, Leymarie, 2 vols., 1885. Schrenck-Notz-
ing, Physikalische Phaenomene des Mediumnismus, Munich, Rein
hardt, 1920.
Some idea of the volume of metapsychic literature may be
formed by adding to this short bibliography, which I shall have
occasion to supplement in the course of the present work, the
important articles published in Light (London), in the Banner
of Light (Boston), The Religio-philosophical Journal (New
York), the Harbinger of Light (Melbourne), the Revue Spirite,
Paris, Revue scientifique et morale du spiritisme (Paris), the
Luce e Ombra (Milan, a noteworthy record), the Zeitschrift fr
Spiritismus (Leipzig), and Psychische Studien (Berlin).
I cannot mention all the books that have appeared since 1920
on metapsychics; it will suffice to quote the following:
C. Flammarion, Aprs la mori, Paris, 1922. G. Voumiquel,
Les tmoins posthumes, Paris, Leymarie, 1921. M. Maeterlinck,
Le Grand Secret, Paris, Fasquelle, 1921. Freud, Introduction to
Psycho-analysis. Oesterreich, Der Occultismus im Modernen
Weltbild, Sibyllen-Verlag, Dresden, 1921. P. Heuze, Les Morts
Vivent ils f Renaissance Paris, 1922. F. Heslop, Further Mes
sages Across the Borderline, Taylor, London, 1921. L. Farigoule,
La vision extra-rtinienne et le sens paroptique, Nouvelle Revue,
1920. Tischer, Monismus und Occultismus, Mutze, Leipzig,
1921. Tassacher, Occultismus und Spiritismus, Stuttgart, 1921.
Lewis Baylis Paton, Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead in An
tiquity, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1921. Evelyn Underhill,
38 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of the Day, London, Methuen,
1921. Walter F. Prince, Spiritualism and the New Psychology,
American S. P. R., 1922, p. 72. J. Maxwell, Magie, Paris, Flam
marion, 1921.
In most of these, Flammarions fine work excepted, there is
much more nebulosity than precision. Those who wish to be
informed of new facts will find them in the numerous reviews
that devote themselves specially to this subject.
4. Mediums
This term medium, which signifies an intermediary between
this world of the living and the world of the dead, is execrable,
but too firmly fixed to be abandoned. In the course of this book
many details will be found which have not found a place in this
chapter which is necessarily abbreviated to avoid repetition else
where. The history of mediums covers nearly all metapsychics.
There is a great difference between powerful mediums such as
Home, Eusapia, Stainton Moses, and Florence Cook, who mani
fest surprising objective and energetic phenomena, and those
who show only subjective phenomena. It is therefore necessary
to place physical mediums who show telekinesis and materializa
tions in a class by themselves.
Such mediums are very rare; even those who can give raps
without contact are not common.
Their psycho-physiology does not tell us much; it is not pos
sible to say whether they are more or less intelligent than average
persons. Nothing distinguishes them from others, except their
strange power of producing materializations (hands and shapes
of persons), and movements of matter (noises, raps, voices, and
scents) in spiritist sances.
The extreme rarity of telekinetic powers is not a matter for
suspicion; we must perforce admit that all men are not alike.
Some children show at a very early age astounding powers of
memory and calculation. It is easy to admit that in the mass of
humanity there must be exceptional individuals.
Cryptesthetic are much more common than the telekinetic fac
ulties. Cryptesthesia of all degrees is so widespread, and tele
kinesis is so rare, that the persons showing the latter powers
cannot be classed along with those showing the former.
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 39
We shall therefore class mediums in two distinct groups:
1. Mediums showing physical phenomena.
2. Mediums showing psychical phenomena.
Telekinesis is sharply defined; materialization still more so,
but the elementary form of telekinesis, rapping, which is a
sonorous vibration (without contact) in the wood of a table or,
a chair, without the power of raising objects or producing ma
terializations, is not infrequent; but even here it is difficult to
draw a precise line dividing those mediums who can and those
who cannot produce raps, for very slight noises are often heard
when a medium is scarcely touching the table, noises so slight
that one can hardly be sure of them.
It would be desirable here to touch on the biography of the
great mediums noted for materializations and telekinesis, but
we must defer this to the chapter on materializations.
To mention Home, Florence Cook, Stainton Moses, Eusapia,
Mme. dEsprance, Eglinton, Linda Gazzera, Slade, Marthe B
raud, Miss Goligher, and Stanislawa Tomczyk is to name nearly
all; it is obvious that they are but few. The number of those
who give raps is very much larger, but I have no statistics regard
ing them.
Unfortunately physical mediums often misuse their powers;
they think to enrich themselves and give public sances for profit.
The Fox sisters, the Davenport brothers, Eglinton, and Slade
all did this, and from thence to fraud is but a step that has often
been taken, so that professional mediums of this class are always
to be looked upon with suspicion and the most rigid precautions
must always be taken against trickery. Indeed this is always
necessary, even when there is no possible suspicion of conscious
fraud.
There are, however, excellent reasons for not refusing to
experiment with leading professional mediums.
1. At the outset of their careers the phenomena produced must
certainly have been genuine. Leah, Margaret, and Kate Fox
would not of set purpose have invented the Hydesville rappings
had they not originally had genuine ones.
2. Mediums like Mme. dEsprance, Florence Cook, Linda, Eu
sapia, and Marthe Braud had never had a lesson in legerdemain
or illusionism. They experienced some strange phenomena and
almost in spite of themselves followed the path opened before
them. Only in order to discredit the facts has extraordinary
40 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
skill been attributed to them, a skill greater than that of expert
conjurers like Robert Houdin, Hamilton, and Maskelyne, suffi
cient to deceive the most alert men of science in a way that
Houdin, Hamilton, or Maskelyne have not been able to imitate.
As to mediums producing psychical effects only, every shade
between them and normal persons is observable. It would even
seem that quite normal persons once in their lives may have
some passing lucidity; but not to depart overmuch from usual
language we will provisionally apply the term medium only
to those persons who consider themselves to be in relations with
extraneous personalities.
Conformably to this we have defined metapsychics as the science
whose subject-matter is phenomena which seem to arise from
an intelligence other than the human intelligence. Mediums are
therefore those persons who, in partial or total unconsciousness,
speak words, perform actions, and make gestures that seem not
to be under control of their will and to be independent of their
intelligence. Nevertheless these unconscious phenomena show
intelligence and system, and are sometimes most aptly co-ordi
nated. Therefore the first thing to be discovered is whether they
are due to a human or to a super-human intelligence.
To take a well-known and concrete example: Helen Smith
writes automatically long messages that she attributes to Marie
Antoinette. Is this done by Helen Smiths own intelligence, or
by another? Is it Marie Antoinette or some other that governs
Helen Smiths words, gestures, and writing?
We shall discuss these two hypotheses later on. For the pres
ent we shall show that there are gradual, almost indescribable
gradations between these so-called mediums and normal persons.
It is not only difficult, but impossible, to draw a line of demarca
tion ; whereas between physical mediums and normal persons there
is the chasm of an essential difference.
The grades of subjective mediumship may be classified as
follows:
(A) The first departure from the normal consists in slight,
almost imperceptible, muscular movements, sufficient, however,
to enable an experienced person to recognize unconscious sensa
tion and will in the subject under observation. There are cer
tainly more than fifty per cent, of normal persons who reveal
their thoughts by slight muscular tremors of which they are
unconscious, as in the willing game, which sometimes gives
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 41
surprising results. These involuntary movements are so fre
quently and clearly observable that they belong to normal physi
ology and not to metapsychics.
(B) The second degree consists in the creation of a new per
sonality by' hypnotism. The normal personality reappears on
awaking, but under hypnotism and hypnotic suggestion a new
personality appears which is evidently factitious, since the mag-
netizer imposes it at will and can maintain it by verbal suggestion.
This artificial and transitory personality also belongs to normal
official psychology.
(C) The third degree is a mediumistic state, i.e., a new per
sonality is created by auto-suggestion. Hypnotism acts through
hetero-suggestion; mediumship by auto-suggestion. There is
very little difference between the personality of Marie Antoinette
as assumed by Helen Smith of her own accord, and the same
personality as aroused by suggestion of a hypnotizer.
Automatic writings belong to this group and there is no ground
for giving this important psychological manifestation a place in
metapsychics, at least in regard to the mere fact of writing, for
in most of these cases the need for the hypothesis of an extraneous
non-human intelligence does not arise. Since I can suggest to
Alice that she is Marie Antoinette and she enacts admirably the
part of the unhappy queen, why should I suppose that the Queen
of France is incarnate in Helen Smith when she assumes that
character of her own motion and plays it equally well? The
supposition is gratuitous and infantile.
(D) The fourth step is when the new personality shows
cryptesthesia and really seems to know things unknown to the
medium, and even things that the secondary personality alone
could be aware of, as in the case of Mrs. Piper incarnating
Phinuit or George Pelham.
The guide of the medium (i.e., the new personality that ap
pears) then seems to be a genuinely extraneous intelligence.
These phenomena can rightly be called metapsychic because,
taking them all in all, the normal intelligence of the sensitive is
quite insufficient to explain the strange and potent cryptesthesia.
I need scarcely remark that the notion that an extraneous force
is in play is only a hypothesis.
(E) Perhaps it would be as well to reserve the name medium
for those who produce mechanical movement without contact and
materializations. This is the fifth degree; in which levitations,
42 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
telekinesis, hallucinations pertaining to the spiritist trance (akin
to the hypnotic trance) and materializations appear side by side
with cryptesthesia.
There is still nothing to prove that the secondary personalities
may not be exclusively human and due to modalities of human
intelligence; whereas the physical phenomena show something
really new and metapsychic, transcending normal psychology,
and by no means explicable without the intervention of unknown
powers that appear to be intelligent.
As this1book claims to be a working treatise, I shall, in order
to give clear ideas, instance some examples of transition from the
normal to the mediumistic state.
First degree. Antoinette is not hypnotizable; but if I take her
hand and ask her to think of some object that she has hidden
in a corner of the room, she is much astonished when I discover
that object, guided by her unconscious movements.
Second degree. Alice is hypnotized. If I suggest that she is
an old general, she caricatures an old generalcoughs, spits,
speaks roughly, swears, calls for a drink, etc. She will play this
simple farce for an hour at a time.
Third degree. Helen Smith has become Marie Antoinette by
auto-suggestion. She moves with dignity, speaks the language,
and reproduces nearly the writing and spelling of the queen. In
perfect good faith she plays this role for weeks or months.
Mme. Camus puts her hand on the table and feverishly writes
long phrases automatically; she does not know what she writes
and talks of other things while writing. A certain Vincent is
supposed to be the spirit-guide of these commonplace philosoph
ical and theosophical dissertations.
Fourth degree. Mrs. Piper gradually loses her normal con
sciousness ; then Phinuit, or George Pelham, Myers, or R. Hodg
son speak through her. But these personalities, though probably
imaginary and arising from auto-suggestion, have astonishing
cryptesthetic powers. The words spoken by them through the
voice of Mrs. Piper, show telepathy, monitions, premonitions, and
all kinds of lucidity, so that rationalism (which is itself perhaps
an error), finds the greatest difficulty not to ascribe the almost
superhuman intelligence displayed to some extraneous source.
Mrs. Leonard, Mme. Briffaut, Stella, and the Seeress of Pre-
vorst are all mediums of this kind.
Fifth degree. Eusapia falls into a trance without being hyp
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 43
notized. Then by the agency of John King, as she says, she
moves objects without touching them ; she materializes the hands,
and sometimes the head of John King. Other phantoms some
times appear. Home, Mme. dEsprance, Florence Cook, Stain-
ton Moses, Stanislawa Tomczyk, Miss Goligher, and Marthe
Braud are mediums of the same order. Frequently cryptesthesia
of divers kinds appears side by side with the physical and me
chanical results. The domination by an extraneous intelligence
seems complete, alike by the cognition of things unknown to
the medium herself and by the abnormal powers over matter.
Indeed true mediums (of the physical order) are often sensi
tives also ; they have remarkable cryptesthetic faculties. Stainton
Moses and Home showed this. Eusapia showed only mechanical
and physical phenomena, Mrs. Piper only psychological.
Without drawing any inference, it must be admitted as a fact
that powerful mediums attribute their powers to a guide,
whether those powers be mechanical, objective, or subjective; and
in order to carry out successful experiments, it is necessary to act
as though this guide were really existent and incarnated in the
medium. This is a working hypothesis in the strictest sense,
nearly always essential to the production of the phenomena.
Science, it has been said, is only accuracy of language. There
fore we ought not to use the same word to describe persons so
different as Eusapia and Mrs. Piper. We might call those who
give physical effects, mediums; those who show cryptesthetic
effects which they attribute to extraneous forces, sensitives; and
those who (without cryptesthesia), present, by automatic writ
ing, secondary personalities that seem spontaneous, but are doubt
less created by auto-suggestion, automatists.
This classification, like all others, is arbitrary. Sensitives are
always automatists also, though the converse is not true. Hun
dreds of cases might be cited of automatic writing which are but
moderately interesting examples of released subconsciousness,
destitute of cryptesthesia and lucidity, and in no way noteworthy
except for the extraordinary powers of the subconscious.
In spite of my strong desire to refer metapsychic phenomena
as far as possible to the domain of normal psychology, I do not
wish to curtail or misrepresent them on rationalist grounds. The
dominance of a single idea and the state of automatism induced
by trance, whether hypnotic or spiritist, creates such extraordi
nary aptitudes for cryptesthesia that one is really tempted to
44 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
believe in an extraneous intelligence in such cases as those of
Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Leonard, and Mrs. Verrall. This question will
not be discussed here; later on I shall treat it fearlessly.
Neither sensitives, nor automatists, nor even mediums show
any special signs; they are like other people. Age, sex, and na
tionality do not seem to influence the matter.
Hysteria has often been invoked; but unless we assign an
unwarrantable extension to this morbid state, it does not seem
favourable to the phenomena. Hysterics are often hypnotizable,
but so are most people. Mediums are more or less neuropaths,
liable to headaches, insomnia, or dyspepsia; but this signifies very
little. I entirely refuse to consider them morbid persons as P.
Janet is too disposed to do. Certainly they show some dissocia
tions of consciousness; but such analogous dissociations with par
tial automatism are common enough among artists, men of sci
ence, and many ordinary individuals.
J. Maxwell has insisted on a certain mark in the iris of most
mediums, and it might be worth while to make some statistical
research on this; but there will always be the difficulty of know
ing where to stop, for there is no line of demarcation possible
between sensitives and automatists on the one hand and normal
persons on the other. One automatist does nothing but trace
circles; another writes incoherent words; a third will write con
nected sentences; a fourth composes short poems; while a fifth
will write a book or a novel. There are all possible degrees in
automatism. The talents of the unconscious show even more
variety than those of consciousness.
Cryptesthesia also admits of many gradations. A person who
has been perfectly normal during the whole of a long life may
one day see a veridical apparition or hear a premonitory voice.
He cannot be called a sensitive, though he has been such for
a few minutes or seconds. Persons apparently normal look into
the crystal and after a short time perceive dramatic scenes in the
little glass sphere. One cannot say that they are sensitives, or
that they are not; but here also there is no need to invoke an
external agency, even to explain the fact.
Even great sensitives like Mrs. Piper or Stainton Moses have
no distinguishing physiological characteristics. These privileged
persons who, according to spiritualist ideas, enter into communi
cation with the dead, do not show any other physical or mental
superiority. The facility with which their consciousness suffers
CONCERNING METAPSYCHICS IN GENERAL 45
dissociation indicates a certain mental instability, and their re
sponsibility while in a state of trance is somewhat diminished;
but these are only shades of character, and I infer that apart
from their visions, trances, and other manifestations they are
much as other people.
Their sensitiveness has usually been discovered by chance. It
would be very interesting to work out the details of the origins
of mediumship. Every prominent case would, no doubt, show
very different points of departure, but never that they have
become mediums of set purpose. The power develops spontane
ously.
It is curious, and discouraging, to find that their powers do not
increase. They arise spontaneously, no one knows how or why.
If the fancy takes them, so to speak, they simply disappear; no
effort can retain them. Katie King left Florence Cook and
Sir William Crookes, merely stating that she must leave them.
My regretted and learned friend, Dr. Segard, told me that his
young daughter of twelve showed remarkable telekinetic phe
nomena (levitation of a heavy table, raps, movements of objects
without contact) for three days only, after which the whole power
vanished. This was twenty-five years ago and the lady has never
had any such later experiences. Training seems inoperative; I
am even inclined to think that our efforts to regularize the phe
nomena bring more disadvantages than advantages. Hence in
my own experiments I have entirely given up all attempts to
indicate how the sensitive or the medium should act. A medium
must be left to take his own way; our influence, if we have any,
would probably be unsatisfactory. A powerful medium is a
very delicate instrument of whose secret springs we know nothing,
and clumsy handling may easily disorganize its working. It is
best to allow the phenomena to develop in their own way without
any attempts at guidance. It is probably a great mistake to try
to educate mediumship.
Why is this? It does not seem to me that we can necessarily
infer the intervention of an external intelligence. Even with
normal children and youths the power of education is, perhaps
fortunately, very limited.
Mediums have not hitherto been treated with justice; they have
been slandered, ridiculed, and vilified. They have been treated
as anitna viles for experiment. When their faculties faded away
they have been left to die in obscurity and want; when rewarded
46 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
it has been with a niggardly hand, giving them to understand
that they are only instruments. It is time that this inhuman treat
ment should cease.
If by any chance a powerful physical medium or sensitive were
discovered, instead of leaving such a one to the curiosity of the
ignorant, to journalists, and to ladies who consult them on a
lost dog or a faithless lover, they should be assured of liberal
board and lodging, or perhaps more, in order to prevent their
mediumship being degraded by base necessities. Mme. Bisson
has done this for Marthe Beraud; Lord Dunraven did the same
for Home, and E. Imoda for Linda. In short, mediums should
be claimed for sciencesevere, just, and generous sciencein
stead of allowing their wonderful faculties to be prostituted by
childish credulity or damaging contempt.
At the same time there should be no relaxation of scientific
strictness, without demanding astounding experiments, or excur
sions into the beyond. We must resign ourselves to earth-condi
tions. Metapsychic phenomena should be treated as problems of
pure physiology. Let us experiment with these rare, privileged,
and wonderful persons and remember that they deserve to be
treated with all respect, but also that they must never be trusted.
BOOK II
Subjective Metapsychics
CHAPTER I
On S u b j e c t iv e M e t a p s y c h ic s in G eneral
85
86 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
exceeding 100 on any day, there were 315 successes against a
probable 280, the number of guesses being 1,132. This is still
inconclusive.
By experiments made in England by the same method with
17,653 guesses there were 4,760 successes, exceeding the probable
number by 347. This is more distinctive, but still not very con
vincing. It seems possible, however, to distinguish persons pos
sessed of more or less lucidity by this means.
My friends G. F. and H. F. were certainly slightly sensitive.
Working with the divining-rod when the odds were 1:8, 1:6,
and 1 :48, we had the results stated below on five trials:
x :8 i :6 x : 48
1st trial......................... Success. Failure. Failure.
2d trial.......................... Success. Failure. Failure.
3d trial..........................Success. Success. Success.
4th trial......................... Success. Failure. Failure.
5th trial.........................Success. Success. Success.
Thus, the probability being 1 to 8, there were 5 successes on 5
trials. The probability of five consecutive successes is only 1 in
32,000. Cryptesthesia in this case is a moral certainty.
On the other hand, A. P. and myself, who neither of us have
any lucidity, operating side by side with G. F. and H. F., obtained:
1. Success, failure, failure.
2. Failure, failure, failure.
3. Failure, failure, failure.
4. Failure, failure, failure.
Showing no appreciable difference between the probable number
and that actually obtained, quite different from the results by
G. F. and H. F.
A later series of trials made simultaneously by B., by S., and
by myself with cards seen by no one, B. had 5 failures, I had
1 success, and S., who has mediumistic powers, had 2 successes.
The compounded probability on two successes (each having the
simple probability of 1:52) is 1:250.
We cannot enter into all the details given in Sir William Bar
retts report (Proc. S. P. R., Experimental Telepathy, Phantasms
of the Lilting, i, 20-29; i, 47-65); but the importance of Sir
Oliver Lodges experiment with young girls who were neither
EXPERIMENTAL CRYPTESTHESIA 87
hypnotized nor mediums demands mention.1 Mr. Malcolm Guth
rie made the arrangements for the experiment, which was on the
reproduction of drawings. In one instance the drawing to be
guessed was the Union Jack, which was reproduced without
hesitation.
The conditions were perfect; and twenty years later Sir
Oliver writes: I declare positively that the experiment was
entirely conclusive, and I have had no Subsequent doubt of its
validity.
218 trials were made by six persons, the probability being 1:6.
In 54 guesses Mrs. H. and Mrs. B., both of whom had some
vague mediumistic power, had 22 successes, the probable number
being 10 on chance alone. The four other persons in 162 trials
had 45 successes against a probable 32; the ratio of the actual
number to the probable one being 220 for Mrs. H. and Mrs. B.,
and 140 for the other four persons.
In an experiment made by Mr. Herdmann, a Cambridge pro
fessor, the results were:
Actual drawing. As guessed.
Red. Red.
Yellow. Golden color.
R. R.
E. E.
Right-angled triangle. Isosceles triangle.
Tetrahedron. Pyramids of Egypt.
Five of clubs. Five of spades.
Such experiments are very cogent. So likewise are those given
by Ochorowicz in his excellent book on Mental Suggestion,
which all should read who desire to take note of the many pre
cautions that should be taken to eliminate causes of error.
At Brighton in 1882, with G. A. Smith as percipient, Ed.
Gurney and Myers obtained very remarkable results which the
strange subsequent denials of Mr. Smith do not invalidate (Proc.
S. P. R., viii, 536).2*
0
* . Lodge, Nature, xxx, 145, and The Survival of Man, French transla
tion, 1912, p. 26.
*Quoted by Delanne, loc. cit., p. 268.
88 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Name thought of. First answer. Second answer.
Barnard. Harland. Barnard.
Bellairs. Hamphreys. Ben Nevis.
Johnson. Jobson. Johnson.
Regent Street. Rembrandt Street. Regent Street.
Hobhouse. Hanter. Regent Street.
Black. Drack. Blacke.
Queen Anne. Quechy. Queen.
Wissenschaft. Wissie. Wisenaft.
More recently Sir Oliver Lodge, experimenting with the Misses
de Lyro, found that they had a curious joint sensitiveness. They
held each others hands. The detail is given in The Survival
of Man, pp. 44-45, and strictly speaking something not quite
amounting to cryptesthesia might be admitted, not fraud, but a
transmission by contact, a transposition of sensibilitya phenom
enon very much akin to cryptesthesia. And the guesses changed
from frequently correct to quite wild, directly the knuckles
or finger-tips or any part of the skin of the two hands ceased to
touch. It was almost like the breaking of an electric circuit
(p. 45).
It is to be noted that the answers were given very quickly,
even for somewhat complicated figures. The number thought
of, 3,145, was given very rapidly as 3,146. The number being
715, the answer was 714; no, 715. Nevertheless, and notwith
standing the authority of Lodge, I think these very interesting
experiments fundamentally different from those in which there
is no contact.
In some good experiments by F. L. Usher and Burt, with
themselves as percipients (they not being sensitives in the ordi
nary acceptation of the word), they verified that the guessing
of a card was more nearly correct than chance would account
for even when the operators were very far apartLondon to
Bristol (120 miles), and London to Prague (960 miles). On
60 trials the results were:
Actual Probable
number. number.
Complete successes............................ 4 1.1
Value of the card.............. ..............14 4.5
Colour of the card............ .............. 28 30
At a smaller distance, in the same room, but full precautions
EXPERIMENTAL CRYPTESTHESIA 89
being taken that no indication could be given by the agent, there
were, on 36 trials:
Actual Probable
number. number.
Complete successes.......... ...............9 0.7
Value of the card.............. ..............15 2.7
Colour of the card............ ..............20 18
The totals are very satisfactory, for in 96 trials the number
of successes was 13 against a probable number of only 2; while
for the value of the card chosen the successes were 29 when
chance alone would have indicated 7.1
The fact that in the case of the colour of the card the actual
successes and the probable successes were both 48 shows that
the experiments were very well conducted. Other experiments
have been made with drawings; some of these are interesting
but do not lend themselves to a calculation by probabilities. We
shall return to these when speaking of clairvoyance by sensitives.
An important paper on lucidity was presented at Knigsberg
in 1913 as an inaugural address by Max. Hoppe ( Ueber Hell-
sehen, Berlin, Haussmann, 1916). His analysis of cases of
lucidity as applied to guessing of cards and numbers is methodical
and detailed. He establishes that even when operating with
sensitive subjects, the proof is not rigorously exact, which I
readily grant ; but it must also be admitted that definite proof of
cryptesthesia is not to be reached by this kind of experiment.
Mediums and somnambulists dislike these tests which do not
move their sensitive faculties like an automobile accident or a
fire. Nevertheless his criticism is acute. He criticizes my own
experiments on Lonie with justice; I had, however, no need
to wait for this criticism to admit their very moderate value.
Nor does he admit the lucidity of Mr. Reese. On this point,
however, his objections seem to me valueless. He made experi
ments with one single person with negative results, but that
proves nothing whatever. In short Mr. Hoppe confines himself
to criticism (quite legitimate criticism) of my old experiments
in 1884. I think he would find it difficult to maintain his position
in view of my later experiments and those of the large n u m b e r
of men of science who have made a study of lucidity.
Quelques expriences de transmission de la pense a grande distance
(A. S. P., 1910, xx, 14-21 and 40-54).
90 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Dr. Blair Thaw of New York, experimenting with Miss Thaw,
has obtained very clear cases of cryptesthesia applied to colours,
the telepathic mental suggestion being very evident (Hyslop,
Science and a Future Life, pp. 25-30).
Colour thought of. First answer. Second, answer.
Light red. Light red. Light red.
Green. Green. Light red.
Yellow. Blue. Yellow.
Light yellow. Light yellow. Yellow.
Dark red. Blue. Dark red.
Dark blue. Orange. Dark blue.
Orange. Green. Heliotrope.
The Misses Wingfield, who certainly have remarkable medium
istic powers, made a series of 400 experiments which would be
equivalent to demonstration if there be no defect in the method
a point on which I am not able to judge.
In 400 trials the probable number of successes is 4 ; the number
obtained by thought-reading was 27. In 21 cases the digits
were reversed. The odds against both results are very large,
and the number of successes amounts to a moral certainty that
a cause other than chance was in play (Ph. of the L., ii, 653,
669). But were the experiments unexceptionable?
Miss Lindsay and Mr. Shilton also had a number of successes
far higher than the probable number (A. S. P., 1909, xix, 123).*
But however interesting the mathematical evaluation of prob
ability in such experiments, it must always be remembered that
the value to be attached to the figures depends entirely on the
absence of defect in the methods pursued. Absolute experimental
rigour is the essential condition.
One subject experimented on by Lombroso had his eyes and
ears completely sealed and words were written behind his back
^ h e bibliography is a very large one. I specially cite J. Ochorowicz, La
suggestion mentale, Paris, 1884. Ch. Richet, La suggestion mentale et le
calcul des probabilits, Rev. Philosophique, December, 1884. Fr Myers, On a
telepathic explanation of some so-called spiritualistic phenomena (P. S. P. R.,
1883-1884, 217). Automatic writing, ibid., 1885, p. 1, May, 1887, 209; June,
1889, 222. Other curious cases are noted in the second edition of Phan
tasms of the Living, ii, 670-671. The experiments by the Misses Creery
reported in the Phantasms of the Living, i, 25, must not be taken into
account, for fraud was proved (Note relating to some of the published
experiments in thought transference, P. S. P. R., 1884, 269-270).
EXPERIMENTAL CRYPTESTHESIA 91
for him to read. The first word was Margharita; he wrote
Maria and then Margharita. Amore was written; he wrote
Moirier, then Amore. Andrea was written; he wrote Andrea.
Dr. J. Ch. Roux, while a student, made some unexceptionable
experiments with a pack of 32 cards, definitely evidential of
cryptesthesia. He had 5 complete successes, the compounded
probability being 1: 3000.
In another series of 81 trials he had 54 successes, as against
20 if due to chance alone. There were also 8 successes when
chance would have given 1 only (A. S. P., iii, 1893, 295).
A schoolmaster whose name is not given made an experiment
with a class, not with cards, but with six letters. In 7 experiments
of 30 trials each with several scholars at the same time, the
probable number was -5-9-40, say 990; the number of vowels indi
cated by the percipients was 1050, slightly, but only slightly, in
excess of the chances. However, in all 7 experiments there
was some excess.
Probable result. Actual result.
180 196
170 180
150 154
140 149
40 44
175 179
135 148
The probability of excess over the single probabilities being y2t
it follows that the probability that there would be an excess of
y2 m 7 trials is, say 1:128.
If instead of taking the whole of the 39 trials, we take only
the first 12, the result is much higher.
Probable result. Actual result.
108 129
102 109
90 105
84 86
24 32
105 110
81 90
being 661 against a probable 594.
92 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
An experiment in telepathy with cards on a little girl of thirteen
by Oliver Lodge gave some interesting results. We will quote
only those in which the father of the child did not see the card
(Report on a case of telepathy; /. S. P. R., May, 1913, 103)..
Card drawn. Card named.
Five of diamonds. Five of clubs.
Four of hearts. Two of hearts.
Four of hearts. Three of hearts.
Four of hearts. Four of hearts.
Ace of hearts. Ace of hearts.
King of diamonds. An eight.
King of diamonds. A king.
King of diamonds. King of clubs.
King of diamonds. King of hearts.
Ten of diamonds. Ten of diamonds.
Ace of diamonds. Two of clubs.
Three of diamonds. Four of Spades.
Three of spades. Two of hearts.
Three of spades. Four of spades.
Three of spades. Two of spades.
Three of spades. Two of hearts.
Knave of clubs. Picture card.
Knave of clubs. Knave of clubs.
Ten of clubs. Picture card.
Ten of clubs. A six.
Ten of clubs. Nine of clubs.
Ten of hearts. An eight.
Ten of hearts. Picture card.
Ten of hearts. A seven.
Ten of hearts. Heart.
Ten of hearts. Ten of hearts.
It is very instructive that the child succeeded well when the
card had been seen by Lodge, and failed when he had not seen
it; so that Lodge is inclined to think (without expressly saying
so), that the case was one of telepathy and not of lucidity, in
other words, that the cryptesthesia was the result of mental
transmission.
The experiments of Mr. Henry Rawson with drawings are
quite conclusive and would involve absolute certainty of tele
pathic cryptesthesia if there were no defect in the experiment,
EXPERIMENTAL CRYPTESTHESIA 93
as to which I am unable to express an opinion, as in the case of
Miss Wingfield. In the first experiments Mr. Rawson only was
in the room with the percipient, Mrs. L. and the agent, Mrs.
B. Mrs. L. and Mrs. B. are sisters. Their backs were turned
to one another and it was absolutely impossible for Mrs. B.
to see the drawing made by Mrs. L. (Myers, Human Per
sonality, i, 614).
Analogous facts were observed by Mr. Kirk. He had remark
able success, though the percipient was very far distant, as
much as 360 miles (Myers, ibid., p. 620). There were some
very striking successes under these conditions; especially in one
case a hand drawn by Mr. Kirk was reproduced by Miss G,
(p. 621); in another a little dog. Later on Mr. Kirk, having
tried to magnetize Miss G., unknown to her, and at a distance,
seems to have failed.
Myers quotes from Mr. A. Glardon experiments in thought-
transmission at great distances, from Tour de Peilz in Switzer
land to Ajaccio in Corsica, or Florence, between Mr. Glardon
and a friend of his, Mrs. M. The results were sometimes very
good; there were failures, but the successes were such as to carry
conviction of real cryptesthesia.
We shall see in the sequel that cross-correspondences, analo
gous to these experiments, have also given good, though perhaps
less decisive, results.
M. Max Dessoir, who is profoundly experienced in hypnotic
phenomena, endeavoured to ascertain what guessing at drawings
would do in his own case. The results were barely greater than
would be due to chance {Phantasms of the Living, ii, 642).
Similar experiments, mentioned above, had been previously
made by Mr. Guthrie of Liverpool, with Miss Relph and Miss
Edwards, in October, 1883 {Phantasms of the Living, i, 38).
About 150 trials were made, the successes being sometimes very
complete; three of these are given in the figure to enable the
reader to judge. The percipient had her eyes bandaged, and the
drawing, instead of being placed in an opaque envelope, was
steadfastly gazed at by the agent.
Mr. J. Edgar Coover has written a voluminous account of the
results of many experiments made by him with playing-cards,
which are not entirely negative whatever he may say; they seem
to indicate that average persons have some degree of crypt-
esthesia (lucidity) though extremely slight. In 5,135 experi
94 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
ments in telepathy the numbers indicated by probability were
513 and 128 (complete success) ; the actual numbers obtained
being 538 and 153 (complete success). This is painfully small,
but it is something.
In 4,865 experiments on lucidity the probable numbers were
486 and 122 (complete success), the actual numbers obtained
being 488 and 141 ; which again is a very slight excess on the
probability.
It is as well to note that some persons are better endowed
with the faculty than others. Choosing fourteen persons who
seem to have some degree of lucidity their results were 119 and
54 on 711 experiments, the probable numbers being 71 and 18.
The excess over probability is considerable, but some reserves
must be made in regard to this plan of choosing only the best
of the experiments.1
We cannot follow out the very lengthy details given by Mr.
Coover. In spite of all his efforts his own results actually prove
a slight, though very slight, degree of something more than
chance in guesses at a card drawn, whether it be due to telepathy
or to lucidity.
Pickmann, who gave public sances in thought-reading, prob
ably by muscular indications from the person whose hand he
held, possibly had some degree of cryptesthesia. He seems to
have given a very successful exhibition of mental suggestion to
Lombroso.2
He came to visit me one day, and I tried an experiment that
seems unexceptionable. While Pickmann was in another room
I spread an entire pack of 52 cards on the table. I chose one
of these cards at random, looking at it closely but without
touching it, and endeavouring to visualize it. I then fetched
Pickmann from the next room, and placing him with his back to
the cards asked him to name the card I had thought of. He
succeeded at the first trial, 1 :52, which pleased us both. But
three further trials failed.
I will also mention, passim, another experiment, though it
stands alone and chance may have had something to do with it.
Experiments in Psychical Research, Stanford University (C a lif). Analys
in P. S. P. R. par F. G. S. Schiller; November, 1916, xxx, 261-273.
*Cited by Delanne (Gas. litt.,Turin, 1892), but being unable to refer to the
original, I cannot say exactly under what conditions the experiment may
have been made.
F ig . i . Three experiments by Mr. Guthrie and Miss Edwards. The drawings
on the right are the reproductions of Mr. Guthries original designs on the
left. Miss Edwardss eyes were bandaged, but she was too far away to see
anything even had this not been done.
96 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
That morning I had bought a pack of tarot cards in order to
use them in card-guessing experiments. During the day Henry
Ferrari came to see me. I said, Let us try an experiment.
Look carefully at one of these tarots; I will try to divine which
you have looked at. After a few moments, I said, without
knowing why, It is of peasants reaping or harvesting. The
card represented a skeleton holding a scythe. There was only
one card with a scythe in the pack, and I had not looked through
the pack.
It is to be regretted that studies of cryptesthesia in normal
persons are so seldom made, both because the calculation of
probabilities is very easy, and because it leads to the discovery
of those who possess some degree of lucidity. But it must not
be supposed that it is very easy to make unexceptionable experi
ments. On the'contrary, the experiments are exceedingly deli
cate and certain rules must be observed:
1. The agent must be absolutely motionless, be silent, and have
his back turned to the percipient. This is fundamental.
2. The choice of the number, the card, or the drawing must
be made by pure chance.
3. No result, whether success or failure, should be told to the
percipient before the end of the sitting.
4. Not more than twenty trials should be made on any one
day.
5. All results, whatever they may be, should be stated in full.
6. The percipient must be unable to see anything, directly
or indirectly; it is best that his eyes should be bandaged and
his back turned.
An important question then arises, which we shall deal with
later: Is the lucidity telephathic or non-telepathic? Telepathic
lucidity certainly exists; it has been proved by numerous experi
ments. Non-telepathic lucidity is also proven, but fresh experi
ments are required.1
These methods are not emotional or dramatic like experiments
made with powerful mediums, or records of monitions of death,
but they are precise, and, when the experiment is well designed,
lThe difficult but essential experimentation to clear up this arduous prob
lem might be attempted as follows: It might not be difficult to find some
intelligent and trustworthy teacher in a primary school who would undertake it.
To a class of 30 the teacher would show 36 pictures in six groups, each
group being composed of six different subjects of the same type such as the
following, which I suggest as suitable:
EXPERIMENTAL CRYPTESTHESIA 97
x. Vegetable kingdom. 2. Animal kingdom.
Oak, Fish,
Rose, Spider,
Mushroom, Horse,
Potatoes, Elephant,
Field of wheat, Pigeon,
Palm-tree. Flock of sheep.
F ig . 3. T h e c lo c k in M r. C .s h o u se a s sk e tc h e d b y P . R e n o u a rd .
F ig . 4.
Representing the sketch of the frame containing the second (Fig. 5).
Fig. 4 was placed in a thick sealed envelope. A lice saw Fig. 5, though
this was not in the envelope, but was in the frame itself at M. Hericourts
house. There were therefore two distinct phases in the cryptesthesia.
F ig . 6. F ig . 7.
Sketch by Ferrari (Fig. 6) and reproduction by Alice (Fig. 7)-
rest. To get to the house one has to go upwards and turn round
to the left. The photograph (of Toledo) agrees closely with
the description.
The sketch above (Fig. 6) was given me by H. Ferrari who
was not present. I did not know what was in the envelope,
which was taken at random from among twenty others. The
experiment is faultless and the reproduction very good (Fig. 7).
Comment is needless, except that the conditions being unexcep
tionable the result must be due to cryptesthesia or to chance.
132 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
M. Hanriot handed me a lightly made sketch on triple folded
paper in a closed envelope. I was absolutely ignorant of the
nature of the drawing. Alice gave a confused description, but
her words aroused the idea of a serpent. She said, Interlaced
curves along a stem, like an anchor. I then thought of the
imprint on the books published by dA. A. Renouard, my great
grandfather, and drew it. Hanriots sketch was of a serpent.
F ig . 8.
Drawing (a bunch of grapes) placed in an opaque envelope, the contents of
which I am ignorant of.
Drawing made by Alice. She made five drawings in succession (which I do
not give here,brevitatis causa),
each approaching nearer the final result.
of June that there was a plot against Draga; and of the five
persons present, who had no relations at all with any Balkan
State, probably none even knew of Draga. The only hypotheses
remaining are chance and cryptesthesia.
Chance, however, is inadmissible: for not only was a name
given against odds of 1 to 500,000; but the fateful phrase Mort
guette famille probably applies only to the family of Panka
whose three children were in a few minutes to perish; out of the
fifty millions of families existing that evening in Europe. Gras-
set, however, has not hesitated to affirm that chance gave Banca
for Panca and that the words Mort guette famille might apply
to a thousand other families. The objection is really absurd.
In fact, if an intelligent force inspired this sentenceand ap
pearances favour this bold hypothesisit would seem that this
intelligence wished to make a declaration whose authenticity could
be verified. If Panka had been some old working baker of Bel
grade I could never have ascertained whether the monition were
veridical or fanciful. No one can investigate fifty million families,
a hundred at most would be the limit.
(b) Investigation with a Hidden Alphabet
Here I would indicate a new method which I devised for veri
fying cryptesthesia. It succeeded with me because I was ex
168 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
perimenting with a medium endowed with the special sensitive
ness required; but Sir William Barrett has shown that it may
succeed with others. In any case this method with a hidden
alphabet has great advantages and deserves trial, though I would
not insist upon it, as mediums are best left to act according to
their intuitions in choosing the method by which answers are
obtainable.1
These experiments were carried out with Gustave Ollendorff,
Henri Ferrari, Louis Olivier, Albert Pere, and Gaston Fournier
nearly all deceased, alas, my faithful and beloved comrades!
The medium was my deeply regretted friend, Gaston Fournier,
then aged thirty-two, a kindly man, clear-sighted and reliable.
The experiments were made in the following manner: G., the
medium, placed his hands on the table, every tilt setting in
228
THE DIVINING-ROD 229
was entrusted with the report of the commission. This report
was not presented to the Academy, but was published as an
independent book. It only averred that the movement of the
rod is not produced by physical forces but by the hands and
muscles of the dowser.
M. Chevreul, in fact, returned to the ideas that he had
enunciated in 1833 on subconscious movements as causing the
movements of the magic pendulum.
This is an instrument long used for divination, consisting of
a weight hung from a thread. The upper end of the thread is
held in the hand, and the movements of the weight (often a
ring) give the indications. Sometimes it is suspended at the
centre of a circle on which are inscribed the letters of the alpha
bet ; the ring then moves to the letters, thus spelling out a word
or a phrase. There is no need to insist on the fact that the
answers are due to the subconscious movements of the person
holding the thread. These are involuntary, but are, nevertheless,
actuated by intelligence. The phenomenon is essentially the
same as automatic writing, conversations by planchette, the
willing game, and other analogous facts well known today;
that is, involuntary and unconscious muscular movements organ
izing themselves by some kind of synthesis. This subconscious
synthesis is sometimes so coherent as to lead to the hypothesis
of the intervention of a new personality.
It is easy to make the following very instructive experiment
with a young, simple-minded boy: The pendulum is put into his
hand and he is told that it will indicate his age. Supposing this
to be twelve years, the pendulum will strike twelve times on a
screen placed near it; and the boy will be amazed, and will say,
I stayed quite still. Now, he did not stay quite still, and it
was really himself that struck the twelve strokes, but he did not
will to do this and was not aware of his own movements. He
could equally well have dictated a sentence by movements of
the ring to an alphabet; his subconsciousness after having thought
of the phrase would have translated it by almost imperceptible
muscular movements towards the letters.
These facts are now undisputed. To Chevreul belongs the
merit of being the first to indicate their principle.1 According
to him, and to Babinet, and to Barrett, and to most of the authors
lH. Mager, loc. tit., Paul Lemoine, Quelques observations sur la baguette
divinatoire {Bull, de la Soc. Philomathique de Paris), i 9* 3i v, io, if.
230 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
who have studied the question, the movements of the divining-
rod are determined solely by involuntary muscular contractions
of the dowser.
Thus regarded the question seems very simple, but this sim
plicity is only in seeming.
2. Summary of the Facts
The bending of the rod over water-springs or metals is incon
testably true. It has recently been fully verified, with all possible
care, and the phenomenon can no more be denied than any fact
of chemistry or physiology. I will quote only the more recent
experiments, those of M. Paul Lemoine made at Toulouse in the
chemical laboratory of the Catholic Institute. The Abb Caubin,
a very experienced dowser, was able to reveal the presence of
divers metallic masses. The kind of rod used has some influence
on the result. With a wooden rod there were eight successes
out of eight trials; with a copper rod four successes in seven
trials ; iron gave two in four ; and glass none in five trials.
The following experiments are very interesting: different
weights of gold induced movements of the rod at distances
greater or less according to the greater or less weight of the
metal. The Abb Caubin knew the amount of metal placed for
trial, but M. Lemoine convinced himself that voluntary move
ments by the operator did not enter into the matter. Further
trials resulted in the figures below:
Distance at which the
Mass of gold (grams?). rod began to turn (metres).
3 1.70
16 2.20
32 2.70
48 3.30
64 4.00
90 4.60
There was a series of trials, published in 1913 by H. Mager,
at the Forest of Vincennes at which it was clearly proved that
masses of metals buried in the ground could be discovered
equally well as moving water. The discovery of moving under
ground water has almost become a trade and cannot be doubted:
the government engineers in different lands use the faculty of
dowsers to discover water; this is done in various districts of
THE DIVINING-ROD 231
France, in Tunisia, Algiers, the United States, and in German
Africa. Differences of skill in dowsers are not due to the rod not
turning in their hands, but to unequal ability in interpreting its
movements as to the extent, depth, and direction of the flow.
Although the history of the divining-rod is only indirectly con
nected with metapsychics, the fact itself is of such import that
the recent works proving it must be mentioned here,1
To A. Martel, who was quite sceptical, Vir indicated exactly
(underlined by Martel) on the surface of the ground, for more
than a thousand yards, the course of a subterranean stream. It
matters little that he knew the country, for the surface gives no
indication of an underground flow. Martel also gives the suc
cesses obtained in German Africa.
Summing up his results, M. Vir has sent me an unpublished
note in which he gives the figures below from fully verified trials
since 1913 by Messrs. Plaprat, Probst, Jouffreau, A. Vir, Colonel
Vallantin, and the Abb Mermet :
Number of Percentage of
Experiments. Successes.
Subterranean water............... 19 89
Subterranean cavities........... 23 87
Metals and metallic veins---- 11 80
Coal ........................................ 9 55
Calculation by percentages underrates the successes, for a
remarkable positive result greatly outweighs many failures. The
probability is not 1 to 2, but very much less.
For instance, M. Plaprat and M. Vir (in an unpublished
experiment) showed Mr. A. C., councillor of state, where to
sink a well on his property at Juillac (Depart. Lot). Several
borings had been made without results. Messrs. Plaprat and
Vir indicated a thin stream of water thirteen metres below the
*1 g iv e p ro m in e n c e to th e w o rk o f M . A rm an d V ir , D . es-Sc., president
Bulletin d'histoire naturelle,
22, 9 3
o f A rch aeological S o c ie ty , w h o is a s k ilfu l dow ser,
an dComptes rendus de lAcademie des Sciences, D ecem b er i i > c lv ii,
Trait des Baux souterraines,
1460. S e e a lso E . A . M artel, P a ris, D oin,
Hydrologie Hydroscopie,
192 1, 740-752, a n d P . L an desq ue, et P a ris, D unod,
1920.
Verhand sur Kldrung der Wnschelruthfrage,
1. S e e S tuttgart, 1912.
Sanitary Record,
2. B e s id e s th e m o n ograp h b y B arrett, see M a y 2, 1913.
3. T h e a n a ly sis o f th e w o rk o f th e C on gress o f H a lle has been g iv e n by
VEau
E . N o e l in th e jo u r n a l Das Wasser
(N o v e m b e r 15, 19 1 3 ). V . (L e ip zig ,
1 9 1 3 ). M . A r g n e r is th e e d ito r o f a re v ie w d evoted so le ly to th is su bject,
Die Wnschelruthe, L e ip z ig (1909-1931)*
232 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
surface: a well was sunk, and the water was found in sufficient
quantity for the purposes required.
English results agree with those of French and German dowsers.
M. Landesque, of the French Government Engineering School
(Ponts et Chausses) gives an account of his experiences in
Tunisia, in a very interesting book from which I will cite only
the following characteristic incident: The military post at Ramsa
had a well outside the camp. M. Landesque indicated a spring
within the camp at a depth of six metres. The boring was made
but no water found. M. Landesque advised to go a little deeper
and one metre farther down the spring was discovered.
These facts are very important, and M. Martel on an impartial
summary of all opinions concludes in favour of a rhabdic force,
and adds that additional experiments are desirable; in which I con
cur, not to establish the undeniable facts, but to throw light on the
conditions under which they occur. The interesting fact, verified
by many experiments, is that the rod turns in the hands of the
dowser when over subterranean water; and this fact is pregnant
with many important theoretical inferences.
In one experiment (Mager, loc. cit., 24), two dowsers, Falcoz
and Probst, recognized metal plates wrapped in paper. Five
different metals were used. Both dowsers agreed in naming the
metals correctly. Therefore on ten experiments each having a
probability of 1: 5 there were ten successes, which gives the certi
tude of (% )10. But since the fact is established there is no more
need to calculate chances than to do so to establish the deflection
of the magnetic needle by an electric current.
That some persons still hesitate over the matter is due to a wish
to use the divining-rod as a measuring instrument. It is desired
to use it for industrial purposes, and then the depth and direction
of flow are important matters. This knowledge varies with the
skill of the dowser; but we are not here concerned with the exacti
tude of the revelations by the rod, but only whether there is an
emanation, or as I propose to call it, a rhabdic force acting on
the nervo-muscular system of the man and through him on the rod.
It seems to me that this cannot be in doubt (Marage, Revue
Scientifique, February 14, 1920); but is the problem one of
physics or of metapsychics?
By our definition of metapsychics the movement of the rod
would seem to be excluded from that science, since there can
not be any question here of intelligent forces setting human
THE DIVINING-ROD 233
sensitiveness into action. Nevertheless, the history of the divining-
rod is pertinent to our subject. For, if natural forces (under
ground water and metals) exercise an unknown action upon the
subconscious mind, there must be unknown vibrations that awaken
cryptesthetic sensibility; and we are brought back to the meta
psychic that deals with the unknown vibrations of things.
Is the bending of the rod due to unconscious muscular action
of the dowser, or is it a direct action of some physical force upon
the rod?
The hypotheses of trickery, chance, and conscious muscular
action can be at once dismissed. Dowsers discover water-springs
neither by chance nor by fraud; the rod turns strongly in their
hands in spite of themselves, so to say, giving indications by the
direction and strength of the movement as to the direction and
depth of the subterranean stream; though the indications are very
difficult to interpret correctly. There are therefore but two
hypotheses:
A. The movement of the rod is due to unconscious muscular
contractions.
B. They are independent of these muscular contractions.
The first of these is very simple, and doubtless the only one to
be generally accepted, as it is by Chevreul and Barrett. The
unknown physical force (rhabdic force) influences the subcon
sciousness of the dowser and induces muscular Contractions.
But certain difficulties are involved.
The movements of the hazel rod are sometimes strong enough
to break it, the parts of the rod held in the hands of the dowser
not moving at all when the middle part bends. P. Lemoine placed
each end in a sheath held in the hands. The rod turns in the
sheath, as shown in Paul Lemoines woodcut.
Despite the exactitude of this observation we cannot admit that
there is no muscular action. How can we suppose that the rod
is influenced physically and directly by water, metals, or metallic
salts? Is it possible that it should move by itself whilst the mus
cles of the hands are inert? If this were so the dowser would not
be required, a mere physical instrument to show the angular dis
placement would suffice. But under such conditions the rods do
not move at all. The presence of the dowser is required and his
personality is the necessary and preponderant condition.
H. Mager is inclined to think that using proper means everyone
might be a dowser; but he gives no proof of this. The positive
234 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
and undeniable fact is that in the hands of some persons the rod
turns very forcibly, while with others it does not turn at all.
Mager constructed a galvanometric instrument for the same pur
pose which has not as yet succeeded, but would seem to be actu
ated by the potential of electric forces that accompany moving
subterranean water, without the presence of a dowser. But these
small variations of the magnetic needle are not to be compared
with the powerful bending of the hazel rods. The action of a
stream of water on a galvanometer is a matter of pure physics
on which it is needless to insist. If there is any such action it is
extremely feeble, and it seems impossible to attribute the powerful
flexion of the hazel rod to these minute electrical reactions.
There is much more also that is very obscure. Rods of
different kinds are not equally suitable, which would seem to
indicate some physical action on the rod itself ; for if subconscious
muscular action were alone concerned it is not apparent why a
copper rod should function worse than one of hazel and better
than one of iron.
We must, however, conclude with Chevreul and Barrett that
there is no movement proper to the rod independently of human
muscles; and we still ascribe the phenomenon to unconscious
muscular contraction. The dowser often opposes, or seems to
oppose, the movement of the rod. Mr. Lemoine says that it
turns despite the will of the operator, sometimes so strongly that
he can hold it only with difficulty ; he may even find it impossible
to hold it at all.
This fact is analogous to the occasional violent movement of
a table when a powerful medium barely touches it.
Lemoine records that at the end of the experiments the hands
of the Abb Caubin were covered with callosities, not on the
palms only but at the articulations of the fingers also.
Some dowsers are convinced that the rod turns of itself
without muscular contractions, and it is to be noted that a silken
or woollen glove stops the action. But the opinion of these pro
fessional dowsers, though not to be disregarded, is not to be
taken on faith; they are evidently sincere, but they cannot be
aware of their subconscious movements. The matter is as difficult
to settle as whether the movements of a table are due to muscular
contractions when the medium is hardly touching the table.
It will be seen further on that some (exceptional) mediums
produce raps and movements at a distance. If the force acting
THE DIVINING-ROD 235
on the rod is not due to muscular contractions, might it not be
due to a special kind of telekinesis? Evidently the forces acting
on the rod only act through a human intermediary. It would be
interesting to carry out a methodical investigation whether
dowsers could act as table-mediums and conversely; that would
be a new experiment worth trying. It would seem not impos
sible. According to J. de Tristan and H. Mager, about 20 per
cent, or more of ordinary persons can act as dowsers. Experi
ments in this direction would certainly give useful data.
If it were proved that the rod is not actuated by human muscles
then it would be a true case of telekinesis. H. Mager has
attempted to show that forces capable of turning the rods emanate
from matter. He has even tried to indicate the direction and
potential of these forces. This would be a physical phenomenon
absolutely new and unknown; but his argument is feeble, or
even futile. A human agent has always been necessary, there
is no bending of the rod without the dowser. Therefore, as a
rod which can turn does not turn when put into a machine, and
as the hand of the dowser is indispensable, we must perforce
admit either that the action is muscular or that it is a human
telekinesis.
Between these two hypotheses I do not hesitate. Although I
have no personal experience, I put the opinipn of the scientists
above that of the dowsers; these think that the rod moves of
itself, those that it turns because the muscles of the dowser
turn it .1
3. Concerning Rhabdic Force
The movements of the rod, then, are due to the unconscious
muscular contractions of the individual holding it. It is therefore
averred that subterranean waters and metals deep in the earth
or hidden in boxes exert an action on our subconsciousness, and
that this mysterious action is an unknown physical force, for
it is neither humidity, heat, nor electricity.
Such a force emanating from objects is entirely unknown; its
existence is hypothetical, but the hypothesis is necessary, for
without it, if there were not some determinate energizing influ
xes Chapter XVI (very obscure) o H. Mager and J. de Tristan,
Recherches sur quelques effluves terrestres (1826), et les Comptes rendus du
Ile congrs international de psychologie exprimentale de 19*3
234 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
and undeniable fact is that in the hands of some persons the rod
turns very forcibly, while with others it does not turn at all.
Mager constructed a galvanometric instrument for the same pur
pose which has not as yet succeeded, but would seem to be actu
ated by the potential of electric forces that accompany moving
subterranean water, without the presence of a dowser. But these
small variations of the magnetic needle are not to be compared
with the powerful bending of the hazel rods. The action of a
stream of water on a galvanometer is a matter of pure physics
on which it is needless to insist. If there is any such action it is
extremely feeble, and it seems impossible to attribute the powerful
flexion of the hazel rod to these minute electrical reactions.
There is much more also that is very obscure. Rods of
different kinds are not equally suitable, which would seem to
indicate some physical action on the rod itself ; for if subconscious
muscular action were alone concerned it is not apparent why a
copper rod should function worse than one of hazel and better
than one of iron.
We must, however, conclude with Chevreul and Barrett that
there is no movement proper to the rod independently of human
muscles; and we still ascribe the phenomenon to unconscious
muscular contraction. The dowser often opposes, or seems to
oppose, the movement of the rod. Mr. Lemoine says that it
turns despite the will of the operator, sometimes so strongly that
he can hold it only with difficulty ; he may even find it impossible
to hold it at all.
This fact is analogous to the occasional violent movement of
a table when a powerful medium barely touches it.
Lemoine records that at the end of the experiments the hands
of the Abb Caubin were covered with callosities, not on the
palms only but at the articulations of the fingers also.
Some dowsers are convinced that the rod turns of itself
without muscular contractions, and it is to be noted that a silken
or woollen glove stops the action. But the opinion of these pro
fessional dowsers, though not to be disregarded, is not to be
taken on faith; they are evidently sincere, but they cannot be
aware of their subconscious movements. The matter is as difficult
to settle as whether the movements of a table are due to muscular
contractions when the medium is hardly touching the table.
It will be seen further on that some (exceptional) mediums
produce raps and movements at a distance. If the force acting
THE DIVINING-ROD 235
on the rod is not due to muscular contractions, might it not be
due to a special kind of telekinesis? Evidently the forces acting
on the rod only act through a human intermediary. It would be
interesting to carry out a methodical investigation whether
dowsers could act as table-mediums and conversely; that would
be a new experiment worth trying. It would seem not impos
sible. According to J. de Tristan and H. Mager, about 20 per
cent, or more of ordinary persons can act as dowsers. Experi
ments in this direction would certainly give useful data.
If it were proved that the rod is not actuated by human muscles
then it would be a true case of telekinesis. H. Mager has
attempted to show that forces capable of turning the rods emanate
from matter. He has even tried to indicate the direction and
potential of these forces. This would be a physical phenomenon
absolutely new and unknown; but his argument is feeble, or
even futile. A human agent has always been necessary, there
is no bending of the rod without the dowser. Therefore, as a
rod which can turn does not turn when put into a machine, and
as the hand of the dowser is indispensable, we must perforce
admit either that the action is muscular or that it is a human
telekinesis.
Between these two hypotheses I do not hesitate. Although I
have no personal experience, I put the opinipn of the scientists
above that of the dowsers; these think that the rod moves of
itself, those that it turns because the muscles of the dowser
turn it .1
3. Concerning Rhabdic Force
The movements of the rod, then, are due to the unconscious
muscular contractions of the individual holding it. It is therefore
averred that subterranean waters and metals deep in the earth
or hidden in boxes exert an action on our subconsciousness, and
that this mysterious action is an unknown physical force, for
it is neither humidity, heat, nor electricity.
Such a force emanating from objects is entirely unknown; its
existence is hypothetical, but the hypothesis is necessary, for
without it, if there were not some determinate energizing influ
e Chapter XVI (very obscure) of H. Mager and J. de Tristan,
Recherches sur quelques effluves terrestres (1826), et les Comptes rendus du
Ile congrs international de psychologie exprimentale de 19* 3*
236 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
ence, we could not connect muscular movements with a real
external fact with which they are obviously in close relation.
This rhabdic force has been studied sufficiently for some indica
tion of its laws to be even now possible.
Everything takes place as if there were conduction of this
force from the ground through the human body; and as if this
force, like electricity and heat, could be stopped by gloves of
silk or wool, or by india-rubber soles to the shoes.
This force does not emanate only from water. The old trials
were almost invariably to find water, but recent experiments
have shown that metals also have definite reactions.
These reactions differ according to the metal used. This has
been proved by J. de Tristan, H. Mager,1 and Paul Lemoine.
The results obtained independently of each other by H. Mager
and P. Lemoine, aided by the Abb Caubin, agree closely. Tak
ing one gram of gold as sufficient to act on the rod, the quantities
of other metals necessary to produce the same results are as
follows :
S ilv e r...................................... ........................... 1.2 grams
Nickel ............................... ............................... 6 grams
Aluminum......................... ........................... 15 grams
Z inc................................... ............................... 40 grams
Lead ................................... ........................... 75 grams
Copper .................. .......... ............................125 grams
These figures must not be taken as exact, like magnetic measure
ments, but they are sufficient to show that rhabdic force is amen
able to physical measurement.
This establishes a fact of the first importancethat a certain
force emanates from metals, sheets of water, and metallic salts,
and this force acts with sufficient energy on the organism of
certain persons to induce strong unconscious muscular contrac
tions.
There is no effect without its cause. If subterranean water
induces deflections of the rod, it must act as a causethat is, as
a forceon the rod. Evidently the action is by the intermediary
of the muscles, but that does not make it the less true that there
is a new physical force whose direction and conduction can be
measured.
lSee H. Mager, Les moyens de dcouvrir les eaux souterraines et de les uti
liser, Paris, Dunod, 1912.
THE DIVINING-ROD 237
This rhabdic force certainly does not act directly on the muscles,
but on the nervous system that moves them; the muscles are
the passive agents of the nervous system, and we are thus
brought to an inference whose importance no one can fail to
graspthat there emanates from metals, water, and metallic salts
a force that acts on the nervous system. This we will call
rhabdic force.
To study the phenomenon somewhat further : Is this a direct
action on the unintelligent nervous system? Or is it an action
upon the subconscious intelligence which then elaborates the
notion received?
These are not the same. A signal light only shows us the
way because we understand its meaning: its feeble light would
not, of itself, determine any motion ; and if the sight of it causes
us to quicken our pace that is because by a complicated psychic
reflex the intelligence has answered to the signal. It seems
probable that the inflection of the rod is of this kind, and if
the muscles bend it energetically that is not because the nervous
system is directly influenced but because the subconscious intelli
gence has been awakened by the rhabdic force. A notion has
been received by the subconsciousness, elaborated there, and trans
formed into muscular contraction; it is certainly not a crude
stimulus to the nervous centres. The subconscious intelligence
intervenes to transform a feeble stimulus into a powerful one.
The pendulum can be employed instead of the divining-rod
with similar results. In the hands of a sensitive, while seemingly
inert, it suddenly begins to vibrate on passing certain places;
sometimes this vibration is so powerful as to whirl it about. The
movements are due to unconscious muscular action, so absolutely
unconscious that the operator is himself much surprised. The
pendulum, like the rod, is only the indicator of a kind of nervous
excitement.
This excitement is sometimes so violent that certain sensitives,
as M. Vir tells me, are taken with a kind of convulsion on
passing over a subterranean spring whose location is unknown
to them. Such hyperesthesia is very rare; but a considerable
number of sensitives feel a shudder or tremor.
Thus the perturbation of the nervous system produced by
rhabdic force approaches cryptesthesia : instead of remaining a
simple sensation it is a sensation accompanied by a cognition of
actualities, this cognition being always subconscious. This is
238 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
proved by the fact that if a metal (e.g., iron, gold, or copper) is
placed in the hand holding the pendulum and causing it to oscil
late, the pendulum will only move on the sensitive passing over a
mass of the same metal. If water is sought it will suffice to hold
a bottle of water; if seeking a cavern or grotto the sensitive will
take a small empty tube in his hand, which is comic enough. The
fact of the ability to discern more or less accurately the presence
of bones, grottos, pieces of cast iron, ingots of gold, and water-
springs is more than nervous excitation; it is a knowledge of
actual thingsin a word, it is cryptesthesia. Therefore the
studies that have been made on the divining-rod are a most valu
able contribution towards a theory of cryptesthesia. Divination
by the rod is a form of pragmatic cryptesthesia.
No one can deny the existence of forces in being which have
been called telluric1but which I prefer to call rhabdic (Gr. a/38os
a rod), which move the cryptesthesia of the dowser, just as the
contact with a given object enables a sensitive to acquire cogni
tions that his normal senses could not reveal.
4. Deductions from the Point of View of Cryptesthesia
At first sight the study of the divining-rod would have seemed
outside metapsychics, but the existence of rhabdic force brings us
back into its full current.
In the chapter on pragmatic cryptesthesia (psychometry) I have
indicated that things certainly exert some action on intelligence.
If a medium or somnambule is given some object that has belonged
to a person, A., they will give characteristics of A. that could not
have been reached by normal means. I call this "pragmatic crypt
esthesia (Gr. Ileayfia a fact, a thing done), because it seems
connected with an unknown emanation from actual things. Prag
matic cryptesthesia is far fyom explaining all lucidity; in fact, it
explains very little; but it incontestably exists.
I conclude, therefore, that the divining-rod is an instrument
that can arouse pragmatic cryptesthesia: i.e., it can reveal facts
about things that our normal senses cannot reveal. The study
of the modes of transmission, the resistances and obstacles to this
flow of force show that careful analysis may give us precise data
on the unknown forces emanating from things, which, if they
T h is is th e w o rd u sed b y P r o fe s s o r M . B en e d ik t, Ruten und Pendellehre,
i vol., i2m o, H artleb en , 19 17.
THE DIVINING-ROD 239
cannot touch our consciousness, can at least react upon our
organs.
The analogy is remote between the force that proceeds from a
subterranean spring and causes the muscles of a dowser to con
tract, and the mysterious emanation from a lock of hair, a watch
or a ring which tells a medium that the article in question has
belonged to Marguerite, George, or Robert, and gives some indi
cations on these personalities. But both phenomena are of the
same order of magnitude.
I do not say that they are the same. I say that the movements
of the rod are pragmatic cryptesthesia, not that they explain the
movements of a table; but two laws emerge which, if well under
stood, give a definite point of departure for metapsychics:
A. Unknown forces emanate from things, and these forces are
amenable to measure and comparison by physical means.
B. These unknown forces do not affect our conscious senses
nor our physical instruments; nevertheless they act (according
to unknown laws) very energetically on the subconscious organ
ism so as to produce cognitions that the normal senses cannot give.
Dowsers may be compared to table-mediums, for there is con
siderable similarity between them. The rhabdic force that acts
on a human organism and produces muscular contractions reveals
to consciousness facts that consciousness alone could not reach;
and similarly a medium gets, through a table, answers that amaze
himself.
Therefore, alike for the divining-rod and the moving table, the
unconscious muscular action is a revealer of vibrations which
the emanations from actual things arouse in our subconscious
intelligence.
This chapter on the divining-rod is much abridged; this impor
tant question should have been developed at much greater length;
but my book is already so long that I could not give more space
to the subject.
CHAPTER V
M e t a p s y c h is m in A n im a l s
240
METAPSYCHISM IN ANIMALS 241
Mr. Assagioli, alone with the pony Hnschen, wrote on the
blackboard 33+44 and Hnschen answered 77. Then he wrote
12+33+33 and the animal replied 87, the digits 8 and 7 being
interchanged (which is often the case), 87 for 78.
In the absence of Mr. Krall and the groom, Muhamad gave
M. Claparde the fourth root ( !!) of 456,776, and the cube root
of 15,376.
Maeterlinck wittily describes how he named a chance number
for Muhamad to give its square root, but the horse did not reply,
the number having no exact square root ; a fact that vastly aston
ished M. Maeterlinck.
But there is more yet. The Elberfeld horses, by choosing cards
with letters on them, could carry on conversations ; they spoke, by
the alphabet, phonetically without vowels.
Their conversations are curious, as one may well imagine. One
day Muhamad denounced the groom for having struck Hnschen.
Sometimes they say they are tired and will not answer. They
knew one person present to be a lady because she had long hair.
All this is very odd ; but before going further we must enquire
whether there is trickery or illusion.
Trickery by Mr. Krall may be ruled out. All observers of
the horses, even the sceptical ones, agree in this. His honesty
is unquestioned; he often left the horse and the observer alone
together. This was the case in many exprimenta. The presence
of Krall or the grooms was not needed for correct replies.
Sometimes the horse was left quite alone in the stable and was
watched through a glazed chink in the wall.
The solution reached is often too quick even for a good arithme
tician. Mr. Krall wrote on the blackboard ^91125, the num
ber given him by M. Assagioli, and in a few seconds Muhamad
gave the correct answer.
In presence of these astonishing and improbable facts, the
official German scientists drew up an equally astonishing protest.
Twenty-four professors signed this ridiculous document and
among these there were only two who had seen the horses. Those
two had the right to say that Kralls observations were illusory,
the others had no right to say anything.
Their protest brings nothing new towards a solution; they
say that to allow that horses can calculate like men is subversive
of the evolutionary theory. This curious manifesto is reprinted
by Claparde (loc. cit., p. 265).
242 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
We may lay down the following provisional conclusions :
1. The hypothesis that the horses are trained to answer by a
system of signs can be completely put aside.
2. Neither is Pfungsts hypothesis, that they respond to uncon
scious signs by the experimenters, any more useful.
The horses have often answered when no witness at all was
with them and therefore no sign at all could have been made.
A methodical analysis of the conditions under which replies
were given has led Claparde to the following statements that
bear on a possible theory :
1. After four to six months of schooling the horses make
no further progress. Krall considers his pupils as having the
mind of intelligent but ignorant children, from six to eight years
old.
2. They can invent nothing and can only do what they have
been taught. However complicated the process of extracting cube
roots, it is not beyond the powers of any moderately intelligent
child of ten, after some months of teaching.
3. They are often unable to solve very simple questions ; such
as to say how many persons are present in the stable, though
this is much easier (to our anthropomorphic notions) than the
extraction of the fourth root of 456,776.
4. They do not seem to work out anything; they hardly look
at the figures on the blackboard. Ferrari and Probli have em
phasized this inattention on the part of the horse Tripoli whom
they endeavoured to train in Italy after the Elberfeld manner.
Tripoli replied after a careless look at the blackboard.
5. The errors made are often transpositions of figures, as if
they were errors in reading. When the animal is not sure of the
result it strikes a timid blow, but strikes strongly when sure
of the answer.
In view of these incoherent results, we must remain uncertain
as to the mechanism of the facts, as we have so often had to do
in other metapsychic questions.
Nevertheless, on the positive evidence of such good observers
as Claparde, Ferrari, Edinger, Ziegler, Assagioli, Hartkopf, and
others, I incline to think that the horses really calculate and that
the arithmetical operations are manifestations of their intelligence.
Moreover, it is not only horses that are capable of such calcula
tions. Krall thought that the elephant, which shows such remark
able intelligence, might give better results. He got a young
METAPSYCHISM IN ANIMALS 243
elephant, Kana; but the youngster was very lazy and gave only
blunders! The dog Rolf, of Mannheim, and the cat Daisy pre
sented some curious facts of the same kind. Rolf would appear
to have made it known of his own accord that he could reckon,
and had learned to do so by hearing the lessons given to a child
{Buchstabierende Hunde, Psych. Studien, 1918, xlv, 142).
We cannot suppose that Muhamad, Rolf, Hnschen, and Barto
were exceptional beings; if they gave proof of intelligence it is
fairly certain that other animals could do the like. Then why
are not these feats repeated? Why are they isolated facts, both
in science and legend?
If this arithmetical aptitude were a real phenomenon and no
illusion, it should be possible to make hundreds of calculating
horses. But this is not done, no others have followed. Why, if
it is not an illusion?
This seems to me the most serious objection that can be put
forward against the facts alleged by Krall, an objection so grave
that it almost negatives them.
The uncertainty of the facts makes any theoretical treatment
necessarily brief.
The opinion has been expressed that the phenomenon is tele
pathic. This is quite inadmissible: Grabow obtained exact answers
on numbers presented to the animal that he himself did not
know; and in certain instances the horse gave them when alone
in the stable. There is no valid reason for seeking to apply
telepathy; the obscure is not explained by the more obscure.
C. de Vesme has advanced the ingenious hypothesis that the
process is mediumistic. After all, since there are intelligent raps
producible from a table, why should not this power put the
brain and muscles of a horse into action much as it causes the
vibration in the wood of the table? In this connection De Vesme
quotes the instance of a young man of nineteen belonging to an
honourable family, who could readily obtain through the planchette
in three or four seconds the total of several numbers each of
six or seven figures that would have taken several minutes to
add up on paper. The subconscious automatism worked more
quickly than the conscious mind could do. De Vesme therefore
thinks that the Elberfeld horses show a mental automatism
similar to that of a medium, and this seems to me worthy of
acceptance; though, truth to tell, it is not an explanation.
In any case the automatic arithmetical intelligence of the animals
244 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
does not imply a metapsychical phenomenoni.e., the action of
an intelligent force differing from known forces.
We know little or nothing about animal intelligence; its limits
are undetermined, and if a horse or a dog can do what a child
of ten can do, when duly trained, that only indicates a great
extension of animal intellectuality.
I should therefore say that the arithmetical intelligence of the
Elberfeld horses (if it exists, as it is possible that it does) proves
that horses are capable of calculation and reasoning, but that this
does not exceed die capacity of young children. It is extraor
dinary, and seems unlikely, but this has nothing to do with the
metapsychic science that opens on unknown worlds.
CHAPTER VI
S p o r a d ic C r y p t e s t h e s ia
245
246 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
anterior to the brain. Hallucination is one of the most distinctive
symptoms of insanity, and occurs in nearly all forms of delirium.
It occurs after some forms of intoxication; under hashish the
illusions are so powerful that they become real hallucinations;
belladonna and atropine, in strong but not fatal doses, produce
passing hallucinations; long and persistent hallucinations can be
provoked in somnambulists, causing them to live in a dream, and
dreams much resemble hallucinations. To dream when awake
and not to know one is dreaming is to have a hallucination.
But all these have no objective reality. When a dipsomaniac
sees rats, hears their squeaks and feels their bites, there are no
rats. When a hypnotized subject is told to go up the steps into
a house and take a seat on the sofa, there is neither house nor
steps nor sofa. When a lunatic hears voices, there are no voices.
It is extremely rare that a person who is neither ill, nor drunk,
nor hypnotized should in the waking state have an auditory,
visual, or tactile illusion of things that in no way exist. The
opinion of alienists that hallucination is the chief sign of mental
derangement, and the infallible characteristic of insanity, seems
to me well grounded. With certain exceptions (for to every rule
there are exceptions) a normal, healthy individual when fully
awake does not have hallucinations. If he sees apparitions these
correspond to some external reality or other. In the absence of
any external reality there are no hallucinations but those of the
insane and of alcoholics.
But we must be clear what we mean by objective reality. To
take a concrete instance, when Mrs. Bagot at Mentone sees her
little dog Judy cross the room at the very time that Judy has died
in England, that is not a hallucination in the proper sense of the
word, for it corresponds to a real event. But we are not going to
imagine that there was a phantom Judy in the dining-room at
Mentone emitting the mechanical and luminous vibrations that
correspond to sight. The nature of the external fact that caused
Mrs. Bagot to see Judy is quite unknown and is probably quite
different to the genesis of a phantom. Nor shall I assert, like
some out-and-out spiritualists, that Judys astral body has appeared
in Mentone. All the same there is some relation between the death
of Judy and Mrs. Bagots vision. It is a monition which, by some
mysterious and unknown means, has touched Mrs. Bagots mind
and has presented itself under a form adapted to human intelli
gence, i.e., by a visual phenomenon.
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 247
The vision cannot be compared to that of a lunatic, for there
was an objective reality ( Judys death) which was causative of a
vision at once veridical and symbolical.
We shall therefore employ the word monition, not halluci
nation, to all these cases of veridical and symbolical hallucina
tion. Thus regarded monitions can be considered as cases of
lucidity ; but they differ from lucidity as previously studied in two
important respects:
1. They are not experimental but accidental. The data that we
have on them depend on sporadic observations and not on method
ical experiment. We shall therefore define monitions as phe
nomena of sporadic and non-experimental lucidity.
2. To move the mind of the percipient there must be an objective
phenomenon of some kind, but this (in most cases) has no ie-
semblance to usual objective phenomena.
When Mrs. Hutchins sees her husband and hears him call
Mary, Mary at the very time that he' has suddenly died, it must
be admitted that this is not the ordinary mechanical and physico
chemical fact of a bodily presence that speaks. It is some force in
action near Mrs. Hutchins, inducing the image by cryptesthetic
emotions whose bearing we cannot fathom. This unknown vi
bration has reached the mind of Mrs. Hutchins, but would doubt
less not have reached another person.
In certain analogous cases the exterior fact resembles ordinary
objectifications, and in such cases the effect is produced on other
persons collectively. Such is the case of Mme. Telechoff, whose
five children and dog perceive the apparition of a little boy,
Andr, floating high in the room, the child having died in a house
near by. In this case there certainly was a real phantom with real
outlines like a living person, which might probably have im
pressed a photographic plate.
It is therefore not possible to draw an exact line of demarcation
between the subjective and the objective; some monitions have a
close relation to both.
1. Monitions are all objective in a certain sehse, but it is
special kind of objectivity, having no relation to what we call
ordinary objectivity.
2. If we use ordinary language and limit the term objective to
those physical vibrations that ordinarily affect or senses, we
should then say that nearly all monitions are subjective.
While admitting, then, that all classification is artificial, we shall
248 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
class as subjective all the non-collective monitions in which a
visual, auditory, or tactile image has not been excited by an
external force similar to the mechanical, physico-chemical forces
of the usual known kinds.
But these sporadic monitions have certain characteristics too
closely analogous to collective monitions and to experimental ma
terializations for us to be justified in eliminating the hypothesis
of a materialization, or something like it in many monitions, sim
ply because it may be convenient to do so. This will be discussed
later on; in this present chapter we shall class monitions among
subjective phenomena, setting theory aside for the present, but
taking note of the two double characteristics ( 1) that they are
accidental and not experimental, and ( 2) that they are connected
with some real fact inaccessible to the percipient by normal means.
2. Conditions Necessary that Monitions Should Be Regarded
as Such
The first condition is the honesty of the witnesses. With the
rarest exceptions it is not possible to suppose that the stories have
been invented. It is possible, though unlikely, that among the
thousands of cases reported, perhaps ten may be due to practical
jokes, but I am disposed to think that there has scarcely ever been
intentional invention.
But, on the other hand, inaccuracy is as certain as honesty; and
this is a source of grave error.
A story that comes to us at secondhand, having passed through
two or three persons' imagination and memory, the one inventive
and the other treacherous, is sure to be distorted. In spite of
oneself, there is a tendency to make it more effective by adding
details and suppressing others. In the great majority of cases
the honesty is indubitable, but so is the inaccuracy. Wilful deceit
there is none, but self-deception is almost always present.
I will instance the log of the three-master Jacques Gabriel.
The log contains the following annotation, but written with
different ink, On arriving at the Mauritius, we learn the death
of the wife of the second officer, M. Penaud, deceased on the
same day and hour at which the noise was heard. In the log
under date of July 17th the entry states that while at sea the
voice of a woman had been heard on board. Now the register
of deaths at Paimbceuf indicates that Mme. Penaud died on
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 249
the 16th of June. So that Captain Mangot, commanding the
vessel, no doubt in good faith, but disregarding the necessity of
being absolutely accurate in all matters of science, mentions the
events as simultaneous, though there was a months difference
between them.
There are certainly a number of cases analogous to the fore
going which, as no written evidence was taken at the time, must
be accepted with considerable reserve; but these reservations
have less to do with the fact itself than with the moment of its
occurrence, which, if coincident with the event, would show a
connection in time with the objective reality. It would therefore
be injudicious to reject all the cases in which written documents
are wanting; for memory, which is unreliable as to precise dates,
is trustworthy for many other details.
It is also remarkable that monitions, whether because of their
somewhat dramatic character, or because they have been spoken
of several times, or for some deeper reason, are deeply graven
in the minds of the percipients, so that they are still vividly
and accurately remembered after the lapse of even as much as
thirty years. There will be some distortion, but the fundamental
facts are correctly retained; the narrator may forget whether
the lamp was alight or not; whether the weather was bright
or rainy; whether he spoke aloud or kept silence; but the essen
tial facts remain. No doubt illusions arise on the exact corre
spondence of hours, or even of days, but these variations from
accuracy, though they are not unimportant, do not change the
essential character of the fact itself.
Another point, which is perhaps more difficult to clear up, is
whether in any given case it was actually impossible that the
event in question should have reached the mind by any ordinary
channel. The following case, for instance, seems one in which a
subconscious rememberance seems sufficient to account for the
facts:
Mr. Newnham during a walk at Haughton had gathered some
violets for his sick wife. Twelve years later as he was walking
in the same place, and thinking of the violets once gathered there,
his wife said to him, I smell violets in the hedgerow. This was
no doubt a subconscious remembrance by Mrs. Newnham (or pos
sibly a coincidence). She said, no doubt quite sincerely, I had com
pletely forgotten the fact, but the subconscious memory forgets
nothing. Each case should be considered on its own merits.
250 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Very often the facts relate to a person who is very ill or
near death, and then a real hallucination is possible; but this
possibility must not be exaggerated.
In the first place, people in a normal state do not have hallucina
tions; and further the correspondence between the hour of death
and that of the monition is sometimes so exact that it could not
be due to so-called hallucination. Mr. Williams knew that his
brother-in-law, George, was very ill, nearly dying. One morning
he sees George standing at his bedside, and says to his wife, I
have seen George, he came for a minute at sunrise. Far away
George had died in the arms of his father, who wrote, The sun
was rising when my dear son left us for the heavenly country.
The event and the monition were so exactly simultaneous that
Mr. Williamss knowledge of the imminence of death detracts
very little from the authenticity of the monition.
O. Houdaille, called to the bedside of his grandfather who was
very ill, while in the train taking him to Mirecourt, hears a
deep sigh, gets up, looks at the time, and says to his brother, It is
one oclock; grandfather must be dead or dying. Mr. B.,
the grandfather, entered into the death-throes at one oclock
precisely.
Even if we eliminate the cases in which a death is expected (and
there is no real reason to eliminate these), there remains a
large number in which the recipient of the monition believed the
person in question to be in good health or very slightly indis
posed. Thus when Mr. Z. left his young friend, B., B. was in
perfect health. They had talked of trivial matters; but two
hours later Z. had a terrible dream at the very moment that B.
committed suicide.1
Monitions might be divided into the foreseen and the unfore
seen; the former being those in which death was expected, and
the latter those referring to a person in good health; but the
resemblance, not to say the identity, of the modality of monitions
in both cases is such that the phenomenon is the same in both, and
it would be irrational to reject monitions of likely facts merely
because they are likely. Is the knowledge that a brother is very
ill or dying sufficient to evoke his wraith? Expectant attention,*
*1 have an impression, which should be supported by statistics, that
monitions are more frequent in cases of suicide. This might be better
known if families in such cases were not careful to conceal the fact and the
circumstances that led to it.
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 251
to which so many marvels are attributed, really cannot cause a
normal person to see a phantom or hear a voice. We must admit
monitions into the realm of metapsychics even when they refer
to probable facts.
Nevertheless, whenever a simple and non-metapsychic explana
tion of a so-called monition can be given, it should be adopted.
In other words, the criticism of such facts must be stringent.
Mr. Barwell and Mr. Earle see their friend W. at the carriage-
door of a train just as it is starting: W. waves his hand to them
and the train is soon out of sight. At that very moment W.
falls into syncope at his own house. But this is not enough to
establish that W.s double was in the departing train. It is
possible that some stranger who resembled W., seeing signs made
to him, answered them by a wave of the hand. This is much
more likely than an apparition; and this story must be rejected.
The very interesting case of M. Noell, a young student of
pharmacy at Montpellier, who saw one night his dying sister
and heard her call to him, has a defective side. Telegrams had
been sent him announcing his sisters serious illness, but the
servant who should have given him the telegrams had stupidly
put them into a drawer. One cannot be certain that M. Noell
had not half unconsciously opened the drawer and read the tele
grams. This is improbable but not impossibly and is sufficient to
make the case a doubtful one.
Even if the non-metapsychical explanations are far-fetched and
unlikely, provided they have some remote possibility, they should
be accepted in preference to calling in mysterious faculty.
Thus the Rev. Mr. Killick thinks he hears a voice telling him
that his daughter Etta is drowning. Some months later he learns
that at that very time his daughter had been in imminent danger
of being drowned. May not this be a fact of paramnesiaan
illusion of memory? May not the extent of the danger to Etta
have been exaggerated ?
Dr. J. Smith hears a voice that repeats three times, Send some
bread to James Gandy. He then sends the bread to Gandy, whose
existence he barely knew of, and finds him in a state of destitution
with his children crying for bread. But it is possible that Dr.
Smith may have known that Gandy was in want, and the auditory
admonition does not necessitate cryptesthesia.
Each particular case of sporadic cryptesthesia needs special
critical treatment. This has been done by the authors of Phan
252 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
tasms of the Living, by Camille Flammarion, by the editors of
the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, and by the members of the
S. P. R., before making public the facts recorded by them. This
criticism, however, has not prevented .the publication of some
weakly authenticated facts that seem to support others that are
quite well evidenced. I have endeavoured in this book to give
only those against which little can be alleged; but among them
are still too many which, if they stood alone, would have little
weight.
As our chief aim is to prove the reality of cryptesthesia, we
shall not take into account vague and indefinite cases. Thus,
Mrs. Martyn has an intense feeling of horror and fear. She
cannot assign any precise bearing to this; but next day she
learns that someone that she had not seen for two years has
died. This cannot be called a monition; it may have been one,
but there is no evidence for it.
The same must be said of the Rev. Mr. Wilson, who had a
vague but strong sensation of illness at the moment of death of
a twin brother. He says, It was a panic fear; I shuddered as
at the approach of death. My brother died fours hours before
this painful terror seized me. That this may have been a
monition is probable, seeing that the brothers were twins; but
Mr. Wilson did not connect his sensations with his brother, and
it is best to infer simple coincidence.
Vague monitions which do not connect with a real and definite
fact totally unknown to the percipient do not amount to lucidity.
We shall not call them monitions, for that word is reserved to
the cognizance of a real external fact. Cases in which the per
cipient has no intimation of the external fact itself cannot be taken
as monitions.
(a) The Hypothesis of Chance Coincidence
It is frequently objected that monitions may be due to chance.
It is desirable to give this objection its full weight:
In France, as in England, there are about 1,500,000 deaths
annually and a thousand times as many falls, wounds, serious
accidents followed by fainting, loss of blood, and delirium, with
out counting the minor incidents to which many monitions refer.
This amounts to some 1,500 million cases. As the enquiry extends
over about sixty years, there are about a hundred thousand
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 253
millions of casual events that might be the subject of monitions.
Now it has only been possible to ascertain (with difficulty) about
500 cases; therefore, the ratio of actual to possible cases is 500
to 100,000,000,000, or 1:200 millions or less. Therefore, alike
in France and in England only one two-hundredth-millionth, or
at most, one hundred-millionth, of possible cases has eventuated.
This is a very small number; so small as to be negligible, and if
all the inaccurate observations, exaggerations, and defects of
memory were eliminated, the number would be much smaller
still.
This objection somewhat resembles the remark of the sceptic
who, seeing the votive offerings of sailors saved from shipwreck
to their patron, St. Peter, asked to see the names of those who
were drowned in spite of their prayers.
N. Vaschide has been unable to obtain any positive evidence,
and his criticism is not very logical. Against all common-sense
he begins by denying probabilities, and then he invokes the calcu
lus of probabilities to support his denial. Then having found on
enquiry that the hallucinations he has brought forward were not
veridical, he concludes that the enquiry conducted by the S. P. R.
is illusory. But in such a case science cannot prove a negative
and I can only compare his negation to that of the Venetian doctor
who replied to Harvey that the heart might be heard to contract
in London, but that in Venice nothing of the sort could be
perceived.
We may reply to Vaschide :
(1) The number of persons who for one reason or another,
by indifference, laziness, inattention, or fear, do not give their
testimony is very great ; but the number who have never heard
of the enquiry is enormous. Among the persons passing through
Trafalgar Square in London or the Place de lOpra in Paris,
what is the ratio between those who have heard of an enquiry
on veridical hallucinations, to those who have not heard of it?
And how many among those who have heard would think of
writing a letter detailing personal matters? Add to this the
country-side and the small towns. It may be boldly averred, not
one in a hundred thousand. The ratio stated by M. Vaschide
then falls from one hundred-millionth to one ten-thousandth,
which is very different.
(2) If, instead of taking cases of telepathy and monition bear
ing on various matters, we take only the premonitions of death,
254 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
accepting only those that are well supported by documentary
evidence, we have about 250 cases. In sixty years there are said to
be 750 million deaths. If, then, only one in ten thousand persons
have been moved to action by the enquiry, the ratio is 250: 75,000,
say, 1:300. Such would seem to be near the proportion of
those who have had a monition among those who might be
expected to reply. One in three hundred is a small proportion,
but it is no longer a negligible quantity.
(3) The hypothesis of chance coincidence becomes quite unten
able when the time of the monition coincides exactly with the
event. J. has left his friend F., when F. was very slightly
indisposed. Soon after J. in his own home sees the apparition
of F., and asks his wife, What is the time? Twelve minutes
to nine. Then, says J., F. has died at 8.48. I have just seen
him. In fact, F. has died between 8.35 and 9 oclock, or, taking
the mean, at 8.45. The times are exactly concordant.
The probability that J. should have one, and only one, hallucina
tion in his whole life and that it should agree exactly with the
time of F.s death can be calculated fairly closely. There are
96 quarter-hours in the day, and 365 days in the year. Tak
ing twenty years of J.s experience that gives a probability of
1: 700,000 against a chance coincidence. C. Flammarion (Revue
Spirite, February, 1921), by another method of calculation
reaches a probability of 1 :800,000,000 on the same data; but
whether 1 : 700,000 or 1 :800,000,000, the moral improbability of
chance coincidence is the same.
Is it not much more rational to suppose that J., who is neither
a mystic nor subject to hallucinations, had at that precise minute
a monition, the only one in his whole life, because some actual
vibration awakened his dormant cryptesthesia ?
(4) But the chief reason for dismissing the hypothesis of
chance is that the details furnished by the monition are often so
exact and so abundant that fortuitous coincidence is out of the
question. Mme. Escourru at Paris, looking at the portrait of her
son, sees the left eye bleeding and the eyeball out of its socket;
and on the same day her son, a captain of Zouaves, is wounded
in this very manner at the assault on La Puebla in Mexico.
Mrs. Green dreams of two young girls driving in a one-horse
carriage drowned in a lake, their two hats floating on the water;
and at that very time, the girls, one of whom is her niece, having
gone for a drive with a friend, are drowned in Australia on the
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESlA 255
other side of the world, the two bodies being located by the hats
floating on the water. The probability against chance is so great
that it amounts to moral certainty.
We never get mathematical certainty; it is not certain that a
bag of type emptied on a table will not fall into the first line of
the Iliad. This combination exists among those that are possible,
but if it should occur no one would believe it due to chance.
(5) In a small number of cases some objective phenomena have
accompanied the monitions; a fact which makes the hypothesis
of chance quite untenable.
Mrs. Bettany sees an old woman in a long cloak crouching
on the floor. Mr. Bettany sees the same, and both recognize
Mrs. X. Is it possible that there was no external phenomenon?
Is it likely that this was unconnected with the death of Mrs. X. at
the same hour?
( 6) The calculus of probabilities has been alluded to above.
This method of reasoning, which may be misleading even on
mathematical and abstract data, becomes entirely illusory when
the complex and intricate factors of a monition enter into the
problem. In such cases common-sense rather than calculation
will give the solution. Mr. Wingfield Baker writes in his diary
the initials of his brother, and adds "God forbid ; at the same
hour his brother is killed in the hunting-field. The most ele
mentary good sense will see a connection between the two events,
and that the apparition of his brother was not due to chance.
If this were an isolated case it might, at a stretch, be supposed
that chance might have induced an hallucination in a normal
person (however rare such may be) and that this hallucination
plight have occurred at the moment of the brothers death. It
is vastly unlikely, however. If the case were unique we might
hesitate to draw a definite conclusion; but there are some hun
dreds of such cases and the repetition of similar coincidences
excludes all idea of chance.
That at roulette the red should come up 80 times out of 100
on a particular day is enormously improbable, but no inference
could be drawn; but if this, or something like it, occurred for
a month, we should be quite sure that the wheel had been
tampered with. In the case of the wheel the probability is
calculable; in that of monitions it is not, but the inference is
the same.
The study of experimental lucidity showed that the human
256 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
soul has a mysterious faculty in virtue, of which cognitions other
than those due to normal senses and sensations reach the mind.
The study of accidental lucidity leads to the same conclusion and
corroborates it with irresistible force.
There are other channels of cognition than the habitual ones.
That is a conclusion as well established as the most certain
facts of physics, chemistry, and mathematics.
3. Conditions Under Which Monitions Occur
Monitions occur under the most varied conditions, nevertheless
there are some points of similarity that will appear from the
accounts here following:
(1) Visual monitions are usually in the shape of a nebulous
form which allows of the background being seen through it,
though in some cases the form is opaque enough to hide objects
behind it.
(2) The details of the face are often very clear; the eyes, nose,
wrinkles, the colour of the hair, and a happy or sad expression
are readily distinguishable. Everything occurs as if the vision
were of a living person in the material world.
(3) Sometimes the apparition speaks; sometimes a voice is
heard. Sometimes, though more rarely, there is a tactile phenome
non, so that the impression of reality is complete, all the senses
contributing to the perception. Often what the vision has wished
to say is clearly understood without any spoken words having
been definitely heard; just as in a dream one knows what is said
without any remembrance of particular words.
(4) Very often the monition takes the form of a dream; and
then the dreamer remembers the exact circumstances of the
dream. Often the dream awakes the sleeper, without immediate
disappearance of the apparition. Sometimes (rarely) as in
Dr. Orsis case, the monitory dream is repeated several nights
in succession. It often takes place between sleeping and waking
(Borderland, Maurys hallucinations).
(5) Recognition is variable; often the form seen is ill-defined,
so that the percipient does not at first connect it with any par
ticular person, but experiences vague disquiet and pain. Little
by little the notion becomes more precise, and the visual
phenomenon is linked to some person without that person having
been actually recognized. He knows and understands that the
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 257
apparition refers to that person without being able to say how
he knows it.
This difficulty in recognition is interesting, for it seems to
prove two successive intellectual processes. In the first, the
mind is influenced by some vibration that has a meaning, though
the meaning is obscure. Then the sensation becomes more precise,
but in order to become sothat is, in order to be transferred
from subconsciousness to consciousnessit must be manifested
under some form fitted to our mental constitutiona vision or
an audition. Till then it will not be understood. Recognition
has been secured because the subconscious has adopted the means
of a symbolical hallucination to reveal a fact to the conscious self.
When recognition is doubtful cryptesthesia must not be invoked;
it is therefore of primary import that the percipient should have
formally related the monition to a witness, or better still, should
have written it down, before the actual fact referred to has
come to him by normal means.
Without clear recognition lucidity cannot be admitted. For
instance, Mrs. Woodham sees*a figure before her so distinctly
that she wakes up and says aloud, so as to be heard by her
sister sleeping with her, Who are you? What do you want?
The next morning she hears of the death of an old servant of
whom she was fond, and then she says, It was she whom I
saw last night ; but as she did not recognize the apparition at
the time, the case is not evidential. Paramnesia is relatively
common, and no good faith in the narrator can bring this to
his knowledge, for the genuineness of the mistake constitutes
paramnesia.
( 6) Monitions usually refer to death, often to illness or serious
accidents, and sometimes to trivial matters. But these latter
also are monitions; and the monition of a trivial fact is as inter
esting per se as the monition of a death or a disaster, for monitions
of trifling facts are often accompanied by precise details which
certainly show cryptesthesia. For instance, M. sees his wife
talking with a beggar who is holding a broom.. The monition
is in itself quite meaningless, but interesting from the abundance
and accuracy of its detail.
(7) There is no essential connection between the vividness
of the hallucination or the dream and the definiteness of the
monition. There may be scarcely any, just as a very slight and
passing internal perception may reveal an important fact, whereas
258 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
sometimes a vision may be very clear and perceived very vividly
without being certainly referable to cryptesthesia. This contrast
is very apparent in dreams; some are very vivid, having all the
semblance of reality, but mean nothing at all, while other very
transitory dreams may convey monitions.
( 8 ) The period of latency between the event and the monition
is variable. F. Myers thinks (while admitting it to be merely a
hypothesis), that the telepathic impression is immediate, but that
this impression remains latent in the mind of its subject, only
emerging to consciousness after a certain interval either as a
waking vision, or as a dream, or in some other manner. In
nearly all cases, he says, in which a veridical phantom has pre
ceded death, it has been a case of illness but not a case of accident;
and then the process of dying, with its coma and convulsions, may
originate the telepathic impression and so precede the stoppage of
the heart that constitutes actual death.
In cases of accident the vision is almost always subsequent to
death. Myers cites two cases (p. 273) that seem exceptions;
but one of these may have been-a premonition and in the other
(suicide) Myers thinks that the mental agitation of the unhappy
man may have been sufficient to cause the telepathic phenomenon.
If the time-curve of post-mortem apparitions were drawn, it
would show a very rapid fall within the first few days after
death, becoming almost nil for longer periods.
Possibly when the casual fact is near, the lapse of time is less
than when it is distant.
M. Warcollier, analyzing the data of telepathic monitions
given in sundry enquiries, draws up the statistics given below:
Agents [ Men
A * *[ .. ...................... 194 64 per cent.
Women ..................... 106 36 per cent.
sees her sailor brother coming towards her and about to sit
down, the water shining on his oilskin and cap. She thought he
had been wetted by rain and said, Miles, where have you come
from? Then in his usual voice he said, For the love of God
do not say that I am here, and vanished. I was very frightened,
says Mrs. Paget, and wrote down the date, without telling any
one. Three months later, Miles returned, and told his sister
that he had been almost drowned in the harbour at Melbourne,
having been taken out of the water insensible. The date was
correct, but allowing for difference in longitude there was an
interval of ten hours between the accident and the apparition.
Mme. A. Dudlay of the Comdie Franaise has reported various
xZwei deutsche Professorett gegen die Telepathie, par S . Psychische
Studien, x liv , 1917 3S-
C lericu s,
274 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
cases of monitions relating to the war, but the details are too few
and not sufficiently precise (A. S. P., 1919, xxix, 13-16).
Major Kobbe one day felt impelled- to visit the cemetery of
Greenwood, six miles from New York. Neither he nor any one
of his family was in the habit of going there; but on reaching
the place he found his father who had come for the disinterment
of a member of the family. The letter sent by his father asking
him to be present had not reached him. He arrived just at the
right time.
A case of monition at a sance by Mme. dEsprance is reported
in Light (1905, p. 43) ; it is very complex, being accompanied by a
materialization.
On April 3, 1890, Mme. dEsprance wrote automatically,
without knowing why, Svens Stromberg; neither she nor any
one present knew the name. Two months later, at a sance at
which Aksakoff and Boutleroff were present, it was said that
Stromberg, a native of Jemtland, had died on March 13th at
Wisconsin. At the same time there appeared (?) on a photo
graph (spiritist?) a face which Mme. dEsprances guide de
clared to be Strombergs, and stated that he had not died on
the 13th, but on the 31st of March. After long and laborious
enquiry it was found that a certain Svens Ersson, born in Jemt
land, had emigrated to Canada and had died on the night of
March 31st. The photograph was identified, and it was proved
that the news of his death could not have reached Gothenburg,
even by telegraph from New Stockholm, the town in Canada
where he died, at the time that the name was given at the
sance.
Bozzano considers this case one of the best substantiated, but
this seems an exaggerated view.
The following case is specially interesting, for it presents the
very rare feature of several successive apparitions expressing a
single monition :
Miss Minnie Wilson, aged 17, educated in a Catholic convent
in Belgium, when about to kneel at her prayers, saw her Uncle
Oldham coming towards her. She was extremely surprised. Her
uncle asked her to pray for him as he had shot himself by reason
of a disappointment in love. The next day, and the day following,
the vision was repeated; she felt the touch of his hand, but did
not hear his step nor hear the bench creak. He disappeared, not
suddenly, but by becoming slowly indistinct. She learned later
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 275
that he had killed himself with a pistol-shot for a love-trouble
(A. S. P., 1908, xvii, 266).
Monitions sometimes come as formal warnings. Hyslop (Am.
S. P. R., 1907, 487) has authenticated the curious story of Mr.
McCready, editor of the Daily Telegraph, who had a very strong
impression one Sunday while at the church of St. John (N. B.),
of a voice saying to him, Go back to the office. The order was
so peremptory that he ran from the church to the office, arriving
to the great astonishment of his sub-editors. He there found
a petroleum lamp blazing in his room and throwing out such
clouds of smoke that everything was covered with soot.
With reference to this and other similar monitions Bozzano
discusses whether such occurrences involve the intervention of an
external intelligence.
Mme. Tonelli, at San Marino, when trying to sleep one night,
saw her son thrown down by a passing carriage and much injured.
She rose, went nearly four miles along the road to Costa di Borgo,
and found her son at the foot of a declivity down which he had
rolled. Thus, despite the darkness and the storm and notwith
standing her age, and without having any normal reason for dis
quiet, she got up in the middle of the night to go to his assistance
(A. S. P., 1905, v, 170).
Mr. Searle, a lawyer, saw in his rooms at the Temple, as clearly
as in a mirror, the figure of his wife; her head thrown back and
her face pale as death. At that same hour, in consequence of a
great fright, Mrs. Searle had fainted. She had never fainted
before.
At Syracuse (N. Y.) Mr. Lee suddenly woke up from sleep,
having seen his father fall downstairs with a great noise. His
father was bishop at Iowa. He got up, waked his wife, asking
her if she had heard any noise, and noted the time by his watch,
2.45. At that hour Bishop Lee at Iowa fell on the stairs and died
soon after.
Mr. Hunter Watt dreamt that a cast of the Venus de Milo,
relegated to a corner of his garden, had fallen, the head being
broken off by the fall; which was found to be true (Myers,
Human Personality, i, 379).
Mrs. Severn woke at 7 a . m . feeling a sharp blow on her
mouth as if her upper lip had been cut and was bleeding. Putting
her handkerchief to her mouth she was surprised to find no blood.
At the same moment her husband who had gone for a sail on the
276 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
lake was caught by a gust of wind causing the handle of the rudder
to strike him on the mouth, cutting his lip and causing much loss
of blood (Chevreul, loc. cit., 53).
Mrs. Swithinbank saw her young son, aged ten, standing on a
high wall facing her window. She jumped up to ask him why
he had left school. The boy looked at her with fear in his eyes
and vanished. Search was made without result. A few minutes
later one of his classmates brought him in a cab in a fainting con
dition. It seems that in class he fell back insensible, saying,
Mother will know.
Mrs. Richardson, in India, dreams that her husband, 150 miles
distant at the siege of Multan (1848), has been severely wounded
and she hears his voice saying, Take the ring from my finger and
send it to my wife. About the same time (9 p . m .) the general
fell severely wounded and said those precise words to Major
Lloyd. General Richardson recovered from his wound.
M. Gignon, military commissary at Aurignac, was playing a
game at cards with friends at a cafe. Suddenly he got up much
disturbed and wrote to his wife, I have heard an anguished cry.
Oh, tell me what you want! Is there trouble? Is there danger?
At that hour, 9 p . m ., December 22, 1878, M. Gignons little grand
daughter had been severely scalded by a bottle of over-hot water
placed in the cradle.
Mrs. R. writes in her diary on March 15th, Last night, March,
1874. She had seen the head and shoulders of a man in a cloudy
form close to her. She cried out, It is Captain W. The cap
tain, who was a friend of hers, was then in New Zealand, and had
promised that if he were to die he would appear to her. The
time of the vision agreed exactly with a carriage accident which
injured Captain W. so severely that he remained a long time
insensible and made but a slow recovery {Tel. Halluc., p. 184).
Mr. Phibbs, at Ilfracombe, dreamt between 10 and 10.30 p . m .
that he saw his dog Fox stretched out, hurt and dying, at the foot
of a wall. He told his wife of this. At that time his dog had
been worried by two bulldogs and fell dying at the foot of a wall
(A. S. P., 1905, xv, 428).
M. J. P. was walking and reading, in the daytime, and suddenly
saw a comrade (Louis) falling backwards with his hand on his
heart with the usual gesture of a wounded soldier. He told this
vision to his family. Some days later he learned that Louis,
having accidentally wounded his brother when out shooting, had
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 277
fainted with emotion, saying, If Charles dies I shall kill myself
(Flammarion, 155).
M. Martial Lagrange dreams that he has a cancer of the
stomach and is operated on by Dr. Guinard. The same night, Dr.
Guinard (a hospital surgeon) could not sleep on account of severe
toothache and passed the night working at a treatise on the
surgical treatment of cancer of the stomach. He naturally thought
of visiting M. Lagrange, who was not, however, his usual dentist.
As soon as he entered M. Lagranges consulting-room, the latter
said to him, I dreamt of you last night; I had cancer of the
stomach and you were going to operate on me (A. S. P., 1893,
iii, 140).
Mr. Haggard had a very painful dream, feeling suffocated as if
drowning. Gradually the dream took more definite form. I
saw, he says, my dear old dog Bob stretched out among the
reeds of a pond. Bob was trying to call me, but failing to reach
me by his voice, sent me the idea that he was about to die. In the
morning he thought little of the matter, Bob having been quite
well the day before; but the dog did not reappear, and some
days after it was found that he had been struck by a passing train
and that the shock had thrown him into a pond close by. The
accident took place on the night of the dream (A. S. P., 1905,
xv, 424).
Count Nicholas Gomanys, a medical officer in the Greek Army,
was sent to the garrison of Zante. As he drew near to the island
he heard a voice saying in Italian, Go and see Volterra. He
says, This phrase was repeated so often that I turned dizzy and
was alarmed, thinking it an auditory hallucination. There was
nothing to make me think of Volterra who lived in Zante, whom
I had not seen for ten years, and to whom I had never spoken.
At the hotel, while unpacking my bag, the voice continued to
harass me. Just then they sent to tell me that Mi Volterra had
come. He begged me to go with him at once to see his son who
had been taken very ill ( A . 5*. P., 1905, xv, 424).
Commandant Grima went with his wife to a conversazione at
the Sorbonne and Chtelet, on the 14th of July, 1915, in Paris.
On returning to St. Denis, Mme. Grima perceived that she had
lost a diamond while in Paris. Next morning her young son said,
I dreamt last night that a little girl had found the ring and
brought it to you. Did you lose it, mother? The children had
been asleep when their parents came home. That, however, is
278 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
not the strange part of the story, for possibly the children when
half asleep had heard their parents speaking of the lost ring. Three
months later, by a great chance, a girl of twelve belonging to a
good family in Paris found the ring by the steps of the Sorbonne.
This is an extraordinary premonition (A. S. P., 1895, xv, 434).
Mrs. Bagot, at table dhte (Mentone) sees her little dog Judy
that she had left in England crossing the room. Without thinking
she exclaimed, What ! Judy here ! She told this to her husband,
her two daughters, and her mother, and there were jokes on
Judys ghost. She also noted the fact in her diary. It was ascer
tained that there was no dog in the hotel. At the same time
(there is some doubt about the date) the dog had died suddenly
in England (Bozzano, A. S. P., 1909, xix, 322).
Mr. G., of Boston, sees the living image of his dead sister,
and notices a scratch on her right cheek. He speaks of this to
his mother who nearly fainted on hearing it, for it seems that
Mr. G.s mother, preparing her daughters body for burial, had
made a scratch on the face, and no one but herself knew of the
accident (A. S. P., 1909, xix, 322).
Mr. G. Parent, mayor of Wiege, dreams that the farm at
Chevennes is on fire; he makes futile efforts to run there, and
sees the farm burnt down. Awaking, shaken and trembling, he
tells the dream to his wife. Next day a part of the farm was
destroyed by fire.
The next story (from the unpublished enquiry through the
Bulletin des Armes) is so evidential that I give in extenso the
letter received from Captain V., January 14, 1917 :
On September 3,1916, during the attack on the Chemin-Creux,
between Maulpas and Clry, Second Lieutenant D., of the 13th
battalion of the Alpine chasseurs, was wounded by a bullet in
both arms, and left the line to have his wounds dressed. That
evening and for fifteen days he was missing at roll-call, and was
sought in vain in the dressing-stations. On September 18th the
13th battalion returned to the same sector, the front line having
been advanced three kilometres. During the night of September
18th-19th Second Lieutenant V., an intimate friend of D.s, saw
in a dream his friend D. dying in a shell-hole at the edge of
the Chemin-Creux, under a willow tree, reproaching him vehe
mently for letting his best friend die unassisted.
V., a cool-headed and sceptical officer, was nevertheless
obsessed by his dream, and went to his commandant, S., who
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 279
at first did not take the matter seriously, but in the end, in kind
ness, and to finish with the affair, gave V. a short leave to search
the place. V. came to the Chemin-Creux and there found the
surroundings as seen in his dream. At the foot of a willow
was a stick with the label, Here lie two French soldiers/ There
was nothing to connect this with D., but on opening the grave,
D/s body was found, which had been buried about fifteen days
before. This strange fact could be attested by the officers of
the 13th, but they have other things to do.
Dr. Ollivier, at Huelgoat (Finistre) went on horseback at
8 p . m . on a dark night to visit a patient in the country, and was
thrown from his horse, breaking his collar-bone. At nine oclock,
his wife on retiring to rest was seized with violent trembling,
called the servant, and said, My husband has met with an acci
dent and is killed or hurt. It may have been a monition, but
chance coincidence is possible, or even likely, in this case.
A soldier, a peasant of La Creuse, told M. Raymond Mialaret,
in very simple words, that one morning his little girl of seven
had seen him in a dream lying on the ground bleeding from the
left arm. She told the dream to her mother, who said it was a
nightmare. That same night the soldier was wounded in the
left arm (Enquiry through the Bull, des Armes).
Mr. Fraser Harris, who had gone from London to lecture at
St. Andrews, went on Sunday to a small family hotel, and sud
denly saw the front of his house in London. His wife was on
the doorstep speaking to a workman who was holding a large
broom. She seemed troubled, and Mr. Harris made out that
this poor man was asking for help. At that very time Mrs.
Harris was speaking to a poor man seeking work, who offered
to sweep the snow from the steps and said he had nothing for
himself or his children to eat. On returning to London, Mr.
Harris found the man just as he had seen him in vision (Chev-
reul, 45).
Lieutenant G., at the front near Reims, had not heard from
his wife for three days. One night he dreamed that he saw her
pale as death on her bed. He woke up sobbing and waited impa
tiently for news. Three days later he learned that on the night
of his dream she had a narrow escape from suffocation by fire
in her room, which scorched all the bedding. Mme. G. felt the
result of the semi-suffocation for a long while (Enquiry through
the Bull, des Armes).
280 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
A little girl of ten, in a dream, sees her father, Lieutenant D.,
coming home on leave from the front, and added that he had
a rubber cape, which no one knew of his having. Next day the
lieutenant arrived, a month before he was expected, wearing a
waterproof that he had bought on his way home (Enquiry through
the Bull, des Annes).
Professor S. Venturi, in charge of the lunatic asylum at Garo
falo, left home for Pozzuoli, but under a strong presentiment,
determined, in spite of difficulties, to return to his house at
Nocera. He found his wife in great agitation. Their little girl
had a dangerous attack of croup, and Mme. Venturi had cried
out for her husband in her distress (Tamburini, A. S. P., 1893,
iii, 292).
M. Keulemans, a well-known artist of bird-life, narrates some
interesting instances of cryptesthesia. Without exactly going
into trance, he visualizes very clearly the head or eyes of a
bird when drawing. But the cases of telsthesia quoted by M.
Keulemans are not precise enough to carry conviction, though
interesting by their symbolical form (A. S. P., 1893, xii, 217).
In closing the foregoing very, incomplete record of monitions
not followed by a death, I may be permitted to mention one
personal to myself. It is not a case of cryptesthesia, for the
dates do not correspond and there was no recognition; but the
psychological phenomena resemble those accompanying lucid
monitions too closely to omit them here.
I was in Italy during the second month of the war, where I felt
the duty of carrying on an active propaganda for our holy national
cause from the beginning of the war. I was living on the first
floor of the Quirinal Hotel ; it was almost deserted and I was, I
believe, the only guest on that floor. On the night of September
22-23, 1914, I was awakened from sound sleep by three knocks,
very clear but not very loud, on the door of my room. I sat up
in bed and switched on the light. Again the three knocks were
heard. I called out, Come in. Then, behind the door but
seemingly close to me, I heard a womans voice speaking low
and plaintively, Doctor, doctor, drawling the last syllable. Then
thoroughly awake, I said aloud, Very well, I am coming. My
answer was almost automatic; for my first passing thought was
that someone wanted medical help. But nothing followed. I
opened the door (but of that I am not quite sure), and seeing no
one, I scribbled down the exact time, 1.20 a .m . (fo r I had just
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 281
thought it might be an hallucination) and being in no way alarmed,
was able in about half an hour to go to sleep again, though my five
sons were then at the front exposed to the gravest dangers. As
the voice had been a womans, and my daughter-in-law was
expecting her confinement, I thought it might be a monition of
that event. I even wrote down this in my note-book.
It was not any such monition, and it cannot be referred to any
specific event. Six days before, on the afternoon of the 17th of
September, my son Jacques had been seriously wounded and
taken prisoner, though the news had not then reached me.
By this experience I became aware of the character of an
auditory monition. (It matters little from the psychological point
of view whether it were lucid or not.) If I can judge from my
own case, it is as clear as any phenomenon of normal life. When
I first woke up, being between waking and sleeping, there was
some uncertainty; but in a few seconds the exteriorization was
precise, and it is to be remarked that all the details were firmly
fixed in my mind. They doubtless may have become slightly
twisted, but the general facts remain unchangeable.
It is absolutely impossible to prove that this was a monition of
the wounding and capture of my son ; nevertheless, I am convinced
(without asking anyone to share my conviction) that the moni
tion was real. The analogy with innumerable observed cases is
close. It is the only hallucinatory monition that I have ever
received. I have, however, in the course of my life had two
flashes of cryptesthesia, one when awake, the other in dream.
One winter evening in 1899 I was working in my library in the
Rue de lUniversit. My wife was at the opera that evening
with my daughter Louise. Suddenly, about 10.30, I thought for
the first time in my life, and without there being any smoke at all
in the room to suggest the idea, that there was a fire at the opera.
The impression was so strong that I wrote down Fire! Fire!
and a few minutes later, thinking this not enough, I wrote Att,
meaning attention. Not much disturbed I returned to my
work. Towards midnight, when my wife and daughter returned,
I at once asked them, to their great surprise, Was there a fire?
My wife answered, No, there was no conflagration, but we were
much frightened. Between the acts some smoke rose from the
orchestra ; there was a rumour of fire ; I left the box quickly to
learn what was the matter, telling my daughter, When I come
back leave at once without waiting for anything.* They reassured
me and the performance went on without incident.*
282 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
This is not all. At the moment when I wrote Fire in my
notes, my sister, Mme. Ch. Buloz, whose room opens off mine,
fancied that mine was on fire. She went to the door, but feeling
that her fears were groundless, stopped, saying to herself, No, I
will not disturb my brother for such a silly fancy.
Therefore my sister and I had an impression of fire at the same
moment; that is how I can best describe the vague notion that
came to me while my wife and daughter were at the opera nearly
a mile distant at which a real danger from fire arose. Is this a
coincidence ? Was there at my house an odour of smoke too faint
to be consciously perceived ?
Now for the dream: About 8 . . in 1907 I was still asleep
a m
and was dreaming that I was with Mme. Charcot. (Why Mme.
Charcot, to whom I have never spoken and whom I do not know ?)
We were in a motor-car driving in an avenue of plane-trees. The
car was going so fast that I feared an accident: the accident hap
pened and I woke.
The accident was simply that the postman had brought a regis
tered letter, and in taking this letter I fancied (though I have no
idea why) that there was some connection between my dream and
the letter. To signify this, and by way of memorandum, I made a
little cross on the receipt. The letter came from the Azores, and
was from my friend, Colonel Chaves, asking for an introduction
to Jean Charcot, whom I did not know, who was due to reach
the Azores a few weeks later in his yacht.
I think that these three personal cases were not mere coinci
dences but were due to cryptesthesia; but I think so only because
there are many other more evidential cases. In themselves these
cases prove nothing, but they reinforce the large number of proofs
collected by more favoured observers.1
HI. MONITIONS OF DEATH
Monitions of death often occur. I give a large number of
instances because I hope to carry conviction to the mind of the
reader by their variety and complexity, and especially by the very
great number of the witnesses.
'It has been necessary to abridge greatly the records of monitions and pre
monitions given above. This is to be regretted, for to appreciate their full
force ample details are necessary; the skeleton of facts does not carry the
weight of conviction given by circumstantial details. I sincerely hope that
those persons who are interested in these perplexing problems will not remain
content with these brief summaries, but will refer to the original documents.
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 283
Monitions of death do not differ essentially from other moni
tions, but deserve separate mention because of their frequency.
The cases reproduced here might have been much more numerous
had I not exercised a somewhat severe criticism. This criticism
might have been still more rigid, and I willingly admit that half
of the cases cited have not any absolute evidential value; but even
allowing for this, there remain a notable number of authentic
and indisputable facts that defy sceptical analysis.
If only from a historic point of view, it is interesting to cite the
very clear monition received by the eminent chemist, Chevreul.
It was in 1814, a little before the entry of the Allies into Paris.
In his room, between the two windows of his study, he saw a pale
white stationary form like an elongated cone surmounted by a
sphere. Shuddering slightly, he turned away his eyes and ceased
to see the phantom. Looking back at the same place, he saw it
again; and this he did three times. He then decided to withdraw
into his bedroom; and to do this had to pass in front of the
phantom, which vanished.
The vision was probably not recognized, but at the same moment
at a distance from Paris an old friend of his was dying, who
bequeathed his library to him. Chevreul adds, If I had been
superstitious I might have thought the apparition real.
Chevreul also narrates the story of a well-known anatomist of
the eighteenth century, who said to the barber who was attending
him, Why do you grasp my arm? The barber was amazed at
the question. At that very instant one of Chevreuls friends had
drowned himself. The scientist was so struck with the occurrence
that he never afterwards would enter the room alone.
Brierre de Boismont, in his book on hallucinations, tells the
story of a young girl who in a dream saw her dying mother, heard
her call, and described the whole scene in the death-chamber. The
details were correct, and her mother was dying at the time. He
adds, If we were to cite all the names of persons of sound judg
ment and extended knowledge, high in the ranks of science, who
have had such warnings, they would furnish much matter for
thought.
This book has been written for precisely that reason. There is
much matter for thought.
Mme. Juliette Adam, the distinguished writer, was in her
room nursing her child at 10 p . m . Roused by the childs crying,
she saw her grandmother at the foot of her bed. She said, Dear
284 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
granny, I am so glad to see you ; but the shade did not reply, and
raised a hand to her eyes. I saw, says Mme. Adam, two
empty sockets. I jumped out of bed and ran towards her, but
as I was about to clasp her in my arms, the phantom vanished.
The grandmother had died about two hours previously (Flam-
marion, p. 187).
Mrs. Allom, being then a young girl of seventeen, was at
school in Alsace. One day, when reading in the sitting-room,
she saw her mother dressed in her night-gown, lying down as if
in bed; she was smiling and raised one arm, pointing upwards.
The apparition moved slowly across the room, and rising higher,
disappeared. Two days later the mistress called the gill to the
study, who said, You can tell me nothing, I know that my
mother has died. Mrs. Carrick, her mother, had in fact died on
that day and at the same hour.
Alexis Arbonsoff, of Pskoff (Russia) dreamed in bed one morn
ing that his mother came, embraced him, and said, Adieu, I am
dying. He woke, shuddering, and looked at the time, 7.30.
Ten minutes later the whole house was aroused. His mother had
risen at 7 oclock, had gone to kiss her little granddaughter, and
then as she said her prayers before the icons, she had died sud
denly at 7.30 (Flammarion, 435).
Mme. Van B., at Ypres, waked up with a start at 4.45 a . m .,
feeling that her father was ill or dying. She awoke her husband,
who tried to calm her, thinking it a nightmare. Her father died
at the same hour (A. S. P., 1899, ix, 71).
The Rev. Mr. Ball of Cambridge dreamt that he was with his
friend Dombrain in beautiful country. A bright light appeared
before him; he woke up, and saw his friend Dombrain smiling in
the beam of light. Mr. Ball rose at once, calling Robert,
Robert, and the vision disappeared. It so happened that a young
house servant was named Robert, thought he was called, and
came. Mr. Ball then realized as clearly as if he had been at the
bedside that his friend Dombrain had died. He noted the time
three minutes past five. At that very moment Robert Dombrain
died.
The following fact, narrated by M. Pyrrhus Bessi (Revue des
Etudes Psychiques, 1901, 21-23; 97-168), is a case of monition of
death by accidental crystal vision. M. Bessi, at Panicola (in Italy,
near Perusia), working alone in his room one night, broke off to
rest for a moment. His lamp nearly went out, he tried to re-light
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 285
it, and it went out completely. Nevertheless, the room was filled
with a dim light; and in an old mirror he saw, as if through an
opening in the wall, another room differently furnished, and in
it an old lady whom he recognized, sitting at a table. She took
some paper from a drawer and began to write slowly, put the
paper in an envelope, rested her head on the back of the chair,
and went to sleep. Next day M. Bessi learned that this lady had
died in the night; her will, written in her own hand, was found
in the drawer of the table.
The next account has just been given to me by an eminent mem
ber of the Paris bar, whom I will call A., as I have no right to
give his -name. The fact is of ancient date, since it concerns his
grandmother.
Mme. A., who had been early widowed, had one evening been
too eagerly courted by a near relation, B., and had been somewhat
offended. Some months later, in the winter, being in the country
nursing a sick child, she found the room very cold on a particular
night, and not wishing to call up the servant, went herself to the
wood-store to get some logs. On opening the door of the wood-
store she saw B. before her. He knelt down, took her hands, and
said, Forgive me. She was speechless with astonishment, the
vision being as clear as fact; but in a few moments it vanished.
Next morning a telegram arrived announcing B/s death.
The Rev. Mr. Barker, being in bed at 11 p .m.^before going to
sleep perceived the smiling face of an aunt then in Madeira. He
shuddered and told the vision to his wife and to several other
persons. The aunt had died at the same hour, allowing for dif
ference of longitude.1
Mr. Baeschly, of Saverne, aged twenty, was alone with his
father in the house, when towards midnight they were awakened
by great noises. They got up, but could find no cause. They
returned to bed and the noises recommenced; they then found the
front door opened. This occurred a third time, and they then
fastened the door with rope. Some time later they received a
letter from America announcing the death of M. Baeschlys
brother. It appears that shortly before death, on awaking from a
1This case is referred to by Grasset as proving nothing; but this criticism
is baseless: he speaks of a commonplace dream "such as had probably occurred
to Mr. Barker some hundreds or thousands of times." But this is assuredly
not the case; the hallucination is so clear that he tells it to his wife and his
friends as a singular thing, perhaps unique in his life. Does the coincidence
of time count for nothing?
286 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
long coma, he had said, I have made a long journey, I have been
to my brother at Brunatte (Chevreul, 334);
Miss Beale, then aged fourteen, sees a man in a loose dressing-
gown in her room in the middle of the night. He seemed to be
feeling his way, and vanished. Miss B., much frightened, called
to another girl sleeping in the same room. The latter said, It
is doubtless my brother C. The next morning at breakfast C.
declared that he had not entered the room, but that he also had
seen a form enter his room whom he knew as that of a friend (in
poor health, but not thought to be in danger) who had agreed
with him that the first to die should appear to the other. He had
died that same night (A. S. P., 1891, i, 13).
M. Beaugrand, a journalist of Havre, known to me personally,
told me and produced documents confirming his story, that his
mother at Havre on the 2d of November, 1856, before going to
bed, heard what seemed a terrible storm and saw the chimney
shaken as if by a high wind. There was no storm nor wind, but
the same day at 11 p.m. her husband perished in a cyclone some
miles from New York on his passage to Havre. This old story
would not by itself be very evidential, for memories become
twisted out of shape as time goes on; but it is probable that these
old cases, so closely parallel with recent ones, are correct in the
main. Many good instances, too long to be reproduced here, will
be found in C. Flammarions paper, Les apparitions au moment
de la mort (Revue Spirite, February, 1921, 33).
Elsa Barker, the author of sundry novels (The Son of Mary
Bethel, etc.), being in Paris at the time, was suddenly moved to
write automatically, I am here, I can see you; I found myself
before the inevitable, etc. The signature was X., a person whom
she hardly knew, an American author and magistrate aged about
seventy. She asked her friends for details of X., whom she
had only seen at distant intervals, and learned that he had died a
few days before the message had come to her. She thinks that
she was the first person in Europe to learn the news. This
writing was followed by numerous others, published as Letters
from a Living Dead Man (Rider, 1917). The book has but slight
scientific interest, but should be read carefully as showing the
powers of the subconscious in a distinguished writer.
On May 4th Lord Beresford, steaming between Gibraltar and
Marseilles, saw a coffin containing his father in his cabin as dis
tinctly as if it were real. He spoke of it to his shipmates and on
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 287
arriving at Marseilles learned that his father had died April 29th
and was buried on May 4th (A. S. P., 1907, xvii, 727).
M. Berget, professor of physics at the Sorbonne, narrates that
his mother when a young girl suddenly heard the voice of a friend
living far from Paris, and fainted with fear. On recovering she
said, How horrible! Amelia is dead; I heard her sing as only
the dead can. Amelia died at that time, 3 p . m ., at Strasburg, in
the convent of which she was a member (Flammarion, 78).
The Rev. P. Beck, of Southbank, Yorkshire, felt an inexplicable
sadness one evening after dinner. At ten minutes to eight exactly
he saw a form descending the stairs. His wife who was with him
saw nothing. The apparition agreed in height and dress with
Mr. Becks mother, but Mr. Beck did not recognize it. Mrs. Beck
died some hundred miles away at the same hour (A. S. P., 1891,
i, 367).
M. Belbeder, of the Sixth Colonial Regiment, went on leave to
some friends at Riberac in the Dordogne. When going to sleep
he saw a white transparent shade move from the chimney-piece,
come towards him, and bend over the bed. He says, I fully
understood that she said, Always remain my sons friend. The
form slowly rose and I recognized the mother of one of my best
friends whom I had left in good health. I got up, lest I should
be under an illusion; the night was very dark and there was no
moon. The person whose shape was recognized had died some
two hours before (Enquiry through the Bulletin des Armes).
M. Binet, aged fifteen, was unable to sleep. About 12.30 he
seemed to see a ray of moonlight, and this luminous shadow took
the form of a person and moved towards his bed. He cried out,
Lontine! He spoke of this apparition before knowing that
Lontine had died at that very hour (Flammarion, 84).
The following monition is not more remarkable than others ; but
I give it because I was to some extent a witness of certain details
(October, 1919). It takes the usual form of such monitions.
In the night of October 22-23, 1919, Adle Bureau, a widow,
forty-one years of age, in the service of my daughter-in-law,
Mme. Albert Richet, at Carqueiranne (Var), heard in sleep, at
about 3 a . m ., a knock at her door. She tried to say Come in,
but seemed paralyzed, as if her night-dress were glued to the
bed, so that she could say or do nothing. Then she saw the form
of a woman dressed in white standing on the threshold as if the
door were open. She could not distinguish the face, for the shape
288 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
turned its back and vanished as she looked. It disappeared as if
through the door, which, however, had neither been opened nor
shut. Adle went to sleep again, though with difficulty. She
did not recognize the shape, but thought of a niece whom she
loved, who was seriously ill. On the next day, and after relating
the nightmare, as she called it, to my daughter-in-law, she
received a telegram announcing the death of her niece.
Adle told me that she did not recognize her niece, not having
seen the face, but had thought of her. The costume was like a
white bridal dress, and she thought that her niece (only a year
married) must have been so buried. The emotion caused was so
strong that Adle was quite ill with tears and headache.1
The next instance is not, strictly speaking, a monition of death,
but presents a remarkable monitory character {Jour. S. P. R.,
July, 1919). Father Brompton (a pseudonym) was due to go next
day to administer the last sacraments to a sick woman. He gave
his telephone number to the nurse in case the patient were worse.
At dawn he was awaked and saw a human form, which said,
There is a telephone message for you. It was 4.15 . . He a m
knew him to be very ill, but had no close acquaintance with him
and was not thinking of him (Tel. Halluc., 140).
Lady G., who had left her mother in good health, woke in the
middle of the night and said to her husband, My mother is ill;
have the horses put to for me to go to her. When nearing her
mothers house she met her sisters carriage. She also having
been disquieted, had come. They arrived in time for the last
moments of their mother who had been taken suddenly ill
(Chevreul, On ne meurt pas, 40). Perhaps the two daughters
on the last occasion that they had seen their mother had sub
consciously observed some signs of impending illness.
Mrs. Gay, at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, had two monitory dreams,
interesting as showing a gradual transformation from one per
sonality to another. The first dream was of a Mr. X., about
eighteen months dead. Little by little the lineaments changed
to those of her father. The change took place several times in
the course of the dream. In the morning a letter arrived intimat
ing the death of her father.
On the 24th of March Mrs. Gay saw her father, then dead,
accompanied by a Mr. L., whom Mrs. Gay knew very slightly.
This dream made a profound impression on her, and she con
cluded that Mr. L. must have died. He had not died; but some
days later she received a letter from him telling her that her
brother, Captain Edmund, had died.
On April 5th, when they were still without news of Captain
Edmund, and very anxious, Mrs. Gays little girl, aged one year
and four months, said that she had seen Uncle Edmund in her
bye-bye, with a red stain on his head. Mr. L.s letter reached
her a few hours later, telling her that her brother, a captain in
the artillery, had been killed by a fragment of shell that had struck
him on the head March 23d.
Mr. Goodall woke up with the impression that he had said
aloud, I have lost my dear little May. Another voice that he
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 301
did not recognize, said, No, not May, but your youngest boy.
A short time later this was confirmed (Human Personality, ii,
213).
Miss Gollin, on January 25, 1896, at 12.30, working at the
office of the Evening Post (New York) felt that there was some
one behind her chair. She turned and saw her fiancee dressed
in black. The vision disappeared after a short time. She asked
a companion, Miss Burrows, did you see anyone behind my
chair? Miss Burrows saw no one. The young man died at that
hour. He had been ill some days but Miss Gollin thought him
only slightly indisposed (/. 5. P. R., May, 1908, 234). The
testimony of Miss Burrows shows that the vision was entirely
subjective.
Mrs. Green, in England, dreamt that she saw two women in
a small carriage, that the horse fell into the water, and that both
women were drowned. She did not recognize either, but saw
the hats floating on the water. This case has been already
described (p. 254). At the same hour both women, one of whom
was a niece of Mrs. Greens, were drowned in Australia. The
horse was drowned also. The bodies were located by the hats
floating in the water. Mrs. Green had never seen her niece and
therefore could not recognize her (A. S. P., i, 49). The abun
dance of detail makes this one of the most telling monitory dreams
on record.
General Fitch, in Burma, on getting up one morning, saw a
friend whom he thought far away enter his room in broad day
light, and then vanish. No one in the house had seen him enter
or leave. He learned that his friend had died suddenly about
the same time, six hundred miles away (A. S. P., 1891, i, 362).
Marian Griffiths left the family breakfast table one Sunday
morning, went into the garden, and without ostensible reason
looked long into a fountain there. Her sister came to look fop her,
and she said, Something terrible has happened; oh, my poor
dear H. Her brother H. was drowned while bathing in a shal
low river. There was no reason that Marian should be anxious
about him (A. S. P., 1891, i, 364).
Colonel H., in London, woke at dawn and saw in his room his
brother officer, Major Poole, in khaki uniform and wearing a
thick black beard, as Colonel H. had never seen him. The appari
tion was so clear that H. thought it real; he saw all the details of
the uniform. He spoke and P. replied, I am shot, raising a
302 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
hand to his breast. "The general sent me forward. Colonel
H. told the facts to some comrades, and the following morning
came the news of the action in the Transvaal at which Major
Poole had been killed by a shot through the right lung. The time
coincided with the vision.
Mr. Marius S. Griffin, in Jamaica, saw in a dream an old lady
for whom he had a great affection, dressed in white. The dream
ended in a vision very sharply defined at the foot of his bed. He
remarks, however, that the night being very dark he could not
have seen a living person there. He noted the dream in his
diary, and learned that his friend had died at the time he saw
the apparition. She had said, shortly before her death, Tell
Marius that I thought of him (Tel. Halluc., 160).
General H., in his tent at Bombay, saw his sister in night-attire
at two o'clock in the afternoon. He wrote at once for news of
her, and learned that she had died at the hour of the apparition.
He says, I am as sure of the fact as of my own existence
(Tel. Halluc., 246).
Mr. H., who was then at school in Geneva, relates that one
morning one of his schoolfellows said aloud, before several per
sons, that he had seen the brother of one of the masters (that
master being then absent from the school for a few days)
stretched on the grass with a dark hole in his forehead. The dream
made a great impression on the boys. On the next day they heard
that Mr. X. had been killed by his gun going off as he was crossing
a ditch, the charge entering his head. Mr. H. cannot state identity
of time between the dream and the accident.
Suzanne H., an old servant of Mrs. A., married and went to
live at a farm a long way from the town where Mrs. A. lived.
One night she waked up and said to her husband, Listen! Mrs.
A. is calling me. The husband heard nothing and Suzanne was
reassured; but Mrs. A. had been taken with sudden illness and
died at the hour when Suzanne had heard her voice ( Flammarion,
LInconnu, 140).
Clovis Hugues, a distinguished poet, was imprisoned at Mar
seilles after the events of the Commune. His friend, Gaston
Cremieux, condemned to death, was with him, and said, When
they shoot me I will come and prove to you the immortality of the
sold by manifesting in your cell. At dawn of day on November
30, 1871, says Clovis Hugues, "I was awakened by sharp little
knocks on my table. The noise ceased and I went to sleep again.
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 303
A few moments later they began again. I jumped out of bed, and
broad awake stood at the table. The knocks continued; this was
repeated once or twice. At that moment Cremieux had just been
shot (LInconnu, 76).
M. Martin Halle, of Cette, dreamed that he saw a girl fall from
a window. He told this horrible dream to his family. In the
morning the cabman who usually came to fetch him failed to come,
and another came in his stead, very late. That morning at 5
a m . the daughter of the cabman had fallen from a window and
been killed (LInconnu, 460).
Mme. Hers, entering her room at 2.30 p .m ., saw her mother on
the bed in a frilled cap, dead. She sobbed and nearly fainted.
A few minutes later a telegram was brought her from Strasburg
telling her that her mother was very ill. She said, She is dead,
I have seen her. The elder lady had died at 3.30, Strasburg
time. She had a frilled cap (LInconnu, 104).
The celebrated medium, D. D. Home, who gave the finest ex
amples known of ectoplasmic forms, showed occasional lucidity.
He states that at the exact time of the death of Allan Kardec, one
of the first promulgators of the spiritist doctrine, he received the
communication, I regret having taught the spiritist doctrine,
Allan Kardec. The message was received in the presence of
Lord Dunraven (Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism, by D. D.
Home). All the same, it would be interesting to know the pre
cise conditions under which this message was transmitted.
M. Octave Houdaille was called to Mirecourt (Vosges) by
the serious illness of his grandfather, left Paris with his brother
George at 10 p . m ., and went to sleep in the train. At 1 a . m .
he awoke suddenly, hearing a deep sigh. He got up and called his
brother, saying, It is 1 oclock, grandfather must be dead or
dying. I have just heard his last sigh. In fact the death took
place at 1.30 a .m . (A. S. P., 1891, 99).
Mrs. Hosmer, the sculptress, at Rome, waked at the moment
that the clock struck three and saw inside her bed-curtains the
form of a young Italian woman, Rosa, who had been her servant
and whom she knew to be slightly ill. It seemed to her that Rosa
said, Adesso son felice, son contenta. Next morning she told
her dream while at breakfast with Miss Lydia Child, who did
not believe it. They sent, however, to get news of Rosa and
found that she had died at 5 . . (Tel. Halluc., 146).
a m
side of the bed a womans figure, very pale and with an expres
sion of suffering, wearing a hat and light cloak. The lamp
light on the face showed even the freckles on the nose. Mrs. T.
recognized her sister who gradually disappeared. Just then Mrs.
T.s little niece ran in, saying, I have seen Aunt Annie, I have
seen Aunt Annie. This apparition does not coincide with the
hour of death, but with an attack of acute diphtheria that carried
her off in twenty-four hours {Tel. Halluc., 290).
Popular superstitions and beliefs or religious legends carry
little or no weight with me ; but perhaps they should not all be dis
missed without consideration. The extraordinary facts related
in the lives of the saints are neither complete falsehoods nor
absolute errors, as, for instance, levitations. There is probably
some amount of truth imbedded in all such tales. But it is
better to try new experiments and make fresh observations than
to search for whatever small amount of truth these legends may
contain or than to deny them altogether.
Many popular superstitions exist relative to movements and
noises relating to deaths. There are many tales resembling
monitions, but the events chronicledbreakage of mirrors, fall
ing of pictures, blows on the doors, etc., presaging death or
disasterare rarely such as to carry recognition. I will merely
mention a few of these monitions; for even though there be no
recognition, one can, and even ought, to give weight to the
coincidences.
M. Jaff, at Berlin, in bed about midnight, but perfectly awake,
hears the ticking of the death-watch. He got up, and heard
the raps follow him to different parts of the room. The next
morning his wife said to him, I saw your mother in a dreani
with a handkerchief tied under her chin; her mouth was much
contorted. Soon after, M. Jaff heard of his mothers death,
accompanied by such strong contortions of the face that it became
necessary to tie up the jaw by a handkerchief passing round the
chin.
M. Lemonnier, chemist at Rennes, had two intimate friends,
M. Escolan and M. Nivot, a surgeon-dentist. M. Escolan, who
was in feeble health, was attacked by acute tuberculosis and was
taken to the hospital. One morning in September, 1891, at 5.45
. ., M. Lemonnier was awaked by violent blows on the shut
a m
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 333
ters of his pharmacy. He writes: I thought, Who can it be
who knocks like this instead of using the night-bell ? for he was
drumming on the shutters for one or two minutes. I dressed in
haste and went to open. There were only a few women sweeping
in the street, who said they had seen no one.
About an hour later his friend M. Nivot came at seven oclock,
who said, A singular thing has occurred; at 5.45 I was awakened
by knocking on the door of my room, and I called out, Who is
there? Dont knock so hard, I am not deaf. The noise con
tinued, I opened the door. There was no one, and the house
was asleep; the porter also said that no one had entered the
house.
M. Lemonnier and M. Nivot then thought that their friend
had died in the hospital. They went there and found that he
had passed away at 5.45 exactly.
Miss Matthews woke in the middle of the night and saw, to
her great alarm, a young girl, Suzanne, a housemaid like herself,
who had left the house some months previously. She was in
night-attire, came straight to my bed, lifted the clothes, and lay
down by my side. I felt a cold shiver, and I think I fainted.
When I came to myself the apparition had gone; but I am sure
it was no dream. The same night the son of Mr. Matthews
who lived with his mother felt a great terror. He looked, but
could see nothing, hid his head under the bedclothes and could
not sleep. Suzanne, who was in hospital for liver trouble that
did not seem very serious, died that night (Tel. Halluc., 350).
Mrs. Beilby relates that she and her husband heard one day
the voice of one of their young friends calling, Johnny, Johnny.
This young friend, Miss Snell, who was living in their house in
Victoria (Australia) had gone for a ride, and had met with a
serious accident about seven miles away. She had called out
to Johnny for help, the boy who usually rode with her. The
impression was so clear that Mr. and Mrs. Beilby called the
servants ( Tel. Halluc., 363).
The Rev. Mr. Tweedale, of the Astronomical Society of Lon
don, on January 10, 1879, saw his grandmother in the middle of
the night. The apparition lasted several seconds. She was wear
ing a cap of antiquated make. His father, Mr. Tweedale, also
saw the same apparition at his bedside. The sister of Mr. Twee
dale senior, eighteen miles away, saw the same apparition at 2
334 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
A.M., the hour being exactly noted. The vision of the Rev. Mr.
Tweedale w a s at 2.10 a . m . The grandmother had died at 12.15
(A. S. P., 1906, 610).
During the night in which X., a cousin of my children, poi
soned himself with strychnine, my son George, aged twenty, and
my daughter Louise, aged eighteen, told their impressions at
breakfast. Said George, I had a dismal dream. I dreamed that
one of my friends had died. I hope it is not X. or Y. But it
cant be either. I, too, said Louise, dreamed that our cousin
P. A. was dead, and that I said to my brother Jacques, He cannot
possibly be dead, you went with him to the opera. Now P. A.
holds the same degree of relationship to my children as does
X .; and X. had been to the theatre with Jacques on the previous
evening.
Mrs. Young, taking tea with her husband and children, heard
a violent noise on the floor above. She also seemed to feel a
strong wind. Her husband heard and felt nothing. Far away,
Mrs. Youngs brother, Captain Adams, then at sea, heard him
self called, John, John, and knew his fathers voice. He went
on deck, but no one had called him. At that time Mr. Adams,
their father, perished in a shipwreck (Phantasms of the Living,
ii, 632).
(b) Simultaneous and Collective Monitions
Monitions of this group are of fundamental importance; first,
because they strongly confirm the hypothesis of cryptesthesia, and
secondly because they seem to show that in certain cases the
monition assumes a normal objectivity, like a real materialization.
The following is an old story which may be considered exact
in the main, despite the deformations that time often brings when
the full details are not written down:
In the island of Cape Breton (Nova Scotia) Colonel Wynyard
and Sir John Sherbrooke were dining in barracks, when a form,
simply dressed, passed before them. God bless my soul, said
Sherbrooke, who is that? It is my father, I am sure he is
dead, Colonel Wynyard replied. The two officers verified that
no one could have come in, and the occurrence was noted down
in the regimental archives. Shortly after news came that Colonel
Wynyards father had been killed in the hunting-field.
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 335
Sir John Sherbrooke had never seen John Wynyard, but one
day in London he met a man who strongly resembled him and
was often mistaken for him. Sherbrooke said, That is the man
I saw {Tel. Halluc., 383).
Mrs. E. Wickham went daily to the hospital in Malta to visit
an officer, Mr. B., wounded at Tel-el-Kebir. The wound became
gangrenous and death was imminent; though not being expected
that night, Mrs. Wickham consented to go home. About 3 . . a m
her young son, aged nine, called her, crying out, Mother, mother,
here is Mr. B. Mrs. Wickham writes: I got up in a hurry;
the form of Mr. B. was floating in the room about six inches
above the floor, and disappeared through the window, smiling
at me. He was in night-attire, but the gangrened foot seemed
to me like the other; both my boy and I remarked this. Half an
hour later they came to tell me that B. had died (Phantasms
of the living; quoted by Flammarion). This case is one of the
most remarkable on record.
Several years ago, Mme. de Barreau, a lady of high character
and serene disposition, told me a similar fact witnessed by her
self. I unfortunately did not note it down at the time, but the
story struck me so powerfully that the main facts can be relied on.
Mme. de Barreau was tending a girl friend who was very ill.
The house was in the country and somewhat lonely, facing a
meadow through which there ran a brook bordered by willows.
The girl was dying and her mother and a professional nurse were
with her. The sick-room was on the ground floor, that of Mme.
de Barreau on the first story. One night, after watching some
time, Mme. de Barreau and the nurse went upstairs to take some
rest, and some time later both of them, looking out of the window,
saw a white form float among the trees and vanish into the dark
ness. Just then the death took place.
Mrs. Pearson and her sister, Mrs. Coppinger, were watching
at the bedside of their dying aunt, Mrs. Harriet. Suddenly Mrs.
Coppinger said, Look, Emma, there is Aunt Anna. The two
sisters than saw a little old woman wearing a shawl and an old-
fashioned hat entering the sick-room. This Aunt Anna was a
deceased sister; before her death Mrs. Harriet said that she had
seen this sister who came to call her (Bozzano, A. S. P 1906,
164).
Commander Aylesbury, being then a boy of thirteen, narrowly
336 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
escaped drowning and in his distress called loudly on his mother.
On the same day at a distance of some 6,000 miles (Batavia to
London) his mother and three sisters were working in their
room. All heard a faint cry, Mother! The girls said, Did
you hear ? Some one cried Mother! The voice called twice
more, quickly and as if in distress. They got up and ran out
into the street. All was quiet and the weather very calm. Mrs.
Aylesbury noted the date in her diary. The time corresponded,
so far as can be judged after thirty years and in the absence of
other written confirmation {Tel. Halluc., 365).
In October, 1916, Mme. R., of Montlu^on, heard a cry of dis
tress, Mother. She hurried to her boys room and found that
he also had been startled by the same cry very clearly heard.
Two days later they learned that another son had been wounded
that night (Unpublished, M. Mialaret).
Mrs. P., before going to bed, saw a man in a naval uniform,
with his elbow on the foot-rail of the bed, looking at her hus
band who was sleeping. Mrs. P. woke her husband, who saw
the apparition, and cried out in astonishment, Sir, what are you
doing here? The form stood up and said, Willy, Willy, in
an imperious voice. This was Mr. P.s Christian name. He got
up to eject the stranger, but the form moved impassively across
the room, throwing a shadow on the wall (there being light in
the room), and disappeared through the partition. The door was
bolted. Mr. P. recognized his father who had been, a naval officer
in his youth, whom Mrs. P. did not know. Mr. P. died shortly
after (Bozzano, A. S. P., 1909, xix, 326).
Mrs. Bettany dreamt that one of her neighbors, Mrs. J., whom
she knew by name only, and who was not ill, had died. The
dream was so clear that she sent next morning to enquire for
Mrs. J., and found that she had really died during the night.
One of Mrs. Bettanys servants also had a terrible dream that
night in which some one told her that Mrs. J. was dead.
The following case is interesting from several points of view.
M. Sully-Prudhomme and I were able to gather all the authenticat
ing documents. Captain Mangot, commanding the three-master
Jacques Gabriel, outward bound, Bordeaux to Mauritius, notes
in the ships log, July 17, 1852, that he and his second officer,
M. Penaud, walking on the poop, heard a womans voice. The
steersman also heard it. He says, On arriving at Mauritius
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 337
we heard of the death of M. Penauds wife, who died on the same
day and hour at which the voice was heard. M. Penaud told me
that he had had a presentiment of misfortune, adding that each
time he had lost one of his family a similar warning had oc
curred. Later on the captain added that the cry he had heard
was heart-rending, and the fact impressed him so much that he
often spoke of it.
The ship left Bordeaux on April 16th, and the death of Mme.
Penaud took place, not on the 17th of July, but on the 16th of
June, according to the register of deaths at Paimbceuf. There is,
therefore, a manifest error in the statement of dates in the log
book. The voice was not heard on the day of the death, but a
month later. Still, the fact remains that a womans voice, strong
and clear, was heard by three persons on a ship at sea.
Mr. Falkinburg, returning home at 7 p . m ., was playing with
his little boy aged five, when suddenly the child exclaimed, Papa,
here is grandpapa. Mr. Falkinburg came and saw the very
lifelike figure of his father. Mrs. Falkinburg, however, could
see nothing, and tried to persuade her husband that it must be an
illusion. At ten oclock, the child, then in his bed, called again,
Papa, grandpapa is here. Mr. Falkinburg had died at 7.14
exactly.
This monition though collective cannot be objective, since it
was invisible to the third person present. It is open to question
whether collective monitions seen by several persons have really
the objectivity that they would seem to have, using the word
objectivity in its usual sense.
Mme. Focke at Dsseldorf, was taking tea with her daughters,
when she heard a cry, Mother, Mother! Her daughters and
Mme. Haskel, who was with her, heard the same cry, and the
voice was recognized as that of Anna Focke, another daughter.
They went to the window but could see no one. Anna Focke
had embarked for the Indies on a Dutch boat which was lost
that night with all hands (Phantasms of the Living).
Professor Knes and Dr. Obersteiner, well-known physicians of
Vienna, were together at the house of the latter, and heard a
knock at the door. They cried, Come in, but no one entered.
A few moments later they heard the door of the antechamber
open, and some footsteps, light, but distinct. Obersteiner opened
the door but saw no one. A third time they heard the further
338 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
door opening, the light footsteps and the knock on their door,
and Dr. Obersteiner exclaimed, This is really too much! At
that time Mme. S., the sick lady whom they were going to see in
consultation, was dying. She had died when they reached the
house (A . S. P., 1891, i, 162).
Mme. B., at the bedside of her dying mother, saw the phantom
of her godmother, an old governess long since dead, sitting by the
fire in her mothers usual place. She gave a cry, her sister came,
she and three other persons saw the phantom (Bozzano, A. S. P
1906, 166).
One night, Mrs. L., sleeping at her husbands side, heard
clearly the voice of their son. Both woke up completely. The
voice said, As I cannot come home to England, mother, I am
come to see you. They took note of the incident and some
days later learned of their sons death {Tel. Halluc., 364).
Maria Strieffert, schoolmistress, heard distinctly the word
Fraulein. Two pupils with her also heard it. She knew it
for the voice of a person who had behaved badly to her. Having
noted the time, it was verified that this person had died at that
moment. The case is not very evidential (Flammarion, 323).
Mme. Telechoff was in her sitting-room in Petersburg with
her five children and her dog Moustache. The dog suddenly be
gan to bark, and all present then saw a small boy about six years
old, dressed in a shirt, whom they recognized as the child of the
milkwoman. They knew this child to be ill. The apparition left
the stove, passed over the heads of the persons present, and dis
appeared by the open window after lasting about fifteen seconds.
The dog followed its movements, barking all the while. The
child died at the same hour (A. S. P., 1905, xv, 439).
Philip Weld, a boy of fifteen, was accidentally drowned on
April 16, 1845. Mr. Cox, the master of his school, went to the
boys father to give the sad news personally; but as soon as he
entered, Mr. Weld said, You need not tell me, I know that
Philip is dead. My daughter Catherine and I saw him on the
road, and by him a young man dressed in black. I could see,
through their forms, a peasant working in the fields. I have
said nothing about it so as not to alarm my wife {Tel. Halluc.,
376).
Mme. Obalecheff, at Odessa, was lying in bed with her infant;
her servant Claudine was sleeping on a mattress beside her on
SPORADIC CRYPTESTHESIA 339
the floor. Raising her eyes she saw her father-in-law slowly
enter, wearing bedroom slippers and a plaid pattern dressing-
gown that Mme. Obalecheff had never seen. He stepped over
the feet of the servant and sat down in an armchair. The clock
struck eleven. Being quite sure that I was looking at my
father-in-law, I said to the servant, Look, Claudine, I do not
know him. Claudine, trembling with fright, said, I see Nicolas
Nilovitch (my father-in-laws name). He then got up, again
stepped over the servants feet, and vanished. The lady went
to call her husband; they went through the flat but found no one.
Mr. Nilovitch died at Yver at that time (Flammarion, 194).
Mrs. Paget was at prayers with her daughters one evening
about 11 . . when the three of them heard the heavy steps of
p m
At six oclock the same day I went to the office of the Revue
Scientifique to correct proofs along with the secretary, Dr. Heri-
court. Henri Ferrari, editor of the Revue Bleue, was there also
correcting his proofs. All three of us were absorbed in our work,
when one of the contributors entered (I may note passim that he
afterwards became a colleague of mine). He looked at us with
some surprise, and I said, Excuse us a few minutes, we shall
soon have finished. He walked up and down while we went on
PREMONITIONS 361
with our proof-reading. Then some extraordinary whim took him,
he sat himself down before Ferrari and said, You are just like
a ----- wren, I dont care a -------for you. I saw Ferrari turn
pale, dumb with astonishment, and striking the table I said to X.,
You are an out-and-out cad; get out! and I went to the door
and opened it.
That evening X. sent me a challenge to a duel. It is the only
one I ever received. Of course, I left it unanswered, and some
years later we resumed our good relations.
The important fact is not this absurd and trivial incident, but
the prediction of a most unlikely event which provoked in me
violent and justified anger; this being one of the very few times
that I have been carried away by anger in the course of a long
life. Alice had predicted this four hours earlier, pointing to three
or four persons round me.
(b) Spiritist Premonitions
The premonitions to which I give this name are not always
markedly different from others. They are characterized by this
that the subject is making an attempt to know the future by the
planchette, by automatic writing, by psychometry, by crystal vision,
or by some other means, instead of remaining passive during his
normal life, whether sleeping or waking, and being dominated by
the metapsychic fact. He is not suffering an accident, but is
making an experiment.
Mrs. Piper (or Phinuit) has often made prophecies of deaths
or minor events which have been verified (Bozzanos cases xxi to
xxiv).
On May 10, 1892, Phinuit said that the brother of Mr. T.,
whom Mrs. Piper did not know, had kidney trouble, that his heart
would stop, and that he would enter the spirit-world. Soon after
it was established that he had kidney disease and he died of
syncope in his sleep, September 3, 1892.
Dr. Louis Cohen, of St. Louis (U. S. A.), visited Mrs. Leonard,
who described his father quite accurately and told him that his
father had died and that he himself would soon be summoned
back to America by cable. This was on April 20th; on the 23d
the prediction was exactly fulfilled.
Mr. S. Shaw (case xli) saw a professional medium in London,
who said, Your mother is dead, which was untrue. She cor
rected herself and said, She will die in three months. She is well
362 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
at present but work tires her and she needs to lie down in
the daytime. Her death will be sudden. Two months later Mr.
S. received a letter from his mother, saying that she was in good
health but needed a sleep during the day. She died suddenly
two and a half months after the premonition.
Mr. William Steads secretary, E. M., was in weak health and
irritable. Stead thought of closing the connection; but Julia,
writing by the hand of Stead, gave the message: Be patient,
she will come to join us before the end of the year. This predic
tion was repeated several times. In July E. M. was very ill.
Julia wrote, She will get well, but will not outlive the year.
In December E. M. had influenza, and Julia wrote, She will not
come over naturally, and it will be before the end of the year.
On January 10th E. M. was extremely ill and Julia wrote, I
may be mistaken by a few days, but all that I have told you is
true. Bid her good-bye. On January 12th E. M. threw herself
out of the window in her delirium and died.
A friend of Mr. Stead had come from India to England, and
intending to make a long stay had arranged for a series of lec
tures on free trade and other subjects, at Manchester and else
where. Julia, through the intermediary of Stead, told him that he
would return to India before the end of the year. This was
repeated on the 14th and the 16th of August, and on the 11th
of September Mr. Tracy refused to believe it, but a month later
he was recalled to India by the serious illness of a relation and
left before the end of the year (Stead, in Borderland, 1894, ii, 43).
A non-professional medium, the granddaughter of the celebrated
physiologist, Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, predicted to a young
man, Mr. S., that he would become a senator for Missouri in the
United States. This seemed so improbable that he laughed at the
prediction, but two years later he moved from Wisconsin, where
he lived, to Missouri and was nominated senator some time after.
A distinguished physician of Palermo, M. Carmelo Samona,
well acquainted with metapsychic science, lost his little daughter
Alexandrina, aged five, in 1910. Mme. Samona was wild with
grief. Three days after she saw the child in a dream, who said
to her, I have not left you; I have become tiny like that, desig
nating some very small object. A fresh pregnancy was the more
unlikely in that Mme. Samona had undergone a serious ovarian
operation a year previously. On April 10th, however, she became
aware that she was pregnant. On May 4th it was predicted by
PREMONITIONS 363
Alexandrina, communicating by means of the table, that Mme.
Samona would be delivered of twin girls, one of whom would
entirely resemble Alexandrina. This came to pass. One of the
twins had a mark on the left eye and another mark on the right
ear with asymmetry of the face, precisely like the deceased child
(Duchatel and Warcollier, Les miracles de la volont, p. 239).
This premonition wuld seem to imply the phenomenon that
spiritists call reincarnation. But the data on this perplexing
problemthe most obscure in the whole of all metapsychicsare
so fragmentary that they amount to nothing from the point of
view of strict science.
Dr. E. Waller relates a fact that seems to show cryptesthesia.
He saw in the crystal a lady, Mrs. D., well known to him, and with
her another person whom he did not know. A few days later he
met Mrs. D. with this other person in the place that he had seen
in the crystal under tragical circumstances which ended in a real
drama (A . S. P., 1905, xv, 133-141).
In February, 1890, impelled by a power that she could not
resist, Mrs. R. V. went to consult Zuleika, a professional seeress.
Zuleika told the lady that her husband would leave for South
Africa, would die there in November of the same year, and that
he ought to set his affairs and his insurances in order so as to
avoid heavy expenses and much trouble for all concerned. Mr.
V.s departure, which was uncertain, duly took place, and in
November, 1890, he died in Africa, in despite of his robust health.
The precautions indicated had not been taken, whence much
expense and trouble resulted;*'disastrous consequences Mrs. V.
calls them (Bozzano, liv).
Zuleikas premonition was noted down by Mrs. V. in her diary
in February, 1890.
Bozzanos cases (lvi and lvii) are authenticated by numerous
witnesses. They are as follows : On the 22d of April, 1877, the
eldest daughter of Mr. Maxfield, a very well-known hotel manager
in New York, said to Dr. Anthony (who made a written note of
the prophecy), I have just heard a voice speaking very clearly
at my ear : you will die first, then Harry, then your father ; and
Dr. Anthony will be present on each occasion. The three per
sons referred to were all in perfect health, but the daughter died
on November 9, 1879; Harry on June 22, 1884, and Mr. Maxfield
on July 2, 1884. Dr. Anthony was present at the three deaths.
A similar prediction was made by a medium to the eldest
364 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
daughter of Westland Marston. You will die first, then Nelly,
then Philip, and your mother last. All came to pass exactly.
Mr. Paige went to a medium without giving his name ; she told
him the name of his wife, Eliza Anne, and of her sister Maria.
She described accurately the very serious illness of the former,
and predicted that in three days Eliza Anne would see her
deceased mother at her bedside; which came true.
A lady known to Mrs. Sidgwick (case lxvii) went to consult a
medium, who told her, You are wearing a photograph of your
children, which was correct. Indicating two, she said, Those
two are dead, which was so, and pointing to another, This one
will soon be with us, and his transition will be sudden. Some
weeks later the elder son of this lady was killed in a football
accident.
J. Maxwell has published (case lxxiii) the remarkable premo
nition given to me by Mme. X. The personality speaking through
her mediumship purported to be my friend, Antoine B,, long since
deceased. Mme. X. predicted to me the death of Antoine B.s
widow, who had become Mme. L. by a second marriage. This
lady was in very good health, but Mme. X., on looking at a few
words of her handwriting, said to me, I see the figure 7, which
means that Mme. L. will soon die. Mme. L., who was quite
unknown to Mme. X., died just seven weeks later.
The premonition went further. On the 8th of July, 1903, Mme.
X. wrote to me, Someone tells me ( ?) that one of the sons of
Mme. L. will die before two years are past. I suppose it must be
Jacques B., but this was not told me.
On the night of December 23d Louis B. and Oliver L. (stepson
to Mme. L.) were in a disastrous railway accident on the Northern
of France. The former escaped by a miracle, the latter was killed
on the spot. The premonition was, however, still more exactly
fulfilled than by the death of this stepson. Fate is inexorable.
Mme. L. had a son, Gilbert L., who died suddenly a short time
later of cardiac failure after a slight attack of diphtheria that
seemed nearly cured.
Some instances of premonition are given by Rmy which are
the more interesting in that Rmy sets himself the task of proving
that nearly all so-called spiritist phenomena are due to tricks
played on simple people. Mlle. X., the daughter of a school
inspector of Lot-et-Garonne, was amusing herself and some
friends by making a table speak. Ask it when I shall retire,
PREMONITIONS 365
said her father, as a jest. In eight days, the table replied, and
everyone laughed, for Mr. X., then forty-five years of age and
in excellent health, had no thought of retiring.
Mr. X. died suddenly forty-five days later. I may observe that
M. Rmy, who is so severe on the experiences of others, is very
lenient to this premonition, which proves absolutely nothing.
An eminent writer, Paul Adam (Bozzanos case xci), could
write automatically messages which purported to come from
VEtrangre. One evening VEtrangre said to one of the friends
of Paul Adam, who was a hardened bachelor, In four years you
will marry a lady living at No. so and so, Avenue Marceau. At
that time the house designated by this number was being pulled
down. Four years later this gentleman met the lady in the house
built on this site and married her.
Case cxii is one of the most remarkable in metapsychic litera
ture. On December 11, 1901, Mrs. Verrall wrote automatically,
Nothing should be neglected, the most trifling facts may be use
ful ; be trustful. . . . The cold was intense and a single candle
gave a poor light. He was lying on the sofa or on a bed, and was
reading Marmontel by the light of a single candle. She will
remember (referring probably to Mrs. Sidgwick). The book
was lent him, it did not belong to him.
On December 17th Mrs. Verrall had a second message : The
name Marmontel is correct . . . a French book, I think his
memoirs. The name Passy may help him to remember Passy or
Fleury. The book was bound in two volumes, the binding was old,
and the book was lent him. The name Marmontel is not on the
cover.
On March 1st Mr. Marsh, a friend of Mrs. Verrall, related at
table in her house that he had read the memoirs of Marmontel one
bitterly cold night in Paris, the 20th of February, by the light of
a candle, once when in bed and again reclining on two chairs,
that he had spoken of its contents to friends in Paris, that the
book was in three volumes, of which he had borrowed two from
the London Library and that on February 21st he had read the
chapter in which Marmontel describes the finding of a picture
painted at Passy, and that the discovery was associated with M.
Fleury.
We have here a prediction of a series of unimportant events in
minute detail. These events could not possibly be anticipated
(nobody reads Marmontel), even the single light being specified.
366 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
The prediction was on December 11, 1901, and the events did not
take place till February 21, 1902.
Miss Freer (Bozzanos case c), looking in the crystal, sees a
mans head wrapped in some undefinable thing, looking in at the
small window of her room. Three days later there was a fire and
a fireman came to that little window, with his head wrapped in
a wet cloth, presenting exactly the image she had seen.
J. Maxwell cites an interesting case. A., looking in the crystal,
sees a large steamer with black, white, and red bands on the funnel,
bearing the name Leutschland, enveloped in smoke and sinking,
passengers and people in uniform running about the decks. Eight
days later the newspapers announced the bursting of a boiler on
board the Deutschland. A. was in no way concerned with mari
time affairs.
With the exception of the Saurel prediction, which will be de
scribed later, all the spiritist predictions relative to the Great War
are too vague for notice. Mrs. Chenoweth's premonitions, despite
the care with which Hyslop has collected them, are uncertain,
being little, if at all, beyond the reach of normal intelligence.
As for premonitions announcing serious events, generally
deaths, by noises and knocks, there are many, but few are evi
dential. It will suffice to mention that of the Rev. T. B. Wood,
who heard on the eve of his fathers death three distinct knocks
on the andirons. He, and also his servant Cyril, heard loud
knocks on October 20, 1919, and said, It is the Wood knockings;
someone is going to die. Three days later a cousin, till then in
good health, died suddenly.1
(c) Accidental Premonitions
I refer to this class all premonitions which occur unexpectedly
to normal persons, without experiment, without crystal vision,
planchette, automatic writing, or any other all-voluntary action.
The premonition comes to them unsought. These may be classed
(with Bozzano) as follows:
Premonitions
Of sickness and death due to natural causes.
Of accidental deaths.
Of sundry events.*
*P. Myers, S. P. R., xi and Kingsford, loc. cit., 161.
PREMONITIONS 367
(a) Premonitions of Sickness and Death Due to Natural
Causes
Miss B. was exceedingly anxious about her fathers health,
though medical opinion was that his indisposition was very slight.
She hurried back, whenever obliged to leave the house, fearing to
hear of misfortune. This lasted for some days. One day her
father fell in an apoplectic fit.
This case is not evidential, for the daughter might well guess
her fathers danger from various symptoms. I only mention this
case (Bozzanos xxvii) as a caution that none such should ever
be brought forward as having any value.
M. Salvatore Balsamo (xxxi), watching at the bedside of his
brother-in-law, hears a noise of breaking glass and china in the
next room a short time before the death. Several persons in the
sick-room heard the same and state that there were loud knocks
on the terrace, for which no natural cause could be found.
Here, again, the premonition is too vague and the brother-in-
laws death too likely to make the account worth consideration.
Only methodical study of a large number of such cases will
enable inferences to be drawn.
Mrs. Bakers sister sees a coffin before the piano in the drawing
room (case xxxiii). She nearly faints when telling her vision.
Three weeks later another sister died and her coffin was placed in
front of the piano, just where it had been seen.
Moritz gives the story of the pastor Ulrici, who saw in a dream
one of his clerical friends dead. He told the dream to his wife,
went to the church and preached, but was still obsessed by his
dream. Later in the day a servant came from the village of R.,
of which his friend was the minister, with the request that he
would come and baptize a child. He asked why their own pastor
did not perform the office. The answer was, Because he is
unable to do so. M. Ulrici said, It is because he has died.
M. Ulrici, therefore, saw the death of X. eleven hours before it
occurred, with all the attendant circumstances.1
The Rev. Mr. Dulley relates that Mrs. Jones, watching by her
sick child in the early days of September, saw three little coffins
put into a hearse, two white and one pale blue. Her little boy
Peter died on October 2d, and also a neighbors little son. Both*
*Cit par Passavant, Unters. fiber den Lebenmagnetismus, 2d edit., p. 135,
Frankfort, 1837.
368 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
funerals were on the same day, and at the last moment a third
coffin, a pale-blue one, was brought. It was that of a child in the
same parish whom Mrs. Jones did not know. When this last
coffin appeared, Mrs. Jones cried out, That was my dream.
She had already told her husband on the morning following the
dream.
M. Adrien Dufilhol relates that his grandfather heard a voice
saying, A death in the family. The grandfather thought in
silence, I am die eldest; is it I ? The voice answered No, it is
Adolphe Planes. Adolphe was Mme. Dufilhols brother and was
not ill; two months later he died unexpectedly.1
The next case may possibly be attributed to coincidence, though
this is unlikely. Mr. Lauritzen never made a memorandum of
any dream except this one of which he wrote in his diary: Three
days ago I dreamed that F. F. would be free in four years. The
phrase to be free was used to signify death. Mr. F. F. was
then in perfect health. He died four years and four days after
Mr. Lauritzens dream.2
The following premonition is somewhat vague, but the sym
bolism is very interesting. Mrs. Munro dreamed of her son, an
officer of the Flying Corps in Palestine. She saw him with a
serious wound in the forehead and heard a voice saying, He has
eaten an ice; it has given him a headache. Then she saw her son
as he had been at eleven or twelve years old. At that age he could
not eat ices, they gave him headache. Mrs. Munro was so dis
turbed by this vision that she sent for the doctor, who found her
ill from the emotion. Her son was killed on November 2, 1917,
by a bullet in the head (/. P. R., December, 1920, 272).
Mrs. Morrison, at Wellesley, in India, heard a voice saying,
When the darkness thickens at the eleventh hour death will pass.
Mrs. Morrison, who was in bed, got up in a fright; the words
were repeated again by the same voice, slowly and deliberately.
Two days later Mrs. Morrisons little daughter fell grievously ill.
For eight days there was no cloud in the sky, but on the eighth
day a terrible storm arose and a few minutes before eleven the
house was quite dark. The child died at 1 . . (A. S. P., 1907,
xviii, xxxv, 712).
p m
F ig . 12. T e l e k in e s i s b y S t a n is l a w a T o m c z y k ( A fter
S c h r e n c k - N o t z in g ) .
T he rising of a ball. T h e fluidic thread, by1 enlarging (F ig . ) becomes 13
visible, starting from the nail and showing swellings in its path.
Another day Katie said that she would show herself at the same
time as Miss Cook. . . . I saw Miss Cook, dressed in black
velvet, apparently asleep; she did not move when I took her hand.
Raising the lamp I looked round and saw Katie standing close be
hind Miss Cook. She was clothed in flowing white draperies.
Holding one of Miss Cooks hands and kneeling down by her I
raised and lowered the lamp so as to see Katies whole figure and
to convince myself that it was really Katie. She did not speak
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 495
but moved her head. Three times I examined Miss Cook carefully
to be sure that the hand I was holding was really the hand of a
living woman, and three times I turned the light on Katie and
regarded her attentively. At last Katie signed to me to leave. I
went to another part of the cabinet and ceased to see her, but did
not leave the room till Miss Cook had waked up and two of the
sitters had brought in a light.
Katie is six inches taller than Miss Cook ; yesterday, with bare
feet, she was four and one-half inches taller. Her neck was bare
and did not show the cicatrice that is on Miss Cooks neck. Her
ears are not pierced, her complexion is very fair, and her fingers
much longer than those of Miss Cook.
Later, Crookes says (p. 193) : I have often raised one side of
the curtain and then the seven or eight persons in the laboratory
could see both Katie and Miss Cook in the full light of the electric
lamps. We could not see the mediums face because of the shawl
covering it, but we could see her feet and her hands : we could
see her moving as if in pain and could hear her moans.
Katie King had long before announced that she would be able
to remain with her medium only for a short time, and that she
must soon bid her farewell. The last sance was on May 21, 1874.
There was then a dramatic scene at which Sir William Crookes
was present. Katie gave her last instructions, and went to Miss
Cook who was lying insensible on the floor. Katie touched her
and said, Wake up, Florence, I must now leave you. Miss Cook
awoke and with tears besought Katie to remain with her, but in
vain; Katie of the white robe disappeared. Crookes held up the
fainting medium and Katie was seen no more.
Other interesting experiments were made with Miss Cook by
various persons. Florence Marryat (quoted by Emy, p. 145)
says : Katie King stood by the wall of the room, with both arms
extended as if crucified. Three gas-jets threw a bright light upon
her. The effect was stupefying. She remained so for about one
second, then began to disintegrate ; her features became nebulous,
the eyes retreated into their orbits, the nose disappeared, and then
the brows, then the limbs seemed to drop apart to the floor; at
last only part of the head and some white garments remained, then
all vanished.
In a sance at Mr. Luxmores house, a Mr. Volkmann seized
Katie by the waist, crying, It is the medium. Henry Dunphy re
marked that Katie lost her arms and legs ; she escaped from Mr.
496 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Volkmann, slipping from his grasp and leaving no trace. Im
mediately after, Miss Cook was found, tied, with the knots intact.
Mr. Varley attached a galvanometer to Miss Cook, so that any
movement made by her would be shown by a deflection of the in
strument ; but there was no indication when Katie appeared, show
ing only the upper part of her body, though Mr. Varley was able
to grasp her hand.
Eusapias materializations have been fully observed by many
competent experimentalists. I will speak of them at some length,
for I have been present at close on two hundred sances with
Eusapia.
Visible materializations are rare with her and in all my long ex
perience I have seen none; I cannot remember having ever seen
in these sances any human form, in whole or in part. Once I
saw a kind of prolongation from her body, a kind of rod that
touched my side, but this was in half-light and very fugitive. Per
contra, I have been touched more than two hundred times when
the control was excellent, by a seemingly human hand on my
hands, my face, forehead, neck, and shoulders.
One such case, which seems to me perfect at all points, is the
followingit took place at the Psychological Institute at Paris.
There were present only Mme. Curie, Mme. X., a Polish friend
of hers, and P. Courtier, the secretary of the Institute. Mme.
Curie was on Eusapias left, myself on her right, Mme. X. a little
farther off, taking notes, and M. Courtier still farther, at the
end of the table. Courtier had arranged a double curtain behind
Eusapia; the light was weak but sufflcient. On the table Mme.
Curies hand holding Eusapias could be distinctly seen, likewise
mine also holding the right hand. Long practice had taught me to
hold the hand firmly, and I could also see both of Eusapias white
cuffs.
We saw the curtain swell out as if pushed by some large object
behind it. It was said to be Johns hand. I asked to touch it, and
with my right hand, which was free, I touched this hand project
ing through the curtain, high above Eusapias head. I felt the
resistance and seized a real hand which I took in mine. Even
through the curtain I could feel the fingers, which seemed to me
(though I cannot positively say so) much larger than Eusapias
little hand. I held it firmly and counted twenty-nine seconds, dur
ing all which time I had leisure to observe both of Eusapias hands
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 497
on the table, to ask Mme. Curie if she was sure of her control, to
call Courtiers attention, and also to feel, press, and identify a
real hand through the curtain. After the twenty-nine seconds I
said, I want something more, I want uno anello (a ring) on this
hand. At once the hand made me feel a ring : I said adesso uno
braceletto, and on the wrist I felt the two ends as of a womans
bracelet that closes by a hinge. I then asked that this hand should
melt in mine, but the hand disengaged itself by a strong effort, and
I felt nothing further (the above is a combination of two separate
experiments).
It seems hard to imagine a more convincing experiment, for in
twenty-nine seconds the element of surprise is eliminated. In this
case there was not only the materialization of a hand, but also of
a ring. As all experiments demonstrate, materializations of ob
jects, garments, and woven stuffs are simultaneous with human
forms, these latter never appearing naked, but covered by veils
which are at first white semi-luminous clouds which end by taking
the consistence of real woven fabrics.
Having already described at full length the movements of ob
jects without contact, there is no need to return to them, but it
should be noted that the movements and materializations occur to
gether. Everything takes place as though these movements were
due to invisible materializations, paradoxical as that term seems.
In the course of a sance one is touched ten or twenty times
without being able to see anything, even though darkness is not
total.
At Milan, two hands were heard in the air, clapping against one
another. Raising ones hand very high one could feel what seemed
to be a human figure, and on three different occasions one of the
observers stated that he could see its hair and beard ; the hair be
ing stiff and short, the beard delicate, and the skin like that of a
man. A piece of smoked paper was laid on the table, and on re
storing the light, finger-marks were found on the paper, Eusapias
hands being quite clean. This was repeated three times, the third
impression being that of a whole left hand.
The notes of one of my experiments at Milan read : Eusapia
says, Hold me firmly ; Schiaparelli on the right and Finzi on the
left grip her hands well. I say to Finzi, You have hold of the
left hand? Yes. To Schiaparelli, You have the right? Yes.
To Finzi,You have hold of both feet? Yes. Then turning my
498 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
head slightly to the left I see the curtain swell, and am touched
on the shoulder by a hand that seems to be a right hand, presum
ing that it came from the medium. Nearly at the same moment
two fingers pulled my hair at the back of my neck, without hurting
me, so that I am certain that a hand touched me on the shoulder
and the neck.
At Agnelas, J. Maxwell saw a silhouette like that of a head with
curly hair outlined against the wall of the room ; and also, in the
same manner, a hand and arm above the head of M. Sabatier, who
felt himself touched at the same moment. The fore-arm was long
and thin, coming out of the dark.
At the sances on Ribaud Island and in Paris, visible phenomena
were few, the attention of the observers being devoted to observa
tions on movements of objects. They were frequent at Genoa.
Morselli says (vol. i, 255), I sat in a small armchair about two
yards away on Eusapias right. The invisible arrived 1 Twice
I was touched and clearly felt a hand in all respects like a living
hand. My senses were fully awake. I can affirm that the thing
that touched me was solid, resisting, impenetrable, and, in short,
material!
In the eighteenth sance at Genoa, the best of them all, in pres
ence of Morselli, Porro, L. Ramorino, L. Vassallo, and Dr. Ven-
zano, of the Minerva Circle, on December 23, 1901, in the dark,
two invisible forms manifested which were afterwards seen by
weak light. The first was a little deceased daughter of Porro who
felt a child under a veil. We heard the child speak in a baby voice ;
she kissed Porro. This form could not be seen. Then another
came, the son of Vassallo who died aged sixteen. This entity be
came visible; an almost phosphorescent ovoid appeared on Eusa
pias right, moved slowly to the left about twelve inches and van
ished. By red light an arm and hand were seen to proceed from
the cabinet towards Vassallo. A third and a fourth entity ap
peared. The third was distinctly seen, but identification was
doubtful. In a room lit by five candles we all saw the two black
curtains of the window near Eusapia stretch and swell out, e
avanzarsi verso me e verso Porro come se dietro vi fossero due
persone vive agenti con intelligenza e con volonta propria e dist-
inta. These two forms did not come beyond the curtains, but
only showed hands and well-formed limbs. Morselli distinguished
a right hand visible as far as the second finger : it was short, fat,
apd grey in colour, opening and shutting.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 499
In another sance, the twenty-third, which was also a very im
portant one, held in M. Avellinos house, Eusapia was fastened
down on a bed placed behind the curtain. Then an apparition
was seen of a young girl ; the head, shoulders, and part of the
bust being visible and perhaps slightly phosphorescent. A turban
hid her ears, chin, and hair; she remained still for some twenty
seconds. A second apparition then showed a tall man, with an
abundant short beard, large head with prominent bones, and a
thick neck. Four more appeared, first the head of a young woman
in an oriental garb; the fourth was not completely formed, it
seemed imperfect on the right side. Says Morselli, 1 saw the
eyes looking at me; although bright enough for me to see the
reflection of the lights on the cornea, they seemed veiled. When
I approached her, she made no attempt to retreat, but made a
salutation with her arm and went. The fifth and sixth were
of a woman of about fifty and a young child; these appeared
together.
Previous experiments made with Eusapia at the house of Mme.
Peretti should be mentioned, but these showed only imperfect
forms, dark silhouettes, with heads hardly formed.
Although these experiments were under perfect control by very
well-informed observers, they would be insufficient if they stood
alone, but the innumerable instances of movements of objects with
out contact can be explained in no other way than by invisible
materializations, and thus, following the scheme already outlined,
we can assign three phases to these exteriorized phenomena, a
first stage in which they are invisible, a second in which they be
gin to be visible but are still more or less amorphous, and a third
stage in which they take on the semblances of a living organism
surrounded by veils which at first mask the imperfections of form,
but become thinner as the underlying form becomes more dense.
The experiments of F. Bottazzi, professor of physiology in the
University of Naples, are most evidential, and would give, if they
were wanting, decisive proofs of materializations and movements
without contact.1 These took place in the presence of Professors
de Amicis, Scarpa, Pansini, and Bottazzi himself, provided with
all modern instruments as for an experiment in physiology.
There were seen (p. 684) splendid levitations of the table to a
lDans les rgions inexplores de la biologie humaine, A. S. P., 1907, xvii,
645-664, 681-705, 749-771. Fenomeni medianici, 1 vol., 12010, Napoli, Perella,
1909.
500 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
height of two feet from the floor, swaying in the air, untouched by
Eusapia. Unknown to all present, Bottazzi had provided an
electric button, which if touched would light a lamp. Eusapia,
with her hands well held, repeatedly pressed the button with a
fluidic hand and lit the lamp. Similar electric pushes placed in a
cabinet behind the curtain were put into action while Eusapia
struck blows with her hand on the table.
In another sance, Eusapias hands and arms were tied with
strong cords fastened to iron rings in the floor and secured with
leaden seals. The fluidic hand then gave various objectsa trum
pet and a vase of flowersto Bottazzi.
In these sances numerous and striking materializations took
place. While Eusapia was bound with strong cords M. Galotti
saw two left arms (one natural and one fluidic) proceeding from
her shoulder. Bottazzi experienced the crucial test of an ecto
plasmic hand melting away in his grasp. He says, I saw and
felt at one and the same time a human hand natural in colour, I
felt with mine the fingers and the back of a strong, warm, rough
hand. I gripped it and it vanished from my grasp, not becoming
smaller but melting, demterializing and dissolving.
Under unexceptionable test conditions not only were there nu
merous touches, but fingers and hands, some frail and diaphanous,
some thick and strong, and diverse figures and shades outlined be
hind the curtain.1
Bottazzi, who entered on these experiments with a sceptical
mind, concludes : The certitude we have acquired is of the same
order as that which we attain from the study of chemical, physical,
or physiological facts. That the professor of physiology in the
University of Naples should express himself so strongly means
that he must be absolutely certain.
Mme. Bloch also describes fluidic hands proceeding from Eu
sapia (A. S. P., vii, 1897, 2-6). She says Eusapias hands were
held and were also in full view, and we saw a hand emerge from
the white cloth behind her; an arm without a shoulder touched
her head. Then the phenomenon increased, the hand came from
below and threw on the table some pieces of music taken from the
piano. The hand was not luminous, but was a hand of flesh simi
lar to our own. There would have been plenty of time to photo-
1*1 sa w the apparition, says Bottazzi (p. 691), "and shuddered. F o r m y
own part, though I have very often experimented with Eusapia, I have never
seen a distinct form. C . R .
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 501
graph it. The fore-arm was in a close-fitting sleeve of grey stuff:
Eusapia had wide sleeves. This hand came from her skirt and
not from her shoulder. Her hands were both seen and held the
whole time.
M. Venzano thus describes the formation of these phantoms
(A . S'. P., 1907, xvii, 514): "Some eight inches from my face
there formed a vaporous, globular, whitish mass which condensed
into an oval and gradually took definite shape as a head. The nose,
the eyes, the moustache, and a pointed beard could be clearly seen.
It came nearer to my face, I felt a warm and living forehead
against mine; the pressure of a caress, and a kiss; then the whole
dissolved in vapour towards the curtain. The other sitters saw
only a vague, luminous appearance, but heard the sound of the
kiss.
A. de Rochas narrates the experiments at Choisy, in presence of
General Thomassin, J. Maxwell, De Watteville, and A. de Gra-
mont. M. de Gramont saw a dark shadow like a hand outlined
against the window; and the holding of the medium's hands was
then verified. A moment later he felt his hand stroked by warm
fingers that he could not take hold of.
. These fluidic hands have been photographed under satisfactory
conditions. G. de Fontenay, a skilful photographer and experi
enced man of science, was able to obtain striking photographs, one
of which is reproduced here. The two haitds are seen above
Eusapias head, her own hands being firmly held at the time. M.
Cartier, one of the experimenters, says, I did not for a single
moment let go Eusapias right hand. The other, M. Drubay,
says, "I can affirm in the most positive fashion that during the
whole of the sitting I never let go the left hand. It is therefore
quite impossible that Eusapia should have been able to free both
her hands just at the moment when control was necessarily strict
est. An attentive study of the photograph shows that the hands
are notably larger than Eusapias hands.
Besides these photographs of hands there are others of the
luminous mass usually seen in metapsychic photographs. Without
insisting on the impossibility of Eusapias contriving to put a
handkerchief on her head and to take it away again while her
hands were held, it may be remarked that the contours of this
luminous hand are soft and indeterminate, while its brightness
is much greater, as De Fontenay observes, than could be given by
the handkerchief that it resembles.
Fig. 19. E usapia P aladxno . Photograph taken by G. de F o n t e n a y .
Eusapias tw o hands w ere held by the experim enters, nevertheless two hands are visible over her head.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 503
Eusapias materializations have been demonstrated not only by
photography, but also by metapsychic moulds.1
Morselli reports one case of a mould of the face (very faint)
under test conditions;8 and he gives a reproduction of a much
clearer impression of hands,8 though in this latter case he thinks
there may have been unconscious fraud.
Per contra, the plaster impressions obtained by De Fontenay are
excellent. In an experiment during which Flammarion continu
ously controlled Eusapias head and bust, the impression of a face
was taken on plaster. It is manifestly Eusapias face.
At Naples, E. Chiaja obtained numerous impressions on clay.
Nevertheless these experiments are still open to discussion : those
made at the Metapsychic Institute with Franek Kluski seem more
conclusive, and we shall return to them later.
Traces of light gauze tissue protecting the face or the fingers
from direct contact with the plaster or the clay may often be ob
served. This does not detract from the genuineness of the im
press, for materialization of inert tissues always accompanies
the materialization of living tissue. Moreover, how could actual
gauze be handled and caused to disappear under the rigorous con
trol that is exercised ?
The materializations given by Marthe Braud are of the highest
importance. They have presented numerous facts illustrating the
general processus of materializations and have supplied meta
psychic science with entirely new and unforeseen data.4
After these strange facts had been verified by General and Mme.
Noel in a series of experiments lasting nearly two years, M.
Delanne, the editor of the Revue du Spiritisme, and myself were
invited to Algiers by him. The first experiments6 at which I was
present impressed me greatly, but I always distrust first impres-
xVoy. A. de Rochas, A propos dEusapia Paladino, Les sances de Montfort-
VAmaury, A. S. P., 1898, viii, 148. G. de Fontenay, Les sances de Mont-
fort-lAmaury, Soc. des dit, scientifiques, Paris, 1897.
aLoc. cit., i, 430.
aLoc. cit., ii, 348-349.
4Their bibliography is already voluminous, for they have provoked much
controversy. T he pros and cons will be found in Grassets Loccultisme hier
et aujourdhui, 2d edit., Montpellier, 370-374. After sixteen years the objec
tions put forward seem very poor, and deserve only disdain.
*A naval officer, Captain Dmadrille, and a physician, Dr. Decrquy, wit
nessed these experiments and corroborated them. Their narratives have been
published in part in theA. S. P. These notes and sketches confirm our later
experiments in a very interesting manner.
504 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
sions. In the following year I returned to Algiers resolved to
repeat the experiments under more rigorous conditions.
The medium was Marthe Beraud, the daughter of an officer, be
trothed to General Noels son, who died in the Congo before the
marriage. She is a very intelligent and lively young lady, wears
her hair short, and is a bright-eyed brunette. Subsequently to
the Algiers experiments she has given proofs of strong medium
istic powers. She was the subject observed by Mme. Bisson and
Dr. Schrenck-Notzing under the pseudonym of Eva.
The experiments at Algiers were held in a small, isolated build
ing over a stable. The window was blocked up and remained
shut at all times. The only door was locked at the beginning of
Fig. 21. Photograph of Bien Boa. Marthe is seen seated. Note the helmet
covered with drapery, the height of the figure which is in front of Marthe, not
apparently supported by lower limbs. Her stereoscopic photograph is much
better than this one.
moment there are two horns like snails horns that seem to direct
the movements of a part, B, that climbs over the arm of the chair,
united to a mass, X, that lies on the floor. I can look at this very
520 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
closely: the stem is a greyish white, less white than the trimming
of Marthes bodice and softer in outline. There are swellings in
it like an empty snake-skin whilst the two masses, B and X, seem
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 521
to swell and get fuller. Slowly the mass X mounts up and the
mass B descends, so that X is on Marthes knees and B below it,
the latter becoming the base on which the whole formation rests,
for it spreads out like an amoeba on the floor, and takes the form
of a split base (two feet?). While these two parts continued to
flatten out on the floor I had plenty of time to look very closely
into the greyish, gelatinous, and barely visible mass X. I was not
permitted to touch it. It was then on Marthes knees. It then
slowly divided into clefts at its extremity, resembling a hand, in
embryo, but sufficiently clear for me to say that it is a left hand
seen from the back. Vide Fig. 23: Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are
rough sketches of the successive phases of the ectoplasm on the
floor: 6 shows the development of the snail's horn formation: 7,
8, and 9 are the series of forms taken by the ectoplasm mounting
on to Marthes knees: 9a shows the portion on the ground and the
disposition on Marthe's figure: 10 to 13 show the growth of the
hand. Nos. 14 to 17 are from another experiment analogous to
the preceding. The final result was a stump ill-formed but suffi
cient to show the embryo of a hand.
Another change sets in: the little finger separates from the
rest, and in the grey, cloudy mass a hand can be clearly seen from
the back, the fingers closed, the little finger extended, and a swell
ing resembling the carpal bones appeared, like a Rontgen-ray
radiograph of these bones. Soon the cloudy mass disappears and I
see an ill-formed hand like a cast in plaster. I think I see the folds
and creases in the skin slowly form. I am holding both Marthes
hands, and can see them.
The ectoplasmic hand seems solid, larger than a womans hand.
I am able to look at it very closely for ten minutes in quite good
light. Then Marthe gets up and everything vanishes.
The most extraordinary of all the experiments is certainly the
fourth (October 20th):
Fairly good light. The curtain remains closed for about an
hour. I open it; a white spot on the floor grows rapidly, and
two horns protrude from the mass X, from which other horns ap
pear, very mobile, pointing in every direction. The mass, then
much larger, disaggregates into particles, taking on the semblance
of a hand; it does not look like the cast of the previous day, it is
a greyish hand with ill-defined outlines.
This hand moves, looking like the hand of a mummy emerging
from some stuff; it raises and lowers itself like a hand. Marthes
522 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
hands are firmly held by me and are quite motionless. The fingers
of the ectoplasm, thin and spindly, seem to end in cloudy masses.
I can examine them very closely. I touch one of these spindles;
it feels like a cold liquid. I can press it and it feels like the bone
of a finger covered with skin. The hand rests on my knee and I
feel the slight friction of a body of little resistance. The hand
then rises of itself, swaying on a long stem that connects it with
the floor; it falls back on to the floor with a slight noise; it re
mains there and I think I see the two bones of the fore-arm as
though wrapped in cloudy muslin.
The hand then rises, bends, and moves towards me. The wrist
is lowered and the fingers pendant; they move and there seems a
torsional movement of this strange fore-arm. I still think I see
the carpal bones in the muslin-like cloud.
The hand rests on my knee again. I feel its weight (very
light), it makes little movements at my request that I can feel quite
well. Then Marthe says to me, That is the muscles beginning to
form, and I see, or I think I see, something dark in the space be
tween the two bones. The hand rises and moves very close to
me, having no connection with the ground but a slight white trail.
It then falls to the ground with a slight noise, rises from it and
suddenly disappears at the moment that Marthe gets up.
The final experiment is less striking. There would seem to
have been an endeavour to present a different phenomenon which
could not reach its full development:
After a long wait (an hour) Marthe opens the curtains. She
can be seen sitting quite still. On her left shoulder is a whitish
mass perhaps slightly luminous, though I could not state that it
was markedly so. This gleam, at first indistinct, gradually takes
the shape of drapery and disappears into Marthes body. Then
there appears a kind of cloud that seems to me weightless (?) as if
thrown across Marthes neck and bust, but this is very fugitive;
Then a phenomenon of great importance takes place, unfor
tunately much more rapid than those previously verified. About
half a yard from Marthe there appears a kind of doll without a
face, quite indistinct and barely a yard high. A very small head,
two long sleeves, and scarcely any legs, the whole under a kind of
drapery or shimmering light. This lasts about half a minute; the
whole form then sinks to the ground, and nothing remains but the
globular form of the head, which lasts about half a minute and
disappears.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 523
The last of the phenomena was very distinct and fully visible
(I copy my notes verbatim) :
Luminous prolongation seeming to proceed from the junction
of the neck with the back, seen from behind. Marthes two
hands are visible and have hold of the drapery. This prolongation
is white and very luminous; it seems to me self-luminous, but I
cannot be sure of that. It is straight, very narrow, only about
one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, at its end a mass, not
rounded but rather triangular. The external part of this mass is
frizzy, or rather its outlines are vague. At first it is quite still,
then it moves jerkily, as if the stem was being re-absorbed in the
body. It seemed to me that the luminous mass, in shape some
thing like an African native club, changed size, becoming now
larger and now smaller. In the end it returned into Marthes
neck and back, her hand remaining in sight the whole time.
Such are the experiments I made with Marthe in 1906. Being
corroborated by the subsequent admirable photographs taken by
Mme. Bisson and Schrenck-Notzing, they seem to me of the high
est importance.
In the first place no trickery was possible. The light was ample
for perfect visibility; the proximity very close indeed; the time
often very long, enabling me to observe closely every detail. These
conditions entirely preclude fraud. Even if, for the sake of argu
ment, we adopt the absurd supposition that Mme. de S., in whose
house the experiments took place, was an accomplice, it would
have been impossible to generate under my eyes these clouds
which developed into bony and mobile masses just in front of me.
Marthe was examined and searched before and after the ex
periments. I never lost sight of her for a moment and her hands
were always held and visible.
The phenomena were therefore authentic.
The outcome of these surprising observations is that we can
state the stages in the formation of ectoplasmsa whitish steam,
perhaps luminous, taking the shape of gauze or muslin, in which
there develops a hand or an arm that gradually gains consistency.
This ectoplasm makes personal movements. It creeps, rises from
the ground, and puts forth tentacles like an amoeba. It is not
always connected with the body of the medium but usually em
anates from her, and is connected with her.
Two phases can be distinguished: a rudimentary phase, a sort
of rough draft, and a phase of building up. With other mediums
524 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
the organized form may probably appear immediately without be
ing preceded by the indistinct cloudy phase.
To confirm the authenticity of the phenomena, I cannot do bet
ter than reproduce side by side the notes taken by me in 1906 and
those published by Geley in 1920. I have changed nothing in
C . R ic h e t ' s N otes ( 1 9 06 ). G eley ' s N ot^ s . " F rom t h e
U n c o n sc io u s to t h e C o n
On the ground a small white sc io u s ," 1 9 19 .
tract which grows, makes an
ovoid mass, and puts forth a From the mouth of Eva there
prolongation. This mounts on the descends to her knees a cord of
arm of the chair. At this mo white substance of the thickness
ment there are visible two horns of two fingers; this ribbon takes
like those of a snail which seem under our eyes varying forms,
to direct the movements. A lower that of a large perforated mem
mass, X, on the ground; and an brane, with swellings and vacant
upper mass, B, united to the spaces; it gathers itself together,
former, which has climbed over retracts, swells, and narrows
the arm of the chair. I can look again. Here and there from the
at this formation from a very mass appear temporary protru
short distance. The stem is grey sions, and these for a few seconds
ish white, with swellings like an assume the form of fingers, the
empty snake-skin. The mass X outline of hands, and then re
is on Marthes knees, while the enter the mass. Finally the cord
mass B spreads itself on the floor retracts on itself, lengthens to
like an amoeba. The mass X is the knees, its end rises, detaches
greyish, gelatinous, and barely itself from the medium and moves
visible. It is then on Marthes towards me. I then see the ex
knees. Little by little it seems to tremity thicken like a swelling,
split into digits at its end. It is and this terminal swelling ex
like the embryo of a hand, ill- pands into a perfectly modelled
formed but clear enough to en hand. I touch it; it gives a nor
able me to say that it is a left mal sensation; I feel the bones,
hand seen from the back. Fresh and the fingers with their nails.
progress: the little fnger sepa Then the hand contracts, dimin
rates almost completely: then the ishes, and disappears in the end
following changes, very quick of the cord.v (Page 57, English
but very clear : a hand with closed translation.)
fingers, seen from the back, with
a little finger extended, an ill-
formed thumb, and higher up a
swelling that resembles the car
pal bones. I think I see the
creases in the skin.
either. We experimented quite separately with Marthe, I in 1906
and Geley in 1910. We did not communicate our notes to each
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 525
other nor publish anything. They are therefore quite independent
results.
It is impossible to suppose that Geley (whom I hardly knew in
1910) and myself were similarly hallucinated five years apart by
the same illusion.
Geley, after describing very precisely the variations in the
gelatinous embryo-plastic mass, adds, I do not say merely There
was no trickery.' I say, There was no possibility of trickery.
Nearly all the materializations took place under my own eyes, and
I have observed the whole of their genesis and development. "
I can say exactly the same.
Other observations similar to those on Marthe-Eva are men
tioned by Schrenck in his fine work. These were with a young
Polish girl, Stanislawa P., who chanced to discover her medium
istic powers by suddenly seeing (when eighteen years old) the
apparition of her friend Sophie, who, unknown to her, had just
died.
At Schrenck's house in Munich Stainslawa produced ectoplasm
from her mouth, like Eva. She had been searched, dressed in
black tights, and her head covered with a veil of very fine mesh.
The ectoplasm emerged through the veil and formed three fingers.
Cinematograph photographs of these experiments were taken.
With Linda Gazzera many instances of telekinesis and ecto
plasmic forms have been observed. My learned and generous
friend, Dr. E. Imoda of Turin, has published a valuable book nar
rating his interesting and methodical experiments, made at Turin
in the house of the Marquise de Ruspoli.
Linda is a young girl of twenty-two, pleasant, well-educated,
lively, and gay. Her guide is a certain Vincenzo, who, it seems,
had been a cavalry officer, who died some years back, and concern
ing whom I have no precise particulars. Sometimes it was Car-
lotta, a child who died at the age of four. For all the experiments
Linda was carefully searched, undressed, and re-clothed, and the
cabinet where she sat was minutely searched. Her hands were
always held, and she made no attempts to free them.
The only omission in the experiments was that her feet and
knees were not as closely controlled as her hands. But it is im
possible that the phenomena observed should have been due to
movements of the feet, however skilful; such as winding up a
musical box, and putting a pipe in my mouth ( 1!).
Linda's mediumship is characterized by very rapid production
526 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
of the phenomena. The light is hardly extinguished when ob
jects are displaced, musical instruments are played, and various
white forms appear. At the same time the sitters feel touches of a
warm, moist, mobile, living member, though it cannot always be
identified as a hand.
Imoda was mainly concerned to photograph the ectoplasms;
this is quite laudable, but perhaps the desire to.concentrate on get
ting good photographs prevents minute observations by the naked
eye.
Imodas photographs show very different faces always sur
rounded by a white veil. When Linda visited me at Paris, G. de
Fontenay took some excellent photographs (pp. 175-179)a hand
and a face, the latter seeming to be that of the face of a pos
sessed man in one of Rubenss pictures in the Louvre.
As in Schrenck-Notzings photographs, those taken by De Fon
tenay are flat, wanting in relief. The hands look more like gloves
than real hands.1
The photographs taken by Caranzini are similar, the faces are
just like dolls faces and they and the hands are always veiled*
It cannot be supposed that Linda, unable to use her hands, and
after being carefully searched and re-dressed, could manipulate
cards, dolls, and drawings quickly and skilfully enough to risk
being photographed: and more than once she was searched again
as soon as a photograph had been taken, and nothing was found.
How could she hide an extraneous object?
In my preface to Imodas book I said: The fact that the
ectoplasms are not living faces is no objection; for there is noth
ing to prevent the ectoplasm being an image and not a living be
ing. The materialization of a plaster bust is not easier to under
stand than that of a lithographic drawing; and the formation of
an image is not less extraordinary than that of a living human
head.
Another evidential and, to my thinking, decisive experiment
took place at my house in Paris. There were present M. de Fon
tenay and myself, also Mme. C. Richet and Argentina (the Italian
nurse of one of my small children), whom I had desired to be
present so that Linda might have one of her own countrywomen
1Fotografie di fantasmi, 8vo, Torino, F. Bocca, 1912, preface by Charles
Richet.
A . S . P .j 1912, xii, 135.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 527
near her. I was on her right, and De Fontenay on her left. The
sance lasted only thirty-five minutes.
During the whole time I kept firm hold of Lindas right hand
without any intermission, and some thirty or forty times I satis
fied myself by touch that De Fontenay was firmly holding her left
hand.
Even before Linda went into trance there were movements of
objectsthe musical box started, and in complete darkness, a
pipe placed behind Linda was placed in my mouth. A little later
still in total darkness this pipe was seized and forcibly thrown into
the middle of the room. Some heavy object dealt strong blows on
the back of my hand; some large object struck heavy blows on
the table; it also struck De Fontenay. A photograph was taken
on which a well-materialized hand appears, the nails and all the
fingers being visible. Round it there is a ribbon or some kind
of stuff. A thin thread connects it with Lindas head (see p. 434).
This experiment, together with very many more by E. Imoda
and the Marquise de Ruspoli, place the reality of the phenomena
beyond doubt.
Dr. Paul Gibier, an eminent physiologist and a director of the
Pasteur Institute in New York, had a decisive experience with
Mrs. Salmon {loc. tit., p. 1733, April 21, 1909).
He experimented in his own laboratory, using an iron cage
specially made to his instructions, with a door closing by a lock.
Mrs. Salmon was placed in the cage, the door locked, and stamp
paper gummed over the lock. He put the key in his pocket. A
very short time after the lights had been extinguished, hands,
arms, and living forms came out of the cagea man, a woman,
and more often a gay, lively little girl. Suddenly Mrs. Salmon
emerged from the cage and fell half fainting on the floor. The
seals were found intact and the door had not been opened.
In a second experiment, still more demonstrative, the cage was
replaced by a wooden cabinet, specially constructed and hermeti
cally closed. Mrs. Salmon was tied firmly by ribbon round her
neck sealed to the walls of the cabinet. The lights were scarcely
extinguished before a bare fore-arm and hand appeared outside the
cabinet, just twenty-four seconds after darkness was made. Then
another form moved outside.
After a few minutes of waiting, a white object about the size
of an egg appeared and grew in height. (This mode of develop
ment of the ectoplasm should be compared with what was seen
528 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
at the Villa Carmen.) Then a woman, seemingly alive, came out
of the cabinet and was recognized by Mme. D. and Mme. B.
This phantasmal personage spoke French very well (Mrs. Salmon
can only speak a few words of French, but this difference signifies
nothing). The apparition remained for about two minutes, and P.
Gibier could distinguish the features. She was slight in build,
seemed about twenty-five, though Mrs. Salmon is corpulent and
aged about fifty. Little Mandy came later, about a yard in height.
Then a tall man whose muscular, vigorous, and completely mas
culine hand P. Gibier was able to clasp. After a short time this
last form dissolved and seemed to sink into the ground.*
After this stirring sance, everything was found intact. Mrs.
Salmon was still bound; the silk ribbon round her neck just as
placed prior to the sance.
Several facts of great importance stand out from these notable
experiences. In the first place they were conducted by a scientific
man permeated by an enlightened scepticism, and were managed
so that even if we do not admit the honesty of Mrs. Salmon, fraud
would have been possible only by the introduction of several ac
complices, a supposition that is manifestly absurd. Secondly the
rapidity and multiplicity of the materializations would have to be
accounted for.
Thus Dr. Gibiers experiments strikingly confirm the other
materializations of which details have already been given. What
more is required to produce conviction?
There is an extensive bibliography dealing with the experiments
of Baron L. von Erhardt and the S. P. R. of Rome with the med
ium Carancini.2 This medium was studied not at Rome only, but
at Paris by De Vesme, Lemerle, M. Mangin, and at Geneva by
Claparde, Flournoy, and Batelli. There are several doubtful
points, not as to his mediumship, which seems tolerably definitely
proven, but as to his frauds (sometimes even conscious in despite
of minute precautions), which detract from experiments that
were apparently genuinely successful. Many photographs were
T h e se d e ta ils w e re to h a v e b een re a d a t th e I n te r n a tio n a l Congress of
P sy c h o lo g y held a t P a r is in 1900 ; b u t D r . G ib ie r 's p re m a tu re accidental death
Recherchas
in te rv en e d . T h is p a p er is th e r e fo r e p osth u m ou s, a n d is e n title d
sur les matrialisations de fantmes, la pntration de la matire et autres
phnomnes Psychiques (A . S. P., xi, 3-16, 65-92).
S ee e sp e cia lly E rh a rd t, Etude sur la mdiumnit de Carancini, A. S. P.,
A p ril, 1912, an d Luce e Ombra, 190 8 -19 13, A. S. P., 1 9 1 1 -1 9 x 3 , passim.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 529
taken, but the flash was made only when Carancini gave the word
Fuoco.
Carancini was very tightly bound, and was found at the end of
the sances tied exactly as at their commencement, but many con
jurers seem to find it easy to do this trick.
The phenomena of telekinesis came about very soon after he
had been tied. Materializations were few; but one photograph
shows a hand which seems flat, as if cut out of paper. The most
remarkable experience was one in which a dinner-plate covered
with soot (from a smoky flame) out of the mediums reach, was
placed in a padlocked wooden box held in the hand of one of the
sitters. (Did he hold it in his hand during the whole time?)
Carancini showed levitations and movements of objects, but al
ways in darkness.
In short, the authenticity of the phenomena is not yet certain.
After careful perusal of the notes taken, I am inclined to think
the results genuine, but only because they resemble the unques
tionably authentic observations on Eusapia, for in themselves those
on Carancini are to be taken with reserve. To be accurate, there
were never any proofs of fraud, but only suspicions, and as M.
Erhardt remarks, the hypothesis of fraud implies that the experi
menters were absolute imbeciles.
Dr. Feijao, a professor of surgery in the Lisbon Faculty of
Medicine, assisted at a number of sances, which have been de
scribed by Mme. Frondoni-Lacombe.1
The medium was a non-professional one, Mme. dAndrade. Dr.
Feijao thus expresses himself (and the opinion of an eminent and
previously sceptical professor has great weight) : Formerly I
believed nothing of these things. Now I have seen and observed,
and I repent my incredulity.
In these experiments which were made in his own house, all the
sitters joined hands: the table rose six inches from*the ground,
and there were lights, touches, and movements of objects.
Two very striking phenomena are stated by Dr. Feijao: first
an apport, or rather, a transport. The door being locked, a rose
from a bouquet in the room was taken into the adjoining room.
But this must be taken with reserve, for the professor does not
seem to have verified that the rose taken was actually from the
* U n e srie de sances de matrialisations Lisbonne, A , S . P ., December,
19x8 and 1919, x x ix ,
5-12, 26-29. Oliveira Feijao, L e ttre M . Cam ille F la m -
morion, cit.,
loc. pp. 27-29.
530 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
bouquet. Even after his affirmation, I must agree with Sir Oliver
Lodge that no case of apport can be considered fully proved.
The other phenomenon was the apparition of a phantom. All
the doors were shut, a photograph was taken, and the plate showed
a French (?) officer. It was then ascertained, through the table,
that this figure purported to be that of a Lieutenant Catherin,
killed at Vitry-le-Franois, September 27, 1914. The photograph,
when shown to the widow of Lieutenant Catherin, did not re
semble her deceased husband, and the uniform does not agree with
that worn by French officers.
What gives importance to the experiment is not the photograph,
in taking which sufficient precautions were not observed, but the
sight of a phantom in a locked room before persons who were
certainly incapable of a skilful, conscious, and prearranged fraud
that would have necessitated the presence of an accomplice.
These observations of telekinesis and ectoplasms are described
in a book by Mme. Madeleine Frondoni-Lacombe of Lisbon. I
have the honour of knowing Mme. Lacombe, and hold her inca
pable of fraud. What object would there be in a fraud carried on
for five years against all hostile criticism, and resulting only in sar
casms and abuse? The facts narrated are supported by numerous
attestations, notably those of Dr. Feijao, at first sceptical but over
come by the evidence of other doctors, Dr. Souza Conto and an
other, by Captain dAbren of the Engineers, Captain Silva Pinto,
and other distinguished persons in Lisbon.
The medium who gave these remarkable metapsychic results is
not a professional medium; she is the Countess Castelvitch, who
gave these sances unknown to her husband.
Her mediumship was discovered as follows : On January 10,
1913, says Mme. Lacombe, when visiting my friend Countess
Castelvitch I proposed table-turning. There were three of us
the countess, Mme. Ponsa, and myself. These ladies had never
tried before. . . . That day the table rose up, and a person
A b st r a c t o r N o t e t o t h e S ec o n d F r e n c h E d it io n . M m e. L a c o m b e h a s
se n t m e a le tte r r e fe r r in g to m y p re v io u s re m a rk s o n h e r b o o k . S h e p o in ts out
th at th e san ces la ste d o n ly h a lf a n h o u r a n d th a t a ll p re c a u tio n s w e re o b se rv e d
th a t a ll th e sitte rs (th r e e o r fo u r a t m o st) sh o u ld h o ld h a n d s. A v e r y in cred u
lo u s P o rtu g u e se jo u r n a lis t (M . R o ch a , j r . ) w a s c o n v in c e d a n d w r o te a n a rtic le
The Initiation of a Sceptic.
e n titled S h e in s is ts stro n g ly o n th e a u th e n tic ity o f
th e apports, w h ic h sh e sa y s w e re fr e q u e n t a n d u n d en ia b le . E v e n a ft e r h e r
le tte r I ca n n o t c o n sid e r th e p a ssage o f m a tte r th ro u g h m a tte r a s b e in g dem on
s tr a te d ; th o u gh it is possib le th a t m y o p in io n m a y b e m o d ified b y fre sh
e xp erim en ts.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 531
calling himself Lemos manifested by rapping. From that day
forward Mme. Lacombe and the countess made many trials and
finally obtained a series of extraordinary phenomena that I can
not give here in detail, for it would be necessary to quote the whole
volume, which I commend to the reader.
I will only summarize the principal facts, especially those that
were observed in presence of Dr. Feijao.
Touches were very frequent and sitters felt hands touching
them though the chain was unbroken: a heavy table weighing
one hundred and sixty pounds was raised on two legs when barely
touched: the movements of a small table were so violent that it
became necessary to replace it by one strengthened with sheet-
iron : when this second table was used it was rent into two hundred
(the exact number) small pieces which were piled telekinetically,
i.e., without anyone touching them, in a corner of the room. Dr.
Feijao thought at first that there must be secret doors to the room
by which some person had entered and done this. In other sances
a chair weighing thirty pounds moved by itself about four yards.
Strong blows were struck rhythmically at different places in the
room.
Dr. Feijao writes: Blows were struck, the loudest being
on the glass of the bookcase. Articles of furniture sometimes
moved. Heavy chairs moved about the room ; efforts were made
on the locked doors of the bookcase, which were opened; large
and heavy books were flung on the floor (our hands being linked
all the time) ; an office-bell and a handbell, the half-open piano, and
a guitar in its case all sounded loudly . . . the table rose as
much as twenty-four inches . . . At our request, and when
we had all removed our hands, the table still moved.
There were also, as Dr. Feijao thinks, and Mme. Lacombe af
firms she has often seen, transport of objects through closed
doors : In one sance we desired that a rose should be taken into
the adjoining room. We found this flower under a table, though
all the doors were locked as usual.
Despite these attestations, reserve must be maintained regarding
this latter phenomenon, which lends itself to illusion, not only by
reason of the unconsciousness of the medium but perhaps of some
of the sitters also. It is possible that the Countess Castelvitch or
Mme. Lacombe may more or less unconsciously effect these dis
placements. A rigorous and authentic verification is required of
the statement that, the doors being absolutely closed, a rose has
532 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
passed through them and been conveyed into another closed
room.
I make these reservations because these cases are quite excep
tional in metapsychic science, if indeed they have ever been veri
fied. But telekinesis is evident especially in the sance of April
24, 1917, at which Dr. Feijao was present and also one of his
students, M. Bianco, who was entirely sceptical. The hands of
all present were fastened together so that they could not be de
tached: and under these conditions blows were struck every
where, a hand was felt by several persons ; one string of the guitar
sounded loudly, the bookcase was opened, and a book on a distant
table was thrown about. Cases of telekinesis in Mme. Lacombes
book are too many for quotation.
It will suffice to cite the following, inasmuch as it took place in
full light. A table weighing one hundred and sixty pounds rose
on two legs and struck a blow when the countess was a yard dis
tant from it and standing up.
There were some ectoplasms : a phantom representing a French
officer, but wearing a uniform quite out of date, was photo
graphed; but the story is too long to be given here. Another
time there was a nun ; very often there were whitish lights more
or less shapeless; another time, a phantom with a deaths-head;
yet another time, an Arab soldier. All these were photographed.
As all the cases of ectoplasm cannot be quoted I select the fol
lowing. On December 18,1914, Countess Castelvitch, Mme. Ponsa,
Mme. Furtado, M. and Mme. Lacombe were present in the house
of the Countess Castelvitch. Through the table Mme. Furtados
husband was alleged to be present, but that he would not allow
himself to be photographed because he had forgotten what his
face was like, but he said that his companion would come in his
place. This companion was his mistress, he having been separated
from his wife; and in fact a veiled woman was photographed,
causing great fear in Mme. Furtado, who declared she would
never be present at any more sances. At the next sance (De
cember 27, 1914), M. Furtado announced his presence again and
said, I have no face, but I will make one, and the phantom
photographed is a tall person clothed in white, but the face is that
of a deaths-head (Fig. 24).
It is difficult or impossible to imagine that these are frauds or
illusions. Fraud was not easy. In order to show a French
officer, a nun, a phantom with a deaths-head, and an Arab soldier
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 533
a whole series of costumes would be needed, to be bought at a
shop and to be used at the sances where hands were held, if not
rigorously, yet sufficiently well. And why should this be done?
If Mme. Lacombe wished to deceive she might have given stranger
things. There is no reason to suspect the good faith of Mme.
Furtado, who was very sceptical, nor of Mme. Ponsa, who was
Mme. Lacombes intimate friend.
Although it is probable that Countess Castelvitch was the prin
cipal medium, Madeleine Frondoni-Lacombe also had remarkable
phenomena in full light when alone with her friend, Mme. d'An
drade (p. 208), who also had some manifestations that seem
genuine. Holding both of Mme. d*Andrades hands, Mme. La
combe saw in full sunlight a parasol rise up, lower itself, and ad
534 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
vance, rolling round with a waving motion. Raps were made at
a distance at request. It is therefore permissible to think that
Mme. Lacombe also is a medium.
I infer that the ectoplasms observed by her are genuine. If they
stood alone in metapsychic science they would certainly not suffice
to produce conviction, for Madeleine Lacombe has not the scien
tific standing to warrant our basing our conclusions on hers ; but
all that she has seen agrees too well with all we have learned from
the experiments with Home, Eusapia, Marthe Braud, Stanislawa,
and Miss Goligher for the Lisbon experiments to be rejected.
Though there may be exaggerations and inexactitudes here and
there, the facts can be taken as true in the main. Countess Castel-
vitch was a very powerful medium ; it is to be regretted that she
should not have been studied under conditions rather more strin
gent than those imposed by her friend, Mme. Lacombe.
These experiments are probably at an end. After a sance on
July 14, 1920, in which an apport (an owls head sculptured in
stone) is alleged (a phenomenon that must be strongly contested),
a sance was held on August 3d at which the spirit declared that
he was about to leave . . . H oja ultimo dia que posso mani
festt me (today is the last day on which I can manifest). In the
same way Katie King took leave of Crookes, we do not know why.
There were also some subjective phenomena, to which I do not
refer, as they are poor in comparison with the cryptesthesia al
ready described, and the Lisbon sances are mainly objective.
In the house of M. Corrals, an honourable merchant of San
Jos, Costa Rica, some seemingly fine materializations took place.
His daughter Oflia claimed great mediumistic powers. Several
sances were held at which various notables of San Jos were
present. Various materializations appeared (Don Constantino
and Mary Brown, who spoke very correct English).
Oflia was seen sometimes in full light at the same time as
Mary Brown who was touched, heard, and photographed (A . S.
P., 1910, xx, 324). The phantom Mary seemed to merge into
Oflia from whom she emanated, and to inspire her.
All this reads very well, but despite the imposing list of per
sons who attest the genuineness of the phenomena, all scientific
value must be denied to these experiences. M. Corrals, Oflias
father, says in so many words : It is proved that Mary introduced
an unknown girl into the room. This enigmatical statement leaves
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 535
open all kinds of possibilities. It would be an injury to science
to give any place at all to these fraudulent experiences.1
Experiments made with Lucia Sordi, which at first satisfied M.
Marzorati, did not stand Schrenck-Notzings severer test. Lucia
was enclosed in a wooden cage, and (in the dark) when in trance,
she emerged from it, but Schrenck had a wooden ball made of
the same size as her head and showed that it could easily be pushed
between the bars by bending them (Luce e Ombra, x, November,
1910, and A . S. P., xxi, January, 1911, 225-230).*
Colonel and Mme. Peters at the Lodge Psych in Berlin saw a
striking materialized form. The sance took place in a small room
sufficiently lit by a red light. The medium (a masked woman)
was asleep in a chair. First a masculine figure, whose body was
not visible below the knees, appeared beside her; then another
form, the so-called nun Cordula, taller by a head than the medium,
wearing the Dominician habit. Her face was entirely human, with
shining eyes. She swayed in the air, floated high in the room
for three minutes at a height of nearly three yards, making ges
tures and saying, Look how my eyes shine ! She then vanished
by degrees, the medium being all the time in the same place about
a yard and a half from the apparition (A . S. P., 1907, xxvii, 25-
35).
Eglinton was a very powerful medium, and though he has been
suspected of fraud, he was able finally to prove that the allega
tions of his enemies were calumnies. Moreover, the question is
not to establish that he was never guilty of trickery (which is not
easy in the case of a professional medium) but whether in certain
definite instances striking metapyschic phenomena have been pro
duced (Erny, loc. cit., 159).
M r. W illy R e ic h e l (Psychitche Studien, O c to b e r, 1910, a n d A. S. P., 1911,
xxi, 1 4 0 ) c o n sid e r s th e se a s m a n ife st fra u d s . C. d e V e s m e h a s d e fe n d e d th em .
B u t th in g s b e in g a s th e y a re , n o a c c o u n t sh o u ld b e ta k e n o f th e s e a lle g e d phe
n o m en a e v e n b y th e b e st n a tu re d p e rso n s (A. S. P., 1911, x x i , 214).
T h e a u th o r ita tiv e n e s s o fseances th a t g iv e m a te ria liz a tio n s sh o u ld a lw a y s
be co m p a re d w ith th o se a t w h ic h E u sa p ia s p h e n o m en a w e re o b se rv e d . For
tw e n ty y e a rs , a t M ila n , G en oa , R om e, N a p le s, T u r in , P a r is , R ib a u d Isla n d ,
C a rq u e ira n n e , l'A g n e la s , C a m b rid g e , M o n tfo r t-lA m a u r y , a n d W a s h in g to n ,
E u sa p ia w a s sc ru tin iz e d , a n a ly z e d , a n d th o r o u g h ly stu d ied b y su ch m en o f
s c ie n c e a s S c h ia p a r e lli, O liv e r L o d g e , L o m b ro so , M y e r s, A k s a k o ff, D e R o ch as,
A . d e G ram o n t, P . C u r ie , M o r se lli, B o zza n o , O c h o ro w icz , F o a , B o tta z z i, Vas-
sa llo , F e ild in g , C a r rin g to n , Maxwell, Dariex, a n d o th e rs . I t w ill p ro b a b ly be
lo n g b e fo r e a n e q u a lly im p o sin g lis t o f u n e x c e p tio n a b le w itn e s s e s c a n b e p ro
d u c e d in a n y o th e r case.
536 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Miss Glyn, who did not believe in materializations, saw Eglin-
ton at her own house, at a sance at which her father, her brother,
and a friend were present. Eglinton was in the middle of this
little circle, and his hands were held. Two forms appeared that
could move and speak. Miss Glyn recognized them for her
mother and her younger brother. The forms slowly disappeared.
Phantoms are often too readily recognized, and the desire to
secure this recognition detracts much from the value of the
attestation.
Dr. Carter Blake, with five persons well known in English in
tellectual society, narrates that he saw by the side of Eglinton,
who was sitting in an armchair, a tall brown form that melted
into the medium's body.
The distinguished naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, in a letter
to Emy, states that he saw Eglinton at a sance in a private
house. By his side there appeared Abdullah, a materialized Ori
ental wearing sandals, a turban, and burnous; Eglinton being
visible at the same time sitting in an armchair in evening dress.
After the sance Eglinton was undressed and most carefully
searched but neither sandals, turban, nor burnous were found.
Important sances were held at the house of the artist, J. Tissot,
who has represented one result in a very beautiful picture. Eglin
ton sat in an armchair, close to Tissot, and stayed there the whole
time. The doors were locked. After a brief space two forms ap
peared by Tissots side. At first they were nebulous, but gradu
ally became clear so that all their features could be seen. The
male form had in his hand a kind of light with which he lit up the
feminine form. M. Tissot recognized the latter, and, much moved,
asked her to kiss him ; she did so several times and her lips were
seen to move.
Dr. Nichols experimented with Eglinton, putting him in a cage
with a net over it. The doors of the cage were closed with sealed
knots and the approaches to the cage were dusted with flour. The
forms appeared outside the cage. Another time, at Dr. Nichols's
house, in daylight, but behind closed curtains, there was a mate
rialization in human form, which, in order to be recognized, raised
the curtain to show itself in the daylight. It then slowly de-
materialized till there remained nothing but the lower part of the
body which vanished abruptly.
Florence Marryat and her husband assisted at a remarkable
private sance in which they saw a whitish, cloudy substance
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 537
emerge from the left hip of the medium; this cloud increased in
size, condensed, and became a materialized form that stood before
Eglinton. She also studied the materializations given by Mr.
Arthur Coleman who was not a professional medium. He was
tied with cotton threads that would break at the least movement.
Before the five sitters six forms appeared and were seen by the
light of a gas-burner. During this time Coleman was entranced
in the next room.
Mr. Stainton Moses often saw living forms about him. His
friend, Mr. Charlton Speer, reports, among many other facts, as
follows: I had my hand on the paper, writing, when Mr. Moses,
sitting just opposite me, said, There is a column of light in front
of you/ Shortly after he said that the column had grown into a
spirit, whose head and shape he described. It is very doubtful if
this figure was objective; apparently it was seen by Stainton
Moses only.
Heavy blows were heard in full daylight by Mr. Speer and
Stainton Moses out of doors on the rails of the line to Southend.
These knocks (which were intelligent) could be heard fifty yards
away. Mr. Moses notes also vague, luminous forms near the table
and simultaneous knockings. Reference has already been made to
telekinesis in his presence, but materializations were exceptional.
In 1905 the Rev. Mr. Colley, archdeacon of Canterbury, made
some astonishing experiments with the Rev. Monck, the medium
studied by Reiners and Oxley, quoted by Delanne (p. 521). The
gas-jet was fully lit and Colley was at the side of the entranced
medium, holding him up. A vapour emerged from the medium's
black clothes, and became a cloud which gradually condensed into
white draperies surrounding the apparitions. A child appeared
who moved in the room just like a living child, and was kissed
by those present, then returned to the medium and was gradually
absorbed by him and disappeared, melting into his body. On the
same day a beautiful woman appeared, born from a fluidic filament
emanating from Monck and re-absorbed by him. In another
seance an Oriental form calling itself the Mahdi was seen two
yards distant from Monck: The Mahdi wore a metallic helmet
that I could touch; it seemed to melt like snow at my touch, re
suming its form a moment later. This phantom was strong: Mr.
Colley one day seized it in his arms, and then, an irresistible force
flung me about six yards to the place where the medium was
standing; and I found myself clasping the medium, with white
538 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
muslin over his black coat. I was holding him in my arms as I
had thought to hold the Mahdi.
This statement led to the supposition that Mr. Colley was the
victim of a fraud ; but he had seen the vapour becoming a cloud
and materializing into garments covering a body.
One materialized form called itself Samuel, and the medium
was seen to clasp Samuels hand fraternally and walk with him
round the room. The archdeacon wrote : I publish these things
for the first time, having meditated over them in silence for
twenty-eight years, giving my word as a clergyman for things
which imperil my ecclesiastical position and my future advance
ment.
There was a celebrated lawsuit on this. The conjurer Mas-
kelyne undertook to repeat the phenomena by trick. He wagered
1,000 and lost his suit. The illustrious A. R. Wallace gave evi
dence in support of Mr. Colley.
Dr. Hirschmann, President of the Anthropological Society of
Liverpool, obtained most interesting results with a non-profes
sional medium, Mr. B. Many photographs were taken of appari
tions, their height was measured, their weight taken, and their
pulse observed, just as if they were living bodies. These appari
tions, he says, seemed to organize themselves from a nebulous
mass, and they disappeared suddenly. In one photograph a nebu
lous connection is seen between the chest of the medium and that
of the phantom.
At the house of Professor E., of Christiania, in 1893, M. de
Bergen arranged a series or sances with Mme. dEsprance, in
which many distinguished persons belonging to the university, the
magistrature, and the clergy took part.
In one of these sances an extremely beautiful female form ap
peared calling herself Nepenthes. She showed herself in the
light at the same time as the medium, who was sitting with other
persons outside the cabinet, and materialized in the midst of the
circle. She plunged her hand into liquid paraffin wax, leaving a
mould of rare beauty. The modeller who made the plaster cast
could not believe his eyes and spoke of sorcery, because he could
not imagine how the hand could have been extricated from the
wax glove.
"Nepenthes dematerialized in the midst of the circle. She
lowered her head on which her usual diadem shone, and little by
little became a luminous cloud like a human head (on which the
diadem still faintly showed) gradually fading away.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 539
Professor Aksakoff published a memorandum of Mme. dEs-
prance1 to which it would seem too much importance has been
ascribed.
Mr. Carrington has shown that if there was no fraud, fraud
was quite possible. Professor Aksakoff very loyally gives the
evidence of several persons present at this alleged dematerializa
tion who did not accept it as genuine, for example, the engineer,
Schonelz (p. 92). The honesty of Mme. dEsprance may very
well be admitted while supposing that by an unconscious backward
movement of her legs she may have given rise to the notion or may
have herself thought that her lower limbs were dematerialized for
a time.
A medium named Sambor, a former telegraphist, gave a series
of sances from 1896 to 1902, which are recorded in the Russian
spiritist journal, Rebus. Petrovo Solovovo, a skilful experimental
ist and scientifically sceptical, had given an analysis of these
sances, especially of those at which he was present. But he has
since raised some justifiable doubts even on the latter.1
In 1899, in the house of Mme. de A., the materialized form of a
little girl appeared between the curtains, Sambor being in the
chain formed by the linked hands of the sitters. A white column
seemed to rise from the floor and move towards Sambor. This
materialized form (Olia) raised a table into the air, and a small
(childs) hand touched the sitters. On another occasion, only Mr.
S. and Mr. Bonjunski being present, a form, Friedrich, appeared,
quite different from Sambor both in stature and gestures; this
materialization and Sambor were seen together, walking about the
room. The light was good, and all took place in Mr. Bonj unskis
small room in Petersburg on June 20, 1899, at which time of year
there is practically no night. Among other phenomena, Fried
rich wrote something on the inside of the glass of Mr. S.s watch.
Mr. Erfurt, the director of a printing works at Petersburg,
prepared a cone of sheet-iron, with a piece of paper and a pencil
inside it. M. Zabasky and M. Eichwald, engineers, closed the
cone with an iron cover fixed on with special rivets. This cone
was left for several days in a room that Sambor had never entered.
In the sance of March 8, 1902, Sambor declared that something
had been written ; the cone was opened, not without difficulty, and
A . A ksakoff, U n cas de m a t ria lisa tio n partielle du corps d'un mdium.
1896.
3
E nq u tes et com m entaires, Paris, Libr. de l'A rt indpendant,
A . S . P ., November and December, 1899, ix, 105 and 109, xi, 243-256 ; 190s,
540 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
after having verified that everything was intact some words were
found written in pencil on the paper.
Mme. Youdenitch has communicated to A . S . P . (1904, xiv,
193) details on the sances that took place in the house o f M . Ol-
chowski. There w as alm ost com plete darkness. H ands were
joined, so that the hands o f the medium were never free. The
little girl Olia appeared at Sambors side. She could be seen and
touched and she was heard to speak. She w as lum inous and
bluish white in colour, and seemed to tremble the w hole tim e. H er
features were ill-defined, and she disappeared by degrees, vanish
ing like a tremulous ribbon. In an adjoining room, where there
was certainly no one, a mandolin had been placed, w hich began to
play of itself. T his white mandolin, visible in the faint light, was
seen to come from the room where it was and settle on the table
in the sance room.
The hypothesis of an accomplice will explain some o f these
phenomena, but not all. This hypothesis that seem s so unlikely
at first sight was actually proved. Petrovo Solovovo learned, later,
that one of the sitters intentionally released Sam bors hand that
he was supposed to be holding. There is therefore nothing to be
said on the so-called phenomenon o f the chair. B ut this does not
explain the phantom seen by all at Sambors side; for the com
plicity seems to have been limited to the release o f one hand. All
the same, legitimate doubts may be cast upon all Sam bors m e
diumship, for there is no certainty o f his probity nor that o f the
circle.
It is scarcely worth while to mention the very old experim ents
by Dale O wen in N ew York in 1860, and as the phenomena were
given by one of the F ox sisters, then M rs. Underhill, they cannot
be trusted. Still, it is probable, as in so m any cases w ith Leah
Fox, that there was an adm ixture o f genuine phenomena. Dr.
Gray cut off a piece o f the garm ent o f the m aterialized form,
which melted little by little in his hands (E m y , loc. cit., 133).
This must be accepted as genuine unless Dr. Gray were a low im
postor. A N ew York banker, Mr. Liverm ore, had about a hun
dred sances at his own house with Leah F ox and many times
recognized his deceased w ife whom he ardently desired to see.
A t a private sance in Australia, Mr. Brown, experim enting
with one of his friends who was a medium, hung a curtain across
one corner o f his room. The medium retired behind this curtain,
and twelve materialized form s appeared in succession am ong
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 541
whom Mr. Brown believed that he recognized tw o deceased sons
of his.
M. Stiegler narrates (A. S. P., 1905, xv, 641) a spiritist seance
at A rles directed by J. Bayol, an eminent surgeon o f the French
N avy, subsequently Governor o f Upper N igeria. The medium
was a young em ployee o f the Paris-Lyons Railway. L ights ap
peared on the ceiling and a greenish-blue ring appeared over the
heads o f the sitters. D etails given are few.
Baron Hillenbaeh o f V ienna had some seances there with M me.
Toeffer at his ow n house, Dr. Tieber assisting. M me. Toeffer,
sitting on a sofa, w as covered by a net nailed to the floor all round.
A form appeared which raised the curtain, and while so holding
it, M me. T oeffer could be seen in a state o f trance, with her
arms hanging down.
Lucy Stout witnessed a materialization in a wooden house in
Kansas City (M issou ri). She specially observed its demateriali
zation. T he form approached the mediums cabinet, became
cloudy and transparent, and was transform ed into a luminous
mass which finally disappeared.
M . Frem ery, at La H aye, in the house o f M me. H uygens, saw
a tall white form surmounted by a luminous sphere, the medium
being m otionless behind the curtains. By degrees this condensed
into a hand which rose to the ceiling, holding a palm-branch. The
luminous hand then descended to the table. O nly the hand and
arm were materialized and seemed to be those of a child of four
teen (A. S. P., 1908, xvii, 25 6).
Another experience was very interesting: A phosphorescent
cloud developed, m oving quickly towards us, rose up, condensed,
flowed to the ground, and disappeared behind the curtain. Then
a lum inous arm o f abnormal length em erged from the curtain, a
luminous disk in a phosphorescent cloud moved quickly towards
a chair which was displaced, whilst the medium remained visible
to all o f us sitting in the cabinet (A. S. P., 1908, xvii, 309).
A n Am erican sculptor, Mr. Brackett, experim enting w ith Mrs.,
F., o f Boston, thus describes the disappearance o f the phantom
o f his w ife: T his form did not resemble her; but told me inti
m ate things that she alone could know. Suddenly the form sank
down and disappeared through the floor which was covered with
a thick carpet; the head and shoulders remained visible to the
last. T he sim ilarity to the V illa Carmen phenomena will be
noted.
542 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Mr. Brackett saw tw o materialized form s together w ith the
medium, and verified that they underwent transform ation. I saw
a tall young man who called him self the brother o f M rs. X ., who
was with me, and as M rs. X . said she could not recognize him
(having only known him as a ch ild), the form shrank little by
little till it assumed the form o f the little boy that M rs. X . had
known. Som etim es, says Mr. Brackett, the form dematerial-
ized before m e and I at once verified that the m edium was
sleeping.
These diverse experiments, which have not been repeated, and
which are testified to only by certain observers possibly devoid of
the necessary scepticism, do not seem to me such as to shake the
negative convictions o f scientists. But this is not the case with
the phenomena recorded o f H om e, Florence Cook, Eusapia, and
M iss Goligher which are unassailable. Those of M arthe-Eva, of
Linda Gazzera, Mrs. Salmon, Eglinton, and M me. Lacombe ac
quire full value from the others, and this value is considerable;
nor do I see reason to dismiss entirely those of M . Corrales, Sam -
bor, and perhaps those of Mme. dEsperance.
I think I have mentioned all the cases o f experim ental materiali
zation that seem worthy o f notice; but one can never be sure
o f giving a complete list, and I apologize in advance for any
omissions.1
N othing in the history of materializations would give m ore posi
tive proof than the production of moulds obtained under unexcep
tionable experimental conditions, from materialized form s de-
materializing themselves.
Aksakoff (A. S. P., 1897, vii, 28) cites various cases o f moulds
obtained by fluidic hands m aking impressions on flour, plaster, or
paraffin wax. According to him the first experim ents o f this kind
go back to 1855 (Banner of Light, April 1, 1855, and A ugust 10,
1867).*
The facts narrated by Aksakoff did not convince m e ; even the
putty cast of Eusapias head did not seem to m e certain, and I was
*1 prefer not to allude to the unpublished experiments which were told me
at Warsaw or described to me by letter, by persons o f good standing. They
are so stupefying and hugely improbable that I unfortunately cannot bring my
self to believe them. And yet . . .
*See also Z o lln e r an d W a g n e r (Psychische Studien, 18 77, 401; 1878, 4 9 2 ;
1879, 249) ; and Spiritualist, 1878, 134.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 543
sure that w e had nothing really evidential in the way o f moulds,
when in 1921 w e were able to study these phenomena with a
Polish medium Kluski at the M etapsychic Institute.
Geley and I took the precaution of introducing, unknown to
any other person, a small quantity of cholesterin in the bath of
m elted paraffin w ax placed before the medium during the sance.
T his substance is soluble in paraffin without discolouring it, but on
adding sulphuric acid it takes a deep violet-red tint; so that w e
could be absolutely certain that any moulds obtained should be
from the paraffin provided by ourselves. W e therefore had cer
tain proof that the m oulds obtained could not have been prepared
in advance but m ust have been produced during the sance itself.
Absolute certainty w as thus secured.
D uring the sance the m edium s hands were held firmly by Geley
and m yself on the right and on the left, so that he could not liber
ate either hand. A first mould was obtained o f a child's hand,
then a second o f both hands, right and left; a third tim e o f a
childs foot. The creases in the skin and the veins were visible
on the plaster casts made from the moulds.
B y reason o f the narrowness at the wrist these moulds could not
be obtained from living hands, for the whole hand would have to
be withdrawn through the narrow opening at the wrist. P rofes
sional m odellers secure their results by threads attached to the
hand, which are pulled through the plaster. In the moulds here
considered there was nothing o f the sort ; they were produced by a
materialization follow ed by dematerialization, for this latter was
necessary to disengage the hand from the paraffin "glove."
T hese experim ents, which w e intend to resume on account o f
their importance, afford an absolute proof of a materialization fol
lowed by dematerialization, for even if the medium had the
means to produce the results by a normal process, he could not
have made use o f them. W e defy the m ost skilful modellers to ob
tain such m oulds without using the plan o f tw o segm ents sepa
rated by thread and afterwards reunited.
W e therefore affirm that there was a m aterialization and de
materialization o f an ectoplasmic or fluidic hand, and w e think
that this is the first tim e that such rigorous conditions o f experi
ment have been imposed.
There is ample proof that experim ental materialization (ecto
plasm ic) should take definite rank as a scientific fact. Assuredly
544 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
we do not understand it. It is very absurd, if a truth can be
absurd.
Spiritualists have blamed m e for using this w ord absurd ;
and have not been able to understand that to adm it the reality of
these phenomena w as to m e an actual p ain ; but to ask a physi
ologist, a physicist, or a chem ist to admit that a form that has a
circulation o f blood, warmth, and m uscles, that exhales carbonic
acid, has weight, speaks, and thinks, can issue from a human
body is to ask of him an intellectual effort that is really painful.
Yes, it is absurd; but no matter it is true.
Further, materializations m ust not be considered as isolated
phenomena. They m ust be considered along with telekinesis and
collective hallucinations. Taken together they carry indisputable
proofs before which the im perfect science o f today m ust bow. The
function of science is first of all to v erify ; and then, if possible, to
understand.1
*At the Copenhagen C o n g re s s (vid e R e v u e Mitapsychique, p. 364)
Mme. Bisson read a report of some astounding facts that must be admitted
in despite of their wild improbability, because of the known exactitude of Mme.
Bissons experimental methods. The events narrated took place on May 25,
1921, before six persons in full daylight. The ectoplasm, called the sub
stance by Mme. Bisson, was transformed into a tiny nude woman, beauti
fully formed, apparently alive and who moved her limbs. Her size changed
rapidly. Eva took her and placed her on the hands of Mme. Bisson where
she remained about ten seconds, long enough for those present to verify that
she seemed alive. Comment is needless.
I cannot forbear to mention here the observations on Eva made by certain
members of the S . P . R . in January, 19 22 Messrs. Dingwall, Baggalay,
Fournier dAlbe, Woolley, Feilding, and W bately-Sm ith; Mrs. Salter and Miss
Newton.
Elaborate precautions, quite justifiably minute, were taken against the possi
bility of trickery.
The official reports of the stances lead to very distinct inferences; it seems
that though the external conditions were unfavourable to success, some re
sults were very d ear and that it is impossible to refer the phenomena to
fraud.
Neverthdess our learned colleagues of the S. P. R. come to no condusion.
They admit that the only possible trickery is regurgitation. But what is meant
by that? How can masses of mobile substance, organized as hands, faces, and
drawings, be made to emerge from the oesophagus or the stomach ? No physiol
ogist would admit such power to contract those organs at will in this manner.
How, when the medium's hands are tied and held, could papers be unfolded, put
away, and made to pass through a veil?
The members of the S. P. R., when they fail to understand, say, " It is diffi
cult to understand how this is produced. Mr. Dingwall, who is an expert in
legerdemain, having seen the ectoplasm emerge as a miniature hand, making
signs before disappearing, says, "I attach no importance to this. W e may be
permitted to remark that very great importance attaches to Mr. Dingwalls tes
timony. The general conclusion is that there was probably no trickery, but
the phenomena were not sufficient to warrant acceptance.
ECTOPLASMS (MATERIALIZATIONS) 545
Certainly every experimenter has the right to be very exacting as to proof,
but it is impossible not to be astonished at the glaring contradiction between
the reports o f these sances and the inferences drawn from them. However,
we willingly concede to the London experimentalists that for such surprising
phenomena it is advisable not to rest on past experiments, but to repeat them ;
there is all to gain and nothing to lose by increased rigour and frequency of
experiment.
M. Guy du Bourg de Bozas reports ( Revue M tapsychique, No. i, 1921) an
interesting variation in ectoplasmic experiments. W ith three different me
diums, in Paris, Copenhagen, and Warsaw, he has found that electric con
nection could be established between two electrodes. Electrical resistance be
ing easily measured, the new method may be expected to be very useful (second
French edition).
There is in Warsaw a professional medium called Burgik. He is a man
of about forty-five, thin, undersized, and seems in indifferent health. He gives
many sances and seems not to be at all interested in the phenomena, which
appear to be quite independent of his will. I had eight to ten sances with
him. He is quite motionless during the experiments, and his left hand was
held by me, the right being held by some other person. Lights, sometimes
very bright, appear and move about like will-o-the-wisps, close to our faces
and moving about the room up to the ceiling.
In the last sance that I bad with him the phenomena were very marked. I
held his left hand and M. de Gielski his right. He was quite motionless, and
none o f the experimenters moved at all. My trouser leg was strongly pulled'
and a strange, ill-defined form that seemed to have paws like those o f a dog
or small monkey climbed on my knee. I could feel its weight, very light,
and something like the muzzle of an animal ( ?) touched my cheek. It was
moist and made a grunting noise like a thirsty dog. Later on two strong
hands seized my two shoulders; and very bright lights came round a face.
No trickery seems possible, but it must be remembered that we were dealing
with a professional medium.
This medium ought not to be left to develop in unscientific, mystical, and
credulous circles. A ll such half-experiments are Slueless from a scientific
point o f view.
Further experiments were made with Kluski, resulting in fresh paraffin
moulds which prove conclusively that the 'gloves'* of paraffin wax were ob
tained during the sance, that these were of a living hand showing the tex
ture o f the skin, the veins, and the creases of the skin, and that a normal
hand could not have released itself from the glove.
These were the conclusions of practised moulders, called in as experts,
They say, "W e cannot understand how these paraffin moulds could have been
obtained; it is an absolute mystery to us." T h is mystery is dematerialization,
a correlative o f the materialization. The whole of this investigation made by
Geley with minute care is of the highest importance, fo r it gives irrefragable
scientific demonstration of ectoplasmic materialization (second French edition).
CHAPTER IV
L e v it a t io n s
546
LEVITATIONS 547
successive investigations, in 1711, 1722, and 1753, were made by
successive popes prior to his beatification, and a life of St. Joseph
was published in 1753, only a century and a half ago, and in
this book alone the facts are attested by a sufficient number of
witnesses.
From all these documents it appears that he was often lifted
from the earth, som etim es remaining suspended in the air in
presence o f all the brothers o f his order. The monks round
him, doubting what they saw , passed their hands under his feet to
be sure that they were not touching the ground. Pope Urban
V III witnessed this levitation, as also Duke Frederic o f Bruns
wick in 1650. It would seem that in som e exceptional cases St.
Joseph could raise into the air those who had come to see him.
Gorres gives no less than twelve pages to these levitations o f St.
Joseph, and says that each was preceded by a kind o f ecstasy which
began by a cry, O h ! O h ! repeated several times, and that the holy
man was seized w ith trem bling followed by a period of stupor.
In the official report of proceedings to deliver a girl possessed
by the evil spirit" at Louviers in 1591, Franoise Fontaine, a young
servant o f Louviers, being on her knees, was fearsom ely raised,"
and another time was raised from the earth higher than the altar.
A third tim e she was raised over a bench in front o f the altar and
carried through the air, head downwards. The priest Pillet who
was exorcising Franoise showed much discernment! H e con
sidered that she w as raised by her hair, and had her head shaved,
which forthwith put an end to the levitations ( ??)
N o account can be taken o f this old document, nor of those re
ferring to the possessed persons of Langres (1 7 3 4 ). The credu
lity o f exorcists is som etim es unimaginable, and w e must assume
provisionally that all these formal attestations are only illusions.
Therefore though w e cannot absolutely deny all these stories, they
cannot convince.
A . de Rochas m entions some instances o f levitations observed in
the nineteenth century by various experim enters who were cer
tainly credulous but also men of good faith the m agnetizer La
fontaine, Dr. Cyriax o f Berlin, Mr. B ., a friend o f De Rochas, a
student at the Polytechnic; M. Paluzzi o f N aples; M onseigneur
dH u lst; Dr. Schm idt o f V ienna; and Justinus Kerner, with the
Seeress o f Prvorst. H e says with justice, The history o f science
is there to remind us that each generation has seen crumble down
548 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
the greater part o f the scaffolding o f know ledge o f which the
previous generation w as assured.
Although levitations cannot be placed am ong demonstrated
facts, they certainly m erit attentive exam ination. In fact, levi
tation is only a special case o f telekinesis an unknown mechanical
action on matter. O nly if it is mechanical, the fulcrum o f the
power is not apparent.
Sem i-levitations m ust be distinguished from total levitations.
In the former the body o f the medium loses w eight, or, almost
without muscular help, it is placed on a table. It is difficult to
verify the conditions, especially if the phenomenon takes place in
the dark : in that case even testim ony proves little ; for a medium,
even if not acrobatic, could quite well persuade credulous sitters
that it had taken place by supernatural powers. T here is no need to
make much of such semi-levitations as were given by Carancini.
According to K em er, when the Seeress o f Prvorst w as put into
a bath during her trances she floated on the top o f the water like
a cork. It is a pity that such stuff should be m ingled w ith serious
enquiries; they detract from them.
Eglinton at a memorable sance in presence o f the Em peror and
Empress of Russia, the Grand Duke o f Oldenburg, the Grand
Duke Vladimir, and other members o f the Im perial fam ily, rose
into the air. M y neighbours, says Eglinton, had to stand on
their chairs to follow m e. I continued to rise till m y feet touched
two shoulders on which I leaned; they were those o f the Czar.
Florence Cook relates that when fourteen years old she was
raised up to the ceiling, to her great alarm. T his w as at one o f
her first spiritualist sances. She was carried above the heads of
the sitters and deposited on a table.
Abb Petit, writing to D e Rochas, said that he w as once lifted
in a church; he resisted and his terror was such that he w as ill
afterwards. But he brings forward no witness, so the thing was
doubtless an illusion.
Dr. Nicolas Santangelo, o f Venosa, on giving his hand to tw o
mediums, R uggieri and Cecchini, was lifted into the air by R ug-
gieri. Feeling the ground fail under m y feet, I clung to the arm
o f Ruggieri, and was raised to a height o f about three yards; so
that I distinctly felt the chandelier w ith m y feet. On descending,
and light being restored, I found m yself kneeling on the table.
A ll these stories are highly doubtful. Som e others, here follow
ing, seem to deserve m ore credence.
LEVITATIONS 549
D r. L. Luciani, professor o f physiology in the University of
Rome, relates that at a sance with Eusapia, he holding one hand,
and M . E. Nathan, M ayor o f Rome, holding the other, she said
that she w as rising into the air. We felt a movement of ascent
that w e followed w ithout aiding it. Light was restored and Eu
sapia was sitting in her chair, both of its front feet being on the
table (A. S. P., 1906, xvi, 65 3).
Dr. L. Patrizi, also a professor of physiology, studied the levi
tations o f the medium, A. Zuccarino, and gave some interesting
photographs (A. S . P., 1907, xvii, 528-549). Zuccarino is a young
man o f about tw enty-tw o, a government employee, and therefore
not a professional medium. The phenomenon peculiar to him is
a very distinct levitation that lasts for about ten seconds. He holds
the hands o f the sitters who link hands round him, but in place of
leaning on their hands he tends to take them higher. During the
trance necessary for levitation he claims to be helped by his guides.
H e produces also some luminous phenomena.
D espite the authority of Professors Luciani and Patrizi, the levi
tations o f Eusapia and Zuccarino have been questioned ; but I am
not prepared decidedly to deny what two distinguished physiol
ogists attest.
Stainton M oses had levitations, which he describes as follow s:
O n August 30, 1872, I felt m y chair twist found from the table
to be raised from the floor to a height that I estimate as twelve
to fourteen inches. M y feet were about twelve inches from the
floor. T he chair remained suspended for a few moments and I
then felt m yself lifted higher and higher by a slow, steady m ove
ment. I felt no fear or uneasiness. I was perfectly conscious of
what was happening and described the phenomena to those who
were seated round the table. The m ovement lasted a considerable
time. I w as facing the wall and marked it at the level o f my
chest with a pencil. T his mark was about six feet above the floor.
I was not troubled, I seemed to be in a lift and the things round
me to be lowered below m e." 1
Stainton Moses describes other particulars as to his levitations.
Sometimes he was transported from his chair to a sofa at a con
siderable distance, and very quickly. Once he was raised so high
that his feet touched the head of one of the sitters, he then being
in a recumbent posture. On that day, after the levitation, a stool
^Researches on spiritualism during the years 1872-3, by M. A . O x on (pseudo
nym o f Stainton Moses) cited by Fr. Myers, P. S . P. i t , xi, 1894, 61.
550 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
was taken fro m one com er o f the room and knocked against a
chair near the door.
B u t S tainton Moses d islike d physical phenom ena; w hy, is not
very clear ( I discouraged them as m uch as possible, fro m a d is
lik e to vio le n t physical m anifestations ) , so th a t they occurred no
m ore.
Eusapia showed o n ly p a rtia l levitations. M o rse lli says, R aris-
sitno fenom eno, certam cntc sincero nel suo inisio, forse illusorio
per nostra nella sua continuasione aerca al di sopra del tavolo
mediumnico.**
A t Milan I saw a weighing machine on which Eusapia was
seated lose weight slowly by about sixteen pounds fro m one hun
dred and sixteen pounds to one hundred pounds; b ut I do not
think this very evidential, fo r it is difficult to read a Rom an
balance correctly, and in the dim light perhaps fu ll precautions
had not been taken to ensure that one o f Eusapias feet was not
touching the ground.
Morselli gives one instance in detail fro m w hich it w ould cer
tainly appear that Eusapia was raised in her ch a ir to a h e ig h t o f
thirty-two inches as if by an external power. P o rro , M o rse lli, and
De Albertis were witnesses to this. They passed th e ir hands be
tween the table and Eusapias feet, which were over the table. T he
movement took place rapidly and smoothly in a few seconds, and
the descent was gradual. Nevertheless as it took place in alm ost
total darkness, it is difficult to be sure.
Homes levitations are the most extraordinary of any; they
have often been described.
Mr. Home announced to us that he was about to be lifte d in to
the air. A moment later he passed over the table above the heads
of those present. I begged him to make a mark on the ce ilin g
with a pencil. As he had none, I got up to lend him mine and o n ly
at my utmost reach could I come at his hand w hich was quite
seven feet from the ground. I put the pencil into his hand w hich
kept hold of mine, I accommodating myself to his ae ria l p eregrin
ations (S om e Incidents in M y L ife, by D . D . H om e. A ccount
by Mr. James Watson, solicitor, of Liverpool).
The fo llo w in g account, by the e d ito r o f the Cornhill Magazine, is
stranger s till : By the fa in t lig h t in the room I saw H om e's head*
in d is tin c tly ; some m inutes la te r his voice seemed to come fro m
above: he then said th a t he w ould pass before the w ind o w and
against its pale lig h t we could see the opaque fo rm o f h is body s il
LEVITATIONS 551
houetted. We saw him right across the window in a horizontal
posture, feet first. He floated in the air for several minutes and I
felt his feet touch my hair. He went as high as the ceiling on
which he made a slight mark; after which he descended and re
sumed his place among us (loc. tit., p. 224).
These strange facts, whether related of St. Joseph, Stainton
Moses, or Home deserve to be borne in mind; but despite the
number and the authority of the witnesses, it seems to me that
rigid science cannot yet consider levitation as a proven fact.
To admit a fact as scientifically demonstrated, no less positive
proof should be required as would justify a death-sentence on
a man.
The future will perhaps remove our doubts.
This hesitation, which will perhaps appear overcautious to some
persons, should give weight to our absolute affirmation of tele
kinesis and ectoplasms as genuine metapsychic phenomena. Tele
kinesis is a proven fact. Ectoplasms are demonstrated. It would,
however, be illogical to regard these various phenomena, despite
their obvious kinship, as so intimately connected that affirmation or
denial of any should involve the affirmation or denial of others.
CHAPTER V
B il o c a t io n s
H a u n t in g s
1. O n H auntings in General
I f tra d itio n s and superstitions could be appealed to , the haunt
in g o f ce rta in d w e llin g s w ould be one o f the most certain facts o f
m etapsychics; fo r in a ll countries and in a ll tim es, w ith o u t ex
ception, these phenomena have been recognized by popular
opinion.1
W ith o u t a ttach in g any w eight to th is popular unanim ity, it can
h a rd ly be supposed th a t at the back o f a ll these stories there is
n ot some vestige, how ever slig h t and obscure, o f tru th . I t w ould
th ere fo re be alm ost as absurd to re je ct w ith o u t exam ination a ll
The bibliography o f ancient c a s e s is enormous. Joseph Gian vil (Saducis-
mus Triumphatus, 1700) considered, even then, that poltergeist phenomena
otherwise haunted houses* could not be accounted for by fraud or hal
lucination. infestis ob molestantes damoniorum et
Petrus T hyraeu s: D e
defunctorum spiritus tois, Cologne, 1598. the
Dale Omen, F ootfalls on
di
Boundary o f A n o th e r W orld , Loodon, i860. Zingaropoli: G estospirito
uno
net m onastero dei PP. Gerolotnini Napoli; in Cronaca del secolo xvil, with
preface by E. Passaro; S u ite m am festosioni spontane misterioso, Napoli,
Detken, 1904.
More modern works will be indicated in the course of this chapter. I men
tion below, just by w ay o f curiosity, the towns in which there have been ap
paritions and alleged hauntings, according to Passaro:
G reat B rita in : Woodstock (1649); Ted worth (16 6 1); Epworth (17 16 ); Lea-
si nghall (16 7 9 ); Liverpool (1868); B. (Eosa) (18 6 s); Manchester (190s);
Beverley (1903); Guernsey (1903).
F r a n c e : Lyons (1328 ); Cideville (1850); Paris (1846); Saint-Quentin
(1849); A lgiers (1 8 7 1 ); Valence-en-Brie (1897); Brussels (1890); Grivegne
(Belgium) (1900); Bordeaux (18 6 7); Nice (1858).
I ta ly : Naples (16 96 ); Lanzo (1 y fiz); Florence (1867); Bologna (fS >)>9
Vicenta (187$ ); Malta (170 0 ); Genoa (1863); Pavia, Modena (1873); Rome
(1876 and 1881); Trieste (18 8 1); Turin (1903); Catania (1879)*
G erm a n y : Hudemuhlen (1584); Dibbelsdoiriff (1 7 6 s ); Orlach (18 3 1);
Weinsberg (1833); Bergsabern (18 3 s); Muncboff (1818); Groeben (1718 );
Schildbach (133 3 ); Berlin (1890); MuUdorff (1749); Cologne (1863); Resau
(1899); Billingheim (18 8 7); Mhthingen (1841).
O th e r countr ie s : L ip ty (Russia, 183s); Zurich (i8 60); Mustaja (Russia,
tS y o ); Silin (Russia, 1888); Riga (Russia, 1583); Constantinople (174 6 );
Philadelphia (1866); Guayaquil (18 7 1 ); Rota (Spain, 1870); Petersburg
Budapest
(ip o s ); (19 0 s); Nienadowka (1898); San Francisco (
1899); Slate*-
borougb (Georgia, Ceylon
18 9 1); (190s).
563
564 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
th a t has been said on haunted houses, as to accept it a ll w ith o u t
criticism .
Some men o f science who are interested in occu lt psychics have
endeavoured to study the q u estion ; b u t it has been fo un d th a t a ll
researches conducted in a scientific m anner on haunted houses
have given very poor results. The facts evaporate under severe and
rigorous in vestigation. T h is is a reason fo r doubt* b u t n o t fo r
denial. I t is n ot to be supposed th a t there should be any incom
p a tib ility between the phenomena o f h a un tin g and scien tific v e ri
fication ; so th a t the lack o f scientific evidence is in its e lf a stro n g
presum ption against the re a lity o f the phenomena.
B u t th is is on ly a presum ption, not a ce rta in ty. I t rem ains to be
seen i f the mass o f testim ony contains sufficient evidence to
w a rran t some o f the phenomena being accepted as tru e . W e m ust
lim it ourselves to a c ritic a l study o f the evidence, since u n fo r
tunately no experim ental analysis o f the phenomena is possible.
The h isto ry o f haunted houses contains ve ry little th a t can p rop
e rly be called exp erim e n ta l; there are o n ly observations.
M oreover it is d iffic u lt to d istin g u ish hauntings fro m o th e r m eta-
psychic phenomena. Some m ig h t be classed as h a llu cin a tio ns o r
collective m onitions, some under cryptesthesia, m ore o fte n , as
telekinesis. A ll classification is a rtific ia l, and as already o fte n
said, facts, when they occur, do not tro u b le them selves about fit
tin g in to any p a rticu la r section o f a scientific treatise.
T herefore it is exceedingly d iffic u lt to lay dow n d e fin itio n s and
delim itations o f h a u n tin g ; though the dom inant idea seems to be
spatial. The phenomena, w hether subjective o r objective, are o f
a m ixed nature, but they occur in a p a rtic u la r lo c a lity and no t
elsewhere: everything happens as though th is lo ca lizatio n in space
were one o f the conditions o f the phenomena.
T h is is obviously an essential fa ct to be seriously considered. If
the hauntings are genuine, they are localized in some o ld castle
o r in some p a rticu la r room o f a house so th a t we m ig h t alm ost
conclude th a t there is some em anation proceeding fro m in e rt
th in gs in th a t place; fo r it w ould be absurd to th in k th a t spirits
are chained by te rre s tria l m aterial lin k s to the places w here they
appear. I f they come in the blue room o f a ce rta in house, there
m ust be som ething in the blue room th a t retains them o r produces
them .
T h is is w hat Bozzano calls the psychom etric hypothesis o f in
festations. I should p re fe r to ca ll it the pragm atic hypothesis;
HAUNTINGS 565
b u t the Ita lia n w o rd infestatione seems to me preferable to
haunting.
I t seems im possible n ot to adm it th is hypothesis, p a rtia lly , at
any ra te ; tor we cannot g ra tu ito u sly a ttrib u te to spirits a fancy
never to leave a p a rtic u la r place when they m ig h t wander else
where.
A p ro vision a l d e fin itio n o f h a un tin g o r in fe station m ay be
given as: M etapsychic phenomena, objective o r subjective, pro
duced repeatedly in a given place.
T h is d e fin itio n is, however, somewhat defective, as it does not
apply to every case. T here are hauntings th a t seem to attach to
persons ra th e r than to places: and movements o f objects produced
in the neighbourhood o f a haunted o r infested person can
scarcely be classed as hauntings. They are phenomena o f tele
kinesis in v o lu n ta ry and non-experim ental, and thus d ifferentiated
fro m the experim ental telekinesis previously studied in th is book.
T h e y are n o t tru e hauntings under the somewhat a rb itra ry defini
tio n th a t lim its h a u n tin g to places.
W e shall th ere fo re consider hauntings under tw o heads; speak
in g firs t o f houses haunted by phantom s, and then o f m aterial phe
nomena a tta ch in g to persons rather than to houses. There w ould
th e re fo re seem to be no t o n ly haunted houses but haunted persons;
indeed it is probable th a t m any instances o f haunted houses really
are cases o f haunted persons.
Phenomena o f h a un tin g w hich consist o f an apparition having
w ell-defined specific characteristics, but seen by one person only
at a tim e and w ith o u t any m ovem ent o f objects, are classed as
subjective. O b je ctive phenomena are those in w hich movements
o f objects and e xte rn al m echanical action take place.
E ven th is d ivis io n is a convention, fo r the objective and the
subjective are fre q u e n tly in te rm ing le d , so th a t we m ust fo llo w
Bozzano and speak o f hauntings th a t are mainly objective, o r
mainly subjective.*
No r e a lly correct c la s sific a tio n can be made because o f this admixture.
H a v in g no personal e x p e r ie n c e to quote, I most r e ly o n those authors who have
C.
s e r io u s ly studied the facts: Ricerche sui f moment ipnoiici t
Lombroso,
piritici, Con fantomatiche,
Chapter X II, T u r in , 1909. F . Zingaropoli, Case
infestate dagli spiriti, Naples, Soe. Partonopea, 1907. P . S . P . R . and /. S .
P . R . passim. The admirable study by Bozzano, Dei fenomeni (Pinfestasione,
Rome, Ed. Luce 9 Om bro, 1919, should be specially consulted. I foil borrow
much from this striking synthesis, as I have d o st in the chapter on Pre-
momtsooa.
566 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
In certain very rare cases the phenomena are entirely subjective,
though there is cryptesthesia, and recognition too clear for the fact
to be referred to pathological hallucination.
Mrs. O'Donnell (/. S. P. R., viii, 326) goes to Brighton and
hires furnished rooms. She does not sleep in the same room with
her daughter. At one o'clock in the morning she hears steps on the
floor above so kmd that they seem due to a number of people,
lasting the whole night. In the morning she says to the landlady,
The people on the upper floor have no consideration for others,"
and is answered with some surprise that the upper floor is un
occupied. The following day after the same noisy tramplings
Mrs. O'Donnell sees a horrible spectre pointing to the next room.
She even feels a cold hand touch her and almost faints with
fright The phantom was that of a small, dark man. Her daugh
ter saw and heard nothing. On the night following the same
spectre reappeared though the door was locked.
After enquiry, it was ascertained that some weeks before, the
room had been inhabited by a small, dark man who had thrown
himself from the window of the next room (Bozzano, p. 77).
This is a good instance of subjective cryptesthesia, for the facts
were perceived by Mrs. O'Donnell only, and not by her daughter.
Bozzano describes auditive and visual phenomena as follows (I
give a very free translation, greatly abridged):
"Auditory phenomena consist of noises without any apparent
cause, varying from knocks of differing strength to crashes of
broken glass and crockery, falling of chairs, doors and windows
opening and shutting violently, rolling of heavy bodies and move
ments of chairs. Often there are footsteps, seemingly human, in
the passages and on the stairs, rustling of clothes, despairing
cries, sighs, sobs or religious psalmody, songs, and musical sounds.
"It is highly probable that these phenomena, though mingled
with objective facts, are mainly subjective; they are, however,
often heard by several persons, so that in many well-authenticated
cases they are frankly objective.
"Under their visual shape these phenomena appear as luminous
manifestations or phantoms. The luminous manifestations may be
of undefined shape, or lights by which the phantom is seen. In
some very few cases the light is in the hands of the phantom.
"Except for some very exceptional apparitions of animals, phan
toms are human, and clothed in the garments of the period of their
terrestrial life. Sometimes they seem solid as in Hfe, in other cases
HAUNTINGS 567
they are transparent and nebulous like shades; usually they seem
to enter by a door, proceed to another room, and vanish. They
often arise unexpectedly, dissolving into vapour and passing
through walls and closed doors. Sometimes they appear to walk,
sometimes to be suspended in the air. Usually the period of in
festation only lasts for a few years, a few months, or even a few
days; but die haunting is often prolonged over many years, with
long intervals.
The arrival of phantoms is nearly always heralded by a vague
sensation of horror, the feeling of a presence, coinciding with a
cold breath. They seem nearly always wholly indifferent to the
living persons present. Sometimes they enact some domestic
function, or make despairing gestures. Great differences are ob
servable in their behaviour.**
Do these phenomena correspond to an objective reality, or are
they merely hallucinations?
The hypothesis of trickery and fraud must first be eliminated.
Out of the 374 cases that Bozzano considers worthy of mention
there is perhaps not a single one which is attributable to fraud
and lying.*
To make our ideas clear, we will imagine a typical case as
follows:
A, arriving for the first time at a certain locality, M, sees a
phantom, which he does not recognize, and which he describes.
Some days later another person, B, coming to the same place, sees
a phantom similar to that seen by A. Further enquiry shows that
two or three years previously some individual disappeared under
tragic circumstances at M, and his description agrees with what
A and B have seen. A and B are both ignorant of the tragic as
sociations of the house, M, though they may have heard vaguely
that it is haunted. At no time in their lives have A or B had hal
lucinations, they are little disposed to mysticism, and they are per
sons of well-balanced intelligence.
Such are the usual conditions of subjective hauntings.
It seems improbable that the hallucinations of A and B are de
void of some veridical foundations; for (1) pathological hallucina
tions in normal persons are extremely rare; (2) the agreement in
the hallucinations is strong evidence; (3) there is a correspondence
thrown
I t is d iffe r e n t in th e case o f o b je c tiv e h a u n tin g s w h en o b je c ts a re
a b ou t, l o rgross f ran d soften occur in these cases, perhaps la most of them.
568 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
between the identical hallucinations and the tragic event, and (4)
monitions by veridical hallucinations are so frequent that they
must be considered scientifically established, and can be applied
with slight variations to hallucinations of hauntings; the sequence
in both cases being analogous.
If the evidence for the existence of phantoms rested only on the
evidence for hauntings, we would certainly be unable to come to
any conclusion; for despite the unquestionable veracity of the wit
nesses, they are neither sufficiently numerous nor is their standing
such as to warrant acceptance of the extraordinary and unlikely
phenomenon of a materialization. But materializations are abun
dantly proved from experimental data, and the notion may be ap
plied to phenomena of haunting; for all explanations of these
latter, except as a partial or complete materialization, are wire
drawn and scarcely defensible.
Since several persons see practically the same phantom it can
not be considered entirely subjective. In order that A, B, and C
should see the same figure, D, there must be some vibration ex
terior to them that arouses the image D in their brains. Conse
quently the image originates in an exterior phenomenon and is to
that degree objective, though that is not objectivity as we gener
ally understand it. When a phantom is seen by three persons
only, ten others present seeing and hearing nothing, an<} the photo
graphic plate shows nothing, the phantom is not objective in the
ordinary sense.
In daily life if there is a palm-tree and twenty persons round it
they will all see it; and if there were ten thousand they would all
see it, for it is frankly objective; it could be photographed, drawn,
described, the wind could be heard in its leaves and the trunk
could be touched. But a phenomenon of cryptesthesia is of a dif
ferent kind, for whether it concerns monitions or hauntings, the
faculty of cryptesthesia varies enormously in different persons,
dealing with cognitions of another order which do not reach the
intelligence by the usual channels, and can be perceived only by a
sensitive.
An absolutely deaf man would not hear a loud whistle beside
him and might deny its objectivity. His negation would not prove
that there was no whistle; and similarly the absence of sensation
among non-sensitives does not prove that there is no external
vibration.
HAUNTINGS 569
minster, found all her family alarmed. The bells rang with such
energy that the servants and children were terrified. Mr. Milnes,
on arriving at the house, examined everything minutely and
watched all the wires. The ringing continued furiously for two
hours and a half.
In connection with bells, the still more doubtful case given be
low may be mentioned:
The two women, Mme. Martillet and Mme. Claudet, who nursed
Alfred de Musset in his last illness, say that as he lay in his arm
chair they saw by the light of the lamp that he was looking at the
bell near the mantelpiece. But he was so feeble that he could not
rise. At that moment, says Mme. Martillet, we were surprised
and frightened; the bell-pull that the sick man had not reached,
moved, as if by an invisible hand, and my sister and I took each
others hands saying, Did you hear? Did you see? He did not
582 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
leave his chair. . . The servant came, having heard the bell
(Lefvre, Musset sensitif, A. S. P., 1899, 106).
Should the singular phenomena mentioned in all ages as ac
companying a death or serious event be considered as akin to
hauntings? There are legends of clocks stopping, pictures falling,
some object noisily breaking, etc., but it is difficult to determine
the part played by chance coincidence.
Cheiro (Count Hamon) says that on Monday, June 5, 1915, as
he was sitting chatting with two friends in his country house at 8
oclock in the evening, some heavy object fell with a crash in the
adjoining room; it was a large oaken shield bearing the arms of
Great Britain that had been broken by the fall. The fracture was
in the part representing England and Ireland; and Cheiro said,
there has doubtless been some naval disaster in which Ireland is
concerned. At that very time Lord Kitchener, an Irishman,
perished in the Hampshire (A . S. P., July, 1916, 122). It is need
less to criticize ; this is mere coincidence, and not very cogent.
Aksakoff (Animisme et Spiritisme, 1895, 286) cites various
cases of persecution much resembling hauntings ; but his observa
tions must be taken with some reserve; his credulity is no more
to be doubted than his honesty.
The case of the Rev. Mr. Shelp related by Mr. Capron (Modern
Spiritualism) is very open to suspicion; for it does not seem cer
tain that Mr. Shelp took all the necessary measures to ensure that
his son, aged eleven, was not the voluntary agent in the phenom
ena. Chairs rose in the air and fell with crashes, a chandelier was
taken from the mantelpiece, knocked against the ceiling several
times, and broke; a brush was thrown through the window; a
glass left the worktable and broke the last pane left intact; gar
ments moved about the room, inflated as if to resemble human fig
ures ( ! !). As Dr. Shelp and his son Harry were out driving six
teen stones as large as eggs were thrown into the carriage.
Aksakoffs other story of persecution is more interesting, and
seems to have been carefully observed by M. Schtcharoff (against
whom the persecution seems to have been directed) and by M.
Akoutine, chemical engineer of Orenburg. The medium was
probably M. Schtcharoffs wife, unknown to herself. Akoutine
tried to divide the phenomena into those of attraction and repul
sion, but no law could be discovered. Sometimes things flew from
HAUNTINGS 583
the table at which people were sitting; at other times, when a cup
board was opened, the things would fall on Mme. S., moving to a
greater distance afterwards. These improbable facts were re
peated during several months, sometimes very energetically. A
sofa weighing one hundred and eighty to two hundred pounds on
which Mme. S.s mother was reclining began to dance, raising it
self into space with the lady ( !). Garments often took fire in a
way that could not be explained and some very strange facts are
related by M. S., who discusses very coolly whether there can be
hallucination on his own part or trickery by his wife; and con
cludes in the negative in both cases. We shall be still more pru
dent, and conclude (always provisionally) with a large note of
interrogation.
We can draw no other conclusion from the case of Lillian F.
(Carrington, The Problems of Psychical Science, London, 1914,
p. 341.) In the various houses in which she lived, she had to en
dure real hauntings from her childhood onwards. In an old house
at Memphis (Tenn.) doors opened; there were knockings on the
windows, on the mirrors, and on the beds. Heavy steps were
heard in the hall. Lillian and her mother both heard these noises
and were terrified by them. In Maryland similar phenomena tes
tified to by other persons than Lillian F., as also at Lafayette
Street (Baltimore), Memphis, Maryland, and New York.
Miss Mary Savage, on retiring to rest, heard knocks on the bed,
soon becoming very loud and seeming to move round her in cir
cles. Her friend, Miss Sarah Soothywoode, who was in the next
room, heard a tremendous noise ; so hallucination cannot be ac
cepted as an explanation (Carrington, p. 288).
Ada Sinclair reported phenomena of telekinesis and haunting
the details of which are of interest. They are not to be classed as
entirely accidental since they occurred in connection with experi
ments in spiritist rapping-messages. Mrs. L., a friend of Ada Sin
clair, was present. Objects were plucked off the wall and pro
jected violently. A porcelain vase was thrown to the ground and
broken. On other occasions, in presence of several persons, small
articles such as pins and matches were moved; the pins being
stuck into walls and clothes. The phenomena were strongest
when Mrs. L. was present, but they did not cease when she had
gone into the next room (Carrington, p. 306).
The Count de Larmandie has published an account of haunting
in his chateau at Sudrie. A piece of wood lying in the corner of a
584 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
room struck the ceiling and fell at the feet of the count and his
sister. It bounded about several times, striking the door, the
floor, and the walls. All this in full daylight. When the count
or his sisters entered the haunted rooms, there was a hail of little
stones (A. Erny, Le Psychisme exprimental) .
The following fact was not told till forty years after its oc
currence, but is quite clear in the memory of the narrator, M.
Kouprejanoff, on the superior staff of the Ministry of Public In
struction in Russia. When a young boy, he and his mother and
sisters heard logs falling in the shed where they had been placed.
They all went to see, taking a lantern and three candles. Twelve
persons in succession came to look in the locked shed and saw the
logs thrown against the wall, then fall to the ground one after
another at short intervals. This lasted close on forty minutes ; and
the logs came from the middle of the stack, though even a strong
man could not have taken them from the lower part of the pile
(A. S. P., 1899, ix, 174). But what conclusions can be based on a
story written forty years after the event ?
Mr. Bristow was working with two comrades in a carpenters
shop. One of the two then accused him of throwing a bit of wood
at him, which Mr. Bristow denied. Other pieces were thrown,
striking all those present. Nothing could come from outside, for
the shutters were not moved and were thickly covered with dust.
More than this, Mr. Bristow saw a piece of wood, two fingers
wide, come jumping towards him, make a bound of two feet and
hit his ear. A piece of wood lying on the ground jumped into
the air, and began to dance among our tools, but when we tried
to catch them they evaded our hands. Sometimes they moved
about in the air with a waving movement.
These phenomena went on for six weeks and were testified to
by several persons ; the bits of wood seemed living and intelligent :
they arranged themselves in a pile in one corner of the workshop.
They moved most when not looked at ; and despite the speed with
which they were projected into the air, describing complicated
circles and spirals, they fell without noise (P. S. P. R., vii, 383;
Bozzano, 186).
Mrs. H. E. Sidgwick and F. Myers analyzed this case with the
greatest care and obtained detailed explanations from Mr. Bris
tow: they connect this haunting with a certain John Gray, a
nephew of the proprietor of the workshop, who had not paid his
creditors. His uncle, also named John Gray, had not paid them
HAUNTINGS 585
either. As soon as he had paid his nephews debts the manifes
tations ceased.
This case is complex and hard to interpret; and though very
difficult to accept,. it is almost as difficult to reject the formal
depositions of Mr. Bristow and his companions.
At Absie (Deux-Svres) in 1867, according to the police reports
(A. S. P., 1905, 86), there was a hail of stones in an unoccupied
house. The reports referred to would seem to have been des
troyed. No fraud could be discovered. Constable Mousset testi
fied: (1) that the stones fell without doing arty harm; (2) that
a glass lamp was knocked from the table to the floor by a large
stone without being broken; (3) that the stones fell in all direc
tions and were only seen when they rolled on the ground; (4),
that the stones continued to be heaped up in the room even when
some one was standing at the chimney-piece to observe and there
was not the smallest hole in the walls or the windows.
But Moussets evidence is quite insufficient.
Similarly with the case of Oels (Pomerania). The lights, noises,
and phantasmal appearance are testified to by various persons
(1916), but after enquiry, a magistrate concluded that they were
natural facts due to the conscious or unconscious trickery of chil
dren in the house (Psych. Studien, xlvi, 1919, 84; 140). The as
sertions of Bohn were, however, vigorously combated by Derter
(Das Gheimnis des Spukhausen in Oels im Lichte des Uebers-
innlichen (A. S. P., 1895, v, 94).
At Niedelsdorf in Switzerland, M. Joller, a national councillor,
relates that for twelve days from the 15th to the 27th of August,
1862, mysterious happenings took place at his house. Tables and
chairs were upset; heavy hammer-strokes shook the house; objects
were taken from the walls, latches were broken off, pictures were
reversed on the walls under our very eyes; stones were thrown
from all sides despite locks and bolts. These strange things went
on for six weeks in full daylight. There were also inarticulate
noises, melodies, singing, noises of splitting wood, of counting
money, and winding a watch. All these facts are described by M.
Perty, a professor in the "University of Berne (Die mystischen
Erscheinungen der menschlichen Natur).
The facts observed by Hector Durville with Raymond Charrier,
aged fourteen, at Saint-Sauveur, Yonne, are parallel with the
phenomena of hauntings. The usual phenomena are all there
objects projected in the room, mattress and bedclothes thrown on
586 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
the ground, shoes thrown about. One day at breakfast things
were thrown at sitters from all parts of the room. M. Durville
took Raymond to his own house at Montmorency. Pamphlets,
books, kitchen utensils, and all kinds of objects were projected
from all sides. Raymond went out of the room and was already
in the passage, when Mr. Durvilles walking-stick came off the
peg where it was hanging, and was flung after Raymond and fell
behind him (A. S. P., 1910, xxi, 116-124).
That such things should happen without Raymond having been
caught in the act implies either that they are true or that M. Dur
ville was blind. Nevertheless, he adds the serious remark, I have
never seen any phenomena produced in entirety under my eyes.
The whole responsibility for the assertions rests with M. Durville,
for there is no other witness to them.
Mr. J. Proctor noted in his diary all the phenomena that oc
curred in a certain house abandoned because of the strange and
disagreeable facts that took place there. As soon as Mr. Proctor
took up his abode there, noises, cries, and footsteps were heard
which other lodgers could perceive. Two months later, a figure
appeared at a window; on another evening the caretaker, his wife,
and his daughter saw a priest wearing a stole, who appeared for
ten minutes. Knocks were then heard, and were continued for six
months at intervals. One night a friend of Mr. Proctors got up,
being frightened by the sight of a phantom and by terrific noises.
Invisible beings called lodgers by name. New tenants suffered in
the same manner by noises and phantoms and the owners had to
give up letting the house (A. S. P., December, 1892, and Lom-
broso, 259).
Phenomena of haunting would seem to have occurred in the
military school at Ypanema (Brazil) in May, 1914. Plates, cups,
and saucers were flung about as by an invisible hand. This was
verified, says the Diario de Sorocaba, by all the officers and the
colonel commanding the school. The phenomena were, however,
of brief duration; a scientific committee saw nothing and could
verify nothing; the facts therefore remain very doubtful (A. S.
P., April, 1916, 70-72).
A question arises, interesting from a practical point of view. It
is discussed with documentary evidences by Zingaropoli (Case in-
festate dagli Spiriti, Naples, 1917) : Does haunting confer a right
to the cancellation of a lease?
The Parliament of Bordeaux formally decided that it does. In
HAUNTINGS 587
our own day there have been several lawsuits over thisin 1915
at Altavilla (Italy); in 1907 at Naples; in 1896 also at Naples; in
1907 at Egham (England). In the latter case the house had been
hired by Mr. Stephen Philips, a well-known dramatic author and
poet. He complained that during the night heavy knocks shook
the walls and doors, and figures appeared on the stairs and in the
passages. The house had already been said to be haunted. The
Daily Mail and Light which had spoken of these facts were sued
and fined for depreciating the value of the house; though the sen
tence was reversed on appeal, the newspapers proving that the
hauntings were matter of public notoriety.
At Ancona in 1903 the public prosecutor, M. Marracino, states
that he and his two sons who are barristers, witnessed singular
facts connected with jets of liquid. During the night hats were
filled with water; during the day water was thrown on the beds.
The walls were examined by engineers who discovered nothing
unusual. Milk, wine, and coffee were spilt on the floors. In a
locked buffet objects were displaced. It seems that the phenomena
were due to the young daughter of M. Marracino who was a
medium unknown to herself. One day a book rose up and touched
her on the shoulder. (Si sollevo e ando a battere sulla spalla di lei,
quindi, cadde a terra e cominci a saltarellare ( M) comme mosso
da una forza impulsiva, percorse sei o sette volte la camera e, alz-
andozi di nuovo, undo ad applicicarsi al muro.)
In such cases when the phenomenon is due to a medium who is
not aware of the fact (usually a very young child) fraud is often
mingled with the phenomena. Maxwell says, with good reason
(Bull, de lInst. Psych., 1905, 376), that at first there are doubt
less genuine phenomena that lead the child to simulate them later
on. The unstable mentality of mediums explains this fraud, the
more readily that they scarcely know how to distinguish volun
tary from involuntary acts: the uncertain state of their conscious
ness deprives them to a considerable degree of their sense of
responsibility.
Kemer observed with the Seeress of Prevorst many mediumistic
phenomena that entirely resemble those in haunted houses from
which it is difficult to dissociate them. They constitute an ab
normal whole that borders on the pathological; hypnotism, leth
argy, cryptesthesia, premonitions, experimental telekinesis, and
such telekinesis as occurs in haunted houses. Kemer says, There
were knocks and noises like stones thrown, once a table moved
588 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
jerkily across the room without any visible contact, tin plates were
thrown across the kitchen. These stories would have provoked in
me a pitiful smile had I not been an ocular witness to the facts.
However improbable they may seem, I think it rash to deny them;
we do not understand them and cannot explain them, we can only
take note of them.
Dr. Hart Raines (quoted by Barrett, P. S. P. R., 1911, xxv,
404) mentions a very curious case. In January, 1911, three young
men were sent to a small telegraphic station at Dale in Georgia,
and took possession of their new domicile. Shortly afterwards they
found that they could not keep the door shut; it opened despite all
their efforts, nails and iron bars were of no use. Stones and other
things were thrown into the room; a box of condensed milk rose
into the air and passed into the room untouched by anyone; a
lantern also rose up and was broken against the wall; a chair was
thrown from before the window with such force that it was
broken. The three young men were panic-stricken. One of them
walked several miles to the nearest town to resign his position,
and he assured Dr. Raines nothing would induce him again to go
through the experience he had suffered.
Mr. Murphy, hearing that a house at Enniscorthy (Ireland)
was said to be haunted went with Mr. Owen Devereux to pass a
night there in the same room with the two young men who lived
in the house. It seems that one of them, Mr. Randall, was the
agent, for most of the movements of objects and noises took place
round him. During the night that Mr. Murphy passed there, re
peated noises, becoming more and more rapid, took place, and then
Randalls clothes were taken off him. He cried out, Hold them,
hold them, they are taken off me! and added, I cannot hold
them; they are going, and I am going with them, there is some
thing pushing me from inside, I am going, I am going, Im gone!
A light was struck and Randall was seen to be in great terror and
bathed in sweat. Randall, in the absence of Murphy, had felt
strange phenomena, and likewise his room-mate, Mr. Sinnett.
After having heard all night the sound of hurried footsteps, they
lit the lamp, and then' what added to our fright, he says, was
a chair dancing (!) in the middle of the floor without a thing near
it. His bed and Sinnetts were raised into the air! (P. S. P. R.t
xxv, 1911, 380).
After Randall had left the house, nothing further occurred to
him. It seems therefore that the phenomena could only be pro
HAUNTINGS 589
duced in a given locality and with a certain person. It would be
important to know what degree of confidence can be placed in
Randall, and up to what point he was normal.
In the same issue (P. S. P. R., p. 397) Sir William Barrett gives
a methodical investigation of some other phenomena, which,
though of but moderate intensity, derive interest from his testi
mony. He passed several nights in a haunted house at Derry-
gonnelly in Ireland about nine miles from Enniskillen. The phe
nomena seem to have been associated with Maggie, a girl of
twenty, the daughter of Jack Flanigan, the owner of the house.
When everybody was still, loud noises were heard on the walls, on
the bedsteads, and on the doors. A large shovel fell on the bed
and Sir William heard hammer-blows. He verified that these
were intelligent; four times he got an exact answer to a number
(between 1 and 10) which he mentally asked (probability 1 to
10,000).
The following case is remarkable from several points of view.
The phenomena took place at Portland (Oregon) at the house
of Mr. and Mrs. Savoyer, living at 546 Marshall Street with their
grandson Elwin March, aged eleven. Two medical men and many
other persons saw with their own eyes movements of heavy ob
jects without contact. Chairs and telephones were displaced in
open day, no one being near them. Nevertheless there is no doubt
that the boy lent himself to these games. Dr. Gilbert of Portland
got him to avow that he had played many tricks. A severe inves
tigation seems to have proved that the trickery only began later
and that some of the movements took place when March was not
in the room. There is no incongruity in admitting the genuine
ness of the earlier phenomena and also young Marchs trickery,
made possible when his movements were not watched. But how
ever that may be, the fact of fraud, even subsequent fraud, makes
the whole doubtful. Maxwell, who has studied deeply some of
these phenomena, considers, I think correctly, that at the outset
the telekinesis is real, but that the medium who at first produced
them spontaneously simulates them afterwards. The story is
given in Am. J. S. P. R., November, 1910.
Grasset (p. 396) verified, with Dr. Calmette, that the extraor
dinary displacements observed in a so-called haunted house ceased
completely when the medium, a hysterical girl of fifteen, was sent
for treatment to the hospital at Saint-Eloi (Montpellier).
In the A. S. P. (1919, xxix, p. 96) there is a story of extradr
590 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
dinary facts testified to by a Mr. X. and his nephew, two artists
whose honour and good faith are not in doubt. Objects moved by
themselves, metal boxes knocked together, furniture moved, nails
drew out from the walls, pincers were heard mounting the stairs.
This was in the department, Maine-et Loire and Sarthe. At
Cannes a still more astounding thing came to pass: A little man,
formed like a key, a head of hair taking the place of the key-ring,
appeared in the room . . . he came on the marble top of our
night-table and seemed to sit down on it; when we tried to catch
him he dodged as quickly as a mouse. On the next day this
little sprite wore a blue costume with white spots. He always
came to visit us, appearing from the radiator (!!).
It is impossible to put any faith in these stories that Mr. X.
and his nephew have illustrated with sketches more extravagant
than anything in the Thousand and One Nights. Still, in mat
ters metapsychic, so many strange phenomena have been denied
and afterwards found to be true, that though I greatly desire
formally to deny these insanities, I feel constrained to make some
timid reserves in my bold denial.
The following incident took place in the jungle of Sumatra
(/. S. P. R., May, 1906, xii, 261). Mr. Grottendieck, alone with
his native boy in a tent, was awakened by noises of stones falling
round him. He lit his lamp and waked his boy who was sound
asleep, and told him to find out the trickster or enemy. While
the boy was outside, the stones continued to fall. He saw them
slowly follow a parabolic course. He tried in vain to stop them;
they avoided his hand. The boy came back saying there was no
one, but the stones continued to fall. Mr. Grottendieck then fired
five shots from his carbine from the window, but the stones still
came. The servant was so frightened that he ran away into the
jungle.
In a later letter Mr. Grottendieck says he is absolutely sure that
his boy did not throw the stones; but is inclined to think that the
slowness of their fall was an illusion, a mere semblance; for he
says while the phenomenon took place, time seemed to be slowed
down. I feel now inclined to suggest that there might have been
something abnormal in my own condition at the time.
This is highly probable, sufficiently so to deprive his testimony
of all value.
HAUNTINGS 591
I might multiply these poltergeist cases by citing many facts
new and old, from many authors; but those I have given will
suffice to show how obscure the matter still is. Before giving my
personal opinion I will state in an abridged form the conclusions
arrived at by Professor Barrett in his excellent article on haunted
houses and poltergeists (P. 5\ P. R., xxv, 1911, 377) :
1. Fraud and hallucination are not sufficient explanations of
all the phenomena.
2. The noises, movements of objects, and other physical effects
seem to be connected with an invisible intelligence, which, for all
its imperfection, has some resemblance to human intelligence.
3. The phenomena are usually associated with a place or a
person, so that some kind of fulcrum seems necessary to their
production.
4. The phenomena are sporadic and temporary, lasting from a
few days to a few months, beginning and ceasing without any
known cause.
4. Conclusions
Before all things it is necessary to know if the facts are genu
ine; in presence of such extravagant phenomena theoretical dis
cussions are of minor importance.
The testimonies are too precise for it to be possible to deny
everything. Many of these cases, even when severely examined,
establish that there have been movements of objects without con
tact, and more especially noises that no ordinary mechanical cause
can explain. Is it not absurd to suppose that for weeks and
months cool-headed and responsible persons, closely watching the
so-called haunted house, have seen things that did not exist and
heard loud and terrifying noises produced by no living being? If
there were but one such case, and one such person, illusion or
hallucination might be invoked; but that is a childish explanation.
People say hallucination to dismiss a disquieting fact by a
convenient word; this is much too simple.
Collective hallucination is next advanced. But in this sense
there are no collective hallucinations. Alienists do not know of
any such phenomena.
I am aware that hysterics in a convent have often told wonder
ful stories of what one and another claim to have seen; I know,
too, that the inventions of myth-making hysterics have a large
592 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
place in their psychology, but these witnesses are neither nuns
nor hysterics.
It may be best to limit the recognized facts of haunting to acci
dental telekinesis.
Experimental telekinesis has been amply proved : then why not
admit that the phenomena in haunted houses are of the same order,
and that they are accidental phenomena of the same kind? That
makes them neither more nor less mysterious.
The striking similarity of the facts verified in Normandy, in
Ireland, in Scotland, in Georgia, in Russia, in Italy, and in Sicily
shows that even these unusual facts show definite sequences. If
they were purely fanciful the accounts would not be thus con
cordant.
In fact, all these matters belong to metapsychics. Formerly,
from 1885 to 1895, the members of the S. P. R. were inclined to
accept only telepathy as demonstrated and to deny clairvoyance
(non-telepathic cryptesthesia) and also all physical phenomena.
Podmore in particular reached the conclusion that there was noth
ing genuine but telepathy. But little by little our learned colleagues
of the S. P. R. have had to admit clairvoyance and physical phe
nomena. Short of wilful blindness, how can the facts produced
by Home and Eusapia be denied ?
Therefore, as experimental telekinesis is proved, accidental tele
kinesis must be admitted as being at least possible.
The principal objection advanced against accidental telekinesis
is not hallucination but trickery. It is said that when there are
strange, noises and displacements of objects, these are due to the
pranks of some vicious and malicious child who amuses himself
by practising on the curiosity of observers. But only in excep
tional cases can this hypothesis hold, for in most cases distrust was
intense and progressive.1
I remember once being asked the nave question, Have you
thought that you may have been hoaxed ? This fear has been my
chief, or even my only, anxiety throughout my experiments; and
I cannot imagine that in a haunted house, when strident noises and
cries are heard, when doors open and shut, that the sole concern
of straightforward and sensible persons should not be to find out
whether they are being hoaxed by some practical joker or some*
5
*T h e ju stifia b le s e v e r ity sh ow n in in v e stig a tio n c a n b e seen by reading F.
P. R.,
P o d m o re s c ritic ism ( P . ". The Alleged Haunting
x v , 98) o f the bo ok ,
of B. house, R ed w ay, 1899, b y M iss G o o d ric h Freer and the Marquis o f B u te.
HAUNTINGS 593
rogue who wants to rob them. Hallucination and trickery are two
hypotheses that are the refuge of those who do not wish to admit
the facts; for no one zvishes to admit them, and we naturally re
fuse to accept an unusual phenomenon. Nevertheless the unusual
does occur. Once the facts are admitted, the next thing is to ex
plain them; but their very strangeness defeats our endeavours.
When a phantom appears it seems natural to connect the fact
with some old tragedy, or even with an apprehension of death that
has survived its event. One is tempted to suppose an intention of
the deceased to prove his presence. This, however, is probably a
narrowly anthropomorphic notion; and rather than suppose the
problematical survival of a human consciousness and vague sym
bolism of human intentions, I prefer to say without false shame
that I do not understand. I therefore prefer to remain undecided,
remarking that my indecision is not directed to the facts, but only
to their explanation.
The stone-throwing, broken crockery, banging doors, and terri
fying cries are all so absurd, from the human point of view, that
the hypothesis of intention in the forces that produce this upset
of domestic objects is ridiculous and deserves no further con
sideration.
All hypotheses apart, the facts that emerge iron* a study of
hauntings may be summed up as follows:
1. In some places phantoms appear, sometimes to several per
sons in succession, sometimes collectively, keeping the same form
for weeks, or even months together. This affirmation is not yet
fully established and some scientific doubt is necessary.
2. In certain houses, usually without any phantom being per
ceptible, there are noises and movements of objects that cannot
be explained rationally. Most frequently these phenomena are
dependent upon some person who, perhaps without knowing or
willing it, plays the part of medium. Just as a medium in a spirit
ist sance causes displacements of chairs and musical boxes, so
mediums (who do not know themselves to be such) cause stones
to fall and violent blows to be struck on the walls.
This second statement seems to me impossible to dispute.
In other words most phenomena of haunting are due to spon
taneous telekinesis; but just because experimental telekinesis rests
on indisputable proofs, for the same reason should spontaneous
telekinesis, which rests on relatively infrequent and frail testi
594 PYSCHICAL RESEARCH
mony, be subject to rigid criticism. The phenomena of haunting
cannot be denied; we must even admit that they are very probably
true. But to say that they are probably true is to say that they are
not certain. Of all metapsychic phenomena these are the most
questionable.
We might even feel constrained to deny them resolutely were
it not that they are buttressed by the absolutely certain facts of
ectoplasms, premonitions, telekinesis, and monitions.
BOOK IV
C o n c l u s io n
I
I have now reached the end of this long investigation. I have
endeavoured, while giving a place, possibly too large a place, to my
own researches, to collect the documentary evidence very widely
scattered in many records, and to put some order into a matter
which up to the present has never been synthetically studied. I
have tried to extricate the sciences anathematized as occult from
the chaos in which they were involved, and to put in a clear light
knowledge that official science, in the pride of its reputation, has
refused to consider. It has seemed to me that the time has come
to claim for metapsychics a place among recognized sciences by
making it conform to the rigour and the logical treatment which
have given them their authority
Scientific men will be surprised, and perhaps indignant. But if
they have the wisdomthe elementary wisdom, as it seems to me
to consent to read this long and laborious study, they will be
obliged to give way before the evidence.
My intention will be evident from the contents of the book. I
have desired, while eliminating as far as possible everything
notoriously uncertain, and expressly stating my doubts as to cer
tain experiments, to present facts and observations, for these
are the foundation of every science.
Finally, it has appeared to me, as it will doubtless appear to
every impartial reader, that there are too many well-verified facts
and rigorously conducted experiments that chance, illusion, or
fraud should always be attributed to all these facts and experi
ments without exception.
But as the facts are very strange and the experiments seem to
clash so often with current scientific dogmas, the affirmations made
will give rise to strongly adverse criticism and to mocking in
credulity. This is the lot of all new ideas, and it moves me not at
595
596 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
all. I only hope, and surely this is not asking too much, that I
shall not be condemned unread. No one can form a serious and
considered opinion worthy of respect by casually turning over the
leaves of a book that sums up the labours of two hundred honest
and skilful workers. I would like to say to my critics, as did
Themistocles, Strike, but listen.
It troubles me more than in the camp of those who are not
sceptical I shall meet with very strong opposition. On the one
hand I have been willing to narrate many surprising facts admitted
by spiritualists, and on the other hand I have not felt able to adopt
their theories; for I have always sought to plant my feet firmly
on the earth and have preferred a rationalist explanation even
when it seems improbable. And, frankly, my position causes me
some pain.
In very many cases the spiritist hypothesis is obviously absurd
absurd because it is superfluousand again absurd because it
assumes that human beings of very moderate intelligence survive
the destruction of the brain. All the same, in certain casesrare
indeed, but whose significance I do not disguisethere are, ap
parently at least, intelligent and reasoned intentions, forces, and
wills in the phenomena produced; and the power has all the char
acter of extraneous energy (see p. 352, childrens death-beds).
In these cases the spiritualist explanation is much the simplest;
or, if some will not hear of that, the hypothesis that there are in
telligent beings that interpose in our lives and can exercise some
power over matter.
I do not seek to attenuate the bearing of these facts; but I can
not adopt the inference that there are spiritsintelligences out
side human intelligence. My inference is a different one; it is
that the human personality has both material and psychological
powers that we do not know.
And as this hypothesis by no means satisfies me, I will add, as a
final remark, that in our present state of knowledge we are not in
a position to understand.I
II
Our evolution takes place in the midst of the unknown; but
nevertheless two leading facts have been placed beyond doubt:
1. The human mind has other sources of cognition than the
normal sensescryptesthesia.
CONCLUSION 597
2. There are materializationspowers that, emerging from the
body, can take form and act as if they were material bodies
ectoplasms.
It seems to me that we can go no farther than cryptesthesia and
ectoplasms without being lost in mists.
What amazing stories I have heard, told me by witnesses of un
questionable good faith! But they had observed with greater
enthusiasm than critical accuracy, and when the matter concerns
highly improbable facts we cannot be satisfied with half proofs,
with experiments that are almost conclusive, or inferences that
are nearly certain. I have not included these allegations in my
book, even when I have reason to think them not unfounded. I
have not busied myself with problematical narratives, so that while
some may think me too credulous, many will think me too severely
critical.
Movement without contact, clairvoyance, phantoms, and pre
monitions are so very unusual that when we first hear of them we
are inclined to laugh at them. Till we have studied them we laugh
and deny. This was my state of mind for a very long time as it
was that of Crookes, Lombroso, Russel Wallace, Zllner, Oliver
Lodge, Morselli, and Bottazzi, and I shall therefore be in no way
surprised should my account of parallel facts provoke incredulity
and mockery. The less attention is given to reading, the greater
will be the disposition to ridicule.
Moreover, it is not argument that will bring conviction. Even
severe mathematical demonstration does not always convince. We
must be accustomed to a phenomenon before we can accept it.1
Ill
Perhapsand I admit itthe innumerable experiments pub
lished by eminent men of science would not have convinced me,
had I not been a witness of the four fundamental facts of meta
psychics. I was an unwilling witness, in no way enthusiastic, very
critical, extremely distrustful of the facts that forced themselves
upon me. I was able to verify, under unexceptionable conditions
1M. Thiers, ex-president o f the French Parliament, having determined to
acquire a knowledge o f mathematics in his old age, rebelled when his teacher
showed him that the section o f any cone at any angle with the axis showed a
regular ellipse. N ot possible," he said. "When a sugar-loaf is cut obliquely,
there must be a big and a little end." Not till an actual sugar-loaf had been
brought and cut would he admit conviction.
598 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
and despite my desire to disprove them, the four essential facts of
metapsychics.
These four personal experiences, all four of which carry ob
vious proof, determined my belief, and that not at once, but after
long consideration, meditation, and repetition:
A . Cryptesthesia. Stella, in presence of G., whose family she
does not and cannot have known, gave the first names of his son,
of his wife, of a deceased brother, of a living brother, of his
father-in-law, and of the locality where he lived as a child.
B. Telekinesis. While Eusapias head and hands were held, a
large melon weighing six pounds was moved from the sideboard
to the table, the distance between them being over a yard.
C. Ectoplasms. Eusapia was in half light, her left hand in my
right and her right in my left tightly held, and before Lodge,
Myers, and Ochorowicz, a third hand stroked my face, pinched my
nose, pulled my hair, and gave a smack on my shoulder heard by
Ochorowicz, Myers, and Lodge.
D. Premonitions. Alice, at 2 . . told me, for the first and
p m
only time, that I should soon give way to violent anger before
one, two, three persons whom she designated with her hand as if
she saw them. At 6 . . the unlikely and unforeseeable imperti
p m
Fig. 25. Comparison of the authentic signatures of the Syndic Chaumontet and
the Cur Burnier with those written by Helen Smith. The top and
bottom lines are from Helens hand.
( A f t e r F lo u rn o y , loc. cit., p. 409.)