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Title: Occultism and Common-Sense

Author: Beckles Willson

Author of introduction, etc.: Sir William Barrett

Release date: July 14, 2011 [eBook #36730]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCCULTISM

AND COMMON-SENSE ***
OCCULTISM AND COMMON-
SENSE
 BY BECKLES WILLSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
PROF. W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.

Past President of the Society for Psychical Research

LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE
CLIFFORD'S INN
E.C.
 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION vii
I. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL" 1
II. THE HYPNOTIC STATE 13
III. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING 35
IV. DREAMS 59
V. HALLUCINATIONS 82
VI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD 100
VII. ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA 124
VIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD 159
IX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 180
X. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 201
XI. THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS" 217
XII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY 235
XIII. CLAIRVOYANCE 251
XIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES 271
AFTERWORD 288
Publications of T. Werner Laurie.
 NOTE
The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment
thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in the
columns of The Westminster Gazette.
 INTRODUCTION
By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S.

Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for Psychical
Research were convinced from personal investigation and from the
testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and deception,
there existed an important body of facts, hitherto unrecognised by science,
which, if incontestably established, would be of supreme interest and
importance.
It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic
investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from
the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would be a
work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve continuity of
effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of which should be, as we
stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these obscure questions the same
spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to
solve so many problems once not less obscure nor less hotly debated. And
such success as the society has achieved is in no small measure due to the
wise counsel and ungrudging expenditure both of time and means which the
late Professor Henry Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to
give, to all the details of its work.
Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must recognise
the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has endeavoured to
maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the evidential value varies
enormously. The testimony of honest and even careful witnesses requires to
be received with caution, owing to the intrusion of two sources of error to
which untrained observers are very liable. These are unconscious mal-
observation and unintentional mis-description. I cannot here enter into the
proof of this statement, but it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a
credulous observer but a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to
these errors when, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical
phenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has hitherto
scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within my own
knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had frequently
scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in the
"Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," one day seriously
informed me he had been converted to a belief in thought-transference by
some conclusive experiments he had witnessed. Upon inquiring where these
experiments took place I found it was at a public performance of a very
inferior Zancig who was then touring through the provinces!
Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that "the light heart and open mind"
with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew his
labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he found
himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the numerous
and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society have had to
face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the available evidence,
and this study has convinced him—as it has convinced, so far as I know,
every other painstaking and honest inquirer—that no theories based on
fraud, illusion, nor even on telepathy, are adequate to account for the whole
of the phenomena he has reviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr
Willson tells us that he has been led to the conclusion that the only
satisfactory explanation of these phenomena is the action of discarnate
human beings—that is to say, the Spiritualistic hypothesis.
I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the
small residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other
hypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question arises,
Is the evidence on which it is based sufficiently abundant, trustworthy, and
conclusive, to warrant such a far-reaching statement? Here we must turn
from the author to ascertain what has been the conclusion arrived at by
those who have given long years to a searching experimental investigation
of these phenomena, and who have approached the subject in a scientific
and judicial spirit. The most noteworthy instance is the testimony of that
shrewd and able investigator, the late Dr Hodgson. His patient and
laborious inquiry into the trance phenomena of Mrs Piper ultimately led
him to the conclusion arrived at by Mr Willson. Dr Hodgson's well-known
exposure of Madame Blavatsky and other fraudulent mediums and his sane
and cautious judgment render his opinion of great weight. Then, again, we
find that this also was the conclusion to which Frederic Myers was
gradually driven. And long prior to this it was the conclusion arrived at by
that acute thinker, the late Professor de Morgan, and it is the conclusion
strongly held by the great naturalist, Dr A. R. Wallace, and held also by
several other eminent investigators I might name.
So momentous a conclusion, if capable of such complete verification as to
be universally accepted by science, would obviously throw all other
discoveries into the background. I say if capable of being verified by
scientific methods, but, although the weight of opinion will, in my opinion,
ultimately lead to a very wide acceptance of this conclusion, yet it seems to
me highly probable that the experimental discovery of the survival of
human personality after death will always elude conclusive scientific
demonstration. This particular field of psychical investigation belongs to an
order other than that with which science deals; and, this being so, it can
never be adequately investigated with the limited faculties we now possess.
In any case, as I said in a letter published in The Times, so long ago as
September 1876, before science is in a position to frame any satisfactory
hypothesis of the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena, a number of
antecedent questions will have to be investigated and decided. Prominent
among these, I urged more than thirty years ago, was the question whether
ideas or information can be voluntarily or involuntarily transferred from
one mind to another independently of the recognised organs of perception.
Experiments I had then recently made led me to the conclusion that
something new to science, which might provisionally be called thought-
transference, now known in its wider aspect as telepathy, did really exist.
This, if established, would, as I pointed out, unquestionably solve some of
the so-called spirit communications which had so puzzled investigators. But
the idea of thought-transference was at that time just as obnoxious to
official science as Spiritualism. Mr Willson quotes the implacable disbelief,
even in the possibility of telepathy, which that great man Helmholtz
expressed to me. And it is amusing now to recall the fierce outcry aroused
by the paper I read at the British Association meeting in 1876, when, after
narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had witnessed, I
asked that a committee of scientific men should be appointed to investigate
preliminary question of the possibility of thought-transference.[1] It is true
the evidence on behalf of telepathy has since become so abundant that now
few deny its probability, but even telepathy has not yet taken its place
among the recognised scientific verities. I hope this recognition will not be
long delayed, but until it occurs it is almost as illegitimate to use telepathy,
as some do so freely, for the foundation of their theories of transcendental
phenomena as to use the spiritualistic hypothesis itself.
To those who have carefully studied the evidence there is, however, little
doubt that telepathy does afford an adequate explanation of certain well-
attested phenomena, such as phantasms of the living or dying person. And
telepathy, which may now be considered as highly probable, leads on to the
evidence for man's survival after death—to this I will return later on.
Then, again, recent investigations have established the fact that the range
of human personality must be extended to include something more than our
normal self-consciousness. Our Ego is not the simple unitary thing older
psychologists taught, but a composite structure embracing a self that
extends far beyond the limit of our conscious waking life. Just as
experimental physics has shown that each pencil of sunlight embraces an
almost endless succession of invisible rays as well as the visible radiation
we perceive, so experimental psychology has shown that each human
personality embraces an unconscious as well as a conscious self. Mr Myers,
using Du Perl's conception of a threshold, has termed the former our
subliminal self. And just as the invisible radiation of the sun can only be
rendered perceptible by some agency outside our vision, so this subliminal
self reveals itself only by some agency outside our own volition. The
subliminal self not only contains the record of unheeded past impressions—
a latent memory—but also has activities and faculties far transcending the
range of our conscious self. In this it also resembles the invisible radiation
of the sun, which is the main source of life and energy in this world.
Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and repair
of our body and brain, which go on automatically and unconsciously within
us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious personality. All life shares
with us this miraculous automatism. No chemist, with all his appliances,
can turn breadstuff into brainstuff or hay into milk. Further, the subliminal
self seems to have faculties which can be emancipated from the limitations
of our ordinary life. Glimpses of this we get when the conscious self is in
abeyance, as in sleep, hypnosis, and trance. Here and there we find certain
individuals through whom this sub- or supra-liminal self manifests itself
more freely than through others; they have been termed "mediums," a word,
it is true, that suggests Browning's "Sludge." But, as scientific investigation
has shown all mesmerists and dowsers are not charlatans, so it has shown
all mediums are not rogues.
This extension of human faculty, revealing, as it does, more profoundly the
mysterious depths of our being, enables us to explain many phenomena that
have been attributed to discarnate human beings. The question arises, Does
it explain all so-called Spiritualistic phenomena? In my opinion, and in that
of others who have given more time to their critical investigation than I
have, it does not. At present we have to grope our way, but the ground is
being cleared, and the direction which the future explorer of these unknown
regions has to take is becoming more evident.
Occultism and Common-Sense
 CHAPTER I
SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE
"SUPERNATURAL"

When I first ventured into the wide and misty domain of Occultism, with a
light heart I set forth and an open mind. My sole aim was to ascertain, as far
as the means at the disposal of an ordinary man with little of the mystic in
his composition would allow, what degree of probability attached to
published phenomena, which the ordinary laws of Nature, as most of us
understand them, could not satisfactorily explain.
At the threshold of my inquiry, one prominent and, as it seemed to me,
disconcerting fact confronted me—namely, that although for a couple of
generations "supernatural" manifestations had been promiscuously
exhibited before the public, challenging full investigation and inviting
belief; although almost every day the newspapers report some striking case
of spirit apparition or materialisation, coincident dreams, clairvoyance,
trance utterances, or possession, often seemingly well attested; yet in spite
of all this testimony academic science continued to dispute the very basis of
such phenomena. Any investigator must needs recognise here a very
anomalous situation. On the one hand are, let us say, half-a-million people,
often highly intelligent, cultured, sane people, firmly protesting that they
have witnessed certain astonishing occult manifestations, and on the other
hand the Royal Society and the British Association, and other organised
scientific bodies established for the investigation of truth, absolutely
refusing to admit such evidence or to regard it seriously. Forty years ago
Faraday, besought to give his opinion, in this wise wrote: "They who say
they see these things are not competent witnesses of facts. It would be
condescension on my part to pay any more attention to them." Faraday's
attitude was that of Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Agassiz. The first-named,
however, rather gave away his prejudice by saying: "Supposing the
phenomena to be genuine, they do not interest me." Tyndall's utterance also
deserves to be recalled: "There are people amongst us who, it is alleged, can
produce effects before which the discoveries of Newton pale. There are men
of science who would sell all that they have, and give the proceeds to the
poor, for a glimpse of phenomena which are mere trifles to the spiritualist."
He added: "The world will have religion of some kind, even though it
should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of spiritualism." Spencer's
words were: "I have settled the question in my own mind on à priori
grounds." Professor Carpenter called spiritualism "a most mischievous
epidemic delusion, comparable to the witchcraft delusion of the seventeenth
century."
What, then, has happened to strengthen the case of the believers in ghosts,
clairvoyance, thought-transference, sensory automatism, in, say, the last
quarter of a century? What new evidence exists which would make the mid-
Victorian scientific men reconsider their position? Suppose Faraday and
Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall, were alive to-day, would they see reason to
alter their opinions?
I remember once—and I now give it as typical—overhearing a psychical
experience. It was in a first-class compartment on a train coming from
Wimbledon. One of my fellow-passengers, an intelligent, well-spoken man
of about thirty-five, was relating to three friends the following extraordinary
story. As nearly as I can recollect, I give the narrator's own words:—

"One week ago last Tuesday, at eleven o'clock at night, my wife, who
had just retired to bed upstairs, called out to me: 'Arthur! Arthur!' in a
tone of alarm. I sprang up and ran upstairs to see what was the matter.
The servants had all gone to bed. 'Arthur,' said my wife, 'I've just seen
mother,' and she began to cry. 'Why,' I said, 'your mother's at
Scarborough.' 'I know,' she said; 'but she appeared before me just there'
(pointing to the foot of the bed) 'two minutes ago as plainly as you do.'
Well, the next morning there was a telegram on the breakfast-table:
'Mother, died at eleven last night.' Now, how do you account for it?"

There was silence for a full minute.

"A wonderful coincidence. Your wife's hallucination coincided with her
mother's death!"
Another occupant of the carriage caught up the word:
"Yes, coincidence. A thing which mightn't happen once in a million years."
Nobody else ventured a remark. Yet they seemed unconvinced. There was
no one to tell them—even I did not know then—that these "coincidences"
were constantly happening, every year, perhaps every month; that an
intelligent body of men—the Society for Psychical Research—has made a
census of such hallucinations, all apparently well attested; that newspapers
devoted to occult matters constantly record these things; that volumes—
monthly, weekly, almost—fairly pour from the press detailing, expounding,
dissecting, elaborating such evidence; that the theory of coincidence has
already been rejected by many men of the first rank of science; and that
official science itself is reluctantly reconsidering its position in more than
one direction.
Yet so slowly do the masses move in intellectual life, so tardily do truths,
concerning not merely occult but physical and material investigation,
percolate through to the workaday world, that the researches, the activities,
the ascertained truths of students of psychical phenomena are as a closed
book. Perhaps the attitude of apathy with which occult phenomena and
occult science are regarded by the average man is not unnatural. To him all
miracles that are not Scriptural and ancient and, as it were, institutional are
highly improbable, if not impossible. All super-naturalism, he will tell you,
is morbid. "There may be something in these things," he says, "but it is not
proved. As for spiritualism, my belief is that mediums are impostors. Most
of the spiritualists I have seen are 'cranks'—they are certainly dupes—and I
have no doubt that if I interested myself in these matters I should end by
becoming also a 'crank.'"
This I maintain is the position of the ordinarily educated normal man.
"The moment," wrote Lord Lytton, "one deals with things beyond our
comprehension, and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled,
we revolt from the probable, as it appears to the senses of those who have
not experienced what we have." Now, that is just what the candid inquirer
must avoid throughout his inquiry. It is often difficult to resist employing
supernormal hypotheses; but, until normal hypotheses are exhausted, the
resistance must be made. On the other hand, it is well to bear in mind Mr
Andrew Lang's timely remark, "there is a point at which the explanations of
common-sense arouse scepticism."
At all events, not even the most materialistic man-in-the-music-hall, with
two eyes in his head, can deny that the great wave of occultism, which
twenty years ago seemed to be receding, is again returning with greater
force and volume, submerging many of the old sceptical theories and
wetting even the utterly callous and ignorant with its spray. It is not so long
ago that the very fact of hypnotism was doubted—Mesmer was long
regarded as a mere quack—but to-day the induced trance is universally
credited. To hypnotism must the miracle of telepathy now be added? Has it
really been ascertained, after a thousand experiments and beyond the
possibility of error, that a mode of apprehension exists which has no
connection with the five senses? For twenty-five years the members of the
Society of Psychical Research have carried on their investigations of both
sleeping and waking subjects, under every conceivable condition, and are at
last fain to announce that such a mystic faculty does exist by which brain
can communicate with brain without any known sensory agency.
As to the kind of "ghost" story recorded above, what an exact analogy it
bears to the following, to be found in a recent volume of the "Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Research!" The statement was received from a
Madame Broussiloff, of St Petersburg:—

"On the 16th (28th) of February of this year, between nine and ten
o'clock in the evening, I, the undersigned, was sitting in our drawing-
room—the small one—facing the large drawing-room, which I could
see in its entire length. My husband, his brother, with his wife, and my
mother, were also sitting in the same room with me round a large
round table. I was writing down my household accounts for the day,
while the others were carrying on some gay conversation. Having
accidentally raised my head and looked into the large drawing-room, I
noticed, with astonishment, that a large grey shadow had passed from
the door of the dining-room to that of the antechamber; and it came
into my head that the figure I had seen bore a striking resemblance in
stature to Colonel Ave-Meinander, an acquaintance of ours, who had
lived in this very lodging for a long time. At the first moment, I wished
to say at once that a ghost had just flashed before me, but stopped, as I
 was afraid of being laughed at by my husband's brother and his wife,
and also of being scolded by my husband, who, in view of the
excitement which I showed when such phenomena were taking place,
tried to convince me that they were the fruits of my fancy. As I knew
that Meinander was alive and well, and was commander of the
Malorossüsky 40th Regiment of Dragoons, I did not say anything then;
but when I was going to bed I related to my mother what I had seen,
and the next morning could not refrain from mentioning it to my
husband.
"Our astonishment was extreme when, on the 18th of February (2nd of
March), we learned Nicholas Ottovitch Ave-Meinander had actually
died after a short illness on the 16th (28th) of February at nine o'clock
in the evening, in the town of Strashovo, where his regiment is
stationed.
"The above account is confirmed by the percipient's mother, Marie von
Hagemeister, and by the husband, Colonel Alexis Alexeievitch
Broussiloff. Both state solemnly that Colonel Meinander died at nine
P.M. on the evening of 16th February (28th) at Stashovo, 1200 versts
from St Petersburg."

To explain this phenomenon in the terms of telepathy, the grey shadow seen
by Madame Broussiloff was not a ghost, not the "bodiless spirit in the
likeness of a man," but "a waking dream projected from the brain of the
seer under the impulse of the dying man's thought."
But telepathy itself requires consideration and explanation. Sir William
Crookes has repeatedly given publicity to his theory of brain-waves and to a
kindred conception of ether substance, along which intelligence can be
transmitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to virtually interminable
distances.
That mind should effect mind in a new mode may mean no more than that
brain can act upon brain by means of ethereal vibrations hitherto
unsuspected. The power itself may be but a lingering vestige of our
inheritance from primeval times, a long-disused faculty "dragged from the
dim lumber-room of a primitive consciousness, and galvanised into a
belated and halting activity."
Or, on the other hand, may not such faculty be regarded not as vestigial, but
as rudimentary? Telepathy, if we follow the gifted author of "Human
Personality," is a promise for the future, not an idle inheritance from the
past.
Our business now is, all mystic speculations apart, to consider the
phenomena in the order in which, if not yet actually accepted, they would
seem to evoke least opposition from the academic science of the day. What
is the net result of the evidence for all classes of supernormal phenomena?
That I shall endeavour to point out, as concisely and lucidly as I can, in the
following chapters.
 CHAPTER II
THE HYPNOTIC STATE

Not least of the wonders of modern psychical research is the discovery that
nothing in all the phenomena is new—that under other names and by other
races every sort of manifestation was familiar to the most remote peoples.
This would certainly seem to meet the argument of the physicist—it is not
necessary to refer again to Professor Tyndall's uncomplimentary
phraseology—who declares that all this popular occultism is a product of
the last generation or two. Take hypnotism. Hypnotism (or mesmerism) was
formerly alleged to be an emanation from the body—an effluence of intense
will-power. The belief in such an emanation is centuries old. "By the magic
power of the will," wrote Paracelsus, "a person on this side of the ocean
may make a person on the other side hear what is said on that side ... the
ethereal body of a man may know what another man thinks at a distance of
100 miles or more." Twenty years ago this creed was laughed out of court
by Huxley, Tyndall, and other leading men of science. To-day we are told
by those who have witnessed the experiments of Charcot, Janet, and others
that "the existence of an aura of spirit-force surrounding the body like an
atmosphere, in some cases at all events, can be proved as a physical fact."
Whatever the explanation, whatever the definition of this miraculous
agency, hypnotism is now universally accepted. The manifestations of its
power must convince the most sceptical. A spell-bound subject is frequently
made to share the sensations of the hypnotist, his ocular perceptions and his
sense of touch. In the hypnotic sleep the subject easily becomes insensible
to pain. A member of the Society reports that he has seen a youth in this
condition who suffered gladly the most injurious attacks upon his own
person—who would allow his hair to be pulled, his ears pinched, his fingers
even to be scorched by lighted matches. But the same youth would next
moment indignantly resent the slightest injury upon his hypnotiser, who
would at the time be standing at the other end of the room.
One thing in common all the hypnotic methods appear to possess, the
diversion of attention from external surroundings and the working of a sub-
consciousness in a manner not characteristic of the ordinary life of the
subject. In cases described by Mr Greenwood no difficulty was encountered
in impersonations suggested to the subject unless they savoured too much
of the ridiculous. "Thus," he writes, "a suggestion that M., the subject, was
myself and that I was he succeeded; and in his reverse capacity he
continued the course of experiments upon himself, devising several original
and ingenious varieties to which I, for the sake of the experiment,
acquiesced in subjecting myself. He also behaved with considerable dignity
and verve as King Edward VII., until I threw a match at his head, a
proceeding which appeared to conflict so strongly with dramatic
verisimilitude that he lapsed back into his ordinary hypnotic condition, nor
could I reinduce the impersonation. On the other hand, statements that he
was the Emperor of China, and that he was a nurse and I a baby, failed to
carry any conviction, being either received with passive consent or rejected
with scorn." It is interesting to note that in the waking state of the subject he
explained that he was only conscious that he was not the characters he was
bidden to assume, and if asked would have said as much, but that he was
irresistibly impelled to act as though he were.
The production of sleep in the subject at a distance is one of the latest
attested marvels of hypnotism. The long series of experiments made in
France by Professor Richet and Professor Janet would appear to attest this
power. In some trials made at Havre, in which the experimenters were
Professor Janet and Dr Gibert, the subject of the experiment was a certain
Madame B. or "Léonie," then a patient of Dr Gibert. The facts were
recorded by the late F. W. Myers and his brother, Dr A. T. Myers, who were
present:

"We selected (he states) by lot an hour (eleven A.M.) at which M.

Gibert should will, from his dispensary (which is close to his house),
that Madame B. should go to sleep in the Pavilion. It was agreed that a
rather longer time should be allowed for the process to take effect, as it
had been observed that she sometimes struggled against the influence
and averted the effect for a time by putting her hands in cold water,
etc. At 11.25 we entered the Pavilion quietly, and almost at once she
descended from her room to the salon, profoundly asleep. We did not,
of course, mention M. Gibert's attempt of the previous night. But she
told us in her sleep that she had been very ill in the night, and
repeatedly exclaimed: 'Pourquoi M. Gibert m'a-t-il fait souffrir? Mais
j'ai lavé les mains continuellement.' This is what she does when she
wishes to avoid being influenced.
"In the evening (22nd) we all dined at M. Gibert's, and in the evening
M. Gibert made another attempt to put her to sleep at a distance from
his house in the Rue Sery—she being at the Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme
—and to bring her to his house by an effort of will. At 8.55 he retired
to his study; and MM. Ochorowicz, Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers
went to the Pavilion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of
the house. At 9.22 Dr Myers observed Madame B. coming half way
out of the garden gate, and again retreating. Those who saw her more
closely observed that she was plainly in the somnambulistic state and
was wandering about and muttering. At 9.25 she came out with eyes
persistently closed, so far as could be seen, walked quickly past MM.
Janet and Marillier without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's
house, though not by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared
afterwards that the bonne had seen her go into the salon at 8.45 and
issue thence asleep at 9.15; had not looked in between those times.)
She avoided lamp-posts, vehicles, etc., but crossed and recrossed the
street repeatedly. No one went in front of her or spoke to her. After
eight or ten minutes she grew more uncertain in gait, and paused as
though she would fall. Dr Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure; it
was 9.35. At about 9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 reached the street
in front of M. Gibert's house. There she met him, but did not notice
him, and walked into his house, where she rushed hurriedly from room
to room on the ground floor. M. Gibert had to take her hand before she
recognised him. She then grew calm.
"On the 23rd M. Janet lunched in our company and retired to his own
house at 4.30 (a time chosen by lot), to try to put her to sleep from
thence. At 5.5 we all entered the salon of the Pavilion, and found her
asleep with shut eyes, but sewing vigorously (being in that stage in
which movements once suggested are automatically continued).
Passing into the talkative stage, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui
m'avez fait dormir à quatre heures et demi.' The impression as to the
 hour may have been a suggestion received from M. Janet's mind. We
tried to make her believe that it was M. Gibert who had sent her to
sleep, but she maintained that she had felt that it was M. Janet.
"On 24th April the whole party chanced to meet at M. Janet's house at
three P.M., and he then, at my suggestion, entered his study to will that
Madame B. should sleep. We waited in his garden, and at 3.20
proceeded together to the Pavilion, which I entered first at 3.30, and
found Madame B. profoundly sleeping over her sewing, having ceased
to sew. Becoming talkative, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui
m'avez commandé.' She said that she fell asleep at 3.5 P.M."

Of the twenty-five trials made in the course of two months, eighteen were
wholly and four partially successful.
This somnolent state might, it is thought, have been induced by telepathy;
in fact, as we shall see, telepathy will in some quarters have to bear the
burden of most, if not all, of the phenomena under investigation.
Not only is the hypnotic subject frequently induced to do the will of the
operator, but he may actually have presented to his intelligence certain ideas
or images, material or imaginary, known only to the hypnotiser. After
following carefully all the experiments conducted by the late Professor
Sidgwick and others, in the presence of witnesses of repute, I do not see
how it is possible to deny the fact of telepathy. In these experiments the
subject or percipient was always hypnotised, remaining so to a varying
degree throughout the experiment.
Albeit, even as regards this thought-transference, we must be on our guard
against a too rash acceptance of unknown or supernormal agencies in every
bona-fide experiment. Certainly all experiments of the hypnotiser do not
ipso facto prove that any new method of apprehension has been employed.
The hypnotised subject is extremely susceptible to suggestions, and might
even glean an indication of what is proceeding through the look, the
gestures, the very breathing, of those present. The utmost precautions,
therefore, were taken by the Society for Psychical Research when it began
its experimental inquiries.
The subject of the picture was always carefully chosen by one of the
experimenters—Mrs Sidgwick or Miss Alice Johnson. Any possibility of
the percipient being able to guess at the subject through chance, association,
or ideas was rigorously excluded. To prevent any hint being unconsciously
imparted by the third experimenter, Mr G. A. Smith, silence was enjoined
upon him, and he was placed behind the percipient or in another room; yet
the percipient actually saw and described the projecting impression as if it
were a real picture before his eyes. When Mr Smith went downstairs with
Miss Johnson he was asked by her to think of an eagle pursuing a sparrow.
Mrs Sidgwick, who remained upstairs with P., the percipient, in a few
minutes induced him to see a round disc of light on the imaginary lantern-
sheet, and then he saw in it "something like a bird," which disappeared
immediately. He went on looking (with closed eyes, of course), and
presently he thought he saw "something like a bird—something like an
eagle." After a pause he said: "I thought I saw a figure there—I saw 5. The
bird's gone. I see 5 again; now it's gone. The bird came twice." Mr Smith
then came upstairs, and P. had another impression of an eagle. He was told
that the eagle was right, and there was something else besides, no hint being
given of what the other thing was. He then said that the first thing he saw
"was a little bird—a sparrow, perhaps—he could not say—about the size of
a sparrow; then that disappeared, and he saw the eagle. He had told Mrs
Sidgwick so at the time."
We see the mental machinery at work in another case, where the subject
agreed upon was "The Babes in the Wood." To begin with, P. sat with
closed eyes, but, when no impression came, Mr Smith opened his eyes,
without speaking, and made him look for the picture on a card. After we
had waited a little while in vain, Mr Smith said to him: "Do you see
something like a straw hat?" P. assented to this, and then began to puzzle
out something more: "A white apron, something dark—a child. It can't be
another child, unless it's a boy—a boy and a girl—the boy to the right and
the girl to the left. Little girl with white socks on and shoes with straps." Mr
Smith asked: "What are they doing? Is it two children on a raft at sea?" P.:
"No; it's like trees in the background—a copse or something. Like a fairy-
story—like babes in a wood or something."
We see it in an even more pronounced degree where the subject sat on a
sailing boat. Miss Johnson, who did not know what the subject of the
picture was, asked Miss B. whether it was anything like an animal. Miss B.
said: "No; got some prong sort of things—something at the bottom like a
little boat. What can that be up in the air? Cliffs, I suppose—cliffs in the air
high up—it's joining the boat. Oh, sails!—a sailing-boat—not cliffs—sails."
This was not all uttered consecutively, but partly in answer to questions put
by Miss Johnson; but, as Miss Johnson was ignorant of the supposed
picture, her questions could, of course, give no guidance.
Many experiments have been made in the transference of imaginary scenes,
where both operator and subject have attempted to attain a conscious unity
of ideas by means of rough drawings. A slight sketch was made, which was
then projected to the brain of the percipient, who proceeded to reproduce
the unseen, often with amazing fidelity.
In these experiments actual contact was forbidden, to avoid the risk of
unconscious indications by pressure. In many cases, however, the agent and
percipient have been in the same room, and there has therefore still been
some possible risk of unconscious whispering; but this risk has been
successfully avoided. It yet remains doubtful how far close proximity really
operates in aid of telepathy, or how far its advantage is a mere effect of self-
suggestion—on the part either of agent or percipient. Some experimenters
—notably the late Mr Kirk and Mr Glardon—have obtained results of just
the same type at distances of half-a-mile or more. In the case of induction of
hypnotic trance, Dr Gibert, as we have seen, attained at the distance of
nearly a mile results which are commonly believed to exact close and actual
presence.
Hypnotic agencies, according to Myers, may be simplified into suggestion
and self-suggestion. The same author defines suggestion as "successful
appeal to the subliminal self." Many striking cases of moral reforms
produced by this means have been recorded by Dr Auguste Voisin. For
instance:

"In the summer of 1884 there was at the Salpêtrière a young woman of
a deplorable type. Jeanne Sch—— was a criminal lunatic, filthy in
habits, violent in demeanour, and with a lifelong history of impurity
and theft. M. Voisin, who was one of the physicians on the staff,
undertook to hypnotise her on 31st May, at a time when she could only
 be kept quiet by the strait jacket and bonnet d'irrigation, or perpetual
cold douche to the head. She would not—indeed, she could not—look
steadily at her operator, but raved and spat at him. M. Voisin kept his
face close to hers and followed her eyes wherever she moved them. In
about ten minutes a stertorous sleep ensued, and in five minutes more
she passed into a sleep-waking state, and began to talk incoherently.
The process was repeated on many days, and gradually she became
sane when in the trance, though she still raved when awake. Gradually,
too, she became able to obey in waking hours commands impressed on
her in the trance—first trivial orders (to sweep the room and so forth),
then orders involving a marked change of behaviour. Nay, more; in the
hypnotic state she voluntarily expressed repentance for her past life,
made a confession which involved more evil than the police were
cognisant of (though it agreed with facts otherwise known), and finally
of her own impulse made good resolves for the future. Two years later
(31st July 1886) M. Voisin wrote that she was then a nurse in a Paris
hospital, and that her conduct was irreproachable. It appeared then that
this poor woman, whose history since the age of thirteen had been one
of reckless folly and vice, had become capable of the steady, self-
controlled work of a nurse at a hospital, the reformed character having
first manifested itself in the hypnotic state, partly in obedience to
suggestion, and partly as the natural result of the tranquilisation of
morbid passions."

There is a mass of evidence to testify to the marvellous cures that have been
effected in this way. Kleptomania, dipsomania, nicotinism, morphinomania,
and several varieties of phobies have all been known to yield to hypnotic
suggestion. Nor is it always necessary that the mind of the patient should be
influenced by another person; self-suggestion is at times equally
efficacious. Here is a case in point, taken from "Proceedings," vol. xi. p.
427. The narrator is Dr D. J. Parsons.

"Sixteen years ago I was a little sick; took half-a-grain of opium, and
lay down upon the bed. Soon, as I began to feel the tranquillising
effect of the opium, I saw three men approaching me; the one in front
said: 'You smoke too much tobacco.' I replied: 'I know I do.' He then
said: 'Why don't you quit it?' I answered by saying: 'I have been
 thinking about it, but I am afraid I can't.' He extended his right arm,
and placing his forefinger very near my face gave it a few very
significant shakes, said, in a very impressive manner: 'You will never
want to use tobacco any more as long as you live.' He continued by
saying: 'You swear sometimes.' I answered: 'Yes.' He said: 'Will you
promise to quit?' I intended to say 'Yes,' but just as I was about to utter
the word yes, instantly a change came over me, and I felt like I had
been held under some unknown influence, which was suddenly
withdrawn or exhausted. I had been a constant smoker for more than
twenty years.
"Since the occurrence of the above incident I have not touched
tobacco; have felt ever since like it would poison me, and I now feel
like one draw at the pipe would kill me instantly. My desire for
tobacco was suddenly and effectually torn out by the roots, but perhaps
I shall never know just how it was done.
"D. J. PARSONS, M.D.
"Sweet Springs, Missouri."

It would seem in the above case that the suggestibility was heightened by
the use of opium, which at the same time developed a monitory
hallucination.
Leading men of science now hold that the popular belief in the dangers of
hypnotism is grossly exaggerated, it being far less open to abuse than
chloroform. Nevertheless some danger is only too manifest, and Parliament
may yet be asked to do what Continental governments have done—viz. to
make the practice of hypnotism, save under proper medical supervision, a
punishable offence. As an illustration of these dangers I may mention the
testimony of an operator given before the Psychical Research Society.
Owing to the ready susceptibility of one subject he began to fear that he
might acquire an influence which might be inconvenient to both, and so
enjoined that he should be unable to hypnotise him unless he previously
recited a formula asking the operator to do so. After several failures he
states: "I eventually succeeded in impressing this so strongly upon him that
it became absolutely effective, and the formula became requisite, for I could
not, even with the utmost co-operation on his part, influence him in the
least. One night, however, after retiring to bed I was surprised by his
entering the room with the request that I should waken him. I expressed
astonishment and asked whether he was really asleep. He assured me that
he was, and explained that while he had been conversing in the drawing-
room after dinner, other persons being present, he had experimentally
recited the formula sotto voce and had immediately, unperceived by myself
or others in the room, gone off in the hypnotic state and could not get out of
it again. I protested that this was an extremely unfair trick both on himself
and on me, and to guard against its recurrence I enjoined that in future a
mere repetition of the formula should not suffice, but that it should be
written down, signed and handed to me. This has hitherto proved
completely successful, and in the absence of the document no efforts on the
part of either of us has had any effect whatever."
It would seem, however, that the hypnotic subject is by no means entirely at
the mercy of the operator. Thus Dr Milne Bramwell, in "Proceedings," vol.
xii. pp. 176-203, cites a number of cases in which suggestions had been
refused by hypnotic subjects. He also mentions two subjects who had
rejected certain suggestions and accepted others. A Miss F., for example,
recited a poem, but would not help herself to a glass of water from the
sideboard; while a Mr G. would play one part, but not others, and
committed an imaginary crime. Dr Bramwell comes to the following
conclusion:—

"The difference between the hypnotised and the normal subject, as it

appears to me from a long series of observed facts, is not so much in
conduct as in increased mental and physical powers. Any changes in
the moral sense, I have noticed, have invariably been for the better, the
hypnotised subject evincing superior refinement. As regards obedience
to suggestion, there is apparently little to choose between the two. A
hypnotised subject, who has acquired the power of manifesting various
physical and mental phenomena, will do so, in response to suggestion,
for much the same reasons as one in the normal condition.... When the
act demanded is contrary to the moral sense, it is usually refused by
the normal subject, and invariably by the hypnotised one."

The hypnotic state evinces an extraordinary extension of faculty. Dr

Bramwell's remarkable series of experiments on "time appreciation" shows
that orders were carried out by the subject at expiration of such periods as
20,290 minutes from the beginning of the order. In her normal state the
female subject of this experiment was incapable of correctly calculating
how many days and hours 20,290 minutes would make, and even in her
hypnotised condition could reckon only with errors; yet, what is singular to
relate, even when a blunder was made in the former calculation the order of
the hypnotist was none the less fulfilled when the correct period expired.
The conclusion is not easy to avoid: that beneath the stratum of human
consciousness brought to the surface by hypnotism there is one—perhaps
two—"subliminal" strata more alert and more capable than our ordinary
workaday ego.
What light this theory of a "subliminal" self will shed on our subject we will
see when we come to discuss clairvoyance and the trance utterances of the
spiritualistic "medium."
 CHAPTER III
PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING

We have seen that the hypnotic agent is able to project from his own brain
certain thoughts and images into the mind of the percipient. "When," writes
Professor Barrett, "the subject was in the state of trance or profound
hypnotism, I noticed that not only sensations, but also ideas or emotions,
occurring in the operator appeared to be reproduced in the subject without
the intervention of any sign, or visible or audible communication.... In
many other ways I convinced myself that the existence of a distinct idea in
my own mind gave rise to some image of the idea in the subject's mind, not
always a clear image, but one that could not fail to be recognised as a more
or less distorted reflection of my own thought. The important point is that
every care was taken to prevent any unconscious muscular action of the
face, or otherwise giving any indication to the subject."
This presumed mode of communication between one individual and
another, without the intervention of any known sense, Professor Barrett,
arguing on electrical analogies, is inclined to suggest might be due to some
form of nervous induction. But is this faculty restricted in its operation to a
hypnotised subject? If it were, the significance of the phenomena would be
very much lessened. We should leave telepathy out of our account. But it is
not so restricted. The ideas and images are capable of being projected not
only to a hypnotised person, but to one who is apparently not under any
hypnotic influence whatever. Yet we still must be careful of how we call in
the aid of any "supernatural" agency to account for the influences I am
about to relate—the translation of ideas and motor impulses from one
person to another without the aid of any known sense. The transference of
pictures which we described in the last article has been achieved in
hundreds of cases by an agent upon a hypnotised percipient. Here we have
telepathy apparently at work, but not, however, at any great distance, nor
successful in conjuring up really vivid or ominous hallucinations. The
scientific term for these is "sensory automatisms," and many instances of
these are given by Edmund Gurney, author of "Phantasms of the Living."
At an early period the Society for Psychical Research began a "Census of
Hallucinations," which, with Gurney's book, now renders it possible for us
to consider these phenomena with some certainty. The net result of all this
investigation would seem to demonstrate that a large number of sensory
automatisms occur amongst sane and healthy persons. We will later
consider what difficulty lies in the way of attributing to telepathy the bulk
of these phenomena. There is a widely accepted theory that telepathy is
propagated by brain-waves, or, in Sir W. Crooke's phraseology, by ether-
waves, of even smaller amplitude and greater frequency than those which
carry X-rays. Such waves are supposed to pass from one brain to another,
arousing in the second brain an excitation of image similar to the excitation
or image from which they start in the first place. It has been pointed out that
on this view there is no theoretical reason for limiting telepathy to human
beings. Why may not the impulse pass between men and the lower animals,
or between the lower animals themselves?
I myself have exhumed from the records a case in point. General J. C.
Thompson describes a remarkable apparition of a dog, with every mark of
reality, at the time when the dog was killed in a city more than a hundred
miles distant. General Thompson says:

"Jim, the dog whose ghost I refer to, was a beautiful collie, the pet of
my family, residing at Cheyenne, Wyoming. His affectionate nature
surpassed even that of his kind. He had a wide celebrity in the city as
'the laughing dog,' due to the fact that he manifested his recognition of
acquaintances and love for his friends by a joyful laugh, as
distinctively such as that of any human being.
"One evening in the fall of 1905, about 7.30 P.M., I was walking with
a friend on Seventeenth Street in Denver, Colorado. As we approached
the entrance to the First National Bank, we observed a dog lying in the
middle of the pavement, and on coming up to him I was amazed at his
perfect likeness to Jim in Cheyenne. The identity was greatly fortified
by his loving recognition of me, and the peculiar laugh of Jim's
accompanying it. I said to my friend that nothing but the 105 miles
between Denver and Cheyenne would keep me from making oath to
the dog being Jim, whose peculiarities I explained to him.
 "The dog astral or ghost was apparently badly hurt—he could not rise.
After petting him and giving him a kind adieu, we crossed over Stout
Street and stopped to look at him again. He had vanished. The next
morning's mail brought a letter from my wife saying that Jim had been
accidentally killed the evening before at 7.30 P.M. I shall always
believe it was Jim's ghost I saw."

This story, circumstantially narrated by an American general, recalls Mr

Rider Haggard's celebrated dream that he saw his dog, Bob, in a dying
condition, probably about three hours after the dog's death.
But we need not pause on such bypaths as these.
Perhaps the simplest form of thought-transference at a distance is that in
which we find a vague mental unrest, unaccompanied by any visual or
auditory hallucination. Cases are not infrequently met with where the
patient suffers from acute depression and anxiety which are not connected
at the time with any definite event. The Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research, July, 1895, yields the following.
Miss W. writes:

"On January 17th of this year (1895) I was haunted all day with an
indefinable dread, amounting to positive terror if I yielded in the least
to its influence. A little before six o'clock I went to my maid's room
and casually inquired of her whether she believed in presentiments.
She answered: 'Don't let them get hold of you; it is a bad habit.' I
replied: 'This is no ordinary presentiment. All day long I have felt that
something terrible is impending; of what nature I do not know. I have
fought against it, but to no purpose. It is a terror I am positively
possessed with.' I was proceeding to describe it in fuller detail, when
my mother entered the room with a telegram in her hand. One glance
at her face told me that my foreboding had not been a groundless
depression. The telegram was to the effect that my brother had been
taken very ill at Cambridge and needed my mother at once to nurse
him.
"I presume that the intensity of my foreboding was due to the very
serious nature of his illness.
 "I experienced at different times what are in common parlance termed
'presentiments'; but only on one other occasion has the same peculiar
terror (a chilling conviction of impending trouble) beset me."

This is corroborated both by the maid and Miss W.'s brother, an

undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, who had met with a serious
accident the same afternoon. The affection between brother and sister was,
it is related, very close.
Of a well-known type of case the following is a good example. The Hon.
Mrs Fox Powys is the narrator:—

"July 1882.
"I was expecting my husband home, and shortly after the time he
ought to have arrived (about ten P.M.) I heard a cab drive up to the
door, the bell ring, my husband's voice talking with the cabman, the
front door open and his step come up the stairs. I went to the drawing-
room, opened it, and to my astonishment saw no one. I could hardly
believe he was not there, the whole thing was so vivid, and the street
was particularly quiet at the time. About twenty minutes or so after this
my husband really arrived, though nothing sounded to me more real
than it did the first time. The train was late, and he had been thinking I
might be anxious."

In response to further inquiries, Mrs Powys added:

"To me the whole thing was very noisy and real, but no one else can
have heard anything, for the bell I heard ring was not answered. It was
a quiet street in town, and there was no vehicle of any kind passing at
the time; and on finding no one on the landing as I expected, I went at
once to the window, and there was nothing to be seen, and no sound to
be heard, which would have been the case had the cab been driven
off."

Here the expectation of Mr Fox Powys' arrival seems to have caused an

auditory hallucination. In other cases of a similar nature the hallucination is
visual, the percipient actually seeing the figure of the expected person.
The authors of "Phantasms of the Living" give the following case as an
"interesting puzzle" and invite the reader to decide whether or not it affords
evidence for telepathy. The narrator, Mr W. A. S., is described as an
unexceptionable witness who has never had any other visual hallucination.

"January 14th, 1883.

"In the month of April 1871, about two o'clock in the afternoon, I was
sitting in the drawing-room of my father's house in Pall Mall. The
window of the room fronted south; and the sun was shining brightly in
at the window. I was sitting between the fireplace and the window,
with my back to the light; my niece was sitting on the opposite side of
the fireplace; and opposite me at the farther corner of the room was a
door partly open, leading directly to the staircase. I saw what I
supposed at the first moment to be dirty soapy water running in at the
door; and I was in the act of jumping up to scold the housemaid for
upsetting the water, when I saw that the supposed water was the tail or
train of a lady's dress. The lady glided in backwards, as if she had been
slid in on a slide, each part of her dress keeping its place without
disturbance. She glided in till I could see the whole of her, except the
tip of her nose, her lips and the tip of her chin, which were hidden by
the edge of the door. Her head was slightly turned over her shoulder,
and her eye also turned, so that it appeared fixed upon me. She held
her arm, which was a very fine one, in a peculiar way, as if she were
proud of it. She was dressed in a pale blue evening dress, worked with
white lace. I instantly recognised the figure as that of a lady whom I
had known some twenty-five years or more before; and with whom I
had frequently danced. She was a bright, dashing girl, a good dancer,
and we were good friends, but nothing more. She had afterwards
married and I had occasionally heard of her, but do not think I had seen
her for certainly more than twenty or twenty-five years. She looked
much as I used to see her—with long curls and bright eyes, but
perhaps something stouter and more matronly.
"I said to myself: 'This is one of those strange apparitions I have often
heard of. I will watch it as carefully as I can.' My niece, who did not
see the figure, in the course of a minute or two exclaimed: 'Uncle A.,
what is the matter with you? You look as if you saw a ghost!' I
 motioned her to be quiet, as I wished to observe the thing carefully;
and an impression came upon me that if I moved, the thing would
disappear. I tried to find out whether there was anything in the
ornaments on the walls, or anything else which could suggest the
figure; but I found that all the lines close to her cut the outline of her
figure at all sorts of angles, and none of these coincided with the
outline of her figure, and the colour of everything around her strongly
contrasted with her colour. In the course of a few minutes, I heard the
door bell ring, and I heard my brother's voice in the hall. He came
upstairs and walked right through the figure into the room. The figure
then began to fade away rather quickly; and though I tried I could in
no way recall it.
"I frequently told the story in society, treating it always as something
internal rather than external and supposing that the lady was still alive;
and rather making a joke of it than otherwise. Some years afterwards I
was staying with some friends in Suffolk and told the story at the
dinner-table, saying that it was no ghost as the lady was still alive. The
lady of the house said: 'She is not alive, as you suppose, but she has
been dead some years.' We looked at the peerage and found she had
died in 1871. (I afterwards found out that she had died in November,
whereas the apparition was in April.) The conversation continued
about her, and I said: 'Poor thing, I am sorry she is dead. I have had
many a merry dance with her. What did she die of?' The lady of the
house said: 'Poor thing indeed, she died a wretched death; she died of
cancer in the face.' She never showed me the front of her face; it was
always concealed by the edge of the door."

I will now concern myself with the power of an agent to project himself
phantasmally—that is, to make his form and features manifest to some
percipient at a distance as though he were actually present. In Gurney's
"Phantasms of the Living" is given at length a case of a simple nature. Here
there was not one but two percipients.

On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been reading

of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I
determined with the whole force of my being that I would be present in
spirit in the front bedroom on the second floor of a house situated at 22
 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my
acquaintance—viz. Miss L. S. V., and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively
twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare
Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had
not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to
either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on
retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up my mind to do
so. The time at which I determined I would be there was one o'clock in
the morning, and I also had a strong intention of making my presence
perceptible.
"On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in
the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my
part) the elder one told me that on the previous Sunday night she had
been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that
she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke
her little sister, who saw me also.
"I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most
decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of the
occurrence she replied about one o'clock in the morning.
"This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event and
signed it.
"This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of this
kind, and its complete success startled me very much.
"Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth an
effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a
mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had a
distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had
been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now at certain times set in
motion at will.
"S. H. B."

The account given by Miss Verity is as follows:—

 "January 18th, 1883.
"On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our house
in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr B. in my room,
about one o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much terrified. I
awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the apparition herself.
Three days after, when I saw Mr B., I told him what had happened; but
it was some time before I could recover from the shock I had received,
and the remembrance is too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.
"L. S. Verity."

Miss E. C. Verity says:

"I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister in the

annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct. I saw the
apparition which she saw, at the same time and under the same
circumstances.
"E. C. Verity."

"The witnesses (comments Gurney) have been very carefully cross-

examined by the present writer. There is not the slightest doubt that
their mention of the occurrence to S. H. B. was spontaneous. They had
not at first intended to mention it; but when they saw him their sense
of its oddness overcame their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly
sober-minded and sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with
a considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of marvel."

On another occasion the agent announced privately to the investigator that

he would project himself at a stated time. He did so; and the lady wrote as
follows:—

"44 Norland Square, W.

 "On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had a
distinct impression that Mr S. H. B. was present in my room, and I
distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He came towards
me, and stroked my hair. I voluntarily gave him this information when
he called to see me on Wednesday, April 2nd, telling him the time and
the circumstances of the apparition, without any suggestion on his part.
The appearance in my room was most vivid and quite unmistakable.
"L. S. Verity."

Mr B.'s own account runs thus:

"On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence

perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at twelve
midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr Gurney that I
should post him a letter on the evening on which I tried my next
experiment (stating the time and other particulars), I sent a note to
acquaint him with the above facts.
"About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she voluntarily
told me that on March 22nd, at twelve o'clock midnight, she had seen
me so vividly in her room (whilst widely awake) that her nerves had
been much shaken, and she had been obliged to send for a doctor in the
morning.
"S. H. B."

Another case of a similar nature is reported by the American branch of the

Society for Psychical Research:

"On July 5th, 1887, I left my house in Lakewood to go to New York to

spend a few days. My wife was not feeling well when I left, and after I
had started I looked back and saw her standing in the door looking
disconsolate and sad at my leaving. The picture haunted me all day,
and at night, before I went to bed, I thought I would try to find out, if
possible, her condition. I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of
the bed, when I covered my face with my hands and willed myself in
Lakewood at home to see if I could see her. After a little while I
seemed to be standing in her room before the bed, and saw her lying
 there looking much better. I felt satisfied she was better, and so spent
the week more comfortably regarding her condition. On Saturday I
went home. When she saw me she remarked: 'I don't know whether I
am glad to see you or not, for I thought something had happened to
you. I saw you standing in front of the bed the night (about 8.30 or
before 9) you left, and as plain as could be, and I have been worrying
myself about you ever since. I sent to the office and to the depôt daily
to get some message from you.' After explaining my effort to find out
her condition, everything became plain to her. She had seen me when I
was trying to see her and find out her condition. I thought at the time I
was going to see her and make her see me.
"B. F. Sinclair."

The foregoing is corroborated by Mrs Sinclair. She states that she saw her
husband, not as he was dressed at the moment of the experiment, but "in a
suit that hung in a closet at home." The apparition caused her great anxiety,
so that her husband's view of her improved appearance was not really true.
The son, Mr George Sinclair, avers that in his mother's vision his father's
face was "drawn and set, as if he was either dead or trying to accomplish
something which was beyond him."
Another case investigated by the Society is also striking. The date is 1896.

"'One night, two or three years ago, I came back from the theatre to my
mother's flat at 6 S—— Street; and after I had been into her bedroom
and told her all about it, I went to bed about one A.M. I had not been
asleep long when I started up frightened, fancying that I had heard
someone walk down the passage towards my mother's room; but,
hearing nothing more, went to sleep again. I started up alarmed in the
same way three or four times before dawn.
"'In the morning, upon inquiry, my mother (who was ill at the time)
only told me that she had had a very disturbed night.
"'Then I asked my brother, who told me that he had suffered in the
same way as I had, starting up several times in a frightened manner.
On hearing this my mother then told me that she had seen an
apparition of Mr Pelham. Later in the day Mr Pelham came in, and my
 mother asked him casually if he had been doing anything last night;
upon which he told us that he had come to bed willing that he should
visit and appear to us. We made him promise not to repeat the
experiment.'
"Mrs E., the mother, states that she was recovering from influenza at
the time. At half-past ten, as she lay reading:
"'A strange, creepy sensation came over me, and I felt my eyes were
drawn towards the left-hand side of the room. I felt I must look, and
there, distinct against the curtain, was a blue luminous mist.
"'This time I was impelled to cast my eyes downward to the side of my
bed, and there, creeping upwards towards me, was the same blue
luminous mist. I was too terrified to move, and remember keeping the
book straight up before my face, as though to ward off a blow, at the
same time exerting all my strength of will and determination not to be
afraid—when, suddenly, as if with a jerk, above the top of my book
came the brow and eyes of Mr Pelham.'
"Instantly her fears ceased. She 'remembered that Mr Pelham had
experimented on her before at night'; and 'in one moment mist and face
were gone.'
"For his part, Mr Pelham explains that he 'carefully imagined' himself
going down the steps of his house, and so along the streets, to Mrs E.'s
flat, and to her drawing-room and bedroom; he then went to bed with
his mind fixed on the visit and soon fell asleep. He has made other
trials, but without any positive success, though during one of them Mrs
E. was wakened suddenly by the feeling that someone was in the
room, and it occurred to her that Mr Pelham was again
experimenting."

The occurrences above related are most significant, if true, and I am bound
to say the bona fides of the narrators seems to me indisputable. Is it a spirit
showing itself partially dissociated from the living organism; evincing
independence, a certain intelligence and a certain permanence? Or is this a
mere image of the agent, conceived in his own brain and projected
telepathically to the brain of the percipient? So far, we are merely groping
our way. Yet, is it not possible that we have laid hands upon a credible
explanation of the eternal mystery of "ghosts"? We shall see.
 CHAPTER IV
DREAMS

Having partially discussed the subject of phantasms projected from the

brain of the agent to that of the percipient, I must now briefly describe
another group for which the evidence is very abundant—that of "veridical"
dreams. This is a term used to describe apparitions coinciding with other
events in such a manner as to suggest a connection. Your dream or
hallucination is said to be veridical when it conveys an idea which is both
true and previously unknown to you.
Making every allowance for the element of chance, there is a mass of
evidence which mere coincidence cannot explain away. Yet we must not
overlook the frequency of dreams, even of a striking character, which may
once or twice in a million times actually hit on the coincident event. But
besides coincidence, there is at times another normal explanation. Mr
Podmore relates how a neighbour of his on the night of 24th June 1894
dreamed President Carnot had been assassinated. He told his family before
the morning paper announcing the news had been opened. As has been
pointed out, in a case of that kind it seems possible that the information may
have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the shouts of a newsboy, or
even from the conversation of passers-by in the street.
Before any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal
communication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances
about to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the dreamer
or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was suspected.
One of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:

"Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a

day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister, living
at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his chambers I found a
note on the table apologising for his absence, and saying that he had
 gone to a dance somewhere in the West End, and intended to be home
soon after one o'clock. Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair,
but started up wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's
down!' and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly
illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top stair, and
falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows and hands. (The
house was one which I have never seen, nor did I know where it was.)
Thinking very little of the matter, I fell a-doze again for half-an-hour
and was awakened by my brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh,
there you are! I have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck
as I ever had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot,
and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'
"That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always thought it
must have been something more."

A member of the Society for Psychical Research narrates that on 7th

October 1900 he woke abruptly in the small hours of the morning with a
painful conviction upon him that his wife, who was that night sleeping in
another part of the house, had burst a varicose vein in the calf of her leg,
and that he could feel the swelled place three inches long:

"I wondered whether I ought to get up and go down to her room on the
first floor, and considered whether she would be able to come up to
me; but I was only partly awake, though in acute distress. My mind
had been suddenly roused, but my body was still under the lethargy of
sleep. I argued with myself that there was sure to be nothing in it, that I
should only disturb her, and so shortly went off to sleep again.
"On going to her room this morning I said I had had a horrid dream,
which had woke me up, to the effect that she had burst a varicose vein,
of which just now care has to be taken. 'Why,' she replied, 'I had just
the same experience. I woke up at 2.15, feeling sure the calf of my leg
was bleeding, and my hand seemed to feel it when I put it there. I
turned on the light in alarm, noticing the time, and wondered if I
should be able to get up to thee, or whether I should have to wake the
housekeeper. Thou wast in the dream out of which I woke, examining
the place.'
 "Though I did not note the hour, two o'clock is about the time I should
have guessed it to be; and the impression on my mind was vivid and
terrible, knowing how dangerous such an accident would be."

The foregoing is thus corroborated by the lady:

"I felt twinges of pain in my leg off and on in my sleep without being
entirely roused till about 2.15 A.M. Then, or just before, I dreamt or
had a vivid impression that a vein had burst, and that my husband, who
was sleeping in another room up another flight of stairs, was there and
called my attention to it. I thought it felt wet, and trickling down the
leg as if bleeding, passed my hand down, and at first thought it seemed
wet; but on gaining fuller consciousness found it all right, and that it
was not more painful than often when I got out and stood on it.
Thought over the contingency of its actually bursting, and whether I
could so bandage it in that case as to make it safe to go up to my
husband's room, and thought I could do so.
"Looking at my watch, found it about 2.20."

As to dreams in which a death occurs there is a vast mass of testimony. The

late Dr Hodgson, on 19th July 1897, received the following letter:—

"DEAR HODGSON,—Five minutes ago Mr J. F. Morse, who has all his

life had dreams which were more or less verified later, came to my
room and said: 'I believe my wife died last night, for I had a dream of a
most remarkable nature which indicates it. I shall be able to let you
know soon, for I shall get word at my office when I reach there. I will
then send you word.' His wife is in a country place in Delaware Co. Pa.
She is ill, but he had no idea she would not live for months, as the
enclosed letter of July 15th will show; but she was ill, and would be
likely to decline slowly and gradually. I will get this off or in the mail
before I hear any more.
"Mr Morse in his appearance looks like one who had just lost a dear
friend, and is in a state of great mental depression, with tears in his
eyes....
"M. L. HOLBROOK."
On the evening of the same day a telegram was received announcing the
unexpected death of Mrs Morse at 9.15 on the evening of Friday, 16th July.
A prominent Chicago journalist, Mr F. B. Wilkie, reported that his wife
asked him one morning in October 1885, while still engaged in dressing,
and before either of them had left their sleeping-room, if he knew anyone
named Edsale or Esdale. A negative reply was given and then a "Why do
you ask?" She replied: "During the night I dreamt that I was on the lake-
shore and found a coffin there, with the name of Edsale or Esdale on it, and
I am confident that someone of that name has recently been drowned there."
On opening the morning paper the first item that attracted his attention was
the report of the mysterious disappearance from his home in Hyde Park of a
young man named Esdale. A few days afterwards the body of a young man
was found on the lake-shore.
This case was carefully investigated and authenticated by Dr Hodgson, and
bears some unusual features.
Of dreams that may be reasonably regarded as telepathic the following is a
striking example. It is contributed to "Phantasms of the Living" by a Mrs
Hilton—a lady engaged in active work, and not in any respect a "visionary."

"234 Burdett Road, E.

"April 10th, 1883.
"The dream which I am about to relate occurred about two years ago. I
seemed to be walking in a country road, with high grassy banks on
either side. Suddenly I heard the tramp of many feet. Feeling a strange
sense of fear I called out: 'Who are these people coming?' A voice
above me replied: 'A procession of the dead.' I then found myself on
the bank, looking into the road where the people were walking five or
six abreast. Hundreds of them passed by me—neither looking aside
nor looking at each other. They were people of all conditions and in all
ranks of life. I saw no children amongst them. I watched the long line
of people go away into the far distance, but I felt no special interest in
any of them, until I saw a middle-aged Friend, dressed as a gentleman
farmer. I pointed to him and called out: 'Who is that, please?' He
turned round and called out in a loud voice: 'I am John M., of
 Chelmsford.' Then my dream ended. Next day when my husband
returned from the office he told me that John M., of Chelmsford, had
died the previous day.
"I may add that I only knew the Friend in question by sight and cannot
recollect ever speaking to him.
"MARIE HILTON."

About a year later Mrs Hilton experienced a dream of a similar kind, again
coincident with the death of an acquaintance seen in the phantom
procession. It is worth noting "remarks Mr Gurney," that these dreams—for
all their bizarrerie—seem to belong to a known type.
In another category of phenomena belong precognitive dreams in which
certain events, especially deaths, are foretold. Mr Alfred Cooper, of 9
Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W., states, and his statement is attested
by the Duchess of Hamilton, that:

"A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L——, in 1882, I
called upon the Duke of Hamilton in Hill Street to see him
professionally. After I had finished seeing him we went into the
drawing-room where the Duchess was, and the Duke said to me: 'Oh,
Cooper, how is the Earl?'
"The Duchess said: 'What Earl?' and on my answering: 'Lord L——,'
she replied, 'That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I
went to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly
asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The
actors in it were Lord L——, in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man
standing over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over
which bath a red lamp was distinctly shown.'
"I then said: 'I am attending Lord L—— at present; there is very little
the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very
soon.'
"Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of
six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had
 inflammation of both lungs.
"I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man.
There were two male nurses attending him; one had been taken ill. But
when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess was exactly
represented. He was standing near a bath over the Earl, and, strange to
say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it, it
is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the
story to my mind.
"The vision seen by the Duchess was told two weeks before the death
of Lord L——. It is a most remarkable thing. This account, written in
1888, has been revised by the late Duke of Manchester, father of the
Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the
morning after she had seen it.
"MARY HAMILTON.
"ALFRED COOPER."

Mr Myers adds:

"The Duchess only knew Lord L—— by sight, and had not heard that
he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get
rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again.
"An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F. W.
H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the Duchess related the dream
on the morning after its occurrence."

One of the most interesting and well-authenticated cases of dreams

foretelling a death is that of Mr Fred Lane, understudy to that popular actor
the late William Terriss. His statement is as follows:—

"Adelphi Theatre,
"December 20th, 1897.
"In the early morning of December 16th, 1897, I dreamt that I saw the
late Mr Terriss lying in a state of delirium or unconsciousness on the
 stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in the Adelphi Theatre. He was
surrounded by people engaged at the theatre, amongst whom were
Miss Millward and one of the footmen who attend the curtain, both of
whom I actually saw a few hours later at the death scene. His chest
was bare and clothes torn aside. Everybody who was around him was
trying to do something for his good. This dream was in the shape of a
picture. I saw it like a tableau on which the curtain would rise and fall.
I immediately after dreamt that we did not open at the Adelphi Theatre
that evening. I was in my dressing-room in the dream, but this latter
part was somewhat incoherent. The next morning, on going down to
the theatre for rehearsal, the first member of the company I met was
Miss H——, to whom I mentioned this dream. On arriving at the
theatre I also mentioned it to several other members of the company
including Messrs Creagh Henry, Buxton, Carter Bligh, etc. This
dream, though it made such an impression upon me as to cause me to
relate it to my fellow-artists, did not give me the idea of any coming
disaster. I may state that I have dreamt formerly of deaths of relatives
and other matters which have impressed me, but the dreams have
never impressed me sufficiently to make me repeat them the following
morning, and have never been verified. My dream of the present
occasion was the most vivid I have ever experienced; in fact, lifelike,
and exactly represented the scene as I saw it at night."

Three members of the company—Mr Carter Bligh, Mr Creagh Henry, and

Miss H—— —made statements that Mr Lane related his dream in their
presence on the morning of 16th December. Mr Lane was in the vicinity of
the Adelphi Theatre when the murderer, named Prince or Archer, who had
been employed as a super at the theatre, stabbed Terriss at the stage
entrance to the theatre. The actor was taken to the Charing Cross Hospital,
where he died almost immediately. It is interesting to note that it was Lane
himself who ran to the hospital for the doctor, and on his return looked in at
the stage entrance and saw Terriss lying on the stairs just as he had seen him
in the dream.
While I am fully alive to the possibilities of coincidence, there certainly
does not seem to be much besides levity in the theory that "it happened to
be Jones's hour to see a hallucination of Thompson when it happened to be
Thompson's hour to die," especially when, as frequently happens, the
hallucination occurs more than once to the same percipient.
A Parisian journalist, M. Henri Buisson, sends to "The Annals of Psychical
Science" an account of three premonitory dreams all of which were told to
others before they were fulfilled. In the first, which occurred on June 8th,
1887, M. Buisson saw his grandmother "stretched dead on her bed, with a
smile on her face as if she slept." Above the bed, in a brilliant sun, he read
the date, "June 8th, 1888," just a year later; and on that day his grandmother
died quite suddenly, with her face as calm as he had seen it in his dream.
On another occasion M. Buisson saw his mother, not dead, but very ill, and
attended by a doctor, who had died more than a year before, after having
been the family physician for thirty years. The next day M. Buisson
received a telegram saying that his mother was ill, and, in fact, she died
during the day.
In April 1907, M. Buisson dreamt that he received notice to quit his house
on pretence of a message from the Prefect of Police, and that on looking out
of the window he saw the Prefect in the street, dressed in a leather jacket,
with a soft hat, and a slipper on one foot. He also dreamt that a fire had
broken out. On the evening of the next day he heard the fire-engines, and on
following them he found the Prefect on the spot, dressed just as in the
dream, having hurt one foot, he had to go about in a slipper.
Of still another type is the clairvoyant dream. The following is related by
Mr Herbert J. Lewis, of Cardiff:—

"In September 1880 I lost the landing-order of a large steamer

containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port of Cardiff.
She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the next morning. I
received the landing-order at four o'clock in the afternoon, and when I
arrived at the office at six I found that I had lost it. During all the
evening I was doing my utmost to find the officials of the Customs
House to get a permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance,
preventing the ship from discharging. I came home in a great degree of
trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my situation in
consequence.
 "That night I dreamt that I saw the lost landing-order lying in a crack
in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the Customs House.
"At five the next morning I went down to the Customs House and got
the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of which I had
dreamt, and found the paper in the very place. The ship was not ready
to discharge at her proper time, and I went on board at seven and
delivered the landing-order, saving her from all delay.
"I can certify to the truth of the above statement,
"HERBERT J. LEWIS,
"THOMAS LEWIS
"(Herbert Lewis's father).
"H. WALLIS."

(Mr E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the
following corroborative note.)

"August 14th, 1884.

"I made some inquiries about Mr Herbert Lewis's dream before I left
Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in which the order
was found. His theory as to how the order got in the place in which it
was found is that it was probably put there by someone (perhaps with
malicious intent), as he does not see how it could have fallen so.
"The fact that Mr H. Lewis is exceedingly short-sighted adds to the
probability of the thing which you suggest, that the dream was simply
an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the other hand, he does not
believe it was there when he searched.
"E. J. NEWELL."

Now, it seems to me in the above case that the dreamer's subliminal self
may have taken note of the lost landing-order without his super-
consciousness being aware of it, and that the fact returned to him in his
dream.
In R. L. Stevenson's "Across the Plains" may be found a striking chapter on
dreams. It contains an account of some of the most successful dream
experiments ever recorded. Stevenson's dreams were of no ordinary
character; they were always of great vividness, and often of a markedly
recurrent type. This faculty he developed to an unusual degree—to such an
extent, indeed, that it became of great assistance to him in his work. By
self-suggestion before sleep, we are told, the great novelist would secure "a
visual and dramatic intensity of dream-representation which furnished him
with the motives of some of his most striking romances." But "R. L. S." is
not the only one who has secured assistance of dreams. Here is an account
given by a German, Professor Hilprecht, of an experience of a similar
nature ("Human Personality," i. 376):

"One Saturday evening, about the middle of March 1893, I had been
wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks preceding, in the
vain attempt to decipher two small fragments of agate, which were
supposed to belong to the finger-rings of some Babylonian. The labour
was much increased by the fact that the fragments presented remnants
only of characters and lines, that dozens of similar small fragments had
been found in the ruins of the temple of Bel at Nippur with which
nothing could be done, that in this case furthermore I never had the
originals before me, but only a hasty sketch made by one of the
members of the expedition sent by the University of Pennsylvania to
Babylonia. I could not say more than that the fragments, taking into
consideration the place in which they were found and the peculiar
characteristics of the cuneiform characters preserved upon them,
sprang from the Cassite period of Babylonian history (circa 1700-1140
B.C.); moreover, as the first character of the third line of the first
fragment seemed to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an
interrogation point, to King Kurigalzu, while I placed the other
fragment as unclassifiable with other Cassite fragments upon a page of
my book where I published the unclassifiable fragments. The proofs
already lay before me, but I was far from satisfied. The whole problem
passed yet again through my mind that March evening before I placed
my mark of approval under the last correction in the book. Even then I
had come to no conclusion. About midnight, weary and exhausted, I
went to bed and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed the following
remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur,
about forty years of age and clad in a simple abba, led me to the
treasure chamber of the temple, on its south-east side. He went with
me into a small low-ceiled room, without windows, in which there was
a large wooden chest, while scraps of agate and lapis-lazuli lay
scattered on the floor. Here he addressed me as follows:—'The two
fragments which you have published separately upon pages 22 and 26,
belong together, are not finger-rings, and their history is as follows.
King Kurigalzu (circa 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel,
among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli, an inscribed votive
cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the command to
make for the statue of the god Ninib a pair of earrings of agate. We
were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand.
In order to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut
the votive cylinder into three parts, thus making three rings, each of
which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first two
rings served as earrings for the statue of the god; the two fragments
which have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you
will put the two together you will have confirmation of my words. But
the third ring you have not yet found in the course of your excavations
and you never will find it.' With this the priest disappeared. I awoke at
once and immediately told my wife the dream, that I might not forget
it. Next morning—Sunday—I examined the fragments once more in
the light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all the
details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the means of
verification were in my hands. The original inscription on the votive
cylinder read: 'To the god Ninib, son of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu,
pontifex of Bel, presented this.' The problem was at last solved."
 CHAPTER V
HALLUCINATIONS

From the occurrence in a dream of the ideas of events which happen to

coincide with actual events, let us turn to apparitions occurring during the
waking hours of the percipient.
The late Professor Sidgwick, at the head of a committee, sent out the
following question to 17,000 educated persons not known to have had
hallucinations:—"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely
awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being
or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice, which impression, so far as you
could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?"
The replies demonstrate how frequent are hallucinations amongst healthy,
normal-minded persons. No fewer than 1684, or one in ten, of the persons
interrogated, had had visual and auditory and even tactile hallucinations,
realistic human phantoms, and other apparitions. We find that, according to
the age classification, of 1295 visual hallucinations 72 occurred while the
percipients were under ten years of age, 217 between the ages of ten and
nineteen, 300 between twenty and twenty-nine, 143 between thirty and
thirty-nine, 81 between forty and forty-nine, 40 between fifty and fifty-nine,
22 between sixty and sixty-nine, 5 later than seventy, and 415 at unstated
ages. Some of the hallucinations occurred immediately after waking, others
while the percipients were awake in bed; but the great bulk occurred in a
fully awakened state, and a large number appeared out of doors.
Of hallucinations of which we may say that they are due to a projection
from the agent's mind, commonly to a dying man or woman, to that of the
percipient, perhaps one of the most famous is that of Lord Charles
Beresford, as described by him to the Society for Psychical Research:

"It was in the spring of 1864, whilst on board H.M.S. Racoon, between
Gibraltar and Marseilles, that I went into my office on the main deck to
 get a pipe; and as I opened the door I saw my father lying in his coffin
as plainly as I could. It gave me an awful jerk and I immediately told
some of the fellows who were smoking just outside the usual place
between the guns, and I also told dear old Onslow, our chaplain. A few
days after we arrived at Marseilles, and I heard of my father's death,
and he had been buried that very day and at the time, half-past twelve
in the day. I may add that at the time it was a bright, sunny day, and I
had not been fretting about my father, as the latest news I had of him
was that although very ill he was better. My dear old father and I were
great chums, more so than is usual between a man of seventy-two and
a boy of twenty, our respective ages then."

The evidence is so bulky that we may quote only a case here and there at
random:

"On December 9th 1882 Mr T. G. Keulemans was living with his

family in Paris. The outbreak of an epidemic of smallpox caused him
to remove three of his children, including a favourite little boy of five,
to London, whence he received in the course of the ensuing month
several letters giving an excellent account of their health.
"On the 24th of January 1881, at half-past seven in the morning, I was
suddenly awoke by hearing his voice, as I fancied, very near me. I saw
a bright opaque white mass before my eyes, and in the centre of this
light I saw the face of my little darling, his eyes bright, his mouth
smiling. The apparition, accompanied by the sound of his voice, was
too short and too sudden to be called a dream; it was too clear, too
decided, to be called an effect of the imagination. So distinctly did I
hear his voice that I looked round the room to see whether he was
actually there. The sound I heard was that of extreme delight, such as
only a happy child can utter. I thought it was the moment he woke up
in London, happy and thinking of me. I said to myself: 'Thank God,
little Isidore is happy as always.' Mr Keulemans describes the ensuing
day as one of peculiar brightness and cheerfulness. He took a long
walk with a friend, with whom he dined; and was afterwards playing a
game at billiards when he again saw the apparition of his child. This
made him seriously uneasy, and in spite of having received within
three days the assurance of his child's perfect health he expressed to
 his wife a conviction that he was dead. Next day a letter arrived saying
that the child was ill; but the father was convinced that this was only
an attempt to break the news; and, in fact, the child had died, after a
few hours' illness, at the exact time of the first apparition."

Another case as recited by Madame D——, of St Gaudens, is to be found in

"Posthumous Humanity." She says:

"I was still a young girl, and slept with my elder sister. One evening
we had just retired to bed and blown out the light. The smouldering
fire on the hearth still feebly lighted the room. Upon turning my eyes
towards the fireplace I perceived, to my amazement, a priest seated
before the fire and warming himself. He had the corpulence, the
features, and the general appearance of one of our uncles who lived in
the neighbourhood, where he was an archbishop. I at once called my
sister's attention. She looked in the same direction, and saw the same
apparition. She also recognised our uncle. An indescribable terror
seized us both, and we cried 'Help!' with all our might. My father, who
slept in an adjoining room, awakened by these desperate cries, jumped
out of bed and ran in with a candle in his hand. The phantom had
disappeared, and we saw no one in the room. The next morning a letter
was received informing us that our uncle had died the previous
evening.
"At Wiesbaden, Professor Ebenan, whose old sister kept his house,
stated that he had a friend residing forty or fifty miles off—likewise a
professor—who was very poor and had a large family. On hearing that
his wife was dying, Mr E—— went to see them, and brought back
their eldest boy, for whom a little bed was put up in Mr E——'s room.
"One morning, about ten days after, Mr E—— called and asked me:
'Do you believe that at the moment of death you may appear to one
whom you love?' I replied: 'Yes, I do.' 'Well,' he said, 'we shall see. I
have noted the day and the hour, for last night after I went to bed the
child said sweetly (in German): "Yes, dear mamma, I see you." To
which I replied: "No, dear boy, it is I; I am come to bed." "No," he
said, "it is dear mamma, she is standing there smiling at me," pointing
to the side of the bed.' On his next visit Mr Ebenan told us that he had
 received a letter informing him that at that time, and on that evening,
the wife had breathed her last."

In some cases a vague shadowy form is seen which gradually acquires

definiteness. Here is an interesting example contributed to "Proceedings,"
vol. x., by a Mr T. A.:—

"9th May 1892.

"I saw a darkish vapour leave my father's head when he died, about
twelve years ago, and it formed into a figure full-sized, and for seven
consecutive nights (I) saw it in my room, and saw it go each night into
the next room, in which he died. It became more distinct each night
and brighter each night, till it was quite brilliant, even dazzling, by the
seventh night. It lasted, say, one and a half minutes. It was quite dark
when the phantom used to appear. I was quite awake, going to bed;
[age] thirty two."

In other cases what is first seen is a glow of light—the apparition

subsequently appearing in it.
Mr R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, made the following statement
to the Society for Psychical Research:—

"'Just before Christmas 1894 I went over to Liverpool with one of my

brothers and my sister. It was a very fine clear day and there was a
great crowd of people shopping in the streets. We were walking down
Lord-street, one of the principal streets, when, passing me, I saw an
old uncle of mine whom I knew very little, and had not seen for a very
long time, though he lived near me. I saw three distinct shapes
hobbling past (he was lame), one after another, in a line. It didn't seem
to strike me at the moment as being in the least curious, not even there
being three shapes in a line. I said to my sister: "I have just seen Uncle
E——, and I am sure he is dead." I said this, as it were, mechanically,
and not feeling at all impressed. Of course my brother and sister
laughed. We thought nothing more about it while in Liverpool. The
first thing my mother said to us when getting home was: "I have some
news"; and then she told us that this uncle had died early that morning.
 I don't know the particular hour. I saw the three shapes at about twelve
in the morning. I felt perfectly fit and well, and was not thinking of my
uncle in the least, nor did I know he was ill. Both my brother and my
sister heard me say that I had seen him and believed he was dead, and
they were equally astonished at hearing of his death on our return
home. My uncle and I knew each other very little. In fact, he hardly
knew me by sight, although he knew me well when I was a small
child.'
"The corroboration from the percipient's mother and sister is quite
ample; the day of the agent's death coincided with the apparition, but
the hour is not certainly known."

Another well-known case is that of Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who writes:

"On Saturday, October 21st, 1893, I was in Berlin with Lord

Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together and returned before
midnight. I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright light in the
room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found myself looking at an
oleograph which hung on the wall opposite my bed. I saw distinctly
the face of my father, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it
were, out of this picture; not like a portrait of him, but his real head.
The head about filled the picture frame. I continued looking, and still
saw my father looking at me with an intent expression. Though not in
the least alarmed, I was so puzzled that I got out of bed to see what the
picture really was. It was an oleograph commonplace picture of a girl
holding a rose and leaning out of a balcony, an arch forming the
background. The girl's face was quite small, whereas my father's head
was the size of life and filled the frame."

The Prince's father had been in ill-health for some time, but nothing
alarming was to be expected. On the day following the dream he mentioned
it to Lord Carnarvon, and on the evening of that day Lord Carnarvon
handed him a telegram announcing the elder Prince's death. He had had an
apoplectic seizure on the previous evening and never recovered. It is
interesting to note that he had often said that he would try to appear to his
son at death if they happened to be apart. The account is confirmed by Lord
Carnarvon.
It sometimes happens that the point of hallucination is not quite reached.
The following instance, communicated to the Society for Psychical
Research, is straightforward enough:

"'20 Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh,

"'December 27th, 1883.
"'In January 1871 I was living in the West Indies. On the 7th of that
month I got up with a strong feeling that there was something
happening at my old home in Scotland. At seven A.M. I mentioned to
my sister-in-law my strange dread, and said even at that hour what I
dreaded was taking place.
"'By the next mail I got word that at eleven A.M. on the 7th of January
my sister died. The island I lived in was at St Kitts, and the death took
place in Edinburgh. Please note the hours and allow for the difference
in time, and you will notice at least a remarkable coincidence. I may
add I never knew of her illness.
"'A. C——N.'
"In answer to inquiries, Mr C——n adds: 'I never at any other time had
a feeling in any way resembling the particular time I wrote about. At
the time I wrote about I was in perfect health, and in every way in
comfortable circumstances.'"

There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the agency

primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been received,
a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A truly
hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations with no
external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce these
hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for Psychical
Research that the case of one of his patients proved that hallucinations
could be produced by self-suggestion. "He could, by a simple effort of the
mind, himself believe almost any delusion—e.g. that he was riding on
horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or that he saw snakes—if
left to himself the delusion vanished slowly. Anyone else could remove it at
once by a counter-suggestion. He made," he adds, "these experiments
without my consent, as I consider them unsafe."
Hallucination is at times accompanied by curious organic effects. One of
the commonest of these is a feeling of cold—generally described as a
"chill" or "cold shudder." The following example is taken from the Census
of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:—

FROM MISS K. M.
(The account was written in 1889.)
"[About twenty years ago] I was about ten years old, and was staying
with friends in Kensington. Between the hours of eight and nine P.M.,
we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the door open, [it] being a
very warm evening. Suddenly I experienced a cold shudder, and on
looking through the door opposite which I was sitting, I saw the figure
of a little old lady dressed in a long brown cloak with a large brown
hat, carrying a basket, glide down the stairs and disappear in the room
next the drawing-room. The impression was that of someone I had
never seen. I was talking on ordinary subjects, neither ill, in grief, or
anxiety. There were several other people in the room, but no one
noticed anything but myself. I have never had any experience of this
kind before or since."

Occasionally, but very rarely, pain is described as resulting from a

hallucination. Other effects include fainting fits and tactile impressions.
Noise would appear in some cases to produce visual hallucinations, by
creating in the hearer a strong expectation of seeing something
corresponding to it, or that may account for it. From "Phantasms of the
Living" we glean the following:—

"Between sleeping and waking this morning, I perceived a dog running

about in a field (an ideal white and tan sporting dog), and the next
moment I heard a dog barking outside my window. Keeping my closed
eyes on the vision, I found that it came and went with the barking of
the dog outside; getting fainter, however, each time."
A weak state of health on the part of the percipient would seem to be
conducive to hallucinatory visions. Here is a case in point contributed to the
"Society for Psychical Research Proceedings," vol. x., by a Professor G
——:

"Saw an old woman with red cloak, nursing a child in her arms. She
sat on a boulder. Place: a grassy moor or upland, near Shotts, in
Lanarkshire. Date: over twenty years ago. Early autumn, in bright
sunny weather. Made several attempts to reach her, but she always
vanished before I could get up to the stone. Place far from any
dwelling, and no spot where anyone could be concealed.
"[I was] walking; had been slightly troubled with insomnia which
afterwards became worse. Age about thirty.
"No one [was with me]. I heard a vague report that a woman with red
cloak was sometimes seen on the moor. Can't now remember whether I
had heard of that report before I saw the figure—but think I had not.
"Saw many years ago (age about twenty-one), a dog sitting beside me
in my room: saw this only once: was troubled slightly with insomnia at
the time which afterwards became worse."

The percipient's own view, the collector tells us, is that the experience on
the moor was entirely due to "nerves," as both then and previously when he
saw the dog he had been much overworked, and in each case a severe
illness followed.
Not always does a visual hallucination take the form of a living human
form. Occasionally the object seen or the sound heard is non-human in
character. In insanity and in diseases such cases are frequently met with, the
hallucination being often of a grotesque or horrible sort. Thus we have a
case in which a young child beheld a vision of dwarfish gnomes dancing on
the wall. Among the phantasms of inanimate objects in the collection of the
late E. Gurney were a star, a firework bursting into stars, a firefly, a crown,
landscape vignettes, a statue, the end of a draped coffin coming in through
the door, and a bright oval surrounding the words "Wednesday, October 15,
Death." Geometrical patterns, sometimes taking very complicated forms,
comprise another known type of hallucination.
As to a theory for hallucinations, the most acceptable one is that they have
their origin in the brain, and that the senses are made to share in the
deception. There is little doubt that William Blake's hallucinations were
voluntary. Gurney refers to a friend, a painter, who was able to project a
vision of his sitter out into space and paint from it. We have already seen
that a hypnotic agent can cause his subject not merely to see things but to
feel them, even to the extent of crying out with pain when an imaginary
lighted match is applied to his finger.
 CHAPTER VI
PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD

Thus far I have devoted myself to an investigation of phenomena for which

the theory of telepathy is not inapplicable. It is, however, when we come to
discuss hallucinations from which the idea of a living agent is apparently
excluded that I feel myself entering on even more delicate and mysterious
territory. Having dealt with phantasms of persons at the point of death, I
now propose to deal with phantasms of persons already dead. Where,
indeed, the death has been very recent, the telepathic theory still serves, for
the reception conveyed by the dying agent might conceivably remain
dormant in the sub-consciousness of the percipient, and only be aroused in a
dream or during a propitious waking moment.
This would apply to the case of a lady who saw the body of a well-known
London physician, about ten hours after death, lying in a bare unfurnished
room, which turned out to be a cottage hospital abroad. Mr Myers, in his
"Human Personality," has collected a large number of examples of
apparitions of departed spirits, upon which he lays the utmost stress,
because they, more than any other kind of evidence, tend to support his
great theory of the survival of personality. If, he reasons, we can gain a
number of well-authenticated cases of hallucinations projected
telepathically from an agent before death, an equal amount of evidence of
hallucinations projected by an agent after death would prove the
continuance of life beyond the grave! And some of the cases which the
Society of Psychical Research, both in this country and America, have
collected are certainly of an impressive character.
Unhappily, most of the best and most convincing cases are too long to be
given here; they cannot even profitably be summarised.
In one instance Mr F. G. of Boston, whose high character and good position
are vouched for by Professor Royce and Dr Hodgson, states that nine years
after the death of a favourite sister an apparition appeared before him:
 "The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully into my
room. While busily smoking my cigar and writing out my orders, I
suddenly became conscious that someone was sitting on my left, with
one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I turned, and distinctly
saw the form of my dead sister, and for a brief second or so looked her
squarely in the face; and so sure was I that it was she, that I sprang
forward in delight, calling her by name, and as I did so the apparition
instantly vanished."

But that is not the most extraordinary part of the story. The visitation so
impressed the percipient that he took the next train home and related to his
parents what had occurred. He particularly mentioned a bright red line or
scratch on the right-hand side of his sister's face, which he had distinctly
seen:

"... When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her feet, and
nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently recovered her self-
possession, with tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed that I
had indeed seen my sister, as no living mortal but herself was aware of
the scratch, which she had accidentally made while doing some little
act of kindness after my sister's death.... In proof, neither my father nor
any of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of the
incident, yet I saw the scratch as bright as if just made. So strangely
impressed was my mother, that even after she had retired to rest she
got up and dressed, came to me, and told me she knew that I had seen
my sister. A few weeks later my mother died."

Now, is it not a little singular that, although both Dr Hodgson and Mr

Myers record this incident, the theory of telepathy between a living agent
and a living percipient does not occur to them? Is it not conceivable that the
mother, on whose mind the incident of the scratch on the features of the
corpse had admittedly preyed, should have unwittingly communicated her
secret to her son? In other words, the mother projected a phantasm of her
dead daughter to the mind of her son.
In the "Proceedings of the Society" there is a case which, according to Mr
Stead, "appears to suggest that the deceased are continuing to take an
interest in mundane affairs." The story is communicated by Miss Dodson.
On Sunday, 5th June 1887, close upon midnight, Miss Dodson was roused
by hearing her name called three times. She answered twice, thinking it was
her uncle. The third time she recognised the voice of her mother, who had
been dead sixteen years. "I said," continued Miss Dodson, "'Mamma!'"

"She then came round a screen near my bedside with two children in
her arms and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes over
them, and said: 'Lucy, promise me to take care of them, for their
mother is just dead.' I said: 'Yes, mamma.' She repeated: 'Promise me
to take care of them.' I replied: 'Yes, I promise you,' and added, 'Oh,
mamma, stay and speak to me, I am so wretched.' She replied: 'Not
yet, my child,' then she seemed to go round the screen again and I
remained, feeling the children to be still in my arms and fell asleep.
When I awoke there was nothing. Tuesday morning, 7th June, I
received the news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given birth to a
child three weeks before, which I did not know till after her death."

Professor Sidgwick says, as the result of an interesting conversation with

Miss Dodson, that the children were of the ages corresponding with the
ages of the children of her sister-in-law; they seemed to be a little girl and a
baby newly born. The only way an ingenious sceptic can get round this case
is by supposing that a telepathic impulse from the living brother might
conceivably embody itself in the form of his mother. But the idea of a
brother in Belgium being able to transmit a telepathic message in the
assumed shape and with the voice of his mother, who had been dead for
sixteen years, and also to telepath into existence in London the two little
children who were living in his house at Bruges, is rather a clumsy
hypothesis. But what other have we?

"Mr Theobald, an Australian, forwards to the Society a paper

discovered amongst the effects of his uncle, now dead. The apparition,
as will be seen, occurred on October 24th, 1860, and the account is
endorsed on 9th November by the percipient's father. Further
particulars sent to Mr B—— by the percipient (who is here called Mr
D——) are dated November 13th, 1860. The first account seems to
have been sent by the percipient to his father, and by the father to Mr B
——"
The percipient had been identified, and confirms, as will be seen, this early
narrative, which is as follows:—

"On the evening of Wednesday, October 24th, 1860, having retired to

bed about nine o'clock, I had slept, I conclude, about two hours,
making it then about eleven o'clock P.M. I was awoke from my sleep
by a hand touching my forehead, and the well-known voice of Mrs B
—— pronouncing my name, E——. I started up and sat in bed, rubbed
my eyes, and then saw Mrs B——. From the head to the waist the
figure was distinct, clear, and well defined; but from the waist
downwards it was all misty, and the lower part transparent. She
appeared to be dressed in black silk. Her countenance was grave and
rather sad, but not unhappy.
"The words she first uttered were: 'I have left dear John.' What
followed related entirely to myself, and she was permitted by a most
kind Providence to speak words of mercy, promise, and comfort, and
assurance that what I most wished would come to pass. She came to
me in an hour of bitter mental agony, and was sent as a messenger of
mercy...."

Occasionally there is a curious variant, when the phantasm is auditory and

not visible. In the case published in "Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research," vol. iii. p. 90, Mr Wambey heard a phantasmal voice
as though in colloquy with his own thought. He was planning a
congratulatory letter to a friend, when the words "What, write to a dead
man? write to a dead man?" sounded clearly in his ears. The friend had been
dead for some days.
Gurney was much impressed by the unexpectedly large proportion of cases
where the percipient informed us that there had been a compact between
himself and the deceased person that whichever passed away first should try
to appear to the other. "Considering," he adds, "what an extremely small
number of persons make such a compact, compared with those who do not,
it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its existence has a certain
efficacy."
A characteristic case is thus reported by a Mr Bellamy:
"When a girl at school my wife made an agreement with a fellow-
pupil, Miss W., that the one of them who died first should, if divinely
permitted, appear after her decease to the survivor. In 1874 my wife,
who had not seen or heard anything of her former school friend for
some years, casually heard of her death. The news reminded her of her
former agreement, and then, becoming nervous, she told me of it. I
knew of my wife's compact, but I had never seen a photograph of her
friend, or heard any description of her." (Mr Bellamy told Gurney in
conversation that his mind had not been in the least dwelling on the
compact.)
"A night or two afterwards, as I was sleeping with my wife, a fire
brightly burning in my room and a candle alight, I suddenly awoke and
saw a lady sitting by the side of the bed where my wife was sleeping
soundly. At once I sat up in the bed and gazed so intently that even
now I can recall her form and features. Had I the pencil or the brush of
a Millais I could transfer to canvas an exact likeness of the ghostly
visitant. I remember that I was much struck, as I looked intently at her,
with the careful arrangement of her coiffure, every single hair being
most carefully brushed down. How long I sat and gazed I cannot say,
but directly the apparition ceased to be, I got out of bed to see if any of
my wife's garments had by any means optically deluded me. I found
nothing in the line of vision but a bare wall. Hallucination on my part I
rejected as out of the question, and I doubted not that I had really seen
an apparition. Returning to bed, I lay till my wife some hours after
awoke, and then I gave her an account of her friend's appearance. I
described her colour, form, etc., all of which exactly tallied with my
wife's recollection of Miss W. Finally I asked, 'But was there any
special point to strike one in her appearance?' 'Yes,' my wife promptly
replied, 'we girls used to tease her at school for devoting so much time
to the arrangement of her hair.' This was the very thing which I have
said so much struck me. Such are the simple facts.
"I will only add that till 1874 I had never seen an apparition, and that I
have not seen one since.
"ARTHUR BELLAMY."
The following case, from "Proceedings," vol. viii. p. 178, bears a distinct
resemblance to the old-fashioned ghost stories. Mrs M., the informant,
writes under date 15th December 1891:

"Before relating my experience of having seen a ghost, I should like

my readers thoroughly to understand that I had not the slightest idea
that the house in which my husband and I were living was haunted, or
that the family residing there for many years before us had had any
family troubles. The house was delightfully situated [etc.]. The house
being partly new and partly old we occupied the old part for our
sleeping apartments. There were two staircases leading to them, with a
landing and window, adjoining a morning sitting-room. One night on
retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a peculiar
moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great distress of mind. I
listened very attentively, and still it continued; so I raised the gas in my
bedroom, and then went to the landing window of which I have
spoken, drew the blind aside; and there on the grass was a very
beautiful young girl in kneeling posture before a soldier, in a general's
uniform, sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for
pardon; but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I
feel for the girl, that without a moment's hesitation I ran down the
staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to come in
and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared! Not in the least
nervous did I feel then;—went again to my bedroom, took a sheet of
writing paper and wrote down what I had seen. [Mrs M. has found and
sent us this paper. The following words are written in pencil on a half
sheet of notepaper:—"March 13th, 1886. Have just seen visions on
lawn:—a soldier in general's uniform,—a young lady kneeling to him.
11.40 P.M."] My husband was away from home when this event
occurred, but a lady friend was staying with me, so I went to her
bedroom and told her that I had been rather frightened by some noises;
—could I stay with her a little while? A few days afterwards I found
myself in a very nervous state; but it seemed so strange that I was not
frightened at the time.
"It appears the story is only too true. The youngest daughter of this
very old proud family had had an illegitimate child; and her parents
and relatives would not recognise her again, and she died broken-
 hearted. The soldier was a near relative (also a connection of my
husband's); and it was in vain she tried to gain his—the soldier's—
forgiveness. [In a subsequent letter Sir X. Y.'s career is described. He
was a distinguished officer.]
"So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier that some
months after the occurrence, when I happened to be calling with my
husband at a house where there was a portrait of him, I stepped before
it and said: 'Why, look! There is the General!' And sure enough it
was."

In a subsequent letter Mrs M. writes:

"I did see the figures on the lawn after opening the door leading on to
the lawn; and they by no means disappeared instantly, but more like a
dissolving view—viz. gradually; and I did not leave the door until they
had passed away. It was impossible for any real persons to act such a
scene.... The General was born and died (in the house where I saw
him).... I was not aware that the portrait of the General was in that
room (where I saw it); it was the first time I had been in that room. The
misfortune to the poor girl happened in 1847 or 1848."

Mrs M. then mentions that a respectable local tradesman hearing of the

incident remarked: "That is not an uncommon thing to see her about the
place, poor soul! She was a badly used girl."
Mr M. writes as follows under date 23rd December 1891:—

"I have seen my wife's letter in regard to the recognition of Sir X. Y.'s
picture at ——. Nothing was said by me to her on the subject; but
knowing the portrait to be a remarkably good likeness I proposed
calling at the house (which was that of a nephew of Sir X. Y.'s), being
anxious to see what effect it would have upon my wife. Immediately
on entering the room she almost staggered back, and turned pale,
saying—looking hard at the picture—'Why, there's the General!' ...
Being a connection of the family I knew all about the people, but my
wife was then a stranger, and I had never mentioned such things to her;
in fact they had been almost forgotten."
Here is a case where the phantasm was visible to several persons at the
same time. It is given by Mr Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and Royal
Naval Club, Albemarle Street, W.

"December 3rd, 1885.

"On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at his
residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, N. S. Wales. About six
weeks after his death my wife had occasion one evening about nine
o'clock to go to one of the bedrooms in the house. She was
accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and as they entered the
room—the gas burning all the time—they were amazed to see,
reflected as it were on the polished surface of the wardrobe, the image
of Captain Towns. It was barely half figure, the head, shoulders, and
part of the arms only showing—in fact, it was like an ordinary
medallion portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it
did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel jacket, in
which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and half-alarmed at
what they saw, their first idea was that a portrait had been hung in the
room, and that what they saw was its reflection; but there was no
picture of the kind.
"Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss
Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had time to
speak, she exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Do you see papa?' One of the
housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the moment, and she
was called in and asked if she saw anything, and her reply was, 'Oh,
miss! the master.' Graham—Captain Towns' old body-servant—was
then sent for, and he also immediately exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord save us!
Mrs Lett, it's the captain!' The butler was called, and then Mrs Crane,
my wife's nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally, Mrs Towns
was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards it with
her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she passed her hand over the
panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually faded away, and never again
appeared, though the room was regularly occupied for a long time
after.
 "These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no doubt; no
kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses; the same
question was put to each one as they came into the room, and the reply
was given without hesitation by each. It was by the merest accident
that I did not see the apparition. I was in the house at the time, but did
not hear when I was called."
"C. A. W. LETT."
"We the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify that it is
strictly accurate, as we were both witnesses of the apparition.
"SARA LETT,
"SIBBIE SMYTH
"(née TOWNS.)"

"Mrs Lett assures me," wrote Gurney, "that neither she nor her sister ever
experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion. She is
positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of each of the
later witnesses was independent, and not due to any suggestion from the
persons already in the room."
The following, taken from the "Report on the Census of Hallucinations,"
may belong to either the ante-mortem or post-mortem category:—

"At Redhill on Thanksgiving Day, between eight and nine in the

evening, when I was taking charge of the little daughter of a friend,
during my friend's absence on that evening, I left the child sleeping in
the bedroom, and went to drop the blinds in two neighbouring rooms,
being absent about three minutes. On returning to the child's room in
the full light of the gas-burner from above I distinctly saw, coming
from the child's cot, a white figure, which figure turned, looked me full
in the face, and passed down the staircase. I instantly followed, leaned
over the banisters in astonishment, and saw the glistening of the white
drapery as the figure passed down the staircase, through the lighted
hall, and silently through the hall door itself, which was barred,
chained, and locked. I felt for the moment perfectly staggered, went
 back to the bedroom, and found the child peacefully sleeping. I related
the circumstance to the mother immediately on her return late that
night. She was incredulous, but said that my description of the figure
answered to that of an invalid aunt of the child's. The next morning
came a telegram to say that this relation who had greatly wished to see
her niece had died between eight and nine the previous evening.
"I had just put down the 'Pickwick Papers,' with which I had been
whiling away the time, was free from trouble and in good health."

Sister Bertha, Superior of the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracey, Newton

Abbot, states:

"On the night of November 10th, 1861, I was up in my bed watching,

because there was a person not quite well in the next room. I heard a
voice which I recognised at once as familiar to me, and at first thought
of my sister. It said in the brightest and most cheerful tone, 'I am here
with you.' I answered, looking and seeing nothing, 'Who are you?' The
voice said, 'You mustn't know yet.' I heard nothing more and saw
nothing, and am certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was not
in the least frightened, and felt convinced it was Lucy's [Miss Lucy
Gambier Parry's] voice.
"I have never doubted it from that moment. I had not heard of her
being worse. The last account had been good, and I was expecting to
hear that she was at Torquay. In the course of the next day (the 11th),
mother told me that she had died on the morning of the 10th, rather
more than twelve hours before I heard her voice."

A case reported by Mr John E. Husbands, of Melbourne House, Town Hall

Square, Grimsby, is interesting:

"I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a bright

moonlight night. The windows were open, and the blinds up. I felt
someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a young fellow
about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed,
and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place where I
was lying. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of someone
 being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so
plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me
some days afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not speak,
but his eyes and hands seemed to tell me that I was in his place. As he
did not answer, I struck at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not
reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished
through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the
time. Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me
died in the room I was occupying."

There is, too, the famous case of Mrs de Fréville and the gardener Bard.
The percipient, who had formerly been in the employ of this somewhat
eccentric lady, who was especially morbid on the subject of tombs and so
forth, was in the churchyard of Hinxton, Saffron Walden, on Friday, 8th
May 1885. He happened to look at the square De Fréville stone vault, when,
to his amazement, he distinctly saw the old lady, with a white face, leaning
on the rails. When he looked again she was gone, although it puzzled him to
know how she could have got out of the churchyard, as, in order to reach
any of the gates, she must have passed him. Next day he was told that Mrs
de Fréville was dead. As the apparition was seen about seven and a half
hours after death, it could, as I have suggested, be considered a telepathic
impression transmitted at the moment of death and remaining latent in the
brain of the percipient; otherwise, the case belongs to the category of
Haunting, which we will glance at in the next chapter.
 CHAPTER VII
ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA

"Do I believe in ghosts?" asks Mr Andrew Lang. "One can only answer:
'How do you define a ghost?' I do believe, with all students of human
nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the senses. But
as to whether such hallucinations among the sane are ever caused by
physical influence from the minds of others, alive or dead, not
communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a
balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence."
If the evidence of "hauntings" were measurable by bulk alone, no phase of
occultism would be more completely demonstrated. It is only when we
come to examine the quality of the available data that we realise how
formidable a task it is we have undertaken. In nothing, perhaps, have
credulity and superstition been allowed so wide a scope; nowhere is it more
difficult to winnow the grain of reliable testimony from the chaff of
mythology and invention. For we must remember that the belief in ghosts is
as old as the hills themselves. It is common to all countries and to all
nations, and in the literature of every language are to be found tales of the
supernatural scarcely less plausible than many which assail our ears to-day.
What I now set myself to investigate is that class of phenomena seemingly
attached to various localities and comprising, besides apparitions, sights and
sounds of various kinds and degrees. According to Mr E. T. Bennett, for
twenty years assistant secretary of the Psychical Research Society, the
records of the Society contain descriptions of "a large number of cases in
which the evidence of the reality of phenomena incapable of ordinary
explanation is absolutely conclusive."
When the sounds are intelligible, or a sentence is spelt out in response to the
inquiry of the auditor, the raison d'être of the manifestation is more or less
obvious. But there is evidence of a large number of so-called "hauntings"
where steps are heard, or noises which convey no intelligible information.
Sometimes, also, we are told that simultaneously with the death of a friend
bangs have been heard, which, but for the coincidence of their occurrence
in association with a death, are without meaning. M. Flammarion cites
several cases of this sort. The following will serve as an illustration:—[2]

M. E. Deschaux relates that his grandfather "was awakened one

evening at eleven P.M. by three very distinct raps on the door of his
room. Astonished, he rose, lit the lamp, opened the door, but saw no
one. Supposing that some trickster had been the cause of his
disturbance, he returned to bed grumbling, but again three knocks were
heard on the door. He got up quickly, intending that the culprit should
pay dearly for his untimely joke, but in spite of careful search, both in
the passage and on the staircase, he could not discover where this
mysterious culprit had disappeared to. A third time, when he was again
in bed, three raps were audible on the door. This time the grandfather
had a presentiment that the sound was caused by the spirit of his
mother, although nothing in the tidings he had previously received
from his family incited him to this supposition. Five or six days after
this manifestation a letter arrived from his own country announcing the
death of his mother which had occurred precisely at the hour at which
he had heard the knocks. At the moment of her death, his mother, who
had a particular affection for him, had insisted that a dress which her
'boy in Paris' had some time before sent her as a present should be
brought and placed on her bed."

Here we seem to have a distinct motive for the visitation; but on the other
hand observe how many cases we come across where the phenomena
appears to be due solely to the wanton and mischievous impulses of the
invisible agents.
There is for example the case of a house in which spiritual manifestations,
often of a disturbing character, were continually being produced, related by
Mr Inkster Gilbertson in The Occult Review on the authority of a West End
physician who is called Dr Macdonald. The swish of a silk dress and the
slamming of doors were among the least important of the phenomena from
a psychical point of view, though the sound of someone coming through a
skylight and dropping on to the landing was certainly calculated to terrify
the ladies, who "came up from the drawing-room screaming and shouting,
expecting to find some dreadful tragedy being enacted." These
manifestations consisted entirely of sounds, but at the regular sittings which
were held in the house a drawer was taken from its place in the bedroom
and left on the hall stand, the loose wooden leaves which converted a
billiard-table into a dining-table were slid off the end and deposited on the
floor, and a screen was several times seen to fold itself up without being
touched.
The most peculiar occurrences, however, were the antics of certain keys
belonging to doors in the house. "The door of the front bedroom was often
found locked, and the key would disappear." The doctor kept his eye on the
key and presently saw it move round, locking the door, and then "he saw the
last of the key disappearing through the hole." At another time the lady of
the house, her children, and the maid were locked in for some hours. "The
key would be kept away for days; then it would suddenly appear. One day it
was found in Mrs Macdonald's lap; once it was quietly laid on the doctor's
head," and so forth. On one occasion when the key was not given up the
doctor called out: "Won't you send us down the key before we go?" They
were passing down the stairs and, before they reached the bottom, the key
was gently dropped on the doctor's head. The most careful observations
failed to discover the known means by which the feats could be
accomplished. The evidence of the intelligence and of the mischievous
disposition of these uncanny tricksters was borne out by sounds of dancing
being heard outside the door just afterwards.
"The possible non-ghostly explanations," says Mrs Sidgwick, "of what pass
as ghostly phenomena may be conveniently classed with reference to the
various sorts of error by which the evidence to such phenomena is liable to
be affected. I should state these as (1) hoaxing, (2) exaggeration or
inadequate description, (3) illusion, (4) mistaken identity, (5)
hallucination.... I think, however, that anyone who has read the evidence
will at once discard the first of these alternatives so far as the great mass of
the first-hand narratives is concerned."
There are not a few cases, however, where the ghostly manifestations have
been found to be due to human agency. The following instance was brought
to my notice by a well-known firm of estate agents at Tunbridge Wells:—
 "There is an old Manor House in this district which is locally known as
the 'Haunted House.' The original mansion was, according to Hasted,
one of the homes of the Colepepers. In the reign of Charles II. the
mansion was rebuilt in the style of the period. It has, however, outlived
its purpose, is out of repair and was for many years let in tenements to
labourers. It is now untenanted. Some few months ago the lurid tales
of ghostly visitors induced a local spiritualist, encouraged by some
mischievous friends, to hold a séance in the house at midnight, and to
perambulate the rambling building from time to time during the night.
The spirits lived up to their reputation and gave all kinds of
manifestations which included streams of water from invisible buckets
that met the investigator as he groped up the staircase and along the
passages. In the end the whole thing was found to be a hoax and to
have been organised by the spiritualist's friends. He is not
communicative on the subject. The old house still stands empty and
deserves a better fate."

The classic case of haunting in England is, perhaps, that of Willingdon Mill.
Other spectre-ridden edifices in the kingdom there may well be, but their
stories, however grim and ghastly, are apt to relapse into insignificance
beside those narrated of this famous Tyneside building.
Willingdon Mill, which is situated in Northumberland nearly half-way
between Newcastle and North Shields, was built about the year 1800.
When, thirty-four years later, certain unaccountable noises and other
phenomena began to attract attention the occupants consisted of a worthy
Quaker, Joseph Proctor by name, his wife, servants and family. Joseph
Proctor used to keep a diary wherein he chronicled the strange happenings
in his house. The greater portion of this was published in The Journal of the
Society for Psychical Research, vol. v., but full accounts of the affair have
appeared in many publications, among which may be mentioned Howitt's
"Visits to Remarkable Places," Crowe's "Night Side of Nature," "The Local
Historian's Table Book," and Stead's "Real Ghost Stories."
It was a servant girl that first called attention to the mysterious noises. She
positively affirmed that she had heard "a dull heavy tread on the boarded
floor of the room unoccupied above, commonly pacing backwards and
forwards and, on coming over to the window, giving the floor such a shake
as to cause the windows of the nursery to rattle violently in their frames."
This disturbance usually lasted about ten minutes at a time. At first the girl's
tale was discredited, but before many days had elapsed every member of the
family had heard precisely what the girl described. The room was
vigorously searched but no clue to the phantom footsteps was forthcoming.
Even the expedient of covering the floor with flour was without result; the
"dull, heavy tread" left no traces upon the whitened boards.
It was not long before other unaccountable noises were heard all over the
house and ghostly figures were seen by several persons. To illustrate the
kind of occurrence that was constantly going on in the house, and which,
indeed, became so frequent that they were thought very little of, I quote the
following extracts from Joseph Proctor's diary:—

"7 mo., 14th, 1841:—J. and E. P. heard the spirit in their own room,
and in the room overhead, making a noise as of something heavy being
hoisted or rolled, or like a barrel set down on its end; also noises in the
Camproom of various and unaccountable character.

"8 mo., 3rd.—Since the last night there have been few nights during
which some branch of the family has not heard our visitor. One night,
J. P. was awoke and heard something hastily walk, with a step like that
of a child of 8 or 10 years, from the foot of the bed towards the side of
the room, and come back seemingly towards the door, in a run; then it
gave two stamps with one foot; there was a loud rustling as if of a
frock or night-dress. I need scarcely say the door was locked, and I am
quite certain there was no other human being in the room save E. P.,
who was asleep. The two stamps aroused E. P. out of her sleep. About
this time Joseph, on two or three occasions, said he had heard voices
from underneath his bed and from other parts of the room, and
described seeing on one occasion a boy in a drab hat much like his
own, the boy much like himself too, walking backwards and forwards
between the windows and the wardrobe. He was afraid, but did not
speak.
 "Noises as of a band-box falling close at hand, as of someone running
upstairs when no one was there, and like the raking of a coal rake,
were heard about this time by different members of the family."

"8 mo., 6th.—On the night of the third, just after the previous
memorandum was written, about 10.30 P.M., the servants having all
retired to bed, J. and E. P. heard a noise like a clothes horse being
thrown down in the kitchen. Soon the noises became louder and
appeared as though some persons had burst into the house on the
ground floor and were clashing the doors and throwing things down.
Eventually J. P. got one of the servants to go downstairs with him,
when all was found right, no one there, and apparently nothing moved.
The noises now began on the third storey, and the servants were so
much alarmed that it was difficult to get them to go to bed at all that
night.

"8 mo., 6th to 12th.—My brother-in-law, George Carr, was with us. He
heard steppings and loud rumblings in the middle of the night, and
other noises."

A curious feature in this case was the number of apparitions seen. Thus we
have clear testimony of the presence of a lady in a lavender silk dress, of an
old bald-headed man in a flowing robe like a surplice, of a lady in grey, and
of a horrid eyeless spectre who glared fixedly at the world through empty
eyeholes. Added to these there were animals of all sorts and descriptions,
cats, monkeys, rabbits and sheep.

"On one occasion, during the period that Thomas was courting Mary,
he was standing at the window outside (no followers being allowed
inside, lest fabulous reports were sent abroad). He had given the usual
signal. The night was clear, and the stars beamed forth their light from
a cloudless sky. Suddenly something appeared which arrested my
 father's attention. Looking towards the mill, which was divided from
the house by an open space, he beheld what he supposed was a whitish
cat. It came walking along in close proximity to his feet. Thinking
Miss Puss very cheeky he gave her a kick; but his foot felt nothing and
the cat quietly continued its march, followed by my father, until it
suddenly disappeared from his gaze. Still the ghost was not thought of
by him. Returning to the window and looking in the same direction, he
again beheld it suddenly come into existence. This time it came
hopping like a rabbit, coming quite as close to his feet as before. He
determined to have a good rap at it, and took deliberate aim; but, as
before, his foot went through it and felt nothing. Again he followed it,
and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The third time
he went to the window, and in a few moments it made its third
appearance, not like unto a cat or a rabbit, but fully as large as a sheep,
and quite luminous. On it came and my father was fixed to the spot.
All muscular power seemed for the moment paralysed. It moved on,
disappearing at the same spot as the preceding apparitions. My father
declared that if it was possible for 'hair to stand on end' his did just
then. Thinking that for once he had seen sufficient, he went home,
keeping the knowledge of this scene to himself."

It is not to be wondered at if the queer doings at Willingdon Mill began to

be rumoured abroad. They reached the ears of a certain Dr Edward Drury of
Sunderland, who was, not unnaturally, rather sceptical. He asked and
obtained permission to sit up alone in the house one night accompanied
only by his faithful dog and with a pair of pistols in his pocket. His
opportunity came in July, 1840, when all the family, with the exception of
Joseph Proctor himself, was away from the mill. The night was fruitful with
horror, and the following letter addressed to the miller nearly a week after
the event tells its own tale:—

"Monday Morning,
"6th July, 1840.
"To MR PROCTOR.
 "DEAR SIR,—I am sorry I was not at home to receive you yesterday,
when you kindly called to inquire for me. I am happy to state that I am
really surprised that I have been so little affected as I am after that
horrid and most awful affair. The only bad effect I feel is a heavy
dulness in one of my ears—the right one. I call it a heavy dullness,
because I not only do not hear distinctly but feel in it a constant noise.
This I never was affected with before; but I doubt not it will go off. I
am persuaded that no one went to your house at any time more
disbelieving in respect to seeing anything peculiar; now no one can be
more satisfied than myself. I will, in the course of a few days, send you
a full detail of all I saw and heard. Mr Spence and two other gentlemen
came down to my house in the afternoon to hear my detail; but, sir,
could I account for these noises from natural causes, yet, so firmly am
I persuaded of the horrid apparition, that I would affirm that what I
saw with my eyes was a punishment to me for my scoffing and
unbelief; that I am assured that, as far as the horror is concerned, they
are happy that believe and have not seen ... it will be a great source of
joy to me if you never allow your young family to be in that horrid
house again. Hoping you will write a few lines at your leisure, I
remain, dear sir, yours very truly,
"EDWARD DRURY."

To this letter the sturdy Quaker sent a characteristic reply.

"Willingdon,
"7th mo., 9, 1840.
"Respected Friend, E. DRURY,—Have been at Sunderland, I did not
receive thine of the 6th till yesterday morning. I am glad to hear thou
art getting well over the effects of thy unlooked-for visitation. I hold in
respect thy bold and manly assertion of the truth in the face of that
ridicule and ignorant conceit with which that which is called the
supernatural, in the present day, is usually assailed.
"I shall be glad to receive thy detail, in which it will be needful to be
very particular in showing that thou couldst not be asleep, or attacked
 by nightmare, or mistake a reflection of the candle, as some
sagaciously suppose. I remain, respectfully, thy friend,
"JOSH. PROCTOR.
"P.S.—I have about thirty witnesses to various things which cannot be
satisfactorily accounted for on any other principle than that of spiritual
agency."

Four days later Dr Drury wrote out a full account of his experience.

"Sunderland,
"13th July 1840.
"DEAR SIR,—I hereby, according to promise in my last letter, forward
you a true account of what I saw and heard at your house, in which I
was led to pass the night from various rumours circulated by most
respectable parties, particularly from an account by my esteemed
friend, Mr Davison, whose name I mentioned to you in a former letter.
Having received your sanction to visit your mysterious dwelling, I
went, on the 3rd of July, accompanied by a friend of mine, T. Hudson.
This was not according to promise, nor in accordance with my first
intent, as I wrote you I would come alone; but I felt gratified at your
kindness in not alluding to the liberty I had taken, as it ultimately
proved for the best. I must here mention that, not expecting you at
home, I had in my pocket a brace of pistols, determining in my mind to
let one of them drop before the miller, as if by accident, for fear he
should presume to play tricks upon me; but after my interview with
you, I felt there was no occasion for weapons, and did not load them,
after you had allowed us to inspect as minutely as we pleased every
portion of the house. I sat down on the third storey landing, fully
expecting to account for any noises that I might hear, in a
philosophical manner. This was about eleven o'clock P.M. About ten
minutes to twelve we both heard a noise, as if a number of people were
pattering with their bare feet upon the floor; and yet, so singular was
the noise, that I could not minutely determine from whence it
proceeded. A few minutes afterwards we heard a noise, as if someone
was knocking with his knuckles among our feet; this was followed by
 a hollow cough from the very room from which the apparition
proceeded. The only noise after this, was as if a person was rustling
against the wall in coming upstairs. At a quarter to one I told my friend
that, feeling a little cold, I would like to go to bed, as we might hear
the noise equally well there; he replied he would not go to bed till
daylight. I took up a note which I had accidentally dropped and began
to read it, after which I took out my watch to ascertain the time, and
found that it wanted ten minutes to one. In taking my eyes from the
watch they became riveted upon a closet door, which I distinctly saw
open, and saw also the figure of a female attired in greyish garments,
with the head inclining downwards, and one hand pressed upon the
chest as if in pain, and the other—viz. the right hand—extended
towards the floor, with the index finger pointing downward. It
advanced with an apparently cautious step across the floor towards me;
immediately as it approached my friend, who was slumbering, its right
hand was extended towards him; I then rushed at it, giving, as Mr
Proctor states, a most awful yell; but instead of grasping it I fell upon
my friend, and I recollected nothing distinctly for nearly three hours
afterwards. I have since learned that I was carried downstairs in an
agony of fear and terror.

"I hereby certify that the above account is strictly true and correct in
every respect.
"EDWARD DRURY."

So intolerable became life in this uncanny house that, in 1847, Joseph

Proctor and his family moved to South Shields. For the last night of their
residence was reserved a more than usually turbulent demonstration. "There
were," says Mr Edmund Proctor, "continuous noises during the night, boxes
being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down the now carpetless stairs,
non-human footsteps stumped on the floors, doors were, or seemed to be,
clashed, and impossible furniture corded at random or dragged hither and
thither by inscrutable agency; in short, a pantomimic or spiritualistic
repetition of all the noises incident to a household flitting. A miserable
night my father and mother had of it, as I have often heard from their own
lips; not so much from terror at the unearthly noises, for to these they were
habituated, as dread lest this wretched fanfaronade might portend the
contemporary flight of the unwelcome visitors to the new abode.
Fortunately for the family this dread was not realised."
After undergoing various vicissitudes, the house was finally divided into
small tenements, in which condition it still remains. But of late years
nothing has been seen or heard of the ghostly visitors. Perhaps, smitten with
dismay by the deterioration of their former dwelling-place, they have taken
up their abode elsewhere. For Willingdon Mill, formerly gay with flowers
and creepers, is now a wreck of its former self. The mill is used as a
warehouse; the stables and outhouses have been pulled down; while the
house stands out gaunt and forbidding, a picture of desolation and decay.
Mr W. T. Stead, in his "Real Ghost Stories," has given us many thrilling
examples of nocturnal apparitions, and of these the uncanny experience of
the Rev. H. Elwyn Thomas, of 35 Park Village East, N. W., is well worth
repeating.
Mr Thomas, after having conducted a service at the church at Llangynidr,
accompanied three young friends of his for about half-a-mile on their
homeward way.

"When I wished good-night to my friends, it was about twenty minutes

to nine, but still light enough to see a good distance. The subject of our
conversation all the way from the chapel until we parted was a certain
eccentric old character who then belonged to the Crickhowell church.
Many laughable incidents in his life had been related by my friends for
my amusement, at which I laughed heartily again and again. I walked a
little farther down the road than I intended, in order to hear the end of
a very amusing story about him and the vicar of a neighbouring parish.
Our conversation had no reference whatever to ghosts or ghostly
things. Neither were we in the mood befitting a ghostly visitation.
Personally I was a strong disbeliever in ghosts, and invariably
ridiculed those who I then thought superstitious enough to believe in
them.
"When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends I
saw on the bank of the canal (which runs parallel with the road for six
or seven miles) what I thought at the moment was an old beggar. The
spot was a very lonely one. The nearest house was a good quarter of a
mile away. The night was as silent as death. Not a single sound broke
upon the silence from any quarter. I could not help asking myself
where this old man had come from to such a place. I had not seen him
in going down the road.
"I then turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look at him,
and had no sooner done so than I saw within half-a-yard of me one of
the most remarkable and startling sights I hope it will ever be my lot to
see. Almost on a level with my own face I saw that of an old man, over
every feature of which the putty-coloured skin was drawn tightly,
except the forehead which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were
extremely thin, and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth
stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those of a
corpse, and the eyes, which seemed far back in the middle of the head,
were unnaturally luminous and piercing. This terrible object was
wrapped in two bands of old yellow calico, one of which was drawn
under the chin and over the cheeks and tied at the top of the head, the
other was drawn round the top of the wrinkled forehead and fastened
at the back of the head. So deep and indelible an impression it made on
my mind, that were I an artist I could paint that face to-day, and
reproduce the original (excepting, perhaps, the luminous eyes) as
accurately as if it were photographed.
"What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a glance.
Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face again towards
the village, and ran away from the horrible vision with all my might
for about sixty yards. I then stopped and turned round to see how far I
had outdistanced it, and, to my unspeakable horror, there it was still
face to face with me, as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my
umbrella and raised it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings
when I could see nothing between the face and the ground except an
irregular column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella went
as a stick goes through water!
"I am sorry to confess that I again took to my heels with increasing
speed. A little farther than the place of this second encounter, the road
which led towards my host's house branched off the main road, the
main road itself running right through the centre of the village, in the
lower end of which it ran parallel with the churchyard wall. Having
gone a few yards down the branch road, I reached a crisis in my fear
and confusion when I felt I could act rationally: I determined to speak
to the strange pursuer whatever he was, and I boldly turned round to
face him for the third time, intending to ask him what he wanted, etc.,
"He had not followed me after I left the main road, but I could see the
horribly fascinating face quite as plainly as when it was close by. It
stood for two or three minutes looking intently at me from the centre
of the main road. I then realised fully it was not a human being in flesh
and blood; and with every vestige of fear gone I quickly walked
towards it to put my questions. But I was disappointed, for no sooner
had I made towards it than it moved quickly in the direction of the
village. I saw it moving along, keeping the same distance from the
ground, until it reached the churchyard wall; it then crossed the wall,
and disappeared near where the yew-tree stood inside. The moment it
disappeared I became unconscious. When I came to myself, two hours
later, I was lying in the middle of the road, cold and ill. It took me
quite an hour to reach my host's house, which was less than half-a-mile
away, and when I reached it I looked so white and strange that my
host's daughter, who had sat down with her father to wait my return,
uttered a loud scream. I could not say a word to explain what had
happened, though I tried hard several times. It was five o'clock in the
morning when I regained my power of speech; even then I could only
speak in broken sentences. The whole of the following week I was laid
up with great nervous prostration.
"The strangest part of my story remains yet to be told. My host, after
questioning me closely in regard to the features of the face, the place I
had first seen it and the spot where it disappeared, told me that fifteen
years before that time an old recluse, answering in every detail to my
description (calicoes, bands and all), lived in a house whose ruins still
stand close by where I first saw it, that he was buried in the exact spot
 in the churchyard where I saw the face disappearing, and that he was a
very strange character altogether.
"I should like to add that I had not heard a syllable about this old man
before the night in question, and that all the persons referred to in the
above story are still alive."

Here is a curious story which recently attracted my attention in Light. The

narrator is a Colonel X.

"When I was a young chap I was on guard at the Tower. One night the
sentry came to tell me that there was something very extraordinary
going on in the White Chapel, which, in those days, was used as a
storeroom.
"I went out with him, and we saw the windows lit up. We climbed up
and looked in, and saw a chapter with an altar brilliantly lit up, and
presently priests in vestments and boys swinging silver censers came
in and arranged themselves before an altar. Then the large entrance
doors opened and a procession of persons in old quaint costumes filed
in. Walking alone was a lady in black, and behind her was a masked
man, also in black, who carried an axe. While we looked it all faded
away, and there was utter darkness.
"Of course, I talked about this vision everywhere and got so laughed at
that I resolved to keep it to myself. One day a gentleman introduced
himself as the keeper of the records of the Tower, and said that he had
heard my story, but wished to hear it again from my own lips; and
when I had told it he remarked: 'Strange to say, that very same vision
has been seen by someone every thirty years since Anne Boleyn's
death.'"

It not infrequently happens that houses reputed to be haunted figure in a

court of law. The late Dr Frederick Lee, in "Sights and Shadows," gives an
account of such a case which occurred in Ireland in the year 1890.

"A house on the marsh at Drogheda had been let by its owner, Miss
Weir, to a Mr and Mrs Kinney, at an annual rental of £23.
 "The last-named persons took possession of it in due course; but two
days subsequently they became aware of the presence of a spirit or
ghost in their sleeping chamber, which, as Mrs Kinney asserted, 'threw
heavy things at her,' and so alarmed and inconvenienced her, that in a
very short period both husband and wife were forced to quit their
abode.
"This they did shortly after they had taken possession of it; and,
because of occurrences referred to, were legally advised to decline to
pay any rent. The landlady, however, refusing to release them from
their bargain, at once claimed a quarter's rent; and when this remained
for sometime unpaid, sued them for it before Judge Kisby.
"A solicitor, Mr Smith, of Drogheda, appeared for the tenants, who,
having given evidence of the facts concerning the ghost in question,
asked leave to support their sworn testimony by that of several other
people. This, however, was disallowed by the judge.
"It was admitted by Miss Weir that nothing either on one side or the
other had been said regarding the haunting when the house was let; yet
that the rent was due and must be paid.
"A judgment was consequently entered for the landlady although it had
been shown indirectly that unquestionably the house had the reputation
of being haunted, and that previous tenants had been much
inconvenienced and affrighted."

Another case is chronicled which took place in Dublin in 1885. Dr Lee's

account is confirmed by The Evening Standard of February 23rd of that
year.

"Mr Waldron, a solicitor, sued his next-door neighbour, one Kiernan, a

mate in the merchant service, to recover £500 for damages done to his
house. Kiernan altogether denied the charges, but asserted that
Waldron's residence was notoriously haunted. Witnesses proved that
every night from August 1884, to January 1885, stones were thrown at
the windows and doors and other serious damage done—in fact that
numerous extraordinary and inexplicable occurrences constantly took
place.
 "Mrs Waldron, wife of the plaintiff, swore that one night she saw one
of the panes of glass of a certain window cut through with a diamond,
and a white hand inserted through the hole. She at once caught up a
bill-hook and aimed a blow at the hand, cutting off one of the fingers.
Neither this finger, however, could be found nor were any traces of
blood seen.
"A servant of hers was sorely persecuted by noises and the sound of
footsteps. Mr Waldron, with the aid of detectives and policemen,
endeavoured to find the cause, but with no avail. The witnesses in this
case were closely cross-examined, but without shaking their testimony.
The facts appeared to be proved, so the jury found for Kiernan, the
defendant. At least twenty persons had testified on oath to the fact that
the house had been known to have been haunted."

The possible agency of small boys in the matter of stone-throwing is

apparently overlooked, while it can be easily imagined that a servant girl,
well aware of the uncanny reputation of the house she lived in, would very
soon develop a capacity for hearing mysterious sounds and footsteps on the
smallest provocation. Then again the testimony of the plaintiff's wife was
surely very damaging to her own case since she was, presumably,
endeavouring to prove that the whole of the "extraordinary and inexplicable
occurrences" were due to some mad freak on the part of her neighbour.
On the whole I can find no class of occult phenomena of greater antiquity
and persistence than that of haunting. Even though the ghost may not be as
visible as that of Hamlet's father, yet the idea of a perturbed spirit revisiting
its former haunts or the scene of its bodily murder finds credence amongst
all peoples and epochs in the world's history. Fable is usually the dulled
image of the truth: just as what we call presentiment or rumour is a kind of
aura or van-wind of truth. On these grounds alone I should be inclined to
take the legendary evidence for haunting seriously, just as every man who
investigates its astonishing history now perceives that witchcraft is not to be
dismissed as a mere groundless superstition. Indeed, I lay it down as a
proposition that any belief which spontaneously and universally arises and
persistently survives must have truth in the web of it. But the modern
authentic testimony for haunting is so clear and strong and the attestors so
clear-headed and indeed inexpugnable that we must really believe the
physical sounds, with their revealed significance, actually occurred and do
occur. Hallucination I put here out of the question. Neither will the theory
of telepathy between the living serve to account for anything here.
There is some other solution of the mystery. Has it been propounded? We
shall see. Cock Lane is not now to be dismissed derisively. Nor are these
manifestations to be treated in the spirit of one of the characters in Mr
Wells' "Love and Mr Lewisham"—"Even if it be true—it is all wrong."
 CHAPTER VIII
THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD

No serious inquirer into the mysteries of occultism should neglect to study

the peculiar human faculty locally known as Dowsing. Science has hitherto
turned a cold shoulder to the skilled wielders of the divining rod, and at first
sight perhaps few subjects appear to be so little worthy of investigation. To
begin with it is a matter of common geological knowledge that the mode of
distribution of underground water is very different from that imagined by
the professional dowser. The latter will locate a spring in a certain spot and
give you scrupulous details as to its depth and the amount of water it will
yield. He may go on to tell you that a few feet distant is another spring, of a
totally different depth, and that between the two no water will be found.
The assertions are ridiculed by the practical geologist, whose point of view
is admirably expressed in the following letter. The writer is the Rev.
Osmond Fisher, M.A. (author of "Physics of the Earth's Crust").

"Harlton Rectory, Cambridge,

"February 4th, 1896.
"It appears to me that the assumption which underlies the belief in the
divining rod is erroneous. It is only under exceptional circumstances,
as among crystalline rocks, or where the strata are much disturbed, that
underground water runs in channels like water in a pipe, so that a
person can say, 'I am now standing over a spring,' whereas a few paces
off he was not over one. What is called a spring, such as is reached in a
well, is usually a widely extended water-saturated stratum. Ordinarily
where water can be reached by a well, there are few spots [in the
neighbourhood] where a well would not find it.
"The question which is really worthy of investigation in this and
similar cases seems to be how such an idea ever originated and to what
it owes its vitality."
From the geologist's point of view, then, the so-called "diviner" is the
merest charlatan, who, so far as the finding of water or mineral veins is
concerned, would be equally successful were he to substitute the dice-box
or the coin for his more usual implement the hazel wand. It is, he argues, a
matter of guessing—and nothing more. The question becomes complicated
when we remember that among the ardent devotees of the "rod" are to be
numbered country squires, M.P.'s, doctors, clergymen, and farmers, who
would have nothing to gain by pretending to a power which they did not
possess.
The Society for Psychical Research has devoted a considerable amount of
attention to the subject. So far back as 1884 a paper on "The Divining Rod,"
prepared by Mr E. R. Pease, was read at a general meeting of the Society.
The following is an abstract:—

"The Divining Rod is a V-shaped twig, commonly of hazelwood, but

sometimes of steel watchspring, whalebone and other substances. It
first came into use about three centuries ago, and during the
seventeenth century it was the subject of much controversy and of
numerous experiments by the learned men of the time. Many theories
were proposed to explain its action, but none of them would now be
regarded as plausible, and various test experiments which were made
uniformly failed. In 1701, the Inquisition condemned the use of the
rod, and after this date the popularity of divining greatly diminished. In
the seventeenth century it was used to discover murderers and thieves,
buried treasures, lost boundaries, and other hidden objects, as well as
metals and water springs. At present it appears to be chiefly used in the
West of England for the discovery of water springs, and in America for
oil wells and mines. Mr E. Vaughan Jenkins, of Cheltenham, has made
and presented to the Society for Psychical Research a very valuable
collection of evidence of its use in England for locating wells. He has
communicated with various well-known 'diviners,' and has received
direct from landowners, architects, builders, commercial firms and
others, careful records of the successful choosing of well sites by
diviners in places where professional geologists or local experts were
hopeless of success. It seems also that diviners travel about the country
and 'dowse' in localities new and strange to them.... The divining rod is
always held in a position of extreme tension, and at the same time of
 unstable equilibrium. Slight muscular contractions produce violent and
startling effects. It would seem therefore that the action of the rod may
be caused by unconscious movements of the diviner's hands, due
possibly to a sensation of chill on reaching water-bearing spots, or
perhaps merely to an unwritten practical science of the surface signs of
hidden water."

Mr Pease eventually came to the conclusion that "the evidence for the
success of dowsing as a practical art is very strong—and there seems to be
an unexplained residuum when all possible deductions have been made."
Fifty years ago Dr Mayo, F.R.S., came to a similar conclusion after
exhaustive experiments with the divining rod, both in England and abroad,
and in 1883, Dr R. Raymond, the distinguished secretary of the American
Institute of Mining Engineers, summed up the result of his investigations in
the following opinion:—"That there is a residuum of scientific value, after
making all necessary deductions for exaggeration, self-deception and fraud"
in the use of the divining rod for finding springs and deposits of ore.
In 1892, Professor W. F. Barrett, yielding to the earnest request of the
Council of the Society for Psychical Research, began an investigation of the
matter. It was with considerable reluctance that Professor Barrett undertook
the work, since, as he has told us, his own prejudice against the subject was
not less than that of others. He hoped, however, that a few weeks' work
would enable him to relegate it
 "Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The Paradise of fools."

Six years later Professor Barrett presented to the Society a voluminous

report, which occupies a considerable part of two volumes of the
"Proceedings." Embodied in this Report, which is a veritable masterpiece of
patient and indefatigable research, is a mass of evidence so vast that it is
only possible to pick out a case here and there at random.
The following case was sent by Miss Grantham:—

"100 Eaton Square, London, S.W.,

"February 1st, 1893.
"My father (Judge Grantham) was going to dig a well on one of his
farms. The Rev. J. Blunt was then residing in our parish, and as he had
previously told us he was able to discover the presence of water
underground by means of a twig, we asked him to go with us one day
to see if he could find water. Mr B. began by cutting a twig out of the
hedge, of hazel or blackthorn, V-shaped, each side about eight inches
long, then taking hold of one end in each hand between the thumb and
first finger, and pointing the angle to the ground, he walked about the
field in which my father proposed digging a well, and at two spots the
point of the twig turned right up, exactly reversing its previous
position; in fact so strong was its impulse to point upwards, that we
found that unless Mr B. relaxed his hold the twig broke off near his
fingers. We put small sticks in these spots, and then took a boy about
twelve years old who was in Mr B.'s employment, and who had since
quite a child shown that he possessed this power, over the same
ground; he had not seen the spots at which Mr B.'s twig found water,
neither did we point them out to him, but at these places his twig
behaved in the same way as Mr B.'s. My father, mother, and four or
five others, then cut similar twigs out of the hedge, but with none of us
would they divine water. My father then took Mr B. over some ground
where he knew of the existence of an underground stream; he did not
tell Mr B. this, but directly Mr B. passed over the places the twig again
turned upwards as it had done before. A well has since been dug at one
 of the spots in the first field where the twig indicated water, and it was
found at the depth of fifteen feet. Mr B. and the boy both said that they
did not feel any abnormal influence whatever when the twig divined
water.
"EMMA L. GRANTHAM."

Another case (from Somersetshire) is quoted from in The Western Gazette

of 10th February 1893. Evercreech is at the foot of the Mendips.

"A well has recently been sunk on the premises of Messrs W. Roles &
Son, of Evercreech Junction, on the site of the proposed milk factory.
Mr Henry Smart, head gardener at Pennard House, was successful with
the divining twig (or rod), and a well was sunk to a depth of 60 feet,
when a spring was found which yielded no less than 15,000 gallons of
water in ten hours. Water came at such a rate that a powerful pump had
to be erected temporarily by Messrs Hill & Son, of Bruton, and was
kept working day and night in order to keep the water down for the
purpose of walling (the well). At the present time there is 50 feet of
water in the well, the supply increasing daily."

Professor Barrett wrote to Messrs Roles to know if a well had been sunk
previously, and if the above statement was correct. They reply that the
account is quite correct, and add: "We had previously sunk a well without
the use of the rod, to nearly the same depth, but it was unsuccessful. Six
yards from this useless well the diviner found the spring which now yields
enough to supply a small village if required."
The Rev. Martin R. Knapp, M.A., vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, writes to
Professor Barrett as follows:—

"72 Forest Road, Dalston, N.E.,

"November 14th, 1896.
"In the summer of 1892, I entered on the vicarage of North Wootton in
North Somerset, and had reason at once to look for water. I was
advised to try a 'water-finder,' and did so. The dowser was a retired
miller, and came provided with a number of forked twigs. Holding one
 he traversed the place, and at certain points the twig oscillated
violently in his hands, and there, he professed, he should find water.
"There was an interesting sidelight in the matter that I will tell you of.
My builder, who came from Bath, was very sceptical about the whole
thing. Three or four of us who were on the spot tried to see if the twigs
would 'play up' with us.
"We were unsuccessful till this man tried his hand, scoffing the while.
But directly that he came to the spots the dowser had found the twig
showed vigorous signs of animation. When his hand was being twisted
in his efforts to keep the twig steady, I cried to him to hold fast, with
the result that the twig twisted itself into two pieces.
"At Wells, close by, lived a coachman, who was reported to have the
power to find, not only water but minerals. He carries neither rod nor
twig, and told me when I inquired, that his sensations are undoubted
and extraordinary whenever he is directly above either water or
minerals.
"MARTIN R. KNAPP."

In answer to inquiries Mr Knapp informed Professor Barrett the builder was

a stranger to the locality, and the spots where the rod moved were unlikely
to suggest water below. The twig in the builder's hand, Mr Knapp says, in
every case corroborated the dowser's indications, and hence he (the builder)
was unmercifully chaffed, as he had treated the whole thing with such
contempt. Mr Knapp says it is possible that the places indicated by the
dowser might have been perceived by the builder, but it was the
spontaneous and vigorous movement of the twig, evidently contrary to the
holder's intention and against his will, that excited their astonishment.
Dr Hutton, F.R.S., the distinguished mathematician—to whom the Royal
Society entrusted the gigantic labour of making an abridgment of the whole
of the Transactions of the Royal Society from its foundation in 1666 to the
beginning of this century—gives the following account of his experiments
with the divining rod as used by Lady Milbanke:—
 "At the time appointed (eleven A.M., 30th May 1806) the lady, with all
her family, arrived at my house on Woolwich Common, where, after
preparing the rods, etc., they walked to the grounds, accompanied by
the individuals of my own family and some friends, when Lady
Milbanke showed the experiment several times in different places,
holding the rod in the manner described elsewhere. In the places where
I had good reason to know that no water was to be found the rod was
always quiescent, but in other places, where I knew there was water
below the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly in the manner
above described, till the twigs twisted themselves off below the
fingers, which are considerably indented by so forcibly holding the rod
between them.[3]
"All the company stood close to Lady M. with all eyes intensely fixed
on her hands and the rods to watch if any particular motion might be
made by the fingers, but in vain; nothing of the kind was perceived,
and all the company could observe no cause or reason why the rods
should move in the manner they were seen to do.
"After the experiments were ended, everyone of the company tried the
rods in the same manner as they saw Lady M. had done, but without
the least motion from any of them. And in my family, among
ourselves, we have since then, several times, tried if we could possibly
cause the rod to turn by means of any trick or twisting of the fingers,
held in the manner Lady Milbanke did, but in vain; we had no power
to accomplish it."

The following is a remarkable case, and an important one from an

evidential point of view. It is not known whether the "diviner" in this case
was an amateur or not; he is now dead.
The Bristol Times and Mirror of 16th June 1891 states:

"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery at Shepton Mallet needed a large water

supply; accordingly excavations had been made to find water, but
without success. About two years since, during an exceptionally dry
season, it became absolutely necessary to obtain a further supply of
brewing water; hence several boring experiments were made on the
 property. At the suggestion of a gentleman in the locality, the services
of a 'diviner' were obtained, and although the principal members of the
firm professed to have no faith in his 'art,' yet he was allowed to try the
fields on the company's property, and those on the neighbouring estate,
and discovered the well now used by the brewery.... The soothsayer
who carried the divining rod, a hazel branch, was Mr Charles Sims, a
local farmer, and a notable discoverer of wells in the district.
Operations were immediately commenced, and, after excavating and
dynamiting through the rock, to the depth of fifty feet, a magnificent
spring was discovered in a fault of the rock, which proved to be of
exceptionally fine water, and of even a finer quality than the town's
supply."

Professor Barrett wrote to the Secretary of the brewery to make inquiries

and he replied as follows:—

"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,

"September 12th, 1896.
"Replying to your letter in regard to a local diviner, we had one of the
name of Sims, from Pilton, who successfully denoted a spot on our
ground where we have had an abundant supply of water since. This
was some eight years ago.
"The writer of this letter also has had some considerable experience
with Mr Lawrence of Bristol, who was one of the most noted divining
rod men in the West of England. He also was successful in denoting a
supply for a Bristol brewery with which the writer was connected; and
in numerous other instances in the neighbourhood. Mr Lawrence bore
a very high reputation. We believe he died a few months ago at a ripe
old age.
"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
"J. CLIFFORD,
"Manager."
Having written to ask if a previous boring had been made, and if so, what
depth, and with what result, the following reply was received:—

"Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire,

"September 18th, 1896.
"Replying to yours of the 14th, a boring was carried out to the extent
of some 140 feet without success on another portion of our premises,
before it was successfully done at the spot indicated by the water
finder; here, a well was sunk and abundant water obtained at a depth of
40 feet.
"The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Ltd.,
"J. CLIFFORD,
"Manager."

In the following case, the best advice was obtained and some £1000 spent
fruitlessly searching for an underground spring prior to the dowser's visit.
The first notice of it appeared in a local newspaper, The West Sussex Times
and Sussex Standard, from which the following letter is reprinted:—

"Warnham Lodge, Horsham,

"January 3rd, 1893.
"Having had very great difficulty in the supply of water to this house, I
sent for John Mullins, of Colerne, near Chippenham, who, by the aid
of a twig of hazel, pointed out several places where water could be
found. I have sunk wells in four of the places and it each case have
been most successful.
"It may be said that water can be found anywhere—this is not my
experience. I have had the best engineering advice and have spent
many hundreds of pounds, and hitherto have not obtained sufficient
water for my requirements, but now I have an abundant supply.
"I certainly should not think of sinking another well without previously
consulting John Mullins.
 "HENRY HARDEN."

It is sometimes urged that only springs yielding a limited supply of water

are found by dowsers, who fix on spots where more or less surface water
can be got from shallow wells rather than run the risk of sinking a deep
well. Many of the cases already cited refute this notion, and the following
bears on the same point. It is from Messrs Beamish & Crawford, the well-
known brewers, of Cork.

"Cork Porter Brewery, Cork,

"December 30th, 1896.
"In reply to your letter of 26th inst., we beg to state:
"1. We had an old well yielding a small supply of water. It was about
30 feet deep.
"2. No new well was fixed on by Mullins. He bored down to a depth of
about 60 feet below the bottom of the old well, and therefore about 90
feet below the surface of the ground.
"3. The supply of water now obtained from the new pipes sunk by
Mullins is, as nearly as we can estimate, about 10,000 gallons per hour.
"BEAMISH & CRAWFORD LTD."

It goes without saying that professional dowsers are not always successful
in their quests. "I am inclined," states Professor Barrett, "to think we may
take from ten to fifteen per cent. as the average percentage of failures which
occur with most English dowsers of to-day, allowing a larger percentage for
partial failures, meaning by this that the quantity of water estimated and the
depth at which it is found have not realised the estimate formed by the
dowser."
What then is the secret of the dowser's often remarkable success? The
question is whether, after making every allowance for shrewdness of eye,
chance, coincidence, and local geological knowledge, the dowser has any
instinctive or supernormal power of discovering the presence of
underground water. Professor Barrett, who has perhaps devoted more time
to the subject than any other man living, is inclined to answer in the
affirmative.
"There appears to be evidence," he writes, "that a more profound stratum of
our personality, glimpses of which we get elsewhere in our 'Proceedings,' is
associated with the dowser's art; and the latter seems to afford a further
striking instance of information obtained through automatic means being
more remarkable than, and beyond the reach of, that derived from conscious
observation and inference."
In another passage he adds:

"For my own part, I have been driven to believe that some dowsers—

"Whose exterior semblance doth belie

The soul's immensity"

nevertheless give us a glimpse of

"The eternal deep

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind."
 CHAPTER IX
MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA

In my inquiry so far the reader will note that I have taken one thing for
granted—the fact of telepathy. In order to convince him to the extent to
which this great scientific truth has convinced me, it would be necessary for
me to lead him through a thousand pages of evidence for telepathic
phenomena, attested by some of the leading physicists of the day. I am
aware that there are still sceptics on the subject of telepathy, but the
testimony is overwhelming, and every year sees the ranks of scepticism
growing thinner.
Not many years ago a very learned man, the late Professor von Helmholtz,
although confronted with prima-facie evidence of thought transference or
telepathy, declared: "I cannot believe it. Neither the testimony of all the
Fellows of the Royal Society, nor even the evidence of my own senses,
would lead me to believe in the transmission of them from one person to
another. It is clearly impossible." An opinion in these terms is very rare to-
day. We are apt to express our incredulity in language far more guarded and
less emphatic.
About hallucinations, however, there is no scepticism. We have remarked
sensory hallucinations of an occasional nature; we now come to regard
them as a cult, for I suppose there is no manifestation in the world, no gift,
no prodigy even, that is not prone to the fate of being exploited for
particular ends.
A poet, we will say, by some rare "subliminal uprush," produces a beautiful
poem. He is at once chained to his desk by publishers and compelled to go
on producing poetry for the rest of his life. It is inevitable that many of his
manifestations will be false; and for that reason, in spite of an occasional
jewel of truth, he runs serious risks of being denounced in the end as no
poet.
I have no doubt it is the same with the producers or the agents of occult
phenomena. Sensory hallucinations may be stimulated. They may be
stimulated by intoxication and disease, or they may be stimulated by the
morbid conditions of a spiritualistic séance. Everything in these conditions
—the prolonged darkness, the emotional expectancy—promotes the
peculiar frame of mind apparently requisite. Constant exercise—perpetual
aspiration develops the power of seeing visions. After a time, in well-known
cases, they appear to need no inducement to come spontaneously.
One well-known medium, Mr Hill Tout, confesses that building and
peopling chateaux en Espagne was a favourite occupation of his in his
earlier days. This long-practised faculty is doubtless a potent factor in all
his characterisations, and probably also in those of many another full-
fledged medium.
Hallucinations need not be visual only; they are frequently auditory. Miss
Freer gives an account of one induced by merely holding a shell to the ear.
There is another case of a young woman in whom auditory hallucinations
would be excited on hearing the sound of water running through a tap.
Given the basis of actual sound, the hallucinable person quickly causes it to
become articulate and intelligible. Thus, is it unreasonable to suppose that
the vague, nebulous lights seen at dark séances would furnish the raw
material, so to speak, for sense deception?
Thus, we have the basis and beginning, from one point of view, of modern
spiritualism. But before we examine the question of clairvoyance or trance
utterances of spiritualistic mediums we must first of all go into the subject
of physical phenomena.

So-called physical phenomena are a comparatively modern excrescence on

the main growth. It is only within the last half-century that they have
attained any considerable development. The faith in the communion and
intervention of spirits originated before their appearance and will probably
outlast their final discredit. At the best, whatever effect they may have had
in advertising the movement with the vulgar, they seem to have exerted
only a subsidiary influence in inducing belief with more thoughtful men and
women.
These physical phenomena consist chiefly of table rapping, table moving,
ringing of bells, and various other manifestations for which a normal cause
is not apparent. For a long time, in the early days of modern spiritualism,
the cult was chiefly confined to "miracles" of this sort. One of its most
notable props was the manifestations, long continued and observed by many
thousands, of the famous Daniel Dunglas Home. It is fifty years ago now
since Home came to England and began his séances, which were attended
by Lord Dunraven, Lord Brougham, Sir D. Brewster, Robert Owen, Bulwer
Lytton, T. A. Trollope, Garth Wilkinson, and others. For thirty years Home
was brought before the public as a medium, dying in 1886. He seems to
have been an amiable, highly emotional man, full of generous impulses, and
of considerable personal charm. His frankness and sincerity impressed all
those who came in touch with the man. Mr Andrew Lang has called him "a
Harold Skimpole, with the gift of divination."
Home dealt with both clairvoyance and physical manifestations. Ostensibly
through him came an enormous number of messages purporting to proceed
from the dead friends of certain of those attending the séances. In the
records of these séances will be found the signed statements of Dr Garth
Wilkinson, Dr Gully, Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall, the present Earl of Dunraven,
Earl of Crawford, Dr Hawksley, Mrs Nassau Senior, Mr P. P. Alexander, Mr
Perdicaris, and others, that they had received messages giving details of a
private nature that it seemed in the last degree probable could be known to
the medium. Home's manifestations were for the most part those which any
attendant at a spiritualistic séance can witness for himself to-day. The room
he used was, compared with those used by other mediums who insisted on
complete darkness, well lighted, as he had a shaded lamp, a gas-burner, or
one or two candles lighted. The manifestations generally began with raps;
then followed a quivering movement of the table, which one present
described as like "the vibration on a small steamer when the engines begin
to work"; by another as "a ship in distress, with its timbers straining in a
heavy sea." Then, suspended in the air, the table would float, and in its
shelter musical instruments performing could be heard; the sitters could feel
their knees being clasped and their dresses pulled; many things would be
handed about the circle, such as handkerchiefs, flowers, and even heavy
bells. During the performance messages were rapped out by the spirits, or
delivered through the mouth of the medium. In this respect, where
intelligence is shown, they would partake of the nature of trance utterance,
a thing to be analysed later.

Robert Bell, a dramatist and critic, having been present at one of these
séances, acknowledged that he had seen things which he was satisfied were
"beyond the pale of material experiences." After describing various
manifestations, hands felt under the table, touching the knees, and pulling
the clothes, bells rung by invisible agency, and various articles thrown
about the room, he proceeds to describe "levitation":

"Mr Home was seated next the window. Through the semi-darkness his
head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands might be
seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he said, in a quiet
voice, 'My chair is moving—I am off the ground—don't notice me—
talk of something else,' or words to that effect. It was very difficult to
restrain the curiosity, not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which
these few words awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon
some different topic. I was sitting nearly opposite Mr Home, and I saw
his hands disappear from the table, and his head vanish into the deep
shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke again. This time
his voice was in the air above our heads. He had risen from his chair to
a height of four or five feet from the ground. As he ascended higher he
described his position, which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards
became horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the
gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse. In a
moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass across the
window, against the grey, silvery light of which he would be visible.
We watched in profound stillness, and saw his figure pass from one
side of the window to the other, feet foremost, lying horizontally in the
air. He spoke to us as he passed, and told us that he would turn the
reverse way and recross the window, which he did. His own tranquil
confidence in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the
most novel peril gave confidence to everybody else; but with the
 strongest nerves it was impossible not to be conscious of a certain
sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle for several
minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly, over our heads. I heard
his voice behind me in the air, and felt something lightly brush my
chair. It was his foot, which he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the
spot where it was on the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon
it, when he uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly,
with a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair, but
floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He now passed
over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we could judge by his
voice of the altitude and distance he had attained. He had reached the
ceiling, upon which he made a slight mark, and soon afterwards
descended and resumed his place at the table. An incident which
occurred during this aerial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity
to it, was that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground
under the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the air
from the distant corner of the room."

A well-known physician, Dr Gully, who was present at this séance, wrote

confirming the account in The Cornhill Magazine given by the above
writer.
During the ensuing forty years mediumistic performances became of
common and almost daily occurrence in this country. Two or three forms of
so-called spirit manifestation—such as materialisation, spirit photography,
and slate-writing—afterwards became connected with many of the séances.
But first the manifestations in daylight consisted of raps and tiltings of a
table; afterwards, when the lights were turned out or turned very low, spirit
voices, touches of spirit hands, spirit lights, spirit-born flowers, floating
musical instruments, and moving about or levitation of the furniture.
Until Sir William Crookes began to investigate the alleged spiritualistic
phenomena, all investigation had been undertaken by persons without
scientific training. After a year of experiments he issued a detailed
description of those conducted in his own laboratory in the presence of four
other persons, two of whom, Sir William Huggins and Sergeant Fox,
confirmed the accuracy of his report. The result was that he was able to
demonstrate, he said, the existence of a hitherto unknown force, and had
measured the effect produced. At all events, these inquirers were convinced
of the genuineness of Home's powers.
Suppose we glance at the possible alternative—viz. that Home was a
conjurer of consummate skill and ingenuity. For one of the physical
phenomena, that of tilting a table at a precarious angle without displacing
various small objects resting on its polished surface, Mr Podmore suggests
an explanation. He thinks that the articles were probably held in position on
the table when it was tilted by means of hairs and fine threads attached to
Home's dress. He has various explanations for other of the phenomena, but
he confesses that there remain a few manifestations which the hypothesis of
simple trickery does not seem to fit. In going over a mass of evidence
relating to Home, the hypothesis of conjuring seems to be rather incredible;
when one bears in mind Home's long career as a medium, how his private
life was watched by the lynx-eyed sceptics, eager to pounce upon the
evidence of trickery, and that he was never detected, it certainly seems to
me, at all events, that Home's immunity from exposure is strong evidence
against the assumption of fraud. Home was merely the type of a large class
of mediums purporting to be controlled by spirit power, whose séances are
a feature of modern life.
Certain experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home came very near to
satisfying the most stringent scientific conditions, especially those in the
alteration in the weight of a board. In these experiments one end of the
board was on a spring balance and the other rested on a table. The board
became heavier or lighter as Home placed his fingers on the end resting on
the table and "willed" it, and the different weights were recorded by an
automatic register. This effect might have been produced, says Mr
Podmore, by using a dark thread with a loop attached to some part of the
apparatus—possibly the hook of the spring balance—and the ends fastened
to Home's trousers. But this particular trick does not seem to have occurred
to those experimenting, and the description of the séances does not exclude
it.
Suggesting an explanation of an event does not prove that it so occurred,
and Mr Podmore adds: "It is not easy to see how the investigators ... could
have been deceived, and repeatedly deceived, by any device of the kind
suggested."
One of the most remarkable of Daniel Dunglas Home's manifestations
occurred on 16th December 1868, at 5 Buckingham Gate, London. There
were present the Master of Lindsay (now the Earl of Crawford), Viscount
Adare (the present Earl of Dunraven), and Captain Wynne. The Master of
Lindsay has recorded the circumstances, as follows:—

"I was sitting with Mr Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his.
During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that state was
carried out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was
brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was
about seven feet six inches, and there was not the slightest foothold
between them, nor was there more than a twelve-inch projection to
each window, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. We heard the
window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after we
saw Home floating in air outside our window. The moon was shining
full into the room; my back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on
the wall of the window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it.
He remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the window
and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down."

Here is Lord Adare's account of the central incident:

"We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown up,
and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our window; he
opened the window and walked in quite coolly."

Captain Wynne, writing to Home in 1877, refers to this occasion in the

following words:

"The fact of your having gone out of the one window and in at the
other I can swear to."

It is surely not a little remarkable that an occurrence of so extraordinary a

nature should be testified to by three such clear-headed men as Captain
Wynne and Lords Lindsay and Adare. To cross from one window to another
by ordinary means was clearly impossible, and it would be a brave conjurer
indeed who would essay such a feat at a distance of eighty-five feet from
the ground. What then is the explanation? Mr Podmore suggests that the
three witnesses were the victims of a collective hallucination; but this
theory is not easy to accept, and Mr Andrew Lang has heaped it with
ridicule. "There are," he writes, "two other points to be urged against Mr
Podmore's theory that observers of Home were hallucinated. The Society's
records contain plenty of 'collective, so-called telepathic hallucinations.' But
surely these hallucinations offered visionary figures of persons and things
not present in fact. Has Mr Podmore one case, except Home's, of a
collective hallucination in which a person actually present is the
hallucination; floats in the air, holds red-hot coals and so forth—appears
outside of the window, for instance, when he is inside the room? Of course,
where conjuring is barred. Again, Home's marvels are attested by witnesses
violently prejudiced against him, and (far from being attentively expectant)
most anxious to detect and expose him."
If the case of Home presents difficulties to the rational sceptic, that of
William Stainton Moses, who died in 1892, presents an even harder
problem. I will refer to Moses later when we come to discuss clairvoyance,
but at first his mediumistic powers were manifested in physical phenomena.
He was a clergyman and a scholar, an M.A. of Oxford, and for nearly
eighteen years English master in University College School. He was held in
esteem and even affection by all who were most intimately associated with
him. Yet Moses was responsible for table rapping, levitation of furniture,
playing of musical instruments and "apports"—the latter term expressing
the movement or introduction of various articles either by the request of the
sitters or spontaneously, such as books, stones, shells, opera-glasses,
candle-sticks, and so forth. All this began in 1872, and the phenomena
observed at the various séances were carefully recorded by the medium's
friends, Dr and Mrs Speer, C. T. Speer, and F. W. Percival. It must be borne
in mind that Moses was in his thirty-third year before he suspected
mediumistic powers. There have been any number of hypotheses to account
for the physical phenomena furnished at these séances. Jewels, cameos,
seed pearls, and other precious things were brought and given to the sitters.
Scent was introduced; familiar perfumes—such as sandalwood, jasmine,
heliotrope, not always recognised—were a frequent occurrence at these
séances. Occasionally it would be sprayed in the air, sometimes poured into
the hands of the sitters, and often it was found oozing from the medium's
head and even running down.
In Mrs Speer's diary for 30th August there is the following record:—

"Many things were brought from different parts of the house through
the locked door this evening. Mr S. M. was levitated, and when he felt
for his feet they were hanging in mid-air, while his head must have
almost touched the ceiling."

Dr Speer also records a "levitation" on 3rd December:

"Mr M. was floated about, and a large dining-room chair was placed
on the table."

Mrs Speer tells us that they sat in the fire-light, and that the séances were
held in more or less complete darkness. Moses' own account of the
levitation is much fuller. He says that he was fully conscious that he was
floating about the room, and that he marked a place on the wall with a
pencil, which was afterwards found to be more than six feet from the floor.
Subsequently musical sounds became a feature of the manifestations. In
September 1874 Mrs Speer gives a list of them, mentioning ten or more
different kinds, including the tambourine, harp, fairy-bells, and many
stringed instruments, and ascribes their production to eight different spirits.
In the early materialisations of Stainton Moses we find that hands, and
occasionally the fore arm, were seen holding lights. These spirit lights are
described as hard, round, and cold to the touch. In his description of one
incident at a séance Moses himself pens a significant passage, which seems
to confirm the suspicion that the spirit lights were really bottles of
phosphorised oil:

"Suddenly there arose from below me, apparently under the table, or
near the floor, right under my nose, a cloud of luminous smoke, just
like phosphorus. It fumed up in great clouds, until I seemed to be on
fire, and rushed from the room in a panic. I was fairly frightened, and
could not tell what was happening. I rushed to the door and opened it,
and so to the front door. My hands seemed to be ablaze, and left their
impress on the door and handles. It blazed for a while after I had
touched it, but soon went out, and no smell or trace remained.... There
 seemed to be no end of smoke. It smelt distinctly phosphoric, but the
smell evaporated as soon as I got out of the room into the air."

Such candour disarms us: can there be any ground for the theory that here
was a case of self-deception on a large scale? Or is there yet an alternative
explanation? Perhaps we shall discover one.
 CHAPTER X
MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA

What we have to remember is that by far the greater part of the physical
phenomena which is said to occur at a séance is really nothing
extraordinary. All physical occurrences are normal that are capable of being
produced by a clever conjurer; and there is no doubt that with due
preparation such a one could achieve table rapping, introduce flowers and
move furniture. But the problem is, how, under the stringent conditions
imposed, and in the face of the close scrutiny, to which these manifestations
are subjected, they can be done. As Sir Oliver Lodge says: "I am disposed
to maintain that I have myself witnessed, in a dim light, occasional
abnormal instances of movement of untouched objects." He goes on to say
that "suppose an untouched object comes sailing or hurtling through the air,
or suppose an object is raised or floated from the ground, how are we to
regard it? This is just what a live animal could do, and so the first natural
hypothesis is that some living thing is doing it: (a) the medium himself,
acting by tricks or concealed mechanism; (b) a confederate—an
unconscious confederate perhaps, among the sitters; (c) an unknown and
invisible live entity, other than the people present. If in any such action the
extraordinary laws of nature were superseded, if the weight of a piece of
matter could be shown to have disappeared, or if fresh energy were
introduced beyond the recognised categories of energy, then there would be
no additional difficulties; but hitherto there has been no attempt to establish
either of these things. Indeed, it must be admitted that insufficient attention
is usually paid to this aspect of ordinary, commonplace, abnormal physical
phenomena. If a heavy body is raised under good conditions, we should
always try to ascertain" (he does not say that it is easy to ascertain) "where
its weight has gone to—that is to say, what supports it—what ultimately
supports it. For instance, if experiments were conducted in a suspended
room, would the whole weight of that room, as ascertained by outside
balance, remain unaltered when a table or person was levitated inside it? Or,
could the agencies operating inside affect the bodies outside?—questions,
these, which appear capable of answer, with sufficient trouble, in an
organised physical laboratory; such a laboratory as does not, he supposes,
yet exist, but which might exist and which will exist in the future, if the
physical aspect of experimental psychology is ever to become recognised as
a branch of orthodox physics."
Recently, Dr Maxwell, of Paris, published his researches and observations
on physical phenomena, and he states that under "material and physical
phenomena" are comprised (1) raps; (2) movements of objects (a) without
contact, or (b) only with such contact as is insufficient to effect the
particular movement in question; (3) "apports"—i.e. the production of
objects by some supernormal agency; (4) visual phenomena—i.e. the
appearance of lights and of forms, luminous or otherwise, including among
the latter the class of alleged phenomena known as materialisations, and (5)
phenomena leaving some permanent trace, such as imprints or "direct"
writings or drawings, etc. Under the class of "intellectual phenomena" may
be included such occurrences as automatic writing, table tilting, etc.
As regards raps Dr Maxwell hazards certain conclusions, of which he says
the most certain is the close connection of the raps with the muscular
movements on the part of the sitters. Every muscular movement, even a
slight one, appears to be followed by a rap. Thus if, without anyone
necessarily touching the table, one of the sitters frees his hand from the
chain made round the table by others, moves it about in a circle over the
surface of the table, then raises it in the centre and brings it down towards
the table, stopping suddenly within a few inches of it, a rap will be
produced on the table corresponding with the sudden stoppage of the hand.
Similarly, a rap will be produced by a pressure of the foot on the floor, by
speaking, by blowing slightly, or by touching the medium or one of the
sitters. Raps produced in this way by the sitters are often stronger than those
produced by the medium himself. Dr Maxwell suggests as a working
hypothesis that there is a certain accumulated force, and that if its
equilibrium be suddenly disturbed by the addition of the excess of energy
required for the movement, a discharge takes place producing the effect.
Dr Maxwell has made a series of experiments with Eusapia Paladino.
 "It was about five o'clock in the evening," he writes, "and there was
broad daylight in the drawing-room at l'Aguélas. We were standing
around the table. Eusapia took the hand of one of our number and
rested it on the right-hand corner of the table. The table was raised to
the level of our foreheads—that is, the top reached a height of at least
four and three-quarter feet from the floor.... It was impossible for
Eusapia to have lifted the table by normal means. One has but to
consider that she touched but the corner of the table to realise what the
weight must have been had she accomplished the feat by muscular
effort. Further, she never had sufficient hold of it. It was clearly
impossible for her, under the conditions of the experiment, to have
used any of the means suggested by her critics—straps, or hooks of
some kind."

Most of the phenomena discussed by Dr Maxwell were obtained through

the mediumship of Eusapia Paladino. He was a member of the committee
which met in 1896 to investigate this medium, who had just concluded the
series of performances held under the auspices of the society at Cambridge,
which were entirely unfavourable to her claims. The French committee was
made aware of the fraudulent devices which the Cambridge investigators
claimed to have discovered. He recommends all who believe that Dr
Hodgson and his Cambridge colleagues have had the last word in the
controversy to read the report which will be found in the Annales des
Psychiques, for 1896. The English sitters arrive at conclusions in direct
conflict with those of the French, who claim that they had long known of
the tricks "discovered" at Cambridge, and in consequence took means to
guard against them. Dr Maxwell indicts the Cambridge way of controlling
the medium, which he says consisted, for a time at least, in affording the
medium opportunities to cheat to see if she would avail herself of them.
Opportunities of which she took the fullest advantage.
Nevertheless, Dr Maxwell offers but little encouragement for the theory of
spiritualistic agency. "I believe," he says, "in the reality of certain
phenomena, of which I have repeatedly been a witness. I do not consider it
necessary to attribute them to a supernatural intervention of any kind, but
am disposed to think that they are produced by some force existing within
ourselves."
In the same way as certain psychical phenomena, such as automatic writing,
trance, "controls," crystal vision, and so forth, in which an intelligence
seems to be present independent of the intelligence of the medium, can be
shown beyond dispute to be merely manifestations of his subliminal
intelligence, frequently taking the form of a dramatic personification; so
may the agency, revealing itself in raps, movements of objects, and other
phenomena of a physical character, perhaps be traceable, not to any power
external to the medium and the sitters, but merely to a force latent within
themselves, and may be an exteriorisation in a dynamic form, in a way not
yet ascertained, of their collective subliminal capacities.
However strange new and unknown facts may be, we need not fear they are
going to destroy the truth of the old ones. Would the science of physics be
overthrown if, for example, we admit the phenomenon of "raps"—i.e.
audible vibrations in wood and other substances—is a real phenomenon,
and that in certain cases there may be blows which cannot be explained by
any mechanical force known to us? It would be a new force exercised on
matter, but none the less would the old forces preserve their activity.
Pressure, temperature, and the density of air or of wood might still exercise
their usual influence, and it is even likely that the transmission of vibrations
by this new force would follow the same laws as other vibrations.
In the opinion of the leading members of this society, some of the physical
phenomena which have been adduced as among those proclaimed to have
occurred, such as "apports," scent, movement of objects, passage of matter
through matter, bear a perilous resemblance to conjuring tricks, of a kind
fairly well known; which tricks if well done can be very deceptive. Hence
extreme caution is necessary, and full control must be allowed to the
observers—a thing which conjurers never really allow. Sir Oliver Lodge
says that he has never seen a silent and genuinely controlled conjurer; and
in so far as mediums find it necessary to insist on their own conditions, so
far they must be content to be treated as conjurers. For instance, no self-
registering thermometer has ever recorded the "intense cold" felt at a
séance. Flowers and fruit have made their appearance in closed rooms, but
no arsenic has penetrated the walls of the hermetically sealed tube. Various
investigators have smelt, seen, and handled curious objects, but no trace has
been preserved. We have to depend on the recollection of the observer's
passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the rustle of spirit
garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies. Exquisite scents,
strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly out of nothing,
and have returned whence they came unrecorded by photography,
unweighed, unanalysed.
Briefly, then, the result of my carefully formed judgment is that a large part
of the physical phenomena heard, seen, felt at the average spiritualistic
séance must be placed on a level with ordinary conjuring. To return to the
recent case of Eusapia Paladino. A number of English scientists, interested
in the reports of her séances, induced her to come to England and repeat
them at Cambridge. Every effort was made to make the experiments as
satisfactory as possible. They used netting for confining the medium or
separating her from objects which they hoped would move without contact;
different ways of tying her were tried; also sufficient light was used in the
séance room. She refused to submit to any of these conditions. The
investigators pressed her at each sitting to allow some light in the room, and
they long persevered in making the control in every case as complete as she
would allow it to be. She permitted a very faint light usually at the
beginning, but before long she insisted on complete darkness, and until the
lights were extinguished the touches were never felt. The sitters then held
the medium, the only method of control allowed, as firmly and continuously
as possible. This she resisted, and then every form of persuasion was used,
short of physical force, to induce her to submit. But she was allowed to take
her own way without remonstrance when the sitters were convinced of the
constant fraud practised.
It is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have
convinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia
Paladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge
investigators are condemned as hasty and premature.
But, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the
conditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the
medium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the
result of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading spiritualists
themselves.
For, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for supernormal
physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least an
unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis is
no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the Hertzian
waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years ago.
This is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena which
cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown extensions
of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the most inexplicable
and best attested of the manifestations presented by Daniel Dunglas Home.
The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the witnesses of undoubted
integrity, and, from the nature of the experiment, the illuminations of the
room were generally more adequate than in the case of the levitations and
elongations. On one occasion, Home thrust his hand into the fire, and
bringing out a red-hot cinder laid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at
the end of half-a-minute it was removed, the handkerchief was quite free
from any traces of burning.
Not content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them
on to others present at the séance, who were generally able to receive them
with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated by an
ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands with
some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home
possessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable difficulty
in transferring it to the hands of his spectators.
Here is an account of a séance which took place on the 9th May 1871. After
various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room were
extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot charcoal,
and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he borrowed
for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal to white heat
with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in one small hole. Mr
Crookes, who was present at the séance, tested the handkerchief afterwards
in his laboratory and found that it had not been chemically prepared to resist
the action of fire.
After this exhibition—
 "Mr Home again went to the fire, and, after stirring the hot coal about
with his hand, took out a red-hot piece nearly as big as an orange, and
putting it on his right hand, so as almost completely to enclose it, and
then blew into the small furnace thus extemporised until the lump of
charcoal was nearly white hot, and then drew my attention to the
lambent flame which was flickering over the coal and licking round his
fingers; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner, held up
the coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not his laws
wonderful?'"

Among those who have left on record their testimony to this manifestation
are Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, H. D. Jencken, W. M. Wilkinson, S. C. Hall,
etc. etc.
As the great mathematician Professor de Morgan once wittily and wisely
wrote:

"If I were bound to choose among things which I can conceive, I

should say that there is some sort of action of some combination of
will, intellect, and physical power, which is not that of any of the
human beings present. But, thinking it very likely that the universe
may contain a few agencies—say, half-a-million—about which no man
knows anything, I cannot but suspect that a small proportion of these
agencies—say, five thousand—may be severally competent to the
production of all the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among
them. The physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but
miserably insufficient; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient, but
ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the second asking
the first for more results of trial."

It is inconceivable that such a man as Stainton Moses—a hard-working

parish priest and a respected schoolmaster—should deliberately have
entered upon a course of trickery for the mere pleasure of mystifying a
small circle of acquaintances. The whole course of his previous life, his
apparently sincere religious feeling, all combine to contradict such a
supposition. Neither is it credible that such a petty swindler would have
carried out his deceptions to the end, and have left behind fresh problems,
the elucidation of which his eyes could never behold.
 CHAPTER XI
THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"

If much of the physical phenomena just described be well within the scope
of natural possibility, it is somewhat otherwise with the class of
manifestations I shall now touch upon. It is one thing to exert consciously
or unconsciously, as Home, Cook, Paladino, Moses and other mediums
have done, in the presence of scientifically trained witnesses, unknown and
supernormal muscular power. Table rapping, levitation, "apports," may all
be genuine enough and accounted for in a manner which, if not wholly
satisfying, is at least not unreasonable. But when those assisting at a séance
actually behold with their eyes and touch with their hands, and even
photograph with a camera, the materialised objects of the spirits with whom
the medium is in communion, the pulse of the inquirer quickens. He is now
indeed approaching the crucial problem, the crowning achievement of
spiritualism. For although in a former chapter we have the testimony of
people who saw "ghosts," these ghosts might, to my mind, clearly be the
result of telepathy. They appear on special occasions at important and
significant crises, but the claim of the spiritualistic medium is that he can
casually, and on the demand of one of the circle, produce a visible, tangible
figure of a deceased husband, wife, parent, or friend.
This materialisation is wholly a recent species of manifestation. One of the
first to testify to having seen a materialised figure at a séance was the well-
known S. C. Hall, who recognised during one of Home's séances the figure
of his deceased sister. Other mediums repeated the feat, and shadowy forms
and faces began to appear and move about during their dark séances. It is a
suspicious fact that in some cases these forms, made visible by a faintly
luminous vapour, were accompanied by an odour of phosphorus. Sceptics
naturally took great advantage of the alleged circumstance. Soon, however,
a new medium, Florence Cook, was rumoured to have produced
materialised forms in a good light which baffled all the sceptics. Miss Cook
claimed to be "controlled" by a spirit known under the name of "Katie."
We have this account from a writer who early attended to examine the
mystery fairly:

"In a short time, however, Katie—as the familiar of Miss B. was

termed—thought she would be able to 'materialise' herself so far as to
present the whole form, if we arranged the corner cupboard so as to
admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened the door, and from it
suspended a rug or two opening in the centre, after the fashion of a
Bedouin Arab's tent; formed a semicircle; sat and sang Longfellow's
'Footsteps of Angels.' Therein occurs the passage, 'Then the forms of
the departed enter at the open door.' And, lo and behold! though we
had left Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair and clad in an ordinary
black dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall, female figure,
draped classically in white, with bare arms and feet, did enter at the
open door, or rather down the centre from between the two rugs, and
stood statuelike before us, spoke a few words, and retired; after which
we entered the Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as
before, knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1,
the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and on a
subsequent occasion—for I have seen it several times—we took four
very good photographic portraits of it by magnesium light. The
difficulty I still felt, with the form as with the faces, was that it seemed
so thoroughly material and flesh-and-blood-like."

It is not my intention to speak of the multitude of early materialisations. As

Mr Podmore points out, at these manifestations practically no precautions
were taken against trickery. There was nothing, so far as can be discovered,
to throw any hindrance in the way of the medium, if she chose,
impersonating the spirit by exhibiting a mask through the opening of the
curtain or by dressing herself up and walking about the room. Nor were
there any collateral circumstances to justify belief in the genuineness of the
manifestations.
Nevertheless, Miss Cook's claims attracted the attention of Sir William
Crookes. He attended several séances—one, once, at the house of Mr
Luxmoor, when "Katie" was standing before him in the room. He had
distinctly heard from behind the curtain the sobbing and moaning habitually
made by Miss Cook during such séances. At another séance, held at his
own house, 12th March 1874, "Katie," robed in white, came to the opening
of the curtain and summoned him to the assistance of her medium. The man
of science instantly obeyed the call, and found Miss Cook, attired in her
ordinary black velvet dress, prone on the sofa. On another occasion he
declares he saw two forms together in a good light; more than this, he
actually procured a photograph of "Katie." But of this I will speak later,
when I come to discuss spirit photography.
One of the most noted materialising mediums of to-day is Charles Miller, of
San Francisco, of whom a certain Professor Reichel has recently written a
lengthy account.
Miller's séances are described as very conclusive. At the first one, after
Miller had retired into the cabinet, "the curtain was pulled aside, showing
the medium asleep, and six fully developed phantoms standing beside him.
Two spoke German to friends from their native land," and one discussed
matters of a private nature with Professor Reichel. Similar occurrences were
many times repeated, and dematerialisations were often "made before the
curtain, in full view of the sitters" and "in ample light to observe
everything." Professor Reichel says:

"In the séances with Mr Miller I heard the spirits speak in English,
French, and German, but I have been assured repeatedly that in a
séance of seventy-five persons, representing many of the various
nationalities in San Francisco, twenty-seven languages were spoken by
materialised spirits, addressing different sitters."

Equally good results were obtained in a room taken at the Palace Hotel, for
a special testsetting, the results of which were communicated to Colonel de
Rochas, and again when Mr Miller visited the Professor at Los Angeles.
The following incidents are of special interest, as throwing light on the
forces made use of in the production of the phenomena, and in reference to
allegations of fraud or personation:—

"A sitting took place at noon. Before it began, and while Miller was
standing in front of the cabinet, I heard 'Betsy's' voice whisper: 'Go out
for a moment into the sun with the professor.' Accordingly I took Mr
Miller by the arm, and together we went out into the sunshine. After a
 few moments we returned, and at the moment we entered the dark
room the writer, as well as everyone else present, saw Mr Miller
completely strewn with a shining, white, glittering, snowlike mass, that
entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. This singular occurrence had
been witnessed repeatedly—even when the medium had not previously
been in the sun. At such times it appeared gradually after the room had
been darkened."

This snowlike mass the author regards as "the white element of magnetism,
which the phantoms use in their development." He also says:

"In another séance held by Miller, 'Betsy' told me that she would show
me something that often happened in séances with other
materialisation mediums—namely, that the medium himself frequently
appeared disguised as a spirit. She asked me to come to the curtain,
where she told me that the medium himself would come out draped in
white muslin, and the muslin would then suddenly disappear. This was
verified. When the medium came out in his disguise, I grasped him by
the hand, and like a flash of lightning the white veiling vanished."

Reichel quotes Kiesewetter to the effect that in these cases "there is a kind
of pseudo-materialisation, in which the medium, in hypnosis, walks in a
somnambulistic condition, playing the part of the spirit, in which case the
mysterious vanishing of the spiritual veilings points to an incipient magical
activity on the part of the psyche."
Large numbers of Miller's materialisations were photographed, showing,
besides the fully materialised forms, "several spirits who could not be seen
with the physical eyes, one of whom was immediately recognised."

The experiments of Sir William Crookes and others by Mr Cromwell

Varley, with various mediums, supply us with the best proof we have that
medium and spirit possess separate identities. Of course there were, and are
still, numerous so-called exposures of mediums in the act of materialisation.
On other occasions the materialised form has been seized and found to be
the medium himself.
A typical incident of this kind was the exposure of the mediums William
and Rita, which took place in Amsterdam, under circumstances which made
it difficult for the most hardened believer to lay all the blame upon the
spirits. The incident took place in the rooms of a spiritualist; the members
of the circle were spiritualists; and it was aggrieved and indignant
spiritualists who made the facts public. Suspicion had been aroused; one of
the sitters clutched at the spirit form of "Charlie," and grasped Rita by the
coat collar. Up to this point, no doubt, the spiritualist theories already
referred to were elastic enough to cover the facts. But when the mediums
were searched there were found in their pockets or hidden in various parts
of their clothing—on Rita a nearly new beard, six handkerchiefs, assorted,
and a small, round scent bottle, containing phosphorised oil, bearing a
resemblance all too convincing to "Charlie's" spirit lamp; on Williams a
dirty black beard, with brown silk ribbon, and several yards of very dirty
muslin—the simple ingredients which represented the spiritual make-up of
the repentant pirate, John King—together with another bottle of
phosphorised oil, a bottle of scent, and other "properties."
But we have not to deal here with the obviously fraudulent features of
modern spiritualism. Years ago Mr H. W. Harrison summed up the position.
He pointed out that there were two classes of so-called materialisations: (1)
forms with flexible features, commonly bearing a strong resemblance to the
medium, which move and speak. These are the forms which come out when
the medium is in the cabinet; (2) Forms with features which are inflexible
and masklike (the epithet is not Mr Harrison's) and which do not move
about or speak. Such inflexible faces are seen chiefly when the medium is
held by the sitters, or is in full view of the circle. Mr Harrison then
continues: "We have patiently watched for years for a living, flexible face,
in a good light, which face bore no resemblance to that of the medium, and
was not produced on his or her own premises. Hitherto this search has been
prosecuted without success. Mr A. R. Wallace and Mr Crookes have
witnessed a great number of form manifestations, without once recording
that off the premises of the medium they have seen a living, flexible,
materialised spirit-form bearing no resemblance to the sensitive. Neither
has Mr Varley made any such record."
The presumption must be one of fraud, especially when conditions are laid
down which serve to prevent full investigation. I have before me the printed
conditions of a North London Spiritualistic society:

"As a member of the society you must bear in mind that you will be
bound in honour to accept all the rules laid down by our Spirit
controls, and by the leader of the meeting, as to the conditions under
which the meetings are held, such as the darkened room, the holding of
hands so as to form a strongly magnetic ring in front of the medium,
etc.—and it is interesting to note that the great Mesmer, when he was
conducting his experiments in magnetism more than one hundred years
ago, had discovered the advantage of 'a circle' formed in this way, for
he writes: 'The power of magnetism is augmented by establishing a
direct communication between several persons. This can be done in
two ways: the more simple is to form a chain, with a certain number of
persons made to hold each other's hands; it can also be done by means
of the 'baquet' (a mechanical contrivance invented by himself)."
"No one should ever attempt to touch a spirit unless invited to do so by
the spirits themselves, and the circle, once formed, must never be
broken by unloosing of hands. If this becomes really necessary at any
time, permission should first be asked, when the controlling spirit will
give instructions as to how it is to be carried out."

I cannot forbear from quoting further the following passage addressed to

members of the society:—

"You will greatly assist us in obtaining good results if you will kindly
use a little discretion in the matter of your food, especially on the day
of the meeting, when fish, vegetables, fruit (especially bananas), and
light food of that description are most helpful, but meat, wine, beer, or
spirits (wine and spirits especially) should be carefully avoided; and
we find that it is better to make a good meal in the middle of the day, a
substantial tea at 5.30, and supper after the meeting, as by following
this plan the members of the circle are able to give off more of the
spiritual aura which is used by the controls in building up the forms
 which appear to us, each member of the circle contributing his or her
share unconsciously.
"The use of non-actinic light, such as that obtained from a small dark
lantern, is defended on the grounds that the actinic rays coming from
the violet end of the spectrum are so rapid in their movements that they
immediately break up any combination of matter produced under such
circumstances. Any form of light, except the red, or perhaps the
yellow, rays would have this effect. That is one reason why the cabinet
is employed, because that would shut off any form of light from the
medium whilst the forms are building up; although on several
occasions, from time to time, when the form has thus been built up
fully, we have been able to use a red light strong enough to illuminate
the whole of the room."

So long as spiritualists, as I have before remarked, maintain this attitude, so

long must they meet with incredulity on the part of official science. In
nearly all these private circles the precautions taken against trickery are
absurdly lacking, and, as we have just seen, frequently purposely omitted.
Thus we have to fall back in considering the genuine character of the
phenomena on the good faith of the medium. When the medium is known to
be a man of blameless life, and has long been before the public undetected
in any deception, the presumption would certainly appear to be in favour of
his bona-fides. But of what value is this presumption should the medium
not be conscious of his actions when his impersonation of this or that
character is wholly undertaken by his secondary or subliminal self? Here
we begin to have glimmerings of the great truth which may conceivably
underlie the parable of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and investigations into the
marvels of multiple personalities lead us further towards the light.

On the whole, the conclusion I have arrived at is that, where the element of
fraud is eliminated, we might rationally seek for an explanation in
hallucination. Take the famous case of Archdeacon Colley and Mr Monck.
The Archdeacon actually declared that he saw the psychic or spirit form
grow out of his left side:
 "First, several faces, one after another, of great beauty appeared, and in
amazement we saw—and as I was standing close up to the medium,
even touching him—I saw most plainly, several times, a perfect face
and form of exquisite womanhood partially issue from Dr Monck,
about the region of the heart. Then, after several attempts, the full-
formed figure, in a nebulous condition at first, but growing solider as it
issued from the medium, left Dr Monck and stood, a separate
individuality, two or three feet off, bound to him by a slender
attachment, as of gossamer, which, at my request, 'Samuel,' the control,
severed with the medium's left hand, and there stood embodied a spirit
form of unutterable loveliness, robed in attire spirit-spun—a meshy
webwork from no mortal loom, of a fleeciness inimitable, and of
transfiguration whiteness truly glistening."

Now, as Mr Podmore somewhat satirically points out:

"It is difficult to believe that the exquisite spirit form which presented
itself to Mr Colley's glowing imagination was merely a confection of
masks, stuffed gloves, and muslin, actuated by a jointed rod, but we
cannot help remembering, if Mr Colley did not, that articles of this
kind had, a twelve-month previously, been found, under compromising
circumstances, in the possession of Dr Monck."

The recognitions which take place at séances are undoubtedly to a large

extent sense deceptions. There is now a professional medium at whose
séances spirit faces are constantly being recognised. Of course the
performance takes place in the dark. A faintly illuminated slate shows the
profiles against the background, and one or other of the members generally
recognises it. The mouth and chin of the female faces shown at these
séances are generally veiled, but this does not appear to affect the
recognition.
On the whole, the testimony for and against the reality of spirits at the better
class of séance is pretty evenly balanced. I hesitate to disturb it, although
remarking, parenthetically, that the believers have the most, if not the best,
of the literature on the subject.
And for those who are deeply perplexed there is always the theory of
hallucination to fall back upon.
 CHAPTER XII
SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY

If the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation of the

spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular, oral, and
tactile evidence of the dark séance, the theory of hallucination would
account for much that is perplexing. But the problem becomes complicated
when the spiritualists come forward with proof that their senses have not
misled them. It is only a few months since that a young man in the north of
England, on photographing his mother and sisters, was greatly startled to
find his late father's face also on the plate. He had not made use of the
camera, we are told, for eighteen months. Recently, too, a professional
photographer in London was commissioned to photograph a grave which
was surmounted by a beautiful basket of flowers. To his consternation,
within the handle appeared the facial lineaments of the deceased.
The earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from 1862,
when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a
photograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been
dead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr
Mumler of Boston, who considered that many of the "spirit photographs"
afterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our
modern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire to
cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters.
Mumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says:

"I have been investigated by the best photographers in America, and

have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have been tried
in a court of justice, and been honourably acquitted; and, lastly, I have
the evidence of thousands of people who have had pictures taken, and
recognised the likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never
had a picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in the
hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain of evidence
 that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds, and animals have
frequently appeared upon the plates and one lady was delighted to
recognise by her side her faithful old black retriever."

Not till ten years later did a photographer named Hudson succeed, with the
aid of a medium, in producing spirit pictures. The modus operandi appeared
simple. The sitter was posed before the camera, and the picture was
subsequently developed, when besides the sitter's own image there appeared
another figure or figures usually draped, with the features blurred or only
partly distinguishable. Usually these figures were recognised unhesitatingly
by the sitters as portraits of deceased relatives or friends. Afterwards the
practice of spirit photography received a rude shock. They were examined
carefully by professional photographers, and some of them were found to
bear clear marks of double exposure, the background in each case being
visible through the dress of the sitter—a fatal defect in spirit photography.
Moreover it was found that in some cases the medium had dressed up to
play the rôle of spirit. Whereupon several of those who had professed to
recognise the "ghosts" now hastened to repudiate their recognition. But
spirit photography was not to be quashed so easily. The experiments went
on, and faces and figures appeared on the developed plate which seem to
have considerably baffled the experts. Sir William Crookes now resolved to
put the matter to a test by attempting to obtain a photograph of "Katie," the
famous "control" of Miss Cook, the medium. The young lady gave a series
of sittings in May 1874 at Sir William's house for the purpose. These
sittings took place by electric light, no fewer than five cameras being
simultaneously at work. The medium lay down on the floor behind a
curtain, her face muffled in a shawl. When the materialisation was complete
"Katie" would appear in the full light in front of the curtain:

"I frequently," writes Sir William Crookes, "drew the curtain on one
side when Katie was standing near; and it was a common thing for the
seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie at the
same time, under the full blaze of the electric light. We did not on
these occasions actually see the face of the medium, because of the
shawl, but we saw her hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under
the influence of the intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally.
 I have one photograph of the two together, but Katie is seated in front
of Miss Cook's head."

I have not seen these photographs of "Katie," but Mr Podmore has, and
when comparing them with contemporary portraits of Miss Cook herself he
is inclined to consider the likeness between the two sets unmistakable. "The
apparently greater breadth of 'spirit' face," he writes, "may well be due to
the fact that, whereas Miss Cook wore hanging ringlets, 'Katie's' hair is
effectually concealed by the drapery, which in most cases comes down over
the forehead, and falls in two thick folds on either side of the head,
something like the headgear of a sphinx. Again, as Miss Cook, when
photographed, wore her ordinary dress, which concealed her feet, the
apparent difference in height on some occasions between herself and the
spirit figure cannot be relied upon. One piece of evidence would, indeed,
have been conclusive—that the ears of the spirit form should have appeared
intact, for Miss Cook's ears were pierced for earrings. But the encircling
drapery effectually concealed both the ears and the hair of the spirit 'Katie.'"
The evidence for photographs of invisible people which we sometimes hear
abduced as adequate is surprisingly feeble. For instance, in a recent
anonymous and weak book, said to be written by a member of the Society
for Psychical Research, two photographs are reproduced which are said to
have been obtained under what are considered crucial conditions; but the
narrative itself at once suggests a simple trick on the part of the
photographer—viz. the provision of backgrounds for sitters with vague
human forms all ready depicted on them in sulphate of quinine.
Sir Oliver Lodge is of opinion that it is by no means physically impossible
that some of these temporary semi-material accretions might be inadequate
to appeal to our eyes, and yet be of a kind able to impress a photographic
plate; but here he confesses that the evidence, to his mind, wholly breaks
down, and he admits that he has never yet seen a satisfying instance of what
is termed a spirit photograph; nor is it easy to imagine the kind of record
apart from testimony which in such a case would be convincing, unless
such photographs could be produced at will.
A conviction of fraud having entered the minds of the sceptically inclined,
the exposure of a certain Parisian photographer, Buguet, shook the faith of
the credulous. Buguet enjoyed in London an extraordinary success. Many
leading people sat to him and obtained "spirit photographs," by them clearly
recognisable, of their deceased relations. No less than forty out of one
hundred and twenty photographs examined by Stainton Moses were
pronounced by the sitters to be genuine likenesses of spirits, and baffled the
scrutiny of the sceptics. Nevertheless Buguet was arrested and charged by
the French Government for fraudulent production of spirit photographs. At
his trial Buguet disconcerted the whole spiritualistic world by confessing,
he said that the whole of his spirit photographs were obtained by means of
double exposure. To begin with, he employed three or four assistants to play
the part of ghost. Nevertheless, in spite of his confession, in spite of the
trick apparatus confiscated by the police, at Buguet's trial witness after
witness, people high in the social and professional world, came forward to
testify that they had not been deceived, that the spirit photographs were
genuine. They refused to doubt the evidence of their own eyesight. One M.
Dessenon, a picture dealer, had obtained a spirit portrait of his wife; he had
been instantly struck with the likeness, and had shown it to the lady's
relatives, who exclaimed at once on its exactness. The judge asked Buguet
for an explanation. The prisoner replied that it was pure chance. "I had," he
said, "no photograph of Madame Dessenon." "But," cried the witness, "my
children, like myself, thought the likeness perfect. When I showed them the
picture, they cried, 'It is mamma!' I have seen all M. Buguet's properties and
pictures, and there is nothing in the least like the picture I have obtained. I
am convinced it is my wife." As a result, many spiritualists, including
Stainton Moses and William Howitt, refused to consider the case one of
fraud. They regarded Buguet as a genuine medium who had been bound to
confess to imaginary trickery. Yet after this spirit photography as a
profession has not flourished in this country. There is one professional who
is responsible for many ghost pictures. But in his productions appear
unmistakable signs of double exposures. You see the pattern of the carpet
and the curtain of the study visible through the sitter's body and clothes. In
one instance at all events, where the ghost represents a well-known
statesman, the head has obviously been cut from the photograph and the
contour draped to hide the cut edges. But the phenomena of spirit
photography are abundant enough in private circles.
I have before me as I write a number of reputed spirit photographs obtained
by private persons both with and without the aid of a professional medium.
In one sent me by a gentleman resident at Finsbury Park, which is a very
impressive specimen of its kind, the fact of a double exposure is obvious to
the least experienced in dark-room matters. Notwithstanding, the
photographer has apparently made a speciality of this kind of work.

"In my collection [he writes] of over two thousand specimens are

portraits of Atlantean priests, who flourished about 12,000 years ago,
Biblical patriarchs, poets, Royalties, clerics, scientists, literary men,
etc., pioneer spiritualists, like Emma H. Britten, Luther Marsh,
Wallace, and John Lamont. The latest additions are, I am happy to say,
my kind old friend Mrs Glendinning, and a worthy quartette of earnest
workers in Dr Younger, Mr Thomas Everitt, Mr C. Lacey, and David
Duguid."

One of the most curious instances of a ghost photograph occurred in the

summer of 1892. Six months previously a lady had taken a photograph of
the library at D—— Hall. She kept the plate a long time before developing
it, and when developed it showed the faint but clearly recognisable figure of
a man sitting in a large arm-chair. A print from the photograph was obtained
and shown, when the image was immediately recognised as the likeness of
the late Lord D——, the owner of D—— Hall. What was more, it was
ascertained that Lord D—— had actually been buried on the day the
photograph was taken. A copy of the photograph was sent to Professor
Barrett, who examined it and reported (1) that the image is too faint and
blurred for any likeness to be substantiated; (2) that the plate had been
exposed in the camera for an hour and the room left unguarded; (3) that
actual experiments show that an appearance such as that on the plate could
have been produced if a man—there were four men in the house—had sat in
the chair for a few seconds during the exposure, moving his head and limbs
the while.
Another ghost picture described by Mr Podmore was probably caused in a
similar way. A chapel was photographed, and when the plate was developed
a face was faintly seen in a panel of the woodwork, which the photographer
recognised as a young acquaintance who had not long since met with a
tragic death. "In fact," writes Mr Podmore, "when he told me the story and
showed me the picture, I could easily see the faint but well-marked features
of a handsome melancholy lad of eighteen. A colleague, however, to whom
I showed the photograph without relating the story, at once identified the
face as that of a woman of thirty. The outlines are in reality so indistinct as
to leave ample room for the imagination to work on; and there is no reason
to doubt that, as in the ghost of the library, the camera had merely preserved
faint traces of some intruder who, during prolonged exposure, stood for a
few seconds in front of it."
In spite of all the damaging exposés and these discouraging explanations
many intelligent persons the world over will still go on believing in the
genuineness of spirit photography. Let me give a few examples of their
testimony. M. Reichel, to whom allusion has already been made, states that
at one of Miller's séances in America, held on 29th October 1905, those
present suddenly heard a great number of voices behind the curtain:

"Betsy told us that sometimes there are Egyptian women and

sometimes Indians who come in a crowd to produce their phenomena.
On October 29th and again on November 2nd I sent for a San
Francisco photographer, Mr Edward Wyllie, to see what impression
would be made on a photographic plate by the beings who appeared.
Some remarkable pictures were taken by flashlight. Besides the fully
materialised forms, there were shown on the photographs several
spirits who could not be seen by the physical eyes.
"In one of the latter figures I instantly recognised an uncle of mine,
whom I had made acquainted with spiritualism about twelve years
previously, through the assistance of another medium."

A correspondent sends me an interesting account of investigating

materialised spirits in daylight:

"Miss Fairlamb (afterwards Mrs Mellon) was the medium, and the
photographs of 'Geordie' and others taken in the garden in broad
daylight were quite successful. The conditions must have been most
harmonious, as 'Geordie' afterwards, when twilight came on, walked
about the lawn, and even ventured into the house, returning to the tent,
which served as a cabinet, with an umbrella and hassock in his hands."
Dr Theodore Hausmann, one of the oldest physicians in Washington,
U.S.A., has devoted many years to this particular phase of mediumship. He
places himself before his camera in the study and photographs his spirit
visitors, who have included his father, son, and President Lincoln. The
opening paragraph in an article he wrote is as follows:—

"Grieving parents, the bereaved widow and mother, will only be too
happy if they can see the pictures of those again who were so dear to
their hearts, and whose image gradually will vanish if nothing is left to
renew their memories."

There have been many touching letters from relatives of grateful thanks,
who imagine themselves in this way to have received portraits of their dear
ones who have passed away.
In a work which I have come across in which spiritualism is by no means
supported Mr J. G. Raupert acknowledges:

"That as regards spirit photographs, he 'obtained many striking pictures

of this character, under good test conditions, and attended by
circumstances yielding unique and exceptionally valuable evidence....
The evidence in favour of some of these psychic pictures is as good as
it is ever likely to be, and, respecting some of these obtained by the
present writer, expert photographic authorities have expressed their
verdict. Sir William Crookes has obtained them in his own house
under personally imposed conditions, and many private experimenters
in different parts of the world have been equally successful."

This from an avowed opponent is striking testimony to some kind of

manifestation which is not, in intent, at least, fraudulent.
 CHAPTER XIII
CLAIRVOYANCE

It was natural that out of all these mystic practices—those I have already
indicated and the others I am about to indicate—a cult or religion should
have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name of spiritualism (or
spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to call it). Its great
outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of course, physical
mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied spirits is that the
medium acts as the passive agent for certain physical and intellectual
manifestations which do not belong to the rôle of the visible, tangible world
in which we live. One of the forms of those manifestations is clairvoyance;
others are materialisation—i.e. the actual incarnation of spiritual forms—
physical manifestations such as table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc.,
trance utterances and spirit photography.
From the physical phenomena to the intellectual phenomena of
clairvoyance.
Clairvoyance literally means clear seeing; but in spiritualism it has a
technical meaning, and may be either objective or subjective. In the
terminology of the cult, objective clairvoyance is described as "that psychic
power or function of seeing, objectively, by and through the spiritualism
sensorium of sight which pervades the physical mechanism of vision,
spiritual beings and things. A few persons are born with this power; in some
it is developed, and in others it has but a casual quickening. Its extent is
governed by the rate of vibration under which it operates; thus, one
clairvoyant may see spiritual things which to another may be invisible
because of the degree of difference in the intensity of the powers."
Further, "subjective clairvoyance is that psychic condition of a person
which enables spirit intelligences to impress or photograph upon the brain
of that person, at will, pictures and images which are seen as visions by that
person, without the aid of the physical eye. These pictures and images may
be of things spiritual or material, past or present, remote or near, hidden or
uncovered, or they may have their existence simply in the conception or
imagination of the spirit communicating them."
Putting aside, however, all "supernatural" explanation, let us consider how
we can best account for the fact, if fact it be, of clairvoyance. What we see
is this: that under given conditions the mouth of a man or woman by no
means above, and often below, the intellectual average utters, and the hand
writes of, matters absolutely outside the normal ken of the minds of such a
man or woman. Evidence for this phenomena is, to put it bluntly,
staggering. If, unknown to a living soul, your wife or sister accidentally
dropped half-a-sovereign down a deep well, and whilst she was still
continuing to hug her little secret to her bosom you were present at a
clairvoyant sitting where the medium in a trance informed you of the
circumstances, you would no doubt be astounded. Well, the manifestations
of a conjurer are occasionally astounding. No matter how our reason is
baffled at first, it behoves us not only to seek a natural explanation of the
fact but also to ascertain and authenticate the fact itself. But a man may not
implicitly trust his senses.
I soon found that merely having been a witness of a mysterious
phenomenon no more qualified me for passing judgment upon it, or even
furnished me with a more advantageous standpoint from which to deliver
my opinions, than a man who has first seen the ocean and even tasted it can
explain why it is salt. No, a man after all, unless he is equipped with
unusual facilities, had best stick to the recorded testimony of the cloud of
witnesses. Amongst these witnesses, who are also acute and experienced
investigators, are Lord Rayleigh, Mr Balfour, Sir William Crookes, Sir
Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr Hodgson, Frederic Myers,
Professor Hyslop, M. Camille Flammarion, Professor Richet, Professor
William James, Professor Janet, Mr Frank Podmore and Professor
Lombroso. I think it fair to assume that these men represent the white light
of human intelligence of the decade. They have made a special study of the
matter, and they all seem to be agreed that in the case of trance lucidity and
clairvoyance the normal mind of the writer or speaker is not at work. Yet
there certainly would seem to be an operating intelligence, having a special
character and a special knowledge.
What, then, is that operating intelligence? By what means does it obtain its
special knowledge? Sir Oliver Lodge formulates two answers to the second
question.
1. By telepathy from living people.
2. By direct information imparted to it by the continued, conscious,
individual agency of deceased persons.
These he regards as the chief customary alternative answers. But there is a
wide, perhaps an impassable, gulf between these two alternatives. We can
here do no more than glance at the nature of the evidence.
The mystery of mediumship has probably received more attention from M.
Flournoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of Geneva, than from
anyone else, not excepting Janet and Hodgson, and our English
investigators. Certainly his opportunities for studying at close quarters
subjects of a more normal type than the Salpetrière patients are
unparalleled. M. Flournoy's most famous case is that of Hélène Smith.

"Hélène [he writes] was as a child quiet and dreamy, and had
occasional visions, but was, on the whole, not specially remarkable.
She is, to all outward appearances at the present time, healthy even to
robustness. From the age of fifteen she has been employed in a large
commercial establishment in Geneva, and holds a position of some
responsibility. But it is in 1892 that her real history begins. In that year
she was persuaded by some friends to join a spiritualistic circle. It soon
appeared that she was herself a powerful medium. At first her
mediumship consisted in seeing visions, hearing voices, and assisting
in tilting the table, whilst still retaining more or less consciousness and
subsequent memory of her experiences. Shortly after M. Flournoy's
admission to the circle, in the winter of 1894-95, Miss Smith's
mediumship advanced a stage, and she habitually passed at the séance
into a trance state, retaining subsequently no memory of her visions
and doings in that state. Her development followed at first the normal
course. She delivered messages of a personal character to her sitters,
purporting to emanate from deceased friends and the like. She offered
numerous proofs of clairvoyance. She was from time to time
controlled by spirits of the famous dead. Some of her earliest trances
 were under the guidance and inspiration of Victor Hugo. Within a few
months the spirit of the poet—too late, indeed, for his own post-
mortem reputation, for he had already perpetrated some verses—was
expelled with ignominy by a more masterful demon who called
himself Leopold. The newcomer was at first somewhat reticent on his
own past, and when urgently questioned was apt to take refuge in
moral platitudes. Later, however, he revealed himself as Giuseppe
Balsamo, Count Cagliostro. It then appeared that in Hélène herself was
reincarnated the hapless Queen Marie Antoinette, and that others of the
mortals represented Mirabeau, Prince of Orleans, etc....
"It is Hélène's extra-planetary experiences, however, which have
excited most attention, and which furnished to the attendants at her
circle the most convincing proofs of her dealings with the spiritual
world. In November 1894, the spirit of the entranced medium was
wafted—not without threatenings of sea-sickness—through the cosmic
void, to arrive eventually on the planet Mars. Thereafter night after
night she described to the listening circle the people of our
neighbouring planet, their food, dress, and ways of life. At times she
drew pictures of the inhabitants, human and animal—of their houses,
bridges, and other edifices, and of the surrounding landscape. Later she
both spoke and wrote freely in the Martian language. From the
writings reproduced in M. Flournoy's book it is clear that the
characters of the Martian script are unlike any in use on earth, and that
the words (of which a translation is furnished) bear no resemblance,
superficially at least, to any known tongue. The spirits—for several
dwellers upon Mars used Hélène's organism to speak and write
through—delivered themselves with freedom and fluency, and were
consistent in their usage both of the spoken and the written words. In
fact, Martian, as used by the entranced Hélène, has many of the
characteristics of a genuine language; and it is not surprising that some
of the onlookers, who may have hesitated over the authenticity of the
other revelations, were apparently convinced that these Martian
utterances were beyond the common order of nature."

All his powers M. Flournoy bent to elucidate the mystery. He made up his
mind that Hélène must somewhere have come across one of the works
containing Flammarion's speculations concerning Mars. The landscapes
were suggested by Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes. As for the
language, it is just such a work of art as one might form by substituting for
each word in the French dictionary an arbitrary collocation of letters, and
for each letter a new and arbitrary symbol. The vowel and consonant signs
are the same as in French; so are the inflections, the grammar, the
construction. (Take, for example, the negative ke ani=ne pas, the
employment of the same word zi to express both la "the" and là "there.") If
it is childish as a work of art, it is miraculous enough as a feat of memory.
But the reader has not forgotten what the subliminal self is capable of
achieving as regards time appreciation mentioned in an early chapter.
When, however, it comes to Hélène's telepathic and clairvoyant powers, M.
Flournoy, in spite of his long investigation, can find no explanation of the
supernormal to fit the case. Her mediumship since 1892 included
manifestations of all kinds. They began with physical phenomena, but they
soon ceased. Her clairvoyant messages during trance are certainly of a
remarkable character. Her reception of distant scenes and persons, of which
she was apparently unacquainted, has been carefully investigated and
authenticated by numerous persons of reputation. It is this aspect of
spiritualism which has of recent years commanded most attention from
trained observers. The trance utterances of such well-known clairvoyants as
the late Stainton Moses, Mrs Thompson, and Mrs Piper have been subjected
to rigid and precise inquiry, and on the whole it is on this type of evidence
that the strongest arguments of the genuineness of spiritualism really rests.
It is at once the most impressive, the most interesting, and the most
voluminous.

Of Stainton Moses I have already spoken. This medium was, as we have

seen, a man of character and probity, English Professor at the University
College School for eighteen years, a man who was never detected in the
slightest fraud, and who died in 1892 regretted by a host of intimate friends.
Stainton Moses left a mass of published testimony to his pretended
communications from the spirits of deceased persons. He attached great
importance to the evidence for spiritualistic doctrines. Altogether the
"controls" or communicators numbered thirty-eight. Some of these Moses
or other members of the circles had known in life; others—such as
Swedenborg, Bishop Wilberforce, and President Garfield—were historical
personages. Besides these there was a class of individuals of no particular
importance, and apparently unknown to the medium and his friends. Yet it
is worthy of remark that the spirits by whom Moses was "controlled" never
withheld any data which would faciliate verification. For instance, at one
séance a spirit put in an appearance by raps, giving the name "Rosmira."
She said that she lived at Kilburn and had died at Torquay on 10th January
1874. She said that her husband's name was Ben, and that his surname was
Lancaster. It turned out that a fortnight before the whole particulars were to
be found in the "Death" notices in The Daily Telegraph. "Mr Moses'
spirits," comments Mr Podmore in his "History of Spiritualism," habitually
furnished accurate obituaries, or gave such other particulars of their lives as
could be gathered from the daily papers, from published biographies, or
from the Annual Register and other works of reference. All the spirits,
indeed, gave their names, with one exception—an exception so significant
that the case is worth recording. The Pall Mall Gazette for 21st February
1874 contains the following item of intelligence:—

"A cabdriver out of employment this morning threw himself under a

steam-roller which was being used in repairing the road in York-place,
Marylebone, and was killed immediately."
"Mr Moses was present at a séance that evening, and his hand was
controlled, ostensibly by the spirit of the unhappy suicide, to write an
account of the incident, and to draw a rough picture of a horse attached
to a vehicle. The name of the dead man, it will be seen, does not
appear in the newspaper account, and out of the thirty-eight spirits who
gave proofs of their identity through the mediumship of Mr Moses this
particular spirit alone chose to remain anonymous."

But a great part of Moses' mediumistic career was taken up with trance
utterances purporting to come from various spirits. These writings, couched
in clear, vigorous English, seems to flow readily "without any conscious
intervention on the part of the mortal penman." In fact, so far was this so
that he was able to read a book, or otherwise occupy his mind, during their
production.
The claims of the celebrated medium Mrs Thompson were carefully
investigated by a competent observer, Mrs A. W. Verrall, the wife of an
eminent Cambridge scholar, and herself of no mean scholastic attainments.
I will endeavour to summarise Mrs Verrall's conclusions as follows:—

Mrs Verrall says that Mrs Thompson was unable to ascertain the
correct statements of facts which have been grouped under the four
following heads:—
(a) Things known to the sitter and directly present in his
consciousness.
(b) Things known to the sitter but not immediately present in his
consciousness.
(c) Things that have been well known to the sitter but are at the
moment so far forgotten as only to be recalled by the statements of the
medium.
(d) Things unknown to the sitter.

With regard to things under head (a) Mrs Verrall says:

"Some very clearly marked instances have come within my own

observation; the cases are not very numerous, but the response from
the 'control' to what has been thought but not uttered by me has been
so rapid and complete that, were it not for the evidence of the other
sitter, I should have been disposed to believe that I had unconsciously
uttered the thought aloud.
"Thus, on one occasion, 'Nelly' said that a red-haired girl was in my
house that day, and I was wondering whether a certain friend of my
daughter's, who is often at the house, would be there, when 'Nelly'
added: 'Not So-and-so,' mentioning by name my daughter's friend,
exactly as though I had uttered the passing thought. Again, when
'Nelly' was describing a certain bag given to me for my birthday,
something she said made me for a moment think of a small leather
handbag left in my house by a cousin and occasionally used by me,
and she said: 'You had an uncle that died; it was not long after that.'
 The father of the cousin whom I had just thought of is the only uncle I
have known, but his death long preceded the giving to me of the bag as
a birthday present, which was what she had quite correctly described
till my momentary thought apparently distracted her attention to the
other bag. I have had in all some five or six instances of such
apparently direct responses as the above to a thought in the sitter's
mind; but when at 'Nelly's' suggestion I have fixed my attention on
some detail for the sake of helping her to get it, I have never succeeded
in doing anything but what she calls 'muggling her.'"

Another difficulty arises from the fact that mediums and their controls not
infrequently receive impressions as pictures, and these pictures are liable to
be misinterpreted. Mrs Verrall writes in her report of her sitting with Mrs
Thompson:

"Merrifield was said to be the name of a lady in my family. The name

was given at first thus: 'Merrifield, Merryman, Merrythought,
Merrifield; there is an old lady named one of these who,' etc. Later,
'Nelly' said: 'Mrs Merrythought, that's not quite right; it's like the name
of a garden'; and after in vain trying to give her the name exactly, she
said: 'I will tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see
school children enjoying themselves. You can't say Merryman because
that's not a name, or Merrypeople.' 'Nelly' later on spoke of my mother
as Mrs Happyfield or Mrs Merryfield with indifference"
("Proceedings," part xliv. p. 208).

It is probably for this reason that so much use is made in spirit

communications of symbolism. The passage in which Mr Myers deals with
the use of symbolism in automatic messages, in his work on "Human
Personality," should be studied in this connection. He points out that there is
"no a priori ground for supposing that language will have the power to
express all the thoughts and emotions of man." And if this is true of man in
his present state, how much more does it apply to man in another and more
advanced state? With reference to automatic writings he says: "There is a
certain quality which reminds one of translation, or of the composition of a
person writing in a language in which he is not accustomed to talk."
As a result of her investigations, Mrs Verrall declares:
 "That Mrs Thompson is possessed of knowledge not normally
obtained I regard as established beyond a doubt; that the hypothesis of
fraud, conscious or unconscious, on her part fails to explain the
phenomena seems to be equally certain; that to more causes than one is
to be attributed the success which I have recorded seems to me likely.
There is, I believe, some evidence to indicate that telepathy between
the sitter and the trance personality is one of these contributory causes.
But that telepathy from the living, even in an extended sense of the
term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the occurrences
observed by me, is my present belief."

Instances of clairvoyance in children are remarkably numerous. A few

weeks ago the Rome correspondent of The Tribune reported that a boy of
twelve, at Capua, "was discovered sobbing and crying as if his heart would
break. Asked by his mother the reason of his distress, he said that he had
just seen his father, who was absent in America, at the point of death,
assisted by two Sisters of Charity. Next day a letter came from America
announcing the father's death. Remembering the boy's vision, his mother
tried to keep the tale a secret lest he should be regarded as 'possessed,' but
her efforts were vain, several persons having been present when he
explained the cause of his grief."
The explanation of telepathy would hardly seem to fit the case, since the
father's death must have occurred at least eight or ten days previous to the
vision.
I shall reserve for my next chapter what may be regarded as the classic
illustration of the marvels of clairvoyance—that of Mrs Piper.
 CHAPTER XIV
MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES

Almost alone amongst mediums of note, Mrs Piper of Boston has never
resorted to physical phenomena, her powers being entirely confined to
trance manifestations. No single medium, not even Hélène Smith, has been
subjected to such close and continuous observation by expert scientific
observers. In 1885, this lady's case was first investigated by Professor
William James, of Harvard (brother of the famous novelist). Two years later
Dr Hodgson and other members of the Society for Psychical Research
began their observation of her trance utterances. This course of observation
has continued for twenty years, and nearly all Mrs Piper's utterances have
been placed on record. The late Dr Hodgson was indefatigable in his
labours to test the genuineness of the phenomena. He spared no pains, and
died, I believe, convinced that all means of accounting for them had been
exhausted.
There is so much evidence concerning Mrs Piper, who, two years ago came
to England at the invitation of the Society for Psychical Research, and was
subjected to numerous tests, that I hesitate how best to typify its purport.
Most striking is a letter to Professor James in the Society's "Proceedings"
from a well-known professor, Shaler of Harvard, who attended a séance,
with a very open mind indeed, on 25th May 1894, at Professor James's
house in Cambridge (Boston).
Professor Shaler was disposed to favour neither the medium nor even the
telepathic theory. He writes:

"MY DEAR JAMES,—At the sitting with Mrs Piper on May 25th I made
the following notes:—
"As you remember, I came to the meeting with my wife; when Mrs
Piper entered the trance state Mrs Shaler took her hand. After a few
irrelevant words, my wife handed Mrs Piper an engraved seal, which
she knew, though I did not, had belonged to her brother, a gentleman
from Richmond, Virginia, who died about a year ago. At once Mrs
Piper began to make statements clearly relating to the deceased, and in
the course of the following hour she showed a somewhat intimate
acquaintance with his affairs, those of his immediate family, and those
of the family in Hartford, Conn., with which the Richmond family had
had close social relations.
"The statements made by Mrs Piper, in my opinion, entirely exclude
the hypothesis that they were the results of conjectures, directed by the
answers made by my wife. I took no part in the questioning, but
observed very closely all that was done.
"On the supposition that the medium had made very careful
preparation for her sittings in Cambridge, it would have been possible
for her to have gathered all the information which she rendered by
means of agents in the two cities, though I must confess that it would
have been rather difficult to have done the work.
"The only distinctly suspicious features were that certain familiar
baptismal names were properly given, while those of an unusual sort
could not be extracted, and also that one or two names were given
correctly as regards the ceremony of baptism or the directory, but
utterly wrong from the point of view of family usage. Thus the name
of a sister-in-law of mine, a sister of my wife's, was given as Jane,
which is true by the record, but in forty years' experience of an
intimate sort I never knew her to be called Jane—in fact, I did not at
first recognise who was meant.
"While I am disposed to hold to the hypothesis that the performance is
one that is founded on some kind of deceit, I must confess that close
observation of the medium made on me the impression that she was
honest. Seeing her under any other conditions, I should not hesitate to
trust my instinctive sense as to the truthfulness of the woman.
"I venture also to note, though with some hesitancy, the fact that the
ghost of the ancient Frenchman who never existed, but who purports to
control Mrs Piper, though he speaks with a first-rate stage French
accent, does not, so far as I can find, make the characteristic blunders
in the order of his English words which we find in actual life.
Whatever the medium is, I am convinced that this 'influence' is a
preposterous scoundrel.
"I think I did not put strongly enough the peculiar kind of knowledge
that the medium seems to have concerning my wife's brother's affairs.
Certain of the facts, as, for instance, those relating to the failure to find
his will after his sudden death, were very neatly and dramatically
rendered. They had the real-life quality. So, too, the name of a man
who was to have married my wife's brother's daughter, but who died a
month before the time fixed for the wedding, was correctly given, both
as regards surname and Christian name, though the Christian name
was not remembered by my wife or me.
"I cannot determine how probable it is that the medium, knowing she
was to have a sitting with you in Cambridge, or rather a number of
them, took pains to prepare for the tests by carefully working up the
family history of your friends. If she had done this for thirty or so
persons, I think she could, though with some difficulty, have gained
just the kind of knowledge which she rendered. She would probably
have forgotten that my wife's brother's given name was Legh, and that
of his mother Gabriella, while she remembered that of Mary and
Charles, and also that of a son in Cambridge, who is called Waller. So,
too, the fact that all trouble on account of the missing will was within a
fortnight after the death of Mr Page cleared away by the action of the
children was unknown. The deceased is represented as still troubled,
though he purported to see just what was going on in his family.
"I have given you a mixture of observations and criticisms; let me say
that I have no firm mind about the matter. I am curiously and yet
absolutely uninterested in it, for the reason that I don't see how I can
exclude the hypothesis of fraud, and until that can be excluded no
advance can be made.
"When I took the medium's hand, I had my usual experience with them
—a few preposterous compliments concerning the clearness of my
understanding, and nothing more."
Among those who have made a careful study at first hand of Mrs Piper's
clairvoyance besides Dr Hodgson and Professor James are Sir Oliver
Lodge, the late Frederic Myers, Mrs Sidgwick, Walter Leaf, Professor
Romaine Newbold, and Professor J. H. Hyslop, and all of these have
recorded their conviction that the results are not explicable by fraud or
misrepresentation.
Another account which sheds light on what occurs at Mrs Piper's séances is
furnished by Professor Estlin Carpenter, Oxford. It is dated 14th December
1894:

"DEAR PROFESSOR JAMES,—I had a sitting yesterday with Mrs Piper at

your house, and was greatly interested with the results obtained, as
they were entirely unexpected by me. Various persons were named and
described whom we could not identify (my wife was present); but the
names of my father and mother were correctly given, with several
details which were in no way present to my mind at the time. The
illness from which my father was suffering at the time of his death was
identified, but not the accident which took him from us. A penknife
which I happened to have with me was rightly referred to its place on
the desk in his study, and after considerable hesitation Mrs Piper wrote
out the word organ when I asked concerning other objects in the room.
She added spontaneously a very remarkable item about which I was in
no way thinking—viz. that on Sunday afternoons or evenings (her
phrase was 'twilight') we were accustomed to sing there together. She
stated correctly that my mother was older than my father, but died after
him; and she connected her death with my return from Switzerland in a
manner that wholly surprised me, the fact being that her last illness
began two or three days after my arrival home from Lucerne. She gave
the initials of my wife's name rightly, and addressed words to her from
her father, whose first name, George, was correct. She also desired me,
in my father's name, not to be anxious about some family matters
(which have only recently come to my knowledge), though their nature
was not specified. Finally, though I should have mentioned this first, as
it was at the outset of the interview, she told me that I was about to
start on a voyage, and described the vessel in general terms, though
she could not give its name or tell me the place where it was going. I
saw enough to convince me that Mrs Piper possesses some very
 extraordinary powers, but I have no theory at all as to their nature or
mode of exercise."

Another who visited Mrs Piper was the famous French author, M. Paul
Bourget, who was astonished at what he heard. He happened to have on his
watch-chain a small seal which had been given him by a painter, long since
dead, under the saddest circumstances, of whom it was impossible the
medium could ever have heard; yet no sooner had she touched the object
than she related to him the circumstance. One could quote case after case in
the Society's reports, but in all the time Mrs Piper has been under such rigid
scrutiny not one suspicious instance or one pointing to normal acquisition
of facts has been discovered.
Some have boldly hazarded the conjecture that Mrs Piper worked up the
dossiers of her sitters beforehand; inasmuch as she could easily obtain her
facts in many ways; by reading private letters, for instance, or information
derived from other mediums, or by employing private inquiry agents. These
things are said to be habitually done by professional clairvoyants, by either
going themselves or sending an agent in the capacity of, say, a book
canvasser, to some town or district, and get all the information they can, to
return some months later and give clairvoyant sittings. There is a belief, and
it is possibly correct, that there is an organisation which gives and
exchanges information thus obtained by the members of the Society.
Perhaps this may account for the extraordinary good fortune of some
spiritualists in obtaining "tests." Some sitters who went to Mrs Piper had
visited other mediums previously. But one may be sure that all precautions
were taken to ensure against her knowing the names of the sitters, so that
she could not use any information, even if she had obtained any, in this way.
Those best qualified to judge are convinced that her knowledge was not
gained in this way, partly because of the precautions used and partly by
reason of the information itself.
As has been said, Mrs Piper was under the close scrutiny of Dr Hodgson for
many years, and nothing of the kind has ever come to light. Also Dr
Hodgson arranged beforehand her sittings for more than ten years, never
telling her the names of the sitters, who in almost every instance were
unknown to her by sight, and were without distinction introduced under the
name of "Smith." She made so many correct statements at many individual
sittings, and the proportion of successful sittings is so high, that it is very
difficult to attribute fraud to her. About dates she appears to be very vague.
She prefers to give Christian names to surnames, and of the former those in
common use rather than those out of the way. As her descriptions of houses
or places are generally failures, she seldom attempts them. Mrs Piper seems
to be weakest, indeed, just where the so-called medium is most successful.
Her strongest points are describing diseases, the character of the sitter, his
idiosyncrasies, and the character of his friends, their sympathies, loves,
hates, and relationships in general, unimportant incidents in their past
histories, and so on. To retain such information in the memory is very
difficult, and to obtain it by general means well-nigh impossible.
Many of the personalities or "controls" of Mrs Piper speak, write, and act in
a way extraordinarily in consonance with those characters as they were on
earth. In other words, her "controls" have well-differentiated identities.
Each has a different manner, a different voice, different acts, different ways
of looking at things; in fact, has a different character. For example, there is
the spirit of G. P., a young journalist and author who died suddenly in
February 1892. A few weeks later his spirit possessed Mrs Piper's organism,
and although he was unknown to Mrs Piper in life, yet for years since then
he has carried on numerous prolonged conversations with his friends,
including Dr Hodgson, and supplied numerous proofs of his knowledge of
the concerns of the deceased G. P. G. P.'s personal effects, MSS., etc., are
referred to, as well as private conversations of the past, and, moreover, he
suddenly recognises amongst those attending Mrs Piper's séances those
whom he knew during life. Dr Hodgson was unable to find any instance
when such recognition has been incorrectly given. But G. P. is only one of
several trance personations speaking through Mrs Piper's organism and
recognised by friends.
After a contemplation of Mrs Piper's trance utterances alone we are
inevitably faced by a choice of three conclusions: either (1) fraud (and fraud
I hold here to be absolutely inadmissible); or (2) the possession of some
supernormal power of apprehension; or (3) communication with the spirits
of deceased persons.
Dr Hodgson was driven by sheer force of logic to accept the third of these
hypotheses. Others who have studied the phenomena have followed. Dr J.
H. Hyslop has published a record of the sittings held with Mrs Piper in 1898
and 1899. His report contains the verbatim record of seventeen sittings, and
no pains have been spared to make the record complete. It has exhaustive
commentaries and accounts of experiments intended to elucidate the
supposed difficulties of trance communication. Professor Hyslop finally
arrives at the conclusion, after an extensive investigation, during which no
item of the evidence has failed to be weighed and no possible source of
error would seem to have escaped consideration, that spirit communication
is the only explanation which fits all the facts, and he altogether rejects
telepathy as being inadequate.

I hope that those who have so far followed me in this brief inquiry into the
mysteries of occult phenomena will recognise the impartiality with which I
have endeavoured to conduct it. I said in the beginning that I set out with a
light heart as well as an open mind. I had no idea of the extent of the
territory, I knew little of its voluminous literature, of the extraordinary
ramifications of occultism, of the labours of the many learned men who
have spent their whole lives in seeking to separate fact from superstition.
My mind was light because, frankly, I believed—with a sort of inherent,
temperamental belief—that, however much the testimony concerning
coincident dreams, hallucinations, mediumistic manifestations,
materialisation, and clairvoyance might mystify, it was all capable of
normal explanation—there was nothing supernatural about it. And so
throughout the inquiry I sought to show how, chiefly, telepathy was a
working hypothesis in most of the manifestations, while for the physical
ones, such as table rapping, levitations, and the rest, an unknown extension
of human muscular power might possibly exist to solve the mystery. So far
I strode forward with some confidence. But now the time has come when
my confidence deserts me. Telepathy breaks down. It is a key which by no
amount of wriggling will turn the lock. "It is not," as one leading inquirer
has said, "that telepathy is insufficient: it is superfluous." If the existence of
disembodied spirits is proved, then all the other phenomena are also proved.
If the case of Mrs Piper—under rigid surveillance for years—has convinced
some of the profoundest intellects of the day—men who began by being
sceptical—that disembodied spirits are responsible for her utterances, it
would certainly tend to convince me. But I carefully guarded myself from
conviction until I had read the evidence—even to a résumé of this medium's
utterances last year in London under the auspices of the Society for
Psychical Research—and I assert with confidence that no metaphysical
theory has ever been formulated that will account for these manifestations
save one—the survival of the human personality after death. Once Mrs
Piper is admitted as genuine, then it follows that the spiritistic
manifestations which have puzzled mankind, not merely for generations or
during the modern cult of spiritism, but ever since primitive times, become,
as it were, emancipated.
"It does seem to me," said Mr Balfour, in his famous Society for Psychical
Research address, "that there is at least strong ground for supposing that
outside the world, as we have, from the point of science, been in the habit
of conceiving it, there does lie a region, not open indeed to experimental
observation in the same way as the more familiar regions of the material
world are open to it, but still with regard to which some experimental
information may be laboriously gleaned; and even if we cannot entertain
any confident hope of discovering what laws these half-seen phenomena
obey, at all events it will be some gain to have shown, not as a matter of
speculation or conjecture, but as a matter of ascertained fact, that there are
things in heaven and earth not hitherto dreamed of in our scientific
philosophy."
 AFTERWORD
And so our little tour into the occult is ended and we return into the glare of
common things—things which we know and can touch and find a practical
use for. If only a little of this light we hold so cheap were to illumine the
tenebrous fastnesses we have just left, then, perhaps we, in our dull worldly
way, might be able to assimilate the mystic to the common, the unseen to the
seen, the unknown to the known. But we are not vouchsafed this white light;
yet, even in the shadows to which our eyes have grown accustomed, we
have heard enough to make us wonder and maybe make us doubtful when
some voice, even such a voice as Matthew Arnold's, cries out to us:
"Miracles are touched by Ithuriel's spear"—"Miracles do not happen."
True, miracles do not happen: but there are events of frequent occurrence in
this age, as in all ages of which we have a record, which are miraculous in
the sense of their being supernormal—for which science offers no
consistent explanation. Is not hypnotism a miracle? Is not telepathy a
miracle? Is not the divining rod a miracle? Would Sir William Ramsay or
Sir James Crichton-Browne throw these manifestations into the limbo of
humbug and charlatanism? And supposing they, and such as they, continue
incredulous—is not incredulity a fixed quantity in any society? Were men
ever unanimous in their impressions—in their prepossessions, in the
chromatic quality with which they steep every surrounding fact before they
allow their critical faculties to be focussed upon it?
It may be objected by the reader that I who have led him on this little tour
into the wilderness of the occult have myself seen no ghosts. Where are my
own experiences? Where the relation of my own personal contact with
hypnotists, telepathists, mediums, mysteries? Would not that have been of
interest? It may be so: if the phenomena appertaining to those in their best
and most convincing quality were always to appear on a casual summons
and if I were confided in by the public at large as a sane, unprejudiced
witness.
Granted that I have seen no ghosts, I have at least done this: I have met the
men—better men—who have. That at the beginning was the real purpose of
my brief itinerary. I designed less a tour into the occult itself than an
examination of witnesses for the occult whom I met on the literary bypaths
of occultism. This I hope I have done, not satisfactorily—very hurriedly—
yet honestly, and wanting like a returned traveller to tell folks more
ignorant than myself of what I had heard of wonders which each man must,
in the last resort, see for himself and meditate upon for himself.
The blind leading the blind—yea—but—he who hath ears let him hear!
One word more. I should like to see a census of all the minds which
embrace a belief in the truth of supernormal phenomena. It would astonish
the sceptic. It would reveal to him that the attitude of society at large
towards spiritualism and the other world is not the attitude of any but a
fraction of the component parts of society—not even the evenly balanced
attitude of Huxley towards God Almighty. We should see something quite
different; something even distinct and apart from religion. We should see
men, often without any religion at all properly speaking, breaking out into
the ejaculation of Hamlet to Horatio and refusing to believe that certain
occurrences in their experience are to be explained away by chance or
delusion. And even in religious men the conviction seems to me secular
rather than arising from orthodox faith.
"Far be it from me," wrote Emerson, "the impatience which cannot brook
the supernatural, the vast: far be it from me the lust of explaining away all
which appeals to the imagination and the great presentiments which haunt
us. Willingly I, too, say Hail! to the unknown artful powers which transcend
the ken of the understanding." Amen!
Only yesterday I picked up a book, a sort of literary autobiography, by the
author of "Sherlock Holmes," to find the following passage:—
"I do not think the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It is one of
several incidents in my life which have convinced me of spiritual
interposition—of the promptings of some beneficent force outside ourselves
which tries to help us where it can."
[1] The Spectator, I believe, alone, generously supported me, and in an editorial
article on 30th September 1876 expressed the hope that "the British Association
would really lake some action on the subject of the paper, in spite of the protests
of the party, which we may call the party of superstitious incredulity."
[2] It will be found on page 178 of "L'Inconnu et les Problemes Psychiques."
[3] Dr Hutton does not say how he knew that water was, or was not, below the
surface. He was not, however, one likely to make loose and random statements.
According to a footnote in The Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 374, it appears
that the ground chosen for the experiment was a field Dr Hutton had bought,
adjoining the new College at Woolwich, then building.
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