Adventurings in the Psychical - Henry Addington
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The meaning of ghosts, telepathy, poltergeists....
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HEPSYGHICAL H.
ADDINGTON BRUCE
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UNIVERSITY
of
CALIFORNIA
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LOS ANGELES LIBRARY
Adventurings in the Psychical 331 pages.
12mo.
Cloth.
$1.Z5 net
A review of the results of modern psychical research in the realm of the abnormal and the seemingly supernormal. Its especial purpose is to make clear their bearings on the nature and possibilities of mankind, and to contribute something towards a wider knowledge of the progress science is making in revealing the real causes of such phenomena. Especially has the author brought out the exceedingly practical character of many of these discoveries, by which the world has been i'
a rich gainer.
ADVENTIIRINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL
OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
PSYCHOLOGICAL Scientific
Mental Healing
Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters
The Riddle
of Personality
HISTORICAL Woman
in
the
Making
of America
Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road
The Romance
of American Expansion
Adventurings in the Psychical
BY H.
ADDINGTON BRUCE
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BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1914
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Coj}yright, 1914,
By
Little,
Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published, April, 1914
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C. H,
THE COLONIAL PRESS SIMONBS & CO., BOSTON,
U. 8. A.
X PREFACE present volume is somewhat in the nature " of a sequel to The Riddle of Personality,"
THE
published six years ago.
In that book I reviewed
the results of modern psychological research in the realm of the abnormal and the seemingly tv
supernormal, with the special purpose of making
^
clear their bearings
and
possibilities
purpose
^ any t
topical
mind,
it
tion.
V
how
was inadvisable to attempt
and detailed treatment
nomena made the
^ "^
in
on the problem of the nature of man. Having this special of the phe-
subject of scientific investiga-
Such a method
of treatment,
no matter
might have added to the interest of the book, would inevitably have obscured its mesit
sage to the reader.
Now, however, thing, in the
I
have undertaken
this
very
hope both of reinforcing the view
of personality set forth in the earlier work, of contributing
and
something towards a wider knowl-
[v]
PREFACE edge of the progress science
is
making
in
the
naturahzation of the supernatural, to borrow Mr.
Frank Podmore's happy phrase.
Especially have
I tried to bring out the exceedingly practical
character of
many
of the discoveries
made by
those scientists who, despite the often contemp-
tuous criticism of their colleagues, have valiantly persisted in their adventurings in the psychical.
The world has undoubtedly been richly the gainer, is
well
field
by
the gainer, and
their labors;
worth while to survey
in
and
some
it
surely
detail the
they have explored and the results of their
explorations.
H. Addington Bruce. Cambridge, Massachusetts, February, 1914.
[vi]
CONTENTS PAGE
CHAPTER
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V. VI. VII. VIII.
IX.
Preface Ghosts and their Meaning Why I Believe in Telepathy
... .
Clairvoyance and Crystal-Gazing Automatic Speaking and Writing Poltergeists and Mediums
The Singular Case of BCA The Larger Self Index
1
.
58
.
102
.
134
.
.
.
171
.
.
.
230
.
.
265
The Subconscious Dissociation and Disease
v
201
290 315
ADVENTURINGS
IN
THE
PSYCHICAL CHAPTER
I
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING
A "
WITTY
Frenchwoman was once asked
if
she beheved in ghosts.
No, not at
all,"
terribly afraid of
Most people
was her
them." feel
" reply.
But
I
am
*
precisely
this
way about
though few are candid enough to ac-
ghosts,
knowledge
it.
In broad daylight, or when seated
before a cheery
fire
friends, it is easy to
among a group
of congenial
be skeptical, and to regard
ghosts as mere products of imagination, supercredulity, hysteria, or indigestion.
stition, it is
notorious that even the most skeptical are
liable to
panic
But
if
creepy sensations and sometimes outright " " they experience sights or uncanny
sounds in the darkness of the night, or in lonely,
[1]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL uninhabited
places. Churchyards have never been popular resorts of those who go for a stroll
And
in the cool of the evening.
get the reputation of being
"
haunted,"
to impossible to find tenants for
Yet
a house once
let
it.
almost universal attitude
this
and fundamentally wrong. for being afraid of ghosts,
next
it is
There
is
is
entirely
no reason
and there are many
reasons for believing in them. I
do not,
mean
of course,
to say that
There are plenty
are real ghosts.
and there always
will be, as
of
all
ghosts
bogus ghosts,
long as
men
eat
and
drink too much, play practical jokes on one another,
and allow
their houses to
and infested by
A
single rat,
loose planks of sufficient to
rats
become run down
and mice.
scampering at midnight over the
an old
attic,
has often been quite
produce a counterfeit
" poltergeist,"
or troublesome ghost, of a highly impressive character.
So, too,
clothesline
man like
is
pillow-slip
swaying from a
apt to seem most ghostly to a gentle-
returning
much
a
home from a
else in this
late supper.
amazing world
to be pretty sharply scrutinized.
[2]
Ghosts,
of ours,
have
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING And
the point
is
that, after centuries of con-
temptuous neglect, they have at
last
men and women
the subject of investigation by
the task — persons
competent for cautious methods of sisting
upon the
scientific
strictest
been made
trained in the
inquiry,
evidential
and
standards,
Their
but devoid of prejudice or prepossession. researches are
still
in
progress,
in-
but they have
already demonstrated that amid a multitude of
sham ghosts /there
are perfectly authentic appari-
tions, displaying credentials too
convincing to be
denied./
What is still more scientific
ghostologists
rolled in the
also resulted in
on the nature,
Usually,
— especially
famous English Society
Research — have light
important, the labors of these
it
origin,
of those en-
for Psychical
throwing
and habits
much
of real ghosts.
seems, a genuine ghost
is
seen or
heard but once or twice, and then, having accomplished more. in
its
purpose,
But there
it
are plenty of well-attested cases
which a ghost attaches
family,
departs to return no
and keeps up
its
itself
to a house or
haunting for years, some-
times for centuries.
[3]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Take, for example, an experience that
befell
Miss Goodrich-Freer, at the time a most active
member
of the Society for Psychical Research, in
Hampton Court
This old building
Palace.
unquestionably one of the most famous of
first
all
back to the time
of
Tudors, and according to tradition
is
haunted houses. the
is
It dates
haunted by several ghosts, notably the ghosts of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third queen; Catharine
Howard, whose
spirit is said to
go shrieking
along the gallery where she vainly begged brutal
and Sybil Penn, King Edward VI's foster-mother. Twice of late
King Henry to spare her
years
the
passed for
Howard ghost it
— has
Eastlake, and
The
life;
— or
something that
been heard, once by Lady
once by Mrs. Cavendish Boyle.
was sleeping in an apartment next to the haunted gallery which has long been unlatter
—
occupied and used only as a storeroom for old pictures
— when
she was suddenly awakened by
a loud and most unearthly shriek proceeding
from that quarter, followed immediately by perfect silence. Lady Eastlake's experience was exactly similar.
[4]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING Both
ladies, of course,
may have heard
a real
coming from some nightmaretormented occupant of the palace. But no exshriek,
possibly
planation of this sort
is
Miss Goodrich-Freer,
Hampton Court
who passed a
night
at
for the sole purpose of ascertain-
ing whether or not there its
adequate in the case of
was any foundation
for
ghostly legends.
The room
she selected for her vigil was one
especially reputed to be haunted,
and opened
into
a second room, the door between the two, how-
by a heavy piece of furniture. Thus the only means of entrance into her room was by a door from the corridor, and this she ever, being blocked
locked and bolted.
After which, feeling confident
that nothing but a real ghost could get in to trouble her, she settled
down
to read an essay on
We
Degrade Our Standard of Value?" a subject manifestly free from matters likely to "Shall
occasion nervousness.
In
fact,
the essay was so dull that by half past
one Miss Goodrich-Freer, not able to keep awake longer,
undressed,
dropped into bed, and was
almost instantly asleep.
Several hours later she
[5]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL some one opening the furniture-barricaded door. At this she put was aroused by a noise
as of
out her hand to reach a match-box which she
knew was " "
lying on a table at the head of the bed.
I did not reach
It
seemed to
on mine.
I
me
that a detaining hand was laid
withdrew
ness and silence.
room, and
it
quickly and gazed around
Some minutes passed
into the darkness.
in the
the matches," she reports.
I
had the sensation
finally,
in black-
of a presence
mindful of the tradition
that a ghost should be spoken to, I said gently: *
any one there.'^ Can remembered that the
Is
I
I
do anything for you?
last
tained the ghost had said:
want you,' and admire
my
person '
who
Go away,
'
enter-
I don't
hoped that my visitor would better manners and be responsive. I
However, there was no answer, no sound
of
any
kind."
Now all
Miss Goodrich-Freer
around the room
that she was alone.
left
the bed and
felt
in the dark, until satisfied
The
corridor door
was
still
locked and bolted; the piece of furniture against the inner door was in place. bed.
Almost at once a
So she returned to
soft light
[6]
began to glow
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING with increasing brightness.
It
seemed to radiate
from a central point, which gradually took form
and became a
tall,
across the room.
woman, moving slowly At the foot of the bed she
slender
stopped, so that the amazed observer had time to
examine her "
Her
and general appearance. " was Miss Goodrich-Freer says,
profile
face,"
insipidly pretty, that of a
woman from
thirty to
thirty-five years of age, her figure slight, her dress
of a soft,
dark material, having a
full skirt
and
broad sash or soft waistband tied high up almost under her arms, a crossed or draped handkerchief over the shoulders and sleeves which I noticed fitted
very tight below the elbow.
this definiteness I
was conscious that the
was unsubstantial, and
felt
you.f^
My
I felt effect
Can
I be of
all
figure
quite guilty of ab-
surdity in asking once more:
help "
In spite of
'
Will
you
any use to you?
let
me
'
voice sounded preternaturally loud, but
no surprise at noticing that it produced no upon my visitor. She stood still for perhaps
two minutes, though it is very difficult to estimate time on such occasions. Then she raised her hands, which were long and white, and held
[7]
them
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL before her as she sank
buried her face in
prayer out,
"
— when
and
I
was
upon her knees and slowly the palms in an attitude of suddenly the light went
quite
alone in the darkness.
I felt that the scene
was ended, the curtain
drawn, and had no hesitation at
my
side.
.
.
.
The
in lighting the candle
clock struck four."
Again investigation showed that the corridor door was locked and bolted as she had left it, and the inner door quently,
still
skeptical
firmly barricaded.
though
she had been
Conse-
when
Hampton Court Palace, Miss Goodleaving it entertained no doubt that
she arrived at rich-Freer in
she had witnessed a genuine psychical manifestation.
was forced upon two Miss Elizabeth Morison and Miss Frances
The same ladies.
Lamont, to
in connection
another
Trianon at of
that
conclusion
with a
visit
paid by them
famous haunted house, Versailles, the favorite
unfortunate
the
Petit
summer home
queen Marie Antoinette,
whose ghost, as well as the ghosts of her attendants, has long been alleged to be visible at times in
and around
it.
Miss Morison and Miss Lamont [8]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING had been sightseeing tiring of this had set
in
the royal palace, but
off, in
to walk to the Trianon.
the early afternoon,
Neither of them
knew
was located, but taking the general direction indicated on Baedeker's map, they finally came to a broad drive, which, had they
just
only
where
it
known
it,
would have led them directly to
their destination.
As
it
was, they crossed the
went up a narrow lane through a thick wood to a point where three paths diverged. Here
drive and
they began to have a series of experiences which,
comparatively insignificant in themselves, had a sequel so amazing that it would be incredible
were
it
not that the veracity of both ladies has
been established beyond question.
Ahead
of
them, on the middle path, they saw
two men clad
in curious, old-fashioned
of long, greenish coats,
three-cornered hats.
costumes
knee breeches, and small,
Taking them
for gardeners,
they asked to be shown the way, and were told " An Adventure," in which In a prefatory note to the book, '
these ladies detail
their experience,
their publishers,
"
Messrs.
that the Macmillan and Company, of London, guarantee authors have put down what happened to them as faithfully and accurately as was in their power." Their good faith is also vouched for by a reviewer in The Spectator.
[9]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL This brought them to a
to go straight ahead. little
clearing that
circular
and
like
had
in
it
a light garden kiosk,
a bandstand, near which a
man
As they approached, he turned his head and stared at them, and his expression was was seated.
so
repellent
The next
that
they
felt
greatly frightened.
coming from they knew not where, and breathless as if from running, a second
man
instant,
appeared, and speaking in French of a pe-
culiar accent, ordered
them brusquely
to turn to
the right, saying that the Trianon lay in that direction.
Just as they reached
it,
they were
again intercepted, this time by a young
stepped out of a rear door, banged
and with a somewhat
it
man who
behind him,
insolent air guided
them
to
the main entrance of the palace.
While they were hurrying thither, Miss Morison noticed a lady, seated below a terrace, holding out a paper as though reading at arm's length.
She glanced up as they passed, and Miss Morison, observing with surprise the peculiar cut of her " gown, saw that she had a pretty though not "
young "
face.
I looked straight at her,"
[10]
she adds in the
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING published statement she has made regarding their " but some indescribable feehng made adventure,
me
turn away, disturbed at her being there." " " indescribable feeling was Afterwards this
accounted for when Miss Morison identified in a
Marie Antoinette the lady she had seen seated below the terrace! rare portrait of
Still
more remarkable, subsequent
Trianon
brought to both
ladies
visits to
the
the
startling
knowledge that the actual surroundings of the place and the place itself differ vastly from what they saw that
summer
afternoon.
The woods
they entered are not there, and have not been there in the
memory
of
have long been effaced
anybody
living,
;
man; the paths they trod there
is
no kiosk, nor does
except Miss Morison and Miss
Lamont, remember having seen one in the Trianon grounds; on the very spot where Miss Morison saw the lady in the peculiar dress a large bush is
growing;
and the rear door, out
stepped the young
man who
of
which
guided them around
to the front, opens from an old chapel that has
been in a ruinous condition for door
" itself
being
bolted,
[11]
many
barred,
years, the
and
cob-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL webbed," and unused since the time of Marie Antoinette.
On
the other hand, their personal researches in
the archives of France have brought to Hght so
many
confirmatory facts that both Miss Morison
and Miss Lamont are firmly persuaded that the Trianon, its environment, and its people were once exactly as they appeared to them; and that in very truth they
at the time they
saw the place
first visited it,
as
but
it
looked, not
in the closing
years of the French Monarchy, more than a cen-
tury before.
That
German
White Lady of the Hohenzollerns, would likewise seem to have historic
ghost, the
more than a legendary basis. Her mission, apparently, is to announce the death of some member of the Hohenzollern family, and
frequent haunting-place Berlin.
is
Ifer
most
the royal palace at
She was seen as early as 1628, and since
the time of Frederick the Great her appearance
has been regularly chronicled on the eve of the
death of the King of Prussia.
For the matter families
of
that, there are not a few
whose ancestral homes, according to [12]
tra-
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING dition, are
This
is
haunted by death-announcing ghosts.
particularly the case with certain distin-
Two white owls
guished British families.
on the roof sure
omen
family.
of the family
perching
mansion are taken as a
of death in the
Arundel of Wardour
The Yorkshire Middletons, a Catholic
family, are said to be
warned
of approaching death
of a Benedictine nun.
by the apparition
Equally
noteworthy as a spectral messenger of tragedy is
the so-called
Drummer
of
Cortachy Castle, a
Scottish ghost that haunts the ancient stronghold of the Ogilvys, Earls of Airlie, but
only when an Ogilvy
The
is
about to
is
in
evidence
die.
story goes that, hundreds of years ago,
when the Scots were
little
better than barbarians,
a Highland chieftain sent a drummer to Cortachy Castle with a message that was not at all to the
As an appro-
liking of the Ogilvy of that time.
priate token luckless
of
his
drummer,
displeasure,
stuffed
him
he seized the
into his
drum
—
he must have been a very small drummer, and have carried a very big drum and hurled him
—
from the topmost battlements of the ing his neck.
[13]
castle,
break-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Just before he was tossed
threatened to
make a ghost
ghostly
drumming
is
and always the death
and haunt
has been,
Every once
seem, as good as his word.
drummer
the
of himself,
He
the Ogilvys forevermore.
off,
it
would
in a while
heard at Cortachy Castle, of
an Ogilvy follows.
An
especially impressive account of one instance of
and most unpleasant haunting has been left by a Miss Dalrymple, who happened to be a guest at Cortachy during Christmas week of this peculiar
1844.
was her
It
entirely
unaware
On
ghost.
first visit
to the Castle, and she
was
of the existence of the family
the evening of her arrival, while dress-
ing for dinner, she was startled by hearing under
her
window music
like the muffled
beating of a
She looked out, but could see nothing, and For the time presently the drumming died away. drum.
she thought no more of
it,
but at
turned to her host, the Earl of "
who
dinner
Airlie,
she
and asked:
"
your drummer? His lordship made no reply. Lady Airlie became
My
lord,
is
exceedingly pale, and several of the company, all of
whom had
heard the question, looked em-
[14]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING Realizing that she had
barrassed.
some
of
sort,
made
a
subject, but after dinner, naturally feeling
what
younger members "
some-
up with one of the the family, and was an-
curious, she brought
swered
slip
Miss Dalrymple quickly changed the
of
it
:
What! Have you never heard
of the
Drummer
"
of
Cortachy? "
" his
No,"
said she.
"
Who
in the
world
is
he?
"
Why, he is a person who goes about playing drum whenever there is a death impending The
in our family.
last
time he was heard was
shortly before the death of the late countess, the earl's first wife,
so pale
and that
is
why Lady
when you mentioned
The next drumming
night
Airlie
it."
Miss Dalrymple heard the
again, and, falling into a panic
she learned that nobody else had heard riedly left
was not
turned
Cortachy Castle.
for her.
True
it,
when hur-
But the drumming
to tradition, the
drummer
was concerned only with announcing the death of an Ogilvy, one of whom, the Lady Airlie who had been so disturbed by Miss Dalrymple's question, died soon afterward while on a visit to Brighton.
[15]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Five years later the drumming was once more heard, this time
by an EngHshman who had been
invited to spend a few days with the Earl of
Airhe's oldest son. Lord Ogilvy, at a shooting
box near Cortachy. Crossing a gloomy moor, in company with an old Highlander, the English-
man
suddenly stopped, and, with a look of amaze-
ment, exclaimed: *'
What can
place?
him?
a band be doing in this lonely
Has Lord Ogilvy brought a band with
"
The Highlander glanced "
I hear naething,"
" in
he
at
the distance — or at any
An'
lander.
is
"
it
In another shooting box
man
rate,
'tis
moment came
the mystery solved.
— only a scene it
"
A
band playing
somebody playcried the High-
something no canny." the lighted
into view,
hastened forward, fully
Ogilvy,
it?
a drum ye hear?
Then
strangely.
said.
Wliy, yes, can't you hear
ing a drum." "
him
windows
of the
and the Englishexpecting to have
But he found no musicians
of considerable confusion.
Lord
appeared, had just started for London,
[16]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING summoned by news
that his father was danger-
ill.
ously
And
the very next day, as the Englishman's
Highlander guide was not at
all
surprised
to
learn, the Earl of Airlie died.
Of
all
family ghosts, however, none
substantiated by documentary
^
is
so strongly
evidence as the
the Basil Woodds, an old
Knocking Ghost
of
English
This ghost began operations
family.
about the time of the Stuart Restoration, and is
it
alleged has ever since continued to announce,
by three or more loud knocks, the approaching death of a Basil Woodd. First-hand and thoroughly trustworthy accounts are extant of
its
activity in quite recent times.
December
15, 1893,
Mr. Charles H. L. Woodd
died at Hampstead, England, after a brief illness.
The
night before he died the Knocking Ghost
was heard by two persons, at Hampstead by his daughter, and in London by his son, the Reverend Trevor Basil Woodd. Both have made statements describing 1
The documents
their singular experiences.
in this case are published in the Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Research, vol.
[17]
xi,
pp. 538-542.
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
On Thursday
evening,
after church," says the
"
was
I
sitting before
my
December
1893,
14,
Reverend Mr. Woodd, fire.
I
knew my
father
and had a presentiment that he was dangerously ill, though if I had known this I was
ill,
should have remained at Hampstead, where I
had been that day.
As
heard
I sat, I distinctly
three knocks, perhaps more, like the sound of
some one emptying a tobacco pipe upon the bars of
my
fire grate.
"
might be a warning, I did not go to bed for an hour, fearing I would be sent for. Thinking
it
At one
A. M. I
butler,
who
was awakened by a ringing of the front door-bell and knocking. It was my father's as
my
father
keeper "
'
I
told
me
the doctor had sent for me,
was very
ill.
I said to
my
house-
:
must
go.
I feel sure that
dying, because I heard the
Woodd
my chair before going to bed.' On my arrival my first question
my
father
is
knocks, as I
sat in
"
'
still
alive?
away
for I believed
' :
Is
he
he must have passed
at the time of the knocking.
eight-forty-five next morning."
[18]
was
He
died at
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING Mr. Woodd's housekeeper corroborates this statement. As to the knocking heard at Hampthe
stead,
daughter,
Mrs.
Winifred
Dumbell,
testifies :
"
On December
hearing
my
father,
1893,
Thursday morning, Mr. Charles Woodd, was not
14,
Epsom, where I had been staying, for Hampstead, and found my father in bed and well, I left
very weak, but I was in no way anxious about him, as I did not suppose him to be seriously
At eleven I could
down
o'clock at night, being tired
not assist
my
ill.
and finding
mother or the nurse,
I lay
an adjoining room, leaving the door wide open, and fell asleep. in
"
In a short time I was suddenly awakened by a loud rapping as if at the door. I jumped up
and ran into the passage, thinking my mother had called me. I listened at the door of my father's room, but no one was moving.
I lay
down
again
and instantly
exactly the
same
fell
thing occurred.
asleep,
when
I did not actually sleep again,
and cannot say whether any sound made me get up the third time, but I went in search of the doctor and gathered that he was anxious about
[19]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL
my
father,
were
all
who was
We
weaker.
connect this rapping
warning, as
next morning to
in his
warning
it
told
with the
at breakfast the
the Reverend Trevor
my brother,
Woodd, he
my
was so sudden and unex-
all
pected, but on mentioning
Basil
much
aroused, and about eight o'clock a. m.
father died. " I did not
Woodd
getting
me he
also heard a similar
rooms at Vauxhall Bridge Road
about the same time."
To mention
only one other of the
many
in-
stances that might be cited, the Knocking Ghost
was again heard on June
3,
1895, just twenty-four
hours before the death of Mr.
Woodd
at
Hampstead.
Thomas
Again, too,
it
Basil
was heard
by more than one person and in more than one place, by Mr. Woodd's daughters, Fanny and Kate, and by his niece. Miss Ethel G. Woodd,
who was and at
at the time visiting friends in Yorkshire, first
mistook the Knocking Ghost for
somebody hammering next room. it
sounded to
nails into the wall of the
Oddly enough,
this
Fanny Woodd,
in
was
also the
London,
from the following statement signed by her: [20]
way
as appears
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING "
On June
895, at ten-thirty p. m.,
Fanny Woodd, staying with Mrs. Stoney, 83 Wharton Road, West Kensington, heard knocks, appar3,
1
ently from next door, as of nails being in
hammered
and pictures hung, which seemed so unHkely
at that hour of night that the next morning she
mentioned
to Mrs, Stoney, whose
it
just below hers, asking
could account for
if
bedroom was
she had heard
it
or
it."
But Mrs. Stoney had heard nothing, and the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Harriet Taylor, rather tartly declared that:
ting in
up
this
also
of
pictures
house
early
for
"There has been no putor
quite
two years.
We
are
and are always in bed and That same day Miss ten p. m."
risers,
asleep
by
Woodd
rejoined her father
stead,
sort
knocking of any
and
sister in
Hamp-
and was astonished to hear that the
had been awakened about
latter
half past ten the pre-
vious night by loud knockings against the win-
dow
A
shutters.
few hours more and the mystery was solved
by the
startlingly
sudden death of Mr. Woodd,
from an attack of apoplexy. [21]
The Knocking
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Ghost
of the Basil
Woodds had hved up
to its
reputation.
The
giving of death warnings
is
by no means
may be
confined to family ghosts, as
sufficiently
by relating an incident that happened Canada some years ago, and that has always
indicated in
impressed
me
as one of the best ghost stories I
was
me by an
have ever heard.
It
the strange
drama, and knowing as
little
told
actor in I
do
the persons concerned, I have not the slightest hesitation in vouching for credible though the reader
its
authenticity, in-
may
be inclined to
it.
regard
In this instance the ghost was seen by a clergy-
man, the Reverend John Langtry, who afterward became a prominent dignitary of the English
Church
in
Canada.
His
home was
in
Toronto,
but on the occasion of the ghostly visitation he
was at the house lived
with
their
a small town Toronto.
of a IVIr.
only
some
and Mrs. Ruttan, who
child,
a young
fifty or sixty
girl,
in
miles north of
Mr. Ruttan was another Church
of
England clergyman, and was a warm friend of Doctor Langtry 's. This time, however, the [22]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING had journeyed
latter
ter
diocesan
of
it
complete
To
his
business,
home
and was anxious to
called out of town,
and would
until a late hour, possibly not until
the following day. return
him simply on a mat-
and get back to Toronto. disappointment he found that Mr.
Ruttan had been not be
to see
earlier
than
On
the chance that he might
expected,
Doctor Langtry
accepted Mrs. Ruttan's invitation to spend the
evening with her.
As they were chatting together
— she being so
seated that her back was toward the door leading
from the parlor, whereas Doctor Langtry 's posishe noticed tion gave him a full view of the hall
—
that
at once he stopped in the middle of a
all
sentence, leaned forward, and stared fixedly into
She instantly turned her head, and followed the direction of his gaze, but could see the hall.
nothing. "
What
asked. "
the matter. Doctor Langtry.? " " What are you looking at.f^ is
"
she
Nothing, nothing," he muttered, recovering " I fancied for a mohimself with an effort. "
ment
—
[23]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL He
paused,
then changed the conversation.
But Mrs. Ruttan
— from
whom
I got the story
— saw that from time to time he glanced furtively into the hall,
and
haK
finally
rose from his seat,
his face white, his limbs trembling.
"
"
Doctor Langtry! "
Are you " Oh," he said
tion.
was her
Whatever
ill.'^
" it is
shortly,
I shall be
faintness.
startled exclama-
all
is
the matter
" .f^
only a momentary
right presently.
The
must have unstrung me. I get me a glass of water, and
fatigue of the journey will trouble
then
I
you
think
He drank
to
I will
return to the hotel."
the water, and rose to go.
But when
near the front door, he turned to Mrs. Ruttan,
and "
said:
I
don't
daughter. "
She
is
believe
I trust she
I
have asked after your
is
well?
"
quite well, thank you.
I
put her to
bed just before you came in."
With
his
hand on the knob
Langtry again paused "
If it's
not too
of the door.
irresolutely.
much
trouble," he asked,
wish you would go up-stairs and is all
right
Doctor
now." [24]
make
"
I
sure she
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING Wondering at his request and at his manner, Mrs. Ruttan compHed, and presently returned to report that the child was sleeping peacefully. Doctor Langtry bowed with an relief, bade her good night, and
air
of obvious
left
the house.
But next day, after he had transacted his business, and was about to start for Toronto, he said to Mr. Ruttan, who had accompanied him
to the
train :
" fall
Ruttan, ill
while
if
your
should happen to
little girl
away from home, go
to her at once,
and take Mrs. Ruttan with you, even no reason to
feel
that the illness
Mr. Ruttan laughed. " Of course we would go to " sure of that. But why
is
"
Ask me no
but bear
my
you have
serious."
her.
—
"
if
You may be
questions," said Doctor Langtry,
request in mind
if
the occasion
should arise."
Within a very short time the child, visiting an aunt in a near-by town, was taken ill, failed rapidly,
and died almost before her parents, who
had been
hastily telegraphed for, could reach her
bedside.
Doctor Langtry 's warning immediately [25]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL recurred to them, and they wrote him, beseeching
an explanation. "
The reason
was anxious about your Httle " was because the night girl," he then told them, I was sitting with Mrs. Ruttan I saw an angel I
enter the hall, pass up the stairs, and return,
carrying the child in
But the kind
its
arms."
most frequently seen
of ghost
is
that which appears not before but immediately
a death.
after, or coincidental with, is
Its
purpose
not to give warning of impending tragedy, but
to convey the
mated.
news
There are thousands
sort, so well
consum-
of instances of this
authenticated as to compel credence.
Not long ago an
me by
of a tragedy already
interesting case
was reported to
a gentleman living in Burlington, Vermont,
—
a ]Mrs. Hazard nephew of the lady who saw the ghost. port, Rhode Island the
of
New-
—
She was
ill
and under the care
at the time,
a trained nurse.
One
having allowed her to
of
afternoon, her physician
sit
up
she was seated in a chair
for a couple of hours,
by the
side of her bed,
when the nurse noticed her open wide her eyes and turn her head as if following the movements [26]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING some one. Then she heard her
of
surprise
say, in a tone of
:
"Hello!
There he goes!
Hello!
There he
goes!
As the
far as the nurse could see,
room with them.
nobody was
in
But, not wishing to alarm
her patient, she merely asked: " "
Who
"
is it,
Mrs. Hazard?
Chet Keeeh.
now
But he doesn't
see me.
And
he's gone."
Later in the day the nurse mentioned the inci-
dent to Mrs. Hazard's daughter, asking her
if
she knew anybody by the name of Chet Keech. " " He Why, certainly I do," was the reply.
my
is
cousin,
and
lives in
Danielson, Connecti-
cut."
That day Chet Keech had died at Danielson, as a letter informed the Hazards next morning. Consider also this statement^ by the Reverend C. C. McKechnie, a Scotch clergyman: " I was about ten years of age at the time, and
had ^
for several years
been living with
my
grand-
First published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research, vol. x, p. 240.
[27]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL father,
who was an
Kirk
elder in the
of Scotland
good circumstances. He was very much attached to me and often expressed his intention
and
of
in
me
having
educated for a minister
in the Kirk.
Suddenly, however, he was seized with an
which "
in a couple of
At the time
having any to be at
was leaning
days proved mortal.
and without
of his death,
apprehension of his end, I
my
illness
father's house,
happened
about a mile
in a listless sort of
my
off.
I
against the
way
kitchen table, looking upward at the ceiling and
thinking of nothing in particular, father's face appeared to
at
first
dim and
when
my
grow out of the
indistinct,
grandceiling,
but becoming more
and more complete until it seemed in every spect as full and perfect as I had ever seen it. "
It looked
down upon me,
a wonderful expression
Then
tion.
gradually,
and
its
it
I
affec-
not suddenly but
and becoming dim saw nothing but the bare
spoke at the time of what I saw to
mother, but she probably,
and
features fading
indistinct, until I
ceiling,
as I thought, with
of tenderness
disappeared,
it
re-
made no account
of
it,
my
thinking,
was nothing more than a boyish [28]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING But
vagary.
in
about
fifteen or
twenty minutes
boy came running breathwith the news that my grand-
after seeing the vision, a less to
my
father's
had just died." Even more remarkable was the experience of an Illinois physician. Doctor J. S. W. Entwistle,
father
a resident of one of the Chicago suburbs.
Hurry-
ing one morning to catch a train Doctor Entwistle
saw approaching him an acquaintance, once wellGlanto-do, who had ruined himself by drink. cing at
him
as they met, the physician noticed
that his clothing was torn and his face bruised,
and that there was a cut under one
eye.
He
noticed, too, that the other kept looking steadily
at
him with a
pression."
"
woe-begone, God-forsaken ex-
Had he
not been in such a hurry, he
would have stopped and spoken to him, but as was he passed him with a nod.
At the
station
brother-in-law,
drawing "
and
Doctor Entwistle said,
while
the
it
met
his
train
was
in:
Oh, by the way, I just saw Charlie M., and
he was a
sight.
He must have
tear."
[29]
been on a terrible
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
I
wonder what
commented the "
"
Then
bit of
was going to see his wife." it. She won't have him around."
said about
Grand
at the
it
Both men,
Chicago.
"
until after they
as
M.
killed in
name
Chicago Tribune
in
"
is
dead.^
Here
body
a saloon
is
is
Did you know a notice in the
at the morgue.
fight.
The paper
He
hasn't
quite right, but from the description
Charlie, sure enough."
But he "
aghast, I
of the
Hello," he greeted them.
got the "
directly
hand.
paper, stating that his
it's
and went
They were met by a mutual
who had a copy
that Charlie
was
had reached
happened, had business
it
Pacific Hotel
there from the train.
his
"
the subject was dropped, and nothing
more was
friend,
anyway?
brother-in-law.
I suppose he
Not a
he's doing in town,
can't be dead," said Doctor Entwistle,
for
it
was only a few minutes ago that
met him on the Nevertheless,
street in
it
Englewood."
turned out that Charlie
M. was
dead, and that his body had been taken to the
morgue
several
hours before Doctor Entwistle
thought he saw him
in
[30]
the
Chicago suburb.
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING Moreover, on inquiry
was learned that the
it
worn by him when he was
clothes
marks on
his
"
face
tallied
killed
and the
in every particular
with the description given by the doctor."
Quite a similar experience occurred to Mr.
Harry E. Reeves when he was choirmaster at St. Luke's Church in San Francisco. On a Friday, about three in the afternoon, Mr, Reeves was
in
an up-stairs room at his home. He had been working on some music. Wishing to rest for a few minutes, he threw himself on a lounge, but almost immediately an led
him
to get
unaccountable impulse
up again and open the door
of his
room. Standing at the head of the Russell, a
member
San Francisco
stairs
of his choir
and a well-known
real estate broker.
had promised to
he saw Edwin
Mr. Russell
on him the following day to look over the music for Sunday, and Mr. Reeves's call
thought was that he had come a day earher than intended. He advanced to greet him, when, first
to his
amazement and
stairs
turned as though to descend, and then
horror, the figure
faded into nothingness.
[31]
on the
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
A
My
God!
"
gasped Reeves, and
fell
forward.
door below was hastily opened, and two
women and were his
a
man
sister
The women
ran to his aid.
and
niece, the
man was
a Mr.
Sprague.
They found Mr. Reeves
stairs, his
face white and covered with perspira-
seated on the
tion, his
body trembling. "Uncle Harry!" cried the
the world
is
the matter
Mr. Reeves was
niece.
"What
in
" .f^
in such
a panic that he could
hardly speak, but he managed to reply: " " I have seen a ghost! " Whose ghost.? " inquired Mr. Sprague, with
a skeptical smile. "
The ghost
of
Edwin
Russell."
Instantly the smile left Mr, Sprague's face. " " That's strange," said he, that's very strange. For, as these ladies will
tell
you, I
came
to consult
with you regarding the music for Mr. Russell's funeral.
He had
a stroke of apoplexy this morn-
and died a few hours ago." ^ Sometimes ghosts of this type present them-
ing,
1 Detailed reports of this case are published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. viii, pp. 214-218.
[32]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING selves in such a
fact
As
way as to leave no doubt as to the and manner of the death of the person seen.
striking a case in point as has
come
to
my
knowledge is afforded by the singular experience of an old friend of mine, Edward Jackson, son of the late General Jackson, of Bideford,
Eng-
land.
Born
in India,
Jackson was from his boyhood
a roving and adventurous disposition.
of
went
in for all
He
forms of athletics, more particu-
larly boxing, cricket,
and
and before he
polo,
left
India was one of the best
known and most popumen in the younger sporting set. He was still in his early twenties when he came
lar
to the United States, drifting
ranch
in
Wyoming.
Tiring of
of his fondness for adventure,
Lake Superior mine, where
West
to go on a
this,
though not
he found work his quickly
in
a
demon-
strated ability to take care of himself in a rough-
and-tumble encounter won him the position of superintendent over a gang of hitherto been
most
difficult to
men whom
it
had
superintend.
As superintendent he was privileged to live by himself in a small, two-room cabin, somewhat [33]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL neater and more comfortable than the ordinary It
sleeping-shacks.
was
in this cabin that
he saw
the ghost. "
had returned from the mine one evening,
I
thoroughly tired out," he said, in telling " story,
and
sat
before an open
down fire.
While
I
was
sitting there,
The door was not
me and
was the
open, but standing between
figure of a
instantly recognized as a
He
was dressed
in polo
forgot
young man whom
in India.
—
— but
for a
moment
'
By
I
about the incongruity between his dress
and the rough, outlandish place in which saw him. I jumped up, exclaiming: "
I
boyhood chum costume we had often
played the game together all
and looked
somebody had thrown the door
open, "
it
the
to rest for a few minutes
half dozing, I felt a cold current of air,
up, thinking that
me
Jove, Jack, I'm glad to see you.
—
I then
When
'
did you get here.'^ And how " I stopped. He had been standing with his profile
and
toward me.
Now
he turned, facing me,
saw that he was ghastly white, with a deep cut over one eye. Without a word he walked I
[34]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING past me, gazing at in the inner
"
moment
believing that trick, I
solemnly, and disappeared
room.
am
I don't think I
that for a
"
me
a coward, but I confess Recovering, and
I felt faint.
somebody must be playing me a
made a dash
after him.
There was no one there
— and
no way
in
which anybody could have got out unknown to me. "
That night I wrote to my father, telling him what had happened. In his reply he informed me that I
my
friend
saw him
my
He had
perior.
India,
in
same day that cabin on the shore of Lake Su-
had been
killed the
been playing polo
had been thrown from
his horse,
struck on his head, sustaining a to that I
had seen
Of a somewhat recalling to
in
my
in
far-away
and had
wound
similar
vision."
different order,
mind the adventure
of
and at once Miss Morison
and Miss Lamont at the Petit Trianon,
is
an
in-
by an Englishwoman whose name must be withheld, for reasons that will become stance reported
obvious.
moved
With her husband she had recently
into a fine old
mansion surrounded by a [35]
ADVENTURtNGS IN THE PSYCHICAL
,
splendid park, with a broad stretch of lawn be-
tween the trees and the house. for
many
years been the
home
The
had
place
of a family of
ancient lineage.
One
night, shortly after eleven o'clock,
Mrs. M., as I
shall call her,
had gone
when
to her bed-
room, she thought she heard a moaning sound,
and some one sobbing as though in great distress. Mr. M. was away from home, the servants slept in another part of the house,
quite alone except for a friend
and she was
who had come
to
keep her company during her husband's absence, and to whom she had said good night a few minutes before.
resolved to
But being a courageous woman, she
make an
investigation
and soon
cated the sound as coming from outdoors. toeing over to a
she raised the
Below, on
window on the
lo-
Tip-
staircase landing,
bHnd and cautiously peered
the lawn, in the pale
out.
glow of the
moon, she saw an amazing scene. A middle-aged man, stern of face and wearing a general's uniform, was standing menacingly over a young
girl,
who, with hands clasped in anguish, was on her knees before him.
At the
sight of his hard, unre-
[36]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING lenting expression, Mrs. M.'s one thought
was
not of fear for herself but pity for the unfortunate girl.
"
So much did the
rating
I feel for her," she said, in nar-
" affair,
hesitation I ran
that
down
without a
moment's
the staircase to the door
opening upon the lawn to beg her to come in and
me her sorrow." When she reached
tell
soldier
and the
girl
the door, the figures of the
were
still
plainly visible on the
But
lawn, and in precisely the same attitude.
at the sound of her voice they disappeared. " They did not vanish instantly," Mrs. M. ex" that but more like a dissolving view plained,
—
is,
gradually.
And
I did not leave the
door until
they had gone."
Months
afterwards,
when
calling
with
her
husband at a neighboring house, she noticed on the wall the portrait of a distinguished-looking
man
in
nized "
At once she
a military uniform.
it.
That," she told her husband,
" is
recog-
a picture of the
officer I
"
Aloud she asked:
in
an undertone,
saw on the lawn,"
Whose
portrait
[37] '
92S24
is
that?
"
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
my
Why,'* replied her host,
X. Y.
uncle, General Sir
mented "
a portrait of
He was
born and
But why do
she had told the story, her host com-
:
What you
unhappy ter,
it is
now occupy.
died in the house you " you ask?
When
"
say
is
most
fact that Sir
a beautiful
girl,
X.
singular. Y'.'s
For
it is
an
youngest daugh-
brought disgrace upon the
was disowned and driven from home by her father, and died broken-hearted."
family,
^
Not
all
ghosts,
it
is
pleasant to know, bring
impending or already consummated tragedy. Many seem to exist solely for notification
of
the purpose of giving a warning of trouble which
be averted by taking proper precautions, and sometimes they are a direct means of prevent-
may
ing disaster.
Thus, a guest at a Back Bay hotel
Boston was hurrying along a dimly lighted corridor to catch an elevator she thought she saw waiting for her, when unexpectedly the form in
1
Mrs. M.'s detailed account of this experience, with a cor-
roboratory statement by Mr. M.,
is
published in the Proceedings \'iii, pp. 178-179.
of the Society for Psychical Research, vol.
[38]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING of a
man
appeared at the entrance to the elevator.
She was almost upon him, and stopped short in order to avoid a collision. At once he disappeared,
and she then saw that although the door in the elevator shaft was wide open, the car was at the bottom
of the
would have
fallen
had not the phantasmal
checked her onward
Or take
which she certainly
into
shaft,
figure
rush.
this instance, reported
by Lady Eard-
ley:
"
One day
I
went to
and was
door, undressed,
the bath,
when
my
bathroom, locked the
just about to get into
heard a voice say:
I
"'Unlock the door!' "
I
was
startled
and looked around, but
course no one was there.
I
had stepped
of
into the
bath when I heard the voice twice more, saying: " "
'
Unlock the door!
On
'
jumped out and did unlock the door, and then stepped into the bath again. As I got this I
in I fainted
away and
Fortunately, as I
fell,
fell
I
down
was
flat in
the water.
just able to catch at
a bell handle, which was attached to the wall
above the tub.
My
pull
brought the maid, who
[39]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL found me, she
with
said, lying
head under
my
She picked me up and carried me out. the door had been locked I would certainly
water. If
have been drowned." Still life
of
more impressive
an experience in the
is
an Englishwoman named Mrs. Jean
Her statement
Bettany.
is
Gwynne
corroborated by her
father and mother.^
"
On one
occasion," she says,
in a country lane.
I
I
walked along, a subject
as the
White Room,' and
mother, to
all
was walking
little likely
morbid phenomena a moment, I saw a bedroom '
I
was reading geometry as
fancies or in
"
of
to produce
any kind, when,
my house known upon the floor lay my in
appearance dead.
The
vision
must
have remained some minutes, during which time my real surroundings appeared to pale and die out; but as the vision faded, actual surroundings
came back, "
at
first
I could not
dimly, and then clearly.
doubt that what I had seen was
real, so, instead of
going home, I went at once to
the house of our medical man, and he immediately set out with me, on the 1
See
"
Phantasms
way putting
of the Living," vol.
[40]
i,
ques-
pp. 194-195.
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING tions I could not answer, as all
mother was to
my
appearance well when I left home. " I led the doctor straight to the White Room,' '
where we found
my
mother actually lying as in This was true even to minute details.
vision.
my
She had been seized suddenly by an attack at the heart, and would soon have breathed her last but for the doctor's timely advent."
Mrs. Bettany's father, Mr. adds: " I
seeing
daughter, in
company with the family
doctor, outside the door of
asked:
'Who
'
is
She
ilLf^
my
floor.
taken
my
was when
It ill
my
illness,
have been
White Room,'
left
swoon on the
asked when she had been
I
servants in the house
den
'
it
must have been
the house.
None
knew anything
which our doctor assured
fatal
I
'Mamma.'
replied:
wife lying in a
that I found
daughter had
and
residence;
She led the way at once to the where we found
Gwynne,
remember being surprised by
distinctly
my
G.
S.
after
of the
of the sud-
me would
had he not arrived when he did."
In this last case,
it
should be noted the ghost
seen was an apparition not of a dead person, but
[41]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL This is most important, from the view of gaining insight into the nature
of a living one.
point of
and
characteristics of ghosts.
The
investigators who, a matter of twenty-five
or thirty years ago, began for the
first
time to
inquire into the subject in a scientific way, early
made
the interesting discovery that phantasms
of the living are seen quite as frequently as
tasms of the dead.
Besides which,
it
phan-
was found
that ghosts could be produced experimentally
—
that by a mere act of willing, one person could
make
another, sometimes miles distant, see
ghost.
Many
a
successful experiments of the kind,
supported by ample corroborative evidence, are
now on
record.
Mr. B. F.
For example:
Sinclair, at the
time a resident of
Lakewood,
New
New York
to be absent several days.
was not
Jersey,
feeling well
had occasion to go to
when he
left
His wife
home, and he
was greatly worried about her. " That night," to continue the narrative^ *
ical
in his
quote from Mr. Sinclair's report to the Society for PsyResearch, and published by him in its Journal, vol. vii,
I
p. 99.
[42]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING own
words,
"
before I went to bed, I thought
would try to find out, if possible, her condition. I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of
I
the bed,
when
I covered
and willed myself if
I
face with
Lakewood
in
could see her.
my
After a
hands
my
at
home, to see
little, I
seemed to be
standing in her room before the bed, and saw her
lying
there,
satisfied she
was
looking better,
much
better.
I
felt
and so spent the week
more comfortably regarding her condition. " On Saturday I went home. When she saw me, she remarked: "
'
I
to you.
thought something had surely happened I
saw you standing
the night you
left,
as plain as could be,
been worrying about you ever "
in front of the
After explaining
my
condition, everything
had seen me when
I
have
since.'
effort to
became
and
bed
find out her
clear to her.
She
was trying to see her. I thought at the time I was going to see her and
make
I
her see me."
In at least one instance another experimenter, a German savant named Wesermann, performed the seemingly impossible feat of creating, by a
[43]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL simple act of volition, a ghost not of himself but of a person
who was
dead.
Herr Wesermann had been greatly troubled by the conduct of a friend, a young officer in the
German army, and "
"
willed
in the
hope
of reforming
him,
one evening that at eleven o'clock that
night he should see in a dreatii an apparition of a
whom
lady in
he had once been greatly interested,
but who had been dead It
five years.
chanced that at eleven o'clock, instead of
being in bed and asleep, Herr Wesermann's friend
was chatting with a brother the apparition
and was
came
to
him
seen, not only
officer.
Nevertheless,
at the hour appointed,
by him, but by
his
com-
also.
panion
The door
of his
chamber seemed to open, and
the ghost of his dead sweetheart walked in, " dressed in white, with black kerchief and bared
Both
head."
officers started to their feet,
and
watched with bulging eyes while the ghost bowed gravely to them, turned, and without a word disappeared.
They ridor,
followed instantly, rushing into the cor-
but saw only the sentry, who solemnly
[44]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING them that nobody but themselves had
assured
entered or
the room.^
left
Facts like these naturally raised in the minds of
many
of the investigators a belief that quite
possibly ghosts could be explained without resorting to the alternative of dogmatically denying
them
their reality or regarding
beings. facts
This
belief
as supernatural
was strengthened by other
brought to light in the course of experiments
to determine the actuality of telepathy, or thought
transference as It
it
used to be called.
was discovered
that,
under certain favoring
conditions, thoughts could indeed be transmitted
from mind to mind without passing through the ordinary known channels of communication; and furthermore that thoughts thus transmitted were often apprehended, not as mere ideas, but in the
form of auditory or visual hallucinations. Thus,
if
it
were a question of
"
"
telepathing
the idea of a certain playing card, say the three of
diamonds, the recipient, instead of simply *
Herr
were reported by him fur den Thierischen Magnetismus, vol. vi, pp. 136-
Wesermann's experiments
in the Archiv
139.
[45]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL getting the thought,
"
three of diamonds," might
"
hear an hallucinatory voice saying to him, of
three
diamonds," or might see three diamond-shaped "
objects floating before his eyes, the
"
ghosts
of
three diamonds, so to speak.
Of even greater significance was the discovery that
it
frequently happened also that instead of
had
getting the message which the experimenter
consciously
attempted
to
send,
would get other ideas merely latent
the
recipient
in the experi-
menter's mind — ideas connected with
ment, something he had been doing,
his environ-
Or the
etc.
might get the right message several hours after the experiment had been made recipient
receiving
—
it,
for example, in
The obvious
conclusion
must be a function not consciousness, but of
a dream.
was that telepathy
of a person's ordinary
what psychologists
subconsciousness, thus accounting for
call
the
the
diffi-
culty of invariably obtaining satisfactory results in telepathic experiments.
In the light of these discoveries, then, the belief
has been gaining ground that ghosts
ghosts
—
real
— are at most nothing but mental images [46]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING impressed upon one mind by another through the
power of telepathy, and apprehended in the form of hallucinations of the various senses, subtle
just as
any ordinary telepathic message may be
apprehended.
A
person
stricken with a mortal illness,
is
fatally injured, or
is
passing through some other
Con-
great crisis likely to terminate in death. sciously or subconsciously, far
away, and
is
he thinks
of loved ones
seized with a longing to get into
touch with them once more,
them
is
if
only to notify
of the catastrophe threatening him.
Across the intervening space, by what mechan-
ism we as yet do not know, his thought wings
way to them, ness,
— as
finds
lodgment
its
in their subconscious-
and thence, when favoring conditions in some moment of mental relaxation
arise
—
is
projected into their consciousness before, at the
time
of,
or after the sender's death,
or heard,
it
may
be, as a
and
is
seen,
Phantom Drummer, a
Knocking Ghost, or the phantasmal image
of the
sender himself. If,
however, conditions are such as to prevent
the message from emerging from the recipient's
[47]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL subconsciousness into his
field of
conscious vision,
may, on occasion, as telepathic experiments have proved, be retransmitted to a third party, it
and by him be apprehended;
Drummer
as, for
of Cortachy, in the
example, the
two instances cited
above, was heard not by members of the Ogilvy family, but
by comparative
More than to
make
is
strangers.
evidence has been accumulating
certain that in
it
telepathy
this,
most cases not even
involved in the creation of ghosts,
but that they are merely products of the
own
This was
subconsciousness.
seer's
first clearly in-
dicated by the results of an interesting
"
census
some years ago at the International Congress of Psychology, and of hallucinations," originated
— principally by mem— Psychical Research
simultaneously carried on bers of the Society for
in
the United States, England, France, Germany,
and other
countries.
the question was put: "
Have you
ever,
To when
thousands of persons
believing yourself to
be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched
by a
living being or in-
animate object, or of hearing a voice, which im-
[48]
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING pression, so far as
you could
discover,
due to any external physical cause?
Of the 27,339
was not
"
replies received to this question
no fewer than 3,266 were
Many
in the affirmative.
of those replying narrated true
"
similar to the ones given above;
ghost stories
many
*
"
testified
to apparitions not of dead persons but of living
and
in addition to this, the replies of
others
brought out the interesting fact
friends;
many
that there often
were
—
and
objects
of hats
human
as of
One
inanimate
and tables as well
beings.
she and
lesson,
distinctly fall,
But no
chairs
of
broad daylight and while taking a
*'
must
ghosts
respondent, Mrs. Savile Lumley, testified
that, in
thenic
"
"
another young
saw a chair over which we
and
chair
calis-
woman felt
called out to each other to avoid
we it.
was there."
The Reverend G. Lyon Turner,
professor of
philosophy at the Lancashire Independent College,
Manchester, England, woke up one morning to 1
The
detailed report of the resuhs of this census will be
found in the Proceedings of vol. X, pp.
the Society for Psychical Research,
25-422.
[49]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL room adorned with a huge
find the ceiling of his
chandeher of some ten arms, and the
jets shining
brightly through the ground-glass globes at the
end of each arm.
He knew
that
when he went
to
bed no chandelier had been there, and naturally feared that something was the matter with his eyesight.
"
the
I
moved my head," he
phantom moved,
" said,
too.
But
to see whether
no,
remained
it
and the objects behind and bej'ond became more or less completely visible as
fixed;
it
I
moved, exactly as would have been the case had it been a real chandelier. So I woke my wife, but she saw nothing."
Even more
was the phantasm that appeared to another Englishman. Here is his
own account "
bizarre
of
it:
—
at least, had just gone to bed, and was this was my impression at the time quite awake. The door of my room was ajar, and there I
—
was a
my
light in the passage
room.
Suddenly
of slight taps
were not
I
which half-illumined
became aware
on the passage outside.
sufficiently''
loud for a
[50]
of
a
series
These taps
human
footstep;
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING on the other hand, the volume greater than that
remember
fully
two top-boots
made by a
sitting
up
sound was
of their
waLking-stick.
I
bed and beholding
in
trot rapidly across the
The
vanish into the opposite wall.
room and
illusion
was
astonishingly vivid, and I can recall the details I
to this day.
have never had a waking dream
and have never experienced ambulant topboots except on this occasion." since,
Whence the
The
reply of
origin of these
modern
science
odd apparitions? is
that they were
nothing more than the weird externalization of ideas latent in the
minds
of those perceiving
Indeed, in the case of Mr. Turner there
is
them.
absolute
proof that this was the case, for that gentleman
afterwards
identified
the
phantom chandelier
with one familiar to him as hanging from the
which he daily said of which Furthermore, there is proof
ceiling of the college chapel in
prayers.
an abundance
— that
will
be given
in
—
subsequent chapters
often the ideas thus externalized relate
to things once seen or heard but long since for-
may
be to things seen or heard
gotten;
it
wholly
unconscious,
or,
[51]
rather,
in a
subconscious,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL way.
And
as with ideas of things, so with ideas
of persons.
In this connection, as illuminating vividly the
may weU be given an me by Doctor Morton
problem of ghosts,
experi-
ence narrated to
Prince,
the eminent Boston psychopathologist, or medical psychologist.
A
patient of his
came
to
him one morning
in
a
condition of extreme nervousness, declaring that " I woke the previous night she had seen a ghost. " and saw at the foot of my bed up," said she,
a young woman, who gradually faded away." She maintained that at no time had she seen any-
body resembling the apparition, but
in the
minute
description she gave. Doctor Prince at once rec-
ognized a relative of
his,
with
whom
he remem-
bered he had been talking in the hall when the patient last visited him.
Saying nothing to her he
quietly assembled a few photographs, and, before
she departed, asked her to look them over. " " Why," she said, picking one up, here
is
my
ghost!" "
saw your ghost
in
"
and you this house when you were here [52]
Yes," was Doctor Prince's reply,
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING only a few days ago.
came "
I
was talking to her as you
in."
But," objected the patient,
*'
I certainly did
not see her, for I noticed somebody was with you,
and
I purposely
turned away as I passed,
lest I
should seem rude." " " All the same," said Doctor Prince, you saw her without being conscious of
it
— saw
were, out of the corner of your eye.
her, as
One
it
fleeting
glance would be enough to give you the memory image that you mistook for a ghost."
Undoubtedly Doctor Prince was undoubtedly
this dual
ception and
memory
some
of the
chapter.
right,
and
law of subconscious peris
enough to account
most impressive ghosts
Even the strange haunting
for
cited in this of the Petit
Trianon, as experienced by Miss Morison and Miss
Lamont, may be said to find its explanation here. It is true that both Miss Morison and Miss
Lamont
profess to have
known
little
about the
history of the Petit Trianon previous to their visit to Versailles.
But
their detailed report of
the haunting contains statements showing that,
subconsciously at any rate, they must have pos-
[53]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Miss
sessed considerable knowledge of the place.
Morison admits that she had, as a
girl,
great en-
thusiasm for Marie Antoinette, and had read not a
about her, including an
little
summer home;
of her
article descriptive
Lamont
while Miss
teacher of French history, and accordingly
is
a
must
have had rather more knowledge than the average person regarding the
Queen Marie. Besides which, and most significant, there was life
story of
published, just before they went to Versailles,
an illustrated magazine torical fete in the
is
a
his-
gardens of the Petit Trianon,
with some account of It
article picturing
worth noting,
its
history.
too, that the two ladies were
not haunted in exactly the same way, each of
them
seeing certain people
not visible to the other. natural
manifestation
On this
and scenes that were the theory of a super-
would
explain, but the diflSculty vanishes
hard
be
if
we
to
recognize
that the subconscious knowledge of the Trianon possessed
by each must
The problem remains
necessarily
have
differed.
to account for the fact,
as distinct from the facts, of the haunting.
should Miss Morison and Miss Lamont,
[54]
Why among
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING all
the thousands of visitors to the Petit Trianon,
alone have had such an experience? assuredly, there
is
no answer
if
one
is
To
this,
going to
stick to the old-fashioned notion of ghosts
attribute
answer
to
is
them
objective
reality.
very simple on the modern
and
But the scientific
hypothesis.
Miss Morison and Miss Lamont, the psychologist
would say, were haunted
for the reason that,
being of exceptionally romantic, impressionable
temperaments, the ideas associated
in their
minds
with the Petit Trianon, appealed to them with " " force as to plunge them for such suggestive " the time being into a state of psychical dissociation," during
which their subconsciousness ob-
tained complete control over the upper conciousness,
and flooded them with
of all that they
place and
its
latent
memories
had ever read or heard about the
its historic
residents.
they were as two persons
"
In other words,
dreaming awake."
The same explanation would obviously apply to the ghostly vision seen on the lawn by Mrs. M. Nor do we need
to go
beyond the hypothesis
of
subconscious perception to account for the expe-
[55]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL riences of
Boston
Lady Eardley and the guest
hotel.
In the latter case
it is
at the
necessary to
assume nothing more than that the lady who saw the apparition at the elevator entrance perceived her danger without being aware of it, and subconsciously developed the hallucination that en-
abled her to avoid
As
it.
to the Eardley case,
it is
a well-established
medical fact that some diseases, in their
initial
stages,
cause organic changes too slight to be
noticed
by the
sufferer's
upper consciousness, but
plainly perceptible to his subconsciousness which,
through
symbolical
dreams
or
hallucinations,
sometimes seeks to convey to the upper consciousness a warning that all is not well. I myself
have had such an experience.
A num-
ber of years ago, beginning in the summer, I was troubled by a recurrent nightmare in which,
though the
al-
were not always the same, the central incident never varied. Always the details
nightmare ended with a phantom cat clawing viciously at my throat. I did not then know as
much about dreams thinking
as I
vaguely that
do now,
"
[56]
it
beyond must mean someso,
GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING thing," I paid no attention to this repeated night-
mare.
At the end
of six
months
I
grippe, necessitating treatment ist,
who
With
by a throat
of
special-
my throat a growth had had no knowledge. removal the recurrent dream of the cat
speedily discovered in
which
of
had an attack
its
I consciously
instantly ceased to trouble me.
Lady Eardley's lar,
case was, doubtless, quite simi-
the only difference being that the subconscious
warning was conveyed to her upper consciousness, not in dream, but as an auditory hallucination.
And,
in the
somewhat
parallel case of the ghost
seen by Doctor Langtry, tion that
if
it
seems a safe assump-
the frightened clergyman had advised
the child's father to place her under medical care at once, the subsequent fatality might have been averted.
In the Langtry case, however, there must have been operative also a telepathic factor. And since the telepathic explanation of ghosts subject of
much
proceeding
controversy,
farther,
to
known to-day regarding
it will
state
still
the
be well, before
exactly
telepathy.
[57]
is
what
is
CHAPTER n WHY
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
years ago,
when
New
living near
York,
SOME I had a curious dream that made a deep imIn this dream I seemed to be
pression on me. at a club or hotel,
when a messenger boy entered
and announced that There I
I
found
in a large
had been intimate
was wanted
I
in
up-stairs.
room a family with whom
my
boyhood
in
Canada.
had heard nothing of them for years, and naturally was delighted to see them. But I was struck
I
with the absence of one of the sons, Archie, who, as a youngster of about
my own
age,
had been
one of
my closest friends. To my inquiry as to why
he was not with
"He's gone," a statement vagueness, seemed in the dream
them, I was told: which, despite
its
a wholly adequate and satisfactory reply. I awoke, however, with the in mind, I
had a strong
dream
When
details vividly
feeling that, as I said to
[58]
WHY my
I
"
wife:
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
Something serious must have hap-
The
pened to Archie Tisdale."
sequel proved
that this feehng was amply justified.
For
developed that, at about the time of
it
dream, he had died from an
my
which
I
knew nothing until, prompted by the dream, made inquiries about him.
I
many
Again,
illness of
years earlier, whiling
away the
time one summer evening in a green lane that led to the shore of a beautiful
Canadian
lake, I
had
an experience which similarly gave me food for I had been leaning on a rail fence, thought. taking in the glories of the fading sunset.
was one of
of those evenings
and one
which poets delight to
sing,
It
of those scenes
and as
I
gazed
across the lake at the changing hues on the dis-
tant
hills,
slowly turning from blue to gray as
the twilight deepened, I gave myself up to the
common
in the ro-
was roused by hearing
my name
pleasurable day-dreaming so
mantic age of youth.
Suddenly called, in
I
a tone so faint, albeit perfectly audible,
that for a
moment
from beyond the
I could fancy the call
lake.
The next
[59]
instant,
came how-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL ever, I realized that
it
was what, with
psychological knowledge
my
larger
of to-day, I should
wholly subjective, coming from within
me
term
rather
than from without; and at the same time I tinctly got the impression that
it
dis-
was connected
some way with accident or illness befalling a young lady in whom I was then much interested in
— the young lady, my
in fact,
who
afterwards became
wife.
It
was
in vain that I
sought to dismiss this
impression as a mere freak of the imagination.
So
insistent did
to the house
what
I
it
and
at last
I
returned
hastily scribbled a note, stating
had heard
heard — and
become that
—
or,
rather, thought I
expressing the hope that
all
had was
well.
My
letter
had to go to a distant
city,
and
it
was therefore several days before an answer could arrive. I well remember how, in the in-
But by return mail a reassuring reply reached me. Only, most terval,
I
fretted
and worried,
strangely, the writer
noon
of the
tory
call,
added that
late in the after-
day on which I heard the hallucinashe had been overcome by heat, and [60]
WHY was
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
some hours thought
for
to be in a serious
condition.
Once again
I
heard the same weird inward
my name — this
ing of
time at eleven o'clock on
the night of a Fourth of July celebration,
was lounging
hammock on
in a
Niagara River, watching the
on the American friends with
side.
whom
I
hour or more before;
was not
their
name.
Yet
distinctly,
I
when
I
the bank of the
last of the fireworks
was quite alone, as the was staying had retired an I
and, for that matter,
custom to address
me by my
it
first
heard myself called, faintly but
and seemingly from across the water,
precisely as in
As
call-
my
previous experience.
in that experience, also, I instinctively as-
my absent sweetheart, once. Two days later, our
sociated the calling with
and wrote to her at letters
crossing,
I
received
word that on the
night of the Fourth she had taken an overdose of
headache powder, with consequences that might have been serious had not medical assistance been promptly obtained.
But even more going
is
singular than
any
of the fore-
a happening connected with an accident [61]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL that
occurred to
mere
schoolgirl.
my
wife while she
was
still
a
With a party of young people she had gone on an outing to a Maine lake resort, and in the dusk of a pleasant
evening started for a drive in an old-
There was no thought of danger, and the drive was thoroughly enjoyed
fashioned hay- wagon.
by
all
steep
coming down a long and rather the breeching broke, and the horses
until, hill,
At a sharp turn in the road, half-way down the hill, the drive came to a sudden and
ran away.
disastrous end with the overturning of the w^agon.
A number of its occupants were seriously hurt, my wife, with great presence of mind, saving herself
by jumping
gan to go over.
clear of the
Even
so,
wagon
just as
it
be-
she did not escape
uninjured, her face being badly cut.
Now comes the curious part of the affair.
Early
the next morning a telegram from her mother in
Boston was handed to her. hurt or letter
ill.?
Wire at once.
Am
which followed gave the amazing informa-
tion that the previous night of the
"Are you writing." The
It read:
— that
is,
the night
accident — the mother had had an unusu-
[62]
WHY ally vivid
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
dream
in
which she saw her daughter
driving in a carriage, thrown out of the carriage,
and badly cut about the face. So realistic was the dream that on waking it frightened her, and led to the sending of the telegram.
the
Obviously four
strange
question
chance
Were
representative
experiences
of extraordinary
arises:
coincidences,
these
merely
or
were
they indicative of the action of some direct means
communication from mind to mind by other than the ordinary recognized channels of comof
munication.?
Personally I
not
am
satisfied that
chance alone
will
account for them, and that they are
suflBce to
veritable instances of the workings of a faculty
latent in
all
mankind and operable
with a true,
nature — or
if
call
what you
And
my
tained
if
accordance
as yet httle understood, law of
it
telepathy, thought transference,
will.
in saying this, I belief
in
is
in
am
well
aware that, even
agreement with that enter-
by many eminent men
of science
— such
as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, Camille
Flammarion, Charles Richet, Theodore Flournoy, [63]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Henri Morselli, Professor late
William James
—
it is
W.
F. Barrett and the
contrary to the opinion
held by the great majority of scientists at the present day. there
is
and
deliberate
errors of
or unconscious falsifica-
memory
most instances
plain
that
it briefly, is
no such thing as telepathy; that chance
coincidence, tion,
Their view, to put
are sufficient to ex-
com-
of alleged telepathic
munication; and that the remainder are reducible to the operation of
more or
less familiar principles
—
psychology of the subconscious
in the
notably
the law of hypersesthesia, or unusual extension of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, etc.
I
am
perfectly
which passes as telepathy
For example, I
my
to admit
willing
am
may
much
that
be thus reducible.
seated writing at the desk in
my whom I
Unexpectedly there flashes into
study.
mind an idea concerning a person have not thought
for
of
weeks or months.
The next
instant the doorbell rings, and presently the
informs that
me
that the very person of
moment been
thinking
has
whom
I
entered
maid have the
house.
This
is
a not infrequent experience, as most
[64]
WHY of
my
that
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
So frequent
readers will concede.
it
is
is
absurd to attempt to account for
it it
on the hypothesis of chance coincidence. But neither would it be always safe to raise the theory of telepathy. For it might well happen that while I was seated intent on
study windows closed,
my
my
ear nevertheless caught
down
the sound of footsteps coming or on
my
nized in
the street,
that I subconsciously recog-
porch;
them
work, with the
my
and that
friend's walk,
I con-
sequently, though without knowing why, thought of
him
moment. This
at that precise
a possible explanation
— though
conceding that in
such cases
all
is
am
I it
is
assuredly far
from
the only
explanation properly applicable. So, likewise, one
against
must be constantly on guard
over-readily
accepting
telepathic action the feats of
often undertaken
" Stage tainers
mind reading
may
be safely
by
left
trickery
and
deceit.
But
of
"
amusement.
professional
enter-
out of the reckoning,
methods
as undoubtedly based on
evidences
mind reading
of parlor
by way "
as
"
of conscious
in a private gathering,
where there can be no question of confederates
[65]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and deliberate
etc.
objects,
reality it is
"
On
the
in
finding
are
results
hidden
of
the surface this would seem
on a telepathic basis, yet in " commonly brought about by muscle
only
explicable
reading
surprising
signaling,
sometimes obtained
rather than by true
"
mind reading."
Experiment has shown that the effort to concentrate thought on a given matter a name
—
or an object
— tends
to produce
some form
of
muscular activity, either subconscious whispering of the
name thought
of,
or subconscious
move-
ment
in the direction of the object.
rule,
the spectators are supposed to keep their
minds
fixed intently
have selected
If,
as
is
the
on the name or object they
for the
" test,"
some
of
them
are
apt to give these involuntary muscular hints,
which the performer it
may
accept and act upon,
will
be without being clearly conscious of the
source of his information. Still it
" willing
must be added that experiments in the " have been carried out under game
conditions and with results indicating that occasionally,
at
all
events,
successes
are
achieved
without any such subconscious guidance.
[66]
Not
WHY so
very
I
long
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY ago some interesting and most
striking experiments of this sort were described
to
me by "
"
The
Professor J. H. Hyslop.
subject of
my
woman
was a young
experiments," said he,
of
good family, who was
credited with having exceptional ability in divi-
ning the thoughts and wishes of others.
was
It
arranged that I should investigate her powers,
and accordingly
for a period of
some weeks
had
I
frequent sittings with her, in the presence of a
few interested and trustworthy friends. "
The plan followed in every experiment was this: The young woman having left the room, I
mentally selected some more or
action for her to perform
wrote to do,
down on a showed
in a book,
it
slip of
less
complicated
upon her return.
paper what I wished her
to the others,
and concealed
which did not leave
my hand
after the completion of the experiment. first
to last not a
"
it
until
From
word was spoken by any one,
so as to guard against of hearing
then
I
any possible hypertesthesia
on her part.
The young woman was then
called back,
and
almost invariably proceeded to execute the com-
[67]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL mands mentally given
She did
her.
this
so
promptly that I cannot conceive how she could possibly have got any unconscious hints from those present, and conscious signaling was out of the question.
"
For instance, I once wrote on
my
paper an
order for her to pick out of a vase a bunch of
keys I had hidden there, cross the room with the keys,
and place them on the mantel-piece.
moment
entered, stood for but a closed,
and then,
which was on the
She
with her eyes
swiftly
passing to the vase,
floor,
picked up the keys,
turned, and deposited
them on the mantel-piece
had mentally suggested. It was all done so quickly and spontaneously that to my mind it
as I
afforded strong evidential proof of true thought transference.
"
She was not always
successful,
but some of
her failures were quite as instructive as her successes.
the
On
three
commands
commands
I
occasions
she executed, not
had written on the paper, but
had thought of writing but for one No one in reason or another had abandoned. I
the room excepting myself
knew
[68]
of these previous
WHY
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
intentions, so she could
have derived her knowl-
edge of them from the involuntary movements of
no one excepting me; and if it had actually been a matter of subconscious guidance, it is obvious that
my
muscular indications would have related
not to the abandoned
mands " this
I actually
commands but
young woman
applicable, even
com-
wished her to carry out.
my
All things considered,
of subconscious
to the
satisfy
guidance
me is
when the
'
experiments with
that the hypothesis
not always properly
mind reader
'
is
in
a
position to see or hear the persons testing him."
Assuming, however,
for the sake of
that Professor Hyslop's conclusion
is
argument, erroneous,
and that the involuntary movement theory does always suffice as an explanatory hypothesis when experimenter and subject are in the same rooms, it
becomes manifestly and hopelessly inadequate
when applied
to explain the transmission of ideas
between persons a considerable distance apart. Yet what I consider abundant proof has been experimentally obtained that such transmission
may, and sometimes does, take place ally in most dramatic form. [69]
— occasion-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Take, for example, the experience of a French lady,
Mme.
Clarence de Vaux-Royer, who,
ing uneasy one day about a friend living in the
cable to him.
feel-
who was then
United States, thought she would Unfortunately
her maid found the cable
it
was Sunday, and
Mme.
office closed.
Vaux-Royer then decided
to
a
attempt
de
tele-
pathic experiment, and, knowing that her friend
was mourning the death
of his
mother and
of a
and impress him with an idea that they were near him and would comfort him in any trial he might be underfavorite sister, decided to try
going.
She told her maid
of her intention,
and
asked the maid to note the date, so as to be able to give corroborative evidence
if
the experi-
ment succeeded. This was on November
7.
Ten days
later the
American mail brought to Mme. de Vaux-Royer a letter from her absent friend, who, after referring to
some matters
of wholly private inter-
est, stated:
"
Last night (the 7th), while I was praying, I
saw, hovering above
my
head, some gold
which gradually floated away until [70]
circles,
I could
no
WHY
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
At the same time
longer see them.
seemed to
I
hear some one calHng to me: 'Mother!
Minnie!
Sister
'
Then the
circles floated
approaching until they almost touched
Oh, how much comfort
me
Mother!
How
I felt!
my
back, head.
they inspired "
with sentiments of goodness and happiness!
From
this it
manifestly only a step to the
is
experimental production of telepathic phantasms
human
of the in
form, as in the two instances given
the previous
Sinclair
fessor,
numerous other
whose authority
I
may
In one, a Harvard pro-
an acquaintance
the
in
Wesermann and
which one or two additional
be narrated here.
well
(the
and
experiments),
instances, of
of
chapter
of Professor
James, on
quote the story, having heard
possibility
of
telepathic
hallucinations,
determined one evening that he would try to
make an
apparition of himself appear to a friend,
who
a young lady
home. or to
He
"
from
his
did not mention his intention to her
anybody
letter, in
lived half a mile
else.
which she
The next day he
received a
said:
Last night about ten o'clock I was in the
dining-room
at
supper
with
[71]
B.
Suddenly
I
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL thought I saw you looking in through the crack of the door at the
I
was looking.
end
of the
room, toward which
I said to B.:
'There
looking through the crack of the door!
back was toward the door,
He would come
there.
'
said:
is
Blank,
B.,
whose
'
He
can't be
However, I
right in.'
got up and looked in the other room, but there
was nobody
at that time?
last night,
At that "
James, in his
Now, what were you doing
there.
moment,
precise
Blank
"
" as he told Professor
had been at home,
room, and trying
"
whether
I
sitting alone
could project
body to the presence of A." Possibly had the young lady been
my
astral
not actively engaged,
more
definite
friend,
.
for
she
alone,
might have had a
view of the phantasm of her absent
experience has
shown that
and quiet are favoring conditions tion of telepathic apparitions.
instance reported
to
of
in a
mind.
more or Such
In nearly every
the Society for Psychical
less passive,
a
solitude
for the percep-
Research the percipient of the phantasm
and
and
condition
is
alone
quiescent frame usually
obtains
immediately before or immediately after sleep,
[72]
WHY and
then that experimental apparitions are
it is
most
seen
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
plainly.
Though occasionally they when the percipient is
are vividly experienced
most active consciousness, as
in a state of the
by the agent
in the following case, reported
that
the person sending the telepathic mes-
is,
— and
sage
—
confirmed
English clergyman
by
now
the
percipient, an
W.
dead, the Reverend
Stainton Moses. " " One evening," runs the agent's account, I
some miles
resolved to try to appear to Z., at
the
not inform him beforehand of
I did
distance.
intended
experiment;
but retired to
rest
shortly before midnight with thoughts intently fixed
on
Z.,
with whose rooms and surroundings,
however, I was quite unacquainted. asleep,
I soon
and awoke next morning unconscious
anything having taken place.
On
fell
of
seeing Z. a
few days afterward, I inquired: "
'
Did anything happen
at your
rooms on
'
Saturday "
night.'*
'
'
Yes,' replied he, I
had been
a great deal happened.
sitting over the fire
and chatting.
with M., smoking
About twelve-thirty he [73]
rose to
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and
leave,
the
fire
I let
to finish
him out myseH. I returned to my pipe, when I saw you sitting
by him. I looked intently at you, and then took up a newspaper to assure myself I was not dreaming,
in the chair just vacated
"
*
but on laying
it
down
I
saw you
I gazed without speaking,
Of course like
these,
sibly fall
But
it
^
While
there.
you faded away.'
"
in the case of all single experiments
the skeptically inclined might plau-
back on the theory
is
still
of
chance coincidence.
impossible seriously to entertain this
hypothesis
in
cases
where experiments
telepathic transmission of ideas
in
the
have been carried
on repeatedly and with an astonishing measure of success.
To mention ments
only
the
most notable
experi-
would
call at-
of this systematic kind, I
tention to the results obtained
by two
English investigators, the
comprising two
ladies
named
first
Clarissa Miles
sets of
and Hermione Rams-
den, the second two gentlemen, F. R. Burt
F. L. Usher.
As
I
see
it,
indeed,
and
the Miles-
Accounts of other experiments of the same type will be " The Riddle of Personality," pp. 140-142. found in my book, ^
[74]
WHY
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
Ramsden and Burt-Usher experiments have the additional interest that they not only make clear some
of the
fundamental laws of genuine thought
transference, but also
we can never hope trol of
show
just
why
it
is
that
to obtain such absolute con-
the telepathic process as to be able to send
mental messages from one to another with the
same ease and certainty as we now send ordinary telegrams and marconigrams. This inability of control has long been a stock objection against belief in telepathy, especially "
Not until among the scientifically trained. we can repeat at will, and with invariable success, the experiment of direct transference of thought, will
we accept telepathy
scientific, skeptics.
chemical
"
as established," say these
We know
and physical
that
laboratories,
if,
in our
we bring
such and such elements together, such and such action will always follow.
We
must be able to
do as much with telepathy before we it."
will
accept
But the Miles-Ramsden and Burt-Usher
experiments show that there are excellent reasons for affirming that telepathy
nevertheless
its
processes
[75]
is
a fact, and that
cannot be governed
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL with the certitude possible in the case of chemical
and physical volved which
processes. elude,
There are factors
and must always
in-
elude, the
directive control of the experimenter.
In the experiments by the Misses Miles and Ramsden it was arranged that, at a stated hour of a stated evening in each week.
— who
receiver
remain
Miss Ramsden
acted throughout as the percipient, or the
of for
messages
telepathic
a few minutes
in
— was
to
a condition of com-
and immediately afterwards was to note on a post-card whatever ideas came into her mind during that time. The post-card was
plete passivity,
then to be mailed to Miss Miles, who, for her
was to think
part,
of
Miss Ramsden at intervals
during the day agreed on, and in the evening to be mailed to was to make a post-card entry
—
her friend forthwith
had
tried to
— of
the idea or ideas she
convey to her telepathically.
in the event of achieving
any degree
Thus,
of success,
they would have a perfect documentary record to substantiate their claims.
As
to the distance separating them,
it
from a few score to several hundred miles. [76]
ranged
They
WHY made,
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
in fact, three distinct series of experiments,
with about a year's interval between each
During the
series.
they were at their homes. Miss
first
Miles in London, Miss
Ramsden
in
Buckinghamshire. During the second, Miss Ramsden was in Inverness, in northern Scotland, and Miss Miles visiting friends in various parts of England.
The
third series
was carried on while Miss Miles
was making a tour of the beautiful Ardennes region of France and Belgium, Miss Ramsden at the
same time being again
the Scottish
in
Highlands.
Thus
there was a progressive increase in the
distance between
them
for each series,
seems to have made no difference In each,
as
the
attested
Ramsden succeeded part,
but this
in the
record
result.
Miss
shows.
in getting, completely or in
no fewer than two out
of every five of the
"
telemessages her co-experimenter tried to " to her. Such a proportion is clearly too path high to be explained away on the theory of
chance coincidence, and this theory still
is
rendered
more untenable by the attendant circum-
stances which the record reveals.
[77]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL On
one occasion Miss Miles, who
is
an
artist,
had been busy in the afternoon painting a model's hands. She thought of this when evening came, and determined
Ramsden with
to
endeavor to impress Miss "
hands."
In her post-
card, written at seven o'clock the
same evening.
the idea
Miss Ramsden stated that
of several ideas
which
into her mind at the experiment-hour " " most vivid was a little black hand, quite
had come the
"
small,
much
and the
smaller than a child's, well formed,
fingers
This was the chief
straight.
thing." Similarly, having noticed at a meeting in
don a curious pair
man home
in the early evening,
spectacles," it
worn by a gentleMiss Miles, on returning
of spectacles
seated near her.
*'
to Miss
wrote down the word " "
with the idea of
Ramsden. The
for that evening noted
"
Lon-
telepathing
latter 's post-card entry
that
the only idea that came to
"
" spectacles
me
was
after waiting a
long time."
Again, while on a sketching expedition to an English village. Miss Miles was
by an adventure with a
much amused
large white
[78]
pig.
She
WHY
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
selected this pig as the subject of her next tele-
pathic coniniunication, the result of which Miss
Ramsden, writing
as almost always
on the night
of the experiment, thus reported:
"
You were
out of doors rather
evening, near a railway station;
late,
a cold, raw
there was a pig
with a long snout, and some village children. It
was getting dark."
On
the other hand, in several instances Miss
Ramsden's impressions contained much which Miss Miles had not consciously sought to convey to her. And this brings us to what is unquestionably the most important feature of the experi-
ments.
As was
said,
about two out
of every five
mes-
sages were correctly received, in whole or in part.
But
frequently happened in the case of the
it
seeming
failures,
that while Miss
Ramsden
did not
get the ideas which Miss Miles was endeavoring to send to her, she did get ideas relating to people,
things and events
much
in
Miss Miles's mind at
that moment, or which had been more or less in her
To
mind during the day illustrate,
of the experiment.
Miss Miles once tried to make [79]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Miss
Ramsden
think
What Miss Ramsden
of
"
or
pussies,
"
did think of was
cats."
a manu-
script,
pinned by a patent fastener in one cor-
ner."
And, oddly enough. Miss Miles had spent
a good part of that afternoon reading to a friend " from a manuscript fastened together," as the " with a patent fastener." friend has testified, Similarly, during Miss Miles's visit to the English village for
"
above mentioned, Miss Ramsden's report
one experiment ran: First I
saw dimly a house, but
I think that
you wish me to
see a little girl with
down her back,
tied with a ribbon in the usual
way.
She
is
sitting
hair
at a table with her back
turned and seems very busy indeed. is
brown
I
think she
cutting out scraps with a pair of scissors.
She
has on a white pinafore, and I should guess her
age to be between eight and twelve."
Miss Miles had not been trying to make Miss
Ramsden think
of anything of the sort.
But the
description fitted perfectly her landlady's
whom
daughter, of grove, " I
says
little
the mother, Mrs. Laura Love-
:
have a
little girl
aged eleven, with brown
[80]
WHY hair, tied
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY She
with a ribbon in the usual way.
wears a pinafore, and, being
often amuses
ill,
herself cutting out scraps."
Another time, when the hour
ment
for the experi-
Miss Miles forgot
arrived.
about
all
being busy writing letters to some friends. particular she
was absorbed
an important
to
letter
in
from
written in a peculiar script.
it,
In
framing an answer
a Polish
artist,
Miss Ramsden's
re-
port for that evening was: " I felt that you were not thinking of me, but
were reading a
The
writing.
them.
Is there
letter in letters
any
Significant also
same
a sort of half-German
have very long
to
tails
truth in that? "^
is
the fact that precisely the
sort of thing occurred in the
more recent
ex-
periments between Mr. Burt and Mr. Usher, who, like
Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden, conducted
their investigations in a careful, methodical, con-
scientious way, 1
and over a long period
The experiments
of the Misses
Miles and
of time.
Ramsden
are
reported in detail in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xxi, and in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. viii. The report of the Burt-Usher experiments
appears in the Annates des Sciences Psychiques, January and February, 1910.
[811
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Mr. Usher,
like
Miss Miles, invariably acted
as the sender of the telepathic communications,
while Mr. Burt was the percipient. to
last
the
latter
From
first
remained in London, while
Mr. Usher was part of the time in Bristol, more than one hundred miles from London, and part of the time in
thousand evening
miles
the Austrian city of Prague, a
On
away.
was Mr. Usher's
it
previously agreed upon, to lighted room,
each
experiment-
practice, at the sit
hour
alone in a dimly
draw some design on a piece
of
paper, and remain for fifteen minutes thinking " " to transmit intently of the design and willing it
to
Mr. Burt, who, at the same hour, would
be seated
in
a darkened room in London, noting
the images that passed before his mind's eye,
and, at the expiration of fifteen minutes, setting
down on paper the one to him most vivid. Nearly results of
fifty
defying any explanation by the theory
chance coincidence.
also
two that had seemed
experiments were thus made, with
Ramsden experiments as
or
in
—
And, as for the
in
the Miles-
matter of that,
Professor Hyslop's experiments
[82]
—
it
WHY
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
at times failed
happened that when Mr. Burt totally to draw a design corresponding with that
which Mr. Usher had drawn, Mr. Burt's design did correspond with images demonstrably in Mr.
Usher's
mind
moment
of the experiment.
at
or
Thus, one evening to
make Mr. Burt
before
the
Prague Mr. Usher
tried
immediately
in
get the impression of an oblong
composed of numerous small dots. Instead Mr. Burt saw and designed a peculiar plume-like ornamentation, which Mr. Usher instantly recognized as a picture of part of the unusual carving
on the table at which he had been seated. another
occasion — the
On
eighteenth experiment
—
Mr. Usher sought
to transmit a crude design of a
flower in a pot.
What Mr. Burt
actually drew
was an excellent representation of a lighted rette with the smoke curling away from it.
ciga-
"
" And," says Mr. Usher, the evening that he drew this was the first evening I had smoked a cigarette while experimenting with him."
Such
incidents, with those cited in connection
with the experiments of Professor Hyslop and the Misses Miles and Ramsden, in my opinion
[83]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL go to show exactly
why
it is
that one cannot hope
to obtain unfaiHng control over the process of
For they indicate that at bottom
telepathy.
thought
genuine
much on
not
depends
so
conscious willing as on subconscious It
feeling.
transference
is
not necessarily the things about
which one thinks most strongly, but rather things which are tinged with some emotional coloring, that are most likely to become subjects of tele-
pathic communication.
And
these experiments further indicate that, on
the receiver's part also, the mechanism involved in
the transmission of telepathic messages be-
longs
rather
to
the
subconscious than
conscious portion of the mind.
to
the
In order to allow
the emergence of the transmitted ideas into the conscious knowledge, there seems to be " disalways necessary some form of psychical " sociation as in a trance, dream, reverie, or
field of
—
moment
of
^
absentmindedness.
Such
states
of
dissociation are not always easy to bring about
and when they are brought about, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, it by no
voluntarily;
means
follows that ideas received telepathically
[84]
WHY will
I
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
forthwith and rapidly rise above the threshold
consciousness.
of
as
For,
observation
the
recent psychological experiment and
have shown,
tendency
the
for
is
in
dissociated
states
emergence chiefly of
ideas which, through their emotional associations,
are of deep personal significance
dream
— as
when we
of persons or things associated with events
that once affected us profoundly.
Every one
of
us has subconscious reminiscences of this sort,
and with these personal subconscious reminiscences any ideas which have been transmitted telepathically have of necessity
emergence.
They may
whether they
not;
depends
in large
own emotional Hence
it
is
to
for
compete
get through or they
may
will get
through apparently measure on the degree of their
intensity.
that that scientist
perpetual unbelief
who
is
doomed
to
boasts that he will never
place credence in telepathy until he can play
with
it
tubes.
as he plays with the chemicals in his test
One cannot handle
feelings as
one can
handle a chemical compound, nor can one manipulate at will the subconscious as though
[85]
it
were
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL a physical substance.
Hence, too, the case for
telepathy must always
rest less
evidence
on experimental
— strong
though the Miles-Ramsden and Burt-Usher experiments demonstrate that this sometimes is than on well-authenticated
—
instances of spontaneous occurrence, which have
been recorded in ever-increasing volume since systematic investigation of the subject was
first
undertaken a scant quarter of a century ago. In such instances, the records further show, one of the commonest forms pathic message
is
hallucination, as in the
tele-
that of an auditory " voice heard by me on
received
"
which the
in
is
the shore of the Canadian lake and on the bank of
Niagara River.
When
there
is
connected with
the sending of the message some supreme
the career the sender — the of the moment of death — the in
of
cination
make this
its
is
sometimes
dire
respect I
of
may
be,
auditory hallu-
such a nature as to
meaning almost
know
crisis, it
crisis
self-evident.
of nothing
more
In
striking
than a strange case reported, with ample corroborative evidence, to the Society for Psychical
Research.
[86]
WHY The
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
narrator,
time in a country house.
living at the
was
a well-to-do Englishman,
was
It
and on the night of his telepathic experience there had been a slight snowfall, just
early spring,
make
to
sufficient
the
After
white.
ground
dinner he spent the evening writing until ten o'clock,
words "
when, to continue the story
in his
own
:
I got
up and
from the hall
table,
left
the room, taking a lamp
and placing
it
on a small table
standing in a recess of the window in the breakfast-room.
The
the window. nearest
I
curtains were not
had
just taken
bookcase a volume of
British Birds
'
for reference,
of reading the passage, the
the lamp, and shutter, est
and
my
drawn
down from
Macgillivray's
and was
in the act
book held
close to
window
when almost the
sound would be heard, when
the
'
shoulder touching the
in a position
across
I distinctly
slight-
heard
the front gate opened and shut again with a clap,
and footsteps advancing at a run up the drive; when opposite the window the steps changed from sharp and distinct on gravel to dull and less clear on the grass-slip below the window, [87]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and at the same time
I
was conscious that some
one or something stood close to
me
outside, only
the thin shutter and a sheet of glass
dividing
us.
"
could
I
hear the
quick,
panting,
breathing of the messenger, or whatever as
if
Had
labored it
was,
trying to recover breath before speaking.
he been attracted by the light through the
shutter? side,
Suddenly, like a gunshot, inside, out-
and
all
around, there broke out the most
—a
appalling shriek
prolonged wail of horror,
which seemed to freeze the blood. single shriek,
It
was not a
but more prolonged, commencing
and then
in a high key,
less
and
less,
wailing
away toward the north, and becoming weaker and weaker as
it
receded in sobbing pulsations
of intense agony.
"
Of
my
fright
and horror
increased tenfold
when
room and found
my
work
close to the
I
I
can say nothing
—
walked into the dining-
wife sitting quietly at her
window,
in the
same
line
and
distant only ten or twelve feet from the corre-
sponding window in the breakfast-room.
had heard nothing.
I
She
could see that at once;
[88]
WHY
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
and from the position I
in
which
knew she could not have
Perceiving I "
'
"
'
"
'
was
failed to
sitting,
hear any
and any footsteps on the ground. was alarmed about something, she
noise outside
asked
slie
:
What
is
'
the matter?
Only some one outside,' I said. Then, why do you not go out and
You always do when you
hear
see:
any unusual
noise.'
"
*
There
is
something
queer '
about this
noise,' I replied.
and
dreadful "
I dare not face
it.'
Nothing more was heard, and early next morning he
made a
search in the grounds
careful
around the house, but not a footprint was to be seen in the snow, which had ceased falling long
A
before the occurrence of the wailing cry. later in the day,
little
however, word arrived that at
ten o'clock the previous night one of his tenants,
who
lived half a mile distant
and with
whom
had spent the afternoon, had committed
by drinking prussic He had gone up
he
suicide
acid.
to his bedroom, his
testified at the inquest,
groom had mixed the poison in
[89]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL a tumbler of water, drank scream,
dead on the
fell
it off,
and, with a terrible
floor.
Fortunately, telepathic hallucinations do not
come with such
usually
intensity or in such an
alarming form.
Often they are mere vague im-
that
something unpleasant or disas-
pressions
trous
is
occurring to a relative or friend, and, as
in the case of self-originating hallucinations like
that reported by
Lady Eardley, they
impel to action that averts disaster. to give
ported
'
a single
was thus,
experience re-
by William Blakeway, a Staffordshire
Englishman " I was in
:
my
usual place at chapel one
when
afternoon,
home.
instance, in an
occasionally It
all
at once I thought I
my
Seemingly against
will,
I
Sunday must go
took
Wlien reaching the chapel gates I
hat.
impulse that I must hasten possible,
and
I ran with all
stopping to take breath.
asked
home
my
an
as quick as
might without
Meeting a friend who
I hurried so, I passed
why
felt
my
him almost with-
out notice. "
When 1
In
"
I reached
Phantasms
home
I
found the house
of the Living," vol.
[90]
ii,
pp. 377-378.
full
WHY of smoke,
on
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
and
my
little
boy, three years old,
alone in the house.
fire,
life.
once tore the
off
him, and was just in
It has
always been a mystery
burning clothes from time to save his
I at
all
to me, as no person whispered a
word to me, and
no one knew anything about the fire till after I made the alarm at home, which was more than a quarter of a mile from the chapel."
Here the wholly subconscious nature of the phenomenon, on the percipient's part at all events,
is
dent in
all
plainly evident.
It
is
even more
evi-
cases where, as frequently occurs, the
telepathic message
dream
received in a
is
like
that which was recorded in the opening para-
As
graphs of this chapter. in telepathic
symbolism.
less
A
to be expected, too,
dreams we often find an element
The news
death, or whatever directly,
is
it
of
of illness, of accident, of
may
be,
is
not conveyed
but indirectly, amid a mass of more or
relevant details of
dream imagery.
couple of years ago I received a letter from a
lady living in Brooklyn, describing an experience that admirably illustrates this point.
Her dream,
however, was of such an intimate character that
[91]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL names
the
of the persons
suppressed.
and places must be
Five years ago, this lady writes, her
daughter became interested in a young man,
Mr.
v/hose suit, however, the mother dis-
v.,
Afterwards her daughter met,
couraged.
fell
in
and was happily married to a physithe Government service. She soon went
love with, cian in
abroad with her husband, to a remote and isolated
My
post.
"
We
informant continues:
could not hear from them
because they were ice-bound, but
them were always most
of
last
letters
all
my
winter
thoughts
delightful, for their
were bubbling over with happiness,
and I was lovingly busy getting things ready
for
them. "
Mr. V. had almost passed from my mind, when one morning, in the middle of June, I arose,
took a bath, and, having a half-hour to
spare,
went back to bed again,
falling
into a
deep sleep. "
my
Suddenly Mr. V. appeared to me in one of lower rooms. It seemed to be breakfast
time,
and
cepted,
I invited
and we
him
to have some.
sat together for
[92]
He
ac-
some time, but
WHY I do not
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
remember any
of
our conversation.
Suddenly he arose, faced me, and, looking straight
my eyes, Now she
into
said emphatically: is
Nothing you can do
mine!
This time she
ever separate us again! to
me! "
start,
much
frightened.
realizing the situation, I thanked
was
belong
'
awoke with a
I
will
will
Then,
Heaven she
and promptly put the dream This was about eight o'clock. At ten
safely married,
from me.
a despatch reached
me
saying that
my
daughter's
husband had
died, from the result of a boating accident two weeks before."
Or,
when apprehended
message
may
in
dream, the telepathic
be so distorted that
its
true meaning
cannot possibly be recognized immediately.
A
characteristic case of this kind occurred at the
time of President Lincoln's assassination, though it is
only recently that
it
was
for the first time
reported in detail by Mrs. E. H. Hughes, daughter of the
San Francisco
S.
C. Bugbee.
It should be explained that before
removing to
architect,
California from Massachusetts in 1863, the
Bug-
bees were well acquainted with the Booth family,
[93]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and that John Wilkes Booth was an especial Says Mrs. Hughes,
favorite of Mrs. Bugbee's.
American Institute
in her report to the tific
"
Research:
One night my mother woke my 'Oh, Charles!
denly, saying:
a
terrible
dream!
Booth shot me! for a private
young to me,
in
exclaimed,
me
seats
a theater, and I took some
me.
and asked
have had such
seemed that he sent
It
box
I
father sud-
dreamed that John Wilkes
I
ladies with
"
for Scien-
^
Between the
me how
came
I liked the play.
Why, John Booth!
that you could put such
acts he
am
I
I
surprised
a questionable play
upon the stage. I am mortified to think that I have brought young ladies to see it." At that he raised a neck.
It
pistol,
and shot
seems as
After a while
my
if
me
back
of the
I felt a pain there
now/
mother
fell
in the
asleep,
and dreamed
the same thing a second time. " The next morning came the terrible news
which plunged the nation into
Almost at the hour
of
my
and mourning.
mother's dream, Presi-
^
iv,
grief
Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. pp. 210-217.
[94]
WHY
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
dent Lincoln was assassinated; shot, in the back
box at a theater, by
of the neck, in a private
John Wilkes Booth."
On
the
bolism
other
or
significance
with the event as to
ports "
To
manifest.
Morris
may be no sym-
dream corresponding
the
distortion,
so realistically
Mrs.
hand, there
an
Griffith,
make
its
give an illustration, re-
Englishwoman,
:
On
March,
the night of Saturday, the eleventh of I
awoke
much
in
alarm, havirtg seen
eldest son, then at St. Paul de
my
Loanda on the
southwest coast of Africa, looking dreadfully
and emaciated, and calling to
me.
I
I
heard his voice distinctly
was so disturbed
I could not
sleep again, but every time I closed
my
appearance recurred, and
sounded
tinctly,
calling
depressed
all
ill
his voice
me 'Mamma!'
I
eyes the
felt
dis-
greatly
through the next day, which was
Sunday, but I did not mention it to my husband, as he was an invalid, and I feared to disturb him. Strange to say, he also suffered from intense low spirits all day,
and we were both unable to take
dinner, he rising from the table, saying:
[95]
'
I don't
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL care
what
it costs,
I
must have the boy back,'
al-
luding to his eldest son. "
mentioned
I
I
had had
to
dream and the bad night
my
two or three
friends,
that they would say nothing of
The next day a photos of
was
my
it
to
but begged
Mr.
Griffith.
letter arrived, containing
son, saying he
had had
some
fever,
but
and hoped immediately to leave for a much more healthy station. We heard no more till
better,
the ninth of
May, when a
letter arrived
with
the news of our son's death from a fresh attack of fever,
on the night
and adding that
just before his death
calling repeatedly for
It
is
of the eleventh of
me."
March, he kept
^
only a short transition from such a dream
as this to a waking
hallucination in which
as in the cases of experimental occurrence
—
men-
tioned above, and those other cases detailed in the preceding chapter
cerned at the
— phantom forms
moment when
threatened by some danger or the supreme
crisis of
the person seen is
"
Phantasms
is
passing through
death.
But now, accepting telepathy 1
are dis-
of the Living," vol.
[96]
as an established i,
pp. 343-344.
WHY
is
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
the problem remains:
fact, it?
I
What
is
How
are
we
to explain
the mechanism by which one person
able to transmit messages directly and instan-
taneously to another person although they
may
be half the world apart?
To
must frankly be admitted, answer can as yet be returned. But
this question, it
no positive some extremely plausible hypotheses have been advanced, not by mere theorists but by eminent
men
of science,
who, themselves aflSrming the
actuality of telepathy, to the problem of Sir
have given much thought
mode
its
of operation.
William Crookes, for example, calling at-
tention to the marvelous but undisputed facts of ethereal vibration as evidenced
nomena
by the phe-
of wireless telegraphy
and the Rontgen
we have
quite possibly an
rays, urges that here
adequate explanation of the mystery of telepathy
—
that is to say, on a wholly naturalistic basis a basis which enables us to accept telepathy with-
out
dislocating
our
entire
conception
of
the
physical universe. " " that in these It seems to me," he suggests,
rays [Rontgen rays]
we may have a [97]
possible
way
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL of transmitting intelligence which, with a
sonable postulates, that
is
may
supply the key to
obscure in psychical research.
assumed that these
few rea-
rays, or rays of
Let
much it
be
even higher
on frequency, can pass into the brain and act
some nervous center
there.
Let
it
be conceived
that the brain contains a center which uses these rays as the vocal chords use sound vibrations
(both being under the
and sends them
command
of intelligence),
out, with the velocity of light, to
impinge on the receiving ganglion of another In this same way the phenomena of
brain.
telepathy,
and the transmission
of
intelligence
from one sensitive to another through long distances, seem to come into the domain of law and can be grasped."
^
This undoubtedly strongly
commends
is
the explanation that most
itself
to those scientists
who
courageously acknowledge their belief in telepNor do they see any objection to it in the athy.
fact that people apparently are affected
telepathic impulse only at certain times. 1
by the For the
Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research,
January
29, 1897.
[98]
WHY
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
brain of both sender and receiver ably,
may
conceiv-
on the analogy of wireless telegraphy, be
and receive telepathic communi-
set to transmit
when attuned
cations only certain
There
amplitude.
to vibrations of a
however, as Sir
is,
William Crookes himself has recognized, another
and
really formidable objection to this vibratory
hypothesis. It
is
found
in the fact that,
assuming telepathic
messages to be conveyed by a system of infinitely
minute waves to
we
logically
assume that these waves would
what
By
in the ether,
is
known
still
that, spreading
in ever-expanding waves,
they would lose power
Consequently,
require a tremendous
them any great
obey
on every side
in proportion to the square of the distance
their source.
also
as the law of inverse squares.
meant
this is
have
initial
it
from
would not only
energy to project
distance, but the farther they
were sent the feebler they would become, so that in the case of a percipient remote from the agent, either the telepathic
ceived at
all
exceedingly
or at
message would not be
most
attenuated
it
would be received
fashion.
[99]
re-
in
Whereas the
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL fact
that, according to the results of such ex-
is
perimentation as that which I have described,
complete failure often occurs when the experi-
menters are only a few yards apart, and
brilliant
successes are sometimes achieved at distances of
hundreds This
miles.
of
consideration has
some thinkers
led
notably Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor
and the
late F.
W. H. Myers
W.
—
F. Barrett,
— to abandon out-
an explanation on a naturaland to advance instead the view that
right all attempt at istic basis,
telepathy
because
not explicable
is
it
in
physical
a wholly psychical process
is
terms
— "a
and supersensuous communion of mind with mind." After all, though, as Mr. Frank
direct
Podmore has pointed on a negation
— our
out, this view rests simply
present inability to con-
ceive a thoroughly satisfactory explanation;
and
may remove
that
at
any time
inability, as
scientific research
has happened
agam and again
in the
past in the case of other and seemingly equally inexplicable
phenomena.
Meanwhile, alike,
all
need do,
is
that we, scientists and laymen to
remember that [100]
inability to
WHY
BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY
I
explain gives us of
itself
We
no warrant to deny.
must acquaint ourselves with the accepting or rejecting them.
And
facts
before
for
myself
I can only say that the actuality of telepathy
has to
my mind
Sir Oliver
"
I
am
been absolutely proved.
Lodge: prepared to confess that the weight of
testimony
is
sufficient to satisfy
my own mind
do undoubtedly occur; the distance between England and India that such
barriei'
With
things
the
to
intelligence
in
sympathetic
some way
of
that is
no
communication
of
which we are at
present ignorant;
that just as a signaling-key in
London causes a
telegraphic instrument to re-
spond instantaneously everyday
in
Teheran
occurrence — so
— which
be signaled without wire or telegraph
human
an
the danger or death
of a distant child, or brother, or husband,
heart of a
is
may
clerk, to the
being fitted to be the recipient
of such a message."
[101]
CHAPTER
III
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL
-
GAZING
word clairvoyance has acquired a decidedly sinister meaning in most people's
THE minds.
It
is
associated with professional spirit-
mediums, who lay claim to supernatural powers which they are ready, at a moment's noistic
tice, to exercise for all
to
pay the
fee they
who
are credulous enough
demand. Newspapers through-
out the country daily contain advertisements of clairvoyants of this type, arrant humbugs, most of
them, but often able, through cunningly ac" "
quiring lives
information
and family
regarding
their
sitters'
relationships, to persuade their
"
"
entranced they are actu" Really in contact with the spirit world." victims that while
peated exposures of
their
have not driven them out inspired
fraudulent
methods
of business,
but have
a widespread and healthy distrust of
their pretensions.
[102]
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING Nevertheless,
many
it
would be rash to conclude, as
of us do, that there
genuine
is
no such thing as
by which
clairvoyance,
is
ability to perceive distant scenes if
meant the
and events
as
one were bodily present at the place of their
That such
occurrence.
a
faculty
exists,
al-
though usable only on rare occasions, and that there is nothing in the least supernatural about it,
by the scientifwho have been dili-
are facts definitely established
ically trained
investigators
gently attacking this and other psychical prob-
lems the past twenty-five years.
have made
it
Their researches
evident that in order to explain
genuine clairvoyant phenomena
it
is
not neces-
sary to postulate the intervention of
" spirits,"
or the flight through space of the clairvoyant's
"
astral
body."
At most, clairvoyance
is
simply
a special form of telepathy, differing in degree
but not
in
kind from the phenomena discussed in
the preceding chapter. absolutely no evidence to justify the " independent clairvoyhypothesis of so-called
There
is
ance," advocated by occultists of every shade of spiritistic
belief,
and
utilized
[103]
by unscrupulous
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL tricksters
dupes.
On
the
dazzle
to
of
their
the other hand, as I hope to
make
convincingly clear, there
imagination
is
plenty of proof that
the scenes which the true clairvoyant perceives,
and
is
frequently able to describe with graphic
detail, are in reality
hallucinations,
only mental images, visual
developed by the same process
that enables any ordinary telepathic message to
be apprehended. It
must be acknowledged, however, that the
telepathic difficult
connection
to trace;
indisputable
sometimes
is
for example,
as,
instances,
reported
James and other trustworthy
extremely in
by
the few Professor
investigators,
which the services of clairvoyants
have
in
been
successfully invoked to find the bodies of persons
drowned or otherwise accidentally
killed
under
circumstances seemingly precluding any one from
having knowledge of the place or manner of their death.
A
typical
case
the kind occurred
of
a few
years ago in connection with the mysterious death of a
New
Enfield,
Hampshire girl. Miss Bertha Huse, who was drowned in Mascoma Lake. [
104
]
of
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING For three days
after the disappearance of
Huse, one hundred and
fifty of
her townspeople
She had
searched vainly for her.
Miss
last
been seen
on a long bridge crossing the lake, and it was supposed that she had fallen from it or had
alive
deliberately
committed
suicide.
The waters were
dragged but without result, and failure also attended the efforts of a professional diver from
Boston employed by a sympathetic citizen. Meantime, in the little town of Lebanon, some miles distant, a Mrs. Titus
during which she
talked
fell
to
into a trance,
her husband and
described to him a spot in the lake where she said
the body of the
Huse
girl
was
lying.
So strongly
was Mr. Titus impressed by her statements that, next day, he took her to Enfield, where the diver, following
body
her
instructions,
in the place located
by
demonstrations
of
the
her.
Mrs, Titus afterwards gave other, tional,
found
quickly
if
less sensa-
a similar character;
and Professor James, who made a
close study of
her case, publicly stated his belief that her ex" a decidedly solid document in periences form favor of the admission of a supernormal faculty
[105]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL of
seership
later
come
— whatever
to be attached to such a phrase."
There are
also
on record certain well-attested
dreams presenting the same fying the agent,
A
vision.
difficulty of identi-
or sender,
characteristic
of
dream
the clairvoyant of
this
sort
is
by Mrs. Alfred Wedgwood, daughter-
reported in-law
may
meaning
preciser
of
the English savant, Hensleigh
Wedg-
wood. "
I
spent
the
Christmas
holidays
my
with
Queen Anne Street," says Mrs. and in the beginning of January
father-in-law in "
Wedgwood,* I had a remarkably vivid dream, which him next morning at breakfast. "
I
dreamed
I
I told to
went to a strange house, stand-
ing at the corner of a street.
When
I reached the
top of the stairs I noticed a window opposite
with a
little
colored glass, short muslin blinds
running on a brass rod.
had a window
veiled
The top
of the ceiling
by colored muslin.
were two small shrubs on a
little
table.
There
The
drawing-room had a bow window, with the same 1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. pp. 47-48.
[106]
vii,
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING the library had a polished
blinds;
the "
same
with
floor,
blinds.
was going to a child's party at a cousin's, whose house I had never seen, I told my father-
As
I
in-law I thought that that would prove to be the
house. "
On January
tenth I went with
to the party, and,
my
little
boy
by mistake, gave the driver a When he stopped at number
wrong number. twenty, I had misgivings about the house, and remarked to the cabman that house.
The
Mrs. H.
lived,
thought of
I
met with
was not a corner
servant could not
my
dream, and, as a street, looking
had observed at
tell
me where Then
and had not a blue-book.
walked down the iar blinds I
it
number
in
fifty,
I
last resource, I
up
my
for the pecul-
These
dream.
a corner house, and,
knocking at the door, was relieved to find that it was the house of which I was in search. "
On
going up-stairs, the room and
corresponded with what I had seen in
and the same
little
shrubs
standing on the landing. I
had seen the colored
in
my
[107]
dream,
their pots
The window
glass
wmdows
in
were
which
was hidden by the
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL blind being down, but I learned on inquiry that
was
it
really there."
In this case the dream, though devoid of any dramatic feature, served a useful purpose, as
much more
dream occurring to Doctor A. K. Young, an Irish magistrate and In his dream he suddenly found land-owner.^ did a
spectacular
himself standing at the gate of a friend's park,
many
of persons, one a
arm, the his
Near by were a group
miles from home.
rest
woman
men, four
with a basket on her
whom
of
were tenants of
own, while the others were unknown to him.
Some
seemed to be making a murderous attack on one of his tenants, and he of the strangers
ran to his rescue. " I struck violently at the man on my left," " he says, and then with greater violence at the
man I did
to
my
right.
Finding to
surprise that
not knock either of them down, I struck
again and again, with
all
frenzied at the sight of
To my ^
my
the violence of a
my
poor friend's murder.
great amazement, I saw that
The evidence
relating to this
tasms of the Living,"
vol.
i,
dream
will
pp. 381-383.
[108]
man
my
be found
in
arms, " Phan-
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING
my
although visible to stance;
and the bodies
my own came
eye, were without subof the
men
I struck at
close together after each
blow
through the shadowy arms I struck with.
My
and
blows were delivered with more extreme violence
than I think I ever exerted; but I became painfully
convinced of
my
I
incompetency.
have no
consciousness of what happened, after this feeling
came upon me." Next morning Doctor Young awoke feeling stiff and sore, and his wife informed him that of unsubstantiality
he had greatly alarmed her during the night by striking out
"as
if
fighting for
his
life."
He
then told her of his curious dream, and asked her to remember the names of the actors in recognized by him.
The
following
day he
it
re-
ceived a letter from his land agent stating that
the tenant
tacked had
whom
he had dreamed he saw at-
and apparently dying, at the very spot where Doctor Young had in his dream tried to defend him;
and
tjiat
been found unconscious,
there was no clue to his assailants.
That night Doctor Y^oung started for the scene of the tragedy, and immediately upon his [109]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL arrival
appHed to the
local magistrate for
rants for the arrest of the three sides
war-
men whom,
be-
the injured tenant, he had recognized in All three,
the vision.
when
arrested
and ques-
tioned separately, told the same story, confirming the details of the dream, even to the incident of the presence of the
They had
woman
with the basket.
said nothing about the affair because
they were afraid
it
would make trouble
but they denied any complicity that
while
walking
in
it,
for
them,
asserting
home with them between
eleven and twelve at night, the tenant
by the way, ultimately recovered
— who,
— had
been
attacked by a couple of strangers, whose com-
panions had prevented them from interfering to protect him.
According to Mrs. Young,
it
was between
eleven and twelve o'clock on the night of the fight that her sleeping
husband had frightened
her by his violent actions.
Here the telepathic impulse causing the clairvoyant dream may have come either from the injured tenant himself or from one of the three spectators
known
to Doctor Young.
[110]
The
diffi-
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING culty of
is
to conceive an adequate reason for
them thinking
any
even subconsciously.
of him,
But, granting for argument's sake the possibihty of independent clairvoyance, the
question at once arises
why
still
"
his
more thorny
astral
"
body
should have chosen to journey to that precise spot at that precise moment.
a conception as independent clairvoyance are too serious to be
The
obstacles in the
Nor
overcome.
is it
way
of such
necessary to resort to
it,
in
view of the fact that in the vast majority of clairvoyant cases
it
is
possible to establish defi-
nitely the telepathic association.
Here, by fully
as
way
of illustration,
as
impressive
leaving no doubt as to
is
Doctor
tj'pical case,
Young's,
but
was reported Research by Mrs.
its origin.
to the Society for Psycliical
a
It
Hilda West, daughter of Sir John Crowe, who
was at the time British consul general
for
Nor-
way. "
father and brother," runs Mrs. West's " were on a journey during the winter. narrative,
My
was expecting them home, without knowing the exact day of their return. I had gone to bed I
[111]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL at the usual time, about eleven in the night I
p.
m.
Some time
had a vivid dream, which made a
great impression on me.
"
dreamed
I
when
I
I
was looking out
saw father driving
lowed in another by
my
in
of a
window,
a Spids sledge,
brother.
fol-
They had
to
pass a cross-road, on which another traveler was driving very fast, also in a sledge with one horse.
Father seemed to drive on without observing the other
who would, without fail, have over father if he had not made his horse
fellow,
driven
saw
rear, so that I
hoofs of the horse. the horse would
out
'
Father!
fall
my
father drive under the
Every moment I expected down and crush him. I cried
Father!
'
and
woke
in
a
great
fright.
"
The next morning my
turned.
I said to
them:
arrive quite safely, as I
about you
last night.'
father
'
I
am
and brother
re-
so glad to see
you had such a dreadful dream
My
brother said:
'You
could not have been in greater fright about him
than I was.'
And
then he related to
me what
had happened, which talKed exactly with my dream. My brother in his fright, when he saw [112]
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING the feet of the horse over father's head, called " out: Oh, father! Father! '
'
Compare with
this the
very similar instance of
clairvoyance in a
waking or semi-waking state, Mrs. Helen Avery Robinson, of experienced by Anchorage,
and communicated by
Kentucky,
her, with a corroborative letter from her son,
to Professor Hyslop:
"
My
son and a friend had driven across the
country to dine and spend the evening with
The
friends.
rest of the
for the night.
I
was awakened by the telephone,
and looked at the I
knew
of a
my
clock, finding
son would soon be
window
awake and ask I
it
eleven-thirty.
in,
and thought
down-stairs, which I felt might not
have been locked, and
"As
household had retired
my
I
son to
lay waiting
determined to remain
make
and
sure
it
was
listening for
secure.
him, I
suddenly saw their vehicle, a light break-cart, turn over, my son jump out, land on his feet, run to the struggling horse's head, his friend hold
to the lines, I
knew *'
I
all
met
and
in a
moment
was right and
my
felt
son as he came
[113]
it
on
was gone and
no disturbance. in,
and spoke
of the
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL He
window. I replied:
described what I
know
I
it.
them before they started called for him with his horse
I did not see
out, as his friend
and
tipped over, mother.'
saw you.' And saw, which he said was just as it
'Yes, I
happened.
'We
said:
vehicle, so I did not
know
in
what
style they
went."
be added that the spot where the cart was overturned was so far from the RobinIt should
son house that, even had
it
been broad daylight,
Mrs. Robinson could not possibly have witnessed the accident from her bedroom.
In the same way a young
Marks,
in
— and antly cident
Wallingford,
most
occurring
Oneida Lake,
in
man named
Connecticut,
Frederic clairvoy-
— beheld dramatically
to
his
brother,
New York
an ac-
Charles,
on
State, hundreds of
Charles Marks and from Wallingford.^ a friend, Arthur Bloom, had gone for a sail on the lake, were caught in a storm, and almost wrecked miles
through the giving way of their boom.
Charles,
The e\adence relating to this case is published in the Provol. vii, pp. 359ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 364. 1
[114]
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING however, springing into the bow, managed to
make in
the
boom
fast again,
and they succeeded
running to shore.
was when
It
their danger
was greatest that
they were seen clairvoyantly by Frederic Marks, who, it being a rainy afternoon in Walhngford,
was lounging in his room. " I do not think I fell asleep," he testifies, " nor did I seem fully awake. But all at once I seemed to be facing a severe storm of wind and As I looked into the storm a small boat rain. with a
sail
came, driven helplessly along through
a seething, boiling mass of water.
men were
in
it,
Two young
one trying to steer and control
the boat, the other apparently trying to dip out
water and work on the "
One
of the two,
peril, tried to tear
The
face of
my
in
down
The boat
low shore that
it
grew fainter as sciousness
a
moment
the
sail
of greatest
from
its
mast.
brother came clearly into view,
with an expression on
now.
sail.
it
that remains with
righted and sped on.
was driving toward. it
I
me
saw a
The boat
neared the shore, and con-
came back
to me, and, whatever
[115]
it
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL was,
whether
a
dream
a
or
vision,
passed
away."
Marks did not keep
Fortunately, young singular
down-stairs Bristol,
and
assured that
told
himself,
was
it
"
but
hastened
— a Mr. employer — of what was
his
whom he He was laughed
with
he had seen.
or four
to
experience
his
living
But
three
arrived
from
only a dream."
days afterward a
and
at, of course,
letter
Charles Marks, bringing unexpected verification of his brother's story.
Even more
detailed,
in
point of clairvoyant
perception of a distant scene,
is
the strange dream
of a physician.
Doctor C. Golinski, of Kremen-
tchug, Russia.
It
was Doctor Golinski's custom
nap during the day, and one afternoon he lay down on a sofa as usual, about half-past three. While asleep, he says: to take a
^
"
I
dreamed that the doorbell rang, and that
had the usual rather disagreeable sensation that I must get up and go to some sick person. I
Then
I found myself transported directly into
*
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. pp. 39-41.
[116]
vii,
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING a of
room with dark hangings. To the right the door leading into the room is a chest of
little
drawers, and on this I see a
To
of a special pattern.
on which
see a bed,
severe hemorrhage. to
know
I
a
woman
beforehand
from
suffering
do not know how I come
satisfy
any other reason, as
how
speaks to me.
medical
the door I
that she has a hemorrhage, but I
science than for
lamp
paraffin
left of
examine her, but rather to
I
it.
lies
the
little
things
are,
although
know
my I
con-
know
no one
Afterward I dream vaguely of
assistance
which
I
give,
and then
I
awake." It
was then half-past
later the doorbell rang,
four.
About ten minutes
and Doctor Golinskiwas
summoned to a patient. His surprise may be imagined when he found that he was ushered into the identical
room
So aston-
of his dream.
ished was he that he immediately approached
the bed on which his patient was lying, and said to her:
" "
You
are suffering from a hemorrhage."
Yes," was her reply, in a tone of great aston-
ishment.
"
But how do you know [117]
" it.?
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL She then told him,
in
answer to
his questions,
that the hemorrhage had set in about one o'clock,
but had not been severe enough to alarm her until
between three and four; and that
until nearly half-past four that she
it
was not
had decided
to send for him.
Nearly every instance of spontaneous that
voyance
is
clair-
authenticated
sufficiently
compel credence, resembles these
cases,
to
and the
between them and cases of ordinary
similarity
chapter on telepathy,
is
described
as
hallucination,
telepathic
too striking,
it
in
the
seems to
me, to leave any doubt regarding their true nature.
there
is
visions,
The only points of difference are that a greater amount of detail in clairvoyant and that the percipient often experiences
a sensation of being actually present at the scene beheld.
But
hensible
when we remember
sation of in
this latter fact
"
" otherplaceness
is
easily
compre-
that the same senis
often experienced
dreams that have no clairvoyant
significance,
and experienced with an equal feeling of reality, As dissipated only when the dreamer awakes. to the greater
amount
of detail,
[118]
it is
only neces-
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING sary
to
assume that
telepathic action
clairvoyant cases
in
the
by some favoring mind, just as some
intensified
is
condition in the percipient's
non-clairvoyant dreams are more detailed and vivid
than others.
Besides which, the telepathic basis of clairvoy-
ance has been experimentally demonstrated.
One
of the investigators for the Society for Psychical
Mr. G. A. Smith, once hypnotized " " the look into a lady and requested her to business office of a friend of his and tell him what Research,
Much
she saw there.
to his surprise she im-
mediately began to describe the exactness,
he
although
never visited
with great
was positive she had
it.
It then occurred to
him that
acquiring her knowledge of his
office
own mind, and
it
possibly she
was
by telepathy from
to test this theory he thought
an imaginary umbrella, which he pictured to himself as lying open on his friend's writing table.
of
In a minute or
so,
of astonishment,
"Why, how brella
the clairvoyant uttered a cry
and exclaimed: There's
strange!
open on the table!
"
[119]
a large
um-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Usually, however, experiments like this
fail,
the entranced clairvoyant being able to discriminate between the thoughts which correspond to reality
and those which are wholly imaginary.
But that the process involved unquestionably
telepathic
in clairvoyance is
has
been
otherwise
proved by the fact that when conditions are
imposed
on
clairvoyants
absolutely
excluding
the possibility of thought transference from one
mind
to another, they are conspicuously unsuc-
cessful in their efforts to obtain results.
If,
as
often happens, they are able to describe distant places
which they have never seen but with
which other persons are necessarily familiar, they are nevertheless unable to state, for example, the
number on a bank
note, chosen at
random from
among
others and placed
sealed
box without anybody previously ascer-
taining just
Such a
in
what the number
test,
if
successful,
their
quently made.
but I have
who has been
although the effort has been It should
[120]
a
would be decisive
yet to learn of any clairvoyant it,
in
is.
proof of independent clairvoyance;
able to meet
hands
fre-
be pointed out that,
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING in order to give it evidential value, there
must
not be the slightest possibility of any one even glancing at the bank note before
it is
put into the
as has already been said,
sealed box;
for,
now known
that the eye
far keener
is
it
is
than we
usually realize, and that the merest glance
may
often put us in possession of facts which, sinking
memory, may afterward emerge to astonish and perhaps mystify us. Once they were into the
lodged in the mind, a clairvoyant could, of course, obtain these facts from us telepathically, and
thus achieve a seeming success even in the bank
note or some similar
test.
Indeed, this power of subconscious perception is
of itself sufficient to explain
many undoubtedly There
genuine instances of clairvoyance. viously no need to go beyond
it
ob-
is
to account for
such a clairvoyant dream as the following, ported by a lady
name "
who has
re-
declined to allow her
to be published:
A number
of years ago I
was invited to
visit
a friend who lived at a large and beautiful country seat
on the Hudson.
started, with a
Shortly after
number
my
arrival I
of other guests, to
[121]
make
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL a tour of the very extensive grounds. for
We
walked
an hour or more, and thoroughly explored the
Upon my
place.
return to the house, I discovered
that I had lost a gold cuff-stud, which I valued for association's sake. I
wore
it
when we
of or notice
missing.
it
As
merely remembered that
and did not think
started out,
again until
it
to search for
I
my
return,
was quite dark,
it,
especially as
it it
when
it
was
seemed useless
was the season
autumn and the ground was covered with
of
dead leaves. "
That night
I
dreamed that
I
saw a withered
grapevine clinging to a wall, and with a pile of
dead leaves at in
my
The
I distinctly
Underneath the
saw
my
leaves,
stud gleaming.
following morning I asked the friends with
whom if
dream,
base.
its
had been walking the previous afternoon they remembered seeing any such wall and I
vine, as I did not.
They
replied that they could
not recall anything answering the description.
them why I asked, as I felt somewhat ashamed of the dream; but, during the morning, I made some excuse to go out on the I did
not
tell
grounds alone.
I
walked hither and [122]
thither, and,
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING a long time, I suddenly came upon
after
and vine
wall
as
exactly
they looked
the
my
in
dream. "
I
had not the
slightest recollection of seeing
them, or passing by them on the previous day. The dead leaves at the base were lying heaped up, as in
dream.
my
feeling rather
my
eye,
dream."
approached cautiously,
uncomfortable and decidedly
silly,
had scattered a
large
and pushed them
number
I
aside.
of the leaves
I
when a gleam
of gold struck
and there lay the stud, exactly
Akin to
this
is
my
an exceptionally interesting case
me by
that was reported to
a young lady at-
tending college at Greeley, Colorado. it
as in
^
Her
father,
appears, had sent her a check, which for a day
two she delayed
or
cashing.
Then, being without
money, she looked for it in the place where she supposed she had put it, but, to her dismay, discovered that of her
room
it
was not
there.
1
thorough search
failed to bring it to light, and, as it
was not a personal check
vol.
A
of her father's, she
Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, i, pp. 361-362.
[123]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL was greatly worried, thinking that impossible to duplicate
A
it
it.
couple of nights later she had a curious
dream
in
which she saw
herself standing in front
On
of a bookcase in the college library. shelf
might be
were
in yellow,
binding.
a certain
one bound in blue, another
five books,
and between them three with a white She took down one
volumes, opened
it idly,
and
of the white-covered in the
middle of the
book found her check.
Next morning she awoke with no memory the dream, nor did she recall
it
when,
later in
came
the day, she visited the college library and across this identical placing of books.
to her only
when she glanced
white-covered ish,"
and
volumes.
it
and
It recurred
into one of the
Feeling
rather
"
fool-
also not a little apprehensive, she took
down a second volume it,
of
of the
same
set,
opened
was the missing check! She then remembered that the book in which there, sure enough,
was found had been
in
her room for some hours
the day she received her father's
happened, I
letter.
What
have no doubt, was that she absent-
mindedly slipped the check into the book, and [124]
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING so
then,
far
concerned,
her
as
forgot
all
upper consciousness was
about
But subcon-
it.
would remember and subconsciously would be reminded of it the day before the dream
sciously she
when, in the college library, she happened to see the same book again, without, perchance, any conscious knowledge of seeing in sleep, her
mind busied
itself
That
it.
night,
once more with
the problem of the missing check, this time to
good purpose.
Very similar is a dream for which I debted to Mr. Andrew Lang, who got the dreamer, an English lawyer.
man had
sat
up
half-past twelve
am it
in-
from
This gentle-
late to write letters,
and about
On
his
amount
re-
went out to post them.
return he missed a check for a large
by him during the day. He searched everywhere in vain, went to bed, and soon fell ceived
asleep.
Then he dreamed
that he saw the check
curled around an area raiKng not far from his
own
Waking, he was so impressed
door.
that,
was not yet daylight, he got up, dressed, walked out of the house, and found the check at the spot indicated by his dream. although
it
[125]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL In
another
a
case
Californian,
County,
New
given liim by his
sister.
Sullivan
he saw
it
lost
in
a gold ring
That night he dreamed
lying in the sand beneath a swing, in
which he had been
was actually *
York,
visiting
sitting in the afternoon.
there, as
he ascertained by looking
Similarly, a clerk in a
day.
It
customs house
^v-overed a valuable document, the loss of which
would have cost him
his position.
And
the wife
Reverend W. F. Brand,
of a clergyman, the
of
Emmorton, Maryland, had revealed to her in a dream the hiding-place of a sum of money which, months
had put away at her husband's request, but had afterward accidentally six
before, she
slipped into a bundle of shawls.
Decidedly, we not only see more than we are
aware
of,
but we also remember more and for a
far longer time than
Which
brings
is
me
usually supposed.
to
another point of great
importance to the student of clairvoyance and other psychical problems, and also, as will appear in a later chapter, of affairs of
ory
is
everyday
tremendous significance
life.
The
tenacity of
such that nothing one sees 126 [ ]
is
m
mem-
really for-
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING It merely slips,
gotten.
as
were, into
it
some
subterranean region of the mind, whence, days
and months and even years afterward, it may be Of this we have incontrovertible proof recalled. the
in
of
phenomena
crystal-gazing,
a species
into a crystal
of clairvoyance in which,
by gazing
or a glass of water, or
any small body with sometimes possible ,^_^
reflecting
perceive
it
surface,
is
hallucinatory
places situated far field of vision,
of
pictures
people
and
beyond the gazer's normal
and occasionally depicting events
occurring at the
moment they
are seen in the
crystal.
Occultists, as will
readily be understood, set
great store by crystal-gazing, finding in
proof of spirit action.
even
in
the
But again
it is
it
positive
unnecessary,
most extraordinary instances
re-
corded, to adopt any other explanatory hypothesis
than that of telepathy, and
in
most cases the
source of the visions can be traced directly to latent
memories
This has
in the gazer's
own mind.
been beautifully demonstrated by
Miss Goodrich-Freer, a lady who developed the faculty of crystal-gazing for the express purpose
[127]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL of studying ages.
and analyzing
Not everybody,
its
hallucinatory im-
should perhaps say,
I
can attain the degree of mental passivity requisite to seeing pictures in
the crystal, but fortu-
nately for the cause of scientific progress. Miss
Goodrich-Freer was eminently successful.
With the
aid of her crystal, Miss Goodrich-
Freer has frequently recalled dates
and other
information which she had forgotten and wished
one occasion, under
to remember;
and on at
least
exceptionally
peculiar
circumstances,
she
was
enabled to supply an address which was of no special interest to her,
to a relative.
Here
but was of special interest
is
her
own account
of the
^
episode: "
A
mine was talking one day with a the room next to that in which I was
relative of
caller in
reading, farther, I
and beyond wishing that they were paid no attention to anything they said,
and certainly could have declared positively that I did not hear a word. Next day I saw in a polished 1
mahogany
In the Proceedings of
table, the
'1,
Society for
vol. viii, p. 489.
[128]
Earl's
Square,
Psychical Research,
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING Netting
Hill,'
had no idea whose
but some days later
might be; '
marked:
I
H. (the
She told
sington.
but I did not write to ask:
'
Was
my
it
relative re-
has
caller aforesaid)
me
this address
down.'
It occurred to
Earl's Square?
1,
Ken-
her address the other day,
'
it,
left
And
me this
turned out to be the case."
On
another occasion, she says in the long report
she has
made on
the subject to the Society for
Psychical Research, she saw in the crystal the picture
a
of
dark-colored
wall,
covered
with
She had been taking a walk that morning through the streets of London, and white jessamine.
she thought that perhaps the crystal image represented
though
some spot she had passed this
in her walk,
seemed unlikely, both because she
could not remember having seen such a wall,
and because jessamine-covered walls are by no means common in London streets. But the next day she retraced her
steps,
and presently came
to the identical scene of her crystal vision, the sight of
it
bringing the immediate recollection
that at the
moment
before she
had been engaged
she passed this spot the day
[129]
in absorbing con-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL versation with a friend,
and her attention was
The
wholly preoccupied.
reproduction in the crystal
fact,
however, of
made
it
its
evident that,
by the subtle power of subconscious perception she had obtained a perfect mental image of it. Similarly, while busied one
day with household accounts, she opened the drawer of her writing table to get her bank-book, and her hand came in
Welcoming the sug-
contact with her crystal.
gestion of a change in occupation, she took
and began to gaze into "
Figures were
still
it.
it
up,
But, she says:
uppermost, and the crystal
had nothing more attractive to show me than the combination seven-six-nine-four. this as
probably the
number
Dismissing
of the cab I
had
driven in that day, or a chance grouping of the figures with
which
aside
the
which
I certainly
crystal
and found, to
my
had been occupied, I laid and took up my bank-book, I
had not seen
I
should,
some months,
surprise, that the
the cover was 7604. figures,
for
Had
number on
I wished to recall the
without
doubt,
have
failed,
and could not even have guessed at the number of digits or the value of the first figure."
[130]
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING It
not surprising to find Miss Goodrich-Freer
is
adding: "
Certainly, one result of crystal-gazing
teach one to abjure the verb
moods and Still it is
'
to forget
is
to
'
in all its
tenses." possible that in the act of opening the
drawer, she caught a glimpse, without realizing it,
of the
many
number on the bank-book.
cases, though, in her experience
There are
and
in the
experience of other crystal-gazers, proving absolutely that latent
memories dating back even to
be thus recalled; and similar evi-
childhood
may
dence
forthcoming
is
from
hallucinations
ex-
"
perienced without the aid of a crystal. A psy" chic with whom Professor Hyslop has often
home
experimented, and whose
is
in
Brooklyn,
used to have a recurrent visual hallucination of a bright blue sky overhead, a garden with a high
and a peculiar chain pump situated at the back of the house. fence,
Some time visit to
later she left
her girlhood
home
Brooklyn to pay a
in Ohio,
a lady who invited her to tea.
went into the garden, and [131]
in the garden,
where she met After tea they
there, to her
amaze-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL ment, she saw the high fence and the chain
She
of her hallucination.
felt
pump
quite sure that
she had never been in the place until that day,
and
it
looked very
much
as
though she had been
given a supernatural revelation of
it.
But the
mystery was solved on her return to Brooklyn. Telling her mother of her
odd experience, she
asked she thought there was any possibility she could have visited that particular house and if
garden in her younger days. "
"
When
two or three years
old, I
Why, yes," was the unexpected
you were a often took
But not
little girl,
you to all
reply.
it."
crystal visions
may
thus be attrib-
uted to the emergence of subconscious perceptions or the recrudescence of forgotten memories.
There are some
which the telepathic action of mind upon mind is clearly manifested, and in which the crystal seems to serve as a mechanical aid,
of
in
enabling the percipient to become aware
the telepathic
ever, as I
message.
have already
said,
In no case, howis it
necessary to go
beyond telepathy to find an adequate explanation.
[132]
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING The same
applies to the
phenomena
to which
phenomena
of
regarded by
we
still
shall
more
singular
turn next
— the
automatic speaking and writing,
many
as affording incontrovertible
proof of the vahdity of the spiritistic belief that
the
dead can and do communicate with the
living.
[133]
CHAPTER
IV
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING is
a widespread belief that spiritism
— or spiritualism, as THERE known — on the wane, and
it is
is
more commonly
will
soon be
But the
gated to the limbo of extinct religions. facts indicate otherwise.
rele-
At a conservative
es-
timate, there are to-day, in the United States alone,
more
no fewer than 75,000 avowed
spiritists, in
or less regular attendance at the meetings
and possessing church property valued at $2,000,000; and more
of nearly
than
450
spiritist
1,500,000
societies,
believers
who,
without openly
identifying themselves with
any
the
public
ministrations
of
1,500
society, accept
and
10,000
"
followed private mediums. Spiritism has even " the flag into the Philippines, seances being held at Manila and elsewhere.
This certainly
moribund
is
religion,
a remarkable showing for a
and
what makes
[134]
it
more
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING remarkable
the fact that spiritism, from
is
its
very beginnings sixty years ago, has been per-
meated with fraud.
New York
daughters of a little
Its founders, the
Fox
sisters,
farmer, were naughty
who amused themselves by making
girls
strange noises which superstitious persons inter-
preted as communications from the dead.
proving profitable to the of
Fox, the business " knockings spread from
"
producing
town
spirit
was born.
sisters
and forthwith modern
to town,
This
Since then
its
and dismal catalogue skeptical investigators.
spiritism
record has been a long
swindles
of
exposed by
month
Scarcely a
passes
without a story of some sensational expose; yet, disproving
all
predictions to the contrary, spirit-
ism continues to expand, constantly welcoming
new recruits
to its ranks.
Several reasons account for ress
amazing progunder what would appear to be the most
adverse conditions imaginable.
tendency of
many
of
makes
humanity.
to
One
is
the innate
people to dabble with the
occult and mysterious. spiritism
its
Another
is
the most sacred
the appeal
emotions
Its central doctrine is that it is
[135]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL possible for the dead to
surviving
of
dinary powers.
their
through
the
and
relatives
mediumship
communicate with
psychics
loved ones
seen,
whom To
gifted with extraor-
Thus the hope
messages of good cheer
— that
friends,
"
"
may
who have passed
their voices
may
is
raised that
be received from
to the great
Beyond
be heard, their faces
hands clasped by those from death has separated them.
and
the
their
seance,
spiritistic
grief-stricken
consequently,
men and women,
skeptical perhaps,
but fervently hopeful that their skepticism be overcome.
To borrow
go
Professor James's
will stri-
king phrase, they are already deeply imbued with " the will to believe," and are in no mood for close observation of
room.
what happens
in the seance
Usually, to speak plainly, they are utterly
lacking in the qualities that investigator.
sorbing,
and
The
make
a
sense of their loss
in this state of
mind
it is
scientific is
all-ab-
easy for
any trickster who poses as a medium to delude them into fancying that they have actually been in
touch with the dead.
But the main reason why [
136
1
spiritism has sur-
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING vived repeated exposes, and persists as
a force
to be reckoned with in the rehgious hfe of to-day,
by no means altogether synonymous with swindling. There are certain the fact that
is
it
is
phenomena, particularly so-called automatic speaking and writing, which it is out of the question to attribute invariably to trickery and
While one need have no hesitation
deceit.
dismissing as
diums
— that
fraudulent is
to say,
^
all
"
"
physical
in
me-
mediums whose stock
in
trade is the production of such phenomena as " " materialization of spirit forms and faces, the
the levitation and flinging about of furniture, and " " sitters the striking of the by unseen hands " " the case of the automatists, or psychical
—
mediums,
is
decidedly different.
These are mediums who, peculiar
condition
of
after passing into a
trance,
and occasionally
while seemingly in their usual waking state, ap-
pear to be controlled by some outside intelligence, and,
when
so controlled, utter or write informa"
" fraudulent should Of course, strictly speaking, the term not be applied to those mediums who are the victims of a peculiar form of hysteria. This is discussed in detail in the next chapter. 1
[137]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL which
tion
it is
hard,
if
not impossible, to beheve
they could have obtained by any ordinary means.
To
be sure, there
tists,
as
whom
against
Some
on guard. brazen
of these are out-and-out cheats,
most
rascally
materializers.
on guessing and on drawn from hints uncon-
for their success
shrewdly
dropped
sciously
a host of spurious automa-
one cannot be too watchfully
the
as
Some depend inferences
is
by
their
Quite
patrons.
a
number, however, undoubtedly seem to exercise a
gift
utilized
not
possessed
— by
—
or,
at
all
events,
not
everyday men and women.
One Sunday
evening, in the late nineties, I
visited the spiritist
church on Bedford Avenue,
Brooklyn, of which the late Ira Moore Corliss
was then pastor. In his day Mr. Corliss was probably the most prominent medium in Brooklyn, a city where spiritism has always flourished.
He was an
obviously religious-minded man, and
one who sincerely believed that
it
was
his mission
to act as an intermediary between this world
and
That evening the usual order of services a prayer, in spiritist churches was followed " some hymn singing, a sermon, or inspirational the next.
—
[138]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING discourse," and, lastly, the giving of in
sages,"
"
which the medium passed
up and down the
aisles,
rapidly
pausing here and there
to deliver oral communications alleged to
from the world of Seated next to of dignified
mes-
test
come
spirits.
me was an
elderly gentleman
who watched
appearance,
the pro-
ceedings with a quiet smile of contempt.
evident that this was the
first
It
was
time he had ever
seen anything of the kind, and that he was both
amused and
Suddenly Mr.
disgusted.
Corliss,
halting directly in front of him, said, in the quick, " nervous way common to him when under spirit control ": " I
"
have a message for you, "
For
me.'*
sir."
repeated the elderly gentleman,
incredulously.
"
Yes,
sir,
wants to thank you
him to-day.
There
for you.
It
is
for
is
a spirit here that
your kindly thought of
the spirit of a rather
tall
man,
heavily built, clean-shaven, with bright, tender eyes.
The
He
says his
name
is
Henry Ward Beecher."
smile faded from the other's face.
bent forward, hstening intently. [
139
]
He
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
Go
"
on," he said.
This
that he
glad to
is
He
him.
"
continued the medium,
spirit,"
know you have not
says
forgotten
says that he was with you this after-
noon, when you went to the cemetery and took this flower
from
his grave."
With a dramatic gesture Mr. CorHss drew from the
lapel of his astonished auditor's coat a
sprig of geranium, see
and held
it
up so that
could
all
it.
"
"
Am
I not
You
are.
Afterward
"
he demanded.
right.f^
Quite right." I joined the elderly
the sidewalk, and plied
found him "
This
is
gentleman on
him with
questions.
I
greatly mystified.
too
much
me," said
for
"
he.
I
am
a stranger to Brooklyn, and had never attended
a spiritualist meeting
dropped this
until
in out of curiosity.
afternoon
I
visited
Henry Ward Beecher
is
But
the
me
in
it is
buried,
younger days.
How
[140]
where
and picked
memento
Mr. Beecher was a very good
my
only
true that
cemetery
flower from near his grave, as a visit.
I
to-night.
the
of
this
my
friend to
medium
could
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING know
these facts I cannot imagine. of
nobody
no one saw
On the
another
first
occasion I
of the
who dehvered
took an
told
am
artist friend to
The medium
Corhss type, an automatist "
"
his
I
pick the flower.'*
seance he ever attended.
was a psychic
of
me
had
and
trip to the cemetery,
my
positive that
I
spirit
messages
by word
There were perhaps a dozen other To one of these, a thin, gaunt, present.
mouth.
sitters
young woman, the entranced medium announced the presence of "a spirit
haggard-looking
named Wagner." than the ised
It
was none other,
it
spirit of the great musician,
appeared,
who prom-
he would aid her with her musical composi-
tions.
A
smile of infinite content transformed
her careworn features, as she leaned over and
whispered to "
The
my
spirit
friend:
of
Liszt
is
already helping me.
With Wagner's aid I cannot fail." One could not smile in face of the story of boundless faith and pitiful struggle these few words
And
told.
with the next
sitter
pathos rose
to positive tragedy.
"
There
is
the spirit of a 141 ] [
man
here,
whose
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL name lie
Frederick," the
is
medium
comes to you, madam.
" declared,
Take
my
and
hand."
Slowly a woman, dressed in deep mourning, stood up and extended her hand. Intensity was written in every line of her face. " There were two Fredericks," she said. " is
Which
" it.?
"
It
is
the Frederick
—
it is
the Frederick, who,
while on earth, did this."
And he "
struck her sharply on the arm.
I
understand,"
What
stand.
All this
she
does he
of
tell
to
the contrary, the
familiarized himself
these
women,
passed to the friend "
message
who
by
my
with the
doubtless
when he was
man.
in this sphere
of soldiers, a general.
looks Hke."
[142]
life
were
But now he
side.
for you, sir," said he,
spirit of a military-looking
mander
under-
say.?
regular attendants at his seances.
A
I
was mteresting, but not convincing.
medium had stories
"
murmured, "
For aught we could
that
Tears
her eyes.
filled
"
from the
Yes, he says
he was a com-
This
is
what he
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING He
launched into a long description, which I
could see was making a profound impression on
my "
friend.
Has he anything
particular to say to
me?
"
he asked. "
He
must on no account
says that you
the offer that has been
made
to
decline
you to go West
—
that you will never regret going."
Less than two hours earlier
had
told
me
of a
my
companion
commission unexpectedly ten-
dered him, involving a long sojourn in California.
At the medium's words he turned
pale,
and
glanced around as though half expecting to see
a ghost standing behind his chair. When the seance had come to an end, and we
were walking home together, he solemnly assured me that the medium had accurately described a
an army
dead
friend,
eral,
whose advice, had he been
officer of
have sought with regard to
the rank of genalive,
he would
his projected
journey
to California.
Again, there
is
an interesting case reported
England by the Reverend Wilhs M. Cleaveland. Among Mr. Cleaveland's parish-
from
New
[143]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL ioners
was a young woman, Miss Edith Wright,
who developed
mediiimistic abihties, being con-
trolled at times
by what purported
to be a dis-
Dreading notoriety. Miss Wright gave very few seances, and then only to her carnate
spirit.
closest friends or to sitters with
whom
were well acquainted, and
whose discretion
in
her friends
they could place reliance.
One
of these
interested
obtain,
if
in
was Mr. Cleaveland, who, being
psychical
research,
possible, proof of the identity of the
supposed communicating are a
spirit,
he said
able to give us
thing
undertook to
some
in effect,
facts
about your history
If
you
really
you ought
to be
spirit.
about yourself, somewliile
you were on
earth, with data that will enable us to obtain " " The control confirmation of what you say.
readily conceded the reasonableness of this, in the course of several seances
made
and
twenty-six
personal statements, of which the most
signifi-
cant were:
That her name was Amelia B. Norton.
That she had been the daughter clergyman, of the
"
water type."
[144]
of
an orthodox
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING That she had in the State of
Kennebec River,
lived near the
Maine.
That when writing letters it had been her custom to sign herself by the initials N. N., meaning Nellie Norton.
That she had died
in
middle
life.
That when quite young she had had a love affair with a Mr. L. C. Brown, who was still and engaged in business in Boston, at an " " address which the gave. spirit living
As goes without saying, Mr. Cleaveland at once wrote to Mr. Brown, and in a few days received a reply from him, in which he said: " I was out in the town of Sharon very recently,
on an elderly gentleman who was a manufacturer there when I resided there as a boy
and
in
called
my teens. To my
surprise, as
we were
reviving
old recollections of fifty years ago, he spoke of a
Miss Norton that he said time. "
The
I
was sweet on at that
facts of the case are that
Mary
B. Nor-
who always signed herself Nellie B. Norton, came there, a young miss about my age. We ton,
were, I guess, ardent lovers, but in the course of
[145]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL town and she
two years
I left the
knew very
httle of her for a
I think
it
was about
and
did,
I
few years after that.
five years later
that on
my
way home from the TVTiite Mountains I stopped off at her home in Maine, which was beside a I feel sure this
large river.
Her
River.
was the Kennebec
father was an orthodox minister, but
do not understand the meaning I think some two years type.' I
residing in Fairhaven
I
have not seen
her.
*
water
later she
was
and sent me some papers
that contained letters written by
but from that time
of the
— some I
Mary
B. Norton,
over forty years
—
heard that she died some
years ago, and think she must have been about fifty
years of age."
Later Mr.
Brown wrote
again, saying that
second thought he was not certain that her
might not have been Amelia instead as he It
had always known her is
"
of
*
name Mary,
only as Nellie B."
^
to the constant occurrence of incidents
like these that the vitality of spiritism is
due.
on
To many
This case
is
people
it
mainly
seems impossible to
reported in detail in the Proceedings of the vol. ii, pp. 119-138.
American Society for Psychical Research,
[146]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING account for such detailed and abundantly corroborated proofs of personal identity on any hypothesis
Yet
short of actual spirit control.
analysis,
day
when viewed
scientific
in the sober light of latter-
it
will
workings of the
of the
knowledge
human mind,
in the last
be found that they do not
afford the conclusive demonstration of the validity
on the surface
of the spiritistic doctrine which
they appear to yield.
For there
is
always the
— amounting, warranted saypossibility — to certainty that what they really indicate in
I feel
ing,
is
not communication with the dead, but thought
transference between living minds.
In fact the telepathic connection between the
mind is
often
cited,
medium and
of the
most obvious.
the
Take the
and which are typical
munications.
medium
The
Corliss
to
mind
of the sitter
three cases just
com-
of mediumistic
statements the friend
made by the of Henry Ward
Beecher were statements relating to an incident fresh in the latter's
obtainable there
is
by
the
memory, and therefore telepathic
reason to believe,
command
of
is
which,
exceptionally at the
genuine psychics.
[147]
process,
easily
Likewise,
my
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL was much occupied mentally with
artist friend
the
problems involved in the California
and was doubtless thinking
of
it,
offer,
consciously or
subconsciously, at the time the medium invoked " " of the army officer whose advice the spirit
my still
would have sought had that officer been in the flesh. All the medium had to do friend
was to tap telepathically sciousness and extract from *'
revelation
"
my it
subcon-
friend's
every detail of the
so sensationally
made
to
him
in
the seance room. Slightly different, however,
Edith Wright.
Here the
the case of Miss
is
facts
thought to ema-
nate from the dead Amelia B. Norton were facts
concerning which Miss Wright's
sitter,
erend Mr. Cleaveland, was ignorant.
most
the Rev-
But
it
is
significant that, continuing his researches,
Mr. Cleaveland made the discovery that Miss Norton's old sweetheart, Mr. Brown, had had at least one sitting with Miss Wright.
Mr. Brown
denied that he had ever said anything about
Miss Norton
in
Miss Wright's presence; but
his
memory may have played him
false,
event, she could have got from
him by telepathy
[148]
and, in any
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING the data with which she afterward
both him and Mr. Cleaveland. the reader that
among
me remind
Let
the few definitely ascer-
tained laws of telepathy
is
the fact that
possible for telepathic messages to in
astonished
lie
it
is
long latent
the recipient's mind before emerging above
the threshold of consciousness.
This
is
even greater significance
of
tion with the rarer, but
stances
in
still
in connec-
quite numerous, in-
which the mediumistic communica-
tions offered as evidence of spirit identity refer
to incidents not sitter or
known by
by any previous
the
medium
sitter.
These,
or
by the
spiritists
absolutely inexplicable on the telepathic basis. I can make their position clearer by citing an illustrative case taken from the insist,
are
experience of that greatest of automatists, the
New
England medium, Mrs. Leonora E. Piper, whose remarkable mediumistic faculty was first
made known James
to the scientific world
thirty years ago,
by Professor
and who has since been
repeatedly investigated by leading
the Society for Psychical Research.
members
of
Detectives
have been employed to dog her footsteps, open [149]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL her mail, watch her every move.
But not once
have they detected her in fraudulent practices; and, on the other hand, she has given such convincing proof of the genuineness of her power
that some of the most skeptical vestigators
"
value her
On
among
her in-
have ended by accepting at face messages from the dead."
one occasion, while she was being investi-
gated in England by a committee of experts, that
famous EngUsh psychical researcher.
Oliver Lodge,
placed in her hands,
Sir
while she
was entranced, a gold watch once the property of an uncle of his who had died some twenty It was now owned by another years before. uncle, a twin brother of the dead man. " I was told almost immediately," says " that it had belonged to one of Oliver,
uncles
— one
Robert,
the
Sir
my
that had been very fond of Uncle
name
watch was now
of
the survivor
— that
in the possession of this
Uncle Robert, with
whom
anxious to communicate.
its
late
the
same
owner was
After some difficulty
and many wrong attempts. Doctor Phinuit a
'
'
spirit
—
alleged to be controlling Mrs. Piper
[150]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING
— caught
the
name
Jerry, short for Jeremiah,
and said emphatically, as if impersonating him: This is my watch, and Robert is my brother, *
and "
I
am
here.
Uncle Jerry,
my
watch.'
on the very morning the watch had arrived by post, no one but myself and a shorthand clerk, who happened to
All this at the first sitting
have been introduced
time at this
for the first
sitting
by me, and whose antecedents were
known
to me, being present.
well
"
Having thus ostensibly got into communication through some means or other with what purported to be Uncle Jerry,
known
whom
I
had indeed
slightly in his later years of blindness,
of
whose early
to
him that
presence
it
to
life
I
knew
nothing, I pointed out
make Uncle Robert aware
would be well to
of their boyhood,
all
of
but
of his
recall trivial details
which I would faithfully
report.
"
He
quite caught the
idea,
and proceeded
during several successive sittings ostensibly to instruct
Doctor Phinuit to mention a number
of little things such as
to recognize him.
would enable
his brother
References to his blindness,
[151]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and main
illness,
tively useless details of
facts of his
from
my
life
'
boyhood, two-thirds
Uncle
'
Jerry
but these
point of view; of
were utterly and entirely out of "
were compara-
recalled
a century ago,
my
ken.
such
episodes
as
swimming the creek when they were boys gether, and running some risk of getting drowned; to-
a cat in Smith's
killing
small
and
rifle,
of
the possession of a
field;
a long, peculiar
skin, like
which he thought was now
snakeskin,
in
a
the
possession of Uncle Robert.
"
All these facts
pletely
have been more or
But the
verified.
that his twin brother, from
and with
whom
I
interesting
whom
was thus
could not remember them sometliing about
less
thing
I got the
is
watch
in correspondence,
He
all.
swimming the
himself had merely looked on.
com-
recollected
creek,
though he
He had
a distinct
having had the snakeskin, and of the box in which it was kept, though he did recollection
not
of
know where
it
was then.
But he
altogether
denied killing the cat, and could not recall Smith's field.
"
His memory, however, was decidedly
[152]
failing
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING him, and he was good enough to write to another brother, Frank, Hving in Cornwall, an old sea captain,
and ask
if
he had any better rememof course not giving
brance of certain facts
—
any inexplicable reason for asking. The result of this inquiry was triumphantly to vindicate the existence of Smith's
field as
a place near their
home, where they used to play in Barking, Essex; and the killing of a cat by another brother was also recollected;
creek, near a
while of the
swimming
mill-race, full details
Frank and Jerry being the heroes
of the
were given, of that fool-
hardy episode." Sir
Oliver
Lodge himself appears to believe
that he was actually in communication, through
Mrs. Piper, with his dead Uncle Jerry; and by spiritists generally this is alluded to as a characteristic instance
impossible of explanation on the
theory of telepathy between living minds. it is
pertinent to point out that possibly, in his
childhood. Sir Oliver in
But
some moment
very incidents.
may have
heard his uncles,
of reminiscence, discussing these
He would
naturally have for-
gotten the episode, so far as conscious recollection
[153]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL of
it
was concerned; but he would none the
less
have retained some memory
of their conversa-
tion in his subconsciousness,
whence Mrs. Piper
could have gained knowledge of
And, even had he never heard
it
telepathically.
of the incidents,
they might indeed have been transmitted to him telepathically from the surviving uncles,
and been
by him retransmitted to Mrs. Piper. This
it
does telep-
athy between more than two persons,
may seem
last possibility,
to be far-fetched.
involving as
But there
dence that telepathy of this nically as telepathie d
have
in
mind one
trois
is
plenty of evi-
sort — known tech— an actuaHty. I is
particularly
interesting case
by Mr. Andrew Lang, the brilliant esand psychical researcher. It concerns a
studied sayist
crystal-gazer
"
named Miss Angus.
Again and again," to give Mr. Lang's own
words,
"
Miss Angus,
sitting with
man
or
woman,
described acquaintances of theirs but not of hers, in situations not
known
to be true to fact.
to the sitters but proved
In one instance. Miss Angus
described doings, from three weeks to a fortnight old,
of people in India,
people
[154]
whom
she had
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING never seen or heard
of,
but who were known to
Her account, given on a Saturday, was corroborated by a letter from India, which
her
sitter.
In another case she
arrived next day, Sunday.
described
— about
ten
p.
m.
— what
a lady, not
but the daughter of a matron present, who was not the sitter, had been doing about four p. m. on the same day. Again, sitting
known
to her,
with a lady. Miss Angus described a singular set of scenes
much
in the
mind, not of her
sitter,
but
unsympathetic stranger, who was reading a book at the other end of the room. " I have tried every hypothesis, normal and of a very
not so normal, to account for these and analo-
gous performances of Miss Angus.
There was,
in
the Indian and other cases, no physical possibility
of collusion;
chance coincidence did not
seem adequate; ghosts were out of the question, so was direct clairvoyance. Nothing remained for the speculative theorizer
currents
of
but the idea of cross
telepathy between
Miss Angus, a
casual stranger, the sitters, and people far away,
known
to the sitters or the stranger, but
to Miss Angus. [
155
]
unknown
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
Now," adds Mr. Lang,
every attendant at well
to
learn
in a
spiritistic
paragraph that
seances would do
"
by
heart,
Miss
that
suppose
Angus, instead of dealing with living people by
had dealt by way of voice or automatic handwriting, and had introduced
way
of crystal-visions,
a dead
'
Then she would have
communicator.'
been on a par with Mrs. Piper, yet with no aid
from the dead." "
That automatists sitters,
or
read the mind
draw upon the contents
subconsciousness
in
obtaining
the
they give out as coming from the
"
of their
of their facts
own
which
spirit world, is
further evident from experiments in automatic writing conducted lish
by
several
American and Eng-
psychical researchers.^
But when they
are
genuine automatists,
it
would be unjust to accuse them of conscious ^
The
extent to which automatists sometimes draw on the
contents of their
own
subconsciousness
is
strikingly illustrated
by a case investigated by Mr. Lowes Dickinson, wherein the medium, an estimable young lady of his acquaintance, was " " " " of a noblewoman of controlled spirit seemingly by the the Middle Ages, who described the customs, manners, and personages of the country in which she claimed to have lived, in such minute detail and with such accuracy that it seemed
[156]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING deception in attributing their communications to
The
discarnate spirits.
not unlike,
As
state.
be shown in detail
increased
He
person hypnotized. slightest
matter
how
ridiculous
be, so long as
may
moral sense. think that he self,
and
gested
one of the is
the
suggestibility
of
the
will
suggestion
later,
hypnosis
of
characteristics
preternaturally
the
is
not identical with, the hypnotic
if
will
distinctive
an abnormal condition, and
fall is
they usually
trance state into which
of
accept and act upon the
hypnotist,
no
and absurd the suggestion
it
is
not repugnant to his
Moreover, he can be induced to is
some one other than
will often
personality
assume the with
his real
traits of the sug-
a fidelity
that
is
as-
tounding. So, likewise, atist,
—
who
will
we must
believe, with the
autom-
impersonate anybody suggested
albeit suggested quite unconsciously
— by the
was one case at all events in which survival had been proved. Ultimately it was discovered that every fact certain this
given by the alleged spirit was contained in a little known historical novel which the medium had read, but read only once, when a very small girl. So far as conscious recollection went she had forgotten all about this book, but subconsciously she
had evidently retained a marvelously exact memory
[157]
of
it.
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL sitters,
whether
it
be the
an Indian
philosopher,
"
" spirit
chief,
or
of a
the
Greek
deceased
some one present. Usually he is so deeply entranced as to have no knowledge of what he is doing, just as the hypnotized subject
friend of
remains in ignorance of the actions he carries out in response to the operator's suggestions.
But there
a record of at least one instance in
is
which the automatist, an amateur psychical
named Charles H. Tout,
searcher
recognized
clearly
that his
tions were suggested to
Mr. Tout
play
of
Vancouver,
various
impersona-
him by the
spectators.
relates that after attending
seances with some friends he
medium
re-
felt
a few
an impulse to
himself and assume an alien per-
Yielding to this impulse, he discovered
sonality.
that, without losing complete control of his con-
sciousness,
he could develop a secondary
self
that would impose on the beholders as a discar-
nate spirit. On one occasion he thus impersonated " " the of a dead woman, the mother of a spirit friend
present,
and
his
impersonation was ac-
cepted as a genuine case of spirit control. another,
after
On
having given several successful
[158]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING impersonations, he suddenly this point,
"
One
to
trolling him,'
was and
weak and
ill.
At
he states:
made
of the sitters
remember
felt
'
have overheard,
and
whom
distressed in
the remark, which I
I
my
It
is
seemed to
I then
father con-
realize
who
I
was seeking. I began to be lungs, and should have fallen
they had not held me by the hands and let me back gently upon the floor. I was in a measure if
my
conscious of
still
surroundings, and
I
though not
actions,
have a
clear
ing myself in the character of lying in the bed
and
in the
room
memory
my in
shrunken hands and his
—
face,
dying moments; only
some
in
indistinct
and
which he died.
saw
I
his
lived again through
now
sort
my
of see-
dying father
was a most curious sensation.
It
of
I
of
was both myself and my way
—
and appearance." which Mr. Tout rightly attributes to
father, with his feelings
All of
"
the dramatic working out, by some half -con-
scious stratum of his personality, of suggestions
made
at the time
by other members
of the circle,
or received in prior experiences of the kind."
Add
to
this
the
known [159]
facts
of
telepathic
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and there
action, for a
is
no need
of looking further
comprehensive explanation of the otherwise
perplexing and supernatural-seeming of psychic
phenomena
This applies even to "
automatism.
the phenomenon of so-called
cross-correspond-
which has been especially stressed the
ence,"
past few years
by
certain
members
of the Society
for Psychical Research as affording proof positive of survival.
With
reference to this particular problem,
should in the
first
it
place be said that, in addition
to Mrs. Piper, there are a
number
of other auto-
matic writers who have been similarly investigated by the Society for Psychical Research for a long term of years, and whose trustworthiness has likewise been definitely established.
They
include a Mrs. Holland, a Mrs. Forbes, a Mrs.
Thompson, Mrs.
Verrall, of
Newnham
College,
Cambridge, England, and Mrs. Verrall's daughter. Miss Helen Verrall. Through these ladies
been
received,
"
"
thousands of alleged
spirit
messages
many
including
have
purporting
to
come from Edmund Gurney, Henry Sidgwick, Frederic Myers, and Richard Hodgson, who in [
160
1
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING most active and promithe Society for Psychical Re-
their lifetime were the
nent members of search.
And among
the automatic writings sup-
posed to emanate from them there have been not a few so pecuharly conditioned as to suggest " " of the four great not only that the spirits researchers
psychical
living friends,
are
in
with
touch
their
but that they are working hard
to devise special tests to prove their identity.
To put
the matter more concretely, let
the case of Mrs. Holland.
This lady
is
me
cite
a resident
In 1893, having seen in the Review
of India.
of Reviews
a
reference
she experimented in
it
to
automatic
herself,
writing,
and found that
she possessed the faculty of penning coherent sentences without being conscious of what she
was
writing.
She continued these experiments
for ten years, or until 1903,
"
Myers's
Human
when, after reading
Personality and
its
Survival of
Bodily Death," she one day discovered that her
automatic writing was seemingly no longer spontaneous, but controlled by two outside intelli" " and Myers gences that called themselves " " control," alternating with Gurney." Each
[161]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL the other, caused her to write long communications,
which there was mingled with much
in
that seemed unintelligible and nonsensical long descriptions
Her
of
unnamed persons and
interest aroused,
number them
of
to
communications
these
places.
Mrs. Holland collected a
and mailed
Miss Alice Johnson, Research
Officer
of the English Society for Psychical Research.
Examining them
much
covered,
tained
carefully.
Miss Johnson
to her surprise, that they con-
unmistakable references
had known intimately, but satisfied
to
people
and
whom Myers and Gurney
the homes of people
Johnson
dis-
of
whom,
as
Miss
herself
by searching inquiry, Thus there Mrs. Holland had no knowledge. was an
excellent description of Mrs. Verrall, her
husband. Dr. A.
W.
Verrall,
and the Verrall
dining-room, in which Myers had often been entertained.
Even the
was correctly given.
street address of the Verralls
Miss Johnson, as
may
be
imagined, at once wrote, urging Mrs. Holland to continue her automatic wi-iting, all
and to forward
her script to the offices of the Society.
was done, with the
result that
[162]
much
This
else of
a
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING seemingly evidential value was soon obtained.
was
It
especially
noted
that,
although
Mrs.
Holland knew nothing of Latin and Greek, her
communications from the Myers control occasionally contained passages written in
guages,
both these lan-
with which Myers had been well ac-
quainted,
November in
Gurney control wrote
25, 1903, the
the automatic script:
"
Now
there
is
an experi-
ment want you to make — Suggest to the P. R. — to Miss — that some one with a trained — she have no finding some — — a few minutes — one of the sort to try a month — to convey every morning for at a thought — a phrase — a name — anything they — to your mind." In due course sugI
J.
will
difficulty in
will
for
is
least
this
like
gestion was sent son,
by Mrs. Holland
who arranged
to Miss John-
for a series of such experi-
ments, with Mrs. Verrall acting as the second
medium.
The experiments began
in
March, 1905, were
continued until towards the end of May, and
were resumed for a few weeks following year.
in the spring of the
The scheme adopted, however, [163]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL was not exactly that suggested by the Gurney Instead of simply attempting to con-
control.
vey some thought to Mrs. Holland's mind, Mrs. Verrall, at Miss Johnson's suggestion, wrote automatically
herself
Holland was to write.
on each day that Mrs. Neither medium was to
hold the slightest communication with the other,
but both were to forward their automatic In
to Miss Johnson as soon as written.
scripts fact, in
order to prevent any loophole for fraud. Miss
Johnson throughout the 1905 experiments kept Mrs. Holland
in ignorance of the identity of her
fellow-experimenter, who, on her side, was igno" Holthe rant of Mrs. Holland's real name
—
land
"
being a pseudonym.
interesting results
March
1,
exceedingly
were secured.
1905, Mrs. Holland's script contained
these sentences,
blue jar
Some
"
— jonquils
There are cut flowers I think
tulips near the window.
hints at spring,
A
and
tulips
dull day,
but the sky
and one chirping bird
above the roar of the
traffic."
in the
— growing is
heard
In reply to a ques-
tioning letter from Miss Johnson, Mrs. Verrall
wrote:
[164]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING "
On March
draw-
my
the only cut flowers in
1
ing-room were in two blue china jars on the the flowers were large single daffo-
mantelpiece;
On
dils.
the ledge of
the
window
three pots of grow ing yellow tulips
.
.
.
— the
were only
any window. The day was dull morning, but about twelve the sun came
flowers near in the
out and
was warm;
it
it
rained heavily in the
afternoon."
"
There was no writings of the
two weeks a week
two
— the
— but
" cross-correspondence
in the
scripts for this or the next
experimenters wrote only once
in the scripts of the
week following
Miss Johnson found a curious coincidence
— the
presence of notes of music. or since, she
peared
in the script of either
"
Mrs. Verrall or Mrs.
In Mrs. Holland's script of that same
Holland. date,
testifies,
Only once before have notes of music ap-
March
22,
there was also a reference to
the ivory gate through which
come."
Mrs. Verrall,
19 or 20, "
the
it
iEneid
good dreams
was learned, on March
had been reading "
all
Virgil's
passage in
about the gates of horn and ivory.
She had been reading Dante, too, [165]
in the original
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Italian, the first
time she had read anything in
Itahan for months;
and, oddly enough,
Mrs.
Holland's script for
March 22 contained a
sen-
tence in Italian.
Later scripts were characterized by even more striking
and
correspondences,
— which
is
not
interest —
on more than one occasion without " " the issued warnings against placing controls faith
Eusapia Paladino.
in
December
1905,
1,
the
through Mrs. Holland:
For instance, on
Myers control wrote "There may be raps
genuine enough of their kind
—
I
concede the
— poltergeist merely — but the luminous raps — the sounds a semi-musical nature appearances — trickery — the flower upon the table — trickery." And the Gurney control added: " are very important — Next time can't Her of
falling
feet
Miss
J.
sit
with the sapient feet both touching
hers — Let her
fix
her thoughts on the feet and
prevent the least movement of them." As American investigators have since discovered, Eusapia's feet are indeed important.
These
first
experiments were followed by others,
in which, besides
Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Verrall,
[166]
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING all
mediums mentioned above
four of the other
took part, and again suggestive cross-correspondences were secured.
Besides which, having been
induced by the results of the Verrall-HoUand experiments to study more closely earlier scripts stored in the Society's archives, Miss Johnson
discovered
what seemed
correspondences that
to
be
occurred
similar
before
any
ex-
I
can
August
28,
periments of this kind were undertaken. give only one or two illustrations.
cross-
1901, Mrs. Forbes wrote a message purporting
to
come from her dead son Talbot,
to the effect
that he had to leave her in order to control an" other sensitive," and through her obtain corroboration of Mrs. Forbes's
On fir
own automatic
writing.
the same day Mrs. Verrall wrote in Latin of a tree planted in a garden,
signed
The
and the
script
was
with a sword and a suspended bugle.
latter
was part
of the
badge
of the
regiment
had belonged, and Mrs. Forbes had in her garden some fir trees grown from seed sent to her by her son. These facts, to which Talbot Forbes
according to Miss Johnson, were
Mrs. Verrall. [167]
unknown
to
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL In another case Mrs. Forbes wrote, on
Novem-
ber 26 and 27, 1902, references, absolutely meaningless to herself, to a passage in a
book which
Mrs. Verrall had been reading on those days;
and the references
also applied appropriately to
an obscure sentence of
November
in
Mrs. Verrall's own script
26.
But undoubtedly the most impressive
cross-
correspondences were obtained in a series of ex-
periments extending from November,
1906,
June, 1907, and
automa-
involving concordant
to
tism between Mrs. Holland, in India, and Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Verrall,
A
land.
full
and Miss
Verrall,
report on this series
is
in
Eng-
given in the
October, 1908, issue of the Society's Proceedings.
The plan
followed was to suggest to the controls " " of Mrs. Piper in her case the alleged spirits of
—
Myers, Sidgwick, and Hodgson
— that
they
transmit to one or more of the other automatists
some
test
failures,
word or message.
but there were also
There were many
many seeming
suc-
cesses.
January that
it
16, 1907, the
Myers
would, as a proof of
[168]
control promised
its
identity, cause
AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Verrall to sign a piece of automatic writing with a triangle
a
circle.
A circle
drawn within
with a triangle inside
it
actually
January 28, appeared in Mrs. exhibited several Holland while a script from Mrs. Verrall's script of
geometrical
it
Verrall, to
"
a
showed that
in
a
it.
and investigation
library matter,"
half
writing at her script
with
circle
February 6 the same control had just been referring, through Mrs.
triangle outside
said that
a
including
figures,
an hour
home
in
Mrs. Verrall,
earlier
Cambridge, had begun a "
"
which the word
library
— the
occurred
only time during the period " " was menof the experiments that library three times
tioned in her automatic writing or in Mrs. Piper's
The Myers
trance statements.
February
11,
announced that
and Browning
star,
script
showed that
"
it
to Mrs.
this
was
control again, on " had given hope, Verrall,
correct.
and her
February 12
the Hodgson control declared it had been trying " " arrow on Mrs. Verrall. to impress the word
Her
script for the previous day,
when
received
at the Society's oflSces in London, proved to be
decorated with a drawing of three arrows.
[169]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL It
is
— and
the multiplicity of coincidences like these
have given only the merest fragment of the evidence in hand that has recently perI
—
suaded
many
hitherto
hesitating
psychical re-
searchers, notably Sir Oliver Lodge, that scientific
proof of spirit communication has veritably been obtained. For myself, I nmst frankly say, however, that I cannot accept this view of the case.
Fraud,
I
admit,
is
out of the question as an ex-
planatory hypothesis.
Nor does
it
seem possible
to explain
away the evidence on the theory of mere chance, guessing, " lucky hits," etc. But there remains
the hypothesis of telepathy be-
tween living minds; and, as
it
seems to me, there
nothing whatever in the evidence presented incompatible with the view that the cross-correis
spondences
in
question
resulted
thought transference between themselves.
[170]
the
from
direct
automatists
CHAPTER V POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS
WE
have now to consider a very
different
class of spiritistic manifestations, the so-
"
phenomena," which are historically among the earliest on record, and at the same time are far more spectacular and sensacalled
tional
physical
than
the
phenomena produced by the
automatic speakers and writers.
They
include
such weird occurrences as the appearance in the seance room of ghostly forms alleged to be spirits
"materialized" by the power of the medium; the lifting of the latter from the floor by an invisible force;
the touching, pinching, and striking
of the sitters
by unseen hands, and the movement
of small articles of furniture as
Occasionally, gifted,
still
though
when the medium
more
is
alive.
particularly
striking happenings take place.
Thus, at a seance with Eusapia Paladino,
at-
tended by such eminent scientists as Professors [
171
]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Lombroso, Bianchi, Tamburini, censi, is
men whose
veracity
and As-
Vizioli,
beyond question,
is
it
recorded by Lombroso that: " We saw a great curtain, which separated our ^
room from an alcove more than three
adjoining,
feet distant
and which was
from the medium,
suddenly move out toward me, envelop me, and
wrap me close. Nor was I able to from it except with great difficulty. "
A
free myself
had been put in the little alcove room, at a distance of more than four and a
dish of flour
half feet
from the medium, who,
in her trance,
had thought, or, at any rate, spoken, of sprinkling some of the flour in our faces. When light was made,
it
was found that the dish was bottom
up, with the flour under sure,
but coagulated,
cumstance seems to first,
it.
like
me
This was dry, to be gelatine.
This
cir-
doubly irreconcilable
—
with the laws of chemistry, and, second,
with the power of movement of the medium,
had not only been bound as to her her hands held tight by our hands. "
side
When '
feet,
who
but had
the lights had been turned on, and "
After Death
— What? " pp. 57-58. [172]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS we were
ready to go, a great wardrobe that
all
stood in the alcove room, about six and a half feet
was seen advancing slowly seemed like a huge pachyderm
away from
towards
us,
It
us.
that was proceeding in leisurely fashion to attack us."
Other investigators, acter, report
marvels no
Eusapia
occasion,
men
of equally high char-
less
Paladino
amazing. is
On one with
credited
having created an invisible man, a being which the sitters could distinctly
feel,
although they
it, and which, annoyed by their prodding, finally turned on one of
could not see inquisitive
them and
bit
him
in the
thumb. For
this
we have
the authority of Professors Morselli and Barzini, the latter being the investigator whose
was
thumb
bitten.
Again, two English noblemen. Lords Dunraven and Crawford, affirm that they several times
saw another medium, the
late
D. D. Home,
ing through the air; once at a height of
seventy feet above the ground; "
same medium, by some elongated in
full
spiritual
float-
more than
and that the "
agency, was
view of them, so that they beheld
[173]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL his stature visibly increase, to decrease again to
normal height only when he came out
of the
trance condition.^
Unfortunately,
the
"
"
that
perform have a uncanny strong liking for darkness, a circumstance which has led to wholethese
spirits
feats
and repeatedly substantiated, accusations fraud. In fact, there is no other department spiritism to which the taint of fraud has so
sale,
of of
thoroughly attached itseK.
It
is
obvious that
any clever charlatan, by persuading that darkness
is
his sitters
necessary for the development
phenomena, can produce most mystifying effects, and the records of scientific investiof occult
gations,
to say
police courts,
have not
nothing of the records of our
abound
been slow in availing themselves of
this opportunity to
superstitious.
diums
will
in evidence that swindlers
The
prey on the credulous and lengths to which bogus
sometimes go, and the extreme
me-
gulli-
which renders their operations ridiculously easy and highly profitable, are amusingly iUusA detailed account of Home's performances will be found in my book, " Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters," pp. 143bility
^
170.
[174]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS by Mr. Hereward Caran investigator who has done much to
by a
trated
rington,
story told
make
the pubHc acquainted with the ways of " fraudulent psychics."
One
of these, according to
among head
his patrons
an elderly business man, the
of a large concern that
ing implements.
medium
on from marvel to marvel, "
manufactured farm-
After several months of inter-
course, during which the
no
Mr. Carrington, had
phenomenon
"
too
him
deftly led
until at last there
incredible
was
him
for
to
swallow, he was informed that at the next seance
he would have the unique experience of conversing with the spirit of a deceased inhabitant of the planet Jupiter.
Sure enough, after the lights had been carefully
turned low, he was accosted by a figure,
Jupiter,
which announced
itself
and which, speaking
shadowy
tall,
as a spirit
excellent English,
proceeded to describe the conditions of that far-off sphere.
The
were a poor, ignorant
Jupiterians,
lot,
scarcely
it
life
in
appeared,
removed from
barbarism; they were greatly in need of tion,
from
and any one who should help [175]
civiliza-
in civilizing
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL them would be generously rewarded
in the future
life.
"
I should be glad to
business
man
eagerly
do
my
power," the " but I'm volunteered, all in
afraid there's nothing I could do."
"
Yes, indeed, there
is.
I
understand that you
make farm implements and machinery. Well, they haven't as much as a spade on Jupiter. you would send a few tools there, great step toward civilizing them." If
"
But how
to them.^
"
That
in the
it
would be a
world could I get anything
"
quite simple," the
is
" explained.
"
" spirit
glibly
Just send the things to the
medium
them and
here,
and he
them
to Jupiter, where they will be rematerial-
will
dematerialize
ship
ized."
Instead of seeing in this a daring attempt to
him, the victim joyfully acquiesced, and
fleece
sent a to the
number
of spades, plows, harrows, etc.,
medium, who promptly disposed
of
them,
not to the people of Jupiter, but to a dealer in
such
articles.
Other seances followed, the
spirit
from Jupiter again appearing and describing [176]
in
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS picturesque language the beneficent consequences of the
This meant more
welcome presents.
which steadily increased until the confederate
number and
in
who had been
gifts,
value,
playing the
part of the dead Jupiterian finally became frightened.
"
Look
here," he told the
got to stop. satisfied
It
was
all
medium,
this
has
very well when you were
with plows, and rakes, and
like that,
"
little
things
but now that you have got him giving
you horses and harvesters
bound
there's
to be
trouble.
He's sure to find out in the end, and
some
morning
fine
we'll
wake up on the
inside of
a
jail."
"
Oh, don't worry," said the medium.
"
He'll
never find out anything." "
I'm not so certain
you'll
have
One word
that.
At any
rate,
somebody my place." and ended in a violent to take
led to another,
The
confederate, vowing vengeance, on the business man, and told him how he
quarrel. called
to get
of
had been duped.
He was met
ing reply: " I don't believe a
with the astonish-
word you say." [177]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "Didn't you send the medium, only yesterday, a horse and cart to
"You
don't?" he
be dematerialized? " "
cried.
"
Yes."
you wish to know where they are, come with me. He has them in a stable near his Well,
if
house, waiting to find a buyer."
Together they went to the
stable,
where the
confederate pointed out the horse and cart that to the
had been given
medium.
In particular,
he identified the cart by the number painted on "
Come, now,"
your " like
" "
cart,
said he,
can you?
Why," was
"
it.
that's
you can't deny
"
the answer,
"
it
does indeed look
my cart. But I know it isn't." " How do you know it isn't? Because
— "I
know
"
—
in a tone of
solemn conviction
that by this time
my
cart
is
on
Jupiter."
In another case, drawn to
my
attention
by a
Boston lawyer friend, the victim was a well-to-do merchant,
who had become
interested in spiritism
to shortly after the death of his wife,
whom
he had
been devotedly attached, and with whose [178]
spirit
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS he hoped to be brought into communication.
A
medium, learning this, determined to profit from his grief and longing, and hired a young woman to pose as the spirit of the dead wife. He was would be possible to wife from the spirit world
then told that before long "
materialize
"
his
it
with such substantiality that he would be able to clasp her in his arms.
When
the appointed time came, a slender form,
emerged from the mediumistic cabinet into the darkened seance room, and draped
in gauze,
saluted
him with a
There was not
"Husband!" "
"
enough to see the spirit's but he did not for an instant doubt that he
face,
was
joyful cry of
light
really gazing at his wife,
and rose to embrace
her.
At once the
lights
were turned up the medium explained that
figure vanished,
and
after the
" materializathere would have to be a good many " tions before the spirit form would be solid
enough
for
him
to touch
it.
This meant, of course, numerous seances, for
which the deluded husband paid handsomely. It also helped to blind affairs,
and increased
him
to the true state of
his infatuation to
[179]
such an
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL when
extent that
"
at length the
mitted to his caresses,
it
"
sub-
spirit
did not seem at
all
incongruous to find that he was pressing to his breast a flesh-and-blood
The medium now
woman.
resolved on a bold stroke.
Acting under her instruction, the terly
"
"
bit-
spirit
complained one evening that she did not
possess any jewelry.
exclaimed.
"Do
you mean to say that they wear jewelry
in the
"What!" other world? "
Oh,
what with "
I
little
"
I
"husband"
her "
yes.
But nothing
had while on
mine.'*
have
compare with What have you done
earth.
to
" it all
— every piece — put away
in
a
box."
Good.
Then
night, I can take
you
if
it
with
will
bring
me when
The medium, you know, can
it
to-morrow
I leave you.
dematerialize
it
for
us."
"
I will bring
it.
Rest assured of that."
Alas for husbandly devotion!
The seance
at
which he turned over the jewelry to the affec" " tionate of his wife was the last at which spirit
[180]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS he held communion with
When
her.
he next
he was told that the medium had been
called,
unexpectedly
summoned out
of town.
She never
came back. These two episodes are typical rather than exceptional instances of the sort of thing that
has been going on for years in connection with the
phenomena
physical
made
has been
of spiritism.
Its
continuance
by a widespread entertained not by the ignorant and super-
belief,
stitious merely,
intellectual
and
possible largely
men
but by
of distinction in the
world, that, notwith-
scientific
standing the prevalence of fraud, there are at least
some physical phenomena which must be
accounted genuine.
Men
like the Italian
savants already named,
the English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace; the great
French
many satisfied
seance
chemist,
Sir
that
room
who
Crookes;
might be mentioned,
have
they
witnessed
out
occurrences
the
Flammarion, and
Camille
astronomer, others
William
of
all
in
are
the
accord
with natural laws, and not to be attributed to fraud. [
181
]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL laid
on
leaving out of consideration
all
In support of this view, emphasis the fact that,
mediums who employ
their
livelihood,
phenomena
physical
is
powers as a means of of
the
most
have been manifested through men and women in private life, who cannot possibly
bizarre sort
have a pecuniary motive for deception, and whose character is beyond reproach. One of the most celebrated of physical mediums,
was a clergyman of the Church of England, the Reverend W. Stainton Moses, a gentlein fact,
man
respected and warmly esteemed by
all
who
knew him.^ As a further argument ticity of certain of the
in behalf of the
authen-
phenomena, attention
is
also called to the interesting circumstance that,
long
before
were heard
spuitism
of,
and
spiritistic
mediums
similar marvels — including seem-
ingly spontaneous
movements
of furniture,
the occurrence of mysterious raps,
and other noises
— were
and
knockings,
frequently reported by
thoroughly reputable witnesses. is ii,
1 An excellent study of the mediumship of Stainton Moses " Modern Spiritualism," vol. contained in Frank Podmore's
pp. 276-288.
[182]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS To mention
^ only a few cases, as long ago as
1661 there was an outbreak of this kind at the
home
of
a wealthy Englishman named
pesson, an invisible ghost for
the peace of the
Mom-
months disturbing
Mompesson family by beating
on a drum, banging at doors, tugging at bedclothes, and hurling household articles about in
The
a most destructive manner.
much
stir
made
so
that a royal commission was sent to
inquire into
it,
but signally
For nearly a year,
ghost.
affair
failed in
Reverend Samuel Wesley, father of Methodism, was tormented in his rectory in Lincolnshire.
to
lay
the
1716-1717, the of the founder like fashion at
In 1753 a Russian
monastery was invaded by an equally malicious " and equally invisible spirit," which for months
amused
by ringing the monastery bells at unseemly hours. Nine years later all London was thrilled by the celebrated Cock Lane ghost, itself
which produced eclat
spirit
rappings with as
much
most up-to-date, medium-invoked from the other side." In none of these
as the
visitant
"
1 Studied in detail in Hunters."
my
book,
[
183
"
]
Historic Ghosts
and Ghost-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL instances did contemporary investigators find a
wholly satisfactory explanation for the singular
phenomena involved. it
Nevertheless,
may
confidently be aflBrmed
that, instead of strengthening the case for the
phenomena
physical
the
poltergeists
called
by
— as
psychical
of spiritism, the doings of
these
tricky
researchers
ghosts
are
— considerably
For during recent years a number of poltergeist hauntings have been looked into by
weaken
it.
members
of the Society for Psychical Research,
and whenever the conditions have been such as to permit a thorough investigation,
has been
it
found that, so far from being spiritual poltergeists are invariably
credulity,
and
delusion.
entities,
of deceit,
compounded Even more important,
from the standpoint of getting at the true inwardness of physical mediumship, the discovery has
been made that fraud has frequently been practised in poltergeist cases without
any apparent
motive.
Again I
will
give an instance from actual oc-
currence, in order to clear.
make my meaning
Word was one day
perfectly
received at the
[184]
London
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS of the Society for Psychical
oflfices
Research that
a ghost had taken possession of a farmhouse in Shropshire, and was
making Hfe miserable
named Hampson and
lawful occupants, a family
two
their
Emma made It
one
its
Nobody saw
presence
felt in
had announced fine afternoon,
kitchen
fire
lifting
it
a saucepan from the
across the room, pick-
it
ing red-hot coals out of the floor,
the ghost, but
true poltergeist style.
and throwing
them over the
and
advent, about four o'clock
its
by
Evans
Priscilla
maidservants,
Davies.
for the
fire
and scattering
and by causing a lamp globe This
last
frightened
the
Hampsons and
their servants that they fled
from
the house, and
summoned
to
fly
prank,
miraculously through the naturally
neighbors,
so
enough,
aid from the nearest
among them a Mr.
report that reached the
air.
Lea, who, in the
Society for
Psychical
Research,^ declared that
when he approached the
Hampson homestead,
seemed as
stairs
rooms were on
light in the 1
pp.
it
" fire,
if
as there
all
the up-
was such a
windows."
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 58-67.
[185]
xii,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Reenforced, the
Hampsons made bold
to enter
the house again, but the poltergeist had seemingly formed a strong dislike to them, for the
report added: " As things were continuing to
jump about the
kitchen in a manner which was altogether inex-
and many were getting damaged, Hampson decided to remove everything out of the plicable,
apartment. eter
He
from the
on the
leg,
down a barom-
accordingly took
when something struck him
wall,
and a
loaf of bread,
which was on
the table, was thrown by some invisible means,
and
hit
him on the back.
A
volume
'
of
Pilgrim's
'
was thrown, or jumped, through the window, and a large, ornamental sea-shell went
Progress
through in similar fashion. "
In the parlor a sewing machine was thrown
about and damaged. the baby by the
fire
The nurse
girl
when some
fire
was nursing leaped from
the grate, and the child's hair was singed and its
arms burned.
The
girl
was so alarmed that
she set off to a neighbor's, and on the
her clothes took
body.
fire,
way
there
and had to be torn from her
During the evening, while the [186]
girl
was
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS at the neighbor's, a plate, which she touched while
having her supper, was repeatedly thrown on the
and the pieces were picked up by some unseen agency, and put in the center of the table." floor,
On
the
girl's
return to the
Hampson
place the
Mr. and Mrs.
manifestations broke out anew.
Lea were strongly of the opinion that they were the work of the devil; the Hampsons, however, inclined to the view that the of
some
evil spirit
blame lay at the door
that was especially desirous of
tormenting the nurse
girl,
Emma
noticed that things quieted
was out
On
of the house.
her to her
home
Davies,
this theory
detect
officer,
she
they sent
where
in a neighboring village,
presence of a police
being
down whenever
the poltergeist continued to annoy her.
to
it
In the
watching her closely
evidence of fraud,
it
wrenched the
buttons from her dress and ripped out the stitches of her apron.
While the
village schoolmistress
and some twenty other people looked on, it twice drew off her shoes and tossed them to the opposite side of the
ward
lifted
room; and
it
was said to have
her bodily from the
her suspended in mid-air.
[187]
floor,
after-
and held
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Clearly, this
was a case
calling for investiga-
and the Society for Psychical Research at once commissioned one of its expert detectives tion,
of the supernatural,
Mr. F.
S.
Hughes, to proceed
But before he
to the scene of the disturbances. arrived,
The
the mystery was solved.
seems, had been
made
so nervous
it
and excited
by the unwelcome attentions of the it was thought best to place her
that
girl,
poltergeist in a physi-
and she was accordingly taken to a sanitarium and kept m strict seclusion, under the cian's care,
constant observation of the physician's housekeeper.
woman.
Miss
Turner,
a
shrewd,
level-headed
For three days, the poltergeist continued
to plague her.
Then
it
suddenly took
its
de-
parture, under the following circumstances, nar-
rated by Mr. "
Hughes
in his official report:
On Tuesday morning Miss Turner was
in
an
upper room at the back of the house, and the servant of the establishment and
were outside,
Emma
Emma
Davies
having her back to the
house, and unaware that she was observed.
Miss
Turner noticed that she had a piece of brick in her hand, held behind her back. This she threw [188]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS to a distance
doing
so,
by a turn
of the wrist, and, while
screamed to attract the attention of
the servant, who, of course, turning round, saw
and was very much frightened. Davies, looking round, saw that she had
the brick in the
Emma
air,
been seen by Miss Turner, and, apparently imagining that she had been found out, was very
anxious to return "
home
that night.
Miss Turner took no notice
of the occurrence
at the time, but the next morning she asked the girl if
she had been playing tricks, and the girl
confessed that she had, and went through
some
of the performances very skillfully, according to
Miss Turner's account.
Later on in the day she
the
presence of the doctor.
repeated
these
in
Miss Turner, and two reporters from London." Obviously, trickster though she was, the
had no
rational motive for her conduct.
It
girl
had
already cost her a good position, and rendered
it
most unlikely that she would easily get another. And, in fact, this same absence of motive is conspicuous in nearly
all
the poltergeist cases
exposed by the Society for Psychical Research,
and by independent
investigators.
[189]
It
is
also
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL noteworthy that when discovery is made, the active agent is usually found to be a boy or girl,
man in
woman,
or
constitutionally or temporarily
an abnormal nervous condition. In this particular case, for instance, the
Emma
girl,
Davies, on the testimony of her mother,
was subject to
In another case, investi-
"fits."
gated by the Society, the poltergeist was nitely identified with a little
deformed
girl,
defi-
twelve
years old, of decidedly abnormal characteristics.
In a third case, investigated
Podmore, another member specialist
on
poltergeists,
by
of the Society
a confession
from a neurotic boy confession only partial, it is true, but
was
more illuminating than any
its
Frank and a
of
fraud
of fifteen
elicited
have been.
Mr.
The
case
is
full
in
—a
one sense
confession would
so instructive, both for
revelation of the almost incredible credulity
devotees of spiritism, and for the light
of
many
it
throws on the problems of physical medium-
ship, that I
quote
it,
condensed, from Mr. Pod-
more's detailed review of his investigation.^ 1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. pp. 101-103.
[190]
xii,
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS "
In the autumn of 1894," he states,
"
Mrs. B.,
me an
a lady living in a provincial town, gave
account of certain curious incidents which had recently taken
pants
of
The
place in her house.
the house
— an
old
one
besides Mrs. B. and her family, of a
Mrs. D., and her two children, a twenty, "
occu-
— consisted, widow
lady,
girl of
about
and a boy of fifteen, E. D. C. D., and E. D. had been
in the
CD.,
Mrs. B.,
habit of trying experiments with planchette in
had given them to understand that the house was haunted by four the
Planchette
evening.
spirits,
a wicked marquis, a wicked monk, a lay
desperado, and a virtuous and beautiful young lady.
These
spirits
wrote, through planchette,
of treasure concealed in the house, of a
chamber, and
many
other matters.
hidden
Among
other
proofs were the following: " One evening after dark, Mrs. B., in accord-
ance with directions received through planchette,
went with
CD.
and E. D. to an old oak
the garden, and, standing with the
on either
side,
girl
tree in
and boy
holding a hand of each, she dis-
tinctly heard a stone strike the
[191]
garden
roller
a
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL few feet
off.
The phenomenon was repeated
and her companions solemnly assured her that they had no part in the performance. twice;
"
another occasion, sitting in a bedroom
On
in the dark,
with only E. D. in the room, Mrs. B.
was struck by a stone on the temple, heard objects thrown about the room, felt an arm put through hers,
and so on.
curred
Some
of these
when she was alone
in
phenomena ocbut the room
—
with the door, I gathered, not shut. " Mrs. B. one morning placed a white chrysan-
themum bouquet on It
the boughs of the oak tree.
disappeared shortly
afterward,
and on the
next morning two other small bouquets were found there. Mrs. B. asked for whom these were intended, and went away, leaving paper. in
half,
On
pencil
and
her return she found the paper torn
and the
name, and that
initials
of C.
of her
own
Christian
D., written on the
two
halves respectively, with a bouquet on each half. " About this time a secret chamber was discovered, with the skeleton of a cat crouching in act to spring,
Asked more
and the skeleton
of a
woman.
B. particularly about the latter, Mrs.
[192]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS '
said
but "
:
it
was a woman's
A
some bones
Well, at least a skull and
—
skull.'
few days after receiving this account, I
went down by invitation to the house. I saw Mrs. D. and her two children, and received from
them ungrudging corroboration trated the secret chamber,
mummified skeleton
left
by
nothing
of
else.
and found there the
what might have been a In removing the stains
this exploit, I contrived
a tete-a-tete
terview with E. D., and asked him: did you do of '
Oh, not much. "
B.'s
In E. D.'s company I pene-
marvelous story.
cat — but
Mrs.
of
all
these things
I only did a
' .^^
few
'
in-
How much
He
replied:
little things.'
Pressed on particular points,
he admitted
having thrown one stone at the garden
and
roller,
having also thrown a trouser button against the wall
when
sitting
He
Mrs. B.
alone in
the bedroom
with
denied having produced the other
phenomena on those
occasions.
Asked as
to the
bouquets, he said he had not placed them on
the
tree.
did
it,
it
Pressed a
little
more, he said:
'
must have been without knowing
This without any suggestion from
[193]
me
If I it.'
as to pos-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL sible
somnambulism, or unconscious
me
assured
that his sister had had no hand in this
I could not get
matter.
He
action.
any more out
of him, as
he was shortly after called away. " I subsequently learned from his mother that E. D. was so nervous and delicate that he slept
room
in her
to do
that he was not allowed
at night;
much mental work;
to attacks of
that he was subject
somnambulism;
and had, indeed, a few days
fallen into a semiconscious state only
before, during a lesson in carpentry."
Probably
moment
of
elaborated
the
whole
mischief,
because
affair
in
originated
a
and was carried on and of
an
uncontrollable,
perhaps not entirely conscious,
desire
and
on the
part of the abnormally conditioned lad to mystify
the too easily imposed upon elderly lady.
In point of ciety
for
fact,
Psychical
the investigations of the So-
Research
make
it
certain
that in nine cases out of ten a poltergeist
by-product of hysteria, using the term in strictest
medical sense.
As
is
symptoms of indulge in all manner
well
a its
kno^n, one
of the distinctive
hysteria
ency to
of lies
[194]
is
is
a tend-
and decep-
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS coupled often with almost diabolical cleverness in giving these lies and deceptions a color tions,
of reality.
Impulse to such trickery
may
arise
from a great variety of motives; frequently, it would seem, from nothing more than an abnor-
mal craving
young people run
tainly, the hysterical
by the
and admiration.
for notoriety
hunters
poltergeist
the
of
Cer-
to earth
Society for
Psychical Research did not engage in their hoax-
make money out
ings because they expected to of them.
The
bearing of
nomena
of
on the physical phe-
this
all
is
spiritism
self-evident.
surely
It
money motive mediums to fraud;
shows, for one thing, that the is
not the only motive inciting
that
when a neurotic
or hysterical condition
present, the best of characters
against duplicity; stances
the
is
is
no guarantee
and that under such circum-
detection
fraud
of
is
exceedingly
difficult, particularly in the case of witnesses pre-
disposed to regard the If
hysterical
phenomena
as genuine.
as they
have often
children can,
done, carry on a course of deception mystifying
a whole community,
it is
manifest that mediums
[195]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL of similar
hysterical tendencies,
cover of darkness or in a less
light,
can more or
readily deceive the most expert observers;
and, moreover, that they if
dim
working under
at aU, conscious of their
may own
be only
partially,
frauds.^
Further, in estimating the nature of the phe-
nomena produced mediums,
it
is
at
the
seances
of
physical
imperative to take into account
the innumerable possibihties of mal-observation
on the part of the spectators. Experience has shown that comparatively few people, no matter
how
honest, are trustworthy witnesses even
when
conditions for observation are of the best.
For proof
of this,
one does not need to look
beyond the courtroom, where every day perfectly honest people give the most contradictory accounts of some simple occurrence. difficult
broad
to
see
If it is
thus
what goes on in the surely is far more difficult
correctly
light of day, it
to be certain of exactly
room where there
is
what
happening in a darkness rather than light. is
Besides which, the imaginative faculty
may
be
am inclined, for example, to believe that there is a large element of hysteria in the mediumship of the discredited Eusapia Paladino, once the marvel of two continents. 1
1
[196]
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS excited to such an extent that the sitters at a
seance
may
not only be misled into making inac-
curate reports of what really occurred, but they even, and with absolute sincerity, testify
may to
phenomena which did not occur
A friend
of mine,
now a
at
all.
physician in Maryland,
used to amuse himself in his student days by playing
medium
He
at table-tipping seances.
would cause the table to rap out messages to various acquaintances of his, none of whom were spiritists,
but several
interested,
of
whom became
owing to their
inability to
intensely
fathom the
source of the communications they received, friend
managing things so
skillfully
my
that they did
not suspect him of hoaxing them.
One evening the of the
"
" spirit
lady well
table announced the presence
of a little child, the daughter of a
known
to
most
of the sitters.
were not aware, however, that
my
intimately acquainted with the
little
history,
and when,
proceeded to of a
make
utilizing this
They
friend
one's
was life
knowledge, he
the table rap communications
most personal character, there was consid-
erable excitement.
Suddenly a lady present, not [197]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL a relative of the dead
a piercing
child, uttered
scream, and fainted.
When
she
was revived, she
declared,
with
emphatic assurance, that she had seen the head of a child emerge from the center of the table. Equally plays
in
indicative
my
of
the
part
imagination
phenomena is own with a New York me-
constructing
an experience dium.
of
spiritistic
His specialty was materialization, but at
the seance in question he did not attempt to " " develop spirit forms by any of the methods
vogue among materializers. Instead, the gas having been lowered until the room was almost in in
total darkness,
he went into a
"
trance," and,
seated at the seance table, with his head resting
on
his hands, declaimed in
"
The
spirits are
You
proaching.
a singsong voice:
coming.
be able to see
will
They
are almost here.
Here
left.
Can't you see
And
and another.
They
it.^^
them apthem soon.
I can feel
is
one now, on
here comes another,
are crowding around me, so
anxious to communicate with you. see them.?
gone soon.
my
I can't hold
them
long;
Oh, can't you see them? [198]
Can't you
they "
will
be
POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS There were, perhaps, a dozen people present, including myself and a fellow investigator, who
Of the others, three
had accompanied me.
re-
sponded to the hypnotic suggestiveness of the medium's words and manner, and solemnly de-
One
about him.
"
"
clared that they could see a
hovering
spirit
whose integrity " that she saw two
lady,
not doubt, insisted
I could spirits,"
which she identified as her dead husband and brother.
Undoubtedly, therefore,
proper to assume
it is
that when, in the instances cited at the beginning of this chapter. Professor
sitting with
Lombroso,
Eusapia Paladino, saw a huge wardrobe advance and when Lords Crawford and to attack him;
Dunraven saw the medium Home the is
air,
floating through
"
hallucination rather than
the correct explanation.
view of the known the manifold
mediums;
fallibility of
opportunities
and the
exception of
fact
spirit action
At
all
the
human
for
that,
fraud
in
senses;
open to
with the single
Home, every medium
scientific investigation
events,
"
subjected to
has been caught practising
fraud at one time or another,
[199]
it
seems extremely
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL rash to accept as genuine any of the
phenomena
of
physical mediumship. Still,
it
v/ould be incorrect to say that the
time devoted by psychical researchers to the investigation of these
wasted.
duty for
phenomena has been time
They have performed a necessary police society, and their labors, as we shall see,
have been productive
of psychological discoveries
of great practical importance.
[200]
CHAPTER
VI
THE SUBCONSCIOUS the Society for Psychical Research
WHEN
was founded,
only to obtain,
if
in 1882, its
purpose was not
possible, scientifically accept-
able proof of the survival of
human
personality
after bodily death, but also to study the nature
of personality
in
its
mundane
aspects,
with a
view to securing greater insight into the powers
and
possibilities of
man
here on earth.
In this latter quest
and thanks to
successful,
been eminently
it
has
its
labors our knowledge
of ourselves has been increased a thousandfold.
As has been shown, phenomena as mysterious paritions,
and
"
hitherto regarded " such as apsupernatural -
have been
clairvoyance,
crystal-gazing,
definitely explained
istic basis;
—
etc.
—
on a purely natural-
and, as was said at the close of the
last chapter, in addition to naturalizing the su-
pernatural, psychical researchers have made, or
[201]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL have assisted
and having a profound bearing
practical utility,
on
affairs of
Among the
making, discoveries of great
in
life.
everyday
these,
none
the
of
discovery
is
of
more importance than
"
subconscious."
This
term, which was almost unheard of a few years ago,
is
nowadays used by psychologists
of ways, but
it
may
in a variety
be broadly defined as
in-
cluding an extensive range of mental processes
and phenomena that occur beneath the surface our
of
ordinary
mental action, part in our
Subconscious
consciousness.
in fact, has a constant, unceasing
lives.
It
is
in evidence in such
com-
monplace acts as walking, talking, writing, playing the piano, handling a tool, a tennis racket, or a baseball bat.
There was a time,
in the experience of all of us,
when we could do none to learn little,
as
but had
them by conscious effort. Little by we acquired more skill, the element of
consciousness
we
of these things,
became
less
and
less,
until at last
could execute them in a seemingly automatic
manner, as scribed
in the fashion of the
by Miss Cobbe: [202]
piano player de-
THE SUBCONSCIOUS "
Two different lines of
hieroglyphics have to be
read at once, and the right hand has to be guided to attend to one of them, the left to the other.
have the work assigned as quickly as they can move. The mind, or something which
All the fingers
does duty as mind, interprets scores of
and
B
flats,
and
and white ones,
C
feet are
crotchets,
not
with the pedals.
all
and quavers, and demi-
the mysteries of music.
idle,
but have something to do
And
all this
the conscious performer, artistic
sharps,
naturals into black ivory keys
quavers, rests, and
The
A
is
time the performer,
in a
rapture at the results of
seventh heaven of all
this
tremendous
business, or perchance lost in a flirtation with the
individual
and
is
who
turns the leaves of the music book,
justly persuaded she
is
giving
him the whole
of her soul."
The subconscious
is
thus a sort of reservoir in
which are stored up, available for future use, the things learned through education and experience;
dynamic power that enables it to supplement, economize, and enlarge the operations and
it
of the
also has a
upper consciousness.
appreciate what
we owe
Ordinarily
we
fail
to
to this hidden servitor,
[203]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL for the reason that its workings are so smooth, so
Yet
unobtrusive, as to pass quite unnoticed.
abundant evidence has been secured to demonstrate not simply the fact of its existence,
more is
significant fact that
it is
never at
but the
rest,
but
perpetually laboring in our behalf.
Even when our ment completely
— the asleep Many
of
my
consciousness
in
subconscious
mo-
for the
is
— as abeyance
when we
continues
readers have doubtless
are
operant.
had the
ex-
perience of vainly endeavoring for hours, perhaps for days, to solve
some important problem, and
then awaking one morning with a luminously clear idea of its correct solution. their subconsciousness
slept,
While they
had been at work
disentangling the threads of their conscious rea-
away and discarding unessentials, presenting them with, so to speak, a
soning, stripping
and
finally
ready-made understanding of that which had previously been so perplexing to them. all
such cases the action of the subconscious
more
vividly evident when, as often happens,
In is
the desired SQlution in the
is
gained during sleep
form of a dream.
An
[204]
excellent
itself,
example
is
THE SUBCONSCIOUS found
who "
in
says:
had been bothered
I
error in
despite
my
an episode narrated by a business man,
cash account for that month, and,
my
many
efforts,
September with an
since
hours' examination,
and
I almost
gave
it
up
it
defied
all
as hopeless.
had been the subject of my waking thoughts for many nights, and had occupied a large portion It
of
my
leisure hours.
Matters remained thus un-
night I had not, to
my
On
December.
settled until the eleventh of
this
knowledge, once thought
had not been long in bed and brain was as busy with the
of the subject, but I asleep,
when
my
books as though "
I
had been at
The cash book,
my
desk.
banker's pass books, etc.,
etc.,
appeared before me; and, without any apparent trouble,
I
almost
immediately
discovered
the
cause of the mistakes, which had arisen out of a I
complicated cross entry.
having taken a
slip of
paper in
made such a memorandum correct the error at
done
some
perfectly
as
my
recollect
dream, and
would enable
leisure time; and,
me
to
having
this, that the whole of the circumstances had
passed from
my
mind.
[205]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL **
When
slightest
I
awoke
in the
recollection
once occur to
me
of
my
home
it
throughout the day, although
had the very books before had apparently been engaged in returned
had not the
dream, nor did
I
I
I
morning
me
my
on which
I
When
sleep.
in the afternoon, as I did early,
and proceeded to paper from my dress-
for the purpose of dressing,
shave, I took
up a
ing table to wipe
my
piece of
my
and you may imagine
razor,
surprise at finding thereon the very
dum
I fancied I
night.
The
to our oflSce
effect
had made during the previous on me was such that I returned
and turned to the cash book, when
found that I had
really, while asleep,
the error which I could not detect in hours, and time. "
I
memoran-
had actually jotted
have no
recollection
it
detected
my
waking
down
at the
whatever as to where I
obtained the paper and pencil with which I the
memorandum.
I
It certainly
written in the dark, and in
made
must have been
my
bedroom, as I
found both paper and pencil there the following afternoon. The pencil was not one which I am in the habit of carrying, and
my
[206]
impression
is
that
THE SUBCONSCIOUS I
must
either
have found
down-stairs for
it."
it
in the
room, or gone
^
Ilhistrative of the
same subconscious mechan-
and doubly interesting because of the Hght throws on the true nature of many dreams fre-
ism, it
quently regarded as supernatural,
is
a singular
experience that once befell Professor H. V. Hilprecht, the well-known archaeologist of the University of Pennsylvania.
At the
time. Professor Hilprecht
was trying to
decipher the inscriptions on two small fragments of agate lonia,
finger
from the temple
of Bel in ancient
Babyand believed by him to be portions of the rings of some wealthy Babylonian. He had
already published a preliminary report on the collection
of
which they formed a part,
but,
had utterly failed the words inscribed on
despite weeks of earnest effort, to get at the
meaning
of
them.
One Saturday ments
until
satisfactory ^
pp.
night, after
working on the frag-
nearly twelve o'clock without any result,
he went to bed weary and
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 394-395.
[207]
viii,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL exhausted, and was soon in a deep sleep.
He
then dreamed that he was transported to the
temple of Bel, where a venerable
priest,
whose
showed that he belonged to a pre-Christian epoch, conducted him into the treasure chamber of dress
the temple.
It
was a
small, low room, without
windows, and contained a large wooden chest,
around which were scattered pieces of agate and other valuable stones.
While Professor Hilprecht
stood looking at these, the priest said to him: " The two fragments which you have published
upon pages 22 and 26 belong together, are not finger rings, and their history is as folseparately
lows "
:
King Kurigalzu [who reigned
about 1300
among
B. c],
in
Babylonia
once sent to the temple of Bel,
other articles of agate and lapis lazuli,
an inscribed votive cylinder priests suddenly received the
for the statue of the
of agate.
We
of agate.
command
Then we to
make
god Ninib a pair of earrings
were in great dismay, since there
was no agate at hand as raw material. In order to execute the command, there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into three
[208]
THE SUBCONSCIOUS making three
parts,
a portion
"The
rings,
each of which contained
of the original inscription.
two
first
rings served as earrings for the
statue of the god; the two fragments which have
much
given you so If
you
will
trouble are portions of them.
put the two together you
confirmation of
my
words.
But the
will
third ring
you have not yet found in the course excavations, and you never will find it."
With
came its
this the priest disappeared,
to an end.
have
of
your
and the dream
In the morning, impressed with
coherence and vividness. Professor Hilprecht
again attacked the troublesome fragments, put
them together
as directed, and,
by making the
proper guesses for the missing middle portion, readily deciphered the full inscription:
god Ninib, son
of
the
Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu,
pontifex of Bel, presented this."
Nor
"To
^
are the intellectual achievements of the
subconscious during sleep confined to the solution of
problems that have been vexing the upper
consciousness. ^
Proceedings pp. 14-15.
of
It has a highly original, creative the Society for
[209]
Psychical Research, vol.
xii,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL power of its own. Thus the composer Tartini dreamed one night that he heard the devil playing a wonderful sonata, and, remembering
awaking, was able to set
it
down on
it
on
paper, and
thereby put to his credit one of the finest pieces " Kubla of music that bears his name. Coleridge's " was another dream composition; and, Khan indeed, a long
and
list
literature, originating
mental action in
A
of masterpieces in music, art,
sleep,
through subconscious
might be drawn up.
was recently communicated to me by a well-known Pacific Coast architect, Mr. B. J. S. Cahill. He had been commissioned to typical case
design a twenty-six-story oflSce
building, to be
erected in Portland, Oregon, and he determined, if
possible, to plan
one that would be a
tribution towards the solution of
some
real con-
of the
most
problems of modern commercial archiFor weeks Mr. Cahill labored hard to tecture. difficult
devise a building that would unite a
maximum
and capacity with an abunnearly as possible an equality, of
of beauty, solidity,
dance, and as
was to contain.
light
and
The
structure he ultimately conceived
air for
the
many
offices it
[210]
was
cer-
THE SUBCONSCIOUS tainly novel,
and
differed conspicuously
ordinary four-sided office building, with offices lighted
from the its
inner
from a court.
His plan called for the construction of a building shaped
much
like
a St. Andrew's cross, or like
a square with a triangle cut out of each side. this
way
In
the need for an inner court was com-
and the only poorly ventilated and dimly lighted portion of the building would " core." Here the elevators and be its central pletely obviated,
stairs
were to be located.
According to the architect's this plan
— which has been highly
eminent a
was born he saw
own
statement,
praised by so
—
Mr. Montgomery Schuyler mind while he slept. One night
critic as
in his
dream a building shaped in this fashion, and knew that his problem was solved. He tells
me
in a
that on awaking he
made two rough
of the plan in a pocket note-book
sketches
— one showing
the general design, the other indicating the ap-
pearance of the building when completed.
Perhaps no one has ever been more favored this
same way than that remarkable man
genius, the late Robert Louis Stevenson.
[211]
in
of
The
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL for
plots
Stevenson's "
of
many
best
stories
—
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. including the marvelous " came to him in dreams, as he himself Hyde
—
has related in a delightful autobiographical essay, with
whimsicality, he " " Brownies personifies his subconscious ideas as " and little people." " This dreamer, like many other persons," he " in
which,
characteristic
has encountered some
says,
When
of fortune.
trifling vicissitudes
the bank begins to send letters,
and the butcher to
back gates, he
linger at the
sets to belaboring his brains after a story, for that is
once the in the all
monev winner; and behold!
his readiest
people begin to bestir themselves
little
same
quest,
and labor
night long set before
upon
at
night long, and
him truncheons
No
their lighted theater.
frightened now;
all
of tales
fear of his being
the flying heart and the frozen
scalp are things bygone;
applause, growing ap-
plause, growing interest, growing exultation in his
own
cleverness
and at
last
'
cry:
I
— for
he takes
all
the credit
—
a jubilant leap to wakefulness, with the
have
it,
that'll do!
'
upon
such and similar emotions he
[212]
sits
his lips;
with
at these noc-
THE SUBCONSCIOUS turnal dreams, with such outbreaks, like Claudius
he scatters the performance in the
in the play,
midst. "
Often enough the waking
ment; he has been too deep
is
a disappoint-
asleep, as I explain
the thing; drowsiness has gained his
little
peo-
ple; they have gone stumbling and maundering through their parts; and the play, to the wakened
mind, yet
is
how
And
seen to be a tissue of absurdities.
often have these sleepless Brownies done
him honest
service,
and given him, as he sat
taking his pleasure in the boxes, better tales
idly
than
he could fashion for himself. "
"
The more
the more I
my
I
think of
it,"
Stevenson continues,
am moved to press upon the world Who are the little people They '
'
question
:
.f*
are near connections of the dreamer's, beyond
doubt;
they share in his financial worries, and
have an eye to the bank book; they share plainly in his training; they have plainly learned, like him, to build the scheme of a considerable story,
and to arrange emotion in progressive order; only I think they have more talent; and one thing is
beyond doubt
— they can [213]
tell
him a story
piece
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL by
and keep him
piece, like a serial,
where they aim. That part of my work which
all
the while
in ignorance of
"
am
sleeping
is
done while
is
I
the Brownies' part beyond con-
tention; but that which
is
done when
I
am up
and
by no means necessarily mine, since all goes to show the Brownies have a hand in it even about
is
then."
1
It is
recently
what
is
worth noting that facts led to
known
like these
have
a novel theory explanatory of as
" genius."
Instead of adopt-
ing the Lombrosian doctrine, and regarding the
man
of genius as a kind of transcendental degen-
erate, this latest theory affirms that
he
is
what
by reason of enjoying a readier communication than most men possess between the he
is
conscious and subconscious portions of his mind.
Such a view has the further virtue
of being
com-
pletely in accord with the familiar definition of
genius as an infinite capacity for hard work.
From what has been
said, it
must be evident
that the contents of the subconscious are 1
Quoted from the
son's
"
"
made
Chapter on Dreams," in R. L. Steven-
Across the Plains." [
214
]
THE SUBCONSCIOUS in large
up
time
knowledge gained at one
of
by conscious endeavor and
The man who
thought. is
measure
another
or
thinks hard consciously,
certain to have a richer fund of subconscious
information at his disposal than the one whose conscious thinking
brained
All
sort.
of the idle, futile, scatter-
is
successful
men, whether a
Milton or a Rockefeller, a Shakespeare or a
Morgan, are men who have developed conscious faculties by their
laborious
their sub-
application
of
the routine of daily
conscious powers
in
the other hand,
has also to be observed
life.
On
that knowledge
is
it
often obtained subconsciously
without passing through any preliminary stage of conscious attention
and awareness; and
that,
by a reversal of the usual process, the conscious frequently acquires from the subconscious infor-
mation I
which
would otherwise be ignorant. have previously alluded to this interesting and of
most important
it
fact in
my
discussion of telepathy,
clairvoyance, crystal-gazing,
lems in psychical research.
and kindred prob-
As we then saw% the
subconscious has a certain eerie faculty of impart-
[215]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL information to the upper consciousness in
ing
its
the
way
of haUucinations, indicative at times of
thought transference from mind to mind,
or,
more
commonly, originating merely from unnoticed impressions of direct, personal experience.
be too firmly borne in mind that every
It cannot
day
of our lives
than we
realize;
we
see
and hear and
that these
feel
more
unobserved sights
and sounds and sensations may,
nevertheless, be
subconsciously registered in our minds; and that
they
soon or late be projected above the
may
threshold of consciousness in a form astonishing, puzzling,
and perhaps annoying to
case of a strange experience of a
us, as in the
young
New York
newspaper man. It
was
number sent in
his business to edit for publication in a
of
country newspapers the dispatches
by a
telegraphic news agency.
He had
been thus engaged for perhaps a year when he noticed, greatly to his dismay, that he
was
re-
peatedly omitting items which he believed, on " old reading them in the telegraphic copy, to be
news," but which were printed with more or
prominence
less
in the next morning's issues of other
[216]
THE SUBCONSCIOUS This occurred so often that he began
newspapers.
to tremble for his position,
and
set himself ear-
nestly to solve the mystery.
Luckily he had some acquaintance with psychology, and
knew that
must be due
his trouble
to a faulty identification of subconscious with
conscious impressions.
But why was
it,
he asked
on certain nights he would be quite from such errors of judgment, while on others
himself, that free
he might omit, or be strongly tempted to omit,
on the ground
of
supposed previous publication,
half a dozen items of real
The
truth
sitting
down
news value?
dawned on him one evening
as he
was
to begin work.
On
his desk lay a
heap
of envelopes containing
the dispatches that had come from the news agency before his arrival at the newspaper
office.
should already have been opened by an
These office
boy, but that night he had been busy with something
else.
Mechanically, the editor himself tore
open the envelopes, smoothed out their contents, and, without reading them, the
typewritten
sheets,
made a neat
preparatory
through them.
[217]
to
pile of
going
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL He had
not been working an hour when he came
to a dispatch, which he tossed aside, with the
muttered comment, I've read
it
"
That's an old story, sure.
somewhere before."
Then, remembering the mistakes he had been making, he hesitated, picked
it
up,
and read
it
Every word in it seemed familiar. But where could he have read it? In the evening carefully.
He went
papers?
without
result.
him that
through
Then
them one by
suddenly occurred to
it
possibly, in opening the dispatches, he
had, without being aware of particular item,
knowledge
of
it,
it,
which was now welling up con-
memory.
test this theory,
he directed the
to open the dispatches without
On none
few nights.
memory
glanced at this
and had obtained a subconscious
fusedly as a conscious
To
one,
fail
of these did
office
boy
for the next
he suffer from
confusion.
Possibly,
if
he had analyzed the matter further,
he would have found that the news items which
had caught
his eye while
smoothing out the
dis-
patch sheets related to subjects of some special interest to him.
For just as one's conscious [218]
at-
THE SUBCONSCIOUS tention
is
arrested
interesting,
by that which
is
particularly
so does the subconscious select for
presentation to the upper consciousness information of temporary or habitual interest
and
sig-
nificance.
Sometimes, too, there
back to
interests of
an
is
involved a harking
earlier period of
simple but instructive illustration of this in a little incident that occurred to
ard Hodgson while on a best be reported in his
visit to
is
A
found
Doctor Rich-
England.
own words:
life.
It
may
^
"
Yesterday
morning (September 13, 1895), was strolling alone along
just after breakfast, I
one
of the
garden paths of Leckliampton House,
Cambridge, repeating aloud to myself the verses
became temporarily oblivious to my garden surroundings, and regained my consciousness of them suddenly, to find myself brought of a
poem.
I
to a stand, in a stooping position, gazing intently
at a five-leaved clover.
On
careful examination,
I found about a dozen specimens of five-leaved clover, as well as several specimens of four-leaved 1
p.
Proceedings of
the Society
for Psychical Research, vol.
415.
[219]
xi,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL clover, all of
which probably came from the same
root.
"
Several years ago I was interested in getting
extra-leaved clovers, but I have not for years
made any sionally
active search for them, though occa-
my conscious attention,
as I
walked along,
has been given to appearances of four-leaved
which proved, on examination, to be de-
clover,
The
ceptive.
peculiarity of yesterday's
'
'
find
was that
I discovered myself, with a sort of shock,
standing
and stooping down, and afterward that a five-leaved clover was directly
realized
under
still
my
eyes.'*
an incident reported by an English clergyman, the Reverend P. H. Newnham.
Compare with
this
We find in it exactly
the same element of selective
subconscious
attention, accompanied, however, an by auditory hallucination as a means of notify-
ing the upper consciousness of the fact subconsciously observed.
"
I
was
visiting friends at
Tunbridge Wells," " Mr. and went out one evening, Newnham, says entomologizing. As I crossed a stile into a field,
on
my way
to a neighboring wood, a voice said
[220]
THE SUBCONSCIOUS my
distinctly in
'
"
You'll find
right ear:
Cha-
"
on that oak.' This was a very scarce moth, which I had never seen before, and which most
onia
had never consciously thought of There were several oaks in the field, but
assuredly seeing.
I
I instinctively off side of it,
The
walked up to one, straight to the
and there was the moth indicated."
psychological explanation of this
enough, and
is
is
^
simple
equally applicable to similar,
if
sensational, hallucinations widely heralded
more
It
as of supernatural character.
"
"
absurd to suppose that a
spirit
is
manifestly
announced to
the entomologizing clergyman the presence of the rare his
and greatly sought-after moth which
good fortune to capture.
absurd to suggest that quite
But
it is
likely,
it
was
not at
all
although he
had consciously forgotten all about it, he had at some time seen Chaonia, or an entomological textbook picture
of Chaonia;
that he had subcon-
ciously caught a glimpse of
the
field
and
settling
*
fluttering across
on the oak, and that
conscious recognition of
p.
it,
its
identity
his sub-
had
set in
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol.
411.
[221]
xi,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL motion the proper mental mechanism to notify his upper consciousness of a fact in which it would naturally be
There tion, or
much
also be a subconscious intensifica-
may
"
interested.
hypersesthesia," of other senses than that
In
of sight.
probability hypersesthesia of the
all
sense of hearing
suflScient to
is
account for the
dramatic central incident in the following story,
by a lady whose
told
reveal " I
camp
identity I
am
unable to
:
was in
living
the
one summer
in a little
Rocky Mountains.
frame building, was some
little
mining
Our house, a
distance from any
other, at the top of a steep hill;
the only disad-
vantage of this being the additional
difficulty of
was an expensive commodity in the camp, as the adjacent mines had drained most of the wells.
getting
"
water,
which
The house contained
one out of another, closet beyond,
six
rooms,
all
opening
my own room, with a
dressing
where
my
child slept, being at one
end, and the front porch, which overlooked the valley, at the other.
"
One
evening, after
my
[222]
little girl
was
asleep,
THE SUBCONSCIOUS I
lit
a tiny night lamp, always
bracket in her room;
left
and, leaving
burning on a all
doors and
windows open, on account of the intense heat, went to sit on the front porch. I may have sat there half an hour, when my attention was caught
by a great blazing
light in the direction of the
farthest houses.
appeared evident that one at
least
had taken
It fire,
and the
difficulty of getting
water, and the hope that no children were in
danger, flashed through my mind. " While watching the rapidly growing glare, I
heard a It
faint, crackling
sound
would not have disturbed
me
in
my own
at
any other time,
house.
some smouldering piece the kitchen stove had blazed up.
as I only supposed that of cedar in
But, with the present thought of I
fire in
my
mind,
went into the kitchen to look, and, glancing
through the open doors as I passed, saw a volume of flame
and smoke pouring from the
child's
room
into mine.
"
Thank God it was still
and save her; and
possible to rush through
I carried her out in a blanket
to prevent the scorch, for the
room was only
burning at one end; the side where the bed stood,
[223]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL though fearfully hot and suffocating, was not yet on fire, and, thanks to the timely warning, the water
the barrels proved just enough to
left in
extinguish the flames before very troyed. " After
all
was
quiet, I
much was
des-
went back to the porch
to look at that other burning house, feeling so
thankful that if
my
child
others were, also.
came
known
make
to
in the
been for
my
But
was all
and wondering was dark, and when I safe,
inquiry next day, nothing was
camp
of
any such
strange vision of
it,
fire.
Had
would have been burned to death."
There
is
my
little
^
a possibility, though only a possibility,
that telepathy between mother and child
have had part
in the
hallucination.
But
may
production of this helpful
hypersesthesia of the sense of
hearing seems to afford the as also in
not
which must have
lasted fully ten minutes, I feel sure that girl
it
likelier
explanation,
numerous well-authenticated
instances,
which railroad men, obeying an unaccountable impulse or hallucinatory monition, have taken in
^
pp.
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 418-419.
[224]
xi,
THE SUBCONSCIOUS
A
action averting disastrous wrecks. trative
example must
suffice,
single illus-
a case called to the
attention of the Society for Psychical Research
by Mr. WiHiam H. Wyman, "
Some
years ago
my
of
Dunkirk, N. Y.:
brother was employed
and had charge as conductor and engineer of, a work train on the Lake Shore and Michigan on,
Southern Railway, running between Buffalo and
went with him to the gravel bank, where he had his headquarters, and returned on
Erie.
I often
his train with him.
"
On one
occasion I was with him, and after
the train of cars was loaded,
we went
to the telegraph office to see
if
orders,
as
and
we had
trains.
finding
to find out
if
together
there were any
the trains were on time,
to keep out of the
way
of all regular
After looking over the train reports, and
them
all
on time, we started
for Buffalo.
"
As we approached Westfield station, running about twelve miles per hour, and when within about one mile
of a long curve in the line,
brother
sudden shut
all
of a
off
my
the steam, and,
quickly stepping over to the fireman's side of the engine, he looked out of the cab window,
[225]
and then
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Not
to the rear of his train.
discovering anything
wrong, he put on steam, but almost immediately again shut
it off,
and gave the
signal for brakes,
and stopped. "
After inspecting the engine and train, and
finding
nothing wrong, he seemed very
excited,
and
not
time he acted as
for a short
know where he was
know; then,
line of
felt
much he did
I asked
replied that he did not
after looking at his
he said that he
on the
what to do.
or
He
what was the matter.
if
watch and
orders,
that there was some trouble
the road.
I suggested that
he had
better run his train to the station and find out.
He
then ordered his flagman to go ahead around
the curve, which was just ahead of us, and he
would follow with the "
The flagman
train.
started
and had barely time to
an extra express train, with the general superintendent and others on board, coming full forty
flag
miles an hour.
The superintendent
he was doing there, and orders to keep out of the
if
inquired what
he did not receive
way
of the extra.
My
brother told him that he had not received orders,
and did not know
of
any extra [226]
train coming; that
THE SUBCONSCIOUS we had both examined the leaving the station.
The
to the station, where
it
had been given."
train reports before
train
was then backed
was found that no orders
^
Incidents such as this are of not infrequent
By
occurrence.
the superstitious they are re-
garded as weird and uncanny, and savoring of the In reahty they are only exceptional
spiritistic.
exemplifications of a process which
There
taking place in all of us.
is
is
ceaselessly
no one who
does not, every day, perform acts which he can-
not consciously account inquired into,
for,
and which,
if
closely
would be found similarly to take
their rise in unnoticed subconscious impressions.
For the matter of that,
it is
possible to train one-
to subconscious attention to selected impres-
self
sions,
A
even
in sleep.
familiar illustration
is
the mother who, un-
disturbed by other sounds, awakens at the least cry of her infant. The same phenomenon is observable in the case of the conscientious medical nurse, who, >
p.
no matter how profound her
sleep,
vol. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,
416.
[227]
xi,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL responds
to
instantly
And,
patient.
movement by her
any
in the course of conversation not
long ago, a physician said to me: "
As you know,
house
my
besides the cars, there carriage traffic on
the night.
on a car
line,
and,
much automobile and
street for a large part of
my
Nothing
is
is
of this breaks
my
rest.
I
sleep so soundly that a thunderstorm does not
arouse me. ring,
at
and
my I
I
Yet
am
let
the telephone bell begin to
out of bed and have the receiver
ear before the bell has ceased ringing."
have myself,
found
it
work
of
like
possible to
a good
make
an alarm clock.
many
other people,
the subconscious do the
That
is
to say,
if,
on
going to bed, I mentally determine to wake at a certain hour, I invariably do so,
and
this although
am
one of the deepest of sleepers. It matters not what hour I select, nor how late I retire the I
whom I have notifies me when
previous night, the mental sentinel
placed on guard punctually the appointed time arrives.
This goes to show, of course, that the subconscious
is,
to a certain extent, at any rate,
able to conscious control and direction.
[228]
amen-
That
THE SUBCONSCIOUS such control
is
highly desirable
is
evinced not
merely by the facts reviewed above, but
which we must next
— facts as
take
under consideration
of altogether different import.
we have
by others
seen, the subconscious
is
in
For
if,
many ways
a docile and helpful auxiliary of the upper consciousness, sibilities
it
also contains within itself dire pos-
of unhappiness, suffering,
even death.
[229]
disease,
and
CHAPTER
VII
DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE subconscious, I repeat, does not always
THE
exercise a helpful influence; there are times
when
us
may impose upon
it
indescribable
misery. It
is
able to do this
relations existing
At
this late
day
by
virtue of the intimate
between the mind and the body. it
scarcely necessary for
is
me
to undertake to demonstrate that the state of one's
mind has a great
What
of one's body.
and what
all
fact that
many
tressing
of us
mental
deal to do with the health is
not so generally known,
ought to know,
diseases are directly states,
and
and emotions
of
to say,
which the
sufferer
The same to
]
often
maladies the
which are almost v/holly 230 [
dis-
is
holds good even with regard of
due to
— that
consciously has no knowledge.
symptoms
the further
in such cases usually
to subconscious mental states
to thoughts
is
if
not
al-
AND DISEASE
DISSOCIATION
together physical, and the causes of which one
would naturally expect to
find physical, likewise.
Indeed, ignorance of the tremendous role played in the causation of disease,
by the subconscious
has in the past been responsible for shortcomings.
Nor
improved, although
is
the situation as yet
it is
known
as
group of
scientific
psychopathologists,
who have made
medical psychologists,
much
rapidly improving, thanks
chiefly to the labors of a little
investigators
medical
many
or
it
their
special business to ascertain the different
ways
in
which the subconscious
versely,
may
and to devise methods
affect health ad-
for coping with
mentally caused diseases.
These men are not
"
faith healers."
not making any war on medicine. fact,
themselves
physicians,
They
They
graduates
are
are, in
of
the
best medical schools, of excellent standing in their profession,
and seeking, above
crease the usefulness and science.
all
things, to in-
precision
of
medical
Already, though their labors were begun
only a few years ago, they have effected numer-
ous cures of a seemingly miraculous character;
but always they have effected them by
[231]
utilizing
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL natural laws which they have discovered
by the
rigorous processes of scientific experiment.
Of fundamental importance among these laws is
one known as the law of dissociation.
It
might
almost be called the law of forgotten memories, for to
a large extent
its
workings depend on the
interesting circumstance, to which attention has
previously been drawn, that ideas which have
faded from the conscious subconsciousness.
As
persist in the
memory
Pierre Janet,
the distin-
guished Frenchman and most eminent of living " Nothpsychopathologists, has tersely phrased it, ing that goes into the
human mind
is
ever really
lost."
No
matter
have shown
and
how
remote, past experiences, as I
in earher chapters,
can be recovered
mind by means
of crystal- vision,
recalled to
automatic writing, or other psychological methods " of tapping the subconscious." Obviously we
have here no absolute a splitting of
off,
or
loss of
memory, but merely
" dissociation,"
from the
field
waking consciousness.
Now,
while the memories thus dissociated and
lying hidden in the subconscious usually exercise
[232]
DISSOCIATION no appreciable of
character,
knowledge,
efifect
AND DISEASE
other than in the molding
the enlargement
etc.,
our store of
of
there are conditions under which,
in the case of persons predisposed
by circum-
stances of heredity or environment, they rise to all
A
manner
may
mental and physical
of
give
ills.
person, for instance, experiences a sudden
fright.
Time
passes, the fright
is
completely for-
gotten, or, at most, vaguely remembered.
But
one day unmistakable, and sometimes exceedingly peculiar,
victim,
or
"
it
symptoms
may
of
be, suffers
fixed idea," or
disease
appear.
The
from a strange obsession
from a general
"
nervous break-
down,'* or from an actual paralysis of
some bodily
organ, or from the development of abdominal or other enlargements
resembling true organic
growths.
Whatever the symptoms, the mechanism of the puzzling malady is always the same. There has been an abnormal dissociation.
The
ideas
connected with the original shock, although sub-
merged beneath the threshold in
a word, forgotten
of consciousness
— remain vividly alive
—
in the
subconscious, to act as perpetual irritants of the
[233]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL nervous system and in time to give
rise to
the
appearance of the symptoms of which the suferer complains. is
Often, indeed, the dissociation
instantaneous, and the appearance of the dis-
ease
symptoms equally
rapid.
In either case, the resultant malady psychical in
its origin,
psychical, not is
is
purely
and can be cured only by
by physical means. What
is
needed
to get at the dissociated mental states
forgotten,
disease-creating
memories
— the
— and
re-
them with the upper consciousness, or " root them out completely by means of suggesassociate
tions
"
This kind of
skillfully applied.
no
fanciful theory.
It
fact, repeatedly tested
and
is
is
the solidest
verified.
Time
and again, patients pronounced incurable by competent physicians have been taken in hand by the psychopathologists and,
once their disease
has been definitely traced to some dissociation,
have been restored to perfect health. For the matter
of that,
thing has been done to
of course,
the same
some extent by Christian
Science healers and other irregular practitioners " of mental medicine." But the difference be-
[234]
DISSOCIATION tween just
all
this
of these
— that
AND DISEASE
and the psychopathologists
the former apply
the healing
of suggestion to all sorts of diseases,
power
without any adequate understanding of
and
is
its
and laws
limitations, whereas the psychopathologists
recognize that
it is
only one of several valuable
medical methods, and that
it is
legitimately ap-
plicable only to certain maladies.
Experience has taught them, too, that even within
its
proper sphere of usefulness
it
often
is
of therapeutic value only after a searching scientific
examination of the patient's
subconscious-
ness has brought to light the particular dissociated
which have to be corrected before a cure
states
can be wrought. Nevertheless, the range of maladies susceptible
by psychopathological processes is marvelously wide, and it is no exaggeration to say
of cure
that
the
discovery
of
the
influence
exercised
by the subconscious in the causation of disease is one of the most vitally significant ever made in the history of medicine.
The citing a
truth of this
may
readily
be shown by
few cases illustrating some of the manifold
[235]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL ways
which dissociation works havoc in the
in
human
organism, and the extreme ingenuity dis-
played by the skilled psychopathologist in over-
coming its ravages. There was brought one day to the Parisian hospital of the Salpetriere, the world's greatest
center
of
woman
of forty, designated in the medical record
psychopathological
of her case
by the name
investigation,
of Justine.
a
She was
accompanied by her husband, who explained that he wished Doctor Janet to examine her because he feared that she had become insane. fact,
she presented
Her
maniac.
the
aspect
of
And,
in
a veritable
was flowing loosely over her shoulders, her eyes were fixed and glaring, her hands trembling, the muscles of her neck jet-black hair
and she constantly made the most When Doctor Janet gently grimaces.
twitching, horrible
sought to question her, she buried her face in her hands, and cried: *'
am "
Oh,
it is
so afraid
And
physician
of
terrible to live thus!
I
am
afraid, I
" !
what, pray, are you
asked. [
236
]
" afraid.^^
the
DISSOCIATION " *'
"
am
I
afraid of cholera."
Is that all
But
AND DISEASE
surely
you are it is
afraid of?
quite enough."
Doctor Janet turned
an explanation to her head despairingly, as
for
husband, who shook his
he replied "
This
is
in
"
an undertone:
the
way
she has been for years, doctor,
only lately she has grown
much
worse.
She
will
scarcely eat anything, for fear of catching cholera. It
is
stir
from the
is full
of cholera
sees cholera in everything.
Tell me,
difficult to
house.
germs. doctor,
persuade her to
She seems to think the
She is
my
separated, she
poor Justine
and
I.'*
Is
it
air
mad.'^
Must we be
that she will have to "
life in an asylum? Leave her here a few days," said Doctor " and I can tell you better then." Janet,
spend the rest of her "
Psychopathologists have invented some delicate tests for discriminating infallibly between
true organic insanity, which in the present state
knowledge is quite incurable, and funcmental troubles due to dissociation. Ap-
of medical tional
plying these, Doctor Janet soon reached the conclusion that Justine
was not [237]
really insane,
and
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL that her
"
phobia," ar irrational fear, was due to
some forgotten shock connected with the
disease
cholera.
But,
closely
though he questioned her, she
He
could recall nothing of the sort.
then decided
to try the effect of hypnotizing her, for, as
psychopathologists are aware, hypnotism, it is
possible to use
it, is
when
an unrivaled agency
for
Put
into the hypnotic
remember
incidents in their
recovering lost memories. state, patients easily
all
past of which they have no conscious recollection
when
in the normal,
with Justine,
waking
who proved
It
state.
to be
was thus
most hypnoti-
zable.
"
I
want you," Doctor Janet
told her, after she
had passed into deep hypnosis,
member whether
"
to try to re-
any time in your life you saw from cholera, or one who had
at
a person suffering
died from cholera." "
Why,
certainly I did," she promptly replied,
shuddering violently. " "
When was it.? " When I was a
little
old."
[238]
girl
—
fifteen
years
DISSOCIATION " " all
me
Tell
AND DISEASE
the circumstances."
mother was very poor. She had to take Sometimes she nursed sick sorts of work.
My
and when they died she got them ready burial. Once two people in our neighborhood
people, for
died from cholera, and I helped her with the corpses.
They made a
them, at
all
naked, and frightful! I shall
events.
it,
— one
was the body
of a
blue and green.
all
What
catch
It
frightful sight
I
if
Oh,
of
man,
frightful,
I should catch the cholera?
know
Nothing can save
I shall!
me!" Her voice
rose in a shriek of terror,
and Doctor
Janet hastened to de-hypnotize her.
The
situation
was now perfectly
Evidently the sight of the corpse, all
clear to him.
"
naked, and
blue and green," had so profoundly affected
the impressionable
girl as to
sociation
all
whereby
cause a severe dis-
memory
of
the shocking
episode had been blotted out of her consciousness,
only to be subconsciously remembered in most
minute
To
detail.
bring about a cure, to free her from the ob-
sessing
dread of cholera,
[239]
it
was necessary to
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL remove the gruesome subconscious memory image, and Doctor Janet essayed to do this through suggestions given to her
when she was again hypno-
tized.
"
You
no longer think
will
"
assuring her.
You
will
of this,"
forget
it,
he kept
absolutely,
permanently."
Day
he hypnotized her,
after day, for weeks,
and reiterated
similar
But she con-
commands.
tinued to be afflicted with her irrational fear,
and
it
finally
scious of
became
recollection
twenty-five
of
certain that her subcon-
the phobia-causing scene
years
before
rooted to be destroyed by
was
direct
too
deeply In-
attack.
abandoning the task as hopeDoctor Janet, with a shrewdness born of
stead, however, of less.
long experience,
made a
clever
in tac-
change
tics.
"
You "
tine,
insist,"
that
he said to the hypnotized Jus-
you cannot help seeing
mind's eye the corpse of the
Very
well, I
in
your
man who
died.
have no objection to that.
But
hereafter
you must
when
next appears to you, you will see
it
see
it
decently clothed.
[240]
So it
DISSOCIATION a
wearing
bright
AND DISEASE the
uniform,
blue-and-green
uniform of a foreign mihtary officer." " took," and Doctor Happily, this suggestion Janet followed up his advantage by suggesting
memory image which
that the subconscious
regarded as that of a corpse was, in the
image
a
of
successful, he
likewise being rid of the idea
demanded
What
only the
Ra.
'
this
is
cholera
Do you
name
and
suggestion
about getting
its
dire implica-
as
he
usual,
'
that troubles you
not understand that
of the fine
whom you
green, is
cholera,"
set
reality,
:
so much.f*
He
"
This
Hypnotizing the patient
tions.
"
living
man.
she
gentleman
a Chinese general, and his
Bear that well
in blue
marching up and
see
in
it
name
is
is
and
down.f*
Cho Le
mind."
Quite evidently there was nothing to inspire
dread in the image of a picturesque Chinese officer.
General Cho Le Ra.
Little
by
little,
as this artificial conception obtained firmer lodg-
ment
in Justine's subconsciousness, the baneful
idea which
it
was intended
away, and with
its
to supplant faded
fading the abnormal
[241]
fear
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL until
diminished,
at
length
peared, greatly to her joy
it
entirely
disap-
and the warm gratitude
of her devoted husband.^
Other
psychopathologists,
Doctor
following
Janet's lead, have similarly used this
method
of
substituting one subconscious idea for another.
Doctor John E. Donley, a well-known neurologist
of
Providence,
the few
Rhode
psychopathologists
Island,
whom
and one the
of
United
States has yet produced, was once consulted
by a
young man of thirty-two, who said to him: " Doctor Donley, I hear you have been very successful in handling people troubled with foolish
I'm bothered with as
notions.
foolish
notion as any one could possibly imagine.
a I
simply can't bear to ride in a street-car with an
odd number. trouble at
all,
Even-numbered but
if
hurry. it's
My
^
an odd-numbered car comes it
pass,
no laughing matter.
you on my nerves
me no
no matter how great friends laugh at me, but I tell
along, I've got to let
my
cars give
so that
it is
The
thing has got
unbearable."
This case and a number of other instances of forgotten
terrors giving rise to disease-symptonss are discussed in detail " in Doctor Janet's N^\Toses et Id6es Fixes."
[242]
DISSOCIATION "
How "
long have you been suffering in this
asked Doctor Donley,
way? "
For years. member." "
Is
it
instance?
No,
isn't
Just
it
began I can't
about
odd-numbered
re-
affect
for
houses,
"
no,"
answered
odd numbers
me
bother
when
odd-numbered cars that
only
How
you? "
AND DISEASE
a
bit.
in
"
the
it young man, That doesn't general.
It's just
when
they're painted
on street-cars." "
H'm,"
said
"
Doctor Donley.
a street-car accident? "
Ever been
in
"
Never."
"
Ever seen one?
"
"
Not
that I remember."
"
You
are quite sure as to that?
"
" Quite." "
Have you any
objection to
my
hypnotizing
youj'
"
Not
in the least,
if it is
likely to
do
me any
good."
In
another
solved.
ten
minutes
the
problem
Doctor Donley from the outset had [243]
was felt
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL confident that the young man's phobia
connected in some
and so
it
proved.
walking along the
way with
must be
a street-car accident,
Fourteen years
earlier,
when
he had seen a car strike
street,
and seriously injure a child who unexpectedly came from behind a wagon. He had noticed at the time that the car bore the
hundred and
thirteen,
The
thirteen."
and he remembered think-
"There
ing to himself:
number two
is
always bad luck
sight of the accident
a marked emotional shock, which, he
him
in
gave him said, upset
for several days.
All
of
waking
this
had long
memory,
was
but It
during hypnosis.
since
was
passed from his
distinctly
clear to
recalled
Doctor Donley
that the case was one of dissociation, and that
the exciting cause of the young man's unreasonable dread of odd-numbered cars was based on a painfully
vivid
subconscious
memory image
the consciously forgotten tragedy.
Also,
it
of
was
evident that before the dread could be overcome the distressing
memory image would have
to be
eradicated.
To
accomplish
this,
Doctor Donley resorted
[244]
AND DISEASE
DISSOCIATION to the
method
patient, while
of substitution, suggesting to the
under hypnotic influence, that
still
he was quite mistaken
had
street-car
was
it
supposing that the
injured the
seriously
that, on the contrary,
The
in
little
girl;
had scarcely touched
her.
after only eight days' treatment,
result,
to replace the painful
effectually
memory
image with one free from distressing associations.
As by magic,
No
phobia.
the young longer,
man shook
when he had
off his
absurd
to take a car,
did he stand on street corners, sometimes for an
hour at a time, waiting anxiously for a car with
an even number to appear.^ Bizarre as these cases actually
typical
causes an
by the
of sufi^ering only appreciable
sufferers themselves.
are thousands of
In every land there
men and women
obsessions equally strange ing, yet
are
a widespread malady that
of
amount
must seem, they
aflBicted
and equally
with
distress-
amenable to treatment by the methods
of psychopathology. ^
This case and several others similarly illustrative of the power of emotional disturbances are discussed
disease-creating
by Doctor Donley
in
"
Psychotherapeutics," a book of com-
posite authorsliip.
[245]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Often, in order to effect a cure,
sary to
make
tive is
use of the roundabout device just
— a strongly
Direct suggestion
described.
not neces-
it is
command imposed
in the
nega-
hypnotic state
—
frequently suflBcient. Often, besides,
tism at
all,
pathologist
not necessary to use hypno-
it is
a cure resulting
if
only the psycho-
can dig down to the root of the to conscious
trouble, and,
by
tion the lost
memory image,
recalling
recollec-
reassociate
it
with
the rest of the contents of the upper consciousness.
Particularly interesting in this connection, as
being illustrative also of an ingenious method of *' mind tunnelling " nowadays frequently em-
ployed to get at forgotten memories, reported
by Doctor A. A.
psychopathologist.
woman who nervousness. three
patient
a case
New York
was a young
applied to be treated for extreme
She had been perfectly well
months
begun to
His
a
Brill,
is
suffer
before,
when, she
said,
from a complication
including
insomnia,
headache,
irritability,
loss
of
she had
of disorders,
appetite,
constant
and stomach trouble. [246]
until
No
DISSOCIATION
AND DISEASE could be de-
physical cause for her condition tected,
and Doctor
suspected that
Brill
it
was
due to some secret anxiety, but the patient assured him that she
earnestly
"
had nothing
on her mind."
To
get at the facts which he suspected she
was consciously or unconsciously concealing from him, Doctor Brill decided to make use of what is
known
the
as
of mental
"
method
association-reaction
diagnosis,"
a cumbersome and
for-
midable term for a really simple process.
Everybody knows that
if
man
a
is
suddenly
asked a question bearing on matters which personally concern
him and which he
keep entirely to himself, he to the question in a
true state of
it
may
uncommon to
all
blush or stammer
all.
If
he
is
may find a man of
self-control, and not to be taken
off
may come smoothly
enough,
appearance without hesitation.
Never-
his guard, the reply
and
react
apt to
reply evasively,
impossible to reply at
anxious to " "
that will betray the
He may
affairs.
before replying,
way
is
is
theless, experiment has shown that, even in such
cases,
there
is
an appreciable difference [247]
in
the
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL time,
if
makes
not in the character, of the repHes he to
emotion-arousing questions, as com-
pared with the time questions
him.
it
takes
him
that have no special
The same
penings that
to
— albeit permemories — of hap-
him memories
subconscious
may
significance
holds good in the case of ques-
tions evoking within
haps wholly
to reply to
be no longer, but once were, of
keen emotional import to him.
Out
of the discovery of this fact the association-
reaction
using
it
method has been evolved.
The
reads slowly to his patient a
specialist
list
of one
hundred words or more, and requests him, as he hears each, to respond with the first word that
comes into
stimulus words is
mind.
his is
Seemingly
the
chosen at random; actually
so constructed that
some
of the
words are
to stir into activity the subconscious of
which the physician
this the fact will
list
is
in search.
of it
likely
memories
If
they do
be disclosed in the time of his
reaction-words — the words he utters reply — as measured by a chronoscope or stop-watch; in
or
in
their
character,
as
specialist.
[248]
noted down by the
DISSOCIATION Of course,
it is
AND DISEASE
necessary for the physician to likely to have,
emotional
significance to the particular patient;
and as a
select
words having, or
guide in the selection, strange though it may seem, nothing is more useful than the patient's
dreams.
For
it
has been definitely established
that dreams are far from being the haphazard
products of imagination they are generally supposed to be; that on the contrary, no matter
how
trivial or nonsensical
they seem, they always have an emotional foundation corresponding with
some present or past they mask matters of
reality;
and that usually
distinct significance to the
dreamer.
As a preliminary, his nervous patient.
then, in the
treatment of
Doctor
asked her to
Brill
write out her dreams and bring them to him. " " I never dream, except But," she said,
when
my
I
am
troubled by indigestion, and then
dreams are so absurd that they are not worth
telling."
"
Never mind," was
his
" reply.
Whenever
you do happen to have a dream, report me." [249]
it
to
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL Laughingly she promised to comply, and one
day brought him the following: " I dreamed that I was in a lonely country place and was anxious to reach my home, but could
Every time
not get there.
was a wall full
in the
My
of walls.
—
it
made
or very old.
a
move
there
looked like a street
were as heavy as lead;
legs
walk very slowly as
I could only
weak
way
I
Then
if
I
were very
there was a flock of
chickens, but that seemed to be in a crowded city street,
and they
and the biggest
— the
chickens
— ran
after '
of all said
something
like:
me,
Come
"
with me into the dark.' " " that There," she said, if
you can make head or
I can. tell
It
is
my
dream, and
tail of it, it is
so ridiculous that I
more than
am ashamed
to
it."
But Doctor
was already at work drawing with the more striking words of
Brill
up a test list, the dream sprinkled through the
is
list
it.
Twice he read
to her, noting not only the time of her
responses, but also their character.
He was that
immediately impressed by the fact such as certain of the dream words
—
[250]
DISSOCIATION "
" chicken,"
street,"
AND DISEASE "
and
had caused
words that would not
also given in her responses
be associated
"
and that she had
a noticeable time variation;
ordinarily
dark
with
the
words.
test
"
mysEspecially peculiar was the association of " " " " dark." and with the word tery marriage
The
mind that a
suspicion formed in his
disap-
might be at the bottom of all her disease symptoms. But he did not at once pointment
in love
give voice to this idea;
instead, he
obtain corroboration from her
own
sought to
lips
without
her appreciating his purpose, by means of an" " known as other method of mind tunnelling the method of free association. " " I want you," he said to her, to concentrate
your attention on the word the thoughts that
with
come
to
chicken,'
you
in
and
state
connection
it."
Her
reply, given after a
few moments of
meditation, was: " I
'
remember now that
biggest chicken;
all
silent
I could see only the
the others seemed blurred;
was unusually big and had a very long neck and it spoke to me. The street in which I saw it
it
[251]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL
—
the block where I used to go to school was always crowded with school children."
recalls
She paused, and began to blush and laugh. " Go on," said Doctor Brill encouragingly. "
What *'
next?
"
happy school days when I was young and had no worries. I even had a beau, a boy who attended the same school.
Why,
We
it
recalls the
used to meet after school hours and walk
home girls
together.
used to
He was tease me
lanky and thin, and the
they saw him coming, they said
comes your chicken.'
among
Whenever
about him.
That was
' :
his
Belle, here
nickname
the boys."
Stopping suddenly, she exclaimed: " Doctor Brill, it couldn't be possible that the chicken with the long neck, that I saw in my " dream, was my old beau! " It begins to look very much like it," he " " smiled. Have you seen him lately? "
"
Not
for
And
before then?
Little
by
months."
little
They had kept up
"
the
whole story came out.
their acquaintance after the [
252
]
AND DISEASE
DISSOCIATION
school days were long gone.
Three times he had
asked her to marry him, but each time she had " " liked him she refused, because although she " " him. At loved was not at all sure that she
had decided that the next time he proposed she would accept. But he had not proposed again. And shortly before she became ill last she
she had heard that he was paying attentions to
another young lady. " I take it," interposed Doctor is
not so well
off as
" Brill,
that he
he might be, and that this had
something to do with your refusing to marry him." "
What makes you
"
say
that-f*
"
'
In your dream I note that you state: Every time I made a move there was a wall in the way; it
looked like a street walls
full of
might easily
hence money. has
it
not?
full
signify
of
A
street
Wall Street
That has been the
—
real obstacle,
"
She confessed that he was
He
of walls.'
right.
then explained that the one great cause
her
ills
was her
insistent,
if
subconscious,
brooding over the disappointment she had ex-
[253]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and that her cure depended upon her abihty to overcome this mental attitude. Realizing for the first time, as a result of the dream
perienced,
analysis, that she
was
really in love with the
man
she had three times declined to wed, she soon
Only a hint was needed to transform him into a suitor once more, and solved the problem.
within a very few months they
were happily
married.^
Sometimes
direct
questioning
is
sufficient
to
enable the physician to get at the underlying
mental cause of trouble.
Take, for example, an-
other case successfully treated by Doctor Donley.
The
woman
patient was a
of thirty-five
who
was troubled by a constant and involuntary hacking, which sounded as though she were trying to clear her throat. tions,
and
electricity
Drugs, local applica-
had been
tried at intervals
during more than four years, but to no purpose.
On
set in
about
who was a ^
it
inquiry,
Doctor
was found that the trouble had
five years before,
mill
Brill
recently published
when the
patient,
hand, had suffered from a sore
has reported and discussed this case in his " Psychanalysis," pp. 48-54. [
254
]
AND DISEASE
DISSOCIATION The
throat.
physician
she then consulted
had a bad case
told her that she
and that her
whom
tonsils
of tonsilitis,
would have to be burned
out.
Greatly frightened, she had hurried home, refusing to submit to the operation.
In a few days
the tonsilar symptoms disappeared, and she re-
turned to work.
But she was attacked a second
time three weeks
later,
tor, to
and
visited another doc-
be informed that her tonsils were so badly
diseased that
moved by
it
would be well to have them
re-
cutting.
Again she refused to submit to an operation, but the fear of cutting, added to her previous fear,
now
revived,
of
burning out her
threw her into a highly nervous
began
to
experience
an
state.
unpleasant
tickling feeling in her throat,
tonsils,
She then stinging,
which she tried to
remove by hacking. As the tickling continued, the hacking became more and more frequent, and by the time she came under Doctor Donley's observation had taken on the character of a "
tic," or uncontrollable
These
muscular movement.
facts in the early history of the case,
[255]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL remembered only vaguely. But she confessed that she was still tormented the patient herself
by a haunting
fear of a possible future burning
Finding her exceed-
or cutting of her tonsils. ingly suggestible. Doctor
tempt to hypnotize
Donley made no
He
her.
at-
merely requested
her to close her eyes, remain perfectly passive,
and "
listen attentively to
She was then in
says,
with
told,
describing
him.
the
much emphasis," he
treatment,
"
that
her
were perfectly healthy, that no cutting or burning ever was or ever would be required; tonsils
that the tickling sensation in her throat arose
from the constant part;
fixation of attention
that she would feel no
more
upon
desire to
this
hack
because her supposed reason for hacking had ceased to exist, and finally, that
open her eyes she would in a good many years. "
Much
of health,
on the itself
when she should
feel better
than she had
emphasis was placed upon this feeling because
was desired to leave her
it
crest of a pleasurable emotion,
which of
has a very great suggestive value.
had been predicted
in
What
her regard actually oc-
[256]
AND DISEASE
DISSOCIATION curred.
When
she sat up, her tic had disappeared,
and she expressed herself as feehng quite grateful and happy. The treatment lasted an hour, and except for two slight recurrences easily removed this patient
by waking suggestion, further difficulty."
has had no
^
Unfortunately, such an easy solution of prob-
lems like this
when, as
is
comparatively rare, particularly
in this instance, a physical trouble is
— a fact which too strongly — happens Often
superadded to the mental. cannot be emphasized
it
that, in dissociational cases, physical
symptoms
so far predominate as to lead to totally diagnosis, even results,
as
by experienced
wrong
physicians.
This
was hinted above, from the power
inherent in subconscious
"
fixed ideas
"
of pro-
ducing an endless variety of disturbances simulating true organic diseases,
it
may
be diseases
remediable only through surgical operations.
As a consequence, innumerable operations have been performed on patients who should have been given, not surgical but psychopathological treat-
ment.
I
have
^Quoted from
"
in
mind
as I write a case of this
Psychotherapeutics:
[257]
A
Symposium,"
p. 152.
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL kind that was called to
who
my
attention
by a
friend
participated in the lamentable affair.
A
middle-aged
woman
entered
one
of
the
Boston hospitals and complained of severe abdominal pains, which she attributed to cancer of the
stomach or
She was obviously
intestines.
greatly frightened, and suffering intense agony.
A
diagnosis of appendicitis was made,
and an
immediate operation deemed imperative. But, to the surprise of the surgeons, the ap-
pendix was found to be in a normal condition.
At once they
directed
their
attention
to
the
abdominal organs, examining them one by one. None showed any sign of disease. Finally, with a rueful smile, one of the surgeons
other
straightened up, and, touching a finger to his
head, said: " The trouble with this poor woman, gentle-
men,
is
here, not in the region that
exploring.
We
we have been
But we should not undeceive
her.
remove the appendix, on general prinand that will probably be all that is needed
will
ciples,
to cure the trouble in her head."
Under the circumstances, [258]
it
was excellent ad-
DISSOCIATION But how much
vice.
for the unfortunate
AND DISEASE
better
would have been
it
Hfe
was thus
if it
had been
woman, whose
endangered by the surgeon's knife,
recognized from the beginning that her malady " " was only a hysterical simulation of the symp-
toms
Some
of appendicitis.
day,
when physicians
make themselves acquainted with
generally
the
diagnostic methods of psychopathology, blunders like this will be, as
they ought to be, most ex-
ceptional.
In
both
point
of
diagnosis
psychopathological
again,
and treatment,
knowledge
is
indis-
pensable to the correct handling of such cases ^ as the following, reported by Doctor Janet. It
is,
but
am
I
it is
ready to concede, an unusual case, unusual only because it presents a com-
symptoms commonly found
plex of
singly or in
simpler combination. It
would be impossible to estimate with any
accuracy the number of persons who, only
in
scant
afflicted
degree like this poor Marcelle,
have been obliged to drag out an existence worse than death, either 1
In
"
in the care of their friends
Nevroses et Idees Fixes,"
[259]
vol.
i,
pp. 1-68.
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL or
immured
in
an
institution,
simply because
their medical attendants, ignorant of the
ings of the law of dissociation,
work-
have been unable
to fathom the true nature of their
ills
and adopt
adequate curative measures. Marcelle, as Doctor Janet calls her, was only
when she began to astonish by developing what they were at
nineteen years old
her relatives first
disposed to regard as nothing but an eccen-
tric
form
them work,
She would constantly ask
of laziness.
to give her objects
—a
book, her crochet
a plate — which she could
easily
have got
by stretching out her hand and picking them up. To all expostulations, she would
for herself
calmly reply "
:
I can't help
I can't use
it.
once did, and that's "
You
You can
all
there
can't use your hands!
use
them
"
hands as
I
to it."
What
nonsense!
to eat with, well enough,
you are crocheting most "
is
my
and
of the time."
Oh, but that's different."
What's the difference?
But Marcelle could
not, or
Tell us."
would not,
tell
them,
and from joking with her the family soon passed [260]
DISSOCIATION
AND DISEASE
to a state of wrath, endeavoring in every
"
overcome her in turn
fear,
to
Their anger
stupid obstinacy.'*
gave way to
way
when, one night, noticing
a glimmer of hght in her room, they entered, and
found her standing, "
But what "
ment.
is this!
Why
and go to bed?
all
"
they exclaimed, in amaze-
don't you get your clothes off "
"Because," she
And,
fully dressed, before the bed.
cried,
"I
can't undress!"
arguments proving vain,
it
sary for her sister to disrobe her as
were a tiny held,
and
was necesthough she
Next day a consultation was was decided to take her to the Sal-
child.
it
petriere.
"
She doesn't seem insane," her mother ex-
plained,
when applying
to
have her admitted.
"
She talks sensibly about most things. Can it be that she is really suffering from some kind of paralysis?
"
Most
"
assuredly," was the reply,
do our best to discover what
it is
"
and we
will
and cure
it."
This turned out to be no easy matter.
Doctor
Janet, into whose care she came, had no culty
in
diffi-
determining that the specific malady
[261]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL which afflicted her was an extreme form of " abouHa," a disease involving temporary paralysis of the will, and thereby preventing all mus-
movement. But
cular
diagnosis,
it
was one thing to make a
and another to
effect
a cure.
Presently, too, indications of mental disturb-
Doctor Janet had discovered
ance developed.
that by distracting her attention he could induce
her to
rise,
extend her hands, and perform other
acts that were impossible to her
when she con-
centrated her attention on them.
utilized
argument to try and persuade her
as an
this
He
that she could always control her limbs
only "
made
fonned him. not put out
Most
well I
work. "
she
sufficient effort.
But you
"
if
are quite wrong," she calmly in" I
my
have not
left
chair, I
have
You know
very
my
hand."
assuredly you have.
did not give you that piece of crochet " How, then, does it come into your hands?
I did not pick it up."
" "
A
Who
did, then?
Somebody little later
else
"
— somebody
acting in me."
arose another complication. [
262
]
She
DISSOCIATION
became necessary to adher forcibly. She kept saying
refused to eat, and
minister food to
AND DISEASE
it
to herself: *'
You must die, you must die as soon as possible. You must not eat, you have no need of eatYou must not speak, you have no voice, ing. you are paralyzed." " Why do you say
this?
"
Doctor Janet one
day asked her. " " Why do I say what?
He *'
" "
repeated her words.
But
I
have said nothing
Oh, yes, you have." it was not No, no, no
—
else acting in
of the sort."
I;
it
was somebody
me."
—"
somebody else acting Again that phrase in me." Greatly impressed, Doctor Janet threw her into deep hypnosis.
Now, an unexpected
and most pathetic passage
came
to light.
a secret love
A
of
personal history
year before, Marcelle had had
affair,
her lover had deserted her,
she had determined to commit suicide. to do this, she had, none the less
by the shock
of the desertion,
[263]
Failing
— overwhelmed
and giving
herself
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL wholly to grief and chagrin, which she
felt
— gradually perceive
to allow no one to
obliged
passed
into a dissociated, dreamlike state, in which she
subconsciously pictured herself to herself either as no longer existing or as about to perish.
Hence her else acting in
To Doctor
"
aboulia," hence the
me," hence the
somebody
refusal to take food.
Janet the situation was
as clear as the light
"
of day —
now almost was the
so, likewise,
course which he would need to follow to restore " the sufferer to her real self," and rid her of all disease
The
symptoms. dissociation, to
put
it briefly,
had
in this
case been so complete as to cause an actual dis-
ruption of the sense of personality. Nor is this " " as rare as one loss of personality malady of
might be tempted to think.
I
could mention
many
cases not unlike that of Marcelle's,
some
far
ments. of
BCA.
it
surpassing
There
But
fascinating,
is,
in
astounding develop-
for example, the singular case
this
so remarkable, so weirdly
is
and so instructive that
to be treated, as I shall treat ter, entirely
by
and
itself.
[264]
it
it
deserves
in the next chap-
CHAPTER
VIII
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA his long career as a specialist in the
DURING treatment of
nervous and mental diseases.
Doctor Morton Prince, the celebrated Boston psychopathologist, has been called upon to deal
with
many
puzzling
human
riddles,
and
to solve
mysteries which, in their way, have been quite as
complicated and baffling as any that ever
taxed the ingenuity of that most ingenious of story-book
In
fact,
New
detectives,
some
England
of the
Mr.
Sherlock
Holmes.
problems laid before the
specialist surpass
even the most
astonishing of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
thus proving once more that truth
than
fiction.
BCA
affair.
is
stranger
This particularly applies to the
In the beginning, however, there was nothing in the
that
it
BCA
affair to suggest to
Doctor Prince
had features which would [265]
test
to
the
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL utmost
his psychopathological skill.
It
opened
a prosaic, matter-of-fact way, with the ar-
in
a young
rival at his office of
woman who
what she described
to be treated for
The
ous breakdown."
as a
wished "
nerv-
story she told was a sad
had heard many quite like it before, did not impress him as involving anything
one, but he
and
it
out of the ordinary. "
My
she
trouble,"
in
said,
describing
the
"
began when my malady, husband was attacked with an incurable disease. evolution
her
of
was altogether given up him, striving to make him as com-
For four years to caring for
my
life
and endeavoring to conceal
fortable as possible,
from him
my
grief
and anxiety.
the strain put upon
me
all
You can imagine
that time.
Finally
he died, under circumstances that caused
me
a
great shock.
"
Within
less
than a week after his death, I
For nearly three months I ate scarcely anything, and did not lost
twenty pounds
in weight.
average more than three or four hours' sleep out of
the
twenty-four.
whelmed;
felt
I
was
that I had lost
[266]
depressed, all
that
over-
made
life
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA worth
and, in short, wished to die.
living;
became highly nervous,
tired easily,
almost constantly from headaches. " This went on for many months.
came a period
me
in life
Then
temporary recovery.
there
Strangely
followed an occurrence that brought
it
enough, to
of
I
and suffered
suddenly a realization that
was
my
position
entirely changed, that I was quite
alone, desolate,
and
helpless.
these ideas flashed through
For a few minutes
my
mind, and then
seemed changed. I no longer minded what, a moment before, had caused me so much distress; all
and, what
is
more, I immediately began to im-
prove in health, until I was able to mingle with
my
friends,
take long walks, go driving,
had formerly done. there soon was a relapse, and now I am really enjoy life as I
and Alas,
feeling
worse than ever." Listening to her recital, and examining carefully her
Prince
mental and physical condition. Doctor
felt
justified
in
assuring her that there
was nothing seriously the matter, and that he would ere long have her on the highway to health. In
fact,
he regarded her case as one presenting
[267]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
the ordinary picture of so-called neurasthenia,
characterized
by
and the usual
persistent fatigue
somatic symptoms, and by moral doubts and scruples"; and planned a course of treatment
which he expected would speedily result in a cure. It was, to describe it briefly, treatment by hypnotic suggestion
by
— a method
often
employed
psychopathologists in handling cases of neu-
rasthenia,
for
they have discovered that
perfectly feasible to
" suggest
insomnia, and other this
away
"
it
is
the fatigue,
symptoms connected with
widespread and distressing malady.
The
use of hypnotism in the present instance,
was attended by consequences vastly from any Doctor Prince had anticipated,
though, different
since
it
revealed to
reality, suffering
him that
his patient was, in
from something
serious
than
ordinary
finitely
more
diflficult
infinitely
and
neurasthenia, to
the hypnotic state, her
overcome.
ills,
more
Put
in-
into
to Doctor Prince's
amazement, disappeared as though by a miracle. Her whole expression was altered. She looked,
and declared that she hard
to
believe
felt,
that
entirely well.
this
[268]
radiant,
It
was
vigorous,
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA brightly smiling
woman was
the one
who had
entered his office so short a time before, a typical
nervous wreck, her features haggard and careworn, her eyes dull and heavy, her hands trem-
And, most astonishing of
bling.
all,
the hypno-
tized patient herself insisted that, in a very literal
was not the same person.
sense, she
The
tone,
the
were changed.
language,
manner
the
—
all
Struck with sudden apprehension,
Doctor Prince quickly brought her out of hypnosis. Immediately there was another transformation,
and she was neurasthenic once more, with-
out the slightest remnant of the strength, independence,
and
self-assertiveness
she
had
just
been displaying. Nor, although she was sharply questioned, could she remember anything she
had
while
said
nothing, for
hypnosis
is
it is
hypnotized;
still,
this
proved
seldom that what goes on during
recalled in the
waking
state.
But, comparing her latest declarations with her prior account of the course her malady had run, Doctor Prince could not help asking himself
whether she might not actually be a victim of
what
" is
technically designated
[269]
total
dissocia-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL tion of personality," tional shock of
whether the second emo-
which she had spoken, acting
on a system already disorganized by the severe and prolonged strain imposed upon her by her husband's illness, might not have resulted in a psychical upheaval so catastrophic as to involve " the disintegration of her ego, or self," and the creation of a secondary self markedly differing
from her
original personality.
In such an event, the period of temporary
re-
covery would, indeed, represent a period when the secondary
self
had obtained at
least partial
and
control of the patient's organism;
quite conceivable that there might
it
was
come a time
when, momentarily, at any rate, the secondary self would become wholly dominant. In that
young woman's plight would be appallshe would be in ignorance of all she said
case, the ing, for
and did while precisely
in the secondary state.
This was
what occurred.
Only a few days after she had first she came into Doctor Prince's office
visited him, in a greatly
excited condition. " " the strangest, the most Doctor," she cried,
[270]
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA happened to me! This breakfast, I went up-stairs, in-
inexplicable thing has
morning, after tending to
down
lie
for
I think I
exhausted.
a time, as I
felt so
asleep, but
fell
am
utterly
not sure.
do know, though, that two hours afterward I found myself standing in the post-office, about I
you a
to mail to
letter
which
not write, but which writing.
It
is
is
such a queer
me
certain I did in
my
hand-
letter,
too,
for
plainly
speaks of matters of which I
even
am
I
know
nothing, and
though I were somebody and somebody else were I. What does refers to
mean.?
And,
What in a
as
does
day or
mean.?
it
so,
it
else,
this
"
she had an even stranger
story to relate.
"
Yesterday afternoon," she
" said,
a walk, not because I wanted
you had
told
me
to,
I
went
for
but because
that I ought to take some exercise.
I returned
home about
straight to
my
room.
four o'clock, and went I
remember nothing
of
what then happened until, in the evening, I suddenly became aware that I was at a gay dinner party, drinking wine to
my
— and, principles
— which
what was
[271]
is
contrary
far
worse,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL smoking a
Never
cigarette.
in
my
had I
life
done such a thing, and my humiHation at the discovery was deep and keen. "
I assure you,
on
my
honor, that I have not
the least recollection of accepting an invitation to dine out, of dressing for dinner, or of leaving
the house to attend the party.
blank to
room,
me
Everything
from the moment
in the afternoon, until I
went to
I
came
to
my
is
a
my
senses,
several hours afterward, to find a lively group
about me, a wineglass at
smoked Prince,
The
cigarette in
am
I
my
my
plate,
fingers.
and a
half-
Tell me. Doctor
"
going
insane.'^
physician hastened to reassure her, but
nevertheless he felt seriously alarmed.
It
was
evident that she was in a thoroughly dissociated
and that she had become, so to speak,
condition,
a battleground on which was to be fought out the weirdest and most uncanny of conflicts
—
a duel between two separate selves for absolute
supremacy Further,
would
lie
in the use of the organs of her it
body.
soon developed that the advantage
with the secondary
Prince called her
B
self
self
— which Doctor
— because,
[272]
although her
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA ordinary, or loss of
the
B
A
suffered
self,
from amnesia, or
memory, regarding her actions when in state, the B self had a memory extending
The mental agony growing out
over both states.
of this recurring forgetfulness on A's part
As the patient
readily be imagined. since expressed
in
it,
an autobiographical account
written at Doctor Prince's request: "
The amnesia made
life
very
except for the help
you gave me, have been impossible, and that gone truly mad. clear idea of
How
what
were, and not to
^
difficult;
think
I
indeed,
it
would
I should
have
can I describe or give any to
it is
know
time of the day, or
may
herself has
wake suddenly,
as
it
the day of the week, the
why one
is
in a given position?
would come to myself as A, perhaps on the street, with no idea of where I had been, or I
where alone,
was going; fortunate if I found myself for if I was carrying on a conversation I I
knew nothing
of
what
it
had been; fortunate,
^
in-
This autobiographical account was first published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Afterwards it was brought out in book form by Richard G. Badger, the Boston pubUsher, under the title, " My Life as a Dissociated Personality," and with an introduction by Doctor Prince. It is an account well
worth reading by aU students [
of psychology.
273
]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL deed, in that case,
thing I had said, all
I did not contradict
if
for, as
B,
my
some-
attitude toward
things was quite the opposite of that taken
by A." Picture to yourself, feel
for a
if,
my
reader,
how you would
few hours almost every day, and
sometimes for whole days at a stretch, you be-
came
nonexistent,
virtually
yet were
made
to
realize, from what your- friends told you, that a something or a somebody had taken possession
and was veritably acting
of your organism,
your place, and natural
self.
Doctor
in
a
way
utterly unlike your
This was the state of
Prince's
luckless
in
affairs
In
patient.
with
moods,
habits of thought,
and
controlling ideas, her secondary personality
was
tastes,
points
of view,
the very reverse of that which had been dominant
when she
first
sought medical advice.
There even were pronounced physical differences. Whenever she was in the A state, she
was extremely neurasthenic, being
by
one,
functional rasthenia,
now by
another,
disturbances
of
that
the
afflicted
now
multifarious
accompany
and being exhausted by the [274]
neu-
slightest
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA
A
effort.
walk of a few hundred yards would be
almost enough to prostrate her.
B
In the
know
state,
on the contrary, she did not
the meaning of the word
seemingly
of
incapable
would walk
"
pain," and was
She
fatigue.
feeling
for miles without experiencing the
was constantly on the go, and appeared to be in every way an exceptionally slightest distress,
robust, healthy
was — as B — a
Thus, physically, she
decided improvement over her-
But with
A.
self as
woman.
respect to psychical differ-
was altogether another matter. In the A state, she was kind, considerate
ences
it
others, self-sacrificing, of,
and devotion
any
tale of
scientious —
to,
of
animated by a keen sense
duty; profoundly stirred by
sorrow or suffering, and most conanything, overconscientious, being
if
tortured at times in an extraordinary degree by
moral doubts. thoughtless,
void of
"As
and
human
herself has
put
B, I felt
ure, using the
B
In the cold;
state, she
was
selfish,
one might almost say de-
feeling.
Here
is
the
way
she
it:
no emotion, except that
of pleas-
word pleasure as meaning a [275]
'
good
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL time ing,
'
—
boating, etc.;
things
walk-
social gayety, driving, motoring,
but
was very keen.
my
enjoyment of these As B, I was always the
gayest of the company, but for people I cared
The
nothing.
little
acts of affection which
perform in daily home
The
we
all
I never thought of.
life
habit of shaking hands with one's friends,
and
or embracing those nearer
kissing
dearer,
had no meaning to me. Ordinarily, I think, when one shakes hands with a friend, one feels the individuality of the person, more or the clasp of hands it
meant no more
of wood,
and the
or kissing were to
me
which
I
means something;
me
to
less,
and
but, as B,
than clasping a piece
acts of shaking hands, embracing, all
alike
—
it
made no
difference
did — one meant just as much as
This lack of feeling applied only to
the other.
the trees,
people, for I loved the outside world;
the water, the sky, and the wind seemed to be
a very part of myself.
which as
A
I
But the emotions by
was torn to shreds, as
B
I did not
feel at all."
In
still
further contrast, this most remarkable
young woman, when
in the [
276
]
B
state,
was giddy,
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA irresponsible,
she
and
A
In the
frivolous.
was most serious-minded and
state,
intellectual,
being fond of reading such excellent literature as the works of Shakespeare, Hugo, Ibsen, Tolstoi,
and Maeterlinck. and cared only she read at
All this,
B
found very tiresome,
for the lightest kind of fiction,
when
all.
In matters of dress and social pleasures,
and
B
A
were also diametrically opposed.
A be-
wear black; B, who seems
lieved that she ought to
never to have given a thought to the dead husband, detested black, and, on the other hand, had
a really abnormal liking for white.
So
that, as
the two selves alternated in control, the strange spectacle
was presented
one moment arrayed
in
of the
same woman
at
deep mourning, at an-
other dressed in some light, bright gown.
To in
cap the climax,
B
tormenting her other
made engagements
took a malicious pleasure self in
many
she
knew
wliich
ways.
She
that, as A,
she would not like to keep; she cultivated friendships with people with desire to associate;
whom,
as A, she
had
little
she was wastefully extrava-
gant, freely spending on useless articles [
277
]
money
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL which, as A, she had been carefully hoarding against a rainy day; she indulged in innumerable petty, but annoying, practical jokes at A's ex-
pense.
A
For example:
morning to
find
would often wake
in
the
on her pillow or dressing-table
" cheer up," to notes advising her jeeringly to " " bother Doctor weep no more," and not to Prince so much."
These notes she
herself
had
written during the night, having changed to the
B
awakened as B,
state while she slept,
and penned the
risen,
notes, and then returned to bed,
to fall asleep once more, and, in the morning,
awake
as A, with no
done since
The
memory
of
what she had
retiring.
flood of notes continuing, she
began to destroy them unread, hoping that this would discourage B's malicious activity.
matters worse, for
B now
began to
It only aflSx
the notes
to the center of her mirror, pasting above inscriptions
made them
warning her to be sure to read them,
—
as they and declaring that they contained sometimes did information of importance to
—
her. [
278
]
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA But the best
idea of the topsyturvy, kaleido-
scopic, almost incredible life led
with a double existence
woman
this
by
be given by quoting
may
a few extracts from a diary kept jointly by the
Doctor Prince's suggestion. Unique as a record of human experiences, it had
two
personalities, at
a distinctly practical value, for to keep track of
was
in control.
from
A
what she had been doing while B B, of course, had no need of it
for this purpose, since, as suffer
enabled
it
loss of
memory,
was
said, she did
like
A.
The
not
extracts
quoted are not always in chronological order; but, for the present purpose, that
is
unimpor-
tant:
"
I
am
here again to-night, B, I am.
well tell all I thing, I
had a
of being a
care
how
have done, facial
mass
I
I
know
is
A
no need doesn't
The Q's spent the smoked a cigarette. Now, A,
Doctor Prince; you don't have him everything you do it, though. I
must have a "
— there
as
she looks, but I do.
don't go and tell
massage
may
For one
I suppose.
of wrinkles.
evening here, and I
to
I
tell
—
little
fun."
have struggled through another day. [279]
B
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL am
I
explain?
How
it?
How
so humiliated, so ashamed.
Why-
has told what she did.
can I bear
should I do things which so mortify
Quite '
It
fun.'
"
A
all
ill
day.
is
day
pride?
— one of the worst for a long
I cannot live this I
expected.
my
am, as usual, paying for B's
not to be borne."
terrible
time.
I
am
way;
so confused.
not to be
it
is
I
have
lost
so
much time now that I can't seem to catch up. What is the end to be? What will become of me: "
A
was used up, and had to stay in bed all the morning, but I came about one o'clock,
X asked me to motor down
and Mrst
Had
to Z.
and got home at seven, nearly famished, for A had eaten nothing all day she lives on coffee and somnos nice coma gorgeous
ride,
—
—
bination
— steak
!
and French
fried
for
mine,
please."
"Good has been
gracious!
ill
all
How we
fly
around!
A
the day, could not sleep last night.
hope he [Doctor Prince] won't send for us, for he will put a quietus on me, and, as things are
I
now, I
am
gaining on A.
Had
[280]
a gay evening
—
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA no discussions
of religion or psychology,
and
secting of hearts
souls while I
am
no
dis-
in
the
flesh."
"
wonder
I
It
all?
frightens
if
A
seems
is
like
me some
ance wheel.
really
dead
—
for
good and
The thought
it.
way, as
She wants to
if
had
I
die,
lost
not bear to hear
A
my
bal-
she really does, I wish I
for she thinks it to herself all the time.
were myself alone, and neither
rather
A
nor B; I can-
groan, she cannot bear
my
glee."
"
Such a day A got away from me for a little while, and tried to write a letter to Doctor Prince. !
It
was a funny-looking *
her:
You cannot
letter, for I
write,
kept saying to
you cannot move your
hand,' but she had enough will power to write
some, and direct
The
it.
effort
used her up,
however, and I came, and the letter was not mailed." " I
am
too
much
bewildered to write.
succeeded in writing Doctor Prince. only mail
it!
Oh, but
I
am
tired!
If
have
I I
can
Such an awful
" struggle!
"
Another queer thing happened to-day. [281]
I
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL have not been to the cemetery for a long time, so started to go there. I had gone only a little
way when I began to I do not mean that I could not easily
was
It
me, or
as
if
like
feel
did not wish to, but that I
move my
was
I
force
was restraining
walking against a heavy wind.
held — could
not
I set
impossible to go.
it
move my
my
will,
feet
one inch
and said to my-
'I will go, I can go, and I will!'
could not do
it.
exhausted — and
I
began to
I
reached the en-
finally
but farther I found
in that direction.
seK:
feet in that direction.
some physical
kept on, however, and trance;
that I could not go on.
feel
turned back.
very
But
I
tired —
As soon
as
I
turned away, I had no trouble in walking, but I
was very tired." These last paragraphs
refer to a
phase of the
case which was, from the standpoint both of the
patient and Doctor Prince, one of
its
most
serious
and mysterious features. Although B, try as she and she undoubtedly tried hard enough might could not permanently oust the A self, and
—
—
had
to be content with manifesting as an alter-
nating personality,
it
was none the [282]
less .the fact
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA
to
A
was uppermost, B was able from some subconscious region, a
even when
that,
exercise,
amount
certain
A
often impelling
of influence,
to do things contrary to her inclinations.
The consequence was
that
A
suffered fearfully
from what seemed to be aboulia, or paralysis will,
somewhat
Doctor
Pierre
that experienced by
similar to
Janet's
patient,
scribed in the preceding chapter.
episode was only one of
of
many
Marcelle,
de-
The cemetery
incidents, when,
overpowered by some force she could not understand, and which was actually the superior will
was unable to carry out projects she wished to execute, or was made to perform acts
of B, she
not at
The
all
to her liking.
diary
is
full
of allusions to this subcon-
A
by B. Scores of times, B influenced her to read some particular book she scious mastery of
— B — wished to read, or to go out for a walk when she — A — wished to remain at home. Naturally
A
began to consider herself change-
able and weak-minded. "
One day," B
" it
writes,
was raining and
she did not want to go out, but I felt that I could [
283
]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL So I
not stay in the house another minute. willed that she should go to walk,
her clothes and went out.
nonsense this I
knew what
time.'
walk.'
wanted to do
She would thmk:
And then
want to go out '
minutes:
'
She thought:
five
in all this rain.'
I believe I will
more
finally she went,
minutes at a
*I guess I
she would thmk:
*
No,
I don't
in
a few
etc.
And
Then,
of
go to
will
go to walk,'
for peace
What
I wish
to go out in this rain!
is
I
and she changed
mind than
else."
anything
Frequently, moreover, the subconscious willing to
A's
afi'ect
effacing A,
neously,
m
conduct,
and allowing
resulted
B
in
completely
to reemerge sponta-
full control.
Thus, there was a dinner party which
across the
room
A
was dressing she she would not go, and started
anxious to attend, but while
— A — decided
B was
to telephone
and say she would
At once B subconsciously began "I want to go," "You must go."
not be present. to think:
And poor A
first
became very much confused,
then faded away entirely, with the result that the telephone message was not sent, and
[284]
B was
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA free to attend the party,
the
"
times
good
"
that
and enjoy another of meant so much to
her.
Where subtle
A
most
suffered
power
of
B
Doctor Prince, and well
all
by reason
of this
to influence her actions, lay
in the difficulty she
B
of
had
in
communicating with
in going to
knew that her
him
for treatment.
career would
come
end the moment Doctor Prince succeeded
to
an
in re-
associating his patient's disintegrated personality,
and she fought desperately to preserve her existence, repeatedly preventing A, as mentioned quoted from the diary, from
in the extracts
tele-
phoning to Doctor Prince, writing to him, or visiting
him;
all
of
which greatly increased A's
and unhappiness. chanced, although Doctor Prince
confusion, misery,
But, as
it
was earnestly desirous of effectually and forever suppressing B, he was not at all desirous of doing and was,
this for A's sake;
to get rid of
For,
A
as he
to inject a
most complicated discovered that
A
in fact, as
was to get
rid of B.
new complication affair,
anxious
he had by
into
this
this
time
had no more right to considera[285]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL tion than B, since
A
B
no more than
the patient's normal personaHty.
represented
His searching
— the duel between A and B study of the case lasted a year or more — had convinced him that there had been not a single, but a double, disso-
and that the normal
ciation of personality;
self,
in consequence first of the shock occasioned
by
the husband's illness and death, and afterward of the shock that
brought the
B
personality to
the fore, had been violently relegated to some
obscure department of the patient's subconsciousassuredly was existent,
ness, where,
however,
and where
was an intensely
it
it
interested,
spectator of the struggle being
less,
control
To
by the two usurping
recall this lost self,
if
waged
many months
which he designated as
weary and
of
and,
futile efifort,
One day,
ultimately succeeded.
for
selves.
C, was Doctor Prince's paramount object; after
help-
after
he
he had
plunged his patient into deep hypnosis, he saw that she had undergone a striking change. ically she seemed
much
as in the
not so boisterously vigorous; like
B
state,
Phys-
though
mentally she was
A, thoughtful and intellectual, but happily 286 ] [
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA devoid of the vacillation and morbid overcon-
had made A's
scientiousness that
and most
herself,
to
difficult
life
a misery to
who came
all
in
contact with her.
new
Questioned, she showed that in this she possessed a complete
A
B
and the
mal than
the
self
closer
both the to
nor-
— he
had found C, the missing which, after nearly two years of
had promise
exile,
and was
for
In Doctor Prince's mind, no
either.
doubt remained self,
states,
memory
state
coming once more into
of
its
own. It
had yet to be reestablished
in sovereignty
— no easy task, as the event proved. hours after in
its first
B
once more put
an appearance, wrathful, vehement, and de-
fiant, angrily
press
it
if
challenging Doctor Prince to sup-
however, by the short, the conflict
and
C
Then came A, and soon a
he could.
momentary return
B
emergence,
Not many
of still
C, quickly put to flight,
powerful
now became
active opponents,
and
will
of
B.
In
triangular, with
A
a participant
because she could not help herself.
The
invaluable diary affords a clear view of
[287]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL the chaos that prevailed, and of the increasing
Doctor
effectiveness
of
enforcement,
by
claims of C.
We
hypnotic
Well, once
this diary.
I never
came
the
lamenting,
I
am
permitted to write in
we got home, C went
saw such a
to pieces.
And then poor
lot!
Then, thank goodness,
why Doctor
cannot see
have that emotional, met
B
of
old
A
again, in anguish, wringing of hands, finally
tears.
I
suggestion,
banishment:
more
After
re-
vigorous
find, for instance,
after several days'
"
Prince's
It passes
came myself!
I
Prince would rather
than to have
hysterical set
comprehension.
I
know
every-
thing, always, and they know only a few things for a few minutes."
The note
woe and panic sounded here was amply justified. Little by little, A and B became less in
of
evidence, until at length they were heard
from no more, and left
C — the
normal
self
— was
dominant, with a complete restoration to
physical as well as mental health.
But, the reader this mean.f^
Can
may
well ask,
there really be
seK, one personahty, in
human
[288]
what does
all
more than one beings?
If so,
THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA what are we?
What
is
the true nature of
man?
These are questions that cannot be avoided, and in my next and closing chapter I will make some attempt to answer them.
[289]
CHAPTER IX THE LARGER SELF
TT --
is
barely fifty years since the problem interest to
supreme
mankind — the
of the nature, possibilities,
— began to be studied
of
problem
and destiny
of
in a really scientific
man way
;
yet in that half century more progress has been
made toward
its
solution than in
all
the previous
thousands of years that have elapsed since first
asked himself:
What
I?
Shall I be, after I
capabilities? exist here
What am
man
are
my
have ceased to
on earth?
Armed with instruments precision, devising novel
of the
methods
most for
delicate
exploring
the body and the mind in their mutual ramifications,
of
modern
new and
investigators have
largely unexpected light
and
on the great
and have opened vistas of aspiration and actual achievement
questions at issue,
hope
thrown a flood
[290]
THE LARGER SELF undreamed
by the vanished peoples
of
of
bygone
times.
At
much
to be sure,
first sight,
of their effort
appears to be irreparably, even wantonly, de-
and perhaps nowhere more so than in the blows they have dealt at the traditional structive,
conception of the central fact in man's psychical
— that intangible entity variously known
make-up
as the ego, the seK, the personality, animated
and governed by an indwelling, unifying printhe soul.
ciple,
that there
instinctively believes
only one of him.
is
matter how emotions
Every man
his
thoughts,
may change
He
his
feels that,
sensations,
in the course of time,
no his
he
himself will remain essentially and permanently
the same.
Putting this belief into metaphysical
language, he declares, with the excellent
Reid: "
The
conviction which every
identity
.
.
strengthen
without .
.
.
it;
first
The
wherever
needs
.
no
of
aid
man
Thomas
has of his
philosophy
to
and no philosophy can weaken it producing some degree of insanity.
identity of a person it is
real it
is
a perfect identity;
admits of no degrees; and
[291]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL impossible that a person should be in part
it is
the same and in part different, because a person is
a monad, and
But the modern replies
"
not divisible into parts."
is
explorer of the nature of
^
man,
:
You
my
are wrong,
friend.
Your seK
is
very
from being the simple, stable unity that you imagine it to be. In reality it is most complex
far
and most unstable,
easily breaking up,
times breaking up so completely that
be replaced by an entirely new believe this?
I can prove
it
self.
and some-
may even You do not
it
you from the
to
facts not only of scientific experiment,
but also
of everyday observation."
Naturally, in support of this statement, stress
would be case of at
all
BCA,
on instances resembling the strange just narrated.
similar to the
common in
laid
there are a
BCA
A
although cases
affair are
extremely un-
number on record evidencing
other ways so-called
personality."
And
"
total
dissociation
of
For example:
prosperous Philadelphia plumber, a
man
1 Thomas Reid's " Essaj^ on the Intellectual PowersO Man," pp. 228-231 (James Walker's edition of 1850).
[292]
of of
THE LARGER SELF exemplary habits and seemingly in good health,
home one day to take a moment he disappeared
left his
that
From
short walk.
as completely as
though the earth had opened and swallowed him. There was no reason why he should abscond or
commit
and the general belief was that Rewards were offered,
suicide,
he had met with foul play.
and detectives employed, but no trace of him could be found. His wife, giving him up for dead, sold his business and removed with their children to Chicago.
Nearly two years shop
later,
the
workmen
in
a tin-
a Southern city were startled one morning
in
by the conduct
of
one of their number, who,
dropping his tools and pressing his hand to his
head
in a bewildered
way, sprang to
his feet,
and
cried :
"My here?
God!
This
Where am
isn't
my
I?
How
did I get
" shop!
The foreman, thinking he was drunk,
or
had
gone insane, ran forward to pacify him. "Steady, Smith, steady!" he exclaimed. "
You'll be
The
all
right in a minute."
other only stared at him wildly. [
293
]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
do you caU me Smith? " That isn't my name." "
Why
That's the
"
he demanded.
name you've gone by
since
you
came among us six months ago." " Six months ago! You're crazy, man.
It
isn't half
an hour since I
left
my
wife and
little
ones to get a breath of fresh air before dinner." "
Look here,"
said the foreman, pressing
gently into a seat, " are,
"
"
him
where do you suppose you
anyway?
Why,
in Philadelphia, of course."
was indeed the Philadelphia plumber, whose missing self had returned to him as suddenly and It
as mysteriously as
it
had vanished.
A
few days
more and he was happily reunited with the family that had so long believed him to be among the dead.^
Where,
it
may
well be asked,
original self during these
become
was
two years?
this
man's
What had
normal ego, the ego of which alone he had formerly been aware? Yet at no time of his
1 This Boris Sidis's " Multiple Personality," pp. 365-368. book, by one of the foremost American psychopathologists, should be read by all students of abnormal psychology.
[294]
THE LARGER SELF throughout the period when he lacked knowledge
and was without memory for his earher life and social relationships, did he display the slightest sign of mental aberration. He was of his identity,
as sane and real to himself and to those with
whom
he came into contact, and was as able to
take care of himself and earn a sufficient living, as he had ever been in the years before he ex-
perienced
the
remarkable
psychical
that had substituted an alien, a self in
the place of the
upheaval
"
"
secondary
he had always been
self
and known.
A
blow, an
illness,
longed emotion
a fright, the stress of a pro-
— any one of several causes may
bring about this weird condition, of which I could
number that would
give illustrative cases to a
many
fill
pages of this book.^
fortunately seldom, case of
BCA — a
there
Sometimes, though
may
be
— as
in
the
double or even a multiple dis-
sociation, resulting in the
three,
four,
development of two, or more secondary selves, which
alternate with one another in a 1
tific
A
collection of such cases will be found Mental Healing," pp. 124-155. [
295
]
way productive in
my
book,
"
Scien-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL most intense mental agony to the
of the
helpless
victim.
But, after
not necessary to
it is
all,
on
insist
such extreme instances in order to demonstrate the essential instability and divisibility of that
which we commonly have in mind when we speak "
of the
Dissociation of personality
self."
is
in
evidence every day in the pathetic symptomatology of the various insanities, and in the chronic, if
often
masked and unrecognized, memory
universal
among
sufferers
from
affections of hysteria, such as
"
the chapter on is
in
the
we
lapses
manifold
dealt with in
Dissociation and Disease."
It
evidence in the victims of alcoholic and drug
excesses,
come
"
who,
in
a very
literal
sense,
may
be-
another person," and say and do things
and concerning afterward has no knowledge.
quite alien from their usual
which their usual
Even normal
self
sleep,
self,
albeit
a wise provision
and strengthening of the organism, Still more strikingly is dissociation.
for the rest
involves
dissociation
evident
in
the
phenomena
state of artificial sleep induced It
would
carry us too far
[296]
of
the
by hypnotism. from the point now
THE LARGER SELF under consideration to enter here into any
mechanism
cussion of the nature and tism, that
of
dis-
hypno-
widely misunderstood but mar-
still
velous agency, not simply for therapeutic pur-
and exploration of man's The thing of immediate impor-
poses, but for the study
inmost being. tance
the fact that under the influence of
is
hypnotism a person invariably develops a self more or less different from his ordinary waking, conscious
self.
he
Hypnotized,
to
is
all
outward
seeming
oblivious to everything transpiring around him.
But
the hypnotist speak to him,
let
question
him, and he instantly responds with answers so intelligent as to indicate that, in
at
all
events, he
wide awake.
mands and certain
is
more
alert
some
respects,
and keen than when
Curiously enough, however, com-
suggestions given to
limitations,
accepted
him
are, within
and acted upon,
no matter how disagreeable or absurd they may be.
Later,
same
when awakened, he
is
in precisely the
position as are victims of spontaneous dis-
sociation
— such
as
the
Philadelphia
[297]
plumber,
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL and Doctor Prince's puzzling neurasthene, BCA. That is to say, he is unable to give any account of
what he has
said
Thus the
effect
psychical
cleavage
the action,
of
within
and done during hypnosis. hypnotism
to produce a
is
so
profound as to involve
a
single
of
organism,
two
separate selves.
This has been demonstrated by a long
physicians and
scientific investigators, including
psychologists of international reputation.
More-
have shown that, even
over, these investigators after a person has
line of
been brought out of the hyp-
notic state, the self evoked
by hypnotism may
in
some inscrutable way continue operant without his suspecting for a moment its existence and influence.
Impressive proof of this tion of
mands.
what are known
A
is
found
as post-hypnotic
hypnotized person
being de-hypnotized, he
in the execu-
is
is
com-
told that, after
to perform a certain
act on receiving a certain signal, or at the expiration of a certain time.
to
his
conscious,
nothing of the
As
waking
usual, state,
when
restored
he remembers
command imposed on him; but [298]
THE LARGER SELF when the time
him
is
signal
arrives,
he
given,
an
feels
the
or
appointed
irresistible,
and
to
inexplicable, impulse to carry out the sug-
gested idea.
Thus,
in
made by
one
series
foremost
the
hypnotism. Doctor ject,
a young
of
fifty-five
English
experiments
on
authority
Milne Bramwell, the sub-
J.
woman
of nineteen,
was ordered
to perform a specified act at the end of a varying
number
of minutes, ranging
from three hundred
more than twenty thousand. Not once, on being de-hypnotized, did she remember what she
to
had been
told to do, although offered a liberal
reward
she could recall the
if
commands
given
her.
Nevertheless, only two of the fifty-five experi-
ments were complete she executed the
ment
failures, while in forty-five
commands
at exactly the
mo-
designated, and in the remainder was at
time more than
five
minutes out of the way.
no
As
to the complete failures, Doctor Bramwell ascertained that in one instance she
had mistaken
the suggestion given, and in the other the
cumstances were such that the
[299]
cir-
command might
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL have been executed without of
his
being
aware
it.i
Equally astonishing results are reported by the brilliant group of Frenchmen who, uniting
under the direction of Doctor A. A. Liebeault, were the
first
to
make an
organized investigation
the cause and effects, the possibilities and
of
limitations, of hypnotism.
One
French
of these
Doctor Hippolyte Bemheim, once hypnotized an old soldier, and asked him: investigators,
"
On what day you be at
will
" "
On
in the first
week
the Wednesday."
will
pay a
visit to
will find in his office
who
October
liberty?
Well," said Doctor Bernheim,
you
of
"
will
"
on that day
Doctor Liebeault;
you
the president of the republic,
present you with a medal and a pen-
sion.
The
was then awakened and questioned as to what had been said to him, but could resoldier
member nothing. However, on Wednesday, Octo^
These experiments by Doctor Bramwell were
by him
first
reported
in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,
vol. xii, pp. 176-203.
[300]
THE LARGER SELF ber
3,
Doctor Liebeault wrote to Doctor Bern-
heira:
"
Your
soldier has just called at
walked to
bookcase, and
my
salute; then I heard '
excellency!
him
my
house.
made a
respectful '
utter the words:
Soon he held out
He
Your
his right hand,
*
Thanks, your excellency.' I asked him to whom he was speaking. Why, to the
and
said:
*
president of the republic'
and
He
turned again to
then
went
the
bookcase
The
witnesses to the scene naturally asked
saluted,
away.
me
what that madman was doing. I answered that he was not mad, but as reasonable as they or I, only another person was acting in him."
Compare with
this
an amusing
little
^
story told
by Doctor Prince. "
test the compelling influence of
Wishing to
post-hypnotic
commands,"
gested to one of
my
he
" says,^
I
sug-
subjects, Mrs. R., after she
was hypnotized, that on the following day, when she went down to dinner, she would put on her bonnet, and keep *
it
on during the whole of dinner
"
De la Suggestion dans I'Etat Hypnotique," p. 29. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. cxxii, p. 463.
[301]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL The next day
time.
which she said: *"
in
I think I
I
I received a letter from her
would wear "
On
story,
am
my
getting insane.
At dinner time
hat during the meal.'
further inquiry, I obtained the following
which I give substantially
in the original
language: " '
As
was going in to dinner, my girl asked me what I was going out for. " I am not," says "
I
" dinner." Then " what have you got your hat on for? says she. I
I.
put
I
am
my
bonnet. " crazy?
do
going to eat
hand
head, and there was my " *' am I going Lord, Mamie! says I, " " No, mother," she says, you often
my
to
"
began to get frightened, bonnet and went into the next
foolish things."
but took
room to "
my
off
my
I
dinner.'
Then the younger
child similarly asked her
where she was going, and called attention to her having her bonnet on. A second time she
and to her surprise She found that her bonnet was really there. raised her
hand
again took entered, the
it
to her head,
off,
and
later,
when her husband
same thing was repeated; but when [302]
THE LARGER SELF she found her bonnet on her head for the third time, she
made
excuse of the stormy words that
ensued to declare she would she was through.'
'
on now
till
After dinner, being alarmed,
she consulted a neighbor about
But the
it
keep
it."
longest time on record for the carrying
made by
out of a post-hypnotic suggestion was
a subject of Doctor Liegeois, another of the early
Doctor Liegeois hypnoFrench investigators. tized a young man, and said to him :
"
A year from to-day
to do, call at
and
this
is
what you are going
and what you are going to Doctor Liebeault's
tell
for all they
will
the morning,
office in
him that you have come
and Doctor Liegeois
You
see:
to
thank him
have done to
While you are talking to see enter the room a dog with a
improve your health. him, you
monkey
will
riding
a thousand "
you
will see
American
perform will
its
back.
They
will
perform
amuse you very much. a man come in, leading a
tricks that will
Then you
great
on
tricks.
grizzly
bear,
It will be a
not be at
all
which
tame
frightened.
will
also
bear, so that
The man
will
be delighted at recovering his trained dog and
[303]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL monkey, which he thought he had lost. Before he leaves you will borrow a few cents from Doctor Liebeault to give to him."
Doctor Liegeois, after repeating these complicated and absurd directions, awoke the young
man, and by cautious questioning ascertained that his memory was a perfect blank for all that
had been
him while he was hypnotized. Great care was taken not to recall to his mind said to
any time the command given to him, and which his hypnotic self was expected to remember and at
perform on the appointed day. Exactly a year
Doctor oflSce,
Liegeois
later, at
went
to
nine in the morning.
Doctor
Liebeault's
where he waited half an hour, and then
returned home, thinking that the experiment had
But
failed.
arrived.
at ten minutes to ten the
There was nothing about
young man his appear-
ance to indicate that he was in any abnormal condition.
He
greeted Doctor Liebeault, explained that he
had come
to
thank him
and inquired for Doctor he had expected to find
for his kindness to him,
Liegeois, there.
[304]
whom
A
he said
few minutes
THE LARGER SELF Doctor Liegeois having meanwhile
afterward,
been hastily summoned, the young out that a
monkey had
just
come
He watched
the back of a dog.
in,
man
cried
riding on
the antics of these
imaginary animals with great interest, laughing heartily,
and describing the
saw them performing. the arrival of a of the
man who was
monkey and
man
for
given him.
evidently the owner
the dog, and he begged Doctor
the
money
little
amusement
But he saw no
A moment
he fancied he
After this, he announced
Liebeault to lend him a the
tricks
later
his
to reward
animals had
bear.
he was conversmg with the
two physicians, in evident ignorance of all that he had just been saying and doing. He angrily denied that there had been any animals in the room.
When
asked
why he
himself was there,
he could give no definite reply.
Doctor Liegeois
immediately put him into the hypnotic state, and
demanded "
:
Do you know why you came "
ing.?
"
"
Of course
Why
was
I do." it?
"
[305]
here this morn-
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL "
Because you told
"
When?
"
A
me
to."
"
year ago."
"
But you did not come
"
You
You
did not
said to
me
tell
come
at nine o'clock?
to
come
to ten
"
at nine o'clock.
at exactly a year
time you were talking to me.
It
"
from the
was ten minutes
when you gave me your command."
And why
did you not see the bear?
"
"
Because you said nothing about a bear when you repeated your orders. Y^ou spoke only once of a bear. Everything else you spoke of twice. I thought 3^ou
bear."
^
Obviously,
the
hypnotic
self,
though
and
it is
sions as readily as the conscious self, it
distinct
from the primary, waking can reason, can analyze, can draw conclu-
different self,
had changed your mind about the
and
is,
to put
otherwise, as truly a self as the conscious
Facts
like
these,
as
was
said,
self.
have caused
^ Dr. Liegeois's account of his many hypnotic experiments, " De la Suggestion et du Somnambulisme dans as given in his leurs Rapports avec la Jurisprudence et la MMecine legale,"
forms one of the most striking contributions to the literature of hj^pnotism.
[306]
THE LARGER SELF to question the validity
numerous investigators
of the hitherto prevailing view of sonality.
tinuous, is
The
they aflBrm,
self,
permanent
On
entity.
no
is
human
per-
single, con-
the contrary,
it
merely a loosely coordinated aggregation of
mental
and changing, so to-morrow may be vastly dififer-
states, forever shifting
that the
self of
ent from the
self of
to-day.
To
quote Professor
Ribot, the famous scientist, and one of the most distinguished exponents of this
new view
of the
self:
"
The
unity of the ego
entity
single
phenomena;
number
of
diffusing it
states
common
sole,
among
multiple
it is
and
renascent, basis the
vague
This unity does not diffuse
downward, but
from below;
itself
perpetually
feeling of the body. itself
not the unity of a
the coordination of a certain
is
having for their
is
is
not an
aggregated by initial,
ascent
but a terminal
point."
And Ribot adds "
It
is
emphatically:
the organism, with the brain,
its
representative, which constitutes the sonality;
comprising
in itself the
[307]
supreme
real
per-
remains of
all
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL we have been and the
that
that
we
shall be.
The whole
there inscribed, with
is
its
aptitudes,
its vices, its
its
torpor or
of all
individual character
and passive
active
its
and antipathies,
sympathies
genius, its talent or
possibilities
stupidity, its virtues
its
its
and
^
activity."
Or, as the eminent psychologist, Alfred Binet, declares
"
:
We
have long been accustomed by habits of speech, fictions of law, and also by the results of
consider
to
introspection,
each
as
person
Actual
re-
searches utterly modify this current notion.
It
constituting
an
indivisible
unity.
seems to be well proven nowadays that unity of the ego be
real,
should be applied to if
for,
it
ating
some
sonalities.
A
Ribot's
is
not a single entity;
"
how
in
by exagger-
patients,
which obviously belongs
a phenomenon life,
1
It
were, one could not understand
to normal
the
a quite different definition
it.
certain circumstances
if
can unfold several different perthing that can be divided must
Les Maladies de
la Personalite."
F.
W. H. Myers's
its
Survival of Bodily Death," vol.
translation in his
[
308
i,
]
"
Human
p. 10.
Quoted from
Personality and
THE LARGER SELF Should a personality be
consist of several parts.
become double or
able to
proof that
it is
compound, a grouping
resultant from, several elements."
But the
would be of,
and a
^
brain, which Ribot identifies with the
personality,
a mere organ of the body, perish-
is
Does
ing with the body.
it
perishes with bodily death
an
this
triple,
abiding,
indwelling
and independent short, a soul
of,
— that
.f*
follow that the self Is it really
principle
without
superior
the physical organism
would enable
it
—
in
to survive
the final catastrophe of earthly existence?
man
to,
Is
Does death end personality? Aye, those who hold with Ribot would reply. soulless?
To speak
of a soul
in their
is,
sheer mysticism, since
"
more than the functional for the
view of the
the ego in us result of the
is
case,
nothing
arrangement
time being of the molecules or ions of our
brain matter."
That
is
why, at the beginning of
this chapter,
I stated that, of all the labors of the
investigators of the nature of
modern
man, none would
seem to be so irreparably destructive as the blows ^
"Les Alterations de [
la
Persormalit^," p. 316.
309
]
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL they have dealt at the traditional
human
of
Yet,
when we probe a
found that the damage
would at
conception
personality.
first
little is
deeper,
it will
be
not so irreparable as
appear; nay,
it will
even be found
that by their searching inquiries, the advocates
have unwittingly provided stronger reasons than were at any previous
of the brain-stuff theory
time available for insisting both on the actuality of the soul
and the fundamental unity and con-
tinuity of the ego.
Undeniably,
it
is
necessary to modify the old
conception in some important respects.
After
the discoveries that have been
made
as to the
disintegrating effects of natural
and
artificially
induced sleep, of disease, of sudden frights, of
profound emotional shocks, of alcohol and drugs, etc., it is idle to
are
distinctive
self of its
waking
instability
pretend that unity and continuity characteristics
So
life.
and
of
far as that self
divisibility are
the is
ordinary
concerned,
now
plainly
evident.
What, however,
if it
can be shown that, equally
with the secondary selves that
[310]
may and
so often
THE LARGER SELF do replace self
larger
beneath
it,
the primary
—a
all
self
self is
which
only part of a
unchanged the mutations of spontaneous and persists
In that case
experimental occurrence?
it will
at
once become clear that the situation has again
changed completely, and that we are back to the " " common-sense traditional, the intuitive, the conception of personality, with the single dif" " self means something ference that the term
broader and nobler than when we limit
now demonstrated
it
to the
and ever-change-
unstable,
able self of ordinary consciousness.
And
it
is
precisely to such a view of the self
that the discoveries of the
modern
when
irresistibly
If,
closely
I repeat,
scrutinized,
investigators,
impel us.
they have shown that what we usually
look upon as the
self is liable to
sudden extinction,
they have likewise brought to light abundant evidence to prove that there abiding
self,
a
self
is
none the
less
an
not dominated by but domi-
nating the organism, and unaffected by any vicissitudes that
To be
may
sure, it
befall the organism.
must be
said that, as yet,
paratively few of those to
[311]
whom we owe
comthis
ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL evidence are prepared to admit that such ultimate outcome of their efforts.
the evidence
is
is
the
All the same,
there, not simply justifying,
but
rendering logically necessary, the hypothesis of
a continuous, unitary ego, inclusive perior to, festation, utilized;
for
and
of,
su-
changing selves of outward mani-
all
and possessing powers thus but, under certain conditions,
our material,
intellectual,
far
little
utilizable
and moral
better-
ment. I have, in fact, in the
previous chapters pre-
sented
much
of
view.^
All the
phenomena
action — as
evidence
the
of subconscious
exliibited
variously
crystal vision,
supporting
in
this
mental
telepathy,
automatic writing and speaking,
the cure of disease by wholly mental means
point
unmistakably,
I
am
persuaded,
to
—
the
existence of a superior self to which the ordinary self
of
everyday
life
stands in
much
the same
relation as does the secondary self of a hysterical
patient to the ordinary, normal
self of
a healthy
person. ^
See also my book, pp. 69-70, 159-162.
"
The Riddle
[312]
of Personality," especially
THE LARGER SELF Not
all
the faculties of the larger
self
—
for in-
stance, the faculty involved in telepathic action
— seem to be adapted on earth.
for ready
employment here
Wliich would argue, of course, for a
future state in which, freed from limitations of full
all
hampering the body, such faculties will have
manifestation.
But most
assuredly,
as
the findings
psychopathologists indicate plainly, some these hidden powers are
here and now, and
enable the
come
less
self of
liable
may
amply
of
the
among
available for use
be so employed as to
ordinary consciousness to be-
to disintegration,
to
ward
off
and conquer disease, to develop mental attainments of a high order, to solve life's varying and
problems
with
a
lacking to
most
of us at present.
sureness
[313]
success
sadly
INDEX Aboulia, case of, 259-264. Angus, Miss, crj'stal-visions 154-156. Automatism, 134-170.
Cock Lane of,
Corliss,
ghost, 183.
M., trance medium,
I.
138-141, 147.
Cortachy Castle,
Drummer
of,
13-17, 47, 48.
Badger, R., and case
273
of
BCA,
Crawford, Lord, and D. D.
n.
W.
Barrett, 64, 100.
Home, F.,
and telepathy,
173, 199.
W., and telepathy, and mediumis-
Crookes,
63, 97, 98;
Barzini, Professor, and Eusapia Paladino, 173. BCA, case of, 2G5-289; also mentioned, 292, 295, 298. Bernheim, H., hypnotic ex-
tic
phenomena, -
Cross
181.
correspondence,
160-
170.
Crystal-gazing, 127-131, 154156.
periments by, 300-301. Bettany, Mrs., vision seen by, 40-41. Binet, A., on personality, 308309. Blakeway, W., telepathic experience by, 90-91. Boyle, Mrs., case of, 4.
Burt, F. R., telepathic experiments by, 74, 81-83.
dream creation by, 210-211. Carrington, H., and mediumistic frauds, 175-178. Clairvoyance, 102-126. Cleaveland, W. M., case reported by, 143-146, 148. Cobbe, Miss, and the subconscious, 202-203.
drummer, 14-15. Dickinson,
L.,
case
reported
by, 156-157 n. Dissociation, 230-289. J. E., and cases of dissociation, 242-245, 254-
Donley,
Bramwell, J. M., hypnotic experiments by, 299-300. Brill, A. A., and psycho-analysis, 246-254.
Cahill, B. J. S.,
Dalrymple, Miss, and ghostly
257.
Dreams, telepathic, 106-118; of
lost
objects,
121-126;
problems solved in, 204209 creative unagination in, 209-214. Dunraven, Lord, and D. D. ;
Home,
173, 199.
Eardley, Lady, case
of,
39-40,
56, 57, 90.
Eastlake, Lady, case of, 4-5. Entwistle, J. S. W., apparition seen by, 29-31.
[315]
INDEX C, and telepand mediumistic phenomena, 181. Flournoy, T., and telepathy,
Flammarion,
Hughes,
G3.
Forbes, Mrs., automatic writer, 160, 167-168.
new theory
Genius,
214-
of,
215.
Mrs.,
telepathic
dream by, 94-95.
athy, 63;
Huse, Miss, case of, 104-106. Hyperaesthesia, principle of, 64-65; cases of, 121-126, 216-227. Hypnosis, characteristics of, 157, 158, 296-306; as aid in treating disease, 238-244, 265-289. See also 263,
12-26; house-
Post-hypnotic Commands, and Suggestion.
35-38 experihaunting, mental, 42-45; of inanimate See also objects, 49-52.
Hyslop, J. H., telepathic experiments by, 67-69, 84; also mentioned, 113, 131.
Poltergeists.
Hysteria,
Ghosts,
premonitory,
coincidental, 26-35; ;
Goodrich-Freer, Miss, apparition seen by, 4-8; crystalvisions of, 127-131. Mrs., Griffith, telepathic dream by, 95-96.
Gurney, E., alleged spirit messages from, 160-164, 166.
and
poltergeists,
189-195; and physical phenomena of spiritism, 196 and
dream
Golinski, C., telepathic by, 116-118.
modern theories and ment of, 233-289.
n;
Jackson, E., by, 33-35.
treat-
apparition seen
James, W., and Huse case, 104-106; and Mrs. Piper, 149; also mentioned, 64, 71,
Hallucinations, Census 49.
See also Dissociation,
Ghosts, Hypnotism, Hysand Suggestion, teria, Telepathy. Hazard, Mrs., apparition seen by, 26, 27. H. Hilprecht,
dream
of,
and modern treatof hysteria, 236-242, also mentioned, 259-264;
Janet, P.,
ment
232, 283.
Miss, and expericross-correspondence, 162-167.
Johnson,
ments strange
V.,
207-209.
Hodgson, R., alleged messages from, 160,
spirit
169; hyperaesthesia 220.
219-
Hohenzollerns, White
of,
in
Justine, dissociation of, 236242.
168-
Lady
Lamont, Miss, and haunting of Petit Trianon, 8-12, 55.
of,
53-
Lang, A., and crystal-gazing,
12.
Holland,
72.
of, 48,
Miss,
automatic
writer, 160, 161-169.
Home, D.
D., trance medium, 173, 199. F. S., and Shropshire Hughes, poltergeist, 188-189.
154-156. J., apparition seen by, 22-26, 57. Licbeault, A. A., and hypnotic experiments, 300-301, 303305.
Langtrj^,
[316]
INDEX Liegeois, Doctor, hypnotic ex-
periment by, 303-306. Lodge, O., and telepathy, 63, 100, 101; and Mrs. Piper, 150-153; and spiritistic hypothesis, 170.
Lombroso,
C,
and Eusapia
Paladino, 172-173, 199. Lumley, Mrs., case of, 49.
Marks,
F.,
of,
259-
telepathic experi-
114-116. McKechnie, C. C, apparition seen by, 27-29. Miss, telepathic exMiles, periments by, 74-81.
ence
of,
Mompesson
M orison.
12,
53-55.
Piper, Mrs., automatic writer, 149-154, 160, 168-169.
Podmore, F., on telepathy, 100; and poltergeists, 190194;
also mentioned, 41.
Poltergeists, 2, 182-195.
M., Mrs., apparition seen by, 35-38, 55. Marcelle, dissociation 264, 283.
Petit Trianon, haunting of, 8-
ghost, 183.
Miss, and haunting
Post-hypnotic commands, execution of, 298-306. Prince, M., and case of BCA, 265-289; hypnotic experiment by, 301-303; also mentioned, 52, 53, 298. Psychopathology, principles and methods of, 230-289. R., Mrs., case of, 301-303. Ramsden, Miss, telepathic ex-
periments by, 74-81. Reeves, H. E., apparition seen by, 31-32.
53-
Reid, T., on personality, 291292.
Morselli, H., and telepathy, 64; and Eusapia Paladino, 173.
Ribot, T., on personality, 307-
of Petit Trianon, 8-12, 55.
W.
experimental apparition seen by, 73-74; mediumship of, 182 and n.
Moses,
S.,
308.
Richet,
telepalleged spirit from, 160, 161-
100;
messages 163, 166-169; tioned, 308 n.
Newnham,
also
men-
P.
H., hj^jeraesthesia of, 220-221.
Paladino, E., trance mediumship of 171-173, 196 TO, 199. Personality, cases of secondary and multiple, 259-289, 292-295; conflicting theories as to, 290-313. ,
telepathy, 63.
perience of 113-114. ,
Ruttan,
Mrs., by, 22-26.
Muscle reading, 65. Myers, F. W. H., and athy,
C, and
Robinson, Mrs., telepathic ex-
Sidgwick,
H.,
case
reported
alleged
spirit
messages from, 160, 168. Sinclair, B. F., telepathic experiment of, 42-43.
Spiritism, statistics, 134; reasons for vitality of, 135-137;
trance mediumship in, 137143, 158-159, 171-182; hysteria and, 194-196. R. dream creaStevenson, L., tion by, 211-214. Subconscious, the, 51-57, 6469, 121-132, 158-159, 201229, 232-289. Suggestion, in trance medium-
[317]
INDEX ship, 157-159, 196-197; in treatment of disease, 234— 289; in experimental hypnosis, 297-306.
automatic Verrall, Miss, writer, 160, 168. automatic Verrall, Mrs., writer, 160, 162-169.
Telepathy, experiments in, 42cases of 46, 67-83, 119; spontaneous, 58-63, 87-96, 106-118; and trance me153diumship, 147-149, theories re156, 160-170; garding, 84-86, 97-100. Thompson, Mrs., automatic
Wallace, A. R., and mediumistic
phenomena,
181.
Wedgwood, Mrs., telepathic dream by, 106-108. Wesermann, Herr, telepathic experiment by, 43-45. Wesley, S., poltergeist experience of, 183.
West, Mrs., telepathic dream
writer, 160.
Titus, Mrs., case of, 105-106. Tout, C. H., mediumistic experiences of, 158-159. Turner, G. L., case of, 49-51.
by, 111-113.
Woodds, linocking Ghost
of
the, 17-22, 47.
Usher, F. L., telepathic experiments by, 74, 81-83.
Wright, Miss, automatic messages by, 144-146, 148. Wyman, W. H., case reported by, 225-227.
Vaux-Royer, Mme., telepathic experiment by, 70-71.
Young, A. K., telepathic dream by, 108-111.
[318]
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