Adventurings in the Psychical Part 11

Later scripts were characterized by even more striking correspondences, and--which is not without interest--on more than one occasion the "controls" issued warnings against placing faith in Eusapia Paladino. For instance, on December 1, 1905, the Myers control wrote through Mrs. Holland: "There may be raps genuine enough of their kind--I concede the raps--poltergeist merely--but the luminous appearances--the sounds of a semi-musical nature--the flower falling upon the table--trickery--trickery." And the Gurney control added: "Her feet are very important--Next time can't 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, all four of the other mediums mentioned above took part, and again suggestive cross-correspondences were secured.

Besides which, having been induced by the results of the Verrall-Holland experiments to study more closely earlier scripts stored in the Society's archives, Miss Johnson discovered what seemed to be similar cross-correspondences that occurred before any experiments of this kind were undertaken. I can give only one or two ill.u.s.trations. August 28, 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 another "sensitive," and through her obtain corroboration of Mrs.

Forbes's own automatic writing. On the same day Mrs. Verrall wrote in Latin of a fir tree planted in a garden, and the script was signed with a sword and a suspended bugle. The latter was part of the badge of the regiment to which Talbot Forbes had belonged, and Mrs. Forbes had in her garden some fir trees grown from seed sent to her by her son. These facts, according to Miss Johnson, were unknown to Mrs. Verrall.

In another case Mrs. Forbes wrote, on November 26 and 27, 1902, references, absolutely meaningless to herself, to a pa.s.sage in a book which Mrs. Verrall had been reading on those days; and the references also applied appropriately to an obscure sentence in Mrs. Verrall's own script of November 26.

But undoubtedly the most impressive cross-correspondences were obtained in a series of experiments extending from November, 1906, to June, 1907, and involving concordant automatism between Mrs. Holland, in India, and Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Verrall, and Miss Verrall, in England. A full report on this series is 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 word or message. There were many failures, but there were also many seeming successes.

January 16, 1907, the Myers control promised that it would, as a proof of its ident.i.ty, cause Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Verrall to sign a piece of automatic writing with a triangle drawn within a circle. A circle with a triangle inside it actually appeared in Mrs. Verrall's script of January 28, while a script from Mrs. Holland exhibited several geometrical figures, including a circle with a triangle outside it. February 6 the same control said that it had just been referring, through Mrs. Verrall, to a "library matter," and investigation showed that half an hour earlier Mrs. Verrall, writing at her home in Cambridge, had begun a script in which the word "library" occurred three times--the only time during the period of the experiments that "library" was mentioned in her automatic writing or in Mrs. Piper's trance statements. The Myers control again, on February 11, announced that it had given "hope, star, and Browning" to Mrs. Verrall, and her script showed that this was correct. February 12 the Hodgson control declared it had been trying to impress the word "arrow" on Mrs. Verrall. Her script for the previous day, when received at the Society's offices in London, proved to be decorated with a drawing of three arrows.

It is the multiplicity of coincidences like these--and I have given only the merest fragment of the evidence in hand--that has recently persuaded many hitherto hesitating psychical researchers, notably Sir Oliver Lodge, that scientific proof of spirit communication has veritably been obtained. For myself, I must frankly say, however, that I cannot accept this view of the case. Fraud, I admit, is out of the question as an explanatory 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 between living minds; and, as it seems to me, there is nothing whatever in the evidence presented incompatible with the view that the cross-correspondences in question resulted from direct thought transference between the automatists themselves.

CHAPTER V

POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS

We have now to consider a very different cla.s.s of spiritistic manifestations, the so-called "physical phenomena," which are historically among the earliest on record, and at the same time are far more spectacular and sensational 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 though alive.

Occasionally, when the medium is particularly gifted, still more striking happenings take place. Thus, at a seance with Eusapia Paladino, attended by such eminent scientists as Professors Lombroso, Bianchi, Tamburini, Vizioli, and Ascensi, men whose veracity is beyond question, it is recorded by Lombroso[25] that:

[25] "After Death--What?" pp. 57-58.

"We saw a great curtain, which separated our room from an alcove adjoining, and which was more than three feet distant from the medium, suddenly move out toward me, envelop me, and wrap me close. Nor was I able to free myself from it except with great difficulty.

"A dish of flour had been put in the little alcove room, at a distance of more than four and a 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 side up, with the flour under it. This was dry, to be sure, but coagulated, like gelatine. This circ.u.mstance seems to me doubly irreconcilable--first, with the laws of chemistry, and, second, with the power of movement of the medium, who had not only been bound as to her feet, but had her hands held tight by our hands.

"When the lights had been turned on, and we were all ready to go, a great wardrobe that stood in the alcove room, about six and a half feet away from us, was seen advancing slowly towards us. It seemed like a huge pachyderm that was proceeding in leisurely fas.h.i.+on to attack us."

Other investigators, men of equally high character, report marvels no less amazing. On one occasion, Eusapia Paladino is credited with having created an invisible man, a being which the sitters could distinctly feel, although they could not see it, and which, annoyed by their inquisitive prodding, finally turned on one of them and bit him in the thumb. For this we have the authority of Professors Morselli and Barzini, the latter being the investigator whose thumb was bitten.

Again, two English n.o.blemen, Lords Dunraven and Crawford, affirm that they several times saw another medium, the late D. D. Home, floating through the air; once at a height of more than seventy feet above the ground; and that the same medium, by some "spiritual" agency, was elongated in full view of them, so that they beheld his stature visibly increase, to decrease again to normal height only when he came out of the trance condition.[26]

[26] A detailed account of Home's performances will be found in my book, "Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters," pp. 143-170.

Unfortunately, the "spirits" that perform these uncanny feats have a strong liking for darkness, a circ.u.mstance which has led to wholesale, and repeatedly substantiated, accusations of fraud. In fact, there is no other department of spiritism to which the taint of fraud has so thoroughly attached itself. It is obvious that any clever charlatan, by persuading his sitters that darkness is necessary for the development of occult phenomena, can produce most mystifying effects, and the records of scientific investigations, to say nothing of the records of our police courts, abound in evidence that swindlers have not been slow in availing themselves of this opportunity to prey on the credulous and superst.i.tious. The lengths to which bogus mediums will sometimes go, and the extreme gullibility which renders their operations ridiculously easy and highly profitable, are amusingly ill.u.s.trated by a story told by Mr.

Hereward Carrington, an investigator who has done much to make the public acquainted with the ways of fraudulent "psychics."

One of these, according to Mr. Carrington, had among his patrons an elderly business man, the head of a large concern that manufactured farming implements. After several months of intercourse, during which the medium deftly led him on from marvel to marvel, until at last there was no "phenomenon" too incredible for him 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 tall, shadowy figure, which announced itself as a spirit from Jupiter, and which, speaking excellent English, proceeded to describe the conditions of life in that far-off sphere. The Jupiterians, it appeared, were a poor, ignorant lot, scarcely removed from barbarism; they were greatly in need of civilization, and any one who should help in civilizing them would be generously rewarded in the future life.

"I should be glad to do all in my power," the business man eagerly volunteered, "but I'm 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. If you would send a few tools there, it would be a great step toward civilizing them."

"But how in the world could I get anything to them?"

"That is quite simple," the "spirit" glibly explained. "Just send the things to the medium here, and he will dematerialize them and s.h.i.+p them to Jupiter, where they will be rematerialized."

Instead of seeing in this a daring attempt to fleece him, the victim joyfully acquiesced, and sent a number of spades, plows, harrows, etc., to the 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 in picturesque language the beneficent consequences of the welcome presents. This meant more gifts, which steadily increased in number and value, until the confederate who had been playing the part of the dead Jupiterian finally became frightened.

"Look here," he told the medium, "this has got to stop. It was all very well when you were satisfied with plows, and rakes, and little things like that, but now that you have got him giving you horses and harvesters there's bound to be trouble. He's sure to find out in the end, and some fine morning 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 of that. At any rate, you'll have to get somebody to take my place."

One word led to another, and ended in a violent quarrel. The confederate, vowing vengeance, called on the business man, and told him how he had been duped. He was met with the astonis.h.i.+ng reply:

"I don't believe a word you say."

"You don't?" he cried. "Didn't you send the medium, only yesterday, a horse and cart to be dematerialized?"

"Yes."

"Well, if you wish to know where they are, come with me. He has them in a stable near his house, waiting to find a buyer."

Together they went to the stable, where the confederate pointed out the horse and cart that had been given to the medium. In particular, he identified the cart by the number painted on it.

"Come, now," said he, "you can't deny that's your cart, can you?"

"Why," was the answer, "it does indeed look like my cart. But I know it isn't."

"How do you know it isn't?"

"Because"--in a tone of solemn conviction--"I know that by this time my cart is on Jupiter."

In another case, drawn to my attention by a lawyer friend, the victim was a well-to-do Boston merchant, who had become interested in spiritism shortly after the death of his wife, to whom he had been devotedly attached, and with whose spirit 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 then told that before long it would be possible to "materialize" his wife from the spirit world with such substantiality that he would be able to clasp her in his arms.

When the appointed time came, a slender form, draped in gauze, emerged from the mediumistic cabinet into the darkened seance room, and saluted him with a joyful cry of "Husband!" There was not light enough to see the "spirit's" face, but he did not for an instant doubt that he was really gazing at his wife, and rose to embrace her. At once the figure vanished, and after the lights were turned up the medium explained that there would have to be a good many "materializations" 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 him to the true state of affairs, and increased his infatuation to such an extent that when at length the "spirit" submitted to his caresses, it did not seem at all incongruous to find that he was pressing to his breast a flesh-and-blood woman.

The medium now resolved on a bold stroke. Acting under her instruction, the "spirit" bitterly complained one evening that she did not possess any jewelry.

"What!" her "husband" exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that they wear jewelry in the other world?"

"Oh, yes. But nothing to compare with what I had while on earth. What have you done with mine?"

"I have it all--every piece--put away in a little box."