SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED AND CAREFULLY DESCRIBED
BY
the Rт. rev.
C. W. LEADBEATER
THEOSOPHICAL
PUBLISHING HOUSE
adyar,
1928
Chapter I
SPIRITUALISTIC
PHENOMENA
1.
A quarter
of a century ago I wrote a book called The Other Side of Death, in which
I described the condition of the next world, quoting many illustrative
stories. This book has been out of print for some years, so I have just issued
a new edition, much enlarged and brought up to date. Some of its chapters deal
with spiritualism; in them I recount many of my own experiences, and offer my
readers such explanation of the phenomena as has been suggested to me by my
forty-five years’ study of Theosophy. I am now publishing these chapters
separately as a smaller book, hoping that it may be of interest to my
spiritualistic brethren, and may perhaps even help a little towards bringing
about a better understanding between the two camps of Theosophists and
Spiritualists, who have so much in common that they surely ought to co-operate
and never to waste their time in disputation.
2.
THE
PHENOMENA NATURAL
3.
The investigation of the phenomena which take place at spiritualistic
seances is one of the lines along which information with regard to man’s
survival after death might have been obtained. Just as many of the facts so
clearly stated for us by Theosophy might have been deduced from careful
observation and comparison of the records of apparitions, so also many of them
might have been inferred from equally careful examination and comparison of the
accounts given in spiritualistic literature. They were not so inferred,
however, except by the spiritualists themselves, and not usually clearly
expressed as a coherent system even by them. But just as, now that we know the
facts from Theosophical sources, we can see how all the various types of
apparitions fall into place and are explained by them, so we may also see how
spiritualistic manifestations can be classified and comprehended by means of
the same knowledge.
4.
It has
always seemed to me that our spiritualistic friends ought to welcome the
Theosophical system, for much of the difficulty which they find in obtaining
acceptance for their phenomena arises from the belief that their claims are in
opposition to science, and not in harmony with any reasonable scheme. This idea
is an entirely mistaken one, yet spiritualism does little to dispel it; it
continues (quite rightly) to insist upon its facts, but does not usually
attempt to harmonize them with science. There is, it seems to me, rather a
tendency to cry: “How marvellous! how wonderful! how beautiful!” and to be lost
in admiration and awe, instead of realizing how entirely natural it all is,
and more beautiful because it is so natural. For all that is really
natural is beautiful; it is only we, reduced to pessimism by our own corruption
of and interference with Nature’s methods, who fall back in doubt, and say
hesitatingly that certain things are too good, too beautiful to be true — not
yet understanding that it is precisely because a thing is good and beautiful
that it must also be true, and that a far more accurate expression would be:
“It is too good not to be true”. For God is Truth, and He is good.
5.
How theosophy explains them
6.
The Theosophical explanation as to the planes of nature, and the
existence of many varieties of more finely subdivided matter, with their
appropriate forces playing through them, at once opens the way to a
comprehension of many of the phenomena of the seance-room. When we further come
to understand the possession by man of vehicles corresponding to each of these
planes, in each of which he has new and extended powers, much that was before
difficult becomes clear as noonday. I have written fully of these capacities in
my little book on Clairvoyance, so I need not repeat that account here.
It will be sufficient to remark that when we grasp their nature we see at once
how it is possible for the dead man, if he is so disposed, to find a passage in
a closed book, to read a letter inside a locked box, to see and report what is
happening at any distance, or to read the thoughts of any person, present or
absent.
7.
All that
the dead man does along any of these lines can be done with equal facility by
the living man who has developed his latent powers of astral vision, and we
thus realize that for a man residing in and functioning through an astral body,
these actions which to us appear phenomenal and marvellous must bear a
different aspect, for to him they are simply his ordinary everyday methods of
procedure. The man who has not studied such matters is unused to these
manifestations, and cannot comprehend how they are produced; he feels toward
them just as a savage might towards our use of the electric light or the
telephone. But the intelligent and cultured man is familiar to some extent with
the mechanism in each of these cases, and so he regards the results obtained no
longer as magical, but as natural; he looks upon the matter in an entirely
different light.
8.
A classification
9.
By the light of Theosophical knowledge of the astral plane and its
possibilities, then, we may proceed to attempt some sort of classification of
the phenomena of the seance-room. Perhaps we shall find it easiest to arrange
them according to the powers employed in their production, and in this way they
fall readily into five divisions:
10.
Those which involve simply the use of the medium's body —
trance-speaking, automatic writing, drawing or painting, and personation; and
sometimes the working of the planchette.
11.
Those which
are dependent upon the possession of the ordinary astral sight, such as the
finding of a passage in a closed book, the reading of writing enclosed within a
locked box, the answering of mental questions, or the finding of something or
some person that is missing.
12.
Those which
involve partial materialization — usually not carried to the point of
visibility. Under this head would come raps, the tilting or turning of tables,
the moving and floating of objects, slate-writing, or any kind of writing or
drawing done directly by the hand of the dead man, and not through the agency
of the medium; the touches by the hand of the dead, or the sound of their
voices — “the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is
still,” for which the poet yearned. Almost all of the minor activities of the
seance come in under this head, for to it we must assign the playing of various
musical instruments, the winding up and floating about of the musical box, and
even the cold wind which is so constant a phenomenon in the earlier stages of
the sittings. Probably the working of the planchette or the message-board
called the “ouija” usually comes under this category.
13.
Those
miscellaneous activities which demand a somewhat greater knowledge of the laws
of astral physics, such as the precipitation of writing or of a picture, the
intentional production of the various kinds of lights, the duplication of
objects, their apport from a distance or their production in a closed room, the
passage of matter through matter, or the handling or the production of fire.
14.
Visible
materialization.
15.
I propose
to take up each of these classes, and endeavour to illustrate and explain them
as far as I can, drawing examples sometimes from recognized books upon the
subject, and sometimes from my own experience. I spent much time during a good
many years in patient investigation of spiritualism, and there is scarcely a phenomenon
of any sort of which I read in the books which I have not repeatedly seen under
test conditions, so that this is a subject upon which I feel myself able to
speak with a certain amount of confidence. It may perhaps be useful for me, as
an introduction to our detailed consideration of the subject, to describe how I
came to make my first feeble experiments along this line.
16.
Chapter II
17.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
18.
the silk hat experiment
19.
The first
time that, so far as I can recollect, I ever heard spiritualism mentioned was
in connection with the seances held by Mr. D. D. Home with the Emperor Napoleon
III. The statements made with reference to those seemed to me at that time
quite incredible, and when reading the account of them aloud to my mother one
evening I expressed strong doubts as to whether the description could possibly
be accurate. The article ended, however, with the remark that anyone who felt
unable to credit the story might readily convince himself of its possibility
by bringing together a few of his friends, and inducing them to sit quietly
round a small table either in darkness or in dim light, with the palms of their
hands resting lightly upon the surface of the table. It was stated that a still
easier plan was to place an ordinary silk hat upon the table brim upwards, and
let two or three people rest their hands lightly upon the brim. It was asserted
that the hat or table would presently begin to turn, and in this way the existence
of a force not under the control of any one present would be demonstrated.
20.
This
sounded fairly simple, and my mother suggested that, as it was just growing
dusk and the time seemed appropriate, we should make the experiment forthwith.
Accordingly I took a small round table with a central leg, the normal vocation
of which was to support a flower-pot containing a great arum lily. I brought in
my own silk hat from the stand in the hall and placed it on the table, and we
put our hands upon its brim as prescribed. The only person present besides my
mother and myself was a small boy of twelve, who, as we afterwards discovered,
was a powerful physical medium; but I knew nothing about mediums then. I do not
think that any of us expected any result whatever, and I know that I was
immensely surprised when the hat gave a gentle but decided half-turn on the
polished surface of the table.
21.
Each of us
thought the other must have moved it unconsciously, but it soon settled that
question for us, for it twirled and gyrated so vigorously that it was difficult
for us to keep our hands upon it. At my suggestion we raised our hands; the hat
came up under them, as though attached to them, and remained suspended a couple
of inches from the table for a few moments before falling back upon it. This
new development astonished me still more, and I endeavoured to obtain the same
result again. For a few minutes the hat declined to respond, but when at last
it did come up as before, it brought the table with it! Here was my own
familiar silk bat, which I had never before suspected of any occult qualities,
suspending itself mysteriously in air from the tips of our fingers, and, not
content with that defiance of the laws of gravity on its own account, attaching
a table to its crown and lifting that also! I looked down to the feet of the
table; they were about six inches from the carpet, and no human foot was
touching them or near them! I passed my own foot underneath, but there was
certainly nothing there — nothing physically perceptible, at any rate.
22.
Of course
when the hat first moved it had crossed my mind that the small boy must somehow
be playing a trick upon us; but in the first place he obviously was not
doing so, and in the second he could not possibly have produced this result unobserved.
After about two minutes the table dropped away from the hat, and almost
immediately the latter fell back to its companion, but the experiment was
repeated several times at intervals of a few minutes. Then the table began to
rock violently, and threw the hat off — a plain hint to us, if any of us had
known enough to take it. But none of us had any idea of what to do next, though
we were keenly interested in these extraordinary movements. I was not myself
thinking of the phenomenon in the least as a manifestation from the dead, but
only as the discovery of some strange new force.
23.
I spoke of
these curious occurrences next day to some friends, and found one among them
who had once or twice seen something of the sort, and was familiar with the
rudiments of spiritualistic procedure. I promptly invited him to join us on
the following evening, and to assist in our experiments. The same phenomena
were reproduced, but this time, by our friend’s aid, we asked questions and
found that the table would tilt intelligently in response to them. The
communicating entity, however, could not have been a man of any great knowledge,
for nothing of any importance was said, either then or afterwards, and the
manifestations were always rather of the nature of horse-play. Their most
remarkable feature was the enormous physical strength displayed on several
occasions. Heavy furniture was frequently dashed violently about, and sometimes
considerably damaged, yet none of us was really hurt. Once, later on, an
especially sceptical friend had the end of a heavy brass fender dropped upon
his foot, but I think he distinctly brought it upon himself by his impolite
remarks!
24.
violent demonstrations
25.
The silk
hat was ruined at the second seance, so thereafter we placed our hands directly
upon the table — or at least we commenced by doing so, for after a few minutes
it was usually waltzing about so wildly that we could only occasionally touch
it. At the third sitting (if that term be not a misnomer as applied to an
evening spent mainly in jumping about to avoid the charges of various articles
of furniture) our little table suffered considerably. During a moment of
comparative rest, when we were able to keep our hands on it, we beard a curious
whirring sound underneath it, and some small object fell to the floor. Picking
it up we found it to be a screw, and wondered where the “spirits” had obtained
such a thing, and why they had brought it. Twice more the same whirring sound
was heard, and two more screws were presented to us, but even yet we did not
realize what was being done.
26.
Suddenly we
were startled by what I can only describe as an exceedingly heavy kick on the
under side of the table, which dashed it upwards against our hands and all but
threw us over. The effect precisely resembled that of a vigorous kick from a
heavy boot, and it was repeated three or four times in rapid succession until
the top of the table was broken away from the leg. The leg waltzed off by
itself, while the top fell to the floor, but by no means to lie quiet there. If
a coin be set spinning with the thumb and fingers upon a smooth surface it
displays a peculiar wobbling rotation just as it is in the act of settling down
to rest. That was exactly the motion of this table upon the floor, and two
strong men, kneeling upon it, and exerting all their force to hold it down,
were unable to do so, but were thrown off apparently with the utmost ease.
27.
As we were
holding it as nearly down upon the carpet as we could, the same prodigious
kicks came underneath it as before, so that whoever kicked could evidently do
so through the carpet and the floor of the room without the slightest
hindrance. It was only after the performance was over, and we came to examine
our table, that we understood what had happened. The entity who was playing
with us had apparently wished to separate the top of the table from the lower
part, and had somehow contrived to extract three of the screws as though with a
screw-driver; but the fourth had been rusted in and could not be removed—hence
apparently the kicks which broke it out and accomplished the separation.
28.
This
exhibition of prodigious strength at a seance is by no means unusual. In
describing one which took place on
29.
“Then —
probably intensified by the darkness — commenced a demonstration exhibiting
more physical force than I had ever before witnessed. I do not believe that the
strongest man living could, without a handle fixed to pull by, have jerked the
table with anything like the violence with which it was now, as it seemed,
driven from side to side. We all felt it to be a power, a single stroke from
which would have killed any one of us on the spot.” (The Debatable Land,
p. 285.)
30.
evidence of unknown power
31.
These
phenomena, which thus came so unexpectedly into my life, would no doubt have
been despised as frivolous by the veteran spiritualist, but to me they were
exceedingly interesting. They took place in my own house, they were entirely
unconnected with any professional medium, and they were incontrovertibly free
from any suspicion of trickery. Consequently here were certain indubitable
facts, absolutely new to me, and needing investigation. I had no knowledge then
that there was a considerable literature upon the subject, and I was not
expecting from this study any proof of the life after death. So far, I had had
evidence only of the existence of some unseen intelligence, capable of wielding
enormous power of a kind quite different from any recognized by science. But it
was precisely that power which interested me, and I was anxious to discover
whether there was any method by which it could be utilized for the general
benefit.
32.
We never
advanced much further in these home investigations. My mother feared the
destruction of her furniture, and in deference to her objections we simply
suspended operations when the forces became too boisterous, resuming our
sitting only when things quieted down. We had no raps, and no direct voices;
any communications which came were always given by the tilting or rising of the
table. The entity concerned seemed willing enough to give tests along its own
peculiar lines. For example, it occurred to us one evening to ask whether the
table could rise in the air without our hands resting upon it; it promptly
responded that it could and would, so we all drew back hastily, and watched
that table rise till its feet were about a yard from the ground, while it was
entirely out of the reach of every member of the party. It remained suspended
for perhaps a minute or rather more, and then sank gently to the carpet.
33.
lights
34.
Lights of
various kinds frequently appeared, but usually they gave us the impression not
so much of being intentionally shown as of manifesting incidentally in the
course of other phenomena. They were of three varieties: (a) little
sparkling lights like those of fireflies, which used to play over and about our
hands, while they rested on the table; (b) large pale luminous bodies,
several inches in diameter and often crescent-shaped; (c) a vivid flash
resembling lightning, which on one occasion crossed the room and struck and
overthrew a large plant in a pot, leaving upon it distinct marks of scorching,
much as I suppose lightning might have done. The first and third varieties gave
us the impression of being electrical, while the second appeared to be rather
phosphorescent in nature. Nothing occurred that we could definitely call
materialization, though dark bodies of some sort occasionally passed between
us. These phenomena usually took place by firelight, though on one occasion we
obtained a few much modified manifestations in full daylight. The room appeared
to become charged with some kind of force, as though with electricity; for at
least an hour after the seance was closed the furniture continued to creak
mysteriously, and the table on several occasions moved out two or three feet
from its corner after its flowerpot had been replaced upon it.
35.
The
messages were quite a subordinate feature, and it seemed difficult for the
entity, whatever it may have been, to curb its exuberant spirits long enough to
go through the tedious process of spelling out a message by tilts. We made many
attempts to obtain definite information in this way, but met with no success.
It always gave us the impression of being in a condition of wild rollicking
enjoyment, too much excited to be patient or coherent. Frequently the table
would dance vigorously and untiringly, keeping time with any music that we
played or sang. Its favorite tune appeared to be the well-known spiritualistic
hymn, “Shall we gather at the river?” and if at any time the power seemed
deficient or the manifestations lethargic, we had only to sing that air to
rouse it at once into a condition of the wildest enthusiasm and agility.
Sometimes it was decidedly mischievous, and when it could be induced to deliver
a message it was by no means always consistent or truthful. It appeared to be
capable of annoyance; certainly on one occasion when I denounced one of its
statements as false, the table leaped straight at me, and would apparently have
struck me severely in the face, if I had not caught it on its way. Even so, as
I held it in the air, it made violent efforts to get at me, and had to be
dragged away forcibly by my friends, just as though it had been an infuriated
animal. But in a few moments its strength or its passion seemed to give out,
and it was harmless once more.
36.
Prominent
in my memory is one occasion on which the forces engaged in these
demonstrations actually drove us out of the room. From the beginning of the
seance the control of the proceedings was taken entirely out of our hands.
Chairs rushed about like living creatures, a heavy sofa swung out from its
place by the wall into the middle of the floor, and a tall piano, of the
obsolete type which used to be called an upright grand, leaned over me at a
dangerous angle. Trying to save it from a heavy fall, I braced myself against
it and called one of my friends to assist me. He struck a match and lit a
candle, which he placed on a table, hoping that the light would check the
manifestations. The table, however, gave a kind of leap which threw the candle
on to the floor and extinguished it, and at once pandemonium reigned all round
us, heavy articles of furniture crashing together.
37.
It was
manifest that our lives were in danger, so, holding back the piano with all my
strength, I shouted to my friend to open the door. After frenzied efforts he
succeeded in tearing it open, I sprang back from the toppling piano, and we all
fled ignominiously into the hall. The door banged behind us, and for a minute
or more the crashes inside continued; then silence ensued. After five minutes
or so we opened the door and entered with lights, and found all the massive
furniture piled in a vast heap in the middle of the room — some of it badly
broken, of course; and yet on the whole there was far less damage than one
would have expected from the tremendous noise made. After this demonstration my
mother banished us and our experiments to an outhouse!
38.
professional mediums
39.
Stimulated
by these experiences, I began to make further enquiries, and soon found that
there were books and periodicals devoted to this subject, and that I might
carry my investigations much further by coming into connection with regular
mediums. I attended a large number of public seances, and saw many interesting
things at them, but the most remarkable and satisfactory results, I soon found,
were obtainable only when the circles were small and harmonious. I therefore
frequently had private seances, and often invited mediums to my own house,
where I could be perfectly certain that there existed no machinery by means of
which trickery could be practiced. In this way I soon acquired a good deal of
experience, and was able to satisfy myself beyond all doubt that some at least
of the manifestations were due to the action of those whom we call the dead.
40.
I found
mediums of all sorts, good, bad and indifferent. There were some who were
earnest and enthusiastic, and honestly anxious to aid the enquirer to understand
the phenomena. Others were incredibly ignorant and illiterate, though probably
honest enough; others again impressed me as sanctimonious, oleaginous and
untrustworthy. A little experience, however, soon taught me upon whom I could
depend, and I restricted my experiments accordingly. I pursued them for a good
many years, and during that time saw many strange things — many which would
probably be deemed incredible by those unfamiliar with these studies, if I
should endeavour to describe them. Such of them as aptly illustrate our various
classes I may perhaps cite as we go on; but to give the whole of those
experiences would need a much larger book than this.
41.
Let us turn
now to our classification.
42.
Chapter III
43.
UTILIZATION OF THE MEDIUM’S BODY
44.
what mediumship is
45.
It seems
obvious that the easiest course for a dead man who wishes to communicate with
the physical plane is to utilize a physical body, if he is able to find one
which it is within his power to manage. This method does not involve the
learning of unfamiliar and difficult processes, as materialization does; he
simply enters into the body provided for him and uses it precisely as he was in
the habit of using his own. One of the characteristics of a medium is that his
principles are readily separable, arid therefore he is able and usually willing
thus to yield up his body for the temporary use of another when required. Such
resignation of his vehicle may be either partial or total; that is to say, the
medium may retain his consciousness as usual, and yet permit his hand to be
employed by another for the purposes of automatic writing; or in some cases his
vocal organs may also be thus employed by another while he is still in
possession of his body, and understands fully what is being said. On the other
hand he may retire from his body just as he would do in deep sleep, allowing
the dead man to enter and make the fullest possible use of the deserted
tenement. In this latter case the medium himself is quite unconscious of all
that is said or done; or at least, if he is able to observe to some extent by
means of his astral senses, he does not usually retain any recollection of it
when he resumes control of his physical brain.
46.
trance-speaking
47.
A certain
type of spiritualism — one which has a large number of adherents — is almost
entirely occupied with this phase of mediumship. There are many groups to whom
spiritualism is a religion, and they attend a Sunday evening meeting and listen
to a trance-address just as people of other denominations go to church and hear
a sermon. Nor does the average trance-address in any way differ from the
average sermon in intellectual ability; its tone is commonly vaguer, though
somewhat more charitable; but its exhortations follow the same general lines.
Broadly speaking, there is never anything new in either of them, and they both
continue to offer us the advice which our copy-book headings used to give us at
school — “Be good and you will be happy,” “Evil communications corrupt good
manners,” and so on. But the reason that these maxims are eternally repeated is
simply that they are eternally true; and if people who pay no attention to them
when they find them in a copy-book will believe them and act upon them when
they are spoken by a dead man or rapped out through a table, then it is
emphatically well that they should have their pabulum in the form in which they
can assimilate it.
48.
Trance-speaking
of the ordinary type is naturally less convincing as a phenomenon than many
others, for it is undeniable that a slight acquaintance with the histrionic art
would enable a person of average intelligence to simulate the trance-condition
and deliver a mediocre sermon. I have heard some cases in which the change of
voice and manner was so entire as to be of itself convincing; I have seen cases
where speech in a language unknown to the medium, or reference to matters
entirely outside his knowledge, assured one of the genuineness of the
phenomenon. But on the other hand I have heard many a trance address in which
all the vulgarities, the solecisms in grammar and the hideous mispronunciations
of an illiterate medium were so closely reproduced that it was difficult indeed
to believe that the man was not shamming. Such cases as this last have no
evidential value, yet even in them I have learnt that it is well to be
charitable, and to allow the medium as far as possible the benefit of the doubt;
for I know, first, that a medium attracts round him dead men of his own type,
not differing much from his level of advancement or culture; and secondly,
that any communication which comes through a medium is inevitably coloured to
a large extent by that medium’s personality, and might easily be expressed in
his style and by means of such language as he would normally use.
49.
automatic writing
50.
The same
remarks apply in the case of automatic writing. Sometimes the dead man controls
the medium’s organism sufficiently to write clearly, characteristically,
unmistakably; but more often the handwriting is a compromise between his own
and that of the medium, and frequently it degenerates into an almost illegible
scrawl. Here again I have seen cases which carried their own proof on the face
of them, either by the language in which they were written or by internal
evidence. Sometimes also curious tricks are attempted which make any theory of
fraud exceedingly improbable. For example, I have seen a whole page of writing
dashed off in a few minutes, but written backward, so that one had to hold it
before a mirror in order to be able to read it. In another case, before a
sitting with Mrs. Jencken (better known by her maiden-name of Kate Fox, as the
little girl who first discovered in 1847 that raps would answer questions
intelligently, and so founded modern spiritualism), her little baby-in-arms,
perhaps twelve months old, took a pencil in its tiny hand and wrote —
wrote firmly and rapidly a message purporting to come from a dead man. What
intelligence guided that baby hand I am not prepared to say, but it certainly
could not have been that of its legitimate owner, and it was equally certainly
not that of its mother, for she held the child away from her while it wrote.
51.
the private archangel
52.
Frequently
people who are not mediums in any other sense of the word appear to be open to
influence along this line. A large number of persons are in the habit of
receiving private communications written through their own hands; and the vast
majority of them attach quite undue importance to them. Again and again I have
been assured by worthy ladies that the whole Theosophical teaching contained
nothing new for them, since it had all been previously revealed to them by
their own special private teacher, who was of course a person of entirely
superhuman glory, knowledge and power — an Archangel at least! When I come to
investigate I usually find the Archangel to be some worthy departed gentleman
who has either been taught, or has discovered for himself, some portion of the
facts with regard to astral life and evolution, and is deeply impressed with
the idea that if he can only make this known to the world at large it will
necessarily effect a radical change and reform in the entire life of humanity.
So he seeks and finds some impressible lady, and urges upon her the conviction
that she is a chosen vessel for the regeneration of mankind, that she has a
mighty work to do to which her life must be devoted, that future ages will
bless her name, and so on.
53.
In all this
the worthy gentleman is usually quite serious; he has now realized a few of the
elementary facts of life, and he cannot but feel what a difference it would
have made in his conduct and his attitude if he had realized them while still
on the physical plane. He rightly concludes that if he could induce the whole
world really to believe this, a great change would ensue; but he forgets that
practically all that he has to say has been taught in the world for thousands
of years, and that while he was in earth-life he paid no more attention to it
than others are now likely to pay to his lucubrations. It is the old story over
again: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded
though one rose from the dead”.
54.
Of course a
little common sense and a little acquaintance with the literature of this
subject would save these worthy ladies from their delusion of a mission from on
high; but self-conceit is subtle and deeply-rooted, and the idea of being
specially chosen out of all the world for a divine inspiration is, I suppose,
pleasurable to a certain type of people. Usually the communications are
infinitely far from “containing all the Theosophical teaching”; they contain
perhaps a few fragments of it, or more often a few nebulous generalizations
tending somewhat in the Theosophical direction.
55.
Occasionally
also the instructor is a living man in the astral body — usually an Oriental;
and in that case it is perfectly natural that his information should have a
Theosophical flavour. It must be recollected that Theosophy is in no sense new,
but is the oldest teaching in the world, and that the broad outlines of its system
are perfectly well known everywhere outside of the limits of the extraordinary
cloud of ignorance on philosophical subjects which Christianity appears to
bring in its train. It is therefore small wonder that any glimpse of a wider
and more sensible theory should seem to have something of Theosophy about it;
but naturally it will rarely be found to have either the precision or the
fullness of the scheme as given to us by the Masters of Wisdom through Their
pupil Madame Blavatsky.
56.
It appears
to make the process of writing through the hand of the medium even easier for
the dead man when that hand is rested upon the little board called planchette.
This form of manifestation, however, does not always belong to our present
category. Sometimes it seems that the hand of the medium moves the planchette,
though it is not by his intelligence that it is directed, for it often writes
in languages or about matters of which he is ignorant. But on other occasions
it appears to move rather under his hand than with it, suggesting that it is
charged with the vital force from his hand, just as the hat or the table was in
the experiments previously described. In that case the movement of the board
would probably be directed by another partially materialized hand, and so the
phenomenon would belong to our third class.
57.
drawing or painting
58.
The
phenomenon of automatic drawing or painting is of exactly the same nature as
that of writing, though it is not nearly so common, because the art of drawing
is much less widely diffused than is that of writing. Still it sometimes
happens that a dead man has a talent for rapid drawing, and can quickly produce
a pretty little landscape or a passable portrait through the hand of a
readily-impressible medium. There are certain mediums who make a speciality of
this obtaining of portraits of the dead, and they apparently find that it pays
them exceedingly well. I have myself seen passable work produced in this way,
though not equal to that done directly by the hand of the dead man, or by
precipitation. There are also cases in which such portraits are drawn by a
living person who is himself clairvoyant; but that is obviously not an example
of mediumship at all, and so does not come into our present category.
59.
It must be
remembered that for the production of a portrait of a dead person by any of
these methods it is not in the least necessary that he should be present,
though of course he may be. But when surviving friends come to a seance
expecting and earnestly hoping for a portrait of some dead man, their thought
of him, so strongly tinged with desire, makes an effective image of him in
astral matter, and this is naturally clearly visible to any other dead man, so
that the portrait can be drawn quite easily from it. It is, however, also true
that this same strong thought about the dead man is certain to attract his
attention, and he is therefore likely to come and see what is being done. So it
is always possible that he may be present, but the portrait is not proof of it.
60.
personation
61.
I am
employing this term in a technical sense which is well known to those who have
studied these phenomena. I am aware that it has also been employed to describe
those cases in which a dishonest medium has presented himself before his
audience as a “spirit-form”, but I am dealing with occurrences of a type quite
different from that. All who have seen good examples of trance-speaking will
have noticed how the entire expression of the medium’s face changes, and how
he adopts all kinds of little tricks of manner and speech, which are really
those of the man who is speaking through his organism.
62.
There are
instances in which this process of change and adaptation goes much further than
this — in which a distinct temporary alteration actually takes place in the
features of the medium. Sometimes this change is only apparent and not real,
the fact being that the earnest effort of the ensouling personality to express
himself through the medium acts mesmerically upon his friend, and deludes him
into thinking that he really sees the features of the dead man before him. When
that is so the phenomenon is of course purely subjective, and a photograph
taken of the medium at that moment would show his face just as it always is.
63.
Sometimes,
however, the change is real and can be shown to be so by means of the camera.
When this is so, there are still two methods by which the effect may be
produced. I have seen at least one case of apparent change of feature in which
what really took place may best be described as the partial materialization of
a mask; that is to say, such parts of the medium’s face as corresponded fairly
well with that to be represented were left untouched, whereas other parts which
were entirely unsuitable were covered with a thin mask of materialized matter
which made them up into an almost perfect imitation, though slightly larger
than the original. But I have also seen other cases in which the face to be
represented was much smaller than that of the medium, and the exact imitation
secured undoubtedly involved an alteration in the form of the medium’s
features. This will naturally seem an absolute impossibility to one who has not
made a special study of these things, for the majority of us little recognize
the extreme fluidity and impermanence of the physical body, and have no conception
how readily it may be modified under certain conditions.
64.
impressibility of the physical body
65.
There is
plenty of evidence to show this, though the circumstances which call into
operation forces capable of producing such a result are fortunately rare. In Isis
Unveiled, vol. i, p. 368, Madame Blavatsky gives us a series of ghastly
examples of the way in which the thought or feeling of a mother can change the
physical body of her unborn child. Cornelius Gemma tells of a child that was
born with his forehead wounded and running with blood, the result of his
father's threats towards his mother with a drawn sword which he directed
towards her forehead. In Van Helmont's De Injectis Materialibus it is
reported that the wife of a tailor at Mechlin saw a soldier’s hand cut off in a
quarrel, which so impressed her that her child was born with only one hand, the
other arm bleeding. The wife of a merchant of
66.
The whole
question of the appearance of stigmata on the human body, which seems so
thoroughly well authenticated, is only another instance of the influence of
mind upon physical matter; for just as the mind of the mother acts upon the
foetus, so do the minds of various saints, or of women like Catherine Emmerich,
act upon their own organism. On p. 384 of The Night Side of Nature we find
another rather horrible example of the action of violent emotion upon the
physical body.
67.
A letter
from
68.
We shall
have to refer to this question when dealing with materializations; but in the
meantime, and as far as personation is concerned, I can myself testify that it
is possible for the physical features of a medium to be completely changed for
a time into the exact resemblance of those of the dead man who is speaking
through him. This phenomenon is not common, so far as I have seen or heard, and
we may presume that the reason for its rarity is that ordinary materialization
would probably be easier to produce. The personation, however, took place in
full daylight on each occasion when I witnessed it; whereas materialization is
usually performed by artificial light, and there must not be too much even of
that, for reasons which will be explained when we come to deal with that side
of the question.
69.
using force thbough the medium
70.
Speaking,
writing and drawing are by no means the only actions performed through the body
of the medium. Sometimes it is used for more extensive and even violent
activities. M. Flammarion records a striking case of the kind (After Death,
p. 100) in which the “spirit” took possession of the medium in order to attempt
to revenge himself. The case first appeared in Luce e Ombra (
71.
Today I can
speak of it in the general interest of metaphysical research, omitting,
however, the name of the person chiefly concerned.
72.
Seance
held on April 5, 1904. — The following were present: Dr. Guiseppe Venzano, Ernesto Bozzano,
the Cavaliere Carlo Perefcti, Signore X—, Signora Guidetta Peretti, and the
medium L. P. The seance was begun at ten o’clock in the evening.
73.
From the
beginning we noted that the medium was troubled, for some unknown reason. The
spirit-guide Luigi, the medium's father, did not manifest himself, and L. P.
gazed with terror toward the left corner of the room. Shortly afterward he
freed himself from his “spirit-controls”, rose to his feet, and began a
singularly realistic and impressive struggle against some invisible enemy. Soon
he uttered cries of terror, drew back, threw himself to the floor, gazed toward
the corner as though terrified, then fled to the other corner of the room,
shouting: “Back! Go away. No, I don’t want to. Help me! Save me!” Not knowing
what to do, the witnesses of these scenes concentrated their thoughts with
intensity upon Luigi, the spirit-guide, and called upon him to aid. The
expedient proved effective, for little by little the medium grew calmer, gazed
with less anxiety toward the corner of the apartment; then his eyes took on the
expression of someone who looks at a distant spectacle, then a spectacle still
more distant. At last he gave vent to a long sigh of relief and murmured: “He’s
gone! What a bestial face!”
74.
Soon
afterwards, the spirit-guide Luigi manifested himself. Expressing himself
through the medium, he told us that in the room in which the seance was being
held there was a spirit of the basest nature, against which it was impossible
for him to struggle; that the intruder bore an implacable hatred for one of the
persons of the group. Then the medium exclaimed in a frightened voice: “There
he is again! I can't defend you any longer. Stop the ...”
75.
It is
certain that Luigi wished to say, “stop the seance”, but it was already too
late. The evil spirit had taken possession of our medium. He shouted; his eyes
shot glances of fury; his hands, lifted as though to seize something, moved
like the claws of a wild beast, eager to clutch his prey. And the prey was
Signore X—, at whom the medium’s furious looks were cast. A rattling and a sort
of concentrated roaring issued from our medium’s foam-covered lips, and
suddenly these words burst from him: “I’ve found you again at last, you coward!
I was a Royal Marine. Don't you remember the quarrel in
76.
These
distracted words were uttered as the hands of the medium, L. P., seized the
victim’s throat, and tightened on it like steel pincers. It was a fearful
sight. The whole of Signore X—’s tongue hung from his wide-open mouth, his eyes
bulged. We had gone to the unfortunate man’s assistance. Uniting our efforts
with all the energy which this desperate situation lent us, we succeeded, after
a terrible hand-to-hand struggle, in freeing him from the desperate grip. At
once we pulled him away, and thrust him outside, locking the door. We barred
the medium’s access to the door; exasperated, he tried to break through this
barrier and run after his enemy. He roared like a tiger. It took all four of us
to hold him. At last, he suffered a total collapse and sank down upon the
floor.
77.
On the
following day we prepared to clear up this affair — to seek information which
might enable us to confirm what “the
78.
The words
uttered by the furious spirit served me as a means for arriving at the truth.
He had said, “I was a Royal Marine”. And I knew vaguely that Signore X— had,
himself, in his youth, been an officer of marines; that he had witnessed
the battle of Lissa, and that after resigning his commission he had devoted
himself to commercial enterprises. With these facts as a basis, I proceeded to
ask a retired vice-admiral for other details; he, too, had fought at Lissa. As
for Dr. Venzano, he questioned a relative of Signore X—, with whom the latter
had broken off all relations years before. Between us we gathered separate bits
of information which tallied amazingly, and which, brought together, led us to
these conclusions:
79.
Signore X—
had indeed served with the Royal Marines. One day, being upon a battle-ship on
a training cruise, he had landed for some hours at
80.
Those are
the facts; it follows from them that the disturbing spirit had not lied. He had
exactly stated his rank as a Royal Italian Marine. He had remembered that
Signore X— had killed him. He had, moreover — and this was a particularly
remarkable statement—indicated the place where he had died, the setting for the
drama,
81.
A
painstaking enquiry confirmed the authenticity of all this. By what hypothesis could
one explain occurrences so strikingly in agreement — those which were revealed
to us at the seance of April 5, 1904, and those which had taken place in
82.
Chapter IV
83.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPIRITUALISM
84.
clairvoyant faculties
85.
Many of the
phenomena commonly displayed at a spiritualistic gathering are simply the
manifestation of the ordinary powers and faculties natural to the astral plane,
such as are possessed by every dead man. I have already explained in my little
work on Clairvoyance what these powers are, and any one who will take
the trouble to read that will see how clearly the possession of such senses
accounts for the faculty so often exhibited by the dead of reading a closed
book or a sealed letter, or describing the contents of a locked box. I have had
repeated evidence through many different mediums of the possession of this
power; sometimes the knowledge obtained by its means was given out through the medium’s
body in trance-speaking, and at other times it was expressed directly by the
dead man, either in his own voice or by slate-writing.
86.
These
astral faculties sometimes include a certain amount of prevision, though this
is possessed in varying degrees; and they also frequently give the power of
psychometry and of looking back to some extent into events of the past. The way
in which this is sometimes done is shown in the following story, given to us
by Dr. Lee, in his Glimpses of the Supernatural, vol. ii, p. 146.
87.
the missing papers
88.
A
commercial firm at Bolton, in
89.
The clerk
went to the bank, directed the cashier where to look for the money, and it was
found; the cashier afterwards remembering that in the hurry of business he had
there deposited it. A relation of mine saw this story in a newspaper at the
time, and wrote to the firm in question, the name of which was given, asking
whether the facts were as stated. He was told in reply that they were. The
gentleman who was applied to, having corrected one or two unimportant details
in the above narration, wrote on November 9, 1847: “Your account is correct. I
have the answer of the firm to my enquiry at home now.”
90.
The
description given does not make it absolutely clear whether this was a case of
clairvoyance on the part of the medium, or of the use of ordinary faculty by a
dead man; but since the medium passed into a trance-condition the latter
supposition seems the more probable. The dead man could easily gather from the
clerk’s mind the earlier part of his story, and thus put himself en rapport with
the scene; and then by following it to its close he was able to supply the
information required. Here is the authenticated record of another good example
of such a case, in which the power of thought-reading is much more prominently
exhibited, since all the questions were mental. It is extracted from the Report
on Spiritualism, published by Longman,
91.
A lost will
92.
A friend of
mine was very anxious to find the will of his grandmother, who had been dead
forty years, but could not even find the certificate of her death. I went with
him to the Marshalls’, and we had a seance; we sat at a table, and soon the
raps came; my friend then asked his questions mentally; he went over the
alphabet himself, or sometimes I did so, not knowing the question. We were told
(that) the will had been drawn by a man named William Walter, who lived at Whitechapel;
the name of the street and the number of the house were given. We went to
Whitechapel, found the man, and subsequently, through his aid, obtained a copy
of the draft; he was quite unknown to us, and had not always lived in that
locality, for he had once seen better days. The medium could not possibly have
known anything about the matter, and even if she had, her knowledge would have
been of no avail, as all the questions were mental.
93.
As I have
already said, the faculty of clairvoyance is often possessed by living persons,
as well as by the dead. Even in this case, in which the information was
communicated by means of raps, it is still within the bounds of possibility that
it may have been acquired by the living and transmitted to the physical-plane
consciousness by this external means. There is an ever-increasing volume of
testimony to the fact of this clairvoyance; Dr. Geley has done splendid service
by giving much that is new and valuable in his recent work Clairvoyance and
Materialization. In his account of the clairvoyance of Mr. Ossowiecki,
which includes many tests of his ability to read sentences enclosed in sealed
opaque envelopes, he tells us that this seer has from time to time been able to
discover articles which have been lost or stolen. In contact with the loser he
was able after brief concentration to say where the object was lost, and
sometimes also where it could be found.
94.
the lost brooch
95.
He gives
the following account of one such case which was sent to him by Mme Aline de
Glass, wife of a Judge of the Supreme Court of Poland. The account is also
attested by her brother, M. Arthur de Bondy:
96.
97.
July 22,
1922
98.
Sir,
99.
I have the
honour to inform you of an actual miracle that Mr. Ossowiecki has worked here.
I lost my brooch on Monday morning, June 6th. In the afternoon of the same day
I visited the wife of General Krieger, Mr. Ossowiecki’s mother, with my
brother, Mr. de Bondy, an engineer, who witnessed the event.
100.
Mr.
Ossowiecki came in, my brother introduced me to his friend, and I said that I
was delighted to make acquaintance with one so gifted with occult powers. All
101.
“I have
lost my brooch today. Could you tell me anything about it? But if you are tired
or it is troublesome, do not put yourself out.”
102.
“On the
contrary, madame, I will tell you. The brooch is at your house in a box; it is
a metal brooch, round, with a stone in the middle. You wore it three
days ago, and you value it.”
103.
“No,” I
said, “not that one.” (He had given a good description of a brooch kept in the
same box with that which I had lost.) Then he said:
104.
“I am sorry
not to have guessed right; I feel tired ... ”
105.
“Let us say
no more about it.”
106.
“Oh no,
madame, I will try to concentrate. I should like to have some material thing
that concerns the brooch ...”
107.
“Sir, the
brooch was fastened here, on this dress.”
108.
He placed
his fingers on the place indicated, and after a few seconds said: “Yes, I see
it well. It is oval, of gold, very light, an antique which is dear to you as a
family souvenir; I could draw it, so clearly do I see it. It has ears, as it
were, and it is two parts interpenetrating, like fingers clasped together . .
.”
109.
“What you
say, sir, is most extraordinary. It could not be better described. Miraculous.”
110.
He went on:
“You lost it a long way from here.” (This was actually about two and a half
miles.) “Yes, in
111.
“Yes,” I
said, “I went there today.”
112.
“Then,” he
said, “a poorly dressed man, with black moustache, stoops down and picks it up.
It will be very difficult to get it back. Try an advertisement in the papers.”
113.
I was
dazzled by the minute description, which left me no doubt that he could see the
ornament. I thanked him warmly for the rare pleasure of meeting a real
clairvoyant, and went home.
114.
On the
following evening my brother came to see me and exclaimed:
115.
“What a
miracle! Your brooch has been found. Mr. Ossowiecki telephones to me that you
have only to go tomorrow at about 5 o’clock to Mme. Jacyna (Mr. Ossowiecki’s
sister), and he will give it to you.”
116.
The next
day, June 7th, I went with my brother to the lady’s house, where there was
company. I asked to see Mr. Ossowiecki, and asked him: “Have you my brooch?” I
was much upset.
117.
“Compose
yourself, madame; we shall see.” And he handed me my brooch. It was a real
miracle. I turned pale and could not speak for a few minutes.
118.
He told me
the story very simply: “The day after our meeting I went to the bank in the
morning. In the vestibule I saw a man I remembered to have met somewhere or
other, and it struck me that this was the man whom I had seen mentally to have
picked up your brooch. I took his hand gently, and said: ‘Sir, yesterday
you found a brooch at the corner of Mokotowska and Koszykowa Streets . . .’
‘Yes,’ he said, very much astonished. ‘Where is it?’ ‘At home. But how do you
know?’ I described the brooch and told him all that had taken place. He turned
pale and was much upset, like you, madame. He brought me the brooch, saying
that he had intended to advertise its finding. That is the whole story.”
119.
I was much
moved. I thanked Mr. Ossowiecki warmly, not so much for the recovery of the
brooch as for meeting such a diviner, and having a small part in this miracle.
Now this fine old brooch is worn by me constantly and considered as a talisman.
The incident has gone all over
120.
I am,
Yours,
121.
aline de glass,
122.
née de
Bondy
123.
As an
example of the test conditions under which Mr. Ossowiecki has done many
readings, I may mention the case of the letter which was written for the
purpose by Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, which we reproduce below from Clairvoyance
and Materialization (p. 55).
124.
125.
This letter was delivered to Dr. Geley, who handed it unopened to the
clairvoyant. His reading of this was not perfect, but nevertheless striking and
evidential. Dr. Geley says:
126.
“His
description of the letter was, however, very precise: La vie, la vie, la vie,
. . . (three times). There are four or five lines, and below them Sarah
Bernhardt’s signature, sloping upwards.” That is correct, but he might have
seen her signature in some magazine article. He continued: “La vie semble
humble.” He repeated ‘humble’ two or three times. “There is
reference to humanity, but the word ‘humanity’ is not written. There is an idea
conjoining life and humanity. Parcequ’il у а
bеаисоир de haine. Non, il n’y a pas
‘haine’; il у a seulement seulement . . . It is a very difficult
word of eight letters! There is an exclamation mark.”
127.
Then before
opening the letter, which I had previously examined by reflected, direct and
transmitted light and found absolutely opaque, I wrote down the following,
which may be taken as Ossowiecki's final answer: “La vie semble humble parcequ’il
у а bеаисоир de haine,
(pas haine, mais un mot qui n’est pas compris et qui est de huit lettres); signature
Sarah Bernhardt.” The word éphémère was not known to Ossowiecki, as he
told us after the letter had been opened. We asked several Poles who spoke
French well if they knew this word: they did not.
128.
The fact
that Mr. Ossowiecki does see the actual form in some manner sometimes is
confirmed by his vision on occasion of drawings enclosed along with the
letters. Judging by the third experiment of September 21st, 1921, at Prince
Lubomirski’s (p. 39), when the test letter contained four written items, and
also the drawing of a fish, the picture seemed to impress him more than the
written portion of the test, and he not only spoke about it, but said that he
would draw it, which he did, though he reversed the picture, putting the head
on the left whereas in the original it was on the right.
129.
clairvoyant “
130.
This power
of clairvoyance is also frequently displayed in a minor way at the weekly
meetings of which I have spoken. After the trance address is over, the medium
usually expresses her readiness to give descriptions, or “readings”, as they
are often called, of the surroundings of various members of the audience. Where
the circle is a small one, something is said to each of its members in turn; if
there be a large number gathered together, individuals are selected and called
up for special attention.
131.
I have
heard striking fragments of private family history brought out in this way —
cases which bore every mark of genuineness; but in the majority of such
meetings as I have attended the descriptions were exceedingly vague, and had a
rather suspicious adaptability about them. The conversation usually ran
somewhat along these lines:
132.
Medium (supposed to be
entranced, but speaking with exactly her normal contempt for aspirates and
grammatical rules). “There's an old gent with white ‘air a-standin’ be’ind that
lady in the corner.”
133.
Enthusiastic
and Credulous Sitter. “Lor! that must be my father!”
134.
Medium. “Yes; he smiles,
he nods his ‘ed, he’s so pleased that you know him. I can see his white beard
regularly shaking, he's so glad.”
135.
Sitter. “Ain't it wonderful!
But father didn’t have no beard before he passed over; p’raps he’s grown one
since, or p’raps it’s my uncle Jim; he used to have a beard.”
136.
Medium. “Ah! yes, that’s who
it is; he nods his ‘ed again, and smiles; he wants to tell you ‘ow ‘appy he
is.”
137.
Sitter. “Well, now! just
to think of poor uncle Jim coming like this! Why, it’s more than thirty years
ago he was drowned at sea, when I was quite a girl; ‘an‘some young chap he was,
too! not more than five-and-twenty, and to be drowned like that!”
138.
Medium. “Um! yes—yes—ah!
I see him more clearly now — yes, you're right. It’s not a white beard — it’s
the white undershirt what sailors wears — that’s what it is!”
139.
Chorus. “How lovely! how
wonderful! Ain’t it beautiful to think they can come back like this!”
140.
I have
heard just about that sort of conversation a score of times; and it is
naturally not calculated to produce a robust faith in that particular medium.
Yet perhaps through the same illiterate woman there would come on another
occasion some message about a matter of which she could by no possibility have
known anything — a message which she could never have evolved from her sordid
consciousness by any amount of clumsy guess-work.
141.
A private test
142.
I remember
on one such occasion applying a little private test of my own to a medium in a
poor
143.
It occurred
to me to try whether she could see a thought-form, so as a change from all
these reverend white-haired spirits with flowing robes, I set myself to project
as strong a mental image as I could construct of two chubby boys in Eton
jackets, standing behind the chair of the member of the circle who was next in
order for examination. Sure enough, when that person’s turn came, the medium
(or the dead man speaking through her, if there was one) described my imaginary
boys with tolerable accuracy, and represented them as sons of the lady behind
whom they stood. The latter denied this, explaining that her sons were grown
men, and the medium then suggested grandchildren, which was also repudiated, so
the mystery remained unsolved. But from the incident I deduced two conclusions:
First, that either the medium was genuinely clairvoyant, or there really was a
dead person speaking through her; and secondly, that whoever was concerned had
not yet sufficient discernment to distinguish a thought-form materialized on
the astral plane from a living astral body.
144.
Chapter V
145.
SOME RECENT TEST CASES
146.
test conditions
147.
The recent
researches of many learned doctors, and other investigators associated with the
Societies for Psychical Research in different countries, offer us increasing
confirmation of the facts announced by the earlier experimenters. The attitude
of many of these distinguished explorers into the domain of the occult inclines
at the beginning towards scepticism — a fact which renders their evidence all
the more valuable, though it makes the phenomena more difficult to obtain. It
constitutes a positive mental influence acting against the manifestation of
unusual psychic powers — powers which it is difficult enough to use, even under
the most favourable conditions. It is only fair to add, however, that such
scepticism is rarely a prejudice, but simply the scientific attitude which
declines to admit the existence of any facts which have not been carefully
observed, or the truth of any deductions which have not been studiously and
impartially considered.
148.
The
attitude and method adopted by Dr. Gustave Geley, and described in his
invaluable volume Clairvoyance and Materialisation, is becoming more and
more popular among experimenters. He says that the best results for scientific
purposes are not to be obtained under conditions which cast suspicion upon the
medium, and that the end to be sought by observers is not to protect themselves
with absolute certainty at all times against any possible or conceivable fraud,
but to obtain phenomena so powerful and complex that they carry their own proof
and undeniable witness under the conditions demanded by the control.
149.
I may add
that my own experience, extending over many years, fully confirms what Dr.
Geley has written. I have always found it best to make friends with both the
medium and the spirit-guide and to discuss the manifestations frankly with
them. Dr. Geley continues:
150.
If
experimenters waste time on poor or elementary phenomena, they will find the
greatest difficulty in getting a control that will satisfy them at all points.
If they are wise enough to consider elementary phenomena, and such minor frauds
as they may suspect, both negligible; if they allow phenomena to develop
without checking them at the outset by untimely demands, they will certainly
obtain facts so various and important, also (sometimes) of such beauty, that
their conviction will be complete, unshakable, and conclusive (p. 25).
151.
MOTHER
MARIUS AND THE CONVICT
152.
In the
comparatively recent general literature of spiritualism and psychical research
there are many cases which satisfy these conditions. There are examples in
which the accuracy of information communicated by these methods, and previously
entirely unknown to those who receive it, almost certainly announces the actual
presence of the entity who is claiming to communicate. I will select one
typical case from M. Flammarion’s book After Death (p. 21), relating to
the death of a charwoman of
153.
Every week
I used to leave
154.
Unquestionably
also there are other cases in which only telepathy is at work. Professor Ernest
Wood relates an example, which was told to him by his father, who used to
investigate these things. On the occasion in question the medium, who was a
personal friend also, said that he saw standing behind his visitor the “spirit”
of a man dressed in convict garb. He described him in detail, saying that he
was looking through prison bars, and adding that he thought the spirit wished
to communicate. But the fact of the matter was that, a short time before, the
enquirer had been to see the exhibition at the opening of the Manchester Ship
Canal, in which was shown one of the old Botany Bay convict ships fitted up
realistically with wax-work figures. He had stood for some time looking at one
of these, and wondering what the unfortunate convicts must have felt, and
though the incident had passed from his mind and been forgotten, that was the
figure of which the medium gave him a description.
155.
Perhaps the
first great mistake which many people make in thinking about these things is to
assume that one law governs all the cases, and therefore that they are either
all due to discarnate intelligences, or are all caused by some form of simple
or complicated telepathy. There is a variety of causes for the phenomena
produced during psychical research investigations, some of them being due to
ideas in the mind of the medium or of the sitters, others to discarnate
intelligences, others to thought-forms casually present or magnetically
attracted, and others again to the psychometric influence of objects which may
be near.
156.
the
157.
Another
good example of successful communication from the other side of death, which
has been called the pearl tie-pin case, is given in Sir William Barrett’s On
the Threshold of the Unseen, as follows:
158.
Miss C.,
the sitter, had a cousin, an officer with our army in
159.
“Tell
mother to give my pearl tie-pin to the girl I was to marry. I think she ought
to have it.” When asked what was the name and address of the lady, both were
given; the name spelt out included the full Christian and surname, the latter
being very unusual and quite unknown to both sitters. The address given in
160.
Six months
later, however, it was discovered that the officer had been engaged, shortly
before he left for the front, to the lady whose name had been given; he had,
however, told no one of this. Neither his cousin nor any of his own family in
161.
Both the
ladies have signed a document which they sent to me, affirming the accuracy of
the above statement. The message was recorded at the time, and not written from
memory after verification had been obtained. Here there could be no explanation
of the facts by subliminal memory, or telepathy from the living, or collusion,
and the evidence points unmistakably to a message from the deceased officer.
162.
the bird’s-nesting case
163.
Another
striking case appeared in The Harbinger of Light for February, 1918. A
164.
Will you
convey my love to father and mother, and my brothers? Thank God they have not
gone to the war. Tell my dear mother not to hold any fanciful ideas of me, or
to believe every so-called message she may receive. Tell her I owe her all that
is best in me, for she is brave and good, and I would do anything possible to
smooth her path in life. Tell her one particular thing that will assure her of
my presence — tell her that on the day when she prevented me from going out
bird’s-nesting, and took so much trouble to instruct us in the right, I decided
always to try to do what was right. Tell her the recollection of the anecdote
she told us always haunted me. Tell her I have not gone to any restful
spiritual home yet, and probably will not till the war ends. Tell her I cannot
be a shirker in the body or out of it, but having been trained with many good
comrades to do my duty, I try to do it still, and if I were permitted I could
tell you so much we do to help those still fighting — much that is sanctioned
and assisted, too, by others higher than ourselves, but I dare not say. Tell
mother that I was quite suddenly shot out of the body, and felt no pain
whatever, and thanks to the insight I received through my parents, and you, and
others, I simply folded my arms and had a good look at my body, and thought:
“Well, is that all?” I could not wrench myself away from the body immediately,
and accompanied it when carried off by stretcher-bearers to the
dressing-station, because the body was not quite dead, but I felt no pain. How
long it was before I lost the consciousness of my material body I cannot say,
but the freedom I now feel, and the active part I am taking in what occupied me
so much before death is my duty, and it seems natural and right. Besides, Mr.
A.—, there are many pledges my comrades and I made to each other in the face of
death, which are sacred, and must be kept, if possible. But I cannot stop now.
Goodbye, Mr. A.—, goodbye. I am so delighted to have spoken to you. Tell father
and mother they need have no regrets, and that my present activities are more
valuable than when I was in the flesh, and quite as natural. They will know it
is the right and proper course till time changes affairs. Goodbye.
165.
The father
writes that the bird’s-nesting incident was known only to the boy and his
mother; some years before when he had spoken of going on such an expedition his
mother had earnestly told him how cruel it was to break down the home so
care-fully prepared by the parents for their young, and illustrated her lesson
with the idea of some great giant coming and ruthlessly smashing up her home
and destroying her children.
166.
This case
is also interesting for its simple and straightforward account of the soldier’s
experiences and feelings when he found himself outside his body.
167.
cross references
168.
When one
portion of a message is given to one medium and another portion to another, at
a distance from or unknown to the first, so that the two portions fit together
and make a rational whole, we have what is called a cross-reference. A well
known instance of this is the Kildare-street Club case, published in The
International Psychic Gazette, and reprinted in Mr. Carrington’s Psychical
Phenomena and the War (p. 284). The account of the incident was furnished
by Count Hamon, as follows:
169.
On Monday,
May 14, 1917, I attended in a private house a seance at which Mrs. Harris was
the medium. There were present on this occasion, amongst several others whose
names I am not authorized to mention, Miss Scatcherd, Mrs. Dixon-Hartland, and
Dr. Hector Munro.
170.
After many
convincing conversations with spirits by means of the “direct voice” had
occurred, a spirit visitor came and said very distinctly: “I want to send a
message to my father.”
171.
“Who are
you?”, we asked.
172.
The spirit
replied: “I am an officer recently killed at the front in
173.
Speaking
very slowly at first, the spirit said, “My father lives near
174.
A gentleman
present asked: “Which club do you mean?”
175.
The spirit
replied: “The Kildare-street Club; you know it well, and you also know my
father.”
176.
As no one
had caught the name of the father exactly right, the gentleman referred to
said: “I know the Kildare-street Club very well, but I do not think I know your
father; but give us the message.”
177.
Continuing,
the spirit went on: “My father is always worrying and unhappy about me; he
can't seem to get оver it. I want some one to tell him that I came here
tonight to get this through as a test message to him, to tell him not to worry
about me, as I am all right, and glad to have gone through it, and I want him
not to worry and be unhappy any more.”
178.
After a
slight pause he continued, “My father also goes to mediums in
179.
We again
asked him to try to give us the name, and we got one part — the Christian name
— very distinctly, but the surname was always so slurred that we were unable to
catch it clearly, and after many efforts had to give it up. But before we did
so, I promised that I would do all I could to send on his message.
180.
The next
morning I wrote a letter to the name I thought it had sounded like, addressing
it to the Kildare-street Club. In about a week this letter was returned to me
through the Post Office marked “Name not known”.
181.
I was
considerably worried as to what I should do next, until the thought came to me
that I should write to the secretary of the Club, simply saying that I was
anxious to find the gentleman who, I believed, was a member of his club, whose
son had recently been killed in Flanders; that the name was something like
so-and-so, and that I had a message to give him about his son.
182.
Now comes
the strangest part of this strange story. In a few days I received a letter
from the gentleman in question, saying that the secretary had sent him my
letter, and adding: “I have had a message from my son who was recently killed
in Flanders, saying he had sent me a message through a medium in London, that
he had difficulty in getting the name and address through but he wanted to give
me a test.” The father added: “If you understand this I hope you will send me
his message.”
183.
the deer IN the Bois
184.
One of the
most strikingly successful instances of cross correspondence is published in
the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. viii,
p. 413, it being a translation from a paper read at a meeting of the French
Society for Psychical Research by Dr. Geley, M. Camille Flammarion being in the
chair. In this case the operating entity composed a little story, dictated the
major portion of it to a medium at Wimereux, near
185.
“As well
behaved as the pupils in a convent for well-trained young ladies”
186.
“Their
large sweet eyes are used to watching the passing”
187.
“The modern
lady of fashion whose eyes.”
188.
The
following day the post brought to
189.
Have you
sometimes met, dear friend, as you walked in the thickets, the deer that live
and roam through the leafy branches, at times . . . (here the automatist noted
a pause in the writing) ... at times the flock, jumping and frightened, so
graceful and fascinating? Have you ever asked yourself what those pretty
animals were thinking, and what they would become later? Far be it from me to
draw their horoscope (which would after all be of no interest to them), but it
seems to me that their mentality must be very different from that which
animates the deer of the forest . . . (another pause) . . . strange vehicles
running without the aid of an animal’s legs, and in those carriages or along
the more or less frequented paths, they have contemplated women with elongated
eyes like their own, delicate and stylish women. Who can ever tell us if . . .
(another pause) . . . become so unnaturally large under the dash of the pencil,
is not a doe of the forest in the throes of retrospective recollection?
190.
Dear
friend, I have had some trouble because Miss R. tried to understand — but trust
I have succeeded with this childish story. Affectionate good night. roudolphe.
191.
We will
leave it to the reader to put the two portions together and see how perfectly
they fit. Dr. Geley remarks that both mediums were ignorant of the meaning and
intention of the sentences they were writing, and that they both acted as
machines worked by the single direction of an independent intelligence.
192.
the fiR-tRee test
193.
In New
Evidences in Psychical Research, by Mr. J. A. Hill, a lengthy account is
given of the efforts at cross correspondence between various mediums. From that
source I will take one case, that of the fir-trees:
194.
On August
28, 1901, Mrs. Verral’s script had some Latin, of which the following is a
translation: “Sign with the seal. The fir-tree that has been already
planted in the garden gives its own portent.” This script was signed with a
scrawl and three drawings representing a sword, a suspended bugle and a pair of
scissors.
195.
On the same
day Mrs. Forbes’s script purporting to come from her son (who had been killed
in the South African War) said that he was looking for a sensitive who wrote
automatically, in order that he might obtain corroboration for her own writing.
This script was apparently produced earlier in the day than Mrs. Verrall’s
script above mentioned.
196.
The
interest of the incident lies in the fact that a suspended bugle surmounted by
a crown was the badge of Talbot Forbes’s regiment. Further, Mrs. Forbes has in
her garden four or five small fir-trees grown from seed sent her from abroad by
her son; these she calls Talbot’s trees. These facts were totally unknown to
Mrs. Verrall. As bearing on the question of chance coincidence, it is to be
remarked that on no other occasion has a bugle appeared in Mrs. Verrall’s
script, nor has there been any other allusion to a planted fir-tree (p. 172).
197.
Sir Oliver
Lodge has expressed a favourable opinion of the evidential value of a number of
cross-correspondences between Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. Piper, Mrs. Thompson and Mrs.
Verrall. Many of these tests came from a soi-disant Frederick Myers. Sir Oliver
said that the scholarship in some cases singularly corresponds with that of F.
W. H. Myers when living, and surpasses the unaided information of any of the
receivers. Mr. J. A. Hill, on p. 204 of the book above-mentioned, adds:
198.
Some of the
communications are strikingly appropriate to and characteristic of Mr. Myers,
in many subtle ways; and this psychological kind of evidence, made up of many
strokes, some bold, some faint, but all tending to bring out the lineaments of
this one personality — this psychological evidence, I say, even apart from
anything else, is as impressive as isolated correct facts about the communicator’s
past life, which is the kind of evidence most sought for hitherto. And, adding
to this evidence the cross-correspondences, which are also in some instances of
characteristic kind — e.g., the anagrams characteristic of Dr. Hodgson,
and the Dante, Tennyson, and Browning incidents suggestive of Mr. Myers, there
results a body of recent evidence stronger perhaps than anything that has
previously been published by qualified investigators, in favour of
communication from disembodied human beings.
199.
Referring
to the telepathic theory as to the cause of these and similar occurrences, Mr.
Hill writes (p. 203):
200.
If
telepathy from the living is to explain all, we shall have to believe that it
can occur in a very definite and continuous way between people who do not know
each other, as in the earlier script of Mrs. Holland and in some of the
trance-speech of Mrs. Thompson. We shall also have to assume a very complicated
system of telepathic cross-firing among the automatists concerned, the
cross-firing, moreover, occurring at subliminal depths, leaving the normal
personalities quite ignorant of all this remarkable activity. I confess that I
am unable to accept this. To quote Mr. Lang . . . “there is a point at which
the explanations of common sense arouse scepticism”. And I do not think that a
telepathic theory of this extended kind can be called an explanation of common
sense. If it were presented on its own merits, and not as a refuge from
“spirits”, it would be described, by common-sense people, as a piece of
uncommon nonsense.
201.
the Two drowned sailors
202.
What
amounts practically to a cross-reference, though it was apparently not
intentional, is related by Mr. W. Britton Harvey, Editor of The Harbinger of
Light, Melbourne, in his booklet They All Come Back! One evening in a
circle in his home the intelligence controlling the medium gave his name as
Walter Robinson, and stated that Fred Field was with him, and added that they
had both been drowned at sea. Mr. Harvey had known a Walter Robinson, and had
learnt that he had been drowned, but he had never even heard of Fred Field.
203.
More than a
year later an acquaintance happened to tell Mr. Harvey that some years before,
in a sitting with a
204.
“I knew
Walter and Fred well,” continued my informant, “but I had never heard of their
deaths. They were shipmates of mine at one time, and it was not for nine months
after they had purported to speak to me that I found out that they had been
drowned.” I then learnt for the first time that this casual acquaintance used
to live a few miles from the town in which I resided in the Old Country. At
that time he went to sea, and that was how he got to know Walter Robinson and
Fred Field. I had not mentioned either of these names to him previously. In
fact, this was the first chat we had had together, and this will account for my
not knowing before that he once resided so close to me in England (p. 15).
205.
the book tests
206.
In 1922 the
Rev. Charles Drayton Thomas put forth a book entitled Some New Evidence for
Human Survival. In this he opens up on a large scale a method of investigation
but slightly touched upon hitherto, in the form of book and newspaper tests.
These tests are stated to come from his father, the Rev. John Drayton Thomas
(who died some years ago) acting through Mrs. Leonard, with the assistance of a
control who calls herself Feda.
207.
The general
method of book-tests, of which some hundreds are related, is for the “spirit”
to go into Mr. Thomas’s library (some distance from the house where the
sittings are held), select a book, observe some ideas on a certain page or
pages in that book, and then announce them. Several of these observations are
written down on one occasion; they are afterwards verified, and have been found
to be for the most part correct.
208.
The
operators have apparently certain difficulties in seeing the actual print of
the book, but in some manner not easy to comprehend they can grasp the idea
involved in the printed words. They cannot apparently see the numbers printed
on the pages, but they can count the pages from the beginning of the printed
matter, and so indicate exactly those to which they wish to refer. Some of the
tests are taken from books on the shelves, but others with equal success were
performed with books belonging to other people, made up into carefully sealed
parcels, the contents of which were quite unknown to the experimenters until
the parcels were opened in order to verify the test messages.
209.
I will give
two typical examples of book-tests from the many recorded by Mr. Thomas, which
range variously over description, humour, topics of the day, philosophy and
religion.
210.
In your
study, close to the door, the lowest shelf, take the sixth book from the left,
and page 149; three-quarters down is a word conveying the meaning of falling
back or stumbling.
211.
Rather more
than half-way down the page was the following sentence:
212.
... to whom
a crucified Messiah was an insuperable stumbling-block.
213.
Very low
down on the page he seemed to get something about great noise, not a sharp,
thin sound, but a heavy one, more of a roaring noise.
214.
Close to
the bottom of this page was the sentence:
215.
I chanced to
come that time along the coast, and heard the guns for two or three days and
nights successively, (pp. 15-17.)
216.
Mr. Drayton
Thomas says that these book-tests were given, so it was claimed by the “spirit
friends,” not so much as a proof of identity, as illustrating the ability of a
spirit to obtain information unknown to the sitter or medium, and yet capable
of easy verification.
217.
In Chapter
XII Mr. Thomas gives a series of book-tests which were communicated for Lady
Glenconnor, who has also herself written about them in The Earthen Vessel.
The messages were transmitted from the late Hon. Edward Wyndham Tennant through
the same medium, the late Rev. John Drayton Thomas and Feda communicating. This
time they used the books in the libraries at Lady Glenconnor’s house in
218.
Summing up
the results of two years’ work the author finds that out of 209 book tests
spontaneously given 147 were good, 26 indefinite, and 36 apparent failures (p.
98).
219.
A test by madame blavatsky
220.
Before
closing this subject of book-tests, let me recount one such example also from
the record of Madame Blavatsky. Her life was full of incidents showing
remarkable powers in many directions; of these one may read especially in The
Occult World and Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P.
Sinnett, and in Old Diary Leaves, by Col. H. S. Olcott. Mr. G. Baseden
Butt has recently written a careful and thoughtful account of her life in his
volume entitled Madame Blavatsky. From that I take the following “test”
related by Countess Wachtmeister (p. 153):
221.
An
experience related by the Countess Wachtmeister cannot be explained save on the
assumption that the Masters really exist and were able to communicate with her.
In the autumn of 1885, before she had met Madame Blavatsky, and before she knew
that she was likely to meet her, the Countess was making preparations to leave
her home in
222.
“Master
says you have a book for me of which I am much in need.”
223.
The
Countess Wachtmeister denied that any books were with her, but Madame Blavatsky
bade her think again, as Master said that her visitor had been told in
224.
I opened
the book, which, let it be remembered, was no printed volume of which there
might be a copy in H. P. B.’s possession, but a manuscript album in which, as I
have said, had been written notes and excerpts by a friend of mine for my own
use, yet on the page and at the line she had indicated I found the very words
she had uttered.
225.
When I
handed her the book I ventured to ask her why she wanted it.
226.
‘O,’ she
replied, ‘for The Secret Doctrine.’ ”
227.
Surely this
incident establishes at one and the same time the existence of the Masters and
the reality of Madame Blavatsky’s power of clairvoyance.
228.
the newspaper tests
229.
Satisfactory
as the book-tests are, what are known as the newspaper-tests are still more
effective. These messages, instead of relating to books existing in libraries,
in closed parcels or even in locked iron boxes, refer to tomorrow’s paper.
Various newspapers were used, but chiefly the
230.
It is
important to realize that a copy of these notes was made the same evening, and
posted in
231.
There is
generally a certain vagueness about these tests, as in the book-tests, but that
the communicating intelligences do make a connection between words in the
newspaper and names or facts familiar to the enquirers is certain. For example,
they say (p. 131) “On page 1, column 2, near the top, there is the name of a
minister with whom your father was friendly at Leek.” The name Perks was found
in the place indicated, and he had known a minister of that name at Leek.
232.
There are
many carious approximations in these tests. For example, it was announced that
in a certain column, one-quarter down, would appear Mr. Thomas’ father’s name,
his own, his mother’s, and that of an aunt. In the position indicated the names
John and Charles appeared. These were correct, but instead of Emily and Sarah
(the names of an aunt and Mr. Thomas' mother) were the words Emile Sauret!
Similarly in the place stated to contain the maiden name of the mother “or one
very like it” was the word Dorothea, while her name was Dore.
233.
Notwithstanding
this vagueness these messages do present a valuable addition to the evidence
for the existence of intelligence beyond that of the sitters, and this record
is especially useful because Mr. Thomas sent his tests to the Secretary of the
Society for Psychical Research before the newspapers were printed.
234.
In twelve
such sittings, containing 104 tests, Mr. Thomas finds that there were 73
successes, 12 inconclusive items, and 19 failures, and in another set of trials
there were 51 successes out of 53 tests (p. 153). Many tests were also received
for persons other than the sitters, and relating to facts entirely unknown to
them.
235.
the source of the messages
236.
In studying
the probable source of these messages, Mr. Drayton Thomas feels assured that
they do come from his deceased father, for all his sittings abound in
references to his doings and surroundings which would normally be unknown to
Mrs. Leonard, also with references to his father’s earth-life, and besides
“they include a wide range of elusive touches which are unproducible in cold
print, but in which I see my father’s personality ringing true to that which I
knew so well during his life on earth” (p. 190). We must, of course, consider
that the medium of Feda might read his mind, but as to this he says: “Up to the
present all my experiments with Feda have failed to find in her any trace of
ability to explore my thought or reproduce my memories; the evidence all points
the other way.” (p. 192.)
237.
He mentions
also that it is a curious experience, after having received correct references
through pages of books scattered about his library to hear the control
struggling to spell out a name which he himself knows to be that which is
required for completing some explicit description, and to find that such
efforts usually fail to pass beyond the initial letter of the required name,
and that his own concentration upon the name appears to make things not one
whit easier. He concludes: “That my father links his former memories with
matter discovered in preparation for the morrow’s press is the only explanation
logically fitting with the facts.” (p. 194.)
238.
As to the
views of the “spirits” themselves upon the way in which they obtain the
newspaper tests, Mr. Thomas received the following communication:
239.
These tests
have been devised by others in a more advanced sphere than mine, and I have
caught their ideas. This may be done even when we do not realize whence the
thought originates, much as when minds on earth receive inspiration. We can
visit these higher helpers, and, even when away from them, may be very
conscious of their assistance. I am not yet aware exactly how one obtains these
tests, and have wondered whether the higher guides exert some influence whereby
a suitable advertisement comes into position on the convenient date; I have
thought of this, but do not know. These tests will be better than the
book-tests, because more definite, and their object will be to prove that we
can obtain information from other quarters than the mind or surroundings of the
sitter; it will be useless to invoke “the subconscious mind” as an explanation
here. I was taken to the Times office, and did not find the way there by
myself; helpers are plentiful when we are engaged on work of this kind. (p.
201.)
240.
In another
communication given later, in reply to the question: “Do you now understand
what it actually is that you operate upon at the Times office?”'
the father said:
241.
It is still
a puzzle. On one occasion I thought I saw the complete page set up; it
certainly appeared to be so, and I noticed certain items in it which I believe
proved correct. But on returning to the office a little while after — for I
frequently go twice to make sure of the tests — I found that the page was not
yet set up, and this astonished me and was most perplexing. (p. 207.)
242.
In other
communications the deceased clergyman speculates variously upon the possible
methods by which future events may be known, but apparently in that world as in
this the mystery of time is not yet solved.
243.
Chapter VI
244.
PARTIAL MATERIALIZATION
245.
varieties op materialization
246.
All the
most interesting phenomena of the seance room are connected in some way or
other with materialization — that is to say, with the building of physical
matter round some astral form, in order that through it the ego inhabiting that
astral form may be able to produce results upon the physical plane. But of this
materialization there are three varieties. Let me here quote a passage from my
own little book upon The Astral Plane, p. 118:
247.
The habitues
of seances will no doubt have noticed that materializations are of three
kinds: First, those which are tangible but not visible; second, those which are
visible but not tangible; and third, those which are both visible and tangible.
To the first kind, which is much the most common, belong the invisible spirit
hands which so frequently stroke the faces of the sitters or carry small
objects about the room, and the vocal organs from which the “direct voice”
proceeds. In this case an order of matter is being used which can neither
reflect nor obstruct light, but is capable under certain conditions of setting
up vibrations in the atmosphere which affect us as sound. A variation of this
class is that kind of partial materialization which, though incapable of reflecting
any light that we can see, is yet able to affect some of the ultra-violet rays,
and can therefore make a more or less definite impression upon the camera, and
so provide us with what are known as “spirit photographs.”
248.
When there
is not sufficient power available to produce a perfect materialization we
sometimes get the vaporous-looking form which constitutes our second class, and
in such a case the “spirits” usually warn their sitters that the forms which
appear must not be touched. In the rarer case of a full materialization there
is sufficient power to hold together, at least for a few moments, a form which
can be both seen and touched.
249.
Nearly all
the phenomena coming under this third subdivision of ours are effected by means
of the first of these types of materialization, for the hands which cause the
raps or tilts, which move objects about the room or raise them from the ground,
are not usually visible, though to be able to act thus upon physical matter
they must themselves be physical. Occasionally, but comparatively rarely, they
may be seen at their work, thus explaining to us how that work is done in the
far more numerous instances in which the mechanism is invisible to us. Such a
case is given to us by Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., in his interesting book Researches
in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 93:
250.
A luminous hand
251.
I was
sitting next to the medium, Miss Fox, the only other persons present being my
wife and a lady relative, and I was holding the medium’s two hands in one of
mine, whilst her feet were resting on my feet. Paper was on the table before
us, and my disengaged hand was holding a pencil. A luminous hand came down,
from the upper part of the room, and after hovering near me for a few seconds,
took the pencil from my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw the
pencil down, and then rose up over our heads, gradually fading into darkness.
252.
The raps
and the tilts are too well known to need description, but cases in which heavy
objects are raised and suspended without the contact of visible hands are
somewhat less commonly seen, so it may perhaps be well to cite one or two of
them. In the book just quoted, on p. 89, Sir William Crookes tells us:
253.
On five
separate occasions, a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches and a foot
and a half off the floor, under special circumstances, which rendered trickery
impossible. On another occasion a heavy table rose from the floor in full
light, while I was holding the medium’s hands and feet. On another occasion the
table rose from the floor, not only when no person was touching it, but under
conditions which I had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable proof of the
fact.
254.
It will be
seen, therefore, that the similar experience of my own, which I have described
a few pages back, is by no means unique. Mr. Robert Dale Owen, in his Footfalls
on the Boundary of Another World, p. 74, gives a remarkable case of similar
nature:
255.
cases of levitation
256.
In the
dining-room of a French nobleman, the Count d’Ourches, residing near Paris, I
saw, on the first day of October, 1858, in broad daylight, at the close of déjèuner
à la fourchette, a dining-table seating seven persons, with fruit and wine
on it, rise and settle down, as already described, while all the guests were
standing round it, and not one of them touching it at all. All present saw the
same thing. Mr. Kyd, son of the late General Kyd, of the British army, and his
lady told me (in Paris, in April, 1859) that in December of the year 1857,
during an evening visit to a friend, who resided at No. 28 Rue de la Ferme des
Mathurins, at Paris, Mrs. Kyd, seated in an armchair, suddenly felt it move, as
if someone had laid hold of it from beneath. Then slowly and gradually it rose
into the air, and remained there suspended for the space of about thirty
seconds, the lady’s feet being four or five feet from the ground; then it
settled down gently and gradually, so that there was no shock when it reached
the carpet. No one was touching the chair when it rose, nor did anyone approach
it while in the air, except Mr. Kyd, who, fearing an accident, advanced and
touched Mrs. Kyd. The room was at the time brightly lighted, as a French salon
usually is; and of the eight or nine persons present all saw the same thing
in the same way. I took notes of the above, as Mr. and Mrs. Kyd narrated to me
the occurrence; and they kindly permitted, as a voucher for its truth, the use
of their names.
257.
People have
not infrequently been lifted in this way in their chairs, though rarely, I fancy,
to the height of five feet. Sir William Crookes saw several instances of the
same phenomenon, and thus describes them in his Researches, p. 89.
258.
On one
occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady sitting in it, rise several inches
from the ground. On another occasion, to avoid the suspicion of this being in
some way performed by herself, the lady knelt on the chair in such a manner
that its four feet were visible to us. It then rose about three inches,
remaining suspended for about ten seconds, and then slowly descended. Another
time two children, on separate occasions, rose from the floor with their
chairs, in full daylight, under (to me) the most satisfactory conditions; for I
was kneeling and keeping close watch upon the feet of the chair, and observing
that no one might touch them.
259.
The most
striking cases of levitation which I have witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On
three separate occasions have I seen him raised completely from the floor of
the room. Once sitting in an easy chair, once kneeling on his chair, and once
standing up. On each occasion I had full opportunity of watching the occurrence
as it was taking place.
260.
There are
at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home’s rising from the ground, in
the presence of as many separate persons, and I have heard from the lips of the
three witnesses to the most striking occurrence of this kind — the Earl of
Dunraven, Lord Lindsay and Captain C. Wynne — their own most minute accounts of
what took place. To reject the recorded evidence on this subject is to reject
all human testimony whatever; for no fact in sacred or profane history is
supported by a stronger array of proofs.
261.
Colonel
Olcott, in his People from the Other World, also mentions having heard
this account from the lips of one of the witnesses. He gives us, too, some
striking instances of levitation upon the part of the Eddy brothers.
262.
I have
myself on three occasions been present when the medium, seated in a heavy
armchair, was lifted clear over our heads as we sat round the table, and placed
in the centre of it. On two of these occasions I was myself holding one of the
medium’s hands, and continued to hold it during his aerial excursion, while a
trustworthy friend held the other. Although this took place in darkness, we
were certain that no one from the physical plane lifted that chair; though as a
matter of fact we did not need that assurance, for there was no one in the room
at all capable of such a feat of herculean strength. The moment that the medium
and his big chair were safely landed on the table, raps called for a light by
the prearranged signal, so that we might see what had been done, our dead
friends being evidently rather proud of their achievement.
263.
lifted то the CEiling
264.
I myself
was once lifted at a seance in rather an unusual way — at least I have not
heard of any other case exactly similar. It was at one of the earliest of the
public seances which I attended, and many people entirely unknown to me were
present. Some ladies on the opposite side of the table cried out that a hand
was patting and caressing them, but this in absolute darkness did not seem to
be entirely convincing; so that when their exclamations of delight and
gratitude to the “dear spirit” were becoming a little monotonous I asked
quietly: “Will the spirit be so kind as to come across and touch me?” I
had hardly expected any response, but the “spirit” took me promptly at my
word; my hand was instantly seized in a strong grasp, and pulled upwards so
that I was compelled to rise from my chair. Even when I stood upright, the
upward pull still continued, so I hastily stepped on to the seat of my chair.
Still the steady irresistible pull, and a moment later I was hanging in the air
by one hand, and still ascending. My knuckles touched the smooth, cold surface
of the plastered ceiling — the room was a lofty one —and then, apparently through
the ceiling, another hand patted mine softly, and I felt myself sinking.
Directly afterwards my feet touched the chair, and only then the firm grasp
loosened, giving me a final hearty hand-shake as it left me. I climbed down
from my chair, convinced that “the clasp of a vanished hand” might sometimes be
a fairly strong one.
265.
When I told
this story to sceptics afterwards I was always met with one of two
explanations. First, that there was a trap-door in that ceiling, and that some
mechanical device was employed; secondly, that the medium was standing on the
table in the darkness, and lifted me himself. To the first suggestion I reply
that the ceiling was plain, smooth, whitewashed plaster, with never a crack in
it, for I climbed again upon my chair in full light afterwards to examine it;
and though it was some distance beyond my reach, it would have been utterly
impossible to miss seeing a crack if one had been there. Besides, my request
could not have been foreseen, and arrangements made to grant it in so striking
a manner. As to the second hypothesis, the medium was a small, spare man, and I
weigh over thirteen stone; perhaps the sceptic who suggests this will himself
stand upon the edge of a circular dining-table with one central support, and then
with one hand lift a much heavier man than himself straight up above his own
head, holding him suspended merely by one of his hands all the while.
266.
тRUе levitation
267.
The
probabilities are that all the cases of lifting which I have quoted or
described were performed by materialized hands, just as in this last experience
of my own. There is quite another method of levitation which is occasionally
practiced in Oriental countries — a much more occult and scientific method,
dependent for its success upon the knowledge and use of a power of repulsion
which balances the action of gravitation. I have also seen that, and indeed
every student of practical magic is familiar with its employment; but it does
not seem to me at all probable that this power was called into requisition in
any of the above cases.
268.
Gravitation
is in fact a force of a magnetic nature, and may be reversed and changed into
repulsion, just as ordinary magnetism can be. Such a reversal of this peculiar
type of magnetism can be produced at will by one who has learnt its secret, but
it has also frequently been produced unintentionally by ecstatics of various
types. It is related, for example, both of St. Teresa and of St. Joseph of
Cupertino that they were often thus levitated while engaged in meditation. But
I fancy that those who are levitated at a spiritualistic seance are generally
simply upborne by the materialized hands of the dead.
269.
These same
materialized hands manage all the smaller business of the seance; they wind up
the perennial musical box and wave it over the heads of the sitters; they play
(sometimes quite sweetly) upon that curious kind of miniature zither which is
usually euphoniously termed “fairy bells”; they sprinkle water or perfume
sometimes; they bring flowers and fruits and even lumps of sugar, which I have
known them deftly to insert into the mouths of their friends.
270.
It is
usually they also that are employed in slate-writing, though this may sometimes
be managed still more rapidly by means of precipitation, to which we shall make
reference presently. But generally the fragment of pencil enclosed between the
slates is guided by a hand, of which only just the tiny points sufficient to
grasp it are materialized.
271.
A slate-wRiting seance
272.
One
well-known medium in
273.
Then we
proceeded to the medium’s house and commenced the seance, cautioning the
sceptic to sit upon his parcel in order to make sure that no one tampered with
his slates. The medium commenced operations with slates of his own, which were
always lying upon the table for examination before the seance began; and the sceptic
had usually elaborate theories about these, as to how messages had already been
written upon them, and washed out with alcohol so that they would presently
reappear; or else that of course they would presently be dropped out of sight
and others substituted for them by sleight-of-hand. It was best as a rule to
let him talk, and take no notice, knowing that one could afford to bide one’s
time.
274.
The medium
usually held a single slate pressed with one hand against the under surface of
the table — a little plain wooden table with no drawers, and obviously no
contrivance of any sort about it — not even a cloth upon it. Under these
conditions answers were written to any simple question, or any sentence
dictated was faithfully taken down. Here the sceptic usually interposed by
requesting that a sentence might be written in Sanskrit or Chinese or the
Cherokee dialect, and was hugely triumphant if the controlling “spirit”
confessed that he did not happen to know these languages. Occasionally he
fetched somebody who did know them, and then the sceptic was somewhat
staggered, though he still clung to the idea that somehow or other the whole
thing was a fraud.
275.
Presently,
however, when the seance got into full swing, one insinuatingly asked the
directing entities whether they could write upon our own slates; and though I
have once or twice been told that they feared the power was not sufficient, in
three cases out of four the reply was in the affirmative. Then one turned to
the sceptic and requested him to produce his parcel, asking him to examine the
seals so as to be perfectly certain that it had not been touched. He was then
courteously requested to hold the sealed parcel in his own hands above
the table, the medium perhaps taking hold of one corner of it, or perhaps
merely laying his hand lightly upon it. Then the sceptic was further requested
to formulate a mental question, but on no account to give any indication as to
its nature. He did this, and it was generally an interesting study to watch the
expression of his face when he heard the sound of rapid writing going on in the
parcel between his hands. In a few moments three quick taps signified that the
message was finished, and the medium removed his hand, gravely asking the
sceptic to examine his seals and make sure that they were intact.
276.
He then cut
his parcel open, and found the inside surfaces of his new slates covered with
fine writing on the subject of his mental question. Usually for the time he was
speechless, and went home to think it over; but by the end of the week he had
generally made up his mind that we had been in some inexplicable way deceived
or hallucinated, and that “of course we did not really see what we thought we
saw.” Nevertheless it was a hard nut to crack, and his frequent references
later to “that clever but ridiculous performance” showed that it remained in
his mind, and had perhaps done him more good than he was willing to own.
277.
The answers
given in this way sometimes displayed considerable intelligence and knowledge.
It appeared to me, however, that they were often considerably modified by
decided opinions on the part of the questioner — whether from a friendly desire
to please him, or because the ideas were largely a reflection of those in his
own mind, there was not sufficient evidence to show. For example, I remember
myself receiving a perfectly definite statement regarding the existence of
certain persons in whom I was deeply interested; the communicating entity not only
positively asserted this existence, but adopted towards them precisely my
own attitude. Yet I afterwards discovered that only a week previously what
professed to be the same entity had, in writing answers for another person,
totally denied that any such personages existed at all! It may have been that
here we had to deal with two entirely different communicating entities, one
masquerading for some reason or other under the name and title of the other;
but it is at least significant that in each case the opinion expressed agreed
precisely with that of the questioner. On the other hand, I am bound to admit
that in many cases the answers given were not at all what any of us expected,
and contained information which could by no possibility have been known to any
of those present.
278.
It is not
difficult to see why this slate-writing should be one of the easiest forms of
conveying a message, and indeed the only kind of writing that can readily be
performed in full daylight. For the fact is that it never is performed in
daylight, even though the surrounding conditions are so absolutely satisfactory
to us. Between the two slates or between the slate and the table there is
always the darkness which makes materialization easy. When a physical body is
slowly grown and built together in the ordinary way, when it is thoroughly
permeated by the vital principle and definitely energized by the spirit, it
becomes a relatively permanent organism, and can withstand the impact of
vibrations from without, within certain limits.
279.
We must
remember that materialization is a mere imitation of this — a mere concourse of
fortuitous atoms, temporarily put together in opposition to the ordinary laws
and arrangements of nature. It therefore needs to be constantly held together
with care and difficulty, and any violent vibration striking it from without
readily breaks it up. It must also be remembered that the matter employed in
materialization is almost all withdrawn from the body of the medium, and is
therefore subject to a strong attraction which is constantly drawing it back to
him. The strong and rapid vibrations of ordinary light will therefore dissolve
a materialization almost instantaneously, except under exceptional
circumstances.
280.
It can be
maintained for some time in presence of a faint light, such as that given by
gas turned low, or by what is called a “luminous slate”, which is usually a
piece of wood or cardboard coated with luminous paint, and exposed to the sun
during the day, so that at night it may give out a faint phosphorescent radiance.
It is, however, among the resources of the astral plane to produce a soft light
the effect of which seems to be far less violent; and in this it is sometimes
possible for the hand which writes to maintain its corporeal existence for a
considerable period, as is evidenced by the following extract from a
description of a seance held with Kate Fox by Mr. Livermore on August 18, 1861.
281.
an hour’s writing
282.
The cards
became the center of a circle of light a foot in diameter. Carefully watching
this phenomenon, I saw the hand holding my pencil over one of the cards. This
hand moved quietly across from left to light, and when one line was finished,
moved back to commence another. At first it was a perfectly shaped hand,
afterwards it became a dark substance, smaller than the human hand, but still
apparently holding the pencil, the writing going on at intervals, and the whole
remaining visible for nearly an hour. I can conceive of no better evidence for
the reality of spirit-writing. Every possible precaution against deception had
been taken. I held both hands of the medium throughout the whole time. I have the
cards still, minutely written on both sides; the sentiments there expressed
being of the most elevated character, pure and spiritual. (The Debatable
Land, p. 301.)
283.
This account
gives us an example of the difficulty, even under these exceptionally
favourable conditions, of maintaining a materialization for so long a period.
It seems to have been impossible to preserve the shape of the hand, but
something visible which could still hold and guide the pencil was somehow kept
together until the necessary work was finished.
284.
It seems
probable that the working of the little board called planchette is sometimes
accomplished by means of a partial materialization, for I have seen cases in
which it distinctly moved underneath the fingers which were resting upon it,
and was in no way moved by them. When it is clearly the hand which moves the
board, this phenomenon of course belongs to our first class, in which the body
of the medium is utilized, though that medium may be entirely unconscious of
what is being done.
285.
direct painting
286.
I have also
seen some good specimens of painting which were probably executed in the same
manner as the writing above described. I say probably, because as they were
executed in darkness, it is impossible to be absolutely sure; they may have
been precipitations, although as that is a more difficult process, I do not
think that it is likely to have been employed. There have been mediums who have
made a specialty of this production of pictures, and it is certainly a very
pleasing exhibition of astral power. I have twice seen a little landscape,
perhaps eight inches by five, produced in total darkness on a marked piece of
paper in from fifteen to twenty minutes. The execution was fair, the colours
were natural and harmonious, and some of the paint was still wet when the
lights were turned up. I am perfectly sure that the sheet of paper employed was
in each case that which I brought with me. In one instance, just before the
lights were turned down, I tore a curiously jagged fragment off one of the
corners of the piece and kept it in my own possession until the picture was
completed, and found when the lights were turned up that it fitted exactly into
the tear in the sheet upon which the landscape was drawn.
287.
On neither
of these occasions was the landscape one which I recognized, though at the
house of the same medium I have seen well-executed paintings of scenes with
which I was familiar, which I was told had been produced in exactly the same
manner. In both of these cases a box of water-colours, a palette and brushes
were provided, and after the seance they bore signs of having been used. I have
also on another occasion, and with a different medium, seen a much larger
drawing in coloured chalks produced in darkness in even less time, but in this
case the execution, though bold and dashing, was certainly crude and erratic.
The subject in this case was a lady’s head, and the likeness was recognizable,
though not flattering. On all these occasions it was absolutely certain that
the medium was in no way concerned in the production of the pictures, his hands
being held during the whole time, and the outline of his form being
sufficiently visible in two of the cases to prevent him from moving without
instant detection.
288.
musical performances
289.
A man who
has attained facility during life in the management of any kind of instrument
does not lose his power when he drops his physical body. I have heard both a
violin and a flute played fairly well by invisible hands, when there was light
enough to see that the instruments were not being touched by any of the persons
present in the physical body. I have also many times seen a concertina played
in the same way, sometimes while I myself held the other end of the instrument.
Many times also a piano has been played in my presence by invisible hands, and
it seemed to make no difference whether the lid enclosing the keyboard was open
or shut. Sometimes, before beginning to play, the dead man would dash back the
lid, and then we could see the keys depressed as the playing went on precisely
as though we ourselves had been operating upon the instrument. If during the
performance we closed the piano, the playing usually went on just as if it had
remained open. On two occasions I have heard the wires of a piano played
without moving the keys, just as the strings of a harp might be.
290.
Another
instance of a man who after death retained his power to operate a machine to
which he had been accustomed during life is given by Sir William Crookes on p.
95 of his book. The operator was not exactly using his instrument, but he
undoubtedly showed that he still possessed the power to do so, had the
instrument been there. The story is as follows:
291.
the telegRaph opeRatoR
292.
During a seance
with Mr. Home, a small lath, which I have before mentioned, moved across the
table to me, in the light, and delivered a message to me by tapping my hand; I
repeating the alphabet, and the lath tapping me at the right letters. The other
end of the lath was resting on the table, some distance from Mr. Home’s hands.
293.
The taps
were so sharp and clear, and the lath was evidently so well under control of
the invisible power which was governing its movements, that I said: “Can the
intelligence governing the motion of this lath change the character of the
movements, and give me a telegraphic message through the Morse alphabet by taps
on my hand?” (I have every reason to believe that the Morse code was quite
unknown to any other person present, and it was only imperfectly known to me.)
Immediately I said this, the character of the taps changed, and the message was
continued in the way I had requested. The letters were given too rapidly for me
to do more than catch a word here and there, and consequently I lost the
message; but I heard sufficient to convince me that there was a good Morse
operator at the other end of the line, wherever that might be.
294.
the direct voice
295.
In the case
of the flute above mentioned it is obvious that the performer must have
materialized not only finger-tips to press the keys, but also a mouth with
which to blow. It is by no means uncommon at a seance for the dead man to
construct vocal organs sufficiently to produce intelligible sound, though this
appears to be (as indeed one would naturally suppose) a much more difficult
feat than the production of a hand. Often the construction of such organs seems
to be imperfect, and the resulting voice is a hoarse whistling whisper. I think
almost invariably the first attempts of an unaccustomed ghost to materialize a
voice go no further than the softest of whispers; but on the other hand the
“spirit guide” of a regular medium, having practiced the art of materializing
organs and speaking through them many hundreds of times, often possesses a
perfectly natural and characteristic voice.
296.
All those
who have been in the habit of attending the seances of certain well-known
mediums during the last half-century must be familiar with the round, sonorous
voice of the director who elects to be known by the name of “John King”, and
the hearty, friendly manner in which he greets those whom he has come to know
and trust. I well remember an occasion when, having invited a medium down to my
cottage in the country, we were walking together across a wheat-field, and a
well-known “spirit-voice” joined in our conversation in the most natural way
in the world, just exactly as if a third person had been walking with us.
297.
I am quite
aware that the ordinary explanation of a “spirit-voice” is that it is an effort
of ventriloquism on the part of the medium, but when one recognizes the voice
as one well known in earth-life that explanation seems a trifle unsatisfactory.
Also it seems to me to fail to account for the fact that on one occasion, at a
seance in my own house, the unseen performers treated us to a song in which all
four parts were distinctly audible, two of them being taken by very good female
voices — and that although the medium was of the male sex (and in a deep trance
anyhow) and none but men (trusted friends of my own) were physically present in
the room.
298.
Under this
head of partial materialization we must also include what are sometimes called
“spirit photographs”; for whatever can be photographed must of course be
physical matter, capable of reflecting some of the rays of light which can act
upon the sensitized plate of the camera. It does not at all follow that it need
be composed of matter visible to us, for the camera is sensitive to a large
range of actinic ultra-violet rays which produce no impression whatever upon
our eyes as at present constituted.
299.
I know
enough of photography to realize how easily a so-called “spirit-photograph”
could be produced by trickery, but I also know that there are a great many
which were as a matter of fact not so produced. I have seen a large
number of those which were taken under test conditions for Mr. W. T. Stead when
he was investigating this curious form of mediumship, and I have also been
favoured with a sight of several of those taken by and for our late
Vice-President, Mr. A. P. Sinnett.
300.
interesting photographs
301.
A good typical case of this photography of the partially materialized
dead was related to me by a veteran army officer. It seems that he had lost (as
we usually call it) three daughters by death, within a comparatively short
space of time. One day in a large city, hundreds of miles from home, he saw an
advertisement of a photographer who professed to be able to produce portraits
of the dead, so he turned into his studio then and there, and asked to be
taken. He gave no indication of what he expected, or indeed that he expected
anything at all beyond his own portrait; and he asserts that it was absolutely
impossible that he could have been, in any way known to the photographer. Yet
when he called for the portraits three floating faces appeared grouped about
his own, fainter than his, but unmistakably recognizable. He showed me the
photograph, and also the portraits of his daughters taken during their physical
life; they were unquestionably the same young ladies as those in the picture
taken after their death.
302.
In Photographing
the Invisible Dr. James Coates gives us a number of examples of photographs
on which appear psychic “extras,” as they are sometimes called. Many of these
were produced under conditions which precluded any sort of preparation of the
plates, and were developed in the presence of reliable witnesses. A curious
example on the photograph of a Chinese man is recounted by Mr. Edward Wyllie, a
well-known American “spirit-photographer”. (pp. 167-8.)
303.
I had been giving tests to some gentlemen in Los Angeles in connection
with the Psychic Research Society. Some were convinced of the fact of psychic
photography, and others were not. It was suggested by one member it would be a
good thing if I could obtain “extras” on the plate of someone wholly ignorant
of both the subject and of spiritualism. Then it could not be said that their
knowledge or attitude had anything to do with the results. It was not easy to
get someone with the qualifications desired. When one day “Charlie,” a Chinese
laundryman, called for my clothes, it struck me to ask him: “Charlie, like to
have your picture taken?” “No,” he replied. “No likee that.” He knew that I was
a photographer, but had a dislike, I think, to photography, as most Chinese
have. I tried to persuade him after he had called two or three times. I showed
him that there could be no harm in it, and I would take a “glass” (as negatives
are called) for nothing, and print him some nice pictures of himself. Charlie
wanted to go home and change his clothes, but I knew it would not do to let him
slip, and got him to sit. He was very much scared. I made his mind easy and
asked him to come in a few days, and I would give him the pictures. When I
developed the negative there were two “extras “on it — a Chinese boy and some
Chinese writing. When Charlie came round I showed him the print, and he said:
“That my boy; where you catchee him? “I asked him if it was not one of his
cousins in the city. He said, “No, that my boy. He not here; where you catchee
him?” I asked him where his boy was, and he said, “That my boy. He’s in China.
Not seen him for three years.”
304.
Charlie
would not believe that I had not by some magic got his “boy here”. Charlie then
brought other Chinamen — friends of his own — to see the picture, and they all
recognised the youngster. Charlie did not know that his son was dead. As far as
he knew, he was alive and well.
305.
Mr. Wyllie
also had remarkable success in obtaining the same sort of psychic impressions
upon photographs of letters and locks of hair. Dr. Coates relates (p. 197 et
seq.) that before Mr. Wyllie was induced to visit Scotland, a test of his
photography was proposed in The Two Worlds (1st Jan., 1909). In
consequence about forty people sent locks of hair to be photographed. All got
some “extras,” some of which were identifiable portraits of departed friends.
306.
Among the
experimenters were Mrs. A. S. Hunter, widow of Dr. Archibald Hunter of Bridge
of Allan, and Mme. A. L. Pogosky, also a widow, director of the Russian Peasant
Industries in London. The photograph of Mme. Pogosky’s card had two psychic
faces upon it — one of Dr. Hunter, and the other that of the deceased wife of
Mr. Auld, a friend of Dr. Coates’. Mrs. Hunter's photograph showed, in addition
to the letter and lock of hair which she had sent, three forms, identified as
an old schoolfellow, and a niece and nephew, all dead. Referring to the picture
of Mrs. Auld, Dr. Coates remarks:
307.
Here we have an identified portrait of a lady, taken by a stranger six
thousand miles away, wholly ignorant of Mr. Auld or ourselves. I had not
written this medium (Mr. Wyllie) till the 17th of March, 1909, nearly two
months after this picture was obtained, and of its existence none in Rothesay
were aware till . . . nearly fourteen months afterwards. Truly truth is
stranger than fiction.
308.
Later Mr.
Wyllie visited Dr. and Mrs. Coates in Scotland, and took many “spirit”
photographs there. When he was packing up his things preparatory to taking his
departure Mrs. Coates (who was herself psychic) had a sudden impulse to ask for
a sitting. Mr. Wyllie had packed away his favourite camera, but there were
still in the room a Kodak camera and some plates purchased locally, that is, in
Rothesay. One of the plates was exposed on Mrs. Coates, and when developed
showed also a good likeness of her grandmother (p. 223),
309.
That Mr.
Wyllie’s “extras” could be produced under test conditions was proved by the
report of a test committee, appointed by the Glasgow Association of
Spiritualists. They stipulated that they should provide the camera and plates; the
former belonged to one of the committee, the latter, eight in number, were
bought at the nearest chemist’s twenty minutes before the meeting, and were put
into slides in the chemist’s dark room. After the plates were exposed they were
immediately placed in the camera bag and taken away by the committee and
developed. Under these test conditions several of the plates showed psychic
impressions. (pp. 253-6.)
310.
Chapter VII
311.
THE MANIPULATION OF PSYCHIC RODS
312.
the goligher circle
313.
In three
valuable little books — The Reality of Psychic Phenomena (1916), Experiments
in Psychical Science (1919), and Psychic Structures (1921) — the
late Mr. W. J. Crawford, D.Sc., of Belfast, Ireland, has given us a carefully
classified account of a long series of investigations into the telekinetic
phenomena of the Goligher Circle, his studies having been carried on especially
from the mechanical point of view. The circle is so called because it is
composed of the principal medium, Miss Kathleen Goligher, and other members of
her family, namely her three sisters, brother, father and brother-in-law, with
only occasional visitors.
314.
recording the sounds
315.
It is
characteristic of Dr. Crawford’s methods that at the very beginning of his
research he should seek to convince himself and the rest of the circle that
they were merely subjects of hallucinatory sense-images induced by the peculiar
conditions of the seance-room. This he did by taking a number of phonograph
records. He explained to the invisible operators, with whom he was in
communication by means of raps, that he was about to make a record, and
requested them to give as complete a selection as possible of the various
sounds which they had been producing in the circle, and all within the space of
time permitted by the revolutions of the recording cylinder. About this he
says:
316.
I then asked the operators if all was ready, and on their replying by
three raps in the affirmative I called out, “Start”. Immediately a thunderous
blow resounded on the floor and I started the machine. Half a dozen sledgehammer
blows, varieties of double and treble knocks, and shufflings like sand-paper
rubbing the floor were given in succession; the hand-bell was lifted and rung;
the legs of the table were raised and knocked on the floor; the sound of wood
being apparently sawn was heard; and so on. They kept up this terrific noise
until I called out, “Stop”; when, at the word, perfect silence reigned. We then
tried the record, and found that most of the noises had been recorded; but the
bell, owing to its being rung too far away, was almost inaudible. I therefore
suggested to the operators that they should ring the bell right in the middle
of the circle and as near the trumpet of the phonograph as possible, and I
promised not to upset their conditions of equilibrium by attempting to touch
it. Accordingly, during the taking of the next record the bell was rung within
an inch or two of my hand, and so close to the trumpet that it accidently
touched it and knocked it off the instrument. This partly spoiled the record.
317.
In all,
three good records and the partly spoiled one were taken, and these show beyond
dispute, as was anticipated, that the sounds are ordinary objective sounds. (R.
P. P., pp. 30-1.)
318.
weighing the medium
319.
Further on
in the same book Dr. Crawford records a number of experiments in which he
weighed the medium before and during the levitation of the table or stool
placed in the center of the circle of the sitters, it being never in contact
with any portion of the body or dress of the medium or any other sitter. His
conclusions as to this are given as follows:
(a)
When
the table is steadily levitated, a weight is added to the medium very nearly
equal to the weight of the table.
(b)
The
seat of the reaction would therefore appear to be chiefly the medium herself.
(c)
Taking
an average over the six cases, the increased weight on the medium seems to be
about 3 per cent less than the weight of the levitated table. (pp. 44-5.)
320.
Wishing
then to discover if any of the weight of the steadily levitated table was added
to other members of the circle, he asked Mr. Morrison (the brother-in-law) to
sit on the chair on the weighing machine which had previously been occupied by
the medium, while she sat on an ordinary chair in the circle. When the table
was levitated, Mr. Morrison’s weight rose two ounces. As this might have been
due to other causes, Dr. Crawford balanced the steelyard of the weighing
machine and then, asked the operators to jerk the table up and down in the air.
While it was moving, the steelyard went up and down lightly against the stops,
in synchronism with the movement of the table. After a number of such
experiments he drew the conclusion that when the table is steadily levitated
the reaction falls upon the body of the medium to the extent of at least 95%,
and that a small proportion is distributed over the bodies of the other sitters.
Thus:
321.
As Admiral Moore suggests, when a table is steadily levitated the effect
is precisely the same as it would be if the medium lifted it herself with her
hands, aided by a very slight assistance from the members constituting the
circle — say, the help that could be given by a force applied by one finger
each. (p. 48.)
322.
the lines oF force
323.
Dr.
Crawford goes on to relate that in the course of many investigations, when he
and others sought to press down the levitated table they encountered an elastic
resistance, but to their surprise, when they tried to push the table towards
the medium they found a perfectly rigid or solid resistance. Whenever a visitor
undertook to try to prevent the table from rising, it did so nevertheless;
first the two legs nearest to the medium rose, as though the table were being
tilted at the inclination most suitable for a projection from the medium to
gain the shortest and most powerful grasp. As this occurred wherever the
visitor might be standing (though it must be understood that he was in no case
permitted to do so directly between the medium and the table) it would seem
that there is a projection in the direction suggested by the diagram reproduced
herewith. (Fig. 4, p. 73.)
324.
325.
326.
Further
experiments with a compression spring-balance under the table, when the
operators were requested to levitate the table in their usual manner, gave the
result, to take one example, that the vertical reaction for the seance table
weighing103/8 lb, was greater than 28 lb, and
showed that there was also a horizontal pressure against the balance and away
from the medium, amounting to about 5 lb. (p. 120). A stool weighing 23/4 lb
when levitated above a drawing board weighing 51/2 lb
resting upon a compression spring-balance, registered a downward force of about
24 lb. In this class of experiments it is evident that in the total we
have pressing upon the drawing-board the weight of the stool plus that of the
pillar of psychic matter which is supporting it. In the earlier type of
experiment mentioned above, we have evidently a cantilever support from the
medium, not resting on the floor. The full researches into these matters showed
Dr. Crawford that in most cases the cantilever form was used when it would not
inconvenience the medium by tending to overbalance her. (p. 131.)
327.
328.
Dr.
Crawford next invented a very delicate “contact-maker”. Two pieces of cardboard
(c) and wood (w) were hinged together as shown in the diagram
(Fig. 22, p. 139). Two small strips of clock-spring (ss) were attached
to these, and to an electric bell circuit, so that when any pressure was
exerted upon the wood and cardboard sides so as to bring the two strips into
contact the bell would ring. The instrument was so delicate that heavy
breathing upon it was sufficient to cause contact. With this instrument Dr.
Crawford explored the field under the levitated table and near to the medium,
and thus found the situation of the stress-lines of the force from the medium
to the table, as in both cases the bell rang at certain points and the
levitation was then interrupted in some degree. On this he writes as follows:
329.
I have some
reason to believe that the establishing of these stress-lines (the links) is
for the operators a difficult process, and that once formed they remain more or
less in situ for the duration of the seance. I think they may be likened
to tunnels somewhat laboriously cut through resisting material. Their basis
seems to be physical, for I have actually felt the motion of material particles
near the ankles (and proceeding outwards from them) of the medium (the
stress-lines seem to commence sometimes at the wrists and ankles of my medium),
and I have noticed during the rapping that when my hand interferes with the
particle flow — which seems to correspond with a stress-line — the rapping has
ceased for quite a long time and could seemingly only be restarted with
difficulty. In other words, the path had been obliterated. I do not think the
particles of matter (for such I am assuming them to be) are the cause of the
pressure which lifts the table. I think they are the connecting links which
allow the psychic pressure to be transmitted, much in the manner that a wire is
a path which enables electricity to flow. (pp. 140-1).
330.
feeling the substance
331.
In
Experiment 65 (p. 145) Dr. Crawford describes what this substance feels like to
the touch. He says:
332.
I felt no sense of pressure whatever, but I did feel a clammy, cold,
almost oily sensation — in fact, an indescribable sensation, as though the air
there were mixed with particles of dead and disagreeable matter. Perhaps the
best word to describe the feeling is “reptilian”. I have felt the same
substance often — and I think it is a substance — in the vicinity of the
medium, but there it has appeared to me to be moving outwards from her. Once
felt, the experimenter always recognizes it again. This was the only occasion
on which I have felt it under the levitated table, though perhaps it is always
there, but not usually in such an intense form. Its presence under the table
and also in the vicinity of the medium shows that it has something to do with
the levitation; and in short I think there can be little doubt that it is
actual matter temporarily taken from the medium’s body and put back at the end
of the seance, and that it is the basic principle underlying the transmission
of psychic force.
333.
The
above-mentioned test was made with his hand under the table near the top while
it was levitated. When he moved his hand to and fro among the psychic stuff the
table soon dropped. On page 225 he also mentions that he has often felt the
same cold, clammy, reptile-like sensation near the ankles of the medium when
rapping was taking place close to her feet at the commencement of a seance,
though he would never experiment in this way at an important sitting, because
he found that it interrupted the flow of matter and put a stop to the phenomena
for the time being.
334.
The
sensation would lead him to believe that the same quality of matter is present
during rapping as under the levitated table, and he noticed that in the former
case it is in motion in the direction from the body of the medium outwards;
this, he says, can easily be observed by the spore-like sensation as of soft
particles moving gently against the hand. He adds that during levitation of the
table he never actually interrupted the line of stress from the medium to the
table with his hand, but he sometimes placed delicate pressure-recording
apparatus in that line, which showed that there was some mechanical pressure
close to the body of the medium and acting outwards from her towards the
levitated table. In every case the placing of the apparatus in that line soon
caused the table to drop.
335.
In Psychic
Structures (p. 61) he adds that he distinctly felt a cold breeze issuing
from the neighbourhood of the medium’s ankles and the region just above her
shoes, which appeared to be caused by material particles of a cold, disagreeable,
spore-like matter. As his investigations proceeded he came to know quite
certainly that what he was really doing was to cut across the part of the structure
which was not heavily materialized, as is the end with which its work is done.
336.
Sometimes
Dr. Crawford did come in contact with the end of a rod. On some occasions the
operators held the end of a rod stationary in the air while he pressed against
it and kicked it, and found it “softish but very dense”. He says (Psychic
Structures, p. 31) that during one of the tests, when he was poking about
the floor in the medium's neighbourhood with a wooden rod, he accidently came
against the end of a psychic rod which happened to be out an inch or two up in
the air. In the same place he mentions that the suckers on the ends of the rods
can often be heard slipping over the wood, when they are presumably being
forced off or are taking new grips. He mentions (p. 32) an occasion when the
table suddenly dropped about six inches in the air and simultaneously there was
heard a swishing noise.
337.
A visitor
to the Circle, Mr. Arthur Hunter, also describes what he himself felt, as
follows:
338.
Towards the
end of the seance I asked the “operators” (having first obtained the permission
of the leader of the circle) if they could place the end of the structure in
one of my hands. On the reply “Yes” I went inside the circle, lay down on my
right side on the floor alongside the table, and placed my gloved right hand
between the two nearest legs of the table. Almost immediately I felt the impact
of a nearly circular rod-like body about 2 inches in diameter on the palm of my
hand, which was held palm upwards. (The back of my hand was towards the floor and
at a distance of about 5 in. from it.) This circular rod-like body was flat at
the end, i.e., as if the rod were sawn across. It maintained a steady
pressure evenly distributed over the area of impact, and was soft but firm to
the sense of touch. I estimate the magnitude of pressure at from 4 to 6 oz.
Without being requested to do so, the “operators” moved this rod-like structure
until I felt the clearly defined edges of the circular blunt end. This was
accompanied by a sensation of roughness, as though the edge were serrated, such
a feeling, I believe, as would be given by a substance similar to very
fine emery paper, (pp. 21-2.)
339.
In addition
to this feeling, he had occasionally had fitful glimpses of the psychic matter
in the ordinary red light of the seance room, but in 1919 Dr. Crawford made a
discovery which enabled the form to be much more easily seen. A sheet of
cardboard about one foot square was covered with luminous paint, exposed to
sunlight for some hours and then placed on the floor within the circle. In the
dark seance-room such luminous sheets shone quite strongly. While the medium
had her feet and ankles locked in a box the operators were asked to bring out
the structure and hold it over the phosphorescent sheet. In a short time a
curved body somewhat resembling the toe of a boot advanced into the light. The
operators modified it into many shapes, while Dr. Crawford watched the changes.
The end portion would contract and gradually lengthen until a pointed shape was
produced, and then that would sometimes curl round into a hook, twisting and
untwisting before his eyes. It could also spread out sideways until it
resembled a mushroom or a cabbage. The flexibility, he says, was marvellous.
(pp. 111-3).
340.
the cantilevers
341.
Following
upon a great number and variety of experiments Dr. Crawford put forward his
cantilever theory for levitation of light tables, based upon the fact that (1)
during steady levitation with no apparatus or other impedimenta below the
table, the weight of the table is practically added to that of the medium; (2)
the medium is under stress, the muscles of her arms from wrist to shoulder
being rigid, and other parts of the body being similarly affected, though to a
less degree, and (3) there is no reaction on the floor under the table. The idea
that the force employed is in the form of a cantilever issuing direct to the
table from the body of the medium is also supported by the facts that vertical
pressure meets with elastic resistance, while pressure towards the medium meets
with solid resistance. His summation of the theory, after considering all
mechanical evidence, and after conversing on the subject with the operators by
means of raps, was that:
342.
The
cantilever arm gets under the table — probably a more or less straight arm in
this case, as there is little stress. Whatever the physical composition of the
substratum of the end of the arm may be, it has the power to take an adhesive
grip on certain substances, such as wood, with which it comes into contact. The
broad columnar end of the arm grips adhesively the under surface of the table. (R.P.P.,
p. 167).
343.
On page 230
(R. P. P.) this theory is confirmed by a lady clairvoyant who happened
to be present at some of the experiments. She said that she saw under the
table, close to the under surface and extending down a little way, a whitish
vapoury substance which increased in density when the table was levitated. She
was able to call out that a movement was about to occur before it actually took
place, by noticing the increase of density and opacity. She explained that the
column did not reach to the floor, but that a band of it came from the medium
and was continuous with that under the table, and also that there were very
thin bands, like ribbons, coming from all the other sitters as well, and
joining it. She also saw various “spirit forms” and “spirit hands” manipulating
the psychic material.
344.
But the
culmination of proof arrived when Dr. Crawford succeeded in taking photographs
of the structure. Quite a number of photographs of matter thus issuing from the
medium and forming these structures have been published in Psychic
Structures. The first of these faces page 10, and shows the general form of
the structure as above described, and the fact that it is connected not only
with the medium but also with other sitters,
345.
In Experiments in Psychical Science (p. 14) Dr. Crawford recounts
how he obtained from the operators a description of the dimensions and shape of
a normal levitating cantilever. They said that the top of the columnar part of
the cantilever is spread out into a broad flat surface of area approximating
to the under surface of the table, that the vertical and horizontal sections
are about 4 inches in diameter, the latter being 3 or 4 inches above the floor,
and that just before entering the body of the medium the rod widens out to a
diameter of about 7 inches. Dr. Crawford drew the figure which we reproduce
herewith (Fig. 6, E.P.S., p. 15) to show these facts.
346.
347.
It was
found in certain experiments (E.P.S., p. 31), that when the levitated
table was heavily weighted the medium’s body swung gently forward, and she said
that she felt herself being urged forward, though she was not conscious of any
mechanical pressure. When she swung strongly forward the table dropped. Dr.
Crawford then told her to hold on with her hands to the arms of the chair,
while he placed an additional weight on the table, increasing the whole to
nearly 48 lbs. “When the table levitated the medium’s chair tilted forward on
its two front legs and the table dropped.
348.
All this was further confirmation of the cantilever method. The
operators explained (p. 33) that they prefer to work with a cantilever, for
when they rest the structure on the floor, as is necessary in some kinds of
demonstration, it is badly strained and much energy is required to maintain its
rigidity. So for all moderate weights, that is up to about 80 lbs. a true
cantilever is employed, but for greater and variable forces they use a
supported structure.
349.
The
question arose (E.P.S., p. 117) as to how the ends of rods and
cantilevers could be acting at their junction with the medium’s body, for
certainly a structure several feet long and supporting 30 or 40 lbs. weight at
its end, if it were a rigid bar, would cause serious pressure, and indeed
injury. Dr. Crawford thinks that the explanation is to be found in the
different condition of the matter. He speaks of X-matter, which can transmit
through itself direct and shear stresses, but cannot transmit them from itself
to ordinary matter. Then he posits Y-matter, a modified form of the former,
which is what is usually called materialized substance. Then he says:
350.
The Y-matter at the free end of, say, the psychic cantilever, grips the
wood of the under-surface of the table, which is then levitated. Weight of
table is transmitted to this Y-matter, and from the latter to the X-matter of
the body of structure. The mechanical stress is transmitted along the X-matter
right into the body of the medium. At the place where the structure enters the
body of the medium, no stress of any kind is transmitted to her flesh, because,
at this particular place, we have X-matter and ordinary physical matter in
juxtaposition, and stress cannot be directly transmitted from the former to the
latter. Within the interstices of the medium’s body the X-matter of the
psychic structure probably ramifies, and each ramification at its extremity
becomes Y-matter, and this Y-matter is attached to various interior portions of
the medium’s body, which thus finally and indirectly take the weight of the
table, (p. 119.)
351.
the raps
352.
Similar
observations and methods of weighing showed that the weight of the medium began
to diminish just before light raps were heard. Soon afterwards the weight began
to decrease in successive fluxes of 2 to 5 lbs. When a loud blow was given the
weight would diminish as much as 20 lbs., and then in the course of six or
seven seconds it would come nearly back to what it was before. Numerous
observations led to the following conclusions:
353.
From various parts of the body of the medium psychic semi-flexible rods
are projected, the end portions of which, being struck sharply on the floor,
table, chair, or other body, cause the sharp sounds known generally as raps.
354.
These rods
have apparently all the characteristics of solid bodies; they are more or less
flexible, and can be varied in length and diameter. Several of the smaller
rods, or one of the largest size, may project from the medium at any one time.
Each one, especially near its extremity, is more or less rigid, and the
rigidity can be varied within limits depending upon conditions of light, the
psychic energy available, and so forth. The rigidity is probably ultimately
brought about by some kind of molecular action concerning which we are as yet
perfectly ignorant — the kind of action that produces the same effect on the
cantilever. (p. 193, R. P. P.)
355.
In Experiments
in Psychical Science (p. 16), the operators’ own account as to how
the raps are produced in two ways is given as follows:
356.
Soft raps,
bounding-ball imitation, etc. — by beating the side of the rod on the floor, as
one uses a stick for beating a carpet.
357.
Hard raps—by beating the rod on the floor more or less axially.
358.
Dr.
Crawford says that while he was obtaining this explanation the operators
illustrated the various styles of raps under consideration by actually rapping
on the floor. When he asked them what were the approximate dimensions of a rod
used to give a fairly hard blow, they gave a sample blow on the floor and told
him that the rod used was about 2 inches in diameter and of uniform thickness
until just before entering the body of the medium, where it increased to about
3 inches. They also said that the same rod could be used to make a variety of
raps: light taps, as though a lead pencil were striking the floor, the bouncing
ball imitations, and also hard blows.
359.
type writing
360.
The
Reality of Psychic Phenomena (p. 201) describes an experimental attempt at
typewriting, on a very old Bar-Lock machine. The keys were struck lightly and
rapidly as though a pair of hands was playing over them, but they became jammed
as though several had been struck simultaneously. Dr. Crawford then explained
to the operators that they must strike each key separately and allow time for
its return before striking another. The advice was followed by the operators,
who, however, succeeding in writing only the following:
361.
mbx: gcsq'
362.
Dr.
Crawford remarks that the experiment is chiefly interesting as showing that the
keys can be struck with just the force necessary to produce the correct result.
He adds that the letters on the keys were in some cases much worn, so that
perhaps the operators found some difficulty in reading them.
363.
A more
successful attempt at typewriting was made at one of the sittings of Mr. Franek
Kluski, and is recorded in Dr. Greley’s book Clairvoyance and
Materialization (p. 269). The seance was one of those intended for the
production of paraffin moulds of materialized hands, of which we will give an
account in a later chapter. Splashing was heard in the paraffin and the hands
were seen by Mr. Broniewski and Prince Lubomirski above the tank, and at the
same time a typewriter which was on the table, fully illuminated by red light,
began to write. The keys were operated quickly, as by a skilful typist. There
was no one near the machine, but the persons holding Mr. Kluski’s hands
observed that the reaction was upon him, for they twitched during the writing.
The typed words were: “Je suis le sourire de 1’équilibre; mon poème d’amour et
de vie emplit les siècles.”
364.
impressions in clay
365.
A large number of Dr. Crawford’s experiments were performed by
requesting the operators to press the ends of rods into basins or trays of clay
or other substance which would take the mould, which were placed under the
table. Although the ankles of the medium were securely fastened in various
ways, and the feet and legs of the other sitters were also tied so that they
could not get within 18 in. of the clay, quite frequently, at first somewhat to
the surprise of the investigators, many of the impressions were found to be
lined with what resembled stocking marks, while others seemed similar to
impressions which might be made with the sole of boot or shoe. All these were
examined most carefully, the conclusion being that the forms which resembled
the marks of the sole of a shoe could not possibly have been so made, but were
due to the elastic distortion of the ends of psychic rods, which have the
following peculiarities:
366.
When the free end of the psychic rod is flat it can press on material
substances and grip them by adhesion.
367.
The gripping action is a true suction, being due to a difference of air
pressure, the air being squeezed out from the space between the flat end of the
rod and the body which it is contacting.
368.
In order to
produce this suction effect, the end of the rod is covered with what appears to
be a thin, pliable skin. As a matter of fact the end of one of these large
flat-ended rods often feels soft and plasm-like to the touch. The very finely
divided, crater-like appearance of most of the suction marks also shows
decisively that the suction end of such rods must possess a soft, pliable
surface. (P.S., pp. 39-40.)
369.
The concave
impressions varied in size from the mark one could make with one’s little
finger to a size of 4 or 5 sq. in., but the largest was less than half the size
of the largest flat marks. Their peculiarity was that most of them had the
imprint of stocking fabric. This was the usual effect, but on request to the
operator they could also be made quite smooth (p. 53). The impression is,
however, altogether sharper than anything that can actually be made with a
stockinged foot, for in the latter case there is a dull, blunt outline owing to
the foot behind the stocking exerting a squeezing effect, no matter how lightly
it may be applied. But the psychic impression has little raised edges
projecting upwards from the impression left by each thread.
370.
The reason
why this impression should appear is given as follows. The actual psychic structure
is covered by a film which is formed against the medium’s feet out of psychic
matter oozing round about the little holes in the fabric of her stockings. It
is at first in a semi-liquid state, and it collects and partly sets on the
outer covering of the stocking, and being of a glutinous, fibrous nature, it
takes almost the exact form of the stocking fabric. It is pulled off the
stocking by the operators and then built round the end of the psychic rod. The
large flat impressions, which involve heavy pulls and pushes, have this surface
further thickened and strengthened by the application of additional
materialized matter, which wholly or partly covers the impression of the
stocking (pp. 56-7).
371.
transportation of clay
372.
It was soon
observed that some of the clay was carried back when the material returned to
the medium, and streaks were found upon and within her shoes and stockings, and
on the floor between the medium and the bowl of clay. In a few cases, when a
sitter felt that he or she had been touched by the rod, marks were also found
upon them. All this led Dr. Crawford to try to discover where the structures
emerged from the medium. On page 71 he says that the floor all round the
medium’s shoes was covered with patches of clay, but where her feet rested on
the floor it was clean, which proved that they could not have moved. The clay
had been deposited on the edge of the sole of the shoes and in the slight clear
space between the edge of the sole and the floor, but had not been able to
penetrate where the sole was in actual contact with the floor. It was apparent
that the material had then moved up the shoe and gone into it through the
lace-holes and over the top, and there were generally particles of clay on the
flat of the shoes inside, wherever parts of the foot of the medium were not
pressing tightly on the leather. It had also been noticed that there were
sometimes peculiar rustling noises in the neighbourhood of the medium’s feet
and ankles just prior to the phenomena, and that these were probably due to
psychic stuff being sent in fluxes down the material of the stocking. There
were also slight flapping noises on the floor as the material was brought out
and placed there (p. 81).
373.
the path op the teleplasm
374.
These
observations led Dr. Crawford to experiment extensively with various powders
and colouring matters, in order to trace the path of the material. These
investigations are recorded at length in Psychic Structures. I will here
give only one or two examples. The following is an account of experiment Z (p.
128):
375.
The medium had her feet on a specially modified electrical apparatus.
She had her feet in the seance shoes and wore white stockings. The operators
could be heard working away at the legs of the medium. After about twenty
minutes they said they wished to deliver a message. This was taken by means of
the alphabet and was to the effect that the white colour of the medium’s
stockings was affecting the plasma, and that it would be necessary for her to
change into black ones. This was done, and phenomena soon commenced. A dish
containing flour was placed well beyond the reach of the medium on the floor,
and the operators pushed their psychic structures into it. At the end of the
seance the shoes and stockings were examined.
376.
Result:
Only the right shoe and stocking were affected by the flour. On this stocking
there was a large flour-mark right across the interior side, just above the
shoe, and there were marks and smudges on the stocking below the level of the
shoe to the sole. The magnifying glass showed that the whole sole was covered
with flour particles from end to end, and there were particles at the toes.
377.
There was flour all up the front and over the laces of the right shoe,
as though the plasma had retreated along the floor, up the front of the shoe to
the ankle of the medium on the interior side, and then down between the
stocking and the shoes to the sole of the foot. Also there were small particles
of flour right to the top of the stocking.
378.
In
experiment CC gold paint was used:
379.
Medium had on shoes treated with gold paint, as in the previous seance.
At the end many gold particles were found on one stocking along the sole to the
heel and up over the heel. Also many particles were found on the stocking
fabric to the very top of the stocking. A close inspection showed that there
was a regular stream of gold particles right up both stockings to the top, this
stream being most prominent about the region of the knees.
380.
Dr.
Crawford’s conclusions from these experiments are given on pages 133-4 as
follows:
381.
The data given above concerning the movement of powdered substances,
such as carmine or flour, from the interior of the shoes of the medium up the
sides of her shoes and up her stockings can only lead to one conclusion. The
plasma must get into the medium’s shoes in some manner or other. It either
originates in her feet and makes its way to the outside by coming up between
her shoes and her stockings, or it goes into her shoes first, accomplishes some
process there, and then comes out again. It usually issues round the sides of
the shoes, up from the middle of the sole of the foot, where the contact
between shoe and stocking is slight, although usually there is also a
considerable movement up the back of the heel. As I have already indicated,
this outward and inward movement of the plasma occurs even if the medium’s feet
are laced up in long boots.
382.
In many of
the experiments already described, as well as a well-defined carmine path from
the feet, there were visible distinct traces of carmine up the stockings as far
as the knees, and even up to the top of the stockings. Usually these carmine
paths were thickest and most plainly visible round about the ball of the calves
at the back, and usually there was more carmine on the stockings between the
legs than on the outside. The question then arose as to whether there was a
flow of plasma from the medium’s body down the legs, as well as the flow from
the feet upwards, or, indeed, whether the whole of the plasma did not come
from the trunk of the medium, flow down the legs and then, in some peculiar
manner and for some particular reason connected with the building up of the
psychic structures, enter her shoes and fill up the space between stockings and
leather. For, after all, it has to be remembered that our feet and legs are
only pieces of apparatus to enable us to move about, analogous to the wheels of
a cart, and that the great centres of nervous energy and reproductive activity
are within the body proper.
383.
Further experiments
were performed in order to discover whether the plasma issues from the lower
part of the trunk as well as returns by it. The following is one such
experiment, with the investigator’s conclusions:
384.
A little slightly damp carmine was carefully rubbed on the inside of the
legs of the knickers some inches up, and the medium put the knickers on very
carefully. At the end of the seance it was found that the carmine had traced paths
right down the legs of the knickers, had spread out round the embroidery at the
edge, had gone on the stockings, made paths right down the stockings, mostly
along the ball of the leg, and had even gone into the shoes, which were clean
ones.
385.
Therefore
it is certain that plasma issues from the trunk as well as returns thereby.
386.
The
quantity of plasma must be considerable, for the carmine had spread round the
medium’s legs right to the posterior, and in between the legs to the base of
the backbone; i.e. the plasma had at one time or another during the
seance occupied practically all the space which did not make close contact with
her chair. This result suggests that during interruptions in phenomena, or when
light is temporarily lit during a seance, the plasma conceals itself round
about the top of the medium’s legs under her clothing, and does not necessarily
all return to her body. If it always went back into her body, a considerable
time would have to elapse between each burst of phenomena, but this does not
usually occur. So long as the plasma is away from the temporary disturbing
influence, such as rays of light, the purpose of the operators is served
(pp.136-7).
387.
the photographs
388.
At last
came the time when it became possible to take photographs. This could only be
done after a careful study of the effect of the phenomena upon the medium. Dr.
Crawford had observed (p. 146) that when the medium was sitting on her chair in
the ordinary way, and he placed his hands upon her haunches, and the
development of psychic action was going on, parts of the flesh seemed to cave
in. Then, as the psychic material came back, little round lumps could be felt
filling in on the back of the thighs and on the interior of the thighs.
389.
For about a
year Dr. Crawford took one photograph each seance night, in the hope that he
might ultimately obtain success. The operators had informed him by raps that
he might finally expect this, though he had to take care to prevent injury to
the medium, as it was necessary gradually to work her up to withstand the shock
of the flashlight upon the plasma. He found that the pulse of the medium,
which was 84 at the beginning, rose to 120 just before the flash (while the
operators were endeavouring to exteriorize a psychic structure fit to be
photographed) and then went back to normal gradually, Observation showed that
generally during all kinds of phenomena the pulse of the medium rose, the
palms of the hands became a little moist and the fingers cool, but neither
temperature nor respiration seemed to be affected to any degree. (p. 143).
390.
Ultimately,
as we have already said, he succeeded in his photography. As Dr. Crawford puts
it:
391.
After innumerable attempts, however, very small patches of plasma were
obtained in full view between the medium’s ankles. As time went on these
increased in size and variety until great quantities of this psychic material
could be exteriorized and photographed. Then the operators began to manipulate
it in various ways, building it up into columns, or forming it into single or
double arms, moulding it into the different shapes with which I had been long
familiar in a general way from previous investigation. Not only did they do
this, but they showed unmistakably, by means of set photographs, from what part
of the medium’s body the plasma issued, and by means of ingenious arrangements
devised by themselves brought out many of its properties. (p. 148).
392.
the direct voice
393.
Dr.
Crawford also describes, in Experiments in Psychical Science, his
experiments in direct voice phenomena in his own house with a medium known as
Mrs. Z. He sat her upon a weighing machine with the weight balanced, while two
trumpets were placed upright on the floor within the circle. After about
fifteen minutes the lever of the machine fell lightly on the bottom stop, which
indicated that her weight was decreasing, and he found that this decrease
amounted to about 21/2 lbs. Then suddenly a voice called
out from somewhere near the roof within the circle “Weigh me” and a trumpet
dropped to the floor, while the medium’s weight immediately returned to its original
value. Fifteen minutes later the same thing happened again, the same words were
heard, a trumpet dropped and the same weight was recorded.
394.
Although
these phenomena took place in the dark, and the weighing was merely felt by Dr.
Crawford, it was quite impossible for the medium to have done anything but sit
quite still. She weighed nearly 20 stone, and her slightest movement would have
been detected, while her lifting anything would have increased, not decreased
the weight. Dr. Crawford asked the control if he had been weighing her or the
trumpet, but she did not seem to know.
395.
In a later
experiment (p. 184) Dr. Crawford arranged to record the direct voice on a phonographic
cylinder. He asked the control to bring the mouth of the trumpet up to the horn
of the phonograph, and when she said that she was ready, requested her to begin
to speak as soon as she heard the buzzing of the machine. Dr. Crawford then
says:
396.
The
cylinder had made only a few revolutions when the control commenced to sing a
song into the horn. This song was three verses in length, and at the end of
each verse she interjected remarks such as “How’s that?” etc. I told her to
sing a little louder, and during the third verse she sang quite loudly.
397.
I plainly felt the movement of the air just at the mouth of the
phonograph horn as the song was being sung, which would seem to indicate that
the end of the trumpet was moving to and fro at the spot. Moreover, the
control’s voice emanated from a position just at the mouth of the horn. I did
not attempt to touch the trumpet, as I knew from experience that if I did so it
would be likely to drop. If an end of the trumpet was thus at the mouth of the
phonograph horn as it appeared to be, the nearest distance of the other end of
the trumpet from the medium must have been well over four feet. At the
conclusion of the song, and after I had stopped the instrument, I asked the
sitters on either side of the medium if they still had hold of her hands, and
they replied in the affirmative. These sitters afterwards told me that during
the taking of the record the medium’s hands were vibrating rapidly, as though
they were under great nervous stress. (pp. 184-5).
398.
As to these
records, Dr. Crawford says that there is in them internal evidence that the
voice must have been speaking close to the horn of the phonograph and not from
some distance away. He adds that it is well known among people who are
continually making records that if the voice speaks too close into the horn a
kind of tinny, metallic sound is produced, which phonographic manufacturers
call “blasting”. In several places in the two records of the control’s voice
this “blasting” is heard, indicating that the voice must have been very close
to, if not within, the horn of the phonograph.
399.
Chapter VIII
400.
MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA
401.
precipitation
402.
I have
already mentioned in connection with the phenomenal production of paintings or
writings that there is another method by which this may be done, more rapid and
efficient, but requiring greater knowledge of the possibilities of the astral
plane. This method is usually described as precipitation, and broadly speaking
its modus operandi is as follows: The man wishing to write or paint
takes a sheet of paper, forms a clear mental image of the writing or the
picture, distinct down to the minutest detail, and then by ah effort of will
objectifies that image and throws it upon the paper, so that the whole picture
or the whole sheet of writing appears instantaneously. It will be seen at once
that this demands far greater power and fuller command of resources than is
likely to be possessed by the ordinary man, either before or after his death;
but just as those who have been trained along that line are capable of
producing such a result while still in the physical body, so there are a few
among the dead who have learnt how such powers may be exercised.
403.
I have seen
cases in which the writing was precipitated not all at once but by degrees, so
that it appeared upon the paper in successive words, just as it would have done
if written in the ordinary way, except that this process was much more rapid
than any writing could ever be. In the same way I have seen a picture form
itself slowly, beginning at one side and passing steadily across to the other,
the effect being just as though a sheet of paper which had concealed it was
slowly drawn off from an already existing picture.
404.
Some
persons in performing this feat require to have their materials provided for
them; that is to say, if they have to write a letter, the writing material —
ink or coloured chalk — must be by their side, or if they have to precipitate a
picture the colours must be there either in powder or already moistened. In
this case the operator simply disintegrates as much of the material as he
requires, and transfers it to the surface of his paper. A more accomplished
performer, however, can gather together such material as he needs from the
surrounding ether; that is to say, he is practically able to create his
materials, and so can sometimes produce results which cannot readily be
imitated by any means at our disposal upon the physical plane.
405.
In Photographing
the Invisible (pp. 301-3), Dr. J. Coates quotes an experience, recounted by
Vice-Admiral W. Usborne Moore, relating to the precipitation of a portrait,
which presents a good example of the process often employed:
406.
The next day a portrait was precipitated on to a Steinbach canvas within
two feet of me. The Bangs sisters each held one side of the canvas, which was
put up against the window, while I sat between them and watched the face and
form gradually appear. A few minutes after they began to appear, the psychics
(apparently under impression) lowered the canvas toward me until it touched my
breast. Mary Bangs then got a message by Morse alphabet on the table: “Your
wife is more accustomed to see me in the other aspect.” Up went the canvas
again, and I saw the profile and bust, but turned round in the opposite
direction; instead of the face looking to the right, it was looking to the
left. The portrait then proceeded apace, until all the details were filled in,
and in twenty-five minutes it was practically finished. Beyond a little deepening
of the colour, and touches here and there by the invisible artist, the picture
is the same now as when we arose from the table. The precipitated portrait is
very much like a photograph of the person, taken thirty-five years ago (shortly
before death), that I had in my pocket during the sitting, which the Bangs, of
course, had never seen. The expression of the face, however, is far more
ethereal and satisfied than in the photograph.
407.
These instances are but two out of many manifestations I witnessed at
the Bangs sisters’ house.
408.
The Admiral
refers as follows to a full-length portrait which he obtained in the same way:
409.
On this occasion the canvases arrived from the shop wet, and we had to
wait half an hour for them to dry. The next day I went to the shop and
complained. The woman who attended said: “The boy who brought your order said
you wanted stretched canvases. When he came to take them away, we found he
wanted the paper as well, so we put it on at once, and of course they left the
shop wet.” I relate this little incident for the benefit of those who vainly
imagine that the phenomenon of precipitation may be due to normal causes.
410.
Mr. G.
Subba Rau, editor of the West Coast Spectator, Calicut, India, gives an
account (p. 317) of the manner in which he received a precipitated portrait of
his deceased wife, her photograph being in his pocket without the knowledge of
the mediums. Although somewhat
incredulous as to the powers of the Bangs sisters, he arranged to have a
sitting with them. He mentions that the sisters stated that they saw
“apparently a life-size image of the photograph I had with me, and described it
correctly in the details. For instance, they saw that I sat, that my wife stood
behind, with her hand on my shoulder; that her face was round; that she wore a
peculiar jewel on the nose and that her hair was parted; that a dog lay at my
feet, and so on.” As to the precipitation of the picture, he adds (p. 318):
411.
They asked
me to pick out any two canvas stretchers that lay against the wall, adding that
I might bring my own stretchers if I liked. I took out two which were very
clean and set them on the table against the glass window. I sat opposite, and
the two sisters on either side. Gradually I saw a cloudy appearance on the
canvas; in a few moments it cleared into a bright face, the eyes formed
themselves and opened rather suddenly, and I beheld what seemed a copy of my
wife’s face in the photograph. The figure on the canvas faded away once or
twice, to reappear with clearer outline; and round the shoulder was formed a
loose white robe. The whole seemed a remarkable enlargement of the face in the
photograph. The photograph had been taken some three or four years before her
death, and it was noteworthy that the merely accidental details that entered
into it should now appear on the canvas. For instance, the nose ornament
already referred to, she had not usually worn. Some ornaments were clumsily
reproduced. One that she had always worn, which was not distinctly visible in
the photograph, was omitted on the canvas. I pointed out these blemishes, and
as the result, when I saw the portrait next day, all the ornaments had
disappeared. I was satisfied that the portrait had been precipitated by some
supernormal agency. As soon as the portrait was finished, I touched a corner of
the canvas with my finger, and greyish substance came off. The portrait is
still in my possession, and it looks as fresh as ever. It was all done in
twenty-five minutes.
412.
The same
volume contains several chapters dealing with psychographs, especially written
messages impressed on photographic plates which have never been exposed. For
example, the Ven. Archdeacon Colley, Rector of Stockton, delivered an Easter
sermon on Sunday evening, 3rd April, 1910, in the parish church. This sermon
was found written on a half-plate which had been sealed up in a light-proof
packet, and held between the hands of six persons for thirty-nine seconds only.
Under these circumstances 1710 words were written in eighty-four lines within
the small compass of the half-plate. The Archdeacon says (p. 378):
413.
The
smallness of the copper-plate-like writing readers it impossible to be
reproduced by any engraving; while at times, with our greatly esteemed unpaid
mediums in various circles, the writing on our usual quarter-plates is so
microscopic, that to enable us to read it a higher power lens is necessary; and
the character of the calligraphy in English, archaic Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
Italian, French, Arabic, varies continually in our several separate,
devotional, and private gatherings, in places from twenty-four to seventy-seven
miles apart.
414.
Proofs
of the Truth of Spiritualism, by the Rev. Prof. G. Henslow, also contains
illustrations and descriptions of many remarkable psychographs (pp. 187 et
seq.)
415.
The next
point for our consideration is the question of what are called “spirit lights,”
that is to say the different varieties of illumination which are produced at a
seance by the non-physical participators therein. Sir William Crookes gives a
comprehensive catalogue of these on p. 91 of his book before quoted:
416.
various kinds of lights
417.
Under the strictest test conditions I have seen a solid self-luminous
body, the size and nearly the shape of a turkey’s egg, float noiselessly about
the room, at one time higher than any one present could reach standing on
tip-toe, and then gently descend to the floor. It was visible for more than ten
minutes; and before it faded away it struck the table three times, with a sound
like that of a hard solid body. During this time the medium was lying back,
apparently insensible, in an easy chair.
418.
I have seen luminous points of light darting about and settling on the
heads of different persons; I have had questions answered by the flashing of a
bright light a desired number of times in front of my face. I have seen sparks
of light rising from the table to the ceiling, and again falling upon the
table, striking it with an audible sound. I have had an alphabetic
communication given by a luminous cloud floating upwards to a picture. Under
the strictest test conditions, I have more than once had a solid,
self-luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a hand which did not
belong to any person in the room. In the light, I have seen a luminous cloud
hover over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig
to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous cloud visibly
condense to the form of a hand, and carry small objects about.
419.
I have
already described the three varieties of lights which showed themselves to me
during my preliminary home experiments without a recognized medium; and though
I have seen many such lights since, they have been almost all of the same
general character as those. On several occasions, however, I have seen a light
much brighter than any of those, apparently of an electrical character, capable
of fully lighting up the room, and in one case of blinding brilliance. This
latter manifestation is rare at a seance, as, for reasons previously described,
it would break up any partial materializations which might be necessary for the
production of other phenomena.
420.
Another
interesting power at the command of experimenters on the astral plane is that
of disintegration and of reintegration, to which we have already referred when
speaking of precipitation. This is simply the process of reducing any object to
an impalpable powder — in fact, into an etheric or even atomic condition. This
may be brought about by the action of extremely rapid vibration, which overcomes
the cohesion of the molecules of the object. A still higher rate of vibration,
perhaps of a somewhat different type, will further separate these molecules
into their constituent atoms. A body thus reduced to the etheric or atomic
condition can be moved with great rapidity from one place to another; and the
moment that the force which had been exerted to bring it into that condition is
withdrawn, it will at once resume its original state.
421.
How foRm Is retained
422.
To answer
an obvious objection which will at once occur to the mind of the reader I may
be allowed to quote once more a few sentences from The Astral Plane.
423.
Students
often at first find it difficult to understand how in such an experiment the
shape of the article can be preserved. It has been remarked that if any metallic
object — say, for example, a key — be melted and raised to a vaporous state by
heat, when the heat is withdrawn it will certainly return to the solid state,
but it will no longer be a key, but merely a lump of metal. The point is well
taken, though as a matter of fact the apparent analogy does not hold good. The
elemental essence which informs the key would be dissipated by the alteration
in its condition — not that the essence itself can be affected by the action of
heat, but that when its temporary body is destroyed (as a solid) it pours back
into the great reservoir of such essence, much as the higher principles of a
man, though entirely unaffected by heat or cold, are yet forced out of a
physical body when it is destroyed by fire.
424.
Consequently,
when what had been the key cooled down into the solid condition again, the
elemental essence (of the “earth” or solid class) which poured back into it
would not be in any way the same as that which it contained before, and there
would be no reason why the same shape should be retained. But a man who
disintegrated a key for the purpose of removing it by astral currents from one
place to another would be careful to hold the same elemental essence in exactly
the same shape until the transfer was completed, and then when his will-force
was removed it would act as a mould into which the solidifying particles would
now, or rather round which they would be re-aggregated. Thus, unless the
operator’s power of concentration failed, the shape would be accurately
preserved.
425.
It is in
this way that objects are sometimes brought almost instantaneously from great
distances at spiritualistic seances, and it is obvious that when disintegrated
they could be passed with perfect ease through any solid substance, such, for
example, as the wall of a house or the side of a locked box, so that what is
commonly called “the passage of matter through matter” is seen, when properly
understood, to be as simple as the passage of water through a sieve, or of a
gas through a liquid in some chemical experiment.
426.
Since it is possible by an alteration of vibrations to change matter
from the solid to the etheric condition, it will be comprehended that it is
also possible to reverse the process and to bring etheric matter into the solid
state. As the one process explains the phenomenon of disintegration, so does
the other that of materialization; and just as in the former case a continued
effort of will is necessary to prevent the object from resuming its original
state, so in exactly the same way in the latter phenomenon a continued effort
is necessary to prevent the materialized matter from relapsing into the etheric
condition.
427.
OBJECTS
BROUGHT FROM A DISTANCE
428.
The apport
of objects from some other room, or sometimes from a far greater distance, is
one of the most favourite methods by which the dead men managing a seance elect
to manifest their especially astral powers. Sir William Crookes, on p. 97 of
the book which I have so often quoted, tells us how at a seance with Miss Kate
Fox the controlling entities announced that “they were going to bring something
to show their power,” and then brought into
the room a small hand-bell from the library, the door between being carefully
locked, and the key in Sir William’s pocket.
429.
I have
myself frequently had all sorts of small objects brought to me from a distance
— flowers and fruit being among the most common. In some cases tropical flowers
and fruit, obviously perfectly fresh, have been thus presented to me in
England. When interrogated as to whence these things came, the controlling entities
have always most emphatically asserted that they were not permitted to steal
any person’s property in this way, but had to search for their flowers and
fruits where they grew wild. I have had a rare fern and a rare orchid brought
to me in this way — thrown down upon the table with the fresh earth still
clinging to their roots. I was able to plant both of them afterwards in my
garden, where they took root and grew in the most natural manner.
430.
The best
stories that I know of the bringing of plants to a seance are contained in
Madame d’Espérance’s book Shadowland. The first is quoted from p. 261.
(It should be premised that “Yolande” is the name given to a materialized
“spirit” who took a prominent part in all the seances of Madame d’Espérance.)
431.
Yolande crossed the room to where Mr. Reimers (a gentleman well known
throughout Europe as a prominent spiritualist) sat, and beckoned him to go
nearer the cabinet and witness some preparations she was about to make. Here it
is as well to say that on previous occasions when Yolande had produced flowers
for us, she had given us to understand that sand and water were necessary for
the purpose; consequently a supply of fine clean white sand and plenty of water
were kept in readiness for possible contingencies. When Yolande, accompanied by
Mr. Reimers, came to the centre of the circle, she signified her wish for sand
and water, and, making Mr. R. kneel down on the floor beside her, she directed
him to pour sand into the water-carafe, which he did until it was about half
full. Then he was instructed to pour in water. This was done, and then by her
direction he shook it well and handed it back to her.
432.
Yolande,
after scrutinizing it carefully, placed it on the floor, covering it lightly
with the drapery which she took from her shoulders. She then retired to the
cabinet, from which she returned once or twice at short intervals, as though to
see how it was getting on.
433.
In the
meantime Mr. Armstrong had carried away, the superfluous water and sand,
leaving the carafe standing in the middle of the floor covered by the thin
veil, which, however, did not in the least conceal its shape, the ring or top
edge being especially visible.
434.
We were
directed by raps on the floor to sing, in order to harmonize our thoughts, and
to take off the edge, as it were, of the curiosity we were all more or less
feeling.
435.
While we
were singing we observed the drapery to be rising from the rim of the carafe.
This was perfectly patent to every one of the twenty witnesses watching it
closely.
436.
Yolande
came out again from the cabinet and regarded it anxiously. She appeared to
examine it carefully, and partially supported the drapery as though afraid of
its crushing some tender object underneath. Finally she raised it altogether,
exposing to our astonished gaze a perfect plant, of what appeared to be a kind
of laurel.
437.
Yolande
raised the carafe, in which the plant seemed to have firmly grown; its roots,
visible through the glass being closely packed in the sand.
438.
She
regarded it with evident pride and pleasure, and, carrying it in both her
hands, crossed the room and presented it to Mr. Oxley, one of the strangers who
were present — the Mr. Oxley who is so well known by his philosophical writings
on spiritual subjects, and the pyramids of Egypt.
439.
He received
the carafe with the plant, and Yolande retired as though she had completed her
task. After examining the plant Mr. Oxley, for convenience sake, placed it on
the floor beside him, there being no table near at hand. Many questions were
asked and curiosity ran high. The plant resembled a large-leafed laurel with
dark glossy leaves, but without any blossom. No one present recognized the
plant or could assign it to any known species.
440.
We were
called to order by raps, and were told not to discuss the matter, but to sing
something and then be quiet. We obeyed the command, and after singing, more
raps told us to examine the plant anew, which we were delighted to do. To our
great surprise we then observed that a large circular head of bloom, forming a
flower fully five inches in diameter, had opened itself, while standing on the
floor at Mr. Oxley’s feet.
441.
The flower
was of a beautiful orange-pink colour, or perhaps I might say that
salmon-colour would be a nearer description, for I have never seen the same tints,
and it is difficult to describe shades of colour in words.
442.
The head
was composed of some hundred and fifty four-star corollas projecting
considerably from the stem. The plant was twenty-two inches in height, having a
thick woody stem which filled the neck of the water-carafe. It had twenty-nine
leaves, averaging from two to two and a half inches in breadth, and seven and a
half inches at their greatest length. Each leaf was smooth and glossy,
resembling at the first glance the laurel which we had first supposed it to be.
The fibrous roots appeared to be growing naturally in the sand.
443.
We afterwards photographed the plant in the water-bottle, from which, by
the way, it was found impossible to remove it, the neck being much too small to
allow the roots to pass; indeed, the comparatively slender stem entirely filled
the orifice.
444.
The name,
we learnt, was Ixora Crocata, and the plant a native of India.
445.
How did the
plant come there? Did it grow in the bottle? Had it been brought from India in
a dematerialized state and rematerialized in the seance-room?
446.
These were
questions which we put to one another without result. We received no
satisfactory explanation. Yolande either could not or would not tell us. As far
as we could judge — and the opinion of a professional gardener corroborated our
own — the plant had evidently some years of growth.
447.
We could
see where other leaves had grown and fallen off, and wound-marks which seemed
to have healed and grown over long ago. But there was every evidence to show
that the plant had grown in the sand in the bottle, as the roots were naturally
wound around the inner surface of the glass, all the fibres perfect and
unbroken as though they had germinated on the spot and had apparently never
been disturbed. It had not been thrust into the bottle, for the simple reason
that it was impossible to pass the large fibrous roots and lower part of the
stem through the neck of the bottle, which had to be broken to take out the
plant.
448.
Mr. Oxley,
in his account, which was afterwards published, says:
449.
I had the
plant photographed next morning, and afterwards brought it home and placed it
in my conservatory under the gardener’s care. It lived for three months, when
it shrivelled up. I kept the leaves, giving most of them away except the flower
and the three top-leaves which the gardener cut off when he took charge of the
plant; these I have yet preserved under glass, but they show no signs of
dematerializing as yet. Previous to the creation or materialization of this
wonderful plant, the Ixora Crocata, Yolande brought me a rose with a
short stem not more than an inch long, which I put into my bosom. Feeling something
was transpiring, I drew it out and found there were two roses. I then replaced
them, and withdrawing them at the conclusion of the meeting, to my astonishment
the stem had elongated to seven inches, with three full-blown roses and a bud
upon it, with several thorns. These I brought home and kept till they faded,
the leaves dropped off and the stem dried up, a
proof of their materiality and actuality.
450.
We gather
from further statements that this interesting present was made to Mr. Oxley in
fulfilment of a promise, for it seems that he was making a collection of plants
in order to demonstrate some theory, for which he needed a specimen of this
particular kind, but had been unable to obtain it by any ordinary method. The
remarkable point about the arrival of this plant is its gradual appearance. It
is not brought as a whole and thrown down upon the table, as my fern was, but
it is seen to be slowly increasing under the drapery, precisely as though it
were really growing at a most abnormal rate; and even after it has been
presented to Mr. Oxley it still continues this apparent growth, for it develops
a flower during the singing.
451.
It seems,
however, evident that this apparent growth is not really anything of the kind,
since the plant is seen on examination to be clearly several years old; so we
are driven to the conclusion that the plant was, as it were, brought over in
sections and built up gradually. If a living plant can be dematerialized and
put together again without damaging it permanently, it may just as easily be
taken to pieces bit by bit as pulverized at one blow by a mightier effort of
will; indeed, one can see that the former might be the simpler process,
demanding less expenditure of force. It may quite conceivably not have been
within the power of those who were assisting Yolande to bring the entire
vegetable at one fell swoop, and it may therefore have been absolutely
necessary to make several journeys for it. It would appear that they first
arranged the roots in the sand, disposing them with care exactly as they had
naturally grown, and then gradually added the rest of the plant, bringing the
flower over later with dramatic effect as the crowning glory of the experiment.
452.
It may be
that the apparently rapid growth of the mango-tree in the celebrated Indian
feat of magic is managed in this same manner, by successive acts of
disintegration and reintegration, instead of by enormously hastening the
ordinary processes of development, as is usually suggested. Clearly, as the
author remarks, it could not have been thrust into the bottle, but particle by
particle had been carefully arranged in the proper place among the damp sand.
The operation must have been difficult and delicate, and we can hardly wonder
that Yolande regarded the eventual result with considerable pride.
453.
Mr. Oxley
seems to have regarded the plant as a temporary materialization, and expected
that it would disappear in due course; but it is quite evident that it was
definitely a case of apport, and that the gift was intended to remain, as
indeed it did until its death — which, however, may quite possibly have been
accelerated by its abrupt removal from warmer climes to the inclement latitude
of England. The photograph taken of the plant in the bottle is reproduced as
one of the illustrations in the book from which this account is extracted. It
seems clear that the rose to which Mr. Oxley refers must also have been brought
piecemeal in the same way, since it would obviously be impossible for a cut
flower to grow in the way which he describes.
454.
In the same
book, at p. 326, we find an account of a still more wonderful achievement of
the same nature on the part of Yolande. In this case there is the additional
and interesting complication that the plant was only borrowed, and had to be
returned.
455.
Yolande,
with the assistance of Mr. Aksakof, had mixed sand and loam in the flower-pot,
and she had covered it with her veil, as she had done in the case of the
water-bottle in England when the Ixora Crocata was grown.
456.
The white drapery was seen to rise slowly but steadily, widening out as
it grew higher and higher. Yolande stood by and manipulated the gossamer-like
covering till it reached a height far above her head, when she carefully
removed it, disclosing a tall plant bowed with a mass of heavy blossom, which
emitted the strong sweet scent of which I had complained.
457.
Notes were
taken of its size, and it was found to be seven feet in length from root to
point, or about a foot and a half taller than myself. Even when bent by the
weight of the eleven large blossoms it bore, it was taller than I. The flowers
were very perfect, measuring eight inches in diameter; five were fully blown, three
were just opening and three in bud, all without spot or blemish, and damp with
dew. It was most lovely, but somehow the scent of lilies since that evening has
always made me feel faint.
458.
Yolande
seemed very pleased with her success and told us that if we wanted to
photograph the lily we were to do so, as she must take it away again. She stood
beside it and Mr. Boutlerof photographed it and her twice.
459.
The plant
was a Lilium auratum, the golden-rayed lily of Japan, and the date of
this very interesting seance was June 28, 1890. The photographs mentioned are
reproduced in the book, and show a fine specimen of the plant.
460.
A curious
feature of the account is that the materialized figure Yolande became anxious
about the affair because, having apparently borrowed this giant lily, she found
herself unable to return it at the proper time. The available power seems to
have been exhausted in the effort of bringing it, so that when she tried to
take it back again she failed. She appears to have been much distressed at her
inability to keep her promise, and begged that every care might be taken of the
plant. Her physical friends did all that they could for it, but it seems (and
no wonder) to have languished somewhat. The weather, too, proved unfavourable
for her purposes, and it was nearly a week before she finally succeeded in
restoring it to its original owner, whoever he may have been. One would like to
hear the other side of this story — the surprise and regret at the mysterious
disappearance from somebody’s garden or conservatory of so magnificent a
specimen, and their equal but much pleasanter astonishment over its
inexplicable reappearance a week later, when probably all hope of tracing the
thieves had been abandoned!
461.
The
question of the influence of weather on the production of psychic phenomena is
one of considerable interest. It is evident that electrical disturbances of any
sort present difficulties in the way of attempts at either materialization or
disintegration, presumably for the same reason that bright light renders them
almost impossible — the destructive effect of strong vibration. It is quite
conceivable that while the air was full of strong electrical vibrations
Yolande may have found it impossible safely to carry her disintegrated
vegetable matter from one place to another, lest it should be so shaken up and
disarranged that restoration to its original form might become difficult or
impracticable.
462.
In many
cases of the apport of objects from a distance the fourth-dimensional method is
obviously easiest, though in these efforts of Yolande’s it would seem from the
gradual growth of the plant that it was not employed. But there are many
instances of which it offers the neatest and readiest explanation. There are
nearly always several ways in which almost any phenomenon can be produced, and
it is often not easy to determine merely from a written account which of them
was actually employed in a given case.
463.
Another
instance either of the passage of matter through matter, or of the employment
of fourth-dimensional power, is given when a solid iron ring too small to go
over the hand is passed on to one’s wrist. This has three times been done to
me, and in each case I had to trust to our dead friends for its removal, since
it would have been quite impossible to get it off by any physical means except
filing. I have also again and again had the back of a chair hung over my arm
while I was grasping the hand of the medium. Once I watched that process in a
moderately good light, and though the phenomenon was quickly performed it yet
seemed to me that I saw part of the back of the chair fade into a sort of mist
as it approached my arm. But in a moment it had passed round or through my arm
and was again solid as ever.
464.
A much
rarer phenomenon at a seance, so far as my experience goes, is that of
reduplication. When it does occur, this is produced simply by forming a perfect
mental image of the object to be copied, and then gathering about it the
necessary astral and physical matter. For this purpose it is needful that every
particle, interior as well as exterior, of the object to be duplicated should
be held accurately in view simultaneously, and consequently the phenomenon is
one which requires considerable power of concentration to perform. Persons
unable to extract the matter required directly from the surrounding ether have
sometimes taken it from the material of the original article, which in this
case would be correspondingly reduced in weight.
465.
A fieRy test
466.
Another
striking but not very common feat displayed occasionally at a seance is that of
handling fire unharmed. On one occasion at a seance in London a materialized
form deliberately put his hand into the midst of a brightly burning fire,
picked out a lump of red-hot coal nearly as large as a tennis-ball, and held it
out to me, saying quickly: “Take it in your hand.”
467.
I hesitated
for a moment, perhaps not unnaturally, but an impatient movement on the part of
the dead man decided me. I felt that he probably knew what he was about, that
this was perhaps a unique opportunity, and that if it burnt me I could drop it
before much harm was done. So I held out my hand and the glowing mass was
promptly deposited in my palm. I can testify that I felt not even the slightest
warmth from it, though when the dead man immediately took a sheet of paper from
the mantelpiece and applied it to the coal, the paper blazed up in a moment. I
held this lump of coal for a minute and a half, when, as it was rapidly growing
dull, he motioned to me to throw it back into the fire. Not the slightest mark
or redness remained upon my hand — nothing but a little ash — nor was there any
smell of burning.
468.
Now how was
this done? I could not in the least understand at the time, and could get no
intelligible theory out of the presiding entities. I know now from later occult
studies that the thinnest layer of etheric substance can be so manipulated as
to make it absolutely impervious to heat, and I assume that probably my hand
was for the moment covered with such a layer, since that is perhaps the easiest
way of producing the result. Be that as it may, I can certify that the event
occurred exactly as described.
469.
It is
within the resources of the astral plane to produce fire as well as to
counteract its effect. I have seen this done only once myself, and then as a
special “test” to prove that spontaneous combustion was a possibility, but from
the accounts given by Mr. Morell Theobald in Spirit
Workers in the Home Circle it would appear that with him the phenomenon was
quite ordinary. The deceased members of his household seem to have taken almost
as great a part in its work as the living members did, and to light the family
fires spontaneously was one of the least of their achievements. Their action
in this respect is said to have been paralleled on several occasions in
Scotland by the brownies, a variety of nature-spirits or fairies, but I have
not at hand the particulars of any case for quotation.
470.
the production of fire
471.
My own
experience in this line was at a seance in England. We were directed by raps to
procure a large flat dish, place it in the middle of the table and make in it a
little pile of shavings and of the fragments of a cigar box. We obeyed, and
were then directed to turn out the lights and sing. We sat solemnly round the
table holding hands and singing in total darkness for what seemed at least half
an hour, though it may have been less than that in reality. Towards the end of
that time a curious dull red glow showed itself in the heart of our
loosely-built pile of wood, waxing and waning several times, but eventually
bursting into flame. It is quite certain that none of us touched the pile or
indeed could have touched it without the connivance of several others, sitting
as we were; and it is also certain that the combustion commenced in a manner
entirely precluding the idea of its being set in motion from outside by a
match.
472.
I infer,
since heat is after all simply a certain rate of vibration, that it is only
necessary for the astral entities to set up and maintain that particular rate
of vibration, and combustion must ensue; and this is most probably what was done.
An obvious alternative would be to introduce fourth-dimensionally a tiny
fragment of already glowing matter, (such as tinder, for example) and then blow
upon it until it burst into flame; or again, chemical combinations which would
produce combustion could easily be introduced. There are plenty of stories told
in India about the way in which spontaneous fires break out in certain
villages if the village deity is neglected, and does not receive his expected
offerings; so it is evident that the production of fire presents no difficulty
to an experienced entity functioning upon the astral plane.
473.
Chapter IX
474.
VISIBLE MATERIALIZATIONS
475.
intangible forms
476.
We must
consider now materializations of our second and third types — those which are
visible, but not tangible, and in many cases manifestly diaphanous; and the
full materializations, which seem in all respects indistinguishable for the
time from persons still in the physical body. The second type is not uncommon,
and though such materializations usually avoid coming within reach of the
sitters I was on one occasion especially asked by a direct voice to pass my
hand gently through a form of this nature. I can only say that my sense of
touch detected absolutely nothing, though a distinctly visible, but
semi-transparent form stood in front of me, smiling at my futile efforts. When
I closed my eyes, I could not tell whether my hand was inside or outside the
body which looked so perfect and so living. Forms of this nature are probably
easier to construct than the more solid kind, for I have once or twice had
startling evidence that one which appeared entirely solid was in reality so
only in part. A hand which is strong enough to give a vigorous grasp is often
joined to an arm which does not exist as far as the sense of touch is
concerned, though appearing to the eye just as solid as the hand.
Materializations of this second type are described by Sir William Crookes as
follows, at p. 94 of his Researches.
477.
In the dusk of the evening during a seance with Mr. Home at my house,
the curtains of the window about eight feet from Mr. Home were seen to move. A
dark, shadowy, semi-transparent form like that of a man was then seen by all
present standing near the window, waving the curtain with his hand. As we
looked the form faded away and the curtain ceased to move. The following is a
still more striking instance. As in the former case Mr. Home was the medium. A
phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in his hand, and
then glided about the room placing the instrument. The form was visible to all
present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at the same time. Coming rather
close to a lady who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, she gave a
slight cry, upon which it vanished.
478.
mattes from the medium
479.
When
materialization is performed for any reason by a living person thoroughly
trained in the resources of the astral plane — one of the pupils of an Adept,
for instance — he condenses the surrounding ether into the solid form, and
builds in that way so much of a body as may be necessary without in any way
interfering with any one else. But at a seance this is not usually done, and
the simpler expedient is adopted of withdrawing a large amount of matter from
the body of the medium. This matter may under favourable conditions be seen
pouring out from his side in great wreaths of mist; in Mr. W. Eglinton’s
remarkable book, ’Twixt Two Worlds, there will be found three
interesting illustrations showing successive stages of the development
of this mist, from its first faint appearance until the entranced medium is
almost entirely hidden by wreaths like those of thick, heavy smoke.
480.
This mist
rapidly condenses into a form — sometimes apparently into an exact double of
the medium in the first place. I remember at a seance with the well-known
medium, Mr. Cecil Husk, after a period of silent waiting, a brilliant light
suddenly blazed out, showing everything in the room quite clearly. The medium
was crushed together in his chair — shrunk into himself in a most extraordinary
way, apparently in a deep trance, and breathing stertorously; but just in front
of him stood an exact duplicate of himself, alert and living, holding out in
front of him in the palm of his hand an egg-shaped body, which was the source
of the brilliant light. He stood thus for a few moments, and then in an instant
the light went out, and the form addressed us in the well-known tones of one of
the regular “guides” — showing how entirely he built himself out of the
substance of the medium.
481.
There is no
sort of doubt that it is not only etheric matter which is thus temporarily
withdrawn from the medium’s body, but also often dense solid and liquid matter,
however difficult it may be for us to realize the possibility of such a
transference. I have myself seen cases in which this phenomenon undoubtedly
took place, and was evidenced by a considerable loss of weight in the medium’s
physical body, and also by a most curious and ghastly appearance of having
shrivelled up and shrunk together, so that his tiny wizened-face was
disappearing into the collar of his coat as he sat. The “guides” directing a
seance rarely allow their medium to be seen when he is in this condition, and
wisely, for it is indeed a terrible and unwholesome sight, so uncanny, so utterly
inhuman that it would inevitably seriously frighten any nervous person.
482.
In that
manual of materializations, People from the Other World (p. 243),
Colonel Olcott describes the manner in which he carefully weighed the
materialized form which called itself Honto. At his first attempt this Red
Indian girl weighed eighty-eight pounds, but at the Colonel’s request she
promptly reduced herself to fifty-eight pounds, and then again increased to
sixty-five, all within ten minutes, and without changing her dress. Nearly all
this mass of physical matter must have been withdrawn from the body of the
medium, who must consequently have lost proportionately.
483.
On p. 487
of the same book the Colonel tells us how he tested in the same way the
materialized form of Katie Brink, who weighed at first seventy-seven pounds,
and then reduced herself to fifty-nine and fifty-two, without affecting her
outward appearance in any way. In this case we are confronted with the
astonishing phenomenon of the total disappearance of the medium during the
materialization, though the Colonel had secured her with sewing cotton, sealed
with his own seal, in a peculiar and ingenious way which would absolutely
prevent her from leaving her chair in any ordinary way without breaking the
cotton. Nevertheless, when he was permitted during the seance to enter the
cabinet, that chair was empty; and there was not only nothing to be seen, but
also nothing to be felt, when he passed his hands all round the chair. Yet when
the seance was over, the medium was found seated as before, half-fainting and
utterly exhausted, but with cotton and seal intact! Most wonderful, truly; yet
not unique; see Un Cas de Dématerialisation, by M. A. Aksakow.
484.
This matter
does not always flow out through the side only; sometimes it appears to
ooze out from the whole surface of the body, drawn out by the powerful
attraction or suction set up by the guides. Its flowing forth is thus described
by Madame E. d’Espérance:
485.
Then began
a strange sensation, which I had sometimes felt at séances. Frequently I have
heard it described by others as of cobwebs being passed over the face, but to
me, who watched it curiously, it seemed that I could feel fine threads being
drawn out of the pores of my skin. Shadowland (p. 229).
486.
madame d’espérance
487.
Many mediums have written autobiographies, but I have met with none
which impressed me so favourably as this of Madame d’Espérance. It is not only
that it has about it an attractive ring of earnestness and truthfulness, but
that the author seems far more closely and intelligently observant than most
mediums have been, and more anxious to understand the real nature of the
phenomena which occur in her presence.
488.
She takes a
rational view of her abnormal faculty, and sets herself to study it with an
earnest and loyal desire to arrive at the truth about it all. While heartily
admiring the lady’s courage and determination, one cannot but regret that it
did not fall in her way to study Theosophical literature, which would have told
her in the beginning every detail that she has slowly and in many cases
painfully discovered, at the cost of much unnecessary suffering and anxiety.
Her book begins with the pathetic story of a much-misunderstood childhood, and
goes on to describe the years of mental struggle during which the medium slowly
freed herself from the trammels of the narrowest orthodoxy. When her mediumship
was fully developed it certainly seems to have been of a wonderful and varied
character, and some of the instances given might well appear incredible to any
one ignorant of the subject. I have myself, however, seen phenomena of the same
nature as all those which she describes, and consequently I find no difficulty
in admitting the possibility of all the strange occurrences which she relates.
489.
She
realizes strongly and describes forcefully the exceedingly intimate relation
which exists between the medium and the body materialized out of his vehicles.
We are so entirely accustomed to identify ourselves with our bodies that it is
a new and uncanny and almost a horrible sensation to find the body going
through vivid and extraordinary experiences in which nevertheless its true
owner has no part whatever. On p. 345 of her book above quoted she gives us a
realistic description of the strangely unnatural situation in which a
materializing medium must so often be placed; and I think that no one can read
it without understanding how thoroughly undesirable, how utterly unhealthy on
all planes and from all points of view such an experience must be.
490.
“anna oR I?”
491.
Now comes another figure, shorter, slenderer, and with outstretched
arms. Somebody rises up at the far end of the circle and comes forward, and the
two are clasped in each other’s arms. Then inarticulate cries of “Anna! O
Anna! My child! My loved one!”
492.
Then
somebody else gets up and puts her arms round the figure; then sobs, cries, and
blessings get mixed up. I feel my body swayed to and fro, and all gets dark
before my eyes. I feel somebody’s arms around me,
although I sit on my chair alone. I feel somebody’s heart beating against my
breast. I feel that something is happening. No one is near me except the two
children. No one is taking any notice of me. All eyes and thoughts seem
concentrated on the white slender figure standing there with the arms of the
two black-robed women around it.
493.
It must be
my own heart I feel beating so distinctly. Yet those arms round me? Surely
never did I feel a touch so plainly. I begin to wonder which is I. Am I the
white figure, or am I that on the chair? Are they my hands round the old lady’s
neck, or are these mine that are lying on the knees of me, or on the knees of the figure, if it be not I, on the chair?
494.
Certainly
they are my lips that are being kissed. It is my face that is wet with the
tears which these good women are shedding so plentifully. Yet how can it be? It
is a horrible feeling, thus losing hold of one’s identity. I long to put out
one of these hands that are lying so helplessly, and touch some one just to
know if I am myself or only a dream — if “Anna” be I, and I am lost, as
it were, in her identity.
495.
I feel the
old Lady’s trembling arms, the kisses, the tears, the blessings and caresses of
the sister, and I wonder in the agony of suspense and bewilderment, how long
can it last? How long will there be two of us? Which will it be in the end?
Shall I be “Anna” or “Anna” be I?
496.
Then I feel
two little hands slip themselves into my nerveless hands, and they give me a
fresh hold of myself, as it were, and with a feeling of exultation I find I am
myself, and that little Jonte, tired of being hidden behind the three figures,
feels lonely and grasps my hands for company and comfort.
497.
How glad I
am of the touch, even from the hand of a child! My doubts as to who I am are
gone. While I am feeling thus the white figure of “Anna” disappears in the
cabinet, and the two ladies return to their seats, excited and tearful, but
overcome with happiness.
498.
There was a great deal more to happen that night, but somehow I felt
weak and indifferent to all around me, and not inclined to be interested in
what occurred. Strange and remarkable incidents took place, but for the moment
my life seemed dragged out of me and I longed for solitude and rest.
499.
This
feeling of lassitude and of having the life dragged out of them is naturally
terribly common among mediums. Sir William Crookes remarks on p. 41 of his Researches:
500.
After witnessing the painful state of nervous and bodily prostration in
which some of these experiments have left Mr. Home — after seeing him lying in
an almost fainting condition on the floor, pale and speechless — I could
scarcely doubt that the evolution of psychic force is accompanied by a
corresponding drain on vital force.
501.
This
entirely agrees with my own experience; I have frequently seen a medium
absolutely prostrate after a seance, and I fear that many of them fancy
themselves compelled to resort to alcoholic stimulants in order to recover
from the terrible drain upon their strength. So much of their vitality
necessarily goes into the materialized form, and the disturbance to the system
is so serious, that after the seance is over, they are in a condition closely
resembling the shock which follows a surgical operation. And no wonder; for
that would indeed be a terrible surgical operation which removed forty to
eighty pounds of matter from the body, and then restored it again.
502.
On the
curious connection between the medium and the materialized form, Madame
d’Espérance writes as follows as to the relation between herself and Yolande:
503.
an intimate Relation
504.
There
seemed to exist a strange link between us. I could do nothing to ensure her
appearance amongst us. She came and went, so far as I am aware, entirely independent
of my will, but when she had come, she was, I found, dependent on me for her
brief material existence. I seemed to lose, not my individuality, but my
strength and power of exertion, and though I did not then know it, a great
portion of my material substance. I felt that in some way I was changed, but
the effort to think logically in some mysterious way affected Yolande, and made
her weak. (Shadowland, p. 271.)
505.
The medium
is conscious of her own individuality in the background all the time; but any
attempt to assert it, or to think connectedly, immediately weakens the form, or
brings it back to the cabinet. And this is natural, for to think logically
means to set up chemical action — to produce oxidation of the phosphorus of the
brain; whereas it is only under conditions of perfect passivity in the physical
vehicle that so much matter can be spared from it without danger to life. As a
matter of fact, there is always a possibility of such danger; and in case of
sudden shock or disturbance it may come terribly near realization. It is for
that reason that the attempt of the ignorant and boastful sceptic to seize the
“spirit form” is so criminal as well as so brainless an action; and the
person whose colossal stupidity leads him to commit such an atrocity runs a
serious risk of occupying the position of defendant in a trial for murder.
Beings at that level of intelligence ought not to be permitted to take part in
experiments of a delicate nature. What harm may be done by this dangerous
variety of the genus blockhead is shown by the following extract from the
experiences of Madame d’Espérance, given upon p. 298 of her book:
506.
A scandalous outrage
507.
I do not know how long the seance had proceeded, but I knew that Yolande
had taken her pitcher on her shoulder and was outside the cabinet. What
actually occurred I had to learn afterwards. All I knew was a horrible
excruciating sensation of being doubled up and squeezed together, as I can
imagine a hollow guttapercha doll would feel, if it had sensation, when
violently embraced by its baby owner. A sense of terror and agonizing pain came
over me, as though I were losing hold of life and was falling into some fearful
abyss, yet knowing nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, except the echo of
a scream which I heard as at a distance. I felt I was sinking down, I knew not
where. I tried to save myself, to grasp at something, but missed it; and then
came a blank from which I awakened with a shuddering horror and sense of being
bruised to death.
508.
My senses
seemed to have been scattered to the winds, and only little by little could I
gather them sufficiently together to understand in a slight degree what had
happened. Yolande had been seized, and the man who had seized her declared it
was I.
509.
This is
what I was told. The statement was so extraordinary that if it had not been
for my utter prostration I could have laughed, but I was unable to think or
even move. I felt as though very little life remained in me, and that little
was a torment. The haemorrhage of the lungs, which my residence in the south of
France had apparently cured, broke out again and the blood almost suffocated
me. A severe prolonged illness was the result; and our departure from England
was delayed for some weeks, as I could not be moved.
510.
No wonder
that the “guides” take every precaution in their power to save their medium
from such brutality. Even they themselves may suffer through the temporary
vehicle which they have assumed, trusting themselves to the honour and
good-feeling of those who are present on the physical plane. Mr. R. D. Owen, in
The Debatable Land (p. 273), thus refers to this matter:
511.
Two highly intelligent friends of mine, now deceased, Dr. A. D. Wilson
and Professor James Mapes, both formerly of New York, each on one occasion
firmly grasped what seemed a luminous hand. In both cases the result was the
same. What was laid hold of melted entirely away — so each told me — in his
grasp. I have had communications to the effect that the spirit thus manifesting
its presence suffers when this is done, and that a spirit would have great
reluctance in appearing, in bodily form, to any one whom it could not trust to
refrain from interference with the phenomena, except by its express permission.
In my experiments I have always governed myself accordingly, and I ascribe my
success in part to this continence.
512.
I do not
know whether the “spirit” would suffer in such a case as this, though it
certainly does when a materialized form is struck or wounded. For that reason a
sword constantly waved round a man who is haunted is supposed to be a
protection (and indeed often really is so, as has been seen in some of the
narratives previously quoted), and the sword was also an important part of the
outfit of the mediaeval magician.
513.
No physical
weapon could affect the astral body in the slightest degree; a sword might be
passed through it again and again without the owner being even aware of it; but
as soon as there is any materialization (and wherever physical phenomena occur
there must be some materialization, however little) physical weapons may act
through it upon the astral body and produce sensation, much as was the case
with the more permanent physical body during life. But undoubtedly the medium may be seriously injured by any unauthorized
interference with the materialized form, as is seen by Madame d’Espérance’s story.
514.
I most
heartily endorse the sentiments expressed above by Mr. Owen, and I have always
been governed by them in my own investigations. There are some persons who
enter upon an enquiry of this kind with the fixed conviction that they are
going to be deceived, and (with some idea that they can obviate a result so
humbling to their self-conceit) they endeavour to invent all kinds of
complicated contrivances, which they think will render fraud impossible. It is
quite true that in many cases phenomena do not take place under the conditions
which they prescribe, for naturally the dead man is not especially disposed to
go out of his way to take a great deal of trouble for a person who meets him
from the beginning with unfounded suspicion expressed in terms of egregious
self-confidence. Often also the conditions prescribed by the ignoramus are
really such as to render phenomena impossible.
515.
Dr. Alfred
R. Wallace once very truly remarked:
516.
Scientific men almost invariably assume that, in this enquiry, they
should be permitted at the very outset to impose conditions; and if under such
conditions nothing happens, they consider it a proof of imposture or delusion.
But they well know that in all other branches of research, Nature, not they,
determines the essential conditions without a compliance with which no
experiment will succeed. These conditions have to be learnt by a patient
questioning of Nature, and they are different for each branch of science. How
much more may they be expected to differ in an enquiry which deals with subtle
forces, of the nature of which the physicist is wholly and absolutely ignorant!
517.
In just the
same way, a man might easily render electrical experiments impossible, if he
chose to regard the insulating arrangements as suspicious, and insisted upon
seeing the same results produced when the wires were uninsulated; and then,
when it was gently explained to him that insulation was a necessary condition,
he might raise the same old parrot-cry of fraud, and declare that these
pretended electrical marvels could never be worked under his conditions!
Instances of the extent to which folly and cruelty can go in this direction are
given with full illustrations in Colonel Olcott’s People from the Other
World (pp. 36-40).
518.
I have myself always adopted the plan of giving the dead man credit for
honest intention until I saw evidence to the contrary; I have allowed him to
arrange his own conditions, and to show exactly what he chose, endeavouring
first of all to establish friendly relations; and I have invariably found that
as soon as he gained confidence in me, be would gladly describe the limits of
his power, so far as he knew them, and would frequently himself suggest tests
of various kinds to show to others the genuineness of the phenomena.
519.
Attempts
have been made to cheat me on several occasions; and when I saw this to be the
action of the medium, I held my peace, but troubled that medium no further. On
the other hand, I have also seen cases of deceit where I felt convinced that
the medium’s intentions were perfectly honest, and that the deception lay
entirely with the unseen actors in the drama. I have known the medium’s
physical body, when in a condition of trance, to be wrapped up in materialized
gauzy drapery, and passed off as “a spirit form” — apparently for no other
reason than to save the operators the trouble of producing a genuine
materialization, or possibly because in some way or other the power to produce
the real manifestation was lacking. In this case the medium, on hearing what
had happened after recovery from his trance, protested most earnestly and with
every appearance of real sincerity that he had had no conception of what was
being done; and, having many times before seen unmistakably genuine
manifestations through him, I believed him. Exactly the same story was told to
me by a well-known medium with regard to an “exposure” of him which was
triumphantly trumpeted abroad in many newspapers; and it is at least perfectly
possible that the statement may have been equally true in that case also. My
experience therefore warrants me in saying that even when a clear case of fraud
is discovered, it is not always safe to blame the medium for it. On the other
hand, I have known a medium come to give a seance with half-a-yard of muslin hanging
out of her pocket, and I have recognized the aforesaid muslin appearing as
spirit drapery at a later stage of the proceedings — in its original form, I
mean, for even in cases of genuine materialization of drapery it is frequently
formed from the material of the clothes of the medium. Once more we may turn to
Madame d’Espérance for an instance showing this to be the case.
520.
“spiRit” drapery
521.
It was at
one of those seances in Christiania that a sitter “abstracted” a piece of
drapery which clothed one of the spirit-forms. Later I discovered that a large
square piece of material was missing from my skirt, partly cut, partly torn
out. My dress was of a heavy dark woollen material. The “abstracted” piece of
drapery was found to be of the same shape as that missing from my skirt, but
several times larger, and white in colour, the texture fine and thin as
gossamer.
522.
Something
of the kind had happened once before in England, when some one had begged the
little Ninia for a piece of her abundant clothing. She complied, unwillingly,
it seemed, and the reason for her unwillingness was explained when, after the
seance, I found a hole in a new dress which I had put on for the first time.
This being nearly black, I had attributed the mishap more to an accident on the
part of Ninia than to any psychological cause. Now that it happened a second
time, I began to understand that it was no accident, and that my dress, or the
clothing of the persons in the seance, was the foundation of, or the stores
from which the dazzling raiment of the spirit form was drawn. (Shadowland, p.
337.)
523.
There are
various types of this materialized drapery — some quite coarse and some
exceedingly fine — finer indeed than even the production of Eastern looms.
Sometimes the manifesting entity will encourage a favoured sitter to feel this
drapery or even to cut a piece from it. I have had such pieces given to me on
several occasions; some of them lasted for years, and appear to be permanent,
while others faded away in the course of an hour or so, and one within ten
minutes. Though light and filmy white drapery seems to be the regular fashion
among materialized forms, I have also seen them show themselves in the ordinary
garb of civilization, and sometimes in a uniform or some special dress
characteristic of their position during life.
524.
materialization in full view
525.
The
following very good account of the materialization and dematerialization of a
form is given in Shadowland (p. 254), and was written by a member who
had frequently formed part of that circle:
526.
First a filmy, cloudy patch of something white is observed on the floor
in front of the cabinet. It then gradually expands, visibly extending itself as
if it were an
animated patch of muslin, lying fold upon fold, on the floor, until extending
about two and a half by three feet and having a depth of a few inches — perhaps
six or more. Presently it begins to rise slowly in or near the centre, as if a
human head were underneath it, while the cloudy film on the floor begins to
look more like muslin falling into folds about the portion so mysteriously
rising. By the time it has attained two or more feet, it looks as if a child
were under it and moving its arms about in all directions as if manipulating
something underneath.
527.
It
continues rising, oftentimes sinking somewhat to rise again higher than before,
until it attains a height of about five feet, when its form can be seen as if
arranging the folds of drapery about its figure.
528.
Presently
the arms rise considerably above the head and open outwards through a mass of
cloud-like spirit drapery, and Yolande stands before us unveiled, graceful and
beautiful, nearly five feet in height, having a turban-like head dress, from
beneath which her long black hair hangs over her shoulders and down her back.
529.
Her
body-dress, of Eastern form, displays every limb and contour of the body, while
the superfluous white veil-like drapery is wrapped round her for convenience,
or thrown down on the carpet out of the way till required again.
530.
All this
occupies from ten to fifteen minutes to accomplish.
531.
When she
disappears or dematerializes it is as follows. Stepping forward to show herself
and be identified by any strangers then present, she slowly and deliberately
opens out the veil-like superfluous drapery; expanding it, she places it over
her head, and spreads it round her like a great bridal veil, and then
immediately but slowly sinks down, becoming less bulky as she collapses,
dematerializing her body beneath the cloud-like drapery until it has little or
no resemblance to Yolande. Then she further collapses until she has no
resemblance to human form, and more rapidly sinks down to fifteen or twelve
inches. Then suddenly the form falls into a heaped patch of drapery — literally
Yolande’s left-off clothing, which slowly but visibly melts into nothingness.
532.
The
dematerializing of Yolande’s body occupies from two to five minutes, while the
disappearance of the drapery occupies from half a minute to two minutes. On one
occasion, however, she did not dematerialize this drapery or veil, but left the
whole lying on the carpet in a heap, until another spirit came out of the
cabinet to look at it for a moment, as if moralizing on poor Yolande’s disappearance. This taller spirit also disappeared and was replaced
by the little, brisk, vivacious child-form of Ninia, the Spanish girl, who
likewise came to look at Yolande’s remains; and,
curiously picking up the loft-off garments, proceeded to wrap them round her
own little body, which was already well clothed with drapery.
533.
I have
myself seen both these processes, almost exactly as described above. In my case
the form was that of an unusually tall man, and he did not begin by forming
drapery, but appeared as a patch of cloudy light on the floor, which rose and
increased until it looked somewhat like the stump of a tree. It grew on until
it was a vague pillar of cloud towering above our heads, and then gradually
condensed into a definite and well-known form, which stepped forward, shook me
warmly by the hand, and spoke in a full clear voice, exactly as any other
friend might have done. After talking to us for about five minutes and
answering several questions, he again shook hands with us and announced that
he must go. Bidding us good-bye, he immediately became indistinct in outline,
and relapsed into the pillar of cloud, which sank down fairly rapidly into the
small cloudy mass of light upon the floor, which then flickered and vanished.
534.
I have seen
three materialized forms together — one of them an Arab six inches taller than
the medium, another a European of ordinary medium height, and the third a
little girl of dark complexion, claiming to be a Red Indian — while the medium
was securely locked up inside a wire cage of his own invention, which was
secured by two keys (both in my pocket) and a letter-lock which could only be
operated from the outside. Later in the same evening we were requested to
unlock this cage, and the two forms first described brought out the entranced
medium between them, one supporting him by each arm. We were allowed to touch
both the medium and the materialized forms, and were much struck to find the
latter distinctly firmer and more definite than the former. They did not in
this case return him to his cage, but laid him upon a sofa in full view of us
all, cautioned us that he would be exceedingly exhausted when he woke, and then
incontinently vanished into thin air before our eyes. All this took place in a
dim light, the two gas-jets in the room being both turned very low, but there
was all the time quite sufficient illumination to enable us to recognize
clearly the features both of the medium and of our dead visitors, and to follow
their movements with absolute certainty.
535.
It is only
when the conditions are favourable that one may hope to find the materialized
forms able to move about the room as freely as in the cases above described.
More generally the materialized form is strictly confined to the immediate
neighbourhood of the medium, and is subject to an attraction which is
constantly drawing it back to the body from which it came, so that if kept away
from the medium too long the figure collapses, and the matter which composed
it, returning to the etheric condition, rushes back instantly to its source. It
is excessively dangerous to the medium’s health, or even to his life, to
prevent this return in any way; and it was no doubt precisely this that caused
such terrible suffering in the case of poor Madame d’Espérance, above quoted.
It would seem from her own account as though the majority of her etheric
matter, and probably a great deal of the denser also, was with Yolande rather
than in the cabinet; and since the form of Yolande was so unwarrantably
detained it is probable that what was left in her body would rush into
Yolande’s, and so it would in one sense be true that she was found outside the
cabinet and in the hands of the ignorant vulgarian who had seized the
materialized form. All this makes it increasingly obvious that no one who has
not sufficient education to comprehend a little of the conditions ought ever to
be permitted to take part in a seance.
536.
Another
reason for great care in the selection of sitters is that in the case of
materialization matter is borrowed to some extent from all of them as well as
from the medium. There is no doubt, therefore, a considerable intermixture of
such matter, and undesirable qualities or vices of any kind in any one of the
sitters are distinctly liable to react upon the others, and most of all upon
the medium, who is almost certain to be the most sensitive person present —
from whom, in any case, the heaviest contribution will be drawn. Yet again we
may obtain an example of this from Madame d’Espérance’s invaluable book. On p.
307 she writes:
537.
evil effect of tobacco
538.
From the very beginning of our experiments in this line I had always
more or less suffered from nausea and vomiting after a seance for
materialization, and I had grown to accept this as a natural consequence and
not to be avoided. This had always been the case, except when surrounded only
by the members of our home circle or children. During the course of seances for
photography this unpleasantness increased so much that I was usually prostrate
for a day, or sometimes two, after a sitting, and, as the symptoms were those
of nicotine poisoning, experiments were made and it was discovered that none of
these uncomfortable sensations were felt when seances were held with
non-smokers. Again, when sick persons were in the circle, I invariably found
myself feeling more or less unwell afterwards. With persons accustomed to the
use of alcohol the discomfort was almost as marked as with smokers.
539.
These seances were to me fruitful in many respects; I learned that many
habits, which are common to the generality of mankind and sanctioned by custom,
are deleterious to the results of a seance, or, at any rate, to the health of
a medium.
540.
A “guide”
who has been working for some years, and has learnt to know fairly well the
possibilities of the plane, has often interesting phenomena connected with
materialization which he is willing to exhibit to special friends when the
power is strong. One such exhibition was sometimes given by him who calls
himself “John King” many years ago, and may perhaps be given by him
still. He would sometimes take one of the painted luminous slates and lay his
hand upon it. A fine, strong, muscular, well-shaped hand it was, and its
outline of course stood forth perfectly distinctly against the faintly luminous
background. Then as we watched it, he would cause that hand to diminish visibly
until it was a miniature about the size of a small baby's hand, though still
perfect in its resemblance to his own. Then slowly and steadily under our eyes
it would grow again until it became gigantic, and covered the whole slate, and
would finally return by degrees to its normal size. Now of course this
manifestation might easily have been a mere case of mesmeric influence if only one
person had seen it; but since every one in the circle saw precisely the same,
and there was nothing to indicate that any attempt at mesmerism was being made,
it seemed on the whole more probable that it was really an exhibition of
augmentation and diminution in the materialized hand — a result which could
readily be brought about by any one who understood how to manipulate the
matter.
541.
A dead man’s joke
542.
Occasionally
the materialization takes some other shape than the human. One such case which
I recollect vividly shows that our departed friends by no means lose their
sense of humour when they pass over into astral life. At a certain seance we
were much annoyed by the presence of a man of the boastful sceptic genus. He
swaggered in the usual blatant way, and showed his entire ignorance by every
word he uttered in the loud, coarse voice which constantly reiterated that he
knew that all these things were nonsense, and that we might be sure that
nothing would happen so long as he was there.
543.
This went
on for some time as we sat round the table, and at last the medium, who was a
mild, inoffensive sort of man, quietly advised him to moderate his tone, as on
several occasions the “spirits” had been known to treat rather roughly persons
who talked in that manner. The sceptic, however, only became coarser and more
offensive in his remarks, defying any spirit that ever existed to frighten him,
or even to dare to show itself in his presence. We had now been sitting for a
good while in the darkness, and nothing whatever had happened beyond a few
brief words from one of the “guides” at the commencement of the seance, which
had informed us that they were storing up power. As the time passed on we all
became somewhat wearied, and I at least began to think that perhaps our sceptic
really was so inharmonious an influence that it would be impossible to obtain
any good results — wherein, however, it seems that I was wrong.
544.
To make
clear what did happen I must say a few words as to the room in which the seance
was being held. It was a tiny apartment at the back of the house on the second
floor, opening out of a much larger front room by great folding-doors which
reached up to the ceiling. We were seated round a large circular table, so much
out of proportion to the room that the backs of our chairs were all but
touching the walls and the big door as we sat round it. There was another door
in the corner of the room leading to a flight of stairs; that was locked, the
key being in the lock on the inside, and the great doors were also secured by a
bolt on our side. We sat, as I say, with practically no manifestations for
about three-quarters of an hour, and I at least was heartily tired of the whole
thing.
545.
Suddenly in
the adjoining room we heard extraordinarily ponderous footsteps, as of some
mighty giant; and even as we raised our heads to listen the great doors burst
violently open, crashing into the backs of the chairs on that side, driving
them and their occupants against the table, and so pushing the table itself
against those on the opposite side. A pale, rather ghastly luminosity shone in
through the opened door, and by its light we saw — we all saw — an enormous
elephant stepping straight in upon us, dashing the chairs together with his
stride! A gigantic elephant in a room of that size is not exactly a pleasant
neighbour; nobody stopped to think of the impossibility of the thing — nobody
waited to see what would happen next; the great beast was on the top of us, as
it were, and the man nearest to the back door tore it open, and before we had
time for a second thought we were all rushing madly down those stairs.
546.
A roar of
Homeric laughter followed us, and in a moment we realized the absurdity of the
situation, and some of us ran back, and struck a light. No one was there, and
both the rooms were empty; there was no way out of either of them but the doors
which opened side by side upon the head of the stair, which had been within our
sight all the time; there was no place to which anybody could have escaped, if
any one could have been playing a trick upon us; not a trace of an elephant,
and nothing to show for our fright, except the bolt torn off the folding-door
with the force of the bursting open, and three broken chairs to testify to the
speed of our departure! We gathered again in our room, and gave way (now it was
over) to unrestrained mirth — all but our sceptic, who had rushed straight out
of the house; and he was so terrified that he would not even return into the
hall below for his coat and hat, and they had to be carried out into the street
for him. I have never seen him since, but I have sometimes wondered exactly how
he explained to himself afterwards the deception which he must have supposed to
be practised upon him.
547.
In this
case the guides controlling the seance evidently thought it desirable to
administer a salutory lesson; but this is rarely done, as it is not usually
considered worth while to waste so large an amount of energy over so unworthy
an object as the conceited and blatant sceptic. It is one of the rules of the
higher life that force should be economized, and employed only where there is
at least reasonable hope that good can be done. We have an instance of the
application of this rule in the life of our Great Exemplar, for is it not
recorded that when Christ visited His own country “He did not many mighty works
there because of their unbelief”?* His power could unquestionably have broken
down their obstinate scepticism; but it is His Will to knock at the door of the
human heart, not to force Himself upon those who are as yet unready to profit
by His ministrations.
548.
__________
·
Matthew,
xiii, 58.
549.
Chapter X
550.
SOME RECENT MATERIALIZATION PHENOMENA
551.
ectoplasms
552.
It is only lately that scientific men have undertaken an enquiry into
the nature of the curious material produced at seances, out of which visible
and tangible phantoms are built. It has long been understood in a general way
by spiritualists that the visiting entities use some sort of matter derived
from the medium, and to some extent from the other persons present, with which
to densify their superphysical forms. Bat only comparatively recently has it
been realized that the material so employed comes not merely from the etheric
body, but even to a large extent from the tissues of the dense physical body,
and that it therefore has in some way impressed upon it the habit of the
organic structures from which it comes.
553.
Apparently,
then, the operating entities find it necessary to allow that material to follow
its own lines of growth in the production of forms as it densifies, adapting
these only so far as may be absolutely necessary; the aim being, no doubt, to
conserve energy as much as possible. This physiological aspect of
materialization phenomena has called forth much scientific interest, and up to
date we have the results of extensive research upon it in several volumes,
particularly in Dr. Geley’s Clairvoyance and Materialization and Baron
von Schrenck-Notzing’s Phenomena of Materialization.
554.
The substance in question appears to be of precisely the same character
from whatever medium it may come. It issues in an invisible form, which may
sometimes be felt as a wind. It then becomes vaporous, and finally condenses
into a white, grey or black material of various textures. This is then moulded
into human limbs and faces and sometimes entire figures, apparently by unseen
sources of intelligence. Sometimes, however, the operating intelligences are
seen by the medium or other clairvoyant persons who may be present, and also
other than human forms are produced, as in the case of Mr. Kluski, about whom a
perfectly formed eagle has frequently been seen and even photographed. On
account of the plastic quality of this material and the fact that it can be
moulded into forms at a little distance from the medium’s body, it goes by the
name of teleplasm, and to the forms made out of it Professor Richet gave the
name ectoplasms some years ago. Afterwards, some writers modified Professor
Richet’s nomenclature, and designated the substance itself ectoplasm.
555.
In the case
of the famous medium Eusapia Palladino the first manifestation appeared in the
form of a cool wind issuing from her forehead, especially from an old wound on
one side of her head, and from other parts of the body. This wind would billow
out the curtains of the cabinet or the material of her dress, and within the
protection of the dark space behind them would proceed to densify into a form,
which might then emerge into some degree of light. The endeavours of later
investigators have been to induce the operating entities to perform the entire
process in full view as far as possible, for the sake of scientific research,
and this no doubt accounts for the fact that many of the materialized forms
photographed in various stages of growth are not as perfect as some of the
earlier phenomena, such as the appearance of Katie King through the mediurnship
of Florence Cook.
556.
the phEnomEna of eUsapia palladino
557.
The
following typical account of Madame Palladino’s work appears in Mr.
Carrington’s Eusapia Palladino and her Phenomena, p. 205:
558.
After the medium had resumed her chair, we felt her head with our hands,
to see if the cold breeze was issuing from her forehead. We all clearly
perceived it with our hands, placed at a distance of about three inches from
the medium’s head. F. held his hand over her mouth and nose, and we all did
likewise, holding our noses and mouths and refraining from breathing, and the
breeze was still distinctly perceptible. B. then held a small paper flag to the
medium’s forehead — her nose and mouth, as well as our own, still being
covered. The flag blew out several times, and then out so forcibly that it
turned completely over and wrapped itself once round the flagstaff, to which it
was attached. The objective nature of this breeze was thus established — though
a thermometer held to her head failed to record any lowering of temperature.
559.
A fair
example of the phenomena produced by what was presumably a condensation of this
wind was given in the experiments made at Turin in 1907 by Professor Lombroso
and his two assistants, Dr. Imoda and Dr. Audenino. These seances were held in
the clinical chamber of psychiatry in the University, and were attended by a
number of eminent men. The unanimous opinion was that “even the cleverest
trickery could not begin to explain the majority of the phenomena observed”.
The phenomena took place in the light of an electric lamp of ten candle-power.
In the second and later seances there were heavy blows on the table as well as
the usual lighter raps, and various musical instruments were played. The
persons present were tapped and pulled, and various objects were thrown about.
560.
A footstool of common wood, which was inside the medium’s cabinet, shook
and fell; the curtain also shook; behind it a hand grasped repeatedly the
extended hands of those present; shook them and caressed them. Suddenly, to the
surprise of all, a little closed hand, the arm covered with a dark sleeve,
showed itself in the full light, quite visibly; it was pink, plump and fresh.
“Surprise did not prevent our at once giving attention to the control of the
medium; her hands were firmly enclosed in those of the two watchful doctors.” A
few minutes later a cold wind came from behind the curtain, which suddenly
opened as if it had been opened by two hands, a human head came out, with a
pale, haggard face, of sinister evil aspect. It lingered a moment and then
disappeared.
561.
The wooden
stool rose up in the air and seemed to want to leave the cabinet, pushing aside
the curtains. It was liberated from the curtains, then it continued to ascend
in an inclined position toward the circle. Several hands stretched out,
following the curious phenomenon, and lightly touched the object.
562.
The woman’s
small hand then reappeared near the curtain, seized one of the feet of the
footstool, and pushed it. Signor Mucchi broke the chain, and, by a rapid
action, seized the warm hand, which at once seemed to dissolve and disappeared.
Immediately observations were made to ascertain if the medium’s two hands were
well controlled; such was found to be the case. The footstool kept on rising,
and passed over the heads of the sitters, but at this moment the medium seemed
in distress, and cried out: “It will kill us! Catch it!” The hands that were
following the movements of the small piece of furniture then seized hold of it
to withdraw it from this perilous position, but an invisible force withdrew it
to the centre of the table, where it finally remained in repose.
563.
At the close of the seance, the reporter placed his hand on the deep
scar which the medium has on the left side of her head, and felt a strong,
cold, continuous breeze issuing from it, like a human breath. He subsequently
felt the same cold breeze issuing, though less strongly, from the tips of her
fingers. (p. 90).
564.
In some
cases a complete form appeared, as in the following record, on page 96:
565.
The medium rested her head against the shoulder of the controller on the
right; her hands were held in his; suddenly the curtain shook violently, a cold
wind passed out, then a human form covered by the thin material of the curtain
was visible against this light background. The head of a woman, unstable and
staggering, approached the face of the old man; she moved tremblingly like an
old woman; perhaps she kissed him; the old man encouraged her; she withdrew,
returned, seemed as if she was afraid to venture, then advanced resolutely.
566.
the telEplasm of eva C.
567.
One of the
most successful materializing mediums of recent years is the lady known as Eva
C. More than a hundred scientific men, especially physicians, have had an
opportunity of observing her phenomena. Dr. Geley had two sittings a week with
her for twelve months, and has fully and carefully described the teleplasm or
ectoplasm. In a lecture given on the 28th of January, 1918, to the members of
the Psychological Institute in the medical lecture theatre of the College de
France, in which Dr. Geley discusses his observations with Eva C., he gave a
description of the material which has been summarized as follows. (Phenomena
of Materialization, p. 328.)
568.
A substance emanates from the body of the medium, it externalizes
itself, and is amorphous, or polymorphous, in the first instance. This
substance takes various forms, but, in general, it shows more or less composite
organs. We may distinguish (1) the substance as a substratum of materialization;
(2) its organized development. Its appearance is generally announced by the
presence of fluid, white and luminous flakes of a size ranging from that of a
pea to that of a five-franc piece, and distributed here and there over the
medium’s black dress, principally on the left side.
569.
This
manifestation is a premonitory phenomenon, which sometimes precedes the other
phenomena by three quarters of an hour, or an hour. Sometimes it is wanting,
and it occasionally happens that no other manifestation follows.
570.
The
substance itself emanates from the whole body of the medium, but especially
from the natural orifices and the extremities, from the top of the head, from
the breasts, and the tips of the fingers. The most usual origin, which is most
easily observed, is that from the mouth. We then see the substance
externalizing itself from the inner surface of the cheeks, from the gums, and
from the roof of the mouth.
571.
The
substance occurs in various forms, sometimes as ductile dough, sometimes as a
true protoplastic mass, sometimes in the form of numerous thin threads, sometimes
as cords of various thickness, or in the form of narrow rigid rays, or as a
broad band, as a membrane, as a fabric, or as a woven material with indefinite
and irregular outlines. The most curious appearance is presented by a widely
expanded membrane, provided with fringes and rucks, and resembling in
appearance a net.
572.
The amount
of externalized matter varies within wide limits. In some cases it completely
envelops the medium as in a mantle. It may have three different colours —
white, black, or grey. The white colour is the most frequent, perhaps because
it is most easily observed. Sometimes the three colours appear simultaneously.
The visibility of the substance varies a great deal, and it may slowly increase
or decrease in succession. To the touch it gives various impressions. Sometimes
it is moist and cold, sometimes viscous and sticky, more rarely dry and hard.
The impression created depends on the shape. It appears soft and slightly
elastic when it is expanded, and hard, knotty, or fibrous when it forms cords.
Sometimes it produces the feeling of a spider’s web passing over the observer's
hand. The threads are both rigid and elastic.
573.
The
substance is mobile. Sometimes it moves slowly up or down, across the medium,
on her shoulders, on her breast, or on her knees, with a creeping motion resembling
a reptile.
574.
Sometimes
the movements are sudden and quick. The substance appears and disappears like
lightning and is extraordinarily sensitive. Its sensitiveness is mixed up with
the hyperaesthetic sensibility of the medium. Every touch produces a painful
reaction in the medium. When the touch is moderately strong, or prolonged, the
medium complains of a pain comparable with the pain produced by a shock to the
normal body.
575.
The
substance is sensitive to light. Strong light, especially when sudden and
unexpected, produces a painful disturbance in the subject. Yet nothing is more
variable than the action of light. In some cases, the phenomena withstand full
daylight. The magnesium flash-light acts like a sudden blow on the medium, but
it is withstood, and flash-light photographs can be taken.
576.
The
substance has an intrinsic and irresistible tendency towards organization. It
does not remain long in the primitive condition. It often happens that the
organization is so rapid that the primordial substance does not appear at all.
At other times one sees at the same time the amorphous substance, and some
forms or structures, more or less completely embedded in it, e.g., a
thumb suspended in a fringe of the substance. One even sees heads and faces
embedded in the material.
577.
As to actual experiments, Dr. Geley gives the following case from his
note book:
578.
A cord of white substance proceeds slowly from the mouth down to Eva’s
knees, having the thickness of about two fingers. This band assumes the most
varied forms before our eyes. Sometimes it expands in the form of a membraneous
fabric, with gaps and bulges. Sometimes it contracts and folds up, subsequently
expanding and stretching out again. Here and there projections issue from the
mass, a sort of pseudopods, and these sometimes take, for a few seconds, the
form of fingers, or the elementary outline of a hand, subsequently returning
back into the mass. Finally, the cord contracts into itself, extending again on
Eva’s knees. Its end rises in the air, leaves the medium, and approaches me. I
then see that the end condenses itself in the form of a knot or terminal bud,
and this again expands into a perfectly modelled hand. I touch this hand; it
feels quite normal. I feel the bones and the fingers with the nails. This hand
is then drawn back, becomes smaller, and vanishes at the end of the cord. The
latter makes a few further motions, contracts, and then returns into the
medium’s mouth. (p. 330.)
579.
Again:
580.
A head suddenly appears about 30 inches from the head of the medium,
above her and on her right side. It is a human head of normal dimensions, well
developed, and with the usual relief. The top of the skull and the forehead are
completely materialized. The forehead is broad and high. The hair is short and
thick, and of a chestnut or black colour. Below the line of the eyebrows the
design is vague, only the forehead and skull appearing clearly. The head
disappears for a moment behind the curtain, and then reappears in the same
condition, but the face, imperfectly materialized, is covered with a white
mask. I extend my hand, and pass my fingers through the bushy hair, and touch
the bones of the skull. The next moment everything had disappeared. (p. 330.)
581.
Speaking
from the physiological point of view the doctor adds:
582.
Both normal and supernormal physiology tend to establish the unity of the organic substance. In our
experiments we have observed, above all, that a uniform amorphous substance
externalizes itself from the medium’s body, and gives rise to the various
ideoplastic forms. We have seen how this uniform substance organized and transformed
itself under our eyes. We have seen a hand emerging from the mass of the
substance; a white mass developed into a face. We have seen how in a few
moments the form of a head was replaced by the shape of a hand. By the concurrent
testimony of sight and touch we have followed the transition of the amorphous
unorganized substance into an organically developed structure which had
temporarily all the attributes of life — a complete formation, so to speak, in
flesh arid blood.
583.
We have
watched the disappearance of these formations as they sank back into primitive
substance, and have even observed how, in an instant, they were absorbed into
the body of the medium. In supranormal physiology there are no different
organic substrata for the various substances, as, e.g., a bone
substance, a muscular, visceral, or nervous substance; it is simply then a
single substance, the basis and substratum of organic life.
584.
In normal
physiology it is exactly the same, but it is not so obvious. In some cases it
appears quite clear that the phenomenon which takes place in the black seance
cabinet, takes place also, as already mentioned, in the chrysalis of the
insect. The dissolution of tissues reduces a large proportion of the organs,
and their various parts, to a single substance, that substance which is
destined to materialize the organs and the various parts of the adult form. We,
therefore, have the same manifestation in both physiologies. (p. 332.)
585.
But it is
Baron von Schrenck-Notzing of Munich who has given us the fullest account of
Eva’s mediumship, in his great work Phenomena of Materialization, a
large volume containing no less than 225 illustrations, mostly from actual
photographs of the occurrences. These are derived from literally hundreds of
sessions, extending from May, 1909 to June, 1914. The phenomena described in
this book are of the same nature as those of Dr. Geley, but as they relate to
an earlier period of Eva’s work they show a gradual development of the power,
at any rate with respect to that condition of the teleplastic substance in
which it is capable of being photographed. Madame Bisson, who lives with Eva,
and has taken care of her for many years, describes a number of occasions on
which she was able to handle the teleplasm, and she confirms the sensations of
it which are described by Dr. Geley.
586.
The
teleplasm is rarely, if ever, entirely separated from the medium, and though it
possesses no organized nerves, impressions made upon it by touch and by light
appear in the medium’s consciousness as her own sensations. Incidentally, this
proves that the nervous system is not absolutely necessary for the
communication of sensations to the brain. Generally speaking, any pressure
given to the substance, or any sudden and powerful light, such as that from a
pocket electric lamp, hurts the medium. The pain seems to appear in the
body of the medium in that part of the body from which the material was
probably drawn. The following example illustrates this to some extent.
587.
Eva took my right hand in both her hands. This time the material was
thrown on my right hand and on her hands, completely enclosing our hands. I
then commenced to pull again and to draw the material outwards, proceeding as
tenderly as possible, in order not to hurt the medium. When I began to examine
the material, it had curled right round my hand. Suddenly Eva made a movement
with her hands, lying on my arm, and involuntarily pulled at the material held
by me. It obviously frightened and hurt her, for she screamed, and gave me
great anxiety. I tried to soothe her, but she complained of a strong nausea.
The nausea continued for about ten minutes (p. 98.)
588.
At a later sitting (p. 131) when a female head showed itself, the Baron
heard Eva speak at the same time, and request Madame Bisson to cut a lock from
the head. Madame Bisson took a pair of scissors, and while under the careful
observation of the Baron, cut off a lock of hair about four inches long and
gave it to him. The materialized structure then suddenly disappeared in the
direction of the medium, accompanied by a scream from her. After the sitting a
lock of the medium’s hair was cut, with her permission. While Eva’s hair showed
an entirely brunette character, that taken from the small head (which
represented a female form whom Eva called Estelle) was blonde, and the fact
that the two samples of hair were quite different was further proved by the
microphotographical and chemical examinations made by experts (p. 133).
589.
SCIENTIFIC
PRECAUTIONS
590.
It should
be mentioned that the scientists engaged in this research work always made
every possible examination of the medium as well as of the place of meeting
beforehand. As to this Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing writes:
591.
Not one of the observers during these four years has ever found on the
medium’s body, or in the seance costumes anything which could have been used
for the fraudulent production of the phenomena. The author was a witness to the
thorough performance of this task on no less than 180 occasions. The honesty of
the medium is therefore not a probability, but a certainty placed beyond all
question. She has never introduced any objects into the cabinet with which she
could have fraudulently represented the teleplastic products. The various
seance rooms, in different houses, had no secret passages or trap-doors, and
were regularly examined, both before and after every sitting. (p. 275.)
592.
If many of
the faces and forms which appear look to the casual observer as though drawn
upon and cut out of paper, and are even marked by lines as though that paper,
had been folded up, nevertheless it cannot be assumed that paper figures were
smuggled into the seances. Both the rigidity of the searches and the control of
the medium prevent not only their being introduced, but also their being
handled if introduced. The examination of the photographs by experts, and their
fruitless attempt to produce similar effects with paper figures photographed
under exactly the same conditions, also show fraud to be impossible; and the
exgurgitation hypothesis, which has been proposed by some speculators, also
stretches the imagination too far from possible facts; besides, in some of the
experiments bilberry jam was given to Eva to eat shortly before the sitting,
and this must inevitably have coloured the entire contents of the stomach (p.
206).
593.
the development of the forms
594.
On the other hand, it does often appear that the intelligences operating
in the production of the forms have some difficulty in their materialization,
which they can overcome only by methods of production resembling those of the artist
and the sculptor on our own plane. For example, as to the experiment of the
10th of September, 1912, the Baron mentions (p. 196) that the head which
appeared showed in several respects faults of drawing. Sometimes the same
phantom appears a number of times, with or without a considerable interval. In
such cases Baron von Schrenck-Notzing finds that while there is the same head
and dress, and position of the arms crossed over the breast, there are a great
number of small differences. He concludes that the differences between the
pictures taken of the same type but on different evenings may be compared with
the different poses of a person at a photographer’s, and that they are due
principally to different positions of the body, owing to displacement and
changes in the external lines and the folds of the dress. The differences, he
adds, indicate mobility and variability of the artistic will behind the scenes
in the details and shades of the conception, for the “elementary formative
principle” never produces rigid and unchangeable products, “but the photographed
emanations always indicate a mobile, soft material basis, which is highly
changeable and rapidly perishable.” (p. 230.)
595.
The same
distinguished investigator had also a number of seances with a Polish medium, a
girl of nineteen years, named Stanislava P. (p. 251 et seq.) From her he
obtained phenomena very similar to those presented by Eva C. In this series of
investigations some cinema pictures were taken — on one occasion as many as
four hundred, and on another three hundred and sixty (p. 258). The films show
the recession of the material into the mouth of the medium, and one of them
also shows the broadening and narrowing of the mass of substance.
596.
In 1922
Baron von Schrenck-Notzing devoted several months to demonstrations of the
reality of ectoplasm to members of the liberal professions, in this case with a
medium named Willy Schneider, an Austrian boy of 16. Through these phenomena a
large number of scientists became convinced of the reality of materializations.
597.
the clothing oF phantoms
598.
The
question is sometimes asked why the materialized forms of persons who have been
dead for a considerable time still present themselves in the clothing which
they used to wear. This is not always strictly the case, but it is generally so
even when the departed person may have changed his habit in the astral world.
One reason for this is that many of them would not be recognized in their new
condition, but it appears also that when they come within earth influence their
old earth condition closes in upon them, as it were, and reproduces the old
material forms. Through Mrs. Coates in trance (Photographing the Invisible,
p. 208) the reply given to this question was :
599.
When we
think what we were like upon the earth, the ether condenses around us and
encloses us like an envelope. We are within those ether-like substances which
are drawn to us, and our thoughts of what we were like and what we would be
better known by, produce not only the clothing, but the fashioning of our forms
and features. It is here the spirit chemists step in. They fashion according to
their ability that ether substance quicker than thought, and produce our earth
features so that they may be recognized ... When I was photographed ... at Los
Angeles, that etherealized matter was attracted or clung to me, taking on the
features fashioned by my thoughts, which were, by some sudden impulse or
mysterious law, those of my last illness on earth.
600.
A somewhat
unusual modification of this process is recounted in Mr. J. Arthur Hill’s New
Evidences in Psychical Research. At a sitting on Feb. 7th, 1908, the medium
Watson said that he saw in the room the dead mother of one of the sitters. He
described her as attired in a brown silk dress, high in the neck, trimmed with
white, and having a lined or watered effect in its texture. He said that there
was some history attached to this dress, about which the sitter ought to
enquire from her sister. On enquiry from the lady mentioned they learned that
the old lady had ordered a dress such as that described, but it was delivered
only the day before she died, and so was never worn. Mr. Hill remarks that, if
the supposition of fraud be dismissed, this incident suggests :
601.
Neither
telepathy nor a rummaging among passive memories in a cosmic reservoir, but
rather the activity of a surviving mind, able to marshal its earth-memories and
to select from them for presentation to the medium such details as will
constitute the strongest possible evidence of identity. (p. 134.)
602.
the wax glovEs
603.
It would be
difficult to imagine anything more effective in the way of proof of the actual
presence of solid materialized human forms than those products which have
become popularly known as the wax gloves. These are paraffin wax moulds of
various human members. Dr. Geley gives us a full account of a number of seances
in which these were produced. (Clairvoyance and Materialization, pp. 221
to 252.) The medium for these experiments was Mr. Franek Kluski, of Warsaw.
This gentleman, who has been psychic from childhood, is described by Dr. Geley
as a member of a liberal profession, a writer and a poet, a sympathetic and
attractive personality, very intelligent, well educated, speaking several
languages, and adds that he has placed his wonderful gifts freely and
disinterestedly at the service first of his own compatriots and then of the
Metapsychic Institute, by frank devotion to science. The phenomena are
plentiful, including exhibitions of the primary substance and luminous
phenomena, materializations of human members, of human faces and animal forms,
and the movement of objects without apparent contact, as well as phenomena of a
mental order.
604.
We will,
however, confine ourselves here to a brief account of the wax moulds. In these
sittings a tank of melted paraffin wax was set upon an electric heater, the
materialized entity was asked to plunge a hand or foot or even part of the face
into the paraffin several times. This action results in the formation of a
closely fitting envelope, which sets quite rapidly. When the form
dematerializes the glove or envelope remains, and if it be desired plaster can
afterwards be poured into the mould, giving a perfect cast of the hand or other
member upon which it had been formed. In one short series of sittings nine
moulds were produced, of which seven were all hands, one was a foot and one a
mouth and chin. The following is Dr. Geley’s account of the tenth experiment in
this series:
605.
Control was
perfect — right hand held by Professor Richet and left by Count Potocki. The
controllers kept repeating “I am holding the right hand,” or “I am holding the
left hand.” After fifteen or twenty minutes splashing was audible in the tank,
and the hands operating, covered with warm paraffin, touched those of the
controllers. Before the experiment Professor Richet and I had added some blue
colouring matter to the paraffin, which then had a bluish tinge. This was done
secretly, to be an absolute proof that the moulds were made on the spot and not
brought ready-made into the laboratory by Franek or any other person, and
passed off on us by legerdemain. The operation lasted as before, from one to
two minutes.
606.
Two
admirable moulds resulted, of right and left hands of the size of the hands of
children five to seven years old. These were of bluish wax, the same colour as
that in the tank.
607.
Weight of
paraffin before experiment: 3 kilograms 920 grams.
608.
Weight of
paraffin after the experiment: 3 kilograms 800 grams.
609.
Weight of
the moulds: 50 grams.
610.
The
difference is represented by a considerable quantity of wax scattered on the
floor, about 15 grams near the medium and also some far from him, 31/2
yards distant, in a place to which he could not have gone, near the
photographic apparatus. We did not scratch up this last, which was adherent to
the floor, for weighing, but there was a good deal of it — about 25 grams. Mr.
Kluski had not been near that place either before or during the experiment.
There was also paraffin on the hands and clothes of the medium. His hands had
never been released from the hold of the controllers. (p. 224.)
611.
The
appearance of paraffin on Mr. Kluski’s hands and clothes reminds us of the same
occurrences in Mr. Crawford’s experiments in the Goligher circle, already
described in Chapter VII. The moulds mentioned above show hands with fingers
bent down, and thumbs turned over them or over the palm of the hand, and in
some cases two hands are shown with fingers interlocked in various ways. For
these and other reasons it is quite certain that the wax moulds have been made
upon human members afterwards dematerialized.
612.
In the second
series of experiments conducted at Warsaw (those above mentioned took place in
Paris) some of the materializations were at the same time visible. Dr. Geley
says:
613.
We had in
this case a new and hitherto unpublished proof. We had the great pleasure of
seeing the hands dipped into the paraffin. They were luminous, bearing points
of light at the finger-tips. They passed slowly before our eyes, dipped into
the wax, moved in it for a few seconds, came out, still luminous, and deposited
the glove against the hand of one of us. (p. 234.)
614.
Chapter XI
615.
OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS SPIRITUALISM
616.
much in common
617.
“but,” some spiritualists have said to me,
“we always thought that you Theosophists supposed all our phenomena to be the
work of elementals, or fairies, or devils or something of that sort!” No
Theosophist who knows anything about it has ever made any such foolish
assertion. What may have been said is that some part of the phenomena were
occasionally produced by agencies other than dead men or women; and that is
perfectly true. It has often seemed to me that there has frequently been a good
deal of entirely unnecessary mistrust and misconception between Theosophists
and spiritualists. Various spiritualistic organs have frequently abused
Theosophy in no measured terms, and there is no doubt that on our side also
both speakers and writers have often referred to spiritualism with much scorn,
but with little knowledge. But I hope that with more knowledge each of the
other we shall come to respect one another more as we understand one another
better, for we each have our part to fill in the great work of the future. It
would indeed be foolish of us to quarrel, for we have more in common with each
other than either of us has with any of the other shades of opinion.
618.
points of agreement
619.
We both
hold strenuously to the great central idea of man as an immortal and
ever-progressive being; we both know that as is his life now, so shall it be
after he has cast aside this body, which is his only that he may learn through
it; we both hold the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man as
fundamental tenets; and we both know that the gains and rewards of this world
are but as dross compared with the glorious certainties of the higher life beyond
the grave. Let us stand side by side on this common platform, and let us
postpone the consideration of our points of difference until we have converted
the rest of the world to the belief in these points upon which we agree. Surely
that is wise policy, for these are the points of importance; and if the life is
lived in accordance with these all the rest will follow.
620.
We have a
magnificent system of philosophy; our spiritualistic brother does not care for
it. Well, if his thought does not run along that line, why should we seek to
force it upon him? Perhaps presently he will feel the need of some such system;
if he does, then there it is all ready for his study. I believe that in due
course I shall return to live again upon this earth; herein some of my
spiritualistic brothers agree with me, and some do not; but, after all, what
does that matter? To us this doctrine of reincarnation is luminous and helpful,
because it seems to explain so much for which otherwise there is no solution;
but if another man does not yet feel the need of it, it is no part of our
policy to try to force it upon him.
621.
We hold the
idea of continued progress after death by means of further lives upon this
earth, after the life on subtler planes is over; the spiritualist prefers the
idea of passing on to other and higher spheres altogether. We both agree that
there is a progress hereafter; let us live so as to make the best use of this
existence as a preparation for that, for if we do that we shall surely come out
successfully, whichever of us is right as to the place of our future meeting.
When all the world is living its highest in the preparation for that life of
progress, it will be time enough to begin to argue about where it will be
lived.
622.
untrained observation of little value
623.
As to the
spiritualistic phenomena, we have no quarrel whatever with them; we know well
that they take place, and we know that they have had great value as
demonstrating the reality of superphysical life to many a sceptical mind. There
are many men who seem constitutionally incapable of profiting by the experience
of others; they must go and see everything for themselves, not realizing that,
even if they do see, their untrained observations will be of little value. On
this point Mr. Fullerton has well said:
624.
To ensure
observations with any worth there must be long and careful discipline; natural
errors must through repeated experience be guarded against, distinctions and
qualifications and illusions be learned. This is true of the physical plane;
much more of the astral plane, where phenomena are so different, conditions so
unlike, misguidance so multiform. He who assumes that his untutored observation
for the first time of the contents and facts of the astral world would better
determine them than does the trained faculty of long and accomplished students,
presupposes really that he is an exception to universal rule, superior to other
men and of different mould. But what is this save a form of vanity, a case of
that strange delusion as to personal worth which the smallest observation of
human nature might have cured? It is akin to the supposition that his first introduction
to an unknown continent, he not being a naturalist, a physicist, or a botanist,
would be more conclusive in its results than the protracted researches of
scientists long familiar with the region and mutually comparing their
investigations. (The Proofs of Theosophy, p. 7.)
625.
If a man
must see for himself, and is unable to rest upon the basis of intellectual
conviction, by all means let him attend the spiritualistic seance, and learn by
experience, as so many others have done. It is not a course that we should
advise except to such a man as this, because there are certain serious
drawbacks to it from our point of view.
626.
drawbacks
627.
The
greatest of these is one at which the sceptic would laugh — the danger of
believing too much! For if the sceptic has determination and perseverance, he
will assuredly be convinced sooner or later; and when he is, it is quite likely
that the pendulum will swing to the other extreme, and that he will believe too
much, instead of too little. He may readily grow to regard all the words of the
dead as gospel, all communications which come through the tilts of a table as
divinely inspired.
628.
There is
also another danger — that of being uncomfortably haunted. Often there come to
a seance most undesirable dead people, men of depraved morals, seeking to
gratify vicariously obscene lower passions. And besides these, there are those
dead men who are mad with fear, who are clutching desperately at any and every
opportunity to seize a physical vehicle, to get back at any cost and by any
means into touch with the lower life which they have lost. The “guide” usually
protects his medium from such influences, and will not allow such a man to
communicate; but he cannot prevent him from attaching himself to other sitters
and following them home. The sceptic may think himself strong-minded and
non-sensitive, and therefore proof against any such possibility; some day he
may be unpleasantly undeceived as to this; but even if that be so, does he wish
to run the risk of bringing home an influence to his wife or his daughter? Of
course, I fully recognize that this is only a possibility — that a man might
attend a score of seances and encounter nothing of this sort; yet these things
have happened, and they are happening even now. People driven to the verge of
insanity by astral persecution have come to me again and again; and in many
cases it was at a seance that they first encountered that ghostly companion.
The strong can resist; but who knows whether he is strong until he tries?
629.
Resolution needed
630.
When,
however, this unfortunate thing has already happened to a person — when he
already feels himself haunted or obsessed — there is only one thing to be done,
and that is to set the mind steadily against it in determined resistance.
Realize firmly that the human will is stronger than any evil influence, and
that you have a right to your own individuality and the use of your own organs
— a right to choose your company astrally as well as on the physical plane. Assert
this right persistently, and all will be well with you. Take resolutely to
heart the common sense advice given by Miss Freer, in her Essays in
Psychical Research:
631.
If you
believe yourself obsessed, if planchette swears, if your table-raps give lying
messages, and you fall into trances at unreasonable moments, drop the
subject. Get a bicycle, or learn Hebrew, or go on a walking tour, or weed
the garden! If you are sane, you can do as you like with your own mind; if you
can not, consult the staff of Colney Hatch! Want of self-restraint is
either sin or disease.
632.
possibility of decepTIon
633.
Then there
is always the possibility of deception — not so much of deception by the
medium, or by any one on the physical plane, as by entities behind. I have
known many cases in which such deceptions were well-intentioned; but of course
they remain deceptions nevertheless. It may happen that one dead man personates
another from the best of motives — it may be simply to comfort surviving
relations, by taking the place of one who does not care sufficiently, or
perhaps is ashamed to come. Sometimes one man will take the place of another
who has already passed on to the heaven-world and so is out of reach, in order
that his surviving relations may not feel themselves neglected or abandoned. In
such a case it is not for us to blame him; his action may be right or it may be
wrong, but that is a matter exclusively for his own conscience, and we are not
called upon to judge him. I simply note the fact that such cases occur.
634.
It must be
remembered that the man who has passed on into the heaven-world has left behind
him his astral corpse, which is at the stage of decay of the shade or of the
shell, according to the time which has elapsed since he abandoned it. Obviously
to utilize and revivify this will be the easier way of personating him, and it
is therefore the plan usually adopted.
635.
It is not
even in the least necessary that the communicating entity should be human at
all; many a joyous and obliging nature-spirit is proud to have the opportunity
of playing the part of a being belonging to a superior evolution, and will
continue assuring his delighted audience that he is “so happy” as long as they
like to listen to him.
636.
The entity
who poses at a seance as Shakespeare or Julius Caesar, as Mary Queen of Scots
or George Washington, is usually of this class, though he is sometimes also a
human being of low degree, to whom it is a joy to strut even for a few minutes
in such borrowed plumes, to enjoy even for a single evening the respect due to
a well-known name. Also, if he has something to say which he considers useful
or important, he thinks (and quite rightly) that credulous mortals are more
likely to pay attention to it if it be attributed to some distinguished
person. His motives are often estimable, even though we cannot approve of his
methods.
637.
There is
any amount of such personation as this; it is one of the commonest facts which
we encounter in our researches. There is a book on Spiritualism, for example,
by Judge Edmonds of the Supreme Court of New York, which consists chiefly of
communications purporting to come from Swedenborg and Bacon, with occasional
observations from Washington and Charlemagne; but none of these great people
seem to have risen at all to the level of their earthly reputation, and their
remarks do not, differ appreciably from the deadly dullness of the ordinary
trance-address, while many of their statements are of course wildly inaccurate.
638.
Another
fine example is the list of signatures appended to the prolegomena of The
Spirits’ Book, by Allan Kardec, which is as follows: “John the Evangelist,
St. Augustine, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Louis, the Spirit of Truth, Socrates,
Plato, Fenelon, Franklin, Swedenborg, etc., etc.” One wonders who is covered by
the mystic “etc., etc.,” and whether the other names were all that the
communicating entity could think of at the moment!
639.
All such
extravagant pretensions as these are so obviously ridiculous that they are easy
of detection. But when the man personated is one of ordinary type, it is quite
another matter; so that at a seance, unless the sitter is himself a trained
clairvoyant of no mean order, he simply cannot tell what it is that he sees,
however much he may flatter himself that his discernment is perfect. Let me
quote once more what I wrote some years ago in The Astral Plane, p. 108.
640.
A
manifesting “spirit” is often exactly what it professes to be, but often also
is nothing of the kind; and for the ordinary sitter there is absolutely no
means of distinguishing the true from the false, since the extent to which a
being having all the resources of the astral plane at his command can delude a
person on the physical plane is so great that no reliance can be placed even on
what seems the most convincing proof.
641.
If
something manifests which announces itself as a man’s long-lost brother, he can
have no certainty that its claim is a just one. If it tells him of some fact
known only to that brother and to himself, he remains unconvinced, for he
knows that it might easily have read the information from his own mind, or from
his surroundings in the astral light. Even if it goes still further and tells
him something connected with his brother, of which he himself is unaware, which
he afterwards verifies, he still realizes that even this may have been read
from the astral records, or that what he sees before him may be only the shade
of his brother, and so possess his memory without in any way being himself. It
is not for one moment denied that important communications have sometimes been
made at seances by entities who in such cases have been precisely what they
said they were; all that is claimed is that it is quite impossible for the
ordinary person who visits a seance ever to be certain that he is not being
cruelly deceived in one or other of a dozen different ways.
642.
Once more,
I know that these are possibilities only, and that in the majority of cases the
dead man gives his name honestly enough; but the possibilities exist
nevertheless, and often materialize themselves into actualities.
643.
harm to the medium
644.
Another
point is the harm which must to a greater or less extent be done to the medium
— not only the extreme physical prostration which I have mentioned, leading
sometimes to nervous break-down, and sometimes to excessive use of stimulants
in order to avoid that break-down — but also along moral lines. Here I must
protest emphatically against the ordinary type of paid seances to which anyone
may come on payment of so much per head. It places the unfortunate medium in an
utterly false position, and exposes him to a temptation to which no man ought
ever intentionally to be exposed. Anyone who knows anything at all about these
phenomena knows that they are erratic, that they are dependent upon many causes
of which as yet he knows only a few, and that therefore sometimes they can be
had and sometimes they cannot. This is the experience of every investigator.
Miss Goodrich Freer corroborates it in the preface to her Essays in
Psychical Research, p. vi:
645.
If I know
anything, I know that psychic phenomena are not to be commanded, be their
origin what it may . . . He who ordains the services of Angels as well as of
men may send His messengers — but not, I think, to produce poltergeist
phenomena. The veil of the future may be lifted now and then — but not, I take
it, at the bidding of a guinea fee in Bond Street. That we may momentarily
transcend time and space, the temporary conditions of our mortality, I cannot
doubt; but such phenomena are not to be commanded, nor of everyday occurrence,
nor hastily to be assumed.
646.
Now if the
medium is in the position of having been paid beforehand for their production,
and then he finds that they will not come, what is he to do to satisfy all
these people who are sitting round him expecting their money’s worth? It is so
easy to deceive them; they lend themselves to it so readily; nay, it is often
quite sufficient just to allow them to deceive themselves. It is not fair to
put any man in such a position as that; and if the medium sometimes falls into
cheating, it is surely not he alone who is to blame.
647.
haRm to the dead
648.
Then there
is the whole question of possible harm to the dead. I have already admitted
that the dead man sometimes wishes to communicate in order to unburden his mind
in some way, and when this is the case it is well that he should have the
opportunity of doing it. But these cases are comparatively rare. If the dead
want us they will seek to reach us; but we should invariably let the movement
come from their side — we should never seek to draw them back. It may be said,
perhaps: “But is it not a natural desire on the part of a mother to see
her dead child again?” Surely it would be more natural for the mother to be
entirely unselfish, and to think first of what was best for the child, before
she considered her personal longings. In many cases communication with the
physical plane may do a man but little harm during the earliest stages of his
astral life; but it must always be remembered that in every case it intensifies
and prolongs his attachment to the lower levels of the plane — that it sets up
in him a habit of remaining closely in touch with the earth-life.
649.
the place and woRk op spiRitualism
650.
Yet, with
all this, spiritualism has assuredly its place and its work, and it has been of
incalculable value to many thousands of men and women. The Catholic Church and
the Salvation Army are both sections of Christianity, yet they appeal to widely
different types of people, and those who are attracted by one would have been
little likely to come to the other. So each has its place and its work to do
for the broad idea of Christianity. In the same way it seems to me that Theosophy
and spiritualism have each their clientele. Those who study the philosophy
which we set before them would never have been satisfied with the
trance-speaking and the constantly repeated phenomena of the spiritualistic
seance; those who desire such phenomena, and those who yearn after what good
old Dr. Dee used to call “sermon-stuffe” would never have been happy with
us, while they find exactly what they want in spiritualism. For among
spiritualists, as among any other body of men, there are several types. There
are those who are chiefly interested in the trance-speaking, who make this
their religion and take their trance-address followed by a clairvoyant reading
of surroundings every Sunday evening, just as mortals who are otherwise
disposed go to church or to a Theosophical lecture. Then there is the type
whose interest is purely personal — whose one and only idea in connection with
the whole affair is the gratification of their private and particular wish to
see their own dead relations. There is another type who honestly and
unselfishly set themselves to the task of trying to help and develop the
degraded, the unevolved and the ignorant among the dead; and there is no doubt
that they really achieve a great deal of good with that unpromising class of people.
Others there are who are really anxious to learn and understand scientifically
the facts of the higher life; and these people, while intensely delighted and
interested for a time, usually find presently that beyond a certain point they
can get no further; and then perhaps we can do something for them in Theosophy.
651.
A question
which is constantly asked is: “Why do not these dead men who return to us with
the knowledge of a higher plane teach us the doctrine of reincarnation?” The
answer is perfectly simple; first of all, some of them do teach it. All
spiritists of the French school of Allan Kardec hold this doctrine during life,
and consequently when they return after death they have still the same story to
tell. Those who return in England or America usually say nothing about it,
because they have no means of knowing anything more about it now than they knew
when they were upon earth. As we explained in an earlier chapter, it is the
soul himself in his causal body who passes from life to life, and he has no
more knowledge or memory of that wider existence on the astral plane than he
had on the physical. So he repeats only what he has known on earth, unless he
is so fortunate as to meet with someone who is able to teach him something of
this grand truth — an Oriental for example, or a Theosophist.
652.
Still, even
in spiritualism evidence of reincarnation occasionally appears, as, for
example, in Claude’s Book, by L. Kelway-Bamber, first published in 1918,
wherein the young British officer, communicating from the astral plane, devotes
a chapter to a description of the subject; and naturally it is usually of that
rapid type of reincarnation of which Monsieur Gabrielle Delanne collected so
many examples in the address which he delivered some years ago before one of
the spiritualistic societies. Here, for example, is a curious case, extracted
from the pages of The Progressive Thinker of December 13th, 1902. It
appears in the form of a letter to the editor, signed with the initials S.O.,
and dated somewhat vaguely from New Mexico.
653.
A story OF reincarnation
654.
I offer my
personal experience as an absolute fact — not as supporting any theory. At the
time I passed through the experience (28 years ago), I knew absolutely nothing
of mediumship in any phase and probably had never heard the word reincarnation.
I was then sixteen years of age and had been married one year.
655.
The knowledge
that I was to become a mother had just dawned upon me, when in a vague way I
became conscious of the almost constant presence of an invisible personality. I
seemed to know intuitively that my invisible companion was a woman, and quite a
number of years older than myself. By degrees this presence grew stronger. In
the third month after she first made her presence felt, I could receive
impressionally long messages from her. She manifested the most solicitous care
for my health and general welfare, and as time wore on her voice became audible
to me, and I enjoyed many hours of conversation with her. She gave her name and
nationality, with many details of her personal history. She seemed anxious that
I should know and love her for herself, as she expressed it. She made continual
efforts to become visible to me, and towards the last succeeded. She was then
as true a companion to me as if she had been clothed in an embodiment of
flesh. I had merely to draw my curtains, shrouding the room in quiet tones, to
have the presence manifest, both to sight and hearing.
656.
Two or
three weeks before the birth of my baby she informed me that the real purport
of her presence was her intention to enter the new form at its birth, in order
to complete an earth-experience that had come to an untimely end. I confess I
had but a dim conception of her meaning, and was considerably troubled over the
matter.
657.
On the
night before my daughter’s birth, I saw my companion for the last time. She
came to me and said: “Our time is at hand; be brave and all will be well with
us.”
658.
My daughter
came, and in appearance was a perfect miniature of my spirit friend, and
totally unlike either family to which she belonged, and the first remark of
everyone on seeing her would be: “Why, she does not look like a baby at
all. She looks at least twenty years old.”
659.
I was
greatly surprised some years later when I chanced to find in an old work the
story of the woman, whose name and history my spirit-friend claimed as her own
in her earth-life, and the fragments of her story, as she had given them to me,
were in accord with history, except some personal details not likely to have
been known to anyone else. All this experience I kept to myself as a profound
secret, for, young as I was, I realized what judgement the world would place
upon the narrator of such a story.
660.
Once when
my daughter was in her fifteenth year, the first name of my spirit-friend
happened to be mentioned in her presence. She turned to me quickly with a look
of surprise on her face and said: “Mamma, didn’t my papa call me by this
name?” (Her father died when she was one year old.) I said: “No, dear,
you were never called this name.” She replied: “Well, I surely remember it, and
somebody somewhere called me by it.”
661.
In
conclusion I will add that in character my daughter is very much like the
historic character of the woman whose spirit said she would inhabit the new
form.
662.
These are
my facts. I offer no explanation; if they chance to fit anybody’s theory, so
much the better for the theory. Theories usually need some facts to prop them
up; facts are independent and able to stand on their own feet.
663.
Madame
d’Espérance, who seems to be in so many respects in advance of the majority of
mediums, appears to have been taught not only reincarnation but much other
Theosophical doctrine by one of her dead friends, as is set forth in her book Shadowland.
Perhaps the most striking incident in that very interesting work is the
occasion on which the author leaves her body and is shown a remarkable
symbolical vision of her life; for in that one experience her eyes are opened to
the doctrine of cause arid effect, of evolution and reincarnation, and to the
absolute realization of the fundamental unity of all, however dimly and
imperfectly it may be expressed. For the law of cause and effect is involved in
the statement made by the spirit-friend as to the path of life: “It is the road
you have made; you have no other”. Evolution is taught when she is shown “that
it is the same life which, circling for ever and ever through form after form,
dwelling in the rocks, the sand, the sea, in each blade of grass, each tree,
each flower, in all forms of animal existence, culminates in man’s intelligence
and perception.”
664.
As to
reincarnation she remarks :
665.
I could see
that the fact of the spirit first taking on itself the form of man did not
bring it to its utmost earthly perfection, for there are many degrees of man.
In the savage it widens its experience and finds a new field for education,
which being exhausted, another step is taken; and so step by step, in an ever
onward, progressive, expansive direction the spirit develops, the decay of the
forms which the spirit employs being only the evidence that they have fulfilled
their mission, and served the purpose for which they were used. They return to
their original elements, to be used again and again as a means whereby the
spirit can manifest itself, and obtain the development it requires. (p 376).
666.
M. L.
Chevreuil’s book Proofs of the Spirit World contains a chapter entitled
“Previous Lives”, in which he vigorously supports the truth of reincarnation.
He says:
667.
The soul is
an entity distinct from the body; it accompanies the essential part of the
human being in the course of the numerous incarnations necessary to our
evolution. From the time of Plato the majority of men have lived in the
knowledge of this truth, and tomorrow they will dwell in scientific certainty
that this ancient philosophy has not deceived them. (p. 56.)
668.
He
describes at considerable length some of the labours of M. de Rochas upon the
regression of memory. M. Chevreuil explains that every subject describes in the
same manner his or her going back to the past:
669.
They are
transported back to six months of age, two months, into the body of the mother,
where they take the position of the foetus; the regression is continued and
they are in space. A brief lethargy, and we are present at a new scene, the
death of an old person. It is the beginning of the life which preceded the
present incarnation, manifesting itself backwards, and continuing back to a
still older incarnation. (p. 59.)
670.
Considering
the mode of the “spirit’s” coming to birth, M. Chevreuil says that the vision
described is always the same, that before birth the subject sees himself in
space in the form of a ball or as a slightly luminous mist, and sees in the
mother’s womb the body in which he is to be incarnated; all agree, he adds,
that the spiritual body enters little by little, and that the complete
incorporation occurs at about seven years of age.
671.
reincarnations in india and japan
672.
Rao Bahadur
Shyam Sundar Lal, C. I. E., a distinguished Minister of the Gwalior and Alwar
States, has devoted many years to the study of reincarnation. Among the
evidence collected by him is a case which was recounted as follows in The
New York Times, September 16th, 1923:
673.
Within the
Maharajah of Bharatpur’s extensive territory was found a boy of four years,
Prabhu by name, the son of a Brahman called Khairti, who with childish prattle
and laughter told with the greatest detail of his supposed former existence. He
gave his former name, the year of his other birth, his personal appearance on
his earlier visit to this earth, and recounted events, such as famines, which
had happened more than fifty years before his last birth. He told of his former
wife, his daughters and his sons, giving their names and the money he received
on their marriages, and described his former home and neighbours.
674.
The child,
the savants vouch, had not been tutored and had no means outside of himself to
learn of these details, or to know anything of the transmigration of souls. The
neighbourhoods he described were visited by the savants, with the child, and in
nearly every detail his statements were found to be correct, even to the names
of his supposed former children and wife. He had some difficulty in locating
his supposed former home, but this, it was claimed, may be accounted for by the
fact that it is now a mass of ruins and much different from what it had been.
675.
A somewhat
similar account, but coming this time from Japan, appears in Lafcadio Hearn’s Gleanings
in Buddha Fields, Chapter X, and is entitled “The Rebirth of Katsugoro”.
Mr. Hearn cites it as a good illustration of the common ideas of the people of
Japan concerning pre-existence and rebirth. He takes it from a series of
documents, very much signed and sealed by various officials, Priests and
Daimyos. The full story is translated as follows.
676.
Some time
in the eleventh month of the past year, when Katsugoro was playing in the
rice-field with his elder sister, Fusa, he asked her, —
677.
“Elder
Sister, where did you come from before you were born into our household?”
678.
Fusa
answered him: —
679.
“How can I
know what happened to me before I was born?”
680.
Katsugoro
looked surprised and exclaimed:
681.
“Then you
cannot remember anything that happened before you were born?”
682.
“Do you
remember?” asked Fusa.
683.
“Indeed I
do,” replied Katsugoro. “I used to be the son of Kyubei San of Hodokubo, and my
name was then Tozo — do you not know all that?”
684.
“Ah!” said
Fusa, “I shall tell father and mother about it.”
685.
But
Katsugoro at once began to cry, and said:
686.
“Please do
not tell! — it would not be good to tell father and mother.”
687.
Fusa made
answer, after a little while :—
688.
“Well, this
time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do anything naughty, then I
will tell.”
689.
After that
day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister would threaten the
brother, saying: “Very well, then — I shall tell that thing to father and
mother.” At these words the boy would always yield to his sister. This happened
many times; and the parents one day overheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking
Katsugoro must have been doing something wrong, they desired to know what the
matter was, and Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genzo and his
wife, and Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugoro, thought it a very strange thing.
They called Katsugoro, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing, and then by
threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those words.
690.
After
hesitation, Katsugoro said: — “I will tell you everything. I used to be the son
of Kyubei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother then was O-Shidzu San.
When I was five years old, Kyubei San died; and there came in his place a man
called Hanshiro San, who loved me very much. But in the following year, when I
was six years old, I died of smallpox. In the third year after that I entered
mother’s honorable womb, and was born again.”
691.
The parents
and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing this, and they
decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man called Hanshiro of Hodokubo.
But as they all had to work very hard every day to earn a living, and so could
spare but little time for any other matter, they could not at once carry out
their intention.
692.
Now, Sei,
the mother of Katsugoro, had nightly to suckle her little daughter Tsune, who
was four years old; — and Katsugoro therefore slept with his grandmother,
Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her in bed; and one night when he was in a
very confiding mood, she persuaded him to tell her what happened at the time
when he had died. Then he said: — “Until I was four years old I used to
remember everything; but since then I have become more and more forgetful; and
now I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of smallpox; I
remember that I was put into a jar; I remember that I was buried on a hill.
There was a hole made in the ground; and the people let the jar drop into that
hole. It fell pon! I remember that sound well. Then somehow I returned
to the house, and I stopped on my own pillow there. In a short time some old
man — looking like a grandfather — came and took me away. I do not know who or
what he was. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it
was neither night nor day as we went; it was always like sunset-time. I did not
feel either warm or cold or hungry. We went very far, I think; but still I
could hear always, faintly, the voices of people talking at home; and the sound
of the Nembutsu being said for me. I remember also that when the people at home
set offerings of hot rice-cake before the household shrine, I inhaled the
vapour of the offerings. Grandmother, never forgot to offer warm food to the
honorable dead (Hotoke Same), and do not forget to give to priests — I am sure
it is very good to do these things ... After that, I only remember that the old
man led me by some roundabout way to this place — I remember we passed the road
beyond the village. Then we came here, and he pointed to this house, and said
to me: ‘Now you must be reborn, for it is three years since you died. You
are to be reborn in that house. The person who will become your grandmother is
very kind; so it will be well for you to be conceived and born there.’ After
saying this, the old man went away. I remained a little time under the
kaki-tree before the entrance of this house. Then I was going to enter when I
heard talking inside: some one said that because father was now earning so
little, mother would have to go to service in Yedo. I thought, “I will not go
into that house”; and I stopped three days in the garden. On the third day it
was decided that, after all, mother would not have to go to Yedo. The same
night I passed into the house through a knot-hole in the sliding-shutters; —
and after that I stayed for three days beside the kitchen range. Then I entered
mother’s honorable womb ... I remember that I was born without any pain at
all. —Grandmother, you may tell this to father and mother, but please never
tell it to anybody else.”
693.
The
grandmother told Genzo and his wife what Katsugoro had related to her; and
after that the boy was not afraid to speak freely with his parents on the
subject of his former existence, and would often say to them: “I want to go to
Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the tomb of Kyubei San.” Genzo ...
asked his mother Tsuya, on the twentieth day of the first month of this year,
to take her grandson there.
694.
Tsuya went
with Katsugoro to Hodokubo; and when they entered the village she pointed to
the nearer dwellings, and asked the boy, “Which house is it? — is it this house
or that one?” “No,” answered Katsugoro, — “it is further on — much further,” —
and he hurried before her. Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, “This
is the house!” — and ran in, without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya
followed him in, and asked the people there what was the name of the owner of
the house. “Hanshiro,” one of them answered. She asked the name of Hanshiro’s
wife. “Shidzu,” was the reply. Then she asked whether there had ever been a son
called Tozo born in that house. “Yes,” was the answer; “but that boy died
thirteen years ago, when he was six years old.”
695.
Then for
the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugoro had spoken the truth; and she
could not help shedding tears. She related to the people of the house all that
Katsugoro had told her about his remembrance of his former birth. Then Hanshiro
and his wife wondered greatly. They caressed Katsugoro and wept; and they
remarked that he was much handsomer now than he had been as Tozo before dying
at the age of six. In the meantime, Katsugoro was looking all about; and seeing
the roof of a tobacco shop opposite to the house of Hanshiro, he pointed to it,
and said: “That used not to be there.” And he also said, — “The tree yonder
used not to be there.” All this was true. So from the minds of Hanshiro and his
wife every doubt departed.
696.
reincarnations in burma
697.
Some
interesting cases are mentioned by Mr. H. Fielding-Hall in his charming book on
Burma, The Soul of a People. He writes:
698.
A friend of
mine once put up for the night at a monastery far away in the forest, near a
small village. Talking in the evening round the fire, he remarked that the
monastery was very large and fine for so small a village; it was built of the
best and straightest teak, which must have been brought from very far away; it
must have taken a long time and a great deal of labour to build.
699.
In
explanation he heard a curious story. It appeared that in the old days there
used to be only a bamboo and grass monastery there, such as most jungle
villages have; and the then monk was distressed at the smallness of his abode
and the little accommodation there was for his school (for a monastery is
always a school). So one rainy season he planted with great care a number of
teak seedlings round about, and he watered and cared for them.
700.
“When they
are grown up,” he would say, “these teak-trees shall provide timber for a new
and proper building; and I myself will return in another life, and with those
trees I will build a monastery more worthy than this.”
701.
Teak-trees
take a hundred years to reach a mature size, and while the trees were still but
saplings the monk died and another monk taught in his stead. And so it went on,
and the years rolled by, and from time to time new monasteries of bamboo were
built-and rebuilt, and the teak-trees grew bigger and bigger. But the village
grew smaller, for the times were troubled, and the village was far away in the
forest. So it happened that at last the village found itself without a monk at
all; the last monk was dead, and no one came to take his place.
702.
It is a
serious thing for a village to have no monk. To begin with, there is no one to
teach the lads to read and write and do arithmetic; and there is no one to whom
you can give offerings and thereby acquire merit, and there is no one to preach
to you and tell you of the sacred teaching. So the village was in a bad way.
703.
Then at
last one evening, when the girls were all out at the well drawing water, they
were surprised by the arrival of a monk from the forest, weary with a long
journey, footsore and hungry. The villagers received him with enthusiasm, and
furnished up the old monastery in a hurry for him to sleep. But the curious
thing was that the monk seemed to know it all. He knew the monastery and the
path to it, and the ways about the village, and the names of the hills and the
streams. It seemed as though he must have lived there in the village, and yet
no one knew him or recognized his face, though he was but a young man still,
and there were villagers who had lived there for seventy years. Next morning
the monk came into the village with his begging-bowl, as monks do, and
collected his food for the day: and that evening, when the villagers went to
see him, he told them he was going to stay. He recalled to them the monk who
had planted the teak-trees, and how he had said that when the trees were grown
he would return.
704.
“I,” said
the young monk, “am he who planted these trees. Lo, they are grown up and I
have returned, and now we will build a monastery as I said.”
705.
When the
villagers, doubting, questioned him, and old men came and talked to him of
traditions of long-past days, he answered as one who knew all. He told them he
had been born and educated far away in the South, and had grown up not knowing
who he had been; then he had entered a monastery, and in due time became a
Pongyi. The remembrance came to him, he went on, in a dream of how he had
planted the trees and had promised to return to that village far away in the
forest.
706.
The very
next day he had started, and travelled day after day and week upon week, till
at length he had arrived, as they saw. So the villagers were convinced, and
they set to work and cut down the great boles, and built the monastery which my
friend saw. And the monk lived there all his life, and taught the children, and
preached the marvellous teaching of the great Buddha, till at length his time
came again and he returned; for of monks it is not said that they die, but that
they return.....
707.
About fifty
years ago in a village called Okshitgon were born two children, a boy and a
girl. They were born on the same day in neighbouring houses, and they grew up
together and played together, and loved each other. In due course they married
and started a family, and maintained themselves by cultivating the fields
about the village. They were always known as devoted to each other, and they
died as they had lived — together. The same death took them on the same day; so
they were buried without the village and were forgotten, for the times were
serious ... Okshitgon was in the midst of one of the most distressed districts,
and many of its people fled; and one of them, a man named Maung Kan, went with
his young wife to the village of Kabyu and lived there.
708.
Now, Maung
Kan’s wife had borne to him twin sons. They were born at Okshitgon shortly
before their parents had to run away, and they were named, the first Maung Gyi
(which means Brother Big-fellow) and the second Maung Ngé (which means Brother
Little-fellow). These lads grew up at Kabyu, and soon learnt to talk; and their
parents were surprised to hear them calling to each other at play, not as Maung
Gyi and Maung Ngé, but as Maung San Nyein and Ma Gywin. The latter is a woman’s
name, and the parents remembered that these were the names of the man and wife
who had died at Okshitgon about the time the children were born.
709.
So the
parents thought that the souls of the man and wife had entered into the
children, and they took them to Okshitgon to try them. The children knew
everything in Okshitgon; they knew the roads, the houses and the people, and
they recognized the clothes they used to wear in the former life: there was no
doubt about it. One of them, the younger, remembered how she had borrowed two
rupees once from a woman, Ma Thet, unknown to her husband, and left the debt
unpaid. Ma Thet was still living, so they asked her, and she recollected that
it was true she had lent the money long ago....
710.
Shortly
afterwards I saw these two children. They were then just over six years old.
The elder, into whom the soul of the man entered, is a fat, chubby little
fellow, but the younger twin is smaller, and has a curious dreamy look in his
face, more like a girl than a boy. They told me much about their former lives.
After they died they said they lived for some time without a body at all,
wandering in the air and hiding in the trees. Then, after some months they were
born again as twin boys. “It used to be so clear,” said the elder boy, “I could
remember everything; but it is getting duller and duller, and I cannot now
remember as I used to do.”
711.
Another
little boy told me once that the way remembrance came to him was by seeing the
silk he used to wear made into curtains, which are given to the monks and used
as partitions in their monasteries, and as walls to temporary erections made at
festival times. He was taken when some three years old to a feast at the making
of the son of a wealthy merchant into a monk. There he recognized in the
curtain walling in part of the bamboo building his old dress, and pointed it
out at once.*
712.
__________
·
Op.
cit., p.
291 et seq.
713.
Most of the
examples of reincarnation given above are taken from Oriental countries — not
because the great law of rebirth is operative only in those lands, but because
for various reasons it is easier to trace its action there. The law is
universal, but the interval between lives differs widely. For some it is a
matter of many centuries; for others it may be only a few months, or even days.
With the Burmese, as we have just seen from Mr. Fielding Hall’s account, very
short intervals seem to be the rule, and the Burman evidently has also the peculiarity
that he usually takes birth over and over again in the same race before
transferring himself to another. These two habits of his are specially
convenient for the student of reincarnation who, by researches among that race,
can readily convince himself of the truth of the general principle before
extending his inquiries into other fields where the investigation is more
difficult.
714.
There is
plenty of testimony available of quite another kind, for there are a certain
number of people who have a clear memory of at least some of their own former
births; and it is sometimes possible for those who have lived simultaneously in
the past to compare notes, and so obtain some sort of verification of their
recollections. I remember once, years ago, when I had given a lecture upon
reincarnation to an Indian audience, and asked at the conclusion of it for
questions on any point which I had not made quite clear, a highly-cultured
Indian gentleman rose, and with the utmost courtesy said:
715.
“Sir, this
theory of reincarnation is familiar to us from childhood; we all of us begin by
accepting it, and it is only when we grow up and absorb your European culture
that we come to doubt it. Have you any objection to telling us how it happens
that you, an Englishman, whose education and surroundings must have been so
entirely different, are able to speak to us so convincingly and with such
apparent certainty on this subject?”
716.
I in my
turn put a question to him: “Do you wish me to rehearse for you the stock
arguments which show so conclusively that reincarnation is the only rational
theory of life, the only hypothesis which enables us to account in any degree
equitably for the conditions which we see around us? Or do you want me to
unveil something of my own inner life, and give you my real reason?”
717.
He replied:
“Sir, if I may venture to put so intimate, so almost impertinent a question
(though I assure you that it is not asked impertinently) it is precisely that
real inner reason that it would mean so much to me to hear.”
718.
Seeing how
genuine and how serious was his query, I answered him openly: “Very well then,”
I said, “I speak definitely and certainly about reincarnation because I know
it to be a fact, because I can clearly remember a large number of my own past
births, and in the case of some of them I have been able to satisfy myself by
exterior evidence that my recollection is accurate. But of course that, however
satisfactory to me, is no proof to you.”
719.
He thanked
me heartily, assuring me that that was exactly what he had wanted to hear.
720.
Chapter XII
721.
CONCLUSION
722.
I have
tried to describe the life on the other side of death just as it is, just as it
is seen to be by those who, taking part in it (as we all do every night of our
earthly lives) have unfolded within themselves the power to remember clearly
what they see and do, so that to them it is familiar, simple, straightforward
— part of their everyday existence. And I have gathered together from many
sources a large number of illustrative cases, a vast amount of concurrent
testimony to show you that the account I give is not a dream or a
hallucination, but a plain statement of the facts as commonly experienced.
723.
For those
who are able to accept this, all fear of death should be eradicated, all grief
for those whom we call the dead should automatically cease. Yet so strong is
this ingrained habit of mourning, so firmly implanted within us is this
hereditary, though baseless, sense of separation, that even those who
intellectually grasp the truth, who fully believe all that is written herein,
may at times find themselves slipping back under its influence into that old
and harmful attitude of despondency, of longing, of never-fading regret.
724.
So sad is
this, so injurious both to the living and the dead, that I feel it my duty to
close this book with a final and urgent appeal to my readers to raise
themselves once and forever above the possibility of any such relapse, to take
their stand firmly in God’s sunlight, and never for a moment allow it to be
obscured by man-made clouds of doubt or fear. To the man, then, whose sky is
dark because one whom he loves deeply has left this physical world, I would
address myself thus:
725.
an earnest appeal
726.
My brother,
you have lost by death one whom you loved dearly — one who perhaps was all the
world to you; and so to you that world seems empty, and life no longer worth
the living. You feel that joy has left you for ever — that existence can be for
you henceforth nothing but hopeless sadness — naught but one aching longing for
“the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still”. You are
thinking chiefly of yourself and your intolerable loss; but there is also
another sorrow. Your grief is aggravated by your uncertainty as to the present
condition of your beloved; you feel that he has gone you know not where. You
hope earnestly that all is well with him, but when you look upward all is void;
when you cry, there is no answer. And so despair and doubt overwhelm you, and
make a cloud that hides from you the Sun which never sets.
727.
Your
feeling is most natural; I who write understand it perfectly, and my heart is
full of sympathy for all those who are afflicted as you are. But I hope that I
can do more than sympathize; I hope that I can bring you help and relief. Such
help and relief have come to thousands who were in your sad case. Why should
they not come to you also?
728.
You say:
“How can there be relief or hope for me?”
729.
There is
the hope of relief for you because your sorrow is founded on misapprehension;
you are grieving for something which has not really happened. When you
understand the facts you will cease to grieve.
730.
You answer:
“My loss is a fact. How can you help me — unless, indeed, you give me
back my dead?”
731.
I
understand your feeling perfectly; yet bear with me for awhile, and try to
grasp three main propositions which I am about to put before you — at first
merely as broad statements, and then in convincing detail.
732.
Your loss
is only an apparent fact — apparent from your point of view. I want to
bring you to another view-point. Your suffering is the result of a great
delusion — of ignorance of Nature’s law; let me help you on the road towards
knowledge by explaining a few simple truths which you can study further at your
leisure.
733.
You need be
under no uneasiness or uncertainty with regard to the condition of your loved
one, for the life after death is no longer a mystery. The world beyond the
grave exists under the same natural laws as this which we know, and has been
explored and examined with scientific accuracy.
734.
You must
not mourn, for your mourning does harm to your loved one. If you can once open
your mind to the truth, you will mourn no more.
735.
Before you
can understand your lost friend’s condition you must understand your own. Try
to grasp the fact that you are an immortal being, immortal because you are
divine in essence — because you are a spark from God’s own Fire; that you lived
for ages before you put on this vesture which you call a body, and that you
will live for ages after it has crumbled into dust. “God made man to be an
image of His own eternity.” This is not a guess or a pious belief, it is a
definite scientific fact, capable of proof, as you may see from the literature
of the subject if you will take the trouble to read it. What you have been
considering as your life is in truth only one day of your real life as a soul,
and the same is true of your beloved; therefore, he is not dead — it is
only his body that is cast aside.
736.
Yet you
must not, therefore, think of him as a mere bodiless breath, as in any way less
himself than he was before. As St. Paul said long ago: “There is a natural
body, and there is a spiritual body.” People misunderstand that remark, because
they think of these bodies as successive, and do not realize that we all of us
possess both of them even now. You, as you read this, have both a “natural” or
physical body, which you can see, and another inner body, which you cannot see,
that which St. Paul called the “spiritual”. And when you lay aside the
physical, you still retain the other finer vehicle; you are clothed in your
“spiritual body”. If we symbolize the physical body as an overcoat or cloak, we
may think of this spiritual body as the ordinary house-coat which the man wears
underneath that outer garment.
737.
If that
idea is by this time clear to you, let us advance another step. It is not only
at what you call death that you doff that overcoat of dense matter; every night
when you go to sleep you slip it off for awhile, and roam about the world in
your spiritual body — invisible as far as this dense world is concerned, but
clearly visible to those friends who happen to be using their spiritual bodies
at the same time. For each body sees only that which is on its own level; your
physical body sees only other physical bodies, your spiritual body sees only
other spiritual bodies. When you resume your overcoat — that is to say, when
you come back to your denser body. and wake up (or down) to this lower world —
it occasionally happens that you have some recollection, though usually
considerably distorted, of what you have seen when you were away elsewhere; and
then you call it a vivid dream. Sleep, then, may be described as a kind of
temporary death, the difference being that you do not withdraw yourself so
entirely from your overcoat as to be unable to resume it. It follows that when
you sleep, you enter the same condition as that into which your beloved has
passed. What that condition is I will now proceed to explain.
738.
Many
theories have been current as to the life after death — most of them based upon
misunderstandings of ancient scriptures. At one time the horrible dogma of what
was called everlasting punishment was almost universally accepted in Europe,
though none but the hopelessly ignorant believe it now. It was based upon a
mistranslation of certain words attributed to Christ, and it was maintained by
the mediaeval monks as a convenient bogey with which to frighten the ignorant
masses into well-doing. As the world advanced in civilization, men began to
see that such a tenet was not only blasphemous, but ridiculous. Modern
religionists have, therefore, replaced it by somewhat saner suggestions; but
they are usually quite vague and far from the simplicity of the truth.
739.
All the
Churches have complicated their doctrines because they insisted upon starting
with an absurd and unfounded dogma of a cruel and angry Deity who wished to
injure His people. They import this dreadful idea from primitive Judaism,
instead of accepting the teaching of Christ that God is a loving Father. People
who have grasped the fundamental fact that God is Love, and that His universe
is governed by wise eternal laws, have begun to realize that those laws must be
obeyed in the world beyond the grave just as much as in this. But even yet
beliefs are vague. We are told of a far-away heaven, of a day of judgement in
the remote future, but little information is given us as to what happens here
and now. Those who teach do not even pretend to have any personal experience of
after-death conditions. They tell us not what they themselves know, but only
what they have heard from others. How can that satisfy us?
740.
The truth
is that the day of blind belief is past; the era of scientific knowledge is
with us, and we can no longer accept ideas unsustained by reason and
common-sense. There is no reason why scientific methods should not be applied
to the elucidation of problems which in earlier days were left entirely to
religion; indeed, such methods have been applied by the Theosophical Society
and the Society for Psychical Research; and it is the result of those
investigations, made in a scientific spirit, that I wish to place before you
now.
741.
Let us
consider the life which the dead are leading. In it there are many and great
variations, but at least it is almost always happier than the earth-life. As an
old scripture puts it: “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and
there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seem to die,
and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter
destruction; but they are in peace.”* We must disabuse ourselves of antiquated
theories; the dead man does not leap suddenly into an impossible heaven, nor
does he fall into a still more impossible hell. There is indeed no hell in the
old wicked sense of the word; and there is no hell anywhere in any sense except
such as a man makes for himself. Try to understand clearly that death makes no
change in the man; he does not suddenly become a great saint or angel, nor is
he suddenly endowed with all the wisdom of the ages; he is just the same man
the day after his death as he was the day before it, with the same emotions,
the same disposition, the same intellectual development. The only difference
is that he has lost the physical body.
742.
__________
·
Wisdom
of Solomon, iii, 1.
743.
In this
spiritual world no money is necessary, food and shelter are no longer needed,
for its glory and its beauty are free to all its inhabitants without money and
without price. In its rarefied matter, in the spiritual body, a man can move
hither and thither as he will; if he loves the beauteous landscape of forest
and sea and sky, he may visit at his pleasure all earth’s fairest spots; if he
loves art he may spend the whole of his time in the contemplation of the
masterpieces of all the greatest painters, and may himself produce masterpieces
by the exercise of the wonderful magic of his thought-power; if he be a
musician, he may pass from one to the other of the world’s chiefest orchestras,
he may spend his time in listening to the most celebrated performers, or with
the willing aid of the great Angels of music he may himself give forth such
strains as are never heard on earth.
744.
Whatever
has been his particular delight on earth — his hobby, as we should say — he has
now the fullest liberty to devote himself to it entirely and to follow it out
to the utmost, provided only that its enjoyment is that of the intellect or of
the higher emotions — that its gratification does not necessitate the
possession of a physical body. Thus it will be seen at once that all rational
and decent men are infinitely happier after death than before it, for they have
ample time not only for pleasure, but for really satisfactory progress along
the lines which interest them most.
745.
Are there
then none in that world who are unhappy? Yes, for that life is necessarily a
sequel to this, and the man is in every respect the same man as he was before
he left his body. If his enjoyments in this world were low and coarse, he will
find himself unable in that world to gratify his desires. A drunkard will
suffer from unquenchable thirst, having no longer a body through which it can
be assuaged; the glutton will miss the pleasures of the table; the miser will
no longer find gold for his gathering. The man who has yielded himself during
earth-life to unworthy passions will find them still gnawing at his vitals. The
sensualist still palpitates with cravings that can never now be satisfied; the
jealous man is still torn by his jealousy, all the more that he can no longer
interfere with the action of its object. Such people as these unquestionably do
suffer — but only such as these, only those whose proclivities and passions
have been coarse and physical in their nature. And even they have their fate
absolutely in their own hands. They have but to conquer these inclinations,
and they are at once free from the suffering which such longings entail.
Remember always that there is no such thing as punishment; there is only the
natural result of a definite cause; so that you have only to remove the cause
and the effect ceases — not always immediately, but as soon as the energy of
the cause is exhausted.
746.
“Do the
dead then see us?” it may be asked; “do they hear what we say?” Undoubtedly
they see us in the sense that they are always conscious of our presence, that
they know whether we are happy or miserable; but they do not hear the words
that we say, nor are they conscious in detail of our physical actions. A
moment’s thought will show us what are the limits of their power to see. They
are inhabiting what we have called the “spiritual body” — a body which exists
in ourselves, and is, as far as appearance goes, an exact duplicate of the
physical body; but while we are awake our consciousness is focussed exclusively
in the latter. We have already said that just as only physical matter appeals
to the physical body, so only the matter of the spiritual world is discernible
by that higher body. Therefore, what the dead man can see of us is only our spiritual body, which,
however, he has no difficulty in recognizing.
747.
When we are
what we call asleep, our consciousness is using that vehicle, and so to the
dead man we are awake; but when we transfer our consciousness to the physical
body, it seems to the dead man that we fall asleep, because though he still
sees us, we are no longer paying any attention to him to able to communicate
with him. When a living-friend falls asleep we are quite aware of his presence,
but for the moment we cannot communicate with him unless we arouse him.
Precisely similar is the condition of the living man (while he is awake) in the
eyes of the dead. Because we cannot usually remember in our waking
consciousness what we have seen during sleep, we are under the delusion that we
have lost our dead; but they are never under the delusion that they have lost
us, because they can see us all the time. To them the only difference is that
we are with them during the night and away from them during the day; whereas,
when they were on earth with us, exactly the reverse was the case.
748.
All life is
evolving, for evolution is God’s law; and man grows slowly and steadily along
with the rest. What is commonly called man’s life is, in reality, only one day
of his true and longer life. Just as in this ordinary life man rises each
morning, puts on his clothes, and goes forth to do his daily work, and then
when night descends he lays aside those clothes and takes his rest, and then
again on the following morning rises afresh to take up his work at the point
where he left it — just so when the man comes into the physical life he puts
upon him the vesture of the physical body, and when his work-time is over he
lays aside that vesture again in what you call
death, and passes into the more restful condition which I have described; and
when that rest is over he puts upon himself once more the garment of the body,
and goes forth yet again to begin a new day of physical life, taking up his
evolution at the point where he left it. And this long life of his lasts until
he attains that goal of divinity which God means him to attain.
749.
One of the
saddest cases of apparent loss is when a child passes away from this physical
world and its parents are left to watch its empty place, to miss its loving
prattle. What then happens to children in this strange new spiritual world? Of
all those who enter it, they are perhaps the happiest and the most entirely and
immediately at home. Remember that they do not lose the parents, the brothers,
the sisters, the playmates whom they love; it is simply that they have them as
companions during what we call the night instead of the day; so that
they have no feeling of loss or separation.
750.
During our
day they are never left alone, for there as here, children gather together and
play together — play in Elysian fields full of rare delights. We know how here
a child enjoys “making believe”, pretending to be this character or that in
history — playing the principal parts in all sorts of wonderful fairy stories
or tales of adventure. In the finer matter of that higher world thoughts take
to themselves visible form, and so the child who imagines himself a certain
hero promptly takes on temporarily
the actual appearance of that hero. If he wishes for an enchanted castle, his
thought can build that enchanted castle. If he desires an army to command, at
once that army is there. And so among the dead the hosts of children are always
full of joy — indeed, often even riotously happy.
751.
If you have
been able to assimilate what I have already said, you will now understand that,
however natural it may be for us to feel sorrow at the death of our relatives,
that sorrow is an error and an evil, and we ought to overcome it. There is no
need to sorrow for them, for they have passed into a far wider and happier
life. If we sorrow for our own fancied separation from them, we are, in the
first place, weeping over an illusion, for in truth they are not
separated from us; and, secondly, we are acting selfishly, because we are
thinking more of our own apparent loss than of their great and real gain. We
must strive to be utterly unselfish, as indeed all love should be. We must
think of them and not of ourselves — not of what we wish or we feel, but
solely of what is best for them and most helpful to their progress.
752.
If we
mourn, if we yield to gloom and depression, we throw out from ourselves a heavy
cloud which darkens the sky for them. Their very affection for us, their
very sympathy for us, lay them open to this direful influence. We can use the
power which that affection gives us to help them instead of hindering them, if
we only will; but to do that requires courage and self-sacrifice. We must
forget ourselves utterly in our earnest and loving desire to be of the greatest
possible assistance to our dead. Every thought, every feeling of ours
influences them; let us then take care that there shall be no thought which is
not broad and helpful, ennobling and purifying.
753.
If it is
probable that they may be feeling some anxiety about us, let us be persistently
cheerful, that we may assure them that they have no need to feel trouble on our
account. If, during physical life, they have been without detailed and accurate
information as to the life after death, let us endeavour at once to assimilate
such information ourselves, and to pass it on in our nightly conversations with
them. Since our thoughts and feelings are so readily mirrored in theirs, let us
see to it that those thoughts and feelings are always elevating and
encouraging. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”*
754.
__________
·
755.
Not only
should we abstain from mourning; we should go further than that; we should
earnestly try to develop within ourselves positive joyousness. It is the duty
of every man to be happy, that he may radiate happiness on others; and most
especially is that true of those who have dear friends who have recently
passed over into the higher life. The best anodyne for sorrow is active work
for others; and that also is the surest way to peace and joy.
756.
That great
truth we can impress upon these friends of ours, if they do not already
know it; for the opportunities for helpful work are greater far in the astral
world than in the physical. Among the vast hosts of those whom we call the dead
there are many who are bewildered by their surroundings, many who through
erroneous religious teaching on earth are in a state of painful uncertainty and
even acute terror, many who are causing themselves unnecessary suffering by
perpetuating earthly desires and passions in that higher life where there is no
assuagement for them. What occupation can be nobler and happier than to help
these poor souls from darkness to light, to relieve their sufferings, to
explain these things that puzzle them, and to guide their feet into the way of
peace?
757.
Into the
splendid corps of Invisible Helpers who are ceaselessly engaged in this
benevolent activity we can introduce our newly-arrived friends, thus assuring
them of happy and useful work during the whole of their stay in this wonderful
astral world which God has provided for the training and enjoyment of His
people, even though it be but a stage on the way to that still higher realm
whose glories eye hath not seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man
to conceive it.
758.
Try to
comprehend the unity of all; there is one God, and all are one in Him. If we
can but bring home to ourselves the unity of that Eternal Love, there will be
no more sorrow for us; for we shall realize, not for ourselves alone, but also
for those whom we love, that whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s, and
that in Him we live and move and have our being, whether it be in this world or
in the world to come. The attitude of mourning is a faithless attitude, an
ignorant attitude. The more we know, the more fully we shall trust, for we
shall feel with utter certainty that we and our dead alike are in the hands of
perfect Power and perfect Wisdom, directed by perfect Love.
__________
All taint of grief and mourning we
firmly lay aside,
Our seeming loss forgetting, since they
are glorified.
We know they stand before us and
love us as of old;
God grant we may not fail them, nor
let our love grow cold!
With heart and soul we trust Thee;
Thy love no tongue can tell;
Thou art the All-Commander, Who
doest all things well.
__________
peace to
all beings
ODE TO THE LIVING DEAD
Loved ones! though our waking
vision
Know your forms no more,
Earth’s illusion shall not hold us;
Well we know your loves enfold us
Even as before.
Death? ’Tis but a stepping forward
—
No divorce at all;
Swifter than of old the meeting,
Warmer, heartier the greeting
When you hear our call.
And at night, when softest slumber
Seals these earthly eyes,
Lo, a new day dawneth brightly;
From our fetters slipping lightly
To your world we rise;
There to work and there to wander
In the sweet old way —
Drink of upper springs and nether,
Learn what Love hath knit together
Standeth fast for aye.
Praise and glory for this knowledge
To the One in Three;
For the sting from death is taken,
Nevermore are we forsaken
Through eternity.
D. W. M. Burn
------------------------------