Metaphysical phenomena; methods and observations

Front matter

tRAI

EDUC.

PSYCH.

Introduction

Asked by my friends in France to introduce the author, Dr. Maxwell, to English readers, I willingly consented, for I have reason to know that he is an earnest and indefatigable student of the phenomena for the investigation of which the Society for Psychical Research was constituted ; and not only an earnest student, but a sane and competent observer, with rather special qualifications for the task. A gentleman of independent means, trained and practising as a lawyer at Bordeaux, Deputy Attorney-General, in fact, at the Court of Appeal, he supplemented his legal training by going through a full six years' medical curriculum, and graduated M.D. in order to pursue psycho-physiological studies with more freedom, and to be able to form a sounder and more instructed judgment on the strange phenomena which came under his notice. Moreover, he was fortunate in enlisting the services of one who appears to be singularly gifted in the supernormal direction, an educated and interested friend, who is anxious to preserve his anonymity, but is otherwise willing to give every assistance in his power towards the production and elucidation of the unusual things which occur in his presence and apparently through his agency.

vi METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

In all this they have been powerfully assisted by Professor Charles Richet, the distinguished physiologist of Paris, whose name and fame are almost as well known in this country as in his own, and who gave the special evening lecture to the British Association on the occasion of its semi-international meeting at Dover in 1899.

In France it so happens that these problems have been attacked chiefly by biologists and medical men, whereas in this country they have attracted the attention chiefly, though not exclusively, of physicists and chemists among men of science. This gives a desirable diversity to the point of view, and adds to the value of the work of the French investigators. Another advantage they possess is that they have no arriere-pensee towards religion or the spiritual world. Frankly, I expect, they would confess themselves materialists, and would disclaim all sympathy with the view of a number of enthusiasts in this country, who have sought to make these ill-understood facts the basis for a kind of religious cult in which faith is regarded as more important than knowledge, and who contemn the attitude of scientific men, even of those few who really seek to observe and understand the phenomena.

From Dr. Maxwell's observations, so far, there arises no theory which he feels to be in the least satisfactory : the facts are recorded as observed, and though theoretical comments are sometimes attempted in the text, they are admittedly tentative and inadequate : we know nothing at present which will suffice to weld the whole together

INTRODUCTION vii

into a comprehensive and comprehensible scheme. But for the theoretical discussion of such phenomena the work of Mr. Myers on Human Personality is of course far more thorough and ambitious than the semi-popular treatment in the present book. And in the matter of history also, the English reader, familiar with the writings of Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Podmore, will not attribute much importance to the few historical remarks of the present writer. He claims consideration as an observer of exceptional ability and scrupulous fairness, and his work is regarded with the greatest interest by workers in this field throughout the world.

There is one thing which Dr. Maxwell does not do. He does not record his facts according to the standard set up by the Society for Psychical Research in this country : that is to say, he does not give a minute account of all the details, nor does he relate the precautions taken, nor seek to convince hostile critics that he has overlooked no possibility, and made no mistakes. Discouraged by previous attempts and failures in this direction, he has regarded the task as impossible, and has not attempted it. He has satisfied himself with three things : —

1st. To train himself long and carefully as an observer ;

2nd. To learn from, and be guided by, the phenomena as they occur, without seeking unduly to coerce them ;

viii METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

3rd. To give a general account of the " impression made upon him by the facts as they appeared.

For the rest, he professes himself indifferent whether his assertions meet with credence or not. He has done his best to test the phenomena for himself, regarding them critically, and not at all in a spirit of credulity ; and he has endangered his reputation by undertaking what he regards as a plain duty, that of setting down under his own name, for the world to accept or reject as it pleases, a statement of the experiences to which he has devoted so much time and attention, and of the actuality of which, though he in no way professes to understand them, he is profoundly convinced.

Equally convinced of their occurrence is Professor Richet, who has had an opportunity of observing many of them, and he too regards them from the same untheoretical and empirical point of view ; but he has explained his own attitude in a Preface to the French edition, as Dr. Maxwell has explained his in ' Preliminary Remarks,* — both of which are here translated — so there is no need to say more ; beyond this : —

The particular series of occurrences detailed in these pages I myself have not witnessed. I may take an opportunity of seeing them before long ; but though that will increase my experience, it will not increase my conviction that things like some of these can and do occur, and that any other patient explorer who had the

INTRODUCTION ix

same advantages and similar opportunity for observation, would undergo the same sort of experience, that is to say, would receive the same sensory impressions, however he might choose to interpret them.

That is what the scientific world has gradually to grow accustomed to. These things happen under certain conditions, in the same sense that more familiar things happen under ordinary conditions. What the conditions are that determine the happening is for future theory to say.

Dr. Maxwell is convinced that such things can happen without anything that can with any propriety whatever be called fraud ; sometimes under conditions so favourable for observation as to preclude the possibility of deception of any kind. Some of them, as we know well, do also frequently happen under fraudulent and semi-fraudulent conditions ; L but those who take the easy line of assuming that hyper-ingenious fraud and extravagant self-deception are sufficient to account for the whole of the facts, will ultimately, I think, find themselves to have been deceived by their own a priori convictions. \ Nevertheless we may agree that at present the Territory under exploration is not yet a scientific State. We are in the pre- Newtonian, possibly the pre-Copernican, age of this nascent science ; and it is our duty to accumulate facts and carefully record them, for a future Kepler to brood over.

What may be likened to the ' Ptolemaic ' view of the phenomena seems on the whole to be favoured by the

X METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

French observers, viz. that they all centre round living man, and represent an unexpected extension of human faculty, an extension, as it were, of the motor and sensory power of the body beyond its apparent boundary. That is undoubtedly the first adit to be explored, and it may turn out to lead us in the right direction ; but it is premature even to guess what will be the ultimate outcome of this extra branch of psychological and physiological study. That sensory perception can extend to things out of contact with the body is familiar enough, though it has not been recognised for the senses of touch or taste. That motor activity should also extend into a region beyond the customary range of muscular action is, as yet, unrecognised by science. Nevertheless that is the appearance.

The phenomena which have most attracted the attention and maintained the interest of the French observers, have been just those which convey the above impression : that is to say, mechanical movements without contact, production of intelligent noises, and either visible, tangible, or luminous appearances which do not seem to be hallucinatory. These constantly-asserted, and in a sense well-known, and to some few people almost familiar, experiences, have with us been usually spoken of as * physical or psycho-physical phenomena.' In France they have been called * psychical phenomena,* but that name is evidently not satisfactory, since that should apply to purely mental experiences. To call them ' occult phenomena ' is not distinctive, for every-

INTRODUCTION xi

thing is occult until it is explained ; and the business of ■science is to contemplate the mixed mass of heterogeneous appearances, such as at one time formed all that was known of Chemistry, for instance, or Electricity, and evolve from them an ordered scheme of science.

To emphasise the fact that these occurrences are at present beyond the scheme of orthodox psychology or psycho-physiology, in somewhat the same way as the germ of what we now call Metaphysics was once placed after, or considered as extra to, the course of orthodox Natural Philosophy or Physics, Professor Richet has suggested that they be styled *meta-psychical phenomena,' and that the nascent branch of science, which he and other pioneers are endeavouring to found, be called for the present ' Metapsychics/ Dr. Maxwell concurs in this -comparatively novel term, and as there seems no serious objection to it, the English version of Dr. MaxwelFs record will appear under this title.

The book will be found for the most part eminently readable — rather an unusual circumstance for a record of this kind — and the scrupulous fairness with which the author has related everything he can think of which tells against the genuineness of the phenomena, is highly to be commended. Whatever may be thought of the evidence it is manifestly his earnest wish never to make it appear to others better than it appears to himself.

If critics attack the book, as they undoubtedly will, Avith the objection that though it may contain a mass of well-attested assertions by a competent and careful xii METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

observer, yet his observations are set down without the necessary details on which an outside critic can judge how far the things really happened, and how far the observer was deceived — let it be remembered that this is admitted. Dr. Maxwell's defence is, that to give such details as will satisfy a hostile critic who was not actually present is impossible — in that I am disposed to agree with him — he has therefore not attempted the task ; and I admit, though I cannot commend, his discretion.

It may be said that the attempt to give every detail necessarily produces a dreary and overburdened narrative. So it does. Nevertheless I must urge — as both in accord^ ance with my own judgment of what is fitting, and in loyalty to the high standard of evidence, and the more stringent rules of testimony, inaugurated by the wise founders of the Society for Psychical Research — that observers should always make an effort to record precisely every detail of the circumstances of some at least of these elusive and rare phenomena ; so as to assist in enabling a fair judgment to be formed by people whcv are not too inexperienced in the conditions attending this class of observation, and at any rate to add to the clearness of their apprehension of the events recorded. The opportunities for research are not yet ended, however,, and I may be allowed to express a hope that in the future something of this kind will yet be done, when the occasion is favourable, after a study of such a record as that of the Sidgwick-Hodgson-Davy experiments in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research^ vol. iv^

INTRODUCTION xiii

Our gratitude to Dr. Maxwell would thus be still further increased.

And now, finally, I must not be understood as making myself responsible for the contents of the book, nor for the interjected remarks, nor for the translation. The author and translator must bear their own responsibility. My share in the work is limited to expressing my confidence in the good faith of Dr. Maxwell — in his impartiality and competence, — and while congratulating him on the favourable opportunities for investigation which have fallen to his lot, to thank him, on behalf of English investigators, for the single-minded pertinacity and strenuous devotion with which he has pursued this difficult and still nebulous quest.

Oliver Lodge.

Preface

There are books in which the author says so clearly and in such precise terms what he has to say that any commentary weakens their import ; and a preface becomes superfluous, sometimes even prejudicial.

Dr. Maxwell's work belongs to this category. The author, who has long given himself up to psychology, has had the opportunity of seeing many interesting things. He has observed everything with minute care ; and having well thought out the method of observation, the consequences, and the nature itself of the phenomena, he lays bare his facts and deducts therefrom a few simple ideas, fearlessly, honestly, sine ira nee studio^ before a public which he hopes to find impartial.

To this same public I address the short introduction, with which my friend Dr. Maxwell kindly asked me to head this excellent work.

My advice to the reader may be summed up in a few words. He must take up this book without prejudice. He must fear neither that which is new, nor that which is unexpected. In other words, while preserving the most scrupulous respect for the science of to-day, he must be thoroughly convinced that this science, whatever xvi METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

measure of truth it may contain, is nevertheless terribly incomplete.

Those imprudent people who busy themselves with ' occult ' sciences are accused of overthrowing Science, of destroying that bulwark which thousands of toilers, at the cost of an immense universal effort, have been occupied in constructing during the last three or four centuries.

This reproach seems to me rather unjust. No one is able to destroy a scientific y^?r/.

An electric current decomposes water into one volume of oxygen and two of hydrogen. This is a fact which will be true in the eternal future, just as it has been true in the eternal past. Ideas may perhaps change on what it is expedient to call electric current, oxygen, hydrogen, etc. It may be discovered that hydrogen is composed of fifty different bodies, that oxygen is transformed into hydrogen, that the electric current is a ponderable force or a luminous emission. No matter what is going to be discovered, we shall never, in any case, prevent what we call to-day an electric current from transforming, under certain conditions of combined pressure and temperature, what we call water into two gases, each having different properties, gases which are emitted in volumetrical proportions of 2 to i .

Therefore, there need be no fear, that the invasion of a new science into the old will upset acquired data, and contradict what has been established by savants.

PREFACE xvii

Consequently psychical phenomena, however complicated, unforeseen, or appalling we may now and then imagine them to be, will not subvert any of those facts which form part of to-day's classical sciences.

Astronomy and physiology, physics and mathematics, chemistry and zoology, need not be afraid. They are intangible, and nothing will injure the imposing assemblage of incontestable facts which constitute them.

But notions, hitherto unknown, may be introduced, which, without casting doubts upon pristine truths, may cause new ones to enter their domain, and change, or even upset, our established notions of things.

The facts may be unforeseen, but they will never be contradictory.

The history of sciences teaches us, that their bulwarks have never been overthrown by the inroad of a new science.

At one time no notion of tubercular infection existed. We now know that it is transmitted by microbes. This is a new notion, teeming with important conclusions, but it does not invalidate the clinical table of pulmonary phthisis drawn up by physicians of other days. The discovery of Hertzian waves has in nowise shaken Ampere's laws. Newton's and FresneFs optics have not been changed into a tissue of errors because Roentgen rays and luminous vibrations are able to penetrate opaque bodies. It appears that radium can throw out unremittingly, without any appreciable chemical molecular phenomena, great quantities of xviii METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

calorific energy ; nevertheless, we may be quite sure, that the law of conservation of energy and thermodynamic principles will remain as true now as ever.

Likewise, if the facts called * occult ' become established, as seems more and more probable, we need not feel anxious as to the fate of classical science. New and unknown facts, however strange they may be, will not do away with old established facts.

To take an example from Dr. MaxwelFs work, let us admit that the phenomenon of raps — that is to say, sonorous vibrations in wood or other substances — is a real phenomenon, and that, in certain cases, there are sounds which no mechanical force known to us can explain, would the science of physics be overthrown ? It would be a new force thrown out on to wood, etc., exercising its power on matter, but the old forces would none the less preserve their activity, and it is even likely that the transmission of vibrations by means of this new force would be found to be in obedience to the same laws as those governing the transmission of other vibrations ; — the temperature, the pressure, the density of air or wood would continue to exercise their usual influence. There would be nothing new, save the existence of a force until then unknown.

Now, is there any savant worthy of the name who can affirm, that there are no forces, hitherto unknown, at work in the world ?

However impregnable Science may be when establish-

PREFACE

XIX ing facts, it is miserably subject to error when claiming to establish negations.

Here is a dilemma, which appears to me to be very conclusive in that respect : — Either we know all Nature's forces, or we do not. Now the first alternative is so ridiculous, that it is really not worth while refuting it. Our_senses are so limited, so imperfect, that the world slips away from them almost entirely. We may say it is owing to an accident, that the magnet's colossal force was discovered, and if hazard had not placed iron beside the loadstone, we might have always remained ignorant of the attraction which loadstone exercises upon iron. Ten years ago no one suspected the existence of the Roentgen rays. Before photography, no one knew that light reduces salts of silver. It is not twenty years since the Hertzian waves were discovered. The property displayed by amber when rubbed was, until two hundred years ago, all that was known of that immense force called electricity.

Question a savage — nay a fellah or a moujik — upon the forces of Nature ! He will not know even the tenth part of such forces as elementary treatises on physics in 1905 will enumerate. It appears to me that the savants of to-day, in respect to the savants of the future, stand in the same inferiority as the moujiks to the professors of the college of France.

Who then dare be so rash as to say that the treatises on physics in 2005 will but repeat what is to be found in the treatises of 1 905 ? The probability — the certainty.

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one might say — is that new scientific data will shortly spring up out of the darkness, and that most powerful and altogether unknown forces will be revealed. Our great-grandchildren will be amazed at the blindness of our savants, who tacitly profess the immobility of science.

If science has made such progress of late, it is precisely because our predecessors were not afraid to make bold hypotheses, to suppose new forces, demonstrating their reality by dint of patience and perseverance. Our strict duty is to do likewise. The savant should be a revolutionist, and fortunately the time is over when truth had to be sought in a master's book — magister dixit — be he Aristotle or Plato. In politics we may be conservative or progressive ; it is a question of temperament. But when the research of truth is concerned we must be resolutely and unreservedly revolutionary, and must consider classical theories — even those which appear to be the most solid — as temporary hypotheses, which we must incessantly check and incessantly strive to overthrow. The Chinese believed that science had been fixed by their ancestors' sapience ; this example contains food for meditation.

Moreover — and why not proclaim it loudly — all that science of which we are so proud, is only knowledge of appearances. The real nature of things baffles us. The innermost nature of laws governing matter, whether living or inert, is inaccessible to our intelligence. A stone tossed up into the air falls back again to the earth.

PREFACE xxi

Why ? Newton says through attraction proportional to bulk and distance. But this law is only the statement of a fact ; who understands that attractive vibration, which makes the stone fall ? The fall of a stone is such a commonplace phenomenon, that it does not astonish us : but in reality no human intelligence has ever understood it. It is usual, common, accepted ; but like all Nature's phenomena without exception it is not understood. After fecundation an egg becomes an embryon ; we describe as well as we can the phases of this phenomenon ; but, in spite of the most minute descriptions, have we understood the evolution of that cellular protoplasm, which is transformed into a huge, living being ? What prodigy is at work in these segmentations? Why do these granulations crowd together there? Why do they decay here to form again elsewhere ?

We live in the midst of phenomena and have no adequate knowledge of any one of them. Even the simplest phenomenon is most mysterious. What does the combination of hydrogen with oxygen mean ? Who has even once been thoroughly able to understand that word combination^ annihilation of the properties of two bodies by the creation of a third body differing from the two first. How are we to understand that an atom is indivisible ; it is constituted of a particle of matter, yet — even in thought — it cannot be divided !

Therefore it behoves the true savant to be very modest, yet very bold at the same time : very modest, for our science is a mere trifle — 'H dvOpcoTrivr) croc^ta xxii METAPSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

okiyov Tivos d^id icrri, koX ovZevo^ — very bold, for the vast regions of worlds unknown lie open before him.

Audacity and prudence : such are the two qualities, in no wise contradictory, of Dr. Maxwell's book.

Whatever be the fate in store for his ideas — Ideas based upon facts — we may rest assured that the facts, which he has well observed, will remain. I think I see here the lineaments of a new science — though only a crude sketch so far.

Who knows but that physiology and physics may find herein some precious elements of knowledge.^ Woe to the savants who think that the book of Nature is closed, and that we puny men have nothing more to learn.

Charles Richet.

Contents

PAGE

INTRODUCTION BY SIR OLIVER LODGE, ... v

PREFACE BY PROFESSOR CHARLES RICHET, . . xv

Chapter I

A French proverb says, * we must have eggs to make an omelette ' : in order to be able to study psychical phenomena we must have psychical phenomena. This seems an elementary proposition, and yet it is the very one we most readily overlook. I have already said why and wherefore.

Therefore, I deem it necessary to indicate at once the methods which have appeared to me to give the most favourable results. Those of my readers who may wish to verify the accuracy of my conclusions will, I am sure, have the opportunity of doing so, if they operate as I have done. First of all, I must warn them against caring for the world's opinion. They must not be afraid of exposing themselves to ridicule. No doubt there is temptation to make a jest of the methods which I advise ; but I strongly recommend them to think about the result, and not about the means used to obtain that result.

Psychical phenomena are of two orders : material and intellectual. The methods best suited to the study of the first are not, in my opinion, adapted to the study of the second. There is a distinction, therefore, to be made in the beginning between these two categories of facts.

Physical phenomena are the least frequently met with ; they include : —

1 . Knockings or ^ raps ' on furniture, walls, floors, or on the experimenters themselves.

2. Sundry noises other than raps.

3. Movements of objects without sufficient contact to explain the movement produced. There is here a distinction to be made between (a) movements produced without any contact whatever — telekinesis : e.g. the rising or sliding of a table or chair, the swaying of scales, etc., without their being touched ; and (b) movements with contact, which is insufficient to explain them — parakinesis : e.g, the levitation of a table on which the experimenters lay their hands.

4. Apports : that is to say, the sudden appearance of objects — flowers, sweets, stones, etc. — which have not been brought by any of the assistants. This phenomenon — if it exists — supposes, in addition, the following : —

5. Penetrability, or the passage of matter through matter.

6. Visual phenomena, which are themselves subdivided into : —

{a) Vision of the odic effluvium.

(^) Amorphous lights.

(r) Forms, either luminous or non-luminous.

{a) Lastly, the most complete phenomenon of all —

the materialisation of a form, human or

otherwise, luminous or not.

7. Phenomena which leave permanent traces, such as imprints.

8. Alteration in the weight of material objects or of certain people : levitation.

9. Perceptible changes in the temperature : sensation of cold or heat ; spontaneous combustion.

10. Cool breezes.

Such are the chief psychical phenomena of the material order, which have been pointed out by different experimenters. I have not verified all of them : raps, telekinetic, and a few luminous phenomena are all I have obtained in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.

Intellectual phenomena are those which imply the expression of a thought. I will class them in the following manner : —

1. Typtology : the table, upon which the experimenters lay their hands, leans to one side and recovers equilibrium by striking the ground.

2. Grammatology or spelt-out sentences. Various methods may be used. The principal are : —

(a) Repeating the alphabet until a rap indicates the

letter to be retained ;

(b) Pointing out the letters of the alphabet by

means of a pencil or stiletto, etc., until a rap indicates where to stop ; (f) Finally, the designation of the required letters by an index-hand on a pivot fixed in the middle of a circle composed of the alphabet, the index-hand moving with or without contact.

3. Automatic writing : immediate^ when the subject writes without the intermedium of an instrument ; mediate, when he uses an instrument, such as a planchette, a wooden ball with handles fastened to it, a basket.

a hat, a stand, etc. In this case, several people can combine their action by laying their hands all together upon the object to which the pencil is attached.

4. Direct writing : i.e. writing which appears on slates, paper, etc., whether in or out of sight of the experimenters. If the letters seem to be formed without the aid of a pencil we have precipitated writing.

5. Incarnation or * control': the subject, when asleep, speaks in the name of some entity or order, which possesses him.

6. Direct voices : when words are heard, appearing to emanate from vocal organs other than those of the persons present; some experimenters are supposed to have conversed in this way with materialised forms.

7. Certain automatisms other than writing are observable : e.g. crystal- and mirror-gazing ; audition in conchformed shells ; sundry hallucinations, telepathy and telesthesia : * the communication of impressions of any kind from one mind to another, independently of the recognised channels of sense ' ; perception at a distance of positive impressions. These phenomena bring in their train clairvoyance or voyance^ and lucidity^ expressions which are by no means identical. Lucidity designates more particularly the faculty which certain people have, in magnetic sleep or in somnambulism, of getting exact impressions in a supernormal manner ; clairvoyants or voyants are those who see forms invisible to other people. Clairaudience denotes phenomena of the same kind in the auditory sphere.

I have paid scarcely any attention to these intellectual phenomena, with the exception of automatic writing, crystal-gazing, typtology, and ' control.* If I have taken greater Interest in material than in intellectual phenomena, it is because they struck me as being more simple and easier to observe. This sentiment is not that of all experimenters, and my colleagues of the London Society for Psychical Research appear to be more affirmative in their conclusions, concerning survival after death and communication with the dead, than in their opinions on material phenomena. My personal experience has not led me to the same ideas.