Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge

Front matter

BOSTON

PUBL'^

UBRAKV

Preface

Sir Oliver Lodge's book Raymond was sent to me with a request that I would examine and review it. I found it impossible to do so. The sorrow of a bereaved mother is no fit matter for discussion by strangers in the public press. But the book revealed to me such an astounding mental attitude on the part of its author, that I sent for a previous work of his, The Survival of Man , to discover on what ground he, a professor of a certain branch of physical science, and the Principal of a University, speaking with the authority conferred by his occupancy of these positions, could make the assumptions that he does, and promulgate urbi et orbi such extraordinary doctrines. I have been engaged for some forty years in the study of the vagaries of the human mind in health and in disease, and am not easily surprised by witnessing new vagaries ; but I must confess that The Survival of Man did surprise me. Upon inquiry I found that the doctrines and practices therein advocated have attained a very wide vogue. It may almost be said that they are become the rage. There is nothing very surprising in this, for the pursuit of the occult has for ages prevailed from time to time ; has spread and become fashionable ; its pretensions have been exposed ; and it has died down, only to reappear some years afterwards, when the exposure was forgotten. The fact of its revival at this time did not surprise me ; but the circumstances of the revival did. On matters of taste there can be no disputing, and the taste of Sir Oliver Lodge in publishing the book Raymond must be passed over in silence ; but the * investigations ’ and ‘ experL ments ' on which Sir Oliver Lodge's conclusions are founded are fair matters for fair comment. The subject has never engaged my attention before. I come to it as a new-comer, and with an open mind. When I saw the consequences to which the doctrines and practices lead ;

VI vi THE DANGER TO SANITY

when I read of a table laughing and executing caressing movements ; when I read the drivel that is put into the mouths of dead men who when alive were of normal intelligence ; I began to suspect that the foundation on which this structure was built was insecure. I was prepared to find flaws in it ; I was prepared to find that some assumptions had been made that were not quite warrantable ; I was prepared to find inferences that were not valid when tested by the strict canons of Logic ; but for what I did find I was not prepared. What I found will be described in the following pages.

For a considerable time my mind misgave me. Again and again I put the task aside as not worthy to engage the time that might be occupied in serious studies, and it seemed that such a structure raised on such foundations might well be left to fall to pieces of its own inherent rottenness ; but on consideration of the following arguments advanced by my friends I determined to undertake the task.

In the first place, it was represented to me, and I know from my own medical experience, that the pursuit of the occult, and especially of that form of it that used to go by the name of spiritualism, but is now called telepathy, telergy, and other high-sounding names, leads to a morbid frame of mind, and tends to render those who are at all predisposed to insanity an easy prey to the disease. I am not alone in this opinion. It is held by others who are familiar with cases of this disease. As an instance, I give the following extract from the Annual Report, issued within the last month or two, of Dr. G. M. Robertson, the Superintendent of the Royal Asylum of Morningside, Edinburgh, the premier institution for the insane in Scotland :

spiritualism: a warning

‘ I feel it to be necessary at this time, as the result of several cases that have come under my care, to utter a note of warning to those who are seeking consolation in their

THE DANGER TO SANITY vii

sorrows by practical experiments in the domain of spiritualism. I do not profess to pass any judgment on spiritualism itself, although I have been interested in it for thirty years. I recognize that it is a difficult subject worthy of patient and unbiased inquiry by competent investigators. I do not, however, consider that those who are unversed in normal, and particularly in morbid psychology are qualified investigators, and, least of all, that those who are wishing and longing for and unconsciously expecting certain manifestations from friends they have lost, make reliable observers. .

‘ Needless to say, therefore, that I regard the publication of Raymond at this psychological moment as much to be deplored.

* I would remind inquirers into the subject that if they would meet those who are hearing messages from spirits every hour of the day, who are seeing forms, angelic and human, surrounding them that are invisible to ordinary persons, and who are receiving other manifestations of an equally occult nature, they only require to go to a mental hospital to find them. It is true that the modern physician, by a long study of these phenomena, has come to regard them as symptoms of disease, and has renounced the doctrine of possession by spirits, though it had the double merit of simplicity and of antiquity to support it. If honest mediums do exist who hear inaudible messages, or feel communications without words, or see forms invisible to others, the mental physician accustomed to “ symptoms ” is inclined to regard their “ gifts ” as being, if not morbid, at least as closely related to the morbid, with no element of anything “ occult ” about them.

‘ I desire to warn those who may possibly inherit a latent tendency to nervous disorders to have nothing to do with practical inquiries of a spiritualistic nature, lest they should awaken this dormant proclivity to hallucinations within their brains. I have known such a person who had lost her son following the procedure in vogue at present, under advice, first hearing of him through viii THE DANGER TO SANITY

mediums, then getting into touch with him herself and receiving messages from him, some as impressions and others as audible words, then increasing her circle of spiritual acquaintances and living more for her spiritual world than for this, to the neglect of her husband and household, till finally God conversed with her in a low musical voice at all times, and confided His plans for the future to her. I would ask spiritualists where in this case does spiritualism end and mental disorder begin ? Do they overlap ? Do they coexist ? Or is there such a state as disordered mental function at all ? Or is it that spiritualism was wholly absent from the case ?

‘ While inquiries into spiritualism sometimes lead to insanity in the predisposed, I have found more frequently that to persons suffering from the simple forms and early stages of mental derangement the theory of spiritualism has a great fascination. It is simple — a child can understand it — indeed, it is the explanation of the primitive savage for all the actions produced by the mysterious forces of nature. When, therefore, a person suffering from the early symptoms of insanity hears imaginary voices, or experiences strange feelings and impressions, he finds in spiritualism a ready and a comforting explanation of these phenomena, and he becomes interested in the subject. However injurious spiritualism may be to these persons in retarding recovery, it would be wrong to say that it was the cause of their derangement.’

Dr. Robertson, like myself, comes to the matter with an open mind. He has no prejudice against spiritualism. He thinks it worthy of patient and unbiased inquiry ; but as an experienced physician he cannot shut his eyes to the pernicious effects it sometimes produces ; and it is a fact that cannot be gainsaid that it is those who are not of strong mental constitution or whose mental fibre is weakened by calamity, who are specially attracted to the pursuit of the occult, and are attracted to it in the largest numbers.

This alone seemed to me a sufficient reason for at-

OTHER ^DISADVANTAGES OF SPIRITUALISM ix

tempting to stem the tide that is sweeping over the country, mainly owing to the influence of Sir Oliver Lodge’s books ; but this reason does not stand alone. It is saddening to think of the waste of time, energy, and money that are squandered upon these pursuits ; of the emotional instability and impressionability that they produce ; of the habit they engender of investigating, not to discover the truth, but to bolster up a foregone conclusion ; of the perversion and distortion of judgment that follows on the methods employed ; of the carelessness of observation and blindness to evidence that they inculcate ; of the atmosphere of credulity that they create ; of the imposture that they encourage ; and of the downright swindling that is so often associated with them. Moved by these considerations, at length I undertook the task. Whether I shall be successful depends on the view that is taken by the public, but at least they will learn from this book that there is another side of the subject, and that on this side there is something to be said. This has hitherto been concealed from them.

Of course I do not hope to make any impression on either Sir Oliver Lodge or on the true believers who regard him as the latter-day Prophet or Pope of a New Religion. Nor do I write for those who have investigated the ‘ phenomena ’ and found no reason to place faith in them or to accept the interpretations put upon them by the elect. Between these two there is an immense body of persons who have the subject more or less forced upon their attention by the strenuous propagandism of Sir Oliver Lodge ; who think that because an eminent scientific man swallows the thing holus-bolus, it must be worthy of attention and of investigation ; who have one side of the matter so persistently and persuasively placed before them that they ‘ cannot help thinking there must be something in it ’ ; who really desire to arrive at the truth, but are so belaboured with assertions on only one side of the matter that they have no opportunity of ascertaining the truth or of forming a fair and impartial judgment for

X THE READER SHOULD THINK FOR HIMSELF

themselves. These people are now in the position in which I was before I read The Survival of Man. They may perhaps not have the time to read that book with the attention I have given to it : they may perhaps not be as well accustomed as I am to intricate investigations and the weighing of evidence ; and they may be glad of the assistance that a trained logician can give in pointing out what they should attend to and what they may disregard, what is evidence and what is not, what is fact and what is interpretation, what is only evidence and what is proof. I do not ask them to adopt my conclusions : I ask them to adopt my methods, which are the methods that Sir Oliver Lodge also recommends, but does not follow. I do not ask them to adopt my conclusions because I am an eminent scientific man, and therefore must know better than they or anyone else : I ask them merely to bring to bear upon the investment of their belief the same care and common sense that they would bring to bear upon investing their money : to decide this matter by the light of the same reason by which they would decide any ordinary matter of business. If they will do this, the result is not doubtful.

Chapter I The Cult Of Spiritualism

If we watch a cloud of midges on a summer evening, we shall see that the individual midges pursue their dance without any apparent regard for their fellows beyond what is needed to avoid collision with them. Each midge careers and zigzags about at his own will and pleasure, in and out, up and down, along and across, to all appearance ignoring his fellows in every respect except in keeping out of their way. Yet there is a soul that animates the crowd. There is a common purpose, or a common will, or a common motive amongst them. For though there are no set limits to the swarm, though it has no material boundary, yet it has a boundary that seems to be inescapable. The midges dart hither and thither, up and down, along and across, but, aimless as their movements seem to be, none of them transgresses the limit of the swarm. It remains a well-defined swarm — a single thing. Its boundaries are immaterial, conventional, imaginary ; but they are never transgressed. No midge has sufficient daring, sufficient enterprise, originality, or initiative to leave the swarm and wander away in solitude. Though the boundary is only imaginary, yet as soon as it is reached every midge turns away — turns back, or up, or down, or along, and dares not break the midge convention, or leave the company of its fellows. The whole cloud is a single thing animated by a corporate soul. Every now and then the midges are moved by a common impulse, a consentaneous volition, and the cloud as a whole rises or falls, changes its shape, travels a yard or two up stream or down stream,

BEHAVIOUR OF CROWDS and still the individual midges pursue their erratic and seemingly aimless dances without any apparent reference to the dances of their fellows ; but consciously or unconsciously they are profoundly influenced by them. Each midge seems independent, but she is not independent. She is governed by impulses, influences, motives, call them what you will, common to her and to her companions. When the whole cloud is rising, many individual midges are diving downwards : yet the cloud rises. When the cloud is falling, many individual midges are soaring upwards : yet the cloud falls. As they are closely alike in nature, so they are similarly acted on by external agents, so they are similarly moved by internal motives.

We see precisely the same thing in a swarm of bees. The individual bees in the swarm tear about at such a prodigious rate that to our eyes they are not mere dots, but are brown lines traversing the air in all directions ; yet the swarm maintains its coherence and its individuality. The individual bees rush about with incredible velocity, and apparently under the influence of ungovernable excitement, but the swarm as a whole moves slowly, steadily, and orderly in a predetermined direction to a predetermined destination, at which it duly arrives, and settles down into a cluster, all the bees being simultaneously moved to cease their erratic and violent movement, and to combine into a motionless mass.

The same kind of common or corporate will appears to actuate other collections of social animals. The sheep in a flock all move together, in the same direction and at the same corporate rate, though they constantly change their positions with respect to one another. When the foremost sheep come to a practicable gap in the hedge, they leap over an obstacle, which may be real or imaginary, and spread out into the adjoining field ; and each subsequent sheep, as he comes in succession to the same spot, makes the same leap, irrespective of whether there is or is not an obstacle to leap over, and then emulates the tranquil demeanour of his predecessors.

EPIDEMIC BELIEFS 3

Such is the behaviour of social animals. Every animal in a social body, being constituted in the same way as his fellows, is similarly moved by similar internal motives, is acted on similarly by similar external agents. Thus it is with all social animals, and thus it is with man, one of the most social of animals. Men collected into societies are moved at the same time and in the same way by motives common to them all, and by external influences that act upon them all, and thus it is that we witness consentaneous emotions and modes of action passing like a wave over communities of men, engulfing them all in a common feeling, impelling them all to similar action, that is often irrational, often detrimental and even destructive, and which their successors, and perhaps even they themselves, subsequently look back upon with rueful wonder, and marvel that they or their predecessors could have been so mad. Such epidemics of action, whether reasonable or unreasonable, whether beneficial or the reverse, have been the tremendous waves of immigration that brought successive races of men from the shores of the Mediterranean and the interior of Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. Such was the great migration of the Huns from the border of China to the field of Chalons. Such were the Crusades, such was the epidemic persecution of witches in the seventeenth century, and many other instances will occur to the wellinformed reader, of which the militant suffragette movement is a recent example. As human nature, though it alters in many respects from age to age, yet alters slowly, and in many respects remains the same, we should expect to find, and we do find, that these epidemics of conduct and feeling often repeat themselves in similar form. There have been repeated waves of immigration in Europe, from the South to the North, and from the East to the West. There were repeated Crusades ; and though the persecution of witches has not been repeated, other epidemics have been repeated.

Amongst these a conspicuous example is the pursuit of

4 EPIDEMIC BELIEFS]

the occult. Epidemics of it recur with the regularity of epidemics of measles and scarlet fever. Like measles and scarlet fever, it never dies out. Even in times in which it is not conspicuous, it exists endemic in isolated instances, and in remote places ; but, like specific fevers, every now and then it spreads from these foci, becomes epidemic, and affects a very large section of the population. There has never been a time, there has never been a nation or a tribe, in which the pursuit of the occult has not had its votaries, its priesthood, and some sort of organization, often a very elaborate organization. Every savage tribe has its medicine men, who are experts in the study and practice of the occult. The Chaldeans systematized it in the theory and practice of Astrology, which spread into all nations and flourished for thousands of years after the Chaldeans had vanished from the face of the earth. The religion of ancient Egypt was the organized pursuit of the occult. The mysteries of Eleusis represented the occult in ancient Greece. In the Dark and Middle Ages, Magic of various kinds, especially the magic of witchcraft, flourished throughout Europe ; and since witchcraft became discredited, its place has been taken by other pursuits of very much the same nature, by Mesmerism, Braidism, fortune-telling, crystal-gazing, which dates from very early times, spiritualism, mediumism, ghost-culture, and of late years, telepathy and psycho-analysis. Not all of these are wholly impostures, and certainly not all of their practitioners are impostors. There is a basis of truth in hypnotism or mesmerism, for instance ; but in every case, whatever of truth there may be as a basis has been utilized for the purpose of imposture, and the mixture of wilful imposture and self-deception is often so intimate that it is impossible to analyse the blend into its constituent elements. ^5

At the present time, this country, and doubtless other belligerent countries also in some degree, are suffering from an epidemic of spiritualism or mediumism, in the specious form of alleged communications with the dead.

THE CHURCH AND SIR OLIVER LODGE 5

This terrible war has brought bereavement into tens of thousands of families in this country, and desolation into tens of thousands of homes. The sudden severance of the life of one who is near and dear produces in the survivors an irresistible longing for some hope, some encouragement to believe, that the separation is either not eternal or is not complete. To these bereaved and desolate souls the Church gives the comfort that the separation is not eternal, and Sir Oliver Lodge essays to give the comfort that it is not complete.

I refrain from inquiring into the grounds on which the claim of the Church is founded, and I refrain for two sufficient reasons : first that, whether well or ill founded, it has beyond all dispute brought consolation and comfort to innumerable sorrowing people ; and second, because it does not profess to be founded upon reasoning from observed facts, and therefore is not susceptible of examination and testing by the canons of logic. The religious belief is founded upon Faith, upon the dicta of Authority, and these constitute a realm altogether distinct and apart from the induction of conclusions from facts of experience. Sir Oliver Lodge’s efforts are of a different kind and have a different result. They have a different result in this respect : that they do not offer, or at least do not convey, a complete and restful assurance on which the mind can repose in tranquillity. They offer a quasi-assurance based upon observation and inferences from observation ; upon observations that can be made only under conditions that are uncertain, fluctuating, capricious, and special ; that have no value — and no meaning until they are interpreted ; that are open to several interpretations, of which those of Sir Oliver Lodge are diametrically opposed to the interpretations of other people ; and even when interpreted by Sir Oliver Lodge himself in the most favourable sense for the purpose of carrying conviction of survival after death, yield nothing but trivialities. The ghosts afford to those who have not yet * passed over ’ such twaddling information as that they live in brick houses with windows : that

B

6 SIR OLIVER LODGE'S MENTAL RESERVATION

they wear clothes that they do not like, that they smoke cigars ; and such-like trash. If Sir Oliver Lodge likes to call spirits from the vasty deep to talk such rubbish as this, no one need quarrel with him for thus employing his time ; but when he sets up his faith as a kind of religion ; when he issues his books as serious propaganda ; when these books sell by tens of thousands of copies ; and when it can be stated by a medium on her arrest that half London is concerned in these practices, it is time to subject them to a logical analysis for the purpose of discovering on what basis of reason they rest. For this is the point. This is the gist, the gravamen of the matter. We are called upon to believe these things, not on the ground of faith, but on the ground of reason. The evidence in favour of the creed is placed before us, and we are not only implicitly, but explicitly and formally invited to examine it.

We are invited to examine the evidence and to form our own conclusion ; but we are invited always with the mental reservation that our conclusion must be favourable to the pretensions of the doctrine. If we should arrive at an adverse decision, or even if we should throw doubts upon the validity of the doctrines, we are met, not with argument, not with counter reasons, not with explanations, not with elucidation, but with abuse. In the winter of 1882-3, Dr., now Sir James, Crichton Browne was invited to attend an exhibition of thought reading. He was invited for the expressed purpose of testing the performance and discovering whether it was genuine or not. This was the expressed and ostensible purpose for which he was invited ; but the real purpose was that he should express a favourable opinion which could be published ; for when the performance broke down and failed under the tests which he imposed, the organizer of the show, who then occupied the position of High Priest of Telepathy to which Sir Oliver Lodge has succeeded, could not conceal his ill temper. 4 It must be allowed,’ said Mr. Myers, ‘ that this demonstration has been a total failure, and I attribute that to the offensive incredulity of Dr. Crichton Browne.’ This

PRECEPT AND PRACTICE INCONSISTENT 7

ludicrous ebullition is not merely ludicrous. It is characteristic of the mental attitude of these inquirers who loudly proclaim themselves impartial and unbiased seekers after truth. Sir James Crichton Browne's retort is worth reproducing. ‘ I hope,' he said, 'I always shall show offensive incredulity when I find myself in the presence of patent imposture.' The story has often been repeated, but it can scarcely be repeated too often, for it is the type and example of the kind of reply that is made when the invitation to make candid and searching inquiry into the genuineness of these phenomena is responded to ; and it illustrates and corroborates my assertion that when an inquiry results unfavourably to the doctrines, the inquirer is met, not with explanations or reasons, but with abuse.

Sir Oliver Lodge now occupies the place vacated by the death of Mr. Myers, and Sir Oliver Lodge's method is the same as that of his predecessor. Sir Oliver Lodge deplores * the dislike and mistrust and disbelief in the validity or legitimacy of psychical inquiry,' but it does not appear that he is anxious for sceptics to witness the occurrences on which he founds his belief. I have not discovered any record of an occasion on which a sceptic was present at one of his own crucial experiments. He does, indeed, complain ( Bedrock , Oct. 1912) that some distinguished biologists — so distinguished as to be not only F.R.S. but also K.C.B. — should at present shut their minds to phenomena which are occurring in our midst, and of which they might be skilled investigators. The allusion to the F.R.S. and K.C.B. points directly to Sir E. Ray Lankester, who had been mentioned by Sir Oliver Lodge immediately before ; but it does not appear that Sir Ray Lankester was ever invited by Sir Oliver Lodge to attend one of his sittings. On the contrary, Sir Ray Lankester replied (Bedrock, Jan. 1913), ‘ I challenged (in a letter to the Press) Sir Oliver Lodge’s statement that telepathy had been “ discovered." I asked for the demonstration necessary to justify the assertion that telepathy had been discovered. I professed my willingness to investigate this phenomenon

[ARGUMENT OR ABUSE?

stated to occur in our midst, and its asserted discovery. No opportunity of investigating it has ever been offered to me by those who declare that it exists. I was definitely refused the opportunity of examining the asserted phenomena for which I applied to the Society for Psychical Research.' To this reply Sir Oliver Lodge made no rejoinder, and there the matter rests. If he really desires, as he so frequently and so persistently declares he does, that the matter should be thoroughly and ‘ scientifically ’ investigated, it is not easy to understand his neglect to invite Sir Ray Lankester to undertake the investigation ; but if he has in his mind the disastrous result of the invitation given to Sir James Crichton Browne, and if he remembers that Sir Ray Lankester was the person who exposed the fraudulent medium Slade, and drove him from the country, then Sir Oliver Lodge’s abstaining from giving an invitation to Sir Ray Lankester is not so difficult to understand.

When Sir James Crichton Browne responded to the invitation given to him and exposed the fraud of the mediums, Mr. Myers then and there, by word of mouth, became abusive. Sir Oliver Lodge does not, as far as I can discover from his published records, invite the presence of sceptics, and no doubt has good reasons for his abstinence ; but when sceptics comment upon his experiments in a sceptical spirit — and what other comments are to be expected of sceptics ? — he also becomes abusive. Since, however, the controversy is conducted not by word of mouth, but in print, with all the mollifying influence of time and of deliberation, the abuse is less pungent and more guarded ; but it is still abuse. For instance, Dr. Ivor Tuckett published in Bedrock (July, 1912) a very temperate, very careful, and very destructive analysis of a considerable number of the phenomena recorded by the psychical researchers. To this Sir Oliver Lodge replied in the number next but one of the magazine. He had five months in which to think over his reply, and yet he does not confute or attempt to confute any^one of thejmany

EXTENSIVE PREVALENCE OF SPIRITUALISM 9

instances of fraud, imposture, and absurdity exposed by Dr. Tuckett. He regrets that Sir Ray Lankester has shut his mind to telepathic phenomena ; he declares his earnest desire to welcome all criticism that is well informed and fair ; he discusses the opinions and mental attitude of the late Mr. Podmore ; he talks of ‘ a superstition of incredulity ' ; he sneers at this, and jeers at that ; he calls Dr. Tuckett's article ‘ Podmore and water ' ; he says he has personally no complaint to make concerning Dr. Tuckett’s treatment of the subject, and yet calls him unfair, and as an example of unfairness he adduces Dr. Tuckett’s account of a barefaced swindler whom Sir Oliver Lodge has ‘ every reason to believe ’ was a fraud. It is difficult to see unfairness in this. Throughout his article Sir Oliver Lodge does not traverse one statement of Dr. Tuckett’s, and throughout his article he sneers and insinuates unfairness. The article is the equivalent, in print and after ample time for consideration, of Mr. Myers' accusation by word of mouth and on the spur of the moment, of offensive incredulity.