The naturalisation of the supernatural

Prefatory Note

THE illustrative narratives quoted in the following pages are selected partly from the Proceedings, but mainly from the unpublished Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. I desire to acknowledge the courtesy which has placed these materials at my disposal.

F. P.

October, 1907.

Chapter I Page

Founding of the Society for Psychical Research : its aims and methods : the subjects to be investigated — Telepathy or thought-transference : its history ; its relation to the physical world . . i

Chapter II

The Brighton experiments by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick: transference of numbers ; of mental pictures — Difficulties of experiments at distance — Experiments by Mrs. Verrall. Experiments at a distance, by Dr. Wiltse — by the Rev. A. Glardon — by Miss Campbell and Miss Despard — by Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden . . .16

CHAPTER III Spontaneous Thought-Transference — Mind's Eye Visions

Evidence to spontaneous occurrences inferior to the experimental evidence : various sources of error discussed — Transference of indefinite

impressions, Professor , Mr. Garrison, Mr. Young — of visual

impressions, Miss C. P. M. C, Mrs. D., Miss Angus, Mr. Policy — of auditory impressions, Frau U. — of pain, Mrs. Castle — of motor impulse, Archdeacon Bruce 47

CHAPTER IV Spontaneous Thought-Transference — Coincident Dreams

Weakness of evidence derived from dreams : the greater scope for chance coincidence; the difficulty in accurately recollecting the impression — Examples of dreams which may reasonably be regarded as telepathic : from Dr. Adele Gleason, Mrs. Krekel, Mr. H. B., Miss Clarkson, Mrs. Mann, Mr. Brierley, Mrs. Knight . . 76 vi Contents

Chapter V Pack

Common misconception of the nature of apparitions. They are in fact hallucinations. The Census of Hallucinations — its results — distribution of hallucinations amongst the sane. Hallucinations occurring at the time of a death; calculation as to chance coincidence — Difficulties in connecting experimental cases of thought-transference with spontaneous hallucination. Transition formed by case of apparitions experimentally produced — Examples from Mr. Godfrey,

Mrs. E , Miss Dan vers. On reciprocal telepathy: — Example

from Captain Ward and Mrs. Green ...... 99

CHAPTER VI Telepathic Hallucinations The importance of attestation by contemporary documents. Examples — Auditory, Miss C. Clark — Visual, Prince Duleep Singh, Mme. Broussiloff, Mrs. Michell, Mr. Kearne, Miss Hervey — With grotesque accompaniments, Mr. Dove — Comparison of hallucinations with dreams — Cases where the "agency" is doubtful, Miss R. and Mrs. Bagot — Collective percipience, Mr. Tweedale . . .124

CHAPTER VII Poltergeists

Antiquity and wide range of the phenomena — Rise of Modern Spiritualism from Poltergeists — A typical case, the trial at Cideville, given at length from the court records — The connection with Witchcraft. Fallacies of obser\'ation and memory — both sources of error illustrated by case from Sumatra, reported by Mr. Grottendieck . 149

CHAPTER VIII Spiritualism

Importance of the subject : an extensive religious movement. Difficulties in the way of investigation and gradual diminution of the manifestations. No positive results obtained by the Society — Vhe investigation of slate- writing: discrepancies and evidential weakness demonstrated by Dr. Hodgson: Mr. Davey's pseudo-seances : their triumphant success: explanation of the methods employed — Inherent weakness of all evidence depending upon continuous observation. The case of Eusapia Palladino still under consideration . .171

Contents vii

Chapter IX Page

Some disapprove the enquiry : most are simply indifferent — Causes of

this indifference. Difficulties of the enquiry — its vindication . . 203

CHAPTER X Phantasms of the Dead

Announcement of death by dream or waking vision : examples from Mr. Peebles, Miss Kitching, Mrs. Haly, Mr. King, Mr. Tandy, Mr. Cameron Grant : indications in each case that the vision may have originated in the thoughts of the survivors — Case of Mrs. Y. — Information furnished in dreams, etc. : examples from Prof. Dolbear, Miss Whiting, Dona Nery, Miss Conley. The question of latent memory — Collective hallucinations, discussion of their origin and significance : examples from Rev. A. Holborn, Mrs. A. and others, the Misses Russell , , 213

Chapter XI

The influence of locality in facilitating telepathy: examples from Mrs. Benecke, Mrs. O'Donnell — Apparitions associated with skeletons ; examples from W. Moir, Mrs. Montague-Crackanthorpe — Apparition haunting country road : Miss Scott and others — Records of a haunted house : Miss Morton — Character of evidence for haunted houses in general 245

CHAPTER XII Messages Received through Trance and Automatism

The study of hypnotism, etc., has revolutionised psychology. Consciousness composite. Consciousness in normal life — in sleep — in hypnotism — in morbid dissociations of personality — in automatism. On pseudo-personalities. Messages received — in reverie, Mr. C. — through motor automatism, Judge Harden — through automatic writing. Prof. Aksakof — in spontaneous trance, Mr. Wilkie — in hypnotic trance. Dr. Vidigal 275

CHAPTER XIII The Case of Mrs. Piper

Record of automatic writings by Mrs. Verrall — Apparent fulfilment of a test in her writing — A message from the dead. Earlier mediums — viii Contents

Addle Maginot and Stainton Moses. The case of Mrs. Piper — Early history — Control by Phinuit — Mr. J. T. Clarke's interview — Record by Sir O. Lodge — The George Pelham control — Striking impersonation — Later communications ....... 299

Chapter XIV

Myers's view of these transcendental faculties, and their relation to the subliminal self — Evidence for Clairvoyance at close quarters: Dick, the pit lad: Alexis Didier: Major Buckley's experiments — Travelling Clairvoyance : examples from Dr. Barcellos, Miss Busk — On Prevision : weakness of dream evidence, dreams of numbers drawn for conscription — Symbolic hallucinations: Mrs. Verrall's instance of the "death-watch" — Pseudo-prophetic dreams: Mrs. McAlpine, Mr. F. Lane — Apparent prediction through automatic writing : Mrs. Verrall — in dream, Colonel Coghill, Prof. Newbold. Conclusion ..... 331

Index 367

The Naturalisation of the Supernatural

THE NATURALISATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL

Chapter I

// has been widely felt that the present is an opportune time for making an organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric^ psychical^ and spiritualistic.

From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present, including observations recently made by scientific men of eminence in various countries, there appears to be, amid much delusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognised hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible value.

The task of examining such residual phenomena has often been undertaken by individual effort, but never hitherto by a scientific society organised on a sufiUciently broad basis.

The above extract from the original prospectus of the Society for Psychical Research, issued in 1882, shows the spirit in which it entered on its investigations, the aim which it set before itself, and the methods by which it was proposed to pursue this aim.

The title which I have chosen for the present book, " The Naturahsation of the Supernatural," describes in popular language the object aimed at. The facts which the Society proposed to investigate stood, and some still stand, as aliens, outside the realm of organised knowledge. It proposed to examine their claim to be admitted within the pale. And it is important to recognise that whether we found ourselves able to accept the credentials of these postulants for recognition, or whether we felt ourselves compelled to reject them as undesirables, the aim which the Society set before itself would equally be fulfilled. In undertaking the enquiry we did not assume to express any opinion beforehand on the value of the evidence to be examined. Whatever the present bias of individual members towards belief or disbelief, it will not, I think, be charged against us, by any one who dispassionately studies the results published in the earlier volumes of the Proceedings and in the book, Phantasms of the Living, in which the case for telepathy was first set before the public, that any private prepossessions were allowed to pervert the methods of the enquiry. To ascertain the facts of the case, at whatever cost to established opinions and prejudices, has been the consistent aim of the Society and its workers. If some of our investigations have resulted in the detection of Imposture, the discovery of unsuspected fallacies of sense and memory, and the general disintegration of some Imposing structures built upon too narrow foundations ; whilst others have revealed the occurrence of phenomena which neither chance nor fraud nor fallacy of sense can plausibly explain, and for which the present scientific synthesis has as yet found no place, it is pertinent to remember that the investigators have been the same, the methods pursued the same, and the object in all cases was simply the discovery of the truth.

There is another point to be made clear. The prospectus just cited speaks of an ** organised and systematic" investigation. It was characteristic of the Society in the first few years that its methods of work were elaborated and the canons of evidence laid down in committee ; and that the greater part of the actual work, whether of experimental investigation or merely of weighing and analysing reports made by contributors, was again done in concert. It may be admitted that the leading investigators were attracted to the enquiry mainly in the hope of finding empirical evidence for the existence of the soul after death. So long as the collection and appraisal of evidence was a joint work, there were no grounds for thinking that the existence of this hope in any way biassed our reception of the evidence or the scope of the conclusions based upon it. But after the preliminary survey which occupied the first few years of the Society's existence, the need for concerted action was no longer so urgently felt. Different portions of the field attracted different workers ; and the results of individual investigations in the outlying regions show marked divergences of opinion. Wherever this divergence exists, I shall endeavour to sum up the evidence as fairly as I can : but it must be remembered that the conclusions set down are my own, for which my colleagues are in no way responsible.

Another misconception of the nature ot our work should perhaps be referred to. It is objected, of recent years, by some scientific critics that the Society for Psychical Research has no justification for its existence. Some of the phenomena which it investigates, say these critics, are subject-matter for the psychologist or the physicist ; the remainder can be left to the police court. The best justification for our work is that it is now possible for such a contention to be put forward. Twenty-five years ago the psychologist and the physicist showed no eagerness to come forward ; and even the interference of the police court was intermittent, and frequently ill advised. The phenomena which we have investigated have proved no doubt to be heterogeneous, but until they were investigated their relations could not be discovered. It is obvious now that some of them can be subsumed under existing branches of science. But, to take an illustration, until some disposition is shown by medical men or professional psychologists to undertake the task of investigating the hallucinations of the sane, it is surely premature to brand the investigators of the Society for Psychical Research as usurpers. A brief survey, however, of what has actually been done will make the position clearer. The phenomena to be investigated by the Society were roughly classified in 1882 under five heads:

1. An examination of the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognised mode of perception.

2. The study of hypnotism, and the forms of so-called mesmeric trance, with its alleged insensibility to pain ; clairvoyance, and other allied phenomena.

3. A critical revision of Reichenbach's researches with certain organisations called ** sensitive,'* and an inquiry whether such organisations possess any power of perception beyond a highly exalted sensibility of the recognised sensory organs.

4. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on strong testimony, regarding apparitions at the moment of death, or otherwise, or regarding disturbances in houses reputed to be haunted.

5. An inquiry into the various physical phenomena commonly called spiritualistic ; with an attempt to discover their causes and general laws.

The inquiry under heading 3 proved inconclusive : but there seems now little room for doubt that the phenomena reported by Reichenbach were due in the main to unconscious suggestion, a fruitful and until recent years insufficiently recognised source of error in all investigations in this obscure region. The inquiries under headings i, 4, and 5 are still proceeding ; and the results so far reached will be set forth in the chapters which follow. But the study of hypnotism (2) has been practically abandoned of recent years by the lay members of the S. P. R., precisely because it has been claimed by medical men, who both by their education and their opportunities are better qualified for its prosecution. But in 1882 no English doctor who cared for his reputation had a good word to say for hypnotism ; and on the continent its chief, almost its only exponent was Liebeault, an obscure practitioner in a small provincial town. The attitude of the scientific world to the subject may be inferred from the fact that in drafting the Society's prospectus it was thought necessary to class hypnotism amongst "debatable phenomena," and to write,a generation after Esdaile and Braid, of the "alleged insensibility to pain " in the " mesmeric " trance. That within the last decade or so the facts of hypnotism have begun to find acceptance with British medical men is no doubt partly due to the experimental work begun by Edmund Gurney and the writings of Frederic Myers, and later to the adoption of hypnotic suggestion in medical practice by Dr. Milne Bramwell, Dr. Lloyd Tuckey, and other members of the Society.

The investigations under headings i, 4, and 5 of the prospectus are, as already said, still proceeding. And in the course of its existence the Society has found many subjects to investigate of a cognate character, though not actually included in the original scheme. A committee of the Society, for instance, of which Dr. Hodgson was the leading member, examined and exposed the pretended marvels of Mme. Blavatsky and the early Theosophists, and Professor Barrett has by his exhaustive researches made out a strong case for the use of the divining-rod in finding underground water. But the most important of the investigations undertaken by the Society is that connected with Thought Transference, or Telepathy, as it has been happily named by the late F. W. H. Myers. The subject is important because of its wide scope ; if the principle of a new mode of communication is once accepted an extensive range of phenomena can be explained. It is important also, as will be shown below, because of its possible implications.

The belief in telepathy has, it should be premised, a distinguished pedigree — a pedigree which it shares with the doctrine of gravitation. It is as old as the days when Chaldean shepherds, watching the stars by night, essayed to read therein the revelation of the Divine Will and to forecast the destiny of human kind. From these nightly vigils came the fruitful conception of an invisible influence radiating from the heavenly bodies — an influence potent for good and evil, yet transcending the limitations of mortal senses. At the hands of the later alchemists — Paracelsus and his successors — • this conception received a remarkable extension. Not the stars only, but all substances in the universe, they taught, radiate influence and receive influence in turn. Especially was this true of man, for man is the true microcosm — '* Man containeth in himself," says Fludd, ** no otherwise his heavens, circles, poles, and stars than the great world doth."

Man, above all other substances, and above all other living things, was perpetually acting upon his fellows by means of this invisible effluence.

Star vibrates light to star, may soul to soul Strike through some finer element of her own.

This natural action and reaction could, the alchemists taught, be strengthened in particular cases by the exercise of will-power, by the practice of medicine, and by magical arts. " By the magic power of the will," Paracelsus writes, ** a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the other side hear what is said on this side . . . the ethereal body of a man may know what another man thinks at a distance of loo miles and more." A later mystic, the Scottish physician Maxwell, asserts that the physician who has learnt to influence his patient's vital spirits can cure that patient's disease at any distance by invoking the aid of the universal spirit.

This conception of an influence which emanates from all things in the universe, but from human bodies in particular, was popularised by that genius among quacks, Franz Antoine Mesmer. Many of Mesmer's followers in France, Germany, and England proved, or thought they proved, that there did indeed radiate such an invisible healing effluence from the mesmerist to his patient. The proof was chiefly exhibited in the power of the mesmerist — or hypnotiser, as we should now call him — to send his subject into the trance or to cause him, by mere force of will, to approach from a distance.

A very curious result of this supposed reciprocal influence of mesmerist and subject was demonstrated in the forties by some of our English mesmerists. The entranced subject, it was shown, would frequently be able to share the sensations of his mesmerist, to taste what he was eating, or to feel what he was feeling. The manifestations of this curious faculty — the existence of which, whatever its explanation, has been confirmed by later experiment — are sometimes extremely ludicrous. In the hypnotic sleep it is as a rule quite easy to make the subject Insensible to pain. I have seen a youth in this condition who suffered gladly the most injurious attacks upon his own person — who would allow his hair to be pulled, his ears pinched, his fingers even to be scorched by lighted matches. But the same youth would the next moment indignantly resent the slightest injury inflicted upon his hypnotiser, who would all the time be standing at the other end of the room.

Professor Barrett was in the present generation the first to reproduce experimental results similar to those recorded by Elliotson and his contemporaries, and his lead has since been followed by many others. But the later experiments have been conducted under much stricter conditions. It is comparatively easy to exclude deliberate fraud: the real difficulty lies in the fact that the hypnotic subject — and experiments of this kind are found to lo Introductory

succeed best with hypnotised persons — is extremely susceptible to suggestion of any kind. And his susceptibility is frequently increased by hypersesthesia of the special senses, especially the sense of hearing. The strictest precautions are necessary, therefore, in all experiments conducted at close quarters, to ensure that no information shall reach him through the look, the gesture, or even the breathing of the bystander. In the cases cited in the next chapter the conditions of the experiment have been briefly indicated, but the reader is in all cases recommended to study the fuller records given in the publications of the Society.

There remains the question as to the nature of the transmission. When I tell a piece of news to a friend, a psychical state in me produces a corresponding psychical state in him. But we recognise that the psychical process proceeds /^r^'/^i-i-?^ with a physical process. The tension in my nerve centres provokes to action my organs of speech, which give rise to aerial waves, which in turn produce a physical change in my friend's ears and so ultimately in his brain. Can any corresponding chain of physical causation be traced when the news is conveyed telepathically ? So far as the experiments at close quarters are concerned, when the two parties are separated by a few feet or yards only, there is no difficulty in conceiving that the entire process may be susceptible of expression in physical terms. V/e have at either end of the

Introductory ii

chain a physical event — the changes in the cerebral tissues which are presumed to correspond to every act of thought or sensation. And it is not without interest to note in this connection that the arrangement of some of the nerve cells in the brain bears a superficial resemblance to the arrangement of the particles in the "coherer" used for the reception of the message in wireless telegraphy. Again,

Rontgen has familiarised us [says Sir William Crookes] with an order of vibrations of extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves with which we have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the distances between the centres of the atoms of which the material universe is built up: and there is no reason to suppose that we have here reached the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct on individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of the internal and external movements of the atoms themselves.*

No such connection between thinking brains has been proved of course ; but we have here a mechanism apparently sufficient for the purpose : sufficient at any rate to meet the objection urged by some that the establishment of telepathy would dislocate our entire conception of the physical universe. Nor does the fact that only certain persons, apparently, are affected by the telepathic impulse present any serious difficulty. For the brain of both agent and

* Presidential address to the British Association, Sept., 1898.

percipient may conceivably, on the analogy of wireless telegraphy, be set to transmit and receive only vibrations of a certain amplitude. A more formidable objection is found in the action of the force at a distance. For successful experiment, it seems necessary, in most cases, that the two parties should be in the same room. In a few experimental cases, however, as we shall see, the distance over which the transmission must be presumed to have operated extends to twenty miles or more. And in some of the best evidenced cases of spontaneous apparitions the agent and percipient were half the world apart.^ If, however, the transmission is effected by ethereal vibrations, the force diminishing, as in the case of other physical energies, in the ratio of the square of the distance, it is difficult to conceive how an impulse which in some of our experiments can barely produce its effect at a distance of a few yards, should even under the most favourable circumstances, when the disturbance is presumably of a much more massive character, prove sufficiently intense to bridge a gulf of thousands of miles. Sir W. Crookes hazards the suggestion that " intense thought concentrated towards a sensitive with whom the thinker is in close sympathy may induce a telepathic chain of brain waves along which the message of thought can go straight to its goal without loss of energy due to distance."" But he

* See,<r. ^., case No. 37 where the agent was in Dublin and the percipient in Tasmania.

indicates that the suggestion is almost a forlorn hope by asking further — ** Is it inconceivable that our mundane ideas of space and distance may be superseded in these subtile regions of unsubstantial thought where * near ' and * far * may lose their usual meaning ? " The difficulty is indeed so great as to induce some thinkers to suggest that the psychical process may be without a physical parallel — that the connection between the two psychical states may conceivably be found in the psychical world alone.^

But after all such a conclusion rests entirely upon a negation — our present inability to conceive of an explanation. And that inability the progress of scientific research may at any time remove, as has happened again and again in the past in the case of similar problems which at one time seemed equally secure against explanation in physical terms. The phenomena of animal life were not so very long ago held to stand outside the physical world : the very substances of which our tissues are composed were supposed to owe some of their physical properties to a principle of vitality. But chemists can now build up, out of the bricks and mortar of the dead world, many of these once mysterious organic compounds. They have not yet, it is true, built up

* This was, so far as I can gather, the view held by Mr. Myers (see Human Personality, especially vol. i., p. 8, " this direct and supersensuous communion of mind with mind "). See also Report of the Committee on the Census of Hallucinations {Proceedings^ vol. x., p. 27) and the Presidential address to the Society by Mr. A. J. Balfour, Proceedings^ vol. x., p. 9-11.

the cathedral of Hfe, even in the humblest protozoon ; but all architects must have time to learn their trade. Again, the activities of man, especially those activities which are accompanied by consciousness and will, were also for long thought to be outside the physical world. But the case is so far altered that the burden of proof is now shifted to the other side. The philosopher who claims to interpolate a psychical link in the chain of physical processes which connects nerve-stimulus with action has to meet the challenge of the physiologist. We have grounds for hoping, then, that, if we are content to wait, the difficulties in the way of a physical explanation of telepathy may ultimately diminish. And meanwhile the hypothesis of telepathy is in no worse case than is, or was until recently,^ the hypothesis of gravitation. The energy which causes weight conforms to the law of the inverse square ; but the only physical explanations of its action which have been suggested are so cumbrous and involve such large assumptions as to be little more than curiosities of speculation. On the other hand, we have little difficulty in conceiving of a mechanism by which telepathy could operate ; the difficulty is to account for the energy not diminishing more rapidly as the distance increases. But, after all, is it inconceivable that the energy, when it is liberated under the most favourable cir-

' Possibly the recent discovery that atoms are not atomic, and that their constituent parts may, under certain circumstances, move freely through space, may facilitate the acceptance of a corpuscular theory of gravitation.

cumstances, may suffice to produce the effects reported in the spontaneous cases referred to ?

At any rate we can but wait until the further progress of research, not necessarily in this field alone, may throw some light upon the problem.

Chapter II

NUMEROUS experiments in the transmission of ideas and sensations have been carried on during the twenty-five years which have elapsed from the foundation of the Society for Psychical Research, by committees of the Society, by individual members or groups of members, and by various Continental students of the subject. Records of many of them will be found scattered through the Society's Proceedings and Journals. By far the most important of these investigations, however, are those conducted at Brighton by the late Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, and later by Mrs. Sidgwick and Miss Alice Johnson, assisted by Mr. G. A. Smith, in the years 1 889-1 891. The percipients were several youths, aged about twenty to twenty-five, and later a young woman employed in a shop.

The experiments were carried on whilst the percipients were in the hypnotic sleep, the hypnotiser and agent being Mr. G. A. Smith. For a full record of the experiments, details of the precautions taken, and an analysis of the answers given, the reader is referred to the articles in Proceedings, vols. vi. and viii. It is impossible here to do

x6 more than briefly summarise the conditions and the resuks.

The main object of the experiments was to determine the fact of the transmission of ideas and sensations by other than the ordinary sensory channels ; and for this purpose a form of experiment was chosen which made it possible effectually to eliminate the operation of chance coincidence as an explanation of the results. The effectiveness of the precautions taken to prevent information passing between agent and percipient by normal means will be discussed later. In the main series of experiments a set of small wooden counters, used in a game called Lotto, were employed. The counters, eighty-one in number, bore the numbers from 10 to 90 inclusive, stamped in raised letters on their face. After the subject had been hypnotised, one of the counters was drawn at random from a bag, and handed to Mr. Smith inside a small box, in such a position that it was impossible for the subject, even if his eyes had been open, which was generally not the case, to see it. Mr. Smith — who in the course of the long series of experiments occupied various positions with relation to the subject, sometimes in front, sometimes behind or at the side ^ — would look intently at the number, and the percipient would state his impression. The total number of trials under these conditions with two percipients, young men named P.

* The position in each experiment is indicated in the published report.

and T., was 617. The correct number was given in 113 cases, the digits being given, however, in reverse order in 14 out of the 113 cases.^ If the coincidences were due to chance alone the most probable number would have been 8. That is, it is proved beyond all possibility of doubt that in this particular series of experiments the success attained was due to some definite and uniform cause. In other words, if it can be conclusively shown that the percipient could not have obtained knowledge of the numbers by the ordinary processes of sensation, due allowance being made for the hypersesthesia, especially of hearing, frequently met with in hypnotised subjects, the results point unmistakably to the existence of some hitherto unrecognised mode of communication. It is this hypothetical mode of communication which has been provisionally named Telepathy or Thought Transference.