After death--what?

Front matter

■H

AFTER DEMH-WMT?

CESARE LOMBR©S©

Preface

When, at the close of a career — richer in fierce logomachy and struggle than in victory

— in which I have figured as a champion of the new trend of human thought in psychiatry and criminal anthropology, I began investigations into the phenomena of spiritism and afterwards determined to publish a book on the subject, my nearest friends rose against me on every side, crying, " You will ruin an honorable reputation,

— a career in which, after so many contests, you had finally reached the goal ; and all for a theory which the whole world not only repudiates, but, worse still, thinks to be ridiculous. "

But all this talk did not make me hesitate for a single moment. I thought it my predestined end and way and my duty to crown a life passed in the struggle for great ideas by entering the lists for this desperate cause, the most hotly contested and perhaps most persistently mocked at idea of the times. It seemed to me a duty that, up to the very last of the few days now remaining to me, I should unflinchingly stand my ground in the very thick of the fight, where rise the most menacing obstructions and where throng the most infuriated foes.

vi PREFACE

And one cannot in conscience blame these opponents, because spiritistic phenomena, as commonly conceived, seem designed to break down that grand idea of monism which is one of the most precious fruits of our culture, retrieved by so sore a conflict from the clutches of superstition and prejudice; and because, furthermore, when contrasted with the precision of experimental phenomena — always accurately tallying with each other in time and space — spiritistic observations and experiments, so frequently varying with different mediums, according to the time of day and according to the mental state of the participants in the seance, notwithstanding their frequent repetition and reinforcement by accurate mechanical instruments, and however carefully sifted out by the most severely scientific experimenters (one need only name such men as Crookes, Richet, Lodge, James, Hyslop), are always wrapped in a dim atmosphere of uncertainty and show a tinge of mediaeval science. But note this well, that, however doubtful each separate case may appear, in the ensemble they form such a compact web of proof as wholly to baffle the scalpel of doubt.

In psychical matters we are very far from having attained scientific certainty. But the spiritistic hypothesis seems to me like a continent incompletely submerged by the ocean, in which are visible in the distance broad islands

PREFACE vii

raised above the general level, and which only in the vision of the scientist are seen to coalesce in one immense and compact body of land, while the shallow mob laughs at the seemingly audacious hypothesis of the geographer.

Cesare Lombroso.

Turin, October 29, 1908.

I

ERRATA

Page 8, 1. 29, for Hedenhain read Heidenhain.

Page 63, 1. 14, for "homo invisibile" read "invisible man."

Page 66, 1. 6, for Galeotto read Galeotti.

Pages 72, 120, 332, for Fairland read Fairlamb.

Page 178, 1. 11, for Berret read Barrett.

Page 219, I. 19, for Bee read Dee.

Page 221, read Pelham was Pellew [not Robinson].

Page 244, 1. 29, for " Piddington " read Piddington.

Page 250, 11. 9, 10, read Hudson's £aw of Psychic Phenomena.

Page 250, 11. 29, 30, for Phys. read Psych. Research.

Page 311, 1. 21, for Dialect read Dialectical.

Page 325, 1. 4, for the Earth read India.

Page 332, 1. 11, for Vezzano read Venzano.

Page 337, 1. 30, for Archives read Annates.

Contents

Chapter Page

I Hypnotic Phenomena i

II Experiments with Eusapia 39

Chapter I

If ever there was an individual in the world opposed to spiritism by virtue of scientific education, and, I may say, by instinct, I was that person. I had made it the indefatigable pursuit of a lifetime to defend the thesis that every force is a property of matter and the soul an emanation of the brain, and for years and years had laughed at the idea of centre-tables and chairs having souls !

But if I have always had a passionate devotion to my own special science, my own flag, I have had a still more ardent love of the truth, the verification of the fact.

Now, although I had such an aversion to Spiritualism that for years I refused even to be present at a test seance, I was fated to be a witness, in 1882, as a neuropathologist, of certain very singular psychic phenomena for which no scientific explanation whatever has been found, except that they occurred in hysteric or hypnotized individuals.

TRANSPOSITION OF THE SENSES

I refer to the case of a certain C. S., the fourteen-year-old daughter of one of the most active and intelligent men in all Italy. The girl suffered from no ailment except sciatica. Her mother was healthy, intelligent, and robust. Her two brothers at about the age of puberty had an extraordinary increase of stature, accompanied by a certain degree of pulmonary trouble. The girl also, — who was of pleasing aspect, height four feet four and one-half inches, the pupil of the eye somewhat " midriatic," sense of touch normal, and sensitiveness to pain and to colors normal, — when near the age of puberty, rapidly increased in stature to the amount of six inches, and, at the first hints of the menstrual function, experienced severe hysterical troubles connected with the stomach (vomitings, dyspepsia), so' that during one month she could swallow only solid food, and in another only liquids; the third month hysterical convulsions were the symptoms, — a state of hyperesthesia so marked that the patient believed a wire placed on her hand to be as heavy as a bar of iron. Another month blindness developed, with hysterogenic points on the little finger and on the rectum, which, when touched, exhibited not only convulsive movements, but motor paresis in the legs, with exaggerated spastic reflex movements, contractions, and muscular energy increased to such a degree that the pressure of the hand on the dynamometer caused a rise from 32 kilograms to 47.

At this point extraordinary phenomena manifested themselves; that is to say, somnambulism appeared, during which the girl showed singular activity in domestic labor and great affection for her parents and unusual aptitude for music. Later a change in her character appeared, — a virile audacity and immorality. But the most extraordinary circumstance was that while she had lost the power of vision with her eyes, as a compensation she saw with the same degree of acuteness (7 in the scale of Jaeger) at the point of the nose and the left lobe of the ear. In this way she read a letter which had just come to me from the post-office, although I had blindfolded her eyes, and was able to distinguish the figures on a dynamometer. Curious, also, was the new mimicry with which she reacted to the stimuli brought to bear on what we will call improvised and transposed eyes. For instance, when I approached a finger to her ear or to her nose, or made as if I were going to touch it, or, better still, when I caused a ray of light to flash upon it from a distance with a lens, were it only for the merest fraction of a second, she was keenly sensitive to this and irritated by it. " You want to blind me ! " she cried, her face making a sudden movement like one who is menaced. Then, with an instinctive simulation entirely new, as the phenomenon itself was new, she lifted her forearm to protect the lobe of the ear and the point of the nose, and remained thus for ten or twelve minutes.

Her sense of smell was also transposed; for ammonia or asafcetida, when thrust under her nose, did not excite the slightest reaction, while, on the other hand, a substance possessing the merest trace of odor, if held under the chin, made a vivid impression on it and excited a quite special simulation (niimica). Thus, if the odor was pleasing, she smiled, winked her eyes, and breathed more rapidly; if it was distasteful, she quickly put her hands up to that part of the chin that had become the seat of the sensation and rapidly shook her head.

Later the sense of smell became transferred to the back of the foot; and then, when any odor displeased her, she would thrust her legs to right and to left, at the same time writhing her whole body; when an odor pleased her, she would remain motionless, smiling and breathing quickly.

Next appeared phenomena of prediction and clairvoyance, for she foresaw, with what I would call mathematical exactness, and sometimes fifteen or sixteen days previously, the day of her cataleptic fits, — the hour in which they were to occur and the particular metal to be used in checking them. Thus, on the 15th of June she predicted that on July 2 she would be delirious and would then have seven cataleptic fits that would be healed with gold; on the 25th of July pharyngismus and pains in her limbs; on July 6 cataleptic fits at the first drop of water that should be sprinkled on her, and a state of calm thereafter up to the 12th, when she would be taken with a fit at six o'clock in the morning, with a tendency to bite and tear things, which would not be quieted but by a half-teaspoonful of quinine and three drops of ether. All took place precisely as she had predicted. On the 14th she predicted that the four fits to come on the 15th would be cured with lead; and, to tell the truth, this was found useful, but gold helped still more. If there was any mistake made here, it was not in the selection of gold (which she had foretold the use of with precision) nor in the number of the fits. She later predicted things that were to happen to her father and brother, and two years afterward they were verified. She clairvoyantly saw from her sick-bed her brother in the coulisses of a theatre (as in fact he was), distant more than half a mile from the house.

Nor are such phenomena as these at all isolated. As early as 1808 Petetin cited the cases of eight cataleptic women in whom the external senses had been transferred to the epigastric region and into the fingers of the hand and the toes of the feet (Electricite Animate, Lyons, 1808).

In 1840 Carmagnola, in the Giornale delV Accademia di Medicina, describes a case quite analogous to ours. It concerned a girl fourteen years old, in whom, as in the other case mentioned, the menstrual function had begun only a few months previous, and who was troubled with convulsive coughing fits, with headaches, swoonings, sobbings when she drank, fits of dyspnoea, mimetic convulsions during which she would sing, sleeping spells that lasted for three days, and true fits of somnambulism during which she saw distinctly with the hand, selected ribbons, identified colors, and read even in the dark.

Wishing to look at herself in the mirror, she put her hands before it, and, when she saw nothing there but these, lowered them in order to see her face. Not succeeding in this, she grew enraged, and, stamping on the floor, ran away. The first act (lowering the hands) was spontaneous, instinctive, and the exact counterpart of the action of the " C. S." mentioned above, who would cover up the lobe of the ear when it was irritated by the finger of the experimenter or by an unexpected ray of light, — a phenomenon in itself sufficient to exclude simulation. That my readers may no longer claim that these are matters of recent discovery, let them note that in this case, as in that of Petetin, the application of gold or of silver always calmed the frenzies of the girl and made her lighthearted again, — so much so that during her fits she would run eagerly about hunting for those metals. One day she touched bronze, believing it to be gold; but, although her delusion was complete, she got no comfort. Silks and furred things deprived her of all strength. Little by little she improved, although she relapsed on the occasion of every menstruation.

Despine tells us of a certain Estella of Neuchatel, eleven years old, who was afflicted with paresis as the result of an accidental wound in the back (trauma), but had improved by the use of the baths of Aix, and after magnetic treatment was found to have suffered transposition of the sense of hearing to various parts of the body, — the hand, the elbow, the shoulder, and (during her lethargic crisis) the epigastrium, and at the same time acquired greater skill in swimming and horseback riding. The application of gold produced extraordinary energy.

Frank (Praxeos Medicce, Univ. Torino, 1821) publishes an account of a person named Baerkmann in whom the sense of hearing was transposed to the epigastrium, the frontal bone, or the occiput.

Dr. Augonova studied at Carmagnola, in 1840, a certain G. L., a girl fourteen years old, who had become dyspeptic and amenorrhceic as the consequence of a fit of displeasure. During somnambulistic states, toward the middle of the night, she would identify pieces of money placed before the nape of the neck and distinguished odors by the back of her hands. Later, at the end of April, sight and hearing got themselves transposed to the epigastric region, so that with her eyes bandaged she could read from a book held a few steps away.

The same doctor records his observations of a woman (Piovano), aged twenty- two, afflicted with hysterical catalepsy and epileptic fits, who in the artificial somnambulistic condition could see now with the nape of the neck and now with the epigastrium, and who heard with the feet. She claimed that she saw in her own body thirtythree worms, which after the lapse of a certain time she actually voided!

And then the phenomenon is to be correlated and joined with what was well enough known at the time, but was not noticed, respecting ordinary somnambulists who see very well either with the eyes wide open, but insensible, or with the eyelids shut, or else the head thrown back and the eyes lifted up as in the case of persons asleep. Evidently they see with some other part of the body than the eye. Preyer and Berger, who in their time observed this class of facts, just as Hedenhain does to-day, believe they interpret them truly on the hypothesis of greater tactual sensitiveness and more acute visual power. It is true that these are frequently noted in such cases; but supposing that this may explain at the utmost the visual power in a darker room (a circumstance which does not apply in the cases just noted), still it cannot explain the transposition in the case just mentioned, in which the tactile sensitiveness is observed to be absolutely identical both before and after as well as during the attack, and vision shows the same degree of acuteness in the two states or stages. In the case just cited visual perception resides in two points of the skin. But the sense of touch is the lowest, and does not suffice, at any rate, to explain the reading of a manuscript.

If more modern authors did not bestow any attention on cases like these, and Hasse could call them " illusions/' it is because, in obedience to a tendency which is praiseworthy even when excessive, they were willing to admit only those facts which could be scientifically explained. It was for this reason that scientists were so cautious in believing in the performances of the magnet, and many of the results that the magnetizers empirically obtained, — catalepsy, hypnosis, hyperesthesia, — matters which are now, up to a certain point, accurately accounted for (Heidenhain). The truth is that it is absolutely impossible for us to give a scientific interpretation of these facts, — facts which bring us to the io AFTER DEATH — WHAT?

vestibule of that world which is properly spoken of as being still occult because unexplained. 1

Still, the mysteries of clairvoyance may in part be explained by a kind of auto-suggestion, by that sharp instinct of one's own condition that enables the dying person to specify the last hour of his life. Yet there may be more in it than that: perhaps the regular unfolding of the phenomena of one's own nervous illness can be better observed, since, during the extraordinary excitement of the somnambulistic ecstasy, we acquire a deeper consciousness of our organism, in the living interlocked wheel-work of whose states, or conditions, there are registered potentially (in the germ) the varied succession of morbid phenomena.

Here belongs an act noted for the first time by our countryman Salvioli (in my Archivio di Psichiatria e Science Penali, vol. ii. p. 415), — namely, that in somnambulism the flow of blood to the brain is greater than in the waking hours, and greater consequently the activity of the psyche, in the same way that there is an increase in the muscular excitability. Indeed, the invalid girl I referred to some pages back, who acquired in the somnambulistic state an increase of energy of twelve kilograms registered on the dynamometer, yet affirmed to me that in that state she

1 Further on, in Chapter X, I shall make some statements concerning the double which will serve as a provisional explanation.

HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA II

was unable to possess her soul in quiet, but must be ever grinding out new ideas.

But the foregoing conclusion no longer serves when clairvoyance attains such a pitch of power as to predict what would happen to a father and brothers two years after the time of the prediction, nor can it explain to us scientifically the transposition of the senses.

The sole fact that emerges here in a marked manner is that the phenomena take place in hysterical subjects and during severe hysterical attacks.

TRANSMISSION OF THOUGHT (SUGGESTION)

A similar state of things has been noted in the cases (for the most part unstudied by science) of suggestion, or the transmission of thought from one mind to another. Such are the circumstances communicated to me by Grimaldi and Ardu, in the case of a certain E. B., of Nocera, a young man twenty years old, who became subject to hysteria in consequence of thwarted love at the age of fifteen. This lad had the cranium dolicocephalic (76), face extraordinarily asymmetric, with a feminine look; acuteness of vision; sense of touch normal, though keener on the left; sensitive to all the metals, and especially to copper and gold, which calm the palpitations of his heart and the pain of the muscles (myalgia). Being, as he is, a person

AFTER DEATH — WHAT?

of exaggerated sympathies and antipathies, of timidity so extreme as to fear the shadow in a dark corner, highly changeable and capricious in his disposition, influenced by suggestion to such an extent as to obey the command not to o

Fig. i.

Fig. 2.

o

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5. Fig. 6.

feel the keenest pains inflicted on him with a needle and a red-hot iron, he also exhibits the phenomena of transposed senses. He could divine a word or a number in another's mind and reproduce figures drawn behind his back at a certain distance while his eyes were blindfolded by a thick bandage passing around the head over the ears.

If a rhomb is drawn for him (Fig. 1), he reproduces it roughly (Fig. 2) and hesitatingly, but succeeds much better with the circle (Figs. 3,4).

Fig. 8.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 9.

Considerable difficulty is encountered in the reproduction of a triangle (Figs. 5, 6). After a longer meditation or reflection than in the first case, he draws two sides. The third, that of the base, is drawn with visible uncertainty. Instead of being a right line, it is broken in zigzag fashion.

Scarcely is this experiment finished, when the subject, whose face is a little inflamed, complains of a severe pain in his head. We remove the

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AFTER DEATH — WHAT?

bandage and allow him to rest for a little while. After ten minutes the experiments are resumed.

Fig. ii.

In executing the figure of a polygon (which might also be deemed the profile of a hut), he finds no difficulty whatever (Figs. 7, 8). On the other hand, an inverted cone requires a first and a second reproduction (Figs. 9, 10).

The symptoms of exhaustion suddenly appear, — redness of the face and torpor in the movements of the body. Hence two experiments are unsuccessful.

He next reproduces the head of a man (Figs. 11, 12), adding ears, however, and the figure of a bird (Figs. 15, 16), with the addition of feathers, but does not succeed in reproducing a small tree (Figs. 13, 14), although he gives a confused idea of it in his tracings of a woman's head.

We suggest in writing the word Margherita, and it is reproduced, as also the words Andrea, etc. (Figs. 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21). His first attempt to reproduce Margherita resulted in Maria. But on the second attempt he gets it right (Margherita).

The suggestioner wrote Andrea (Fig. 17), reproduced as in Fig. 18, in a style much like that of a boy copying an example.

The suggestioner next wrote the words Amore and Maria, erasing the first by a line drawn through it. This was reproduced as in the drawings shown in Figs. 20 and 21.

After the subject is tired, he reproduces nothing more. When mentally bid to open an inkstand or a door, he succeeds almost without effort, although he is blindfolded; but the continuation of the trials puts him into somnambulistic and cataleptic states. Pressure on the temples causes him to pass into the somnambulistic state, from which he wakens when bidden.

In the series of elaborate movements inspired by mental suggestion we found errors which might have led us to believe we had met with so

C^/oi o&(A^oe?c,

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CXA^^ou many failures. On the contrary, they fitted with admirable clearness into the list of graphic errors just described.

The idea was once conveyed to him by suggestion that he open the door of the room. He ran to open it, and up to this point the experiment was successful; but in place of stopping there he called in a loud voice for the servant. The phenomena must positively be classified as pertaining to the hysteric and hypnotic condition of the individual.

These evident proofs of the transmission of thought by neurotics stimulated us to undertake similar experiments ! on a large scale. Out of twenty subjects studied in whom transmission of thought was successful (in that they were able to divine the name of a paper, a number, etc.), twelve were neuropathies and were the ones who guessed most rapidly and with the greater precision.

They succeeded better if they were able to put themselves into the condition of mono-ideism, bandaging their eyes and stopping their ears. In three cases immediate contact facilitated the reading; or, rather, it was the indispensable condition thereof. In three others it had no influence whatever. In one instance emotion was of assistance, the transmitter being a lady who was loved by the subject. Sometimes the human figure, as contrasted with lines and flowers, was better transmitted, with a difference in its favor of ten per cent. And this is comprehensible, because living figures are more energetically perceived; and when one does not feel deeply he cannot transmit thought.

1 Studies in Hypnotism, 1882. 2

In some cases the transmission is facilitated by the use of alcoholic drinks or of coffee, which stimulate the nervous centres.

But these observations of mine were a very small affair compared with the hundreds and thousands of similar ones (controlled more minutely in details) which were made in England and France.

In England the celebrated Society for Psychical Research instituted very delicate experiments upon individuals in the sleeping state and the waking state, causing them to draw on a blackboard a figure which another person on another floor or in another and distant environment sketched on a sheet of paper, — such as bits of complicated three-angled things, buildings, strange names (for example, " chevalon "). Now, the results of these experiments were very happy. Successful were one in every 51 among those hypnotized by suggestion, and one in every 43 among the non-hypnotized.

Other more recent experiments of this English commission (the report of which already fills a volume) were conducted in the presence of Dr. Guthrie and Professor Herdmann.

The subject, or medium, in this case is Miss Relph, who remains seated while the objects selected are hidden behind a curtain and behind her back. The experiments take place without contact.

Object Thought

Red paper cut in the shape of little egg-holders with a white egg inside.

Blue paper in the form of a soup-plate.

Red paper cut in the form

of a vase.

A sword.

A red circle.

Silver paper cut in the

shape of a tile-kiln.

A yellow rectangle.

A louis d'or.

Three of hearts (card).

Five of clubs.

Eight of diamonds.

A card with two red crosses.

Object Divined

Something red, longer than it is wide.

Is it azure colored ? Wider on top than in the middle; still wider like a soup-plate.

Is it red? I see only the color.

Something that shines ; silver or steel; long and slender.

Is it red? It is round.

It is of shining silver, like a coffee-pot; a tile-kiln.

Is it yellow? Longer than wide.

It is shining yellow, of gold; it is round.

It is a card with two red dots. A three of hearts or something similar.

It is another card with five black points.

It is a card with many red points; a ten.

It is something yellow. I do not see well. It is a card with red dots.

No one could believe that the laws of probability would permit even a distant approximation to results like these. For mark well that even the errors, or rather semi-errors, represent a state of imperfect transmission, though assuredly bearing but a small proportion to the bulk of the case.

But more important results are obtained from experiments made by the comparative method with subjects in a state of waking or of hypnotism. Richet, after having assured himself that the probability of drawing any particular given card from the 52 playing-cards in a pack is 428 out of a total of 1833 trials, made the same experiments with cards held in the hand of a friend, the selection of each card to be that which the friend fixed on in his mind. He obtained the figure 510, — a gain of 52 over the probable figure. In this case the degree of probability did not exceed y^.

Experimenting with 218 photographs and likenesses, while the probable figure would have been 42, he obtained 67.

In a third series the number of the cards (to be exact) was ff . In this series, for eight times in succession, the card turned up marked precisely the same, while the probability of obtaining eight identical cards in succession is |f, which

Taking up suggestion, the members of the London Society for Psychical Research obtained 9 successes out of 14 experiments at the first trial, and 5 successes out of 5 at the second. That is to say, while in the first experiment the figure of probability was 0.25, the true figure was 9.

In other similar experiments by Stewart X1 was obtained. 1 If the case had been that of playing-cards, the number of the cards indicated would have had to be 22 and not 45. Operating upon individuals subject to hysteria, but not hypnotized, Ochorowitz obtained 13 successes out of 31, the task being in these cases to divine a letter, a number, a name (such as Maria), or a taste.

By the employment of suggestion with hypnotized persons he afterwards got 15 successes out of 20, whereas, according to the estimate of the probabilities, he would not have been able to get more than 1 success in 24.*

From all this Richet would make the following deductions:

First. The thought of an individual is transmitted, without the aid of outward tokens, to an individual near him.

Second. This mental transmission of the thought affects the second of the individuals with varying degrees of intensity.

These transmissions of thought become still more extraordinary when they are perceived to take place at a distance, and at distances sometimes enormous. Furthermore, cases of this kind would be seen to be still more frequent if our scepticism did not hinder us from collecting and recording them with scientific accuracy.

1 Thought Reading, 1883. 2 La Suggestion, 1890.

Thus a few years ago (in 1887) the report ran that a little Novarese girl had had a mental perception of the illness of her mother, who was at Settimo-Torinese. A few days later De Vesme, by direction of the Italian Psychological Society, verified the fact that at half-past twelve o'clock on the 17th of February, 1887, Anna Voretto, while busied about her affairs, was suddenly taken ill and died on the next day. At nine o'clock p. m. of the 17th the sister of the woman received a telegram telling her to come with the child (Stella), daughter of the dying woman. Now seven witnesses depose to the fact that the child had showed herself highly agitated ever since one o'clock of the 17th, asking to go to her mother because she was ill. The next day, on the train for Novara, the child cried out that mamma was dead.