Adventurings in the Psychical Part 13

Undoubtedly, therefore, it is proper to a.s.sume that when, in the instances cited at the beginning of this chapter, Professor Lombroso, sitting with Eusapia Paladino, saw a huge wardrobe advance to attack him; and when Lords Crawford and Dunraven saw the medium Home floating through the air, hallucination rather than "spirit action" is the correct explanation. At all events, in view of the known fallibility of the human senses; the manifold opportunities for fraud open to mediums; and the fact that, with the single exception of Home, every medium subjected to scientific investigation has been caught practising fraud at one time or another, it seems extremely rash to accept as genuine any of the phenomena of physical mediumship.

Still, it would be incorrect to say that the time devoted by psychical researchers to the investigation of these phenomena has been time wasted. They have performed a necessary police duty for society, and their labors, as we shall see, have been productive of psychological discoveries of great practical importance.

CHAPTER VI

THE SUBCONSCIOUS

When the Society for Psychical Research was founded, in 1882, its purpose was not only to obtain, if possible, scientifically acceptable proof of the survival of human personality after bodily death, but also to study the nature of personality in its mundane aspects, with a view to securing greater insight into the powers and possibilities of man here on earth.

In this latter quest it has been eminently successful, and thanks to its labors our knowledge of ourselves has been increased a thousandfold.

As has been shown, phenomena hitherto regarded as mysterious and "supernatural"--such as apparitions, clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, etc.--have been definitely explained on a purely naturalistic basis; and, as was said at the close of the last chapter, in addition to naturalizing the supernatural, psychical researchers have made, or have a.s.sisted in making, discoveries of great practical utility, and having a profound bearing on affairs of everyday life.

Among these, none is of more importance than the discovery of the "subconscious." This term, which was almost unheard of a few years ago, is nowadays used by psychologists in a variety of ways, but it may be broadly defined as including an extensive range of mental processes and phenomena that occur beneath the surface of our ordinary consciousness.

Subconscious mental action, in fact, has a constant, unceasing part in our lives. It is in evidence in such commonplace acts as walking, talking, writing, playing the piano, handling a tool, a tennis racket, or a baseball bat.

There was a time, in the experience of all of us, when we could do none of these things, but had to learn them by conscious effort. Little by little, as we acquired more skill, the element of consciousness became less and less, until at last we could execute them in a seemingly automatic manner, as in the fashion of the piano player described by Miss Cobbe:

"Two different lines of hieroglyphics have to be read at once, and the right hand has to be guided to attend to one of them, the left to the other. All the fingers have the work a.s.signed as quickly as they can move. The mind, or something which does duty as mind, interprets scores of A sharps, and B flats, and C naturals into black ivory keys and white ones, crotchets, and quavers, and demi-quavers, rests, and all the mysteries of music. The feet are not idle, but have something to do with the pedals. And all this time the performer, the _conscious_ performer, is in a seventh heaven of artistic rapture at the results of all this tremendous business, or perchance lost in a flirtation with the individual who turns the leaves of the music book, and is justly persuaded she is giving him the whole of her soul."

The subconscious is thus a sort of reservoir in which are stored up, available for future use, the things learned through education and experience; and it also has a dynamic power that enables it to supplement, economize, and enlarge the operations of the upper consciousness. Ordinarily we fail to appreciate what we owe to this hidden servitor, for the reason that its workings are so smooth, so un.o.btrusive, as to pa.s.s quite unnoticed. Yet abundant evidence has been secured to demonstrate not simply the fact of its existence, but the more significant fact that it is never at rest, but is perpetually laboring in our behalf.

Even when our consciousness is for the moment completely in abeyance--as when we are asleep--the subconscious continues operant. Many of my readers have doubtless had the experience of vainly endeavoring for hours, perhaps for days, to solve some important problem, and then awaking one morning with a luminously clear idea of its correct solution. While they slept, their subconsciousness had been at work disentangling the threads of their conscious reasoning, stripping away and discarding unessentials, and finally presenting them with, so to speak, a ready-made understanding of that which had previously been so perplexing to them.

In all such cases the action of the subconscious is more vividly evident when, as often happens, the desired solution is gained during sleep itself, in the form of a dream. An excellent example is found in an episode narrated by a business man, who says:

"I had been bothered since September with an error in my cash account for that month, and, despite many hours' examination, it defied all my efforts, and I almost gave it up as hopeless. It had been the subject of my waking thoughts for many nights, and had occupied a large portion of my leisure hours. Matters remained thus unsettled until the eleventh of December. On this night I had not, to my knowledge, once thought of the subject, but I had not been long in bed and asleep, when my brain was as busy with the books as though I had been at my desk.

"The cash book, banker's pa.s.s books, etc., etc., appeared before me; and, without any apparent trouble, I almost immediately discovered the cause of the mistakes, which had arisen out of a complicated cross entry. I perfectly recollect having taken a slip of paper in my dream, and made such a memorandum as would enable me to correct the error at some leisure time; and, having done this, that the whole of the circ.u.mstances had pa.s.sed from my mind.

"When I awoke in the morning I had not the slightest recollection of my dream, nor did it once occur to me throughout the day, although I had the very books before me on which I had apparently been engaged in my sleep. When I returned home in the afternoon, as I did early, for the purpose of dressing, and proceeded to shave, I took up a piece of paper from my dressing table to wipe my razor, and you may imagine my surprise at finding thereon the very memorandum I fancied I had made during the previous night. The effect on me was such that I returned to our office and turned to the cash book, when I found that I had really, while asleep, detected the error which I could not detect in my waking hours, and had actually jotted it down at the time.

"I have no recollection whatever as to where I obtained the paper and pencil with which I made the memorandum. It certainly must have been written in the dark, and in my bedroom, as I found both paper and pencil there the following afternoon. The pencil was not one which I am in the habit of carrying, and my impression is that I must either have found it in the room, or gone down-stairs for it."[32]

[32] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. viii, pp. 394-395.

Ill.u.s.trative of the same subconscious mechanism, and doubly interesting because of the light it throws on the true nature of many dreams frequently regarded as supernatural, is a singular experience that once befell Professor H. V. Hilprecht, the well-known archaeologist of the University of Pennsylvania.

At the time, Professor Hilprecht was trying to decipher the inscriptions on two small fragments of agate from the temple of Bel in ancient Babylonia, and believed by him to be portions of the finger rings of some wealthy Babylonian. He had already published a preliminary report on the collection of which they formed a part, but, despite weeks of earnest effort, had utterly failed to get at the meaning of the words inscribed on them.

One Sat.u.r.day night, after working on the fragments until nearly twelve o'clock without any satisfactory result, he went to bed weary and exhausted, and was soon in a deep sleep. He then dreamed that he was transported to the temple of Bel, where a venerable priest, whose dress showed that he belonged to a pre-Christian epoch, conducted him into the treasure chamber of the temple. It was a small, low room, without windows, and contained a large wooden chest, around which were scattered pieces of agate and other valuable stones. While Professor Hilprecht stood looking at these, the priest said to him:

"The two fragments which you have published separately upon pages 22 and 26 belong together, are not finger rings, and their history is as follows:

"King Kurigalzu [who reigned in Babylonia about 1300 B. C.], once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the G.o.d Ninib a pair of earrings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate at hand as raw material. In order to execute the command, there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into three parts, making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original inscription.

"The first two rings served as earrings for the statue of the G.o.d; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are portions of them.

If you will put the two together you will have confirmation of my words.

But the third ring you have not yet found in the course of your excavations, and you never will find it."

With this the priest disappeared, and the dream came to an end. In the morning, impressed with its coherence and vividness, Professor Hilprecht again attacked the troublesome fragments, put them together as directed, and, by making the proper guesses for the missing middle portion, readily deciphered the full inscription: "To the G.o.d Ninib, son of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented this."[33]

[33] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xii, pp. 14-15.

Nor are the intellectual achievements of the subconscious during sleep confined to the solution of problems that have been vexing the upper consciousness. It has a highly original, creative power of its own.

Thus the composer Tartini dreamed one night that he heard the devil playing a wonderful sonata, and, remembering it on awaking, was able to set it down on paper, and thereby put to his credit one of the finest pieces of music that bears his name. Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" was another dream composition; and, indeed, a long list of masterpieces in music, art, and literature, originating through subconscious mental action in sleep, might be drawn up.

A typical case was recently communicated to me by a well-known Pacific Coast architect, Mr. B. J. S. Cahill. He had been commissioned to design a twenty-six-story office building, to be erected in Portland, Oregon, and he determined, if possible, to plan one that would be a real contribution towards the solution of some of the most difficult problems of modern commercial architecture. For weeks Mr. Cahill labored hard to devise a building that would unite a maximum of beauty, solidity, and capacity with an abundance, and as nearly as possible an equality, of light and air for the many offices it was to contain. The structure he ultimately conceived was certainly novel, and differed conspicuously from the ordinary four-sided office building, with its inner offices lighted from a court.

His plan called for the construction of a building shaped much like a St. Andrew's cross, or like a square with a triangle cut out of each side. In this way the need for an inner court was completely obviated, and the only poorly ventilated and dimly lighted portion of the building would be its central "core." Here the elevators and stairs were to be located.

According to the architect's own statement, this plan--which has been highly praised by so eminent a critic as Mr. Montgomery Schuyler--was born in his mind while he slept. One night he saw in a dream a building shaped in this fashion, and knew that his problem was solved. He tells me that on awaking he made two rough sketches of the plan in a pocket note-book--one showing the general design, the other indicating the appearance of the building when completed.

Perhaps no one has ever been more favored in this same way than that remarkable man of genius, the late Robert Louis Stevenson. The plots for many of Stevenson's best stories--including the marvelous "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"--came to him in dreams, as he himself has related in a delightful autobiographical essay, in which, with characteristic whimsicality, he personifies his subconscious ideas as "Brownies" and "little people."

"This dreamer, like many other persons," he says, "has encountered some trifling vicissitudes of fortune. When the bank begins to send letters, and the butcher to linger at the back gates, he sets to belaboring his brains after a story, for that is his readiest money winner; and behold!

at once the little people begin to bestir themselves in the same quest, and labor all night long, and all night long set before him truncheons of tales upon their lighted theater. No fear of his being frightened now; the flying heart and the frozen scalp are things bygone; applause, growing applause, growing interest, growing exultation in his own cleverness--for he takes all the credit--and at last a jubilant leap to wakefulness, with the cry: 'I have it, that'll do!' upon his lips; with such and similar emotions he sits at these nocturnal dreams, with such outbreaks, like Claudius in the play, he scatters the performance in the midst.

"Often enough the waking is a disappointment; he has been too deep asleep, as I explain the thing; drowsiness has gained his little people; they have gone stumbling and maundering through their parts; and the play, to the wakened mind, is seen to be a tissue of absurdities. And yet how often have these sleepless Brownies done him honest service, and given him, as he sat idly taking his pleasure in the boxes, better tales than he could fashion for himself.

"The more I think of it," Stevenson continues, "the more I am moved to press upon the world my question: 'Who are the little people?' They are near connections of the dreamer's, beyond doubt; they share in his financial worries, and have an eye to the bank book; they share plainly in his training; they have plainly learned, like him, to build the scheme of a considerable story, and to arrange emotion in progressive order; only I think they have more talent; and one thing is beyond doubt--they can tell him a story piece by piece, like a serial, and keep him all the while in ignorance of where they aim.

"That part of my work which is done while I am sleeping is the Brownies'

part beyond contention; but that which is done when I am up and about is by no means necessarily mine, since all goes to show the Brownies have a hand in it even then."[34]

[34] Quoted from the "Chapter on Dreams," in R. L.

Stevenson's "Across the Plains."

It is worth noting that facts like these have recently led to a novel theory explanatory of what is known as "genius." Instead of adopting the Lombrosian doctrine, and regarding the man of genius as a kind of transcendental degenerate, this latest theory affirms that he is what he is by reason of enjoying a readier communication than most men possess between the conscious and subconscious portions of his mind. Such a view has the further virtue of being completely in accord with the familiar definition of genius as an infinite capacity for hard work.

From what has been said, it must be evident that the contents of the subconscious are made up in large measure of knowledge gained at one time or another by conscious endeavor and thought. The man who thinks hard consciously, is certain to have a richer fund of subconscious information at his disposal than the one whose conscious thinking is of the idle, futile, scatter-brained sort. All successful men, whether a Milton or a Rockefeller, a Shakespeare or a Morgan, are men who have developed their subconscious faculties by laborious application of their conscious powers in the routine of daily life.

On the other hand, it has also to be observed that knowledge is often obtained subconsciously without pa.s.sing through any preliminary stage of conscious attention and awareness; and that, by a reversal of the usual process, the conscious frequently acquires from the subconscious information of which it would otherwise be ignorant.

I have previously alluded to this interesting and most important fact in my discussion of telepathy, clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, and kindred problems in psychical research. As we then saw, the subconscious has a certain eerie faculty of imparting its information to the upper consciousness in the way of hallucinations, indicative at times of thought transference from mind to mind, or, more commonly, originating merely from unnoticed impressions of direct, personal experience.

It cannot be too firmly borne in mind that every day of our lives we see and hear and feel more than we realize; that these un.o.bserved sights and sounds and sensations may, nevertheless, be subconsciously registered in our minds; and that they may soon or late be projected above the threshold of consciousness in a form astonishing, puzzling, and perhaps annoying to us, as in the case of a strange experience of a young New York newspaper man.

It was his business to edit for publication in a number of country newspapers the dispatches sent in by a telegraphic news agency. He had been thus engaged for perhaps a year when he noticed, greatly to his dismay, that he was repeatedly omitting items which he believed, on reading them in the telegraphic copy, to be "old news," but which were printed with more or less prominence in the next morning's issues of other newspapers. This occurred so often that he began to tremble for his position, and set himself earnestly to solve the mystery.

Luckily he had some acquaintance with psychology, and knew that his trouble must be due to a faulty identification of subconscious with conscious impressions. But why was it, he asked himself, that on certain nights he would be quite free from such errors of judgment, while on others he might omit, or be strongly tempted to omit, on the ground of supposed previous publication, half a dozen items of real news value?

The truth dawned on him one evening as he was sitting down to begin work.

On his desk lay a heap of envelopes containing the dispatches that had come from the news agency before his arrival at the newspaper office.

These should already have been opened by an office boy, but that night he had been busy with something else. Mechanically, the editor himself tore open the envelopes, smoothed out their contents, and, without reading them, made a neat pile of the typewritten sheets, preparatory to going through them.