Mysterious Psychic Forces Part 41

Miss Cook then woke and tearfully entreated Katie to stay a little time longer. "My dear, I can't; my work is done. G.o.d bless you," Katie replied, and then continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several minutes the two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her speaking. Following Katie's instructions I then came forward to support Miss Cook, who was falling onto the floor, sobbing hysterically. I looked round, but the white-robed Katie had gone. As soon as Miss Cook was sufficiently calmed, a light was procured and I led her out of the cabinet.

One word more about this astonishing phenomenon. The medium Home, employed, as we have seen, in the first experiments of Professor Crookes, gave it to me as his personal opinion that Miss Cook was only a skilful trickster, and had shamefully deceived the eminent scientist, and as for mediums, why _there was only one absolutely trustworthy and that was himself, Daniel Dunglas Home_! He even added that the fiance of Miss Cook had given striking proofs of her extreme cantankerousness!

He who has observed at close hand the rivalries of mediums--which are as strongly marked as those of doctors, actors, musicians and women--will not, it seems to me, find in this talk of Home any intrinsic value whatever. But I must confess that this matter of Katie King is really so extraordinary that I am forced to try every possible explanation before admitting its truth. This is also the opinion of Mr. Crookes himself.

In order to convince myself (says he) I was constantly on my guard, and Miss Cook readily a.s.sisted me in all my investigations. Every test that I have proposed she has at once agreed to submit to with the utmost willingness; she is open and straightforward in speech, and I have never seen anything approaching the slightest symptom of a wish to deceive. Indeed, I do not believe she could carry on a deception if she were to try, and if she did she would certainly be found out very quickly, for such a line of action is altogether foreign to her nature. And to imagine that an innocent school-girl of fifteen would be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for three years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time would submit to any test which might be imposed upon her, would bear the strictest scrutiny, would be willing to be searched at any time, either before or after a seance, and would meet with even better success in my own house than at that of her parents, knowing that she visited me with the express object of submitting to strict scientific tests--to imagine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be the result of imposture does more violence to one's reason and common sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms.

It will perhaps not be superfluous to round out these accounts of William Crookes by giving an extract from the journal _The Spiritualist_ of the 29th of May, 1874.

From the beginning of the mediumship of Miss Cook, the spirit Katie King or Annie Morgan, who had produced the greater portion of the physical part of the manifestations, had announced that she would not be able to be with her medium longer than three years, and that after that time she would say good-bye to her forever.

The end of that period came last Thursday; but before leaving her medium, she gave her friends three more seances.

The last took place on Thursday, the 21st of May, 1874. Among the spectators was Prof. William Crookes.

At 7.23 in the evening Professor Crookes led Miss Cook into the dark cabinet, where she lay down upon the floor, her head resting on a cushion. At 7.28 Katie spoke for the first time, and at 7.30 she showed herself outside of the curtain in her full form. She was dressed in white, short sleeves and bare neck. She had long light auburn hair of a rich tint, falling in curls on each side of her head and down her back to her waist. She wore a long white veil which was not drawn down over her face more than once or twice during the sitting.

The medium wore a light blue merino robe. During almost the whole of the seance, Katie remained standing before us. The curtain of the cabinet was drawn aside and all could distinctly see the medium lying asleep, having her face covered with a red shawl, in order to shield it from the light. Katie spoke of her approaching departure and accepted a bouquet which Mr. Tapp had brought her, as well as a bunch of lilies offered by Mr. Crookes. She asked Mr. Tapp to untie the bouquet and to put the flowers before her on the floor. She then sat down in the Turkish style and asked all to sit around her in the same way. Then she divided the flowers and gave to each a little bouquet tied up with a blue ribbon.

She then wrote letters to some of her friends, signing them "Annie Owen Morgan," saying that was her true name during her life on earth.

She also wrote a letter to her medium, and chose for her a rosebud as a good-bye gift. Katie then took the scissors, cut off a lock of her hair and gave some of it to all of us. She then took Mr. Crookes' hand and made the tour of the room, pressing the hand of each of us in turn. She then sat down again and cut off several pieces of her robe and of her veil for remembrances. Seeing such holes in her robe (she being seated all this while between Mr. Crookes and Mr. Tapp), some one asked her if she could repair the damage, as she had done on previous occasions. She then held the cut part of the robe in the light, gave one rap upon it, and instantly that part was whole and unblemished as before. Those near her touched and examined the stuff, with her permission. They affirmed that there was neither hole nor scam, nor anything added at the very place where an instant before they had seen holes several inches in diameter.

She next gave her last instructions to Mr. Crookes. Then, seeming fatigued, she added that her force was disappearing, and repeated her good-bye to everyone in the most affectionate manner. All present thanked her for the wonderful manifestations which she had given them.

While she was directing toward her friends a last grave and pensive look, she let fall the curtain, and it hid her from our view. We heard her waking up the medium, who begged her with tears to remain a little longer. But Katie said, "It is impossible, my dear; my mission is accomplished; G.o.d bless you!" And we heard the sound of a kiss. The medium then came out among us wholly exhausted and in a state of deep dismay.

Such are the experiments of Sir William Crookes. I have restricted myself to relating his own personal observations, as set forth by himself. The story of Katie King is truly one of the most mysterious, the most incredible, to be found in the whole history of Spiritualistic research, and is at the same time, one of the cases that have been most scrupulously studied by the experimental method, including photography.

The medium, Miss Florence Cook, married in 1874 Mr. Elgie Corner, and, from that time on, her contributions to psychical research almost ceased.

I have several times been a.s.sured that she also had been caught in the very act of cheating. (Always that feminine hysteria!) But the investigations of Crookes were conducted with such care and competence, that it is very difficult to refuse our credence. Besides, this scientist was not the only one to study the mediumship of Florence Cook. Among other works that may be consulted on this subject is one containing a large number of proofs and testimonies, as well as several photographs (alluded to above).[68]

These recorded cases, or testimonies, form a collection of records, the study of which is most instructive. The study of the great chemist surpa.s.s the rest, to be sure, but it does not diminish the intrinsic value of the others. All the observations agree and mutually confirm each other.

As to the explanation of the phenomena, Crookes thinks that we cannot discover it. Was this apparition what it claimed to be? There is nothing to prove it.

Might it not be a _double_ of the medium, a product of her psychic force?

The learned chemist did not change his opinion (as has been claimed) about the authenticity of the phenomena studied by him. In an address delivered at a meeting of the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, held at Bristol in 1898, and of which he was President, he expressed himself as follows:

No incident in my scientific career is more widely known than the part I took many years ago in certain psychic researches. Thirty years have pa.s.sed since I published an account of experiments tending to show that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals. This fact in my life is, of course, well understood by those who honored me with the invitation to become your President. Perhaps among my audience some may feel curious as to whether I shall speak out or be silent. I elect to speak, although briefly.

To enter at length on a still debatable subject would be to insist on a topic which,--as Wallace, Lodge and Barrett have already shown,--though not unfitted for discussion at these meetings, does not yet enlist the interest of the majority of my scientific brethren. To ignore the subject would be an act of cowardice, an act of cowardice I feel no temptation to commit.

To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to do but to go straight on, "to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper, his reason;" to follow the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times resemble a will-o'-the wisp.

I have nothing to retract. I adhere to my already published statements. Indeed, I might add much thereto. I regret only a certain crudity in those early expositions, which, no doubt justly, militated against their acceptance by the scientific world. My own knowledge at that time scarcely extended beyond the fact that certain phenomena new to science had a.s.suredly occurred, and were attested by my own sober senses, and, better still, by automatic record.

I was like some two-dimensional being who might stand at the singular point of a Riemann's surface, and thus find himself in infinitesimal and inexplicable contact with a plane of existence not his own.

I think I see a little farther now. I have glimpses of something like coherence among the strange elusive phenomena; of something like continuity between those unexplained forces and laws already known.

This advance is largely due to the labors of another a.s.sociation of which I have also this year the honor to be President--the Society for Psychical Research. And were I now introducing for the first time these inquiries to the world of science I should choose a starting point different from that of old. It would be well to begin with _telepathy_; with the fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs of sense, that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or recognized ways.

Although the inquiry has elicited important facts with reference to the mind, it has not yet reached the scientific stage of certainty which would ent.i.tle it to be usefully brought before one of our sections. I will therefore confine myself to pointing out the direction in which scientific investigation can legitimately advance.

If telepathy take place we have two physical facts--the physical change in the brain of A, the suggester, and the a.n.a.logous physical change in the brain of B, the recipient of the suggestion. Between these two physical events there must exist a train of physical causes.

Whenever the connecting sequence of intermediate causes begins to be revealed the inquiry will then come within the range of one of the sections of the British a.s.sociation. Such a sequence can only occur through an intervening medium. All the phenomena of the universe are presumably in some way continous, and it is unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious agencies when with every fresh advance in knowledge it is shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly equal to any demand--even to the transmission of thought.

It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental activity. This condition is so singuarly like that of a Branly or Lodge coherer as to suggest a further a.n.a.logy.

The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is conceivable there may be present ma.s.ses of such nerve coherers in the brain whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of magnitude. Rontgen has familiarized us 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 centers 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 directly on individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of the internal and external movements of the atoms themselves.

Confirmation of telepathic phenomena is afforded by many converging experiments, and by many spontaneous occurrences only thus intelligible. The most varied proof, perhaps, is drawn from a.n.a.lysis of the sub-conscious workings of the mind, when these, whether by accident or design, are brought into conscious survey. Evidence of a region below the threshold of consciousness has been presented, since its first inception, in the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research;" and its various aspects are being interpreted and welded into a comprehensive whole by the pertinacious genius of F. W. H.

Myers.

A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable, as the direct action of mind on mind.

An eminent predecessor in this chair declared that "by an intellectual necessity be crossed the boundary of experimental evidence, and discerned in that matter, which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the potency and promise of all terrestrial life." I should prefer to reverse the apophthegm, and to say that in life I see the promise and potency of all forms of matter.

In old Egyptian days a well-known inscription was carved over the portal of the temple of Isis: "I am whatever hath been, is, or ever will be; and my veil no man hath yet lifted." Not thus do modern seekers after truth confront Nature,--the word that stands for the baffling mysteries of the Universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to re-construct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be.

Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august, and wonderful, with every barrier that is withdrawn.

It would be difficult to find truer thought better expressed. It is the language of true science, and is also the expression of the highest philosophy.

CHAPTER X

SUNDRY EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Abundant testimony as to the existence of a hitherto little explored psychic realm has doubtless been given in the preceding pages. Mediumistic phenomena proclaim the existence of unknown forces. It is almost superfluous to heap up in this place a still greater number of recorded instances.

However, these facts are so extraordinary, so incomprehensible, so hard to believe, that a mere increase in the number of cases is not without value, especially when they are furnished by men of incontestable skill and learning. The old law proverb _Testis unus, testis nullus_ ("One witness is no witness") is applicable here. We must not verify once, we must verify a hundred times, such apparently scientific extravagances, in order to make sure they are not delusions, but sober facts.

In short, the whole subject is so curious, so strange that the investigator of these mysteries is never surfeited.

Hence, in addition to what has already been given, I shall select and present in this place, out of the immense collection of observations which I have for a long time been making, those which most strike the attention and give added confirmation to what has preceded.

In addition to the experiments of Crookes, it is fitting to add in this place those of the great English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, also a member of the Royal Society of London, President of the English Anthropological Society, and well known as the scientist, who at the same time with Darwin (June, 1858), gave to the world the theory of the variation of species by natural selection.

He himself gives the following account[69] of his studies in this matter of the mysterious psychic force:

It was in the summer of 1865 that I first witnessed any of the phenomena of what is called Spiritualism, in the house of a friend,--a sceptic, a man of science, and a lawyer, with none but members of his own family present. Sitting at a good-sized round table, with our hands placed upon it, after a short time slight movements would commence--not often "turnings" or "tiltings" but a gentle intermittent movement, like steps, which after a time would bring the table quite across the room. Slight but distinct tapping sounds were also heard.

The following notes made at the time were intended to describe exactly what took place:--

"July 22nd, 1865.--Sat with my friend, his wife, and two daughters at a large loo table, by daylight. In about half an hour some faint motions were perceived, and some faint taps heard. They gradually increased; the taps became very distinct, and the table moved considerably, obliging us all to shift our chairs. Then a curious vibratory motion of the table commenced, almost like the shivering of a living animal. I could feel it up to my elbows. These phenomena were variously repeated for two hours. On trying afterwards, we found the table could not be voluntarily moved in the same manner without a great exertion of force, and we could discover no possible way of producing the taps while our hands were upon the table."

On other occasions we tried the experiment of each person in succession leaving the table, and found that the phenomena continued the same as before, both taps and the table movement. Once I requested one after another to leave the table. The phenomena continued, but, as the number of sitters diminished, with decreasing vigor, and, just after the last person had drawn back, leaving me alone at the table, there were two dull taps or blows, as with a fist on the pillar or foot of the table, the vibration of which I could feel as well as hear.